by Maia Chance
Windows overlooked the tall buildings opposite, and thick curtains hung on all the other walls—presumably for sopping up extra sound like bread for gravy.
I took out my notebook, jotted down Jillie Harris’s telephone number, and stuffed it back inside my handbag beside Cedric. “There’s Glenn,” I whispered to Berta. “In a tuxedo. Why is everyone wearing formal attire if the audience can’t see them?”
“According to Radio News magazine, it is to help the performers get in the proper mood,” Berta said. “Many of them are or were stage performers as well.”
“Girls!” Glenn said, striding our way. “Boy am I glad you showed! I was starting to get worried you were blowing me off, and after I had to beg my producer to let you on. Riled up my heartburn something awful.” He thumped a fist on his chest.
“Sorry,” I said.
“We’re putting you on the front end of the show, right after the opening song and my introductory remarks—which, no surprise, is a shtick about Vacuette cleaners. Sound good? Okay, great.” Glenn herded us over to some chairs off to the side.
My hairline grew damp as we waited. I couldn’t do this! How could I do this? Even Cedric, panting in my handbag, appeared more serene than I.
“Berta,” I whispered. “I can’t—”
“You’re on the air!” a main in pleated pants and suspenders said.
The woman at the piano kicked off a jazzy little tune, and three women gathered around the microphone and burst into cheery-sweet harmonization ending with “Welcome to the Vacuette Houuuuuuuuuuuur.”
Then Glenn was at the microphone with that chipper drawl. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Those were the divine voices of the Vacuette Sisters, and this is The Filmore Vacuette Hour! Say, are you weary of drudgery? Fed up with a dirty house? Does sweeping your floors never end and beating your rugs out of doors make you weep? Yes, you say? Then why not ask your fellow to purchase you a Filmore Vacuette today?” Glenn changed his tone to a conspiratorial aside. “Oh, and fellows—ladies just can’t say no to a Filmore Vacuette. With its smoothly turning wheels, presto-zip bag, and gleaming chrome trim, the Filmore Vacuette is guaranteed to dazzle, certain to cause swoons, and don’t forget: The Filmore Vacuette has cleaning … in the bag!”
The pianist tore into a swooping, romantic melody with lots of crashing chords while Glenn stepped back to take a sip of water from a glass on a table. His face was a little pinched as he swallowed. Stomach acid, I guessed.
Then Glenn was beckoning us with a finger, and I found myself at the microphone between Berta and Glenn, hugging Cedric in my handbag and contemplating a break for the door.
The piano music ended and Glenn said, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is my profound pleasure to introduce two astonishing ladies for our question-and-answer segment.’” Glenn looked down at his script. “Mrs. Lundgren, head detective, and Mrs. Woodby, assistant detective, are New York City’s only lady gumshoes. Some of you may have heard how the Discreet Retrieval Agency cracked a couple murder cases that stumped the police, but you’re hearing them on radio broadcast for the first time here, on The Filmore Vacuette Hour.”
A brief tinkle of theme song from the pianist.
Glenn turned to Berta. “Tell me, Mrs. Lundgren, what’s the best part of being a lady gumshoe?”
Berta leaned over the microphone. “Thank you, Mr. Monroe. The best part is the adventure. The chases, the clues, the danger, subterfuge, and disguise! Why, there are times when I must pinch myself, for it is all so very thrilling—oh, and by the way, our telephone number is KL5-1919 and our motto is ‘No job too trivial.’ Please do ring us up today. We specialize in retrieving items thought to be lost forever, and we will stop at nothing to get the job done. If we—”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lundgren,” Glenn said, edging in front of Berta. He turned to me. “Mrs. Woodby, as the assistant detective, have you learned a great deal from Mrs. Lundgren?”
I tried to say something, but my throat was stuck. Honestly, I don’t mind having my photograph snapped, provided I’ve had time to fix my hair and makeup and bathing suits aren’t involved, but having my voice shot out into the airwaves? Paralyzing.
Glenn bugged his eyes at me.
My throat unstuck and I opened my mouth, hoping something eloquent would pour out, but nothing came but “Uck.”
Glenn turned to Berta. “Mrs. Lundgren, how did you learn to detect?”
