The Outsmarting of Criminals: A Mystery Introducing Miss Felicity Prim (21 page)

“I a
m all ears,” Miss Prim replied excitedly.

“Where shall I begin? My first step was to pay a visit to Nathaniel Branson. Sadly, his mind is quite gone. Throughout our luncheon he called me ‘Charity’ and asked about my sisters, Faith and Hope. Eventually he admitted that he believed me to be a chimera sent by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to inspire him to write the epic poem he has long wanted to compo
se. I promised to serve as his muse if he would reminisce about his old friend Cornelius Prim, as well as any lady friend Cornelius may have had after the passing of his beloved wife. Mr. Branson said yes, he quite remembered arriving on the
Mayflower
with Cornelius Prim, who’d been deathly seasick throughout the voyage from England. I’m afraid I could not get him past the arrival at Plymouth Rock. He much prefers to discuss the seventeenth century, upon which he is fixated. For the record, he is convinced that John Milton stole his manuscript of
Paradise Lost
and made a complete hash of it.”

“Dear Mr. Branson. He always did have those literary aspirations. He looked the part, didn’t he, with that beautiful head of hair and those exquisite cravats.”

“He still has both, which I suppose is some small consolation for the loss of his faculties. But my visit with him yielded nothing relevant to our inquiry. However, I was more successful with Miss Emily Spry, now Mrs. Emily Fielding of Valhalla, New York. Her mind is as sharp as ever, and she remembers Miss Ophelia LeFevre. Of course, Miss Spry knew exactly what was going on. At first she wondered why Papa kept finding excuses to call the office of Foster McGinniss, given his intense dislike of the man. It didn’t take her long to realize that the person being called on was not Mr. McGinniss but rather Miss LeFevre. Of course, one does not become a trusted secretary by blabbing one’s employer’s secrets, so she kept her own counsel. In subsequent months, Papa dispatched her to pick up small gifts, to send flowers, and so forth. Finally, Papa could no longer keep the cat in the bag and admitted to Miss Spry everything she already knew.”

“Go on, Sister,” Miss Prim urged.

“Occasionally Ophelia would visit Papa at his office, and she and Miss Spry would sit and chat. Miss Spry said Ophelia was a lovely, intelligent woman with a sort of underlying sadness. She lived with her Aunt Ada on the Upper West Side, she told Miss Spry, and fervently wished to be independent from her. Apparently, Aunt Ada was a difficult woman, but of course we know this from Papa’s journals. When Ophelia mentioned the name Ada, Miss Spry remembered that Papa had, on a number of occasions, sent tokens of kindness to a woman with this name. No doubt part of Papa’s efforts to butter her up.

“H
ere is the best part, Sister. With a bit of prompting, Miss Spry recalled Ada’s last name. It is Crenshaw. Ada Crenshaw. So tomorrow I continue my search. I shall go to the public records hall and search for Providence Prim, Providence LeFevre, and Providence Crenshaw. Surely she must have taken
one
of those names. I have read the cards and all signs point to the likelihood that she is among us. I feel confident she must be living here in New York, quite unaware that she has two sisters who will leave no stone unturned until she is found. Now, Sister, there is much to be accomplished, so I must ring off, but tell me—by any chance, have you ascertained Maude’s marital status?”

“Q
uite single, Sister. You are free to conquer, if you so choose.”

“Well, now. The cards indicated the likelihood of a new
amour
for me, but they implied that the man would have a full head of dark hair. The pentacles, you know. As far as I know, the cards do not specify baldness. I shall have to look into this. It is quite a necessity nowadays, what with all the men shaving their heads in an attempt to be chic. I shall call you as soon as I know more, Sister.” With that, Celia told Miss Prim she loved her and hung up the phone.

As Miss Prim carried her empty teacup to the sink, she marveled, not for the first time, at her sister’s ingenuity, energy, vigor, and zest. It was easy to understand why men found her so irresistible.

Bruno’s ears pricked up. An instant later, Miss Prim heard a knock at her front door. Bruno seemed alert, but not aggressive, which meant the visitor was a friend. Miss Prim opened the door and Albert and Henry raced in, followed by Lorraine in a colorful headscarf and an even more colorful batik dress.

