Fortunately for everyone, the next morning dawned clear and warmer, and with the help of Bobby’s snowplows, they were able to get to the road and head for home.
Phil almost hated to leave. The country visit had been relaxing and revitalizing, except for Marty, who was driving both Phil and Bev to distraction with her desire to get back.
By the time they reached the Plaza, it was almost noon. Phil was longing for a proper breakfast or lunch and copious cups of coffee.
Marty insisted on coming upstairs with Phil, and Bev wasn’t about to be left behind, so she left the Packard with Mr. Fitzroy while the staff unpacked Phil’s belongings.
The elevator ride went far too quickly, and even though Phil managed to drop her keys twice, the front door opened, and Marty pushed them inside.
“Where are they?” Marty demanded, rushing past a startled Lily.
“In the safe where we left them,” Phil said, praying that they would actually be there.
“Where?”
“In here.” She went to the safe with Marty practically stepping on her heels and Bev following close behind. Lily hurried after them, attempting to take hats and gloves and coats as they went.
Phil was careful to shoulder Marty out of the way while she worked the lock. She didn’t trust Marty any more than she trusted Mr. X. But at least he had other virtues.
The lock clicked, the safe opened, and Phil breathed a thanks to her mystery colleague.
The packet of notes was there.
He’d left an additional note on top. Thanks, I’ll need these back.
Phil slipped that note into her pocket. The original list of addresses lay on top, which meant whoever needed to see them had seen them and had made a copy. She imagined someone whose job it was to decipher codes and bad handwriting sitting in an airless office surrounded by ceiling-high stacks of illegible scribblings.
They would need the originals back. It was a huge responsibility, but Phil didn’t see any other way to ferret out the murderer than to dangle the bait before him.
Phil pulled the now neatly arranged stack of notes out of the safe and carried them to the dining room. While Bev consulted Lily about food and drink, Phil and Marty spread out the papers on the table.
“I don’t remember us arranging them so neatly,” Marty said. “Did you do this after I left?”
“Uh-huh,” Phil said noncommittally, and reached for several sheets.
For half an hour they pored over Tommy’s handwriting, looking for any tidbit they might have missed the first time around.
Lunch arrived, and they ate while they worked.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Bev asked.
“Anything pertaining to real estate and/or Samuel Trout or Jarvis Chandler,” Phil said.
“Or anything that sounds like code or shorthand for those,” Marty added, and handed Bev another stack of papers.
They spent another hour poring over the notes.
“This is mainly just what happened when,” Bev said, clearly disappointed not to have discovered the key to it all.
“Then write it down in chronological order,” Marty said.
Bev sighed but picked up her pencil.
Phil wasn’t having much luck herself. She was actually looking for something outside Tommy’s original investigation of the Black Hand.
It had been niggling at her ever since she’d visited Mrs. Toscana. Her childhood in Queens, Sam Trout, and Tommy Green, all from the same neighborhood. The other photo of Mrs. Toscana in her white coming-out dress.
Roz Chandler standing in the doorway of the Plaza ballroom in a long white-and-gold gown, not the simple dress of an eighteen-year-old, but the resemblance was uncanny.
The truth may have gone with Tommy to his grave, for after having taken measure of the brothel madam, Phil was certain she would never divulge if she was indeed linked to Roz. Or if Tommy was in ways Roz had never suspected.
“Eureka!” Marty shouted, interrupting Phil’s train of thought.
“Maybe.” She handed a sheet of paper to Phil. “Look at this, the fourth line two-thirds across the page.” She got up and came to stand over Phil’s shoulder, while Bev leaned over the other, and Lily’s head appeared in the doorway.
Marty pointed to a scribbled word in the sentence. Phil squinted at the writing and read aloud as she deciphered each word. “‘M. Elliott, 68, prop of Elliott Flor. 1 5 yrs in bus. lives 3rd flr. ld noise 11–2 pm 11–22–07, Bmb. Entire store, damgd 2nd flr. 5–12–09–07.’”
