McNally's Dilemma (8 page)

“He called me as soon as you pulled into the garage. You should have walked in here three minutes later, not ten.”

“You are a remarkable woman, Mrs. Trelawney. The KGB’s loss is McNally and Son’s gain.”

“Get in there, Archy. I’m to bring tea at halfpast noon.”

“Sneak in two aspirin on my saucer and earn my undying gratitude,” I pleaded.

“I don’t want your undying gratitude. I want your honest expense account.”

Offer the improbable and they demand the impossible. I squared my shoulders and marched into the lion’s den.

John Fairhurst III was a handsome man—noticeably tall even seated—slim, with a full head of white hair and blue eyes that looked guardedly at everything that came into their view, including Archy McNally. His handshake was firm and his smile more inviting than his stare.

“Sorry I’m late, but my morning appointment ran over and the traffic on Worth Avenue is a harbinger of the approaching season.”

Father raised one eyebrow at my opening salvo, but noticing the slight widening of his lips beneath his mustache, I knew I had passed muster.

“No problem,” Mr. Fairhurst assured me. “I was enjoying your father’s company. He was up at Yale, too. After my time, to be sure,” he added with a sigh of resignation.

“I was right behind you, John,” Father gallantly replied.

John! Well, already on a first-name basis. How cozy. But then, Prescott McNally was a fakir par excellence who knew how to charm cobras, especially rich and famous ones.

As Yale was not a subject I wished to dwell upon, I scrutinized John Fairhurst III while he and Pater replayed a Yale/Harvard football game whose participants were now either great-grandfathers or dead. Dressed in gray flannels, a double-breasted blazer, and school tie, all Fairhurst needed was a patch over one of those blue eyes to be mistaken for a Hathaway model awaiting his cue. But don’t let that mislead you. Fairhurst’s white shirt was more Turnbull & Asser than Macy’s mezzanine. His even tan and flowing white mane cried out for a glass of tonic water in one hand as the other rested gently on the steering wheel of a cabin cruiser, and—presto!—we had the man from Schweppes. The guy was a living manufacturer’s logo.

When my grandfather Frederick McNally was a mere boy practicing pratfalls for his future career as Freddy McNally—a bulbous-nosed burlesque comic on the old Minsky circuit—Fairhurst’s grandfather was helping women and children into lifeboats before taking his place beside men of good breeding and little sense, all hell-bent on going down with the ship, thereby ensuring Hollywood an endless supply of oceanic disaster films.

“And now,” Fairhurst was saying, “the reason for my visit.” He removed an envelope from the inside breast pocket of his blazer, handling it as if it were either scalding hot or contaminated. He passed it on to father, who read it with his glasses perched on the tip of his nose while a look of unbridled horror crossed his face.

“Well,” Prescott McNally exclaimed to the piece of paper in his hand, “what a vile piece of hogwash.”

I was bursting with curiosity, but Father, making the most of the moment, read the vile piece of hogwash a second time before letting out yet another, “Well!”

“May I?” I leaned forward in my chair and reached across Father’s desk, my interest piqued beyond endurance. He was about to pass it over when there was a quiet knock on the door followed by the entrance of Mrs. Trelawney behind a tea trolley. We all smiled sheepishly, and Father, dropping the letter like a hot potato, said, “How nice, Mrs. Trelawney. Just what we needed, yes, John?”

Fairhurst readily agreed as Mrs. Trelawney played mother. We could have been in the middle of a garden club confab, delighting one another with tales of rose blight and the pros and cons of forcing late bloomers to strut their stuff before their time. Palm Beach society could make the British stiff-upper-lippers look like wimps, and the head of McNally & Son reveled in this charade like a ham playing to the balcony. And, alas, so did I—proving once again that bird dip does not fall far from the carrier pigeon.

Two white dots decorated the saucer given me by our tea lady. Bless her. I vowed to remove my lunch with Connie (appearing as “Sgt. Al Rogoff PBPD”) from this week’s expense account.

Our collective smiles departed along with Mrs. Trelawney. We were left holding steaming cups and saucers, our eyes looking at everything in the office but one another and the sheet of paper resting benignly before father.

Placing my tea on the desk, I inched my fingers farther along and tried once more to get my hot hands on the epistle that had brought us together.

