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

by George Baxt

  “Did you make contact with Madam Chu?” Herb was toying with a pencil while staring at Anna May. He couldn’t read a thing in her face. Truly inscrutable.

  “As a matter of fact, we had tea at the Savoy. I think it was the Savoy. Maybe the Mayfair Club? The Dorchester?”

  “The setting is of no importance, Mr. Trevor, only the cast of characters.”

  “Yes, of course, ha ha. You Americans do insist on cutting away the fat and the gristle. Well, as I said, we met and I broached the subject of filming her story. It seems I wasn’t alone with the idea. A French director approached her in Paris, I think it was Rene Clair, and another had met with her in Berlin. But she said something quite sensible. I can’t quote her accurately, it was so many years ago, but she said something like this. ‘There is no story, Mr. Trevor, there are only my gifts, and how do you dramatize gifts?’ Quite an intelligent woman, I’m happy to say. Anyway, truth to tell, a few years later I did a movie about a clairvoyant and it was a terrible flop.”

  “Has making films been your only interest, Mr. Trevor?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you been involved in other schemes, something that might pique Madam Chu’s interest in you?”

  “I don’t understand. Filmmaking is my life.”

  “Possibly not always all that profitable. I’m a Hollywood baby. Born and brought up here. I have met lots of film producers, and except for a chosen few, most of them are usually hard up for some green paper.”

  “Too true, oh yes, too too true.”

  Marlene whispered to Anna May, “The more nervous he gets, the thicker his accent.”

  Villon spoke. “So it stands to reason to get your hands on some eating money you from time to time dabbled in some extracurricular activities.”

  His face was red and the veins stood out on his neck. “I don’t deny there have been some very ugly rumors about me in Europe. I have enemies. Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Can you repeat some of those ugly rumors?”

  “They’re too ugly to repeat!”

  “You’re among friends, Mr. Trevor.”

  “Friends don’t cross-examine people without any provocation.”

  “You’re not being cross-examined, Mr. Trevor. You’re being questioned. No one forced you into this room. You could have refused to cooperate.”

  “Oh, ho ho ho!” There was no mistaking the sneer in his voice. “Haven’t I heard that before.”

  “Then you’ve been questioned by the police before.”

  He leaned forward, angry. “Thanks to those bleeding ugly rumors spread by a jealous rival who thought I was having it off with his wife!”

  Marlene laughed and couldn’t resist asking, “And were you having it off with his wife?”

  “I never denied it! But those rumors were inexcusable! And I’m so angry I’ll tell you what those rumors were and possibly still exist.” He crossed one leg over the other and clasped his knee with his hands. Marlene felt sorry for him now. Only too well did she understand what it was like to be victimized by ugly rumors. “Word was spread that I was financing a prostitution ring. Then there was a story circulating that I was profiting from an organization specializing in illegal adoptions. It was said I traveled the Continent and Asia setting up a ring to steal infants and then offer them up for adoption at very fancy prices.”

  “Dreadful,” said Marlene.

  “Dreadful indeed! Who has the time and the money for that kind of an operation? And then the rumors that I was an extortionist, that’s how I supposedly largely financed the production of my films. Would you like to hear more, Mr. Villon? Can you digest some additional sordid details?”

  Villon said with a small, not unfriendly smile. “You should write your autobiography.”

  “I am,” he said. “I call it So Help Me GQod!”

  “Madam Chu was particularly interested in your group. I’m sure you were aware of this.”

  “I most certainly was. I thought it was me who was the reason for her attention, so I introduced myself and reminded her of the time we took tea at the Sav … maybe it was the Grosvenor House?” He could see Villon was growing impatient. “Anyway, she remembered me and then absolutely floored me when she said, ‘But do not plan on the realization of a film about Salome’! How about that. I’d been discussing that very idea with Mr. Tensha and the Countess di Frasso on the drive here, and Madam Chu sensed it just by looking at me. That’s what she told me. She sensed it just by looking at me. I say, do you suppose she knew she would die tonight?” No one responded.

