“Where did they go?” asked Gerald, standing in the open carriage and peering about for a clue. There was no way for Richard to turn the horses easily in the narrow road—that maneuver would cost us valuable time—so he came down from the seat, and we all got out, helped Aleck down from his lofty post, and walked back from whence we had come, with a hobbling and rather disagreeable-looking Alexander Woollcott bringing up the rear. And there, in a narrow alley between two buildings, was the abandoned ambulance, its doors ajar, the stretcher bare.
Hearing the hollow clunking of heavy metal on stone, and then the scrape of a shifting weight, Gerald said, “Aha!” and scanned the area for its source. He walked down to the end of the dark alley, which led into a small, square yard, overgrown with weeds and scraggly, knotted fruit trees. “We need light,” Richard said, and told us he would go back to the coach to fetch one of the oil lanterns that were sometimes used to illuminate its interior. Mr. Benchley told him to stay with me and Sara, as Richard’s shoulder was bleeding and he looked awfully pale. Mr. Benchley soon returned with the lantern.
Gerald took command now.
“Aleck, Sara, you stay here and direct the police in through the yard when they finally arrive.”
“But, where are you going?” demanded Aleck.
“Down into the underground tunnels, if my suspicions are correct.”
“Why can’t I come?”
Sara shook her head and stifled a laugh; Gerald gave him a withering look. “Really, Aleck! Need I say it? Your skirt’s too wide.”
This time Gerald led the way, and when Mr. Benchley asked what he was looking for he said, “The entrance. I’m looking for a covering in the ground, under the overgrowth.”
But the ground was firm like packed earth under the bramble and interwoven grasses of a summer past. The little plot of weeds ended in a five-foot hillock covered in brittle and twisted vines. “It’s here,” said Gerald, and he and Mr. Benchley found and tore away the flap of burlap disguising an iron grate in the wall. The grate lifted away, Gerald whispered, “Let’s go!”
“Go the hell where?” I screeched. “Down in that dark hole?”
“There are hundreds of these around the city.”
“Sewers?”
“No, an underground passage, one of the caves, the tunnels I told you about. Some are offshoots of catacombs. Come on.” And then as he started to descend and found his footing, he smiled at me and said, “That’s all right, darling. Stay put. Someone has to let the police know where we’re going.”
“I’m coming,” I whined, my head aching and my future looking dim. What would I have said to the police? “Ici est où nous used to come quand j’étais ici pendant la guerre?” Perhaps they would take me out for breakfast if I said, “N’avez-vous pas des griddle-cakes?” I spoke almost no usable French. Of course, after they took me away and locked me up, they would understand and shake their heads if I yelled, “American Embassy!” Anyway, they’d find us soon enough. It’s hard to miss a coach-and-four. And Alexander Woollcott. I heard their siren warbling close by. It was only a matter of time before they found the ambulance in the alley.
I ducked down and entered into the dark cave. The three men stared at me ghoulishly in the flickering light of the lantern. “We don’t know how far we are going, and we don’t want to get lost in the maze, so let’s start by dropping markers for our return,” Gerald said. “I’ll leave my vest,” he said, shrugging out of it and dropping it to the damp stone ground when we came to a turn in the carved-out tunnel.
I tried to shake off the heebie-jeebies, but the tinkling drips of water echoed loudly along the stone walls. I expected rats and snakes and spiders to crawl up my legs at every turn, and the musty, stagnant air lent a tomb-like atmosphere to the narrow space. I shivered from the damp and the feeling of doom.
Mr. Benchley laid his miter cap on a shelf-like protrusion of rock as we moved along, guided by the light of Gerald’s lantern. From the distance came echoing voices, but it was impossible to know how far away or from where they emanated. Two paths now presented themselves as the tunnel split into a Y. We stopped and Mr. Benchley and Richard conferred with Gerald, who lowered the wick and concealed the lamp behind Mr. Benchley’s robes. This way we could see if any light was burning around the next corner a couple of hundred feet ahead in each direction. Our eyes adjusted to the darkness, and to our left there shone a faint glow in the distance.
