A Friendly Game of Murder

by J. J. Murphy

  “Just looking for an attacker covered in acidic blue liquid,” Case said. He quickly explained how they had been attacked in the darkened kitchen.

  “Is Mr. Benchley all right?” Dorothy asked. She forced herself to speak calmly, as though inquiring about the weather. But she didn’t feel calm whatsoever.

  “You know him,” Case said reassuringly. “He laughed it off as usual. Life’s just a joke to our Mr. Benchley.”

  Is it? she wondered. Is everything just a joke to our Mr. Benchley? Including . . . me?

  “He’s been looking for you,” Case said, interrupting her thoughts. “He has something important to tell you, he said.”

  “Well, isn’t that odd? I’ve been looking all over for him, too. Woollcott can’t find Bibi. You can’t find your assailant. I can’t find Mr. Benchley. And he can’t find me. This is a large enough hotel, but it’s certainly not that large!”

  Case adopted his polite manager’s voice, which he rarely used with her. “We do our best. We think of the Algonquin as intimate, yet comfortable.”

  She had unintentionally hurt his feelings and wounded his professional pride. “That’s not what I meant, Frank. It’s just—” Then a thought occurred to her. “You were attacked in the kitchen! A few minutes ago!”

  “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  “Jordan!” she said. “Doyle sent him down to the kitchen to fetch a glass of milk. That was only a short while ago. Do you think it was Jordan who attacked you?”

  Both Case and Woollcott looked doubtful.

  “Mr. Jordan?” Case asked. “You mean Dr. Hurst’s attendant? The man with the clubfoot?”

  “Preposterous!” Woollcott roared. “The man is not only a cripple but a sweetheart.”

  “He’s not, as you put it, a cripple,” she said, remembering how Jordan had sprinted across his room. “And he’s not exactly a sweetheart either.” She recalled how he had cornered her in the elevator. “Come on, let’s go back up to Dr. Hurst’s room! Jordan may have returned there.”

  She turned to go.

  “Let’s take the service elevator,” Case said after her. “It’s much—”

  “Much faster,” she said impatiently. “Yes, I know!”

  Chapter 34

  Benchley, Jane, Ruth, and the man in pajamas all crowded together into the passenger elevator. Ruth manned the controls. She lowered the lever, and they began their descent to the lobby.

  Benchley looked at the man’s haggard, red-dotted face and felt sorry for him. Clearly it was his family who had been the cause of the quarantine. The man had had a rough night, and he likely had a few more ahead.

  “Robert Benchley, at your service,” he said amiably. “Forgive me for not shaking your hand in your condition.”

  “Don’t mention it,” the man said with a wave to his pockmarked face. “I wouldn’t wish my condition on my worst enemy.”

  “Then you haven’t met our friend Alexander Woollcott.” Benchley smiled. “But never mind that. This is Jane Grant and Ruth Hale. What shall we call you? Not Ted Besh, is it?”

  “No, it’s John Simpson.” The man was confused. “Who is Ted Besh?”

  “Yes, who is Ted Besh?” Ruth asked. “One of your pseudonyms?”

  “Oh, you don’t want to know.” Benchley chuckled. “I was just talking nonsense as usual. Besides, it’s not really Ted Besh anyhow. It’s tête-bêche.”

  “Tête-bêche?” John Simpson looked surprised. “Tu parles français?”

  Now it was Benchley’s turn to look surprised. “What?”

  Simpson said, “I just asked you if you speak French. Tête-bêche is French, so I assumed you speak it.”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Yes, I was a translator in France during the war. I learned it from my mother. She’s from Quebec.”

  “And tête-bêche means something in French?” Benchley asked.

  “Yes, head to tail.”

  “Head to tail?” Jane asked with a smile. “Is that some kind of saucy French expression?”

  Simpson shook his head. “It’s just a way of saying head to foot.” He searched for an example. “It’s like shoes in a shoebox or sardines in a can. One points up, one points down. Head to tail. Tête-bêche.”

  Benchley considered this but could make nothing of it. Head to tail? Why would Dr. Hurst make such an effort to say that? And in French of all things. He asked Simpson, “I don’t suppose you have a French book to tell us more?”

