Come Hell or Highball (22 page)

And I knew I couldn't do it.

In the past few days, I'd had a taste of freedom. Of poverty, too, and a dash of peril. But no one had controlled what I did. Maybe Berta and I really could make a go of this detecting agency. It certainly sounded like a more appealing way to pay the bills than by, say, filing or typing or accompanying some old, rich fussbudget to Europe.

The first order of business, then, was escaping Amberley. I'd figure out the rest later.

I stood. “Well,” I said, “I simply must go to Horace's funeral—if you'll allow me to borrow a motorcar, Chisholm? The funeral is at nine o'clock.”

“You should go,” Chisholm said, “or people will talk. But you shan't drive yourself. Bartell will take you.”

*   *   *

I tracked down Bartell, the chauffeur, in the garage. He was crouched on a wooden crate behind Chisholm's Daimler, gulping coffee and smoking a cigarette.

“I'm glad to see Mr. Woodby has kept you on,” I said.

“Just barely.” Bartell stamped out his cigarette in a tin can. “Don't tell him you saw the coffee and the smoke, Mrs. Woodby, all right?”

“My lips are sealed.”

Instead of instructing Bartell to take me to the chapel in St. Percival's Cemetery, I asked to be delivered to the Foghorn in town. My first order of business was to find Berta. Maybe she'd have an idea of how to get the Duesy out of the clink.

But Berta had already checked out of the Foghorn. Ralph had, too. Although for all I cared,
he
could take a trolley straight to Hell.

Berta had taken my luggage.

“And the dog?” I asked the front desk clerk.

“Yup,” he said. “She took the pup, too. Cute fella. Oughta be in pictures.”

I went back to the waiting Daimler and asked Bartell to drive on to the cemetery. By the time we arrived
there,
Horace's burial was over.

I thought about begging Bartell to motor me all the way back to the city. After all, I didn't have my handbag, so I couldn't purchase a train ticket. But I knew Bartell would lose his job if Chisholm found out.

So I asked him to take me to Dune House. I'd pay my respects to Olive and see if I might hitch a ride back to the city from someone there.

 

24

Hibbers opened the door. Jazz caterwauled from behind him, and I heard girls' laughter. “Oh. Mrs. Woodby,” Hibbers said. “I did not, at first, recognize you.”

You know you've hit rock bottom when you show up at a Society Matron's fête in flat shoes and a woolen pullover.

“Hello, Hibbers. Under a bit of nervous strain?”

“I cannot fathom what you mean, madam.”

“You've got raccoon circles under your eyes. Is it about, you know—” I leaned close. “—Miss Potter getting herself murdered?”

He sighed. “Two murders in one week is nothing when compared with the motion picture people, madam.”

He led me through to the crowded drawing room.

You'd never have guessed that a funeral had just taken place, and that another member of the household had gotten fogged the night before. Cigarette smoke hung in swathes. The furniture was haphazard. The gramophone throbbed out a King Oliver record, and a couple of jazz babies in fringed dresses and shiny lipstick fox-trotted together across the carpet. Where were Horace's family and friends?

And where could I get one of those cocktails?

Olive and Eloise Wright emerged from the haze. Olive's black dress twinkled with beadwork, and she held a cigarette in a long ivory holder. Her face was radiant. Eloise held a martini, and she'd done something different with her steel wool hair.

“Lola, darling!” Olive kissed the air next to my ear. “Just
look
at you, poor thing. Oh my. All in wool, and those flat shoes! I suppose tripping over Nanny Potter last night was simply devastating.”

“Mrs. Woodby, how nice to see you again.” Eloise said, “You are not wearing the new rubber—”

“How is Gerald?” I asked loudly.

Eloise and Olive exchanged a glance.

“Eloise,” Olive whispered, “is, well, dropping the pilot—”

“I am not ashamed.” Eloise looked at me. “I am divorcing Gerald.”

“Oh. Goodness,” I said. “So sorry.”

“Don't be,” Eloise said. “I've been liberated from a newt in glasses.”

Hibbers appeared with a highball on a tray.

I grabbed it and took a gulp. “Do you have any idea who, um, shot Miss Potter?” I asked Olive.

