by J. J. Murphy
Dorothy thanked her and hung up.
“Well?” Woollcott said. “Are they coming?”
She ignored him and went back to the bedroom, where Case was conferring with Doyle.
“What can be done for a stroke, Dr. Doyle?” the hotel manager asked. “What’s the treatment?”
“Well, I’m not precisely sure.” Doyle ran a hand over his chin. “It’s been decades since I’ve been in actual medical practice.”
“Maybe raise his head?”
“Of course,” Doyle said confidently, but then he looked uncertain. “Or is it perhaps his feet?”
Dorothy interrupted. “I’m going down to the switchboard to call the police. Shall I also call for an ambulance?”
Doyle sighed in relief. “That would be most welcome, Mrs. Parker. Thank you. Bring them at once.”
Now Case spoke uncertainly. “I’m not sure if they’ll be able to enter the building with the quarantine—”
“Everyone keeps saying that,” she said.
Case studied the pale, thin face of Dr. Hurst. “But it’s certainly worth a try.”
She shook her head and left. Woollcott followed right behind her. He turned to Douglas and Mary. “Don’t go anywhere, you two. We shall talk further.”
“Where would we go?” Fairbanks asked. “This is our apartment.”
Dorothy stopped and faced Woollcott, who nearly collided with her. “Must you come with me?”
Woollcott puffed out his chest. “I want to speak with the authorities myself. I want their official permission to investigate this case.”
“You’re the only case around here. A nutcase.”
She went into the hallway toward the elevator and reached for the call button. But before she could press it, the elevator door opened. Benchley and Jordan stepped out.
“Oh, Fred, there you are!” she said. “Please come with me.”
Benchley smiled—but it wasn’t his usual warm lovely-to-see-you smile. It was more like a don’t-bother-me-right-now smile.
“Go with you?” he asked.
“I’m going down to the lobby to call the police.”
He made that smile again. “I’m certain you can handle a phone call on your own, Mrs. Parker. Artie and Mr. Jordan might need my help with Dr. Hurst.” The smile still on his face, he walked past her. Then he called over his shoulder, “And please stop calling me Fred.”
She stood and watched him go.
In a huff, she turned and stomped onto the elevator. Is he trying to punish me? That’s certainly not like Benchley. And punish me for what? For merely giving handsome Mr. Jordan a fleeting glance earlier? The punishment doesn’t fit the crime!
“Where to?” said Maurice, the elevator operator, after Woollcott stepped in, too.
“Where to?” she snapped. “Twice around the park and take the scenic route.”
“You want to pick a floor?” Maurice asked impatiently in his creaky old voice. “Or you want me to pick?”
“Lobby,” she said gruffly. “And step on it.”
“Hmm,” Woollcott said. “Is there trouble in Lovey-Dovey Land?”
She gritted her teeth.
When she didn’t answer, he spoke again. “No caustic remark? No vicious retort?”
“Sometimes the best reply to an insult isn’t another insult,” she said, “but a quick knee to the groin. Do you still want my reply?”
They stood in silence as Woollcott cast nervous glances at her.
Before they reached the lobby, a light flashed and a bell sounded on the operator’s controls. Maurice stopped the elevator on the second floor. He opened the door, and there stood Lydia Trumbull. Her eyes were wet from tears.
“Aha!” Woollcott cried, pointing his finger at her.
Lydia was taken aback. “Going up?” she asked nervously.
“Not by a long shot, lady,” Woollcott said. “You’re going down.”
“What? Down?”
“Down to the jailhouse. You’re a suspect in the murder of Bibi Bibelot!”
Lydia’s pale eyes widened. Then her eyelashes fluttered, her head tilted back and she crumpled into a heap on the floor in a dead faint.
* * *
Dorothy and Woollcott lifted the unconscious Lydia off the floor.
“Wonderful investigative skills, detective.” Dorothy spoke in gasps to him. “You nearly frightened the poor woman to death.”
With the actress’ arms over their shoulders, they struggled to carry her—dragging her feet on the carpeted hallway—back to her room.
