“It wasn’t grave-robbing. Maxwell was—available.”
“Of course,” I agreed. I was worse than Fred sitting there, a silly grin on his face. I had not only put my foot in my mouth, but tried to swallow it, too. This was not going well.
“It’s time to leave, Mr. Benchley.”
“Going somewhere without me?”
“No, Mr. Benchley: We have to leave.”
“Who do?”
“We do.”
“We do what?”
“Oh, for cryin’outloud!”
“Do we?” He made no attempt to rise from his chair, only smiled his silly smile.
“Of course we do,” I reiterated firmly, offering my hand to help him out of the chair.
“How so?”
I was red with embarrassment. I turned to Ralph, “So kind of you to see us. And thanks for the first-class refreshment.”
I said nothing on the lift down to the lobby, and remained quiet as we walked out through the courtyard and into a taxi that conveniently dispatched a passenger as we stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Your comments smacked of racism, Mr. Benchley!”
He burst out laughing. “I swear to God, my dear Mrs. Parker, I had no idea what I was saying. ‘How so?’ is interchangeable with ‘You don’t say?’ or ‘Please explain’ and stuff like that. I suppose the phrase has just rooted in my brain.”
“Something’s taken root, that’s obvious, and yes, I have noticed that you’ve used the phrase quite a bit since seeing that dreadful play, Shanghai Suzie, but it was an unfortunate coincidence that we were in the presence of a Chinaman when the seed sprouted from your mouth! As bad as Al Jolson wearing blackface in Harlem!”
I looked at Mr. Benchley, who cast a look back at me of less than sorrowful innocence. I burst out laughing. “Between the two of us—”
“Shitty?” interrupted Mr. Benchley. “You called him ‘Shitty’!”
“I called him ‘Chitty’!”
“I was there, remember?”
“We have to improve our interrogation technique.”
“How so?”
“We got very little information from our visit, and if you ‘how so’ me again I’ll—”
“I don’t want to know how you’ll punish me, so I’ll behave. Actually, I think we found out quite a bit from our little visit, most importantly, the name of a very good bootlegger of some quality imported hooch. Yes, we’ve learned a lot.”
“Have we? How so?—damn! You’ve got me doing it, now!”
“Did it not occur to you that your ‘Chitty’ didn’t seem at all surprised that we, of all people, should know that the police were interested in speaking with Maxwell, and didn’t question why we, of all people, would take time from our busy day to stop at his home, rather than telephone with the request?”
“You are right, Mr. Benchley.”
“And, Mrs. Parker, did you not observe how Maxwell kept looking over at ‘Chitty’ when you asked him how long he’d been employed by Reggie?”
“I did!”
“As if they were in cahoots.”
“I rather like that word ‘cahoots.’ ”
“Well, they were in it.”
“I agree. There is something they are in cahoots about, and they wanted to get their stories straight.”
“Yes, that’s right. And why is an educated young man working as a houseboy in the first place? What I mean is, he isn’t really anyone’s houseboy, is he?”
“How so?” I was saying it now, too! “Shit!”
“Language, Mrs. Parker!”
“Aaarrrgh!”
“I’ll bet he is just posing as a servant.”
“Very astute of you, Mr. Benchley. I presume you’ve arrived at the conclusion that he is too well-spoken and educated to be a houseboy?”
“Well, with a name like Maxwell, it’s a giveaway he’s nobody’s coolie, Mrs. Parker.”
“Mr. Benchley!”
“Yes, Mrs. Parker?”
I decided to ignore his unfortunate verbal phrasing.
“I see you’ve never dined with Lord and Lady Worthingham, or been a guest at the Hyde Park home of Sir Jeremy Canterbury and his seventeen Springer spaniels. Therefore, you have never met the educated and refined butlers of such households.”
“That Sir Jeremy Whattchamucallim, with the seventeen spaniels? Wasn’t that a music hall act come to vaudeville? No, I suppose not. That’s Al Gordon and his Comedy Canines. I think he has twelve dogs . . .”