“Felicity Prim, you gypsy! Why are you never at home when I need to gossip? I call and the phone rings and rings. Or I get a busy signal. Who gets busy signals in this day and age? Ever hear of
call waiting? And it’s ridiculous that you don’t have a cell phone. What is this, 1950? I stop by and my knocks go unanswered. You really should learn to be more idle. It’s easier on the feet.”

“Lorraine, forgive me. Every time I think I shall have a moment to myself, something comes up.”

“Of course I’m jesting, Felicity. You have a life, and good for you! People who don’t have lives are always getting into trouble, minding other people’s business. I heard you had a cup of tea at Beantown with Ezra Dawes. Woof! You little minx, you. I thought I would have to pave the way for you, but here you are using your own devious techniques! Well, good for you. You were marvelous with Lucian, and rumor has it that you even sweet-talked Maude into dismantling his free bookshelf. You should write a book about handling men. You could make a million bucks!”

Write a book?
Oh, never
, Miss Prim thought. She simply wasn’t capable of doing so, though perhaps this was not a tragedy, given the number of aspiring writers who have their egos brutalized and their dreams destroyed by callous literary agents and publishers.

“I’m glad you’re here, Lorraine,” Miss Prim said, seeing the opportunity to ask a few questions
regarding the inconsistencies between Lorraine’s memories and Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg’s. “I like your new look, by the way.”

“Isn’t it grand? Erykah Badu meets Beyoncé.”

“Who? Anyway, I visited Heavenly Pastures today, and …”

“Oh, yes,
I wanted to ask you about that. Was Elizabeth as standoffish as ever?”

“No, she was actually quite welcoming. A very nice contrast to Miss Lavelle, whom I encountered as I was leaving.”

Lorraine narrowed her eyes. “Did she make trouble again?”

“Well, let us say she was no more polite than she had been at Prothero’s. In fact, she may have been
less
polite than she was during our first meeting, but we need not dwell on that, for as Mama always said …”

Lorraine stopped her foot furiously. “Albert! Henry!” she called. The dogs immediately returned to her side, Albert willingly, Henry reluctantly.

“That’s it!” Lorraine fumed. “I’ve had it up to here with her. It’s time for a showdown that’s been brewing a long time. Don’t you worry, Felicity. When I’m done with her, she won’t so much as dare look at you cross-eyed.” And out she stormed.

Miss Prim chased after her. “But Lorraine, there really is no need … please, I see no reason to …”

But Lorraine Koslowski did not hear, or chose not to listen.

The Break-In

Before settling in for the evening, Miss Prim suited herself up in her athletic clothing, stuffed the Laser Taser 3000 into her fanny pack, and dangled Bruno’s leash tantalizingly in front of him. She really had been
quite bad since removing herself to Connecticut. Prior to beginning her criminal outsmarting studies and leaving Manhattan, she’d engaged in a vigorous exercise schedule, and she’d made too much progress to allow a week in the country to undo all that hard work.

Was carrying the Laser Taser 3000 along on her jog a bit
much
? Perhaps, but the mysterious phone calls and hang-ups had disconcerted her; so had the unidentified creature skulking around in her backyard. Anyone who reads crime fiction knows that solitary runners create temptation for criminals, who often find it easy to waylay their victims. Bruno would likely ward off anyone threatening her, but an effective criminal outsmarter always has a backup plan. Miss Prim’s backup plan was the Laser Taser 3000.

S
he soon congratulated herself on her decision. Disturbingly, Greenfield seemed more ominous at dusk. As Miss Prim ran through the streets of her neighborhood, she couldn’t help but wonder if criminals with malicious intent hid in the rustling bushes, or whether a murderer watched her through binoculars from a distant window. These thoughts caused her to jog at a rather more rapid pace than usual, which made Bruno quite happy. As she passed the back of Lorraine’s house, she could feel the street throbbing with the insistent bass beats of that awful music. (What was that musical genre called?
Dense iron?
Something like that.) Albert and Henry ran to the back fence to greet Bruno. For a moment Miss Prim thought they might join her and Bruno for the remainder of her run, but over the din she heard Lorraine scream, “Don’t even
think
about it!” Henry and Albert slunk back on their bellies toward the house.

