The Mammoth Book Of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits Part 56

She plays the saxophone.

And all the pretty babies

Just won't leave her alone!

It was the usual crowd. Kids and co-eds from Harvard and Boston College. A sprinkling of more mature patrons. But collegiate types predominated. Hard to believe only ten years after the armistice a fresh crop had already sprung up. They had never known war. If the graybeards were right, they never would.

Who got bounced at Harvard

Princeton, Yale and Brown?

Inebriated laughter rippled and tinkled off the walls.

At one big table a gaggle of co-eds were living it up. A fresh-faced couple were going at it so hot and heavy that when they finally came up for air, I couldn't tell which one was the male of the species. The sleek-haired boy in the vicuna coat and oversized pince-nez came away with so much lip rouge on his mouth that he might have been a girl.

I gave my attention to the evening entertainment.

Spooky Spookins I didn't for a minute think that was her real name was up on the low stage dressed like Clara Bow impersonating Lindbergh. A sheepskin-collared leather flyer's jacket bundled her superstructure. The leather cap and goggles covered every strand of bobbed hair.

Boola, boola, boola

She goes to school-a

Just to foola,

She loves to foola!

Sasparilla, sinfronella

She's a swell-a, swell-a fella!

Rah! Rah! Yah-ta-ta!

That's her college yell!

Baggy pants, crazy dance

It's f.a.n.n.y, can't you tell?

The crowd roared its applause. Spooky Spookins bowed once and flounced away. She was all legs and silk stockings as the beaded curtain swallowed her.

I ordered gin, traded a dime for a pack of Spuds from the cigarette girl and thought back to what had brought me to this dim hole.

Donal Reynolds of the Reynolds Construction Company had come up the hard way, laying down one brick at a time until he had built himself up a formidable empire. He still carried his lunch to work in a galvanized pail but in the back seat of his chauffeured phaeton now, not by streetcar.

He had ama.s.sed a sufficient fortune to send his only daughter to Harvard, but didn't like the company that she had fallen in with. They had a row over it, and she had disappeared.

Old Man Reynolds had some choice words for the future cream of Boston society. Spoiled college girls. Inflamed youth. Heathen saloon singers. He was long on indignant invective but short on names. But when he wanted her back hard enough he put some heavy coin behind it.

I'd exhausted every contact in Harvard and Cambridge. All I'd been able to uncover was that no one had ever known the Reynolds girl to have a steady beau. So now I was hunting wayward co-eds at the end of Washington where the sun never shone.

The big table looked promising, so I moseyed over.

Laying down a snapshot of the missing girl, I said, "The name's Norris. With the Weld Detective Agency. I'm looking for this girl."

The merriment subsided like I had delivered a downpour from my hat.

No one volunteered a word. The sleek-haired lad did his best to look in every direction but mine. There was something about him I didn't much care for.

"I recognize her," chirped a turbaned blonde. "Helen Reynolds."

"She's been missing four days. Her father wants her back."

"I think she eloped," said a brunette whose headache band had begun drooping over one lazy eye.

"Yeah, she was talking about eloping with that guy. What was his name? Gosh, I'm so smashed I can't work my little brain."

"You can't work your brain, potted or not," snapped the brunette.

The sleek-haired lad had buried his face in his date's strapless shoulder.

I addressed him. "Anything you'd care to add, Little Bo Peep?"

His voice was so soft I thought he must have been fresh out of high school. "Spooky might know. She knows everyone."

"I'll talk to Spooky," I said, retrieving the snap.

"Yeah. But will Spooky talk to you?"

"Kit, you're a positive scream!" the blonde burbled.

The table busted out in raucous laughter as I walked away.

It was such a sw.a.n.ky joint there was no one to stop me as I knocked on what pa.s.sed for a dressing room.

"Miss Spookins?"

A smoky voice called out, "If you're a Stage Door Johnny, kindly get yourself lost."

"Detective," I returned.

"City or agency?"

"The latter."

The door opened.

Sans goggles, Spooky Spookins had the kind of eyes you hear about but never meet. They were a deep violet. I thought I detected silver specks, but that might have been the way the light hit them. Lines on her oval face told me she'd been around.

I put the Kodak up to her retrousse nose. "The missing girl liked to hang out here. They say you might know her."

"I know everyone."

"They said that too," I said.

Spooky Spookins seemed to stare at the photo for a very long time. I couldn't read her expression.

Finally, she let me in. Taking a seat at an old deal table, she returned to what looked like a game of Solitaire.

Carefully laying out cards, she said, "I think she ran off with a guy."

"Talk out there is she eloped."

"Yeah. That's it. She eloped with a guy. Rags, they called him. Rags Raglan. A Brown boy. Son of a Texas cattleman."

"What did he look like?" I asked.

Spooky shrugged. She seemed more interested in her cards than in me. Her voice was thin and distant. "Burly. Thick hair. Had a big brush mustache. Made him look like an English lord."

"Tall or short?"

"Short. Very short."

"Rags come equipped with a first legit name?"

"Probably. Don't all cowboys? He wasn't a Rah-rah type, if you know what I mean. I think that's why she fell for him."

"Either of them leave a forwarding address?"

"Not with me. Helen didn't run with our crowd much. A little prim and proper, but not so you couldn't take her."

I handed her my card. "If you see or hear from her, there's a reward."

"O.K. Thanks."

As I walked away, I waited for her to ask "How much?" When she didn't, I knew she had been holding back a few cards. I also knew I'd be interviewing her again.