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Without further adieu, back to Detective Daniels and the mystery of the sabotaged engine on the SS Ile de France.
~The Spokes of Wheels & Co. Part 2~
Ms. Edith Smith regarded Detective Daniels across the low coffee table in the seating room of her private cabin. He had taken one of the armchairs while she occupied the divan. She reclined, her legs crossed at the ankles wearing wedge heels, one arm resting along the back. Her manner of dress married the business and the feminine; a jacket dusted with buttons and cut lapels draped her frame, a silk shirt beneath.
“Well, detective, have you learned who’s trying to sabotage my business deal yet?”
“You and Mr. Blake are the only two unaccounted for during the time the ship’s engine was tampered with,” Detective Daniels said.
Edith Smith remained still, but Daniels thought her face paled.
“It’s not Blake. He’s foolish, but he would never do something like this; it doesn’t benefit his bottom line.”
Daniels nodded, “I can set with that.”
Ms. Smith stared at him. “You think I did this. What possible motivation could I have?”
“Oh, plenty,” Daniels said, crossing a leg over his knee as he extended an arm across the back of his chair. His cap dangled from his other hand. “You’re in a bad box.”
“Do enlighten me, detective. What is the motivation for me to sabotage a deal which took me a full year to put together?”
“Your boil over with your father. Being overlooked, the credit for your work going to another. He’s making you chew gravel, that must hurt after all the work you’ve done for the company. We already know you plan to light a shuck once the deal goes through. What better way to punish your father than by destroying the deal?
Edith’s nostrils flared and she looked away, collecting herself. She fixed her gaze on him.
“We cannot force others to think as we do, we can only act according to what is true, and hope they will eventually follow. You presume, sir, that I would rather see the baby slaughtered than to let it go on living with its improper mother. This is not true; I poured too much blood, sweat, and tears into this company to want to see harm befall it. I meant what I said: I am leaving after the deal goes through.”
Detective Daniels and Ms. Smith stared each other down, neither blinking.
“Where did you git to after the hoedown?”
The hesitation was no more than a breath length.
“I walked the decks and then came back here to my cabins. Charles said some things which I did not feel like subjecting myself to anymore.”
“Nowhere else?”
“No.”
Detective Daniels reached inside the lapel of his coat and pulled out the pocket flask. He placed it on the low table between them. Her lips thinned. She did not look away.
“I think if I asked the other passengers, they’d confirm this belongs to you,” Daniels said, not bothering to mention he’d seen it on her the first day, strolling the deck.
Her green eyes met his. After a long moment, she said, “I went to sit in the car. I wanted someplace where I could breathe, think.”
“On how to bust Mr. Blake and your father for humiliating you.”
“No.” The word was sharp. “No, just thinking about what to do next, to have a moment to not need to defend myself from all the vultures who ask why I would want to go into business, or why I wasn’t married. As if that was the sum total of my life, the best thing I was good for, and therefore the measure of my success as a human being. As if being a woman is the core of my identity, rather than one facet of me. I went to sit in the car my company makes because that’s what I did when I was little. I would sit in my car, and think about all the places it could take me in life. I didn’t understand, back then, that it wasn't allowed to females.”
Detective Daniels didn’t lower his gaze.
“I’d like to see the dress you wore two nights ago.”
“My dress? Whatever for?”
“Did you go near the engines after you sat in your car?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—no, I didn’t.”
Her face was beginning to flush, and she had stopped meeting his eyes. Daniels pulled out the beads and placed them on the glass table for her to see.
“I think it’s missing these.”
***
Detective Daniels ordered a whiskey in the gallery with ideas of getting roostered. Too bad there were no drinking partners available. The captain and his first mate were fully occupied getting the Ile de France back on track, and he preferred not to drink with subjects of a case.
The bartender was cleaning and getting things ready for this evening’s entertainment, but Daniels knew there wouldn’t be much dancing. It appeared Ms. Edith Smith had been well-liked, at least by those who would dance, and this business had left a pall in the air. He took a sip of his whiskey. No doubt alcohol sales would be healthy by the end of tonight.
A piano key echoed through the room. Then again, a few more times. No melody, just testing. The pianist pressed a few other keys. Daniels looked up to see a man sitting at the piano on the stage with his bag of tools next to him.
Daniels got up and made his way over to a table in front of the piano. The man was young, average build. His coat was draped on the side of the bench and his denim button-up shirt was folded back at the elbows revealing sinewy forearms, suspenders clipped to his trousers.
“Sorry, I hope I didn’t disturb you,” he said, still testing the keys. Short scruff dusted his jaw, but his cap hid the true color of his hair.
“No bother. You’re tuning up?”
“I heard something was wrong the other night. It’s awful to play on an instrument when you know the chords are wrong. Most people can’t hear it, but when you’re trained to, you can’t un-hear it. It’s irritating. Don’t stop being irritating until you fix it.”
Daniels nodded, looking out the window. “I hear you.”
He picked two more notes before pulling his tools out, opening the lid of the piano.
