CHAPTER 13
“When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose,” courtesy of the Bleecker Blowers, shook the floorboards beneath my feet as I climbed the stairs to our flat. Once I’d been entirely ignorant of saxophones. Now I could discern the different pitches of instruments from the soprano down to the bass. I could also tell when Charlie was playing alto as opposed to Mick, who was always a little sharp. Occasionally my downstairs neighbors played something so melodic and lovely it would bring tears to my eyes. Most days I wished Adolphe Sax had never been born.
Today was one of those days. After forty-eight hours of night work and day sleuthing, I craved sleep like an underfed dog craves food. The next nap or longer doze was never far from my calculations. This afternoon I’d come home from my aunt’s hoping I’d find the apartment empty and quiet so I could catch a few winks before dashing off to meet Gerald. I was wondering how effective plugging my ears would be against the boom of the bass saxophone when I mounted the second flight and found Teddy’s friend Hugh Van Hooten, of all people, seated on the top step. His knees poked up before him, making him look like a crouching insect. His overcoat was unbuttoned, so I wasn’t sure if he was coming or going. His face was drawn into a frown.
“Does that racket go on every day?”
Though our paths hadn’t crossed in nearly a year, I wasn’t at all surprised by the lack of greeting. Our interactions had always been on the contentious side. He personified the worst of all worlds—a patrician who took for granted all the benefits of wealth but practiced none of the niceties of polite society. Why was he camped in my hallway?
In answer to my unspoken question, something thumped against my apartment door from the inside, and shouting came from within: Callie’s voice—loud—calling someone a fool. And then Teddy’s voice, a little softer, responding in a pleading tone.
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” Hugh warned. “Lovers’ tiff.”
“It sounds like more than a tiff,” I said. “More like a knock-down, drag-out.”
“Exactly. I got out of there as soon as I could, but we came in Teddy’s car. I’m not keen on finding my own way back to the airfield.”
Hugh’s aviation business was in New Jersey.
I glanced anxiously at the door. “No one’s getting hurt, I hope.”
“Callie’s winging objects around, but Teddy’s a fast ducker.” He scooted closer to the wall and crossed his spidery legs. “You might as well sit down. They’re a while from the reconciliation stage, I imagine.”
Exhausted, I sat down next to him.
From inside, Callie shouted, “England!”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Ah.” Hugh had taken off his gloves, and now slapped one against the other. “You may be surprised to find out that it’s actually my fault.”
It didn’t surprise me a bit. “What did you do?”
“Nothing but what I’ve been trying to do for years and have finally, through ingenuity, intelligence, and hard work succeeded at—perfecting my Van Hooten aerial photographic brace.”
In the year I’d known Hugh and Teddy, their joint obsession had been a device that allowed airplane pilots to mount photographic equipment on their machines. The idea struck me as impractical, but Hugh swore the device would be indispensable to people such as cartographers.
“You know that I’ve spoken with the US Army, thinking perhaps they would like to invest in my device for their little fleet of planes?”
I hadn’t heard this. “What did they say?”
“No soap.” He shook his head. “Very short-sighted and ignorant of them. But through the to-ing and fro-ing of letters, I happened to catch the name of this chap in England who said he thought the idea would be very useful. I wrote to him months ago, and he finally responded to ask if I would object to Britain’s using the photographic mount on the planes they’re using in the war.”
“What for?”
Hugh gave me one of his long, exasperated stares. “For surveillance, jinglebrain. Surveillance and charting the lines of the armies, as well as regular mapmaking. It’ll be invaluable.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Why should I?”
“It would be used in a war, by a foreign country.”
“Oh, that’s right. Teddy said you were pro-German.”
“I’m no such thing. I’m American, and we’re not fighting a war.”
“We will be, sooner or later.”
“Very much later, I hope.”
“So does Callie, and there’s where the argument came in. Because Teddy and I are going over not only to demonstrate my device, but also in the hopes of getting involved.”
I blinked. “Involved in what?”
“Flying. For the British. Or the French—whoever will have us.”
He said it so nonchalantly, as if it were nothing to think of joining up with a foreign army and putting himself—and his friend—in harm’s way.
“Have you lost your mind?” I couldn’t believe it. “You could get killed!”
He chuckled. “Well, yes, I suppose so. It is a war.”
His flippancy infuriated me. “It’s their war, not yours.”
