by Alice Duncan
“Yes, Mother. I mean no, Mother. I mean the police aren’t sure yet who killed Mrs. Hartland. And now somebody’s murdered her son. George Hartland was smothered with a pillow last night in his hospital bed.”
A general gasp arose, and yet once more I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. However, Mother surprised me. Although she still scowled, she had a certain gleam in her eyes that I’d only seen there once before, on the night she’d told me about the second séance.
Was it possible that my mother—my mother—was becoming interested in crime? Unlikely.
“I must say that since you’ve moved west, you’ve managed to become embroiled in some excessively unsavory events, Mercedes Louise.”
Fudge. However, I said meekly, “Yes, Mother.”
“I have to admit that the events do possess a modicum of intrigue to the casual observer, however.”
Chloe and I exchanged a quick, shocked glance. “Um . . . yes, I guess they do.” Maybe my earlier thought wasn’t so unlikely after all.
“I suspect those nonsensical people who call themselves spiritualists of having perpetrated the evil deeds. They’re clearly individuals of no moral worth or they wouldn’t be trying to bilk people of their money in the first place.”
“The police are looking very hard at the d’Agostinos. O’Doyles, I mean.” I determined that it would be better for me not to propound the notion that killing the clientele would be bad for the spiritualists’ business. Mother didn’t take kindly to having her opinions doubted.
“O’Doyle?” Chloe asked, a note of incredulity in her voice. “Did you say their name is really O’Doyle?” She burst into tinkling laughter, and it occurred to me that it was the first time in a couple of days I’d heard anyone laugh. National and local events seemed to have stripped people of their senses of humor.
“You mean d’Agostino is an . . . whatever do they call it? An . . . alibi?”
“I think you mean an alias, Mother.”
She sniffed. “I suppose you would know that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, indeedy.”
And then it occurred to me that there were a whole bunch of people included in this investigation who were going by names other than their own. I wondered if Jacqueline Lloyd was Jacqueline Lloyd’s real name. I knew for a fact, since I lived with a man involved in the flickers, that often both men and women will select names other than those given to them at birth as screen names. I hardly blamed some of them, especially if their last name was Mullins, as poor Lulu’s was. Not that there’s anything wrong with the name Mullins, but you must admit it would look queer on a marquee.
Good heavens, what if Jacqueline Lloyd had been born a Mullins? In Enid, Oklahoma? Or an O’Doyle in St. Louis, Missouri? Or even a Hartland? If she were Vivian Hartland’s daughter, for instance, would she be in line for a big inheritance? That would account for her having bumped off George as well as Mrs. Hartland, wouldn’t it?
Whom could I ask about this interesting new possibility? Mr. Carstairs would probably know, but since Miss Lloyd was his client her real name might be considered privileged information. I wouldn’t want for him to break any laws or anything. More to the point, I’d feel really stupid if I asked him and he gave me a long lecture on attorney–client confidentiality rules.
Sylvia Dunstable. I could ask her. Mind you, she was an excellent private secretary and she might believe herself to be bound by the same rules of confidentiality her employer had to obey, but at least I wouldn’t feel like an idiot asking her.
My mother, who had no access to my secret thoughts and wouldn’t care anyway, said, “I do believe the police are being deplorably dilatory in the case. It’s clear to me that the medium and her brother are responsible for the evil doings.”
“Do you really think so?” Mr. Easthope posed his question politely.
“Who else would possibly do such a thing?” Mother demanded.
Silly me, I forgot my earlier resolution and stuck my oar in. “I should think they’d want to keep their customers alive and well. It doesn’t do to kill off your clients if you want to earn a living, does it?”
“Really, Mercedes Louise! You have learned to speak very crudely since you left Boston. Your grandmother must be spinning in her grave.”
I shut my eyes for a second and offered a quick prayer for patience. Mother was right, however. If Grandmother Powell, Mother’s mother, had heard me say that my ear would be smarting for days from the wallop she’d have delivered. I was glad I wasn’t sitting next to Mother, since she’d been known to deliver the same punishment when annoyed beyond enduring. I fear I’d been annoying my mother a whole lot since she’d arrived at Chloe and Harvey’s front door.
