The Willful Wife

Where were they going? How could he explain the situation to Beano without saying too much or too little? How could he make the other man understand?

Mathis raised the can to his mouth and finished off his beer. Hell, he wasn’t sure he understood himself.

Then the words of an old and familiar American folk song started running through Mathis Hazard’s head.

Froggy went a-courtin’, he did go.

Froggy went a-courtin’, he did go.

“We’re going a-courtin”’ was his answer.

Two

The siren awakened her from a dead sleep.

Desiree Stratford rolled over onto her side, reluctantly opened her eyes and squinted at the clock on the bedside table.

Three in the morning.

“Ohh,” she softly groaned, turning her head and burying her face in the goose-down pillow.

She didn’t want to be awake. In fact, she wanted desperately to be asleep.

After a day of seemingly endless meetings with lawyers and bankers, architects and contractors, even a delegation of longtime hotel guests, after a dinner of thoroughly atrocious and utterly cold food—Desiree vowed she would fire the temperamental and incompetent chef, Andre, just as soon as she had the time to hire a replacement—after an evening spent poring over papers in her great-grandfather’s study—had the dear, sweet man kept every scrap of correspondence he had received in his life?—it had been nearly one o’clock, a mere two hours ago, that she had finally crawled, exhausted, into bed.

Now she found herself awake again.

She had no one to blame but herself, Desiree acknowledged. She was the one who had insisted that she move into the oldest wing of the Stratford, into what used to be her great-grandparents’ living quarters, into the very bedroom where she had stayed as a child on her thrice-yearly visits to Chicago.

Apparently as a girl she had slept much more soundly than she did at the age of thirty. Now she heard the shrill, jarring, nerve-grating wail of every siren that passed on the street below between the hotel and the busy city hospital nearby.

There was no sense in crying over spilled milk, as her great-grandfather used to say.

It was too late.

It was done.

It was in the wee, small hours of the night and she was wide-awake.

Desiree turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling overhead. A faint light was coming from the row of windows on the far side of the bedroom, just enough light so that she could make out the shapes and patterns of the mural painted on the ceiling decades earlier by a starving yet talented artist.

The images had faded somewhat with time and the inevitable layer of dust and grime that had accumulated, but they were still a magnificent rendering of the heavens, complete with sun and moon, stars and planets, clouds and constellations.

The images might have faded, but not her memories ... never her memories.

“I’m afraid of the dark, Great-Grandpapa,” she confessed one night as she was being tucked into bed.

“But only when it’s dark can we gaze up at the sky and see all the stars,” he pointed out to her.

Desiree had never thought of that.

“How many stars are there in the sky?” she asked, excited as only an eight-year-old can be excited.

“Thousands. Millions, ” her great-grandfather answered from his leather wing chair, the same leather wing chair that had always stood alongside the guest bed

“Can I count them?”

“Of course you can. You can do anything you put your mind to. Anything at all. Don’t ever forget that, Desiree.”

She gazed up at the painted mural. “But there are so very many stars, Great-Grandpapa.”

“Don’t worry, child. We’ll count them together.”

So she and her great-grandfather had counted aloud, her little girl’s half-whisper in unison with his great, booming baritone, until she couldn’t keep her eyes open no matter how hard she tried. Night after night she would fall asleep to the sound of his voice and dream about places she had never been and things she had never seen.

The decor of the guest room had been something out of a dream, as well. In fact, it still was. It had remained essentially unchanged over the years.

The furniture was delicately carved and inlaid with rare woods from the Jodhpur region of India. Above the bombe bureau were framed pictures of elephants with their trunks majestically raised skyward, mischievous monkeys at play, colorfully plumed birds perched on tree branches and king cobras, hooded, coiled, sinuous, deadly, yet worshiped by a segment of the Indian population as gods.

A large painting hung over the fireplace. It depicted a fierce Bengal tiger with a royal hunting party in pursuit On the opposite wall was a seventeenth-century embroidered tapestry, stitched with silk thread and illustrating the life of a maharajah, the beautiful ladies of his court, his grand palace and riches beyond imagination.

