by Maia Chance
All eyes were on Sadie Street.
Sadie was dressed, I figured, as Jane Eyre, in a long gown and a brown wig. The backdrop behind her was painted to look like the inside of a grand library. She pretended to read a letter. She crushed it to her bosom and drew an anguished forearm across her brow. Then she stared into the camera with coquettish, pursed lips and wide, vacant eyes.
Berta watched with stony disapproval. I thought Ralph was going to crack up. Cedric was growling again.
“Cut!” one of the film fellows yelled.
The camera man stopped cranking.
“Sadie, sweetheart,” the first man said. He must’ve been the director. “Do ya have to look like you need to swallow an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismol? We’re running outa daylight here. One more take.”
“I’m tired of this!” Sadie shrieked. She threw the letter on the floor and stormed off to the edge of the studio, to a makeup counter. She flung herself into a chair and crossed her arms. Two makeup ladies rushed to her side.
“Let’s go speak to her,” I said.
“I must find the powder room,” Berta said. “That lemonade has traveled right through me.”
“Would you take Cedric?” I asked. “He’s being a pill, growling at everyone.”
Berta compressed her lips, but she took Cedric and trooped off.
“Maybe you’d better talk to Sadie without me,” Ralph said. “It’ll be less threatening.”
“All right. But something tells me it’s going to be no picnic.”
I went around the edges of the studio, passing an old-fashioned stagecoach, a cluster of fake trees, and a papier-mâché garden fountain on wheels. I came up behind Sadie. She was having her makeup refreshed.
One of the makeup ladies saw me first. She froze, her powder puff suspended in midair.
“Miss Street,” I said.
Sadie swung around and looked me up and down. “Who are you? Wait a minute. Where have I seen you before?”
“Cut the monkey business,” I said. “We met only a few days ago. Although you did spend much of the weekend hiding in your room.”
“I’m simply unable to take note of every last person I come across.” Sadie plucked a lipstick from the counter. “Have you any idea of the strain I’m under?”
“I know just the person for that. My brother-in-law is a nerve doctor.” I smiled sweetly. “At Babbling Brook Hospital.”
“I didn’t say I’m a nutcase, for God’s sake.” Sadie took up a hand mirror and lipsticked her carnelian Cupid’s bow.
You can tell a lot about a lady by the way she wears down her lipsticks. Flat stub, round stub, pointy, or the ones that somehow look like they’ve never been used. It’s an index of personality. My lipsticks always end up flat as pancakes—if I don’t lose or accidentally melt them first. Sadie’s lipstick was pointy.
“Could I ask you a question?” I said.
“No.” Sadie didn’t take her eyes off her reflection.
“I’m going to ask anyway.”
“Jimmy!” Sadie yelled.
Jimmy?
Something hard and cold pressed between my shoulder blades. A gun barrel, I’d bet.
“Whatcha doing bugging Miz Street?” a man said.
I twisted my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a fedora tipped down over a mashed-up-looking mug. “Oh. Hello there, Mr.—Was it Mr. Ant?”
“Cut the wise guy routine,” he said in his grinding-gears voice. “Never liked it, never will. Step away from Miz Street.” He nudged my spine with the gun.
“Um. Okay. Although I’d hoped to ask her about a film reel gone missing from Horace Arbuckle’s safe.” I looked at Sadie and lifted my eyebrows.
The two makeup ladies’ mouths were ajar.
“Are you accusing me of stealing?” Sadie said. “Jimmy, get rid of her—if, that is, you can squeeze those hips of hers out the door.”
“I’ll have you know I’m wearing a top-drawer rubber girdle!” I should’ve kept my trap shut, but I’d had it up to my bangs with such remarks. Why is it that a girl’s chassis is always up for public analysis?
“Your girdle may be top drawer, sweetie,” Sadie said, “but your bottom drawer is sure sticking out a long way.”
That was it. I forgot all about Jimmy. I stepped toward Sadie, hands on my much-discussed hips, ready to give her a nice big piece of my mind with extra icing.
“Hold it, dollface,” Jimmy said.
