Crossings (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “They left for Europe, on a German boat, from Brooklyn. First thing this morning.”

  We thanked him and headed over to Mrs. Farrell’s.

  “I suppose there’s nothing odd about a recent widow being taken to Europe by her sister,” Emmie said.

  “No, but it might be interesting to find out when they arranged the trip.”

  “How would we find that out?”

  “I’ll leave that to Ratigan.”

  We went up to Mrs. Farrell’s apartment and this time Emmie went to the door. There was no answer.

  “You don’t suppose she’s gone away, too, Harry?”

  “She may have just passed out. That five dollars you gave her might have fueled her for days.”

  Emmie suggested we locate the janitor. We found him in the basement and before I could say a word, Emmie explained our situation.

  “I’m Grace Corbin, Anna Farrell’s sister, and this is my fiancé, Clyde Pratt. I’m terribly worried about her. There’s no answer at her door, but she said she’d be in all day.”

  “You should be worried, miss. Your sister’s in a bad way. Someone needs to look after that woman. She hasn’t paid her rent. The landlord’s ready to put her things on the street.”

  “Well, we’ve just come down from Boston. I don’t suppose you could let us into the apartment?”

  “I’m not sure I should, miss.”

  Then Emmie instructed me to give the man a few dollars toward Mrs. Farrell’s back rent. Convinced now of our virtuous character, he led us up to the apartment and unlocked the door. The place was even more of a mess than on my last visit. But there was no sign of Anna Farrell.

  “If you don’t mind,” Emmie said, “perhaps we could wait here for her? That way I could clean up some.”

  “All right,” he said. “It sure needs it, don’t it, miss?” Then he went off.

  “Clyde Pratt?”

  “I’m sorry, Harry. It was all I could think of. I knew a Clyde Pratt back home.”

  “Well, let’s see what secrets Mrs. Farrell is hiding.”

  Emmie took the bedroom and I started in the parlor. There were several notices from creditors lying about, along with an assortment of slips from policy shops. In a drawer I found a letter from Sovereign Mutual informing her there’d be a delay in the payment of her claim. But there was no trace of the original policy itself. However, I did come across some correspondence from the morgue. They were asking her to claim her husband’s body. From the sound of the final letter, I concluded she had allowed him to be sent to Hart’s Island. In the kitchen, there were two empty liquor bottles, and half a dozen from a patent medicine of the highly flammable kind. There was no food in the house at all.

  In the bedroom, Emmie was emptying the bureaus, and I told her what I had found.

  “I think she’s left, Harry.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, just from the things that aren’t here. Like the kimono she was wearing when I came by.”

  “Anything that might indicate where she might have gone?”

  “No, but I haven’t come across any papers at all.”

  “Well, keep an eye out for a copy of the policy.”

  In the bottom of a wardrobe Emmie found a cigar box with some letters from a Sarah Edelmann. She read them aloud while I continued the search. From the contents, it was apparent she was Anna’s sister. In one, Sarah informed her that their father was dying and asked Anna to return home. It was clear there had been some estrangement. Another provided a new address for Sarah, in a suburb of Providence. I took this one and pocketed it. There were also some old cabinet photographs and a hymnal she’d been given as a prize as a child. But we found nothing else. Emmie said she was meeting a friend for lunch and needed to be off.

  “What will you be doing this afternoon?” I asked.

  “Furniture shopping for the new place. What will you be doing?”

  “I need to check in with Keegan.”

  I stopped at a lunch room and then went down to the Bureau. Keegan was in, so I told him about the absence of the widows.

  “I’d say it’s a good sign,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “Well, it means the ring knows they’re in danger. They must have warned the women off. I doubt they’ll be active now.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” I agreed. “But it will make it doubly hard to uncover it.”

  “If it dies quietly, maybe we should just let it die.”

  The thought of giving up my career as a gambler kind of unsettled me. “I’m sure there must be someone at Sovereign involved. Why else would Huber send both policies there? They wouldn’t want to leave him in place, would they?”

