Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (53 page)

B
eatrice was still standing there when Mitch got back with Henry in tow. She'd turned on the floor lamp and also lit a white candle in a brass holder on the table between the two windows, laying the match book down as they opened the door.

Henry checked. "Mrs. Patton?"

"Someone took your wards down," she said, turning around briskly. "Nothing looks disturbed, but I wouldn't know, would I?"

"Does anything look out of place, Henry?" Mitch asked.

"Not that I can see." Henry turned around, his gaze raking over the glass fronted book cases, the desk with its pristine green blotter. "But normally I wouldn't be in here until day after tomorrow. No reason to be here tonight, and tomorrow I'll be at Grand Central first thing in the morning for the beginning of the race. Since I'm already over there and I've got an office off the shop, I probably wouldn't be in here at all. I'd just work over there tomorrow." He reached down and pulled on the desk drawers. "Still locked," he said.

"That doesn't mean anything," Mitch said.

Henry gave him a sharp look. "I know that," he said, fishing his keys out of his pocket and opening the drawer. Mrs. Patton looked politely away as he pulled out a sheaf of currency and counted it. He unlocked the lower drawer and rummaged around in it as well. "Everything's here," he said.

"What's in the drawers on the other side?" Mitch asked.

Henry opened them. "For your inspection, Captain?" Stationary, envelopes, two bottles of fountain pen ink, a box of paperclips...

"Office supplies," Mitch said with disappointment.

"This is my office," Henry said. "I keep office supplies in my desk drawers."

"And very sensible of you too," Beatrice said.

"I like to think of myself as a sensible man."

"Is there any other place you keep valuables?," Mitch asked.

Henry shot him a sharp look, but Beatrice appeared unperturbed. "I'll check," he said, moving aside a picture on the northwest wall to reveal the door of a safe.

It was closed and locked, but Beatrice frowned. "Mr. Kershaw," she began, but Henry was already dialing the combination, his body blocking them from seeing.

The door swung open and Mitch looked. Several envelopes of currency like the ones in his desk drawer and a couple of small velvet boxes from jewelers.

"It's not here," Henry said. He lifted everything out, then put it back, four envelopes, three small boxes.

"What isn't?" Beatrice asked.

"My wife's necklace. Well, not really her necklace yet. I hadn't given it to Mabel. For some damned good reasons." Henry turned around, his brows knitting. "It was in a black velvet jewelry box about so big." His hands sketched a rectangle the size of a cigarette case, small enough to fit easily in a pocket.

Mitch blew out a breath. "Diamonds? What kind of necklace?"

Henry shook his head, still shuffling the other boxes in his hands, opening one to make certain the contents were inside, revealing a stunning ruby necklace in the style of the turn of the century. "It's Berlin Iron."

"But that's not terribly valuable," Beatrice said. "Certainly not compared to those rubies."

"Antique," Henry said. "And no, not so valuable in itself, but it was beautiful."

"I have no idea what Berlin Iron is," Mitch said. "Somebody help me out here."

Henry opened a ring case, checking an elaborate sapphire and pearl ring.

"During the Napoleonic Wars, Queen Louise of Prussia asked women to give their jewelry to the war effort," Beatrice said. "They were supposed to donate their gold and jewels to help defeat Napoleon and instead wear ornaments of iron. Some of the pieces were absolutely beautiful — very delicate flowers and leaves and tracery wrought very fine in iron — heavy as fetters and strong as cannon, but looking like delicate roses or lilies or acanthus leaves." She smiled a sideways smile. "I had one myself, a long time ago. Steel flowers."

"It was gorgeous," Henry said shortly. "The jeweler said it came from an estate sale in New Orleans and that it had been in the family for a century."

"But you hadn't given it to Mabel yet?" Beatrice asked. "You were saving it for a special birthday or anniversary?"

Henry shook his head. "I hired a guy to look into its history. A researcher, not a PI. I wanted to be able to tell Mabel a little more about its provenance."

Mitch nodded. Henry might pretend to just be interested in planes and money, but he knew an awful lot about archaeology and classical history for a layperson, just as Mitch did. It came with the Lodge work. It didn't surprise Mitch that Henry would have wanted to know exactly what the story was behind the necklace. "What did he find?" Mitch asked.

