Spirits Onstage (A Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery, Book 8)

by Alice Duncan

  "I hope you're right. What if no one confesses?"

  "Gloria will fold eventually."

  "You hope," I said dryly.

  "We hope," admitted Sam. "We think it might be Max Van der Linden, since he's got the best access to the extremely wealthy Connie, and she's evidently being poisoned."

  "Oh. I hope it isn't Max. I like him. And Connie."

  "Huh," said Sam.

  "But wait a minute. Gloria ended up in the hospital after taking or being given some kind of drug. Is her accomplice trying to do her in?"

  "We think that was a bluff to throw us off the scent."

  "Pretty big bluff," I said. "Didn't the doctor fear for her life there for a while?"

  "Maybe. Or maybe she's a better actress than anyone's given her credit for thus far in her nefarious career."

  "Nefarious career. That's a good description of it," I muttered.

  Sam, Pa, and I sat there, thinking, for a few minutes. Then I spoke.

  "Isn't it generally men who kill their wives, and not the other way around? I mean, I've heard of Bluebeard, and Dr. Crippen, H.H. Holmes, and fellows like that who kill their wives. Aren't women more subtle? I mean, if they kill people, don't they generally use poison? Running husbands down in the street sounds like a... masculine thing to do. Or something."

  "I think poison is generally a woman's weapon of choice, but there are all kinds of people in the world, and if her accomplice is a man, he probably drove the machine that ran down Michael Lippincott."

  "Which belonged to Dennis Bissel. Do you think they wanted Dennis to take the blame for the murder?"

  "Probably, but we know Bissel didn't do it because he was seen by several people at the moment the deed was done."

  "I'm glad. I like Dennis and Patsy. And Mrs. Bissel, too, for that matter. She's been worried. I think that's one of the reasons she was so eager to have me perform the séance at her house."

  "Could well be," said Sam.

  "Sounds logical," said Pa.

  "But who could possibly be Gloria's accomplice?" I asked, honestly puzzled. As far as I knew, nobody in the cast of The Mikado, except Gloria Lippincott, had any villainous tendencies. Mind you, Lawrence Allen and James Warden both seemed to have succumbed to Gloria's spell, but she was an expert at getting men to fall under her influence. Phooey. I didn't like to think that I'd been singing with a bunch of murderers. Or two murderers, anyway. "I hope it's not Max," I said, repeating myself.

  "We'll probably find out on Saturday," said Sam. "I've talked to Mrs. Bissel, and she's having the Lippincott woman, the Allens, the Van der Lindens, and her son and his wife attend."

  "Hmm," I mused. "That'll make a total of nine. That's manageable." I didn't like having more than eight to ten people at a séance, mainly because people in large groups were difficult to control. I'd perfected my craft—or was it an art? Oh, well, I don't suppose it matters—so well by that time that I never had trouble maintaining peace and quiet during my séances. However, I still didn't like large groups.

  "We'll have officers stationed here and there at the house," said Sam. "So you needn't worry that anything will get out of hand when the culprit is unmasked."

  "Unmasked?" I squinted at him.

  Naturally, he frowned back. "You know what I mean."

  "I guess so. Why did you pick those people in particular?" I asked, truly curious.

  "After looking at everyone's background, we decided this would be the ideal setup. All the suspects will be there."

  "They're all suspects?"

  "Suspected suspects," said Sam, and he frowned again. I didn't blame him. Suspected suspects, indeed.

  "Max and Connie, too? But Connie's the one being poisoned, isn't she? Oh. I guess you couldn't have Max without Connie, could you?"

  "No," said Sam, giving me a look I don't think I deserved.

  "I wish Harold would come," I said rather wistfully, "even though that would be a couple of people too many."

  Sam shrugged. "Invite him. What's one more?"

  Clearly he'd never had to conduct a séance.

  * * *

  Mrs. Pinkerton called upon me to do a tarot reading and an Ouija board session on Wednesday. Neither the cards nor Rolly told her anything they hadn't already told her about her life and her future fifty million times before. Perhaps that's a slight exaggeration.

  "Oh, Daisy!" she cried as I picked up the Celtic Cross pattern I'd just dealt out and interpreted for her. "I just don't know what to do! I'd hoped the cards would help me, but they didn't. And now I still don't know what to do."

