“Ready?” Marty asked as soon as they met outside the Oak Room.
“Of course.” Phil had been having second thoughts about trusting Marty, but after her dance with Samuel Trout, she knew she had no other choice. She needed an ally, one she knew wouldn’t kowtow to Trout or his money and power.
Marty could get her into the Times storeroom. Without her, the notes might as well be in Egypt, and Phil would be looking over her shoulder until someone else brought Trout to his knees.
“Is something wrong? Are you thinking about going back on the plan?”
“No,” Phil said. “However, do not try to pull a double-cross and attempt to keep them if we do find them. You can’t print whatever is there, or Tommy would have done it already. But you can screw up a very important investigation and ruin Tommy’s legacy.”
And get me killed, she added to herself.
“I don’t get you. Who are you? Some kind of secret agent?”
“Just a countess with friends in, shall we say, high places?” Phil couldn’t very well say that she had no clue as to who her employer was, except they wrote on official-looking stationery and made major arrests that seemed to coincide with the end of her murder investigations.
“Are you saying that if I try to take the notes, you’ll have me arrested?”
“Are you willing to take that chance?”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“Then you’ll have to search your own motives for what you’re willing to risk.”
“And if I let you keep them?”
“As I said, you can study them at my apartments in the Plaza. You could even help me discover who killed Tommy.”
“I could do that myself.”
“Perhaps. But would anyone listen to you?”
“I would make them.”
“Certainly, and have Sydney turn the story over to someone else, or kill it completely, and Tommy’s murder will go unpunished.” Phil leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “Pull over here.”
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“Letting you out.”
“You think you can get into the building without me?”
“Needs must…”
The driver pulled to the curb.
“Okay. It’s a deal.”
Phil would have shaken hands, but she was afraid her hand might be too unsteady.
Fortunately, a lifetime of her mother’s training had made her understand the importance of outward show. Four years of marriage to the earl had taught her to win at all costs.
“Drive on,” Phil said at her most imperious. The driver grumbled, but the taxi continued on its route.
Times Square was quite empty, though the surrounding hotels seemed busy with holiday celebrations. The taxi stand had waiting taxis, Phil was glad to note. In case they needed to make a precipitous exit.
Marty let Phil pay, which she was equipped to do, because of the coin purse Lily had put in her coat pocket. Along with something else. Not Lily’s stiletto, but Phil’s pearl-handled pistol.
The night watchman was sleeping at his desk but woke long enough to nod and say, “Another late night, Miss Rive?” before closing his eyes again.
They got into the elevator, Marty nodded at the attendant. “Going up to the twenty-third, Henry.”
“The storeroom is locked after midnight on account of the ball being stored up there. If you have your key, you can get there from the library, if you don’t mind the stairs.”
“Not at all. Stop at editorial and let me get my key, then take us up to the library.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The elevator doors closed and the car ascended. When the doors opened, Marty stepped out. “I’ll be right—”
“I’ll come, too,” said Phil, and followed her out.
Marty walked straight to a desk on the far side of the room, sat down, and opened the top drawer. She rummaged through a variety of noisy objects and took out a key ring.
Without glancing at Phil, she walked back to the elevator.
“Remember,” Phil said, catching up to her, “I have the key that counts.”
Marty was getting surlier by the second. She obviously was resenting Phil’s conditions, and Phil wondered if she had too easily trusted the newspaperwoman to do what was right.
They were let off on the library floor and climbed the stairs to the storeroom side by side, each wary of the other.
The building was designed to furnish daylight into every office. Being the highest full story, the storage room was lit from overhead, but in the dark of night, the lobby was filled with shadows and the echoing of their own footsteps.
Marty unlocked the storage-room door, and it swung open. It was pitch-black inside. Then Marty turned on the light, and the New Year’s Eve ball rose out of the darkness like a giant medieval cannonball.
“Key?” Marty said.
Phil unbuttoned her coat, slid her hand into the décolleté of her bodice, and pinched the key out of the special pocket that Lily had installed in the ball gown.
Marty shook her head, her smile leering out of the partial light. “You’ve been dancing around the ballroom with that key in your bosom?”
Phil shrugged and followed her around the room until she came to one locker. “This is Tommy’s personal locker.”
They both stared at the locker: there was no lock on the door.
“This isn’t right,” Marty said. “Tommy had a lock. I know he did, because after his courthouse story leaked, he went out and bought one.”
She grabbed the door and yanked it open. Papers slid to the floor; others were piled haphazardly, crammed into the space without any concern for organization.
“How did Tommy ever find anything?” Phil asked, but she was already getting a sinking feeling. “Tommy wasn’t this messy, was he?”
