by Alice Duncan
"I doubt the poet Robert Browning was the first to have that name," said Ma, as literal as ever.
"Probably not," I agreed, stabbing some green beans with my fork.
And the telephone rang.
All heads, which had been bent in rapt concentration of our marvelous meal, lifted, and the entire family plus Sam stared at me.
"Good heavens," said I, rising. 'Phone calls in our home were nearly always for me. "I don't know who that could be. I've already told Mrs. Pinkerton I'll visit her tomorrow."
"That poor woman is in such a dreadful state of nerves," said Vi, her voice oozing sympathy.
Annoyed at having one of the best meals of my life interrupted by the instrument of torture hanging on the kitchen wall, I yet maintained my spiritualist-medium poise when I plucked the receiver from the cradle. "Gumm-Majesty residence. Mrs. Majesty speaking."
"Oh, Daisy, it's Gladys!" came an agitated voice over the wire.
Gladys. Gladys? Who in the world...? Enlightenment came in mere seconds.
"Gladys! How are you?" Gladys, who used to be Gladys Pennywhistle but who had married a scientist named Dr. Homer Fellowes a year or so prior, was expecting their first child soon. As Gladys seldom, if ever, telephoned me, I was surprised by her call.
"I'm fine, thanks. Oh, but Daisy, something dreadful has happened!"
"I'm so sorry to hear it. I hope nothing's wrong with you or the baby or Dr. Fellowes."
"No, no, no." She sounded impatient, which annoyed me. After all, she'd interrupted my dinner. "But oh, Daisy, a woman named Miss Carleton—"
I interrupted her. Rude, I know, but I didn't think Gladys would like our party-line neighbors listening in on this conversation. "Wait a minute, Gladys."
She said, "I beg—?"
"Will our party-line neighbors please hang up your telephones? This call is private, and it's for me."
Gladys said, "Oh."
We both waited. One click. Two clicks. Three clicks. Nothing. In my sternest voice, I said, "Mrs. Barrow, please hang up your receiver. This is a private telephone call."
Another click, this one sounding irked. Too bad.
"Very well, Gladys, please go on."
"A woman named Mary Carleton was murdered today."
"I know. I was in the library when it happened."
"Were you really?"
"Yes. It was awful."
"I can imagine." Gladys hesitated for few moments then said, "The thing is, she worked closely with Homer at the Institute. She was helping him with his research. Her murder has put everyone working on his project in a terrible fix."
"I can imagine everyone who worked with her is shocked and horrified."
"Yes, but there's more."
"Oh?"
"Yes. You see... Oh, this is difficult to explain."
"Give it a try," I suggested, longing to get back to the dinner table.
"Well, you see, other people are working on the same project, and... Well, Homer is afraid there's something shady going on, but he doesn't know where the problem lies."
I squeezed my eyes closed and shook my head. This telephone call didn't make any sense to me. Whatever in the world did Dr. Fellowes, Miss Carleton, and shady goings-on have to do with each other? I mean, murder itself could be considered shady, but... "Um... Perhaps you'd better explain further, Gladys. As I said, I was at the library today when poor Miss Carleton met her end, and I did understand from Miss Petrie that Miss Carleton had gone to work for the California Institute of Technology, but I... Well, what's that got to do with you and your husband and his project?"
"Can you come to our home tomorrow, Daisy? This is terribly important. I can explain it all to you then. It's probably better not to talk about it over the wire, especially since you have a party line."
After thinking about the matter for approximately half a second, I said, "Of course, I can do that. Give me your address. I have another appointment at eleven-thirty, but I can see you earlier than that. Perhaps nine? Will that be all right with you?"
"Nine is fine. Thank you, Daisy." She gave me an address on Santa Rosa Avenue in Altadena. Altadena was where Mrs. Bissel lived, and it was a lovely community just north of Pasadena. Sort of country-ish, if you know what I mean. Gladys and Dr. Fellowes must be doing all right, money-wise, because that section of Altadena was only just being built up with gorgeous homes. Dr. Fellowes was an inventor as well as a professor at Cal Tech, so maybe he'd made some bucks from one or more of his inventions.
