It was the endgame of 1956. On the world stage, Hungary was reeling from an attempted revolution, the Suez Canal Crisis had ground to a halt, Fidel Castro led a guerilla band into the Cuban mountains, and a young rock-and-roller named Elvis had his hips banned. In the midst of all this, Mr. O’Nelligan received a call from a woman named Diamond Lang, an old friend from his theater days, who had an unusual problem. It involved wealth and destiny and untimely death.

While I was the one with PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR embossed on his business card, I had no illusions as to where the talent lay in our partnership. Mr. O’Nelligan could deduce like the dickens (forgive me for that), whereas my own skills were pretty much limited to neat penmanship and a knack for organizing notes. I’d inherited the business from my rough-and-tumble father, whose death over a bowl of stew in the company of a crony named Muleface had thrust me into frontline sleuthdom. Luckily, Mr. O’Nelligan had traipsed into my life to lend his insight and Irish-born wit to the cause. Annoyingly, he wouldn’t accept a single dime for his troubles, no matter how integral he’d been to the success of a case.
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But this particular case wasn’t really mine at all. As I’ve said, it was Mr. O’Nelligan’s own contact who had summoned us. We were sitting in Diamond Lang’s fairly upscale apartment in Norwalk, about an hour’s drive from my Thelmont office. I put her at roughly forty-five—agewise halfway between myself and Mr. O’Nelligan. Though the blush of youth had definitely given her notice, the former actress was still a striking-looking woman, blonde and blue-eyed, with a pleasant way about her. I adjusted my eyeglasses to better take her in.

“Is Diamond your real name?” I had to ask.

“Well, it is now,” our hostess answered. “It looked better on a marquee than the one I was born with—Dyrfinna Langerud.” She gave a dismissive flip of the hand. “Not that a name change helped. Lord knows, my acting never earned me top billing.”

“Oh, come now!” Mr. O’Nelligan protested. “Your stagecraft was always exacting. To be fair to yourself, Diamond, you must acknowledge that you rose above some rather tepid roles.”

“Well, yes, that’s true. Oh, God, do you remember Persephone of the Pints?”

My comrade groaned and smoothed his silver beard. “It would be a blessing were I able to forget it.”

Diamond turned to me. “It was the Greek myth set in an Irish pub.”
 
“Sounds interesting,” I said.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Old myth, modern setting. My Fair Lady does that very thing, and it’s been the hit of Broadway this season. Unlike our own little show. Though the grand O’Nelligan here did a superb job as the Hades character.”

Hades cast his eyes to heaven. “Oh please. The playwright named him Hot Dan O’Hellion. Preposterous! I was a barkeep overly enamored with his own libations, forever staggering about the stage screaming ‘Begorra! Begorra!’ Very unseemly.”

Diamond laughed. “You made a darling drunkard. Even though you’re darn near a teetotaler.”

Fond reminiscences aside, I thought it was time to approach the matter at hand. “So, Samuel Shay, the stockbroker . . . The papers say that two weeks ago he took a plunge down some marble steps in his garden and broke his neck.”

“It wasn’t a plunge.” Diamond’s voice tightened. “It was a push. I’m almost certain of it. Samuel was killed by someone.”

“And what brings you to this supposition?” Mr. O’Nelligan asked.

“Several things. Where his body was found, for one. Plus something he said to me that morning. Then there are the fates he bought—”

“Fates?” The Irishman leaned forward. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I should go back a little to explain things,” Diamond said. “I went to work for Samuel last winter. I’d given up the stage some time ago, and with Hal gone for over a year, I just needed to get on about my life.”

Mr. O’Nelligan nodded. “Of course. Losing one’s spouse can truly derail a person. I know that well.” 

“I was something like a secretary, but not quite,” Diamond continued. “More like an events organizer. I didn’t live in his house, but I was there four or five days a week. Samuel Shay was a very well-to-do individual and always had a lot going on. Anyway, a few months back he got it into his head that he was going to purchase people’s fates. Now, I know I need to clarify that. Samuel had an interest in occult things and somewhere along the line decided—how can I put this?—that he was destined for destiny.”

“Come again?” She was losing me.

“Well, there was his name for one thing—Shay. As it turns out, Shay isn’t just an Irish surname, it also shows up in Egyptian mythology.”

