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Authors: Ellen Pall

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“Slams,” Juliet noticed, Ada pronounced as Rosalind Russell might have done, setting it off from the words around it by dropping her voice to a resonant, sepulchral purr.
“So much like the recitals dear Mother used to give,” she was going on. “I do think they're wonderful.”
“I don't believe I've ever been to one,” Juliet admitted. “I mean, I haven't.”
“Oh, then you must come with me,” Ada promptly offered. “I'm going to one on Wednesday night. My friend Matthew McLaurin—he's the person who drives me to the slams in Albany—he looked on the Internet and found there's a very nice slam coming up at a club in Greenwich Village called—Cleopatra's Ashtray, could that be it? I can't say I just love Matt's poems, very long sometimes, and so many of them rather angry. But he is serious about it. And he does get me into Albany … . Anyway, I have the address of this Ashtray place and a couple of poems I plan to perform. It's an erotic poetry slam.
“But, oh, speaking of Matthew, it was Matt's little daughter Nina—or is it Gina?—anyway, Nina or Gina, it was his daughter who found the manuscript.”
She set her plate down, as if to signal that it was time to get down to business. Juliet snuffed the flame on the brazier.
“Actually, I suppose it's a bit amusing,” Ada recommenced in her deep voice, with that theatrical, mid-Atlantic intonation Juliet still found so surprising, “the way I came across the manuscript. I don't
think I mentioned it in my letters to you, but Matthew's daughter, a little girl of four, if you can imagine that, found it while scampering about under my bed.
“I should explain that my bed is a quite remarkable one.” Mrs. Caffrey lifted an eyebrow and paused for a sip of cold Formosa Oolong. “My second husband, Oliver, bought it at an auction in 1952. Oliver loved auctions. Nothing pleased him better than to drive a couple of hundred miles to look over somebody else's junk.”
“Junk,” like “slam,” Ada segregated from her other words, as if picking it up and holding it at arm's length.
“And as often as not, he came home with something or other. Mind you, Oliver had other qualities that were much more”—she smiled—“much more agreeable. However, this bed. It was made in England, of rosewood, and it is simply gigantic. It has four posts like church spires, a headboard carved with little angels, and a roof on it like a miniature steeple. The legs—”
At this point, the sound of the phone ringing at various extensions throughout the apartment startled her, and she interrupted herself. “Ought you to answer that?”
Annoyed—just when the story was getting good!—Juliet glanced at the caller ID display on the silent phone beside her.
“That's all right; it's my father. The machine will get it. He probably just wants to make a date for dinner. Nothing that can't wait till next Christmas,” she added briskly, thus demonstrating, as she later reflected, her complete lack of psychic ability. “You were saying—the legs on your bed?”
“Oh, yes. Well, they're rather thick, puffy, if you see what I mean, and quite tall. It's a high bed. I like a high bed,” Ada went on, her voice momentarily dipping toward languor. She paused to smile as if in reminiscence. Juliet wondered what Bacchanalian memories might be flickering in her mind. Something to do with the second husband's “more agreeable” qualities, no doubt.
Then she resumed. “Naturally, I never spent much time under
it, however. So it wasn't until little Gina—no, it is Tina, isn't it? Tina? Or Nina. Well, I can't remember, children never did interest me,” she interpolated, an aside Juliet found somewhat surprising from a former schoolteacher. “Whatever her name is, this tiny child somehow discovered a hidden compartment in one of the legs. One of the ones by the headboard. Right under my pillow all these years, can you believe it? It's a cunning little hiding place, and I suppose it must have escaped the notice of the former owner and even the auctioneer, because when the girl opened it—you have to place your hands at the corners of a sort of triangular panel and press your fingers just so, and then it slides
in
rather than
out
—there inside was the manuscript. I don't ordinarily receive visitors in bed, by the way. Not Matthew McLaurin, certainly. Bit of an awkward look to him, not my type at all. He's a clerk at an insurance agency. I was ill, brought low” (her voice thrilled, as if an empire had been “brought low”) “by some sort of grippe. Matt was kind enough to stop by on his way home from Gallop Insurance that day with a book for me to read—he lives out in my direction, that's how we met—and he had little Tina with him. In any event—”
At last, Ada leaned over to catch hold of the carpetbag, which she had set on the floor beside her. With a giggle, she heaved it up onto her lap and fumbled at the catch. “I'm really so excited,” she burst out, almost girlishly. “Isn't it just like finding buried treasure?” From the bag, rather confusingly, she withdrew a worn paperback copy of Angelica Kestrel-Haven's third book,
Cousin Cecilia.
