Editing Adventures of Dash Karp and Cat Flynn (section)

== Chapter 3 "The Gypsy and the Jewels"==


'''''DASH'''''

Applewhite, whom I often called 'Horsey' (and sometimes Horse-face, if he was being disagreeable) caught a fever in 1930 for the Irish Crown Jewels which had been stolen in 1907. He was convinced the theft was still, in historical terms, too fresh not to be uncovered. The fact that the great Sherlock Holmes himself had not solved the case did not deter Applewhite in the least. He hired teams of researchers in London and Dublin to scour every scrap of record they could find, including notes by Holmes's assistant Dr. Watson.

The trail, if it was a legitimate trail, went from Dublin, to Antwerp, to the British possession of Barbados where it seemed to grow cold. Then, just a few weeks ago, Applewhite was visiting North Brother Island where he sometimes made donations. In one of those strange and unusual circumstances, Apllewhite made reference to a possible trip to Barbados (which he never undertook personally) which prompted one of the nuns to mention the passing of a British General's wife just seven years prior. That's when I was called in.

It became my sole mission to learn everything about Lorraine Talliver and her husband the General. But sometimes Applewhite overlooked the finer details, and in this case, my attention focused on the servant girl that had accompanied Mrs. Talliver and stayed with her until her death. Of course, this didn't mean I expected to find the Irish Crown Jewels! I personally believed if they had not been sold by now and turned up somewhere, then they were gone forever.

Still, I was being paid well enough, so I started my hunt for a young gypsy girl named Catarina. I liked the name, I did. Something exotic and even royal about it and I must admit some of Applewhite's affection and interest in royalty was rubbing off on me. After all, I too had some blue blood!

It took some digging among the nurses and nuns at North Brother Island, but a grainy photograph finally turned up of Mrs. Talliver being tended to by her young servant. Granted, the photo was eight years old, but at least it was something. Despite the poor quality of the photo, there was something haunting about her face, and something hauntingly familiar. For all I knew, the girl could be anywhere in the world by now and I might have considered the case closed and cold, but Applewhite was the money-bags and insisted I pursue everything.

Every direction I took came to a dead end and that old grainy picture of some far too young gypsy girl was recognized by no one outside of North Brother Island. I then started checking all the pawn shops and every fence I knew in the city, but no one knew anything about that jewelry. Of course, I only explained they were family heirlooms someone was trying to recover. Had I mentioned the Irish Crown Jewels, I would have drawn too much unwanted attention. This case was cold and dead and I tried to tell Applewhite that who then made some mention of a trip to Barbados. But no matter how hard I tried to shake the case and turn it back over to Applewhite, it always seemed to come back to me.

I needed a break finally and took Joan Thornsbury to Club Thirteen which was dry and mostly respectable. I had not been there since before the Irish Jewels caper came my way and when I walked in and looked to the stage I literally slapped my hand over my face. There she was! No wonder the face in the photograph looked so familiar...I had seen that face half a dozen times before! I felt like such a chump and Joan stood there with her hands on her flared hips waiting for me to follow the maitre d' to the table.

The woman dancing on stage in such an alluring fashion was none other than Exotica, Gypsy Flower of the Far East! How did I miss that? How did that very title not pop into my head in all those weeks I was asking around about a young gypsy girl. Except, this was no girl dancing on the stage. I had seen her at Club Thirteen and other clubs before and heard she did some fortune telling as well. Under my damn nose she was all this time!

As soon as the gypsy left the stage, I gave Joan the bum's rush out the door and into a cab. She wasn't happy, but she knew sometimes my line of work necessitated hasty exits. I was sorry I had given Ribbons, my chauffeur, the night off, nor was I prepared to go tailing someone either. I was dressed in one of my finer suits, for one thing, and did not even have my .45 with me. I did have my wits, however, and hurried around to the back alley to catch her leaving by the stage door, but after not seeing her exit, I went back into the club through the door and immediately ran into one of my many old flames. "Danny!" she called out to me and that reminded me I had not seen her in years. Applewhite had taken to calling me Dash by combining my first and middle names and it pretty much stuck as my moniker. Somehow, I didn't really mind it. Kay pressed herself up against me, but I was in no mood for her amorous attentions. I held her back and peppered her with questions about Miss Exotica. Between Kat and the stage manager, I got Exotica's address and hurried on my way by foot.

'''''CAT'''''

She never left her room at the boarding house, having hidden in the walls her money and the precious brooch. She was content to live a life that seemed small but she was unaware that there were those who seemed to know she was somehow more than she pretended to be. She was twenty-three when she returned home near dawn, unlocking her door with the skeleton key she kept around her neck, the icy cold was the first clue that something was wrong. The window by the fire escape had been smashed, her few belongings tossed around carelessly, bed overturned, mattress sliced open. Blue gaze went to the wall, the paneling intact and she sprinted to it, prying it free and almost fainting to see her cash and brooch there. She tucked the money and gem into her bra, a frightened look around when she heard footsteps in the hall, heavy ones and heading this way fast. Cops or culprits, she did not care as she raced to the fire escape, feet crunching broken glass as she sought to get as far away from the epicenter of trouble as possible. 


She couldn't go to her contacts, they were all or almost all criminals and might well be behind this. Her greatest fear was that she was to be impressed into the debauchery of prostitution, an angry rebuffed patron perhaps, it happened all too often. She could have no way of knowing it was something far deeper and more dangerous.