by Maia Chance
“Diary?” Ida squawked. “What diary? No one has mentioned a diary to me.”
“Oh. Not diary. I meant address book. Some brouhaha about who has been invited to Grace Whiddle’s wedding—”
“You’ve always been a terrible liar, Duffy.”
“Listen here, Miss Shanks—”
“That menacing voice isn’t going to work with me. Goodness, no. After all, I’ve seen you flat on your back in an ice skating rink with the mayor of New York on top of you. Oh, wait—so has the entire city of New York.”
“That ice was slippery!” I drew a shaky breath. “I must know who your source is. Don’t you see that this could be the key to getting to the bottom of her death?”
“My source is like a golden egg, Duffy, and I intend to sit on this as long as it takes to hatch. These stories are making my career. Those fat cats up in the boardroom, who never took me seriously before, now can’t get enough of me. No, I’m in no hurry to wrap this story up. No hurry at all.”
“Are you mad? More people could be killed!”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Duffy. I happen to know that it makes those cords pop out on your neck in a most unsightly way.”
In spite of myself, I touched my neck.
“On the other hand…” Ida said.
“What?”
“Well, if you gave me something really useful, perhaps I’d consider revealing a clue about my source.”
“What do you want? Something on Dr. Woodby?”
“He’s a big bore. No, I want you to give me an exclusive interview.”
“Me? About what?”
“Why, about your absolutely sidesplitting former-Society-Matron-plus-cook detective agency, of course. The public will lap it up. Mind you, it would most likely be printed on the humor page—”
“Forget it,” I snapped, and hung up.
Berta looked at me expectantly as I sat back down at the table.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing? Did you offer to trade information?”
I swallowed. I would not tell Berta about Ida’s offer. Berta would expect me to give the interview for the sake of the agency. But why should I throw myself on the pyre just so Ida could get her jollies?
“Well, of course I offered to trade,” I said. I checked my wristwatch. “Drat. I must leave for Inchbald Hall now.” I squashed the last crumbs of turnover in the tines of my fork and ate them.
Berta stood. “Allow me to borrow an apron from Mr. Demel—”
“An apron?”
“For my disguise. And then I would be most obliged if you gave me a lift to the Morris house.”
* * *
After dropping Berta off at the fence—not the front gate—of the Morris estate and promising to pick her up in the same spot in about an hour, I motored to Inchbald Hall. This turned out to be a mansion straight out of a ghost story. Everything was pointy: the windows, the gargoyles, those eerie spires on the roof. Not what you’d call a sunlit bower of domestic bliss. I parked, and Cedric and I went to the front door.
A couple minutes later, a Transylvanian butler had left me on the back terrace. Trees curved around close-clipped grass. A hedge maze and a rose garden lay to the sides. Hermie was jogging, red-faced, around a chalk circle on the lawn. A huge apricot-gold poodle pranced beside him on a leash.
Cedric warbled deep in his throat.
“Shush,” I whispered to him. “You might learn something.”
“Mrs. Woodby!” Hermie called, waving. He finished the lap and I joined him on the grass. He appeared moist and overheated in his black suit and hat. He was the first person, actually, whom I’d seen in mourning attire. “The Gold Coast Kennel Club Dog Show is next month,” he said, out of breath. He gestured to the poodle. The poodle did not appear to be out of breath. “Bitsy won Best in Show last year. She is matchless, isn’t she?”
Bitsy peered at me through her apricot bangs. Her eyes looked more like a little girl’s than a dog’s. Cedric growled some more; Bitsy didn’t flinch.
Hermie went on, “Or, rather, I had thought Bitsy was matchless until the existence of a champion stud in Connecticut—he’s called Honneker’s Edmund Freeps—came to my attention. I am awfully eager to breed Bitsy to him. The litter would be perfection itself. Sheer perfection. Of course, Father refuses flat-out to pay the stud fee, and my allowance won’t cover it.”
Aha. Here we went with the money woes. “With your sister gone, perhaps your allowance will increase?” I asked. A rude question, but Hermie didn’t seem to mind.
“No. Father said I won’t see an extra penny until he’s dead.” Hermie patted Bitsy’s head as though to soothe himself.
