Gin and Panic

by Maia Chance

  Bathroom: Medicine cabinet stocked with Alkacine and French aftershave lotions and balms. Downy Turkish bath towels.

  Bedroom: As tidy and impersonal as a hotel room. Two large closets stuffed with exquisite suits, shirts, coats, shoes, and silk ties. No diary. No love letters. No treasure maps. No photograph albums. No address book. No guns.

  Long story short, everything in the apartment was as bland as Cream of Wheat, except for one thing: the large puppet in a straw hat, sitting on the chest of drawers in the bedroom. Its painted wooden head was hinged open in a permanent grimace, its red curly hair looked genuinely human, its soft limbs were attired in denim overalls and a plaid shirt, and a wheat stalk protruded from its bucked wooden teeth. It was the sort of thing you hope not to see when you’re, say, waking up at midnight in a hayloft.

  I slunk by the farmer puppet without making eye contact, battling the absurd notion it was looking at me. Glenn must have kept the puppet as a memento of some theatrical production he’d been in. But what a thing to have looming over your bed.

  I stuffed myself back in the dumbwaiter, pushed the button, shut the door, and sank back to kitchen level.

  Berta thwacked the sliding door open. “Well?”

  I half tumbled out, wincing as a nerve in my back twanged. “Nothing of interest—unless you count a nightmarish puppet. It’s very much the pad of a well-to-do bachelor who doesn’t spend much time at home. The police may have already removed important clues—there was barely anything of a personal nature up there.” I took my hat, handbag, and dog off Berta’s hands. “Let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  The drive up the coast to Carvington was damp and miserable. Rainwater seeped in from the top of my window, the windshield kept fogging up, and my tires, balding and due for a replacement I couldn’t afford, skidded on the road. Ralph drove steadily behind us, never more than one motorcar back. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop sneaking peeks at him in the mirror. With every glimpse of his square shoulders and tilted hat, my heart wrung itself. Why, oh, why couldn’t he leave me in peace to patch up my broken heart?

  We stopped in Mystic before motoring the last miles to Carvington, going once again to Carter’s Menswear. Ralph stayed inside his motorcar at the curb. He was eating something out of a paper sack.

  Inside, a lumbering, messy-haired fellow was folding a stack of denim overalls at the counter. He frowned at us as we approached. I smiled, and asked him if the lady shopkeeper was in.

  “Willa told me about two nosy ladies in high heels, prying about our customers.” He gave Berta and me a scornful top-to-toe, and then regarded Cedric as though he’d like to convert him into a Russian hat. I assumed that Willa was the lady shopkeeper to whom we’d spoken yesterday and this fellow was, perhaps, the husband she’d mentioned.

  “That was indeed us,” I said. “And we were hoping we might be able to speak a bit more—is she in?”

  “Nope. Visiting the dentist.”

  “Poor thing,” Berta said with a sympathetic tongue cluck. “I don’t suppose you could tell us about the customer in question, the wealthy-looking lady—fur coat, pearls—who purchased a hat, rain slicker, and a pair of men’s trousers?”

  “I could,” the shopkeeper said. “But I won’t. We respect our customers here at Carter’s.”

  “Oh good,” I said. I went to a garment rack and selected two yellow fisherman’s raincoats and hats—the subtler colors were sold out—and carried them back to the counter. “I’ll take these, please.”

  The shopkeeper’s eyes went narrow and glittery, but he rang up the items and wrapped them in brown paper. I took the packages and my change and said, “Now, then. The customer in the fur coat and pearls?…”

  He scowled.

  I beamed.

  “She purchased a fisherman’s raincoat and hat, said something about being on holiday in a cottage and needing rain attire for her walks on the beach—although why anyone would walk on the beach in November—”

  “Wait—Willa didn’t tell us the bit about the holiday cottage,” I said.

  Berta said, “Where might one find a seaside holiday cottage to let in, say, Carvington?”

  “Carvington? Only a few of them there, all in a row on the waterfront.”

  Whoopee!

  “Who owns the cottages?” I asked.

  “Oh, one of the old Carvington families. Not sure which.”

  Berta and I thanked the shopkeeper and went outside.