"I'll see you then. Try not to worry," I said in my soothing spiritualist's voice. Not that Gladys had anything at all to do with spiritualism. A less fanciful person than Gladys Pennywhistle Fellowes I'd never met in my life, unless it was my mother. Why, Gladys even understood algebra in high school! What's more, she claimed to enjoy mathematics and science. I suspect my mother did, too, and that's why she worked as a bookkeeper. There's no accounting for tastes.
It was a befuddled Daisy Gumm Majesty who walked back to the family dinner table after she hung up the receiver. What's more, I wasn't sure what to say about Gladys's call. If I told everyone she wanted to talk to me about Miss Carleton, Sam would throw a fit.
Therefore, I decided not to.
"Who was that on the telephone, dear?" asked Ma. She sounded sympathetic, which I appreciated.
"Not Mrs. Pinkerton, I presume, since you don't look riled," said Sam, his sharp eyes trained on me. Suspicious man, Sam Rotondo.
"No. Oddly enough, it was Gladys Fellowes."
"Oh," said Ma, puzzled unless I missed my guess.
"I don't recall a friend of yours named Gladys," said Pa.
"She used to be Gladys Pennywhistle. She was that awful Mrs. Winkworth's secretary back when I was supposed to be spiritual advisor to that insane actress."
"Lola de la Monica?" said Ma. "Good heavens." Lola de la Monica was the aforementioned insane actress.
"Indeed. That was a terrible time." It was as Harold Kincaid and I sat in Mrs. Winkworth's rose garden when Sam came to me with the news that my Billy had taken a lethal overdose of morphine.
"What did she want?" asked Sam. Still suspicious, the rat.
"Just to invite me to her house tomorrow. She's going to have her baby relatively soon, and she said she wanted to show me the nursery."
"She wants you to see her house and nursery? I don't seem to recall her. Were you particularly close or something? I can't remember her at all, and I remember most of your friends," said Ma, remaining puzzled, for which state I couldn't fault her. My lie had been a particularly clumsy one.
"We went to school together, Ma. She was in Lucy's wedding and was worried about her interesting condition showing, but she needn't have. It didn't." Inspiration—or something. You never know about these things until after the fact—struck. "I think she wants to ask me about altering clothes for her or something after the baby gets here."
"Why would she need you?" asked Sam. "Can't she sew?"
"I don't know," I told him, being honest for once. "She was more involved in mathematics and science than home-making classes. Not everyone can sew, you know."
"Huh. Her husband's a professor at Cal—" He stopped speaking suddenly, and I had a sinking sensation inspiration had struck him, too. Crumb. "You're not going to get involved in the case, Daisy. Don't even think about it."
"I can't imagine how Gladys could have anything to do with the case," said I. Which was true, darn it. I didn't know.
"Why don't I trust you?" asked Sam after glaring at me for fully five seconds. Five seconds doesn't sound like a long time until you've been stared at by Sam Rotondo for the duration.
"I don't know, and I think it's mean of you to say that," I said. Turning to my mother, I said, "And why don't you tell Sam he's being rude when he says things like that, Ma?"
My mother said, "He's not the one who's always getting into trouble, Daisy."
"Trouble, my foot." I couldn't win. Nevertheless, I struggled on. "Anyhow, I'll be happy t
o see her new home. It's got to be new, because they're just beginning to break up those huge old estates the millionaires built. The Felloweses lives on Santa Rosa in Altadena. They're building some really fancy homes up there."
"Fancy for a professor," muttered Sam.
"He's not just a professor," I reminded him. "He's the man who invented that thing they used in that flicker, and I'll bet he made a lot of money for it. Kind of like Edison and all his inventions."
Sam had been part of the week from hell, too. He'd hated it. He'd been posted at a motion-picture site as a gesture made by the Pasadena city fathers to show they supported the arts or, more probably, that they appreciated motion-picture money being spent in our fair city. Sam had been miserable the whole time. And he didn't have to contend with Lola de la Monica! She was... Difficult, I believe, is the word people use to describe people like her.
