Jane, my fervent suffragette friend, women’s activist and journalist, had, upon her marriage to Harold Ross, declared she would retain her maiden name as claim to her singular identity. Jane, who then cut off her long dark tresses, not in the conventional bob of modern protest, but a shockingly severe man’s cut, parted at the side and slicked black behind her ears, the model of feminine modernity in every way publicly, reverted to domestic servitude upon entering through the portals of 412 & 414 West 46th Street, where she cooked, served, emptied ashtrays, picked up, washed up, and swept up after the half-dozen or more men flicking cigar ash, spilling drinks, missing the toilet, and generally stinking up her home.
All of her striving for women’s equality to men, which she had worked so hard toward achieving for her generation, could be reduced to little more than inconsequential rhetoric should her sisters of the cause ever see her on any given Saturday night. I wondered for how many more weekends she could play indentured servant before she became a lunatic?
I was looking forward to Jane’s fine home cooking, which was rivaled only by Bea Kaufman’s.
In the cab Mr. Benchley and I discussed how we might approach Chittenham when we went to his apartment later that evening. We couldn’t just storm in affecting an accusatory tone. If he were the murderer, we would be risking our lives. If he weren’t, it would just be plain-old bad form. New York is a small town in some ways, and everybody in the newspaper business, and in the Theatre, and in book and magazine publishing knows everybody else, especially the big players. We were big players, as was Ralph Chittenham. He may not have been my cup of tea, but Chitty was respected, sometimes loved, often feared, was exceptionally accomplished, and had enough money to sue the pants off Mr. Benchley. (As I had no assets, other than my talent and a couple twenties, he’d not come after me.)
We decided to tell Chitty all that we had found out about him. Lay the cards on the table, and hope that he didn’t have a gun in his smoking jacket.
The cab crawled across the congested traffic where Broadway and Seventh Avenue bottlenecked at Times Square, and then onward to Eighth Avenue, past brilliantly lit marquees and the crowds of anxious theatregoers. When we turned north toward 46th, we were stalled once again by a stream of limousines, motorcars, and the crossing masses, guided by a traffic cop. If my feet hadn’t felt so painful from my day of racing around town on foot, we’d have popped out of the cab and walked the long avenues to Jane’s. I was hungry, too, having eaten little at lunch, and the day was far from over. I leaned back against the seat, and turned to look out the window at people from all walks of life happily anticipating the excitement of seeing a show. Mr. Benchley chatted on.
It was then that I glimpsed a familiar form. I knew it was he before I ever saw his face. His pace was faster than anyone else’s as he zig-zagged through the crowds. He turned the corner from Eighth Avenue onto 46th.
“We’ll get off here,” I said.
“We’re just a few blocks—I thought your feet hurt.”
“They do, but I just saw Maxwell Sing and I think he’s headed toward the Pierce Theatre.”
Mr. Benchley handed the driver his fare, and off we went, cutting east through the northerly moving tide, where, as if caught in a steady river current, we bobbed along. As we neared the theatre, progress was stalled in a jam-up of people piling into the lobby. There was no sight of the houseboy.
Logic had it that he was headed for the side entrance to Reginald Pierce’s apartment. But, when we arrived, the door was locked. Mr. Benchley and I stayed fixed to the alley, trying to figure out to where the young man had disappeared.
Several cast members in costume had gathered outside the stage door to chat and smoke. Mr. Benchley asked if they had seen a young Chinaman pass by.
“Are you looking for Max Sing, Mr. Benchley?” asked one of the actors. Robert Benchley was not only a famous writer, critic, and social commentator; he was a Broadway star, since last season’s Music Box Revue. Every young actor in New York knew who he was.
“Yes,” said Mr. Benchley.
“He went through to the back, to the apartment entrance.”
We thanked the kid and continued on, where Bobby the Burglar worked his magic. We had to take the elevator, and would have to risk the noise of the cables creaking and echoing in the shaft announcing our arrival, but there was no other way up.
