World's Greatest Sleuth! (22 page)

“Well, what do you expect? She might seem like a cold fish”—I spread out my arms as if putting myself on display—“but who doesn’t warm to good looks and charm sooner or later?”

“It was actually Gustav she was interested in. Exclusively.”

“Really? I am both puzzled and appalled.” I rubbed my chin as I mulled it over. “And maybe relieved.”

“Enough tomfoolery,” Old Red said. “It’s our turn.”

He didn’t need to say any more than that. My brother handles the deducifying in our little partnership, while recapitulations, banter, and walloping people are usually left to me. If it was time to swap information, then I would be the swapper.

I described what we’d dug up the last few hours: Valmont’s scandal back in France, Boothby Greene’s real name, the conspicuously clean shoes from the Columbian, and, last but certainly not least, the genuine master of disguise who’d taken an inexplicable interest in Urias Smythe.

Diana listened intently, if without reaction, up till this final revelation. After hearing of the Unbearded Man, however, she frowned and furrowed her brow.

“We’ve been focusing all our energies on individuals from the contest group. If the killer has outside allies, though, that means we’re up against some kind of conspiracy.”

“Conspiracy?” Gustav said. “I don’t know if I’d use as fancy a word as that.”

“What other word applies?” Diana replied. “We’ve got two outside parties we can’t account for: the Bearded Man and the Unbearded Man. And someone broke into Curtis’s room and meddled with his things, which tells us his death wasn’t simply the result of an argument gone wrong. There was a specific purpose behind it—a purpose we don’t yet know.”

“Well, if all that makes it a conspiracy, then I guess … you’re…”

Old Red’s words trailed off, and his gaze shifted ever so slightly to the right, so that he was squinting over Diana’s shoulder at one of the island’s dimly lit paths. I could see nothing there but round balls of reddish lantern light and the black, blobby shapes of shrubs and topiary, but from his sudden, rigid stillness, I knew my brother saw something more.

My fingers twitched out of habit, anxious to wrap around the grip of a gun I didn’t have.

“You may as well come on out,” Gustav said. “I reckon you’ve heard just about everything.”

About thirty feet from us, a shadow broke in two. Half seemed to be a rosebush. The other half walked toward us. It was so small, at first I took it for a lost child.

Diana gasped as it drew up close.

“So now you know,” Colonel Crowe said to her. “Your doting old godfather isn’t half as gullible as you like to think.”

“You followed me? Eavesdropped on us?”

“I’d say it was my right when I’m being lied to.”

“Colonel,” Old Red said, and from the muted tone of his voice I knew he was working hard to tamp down his usual tetchiness, “if you were eavesdroppin’, then you know we ain’t makin’ any of this up. Something’s afoot here. Something strange and dangerous.”

Colonel Crowe stepped up to Diana. It looked like he meant to take her by the arm and drag her away, but he stopped beside her instead.

“Yes,” he said. “I grant you that. It seems I was hasty in my judgment this afternoon. Yet that still doesn’t make any of this our business. Diana and I are here to win a contest, not do Sergeant Ryan’s work for him.”

“But if the contest and the
murder
are tied up together, it is your business, sir,” Gustav replied. He paused a moment, giving the colonel a chance to dispute that “murder,” but the little man said nothing. “And if the points start pilin’ up the wrong way, who’s to say Curtis is the only one who’s gonna end up dead?”

“It’s in your own interests to look into this with us,” I threw in. I’m supposed to be the persuasive one of the two of us, so it was purely out of habit. It was also a big mistake.

The colonel’s expression instantly soured. “I’m surprised you’d want any assistance from ‘the kind of military mind that could make Custer look like a model of common sense and cool-headedness.’ ”

I went numb from head to toe.

Colonel Crowe was quoting one of my own books back to me.

“Oh, well, heh heh, that was just an unfortunate turn of phrase for comical—”

“My brother is a horse’s ass, and for that I apologize,” Old Red said. “That don’t change the situation, though. We’d all be better off if we worked together.”

Colonel Crowe just stewed for a moment (while I fumed over that “horse’s ass” crack).

“I’ll think about it,” the colonel finally said, and at last he did wrap an arm around Diana and begin guiding her away.

“Good night, gentlemen,” the lady said.

Before she turned her back to us fully, she favored us with a quick wink.