I ignored him. “Now, listen here, Miss Minsky—”
“What did you call me?” Sadie was on her feet. She leaned in so close, her nose was about three inches from mine. “Where did you dig up that name?”
I closed the distance between our noses to one inch.
“Hold it,” Jimmy said to me again.
Again, I ignored him. “Guess I’ve got a big brain to go with my big hips. Listen, Sadie. Where’s the film reel? The butler saw it in your bag.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
Bang! Short and sharp, right behind me. Something shattered up in the ceiling. I jumped. Sadie screamed. So did the makeup ladies. Glass tinkled on the floor a few paces away.
I spun around.
Yep. Jimmy sure as heck had a pistol. Big and shiny. And aimed straight at me.
I turned tail and sprinted across the studio. Past the old-time coach and the fake trees, past the camera on its tripod, the fellows with their suspenders and slack jaws.
“Hey!” Jimmy yelled after me.
20
Ralph was waiting for me by the door of Studio Five. He grabbed my hand and yanked me out into the hallway, where the loitering actors did not appear to have been fazed. They probably thought it had been a theatrical gunshot.
We hurried down the crowded hallway.
“What the hell were you egging Jimmy on for?” Ralph said. “He’s a gangster, Lola. You know—kills people for a living?”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Sadie is Fitzpatrick’s girl. Jimmy works for Fitzpatrick. Guess Jimmy’s been drafted into bodyguard duty.”
“Wait!” I skidded to a stop. “What about Berta? And Cedric?” I looked up and down the hallway. I saw Ancient Greeks drinking coffee, a man wearing the rear end of a horse costume, a girl dudded up like a ballerina. Oh yes, and Jimmy, shouldering through the crowd, bandy and glowering. The pistol dangled at his side.
“Holy mackerel,” Ralph muttered. He still had my hand, and he dragged me behind a garment rack stuffed with costumes. We had about two feet of elbow room between the costumes and the wall, which was covered with framed photographs.
A moment later, Jimmy strode by. He hadn’t seen us.
“We’ll just sit tight back here and wait till we see Berta,” Ralph said. “Then we’ll vamoose.”
“Okay.” The fright of the gunshot had belatedly sunk in. I felt Jell-O kneed and weepy. I sniffled.
Ralph glanced down. “Hey,” he said. He placed a hand on my arm.
I longed to lay my cheek on his shoulder, for him to fold his arms around me. His baggy brown suit looked soft and comforting. He reminded me of a teddy bear. Well, a teddy bear with muscle-rounded arms and a scarred temple. I pulled away.
“What’s the matter?” Ralph asked.
“What’s the matter?” I whispered. “To begin with, I’m a widow of not even two weeks. You’re a private detective who’s investigating me. I don’t know you from Adam. You keep notes about me in a notebook—which is stored next to your gun, by the way. And if I don’t figure out how to pay my rent, I’m—”
“Hey, hey. Calm down.”
“Why is everyone always saying that to me?”
My gaze fell on the framed photographs on the wall. At first, the images didn’t register. Gradually, it dawned on me that they were ensemble shots of actors in costume. Casts of various motion pictures that had been shot in the studio, I guessed. One of them looked like A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Another looked like some kind of Wild West to-do, with a bunch
of cowboys and even a cowgirl in a fringed leather skirt, tall boots, and a rifle slung over her shoulder. Too bad the cowgirl had such a sour expression on her face.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Isn’t that…?” I poked the glass. “Did you ever see the Arbuckles’ nurserymaid? Because I swear that cowgirl looks exactly like her.”
Ralph examined the picture. “I saw her in passing, up at the Arbuckles’ place. Nanny Potter, right? That does look like her. Same schoolmarm face and everything.”
“The likeness is uncanny.” My stomach felt all twisty. “She was eavesdropping on Horace and me the night he was murdered, you know. Inspector Digton told me.”
Ralph frowned.
“Maybe she’s simply a busybody,” I said.
“A busybody who, by the looks of this picture, isn’t just a nurserymaid, but also an actress?” Ralph’s eyes were thoughtful. “Arbuckle was killed by a crack shot, the cops said. With a gun kinda like the one she’s got in this photograph here.”
