Secret of the White Rose (32 page)

I downed my espresso, savoring its rich aftertaste, ordered another, and began to go through the files Frank had lent me. Article by article, I soon pieced together the story in more detail than the legal archives had allowed.

By all accounts, Leroy Sanders was an expert carpenter who had found ready work up until the day of his arrest. As a tradesman in the Adams family home, he had almost immediately come under suspicion after young Sally Adams first disappeared, then turned up dead, “discarded like a used doll in an outhouse,” as the paper had said. It was the evidence that Harry Blotsky had provided at the last moment—that Leroy went walking with the girl away from the house—that had convicted him. The final article mentioned that only Mrs. Leroy Sanders had been present at his sentencing; he had been lucky to escape a death sentence in favor of a life term at Auburn Prison. Mrs. Sanders had left the courtroom in tears, insisting that Leroy’s conviction was wrongful. “My Leroy is a peaceful man,” she had said. “He loves his family and his music.”

Reading that, my breath caught and the pit in my stomach grew larger as I thought of the musical ciphers each victim had received. Remember Leroy. A lover of music. They now had added significance in my mind.

I turned my attention to my cannoli, which I’d not touched. I devoured it so fast I barely tasted it. The three murders had to do with the killer’s belief that Leroy had been wrongfully convicted of murder; that motive was now clear. But who cared so deeply about this case from long ago? Who had the means and opportunity to plan and execute these killings? And what connection was there to the anarchists?

I scraped my plate with my fork, watching as an electric cab drove past on the street in front of me.

I sat up—and dropped my fork—for it immediately came to me.

The electric cab at the Dakota.

It had taken Alistair’s luggage to its destination. And while Alistair’s horse-drawn hansom cab had been hailed off the street, the electric motorcar had been ordered in advance. The company no doubt had a record of the fare.

I pushed back my chair, got up, and ran to the counter. “Do you have telephone service here?” I asked the gruff, whiskered man who ran the coffee machines.

He turned his back to me. “Not for customers.”

I pulled out my detective badge. “For official police business.”

“Well, in that case.” He motioned me toward a small back office where a black candlestick telephone sat on the desk.

I picked up the receiver. “New York Transportation, please.”

I drummed my fingers in anticipation, waiting for the operator to make the connection.

The moment she did, my words tumbled out in a rush. “On Wednesday, you picked up a fare at the Dakota—a luggage trunk, billed to Alistair Sinclair. I need to know where that trunk went.”

The woman on the other end must have recognized the urgency in my tone; she didn’t bother to ask for my credentials. She disappeared from the line for several minutes and returned.

“Sir, that cab took the trunk to Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. The Waldorf Hotel.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. We noted it clearly in our log.”

I thanked her, called Isabella to meet me, and then grabbed my files before sprinting the eight blocks downtown to where Alistair was apparently in hiding.

I had to admit the irony of it: in dire straits, Alistair had turned not to friends or family, or even to one of the seedy hotels downtown where my own father often sought anonymity after a bad night at the tables. Alistair had chosen the Waldorf as his place of refuge. It was an absurd choice. But leave it to Alistair to manage a course of action that was both foolhardy and at the same time brilliant—simply because no one in his right mind would ever think of it.

CHAPTER 26

The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. 6
P.M.

“There’s no one here by that name, sir.” A young man with tousled brown hair frowned after examining the register. “Definitely no Sinclair registered here. Perhaps you have the wrong hotel?”

“He would have checked in Wednesday,” I said, insistent. “Late afternoon, between four and five o’clock. He may not have used his own name.”

The clerk’s hazel eyes grew wide. “But I can’t possibly check the record of every guest who checked in Wednesday afternoon. We’re the largest hotel in the world; we register over fifteen hundred guests a day.”

I didn’t move.

He scratched his chin. “Of course, I can try. Maybe you’ll recognize one of the names.”

“Try the Astoria section first,” Isabella said, adding for my benefit, “It’s newer and more luxurious.”

He rustled through his register, then began reciting names.

Jacques Rimes.

Anthony Black.

Hugh Stowe.

John Rhys.

We shook our heads. Maybe this just wasn’t going to work. I scrambled to think of other options—from questioning the maid staff to tracking down the specific bellhop who delivered his luggage—as the clerk ran through more choices.

Edward Graham.

James Warble.

Hans Enrico.

Isabella grabbed my arm with excitement. “That’s it.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. The name meant nothing to me.

She nodded. “It’s the perfect alias Alistair would choose. The names of his two criminology mentors.”

“What room is Mr. Enrico in?” I asked the clerk.

“Number sixteen twenty-one. The Astoria section of the hotel. To reach the elevator, you’ll pass through Peacock Alley.” He pointed. “The passageway to the left.”

Isabella thanked him, then rushed with me to the elevator, explaining on the way. “You see, they were two hotels until recently—the Waldorf and the Astoria, owned by two Astor cousins, William and John Jacob. Now they’re connected into one large hotel.”

“By this passageway?” I asked, glancing at the blue and gold decorations around us—no doubt the inspiration for the term “Peacock Alley.”

“Exactly. Now, let’s hurry.”

At the elevator bank, an impassive attendant in a stiff blue and gold uniform pressed the buttons that would take us up to the eighteenth floor. The small elevator, stuffy with hot air, seemed to move at a snail’s pace before finally lurching to a stop.

We raced down the hallway until we reached the cream-painted door at the end adorned with number 1621 in brass.

I rapped three times, then called out, “Alistair! Open up.”