“All of Europe is involved, and someday the United States will be, too. And Teddy and I will have experience by then learning how airplanes can help the efforts of our allies.”
Now I understood why Callie was so angry. Frankly I was surprised that she wasn’t out in the hallway shouting at Hugh. His zeal for his photographic mount had rubbed off on Teddy, and now he’d probably infected him with the desire to join some slapdash air outfit for whatever country would take them.
“It wasn’t too long ago that they first flew over the English Channel,” I pointed out. “Now every plane from England going to the Continent will have to perform that feat just for starters, won’t they?”
He flapped a glove dismissively. “Flying the Channel’s old hat now. In aviation terms, Blériot’s feat of crossing the Channel might as well have happened in the Bronze Age. Fifteen years ago, no one had flown at all except in hot air balloons.”
“Actually, wouldn’t balloons be safer, in terms of maps and things?” I asked.
“Safer until someone figures out a way to shoot them out of the sky. That won’t take long. Mount a gun on a plane and a hot air balloon won’t stand a chance.”
Guns on planes? I frowned. “Neither will other planes.”
“Nonsense. Planes are fast. They can dive, and roll. Pilots will be the safest people in the war.”
Safe? I’d flown in one of his contraptions. It had been the most terrifying hour of my life.
The apartment door opened and a very ruffled Teddy emerged, carrying his hat and coat.
“We’d better go,” he said in a harried voice.
Hugh unfolded himself and stood, plopping his own hat on his head. I got up, too.
“Oh, hello, Louise,” Teddy said. “I suppose Hoots told you all about our plans.”
I nodded.
He put a hand on my arm. “Try to explain it to Callie, won’t you?”
“I’m not sure—”
But Callie’s voice interrupted me. “Yes, Louise, come explain to me why a young man should chuck away his entire future to fly around battlefields for a country that isn’t even his own.”
“Well, he survived this battlefield,” Hugh said. “We really should be going, Teddy.”
“Goodbye, Louise.” Teddy looked back at the apartment door. “Goodbye, Callie.” His face reddened. “Darling.”
She turned on her heel and went inside the apartment again, slamming the door behind her.
Once the hall door had stopped echoing from that slam, I assured Teddy, “She’s just upset.”
He rubbed his jaw. “You’re telling me.”
“We really should be going,” Hugh said. “I was still hoping to stop by Mother’s.” The Van Hooten mansion was located just off the Millionaires’ Mile section of Fifth Avenue.
I bid both of them goodbye. “Write and tell us how you get on,” I said. “And whatever happens, good luck.”
Impulsively, Teddy leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re a good egg, Louise.”
Hugh stuck out his hand and wrapped it around my gloved one. “We’ll be safe as houses,” he assured me. “You’ll see.”
I watched them descend the staircase, and then even leaned over the railing to see them all the way down to the foyer. Teddy looked up through the railings and waved goodbye again. I waved back, feeling rather strange. The Bleecker Blowers had launched into “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” for the hundredth time that month. For once it seemed achingly apropos. I couldn’t help thinking of Gerald Hughes, and his limp. And how much he would have given to be in Hugh and Teddy’s shoes right now—going back to England to take part in the war.
Swallowing past an unexpected lump in my throat, I turned and went inside the apartment. I expected to find Callie still raving mad, but instead she was sweeping up. An ashtray had been one of the victims of the fracas.
“Can you believe those idiots?” she said. “They’re mad, both of them. Mad fools. I can almost understand Hugh. It’s his invention, so naturally he wants to see it finally put to use. But Teddy! What excuse does he have?”
“It’s an adventure.”
“Exactly—they’re like two Boy Scouts setting off on a hike. And Hugh is the arrogant leader Teddy will follow right into the grizzly bear’s den.”
“England might not even want them,” I said, flopping down on the sofa.
“It doesn’t matter. Teddy said if England didn’t take them, they’d go to France and who knows where else.”
Given how avid a supporter of the Belgian cause Callie had been, I was a little surprised by her attitude now. “I thought you supported the war against Germany.”
“Support, yes. Knitting and gathering clothes—of course. I didn’t expect Teddy would try to volunteer. Besides, Hugh would probably fly for the Kaiser if Germany offered him money for that stupid little invention of his.”
