Murder Your Darlings

by J. J. Murphy

  “Or been stabbed ourselves,” she said.

  “Exactly,” Woollcott said, his nasal voice rising. “The only question is, why Mayflower?”

  O’Rannigan said, “Maybe one of you had a grudge against old Mayflower. Maybe someone here took a fountain pen and wrote old Mayflower off. You know what I mean?”

  The group reacted angrily. Sherwood was the first to respond. “You can’t think any one of us had anything to do with this atrocity.” He leaned over, trying to intimidate O’Rannigan with his height.

  The detective responded only with a skeptical look.

  “Preposterous,” Woollcott huffed. “If anything, this wicked pen-wielding murderer meant to attack someone in our group. Undoubtedly, the murderer mistook Mayflower for a member and killed him instead of one of us.”

  “That’s a nice theory,” O’Rannigan said. “But wasn’t this Mayflower a drama critic? And I’m guessing you’re also a drama critic. And doesn’t that make him your direct competition?”

  “Well, I—” Woollcott became flustered, then recovered haughtily. “I have no competition.”

  “Not anymore you don’t,” O’Rannigan said, pulling a notepad from his jacket pocket. “Now, let’s hear your names and any connection you might have had with the deceased. Let’s start with you, chubby.”

  Dorothy mumbled, “That’s the potbelly calling the kettledrum fat.”

  “My name is Alexander Woollcott,” he said grandly, ignoring her remark. “I am the drama critic for the New York Times. I am not a murderer. But I knew the deceased, as you call him, as a friendly rival.”

  “A competitor,” O’Rannigan said.

  “Truly, he’s not my competition,” Woollcott sneered. “The Knickerbocker News is not in the same class as the Times.”

  “But you had plans to meet Mayflower here?”

  “He planned it. Mayflower left me a message to that effect. He knows I lunch here every day. The Vicious Circle is an informal yet admittedly exclusive group, and he was not a member. Mayflower indicated he had some petty triumph that he wanted to brag about. Probably wanted to make himself appear superior to me in front of my friends.”

  “Good thing none of them showed up,” Dorothy said.

  “Just wait your turn, little lady. I’ll get to you,” O’Rannigan said. Then he looked up at Sherwood. “How about you, beanstalk?”

  Sherwood spoke slowly and told the detective his name. “I’m an editor for Vanity Fair magazine. I didn’t know Mr. Mayflower personally—”

  “But he knew you,” O’Rannigan said.

  Sherwood shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “I suppose so.”

  The detective tapped his pen to his notebook. “Let me guess. You’re not only an editor. You’re an aspiring playwright. Am I right so far?”

  Sherwood nodded slowly.

  “And Mayflower was a drama critic. You wrote a play and Mayflower panned it. Not just panned it—he crapped all over it. Still on the right track?”

  Sherwood nodded again. “But that doesn’t make me a killer.”

  “Doesn’t make you an innocent schoolgirl either, does it?” O’Rannigan said. He turned to Benchley. “Now, Mr. Mortician, what’s your real name and occupation?”

  Benchley told him his name. “As for occupation, I’m a writer.”

  “Gee, what a refreshing change of pace. What do you write?”

  “I just published a book last year,” Benchley said proudly. “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

  O’Rannigan was astonished. “You wrote that? You’re pulling my leg. I loved that book. Captain Nemo and the Nautilus and all. That was you?”

  “Guilty as charged,” Benchley said, his smile never faltering.

  “Well, I’ll be.” Then O’Rannigan was back to business. “Now, you identified the stiff—the deceased—so that means you knew him.”

  “Only casually, as one knows others around town,” Benchley said. “Saw him at most first nights, but I don’t think I ever actually spoke with him.”

  “First nights? What’s that?”

  The group murmured in derision.The look on O’Rannigan’s face revealed that he knew he’d said something stupid.

  “A first night means the opening night of a play, that’s all,” Benchley said genially. “I’m also the managing editor for Vanity Fair magazine—did I mention that?”