The family’s living quarters had always been filled with personal mementos, keepsakes and souvenirs of the Raj in India. For Desiree they had been a glimpse into her great-grandfather’s world, into a world that was gone and would not come again. Oh, how he had enjoyed telling her stories of his days on the Indian subcontinent and of the times when the sun had never set on the British Empire.

There had been a splendor and grandeur about the Hotel Stratford in those days, although if she hadn’t been an impressionable child infatuated with the place perhaps she would have noticed even back then that it was beginning to fade.

But as an eight-year-old she had seen only what she wanted to see. She had loved the hotel’s elegantly appointed lobby, its highly polished brass adornments, its marble floors underfoot and its crystal chandeliers high overhead, its sweeping staircase and claret-colored carpeting, its uniformed doorman and imposing majordomo.

Most of all Desiree had loved her great-grandfather, resplendent in a perfectly pressed Savile Row suit, starched white collar and old school tie. In a manner of speaking, the Colonel, as his staff had referred to him, had worn a kind of uniform, too. His closet had been filled with identical suits, collars and ties.

It had been her love for her great-grandfather, and for the Stratford with its rich history and traditions, that had eventually led Desiree to make preserving the past her life’s work. She believed that without the past there was no understanding of the present and precious little insight for the future.

She exhaled on a long, drawn-out sigh.

Unfortunately, sentimentality had cost her another good night’s sleep. It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last. Not if she went ahead with her plans for renovating the hotel from the ground up.

In truth, the Stratford was a dowdy dowager duchess, a bit threadbare, a bit tattered, a bit—well, perhaps more than a bit—past her prime, but not beyond restoration, not beyond redemption. She could be saved. Desiree was certain of it.

But was she certain in her mind ... or only in her heart?

Desiree punched at the pillows behind her head—there were half a dozen of every size and shape, covered with the finest Egyptian cotton pillow slips—and stretched out, arms flung to either side, in the antique iron-frame bed.

She gazed up at the stars twinkling overhead on the ceiling and began to count in a whisper, “One. Two. Three. Four.” After some time she wetted her lips with her tongue and continued. “Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred.” She persisted. “One hundred and one. One hundred and two.”

Enough was enough.

“There’s no sense in pretending any longer,” Desiree muttered as she propped herself up against the mound of pillows. “You aren’t going back-to sleep any time soon.”

She was reaching for the lamp on the bedside table when she thought she heard something.

Her hand froze in midair.

She slowly took in her breath and held it. She wasn’t sure which came next: the odd, tingling sensation that raised the small hairs on the back of her neck or the soft pad of footsteps outside in the corridor.

There was no one else staying in this wing, no one else with a reason for being here.

Desiree gave herself a good shake. It was the dead of night. The Stratford was an old building. Old buildings went hand in hand with strange noises.

Or maybe it was no more than an overactive imagination on her part. Not that she was a woman prone to an overactive anything, but she was living alone in this section of the hotel.

Truth to tell, there had been more than one unexplained occurrence since her arrival at the Stratford several weeks ago. Furniture had been found mysteriously moved from one room to another. Everyone swore their innocence in the matter, and no one seemed to have any idea of who or why or when or even how this feat could have been accomplished.

Then there had been the glimpses of something—someone—just at the edge of Desiree’s peripheral vision, but nothing—and no one—was ever there.

Lastly were the inexplicable noises, always at night, always when she was alone.

Perhaps it was someone up to no good. Perhaps it was someone trying to frighten her. No doubt that’s what it was. That’s what it had to be.

Shenanigans.

Monkeyshines.

Tasteless practical jokes, in Desiree’s opinion.

There were stories, naturally. There were always stories about historic old buildings. She had heard the outlandish ghost stories about the Stratford her very first night back in Chicago. Her resident guests had seen to that.

One account; relayed with particular relish by Miss Molly Mays, had concerned the ill-fated workman who had fallen asleep during the renovation of the hotel. He had accidentally been buried alive inside a foot-thick brick wall. The poor devil had suffocated to death, of course, before his absence had been noted by his fellow workmen and the wall could be frantically torn down again.

