The Archy McNally Series, Volume 1

by Lawrence Sanders

  I nodded.

  “A feeling,” she said. “That’s all it is, a feeling. I see people talking, and they shut up when I come close. And people meeting people they shouldn’t be meeting.”

  “Which people?” I asked.

  But she ignored my question. “Just the mood,” she said, almost ruminating. “Like something’s happening, something’s going down, but I don’t know what it is. That’s not much help, is it?”

  “More than you think,” I told her. “I trust your instincts. If things become a little clearer, will you contact me?”

  “Yes, I could do that.”

  “I know you have our phone numbers, at home and the office. I’d really appreciate it if you’d give me a call. This business is nasty.”

  “That it is,” she said, nodding vigorously. “I-do-not-like-it-one-bit.”

  “I won’t take up any more of your time, Mrs. Marsden. Anyone else around I can talk to?”

  “Harry Smythe and his wife are out on the north terrace. Playing chess.”

  “Nice people?” I asked her.

  “I wouldn’t know, sir,” she said, the perfect servant.

  I found my way to the north terrace—the one in the shade—and walked into a family squabble. Nothing vulgar, but as I arrived he swept the chessboard clear with a sweep of his arm and she gave him a high-intensity glare. If looks could kill, he would have been dead on the scene. And these were the people chef Jean Cuvier had described as “cold”?

  I stooped to pick up a rook and a pawn, and set them upright on the board. “Checkmate,” I said with what I hoped was a soothing smile. It wasn’t.

  “And just who the hell are you?” he demanded in a BBC accent.

  I was tempted to give him a brash response like “Mickey Mouse” or “King Tut” but obviously neither of them was in the mood for levity.

  “Archibald McNally,” I said. “And you must be Doris and Harry Smythe. Surely Lady Horowitz told you I’d be around asking questions about her missing stamps.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with us,” the woman said in the surliest way imaginable. “So bug off.”

  Unbidden, I pulled up a chair, sat down, crossed my legs, and gave them a taste of the McNally insolence. “Of course it concerns you,” I said stonily. “You were on the premises when the Inverted Jennies disappeared. So naturally you are suspect. The theft has now been reported to the local authorities. If you refuse to answer my questions, I shall be forced to report your uncooperative attitude to Sergeant Al Rogoff, who is heading the official investigation. He has been known to make recalcitrant witnesses talk by beating them about the kidneys with a rubber truncheon.”

  I really thought I had gone too far, and they’d immediately dismiss me as a demented freak. But perhaps it was the influence of American movies and TV shows that caused them to stare at me in horrified astonishment, wondering if I might be telling the truth about the interrogative techniques of Florida cops.

  “We know absolutely nothing about it,” Harry Smythe said, tugging at his ridiculously wispy Vandyke.

  “Not a thing,” his wife chimed in.

  I looked at them. What a pair they were! Both long and stretched, all pale skin and tendons. Both wore their hair parted in the middle, but his was sparse and straw yellow while hers was thick chestnut and quite long. And both had the dazed eyes and clenched jaws of the luckless. I hoped Mrs. Marsden would count the silver before they left.

  I spent an unpleasant twenty minutes putting the Smythes through my inquisition. But as I seemingly accepted all their answers without objection, their aplomb returned, and Harry took to staring at my pastel silk sports jacket with chilly disdain. He was wearing a Harris tweed with suede patches on the elbows—in South Florida yet!

  I didn’t find it bothersome if he thought me foppish. That was his opinion—and my father’s. His idea of sartorial splendor is wearing a Countess Mara tie.

  “There is nothing you can add to what you’ve already told me?” I asked finally.

  “I think someone on the staff took the stamps,” he offered.

  “Thank you both very much,” I said, rising. “I’ll probably be back with more questions, and I imagine Sergeant Rogoff will want to hear your story as well. Now go back to your chess game. It’s such a lovely day for it.”

