by Alice Duncan
I don’t know how long the séance lasted. It seemed like forever to me, and more than once I experienced an urge to scratch an itch or feel under the table in search of some kind of switch that might regulate the ghostly light illuminating Miss d’Agostino’s face.
Eventually, however, the spirit of the priestess claimed she was tired and departed. Miss d’Agostino sank a little farther forward with a soulful sigh, and the room fell into utter blackness once more.
Then Mr. Fernandez turned on the lights, and we all looked at each other. Except for Mrs. Hartland, who appeared to have fallen asleep. I thought her reaction to the evening’s shenanigans was rather amusing until Jacqueline Lloyd, her beautiful eyes fairly starting from their sockets, jumped to her feet, pressed her hands to her cheeks, let out an unearthly shriek, and fell to the floor in a gloriously theatrical swoon.
Chapter Six
Naturally these antics drew everyone’s attention to Miss Lloyd—except that of Mrs. Hartland, who remained slumped on the table. She looked as if she were napping to me, but Mr. Carstairs, who’d been holding her hand until then, looked at her and opened his mouth as if to say something, then suddenly thrust the hand aside, leaped from his chair and said, “Good God!”
Well, as you can imagine, everything was confused for a while. I am pleased to report that it was I, Mercedes Louise Allcutt, who demonstrated the most common sense in the bewilderment that ensued after Miss Lloyd’s faint and Mr. Carstairs’s startled exclamation.
While Mr. Carstairs was on his knees rubbing Miss Lloyd’s hands between his and muttering broken syllables indicative of concern, and all the other people there looked at each other and muttered, I calmly walked over to Mrs. Hartland. There I bent over, pressed two fingers to what should have been the pulse in her neck, and didn’t feel any. Then I picked up her hand, which was warm and floppy, pressed my fingers to where the pulse in her wrist should have been, and didn’t feel any pulse there, either.
Only then did I drop the hand, leap backward, and utter a soft scream of my own. At least I didn’t shriek loud enough to wake the dead—a mere expression, I assure you, since it didn’t awaken any corpses present at that moment—and then faint like Miss Lloyd. I did emulate Miss Lloyd in that I clapped my hands to my cheeks. Then my gaze frantically sought that of Mr. Easthope, and I cried out—not hysterically, I assure you—“She’s dead!”
Mr. Easthope stared at me as if he didn’t know what to do about that.
Fortunately I did. Gathering my wits together with some difficulty—I hadn’t encountered any dead bodies thus far in my career as a human being, although I’d come close to being one myself a few weeks previously—I sought Rupert as the person most appropriate to do some telephoning and gestured him over. He came to my side, looking pale and shaky.
Mr. Easthope hurried up to me. “What should we do?” he said, wringing his hands.
“Call the police,” I said, sounding much more confidant than I felt. After all, the poor woman had probably died of a heart seizure or an apoplectic fit or something. Still and all, I didn’t think it would be politic merely to call an undertaker. After all, she did have access to a whole lot of personal information about a plethora of celebrities, and she had died in a room full of people sitting in the dark during a séance. The circumstances sounded suspicious to me, although I couldn’t have said why particularly.
“The police?” Mr. Easthope appeared both shocked and pained.
“And her son,” I said, thinking I should have thought of her son before I thought of the police. I guess my employment had begun to affect my thinking processes.
“But why the police?”
“Um . . . and a doctor.” There. That was the best suggestion of all.
“But why the police?” Mr. Easthope repeated, and his voice had taken on an edge.
Why, indeed?
“I really don’t want any negative publicity to come out of this, Miss Allcutt. After all, such publicity might affect the studio.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” I said, thinking madly. Even I couldn’t have said precisely why I wanted to involve the police. I suppose, under normal circumstances, a doctor and the family were the most logical people to call. Still . . .