“So, I heard you had someone arrested for what happened to the engine.”
“Certain fact.”
A quiet scratching and clanking from whatever the man was doing inside the piano.
“Odd, I never thought it would be her.”
“No? There was motive and opportunity.”
“She’s a lady.”
“She’s first water, but even Calamity Jane is a queen,” Daniels said. Only one queen of spades, but there she was. The pianist shook his head.
“I don’t mean lady as folks define it today, I mean a real lady; the kind that doesn’t stop being who she is just because folks don’t like it. The kind of lady who leads the charge, even surrounded by fools who won’t acknowledge it. But hey, I’m no detective, I just like to fix things.” He gave the detective a wide grin.
Daniels was silent for a long time while the pianist worked. Then he tapped the table, took a sip of his whiskey, and leaned forward on his knees.
“Matter of fact, being a detective is a lot like tuning an instrument. You try all the notes, see what’s off, who’s spinning tarradiddles for you. What note doesn’t sound true. Ms. Smith, now she was lying to me. I found it and I fixed it, but the notes are off. There’s a hair in the butter.”
The two men sat in silence, both working. Daniels was at sea on this one, in more than just the literal sense. The pianist sighed, pulling him back.
“As I said, I’m no detective, but that Mr. Blake, he was bad news. You say she was in the engine room? Well, I saw him follow her down there. Whatever she told you, it’s not the whole story. I did not like the look of him.”
Daniels frowned. “Why’d you keep your mouth shut?”
“I heard they were engaged. Didn’t want to hurt a lady’s reputation over nothing. But now she’s arrested, and I know she wasn’t the only one down there.”
Daniels circled his whisky, thinking.
“Blake’s a bad egg, but he has even less motive than she does. There’s no evidence he was down there. Unless it happens again, there’s no way to prove it was Blake. If it really was him, he now has a fall-woman. He may have lost his opportunity to marry into the company, but something tells me he’s more relieved than not he’s free to seek another bride.”
Daniels knocked his whiskey and stood.
***
It had been a long evening in the back of the car, chilly to say the least, but just after midnight, he heard what he was looking for. The door to the main deck opened, and someone went to a lot of trouble to disguise his steps going down the stairs. Detective Daniels didn’t move. Not when the man opened the hood of the car, not when he put his tool bag on the ground, not until he was leaning over the engine parts did Daniels ease the car door open and step out.
“Howdy Roger.”
Roger jumped and then bolted, but Detective Daniels was hard after him. He hit the mechanic like a piano, crashing to the ground in a cacophony of swearing. Daniels, who had ample experience wrangling missing cattle, cuffed him, pulled him to his feet, and dragged him to the captain’s cabin.
“What is this?” Captain Blancart demanded.
“Captain, please wrangle up the associates of Wheels & Co., and Ms. Edith Smith from the hoosegow.”
A short time later, all the guests were assembled, wearing night robes and coats over their bed things. Mr. Kahn was the last to enter, and when he saw Ms. Smith sitting on a chair with a deckhand behind her standing guard, he turned to Detective Daniels and roared at him.
“You’ve made a mistake! Why would she want to delay the meeting? She set up the whole thing, it was her idea. Months of planning and convincing her father, and she could only go forward if Mr. Blake signed off on it.”
Detective Daniels held up his hand for silence and waited until Mr. Kahn stopped.
“Ms. Smith was in the engine room the night it was tampered with. But you weren’t the only one there that night, were you Ms. Smith?” he asked. He ignored the resistance in her eyes. “Blake followed you down there, didn’t he?”
The gently bobbing cabin leveled out, steady for a moment.
“Yes, he did.”
“Now hang on one moment—” Blake interjected.
“I saw you, you snake!” Roger yelled at him from where he stood against the wall, his hands cuffed behind his back. The guests looked at him, registering now that while they were in their bedclothes, he was not. Registering also the brawny deckhand holding one of his arms.
“Ms. Smith,” Detective Daniels redirected, “Why didn’t you give me the Simon-pure?”
“You know why I didn’t.”
“Did he botch with the engine?”
“He did not.”
“But he attacked you,” Daniels stated.
Despite the roaring wind outside, they could have heard a pin drop in the cabin.
“He did,” Edith said. Her posture had not changed from its poised control.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“Because it wouldn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter a man attacked you?”
“Of course it matters to me. It doesn’t matter to the company that I was attacked.”
“Edith!” Mr. Kahn objected, “Your father—”
“If he didn’t accuse me of besmirching his name for my own ends, my father would tell me I had better hurry up and marry him then. It would be one more confirmation that I am a woman and therefore weaker, a victim. Well, I am not a victim, and I will not act like one, nor give those who have power over me the excuse to treat me as one.”
All eyes glued on Edith, some with shock, pain, disgust, admiration, and shame. Captain Blancart broke the spell.
“Arrest that man!” he yelled, stabbing a finger at Charles Blake. The guard behind Ms. Smith leaped into action.
“Unhand me!” Mr. Blake objected.
