The Big Book of Female Detectives

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

  Iris glanced at me triumphantly. “Tell us,” she said sharply. “Tell us. Who is Zelide? Who—is—Zelide?”

  The Beard stared. “A bird,” he said.

  “A bird!” Iris shrugged hopelessly. “Edwina, then. Who is Edwina?”

  “ ’N elephant,” said the Beard promptly. Then his eyes shut once more. He started to snore. The drunken oracle had obviously said his last say.

  “It’s no good, darling,” I said.

  “But—but it’s got to be.” Iris swirled round. “I’ve been with him for hours. That was the only time he answered me. Peter we’ve got to wake him up. We’ve got to get him sober.”

  I looked hopelessly at that vast monument asleep on the couch. I said, “We might try black coffee.”

  “Coffee—yes.” Iris became excited. “We’ll make some. Right now.”

  She hurried into the kitchen. I followed. Cans and percolators and things clattered around, and a few minutes later the coffee was done.

  We went into the living-room together, Iris carrying the coffee on the tray as if it were butter on a lordly dish.

  “I—” she began.

  Then she stopped. Because the couch where the Beard had been so epically asleep was empty.

  Iris put down the coffee. We both started a feverish and unsuccessful search of the apartment, under the piano and everywhere. We went out into the hall. The front door was open, telling its own story.

  “He’s gone,” wailed Iris.

  That was self-evident. The Beard had been far craftier than we had anticipated. He must have pretended to be asleep. And, during the minutes we had spent in the kitchen, he had made his getaway. The priceless bird had flown.

  A mean gray stain of dawn was tinging the sky as we went to bed.

  The first thing that swam into my consciousness when I awoke again at some indeterminate daylight hour was the rustle of paper. I opened heavy eyelids. Iris was standing by my bed, fully dressed, and indomitably beautiful. But I didn’t like the way she looked. It made me suddenly awake. She looked pale and ominous. In her hand she was clutching a morning paper.

  “Hello, darling,” she said brightly.

  “The paper,” I said. “Does it say anything about us?”

  She didn’t speak. She sat down by me and spread the paper out in front of me. It was the front page. At the bottom left corner, I saw the headline screaming about the two mysterious murders. I scanned the column below. There was all the stuff you would expect. Two women killed in different parts of the city…white roses strewn over both. Then there was a paragraph. It read:

  Miss Doris Lomas, Eulalia Crawford’s roommate, surprised two suspicious characters red-handed in the apartment when she returned from a dance. Miss Lomas told the police how she opened the front door of the apartment and saw a man and a woman actually bending over the body of Miss Crawford. They fled when they saw her. But she was able to give a detailed description of both of them…

  Detailed description was right! Miss Lomas had a very keen eye. There followed a description of Iris and me, exact to the last zipper.

  As I read on, distraught, I reached this:

  Mrs. Clarence Stark, who lives in the apartment below, also saw the murder suspects, and her description fits closely with that of Miss Lomas. Already the taxi driver who drove them to Miss Crawford’s apartment from the luxurious St. Anton Hotel has been traced. A second taxi is believed to have driven them from the scene of the crime to the Continental. There the trail ends. But the police are sanguine that soon…

  I stopped. I couldn’t read any more. Iris’s hand slipped into mine.

  “The hunt,” said Iris, “is up. The bloodhounds are in full, baying pursuit.”

  * * *

  —

  It was so indeed. Our worst fears had been justified. Now we were officially stamped as probable murderers pursued by the Law.

  “We’ve only got a little time,” said Iris. “A very little time. And we’ve got to do a lot of thinking.”

  “We needn’t bother thinking,” I said gloomily. “We can save that for the long evenings in the penitentiary.”

  Iris looked at me and decided I wasn’t being co-operative. She went out, and came back soon with a tray of breakfast. Balancing the tray with one hand, she pushed the paper off my lap onto the floor. Then she put the tray down in front of me.

  “Zelide,” she mused. “The Beard called her a bird. Why a bird? We’ve got the facts if only we could put them together. The white rose, the red rose, the crocus and—Edwina, the elephant.”

