Death of a Showman

by Mariah Fredericks

  “Mr. Hirschfeld’s wife?”

  A contraction of the beautiful brow. “… Pronouns. Mrs. Warburton. There is a Mrs. Warburton, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why would she be angry?”

  He chuckled. “I can only say that if you wish to find people who are angry with a man like Sidney Warburton, look first for the wife. And then for the husbands.”

  It took us a moment to unravel this. “You mean there were other women,” said Louise.

  “He is a successful man,” Rodolfo repeated as if this explained everything. Which, sadly, perhaps it did.

  I asked, “The women he dallied with, they were all married?” Rodolfo nodded. “Who?”

  “You want names?” He looked mournfully at the napkin. I looked at Louise, then laid my hand over Rodolfo’s, a second five-dollar bill in my palm. Turning his liquid gaze upon me, he embraced my hand, one finger sliding suggestively across the palm. Then he pocketed the bill.

  It was money well spent. Rodolfo had an excellent memory, and his desire to attract Warburton’s attention meant he had watched the producer’s movements for some time. He reeled off the names of several ladies of the stage, three society ladies—Louise gasped when a fellow Dumb Friends committee member was named—and indicated there were others too dull to recall. Afterward, we were silent a moment in tribute to the dead man’s stamina. Then I asked the only question that was both suitable and relevant: Had any of the ladies—or their husbands—been present the night of Warburton’s murder?

  Three of the actresses had, one society lady.

  “And the husbands,” I pressed. “Were they here?”

  A fraction of hesitation. Then Rodolfo said, “I do not pay so much attention to gentlemen. I did notice that Claude Arden and the beautiful Mrs. Arden were having one of their … tiffs.”

  “About what?” asked Louise, oblivious to the fact that Mrs. Arden had been flirting wildly with Leo that night. Although, I wondered, if Claude had noticed her theatrics, he would have also seen that they were directed at the other end of the table, and not at Sidney Warburton, who was sitting next to her. Which argued against him shooting the producer in a jealous rage.

  Rodolfo then suggested that perhaps a lady had discovered that she was just one of many and acted according to the rules of melodrama.

  Louise said, “But we should remember, Mr. Warburton was murdered in the men’s washroom.” She turned pink. “A lady would never go in there.”

  Why a lady with adultery on her conscience and murder on her mind would stop at the men’s room door, I wasn’t sure. But Louise had made an interesting point. Leo had said Warburton had an apartment, which he probably used for his assignations. A lover wanting to shoot him would have asked to meet him there. Whereas a gentleman might not have been aware he had such a room and thought a bathroom stall the best place to catch him at close range and still get away.

  On impulse, I said, “Could I see the washroom?”

  Louise coughed my name.

  “It’s where he was killed, Mrs. Tyler,” I said apologetically. Then suggested she wait in the car while I had a look.

  The washroom where Sidney Warburton had died was not the palatial men’s salon on the lower floor where men enjoyed a respite from female company. This one was functional and somewhat out of the way. It lay at the end of a circuitous hallway, accessed from the dining room by swinging doors that were also used by the waitstaff going to and from the kitchen nearby. The chance of anyone noticing me was remote. But I couldn’t simply walk into a men’s washroom, so I asked Rodolfo to take me to the kitchen. I waited until the swinging doors were calm then darted inside. I soon spotted what I needed, and exited with the complete anonymity that only a woman carrying a mop and bucket can achieve. I also noticed that the kitchen had a door that opened to the street for deliveries. Given the chaos of the after-theater dinner rush, it was possible a gentleman could have exited through here and not be seen.

  It was early, but already men headed to the washroom with looks of consternation. Stepping in front of the door, I said, “If you wouldn’t mind using the facilities down the hall, sir. I’m sorry to say someone’s been ill.” There were two gentlemen inside, but once I made it clear I mopped without regard for calfskin, they left.

