World's Greatest Sleuth! (17 page)

“And your real name is…?” my brother asked.

The Englishman’s prim smile turned wry.

“Shlomo Lindenbaum.”

From Valmont: “Oh.”

From Gustav: “Ah.”

From me: “Whoa!”

Far be it for a fellow named Otto Albert Amlingmeyer to pass judgment on the mellifluousness of another’s name, but it was a safe bet
The Adventures of Shlomo Lindenbaum
wouldn’t exactly fly off the magazine racks.

We all gave this revelation a moment to sink in, then one by one we turned—Old Red and Shlomo and I—to Eugene Valmont.

“So it is my turn?” The Frenchman heaved a heavy sigh.
“
 
‘L’Affaire des cinq cent diamants.’
That is what M. Curtis was speaking of. ‘The Affair of the Five Hundred Diamonds.’ A great scawn-dell in Frawnce. The details are unimportant—and, for me, unpleasant to relate. But the
point essentiel
is that the case was bun-GELD and, as a result, I did not simply retire from the Sûreté. I resign-NED in disgrass.”

“Disgrass?” Old Red said.

“Disgrace,” I whispered.

“Right. Sorry.”

Valmont shrugged. “
C’est la vie
. I am here to start again. Begin a new life, and begin it well. As is Monsieur…?”

He turned to the man sitting next to him.

“Let’s just stick with Greene, shall we?” Shlomo said.

“Of course. As is M. Greene. And you, too, M. Amlingmeyer. It is in all our interests that the competi-shawn continue. M. Curtis’s death is a tragedy, but it need not be an ob-sta-clay.”

“Ob-sta-clay?” Old Red said.

“Damned if I know,” I whispered.

“Obstacle?” Greene guessed.

“Exactemente.”

My brother let loose with a hmph of his own.

“An inconvenience, you mean,” he said.

Valmont took on a look of doleful dejection. “You make me sound so cold, monsieur.”

“If the shoe fits,” Gustav said, and his eyes met mine as he brought up a finger and lightly scratched the tip of his prodigious nose.

He was giving me a signal. One I wasn’t much looking forward to, either. But Old Red had insisted, so I reluctantly reached into my vest pocket and pulled out my watch.

“Where is everybody, anyway? Must be almost … oops.”

It was a hunter-case watch without a chain, so when I let the springing of the lid pop it out of my fumbling fingers, the little “accident” didn’t look
completely
bogus. Only ninety-five percent. Ninety-nine tops.

The watch hit the carpet and, to my considerable surprise, bounced to a stop between Valmont and Greene’s feet. The surprise being that the thing had actually ended up where my brother wanted it.

“I’ll get it,” Gustav said, and he slid from his seat and went down on his hands and knees.

Which was probably what gave it away, seeing as all he really had to do was ask Valmont or Greene to bend down and pick the watch up. There was no need to go to all fours.

Or linger on them so long.

Or suck in a quick, poorly concealed sniff.

“Monsieur,” Valmont said, “are you smelling my feet?”

“No,” my brother said. “Just picked me up the sniffles since comin’ to…”

He glanced up and found Valmont and Greene staring down at him, the Frenchman cocking an eyebrow and puckering his lips, the Englishman looking like he was biting his to keep from laughing.

“Awwww, hell.”

Old Red pushed himself to his feet and tossed me the watch.

“Told you,” I said.

My brother shot me a “Shut up” glare and dropped back into his seat.

“Yes,” he said to Valmont. “I was checkin’ your shoes. You’ve both had ’em polished since yesterday, ain’t you?”

“Merde,”
Valmont muttered, and if you don’t know French, suffice it to say he was either identifying what my brother was looking for or commenting upon his technique.

“Your persistence does you credit, Mr. Amlingmeyer,” Greene offered more charitably, “but I would point out that this hotel is several blocks from the fairgrounds. At least twice today, we’ve all had to cross busy city streets—and avoid what the carriage horses leave in them so plentifully. It would hardly have been conclusive should you have found what you were looking for.”

Gustav tapped the side of his nose. “Remember what this can do, sir. What I’m lookin’ for came from a cow … and I’ll know if I smell it a third time.”

He threw a meaningful look at the stairs to the guest rooms.

“A
third
time? You mean you’ve come across it here in—?” Greene stopped himself and chuckled. “I see. Nicely played.”

