A Friendly Game of Murder

by J. J. Murphy

“So,” Benchley said, “what brought you two up here at midnight on New Year’s? Funny place to celebrate.”

  Dorothy glanced again at Bibi’s dead body. “Yes, absolutely hilarious place to celebrate the New Year.”

  But had she detected a note of disappointment in Benchley’s voice? Did his lightheartedness actually mask a wish for her to be by him at the stroke of midnight?

  Woollcott appeared irritated. “Mrs. Parker, you told me that Douglas and Mary needed my discreet help. Clearly that was a lie. What do you mean by sending me up here?”

  She leveled her eyes at him. “To murder you, of course.”

  “Aha! I knew it! In the kitchen, you—”

  “Shut up, Little Acky. We have bigger fish to fry. The game’s over.”

  Woollcott raised an eyebrow as he eyed Bibi’s body. “And perhaps another has begun.”

  Benchley ignored this. “Then what happened? Woollcott took the elevator up here, and you followed?”

  “On the contrary,” Woollcott said, turning to Dorothy. “How did you arrive here before me?”

  “Took the service elevator,” she said. “When I arrived on this floor, the suite was wide-open. But the bathroom door was locked. I had heard Mary say there was a key in a kitchen drawer—” She held up the key ring, which was still in her hand.

  “Just a moment,” Woollcott said. “The bathroom door was locked?”

  “Yes, I just said that.”

  He turned and closed the door. There was no keyhole on the inside of the door, just a standard doorknob and a handle to lock the deadbolt. “So it would appear the door was locked from the inside?”

  “Who knows?” she said.

  “Whoever locked this door, that’s who knows!” Woollcott replied. “So if the door was locked from the inside, that means Bibi got up from the tub, locked it, then got back in the tub and died?”

  “I doubt it,” Dorothy said. “The floor is dry, and it was dry when I got here. If Bibi had gotten out of the tub, she’d have left wet footprints all over the floor, or at least quite a few drops behind.”

  They examined the floor, especially right in front of the tub. It was bone dry.

  Woollcott took the keys from Dorothy’s hand. “So you found this in a kitchen drawer?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Dorothy said. “What are you implying?”

  “I imply nothing. I merely state the facts—that someone locked this door to prevent or delay the discovery of Bibi’s dead or dying body. Isn’t that how you see it?”

  They stood looking at the door when it suddenly swung open. Frank Case, Dr. Hurst and Arthur Conan Doyle entered.

  Dr. Hurst’s white hair was disheveled, his high collar was undone and his necktie was loosened. He looked pale and sick. When he saw the body of Bibi, he looked even sicker.

  “Get her out of there!” he croaked, pointing at the body but looking away. “Carry her to the bed. Cover her up.”

  Woollcott opened his mouth to protest, but when no one moved, Dr. Hurst spoke even more loudly. “Get her out of that tub this instant, I said!”

  Instinctively Doyle and Case grabbed Bibi’s arms. Benchley reluctantly reached in the tub and held one of her ankles. He shivered at the strange feeling of it. Woollcott, unhurried, took off his tuxedo jacket, rolled up his white sleeves and carefully reached into the tub for the other ankle. By some unspoken understanding, they simultaneously hoisted the body out of the tub, and the champagne cascaded from it. The sweet, crisp smell filled Dorothy’s nose, and she winced. Then she watched as a small circle of liquid pooled around Bibi’s navel and then drained away as they moved the body. Dorothy moved quickly to cover Bibi with a bath towel—it somehow seemed necessary to lend this undignified girl some dignity, as though the propriety she lacked in life could be bestowed on her in death. The only things left in the tub were the ladle and a washcloth.

  They maneuvered Bibi’s body through the doorway and carried her to the bedroom, where they laid her carefully on the bed. Dorothy couldn’t help but rearrange the towel to neatly cover the girl’s body.

  Dr. Hurst followed them into the room. He staggered toward the bed and dropped his leather doctor’s bag onto the floor. Dorothy was compelled to move out of the way. Dr. Hurst held one of Bibi’s wrists for a moment while he felt for a pulse. He let go of the arm and then applied two fingers to her neck.