The elevator door opened onto the foyer, across from the apartment door that stood ajar. From within we could hear the sound of voices in rapid, animated conversation. We edged closer to the door, a column of light from the salon guiding our way.
A huge, shadowy figure cast its dark form along the wall. I recognized the cultured voice that spoke, and although it would have made good sense to knock on the door to announce our presence, neither of us moved, so transfixed were we by the conversation.
“It’s done.”
“I made the call.”
“And do you think they’ll get it?”
“When the money is paid.”
“The ship leaves at nine, there’s not much time.”
“What’s the telephone number?”
A telephone was being dialed.
The sudden cranking and whir of the elevator startled us, and I gave a little cry. The shadow grew larger, and then morphed into Ralph Chittenham, smaller, but no less frightening, who widened the gap of the doorway to stand frowning at our fully illuminated selves.
Light glinted on gunmetal. Ralph Chittenham pointed a weapon at us. The elevator clunked to a stop and the door was pushed open to reveal a rangy, sandy-haired man in his forties, tanned to a dark mahogany color, his face ruggedly craggy.
“Dr. Fayed,” said Chittenham. “Come in, please.”
“What’s going on? Who are these people?”
“They are of no consequence to us, Dr. Fayed. But they must be dealt with. I shall be with you momentarily.”
Maxwell Sing led the guest into the apartment, while Ralph Chittenham motioned at us with the gun to enter the salon.
“Well, you might as well come on in,” he said, leading us into the library, the gun at our backs. The room was empty of art and the collections, specifically all of the Egyptian artifacts.
“Stand over there,” he said, pointing to a corner. “I’ve got business to take care of first. I’ll take care of you two in a minute.”
“What did he mean by that?” I whispered to Mr. Benchley.
“He’s going to kill us, like he did the others.”
“What was that? You look sick, Dorothy,” said Chittenham, leaning in to look into my eyes.
“Leave her alone,” said Mr. Benchley, moving between Chittenham and myself.
“What’s going on, Benchley?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing!”
Chittenham realized that he was waving the gun; he returned it to his pocket. “I thought you were—”
Something clicked in my head and I said, “Did you call that man ‘Dr. Fayed’?”
“What about it?”
“Dr. Amir Fayed from the Met?”
“Yes, what about him? And what are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing!”
“Shut up, Bob, you keep repeating yourself.”
“That man is not Dr. Fayed!” I said.
“I most certainly am,” said the weathered face, indignantly. “Really, Ralph, we have little time. We must go find—”
“Quiet!” yelled Chittenham, and then, “Sorry, Doctor, but these people, they are not part of this, so the less said—”
“Ah, I understand,” said the doctor, “they just happened to get in the way, is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“But, I saw him, Fred. That is not the man we saw the other day.”
“He is not Dr. Fayed,” said Mr. Benchley. “Dr. Fayed is shorter and dark-haired and—”
“Wait just a minute, Benchley!” ordered Chittenham. His eyes lit up with new understanding. “This man you believe to be Dr. Fayed, when did you meet him?”
“The day before yesterday.”
“Where?”
Fred and I looked at each other.
“Well? Look, you two, I don’t have time for these games—”
He was reaching into his pocket.
“Here. We saw him here,” I said.
And before we could get the confusion settled, the telephone rang and Chittenham pounced to pick up the receiver. “Let’s go,” he said, and then he, Maxwell Sing, and the fraudulent doctor were out of the room, disappearing through the bookcase at the side of the fireplace.
A secret entrance!
Mr. Benchley and I leaped into action.
Fred tried to find the release mechanism for the hidden door, while I pondered whether or not to call the police. But, what would I tell them? That we knew the person responsible for the Broadway Murders, and he was on the run, somewhere in the city? We had no idea where these men were going or what-fresh-hell they were up to.
