Passing Fancies (A Julia Kydd Novel)

by Marlowe Benn

  Julia stood, scattering the remnants of her composure. “For pity’s sake, what’s happened?”

  Hannity studied her, face to face across the sofa. His wordless scrutiny was unbearable. To busy her hands, she helped herself to one of the Régies from Philip’s cigarette case on the mantel and bent gratefully over O’Leary’s match.

  Hannity waited until she looked at him. “Please sit down, Miss Kydd.”

  She shook her head, rustling the skirts of her dressing gown to hide her still-trembling knees. She needed to sit, but not at this man’s command.

  Hannity shrugged. “So you say you chatted about nothing special. We’ll try that again in a minute. Who was there?”

  Julia lifted her eyes toward the ceiling, as if to reconstruct the scene from a hazy memory. In truth, in her growing dread she wasn’t sure she could remember her own name.

  “I was there, Sergeant.” Austen strode into the room, hand extended in introduction. His wrinkled evening suit and collarless white evening shirt told an embarrassing if familiar tale.

  Hannity watched Austen pour himself coffee and join Julia beside the mantel. “Well, how about that? Mr. Hurd just saved us a trip uptown, O’Leary. Isn’t this cozy?”

  “The gentleman is our guest,” Philip said from his corner, into the uncomfortable silence. “I trust you’re not here to investigate our social calendars, Sergeant.”

  A dull flush spread across Hannity’s throat. “No, Mr. Kydd. Sorry, sir.”

  Did they know each other? Did Hannity work with Philip’s uncle Kessler?

  Hannity wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. He straightened his shoulders and started again. “So who else, Mr. Hurd?”

  “Let’s see. There was Paul Duveen, a pretty well-known critic and writer. And a couple from California. San Francisco, I believe. Max and Dolly Clark. I’m sure Duveen can tell you—”

  “Just tell me what happened last night.”

  “We were invited upstairs after the show. Duveen and the Californian couple were there, and Arthur Goldsmith, the publisher. The owner, Leonard Timson, was there, of course, and his friend, a Mr. Wallace, who shared our table during the show. Shortly after we arrived, the headline performer, Eva Pruitt, and her escort, Jerome Crockett, joined us. I believe that’s everyone.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Hannity said as O’Leary hunched busily over a notebook, scribbling. “Had you been to Carlotta’s before?”

  At their denials he continued, “Any special reason why you went there last night? Just curious about coloreds?”

  He meant to goad them. Julia bit back a testy reply, glad when Austen answered. “I work in publishing, Sergeant. The big buzz last week was Eva Pruitt’s new novel. Arthur Goldsmith just bought the rights to publish it. We thought it would be fun to see Miss Pruitt’s show.”

  “You work in publishing too, Miss Kydd?”

  “Not as such, no.” Even though she considered her fledgling Capriole Press a venture every bit as serious as Austen’s work at Boni & Liveright, Hannity would never understand.

  “So what happened in Timson’s apartment? After the chitchat. Miss Kydd?”

  Julia sat, not too gracelessly, she hoped, as a new thought struck. Did Hannity suspect her of something? Was that why he refused to answer her questions? The notion was absurd, but she’d heard tales of innocent people nattering on unawares to policemen, delivering all sorts of information that could be construed as incriminating. She desperately missed a hat brim, so useful in shielding one’s face while allowing a good view of others’. Until she knew more, she needed to be cautious. “After Eva and Jerome arrived, we drank champagne. Talk turned to her novel.”

  “First names, huh? You’re pals with Pruitt and Crockett? Met them before?”

  “Last week,” Julia said carefully, “at a literary party.”

  “What exactly do you mean, ‘talk turned to her novel’?”

  “Apparently Timson learned about Eva’s book and stole the manuscript,” Austen said. “He had no right, of course, but wouldn’t listen to Eva’s objections. He made something of a show in locking it away in his safe.”

  “You saw him lock the papers in the safe? Her jewelry too?”

  They nodded. So he’d already talked to others, if he knew about her jewelry case.

  “What did Miss Pruitt do then?”