That ruled out a financial motive for Hermie, then. “You are able to … carry on despite your recent loss?” I asked.
“Muffy meant the world to me,” Hermie said. “But life goes on, and I must keep Bitsy in top form. It is what Muffy would’ve wished. You could put your little fellow down, Mrs. Woodby. Bitsy won’t harm him.”
I placed Cedric on the lawn. He and Bitsy commenced their doggy circular-sniffing ritual.
“Fine flanks on him,” Hermie said. “Buttocks well behind the set of the tail.”
“Quite,” I said. Obviously, I adore dogs. But not as science experiments. Nonetheless, I was here under the pretense of wishing to breed Cedric, so I asked Hermie a lot of questions about the whole business. Finally, I slipped in, “By the way, Mr. Inchbald, why were you at Willow Acres?”
“Muffy asked me to go with her,” he said. “We’d always been close. We spoke on the telephone most days—she was very lonely living with that ape Winfield, you know—and we took our holidays together. In the winter it was Bermuda, and in the late spring we took a long holiday in Deauville. Lovely hotel there, on the beach. Casino and golf and all that.”
Europe again. Although, I couldn’t quite picture Hermie or Muffy taking up with anarchists at a posh French seaside resort.
Hermie went on, “At any rate, Muffy was a bit nervous about her slimming course at Willow Acres—she’d done that sort of thing before, without success. I told her I’d go. Provide moral support and whatnot.” His voice wobbled. “Never thought I’d b-be leaving the p-place alone.”
“I’m not sure how to put this,” I said, “but I got the impression Muffy wasn’t in for slimming, but for—” I cleared my throat. “—for a drinking cure.”
Hermie flushed so deeply, his freckles were obscured. “All right, yes, it’s true—read that in the tabloids, did you?”
I made a noncommittal noise. “May I ask, did you hear or see anything peculiar the night Muffy died?”
“Yes, I did. But not from Muffy’s room. From the other side. From Raymond Hathorne’s room.”
“What did you hear?”
“Talking. A woman’s giggles.”
“What time was this?”
“I’m not certain, but it was likely sometime after midnight. It woke me up, and I put a pillow over my head to muffle it.”
“You, boy!” a gruff voice shouted.
We turned toward the house. A figure hunched in a wheelchair up on the terrace. White hair tufted above a dried-apple face. He was the same man who’d been dining with Van Hoogenband, Senator Morris, and Josie at Breakerhead two nights ago. Obadiah Inchbald, I presumed. A nurse in white stood behind the wheelchair, holding the handles.
“Father.” Hermie cringed.
Bitsy barked. Obadiah shook a fist.
“Father’s b-been on the warpath ever s-s-since that libelous story was published in th-the newspaper yesterday,” Hermie said, backing away from the terrace. “About his company. Inchbald and S-sons. Did you see it?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“F-Father thought he’d go th-through life without ever paying for his s-s-s-sins.” Despite the stutter, despite the cowardly hitch of his shoulders, Hermie was smiling. “If he k-keeps up with this red-hot rage, he just m-m-might blow the last fuse and I’ll be f-free
of him. I won’t have to s-snap to and walk on eggshells and wheel him around the T-titan Club like a sl-slave j-just because they won’t let his n-nurse in th-there.”
“Your father belongs to the Titan Club?” I asked.
“Y-yes. He’s a f-f-founding member.”
“Oh really?” I thought of Obadiah Inchbald and Senator Morris dining with Eugene Van Hoogenband at Breakerhead. “Tell me, is Senator Morris a founding member of the Titan Club as well?”
“Y-yes. It’s the three of th-them, ruling the r-roost. Horrible men. L-lording over everyone else l-like k-k-kings.”
Interesting. Very interesting.
“Boy!” Obadiah bellowed. “Who’s that you have down there? Entertaining visitors when your sister’s body hasn’t even gone cold, eh? I’ll bet you killed her, boy!” Obadiah snarled something at a lower volume to the nurse, and she turned the wheelchair and pushed it away down the terrace.
I squinted. “Is that Nurse Beaulah from Willow Acres?” I recognized the brassy glint of her hair under her nurse’s cap.