At times like these, it’s best to ignore my friend and plow ahead. “But, I am inclined to agree with you in spite of your faulty analysis. Maxwell ain’t no houseboy.”
“Language, Madame! And what do you mean, ‘my faulty analysis’? Faulty! How so?”
“It isn’t that he speaks and carries himself like a prince that gives him away. Did you not notice his hands?”
“Should I have?”
“Shoe polish.”
“Shoe polish?”
“Shoe polish. Shoe polish stains on his fingers.”
“He was wearing white gloves.”
“Of course he was.”
“Stop being obtuse, Madame, and share just how you could tell he had shoe polish stains on his fingers when you couldn’t see his hands for his white gloves?”
“He wasn’t wearing them when he answered the door to us.”
“Ahhh! And it was then that you noticed the stains on his hands!”
“Actually, I saw no such thing; he had his hands behind his back, like he was hiding something.”
“Then what are you getting at?”
“Why would he put on gloves when he was called into the drawing room?”
“Shoe polish?”
“Shoe polish. I smelled shoe polish.”
Mr. Benchley gave me a vacant stare that spoke volumes.
“Ah . . . you smelled shoe polish. All right.”
I said, “I’m guessing it was polish stains he was covering up, or some kind of marks on his hands he didn’t want us to see.”
“Butlers wear gloves; he was carrying a cheese tray.”
“You’ve seen too many drawing-room comedies, Mr. Benchley. Butlers only wear gloves while serving supper.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And the glasses.”
“Glasses?”
“Eyeglasses, yes.”
“Houseboys and butlers, although educated, don’t wear glasses?”
“Not atop their heads. Those were reading glasses.”
“Can we move on to the point of this conversation, Mrs. Parker?”
“Oh, look! We’ve arrived at Reginald’s flat,” I said as the cab pulled up to the Reginald Pierce Theatre. “We’ll have to discuss this later.”
“Oh, I hope not!”
Mrs. Kramer’s services were no longer needed at Reggie’s apartment, she told us, when we met her coming down from the elevator. I couldn’t believe our good timing in catching her before she’d gone.
“I come in every morning to the apartment,” said the middle-aged woman with a heavy Brooklyn accent, “and I leave at noon. I seen nothin’ unusual, ’til last Thursday, when I find Mr. Pierce dead in the library.”
“Did he have any other visitors besides Miss Fields?”
“Oh, sure, hundreds of people visited him.”
That narrowed it down.
“Did you cook and shop for him, too?” asked Mr. Benchley.
“No, only the cleaning. The Chink, Max, he did the cooking.”
“The dinner he was eating when he choked. Did Max cook that?”
“I’m not sure, but it looked like it was the food left from the play that’s goin’ on down in the theatre.”
“Food from the play?”
“Yeah. Every night. The part where they have dinner, but never get to eat the food? You see the play? It’s mighty funny.”
I begged to differ, but kept it to myself. “Yes, I remember now. The dining room scene; using real food bec
ause the steak has to be cut up.”
“Did he often eat the stage meal?” asked Mr. Benchley.
“I never seen it. I just get dirty plates in the sink to wash each morning.”
“Did you tell the police that Mr. Pierce’s last supper was from the show?”
“Nobody asked me.”
“Have you seen anything else unusual while you’ve worked for Mr. Pierce?”
She giggled ashamedly, “Are you kiddin’? The place was crazy. All them actors around all the time, whatcha’spect?”
I thought of the Marx Brothers and their antics, Tallulah and her gymnastics, Jack Barrymore and his adventures.
“Yes, I know what you mean.”
We thanked her, and waited for her to disappear down the sidewalk before Bobby the Burglar easily slipped into RIP’s flat.
The plan was to get in and out of the apartment as quickly as possible, so we wasted no time going into the library to retrieve the desk key and open the desk’s secret compartment.
“Shit!” I hissed.
“Language!”
“The gun is gone!”
The gun I had handled, that bore my fingerprints, was gone!
“Oh, shit,” said Mr. Benchley.
