“I didn’t. Norma did.”
He rolled his eyes in the general direction of the ceiling and thought about it. “I warned you not to go. I made it very clear that I didn’t want any sort of family trouble interfering with your duties. I don’t believe he’ll make any progress with the prosecutor’s office next door, so we don’t have to worry about false charges being filed. If I know temperamental wives, Mrs. Ward will be back home within the week. Go on upstairs, and don’t let me hear another word about Freeman Bernstein.”
Constance would’ve liked nothing better, and told him so. Upstairs, she made her rounds of the female section, feeling just as downtrodden and dispirited as every inmate serving penance behind bars, and called lights-out early.
THE NEXT MORNING, as Constance went down to supervise the laundry chores, Sheriff Heath came marching down the corridor toward her. “It’s your lucky day, Deputy. Freeman Bernstein is a man of his word. I never would’ve believed it, but he’s filed the charges. As you seem to have brought this on yourself, I’m sending you to New York. You’re to rescue May Ward from the white slavers who are alleged to have captured her.”
58
FREEMAN BERNSTEIN WAS ALL TOO HAPPY to furnish the address where his wife might be found, and the names of her captors. He told the prosecutor that she had given the information to him during a telephone call made under duress. Constance was to go to the office of her attorney, Arthur Basch, and if she wasn’t found there, Mr. Bernstein was quite confident that she could be picked up at the Gaiety Theatre, where her new manager, Siegfried Wallace, kept an office. Constance had warrants for both men. Sheriff Heath had arranged for a Detective Cook from the New York Police Department to meet her and help in serving the warrants, as she would be operating under New York’s jurisdiction.
“You and I both know this is nonsense,” Sheriff Heath told Constance, “and I don’t like to waste a detective’s time. But in the unlikely event that you find them up to some sort of criminal mischief, I want everyone in sight arrested.”
Detective Cook was waiting for her in front of the Equitable Building on Broadway. He’d brought another officer, Campbell, along with him. In their uniforms, the two men were almost indistinguishable—both square of jaw, broad of shoulder, quick to grin, and eager to offer a pinch of tobacco to Constance, and then to laugh and elbow each other in the ribs when she refused.
Having two officers along put Constance in a tricky spot. It seemed to her that the only way out of this mess was to tell the truth: to confess to Mrs. Ward that she was Fleurette’s sister, that Fleurette had run off without telling her, and that Constance had acted out of a maternal sort of fear over what might happen to a girl traveling with a vaudeville troupe. She would assure Mrs. Ward that it was only Fleurette she’d been spying on, and hoped to convince her to keep the truth from Fleurette in the name of family harmony.
Constance had no idea how she might do any of that, especially with two officers tagging along who weren’t supposed to know that she was the cause of all the trouble. She found herself hoping that Mrs. Ward had, in fact, been kidnapped, although she knew there to be hardly any chance of that.
The detectives showed little interest in the case and only glanced at the warrants.
“She’s upstairs with her lawyer?” said Detective Cook when he looked it over. “That’s all they have up there. Lawyers and bankers and insurance agents.” He waved his hand at the elaborate stone building towering over them. “Used to be a nice little place down here. It burned down—they put up this eyesore. Throws a shadow over Broadway like you ain’t never seen. It’s freezing down here now. You never do see the sun, and you know why? You know what’s up there, on the top floor? Bankers’ club. Costs a hundred and fifty dollars just to join, and that’s before you order your rib-eye.”
“What’s the rib-eye cost?” Campbell asked.
“They don’t even put it on the menu. I went up there once, just to see. Told ’em it was an inspection, but I was only there to have a look at that menu. No prices, just steak and peas and something they call potato croquettes, because they’re too fancy to admit to frying a potato.”
The men had a good laugh at that. Constance tried to join in, but every time she said a word, they dropped their grins and stared solemnly at her. At last she gave up on the pleasantries and said, “I believe I’m to go in first, gentlemen, in the hopes of surprising them and taking Mrs. Ward into my confidence.”
Campbell nudged Cook in the ribs. “Send the girl in first. That’s how they do it now,” he said. “Doesn’t bother us, miss. There’s only one way out of those offices. You go on in, and we’ll be right there to catch ’em if they run out. I’d loan you my revolver, but I might need it myself.”
“I carry my own.” She got a whistle from the detectives for that.
“We don’t let our ladies go around with guns, do we?” Detective Cook said to Campbell.
Campbell shrugged. “She’s from New Jersey. You gotta have a gun out there.”
Constance felt stodgy doing it, but she told the men to spit out their tobacco and go to work. They followed her through the massive doors and into a grand marble lobby, where they called for an elevator and soon found themselves in the tiled corridor outside Mr. Basch’s office. Every door held a pane of full-length frosted glass with the occupant’s name in gold leaf. The men lined up along either side of the door.
“Mrs. Ward will want to speak privately,” she told them in a low voice, although, of course, it was she who wanted to speak privately to Mrs. Ward. “I’ll send the others out here to you. Don’t make too much of a fuss until we sort it out.”
“Yes, Chief,” Detective Campbell whispered for the benefit of Detective Cook, who chortled at the joke.
Constance ignored him and went in without knocking. Mr. Basch’s office was filled with cigarette smoke and the sound of ice clinking in glasses. It was a fine room, with painted linen on the wall and good deep carpet. Mrs. Ward was draped over a leather chair in as extravagant an evening dress as Constance had ever seen off the stage, with a dropped waist and a low neck and some sort of gold lace that shimmered like metal. She wondered if she was looking at Fleurette’s handiwork.
Behind the desk was the man Constance took to be Mr. Basch. He wore a good pinstriped suit and had a perfectly square, cleft chin that made him rather painfully handsome. Another man sat across from him. He jumped up when she walked in and extended his hand.