Marty shook her head. “Not with his notes. Someone has been here before us. Someone broke in and stole his notes.”
Phil moved closer to inspect the latch. “There is no sign of the locker being forcibly opened. So the lock was already off the door, or someone had a key.”
“I didn’t even have a key.” Marty turned a stricken face to Phil.
And Phil knew what she was thinking: that Tommy hadn’t trusted her.
Phil couldn’t worry about Marty now. She’d been certain they were close to getting a break. She didn’t want to admit they had come too late.
“This doesn’t make sense. If Tommy took the lock off himself, he would have transferred the notes, not left them in the locker for anyone to find and take or sell.”
Marty didn’t answer. Distraught and balancing on that point where grief and rage and disappointment commingled, she sagged against the wall of lockers.
“Marty!”
“What?”
“Do you have a locker?”
“Yes, but this isn’t the key.” She fiddled through the ring and held up her own locker key.
“Pull yourself together and open it.”
Marty moved several lockers away and unlocked a padlock, slipped it off the security ring.
Her locker was completely organized except for a tottering stack of boxes wrapped in the bright greens, reds, and white paper of Christmas.
“I haven’t had a chance to send these around. What with all the social events to cover, and then Tommy.”
“It’s Christmas Eve. Maybe you should take them home tonight.”
“I’ll do it—”
“Just take them out.”
Marty scowled but looked around and, finding a cardboard box in the corner, she dumped out the detritus at the bottom and began filling it with the Christmas presents.
“Voilà!” Phil said as Marty dragged a rather large box out and dropped it on the floor.
Behind it was a battered briefcase, a wire cable coiled around it and through the handles, and locked with a padlock similar to the one Marty had on her locker door.
Phil pulled the briefcase out. Inserted the key and turned it. A beautiful click followed, and the lock popped open.
Phil half expected Marty to grab it and run, but her hand flew to her mouth. “He trusted me to keep it safe.”
“He did. Now, let us get it out of here before any industrious reporters come to make their deadline and catch us.” Phil locked the padlock and slid the key back into her bodice.
They emptied the box that Marty had just filled, put the briefcase in the bottom, and filled it up again.
“Now, on the outside chance we run into anyone, you can say we came to get your presents, it being Christmas Eve.”
They had to leave a few of the gifts behind, but soon they were going down the stairs to where they could call for the elevator to take them to the ground floor.
Henry opened the door, and Marty and Phil stepped in.
“Boy, you sure are waiting until the last minute,” he said.
“I know,” Marty said contritely. “But I’ve been so busy at the paper.”
“No call to miss the holidays,” Henry said, and for the first time Phil noticed the THANK AN ELEVATOR OPERATOR can tied to the rail.
Phil was reaching into her pocket for some spare change when the button pinged and Henry brought the elevator to a stop. Phil looked up. The seventeenth floor.
She and Marty exchanged looks. Marty grasped the box tighter.
“Someone else is working late,” Henry said, and opened the door to Sydney Lord.
“Sydney,” Marty chirped. “What are you doing here? I thought you were at the ball.”
“I was, but like you, I wanted to catch up on some work.” He stepped inside.
The doors closed and they descended.
“Hey, what’s in the box?” Sydney peered at the presents. “Something for me?”
“Maybe, but if you look, I’m giving it to Eddie the mail-room boy.”
“Oh, c’mon,” Sydney cajoled. Phil noticed that he, unlike Marty, had been drinking rather heavily. “Just a little peek.” He reached for the box.
Phil slapped his hand, a little harder than she meant, and said. “Naughty, naughty. You don’t want coal in your stocking.”
Marty giggled. It sounded so forced that Phil couldn’t believe Sydney fell for it.
“I’ve been a good little boy.”
Phil cringed and prayed that if they would just reach ground level without having to bring out her pistol, she’d never complain about fast elevators again.
Then blessedly they were in the lobby.
Phil dropped some coins into Henry’s can, said “Happy Christmas,” and followed Marty and Sydney out to the street.
“How about a drink to the season?” Sydney suggested. “The Knickerbocker is still open.”
“Some other time,” Phil said, and hustled Marty toward the taxi stand, where now only one lone taxi waited for a fare.
“But I’m leaving for Connecticut later today. I won’t be back till right before New Year’s.”
They kept moving toward the taxi.
“Well, at least share a taxi with me,” Sydney said.
A man who had been leaning against the building stepped forward.
“Got a match, buddy?”
Sydney rummaged in his pockets, and Phil dragged Marty and her box toward the waiting taxi, getting a whiff of unmistakable exotic tobacco as they passed.
