Come Hell or Highball

by Maia Chance

  “What’s that?” Digton asked.

  “I found it beside the—I found it in the dunes, a few paces off from Miss Potter.”

  He picked it up, uncapped it, and swiveled the lipstick up.

  It was a vibrant shade of carnelian. And it had been worn to a point.

  “What do you know,” I murmured.

  “Care to fill me in?”

  “That’s Sadie Street’s lipstick.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “See how it’s pointy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Every lady, you see, has her own way of wearing down her lipsticks.”

  Digton tipped his head back and brayed so heartily, I was able to count the four gold fillings on his upper molars. He capped the lipstick and rolled it back to me. “Here, keep it as a souvenir, why dontcha.”

  I stared at him. “You’re really discrediting this clue?”

  “Clue?” He lurched forward, cigarette dangling from his lip. “The only clue I need, Mrs. Woodby, is that you discovered the body. Again. Consider yourself Suspect Number One.”

  A rap sounded on the door’s frosted glass. “Yeah?” Digton yelled.

  The policeman thrust his head in and said, “Someone has arrived to fetch Mrs. Woodby.”

  I followed Inspector Digton to the front of the police station. I supposed, in my groggy state, that it was Berta who’d come to fetch me.

  Boy, did I have a bundle of explaining to do.

  Yet when I emerged on the porch, the Prig himself was waiting, in a long wool overcoat.

  I wanted to shrivel up and die. Or give him a knuckle sandwich. Instead, I adopted an airy tone. “Who telephoned you, Chisholm?”

  “I did,” Inspector Digton said. He gave Chisholm one of those chummy, gents’-club nods.

  “Thank you, Inspector,” Chisholm said. “Shall I see you at the Temperance League meeting tomorrow evening?”

  Digton said he would, and retreated into the station.

  I glared up at Chisholm. “You’ve got your cronies tattletaling on me?”

  He marched in silence down the steps. His long black Daimler idled at the curb. The chauffeur was a mere silhouette behind the wheel.

  I hesitated. A mist had rolled in from the sound, and the night was damp and billowy. It smelled of sea brine and vegetation. Frogs peeped out a lively chorus.

  Chisholm’s pals, keeping him informed of my doings. Chisholm, come to collect me as though I were a truant schoolgirl. Chisholm, who had so very much to lose if word got out that his sister-in-law was a deranged murderess … Maybe Chisholm had hired Ralph Oliver to snoop on me. Why hadn’t I thought of it earlier?

  Chisholm turned. “Well? Hurry up, then, Lola.”

  “What makes you think I’m going with you?”

  His smiled. It was the sort of smile you’d give to a mental patient who’d forgotten to button their pajama flap. “You will come back to Amberley with me. I have already telephoned your mother. She will arrive first thing in the morning.”

  I looked up the dark street and considered making a break for it.

  “I’ve got a room at the Foghorn,” I said.

  “Why, precisely, you have booked yourself into that vulgar establishment is beyond me. No, you must return to Amberley with me. Inspector Digton, you see, wished to arrest you—”

  “You’re lying!”

  “Would you like to go inside and ask him?”

  I swallowed.

  “He agreed not to make an arrest under the condition that you stay with me. At Amberley.”

  Cedric. Surely Berta would take good care of Cedric, despite their differences.

  “What about my motorcar?” I said.

  “Your motorcar? For pity’s sake, Lola. I didn’t come here only to restore you to the very godforsaken rattletrap of sin that has led you down the path of wickedness in the first place.” The chauffeur had emerged to open the door for Chisholm. “At any rate,” Chisholm said, stepping inside, “your motorcar has been seized as evidence. Now, come along.”

  I glanced over my shoulder, into the lit-up windows of the police station. Inspector Digton looked out.

  I’d been cornered.

  I trudged down the steps and into the Daimler.

  “Do you not think,” Chisholm said, once the motorcar was rolling, “that you have dragged the Woodby name through the mud quite enough for one fortnight? My goodness me, I am going to have to pull quite a lot of strings to keep this hushed up. Quite a lot indeed. I could lose my chairman’s seat in the Temperance League! First my brother is called to his maker after leading a life of sheer debauchery—”

  “You can hardly blame that on me, Chisholm.” I leaned my head against the seat. “In fact, you’re more to blame.”

