[Dorothy Parker 01] - The Broadway Murders

by Agata Stanford

  “We thought you were the murderer, Ralph,” said Aleck.

  I explained. “You see, Chitty, it was a series of things pointing your way. Your apartment is next to Myrtle’s and Reggie’s. Max worked for Reggie, and then you hired him. And then there was your lie.”

  “Oh?”

  “You lied about being in Boston the night of Reginald’s murder. You said you reviewed Ina Claire’s new show, but the show was dark that night because half the cast got that dreadful disease that’s been doing the circuit.”

  “And then,” added Mr. Benchley, “Dottie wanted to pin it on you because she thinks you’re the worst Theatre critic she’s ever known.”

  I cringed.

  Chitty threw back his head and gave out a hearty laugh. “I probably deserve that, but I had to get in Reginald’s good graces. He was suspicious of critics, and I needed to soften him up a bit, make him think me a fool. I knew Dottie didn’t like me, as Dottie doesn’t suffer fools lightly.”

  I said, “With the exception of Mr. Benchley.”

  “And then you were in Deir el-Bahri at the time of the initial theft of the Golden Selket,” said Aleck.

  “And your education, and the fact that you had worked at the Met: All those things added up and made you the likely suspect,” said Mr. Benchley. “Oh, and I almost forgot: Maxwell’s white gloves.”

  “How so?” asked Maxwell.

  “You were wearing them.”

  “Was I?”

  “Gave you away, far as Mrs. Parker could tell.”

  “Really? How so?”

  I didn’t comment on the wordage. “I thought you were hiding something.”

  “I was going to polish the silver, and I always wear gloves to do that.”

  Now we understood that Ralph Chittenham was one of the good guys.

  We wanted to know more about Maxwell Sing and Chitty’s relationship with him.

  “Max is my adopted son,” replied Chitty to Frank’s question. “My wife, Cassandra, an archeologist from Greece, whom I met while working at the British Museum, was in China at the time of the Republican Revolution and the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in nineteen-eleven. Max was the son of her assistant, who was killed. She searched, but there was no family with which to leave the child. Cassie didn’t want to place him in the local orphanage, as conditions were horrible, and she felt responsible for him. She kept Max with her, and returned with him to England. He was ten years old at the time. A few years later, when I was at the British Museum, Cassie and I met and married in seventeen, and I adopted Max. A year later Max went off to university.

  “The War ended, and I came back to the States, while Cassie went home to Greece for a visit and to see about an exploratory mission for future excavations of the Alexandria region. But, I was never to see her again because Cassie died of blood poisoning from a scratch on her leg while on a dig. We’d been apart for only a few months when the news came of her death.

  “In twenty-one, I sailed to Greece to visit her grave and to finally meet her parents. I traveled on to Egypt. The Met was digging in Deir el-Bahri on the Nile. I stopped there for a time before going back to England for Maxwell’s graduation ceremonies from Cambridge. He sailed home with me.

  “For the past two years Max has assisted me in my work. To look at him, no one would guess his educational background, that is, as long as he plays the coolie halfway convincingly, which is a role our society is most willing for him to play. People of color tend to be ignored if they present a servile front. They are rarely coaxed into sharing their histories or thoughts or ideas or feelings, as it is believed they haven’t any. And for that reason, Maxwell was the perfect plant.”

  “So how long is it you’ve been investigating the theft of the Golden Selket?” asked FPA.

  “Not long after the second tomb had been opened at Deir el-Bahri. It had yet to be cataloged, but people remember seeing it.”

  “But, what led you to Reginald?” asked Mr. Benchley. “What was the evidence that he ever had the Golden Selket?”

  “We followed the dealer who was likely to have trafficked in stolen treasures.”

  “The short, dark, middle-eastern man who’d identified himself to Gerald Saches, and to the estate lawyer, Wilfred Harrison, as Dr. Fayed,” I added.

  “Yes,” said the real Dr. Fayed. “He was posing as me! Which is quite brazen, actually, for we look nothing alike. I am tall and handsome, and people often mistake me for Lawrence—”

  Dear Lord, I thought, this fellow’s full of himself!

