by J. J. Murphy
“So, if he’s such a saint, what’s he doing selling a cheap little necklace to some hoodlum in Chicago?”
“Perhaps it’s not so cheap after all. If Mr. Jordan was in such a frenzied state when it was stolen from him, and if this man in Chicago is so concerned about obtaining it, perhaps the locket actually has rather significant value—as the telegram indicates.”
“And that’s why all these other fellows are after Dr. Hurst? Such as Lloyds or Pinks or the Berley brothers?”
He nodded. “If it is a valuable item stolen in England, then the name Lloyds is obvious. It’s Lloyd’s of London, the famous insurance firm. Surely you’ve heard of them?”
“Oh, sure. Lloyd’s of London. Big insurance firm. I insured my yacht with those boys,” she said. “So, of course, a big insurance firm like that hired some little guy named ‘Pinks’ to follow Dr. Hurst? That doesn’t make much sense.”
“Perhaps ‘Pinks’ is not a name of a person or persons. Perhaps it is shorthand for something else. At any rate, while I can’t explain ‘Pinks,’ I do feel confident—especially in regard to a valuable object—that ‘Lloyds’ does refer to Lloyd’s of London.”
She bit her lip. I suppose that does make sense. She had read something of Lloyd’s of London in a newspaper article or a book. She associated the firm with insuring fancy things—rare diamonds, masterpiece paintings and winning racehorses. “But what about the rest of the message?”
Doyle gazed over the telegram to look at Dr. Hurst. “This is when the power of the spirit world would be of great service. If only we could commune with Quentin’s spirit . . .”
Oh dear, Dorothy thought. He’s over the edge. Just like Jordan said he is.
She spoke hesitantly. “His spirit? You mean like a séance?”
“Well, yes, that’s one way to communicate with the spirit world. But not the only one.”
“Wouldn’t he have to be deceased for a séance? I mean, isn’t that for ‘communicating’ with only, you know, the dead?”
He chuckled good-naturedly. “That’s one of the misunderstandings of Spiritualism. The spirit world is not something that’s out there. It’s not up in the clouds or deep down in the earth. It’s right here, all around us. Whether alive or dead, we all exist in the spirit world, just as fish live in the ocean. Only we can’t see it or hear it—most of us can’t, anyhow.” His face grew melancholy; his eyes drooped lower. Then, just as quickly, he brightened again. “But if we could only lift the veil to the spirit world—oh, what joy that would be! Oh, what wisdom! Oh, what power!”
Oh, what baloney! she thought.
Chapter 31
With a splash and a crash, the enamel barrel of cutlery and cleansing liquid splattered to the ground. Then Benchley heard the hailstorm of innumerable pings as hundreds of ball bearings bounced and rolled on the hard kitchen floor.
The attacker yelled. Benchley could see only a tall, dark figure of a man suddenly disappear and crash to the floor. His landing sent knives, forks and ball bearings flying.
Benchley stood frozen, waiting. It took but a moment. The man began screaming. Shrieking. “Ahhhhhh! It’s burning. Burning my legs!”
The man floundered on the floor and scrambled to get to his feet, but he was slipping and rolling in the ball bearings and acidic cleanser.
Benchley didn’t recognize the man’s voice, but he still felt sorry for him. He wondered whether there was anything he could do. So he reached toward the sinks. In one of them was a deep pot—the pot in which Woollcott had made the coffee. It was full of water—dirty water, most likely, but Benchley didn’t think it mattered. He lifted the pot from the sink and upturned it where he thought the man might be.
“Agghh! What’s that?” the man sputtered.
“Just water,” Benchley said. “Maybe a teensy bit of cold coffee.”
There was a skittering sound, like a crab scurrying across a hard surface. The man was back on his feet.
Benchley realized that Case and Luigi were now also on their feet.
“Stop him, Mr. Benchley!” the waiter yelled. “Don’t let him outta here!”
With a miserable groan, the figure disappeared into the darkness.
“Where did he go?” Case asked. “Is he still here?”
Footsteps clattered down the stairway to the basement.
