by Maia Chance
“An interview, Mrs. Woodby! Merely an interview. And you refused.”
“Ida means to humiliate me, Berta,” I said.
“But it is not the threat of humiliation that concerns you, is it?” Berta said. “I am not blind. I understand quite well that what you wish to avoid is your mother learning about your new occupation. Your mother—oh, never mind. I am more than sixty years of age, and I no longer have the inclination to beat my head against brick walls. I hereby terminate my employment with the Discreet Retrieval Agency.”
“We haven’t caught the murderer yet,” I said lamely.
“Yet you could. You have seen what is the diary. Give Ida the interview, put two and two together, and you will crack the case. The crux of the matter is, you have not done your utmost to solve the case. I, Mrs. Woodby, only wish to work with persons who do their utmost.” Berta turned and walked toward the lobby doors.
I scurried after her, carrying Cedric and my handbag. “Where will you go?”
“As you know, I received an offer of employment as cook at an estate in Gloucester, Massachusetts, last week. I have just telephoned the household to tell them I have decided to take the post. They requested that I start immediately.”
“You mean you’re leaving for Massachusetts … now?”
“Of course not. I am going to my friend Myrtle’s bed-sit. I will take the first train to Boston in the morning.”
“What about Mr. Demel at the bakery?” I asked, bargaining for time. “Don’t you wish to say good-bye to him?”
“I might easily do that over the telephone.”
“But I thought you—?”
“I had hoped that going against type, as it were, would furnish a refreshing change, but it seems that there was no … suffice it to say that Mr. Demel’s baked goods, in the end, turned out to be a bit dry.”
“And you still miss Jimmy the Ant,” I said.
Berta waved a hand. “You are attempting to distract me. None of that is any of your affair.”
“What about your things at the Longfellow Street apartment?”
“I shall send funds for you to box them up and forward them to me in Gloucester. I do not own much, at any rate, and nothing I care about.” Berta’s hand fluttered to her locket. “I will not expect you to do that until this case has blown over. I shall keep abreast of the case via the newspapers. It is terrible, of course, that poor Mr. Ulf is still in jail, but surely that will sort itself out.”
“We were supposed to sort it out, Berta!”
“Yes,” Berta said sadly. “We were.”
“What if Van Hoogenband finds you in Massachusetts?”
“If Mr. Oliver is to be believed, that matter will be resolved in short order. Good-bye, Mrs. Woodby.”
“Don’t go!”
“I really must.” Berta pushed through the lobby doors and was gone.
The concierge was coming my way with an officious stride. “Excuse me, madam,” he said. “I recognize you from that appalling fracas in the lecture room earlier, and I have just telephoned the police—”
Clinging to Cedric, I hoofed it out of there.
35
Outside, Berta had vanished and night had fallen. I buried my nose in Cedric’s fluff as I went along the sidewalk. The night was still warm, but it had grown blustery. The air smelled of motorcar exhaust, perfume, and cooking meat. Taxicabs honked and balled-up newspapers fluttered in the gutter.
When I reached the place I’d parked the Duesy hours before, it was gone. Stolen, maybe, but probably towed.
Would I ever see it again? I found myself not really caring. With Ralph and Berta gone, well, what was a missing motorcar?
The walk to my parents’ Park Avenue apartment took nearly twenty minutes. By the time I rang my parents’ gold-leaf doorbell, I’d come to a decision.
Their butler, Chauncey, who knew me although I suspected he wished he didn’t, told me that Mother was in her bedroom, dressing for an evening soiree.
I stopped in her open doorway and knocked.
“Lola!” Mother cried, swiveling on her vanity stool. “I’ve been worried sick about you! Why, you look like something the cat dragged in. You’ve lost a little weight, I see. No, it doesn’t suit you, not a bit. It’s done nothing for your ankle concern.”
“Hello, Mother.”
“Sophronia Whiddle telephoned earlier. She said you and that Swedish cook woman kidnapped Grace from the bridal shop? And now it seems Grace has eloped with a baseball player—”
“We didn’t kidnap Grace,” I said. “We merely gave her a lift.”
