The Sporting House Killing G. Powell (best free novels .TXT) 📖

tell me what he peddles. She said he never pays cash for a visit. Miss Jessie just records it in a ledger.”

Sporting on credit wasn’t the usual course of business. Bill probably wasn’t his real name. “Harley, maybe somebody over at the TPA knows him. Why don’t you ask around at Post H and see if anybody knows a bald drummer named Bill who’s got an eye twitch?”

“Right.” Harley made a note.

“What’s the TPA?” Miss Peach asked.

Catfish tapped his cigar over the spittoon. “Travelers Protective Association. Sort of a cross between a fraternal order and a trade association for traveling salesmen. Big outfit all over the country.”

“They had a convention here the week of the murder,” Harley added.

“Sadie and I talked about him and about Georgia’s death,” Miss Peach said. “She didn’t act like he had anything to do with it. I think she would’ve spoken differently if she feared he was the killer.”

“Maybe.” Catfish tilted his head. “On the other hand, if he’s somebody important and he did have something to do with the killing, she’d likely keep it to herself.”

“Even if he’s not the killer,” Harley added, “he might know something or have seen something.”

Catfish was anxious to hear what they learned about the madam. She was the key to the case. “Let’s talk about Miss Jessie.”

Harley pulled some papers from his case. “Let me jump in here a minute.” He unfolded one, which appeared to be a telegram. “I heard back from my friend in Orleans Parish. He didn’t know of any whores named Jessie Rose.”

“Well, that’s a big place. Maybe she used a different name there.” Catfish turned to Miss Peach. “Sadie tell you anything about the madam?”

She nodded. “Like you suspected, Miss Jessie doesn’t own the house. A man does, but Sadie didn’t know his name, or at least she didn’t tell me. She told me the owner is well-to-do and Miss Jessie calls him ‘Boss.’ He clearly wasn’t Winky-Blinky, though.”

Catfish sat up. A rich owner made sense. He smelled a killer. “He’s more than just a landlord if Jessie calls him ‘Boss.’ And that explains how she’s able to afford the house after only a year in town.”

Harley looked puzzled. “How do you know she’s only been here a year?”

“Made a call at the city secretary’s office this morning. The bawdy house register shows she was a prostitute last year and a madam this year. She wasn’t in the 1892 city directory or bawdy house register at all, so if she was here then, she wasn’t set up yet. Somehow in one year she went from a working girl to running her own house—and a fancy one at that.” He eyed them both. “Some rich fella’s backing her.”

“Why are you so interested in who owns the house?” Harley asked.

“Miss Jessie’s hiding something, but she didn’t kill Georgia herself.”

“Why do you say that?” Miss Peach asked.

“Doesn’t make sense Jessie’d kill one of her own girls. For running the place, she probably gets a cut of the total take, makes as much money off her girls as she does herself. And besides, if she did kill Georgia for some reason—or if Big Joe did, or Miss Sadie—they’d probably just dump her body in the river and let somebody find it downriver, far away from the sporting house. Leaving her there and calling the police wouldn’t make sense.”

He rose and paced around the worktable. Killers lied, but just as often they got their underlings to lie for them. She was protecting the money man, and poor Cicero was how she was doing it. There wasn’t any other explanation. Find the boss, find the killer. But if he wasn’t Winky-Blinky, who?

He stopped pacing. “Anything else, Miss Peach?”

“No, sir. That’s all. Sorry I couldn’t find out more.”

“Thanks, darlin’, good work.” Needed to give her a raise in pay. He turned to Harley. “I expect we should track down who actually owns that building.”

Harley smiled and reached for another paper from his case. “I might already know who he is.”

That’s my boy. “Who?”

“I found an article in the Evening News back in March of last year, and I copied it.” Harley read it to his father. “‘The three-story brick building in the Reservation, occupied by Josie Bennett, was destroyed by fire between the hours of two and three o’clock this morning. The framework of the building is a total loss, but the walls remain standing. It was the property of W. R. Orman—’”

Catfish tensed. Orman?

“—and was insured for $5,000 in the following companies: North British, $3,000; Dockery & Co. Agency. $2,000, Phoenix of London; J. H. Sturgis & Co. Agency. The insurance on the building covered the loss. The insurance on the furniture will not cover the loss. Most of the inmates of the establishment were out of the building at the time the fire broke out.’”

Some things didn’t make sense. “The sporting girls were gone at three in the morning?”

“That’s what the article said.”

“That building was three stories, but Jessie’s is only two,” Catfish said. “Why do you think it’s the same one?”

“I drove through the Reservation after I left the paper. There’s only one other brick house, and it’s on Second Street across the creek. It’s a two-story too, but it doesn’t look as though it was burned in a fire. I figure they cut Jessie’s place down to a two-story after the fire. Some of the top-story walls might have crumbled from lack of support.”

“Probably right.” He couldn’t hold it back any longer. “And the rest of the article makes sense too.”

“What do you mean?” Harley asked.

“W. R. Orman is Bud Orman.” Harley apparently didn’t recognize the name. “Never heard of him?”

Harley seemed uncertain.

“He’s in real estate, and he owns most of those run-down sporting houses on the alley near Miss Jessie’s. I’ve even heard it called Orman’s Alley. I’d forgotten all about him until now.”

He scratched his head, knocking his locks over his forehead, and looked from Harley to Miss Peach. He smiled. “And then there’s