And good riddance, Benchley thought.
“Come! We go!” Luigi said, tugging on his sleeve. “We go after him. Right now!”
Case’s voice was even-toned once again. “I think that’s quite enough mayhem for now, Luigi. Let’s not chase after the intruder in the basement—in the dark. We’ll find him after we replace the fuse in the fuse box.”
“I agree. Enough mayhem for now,” Benchley said.
“All we need is a flashlight or a candle,” Case said. “Shall we look for one, Luigi? Coming with us, Bob?”
“Count me out,” Benchley said, still feeling a slight pang of guilt about crisscrossing the switchboard’s wires and blowing the fuse. “Just lead me first to the service elevator. I need to find Mrs. Parker.”
* * *
Dorothy felt the hotel coming to life. People were starting to wake up and move about. It was not yet dawn, though. She guessed that the ringing of just about every telephone in the whole building had roused the guests and residents.
Doyle silently walked alongside her as they left Dr. Hurst’s room and strolled to the elevator. She wondered about him. What would make such a smart man—the man who invented the logical Sherlock Holmes, no less—become so obsessed with the questionable, dubious concept of Spiritualism? He actually believed in talking to the dead? Had the old man lost it, as Jordan seemed to think? Or was there some other, deeper reason Doyle had become such a firm believer?
“So,” she said to him gamely, “you say a person doesn’t have to be dead to be able to communicate through the spirit world? Are you talking mind reading?”
Doyle looked at her quizzically, perhaps skeptically, even. “Sometimes the living can communicate with one another mentally—a language between minds, so to speak. It’s called telepathy. It’s not truly mind reading. More of a sensation between two spirits, or souls.”
“Not mind reading?” she said, disappointed. She was thinking of Benchley. “There’s a mind or two I’d like to read.”
Doyle chuckled knowingly. “It would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? Perhaps scientists one day soon will invent such a machine to allow us to do just that.”
“Nah, forget it. I have a big stack of books by my bedside, and I don’t have time to read them. How would I find time to read a stack of minds as well? A lady has to know her limits.”
They came to the elevator door, and Dorothy pressed the call button. The door opened almost immediately. And there stood Alexander Woollcott.
Dorothy frowned. “Speaking of limits, I think I just reached mine.”
Woollcott stepped out of the elevator and was followed hesitantly by Lydia Trumbull. The actress’ eyes were red and full of tears.
“Hello to you, too, Mrs. Parker,” Woollcott said. “I’m an unwelcome sight to you, am I?”
“No more so than usual,” Dorothy muttered. “Forget I said anything.”
“Indeed I will,” he said, beaming. “Because I have something important to announce: I’ve solved it! I’ve solved the murder of Bibi Bibelot!”
“Have you, now?”
“Indeed I have. And Lydia Trumbull here has proven to be the linchpin in the case, so to speak.”
At this, Lydia released a sob and a fresh flood of tears.
“Don’t worry, Lydia,” Woollcott reassured her with an indifferent hand on her shoulder. “The courts have pity on women, especially pretty ones such as yourself. You won’t be hanged—most likely.”
Ly
dia wailed and cried more tears.
“Don’t listen to this blowhard,” Dorothy said to her. “You didn’t kill Bibi.”
Lydia shook her head and blew her nose into a handkerchief offered by Doyle. “Yes, I did. Oh, I’m afraid I did. I poisoned her—with chloroform.”
“No,” Dorothy said sternly. “You did not.”
“Yes!” insisted Woollcott. “Yes, she did!”
“No, she didn’t,” Dorothy said, and turned to Doyle. “Artie, please explain it to them.”
“Certainly,” Doyle said. “Simply put, you could not have killed Miss Bibelot, because you did not use enough chloroform to do so.”
Lydia’s eyes glimmered with a slight hope and yet a fear of hoping. “I-I didn’t?”
“Yes, you did!” Woollcott snapped. “Of course you did. You confessed it.”
“But . . . but maybe . . .” Lydia stammered, hope seemingly growing in her.