  “No, of course not. Do you have someone in mind?”

  “Well, I was thinking the doctor, but that drew a blank. I tried the Claims Department, but the Farrell and Barclay claims would have been processed by different men.”

  Then it dawned on me—any suspicious claim would be sent to one man: Osborne, the manager. I left Keegan and telephoned Ratigan. I gave him three assignments. First, to find out if Osborne had anything to hide. Particularly a gambling habit. Second, to find when Mrs. Barclay and her sister booked passage. And third, to see if he could locate Anna Farrell in New York.

  “You won’t need to check the Astor for her,” I said. “She might be hitting the pipe.”

  “Are you sure it was that? Morphine’s the drug of choice now. You can get it at any drugstore.”

  “I wouldn’t really know the difference. It just seemed something more than drink.” Then I described her and her symptoms.

  He said he wouldn’t have a report on Osborne until at least Tuesday, but I could phone at the end of the day and he might have the information on Mrs. Barclay, and perhaps something on Anna Farrell.

  Now I had other work to do. This was the last day of the races at Bennings and I had a good tip on the Spring Handicap. I went up to the Roosevelt Street ferry and once in Williamsburg took the Metropolitan Avenue car out to the Tammany Club. The place was packed. I managed to bring up William Huber several times and now mentioned the rumor about him being in deep to the poolrooms. But it seemed the more a fellow was acquainted with Huber, the less credence he gave the rumor.

  Nevertheless, the afternoon wasn’t entirely unproductive. My tip paid off—Moor won the Handicap at six to one. I left the cashier with three hundred dollars. Then I went home and phoned Ratigan. Mrs. Howell had booked passage for two on Friday morning at the Thomas Cook office. They sailed on the Hohenzollern, which left at eleven that morning for Gibraltar.

  “I didn’t know you could book steamships at the last moment that way,” I said.

  “You certainly couldn’t count on it, but it’s not so odd.”

  “How long will they be away?”

  “They had no fixed itinerary, and no return passage.”

  “How about Anna Farrell?”

  “Nothing. Which means she isn’t in any hospital, police custody, or the morgue—under her name or as unidentified. The neighbors think she’s left, but no one actually spoke with her or saw her leave. Tonight we’ll check the flop houses, and the pipe joints—but they’re mostly for tourists now. I can have someone telephone you in the morning.”

  Emmie came in soon afterwards and I told her about my afternoon.

  “I almost wish I spent the day with you,” she said.

  “No luck with the furniture?”

  “Oh, you didn’t believe that, did you, Harry?”

  “I suppose if I did, it was my own fault.”

  “It was Elizabeth I had to meet for lunch. She gave me a tour of the ladies-only poolrooms in Manhattan.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “A little. The women seem to just bet blindly, or on the least rumor. Some of them went through rather large sums. And some regular visitors were extended credit.”

  “Where were they?”

  “The ones we visited today were all in the Tenderloin.
We went to three different ones. I have the details in my notebook. Most of the women were better-off, though there were all types. I could see Mrs. Farrell, and Mrs. Barclay, visiting any of them. I wasn’t prepared to ask directly if either of them had been there. And Elizabeth agreed it would be unwise. She said she knew of a couple others, further uptown. But I’m not sure there’s much more to learn. And I lost on every race, Harry.”

  “That’s OK, Emmie. The family did well today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I made three hundred dollars on Moor in the Handicap.”

  “What made you bet on him?”

  “One of my new friends gave me a tip.”

  “You bet on a tip? That’s what I did in Glens Falls, Harry.”

  “Well, this fellow told me the race was fixed.”

  “All tips seem to include that assurance. It makes them more credible.”

  “Emmie, you seem to be souring on the turf.”

  “I don’t like the lack of control. You win by pure chance.”