Then it came to me. I took Mr. Easthope by the sleeve of his well-cut evening jacket and hauled him to the side of the room and away from the action. “Listen, Mr. Easthope, this looks fishy to me. You’ve got two crooked spiritualists, you’ve got Hedda Heartwood, the most famous and meddling Hollywood snooper in the picture business, and you’ve got a motion-picture starlet and a motion-picture lawyer, all together in one place for a séance, of all things. Something doesn’t seem right. Now maybe Mrs. Hartland died of a heart attack or a fit of apoplexy or a similar affliction. I still think you need to call in a detective to check things out. That way, when nothing is found to be amiss, there won’t be any wild rumors circulating in picture circles. That would surely hurt the studio, probably even more than if, by some odd chance, the poor woman had been . . . um . . . done away with by some person.” I’d lived and breathed motion-picture gossip since I’d come to live with Chloe, and I knew how vicious rumors and tittle-tattle got started and spread, not unlike the influenza pandemic of a decade or so earlier.
Mr. Easthope said, “Well . . .”
I seemed to be having a spate of dazzling ideas around that time, because another one struck me then. “And I know just the person!”
Mr. Easthope blinked at me. “You do?”
“I do. Detective Phillip Bigelow. He’s the most circumspect detective I know. Well, besides Mr. Templeton.” In truth, Phil Bigelow was the only detective I knew besides Ernie, but I felt no need to reveal that fact at the moment. “You should have Rupert telephone the Los Angeles Police Department and ask specifically for Mr. Bigelow.”
Mrs. Easthope began to scream then, and Mr. Easthope got pretty rattled. As he turned to give aid and comfort to his mother, he said in a distracted undertone, “Very well. But please, tell the man to be discreet!”
“I certainly will,” I said, relieved to have been given permission to do what I’d aimed to do anyway. Hurrying back to Rupert, I instructed him in a voice that brooked no argument to call the police. “And speak only to Detective Bigelow. Don’t speak to anyone else.” I had a troubling thought. “And if he’s not there, get his home number and phone him there. Tell him I made you do it.”
Rupert saluted and dashed off to the telephone room. Gee, I don’t recall seeing anyone ever salute my mother. I must either be really good at giving orders or have a formidable personality. The latter might not be such a sterling character trait if my aim in life was to be different from my mother, but I didn’t have time just then to contemplate the matter.
And then I thought of something that truly frightened me.
If this wasn’t a simple case of a heart seizure or stroke, and if someone had somehow done away with the gossipy Mrs. Hartland, the murderous someone had to be a person in Mr. Easthope’s house at that very moment.
That being the case, I took it upon myself to request that no one leave the premises. I did so by lifting my arms and my voice and demanding everyone remain until the doctor arrived. I didn’t mention the police.
“But why?” said Miss Lloyd, still looking faint and shaky.
Again my brain raced. “Because we need to know that poor Mrs. Hartland didn’t die from some kind of contagion.” I was proud of that particular fib.
I didn’t expect it to happen, but both Mr. Easthope and Mr. d’Agostino came to my aid.
“Yes,” said Mr. Easthope, sounding about as faint and shaky as Miss Lloyd looked. “Please, everyone, gather in the living room. I’ll have the cook prepare something to calm our nerves.”
“Yes,” said Mr. d’Agostino. While Mr. Easthope looked ill, he looked fierce. Either he didn’t appreciate people dropping dead during his séances or he was doing a good job of acting like it. Probably both, actually. “This needs to be looked in to.
This is not good.”
For business, I presume he meant.
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later, Phil Bigelow, accompanied by a couple of outriders in the form of uniformed Los Angeles police officers, arrived at Mr. Easthope’s home. Phil didn’t look awfully pleased to see me there, but I think that was only Ernie’s influence working on him. He and Ernie were really good friends, you see, and Ernie had impressed upon him before this that I was snoopy and shouldn’t be allowed to get involved in investigations, even those that he’d rejected.
Too bad. I’d been involved in this one even before it became an investigation, and there wasn’t a single thing either one of those anti-feminist men could do about it.
