The Sharpest Needle

by Renee Patrick

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  THE SHARPEST NEEDLE

  Renee Patrick

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2020

  in Great Britain and 2021 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2021 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  This eBook edition first published in 2021 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited.

  Copyright © 2020 by Renee Patrick.

  You can find the Author’s Note for this book at:

  http://reneepatrickbooks.com/books/the-sharpest-needle

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Renee Patrick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8928-7 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-746-0 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0474-5 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  Los Angeles Register August 17, 1939

  LORNA WHITCOMB’S

  EYES ON HOLLYWOOD

  While the specter of war casts its shadow over Europe, Hollywood keeps it sunny. Case in point: the shindig in the works at Marion Davies’s beach house. We hear the star is planning a party later this month to rival those of her heyday, before pictures started talking. The rumored theme: Saints and Sinners. Here’s hoping the latter outnumber the former, at least overseas, if not at the seashore … These days we can’t open a door without finding Orson Welles on the other side. The dashing young jack-of-all-trades, ink still drying on his RKO contract, is soaking up the atmosphere at every studio and nightspot in town … Those who’ve seen early screenings of Golden Boy say Columbia discovery William Holden has acting talent to match his good looks. Moviegoers can judge for themselves when the film opens next month.

  ONE

  The camel was preparing to spit. I’d seen similar bulging cheeks on the face of my neighborhood newsstand operator. But this beast didn’t have a cuspidor decorously concealed behind the comic books. Instead, it eyed my white shoes.

  Standing next to me, Edith Head paid the camel no mind. Easy for her to do, because the diminutive costume designer had opted for sensible black pumps with her gray suit, her sole nod to the summer weather a sparky yellow and blue scarf. Whereas I was bedecked in a style befitting the season, in a pale green rayon dress printed with miniature bouquets of daisies. And, of course, white shoes, which the unruly ungulate now studied like a bombardier taking aim. But then I hadn’t dressed for the camel. I’d selected my wardrobe with our other guest in mind.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know this fella’s name,’ Marion Davies said. ‘I didn’t spend much time with the camels. They remind me too much of horses.’

  Even though the closest I’d previously gotten to a camel was on a pack of cigarettes, I could see her point. Each animal had four legs, and you could ride both. But a horse wouldn’t spit on my shoes.

  ‘You don’t care for horses?’ Edith asked.

  ‘I love them, but I once fell off one and spent three months in a cast. Not the first time I was plastered, I can tell you that.’ Marion occasionally stammered as she spoke, a flash of vulnerability that made me want to protect her. A beguiling bit of legerdemain, considering she possessed the wherewithal to buy and sell me many times over, with Edith thrown in as part of the bargain. ‘I’m always afraid they’re going to rear back, or turn and bite my foot. I miss our little menagerie, though. I’m glad this fella found a home here.’

  Here being a strip of sand alongside a soundstage, an ersatz oasis on the lot of Paramount Pictures, where Edith ran the Wardrobe Department. The camel was on the studio payroll because its former home, the private zoo owned by press baron William Randolph Hearst, was closing down owing to Hearst’s recent financial struggles. Creatures that had once gamboled up the California coast near San Simeon were being scattered to other zoos and movie studios. Maybe that explained the dromedary’s dour demeanor. It had to be a shock to find yourself suddenly working for a living.

  As for what I was doing at Paramount, I hoped Marion would eventually shed light on the subject.

  She was perhaps best known as the powerful Hearst’s longtime mistress, the two of them openly living together while Mrs Hearst spent most of her time back in my hometown of New York. I would have expected such scandalous behavior to be condemned by staunch Catholics, and indeed the nuns who taught me at St Mary’s in Flushing tutted vigorously whenever a Marion Davies picture opened. But my uncle Danny always shrugged and said, ‘Hearst was a grand man for Roger Casement and the cause of the Irish back in 1916, you know.’ My aunt Joyce made no such allowances. She would simply bless herself and clutch her rosary tighter, refusing even to speak Marion’s name.

  But I idolized Marion. As spirited Irish lasses in films like The Bride’s Play and Peg O’ My Heart, in historical epics such as When Knighthood Was in Flower and Little Old New York. I loved her best when she played comedy. In The Patsy, she uproariously sent up her fellow stars: the doleful Lillian Gish, a fiery Pola Negri. I had skipped school to see the picture a third time, a venial sin compounded into a mortal
one thanks to the presence of its scarlet woman star. I’d entertained visions of taking some of Marion’s roles when I’d arrived in Los Angeles in 1936, before a calamitous screen test sent me scurrying for a job.