Then there was the tale of the mobster and his moll, related with equal enthusiasm by Miss Maggie Mays. During the era of Prohibition, the couple had apparently been Chicago’s version of Bonnie and Clyde. The pair had come to an inglorious, although perhaps deserved, end when they were killed in a barrage of police bullets. Ever since, according to the elder Miss Mays, it had been rumored that the lovers’ spirits still roamed the corridors of the Stratford, phantom guns blazing.

Balderdash.

Poppycock.

Pure malarkey, as her great-grandfather would have said. She didn’t believe in ghosts. At least not those kind of ghosts, Desiree reminded herself.

Thump.

Thump.

The sound of footsteps came again.

Without switching on the bedside lamp, Desiree threw back the summer-weight covers and sat up. As a girl her feet had dangled over the edge of the high English-style bed. Now they were firmly planted on the cool hardwood floor.

Thump.

“Enough of this nonsense,” Desiree grumbled under her breath as she reached for her bathrobe and made a beeline for the door.

Despite the twenty years since her last visit, for she had stopped coming to the Stratford after the death of her great-grandfather, she knew the guest room, and the entire apartment, like the back of her hand.

Without a sound Desiree turned the knob, opened the door a crack and peered out into the corridor. Vintage lights, strategically spaced every ten or fifteen feet, cast a garish glow on the flowered wallpaper and claret-colored carpeting.

She stepped into the hallway and quietly slipped along in her bare feet, double-checking each juncture as she came to it.

There was nothing.

There was no one.

There was no sign of whoever had been there.

Not that Desiree was particularly surprised by the results of her impromptu investigation. She had scarcely expected to peer around the corner and catch the culprit red-handed.

“Utter nonsense,” she announced aloud, her voice echoing in the empty corridor. “I’m going to bed.”

It was at that moment that Desiree noticed the door to her great-grandfather’s study was ajar. Surely she had closed it when she’d finished working for the night.

Hadn’t she?

She made a split-second decision. Under the circumstances, she wasn’t going to take any chances. Reaching around the corner, Desiree grabbed one of Jules Stratford’s traditional English walking sticks from the brass umbrella stand. She firmly grasped the “weapon” in one hand and groped for the light switch with the other.

Flicking the switch, she blinked several times in rapid succession and gave her eyes a second or two to adjust to the change. Then she quickly looked around.

The room was filled with rich mahogany furniture and glass-fronted barrister bookcases, Edwardian-era oil paintings and mementos from her grandparents’ days in India, and shadows.

Thankfully, the room was also vacant.

Desiree quickly crossed to the opposite side of the spacious study and opened the door into the adjoining parlor. The formal room beyond was also unoccupied.

After closing the parlor door, she turned. At a glance the study appeared to be exactly as she had left it two hours before. She lowered the silver-tipped walking stick and approached the massive mahogany desk. That’s when she realized something was amiss.

Desiree spun on her heel and stared at the wall behind the desk where her great-grandfather’s sword and dagger, presented to him upon his retirement from active military duty, had been displayed for as long as she could remember.

The dagger was gone.

She was almost certain ... she was certain ... that the dagger had been there earlier that evening.

Who could have taken it?

Why take it?

Where was it now?

Then, out of the corner of her eye, something else caught Desiree’s attention. She slowly pivoted. As the object came into focus, a chill spiraled down her spine. For a moment she couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. She didn’t even breathe.

Finally collecting herself, she encircled the desk, all the while being very careful not to touch anything.

Perhaps Uncle George was right.

Perhaps it was a good idea for a security expert to inquire into the peculiar goings-on at the Stratford.

Admittedly, when her godfather had telephoned that afternoon to inform her that he had called in a “hired gun,” Desiree had argued the point with him. She had recited to him a dozen good reasons why she didn’t want and didn’t need extra security at the hotel.

Now she was relieved that she hadn’t managed to talk George Huxley out of his plan. As a matter of fact, it was of some consolation to her just knowing that the man was scheduled to show up first thing in the morning.

