Murder by Magic

by Rex Baron

  Miss Auriel scurried back and forth, helping with the folding and organizing of the stacks.

  Lucy ran her hand over a floral summer dress on top of one of the piles.

  “This is pretty. I don't ever remember seeing you wear it.”

  “I never got a chance.”

  “Then why go?” Lucy asked. “ At least for the sake of your clothes, you owe it to yourself to stay.”

  The humor was lost on Celia.

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “I really don't mean to leave on the very eve of your premiere. I suppose you think it's very selfish of me and like David, are convinced that I'm trying to get attention by pulling the focus away from you. That's not the case, I promise you.”

  “It's of little matter,” Lucy said, touching the older woman's arm.

  Celia fumbled with a blouse in her hand. She rolled it in a ball and put it aside, then watched while Ellen Auriel silently retrieved it and neatly folded it into a perfect square.

  “A few months ago, before one of your séance things, you accused me of disapproving of you, now I suppose it is your turn to disapprove of me.”

  “Why should I?” Lucy asked. “I think it was kind of you to be uprooted and come all this way in the first place.”

  “I came to be with David. Oh, I know I'm not much good at most things he needs in his life, but I understand him, and I have always been faithful to our marriage.”

  Lucy brushed aside a stack of shoes on the edge of the bed and sat down.

  “I envy you that,” she said.

  Celia stopped what she was doing, stunned to be the object of Lucy's admiration in even the smallest way.

  “There's not that much to envy,” she answered. “You commit yourself to something and well, that's it. It's called marriage. I know I'm old fashioned about it, but I still believe you hang on to what you want. You finish what you start.”

  Lucy nodded without reply.

  “It doesn't seem like one gets much in return, especially, I'm sure, to women like you, who have a career and a purpose in life besides marriage. But in my day, we understood that building and sharing a life with someone was worth having. We didn't think so much about ourselves, I suppose a part of us never grew, and possibly some parts not only remained unformed but withered and died altogether. But nonetheless, that's what I understand my promise to be about.”

  “You must love him very much,” Lucy said.

  “Yes,” Celia answered, brightening. “I'm truly sorry about it, but I really must leave. I can't tell you why, but I want you to know that it is not a whim.”

  Lucy rose to her feet and watched the older woman.

  “You're not ill or anything?”

  “Nothing like that,” Celia laughed. “It's simply a matter that requires my immediate attention. It's funny, after hearing all of you talk so importantly about the business you do, the immediacy of things that must be done while doing your job. At last, I realize what my job is and I have a matter that requires my immediate attention.”

  She repeated the phrase with an air of self-satisfaction that puzzled Lucy.

  “What my job is and a matter that requires my immediate attention… at any rate, I wish you much success and will be thinking of you. I've already determined that by tomorrow night, just as the picture starts, my train will be somewhere in the State of Arizona.”

  Lucy thanked her for having come West in the first place and took her leave. She had needed Ellen to help with some final fittings on her dress for the premiere’s party, but she felt charitable toward Celia and allowed the birdlike little helper to remain at her side to assist with her departure.

  •••

  As evening fell, Lucy found herself drawn to the dark fragrant solitude of the tangled garden near the music room at the side of the house. She gathered up the warm velvet evening wrap around her legs and sat on the edge of the French window, staring in at Saint Michael on the ceiling as he pierced the body of a serpent with his lance. Her mind drifted as in a dream and her head filled with the sound of the voices of the Sisters of the convent, raised sweetly in Evensong. She fancied she heard their footsteps echoing on the damp flagstones. In the failing light, she could almost see, off to her right, down a shadowed cloister, a procession of dark figures with heavy starched collars and heads bowed in humility.

  She breathed in the intoxicating smell of night-blooming jasmine and looked up at the silver crescent of the moon. She thought of her grandmother in her lunarium and she felt safe.

