by Maia Chance
The door under the porte cochere swung open and Sophronia Whiddle appeared. Her face went white and then pink. She charged at Berta’s open window. “I fired you two,” she whispered hotly. “Leave.”
“We’ve been hired on another case,” I said, “and we’d like to ask you some questions about Grace.”
“Do you truly think you can go and bungle the simplest of jobs and then turn around—after I fired you, mind—and interrogate me?”
Another motorcar’s engine chugged behind us.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Sophronia said, glancing down the drive. “It’s your mother.”
“My mother?”
“She and your sister, Lillian, are staying with me for the week.”
My windpipe went all wonky and I coughed. “Oh. We’ll just be going then, so—”
“No,” Sophronia said. “Come inside—quickly!—or she’ll see you.”
“There is no reason for subterfuge,” Berta said.
“Oh yes, there is,” I said. I grabbed Cedric and bounded out of the car.
7
Sophronia herded Berta and me through the side door and into a cramped powder room. Berta wedged herself between a wall and the sink. I ended up sort of hovering over the lavatory, holding Cedric with one arm and using the other to brace myself against the wall. My face was about two inches away from a garish oil painting in a gilt frame. I longed to sit down on the lavatory lid, but that would not have been dignified.
Sophronia shut the door behind her. “Well, then. What is this about being hired on another case?”
I said, “We cannot say who hired us—”
“That would be indiscreet, you see,” Berta said.
Sophronia scoffed.
“—but we are investigating Mrs. Morris’s death.”
“Investigating?” Sophronia said. “Everyone knew Muffy had one foot in the grave for years—her drinking problem, you know.”
“Of course,” I said quickly, “but there are a few loose ends our client would like to sort out.”
“Is your client Senator Morris?”
“No,” Berta and I said in unison.
“It is. Your mother told me what a terrible liar you are, Mrs. Woodby. And I see that little wrinkle on your forehead twitching. How disappointed Senator Morris will be when he discovers you two are more suited to be court jesters than detectives.”
“You haven’t heard from Grace since we spoke on the telephone this morning?” I asked.
“No. You know how girls of that age are. They all loathe their mothers.”
“Grace wasn’t keen on going down the middle aisle with Gil Morris, was she?” I said.
“I made Grace see reason. It was—it is—a brilliant match. I’ve hired another detective to find her. Come along. Your mother must have gone in through the front door by now, so I’ll just let you out.” Sophronia twisted the doorknob.
“You do realize,” I said, “that Grace sneaking away so soon after Mrs. Morris’s demise causes a certain—”
Berta cut in, “Your daughter may be difficult to locate, Mrs. Whiddle, because she is quite possibly a murderer.”
Sophronia let loose a scream that made the pipes under the sink twang. “How dare you, you horrid little woman!”
Berta drew herself up. “I will not be spoken to in that manner.”
“Mrs. Whiddle,” I said, “you said yourself that Grace wasn’t keen on the marriage. Did she have any other suitors besides Gil?”
“Of course not. Her first social season was this year—she only finished at Miss Cotton’s Academy for Young Ladies in May—and she did not precisely cause a sensation. You’ve met her. Pudgy. Poor posture. Those glasses of hers—they’re so thick, she could see into next week.”
“Does she have any close girlfriends to whom she might’ve confided her plans?” I asked. “Some relative who would harbor her?”
“My family is all in Philadelphia, and the only remaining member of her father’s family, Great-Aunt Dottie, is at the moment on a tour of Panama. But friends … yes, she has one close friend, Josie Van Hoogenband.”
A lead! I hid my smile of victory. “We’ll just be going, then. By the way, cute painting.” I nodded toward the garish picture in the gilt frame. “Did Grace make it when she was little?” I was fairly sure it was supposed to depict a farm: sheep like blobs of cotton, pigs like wads of chewing gum, grimacing cows.
“No,” Sophronia said coldly. “That was painted by Gil Morris.”
“When he was a little boy, you mean.”