“May I?” I repeated.

Father nodded. Fairhurst sipped rather noisily for one of genteel birth. I retrieved the letter and my tea, quickly downed the two aspirin while my cohorts examined the ceiling, and leaned back in my chair to read. Typewritten on a sheet of very ordinary white paper was the following:

John Fairhurst III

The Fairhurst Foundation states with each grant, “Given in memory of John Fairhurst who died April 15, 1912. A passenger on the ill-fated
Titanic,
John Fairhurst courageously assisted women, including his wife, and children into lifeboats, giving them hope when, for him and his peers, all hope was gone.”

This is a lie. Your grandfather, dressed in one of his wife’s gowns and hat, was himself assisted into a lifeboat and ultimately returned to the safety and comfort of his home.

In return for $25,000 your secret will remain a secret. I will contact you again with instructions for delivery of the money. If you do not agree to these terms, I will provide the press with proof of my allegation.

There was no signature.

The account of a man fleeing the
Titanic
in drag was not a new one. It has long been alluded to in books and films—the latter dramatically portrayed in Fox’s 1953
Titanic,
starring Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. In this, the best
Titanic
film ever made, it is the versatile character actress Thelma Ritter who unmasks the skirted pretender.

I put the letter back on Father’s desk and asked to see the envelope it came in. As I thought, it was posted in Miami, the biggest city within an easy drive from Palm Beach. I waited a respectable minute for the head of McNally & Son to speak, but when our silence segued from a meditative pause into gross embarrassment, I began to suspect that Father refused to even think what had to be said. I had no such compunction.

“Is this true, Mr. Fairhurst?”

John Fairhurst lowered his teacup and dabbed at his lips with the linen napkin supplied by Mrs. Trelawney. “May I speak in complete confidence, Mr. McNally?”

“Our name is discreet, sir, and please call me Archy.”

Fairhurst once again applied the linen to his lips. “It’s true,” he stated.

Father looked as if John Fairhurst III had just shouted, “No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, now shut up and deal.”

“I don’t understand how...”

“How we got away with it?” Fairhurst finished for me. “I’ll explain.” He returned his cup to the trolley and proceeded to let us in on the Fairhurst family secret.

“As the letter says, Grandfather got off the
Titanic
dressed as a woman, with Grandmother’s help I’m sure. Naturally, no one asked for names or identification of the people transferred from the lifeboats to the rescuing ship. Remember, confusion reigned ashore as well as at sea and the world was horrified, or perhaps mesmerized, by the disaster. When the surviving passengers sailed into New York Harbor, the newspapers had already assumed that John Fairhurst had done the noble thing and reported him dead.

“My grandparents went directly to their home in Hyde Park in upstate New York. They were neighbors of the Roosevelts, don’t-you-know. The Roosevelt Democrats, that is. They spoke, of course, only neighborly thing to do, but I never heard it said that they had broken bread with them.”

Father was nodding as if he knew the consequence of breaking bread with the wrong Roosevelts.

“I’ve always assumed my grandparents thought the situation over and decided it would be easier, and less humiliating, for poor grandfather to play dead rather than to confess to what he had done. Why end a celebrated life on a less than venerable note?”

Unable to contain the thought, I exclaimed, “How did your grandfather manage to keep the fact that he was not dead a secret?”

“Not as difficult as one would suppose,” Fairhurst answered. “Grandfather was far from young when he married, and sired a son at the end of his natural life. He lived only a few years after the
Titanic
went down. His widow, with her infant son, observed a long period of mourning in complete seclusion, which was not unheard of in those days. They were attended by an English couple who had been with them for years. When Grandfather died, in return for their silence, the couple were pensioned off and returned to England, where they lived rather lavishly in a charming home in Kent. Grandfather was never very social and I think he enjoyed his life as a recluse, surrounded by his books, pursuing his love of ancient Greek lore, and watching his son grow.

“I also think Grandfather was ashamed of his cowardly act and perhaps thought of his confinement as penance,” Fairhurst explained.

Father and I listened attentively but made no comment. John Fairhurst went on to extol his grandfather’s extraordinary business acumen as if to make up for the man’s shortcomings.

“Grandfather was once a partner of Andrew Carnegie, don’t-you-know. Broke with him early on and started up a few smelteries of his own and turned the heat up on old Andy, he did. Ha, ha.”

