When they returned to the Plaza, Phil took a moment to peruse the street, a habit she’d adopted while attempting to identify the illusive Mr. X.
There were a few of the usual shoeshine boys, most of whom were grown men, though the majority of them had found warmer places to ply their trade. Not even the most meticulous businessman wanted to stand in the biting cold to have his shoes shined.
Just a Friend was in his place at the entrance of the park. A Christmas-tree vendor had set up business along the sidewalk across the street from the hotel.
Phil and Lily both looked longingly at the trees and wreaths lit by a row of lanterns along the pavement, but Phil said, “First things first,” and they went inside.
Egbert greeted them with a smile and a word of advice. “If you’re planning on buying a tree for your apartment, I have a cousin who can get you a much better price than that guy on the sidewalk. They always run up the prices because of our clientele being rich and able to afford more. And he’ll deliver it to your apartment, no extra charge.”
“Excellent,” Phil said.
When she and Lily stepped out of the elevator on the fifth floor, Preswick stayed behind to seal the deal.
Phil and Lily were in the study setting up at the table with notebooks, notes, pencils, and the contents of Tommy Green’s pockets spread out before them when they heard Preswick return.
A few minutes later, he took his place at the study table. “I took the liberty of ordering tea, and arranged for them to bring the tree day after tomorrow.”
“Is it going to be a big one?” Lily asked, obviously unable to contain her enthusiasm.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Very large,” he intoned.
“Well, we’ll have to shop for decorations and lights. Lots of lights,” Phil said before Lily could risk Preswick’s censure by suggesting the same. He had infinite patience with his protégée except when she began to “forget her place.”
Actually, Phil was inclined to forget both their places, but she knew it would never do to ask Preswick not to be a butler. Thus far they had learned to live in a kind of no-man’s-land where they crossed borders when necessary and returned to the established order when they could.
It wasn’t easy, not knowing exactly where your place in the world was. Though easier for Phil, she supposed, than for her servants.
She planned to continue to maneuver her way through Manhattan society as best she could while she secretly investigated murder. If ever she had to choose between society and investigation, she thought she knew what her choice would be. But could she ask Preswick and Lily to make the same choice?
She rubbed her hands, rubbing away the thought. “Well. First order of business is to organize what we have so far.”
She pulled over a side table where she’d arranged the several photographs she’d taken from Tommy Green’s apartment and placed the key beside them.
Preswick reached in his trouser pocket and added a matchbox to the rest. A black matchbox with a red rose on the top.
“Ah,” Phil said, eyeing the matchbox. “We know Tommy was investigating the bombings and arsons allegedly perpetrated by the Black Hand. We know that Mr. X, for lack of a better sobriquet, sent me to meet him because he was supposed to have information.”
“On the Black Hand?” Lily asked.
“Mr. X made a surprise appearance outside the club last night. Only long enough to say that Tommy didn’t specify what the information was. Though it’s obvious it was important enough to send someone—me, as it turned out—to make the exchange.
“We also know that Mr. X, as a rule, isn’t very concerned with murder per se, which does give one pause, but I think he is after larger game. Which makes me think that whomever he—we—are working for is a large organization in itself. They may be more interested in bringing down the Black Hand than solving an individual murder. Though evidently they hadn’t been expecting Tommy to be murdered.
“He told me to stand down. I, however, feel it’s our duty to bring the man—or woman, I suppose—who murdered Tommy Green to justice. Do we agree?”
Lily nodded vigorously. “Yes, we do.”
Preswick gave an assenting nod.
“Very well. Tommy Green. A journalist investigating the Black Hand’s activities in the Union Square area, killed in a nickelodeon in the same area,” Phil said as Lily wrote.
“And perhaps coincidently,” said Preswick, “the area of Tammany Hall.”
“Indeed,” Phil said. “We have a murder scene, Black Hand activity, and Tammany Hall all in the same area. Coincidence or related?”
“I should point out, my lady, that though there has been an uptick in Black Hand activity, they have not targeted that area exclusively.”
“True. But something had caught Tommy’s reporter’s zeal. Something that got him killed. And then led someone to search his lodgings.”
Phil paused to rearrange the photos she’d taken from Tommy’s apartment. “These had been thrown on the floor.”
The three of them took a moment to study the photos.
“Possibly taken from events he covered?” Preswick conjectured.
“A children’s award ceremony, a group of young women, some kind of ground-breaking ceremony. I think you’re right.” Phil gathered them up and moved them out of the way.