“No, he painted it this spring and gave it to Grace as a token of his affection.”
Berta and I gawked at the painting.
“Modern art,” Berta whispered.
That must’ve been it.
Berta and I took turns smushing past Sophronia and out the door.
“I do think the powder room is the best place for that painting, Mrs. Whiddle,” Berta said over her shoulder.
“Oh, one last question,” I said to Sophronia, stopping. “Do you know if Hermie Inchbald stands to come by any additional family funds as the result of his sister’s demise?”
“Get. Out.”
* * *
Berta and I had almost made it outside when my mother said behind us, “I heard a scream, Sophronia.”
I froze, sighing inwardly. I turned. “Hello, Mother.”
“Lola?” Mother, several paces down the hallway, squinted. “Lola, what are you—?”
Sophronia said, “Lola was just stopping by to—”
“I stopped by to use the powder room,” I said. “I was motoring past and I was dying to go, so—”
Mother blinked her large blue eyes. “How vulgar.” She was still pretty, with dark waves threaded with gray, and a figure that amply filled out her chic dress.
“No, no, it’s quite all right,” Sophronia said, yanking open the side door. “They were just leaving.”
“Just leaving? Why, I haven’t seen my own daughter for a month. Still lugging that silly little dog about? Men don’t like little dogs, Lola. I had no notion you were even here in the country. I thought you had decided to stay in the city all summer, although goodness knows how you could bear it, even if you are staying at the Ritz—you are still staying at the Ritz?”
“Where else?” I said with a tight smile. Mother somehow could not comprehend how utterly broke Alfie had left me, and I’d decided to keep her in the dark. It gave me more freedom.
“And I see that Berta is still your … cook?” Mother looked askance at Berta.
Berta sent back a steely glare.
“She’s not my cook,” I said. “How silly! I don’t need a cook at the Ritz. I have all my meals sent up from the restaurant. No, Berta is my, um, she’s my maid now.”
Mother’s eyes flicked to my last-season’s cloche hat, down my wrinkled dress, and landed on my battered T-straps. “Perhaps you should hire someone else, dear,” she stage-whispered.
“Mother, did you know Muffy Morris?” I asked. “She’s dead.”
“You are so very lurid, Lola. I blame those dime novels you’ve been devouring since the age of fifteen. Yes, I knew Muffy a bit, but I refuse to gratify your morbid curiosity.”
On to the next question, then. “I’ve met Raymond Hathorne at last.”
“Oh!” Mother’s face softened. “Such a gentleman, isn’t he? Such exquisite clothes! I hear that Fizz-Whiz is going to make a mint. Did he—did you enjoy each other’s company?”
“He’s the berries. Say—where did you meet him again? On a steamship?”
“Yes, on our return voyage from Europe in May. We shared a table in the dining room.”
“What was he doing in Europe?”
“I gathered that he’d been in Scotland, golfing at someone’s castle.”
“Have you met any of his family?”
“Well!” Mother was positively radiant now. “You did hit it off! Why, yes, I know his mother.”
“From Canada?”
“Yes. She was at Delphina Madison’s place on Lake George last summer. A very good family. French Canadians, you know. Practically European aristocrats. They have some sort of château up in Quebec with timber as far as the eye can see. You aren’t too old to bear children, you know, Lola—”
“Well, I really must be going,” I said, inching toward the door.
“But you’ve been neglecting your family,” Mother said. “Lillian is to be married soon, and she would so enjoy the assistance of a seasoned older sister to—”
“Mrs. Woodby is in mourning, Mrs. DuFey,” Berta said, “and she cannot be expected to engage in frivolity from dawn till dusk.”
Mother tucked her chin back, affronted. “Oh. I see. Then I will not remind her of the yacht club luncheon—”
“Toodles, Mother,” I said.
“Where are you staying here in the country?”
“Well, I’ve just had the most refreshing visit to Chisholm’s health farm—”
“Oh? You do not appear at all slimmer.”
