by Holly Baxter
“What’s the son’s name?” asked Marie.
“Harold. Harry. I only met him a couple of times, but that was enough.” Bernice was buttoning her jacket. “He was a spoiled twerp. He thought he was great, but he would never have the nerve to do anything like that.”
“Maybe he’s changed his spots.”
Bernice laughed aloud. “That’s funny.”
“Why?”
“Spots,” Bernice said. “Harry had terrible acne.”
“I meant he might have—”
“I know what you meant,” Bernice snapped. “It just struck me funny, that’s all. Listen, if Harry Lee inherited any of his father’s property he’d just sell it off as fast as possible, and that would kill Mr. Lee.” She paused to consider what she had said. “Well, you know what I mean. Mr. Lee loves all that junk of his, really hates selling any of it. He tries to tell me all about it, but with all the Hans, Tangs, Chins and Changs, I can’t understand a word of it. I do like the gold, though,” she added. “The gold is okay.” She looked at her watch. “The car must be here by now. I’ll just go look.” She went out of the room toward the front of the house.
Marie wiped her hands on her apron. “That is a very strange girl,” she said. “Last night she was terrified, this morning she’s as cold as ice.”
“She likes the gold,” Elodie said, wryly. “I gather Mr. Lee pays well.”
“Is that it?” Marie seemed unconvinced. “You know, she came downstairs during the night and made a phone call.”
“She did?” Elodie was astonished.
Marie nodded. “I heard her go down the stairs, and I heard her dialing the phone. Couldn’t hear what she said, though—she was whispering.”
Bernice stuck her head through the kitchen door. “The car’s here. Thanks for letting me stay last night, Ellie. And just forget all that stuff I said. I was being silly. And thanks for that swell breakfast, Marie. ’Bye.” With a wave of her hand, she was gone before Elodie could ask her about the phone call in the night.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmured to herself, then looked at Marie. “What do you think about all this?”
“I think two things,” Marie said, opening the ice box to put away the bacon and butter. “That it’s dangerous, and absolutely nothing to do with you.”
“But she came to me for help,” Elodie protested.
Marie opened up the top section of the ice box and checked the status of the ice block within. She seemed satisfied and slammed it shut, turning to lean against it. Her face was very serious. “You heard her, forget it. She’s right, Ellie. Let it go.”
But try as she might, Elodie could not.
Chapter Eleven
Deacon had instituted a search for the elusive guard, but he was nowhere to be found. He thought someone in Chinatown must be hiding him, but breaking into their closed society was as tough as breaking into the Syndicates. Perhaps even more difficult, for the Chinese were naturally secretive and couldn’t be bought. Knowing about Chinese food was not enough to understand the Chinese themselves, despite what Captain Brett thought. The alternative was that the guard had been smuggled out of Chicago, the consul willing to forfeit his bail for the sake of secrecy. Or guilt.
He had no better luck locating the guard’s Tong mentor, Chi’en Pu Yi. He went to the office of the Milton Street Tong, which was over a Chinese grocery, but could find nobody of that name, or indeed anybody who would admit to knowing anyone of that name. Perhaps the guard had made it up—so easy with Chinese names, all of which sounded the same to Western ears. He walked around the streets of Chinatown, hoping to catch a chance sighting of the guard, but to no avail. He had thought he had contacts in the community, but he quickly discovered that his nodding acquaintance with various Chinese families would be useless.
Indeed, there seemed to be a closing of ranks. All smiles, of course, all friendliness on the surface. But any mention of the odd word Elodie Browne had given him proved as disturbing as it had been to the hapless waiter in the restaurant. The usual reaction was almost like fear, followed by a very speedy profession of complete ignorance. Several insisted it wasn’t even a Chinese word. The police had always pretty much left Chinatown to police its own, which it seemed to do with efficiency. Archie remembered hearing some very odd rumors now and again about unpleasant crimes in Chinatown, but nothing was ever reported officially. City policy, he supposed, not to get involved in what they could never understand in a thousand years.
He had even less luck trying to interview Mr. Lee Chang himself. Every time he rang the Lee house, he was offered various apologies and reasons—meetings, illness, out of town on business, and so on. But he was pretty sure Lee was at home, just lying low. The men watching the house reported that the secretary, Bernice Barker, was going there every day. Other people came and went, but after the first couple of days there was no longer any excuse to demand their names or business. The Webster case was officially closed and the police had withdrawn completely from the mansion. Archie Deacon had been warned off making any further enquiries.
It was very puzzling.
Several times he had reached for the phone to talk to Elodie Browne, but stopped because he had to honestly question his motives. Was it because of the case, or because he was attracted to her? He had no idea whether she had told him everything, even now, and she could well be an accomplished liar who was up to her neck in it—although he doubted that. His instinct said she was a good and decent girl. His worry was that she seemed as fascinated by the puzzle as he was. She could cause trouble, she could get into trouble. God save us from the enthusiastic amateur, he thought.
He had little time to worry about it further. There had been a sudden rise in the homicide rate because of some fresh rivalry between the bootleggers. Ever since the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in ’29 there had been intense internecine conflict between the various gangs, especially between Bugs Moran and Capone. Deacon and the other detectives were getting run off their feet in investigations as fruitless as the officially closed Webster case.
