Angel's Flight (A Mercy Allcutt Mystery) (3 page)

      “That’s all right,” said Mr. Easthope sadly. “I feared as much.” And he walked farther into my office as Ernie shut his door and, I presume, went back to perusing the
Times
.

      Mr. Easthope sighed heavily, and my heart was stirred. “Do you think there’s anything I might do for you, Mr. Easthope?” I asked, not expecting much in the way of excitement to ensue.

      He gazed soulfully at me long enough for my heart to take to fluttering like a hummingbird. He was a
very
handsome man. “Well . . . would you mind listening to my tale of woe? Perhaps you might be able to offer an insight or two.”

      Would I
mind
? Would I mind seeing King Tut’s Tomb? I would not! “Heavens, no. I’d love to hear your problem. And I promise I won’t tell another person. We’re the soul of discretion at Templeton’s.” At least I was, and I was pretty sure Ernie was, too, or he’d have gone out of business long ago. Smiling at him, I said, “I’ll even take notes.”

      “Thank you.”

      “Thank
you
.” I grabbed my lined, green stenographer’s pad and a pencil as Mr. Easthope resumed the chair beside my desk. Then I smiled at him as if he were offering me reprieve from doom and destruction instead of merely my mother. Did I say
merely
? I didn’t mean it. There’s nothing mere about my mother. Both her stature and her personality are imposing.

      I poised my pencil—I always kept several sharpened pencils at the ready—over my pad. “All right. Fire away.”

      With a sigh, Mr. Easthope turned to me and, with a small, strained smile, commenced to do as I had asked of him.

      “It’s my mother,” he said, his voice and visage both grim.

Chapter Two

Shocked at hearing words that echoed my own exact thoughts, I looked up from my pad and stared at him, my mouth agape. “Oh, I know
just
what you mean!” I hadn’t meant to speak, and I felt my cheeks get hot as I returned my gaze to my pad and dutifully wrote his words thereon.

      Mr. Easthope blinked at me and said, “I beg your pardon?”

      “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve just been having a mother problem of my own.”

      “I see,” said Mr. Easthope, who clearly didn’t.

      I resolved to keep my mouth shut during the remainder of his narrative.

      “Um . . .” Mr. Easthope paused for a moment, my comment evidently having scattered his thoughts, then forged onward. “As I said, it’s my mother. She’s come under the spell of some dreadful spiritualists, and I fear they’re taking her for a ride. She’s already spent hundreds of dollars on them. I don’t begrudge her some entertainment, but I’m worried that her interest in spiritualism is getting out of hand. What’s more, I’m sure the two people who are conducting the so-called séances she keeps having are dirty crooks. I can’t help but get the feeling they’re making careful notes detailing the décor and layout of my place and plan to do something in the line of theft before they bleed Mother dry and move on to greener pastures.”

      “My goodness,” I said, breaking my vow of silence almost as soon as I made it. I’d make a lousy nun.

      “Goodness doesn’t enter into the picture,” said Mr. Easthope with uncustomary acidity. “What’s worse is they’re doing their dirty work in my house and at my expense. So it will be my possessions they pilfer, if they end up pilfering anything.” Mr. Easthope sighed heavily. “My mother lives with me, you see, Miss Allcutt. And it’s not that I don’t love her and can’t afford to support her, but . . .”

      She
lived
with him? Good heavens, the poor man! “Oh, dear,” I said, and left it at that, proving that occasionally I can hold my tongue.

      “I had hoped that Mr. Templeton—and you, of course,” he said in what I knew to be an afterthought, “might attend one or more of these séances, so you could investigate this pair and determine if they really are crooks—well, crooks who are determined to do more than dupe gullible elderly women. I’m afraid I can’t make myself believe in their spiritualistic mumbo-jumbo.”

      “Understandable,” I muttered under my breath, since I, too, was a skeptic.

      Another sigh escaped from Mr. Easthope’s lips, which were, I must say, beautifully molded and went very well with the rest of him. In actual fact, I do believe he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen, and that includes several men who act in the motion pictures and who have been guests at Chloe and Harvey’s table.

      “I know spiritualism is all the rage these days, but I do wish my mother hadn’t fallen under these people’s spell.”

      Aptly put, I thought. I said, “Hmm,” and kept my head bent over my pad.

