[Dorothy Parker 04] - Death Rides the Midnight Owl

by Agata Stanford

  “What was that Dot? You don’t mind if I call you Dot, do you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Only I am allowed to call her Mrs. Parker,” said Mr. Benchley.

  The woman was a runaway train, and there was no stopping her: “Did they feed you bread and water—I mean, when they threw you in jail? Were they rough with you? I can’t imagine how horrible, horrible—Isn’t the thought just horrible, Roger? Being thrown in jail like that? Did they manhandle you?”

  “It wasn’t the way I would have preferred—”

  “What exactly did you do that got you thrown—”

  “—in the clink?” I asked.

  “The clink! Horrible, horrible! I don’t think I can bear to hear—tell me all about it! Did they put handcuffs on you?”

  “Well, they tried to put me in the paddy wagon—”

  “Horrible, horrible!

  “—but I insisted on—”

  “Did you know that I knew Houdini and he showed me how to get free of handcuffs?”

  “So, if I were to cuff you to that towel bar over there—”

  “I’d be free in a few seconds—”

  “Pity . . . .”

  “I’m what you call double-jointed.”

  “Is that the problem?”

  “And that means I can get out of lots of tricky situations.”

  “That I should be so talented.”

  “But, you have to be double-jointed, you see. Pity about Harry, though.”

  “Harry?”

  “Harry. Harry Houdini. Dead, you know, and just when I was getting to really know him.”

  “What people will do when desperate . . . .”

  “What? Oh, it was easy for him! He always got himself free, did Harry. Nothing could trap him for long! He never failed at an escape, now did he, Roger?”

  “Never failed,” confirmed Roger Mellon.

  “And the man could hold his breath for the longest time—he had to practice all the time—holding his breath, that is, because he was doing his underwater escape?” She barely took a gulp of air before continuing, “Remember that time he just up and disappeared from our dinner party, Rog, said he needed a breath of fresh air? That’s when he was getting ready for the water tank.”

  “I should have paid him more attention,” I said.

  “Why, he could hold his breath—”

  “Show me, show me, dear frantic Hermione,” I implored with a great big grin, talking through clenched teeth in the manner of my hostess, “show me how he held his breath.”

  “Well, you see, first, he would take several big breaths—inhale and exhale—like this, and then—Oh!” She guffawed like a gagging goat, “Don’t be an Airedale! Silly! I can’t hold my breath that long.”

  “How can you know if you haven’t tried?”

  Her mood switched without transition. “Poor, dear Harry, gone now, forever to roam the great unknown.”

  “So true, so true,” tsked Mr. Benchley.

  This scintillating conversation was giving me a headache. As there was a momentary lull in the chatter, I handed Roger my glass for a refill.

  “But, you are out now,” said Hermione.

  “Out? Out of what?”

  “Don’t be an Airedale! Jail, silly!”

  “Yes, but I must say it had its advantages and here with you, now, I look back affectionately at the experience and long for the peace and quiet of my little chigger-infested cell.”

  Hermione giggled coquettishly and then slapped me on the back like a politician before turning her attention back to Woodrow, who’d sought solace on my lap with his head tucked under my arm. “You godda siwwy mama, a siwwy mama!”

  Woodrow whined.

  If Woodrow were to snap, right now, and take off Hermione’s pretty little nose, Roger could sue me, I thought, but he’d get nothing. For I have nothing—no house, no car, no stocks or bonds. . . . Go for it, Woodrow! There are advantages to being poor like me.

  “Oh! I forgot to ask! What is dis wittle feh-wah’s name?”

  “Wood-wow Wilson.”

  “No! Don’t be an Airedale, D! You don’t mind if I call you ‘D,’ do you? Come on, what’s his name for real?”

  I repeated myself.

  She chortled like a sneezing horse. “Why not Al Jolson? Why not Groucho Marx?”

  “Woodrow croons better than Al—”

  “And we already have one ‘Groucho’ in our little gang; two might prove confusing,” said Mr. Benchley.

  “Tsk, tsk,” she said, shaking her index finger at my friend, “Don’t be an Airedale!”

  “Boston terrier, I believe.”

