Jeffrey Ford - The Girl in the Glass

"Exceedingly strange," said Schell.

"Does this mean the kid's dead?" asked Antony.

"How old is that paper?" asked Schell, suddenly becoming animated.

Antony unfolded it and flipped to the front page. "Four days old," he said.

"We were at Parks' place five days ago," I said.

"Yes," said Schell, "the twenty-second."

"A ghost?" asked Antony.

"I'm not certain of anything," said Schell. "But I mean to find out. What's the next stop?"

"Jamaica," I said.

"I hate to disappoint you fellows, but I'm getting off there and turning back. You two can go on to New York without me."

"Come on, Boss," said Antony. "You need a rest."

"No, no, no," said Schell. "I'm heading back. I have to make an appointment to see Mr. Barnes."

"You're not going to take this poor bastard now, with his daughter missing," said Antony.

"On the contrary," said Schell. "I'm going to try to find her."

"I'm in," I said.

"Free of charge," said Schell.

"Three words I never thought I'd hear you say," said Antony.

"I've got to get to the bottom of this," said Schell.

"Okay," said Antony, "what the hell."

We got off at Jamaica and toted our luggage over to the eastbound track. While we waited for the next train, Schell paced impatiently up and down the platform. Antony and I sat on a bench. When Schell was some distance from us, the big man leaned toward me and said, "So much for our head shrinking, kid."

I didn't answer as my mind was caught up in the notion that Schell's occult experience offered possible proof of an afterlife. The fact that there might actually be another side from which the dead might travel, and that we had played so fast and loose with it, didn't bode well for our eternal souls. Antony's thoughts must have been running along the same path, because when I asked him for a cigarette, he actually gave me one and lit it.

Harold Barnes wasn't an easy man to get to see, even if you wanted to offer your services "free of charge." Schell had called the estate but got no further than a secretary, who had curtly informed him that Mr. Barnes was not available for comment or interview. He admonished himself afterward for not thinking through the situation. "The press is most likely hounding the family at every turn. I let my eagerness get the better of me," he admitted. "From now on, I have to treat our efforts as a con, even though delusion's not the goal here."

Antony and I were dispatched on a research mission. We drove into Jamaica to the offices of the Republican Long Island Farmer , where Peewee Dunnit's sister, Kate, worked as a clerk in the file room. Antony slipped her twenty dollars, and she slipped him the newspaper's dossier on Barnes. Usually when we tapped her for a file, she'd let us have it for a day or two, but with the millionaire's daughter missing, it was in hot demand by their own reporters. We could have one hour with it before it had to be returned.

We staked out a table in a diner around the corner from the paper, ordered coffee, and set about consuming and recording as much pertinent information as possible. It was a thick file, as Barnes was well-known; even if we had all day with their file, it would be difficult to decide which pieces of information were relevant to our investigation. What we might consider inconsequential, Schell could possibly snatch up and spin into gold. We had to work fast, with a scattershot method, and merely hope for the best.

For eye work this important, Antony wore what he referred to as his "cheaters," a pair of black, horn-rimmed glasses that he'd swiped, years earlier, from someone obviously on the verge of blindness. The scratched lenses did nothing more than magnify things ten times-not the least his own eyes. Whenever we'd chance to look up from our work at the same time, I'd get a start from the sight of those two huge peepers, big as pansies, staring at me. With me in my turban and him looking like a three-hundred-pound, six-foot-four owl, no one bothered us while we worked.

We rifled madly through the stack of clipped articles, typed sheets, photographs, jotting down snippets of information. The minute hand on the big clock above the grill moved like a thoroughbred on the back turn as I noted information about Barnes's shipping business, his political affiliations, the movie stars who'd visited his home, the charitable contributions he'd made. From what I'd uncovered, he seemed like a typical member of the American aristocracy, yet somewhat more staid than his Gold Coast compatriots.

Only five minutes before we had to return the dossier to Kate, Antony looked up, fixed me with that gigantic stare, and said, "We got him."

"How?" I asked.

"I'll tell you in the car," he said.

We shuffled the loose pages together in as close to the order as we'd found them, and I lifted the stack and banged it twice to even it out. Antony took fifty cents from his pocket and threw it on the table. Whipping off his cheaters and stowing them in his inside jacket pocket, he said, "Let's blow."

I had to wait until he'd emerged from the newspaper building to get the dope on his catch. He returned to the car with a big smile on his face. As he got in behind the wheel he said, "I told Kate we might want another twenty-dollar peek at that file."

He started up the Cord, and we pulled away.

"What did you find?" I asked.

"Kid, I'm good," he said. "Nothing escapes the gaze of the cheaters."

"Okay, you're good," I said.

"Guess who stayed with Barnes when he visited the U.S.?" he asked.

"I give up."

"None other than A. Conan Doyle."

"The author?"

"Yeah."

"So what?"

"The guy's a first-class spook booster, a true believer. Faeries, ghosts, spirits, sйances, psychics, you name it, he'll believe it. You could serve him the holes in doughnuts. I found an article about Conan Doyle's stay with Barnes, which noted that they share an interest in spiritualism. Barnes is a mark."

"That's good to know, but how's it get us in to see him?" I asked.

"This is the kicker. Another article from a few years ago mentions Barnes and his fellow Harvard alumnus and close friend…guess who?"

"Parks," I said.

"Hey…" he said and turned so quickly to look at me, the car swerved momentarily into the oncoming lane.

"Watch the road," I told him.

"How'd you know?" he asked, steering back into our lane.

"I saw a diploma from Harvard on Parks's wall when we were there the first time. I just guessed."

"You're becoming more like the boss every day," he said. He shook his head and then added, "So we get Schell to talk to Parks, who gets on the blower to Barnes and puts in a good word for us. Bingo."

"That might actually work," I said. "Nice fishing."

"Nothing escapes," said Antony. "Nothing."

Even though Schell wished we'd had more time to gather basic information, he was pleased with our work and agreed that Antony's plan was sound. I listened in as he put the call through to Parks. Witnessing Schell get his way with words was like watching a knife thrower split a hair at twenty yards. He peppered his spiel with mentions of Parks's mother and how much she'd no doubt appreciate seeing us help poor Barnes. By the time Schell was done, Parks would have called the emperor of China on our behalf.

Then we waited. A day passed, and we checked the papers to see if there had been any break in the case. The search parties continued, the police were still on the job, but the girl had not surfaced, dead or alive. Schell pored over the meager information we'd brought him, and to see what he could turn up, he put in some calls to friends of his who traveled in high society. He was curious to find out if our subject had any shady dealings and if his marriage was sound. From all accounts, Barnes, though filthy rich, seemed to be a straight shooter