[Celebrity Murder Case 07] - The Marlene Dietrich Muder Case

by George Baxt

  “Oh, God,” said Souvir while Dong See chuckled and thought, How anyone who drives a car as wildly as he does could be afraid of death is beyond me. Orientals were taught not to fear death but to welcome it as an adventure in a new dimension. On the other hand, he himself was in no hurry to cross the Great Divide and planned on a long and profitable life.

  Inside the study, the Countess Dorothy di Frasso was a charming study of poise and cooperation. She sat in a comfortable chair facing Herb Villon, who sat behind a small desk that seemed much too delicate in construction for his large frame, while at his left sat Jim Mallory recording the interrogation. He was never without a looseleaf pad, and only he could translate his own peculiar scrawl of shorthand. Marlene and Anna May were on a love seat to the right of the desk, and Hazel Dickson perched on a window seat, which also afforded her an excellent view of the comings and goings in the driveway below.

  Villon had asked the Countess if she had met Mai Mai Chu before tonight.

  The Countess said, “I didn’t even meet her tonight! No one introduced us. Every so often I did find her staring at us and I was wondering at first if she disapproved of our not mingling with some of the other guests. But I’m sure you understand, Mr. Villain.”

  “Villon.”

  “Oh, do forgive me. Villon. Anyway, you know Hollywood and understand the pecking order. It’s all so cliquey. I mean the Constance Bennett bunch doesn’t mingle with the Norma Shearer bunch, and even at parties they tend to keep themselves apart from each other. It’s really terribly tiresome. By the way, darling, where were Norma and Irving tonight? Surely you invited them.”

  “They had a previous engagement and Irving Thalberg tires so easily. They’re with Helen Hayes and Charlie MacArthur.”

  “Oh, really?” The Countess looked chagrined. “And they didn’t invite me?”

  Marlene decided the question didn’t deserve an answer. She couldn’t understand why she had invited the woman to her own party. She wasn’t particularly fond of her; in fact she felt sorry for her. Other than Gary Cooper, Dietrich thought her taste in men was execrable, especially her fondness for Italian gangsters.

  Villon was talking to di Frasso. “Were you bothered by Madam Chu’s rudeness in staring at you?”

  “No, because I didn’t believe she’d singled me out. She was giving equal time to other members of my group.”

  “You said your escorts tonight were Mr. Tensha and Mr. Trevor. Have you known them long?”

  “I met Mr. Tensha in Rome a few years ago. It was at a state dinner given by Mussolini. Dear Benny, he’s such a sweetie. And he’s made the trains run on time, can you imagine that?”

  “I suppose so. I’m not big with trains. You were living in Italy at the time?”

  Her voice darkened. “I was married to the Count. We weren’t in Italy all that much. I’m the restless type. I like to move around a lot.”

  “But you didn’t move around a lot tonight.”

  “Tonight I was in a ballroom. Outside there’s the whole world for me to play in.”

  “Did any of your group acknowledge having seen Madam Chu before?”

  “Well, frankly, and I hope I’m not casting undue suspicion, but I had the feeling she knew or recognized several of my bunch. On the other hand, they’ve all had their pictures in newspapers and magazines. I mean, for instance, there have been the stories that Raymond Souvir is to be screen-tested with Marlene. And Ivar Tensha! My dear, he certainly is celebrated as the munitions czar. Dong See is a celebrated musician. I mean, the only frumps in the group are the Ivanovs, but I seem to remember even they had their pictures in the papers when they joined their embassy here. And as for myself, well,” she flicked imaginary lint from her dress, “I’m always news.”

  “Did you by any chance see who gave Madam Chu her glass of champagne?”

  “I don’t remember that at all. I assumed it was Anna May because I heard her say to someone she thought Madam Chu was getting hoarse and could use a drink, something like that. Frankly, it seems rather ridiculous to me that anyone would choose to murder the woman. Her predictions were harmless. I mean, a madman who wants to rule the world! That’s grade-B movie stuff. And as for World War Two … oh dear. I don’t buy that at all. And then, to suggest someone in the room will be murdered and someone else will commit suicide, my dear Mr. Vill … on, anyone in this room could make those generalizations and sound mysterious and ominous. Everybody knows the two Johns, Gilbert and Barrymore, are drinking themselves to death. And I could think of several ladies out there I’d be only too happy to accommodate with assassination. “She smiled in the direction of Dietrich and Anna May. “Present company excepted, of course.”

