As I did the above, Rosie crawled to freedom, and Ernie uttered a startled, “Shit!” But by that time we were almost to Mr. Fortescue’s huge gate. I threw my cape over the pup as we passed the guardhouse. If the guard happened to glance into the car, and providing he could see anything at all in the dark, he might have wondered why my cape wiggled so much, but he didn’t say anything, opened the gate, and we were off.
Ernie drove approximately three blocks on Sunset Boulevard before he pulled the Studebaker to the curb and parked, turned, and stared at me as if he’d never seen me before. “I can’t believe you did that!”
I gave him one of my innocent smiles. “Did what? You wanted Mrs. Von Schilling’s property back, didn’t you? This is her property, isn’t it?” I was cuddling Rosie at the time. “I hope to heaven you didn’t give that horrid man any money.”
“I never even got to meet him. That guy in livery came and told me you were sick.”
“Good.” I believe I should be forgiven if I felt a sense of pride over a job well done.
Ernie shook his head for about ten seconds before he started driving again. I noticed his shoulders shaking, though, and I was pretty sure he was laughing. My assumption was confirmed when we pulled up in front of Chloe’s house, and he had to wipe his eyes.
Turning to me, he held out his hand. “Mercy Allcutt, allow me to shake your hand.”
“What for?”
“For pulling off one of the greatest feats of skullduggery in Los Angeles history. You got the better of Horatio Fortescue. I don’t think anyone else has ever done that—well, and lived to talk about it.”
I felt my eyes open wide in alarm. “Good heavens, is he truly dangerous?”
“Well, yeah. Why do you think people are so afraid of him?”
I swallowed, much as Henry’s companion had done when I’d smiled at him. “But … but I thought he was only a blackmailer. I thought that’s why people were afraid of him.”
“I suppose that’s his main business.”
“Then you don’t think I’m in any physical danger?”
“How could you be? He never even met you. Hell, he never even met me. He doesn’t know you took the dog. If he asks, the butler will say the pooch followed some lady into the bathroom, but nobody knows your name and nobody saw you leave with the dog.” He chuckled again. “God, that’s priceless.”
“So can I be your assistant now?” I didn’t expect a positive response, but as long as I was on the one-can-but-try theme, I figured the question was worth the asking.
“You’re turning out to be a pretty good secretary, but let’s not rush things.”
I sniffed and thrust the dog at him. “Very well, then, you get to take care of Rosie until Mrs. Von Schilling comes to fetch her.”
“Hey!”
“Thank you for an interesting evening, Ernie,” I said as I opened my own door and exited the Studebaker. “I’ll see you bright and early Monday morning.”
I heard him holler, “Mercy!” as I tripped up the walkway to Chloe’s house.
When I told Chloe what had happened (naturally, she’d waited up for me, although she hadn’t had to wait long. I walked through the door of her house at around nine-thirty that night), she laughed so hard she claimed I gave her a stomachache.
Eleven
When I arrived at work slightly before eight o’clock on Monday morning, after having greeted the emery board–wielding Lulu LaBelle in a friendly manner, I saw that a note lay on the office floor, shoved there at some point during the weekend, I guess. I picked it up, and was surprised to find it was addressed to me.
My nose wrinkled when I opened it and discovered it to be an epistle of love signed “Your Adorer.” I threw it in the waste-paper basket and muttered, “Ew.”
However, I didn’t let Mr. Godfrey’s insanity bother me for very long. I’d done an admirable piece of work on Saturday, and I was proud of myself. Even Ernie had appreciated my ingenuity and daring. True, he hadn’t actually said so, but he had shaken my hand and told me I’d done a good job. Although I’m sure it bespeaks a weakness in my character, I was hoping for a little more praise that morning. I spent my first few minutes in the office throwing wilted flowers away and washing out vases.