That being the case and because it was always possible, if not probable, that if I irked her enough she’d go back home, I said, “Well, both of my grandmothers are buried in Boston, so I don’t suppose they heard me. Besides, they’re dead.”
Chloe pressed a hand over her mouth, either in horror or to smother a laugh. I couldn’t be sure. Francis Easthope cleared his throat. Harvey didn’t even try to hide his grin.
Mother said, “Well, really!”
Buttercup and I retired shortly after that. I couldn’t bear listening to any more of my faults being revealed to the assembled company. And it had been she who, all my life, had told us never to air our dirty linen in public.
I’d have called her a hypocrite to her face, but I feared for my life.
Chapter Fifteen
The report of George Hartland’s death was headline news the following morning. It might have been headline news in the prior day’s afternoon editions, too, but I hadn’t checked.
All the newspapers played up the irony of George’s murder following so closely upon the heels of his mother’s. As I rode down Angel’s Flight, I read what I considered a rather wild theory propounded in the Examiner. According to the reporter, Vivian Hartland in her guise as Hedda Heartwood had dug up so much dirt on so many people that somebody had killed her to keep her from spilling the beans. Which wasn’t the wild part. The wild part was that, according to the reporter, Hedda Heartwood had exacted payment from certain parties in order to keep her quiet.
Hedda Heartwood a blackmailer? Nonsense! Anyhow, what did George have to do with any such fell scheme?
The train came to a halt and I refolded my paper, smiled at the engineer and walked the few short blocks to the Figueroa Building. Every time I approached my place of work these days, I smiled, and not merely because my job meant escape from my mother. The building looked so much spiffier now than it had when Ernie first hired me.
I braced myself before entering the lobby, but I needn’t have. Although she didn’t look any too chipper, at least Lulu wasn’t crying this morning. Nevertheless, I approached her in a gingerly manner. “Good morning, Lulu. I hope you’re feeling better today.”
She left off filing her fingernails and glanced up at me. Her face bore such an expression of tragedy, I wondered if she was practicing for the silver screen or if she really felt that despondent about being suspected of murder along with her brother, the hapless Rupert. I guess I couldn’t fault her if the latter was the case. Or the former, either, for that matter.
“I feel awful,” she said gloomily.
Lulu generally wore very interesting costumes to work. That day she looked positively drab in a gray, drop-waisted dress with no adornment whatsoever. Even her bottle-blond hair seemed dull. What’s more, her fingernails, generally painted with blood-red enamel, today were bare of polish. She couldn’t have looked more funereal if she’d tried.
My heart tugged for her. Patting her hand, I said, “Try not to worry too much, Lulu. I have another theory that I intend to check out this morning. I’m sure we’ll have the real culprit soon.”
She gazed up at me, and I think she’d have appeared surprised if she’d had the energy. “You? You have another theory? What about Ernie and that copper friend of his? Are they both just going to let Rupert
and me hang?”
Although I resented her evident lack of faith in my investigative talents, I didn’t take her to task. She already felt puny enough. “I’m sure Ernie and Phil are working hard on your behalf, Lulu.’
She said, “Huh,” which was pretty much how I felt.
After sighing deeply and patting her hand once more, I headed for the staircase. I tried to walk the three flights of stairs to Ernie’s office at least three or four times a week in order to get exercise, which I understand is good for one’s circulation.
When I unlocked the office door, I got a shock when I realized Ernie had been to the office and left again already. On the usual morning, I got to work a half-hour before he did. Not today. He’d even left a note on my desk:
Mercy,
Gone to meet with Mrs. Chalmers about her stolen jewelry. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Stay out of trouble.
E.T.
Stay out of trouble, indeed. Scowling, I crumpled the note and threw it at the wastebasket. It bounced off the rim, and I had to scoop it up and throw it out more carefully. I’ll just bet he was meeting with Mrs. Chalmers, although I had my doubts about the stolen-jewelry scenario. Although I didn’t want to think that Ernie Templeton, my employer, would do anything so wicked as have an illicit liaison with a married woman, I wasn’t altogether certain. He was a man, after all, and Chloe had told me shocking tales of how little some men value the sacred bonds of matrimony. Look at our father, for heaven’s sake.
