A Friendly Game of Murder

by J. J. Murphy

  It, he corrected himself. It is a stolen priceless artifact!

  Now he had two important things to tell Mrs. Parker. He had to find her right away.

  But the quiet man—Mr. Caesar—was speaking. “What are you waiting for? Get it over here. The client wants it, and how.”

  “No can do,” the gruff man said. “This joint is quarantined. Closed up tighter than a nun’s knees.”

  “Quarantined? So what? Just slip out the back door. Who’s gonna stop you? The bellhop? Just get the goods over here.”

  “Hold your horses,” the gruff man said. “Snow’s pretty heavy. Won’t be any cabs now. At first light we’ll leave. Good enough?”

  There was silence on the other end. A threatening, uncomfortable silence, Benchley thought.

  To fill the silence, the gruff man spoke again, his voice tentative now. “Mr. Caesar—?”

  Mr. Caesar’s quiet voice exploded. “You don’t tell me to hold my horses, you two-cent crook! If you don’t have the goods here by nine in the morning, it won’t be a couple flakes of snow you gotta worry about. It’ll be lead . . . in your head!”

  “No problem, Mr. Caesar, no problem!” The gruff man spoke quickly, apologetically. “We’ll be there by nine. Maybe earlier. Soon as we can, I promise.”

  We? The gruff-voiced man had said “we” before, hadn’t he? So there’s at least a pair of two-cent crooks in the hotel, Benchley thought. They must be the ones who ransacked Dr. Hurst’s room and took the locket from Mr. Jordan’s shoe!

  “Oh, I must tell Mrs. Parker,” he said to himself.

  There was another silence—a shorter one this time.

  “Who’s there?” Mr. Caesar asked. “Who said that?”

  “Operator!” the gruff man barked. “You still on this line?”

  Whoops . . .

  * * *

  “Just what I thought,” Lydia said when Dorothy didn’t answer her. “You can’t argue with the truth, Dorothy. Bibi represented all those things, and that’s why she’s dead now. It happens to everyone who tries to tame the monster of fame. It eats you up alive.”

  Dorothy shook her head.

  “So true,” Mrs. Volney said. “So sad and so true. I’ve been in this city more than eighty years, and it’s only getting worse. Crime. Drinking. Fornication. Jazz music. These people who put themselves in harm’s way, such as this Bibi girl, they get hurt. That’s what this city does to people—especially the immoral and the proud,” she said scornfully. “If you play with fire, you get burned—that’s what my dear Donald always said. Nowadays I often think it’s better to hide your head in the sand like an ostrich.”

  “I often think that, too,” Lydia sighed, looking off to nowhere. Some of the other women nodded.

  Dorothy was still standing, although they had been ignoring her. “Just a minute! The city didn’t chew Bibi up and spit her out. It wasn’t some grand scheme or moral reprisal delivered by the gods of fate.” Now they were no longer ignoring her. But they, especially Lydia and Mrs. Volney, looked at her skeptically. “It was a mere mortal who killed Bibi. Just a person—one person, most likely. Someone who had it in for her.” Dorothy stared at Lydia. “You had it in for her.”

  Lydia’s frost-blue eyes went wide. She jumped to her feet. “How can you accuse me of such a thing? I hated Bibi, it’s true. But I would never—”

  Her eyes fluttered, and Dorothy worried that she might faint again.

  “You would never kill her?” Dorothy said. “Maybe not on purpose—maybe. But how about by accident?”

  All the women in the room became alarmed, angered, shocked or surprised. They gasped with hands over their mouths, drew a sharp intake of breath or muttered denials to one another.

  Worried now, Lydia dropped back into her chair. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Dorothy pulled the bottle of chloroform out of her purse. “What were you doing with this?”

  Lydia’s eyes went wide again when she saw the bottle; then she glared malevolently at Dorothy. She stammered, “I’ve never seen that before in my life.”

  “I took it from your room. Mr. Benchley was there. He can attest to it.”

  Jane craned her neck to see. “What is it?”