  “No, I don’t. It’s not like I travel around with my own personal library, you know.”

  “Of course not. Who does?” Benchley said, disappointed. Then he thought a moment and snapped his fingers. “Dr. Hurst does!”

  They looked at Benchley as though he was crazy. He didn’t care. “Ruth, stop the elevator. Take us back up to the ninth floor.”

  * * *

  Dorothy and Woollcott hurried to the door of Dr. Hurst’s room. Frank Case and Luigi were right behind them. She knocked on the door, then tried the knob. It was locked.

  “Frank.” She turned to the hotel manager. “Have a skeleton key?”

  Case nodded and stepped to the door. He rapped his knuckles on it first. “This is the manager. Is anyone in there?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled out a key ring filled with keys. He quickly selected one and shoved it in the lock. In a moment he flung open the door.

  Dr. Hurst still lay in the same position they had last seen him. The room remained in disarray from the ransacking earlier.

  Dorothy pointed to the connecting door, which was slightly ajar. “In there. That’s Jordan’s room.”

  She scurried through the mess of equipment, books and clothes on the floor, and pushed open the door.

  Jordan stood bare chested in the middle of the room. He was just getting dressed, Dorothy could see, and buttoning up his shirt. She could also see that he had a hard muscular chest and rippling, carved abdominal muscles. . . .

  “Oh my,” she said.

  Then she noticed the red splotches that looked like burn marks on his body. Probably from that acidic blue cleanser!

  Jordan looked up at Dorothy and the others who had suddenly appeared in his room. “How did you get in here?”

  “Forget about that,” she said. “How did you get those burns all over your . . . your big, muscular chest?”

  Jordan finished buttoning up his shirt. “I slipped and fell into a puddle of something in the kitchen, thank you very much. I went on a fool’s errand to get that glass of milk, and when I came back, you and Dr. Doyle were gone.”

  “Aha!” Woollcott cried. And at that moment Benchley, Ruth, Jane and John Simpson—the man in pajamas—entered Dr. Hurst’s room behind them.

  Dorothy’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t contain the smile on her face at seeing her best friend.

  “Benchley, there you are!” Woollcott said. “Come over here. Tell us, is this the man who attacked you in the kitchen?”

  Benchley joined them at the connecting door. “Mr. Jordan? That was you in the kitchen?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jordan said. “Yes, I was down in the kitchen a minute ago—”

  “Aha!” Woollcott shouted again.

  “Stop saying that,” Dorothy muttered, then said to Jordan, “Did you assault Mr. Benchley, Mr. Case and Luigi in the kitchen?”

  “No,” he said, growing angry. “I just told you. I was in the kitchen getting a glass of milk for Dr. Doyle.”

  “Don’t hand us a line,” Woollcott said. “You just put your foot in your mouth.”

  “Your clubfoot,” Dorothy and Benchley said in unison.

  They turned to each other. She spoke first, unable to conceal the worry in her voice. “Fred, where have you been? I’ve been looking for yo
u everywhere. When I saw that disaster in the kitchen and knew you had been there when it happened, I just . . . I just—”

  Benchley smiled warmly, reassuringly. “Oh, that. Just a little squabble. Nothing for you to be concerned about, my dear Mrs. Parker.”

  “Squabble?” Luigi spat. Then he pointed at Jordan. “This man, he nearly kill us!”

  Benchley ignored this. He took Dorothy’s hand and patted it. “There, there. All is well.”

  “All is well?” She snatched her hand back. “You don’t need to hide things from me to protect me. And you don’t need to treat me like a child.”

  Benchley looked wounded. He spoke in a whisper. “Believe me, I don’t think of you as a child, Mrs. Parker.”

  “Save your reunion for later, you two,” Woollcott grumbled. “Now, Jordan. How did you get those burns on your chest?”

