by Maia Chance
“She’s gone?” I asked. After seeing that Chalmers parked in the drive, I felt like I needed a bottle, all right. A bottle of Scotch.
“No, merely holed up in her quarters and refusing to lift a finger until her position is clarified.”
“Is the family lawyer in there?”
“Yes, Mr. Eccles. He arrived earlier this afternoon. Rudy was buried in the family plot in Carvington Cemetery, and then Mr. Eccles read the will. Therein lay the stunning news that I alluded to on the telephone: Theo Wainwright is Rudy’s sole heir.”
My jaw dropped. “Theo? Why Theo?”
“Well, it seems that Theo is Rudy’s son. Illegitimate, of course, but his son all the same. Theo’s mother—she is deceased—worked here at Montgomery Hall over twenty years ago as a maid in Rudy’s father Teddy’s household. And, well, you know how these things go. Rudy supported the woman and her child in secret, encouraged the woman to educate her son, and even paid for his boarding schools and college.”
No wonder Theo had been defensive about his upbringing when we’d questioned him earlier. No wonder he hadn’t picked up the coastal Yankee accent. No wonder Rudy had given him the run of his library and estate.
Eustace continued, “Theo is rather put out because he had believed himself to have won scholarships to these institutions based upon his intellectual merits. More than anything, I fancy he is dismayed to learn that he isn’t half so clever as he believed himself to be.”
“Before today, did Theo know Rudy was his father?” Berta asked.
“He claims to be completely astounded by the news. Of course, he’s a very rich young man now, with a heap of things to sort out with the lawyer. There are stocks and bonds, the house and all its contents, and of course robust bank accounts.” Eustace smiled wryly. “So if Theo had any inkling that he was Rudy’s heir, then…”
“That’s a rather deluxe motive for murder,” I finished.
“Yes.”
“What about Coral and Glenn?” Berta asked. “Why are they still here?”
“Coral is dumbstruck—Rudy didn’t bequeath a penny to her—and she’s also a bit drunk at the moment. I fancy she’s frightened about where she’s going to go, now that her home has been pulled out from under her. Glenn is comforting her. Making snide remarks, drinking a great deal of alcohol and Alkacine, smoking like a factory, but comforting her nonetheless. It is a rather peculiar little group in there, isn’t it? Now. How was your excursion to Boston, aside from the dreadful business on the train? Did you catch up with Isobel Bradford?”
“Yes and no,” I said. I explained how the Isobel Bradford we’d all met at Montgomery Hall was an impostor.
“Good heavens. An impostor! Oh, and I did not intend to mention those diamonds to anyone—mucks everything up, you know,” Eustace said, “but I understand that Coral saw them that night? And she happened to mention them to Theo.”
I heard air squeaking out of Berta’s lungs. Wait. Were those my lungs?
“You’d better come in and say your piece about how the diamonds were stolen,” Eustace said. “It’s ruffled a few feathers, I’m afraid, and Theo has even gone so far as to—well, you’ll hear it for yourself.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“I’ve told them that you were attempting to retrieve the rhinoceros trophy for me when you came upon the diamonds,” Eustace said, “although no one seems to care much about that bit.”
12
Berta and I trudged into the drawing room like two schoolgirls sent to the headmistress’s office. Everyone stopped talking and stared at us—Coral blankly; Glenn with a smirk; Theo accusingly; and Mr. Eccles, the lawyer, with his eyes latched on Berta with a keen and not altogether professional interest.
For a lady who looked like she ought to be on a box of pancake flour, Berta certainly could reel in the fellows.
“Well?” Theo demanded. “What’s this I hear about stolen diamonds?”
Standing side by side, Berta and I took turns stammering out the tale of the gangsters on the train and the Mickey Finns. Naturally, we didn’t mention how Berta blabbed about the diamonds to her underworld beau, Jimmy the Ant.
“We’re honestly expected to believe that rubbish?” Theo asked when we’d finished.
Glenn burst out laughing and clapped his hands. “This is one swell two-lady act you have here. I wish I could get you on my radio show.”
“Truly?” Berta breathed.
Oh boy.