Sydney pushed a matchbox into the man’s hand.
“I’m kinda lost. Can you tell me how to get to Columbus Circle from here?”
Phil and Marty tumbled into the taxi, and Phil shut the door. “Plaza Hotel.” The taxi started up and drove away just as Sydney turned from the man and tried to hail them down.
“How fortuitous that that man just happened to need a light,” Marty said.
“Yes, how.” Phil hadn’t recognized him at the ball. He’d managed to avoid her for the entire evening. But he must have been there and noticed her premature departure. She knew it was him. Though he’d covered his evening kit with a bulky overcoat and muffler, he was still wearing his patent evening shoes.
Phil sat back and smiled. She didn’t even bother turning around. She knew that Sydney would be standing in the street waving after them, and that Mr. X would have vanished into the night.
“You can drop me off at my place,” Marty said once they were traveling north and Phil had ascertained that they weren’t being followed.
“Certainly, but I’ll be taking the briefcase with me,” said Phil.
Marty clutched her box of packages. “Tommy obviously wanted me to have it.”
“I’m sure he did. But what are you planning to do with it? How are you going to protect it? Put it back in your locker? Carry it around with you while you report on all the balls and soirées over the next few days? Take it to work so the leaker can nab it when you aren’t looking? While you’re typing up your articles? Carry it with you to the ladies’ room? Think, Marty.”
Marty just hugged the box tighter.
Phil sympathized, but she wasn’t letting that briefcase out of her possession.
“People are looking for it. They torched Tommy’s apartment. He gave his life for what is in those notes. How would you protect that?”
Marty’s grasp loosened. “What will you do with it?”
“Put it in my safe in my fifth-floor apartment in a very secure hotel. We can go through them together. We can even take a quick look tonight to see if it even makes sense, then I’ll put it in the safe until after Christmas. It’s Christmas Eve and I still have shopping to do.”
“What’s to keep you from double-crossing me?”
“My integrity.”
“Forgive me if I don’t trust that. I’ll get out here.” Marty knocked on the glass window. “Driver.”
“If you do, you’ll get out without the briefcase.”
“How are you going to stop me?”
Phil pulled the pearl-handled revolver from her pocket. “With this?”
“Yipes! You’d really shoot me?”
“Let’s not test the hypothesis, all right?”
Marty slumped back in her seat. “You win. For now.”
“Drive on,” Phil called to the driver.
“I don’t get it,” Marty said after a long silence. “Who are you, really?”
“Philomena Amesbury, Countess of Dunbridge.”
“Dowager countess,” Marty said sourly. “I’ve done my research.”
“A mere happenstance.” Phil still saw red every time she heard that word. No woman her age should be saddled with the odious burden of “dowager.”
“Are you some kind of detective?”
“Just a friend who’s trying to help a friend.”
“What friend?”
“You and Roz Chandler. You asked for my help, remember? And Bev insisted. What could I do but do what I could?”
“A friend who just happens to discover bodies all the time?”
“Not totally true. I did solve a murder once back in England, but it was merely by chance. And really, anyone could have done it. A particularly inept metropolitan police inspector was in charge of the case. And then when Bev asked for my help to keep her out of jail, I couldn’t desert her.”
“And the others?”
“What others?”
“I think you’re full of bull, Phil, but I won’t press you. Bev says you’re okay, so I guess I’ll have to take her word for it.”
“She says the same about you,” Phil said. “Truce?”
“Truce.”
As soon as they were safely upstairs and Preswick had been dispatched for coffee and sandwiches, they took the briefcase to the dining room.
Marty eased the papers onto the table, the largest clear surface in the apartment. A letter addressed to Marty was taped to the top.
And Phil was hit by an unsettling déjà vu. It would be just like him to be there before her.
But this letter was not written in the neat, classic script of the ones she received from her elusive colleague. “Gee,” she said, looking over Marty’s shoulder. “It looks like hen’s scratching.”
Marty began to read: “‘My dear Marty…’”
She took a breath, and when she began again, her voice was steadier.
If you’ve found this case and the key—rather clever hiding place, huh?—I’m either dead or missing. It’s your turn to take up where I left off. The data is collected. Meeting with someone this afternoon who is authorized to start proceedings. In case of my absence, they may contact you.
Insist that you get an exclusive—or if you’re frightened, I understand, just
Marty swallowed and, in a lower voice, continued,
just give them the information and walk away. But I don’t think you will. This investigation has turned into much more than about the Black Hand. Just as the new courthouse story would have if it hadn’t been leaked. I have total faith in you, but be very careful. There is still a leak at the Times. I thought it might be Harriet. Can’t be sure.
