by J. J. Murphy
“That’s it?” Benchley asked.
“That’s it. No signature.”
“What does it mean?”
“A valuable item. That must be the locket, right?”
“Do you think he stole it? And who’s in Chicago? And what sort of deal—?”
She interrupted. “And what’s this, Lloyds hired Pinks? Who is Lloyds and who is Pinks? Are those first names or last names?”
“Or nicknames?”
“And—”
Then the old man moaned. They turned. The one dead eye still stared dully ahead at nothing, but the other eye was now open wide and fixed directly on them. This eye was hard, clear and undeniably angry. Without moving his arm, the old man gestured to them with his one functional hand to come toward the bed. He moaned again—a low, throaty, unnatural sound. His mouth barely opened.
Dorothy and Benchley didn’t move. Should we make a run for it? she thought.
Again the old man made that unnatural groan through gritted teeth. The eye on them was on fire. He stretched out his hand and beckoned them to come to him.
Unable to run away, Dorothy and Benchley slowly approached the bed. She wanted to hide the telegram behind her dress, but clearly Dr. Hurst had already seen that they were reading it. Now they stood by the side of the bed. His hand reached out again, motioning to them to lean toward him. He groaned, plaintively now.
Was he even lucid? she wondered. But the eye was so keen and clear—and so filled with furious intent—that she knew his mind was perfectly aware inside his nearly paralyzed old body.
Reluctantly, she leaned closer. She could see the fine wrinkles and folds in his pale, elderly skin. She could smell his fetid, whiskey-soaked breath between his clenched yellow teeth.
Suddenly his bony hand seized her wrist. He pulled her so close that she looked directly into his one good eye. She was nearly on top of him. Then he spoke in an urgent, creaking voice . . . but she didn’t understand. . . .
He said it again. . . . Was it a word? A place? A name?
Then his clawlike grip released her. Quickly she pushed herself away—away from the old man.
“What is it?” Benchley asked. “What did he say?”
She was still facing the bed. Hurst’s eye was still on her and still sharp, but it seemed desperate now. Not angry. She noticed his hand pointing at something. At himself? At the door? Then he moaned the sound again. It was a low, otherworldly sound. . . .
That was quite enough! She grabbed Benchley’s arm and pulled him with her. Dragging Benchley behind her, she yanked open the door and ran into the hallway. Benchley had only a moment to tug the door closed behind them as she hurried frantically to the end of the corridor and toward the elevator—toward safety.
Still several steps away from the elevator call button, she had her finger pointed out, ready to press it. But before she actually reached the button, the elevator door opened. She ran toward the open door, but the large figure of Doyle stepped out, followed by Jordan, Frank Case and Alexander Woollcott. Dorothy and Benchley nearly collided with them.
“Mrs. Parker!” Doyle said, catching her with his big, bearlike hands. “By Jove, you’re trembling like a leaf. What’s put the fear of God into you?”
“It’s not God I’m afraid of,” she said breathlessly. “It’s that devil Dr. Hurst!”
Chapter 21
Dorothy slouched on her couch in her own little second-floor apartment. Her Boston terrier, Woodrow Wilson, was curled warmly in her lap. She lazily stroked his brindle-colored head with one hand while she sipped from a glass of brandy with the other.
“Well?” asked Doyle impatiently, standing directly in front of her. His thick arms were folded over his barrel chest, and his droopy eyes looked disapprovingly at her. “We’re waiting.”
Also standing in front of her and equally impatient were Frank Case and Alexander Woollcott. Benchley sat a cautious distance away on the opposite end of the couch from her.
Her nerves had almost settled down to her usual indifferent, affable and sarcastic state—almost but not quite.
Woollcott checked his watch for the third time. “Hang it all, Dottie! It’s nearly four in the morning, and there’s still a lot to be done. I haven’t questioned Lydia Trumbull yet. I haven’t quite proven to my satisfaction that Fairbanks made those footprints in the snow on the roof. Furthermore, assuming we can take the word of Mary Pickford at face value, who took the locket from her dresser? And, most importantly, we haven’t even begun to search for the lost body of Bibi, which is certainly still somewhere in this hotel. Now, please, just tell us what Dr. Hurst said to you!”