“I've been rereading your work,” she explained, opening
Cousin Cecilia
and removing from between its pages a small rectangle of folded paper. At the sight of it, a shiver ran down Juliet's spine. “Such fun.” Mrs. Caffrey put the book in her turquoise lap and sat clutching her folded rectangle with both hands.
“I haven't told a soul about this,” she went on, almost whispering. “Even Matthew only knows Nina found something, some scrap of old paper. ‘Loose lips sink ships,' I say. If it is valuable, I
don't want the government getting wind of it. They can make you sell your assets, you know, if you're unlucky enough to wind up in a nursing home.”
“Are you sure? I wouldn't imagine—”
But her visitor was too excited to listen. “Never mind,” she said. “I can trust you, I know. You'll tell me what you think.”
And with that she handed the papers across the table. Later, Juliet was surprised to think how much of this first conversation—no more than a polite preliminary, she would have said at the time—she would come to see as a map to Ada's murderer.
Buried Treasure
Juliet's heart beat more quickly than Selena Walkingshaw's at the
sight of Sir James Clendinning. The rectangle Mrs. Caffrey had given her was composed of three sheets of paper, two small and flimsy, the third, on the outside, heavier and larger. All had been folded together, then curled into a cylinder, somewhat relaxed after their time within the pages of
Cousin Cecilia
.
Juliet carefully unfolded them. The larger sheet was a letter dated March 4, 1825.
no. 111, Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré,
à Paris.
 
My Lord,
Inclosed are your pages. Treasure or burn them, it is all the same to me.
How near your head came to the chopping block! You ought to be more careful.
Yours,
Harriette Rochfort late Wilson
“Harriette Wilson!” Juliet exclaimed without thinking.
She looked up to find Mrs. Caffrey's wrinkled features suffused
with an expression of crafty acquisitiveness mixed with hope. “Was she famous? Is it valuable?”
Juliet looked down again at the papers in her lap. The two small pages were covered with text, the words written in the same large, forward-leaning handwriting as the letter. Eagerly, she scanned them. Harriette Wilson had touched this paper, written these words. The very thought was strangely delicious. She read thirstily:
Fanny, Shakspeare, Cashmere, Byron (Byron!)
Juliet glanced up again to find Mrs. Caffrey's avid eyes fastened on her, glittering with greed. How much nicer it would be to taste Harriette's words unobserved, savor them slowly, in solitude.
“Would you mind very much leaving this with me overnight?” she heard herself ask primly. “I'd be able to give it my full attention that way, see what I can learn in some of my research books.” She nodded at the walls of books around them, though in fact almost all of these were contemporary novels. “It will be perfectly safe, I promise.”
Ada looked less than enthusiastic. Still, “If you prefer,” she agreed, “but who was Harriette Wilson?”
Juliet smiled. Carefully, she placed the pages on the coffee table between them, well away from the teapot and cups.
“I'll tell you what I know,” she said, “but tomorrow, you absolutely must take these to a dealer. Maybe one of the auction houses, Christie's or Sotheby's.”
Mrs. Caffrey's features shifted. Juliet saw, or thought she saw, the beginnings of mistrust. “Who was she?” she demanded.
Juliet was embarrassed to feel her cheeks flush. “I don't recognize the name Rochfort,” she began, “but Harriette Wilson was the preeminent—well, courtesan is the word she would probably have preferred, of the English Regency period. Her lovers and keepers included the Duke of Wellington, perhaps the Prince of Wales, and dozens of others of the most wealthy and powerful men of her time. I see she mentions Byron here. He wasn't among her lovers,
that I remember reading, but I believe she claimed to know him.
“If I remember correctly, after a good long professional run, Harriette decided to write her memoirs. But before she published each installment, she contacted her former lovers. ‘I am going to write my memoirs,' she told them, more or less. ‘For two hundred pounds, I will leave you out.' It wasn't always two hundred, I think she had a sort of means-based sliding scale. Anyway, my guess is that what you have here is an episode somebody bought in the nick of time. Do you know if your bed was imported from England?”