“Oh,
I
don't know. Probably some jilted boyfriend.”

Miss Potter? Jilted boyfriend? Hard to picture.

“You don't think it's in any way linked to Horace's … demise?”

“Why would it be?” Olive puffed cigarette smoke. “It's all a wretched bore, darling. I simply can't wait till the police are done poking about. They're completely in the way.”

Apparently, Olive hadn't heard that I was Suspect Number One. Yet.

“How are Billy and Theo?” I asked.

“Wonderful. They loathed Nanny Potter. My maid is looking after them now—they're starting off for Maine this afternoon. She's probably stuffing them with sweets, but I simply can't be bothered about it.
Let
them be fat little dumplings. I give up.”

“Are you returning to the city today?” I asked Eloise. A forty-mile drive with her wouldn't be a cakewalk, but it would do the trick.

“No,” Eloise said. “I plan to stay here and keep dear Olive company.”

Rats.

“Well, I must go mingle,” Olive said. She swayed off.

“I'm famished,” I said, staring down into my fizzing glass. “Is there to be a luncheon?”

“Oh, these motion picture people don't really
eat,
dear,” Eloise said. “That must be difficult for a healthy girl like you to fathom.”

Peachy. The conversation was once more careening in the direction of my undercarriage. “There is nothing wrong with a bit of pot roast or chocolate cake,” I said.

“You
do
like your chocolate, don't you?” Eloise sauntered away.

Eloise was taking her divorce rather well. And, come to think of it, Olive seemed pretty cheery for a woman who'd not only buried her husband that morning, but whose nurserymaid had been murdered as well. Maybe it was shock.

Or maybe it was something—or some
one
—else. I watched Bruno Luciano, dashing in white shirtsleeves and dark trousers, chatting with a fellow I recognized from the film studios. Bruno must've felt me gawking, because he glanced up. He came toward me.

“Hello, Mr. Luciano,” I said.

“Call me Bruno.”

Thank heaven the movies were silent.

“Dreadful business last night,” he said. “I understand you found the body?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. But I'd rather not talk about it.”

“Nobody would. Nasty little crime. I heard it was a jilted boyfriend.”

Who had started that rumor?

“Now everyone's got their backs up,” he said. “Sadie refuses to film with me, but of course, that's nothing new. Holed up in her room upstairs.”

“Sadie Street is here?”

“Yes. We're supposed to film our scenes together, come hell or high water. George said he's ready to break both of our contracts.”

Bruno gave no sign that he knew about George's deal with Lem Fitzpatrick. But then, Bruno was an actor.

“George is around, too?” I asked.

“Upstairs. Rubbing Sadie's feet or something. Naturally, he's only bluffing about
my
contract, but he means business with Sadie.”

Interesting. Both Sadie and Eloise were currently in residence at Dune House. I ought to have a little poke-about in their rooms to see if either of them had the film reel in their luggage.

I sipped my drink. “Oh, look,” I said. “Auntie Arbuckle.”

Auntie stood by the drinks cabinet. She wore a long, old-fashioned black gown, complete with bustle. Her antique-granny image, however, was ruined by her brimming whiskey glass.

“That old biddy is a real fright,” Bruno said. “Olive says she's angry about her picture on the pork and beans cans. They say she hasn't been right in the head after some kind of yachting accident.”

Yachting accident? What about being dropped on her head as an infant? And having first cousins for parents?

“By the way,” I said, “are you motoring back to the city today?”

“No. We're filming here for several more days.”

Rats again.

*   *   *

The next time Hibbers passed by with a drinks tray, I took him aside. “Which bedroom is Sadie Street in?” I asked.

“The bedroom overlooking the swimming pool, madam. The one you stayed in last weekend.”

“And Eloise Wright?”

“Two doors down from Miss Street's room.” Hibbers paused. “Madam, might I be so bold as to caution you against making further inquiries regarding the … item you are searching for? There have been two murders, and although I cannot claim to have been greatly attached to either Mr. Arbuckle or Miss Potter, it would be a blow indeed if something were to happen to you.”

