The Dime Museum Murders (13 page)

"I
will ask your indulgence only for one day. This evening, we shall
keep Mr. Graff's appointment with the mysterious Mr. Harrington."

"No,
we won't," I said.

"I
beg your pardon?"

I
swallowed hard as a second greasy mouthful trickled down my throat.
"We should leave that to the police. Mr. Graff told them
everything he told us. We shouldn't get in their way."

"Dash
is right," Bess said. "Besides, Mr. Harrington would hardly
carry on with business as usual once he's seen this morning's paper."

"Why
not? As I demonstrated last night,
Le
Fantôme
did
not kill Mr. Wintour."

"No,"
Bess continued, "but something did, and Mr. Harrington's deal is
off in either case."

"Which
would make him all the more anxious to come to an agreement with Mr.
Hendricks," Harry agreed, "so he will keep his appointment
as scheduled. He does not necessarily know that Mr. Graff is in jail.
The newspaper did not mention him by name."

"Harry—"

"Bess,"
Harry said, reaching for her hand, "I must try to find this
Harrington person. It is the only way of verifying Mr. Graff's
story."

"I
still agree with Dash," Bess said. "It would be better to
leave it to the police."

Harry
released Bess's hand and folded his arms. "Mama, do you see? My
brother and my wife are conspiring against me."

"That's
nice, dear," said mother, who never listened very closely when
she was cooking.

"I
will make a bargain with you," he said to both of us. "Dash
and I will go to the Toy Emporium this evening at the appointed hour.
If we catch sight of Lieutenant Murray or any of his men, we will let
the matter rest in their capable hands. If not, we will wait to see
if Mr. Harrington presents himself. Is that agreeable, or would you
prefer to let Mr. Graff rot in jail?"

"Of
course not, but—"

"In
the meantime, Dash, you must do a favor for me. You are still
friendly with that newspaper gentleman?"

"Biggs?
You know perfectly well that I'm still friendly with Biggs." He
was referring to a childhood friend of ours who now worked the city
desk at the
New
York World.
We
had renewed our acquaintance during my brief flirtation with a career
in journalism, and he occasionally planted a friendly notice about
Harry or me in the theatrical columns. Even so, he and Harry had
never gotten along.

"I
want you to go down to his office and see if you can come up with
anything more about the Wintour case. The police may not wish to pool
information, but the men of the press are every bit as diligent at
gathering facts, and far less difficult about sharing it." He
took a slurp of tea. "The press is a most valuable institution,
if one knows how to use it."

I
couldn't really see any objection, especially since Biggs was usually
good for a racing tip or two. "That seems fair enough," I
said, reaching for my hat. "I'll meet you at Huber's after
work."

"Just
a moment, Theo," said my mother. "Have you finished your
egg?"

"Yes.
Delicious. But I must run now."

"A
moment, my son. I have a surprise—a magic trick of my own!"
She reached out a frail hand for the china egg cup. "Voila!"
she said, whisking it away with a flourish. A second egg had been
concealed in the hollow stem of the cup. It wobbled onto its side and
rolled lazily towards me.

"God!"
I cried.

"Marvelous,
yes?" said my mother. "Harry brought me a whole set. Now
you can enjoy your first egg without worrying that the second one
should get cold!"

"Wonderful,
Mama," I said, weakly.

Harry
just sat back and grinned.

I
caught a streetcar down to the offices of the
World
and
found Biggs toiling over an angled compositor's desk. He looked, as
always, as though he had just been roused from a deep sleep. His wavy
red hair rose and fell at odd angles from his head, and shadows
ringed his pale blue eyes. The drowsy appearance also extended to his
clothing. He wore a baggy gray tweed suit with an
open
waistcoat and loosely knotted wool tie. Such attire was considered
rather too casual by the older, more conservative rank of
newspapermen, but Biggs considered himself part of a new, more
progressive breed of journalist. He often told me that a good newsman
was required to blend in with "just folks."

"Dash,
you old cod worm!" he shouted when he saw me lingering in the
doorway. "Just the man I've been longing to see! I'd planned to
go looking for you at your mother's place this afternoon."

"You
wouldn't have found me," I said, tossing my trilby onto a
battered stand in the corner. "I'm at Mrs. Arthur's boarding
house now."

"I
know," he admitted, "but the last time I called on your
mother she served me the most extraordinary piece of lemon cake. Sent
me into raptures. I was rather hoping—"

"It's
blackberry torte today," I said. "Why did you want to see
me?"

"Why?
You know perfectly well! All of New York is buzzing about the Wintour
murder! You and that crazy brother of yours were right there on the
spot! The police have the place locked up tight now. We sent our best
man with a fat wad of bribe money, but he couldn't get past the
roundsman on the door. So come on, Dash. Tell me all."

I
pulled up a chair and gave Biggs a brief sketch of the crime scene
while he made notes on a block of paper. He interrupted me every so
often to ask for a clarification or an extra bit of detail, and I did
my best to supply the answers. "All that money," he said
when I'd finished, "and he gets done to death by a toy!"

