World's Greatest Sleuth! (16 page)

A moment later, the three of us were pawing through garbage on our hands and knees.

“Found anything yet?” Gustav asked loudly.

“No,” I blared back. “Golly, I’m starting to think this isn’t a good use of our time.”

A soft, lilting “Excuse me” floated down from on high, and we all looked up to find a pleasant-looking fellow sporting a neatly trimmed mustache and a bowler hat staring down at us from Curtis’s open window.

The three of us stood up.

“Yes?” Diana said.

“May I ask what you’re doing?”

“There’ve been some odd goin’s-on round here,” Old Red replied. “We’ve taken it upon ourselves to look into it.”

“By going through the trash?”

“We got our reasons. We disturbin’ you? Keepin’ you from a nap or something?”

The man smiled and let a moment pass before answering. I got the feeling he was trying to decide whether to call us liars or play along.

“Oh, this isn’t my room.” He tipped his hat. “I’m Detective Sergeant Moses Ryan of the Chicago Police Department. You wouldn’t be the Amlingmeyer brothers, would you? And Miss Diana Crowe?”

“That’s right,” Diana said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sergeant. Are you here investigating the death of Mr. Curtis?”

“Indeed I am, and it’s most fortunate I’ve bumped into you like this. We’ve been trying to get word to everyone who’s here for the contest: Mr. Pinkerton would like all of you to gather in the lobby in twenty minutes. He has an announcement to make. After he’s done, I’ll be conducting private interviews with each of you. If you think you could make yourselves available…?”

“Of course,” Diana said.

“Anything to be of service,” I threw in.

Gustav just glowered.

“Splendid. Thank you so much,” Sergeant Ryan said, and once again he smiled and tipped his hat. “Well … carry on.”

He ducked back into the room and closed the window.

“For a lawman, he’s awful polite,” I said. “I almost expected him to invite us up for a slice of pie.”

“Yeah,” my brother muttered. “I don’t like it.”

“If the man was a bastard, you’d be happy?”

“Not happy. But happier.”

Diana crouched down next to the overturned litter bin. “I think I’ve found something here.”

“No need for more playactin’,” I said. “The sergeant ain’t watchin’ no more.”

“I’m not pretending.” The lady reached into the can and pulled out a plum-colored wedge studded with big, thick teeth. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this looks an awful lot like—”

“The jawbone of an ass,” Gustav finished for her. “Painted purple.”

I stuck a finger in my right ear and gave it a good cleaning. “Did I just hear you say that’s the jawbone of an ass painted purple?”

My brother jerked his chin at the dark, L-shaped bone in the lady’s hands. “What’s it look like to you?”

I gave the thing a good long stare.

“The jawbone of an ass painted purple,” I at last concluded.

“Well, there you go.”

Old Red squatted beside Diana, peered into the garbage can a moment, then pulled from it a pair of clunky wooden shoes in which had been stuffed two huge potatoes.

“Time to call in the National Geographic Society,” I said. “I think we just found the back door to Wonderland.”

My brother just stood and tipped the can over, spilling its contents onto the ground. In amongst the to-be-expected newspapers and apple cores and cigar butts and such we found the following:

• a stuffed squirrel clothed in a miniature tuxedo;

• a copy of the book
Phrenology and Its Application to Education, Insanity, and Prison Discipline
, in which had been wedged a single turkey feather;

• a fruitcake with what appeared to be bits of gravel baked into it in place of the customary candied cherries and slivers of orange peel;

• a shattered bust of Queen Victoria (Diana recognized the subject from the combination of crown and jowls);

• and a small box containing a torn ferry ticket, several snail shells (shriveled-up dead snail included), a clove of garlic, and a yellow-brown lump my brother identified as rancid butter.

Once we’d sorted through it all—and managed to get our popping eyes back in our skulls—Old Red stepped back a ways and looked first at the trash can, then up at Curtis’s window, then back at the can, then back at the window.

“You’re thinkin’ of Mrs. Jasinska’s thump in the rear,” I said.

“Yup.”

“Excuse me?” Diana said.

“The noise Mrs. Jasinska heard last night,” Gustav explained. “The crash in the alley.”

Diana followed my brother’s line of sight, nodding. “Yes. Of course. It would’ve been a straight drop into the garbage can from Curtis’s room. So that settles it. The killer
has
been in the hotel. He was up there last night.”