At that moment, Mwinyi glided into the drawing room carrying a tray of coffee things. He noiselessly set it on a low table and reached for the coffeepot.
“Leave it,” Coral said to him, waving a hand. “I can do all that.”
Mwinyi made a silent bow and retreated toward the doors, but it wasn’t in that melt-into-the-woodwork way of most good butlers. No, Mwinyi, though silent, had an electric effect upon the room. We all watched his broad shoulders, his graceful gait, the gleam of his black curls. Theo was looking daggers at Mwinyi, and I still couldn’t decide if this was base bigotry or a personal grudge. And I was convinced that Mwinyi gave both Coral and Glenn the jumps.
Neglecting to interview Mwinyi had been a slipup, hadn’t it? We knew very little about him, and yet any reader of detective fiction will tell you that one overlooks butlers at their own peril. I bumped Question Mwinyi to the top of my mental to-do list.
After Mwinyi was gone, Glenn piped up first. “Say, I’m not kidding about having you two lady detectives on The Filmore Vacuette Hour. I’m telephoning the producer at first cock’s crow.”
“Oh, shut up, Glenn,” Coral snarled.
“Why should I?” Glenn slitted his eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, I am free to do whatever I wish. This isn’t even your house anymore, Cor. Oh, wait—it never was.”
“Hold your tongue, Glennie-wennie,” Coral said in a precise, steely voice that made me wonder if she truly had been drinking. “Or else I just might be forced to give your producer a jingle and tell him exactly why you dropped Jillie Harris.”
Another mental note: Find out who Jillie Harris is.
Glenn went blotchy, pulled out his Alkacine, unscrewed the cap, and took a gulp.
Theo said to Berta and me, “This house is mine now, along with all its contents. Those diamonds belonged to my father, which means they now belong to me.”
Coral and Glenn watched Berta and me. They wore the viciously alert expressions of children burning ants under a magnifying glass.
“I want my diamonds back,” Theo said. “Do I make myself clear?”
Berta turned red. I nodded. What else could I do?
“I suppose I am also obliged to inform you that I have hired a private detective to make certain nothing else of mine goes missing,” Theo said.
“What?” I said in a choked voice.
“Since I could not convince Lord Sudley to drop you two,” Theo said—
“And because I have every right to look into my friend Rudy’s death as I see fit,” Eustace put in mildly.
“—I decided that the only course of action was to enlist the services of a real detective to keep an eye on you.”
Eustace said, “Theo has very graciously allowed me to stay on at Montgomery Hall until I make further arrangements. Even though we do not agree about the best way to tie up the loose ends regarding Rudy’s death, he understands how close I was to his father.”
“And who is this ‘real detective’ whom you hired, if you please?” Berta asked.
I already knew the answer. I’d seen his junky Chalmers motorcar outside.
“A Mr. Oliver,” Theo said. “The Discreet Retrieval Agency seems to crash around like the proverbial bull in the china shop, so somebody must clean up the mess. Oh, I read of your few successes, so don’t bother to tell me about those. Dumb luck.”
My knuckles clenched hard around my handbag straps. “I gather that Mr. Oliver is here now? I saw a disreputable-looking motorcar in the drive.” I wouldn’t mention that Berta
and I were acquainted with Ralph. I needed to keep as much control over this fiasco as I could.
“Yes, he is here. He said he wished to stay here in order to reduce his expenses.”
That didn’t sound like something Ralph would worry about. No, he was staying here at Montgomery Hall just to bug me.
“I suggest that unless you plan to wind up marching in lockstep at Auburn Prison,” Theo said, “your so-called detecting should concern finding those diamonds rather than inventing convoluted theories about how my poor father didn’t commit suicide. You don’t look convinced. Well, then, try this on for size: I want my diamonds back by midnight on Tuesday, or I’m having you arrested for theft.”
Berta gasped. All I could think of was those awful striped pants they make women prisoners wear. Horizontally striped pants, you understand.
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit injudicious, Mr. Wainwright?” Mr. Eccles, the lawyer, said in a coaxing, adenoidal voice. His baggy eyes were fixed unblinkingly upon Berta.
