McNally's Secret (5 page)

“Is he straight?” I asked.

“As far as I know.”

“Thanks, Al. You’ve been a big help. I’ll take it from here.”

He stared at me. “Why do I have this antsy feeling that I haven’t heard the last of the Inverted Jennies?”

“Beats me,” I said, shrugging. “I can’t see why the Department should get involved.”

“The last time you told me that, I ended up in a shoot-out with two crackheads. Remember that?”

“I remember,” I said. “You performed admirably.”

“Oh sure. And almost got blown away. Thanks for the banquet. Don’t call us; we’ll call you.”

We shook hands and he tramped away. I signed tabs for the lunch and my drinks at the bar, then headed back to Palm Beach. I was satisfied with what I had learned from Rogoff. I don’t claim to be yours truly, S. Holmes. I mean I can’t glance at a man and immediately know he is left-handed, constipated, has a red-haired wife, and slices lox for a living. I do investigations a fact at a time. Eventually they add up—I hope. I’m very big on hope.

I found Rubik’s Stamp & Coin Shop without too much trouble. It was a hole-in-the-wall but appeared clean and prosperous. There was an attractive display of Morgan silver dollars in the front window.

But the door was locked, and I rattled the knob a few times before the man inside came forward and inspected me carefully through the glass. Then he unlocked, let me enter, locked the door behind me. He went back behind the showcase and shoved his glasses, a curious pair of linked jeweler’s loupes, atop his bald head.

“Mr. Rubik?” I asked.

He nodded. I fished out a business card and handed it over. He read it slowly, then handed it back.

“I don’t need a lawyer,” he said. “I already got a will.”

I smiled as pleasantly as I could. “I’m not drumming up business, Mr. Rubik. I just need a little information.”

He stared at me, silent and expressionless. I figured he was on the downside of sixty, and if his grayish pallor was any indication, he’d never hit seventy. He had a puffy face and his gaze was unfocused and nearsighted. He reminded me of someone I had seen before. Suddenly it came to me: He was Mr. Magoo.

“Information?” he said finally, in a creaky voice. “You lawyers bill by the hour, don’t you?”

“That’s correct.”

“For information,” he said, “I do the same. My fee is fifty dollars an hour. Payable in advance for the first consultation.”

I took out my wallet, picked out a fifty, and handed it over. “I’ll need a receipt for that,” I said, trying not to show how miffed I was.

“Of course,” he said. “What information do you want?”

“I want to learn something about the Inverted Jenny airmail stamps.”

His stare was making me nervous. “Why do you want to know about that issue?” he asked.

I could have demanded, “What the hell do you care? You got paid, didn’t you?” Instead I said, “My firm is handling the will of a Boca Raton real estate developer who passed away recently. His estate includes a block of four Inverted Jennies. We’d like to establish an approximate evaluation.”

“You want me to make an appraisal without seeing the stamps? Impossible. What condition are they in? Are they glued in an album or what? Are they faded, torn, folded? All these things affect the value.”

I sighed. “I don’t want you to appraise this particular block of stamps, Mr. Rubik. I just want some general information about Inverted Jennies.”

“Nine sheets of the twenty-four-cent airmail stamps were issued in 1918. The printing plate of the blue biplane in the center had been put on the press backwards. Eight sheets were destroyed after the error was discovered. The ninth was sold over the counter in a Washington, D.C., post office to a broker’s clerk for twenty-four dollars. A week later he sold the sheet of a hundred stamps to a dealer for fifteen thousand. The sheet was then broken up into blocks and singles. Over the years the value has greatly increased. The block of four that was recently auctioned in New York for a million showed the plate number. A block of four with a printing-plate guideline through the middle went for less than half of that.”

“Are there any Inverted Jennies for sale now?”

Rubik shrugged. “Everything is for sale—if the price is right. But many of the Jennies have deteriorated. Like I told you, the value depends on the condition of the stamps.”

I tried again. “Are there any on the market now?”

“That I can’t say.”

“Could you find out? You have contacts with other dealers, I presume. Do you have an association?”

“Yes.”

“Will you inquire and see if any Inverted Jennies are being offered for sale?”

