“Shipboard friendships can be intense, yes, of course,” said Aleck. “In such a short time strong bonds are often formed . . . as in wartime, in the trenches—”
“Or so he’s heard,” I jumped in, before he continued his rambling, and most definitely fictitious, exegesis. After all, writing for Stars and Stripes during the War didn’t require actually going over the top. “Where is Benny, Lord Wildly?”
“I really don’t know. Bette said he received a call late last night and had to pop off on some business emergency.”
“What kind of business is he in?”
“He dabbles in engineering. I believe he spoke about a crumbling dam.”
“They needed his thumb?”
“Pardon me?” He looked at me blankly.
“Never mind me,” I said.
“We won’t,” said Mr. Benchley with a smile.
“I suspect the police have been here to see you, also?”
“Yes. A detective was here this morning. A face like a slapped arse.”
“That would be Detective Morgan, all right.”
“Wanted to know my alibi, and when I told him, he wouldn’t believe me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I was up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.”
“Oh, I get it,” I said, “you were being ironic.”
“You mean facetious,” corrected Mr. Benchley.
“I meant that I went to bed.”
“You Brits certainly do have a colorful language,” chimed in Aleck.
Wildly walked over to the ice bucket and grabbed the neck of the champagne bottle; raising it, he saw that the bottle was empty. Still seeking comfort, he went to the bar, where stood bottles of Johnny Walker, Haig & Haig, and Courvoisier. He was about to pour scotch into the empty champagne flute, when he remembered his manners and turned to us. As he filled our glasses, he said, “Why would anyone want to murder the Madame?”
”Albeit the woman was a fraud—”
“On the contrary, Mr. Benchley, she was quite the real deal. You see, Madame was actually helping me. What you witnessed last night—all green smoke and smashed mirrors—was her deliberate attempt to trick me. We set the game. She was instructing me, challenging me to catch her at a game that frauds employ, tricks she had learned to do when she worked as assistant to a magician some years back. I didn’t fare very well in finding the sources of her tricks. At least not yet. She’s never raised the dead, of course—except that time she joined in song in the ship’s lounge one evening,” he chuckled.
“What you witnessed was all staged for my benefit. I was the only one who knew she was putting on a show. The reactions from the members of the circle were genuine, you see. But something quite out of the ordinary did happen. She fell into a trance, and after that everything went out of control. And although she was a sensitive, who often had visions and messages from otherworldly sources, the tricks she employed last night were not only quite entertaining, but for my benefit.”
“I knew it was all smoke and mirrors!” I said, vindicated, and yet even rationality hadn’t stopped me from being eerily affected at the time. Perhaps she tricked the wrong person?” I asked.
“You mean someone she’d made a fool of killed her?”
“Some people just cannot take a joke,” said Mr. Benchley.
“I really can’t say . . . .”
Bette reentered from the bedroom, her hand remaining on the doorknob, as if anchoring herself in place. “Please forgive my outburst,” she whispered, “I was taken by surprise.”
Lord Wildly escorted her back to the couch, and then poured Bette a tumbler of scotch.
A knock on the door sent Bette to her feet; the glass Lord Wildly held out to her sent a wave of good liquor to splash on the white carpet.
Godfrey opened the door to reveal Detective Morgan and one of his flunkies, a squat, plug of a man, upon whose head was perched a bowler hat a size too small. He had a marked resemblance to a pit bull.
“Oh, shit,” I hissed under my breath, “who let the dogs out?”
If Morgan was surprised to see me and Mr. Benchley, he certainly didn’t show it. But he used the opportunity to inform Lord Wildly and Bette Booth that it was because of our statements that he had returned for a second interview, this time concerning the strangulation death of Miss Ada Leopold.
Well, there went our anonymity! The secret was out! Morgan just announced that we’d been at the Dakota, at Miss Ada’s apartment at the time of her murder! If Wildly or Bette were the killers, they could be after us now, too.
Their wary expressions prompted me to say that we had seen them at the apartment of Miss Ada shortly before we found her lifeless body. “Well, the Dakota’s concierge’s recorded your visit, I regret,” I said, like a snitch trying to shift away some of the blame. “That woman never could keep her book shut.”