“Yes, I believe it was. But how much do you imagine my find might be worth? Assuming it's what you think.”
“I'm sorry, I just don't know. Would you like me to call Christie's for you?”
The old lady's look of mistrust had returned. “Do you know anyone there?”
“Not personally, no. But they're very reputable.”
Ada sniffed. Juliet wondered if she could have read about the price-fixing scandal both auction houses had been involved in not long ago.
“Isn't there someone you know yourself? Someone you've dealt with?” Ada asked. “I don't want to hand it over to a stranger. Where would
you
go?”
Juliet thought. Reluctantly, “Well, as it happens, a friend of mine does deal in rare manuscripts,” she said, after a moment. “In fact, he specializes in the English romantic poets, so with the Byron mention … But he's a small dealer; he works from his home. I don't know if it's the best idea to …”
Her words trailed off. It was not quite accurate to say that Dennis Daignault was her friend. She had met him less than two months ago, shortly before Thanksgiving, when she bought a book from him on the etiquette of dueling. The book had been in a catalogue; but the dealership turned out to be in the dealer's own apartment, just a few blocks up Riverside Drive from her own. She had
gone to pick up her purchase in person, and they had seen each other every week or so since.
She found Dennis friendly, attractive, single, and rivetingly well-informed on an astonishing variety of subjects. That first afternoon alone, he had talked knowledgeably about shipwrecks, string theory, the chemistry of cooking, fluctuations in the Japanese yen, and ladies' underclothes of the seventeenth century. But bringing prospective clients to friends was a very tricky business. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it backfired spectacularly.
In Mrs. Caffrey's old green eyes, she read suspicion—suspicion that her hostess had been holding out on her, keeping the good dealer for herself.
“Of course, I'd be glad to call him for you if you like,” Juliet blurted out, eager to prove her innocence. “Rara Avis Books. He's right up Riverside Drive, as it happens.”
With a readiness that startled her hostess, Ada Caffrey picked up her carpetbag and sprang to her feet.
“That would be wonderful,” she said. “I am certain he will give it his particular attention. And now if you would just write me out a little receipt for the manuscript …”
She fell silent and stood looking hard at Juliet, her little head tilted, her green eyes flinty. Juliet felt offended but ordered herself to suppress her indignation. No doubt Mrs. Caffrey was terrified of losing her new-found treasure. From a drawer in an end table across the room, she took a notebook and pen. Quickly she scribbled an informal receipt for three pages apparently in the hand of Harriette Wilson. This satisfied Ada, who asked her to inscribe the copy of
Cousin Cecilia,
then began to thank her prettily for the tea.
“It's been marvelous to meet you,” she gushed, the pebbles at the bottom of her rich voice returning. “I think I'd best check in now at that bed-and-breakfast you so kindly recommended. I told your friend I'd be there just about now.”
Handing the signed book back to her, Juliet remembered the suitcase by the door. “I'll go with you.”
“Oh! If it's not an imposition …”
“Not at all,” said Juliet, understanding now how the “foreign gentleman” on the bus had gotten drafted into service. Ada Caffrey had ways of getting what she needed.
“Just a minute,” Juliet said. After a moment's thought, she took a key from her pocket and unlocked the glass case wherein she kept her little collection of Regencyana. She slipped the manuscript inside and locked it up again.
“For safekeeping” she explained, leading her guest to her coat. A minute later, she, Ada, and the suitcase were in the elevator.
 
 
Juliet and Ada ventured through the freezing wind off the river,
crossed the street, and rang Suzy Eisenman's bell. A freelance illustrator who had once been married to the art director of a prominent glossy magazine, Suzy was divorced now but retained custody of the apartment she and her husband had bought together, a two-bedroom on the ground floor of a small, redbrick town house on a corner of Riverside Drive. The town house was a sort of late Victorian fantasy, a miniature castle complete with turret and tiny battlements, and embellished with a concrete coat of arms. It was four stories high and had been divided into eight apartments before going co-op in the 1980s.
