The Big Book of Female Detectives

by The Big Book of Female Detectives (retail) (epub)

  “Alexandrite!” cried Randy impatiently. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a stone that’s a kind of red-purple under artificial light and green in daylight,” said Jim Byrne shortly. “I had forgotten there was such a thing—I don’t think I’ve ever happened to see one. They are rare—and costly. Costly,” repeated Jim Byrne slowly. “This one has cost a life——”

  Randy interrupted: “But if Michela knows about the note, why, Tryon may kill her——” He stopped abruptly, thought for a second or two, then got out a cigarette. “Let him,” he said airily.

  It had been Tryon Welles, then, prowling about during the night—if it had been anyone. He had been uncertain, perhaps, of the extent of Michela’s knowledge—but certain of his ability to deal with her and with Randy, who was so heavily in his debt.

  “Michela doesn’t know now,” said Susan slowly. “And when you tell her, Randy—she might settle for a cash consideration. And, Randy Frame, somehow you’ve got to recover this house for Christabel and do it honestly.”

  “But right now,” said Jim Byrne cheerily, “for the sheriff. And my story.”

  At the doorway he paused to look at Susan. “May I come back later,” he said, “and use your typewriter?”

  “Yes,” said Susan Dare.

  DETECTIVE: SALLY CARDIFF

  THE BLOODY CRESCENDO

  Vincent Starrett

  ONE OF AMERICA’S GREATEST BOOKMEN, Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett (1886–1974) produced innumerable essays, biographical works, critical studies, and bibliographical pieces on a wide range of authors and subjects, all while managing the “Books Alive” column for the Chicago Tribune for many years. His autobiography, Born in a Bookshop (1965), should be required reading for bibliophiles of all ages.

  Few would argue that Starrett’s most outstanding achievements were his writings about Sherlock Holmes, most notably The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1933), a comprehensive biography of the great detective, and “The Unique ‘Hamlet,’ ” lauded by Sherlockians for decades as the best pastiche ever written.

  He described himself as a Dofob—Eugene Field’s useful word—which is a “damned old fool over books,” and, when a friend called at his home, Starrett’s daughter answered the door and told the visitor that her father was “upstairs, playing with his books.” Upon Starrett’s death, she offered the best tombstone inscription that a bibliophile could hope for: “The Last Bookman.”

  Among his many fictional works were numerous mystery short stories and several detective novels, including Murder on “B” Deck (1929), Dead Man Inside (1931), and The End of Mr. Garment (1932). His 1934 short story, “Recipe for Murder,” was expanded to the full-length novel The Great Hotel Murder (1935), which was the basis for the film of the same title and released the same year; it starred Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen.

  “The Bloody Crescendo,” often reprinted as “Murder at the Opera,” was originally published in the October 1934 issue of Real Detectives; it was first collected in The Eleventh Juror and Other Crime Classics (Shelburne, Ontario, The Battered Silicon Dispatch Press, 1995).

  The Bloody Crescendo

  VINCENT STARRETT

  TWO CIRCUMSTANCES marked the première of the new opera as notable, even in anticipation. First, and perhaps foremost, it was by all accounts a sensational musical event; something that was going to be talked about in the press and from the pulpit. Second, in spite of her recent scandalous divorce from Palestrina, Edna Colchis was going to sing—and Palestrina was going to direct her.

  The murder of Mrs. Emmanuel B. Letts during the sulphurous first act was, of course, unpredictable.

  From her seat in the Diamond Circle—specifically, the Hassard box (Mondays and Fridays)—Sally Cardiff watched the surge and flow of opulent Chicago, with the little smile of one for whom such spectacles were providentially ordained. When, occasionally, she replied to the remarks of young Arnold Castle, at her side, she did so pleasantly but without removing her eyes from the scene of colorful congestion.

  Young Mr. Castle was cynical. “Fifty per cent of them are here to see what happens between those two,” he observed. “This Colchis now,” he continued irritably, “what do they expect her to do? Blow up in the middle of the performance?”