  Julia’s heart plunged. As she’d feared, he was focusing on Eva. If only Julia had worked harder to dissuade her from returning for that manuscript. Without Wallace to calm him, Timson’s fury might have boiled over if she’d confronted him again about it. Had he pulled the trigger this time? Good God, was Eva dead?

  “It’s what Timson did that matters,” Julia exclaimed. “He drew his gun and threatened her. He’s a ruthless man, Sergeant. Ruthless and violent. If anything’s happened to her, he’s the one you—”

  Hannity made a maddening tsking sound, as if Julia were a child speaking out of turn. “So they quarreled. Then what?”

  Julia’s fears burst out. “Why are you asking these questions? Is Miss Pruitt all right?”

  Hannity strolled to the windows. He looked down over the quiet courtyard. “So when did everyone leave Timson’s rooms?”

  Julia saw again Eva’s lax face, surrendering to whatever fate the gun in her cheek might deliver. Had she felt a premonition of what awaited her later? An inadvertent twitch and—Julia twisted for breath as her mind braced for the fatal explosion. She only faintly heard Austen explain that Goldsmith had left first, followed by Wallace. Jerome had escorted Eva downstairs, and the rest of them had left soon after.

  “What time would you say that was?”

  “Maybe two thirty? Before Eva’s last performance, whenever that was.”

  “Where’d you go next?”

  “Julia and I parted ways with Duveen and the Clarks. We left them waiting for their car.”

  “You both came back here?”

  “Not directly. We went on to a club near where I work. We had a few drinks and settled our minds after what had happened. It was quite late before I saw Miss Kydd home. Around five, I think.”

  Hannity made a sour face.

  “Did either of you go out again after that?”

  Austen shook his head.

  “Have you seen or heard from anyone who was there last night?”

  Again, no.

  Hannity paused to make sure O’Leary recorded every scrap of information. “Timson was alone when you left him?”

  “Quite alone,” Austen said.

  Julia couldn’t bear it any longer. “You must tell us what’s happened, Sergeant.” She was reduced to pleading. “Please.”

  “I must, must I?” He eyed them for several long seconds. “Well, you’ll read about it in the papers soon enough. Last night someone shot Leonard Timson. Put a slug right between his eyes.”

  He smiled at the noise that escaped from Julia’s lungs. Into the silence he added, “And one other thing. His safe was standing wide open, empty. Bare as a baby’s bottom.”

  Julia marshaled every strength to fathom this news. Eva was alive. Timson, not Eva, was dead. But his safe was empty. The implication was monstrous.

  “So it’s only natural to wonder,” Hannity said with exaggerated patience, “if Pruitt’s manuscript has something to do with it.”

  “Surely not.” Julia jumped up despite herself. “That place was filthy with guns. We saw at least half a dozen on our way upstairs. Who were those guards protecting him from? Not from the likes of us. Timson was probably thick as thieves with all sorts of unsavory types. You can’t ignore that, Sergeant. He was a bully surrounded by bullies, and every one of them had a gun.” It poured out of her. Eva and her book could have nothing to do with that man’s death.

  Hannity smiled again. “Nice speech, miss. Sure, there’s johnnies who’d plug their mamas as soon as sneeze, if the price was right or their heels hot enough. But we know how they work, and this just don’t have that feel.”


  “If the safe was empty,” Julia said, scrambling for alternatives, “then her jewelry case is missing too.”

  Philip spoke thoughtfully, as if puzzling out a riddle. Julia turned to see he’d risen from his corner, apparently risking Hannity’s ire to enter the fray. He’d heard her speak of Eva; he would know the extent of Julia’s alarm. “From what I understand, the lady is a true star in the nightclub firmament. She no doubt had some expensive pieces, much more valuable than any novel. A thief could have been after them.”

  “Maybe so, sir,” Hannity conceded, in a new respectful tone. “We’re checking on it.”

  “But Sergeant,” Austen said, “you can’t seriously think people murder for novels. They’re not like bootleg rum or crooked numbers. Nobody kills for them. And besides, Eva’s book might not even sell. Publishers are incurable optimists—we always think our next titles will sell up a storm, but they almost never do. Most likely Eva’s book will get a few good reviews, probably written by Goldsmith’s friends, and a respectable but hardly spectacular sale. It’s her second or third book Arthur’s really investing in. That’s the way it works. There’s little money or power in the business, believe me. Definitely not worth killing for.”