      “And I honestly do fear that these people are worse than average. They give me quite a queasy feeling in my tummy.”

      A queasy feeling in his tummy? I glanced up from my notepad and had the fleeting and no-doubt unreasonable wish that Mr. Easthope’s spoken words were as elegant as his outward appearance. Oh, well. Nobody’s perfect. “Um . . .” I paused, trying to think of something eloquent—or at least pertinent—to say. Then I had a thought. “What are these people’s names?” That was pertinent, wasn’t it?

      “They call themselves the d’Agostinos.” He spelled it for me. “Supposedly they’re Anthony and Angelique d’Agostino. It’s probably a phony name.”

      “Why do you think it’s phony?”

      Mr. Easthope hesitated for a moment. He sounded a trifle petulant when he said, “Oh, it’s just too perfect. They waft around the house, pale as death, looking like spirits themselves, all dressed in black, and they both talk as if they’re communing with spirits even when they’re asking for poached eggs for breakfast.” He scowled gloriously when he concluded, “I tell you, Miss Allcutt, I’m just sick of them.”

      “I can certainly understand that.”

      “And they have a ghoul who does all their fetch-and-carry work for them.”

      A ghoul? I was about to ask what he meant, but he spoke again and I didn’t.

      “I don’t know what his name is. He lurks in corners and never speaks, just lurks. What’s more he looks like how I picture that servant Igor in
Frankenstein
.”

      That did sound ghoulish. “I read that book. The fellow sounds creepy.”

      “He is. I was hoping Mr. Templeton could help me, but he says exposing spiritualists isn’t in his line.”

      It was then I had my brainstorm. “Perhaps
I
can help!”

      Mr. Easthope’s eyebrows soared into his hairline. Before he could express any doubts, I rushed to explain.

      “Why don’t
I
attend a séance or two at your house and do some snooping on my own? Ernie—Mr. Templeton, I mean—has taught me heaps about the investigative process, and I bet I could ferret out any criminal tendencies on the part of these so-called spiritualists.”

      I held my breath, praying Mr. Easthope would accept my offer, and not merely because the case sounded interesting. If he allowed me to snoop, it would mean I’d have to be at his house quite often. And
that
would mean I wouldn’t be at Chloe’s house, which, of course, would mean I wouldn’t be around my mother as much as I feared I’d be if he didn’t accept my offer. If you know what I mean.

      “Well . . .” He chewed his lip.

      “I wouldn’t charge anything, of course,” I hastened to add, hoping to sweeten the deal. Not that Mr. Easthope was hurting for money, but people in every income bracket like a good deal when they can get it.

      “Um . . . I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I mean I’d hate to get you involved in anything that might be the least bit unsavory.”

      “Unsavory?” I scoffed, since I couldn’t think of anything unsavory about exposing a couple of crooks who conned old ladies out of their sons’ money. I mean all I had to do was discover their bag of tricks and call the cops, right? Or maybe the police wouldn’t even get involved if Mr. Easthope didn’t want them to be. At any rate, that would mean
they
were the unsavory ones, not I. “Don’t be silly, Mr. Easthope. There won’t be any risk of that involved. Even if they discover me snooping, what can they do to me?”

      “But these people might be real criminals, Miss Allcutt.”

      “Exactly. Which is why you need me.” I beamed at him, hoping he was as impressed by my logic as I was.

      “Well, why don’t you let me think about it and I’ll get back with you.”

      “Of course. Perhaps you might be able to find another private investigator who will take the case.” I refrained from pointing out that this scenario was highly unlikely, given that most P.I.s were like Ernie. At least, I presumed they were.

      Mr. Easthope heaved another big sigh. “I probably won’t be able to do that.”

      I gave him a genuinely sympathetic smile and thought to myself that mothers could be
such
a problem and that it didn’t seem fair, when I heard low voices outside in the hall and my heart clanked down into my shoes.

      Speaking of mothers . . .

      “Oh, dear, I think that’s probably Chloe and . . .” My voice trailed off.

      Mr. Easthope brightened slightly. “Oh, is Chloe paying you a call?”

      “Yes. Along with . . .” I took a deep breath. “. . . our mother.”

      “Your mother? From Boston?”

      I nodded.