“And this key.” Phil took it from the side table and placed it on the table. “Hidden in a jar of shaving cream.”
Lily and Preswick both leaned in to study it.
The sight of them, heads together, Lily’s dark coiled braids and the wisps of white over Preswick’s shiny pate, made Phil feel of a sudden all … Christmassy.
“Too small for a door and too large for a diary,” Phil said, trying to recollect her investigative thoughts.
Preswick picked it up, turned it over. “A trunk, perhaps.”
“Or a briefcase,” added Phil. “Harriet said he had a briefcase.” She looked from Preswick to Lily. “There was no trunk or briefcase in his apartment.”
“Perhaps he had a storage area somewhere else in the house,” Preswick said.
“Or the police could have taken it away,” Lily suggested.
“Possibly. I wonder if they were there before or after the break-in.”
“Or if they were the ones who ‘tossed’ the place.” Lily grinned. “I learned that word from a book I’m reading.”
“I hope you’re interspersing your dime-novel enthusiasm with some useful literature.”
Lily nodded. “Mr. Preswick insists.” And she smiled at him so devilishly innocent that Phil had to smother an answering grin.
“It certainly does look like the work of Sergeant Becker and his men,” Preswick said. “As I have had occasion to know, they have no respect for a person’s property.”
“True. If he had no compunction about ransacking the Reynoldses’ brownstone, he would certainly not draw the line at a hardworking journalist’s apartment.”
Lily frowned down at the key. “Why would the police want to search Mr. Green’s rooms at all? He wasn’t killed there. It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t, especially since they hardly bothered securing the crime scene before they hauled the body away … unless they were looking for something else.”
“Something they wanted,” Preswick said. “Or wanted to suppress.”
“Exactly,” Phil agreed. “Something they didn’t want found by anyone else. Something that Tommy Green knew or had found out. Why else send Becker to the crime scene?”
“And if they found the briefcase, we’ll never know what he wanted to tell us,” Lily said.
“Perhaps,” said Preswick, “but would Mr. Green keep the briefcase and the key to it in the same place? His name was on the mailbox. His residence was no secret.”
“You think he kept the briefcase at a different location?” Phil asked.
“Wouldn’t you, my lady?”
“Yes, of course. So let us proceed with the possibility that finding the briefcase is still within our purview.”
“And this,” Preswick said, pushing the matchbox next to the key. “Black with a single red rose on the top. It was the only one of its kind that I found in the apartment. But it is the same as the one you found in his pocket.”
“Sydney Lord, an editor at the Times, had one like it at the Cavalier Club,” Phil said. “But they don’t belong to the Cavalier Club; the club’s matchboxes are initialed in gold. But some other establishment. Usually matchboxes have the name of the company or advertising of some sort, do they not?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“But there’s no name on these, like Rose Mechanics, or Flower’s Pharmacy?”
“No, my lady. But I will endeavor to research the subject.”
“Yes, please do that.”
“And what shall I do?” Lily asked.
“You will help Mr. Preswick. It may lead to nothing, but we’ll leave no … matchbox unturned.”
The doorbell rang.
“Ah, dinner,” Phil said as Preswick went to answer the door. He returned with Lorenzo, the fifth floor’s resident waiter, pushing a trolley with several covered dishes.
“I thought something more substantial than sandwiches would be in order,” Preswick informed her.
Lorenzo lifted the lid from a steaming dish.
“Roast beef,” said Phil, inhaling deeply.
“And pudding,” Preswick added.
“Heaven, so much better than sandwiches. Just put it here, Lorenzo.” Phil gathered up their papers; there was nothing here that wouldn’t wait. As she handed them to Preswick for removal, the matchbox slid to the floor.
Lorenzo bent down to retrieve it. He held it out for Preswick, but Preswick had turned away. Lorenzo looked at it, his eyes widened, and he closed his fingers over it.
“What is it, Lorenzo?”
“Nothing, Lady Dunbridge.” He slid the matchbox behind his back.
“Well, it must be something.”
“Is there a problem with the dinner, my lady?”
“No, but Lorenzo seems to be concerned about the matchbox we found. It slid to the floor when I handed you the rest of our papers.”
She didn’t miss the urgent look Lorenzo cast Preswick before he reluctantly handed it over.
Preswick considered the matchbox. “Do you happen to recognize this?”
Lorenzo’s head ticked left. “I couldn’t say, sir.”