“Th-that’s right. Sh-she comes here t-t-to administer his rheuma-ma-matism c-cure.” Hermie turned his back to the terrace, ignoring his father, and launched into an elaborate description of what happens to a lady dog when she has a half dozen peas in the pod. Gradually, his stutter receded.
I nodded and said, “Oh really?” at appropriate intervals, watching Beaulah all the while. She rolled Obadiah in his wheelchair back and forth, back and forth on the terrace. After a few minutes, it seemed that Obadiah had nodded off. Beaulah parked him facing the house. She slunk down the terrace steps, across the lawn, and into the hedge maze.
“—and so it is ever so important to give your bitch plenty of water,” Hermie said.
“I beg your pardon?” I asked. “Oh—yes, of course.”
Hermie checked his gold wristwatch. “I must step inside for a moment, for I am supposed to t-telephone the funeral home regarding arrangements for poor Muffy’s—p-poor M-muffy’s s-service.”
“Mind if Cedric and I look about the garden? I adore roses.”
“Not at all.” Hermie went toward the house, Bitsy strolling at his side in a proprietary fashion.
20
Once Hermie went inside, I made for the hedge maze into which Nurse Beaulah had gone. Cedric dawdled, sniffing the grass. I stepped inside the maze and turned right. There was Beaulah, all alone on a bench. Legs crossed, smoking, a tin of Lucky Strikes beside her and a magazine propped on her knee.
She looked up and lifted a penciled eyebrow. “Whatcha lookin for?” she asked, spouting smoke. “The butler said you can’t use the lav in the house, didn’t he? Well, this isn’t a good spot. I think I saw some poison ivy, plus there are all these danged golf balls.”
It was true: dozens of golf balls littered the maze path. “Um,” I said.
“It’s the next-door neighbor,” Beaulah said. “Always whacking golf balls over the property line. Butler said he comes over to get the ones on the lawn, but I guess he doesn’t know about all these in the maze. Anyway, if you gotta go, try the bushes out behind the garage. Lotsa privacy there.”
“Actually, I wished to speak with you,” I said.
“Me? Wait. You do look kinda familiar.”
“I was briefly booked into Willow Acres. When Muffy Morris was killed. My name is Lola.” I left out my surname since I have the misfortune of sharing it with Chisholm—i.e., Beaulah’s boss. No need to put her hackles up.
“Okay, Lola … so whatcha doing in the Inchbalds’ hedge maze?”
“I am investigating the death of Muffy Morris—”
“A lady detective? Well, ain’t that something!”
“—and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I already talked to the cops about a hundred times, but okay.…” Beaulah closed her magazine. The brand-new issue of Thrilling Romance. Lucky duck.
“Perhaps there is something you could tell me that the police won’t listen to,” I said. “I am familiar with the way the police pooh-pooh a lady’s version of things.”
“And how!” Beaulah said. “They kept trying to make it out like I gave Mrs. Morris that rum or something.” Beaulah’s eyes bubbled with tears. “Like me, Beaulah Starr, would try to hurt some lady I didn’t really know.”
My breath caught. “You were on duty in the East Ward the night Muffy Morris died?”
“Yep.”
Finally.
Beaulah met my eyes steadily. “And I didn’t see nothing funny. Did my job the way I always do. Exactly. Didn’t see a single thing outa place.”
Why was Beaulah so adamant? Was she hiding something, or was she merely defensive as a result of having been roasted over the coals? “Why did the police think you did it?” I asked. “What motive could you possibly have?”
“That’s what I said!” Beaulah spread her scarlet-tipped fingers. “Police are just lookin’ for someone to blame.”
“Someone to blame? Then you believe Mrs. Morris was murdered?”
Beaulah’s expression closed. “No, I don’t—I just meant that if a rich lady like that dies, even if it’s an accident, people want to have a scapesheep or whatever it’s called.”
“I happen to know the vial of medicine wasn’t what killed Mrs. Morris. There was another vial. A vial given to Muffy by someone inside the East Ward. It seems to have contained arsenic.”
Beaulah crossed and recrossed her legs, studied the ash at the end of her cigarette, and tossed it into the hedge.
“Is there something else,” I said, “something to do with … a man?” A stab in the dark, but with us ladies, it is so often to do with a man. I pointed to her copy of Thrilling Romance. “A man like Bill Hampton in ‘Hello, Darling,’ perhaps, who stomps on ladies’ hearts?”