  “Why?” asked Marlene.

  “Oh, darling, you know we’ve never competed for anyone.”

  Dietrich wore an enigmatic smile. Everybody in the ballroom knew she and Gary Cooper had a red hot affair during the making of Morocco, which crazed von Sternberg and di Frasso, who had succeeded in stealing Cooper from the volatile Lupe Velez.

  “What about Monte Trevor?”

  “What about him?”

  “Where’d you meet him?”

  “Oh. Let me think. Oh, of course. In London. If I recall correctly, it was a party Gertie Lawrence was giving for the Prince of Wales and I recall Monte had the audacity to try to convince the Prince to star in a film of Ivanhoe. Well, he is terribly photogenic, don’t you think, Marlene?”

  “I’ve never met him.”

  “Oh, haven’t you? He’s a bit of a bore. Come to think of it, all the royals are bores. It’s all that incest and intermarriage. I like Monte Trevor. He’s an honest fraud. And he does manage to get a film made every now and then. Why Marlene, tonight he was trying to convince Ivar on the drive here to back a production of Salome to star you!”

  “How flattering,” responded Marlene, “and how apropos; like John the Baptist, many a man has lost his head over me.” Jim Mallory was salivating. If only to be given a chance to lose his head over Marlene Dietrich.

  “Monte dangled the bait, but Ivar didn’t bite. Anything else?”

  “Did you know Raymond Souvir in Paris?”

  “He insists we met at a dinner party at Feodor Chaliapin’s, but I don’t remember the occasion at all. And as for Dong See, we were introduced at a reception for him in Shanghai after one of his recitals, and I remembered because he was so charming and attentive. He’s changed some since then, but then I suppose we all change over the years.” There was a pause and she asked, “Am I sitting in what they call the hot seat?”

  “Actually Dorothy,” said Marlene, “you’re sitting in an Adam original. I bought it at an auction for a very fancy price.”

  Hazel Dickson was starving. She wondered if she dared ask Marlene to send to the ballroom for some food. She knew Herb Villon was not thrilled about her sitting in on the interrogations and she was sure that by now the mansion was being besieged by reporters and photographers. She looked out the window and decided she too was psychic. There they were in the driveway, milling about anxiously, being held back by some of Herb’s minions. Well, she’d beaten them all to it and knew that Herb would suffer some flak because of it. He was often being accused of favoring Hazel on a murder case.

  “How else can I assist you?” asked di Frasso with exaggerated graciousness.

  “You’ve been very helpful. Thank you. Would you ask Mr. Tensha to come in?”

  “I’d be delighted.”

  Hazel wondered if she could ask the Countess to get her a plate of turkey and ham, but by the time she got up her courage, di Frasso was out and Tensha was in.

  “Cigar?” asked Tensha of Villon, indicating a row of his brown torpedos in his inside jacket pocket.

  “No, thank you,” declined Villon. “I don’t smoke them.”

  “And if you don’t mind, Mr. Tensha,” interjected Marlene, “I’d be grateful if you didn’t either. The room is small and it’s already quite close in here.”

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nbsp; “Hazel,” ordered Villon of his girlfriend on the window seat, “open the window.” She did as requested.

  Despite being deprived of a cigar as a prop, Tensha was quite composed. He said to Marlene, “This is a terrible thing to have happen in your home. And Miss Wong, we have not been introduced, but I know the deceased was your good friend and I offer my condolences.”

  “Thank you,” responded Anna May softly. Such ye olde worlde courtliness, thought Anna May, such an anachronism coming from a man who profits from death and destruction.

  Hazel could tell Herb didn’t like Tensha. Offering the cigar was a mistake. Now if he could only produce a ham and cheese on rye she might fall madly in love with him. She heard Herb ask Tensha, somewhat facetiously, she thought, “You deal in munitions?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Are you in this city for business or for pleasure?”

  “Both.”

  “Have you ever met Madam Chu before tonight?”