  “I think we’ve found where our Isobel Bradford impostor is hiding out,” I said. “Now all we must do is go to her cottage and corner her. She just might be our murderer.”

  “She also may have seen or heard something the afternoon of Rudy’s death.”

  Next, we stopped into Rexall Drugs. Ralph watched our movements from behind his windshield. I haughtily pretended not to notice.

  Amid the posters cluttering Rexall Drugs’ doorway windows was one advertising Menchen’s Manikins, just like the one I’d seen in the New London train station. I paused. Glenn’s farmer puppet … could there possibly be a link? Surely not. The world is, alas, full of puppets.

  I went inside and purchased three Milky Way chocolate bars and a box of Marie Antoinette pearlized face powder. Berta purchased the latest Spectral Stories, the cover of which depicted a ghost looming over a séance.

  Obviously, Berta had not once been disturbed by the supposed ghost at Montgomery Hall. I myself was off Spectral Stories for good.

  Last, we stopped at a bakery and purchased a white paper sack filled with sugar cookies. Provisions, you understand.

  By the time we stepped out of the bakery, Ralph’s Chalmers was nowhere in sight.

  I frowned up and down the bustling street. “Where has that pill gone?”

  “I would have thought you would be pleased that we have shed him,” Berta said.

  “No.” I shook my head. “He’s up to something.”

  * * *

  The rain was splattering harder by the time I parked the Duesy on Church Street in Carvington. The Old Whaler’s Inn was a cumbersome clapboard building with dark blue shutters and lace curtains in every window. A sign cut in the shape of a spouting whale hung over the door.

  “It will be drafty and mildewy,” Berta said.

  I switched off the engine. “We’ll be able to smell George Washington’s morning breath in there.”

  “Alas, we have no alternative.”

  “Why don’t we ever have alternatives?”

  “That is a very good question, Mrs. Woodby.”

  “Look. There is Ralph’s motorcar, parked across the street. You didn’t tell him we meant to stay at this inn, did you?”

  “No. He must have deduced it. Mr. Oliver is remarkably clever.”

  “Conniving is more like it.”

  We gathered up our suitcases and parcels and battered into the lobby of the Old Whaler’s Inn, which was really only an entry hall with a long, steep spill of stairs, wilted wallpaper, and a reception desk.

  The unwholesome-looking young man behind the reception desk informed us in a monotone that rooms were available. He was lanky and wan, with a too-small suit jacket that revealed his knobby wrists, and greasy dark hair combed straight down from his hairline.

  We booked ourselves into “deluxe” accommodations, which meant we’d have private bathrooms. Gorgeous! You see? November need not be utterly dismal. I’d have a hot bubble bath at first opportunity, with a French clay face pack and some chocolate—

  “Hot-water boiler is broken,” Knobby Wrists said.

  Of course.

  “Did a man by the name of Mr. Oliver check in quite recently?” I asked.

  “Why, yes. Only ten minutes ago. But he has already gone out. He asked me for walking directions to Carvington College. He said he was interested in the fine architecture on campus.”

  Architecture, my foot. He was off to see Theo Wainwright. And coincidentally, I wished to speak with Theo, too.

  Bert
a had read my mind. “We meant to go for a walk to the campus, too,” she said. “We do so adore architecture.” She bugged her eyes meaningfully at me. “Shall we, Mrs. Woodby?”

  “Lovely! But first, I must make a telephone call.” I had promised Eustace I would telephone as soon as I booked into the inn. I turned to Knobby Wrists. “Is there a public telephone on the premises?”

  He pointed through an open pair of pocket doors. “In the parlor. Ten cents per call.”

  “Highway robbery,” Berta muttered.

  The parlor was decorated with slack floral sofas, Colonial-style cabinets, and a coal fire gasping its last in the stone fireplace. I found the telephone on the wall beside a framed print of the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving.

  Miss Murden answered the telephone at Montgomery Hall and gruffly agreed to fetch Lord Sudley. Theo must have decided to allow her to keep her job, then. If Rudy had really meant to fire her, she had benefited from his death. Would someone really murder a man just to keep their job? It was a bit extreme. Then there was the matter of Miss Murden’s fancy new motorcar, and the Carvington Fish Co.’s oyster operations Lem Fitzpatrick had mentioned—

  “Lola, my dear.” Eustace was on the line. “Have you returned to Connecticut?”

