McGrave's Hotel (10 page)

Mohammed Bey whispered briefly with his friends, then turned back to James. “Very well, Master James,” he said. “We shall retire to our own rooms. I must make a transoceanic radiotelephone call to inform my superiors. Only later will we contact the officials. This must be soon. You have until morning.”

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave

Under the circumstances, it was essential to confer with Mr. Nash immediately, with no time to drop a girl off to her angry father. James and Fawn hurried directly to the Bridal Suite, only to find themselves additions to a heavily populated crime scene.

Detective Dan Durbin was the one in the trench coat smoking a pipe. “Leave no stone unturned, boys,” he said. “It’s shocking, shocking that this poor lady should experience such a tragedy on her wedding night. No bride should suffer so.”

Mr. Nash was the one helping Detective Durbin’s assistants scour the room for clues—under furniture, behind paintings, inside drawers. He rolled his eyes as he spotted James enter the room, as if to say, “Another typical night at McGrave’s!”

Frau Grimm was the one lying on her back in the large bed, wailing, a white-gloved forearm across her eyes. “Oh, why did this happen to me? He was such a wonderful man.”

And, “The security in this hotel is appalling. I shall speak to my attorney.”

And, “Are these the best detectives New York can spare? I know the Mayor personally.”

Rupert Grimm was the one lying dead on the floor in striped pajamas. His head had gone missing, which was presenting a problem to Dr. Otto.

Dr. Otto was the one with the clipboard and the papers. “Hard to fill out a death certificate without positive identification,” he said morosely. “Can’t ID a fellow who has no face. Dental records would be of no use.”

James and Fawn gawked at the body. The neck had jagged tears as though the head had been bitten off. Stringy bits and pieces trailed out of the neck into the pool of blood. A partially smoked cigar lay nearby.

“I saw him earlier in those pajamas,” James whispered to Fawn. “He had a head
then
. Where could it have gone?”

One of the uniformed police officers spoke to Detective Durbin in an aside. He seemed to want to make certain Frau Grimm couldn’t listen in.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I’ve been talking to the station. They ran a background check. Turns out this is the
fourth
husband Frau Grimm has lost on her honeymoon. And the three previous? Each missing a head!”

“Gad, what rotten luck,” said Detective Durbin. “How does the poor lady hold up?”

“All four gentlemen rich as billy-o,” the policeman said. “Millionaires.”

Detective Durbin turned his eyes to the heavens. “Well, thank providence for that,” he said. “At least someone is watching out for her. It doesn’t make up for her losses, but it’s something.”

“But, sir, doesn’t it give you pause?”

“How so, Murphy?”

“I mean, mysterious deaths, millions in inheritance, same modus operandi each time. Doesn’t it make you think she could be
behind
these incidents?”

Detective Durbin chuckled.

“Quite the opposite, Murphy,” he said. “That would be too
obvious
. Think, man, think. If she were the perpetrator, she wouldn’t dare do a husband in the same as before. No, I crossed her off my list straight away. But
someone
is behind these foul deeds, and I’ll get him. You can bank on it. No lawbreaker today can outwit modern criminal science.”

He took a satisfied draw on his pipe like Sherlock Holmes.

Overhearing this interchange, James and Fawn traded incredulous glances. Mr. Nash’s face betrayed a similar look as he placed a hand on their shoulders and drew them to a corner of the room.

“Jim, boy,” he said in a husky whisper. “Sorry you and the young lady had to see this. I should have foreseen the situation and done something to prevent it. Alas, they may call her the Black Widow for good reason.”

“Black widows eat their husbands—” James said.

“On their wedding night,” Fawn finished. “Yech.”

“Surely you don’t think—” James said, glancing toward the body.

“I don’t know what to think,” said Mr. Nash. “This is McGrave’s, after all.”

“Um, about the Egyptians … ” James said. It was indeed McGrave’s, after all. He quickly brought Mr. Nash up to date on the mummy situation.

“What a night,” said Mr. Nash. “I’m pleased you could stall them. Talk to Roderick and the other lads. Search the building from top to bottom. I don’t think anyone could have slipped out with a full-blown mummy in tow. She’s probably still here. Odd that they left the golden coffin and the jewels.”

James didn’t like involving Roderick, but it was a sound plan. Before dealing with Roderick, however, he wanted to take a last look about Frau Grimm’s suite. Perhaps, as was often the case at McGrave’s, he might see something the police had missed.

The first items he noticed were the used glasses and the tray of refreshments he had brought up. Someone had sipped the champagne. Someone had nibbled on the chocolates and fruit, the bread and cheese. Incredibly, the Mason jar was empty.

James told Fawn about the flies.

She recited a popular jingle:
“‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the Spider to the Fly. ‘Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.’”

“No way,” James said. “She
might
have eaten her husband, but nobody eats flies.”

“What about her name?” Fawn said. “That
Frau
business. Do you think she’s a Nazi?”

“I don’t even think she’s human,” James said. “She walks funny.”

“What’s that?” a voice screeched. “Why are so many people still here? Who’s that talking?”

Frau Grimm propped herself up on her pillows. Her face brightened when she saw James. “It’s my little man,” she said. “Oh, look. You’ve brought a friend. How delightful. Come closer,
liebchens
. Let me look at you.”

James had forgotten how wide her slit of a mouth was and how puffy her cheeks were.