Bother. As I stuffed my hat and handbag into the desk drawer, I felt quite morose and crabby.
For the first time since it had begun doing so, I didn’t appreciate the telephone ringing its stupid head off that day. I needed time to think, and it’s difficult for one to think when the ’phone is constantly jangling in one’s ear.
In between calls, I did manage to get a little thinking done. Ernie and Phil had been discussing blue movies. Who, besides Jacqueline Lloyd, who had an alibi, might be involved in blue movies?
Darned near anyone in Los Angeles, I concluded dismally. I mean a body didn’t have to be a movie star or a famous director or anything like that to break the law in other fields. What commandment of the motion-picture industry declared lawbreakers needed to be in the legitimate motion picture business in order to create illegitimate motion pictures? None that I knew of, although I wasn’t up-to-date on the laws in California. Or anywhere else.
But were blue movies illegal? Darned if I knew. Perhaps they were merely not respectable. I suppose that would be enough to ruin a career or two if the facts ever leaked out. Fiddlesticks.
During a lull in the morning’s ’phone duties, I dashed down the hallway to Sylvia Dunstable’s office. She was on the telephone when I entered the room, so I took a seat in front of her desk and waited patiently. She smiled and gave me a finger wave, and I was privy to her side of a rather boring conversation.
“Yes, Mr. Goldfish. I’ll be sure to tell him.”
Whoever Mr. Goldfish was, he babbled something on the other end of the wire.
“Yes, Mr. Goldfish. I’m sure that’s true.”
More babbling on the other end of the wire.
“I’ll be sure to tell him, Mr. Goldfish, and he’ll be out to your studio this afternoon at three.”
A little more babbling, then Miss Dunstable offered Mr. Goldfish a polite good-bye. To my surprise she gave a comical little roll of her eyes as she hung the receiver on the candlestick.
“A bothersome client?” I asked.
“You have no idea.” She didn’t continue on that vein, so I never did get to know who Mr. Goldfish was or what Mr. Carstairs aimed to be at his studio for. “May I help you with something, Miss Allcutt?”
Now that I was here, I discovered myself embarrassed to continue. Nevertheless, for the sake of Lulu and Rupert Mullins, I felt obliged to do so. “Um . . . do you know anything about blue movies, Miss Dunstable?”
Her eyes opened so wide, my embarrassment deepened to chagrin. “Blue movies?” she said in something of a squeak. “Why on earth do you want to know about blue movies?”
“Oh, dear. I’m sorry. I know that sounded stupid. But I interrupted Ernie and his policeman friend, Detective Bigelow, yesterday, and they were talking about blue movies. Since they’d been cloistered together about the Hartland case, I thought the reference might have some significance to the case.”
“I can’t imagine why.” Miss Dunstable’s tone had turned rather chilly.
“Well, but . . .” I hesitated, mainly because my upbringing was getting in my way. Again. But, really, in Boston, one never asked people about other people whom they suspect of acting in blue movies, for heaven’s sake. I told myself to snap out of it. “But if Miss Lloyd used to act in blue movies and Hedda Hartwood found out about it, do you think she might have killed Mrs. Hartwood to keep her from spilling the beans?”
“Good heavens, Miss Allcutt! Miss Lloyd has done no such thing!”
I felt really stupid. “Oh. Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
I sighed heavily. “Then there’s probably no significance to the reference to blue movies, but the police insist upon believing that Rupert Mullins killed Mrs. Hartland and that an accomplice of his must have killed Mr. Hartland, and I was hoping to find another culprit.”
Softening, Miss Dunstable folded her hands and laid them on her desk. “Well . . . I know you’re a friend of Miss LaBelle—”
“Sort of,” I said, interrupting. Then I was ashamed of myself. I was Lulu’s friend, darn it, no matter what my mother might think of her. “I mean, yes, I am. And I’m sure neither she nor Rupert Mullins had anything to do with the Hartlands’ murders. Why would they want to kill them?”