Back at Rose Cottage, Miss Prim drew a bath, emptied lavender bath salts into it, and bolted the doors. Into the bathtub she brought her book, the latest by English novelist Marjorie Eccles, whose work she adored. Such gorgeous settings, such lovely English manners, such independent women and dark but intriguing men! This was life as it was meant to be, and Miss Prim was so entranced by the narrative that she had to add hot water to the tub three times to prevent herself from freezing into an ice cube.

*

After tying Bruno to his tether in the backyard
early the next morning, Miss Prim set off for the Greenfield Historical Society. Perhaps she might avoid a socially awkward question-and-answer session with Lorraine if the archivist, Gil Fellowes, could help her determine the year in which Rose Cottage had been built. It was quite possible that both Olivia Abernathy and Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg were mistaken, Miss Prim thought. Because, in the final analysis, can one
really
believe anything a real-estate agent says? And it was quite obvious that dear Mrs. Saxe-Coburg was almost completely out of it. Miss Prim understood a thing or two about senility, having witnessed its descent on her Aunts Phyllida and Prudence. In their dotage, both of those estimable ladies had recrafted the past to suit their needs and desires, putting new and unexpected spins on history. It thus seemed understandable that the aging Mrs. Saxe-Coburg would look back on her somewhat hermitic life in Greenfield with remorse. Such feelings could easily allow Elizabeth’s mind to create a nonexistent friendship with the person whose friendly advances she had rebuffed.

As for the photo showing
the Saxe-Coburgs and the Koslowskis together at a night club: It was likely that the people Mrs. S-C had identified as the Koslowskis were a different couple altogether. Miss Prim remembered back to those decades, when all women looked the same, and so did men. And while the man in the photo looked as if he might be a younger version of Lucian, the woman really did not resemble Lorraine all that much, except for a passing similarity.

As Miss Prim pulled open the glass door that would lead her to the Historical Society’s
headquarters above the post office, she noticed a Greenfield Police Department squad car parked at the curb.

She held onto the banister for dear life as she climbed the rickety stairs, which she feared might collapse under
her weight at any moment. Perhaps this was to be expected, for has there ever been a historical society that can afford large, modern office space? As Miss Prim entered the society’s large front room, her eyes took in a Jungian archetype of an archive: rickety wooden chairs lolling drunkenly on broken casters; bookshelves crammed with papers, folders, books, and newspapers; wheeled ladders to help truth seekers access hard-to-reach materials on upper shelves; rusty metal filing cabinets in military-looking greens and browns; a wooden card catalog; glass cases displaying flyers for carnivals and circuses that had visited Greenfield in the 1930s and 1940s; a large bulletin board featuring black-and-white photos with typed identification cards beneath each one.

Miss Prim heard a noise at the rear of the room. She craned her head around a large stack of
desiccated magazines to see a man emerging from a back room, wringing his hands. He was followed by Officers Spike Fremlin and Martin Reed.

“
Gil, relax,” Spike was saying. “I don’t know how you can even tell something is missing from this place. Gee whiz, it’s a pig sty! I could write my name in the dust. I read somewhere you can get tuberculosis from breathing in too much dust. Plus I bet there’s a lot of mold, too. That’s even worse. It gets in your lungs. Miss Brim! What are
you
doing here?”

“Good morning, Officer
Fremlin, Officer Reed. I was hoping …”

“Listen, Miss Brim, your timing isn’t so good. Gil here thinks he had a break-in last night but he can’t tell us what’s missing. How do we find something if we don’t know what we’re looking for? You tell me that, Gil Fellowes. Because we have a lot of other stuff on our plates right now.”

Martin Reed stood silently behind Spike Fremlin, seeming to accept his lot in life and perhaps thinking about the ways éclairs and crullers might ease the pain.