  “Why on earth,” Julia added, “would you go after writers when the man’s world was crawling with criminals?”

  “Who said anything about going after writers?” Hannity said. “Though now you mention it, we wouldn’t mind talking to Miss Pruitt. But it’s a funny thing. She’s done a bunk. No one’s seen her since about four this morning.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “She’s missing?” Julia stumbled as she caught her toe on the leg of the coffee table. “She could be hurt, or in danger. And you’re wasting time with this twaddle? Why aren’t you trying to find her?”

  “Oh, the boys are doing their best,” Hannity said. “But it looks like she’s hopped it. Her boyfriend too. Timson’s got a hole in his head, and the Queen of Sheba and her manuscript are nowhere to be seen. We figure she’s holed up somewhere working like mad on the last chapter, the one where she dreams up how she didn’t pop the guy.”

  “No. Eva Pruitt is not a killer, no matter what it may look like.”

  He snorted. “They never are. Just tell me, you know where she might be?”

  If she did, she’d be on her way to dress and go find her herself. But she could only shrug.

  Scraping his thumb along the corner of his mouth, Hannity sized up her poker skills. He handed her a small card. “Well, if you hear from her, telephone this number in the next tick.”

  Julia covered her mouth as Philip showed the policemen out. “Good God.”

  Austen let out a low whistle. “Poor Eva.”

  “You don’t think she killed him, do you? No. I don’t believe it for a minute.”

  Philip returned and fetched the empty cup from beside his corner chair. “So much for Sunday ennui. You’ve rattled the day something fierce, my dear. Who could read Herodotus after that?”

  Julia scoffed. Eight months ago she would have seethed at such a cavalier remark. Now she understood the teasing in fact revealed how clearly he perceived the trouble. She introduced Austen, and the men nodded to one another.

  Philip poured himself coffee. “What now, young ones?”

  “Actually,” Austen said, wincing at the mantel clock, “I need to find a taxi. Though I’ll look a sad rummy heading home like this.” He smoothed a hand over his rumpled sleeve.

  “Hardly the first gent to do so,” Philip murmured.

  “You don’t have to leave yet?” Julia’s thoughts were still whirling. After leaving Duveen and the Clarks, they’d steadied their nerves over passable gin fizzes and talked over the stormy scene they’d witnessed. Now, in the sober light of day, she hoped Austen could help her make some sense of this new thunderclap. Timson’s death was a shock, but Eva’s disappearance was more disturbing. Hannity had stirred up a hundred questions and provided precious few answers.

  “Afraid so,” he said. “I’m boarding the Aquitania tomorrow. I’ll be gone for eighteen days, and I have loads to do before then. Lousy timing!”

  Julia had forgotten about his imminent trip. But he was already palming smooth his tousled hair, and there was nothing to do but wish him a good journey, escort him to the front door, and send him off with a distracted farewell.

  When she returned to the library, Philip sat slouched in his usual chair. “I leave you unattended for one evening,” he said, “and you land yourself in another murder. What a menace you are, my dear.”

  Eerily enough, he was right. Just last fall they’d sat in this very room discussing another sudden death. Timson’s demise, however, was a very different kettle of fish from Naomi Rankin’s.

  She dropped onto the sofa. “It may be amusing to you, but Eva Pruitt is a friend. Timson’s a brute who’s probably dispatched a few men himself, but I’m sick for Eva. She may be hurt, or—” She tried to pick up her coffee cup. It rattled in her hand, and she returned it to the saucer.

  Her mind raced with thoughts of her enigmatic new friend. How their arms had brushed in conspiratorial closeness the night they’d met—a scant week ago. The easy intimacy of their conversation as Julia had attempted to clean Eva’s dress, and their mutual delight at combining talents for Capriole’s American debut. They’d spoken privately on only three occasions, yet Julia felt, like Eva, as if they’d been friends for years.