“But, then,” added Mr. Benchley, ever the one to generously extend the benefit of the doubt, “we saw lots of folk tramping about Miss Ada’s this morning; doesn’t mean you strangled her.”
“Thanks, Benchley, for your observations,” said Morgan, and then turning abruptly to face Aleck, he said: “Who’re you?”
Mr. Benchley did the honors: “May I introduce you, Detective Morgan, to our friend, the esteemed theatrical critic, Alexander Woollcott?”
“Woollcott?” said the rat terrier with a snarl, his tone, a bark. “Joe Woollcott’s brother?”
“Cousin,” said Aleck, smiling, waiting for the light of recognition of his fame to dawn on the cop’s face. Did anyone in the country not know Alexander Woollcott?
“Oh, yeah, that one,” he said, looking like he’d just stepped in dog shit. “I’ve heard about you.”
“You know, Detective,” prefaced Aleck, leaning back in his chair, a leg crossed, an arm thrown out in a gesture of abandon, eyebrow raised, eyes peering sharply through his spectacles—an insult would fly: “You remind me of my father’s old footman.”
“Is that—”
“Oh, alas, poor McMorgan came to a sorry end, tsk-tsk.”
“And what are you all doing here?” The tone was unmistakably accusatory.
“Is there a reason why we should not be here, Detective?” I shot back at the little fascist.
The voice of calm and reason put out my fire: “Lord Wildly and Mrs. Booth are supping with us, down in the hotel dining room, and are accompanying us to the theatre this evening. Isn’t that right?” said Mr. Benchley.
“There you go!” I said.
“And our other dinner guests are waiting for us downstairs in the dining room, aren’t they, Aleck?”
“Oh, my, it is after seven. Are we ready to go?”
“Hold it, all of you!” bellowed Morgan, stopping us in our tracks. He turned to Lord Wildly: “You said you met the deceased, Madame Olenska, crossing over on the boat, and all that, and she invited you to come to a séance after your arrival here in New York. But it’s a little too much of a coincidence that you and Mrs. Booth should drop in on Miss Leopold, too, right after last night’s murder and minutes before the second killing. You see my problem, don’t you?”
“That’s bang out of order, Detective!”
“Why did you go to her apartment this morning?”
“Miss Leopold is, was, a subject of interest in my investigations.”
“And what did Mrs. Booth have to do with your investigations?”
“She was to have her tarot cards read.”
“Oh, yeah, I see, but you didn’t have an appointment. There was no mention of your names in her appointment book.”
“Madame Olenska was to have made the appointment for us with Miss Ada, but when we arrived she refused to let us into the apartment. We explained about Madame setting the appointment, and I showed her my card, and told her about my investigations, but still she refused us entry.”
Well, we only have your word for it, don’t we? And if you don’t mind me saying so, Mr. Wildly, after you come to call
, people are murdered.”
“I do mind, you boiling hatch of beastliness! I’ll not carry the can! What is it with you and your people? What is this, Fred Karno’s army?”
“Mister, I don’t know what the hell you just said, but you have no alibi for your whereabouts last night, the time of Madame’s murder. And as for Mrs. Booth, here, she says she was asleep in her suite down the hall. And her husband? Where is he? And these two,” he continued, indicating me and Mr. Benchley, “they say they were asleep, too.”
“That’s what people do late at night. We’re not vampires, Detective,” said Mr. Benchley.
“Well, something smells fishy.”
“The only thing that stinks, Detective, are the accusations you’ve made,” I shot out. “Now, if you’ve nothing more to ask, we have people waiting for us.”
Morgan was not to be rushed; he needed to assert his authority. He looked at each of us in turn, taking his time in rude appraisal before calling up his pit bull: “You got all that in your notebook, Charlie?” The flunky nodded and moved out from his corner to shadow his boss to the door.