“What do we do now? I asked, dropping my red neckerchief to the ground like a child dropping crumbs in the forest.
“We sneak up on them,” said Richard.
“But, you don’t have a gun. They took it,” said Mr. Benchley.
“But, I have my sword.”
“Not a good match for a gun,” I insisted. “Shouldn’t we go back and let the police handle this?”
“Dorothy’s right,” whispered Richard. “I want you to go back and get the police here. They’re probably at the ambulance by now.”
“Great!” I said, “And how are we to do that without a lantern to see us through?”
“Yes, I see your point . . . . All right, then,” said Richard with a grimace. “Grab a rock from the ground over there.”
“Sticks and stones?”
“Take off your socks, gentlemen, and put a rock inside each one.”
The men were armed with improvised bludgeons—clever, but not the best weaponry. I wore no socks, so I was told to keep out of the way.
Richard took the lead, sword drawn in his hand.
If I were the betting kind (and I am), it wouldn’t be on us four against God-only-knew-how-many killers lurking around the next bend.
Mr. Benchley dashed the light, and slowly we walked along the pitch-black passage, hugging the nasty damp wall for guidance. I kept one hand on Mr. Benchley’s shoulder, the other along the wall. The ground was uneven, and a couple of times I felt my heel slip out from under me on the slimy surface.
This is the stuff of nightmares, I thought.
And then, finally, I could see the faint figures of my friends in the weak light coming from the next turn. I froze, as did Mr. Benchley and Gerald, against the wall as Richard peered around the rocky edge. I was rigid with terror; my pulse throbbed in my throat. With the blow to my head earlier and the tension I was now feeling, I thought my brains would explode out the top of my skull!
And then Richard was gone, and I panicked as next I lost touch with Mr. Benchley. I cringed at my fate, but took a deep breath and started to make the turn toward the raised voices, looking back toward the pitch black from which we’d come, and seeing a reassuringly bright and welcome light instead.
“In here!” I yelled, and the footsteps and calls of men thundered on with more urgency. I let the half-dozen men in armor rush past me into a cavernous room where the frail and courageous Duchess Sofia Louise of Russia was held captive.
Notre Dame de Paris — Where’s Woollcott?
Oh, there he is.
The Final Chapter
The Duchess Sofia is resting comfortably and safely in a secret location in Provence. Major Arbuthnot resides in the same village below the convent where the sisters reside in their life of Christian devotion. He visits the Duchess daily, and is teaching the Sisters of Divine Patience how to win at whist and how to bluff in poker.
Harpo Marx was at first charged with attempting to deface a historic and sacred structure, but he hired a lawyer after the Murphys paid his fine. (Aleck refused to pay it because Harpo had refused to wear the court jester costume he’d rented at great expense.) Anyway, Harpo is famous in France. And as he had not despoiled any of the ornamental carvings, or caused any damage to the noses of the statues along the Gallery of Kings, or broken the ears or chipped the teeth of the gargoyles along the Galerie des Chimères on his climb to the South Tower, and he was nowhere near the West Rose Window (installed in 1220 a.d.), and it was never his fault if there appeared a ding in the glass, he was released with a warning not to try to scale the
Eiffel Tower. (The authorities must have had Harpo figured pretty well by now, for he did intend to do just that.)
Soledad returned Woodrow into my arms when she arrived at the entrance to the tunnel, after having telephoned the Préfet de Police and waking him from his mistress’s bed. As a personal friend and a great fan of her books, he had been a constant resource of information for her mystery stories. It was upon his orders that the police force had launched a dragnet of officers to find the kidnapped Duchess. She admitted having from time to time assisted Richard in U.S. Intelligence affairs, and asked that that fact remain confidential.
The spy ring in Paris and England disbanded and arrests were made for some members’ involvement in espionage, murder, and bombings that were previously attributed to anarchists.
Saul Gold’s body was sent back to New York for burial. He is remembered by those who love literature and poetry.