“My point exactly,” I hissed. Panic rippled through my belly and weakened my knees; I felt light-headed and overheated and there was a buzzing in my ears.
Where was the gun? Who had the gun? I couldn’t decide what was worse: a gun with my fingerprints on it found by the police or taken by a murderer!
Mr. Benchley suddenly took hold of my arm with a firm grip and told me to remain still. It took a moment for me to understand why he placed his hand over my mouth: Someone had come into the apartment after us!
As I was useless, paralyzed from dread, Mr. Benchley leaped into action, locking the desk, returning the key to its place under the seat cushion, and pulling me along with him behind the blue velvet drapery.
It was late afternoon, and I felt oddly exposed in the window with the sunlight glaring at our backs as we faced the screen of curtain. Muffled voices lingered for a time outside the library door, and then rang out clearly as they entered the room. We couldn’t risk peeking through the joined panels as the sunshine would serve as a spotlight on us. Worse, I feared that even through the lined panels our silhouettes might give us away. My skin crawled with fear; Mr. Benchley was as keyed-up as I, for he did not release or loosen his grip on my arm.
“The police have gone over the sarcophagus thoroughly, Dr. Fayed, and it may be released to the museum, along with the other artifacts.”
The voice was vaguely familiar, and as I felt Mr. Benchley’s grip tighten, I knew that he, too, identified the speaker.
“Here is the list of the collection’s inventory—”
“Shall we get started, then? Ah, Wilfred, I see they sent you. Glad you could join us.”
“Sorry I’m late, Mr. Saches, I was held up in court—”
“Perfectly all right,” replied Gerald Saches, tossing off the excuse. “Dr. Fayed, let me introduce you to Wilfred Harrison, of Whipple, Conrad, and Townsend, the law firm representing the estate of Mr. Pierce. Wilfred, Dr. Fayed is the director of Egyptian Antiquities at the Metropolitan Museum of Art come to do a preliminary evaluation.”
“How’djado’s” were exchanged, and I now knew to whom all the voices belonged.
“Shall we get some light in here?” asked Wilfred, renewing my panic. I could feel the tingle of adrenalin in the soles of my well-shod feet. Mr. Benchley released my arm and moved quickly away toward the side of the window. I realized what he was doing, but feared moving to the opposite end might jostle the fabric of the drapes. I waited for the curtains to part before I moved along with them. I heard the scratchy sound of the cord riding along the pulley before I took a step.
“I wouldn’t open the drapes, Mr. Harrison.” A man’s voice sounded, English, but in accented Arabic, deep and commanding. It was Dr. Fayed speaking. “Sunlight is very destructive to treasures that have been buried for millennia. The lamps will do very well for our purposes right now.”
The reprieve was fortunate; I doubted we would have escaped discovery had the drapes been opened even a couple of feet.
There proceeded to be periods of silence, alternating with brief queries for documents, related commentary, and the rustling of objects being moved about.
It seemed like forever that we stood there, our backs to the warm sunshine. I wished I had a book to read, and thought about dumping out my purse to straighten its contents, smoothing out my crumpled paper money with George Washington and Abe Lincoln right side up for a change and facing the same direction, but the click of the purse latch might give us away. I looked over at Mr. Benchley, who appeared to be snoozing as he sat on the wide casement ledge, his hat shielding his face, his back against the side of the window frame. If he snored, we were done for. I glanced at my watch. We’d been in hiding for more than an hour!
The longer one has to remain still, the more one is plagued by the itch that needs scratching, the cramp that needs stretching, the sneeze that needs—well, sneezing. I didn’t know how much longer I’d last, and I was considering how best to remove my shoes when there was indication that the men might be about to leave.
“It’s on the list, but I can’t say where it is,” spoke Gerald Saches. “Are you certain it was not taken as evidence by the police, Wilfred?”