“Got it!” said Mr. Benchley, and in a second we found ourselves racing down a spiral staircase that opened into the theatre’s office, next to the box office in the lobby. At the opposite end of the room a door stood ajar, an open invitation to follow, and we found ourselves in a long corridor, at the end of which we caught sight of Ralph Chittenham’s coattails. Racing onward along the corridor, we soon arrived on the upper-level dressing rooms, a backstage area of the proscenium. Below us, as I looked over the steel railing to the bottom of a flight of stairs, I glimpsed the heads of the three scoundrels, pushing aside a gaggle of costumed actors that was making its way from off the stage.
We weaved down through a flock of performers climbing up to their dressing rooms, Mr. Benchley nodding and smiling pleasantly as he acknowledged their greetings. As we passed the stage manager calling the next scene curtain, I nearly careened into the scrim that was suddenly hoisted down to block my path. We avoided catastrophe and started a new route along the back wall of the stage.
Angry whispers from a stagehand trying to prevent the three men from crossing the stage alerted us that we were close on the heels of our quarry, and as they pushed ahead, so did we, just as another stagehand turned to stop our progress. Ignoring many pleas, we zigzagged around the various obstructions.
The scrim rose up, and we were blinded by light. Suddenly, our silhouettes could be seen by the audience as we crossed stage right to left. There was a sprinkling of laughter.
The actor and actress on stage were in the middle of a love scene and were as yet to understand the commotion behind them. Cooing, locked in an embrace, extolling the joys of their wooded retreat, they continued their dialogue:
“—to be alone with you at last, my darling, away from the glare of millions of eyes—”
The three culprits burst onto the set as they bounded right through the cabin’s door.
“—They’ll never find us here, my love!”
Maxwell Sing knocked over a lamp as he tripped over the head of a bearskin rug. The lovers turned, and although momentarily unglued from the distraction, resumed their lines.
Dr. Fayed ran around the sofa, toward the footlights, tripping on a table leg, spinning a vase filled with flowers to teetering imbalance. He performed a little sidestep, arms flailing, in his efforts to prevent it from falling to the floor.
“It’s so quiet here—”
The vase hit the floor with a loud crash.
“—away from the hustle-bustle of town—”
The stage manager, having seen us start our cross, lost his place in his cue script and mis-cued the lighting technician and a grip. Up came the lights, and then up came the backdrop, the interior wall of the Adirondack Cabin, with wooded landscape behind it, exposing me and Mr. Benchley against a brightly lit cityscape of Manhattan.
“Not a soul for miles and miles—”
The audience reaction was thunderous.
Although I felt really awful at causing the interruption, I knew from having seen the dreadful play that this was going to be the biggest laugh of the evening. I was wrong; it was only the beginning of what was to become uproarious.
And what clinched it were the actors’ dumb-founded expressions, as they stupidly, haltingly, tried to carry on the dialogue. It served only to feed the audience’s furor, for the couple pretended that we were not there; the laughter became all the more hysterical.
Mr. Benchley and I stood blinded by the stage lights for a few moments, as Maxwell, Chittenham, and the doc stumbled over each other and the furniture, before making a break toward the orchestra pit.
It was then that Chittenham, dragging an electrical cord that had wrapped around his ankle, tripped, crashed through a storefront window of the Manhattan street scene, and landed, like a Yankee slugger sliding into home plate, at the feet of the lovers on the sofa.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, politely.
The audience roared.
At this point the lovers decided they should carry through with improvisation, including us in their dialogue. According to their revised script, we became the couple next door and the town council, come to welcome the lovers, or some such nonsense. The actors offered us refreshments, which was even more ridiculous. At this point, we were in touching distance, Chittenham on all fours.
Mr. Benchley grabbed at his coattail and there began a struggle, not unlike a rodeo bronco and his steadfast cowboy, as Ralph tried to throw him off his back. He was successful at last, and Mr. Benchley lay prone and winded on the bear rug.
Chittenham made it to his feet, and when asked by the actress if he’d prefer tea or cocoa, Mr. Benchley reached up and once again grabbed at his coattails, causing Ralph to lose his balance. On his way down, Chitty landed on the actress’s lap.
