A Friendly Game of Murder

by J. J. Murphy

  “Do you think Mr. Jordan was speaking the truth—that he found the locket and then it was stolen?”

  She nodded. “The part about it being stolen, yes. Mr. Benchley and I were in his room over there when he discovered that it was missing. His surprise was as real as the cry of a baby. And he did have a big bump on the back of his head. I don’t think he did that to himself just for effect. Somebody clocked him one.”

  Doyle considered this. “So how did he recover the locket in the first place?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps Jordan snatched it from Mary’s dresser.”

  “I suppose it’s possible. Assuming that’s true, who took it from Mr. Jordan?”

  She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Artie.”

  He sat back down in the chair. He gazed at the unconscious face of Dr. Hurst. “Well, Dorothy, your suspicions were quite correct about Quentin’s questionable diagnosis. I went to see the family who seemingly caused this quarantine. Poor blighters. They were all still awake and all very miserable. Two despondent parents of approximately your age, with a rather unhappy four-year-old daughter and a very itchy two-year-old son. I could tell on first glance that they did not have smallpox. They had chicken pox. Not as devastating to one’s health but still very unpleasant. Especially when the whole family is stricken at the same time.”

  “How can you tell one from the other?”

  “Several ways. Smallpox develops from deep in the dermis and generally appears rather evenly scattered across the skin. Chicken pox appear more on the surface of the skin and often occur in clusters,” he said. “But the most telling thing in this case was that no one in the family reported illness, fever or vomiting a few days before the rash appeared. That’s a classic sign for smallpox. Chicken pox, on the other hand, usually has no preceding illness.”

  “So Dr. Hurst was deliberately wrong. And there’s no point to this quarantine?”

  “Apparently not. But, then again, it is keeping the murderer contained in the hotel with us.”

  “You always see the sunny side, don’t you?”

  Doyle stood up. “It’s unconscionable to let that family, and the other guests, go on thinking there must be a quarantine. We’ll have to open the doors by morning.”

  “Since it’s the quarantine that’s keeping the murderer inside the hotel, we’ll have to have this mystery solved by morning?” she asked doubtfully.

  Doyle didn’t answer her. He stared angrily at Dr. Hurst. “What would have made Quentin do such a thing? He’s an eminent physician. He certainly must have known that unfortunate family had chicken pox, not smallpox. What can explain his reason for instituting a quarantine?”

  She picked up her purse, which she had put on the floor. “I have a telegram to Dr. Hurst that may explain exactly that. Remember he received one last night, just before announcing the quarantine?”

  “You’re quite right, Mrs. Parker. He did. I had forgotten all about it. Come to think of it, he was rather secretive about the contents of that telegram.”

  When she opened up her purse, she saw the chloroform.

  “Oh, but first, take a gander at this.” She tossed the brown bottle to him. He caught it handily. “It’s that missing bottle of chloroform you were looking for.”

  Doyle put back on his reading glasses and examined the label. “So it is.” He went to a corner and pulled out Dr. Hurst’s black leather medical bag. He placed the bottle into its appropriate niche in the bag. “Yes, this is most certainly it. Oh dear . . .”

  He sank back into the chair.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  He shook his big head. “The bottle’s been opened. Some of it appears to be missing.” Once again he looked forlornly at Dr. Hurst. “Quentin, you old fool, what have you done?”

  “I don’t think he did anything,” she said. “At least not with the chloroform. I found it in Lydia Trumbull’s room. Remember seeing her at the party? Jet-black hair, ice-blue eyes? Another Broadway actress, but not quite so young as Bibi?”

  He nodded. “Not quite so young, eh?”

  “Actresses and vintage wines have something in common,” she said. “A few years make all the difference.”

  “So I gather that you think it was this Lydia, not Quentin, who used the chloroform on Miss Bibelot?” he asked.

  “Lydia already told me as much. I heard it from her own lips not half an hour ago in Mrs. Volney’s room.”

  “Who is Mrs.—?”