  “Oh, dear. It is a terrible thought, isn’t it?”

  “After that tea with her, you had no further dealings with Madam Chu?”

  “None.” He said it so softly, Villon and Marlene were sure he was lying.

  “Tensha says he knew you in Europe. Likewise the Countess. What about the others?”

  “I never met any of them until tonight.” He had uncrossed his legs, and the palms of his hands rested on his lap. Then he whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at his face. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  Villon dismissed him and Trevor almost leaped out of the room, missing crashing into Hazel Dickson by inches. “If ever anyone looked like a fox being chased by the hounds. Did I miss much?”

  “You missed the fox,” said Marlene. And what a fox. She knew he spilled the ugly rumors about himself to show he had nothing to fear from them or from Villon’s questions. She said to the others, “I think he was fun. Didn’t you, Herb?”

  “I wouldn’t want him to marry my sister.”

  “Don’t be mean. Herb,” said Hazel. “You know she’s desperate for anyone to pop the question. While I’m on my feet, can I page any of the remaining suspects for you?”

  He asked for Dong See, who attacked upon entering with a volley of indignation about being kept waiting and how dare he be subjected to such treatment and how dare anyone think him capable of murder. He might louse up Paganini or Kreisler, but poisoning Mai Mai Chu was so unthinkable, so awful. He paused for breath and Herb jumped in.

  “Am I correct in assuming, since both you and the deceased were celebrities on the international circuits, that your paths have crossed before?”

  “Mai Mai was a fan of mine and I a great fan of hers.”

  “But you didn’t have much conversation with her tonight, did you?”

  “You are quite correct. When I first saw her I waved at her, but she looked right through me, or so I thought. Then I realized she was very preoccupied and probably having one of her visions. I decided I would wait until after her … contribution to the evening, when conversation would be easier. A tragic decision on my part. I never dreamt tonight was the last we would see of each other.” He turned in his seat to Anna May. “At least we’re the better for having known her.” Anna May nodded in agreement, and Marlene put her hand over Anna May’s.

  Responding to other questions, Dong See said that on various occasions he had met Tensha, Trevor, and di Frasso abroad, but had never become intimate with them. To him, the Ivanovs were ciphers, and he totally disapproved of Communists; they didn’t pay well. Raymond Souvir was something else. “We were good chums in Paris, good pals. He’s a dangerous driver” was added as an afterthought.

  “Is there anything else dangerous about him?” Villon asked.

  “I think a woman is better qualified to answer that question.” Jim Mallory thought his smirk most unbecoming.

  “I hope you have no immediate plans to leave the city.”

  “I shall be around for several months. I’m composing a concerto and have rented a secluded house in the hills.” Mallory recorded his address and phone number.

  Dong See composing a concerto, Hazel was thinking. Not the greatest item in the world, but still, it might be worth something to Etude, the foremost musical magazine.

  Raymond Souvir was a much more affable subject of interrogation. He bubbled with enthusiasm at the prospect of his screen test with
Marlene, he adored Hollywood and wasn’t the climate magnificent, not like the damp and wetness of Paris except in the spring when Paris was glorious and so conducive to romance. And so many beautiful women, how clever of you Marlene and also how brave to invite so many gorgeous creatures into your home to greet the New Year, oblivious of the fact that Marlene liked women and many women were her friends and she didn’t give a damn if they were more beautiful and more glamorous than she, because they weren’t and that’s that. In little over a year she’d become an icon of the silver screen, rivaled only by the enigmatic Garbo, whom many predicted she would soon topple from her pedestal, a prospect that held little interest for Dietrich.

  Right now she was wishing he’d shut up and let Villon get on with the questioning. She’d ignored her guests much too long, and by this time she was sure many wanted to go home. Happily, a detective entered with a note for Villon from the coroner and Villon instructed him to lift the embargo on the mansion and let the guests come and go as they pleased. He was pretty damn sure his killer was one of the favored seven suspects.

  “How’s my party going?” Dietrich asked him.