I broke a vase over the doc’s head, and then Maxwell Sing, coming up behind me to stop my flailing arm’s momentum, got one in the eye, instead. The audience stamped, whistled, yelled, and cheered, and Mr. Benchley stood up and took a bow.
Chitty and his gang of thieves bolted off the stage, and Fred and I gave chase down the aisle and toward the lobby doors.
Eardrum-bursting hoots and screams of laughter followed us out through the lobby doors and into the street.
Ahead, a cab door slammed, and as it pulled away from the curb Mr. Benchley turned his attention up the street and whistled. Within seconds, from half a block away, three cabs made hay to reach the finish line. The winner cut in to the curb.
We hopped in and the driver asked, “Where to?”
“Follow that cab!” we both yelled at his back. So fierce we must have sounded that the cabbie took off, tires screeching, the clutch released with a force that threw us violently back in our seats.
Traffic had lightened up by now, as all 180 shows in Manhattan were in performance. Chittenham’s cab was heading west, and after a minute, I realized we were headed toward the docks on the Hudson. The bits of conversation that we’d heard confirmed that: “The ship leaves at nine,” he’d said.
The two cabs made bee-lines across 46th Street, past brownstones, then tenements, across rail tracks and further on warehouses lining the docks of Hell’s Kitchen. I could hear the deep bassoon sounding of a ship’s horn, and in response, the high-pitched toots of its tugboat.
Our cab pulled up alongside the pier, and Mr. Benchley pitched a dollar bill at the driver, who beamed his pleasure when Fred told him to keep the change. Mr. Benchley helped me out of the cab, and we ran toward the pilings, where there was a great commotion of autos, police cars, and officers storming the gangplank onto the freighter that, tonight, would not be departing on time.
Hotel Biltmore
Grand Central Terminal— with its celestial ceiling and gold-plated chandeliers.
Chapter Eleven
It was ten o’clock before the police allowed us to leave. And when Mr. Benchley and I fi
nally departed the shipping pier’s offices we did so with friends.
Aleck, FPA, and Jane and Ross had arrived at the pier a short time after Mr. Benchley and I had been threatened with arrest for obstructing an investigation. Aleck’s cousin, Joe Woollcott, vouched for us, and then called our friends just as they were about to sit down to a dinner of roasted leg of lamb. Needless to say, Aleck did not appear in the best of moods for forfeiting the hot meal.
And as we marched east, across the long avenues to 412 & 414 46th Street, we resembled a disgruntled, windblown, downtrodden party that had seen a good time gone bad; I, worst of all, looked like a trampled taxi dancer at three in the morning: My feet were killing me.
And what was most humiliating was the addition of Ralph Chittenham, Maxwell Sing, and the real Dr. Fayed, all of whom were invited by Jane to come for cold lamb, a bit of potent libation, and full disclosure of events leading up to our arrival at the pier. By the time we reached Tenth Avenue, I was lagging behind the troops. Mr. Benchley took pity and scooped me up to carry me the final blocks to the house.
We collapsed on sofas and chairs around the sitting room, as Ross did the honors with a bottle of Haig & Haig. Jane took me into her bathroom, where I freshened up and combed my hair, and slipped into a pair of her soft slippers, before rejoining the others.
The men had gathered around the dining room table like starved alleycats waiting for fish heads to be tossed their way.
Aleck, in particular, was looking wan, and actually rose to join Jane in the kitchen to assist in a timely delivery of the roast and all its accoutrements to the dinner table.
Maxwell Sing was put to work placing the additional dinnerware at the table and opening bottles of wine on the sideboard. Little was said during the initial feeding frenzy that followed, but when the shoveling slowed, people began to speak.
Jane, who hadn’t the foggiest idea what the fuss had been about, wanted explanations. FPA wanted clarification. Ross demanded additional information, and Aleck just wanted dessert.
[Dorothy Parker 01] - The Broadway Murders Page 18
