“Mrs. Stambaugh.”

Isaac Bell and Wish Clarke exchanged glances.

“Mrs. Stambaugh?”

“Rose Stambaugh?”

“The lady herself. And still quite a looker, I don’t mind saying. She stopped personally in the car to ask me to keep a special eye on it.”

Wish grinned at Isaac Bell. “Doubt your Society page Furrier would have tumbled to Mrs. Stambaugh.”

Bell agreed. Mrs. Stambaugh’s jewelry-shopping expedition to New York would never make the Society pages of either city. She could easily afford the expensive necklace that attracted Rosania, but her vast fortune was neither inherited nor earned in the conventional manner, as Rose Stambaugh had been for forty years the greatly admired proprietress of the finest brothel in Chicago.

“That must be some necklace for Rosania to risk a lynching if he’s caught,” said Wish. “Everyone loves Mrs. Stambaugh—cops, judges, politicians, even the Cardinal. You remember, Isaac. I took you to meet her once.”

“I sure do.” Bell recalled a shapely little blonde of uncertain years with an hourglass figure, an arresting smile, and a welcoming glint in her fiery blue eyes.

“When was this?” Bell asked Lent.

“Last week.”

Bell said to Wish Clarke, “There’s a charity ball for the news boys tomorrow night at the Palmer House. Do you think the bluenoses will let her into that?”

“They’ll take her money anywhere since she retired.”

“Does she still live on Dearborn?”

“Moved to a mansion on the North Shore.”

•   •   •

THE TWO DETECTIVES rented a Baker Electric Runabout and found the new Stambaugh mansion just as night fell. It was enormous, fenced by heavy wrought iron on three sides and open to Lake Michigan on the fourth. Golden light streamed from many windows, and music wafted on the wind blowing off the lake. They parked the Baker on the darkest stretch of the street in a space between an Aultman Steamer and a long five-passenger Apperson Tonneau and watched from the shadows of the leather top. Every half hour, one of them took a walk around the neighborhood.

A policeman came along and peered in the car.

“Van Dorn,” Wish told him and slipped him three dollars.

Buggies clip-clopped past, and occasionally a grand carriage rolled behind a team of four. Another cop stopped and peered in. Wish gave him three dollars. More carriages passed, stopping at parties at other mansions along the street. Wish expressed the concern that Rose Stambaugh was wearing her new necklace to host a party, but Bell assured him, judging by the Aultman and the Apperson, that her gathering tonight was not big enough to rate the display and it would be locked in her safe, awaiting Rosania.

“She’ll save it for the Palmer House.”

A third cop came along. Wish gave him three dollars. Bell worried that the bribe seekers would scare Rosania off. When a fourth appeared soon after, he said, “I’ll do this one.” He plunged his hand deep in his pocket, sprang from the Baker.