  Mr. Benchley envisioned my imminent explosion, because he turned the topic of conversation to train travel.

  “I’m getting a headache . . .” I said.

  “And who can blame you?” replied Mr. Benchley, with a patient pat on my shoulder, before turning back to ask, “I suppose you are glad to be in back in the States, Roger?”

  “It’s grand to be home, Bobby. We did the grand tour these last three months, and it’s done wonders for my darling.”

  “Oh, it was grand, all right!” said Hermione.

  “But, it is good to return to good old American plumbing,” said Roger.

  “But Roger tells me there are no bidets, in this country.”

  “They were outlawed in New York,” I replied. The absurdity of the quality booze and the inane conversation made my head swim.

  Mr. Benchley said, “I was surprised to see you on the train.”

  “The Rolls—radiator burst a leak, you see?”

  “I’m putting the boy to bed,” I announced, as I rose to my feet, a sleeping pup in my arms. “Thanks for the drink, you all.”

  “A pleasure meeting you, I’m sure,” said Hermione Mellon. Her voice was at a lower pitch, less strident, her demeanor calmer, as if all of her energy had been spent.

  Mr. Benchley wished the couple well, and we were about to depart when Hermione, recovering a bit of her former zeal, said:

  “Oh, D, Bobby—we’d love to have you come out to the Island on Saturday.”

  Mellon jumped in with, “Of course! Bobby, won’t you and Dorothy come to our place on the North Shore? It’s a little celebration—you know, old sport—my darling home again with a few of the crowd?”

  “I can’t wait to see Rogie’s little bungalow that he built for me on Long Island. He’s named it ‘Last Call,’ ain’t that a laugh? He’s told me all about it, and it sounds just grand!”

  “It is grand, all right. Grand Hotel, if you want to know,” I warily chuckled, trying to slip away, but they were blocking the door.

  Mr. Benchley, ever the gentleman—the same cannot be said of me—hedged gracefully. “Well, I will have to—”

  “Bring your wife, Bobby; I’d love to meet her—you are still married to that girl you were courting while in school?” asked Roger.

  “Gertrude—yes, well, I just visited her and the boys; they are spending the rest of the summer on Nantucket. They won’t return home for another ten days. That’s why I’m on the train from Boston, returning to the old work grind.”

  Hermione touched my shoulder in a pleading way. “You’ll join us, won’t you, Dot?” The heady scent of her Guerlain overpowered me.

  For a long second I sought a clever retort, but was too tired, off my game, and my ears were still ringing. Tragic heroine or not, I could feel the soles of my feet itch at the very idea of spending time with this abrasive cow. Perhaps I should be more charitable, but being stuck all evening at a small dinner party and having to listen to Hermione chattering on inanely was low on my list of preferred activities, just above sticking a fork in my eye. I was about to beg off with something like, “I’ll be brushing my teeth on Saturday,” when it dawned on me that a summer weekend on the Long Island’s North Shore was preferable to one spent in my sweltering apartment at the Algonquin. And the champagne would be flowing . . . .

  “A small dinner party,
didjasay?”

  Mellon said, “No, Dorothy, if you were hoping for a quiet dinner party, it won’t be at Last Call this weekend. There’ll be scads of people.”

  Last Call. Clever name for the place. A big party, and there was safety in numbers, I thought. “In that case, I’d love to come.”

  We left the drawing-room, and Mr. Benchley and I walked around the curve in the corridor that led to the bedrooms.

  He scrutinized me holding Woodrow, a babe in arms. “Pretty little fellow; resembles his mother. Wonder what he’ll be when he grows up?”

  “Don’t be an Airedale, you fool. President, no doubt.”

  “They say, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie,’” said Mr. Benchley, as we approached my room, Bedroom Number One, the first on the right side of the hall. “Key?”

  Mr. Benchley took the key from my pocket, unlatched my door, and then bade me good-night.