  I marched back into the house and met Lady Cynthia Horowitz entering from the front door. She looked like a million dollars. But I speak metaphorically. Actually she looked like a hundred million dollars which, according to Palm Beach gossip, was her approximate net worth. Anyway, she was smashing in a Donna Karan sheath of beige linen. She also had a tennis bracelet of diamonds around one bare ankle.

  “Hi, lad,” she said breezily. “How’s the snooping coming along?”

  “Slowly,” I said. “I’ve just been talking to Doris and Harry Smythe.”

  “Monsters, aren’t they?” she said. “I just can’t believe that stiff is my son. And that shrew he married! The two of them are so dull.”

  “You invited them,” I pointed out.

  “Come with me,” she ordered, crooking a forefinger.

  I followed her down the long hallway to a shadowed game room complete with billiard table, card tables, and a small roulette wheel. There was also a zinc wet bar built into one wall, and that’s where Lady Cynthia headed.

  “What’ll you have?” she asked.

  “Nothing, thank you,” I said. “But you go ahead.”

  “I intend to,” she said, and I watched with fascination as she swiftly and expertly constructed a gin-and-bitters.

  “Let me tell you about my son Harry,” she said, “and my sweet daughter-in-law. They’re professional guests. That’s how they live: London to Paris to Antibes to Monte Carlo to Palm Beach to Newport—wherever they have acquaintances, friends, or relatives who’ll put up with them for a weekend, a week, a month—whatever. Neither Harry nor Doris has ever worked and probably never will. The only capital they have can be packed in four suitcases. I give Harry a yearly allowance, just enough so they can fly tourist-class to their next invitation. Sponges, both of them.”

  “A sad way to live,” I observed. “What kind of a future can they have?”

  She gave me a crooked grin. “They’re waiting for me to die,” she said, then hoisted her glass. “Cheers!” she said.

  I wished then I had asked for a drink because what she said touched me. Sad bravery always does.

  “Ma’am,” I said, “I’d like to ask you something I hope won’t offend you. If the Smythes are constantly on their uppers, as you say, do you think it possible they might have stolen the Inverted Jennies?”

  She considered that a moment, head cocked to one side.

  “Nope,” she said at last. “Out of character. Petty stuff maybe, but not a big crime. They just don’t have the balls for it. They’re really small people, lad. Which is why I have Mrs. Marsden count the silver before they leave.”

  I laughed. “The idea had occurred to me. You and I think the same way.”

  She looked at me strangely. I could not interpret that look.

  “Do we?” she said.

  I departed soon afterward, having had my fill of the Inverted Jenny Case for one day. I drove home, took my swim, attended the family cocktail hour, and dined with my parents.

  I announced my intention of spending the evening in my den getting caught up on personal correspondence. My father suggested I might like to take a break later and come downstairs for a nightcap in his study. Prescott McNally never commanded, he suggested.

  I brought my journal up to date, paid a bill for a tapestry waistcoat (couldn’t put that on my expense account), and dashed off a few short notes.

  I also phoned Jennifer Towley and got her answering machine. While waiting for the beep I wondered idly if it was a Victorian or Edwardian model. I left a message thanking her for an invigorating evening and asking that she call so that we might arrange an encore. I hung up, curious about where she might be at that
hour. I am not afraid of competition, you understand, but I would much prefer the cool Towley gaze be leveled only at me. And my ego is such that I refused to believe she could have found a more ardent swain. Grumbling with frustration, I clumped downstairs to my father’s study for that nightcap.

  He was still fighting his way through Little Dorrit, but put the volume aside when I entered and invited me to help myself from his port decanter. He waited until I was fueled and seated before he spoke:

  “I suppose you know that the police have been notified about the disappearance of Lady Horowitz’s stamps.”

  I nodded.

  “As you had hoped, Sergeant Rogoff has been assigned to the investigation.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I had a talk with him this morning and gave him what I have, which isn’t much.”

  He looked at me narrowly. “You gave him everything?”

  “Not quite everything,” I said, and told my father the wild theory I had that Kenneth Bodin, the chauffeur, might have pinched the stamps to get back at the rich lady who had an affair with him and then gave him the boot.