You’re the brightest journalist I’ve met in years. You can make it. Just watch your back and stay alive.
Tommy
P.S. Look after your friend Roz. She should have never married Jarvis Chandler and soon she will need your help.
When Marty looked up there were tears in her eyes.
“I’ll see what Preswick’s doing about that coffee.” Phil stepped away to give Marty time to compose herself. Though she only moved as far as the hall, where she could keep one eye on Marty. She still didn’t trust the journalist not to grab the notes and make a run for it.
So, Tommy was expecting to meet with those “authorized to start proceedings.” That was her, but what proceedings? More than the Black Hand.
Phil returned to find Marty arranging papers. And when Phil sat down at the table, Preswick and Lily, looking as freshly starched as they had that morning, took their normal places.
“Them, too?” Marty asked.
Phil nodded. She felt a little guilty about having kept Marty in the dark. That she, herself, was also in the dark didn’t help matters. But she had the upper hand, at least for a while, and she would not cede that position unless absolutely necessary.
“Now will you tell me where you found the key?” Marty asked.
“In Tommy’s jar of shaving cream.”
“You went to his apartment? When? It was set fire to the night we learned he was dead.”
“It was set after I was there and found the key. The apartment had already been searched. I don’t know by whom. But by someone who perhaps hadn’t found what they were after and decided to make sure no one else found it.”
“You knew he was dead?”
Phil nodded.
Her eyes widened, then flashed. “How? What do you have to do with it?”
“I was to meet Tommy the day he wrote that note. I was delayed, and when I got there he—he’d been killed.”
“At the docks? You, a countess, were meeting him at the docks? I don’t believe you.”
Phil deliberated. They were wasting valuable time. “He wasn’t killed at the docks. He was killed at the Theatre Unique on Fourteenth Street. He was dead when I sat down next to him. I barely got out before someone screamed and alerted the whole theater. A young woman was standing at the end of the aisle. I saw her clearly in the light of the moving pictures.”
“And?”
Phil hesitated again. Could she trust Marty in her anger and grief not to mistakenly alert the malefactors, and in turn jeopardize Harriet’s life as well?
“First you have to give me your word that you will not go off on some vendetta. This is bigger than either of us.”
“Did you recognize her? Who was it?”
Phil waited.
“Oh, hell. Fine. You have my word.”
“You have to swear to secrecy—forever,” Phil added for good measure.
“You sound like a child. Are we going to have to prick our fingers and exchange blood?”
“Be sarcastic if you must, but I mean forever.” Phil couldn’t have rumors flying about town that she was part of some secret crime-solving organization. It would kill her social life, not to mention her ability to investigate.
Lily and Preswick had sat stock-still during this exchange, eyes lowered to the table, becoming furniture in the usual pas devant les domestiques way.
“Okay, I swear. Who was it?”
“Harriet Wells.”
“Harriet? She’s a typewriter girl. Wait. She was with Tommy?”
“According to Harriet, she heard him make the arrangements to meet someone over the telephone and decided to follow him.”
“So when you and Bev met me for lunch … That’s why you were shocked at seeing Harry. Not because she was female, but because you both knew Tommy was dead. And she didn’t tell? I swear to heaven. I’ll—” Marty jumped up.
“You’ll sit down and think calmly.”
“You sit calmly. Where’s my coat?”
Phil glanced at Marty. “Preswick, fetch Miss Rive’s coat, and don’t forget her box of packages. It wouldn’t do for her to arrive at her family’s Christmas dinner empty-handed.”
Marty turned on her. “There’s a name for women like you.”
“And I’m sure I’ve been called it, and many others. So run off in a snit if you must, but be aware that if you tip off Tommy’s killer, we may never bring them to justice.”
“Them? Then you do think it’s the Hand?”
“Or someone attempting to appear to be the Hand.”
Marty blew out a breath, glanced toward the hallway, but finally sat back down. “Fine,” she said through her teeth, then ruined it all with a sheepish grin. “But just because I remembered Harriet left for home this evening. She won’t be back until the day after Christmas.”
“Only three days,” Phil said. “But it is now Christmas Eve, so if you want to take a look at these notes until they go into the safe until after Christmas, I suggest you have another cup of coffee and we get on with it.”
“Do you already know what’s in the notes, too?” Marty asked testily.
“No.” Phil chose her next words carefully. “We know what he was working on, but he didn’t divulge the nature of the information he was willing to share.… He was concerned about … security.”
She caught Marty’s expression. “And he was concerned for your safety.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Tommy didn’t think you would be, but he wanted you to stay alive to carry on if he couldn’t.”