Fear and greed ran Chicago now. And from Mayor Big Bill Thompson on down, there was no knowing whose toes you were stepping on, whose ego you were battering, whose bank balances were rising despite the Depression, because behind any smiling face could lurk a Connection.
Sometimes he lay in bed at night and thought about shooting Capone himself. This futile but fascinating challenge often sent him to sleep, wound up in complicated plans for ambushes and methods. And wasn’t that a sign of his own corruption?
He didn’t know who to trust in the Department anymore, either. Brett was obviously compromised by his ambition and pressures from above. Other detectives seemed to be more and more affluent, judging from their shoes, their cigars, and their habits. His own partner had been shot the previous year, and so far he hadn’t found anyone he could work with or confide in.
Nobody was safe anymore. Killing Capone was no answer, Archie knew that. His syndicate was too well organized not to survive his death.
But whether Deacon was in Cicero, Pilsen, the Loop or on Lake Shore Drive, his mind kept on niggling about Webster, Lee, the missing guard, and that damned word.
Mingdow.
If it wasn’t Chinese, what the hell was it?
And what did it mean?
***
For the rest of the week, Elodie tried to concentrate on “Imperial Hotel,” but her mind kept wandering back to Mr. Lee and Suzy’s jade. Finally, on Friday, Sal became exasperated.
“Ellie, where is your brain today?” she demanded.
“Sorry, sorry.” Elodie rubbed her eyes. Sal had had to repeat a line of dialogue three times before Elodie came out of her dream.
“Got a hangover?” Drew was obviously eager for a fellow sufferer to commiserate with.
“Of course not,” Elodie snapped. “I don’t drink.”
“Not at all? Drew said, aghast.
“Well, s
ometimes,” Elodie conceded. “But I never get a hangover because I never get drunk.”
“My God, you must be a lonely soul these days,” Drew said. “Everybody I know gets drunk at least twice a week.”
“Or in your case, every night.” Sal’s voice was sharp and unsympathetic.
Drew shrugged. “I have an obligation to keep the liquor industry alive for the day when Prohibition is ended.”
“My friend the Public Servant.” Sal turned to Elodie. “Really, honey, you haven’t been concentrating at all. If we don’t tie this thing up tight, and fast, we’ll lose it. It’s your idea, remember. If it doesn’t work out you’ll be back writing about corn plasters. Is that what you want?”
“No, of course not.” Elodie was suitably repentant. “I’m sorry, Sal. It’s this Chinese business.”
“Oh, that.” Sal’s tone was dismissive. “I thought you’d got that out of your system.”
“I haven’t heard from Bernice all week,” Elodie explained. “Mr. Lee’s office is still closed. And when I phone her at home she’s never there. Her mother sounds pretty worried, said Bernice is always at Mr. Lee’s, comes home late and goes straight to bed, and never says anything to anybody but hello and goodbye. That’s not like Bernice—she’s always been really flighty and kind of crazy. In a nice way, I mean.”
“What’s a nice way to be crazy?” Drew wanted to know.
“She’s…fun,” Elodie said. “A little wild, a little scatty, but all right. Not the other night, though.” She had told them about Bernice’s scare and the change in her the following morning. Sal and Drew were sympathetic, but not really interested. Their job was “Imperial Hotel.” So was Elodie’s.
“‘Imperial Hotel’ is your chance to come big, honey,” Sal said, earnestly, lighting yet another cigarette. “There’s good money in this radio writing racket, believe me. And you’ve got the ideas and the imagination for it, you think the right way. You could do really well if you’d just concentrate on what we’re doing here.”
Elodie was contrite. “You’re right, I’ve been stupid,” she said. “I won’t let you down anymore.”
“It’s yourself you’d be letting down,” Sal said, firmly. “Now, what are we going to do about the dead man in Suite 404?”
***
Dixon: I got a responsibility, Mr. Dunning.
Dunning: I know that, Dix. But bringing in the police could do the hotel’s reputation untold damage.
Dixon: I ain’t gonna be no part of any cover-up. Us hotel detectives have got a bad enough reputation as it is. I try to run my side of things on the up and up. That guy didn’t just drop dead, he was murdered. It’s clear as a bell. If you won’t call the cops, I will. I have to, Mr. Dunning. It’s my job.
Dunning: Are you sure he was murdered? I mean, there’s no blood…
Dixon: I guess you didn’t take a very close look. He was strangled with his own bathrobe belt. And by somebody he trusted.
Dunning: Why do you say that?
Dixon: He was in his pajamas, for crying out loud. You don’t let just anyone into your room when you’re in your pajamas. And he was strangled from behind, so he had his back to the killer. Do you turn your back on someone you don’t trust? What did he do, anyway? What was his game?
Dunning: (uneasily) He was a salesman, that’s all.
Dixon: Selling what?
Dunning: (clearing his throat) I don’t really know.
Dixon: Then you’d better find out, and fast. Because the cops are going to ask questions. A LOT of questions.
***
“How about diamonds?” Elodie suggested.