She sighed and took another sip of the brandy. She hated to make Doyle and Case impatient—but she positively loved any excuse to annoy Woollcott.
Just then her front door opened, and Jordan hobbled in. Poor handsome devil. She perked up at seeing him. Benchley seemed to fidget in his seat.
Doyle turned to the newcomer. “Did you learn anything?”
Jordan shook his head. “He’s out like a light. Whether he’s unconscious or sleeping, I can’t tell.”
“See?” Woollcott said to Dorothy, flapping his hands against his chubby sides. “The man himself can no longer tell us. So it’s up to you. What did Hurst say?”
She stifled a yawn. She couldn’t help it if she was now tired.
Woollcott’s pudgy round face turned red as a tomato. “Speak, you infernal woman! What did he say?”
Benchley said, “I heard him as we ran out—uh, as we hastily departed. Not clearly, mind you. His voice was very . . . hoarse, grunting.”
They all turned to face him.
“Well?” Doyle asked. “What did he say?”
“A name, I think. Ned Besh.”
“Ned Besh?” Woollcott said slowly, doubtfully.
“No, wasn’t Ned,” Dorothy finally said. “It was Ted. Ted Besh. I’m sure of it. I heard him say it twice right in my ear, then the once as we were leaving—Ted Besh.” For once she wasn’t joking or making up a silly name. She was even a little proud of herself for showing restraint, though she knew it wouldn’t last.
“Ted Besh? Ned Besh?” Doyle repeated. He turned to Jordan. “Who is it? Whatever does it mean?”
Jordan shrugged. “Never heard the doctor mention either name before.”
Case tapped his lips with a slender finger. “Give me a moment to go down to the front desk and check the hotel’s register book. Perhaps another guest signed in with such a name.” He turned to leave.
Doyle said, “If you find such a fellow, Mr. Case, don’t knock on his door alone. Come get us, and we’ll go as a party.”
“Yes, that’s just what this long night needs,” Dorothy muttered, placing her empty brandy glass on the side table. “Another exciting party.”
Case went out the door. Doyle turned back to Dorothy. He shifted from foot to foot. He looked at her meaningfully. “Well?” he asked expectantly. “Was there anything . . . more?”
She was puzzled by this, because she had told them right from the start that Dr. Hurst had said only one thing, although he said it three times. Then she remembered the chloroform. That was what Doyle wanted to know about—but Jordan was standing right beside him.
“Uh, no. That’s it. Nothing else,” she said.
She had been about to mention the telegram—but then she remembered Jordan’s warning. He had warned her not to touch anything in Dr. Hurst’s room, so he certainly wouldn’t approve of her taking the telegram. She had left it under her purse on the little mail table by her front door when they had first entered her apartment. She decided not to mention it right now. Maybe she’d bring it up with Doyle later . . . maybe. . . .
Doyle seemed to take her response as a good sign. They hadn’t found the chloroform—which in
dicated that Dr. Hurst might not be implicated. Doyle brightened. “Well, as Mr. Woollcott here said, there’s still much to do. Let’s get to it, shall we?”
“Indeed we shall,” Woollcott said to him. “Why don’t you—”
Doyle didn’t seem to hear him. Instead he started throwing out orders like a commander on a battlefield or a surgeon in an operating room. “Mr. Woollcott, you go downstairs to the switchboard office and call the police. Notify them of our progress and request that they research both the city records and their criminal files for the name Ted or Ned Besh.”
“It was Ted,” Dorothy muttered. “I’m sure of it.”
Woollcott stood with his mouth hanging open. He was not used to being ordered around.
Doyle continued. “Mr. Benchley, you begin the search for the missing body of Miss Bibelot. Start in the cellar, where you last saw her.”