  She broke off with a sudden little cry. Her body had gone tense. She was staring down at something on the carpet.

  “Peter,” she breathed, “The elephant!” Then she plunged onto her knees by the bedside. I heard her fingers rustling the newspaper wildly. “Peter! I think I’ve got it.”

  I pushed the breakfast tray aside. I rolled out of bed onto the floor beside her. “I saw the advertisement. I never realized.”

  She grabbed my arm and pointed triumphantly at the newspaper. I stared. Staring back at me from a large ad in the paper were three prancing elephants.

  “See, Peter? Eulalia’s letter to Lina. We read it wrong. Eulalia’s writing was so bad. We thought she said, ‘The crocus is opening.’ She didn’t. She said, ‘The circus is opening!’ ”

  Above the elephants, in bold, black letters, were the words: THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN. GALA OPENING TODAY AT THE LAWRENCE STADIUM.

  “That’s the clue,” breathed Iris. “The circus! Why didn’t we guess? Edwina, the elephant. And—and Eulalia had those dolls—those clowns, trapeze artists, and things.”

  “There was a photograph of Lina in Brooklyn,” I cut in, remembering. “A photograph of her all dressed in spangles. She must have been with the circus one time!”

  “So must Eulalia. Carnival dolls! Don’t you remember how The Onlooker said she’d started her career making carnival dolls? That’s the tie-up between them. Now the others. Zelide. That sounds like a circus name, Zelide—the bird. Zelide…Oh, look, Peter.”

  Once again Iris was crouched over the paper. She was pointing at the bottom of the advertisement. There, listed with the other attractions, was the announcement: Madame Zelide, World-Famous Aerialist, with her Amazing Bird Ballet.

  “Zelide—the bird!” exclaimed Iris.

  We stayed there crouched together on the floor, staring at each other.

  “See how it all makes sense now?” cried Iris. “Eulalia and Lina and Zelide—they must all have been together in the circus.”

  “And Edwina the elephant?”

  That didn’t faze her. “Eulalia, Lina, Zelide, and this elephant, Edwina, they all ganged up together and did something connected with roses—something that harmed the man who bites his nails and the man who stutters. That happened in the past. And now the two men are having their revenge.” She tossed back her lovely dark hair and looked radiant. “We’ll be okay now, darling. Zelide will be able to straighten everything out.”

  I clambered back into bed and started eating my breakfast. But I wasn’t given any peace. Iris clambered onto the bed, too, reached over my coffee for the telephone book and started leafing through it madly.

  “What you doing?” I said.

  “Lawrence Stadium,” she muttered. “Lawrence Stadium…Here we are.”

  She dialed a number. Then she began chattering excitedly into the phone to several different stadium extensions, asking for Madame Zelide. Her face, which had been alight with hope, went grave. Then she turned to me, whispering, “Zelide’s not there.”

  I dunked toast in my coffee. “Then ask to speak to Edwina, the elephant,” I said.

  Iris withered me and said into the phone, “Do you know where I could reach Madame Zelide, please?…O
kay…Thanks.”

  She slammed down the receiver. “Zelide,” she said, “is staying at the St. Anton. See how it all ties up?”

  “At the St. Anton?”

  “That explains what happened to us last night. The two gunmen must have divided up the job. The one who stutters was detailed to get Eulalia and Lina. The one who bites his nails was detailed to get Zelide at the St. Anton. While he was there he saw me, mistook me for Eulalia, and figured his buddy had slipped up on the job. So he tried to kill me. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  Iris picked up the telephone again. She dialed.

  After a brief talk with someone at the St. Anton she hung up disconsolately. “It’s no good, Peter. Zelide went out last night and she hasn’t come back yet—or called.”

  “I thought as much,” I said darkly. “Farewell, Zelide—corpse number three.”

  She laid her head against my shoulder. It was nice, even though it did get in the way of my breakfast. She seemed to be thinking. Finally she looked at her watch. “The circus begins at two.”

  “So what?” I demanded.