“No?” asked Phil. “We just found it and think it’s lovely. I’m thinking about ordering some to put out for the husbands of my guests when they feel the need of a cigar.”
“Oh no, you couldn’t do that, madam.”
“There’s no rule against smoking at the Plaza … except the one forbidding ladies to smoke in the tearoom.”
Slashes of color sprang to Lorenzo’s cheeks. “Mr. Preswick?” Lorenzo’s head ticked left again, this time ear to shoulder.
Preswick took the hint, bowed slightly to Phil, and accompanied the waiter out of the room.
“What’s going on?” Lily asked.
“I have no idea, except there is some reason he doesn’t want to identify the matchbox in front of me.”
“Because you’re a lady.”
“Perhaps. But Preswick shall soon put him to rights.”
They returned, Preswick practically herding Lorenzo, head bent, back into the room. They were both wearing faint color across their cheeks. “I’ve explained to Lorenzo that we found this matchbox while we were out and thought it interesting. It has a rather unusual provenance.”
That earned a frown from Lorenzo.
“Where it came from,” Preswick explained. “Could you please enlighten her ladyship? She is not so squeamish as you might think.”
Lorenzo licked his lips. “I’ve never been there myself. But I’ve seen this same matchbox at my uncle Carlo’s flat. My uncle Carlo is a bit of a black sheep.”
“Yes?” Phil encouraged.
“He likes the ladies. He goes to a … How do you call…? A … A…”
“House of ill repute?”
He coughed. “No, not that, but a very nice…”
“An exclusive brothel.”
He let out his breath. “Yes, that is it. This is the sign of a certain establishment.”
“Do you know its name?”
“No.”
Phil permitted herself a sigh of disappointment. “Thank you very much, Lorenzo. Needless to say, I won’t be ordering these for my parlor.”
Lorenzo bowed. “Will there be anything else? Shall I serve?”
“That won’t be necessary. It looks wonderful.”
Lorenzo bowed himself out the door. Phil made a mental note to give him an extra generous Christmas tip.
“Well, that was like pulling teeth,” Phil said as Preswick set food before them. “Preswick, are you blushing?”
“No, my lady.”
“What is it then? Come now, fess up.”
Preswick cleared his throat. “He thought it belonged to me.”
Lily gasped.
Phil blinked, stared Lily into silence. If Lorenzo thought that her septuagenarian butler would frequent such places, well, good for him—and good for Preswick.
“Well, I suppose this will lead to another dead end, but do you think you could find out more about this place? I’m sure Mr. Holmes would not ignore it as a possible clue.
“Now, sit down and let’s enjoy the lovely repast. It looks delicious.”
They had photographs of an unknown woman, a key, and a brothel matchbox. Not much to go on, Phil thought as she bit into a succulent piece of beef.
There was one person she might finagle information from. He wouldn’t like it, but needs must.…
As soon as dinner was over, Phil pushed her chair away and went to the telephone, gave the number for the nineteenth precinct, and asked for Detective Sergeant Atkins. It was a little late, but policemen didn’t keep storekeeper’s hours.
“I’m not sure he’s still at the station, ma’am.”
“Tell him that Lady Dunbridge would like to speak with him. Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll wait.”
It was a rather long wait, but at last, Atkins came on the line. “Lady Dunbridge.”
“You sound rather wary, Detective Sergeant.”
“Let’s just say that though I always delight in hearing from you, you always manage to surprise me. What is it this time?”
“I thought you might join me in a carriage ride tomorrow morning.”
A long silence, and she couldn’t help but feel a soupçon of delight, because she knew he was trying to figure out what she was up to and how to beat her at her own game.
Really, men could be so amusing if they would only exert themselves.
When he continued to stay silent, she added, “The park is so enjoyable this—”
“Lady Dunbridge,” he interrupted. “I’d be delighted.”
“Excellent. Shall we say ten o’clock?”
“Yes, I’ll see you then. Goodbye.” And he hung up.
Interesting. He wasn’t normally so abrupt. Perhaps she shouldn’t have called him at the station, but really, how was anything to get done when there was no way to talk to people except the obvious?
She went back into the parlor, where Lily was listening openmouthed to Preswick read aloud from the New York World, a sensationalist newspaper whose facts weren’t always correct and many times were not even facts.
“I have a rendezvous in the park with Detective Sergeant Atkins tomorrow morning. If anyone knows the dealings of an illegal operation, it will be he. I’ll need something appropriate for a carriage ride through Central Park.”