  “Chloroform,” Dorothy said. “Dr. Doyle thinks Bibi was chloroformed. Knocked out.”

  With a loud clatter, Woollcott dropped his empty plate onto the tray in Mrs. Volney’s hands. The little old lady was nearly pushed back from the force of it. Woollcott charged by her without noticing. “Dorothy! Where did you get that? This is my investigation! I make the accusations!”

  “Your investigation? You’re too chicken to look for Bibi’s body in the basement.”

  “Bibi’s body is in the basement?” Ruth said, aghast. The other women gasped and muttered in surprise.

  “She’s missing,” Dorothy said to Lydia. “Know anything about that?”

  Lydia’s eyes fluttered again and closed. She slumped into her chair in a dead faint.

  The women on either side of Lydia quickly tended to her by resting her head on a pillow and stroking her cheek. Everyone else turned to Dorothy as though she had forced Lydia into unconsciousness.

  “What do you mean, she’s missing?” Mrs. Volney asked in her shrill, brittle voice.

  Dorothy felt all their demanding, expectant eyes on her. “Well, we sort of lost her,” she answered weakly. “Mr. Benchley and I, that is.”

  “You lost her?” Mrs. Volney asked accusingly. She bared her ancient gray teeth, which seemed suddenly ferocious and frightening. Dorothy had never heard the nasty old woman speak so sharply, so viciously.

  Then Dorothy noticed that Woollcott was glaring at her. Not only had she alienated every woman in the room, but she hadn’t even accomplished her task of getting Lydia out. Far from it. Lydia, especially now that she lay unconscious, was ensconced tightly in their women’s circle and was the strongest link in their chain. Dorothy was standing far outside of it.

  She was once again severely tempted to rip the stopper out of the chloroform bottle, smash it on the ground and put them all quickly to sleep.

  Instead she silently turned on her heel and made for the door.

  * * *

  “Operator, speak up!” the gruff man shouted. “We just heard you. We know you’re there!”

  “Sorry, wrong number,” Benchley said hurriedly. He quickly yanked the cord out of the socket to disconnect the call.

  Just for good measure, he grabbed a different cord and plugged it into the socket below room 520. Then he crossed another cord over it and plugged it into the socket for the Brooklyn Exchange. He grabbed another cord, then another and another, and plugged them into random sockets. He plugged cords into socket after socket—

  Grrrzzzz!

  It was the angry red ogre’s eye blinking at him again. Benchley imagined that the gruff-voiced man in room 520 had identical angry red eyes. But Benchley couldn’t get on the line even if he wanted to, because the wires were crossed all over the switchboard like a thick spiderweb.

  Grrrzzzz!

  He couldn’t stand to see that red light one more time! He pulled off the headset and flung it down onto the switchboard. He was about to turn and leave when he noticed that the headset had accidentally flipped a couple of the switches, lighting up two more bright red bulbs.

  Out of desperation or deviltry, Benchley set to work on the switchboard and flipped switch after switch. The panel lit up like wildfire. The buzzer sounded like a furious swarm of giant mechanical insects.

  Grrrzzzz! GrrrZZZZ! GRRRZZ—!

  All of a sudden, the panel went dark. The whole room went dark.

  Benchley found himself in silent, inky blackness.

  “Whoops . . .”

  * * *

  As Dorothy
rushed along the hallway away from Mrs. Volney’s apartment, she suddenly heard the sound of telephones ringing. The noise was coming from all over. Phones seemed to be ringing in every room.

  She moved quickly to the stairwell and shoved open the heavy door. Up and down the stairs, the sound of telephones chimed from every floor in the hotel.

  Suddenly the two heavyset nuns—the ones who had kept vigil by Bibi in the bathtub during the party—came charging down the stairs. Seeing Dorothy, they hurried past her with barely a polite nod. Then down the steps they went.

  As quickly as the phones had begun ringing, they abruptly stopped. What was going on? Had the nuns somehow set off the telephones? It seemed a funny coincidence . . . ringing telephones and running nuns.

  Then Dorothy realized there could be only one answer: Benchley!

  She hurried down the stairs to the lobby to find him.