Henry took a deep breath. "The necklace is supposed to be cursed. The legend is that it belonged to a Prussian noblewoman killed by French hussars for her jewels, and that one of them looted the necklace and brought it to New Orleans. However, a few years later his wife was murdered, supposedly by voodoo. After that it went to their daughter when she was grown, but the first night she wore the necklace at a ball she was found dead in the morning, her throat cut. Both of her sisters were died in the next few years under mysterious circumstances. After that nobody wore the necklace for a long time, but about forty years ago one of the descendants did. A few weeks later she was strangled to death and her murder was never solved. The necklace was pretty well known in New Orleans and so was the story of the curse, so some later descendant sold it to a jeweler on the west coast who'd never heard of it." He took a deep breath. "Every woman who wears it dies by violence. So I wasn't about to give it to Mabel. I put it in the safe and kept it locked up. The curse only activates if a woman wears it. As long as nobody does, I figured that was as good a place for it as any."

"Oh boy," Mitch said.

Henry gave him a sharp look. "Well? You're Southern. Do you think the curse is for real?"

"Henry, I'm from eight hundred miles northeast of New Orleans," Mitch said. "My people are Moravian, not French. You might as well ask a Navajo as me, or some Scandinavian from Minneapolis!" Something felt wrong even as he said it, like he'd heard this story before somewhere, only he couldn't remember where. He might have been in New Orleans once. He wasn't sure. It all belonged to that period he didn't remember and didn't try to. Maybe somebody had told him about it. Maybe that was it.

Mitch shook his head. Beatrice was talking and he'd missed the first part of it. "...if you still had the necklace, my husband could have a look at it. He's fairly good with reading artifacts."

"If I still had the necklace it wouldn't matter," Henry said. "The problem is that it's been stolen." He reached for the telephone on his desk. "I'm going to call the police."

"That's probably best," she said.

Henry picked up the receiver. "Mitch, will you go find Miss Patterson and tell her to ask the security guy at the gate not to let anyone out? If somebody stole the necklace they're going to try to leave as soon as they can. Nobody leaves until the police get here. Got it?"

"Got it," Mitch said. The story prickled at him still, but he shook it off, trying to keep the strangeness at bay. He had a job to do about a real thing, a burglar who'd cracked Henry's safe. That was a job for the police. Probably some jewel thief had bagged the necklace earlier during the party and was standing around with it in his pocket waiting to waltz out at the end of the night. The police would catch him and that would be the end of it.

A
lma and Lewis were talking to another set of reporters. Or rather, Alma was explaining the technical aspects of the Kershaw Terrier's superiority to the Ford Trimotor while Lewis stood behind her glowering and the reporters' eyes glazed over. Presumably they wanted some kind of better story about an air race than a discussion of the planes.

"How long have you been married, ma'am?" one of them asked.

It was a matter of public record, and no sense dodging a factual question. "A little more than a year," Alma said. "Now, the Trimotor is smaller than the Terrier, but almost the same weight. One of the advantages of the Kershaw Terrier from the point of view of the owner of a passenger service is that you can seat two more passengers comfortably on the Terrier and have the weight of the plane be equivalent. Weight equals fuel consumption, gentlemen."

"How did you and Mr. Segura meet?"

"At an airshow when he was looking for work," Alma said shortly. "And fuel consumption equals range. In other words, the longer a plane can fly without needing to stop and refuel, the more efficiently it can move passengers."

"And you and Mr. Sorley have known each other for a long time?"

"Mr. Sorley is my partner in Gilchrist Aviation," Alma said. "Mitchell and my first husband founded the company."

"Is Mr. Sorley married?" another reporter put in.

"You will have to address your personal questions to him," Alma snapped, and then thought better of it. The last thing Mitch wanted to be asked was why he wasn't married. "But he is not."

The reporter scribbled something in his notebook.

Lewis shifted protectively. "I don't see why you're asking these personal questions," he said. "It's disrespectful."

"No disrespect of a lady intended," the reporter said, touching the brim of his hat. The other one scribbled something else. "Just a little human interest." He broke off, his head lifting. There was the distant sound of a police siren.

