by George Baxt
“I know the rest. I wish I didn’t, but I know the rest.” They heard Mayo talking on the phone. “Call your aunt, honey. Tell her to come stay with you. I’m so sorry, darling.” She listened. “They've taken her to the morgue.” She listened. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and said to Bogart. “This is sheer agony.” She removed her hand from the mouthpiece. “What, darling? Her purse?”
Jim Mallory said, “There’s a handbag on the counter next to the refrigerator.”
Mayo said into the phone, “It's in the kitchen. It’s safe.” She listened. “We won't be here in the morning. We’re staying at a hotel tonight. Wait a minute.” She asked Bogie if they were staying at the Garden of Allah or the Ambassador.
“Allah,” shouted Hellman, “the apartment next to us is vacant. And why am I shouting?”
Mayo instructed the daughter to come to the Garden of Allah for her mother's handbag as it was conveniently located in West Hollywood near her apartment. When she hung up, she said to anyone who might hear her, “That was so awful. That poor woman. She was devoted to Hannah.” Bogart said to Villon, “Slugger and I are going out to Venice tomorrow, I think with Hammett and Hellman. Care to join us?”
“Why, Mr. Bogart,” said Villon cozily, “I don’t mind if I do.”
SIX
WHILE THE MELODRAMA WAS BEING played in the Bogart house, la Contessa di Marcopolo, wearing a housecoat decorated with peacock feathers, stormed back and forth in the living room of her suite shouting epithets in Italian, French, English, and a few in Lithuanian which she had picked up during a brief affair with an ambassador from that country. “The housekeeper should not have been killed!” Neither Marcelo nor Violetta agreed or disagreed. They were playing Chinese checkers. “Clever burglars never commit murder. Now this catastrophe at the Bogarts will be headlines! Headlines! Do you hear me? Headlines!”
“I’m sure they hear you in Pasadena,” said Marcelo.
“Don’t mock me!”
“Don’t shout. We’re just a few feet away from you. My nerves are frayed. I need champagne.” He reached out to a bottle in a metal bucket and poured some bubbly into the glass at his elbow. He sipped and then studied the label. “Presumptuous. But it will serve until champagnes can come flowing again from Europe.”
The contessa sank onto the couch, which groaned for mercy. “A treasure hunt! Hollywood loves a treasure hunt! Ha!”
“Hysteria dulls the mind, cara.”
“So now you’re a philosopher!”
“You’re not thinking clearly. If we can’t locate the cornucopia, let someone else locate it for us. And then we step in and appropriate it.”
“I can’t claim it’s mine without the letter!”
“There is no letter. It does not exist. My instinct tells me it is a fabrication of Captain Methot’s. If there is a cornucopia, it will surface. Remember what this Dickens person told us. This city crawls with dealers and collectors. This is a country in which everything is collected and treasured. Baseball cards! Can you believe that? Baseball cards! Movie star autographs! Some said to be worth hundreds of dollars! Comic books! They collect everything!”
“Including wives,” said Violetta, a student of fan magazines.
Marcelo asked la Contessa, “Have you ever seen a baseball game?”
“As a matter of fact, on several occasions.” She was holding a cigarette. “Violetta!” The secretary crossed the room, lit the cigarette and then returned to the Chinese checkers. La Contessa was still ruminating about baseball. She said, “Loathe the game.” A small smile. “Adore the players.” Then her face darkened. “Do you suppose this Dickson person deliberately sent us on a wild goose chase to Venice?”
Marcelo said, “I think not. I think she sincerely was trying to be of service.”
“That was certainly a strange lot,” said Violetta.
La Contessa said thoughtfully, “There was something familiar about the proprietor, Mr. Dickens. I don’t think he is descended from the Dickens family as he so flagrantly claims. I think I’ve seen him before.”
“Possibly in England when you lived there as a young girl,” said Violetta.
“We did not rub shoulders with literary people. The only people welcome in our mansion were the Woolfs, Virginia and Leonard. They bored me.” She was deep in thought for a moment. “Dickens’s look is very Mediterranean,” she sighed. “It will come to me. It always does.” A stricken wail escaped her mouth.
