Damned in Paradise

“Show them in,” a cultured, Southern, feminine voice responded.

The Marine opened the door and Darrow stepped in first, followed by Leisure and myself. The door clanged shut behind us, as if a reminder we’d entered a jail cell of sorts; but what a hell of a jail cell this was.

Mahogany paneled, spacious, with a big round mahogany table at the center of the room, this might have been a first-class cabin on the Malolo—dark attractive furnishings including wardrobe, chest of drawers, a single bed. Here and there, colorful Hawaiian flowers in vases and bowls gave a woman’s touch to these resolutely male quarters.

And greeting us like an elegant hostess was Mrs. Grace (nee Granville) Fortescue, her hand extended to Darrow as if she expected him to kiss it.

So he did.

“What a pleasure and honor it is to meet you, Mr. Darrow,” she said.

Her Southern accent was as refined as she was: tall, slim, Grace Fortescue might have been hostessing a tea in her cherry-colored suit and jaunty matching hat, pearls looped around her rather long, slender, somewhat creped neck, single matching pearls dangling from her earlobes. Her dark blond hair (the same color as Thalia’s) was cut short, in a youthful, stylish bob, and she might have been as young as forty, or as old as (approaching) sixty—it was hard to say; but she was definitely at that age where a woman is no longer pretty but handsome, and despite her bright eyes (the same light blue as Isabel’s), there was no discounting a certain drawn, weary look to these finely carved features. There were lines in this haughty face etched by recent events.

Darrow introduced Leisure, and Mrs. Fortescue warmly offered him her hand—although he merely clasped it, not kissed it—and then Darrow turned to me and said, “And this is the young man we discussed, on the telephone.”

“The young detective Evalyn recommended!” she said with a lovely smile.

“Nathan Heller,” Darrow said, nodding, as I took the hand Mrs. Fortescue offered. I didn’t kiss it either.

“Evalyn?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

“Evalyn Walsh McLean,” she explained. “She’s one of my dearest friends. In fact, if I may be frank…”

“You’re definitely among friends, Mrs. Fortescue,” Darrow intoned with a smile.

“…Mrs. McLean is helping finance my defense. Without Evalyn’s help—and Eva Stotesbury’s—I honestly don’t know where I’d be.”

“You didn’t tell me…” I began to Darrow.

Darrow shrugged. “Didn’t seem pertinent.”

Here I’d thought the idea to use me on this case had been purely C.D.’s. In Washington, D.C., recently, I’d encountered Evalyn McLean—whose (estranged) husband owned the Washington Post, and who herself owned the Hope Diamond; Evalyn had been involved by a scam artist—knowing of her sympathy for Colonel Lindbergh (Evalyn having lost a child by tragedy herself)—in one of the numerous dead-end ransom schemes that plagued that case.

Evalyn was a very attractive older woman, and we’d hit it off famously. So famously, it had apparently gotten around….

“Evalyn suggested I inquire of Mr. Darrow if he was acquainted with you,” Mrs. Fortescue said, “seeing as how you’re both Chicagoans and in a criminal line of work.”

That was the best description of the common ground between lawyers and cops I’d ever heard: a criminal line of work.

“And imagine my surprise and delight,” she continued, “when Mr. Darrow said he’d known you since you were a lad.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever been a “lad,” and I just kind of gave her a glazed smile. One thing about working with Clarence Darrow: the surprises just kept coming.

“Tommie is resting,” she said, gesturing to a closed door. “Should I wake him?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Darrow said, “just yet.”

“Please sit down,” she said. “Would you gentlemen like some coffee, or perhaps tea?”

We settled on coffee, and she went to the door and called out, “Oh, steward!”

A mess hall sailor approached her and she asked him to fetch four cups of coffee with sugar and cream. He responded with a nod, and she shut the door. We all half-stood as she took her place at the round table.

“Now, Mrs. Fortescue,” Darrow began, getting his shipwreck of a self settled in his chair, “my associate, young Mr. Heller here, is going to take some notes. He’s not a stenographer, mind you—just some informal jotting down of this and that, to back up this feeble old memory. No objection?”

She beamed at me, fluttering her lashes. “That would be just fine.”

I wondered how much her friend Mrs. Walsh had told her about me.

“And just how are you bearing up, Mrs. Fortescue?” Darrow asked gently.

“Now that the worst is over,” she said, “I feel more at ease than I have in months. My mind is at peace. I’m satisfied.”

“Satisfied?” Leisure asked.

“Satisfied,” she said stiffly, sitting the same way, “that in our efforts to obtain a confession from that brute, we weren’t breaking the law, but attempting to aid it. I’ve slept better since the day of the murder than I have for a long time.”

A frown had tightened Darrow’s face on the word “murder,” but now he affected a benign, almost saintly smile as he patted her hand. “We’ll not be using that word ‘murder,’ Mrs. Fortescue. Not amongst ourselves, and certainly