  “So—we go to the circus.” Iris pushed herself around so that she was staring vehemently into my face. “That’s the only place we can hope to find out anything.” She paused. “You never know. Maybe we’ll even stumble into the Beard there. Don’t they have bearded men in circuses?”

  “Bearded ladies, darling,” I said. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe the Beard is a lady.”

  Iris patted her hair and looked far away.

  “The Beard is not a lady,” she said. “You can take that from me.”

  VI

  It was about one-thirty when we left the apartment. Iris was elaborately glamorous in an outfit which culminated in an exotic Dietrich veil. I, very Palm Beach and groomed, sported a pair of heavy sunglasses. The veil and the sunglasses were a forlorn attempt at disguise. The aggressive chic was intended to disconcert policemen, too; because Iris had the bizarre theory that the more over-privileged you seemed the less criminal you looked.

  We made the circus, unmolested. And the moment after I’d bought ringside tickets and we’d joined the festive throng scrambling into the great stadium I felt more secure.

  Iris looked at her watch and said, “It’s going to start any minute, Peter.”

  “So—what do we do?”

  “Zelide, of course.” She looked tense through the veil. “We’ve got to see if she’s come. We’ve got to warn her before the performance begins.”

  We both looked around through the crowd. Iris said, “Downstairs to the side shows. That’s the way to get backstage.”

  We started wriggling and pushing through children. We were running down broad stone stairs, and finally, with a kind of breathless rush, we reached the broad, long basement where the side shows were.

  We stopped then, and stared.

  Animals were everywhere, in cages with lurid, jungle backdrops. Macaws, flaming scarlet, were screeching and the tallest man in the world was sharing a sandwich with a tattooed lady. Strolling toward us, hand in hand, were the fat woman and a little golden-haired midget.

  We hurried to the fat woman and the midget. Iris asked urgently, “Where can we find Madame Zelide, please?”

  The midget jerked with a tiny thumb over her shoulder. “Dressing-rooms back there, lady. They’ll tell you.”

  We left them and hurried on through the animal cages toward the rear of the basement. There, at the end of the long room, we found ourselves in an insane outcrop of elephants. Elephants were everywhere.

  Iris gave a little exclamation, pointed, and breathed, “Peter, look! Edwina!”

  I looked, and she was right. The legendary Edwina was quite definitely there. She was in an open stall of her own in regal solitude, a vast brown elephant with tree-trunk legs, vague kindly eyes, and an immense pink ribbon around her neck. A message hung on the stall said in large letters: EDWINA, THE OLDEST ELEPHANT IN CAPTIVITY.

  “Edwina,” said Iris in an awed whisper, and fluttered with her hand. “If the Beard’s right, Peter, she knows the whole truth about the roses.”

  Edwina lifted her trunk into a sort of essebend, flicked her ears above the pink ribbon, and whistled. And then, from the distant arena, a crash of cymbals blared.

  The circus had begun.

  I said urgently, “We’d better get to Zelide.”

  There was an archway ahead. We hurried to it and found ourselves at the mouth of one of the vast entrances to the arena itself. Here there was wild activity as the opening parade started swaying out into the ring.

  Iris grabbed a clown. “Zelide?” she said, “Where’s Zelide’s room?”

  The clown pointed backward. “Down the corridor, first to the left, first to the right—the third room.”

  We scurried on to Zelide’s room.

  Iris knocked on the closed door. Nothing happened. She knocked again.

  “She’s not there, Peter. She—” Impulsively Iris pushed the door inward. I stepped in after her. The room was empty. I closed the door behind us.

  The room was tawdry. It smelled of stale make-up. A curtained closet bulged with theatrical costumes. There was a cluttered dressing table. And a mirror above it, encircled with pinned-up photographs.

  * * *

  —

  I went to the dressing table and looked at the photographs. Iris was with me. All the pictures were of the same woman—a blonde with a dazzling smile. They were all signed scrawlingly: Zelide. The face was dimly familiar. Then I remembered the photograph at Lina’s home.

  “We’re on the track,” I said. “Lina had a photograph of Zelide, at her house.”