Benchley looked aghast at this command. Go down to the subbasement by himself to look for Bibi’s missing body? Dorothy almost chuckled. Even if she hadn’t seen his expression of sheer abhorrence at that moment, she would have known he would never go looking for a corpse by himself in a dark cellar.
Doyle continued giving orders. “Mr. Jordan, it would be wise if you returned immediately to Quentin’s rooms in case he revives.”
Jordan nodded in agreement and turned to go.
“Mrs. Parker, perhaps you’d better have a good talk with Lydia Trumbull,” Doyle said, now ordering her around. “Confirm that she and Mary Pickford were holed up together in her room just before midnight having a . . . a ladies’ talk.”
Dorothy smiled. What on God’s green earth does he imagine “a ladies’ talk” consists of?
“For my part,” Doyle said, “I’ll return to Mr. Fairbanks’ penthouse to pick up the threads of this murder investigation.”
* * *
Back in the corridor they parted ways. Doyle and Jordan took the elevator up, while Benchley, Woollcott and Dorothy paused in the hallway.
“That Artie!” Woollcott spat. He was literally huffing mad. “Who in the world does he think he is?”
Dorothy was about to respond, He probably thinks he’s the world’s best-selling author, but Woollcott continued to sputter angrily.
“Ordering me around like his maidservant! I’ll be damned if I follow his orders.”
Benchley nodded. “That makes two of us, Aleck. I’m not about to go down to that horrible dark subbasement again—and by myself! Want to trade assignments?”
Woollcott brightened immediately. “By all means, my dear Robert. I’ll search high and low in said subbasement—spiders, spooks and bogeymen be damned. And if I don’t turn up the body of Bibi Bibelot, my name’s not Alexander Woollcott! That’ll show that Artie smarty-pants who’s the real detective around here.”
Dorothy and Benchley exchanged a knowing look. But Woollcott was already heading toward the stairs to the lobby. When he was out of earshot, she turned to Benchley.
“Before going to the operator’s office to call the police, would you care to escort me to Lydia’s room?”
“Escort you, Mrs. Parker? Are you afraid you’ll get into a rumble with Miss Trumbull?”
“No, I’d just like some company.”
A moment later they reached Lydia’s door. Dorothy knocked. There was no answer.
“Sleeping, perhaps?”
Benchley knocked, harder this time. Still no answer.
Dorothy remembered all the varieties of sleeping pills and sedatives on the table next to Lydia’s bed. Benchley banged on the door again.
“She’s sleeping like the dead.” Dorothy had said it innocently enough—but thinking over what she had said, she became alarmed.
“Lot of that going around tonight,” Benchley said, equally alarmed.
He banged on the door even harder. “Miss Trumbull! Are you all right?”
Dorothy hit her fists against it, too. This hurt her hands, which prompted her to try something simpler. She grasped the knob—and turned it.
Surprisingly, the door was unlocked.
“Well, sure,” Benchley said to her, “if you want to do things the easy way.”
They shoved the door open. The bed, where Dorothy had left Lydia, was empty. But the bedsheets were turned down and rumpled.
She stepped inside. “Lydia? Are you in here?”
The room was silent. Dorothy went to the bathroom and turned on the light. It was empty, too.
When she stepped back into the bedroom, Benchley was standing beside the bedside table and looking at all the bottles. “My oh my! She has enough sleeping pills here to knock out an army for a week. And what, pray tell, is this—?”
He was looking at something behind the bed stand. He bent down and picked up a brown bottle. Dorothy hadn’t seen that when she had been here before. He read the label. “Found it!”
He turned the bottle so Dorothy could see it.
“Chloroform!” She grabbed the bottle. “And look who the prescriber is . . . Quentin Hurst, MD!”
“But how did Lydia get her hands on it?” he asked. “Would Dr. Hurst have simply given it to her?”
“Hurst? That old skinflint? Obviously not. Lydia must have stolen it from his medical bag.”
“When? How? And why?”
“The why is obvious,” she said. “To put Bibi’s lights out.”
She hefted the bottle in her hand. For such a small bottle it was rather heavy—almost full.
