The Mysterious Disappearance of Señora Beardsley and the Chicago Showgirl

On New Year’s Eve, five minutes before the clock struck midnight, three things happened simultaneously. The maître d’ placed a slice of chocolate cake in front of Senor Beardsley and refilled his flute with champagne like he did every year. The porter rolled onto the stage, a 3-tiered pop out cake taller than himself that resembled Senor Beardsley’s slice down to the crumb. The feathered dancers descended the stage, posed around the pop out cake and waited, smiling out to the lively crowd.

Three minutes before the clock struck midnight, Senor Beardsley sipped his champagne. Two minutes before the clock struck midnight, Senor Beardsley ate his first bite of chocolate cake. One minute before the clock struck midnight, the maître d’ informed the crowd that it was indeed one minute before the clock struck midnight and began the countdown to the Year of Our Lord 1930.

At exactly midnight, the jazz players started their tune and the dancers tottered around the pop out cake. The audience eyed the giant cake, waiting for Senora Beardsley to appear like she did every year. The first minute of the New Year passed slowly as the dancers looked at each other behind plastered smiles. At 12:02, one brave dancer took the top tier off the staged cake and gasped. Senora Beardsley was nowhere to be found. At 12:03, Senor Beardsley stood up suddenly, grabbed at his throat with a low gurgle before toppling to his side, dead as a door nail.

Women screamed, wait staff ran back of house and Senor Beardsley’s men took out their weapons. In a state of chaos, Senor Beardsley’s men shot and killed three hotel guests as they tried to flee the scene. The police were called and Detective Hamm arrived shortly thereafter.

Detective Hamm walked into the center of the grand dining hall of Senor Beardsley’s hotel, The Knick, stood still and watched. The medics poked at the lifeless victims. The wait staff who started to clear the tables were yelled to stop by a stressed maître-d’. Hamm’s partner had lined up the dancers on stage for questioning but was actually flirting. The Captain was in a hushed conversation with Senor Beardsley’s son, Miguel and a line of men in dark suits paced near the entrance awaiting command from their new master.

Detective Hamm walked to Senor Beardsley’s obese dead body. His eyes looked to nowhere. His jaw slacked open. Foam fell from his mouth and blood stained the skin around his lips. Hamm glanced at the slice of chocolate cake. Only one bite was missing. Poison, but who and why?

Now, this was a bit of a doozy. You see, Senor Beardsley was the father of the Beardsley crime syndicate that ran booze among other things into Prohibition Chicago. The man had a long list of grievances against him and it was well known that buckos from New York and Atlantic City were trying to grow roots in the Windy City of Jazz and Gangsters, but gangsters used guns, not poison. Gangsters wanted their vengeance known. In Hamm’s mind, poison was a woman’s weapon.

Hamm’s partner relayed information from the darling dancers. One dancer had seen Senora Beardsley backstage 15 minutes before she was to pop out of the giant cake at midnight like they’d practiced, but no one saw her actually enter the cake. Another dancer complained that the choreography was off because one dancer failed to show. She was a new girl in town with legs for days, but no one knew her real name, just her stage name: Foxy.

Hamm conversed with the maître-d’, a shaking feminine man who never spoke in complete sentences. Hamm learned that three chefs worked to prepare the chocolate cake. One baked it, one iced it and one plated it. Each of these three chefs had baked, iced and plated this exact cake every year for Senor Beardsley’s New Year’s Eve Extravaganza for the past ten years. Their involvement was unlikely. Also, one bus boy and two waiters had all seen something strange: a very tall, skinny person walk through the kitchen approximately 15 minutes before midnight wearing a chef’s hat.

Everyone at The Knick knew of the maître d’s hatred of chef’s hats ever since he found a rat in one at the 1920 New Year’s Eve bash. For ten long years, it was a mandatory rule that no chef’s hats were to be found on the premises. It should also be noted that the bus boy in referring to the mysteriously hatted character said he noticed their pants were obnoxiously short as this person had feminine legs for days.

Hamm observed the living quarters of the former Senor Beardsley and the missing Senora Beardsley. They had resided in the pent house suite only accessible by private elevator. Hamm was escorted by Miguel’s men and watched like a hawk. He ran his finger over a wooden surface and found no dust. One of Miguel’s men said the maids clean the room every morning.

