[Dorothy Parker 02] - Chasing the Devil

by Agata Stanford

  Mr. Benchley delivered me to my rooms at the Algonquin, ran a steaming hot bath for me, and called room service to send up White Rock and ice. While I soaked in the comfort of bath salts, listening to the drip-drip-drip of the faucet, he telephoned Neysa with regrets for missing the cocktail hour, and then Aleck to tell him the news.

  When I reentered the living room, robed in my favorite terry wrapper, my dear Mr. Benchley handed me a scotch on ice.

  “Aleck is coming over. Are you up to having a bite to eat downstairs, or should I call room service?”

  “Oh, dear Fred, I’m just fine and dandy, all right. Any more pampering and I’ll be spoiled rotten, you know.”

  I took a hearty slug of the burning booze from the glass that was frosting icily in my hand. Rolling the tumbler along my cheeks and the insides of my wrists, I closed my eyes, enjoying the contrast of hot and cold.

  And then I remembered.

  “Ohhhhh, sssshhhiiiittt . . .” I whined.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve a show to review tonight.”

  “Noel’s new play?”

  “Yes, Hay Fever. Ohhhhh, crap-crap-crap!”

  “Perhaps it will be good-good-good, after all,” said Mr. Benchley, emptying his glass and then rising to his feet. He took his coat from a chair and threw it over his arm. “I’m off across the street to change. Shall we meet downstairs in an hour, or shall I come up to fetch you?”

  I smiled at his kind consideration. “You’re grand, and far too good to me. I think I can ride down the elevator on my own, my dear.”

  My Mr. Benchley is known for his kindness and consideration. With formal Victorian manners he expresses his very genuine concern for the welfare of the women in his life. There is something engaging about the man. It is not simply his clean, well-groomed good looks, or his vast knowledge, which he downplays so as not to appear superior to anyone (even though he is, in my book, anyway), or his unique sense of humor, which provokes unbridled laughter from even the most staid matrons and grim bankers. There exists beneath the attractive surface and proper social countenance a deep and abiding respect for his fellow human beings, and a touching sort of empathy for the human condition that is rarely seen in the circles we frequent.

  He patted my head and was gone.

  Forty minutes later I was sitting at the bar with Aleck when Mr. Benchley, resplendent in white tie and tails, the reflected light of the chandelier shimmering from his top hat to his patent leather evening shoes, walked in through the arch from the lobby. After checking his coat, silver-headed cane, and hat, he came over to greet us and together we walked into the more intimate Oak Room just off the lobby. Here we could discuss the day’s events with more privacy than we’d be afforded in the Rose Room, where we regularly lunched.

  We ordered a very light supper. We would be dining again at midnight, as was our custom on opening nights. Later still, we’d be off to make an appearance at the new play’s opening-night party, where cast and creative crew, and their friends and family, awaited the arrival of the late-night and morning editions of the dozen New York papers. Inside were published the notices, the reviews of the play, by the most important critics of the day. Raves or criticism or bland remarks could make or break a show; a good review could keep it running for months, even years. Great notices, and the theatre’s box office would be stormed the next morning; but if the show were panned by too many of the influential men, it would close even before the second performance.

  After tonight’s play, Aleck will leave the theatre before the curtain calls and race to the room he keeps at the Gonk, with several fellow reporters, to write his review. (Mr. Benchley and I can wait a day or two for submissions as our critiques are published in weekly and monthly publications.) With unbridled praise and flowery prose Aleck will bestow his blessing, or, with hatchet in hand, he will make mincemeat of the show. After telephoning his review to his desk at the Herald, he’ll ride down the elevator to the dining room for a late, expanded supper before his grand, if terrifying, appearance at the opening-night party. I say “terrifying” because as he enters the room a hundred or more heads turn in his direction. The expressions are questioning, the conversations halted, and the greetings tentative. They do not have his review in hand yet, and he obviously relishes the power he wields by his very presence.

  This is where Aleck smiles and nods his hellos, never giving any indication of his opinion, always royally gracious to his admirers. Will their sentences be commuted? Or will they be sent to the gallows? Will Judge Alexander Woollcott be merciful or vengeful?