“Hugh said—”
Callie cut me off. “I’ve heard all both of them had to say, and now I don’t want to hear another word about airplanes, Europe, wars, Hugh, or Teddy.” She slid the ashtray remnants into our kitchen dust bin, hung the copper dustpan on its peg, then came and sank onto the other end of the sofa.
I tried to think of something to say that had nothing to do with the war or Teddy. I gazed around the apartment, appreciative of the privacy we suddenly had. It wasn’t just that Hugh and Teddy had gone. It was also the first time Callie and I had been alone in the apartment together for several days. “Anna finally went home?”
Callie sighed. “I left her at the studio. Alfred figured out another little scene for her to do. I wasn’t involved in it, so I left.”
“He must think she has something.”
“She’s got a little natural talent, actually. It’s gratifying. I feel like Svengali.” She frowned. “Is that the right guy?”
“I think so.”
“Teddy would know. He knows all kinds of things from those highfalutin schools he went to.” She bit her lip. “Did he say anything to you before he left?”
“He said I was a good egg.”
She rolled her eyes. “He would say something stupid like that.”
“I thought it was sweet.”
She crossed her arms. “I’m done talking about him. Done even thinking about him.” She frowned at her shoes, evidently cudgeling her brains for something else to talk about. “To be honest, I think Alfred has a little crush on Anna.”
“Really?”
“She can be a little charmer, especially when I put some snappy clothes on her. I have a hunch Alfred wants to make a whole lot more movies about the little sister now.”
Anna was either a very good actress or a very fast worker. Maybe both.
“Alfred Sheldrake’s married, isn’t he?” I asked.
“With three children. He’s the kind who has trouble remembering his domestic life, though. I warned Anna.”
“Was she listening?”
Callie shrugged and sighed. “It’s probably a good thing I still have Broadway prospects, because I’m not sure how many more of these movies I can stomach anyway.”
At the words Broadway prospects, my insides quaked. I remembered Otto telling me about his prospective producer wanting someone famous for Double Daisy. “I thought you like making movies.”
“I did too. But just look—Anna can walk off the street and be a movie actress. You were right, Louise. It’s not real acting.” Her brows beetled. “Or maybe Teddy said that.”
“Sounds more like Hugh.”
She crossed her legs, sighing again. “I can’t wait till Double Daisy gets up on its legs. I wonder when rehearsals’ll start.”
Obviously Otto had not spoken to Callie since our conversation at the White Rose. Coward that I was, I didn’t want to be the one to break bad news to her. Especially today.
“Would you mind if I borrowed a dress tonight?” I asked her.
She leveled a curious stare on me. “Are you still stepping out with that murderer?”
“Before you turn up your nose, you should know that last night my suspected murderer took me to Watch Your Step.”
I’d never seen a lightning bolt hit anyone, but I imagined the result would look something like what happened to Callie in that moment. She straightened, eyes saucer-wide, face slack. “Those tickets are like hen’s teeth!”
I couldn’t help preening a little. “Fourth-row seats.”
“What did Irene Castle wear? Her costumes are supposed to be divine.”
“They were”—my limited couture knowledge had me fumbling for words—“fancy. Lots of silk.”
Lines furrowed her brow. “And?”
“Well, there was one with sort of flowery appliqués on it. It was green.”
She sank back. “You’re hopeless. I bet your murderer could describe the dresses better.”
“He’s not a murderer.”
“What is he like?”
I gave a detailed description—I was better with people than clothes—but of course Callie’s attention homed in on one detail. “He lost a leg? How?”
“The Boer War. He was in the British Army.” I explained all I knew about him, which admittedly wasn’t much. “He was telling me about the battles, and about his friends who didn’t come back. He was saying that in spite of his injury—he lost a leg, but he won’t tell me too many specifics about that—he feels lucky. That’s why I want to see him again. I think he’s really starting to open up a little to me. And I’ve let my wardrobe suffer this year, since I spend so much time in uniform . . .”
It wasn’t clear exactly when during my speech Callie stopped paying attention, but she was miles away now.
“Callie?”
“Just take whatever you want out of my closet,” she said.
Something was very wrong. Callie wasn’t stingy, but she tended to be very particular about which clothes I could borrow and which were off limits. I was harder on clothes than she was and tended to have small accidents with ink pens and mud puddles. Now she was giving me carte blanche to take what I wanted.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked.
She leapt to her feet, her face almost as green as Irene Castle’s dress had been. “What if it’s too late?”