I was too glad to see Phil to berate him for his opinion of female detectives, however. As soon as he appeared in the doorway, I rushed over to him. Although it’s embarrassing to admit, I felt a little teary there for a minute. The past half hour or so had been very stressful.
Believe it or not, people had even objected when I’d had Rupert call a doctor.
“She’s dead. She’s beyond the need for a doctor,” said Miss Lloyd. Her statement was somewhat callous, I thought.
“The doctor needs to confirm death before a death certificate can be officially entered into the records of law,” I told Miss Lloyd, proud of myself for being able to inform her of that fact, even though I’d only learned it myself within the past month during the course of my employment.
Miss Lloyd sighed heavily. She really did look kind of sick, and I’m sure she wanted to go home, but so did everyone else. Poor Mrs. Easthope was still in a state of pitiable agitation. It must have seemed as though death were dogging her. First her husband. Now her friend. I felt sorry for her and figured calling in the doctor might be good for her, too. Maybe he could give her a nerve pill or something. Mr. Easthope sat on the sofa, his arms around her, giving her all the consolation he could, considering he appeared pale and shaken too.
I couldn’t imagine myself sitting on a couch and putting my arms around my own mother. Not only would she stiffen up like setting cement, but I’d feel like an idiot. For a brief moment, I felt a trace of envy for Mr. Easthope.
We had all gathered in the living room by that time, and Rupert, rather wan and wobbly himself, had served a variety of beverages from hot tea to different kinds of liquors, although the liquors were disguised in teapots. It looked a little silly, really, to have six teapots sitting on the coffee table, but I’m sure the police were used to it. Prohibition might have been the law of the land for a number of years, but the law never had and never would stop anyone with enough money to circumvent it. My goodness, that sounds cynical. I guess Ernie was rubbing off on me.
Anyhow, I’ve digressed from my narrative. The police arrived, and I hurried over to them.
“Oh, Mr. Bigelow, I’m so glad to see you,” I said in a low voice. “This has been a harrowing evening.”
He frowned at me. I guess he figured that since Ernie wasn’t there to do it, he should. “I’m not happy to see you, Miss Allcutt. What the devil happened here?”
Well! I no longer felt the least inclination to cry. Rather, I decided to be punctilious and businesslike. I’d show him I wasn’t a hysterical female. “We were all attending a séance conducted by the d’Agostino siblings.” I ignored his contemptuous snort. “Then, when the lights went on after the séance was over, Mrs. Hartland was slumped over the table. I thought she was sleeping, but she was . . . dead.” I admit to a gulp at that point but believe I may be excused for it.
“A séance? For cripes’ sake.” Still scowling, he surveyed the room full of people. “Who are all these nuts anyway?”
In a furious whisper, I said, “They aren’t all nuts. Including me. I’m only here because . . .” But I didn’t want to go into that in front of everyone. I said softly, “There’s a good reason I’m here, and it might actually tie into Mrs. Hartland’s death, but I’ll have to tell you about it later. Maybe tomorrow if you can come to Ernie’s office.”
It looked to me as though he was going to protest loud and long, but fortunately the doctor showed up at that point and Mr. Bigelow had to deal with him. Blasted man. He was very nearly as annoying as Ernie. I never would have thought it since, before that evening, he’d always seemed nice and polite.
Men. Unpredictable creatures.
Nevertheless, whatever Mr. Bigelow thought about séances and the people who attended them, the police worked efficiently and, as far as I could tell, with commendable rectitude. From the little Ernie had let slip about the Los Angeles Police Department before this time, the department was riddled with corruption. These fellows seemed legitimate enough—on the surface at least. I mean to say that I didn’t notice anyone accepting or receiving a bribe or slipping an expensive bauble into a pocket. Nor did I see anybody trying to persuade an officer to let him go before questioning. And no one offered any of the policemen a drink from one of the tainted teapots. Of course, all three men from the police department studiously ignored those teapots, but I don’t really count that as corruption. Murder was much more important than people in private party who had suffered a severe shock being served with calming doses of liquor.
