A Friendly Game of Murder

by J. J. Murphy

  “Well, go on,” Woollcott said impatiently. “Out you go.”

  She took a deep breath of frigid air and carefully slithered one knee out from under her. She pivoted on the narrow sill and lowered her leg. She pivoted again and lowered her other leg, and now she could sit on the sill. She felt the cold, wet snow on her backside. The roof was only two feet below her two feet. With a cautious little push, she hopped off the sill. She slipped when she landed, and skidded toward the cornice. She couldn’t stop. She was heading toward the edge. Her knees slipped out from under her, and she collapsed hard against the concrete cornice. The wind was knocked out of her—and the stuffing was scared out of her—as she found herself peering down into the inky darkness of the alley twelve stories below.

  “Dottie, dear, are you all right?” Benchley shouted, halfway out the window. “I should never have let you go out there on your own.”

  His voice sounded so panicked that it did her heart good to hear it. She calmed down right away.

  “Never fear, Mr. Benchley. This isn’t the first time I’ve been out on a ledge.” She looked again into the dimness below. “Metaphorically speaking, that is.”

  Chapter 17

  Dorothy got to her feet, brushed the snow from her legs and then followed the half-hidden footprints. She noticed that the shoes that had made them were larger than her shoes—but almost anyone’s shoes were larger than hers. She also realized that whoever made them had a longer stride than she did. When the footprints turned at the corner of the building, so did she.

  Now she faced a large expanse of flat roof. (In the summertime it would be big enough to allow a rooftop garden. She’d have to make that suggestion to Frank Case.) But the cold wind was more severe on this side of the building. It hit her like a slap in the face. She hugged Benchley’s coat around her and shivered. She searched the snow for the footprints and could only just discern them. They were merely shallow depressions in the deepening, windblown snow.

  She followed them to a brick wall, where they stopped. As she approached the wall, she realized there was an iron ladder built into it. Whoever had made the footprints had obviously climbed the ladder. She didn’t want to climb the ladder, but she didn’t want to stay out on this freezing roof any longer either. She used the sleeves of Benchley’s jacket as mittens and started climbing.

  She was just as cold now as she had been in the basement freezer, only Benchley wasn’t here to keep her company. So she vowed that Woollcott would have to make her another one of those hot coffee drinks just as soon as she got back inside the hotel—no matter how she got back inside the hotel.

  At the top of the ladder, a gust of wind blew an icy chill up her dress. It was so cold that she could barely catch her breath. Oh, Woollcott would owe her a lifetime of coffee drinks for persuading her to do this! She stepped off the ladder onto this upper roof and saw that the shallow footprints ended a few paces away at a square hatchway. She hurried over to the closed lid, which was covered in thick snow. She clutched her frozen fingers underneath the edge of it and tried to heave it open, but it barely budged.

  Oh damn! Is it locked? She tried again and was able to lift it an inch or two. But the hatch itself, combined with the snow on top, made it simply too heavy for her thin arms to lift.

  She used the sleeves of Benchley’s jacket to brush off the snow. The hatch was wide—about four feet square—so it took her awhile to get all the snow off. By the time she had removed it all, she was dead tired and absolutely freezing cold. Curse that Woollcott! And curse that Fairbanks and Pickford, too! They’re innocent, of course, so why would I brave the elements to try to prove it to that ninny Woollcott? Curse me, while I’m at it.

  She tried to lift the hatch again. Although it was lighter now, she was too exhausted to raise it more than a few inches. She saw a sliver of light shine out, but then she had to drop the lid. Oh, to come so close and to fail. . . . To come out on this roof on a silly whim only to freeze to death. . . . It was poetic in its banality. The story of her life.

  Don’t be your usual pessimistic, self-defeating self, Dorothy, she thought. Give it the old college try. Despite her inclination to give up, she dug her icicle-cold fingers under the lid and tried to lift it once again—or it would be never again. To her surprise it lifted easily this time and locked open at a ninety-degree angle. She sat back on her haunches but leaned her head over the opening and warmed herself on the rush of room-temperature air that flowed up at her.