  I splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth, and, before throwing my weary body onto the bed, opened the newspaper I’d bought at New Haven to accommodate any emergency Woodrow might have during the night. I pulled off the front page—photos of the men under the headline declaring the execution—which I gently folded and tucked in my purse. What remained of the paper was page three and beyond, which I placed on the floor, and there, looking up at me, was a press shot of the Mellons walking down the gangplank of the HMS Victoria docked in Boston Harbor earlier in the evening.

  “Be a good wittle boy, wittle doggie, and do your business here,” I said, turning off the lamp.

  I awoke with a start. I don’t know what startled me. I don’t remember hearing a noise, and the rhythm of the train felt steady, uninterrupted. Woodrow, who’d been sleeping at the foot of my bed, sat up, stared at the door, his head tilted in canine query. He leaped off the bed and sniffed at the door, then stepped back and assumed a pointer’s pose.

  “Go back to sleep, Woodrow,” I said, after I glimpsed the time on the bedside clock: three-twenty-two. Woodrow rolled out a low growl.

  “Woodrow?” I said, and then lent an ear to what was going on outside my bedroom door. I heard a tapping—two taps, as if someone had knocked on a door. I was about to lay my head back down on the pillow when I heard the taps repeated.

  “Come back to bed,” I hissed at my pup, who whined in response. I fell back on my pillow, and within seconds the rocking of the train pulled me gently back into unconsciousness. But, not for long.

  Two taps, and Woodrow’s head popped up again, and then he pirouetted around the floor, repeating his rendition of Whine and Growl.

  Annoyed and uncomfortable—the events of the day, the heat and general exhaustion made me irritable—I threw off the damp sheet and threw on my kimono while mumbling various expletives on my way to the door. Woodrow had the curiosity of a cat and I’d get no rest until I showed him that nothing was amiss.

  “Awwight, awweady! I don’t know what’s so interesting out there, but look,” I said, throwing open the door to allow Woodrow to investigate. Like a brave little soldier he stepped out into the hall. He turned left, then right, and then looked up at disgruntled me. “Nothing! Nobody!” I hissed, as I blindly peered out into the dimly lit corridor. The hall was cooler than inside my room. I turned on my heel and stepped back in and like a stiff-jointed zombie I started for the window near my bed.

  Although the knob was turned for a full blast of cool conditioned air, the result was no better than the fan circulating the hot air. Better to sleep with the window open, even if I woke up in the morning with a dusting of soot all over me. Better than to awaken drenched in sweat. I leaned over to pull up the window sash, but as I was about to yank the sticky frame upward, I saw reflected in the glass against the black night a peculiar glint of light and the fleeting glimpse of a figure passing in the hallway. I turned quickly to see who was standing at the threshold, but no one was there. Probably a porter passing through, I thought. I forced the window open, pulled down the screen, and then went to close my door, but not before peeking out into the hall to see who was out there: No one.

  I heard a click, the sound of another door closing somewhere down and around the curved hallway in one of the compartments or the drawing-room. Perhaps a Harvard boy returning from using the men’s lavatory, which was situated beyond the bank of bedrooms at the front of the car. I closed the door and went back to bed. The breeze through the window was an improvement over the insipid air from the vent, and I thought that if I laid in bed with only a sheet for a cover, I had a chance for sleep.

  Before I drifted off to Dreamland there came a scratching noise at the door. I sat bolt-upright to scold the little bastard, but when I looked about the tiny room he was nowhere to be found. I’d left him out in the hall! Up from the bed, once more, throwing on the kimono, I opened the door. I spotted Woodrow’s little rump turning the curve toward the drawing-room section of the car, and when I followed I saw that he was tailing a man down the hallway. The fellow made a gesture to shoo Woodrow away from his heels, but Woodrow only continued in pursuit.

  “Woodrow, come here!” I commanded, and my dog froze. The man’s attention turned to me for a second, and then he broke into a run, disappearing into the next car.

  Head low, Woodrow made a slow, hesitant return, but not before my next-door neighbor, Mr. Benchley, stuck his head out to investigate.

  “Is everything—”

  “Yes!” I hissed. “Go back to sleep!” I said, rather rudely to my friend, who looked taken aback, and then confused. Shaking and then scratching his head, he blinked a couple of times, mumbled something under his breath, chuckled at some private joke, and then retreated to his room.