  “In passing and very briefly, I recall social occasions in Berlin and Paris and perhaps also in Rome when we were both under the same roof.”

  “You were not ever friends?”

  “Oh, no. Madam Chu I understood to favor bohemian circles where I am very uncomfortable.”

  “You don’t consider tonight a bohemian occasion?”

  “No, tonight was quite delightful until Madam Chu’s unfortunate murder. In fact, she fascinated me. The thought of a second world war! You can imagine how a prospect like that appeals to me.”

  Herb Villon positively hated him. Herb had served in the recent war in the infantry and had suffered a chest wound. He had seen his buddies dropping around him like ninepins in a bowling alley. There was many a night he awakened to the imagined screams of a comrade begging God to give him another chance at life. And this son of a bitch sitting on an antique chair with a pocket load of hundred-dollar cigars slavers at the possibility of a frightening premonition becoming a reality. Don’t these people ever get struck by lightning?

  “I can tell you that Madam Chu had won the respect and admiration of many dignitaries the world over. Albert Einstein adored her. I was told she warned the Romanovs to get out of Russia as the revolution was imminent, but I don’t think that was a premonition. I think she got it firsthand from Leon Trotsky, with whom it was rumored she had an affair.” Both Marlene and Anna May arched an eyebrow upon hearing this delightful gossip. Anna May whispered to Marlene, “I’m so glad for Mai Mai. I always had the feeling she wasn’t getting much.”

  “But Trotsky!” Marlene suppressed a shudder.

  Villon continued, “The others? Mr. Trevor, Dong See, Raymond Souvir, the Ivanovs?”

  “The Ivanovs I met here at a reception at the Russian Embassy. He’s a simpleton. She is very deceptive.”

  “How so?”

  “I think she is a very clever woman. She professes to peasant origins and has the calloused hands to prove it, but she was smart enough to manipulate her husband into his present position in the embassy. I don’t like the man. I think he’s a pacifist and they are no use to me.” He longed for a puff of a cigar. “As for Trevor, I met him in London. He’s always out to separate me from some of my fortune. He’s not smart enough. Otherwise, I find him quite harmless. Souvir I do not know. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just another pretty face. Dong See is a gifted musician, but I do not travel in musical circles.”

  You don’t travel in circles at all, thought Marlene; you are a smooth, calculating monster. Which is why you are a billionaire and I am not and never will be.

  Villon said to Tensha, “I read in the papers you are negotiating to buy an estate here.”

  “I’ve bought it. I do a lot of business in the Near East and the Far East and I decided it would be less tiring to break the long journey with a place of my own in Hollywood. I have purchased the estate of a silent film star who apparently has been silenced forever by the talkies. Perhaps you have heard of Clara Kimball Young?” They had. “She was heavily in debt and I came to her rescue. The place needs a lot of work.”

  “Your group was standing near Madam Chu before her death. Did you see the person who gave her the glass of champagne?”

  “I really don’t remember. Wasn’t it you, Miss Wong?”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  Tensha said to Villon, “Perhaps it was a butler. I remember one passing among us with a single glass on the tray.”

  Marlene filed that statement away. I remember one passing among us with a single glass on the tray. And with all eyes focused on Mai Mai Chu, how easy it would have been for someone to drop a poisoned tablet into the glass. Her eyes met Villon’s briefly. She sensed he too harbored a similar suspicion. She liked him. Hazel’s a lucky girl. He’s a good detective and he’s a good man, and baby, let me tell you, a good man nowadays is hard to find. She surfaced from her reverie and realized Tensha had been dismissed.

  “You didn’t ask him to send in one of the others?” said Marlene, somewhat surprised.

  “After him, I need a breather,” said Herb.

  “I need food and I’m going to get some. If I miss anything, you can tell me later.” Hazel hurried out of the room and Marlene began pacing.

  “Very interesting, Mr. Tensha,” said Marlene.

  “I loathe him,” Villon stated flatly. “I expected dollar signs to flash in his eyes at the prospect of another world war.”

  “Don’t be foolish,” said Marlene, “we’ll never see another one in our time. The world is too poor. This Depression won’t disappear in the near future. But Herb, a few interesting things he said. A butler passed among them with a single glass.” Herb smiled. The lady was smart. “The old trick of concealing a pill in the palm of the hand and passing it over the glass.”

