The Sleuthing Starlet Mysteries

by Bianca Blythe

“I thought I recognized Miss Greensbody’s apron. There was a maid in Mr. Tehrani’s room at The Savoy. A maid who was wearing a different uniform than the other maids there. A maid whose apron had the same ruffles that Miss Greenbody’s apron has. You were probably searching Mr. Tehrani’s room to make sure nothing incriminated you. You had access to Miss Greensbody’s apartment. Your cousin must have a key to her room. You could have easily taken it to get information on the upcoming exhibit and to borrow clothes.”

  “You dressed up like a girl?” Lionel asked.

  Rollo’s face reddened. “I—”

  “Actually, don’t say anything,” Lionel said suddenly. “I’ll get you a lawyer. I swear. You’re my little cousin. You’re not going anywhere.” His voice trembled, and Cora felt a sharp pang of almost regret.

  In the Gal Detective movies, she’d always seen the role of detective as heroic. In fact, she was quite certain all the audience saw the role as heroic. That’s why it amused them to see a young girl solve the crimes. The films were termed heartwarming.

  But Cora was quite certain she was doing nothing that could be termed heroic now.

  She was ruining Rollo’s life.

  He would be locked up.

  He would be hanged.

  Lionel looked at her accusatorily. “You don’t know anything. You’re new here.”

  “I know he killed someone,” Cora said.

  “Because he loved Bess. He adored her. Love is supposed to be a good thing.”

  “Please.” Rollo coughed and looked awkwardly in Bess’s direction.

  “So you killed a suitor?” Miss Greensbody asked. “Before you broke into my apartment? You must have terrified Princess Petunia.”

  Rollo had the decency to blush. It was unfortunate he’d not had the decency to not commit murder.

  “Why did you do it?” Bess asked, focusing on Rollo. “You’re the nice one.”

  Rollo swallowed hard, and his eyes appeared redder than before. “I’m sorry, Bess. I didn’t want to drag you into this.”

  “I think you did,” Bess said, but her voice was not accusatory, and it was easy for Cora to imagine that if things had been different, if Rollo had never murdered Mr. Tehrani, that Bess and Rollo may have one day got together.

  Rollo didn’t have the wealth Bess listed as a requirement in a man, but they had had a mutual respect. Perhaps if Rollo had simply adored her, and not killed for her, perhaps then they could have had a real relationship.

  “I knew about the watch,” Rollo said.

  Bess turned red. “I didn’t want anyone to know about that.”

  “I know,” he said gently. “That’s why you didn’t tell us you were fired.”

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “I brought you lunch,” he said. “I thought we might have some tea and scones and I thought I might tell you—” His voice wobbled, and he looked away.

  “He was going to do the grand gesture,” Lionel said. “He even had flowers.”

  “Pink roses,” Rollo said.

  “My favorite,” Bess breathed.

  “When I didn’t see you at the glove counter I asked Mrs. Abraham about you,” Rollo said.

  “Oh.” Bess’s face whitened. “She probably wasn’t very happy.”

  “She didn’t like that you had stolen. Why did you? Wait, it doesn’t matter. Not at all.” The stars that seemed to be in Rollo’s eyes whenever he spoke with Bess or about Bess were in full force now, even though he was about to be arrested.

  Cora’s stomach hurt, and when she looked at Lionel, pain was clearly etched in his eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have stolen,” Bess said. “It was a sin. I-I know. It was just so beautiful, and the woman didn’t even notice she’d forgotten it. I laid it out for her, but when she didn’t come back...” Bess’s voice wobbled. “I could have done so much with the money.”

  “I thought it was something like that,” Rollo said soothingly.

  It occurred to Cora that no one would be better at quieting one’s guilt over questionable actions than a murderer.

  “I thought you would be sad,” Rollo said. “I-I don’t like it when you’re sad.”

  “Bess’s father died in the spring,” Lionel said.

  “Oh.” Cora blinked.

  “I was sad then,” Bess said, her voice wobbling again. She rose abruptly. “I should call the police.”