"Perhaps
not—"

"Well,
whatever. The police will sort it out soon
enough.
In the meantime, the
World
will
keep its readers informed of the 'diligent perspicacity' of our
Lieutenant Murray." He scribbled a few more notes and then set
down his pen. "So why have you come, Dash?" he asked,
lacing his fingers behind his head. "You've made my job quite a
bit easier, but I suspect your motives lay elsewhere."

"I
was hoping for some background on Mr. Wintour," I said. "I
know he made his money in toys, but—"

"Juvenile
goods," Biggs said. "He was very touchy about being called
'The Toy King.'"

"Juvenile
goods, then. I'd just like to know a bit more about the man."

Biggs
regarded me with interest. "Why, Dash? Is there something you
haven't told me? I know you're concerned about this fellow Graff, but
you really can't expect—"

"It
isn't every day that I find myself at a murder scene," I said.
"I'm curious about the man's history. Perhaps it's ghoulish of
me, but as things stand now I feel as if I've walked in on the third
act of a play."

"That's
the journalist in you," Biggs said, hopping down off his stool.
"It was a mistake for you to follow your brother onto the stage.
Follow me. I'll turn you loose in the crypt." He led me through
a warren of offices to a dim basement chamber arrayed with row after
row of dusty wooden filing cabinets. "Malone would have pulled
the active file for the obituary," Biggs said, working his way
toward the back of the room, "and of course all the notes from
last night will still be upstairs, but there should be plenty of
background material left." He pulled open a creaky file drawer
and withdrew a fat sheaf of yellowed documents. "Enjoy yourself,
Dash,"
he
said, handing me the file. "I'll be back for you in an hour or
so."

I
found a seat atop a wooden crate and sat down to read. I confess that
I found little of interest. There were a handful of admiring profiles
describing Mr. Wintour's progress from office boy to magnate, and
still more articles that gave details of his various civic interests
and contributions. The phrase "pillar of the community" got
repeated airings, as did the descriptive "reclusive
millionaire." I noted a handful of names that seemed to recur
several times—Mr. Hendricks, Dr. Blanton, and various other
business associates and fellow benefactors—but apart from that
I discovered little worth mentioning to Harry.

I
had closed up the sheaf of papers and was preparing to leave when a
clipping from Aubrey McMillan's society column caught my eye. It was
dated three years previous, in April of 1894, and announced the
engagement of Branford Wintour to Miss {Catherine Hendricks, the only
daughter of his longtime business associate Mr. Michael Hendricks.
The wedding was to take place the following June.

I
reached into my pocket for the clipping I had torn from that
morning's paper. In the fashion of the day, it told me only that the
deceased was survived by Mrs. Branford Wintour. It seemed to me,
however, that I had heard Mrs. Wintour's given name mentioned the
previous evening, and that it was not Katherine. Margaret, was it?
Mary?

Biggs
returned to find me still puzzling over the clipping. "What do
you have there, Dash?" he asked.

I
showed him the engagement notice. '"Do you know anything about
this?"

"Come
on, Dash," he answered, "surely you remember—oh! Of
course! You'd have been out of the city. Making bunnies vanish in
Toledo or some such. Quite the scandal, that was. The society drama
of the fall season."

"What
happened?"

"It
seems our Mr. Wintour had a bit of an eye for the ladies. While he
was courting Miss Hendricks—a surpassingly lovely woman, by the
by—he was also carrying on a bit of a pash with the Screech."

"The
Screech?"

"I
take you've not met Mrs. Wintour?"

"I
have not had that pleasure."

"Her
voice is said to excite amorous feelings in barn owls. Quite the
domestic martinet, as well. Can't keep staff, they say. Her father
shovelled coal for a living, so she's thought to be a bit short on
the social graces. Quite a looker in her own way, but I wouldn't have
taken her over Miss Hendricks. See here—," he stepped over
to a distant file drawer and riffled the pages for several minutes,
eventually producing an announcement of Miss Hendricks's presentation
ball. A pen-sketch of the young woman accompanied the article,
showing a lovely, heart-shaped face with lustrous lashes and a
fragile mouth.

"Apparently
she wanted to go on the stage," Biggs said, "but her mother
wouldn't hear of it. She'd have done well with that face."

"Not
any stage I've ever played," I said. "She'd stop the show."
I looked up from the image. "So how did Wintour come to throw
her over for someone called the Screech?"

"Destiny
forced his hand. Seems he and the Screech were discovered taking the
country air together on the eve of his own engagement reception. He
tried to hush it up, but Michael Hendricks got wind of it and called
the
wedding off. Hendricks also severed his business partnership with
Wintour, though it seems that Hendricks got the worst of the
arrangement. Meanwhile, Wintour tried to salvage his social standing
by marrying the lady whose honor he had stained."

"Sounds
like a fairly miserable outcome for everyone."

"Yes,
well, perhaps Mr. Wintour found some consolation in his
three-million-dollar fortune, his mansion on Fifth Avenue, his
private railway car, his—"

"All
right. I get the point." My eyes rested again on the sketch of
Miss Hendricks. "Tell me, whatever happened to her?"