Hamm saw the fire smoldering to a close in the drawing room. The perfume bottle left out near the sink in the bathroom. A stack of unopened mail on the desk and old cigarette ash blowing to the wind on the balcony’s table. In the master bedroom, on the bed, the sheets were ironed perfectly smooth except for an indent where someone sat. Hamm sat on this very spot and looked around the room. The bedside table was impeccably clean except for an exact square of dust where something had sat awhile and was recently moved.

Hamm opened the top drawer of that bedside table to reveal a King James’s Bible and ear plugs. Miguel’s men said Senor Beardsley was a known snorer and Senora wore the plugs nightly while reading God’s words. Hamm flipped through the Bible and found a pressed yellow marigold flower inside the book of Peter. A passage was marked beneath it:

“Do not let your adorning be external- the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear- but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.”

Off to the side of this text in black cursive was written “F, for you, I will. Give me strength.”

Hamm inquired the maids about the dust square on Senora’s bedside table. One maid said it was a locked silver box that her superior told her never to touch. Another maid said she saw Senora open it with a key hidden around her neck, but never knew what was inside. Another maid said she glanced inside the box once and saw cigarettes and rubies. Another maid said that the before mentioned maid was a known liar.

Hamm looked in drawers, under beds and in cabinets. Miguel’s men were antsy for him to leave. He stood by the fire and looked around one last time. The fire was out now and he noticed something white. It was a burnt corner of paper with a partially visible number “0.” The thick stock of the paper resembled a train ticket. Hamm ordered men to the station at once.

Hamm walked the length of the kitchen where the slice of chocolate cake was most likely poisoned. He followed in the footsteps of the leggy mystery chef the kitchen boys had seen. He walked pass the pots, pass the pans and came to a dead end inside the closet where dry goods were stored. Everything seemed to be in its place, except a black skid mark attached to the foot of a wall length metal shelf. Hamm moved the shelf along the skid mark and it was noticeably very heavy. He pushed with all his might and finally was able to get it over a few inches. Behind the shelf, he noticed a door, but he wasn’t skinny enough to pass through.

In finding out the schematics of the building, he ventured to the other side of that mystery door. It was an old service entrance that most all wait staff agreed they didn’t know existed. It led to the back of the building at a desolate lot that had once been paved smooth but now was overgrown with potholes and weeds. Hamm bent down and noticed tire skid marks leaving in a hurry headed West. He checked the nearby bush and found a discarded chef’s hat and size small pants. Inside the hat, he found a single strand of brunette hair. But it was what he found outside the hat that puzzled him: a single strand of bleached bottle blonde hair, the color Senora Beardsley was known for.

_____

“We have an hour ahead of them. Stop your worrying now, Honey B. It’s all going to be okay,” said Foxy to Senora Beardsley as she pressed the ignition hard with her long leg.

“I’m more worried I’m going to cut off my ear with how you’re driving!” said Senora Beardsley, cutting her bleached locks to fit in a long black wig. She looked at her new self in the mirror and giggled at her incognito reflection. “Well, what do you think?”

Foxy turned to look. “Wow. You are more stunning now than the day I met you. You really haven’t aged a bit these ten long years.”

Senora Beardsley blushed. She grabbed Foxy’s hand, kissed it gently and put it in her lap. “So long we’ve planned this. I honestly can’t believe it. We can finally be together.”

Foxy sighed. “Yes, baby, finally. We’ve still got miles to go, though. It’ll be better out West for couples like us, but for how long?”

“Miguel has no love for me. He probably has his suspicions, but his vengeful father had it coming,” Senora Beardsley said as she rubbed a bruise leftover from her late husband on her inner thigh. “Yea, he had it coming, alright. I’m just sorry I was too scared for too long.”

“Honey B, what is meant to be is meant to happen in its own time. So, says the good book. Now, we are free to love how we love and live how we want to live,” said Foxy reassuringly with tears in her eyes.

Senora Beardsley, who was no longer Senora Beardsley, but Honey B, tightened her hand around Foxy’s. She used the other hand to open her small silver jewelry box. She dug through the rubies to the bottom and found two cigarettes. She lit the first and placed it in between Foxy’s lips. Once on fire, she placed the other one in hers. “I love you with all my heart,” she said, looking at Foxy.

“I know, my honey. I love you more than the miles before us,” replied Foxy.

They stared straight ahead at the dark road and the passing stars. Honey B kept Foxy’s hand safely in her lap and hummed a quiet tune in the silent night. The big wide West was opening before them and they didn’t dare look back.