  “That’s probably the way it happened,” Villon concurred. “But from whose palm did the pill drop?”

  “You can discount Dorothy di Frasso,” said Dietrich.

  “Why?” asked Villon, as Jim Mallory feasted on Dietrich with feverish eyes.

  “The only poison she dispenses is with her tongue. And besides, what would her motive have been?”

  “Dorothy didn’t murder Mai Mai,” Anna May agreed. “But I feel certain it was one of the others.”

  “Mr. Tensha is so smooth. As for Dong See, he says he does not travel in musical circles. And I’m sure Dong See does not travel exclusively in musical circles. He’s certainly not traveling in one tonight, unless you consider Gus Amheim’s cacaphony musical. Oh God, what a night!” She was at the door and opened it a crack. The noise from the ballroom was obscenely deafening. “Can you beat that! They have to know by now Mai Mai was murdered, but they go on celebrating as though murder among them is a common occurrence.” She shut the door and faced Villon.

  Villon said, “You look like a tiger about to pounce.”

  “Do I? All I want to know, Herb, is who’s next?”

  “You mean who’s next to be murdered?”

  “No, who’s next to be questioned. There won’t be another murder tonight. You know as well as I do Mai Mai was murdered because she knew too much about the backgrounds of some of the suspects. And it goes back to Europe where they first met. I think Mai Mai knew something terrible. I think Mai Mai, had she not been poisoned, would have revealed something very, very sinister. And how convenient of the murderer to have some nux vomica in his possession.”

  Herb asked winsomely, “Why, my dear Marlene, doesn’t everyone carry some poison on them for an emergency? Well, let me tell you from a lot of past experience, professional killers are always well prepared. And one of this bunch I’m questioning tonight is a professional killer. And damned clever too. Jim, I want to see Monte Trevor next.” As Jim went to get Trevor, Herb said to Marlene, “Marlene, you’ve got the makings of a good detective.”

  “I agree with you. It’s a necessary talent when you deal with the kind of men I come up against. And let me tell you, Herb, you’re pretty darned good yourself.”


  Monte Trevor preceded Jim Mallory into the room. He hesitated for a few moments, and Villon said, “Come in, Mr. Trevor and sit right there. There’s no need to be afraid.”

  Or is there, wondered Marlene.

  FIVE

  MARLENE THOUGHT MONTE Trevor looked more like a greengrocer than a film producer. On the other hand, what was a film producer supposed to look like? Sam Goldwyn had been a glove salesman. Jesse Lasky had played a saxaphone in vaudeville. D. W. Griffith was both a failed actor and a failed playwright. Looks are deceiving, she reminded herself, and not only Trevor’s looks are deceiving. There is someone here who is dangerously deceptive, who should look like a murderer, but again, what should a murderer look like? Tensha profits from death and should be the most obvious choice to be a murderer. But with his power and money, wouldn’t he arrange for someone else to do his dirty work? He didn’t look like a munitions maker, he looked like a puppeteer behind a Punch-and-Judy show in a Paris park. Could Raymond Souvir be a murderer? Why not? And why not Dong See? A hand that delicately wields a violin bow could just as delicately pop a death pill into a glass of champagne. And there’s the Ivanovs. The Communists thrive on purges. They murder in job lots, hundreds at a time if the stories coming out of Russia can be believed. Natalia Ivanov is an ambitious woman, but what could there have been in this peasant’s past that would have triggered Mai Mai’s suspicion? Likewise her husband, an oaf in sheep’s clothing. This is too exhausting, and she wasn’t paying attention to Villon’s questioning of Monte Trevor. She caught a glimpse of Jim Mallory’s face and from his strange look wondered if he was suffering from an upset stomach.

  “Madam Chu is not unfamiliar to me,” Trevor was telling Herb. “1 read an interview with her in the London Times … ooh, let me think … um … yes … some ten or more years ago … and I thought at the time she had possibilities as the subject of a feature film. But who to play her other than Miss Wong here, and she was not yet on the threshhold of her present celebrity. It would have meant casting an Occidental actress and expecting the makeup department to work a miracle.”