“That’s a big job,” he said. “It’ll take time.”

“Fifty dollars an hour,” I reminded him.

“All right,” he said grudgingly, “I’ll ask around.”

I waited patiently while he pulled down his crazy glasses and wrote out a receipt for fifty dollars in a spidery scrawl. Actually, prorated, he had given me about twenty dollars’ worth of time. But I said nothing. If he wanted to believe he had diddled me, so much the better. I have profited mightily by letting people think I am a tap-dancer when, in reality, I am capable of
Swan Lake.

I took the bill and handed back my business card. “If you hear of any Jennies for sale,” I said, “give me a call. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll stop by again in a week or so.”

“I’ll have my bill ready,” he said without smiling.

He may have been straight, as Sgt. Rogoff had said, but I thought Bela Rubik was a surly character with a galloping case of cupidity. I vowed he would never get my vote for Mr. Congeniality.

My next step was at a nearby sporting goods emporium. In the tennis section I picked out a Spalding graphite racquet I thought would please Jennifer Towley. The clerk promised she could exchange it if the weight and balance didn’t suit her. I had it gift-wrapped with a wide ribbon and bow, tossed it into the Miata, and headed for home.

I arrived in time to change and go down to the ocean for my daily plunge. When the surf wasn’t too high, I tried to swim a mile up the shore and a mile back. I am not a graceful swimmer, I admit, but I plow along and I get there. Swimming two miles in the late afternoon is an extremely healthful exercise and makes one eager for the cocktail hour.

The gentry must have their ceremonies, of course, and the cocktail hour was one of ours. Actually, it rarely lasted more than thirty minutes, but it wouldn’t be posh to call it the cocktail half-hour, would it?

My mother, father, and I met in the second-floor sitting room, and there the senior McNally would go through the ritual of mixing a pitcher (not too large) of gin martinis. I know it is fashionable to demand
dry
martinis; the drier the better. Some insist on a mixture of eight or ten parts gin to one of vermouth. In fact, I know fanatics who believe having an unopened bottle of vermouth somewhere in the neighborhood is sufficient.

But my father is an ardent traditionalist, and his martinis were mixed in the classic formula: three parts gin, one part vermouth. The result was so odd and unusual that I found it enjoyable. The sire did relax his stern standards to the extent of using olives stuffed with a bit of jalapeno pepper.

On that particular day he had come home early to enjoy the family cocktail hour and then change into black tie since he was scheduled to be the main speaker that evening at a testimonial dinner of our local bar association.

After the martini rite was completed, my father departed, and mother and I dined alone downstairs. That night, as I recall, we had lamb chops with fresh mint sauce. Different from Leroy Pettibone’s hamburgers, but not necessarily better. Just different.

Now I must tell you something about my mother since she was fated to play an important role in what I later came to call “The Direful Case of the Inverted Jenny.”

Her name was Madelaine, and she was the dearest, sweetest woman who ever lived but, like all mothers, slightly dotty. She was a native Floridian, which is very rare; most Floridians were born in Ohio. She met my father-to-be when she worked as a secretary in the Miami law firm he joined after becoming a full-fledged attorney. It turned out to be a splendid match.

Not that there weren’t disagreements, but they were mostly of a minor nature. My parents could never, ever, agree on the proper temperature setting for their bedroom air conditioner. And my father decried mother’s insistence on drinking sauterne with meat and fish courses, while she could never understand why on earth he demanded starch in the collars and cuffs of his dress shirts.

A more serious personal problem was Madelaine McNally’s health. My mother was overweight, not obese but definitely much, much too plump. In addition, she suffered from high blood pressure, which probably accounted for her somewhat florid complexion and occasional shortness of breath. Our family physician had put her on a strict diet, and we were bewildered that it resulted in no weight loss. Then we discovered she had been sneaking chocolate truffles while working amidst her begonias in the greenhouse.

But she really was a wonderful woman, and I loved her. I shall always treasure the profound advice she gave me in the first letter I received at New Haven. “Archy,” she wrote, “live as if every day may be your last, and always have on clean underwear.”

That night, during the minty lamb chops, mother and I chatted of this and that, laughed, and then clapped our hands when Ursi Olson brought us fresh, chilled raspberries topped with a sinful dollop of whipped cream.