“I have read a goodly number of detective novels, including every volume by the great Frank B. Jones, Jr. In addition, both Mrs. Woodby and I rely upon our feminine intuitions and our sharp wits. Do not forget, our telephone number is KL5-1919 and we will work day and night to crack your case, large or small, and if you should ever—”
“Thank you!” Glenn cried, pushing Berta gently out of the way to get to the microphone.
“KL5-1919!” Berta cried, lunging for the microphone.
Glenn cut her off at the pass. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Discreet Retrieval Agency!” He cued the pianist, who launched a sappy ballad.
Berta and I returned to our chairs.
“I’m not so sure how discreet our agency is going to be after this,” I muttered to Berta.
“Then we shall change the name,” Berta whispered. “Perhaps the Extremely Successful Retrieval Agency will do nicely, because mark my words, our telephone will be ringing off the hook.”
I had my doubts.
The pianist finished and Glenn was joined at the microphone by four men and women holding scripts. They began a radio drama about an innocent girl named Libby who receives a letter saying she’s inherited a pile of dough from a long-lost uncle, and goes to his eerie mansion to collect. Berta sat on the edge of her seat, handbag clasped on her knees, engrossed.
I attempted to pay attention—but honestly, I was still recuperating from my humiliating bout of stage fright, and anyway, the drama’s plot was a bit hackneyed. There was the ghoulish butler, the handsome young gardener, and things going bump in the night. Oh, and since this was The Filmore Vacuette Hour, at intervals we heard the mansion’s maid vacuuming the rugs in the background. The vacuuming sound, along with assorted thuds, knocks, rings, and clicks, was produced by a man at the sound effects table. He also simulated quite perfectly the sounds of a popping cork and whistling wind.
I could understand why Glenn had been chosen to host the show. He read the parts of the narrator, the ghoulish butler, a newspaper reporter, and even a lady opera star, making each character’s voice utterly unique. Heartburn or no, the guy had an amazing knack for voices.
I bolted upright in my chair. Voices! Geewhillikins. Voices.
I nudged Berta and whispered, “We need to talk.”
“Not now, Mrs. Woodby,” she whispered, and turned back to the radio actors.
I twiddled my foot. I petted Cedric’s ears. My brain spun.
What if—just for the sake of argument—what if Glenn was the one who’d been making that creepy ghost voice at Montgomery Hall? He had just demonstrated that he could easily simulate a female voice. What if he had tried to push me down the stairs last night?
Glenn had a mysterious, intimate-yet-strained relationship with Coral; clearly the two were more than casual friends. Perhaps there was a murder motive buried in that relationship. Perhaps Glenn had been torn up with jealousy and bumped off Rudy or maybe Glenn had done it as a favor for Coral. Had their plan backfired? Is that why they seemed so fizzed with each other now?
I wasn’t sure. But my feminine intuition, as Berta had phrased it, insisted that these radio-show sound effects were a piece of the puzzle.
* * *
The radio play wrapped up (Libby got her millions and the handsome gardener to boot), the man in the pleated trousers announced we were off the air, and there was a general migration toward the studio door.
“Thanks, girls,” Glenn said. “You did a real good job. I’d invite you to dinner, but the truth is, my heartburn’s boiling like a pot of bouillabaisse. All I
want to do is down a bottle of Alkacine and go to bed. Thanks again.”
“Wait,” I called after him, but he didn’t hear. I wished to look him straight in the eye and ask him if he was Montgomery Hall’s ghost.
“Let us hurry back to the apartment,” Berta said to me, breathless with excitement. “People could be telephoning us with job offers this very moment. Now, where did that secretary put our coats and hats?”
“Wait,” I said. “I must speak with Glenn.” Where had he gone? I craned my neck.
“I have just had an idea,” Berta said. “We could ask Mrs. Snyder from across the hall to answer our telephone for us.” Mrs. Snyder was the young mother of a fat, imperious baby, and she was home alone much of the time while her husband, a sulky poet, hunted for his muse. “We could pay her for her time. I am certain she would be keen on the extra household income.”