  Chapter 27

  Benchley stood alone in the darkened telephone operator’s office.

  “This is what happens when you lose your temper,” he chided himself. “You blow a fuse.”

  He inched his way toward the door with his hands stretched out in front of him in the darkness. He found the door, felt around for the knob and opened it. He was surprised to see that the lights in the lobby were still on.

  I’ll have to commend Mr. Case on his hotel’s smart electrical plan, he thought. The switchboard must be on its own electrical circuit.

  He wasn’t exactly sure what an electrical circuit actually was, but he knew it meant that some rooms might have electricity while others might not. He also knew it meant that the elevator might very well still be in operation.

  He hurried around the unmanned front desk and toward the elevator. He pushed the call button and was pleased to hear the crank of the elevator somewhere up the shaft. In a moment the elevator arrived—Benchley could see its light through the tiny circular window. But the door didn’t open as it usually did.

  Benchley waited just a moment; then he gave up and opened the door himself.

  Inside, Maurice the elevator operator stood leaning in the corner and snoring loudly. Benchley pulled aside the interior brass accordion gate and stepped in. He took one look at Maurice, then looked at the elevator controls. He shrugged his shoulders and closed the outer door and the inner gate. Then, still confident from conquering the switchboard, he pushed the lever to take him up to the penthouse.

  Instead the elevator went down. Alarmed but hardly surprised, Benchley realized that he was descending to the basement.

  * * *

  At the bottom of the stairwell, Dorothy pushed open the door to the lobby. It was even quieter than before—except for Harpo Marx loudly snoring on a nearby sofa. She walked by him on her way to the switchboard operator’s office. But she could see as she approached that the door was partially open, and it was dark inside.

  Then, to her surprise, the two nuns came rushing out of the room. Lifting their black habits a few inches off the floor to avoid tripping, they ran right up to her.

  “Excuse us, daughter,” the larger one said breathlessly. “Have you seen the switchboard operator?”

  “No. But perhaps she took a break for a catnap somewhere.”

  “She?” The nuns looked confused. “The switchboard operator is a woman?”

  “Yes. Mavis has been a woman for quite some time. All her life, I think.”

  The nuns exchanged a glance. At that moment Frank Case came hurrying from the dining room.

  “Ah, Frank,” Dorothy said with a wave. “These saintly ladies are looking for Mavis. Do you know where she went off to?”

  Case, as unflappable as always, answered politely, “In the Pergola Room. Just through there.” He pointed back the way he had come. “But she’s sleeping at the moment.”

  The nuns again slightly lifted their skirts and moved quickly in that direction. “Thank you, my son,” the second nun said to Case as they went past him. He nodded to them and then to Dorothy as he moved toward the front desk.

  “Frank,” she called after him. “Since you seem to know everyone’s whereabouts, have you seen Mr. Benchley?”

  Case turned. “Yes, Mrs. Parker, I have. I saw him here in the lobby about fifteen or twenty minutes ago. But if you’ll excuse me, please,” he said in his unruffled, even tone, “I have an emergency to deal with.”

  “An emergency? Do you mean the ringing of telephones all over the hotel?” She glanced at the lobby’s big old grandfather clock—it was almost five o’clock in the morning. “Quite a wake-up call.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Case nodded. “But also the electricity has gone out in certain rooms.”

  He rounded the front desk and went behind it. He bent down and pulled something out. He dropped it—a small wooden cigar box—on the desk’s blotter and began to look through it. Dorothy went up to the counter to see. Case was searching through an assortment of electrical fuses.

  “Ah!” he said with a note of triumph in his voice. “Here’s the one.” He clutched it in his hand. Then he put the box away inside the desk and emerged from behind it. When he came face-to-face with Dorothy, he slowed his hurried pace. “Is there something else I can do for you, Mrs. Parker?”

  Where was Benchley? A minute ago he was most certainly in the switchboard room. Now where did he wander to?

  “No, thank you, Frank,” she said. “But if you see Mr. Benchley, would you please tell him I’m looking for him?”