“Now what?” asked Marcelo.
“Nobody murders a housekeeper! You fire a housekeeper! But murder one! Oh God, what is the world coming to?”
As Villon intimated he’d be joining the excursion to Venice, Bogart snapped his fingers. “The basement! That’s where we’ve got the captain’s papers.” He hurried into the kitchen where there was the door leading to the basement. Hammett, Villon, Hazel, and Jim Mallory were close on his heels. Mayo remained in the living room with her martini and Lillian Hellman.
Hellman asked in a monotone, “Aren’t you joining them in the basement?”
“I've seen the basement.”
Hellman studied the sad face and the way she hungered for the martini and then asked, “Why don’t you get out of it?”
“Out of what?”
“Your marriage.”
“It’s the only marriage I’ve got.”
“You can tell me it's none of my business, but it won’t help. Why don’t you go back to Broadway?”
“Nobody’s asked me.”
“Go back and make them know you’re back, I saw you in Torch Song. You’re a good actress.”
“Why Miss Lillian Hellman, there does exist a kind word in your vocabulary.”
Hellman sat up. “I simply don’t understand my reputation for being a flaming bitch on wheels!”
“Because you are, dear. You are.”
In the basement, Jim Mallory looked with interest at the wall decorations. Posters of all of Bogart’s films to date, including the ones in which he had minimal billing. Mallory couldn’t figure out what Gary Cooper’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was doing there and asked Hazel. She told him Mayo had a small role in it, but Mallory couldn’t place it.
There was a bar with wicker stools and a Ping-Pong table and over the bar was a large photograph of the Bogart’s boat, Slugger, with the Bogarts at the rail. They both wore sailor suits and were laughing and waving and looked genuinely happy unless they were even better actors then he knew them to be. Behind him Hazel Dickson said, “Four short years can make a century of a difference.”
There was a storage space to the right of the bar. The door was open and Bogart stood in the center of the room with his hands on his hips. “Doesn’t look as though the place has been disturbed.” He knelt beside the large carton that contained Jack Methot’s papers. The strong cord with which the carton was bound was undisturbed. There was no sign of an attempt to cut it. Hammett was at a shelf examining scripts of Bogart’s earlier films. “For crying out loud, did you really do something called The Return of Dr X?”
“Yeah. I was a ghoul back from the dead. It died.” He smiled. “I did a Western with Cagney that year, The Oklahoma Kid. Can you imagine me on horseback popping a six- shooter? Scared hell out of the horse. Scared hell out of Cagney, too.” He surveyed the rest of the room. “Nothing’s been touched here.”
Hammett stared at his fingertips. “Nothing’s been dusted here either.”
“Don’t be a fussbudget. We rarely come down here.” He exhaled. “I don’t know why, but this space always gives me the creeps. I don’t like this house.” He led Hammett back to Villon and the other two. Villon was behind the bar while Mallory and Hazel were still occupied with the photograph of the Slugger. “Never did like this house. Never knew what attracted Mayo to it. It’s got no personality.”
Hazel turned on hearing Bogart's voice, “You both look so happy and content here, Bogie.”
“That’s history. What have you found, Herb?”
The detective
held up a faded St. Valentine’s Day card. “This relic.”
Bogart took it and read it. “I remember this. I sent it to Slugger the year we were married. When I was still sentimental.” He placed it on top of the bar. “Let’s get out of here. I wonder if the press creeps are still hanging around outside.”
Upstairs in the living room, Mayo was saying to Hellman, “Might there be something for me in your new play?”
“What you should be asking is, is there a new play? I’ve just finished one. Something about a liberal on the run from the Nazis.”
“Sounds grim.”
“These are grim times.” Bogart and the others entered from the kitchen. “Find anything of interest?”
Hammett said, “A lot of well organized dust.”
Bogart said, “Let’s get out of here. I’m parked behind the house. If the creeps are out front. Herb, keep them amused until Mayo and I make our escape. Dash, Lily, see you at the Allah. Come on, Slugger.”
“Wait a minute! I need some things. Don’t you want your pajamas? Your shaving things?