“Ah! Now this is more impressive than your flouderings on the floor,” Valmont said. “More psychologi-KELL. I approve, monsieur! You suggest that you have uncove-AIRED a new clue in the presence of two suspects so you can then watch for any sign of paneek or perhaps await a telling countermove.” He turned to Greene while waving a lazy hand at Old Red. “It is instructive to observe the process of detection from the oth-AIR side,
n’est-ce pas
?”

“I’m so glad to hear you think so,” Gustav shot back, face flushing. “Then you won’t mind tellin’ me where you went after our dinner last night.”

“Yes, by all means, let my education continue,” Valmont said. “I retur-NED to the White City to prepare for the next day’s competi-shawn.”

“Prepare how?”

“I familiari-ZED myself with various notable exhibits, and, when the buildings began to close for the night at nine, I walked the grounds.”

“Which exhibits did you take in?”

“Oh, a display of Remington typewriters, the gunboat
Niagara,
the Tiffany Diamond, a complete collection of the world’s bacteria. I could continue the catalog for fifteen minutes, but
pourquoi
?”

“And in all that time familiarizin’, you never laid eyes on Mr. Curtis or anyone else from the contest?”

“No. I saw no one I recogni-ZED, and I assume no one saw me.”

“Hmmmm. Alright.”

Gustav turned to Greene.

“Allow me to apologize in advance, Mr. Amlingmeyer,” the Englishman said. “I’m afraid my narrative isn’t any more revealing—or self-incriminating—than our esteemed colleague’s. After everyone else left the restaurant, Blackheath-Murray and I headed to the White City so that I might do more ‘familiarizing’ myself. We toured the Fisheries Building, stepped outside for the nightly fireworks, then retired for the night when the fairgrounds closed at eleven. Mrs. Jasinska can confirm that last. For the rest, I’m sorry to say, there is no corroboration I can offer. We didn’t see anyone we knew all night.”

“What about Miss Larson? She was still with you and Blackheath-Murray when me and my brother walked out.”

“I’m afraid we didn’t have the heart for entertaining after our little debacle of a dinner, and the lady departed not long after you did.”

“Hmm.” Old Red looked at Valmont. “You say the buildings over to the Exposition close at nine?”

“Oui.”

“And the grounds close at eleven?” my brother asked Greene.

“That’s correct.”

Gustav threw both men a grimace. “So y’all just wandered around in the dark for two hours before comin’ back to the hotel?”

“It was hardly dark,” Valmont said. “The electrical lighting of the White City is quite magnificent.”

“We’d all had a chance to see how the contest would play itself out, Mr. Amlingmeyer,” Greene added. “Through puzzles requiring a familiarity with the Fair. Our wanderings might seem strange to you, but frankly I find it harder to believe that any of us would have stayed in his room.”

“Bravo, M. Greene. An excellent point.” Valmont turned back to my brother with eyes narrowed to slits. “Is that what
you
claim? That after such a dramatic din-AIR and with so much at stake the next day, you simply went to bed?”

“Well, I—”

“That sounds like a man trying to establish an alibi,” Greene said.

“Oh, that’s—”

“
Oui!
Yes! And then after M. Curtis was found dead, M. Amlingmeyer engaged in a
spectacle ostentatoire
 … a … a…” Valmont spun his hands in the air until the English words came to him. “An ostentatious show meant to establish that he alone was interested in catching the kill-AIR.”

“A transparent attempt to place himself above suspicion,” Greene said.

“
Exactement!
In addition, what are we to make of this mysterious odor that only M. Amlingmeyer can detect?”

“Now, really—”

“He was putting us on a false scent,” Greene said. “Literally.”

Valmont nodded. “It is quite damning. Or would be—”

“If we actually thought Mr. Curtis had been murdered,” Greene finished for him.

The two sleuths grinned at each other.

Old Red fumed.

Usually he was the clever one, the crafty one, the one tripping folks up with words. Yet with less than a minute of effort, Valmont and Greene had just deduced circles around him. Never had I seen the tables turned on my brother with such complete and obvious ease.

This, I realized, was what it would look like to go up against a killer who knew more about detectiving than we did—a professional as opposed to talented amateurs like ourselves. If mystery-solving’s truly a game, as Valmont had said at dinner the night before, then there was one conclusion I couldn’t escape.