“Ah, yes. Shay, the god of fate.” Mr. O’Nelligan, as well as having served his time on the stage, was also a former teacher and a lover of literature. “The Egyptians believed the deity Shay was reborn, in a sense, with each human life.”

Diamond flashed him a grin. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

“Ah, lass,” Mr. O’Nelligan lilted, “the things I don’t know would fill a hundred Grand Canyons. Or at least a dozen. So, Mr. Shay fancied himself some lord of destiny?”

“In a way. He’d come across a woman several months ago who claimed she could tell people’s futures. Samuel decided to use her to find some favorable fates and then, well, buy them.”

“Buy them?” I was either confused or appalled. “Are you saying that some Daddy Warbucks thinks he can slap down a handful of cash and haul away a person’s future? That’s obscene.”

Next to me on the couch, Mr. O’Nelligan reached over and patted my knee. “Ah, Lee, you’re a righteous fellow, indeed. And I certainly agree with your sentiments.”

“Not that I believe in all that voodoo,” I hastened to add.

“Certainly you don’t—a modern American lad like yourself. But back in County Kerry, I beheld a good deal of strangeness. For example, as a youth I learned bricklaying from a character who swore he could foretell a man’s death-day by the way he buttoned his jacket. Old McGeachie never revealed his exact method, but he had a sterling record in predictions. And then there was Nell Clooney, the fishwife, who used trout eyes to—”

I hauled us back. “Okay, so Shay decided to buy himself some fates.”

“I know how wacky that sounds,” Diamond acknowledged. “The way it worked is that Madam Lockshaw—she’s the soothsayer—would first locate some likely candidates. People with rosy futures. Then she’d make an offer on Samuel’s behalf.”

I tried to sound like this was all perfectly reasonable. “How many of these rosy individuals were there?”

“Three who accepted the deal—two men, Pipp and Hamilton, and a woman named Edith Neuburger, a Jewish refugee from Germany.” Diamond gestured to an envelope on a nearby end table. “I’ve put together a few notes about who’s who and what happened when. To help in your investigation.”

Wait now, we haven’t agreed to—”

My partner cut me off. “The notes should prove useful. But about these purchased fates . . .”

“You really need to talk to Madam Lockshaw to get the lowdown on all that,” Diamond said. “I should tell you up front that I find her rather unpleasant. But in terms of this occult rigmarole, she’s your woman.”

You alluded to where the body was discovered,” Mr. O’Nelligan noted. “How that was a cause for suspicion. Could you elaborate?”

“I was the one who found him.” Diamond gave a little shudder. “At the bottom of the marble garden steps. Now here’s the thing. Samuel’s left leg was an inch or two shorter than his right. He wore a special shoe to remedy the condition, but he still favored that leg. That’s why he always avoided those steps—there were about a dozen in all. Instead, there’s a path that runs just above them that he’d always use for his morning stroll. Always.”

“Did you share that information with the police?”

“I did, but they weren’t swayed by it. They seemed satisfied that it was simply an accident—that Samuel stumbled off the path, slipped on some ice, and took a fatal tumble.”

I shrugged. “Isn’t that a possibility? How far’s the path from the top of the steps?”

“About seven or eight feet, I’d guess. But Samuel was always extremely careful not to stray close to them.”

I pushed on. “You mentioned something Shay said earlier in the day that made you suspicious.”

“Yes, he was finishing up his breakfast, and I stopped in to go over his schedule for the coming weeks. I asked if he wanted to plan any festivities for New Year’s Eve. He said, no, he preferred to make that a low-key evening. Then he added, ‘Besides, there are certain individuals in the world who would prefer that I never see 1957.’ At the time, that struck me as a strange thing to say. Then, after Samuel’s death, it seemed not just strange but, well, sinister. Again, the police didn’t give it any credence.”

“What was Samuel Shay like?” Mr. O’Nelligan asked.

“Fiftyish. Slender build, but sturdy enough. Good-looking in a low-key sort of way.”

“And his nature?”

Diamond held up her right hand, using its fingers to tick off attributes. “Industrious. Infuriating. Insightful. Insatiable. And charmingly insane.”

“A fascinating catalogue,” Mr. O’Nelligan observed. 

“Oh, and he loved wordplay. Puns and odd little turns of phrases. He had a very spry mind.”

“I must inquire—did you bear any ill feelings towards the man?”

