McGrave's Hotel (9 page)

The Godfrey Girls

By the time James and Fawn reached the skeletons at the Boneyard Club entrance, Miss Charles had caught up to them. On her high heels, she clicked along with the interrupted dinner date as they all headed toward the Front Desk. They needed to see Mr. Nash.

The heads on the skeletons spun a full 360 degrees as the trio passed.

“James, whatever is the matter?” Miss Charles said. “I could see trouble brewing from across the room.”

“Oh, Mr. Lesley seems to be up to his old tricks, bothering actresses,” James said. “Plus something has upset the Egyptians. Not to mention that somewhere we seem to have a fatality. Some story about a missing head. The police are on their way. Other than that, everything is peachy. We’ll probably read all about it tomorrow in Mr. Quinn’s newspaper column.”

“This is my fault,” Miss Charles said. “I should have seen this coming.”

In the midst of deep concerns, James remembered his manners. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Fawn, Miss Charles. Miss Charles, Fawn.”

“Hi, sweetie,” Miss Charles said.

A look of relief crossed Mr. Nash’s face upon seeing James, Miss Charles, and the girl approaching. James had helped Mr. Nash with many sticky situations since his coming to McGrave’s, and he knew the night manager would welcome his help.

A half dozen men, some in police uniforms, surrounded Mr. Nash.

“Jim, boy, you’re right on time. This is Detective Dan Durbin and his boys. We were heading up to the Bridal Suite to check on an accident. Meanwhile, could you, ah, check on that little matter in 3913? Again?”

With an exchange of looks, James and Fawn silently agreed to extend their dinner date a
little
, only long enough to comply with Mr. Nash’s request. Meanwhile, Mr. Nash didn’t seem to be aware of any situations with the Egyptians, and James knew best not to raise the subject in front of the police. James planned to look in on the Egyptians himself as soon as he dealt with Victor Lesley and returned Fawn to her father.

“And, Miriam, could you—I mean, Miss Charles—could you watch the desk?” Mr. Nash said. He looked slightly embarrassed at betraying any familiarity.

“Go!” Miss Charles ordered. Time was wasting.

The parties took separate elevators. During the ascent, James filled Fawn in on his previous visit, and they could hear the hubbub from Mr. Lesley’s suite as soon as they stepped into the thirty-ninth floor corridor. Once again, the hallway drew its share of spectators peeking out their doors.

Despite the ruckus, a bewildering sight kept James and Fawn from barging into the room. A girl was standing outside the door at 3913. More specifically,
three
girls were standing there, but they were all the
same
girl. They each had wavy blond hair like the movie star Jean Harlow, and their backless white dresses contrasted with their bright red lipstick. James figured they couldn’t be over seventeen years old.

“It’s getting good in there,” one of them said.

“I think she’s going to clonk him,” said the second.

“He deserves it,” said the third.

“Who
are
you?” James asked.

“We’re the Godfrey girls,” the first replied.

“We’re triplets,” the second added.

“We’re here to audition for the play,” the third explained. “We’re going to be Dracula’s wives.”

This was more than James could tolerate. The girls were so young, and Mr. Lesley was such a Broadway wolf. He felt he had to do something.

“You can’t,” he said. “I’m calling off the auditions.”

It was a bold announcement, but the Godfrey girls were having none of it.

“Oh, no,” one said.

“Not possible,” said another. “We’re perfect for the parts.”

“No one can do it better,” boasted the third.

“Stop it!”
came a shout from within the room.

Again, three raps from James’s fist.

“Yessss?” came Victor Lesley’s voice.

The actor seemed surprised when five bodies stormed into his sitting room.

“Thank goodness,” said Pepper O’Toole, the actress who had been locked in the room. She was holding a wooden stake and apparently had been contemplating using it. “This old coot was trying to
squeeze
me. I shall not return, Mr. Lesley. Cancel my application.”

“You were a terrible Mina anyway,” Mr. Lesley said. He did not seem to be in an encouraging mood.

He perked up when he noticed the Godfrey sisters. The three were looking in astonishment at the high ceiling.

“Ladies,”
he said. “Welcome to Broadway. I have the perfect parts for you. I am Victor Lesley, your leading man by day, your bloodsucking lord of the underworld by night.”

He treated them to one of his vampire stage laughs, and the sisters squealed like frightened schoolgirls.

For James, it was all too much. Someone needed to teach this bozo thespian to behave.

“Mr.
Lesley
,” he said, hoping to take control of the situation. “The management can no longer put up with these outbursts from your room. You
must
start treating these young ladies more appropriately. You’ve been disturbing the other guests.”

Victor Lesley rolled his eyes with practiced exaggeration, as he might for a silent film. “Look, Ace,” he said. “I’m a professional, and I know what I’m doing. My methods are not to be questioned.”

For a moment, James didn’t see how he could compel the old fool to act properly, not without calling in Mr. Nash, and then he remembered the bedroom. The scheme might work. He faced Mr. Lesley squarely.

“Downstairs,” James said with all the bravado he could muster, “is a man named Walter Quinn. He’s a newspaperman who
loves
to write stories that embarrass celebrities.”

“I’m yawning,” said Mr. Lesley.

“In your bedroom,” James continued, “is a locked wooden box. You said it contains your greatest secret. I
know
what is in that box.”

“You don’t.”

“I do. I will definitely tell Mr. Quinn if you make it necessary.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would. So here is how things stand. There will be no more disturbances from this room. You must promise not to kiss any more actresses. You can’t squeeze any, and you can’t chase any around the coffee table. Any more problems and Walter Quinn will know all. Deal?”