“Be a sport, kid. Pack them for me.” She looked on the verge of saying something nasty, but then thought better of it and hurried up the stairs. He asked Villon, “Your forensic guys find anything interesting?”
Villon held up a cellophane bag in which nothing appeared visible. “A long, blonde woman’s hair. Single strand. Not visible to the naked eye.”
“Can’t be Mae West’s. She does another kind of ransacking. Besides, she’s never been to the house.”
Villon said, “It doesn’t mean it belongs to the ransacker. Mayo’s hair is blonde.”
“Occasionally.”
Hellman said as she applied a lipstick to her petulant mouth, “Bogart, you’re all heart.”
Hammett was at a window that looked out at the front of the house. Two fingers separated two slats of the Venetian blind. “The dogs are still baying around a dead carcass.”
“That's pretty good, Dash,” said Hellman, “why don’t you use it?”
“I have.”
Mayo came hurrying down the stairs carrying an overnight bag.
“That was pretty quick, Slugger,” said Bogart.
“I needed to get out of there fast. It was giving me the creeps. I don't like this house. I never did like this house.”
“Then why’d you urge me to buy it!” shouted Bogart.
“Because it was a bargain!”
“There’s no such thing as a bargain!” countered Bogart.
“Oh God, let me out of here!” cried Hellman and headed for the front door.
Bogart shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and hurried to the kitchen and the back door while Mayo exchanged a hasty good-bye with Hazel and the detectives.
Hellman opened the front door and stared down at the reporters and photographers. Hands on hips, she asked, “I suppose you’re wondering why we asked you all here?” Hammett came out behind her and then Villon, Hazel, and Mallory. The detectives were under siege from a barrage of questions. Any leads? Any clues? Any suspects? Anything stolen? Where’re the Bogarts?
Lillian Hellman preceded Hammett to his roadster slowly and with difficulty. Flashbulbs blinded her eyes and several members of the press tried to block their escape. She shouted, “I don’t know anything! I’m just a friend of the Bogarts.”
“Say where the hell are the Bogarts?” cried a reporter.
Hammett said, “I think those are their taillights disappearing in the distance.” Villon growled orders to some of his men assigned to guard the exterior of the house to make sure none of the press would enter the house. While some people were ransackers, others were scavengers and the contents of the interior were sufficiently damaged that there was no need to add insult to injury. He hoped Mayo had remembered to pack her jewelry in the overnight bag.
Hammett and Hellman finally made it to the roadster. “Christ,” said Hellman, “I hope they don’t follow us.”
“If they do, I can lose them,” he reassured her. “Jackals and hyenas. I’ve seen nothing like them before. Not even in New York.”
“When we get to the Allah, drive straight into the bar.” Hellman looked out the rear window as they drove off. “Who said Hollywood goes to sleep early?”
Hammett turned on the radio and found a news program. The newscaster didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know. Hellman asked, “Can’t you find something cheerful? Like the invasion of Paris?”
Bogart finally parked the car in the Garden of Allah lot. Across Sunset Boulevard from the Allah was director Preston Sturges’s Players Club but the Bogarts were in no mood for it. They made their way into the hotel and to the front desk. Lillian Hellman had thoughtfully phoned ahead and the suite next to hers and Hammett’s was awaiting them. The lobby was quiet, unusually so at 11 p.m. Hollywood might go to bed early but the Garden of Allah didn’t. Bogart wasn’t ready for either the arms of Morpheus or his wife. After he signed them in and a bellboy captured the overnight bag, Bogie said, “You go ahead, Slugger, I’m going to case the bar.”
“And case a case?”
“You can always join me there once you’ve used the john. Here, take my hat.” She snatched it and followed the bellboy down the hall. Bogart hoped she had some silver with which to either tip the bellboy or betray him.
The bar wasn’t as lively as Bogart expected to find it, but there was a pleasant array of familiar and friendly faces. The first person he encountered was Sidney Greenstreet seated at the bar on a stool that seemed inadequate to his size. Greenstreet was with comedian Charles Butterworth who spotted Bogart first. “Ah! Here’s Bogie! Why'd you do it?”