  When I had the washroom to myself, I stepped from one stall to the next, trying to see where Sidney Warburton had died. Rodolfo had said I would know it when I saw it and he was right. The stall closest to the kitchens had no door and was missing tiles above the toilet. The brick underneath had the distinct dent of a bullet. I brushed it with the tip of my finger. I half expected a shock of some kind. But death had left only this ugly little pockmark.

  Closing the next stall door, I leaned down to judge how much you would see with the door closed. Only the feet and some pant leg. How could the killer know he was shooting through the right door? Of course, Sidney Warburton could be identified from his famous yellow spats. Although Leo had also been wearing yellow spats that evening—and was possibly also engaged in a dalliance with a married woman. I dwelled on the unpleasant implications for a moment before remembering that Leo had disappeared with Violet. If someone had wanted to shoot him, they would hardly have looked for him in this washroom. Hence the likelihood that the shooter knew who sat behind the stall door because he had followed Warburton in here.

  There was a quick knock and I turned to see Rodolfo stick his beautiful head around the door. “This interest in toilets, it’s a little disgusting.”

  Motioning him in, I asked, “Do you use this bathroom?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Why would you have to?”

  He rolled his eyes as if it was obvious. “It’s close. But I prefer the one downstairs.”

  I saw what he meant: a flight of stairs could be uncomfortable for an overfull bladder. This was the emergency bathroom—plain, anonymous, a place to void, no more. I could imagine even the staff went here from time to time.

  If you came from outside and made your way through the kitchens, this would be the first private spot for killing you came to.

  But how could that person from outside be sure Sidney Warburton would use this bathroom? Most gentlemen would have retired to the more palatial washroom downstairs. Certainly a man of Sidney Warburton’s stature would have. And that night should have, but he had been unable to wait and so made a fatal choice.

  Could someone from the outside—Louise’s hoped-for gangster—have known he would make that choice?

  No. It was clear that the killer had followed Warburton here from the dining room. But how had he escaped Rector’s without notice? The washroom had one small window and it was high up. Perhaps you could reach it if you stood on a toilet, but it would be quite the feat of agility and only a very slim man could fit. Or … a small and particularly flexible woman.

  Stepping outside, I looked up and down the hall. In front of me, the hallway leading back to the dining room. To the left, the kitchen. To the right, an elevator.

  Pointing to the elevator, I asked, “Where does that take you?”

  “Upstairs. The kitchen staff uses it to get to the hotel rooms.”

  How much time for escape would the killer have had? The shot had not been understood right away. Noise from the band, the kitchen, hundreds of merry inebriates. It had taken at least a few minutes for the next man in need of relief to enter and discover Sidney Warburton’s body. In that time, the killer could have easily reached the street through the kitchen’s delivery door. Or taken the elevator up to the rooms and hidden in an odd closet.

  Or … simply returned to the party.

  Where had Claude Arden been when the police herded us into that room? For that matter, where had Mr. Harney been? Leo, we knew. But all of those men, I realized, came to Rector’s regularly. They would know about this washroom. Especially Mr. Harney; it was an ideal place to be sick. As he had been that night …

  Rodolfo tapped his foot. “If you’re done, the dinner r
ush is starting.”

  I returned the mop and bucket to the kitchen. As we walked back to the dining room, I said I was sorry Mr. Warburton had died before I could make introductions.

  He shrugged. “I am going to be in pictures. Already I have made one in Brooklyn. My Official Wife. It’s about a plot to kill the czar of Russia.”

  “What part do you play?”

  He looked sulky. “I am in the background.”

  Before we went our separate ways, I pondered the discovery of Warburton’s affairs. The vision of Warburton as Lothario struck me as odd. Why? He was not unattractive and he was influential. Many a hopeful actress had probably had to make do with much worse. And yet I rarely saw him flirt and he had never cast his eye on me.

