by Holly Baxter
“Few people have,” Brett sympathized. He meant few people of her social status, of course. “Could you just briefly tell us what you remember?”
She closed her eyes, apparently gathering her thoughts. “We were about to go out to see the jade when the man burst into the dining room shouting at Mr. Lee not to take us to the strongroom.”
“Can you remember what he said?”
“Just ‘no!’ or ‘don’t take them in,’ something like that. Then he picked up the knife from the buffet and said ‘look out’ and then the guard came through the French doors and shot him. He was very close to Mr. Lee and might have hit him instead of the man with the knife, but it was a very accurate shot.” She opened her eyes. “Very accurate.”
“He is an ex-police officer,” Brett explained.
“I see.”
“Can you remember anything else, Miss Hutton?”
She shook her head. “One of the waitresses seemed to recognize him,” she offered. “But I can’t remember what she said exactly.”
“Something like ‘It’s Mr. Webster’?” suggested Archie.
She looked at him and smiled. “I believe it was more like ‘Holy Smoke, it’s Mr. Webster.’”
“That’s pretty exact,” Archie said, pointedly. “Are you sure you can’t remember anything else anyone said?”
“She’s doing her best.” Brett obviously felt Miss Hutton needed protection from his overzealous lieutenant. “What happened after that, Miss Hutton?”
“Mr. Lee was cross with the guard. He seemed to think he acted too quickly. And then that fat woman, Mrs. Weatherbee, started to scream and weep…it all became rather confused.”
“I see,” Brett said. “Of course, it was a very frightening experience.”
“Of course. Very.” Miss Hutton spoke calmly.
You wouldn’t know it to look at her, Archie thought to himself. She’s as cool as my Aunt Mary’s icebox. But the eyes—there was fire there. The effect was very sexual, very attractive, and not lost on Captain Brett, either.
“I think that’s all, Miss Hutton. I’ll have someone come to your hotel to take down a statement, if that’s all right.”
“Fine.” She rose gracefully. “We’re at the Parker House.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
Archie opened his mouth to speak, but caught a sideways glance from Brett, and subsided. There were other witnesses, and Brett obviously wanted this one to be as little disturbed as possible.
“Thank you—Captain Brett, is it?” She seemed anxious to get it right.
He expanded visibly. “Yes, that’s right.”
“I’ll remember your kindness.” She turned and went out, leaving the officer outside to close the door behind her.
Brett gave a huge sigh. “What a lady.”
And what a performance, Archie thought.
They got much the same information from Mrs. Weatherbee, still snuffling, and the Claytons. Phil Plant had obviously been drinking heavily, both during the party and since the killing of Webster. He was both insolent and useless. Brett handled him with kid gloves, however, because of his relationship with Barbara Hutton.
The most accurate description of events seemed to come from Mr. Blick. The little man had a keen eye and clear recall. He represented a museum in New York, and had come west specifically to view and perhaps purchase the jade Mr. Lee had on offer. However, despite Blick’s apparent precision, it seemed to Archie there was something not being said, something held back by them all.
By the time they were ready for Mr. Lee they found Mrs. Logie had summoned his doctor, who had advised immediate bed rest and a sedative. Brett was annoyed with himself for not calling on Lee first, but they would have to come back anyway the following day, so he contented himself with that.
“Now that bastard Ryan.” He rubbed his hands together. “He’ll be good and annoyed by having to wait. Might trip himself up.”
Archie said nothing, but doubted Ryan’s vulnerability, and he was right. Ryan was as cool as Barbara Hutton had been, and added nothing to what they had already learned.
“Nothing to do with me,” he said, when Brett openly accused him of complicity. “I’m here as a private citizen. I collect oriental art.”
“You come to buy some of this jade stuff?”
Ryan waved a hand. “A little beyond my means, Captain. I just wanted to see it before it disappeared from the market. The supply of jade from China is rapidly diminishing, due to the civil wars there. I asked Lee to let me know when anything particularly nice came along. And, of course, I always attend his parties. He’s a good customer.”