Beaulah’s eyes brightened. “You been reading ‘Hello, Darling’?”
“Of course I’ve been reading it. Although I haven’t yet read Part Two, so don’t—”
“Listen to this—this is at the abandoned cottage across the lake from the lodge, where Bill Hampton went looking for Thelma during the big rainstorm.” Beaulah flicked through the magazine and then read aloud, “‘As fast as lightning, Bill swept Thelma into his arms, captured her mouth with unnerving, swift violence, and kissed her. “Oh, I—I despise you!” Thelma cried, slapping him. “You’re a beast! Now, kiss me again!”’”
“Thelma?” I said. “Bill Hampton is kissing Thelma? What about Maude?”
“What about Maude is right.” Beaulah slapped the magazine shut and corked a fresh cigarette in her lips. “Fellas are all just a bunch of stinkers, and just because a fella’s rich and famous and everything don’t make him less of a stinker.”
“Bill Hampton isn’t exactly famous,” I said. “No one knows about his dukedom in England except his valet.”
“I’m talking about my fella. Well, my former fella.”
“Who?”
Beaulah preened a little. “Winfield.”
“Winfield Morris?” I asked.
Beaulah nodded. “My precious monkey-angel. Well, he was a monkey-angel. Now he’s just a monkey.”
Oh. My. Word.
“Where did you meet him?” I asked.
“Here at Inchbald Hall. Obadiah is his father-in-law, see.”
“You were working here in the capacity of Obadiah’s nurse.…”
“Uh-huh. And Winnie followed me into this very maze, matter of fact. Said he was watching me, wanted to get me alone.” Beaulah giggled.
Ugh. Creepy. “How romantic.”
“He used to be romantic. Now he’s just a skunk.”
“Really?” I leaned in with a Confidential Girl Chat tilt of the head. “What did he do?”
“He might’ve started seeing another girl! I said, I’m the ice cream sundae, mister, and there aren’t no extra scoops.” An inchworm had appeared on Beaulah’s bench. She coaxed the inchworm onto her tin of Lucky Strikes. “Course, he denied the whole thing.”
“There you go, little fella,” Beaulah whispered to the inchworm when it made it onto a blade of grass.
Right then and there I made up my mind: Beaulah couldn’t be a murderer. Murderers don’t treat inchworms like royalty.
“Did Senator Morris ever mention anarchists to you?” I asked. “Anarchists out to get him?”
“No. Those are foot doctors, right?”
All of a sudden I had the crawly feeling that someone was eavesdropping on our conversation. We were in a hedge maze, for Pete’s sake; ten people could be crouched within earshot. But I didn’t want to stop Beaulah, now that I had her talking.
“I’m real irked,” Beaulah said, “because Winnie told me if anything was ever to happen to his wife, he was gonna marry me.”
My mouth fell open.
“But this is what really steams my clams,” Beaulah said. “As soon as Muffy kicked the bucket, Winnie jilted me! When I tried to see him at his house yesterday, his gatekeeper turned me away and said I wasn’t to ever show there again. I even called Winnie up this morning when I knew he’d still be in bed, and I told him—I told him—I told him what I had…” Beaulah broke off and rubbed her nose.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“Nothing. He hung up on me. I don’t even get an explanation.”
“Fellows never provide explanations. Did you happen to tell any of this to the police?”
“Naw.”
“Well, you probably shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it gives you a motive for having murdered Muffy Morris.”
Beaulah gasped. “I hadn’t even thought of that! As if I’d kill a lady just to marry her husband?”
Was Beaulah really so dim? Funny thing was, my gut told me she was. Of course, my gut had also recently requested two pastrami sandwiches.
“It appears that Senator Morris may very well have attempted to frame you for murdering his wife,” I said.
“But Winnie wasn’t even at Willow Acres that night.”
“Someone could have been working on his behalf,” I said. “Don’t you see? What if Winfield told you he’d marry you if something should happen to his wife in the hopes that you’d go and tell that to someone? Someone who would remember it once something did happen to Muffy. Someone who’d stand up in front of a courtroom and testify against you.”