  And also that she barely knew Eva at all. With each new glimpse into Eva’s life, Julia saw more clearly their differences. Wealth, family, education, and especially race carved a deep chasm between Julia’s world and Eva’s. By those measures Eva should be a novel exotic to her, as she was to Pablo and his tourists. From where Julia now sat, secure in the beauty and comfort of Philip’s fine apartment, Eva’s friendship might easily recede into some hundred-dollar Harlem souvenir. Already she sensed the story of Eva’s misfortune becoming gasp-worthy entertainment at parties.

  Julia drummed a useless fist against her thigh. If she stood by and watched that unfold, she’d betray not just Eva and their budding friendship but everything she dared to believe about herself.

  Philip’s wry smile faded. For several seconds they held each other’s gaze. They’d been through a crucible together last fall, one of Philip’s careless making. They had been adversaries then, but the experience had left them with an oddly shrewd understanding of each other. He seemed to be measuring her now, as she was measuring herself: the direction of her next move.

  “Come,” he said.

  She absently followed him into the hall but balked when he pushed open the kitchen’s swinging door. The thought of food made her slightly ill.

  Philip, however, took hold of her elbow and guided her into the room. Spacious and tidy, it smelled of peonies and bread. A fresh loaf lay on a board beside a block studded with knife handles. Philip asked her to slice it as he poured water from a simmering kettle into a teapot.

  Julia considered the knife handles. The first she pulled out had a short tapered blade, not big enough. Her second choice produced a cleaver, no better but perhaps serviceable.

  “May I?” Philip extracted a long serrated blade with a rounded tip. He cut off the heel and two thick slices and carried the board to the table in the center of the room.

  They sat on two stools. “I gather the sordid gist,” he said, “but perhaps you’d care to fill in the more vital bits?”

  She hesitated. She desperately wanted help in making sense of what she’d just learned. But from Philip? He’d proved helpful before, in his needling and contrarian way, as she’d grappled with the conundrums of Naomi Rankin’s death. And he’d kept his word, leaking nothing to his uncle Kessler. When he put a cup of fresh tea before her, she managed to lift it to her lips without a splash. She could do this. She had to.

  Where to begin? Only twelve hours ago she’d expected to be regaling him with Timson’s penchant for Böcklin. Now his hideous art was not wort
h mentioning.

  “I told you about Eva Pruitt. She’s the author I met last week at Pablo Duveen’s party. There was a great to-do because Arthur Goldsmith bought the rights to publish her first novel. Apparently Pablo brokered the deal. He certainly took great glee in announcing it.”

  “Championing New Negroes.”

  Julia nodded. “He invited Austen and me to go with him to Harlem last night to see Eva’s show. She’s a singer, it turns out, at one of the posh clubs. Afterward the owner, Leonard Timson, invited us to his rooms to meet her.”

  “So you told the sergeant. It’s what you didn’t tell him I’m craving to hear.” Philip nudged forward the remaining slice of bread, generously buttered.

  “Timson stole Eva’s manuscript and then quite viciously refused to return it. He put a gun to her head, Philip. Apparently there are some vile scenes and characters in it, and he feared it’s a roman à clef. Eva objected bitterly, of course, but he wouldn’t budge. He threw it into his safe and swore he’d never let her have it.”

  Philip nodded to register this. “And then?”

  Julia told him how she’d followed Eva into the back bedroom but found it difficult to describe what had happened there. She recalled some moments vividly but also remembered sensing that much was beyond her grasp, that her mind had not been subtle or perceptive enough to notice, much less understand, all that she was witnessing. “She wasn’t murderous but erratic. Talking to herself as much as to me. She was disheartened more than angry. I tried to think of ways out of the dilemma. I thought she might return Goldsmith’s money or just write another novel for him instead.”

  “Spoken like a publisher,” Philip said.

  “She’s already spent the money.”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “She knew Timson would be difficult, but she seemed confident she could retrieve the manuscript. She seemed to know what it would take to mollify him.” Julia squirmed at a rude noise from her stomach.

  “Keep talking.” Philip tied on one of Christophine’s aprons, rolled up his sleeves, and explored the Frigidaire again, pulling out eggs, milk, butter, and cheese.