“Customer?”
“Of a client.”
“Anybody we know?” Brett spoke with heavy humor, but Archie sensed some withdrawal in him.
“I have no idea who you know, Captain Brett. If you would give me a list…”
“Very funny.” Brett looked less than amused.
Ryan stood. “If there’s nothing else?”
“We’ll need you to sign a statement in the morning.”
“You know where my office is.”
“In the Gower Building, isn’t it?” Archie said.
“That’s correct.”
“So maybe you knew Webster?”
“Not at all. My office is on the twentieth floor.”
“But you do collect oriental art. You presumably went down to Ten to see Mr. Lee from time to time.”
“But not to see anyone else. I buy through Mr. Lee only.” Ryan glanced around the room. “He has excellent taste, as you can see. And so do I.”
“How nice for you,” Brett murmured.
Ryan gave a wide smile to them both. “I am a very lucky man,” he said, and left them.
Archie turned to Captain Brett. “Why didn’t you push him harder?”
Brett looked embarrassed. “He has too many connections. You have to watch it these days.”
“He’s a crooked lawyer, he works for Capone and Nitti,” Archie said, in disgust. “Is that what you mean?”
Brett ignored that, turned a page of his notebook, and said “We’ll do the maids next. Go pick one out.”
Archie stood up, annoyed with Brett’s cowardice and general bootlicking. He wondered how much of the well-known ambition was his wife’s and how much was his own. And how crooked he really was, because it was obvious he was afraid of Ryan and the organization behind him. Another cop gone down, he thought as he went into the dining room. He looked at the serving girls one at a time, and knew just how he wanted to see them, and which one he wanted to save for last. The cocky one with the red curls, first—she worked for Lee, and might know something more than the others. Then the icy blonde. Then the poor man’s Pola Negri. He wanted to keep the little brown-haired one for last. There was something about her he liked. She looked intelligent and a little better than the others, somehow. He couldn’t help wondering why.
***
Elodie’s turn came at last. She had sat there patiently while the annoying Lieutenant Deacon called all the other girls ahead of her. It gave her time to think about what she should say, and what she should not. The officer led her to a room she hadn’t seen on their earlier exploration before the party began.
Mr. Lee’s library was very different from the rest of the house and she suspected this was where he spent most of his time when at home. Lined with dark wood bookshelves, all well filled, it was carpeted in red, and had deep comfortable armchairs with little tables beside them placed around the room. A larger table had been moved to the center, and behind this sat Captain Brett and Lieutenant Deacon. The Lieutenant had a notepad in front of him, and a large sheet of paper with some kind of drawing on it. From where she sat Elodie thought it looked like an architect’s drawing—probably a layout of the house and grounds. The Lieutenant had scribbled all over it. Mr. Lee wouldn’t like that.
“You are?” The Captain sounded and looked very bored.
�
��My name is Elodie Browne. I am a writer and I work in the Gower Building. I am a friend of Bernice Barker and she asked me if I wanted to earn some extra money by helping out at Mr. Lee’s party and I said yes, and that’s why I’m here. I’m not a regular waitress or servant or anything.” She had been waiting so long to say it that it all came out in a gush.
“A writer?” The Lieutenant seemed surprised.
“A copywriter,” Elodie explained. “I work for the advertising agency Adcock and Ash. They’re on the fifteenth floor.” She emphasized the number.
“And you agreed to serve at a party?”
“Yes.” She looked from one to the other. “I wanted some extra money, like anyone else.” She paused. “And I was curious to see what rich people are like. I am going to be writing about high society on the radio, you see.”
“I thought you said you were a copywriter,” the Lieutenant said.
“Yes, but the agency—”
“Never mind all that,” interrupted the Captain. “Tell us what happened tonight.”
“From the beginning?”