“Sure, why not?” I said. “Mrs. Snyder is intelligent and she’s—”
A shrill scream cut me off. The crowd around us collectively gasped and murmured.
Berta said, “Oh my. I do not like the sound of that.”
More screams.
I didn’t say anything, but followed the screams along with everyone else. I found myself amid a cluster of people looking through an open doorway into a sort of lounge. The secretary with the clipboard was standing in the middle of the room, screaming away, and at her feet was the frozen, contorted body of Glenn Monroe. Milky fluid trickled from his mouth. His blue eyes were peeled wide.
The sound effects man pushed through, knelt beside Glenn, touched his neck, and then looked up at all of us standing aghast in the doorway. “Somebody telephone for an ambulance. And the police. He’s dead.”
The blabbering secretary was led away, and the sound effects man shepherded everyone from the lounge door. I stood on tippy-toe, and before I was pushed along with the others, I saw that Glenn clutched a brown glass bottle in one dead hand. Of course. That milky fluid trickling from his mouth …
Someone had poisoned Glenn’s Alkacine.
17
Berta nearly exploded with impatience while we waited to give our statements to the police. There were dozens of people at the WPAF studios and all of us were required to be interviewed, so the evening dragged on and on.
“Think of all the telephone calls we could be missing!” Berta wailed, pacing back and forth in a corner of the crowded reception room.
“If anyone is truly keen to hire us on the grounds of one embarrassing radio bit,” I said, “they’ll telephone again.” I started on yet another one of the turkey, bacon, and mayonnaise sandwiches that someone had brought up from a delicatessen. Murder makes me ravenous, I guess. I fed Cedric a bit of bacon.
At last I was called into the station’s smaller studio, which the police had taken over for their questioning. To a tired-looking policeman, I gave my account of hearing the screams and seeing Glenn’s body with the Alkacine bottle in one hand. “What was the cause of death?” I asked.
The policeman didn’t even glance up from his notepad. “Cyanide poisoning.”
My guts twisted. “Golly.”
“It was in that bottle of milk of magnesia he was holding. Seems he suffered from heartburn and drank that stuff like water. Everyone in the studio knew it, too.”
“Do you suppose someone here at the studio poisoned him?”
“Course.” The policeman snorted. “Not likely to be some crazy man off the street, now, is it?”
“No, but, well, the thing is, I’m a private detective—”
“You? Haw-haw!”
“—and Glenn Monroe happened to be present in the house when Rudy Montgomery was killed.”
“Read about that in the papers. Rich guy in Connecticut, right? It was suicide. Say, you aren’t one of those detectives who try to drum up business for yourself by blowing things all out of proportion, are you?”
I swear that when the policeman said proportion, he leered at my hips. “No,” I said, smoothing my skirt, “I am not. I suspect there could be a link between the two deaths, but you are not, of course, obliged to take that into consideration.”
“Nope, I sure ain’t.”
“Glenn Monroe was at Rudy Montgomery’s estate in Connecticut just this morning, I happen to know. Someone there could have poisoned his Alkacine—”
“That’ll be all.” The policeman waved chubby, dismissive fingers.
Deflated, I went back to the reception room, and shortly after that, Berta disappeared to use the powder room. She was gone for an eternity. When she at last returned, her eyes shone and she told me she’d given her statement to the police. “We are free to go,” she said.
“Why do you have that mad gleam in your eye?” I knew that gleam. Berta had detected a hot lead.
“Suffice it to say that our investigation has taken a ninety-degree turn.”
“What did you discover?”
Berta tapped her nose. “Not until we are home.”
“Home? What about the Moody Elephant?”
“It is too early still, Mrs. Woodby, and I am most eager to go home and put forth our business proposition to Mrs. Snyder.”
I checked my wristwatch. It was a little after nine o’clock. Berta was correct: Far too early for a speakeasy. Besides, if we meant to put the screws to a big-cheese gangster about some diamonds, a spot of gussying up was in order.
We rode the elevator to the lobby and ventured out into the evening. Broadway and Dey Street were a wilderness of careening headlamps, roaring engines, and exhaust fumes, and a damp north wind whipped in the crevasses between buildings. I beat back the desolate feeling that was twining itself around my spirit. This was a night for snuggling with one’s sweetie before a crackling fire. Not tracking down villains.