“Too late for what?”
“To find Teddy!” She made a dash for the coatrack. “It’ll take me forever to get to—” She yanked hats off the rack, nearly tipping it over to find one she liked. “Where would they have gone? Are they catching a boat tonight?”
I thought back. “They mentioned the airfield.”
A distressed keen came out of her. “How will I get out there with no car?”
I snapped my fingers. “No—Hugh said he wanted to go see his mother.”
Callie brightened. “Oh thank God! If I can just find a taxi . . .” She shrugged on her coat, and then ran to retrieve her little bag from the table. “You understand, don’t you?” she said. “I have to say goodbye to him, even if he is an idiot. What if I never see him again?”
“You will.”
“If I hurry, maybe.” She ran out the door, then popped her head back in and smiled. “You are a good egg, Louise.”
* * *
During the next few days, my life underwent a strange transformation. Evenings, I was like a young woman with a steady beau. Before, I’d occasionally stepped out with some young man or another, usually in the company of Callie and her many friends. But the kind of young men who’d escorted me places in the past were nowhere as courtly as Gerald Hughes. Gerald was a gentleman.
Often I enjoyed myself too much to remember my primary purpose. I had to remind myself that he was a gentleman mixed up in what was possibly a murder. That maybe he was a gentleman-murderer.
Both as an escort and as a subject of investigation, however, he wasn’t a perfect specimen. He talked, but tended to be short on information about himself and long-winded when it came to the subject of textiles and the effect the war would have on manufacturing.
“The reason I was sent here is to find buyers for our cloth. The government, of course, wants to buy up wool fabric for uniforms, but our best quality products could suffer as a result, and that worries investors. So here I am, trying to secure buyers for the luxury-grade wools, but the war has businessmen on this side of the Atlantic afraid that there will be disruptions in production because of the war. And if the war drags on, as I fear it will, they’ll be right.”
We were taking a walk, and I was nodding off on my feet—it wasn’t the first time I’d heard about this textile conundrum.
No matter how closely I watched Gerald for clues to a mercurial temper—for some possibility that he might have killed Ruthie after discovering she’d stolen from him, for example—he remained doggedly phlegmatic and basically decent. I still couldn’t understand how he’d ever met Ruthie. Perhaps even the most straitlaced of men sought out ladies of the evening, but I could hardly insert the subject into casual conversation. “By the bye, have you ever visited a prostitute?” Coming from me, demure Louise Frobisher, that probably would have shocked him back across the Atlantic, and I wasn’t about to let him go just yet. He was still my only connection to any of the men whose passports Ruthie had stolen.
Instead, during our walk, I tried to bring the conversation around to passports. “I’ve thought about seeing London and Paris and all those places. I don’t even have a passport, though. Is it a lengthy process?”
He frowned. “Is what?”
“Getting a passport.”
“Certainly not. At least, not for an Englishman. I don’t know about Americans. As a matter of fact, I lost mine not long ago and had it replaced as fast as you please.”
There it was at last. A nibble. “Lost it? How?”
His blank expression gave nothing away. “I don’t remember, honestly. I just reached for it one morning and it wasn’t there.”
“Was it stolen?”
His eyes narrowed. He looked wary. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”
“Pickpockets aren’t always accurate in what they steal, you know. You’d be surprised.”
He laughed. “I’m surprised you would know anything about it.” He leaned closer and asked confidentially, “Have you been considering a second profession?”
I blushed, more in anger at drawing him away from the circumstances surrounding his stolen passport than from my own near-blunder. “They report things in the newspapers.”
“Girls shouldn’t read newspapers so much,” he said. “Too much ugliness in them.”
“I don’t think women should be sheltered from the world.”
“Not sheltered, exactly. But so many of life’s burdens fall on the fairer sex, it seems to me. Why go out of your way to read about troubles?”
I revised my opinion of him from old-worldly to antediluvian. “To be informed.”
He smiled. “You must think me very old and stuffy.”
“You talk as if you could be my grandfather. There’s barely ten years difference between us.”
“Sixteen,” he said. “And I feel every one of them.”
“I don’t.”