“From where the dead man came into the room.”
“He wasn’t dead when he came in,” Elodie said, and could have kicked herself, never mind Bernice. What a stupid thing to say, she thought, then she saw the Lieutenant was trying not to laugh. “I mean, there was a kind of crash in the kitchen and then he just…burst in.”
“And?”
“He shouted at Mr. Lee to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Taking the people out to see the jade?”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He told Mr. Lee to look out. He picked up a knife from the table and said ‘Look out!’…as if he was warning Mr. Lee about the guard with the gun.”
“Why should he do that?”
Elodie shrugged. “I don’t know. He wasn’t making much sense; his face was all bruised and bleeding…. I think he was dying or something. He looked like he was.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the Lieutenant, leaning forward. “Nobody else said that.”
“Imagination,” barked the Captain. “You couldn’t have known whether he was dying or not.”
“He looked terrible, then,” Elodie amended. “Sick and weak and…terrible. And frightened.”
“Frightened of what?”
“I don’t know. Mr. Lee? The guard with the gun? I don’t know.”
“Did he say anything else?” Captain Brett was persistent. Elodie wondered if one of the others had said that odd name or word that Mr. Lee didn’t seem to want said.
“Not that I could understand,” Elodie said, which was more or less the truth. She sat there, willing them not to ask any more questions. So, of course, the annoying Lieutenant did just that.
“Did you know Mr. Webster? You work in the same building.”
“I had never seen him. I work on a different floor. I had no reason to have any contact with him.”
“Hadn’t seen him around the building?”
“Not that I knew of. This was the first time I saw him. I didn’t know who he was until Bernice said he was Mr. Webster.”
“You are good friends with Miss Barker?”
“We have lunch together every day,” Elodie said. “We went to the same high school.”
“And have you ever been in Mr. Lee’s office, where Miss Barker works?”
“No, never.”
“Have you ever been on the tenth floor?”
Damn, Elodie thought. Damn, damn, damn.
“Well….”
They both looked at her expectantly.
“I think I was.”
“What the devil does that mean?” demanded the Captain, who obviously didn’t like her or anything about her. Writing about high society indeed, he seemed to think. Above herself, that’s what she was.
Elodie felt a prickling behind her eyes, and blinked rapidly. “It was on last Tuesday night,” she began. The two detectives looked at one another, then back at her.
“You were on the tenth floor of the Gower Building last Tuesday night?” asked the Lieutenant.
“I’m not absolutely sure,” said Elodie, although of course she was. Seeing their impatience, she sighed, and reluctantly told them about the elevator stopping on the wrong floor, and the shouting, and the dragging sound, and how frightened she was.
“Why the devil didn’t you tell someone?” Captain Brett looked very exasperated.
“Well, when I got down to the lobby the guard was asleep. And the taxi was waiting with the meter running and there wasn’t anything I could do—”
“And you were afraid you had been seen,” finished Lieutenant Deacon, who seemed to grasp even more of the situation than she had at the time.
“Yes,” she admitted. “The light from the elevator—”
Deacon nodded and leaned back, assessing her. “Can you tell us exactly what you heard?” he asked.
Elodie shrugged. “Not really. Just…shouting. It was all sort of a gabble. And then someone cried out—I guess that was Mr. Webster—and I kept punching the button for the elevator to come, and then a door opened and there was this dragging sound coming toward me…” It all came back, and she gave a convulsive shiver. “Then the elevator came.”
“A gabble?” asked Brett.
“Yes.”
“You couldn’t make out any words?”
Elodie shook her head.
“Why do you suppose that was?” asked the Lieutenant.
“Well, it was far away down the hall and the door was closed and…” she paused, frowned. “I don’t really know,” she admitted, puzzled. “It didn’t seem to make any sense, somehow.”
“Were they speaking in English?” asked Deacon, his eyes narrowed.
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that. “Oh.”