“—and now I’m off to the Ocean Princess Hotel.” These days, I couldn’t afford a bar of soap at the Ocean Princess Hotel. Back in the city, I slept on the sofa behind a folding screen.
“But—”
Berta and I were already swinging out the door.
* * *
“Now do you understand the reason for subterfuge?” I asked Berta as we jostled down Clyde’s Bluff’s potholed drive in the Duesy.
“I have known your mother for years, Mrs. Woodby, and her behavior comes as no surprise. What is surprising to me is your reluctance to stand up to her. If you simply told her that you have gone into business as a lady detective, you would avoid much strife.”
“I’ll come clean soon,” I lied. If I told Mother I had become a lady detective, I might not have eardrums left once she’d finished screeching. And as I said, I wasn’t about to demolish the reputations and prospects of my family members. They could do that for themselves. “Where next?”
“Josie Van Hoogenband, Grace’s friend, seems like a promising lead. Girls do talk to their friends, you know, so Josie may be the one person to whom Grace confided her plans.”
“You mean her plans for clipping off her future mother-in-law?”
“And running away. Even if Grace did not tell Josie her plans, Josie will still be able to provide valuable insight into Grace’s motivations and personality.”
“All right. Let’s telephone Josie. I know where she lives. Her father, Eugene, is a bigwig in my old social set. Alfie was forever kowtowing to him because he’s one of the founding members of the Titan Club.”
“That stuffy gentleman’s club on Forty-fourth Street?”
“That’s the one. Alfie was a member, too. I got the impression it was all about drinking and cards and cigars—and giving each other preferential treatment in their business deals, naturally.”
“Have you made Eugene Van Hoogenband’s acquaintance?”
“Only in passing. I can’t picture him inviting me in for tea, if that is what you’re hinting at.”
We motored over a bridge, beside which a new bridge was being built. ANOTHER QUALITY PROJECT BY V. H. STEELWORKS, a sign said. Construction workers toiled in dungarees, and a crane lifted steel beams.
“It seems as though new bridges are being built everywhere this summer,” I said.
“Indeed. And nothing seems the matter with the old ones.”
We motored back to the Foghorn and went once more to the call box in the lobby. We waited for a man whining into the receiver about how some girl had jilted him and taken off for Niagara Falls with another fellow. Finally, he hung up.
“Cheer up,” I said to him as he passed. “It happens to everyone.” Except Ralph Oliver hadn’t had the decency to properly jilt me. He’d gone straight to the taking off bit.
A woman identifying herself as Mrs. Jasper the housekeeper answered the telephone at Breakerhead, the Van Hoogenband house.
“Could I please speak with Miss Josie Van Hoogenband?” I asked.
“May I ask who is calling?”
If I gave my real name, word could get back to Mother. “I am Miss Cotton, the headmistress from Miss Cotton’s Academy for Young Ladies. I must speak with Miss Van Hoogenband about an examination she took last month.”
“You do not sound like the Miss Cotton who attended Miss Van Hoogenband’s piano recital at the house last week.”
I forced a little laugh. “These telephones, you know—”
“Do not ring again, whoever you are,” the housekeeper said, and hung up.
I sighed. “We’re having the rottenest luck getting through to people on the telephone today,” I said to Berta as I climbed out of the call box.
“Indeed, and now we must pay the front desk clerk five more cents. We cannot afford this.”
“Speaking of being on the nut, I nearly forgot—Mother reminded me where we could stay for the night. Alfie’s yacht.”
“He had a yacht?”
“He had three, but the repo men left one they didn’t think was worth taking.”
“Oh dear.”
“I’m sure it was only because it was too small or something. I’ve been meaning to try to sell it off, but I believe the deed of sale is at my … at Chisholm’s house, and I haven’t had the heart to ask him for it. It’s moored in the Hare’s Hollow Marina.” I glanced around the lobby and lowered my voice. “Having a place to stay here frees us up nicely for nocturnal detective work.”
“You don’t mean—?”