For there, directly in front of Desiree Stratford, firmly embedded in the top of the desk, its tip neatly slicing through a sheet of thick, cream-colored writing paper embossed with the family coat of arms and with the single word forewarned block-printed across its surface, was her great-grandfather’s dagger.

Three

Rashid Modi hovered in the doorway of what had once been the night manager’s office. He discreetly cleared his throat. “A thousand pardons, Ms. Stratford.”

Desiree looked up from the most recent financial statement submitted by her accountant—it was not good news—and said rather absently, “Yes, Mr. Modi?”

The hotel manager squared his shoulders. “There is someone here to see you.”

“Who is it?” she inquired of the capable young man who had been in charge of the day-to-day operation of the Stratford and its few remaining staff members since the death of her step-great-grandmother, Charlotte, last winter.

“He did not give his name.” Rashid Modi remained standing at attention. “He said you would know who he was.”

Desiree glanced at the antique cloisonné timepiece on the bookcase opposite the desk. It was precisely eight o’clock. Perhaps her caller was the security expert retained by George Huxley. The security expert she wasn’t supposed to mention to anyone, at least not by profession. If so, the man was punctual. First thing in the morning evidently meant first thing in the morning.

Rashid Modi lingered. “You are busy. Do you wish for me to send him away?”

Desiree tidied the stack of papers in front of her and slipped them back into the large official-looking envelope in which they had been delivered the day before. “Thank you, Mr. Modi, but that won’t be necessary,” she said as she stashed the envelope in her briefcase. “I’ll see the gentleman.”

“As you wish,” he acquiesced.

Desiree sensed a certain hesitation on the part of the Stratford’s manager. “What is it, Mr. Modi?”

Rashid Modi was the absolute soul of discretion. He was well-dressed, well-spoken, well trained and well liked. There was no doubt in Desiree’s mind that he would go far in his chosen career as a hotelier. In fact, the only surprise to her was that he had accepted a position with the Stratford which was, frankly, no longer on the “A” list of Chicago hotels. The man could have aimed higher, much higher: the Tremont or the Whitehall or even the Raphael, and he could certainly have commanded more money than Charlotte Stratford—and now Desiree—could afford to pay him.

Mr. Modi hemmed and hawed, and then, with a decided flair for understatement, disclosed, “The person waiting to see you isn’t exactly a gentleman.”

This unexpected announcement got Desiree’s attention. “What is he, then?”

The young man paused, brushed at a nonexistent speck of lint on his lapel and said, “A cowboy.”

“A cowboy?” Uncle George—as she had called George Huxley for as long as she could remember; he had been one of her father’s best friends since their undergraduate days at Harvard—hadn’t mentioned anything about a cowboy. Desiree was admittedly curious. “How do you know he’s a cowboy?”

Typically a man of few unnecessary words, Mr. Modi gave a succinct answer. “Cowboy boots. Cowboy hats.”

Hats?

Desiree frowned. “Is there more than one hat?”

He nodded.

Lack of sleep had finally caught up with her, Desiree realized as she pondered the problem of the hats. Why would a cowboy wear more than one hat? For that matter, how could a cowboy wear more than one hat at a time? Surely the man didn’t have two heads. A surreal Salvador Dali-like picture formed in her mind.

Aloud, she asked, “Why?”

It was the hotel manager’s turn to frown in puzzlement. “Why what, Ms. Stratford?”

She wasn’t making herself understood. “Why is there more than one cowboy hat?”

“Because there is more than one cowboy,” he said simply.

Her mouth formed a silent O.

Rashid Modi held up two long, elegant fingers. “In fact, there are two cowboys.”

“I see.” Desiree didn’t see, but she supposed that was beside the point.

During their telephone conversation yesterday, her godfather had clearly stated that the security expert’s name was Mathis Hazard, and that the well-respected security agency he represented was Hazards, Inc. She was quite certain that Uncle George hadn’t said anything about a cowboy or a sidekick.