The Lady Daphne Twinton and the Marquis Ronald Everett Hampton-Crispin-Jones accepted Hemingway’s offer to show them around Spain in July, and the plan included taking me and Mathew and Mr. Benchley, if he could make it, along for the trip. Hem talked about the thrill of the Running of the Bulls and the life-and-death drama of the matadors in the ring at the bullfights during the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona. I wanted to go, but the thought of spending nearly two weeks with Lady Daffy and her Marquis didn’t seem like a good time. And I remembered what Zelda had said about all “the bull.”
Hemingway left his wife, Hadley, a few weeks later after joining her at Schruns, for another woman he’d been having an affair with since before I’d ever met him in New York. Surprise! Pauline Pfeiffer, working for Vogue in Paris, was to become his second wife.
His new assignment as foreign correspondent for the Detroit Register has built self-assurance into Mathew Hettinger, something that his wealthy parents could never buy for him. His job is one most coveted by young reporters, and he is building a name for himself with his weekly syndicated column, Across the Pond, in which he has been reporting on Germany’s admission into the League of Nations, the growing fascism in Italy, and speculation about Trotsky’s expulsion from Moscow. At first, I wondered if Mathew was the secret agent working alongside Richard Hartley. I asked Richard about that.
“The man you said reminded you of Jimmy Durante?”
“Yes! I suspected he was a Bolshevik. He was following us!”
“He was my agent. He’s U.S. Military Intelligence.”
As for Dr. Richard Hartley, he delivered his paper on treatments for infantile paralysis at the Académie Impériale de Médecine and was duly lauded for his work. We had a lovely dinner together before he sailed back to America and to his research institute in Washington, D.C. His life is a busy and complicated one. And whenever he comes to mind, so does that corny expression: that we were like two ships in the night, passing each other on our separate journeys.
Gerald and Sara invited me to spend the summer with them at their home, the Villa America, in August. They will give me a little cottage on the property so that I can work in peaceful comfort and enjoy the lovely, warm, blue waters of the Mediterranean. They are truly a remarkable couple, and I hope to see them often. Mr. Benchley will come for the summer with his wife, Gertrude, and their boys.
I gave back the Cartier watch—in truth, I threw it out the window of my hotel room during an argument with Sewie Collins. He went home, I’m happy to say, and I stayed in Paris.
Before Mr. Benchley returned to New York we had lunch with Hemingway at Lipp’s, a wonderful brasserie where we ordered the pommes à l’huile, as recommended by Hem, a lovely marinated potato salad, and portugaises (oysters), and enjoyed the wonderful icy-cold beer for which they are famous.
I asked Hem, “What is a fine?”
“Brandy. Do you want one?”
“I’m disappointed. I thought it was something exotic!”
After lunch, we relented at Hem’s suggestion that we meet his friend and mentor, Gertrude Stein.
“You are really going to like her,” he said with youthful enthusiasm.
The door of 27 rue de Fleurus was opened by a housemaid, who took our coats. Then we were greeted by a little mousey-brown lady, who gaily ushered us in through the foyer. When Hem inquired if Miss Stein was at home, she replied, “Of course, Ernest, always for you. Miss Stein is outside in the garden. There are early tulips. You’ll find her there.” Off he went to fetch his mentor.
The little brown mouse, a Miss Toklas, asked how I was enjoying my stay in Paris, as she touched my arm and then led me by the elbow into a little parlor.
“Sweet little dog,” she said, patting Woodrow’s head when I had removed his leash. She offered me a chair while she went to prepare the tea. I turned to see that Mr. Benchley had not followed me into the room.
“Hello? Miss Toklas?” I called, but she was apparently off watching water boil.
Woodrow followed me as I retraced my steps and found myself returned to the foyer. Ahead was the front door, and to my left, closed pocket doors. Behind me was the staircase to the upper section of the house. Did Miss Stein have her salon upstairs? Could Mr. Benchley have gone upstairs to wait while Hem went to fetch Miss Stein from the garden?