Diamond took a moment before answering. “I wouldn’t say that exactly. I mean, after all, I’m asking you to look into his death. It’s just that he was so absorbed in his own gifted, golden life that he didn’t seem to realize other people might have their own sorrows and aspirations.”

“Eloquently put,” Mr. O’Nelligan said.

The ex-actress laughed. “Well, all those years reciting Shakespeare and Ibsen had to rub off on me a little, I guess.”

“One of the characteristics you mentioned was ‘insatiable.’ Would that refer to his . . .” The genteel Irishman paused, seeking a delicate choice. “Amorous requirements?”

Diamond smiled affectionately. “Ah, I do miss being around your Old World decorum. But, no, Samuel didn’t seem to be much of a tomcat. Since I went to work for him, he’d dated a couple of society types, but nothing too serious. He does have an ex-wife somewhere who was paid off years ago and is quite out of the picture.”

“What about beneficiaries?” I asked.

“Samuel’s only living relatives are a couple of nieces in Minnesota,” Diamond explained. “I gather they each get a modest bequest, plus there’s a small allotment for his housekeeper, a rather sweet-tempered septuagenarian. But most of Samuel’s estate goes to several endowments he set up in his name. His personal legacy was very important to him.”

I nodded. “Okay. How about us giving his place a look-over?”

Diamond gave a lovely little grimace. “Sorry. Samuel’s lawyers commandeered his home, so, unfortunately, you can’t go see where he died.”

“We’ll accept the hand that’s dealt us,” Mr. O’Nelligan philosophized. “So, to sum things up, we have Mr. Shay’s statement at breakfast combined with his questionable demise, plus his odd penchant for purchasing fates.”

“I know it’s all kind of a hodgepodge, but I have a strong intuition here. Do you two deductive types believe in intuition?”

Our answers overlapped. Mine: “I’m afraid not.” His: “But of course.”

Our hostess laughed again. “What a pair! Anyway, maybe I’m being overly imaginative, but I’d rest better if someone looked into things a bit more. I can’t pay for an extensive investigation, but I can certainly cover a couple days of your work.”

I nodded. “With a day or two of hunting, we should be able to at least figure if there’s anything that might get the police interested again. So, you think we should start our inquiries with this fate-buying scam?” 

“I suppose I do, but you fellows are the experts here.”

Mr. O’Nelligan reached over and plucked up the envelope from the end table. “We shall peruse your information, dear Diamond, and turn our brightest spotlight upon the problem.”
  
I aimed my baby-blue Nash Rambler toward Norwalk’s downtown district. Beside me, Mr. O’Nelligan reviewed Diamond’s notes.

“Madam Lockshaw—Petunia to her intimates—moved here this past spring from rural Kansas. Soon thereafter, she became Samuel Shay’s consultant on matters of the supernatural. The address we’re presently seeking is that of a storefront Mr. Shay acquired for her for the purpose of plying her trade.” 

I grunted. “You call it a trade. I call it trick-or-treat. Just another swindle to separate a fool from his money. And don’t go spinning any more of your tales of magic buttons and catfish eyes.”

“It was trout.”

“Trout eyes, carp eyes, barracuda eyes . . . Whichever. All they’re good for is winking in the water—not predicting the future.”

My comrade chuckled. “Ah, Lee Plunkett, beneath your lean exterior beats the heart of a sinewy poet.”

“Sinewy poet? Is there such a creature?”

“Need you ask? What of William Butler Yeats?” My friend never missed a chance to summon up his beloved Irish bard. “While as slender and bespeckled as yourself, he created verses like mighty oaks. I keep them in my heart as we journey forth on our quest.”

“It’s always a quest with you, isn’t it? Never just an assignment.”

“All life is a quest,” Mr. O’Nelligan insisted. “Let us heed Yeats’s instruction: And walk among long dappled grass,
 “And pluck till time and times are done 
 “The silver apples of the moon, 
 “The golden apples of the sun.” 

“But it’s winter now,” I said. “All that dappled grass is buried under snow.”

The old Irishman signed mournfully. “O, Lee Plunkett, ye slayer of imagination.”

“Getting back to reality, your friend Diamond seems like a swell gal, but I’m not sure I buy into this murder theory of hers. It all comes down to a hunch.”

“An intuition,” Mr. O’Nelligan corrected. “And an intuition dwells somewhere between a hunch and a vision. As such, I treat it with deference. Ahoy! There lies our objective.”