  "About what?" I asked sweetly.

  "About Christmas! Algie and I want to see Harold and you in The Mikado, but Stacy insists she wants to go to Santa Barbara before the holiday and stay until after Christmas."

  If I were Mr. and Mrs. Pinkerton, I'd gladly send Stacy to Santa Barbara or anywhere else—Outer Mongolia sounded good to me—if only to get her out of my way. I couldn't say that, of course.

  "Stacy doesn't want to see her brother perform? Harold is extremely good as the Lord High Executioner, Mrs. Pinkerton. I should think she'd be proud of him."

  A wrinkle furrowed Mrs. P's powdered brow. "Well, I hate to say it, but I don't believe my children like each other very well."

  I knew darned well they didn't like each other. Hate might be too strong a word, but it was a whole lot closer than like. "Perhaps you can see the operetta on the first weekend and then go to Santa Barbara," I suggested, wondering what Santa Barbara had to offer in the way of Christmas amenities. If the Pinkertons wanted to go there, it was probably home to a fabulous and ridiculously expensive resort. It was on the coast, wasn't it? I'd have to check the map.

  "That's a wonderful idea, Daisy! See? I knew you could help me!"

  An idiot could have come up with that suggestion, although I didn't say so. I did say, "Mrs. Buckingham has been filling in for Mrs. Lippincott, who has been ill. I don't know if she'll be in the final production. I suppose it depends on whether or not Mrs. Lippincott is well in time." Or whether or not she'd been arrested and incarcerated. I didn't say that, either.

  "Mrs. Buckingham? You mean that Salvation Army fellow's wife?" Mrs. Pinkerton was glad her daughter no longer frequented speakeasies and got arrested all the time, but I know she'd rather Stacy had been "saved" by an Episcopalian than a Salvation Army person.

  "That's the one, all right. She has a lovely voice."

  "Oh." She sat there, looking bemused for a moment before she smiled and said, "I'm glad Stacy has some cultured friends at that church."

  Cultured friends? A couple of years back, Mrs. Pinkerton was bemoaning—or perhaps bewailing would be a better word for it—the fact that Stacy was hanging out with Flossie. Of course, that was back when Flossie was under the influence of a violent gangster, but still....

  "Oh, my, yes. Flossie is quite cultured."

  It's a darned good thing liars' pants didn't actually catch fire, or I'd have been burned to a cinder years ago. Not that Flossie didn't have as much culture as Stacy Kincaid, who only had the kind of culture that grows in science laboratories and makes people sick, and Stacy was the one who had that kind, not Flossie.

  That wasn't nice of me, was it? Well, heck, along with liars' pants catching fire, there's also an old saw about the truth hurting. And, since I didn't say it to Mrs. Kincaid, it would only hurt me, if God is keeping some kind of record on people's thoughts.

  "I do wish I could come to the séance you're holding at Griselda's home on Saturday," said Mrs. Pinkerton pensively.

  Nuts. She probably wanted me to fit her in somehow. "Would you like for me to speak to Mrs. Bissel on your behalf?" I asked, hoping she's say no. There were already too many people going to that séance, and if Sam had his way, it would be busted up by the cops before it ended.

  "Oh, no. But thank you, dear. I talked to Griselda, and she said only people from the operetta will be there." Her brow creased again. "Although I don't believe Harold is going t
o be attending."

  "I do wish you could both be there," I said, only half-lying that time. I really did wish Harold would be there.

  "Perhaps Griselda will have some kind of party after the séance," Mrs. P said, brightening some. "I often do that. You know, have a little party and then have a few people take part in the séance." She tittered a little bit. "But of course, you know that, since you're always the one holding the séance for me."

  I smiled at her because I couldn't think of anything to say. "Perhaps after Christmas, when you get back from Santa Barbara, you'd like me to have a séance for you," I suggested.

  "What a wonderful idea!" said she, clasping her hands to her velvet-covered bosom. That day she wore a beautiful peacock-blue frock that must have cost a mint. It was festive, in keeping with the season, I guess, although that particular day was a bit before Thanksgiving, and I always think of Thanksgiving as an orange-and-brown sort of day. As for me, I wore black. Black fit my profession and my mood, so it was perfect. And tasteful.