  Chisholm fluttered his eyelids. “I? To blame?”

  “Sure. You were his brother. You ought to have led him back to the principled path or whatever it is you call it.”

  “Ah, but you were his wife.” Chisholm held himself still, but his voice quavered. He had a temper, all right. I hoped I wasn’t around when he finally blew a gasket. “And a wife, dearest Lola, is the moral arbiter of the family. As is a mother.” His eyes flicked to the region of my womb, and back again. “Of course, you were not chosen by the Almighty Creator to bear fruit. Still, you should have done more in the way of tending to Alfred’s soul. Planting wholesome seeds, trickling the soil with refreshing rainwater and nourishing sunlight—”

  “Stop, or I’m going to be sick,” I said. I glowered out the window into the dark.

  “You have proved yourself quite unable to take your life into your own hands, Lola. It is rather concerning. You behave like a child.”

  “Cut the cackle, Chisholm,” I snapped.

  But, somewhere deep down, I was afraid he was right.

  23

  My house—the house—had been transformed in the days since I left. All the wallpaper had been steamed off, leaving the walls monastery-bare. Every last chandelier had been taken down, every carpet rolled up.

  The new butler—who called to mind a prison warden from Transylvania—led me past the good bedrooms on the second story, and up a twisty staircase to the third.

  “There must be some mistake,” I said. “There are no guest rooms up here. Only servants’ quarters.”

  “Mr. Woodby thought it advisable that you were established in a smaller, plainer chamber,” the butler said.

  He led me to the puniest of the maid’s rooms. It was practically a broom closet, with one tiny window in a gable, and an iron bedstead that looked like it had been nicked from a Charles Dickens orphanage.

  “This?” I said.

  “Yes, madam. Breakfast will be served at eight o’clock sharp.” He bowed and left.

  I considered bursting into tears. I also considered storming downstairs and having a row with Chisholm. Both would have been immensely satisfying, but both would’ve taken more steam power than I had. So I shut the door, closed the curtains, kicked off my shoes, rolled off my woolen stockings, and lay facedown on the mothball-smelling bed.

  I collapsed into a thick, headachy sleep.

  * * *

  I was woken by the rumble of a motorcar engine. I pried my eyes open. Bluish morning light slanted through the curtains.

  I went to look out the window.

  Down below, my parents’ butter-colored Rolls-Royce was braking in the front drive. I watched as the chauffeur released first Mother and then Lillian. I detected Mother’s Going-to-Battle hustle, and Lillian’s Miss Priss flounce.

  I pulled the curtains shut.

  * * *

  When I entered the breakfast room fifteen minutes later, Mother, Lillian, and Chisholm were conversing in sickbed tones.

  “Lola!” Mother screamed.

  “Good morning, Mother,” I said. “Lillian.” I circled around to the buffet.

  “How generous of you to join us,” Chisholm said.

  It was not yet eight thirty.


  “Lola, I am dumbfounded, absolutely dumbfounded, by your behavior,” Mother yelled. “Have you no sense of responsibility?”

  “I see that you are decently clothed for once,” Chisholm said.

  I’d had no choice but to wear the black jersey skirt, black pullover, woolen stockings, and flat spectator shoes again. The stockings had a few holes from the dune grass, and there was sand in the shoes. My bob was wilted, and I wore no makeup. I felt like one of those sad little ladies who pass out pamphlets about the End of the World.

  “You really mustn’t wear flat shoes,” Mother said. “I thought you knew that. You have your father’s mother’s ankles.”

  No, I had my mother’s ankles.

  “Where is Father?” I asked.

  “At his office, of course.”

  Probably at his club, trying to forget he had a family.

  I surveyed the buffet: slices of dark brown health bread riddled with whole kernels of rye; carrot salad; some kind of pâté-looking thing that was, undoubtedly, vegetable paste; a pot of—I lifted the lid and took a sniff—herbal tea. It smelled like a hay field. What had I done to deserve herbal tea? Without coffee, I’d chug to a stop.