  My father rose from his club chair and strode over to the pipe rack on his marble-topped sideboard. He selected a handsome silver-banded Comoy and began to pack it from a walnut humidor. His back was turned to me.

  “You really believe that, Archy?” he asked. “About the chauffeur?”

  “I’ll have to check it out,” I said, “but at the moment it’s all I have.”

  He lighted his pipe with a wooden kitchen match and returned, puffing, to his chair.

  “Sounds farfetched to me,” he said.

  “Yes, sir, it does,” I agreed. “And if I had anything better I’d zero in on that. But I still have three more people to talk to, and something might turn up. By the way, I spoke to Lady Horowitz this afternoon. She seemed remarkably chipper.”

  “She doesn’t appear devastated by her loss,” he admitted. “But as I’m sure you’re aware, it represents a small fraction of her net worth. Couldn’t that rumor about Lady Cynthia and her chauffeur be merely idle gossip, with no truth to it?”

  “It could be,” I acknowledged. “But I’m always amazed at how often local gossip turns out to have at least a kernel of truth. And she does have the reputation of being rather free with her favors, in addition to her six husbands.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I suppose so.”

  And then he said nothing more about the Inverted Jenny Case. I made some idle conversation about the dwarf palms Jamie had planted about the garage, and he responded mechanically. I finished my port, thanked him, and rose to leave. He didn’t urge me to stay.

  He said merely, “Keep at it, Archy.”

  I went back upstairs and prepared for bed. My father is a deep, deep man, and I couldn’t help wondering why he had quizzed me in such detail about the missing stamps. Usually he hands me an assignment and never asks questions until I bring him the results. I could only assume he wanted McNally & Son to provide exemplary service to a valued client. There are a lot of hungry attorneys in South Florida, where many wealthy people switch lawyers as often as they do proctologists.

  Chapter 6

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING I overslept (a not infrequent occurrence) and dashed down to the kitchen where I found Ursi Olson doing something violent to a pot of yams. Our cook-housekeeper is a stalwart woman who looks as if she could plow a field, pause to drop a foal, and then continue plowing.

  “Breakfast?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “But I’m on a diet.”

  “No eggs Benedict?”

  “I lied to you,” I said. “I’m not on a diet. Eggs Benedict, by all means.”

  “You got a phone call from your father’s office,” she said. “Mrs. Trelawney. She wants you to call her.”

  While Ursi rustled up my eggs, I used the kitchen phone to call my father’s secretary.

  “I have your expense account check,” she told me.

  “Bless you!” I said fervently.

  “Can you pick it up?”

  “You betcha,” I said. “Later today. Okay?”

  “Whenever,” she said.

  Sounds like a silly, innocuous phone call, doesn’t it? But later I was to reflect on how important it turned out to be. Because if Mrs. Trelawney hadn’t called me, and I hadn’t agreed to stop by the office and pick up my check, then I—but I’m getting ahead of myself. At the time it happened I felt nothing but joy at the news that funds awaited me. My checking account had become a bit emaciated. I don’t mean that poverty loomed, but one sleeps better with a few shekels under the mattress, doesn’t one?

  After breakfast I hustled to the Horowitz mansion. I wanted to talk to the remaining residents before they were braced by Sgt. Rogoff and his henchmen. Al is a very capable investigator, but subtlety is not his long suit. First of all, he looks menacing, which makes a lot of people lockjawed—especially the guilty. I look like a twit, which fools many into telling me more than they intended.

  I headed directly for the ground-floor office of Consuela Garcia, Lady Cynthia’s social secretary and my lost love. She was on the phone when I entered and motioned me to a chair.

  “But I mailed the invitation myself, Mrs. Blair,” she was lying smoothly. “I really can’t understand why you didn’t receive it. Our dreadful postal service! Well, Lady Horowitz is planning a big Fourth of July bash, and I’ll make every effort to make certain you receive your invitation. And again, I’m so sorry you were disappointed last time.”

  She hung up and grinned at me.

  I rubbed one stiff forefinger against the other in the “shame on you” gesture. “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” I said.