      “Oh.” Mr. Easthope, who had heard about our mother from Chloe, seemed appropriately distressed. I appreciated him for it.

      “Exactly.”

      Ernie’s office door opened. “Mr. Easthope, will you come in here for a second?

      “Certainly,” said Mr. Easthope, and he did. He seemed relieved, which was a sensible reaction to being spared a meeting with my mother.

      Ernie’s office door closed just as the doorknob on the outer office door turned. There was no help for it. I straightened my spine, took two deep breaths for courage, hugged my pencil and pad close to my bosom in an effort to look professional, and sat up straight, ready to face my doom. I mean my mother.

      The first thing I noticed when the door opened and Chloe and Mother entered the office was that Chloe was much more conservatively clad this morning than was usual for her. She always dressed beautifully and in the very height of fashion—she could afford to do so, since Harvey made tons of money in the movies—but today she wore a soft green crepe suit with a hip-length unfitted jacket, a green confection of a hat and green shoes and handbag to match. I recall seeing the costume in her closet once when we were selecting a dress for me to wear to a speakeasy—and I prayed to heaven Mother never learned about
that
incident—but I’d never seen it on Chloe.

      As for Mother, she wore one of her Boston outfits of navy blue bombazine, mannishly cut, with red trim that should have given the costume a sporty look but didn’t, my mother’s overall majesty of demeanor overawing even frivolous red trim. Her hat sat on her salt-and-pepper waves squarely and, while the rest of us in Los Angeles permitted ourselves to wilt slightly in the summer heat, Mother looked as if she had conquered even the weather. She stood straight and tall—she was taller than Chloe and me by a good deal, probably because she wouldn’t allow any child of hers to outdo her in any way—and as free from perspiration as if she’d been standing in the middle of a Boston street in January.

      Hoping to gull her into thinking her presence didn’t distress me, I pasted on a broad smile. “Good morning, Mother. Welcome to the Figueroa Building.” And, as boldly as if I weren’t secretly quaking in my sensible, two-tone lace-up shoes, I walked up and kissed her on the cheek. In order to do so, I had to walk around my desk and then stand on tiptoes, due to the aforementioned height difference. Come to think of it, that might be one of the reasons she intimidated me so much. Probably not. I think it was her personality.

      She stood still for the kiss, a demonstration of tolerance I hadn’t expected. I’d anticipated that she’d light right in to me.

      Chloe, bless her heart, decided to reveal the reason for this unusual forbearance on our parent’s part. “Oh, Mercy, guess what?”

      She had her hands clasped to her bosom, which was most unlike her, but I guess she was putting on a show for our mother, too.

      “Have a seat,” said I, waving the two of them to the chairs before my desk. I’d already decided I’d sooner face my mother this morning with a wide expanse of wood between us, and that if she were seated at my side in Mr. Easthope’s chair, she’d be more apt to strike out at me than if she had to reach across the desk to do it. Not that Mother was one for physical violence. Shoot, she didn’t need it. She could cow most people with a single glance. “And tell me what the doctor said.”

      Chloe pulled out a chair for Mother, who sat stiffly. Her face, since she’d entered the office, had not lost an iota of its expression of frozen disapproval. With a sigh, I sat, too, ever so grateful for my desk. “So what’s up, Chloe?” I still smiled brightly, figuring I might as well.

      “Harvey and I are going to have a baby!” Chloe blurted out.

      I, for one, was glad she did that, because it diverted our mother’s attention from her errant younger daughter to her errant older one. “Well, really!” she said to Chloe, her uppercrust Boston accent in full bloom. “Your move to Los Angeles has done nothing to improve your manners, young woman.”

      Mother didn’t approve of people speaking openly about having babies and stuff like that. She thought this sort of thing ought to be whispered from woman to woman in the privacy of one of the women’s homes. God alone knew how the men involved were supposed to get the news.

      I thought that was a stupid and antiquated notion and figured it wouldn’t do me any more harm to say so than to keep it to myself. “Why not?” I rose from my chair, skirted around my desk and threw my arms around my older sister. “Oh, Chloe, I’m so happy for you!”

      “Thank you, Mercy.” Hugging me back, Chloe sounded a trifle misty. I guess, after having been in the company of our mother all morning, she needed a dose of good, honest friendship and sisterly love and a dollop of congratulations.