  The man who’d seen fit to hire me as his social secretary, millionaire inventor Addison Rice, adored movies and Marion as much as I did. The two of them had become friends and, recently, when she’d run into difficulty, she’d poured her heart out to him. Addison, in turn, had suggested she speak with us. Since striking up our unlikely friendship, Edith and I unraveled our share of knots, mostly of the criminal variety. So here we were on the Paramount lot, with Marion’s visit to her former pet camel as a convenient excuse. But she still hadn’t breathed a word about her problem.

  She wore a white flannel skirt and a navy short-sleeved blouse with white polka dots, her navy and white spectators gleaming. Her hair was still blonde, her fortyish frame a touch thicker than when last seen onscreen two years ago opposite Robert Montgomery in Ever Since Eve. Truth be told, I’d never much cared for Marion’s talking pictures; the movies she’d made during my youth were the ones I remembered. She was retired from acting now, the gossip columns chattered, concentrating on her duties as Hearst’s consort and Hollywood’s hostess nonpareil. That left plenty of time, presumably, for her to get into trouble.

  ‘We had an elephant named after me,’ Marion said nervously. ‘They said it wasn’t. She was supposedly called Marianne, after a picture I’d done, but I knew better. And there was a gorilla named Jerry, although maybe he was a chimpanzee. Such a meanie. He once threw his dirty business at Marie Dressler. I suppose Jerry’s here, too. I’ll bet he has an agent. Probably with the Morris office.’

  Edith and I laughed. The camel turned toward us and snorted. I expected expectoration imminently.

  What a strange conversation, I thought. So many subjects verboten. I couldn’t mention Marion’s unconventional living arrangements with Hearst, nor Hearst’s ongoing fiscal woes, splashed not so long ago on the cover of Time magazine. And Marion, apparently, couldn’t say what was bothering her.

  The camel hocked some unidentifiable matter onto the sand, a good two feet from where we stood. That spurred Marion to action. Her fingers dipped hesitantly into her handbag. ‘Here,’ she said at last. ‘This is why I wanted to talk to you.’

  She thrust a piece of paper and a creased envelope at us. I peered over Edith’s shoulder.

  MISS DAVIES,

  HOW CAN YOU SLEEP UNDER W.R.’S ROOF? DOES HE KNOW YOU HAVE LAIN DOWN WITH LIONS?

  ARGUS

  The note was handwritten, vivid purple ink providing the ostentation the plain block printing lacked. Several words – SLEEP, LAIN, LIONS – were practically in boldface, the individual letters rendered in slashing, almost angry strokes.

  Edith lowered her eyeglasses, as if the adjustment would add context to the correspondence. ‘I can see why this would be distressing. What’s known as a poison pen letter.’

  ‘Thank you for saying it. With my stammer, the phrase sometimes gives me trouble.’ Marion flashed her cockeyed smile. ‘I’d like to know who this Argus character is.’

  ‘I assume it’s a reference to Argus Panoptes. A figure from Greek myth. The all-seeing giant with one hundred eyes.’

  ‘A hundred?’ Marion recoiled. ‘He must have kept his optician happy.’

  Edith appraised the envelope. ‘Do you know what this letter refers to?’

  ‘No.’ Marion shook her head, her performance broad.

  Edith accepted the denial. ‘Any guesses as to what it might be?’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest.’

  Cut, I wanted to say. Let’s try another one, Marion, where you’re more believable. Instead, I chose another tack. ‘Addison told us other people received letters.’

  ‘Yes. People I used to work with, in the old days. That’s what made me panic. I paid no mind to the letter at first. I’ve gotten things like it before, plenty of times. Blackmail demands. Someone sent explosives to the beach house in 1931, absolutely ruined my plans for the holidays. But when this Argus started writing to other people …’

  Edith nodded sagely while I gawped at Marion, thinking, explosives? The camel swung its ancient head toward me, encouraging me to get on with it.

  ‘Who else received letters?’ I asked.

  ‘Clarence Baird, for one. A dear old friend – used to do my makeup for pictures. He got a strange letter and thought nothing of it at first. Then he played pinochle with Rudi Vollmer and Rudi mentioned he’d gotten one, too.’

  ‘That name sounds familiar,’ Edith said.

  ‘An assistant director. He worked here at Paramount for a while. I didn’t know what to think when Rudi telephoned me. Then he described the notes, all purple ink signed by this Argus, and I had the boys over to the beach house at once.’

  ‘Did their letters specify any event in particular?’ Edith asked.

  Marion shifted her shoulders, not quite shrugging. ‘Not really, no. We have to guess, I suppose.’ What knowledge her anonymous correspondent possessed, she wasn’t going to share with us.