The artist's face appeared in one of the little leaded windows beside the building's front door. There was a chevron of color under her right eye, the result of a habit of resting the tip of her brush there while she painted. Smiling, she hurried them out of the wind and into the communal vestibule. Suzy was skinny and intense, with short, dark, straight hair parted in the middle to frame a narrow, somehow wistful face. Juliet found her quite lovely, despite her habit
of dressing in oversized denim overalls and army boots. The two had met at a block association auction four or five years before, when Suzy donated a watercolor portrait of “the Upper West Side tree of your choice” and Juliet bid on it and won. (Juliet donated “Your name in a published novel,” a gift she regretted when the winning bidder had turned out to be Kelsi Ng.) Since then, the women had gotten into the habit of eating dinner together once or twice a month, trading neighborhood gossip, complaints about work, and critiques of recent art shows.
Now, with practiced hospitality, Suzy grabbed Ada's suitcase and ushered her into her apartment. This was entered by way of a small foyer furnished with a coat tree bristling with faux antlers; a tall, very narrow, mesquite-wood bookcase (containing mostly art books but also—Juliet was always touched to see—a complete set of the works of Angelica Kestrel-Haven), and a small, rather threadbare, Navajo rug. There was also a little metal rack of the sort found in hotel lobbies, offering subway maps and brochures about such New York City attractions as Circle Line cruises and Madame Tussaud's Waãx Museum in Times Square. Directly in contravention of her co-op's rules, Suzy routinely rented out her second bedroom for short-term stays. It was the only way she could continue to pay her maintenance, she said; and really, when you thought about it, it was no different from having a series of roommates. Several of the building's shareholders knew what she was up to but kindly kept quiet, especially when the board president was within earshot.
Tempted to race back across the street and read the Wilson manuscript, Juliet instead followed the others in and politely lingered, moseying into the living room-cum-studio to inspect the unfinished work on the drafting table there while Mrs. Caffrey toured her bedroom, the guest bath, and the kitchen. Suzy Eisenman was known for her almost childlike line, her intricate conceptions, and the tiny visual jokes she often hid inside her pictures. She made her scanty living doing illustrations for magazines and newspapers, with
an occasional book jacket or advertisement. Today's work was a picture of a toothbrush, shown in surreal close-up. Among the bristles, little elflike creatures seemed to dance. A real toothbrush lay on the farther verge of the desk, under a strong light.
Juliet was startled from contemplation of this curious still life by the sound of Ada Caffrey's voice, slightly raised, as if in annoyance.
“Oh, certainly I must go up there tonight,” she was saying. “I had a lovely nap on the bus, and I've promised myself this for years. I won't sleep tonight if I haven't had a view of the city.”
“But you—It's going to be very cold there, you know,” Suzy answered, as the two came in from the corridor. Suzy glanced a mute appeal to Juliet. “Mrs. Caffrey is planning to visit the Empire State Building tonight,” she said. “Do you think it's even open?”
“Oh, it's open,” Ada told her serenely. “It's open till midnight every day of the year. Now, you girls go on about your business and don't mind me. Just tell me where you've hidden my coat, Miss Eisenman.”
“I—Please, call me Suzy. Your coat is right here, but—”
“How will you get to the Empire State Building?” Juliet interposed. “Wouldn't you like to have some dinner first?”
“Not so soon after all your treats,” said Ada, answering the second question first. “I'll just hop on a bus, I suppose. It's a pretty well-known destination. I can't go very far wrong, can I?”
Suzy looked meaningfully out at the wind-howling dark, then desperately back at Juliet. Juliet raised her eyebrows. Meantime, Ada had jousted her way back into the ratty, voluminous coat and was about to pick up her carpetbag.
“I'll go with you,” Juliet heard herself say for the second time that day.
Mrs. Caffrey looked at her doubtfully. It occurred to Juliet that her company might not be welcome. “If you don't mind, that is,” she added. “I haven't been up to the top of the Empire State Building since—Good God, I think it was a class trip in third grade.”
“Then by all means, dear girl,” said Mrs. Caffrey. “What about you, Miss Eisenman?”
Suzy declined on the grounds of a looming deadline.
Ada shrugged.
“Tant pis pour vous,”
she said, accepting a set of keys to the building and the apartment, then taking Juliet's arm. “Now, how much does it cost to take the subway? I believe it was a nickel, but that must have been some time ago.”

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