  "I'll be going now," I said, slipping my Ouija board and planchette into their lovely carrying bag.

  I'd already tucked my tarot deck into the bag I'd made for it. My tarot deck was getting a trifle tattered around the edges, but I wasn't sure what to do about that. I doubted any stores in Pasadena would carry tarot decks. Maybe Chinatown in Los Angeles? Tarot wasn't a Chinese fortune-telling thing, but the Chinese were clever. Maybe they'd cottoned on to the spiritualist craze that had swept the nation after the Great War and the influenza pandemic.

  Anyhow, it might be fun to visit Chinatown. I hadn't been there for years. Maybe Harold would go with me. Or Sam.

  Sam?

  Did I want Sam to visit Chinatown with me? He wasn't generally the fun, chipper companion Harold was. On the other hand, I hadn't often been with him except when he was working on various criminal cases. Perhaps he saved his fun, chipper side for things other than work.

  He was generally friendly and happy when he came to dinner at our house, but who wouldn't be, what with Aunt Vi being the best cook in the entire United States of America?

  "Thank you for coming, dear," said Mrs. Pinkerton, sounding sad that I aimed to leave her.

  "You're more than welcome, Mrs. Pinkerton," I said with one of my more gracious smiles. "I'll be looking forward to your séance after the new year."

  "Oh, my, yes!"

  The new year. Merciful heavens, 1924 was just around the corner. It didn't seem possible somehow. This would be my second New Year's Day without Billy. I guess my family would all walk up to Colorado Boulevard and watch the Tournament of Roses Parade. And, if he wasn't working on some heinous crime, Sam would probably walk with us. Pasadena crowds were seldom unruly, and heinous crimes few, so he might be off that day.

  I sighed heavily as I left Mrs. Pinkerton's drawing room and walked down the hallway toward the kitchen. It was around 3:30 p.m. Vi might be ready to come home for the day, and I'd be more than happy to drive her. When I entered the kitchen, however, she was elbow-deep in a bowl of dough. She turned and smiled at me.

  "Good afternoon, Daisy! If you can wait a few minutes, you can drive me home."

  "Only a few?" I eyed the bowl of dough doubtfully.

  She laughed. "Daisy, Daisy, Daisy, I don't know why you can't seem to learn how to cook. You can sew and read those silly cards and play with the Ouija board, and you can sing like an angel. Cooking is much easier than all of those things."

  It wasn't, either. I knew that from bitter personal experience. "I guess we all have our own talents," I said, keeping my voice as neutral as I could. I hated cooking. Worse than that, cooking hated me. Lowering thought. Anyhow, I knew darned well I didn't sing like an angel. Angels were all sopranos, weren't they? At church they were.

  Vi picked up the bowl of dough and dumped it onto a floured surface. In a few deft movements, she'd flattened out the entire ball of dough and began plucking pieces from it. "I'm just making some dinner rolls. I'll be done in a jiffy."

  And darned if she didn't create two entire baking tins' worth of leaf-shaped rolls in the jiffy she'd predicted.

  "You're a genius in the kitchen, Vi," I said, looking on, amazed, at her creation.

  "Nonsense," said she. But she was pleased. I could tell.

  Even better, she brought some of her leaf-shaped dough balls home to our house, so that we could have them with the roasted chicken she aimed to serve us that night.

  At which meal, Sam joined us. I was so accustomed to him being there for dinner, I didn't even blink when I answered the door and he came in.

  "Hey, Sam," I said.

  "Evening, Daisy," he said.

  And we both trundled off to the dining room, where Ma and I had already set the table. Thanksgiving was the following week, so we'd set out a bowl of chrysanthemums in the middle of the table.

  Thanksgiving fell on a Thursday, which was also both choir and operetta rehearsal evening. I wondered what we were going to do about that, but I needn't have. Others had thought these things through without my help. Figures.

  Chapter 25

  "Attention, everyone!" boomed Mr. Floy Hostetter in his best choir-director's voice the next evening when we'd all gathered for choir rehearsal. "Next Thursday being Thanksgiving, we're going to hold choir rehearsal on Monday night and rehearsal for The Mikado on Tuesday night." He gave us all a beaming smile. "I know all you ladies will be working hard on Wednesday evening, baking pies and so forth for the holiday."

