by Alan Handley
“We’d better get on back to rehearsal. It’s after one.” I suddenly wanted to get out of this room very badly. “Ready?”
“Is there anything else missing?” I hurriedly looked in the closet, through the dresser drawers and on the table by the bed. Those and a couple of chairs were my furniture.
“No, I don’t think so. At least I can’t think of anything now. I didn’t have time to go through old letters, but there couldn’t be anything in them that anyone would want.”
“No compromising ones?” Maggie tried to smile. Under the circumstances, it was a pretty good attempt.
“Not a one. Only…”
“Only what?”
“Nothing. Come on, let’s go.” Something was hanging around in the back of my mind waiting to be thought of, but it wouldn’t come and we were already late for rehearsal. In the cab, going up, neither of us said anything until around Herald Square. I had been trying to think of what it was that kept scratching in the back of my brain, and Maggie had been thinking, too, and had come to a conclusion.
“Timmy, you’re going to the police. Right after rehearsal. You’re going to see somebody and tell them the whole thing. It’s silly going on like this and we’re not going to take any more chances.” I’d thought of that, too.
“But what’ll I tell them? That we don’t think Nellie died of heart failure? You do agree with me there, don’t you?”
“I’m not so sure about that, but I do think there is something definitely off-color about this last little episode.”
“But the police were the ones that said it was an accident.”
“That was just the cop on the beat. They’re not supposed to know anything about things like that. They are just supposed to take in drunks and steal apples…and rattle doorknobs. But we can look up the nearest precinct in the phone book and go see whoever is in charge.”
“Oh, now you’re going with me? Well, at least that’s some comfort, but I still don’t know what I’ll tell them or what you can expect them to do. They can’t dig up Nellie.”
“Never mind about Nellie. They must have pulled her apart when they had her and if there had been anything strange there, we would have heard about it. But this other thing—you’ve got something to go on. There must be fingerprints and things like that. They’ll know what to do.”
“I took care of all the fingerprints, I’m afraid. I don’t even know where that bottle is now, unless Helga has it, and I wiped the top of my dresser off myself. There was blood on it.”
“Well, how did they get into your room, then? Or how did Kendall get in, for that matter?”
“The cop was of the opinion that I didn’t lock my door, or that Helga left it open when she cleaned it….” All at once an idea hit me. “Jan,” I said.
“Who’s Jan?”
“Helga’s little boy. He has some pixie friends. He knows where she keeps another pass key. Maybe he let Kendall in. He did me the other night when I’d given my key to Kendall and he forgot to give it back. I’ll see him tonight.”
“Take him over to the station with you.”
“I’m not sure that a four-year-old child is the best witness, but you’re right. I will. Right after rehearsal.” We pulled up in front of the stage door. There were some stagehands standing outside it on the sidewalk, and when we went in we realized that it was Saturday and the show playing there had a matinee. The doorman told us that Mr. Frobisher had left word that the afternoon rehearsal would be at his apartment in case he had neglected to inform the cast, which he had us.
We got another cab and beat it over to Sutton Place. With all this rushing about, Maggie was going to have spent all her first week’s salary on cabs alone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AS WE WERE TAKING THE ELEVATOR up to the apartment, Maggie said that maybe it would be better if we didn’t mention all this business to the rest of the company.
“There’s no point in getting them all excited. You know how actors are. They’ll want to make a big thing of it and then, if we’re wrong, we’ll feel pretty stupid.”
When we got there the butler opened the door and it didn’t matter that we were late. They were still on the second act. Frobisher looked up and nodded to us and motioned us to chairs at one end of the room. We sat down and watched the rehearsal.
Frobisher gave them a ten-minute break before starting the third act and everyone came over to us and wanted to know how Kendall was. When we told them he was dead, they were all duly sympathetic.
“It’s probably just as well,” said Miss Randall very practically. “The pain would have been awful.”
“Has somebody made arrangements for burial?” said Mr. Frobisher. “I don’t imagine he had any money.” I told them that there was a brother who had taken care of all that already. “Why ever do you suppose he did it? Did he leave a note?” Maggie and I looked at each other. We hadn’t thought of that. I’d look through his room as soon as I got back unless Helga had beaten me to it.
“No, I don’t believe he did. It was just an accident. They said at the hospital that it was acute alcoholism as well as shock that did it. He didn’t have too long to live anyway.”
“It’s really awful, you know.” Paul Showers was looking a little pensive. “You’ve no idea how famous he was. They still mention him at the studio. Pictures must have been a lot more fun in those days if you were on top. Now it’s like a factory. Theater, too, for that matter. Look at this show. Does Louise here demand a string quartet?”
“Maybe it would help my performance if I did. How about it, Frobie? Would you give it to me?” She laughed at him. He smiled and shook his head.
“And look at her clothes.” Paul was warming up to his subject. “A sweater and skirt with a bandanna tied around her head.” Miss Randall certainly didn’t look glamorous when she rehearsed. Her nearsighted eyes required thick glasses for reading, which didn’t add anything. “Can you see Barbara LaMarr showing up on a set dressed like that? I tell you, those were the days!”