Morgan suddenly stopped, turned, and stared hard at Bette Booth. “Oh, yeah; your husband was not called way; at least, not on business. And we have it on good authority that he was seen at Madame Olenska’s last night in the wee hours of the morning, around the time the coroner says she was murdered. Oh, and, I forgot to tell you, Mrs. Booth, while you’ve been sitting here having a nice little chat with your friends, we searched your suite, and lo and behold, what did we find? Your husband’s army pistol. It’s been fired recently, and I’ll bet my promotion the bullet that killed Madame Olenska was fired from that gun. So if you know where he is, you better tell me right now.”
The news took us all by surprise, especially Bette, who appeared to fold in on herself.
“But, I don’t know anything!” cried Bette. “You’ve got it all wrong, see? Benny wouldn’t hurt a fly—and the gun was fired recently. On the ship! For that new game they called ‘skeet shooting’!”
“That’s right, Detective,” said Lord Wildly, “I remember Benny shooting that gun.”
“That’s the game that one shoots at ceramic disks tossed up into the air to depict birds in flight, am I correct?” asked Mr. Benchley.
“‘Clay pigeons,’ they’re called, and yes, that’s the idea.”
“No-kill duck hunting,” I said. “But wouldn’t one use a rifle?”
Morgan turned his squinty eye on Bette. “Don’t let me find out you have anything to do with this, lady, or I’ll charge you as an accessory to the murders and for harboring a criminal. That goes for you, too, Wildly. I don’t know what your game is, but I’m on to you, and I’m gonna sniff it out,” he barked.
Spoken just like the little rat hunter he was.
“Why, you rank, white-livered canker blossom!” said Lord Wildly.
I got the general idea, but couldn’t for the life of me tell you which of the Bard’s plays the insult came from. Even Detective Morgan understood he’d been insulted, but couldn’t top him, so he said: “If you know what’s best for you, you’ll watch your step!”
“Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Detective!”
“Keep my granny out of this!” said Morgan, before turning to Bette. “Remember what I told you earlier: When you hear from your husband, tell him to turn himself in, and don’t any of you leave town.”
“Toodle pip, Detective!”
And without another word, the policemen walked out the door.
“That sod gets on my wick! Who’s he when he’s at home?”
Godfrey fetched the coats and hats; Bette’s were in her suite down the hall. I wanted a few minutes alone with her, woman to woman, with the hope that she might relax and consider me a friendly ear. I knew there was much more to her anguish than the fact that a woman she was briefly acquainted with had died. I told the men that I’d go with Bette to her rooms to fetch her coat, and we’d be down to dine in a few minutes.
“He is an ugly, rude man, that Detective Morgan,” I said, as we walked the several doors down to Bette’s suite. “You shouldn’t let him upset you.”
“He just took me by surprise, is all. Wherever Benny went, I’m sure he can clear it all up when he gets back.”
“Good of Lord Wildly to be there for you while Benny’s away.”
“Yes,” she whispered as she unlocked her door.
She entered the room first, and like a stranger in a new land, she stood a moment, as if trying to find her bearings. Drawers had been pulled open in the search, papers were strewn about, clothing hung precariously on the edges of hangers, the steamer trunks’ drawers lay in piles on the floor, the bed was disheveled, the sofa and chairs tossed. I touched her arm gently and spoke quietly, evenly, hoping to loosen the resistance of her tightly coiled reticence.
“Bette, I don’t believe you had anything to do with the deaths of Madame Olenska or Miss Ada—”
She turned a panicked eye at me; the coil had tightened.
“—and yet, I can’t help but sense that something is wrong—”
“Not at all.”
“—and Benny suddenly disappearing—”
“Benny hasn’t anything to do with—”
“What about Benny?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said brightly as she crossed the room, sat at the vanity, and picked up a hairbrush to arrange her hair. Distractedly, she fiddled through her cosmetics and chose a lipstick. Her concentration was a little too fixed and unnatural.
“Did he really say he had to go off on business?”
“Why, yes, that’s what I said.”
“Well, forgive me for prying, dear, but did you have words or something before he left?”
“Yes, of course. How did you know?”