I slid into a parking space next to a narrow storefront painted blood red. Its gilt-lettered sign read MADAM LOCKSHAW’S PALACE OF PREDICTION. Entering to the tinkle of brass bells, we found ourselves in a dim-lit space that fell considerably short of palace status. About the size of a roomy jail cell, the shop’s windows and walls were all draped in black velvet. The space was crowded with several small tables containing books, bronze statues, polished stones, and various other items. One section of the velvet slowly parted, and from a hidden back room Madam Lockshaw appeared. I’ll admit I was expecting someone lanky and ancient, bedecked in beads, baubles, and gypsy attire. This woman was none of that. Short and plumpish, she looked to be in her late forties at most. Horn-rimmed glasses, garish red lipstick, and a wide-brimmed straw hat topped with fake flowers suggested someone you’d buy brownies from at a church bake sale. 

“So nice to see you gentlemen.” Her singsong voice missed sincerity by a note or two. “Have you come for predictions?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Guidance from the otherworld?”

“Not in the least.”

“What is it then?” The singsong gave way to a terse monotone. “I don’t have time to waste on nonbelievers.”

“Then make believers out of us,” I suggested. “Tell us about the fate-hunting you did for Samuel Shay.”

She tensed. “Who are you two?”

After I’d delivered intros, Mr. O’Nelligan took the reins. “We’ve been asked by a certain party to investigate the details of Mr. Shay’s passing.”

Madam Lockshaw gave us a hearty hmmph. “And this ‘certain party’ wouldn’t happen to be Diamond Lang, would it? What a meddlesome person! Nothing but a failed actress looking for intrigue where there is none.”

Mr. O’Nelligan didn’t let this ruffle him. “In the present situation, Miss Lang is simply a seeker of truth. You, yourself, as an explorer of the uncanny, undoubtedly deserve that same designation. Unlike my skeptical young cohort here, I respect the occult arts and do bow, dear lady, to your valor in pursuing them.”

This overblown flattery had the desired effect on our grumpy seer, bringing the slightest of smiles to her lips. “I do consider myself a seeker. Most people can’t begin to imagine the greater truths that surround us. They can only grasp what’s a few inches before their noses. They never look . . . beyond.” 

She delivered that last word so melodramatically that I half imagined mist and organ music filling the room. Clearly, she was quite the actress herself. 

My partner pressed his advantage. “Please tell us about your work with fate. It sounds fascinating.”

“Well, in the case of Mr. Shay’s people, I found them around town, simply from observing their comings and goings. The Hamilton boy, for example, works just a few stores down at the record shop. And Arthur Pipp is a milkman in my neighborhood. Certain people have very strong fate emanations and I pick up on that. I can often tell if someone’s destined for a long, fortunate life.”

“You don’t say.” I hoped I sounded impressed. 

She wasn’t buying it. “It’s easy to be cynical when you’re afflicted with limited awareness.”

Guessing I’d just been insulted, I fumbled for a witty reply. I came up with “Oh?”

Mr. O’Nelligan took over. “So, Madam Lockshaw, you can actually perceive these people’s futures?”

“In a manner of speaking. I don’t always see particular incidents, but I can observe general outcomes. Enough to know if those futures are desirable.”

“You mean desirable for purchasing?” I asked.

“In regard to Mr. Shay’s requirements, yes.”

“So, through you, Shay would hand over a tidy sum to the person in question and—abracadabra—he got their destiny?” I raised an eyebrow or two. “Just how does that work?”

The good madam squinted nastily. “In ways you cannot imagine.”

“Try me.”

“There are certain ritualistic techniques I make use of. And certain sacred words.” The queen of vagueness adjusted her hat. “Quite beyond your comprehension, I’m sure.”

I wanted to snap back that my comprehension was in tip-top form, but held my tongue.

My colleague jumped in. “And what did Mr. Shay do with his newly acquired fates?”

“He absorbed them,” said Madam Lockshaw matter-of-factly. “He added them to his own destiny, so to speak, to enhance it.”

I failed to stifle a snicker. “Enhance it? Wasn’t Samuel Shay already oozing with luck and pluck? How much good fortune does one guy need?”
  

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"O'Nelligan and the Lost Fates" Copyright © 2011 Michael Nethercott with permission of the author. All rights reserved.

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