Mr. Modi moved his head back and forth. With the tip of his tongue against the back of his front teeth, he began to make a small clicking noise. It was definitely a sound of disapproval. “I told the persons in question to go around to the delivery entrance and see Andre.” The young gentleman paused, raised his nose ever so slightly in the air and sniffed as only an Englishman can sniff. “But they, well, he, insisted on speaking to you personally.”

“He?”

“The formidable one.”

Mathis Hazard must be formidable, indeed. Rashid Modi was not a man easily impressed or intimidated, nor, for that matter, was he prone to exaggeration.

Desiree only hoped and prayed there weren’t going to be any unpleasantries between the very English hotel manager—Rashid Modi was of Indian ancestry, but he had been born, raised and educated in London—and a security agent from the American West, judging from the former’s description of the latter.

Frankly she had enough on her mind with the coterie of lawyers and accountants, contractors and architects constantly buzzing around her, not to mention the temperamental Andre and the trio of female guests in permanent residence who acted as though they were the ones who actually owned the Stratford.

If that wasn’t enough to drive a sane woman to the brink of insanity, there had been the incident of the night before. She had assumed that Mathis Hazard would want to examine the evidence for himself, so she had left her great-grandfather’s dagger exactly as she had found it: jeweled handle gleaming in the lamplight, razor-sharp tip embedded in the top of the mahogany desk.

Desiree brushed a hand across her eyes. After discovering the dagger and the note, she had made a thorough search of her great-grandparents’ former apartment. Whoever had been there seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain that the culprit didn’t have any intentions of returning to the scene of the crime for a second time that night, Desiree had gone back to bed. First, however, she had securely wedged a sturdy chair under the brass doorknob, since there were no locks on the doors in the family wing. Despite this precaution, it had been nearly dawn before she had managed to fall asleep again.

Rashid Modi repeated his initial offer. “I can send the cowboys away, Ms. Stratford, if you don’t have time to see them.”

“I can spare a minute or two,” she said.

“Shall I show them in?” The manager indicated the confines of the small, once elegant and now somewhat threadbare, office.

Desiree politely shook her head and inquired, “Where are the two men?”

Another concise reply was supplied by Mr. Modi. “The lobby.”

Desiree pushed her chair back, reached for the tailored jacket to her suit and rose to her feet. “I’ll see them in the lobby, then.”

The heels of her pumps clicked on the marble floor as Desiree pulled on her jacket and started down the hallway. Once she reached the lobby she paused for a moment, put her head back and gazed up at the ornate ceiling high above her.

The lobby ceiling was done in the grand Victorian style, with intricately carved cornices and molding, and with a second mural by the same artist who had painted the guest room. This time he had chosen to depict mythical creatures of flight from the six-winged angels of the seraphim to round-cheeked cherubs, from exotic birdmen to a snow-white Pegasus.

The piece de resistance of the front lobby, however, was the chandelier. It was Austrian crystal, weighed more than a ton, dated from the turn of the century when it was originally a gaslight and, since its conversion to electricity, was said to be comprised of more than two thousand individual lightbulbs.

In the hotel’s heyday there had been a full-time employee whose job had been to clean and change the bulbs in the lighting fixtures, including the Stratford’s prized chandelier. There had also been an attendant who polished, on a daily basis, the brass balustrades on the staircase. And another whose sole duty was to set and wind the clocks, all ninety-seven of them.

That was no longer the case. The ninety-seven clocks were long gone, and the cleaning and polishing were done by a small, independent business firm that had won the job by quoting Charlotte Stratford the lowest bid.

Nevertheless, the myriad stories about the Stratford, its architectural and social history, its famous guests and its somewhat more humble yet interesting employees, had fascinated Desiree when she was a girl. They still did.

Her gaze returned to ground level. There were her early-morning visitors standing in the middle of the lobby. Mr. Rashid was correct, as he usually was. They were cowboys. Both of them.

The next thing Desiree noticed were the white hats. Not on their heads, thankfully, but held at their sides. At least they were gentlemen enough to remove them indoors.