“Frightened her, did I?” Woollcott wheezed. “Where there’s fear, there’s guilt. And guilt flees from Alexander Woollcott!”
“So does common sense,” Dorothy said as they reached Lydia’s room. “Now, hold her up while I unlock the door.”
Lydia had held a room key in her hand when they encountered her. After she fainted, Dorothy had picked it up from the floor. Dorothy shifted the weight of Lydia’s body toward Woollcott, who groaned. Dorothy slid the key in the lock, opened the door and flicked on the lights.
Then they struggled to maneuver Lydia through the door. Although the actress was petite, neither Dorothy nor Woollcott was strong, and it took effort not to simply let Lydia drop into a heap on the bed. Instead they did their best to slide her gently onto the bedspread.
“Whew,” Woollcott said breathlessly. “Someone should alert the Michelin Guide. Guests are dropping like flies in this hotel.”
Dorothy stared at him. “You did this to her. This is your fault. Now go back upstairs. Dr. Hurst probably has smelling salts in that medical bag of his. Go get them.”
Woollcott snorted. “Why should we offer succor to the accused?”
“Why should I not sock you in the eye? You made her faint, so you wake her up.”
He frowned but eventually turned and left. Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief. That little errand would get him out of her hair for a few minutes at least. She wanted to talk to Lydia without Aleck frightening her again.
She looked around the room. What could she use to wake Lydia up while he was gone?
There were a number of medicine bottles on the bedside table. Dorothy picked up a few and scrutinized their labels. A couple were liquids, and the rest were pills or powders. Most she recognized as sleep medicines or tranquilizers—laudanum, Veronal, hydroxycodone, even morphine. But nothing that appeared to be a stimulant.
Dorothy looked down at the inert actress’ troubled face and thought for a moment. She had read somewhere that the main ingredient of smelling salts was not salt but ammonia. She went to the bathroom, but of course there was no ammonia. The Algonquin was a residence hotel and had two types of rooms—regular hotel rooms booked by the night, and suites for rent for residents such as herself. Lydia’s room was a guest room, of course, not a rental suite. As such, it had no cleaning supplies.
Dorothy went back into the bedroom, and then opened the door and looked up and down the corridor. Dorothy herself lived in a very small rental suite down the hall. She had no ammonia in her apartment, though, because she never cleaned. But across the hall lived old Mrs. Volney. . . .
Dorothy stared at the door. Even at this hour, she could hear the cats mewing inside. But cats were nocturnal creatures, of course. And, for that matter, so was Mrs. Volney. Day or night, the meddlesome old woman would poke her head out of her door at the slightest disturbance, and then she’d grin with her gray teeth and her thin lips when she saw that someone had stumbled and dropped a carton of eggs, or had twisted an ankle on a fold in the carpet.
“Oh, dear me!” she’d always say with a smirk of pleasure. “Someone should do something about that!”
But for Dorothy there was more to her dislike of Mrs. Volney than just the old woman’s nosiness.
In Dorothy’s heart of hearts, one of her greatest fears was that she’d someday end up like Mrs. Volney. A wrinkled, doddering busybody who had nothing in her life other than tending her unruly cats and feeding like a parasite off of others’ daily misfortunes. Dorothy swore to herself to never become like that. She strode across the hall and knocked on the door as if to spite fate. Mrs. Volney opened it almost immediately.
The old woman’s wispy hair was the color of pewter. It lay flattened on her head and rolled in curlers by her ears. She wore an ivory-colored robe that had once been elegant but was now yellowed and shabby. She had a dowager’s hump and always held her hands up in front of her frail, narrow body—she looked like a praying mantis, Dorothy thought. Or perhaps a preying mantis.
“Well, hello to you, Miss Parker,” she said in her shrill, creaking voice, like a rusty old machine that was missing a few pieces. “My, but it’s late for social calls, isn’t it?”
“It’s Mrs. Parker, if you please. And this isn’t a social call—”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Parker. Where is that darling husband of yours? Tell me once more what happened to him? I forget. . . .”
Like hell you forget!