“Yup. Chucking all this out the window.”

“A brilliant deduction,” I said. “Only what is ‘all this’?”

“Damned if I know.” Old Red looked over at the lady, then whipped his gaze away again just as fast. “I mean
darned
if I know.”

For a second there, Diana seemed to be stifling a smile.

“Unfortunately, we can’t be sure this is everything that was thrown out,” she said. “In a big city like this, you’ll have vagrants picking through the garbage every night. Anything valuable or edible would’ve been scavenged by dawn.”

“So for all we know, half our clues are gone,” Gustav said glumly.

“You really think we need more?” I asked him. “This here’s the mother lode. It’s just too bad not a one of them makes any kind of sense.”

“Everything makes sense,” Diana said. “You simply have to find the right way of looking at it.”

She turned to my brother for confirmation. He gave her a rueful shrug instead.

“I used to think that,” he said. “I still might, on a good day. But I can’t say this one’s been especially—”

At that moment, the back door to the hotel opened, and the not-so-good day got even worse.

Sergeant Ryan stepped out into the alley, a big uniformed bull right behind him.

“Hello, there,” the sergeant said. “You looked like you were having so much fun back here, we just had to join you.”

“What grand timing,” I said. “We were just about to run and fetch you, weren’t we?”

Diana nodded. Old Red didn’t bother.

Ryan cocked his head, eyes a-twinkle. “How fortunate it is we should come along and save you the trip. Now … what’s that you’ve got there, hmm?”

I peeped over at Gustav for the go-ahead, and he gave it to me with a single downward jerk of the head. So I told the sergeant of Mrs. Jasinska’s thump in the night and the curious curios we’d discovered under Curtis’s window—omitting the fact that we’d discovered them by falling on them.

As I spoke, Ryan nodded in a pleasant, friendly, interested sort of way, though I got the feeling he’d be nodding just the same if I were telling him I was the king of the pixies. When I was done, he turned toward the pebble cake and the tuxedoed squirrel and the rest of it.

“So you found all this, you say?”

“Yes. He did just say,” Gustav growled.

“Hmm. Very cluey, these clues of yours.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Diana asked. She didn’t growl like my brother, but she sure wasn’t purring, either.

“Well,” Ryan said, “this is exactly the kind of thing one would read about in a detective story, isn’t it? You know—‘The Case of the Purple Jawbone’ or ‘The Turkey Feather Mystery’ or the like. That you should be the ones to stumble upon such singular evidence strikes me as … ironic.”

“You ain’t suggesting we put these things here, are you?” Old Red asked.

“Oh, no. Why would you do something like that?” Ryan rolled his eyes heavenward and tapped a finger against his chin, as if struck by a sudden thought. “Aside from the publicity, of course. You are here to make names for yourselves as detectives.”

“If you’re gonna call me a liar, I wish you’d just speak it plain,” I said.

“A writer of dime novels? Pass along anything but the unvarnished truth? Perish the thought! Believe me, I’m ever so grateful you brought all this to my attention, and you can rest assured I’ll give it all the attention it deserves. Now, if you’d let me get to it.”

Ryan stepped to the side and swept his arm out toward the door he’d come through a few minutes before.

We were being invited to leave—without our evidence—and the way the copper behind Ryan glared at us, it was clear the invitation was going to become an order right quick.

Gustav just glared at the two men a moment.

“Come on,” he finally sighed, and he started for the door.

“You gonna let it go that easy?” I said as Diana and I started after him.

“They got the badges … dammit.”

As we passed Sergeant Ryan, he gave us a genial tip of the hat.

When we stepped inside, we found ourselves in a long, dark corridor leading to the lobby of the Columbian Hotel. The big cop closed the door firmly behind us.

“It’s too bad we didn’t get more time with them clues,” Old Red said, “but it ain’t like we got nothing to do.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. We know exactly where Curtis’s killer’s gonna be in ten minutes. Heck, he might even be there already.”

“There,” Diana said, pointing ahead to the lobby. “Waiting to hear what Pinkerton has to say.”

My brother nodded. “What say we join him?”

17

THE PROFESSIONALS

Or, Old Red Tries to Pin Down Some Suspects and Gets Needled Instead

When we got to
the end of the hall, I leaned out for a cautious peep around the lobby. Only two of our colleague/competitor/suspects were already there: Eugene Valmont and Boothby Greene. They were sitting next to each other about fifty feet away, seemingly deep in conversation.