No response.

I knocked again, louder this time. “Alistair.”

Two doors down, an elderly lady in a stiff pink satin gown opened her door and stared at us. “Sir, really,” she said with an imperious glance, “the concierge downstairs is available to help you with any problem.” Then she closed her door with a slight snap.

“Let me try,” Isabella said with a nervous glance farther down the hallway. “You’re just going to generate noise complaints.”

She knocked on the door herself: a series of short, brisk raps. “Alistair, it’s me, Isabella. You’ve got to let us in. We know you’re in there; we’re here to help you.”

We were rewarded with only more silence.

“It’s no good,” I said. “We’re going to have to find someone on staff with a key.”

Isabella held up a finger, continuing to talk. “We have information you need to know. About Allan Hartt. About why you and other members of the Bellerophon Club have been targeted.”

We heard heavy footsteps approaching the door.

Alistair swung it open and stared, angry and belligerent. “How the hell did you find me? And what do you know about the Bellerophon Club?”

His words were slurred and he was a disheveled mess—unbathed and unshaven, stinking of liquor, and wearing a stained, untucked shirt. He blocked the doorway, but I pushed my way inside past him. Isabella followed, and I caught her sharp intake of breath when she saw the room itself—for Alistair had managed to transform one of the Waldorf-Astoria’s finest suites into something that resembled a pigsty.

The plush blue-and-gray-patterned carpet was littered with scotch bottles. Though most were now empty, a handful contained liquor that had spilled and created dark stains on the carpet. At least ten silver trays, stacked with dirty plates of half-eaten food, were strewn about the room. Alistair’s luggage trunk sat to the left, closed and untouched. But newspapers and his personal writings were everywhere.

“What is going on?” I asked, my eyes blazing in anger. “You sit here, holed up, while we are searching all over for you. You left word at Columbia that you would be at a legal conference in Boston. Why did you lie?” I kicked an empty scotch bottle out of my path as I made my way into the room. “Why didn’t you say anything to us?”

He leaned in close and his breath was foul with stale liquor. “I trust no one. They’re trying to kill me.”

“You might have trusted
me,
” Isabella said. “Family doesn’t do this to each other. Or, at least they shouldn’t.”

Alistair’s clear blue eyes momentarily clouded. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Never mind our worrying; think of the progress we’d have made if you’d only talked with us,” Isabella said, her voice rising. “Instead, we wasted days figuring out your predicament for ourselves.”

“You might have saved yourselves the trouble,” he said, grumbling. “I don’t want you involved. I can handle this on my own.”

“Just like Hugo Jackson thought he could?” I demanded. “Or Angus Porter? Or Allan Hartt?”

Alistair blanched, sinking onto the bed. “Allan Hartt’s not—”

I didn’t mince words. “You’re the only one left. This killer is coming for you. And if we’re going to stop him, we need your help.”

“But I don’t
know
anything.” He got up yet again and started pacing back and forth. “If I did, I wouldn’t be holed up here.”

I removed a pile of papers Alistair had set on an upholstered ottoman, then I sat and spoke to him more calmly. “Alistair—what, exactly, are you doing here?”

He collapsed into the high-backed paisley chair next to the desk. “Trying to figure out why someone wants to kill me.”

“And you have no idea?”

He hung his head. “None whatsoever.”

I gave him a sharp look. “Then let’s put together what all of us know. I’ll start.” I went on to detail all I’d uncovered about Leroy Sanders, saying, “The root of this murder plot seems to originate in the Sanders trial. Someone believes the four of you are responsible for what was—in the killer’s view—an erroneous conviction.”

He sat back, deflated. “I’m impressed, Ziele. You discovered more than I ever thought possible about a decades-old case.”

“All of which you might have told me, instead of wasting my time and endangering your life.”

“As I said, I didn’t want you involved.”

“Blast it, Alistair,” I said, “you involved me the moment you brought me into the Jackson investigation. For that, you might have trusted me more.”

I forced my rising anger back under control, then said, more calmly, “Now tell me about the musical ciphers. You used them in law school as part of your final club.”

“Yes,” he said with a sigh. “A form of secret communication for club members. We concocted it … I don’t even remember why. We were young and wanted to prove how smart we were by inventing a secret language.”

“How could the blackmailer know this?”

His face flushed with embarrassment. “You know about the blackmail?”

“We do,” I said.

He dropped his face into his hands and was silent for several moments. “I’ve no idea,” he said, his voice hoarse with frustration. “I figured it was his way of proving how smart
he
was. He wanted us to know he knew all about us.”

“We thought of that, too. How much did he ask for?”

“Five hundred dollars, usually. Sometimes more. The latest request was for two thousand dollars.”

I whistled. It was over two years’ salary for me. “How often?”

“About twice a year for me. But Hugo apparently received letters more often.”

“And you continued to meet as a group in New York, even after you graduated?”

“We did. The four of us—you’ve already learned that Hugo, Angus, Allan, and I went to the district attorney’s office together—met at the Lawyers’ Club once a week.”

“Why bother, when you weren’t in school?”

He shrugged. “We thought we had all the answers. That we understood the latest in criminal thought, unlike anyone else around us. So we met to discuss the cases we were handling in our offices, with an eye to how we’d do it better.”

“When did you stop?”

“Just before I left the DA’s office. There was no point any longer. Besides, we’d argued—and our friendship had deteriorated because of it.”

“When did the blackmail begin?” Isabella asked, breaking into our conversation.