“Oh,
liebchens
, you look as if you are sitting on a secret, yes?”

Astonishingly, as she said that, a fat fly flew out of her mouth.

“Shall I guess what it is?”

When a second fat fly emerged from her mouth, it was so startling that Fawn’s hand jumped into James’s.

Her hand was cold, and James didn’t know if this was because she was who she was, Death’s daughter, or because she was simply as frightened as he was. Whatever the cause of the chill, the effect of Fawn’s fingers intertwined with his was enough to make him feel warm all over. He held on tight.

The Restoration

“Roderick, Spats, Joey, and the other guys can help search the building,” James said. He and Fawn were walking in the corridor outside the Bridal Suite. James was still holding her hand. “First we need to get you back to your father. We’re probably already in deep trouble.”

“We are leaving in the morning, James,” Fawn said. “Do you really want me to leave in the middle of an adventure?”

James didn’t want her to leave at all, ever, but he was seriously reluctant to displease her father. “We promised Mr. Wu,” he said. “Plus your dad is way scary.”

“True on both counts.”

James thought it over.
But immediately when dinner is concluded, you will return her here,
he had agreed
.
He came to accept that “immediately” had come and gone. He and Fawn were in trouble, no matter what.

“Okay,” he said. “I guess if we’re this late already, a little later won’t make any difference. We’ve
so
broken the promise. We’ll see the adventure, as you call it, through. Then back to your suite as soon as possible.”

Fawn’s hand gave James’s a grateful squeeze.

That felt nice but did little to quell James’s fear of reckoning with her father. The very thought of Fawn’s father raised so many questions.

“The death of Mr. Grimm,” he said. “Will your father, you know, attend to him?”

“He already has,” said Fawn. “He was there when it happened. No one really sees him, of course, in the moment. He’s but a shadow of himself, a dark feeling.”

“He would know how it happened!” James said. “He would have seen everything.”

“So what is your point?”

“In fact, because the two of you are here in the hotel, it means your father knew it was
going
to happen.”

“Dad doesn’t interfere,” Fawn said. “It isn’t allowed. What he knows is irrelevant. He can’t change things. He can’t influence events after the fact.”

“Still, you’re sure he was there in the Bridal Suite? Tonight?”

“There are always little signs he leaves behind,” Fawn said. “Signs probably only I would recognize because I am used to them. There’s an aftermath, where everything in the room is more still than usual, more quiet, more at peace. Comforting. Like the way your maintenance staff left a white rose with a little bow on it in Queen Siti’s bathroom, next to a gold-plated faucet. I am guessing that tells you the room had been serviced. A nice touch. It’s the same with Dad.”

“Wait a minute!” James said. “You saw a rose in the bathroom tonight? At this hour?”

“Yes,” Fawn said. “But only in the queen’s bathroom. In Frau Grimm’s bathroom, everything was a mess. Goodness knows what went on in there.”

In some dark corridor of his memory, James heard a familiar, eerie squeaking wheel.

“I’m an idiot,” he said suddenly, slapping his forehead. “And you’re a genius.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know where Queen Siti is,” he said. “I know how it happened. She wasn’t snatched at all. She was misplaced!”

Fawn looked at him in astonishment.

“Come on,” said James. “We have to hurry. To the basement!”

In the elevator, for the second time that night, James wished Mr. Clancy could soup up the elevators so they would go faster. Their chamber descended at its steady but let’s-stop-and-smell-the-roses rate.

“It was Mrs. Kobler, the cleaning lady,” he said. “She was servicing the floor where they were guarding Queen Siti. She’s the one who moved her.”

“I don’t understand,” Fawn said. “Why would she do that?”

“She’s terribly nearsighted. I don’t think she ever noticed the mummy. I think she moved the sword and amulets and stuff aside, wrapped up the bedding with the mummy in it, replaced the sheet, and then rearranged the artifacts. She probably stuffed the queen into her hamper with the other linens.”

“What about the guards? Why did they allow her?”

“That’s her secret,” said James. “She’s a mesmerist. Years ago she used to work in vaudeville as Anita, the Girl Svengali. She would invite spectators on stage, hypnotize them, and then put them through a bunch of silly paces. I’m told she was amazing. Anyway, most cleaning ladies have to wait until the guests are out of their rooms to turn them. Not Mrs. Kobler. She quietly walks in, puts any guests into a trance with a few hypnotic gestures, tidies the place up, and then wakes them with a snap of her fingers on her way out the door. They never know she was there. Except, of course, their rooms look really great, and there’s a gift-wrapped rose in the bathroom.”

The elevator wheezed to a halt at the second basement level, where the laundry facilities were kept.

“I hope we aren’t too late,” James said. “We’ve lost precious time.”

James led Fawn along a row of modern electric washing machines. Each featured a large metallic drum on legs that held the main loads. Above these drums, the two horizontal cylinders that defined the wringers seemed to stare at them like faces with grim smiles.

A dozen machines watched them from a row on each side of the aisle, but the only one working was the one at the far end. This basement level was otherwise constructed of gray concrete blocks. A highway of pipes ran overhead.

The two stopped at the only churning washer. They could hear its load oscillating in the sudsy water.

In the adjacent drying area, hanging from rows of clothes lines, freshly laundered white sheets and towels floated in the air like Saturday matinee cartoon ghosts, but James could see no other dirty linens nearby. The only recent load was now in the wash.