Dorothy spoke matter-of-factly. “He fell down an elevator shaft and was never heard from again.” She would be damned if she satisfied this old biddy’s thirst for scandal and hardship—ammonia or no ammonia!
The truth was, her husband had gone off to the Great War in Europe, had seen too much horror, and had come home a shell of a man, hooked on morphine. Dorothy and Edwin Parker had parted ways with sadness and great regret. Dorothy kept his last name—it was the best thing he ever gave her.
But by no means was Dorothy going to repeat the story to this elderly vulture, who had already heard it at least once from her and probably several more times from others.
“Elevator, you say? My mind must be failing me in my old age. I really thought he became addicted to dope. For some women it can be so hard to keep a good man or even a mediocre one, don’t you agree?”
Dorothy struggled to hold her tongue.
Mrs. Volney continued, “Now, I’ve never had that problem. My dear Donald, may he rest in peace—”
“May we all,” Dorothy said hastily. “But, as I was saying, this is not a social call. I’m in dire need of a bottle of ammonia. Do you have one?”
“Why, certainly. I keep my little home spick and span. With four cats, cleanliness is a must. Next to godliness, as they say.” Mrs. Volney turned and shuffled off to her kitchenette, opened the cabinet under the sink and took out a glass bottle of ammonia. Dorothy looked around the woman’s tidy little apartment.
It was the same size as hers, she knew, but it seemed just a little bit larger because every item in the room was smaller: two small armchairs; a small, uncomfortable-looking couch; a small side table; a small knitting basket beside it; a small teacup with a small saucer on top. It was as though everything had been miniaturized just slightly, just enough to fit little Mrs. Volney perfectly.
Was this what old age was all about? Dorothy wondered. When you’re young, the world seems so immense all around you. But as you get older, your world gets smaller and smaller, reducing little by little until your modest apartment is your entire world. Dorothy involuntarily shivered with the thought.
Mrs. Volney shuffled back to Dorothy with the bottle of ammonia in her hand. “You don’t mind if I pry, do you?”
Never stopped you before, Dorothy thought. “Pry away,” she said.
“What can you possibly need ammonia for at this hour?”
You think I’m up to something sordid and scandalous, do you?
“Some fellas were lion hunting in my room,” Dorothy said with a straight face. “The lion put up a hell of a fight. But we got him in the end. Actually not in the end—we got him in between the eyes. Blood went everywhere. So, thank you.”
Dorothy grabbed the bottle from the woman’s spindly hands. Mrs. Volney stood there with her mouth open. Dorothy turned to go.
No, that won’t do. I can’t leave the old hag thinking I’m crackers. That would just give her more reasons for gossiping—especially about me.
Dorothy resolutely turned back around and pasted a friendly smile on her face. “Just kidding, Mrs. Volney. Actually, a friend fainted, and I need the scent of ammonia to revive her. She’s an actress. Very dramatic, you know. Always swooning and such. She’s a typical thespian.”
“She’s a . . . a what?”
Dorothy paused. “A thespian.”
“Oh, she’s one of those, is she?” Mrs. Volney’s expression was a mix of primness and salacious curiosity. “Well, this is the modern age, and a person’s . . . well, a person’s romantic proclivities are their own. One mustn’t be too judgmental, Mrs. Parker,” she said with a decidedly judgmental tone. “No, one mustn’t.”
Dorothy did not correct the old woman’s mistake. Instead she decided to have some fun with it. “Oh yes, Mrs. Volney. My friend is a card-carrying thespian. Quite public about it, too. I’ve seen her act ‘that way’ in public in front of hundreds of people.”
“Oh, dear me.”
“On the Broadway stage, even.”
“Heaven forbid!” Mrs. Volney gasped, shocked and thrilled at the same time. “These people should keep such things private! And the theaters these days are dens of iniquity. I’d never attend such a horrid spectacle, much less pay for a ticket. And the prices they charge these days, they’re just as obscene! And what . . . what was the name of this show—just so I know to avoid it?”
“It’s called Peter Pan. Very immoral. Thank you for the ammonia.”
Dorothy turned and went out the door, then closed it behind her.