“I’m sure I have no idea,” responded Miss Dunstable. “But you must know that murders are committed for the silliest of reasons. Sometimes for no reason at all. Motive is about the last thing the police look for in your average, everyday murder.”
I felt my eyes widen. This was new stuff to me. “They don’t? My word! Why not?”
A little sigh preceded Miss Dunstable’s next words. “Because most murders are committed in fits of passion, when a person isn’t thinking clearly. When one is carried away with emotion, one doesn’t necessarily react sensibly to a situation.”
“Ah,” said I. “You may be right.”
“Oh, I’m right,” she averred positively. “Believe me. I’ve been Mr. Carstairs’s secretary for some time now, even before his clientele became more . . . um . . . respectable, I guess is a good word, than it used to be. He used to have to defend perfectly detestable people, most of whom didn’t have a motive for living from day to day, much less for doing an evil deed or committing a violent crime.”
“Hmm.” I sat there in silence for another minute or two, and Miss Dunstable continued to gaze at me through her terribly professional-looking spectacles. I don’t know what she was doing besides that, but I was thinking furiously. “I suppose you mean . . . people of a . . .” Lord, this was tricky. “Um . . . people of a . . . well, a lower social order who go out drinking and doing other unfortunate things and who get into fights and such.” I’d read about such happenings in Boston. I was sure Los Angeles was no different.
“Not just people from the lower social orders,” she said stoutly. “You’d be surprised.”
“Ah.” I thought some more. “But don’t you think that these Hartland murders have an air of . . . well . . . premeditation about them? That would signify a motive, wouldn’t it? I mean, if we could figure out what that motive might be?”
Miss Dunstable heaved a sigh. “I’m certainly no expert on crime, Miss Allcutt. Perhaps you ought to ask your policeman friend.”
And a whole lot of good that would do, I thought bitterly. Phil and Ernie had their sights set on Rupert and Lulu, and no amount of talking on my part would sway them, the pigheaded so-and-sos. Nevertheless, Miss Dunstable didn’t need to learn of Ernie’s intransigence from me. Let her ke
ep thinking he was a levelheaded private investigator—if she did. From everything I’d gathered thus far in my month-long career as a private investigator’s assistant, P.I.s weren’t held in high regard in much of what passes for society in Los Angeles.
I heaved a sigh of my own. “Yes, of course. I’ll do that.”
Her telephone rang then, startling the both of us, and I decided to go back to my own job. I was far from satisfied, however, and feeling very much alone in my quest for the truth. While I’m sure that Sylvia Dunstable was absolutely correct about your run-of-the-mill murder, if there is such a thing, I was also sure these particular murders had a motive, and probably a juicy one. It wasn’t as if someone had killed Mrs. Hartland and her son in a drunken rage or anything like that. Both of their murders had been carefully planned—premeditated, if you will—and executed. And what an appropriate word that was.
Which got my thoughts spinning in another direction entirely. Gangsters in New York City and Chicago were always murdering each other in what the newspapers called “execution-style slayings.” What if Mrs. Hartland or her son had run afoul of some gangsters? It had probably been her son, actually, since Mrs. Hartland had a successful career as a gossip columnist. I didn’t know a lot about George Hartland, but I did know that he owed money to Mr. Carstairs and was worried about the unpaid debt. Perhaps he was a hardened gambler. Or a drug addict! Now there was an interesting prospect. Perhaps the leader of the drug gang had decided to kill Mrs. Hartland as a warning to George.
Mind you, I wouldn’t consider being poisoned during a séance particularly execution-style, but I knew about as much about gangsters as I did about blue movies.
Which made my mind spin back in its original direction. I was getting downright dizzy. If gangsters were responsible for the murders, where did the blue movies fit in? Or did they fit in at all? Not that gangsters couldn’t make smutty movies and peddle alcohol and drugs. In fact, perhaps they did both all the time. If you’re dealing in one type of crime, I suppose it would be a small step to get into another one. Maybe.