  The glow of the light illuminated the figure of a person next to her.

  “Mr. Benchley!” she cried in surprise. “So you helped me open that lid.”

  “At your service, Mrs. Parker.”

  “I didn’t even see you there. Where did you come from all of a sudden?”

  “Once you disappeared around the corner, I couldn’t bear to think of you out here in the cold. I followed after you. But let’s talk inside. Here, give me your hands. I’ll lower you down.” He grabbed her hands. “My gracious, they’re cold as ice. Come on, there’s no time to lose.”

  He wasn’t a particularly strong man—far from it. But she was petite. So he didn’t have too much difficulty in lifting her off her feet and lowering her into the small room below. As before, she breathed in the warm air deeply. In a moment Benchley had dropped down next to her; flakes of snow fell along with him.

  They were in a small room stocked with linens on wooden shelves—a linen closet. Against the wall was a chain that led up to the roof hatch. Benchley pulled the chain, and the hatch dropped shut with a bang.

  “Hmm,” she said. “We’ll have to get one of those chains installed on Woollcott. It’d be nice to shut his trap so easily.”

  Benchley laughed and reached to hug her. His body was cold, Dorothy thought, but his embrace was—

  Just then the door opened, and Douglas Fairbanks poked his head in. “What was that bang?” Then, suddenly realizing the situation, he asked, “What are you two doing in here?”

  “Nothing,” they said quickly moving apart.

  We have to stop being caught in these tight spots, Dorothy thought. Then she said, “Just a minute, Douglas. What are you doing in here?”

  “I was on my way back to my room when I heard a bang. I came to investigate.”

  “There’s certainly no banging going on in here,” Benchley said with a chuckle, but he stopped when he realized what he had said.

  “But I heard—”

  Dorothy considered something. “Douglas, do you come to this room often?”

  “Well, no. Not often. Hardly ever.”

  “But you clearly have been here before.”

  “Certainly. As I said, it’s just around the corner from my apart—”

  “Have you been in here earlier tonight?”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  She stepped toward him. “I mean, did you climb out your bathroom window like a cat, scurry along the roof and then drop down into this room? An athletic fellow such as yourself could do it easily.”

  “Dottie, if you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting—”

  “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

  The door opened wider, and now Woollcott stood next to Fairbanks. “Aha, Mrs. Parker, you’ve converted to my point of view.”

  “Aleck, for heaven’s sake, stop saying, ‘Aha!’—and while you’re at it, fetch me one of those hot coffee drinks. And make it snappy!”

  Woollcott looked wounded. “Snappy?” he muttered sheepishly. “You’re the one being snappy.”

  * * *

  Back in Fairbanks’ penthouse, they sat in the living room and waited for Woollcott to come up with the coffee. Several times Fairbanks—now joined by his wife, Mary—tried to ask Dorothy what she was thinking, but Dorothy shushed him and told him to wait for “Detective Woollcot
t” to return.

  Finally Woollcott came back. He was followed by Luigi the waiter, who pushed a room service cart laden with a silver coffee pot on a silver tray, as well as a glass carafe of cream and a silver sugar bowl.

  “Café Alexander is served,” Woollcott pronounced pompously, and sat down with the expectation of being waited upon, as though he were some royal dignitary. Luigi silently poured the coffee, added a splash of brandy and cream to each, grated some nutmeg on top and handed out the cups. Woollcott took a sip, nodded his approval and sat the cup on the saucer in his lap. This being done, he gazed steadily at Mary Pickford. “Now, Mary, tell us why you decided to kill Bibi in your own bathtub during your own party?”

  Mary nearly dropped the cup in her hands. “Kill Bibi?”

  “That is what I said.”

  “I did no such thing. You must be joking, Aleck.”