“It’s reprehensible. And where have you been staying? Do not even attempt to convince me that it’s at one hotel or another, for I’ve telephoned each and every one a dozen times. Is it—” Mother’s earrings trembled. “—are you living in … sin? Because although Mr. Hathorne does, admittedly, possess a modern streak—”
“No, Mother, I’m not living in sin.”
“Thank goodness, although I was beginning to wonder if perhaps it isn’t a good match after all, because Mr. Hathorne does adore golf and you take after your aunt Pauline in the way your hips in golfing skirts—”
“About Mr. Hathorne and golf,” I said. “You’re certain he said he’d been golfing in Scotland when you met him on the ocean liner?”
“Why yes. Scotland. Or was it Deauville? Was it both?”
I frowned. “Deauville? Are you quite certain?” Had Raymond met Hermie and Muffy in Deauville? Because that’s where they had spent their spring holiday. I was too tired to untangle that knot.
“Oh, I can’t remember,” Mother said. “The point is, here you are, and I do hope you’re home to stay, because—”
“I have something to tell you.”
Mother blinked.
I took a big breath and told her about the detective agency and the Longfellow Street apartment, and I told her to forget about pairing me up with Raymond Hathorne or the Prince of Persia or anyone else, because I was in love with Ralph Oliver, Private Eye, and I was very sorry if that jiggered up the family name and prospects.
Mother’s mouth fell open. It closed slowly, like a sea anemone. Then slowly, it opened again and a long, thin shard of a scream poured out. My eardrums rattled. Perfume bottles vibrated on the vanity.
Chauncey appeared beside me. “Madam?” he said.
Mother kept screaming.
“She’ll be all right,” I said to Chauncey. “Oh—and I’ll be staying in the guest bedroom tonight.”
* * *
As soon as I woke up the next morning, I rang for the maid and asked her if my mother was about.
“No, ma’am. Mrs. DuFey has gone out to attend her Lady Friends of Chamber Music breakfast, although I told her she ought to stay home because she sounded ever so hoarse.”
Excellent. “Oh, and would you be a dear and take Cedric for a walk?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After the maid had left with Cedric, I picked up the telephone beside my bed. I asked the exchange girl to put me through to my veterinarian and arranged for him to make a house call to check on Cedric. Park Avenue veterinarians do that sort of thing. Then I telephoned the offices of The New York Evening Observer.
Naturally, Ida Shanks was happy to chat.
“Hello, Duffy,” she said. “I’ve been expecting your call ever since I spoke to your Swedish sidecar yesterday evening. Ready for your interview?”
I unclamped my teeth. “Yes.”
“Oh good.”
“Now?”
“Of course. This is the newspaper business. Time is of the essence. Let’s see—it’s only quarter till ten. I’ll be able to squeeze you into today’s edition. You’re used to squeezing into tight fits, aren’t you, Duffy?”
“Do you promise that you’ll tell me everything you know about your informant the very moment we’re done?”
“Pinky swear.”
Ida’s promises were as valuable as wooden nickels, but what choice did I ha
ve? “All right,” I said.
Ida interviewed me over the telephone for about fifteen minutes. I described my former position in high society, my financial ruin after Alfie’s death, how Berta and I had subsequently begun a detective agency, and how we’d cracked our first case. I heard a couple gasps and chewing-gum snaps that told me the exchange girl thought it was pretty gripping stuff.
“But you haven’t exactly been discreet, have you?” Ida said.
“All I can say is, we do our utmost,” I said. “Make sure you publish that. Now it’s my turn.”
“He has a stutter,” Ida said.
My breath caught. “Say that again?”
“My informant. It’s a he, and he has a stutter. That’s all I know, but a stutter’s a doozy, don’t you think? Got to go, Duffy dear. This thing’s hot.” Ida hung up.
My hands shook as I hung up. A stutter. Ida’s informant was Hermie Inchbald! How could I have been so blind? At every turn, there Hermie Inchbald had been. And yet, because he didn’t stand to inherit the Inchbald bucks just because Muffy had died, we’d written him off.