  “As I was trying to explain to you,” he said impatiently, “I was down in the kitchen, getting a glass of milk for Dr. Doyle. It was completely dark. The lights didn’t work. So I had to feel my way to the icebox. I found it, and I got the milk. But then my orthopedic shoe slipped on something, and I found myself in a puddle of some corrosive liquid and tiny metal balls. I don’t know what the liquid was, but it burned. The more I tried to get up, the more I slipped. By the time I got back on my feet, I was nearly covered in the stuff. I ran back up here and took a quick bath to rinse it off. Then all of you burst in—”

  Woollcott eyed him narrowly. “How do we know it wasn’t you who attacked these three gentlemen in the kitchen? Why should we believe you?”

  “Because of that.” Dorothy pointed to the dresser—on it was a glass of milk. “If he had attacked them, would he really have bothered to bring up the milk?”

  Woollcott was momentarily stumped, then arched an eyebrow. “It’s the perfect cover.”

  Jordan threw up his hands in disgust.

  Dorothy said to him, “You just told us you ran back up here. I didn’t think you could run. So tell us, do you really have a clubfoot?”

  “When I said I ran, that was just a figure of speech.” He limped forward. On his left foot was the large, ugly orthopedic shoe, much wider than a normal shoe, with a heel and sole as thick as a book. “Would I really wear this if I didn’t have to? What do you think?”

  Benchley made a satisfied hoot. “Did you also remember that, Mrs. Parker? Mr. Jordan seemed to run to look into his shoe earlier? It certainly looked like he could run, at least.”

  “That’s right,” she said, feeling not quite so angry with Benchley now. “You realized it, too?”

  He nodded. “I found out a number of other things as well.” He quickly explained to her and the others about his phone call with Captain Church: that Dr. Hurst was a wanted man for stealing the locket from the London Museum, and that somewhere in the hotel were two thugs who now had the locket—and who were going to deliver it to some underworld crook in Brooklyn as soon as they could leave the hotel.

  He also explained that Ted Besh was very likely tête-bêche. “Poor Mr. Simpson here clarified it for us.”

  Case hadn’t noticed him before. “Mr. Simpson? What are you doing out of your room? You must return at once. You’re contagious!”

  His red-dotted face turned redder. “I’m sorry. I just had to get out of that room. At least for a little while. I certainly hadn’t forgotten that I’m contagious.”

  “Contagious? We knew you were sick—” Jane said, and Ruth now looked alarmed, too. “How contagious? We just rode up in a tight little elevator with you.”

  Dorothy intervened. “Don’t worry. Dr. Doyle said it’s not smallpox. It’s chicken pox. You’ve all had that when you were kids, right?”

  They all nodded.

  “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.” She extended her hand to him. “Dorothy Parker. Nice to meet the man who caused all this trouble.”

  He hesitated a moment, then shook her hand gladly. “Are you joking? It’s really not smallpox?”

  She nodded. “For once in my life I’m not joking. I’m happy to tell you that you have chicken pox.”

  He grinned broadly, looking years younger. “My wife is going to be so relieved.”

  Jordan interrupted. “Excuse me. Can you tell me more about those ‘thugs’ who now have the locket?”

  Benchley nodded. “Certainly. What would you like to know?”

  “How can I find them—and the locket?”

  “Uh,” Benchley said. “I don’t know. They might return to room five-twenty. Or perhaps some nuns might return to that room. There seems to be some question about that.”

  “Some nuns?” Jordan said doubtfully.

  “Speaking of questions,” Benchley continued, “we have some about that locket. Did you know that Dr. Hurst had stolen it?”

  Jordan tightened his lips but didn’t say anything.

  “Hmm, very well,” Benchley said. “Do you know what a tête-bêche is?”

  “A Ted what?” Jordan asked skeptically. He looked at Dorothy. “Didn’t you say something about that earlier?”

  She looked to Benchley. “Fred, what are you getting at?”

  “Books!” he said. “Everyone search Dr. Hurst’s room for books. We’re looking for something like a French dictionary or phrase book.”

  * * *

  They searched through Dr. Hurst’s room for a quarter of an hour; as a result, they managed to straighten it up as they rummaged through the equipment and materials. Meanwhile Dr. Hurst, apparently asleep, lay motionless on the bed. But they found no French dictionaries or French books.

  “Nothing!” Woollcott fumed. “How do you say ‘nothing’ in French?”

  “Rien,” Simpson said.