  “The man you spied is Shahram Ali,” interjected Chitty, “and he has been slipping out of the hands of the authorities for quite some time. It’s believed he’s responsible for the theft of numerous paintings and sculptures from collections in Europe during the War. Interpol, a new organization that was founded last year in Vienna to assist in the cooperation of international police forces, asked me to investigate when it was suspected that a Golden Selket had been sold to a buyer in the United States.

  “I was back in New York, and had taken the position of Arts Editor at the paper, coincidentally, often reviewing shows offered by Reginald Pierce, the suspected buyer.”

  Perhaps there were coincidences, after all, I thought.

  “And Maxwell was the perfect spy,” I said.

  “Yes, pretending that he spoke little English gave him an advantage. People would speak freely around him.”

  “I gently insinuated myself into the household,” added Max.

  “We saw you go into the secret drawer of the desk in Reggie’s library.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “What do you mean, you know?” asked Mr. Benchley.

  “I saw your feet. Your shiny dress patents sticking out from behind the window curtain. When I counted three sets of shoes, I turned off the light and fled down the hidden passage. I didn’t see more than the shoes, but I feared you might have been Mr. Pierce’s murderers returned to the scene of the crime.”

  “What did you put in the desk, in the secret compartment?” asked Aleck.

  “Nothing. I took my money. Mr. Pierce owed me three weeks’ pay, and that’s where he kept a ‘stash’ as they call it here.”

  “Wait a minute!” cut in Ross. “Is this man, the fake Dr. Fayed, this Shahram Ali character, is he the murderer?”

  “I’d say he is,” said Chittenham. “But, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was in cahoots with others.”

  “There’s that word again,” said Aleck. “Cahoots!”

  “And he wasn’t found hiding on the freighter trying to make his getaway,” said Mr. Benchley.

  “And neither was the Golden Selket.”

  “That means he’s still out there,” said Jane, a worried look on her face.

  I could tell what she was thinking, but before I could reassure her that he wouldn’t be killing anyone else, Aleck cut in.

  “You’re right to worry, Jane. Bob and Dottie can identify him. We’ll have to keep them in our sights until he is captured.”

  “Wilfred Harrison and Gerald Saches can identify him as well,” I said. “They, too, were taken in by his act. As a matter of fact, Wilfred was supposed to have had Ali sign papers today for the release of the collection to the museum. I should have guessed something smelled fishy when the fake doctor said there was a bronze statuette missing!”

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Benchley. “He could have signed off on the rest of the collection and made off with what was there, but he was still hoping the Golden Selket would show up, that perhaps Wilfred Harrison or Gerry might locate it for him! He wanted to delay the release, and Wilfred was unwittingly used as a pawn. He believed Ali was Dr. Fayed!”

  “Outrageous!” rumbled the real Fayed. “Stand us side by side, and—”

  What a bore.

  “So everything, all the collections were packed up and trucked out. But the truck went to the docks, not the museum,” said Mr. Benchley.

  “This Ali character must have the Golde
n Selket. Ali must have figured, before he met with Wilfred and Gerry, that Marion had the statue. Maybe he’d already arranged to meet her at the corner, and he killed her, pushing her into traffic. Then he went to Marion’s hotel and tore through the place looking for the Selket. I’ll bet he found it, and is probably far away from here by now.” I looked over at the worried expression on Jane’s pretty face, and added, “There’s no reason for him to bother to come back to harm anyone. I’d say the mystery is solved if not a murderer caught.”

  “We figured Marion took the statue from a hiding place in the vase, but how did she know it was more valuable than anything else in the room? How did she know where to look?” said Aleck.

  “Do you think she was working for Ali?” asked Ross.

  “She might have killed Lucille. But why? What’d Lucille have to do with anything?” said Mr. Benchley.

  “I don’t understand about the gun,” I said. “Who hid the gun in the drawer?” I looked at Max and asked, “Did she know about the secret drawer?”

  “Perhaps. Although I never saw her in the desk. But, Mr. Pierce may have shown it to her.”