“That woman,” Gustav said, shaking his head, once the Crowes were gone.

I shook my head, too. “Oh, yeah. That woman.”

My brother threw me a dubious look. “Do you even know what I’m talkin’ about?”

“Sure.” I pointed at the path Diana had just departed on. “That woman.”

Old Red sighed in a way that seemed to call me a horse’s ass all over again.

“What?” I said.

“She knew the colonel would follow her. She wanted him to overhear that conversation. She set up the whole thing so he’d see there’s no hanky-panky between us and we ain’t crazy to say Curtis was murdered.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.”

I pushed back my hat and whistled and said the only thing that seemed to fit the moment.

“That … woman.”

23

PROMISES, PROMISES

Or, We Fail to Hold a Suspect’s Feet to the Fire, and Gustav and I Go Toe-to-Toe

We returned to our
hotel. And aside from one “Shit!” in the midst of a particularly close call with a hard-charging hansom, my brother said nothing.

“Hel-lo!” was the word (or words?) that finally broke his silence. We’d just stepped onto our floor at the Columbian to find two pairs of shoes set out for shining. One was beside a door about halfway down the hall, the other no more than six steps from us.

Gustav pounced on the nearest shoes, snatched one up, and stared down into it.

“We got us a maker’s mark,” he whispered.

When I was close enough to look inside for myself, I saw a circle of words stamped into the dark leather of the insole.

RUGGERO E ROMANO • MILAN

“Italian,” I said, careful to keep my voice low. Most likely, the shoe’s owner could be found lounging on a bed just beyond one very thin door.

My brother grunted, then flipped the shoe over to get a look at the sole. Stuck to it were four blobs of white goo, two on the heel, two closer to the toe. All had been smashed flat into wavy-edged discs about the size of a quarter.

“What the hell is that?” Old Red said softly.

I leaned in and gave the little globules a whiff.

“Juicy Fruit.”

“Oh.”

My brother gave the shoe a smell, too, not restricting himself to the flattened chewing wax. I was just wondering whose aroma he was sampling when Fate handed me the answer. And as is usual with Fate, I’ve found, it didn’t go about it gently.

The door before us swung open, and there stood Frank Tousey gaping down at us.

“What in God’s name are you doing?”

“Admirin’ fine craftsmanship!” I enthused, bolting upright. “You might not believe it, but I’m something of a fashion plate, when finances allow, and I’ve been mighty impressed by your sartorial sense. You, sir, are pure gentleman from head to, quite literally, toe. So I couldn’t resist the urge to learn where you’d acquired such stylish footwear.”

As I spoke, Gustav straightened up beside me and folded his arms across his chest. Tousey looked back and forth between the two of us, the sneer on his face making it clear he regarded the Amlingmeyer brothers with the same esteem one would usually reserve for Juicy Fruit—or worse—stuck to the bottom of one’s fine Italian shoes.

“You were right when you said I might not believe it,” he said. “Because I don’t.”

“You always wear Eye-talian-made shoes?” my brother asked.

Tousey barked out a nasty laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re a fashion plate, too.”

“Nope. Just curious.”

“Well, the answer’s yes.” Tousey pointed at his feet, which were clad in nothing but black socks. “Except when I’m just trying to get to the damn water closet to take a damn piss. Now would you step aside, please?”

I got out of the man’s way.

Old Red didn’t.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to ask, long as we’re havin’ us a chat. Last night, Mr. Curtis said something puzzlin’ about your man Brady: that we should ask him about his birthday. You know what that was all about?”

“Yes,” Tousey said. “It was about Armstrong Curtis being a complete madman. Now
get out of my way
.”

Gustav finally moved aside, and Tousey stepped into the hall, picked up his shoes, and tossed them into his room. Then he closed his door—and pulled out a key and locked it, for good measure.

“You know,” he said, “if you two had one brain between you, you’d forget about Curtis and concentrate on the contest. Because in case you hadn’t noticed, nobody but you is in any hurry to stir up a stink the last week of the Columbian Exposition. If—
if
—that Sergeant Ryan decides Curtis had help smothering himself, you can bet the Exposition board, Mayor Harrison, and probably Grover goddamn Cleveland wouldn’t want him saying so until after the Fair’s … oh, forget it. I’m about to bust.”

He hustled down the hall toward the WC. My brother just stood there watching him, silent and still.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” I asked.