  His cigar lighter, which he clicked exasperatingly as he talked, was a magnificent affair. It was of gold, by Lemaire, and contained everything but running hot and cold water.

  “If she felt that way,” said Miss Cardiff, “she would not appear at all. But nothing will go wrong. They are both artists—and egotists.”

  “As for the opera,” persisted Castle, “I suspect it has been greatly overrated. They say there isn’t a tune in the whole show. Just discord!”

  She laughed lightly. “Why do you come?” Then she blushed: “Never mind!” Her smiling gaze swung to the nearer boxes and her voice fell. “Mrs. Letts is wearing her fabulous necklace tonight. You see, it isn’t a myth, after all.”

  “It’s vulgar,” said young Mr. Castle. “She’s a lighthouse. Besides, it’s dangerous. In times like these she should keep her jewels in a vault. I wouldn’t feel safe with that thing in a church. Who’s the fat bounder behind her?”

  Miss Cardiff said “Sh!” The fat bounder had turned his head in their direction. Mrs. Hassard answered the question. “That’s Higginson,” she said briefly.

  “Get out!” cried Castle, enlightened. Everybody knew who Higginson was. He was Mrs. Letts’s secret-service department, an ex-prizefighter employed by Mrs. Letts as private detective and, if occasion should arise, slugger. The job was a sinecure, for the police also kept a friendly eye on the exits and entrances of the wealthy Mrs. Letts. It was easier to prevent an attempt upon her middle-aged person than to imagine what might happen to the heads of the department if any such attempt were made.

  “He looks uncomfortable,” added young Mr. Castle.

  Hassard grinned satirically. “He doesn’t like dressing up. He’d be more at home at the back of the house, talking to the fireman.”

  “Do you think so?” murmured Miss Cardiff. “I was thinking that he rather liked his part.”

  “He’s too fat,” observed the critical Castle. “Out of training. Soft living and locking up nights agrees with him. A child could stop him. I think I might even take him on myself,” he added appraisingly.

  Miss Cardiff again said “Sh!” and continued immediately: “Please don’t! I never shall forget the time you tried to thrash a taxi driver.”

  “I won’t touch him tonight,” grinned Castle. “I suppose he’s here to keep an eye on the necklace. Anyway, there are plenty of dicks in the house—eh, Hassard?”

  Hassard thought it likely there were a number of detectives scattered through the house—all as uncomfortable in evening dress as Higginson.

  Sally Cardiff continued to be fascinated by the audience. From time to time she put her glasses to her eyes, the better to observe some specimen of interest. She saw everything. Everything pleased her. The human values represented were, she knew, in large part spurious; but the circumstance had no power to spoil her appreciation of the cosmic whole. Life was like that. And life was exhilarating—quietly exhilarating.

  Mrs. Letts, meanwhile, sat calmly in her chair, nodded occasionally to an arriving acquaintance, but for the most part placid and phlegmatic. She had once been beautiful, and she was still an attractive woman. She had oodles of money—more money than any of the peacocks around her—but she was not a snob. She was simply elderly and a bit tired. She had greeted the Hassards and their party as they came in, and then had forgotten about them. After a time she appeared to nod, and was not shaken from her lethargy until a rapturous burst of applause noted the coming of the famous maestro.

  Palestrina paused in his impressive march and bowed profoundly. The applause redoubled. He raised his baton, and it subsided almost abruptly.
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  “He’s got the hair, all right,” commented young Mr. Castle.

  “Sh!” said Miss Cardiff, for the third time.

  The baton descended and there stole through the house the opening notes of the overture to “The Robber Kitten”—a small, wailing cry from the violins, quickly abetted by the bull fiddles. The audience shivered deliciously. The cry mounted eerily on little cat feet until it was a strident shriek; then it dropped to the first whispering wail. The crescendo was repeated. It was heard a third time. Then all the violins and fiddles went crazy together and filled the auditorium with harsh, discordant sound. This continued for some time. Somewhere in the background of it all a wild, high melody persisted—a tortured, uncomfortable strain—and the brasses joined the uproar, at intervals, with savage gusts of laughter.