Barbara LaMarr! Bobby LeB.! Why hadn’t it occurred to me before? Bobby was a nickname for Barbara as well as Robert or even Roberta, for that matter. I was one hell of a detective overlooking a thing like that. All at once I realized that the rest of the cast was staring at me. I must have been looking glassy-eyed while I was thinking about the name.
Paul was saying, “Don’t you think so, Tim?”
I snapped out of it. “Don’t I think so what?”
“Don’t you think television will take the place of movies?” I didn’t remember how the conversation got around to television. Still, with actors, sooner or later it does, but it must have been when I was in my little trance. I said I hoped it would, and then there’d be more work for everybody than there was now when you could—and they almost did—do every radio show on the air with the same three actors. The break was over, and we started the third act. It wasn’t until after we had been through my scene twice that they decided to keep on with the act and I got Maggie out on the terrace and told her about the possibility of Bobby LeB. being a girl.
“I don’t see how you can tell the police much about that part of it, do you?” Maggie said. “It would be a fine thing if you said, ‘I think Nellie was killed by someone named Bobby LeB. Of course, she may be a man or he may be a woman but why don’t you arrest her if you can find out who he is.’ No, if I were you I’d just stick to Kendall.”
“Do you think I ought to mention Nellie’s book, then? If I haven’t got it, it would seem pretty feeble asking them to believe that.”
“I think you’ll do better if you just pretend that Nellie died the way they say…. It’s the acid-throwing that I’m worried about, and the sooner you get that straightened out the better I’ll feel.”
“But suppose they don’t pay any attention and just think I’m making up the whole thing? What then?”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
We might just as well have started worrying a
bout it then because they didn’t believe one word I told them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LIEUTENANT HEFFRAN OF the 16th Precinct was very kind and oh, so patient, but it was easy to see that he wished we would stop bothering him with such nonsense and permit him to get back to the more important work of broken store windows and overparked cars. He was heavy and middle-aged and had a face more like an automobile salesman than a detective. He kept rustling papers on his desk in the small bleak office the whole time I was talking to him and, occasionally, made notes on the margins. When he did look up at me during my spiel, his blue eyes were empty. There were no cigars—evidently he didn’t smoke—no derby hats…and no attention. I finally got through and he sighed and pushed aside his papers and laid his pencil very deliberately on the desk exactly parallel to the sides. He gave it several little pushes to make sure that it was perfectly aligned before he spoke.
“But, Mr. Briscoe, I don’t understand exactly what it is you want me to do.”
“I want you to find out who poured that acid in Mr. Thayer’s face. That’s all.”
“According to Johnstone’s report, and he’s always been a very reliable man, it was simply an accident. These things happen all the time.”
“But they don’t happen all the time in my room.” I was getting mad again. I’d had to work myself up with a good deal of prodding from Maggie to get up nerve enough to go to the police in the first place. I’d never had anything to do with them before and I hadn’t wanted to this time, but when Maggie pointed out that perhaps that acid treatment had been meant for me, it put quite a different light on the situation.
Lieutenant Heffran looked at a piece of paper again. It was, I suppose, Johnstone’s report.
“It says that there is a possibility that the maid might have left the door open or you might have forgotten to lock it.”
“But I tell you that’s impossible. I know it was locked and no one else could have gotten in, except…” I thought of Jan. I had meant to stop by and ask him, but Maggie wouldn’t let me delay that long. She said that if I put it off one minute, I’d never go to the police at all.
“Except what, Mr. Briscoe?” I had to tell him about Jan having let me in once before. “There you are, you see?” He positively beamed. “In rooming houses like that, almost anyone could have a key. Half the time the same key will open all the doors.”
Maggie spoke for the first time. “Then you mean, Lieutenant Heffran, that you refuse to do anything about it?”
“I don’t mean anything of the sort, dear lady,” he said with a sigh. “I simply don’t understand what it is that you want me to do.”
“There must be fingerprints—things like that.”
“I’m afraid you overestimate the value of fingerprints in a case like this. Mr. Briscoe has told me himself that there were a great many people in the room and that it had been thoroughly cleaned.” I didn’t remember telling him anything of the sort, but I must have. Anyway there wasn’t any use making an issue out of it because it was true. “Johnstone has already been back there today to make a routine check-up and there seemed to be no indication that he should change his original report. If there were one single thing that might suggest that it could have been anything more than a simple accident, I would be glad to do anything I could. You keep saying that the acid was poured on his face deliberately, but at the same time you can’t give me any reason for it because he was just a harmless old man, even though Johnstone in his report says that witnesses say he was a confirmed drunk. Johnstone’s theory is that Thayer tried to drink the acid and when he got some in his mouth and it started to burn, he jerked or fell back, hit his head on the dresser or whatever it was and fell down and the rest of the acid spilled on his face.” And the way he said it, it sounded logical. Only, I knew it wasn’t. “You have told me that he has been in your room before—several times, in fact—to use your telephone.” I guess I must have given him a very complete history, though I didn’t remember it clearly. “If you can tell me one other fact that might suggest some other solution, that’s different. As it stands now there is nothing I can do.”