"I remember him well. And his wife," said Sam. "I was surprised when they got together. I thought he was keen on that crazy actress."
"He was at first, but he fell out of love with her and tumbled into Gladys's waiting arms."
"Daisy!" said Ma.
"Fiddlesticks, Ma. It's the truth. Gladys and Dr. Fellowes are a perfect match. He's a scientist and a professor, and she liked algebra in high school."
Everyone looked at me.
"It's true," I said.
Sam shook his head. Pa smiled. Vi and Ma both seemed uncertain.
And we all went back to eating. Except for that one brief interlude, dinner was most excellent.
Chapter 6
Thursday morning dawned crisp and foggy. Pa and I had breakfast together, and he handed me a section of the Pasadena Star News.
"Does it have anything in it about the murder?" I asked as I took the paper from him.
"Not much. Just a reference on the second page."
So I looked on the second page, and he was correct. A paragraph mentioned that a woman named Mary L. Carleton had been stabbed to death in the Pasadena Public Library. Not pleasant publicity for the library, but there you go.
Another article caught my eye. "Good heavens, somebody's holding a dance marathon in order to break Alma Cummings's record of dancing twenty-seven straight hours. That seems a peculiarly useless occupation to me."
"Me, too," said Pa.
"I mean, why would anyone want to dance for twenty-seven straight hours? Dancing is fun, but why make yourself miserable while you're doing it? I don't understand." I began, in fact, to sympathize with my mother, who thought lots of the things people did were absurd.
"Don't ask me," said Pa.
So I didn't pursue the matter. After we ate breakfast, I tidied up the dishes and walked with Spike and Pa around the neighborhood. Then I got ready for my day. I was looking forward to visiting with Gladys. For one thing, I wanted to see her house. But the main reason was that I wanted to know what she knew, if anything, about Miss Carleton, shady goings-on, and what those goings-on had to do with Miss Carleton's untimely demise. And, of course, Gladys's husband and Cal Tech and whatever project Gladys was talking about on the 'phone.
In other words, both Pa and Sam would say I planned to snoop. And they were absolutely correct. You'd think Sam would be pleased with me, since he was unable to devote himself to the case, wouldn't you? Not Sam. The night before, when Spike and I walked him to his Hudson after dinner, he again told me not to pry into the Carleton case. Nerts.
Out of my over-stuffed closet, I chose to wear that day an ankle-length brown striped day dress. It was a couple of years old, but it was comfy, and I planned to do a lot of running around during the morning hours. Besides, it was becoming to my coloring and went beautifully with my emerald engagement ring. We spiritualists have to dress well. With the dress, I wore a brown felt cloche hat I'd made myself, a string of black beads I'd bought dirt-cheap at Nelson's Five and Dime, black gloves, and black low-heeled shoes with a wide strap across the arch. After I'd donned my dress and accessories and eyed myself in the mirror, I thought I looked pretty good.
For confirmation, I asked, "What do you think, Spike? Do I look like a professional spiritualist-medium?"
Spike wagged at me, and I took that as a sign of his approval. So be it. I grabbed my black handbag, my Ouija board and tarot cards—for which I'd made charming embroidered drawstring coverlets—and headed through the kitchen to the dining room. Because I wasn't sure if Pa was still in the house—he often went visiting—I walked through the dining room to the living room. Sure enough, Pa was there, reading the latest copy of The National Geographic. My Billy had adored that periodical, and I'd kept up the subscription after his death because I couldn't bear to part with anything Billy had loved so much.
"Going to visit Gladys, Pa," I called.
He looked up and smiled at me. "As usual, you look like a fashion plate, sweetheart. You really dress well, don't you?"
"I do my best," said I, trying not to feel guilty about my abundance of clothes. In my defense, I made them myself, often from patterns I copied from various fashion magazines I read at the library. And I always bought the material at Maxime's or Nash's when they had fabric sales. Plus, I made clothes for the entire family. The only one who didn't appreciate my enterprise was Spike. "I thought this would go well today, since it's so cold."
"Yes. I nearly froze on our walk."
"I did too, although I was pretty well bundled up."