  “Aleck, really!” Fairbanks said angrily, standing up. “You don’t talk to my wife that way in our own home.”

  “Very well. I’ll talk to you that way,” Woollcott said. “Why did you cover it up for her?”

  “C-cover what up?” Fairbanks sputtered, his glossy veneer of Hollywood sophistication temporarily disappearing.

  “Come clean, Douglas. Your wife had it in for Bibi. She suspected you of having an affair with the girl. Not to mention Mary was annoyed with Bibi for stealing the limelight at her party and making a spectacle of herself. So when everyone went downstairs for the countdown to midnight, Mary somehow murdered Bibi.”

  “Stop it, Aleck—” Fairbanks said.

  But Woollcott didn’t stop. “Then you, the loyal husband, tried to cover your wife’s tracks by mysteriously locking the door from the inside and clambering like a monkey out the window, only to climb back in through the roof hatch in the linen closet down the hall. Ah, but you didn’t count on Mrs. Parker opening the bathroom window, allowing us to take notice of the tracks you left behind in the snow. Isn’t that right?”

  “No, not a lick of it—”

  “Oh please, Douglas! Who else has the dexterity to get out of that window and back in the trapdoor so easily? And who else had such a motive to kill Bibi—?”

  “Only almost everyone,” Fairbanks protested, more calmly now, reclaiming some of his movie star savoir faire.

  Mary said, “I did not like Bibi Bibelot, that’s no secret. But neither Douglas nor I had anything to do with her death. It’s horrifying to me that she died in our apartment.”

  “But weren’t you the last one to see her alive?” Dorothy asked quietly.

  Mary’s mouth hung open; she didn’t dare to answer.

  “And”—Woollcott turned to Fairbanks—“didn’t you try to cover for your wife by saying you were the last one to see Bibi alive?”

  “Well, that—that was before . . .” Fairbanks trailed off.

  “Before what?” Dorothy asked.

  Fairbanks sat back down and clasped his wife’s hand. “That was before Mary and I had a good, honest talk. That’s what we were doing just now, before I found you two in the linen closet. We took a stroll around the hotel and talked.”

  “Talked?” Woollcott sputtered, as though it was the most absurd idea he’d ever heard. “What did you have to talk about?”

  Fairbanks took a deep breath. “You’re right that when I said that I was the last one to see Bibi alive, I was trying to cover for Mary—”

  “Aha!” Woollcott said.

  Dorothy kicked his shin.

  “Ow!”

  “Go on, Douglas,” Dorothy said.

  “I was trying to cover for Mary because I didn’t know for sure what had happened. I knew she would never do such a thing, but . . . but . . .”

  “But I was guilty of something,” Mary said. “Douglas knew it.”

  “Ah—!” Woollcott began, but stopped himself after a quick warning glance from Dorothy.

  “It’s like this,” Mary said. “I didn’t know why Bibi would be wearing that locket that I had seen on my dresser. I certainly didn’t like to see a beautiful young woman parade naked through my apartment. I’m no killjoy, but that’s more than I can stand. So I somehow put two and two together, and figured—quite wrongly, I now know—” And she squeezed Fairbanks’ hand and looked kindly into his beautiful eyes. “I foolishly jumped to the conclusion that Douglas was having an affair with her. So, while everyone was downstairs in the lobby, I took the locket from Bibi’s neck, out of sheer jealousy.”

  Dorothy stood up. “You did what?”

  Mary looked anxious and guilt stricken. “I know. It was silly. But I took the locket.”

  Dorothy had a million questions, but the only thing that came out was, “I nearly froze my ass off to prove you two are innocent, and this is how you repay me? Give me that damn lousy locket. I want it.”

  Mary looked even more anxious now. “But I can’t,” she said helplessly. “It’s gone missing.”

  Chapter 18

  “Gone?” Woollcott cried in disbelief. “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary said. “After I took it from Bibi, I put it in my top drawer. I couldn’t very well put it on—I didn’t want to put it on. And I don’t have any pockets in this dress. But later, when I went to look for it, it was gone.”