And then, after taking a careful measure of the office and determining where I should hang my newly acquired purchase, I stood on one of my office chairs, hammered a nail into the wall as if I’d been doing such things all my life, and hung up the fall-foliage picture. It looked quite well there when I climbed down from the chair and scrutinized it. Placing the rug, an oval in muted green and brown with yellow flowers, on the floor, I concluded that the place looked ever so much more inviting than it had. And the picture and rug hadn’t cost all that much, either.
My state of elation lasted until Ernie got to work about three-quarters of an hour after I did. After redecorating, I’d dusted the office, straightened the papers on my desk, and fended off Ned, who seemed inclined to want to use my office as his reading closet, and was still feeling smug. I’d half expected Ernie to be carrying Rosie when he arrived at the office. His arms were empty of poodles, however.
“Good morning,” I said brightly as Ernie slouched into the room.
“Yeah,” he said, and, after stopping dead in his tracks for approximately five seconds as he surveyed my improvements to my room, he went into his office. I heard his hat land on the floor, heard him say, “Damn,” and assumed he was picking it up.
Well, this was no fun. I rose from my desk and went into his office, stopping before his desk with my pencil and secretarial pad clutched in my hands, poised to begin my work week. “Where’s Rosie?” I said by way of starting a conversation.
He glanced at me, scowling hideously. I resented that. I was a heroine, curse it, and deserved more than ugly looks and scowls. “Where the hell do you think it is? I gave it back to Mrs. Von Schilling.”
This information startled me. “Already? But it was Sunday.”
“It was Saturday night,” he said with what I can only describe as an evil grin. “Mrs. Von Schilling was most appreciative.”
I wasn’t sure what that grin meant, but I pursued the subject because it interested me. “I should hope so. You fulfilled your duties to her admirably.”
“I sure did.”
The grin broadened, and I began to get an inkling of the meaning he was attempting thereby to convey. I gasped and then could have kicked myself. Darn it, I didn’t want him to think of me as a spoiled, innocent little rich girl from stuffy old Boston! Lifting my chin, I said, “What do you think of the improvements I made to the outer office?”
“Improvements, eh? Well, I guess.” He uttered a bark of laughter, the fiend, but sobered at once. “June Williams is dead.”
This information came at me so abruptly and was so unexpected that I couldn’t quite take it in at once. It certainly drove all thoughts of redecorating out of my head. “June …” Then it hit me, and I gasped again. “Good heavens!” Sinking into one of the chairs facing Ernie’s desk, I whispered, “How did it happen?”
“She was murdered sometime between Friday night and Sunday morning.”
“Murdered!” I dropped my pencil.
“Yeah. And I’m afraid I might have been the unwitting cause of it, since I’m the one who followed her to Pasadena. Apparently, somebody followed me.”
“Oh, surely, it’s not your fault.”
He shrugged, and I knew I hadn’t reassured him.
“Mr. Godfrey,” I said in an awful voice.
“You don’t know that, and neither do I.”
“It must have been he.”
“Nuts. I’ve got a friend on the L.A.P.D. coming in today to talk to me about the case. He’s the one who tipped me off that she was in Pasadena.”
“Why was he interested in her?”
“He wasn’t until I asked him about her. But I guess she filed a report saying somebody was following her.” He heaved a deep sigh and leaned back in
his chair. Then he leaned forward again. “I miss my squeak,” he said bitterly.
“Nonsense. What can we do about this?”
“About what? My squeak?”
His deliberate obtuseness irked me. “About the murder, of course!”
“You can’t do a damned thing. I’m going to talk to Phil and see if we can come up with something.”
“Phil is your friend on the police force?”
“Phil Bigelow. He’s about the only honest cop I know.”
That was certainly a depressing observation. “Are you going to ask him about Babs Houser, too?”
Another huge sigh met this question. “Ah, hell, I guess so. He might be interested because of the Matty Bumpas connection.”
Silence reigned as Ernie brooded and I tried to get my nerves to stop leaping around like frightened rabbits. That poor woman. And we’d just spoken to her a few days earlier. I’d never met anyone who’d been murdered until then. The knowledge that my world had expanded to include one didn’t make me feel very good. “How did it happen?”