  As we partook in a preshow meal we tried to make sense of the events of the afternoon. Aleck ordered a small dinner of Cornish hens, fried potatoes, broccoli-and-cheese casserole, apple fritters, and cornbread stuffing, to be served after a dozen Blue Point oysters, crab-stuffed mushrooms, two baskets of buttered popovers, cheese biscuits, a variety of muffins, and cream-of-mushroom soup, and to be washed down with two bottles of crispy, chilled Chablis and a pleasant Riesling, all followed by only two items from the dessert cart, several shots of twelve-year-old Martel, and four cups of coffee served with heavy cream.

  This should hold him until midnight.

  I ordered a cheese sandwich; Mr. Benchley, lamb chops.

  The most pressing business seen to, Aleck handed the menu to our waiter and then turned a critical eye toward Mr. Benchley.

  “So you caught and killed the priest-killer, did you, Bob? Tell me all about it.”

  “Certainly not!” said Mr. Benchley, his reaction one of appalled horror. “He ran into traffic. I was simply trying to catch the maniac after he shot at our Mrs. Parker.”

  “Really Aleck,” I said with a tsk. “Mr. Benchley saved my life, and would have yours, had you not left in such a huff, and you accuse him of—”

  “All right, all right! Of course he didn’t deliberately kill the man, as you say, if the fellow ran into traffic.” He slathered butter on his second biscuit. “Did he say anything before he died?”

  “Aleck,” began Mr. Benchley, “It’s been a long day, and it appears it will be a long evening. A man is dead, and I take no pleasure in rehashing my role in his fate.”

  “Oh, very well,” said Aleck. “I am grateful that I need not fear walking the streets once again, is all.”

  “If you’d just stop pissing on people all the time, you’d have no enemies to fear,” I chided.

  “We know it’s impossible for a man of such great proportions as Aleck not to piss on a great proportion of the populace,” said Mr. Benchley.

  Aleck’s tongue was rendered mute for it was occupied with slurping out an oyster from its magnificently convoluted shell; he had no time to invent, or blithely deliver, a stinging retort.

  Mr. Benchley continued: “A man of such great proportions of sophistication, taste, and influence will always have to watch his back.”

  “Calling me fat, Benchley?” he managed to gurgle out.

  “Moi? I’m saying you are a man of, ahh-hum, great stature.”

  “Right.”

  “With a big mouth.”

  Aleck swallowed the slithery thing with a great gulp. He considered his friend for a long moment. Then, “You’ve had a trying afternoon, Bobby, so I will let that go. Please pass the salt, Dottie.”

  Aleck salted the stuffed mushrooms, and spoke with somber expression. “I am sorry I left you both in such a huff this afternoon, left you to fend off that villain on your own. Our Dorothy almost killed, and my pain-in-the-ass best friend tackling the demon. Alone. I commend you!”

  “Mr. Benchley tackles demons every day at one o’clock, like Dante spiraling down the eight circles of Hell!” I said, referring to the Round Tablers.

  “True enough,” agreed Aleck.

  “Well, it’s not me you need thank,” said Mr. Benchley, his lamb chops having arrived.

  “Whaddayamean?”

  “I didn’t tackle the man. I never got my hands on him. He was running away before I even s
potted him,” said Mr. Benchley. “A passerby on the street saw him fire the gun and pointed out to me the direction the killer was running. It seemed odd, really.”

  “Why odd?”

  “There were so many places to hide, so many buildings, doorways through which to escape. But, he just sort of put himself out there, like he wanted me to chase him.”

  “That’s odd all right, but odd only in your thinking.”

  “I suppose so. Even after hours with the police, we don’t appear to know much about why the man killed the priest, or even the name of the murderer! Everything happened so fast. First the shot, and it missed Dottie by an inch! And then Woodrow and I are chasing the devil. And then gunshots, but the police never found his gun. I even thought for a second that he, the killer, was actually leading me somewhere, like he wanted me to chase him. But, of course, that makes no sense at all. And then, after he was struck down and—well, he stared up at me with that crazed look in his eyes that Dottie described—the poor girl had to identify the man as well!”

  Oh, my God! I thought; Mr. Benchley is very upset from the events of the afternoon, more so than I, for he only refers to me as “Dottie” when in his cups or protesting an injustice!