  “She’s the bitter old biddy who was bothering you with medical questions at Fairbanks’ party. But never mind Mrs. Volney.” She waved her hand. “Apparently Lydia killed Bibi with the chloroform.”

  “But did you not just say she’s an actress? How would she know anything about administering chloroform?”

  “Women can do all sorts of things, Artie old boy. For example, Lydia was also a nurse during the war.”

  “She was? How do you know that?”

  “She told me—in between fainting spells. Aleck Woollcott was grilling her.”

  “I see. So she picked up a trick or two as a nurse in a field hospital, eh? That’s quite possible. Nurses doing doctors’ duties and vice versa. I’ve seen with my own eyes that surgical protocol frequently falls by the wayside in the aftermath of battle.”

  “And few battle more fiercely than actresses,” Dorothy said. “So when everyone went down to the lobby before midnight, Lydia must have given Bibi the chloroform, which killed her.”

  He held the bottle up to the light. “Just one moment, Mrs. Parker. The dark glass obscured my observation. Examining it now, I see that there’s only a small amount missing—not even an ounce, I’ll wager. If administered correctly, that might be just enough to render a small or slender person unconscious—a woman of Miss Bibelot’s size and stature, for instance—but it’s hardly enough to cause cardiac arrest and death.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Not unless she drank it.”

  She snapped her fingers. “That’s it. Lydia put it in Bibi’s drink!”

  Doyle shook his head. “No. I didn’t mean to suggest that she actually drank it. I was being facetious.”

  “Skip the facetious and get on with the factual.”

  He smirked. “My suspicions were first aroused when I saw the reddish inflammation of the skin around Miss Bibelot’s mouth—those markings were perfectly characteristic of the old method of chloroform administration. The substance irritates the skin. The better, more modern method is to place a sort of breathing mask on the patient, and drip the liquid onto the mask. But in Miss Bibelot’s case, the chloroform was likely applied to a dry towel or washcloth, which was held over her mouth.”

  “And the chloroform gave her skin a sort of burn. Okay, so she didn’t swallow it.”

  “No. But if this Lydia—the former army nurse—had used less than an ounce of chloroform, it suggests the victim was merely anesthetized. I can’t fathom that she’d die from such a small amount.”

  “Merely anesthetized? So my theory, and the murderer, went right out the window.” Dorothy slumped in her seat. “Ah, who was I trying to kid? Only myself, I guess. Nurse or not, I suppose Lydia would have fainted before she could bring herself to murder anyone. Even Bibi.”

  “Don’t be discouraged,” Doyle said warmly. “Motives and murder aren’t as straightforward as they are in detective stories. Now, what about that telegram?”

  “Right, I almost forgot.” She reached again for her purse and handed him the message. “Take a quick look before Jordan runs back up here with your milk.”

  “Oh, I doubt that. With that clubfoot of his, the one thing Mr. Jordan cannot do is run.”

  Suddenly remembering, she jumped to her feet. “Yes, he can! I just realized I’ve seen him do it—i
n this very room!”

  Chapter 30

  Luigi and Frank Case crossed the dining room and disappeared through the swinging doors into the darkened kitchen. Benchley followed slowly after them. But just as he reached the doors, he heard Case call out.

  “Who’s there? What do you think you’re doing?”

  Benchley quickly shoved open one of the doors. In the darkness he heard a grunt. Then something heavy and metallic was rolling toward them. There was a bang and then the clatter of things crashing to the floor and breaking. Luigi yelled, and Benchley heard him fall down.

  “Frank!” Benchley shouted. “What is it? What’s happening?”

  Case didn’t answer him. Instead the hotel manager yelled, “Stop right there, whoever you are. You cannot come into my hotel and wreck my kitchen—”

  Something whooshed through the air and knocked into Case. He was thrown backward and collided with Benchley, who caught him in his arms.

  Case wheezed, hardly able to speak. “Ow, I think that was our soup pot. Knocked me right in the chest.”

  Benchley lowered Case to a sitting position on the floor. He called out to whoever was across the room. “All right, sir. No hurling crockery, please. I mean you no harm.”