The nasty look he directed at me was wholly unwarranted. “I already told you. She was murdered.”
I gave him back glare for glare. “Yes, I know you did, but you didn’t tell me how she was murdered. For heaven’s sake, Ernie Templeton, you’re an intelligent man. Stop pretending to be dense.”
“Dense, am I? Maybe you just can’t make yourself clear. Ever think of that?”
What a childish conversation! Nevertheless, I strove to get an answer from him. “How was she murdered, Ernie?”
“Strangled.”
“Oh!” I don’t know why I was so much more horrified to hear that than I would have been had he said “shot” or “hit by a car,” but I was.
“Yeah. I guess it was an ugly scene. She’d been packing to leave town.”
“You mean, she was going to follow your advice?”
“I guess. Only it came too late. Maybe I should have wired her to leave town before I went to see her,” he added with scathing acidity.
“It’s not your fault. The only person at fault is the man who murdered her.”
He thought about that, his head cocked to one side. “Yeah, it had to be a man.”
For some reason, this statement surprised me. “Was there any doubt?”
“Naw. I doubt that a girl could have pulled the cord so tightly.” He eyed me, and for almost the first time since I’d met him, his eyes were serious. “I don’t want you wandering out on the streets by yourself, Mercy. One woman has been killed, and I don’t want to add you to the killer’s list.”
“Me?” I was so astonished, my voice squeaked. “Why in the world would anyone want to kill me?”
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I don’t know why anyone would want to kill June Williams, either, but somebody did. If we’re dealing with a lunatic, and if whoever the lunatic is found her by following us when we went to Pasadena, he might target you next.”
Pondering our conversation with June Williams last Thursday—good heavens, that had only been three days before—I murmured, “She was obviously afraid of someone.”
“Yeah. Wish she’d told us who.”
“Whom,” I corrected without thinking.
He only frowned at me.
I remembered that so-called love note I’d found on the office floor that morning, and recalled what June Williams had said about Mr. Godfrey believing against all reality that she loved him and he was engaged to marry her. More shaken than I’d care to admit, I said, “Just a minute. I want to show you something.” Retreating to my own office for a moment, I retrieved the note from the waste-paper basket. When I returned to Ernie’s office, I held it out to him. “You’d better look at this.”
He took the note and read it, his eyes going wide, and that sarcastic grin of his annoying me yet once more. “So you’ve got yourself an adorer, do you?”
My hand itched to slap his face, but I, being a lady whether I wanted to be one or not, restrained myself. “It’s not funny. I think it’s from Mr. Godfrey. Do you suppose he’s transferred his …” I couldn’t offhand think what to call it, so I settled on “… attentions to me?”
“You don’t know it’s Godfrey,” said Ernie as if he were drumming a lesson into a slow student’s head. “For all you know, it could be anyone. That Easthope character, even.”
“Francis Easthope?” I stared at him, appalled. “Heavens, no! Mr. Easthope is a perfect gentleman.”
“He’s a fruit,” grumbled Ernie. “However, that probably lets him off the hook in this case.”
He’s a fruit? Whatever did that mean? I didn’t have a chance to ask because the door to the outer office opened. I rose from my chair, prepared to do my duty, but the man who’d entered walked into Ernie’s office without secretarial intervention.
“Ernie, you old son of a gun!” he cried out jauntily.
A tall man, he was probably Ernie’s age, only his complexion was fairer than Ernie’s. He was also a good deal heavier than my employer, who was lean and muscular. I had deduced the muscularity from what I’d seen of his forearms when he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves. This man wasn’t wearing one of the police department’s blue uniforms, so I deduced he was on the detective force.
“Phil Bigelow, how the devil are you?”
Ignoring me, Ernie surged out of his chair, came out from behind his desk, and grabbed the other man’s hand, pumping it heartily. “Killed anybody lately?”
“Not so’s you’d notice,” the man called Phil said, laughing. Personally, I thought the comment had been in deplorable taste, but nobody’d asked me. “You?”
“No.” Ernie sobered as he headed back to his chair. “But I managed to get somebody killed.”