“I’m hopin’ he don’t make it.”

Tousey reached the end of the hall, pivoted stiffly, and fairly threw himself into the privy.

“Oh, well,” Old Red said. “Let’s get a look at them other shoes.”

They were outside Smythe’s door, they were high-sided black-and-white button-ups, and they were not, it turned out, Italian.

No, they were English, the products of (embossing on the sole told us)
GUNDRY & SONS, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON
.

“Damn,” Gustav sighed. “Don’t nobody make nothin’ this side of the Atlantic anymore?”

I brought up a fist and let it hover a couple inches from the door.

“Shall we ask Smythe what he’s got against American shoes? We could throw the Bearded Man in his face, too. About time we asked about that note.”

Old Red thought it over a moment, then jerked his head at the other end of the hall, back toward our rooms. He didn’t speak till we were both well away from Smythe’s door.

“You saw how Tousey bluffed his way past us. Let’s not waste our ammunition on Smythe till we got him dead to rights.”

“Dead to rights doin’ what?”

“Whatever it is he’s doin’,” Gustav said with a shrug. “In the meantime, might as well call it a night.”

He stopped before his door. I did, too.

“I’ll take first watch,” I said as he pulled out his key.

Old Red froze. “What makes you think we’re bunkin’ together?”

“The fact that there’s most likely a murderer a door or two down, and he no doubt knows we been sniffin’ around after him.”

“Our doors got locks.”

“So did the one to Mr. Curtis’s room. So did that window into the Agriculture Building. A lock ain’t nothing to bet our lives on—and you’d admit that yourself, if you weren’t so stubborn.”

“I ain’t bein’—”

“Yes, you are. You’re bound and determined not to talk about them cheaters of yours. So much so, you were about to make a fool mistake just to avoid it. Well, if it’ll keep you from slittin’ our throats for us, I’m willin’ to make a deal: no questions about your eyes tonight.”

My brother squinted at me a moment before heaving a mighty sigh. “Promise?”

“You got my word.”

“Fine.” Old Red opened the door. “But if you break it,
I’ll
kill you.”

Soon after, he was stretched out on the bed, while I was on the floor with my guidebook and a useless Peacemaker. (Well, the shiny new Colt that came with Mr. Cohn’s cowboy costume wasn’t
entirely
useless. We had no bullets for it, true, but the ivory handle would make a fine club, if need be.)

“Night,” I said.

“Night.”

I let a minute pass. Then another. Then another.

Just when I heard my brother’s breathing deepen, catch in his chest in that raspy way that would soon be snores, I spoke again.

“Funny thing about promises, though…”

“Christ. Here we go.”

“A few months back, you promised there’d never be any lies between us again. Yet then you up and lied about your eyes.”

“I never lied about that.”

“Oh?”

“No. I just … let you make some assumptions.”

“Like thinkin’ you was still hurtin’ when you really weren’t?”

There was a long pause.

“Yeah. I coulda got rid of them glasses a week ago.”

“Why didn’t you?”

There was an even longer pause.

“Hey, I’m on watch here,” I said. “If you’re waitin’ for me to fall asleep, it ain’t gonna work. So you’d best just answer me: Why?”

Gustav mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“I said, I don’t know!”

Of course, that’s an old dodge, “I don’t know.” It usually means “I don’t want to say.” Yet I could tell my brother meant it. He was as baffled by himself as by any mystery he might set out to solve.

“Theorize, then,” I said. “Guess.”

To my surprise, Old Red tried.

“I reckon maybe … I liked havin’ a reason to fail. An excuse. If this detectivin’ thing don’t work out, you know what we got to fall back on.”

“Sure. Nothing.”

“I was gonna say droverin’, but yeah. Same thing. We ain’t got no jobs, no family, no home. If I can’t give us any of that again … I guess I didn’t want it to be cuz I just wasn’t good enough.”

Good God, do my ears deceive me?
I almost scoffed.
Old Red Amlingmeyer, the Holmes of the Range … humble?

This wasn’t the Holmes of the Range I was hearing, though. It wasn’t even Old Red Amlingmeyer. It was just Gustav, my brother, stretching his neck out like a tortoise leaving its shell. And I’m glad it wasn’t Big Red Amlingmeyer who answered him. It was his little brother Otto.