I heard voices coming from behind the pocket doors, so I slid back an opening through which to peek. Across the room French doors opened onto a garden; Hemingway was standing just over the threshold beside a stocky, wiry-haired woman with a superior air. Although their backs were toward me, I could see affection between them; they looked like a father and son reviewing the day’s work. I spied Mr. Benchley hidden from their view in an alcove of the large parlor, looking at one of the many paintings that crowded every inch of the wall.
“What have you been reading that’s good?” asked Miss Stein as they remained rooted to the spot, looking toward the little garden.
“Poe and H.G. Welles,” replied Hemingway.
Miss Stein shook her head: “One unleashes his nightmares on the world; the other his perverted fantasies. Now, answer the question: What have you read recently that is good and true?”
“I read Sons and Lovers.”
“Yes?”
“By D.H. Lawrence—”
“I know who wrote it.”
“I liked it very much.”
“It’s a terrible book! The man is preposterous! A very sick man—”
“I couldn’t read Women in Love, though . . . .” faltered Hem, almost as an apology, a sort of placating concession to an unintentional insult.
“—a sick man—no! A dead man! Why do you read a dead man?”
“And Aldous Huxley; I like Huxley.”
“Why do you read trash?” she asked, and then: “Never mind, sip your eau de vie and tell me all about your time in New York and your new publisher—they’ve taken your book?”
“Yes. But the editor, Max Perkins, he wants me to remove certain words.”
“Is that bad for the book?”
“I don’t know if it will be good and true.”
“And the company you kept? Those senseless dilettantes your friend, Don Stewart, told you might help you along?”
“No! I mean, yes! They are nice. As a matter of fact—”
“They do nothing of value, I’m told. They make foolish jokes. Une Génération Perdue.”
Hurriedly, Hem tried to stop her as Mr. Benchley had walked out from the alcove and was within earshot. “Please, Miss Stein, I want you to meet Mr. Robert Benchley, who is a friend of Don’s.”
Miss Stein and Hemingway turned from their discussion of dead and trashy authors and the maligning of my friends, as Mr. Benchley said, “Oh, it’s all right, Hem. There’s a little bit of truth in that. The Lost Generation . . . yes, I suppose. Why, a couple of years back, we misplaced Warren G. Harding only to have discovered he had died and failed to tell anyone. And now I hear Miss Stein say Lawrence is dead?”
“Madame,” sounded a voice from behind me. It was the little brown mouse. Gertrude Stein
opened the pocket doors and Woodrow ran into the salon. She stared at me as if I were an interloper.
“You should come with me,” said Miss Toklas.
“Sorry, I’m lost.”
Woodrow lifted his leg on a potted palm.
“The wives have tea with me while Miss Stein discusses—”
Hem’s face darkened with a blush as he bounded over toward me. “I was hoping for something a bit stronger,” I said, circumventing him and, as the bounder that I am, walking full into the room. “Got any scotch in here? I see you do. I’ll have what he’s having,” I said, pointing at the tumbler Mr. Benchley was holding.
Miss Stein looked at me with curiosity in her eyes, as Hem made the introductions: “This is Mrs. Dorothy Parker, Miss Stein.” And he added, to shore up my credentials, “A good writer and poet.”
“I thought you were Mrs. Benchley!” said a horrified Alice B. Toklas.
“So it’s been said,” I replied, and caught Mr. Benchley’s quiet chuckle as I took stock of the artwork. “Nice pictures,” I said, looking around at the collection on the walls before leaning in to scrutinize Picasso’s portrait of Stein. “Admiral Hornblower?”
Fin
Miss Stein
Admiral Hornblower
27 rue de Fleurus
A view of the garden at Gertrude Stein’s
Afterword
Robert Benchley accompanied Dorothy Parker on the S.S. Roosevelt crossing in February 1926 for Hemingway’s return to France. As his decision to sail was made at the last minute, he was put on the cancellation waiting list, so for a while he had no accommodations until he was assigned a cabin. From this bit of information and my imagination I have built my story.
[Dorothy Parker 05] - A Moveable Feast of Murder Page 22