  The fragrant citrus valley that lay at her feet was peaceful and silent, as silent as the villa, which had never fulfilled its promise of gaiety and excitement. There had been no parties of welcome, no dancing on the Spanish tiled floors or music heard within the sacred walls of the chapel, that now disguised itself as a music room. Lucy exhaled without malice.

  Suddenly, her reverie was interrupted by the sound of cracking branches in the tree just behind the peeling garden gate. The black leaves, visible above the wall, rocked back and forth as if the tree were tossed in a tempest of its own making. Lucy rose to her feet and slowly approached the gate to investigate. She placed her hand on the rusted latch and carefully drew it back.

  “Now, why didn't I think of such a simple thing as that?”

  She heard a man's voice from behind her. She turned with a start to see Paulo, standing on the top of the garden wall, his dazzling smile imitating the glowing moon.

  “I assumed that the door would be locked,” he explained, “and I wanted to surprise you.”

  Lucy threw her head back and laughed.

  “I couldn't be more surprised,” she said.

  He was dressed in a white sweater and slacks, and looked more like a professional tennis player than a picture actor. He leaped to the ground, anxious to display the studied gracefulness of his athletic prowess with a high arching vault. It was a scene he had played often enough on film, so, without reservation, he came to her and took her in his arms and kissed her.

  Lucy let the wrap fall from her shoulders as she leaned backward in his embrace. “And I couldn't be more pleased,” she whispered close to his ear.

  “I had to see you,” he replied, “to wish you luck on your premiere. It will be so crowded tomorrow and we won't get a chance to be ourselves.” A dark expression of uncertainty moved across his face as he stepped toward the edge of the garden and peered out into the violet night sky above the valley. “In truth, I heard about your meeting with Mr. Lasky today and I came to make it all right with you.”

  Lucy searched the plaintive sweetness of his face for any vestige of complexity and found none. Paulo looked into her eyes and continued his confession.

  “It was I, who asked Lasky to meet with you. I wanted to be part of your special night but was afraid you might think I wanted it to help my own career.”

  Lucy smiled.

  “Well, Jesse seems to think my picture is good, but he thinks it is better to have you there to help my career,” she replied. She considered the irony and giggled.

  Not fully understanding her reaction, Paulo duplicated her mirth.

  “Don't let that clever man fool you,” he warned. “He is just setting you up, so that when your picture is a big success, you will not be able to ask for more money.” Once again, Paulo pulled her close to him. “I guess the sly dog knows that together we are an unbeatable combination.”

  “And what do you think?” Lucy asked.

  She waited for a proclamation of love, but the silent actor remained true to his trade and answered by kissing her on the throat. Again, she felt the dark currents stir in the ground beneath her feet, as they had that first night when she stood in the garden. But now Paulo was with her and the energy surged up through her body as never before, completing the circuit, making her whole and powerful in a way she had scarcely dreamed possible.

  “Is it all right with you that I be with you tomorrow night at the premiere?” Paulo asked.

  Lucy had to marshal her con
sciousness back from the urgency of her body to her brain before she could answer.

  “Of course,” she whispered reassuringly. “It will be a great comfort to have you there. You must remember that I am from the theater and have no real designs on this life in pictures. My coming here was an adventure, nothing more. It is you who brought me to this strange place of sunlit illusions, and you alone with whom I want to share it.”

  She had made her decision, as her grandmother, shaded by a summer hat that day on the lawn, had counseled. The moment had come to say yes to love or let it fade into nothing. It was a risk that she would take, a wager that promised the golden tan of his skin and the emerald of his eyes as her reward.

  “You are the only woman I care anything for,” Paulo murmured. He pressed his lips over hers, lingering for long moments, and Lucy knew that there was truly magic in this sacred place, after all.

  The hours passed as they lay in each other’s arms, sheltered by the garden wall, in plain view of the approving moon and the angels on the ceiling not far away.

  The sky above the garden wall slowly warmed with the color of the morning sun and Lucy awoke to find that they had lain there together all night. She strained to put the images in her mind in order. Her brain still swam with the fearful dreams that had caused her to awaken with her heart pounding.