  He stood and turned to them. “She’s dead.”

  “Of course she’s dead!” Dorothy said impatiently. “The question is, what killed her?”

  Dr. Hurst’s mouth tightened. “I can’t say.”

  Frank Case said, “Some sort of accident, undoubtedly.”

  “An unusual sort of accident,” Woollcott said.

  “People slip and hurt themselves in the bathroom all the time, unfortunately,” Case said. “Most dangerous room in the house.”

  Doyle cleared his throat and carefully looked at Bibi’s face. “What’s that strange redness around her mouth?” He moved forward for a closer look, then turned quizzically to Dr. Hurst. But Dr. Hurst didn’t answer. He even took a step back to allow Doyle more room to examine the body.

  “Perhaps she drowned?” Benchley offered. “We’ve all heard the old wives’ tale of people drowning in three inches of water.”

  “No,” Doyle said, carefully turning Bibi’s head. “Her hair is completely dry.”

  “Maybe alcohol poisoning?” Case asked. “People can go blind or even die from bad moonshine.”

  “We drank a couple,” Benchley said, indicating himself and Dorothy. “We weren’t poisoned. Fairbanks wouldn’t throw a party with rotgut booze.”

  Woollcott stuck out his tongue. “You drank champagne that a woman was bathing in? I’d expect that from the thirsty rabble, but from you two—?”

  “The alcohol kills the germs, doesn’t it?” Benchley said gamely. “Besides, nothing else was available.”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” Dorothy said regretfully, pointing to Bibi and unable to stop herself from joking when things looked so gloomy. “Unmistakable flavor of tart.”

  Case frowned at her and addressed Doyle. “If not alcohol poisoning, then perhaps an alcohol overdose? Could she have absorbed it somehow?”

  “Through her skin, do you mean?” Doyle said. “Not likely. I’d wager the skin absorbs only trace amounts of alcohol. However, inhalation is another matter.”

  “Drunk by inhalation?” Dorothy muttered dismally. “Now that’s a gas.”

  Doyle nodded. “During the war, the armies of the world experimented with all manner of poisonous gases for debilitating and destroying their enemies on the battlefield. I studied it extensively for the British government. Vapors inhaled through the lungs absorb into the bloodstream much more quickly than through the skin.”

  “Enough to kill her?” Case asked.

  Doyle considered this. “In the same manner in which a drunkard will become poisoned by excessive drink, she’d become progressively intoxicated by inhalation. Was she extremely drunk?”

  They looked at each other. No one knew.

  Dorothy said, “She appeared pretty happy with herself when we last saw her, sometime before midnight. But then again she was full of beans even when she arrived at the hotel earlier.”

  “Sometime before midnight?” Doyle repeated. “So who was the last to see her alive?”

  Dorothy shrugged and wondered again about Mary Pickford.

  Case folded his arms and turned to Dr. Hurst as the final authority. “So what did kill her? A slip in the tub and a rough knock to her head?”

  Dr. Hurst looked down demandingly at Doyle. “Well?”

  Doyle was bent over Bibi and carefully feeling her head. “Her skull appears intact. No lacerations or abrasions. No palpable contusions or swelling.” He stepped back, hands
on his hips, and shook his head.

  “Then how did she die?” Dorothy asked.

  Suddenly Woollcott pointed at the body and yelled, “Murder!”

  Dr. Hurst visibly jumped. He clutched at his chest. “You gave me a start, sir!” he croaked.

  “Has no one else noticed?” Woollcott cried. “The locket is missing! She was wearing it all night, but now it’s gone. And if it was left in the bathroom, we would have seen it. It was stolen! This was murder. Murder for that locket!”

  Dorothy turned to Dr. Hurst. “Wasn’t that your locket?”

  Dr. Hurst was still breathing heavily. “How did you know that?”

  “I saw you with it earlier. In the lobby and again when you arrived for Fairbanks’ party.”

  “No, no,” Dr. Hurst said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It was just a trinket. Nothing more.”

  Mary Pickford, followed by Douglas Fairbanks, stormed into the room. “Just a trinket? Hardly! I saw that locket around Bibi’s neck.” She turned and faced Fairbanks. “It’s the kind of jewelry exchanged between lovers!”