  Edith seemed undaunted. ‘When did Mr Baird and Mr Vollmer receive their letters in relation to this one?’

  ‘That one?’ Marion contemplated her purse. It was calfskin, with gold accents. ‘I’d heard from Argus first, obviously. Theirs came a few days later. Less than a week. They can tell you.’

  ‘Yes, about that,’ Edith said. ‘It’s our understanding you want us to speak to them?’

  ‘I told them to expect your call. I’d like to get to the bottom of this business. The idea of someone pestering my friends bothers me no end.’

  ‘If I might ask,’ I ventured. ‘You could always have the police look into it.’

  ‘Yes, but I would prefer not to. It’s just … I’m sure you’ve seen all the dreadful publicity W.R. has gotten these last few months. And now he’s being forced to – what’s the word? – “liquidate” his art collection, which is breaking his heart. I don’t want to add to his woes.’

  ‘Perfectly understandable,’ Edith said in her most pacifying tone. ‘But there are other options, agencies that do this kind of work—’

  ‘You mean hire some dirty little window-peeper who’ll turn around and sell the story to the gossip columns?’ Marion gave a wonderful theatrical laugh. ‘No thank you.’

  Those same gossip columns also reported that W.R. had, from time to time, hired dirty little window-peepers of his own to follow Marion while he was making nice with his wife in New York. Little wonder she was sour on the notion.

  ‘I imagine it’s the strain of W.R.’s hardships that have gotten to me.’ Marion pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead, displaying the kind of corny histrionics for which she’d once mocked Lillian Gish. ‘That’s why that night at the beach house I slipped away from my own party. Addison found me, and I cried on his shoulder a spell. He told me about you ladies, how you’d gotten so good at figuring things out but doing it quietly, with no fuss. He said you two were just what the doctor ordered.’

  I made a note to pay Addison for the build-up.

  Marion smiled at the camel. ‘That’s why I’m taking advantage of ol’ Lumpy, pretending I’m here visiting an old friend from the ranch instead of asking you two for help. I’d like to know who’s saying terrible things about me to my friends and get them to stop.’

  Edith glanced at me. We’d already discussed how we planned to respond.

  ‘Mythology tells us that the one hundred eyes of Argus Panoptes were eventually lulled to sleep,’ she said. ‘We’re happy to do what we can to help.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ Marion clapped her hands like a little girl witnessing a magic trick. The camel bobbed its head, granting us its benediction. Its cheeks began to puff again.

  What was the line from the Bible? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

  Out of respect for William Randolph
Hearst, I opted not to voice the sentiment aloud. Besides, if anyone had a needle large enough for ol’ Lumpy’s passage, it would be Edith.

  TWO

  After our farewells to Marion, we strode across the lot, Edith setting the pace despite being half a foot shorter than me. I spritzed myself with perfume as we walked, not wanting to be swathed in eau de ruminant for the rest of the day.

  ‘What’s Ol’ Lumpy doing here, anyway?’ I asked.

  ‘I trust you mean the camel and not me,’ Edith said. ‘The studio is taking additional publicity photographs for Beau Geste, so I asked John Engstead to use one of the animals purchased from the Hearst ranch.’

  ‘Conveniently giving Marion an explanation for her visit. Aren’t you clever? I hope you have another brainwave when it comes to helping her. How are we supposed to get to the bottom of this without knowing what that letter refers to?’

  ‘Letters.’

  ‘Right, the ones sent to Baird and Vollmer. We haven’t seen those yet.’

  ‘No, I mean Miss Davies has heard from Argus more than once. I’m certain of it. The letter she showed us doesn’t read like an opening gambit. It’s not explicit enough. It seems more like a follow-up, a taunt. Also, I noticed Miss Davies selected this letter from her purse rather deliberately. I imagine the other missives were in there, including earlier ones that are more specific about what Argus knows. I tried coaxing her into coming clean when I asked when her friends had received their letters in relation to the one she showed us. She held fast to her story. Likely a white lie, but a forgivable one under the circumstances.’

  ‘She’s lying down with lions and meeting with a camel. Maybe she ought to look for an ark.’

  ‘We’d need a second camel.’

  ‘Call the Morris office. It’s strange. Marion never stammers in her pictures.’

  ‘The camera brings out the best in some of us. And the worst in others.’

  ‘Is that a reference to my screen test?’

  I angled toward the Wardrobe building and Edith’s office, but she didn’t follow suit. ‘It’s such a lovely day, and I could stand a stroll. Care to accompany me?’