Occasionally that was even true. The man, who had one leg fewer than I did, could walk from one end of Manhattan to the other on a chilly day, at a pace that sometimes had me trotting to keep up. He had an indefatigable curiosity to see things. We spent an entire afternoon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at paintings, Greek statuary, and ancient pottery. He also loved New York itself, and was fascinated by the vertical direction it seemed to be taking. That’s why we’d made a special trip downtown to look at the half-constructed Equitable Building on lower Broadway, which was already casting a considerable shadow over the Singer Building and everything else within a seven-acre path. It was planned to be forty stories high, with the largest area for office space in the world.
“Aren’t there skyscrapers in England?” I asked as we stared up at what was, to my mind, just another behemoth being added to Manhattan’s skyline.
“About twenty years ago someone constructed a fourteen-story building of luxury flats that blocked Queen Victoria’s view of the parliament buildings. After that, a law was passed restricting building heights to eighty feet.”
I’d almost forgotten what it was like to live in a world that wasn’t slowly laddering its way up to the heavens in brick, steel, and stone. “I’m sure it’s beautiful, though. I’d love to see it.”
He looked down at me. “Do you mean that?”
I rubbed my hands together, too distracted by the cold to realize his expression had changed. “Of course. There’s so much history there, and”—my teeth were chattering—“and literary landmarks, and so on . . .”
“It’s not the first time you’ve brought up the subject of England, and your interest in it.”
“Well, you’re English.”
“You also ask me a lot of questions about myself. Are you this inquisitive with everyone, Louise?”
Did he suspect what I was up to? I faltered a bit before coming up with an answer. “I suppose I am curious, but you’ve been so kind, and so generous with your time.”
“And you have no idea why?”
Boredom, I’d assumed. He was a salesman in a foreign city, with holidays approaching. Companionship in those circumstances was probably hard to come by. Which might explain why he’d found Ruthie.
“Louise?” he prompted.
“Well, you’re far from home, and I came along. Someone to spend a little time and share a few laughs with until you leave on your next trip.”
“Share a few laughs,” he repeated.
“Any port in a storm, and all that.”
He buried his gloved hands in the pockets of his coat. “I see.”
“Did I say something wrong?”
“Just a bit of a blow to my pride, that’s all.”
I saw at once what he meant. He had thought that he and I were building up to something.
I looked down at the sidewalk, my deceit filling me with shame. That was the problem with living a double life—the duplicity of it. I hadn’t thought Gerald would become attached to me. Or, rather, I figured I would simply see him a few times, and get an idea whether he had anything to do with Ruthie’s death. I had failed to do that, but succeeded in leading him down a garden path.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His struggle with wounded pride showed in his expression. How much more wounded would he feel to know that I suspected he’d killed someone? “Don’t be sorry. I’ve enjoyed our time together.”
“I’ve only known you a short time, Gerald.”
“Of course! And you’ve made it clear how you feel.” His voice strained to remain calm, but the resentment in it burned through the chilly air. “Museums, shows, walks . . . a few laughs. Nothing more.”
This was the flash of temper I’d been waiting for.
“You’ve kept me at a distance from the beginning,” he continued testily. “I suppose I should have taken my cue from that. I’ve never seen your flat, or your office. You’ve spoken often of your aunt, but you’ve never suggested taking me to meet her. It’s very awkward telephoning her house for you, and yet not being able to present myself at her door.”
This revelation of his feelings panicked me, especially if he were about to cut me out of his life for fear of breaking his heart. If he pushed me away now, how would I ever find out what I needed to know?
I grabbed hold of the first lifeline that came to me. “I never thought you would want to bother with my family.”
A sad smile turned up his lips. “Haven’t you noticed, Louise? I’m rather old-fashioned.”
“A last-century man.” I smiled back, a rash plan taking shape in my mind. Doing what I was thinking would be a mad roll of the dice—reckless, and possibly even dangerous. I would be involving others in my subterfuge, which was always a risk. And there was Eddie to consider.
But wasn’t it for Eddie that I was doing all of this?
“It just so happens that my aunt usually has a get-together at her house most Thursday nights,” I said. “I was going to ask you if you’d like to go with me tomorrow night.”
Heaven help me, the question immediately lifted the man’s spirits. You’d think I’d just agreed to marry him and sail back to England.
“Are you sure, Louise?”
I put my arm through his, feeling grubby yet strangely excited. This had to be what the women I saw in the cells at the jail felt like as they led their marks into dingy hotel rooms for their badger schemes. Poor Gerald thought he was going to be a gentleman caller meeting my family. Instead, he’d be stepping right into a trap.