“No-cal,” Ursi assured my mother.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I just don’t
care.
Life is too short.”

Over coffee, I remarked that I had seen Lady Cynthia Horowitz that morning.

“Oh? I hope you gave her our best wishes.”

“Of course I did,” I said, though I hadn’t.

“What an unhappy woman,” my mother said, suddenly saddened. “I feel sorry for her.”

“Mother! That woman’s got everything!”

“No,” she said, “she doesn’t. She wants it all, and no one can have it all.”

I thought she was talking goofy nonsense and made no response. We left the table, and mother returned to the sitting room for an evening of television. I went upstairs to my suite to enter the day’s events in my journal.

But first I phoned Jennifer Towley on my private line. I got her answering machine, and after the
beep,
I said, “Jennifer, this is Archibald McNally. It is vitally, urgently, desperately important that I speak to you. Please call me at any hour of the day or night.” Then I recited my unlisted number, said, “Thank you,” and hung up.

I lighted my
first
English Oval of the day (I was so proud) and wondered again what Lady Horowitz had been hinting about Jennifer. I could not believe that cool, complete woman could be guilty of anything more serious than an ingrown toenail, but it was mildly unsettling to discover she was the subject of Palm Beach gossip.

I had worked on my journal for more than an hour, jotting down what I had learned that day, when my phone rang about nine-thirty, and I grabbed it up and said, “H’lo?”

“Jennifer Towley,” she said crisply. “What on earth is so vitally, urgently, desperately important?”

“Have you decided to see me again?” I asked eagerly.

“I’m still considering it.”

“Well, you
must,”
I said. “The Board of Directors of McNally and Son, in solemn conclave assembled, voted to reward you with a gift for your splendid cooperation in the affair of the Frobisher letters. I have made the gift selection and now must make delivery. And that is why it’s necessary to see you as soon as possible.”

She laughed. “What a devious lad you are,” she said.

“Three,” I said. “Rogoff was right. Now don’t tell me you’re the Tooth Fairy.”

There was a brief silence. Then: “What
are
you gibbering about?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just idle chatter. Well, when is it to be?”

“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I’m going to be awfully busy. I’ve landed a new client who wants her bedroom done over in Art Nouveau. It’ll take me forever to find the right pieces.”

“Then you’ll need a few hours of relaxation,” I said. “Dinner tomorrow night would be nice. Ever been to the Pelican Club?”

“No, but I’ve heard a lot of weird things about it.”

“They’re all true,” I assured her. “Dress informally. I’ll stop by for you around seven. Okay?”

“All right,” she said faintly.

“And I’ll bring your gift,” I said. “If I can get three men to help me load it onto the truck.”

She was giggling when I hung up. That was a delight, to hear that restrained woman giggle. I went back to my journal with a song in my heart.

I finished making notes and drew up a tentative plan of how I intended to proceed in the Inverted Jenny investigation. Then I poured myself a very small marc from a private stock of spirits and liqueurs I kept in an old sea chest in my sitting room. Pony in hand, I settled down to watch a rerun of
Columbo
on my portable TV set. I had seen that particular segment twice before, but it was still fun.

One more marc and one more English Oval, and I was ready to kiss the day goodbye. I undressed, brushed my teeth, and showered. If I thought of Jennifer Towley—and I did, continually—they were innocent thoughts. Mostly.

I pulled on my pajama shorts, set the air conditioner at 75°, turned out the lights, and went to bed. I slept the untroubled sleep of the pure at heart.

I
PHONED LADY HOROWITZ
after breakfast and asked if she had told her employees and house-guests that the Inverted Jenny stamps had disappeared. She said she had.

“And now
everyone
knows,” she said bitterly. “I’ve already had a dozen phony sympathy calls—including one from a cousin in Sarasota. Bad news certainly travels fast.”

“Always has,” I said cheerfully. “There’s nothing more enjoyable than other people’s troubles.”

Then I asked if it would be all right if I spent most of the day at her place, making discreet inquiries. She said to come ahead, she would tell everyone I’d be nosing around. But she would not be present.