But what if he’d had a different motive? France had cropped up time and again, but only now did I see that France was smack-dab in the middle of everything. What if Hermie had killed his sister and brother-in-law because they found out he’d put a bun in a French girl’s oven? What if Hermie had leaked those scandals from the diary in an attempt to intimidate or even destroy the other people—his father, Obadiah; Eugene Hoogenband—who knew his terrible secret?
I stared at nothing for a long while, thinking. The bedside clocked ticked. My nerves cried out for coffee and my stomach chimed in with a polite request for an omelet. And despite all that commotion, my mind finally fit together two crucial pieces of the puzzle: Hermie Inchbald and Raymond Hathorne must have known each other before Raymond arrived in America. That was the only explanation for why Hermie was so intent on sandbagging Raymond. And judging by what Mother had said last night, they’d met in Deauville.
Why Violet or Beaulah had had the diary in her handbag when Hermie was the one leaking those high-society scandals to the press, well, one of them must be engaged to marry Hermie.
There was only one thing to do: Corner Hermie Inchbald and make him sing.
* * *
I picked up the telephone again and had the operator put me through to Inchbald Hall. No answer. I dialed 0 again and was put through to Raymond Hathorne’s house. He lived next door to Hermie, so if he was home, well, perhaps he could help. I wondered if he’d ever caught up with Beaulah last night. Not that any of that mattered anymore.
Raymond himself answered after only one ring. “Lola, angel,” he said, “how are you? Nerves settled down after yesterday’s little fiasco at the zoo? I’ve always hated zoos. By the way, I lost Beaulah Starr last night after a bit of a chase, and when I returned to the zoo, you were gone.”
“Never mind that. Mr. Hathorne, I’ll be blunt. Did you—well, you knew that Hermie Inchbald got a French girl in the family way during the war, didn’t you?”
“Why, no. What do you mean?”
“You do know, don’t pretend. I saw what Hermie did written down—”
“Written down?”
“In a girl’s diary, actually.”
“Oh. I see. Whose diary?”
“I’ve put it all together—how Hermie and you knew each other previously, perhaps in France—you never did mention you’d served in the Canadian military, that would’ve made things so much simpler!—and the way he kept trying to warn me off of you, suggesting you’re a liar. Well, I see it all now. You two recently encountered each other after many years, perhaps in Deauville this spring.”
“You’re right. I was a solider, and I did briefly know Hermie during the war in France. When we met again by chance in Deauville, well, I’m afraid things came to light that he had hoped he’d buried for good. That is why he has been so intent on slandering me, you see. To turn people against me just in case I happened to tell anyone about his past sins.”
I knew it. “Raymond, I suspect Hermie murdered Muffy and Winfield Morris in an attempt to cover up his past. I must confront him and make him confess, and I require your help.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
I thought fast. “I’ll ask Hermie to come and meet me somewhere private, get him talking, and then you might—I know, you could spring out of nowhere and startle him and tell him you know about this scandal with the French girl, and we’ll get him to confess everything.”
“Do you really think you can coerce Hermie into spilling the beans just like that? You’re a gorgeous girl, don’t get me wrong, but Hermie’s more keen on poodles than girls, so—”
“I’ve got it—I’ll tell him I’d like to talk about poodles. That ought to do it. I know. I’ll have him meet me at my yacht in the Hare’s Hollow Marina. It’s not seaworthy, but that probably doesn’t matter.”
“What about my yacht?”
“You own a yacht?”
“Of course. And—here’s a thought—I’ve discovered a beautiful little sandy cove up the coast a bit that seems quite unused by mankind. I’ll ring up Hermie with an invitation, and I’ll talk to the Hare’s Hollow police and arrange for some of the boys to be hiding behind the rocks on that beach, ready to hear Hermie’s confession and jump to it with handcuffs and whatnot. Simply meet me at my sailboat in, oh, two hours. Slip number five at the Hare’s Hollow Marina.”
“Oh, thank you, Raymond.”
“Put on your bathing suit, motor over, and I’ll see you soon.”
