Soon, one well-dressed elderly gentleman stopped and stood fidgeting in anxious sympathy, finally reaching for his wallet. "What's the trouble here?" he asked kindly. "Have you been robbed? Do you need cab fare? Is there some way I could be of help?"
"Help?" an old actress croaked, touching the man's arm with impressive sorrow. "Only if you can stop death, sir, can you be of help to us. We're doomed, I tell you. Doomed."
That must have been beyond his powers, for the elderly gentleman scurried away with sudden haste, looking back only once as he patted his pockets to make sure they had not been picked by what was surely a group of overgrown Fagin-like cohorts.
"Here, here," T.S. began to murmur, patting every little old lady that he could reach lightly on the back without any discernible effect. "It's not so bad as that. Perhaps they'll release the body to us."
"We can't bury her without her real name," Adelle declared, nearly howling in her grief and regret. Caught up in steamrolling emotions unleashed by this unexpected chance at the limelight, she had cast decorum to the wind and was now intent on whipping the other old actresses into a frenzy of regret and shamed honor. T.S. and Auntie Lil both knew they had to come up with an idea fast before their sorrow and thwarted theatrical instincts escalated into hysteria.
"I have an idea," Auntie Lil announced suddenly. The women stopped sniffling abruptly and stared at her.
"No, you don't have an idea," T.S. announced just as quickly.
He had a sneaking suspicion that he knew just what she was about to offer and an even sneakier one that his services were somehow involved. "There is nothing we can do to help," he answered firmly as Auntie Lil's eyes slid away from his gaze. They both knew that he knew just what she'd been thinking.
It didn't stop Auntie Lil, of course. "We'll find out who she was for you," she offered magnanimously.
"But that's a wonderful idea!" Adelle exclaimed, switching emotions with lightning speed. "You could investigate her identity for us!"
"That's right," another actress agreed. "If you solved all those murders before, you could certainly solve this little mystery."
T.S. stared at his aunt in the expectant silence that followed. She refused to blush and merely gazed straight ahead, sticking her chin out an inch or two farther.
"What exactly has my aunt told you?" he asked the group evenly. Auntie Lil inched away from him indignantly, still refusing to meet his eye.
"That she singlehandedly solved three murders that had the police utterly baffled," an old lady announced matter-of-factly. "Saving two people's lives in the bargain."
"That's right," her companion agreed. "And got that medal of honor from the chief of detectives. And a letter of commendation from the mayor."
"But they had to keep it hush-hush and out of the papers," another actress reported confidently. "On account of making the NYPD look bad."
"If you could do that," Adelle declared, "you could certainly do this one thing for us."
If Auntie Lil blushed at any of the incredibly exaggerated feats they were repeating, T.S. missed it. He was sure she had not, however, as she was physically, mentally and morally incapable of embarrassment.
"Theodore and I will think about it," Auntie Lil promised graciously, hustling him down the sidewalk before he demanded any details about the medal of honor. "We'll let you know tomorrow if there's anything we can do to help."
"What's the rush?" T.S. protested, looking back at the group that was now staring at them in benign confusion. "I want to hear more about these daring adventures of yours. About how you single-handedly solved those three murders. About this medal of honor."
"Oh, shut up, Theodore," she hissed. She had succeeded in dragging him to Broadway and was waving her enormous handbag, trying to signal a cab. Instead, she narrowly missed bashing in several commuter faces by inches. No wonder they all stepped back and let her take the first taxi that screeched to a halt.
T.S. decided to let her suffer in silence, hoping to shame a confession out of her. They rode three blocks without uttering a sound. T.S. pretended he was listening to the cab driver's music, but as he was playing a cassette of some sort of foreign atonal religious chanting, it was difficult to keep up the pretense.
"Oh, all right," Auntie Lil finally admitted. She removed a white handkerchief from her handbag and daintily dabbed at her brow. "Perhaps I did exaggerate our deeds a bit."