“I’m a keen observer of human behavior, or so I’ve been told by countless critics of my work. And to answer your question, I didn’t know whether you’d quarreled. You don’t lie very often, I can tell, because you don’t lie very well.”
“I don’t know what you mean or what you want me to say. There is nothing to tell.” She rose from the chair and crossed to the closet for her evening coat.
“Bette, my dear, you do know what I mean, and I want you to cut the crap. Sooner or later it’ll all come out. Wouldn’t you rather confide in me instead of Detective Morgan? I’ll bet Lord Wildly knows all about it. I could tell he was shielding you from something. If I could tell you’ve not been straight about things, don’t you think Morgan will sniff it all out sooner or later?”
She leaned against the wall, her evening wrap clutched in her hands, the sweat from her palms darkening the satin as she twisted it.
I took the wrap from her and led her to the bed.
“I don’t know where he is,” she gushed out. “He left our bed around two in the morning, when he thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t asleep. I couldn’t sleep, not after the séance, not after what happened at the séance.”
“But, the séance was a sham; Madame Olenska was a fake, all her green smoke and flying tankards were old magician’s tricks. I’m sure you know that.”
“You don’t understand. We suspected she was a fake, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know things.”
“Bette, I’m drowning here, throw me a line, would you?”
“She knew things that nobody could know.”
“You mean she was a mentalist?”
“That’s just it; I don’t know how she knew the things she knew about us. We didn’t want to go to that séance last night, but she insisted. When she called she made it sound like if we didn’t go, there’d be trouble.”
“Was she threatening you?”
“No!” she said. But, if her denial was adamant, there was a still a flicker of doubt behind it. “She pressed us to come, and said she knew all about what happened three years ago.”
“Bette, was she blackmailing you?”
“No! Why would she do such a thing? She sai
d she just picked it up from our . . . auras, I think she called it: She said that someone was going to use what happened three years ago to hurt us.”
“What happened to you three years ago?”
“My first husband, Johnny, was killed.”
“How?”
“He drove his car off a pier. The inquest determined it to be suicide.”
“Inquest? Was there was reason to doubt it was suicide?”
“Someone raised a few doubts and brought about the inquest. They thought Benny and I played a part in his death.”
I wanted to ask, Did you? But, if she and Benny had anything to do with Johnny’s death, that might imply murder. And why would she tell me any of this if she and her husband weren’t innocent of such a deed?
“And how did Madame Olenska come into all this?”
She didn’t reply, and I could see that she was weighing both her words and my trustworthiness before speaking.
“Bette, this isn’t working. I want to help you, but I can’t, not if you don’t tell me about the Madame and what she was really all about, and what it all has to do with Johnny’s death.”
“Benny was Johnny’s best friend, and the truth is, I was in love with Benny. Even though I married Johnny, it was always Benny I loved.”
“I can see how that could complicate things.”
“You see, Benny and Johnny enlisted in nineteen-eighteen together, right out of school, out of college, to fight the Huns. Benny and I were . . . well, we weren’t engaged when he left, but we were promised, in a way. After the War, Benny didn’t come home. At first, they thought he was a prisoner or killed; he was a Jenny pilot and he was shot down. He’d never returned from his mission. It was thought that he was killed, or that he was terribly injured or taken prisoner—nobody knew. After a year without word, it was assumed he’d been killed.
“When Johnny came home he was suffering from shellshock. One night, when I was out with chums, Johnny and I met again, and soon we started seeing each other. I suppose loving and losing Benny forged a bond between us. I became very fond of Johnny, and when he proposed in nineteen-twenty, I accepted. We enjoyed one another’s company, and Johnny’s spirits improved. He was happy again, and I guess I felt that I’d played some part in helping him get better. Johnny was a very kind person, very considerate. His parents thought he was marrying below his station. It was true; he had the expensive education, grew up in a big house. My family’s circumstances were modest. I knew he loved me more than I loved him, but I decided it was the best match I could ever hope for, and I was determined to be the very best wife I could be.
[Dorothy Parker 03] - Mystic Mah Jong Page 9