  She had seen herself in the cage below the great stage of the Metropolitan. It was airless and black, and the heavy skirt of her costume bound her legs in the cramped space. She peered into the darkness overhead, praying for a glimpse of light that would signify the time had come for her to be hoisted up out of the pit. She craned her neck in the suffocating space and heard her own breath struggling against the weight of the blackness.

  All at once, Saint Michael, the angel from the ceiling of the music room, appeared overhead, beckoning her to come. Her heart leapt with the joy of recognition and salvation. But just as she reached out her hand and opened her mouth to call to him, she realized that she had no voice. In desperation, she waved her arms and screamed her mute protestations, but her gesture went unnoticed by the heavenly apparition.

  She struggled with her skirt, to try and free herself from the weight of its confining fabric, but the more she struggled the heavier it got. She realized that the cage was filling with water and her skirt swelled and billowed around her like an exquisite brocade sail. As the water rose about her neck, she tried to call out for the man who worked the machinery to take her to the surface of the stage.

  When she looked up to where the welcoming shaft of light should be, she saw the face of Helen Liluth laughing at her.

  Lucy lay there until her breathing was calm and even, then turned to see Paulo's splendid, placid face beside her. He was a creature accustomed to attention and stirred under her approving gaze. He drew in a deep breath of morning air and opened his eyes, then smiled at her, running his fingers through her short wheat-colored hair.

  “You are a beautiful child,” he said.

  Lucy smiled with contentment and ran her hand across the golden surface of his bare chest.

  “Tonight is the big night,” she said.

  Paulo bolted to a sitting position.

  “My God,” he answered. “The morning has come and I must work today... My picture is not over like yours.” He poked at her with a gentle reproaching finger. “I must fly if I am to make it to the location by seven.”

  He leaped to his feet, and without bothering to straighten his clothes, started for the garden gate. As he reached the wall, he turned to see Lucy, her lip turned out in disappointment at his hasty departure. His smile broadened into brilliance. He plucked a pink flower from the tangled bougainvillea bush and tossed it for her to catch before he disappeared down the hillside.

  Lucy cupped it in her hands and brought it toward her face. How odd, she thought, that a simple flower, there for all to see, when picked and given to another, by the act itself, becomes no longer just a flower, but a gift.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  John Bullock’s Department Store, Los Angeles

  The intersection of Seventh street and Broadway was already a chaos of noise and traffic as Helen waited with a horde of pedestrians to cross for the opening of the doors at John Bullock’s Department Store. She had taken the yellow line streetcar down to the busy center of Los Angeles, so that she might shop for something to replace the peacock blue evening dress that Jesse Lasky had sent over for her to wear to the premiere of Claxton and Lucy’s picture, Faust. At first, as she opened the box and peeled back the delicate tissue paper inside, she had been overjoyed that the head of the studio had concerned himself with making her look good for this opening, and the idea that he would spend his studio’s money to buy her a gown was more than flattering. But when she tried on the tight-fitting dress and stood admiring her dazzling reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door, she suddenly became aware of a mildly unpleasant odor. She realized at once that it was coming from the dress and that, unquestionably, the gown had been worn before, by at least one nervous and heavily perspiring starlet. She tore the dress from her body and threw it on the bed in disgust.

  She had carefully arranged the dress back in the box in which it had arrived, and now carried it with her as she entered the department store, already teeming with shoppers. By her way of thinking, it was insulting enough that the dress had been purchased in a department store, rather than a couture dress shop that catered to the wealthy movie crowd, but the fact that it had been worn before, by god knows whom, was certainly more than she would tolerate.

  “Our Mister Lasky has got it coming,” she muttered to herself, as she crossed the gleaming tiled floor in the direction of the “fashion salon”.

  She peered out from under an expensive wide-brimmed hat that she had stolen, while invisible, from a store much like this one in New York, and smiled graciously to a young sales woman. She pulled herself up, to present her most imperious impression, and addressed the girl.