“Too obvious,” Sal said. “And if he was carrying diamonds he would have put them in the hotel safe and Dunning would have known about it.
“Maybe he did.” Drew regarded his shoes at the far end of the sofa. He scissored his feet back and forth. “Maybe Dunning did it and that’s why he’s trying to get Dix to cover it up.”
“Why do you keep trying to get rid of Dunning, for heaven’s sake?” Sal demanded.
“He bores me.” It was late and the weekend loomed ahead. Drew was getting eager to start some serious drinking.
“That’s just silly.” Elodie was very fond of Dunning’s character, he was complex and sort of hard to figure out, but his heart was in the right place, she was sure of it. “Mr. Dunning is a pivotal character.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Silence. “Drugs,” Drew said, suddenly. “He was a pharmaceutical salesman. Had access to all kinds of stuff, samples.”
“That’s good.” Sal cheered up immediately. “Go on.”
“Maybe he had information about some new kind of drug.” Elodie, too, had caught the spark. “Maybe he wasn’t selling drugs, but information to some rival company.”
“And?”
“And once he’d sold the information he was no longer useful and so they killed him,” Elodie finished.
“Or else he was going to confess.” Drew’s scissoring feet speeded up. “He found out something, knew too much, got scared and they killed him to shut him up.”
Like Webster, Elodie thought. Like Webster.
Sal was writing furiously. “Go on,” she demanded.
Drew was sitting up, now. “Is Suite 404 adjoining?”
“I don’t remember.” Sal scrabbled among the pile of notes and jottings on the table between the two couches. “I think so.” To help them visualize the hotel, they had actually spent one morning doing an entire physical layout of the building—public rooms, bedrooms, suites, service areas—to make it more real and to retain the logic of movements and patterns. “Yes.” Sal’s finger stabbed down on one of the sketches.
“We have to put someone good in the next suite, then,” Drew said. “Someone absolutely too good to be true, above suspicion, all that. And he would be the killer.”
“Or she,” Elodie said.
“Better, better. Someone you’d never guess.”
Like a guard you’d just hired to protect your treasure house, for instance, thought Elodie.
“What about a doctor?” she suggested.
“Great, doctor, drugs, nice connection,” Sal muttered.
***
Doctor Manning: I didn’t hear anything during the night, Inspector. I sleep very heavily.
Police Detective: Do you know the deceased?
Doctor Manning: Why should I? He was just another guest in the hotel.
Police Detective: He was a drugs salesman for Lippert Pharmaceuticals. Do you know the name?
Doctor Manning: Of course, they are one of the biggest companies of their kind in the country.
Police Detective: I hear they’ve been having a hard time lately. Lost a lot of money in the Crash, had to lay off a lot of people.
Doctor Manning: I don’t understand the connection.
Police Detective: According to my sources, they were about to launch a new drug of some kind.
Doctor Manning: Yes, I heard that, too.
Police Detective: And according to these sources, another company had a similar drug almost ready.
Doctor Manning: (disinterested) Oh?
Police Detective: And this other company lists you as a consultant, Doctor Manning. The name Hadyn Chemicals mean anything to you?
Doctor Manning: Of course.
Police Detective: According to their Head of Research, a Dr. Thornberry, you have been instrumental in developing this drug of theirs which is very similar to the drug Lippert have produced. Extremely similar. Almost identical, one could say.
Doctor Manning: I don’t see what you’re driving at.
Police Detective: Mr. Proctor sold you information, didn’t he, Manning? And Mr. Proctor thought he deserved more money for that, didn’t he?
Doctor Manning: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Police Detective: We’ve checked the hotel records, Doctor Manning. On four previous occasions, you and Mr. Proc
tor have stayed at this hotel in adjoining suites. How do you explain that?
Doctor Manning: This is a very popular hotel.
Police Detective: It is also a very big hotel, Doctor. But you and Mr. Proctor always specified which rooms you wanted, and you always got them. A perfect set-up to meet without anyone seeing you. Nice long meetings where you could copy all the information you needed to help your company get in first with the new drug. There would be millions in it, wouldn’t there? Millions. And Mr. Proctor wanted his share. STOP HIM! DON’T LET HIM GET AWAY!
***
“I like it,” Sal said. “Needs a lot of work, much too wordy, but I think it will do very nicely for Episode Three.”
“Can I go now?” asked Drew. “Pleeeeze?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, we’re just getting hot.”
“It’s nearly eight o’clock, Sal,” Elodie said, gently.
“Oh, hell.” Sal looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, Ellie. And you said you wanted to get away early, didn’t you? The library or something?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Elodie said. “I can go tomorrow.”
“Looking for fresh ideas?” Drew had swung his feet to the floor, but spoke rather snidely. Obviously his craving was shortening his temper. “Running out of inspiration already?”
“Not at all.” Elodie didn’t bite. “I just want some information.”
“A bit of information to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative?”
“What?” Sal asked.
“Gilbert and Sullivan.” Elodie was surprised by this brief show of erudition. There was obviously more to Mr. Drew Wilson than met the eye. Indeed, she thought, as she watched him wrestling with his overcoat, there would have to be.