  From somewhere on the floor, Luigi groaned. “Hit me with my own tea cart, right in the coglioni.”

  “That’s hitting below the belt,” Benchley said sympathetically. He realized he was the only one of the three still unharmed and standing, which made him quite nervous. Still he managed to gather his courage and call out. “Let’s declare a truce, shall we? The truce, the whole truce, and nothing but the tru—”

  Something whizzed by Benchley’s ear, clanged against the door behind him, hit the floor with a metallic clunk and skidded to a stop at his feet. He crouched down and picked it up. It was a butcher’s cleaver.

  “So you want to bury the hatchet, too?” he called out shakily. “Just not in my skull, if you please.”

  Something else zipped overhead in the dark. It was another knife. Benchley could tell because he heard it dig into one of the swinging doors with a thunk. Good thing he had hunkered down, or it probably would have plunged into his head.

  Something grabbed on to his leg. Ready to strike, Benchley raised the cleaver. But then Frank Case spoke, his usually smooth voice still a wheeze. “We caught him trying to unlock the back door to the alley. But it’s bolted shut. Then he attacked us.”

  Benchley raised his voice. “Do you hear that, whoever you are? The back door is locked. There’s no escape. We have you cornered.”

  Case gasped, “Mr. Benchley, what are you doing?”

  A sudden flurry of knives, platters, serving utensils and metal pots began flying toward them. Oh dear, what am I doing? Benchley thought. Then he remembered: the tea cart! He dropped the cleaver and reached out. Something hard hit his arm, and he yelped. But he didn’t stop. He found the tea cart and wheeled it toward him for protection.

  “Frank! Luigi! Move over here!”

  He grabbed Case’s arm and dragged him near, then reached out and pulled Luigi toward him. They huddled behind the cart as trays and plates crashed all around them.

  “You saved us,” Case wheezed. “Very selfless of you.”

  “Hardly,” Benchley said. “If something happened to you and Luigi, there’s no lunch. If there’s no lunch, there’s no Round Table. Then what would our little group do each day? Gather on the sidewalk around a hot dog cart?”

  “Very sensible, Mr. Benchley,” Case said wearily. “But now what do we do?”

  Benchley imagined the kitchen when lit—when he had been there earlier with Dorothy and Woollcott. The stove was ahead and to his right. The doorway to the cellar stairs was just beyond that. Somewhere between him and their attacker was the long, wide enamel prep table. (He had left his half-finished glass of scotch on it—probably a casualty of the fray by now, he thought morosely.) A few paces to his left was the big double sink and the drying rack next to it. And near that—

  Benchley suddenly had an idea. He jumped to his feet. Just then something hit him in the head. But it wasn’t hard. He even managed to catch it. A cloth pot holder! That meant two things to Benchley. For one, the intruder was running out of things to hurl at them. For another, once the intruder ran out of objects to throw, he’d likely come charging across the room and start throwing his fists instead.

  Benchley couldn’t hesitate a moment longer. He rushed in the direction of the sink. But he slipped on a tray or something on the floor and went down, and his head hit against the edge of the counter.

  “Ow!” he yelled.

  There was just a moment’s pause—a half second of silence—from the attacker across the room. Benchley sensed that the man was listening for him and lying in wait. The attacker was the well-armed hunter in the dark forest, and Benchley was the poor, defenseless deer.

  “Oh dear,” Benchley mumbled as he stood on wobbly legs.

  That was enough. The attacker grunted in grim satisfaction, and then he was on the move.

  Benchley could hear the man’s quick footsteps—coming his way.

  He reached out and felt the edge of the sink. Then he stretched to the right and searched for the large enamel tub next to the sink.

  The attacker’s footsteps pounded closer—almost here.

  With the pot holder in his hand to protect him from the acidic blue liquid, Benchley flung the drum to the ground. It landed with a deafening crash, spilling its contents of liquid cleanser, forks, knives, spoons and ball bearings all across the kitchen floor.