  * * *

  Benchley poked his head out of the door of the elevator. This was simply the basement, not the subbasement below. It was better lit and not at all as dusty and dirty as the subbasement, and appeared more frequently used.

  The elevator had him stumped. He didn’t want to press his luck with machinery anymore. And he couldn’t bring himself to wake up Maurice. So he decided to venture forth and find the stairs to go back up to the lobby. He closed the elevator door, and it went upward almost immediately.

  He smacked his forehead. Now, why didn’t I just wait for someone to call the elevator upward? He shook his head at his poor decision but quickly shrugged it off and moved forward along the concrete corridor. Unlike in the subbasement, the walls on this floor were painted an industrial gray. It wasn’t much cheerier, but at least it was more modern, less medieval.

  Up ahead a brightened doorway spilled light across the corridor floor. Odd sounds came from the room—footsteps and a muttering voice. Benchley cautiously looked through the open door.

  It was a large, brightly lit room—apparently a combination lunchroom and lounge for the staff. The first thing Benchley saw was a tall young man in coveralls who was walking back and forth. The man was grumbling to himself. “Can’t take this anymore. Got to get out of here, or I’m going to go nuts. Nuts, I tell you!”

  The man was pacing between two long, bare banquet tables, which took up the middle of the room. Surrounding each table were a number of cheap metal chairs. In the corner was an old, heavily worn sofa next to an ashtray stand, which was overflowing with cigarette butts. Hunched on the sofa was Luigi the waiter. His head rested heavily in his hands, and his elbows were planted firmly on his knees. He sat with a forlorn, desperate expression, as though he’d been sitting there for a million years. When he noticed Benchley in the doorway, he jumped excitedly to his feet with a broad smile on his face.

  “Mr. Benchley!” Luigi said in his heavy Italian accent and came forward to greet him. “So good to see you. Come in, come in. What brings you down here?”

  “Got a little turned around, I’m afraid. Actually, I was looking for Mrs. Parker. Have you seen her?”

  Luigi’s eyes went even wider. “Mrs. Parker? No, sir. She’s not here. No.” He cast a glance over his shoulder at the pacing, grumbling man. “But you let me help you look for Mrs. Parker, all right? I help you lo
ok for her. We go.”

  The man in coveralls shot them an angry look. It took a moment for Benchley to recognize him. Ah yes, he was the man who spilled the tub of ice when Bibi had first appeared naked in Fairbanks’ penthouse.

  “This way,” Luigi said, pushing Benchley out the door. “Stairs over here. We go up to the kitchen, then to the lobby. Come this way!”

  Benchley followed the waiter, who still wore his black waistcoat, black bow tie and white apron from earlier in the night.

  Luigi whispered over his shoulder. “That man’s driving me crazy. Everyone in this hotel is going crazy, you know?”

  “Must be cabin fever,” Benchley said helpfully.

  Luigi exhaled in frustration. “First the smallpox. Now the cabin fever. People dropping like flies around here. No wonder they going crazy also.”

  Benchley followed him to a set of concrete stairs with a metal pipe railing. Luigi climbed the stairs, and Benchley followed. At the top they found themselves in the kitchen—at least Benchley assumed it was the kitchen. The lights were off, and the room was nearly pitch-black.

  There was a clacking sound.

  “I flip the switches,” Luigi said, confused. “But no lights go on. Something’s wrong here.”

  Benchley knew exactly what was wrong but couldn’t bring himself to explain that it was his fault the fuse was blown. Instead he said, “Just like everyone else, the hotel itself is going crazy.”

  * * *

  Dorothy waited in the lobby for the elevator. She was on her way up to Fairbanks’ apartment. She didn’t know whether Benchley would be up there, but she didn’t know where else to look for him.

  Had she scared him off? When they had been sitting on the couch in her room, where had things been going? Would she have kissed him? More importantly, would he have kissed her?

  Oh, nonsense! He’s a married man! Just leave him be. Accept his friendship and leave it at that!

  But she knew she couldn’t quite leave it at that. Nor was she sure whether Benchley could, either.