“Is it injudicious to desire the return of unspecified thousands’—perhaps millions’—worth of diamonds? No, I don’t think so. Now, you absurd pair, get out of my house.”
“Theo, be reasonable!” Eustace exclaimed. “These ladies have had a most trying time of it. You can’t cast them out into the night.”
“Oh yes, I can.”
Normally, I would’ve taken a direct and speedy route out of there. But it was raining cats and dogs, I didn’t have a motorcar to get to the station—where the last train of the night had already been and gone—and I doubted Berta and I could find a place to stay in Carvington at this hour.
“You’re a man of property now, Mr. Wainwright,” Mr. Eccles said. “A man of power. Please do not consider it forward of me to suggest that you must now exercise benevolence—noblesse oblige, if you will. Besides—” He beamed at Berta. “—such lovely ladies should be treated like the porcelain swans that they are.”
Berta touched her cheek in an absent, girlish gesture.
Mr. Eccles’s smile broadened still more, and his eyes glittered with mischief.
Good grief.
“Don’t be a little fink, Theo,” Coral said. “Give the old birds a nesting box for the night. It’s pushing one o’clock.”
“Oh, all right,” Theo said sulkily. He threw himself in a chair. “But I want them out first thing in the morning.”
* * *
My heart was heavy with fatigue and humiliation as Berta and I lugged our suitcases up the stairs. Cedric trailed behind. He would have remained in the drawing room with the Labradors if it weren’t for the Milk-Bones with which I’d bribed him. My eyes slid left and right, expecting Ralph Oliver to stroll out of the shadows. Which would be awful, of course. Particularly if he were in shirtsleeves and suspenders …
“First thing in the morning, we skidoo,” I whispered.
“I could not agree more,” Berta whispered back. “If I were not so weary from our recent exploits, I would not consent to staying here another minute.”
“How on earth are we going to get those diamonds back from Lem Fitzpatrick? And the nerve of Theo, hiring Mr. Oliver to—to baby-mind us!”
“I would have thought you would be pleased, Mrs. Woodby, for now Mr. Oliver has been employed to look after you.”
Jeepers. This wasn’t precisely what I’d had in mind when I’d said I needed someone to take care of me. “I must keep well clear of him—we must. He’ll cramp our style. Say, I don’t suppose you could flirt madly with Mr. Eccles so he’ll convince Theo to soften up about the diamonds and that deadline?”
“Mrs. Woodby!”
“I’m not blind.”
“Neither am I.”
We reached the top of the stairs and turned in the direction of the bedrooms we had used on our previous stay. The corridor was lit by a few feeble electric sconces.
“It was dumb of us not to have questioned Mwinyi yet,” I said softly. “He isn’t a suspect, of course, since he was out with the hunting party at the crucial juncture, but as Rudy’s valet, he may be an absolute font of facts.”
“I was thinking along the very same lines, Mrs. Woodby. In addition, something about him causes Theo to grow nervous in his presence, which is decidedly curious, since Theo also suggested that Mwinyi does not even speak English.”
“Oh—and did you hear what Coral said to Glenn, about someone named—what was it?—Jillie Harris? Something about telling his producer why he’d dropped her? Glenn went quite ashen.”
“Jillie Harris is a radio actress—this was all in the papers this summer. I do wish you would stay abreast of the news.”
“Show business gossip is hardly news, Berta.” We stopped outside Berta’s bedroom.
“Jillie Harris is one of the stars of The High-Jinx Club radio program. Glenn and Jillie were, as they say, an item for several months. They were photographed together frequently—they made such a lovely couple, you see—but a few months ago they broke things off.”
“Then Coral was threatening to expose something about Glenn’s private life.”
“Yes. I expect Jillie Harris knows some unflattering details about Glenn as a result of their months of—” Berta coughed delicately. “—familiarity.”
“Maybe we ought to look her up.”
“Indeed.”
We bade each other good night and I continued along the corridor to my own room.
* * *
My hatbox-size room had not been cleaned since I left it yesterday. Miss Murden must have failed to recruit cleaning ladies after the murder. I suppose no one relishes the notion of scrubbing borax into bloodstained carpets.
