Хал Эллсон - Mink Is for a Minx

And a real cute trick, fore, aft and sidewise. It was amazing what the files of an insurance company could produce.

Stack found Rosa Antonelli cleaning house, with a smudged nose, a towel tied in rabbit ears around her head, her skirts tucked up peasant fashion, her feet bare and dirty from mopping. It took a special type of girl to look good under those circumstances. She was the type.

She made him a cup of java, talking from the kitchenette. It was clear she was worried as hell over her bond and future jobs.

She called with a catch in her voice, “I suppose you think I made a mistake in the checks or the coats, too — unless you think something worse! But I want to tell you, Mr. Stark, there was no mistake of any kind.”

“Now take it easy, Rosa, and I’ll try to clear you,” he advised.

She brought his coffee, her eyes shining with gratitude. “I don’t know why. Everybody else has good as called me a thief!”

He took her hand reassuringly and seated her opposite, where he could enjoy her knees. “Let’s just recall the evening.”

“Well, it was rushed, but I was alone on the checkroom. When I’m alone, I never handle more than one party at a time. So I couldn’t have gotten any checks mixed up except right in the Harrison party.”

She thought back a minute. “The Harrisons came in late. They had to wait for a vacant table at the bar. By that time, the back check racks were full and I was using the very front ones, with the check numbers near two hundred. Mr. Harrison’s number was one ninety-two, for instance.”

Rosa Antonelli spoke rapidly and had her facts in order. But of course, she’d already recounted the facts half a dozen times to police, routine insurance investigators, the bonding company, her bosses.

“The Harrisons were late leaving and there weren’t many coats left. All the other coats were where they should be, on the front racks. But Mrs. Harrison handed in check thirty-six, and it was the last coat on the back rack. You see what I’m getting at?”

Stack nodded. “She shouldn’t have had check thirty-six to begin with. But if there had been some error in the check stubs, the coat for thirty-six should still have been on the front rack.”

The check girl nodded, but tears filled her eyes. “I tried to say that, but nobody would listen. Mr. Harrison was sure I was a thief, and wanted me thrown in jail right then. And Mrs. Harrison was telling the manager that she’d certainly given me back the same check I gave her.”

Stack laid a hand upon her knee to stop her. “Mrs. Harrison gave you her own check? I mean, in that kind of restaurant, isn’t it usual for a lady’s escort to carry both checks?”

“Yes it is and that’s what I was trying to make her see — that some smart operator might have seen her tuck the check in her evening bag, and pulled something when she laid it on the bar, maybe. If she’d only listened, maybe she could have remembered who sat next to her or stood behind her or if she laid her purse down in the powder room—”

Rosa choked up suddenly. “But all they wanted to do was blame me!” she sobbed.

“Now,” Stack said sympathetically, “I’m not blaming you, and maybe you’ve solved the whole thing without knowing it.”

“Oh, Mr. Stack!” She reached his hand impulsively and hugged it against her neck. “If you’d just tell that to the bonding company, I’d do anything—”

“Hrrrrumm,” he nodded. “Well, I’ll need quite a little help from you. Private and confidential, of course.”

“Any time you want to see me,” she agreed with the vaguest hint of color in her cheeks. “And I’ll tell you something, Mr. Stack, if I had been stealing, I’d have wanted the imitation, not that lavish mink of Mrs. Harrison’s.”

“Do you have any recollection of the woman who checked the other coat?” he asked.

Rosa shook her head. “I’ve tried and tried but can’t remember. But it was still a lovely coat, Mr. Stack. Compared with the Harrisons, she may have been dirt poor, but she still must dress very beautifully.”

“Maybe you’ll have a coat like that someday,” Chip said, and smiled.

“Oh! I’d really do anything—” she burst out.

“ Hrrrumm!” he said again.

He made some chitchat to relax her and then took a taxi to his apartment, where he could pursue investigation reclining with a Scotch and phone. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the culprit was Lili Harrison herself, in spite of her husband’s wealth. Women just didn’t pick up their own coat checks when escorted by their husbands.

However, he double-checked with some fairly reliable gossip mongers, and came up with what he expected. S.E.T. Harrison had been badly hurt in last summer’s stock crash and had been raising hell about household expenses ever since. He’d gone further and reduced the staff of his oceangoing yacht to a skeleton crew just big enough to keep the vessel in commission.

When a yachtsman was driven to that deprivation, he would certainly deny his wife the extravagance of a new coat he considered unnecessary. But Lili Harrison was not the kind to see it in that light. The mink was well-known and four years old. She had always made a particular point of trading in for a new one a year ahead of the time interval that was customary with most wealthy women. The easy alternative to the impasse was to sock the insurance company.

As far as the method went, that was easy to figure. The question was, who had been her trusted confederate, or confederates, and how could she be sure of trusting them?

In this case, that factor alone eliminated her maid. It required well-oiled underworld connections to sell a coat like that, and a maid would not have them. And she’d not dare wear the coat herself. So the coat would be valueless for purchasing her timeless silence.

Chip Stack mixed himself another drink and considered that the check girl had supplied that answer, too. She was the only one who had noted that the switched coat, although of very moderate value, must have belonged to a very well-dressed woman — the kind of a woman who could wear mink if she had the money. One who moved socially high enough so that her appearance in a refinished mink would not arouse too much curiosity.

That sounded like some poor but social friend of Lili’s, just the kind of friend a rich woman would have. That kind of a friend could be trusted eternally, because her own social position would be involved, and because she’d lose the mink if she made one slip. The old mink would be her reward for helping Lili Harrison gain a new one.

Chip Stack was satisfied with his picture and phoned an old friend who moved on the fringes of the Gold Coast crowd in Westchester. Adroitly, he learned that Lili Harrison had just such a playmate, a girl named Valerie Snowden, married to a fatheaded cousin of that prominent family, without the brains or gumption to make them a decent income. What it boiled down to was that Valerie’s good times were largely the result of knowing Lili Harrison. As might be expected with such a dumbun husband, Valerie liked her martinis and the ponies. She was damned good-looking, too, the friend added.

That was too bad, Stack considered. He did have his streak of chivalry — he hated framing pretty women.

He hopped in his Mercedes Special and drove out to Westchester. The upper crust would not do their bar hopping at obvious, popular places, but such communities were invariably dotted by discreet little back-lane bistros where they were relatively safe in letting down their hair. One such place always led to another.

It took four days and nine bars to pick up the haunts of Valerie Snowden. It was an unduly long time for Chip Stack to reconnoiter, but he was handicapped by not daring to mention the Harrisons or Valerie Snowden even casually. Just a whispered rumor that a stranger was interested in them might get that mink buried deeper than a skunk’s hide.