The Rotary Club Murder Mystery

by Graham Landrum

  THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

  >> Henry Delaporte <<

  Just before President Gene struck the bell to close our meeting—I think it was the second meeting in June—he said, “Fred Middleton would like to see—whatever he calls the bunch.” He got a laugh from the club, then went on: “The detectives—the ones looking into …”

  When he seemed at a loss to describe the group, Melvin Benson said, “You mean the Baker Street Irregulars, Gene.”

  As we all know, the real Baker Street Irregulars were the London urchins who scurried around and ferreted out information for Sherlock Holmes. It happened that one of the television networks had recently been featuring a series about the adventures of Holmes and Dr. Watson. Everyone laughed. And those of us who were following Mrs. Bushrow’s progress—I might say, with a good deal of interest—were the “Baker Street Irregulars” from then on.

  About fifteen of us stayed on after Gene had rung the bell and dismissed the club.

  The reason Fred wanted to see us was that he had received in the morning mail a letter from Harriet Bushrow, and it raised some questions he thought we should consider. The letter was as follows:

  Dear Fred,

  Here I am at the above address staying with my dear old friend Maud Bradfield. I have a lovely room, and Maud showers me with every attention. If I didn’t have to do any detective work, this would be about the pleasantest vacation a person could desire.

  Which brings me to the thing I want you to think about.

  Fred, I am finding a lot of things about Charles Hollonbrook that do not reflect credit on Rotary. Now you and I know how fine at least ninety-nine percent of the Rotarians really are. But we also know that there are people out there—writers and so on—who make snide remarks about Rotary—want us to think Rotarians are “operators” just grubbing for money and that sort of thing.

  Well, I have to admit that your Charles Hollonbrook was an operator. Fred, I’m finding things about your district governor that, if they are brought out, will embarrass Rotary plenty—or at least they ought to.

  I give the man credit—he came up in a hurry, but on the way up he did some pretty mean things to a good many people. He was a womanizer, and there are other little peccadilloes. So your friends should be thinking about whether they want me to go on with this—because what I find is bound to give Rotary a black eye.

  On the other side of the question, I am as certain as can be that your Mr. Hollonbrook was murdered; and I don’t suppose we can let a thing like that go without trying to bring whoever did it to justice, can we?

  I leave it up to the Rotarians. It is their club, and I’ll quit what I’m doing and go home if that’s what they want.

  Give my love to Daisy Beth.

  Faithfully yours,

  Harriet Gardner Bushrow

  When Fred had finished reading the letter, the reaction of the Irregulars was nothing at all. After a minute or more, Fred prompted us: “What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” Keith said. (That’s Keith Duncan.) “I think our district governor got his tail caught.”

  “It sure looks like it,” Leon Jones agreed.

  “The question is what we are going to do about it,” Fred observed.

  “Apply the Four-Way Test.” This suggestion came from Milt Powell.

  There was a pause before Trajan McDowell said, “In what way? I mean, how does the Four-Way Test apply to a case like this?”

  The Four-Way Test is a kind of totem of Rotary. It asks four questions. First: Is it the truth? Second: Is it fair to all concerned? Third: Will it build goodwill and better friendships? And fourth: Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

  “All right,” Leon said, “is it the truth?” citing the first test.

  There it was. If Harriet Bushrow said it, there wasn’t one of us who didn’t think it was the truth. Right there in our own club, I could think of three members who had been up to the sort of thing Mrs. Bushrow’s letter suggested. Who would deny that the same could be true of the district governor?

  Next, was it fair to all concerned? That one had us stumped. If Mrs. Bushrow succeeded in finding the culprit, everything was bound to come out. It would be in all the papers. Rotary would look bad, and it was sure to embarrass Hollonbrook’s friends and family. Was that being fair to all?

  Fred made the point that if a man had been murdered, it was unfair to him if the killer did not come to justice.

  “But what makes you so sure old Charles Hollonbrook would want everything to hang out?” Trajan objected; and we all had to admit that a dead man should be allowed to rest in peace.