  Was it arrogant that I thought that strange? Perhaps he wouldn’t bother with the woman who cleaned Mrs. Tyler’s clothes. But in my experience, most men who dallied widely approached everyone with a certain … warmth. Even in an exchange as banal as passing off hat and gloves, the eye could linger. Such men wanted, at all times, and that wanting created an unmistakable frisson. Sometimes it was odious, sometimes not. Leo, for example, turned that particular energy on everyone, seeing the excitement of possibility in pretty and plain, young and old, rich and poor, men as well as women. And he made them feel it, too.

  All I had ever felt from Sidney Warburton was rage.

  I said as much to Rodolfo, and he nodded. “Warburton, he did not so much like women as he hates other men. It is them he wants to insult; men understand this. When he chooses a woman, it is not for her beauty, it is to say to the husband, I have her. I took her from you. He is an ugly little man. And yet he is able to steal their women.”

  I nodded, then remembered Rodolfo’s one unpracticed response. Ah, she get tired at last. Did he really forget pronouns?

  Before I could ask, he took my hand. “One last thing I must tell you. I could not say before in front of your boss…”

  Liquid eyes locked on mine, making my stomach and other parts do strange somersaults. “Yes?”

  “One of Warburton’s women?”

  I nodded.

  “She was sitting at your table.”

  A swift kiss on the back of my hand. Then, pleased with his performance, he went off to work.

  It was nearing five thirty when I returned to the car and gave Louise the unhappy news that an unknown killer had not come in through the kitchen to shoot Sidney Warburton—and that the murderer had followed him from the dining room.

  Louise frowned. Then rallied. “All sorts of disreputable people dine at Rector’s, don’t they? It needn’t have been someone from our table.”

  Thinking of the gangster Owney Davis, I conceded that was true. I wrestled with how to tell Louise that one of the women at our table had been carrying on an affair with the producer when she directed Horst to drive to Lord & Taylor.

  Surprised, I said, “Are you certain? It’s been a very busy day.”

  “I told William I was out shopping. He’ll think it odd if I come back empty-handed.”

  “Yes, but … perhaps you’re tired.”

  “Why on earth would I be tired?”

  Our eyes met. I saw nothing in hers that suggested she wished me to be truthful.

  * * *

  That evening, surly at the change of dinner hour, Mrs. Avery slapped a grease-stained piece of paper into my hand. On it was Anna’s name and a number I didn’t recognize.

  I waited until the Tylers had retired to call. Anna had never kept regular hours, I wasn’t afraid of waking her. Wherever she was, it did not seem to be a home—at least not an average home. I had to speak to several people in order to reach her: the woman who answered the phone, a man who was asked if he knew where Anna was, who then shouted to a third unseen person. For a few moments, I heard only the rumble of distant conversation. Finally, I heard Anna’s voice.

  “Hello!” I said, with a brightness that sounded empty even to my ears.

  “… Oh,” she said after a moment. “Yes, hello.”

  “You’re busy.”

  “No. But it’s very noisy. Hard to hear.”

  “Perhaps we should have dinner.”

  This had been our habit, dinner on my day off—one I had abandoned over the summer to make time for Leo.

  “Dinner.”

  “It’s been so long. My fault.”

  “What?”

  “My fault,” I said, raising my voice as high as I dared in the Tyler house. “I think … I’ve been working a lot, I think Mrs. Tyler would give me an evening off. Could you meet tomorrow?”

  There was silence. I knew my friend, knew her silences. She was not calculating whether or not she was free to meet tomorrow night. She was deciding whether or not she wanted to.

  Then she said, “Tomorrow, yes.”

  As I went upstairs to my room, I heard muffled voices coming from the Tylers’ bedroom. The words were unclear, but the timbre was high, the pauses too long. This was not a pleasant before bed chat. I had the feeling the Lord & Taylor story had not satisfied William. Nor should it have. It was a harmless lie, I told myself. But a lie nonetheless.

  In bed, I pondered the nature of attachment. It had taken Anna two phone calls and two days to call me; if she had reached out to me, I would have been on the phone in an instant. But, I reminded myself, I had disappeared to go dancing with Leo first. Although she had disappeared many times over the years and I hadn’t taken offense. Maybe, I thought querulously, she just didn’t like the tables turned. People could find betrayal in the mildest slight or neglect if they chose to.