Bogie cracked a grin for this droll and loveable little man as Greenstreet beckoned to him. “Come closer. I want to talk to you.”
“Be gentle, Sidney. I’m feeling a bit delicate. It’s been quite a night.”
“This murder at your house. Is it a setup?”
“You don’t use a genuine corpse in a setup, Sidney.” He ordered a dry gin martini. “And no garbage, bartender. It leaves more room for gin.” The bartender understood. Mr. Bogart wanted a glass of iced gin and may the Lord have mercy on his head tomorrow morning.
“How bizarre,” said Greenstreet, “and how tragic. I’m glad we’re not working tomorrow, it’ll give you the chance to rest and compose yourself.”
“You might never see me as composed as I am right now. If you see Dash Hammett and Lily Hellman, Charlie, point them in my direction.”
‘‘Point them yourself,” said Butterworth, “they're right behind you.”
“Bartender,” shouted Hellman, “I'll drink anything. It's been a rough night.”
“She'll have the same as me,” said Bogart. “And Mr. Hammett, too. And keep one in reserve for my wife.” Hellman said, “There’s Dotty Parker. She looks very sloppy.”
“Not as sloppy as usual at this Hour,” said Hammett. “We're not sitting up all night with her and the husband.”
“Hell no. We’ve got a rendezvous in Venice tomorrow. The wrong Venice, but nevertheless, Venice. I don't see her less-than-better half. Probably out cruising Hollywood Boulevard. That looks like Bob Benchley with Dotty.”
“It looks like Bob Benchley,” said Hammett, “because it is Bob Benchley. I’m not in the mood for him.”
“Who are you in the mood for?” asked Hellman.
“Marcel Proust.”
“You don’t speak French.”
“Sure I do.”
“Baloney! I've never heard you speak French.”
“There’s never been an occasion for me to speak French.”
“Dash Hammett, you’re so full of it it’s coming out of your ears!”
“Lily!” shouted Dorothy Parker, “Don’t you agree with me? Aren’t men a load of horseshit?”
“It's going to be one of those nights,” said Hammett to Bogart. “Look at Benchley. To quote nobody in particular, probably myself, his eyes are stagnant pools of despair.”
“I hear he’s not been well.”
“He’s making pots of money.”
“What’s that got to do with the state of his health?”
A waiter said to Bogart, “You’re wanted on the phone, Mr. Bogart. At the bar.”
“Thanks,” said Bogart, excused himself and went to the bar. It was Mayo and she was upset. “I’m coming to the room. Tell me the number again.”
In the room, Mayo had laid out Bogart’s pajamas and a change of shirt, underwear, and socks. “Bogie, I’m going to Portland.”
“How come all of a sudden?”
“I just spoke to Mother. I had this feeling something might be wrong. She’s very upset and frightened. I told her I’d come up and stay with her. Anyway, she said she’d feel better if I was out of this town. Hannah’s murder and the break-in were on the radio and she’s fearful of my life.”
“You really want to go?”
“She’s my mother.”
“I’m your husband.”
“You can take care of yourself.”
“So can she, for crying out loud.”
Mayo was firm. “I’m going to her. She’s all the mother I’ve got.”
“And I’m all the husband you’ve got.”
“Please drive me to the house. Or else give me the keys and I’ll go alone.”
Expletive followed expletive and then Bogart snapped, “Come on!” She followed him out of the room. In the lobby, they met Hellman on her way to the ladies’.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“My wife is going home to Mother.” Hellman watched the Bogarts hurry out the door, shook her head from side to side, and then hurried to the ladies’ room to avoid embarrassment.
Shortly before midnight, the Bogarts hurried to the platform where the last express to Portland was ready to depart. At the gateway, Bogart said “Here” and pressed what cash he had into her hand. “I’ll wire you some more tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll get it from my mother.”
“Get going or you’ll get it from me.”
She smiled. They kissed. She picked up the suitcase she had none too carefully packed and hurried down the platform and boarded the train. A conductor shouted “All aboard!” and the engineer blew his whistle. Steam began to cloud the platform and the attendant at the gate recognized Bogart as the actor was lighting a cigarette.