  “Jeez, everybody’s a critic. So Mayflower was your rival, too?”

  “I don’t have an enemy in the world,” Benchley said, almost embarrassed to admit it.

  “We’ll see about that,” the detective said, turning to Dorothy. “Your turn, little lady. I guess you’re a critic, too.”

  “Some might call me that,” she said.

  “Tut-tut,” Benchley said. “Mrs. Parker is making quite a name for herself as a serious poet.”

  “Serious poet?”Woollcott sneered. “She’s hardly Long-fellow. She writes light verse about flappers and puppies.”

  Dorothy shot him a dirty look.

  “Stop right there, Woollcott,” said another member of the group. This man was short, with an enormous nose in a narrow face. His shrewd eyes glistened from under bushy eyebrows. He looked like a supremely intelligent anteater. “Mrs. Parker’s poetry is as light as a bed of nails. Mark my words, she’ll be remembered long after the rest of us are gone.”

  O’Rannigan interrupted. “And who are you? A poetry critic?”

  The man’s voice was gruff. “Franklin Pierce Adams, columnist in the New York World. You’ve heard of me.”

  O’Rannigan was sheepish. “Of course I’ve heard of you, Mr. Adams. You’re the most famous newspaperman in America. Everyone in the country reads your column. First thing I do when I open up the World is turn to ‘The Conning Tower.’ Why, I used to read your articles in the Stars and Stripes during the war.”

  Woollcott snorted, “Most famous newspaperman indeed.”

  “Beg your pardon, sir,” O’Rannigan said meekly to Adams, “but duty requires that I ask your relationship, if any, to the deceased.”

  “I understand,” Adams said, fingering an unlit cigar. “I ran into Mayflower here and there but didn’t know him well. He was one of the older generation of newspapermen. Still, he is—or was—the prize bull at the Knickerbocker. Can’t imagine what they’ll do without him. As for a motive, Detective, I once lent him fifty dollars in a poker game. He never paid me back. That was more than ten years ago. Does that make me a suspect of Mayflower’s death?”

  Woollcott said mildly, “It makes you a suspect in Mayflower’s debt.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” O’Rannigan said.

  “I’ve never seen Mr. Adams lend anyone a dime in a poker game,” Woollcott said. “He wouldn’t lend an ear to Caruso singing the national anthem.”

  Adams scowled. “So Mayflower taught me my lesson—neither a borrower nor a lender be.”

  “And now you’ve taught him a lesson,” Woollcott said haughtily.

  Adams laughed derisively.

  “It does sound strange,” Dorothy observed. “Mr. Adams would sooner part the Red Sea than part with a red cent.”

  Some members of the group chuckled at this.

  O’Rannigan, his face reddened, turned on her. “That’s a fine way for you to talk after Mr. Adams defended your rotten old poetry—” Then a thought struck him. “Just a doggone minute. Where the hell is your Mr. Dachshund? I ordered him to stay right here!”

  Dorothy bit her lip. “I suppose he ran astray.”

  Chapter 4

  “Didn’t you hear me?” O’Rannigan bellowed, inches from her face. “Tell me, where is your Mr. Dachshund?”

  “No, I didn’t hear you,” she murmured. “You’ll have to speak up if you want a person to listen to you.”

  “You know where he is. Take me to him. He couldn’t have gotten far.”

  She and the burly detective locked eyes. Neither one spoke for a long moment.

  Then Woollcott broke the sil
ence. “She rents a suite upstairs. Maybe he’s up there.”

  She glared at him. Woollcott adjusted his small round glasses on his large round face. “Oh, but don’t listen to me. I’m just an old windbag.”

  “Come on.” O’Rannigan grabbed her elbow. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “Without a chaperone?” she said as he tugged her across the lobby. “What will the neighbors say?”

  “Let me join you,” Benchley called, hurrying up behind them.

  She gave Benchley a knowing look.

  Benchley halted. “Then again, maybe I won’t. I have to see a man about a pocket watch.”