  As far as the next test went—would it build goodwill and friendships—nobody saw how that could apply. And the fourth test—would it be beneficial to all concerned—was a sure loser. It could not benefit Charles Hollonbrook. A scandal would not be beneficial to Rotary. And it certainly would not benefit the murderer.

  I think we were about ready to call it quits and ask Mrs. Bushrow to come home, when Leon said, “What do you suppose that old boy was up to, anyhow?”

  “Yeah,” Keith agreed. “I want to know what he did.”

  Suddenly, the mood of the group had swung 180 degrees. We were all for going on with the investigation. At that point, J. L. Garrison, a senior active—the typical gentleman of an older generation, who is also something of a character—suddenly declaimed, “Fiat justitia, ruat caelum! Let justice be done though the sky falls.”

  That settled the matter. We told Fred to instruct Mrs. Bushrow to go on with what she was doing and to assure her that we would support her in all her expenses and in every other way possible.

  AT THE BAPTIST CHURCH WITH MAUD

  >> Harriet Bushrow <<

  Gossip has a bad reputation. But as a means of clearing the mind and stimulating thought, I find it most effective. The trouble with gossip is that most people consider it an end in itself: But when it is taken as a means of forming the opinion and rising above ignorance, it has great usefulness in society. What is journalism but a kind of gossip—not as good or as useful as the back-fence variety—because there is no give-and-take except maybe in the letters from the readers. And even when we watch the evening discussion of the news on TV, we don’t gain the full benefit of gossip because we don’t get to put in our two cents worth.

  What I am getting around to is that Maud and I have been girlfriends for over seventy years, and there is nobody with whom I would rather gossip. Why, gossip is about the only intellectual activity left for old ladies like me, and without it our poor old brains would dry up and blow away. When a woman gives up gossip, she might as well be dead.

  So as soon as I got to the house, Maud said, “Now lunch is ready, and I’m dying to hear.”

  That darling girl had made a delicious salmon salad—served it on crisp, fresh lettuce—and with rolls and ice tea, it made just a perfect lunch.

  Maud was as interested as could be in what I had to tell her.

  “Well,” she said when I got to the end of my story, “I guess that lets the widow out. A half million dollars sounds like a pretty good alibi to me.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, looking out the window at Maud’s mock orange. Across the street, a little dog ran out and barked at a passing car. “That,” I went on, “and the fact that now she is—don’t you know—actually encouraging me to find out who did it.”

  The little dog kept on barking—proud of itself, I suppose. It made me think of Alice Hollonbrook’s little cocker and the fact that Miss Stout had a key to the house so she could feed the dog.

  “Now Maud, I want your opinion on Miss Paula Stout. She goes to your church, so you are bound to know her,” I said.

  “Know her?” Maud replied. “That poor child! She’s so good, she makes a pest of herself.”

  Now you see what I mean about gossip. It’s very illuminating. It cuts right through to the meat of the matter.

  “So good that she is a pest.” Surely you have known somebo
dy on that order. A meek little thing that is all the things the Bible says you ought to be—so good! And knows it, too! The thing I like best about Our Lord is the way he saw through people like that.

  Maud said she thought the trouble with Paula was that she was plain, while her sister was beautiful.

  “Yes,” she said, “Roberta, the older sister, entered beauty contests, though I don’t remember if she won any of them—you’d think I’d remember. But she attracted men like flies to molasses. And that left poor Paula with nothing but good works to fall back on.”

  I don’t have much to say for psychiatrists and analysts and people who tell you all your troubles stem from your mother’s shutting you in a closet for ten minutes when you were four years old. But I do know that lots of girls with beautiful sisters will do anything to get equal attention. And, of course, if the sisters hadn’t been so pretty, the ugly ones wouldn’t have known how much attention one girl can get.