“Oh gee whiz,” I whispered. “It was her. She killed Horace.”
“Hold up, kid. This is all circumstantial so far.”
“If she is an actress, she’d have some kind of reason to want a film reel, right?”
“Sure. But didn’t the cops write off all the household staff? Something about the butler providing an alibi for all of them?”
“Yes,” I said. “I mean, no. She doesn’t have an alibi! All of the other help was sleeping in the servants’ quarters that night and came down to the kitchen with Hibbers after they heard the gunshot. But Nanny Potter was sleeping in the nursery because the boys had stomachaches. How could I have been so stupid? It was her.”
“Maybe.”
“Probably!”
“Here’s Mrs. Lundgren.”
I stood on tiptoe and peeked over the garment rack. Sure enough, Berta was headed in our direction. Cedric was slung over one arm, and her handbag was slung over the other.
Unfortunately, Jimmy the Ant was not far down the hallway in the opposite direction, fidgeting. I couldn’t tell if he was adjusting his holster, or if he urgently needed better-fitting trousers.
When Berta drew near the garment rack, I burrowed a hole between a clown suit and a tulle gown. “Berta,” I whispered.
She stopped and looked around.
“Psst!” I whispered. “In here!”
Cedric yipped.
“Mrs. Woodby,” Berta said loudly. “Whatever are you doing hiding in those clothes?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Oh dear Lord.”
Berta tunneled through the garment rack. She thrust Cedric into my arms.
“Hey!” Jimmy yelled. I heard his tiny shoes tapping in our direction. A moment later, he shoved the rack—it was on wheels—and it rolled away to expose me cowering against Ralph.
“Easy there, partner,” Ralph said.
Jimmy twirled his pistol around by the trigger guard, on one finger.
Everybody was getting into the Wild West spirit.
I swallowed. “Now, Mr. Ant, there’s no need to get so feisty. I was only having a friendly chat with Miss Street back there, and…” My voice trailed off. Jimmy wasn’t listening. His good eye was looking at Berta. His glass eye lolled in the other direction.
“Why, Mrs. Lundgren,” Jimmy said. “You little she-devil, you. Say, that telephone number you gave me last night didn’t go through. You wasn’t trying to give me the blow-off, was you?”
Berta drew herself up. “Certainly not. You must have told the operator the incorrect numbers. Perhaps you were liquored up when you attempted to call? Perhaps the operator could not distinguish your slurred words?”
“Berta—”
“It is Mrs. Lundgren to you.”
“Aw, Mrs. Lundgren. You lovely Swedish tomato, you.”
Ralph suppressed a snort of laughter.
“We danced all night last night,” Jimmy said. “I thought we was hitting it off real nice.”
“Hitting off?” Berta said. “Hitting off? Shall I suppose that you joked with your—how do you say?—pals about getting to whatever base it is that—that—”
“Naw, doll, nothing like that. It’s just, well, you listened to my talk about the farm in Missouri. No dame’s ever cared about the farm before.”
“There was the farm. Boys who grow up in the countryside are so much more wholesome, I have always believed.…”
Uh-oh. Berta was starting to thaw.
Jimmy sidled up to her. “So I thought we could talk some more, see? That’s all. Maybe a nice little drink somewheres, and then we could…” At this juncture, Jimmy (quite inadvisably) reached around Berta and gave her backside a squeeze.
Berta’s eyes flared. In one fluid motion, she unfastened the buckle of her handbag, drew out a small pistol, and aimed it at Jimmy.
I gasped.
“Whoa,” Ralph muttered.
“Back off,” Berta said. She pressed the pistol’s barrel into Jimmy’s lapel and pushed him away. “I am not that sort of lady.”
“Sure, sure, didn’t mean to offend.” Jimmy held his hands up. “Hey, is that a .25-cal Colt you got there?”
Berta looked at Ralph and me. “Shall we scram?” she said.
Ralph and I snapped our mouths shut and hurried off down the hallway, Berta close behind.
“So that’s what you keep in your handbag,” I said to Berta over my shoulder.
“Among other things.”
“Tomato!” Jimmy wailed after us. “C’mon! Just one drink!”
Berta tsked her tongue.