  O’Rannigan shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He pulled her toward the elevator door.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I can’t ride the elevator. I have claustrophobia. I panic in confined spaces.”

  “Confined spaces? What do you think of an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell?”

  “Very little. Why don’t we take the stairs? You’re not afraid of a bit of exercise, are you?”

  “I exercise every day.” He puffed out his barrel chest, his heavy torso straining against his tight suit jacket.

  “Every day ending with a Z,” she muttered and turned toward the stairs.

  “What’d you say?”

  “I said, I live on floor eighteen.”

  That stopped O’Rannigan in his tracks. Dorothy entered the door to the stairway. Behind her, O’Rannigan cursed under his breath; then he followed her through the door.

  As soon as Dorothy and the detective entered the stairway, Benchley darted to the elevator and pressed the call button. To his amazement, the door opened immediately. Maurice, the elderly elevator operator, shuffled out.

  “Just a minute,” Benchley said. “I have to go upstairs.”

  “And I have to go to the can. Guess who goes first.”

  Maurice ambled across the lobby. Benchley, helpless, watched him go.

  Finally, Benchley stepped into the elevator. He looked at the controls. He was a disaster with anything mechanical and afraid to fiddle with anything electrical. The operator’s panel of levers, switches and buttons seemed impossibly complex. But he had to get Billy Faulkner out of Dorothy’s apartment before O’Rannigan could bully his way in. Benchley knew she was counting on him. He decided he would take control of the elevator himself.

  He flipped one of the switches and the lights went out.

  Dorothy climbed the next flight of stairs. She called over her shoulder to the detective. “Just so you know, I’m not in the habit of letting strange men into my room.”

  A few steps behind her, she could hear O’Rannigan already starting to breathe heavily. They had only passed the landing to the second floor.

  “Huh, yeah? That Dachshund looks like a strange bird to me.”

  “He’s a perfectly lovely southern gentleman. Are you implying that I can’t land any men other than strange ones? That I have to kidnap them and hide them in my room?”

  “No, but if Dachshund is in your room, you’ll have bigger problems than landing a man.”

  “So you do think I have problems landing a man? This is what it’s come to. Our public servants insulting single women. I should write to my congressman.”

  “I never said any such thing.” He began to wheeze. “Don’t write your congressman.”

  “Now you’re telling me what to do.” Her quick, birdlike movements carried her up the stairs briskly. “I can’t land a man. I can’t exercise my civil rights. What next? I suppose you probably want all homely women shut up in an institution somewhere so they won’t bother you busy policemen. And you won’t have to look at them or think about them.”

  He exhaled forcefully. “No, of course I don’t want all homely women shut up—”

  “So you think I’m homely, do you? That’s what you said just now. I’m homely.”

  “Ah, jeez.”

  Benchley had turned the overhead light back on. He took another hard look at the operator’s controls. But he quickly gave that up and looked at the elevator doorway, which was still open. He knew that old Maurice, as well as every other elevator operator, always shut both the outer door and the inner accordionlike gate before moving the elevator up and down. So that must be the first job to perform. Benchley found the handle for the inner gate but couldn’t budge it. Then he tried the handle for the outer door, but it, too, was immovable.

  How could a frail elderly man like Maurice move these leaden doors, and do so hundreds of times a day at that?

  In times of trouble, Benchley always considered the logical, levelheaded approach, which he then quickly dismissed. He daydreamed instead. He now imagined he was Samson, trying to move a gigantic boulder or a massive marble column. He squared his shoulders, threw back his imagined thick lion’s mane of hair, planted his feet wide, took a grip of the handle with his imagined mighty fists, inhaled a deep breath, then pulled with all his might. He suddenly flew backward and landed with a jarring thump.

  He lay there and said to himself, “Haven’t had one drink today and already I’m flat on the floor.”

  Something had tripped him, he realized. Something had caught at the heel of his foot. He lifted his head and inspected the dusty elevator floor. There, below the operator’s controls, was a large black button set into the floor. It was about three inches in diameter and was raised about an inch off the floor. The button was scuffed and well worn.