  “Young lady… I’m in need of your assistance, if you don’t mind,” she said, in what she determined to be a vaguely aristocratic tone.

  The girl approached and eyed the tattered box, with the store’s name stamped on it, that Helen had placed on the counter.

  “I’d like to return this evening dress,” she stated, as if her authority to do so was without question. “It was a gift from Mister Jesse Lasky, on the Lasky Studio account, I assume. I find that it is rather too ill-fitting in the bust… too large, and simply not flattering in the least to my figure.”

  The girl nodded silently that she understood. She took the offending box without opening it, and placed it out of sight beneath the counter.

  “Would Madame like to select something else?” the girl asked graciously.

  “Of course, that would be lovely,” Helen replied. “It’s for a film premiere tonight,” she informed the girl, who remained silent as she led Helen toward the fitting rooms. “I’m a film actress with the studio. That’s why Mister Lasky has bought me the gown.”

  “Yes, Madame,” the girl replied with a half smile that conveyed little interest.

  “Perhaps you’ve heard of me, I’m Helen Liluth,” Helen pressed the point, trying to arouse some interest from this underling, who should have been thrilled to be in her company.

  “Yes, Madame,” the girl replied, unimpressed. “We get many of the moving picture people here in the store. Bullock’s is known for its quality and style.”

  A bit crestfallen, Helen waved her hand to signal the girl to get on with the display of a selection of formal evening wear.

  In just outside an hour, Helen had chosen a floor length dress, made of scarves that fell in layers from a tight-waisted bodice. As a token jab to Mister Lasky, she had chosen the gown in peacock blue, so that he could not complain that she had strayed too far from the impression he had intended her to make.

  When the salesgirl informed her that the store made a policy of loaning fine jewelry to
the studios for the enhancement of their movie openings, Helen chose a diamond necklace, with dangling earrings to match, and a wide diamond studded silver cuff that she thought might go well with her indispensable silver ring. On a counter nearby, Helen noticed a pearl-encrusted hair comb, in the new Spanish style that was popular among younger women. As her salesgirl was busy arranging the sheets of carbon paper in her sales book, in order to record the return and the new order, Helen made a point of telling her that she had lost a shoe clip in the dressing room, and stepped away to recover it. Preoccupied with the multiple pages required for bookkeeping, the girl did not look down to verify Helen’s story. When she was safely inside the changing compartment, Helen touched her tongue to the ring and emerged without being seen by any of the other shoppers. Confident in her invisibility, she made her way to the counter across from where her sales clerk busied herself and quickly snatched the pearl studded comb off the countertop. She slipped it into her handbag, under the very eyes of the accessories counter clerk, who stood in idleness, chatting with a fellow employee.

  Helen realized that the expensive pieces of jewelry that had been placed on loan to the studio would, of course, need to be returned… but this expensive bauble would not. And owing to the fact that its disappearance could in no way be traced to her, she felt safe in claiming it as her own. She returned to the changing room, and after, once again, touching the tip of her tongue to the ring, she emerged smiling pleasantly and informed the salesgirl that she had been successful in her search.

  Within moments, Helen had left the store, carrying a new crisp store box containing the peacock blue scarf dress and a lovely trinket for her hair, hidden deep within the confines of her small beaded bag. The store policy did not allow Helen to take the jewelry, and the girl explained that it would be sent to the studio that afternoon for safekeeping until the evening’s premiere.

  As she crossed the street, walking in the direction of the streetcar line, she suddenly caught sight of a tall lanky man she recognized, seated in the window of the café at the Lankershim Hotel. It was William Desmond Taylor. She waved, but he did not respond, and she assumed he was distracted by his breakfast. She went inside and approached his table, where he sat in mid-morning peace and quiet. She intruded on that silence with a ‘hello’ that roused him from his reverie. He looked up from the starched tablecloth with an almost startled expression.