  “Good idea,” Cora said.

  Soon she heard the familiar sound of a phone being dialed from the next apartment and she heard Bess’s low voice.

  “How did you kill him?” Lionel asked.

  “It was easy,” Rollo frowned. “You had all your medicine books. I just looked up the poison section.”

  “I abhorred that class,” Lionel said.

  “I know,” Rollo said. “You used to complain about it. That’s how I knew your books would mention it.”

  “I should have gotten rid of that book,” Lionel said.

  Rollo shrugged. “It was actually perfectly understandable. I don’t know why you didn’t do well in that class.”

  Lionel flushed and he stiffened somewhat. “For the record, I passed that course. Just not quite as well as I could have. I prefer other fields of medicine.”

  “Well, I just had to decide which poison I could make the most easily, and then that’s what I gave him. I mixed it with a sleeping draught.” He shrugged. “I gave Lionel some sleeping draught too. Without the poison.”

  “That’s why he seemed hungover,” Cora said.

  Rollo nodded. “Yes.”

  “How did you get him in my room?” Cora asked, though she could already guess how he’d accomplished that.

  “I told him Miss Greensbody could meet him there,” Rollo said. “He’d never visited before. I wrote him a letter.”

  “This is outrageous,” Miss Greensbody said.

  Bess sat down again, her face pale and her hands trembling.

  “You should stop talking,” Lionel said.

  “I want Bess to know. She deserves to know everything.” Rollo turned to her. “I didn’t kill him because I thought he was your suitor. If I’d known that...” He broke off. “Well, I would always want you to be happy. Miss Greensbody told me about the jewels too. I thought if you needed money, I could get it for you. And I did.” He beamed.

  “There’s money in my bank account,” Bess said slowly.

  “You sold them?” Miss Greensbody crossed her arms. “You can’t sell them. They’re priceless!”

  “The jeweler seemed happy with them.”

  “Which shop?” Miss Greensbody said. “Which shop did you sell them to?”

  “Van de Berg on Bond Street.

  “I’m leaving,” Miss Greensbody said. “I have to get there at once. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear!”

  Miss Greensbody left abruptly and her footsteps sounded as she headed down the stairs.

  Rollo had loved Bess.

  And he’d killed for her.

  He had poisoned someone’s tea. Had Mr. Tehrani known he was about to die? Had he spent his last hours besieged by bad dreams? Terrifying nightmares that he could never awaken from?

  Poison might seem clean, but its absence of blood was replaced by a brutal internal invasion of the body.

  Rollo should have no sense of accomplishment for having murdered someone. He should not be allowed to gaze from his prison and think romantically that he had still accomplished something magnificent.

  He should regret his sins.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Lionel said.

  “No one was supposed to find out,” Rollo said miserably. “How on earth did that girl find out? She’s just a detective on the silver screen.”

  “Must have played a good one,” Lionel said, with a note of admiration that made Cora smile despite herself.

  She turned to Bess. “When did the police constable say they were coming?”

  Bess took a sip of water and then gazed up. The door closed as Miss Greensbody
left the house, and Cora had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “They didn’t say anything,” Bess said sweetly.

  “Bess?” Rollo widened his eyes.

  “You did the most romantic thing in the world for me. You were going to make me rich. I-I underestimated you.”

  “You didn’t,” Rollo said. “You heard Cora. I belong behind bars. I’m going there soon. You’ll see.”

  “No.” Bess shook her head defiantly. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  The strange feeling in Cora’s stomach grew stronger, and she shifted in the seat.

  Rollo had killed Mr. Tehrani.

  No one else.

  But now Bess wasn’t meeting her eyes, and there was a strange new energy in the room.

  “I didn’t call the police constable,” Bess said again. “I just said I did. I’m not an idiot. I know why Cora wanted me to call them, and I disagree.”

  “You disagree that murder should be punished?” Cora sputtered.

  “He loves me,” Bess said, and awe filled her voice.

  “But someone died,” Cora said. “Someone you knew even. Someone you liked.”