“No maybes about it—!” Woollcott said with a stamp of his foot.
“Not a chance, Lydia,” Dorothy said. “Artie’s a doctor. He just explained to me that you couldn’t have killed Bibi with less than an ounce of chloroform.”
Lydia brightened. “Oh, what a relief! I hoped I hadn’t—I found her passed out drunk. And I had only wanted to give her enough chloroform to make sure she would be sick. Truly, I did. You must believe me.”
“Never!” Woollcott howled.
“Certainly we believe you,” Doyle said with tender reassurance. Then he spoke evenly. “But you did give her enough to anesthetize her and render her unconscious. And that likely gave the real murderer a much easier opportunity to commit his villainous crime.”
“Or her villainous crime!” Dorothy interjected. “Let’s be fair.”
Woollcott sputtered but said nothing.
“But why did you do it, Lydia?” Dorothy asked. “What good would it serve you to knock out Bibi?”
Lydia sniffed. “They’re holding auditions for a new musical on January second.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my, that’s tomorrow already. Well, I’d be a shoo-in for the lead role—if only Bibi doesn’t show up, that is.”
“And thanks to you,” Woollcott said, “she most certainly won’t!”
Lydia cringed and burst out in more tears.
“Don’t listen to him, dear,” Dorothy said. “But tell us, where did you get the chloroform?”
She dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief. “From that mean old doctor. Well, from his case. He left it unattended at the Fairbanks’ party. I recognized it as a medical bag and guessed there would be something useful inside—it was completely a spur-of-the-moment decision! I had no preconceived plan to harm Bibi. You must believe me.”
Dorothy remembered the many sedatives and sleeping pills on Lydia’s bedside table. Had Lydia actually planned ahead to knock out Bibi, she could have found a way to use any one of them.
“Of course we believe you,” Dorothy said.
“I don’t!” Woollcott bellowed.
They ignored him.
“Tell me,” Dorothy asked, “after you gave Bibi the chloroform, did you lock the door behind you? Or somehow put a towel against it?”
Lydia looked confused. “No. I closed the door, but I didn’t lock it. And I had used a washcloth to administer the chloroform. But I just dropped that in the tub so no one would be able to smell it later. I didn’t put anything against the door.”
There was a washcloth left behind in the bathtub, Dorothy thought. “Do you remember anything else unusual about the room? Did the champagne in the tub feel cold? Was the window open?”
Lydia shook her head. She was regaining her Broadway-star composure. “No, the champagne was . . . well, it was lukewarm, I suppose. And the window was closed. I would have noticed if it were open.”
“Were there any other objects in the room?” Doyle asked. “Think carefully. Imagine yourself back in that bathroom.”
Lydia appeared lost in thought. “I’m remembering now. . . . Bibi held a champagne glass in her hand. But I didn’t want to touch it. I-I didn’t want to get my fingerprints on it.”
Doyle nodded. “Anything else?”
Imagining the moment when she found Bibi dead, Dorothy also pictured the bathroom. “How about an ice bucket? Do you remember an ice bucket on the radiator?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t remember any ice buck—”
Woollcott couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “Ice buckets! Who gives a buckety-buck about an ice bucket? Doesn’t anyone care that this woman caused Bibi’s death—directly or indirectly?”
Doyle knit his bushy eyebrows. “Lydia did not kill—”
“Oh ho! Here he goes again.” Woollcott threw his hands in the air. “A doctor is speaking. Everyone pay attention! This old dodo went to medical school about a century ago, so he must be correct about absolutely everything.” He narrowed his beady eyes at Doyle. “Who do you think you are, Doctor?”
Dorothy couldn’t resist a sly smile. How will Woollcott react when he finds out who he’s really talking to?
“Not only is he a doctor, Aleck,” she said, “but he’s also the best-selling author of detective fiction ever. All night you’ve been playing detective right under the nose of the creator of the most famous detective of all time, and you didn’t even know it. Allow me to properly introduce you to him. This is Sir Arthur Conan—”
Woollcott spoke dismissively. “Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, yes, I know exactly who he is, Mrs. Parker. What do you take me for? I was being sarcastic just now when I asked who he thinks he is. I know who he is, all right, and I’m not impressed in the least.”