  “That was a rhetorical question, you francophonic fool,” Woollcott said.

  “Aleck,” Dorothy said. “Once again you’re full of merde, because I just found something. Look at this.”

  They gathered around her, even Woollcott. She had put on her horn-rimmed glasses. In her hands she held a heavy, thick single-volume encyclopedic dictionary. “You’ll never believe this.”

  “What is it?” Benchley asked.

  She read aloud: “‘Tête-bêche. French. Head to foot, head to tail or, literally, double headed. A term used in the printing of postage stamps.’”

  “Postage stamps?” Benchley said.

  “Here’s the good part,” she continued. “‘For more, see Hurst’s British Philately of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’—a book written by our very own Dr. Quentin Hurst.”

  “Philately?” Simpson asked. “What’s that?”

  “Stamp collecting,” she said. “Has anyone seen Dr. Hurst’s big book on stamp collecting?”

  “I just put that one away!” Jane said, and reached for a large volume in the traveling desk.

  “I’m ready to put one away,” Benchley mumbled. “Has anyone seen anything to drink around here?”

  They ignored him. Jane handed Dr. Hurst’s book to Dorothy, and they again gathered around her.

  “Here it is. ‘Tête-bêche—An error in the method of stamp production, with the careless placing of one printing plate of stamps upside down adjacent to another printing plate right side up. The stamps must be collected in a pair to show the error. Not to be confused with an invert stamp.’ It has an example photo here.”

  She pointed to the small black-and-white image of a connected pair of stamps, which showed the profile of some nobleman, an earl or duke, perhaps. The first stamp was right side up, and the other stamp was upside down.

  “That’s it? That’s all there is?” Woollcott asked. “So what’s this invert stamp?”

  Dorothy flipped the pages until she came to the entry. “‘Invert stamp—Stamps requiring two separate printings (such as stamps printed
in two colors) have given rise to many curious errors in printing. A sheet passed through the press upside down after one color has been printed, for example, results in one portion of the design being inverted. In the 1869 issue of the stamps of the United States, no less than three of the values had the central portions of their designs printed upside down. Frequently the printer catches the error before the stamps are issued to the public and, consequently the sheets are destroyed. However, in several instances the mistake has been found only after the release of the stamps. The few invert stamps that remain from this printing often become quite valuable to the collector due to their unusual appearance and scarcity. Not to be confused with the tête-bêche.’”

  “Is that all?” Woollcott said. “Sounds to me like the invert kind of stamp is worth more than the tête-bêche kind.”

  “No, that’s not all,” Dorothy said. “The last line is: ‘See Appendix 19: The rare invert tête-bêche.’”

  She turned to the back of the book and found the appendix. The first thing that caught her eye was a color photo—one of the few color photos in the book—of a strange pair of stamps.

  She read aloud, “‘An invert tête-bêche combines the printing error of the invert stamp with the striking upside-down juxtaposition of the tête-bêche. One of the most singular and rarest examples of the invert tête-bêche is the 1899 English two-pence stamp of Lady Cecily Shrewsbury—or, as collectors now call it, the “British Bearded Lady.” It is so called because, due to the printing error, the tiara on her head of one printing plate was inverted, and this consequently gives the appearance of a beard on the lady’s face on the adjacent tête-bêche stamp.’”

  Benchley chuckled, “I’m sure the lady was not amused.”

  Dorothy continued reading, “‘The error was caught before the stamps were sold to the public. Indeed, Lord Shrewsbury personally set a fiery torch to the sheet sets and engraved plates and burned them. However, it is believed that a postal clerk absconded with one sheet set beforehand and subsequently sold it to a wealthy French collector, who was quick to boast of it in his native land. Word of the existing stamps eventually reached Lord Shrewsbury, who challenged the collector to a duel. Both gentlemen were wounded in the challenge, and most of the stamp sheet was ruined in the fracas. The remainder of the stamps were recovered and returned to the Royal Mail. Lord and Lady Shrewsbury withdrew from society to reside quietly at their country estate. Today the only known example of the rare “Bearded Lady” invert tête-bêche stamps are now in the archives of the London Museum. Its value is beyond price.’”