  She shrugged. “Nothing will bring back Mr. Tehrani now. Besides, the man was never going to marry me.”

  “You want me to run away?” Rollo asked. “Do y-you want to come with me?”

  Bess nodded shyly. “That would be nice.”

  Rollo beamed.

  It was a genuine beam. An utter smile. The kind that would make a director shout cut and grin with happiness when an actor made one on cue.

  Bess echoed Rollo’s smile. She pressed her hand against his. “I should have noticed you a long time ago.”

  “This is outrageous,” Cora said finally. “Bess, he’s dangerous.”

  “I’ve never found Rollo dangerous.” Bess ruffled his hair. “He’s always been a good friend.”

  “I’m sorry I was blind,” she said more seriously to Rollo.

  “You’re acting blind now!” Cora sputtered, and Bess sent her a sharp look, and Cora quickly regretted saying anything.

  Cora was alone with a killer, his best friend and the woman he loved, and who it seemed was now more than amicable to him.

  She’d thought she was surrounded by friends.

  She’d thought she was safe to accuse him here.

  She thought everyone understood that murder was evil, that it surpassed any other misdeeds in dreadfulness.

  And yet...

  She’d been wrong.

  Not everyone did think that. Some people could overlook murder, especially when it occurred to somebody who was not own of their own.

  Bess was squeezing Rollo’s hand and staring at him in awe, and Lionel was looking everywhere but at Cora.

  I’m not safe.

  The thought came to her suddenly.

  Fear prickled her spine, and her heart felt suddenly heavy in her chest. It seemed to flay wildly against her ribs, as if looking for a way out. As if knowing that it should escape, if she could not. As if knowing that if everyone supported Rollo, then they could not support her.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  No one knows.

  She wasn’t in some strange location where she might be rescued. She was exactly where she should be, in her home. She was in her apartment, near the pictures that she had selected, and the pillows and bedding that she had chosen.

  Lionel stood up first.

  It will be fine.

  She tried to tell herself that. Lionel was responsible, in his own way, after all. He was a medical student. Evidently, he must care somewhat about life. He was taking years of courses all focused on preserving life, and he’d told everyone what a sacrifice it was for him to take the time to study it.

  I just have a wild imagination.

  Obviously, no one is going to harm me.

  “Rollo, you’re going to have to make a run for it,” Lionel said. “Miss Greensbody will return at some point. Or—” He was silent.

  “Or what?” Bess asked, and then she followed Lionel’s gaze to Cora.

  She seemed to grasp what he was implicating for her face paled, and even though she was holding onto Rollo’s hand, her other hand quivered.

  Cora wanted to see the quivering as a good sign. She wanted to see it a sign of consciousness. Maybe Lionel might stand by his best friend, but Cora had hoped Bess would be her friend. They’d laughed together.

  Bess had seemed like Cora’s first normal friend. Veronica would always be her very dearest friend, but Veronica was famous and had added responsibilities. Veronica would return to Hollywood at some point, and then perhaps the only time Cora would hear about her would be when she read about her in the gossip columns.

  Bess had seemed to have more potential for friendship, and not only because she lived in the apartment opposite Cora’s. They were a similar age, and Cora had thought they were of similar disposition. Cora had been relieved Bess had not had the same enormous ambition Veronica had, and she’d found it amusing when Bess had stated her intentions to marry well. It had been the sort of dream a normal girl would have, one who could say things unselfconsciously, assured of the fact no one would print her conversation in a gossip column titled Gold Diggers of 1938.

  But perhaps Cora had been wrong all along.

  Perhaps she’d romanticized being normal.

  Perhaps she’d ascribed a pureness to being a secretary or shopkeeper that simply wasn’t true. Perhaps she’d thought an absence of ambition indicated an absence of greed. Hollywood had seemed filled with pettiness, but perhaps it was truly no different than anywhere else. Perhaps the women were simply prettier and the men more handsome.

  “What do you want to do with Cora?” Lionel asked. “Because you should decide soon. We don’t know if her boyfriend is hanging around. A nasty guy if I ever saw one.”