“Look again at the last set of numbers,” Marty said.
“Five. Twelve. Not ‘five’ but capital ‘S,’” said Phil. “Sold? He sold his property three weeks later.”
“At last a break,” Marty said. “Look for more sales.”
They pored over their respective piles, but though there were close to ten properties on the list, they only discovered three more Ss.
Marty walked away, came back. “Oh, where is your butler? Why is he taking so long?”
“Mr. Preswick is very thorough. He’ll return when he’s obtained what he’s looking for.”
What Phil really wanted was for Bev to take Marty home and leave Phil to make some plans. But she knew it would be futile to argue, so she gritted her teeth and hoped Preswick would return soon.
If she only had until the new year to catch her killer, she needed to act. Four days. With the possible suspects all celebrating the holidays, most out of town, there would be only one chance to ferret out the killer.
Mr. X had said she was the linchpin. Did he meant that she was holding their investigation together the way a linchpin kept the wheel from falling off a wagon?
Would solving Tommy’s murder make it possible for them to begin arrests for what she could only assume was fraud? The link between a killer and the rest of the culprits?
She could spend the next four days running around and trying to get someone to confess. Or … set a trap and hoped to heaven it worked.
But she would need the cooperation of others, and she would have to play her hand very carefully.
By the time Preswick returned, Lily had gone back to her household duties, Marty was pacing a path across the Aubusson, Bev was curled up with a short story in the latest issue of Collier’s magazine, and Phil had a list of things to do to put her plan into action.
“We’re in here,” Phil called, and after a few moments of low voices, and the rustling of coat and hat being shed, Preswick appeared in the door to the dining room. He was wearing a black suit and starched collar and carried a briefcase, not Tommy’s. The epitome of a businessman with business with the city.
“My lady.”
“Oh, do come in, Preswick, and sit down. We’re overcome with anticipation.”
Bev and Marty had already returned to their places at the table as soon as they’d heard the front door open and sat like eager schoolgirls waiting for his news.
He sat and opened the briefcase, methodically taking out several sheets of precise, neatly written notes, which he spread out before him.
Lily appeared discreetly in the doorway and slipped in to sit beside him.
“These are the properties that coincide with the ones we knew about or estimated the addresses of. Here is a list of other vandalized properties in somewhat the same vicinity that we were not aware of.”
There were at least fifteen listed on the second page.
“Could you tell if any of them had been sold since the vandalism?” Marty asked.
Preswick slid another sheet next to the first one. It neatly aligned with the first paper, only to this one was added an additional column of SOLD and the dates.
Phil looked for their own notes and found the same numbers corresponding to the three they had found. But Preswick’s list was much more extensive.
“All damaged and all sold,” Phil said. “And I bet for considerably less than they were worth.”
“Much less,” Preswick said.
“Excellent work, Preswick,” Phil said. “Now, if we only knew whom they sold to.”
“That took a little longer. The actual transactions are kept on a different floor.” He took out a third sheet, similar to the first two. Only this sheet held the name of several buyers. Two companies and the rest individuals.
“There goes your theory about Trout trying to corner the market,” Bev said.
Preswick pulled out a fourth sheet of paper with only six lines of writing.
“And these are the resales. Six out of twelve resold within two weeks.”
There was silence around the table.
“Someone was destroying property and convincing the owners to sell cheap,” Phil said.
“But all the separate buyers?” Marty said, frowning at the last sheet.
“That is what took the bulk of my time. As to the individuals. They appear to be who they are, though possibly hired by someone in order to use an entity untraceable to the actual buyer. I believe they’re called ‘straw owners.’ They’re hired for a percentage or a flat fee to buy the property, then turn it over to the person who hired them. Each time, the price is inflated and resold.
“And this is where it becomes quite interesting.” Preswick turned the sheet for them all to see. “Within weeks, they were all resold to the City of New York.”
He had everyone’s full attention.