  The critics, in retrospect, decided that the whole had been “a succession of unpleasant sense impressions telling a brutal story with dramatic emphasis.”

  Whatever the critics may have thought, the house was stunned; then thunders of applause swept the auditorium. Palestrina turned and bowed in several directions….

  But the questing eyes of Sally Cardiff, at that moment, caught a familiar face in the glow of an orchestra light; and she put up her glasses for a better view. Interesting! The man playing one of the first violins was almost the double of Palestrina, the conductor. They might even have changed places without suspicion—as far as personal appearance went.

  Again the baton was upraised, and again the kitten’s wail crept through the place, to end abruptly with the shriek of the adult felines. And as the wild cry failed the figure of a man stole from the wings, costumed to represent an enormous cat. He was in full evening dress below the jaw, but a furred headpiece set with pointed ears created the impression of feline masculinity; his tremendous mustachios stood out like bristling antennæ. Orlando Diaz, the famous tenor. As Grimalkin, the Robber Kitten.

  He began to sing.

  Nobody, of course, paid the slightest attention to Mrs. Emmanuel B. Letts. Yet it might have been observed that at the beginning of the performance she had leaned forward in her chair—to use her glasses—and that a little later she had leaned back again. In point of fact, she did this several times. Her interest in cats, however, was notorious. She was the patron saint of a cat hospital.

  The performance went on. More cat-eared, whiskered singers stole on and off the stage. The row was terrific. Colchis appeared and sang divinely—if the word may be applied to the singing of an almost diabolic role—and no mishap occurred to mar the flagrant felicity of the situation.

  At the conclusion of the first act the applause was boisterous. Colchis popped in and out of the wings like an animated jack-in-the-box, receiving flowers, while Diaz was even more modest than usual. He was, indeed, the last to appear, to take his bow, and he contrived to lend to the simple act a suggestion of protest. In every gesture he seemed to say that the triumph belonged to Colchis.

  “Smart man,” commented Sally Cardiff, on whom no nuance of behavior was lost. “He minimizes the Colchis triumph by appearing to abet it.”

  But at last the ovations were at an end, and the audience dispersed to the lobbies and lounges to smoke and wrangle over the performance. Many sat on in their seats, among them Mrs. Emmanuel B. Letts, to whom—after a respectful moment—Higginson bent forward and addressed a superficial word. What he said, it developed later, was merely: “Well, modom, what did you think of it?”

  But Mrs. Letts was already quite dead. She was never to know how the story ended. Rather, she was to furnish—for days to come—a news sensation more fascinating than any the city had known in years.

  “Murder!” shrieked the newsboys in the snowy streets, even before the first performance of “The Robber Kitten” was at an end. And then they shrieked: “Murder-wurder! All about the turrible-urrible murder-wurder in the opery-wopery!” Or words to that effect. Emerging from the great casino into the worst blizzard the city had experienced since ’69, the jackdaws and peacocks of the social set were assaulted by the ferocious clamor of the gamins.

  Only a few had the faintest inkling of what had occurred almost under their noses.

  And Mrs. Emmanuel B. Letts sat on in her gilded box, her fabulous necklace still gleaming on her mottled throat, while silent men stood by and waited the emptying of the great barn that had become her tomb.

  * * *

  —

  Robbery, it seemed apparent, could not have been the motive. There was the famous necklace to prove that. Unless the murderer had somehow failed at the last moment. Was it possible that he had—with consummate cleverness—committed his crime, then been forced to escape without his plunder?

  The idea occurred to Dallas, chief of the Detective Bureau, but he put it out of his mind for the time. It seemed unlikely. Jealousy, thought Dallas—or hatred—would be a more likely motive. These wealthy society women! He knew them. They purred and cooed and “deared” one another, but each loathed the ground on which the other walked. For that a woman had turned the trick, Dallas had no doubt at all. It looked, he said, like a woman’s job. Academically, a detective has no right to a strong opinion until he has a fact or two upon which to base it; but in actuality all detectives are prejudiced from the beginning.