  “Listen, you,” she said, “I hear you were at the Pelican with a looker. Who is she?”

  “My sister,” I said.

  “Since when does a guy buy his sister champagne cocktails?”

  “Oh-ho,” I said. “Priscilla’s been talking.”

  Connie, who’s a member of the Pelican Club, said, “Priscilla never blabs and you know it. But my spies are everywhere. How are you, Archy?”

  “If I felt any better I’d be unconscious. And you?”

  “Surviving, barely. Half the calls I get are from yentas who want to know who snatched the madam’s stamps. I suppose that’s why you’re here.”

  “You suppose correctly. Have the cops been around?”

  “Not yet.”

  “They will be.”

  “That’s all I need,” she said mournfully. “The reporters are bad enough. Okay, let’s get it over with.”

  I ran her through my shortened version of Twenty Questions and learned nothing important. Consuela had last seen the Inverted Jennies about six months ago when Lady Cynthia passed them around at a charity benefit. Everyone knew they were kept in an unlocked wall safe, and anyone could have snaffled them: staff, houseguests, or even brief visitors.

  I stared at her as she spoke and saw what had attracted me originally: She was a shortish, perky young lady with cascading black hair. Once, in our brief escapade, I had the joy of seeing her in a string bikini. The memory lingered. But there was more to her than just a bod; she had a brain as well. She ditched me, didn’t she?

  “Connie,” I said, “give me something, no matter how wild. Who do you think could have stolen those stupid stamps?”

  She pondered a long while. “Not an outsider,” she said finally. “Not an over-the-wall crook. I don’t buy that. It was an inside job.”

  I groaned. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “Five people on the staff, six house-guests. That’s eleven suspects.”

  “Including me,” she said, grinning again.

  “That’s right,” I agreed. “And the cops know it.”

  “Oh, that’s beautiful.”

  “What about Harry Smythe and his wife?”

  “What about them?”

  “I don’t like them,” I said.

  “Who does?” she asked, reasonably enough.

  “
But if I had to make guesses, they wouldn’t head the list. They’re too mean.”

  “Who would head the list?”

  She hesitated just a moment. Then: “Alan DuPey and his wife.”

  “Why them?”

  “They’re too nice.”

  I came close to slapping my thigh in merriment. “The FBI could use you, Connie. What a sleuth you are!”

  “Well, you asked me for wild ideas.”

  “So I did,” I said. “I haven’t talked to the DuPeys yet. Are they around?”

  “No one’s around. The madam is at the hairdresser’s and the rest of the crowd has gone out for the day on Phil Meecham’s yacht.”

  “That old roué?” I said. “He’ll make a play for all the women and most of the men. All right, I’ll catch the DuPeys another time. Thanks for your help, Connie.”

  I was starting out when she called, “Archy,” and I turned back.

  “Who is she?” she asked again.

  “You never give up, do you?” I said. “Well, it’s no secret; her name is Jennifer Towley.”

  Connie’s smile faded. “Oh-oh,” she said. “You’ve got trouble, son.”

  I stared at her. “What is this?” I demanded. “You’re the second person who’s warned me. Why have I got trouble? What’s wrong with my dating Jennifer?”

  “Nothing,” she said, busying herself with papers on her desk. “Now get the hell out of here. I have work to do.”

  I knew there was no use pushing it so I got the hell out of there as ordered. I drove to headquarters debating which mystery was more maddening: the missing stamps or Jennifer Towley. About equal, I reckoned.

  In the cool lobby of the McNally & Son Building, the receptionist, a white male heterosexual (we were an equal opportunity employer), handed me a pink message note. It stated that Bela Rubik had phoned me about an hour previously and wanted me to call him as soon as possible.

  But first things first: I went upstairs and collected my check from Mrs. Trelawney. She was a delightful old bird who obviously wore a wig and looked like everyone’s maiden aunt. But she loved raunchy jokes, so I spent ten minutes with her, relating the most recent I had heard. She had a couple of good ones herself. Then I went to my office and phoned Rubik.