“It took some digging; these dummy companies can be very well shielded. That is what kept me, but eventually I discovered every one of those companies and possibly the individuals were controlled by one man. Samuel Trout.”
“And expedited through by someone in the building department?” Phil asked, already suspecting the answer. “Commissioner Chandler comes to mind.”
Bev’s eyes grew wide. “Roz’s husband? Oh no. Poor Roz.”
Poor Roz indeed. With Jarvis as building commissioner, they would have an inside track when the government decided to build on or nearby the property.
“Anything else, Preswick?”
“Just one, my lady. It may just be an outlier, having nothing to do with the others. Actually, I couldn’t make sense of it at first, my mind naturally going to ships.”
“Ships?”
“Yes.” Preswick pulled out a final sheet of paper, and Phil couldn’t help thinking how much he must be enjoying this in pure Holmesian fashion. He placed the paper on top of the others and tapped his finger to one address. “Sold to an ‘SS Lord.’ The ‘SS’ fooled me for a second.”
“Sydney!” Marty exclaimed, “Sydney Steiling Lord. That no-good, double-crossing—”
“Easy, Marty,” Bev said. “Think of your poor head.”
“Sydney will be the one with a poor head when I’m finished with him.”
“It might not mean he’s involved,” Phil said, though she thought he might be. “We can’t prove anything as yet.
“You’ve done excellent work, Preswick. Now, go have your tea, but first add your papers to the others and return them to the safe.”
Preswick nodded, began to gather up the papers.
Marty jumped up. “No! We should run with this.”
“Not yet,” Phil said.
“We have the facts.”
“But not evidence of criminality.”
“But—”
“Evidence,” Phil shouted over her tirade. “If you go off half-cocked before there’s a case—”
“What case?”
“I thought you wanted to find Tommy Green’s killer? Have you forgotten about Tommy in your news lust?”
The expression drained from Marty’s face. She jerked her head no, followed by “No. This is about finding who killed Tommy and bringing them to justice. I just … for a moment…”
“I quite understand. We are getting closer, but this will require great discipline on all our parts, and Marty, if you can’t control your need for vengeance, you’ll have to bow out, and you, too, Bev.”
“Me?” Bev asked, indignant. “What did I do?”
“Nothing yet, but you’re a loyal friend, as I know all too well, and I know if it came to it, you would come to Marty’s aid, and to Roz’s.”
And then it hit Phil, why she was the linchpin.
“We need to smoke out a snitch.”
Marty sank into her chair.
“Think, Marty. Somehow Tommy was closing in on them, and they had to keep him from exposing them. And they knew he was closing in because someone in the Times office was tipping them off.”
“But that could be anyone with a desk near Tommy’s,” Marty said. “One of the printers, the switchboard operator, Eddie the mail boy. Mr. Carr himself, though I really doubt that. Maybe someone who overheard a conversation at the bar.”
“You’re not thinking, because you’re frustrated. Are you telling me Tommy would be that sloppy with a lead? That Tommy was his own leaker?”
Marty looked up, horrified. “Of course not.”
“Then help me figure out who it was.” Phil reached for a notebook. “Who did Tommy think was leaking his leads?”
“Harriet Wells,” Marty said. “She was his typewriter girl, until Tommy became suspicious.”
“And she was at the crime scene,” Phil said.
“That young thing?” Bev asked. “Could she actually slit a man’s throat?”
“She could have had an accomplice,” Marty said. “Sorry, I was jumping ahead. I know better.”
“Perhaps she just let something slip unawares. Like chatting to Eddie the mail boy, perhaps. He was waiting for her when we took her home from questioning her one day.”
“You questioned Harriet?”
“Well, yes. And I noticed when we came to pick you up for lunch that Eddie was very friendly, and he was very attentive to her at the wake.”
“Except that Harriet worships Sydney.” Marty grimaced. “From afar, anyway, stupid girl.”
“I did notice the way she looked at him at the wake,” Phil said. “But would Sydney play both sides of the news game?”
“Sydney?”