I changed into my nightgown, robe, and slippers, and then ventured out to the shared bathroom, which was blessedly unoccupied. I cold-creamed off my makeup, rinsed my face, and I was brushing my teeth when the door swung open. I yelled through a mouthful of dental cream, “Occupied! This bathroom is occupied!”
Cedric merrily squiggled to the door. Why wasn’t he barking? And why hadn’t I locked the door? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
“Lola.”
“Ralph?” I spluttered on dental cream. “I mean, Mr. Oliver? How dare you?”
“People keep asking me that.” Ralph lounged on the doorframe, arms folded, wearing his baggy suit trousers and—oh no—shirtsleeves and suspenders.
My knees went wonky. I tried to discreetly spit dental cream into the sink. This is impossible to do. “Why the heck did you take on a job to follow me? It’s—it’s an outrage.”
“Easy money, kid. I know your habits.”
“Shh! I can’t have anyone know that we are acquainted.” I peered into the dark hallway behind Ralph. “Shut the door, for Pete’s sake.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Smiling a little, Ralph stepped inside the bathroom, shut the door, and crouched to scratch Cedric’s ears. Cedric braced his forepaws on Ralph’s knee and wagged so hard, his hind legs rotated back and forth.
“Okay.” I pointed my toothbrush at Ralph. “How is it that every time I have a big job, you show up?”
“Guess you’re just lucky.” Ralph stood. “How about you join me in my room for a nightcap?”
“Not on your—”
“I’ve got highball fixings.”
The devil. “Oh, all right—but this is a professional meeting. Between colleagues.”
“Sure. I’m down the hall, around the corner, up three stairs, and on the left. There’s a stuffed grizzly bear next to my door. You can’t miss it.”
* * *
After Ralph left, I returned to my room and reapplied mascara and a dab of lip rouge. I was absolutely fuming, of course, and it isn’t entirely professional to meet one’s colleague while in a pink dressing gown and marabou slippers. I was just too tired to change; unlike Berta, I had never slept off last night’s Mickey Finn.
I ventured forth. I found the three stairs, the grizzly bear—poor fella—and Ralph’s door.
“Come in,” he rep
lied to my knock.
Cedric and I went in and I shut the door.
Ralph stood at a writing desk, pouring fizzing ginger ale over whiskey. He passed me a glass and lifted his own. “To colleagues.”
“To colleagues sharing information.”
We clinked and sipped. I sat primly on the desk chair and noted Ralph’s bulging arm muscles.
Look away, look away.
“All right,” I said after a few fortifying sips of highball. “Tell me exactly what Theo Wainwright said to you when he hired you.”
“Can’t.”
“How did he happen to hire you, out of all the gumshoes in the world?”
“Not at liberty to say.”
“Argh!”
“We’ve been over this a million times, Lola. I can’t compromise my jobs.”
“I tell you all about mine.”
“That’s your call, kid. How’s the murder investigation going?” He half sat, half leaned on the desk right next to me. Oh, rats. I could smell his shaving soap and the warm, wild scent of his skin. I could’ve counted the lines fanning from his bright gray eyes and the freckles across his weathered cheekbones. I could’ve traced the vulnerable white scar on his forehead, the cords of his neck.…
I meant to get up and move away, truly I did. But some sort of paralysis had gripped me. “I’m not going to tell you anything about my investigation, except to ask you for a bit of professional advice.”
“Yeah? I love giving professional advice.” Ralph set down his highball, leaned in, and nuzzled my ear with his dry, soft lips.
“Stop distracting me,” I murmured. “We’re through, Ralph.”
“Got it.”
Nuzzle.
I forced myself to focus, despite all the distractions on my ear. And my throat. And the back of my knee. “Now, what would you do—this is strictly a hypothetical question, mind you—if two thugs working for a gangster boss such as, oh, such as Lem Fitzpatrick—”
“Fitzpatrick?” Ralph growled.
“—happened to slip one a Mickey Finn and steal a large quantity of diamonds from one’s handbag—”