“The room was searched, but nothing was removed from the room when they made their investigation. Items were dusted for prints, the sarcophagus coffin, mainly, but the display cases were locked, nothing appeared to be missing, so none of the antiquities were touched. And as none of the pieces were bequeathed from the collection to individuals, no one else has handled any of them. But, there was that Parker woman who was left alone in here after the reading, she found the actress’s body. Perhaps—”
“Nah,” said Gerald, much to my relief. “Dottie may have a fresh mouth, but she’s not a thief.”
I wanted to come out and slap him. Even if he was telling the truth.
“Then I suggest we continue our inventory tomorrow, from the point we left off today. It must be located, Mr. Saches,” said Dr. Fayed. “If it is the gold, and not the bronze, it is the most valuable object of the entire collection. We cannot take possession of the collection without it, of course.”
Gerald asked why they couldn’t.
Wilfred explained. “As it is part of the collection and specifically named, the collection becomes incomplete without it, whether or not its authenticity is proven. Papers need to be drawn up, stating the specific artifact that is missing, before the collection can be released to the museum. It is simply legal written proof acknowledging its prior existence in the possession of Mr. Pierce.”
“How long will that take?”
“Tomorrow at the earliest. Perhaps we might locate it elsewhere. Safety deposit at the bank?’
“No, and not in the safe, either,” said Gerald.
“Is it possible that Mrs. Pierce has it in her possession?”
“Absolutely not. She wanted nothing to do with acquiring any of these.”
There was a long pause, and then Wilfred said, “Very well, then, I shall see to the necessary documents, Dr. Fayed, so that the museum can take delivery as soon as possible.”
There were murmured words of farewell as Gerald escorted Dr. Fayed out of the apartment. Wilfred would remain behind to telephone his office, he said. The telephone call was short, but afterwards, he did not immediately leave. Rather, I could hear him moving about the room for minutes longer. The sun was setting behind me, the street lamps and marquees were lit along the street. I glanced at my watch, it was nearing five o’clock. I risked peeking through the break in the drapery. His back was to us, and he carried a large rectangular package toward the fireplace. He stopped short, turned, and his eyes traveled across the room. I leaned back into the shadow.
He’d heard a noise, or something that al
erted him that he was not alone.
My heart leaped into my throat as I felt the vibration of his footfalls across the room and toward our hiding place. I glanced over at Fred as if in warning. He must have read the dread in my expression, because his eyes were wide with anticipation.
But, rather than throw open the draperies, I heard the sound of Wilfred’s footsteps receding into the drawing room. He called out, “Hello,” and as there was no reply, reentered the library.
Again, there was the sound of wood creaking, the click of a briefcase, footsteps across the room. A final metallic clunk sounded, and then, silence.
We waited for a time, wondering if Wilfred had indeed departed the room and the apartment. Finally, Mr. Benchley popped his head around the panel.
“ ’Bout time he left.”
I came out to stand behind my friend, and looked around the room.
“I thought I heard him close the library door.”
The door stood open.
“You hallucinate, my dear. That’s what happens when one is left to one’s own devices for hours at a time without libation: ‘Idle hands, the Devil’s playground,’ or something of that sort.”
“You misquote; it’s ‘idle minds’ that are the Devil’s playground.”
“I thought it was idle hands.”
“Well Madame La Farge’s hands were never idle, now, were they, and she knit up more trouble . . .”
“I’m confused.”
“That’s nothing new.”
“Nothing a little medicine can’t cure. Hey! Do you think there’s any more of that imported curative?”
“Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“Shall we head out to Tony’s?”
“No, I have to get home. I must return to empty Woodrow Wilson. It’s five o’clock, and Neysa and Tallulah and FPA are stopping by. Aleck, too.”
“Very well, let’s free Woodrow Wilson—sounds like a plea for a stay of execution! I have to review Sidney Howard’s new play tonight. Want to join me?”
“They Knew What They Wanted? Yes, I have to review that, too.”
“Then our evening is set. Cocktails at your place, and supper at the Algonquin, the play, and maybe tour a few clubs to finish off the evening.”
“An excellent plan, Mr. Benchley.”
[Dorothy Parker 01] - The Broadway Murders Page 10