She crossed the hall and unscrewed the bottle cap as she returned to Lydia’s room. The sharp, pungent smell of the ammonia made her eyes water. She propped up Lydia’s head and held the bottle under her nose. Nothing happened at first. Then Lydia winced. Her eyes flew open. She coughed suddenly and shoved the bottle away.
“Welcome back, Lydia dear,” Dorothy said. She put the cap back on the ammonia and set the bottle on the crowded bedside table. She took a quick inventory of the medicine bottles again. “Tell me you have some brandy here among these nostrums and remedies. We could both use a good snort. Though you’ve just had one, clearly.”
Lydia shook her head. “What happened?”
“You fainted when Woollcott literally pointed the finger at you.” Dorothy sat down on the edge of Lydia’s bed. “Tell me quick, before that gasbag returns: Did you have something to do with Bibi’s death?”
Lydia hid her face in her hands.
Dorothy clucked her tongue. “Don’t do that, Lydia dear. Makes you look guilty.”
“I’m not guilty!” she moaned, dropping her hands. Her eyes were pink with tears. “I was a nurse in the war. I wouldn’t hurt a soul. I was trained to help people, not hurt them. I would never, never, never willfully harm another person. Not even that bitch Bibi!”
The way Lydia denied it told Dorothy that Lydia was sincere about not having killed Bibi—but it was also obvious to Dorothy that Lydia had certainly done something that she felt guilty about.
Dorothy looked up and saw Woollcott standing in the doorway. He clapped his hands once. “A convincing performance, Lydia. Worthy of a first-rate actress such as yourself,” he said, stepping forward. “Now drop the act, and tell us the truth!”
Chapter 11
Dorothy shoved Woollcott through the door and followed him into the hallway. Before closing the door behind her, she turned to Lydia, lying in bed. “Pull yourself together. We’ll be back in a minute.”
In the hallway Woollcott folded his arms across his fat belly. “You can’t shelter her all night, Dorothy dear. I’ll cross-examine her, mark my words. She’s guilty. Anyone can see that!”
Mrs. Volney’s door opened a crack.
Dorothy grabbed Woollcott by the lapels. “Shh!” Then she dragged him along the corridor to the stairs.
She thought it over as they descended the steps to the lobby. What would make Lydia faint like that? Did she kill Bibi? So the whole fainting bit was just an act, and she had me fooled? Jeez, maybe everyone’s playing a game with me. First Woollcott with his game of Murder, then Benchley with his emotional shenanigans, and now Lydia with her act of innocence?
Dorothy felt adrift, especially without Benchley at her side. She was having a hard time getting along without him tonight. She had realized it early in the evening, when she merely hoped he would show up for the party. But now she felt angry, wounded and confused without him. She needed someone’s help. Someone who knew what to do. And in any case this situation called for the police.
Dorothy led the way across the lobby. The lights were turned low. The party had mostly broken up. A few small groups of stragglers leaned against the columns or against each other, swaying to and fro. Other partygoers were slouched or collapsed in the lobby’s plush armchairs; their cardboard party hats were askew on their heads. Several were waiting by the elevator to go up to bed.
Dorothy rounded the corner of the reception desk and opened an office door marked OPERATOR. In the tiny room, a tired-looking middle-aged woman sat in front of a telephone switchboard. She coughed as they came in.
“Happy New Year, Mavis,” Dorothy said.
“Happy? Tell it to my throat. And my back.” Mavis twisted in her chair to stretch. She wore an earphone headset, as well as a heavy-looking hornlike microphone around her neck. She pulled this apparatus off her head and dropped it onto the switchboard with a clatter.
Dorothy made a sympathetic noise. “Long, busy night?”
“Long, busy day!” Mavis said in her usual craggy smoker’s voice. She also had a thick Noo Yawk accent. “I’ve been on duty since noon. Alice was supposed to relieve me at eight o’clock for the night shift. But on account of this lousy quarantine, she couldn’t get in. I don’t know how Mr. Case expects me to make it through the night. This had better count as overtime, that’s for sure.”