“Yes. Let’s sneak into Breakerhead tonight and get Josie Van Hoogenband to talk to us. Who knows, Grace might even be hiding there.”
“This seems rather extreme, Mrs. Woodby.”
“Then what do you propose?”
“We could motor to Breakerhead now, in the pleasant sunshine, and endeavor to gain admittance.”
That did sound less extreme. I checked my wristwatch. “It’s almost three o’clock now. We could stop there on the way to Willow Acres.”
“Willow Acres?”
“Hermie Inchbald’s butler said he was still there, remember? Hermie will be going to the swimming pool soon, and we wished to learn if he has come into big money as the result of his sister’s death.”
“What has the swimming pool to do with any of that?”
“If Grace Whiddle’s escape this morning taught us anything, Berta, it’s that it is possible to burrow through the hedges next to the swimming pool.”
Berta sighed.
8
Lush old trees and thick hedges hid everything but a few of Breakerhead’s chimney tops from view. A high iron fence stretched as far as the eye could see. Golden eagles and spikes topped the glossy black gates. A gatekeeper hurried out from the lodge when we slowed.
“How might I help you ladies?” he asked. “You tourists?”
“No,” I said, “we’re, um, lost. Where is Hare’s Hollow?”
“Straight down this road.” He pointed. “And I’d stay away from this house if I were you. The master don’t like snoops.”
“Right.” I toed the gas pedal.
“Evidently, Josie Van Hoogenband is penned in like a veal calf,” I said over the roar of the engine. This was no surprise. Ten minutes in the public eye for any reason—short of publishing a volume of poems about flowers—could permanently cloud a debutante’s marital forecast.
“Then there is no choice in the matter,” Berta said. “We must partake in nocturnal detective work, after all. We might throw pebbles at Miss Van Hoogenband’s window and convince her to speak with us.”
“We’ll frighten her. She’ll raise the alarm.”
“You and I are many things, Mrs. Woodby, but I would not say that we are especially frightening.”
Good point. Maybe we could tell Josie we were a couple of tooth fairies.
* * *
I motored to the country road behind Willow Acres and parked on the grassy verge. Tall laurel hedg
es hemmed in the property on all sides, but there wasn’t a fence—only a shut gate at the rear service entrance.
“Ready?” I asked Berta.
She made a grim nod. She disliked burrowing through hedges.
I gathered Cedric into my arms and we walked along the verge until we came to the place in the hedge where the swimming pool had to be.
“Thank goodness it’s a laurel hedge instead of boxwood or something.” I hugged Cedric close, hunched forward, squeezed my eyes shut, and plowed through the hedge. Twigs scratched my cheeks, and a branch almost ripped my hat off. I tripped on a root and stumbled through. Cedric leapt from my arms just before I sprawled, palms-first, on the lawn.
“Oof,” Berta said, landing next to me.
We’d landed in the shady spot with the wicker chaises set back from the pool. Several patients in bathing suits lolled on the chaises, all staring at Berta and me from over the tops of books and magazines. No Hermie. I didn’t recognize any of them, actually.
I wobbled to my feet and dusted myself off. “Ah, it’s Willow Acres,” I said loudly, helping Berta up.
The patients kept staring.
“Could any of you tell me where I might find Mr. Inchbald?” I called to them.
Silence. Then a lady in round sunglasses said, “Mr. Inchbald checked out this morning. A terrible tragedy in the family.”
“Are you certain he’s gone?”
“Quite.”
The butler at Inchbald Hall must’ve been behind the game, or lying. Rats.
“You know,” the sunglasses lady said, “this is private property. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. Are you reporters of some sort?”
“Where’s Cedric?” I whispered to Berta.
“Over there.” Berta pointed. Cedric was a mere orange puff bouncing across the lawn toward the mansion.
I whistled; Cedric ignored me. I took off after Cedric as fast as a lady can in two-and-a-half-inch heels on a recently watered lawn.
“Stop!” the sunglasses lady shrieked behind me.