  “And I could see—” he said, stopping midsentence. His face went blank except for the rapid movement of his eyes as he stared down at the plate before him. He wasn’t seeing lamb chops; no, he was elsewhere, reliving the moment before the fellow died. Then, face serious—I could actually read his thoughts!—he flashed a look across at Aleck.

  Our fat friend appeared oblivious to Mr. Benchley’s mental turmoil, for he was fully engaged in the dissection of one of the Cornish game hens.

  “Go on, Bob,” he said when he noticed the prolonged silence. He looked up from the sad twin bird carcasses and shrewdly appraised his friend over his spectacles. “Here, have an oyster,” he said. “You’re right. There is nothing about the events of this afternoon to take any pleasure in, Bob.”

  “All I can say is, thank God it’s all over.” I said. “I don’t know why that man killed the priest. It’s one mystery that may never be solved, but he’s dead now, and you and I, Aleck, have nothing more to fear.”

  I’d had enough of death for one week; I’d been badly shaken these past couple of days. I didn’t want to think or talk about it anymore. Going to the Theatre this evening was a welcomed distraction.

  Curtain time for the new Noel Coward play, Hay Fever, was 8:40. We’d finished supper a little before eight o’clock, and Aleck excused himself. He was headed uptown to pick up the young actress, Helen Hayes, from the apartment she shared with her mother, to accompany him to the show. He’d see us at our seats, he said, knowing Mr. Benchley and I would be sitting directly behind him in the orchestra section’s critics’ circle, our usual place on opening nights. So Mr. Benchley and I lingered over a last cocktail before taxiing to Maxine Elliott’s Theatre. It was an opportunity for me to ask him why he had not told us of the revelation he’d had earlier while gazing deeply into his plate of chops.

  “Nothing, really,” he said. “No revelation or word from God or anything. I was just observing that Aleck had suddenly regained his appetite. Had this fellow not been . . . stopped . . . Alexander might have trimmed down substantially.”

  Heywood Broun caught a glimpse of us as he passed through the lobby, and he came over to our table, sat down, ordered a drink, and begged for details of the events of the afternoon. A minute later, FPA walked into the Oak Room, sat down, ordered a drink, and we had to tell the tale from the beginning.

  When Bunny Wilson appeared with Sherry through the arched entryway and made a beeline for our table, Mr. Benchley turned to me and said, “‘Hell is empty; all the devils are here.’”

  Ten minutes later, after raucous arguments (supposedly reminiscent of Mr. Benchley’s dormitory days, from whence that quote had originated)—Mr. Benchley refusing to disclose the author or source—we six critics-at-large piled into a taxi in time to make it to our seats for the play’s curtain.

  Hay Fever was Noel Coward’s second play to open in the 1925 season. A few months earlier, Noel had crossed the pond from England to star in The Vortex, to great acclaim. So, now, Hay Fever, which Noel co-directed and for which he’d received rave reviews in its London production, was eagerly anticipated, especially as Noel boasted to having written the play in just three days.

  At 12:15 A.M. , after barely a half-hour spent writing his review of the show, Aleck emerged from the second-floor room of the Gonk to join Mr. Benchley, FPA, Helen, and me at the bar where we sat waiting for him to join us for a late supper.

  He walked toward us with determination, a look of distaste in his mouth and brushing off the sleeves of his coat. In answer to our querying looks he said: “Just wiping off the blood.”

  We then all proceeded to the Rose Room where our supper was laid out, after which we piled into a taxi, dropped Helen home to her mother, and proceeded uptown to the play’s opening-night party.

  The party was in full swing by the time we’d arrived at the apartment Noel Coward had leased from Ziegfeld Follies star Mae Murray at the Hotel des Artistes on 67th Street and Central Park West.

  It was like an epidemic these days, a current fad, for stars of Broadway and Hollywood to choose husbands from European nobility. Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson had picked a count and a marquis, respectively. But Mae Murray trumped them when she fetched herself a little old Russian prince, David Mdivani. Off honeymooning indefinitely, she leased her fabulous digs to the visiting British star.