  “I find this a great relief.” If you imagine any comfort I took from Emmie’s revelation was destined be brief, you imagine correctly.

  “Harry, where do you think Anna Farrell has gone?”

  “I think she’s left town. Somehow the ring must have decided things were getting too hot. So someone went to see her and Mrs. Barclay and advised them to leave town. Mrs. Barclay took the comfortable way, but it may be Mrs. Farrell’s travel budget consisted of your five dollars.”

  “So she couldn’t go too far.”

  “No. And when she got there, she’d need to be sure she was welcome.”

  “Her sister’s?”

  “That’s what I’m guessing. She’ll be scared now. And if some detective came poking around, he might just spook her. And then we wouldn’t find out anything.”

  “So we’re going to Rhode Island?”

  “Yes, if you want to come along.”

  The next morning—that was Sunday the 14th—an operative from Newcome’s telephoned. There was still no sign of Anna Farrell. I asked him to keep looking. Then we went to Grand Central for the ten o’clock train to Providence. After lunch, Emmie found a couple of women to play bridge-whist with us. We started at five cents a point. Then, after Emmie had deliberately let them win the first hand, they agreed to raise the stakes to ten cents a point. We won handily. It was only when we were well into the game I realized Emmie was cheating. Apparently, the only thing Emmie objected to with games of chance was the leaving them to chance.

  We arrived in Providence just after three and then took the interurban to Seekonk. All we had was Sarah Edelmann’s name and a street, but it wasn’t too difficult to find her home. There were two children playing out front in the mud and Emmie took it upon herself to inquire of them.

  “I was wondering, is your Aunt Anna in?”

  A little boy, maybe seven years old, looked up. “Aunt Anna’s dead.”

  The boy’s pronouncement caught Emmie off guard. She stared at him open-mouthed.

  “Is your mother at home?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she’s inside.” And he pointed to the house.

  I led Emmie up to the porch and knocked. A slight, middle-aged woman came out the door.

  “Mrs. Edelmann?”

  “Yes, but we don’t need anything.”

  “We aren’t selling, we’re looking for your sister, Anna Farrell.”

  “I’ve no idea where she is, mister. I haven’t seen her in six, seven years.”

  “Your little boy told us she’s dead.”

  “Dead to us. I just told him that because he saw the photographs of her. I didn’t want to tell him his aunt wanted nothing to do with us.”

  “She left home on bad terms?”

  “Oh, she did everything on bad terms. She was born bitter.”

  “So you haven’t been in communication with her?”

  “I stopped writing her years ago. She never replied, so what was the use? Why are you looking for her now?”

  “We think she may be in danger,” Emmie said. “And perhaps she’d come here as a safe haven.”

  “I don’t know if I’d let her in if she did come now. This danger, did she bring it on herself?”

  “Yes, probably so. Do you know of anywhere else she’d go?” I asked. “If she thought she needed to leave New York?”

  “No, there was just the two of us. Our parents are dead.”

  We thanked her and headed back to Providence.

  10

  We just made the 6:10 express back to New York and went immediately to the dining car.

  “What now, Harry?”

  “I don’t know. I think Keegan and the Sovereign people would just as soon drop the matter. And I’m sure the police would, too.”

  “Well, we can’t let that happen.”

  “You can’t expect them to keep it open simply because you find it diverting, Emmie.”

  “It would mean back to the tract on burglary insurance for you, Harry.”

  “There are aspects of that you’d find very educational, Emmie. Particularly the chapter on Madame B____.”

  “Who is Madame B____?”

  “She’s suspected of being one of the biggest jewel thieves in Europe.”

  “What’s her real name?”

  “Oh, I can’t tell you that. We’ve been sworn to secrecy. You see, she’s never been convicted. And she successfully sued a writer in London for libel when he intimated what everyone seems to believe is true.”

  “She does sound fascinating. You must tell me the rest of that story sometime. But we have our own case to solve.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I think we’ve been too cautious.”