"You aren't bundled up now," Pa observed, eyeing me critically.
"I'm going to snag my black coat before I go," said I, matching my actions to my words and heading to the coat stand beside the front door. "Oh. Sam left his hat here last night. Maybe I should take it to him."
"Maybe you should," said Pa with another smile.
So after I donned my coat, I snatched Sam's brown fedora and headed back to the dining room and the side door. When I got into the Chevrolet, I carefully placed Sam's hat on top of my Ouija board and headed to Gladys's house on Santa Rosa Avenue.
Santa Rosa Avenue in Altadena is lined with deodar trees. You might have read, as I had, Rudyard Kipling's book, Under the Deodars, which contains stories set in India. These Altadena deodars weren't awfully tall yet, but when I read about them in the library, I learned they'd keep growing and generally lived up to a hundred years. They were native to the Himalayas, which I thought interesting as the weather in the Himalayas couldn't be the same as the weather here in Pasadena and Altadena. The trees were planted in the 1880s, and the entire street was supposed to have been the main approach to the John P. Woodbury mansion. The mansion had never been built because of some financial reversals suffered by Mr. Woodbury. Now the estate acreage had been broken up into lots, and people had begun building homes there.
A couple of years prior to the day of my visit to Gladys, Mr. Nash, of Nash's Dry Goods and Department Store, got together with the local Kiwanis Club to hang a number of Santa Rosa's deodar trees with electrical lights at Christmas time and let people drive or walk up the street. If you were in an automobile, you had to turn off your lights in order to get the full glory of the ride. Folks, including yours truly, loved it. In fact, we loved it so much, the tradition has continued, if you can call a four-year-old event a tradition. Now we call Santa Rosa "Christmas Tree Street," sort of like folks referred to Orange Grove Boulevard as "Millionaire's Row."
Anyhow, I drove up Marengo to Woodbury Drive, turned right, and took a left on Santa Rosa. The deodars were clumsy-looking trees that were considerably prettier at night with Christmas lights blazing on them than in the stark daylight, but I didn't mind. I couldn't help but stare out the window at some of the new homes going up. They looked nice, not to mention expensive. When I got to the address Gladys had given me, I had to make another left and drive across a little bridge over a deep ditch, into the Fellowes's driveway.
It was nine o'clock on the dot when I rang the doorbell to the Fellowes's home. It was a pretty place with a pointy roof (I think you call those pointy things gables) and lots of wi
ndows. It looked cheerful and inviting, which surprised me a little, as neither Gladys nor Dr. Fellowes seemed the least bit cheerful upon first meeting. Heck, I'd known Gladys for years, and she still didn't seem cheerful to me, although she wasn't a miserable old grouch like some other people I could mention but won't.
As if she'd read my mind, Gladys appeared anything but cheerful when she answered the door. "Oh, I'm so glad you came, Daisy. I hope you can help solve this thing." She ushered me into the front entryway, which led into the living room. I glanced around, pleased with what I saw.
"This is a nice home, Gladys. It's very pretty." Lame, but true.
"What?" Evidently startled, Gladys peered first at me and then at her surroundings. "Oh, yes. Thank you. We like it. Homer helped design it."
"Did he really? I'm impressed."
"Yes. He's a clever fellow. But that's not why I asked you to come over. Let's sit down in here." She marched to the living room.
Very well. All business, our Gladys. I sat in a comfy wing chair. The Fellowes's living room was painted white, and there was a beautiful Oriental carpet on the floor. The chair upon which I sat was a deep burgundy color, which went well with the carpet. Gladys plunked herself down on a burgundy sofa across from me.
"I really do like this house, Gladys. It's darling."
"Thank you. But I didn't ask you here to talk about our house."
All righty, then.
Suddenly she sat up straight on the sofa. "Oh," said she. "I forgot. I should probably offer you some tea or coffee or something, shouldn't I?"
"I don't need anything," I told her.
"Oh, Daisy, I'm sorry. You know I've always been so... not a gracious hostess, I guess is what I mean, and I forget the social niceties sometimes. I don't mean to be rude."