  “Great! Nobody’s leaving. And the food’s terrific. Boy, those potato latkes!”

  “The secret is to keep them thin, very finely grate the onions, and fry them only in Casco.”

  With a bewildered look on his face, the detective departed while wondering if she was intimating that she herself had made the potato pancakes.

  “Excuse me,” Villon said to the actor, who realized he’d been talking too much and now sat placidly awaiting Villon’s attention. Villon read the coroner’s note, showed it to Mallory, and asked him to pass it on to Marlene. All outward symptoms of the victim pointed to strychnine and he was sure the autopsy would confirm it. Marlene shared the note with Anna May.

  Villon studied Raymond Souvir’s face briefly before starting his questioning. Dark, suave good looks, typical of a professional model, but he suspected a trace of fear in the eyes. Perhaps it was just nerves; probably Souvir had never been questioned by authority in his past, but who could be sure. Baby’faced killers were epidemic in America. He started the questions. Yes, Souvir had met Mai Mai in Paris several years ago when he was just starting out in show business and occasionally sang at Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit and other popular clubs. Singing was his first profession after a brief career as a photographer’s model, and it was Mai Mai who advised him he had latent acting gifts. So he studied with a succession of teachers and then won a lead in the Paris production of Elmer Rice’s Street Scene, playing the naive son of a Jewish radical. This brought him a few screen offers, and he made three, which brought him to the attention of a Paramount talent scout who suggested that von Sternberg test him for the part of Dietrich’s suave and wealthy protector in her next movie, Blonde Venus.

  “Over the years,” asked Villon, “have you kept in touch with Madam Chu?”

  “No, not really. But Dong See might have told you, he and I became very good friends in Paris. He would tell me what Madam Chu was up to, and how frequently some of her premonitions displeased people. You know, like tonight, who wants to know there’ll be another world war?”

  “Tensha.” It was Marlene who literally spat the name.

  “Of course,” agreed Souvir, “munitions.” In response to Villon’s question as to whether he had ever met any of the others previous to tonight, Souvir said, “I was once interviewed by Mr. Trevor for a film he was planning to do in Paris, but I don’t think he remembers me. I met the Countess di Frasso at some parties, but I don’t think she likes me.” He looked embarrassed. “I once turned down an amorous advance she’d made.” He laughed and it was a very nervous laugh. No, he did not see who gave Mai Mai Chu the glass of champagne, because at the time he was trying to signal a waiter to get a glass for himself. As to the Ivanovs, he shrugged and said, “They do not interest me. They are, well, they are peasants.”

  And where did you spring from, Marlene wondered, from what countryside and from what poor little village where papa probably had a small farm from which he scraped a meager living, where mama was an exhausted wife who had birthed half a dozen brats, most of them unwanted, and milked the cow and sowed the seeds and baked the bread and darned and mended the threadbare rags they wore the year round. Don’t be so mean, Marlene admonished herself. He might also be the son of a wealthy manufacturer whose doting father had financed his career.

  “Have you any idea which of you might benefit from Madam Chu’s death?”

  “Monsieur?” Souvir looked like a startled faun. Had he only just realized that he was being questioned because he was a suspected murderer? “Are you thinking that I put the pill in Madam Chu’s champagne?’’

  Villon leaned forward. “How did you know anyone put a poisoned pill in her champagne?”

  “Why, why, it was discussed while we were waiting to be questioned. I, I… I think it was the Countess di Frasso who said if the champagne was poisoned it could only be with a pill because it would be impossible to pour a liquid into the glass even if the waiter was walking very slowly. As it is, I cannot imagine how one places a pill in a glass when there’s danger of being seen by so many people. Oh … There was a strange expression on his face. Villon waited. He knew he was about to hear something important. “Mr. Villon,” he pronounced it Vee-yon and Hazel thought Herb’s name was certainly sexier when spoken with a French accent, “you remember I told you I didn’t see who gave Mai Mai Chu the glass of champagne because I was trying to signal a waiter for a glass of my own. But now I remember how it really was. I stopped the waiter who was carrying the champagne to Madam Chu and asked him to please bring me one too. He only stopped for a few seconds.”