  “We’re dealing with ruthless people, Emmie. If we’re right, Farrell and Barclay were murdered, and William Huber driven to suicide. Besides, you underappreciate caution.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything dangerous. But we have a hand and we need to play it.”

  We were now heading through the parlor car and Emmie soon found her mark. A middle-aged fellow who had a prosperous air about him. He was speaking to another fellow. As we passed, Emmie loudly lamented not having anyone to play cards with.

  “If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,” the mark said, “I’d love a game. And perhaps Mr. …?”

  “Peterson’s the name,” the other fellow piped up. “Sure, I’ll play.”

  It wasn’t bridge-whist this time, but fifty-cent-ante poker. Peterson lasted three hands, and when he parted with us, the limit went to a dollar. It didn’t take long before I realized that if there was a mark in the game, I was it. I politely bowed out and left the family honor in Emmie’s hands. Her first setback arrived when her companion insisted on buying a new deck from the porter. Then he kept suggesting different variations of the game, most of which Emmie was unfamiliar with. I wandered off and found a newspaper and didn’t see Emmie again until we were twenty minutes out of New York.

  “What a delightful man, Harry.”

  “I assume that means you did well, Emmie.”

  “Unfortunately, not monetarily. Remember that three hundred dollars you won?”

  “Yes, it’s here, safely in my wallet. And I’m not going to stake you, Emmie.”

  “Oh, the game’s over, Harry.”

  “Good. Then you won’t need it.”

  “That’s just it, Harry. You see, I’ve already lost it.”

  “How did you lose the three hundred dollars in my pocket?”

  “Well, Mr. Mattocks agreed that I should refrain from bothering you until the game was over.”

  “How considerate of you both.” I took out my wallet and handed her the three hundred dollars. She went back to settle her debt and returned smiling.

  “Losing my big winnings seems to have elevated your mood, Emmie.”

  “Oh, it’s not that. I am sorry, Harry. No, it’s just that Mr. Mattocks taught me a great deal.”

  “I should
hope so, since the lesson cost a hundred dollars an hour.”

  It was late when we arrived back at the apartment. The sound of snoring drew us to the spare room. We found Dorothy there, entwined with a young fellow.

  “Let’s not wake them, Harry.” Emmie seemed touched that our maid had chosen our apartment as a place of assignation.

  “No, no,” I agreed. “That would be inhospitable.”

  They must have left during the night, because the next morning Dorothy made a show of her arrival by slamming the door. Emmie wanted to leave our little adventuress’s indiscretion unmentioned, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Dorothy, I have but one question. Are his intentions honorable?”

  This was not a girl who embarrassed easily, but we witnessed the most vivid blush I’d ever seen.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Reese.” She was immediately reduced to tears. The weight of eighteen years of Catholic training in guilt fell on her slender shoulders all at once.

  “Harry, don’t be a gink,” Emmie admonished. Then she led the girl into the kitchen.

  It seemed a good time to make my exit, so I grabbed my coat and hat and headed to the Bureau. When Keegan came in I updated him.

  “I’m still waiting for the report on Osborne, but I’ve no real reason to think anything will come of it.”

  “Well, if that report doesn’t turn up anything, consider yourself off the case. Our job will have been completed.”

  I went back to the office, where Little and Cranston were putting the finishing touches on our first draft. By the end of the day, it was complete. We all agreed we had rolled that log about as long as was possible. We still needed to work in Keegan’s introduction, and there would be a little more editing, but we would be done by the end of the month.

  I packed up the chapter on Madame B____ to show Emmie and was about to leave when the phone rang. It was her, suggesting we dine at the Carleton.

  “What are you up to, Emmie?”

  “Why must I be up to something, Harry?”

  Why indeed. At the Carleton, I found Emmie and Elizabeth seated together. When I came in, they each gave me a peck on the cheek. The staff, and those clients who had witnessed our little drama of the previous Friday, were pleasurably amused.