  “You’ve been hiding from me,” Mother said. “I telephoned the Ritz, and they told me you are not staying there. You lied to me! To me, who labored for thirteen hours to bring you into this world, and nearly died in childbed. And what on earth were you doing out there in the Arbuckles’ dunes last night?”

  “Murdering the nurserymaid, Mother,” Lillian said. “Can’t you remember anything?”

  I swung around. “You truly believe I murdered her?”

  Lillian lifted a shoulder. “That’s what Chisholm said.”

  I pointed at Chisholm. “That’s slander.”

  He didn’t reply. He merely chewed health bread. Granted, chewing health bread does take effort.

  “I thought the police said you shot her,” Lillian said, “just like you shot Mr. Arbuckle. Who taught you how to use a gun? Was it Alfie?”

  “Lillian,” Mother said, “of course your sister did not shoot anyone. That is not how she was raised. Besides, didn’t you say, Chisholm dear, that the police found a clue this morning?”

  “Yes.” Chisholm swallowed health bread. “A shred of cloth, snagged on a spike on the Arbuckles’ fence.

  “Could it have been Lola’s?” Lillian asked.

  “Don’t sound so hopeful,” I said. I turned to Chisholm. “What sort of cloth?”

  “Green,” he said. “Tweed.”

  “You’ve got a green tweed dress, haven’t you, Lola?” Lillian said.

  “No!”

  Lillian sipped tea, keeping her teacup aloft longer than necessary.

  Something sparkled on her finger. A ring, with a diamond hefty enough to be mistaken for a cube of cocktail ice.

  “Lillian,” I said slowly, “what’s that?”

  “Oh, this?” She wafted her hand.

  “Yes, Lola,” Mother said in an accusing tone. “Only yesterday, your sister and Mr. Woodby became engaged. We would have told you, of course, had you not been hiding. Why, even Andy, who is up to his eyeballs in exams, found the time to telephone his congratulations.”

  Guilt sloshed over me. I placed a slice of health bread on a plate and slumped into the nearest chair. “I—I’m sorry. Congratulations, Lillian. And—” I swallowed bile. “—Chisholm.”

  “I do hope that you’ll give me some suggestions on redoing Amberley,” Lillian said. “After all, you know the place so well, since it used to be yours.”

  My guilt dissolved, replaced with a silent scream.

  “Lillian and Chisholm will travel to Palm Beach in a week’s time, to pay an engagement visit to Rose,” Mother said.

  “My mother will so love Lillian,” Chisholm said. He threw me a significant look.

  Did I forget to mention how much Rose abhors me? The despotic bird-woman had never really met Lillian, since Lillian had been only a small girl at my own wedding. That was the last time Rose had come to New York.

  “They shall need a chaperone,” Mother said.

  Uh-oh.

  “I, alas, shall not be able to accompany them,” Mother went on, “since the Ladies’ Garden Society Gala is drawing near, and of course you know I am so consumed by that, and Lillian’s maid Dora claims the train makes her deathly ill—so, Lola, you must chaperone.”

  “You want me to go to Florida?” I said. “Next week?”

  “It would be advisable for you to get away from the glare of publicity,” Chisholm said.

  “And you are penniless,” Lillian said.

  “If you wish to return home to live,” Mother said to me, “you will have to perform certain familial duties.”

  This, then, was what returning home would entail. In a flash, I saw it all: hauling around Lillian’s luggage. Enduring her prattle. Propping cushions behind her languid head. No highballs on the horizon. Eternally. Even if Inspector Digton didn’t have me sent to the electric chair for double murder, a life of playing Lillian’s widow-in-waiting would be, itself, death in life.

  In the last twenty-four hours, more people than I cared to count had accused me of being childish and spoiled. I had never considered myself so; I’d always figured my life was ruled by a riptide of forces beyond my control.

  But maybe Berta, Ralph, Mother, Chisholm—even Miss Ida Shanks—all had a point. Perhaps I was allowing Fate to steamroll me. I have to confess, a small part of me longed to surrender to Mother and Chisholm. At least then I’d be assured of a roof over my head, and presumably enough pin money for chocolate.

  But. I looked at Lillian’s sour-sweet face, at Mother’s eyes bright with expectation, at Chisholm’s lip-curl of censure. I looked down at the slice of health bread on my plate.