  Maud told me about a friend who had flu last winter. This Paula found out about it and brought chicken broth—kept bringing it. Well, a person gets tired of chicken broth after a certain time. And it seems this do-gooder is always volunteering to be coordinator or chairman of some project—like dressing the dolls at Christmas for the Salvation Army. Then she just keeps urging more and more dolls on everybody and specifies in great detail how the doll clothes are to be made. I recognized the type. Yes indeed!

  So after our conversation, I was very interested in Miss Paula Stout. That’s when Maud said we’d see her in church and no doubt Paula would put on her act for us.

  “Oh, she’s very popular,” Maud declared with a drop or two of vinegar in her voice, “with little old ladies.”

  Maud’s church is about as old as I am—which is just the way a church building ought to be. Outside, it is red brick with white columns and steps leading up to the door. Inside, somebody has painted the walls pale green, which was the wrong thing to do. There is a large stained-glass window on the right—the woman at the well—and on the left another big window of Christ at Gethsemane. Behind the choir is the baptistry with the Jordan River in stained glass and a light behind it.

  Whatever else you may say about the Baptists, they are true to themselves; I have to hand it to them.

  The woodwork is dark oak. The pews are curved so as to surround the podium, which projects out into the room. That was just fine for me because it makes it possible to look over and see part of the congregation on the other side.

  When Maud and I came up from attending her class, which was in the basement of the Sunday-school annex, the organist, in her light gray robe, was just entering, clutching her music. Pretty soon, she had it all spread out on the organ and began to play.

  People were coming in from all directions, exchanging greetings. Baptists do a lot more of that sort of thing than I am accustomed to. After all, we Presbyterians have to keep up our reputation as God’s frozen people.

  Well, we were sitting there in all that hubbub when Maud leaned over to me and said, “There she is now—standing just where nobody can get around her.”

  I looked kitty-cornered across the auditorium and saw this little thing in a little straight black-and-white checked skirt and a black jacket with some kind of red pin on the lapel. Mousecolored hair—straight, bobbed, and combed behind her ears. She had this round face and not too bad a figure—a tiny bit on the plump side—“pneumatic,” Lamar used to call it. She was talking to a lady apparently in her fifties and was holding up all the people who were trying to get by. Finally, somebody pushed her. She turned to him with an obvious, radiant smile.

  “Turning the other cheek,” Maud whispered.

  “You don’t like her, do you?”

  “Lord, no!” she replied.

  Maud tries to be a good Baptist, and if she doesn’t make it, it really isn’t her fault. She is pure gold—I wouldn’t want you to think anything else—but she never did quite fit the mold. When we were in school, Maud played cards, and that was long before Baptist ladies had anything to do with cards.

  “Look at her now,” Maud said.

  Paula had progressed about twenty feet into the room and was leaning over the front pew, talking past the heads of people in the second pew to a ghostly little lady on the third row.

  “That’s Pearl Travis she is talking to,” Maud explained. “Pearl lost her sister recently.”

  I have to admit that the Baptist religion is enjoyable. The service is always fun. Baptist ministers tell stories that make the congregation laugh—and other stories that are pitiful and plead with you to respond in a sympathetic way. If there ever was any starch in those Baptists, it’s all gone by the time the service is over and the congregation has had a complete emotional workout.

  When the last hymn was sung and the benediction had been pronounced, Maud said, “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”

  We pushed through the crowd slowly because everyone spoke to Maud and she had to introduce me. Finally, we reached the quarry. Paula turned as Maud called her name. She had her Bible and Sunday-school book in one hand and her purse in the other. There was a certain amount of juggling of these three objects before her right hand was stretched out to me.

  “Mrs. Bushrow!” the child said. She was no more than five foot two or three. “I am so glad to see you. I want to tell you what a comfort your visit has been to poor Mrs. Hollonbrook. Alice, Mrs. Hollonbrook, spoke to me yesterday and explained that she was not satisfied to think that Mr. Hollonbrook took his own life—such a sad thing—and said you were being so helpful. I do appreciate anything you can do for her.”