  “Are you sure it’s missing and not mixed up in your lacy underthings?” Woollcott asked condescendingly.

  Mary shook her head.

  “Just one minute,” Dorothy said. “Was Bibi alive when you took it?”

  “Yes. I saw that she was breathing, like she was asleep. I’m quite sure of that. I just assumed she had passed out.”

  “What time was this?” said a deep voice from the door.

  They all turned to look. It was Arthur Conan Doyle.

  “What time,” he repeated, “did you last see Miss Bibelot alive and breathing?”

  “After eleven thirty. Maybe around a quarter to midnight.”

  “Tell me, if you will,” he said, striding into the room, “did she have that pinkish marking around her mouth at that time?”

  “I-I think so,” Mary said.

  “Be sure now,” Doyle said. “Close your eyes, and remember your exact movements. Start with when you entered the room.”

  Woollcott stood up. “Just a minute here. I’m running this investigation. And I won’t have it interrupted by some washed-up old sawbones—”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” Doyle said calmly to Woollcott. “You’re doing a bang-up job, my good fellow. I thought perhaps you might like to let the amateurs have a go. Meanwhile you can rest your weary brain cells for the more salient points of the investigation.”

  Woollcott reluctantly sat down, eyeing Doyle warily. He clearly wasn’t sure whether Doyle was mocking him or simply being a polite old gentleman—or perhaps a little of both.

  “Let’s try again, my dear,” Doyle said reassuringly. “Close your eyes, and tell us what happened when you entered the room.”

  Mary’s eyes fluttered shut. “No one else was in the apartment. The door to the bathroom was shut but not locked. I pushed open the door and looked at Bibi. She didn’t move. I had thought I would have it out with her, so I was at first very disappointed that she had passed out.”

  “Passed out?” Doyle asked.

  “That’s what I assumed,” Mary said. “Her eyes were closed, and her head was tilted to the side. In one hand, she still held a champagne glass.”

  “She was holding a champagne glass?”

  “Just barely. I took it from her hand, and I placed it on the radiator next to the tub.”

  “Next to the ice bucket?” Dorothy asked.

  Mary’s eyes opened. “Ice bucket? I don’t remember any ice bucket.”

  “Close your eyes,” Doyle said with a curio
us glance at Dorothy. “Think again. What happened exactly when you set down the glass?”

  “I put it down on the very center of the radiator, so that it wouldn’t fall. It was from a set of glasses we were given at our wedding, and I didn’t want to see it broken. There was no ice bucket.”

  “You see?” he said. “You can remember if we take it step-by-step. Now what did you do?”

  “I leaned over Bibi’s head. I remember looking down at her—her chest. Yes, it was definitely rising and falling, couldn’t miss that. Then I gently turned her head even farther to the side so I could get to the clasp of the necklace, which was at the back of her neck, of course.”

  “And do you recall seeing her face as you did this?”

  “I do,” Mary said with a note of surprise. “I remember the pink around her mouth now. I guess I must have thought it was smeared lipstick. Then I probably didn’t think too much about it at all because I just wanted to get that stinking necklace off her before she woke up or before someone came strolling in.”

  “And you did? You were able to remove the necklace?”

  “Yes, I unhooked it. I left Bibi where she was, and I went out of the bathroom. I stood for a moment in the parlor, not knowing what to do. Then I went to my bedroom and dropped the locket in the top drawer of my dresser.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I left. I took the elevator down, and that’s when I encountered Lydia Trumbull. We went back to her room to talk.”

  “And did you say anything to her about Bibi?”

  “Or the locket?” Woollcott interjected.

  “No, I didn’t mention the locket. But we talked about Bibi, of course, and how she was acting like such a . . . such a . . .”

  “Yes, I think we quite understand,” Doyle said genteelly. “But you did not tell your friend Lydia that you had just left Bibi in the bathtub?”