  Fairbanks looked at her wearily. “Now, dearest, I’ve already told you—”

  “Aha!” Woollcott said, pointing a fat finger in the air. “So there is more to this than meets the eye. It’s murder, I tell you. And I shall investigate! I’ve never failed to solve a case, and I won’t fail this one. The game is afoot!”

  Just then Dr. Hurst groaned. His face twisted in pain and, clutching one hand to his head, he sank to his knees. Then he collapsed to the floor with a thud.

  Chapter 9

  “Step aside,” yelled Doyle. Dorothy and the others moved back. Doyle kneeled by the prone body of Dr. Hurst and carefully rolled him over.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Fairbanks asked. “He’s not—”

  Doyle pressed his ear to Dr. Hurst’s narrow chest. “He’s alive, but his breathing is quite shallow. Let’s lift him to the other side of the bed.”

  “Oh dear,” Mary said, biting her lip. She nervously twisted one of her long blond curls with her forefinger as she watched her husband and Doyle lift Dr. Hurst onto the bed and alongside Bibi’s dead body. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

  Doyle resumed his examination of Dr. Hurst, checking his pulse and his breathing.

  “You shouldn’t have wound him up,” Dorothy muttered to Woollcott. “You broke his watch spring.”

  Frank Case leaned forward. “Is it a heart attack?”

  “I don’t think so.” Doyle lifted one of Dr. Hurst’s eyelids, then the other. He muttered to himself, “Hmm, one pupil is dilated.” Then he pronounced, “My working diagnosis is apoplexy—a stroke.”

  Mary couldn’t hold her emotions any longer. She clutched at her husband’s arm. “Oh, Douglas! First a dead woman and now a dying man in our bed—our bed! I can’t bear it. We’ll have to burn the sheets. No, we’ll have to burn the whole bed and buy a new one!”

  “You might want to remove the bodies before you burn it,” Dorothy said to her.

  Doyle spoke forcefully to Mary. “I never said he was dying! The apoplexy has affected only one side of his body. He has every chance of eventual recovery.”

  But Mary wasn’t listening. She had turned to leave the room.

  Woollcott called after her, “Don’t go far, Mary. You’re our first suspect!”

  She stopped and turned slowly. “Suspect? Me? What are you talking about, Aleck?”

  Dorothy muttered to him, “Not sure this is the time, Detective Woollcott.”

  “This is precisely the time,” Woollcott said to her, then turned again to Mary. “Were you not the last to see the deceased alive?”

  Mary put a hand to her chest. “The deceased?”

  “Yes, the deceased.” He pointed to the dead body in the bed. “Bibi Bibelot! Mrs. Parker said she encountered you in the lobby just before midnight, and you were on your way up here to have it out with Bibi.”

  “Quiet, please,” Doyle said. “Or remove yourselves from the room. This man—my friend—is in a most serious condition.” He bent to search through Dr. Hurst’s medical bag and removed a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope. He put the ends of the stethoscope into his ears. He glanced at Benchley. “Would you be so kind as to go down to Quentin’s room and fetch Mr. Jordan? He may be of the utmost assistance in this matter.”

  Benchley nodded agreeably and moved toward the door.

  Dorothy turned to follow. “Mind if I join you, Mr. Benchley?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Parker,” he said with a smile. “I can manage.” He walked out of the bedroom and then quickly left the apartment.

  “No, thank you”? She stopped in her tracks. What now? Is he jealous of Mr. Jordan? Or is he somehow mad at me for not being by his side at midnight? Or . . . what?

  Meanwhile Woollcott, Fairbanks and Mary had moved out into the living room to continue their argument. Dorothy, too, left the bedroom to join them.

  Woollcott said to Mary, “I saw you casting daggers with your eyes at Bibi all night. You hated that she was the center of attention at your party. And were you not the last person to leave this apartment before midnight?”

  Dorothy interrupted, her voice sharper than she intended. “Enough, Aleck! This is life and death, not one of your little parlor games.”