  I had not expected little Miss Goody Two-Shoes to be so socially effective.

  “Of course, I would do anything in the world to help her,” she continued.

  I didn’t know how much Alice Hollonbrook had told this woman about me, but this was one of those times when it might be just as well if she thought I was a batty old thing. I suppose some people might say I wouldn’t find it hard to give that impression.

  I held Paula’s hand and said, “Darling, she told me how thoughtful you have been—and so sweet. Oh, I know at a time like this how important it is to have thoughtful friends.”

  “Were you acquainted with either Mr. Hollonbrook or Mrs. Hollonbrook before this tragedy?” she inquired. And it sounded a bit as though she was asking me for my credentials.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “But, don’t you see, it happened right there in my own town—Borderville—and my late husband was such a prominent Rotarian—why, I just couldn’t be here in town—I’m visiting my friend here—old school chum—and I felt it was just a duty to visit that poor woman.”

  Was I laying it on too thick? I must have been, for Paula Stout countered with: “I understood you are the one who wanted to know where I was on the night of May 26, and a list of all who knew where Mr. Hollonbrook was at that time.” She said it rather coldly. When she did not put on her sanctified smile, her face was like a mask.

  “I have typed it all out,” Paula continued. “It’s here in my purse. I was going to drop it off to Alice on the way home from church. I’ll just give it to you now.”

  Again there was a rearrangement of the Bible, Sunday-school quarterly, and her purse, and in due time she pulled out a folded piece of paper.

  “Oh, that is so good of you,” I gushed. “Of course there is no reason to suspect you at all. But they always collect alibis, don’t they? In detective stories, you know. And so I said to that sweet Alice Hollonbrook, ‘Dear, you must collect all the alibis—just from everyone, you see.”

  I took the paper.

  “So sweet of you to do this!” I said. “But then a little bird tells me that this is the kind of person you are.”

  We were hardly out of the church before Maud told me what a hypocrite I am. Said I was getting worse as the years go by. I expect she’s right. But she was almost laughing as she said it. Meanwhile, I was dying to see what was written on that paper.

  As s
oon as I got to the car, I unfolded the missive and read:

  On Monday, May 26, I worked in the office arranging for the plumber to fix a leak at the Ducky’s in Eunice. I made out checks, paid the bills for all three Ducky’s locations, and posted same in the account book. I showed two houses, made out the ad to be included in Wednesday’s Gazette, and sent flowers in Mr. Hollonbrook’s name to the opening of the new Stedbury Children’s Clinic, which is in one of our properties. At 5:30, I picked up Mrs. Rose Moody from McMenamee’s Rest Home (her seventy-sixth birthday)—took her to my house for dinner. She stayed with me through the night, and I took her back to the rest home after breakfast on the 27th.

  People who knew where Mr. Hollonbrook was on May 26: Jeff Sandifer, president of Stedbury Rotary Club. Everett Greenwood, secretary-treasurer, Stedbury Rotary Club. Francis Duff, rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Gene Spencer, president, Borderville Rotary Club. Jody Russell, secretary-treasurer, Borderville Rotary Club. Frank Nicholson. Jimmy Hollonbrook.

  Well, that was interesting. I wondered whether there might not be one or two others who knew of Chuck Hollonbrook’s whereabouts on that night.

  I CALL ON MRS. LINDA HOLLONBROOK

  >>Harriet Bushrow<<

  I am tired of the Rotary Club Mystery. Oh, I adored the detective part of it. That’s just fun and exciting, and for an old lady it is better than a shot of gin. It gets me out of the house and in this case even out of town; and if it doesn’t exactly revive the flesh, it revives the mind, so that I feel fifteen years younger.

  Ha! Even at that, I would be seventy-three.

  The part I don’t like is all this writing. When they insisted I must write up my part of the Famous DAR Mystery, I should have said no! And now I have this plagued business about the Hollonbrook murder to write up. Oh well, maybe I’ll be dead by the time the next mystery comes along.