  So many ideas were chasing each other in my head that I was becoming dizzy keeping track of them all.

  “So this Shahram Ali killed Reginald, Lucille, and Marion for the Golden Selket,” said FPA. “What a scoop!” He rose from the table and went into the living room to use the telephone.

  Chittenham called out to him. Frank stopped midway, turned, and addressed Chittenham.

  “I’m calling the story in to my paper. There’s still time to make the deadline for the morning edition. I’m gonna tell the humdinger of a story of what happened tonight.”

  “No, Frank,” said Chitty, “you cannot use my name at all. It would expose me and the work I am doing. And lots of people watched as the five of us trashed a set and nearly closed down a show this evening. If you mention my name it will only bring Dottie, Bob, and Max into the picture.”

  “What about me!” said Dr. Fayed. Self-righteous ass.

  “You, too.”

  “But, it’s the Show Business story of the year!”

  “And it’ll be all yours, Frank,” said Chittenham. “But, not quite yet.”

  “Why not yet?” asked Ross.

  “We have to wait until the ship we unloaded this evening docks at its destination. When the now-empty crates are delivered we may be able to arrest Ali. That’s five days from now.”

  “So you think Ali isn’t wise that the shipment was discovered?”

  “I’ll bet he left town long before the truck arrived to deliver the goods to the freighter. But rest assured, he’ll be at the delivery drop to collect his money. That’s when the authorities will pick him up.”

  The pout on Frank’s face only accentuated the moose-like aspects of his features.

  Chitty felt for him, and added, “You can say the killer is known by the police, and it is not Gerald Saches. Whatever you do, don’t say that you know the killer’s name. Matter of fact, say the police are withholding the identity of the murderer.”

  “Will I ever be able to tell the real story?”

  “Soon, a week or so, Frank, but Max and I will be portrayed merely as innocent bystanders in your story, understand?”

  “Gotcha!” From the next room we could hear Frank shout into the phone. “This is Frank Adams Pierce! Now give me the city desk editor! Stop the presses, Jack! Bury the lead! Have I got a scoop!”

  On stage fight— Somebody in the audience snapped this picture when we stormed the stage in pursuit of our suspects. That’s me pulling Ralph’s hair; on the floor is the actor in the play, Joseph Brown, and the real Dr. Fayed on the right. Mr. Benchley, Maxwell Sing and the actress understudying Lucille Montaine’s role, Rosemary Willard, are too far stage right and out of the picture.

  Chapter Twelve

  I thought it only right, as I had taken Brenda McEnerny under my wing, to at least invite her to breakfast before she went to Wilfred’s offices to see about Marion’s bequest from Reggie.

  “If it is enough to pay for her funeral, I’ll be glad enough for it.”

  I put Brenda in a cab and took Woodrow Wilson for a walk up Fifth Avenue.

  So much had happened over the past week. Three people were murdered for a five-thousand-year-old relic that, for that many years, no one knew even existed. I’m not a materialistic person. I travel lightly, owning little more than a few books and my dog. Books and Woodrow Wilson give me joy. It strikes me as an awful burden to rely on things to bring one happiness.

  I was tired from the escapades of the evening before, and it was much too early for me to be walking around the city. We headed back home.

  When I walked into the lobby, James, the desk clerk, handed me several telephone messages. FPA had called to say he’d had new information about the true identity of the fraudulent Dr. Fayed. He and Aleck would come see me before lunch. Gerald Saches had called, and the message was short and heartwarming: “Thanks, my darling Dottie. You’re swell.” And my sister Helen telephoned, could I come to Sunday dinner? Bunny Wilson sent a wire to cancel an evening we’d planned the following week, as he had to go out of town last minute. But the message I was most interested in was from Wilfred Harrison: “Supper Saturday night at Le Petit Maison?” He’d not be in the office today as he had to be in court, then a meeting with clients. Would I call him this evening at home? He’d left his home number. I pocketed the message notes, and took the lift to my rooms.