“Do you deny you attacked Ms. Smith? That you forced your affections?” Daniels asked.
Mr. Blake locked his jaw, staring at the detective with loathing. He had the man nailed to the counter.
“How ‘bout you pull in your horns then,” Daniels suggested.
Blake looked mutinous, but Daniels set his hands on his hip, pulling back the coat and revealing the pistol holstered there. The other man paled and let the guard push him back down onto the couch. There really was nothing so satisfying as hazing a tenderfoot.
“When Mr. Blake and Ms. Smith fought, her dress was caught against the engine, leaving behind evidence. It would have been an open and shut case after that, except the pianist happened to see them. How could he have seen them, I wondered. And why wouldn’t he come forward sooner, especially if he seems to admire Ms. Smith, as I suspect he does. So, I set the bait and waited for him to reveal himself.”
He turned his attention to the culprit. “Roger McNeil, you’re not a musician at all, are you? You are a mechanic, an automobile mechanic I’d wager. You were hired to crowbait the car so the deal would fail. A crime committed on a boat whose guests have long since left and were impossible to track down. But you changed your mind last minute, and fiddled with the boat engine instead, why?”
Roger’s jaw was clenched shut, but he realized he was trapped.
“Ms. Smith is a real lady. She cared about the quality of her product. I learned it was her deal. And, it was a beautiful car,” Roger sighed almost wistfully. “If I sabotaged the car, I sabotaged her, possibly ruined her reputation. But if the ship was delayed, the deal would fall through, no fault of her own. Mrs. Smith could still leave the company with her reputation as a businesswoman intact. No one could predict mechanical errors on a ship.”
“When you learned she was taking the fall for your meddling, you set to finish the job you started. It would prove she’d done nothing since she was under guard. But I’d need to learn something was broken before we left the ship.”
“I was going to pin it on Blake—even if he wasn’t unmasked for a viper, he would at least be punished.”
Detective Daniels nodded. “One mix-up remains: who hired you to damage this deal?”
“One of our competitors. Motor Industries,” Mr. Kahn said, “I’m certain of it.”
Roger kept his eyes down. Edith’s voice cracked like a whip through the cabin.
“Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it, and higher you as my chief mechanic in my new company I intend to found.”
Roger looked at her, and then at Mr. Engels. “It was him, he hired me.”
“You liar!” Mr. Engels objected, but it was lost in the cacophony of outrage.
Mrs. Engels was strangely silent while their daughter cried “Papa!” and Mr. Kahn and Ms. Smith started yelling. Detective Daniels verified Roger was telling the truth. Apparently, Motor Industries had offered Mr. Engels a healthy stipend to make sure their business deal fell through so they could swoop in and pick up the open prospect. Mr. Engels was planning to retire on it. Once all of the appropriate people were arrested and hustled into holding rooms on the ship, Detective Daniels poured himself and Edith Smith (who had remained behind) glasses of whiskey from the captain’s personal collection. He passed it to her and clinked the glass.
“Congratulations, the jig is up, truth won out.” He took a seat and sipped his drink.
“Yes, but you’ll notice it was a man accusing another man that they listened to.”
He nodded. “Maybe, but we can’t force others to think as we do. We can only act according to what is true and hope they follow in time. An ace-high mind taught me that.”
“What if they don’t listen?”
Just for a moment, Edith Smith let her weariness at the world show.
Daniels swirled the amber liquid, the distant tide of Adam’s ale crashing in the dark outside.
“My father was a farmer, small crops, and my mother was Cherokee. One of the few who survived the long walk from Georgia to Oklahoma. They moved out to Colorado,” Daniels said.
The calculating mask fell away as understanding broke across Edith’s face.
“Then you understand what it’s like.”
“I understand. It’s why I’m in the profession I’m in. If they don’t listen, then you call for the sheriff and his posse. Stick them in the hoosegow and leave them to the law, where truth can’t be ignored. Then you forgive. Truth is, in some ways, we’ve all done the same to others. Carrying that bitterness putrefies the pie.” A faraway look came into his eyes and he took another sip of his whiskey before bringing his attention back.
“What will you do next?” he asked.
“Oh, I thought about a tour of Europe. I have no intention of returning to a company that values me so little. There are some promising business prospects in Amsterdam. Yourself?”
“Well, I’m between jobs at the moment. If you’re not off your feed, how’d you say to breakfast tomorrow?” Daniels asked.
Edith smiled. “Well, seeing as those whom you have not arrested you have alienated, I am perhaps the only company on the ship for you.”
“Yes mam,” Daniels agreed. “You’re certainly the only company I could abide, though it’s got nothing to do with whom I’ve vexed.”
Thank you for reading part 2 of “The Spokes of Wheels & Co.” Click the cover below for the link to the full story. If you liked this month’s short story, please pass it along so I can share these free illustrated stories with more people. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive the “subscriber-only” side of my newsletter, following Jean and friends in her loft apartment from “Refurbished.” In the meantime, keep in touch with me on Instagram (@scdurbois).