“But something was taken from Mr. Briscoe’s room. A book,” Maggie said. I hadn’t mentioned the Youth and Beauty Book. We had agreed not to. But now I was glad she had. It might make him see.
“A book? What kind of a book? Valuable?”
“No,” I said. “Not exactly valuable. Just a notebook. It was in my suit pocket hanging in the closet.”
“Well, what was in it? Anything of importance?”
“No. Just addresses of actors and producers.” To launch into our vague theories about Nellie against this wall of disinterest just didn’t seem worthwhile. He wouldn’t believe them, anyway.
“You’re an actor, then, Mr. Briscoe?” He said the word like it was spelled “l-e-p-e-r.” I admitted I was. He looked at Maggie. “Are you in the theater, too?” Maggie said she was and even told him that we were rehearsing in a play at the moment. It was as if an asbestos fire curtain came down behind his eyes. To pin us down with the word actor seemed to satisfy him. “I see,” he said, and started gathering up the papers on his desk. “Well, I’m afraid that’s all I can do for you. If I were you, I’d ask the little boy with the key. Perhaps he has your book. Children often steal things and hide them…or perhaps you mislaid it. It might be a good idea to look over your room again. I’m afraid there’s nothing more that I can do for you. Good day.” It was as if he had said, “Go roll your hoop somewhere else, Daddy’s busy.” And we were out in the hall.
I don’t know exactly what I expected the police to do. If I had been able to look at it from Lieutenant Heffran’s point of view—which I couldn’t because I was so angry—I might have understood his position a little better. But when, as a last resort, you go to the police, you want the same sort of miracle that used to happen when you went to your mother with a skinned knee. Though Lieutenant Heffran was scarcely the type who could kiss it and make it well. I’d keyed myself up to expecting everything and had received—absolutely nothing.
Well, from here on in I was on my own.
Three quick old-fashioneds in the Jumble Shop made us both feel considerably better.
“I still think we should have told him about Nellie,” I said.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t or you’d have been whisked off to Bellevue before you could say ‘knife.’” Maggie munched on a pineapple slice. “Did you notice the way he froze up when he found out we were in the theater? You don’t suppose he thought we were just trying to get publicity like having a fake jewel robbery?”
“There seems to be only one thing to do,” I said.
“Yes. Throw rocks at Lieutenant Heffran. I’m all for it.”
“I don’t mean that.”
“Oh—no, you don’t,” said Maggie. “That’s definitely out, do you hear?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t try and pretend. You’re planning to keep right on snooping until you end up pushing up daisies like the other two. I know that look in your eye. You’ve done all you can. You’ve told the police. If they don’t choose to do anything about it, why, that’s just too bad.”
“But someone has to do something about it. I know now I should have told him about Nellie. Without that, you can’t blame him for treating us the way he did. Don’t you see, Maggie, you just can’t let people get killed and let it go at that. Kendall was a friend of mine.”
“That’s not true. He was just an old lush that happened to live in the same house, and that’s no reason now, just because he’s dead, to make out like you were blood brothers and go about avenging him. Besides, what can you do?”
“I can find Bobby LeB. for one thing.”
“And then what? Will you just go up to him and say, ‘Pardon me, did you kill old Kendall Thayer by chance?’ Whoever it is has got that damn book now, which you should never have taken in the first place. That must have been what he
wanted, so let it go at that.”
“But I don’t see what was in that book that was so important. Even if Bobby LeB. did it, the book doesn’t prove he was there at the time. I can’t see that it proves anything. If he was afraid of it, why didn’t he take it when he could have so easily, instead of waiting till now?” I thought this over a minute. “Unless he was in too much of a rush and forgot about it then.”
“Tim.” Maggie put her finger on my lips to stop my talking. “Tim, let’s go to Mexico.” This startled me.
“Mexico? What for?”
“Right away. We can fly down tonight maybe or start out on a train. Let’s go to Mexico.”
“You’re nuts. I can’t go to Mexico or anyplace else and neither can you. We happen to be in a show, in case you have forgotten.”
“We can leave. The five days aren’t up. Anybody could do those parts. It wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference. Please, let’s go to Mexico.”
“Why, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Never mind about the money. I’ll take you.”
“Now, wait a minute.”
“You’ll love it. We can stay in Mexico City for a while, then on to Cuernavaca and Taxco and Acapulco. You’ll look divine in one of those Acapulco diapers. And we can watch the boy dive off the rock at La Quebrada, and you can fish if you like, though I personally don’t care for it, and we can go to Caleta in the morning and Nornos in the afternoon. And get the most terrific tans. They have fresh coconut oil that you slather all over yourself, and you come out the most heavenly tobacco color in no time at all.” There was an urgent tone to her voice that puzzled me. She wasn’t drunk, at least not that drunk.
“I do believe you’re serious.”
“Of course I’m serious. And if you’re thinking about the money, don’t give it another thought. It’s just ill-gotten gains. I didn’t earn it. It was just given to me. David has far more than is good for him, and it’s just some more he can take off his income tax, and, anyway, it wouldn’t be so much, and if we get tired of Acapulco, we can hire a car and drive all over…maybe down south and see ruins or whatever it is you see down there. What do you say?”