But the splendid news was that Ralph Oliver hadn’t caught up with us again. Ten points for me.
After Cedric paid a call on a fire hydrant, I flagged down a taxi. “I really must telephone Eustace and tell him what’s happened to Glenn,” I said. Though I had barely given Eustace a thought all day, now I found myself hankering for a dose of his coddling. I’d been thinking of his attentions as a sort of hot-water bottle for the soul, but … could it be that I had a genuine pash for him? And if so, what was wrong with me, that I could develop a crush on Eustace while still reeling from Ralph-induced heartbreak?
* * *
A taxi screeched to a stop at the curb. Once we were squashed in the backseat, I said to Berta, “All right, spill it: What is our investigation’s ninety-degree turn?”
“Shh,” Berta whispered with a meaningful look at the back of the cabbie’s head. “Not here.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake.
Several minutes later, we arrived home at Longfellow Street, Number 9. Mrs. Snyder opened her apartment door with her baby on her hip. Stinging smoke unfurled from behind her. “Mrs. Lundgren! Mrs. Woodby! What a nice surprise. Would you come in? Alistair won’t sleep, so I’ve made some biscuits—I only scorched a few.”
“No, thank you,” Berta said quickly. She disapproved of Mrs. Snyder’s use of the new boxed baking mixes. “We are here to enlist your help.”
The baby was looking at us narrowly, as though he knew his mother’s attention was about to be diverted and he was not amused.
Mrs. Snyder, a sandy blonde rarely seen in anything but a dressing gown and house slippers, happily agreed to answer our telephone and take down names and numbers of any potential clients, in exchange for a healthy daily sum. She said from inside her own apartment she could always hear our telephone ringing. Berta said she’d bring over the extra door key shortly.
“This’ll give me something to do while Quentin is gone, and since Alistair can’t talk yet, I’ll enjoy speaking to grown-up people from time to time.” Mrs. Snyder tenderly kissed Alistair’s squishy, orblike cheek. “That’s why I’m always burning everything I cook.”
That settled, Berta and I crossed the hall to our own apartment and let ourselves in. Berta wen
t straight to the kitchen and switched on the oven.
“What are you making?” I asked, lingering in the doorway.
“Gingersnaps.”
“To help us get over the shock of Glenn’s death?”
“Do not be silly. We must take something to bribe the speakeasy doorman.”
“Oh.” Rats. “Now are you going to tell me about our investigation’s ninety-degree turn?”
“Make a pot of coffee. I shall reveal all as soon as the gingersnaps are in the oven.”
Berta mixed the dough, spooned it out onto her cookie pan, and slid it into the hot oven. Meanwhile, I made a pot of coffee in the stovetop percolator and set out cups, cream, and sugar.
At last, Berta sat down and sipped her coffee. “Now, then,” she said. “Do you recall when I excused myself to go to the powder room at the radio station?”
“I worried you’d been kidnapped.”
“I was conducting an investigation of the crime scene.”
“Weren’t there police in that room?”
“Indeed there were, but they left to pursue a rumor of coffee and crullers.”
“Did you start that rumor?”
Berta ignored the question. I don’t believe even the Bolshevik secret police could make her crack. “I took the opportunity to slip into the room. Glenn’s body had already been removed, as well as the bottle of Alkacine. But his valise remained. I took the liberty of looking inside—putting on my gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. In addition to radio scripts, the valise contained a book titled Lost Treasures of the United States.”
My pulse thrummed. “Treasures?”
“I flipped to the index, and had just enough time to see that there was an entry on Montgomery Hall when I heard footsteps approaching and was forced to cut my inspection short. That book was some sort of treasure hunter’s guide, Mrs. Woodby. Perhaps Glenn planned to return to Connecticut and search for the treasure. In fact, recall how we encountered him in the woods this morning? Perhaps he had already been searching for the treasure. What is more, we may be entirely incorrect about the reason for Rudy’s death. Perhaps he was not killed as the result of a petty personal feud or sordid romantic jealousy. Perhaps he was killed because of the treasure. And perhaps, so was Glenn.”