  Little did he know. At least about me. Vi wouldn't let me near the kitchen on major holidays unless I was walking to my bedroom, to do which I had to go through the kitchen. My job at holidays was to decorate stuff and set the table.

  The other ladies in the choir tittered, so I guess they actually did bake pies and other foods for holiday dinners. I felt like such a failure.

  However, that doesn't matter. Gloria showed up at rehearsal that Thursday evening, looking pale and wan. Mind you, I cultivate the pale and interesting look for my job. Gloria had no reason whatsoever to be pale, unless she wanted everyone to feel sorry for her.

  I'm being catty again, aren't I? I'm sorry.

  Flossie and Johnny showed up, too, so that made me happy. Flossie and I greeted each other with hugs and smiles, and I shook Johnny's hand. As soon as we turned loose of each other, Sam nabbed Johnny and hustled him off to a corner of the sanctuary. Plotting again, I was sure.

  "Looks like Mrs. Lippincott is here today, Flossie," I said for the heck of it.

  "That's all right. I enjoy listening, and Johnny said your choir director wanted me to come in case Mrs. Lippincott isn't feeling well enough to sing during the whole rehearsal."

  I scanned her pretty face carefully, looking for any trace of sarcasm or cynicism. I didn't find any at all. Flossie, unlike me, is a very nice person, and she doesn't suspect people of underhanded doings, even after all her experience with the dark side of life. I kind of wished I could be more like her, although such a wish was futile. Which probably says a lot more about my own deficiencies than Flossie's abundance of spirit and love.

  Anyhow, Mr. Hostetter called all of us to attention and made everyone go through the first scene of the first act, which didn't include any of the three little maids or me, so I decided to do some detectival stuff.

  Smiling like a true spiritualist-medium, I walked up to Gloria after Mrs. Fleming began a spirited overture on the piano and said, "It's good to see you here tonight, Mrs. Lippincott. How are you feeling?"

  Seated, drooping, in the first pew, she looked up at me with shadowed eyes. The shadows may or may not have had something to do with makeup. Now that I knew her history, I didn't want to give her credit for anything, even having been sick.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Majesty. I'm feeling... better." She licked her lips. "Um, you didn't tell anyone about what happened, did you?"

  "About you having ingested poison?"

  She winced. "Yes. I didn't mean it when I said I thought someone had tr
ied to kill me." Her words belied her expression, which was one of terror, and her gaze was focused plainly on Max Van der Linden. Hmm. Guess she really did aim to do in his wife so she could get her greedy little hands on his money. And would she blame the murder on Max?

  Wait a minute. If she did that, wouldn't Max be arrested and charged with murder? How would that help Gloria's cause?

  Pooh. I was confusing myself.

  "I didn't tell anyone who mattered," I assured her, lying through my teeth yet again.

  She heaved a gusty sigh. "I'm so relieved. I was so sick, you see, and I didn't know what I was saying."

  "About Max being someone named Jack, you mean?"

  Another really convincing wince on Gloria's part. "Yes. He isn't Jack. Jack is... someone else." Her voice dropped to a thrilling whisper on the last two words.

  "Oh? Who? Do you know?"

  She shook her head hard. Looked to me as if she'd had her hair bobbed and dyed at a hair salon since she left the hospital. She couldn't have been that sick then.

  "It could be anyone," said she in yet another dramatic whisper. "But whoever he—or she—is, he's trying to do away with poor Connie, just as he tried to do away with me."

  "Good heavens," I said not at all dramatically. "Um... How do you know his name is Jack?"

  Gloria scanned the sanctuary as if searching for sequestered spies and whispered, "I overheard a conversation."

  "A conversation? Between who and who? Or should that be whom?"

  She tilted her head and gave me a quizzical squint. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Never mind." Annoyed at myself for getting sidetracked, I said, "Who was having the conversation you overheard?"

  "I don't know!" She still whispered, but she put special emphasis on that last word. "All I know is one man called the other Jack, and they talked about poisoning Connie."

  "You should have told the police," I stated.