He was leaning forward now. “Could they have been speaking Italian, for instance?”
She shook her head. The Pellini family lived right behind them on Trenton, and they were often shouting. “No,” she said. “I know those words.”
“German? French?” asked Brett.
“Not German. And I speak French. It wasn’t French.”
“Chinese?”
“I don’t know what Chinese sounds like.”
Deacon stood up and went to the door, opened it, spoke to somone outside, then returned to his seat behind the big table. After a few minutes, there was a knock and the door opened.
“Yes, sir?” came a voice behind her.
“Do you speak Chinese?” Deacon asked.
“Yes, sir.” Soft footsteps padded toward Elodie and then a man went past her to the table. He stood with his back to her, but she recognized the white clothing of one of the cooks.
“I want you to go outside, close the door, and begin shouting in Chinese, something aggressive or threatening. Can you do that?”
She could see by the set of the man’s shoulders that he was startled and possibly offended. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s an experiment,” Captain Brett said, authoritatively. “You’re an American citizen, aren’t you?”
The man drew himself up proudly. “Yes, sir.”
“Then it’s your duty to help the police,” Brett said. “Do as I say.”
“Please.” Deacon smiled.
That seemed to make all the difference. The man turned and walked past her without meeting her eyes. He closed the door behind him. After a minute she heard the sound of shouting…loud shouting…and it was a gabble.
“Yes,” she said, in excitement. “Yes…it sounded just like that.”
Deacon leaned back in his chair. “Ah,” he said. He seemed pleased.
Chapter Six
“And then they said I could go home,” Elodie said to the Browne family, who had all gotten out of bed to hear about what had kept her out so late. They knew where she had gone, and her mother had been particularly worrie
d. She had never much trusted Bernice, and had been convinced her daughter was being led to an orgy of some kind.
Murder had been almost a relief.
“What was the house like?” asked Marie.
“What was Miss Hutton wearing?” asked Maybelle.
“Was there a lot of blood?” asked Alyce, who had been particularly thrilled by Elodie’s narrative.
“Girls, girls, can’t you see Ellie is exhausted?” Mrs. Browne stood up. “We should all go to bed.”
“Oh, not yet, Mumma,” pleaded Alyce. “I want to hear everything. They made Orphan Annie talk about the burglars so she wouldn’t have nightmares. Elodie should tell us everything, to ease her mind.”
Mrs. Browne looked at her youngest daughter. “Sometimes you worry me, Alyce.”
“But that’s what they said…” Alyce began.
“That’s quite enough.” Mrs. Browne considered her younger daughter for a moment, then sat down and turned back to Elodie. “Go on, then. Start from the beginning, but more slowly.”
Elodie again went over the evening, this time answering everyone’s questions as she went along. It took almost an hour, and it was after three in the morning when everybody was satisfied that they had heard every horrible and exciting detail.
Mrs. Browne made hot chocolate, and when it was gone, she shooed them all up to bed. “A good thing tomorrow is Sunday,” she said. “We can all sleep late.”
But it was a long time before Elodie fell asleep.
***
The next day she searched the papers for the story, but there was nothing. Not even in the Tribune. Perhaps it had all taken place too late to make the Sunday editions. On Monday morning, before leaving the house, she looked again, twice.
Still nothing.
How strange, she thought. I’m sure I didn’t dream it.
Marie, who was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast, agreed it was odd. “It’s being hushed up,” she said, darkly.
“I wonder why?” Elodie hadn’t been able to eat anything more than toast. She had spent Sunday afternoon and evening trying to write down as many of the ideas for “Imperial Hotel” she could think of, so as to be ready for Monday morning. Now she was delaying her departure. She was eager to begin, and also nervous. Ever since Friday her new job had been on her mind. And the excitement of Saturday night had only made it worse. How could she capture something like the events at the Lee house? What if she couldn’t write for radio after all? What if she failed? Would she have to go back to writing about soap and cake flour forever?