Lewis turned too, ears pricking like a hound.

"It's getting closer," one of the reporters said.

Indeed it was. The cypress trees along the side of the pool were suddenly washed in blue light as the police car turned into the circular drive. No, cars. There were two.

Alma frowned.

"I wonder what's going on?" Lewis asked. The reporters had already started shouldering their way through the crowd without a word of goodbye.

A tall fair haired man in evening dress who had been standing with his back to them in the next group turned around. "I don't know, but if there's trouble my wife is probably in the middle of it." A snake ring twined around the middle finger of his right hand next to a heavy class ring, a Lodge of some sort, Alma thought, though not one she was immediately familiar with. It was no real surprise that Henry would have guests from a variety of traditions.

Alma refrained from commenting about who else was likely to be in the middle of it. "Let's go see," she said to Lewis, offering him her arm.

The tall man looked amused. "By all means. Let's see if she's eloped with a movie star or looted the Vatican or is fighting a duel with Errol Flynn."

"Is Errol Flynn here?" Lewis asked, an expression of almost comical dismay on his face.

"Not that I've seen," Alma said.

"I expect he runs with a faster crowd," the other man said.

"Surely your wife doesn't usually fight duels or loot the Vatican," Lewis said as they maneuvered through the crowd.

"There was the incident with the leper colony," he replied cheerfully. "But I don't think she's fought any duels lately."

Four uniformed police officers were crowding into the foyer of the house, one plain clothes detective with them, as Henry elbowed his way through to them. "Thanks for coming so quickly, boys," he said.

"Sure thing, Mr. Kershaw," the detective said, scanning the crowd with very blue eyes, as though he were already looking for a guilty party. He didn't look around at the officers with him. "Don't let anybody leave."

One woman let out a squeak. "There's been a murder! Oh my God, Stanley! There's been a murder!"

"I'm afraid not," Henry said calmly. "But someone has cracked my safe and stolen some very valuable jewelry."

"That's why I always keep mine in the bank," a woman behind Alma said to her companion. "So much more secure."

"A jewel thief?" The reporter started scribbling again. "High society jewel thief strikes Hollywood party...."

Mitch came down the hall from the office accompanied by a woman a little older than Alma in a green dress, tiny next to Mitch's bulk as he stood across the corridor like a guard.

"No one but Mr. Kershaw has touched the safe," she said to the detective. "So you can dust for fingerprints."

The man beside Alma let out a resigned sigh. "And there's my wife now."

"We know how to do it, ma'am," the detective said. "Mr. Kershaw, can you show us the safe?"

"Of course," Henry said, starting to move down the hall. The entire crowd followed.

The detective looked around. "Without the whole party, people. Just Mr. Kershaw."

"And these two," Henry said, gesturing to the woman and Mitch. "They're the ones who found it disturbed."

"You two, then." The detective and one officer accompanied Henry and the others down the hall toward the office.

Alma let out a sigh. "Just like Henry," she said to Lewis. "Trust Henry to get burgled on the eve of the air race!"

The tall man dropped his voice. "It's great publicity, isn't it?"

Alma blinked. "Henry would never...."

"Set himself up? For the jewelry to be found in some innocent place tomorrow?" His mouth twisted in a half smile. "No harm done, just an honest mistake? And a big newspaper headline?"

"Well...." Alma couldn't say that was entirely unlikely.

Lewis shrugged. "It doesn't really matter to us," he said. "Not one way or another."

"Except that Mitch has gotten himself tied up in a police investigation," Alma said. "When we need him fresh for the start tomorrow. Honestly, if he has to go downtown and talk to the police all night!"

The tall man looked at her keenly. "You must be Henry's team."

"We're the Gilchrist Aviation team," Alma said proudly. "We're flying a Kershaw Terrier."

"The three of you?"

"And our passenger, Dr. Jerry Ballard. You know all the planes have to carry a passenger."

"Where is Jerry anyway?" Lewis asked. "I haven't seen him in an hour."

"I have no idea," Alma said, glancing around, though Jerry didn't seem to be part of the crowd milling around in the house.