  I lay down on the bed. Oddly, I was not sleepy, just a little world-weary, I suppose. I’d only slept a couple of hours after returning home from Jane’s and Ross’s. But it was sadness that tired me out, when I should have felt invigorated and glad—glad that it was all over, happy that the murders were solved and that Gerry would be cleared and was being released this morning, and that Myrtle was no longer a suspect. And through all of this, one good thing had come to me from the tragedies: I’d met a most lovely man who helped me to believe I was lovable.

  My disappointment in love during the past year had left me feeling small and inconsequential, unattractive and bitter; it was nice to feel wanted. I smiled at the thought, but in spite of my smile, I was still profoundly sad. I was crying, but why? Why couldn’t I be just plain-old-happy?

  I knew what it was. It was the ghosts.

  If I thought I was hard-skinned enough to let it roll off my back, I wasn’t so tough, after all. Reggie and I had never been close, and I had never even met Marion before the party at the Waldorf; Lucille, although a terrible actress, was flesh and blood and human, cut down at the prime of her life. I knew so little, really, about them. For all their faults, they didn’t deserve to die. But they were dead, these people who’d walked the city only a few days ago. They had had hopes and dreams and ambitions, and people who loved them, and those things were gone, now, with their lives.

  I looked at the wreck of my life. I, who had not respected enough the gift of life within myself, who had tried to end my life not so long ago, was somehow privileged enough to go on living. It made no sense to me.

  I cried for Reginald, Lucille, and Marion.

  And, I cried for me.

  Woodrow Wilson whined and hopped up on the bed to lick away the salty tears. I wiped my eyes and breathed deeply, my doggie at my side.

  The room was bright with sunlight, and a rectangle of it flooded onto the box I had taken from Lucille’s closet. Here was my opportunity to learn more about the life of the young woman I had so casually disregarded.

  When I’d first looked over her letters and scrapbook, her reviews of out-of-town runs, I was looking for facts, trying to find connections between her and Reginald’s murder. Now, as I brought the box to the bed, the box containing clues to the life of Lucille Montaine, I decided to look at everything differently. I wanted to know the person, the living, breathing Lucille, the young woman with aspirations of a career on the stage. I thought her lacking in talent, but in a few years, with maturity,
she might have earned a place of respect on the stage. Did I feel guilt about panning her performance in Reginald’s show? I did, and yet, I knew it was not only my job to be truthful, but when the truth is told, my audience expects a lethal dose of deadly droll. So the bodies pile up, so to speak. Selfishly, I was glad she had escaped my direct chilling notice. Reviewing the audience, however, was, I tried to convince myself, my way of being kind.

  I opened the scrapbook. The glue had dried and become brittle, and many news clippings fell off the pages. Half a dozen clippings fell onto the bedcovers, as did a couple of letters that I had carelessly failed to re-tie in the ribbon they were bound with, along with the scrap sheet that Mr. Benchley had pinched from her living room telephone table and had later shaded over with a pencil to reveal a message of place and time.

  Out of my odd sense of respect, I would put every thing back in order; I would re-glue the notices in the book. It was a small gesture, but it was something to do, and I needed to do something to keep my thoughts off my own problems.

  I went into the sitting room and got a pot of glue from my desk. Back in the bedroom I spread out the rectangles of newsprint across the counterpane and proceeded to arrange the sheets chronologically, by the dates printed or noted by pen. I then arranged them on the scrapbook page before applying the glue. Before me lay the life story of Lucille Montaine, aka Ethel Herring. I was suddenly determined to see that her parents received these personal items of their daughter.

  I was about to paste the edges of a review from the Detroit Register, when I saw it. I more closely scrutinized the page, and quickly fetched a magnifying glass from the desk. The orange spots from the glue did not totally obscure the newsprint. Of course, the trick of the reverse point of view held true in murder cases as well as in comedy. But in this case, quite literally: Flipping things over, looking at things upside down, brought new discoveries.

  I pulled the cables and telephone messages from my purse, and retrieved the fragile, brittle charred newsprint I’d taken from the ashes of Marion’s fireplace and had slipped into the copy of Vanity Fair.