There he went again: harping on his responsibility in the June Williams murder. As far as I was concerned, the only person to blame for Miss Williams’s demise was Mr. Hiram Godfrey.
Mr. Bigelow tossed his hat at Ernie’s coat stand. His aim was better than Ernie’s, and his hat landed squarely on a peg. Feeling left out, I cleared my throat.
Ernie lifted his eyebrows, then remembered his manners—if he had any. “Oh, yeah. Mercy Allcutt, this disreputable emissary from the Los Angeles Police Department’s detective force is Phil Bigelow. Phil, my secretary, Mercy Allcutt.”
“How do you do?” I said politely, holding out my hand for Mr. Bigelow to take.
He did, after tipping a wink at Ernie. I didn’t care for that wink, although I sensed it would be better to conceal my indignation, since I didn’t want him to think I was a prig. I also didn’t want to be left out of the conversation that would certainly ensue between the two men. “I’m fine, Miss Allcutt. And you?”
“Very well, thank you.” For some reason, when I was with Ernie and I behaved as I’d been brought up to behave, I felt like an insufferable stuffed shirt. However, as much as I didn’t like the feeling, even more did I believe (still do, for that matter) that manners are important and smooth over a good many otherwise uncomfortable social situations. Not that it matters. I only mention it.
Mr. Bigelow took the chair next to mine and directed his next comment at Ernie. “So, what’s up? I understand why you feel bad about the Williams woman, but it wasn’t your fault. If she’d bothered to tell anybody what was going on, we might have helped her.”
“Yeah? How?”
Mr. Bigelow shrugged, but admitted, “I don’t know.” He shook his head and it looked to me as if this admission dissatisfied him. “You know how it is. If a guy goes nuts and starts giving a broad grief, there isn’t a whole lot the police can do about it unless he actually hurts her, and then it’s generally too late.”
That was more or less what June Williams herself had said, and I was beginning to think there was something wrong with the laws if it was so. Because I was there and an integral part of the office staff—in truth, I was the office staff—I felt justified in asking a question. “Aren’t there any laws against harassin
g people?”
Both men looked at me as if they’d forgotten I was there and weren’t pleased to be reminded.
I frowned back. “Well? Aren’t there?”
The men exchanged a glance. Ernie spoke first. “Actually … I don’t think there are. Phil?” He made a sweeping gesture, as if he were an announcer at a vaudeville show and was welcoming a new act to the stage.
“None that I know of. There’s disturbing the peace, of course, but you only get that if a guy starts yelling and bothers the neighbors. And it’s illegal to break and enter. If a guy hits a woman, it’s a crime, I suppose. But if somebody wants to be on the same public street as another person, it’s not a crime.”
My mind went back to Saturday, when I thought I recognized Mr. Godfrey among the shoppers on Beverly Boulevard. Coincidence? I couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t much like it. “I should think it would be a crime to … to … stalk another person. For a man to treat a woman as if she were … were his prey, for heaven’s sake! To follow her everywhere for the purpose of mischief. Or even if the party of the first part only harasses the party of the second part, why isn’t that a crime?”
Ernie shrugged. Mr. Bigelow didn’t do even that much, but only stared at me, bemused. Ernie said, “We aren’t responsible for the laws. The laws are … well … the laws. And nobody’s passed one like that so far.”
I was indignant, not so much because these men didn’t seem to know much about what I had presumed to be their business, but because apparently there were no safeguards in place to protect women like June Williams from maniacs like Hiram Godfrey. “Do you mean to tell me that Mr. Godfrey can pursue a woman against her will, as if she were a deer in the forest, and kill her, and there’s no law against it?”
“There’s a law against killing her,” Ernie said. “But if a man follows a woman around, it’s not a crime.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Well, there should be. Mr. Godfrey hounded that woman out of Los Angeles, and then went all the way to Pasadena and killed her! If the police had stopped him from bothering her in the first place, she’d still be alive today.”
Lost Among the Angels (A Mercy Allcutt Book) Page 16