  Only two opera parties had been asked to remain—those occupying the boxes immediately adjoining that of Mrs. Letts. It was obviously impracticable to hold the entire audience. But the theater staff was on hand in a phalanx—all the ushers, and the box-office bandits, and the hat-check robbers, and the numerous management. Not to mention a terrified young man and young woman from the audience, who were regarded by Dallas with the deepest possible suspicion. The two had occupied main-floor seats on stolen tickets, which they averred they had purchased from a scalper.

  Around the scene of the crime a magnificent activity was apparent. Detectives from the Bureau and from the coroner’s office dashed in and out of the lethal box. Reporters jostled and quarreled around the door. Flashlights exploded, and the acrid powder smoke drifted out across the vacant auditorium like an aftermath of battle. In the mezzanine lobby beyond the tier of boxes, the presumptive witnesses huddled on long sofas or paced nervously in the deep pile of the carpet.

  Dallas and the coroner sat perilously on the extreme outward ledge of the box, facing the corpse, with Higginson at one side. The background was occupied by two burly detectives from the Bureau.

  “Well, Higginson,” the detective chief began abruptly, “it looks as if the first explanation ought to come from you.”

  There could be little doubt of it, since presumably the man had sat behind the murdered woman throughout the whole first act. There was, however, this in his favor: he had himself reported the demise at the conclusion of that first installment. Thereafter, for two long and ghastly further installments, with Dallas as his shadowy companion, he had continued to sit behind the stiffening body. Somebody had to sit there, to keep Mrs. Letts from toppling from her chair.

  This had been Dallas’s idea. It had occurred to him that nothing was to be gained by stopping the performance and dismissing the audience. And removal of the body would only have created a sensation that he had no wish to father. There was always the possibility, too, that the murderess—if unsuspicious—might return to the scene of her crime. She would hardly dare to leave the building, argued Dallas, thus inviting an individual attention. It was the detective’s whim to ascertain which of the friends of Mrs. Emmanuel B. Letts—female—would first attempt to greet her after the performance. He held a high opinion of the nerve and subtlety of women.

  As it happened, nobody made the attempt.

  Higginson, although subdued, was faintly peevish. He knew Dallas very well indeed. “Honest to God, Chief,” he answered, speaking his own tongue for the first time in weeks, “I told you all I know about it.”

  “Tell me again,” said Dallas
. “I want Marlowe and Duffield to hear the whole story. And the coroner,” he added.

  Messrs. Marlowe and Duffield, of the Bureau, bent their united gaze on the unhappy man.

  Higginson’s wild eye avoided contact with the body in the gilded chair. The incredible scene was now lighted by a blaze of electricity, in which the fabulous necklace glinted and sparkled like a proscenium arch.

  “I got a telephone call, boys,” said Higginson, in a low voice. “That’s the way it was. During the first act. An usher came to the box. He just put his hand in and touched my arm. I was sitting back a bit—just over there. I slipped outside, and he said I was wanted on the telephone. It was a message for Mrs. Letts, he said.”

  “Did you tell her you were leaving the box?” asked Duffield swiftly.

  “No, I didn’t, Duffy.” Higginson also knew Messrs. Marlowe and Duffield. “There didn’t seem to be any use. It was probably some nuisance, I figured, and I could take care of it as well as her. If I’d told her, she’d just have sent me, anyway.”

  Duffield nodded.

  “So I just slipped out and went to the phone myself. It was downstairs in the lobby—the public telephone near the east door. Oh, I know what you’re all thinking! I ought to have known better. Who would call her on that telephone, eh? Who would know the number? I know! Good God, do you suppose I’d have gone if I’d known what was going to happen?”

  “What happened at the telephone, Hig?” The question came from Marlowe. There was a certain sympathy in his voice that Higginson was quick to sense and appreciate.

  “Not a damn thing, Joe! Just a voice I didn’t know, saying, ‘Is that you, Higginson?’ And I said, ‘Yes—who’s this?’ And he said, ‘Hold the wire a minute. There’s an important message coming for Mrs. Letts.’ ”