“I can look after myself, Hibbers, but that's awfully sweet of you to say.” Truth be told, I was worried something
would
happen to me. But I wasn't about to admit to being a fraidy cat. I plucked a gin rickey from his tray and headed upstairs.

Sadie's room was first. I knocked on the door.

“Go away!”
she screamed inside.

All right, then. I wouldn't be searching
her
room.

I went two doors down to Eloise Wright's room. It was unlocked.

Inside, everything was as neat as a pin. No gun, no film reel, no incriminating anything. Nothing of interest whatsoever except, hidden under a folded blouse in an open Louis Vuitton suitcase, a big pile of GooGoo Clusters in white-and-red wrappers.

Well, well.

Don't get me wrong—GooGoo Clusters are lumps of chocolate and marshmallow divinity. But let me put it this way: They went with a Louis Vuitton suitcase the way a tractor goes with a ballroom.

With great effort, I backed away from the GooGoo Clusters, and tiptoed downstairs.

*   *   *

The party migrated outside to the swimming pool. The morning had warmed up and the mist had burned away.

I parked myself on one of the teak lounges in the shade of the house. I sipped a drink, and willed that somebody I knew would show up so I could get back to the city.

Some of the movie people had changed into bathing costumes. They splashed and squealed in the pool. Hibbers wheeled the gramophone onto the pool deck, and a maid came around with a tray of fresh cocktails.

This wasn't so bad, was it?

My gaze drifted to a hedge beyond the swimming pool. I started upright, sending my drink slopping.

A row of reporters peeked over the hedge. They wore trilby hats and brandished cameras. In the thick of the reporters was Miss Ida Shanks. I'd know that wilty-flowered hat anywhere.

She grinned at me.

I heaved myself off the lounge and went in search of Hibbers again. I found him in the butler's pantry.

“Did you know there's a whole army of reporters on the property?” I asked.

“Indeed, madam. Mrs. Arbuckle instructed the gatekeeper to allow them in. They have even been so audacious as to use the lavatory in the carriage house, I am told.”

“Why on earth would Olive allow them to intrude?”

“I could not say, madam.”

But I knew the answer: Olive wanted her name and photograph splashed in the movie magazines.

I returned to the poolside lounge chair. I still held out hope that an acquaintance would turn up. An acquaintance with an especially cushy motorcar.

I lay my head back and stared up gloomily at the house above me, the stone facade, the gargoyles aloft, the blue sky. How silly, really, for a house in Long Island to have gargoyles. My eyelids sagged.

Then they flew open.

One of the gargoyles was … moving.

I jumped up. My glass went flying. I stumbled on my own flat-shoed feet and went face-first into the swimming pool.

I was swallowed up in cold blue, and everything sounded gurgly and muted. When I burst back to the surface, my ears were filled with shrieks.

I wiped water from my eyes and looked over at the lounge chair. Splintered teak jutted up around a three-foot-tall gargoyle, stone wings spread, snout leering.

Drunken yelping, dashing about, and general pandemonium ensued. Even though
I
was the one who'd nearly been smashed to death by a gargoyle, two flappers in bathing costumes were in hysterics. Nobody had turned off the gramophone, which was now dinging out Jelly Roll Morton.

I dragged myself out of the pool.

I stood shivering for a few moments. Water puddled around my spectator shoes. My sopping pullover felt like lead. Then Hibbers appeared with a highball.

“Madam,” he said.

“Did I ever tell you you're the cat's pajamas, Hibbers?” I took a sip. Water dripped off the tip of my nose.

“On more than one occasion, madam.” Hibbers left.

I found a towel and blotted my hair.

“Here, let me help you.” A puffy towel enfolded me. I found myself gazing up into Bruno Luciano's ravishing mug.

“Thanks,” I said. I tipped my chin.

Maybe it was the pose. Maybe it was only the booze. But for a second, I was Jane Eyre gazing up at Mr. Rochester.

“That gargoyle nearly fell on top of you,” Bruno said. His hamster voice shattered the silver screen moment. “Could I get you anything? Hot tea?”

“I think I'll go…” I'd almost said,
go home
. But I didn't have a home anymore.

The fright of the falling gargoyle finally clobbered me. Tears sprang to my eyes. My whole, soggy body went trembly.