Did I say murder? I meant to say death.
Oh, very well, I didn’t mean to say death. I said murder, and I meant murder. It just seemed too convenient that the most widely published of the burgeoning legion of gossip columnists, Miss Hedda Heartwood, should have died in a pitch-dark room during a séance. A séance, for heaven’s sake!
“I know this is an inconvenience,” Mr. Bigelow said to the assembled attendees. “But my men will be talking to you one at a time before you go home. They’ll only be taking down your names and addresses and asking a very few simple questions. Purely routine, I assure you.”
A likely story.
Mr. Bigelow went on, “While my men chat with you, I’m going to accompany Dr. Fitch to the body.” He turned to whisper to the doctor, “Where is she?”
Instantly I said, “I’ll show you!”
Before he could protest, I hastened ahead of him and the doctor and was out of the living room, down the hall, and at the door of the dining room in a wink. Mr. Bigelow’s frown was magnificent to behold when he caught up with me, but I was impervious. Well, almost.
“Miss Allcutt—” he began, but I cut him off.
“Listen, Mr. Bigelow, there’s a lot more going on here than you know about yet. I need to fill you in on some stuff.”
He rolled his eyes, looking in that instant exactly like Ernie Templeton, only a little older and considerably less rumpled. I think Mr. Bigelow had a wife to take care of him. Ernie was on his own.
“I’m serious!” I whispered, impassioned. “I don’t think this is a simple death by heart attack. I think the woman might well have been bumped off on purpose.”
“Bumped off?” His lip curled and his left eyebrow rose.
Furious, I said, “Yes!”
“Okay, okay. Let’s see.”
My first choice would have been to tell him all about the spiritualists, Mrs. Easthope’s infatuation with same, and the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Hartland’s death right there in the hall, but both Mr. Bigelow and the doctor strode past me and on into the dining room. I followed with some trepidation. Hanging out with dead bodies wasn’t one of the things I had aimed to gain experience with when I came to Los Angeles to gain experience, if you know what I mean.
Standing as far away from the corpse as I could, I watched the doctor inspect it as I explained things to Mr. Bigelow. His face remained impassive during my narrative, which was pretty darned concise and coherent considering everything that had happened that evening.
“Anyhow,” I concluded, “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone did her in on purpose. I mean, consider the circumstances.”
“The circumstances?”
“Yes! I mean, the d’Agostinos are crooks, for heaven’s sake.”
“Of course, th
ey are, but they depend on people’s gullibility. They don’t want their victims dying on them.”
He had a point there. I instantly thought of another one. “But what if she was going to change her will in their favor? What if she was going to leave everything to them? She must be a wealthy woman.” I was proud of that, but only for about a tenth of a second.
“Was she?” Mr. Bigelow asked, puncturing my happy conjecture and sounding sarcastic.
“Um . . . I don’t know.”
“And why would the d’Agostinos want to kill her if she was going to leave all her money to them?”
“Blast it, I don’t know! Maybe she’d already changed her will.” Another thought slapped me upside the head. “Or maybe she was going to disinherit someone, and they bumped her off to prevent her from doing so. A relative or someone like that.” I thought it was a moderately intelligent suggestion.
Mr. Bigelow clearly did not. “Were any of her supposedly disinherited relations here at the séance?”
“Um . . . I don’t know.”
“You said it was Mrs. Easthope who was smitten with the pair, not Mrs. Hartland.”
I heaved a hearty sigh. “Yes. That’s true.” After fuming for another moment or so, I muttered, “I still think there’s something really fishy about all this.” I pondered for a heartbeat. “Anyway, what if she was spreading malicious gossip about someone and whoever it was decided to stop her permanently?”
“Was she?”
“Darn it, I don’t know. But it’s possible, isn’t it? Or maybe she was being blackmailed by somebody.”
“As a rule, Miss Allcutt,” he said, sounding insufferably condescending, “people who are blackmailing other people prefer those other people to remain alive so as to keep making payments.”