  I ushered Woodrow back into mine and was about to close the door when I noticed that the door across the hall was slightly ajar. Aside from a fleeting impression that the lady with “my hat” had, like Mr. Benchley, peeked out to see what the fuss was all about, I dismissed further thought of knocking on her door. It was the middle of the night, no time for socializing, and I was determined to get another couple of hours of sleep before the Midnight Owl arrived at Grand Central Terminal. But sleep was not to be had.

  Our Pullman porter on the Midnight Owl

  Chapter Three

  It wasn’t Woodrow this time, not at first.

  It began with sounds like someone shuffling about, and then deep voices penetrated the edges of sleep. The train had stopped.

  Soon, Woodrow joined in with excited yaps and leaps. My nerves were shot as I made for the door, this time leashing my little monster before venturing out into the hall.

  My first thought was that we’d pulled into New York and the porter had failed to awaken me for the arrival. But the group of men hovering around my door and speaking in hushed tones stood in their night robes, and I realized we were still hours away from our destination, and that their interest was in the room across from mine.

  Through squinting eyes I was about to growl “What the —” when a tousle-haired Mr. Benchley stuck his head out the door.

  “Is everything—”

  “How should I know?” I barked.

  Silenced by contrition and meekly retreating behind the door, he was stopped by a ruddy-faced, burly-bellied man of fifty years who referred to a clipboard and asked, “Mr. Robert Benchley?”

  “I think so,” said my friend, noncommittally.

  The big man persisted: “Are you, or are you not, Robert Benchley?”

  “Last time I looked,” he chuckled, and then seeing that his jaunty remark had not worked well to sweeten the sour expression on the face of the man who had addressed him, he said, “Yes.”

  The man nodded, studied what appeared to be a floor plan and passenger manifest on the clipboard, and then turned toward me. “Mrs. Parker, Dorothy Parker?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “My name is Gum, and I’m a detective with the Pullman Company.”

  I was expecting to hear that there had been a complaint about Woodrow nipping at the heels of the p
assenger I’d seen earlier, but then I realized that the detective would not be conducting that kind of business at this hour of the night.

  “Yes, yes. What is going on here?” I asked. “The commotion is disturbing Woodrow Wilson’s sleep.”

  “Excuse me?” asked the detective.

  “It’s true, you know,” put in Mr. Benchley. “Why, the racket’s enough to raise Warren Harding from his eternal rest, too.”

  Heywood appeared, a pillow track creasing his face and as rumpled from sleep as from life in general. He didn’t say anything, just tightened the sash of his robe. He might have been sleepwalking for all I knew, because he stood expressionless, his eyelids droopy, a silent, observing witness. Ruth came bustling to his side, chattering a dozen questions and complaints.

  Roger Mellon joined the fray, offering his cigarette case around and lighting us all up. “I heard a fuss in the hall,” he said. “Hermione is dead asleep, and I don’t want her disturbed.”

  The Harvard boys snored behind closed doors, enjoying the deep slumber of stupefied minds.

  “What is going on here?” asked Roger Mellon. “Somebody sick?”

  But before he had his answer, the grim Gum turned to face an odd-looking little fellow, who was obviously a physician because he carried a black medical bag and wore a pince-nez that teetered on the tip of his nose and threatened to tumble off into his substantial moustaches. He had appeared, suddenly, from the room opposite mine, Bedroom Two, occupied by the lady with my hat.

  Oh, shit! I thought. The Hat Lady must have witnessed Woodrow’s romp down the hall when she’d peeked out of her room earlier.

  After a quiet consultation with a conductor, and lots of frowning and nodding, the men appeared to reach a consensus. They turned to face me.

  “What?” I whined, on the defensive, if not the offensive. I picked up Woodrow, expecting a scolding by the way the three men stared at us. If Woodrow had peed in the corridor, well, accidents happen, and there were other dogs on the train, weren’t there? Any little package he—I mean, the other dog—might have dropped off—well . . .

  “Who’s the bellyacher turned us in?” I sputtered, throwing a glance at the door across the way. “Shit! You’d think someone had died, the way you’re looking at us!”