When I reported what I’d seen, Diana said it was time for us to part company again.

“I understand,” I replied with a sullenness I found both embarrassing and impossible to squelch. “You can’t have it gettin’ back to the colonel we been workin’ together.”

“Yes, there’s that,” Diana said. “I was also thinking it would be to our advantage if
the killer
didn’t know it.”

“Oh. Yeah. Good point.”

“What’s more, a lady can’t take a tumble in the trash and get away with it. I need to freshen up.”

“When will we see you again?” I asked. “I mean, not just see you. Be with you. To talk to, I mean. About the—”

“Can you shake the colonel and meet us again tonight?” my brother butted in.

Diana nodded. “The Japanese Ho-o-den. Nine twenty.”

“We’ll be there,” Old Red said firmly. He waited till the lady was gone to ask, “What the hell’s a Ho-Ho Den?”

“Some kinda church, I think. In the White City. The guidebook says it’s a ‘temple,’ Japanese style. It’s out on that island in the middle of the big lagoon.”

“Good. Sounds like the perfect place to meet on the sly.”

“I just wish it didn’t have to be on the sly.”

“And who do we have to thank for that?”

“Well.” I cleared my throat and held out an arm toward the lobby. “Shall we?”

“In a tick. There’s something I wanna talk over with you first…”

A moment later, we were sidling up to the settee Valmont and Greene were sharing.

“Afternoon, gents,” I said. “Waitin’ for the big powwow?”

Both men stared at me blankly.

“The big pa-WOW?” Valmont said.

My brother eased himself into a shabby old armchair the color of a tombstone. “The meetin’ Pinkerton called,” he explained.

There was another divan next to the one the Frenchman and the Englishman were sharing, but I could see why Gustav hadn’t settled his American rump upon it: It looked like it had, until all too recently, resided in the nearest dump, and there was no telling what smells—or occupants—might still be lingering in the vicinity.

I chose to stand.

“Yes,” Greene said. “We were just speculating as to what Mr. Pinkerton will say.”

“Afraid he’s gonna call off the contest?” my brother asked.

“It might seem disrespectfell to M. Curtis, but … yes,” Valmont replied. “We have come a long way to be here, M. Greene and I. To lose this opportunity because of an ill-timed axy-dawn would be most misfortunable.”

“And then there’s Mr. Curtis himself to think of,” Greene added. “He saw his involvement in the competition as a tribute to his fallen hero. I rather think he’d want us to carry on.”

“Tribute’s a nice way to put it,” I said. “The way Curtis was talkin’ last night, it seemed more like a vendetta … against
us
.”

“That’s right,” Old Red said. “He was throwin’ around all sorts of hints about the dirt he had on folks. With you, Mr. Greene, it was something about not havin’ a birthday. And you, Miz-yer Val-MONT … well, I couldn’t repeat it even if I could remember it, but it was some kinda ‘la affair’ in the French papers.”

Valmont folded then unfolded his arms, crossed then uncrossed his legs, turned his body this way then that.

His scowl didn’t waver.

“Hmph,” he said.

Greene, on the other hand, was all cool amusement. “Come, come, Valmont … we were going to be asked about it sooner or later. The only surprise to me is that Mr. Amlingmeyer beat Miss Larson to it.”

“Not to mention the po-lease,” Old Red said.

“It remains to be seen which tack the official inquiry is going to take,” Greene replied mildly.

Valmont clasped then unclasped his hands.

“Hmph,” he said again.

“Fine. I’ll go first,” Greene said. “I assume Mr. Curtis conducted research on all of us before coming to Chicago. The better to unearth our weaknesses. When it came to Boothby Greene, however, he would find none—because he would find nothing at all. Boothby Greene has no birthday because Boothby Greene does not exist.”

“I ain’t lookin’ at him?” I asked.

“You’re looking at a man calling himself Boothby Greene, yes—but the name is a fiction.”

Valmont stopped his fidgeting and hmphing and stared at Greene in naked fascination.

“So who are you?” he asked.

“A private inquiry agent of, I like to think, some skill—though that’s not why Blackheath-Murray has high hopes for me.” He gave both hands a
voilà
flourish just beneath his long, lean, oh-so-Sherlocky face. “I do fit a certain mold. And a highly profitable one, at that.”