  Which brought me to “Warburton’s woman”—such a strange way to put it—and that jealous husband who might have stalked the man who wronged him and taken his life. Was that an act of love? Or power? Or money, I thought, hearing voices suddenly raised and shrill from downstairs, there was also money to consider. Security. It’s for the good of the family business.

  Family shouldn’t be a business, I thought. Love shouldn’t be a business. You should be able to count on them, trust them …

  And then I laughed at myself because nothing in the world worked that way.

  But it wasn’t pleasant to be reminded. Rejection. Jealousy—they could make you feel …

  Or do.

  Some very ugly things.

  11

  “Good morning, Miss Biederman.”

  “Good morning, Miss Prescott.”

  “Are these for washing, Mrs. St. John?”

  “Please, Jane.”

  “You look lovely, Mrs. Hirschfeld.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Your tea, Mrs. Arden.”

  “Claude, darling, I’d like to try it down left.”

  The next day as I made my way around the theater, I brooded over the discovery that Sidney Warburton had enjoyed the privilege claimed by many powerful men: the favors of women not his wife. Specifically, women who were the wives of others.

  One of whom had been sitting at our table the night of the murder. Which meant she was at the theater today.

  There had been seven women at our table, including Louise, whom I discounted. Three of the six remaining had husbands. I began with Violet Hirschfeld. Rodolfo’s list had been comprised of women of a certain stature: they were either great beauties, married to prestigious men, or both. Warburton would have taken pride in their seduction. Whereas he had described Violet as a bicycle. His contempt did not suggest an enamored swain—although perhaps a rejected one. Violet did not strike me as a woman of deep feeling, but she was attentive to her new husband and young enough that she may have rejected the little producer as “old”—and been tactless enough to say so. But if Warburton’s nastiness toward Violet did stem from rejection, Leo would have no cause for jealousy, at least when it came to his wife. Jealousy over control of the show was a different matter—and that I set aside as irrelevant to the question at hand.

  Adele St. John? I had never heard a single reference to Mr. St. John, but some
one had given her the title of “Mrs.” She seemed altogether too forthright to get entangled with Sidney Warburton, except in the business sense. Also, too tall. But perhaps the unseen Mr. St. John was jealous of the time she spent at the theater? Perhaps he disliked her career—unorthodox for a woman of her station.

  Also, it needn’t be a husband, I realized. Harriet Biederman had a fiancé. Nedda Fiske, an unstable lover. I had never sensed even a whiff of eroticism between Nedda Fiske and the producer. Her devotion to Lombardo seemed all consuming. Not to mention Lombardo had been floating in the river at the time of Warburton’s death, as unassailable an alibi as you could want.

  Harriet’s fiancé on the other hand was not only alive, he was bullying and bad tempered. His dislike of her career was well known, and such a man would not have approved of his fiancée’s presence at a place like Rector’s—or her working extra hours. Many men expected their women home at the hour of their choosing, and he had shown up at the theater once before when she was late. Maybe torn between two bullies in her life, Harriet had defied the butcher by going to dinner, then panicked and run home? Even as the butcher was on his way to her boss’s favorite restaurant in order to drag her out by force? Or to shoot the man who seemed to enjoy more of his fiancée’s devotion than he did?

  And if Harriet had changed her mind about giving up her career in the theater? What would the butcher’s reaction be then? It would be helpful to know how close he lived to Harriet, how much he was able to keep track of her comings and goings.

  Hearing a change in melody, I looked up to see the Ardens take to the stage to begin the scene of their first meeting. This part of the show, unlike so many others, was fine. But Claude was a taskmaster, insisting they rehearse numbers long since perfected over and over again. I watched as they moved through their bright, chipper patter into their bright, chipper dance—so precise, so sure. One had no anxiety watching them. But today, their expertise offered very little pleasure. It all felt rather mechanical. As opposed to Blanche’s ardent trills of a few weeks ago.