  * * *

  Doyle rocked back on his heels. “What balderdash are you saying, Mrs. Parker? You saw Mr. Jordan run? Impossible! The poor man is a cripple.”

  Dorothy explained how Jordan had slippers on his feet when she and Benchley had found him unconscious on the floor. And when he hurried to look for the locket, he ran from Dr. Hurst’s room to his own, only to find that the necklace was missing from its hiding place in his shoe.

  Doyle rubbed his chin. “So you think his clubfoot is a fake? That’s monstrously absurd.”

  She paced the floor. “But what if it is? That brings Jordan in as a suspect. He seems to be an adventurous and athletic man—except for the clubfoot. Perhaps athletic and adventurous enough to crawl out the bathroom window, after killing Bibi, that is.”

  “But why? Why would any grown man pretend to have such an infirmity?”

  “Why does any grown man do anything?” she asked wearily. “Usually it has something to do with sex or money.”

  “That’s a womanly point of view,” he said dismissively.

  She stopped in her tracks. “Is it? Didn’t Antony start an entire war just to hop in bed with Cleopatra?”

  “Not exactly. You’re trivializing history, I think.”

  “Am I? That’s a manly point of view. It’s just like a man to take a triviality and start a war over it.”

  He frowned at her. “Now who’s starting a trivial war, Mrs. Parker? Can we please get back to the question of Mr. Jordan’s foot?”

  She hung her head. “I’m sorry, Artie. I was on the receiving end of a browbeating a little while ago, and I’m still sore from it. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

  He smiled kindly. “And I’m sorry I said yours was a womanly point of view. So let’s forget it. Now are you sure you saw Mr. Jordan run? Perhaps he just hobbled quickly, and you mistook it?”

  “Nope. Not a hobble. Not by a mile.”

  “Then why didn’t you realize this before?”

  She considered it. “I think Mr. Benchley and I were so taken aback when Jordan got all worked up over losing the necklace that it completely slipped by us.”

  “Very well, then,” Doyle said. “Let’s take it as a given that Mr. Jordan really
is able to walk normally. And for some unknown reason he’s wearing an orthopedic shoe and pretending to have a clubfoot. Where does that leave us?”

  Dorothy pointed to the yellow square of paper in his hand. “Right back there.”

  “Oh, quite right. The telegram!” He slipped on his reading glasses again. “Let’s see what it says. Hmm . . .” He scanned over the telegram and read bits aloud. “Authorities in England . . . Valuable item . . . Bring to Chicago . . . Lloyds hired Pinks . . . ‘Lloyds hired Pinks’? What does that mean?”

  “Pink elephants, for all I know. What does any of it mean?”

  He continued reading. “Berley brothers on your trail . . . Lose them all . . . If you bring them to Chicago, deal is off. Keep item safe and in good condition—”

  “—or deal is off,” Dorothy said. “The deal is probably the sale of the locket to this guy in Chicago.”

  He nodded. “Quentin did say he was leaving the medical conference early to take a trip to another city. He may have said Chicago, I don’t recall. But he told me he had to give a lecture. Another lie!”

  Doyle practically spat the words at Dr. Hurst’s unconscious body, and Dorothy turned to look at the elderly doctor lying immobile on the bed. She had nearly forgotten he was there.

  “I find it utterly impossible to comprehend,” Doyle said. “Quentin is not only a superb and innovative physician, he’s been a true humanitarian. He has devoted his life to his hospital back in England. He’s the lifeblood of it. You wouldn’t know it to look at him now, but the man is a saint.”

  “The kind of saint who hits you over the head with his Bible?” she asked wryly.

  “It’s true. He’s very rigid in his manner. The classic stiff-upper-lip British gentleman.”

  “His upper lip is so stiff, it’s positively erect.”

  Doyle didn’t take offense. “Yes, Mrs. Parker, I know his prickly personality only too well. And so do his residents and interns. They run like rabbits when they see him coming down the corridor. But believe me, under that thick rusty armor is a bleeding heart.”