* * *
Back on the road in the Duesy, we talked things over. We’d failed once more to get any closer to Sadie Street’s apartment. On the other hand, we may have stumbled upon the identity of Horace Arbuckle’s murderer.
“Nanny Potter? An actress?” Berta shook her head. “She seemed such a plain, unassuming girl. Not a glamorous bone in her body.”
“I’m sure that was her in the photograph,” I said. I swerved into the fast lane over the bridge. Dusk was falling, blue gray and damp. “And she overheard me repeating aloud the combination of Horace’s safe, so she could’ve stolen the reel.”
“But that does not explain the appearance of the reel in one of the calfskin weekend bags,” Berta said.
“Seems to me,” Ralph said, stuffed in the backseat with Cedric, “that the first order of business is to confirm that Nanny Potter didn’t have an alibi on the night of Horace’s murder.”
* * *
As soon as we got back to the love nest, I telephoned Dune House.
Hibbers answered on the third ring.
“Just the fellow I’d hoped to snag,” I said.
“Madam?”
“Billy and Theo’s nurserymaid—what is her full name?”
“Miss Vera Potter, madam.”
“Vera Potter,” I repeated. Berta and Ralph both scribbled the name down in the their respective notebooks. Berta seemed to have replaced Thad Parker with Ralph as her gumshoe exemplar.
How annoying.
“How long has Miss Potter been with the Arbuckles?” I asked Hibbers.
“Since last autumn. October, I believe. As you know, I was still in your employ at that time, so I cannot give an unimpeachable summary of—”
“Okay, okay. Since October. Ever hear any word about Miss Potter being an actress?”
“An actress, madam? Heavens no. She is a rather morose and taciturn young lady. Most principled, too, regarding matters of finance. I recall that she refused to accept additional monies offered to her for looking after a friend of young Master Theo’s. She said it was tantamount to a bribe. On the rare occasions that I have heard Miss Potter speak in the servants’ quarters, she has made reference to her long career as a nurserymaid.”
“She could’ve been fibbing.”
“Certainly, madam.”
“Any funny business between her and Mr. Arbuckle that you’re aware of?”
Hibbers coughed. “I
ndeed not.”
“Listen, about Miss Potter’s alibi the night Mr. Arbuckle was shot: The kids were indisposed that night—overindulged in cookies. Miss Potter stayed at the kids’ bedsides, swabbing their feverish brows and whatnot. But you told the police that all the household staff were accounted for.”
There was a heavy pause on the line.
“Hibbers?”
“Ah. Yes, madam. I was contemplating your suggestion.”
“And?”
“And yes, indeed, it appears that I may have made a small … error. Miss Potter was absent when I entered the kitchen after the murder.”
“I assume you haven’t told this to the police?”
“No, madam. It is only now that my attention has been drawn to this oversight. Perhaps I should go to the police station and inform—”
“No!” I cried. If the police arrested Vera Potter before I got to her, then I might never have a chance to speak with her. I might never find out if she knew anything about the film reel’s whereabouts.
“Madam, I really must. You see, Miss Potter will travel to Bar Harbor with the children early tomorrow morning.”
Phooey. Olive had mentioned that.
“Then I’m coming up to the country this evening,” I said. “Simply—simply wait, okay? And don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.” I disconnected. “Pack your suitcase, Berta.”
“I never unpacked it.”
“I’ll meet you two at the Foghorn in Hare’s Hollow at nine tonight,” Ralph said. He was already heading for the foyer. “I have a couple things to take care of here in the city. I’ve got my own motorcar.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Who said you were coming?”
He turned. “You really want to confront a possible murderer on your own?”
“Berta is armed.”
“Yeah—I was meaning to ask you, Mrs. Lundgren—”
“I have a permit,” Berta said.
“I was actually going to say, do you know how to use that thing?”
“It seemed to do the trick with Mr. Ant,” I said. “Mr. Oliver, it’s starting to look an awful lot like you’re trying to horn in on our turf. Who’s to say you aren’t going to snatch the reel out from under us?”
“Well now.” He scratched his eyebrow. “There’s a thought.”
I narrowed my eyes.