Phil lifted both eyebrows. “We did see him with Jarvis and Trout at the Cavalier Club.”
“But we all hang out there. It’s where all the real news is. Someone gets drunk and … Oh, wait, you think Sydney might have mistakenly dropped something about Tommy?”
“Mistakenly, or for a price?” Phil asked. “Would he jeopardize his career for money?”
“That would mean he might have been instrumental in Tommy’s death.”
“Possibly.”
“No. He’d never actually get his hands that dirty. He doesn’t even like to touch ink.”
“And what about you?” Phil asked.
“Me? What about me?”
“Are you sure you didn’t share Tommy’s investigation with anyone, even accidentally?”
Marty didn’t answer, just stared back at Phil, eyes afire. “How can you even ask me that?”
“It’s necessary to question everyone involved. You are no exception.”
“I didn’t. I would never. I’m a journalist, first and foremost. I might steal someone else’s story by beating them to the facts, but I would never undercut someone like you’re suggesting.”
“You’re certain you spoke to no one about it?”
“I told you—”
“Marty,” Bev said. “You asked Phil to help, and she is. She has to ask uncomfortable questions.” She paused long enough to give Phil an understanding look. “She even asked me a few when they were investigating poor Reggie’s death. So don’t get all huffy. It doesn’t become you.”
Marty glared back at Bev, then her rancor seemed to melt. “You’re right. Journalists—good ones—do the same thing. They don’t let it get personal. I apologize, Phil. To my recollection, I never talked to anyone about it except Tommy himself.
“And then not even to him.”
“He was just trying to protect you,” Bev reminded her. “He wanted you to take over for him when he retired. He just retired sooner than he thought.”
“Fine, so what am I supposed to do? Since Phil seems to be the boss,” Marty asked.
“You asked me to do this,” Phil reminded her.
“Yeah, okay. What’s my job?”
Phil deliberated. She didn’t trust Marty, who seemed to get more volatile by the minute. But she had no choice.
“Do what you do. Return to the paper, keep your eyes and ears open. There must be some parties during this week before the new year. Listen, but do not engage anyone out of the ordinary. Report fashion and gossip, but listen for any slip or insinuation about real estate or anything else.”
“And what about Sydney?”
“That’s just what I mean. We don’t know if Sydney is actually involved with this. It could be coincidental; maybe he was acting as one of those ‘straw owners’ and Trout used him to buy property for him.
“But if he is involved,” Phil continued, “and he becomes suspicious that you’re on to him—”
“They might kill you, too,” Bev finished.
Phil didn’t even try to soften Bev’s reaction. Hopefully, she would drive the point home, before Marty did something reckless.
“Don’t let Tommy or Mr. Riis down, Marty. They saw your potential. Live up to it. Be patient and follow the lead to its natural conclusion.”
“Okay, I’ll back off. Keep my eyes and ears open, and won’t move until we have proof.”
“Thank you. Bev, I need you to stop by the Chandlers’ residence this evening. Arrive a little after five; wait if you have to.”
“It’s Friday. Roz will be at mass,” Bev pointed out.
“Exactly. You’ve come to consult Jarvis on the state of your finances, since your father is on the Continent.”
“Me? My finances are just fine. Oh.” Bev’s shoulders slumped comically. “I feel so in need of guidance. Poor Reggie.” She paused to sniff. “His finances were…”
“Okay, don’t overdo it. Everyone must know that you’re making a fortune off your horses.”
“I was going to say, so complicated that I don’t understand a thing.”
Phil and Marty laughed.
“I’m not sure he would believe that, either.”
“Fine. I’ll just play it as it goes, and bat my eyelashes a lot.”
“Good,” Phil said. “Keep him occupied until after six.”
“What have you got up your sleeve, Phil?”
“Nothing, but it’s time to start making some people uncomfortable. I want to go into the new year free of crime.” Actually, she had to.
Marty stood up, resigned but not happy. “And what are you going to be doing?”
“Me?” Phil said. “I’m going to mass.”