She glanced at Doyle, who looked troubled and hurt.
Woollcott added, “This man’s just a loony old has-been, that’s who he is!”
Chapter 32
Benchley stood alone in the darkened service corridor. He held a tiny lit match that cast just enough light to see the door to the service elevator in front of him. But the glow of the small flame was not enough to illuminate the rest of the corridor, which remained in darkness—a nearly solid darkness.
The flame flickered as the match burned to the tips of his fingers. He dropped it and immediately found himself—
Totally in the dark, he thought. Story of my life.
He quickly lit another match and realized that this one was his last. In the silence he listened for the service elevator but could not hear it moving. It could be stuck in the basement or on the top floor—there was no way to know. But he couldn’t very well stand here in the dark much longer. It would drive him up the wall.
Moving cautiously to keep the match flame from going out, Benchley turned and went back the way he had come. Now he was again in the kitchen. He carefully stepped in between the puddles of blue liquid and ball bearings. He reached the swinging doors to the dining room just as the match sputtered and went out.
The dining room was dark, but light streaming from the lobby lent enough illumination for him to weave his way through the tables and chairs.
In the lobby he paused by the door of the passenger elevator. But, like the service elevator, this one was not available either. He gave up and yanked open the door to the stairs.
He climbed the steps to the second floor, opened the door to the corridor and strolled down the hallway toward Mrs. Parker’s room. He wished he could light his pipe. . . . Funny how the moment you run out of matches, you want to have a smoke.
He knocked on her door and waited a moment. He wasn’t surprised that there was no answer. He tried the knob—it was unlocked—and peeked inside. Woodrow Wilson lifted his head from the couch. His little tail began wagging.
“Excuse me, young man,” Benchley said. “Is the lady of the house at home?”
Woody yawned and dropp
ed his head back on his paws. His tail stopped wagging.
Benchley closed the door and turned back around. Across the hall a door was ajar. In the crack of the open door, a little old lady’s eye peeked at him.
“Hello there, Mrs. Volney,” he said with a merry wave of his fingers. He approached the door. “Have you seen Mrs. Parker out and about?”
She pursed her prim, wrinkled mouth. “I can’t say I have.”
“You can’t—or you won’t?”
Abruptly the door opened wide from the inside. Mrs. Volney turned in surprise. Ruth Hale and Jane Grant emerged from the old woman’s apartment.
“Oh, Mr. Benchley,” Jane said, nearly running into him. “We’re looking for Dorothy. Have you seen her?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m looking for her, too.”
“We all owe her an apology,” Ruth said, actually wringing her hands.
“Not all of us!” Mrs. Volney chimed in. “I don’t owe her a thing except a piece of my mind. That arrogant young lady is going to have heck to pay—”
Jane closed the door on the old woman.
Ruth smiled and squeezed Jane’s arm, then turned to Benchley. “It’s been a long, long night. Let’s find Dorothy so we make our peace with her.”
“And then we can get some much-needed rest!” Jane said. “Maybe that’s what Dottie’s doing. Lying in bed.”
Benchley knew that Dorothy wasn’t in her bed. Then he thought of Jordan. No, of course she wouldn’t climb into his bed . . . would she?
“Bob, what’s the matter?” Jane asked him suddenly. “You’re white as a sheet.”
He forced a smile and a chuckle. “Oh, don’t mind me. Sometimes I’m just full of sheet. Come on, let’s try the elevator.”
* * *
“Aleck! Show some respect!” Dorothy yelled. Her small voice reverberated along the ninth floor corridor.
“Respect?” Woollcott said harshly. “I can no more show respect for this old bird than I can show respect for a carnival barker or a circus performer. I’ll say it again, Dorothy: He’s a loony old has-been. He has been a doctor, and he has been a detective writer. But those accomplishments were in the past. Now he’s just an old crackpot who makes a buck on the lecture circuit ranting about spooks and spirits!”