  The Hotel des Artistes is a triumphant expression of the new modern Art Deco design. Aleck puffed up as we entered the lobby with its sleek décor. With his beaky nose and huge round spectacles he’d often reminded me of a barn owl, but never more so than now as he squared his shoulders under his massive cape like a big bird ruffling his feathers. There was something about the place, its spare but richly appointed glamour, which prompted one to straighten one’s spine, to stand taller, as if to make the grade. No riffraff allowed entrance here, the glossy walls announced in beautifully enunciated, hushed tones.

  Off the elevator, we were met with the bright, up-tempo musical strains of piano, bass, and violins as we walked into a great, marbled entry hall, into which the overflow of personages from the magnificent apartment spilled. Aleck, like an icebreaker ship, cut through the sea of people and into the foyer overlooking the grand two-story living room, its glass wall affording an outstanding view of Central Park. Competing with the view, a stained-glass mural depicting a ship at sea dominated the entire north wall of the room. The furniture was sleek, boxy, and curved; the upholstery, lush silks and velvets; the wood tones, blond with inlaid geometric designs; mirrors reflecting the brilliantly lit chandeliers and sconces; the carpet, white and thick; the statuettes, figurative and slim. And filling the space were scores of impeccably tailored gents in evening clothes escorting beautifully coiffed and begowned gals resonating with the excitement of frolic and booze. The place was aglitter with sleekly draped contours covered with sequins and bugle beads, satin and organza, trimmed out with mink, fox, and marabou, and evocative of Manhattan’s sparkling skyline at night.

  Mr. Benchley took my fur-trimmed evening coat, and I smoothed the hips of my blue satin Lanvin gown, inconspicuously realigned my bosom into its proper location, and checked my face and the position of my feathered cloche in the giant mirror gracing an entire wall of the entry hall. All in place, I stepped between Aleck and Mr. Benchley, with FPA bringing up the rear, and stood ready for our descent of the sweeping staircase.

  Looking down from the landing there could be seen a gracefully curved bar, at which waiters and bartenders in crisp attire attended to the constant pouring and serving of champagne. A table was laden with mounds of food: roasts of beef, ham, turkey, and lamb, imported cheeses, caviar and molded aspic, lobster, oysters, shrimp and eel, breads and soufflés, and cakes and puddings.

  Aleck’s eyes lit up as he c
aught the aroma of ripe, runny English Stilton rising through waves of Chanel No. 5, Bal au Versailles, and My Sin.

  Like the Red Sea parting for Moses and his tribe, the crowd sprang away for our descent down the flight of stairs. A murmur swept across the multitudes, and, as in a mass hypnosis, faces turned one by one to look up at Aleck—Moses sans tablets. He swept off his top hat with the flourish that Cyrano de Bergerac did his plumed chapeau, and then, with a dramatic twirl, whipped off his black, red-satin-lined cape.

  The music trailed to a discordant stop, and a hush descended with us.

  Noel, sitting on the arm of a sofa, rose stiffly to his feet, put out his cigarette, and moved like a Haitian Zombie to the foot of the stairs, where tall wrought-iron gates marked the entry into the salon. (I always feel like part of “the delegation” at times like these, but as my review of the evening’s fare would not be read for another week or so, I felt quite safe, even had I not been swaddled between the men.)

  Holding their collective breaths, a hundred pairs of eyes watched as Aleck, with slow deliberation, handed his garments and ivory-headed cane to the butler, who’d presented himself for the task. Then, turning with opened arms and smiling large, Aleck pushed open the elaborate gates to stand before the playwright. (Actually, it was Noel who stood before Aleck, if you really want to know. Another simile comes to mind: a sinner facing St. Pete at the Gate. Poor Noel.)

  “Dear Noel,” said Aleck, smiling beneficently at the wiry star.

  “Aleck?” His voice cracked; eyes wide, expectant. Noel shuffled from one foot to the other.

  Poor Noel. Poor, dear Noel.

  This is what was said:

  “Magnificent!” said Aleck.

  “The play?”

  “No, this apartment!”

  “But, what about Hay Fever?”

  Aleck put an arm around the slump-shouldered lad. “My dear boy,” he began with paternal patronization, “you should have taken two or three more days to tinker with that play.”

  “Didn’t you like it at all?”