  Cora wanted to protest at Lionel’s description of Randolph, though in this case, she thought better of further exasperating him. Cora decided she would worry more if Lionel heaped Randolph with praise, for his sense of morals seemed distinctly skewed.

  “You don’t want to send me to prison,” Rollo asked.

  “Of course we don’t,” Bess said soothingly. “Everything bad you did was for me. And you’re right, it wasn’t like you killed one of us. He was a foreigner. Don’t they always get into wars anyway? He was probably going to die soon even if you hadn’t killed him.”

  Rollo smiled. “I could never have done something like that to you or Lionel.”

  “I know.” Bess squeezed his hand. She inched closer to him and gazed at him shyly, as if she were a woman on a first date, anxious for a kiss from the man she adored.

  Cora felt slightly nauseous.

  Actually, Cora felt decidedly nauseous.

  “You have to call the police,” she said. “Rollo killed someone. You can’t mean to run off with a murderer. What sort of life would that be for you?”

  “Which is why Bess won’t do that,” Lionel said sternly.

  “No?” Bess frowned. “But we could go to Australia. Or Europe. To the continent. Maybe even Germany.”

  “Germany?” Cora sputtered.

  “Everyone’s so scared of Germany,” Bess said. “I think we could disappear there too.”

  “You don’t speak German,” Cora said.

  “We can learn.”

  “No one is going to Germany,” Lionel said sternly. “The prospect is ridiculous.”

  “He’s not good at languages,” Rollo said with a smirk, and Bess gave a delighted laugh. “I’m not either, Lionel. Don’t worry.”

  “We had a nice life here,” Lionel said, “and we can continue to have a nice life. We just have to take care of her.” Lionel jerked his thumb in Cora’s direction, and ice seemed to invade her spine, and she shivered. “And then we have to take care of Miss Greensbody.”

  “Oh.” Bess stopped smiling and she stared at Cora. “She won’t tell. We’ll have her promise. It will be fine.”


  “Yes,” Rollo said quickly. “Cora is nice. She won’t tell.”

  Lionel sighed. “You’re so innocent.”

  Cora wanted to laugh. She wanted to say it was ridiculous that Lionel could term Rollo innocent. Rollo had killed Mr. Tehrani after all. And Bess had stolen a watch from a client at one of London’s great department stores, doing a crime that shocked everyone there.

  Neither of them could be termed innocent.

  But Cora restrained from laughing at the absurdity of Lionel’s and Bess’s sudden defense of Rollo.

  I don’t belong here.

  She’d sauntered into this building, dreaming of living a life in London filled with normalcy. She hadn’t wanted to give up that dream even when she discovered a body in her bed. She’d wanted to be independent, imagining it entailed swishing about in elegant off-the-rack clothes and smart hats. She’d wanted to live a life that didn’t entail memorizing lines and being yelled at by directors much older than she was who were stressed with the responsibility of their huge budgets and the necessity of creating hits in order to continue doing what they professed to love, but which to Cora, appeared just like a burden to them.

  Cora wanted to tell them all the reasons Rollo belonged in jail.

  She wanted to tell them about the sanctity of life.

  She wanted to tell them they seemed dangerously devoid of any ethics.

  But she didn’t.

  She couldn’t convince them.

  They were friends, and she wasn’t one of them, no matter how much fun they’d had at Club Paradiso before Cora had brought up Mr. Tehrani.

  The only thing she could do now was to survive, because it was the only thing that might bring some justice.

  She swept her gaze around the room, wishing Randolph had not fixed the lock on the window.

  She contemplated screaming, but she was not convinced that would accomplish anything. This was a big city after all, and people generally gave other people their privacy. She wanted to do more with her life than create the possibility that some witness, perhaps, would mention to a police constable that he thought he’d heard a scream, and that he thought the missing girl in Apartment Six might have killed.

  I have to escape.

  She looked down at her tea, wishing she’d had the sense to serve cake with a sharper knife, one that she could threaten them with.