Like Andy Carnegie, I was not amused.

“So he lived out his life in quiet comfort and seclusion, and when Grandfather died a second time, he was the first Fairhurst to be cremated. Interment, don’t-you-know, would have been a bit awkward,” Fairhurst concluded.

John Fairhurst III knew how to turn a phrase, I’ll say that for him. I didn’t ask how they managed to get a death certificate for the old boy because I knew money could buy anything, including death certificates and love. Or should that be
especially
death certificates and love?

“Mr. Fairhurst,” I began, “by coming to us I assume you have no intention of paying to keep this a secret.”

“Correct, Archy. For several reasons. The first is that I am certain this person would not stop at the requested amount. It would be the beginning of a lifetime annuity.”

“I’m glad you are aware of that, sir.”

“Also, in compensation for Grandfather’s moment of weakness, the Fairhurst Foundation was founded as a charity devoted exclusively to the care and education of needy children. For three-quarters of a century our foundation has given millions to orphanages, endowed children’s hospitals, provided scholarships, funded medical programs, and much, much more. We have paid, many times over, for the seat on a lifeboat Grandfather may have taken from a poor boy or girl. I wish neither to make a mockery of this largesse nor see it become an embarrassment that might make it necessary to terminate the foundation. I want you to find the culprit and stop him before he brings down the Fairhurst Foundation.”

I thought
mon père
was going to stand up and applaud. To his credit, he didn’t.

Quickly assaying the situation, I concluded that the letter was a useless clue as to the blackmailer. Typewritten on what appeared to be copy-machine paper, it could lead to the villain only in a television police procedural. Besides, Fairhurst had made it very clear that the letter could be shown to no one, including an expert who might tell us the make and model of the typewriter used and not much more. This was a case for a bloodhound, and it seemed the best place to start sniffing was in Fairhurst’s own backyard.

“Mr. Fairhurst, who besides yourself knows about this?”

“The letter, or my grandfather’s indiscretion?”

“Both, please.”

“Only my wife and I know about both the letter and Grandfather’s escapade.”

“Your children?” I asked.

“No, Archy. I thought it best to let the story die with me. Saw no reason to pass it on to my heirs, and my wife agreed.”

“I think you should keep the letter, Mr. Fairhurst. It’s of no use to me, and I don’t want to be responsible for its safekeeping.”

“Very sensible,” Father said, relieved.

“And,” I continued, “I don’t think we can do very much until you receive the letter instructing you where and when to deliver the money. They will have to give us a contact point, and that can lead directly to them—which they know—so how we play it from there will win us, or lose us, the day. I can guarantee nothing, Mr. Fairhurst, but our sincere effort to foil the scheme.” This was my standard close.

“I understand, Archy, and I appreciate your help.” Fairhurst returned the letter to the inside pocket of his blazer.

“Mr. Fairhurst, do you have any idea how a family secret known only to you and Mrs. Fairhurst came to be known to a common blackmailer?”

“I honestly do not, Archy.”

“And one more thing, sir. How many are on your household staff?”

“There are a butler and a housekeeper, and a secretary who assists both me and Mrs. Fairhurst. Cleaning people and gardeners come daily and are overseen by Peterson, our butler, and the housekeeper, who happens to be Mrs. Peterson.”

Not a large crew for a house often compared to Mar-A-Lago, the former home of Post Toasties heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. Mar-A-Lago is now owned by a New York realtor. I imagine the “dailies” who come in to round out the Fairhurst staff constitute a small army.

“Do you trust them, Mr. Fairhurst?”

“Implicitly, Archy. The Petersons have been with us for over twenty years, and Arnold, our secretary, for a dozen years at least.”

“I see...”

“Oh, I almost forgot my chauffeur, Seth Walker. He’s part-time, as my wife and I don’t gad about as much as we used to. I took him on about a month ago, but he came highly recommended by Geoff Williams—you know, Melva’s husband.”

My flabber- was gasted, but this didn’t throw me off the scent. Sooner or later I would have to check out Fairhurst’s staff and I decided that sooner would be better than later. “I would like to visit your home and have a look around. Naturally, I’ll come on some pretense so as not to arouse suspicion among your staff.”