“Lucky you found this,” she said. “Imagine if we’d carried on thinking Dr. Hurst had somehow used it on Bibi—at least, that’s what Arthur Conan Doyle seems to think. We’ll have to disabuse him of that notion since Lydia used this potion.”
“Well, it’s a natural assumption,” he said. “Dr. Hurst had the chloroform in his bag. Bibi had the chloroform marks around her mouth. And for at least part of the party Dr. Hurst was visibly angry at Bibi. Doyle just added them all together.”
“And he came up with the wrong conclusion. The creator of Sherlock Holmes isn’t quite up to the detective skills of his creation. Then again all the road signs did seem to point to Dr. Hurst, almost as if—”
But she paused. Something seemed amiss.
“Almost as if . . .” Benchley finished her thought for her. “He was framed?”
“Exactly.” Dorothy began to grow alarmed. “Why isn’t Lydia here? Where is she? And what is she doing?”
“You don’t think—”
“Dr. Hurst! First she killed Bibi and framed him in the bargain. Now he’s up there lying helpless—vulnerable as a cream puff.”
Together they ran out the door and down the corridor.
“Dr. Hurst is not entirely helpless,” Benchley said as they hurried along. “After all, he didn’t seem anything like a cream puff when we were up there in his room a quarter of an hour ago. He seemed positively atrocious. A skeleton come to life. We ran out of there like frightened rabbits.”
“He’s nearly paralyzed, Fred. A child could enter his room and smother him with a pillow.”
“Why would a child smother him with a—”
“It’s a figure of speech. You know what I meant.”
They reached the elevator, and she punched the call button. Then, impatiently, she punched it again. “Lydia could be up there right now. She could be murdering Dr. Hurst as we speak.”
The elevator arrived, the door opened and they stepped inside. Maurice, the elevator operator, was nearly asleep on his feet.
“Ninth floor, and step on it,” she said.
Maurice hardly seemed to stir, but he got the elevator going just the same.
“But explain this,” Benchley said to her. “Why would Lydia even bother to smother him with a pillow? What’s the point? Dr. Hurst can barely speak.”
“Put yourself in Lydia’s shoes. You’ve already killed once tonight, probably on the spur of the moment with hardly any planning. Luckily for you, almost everyone seems to suspect that someone else did it. After all, Dr. Hurst was the one with the chloroform, and he also had a beef with Bibi. Even his friend Sir Arthur suspects he did it. Now, if you’re Lydia, how much easier would it be to completely cover up your guilt by simply smothering an incapacitated old man? No one would ever suspect you. Everyone would think Dr. Hurst had simply died of his stroke—and that he was guilty as charged. You’d get off scot-free.”
“Just a moment,” Benchley said. “Dr. Hurst won’t need to defend himself. Your marvelous Mr. Jordan is up there guarding him.”
That’s true, she thought. Jordan seems terribly protective of his employer. And certainly capable of handling any trouble little Lydia could dish out.
The elevator stopped, and Maurice automatically opened the door. His ancient eyes were just about closed.
They hurried to Dr. Hurst’s room. They were surprised to see the door open a crack. Through the slit, the room looked like a mess.
Benchley pushed open the door. The room was a disaster—clothes, books, papers, medical instruments and suitcases were tossed everywhere.
“Looks like a monsoon hit this place,” Dorothy said.
“It did more than hit it,” Benchley said, wide-eyed. “It knocked it into next Tuesday.”
Despite whatever cataclysm had occurred, Dr. Hurst still lay in the bed, immobile and undisturbed.
They stepped in carefully, trying not to trip or slip on the debris that covered the floor. Dorothy noticed that there was an open door to an adjacent room. That door hadn’t been open when they had been here before. And there was a body lying in the threshold.
“Look,” she said. “It’s Jordan!”
The man lay on the cluttered floor in the open doorway. His body was twisted and limp like a wrung-out washrag. They hurried to him.
“Is he dead?” she asked.
Benchley bent down and gingerly rolled the body faceup. “Good news. He’s breathing.”