  “Yes, and we have a new lead.” I glanced over my shoulder to confirm the parlor was still empty, and lowered my voice. “I think we might have pinpointed the Isobel Bradford impostor’s hideout.”

  “Great Scott! Where?”

  “In a rented holiday cottage on the waterfront, here in Carvington. We’re going to investigate in—” I glanced at my wristwatch. “—in about an hour or so.” I wished to allow enough time for Berta and me to speak with Theo Wainwright at the college.

  “Allow me to come along,” Eustace said.

  Berta would hate that. “I don’t know.…”

  “As your client, I insist. And as the man who adores you, Lola, well, you could be placing yourself in danger.”

  “All right.” It’s awful; I just can’t say no to sweet talk. “Meet us here at the Old Whaler’s Inn at six o’clock.”

  “Right-ho, my dear.”

  Just before Eustace rang off, I was certain I heard an extra click on the line.

  Someone at Montgomery Hall had eavesdropped on our chat.

  When I returned to the lobby, Knobby Wrists had gone upstairs with our suitcases and parcels. I clipped on Cedric’s leash, and Berta, Cedric, and I set off for the college.

  * * *

  Carvington College was just the sort of morose, ivy-clad cluster of buildings you’d expect from a notable New England school. Berta, Cedric, and I passed between two grand brick pillars and into a network of brick paths and boggy lawns.

  College boys toting books, satchels, and umbrellas crisscrossed the paths. Victorian-looking streetlamps shone in the dusk. We stopped a pimply boy and asked him for directions to the history building.

  “Fisk Hall?” he said. “In the quadrangle.”

  We wandered around some more and found Fisk Hall. HISTORY was carved in Gothic letters in the stone lintel. Inside, parquet floors creaked and antique dust tickled my nose. We found a directory board.

  “Theo is studying a Colonial Connecticut war, remember?” I said. “So we must want the American History department, which is … third floor.”

  Berta sighed. She disliked stair-climbing and I couldn’t blame her, since the boots she always wore gave me hammertoes just from looking at them.

  On the third floor, gold letters on frosted-glass door windows advertised the occupants: PROFESSOR DUDSWORTH; PROFESSOR GAZAM; GRADUATE STUDENT OFFICES.

  “This must be it.” I rapped on GRADUATE STUDENT OFFICES.

  “It’s unlocked,” a male voice called. “Give the knob a jiggle.”

  I jiggled and then pushed the door open halfway. Five or six wooden desks heaped with papers and books filled a small room that smelled of stale coffee and moist socks. Theo sat at one of the desks, a typewriter in front of him, a pile of books beside him, and a bemused-yet-icy expression on his face.

  “Oh, looky here,” he said to Berta and me. “Humpty and Dumpty. We were just discussing you pair.”

  We?

  I pushed the door wider. Cedric whimpered and bounded forward so suddenly, his leash was ripped from my hand.

  21

  Ralph lounged in a chair across from Theo, and he gave me a crooked grin before bending over to pet Cedric, who was gyrating like Josephine Baker.

  Theo said, “Shouldn’t you pair begin searching for my father’s diamonds before it’s too late? You’ve got about, oh, thirty-odd hours left before I ring up Carvington’s boys in blue. So far, it doesn’t seem like you’ve made very good use of your time. My detective here, Mr. Oliver—”

  “Ladies,” Ralph said with a nod, as though he didn’t know us. I guessed he hadn’t filled Theo in on the finer points of his relationship with the Discreet Retrieval Agency.

  “—has just been apprising me of your movements during the past two days, and we’ve been having quite the laugh. Bakeries and bathroom stops seem to factor in most prominently.”

  Sounded as though Ralph had withheld the important things. He wasn’t an utter blister, then.

  “What are you doing here on campus, Mr. Wainwright,” Berta said, “when you now have a perfectly nice study in your new mansion?”

  “I require peace and quiet, and Coral is driving me off my trolley. She’s in drunken hysterics about Glenn Monroe being poisoned. Swears up and down that the ghost did it. Little fool.”