  Benchley stood up and tentatively pressed the button down with the ball of his shoe. He winced, but nothing happened. Holding the button down, he again tried the door handle. To his amazement, the door moved easily, and he pulled it closed with a satisfying snap. He tried the inner gate and closed it just as smoothly.

  Of course, one would never see this safety button, Benchley realized. Maurice and every other elevator operator must always be standing on it.

  With confidence now, Benchley took another look at the operator’s controls. He flipped a switch. The lights went out again.

  With the door now closed, it was completely dark inside the elevator. He couldn’t locate the light switch again. He found a lever and drew it toward him.

  The elevator began to move.

  It was on its way up, going fast. Benchley felt his stomach flip and felt the strange pressure of gravity pulling against his body. He looked out through the small, saucer-sized window in the outer door. The elevator was flying up the floors quickly.

  He suppressed a growing anxiety. “Now, what would old Samson do in a pickle like this?”

  On the third-floor landing now, Dorothy waited and watched Detective O’Rannigan slowly climb the stairs one flight below. She tapped a fingernail against the railing and considered how long it would require for the average person to ride the elevator up to her suite, fetch Faulkner, bring him back down to the lobby and whisk him out to an Automat or a coffee shop or some other safe, neutral waiting place. She guessed it would require about eight to ten minutes at the most.

  Since it was Benchley, she doubled that number.

  “What floor do you really live on?” O’Rannigan said.

  “I told you once. First, you imply that I’m a spinster who kidnaps strange men. Then you call me homely. Now you accuse me of being a liar?”

  “I know you’re a liar.” He stood two steps below the landing and now looked her in the eye. “There ain’t no eighteenth floor. There’s no more than twelve stories in this building.”

  “Frank Case would argue that. He says this building has a thousand stories. Sit down and talk with him and he’ll be glad to tell you a few—”

  “Cut the cute talk,” O’Rannigan huffed. His wide, thick shoulders were hunched forward and his browless eyes seemed menacing now. “There’s been a murder committed and you’re doing what’s called obstruction. You keep it up and two things are going to happen. One, things will get rough, even though I don’t like roughing up ladies. Two, I’ll haul you into the lockup overnight just to teach you a lesson. Now, start talking, and don’t
make it cute. Which floor do you live on?”

  Dorothy’s eyes went dull, defeated. “Just one from here.”

  “That’s better.” O’Rannigan brushed by her and began climbing the next flight of stairs. His dull, loud footfalls gave her the beginnings of a headache.

  The elevator continued to rise rapidly and even seemed to be gaining speed, though Benchley knew that was not possible. Then he had an idea. He lifted his foot off the floor button and then braced for a sudden halt.

  But the elevator did not jerk to a halt. It still soared upward.

  “At least I know what they’ll inscribe for my epitaph,” Benchley mumbled to himself. “He rose to new heights.”

  Now he grabbed for the controls, flipping every switch and lever his fingers could find. Suddenly, the light went on. Looking at the control panel, he recognized the main lever and tilted it back toward its center. The elevator slowed and eventually stopped. Benchley sighed in relief.

  Then a loud banging came from the outer door. Benchley pressed his shoe against the floor button and slid open the doors to discover he had reached the top floor, the penthouse suites. And in the doorway, wearing his tennis whites and carrying a racket, stood the motion picture star Douglas Fairbanks.

  “Finally,” Fairbanks said, stepping up into the elevator, which was off by a full foot above the level of the floor. “I’ve been waiting a dog’s age—” He stopped short. “Benchley, is that you?”

  “Certainly it’s me, Douglas.”

  “But an elevator operator?” Fairbanks was aghast. “What kind of a job is this for a man like you?”

  “Oh, well, you know what they say. It has its ups and downs.”

  O’Rannigan stomped along the fourth-floor hallway. “You’re not going to tell me which room is yours, are you?”

  “Sure, I will,” Dorothy said.

  O’Rannigan stopped. She almost bumped into him.

  He said, “But the answer will be a lie, won’t it?”