We were out of our league.

18

THE TEMPEST

Or, Pinkerton’s Get-together Just About Blows Apart

My brother didn’t have
much time to seethe over Valmont and Greene’s little humiliation. King Brady came through the hotel’s front doors and (after pausing by the front desk to let Mrs. Jasinska bat her eyes at him) joined us in the lobby. He still looked a tad addled and ashen, as he had atop the Mammoth Cheese, but he managed to smooth away the jitters by the time he slipped into a seat across from me and Gustav.

There was some small talk along the “Where’s Pinkerton and what’s he going to say?” line, but my brother didn’t join in. He just stared at Brady, seeming to perk up every time the man crossed or uncrossed his legs. I noticed his nostrils flare a few times, too, so by the time he reached up and scratched the end of his nose—giving me the signal to drop my watch again—I was ready.

I shook my head.

Old Red scratched harder.

I shook harder.

Gustav clawed at his big beak with such vigor I’m surprised his mustache didn’t fly off.

“Excuse me, Mr. Brady,” I said. “Would you mind if my brother smelled your shoes?”

“What?”

Brady gaped first at me, then at Old Red.

Valmont rolled his eyes.

Greene shook his head, his mouth puckered tight.

“It won’t take but a second,” Gustav sighed, and without waiting for permission, he went down on his knees before Brady, lifted up the man’s right foot, and pointed at a chunk of brown crud wedged against the heel of his shoe. “Thought so. You’ve been in a cow pen.”

Brady jerked his foot away. “So what if I have?”

Valmont’s eyes stopped rolling and started bulging.

“You have?” Greene said.

“Would you mind?” Brady snapped at Gustav, who was still kneeling at his feet.

My brother got up and plopped back in his own chair.

“You paid a call on some Herefords today,” he said. “Mind tellin’ us why?”

“Because that’s where Curtis sent me. My second clue in the contest today was hidden in the Stock Pavilion.”

Old Red nodded, a familiar, faraway look coming over him. Inside his head, enough gears were turning to do Tom Edison proud.

“That explains why Curtis was over by them pens last night,” he muttered. “He was tuckin’ away Brady’s envelope for today.”

“Which tells us how the you-know-who came to follow him there,” I said.

Gustav nodded, gazing off at nothing.

“So why didn’t the you-know-who you-know-what him right then and there?” I asked. “I don’t imagine there was a crowd around the livestock in the dead of night. It would’ve been the perfect place to do the deed. Wallop him upside the head and make it look like a cow kicked him. Spook the cattle and flatten him. Smother him in plop instead of cheese. There would’ve been a dozen ways to get it done. Why carry on to the Agriculture Building and do it there?”

I half-expected the standard reply, courtesy of Mr. Holmes: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” Yet Old Red just shook his head again.

He had data. He was
trying
to theorize. Those gears of his weren’t running smooth, though—the facts were grinding against each other like clockwork knocked out of synch. It was a wonder smoke wasn’t coming out of his ears.

A sudden commotion kicked up by the front door, and we all turned to find our missing colleagues coming into the hotel in a herd. Some conversation amongst them was already well under way—and some fracas close at hand.

A couple fracases, actually. William Pinkerton and Colonel Crowe and Urias Smythe were going ’round and ’round about something, while Blackheath-Murray traded snarls with Frank Tousey. Miss Larson, meanwhile, was off to the side, furiously taking notes.

Watching them approach took me back to my childhood in Kansas and the times I spotted twisters bearing down on the farm. Only this time there was no storm cellar to flee to.

“—only thinking of yourself—!”

“—put this insanity behind us—!”

“—taking advantage of a man’s death—!”

“—make amends for your duplicity—!”

“—save ourselves from utter ruin—!”

The hullaballoo drew the last of our party into the lobby: Diana and Detective Sergeant Ryan. They came strolling in together looking so perfectly pleased and at ease, I almost expected to see a picnic basket dangling from Ryan’s crooked arm.

Without ever letting up his carping at Pinkerton, the colonel collected his adopted daughter and steered her to a divan as far from me and my brother as possible while still keeping himself within shouting range.

“Is anyone gonna bother tellin’ us what the heck is goin’ on?” Gustav asked.

I don’t think anyone heard him but me.