  “Why not cast her out?” I said. “You aren’t obliged to give your late father’s girlfriend room and board, are you?”

  “She has no place to go. No family. No job. Besides which, she’s squizzed around the clock. If I sent her packing, she’d probably be hit by the first bus.”

  It didn’t seem like Theo to act the gallant. Coral must hold some sway over him. Jillie Harris had hinted that Glenn Monroe might’ve been keen on a cute fellow up in Connecticut.… That would certainly give Coral some sway.

  “We have learned a curious little tidbit about you, Mr. Wainwright,” I said. “Someone saw you going up the steps of New York City Hall last month.”

  Theo scratched the tip of his nose. “Fascinating.”

  “What business had you at City Hall?” I asked.

  From the corner of my eye, I noticed Ralph shifting in his chair. That dratted jelly bean was enjoying the show.

  “I read a bit more about you two in the newspapers in the college library,” Theo said. “You’re a sort of case study for a psychiatrist. Mrs. Woodby here used to be rich, but now she’s poor. That’s a dangerous type, I’d think. She has a taste for the finer things in life, but she hasn’t the funds for them. So of course she’d steal diamonds. And then there is Mrs. Lundgren, the poor Swedish village girl who found herself working for the fat cats on the Gold Coast. It must’ve been awful being surrounded by all that finery you couldn’t afford.”

  “I would think, Mr. Wainwright, that you would be a dangerous type,” I said. “A man who has always been poor, always scraped and scrimped and who now finds himself both fabulously wealthy and the owner of an estate upon which, as legend has it, treasure is buried. A coincidence? Perhaps not.”

  “You two are pests. You think you’re very clever, but really all you are is two dumplings who printed up some fancy business cards.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wainwright,” I said, “but flattery isn’t going to work.”

  Ralph stifled a chuckle.

  “Tell us what you were doing at New York City Hall that day in October,” I said, “and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “I have work to do,” Theo said, “so if you don’t leave now, I’ll telephone the police. How would you like that? There is a telephone just downstairs.”

  Desperate, I glanced at Berta.

  “Mr. Wainwright,” she said in her most grandmotherly voice, “if you do not tell us what you were doing at
New York City Hall, we will be forced to tell the police that you knew you stood to inherit your father’s estate well in advance of his death.”

  Berta was bluffing—we had no proof of this, although the idea had been in the background ever since we found out that Theo had conveniently inherited all from Papa Rudy.

  His cheeks went putty-colored. “What proof have you?”

  “Do not worry your handsome little head over such details. Now, what were you doing at New York City Hall?”

  “You’re making a fuss about a minor coincidence,” Theo said. “Yes, I was at City Hall that day and I did happen to run into Glenn Monroe and some insipid blonde—I suppose she’s who told you about seeing me there, or was it Glenn, before he—” Theo swallowed heavily. “I only knew Glenn by sight, but he was always coming up for the weekend to get crocked with Coral. That day, I was in the city to visit the bookshops and purchase a new pair of shoes. When Glenn and the blonde saw me, I was merely riding the subway—the Lexington Avenue line—from Brooklyn up to Hunter College, where I meant to visit a good friend of mine, a graduate student. The Lexington Avenue line is the only one that’ll take you to the Upper East Side, you do realize.”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “I know. But I also know that Hunter College is a ladies’ college, and I have such a difficult time, Mr. Wainwright, believing that you have a lady student friend. I seem to recall you saying something to the effect that ladies should stick to stenography courses.”

  “I do make exceptions, provided the lady is clever enough.” Now Theo was toying with a pencil. Tapping the eraser on the desk, rolling it between his fingertips.

  “What about City Hall?” Berta asked. “That is a great distance from Hunter College.”

  “Yes, well, you haven’t allowed me to get to that. I get queasy on the subway, and, well, quite frankly, by the time the train reached the City Hall stop, I was afraid I was going to be sick, so I got out and went up. There is the park there, but I wasn’t about to be sick in the garbage bin or the fountain, so, seeing the steps to City Hall just nearby, I decided to go inside and look for a public washroom. That’s when I saw Glenn and his blonde.”