  And I knew I couldn’t do it.

  In the past few days, I’d had a taste of freedom. Of poverty, too, and a dash of peril. But no one had controlled what I did. Maybe Berta and I really could make a go of this detecting agency. It certainly sounded like a more appealing way to pay the bills than by, say, filing or typing or accompanying some old, rich fussbudget to Europe.

  The first order of business, then, was escaping Amberley. I’d figure out the rest later.

  I stood. “Well,” I said, “I simply must go to Horace’s funeral—if you’ll allow me to borrow a motorcar, Chisholm? The funeral is at nine o’clock.”

  “You should go,” Chisholm said, “or people will talk. But you shan’t drive yourself. Bartell will take you.”

  * * *

  I tracked down Bartell, the chauffeur, in the garage. He was crouched on a wooden crate behind Chisholm’s Daimler, gulping coffee and smoking a cigarette.

  “I’m glad to see Mr. Woodby has kept you on,” I said.

  “Just barely.” Bartell stamped out his cigarette in a tin can. “Don’t tell him you saw the coffee and the smoke, Mrs. Woodby, all right?”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  Instead of instructing Bartell to take me to the chapel in St. Percival’s Cemetery, I asked to be delivered to the Foghorn in town. My first order of business was to find Berta. Maybe she’d have an idea of how to get the Duesy out of the clink.

  But Berta had already checked out of the Foghorn. Ralph had, too. Although for all I cared, he could take a trolley straight to Hell.

  Berta had taken my luggage.

  “And the dog?” I asked the front desk clerk.

  “Yup,” he said. “She took the pup, too. Cute fella. Oughta be in pictures.”

  I went back to the waiting Daimler and asked Bartell to drive on to the cemetery. By the time we arrived there, Horace’s burial was over.

  I thought about begging Bartell to motor me all the way back to the city. After all, I didn’t have my handbag, so I couldn’t purchase a train ticket. But I knew Bartell would lose his job if Chisholm found out.

  So I asked him to take me to Dune House. I’d pay my respects to Olive and see if I might hitch a
ride back to the city from someone there.

  24

  Hibbers opened the door. Jazz caterwauled from behind him, and I heard girls’ laughter. “Oh. Mrs. Woodby,” Hibbers said. “I did not, at first, recognize you.”

  You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you show up at a Society Matron’s fête in flat shoes and a woolen pullover.

  “Hello, Hibbers. Under a bit of nervous strain?”

  “I cannot fathom what you mean, madam.”

  “You’ve got raccoon circles under your eyes. Is it about, you know—” I leaned close. “—Miss Potter getting herself murdered?”

  He sighed. “Two murders in one week is nothing when compared with the motion picture people, madam.”

  He led me through to the crowded drawing room.

  You’d never have guessed that a funeral had just taken place, and that another member of the household had gotten fogged the night before. Cigarette smoke hung in swathes. The furniture was haphazard. The gramophone throbbed out a King Oliver record, and a couple of jazz babies in fringed dresses and shiny lipstick fox-trotted together across the carpet. Where were Horace’s family and friends?

  And where could I get one of those cocktails?

  Olive and Eloise Wright emerged from the haze. Olive’s black dress twinkled with beadwork, and she held a cigarette in a long ivory holder. Her face was radiant. Eloise held a martini, and she’d done something different with her steel wool hair.

  “Lola, darling!” Olive kissed the air next to my ear. “Just look at you, poor thing. Oh my. All in wool, and those flat shoes! I suppose tripping over Nanny Potter last night was simply devastating.”

  “Mrs. Woodby, how nice to see you again.” Eloise said, “You are not wearing the new rubber—”

  “How is Gerald?” I asked loudly.

  Eloise and Olive exchanged a glance.

  “Eloise,” Olive whispered, “is, well, dropping the pilot—”

  “I am not ashamed.” Eloise looked at me. “I am divorcing Gerald.”

  “Oh. Goodness,” I said. “So sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Eloise said. “I’ve been liberated from a newt in glasses.”

  Hibbers appeared with a highball on a tray.

  I grabbed it and took a gulp. “Do you have any idea who, um, shot Miss Potter?” I asked Olive.