  Woollcott faced her with a confident look. “Indeed you’re right, Mrs. Parker! No one understands that as well as I. This is most certainly a matter of life and death, and I am dealing with it accordingly. Now, didn’t you say Mary was the last one to leave this penthouse before midnight?”

  Dorothy didn’t respond. She looked to Mary and expected her to profess her innocence.

  Instead Mary’s husband spoke up. “I was the last one to see Bibi alive. I tried to persuade her to get out of the tub, but she wouldn’t,” Fairbanks said.

  Woollcott frowned. “Hogwash. Don’t try to cover for your wife, Douglas. I saw you down in the lobby after you shooed everyone out of the party.”

  Fairbanks hesitated. “This was before you saw me in the lobby.”

  “Nonsense, Douglas,” Woollcott said, and turned to Fairbanks’ wife. “Come clean, Mary. Did you or did you not say to Mrs. Parker that you were coming up to this penthouse to deal with Bibi?”

  Mary began twisting another lock of her blond hair. “Well, yes, I did say that—”

  “Aha!” Woollcott cried.

  Mary spoke more loudly. “Yes, I did say that to Dottie. But I never made it up here. I encountered Lydia Trumbull in the elevator. She was in an emotional state, so I went with her to her room on the second floor to talk.”

  Woollcott frowned again. This didn’t fit in his theory. “Talk? Talk about what?”

  Mary bit her lip.

  “Aha! You’re keeping secrets!” Woollcott said, jabbing his fat index finger into the air.

  Dorothy put a hand to her head. “Aleck, stop saying ‘Aha!’”

  Woollcott looked pleased. “But now we have another suspect. Lydia Trumbull—who was in an emotional state! Where had she come from when you encountered her in the elevator?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Mary said. “Her room, I suppose.”

  “Was the elevator going up or going down?”

  “Well, down, of course,” she said. “Lydia was on it when it arrived in the lobby.”

  “So she had come down,” Woollcott said slowly and dramatically. “As in, she came down from her room—or perhaps she had come down from this very penthouse after murdering Bibi!”

  Dorothy folded her arms. “Hang on there, Detective Woollcott. Exactly who is it that you suspect? Mary or Lydia?”

  He turned to her. “I suspect everyone! You included, Dottie. Were you not alone with Bibi’s body when I found you?”

 
“Oh, good gravy,” Dorothy moaned.

  “There’s more of grave than of gravy in this,” he said, his eyes narrowing.

  “Aleck, stop it,” she said. “You’re being morbid. I’m not one to surrender to scruple, but the dead woman is in the next room. She’s barely even cold.”

  “She’s as cold as the grave, Dottie,” Woollcott said. “Silent as the grave, as well. Who will speak for her? The hotel is quarantined. No policeman can enter the building. Someone must figure out what happened, and I’m just the one to do it. Little Acky has never lost a case!”

  “Maybe not,” she said. “But Little Acky has lost his marbles.”

  Chapter 10

  “You can drop your investigation,” Dorothy said to Woollcott. “I’m calling the police.”

  He made a slight bow. “Be my guest. I welcome their involvement.”

  An elaborate pearl-handled telephone sat on the end table by the sofa. Dorothy went toward it.

  “Dottie,” Fairbanks said with a sort of impatient bluster, “is that absolutely necessary? Why bother them with this now? As Aleck says, no one can even enter the building.”

  “Why bother them?” she asked. “You have a dead body in your bed, Douglas. I don’t think they’ll mind a quick phone call.”

  She picked up the handset and tapped the switch hook. “Operator?” There was silence on the other end. “Operator?”

  She tapped the switch hook again and more vigorously now.

  A woman’s weary, hoarse voice answered. “Operator speaking.”

  “Mavis?” Dorothy asked. “Is that you? You sound like a sick kitten.”

  “I am a sick kitten, Mrs. Parker,” the woman’s throaty voice answered. “Been on this switchboard all night. My voice is kaput. So, what can I do for you?”

  “Put me through to the police, please,” Dorothy said.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Parker. I’m having trouble making outside calls. There’s something wrong with this lousy old thing. Or maybe all the snow affected the lines. You’ll have to come down here and place the call directly from the switchboard, using the emergency line.”