  “And the doll at Eulalia’s,” breathed Iris. “Do you remember the little blonde doll in tights that was on the desk by Eulalia’s head? That must have been Zelide, too.”

  We looked at each other.

  “What are we going to do, Peter? She isn’t here. It’s no use staying.” Then, desperately, “She can’t be dead, too.”

  She broke off. She was looking down at the dressing table. Balanced precariously between jars of cold cream was a brown-paper package. It had Zelide’s name on it and a plastering of stamps. It was marked: URGENT, RUSH, SPECIAL DELIVERY.

  Iris and I had the same idea simultaneously. Both our hands went out for that package. I got it first. Rush, urgent…It might be something. It just might.

  “Unwrap it!” Iris cried.

  I started tearing off the wrappings. “It’s—it’s only a book,” I said.

  But I went on unwrapping it. And suddenly we saw the book. It came out with the back of the dust cover on top. It consisted of a single, large photograph of a majestic gentleman with a magnificent, sprouting black beard.

  “Peter!” exclaimed Iris. “It’s the Beard!”

  I turned the book over. I looked dazedly at the title. It said: CRIMES OF OUR TIMES. And, underneath, the author’s name: EMMANUEL CATT, AMERICA’S MOST DISTINGUISHED CRIMINOLOGIST.

  “The Beard!” said Iris again. “The Beard wrote it. And last night he called himself Pussy, because his name’s Catt,” she added. “Peter, look. There’s a note clipped inside. Open it, Peter.”

  My hand was rather wobbly as I moved to open the book. I pushed the back dust cover off, and it flopped limply. And then I gave a grunt of surprise. The binding under the paper cover was blue—blue with gold lettering. That conjured up sharp memories.

  “This book!” I said. “There was a blue book with gold lettering on Eulalia’s desk. He must have sent each of them a book.”

  There was a note clipped to the flyleaf. It said, in neat, meticulous handwriting: See page 84. Just that. See page 84. Period.

  “Page eighty-four!” exclaimed Iris. “That’s what the Beard said to me. ‘I warned you on page eighty-f
our.’ ”

  I leafed shakily through the book, glancing at the chapter headings as the pages flicked by. One chapter would be called: The Mystery of Something or Other; the next, the Mystery of Something Else. Suddenly I stopped.

  On page 84 began Chapter Eleven. And it was called: The Mystery of the White Rose and the Red Rose. Penciled into the top corner were the words: The Red Rose and the White Rose are out. You must realize your danger, Madame Zelide. E. C.

  “Here!” said Iris, awed. “The solution was here all the time in the book.”

  “Lina can’t have gotten her book,” I said, “because she had not been warned when I got there.”

  Tensely we both stared down, scanning the first paragraph of Chapter Eleven. It read:

  Perhaps the most fascinating of all modern crimes is the strange case of Tito Forelli, the trapeze artist, who hurtled to his death, at the gala opening of the circus in New York on September 18, 1931. To me, the enduring interest of the case lies in two facts: Firstly, that three women, all telling the same story brought a murder conviction where there was no particle of concrete evidence; secondly that the protagonists of the drama bore the fragrant, fairy-tale names of “White Rose,” and “Red Rose.” Forelli’s partners in the trapeze act, the two Rosa Brothers, inevitably earned their colorful names, since one had bright red hair, while the other was prematurely white. They…

  Suddenly Iris breathed, “Peter! Listen. Someone’s coming.”

  I started. We both stood there motionless. And, with a queer kind of menacing distinctness, footsteps sounded on the bare cement of the corridor outside. The ominous human tap-tap, coming closer and closer, made Zelide’s dressing-room a trap.

  We had broken in unauthorized. If we were discovered there might be a scene which would make us conspicuous. And, with the police after us, that was the one thing we couldn’t afford.

  The footsteps were up to the door now. They stopped dead outside. I saw the curtained clothes closet. I grabbed Iris’s arm. Dropping the book back on the table, I pulled her with me behind the curtain, clattering it along the iron rail to conceal us.