36
I threw off the covers and went down the corridor to Lillian’s bedroom. Lillian snored softly in her canopied bed. I crept into her closet and found the drawer where she kept her bathing suits. I chose a black one—black is slimming, correct?—with yellow stripes around the thighs. I also stole a summery dress, a pair of beige pumps, and a sun hat.
Next, I took a jar of Pond’s Vanishing Cream from Mother’s vanity table. I wouldn’t expose my skin to the light of day without a thick protective coat of cream. I already had enough peril in my life without the risk of a sunburn.
I bathed quickly, did my hair and makeup, and put on Pond’s and the bathing suit underneath the dress. Lillian is slimmer than I am, so the legs of the bathing suit produced a tourniquet effect at mid-thigh, and the dress hugged my hips. But the shoes and hat fit like a dream.
I dined on coffee, toast, and an omelet and then arranged for Chauncey to look after Cedric and oversee the veterinarian’s visit at one o’clock.
“Miss Lillian will suffer hives with a dog on the premises, madam,” Chauncey said, trying to hide a malicious smile.
I kissed Cedric good-bye, found Mother’s Rolls-Royce keys, and at last, I was off.
* * *
An hour and a half later, I walked along the dock at the Hare’s Hollow Marina, searching for slip number 5. Overhead, the sky was still blue, but bruise-purple clouds seethed on the horizon. Raymond had said we’d sail along the coast, though, and anyway, the plan was that Hermie Inchbald would be locked in the back of a paddy wagon before that storm ever made landfall.
A majestic white sailboat with teak trim and a gleaming mast was anchored at slip number 5. The gangway was down.
I climbed aboard. “Ahoy?” I called. Everything on deck was neatly arranged: ropes coiled like baskets, snowy white sails, brass fittings winking in the sun.
Raymond’s head poked up from the stairs. “Ahoy there, Lola.” He stepped around me and smoothly pulled up the gangway.
“Is Hermie already here?” I whispered.
“Down below, changing into his bathing trunks.” Raymond smiled. “Say, where’s that Swedish dame you’re forever toting about?”
“Berta? She’s gone. Took a job in Massachusetts.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“A relief?” Oh dear. “Raymond, I think you’re just a peach, but, well, I’m a bit goofy about another fellow at the mo
ment. I know my mother has given you the wrong impression about all this—and I shouldn’t have kissed you yesterday—and all I can say is, I’m sorry.”
Raymond stalked away from me. Men and their tender feelings. Jeepers.
“Listen,” I said. “We can talk about all that—What are you doing?”
Raymond had given the boom a heave, and it was whizzing toward me. It hit me smack in the forehead, my feet flew up in front of me, and I went down like Raggedy Ann.
Throbby-red pain. Spiraling stars. My body wouldn’t move. A white blob appeared over me, and when some of those stars got out of the way, I saw it was Raymond’s face.
“That was not enough, Lola?” he asked.
Why did it sound like he had a stronger French accent all of a sudden? I tried to lift myself on my elbows, but the universe gyrated and I sagged back.
Raymond crouched beside me.
Oh no. Oh no no no no no.
He had a rope.
“Get away from me!” I tried to shout. A gurgle came out. The rope was around my neck, and he was squeezing it, squeezing it, and then all sensation just wiped away, and everything went black.
* * *
I couldn’t seem to move my hands and feet. Everything was rocking. My head.
“You’re a-w-w-wake,” someone said.
I forced my eyes open. Darkness. Blue light shining through a porthole. Two small, shining circles—wait. Those were glasses. Whose glasses? “Who is there?” I said. The sickbed weakness of my own voice frightened me.
“Hermie Inchbald.”
Fear zinged through me. But Hermie was rope-bound, too, and wedged diagonally across a folded sail. We were in a storage hold of some kind. Two eyes gleamed beside Hermie.
“Is that Bitsy?” I croaked.
“Poor th-thing. M-muzzled and t-t-tied. Sh-sh-she’s terrif-f-f-ied.”
“What is happening?”
“Isn’t it obvious? That ins-s-sane R-Raymond Hath-th-thorne is sailing us out to deep waters, where he p-plans to toss us over. At l-l-least, that is what he t-told me. I have n-no reason to d-d-doubt him.”
“But—but why?”