James tried to maintain a stern look, and he could almost see the thoughts being checked off as the actor weighed his options. Mr. Lesley would reason that there was no way this boy could know the contents of the box in which he kept his spare toupee. It was constantly under lock and key, always had been. And yet, even the suspicion of its contents could ruin him.

The actor pondered the situation until his face turned red, like pressure building in a boiler. He appeared to be about to blow his wig right off his head. “Deal,” he grumbled.

He turned a sour face to the Godfrey triplets. “Ladies,” he said, “let me see your résumés.”

In the hallway after, James couldn’t have been happier. “I so didn’t know if that would work,” he said. He turned to Fawn for approval.

“Masterful,” she said. “What was in the box?”

James grinned. “Hair.”

“Hair?”

“Yep. His backup hairpiece. Victor Lesley, Broadway’s most handsome leading man, has a dome like a watermelon.”

They were both giggling like longtime best friends by the time they reached the elevator.

The Case of the Missing Mummy

The mood was far more somber in Royal Suite assigned to Queen Siti.

At first, Mohammed Bey had questioned the presence of Fawn.

“She’s a most trusted assistant,” James said. “She is of noble birth. I am not allowed to say more.”

James had not planned to bring her to the Egyptian suite, but Fawn had argued that it was on the way back to her own. “You are staying in the
penthouse
,” he had countered to no avail. “
Everything
is on the way back to your suite.”

Mohammed Bey considered the girl. “I suppose it matters little anyway,” he said. “Soon our loss will be known to all the world. Until then, I trust you and your companion to be discreet.”

In a voice racked with shame, Mohammed Bey revealed his secret. “We are mystified,” he told James. “Against all logic, against all our efforts, the mummy of Queen Siti has vanished. We are certain she has been stolen by the most evil of villains.”

Abasi and the other guards stood with their heads hanging. They had been responsible for protecting her.

“I don’t understand,” James said. “Was she left alone?”

“Never, according to Abasi,” Mohammed Bey said. “All four guards were in this salon the entire time. No one entered the bedchamber, and no one exited the bedchamber. They heard nothing. My colleagues and I were dining at the time in your restaurant with the distinguished visitors from the Brooklyn Museum. What they must think of us!”

“May we see?” said James.

Fawn lingered in the salon as James and Mohammed Bey entered the bedchamber, where the golden coffin stood open. The jewelry and other artifacts appeared untouched.

“They didn’t steal the golden coffin?” James said. “Or the jewelry? So this was not a theft motivated by money. Strange!”

“It is most puzzling,” said Mohammed Bey. “The golden casket is worth millions of dollars. Some consider the jewels to be priceless.”

James removed his magnifying glass from his pocket and passed it over the coffin, but he saw no fingerprints to turn over to the authorities, no scratch marks to indicate tampering. The beautiful face of Queen Siti, shaped in gold by craftsmen three thousand years ago, told him nothing.

“This golden container was locked?” he said. “She was removed from here?”

“Ah, on that point that I must make a confession,” said Mohammed Bey. “From nation to nation, religion to religion, modern times to ancient times, there are different customs regarding the handling of the dead. For those of us who serve our most revered ancestors, the custom is to make the dead comfortable. In this situation, our queen was removed from the case in which she travels through the underworld and placed directly upon this fine bed, closely surrounded by her favorite possessions. In the morning, after an easy night’s repose, she would have been placed back into her protective shell.”

This practice surprised James. An uncovered mummy lying in the open on a hotel bed struck him as a little ghoulish, but it was still a rather mild “infraction” compared to most things that went on behind closed doors at McGrave’s. A hotel that catered to the likes of vampires and werewolves had its secrets.

James noted that the sheet on the bed seemed pristine and undisturbed and that all the artifacts—the sword, the perfume bottles, the jewelry—were lined up perfectly. How could she have been spirited away? The windows looking out onto the Milky Way spray of city lights were sealed tight, as were all windows at McGrave’s. The management wouldn’t want anyone to jump, despite the many excellent reasons that tended to crop up. The guards had not left their posts and were only a room away. No one could have gotten past them. Was some strange magic at work?

“Do you have any guesses who might have done this? Or why?” James asked.

“Who can say? Perhaps some blackguard wishes to hold Queen Siti for ransom, for even more money than a golden coffin or exquisite jewelry might earn. Or some political enemy of our country wishes to embarrass our government. Or some crazed collector wishes to acquire her for his private museum. Who knows how many forms of villainy walk the land?”

James could not imagine how the theft had been accomplished. He tried to picture the queen lying there, her body washed three thousand years ago in palm wine and Nile water and then tightly wrapped in thin strips of linen bandages, her arms folded across her bosom. Had she enjoyed her first night of sleep in New York City, only to be interrupted by a thief in the night? Was it a single burglar or a whole gang? How did they accomplish it? Why did they do it?

Fawn joined him in the bedchamber and ran her fingertips across the sheet covering the bed. She too seemed to ponder how such a perfect snatch could have occurred.

Their eyes met, and it pleased James that Fawn perfectly understood, from a raise of his eyebrow, his silent question:
“Did you see anything out there?”
They were a team.

“The bathroom looked fine,” she said. “Very clean. And there are some nice books in the guest library. But nothing suspicious.”

“We must of course alert the authorities,” said Mohammed Bey. “Your local police, the FBI, and our agencies in Europe and Africa. It is a crime of international proportion. The sooner we begin searching for her, the sooner we may recover her.”

“Please, sir,” said James. “It is always better if we search the premises first. There is a newsman in the building who is already interested in you and your colleagues. It would not do for him to tumble upon this story, which would almost certainly happen if we alert the authorities. He has friends in those circles. Please, let us consult with Mr. Nash first. It is often surprising what a clear head can see.”