  “More than enough time for someone to seal Madam Chu’s doom.” Maybe even you, Mr. Frenchman.

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. How terrible. In a room so crowded, so noisy, so many of us pushed against each other, it is difficult to remember what one has seen or heard or said.” Villon said to Mallory, “See if di Frasso is still here. If she is, I want to talk to her again.”

  Souvir turned in his chair to Marlene and Anna May Wong. “I am distressed! That I might have been the instrument … it is too terrible for me to contemplate!”

  Hazel was curious about Mallory’s hasty departure. She caught Villon’s eye and he signaled her to be patient.

  “We all inadvertently make mistakes, Raymond.” He wasn’t reassured. Anna May was thinking, he stopped the waiter, he could have dropped the pill himself. That was exactly what Marlene, Villon, and Hazel Dickson were thinking. But soon the three would wonder what motive he could possibly have. Unless, as he himself said, he was the instrument. The person instructed to poison the champagne.

  “Too ridiculous,” said Marlene aloud.

  “What’s too ridiculous?” asked Villon.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “Later.” Her tone of voice said, Don’t mess with a Teuton.

  “I’m so sorry,” Raymond Souvir said in a sad, tired voice.

  Nice delivery, thought Marlene. Even the way he’s slumped in the chair, he has possibilities. Even if he is almost as pretty as I am. If he gets the part, the women might spend more time looking at him rather than looking at me, which is where they’re supposed to be looking. But then, this is moviemaking. Von Sternberg will edit the picture to make sure they mostly look at me. Hell, they won’t take their eyes off me after that number where the gorilla enters, makes threatening and subtly obscene gestures at the chorus girls, and then unscrews its head revealing its me, Marlene, wearing the gorilla suit.

  God it’ll be hot under those lights.

  Villon thanked Souvir. Marlene said to the actor, “Stick around for a while, darling, and we’ll have a drink. I’ll be finished here soon.”

  “Yes. I’d like that.” He hurried out.

  The Ivanovs as a replacement for the handsome, gentle young Frenchman were a cu
lture shock. They entered with Jim Mallory, who told Villon he had found the Countess and she was damned annoyed at being recalled but was sitting outside smoking a cigarette and tapping a foot, but he didn’t specify which. He brought a second chair to accommodate Gregory Ivanov, Marlene having winced with apprehension when Natalia settled onto the Adam, like a dirigible docking into port.

  Hazel thought the Ivanovs were a great double act. If they could master a soft-shoe routine and a couple of choruses of “Dark Eyes” they might be a cinch playing specialty houses.

  No, they didn’t know Madam Chu personally but had seen her once at a reception in Moscow. They had heard she had once been a mistress of Trotsky’s, but Trotsky was now in disfavor and living in exile in Mexico. Gregory asked if they knew that years ago he had been an extra in Hollywood films, and only Jim Mallory was amused by the non sequitur. Neither one of them saw Madam Chu accept the glass of champagne from the waiter, not that this information was necessary any longer, but it did elicit from Natalia that she remembered the waiter pausing briefly next to Raymond Souvir, as she also wanted another glass of champagne. No, they didn’t know if Madam Chu had any enemies in Russia, but Gregory had sat behind her at a screening of Thunder Over China and she voiced disapproval of the treatment of Orientals in that film. Anna May told Dietrich that they should have heard what she thought of Warner Oland’s portrayal of the evil Dr. Fu Man Chu and that Mai Mai was even sorrier that they shared the same surname.

  When Villon told them they could go, they quickly thanked Marlene for her hospitality and for a most unusual evening and promised they’d soon be inviting her around for a bowl of borscht with a boiled potato and a dollop of sour cream.

  “Yogurt is healthier,” said Marlene, having the final word, as usual. Mallory fetched the Countess di Frasso, who was thoroughly annoyed at being brought back for further questioning and said so in no uncertain or polite terms.