by Alice Duncan
Ernie muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear—I probably wasn’t meant to hear it—and stood at the open office door. “Come on. We don’t have all day.”
As if to prove his point, the telephone rang once more.
“Leave it,” he barked. “Hell, it’s lunchtime. Nobody does business at lunchtime.”
From what I’d gathered during dinner-table conversation at Chloe and Harvey’s house, that wasn’t necessarily the case, but I did understand what Ernie meant. Most businesses allowed their employees an hour for luncheon, and people expected offices to be closed during that time.
Ernie drove us to Chinatown in his old, battered Studebaker automobile, and we ate at the noodle shop where part of our last adventure had taken place. I gazed with nostalgia at the plaza as Ernie guided me lunchward. That had been an exciting time, fraught with criminals, drug-runners and even a short-lived gunfight. It had been frightening, but it was something I’d always recall with pleasure. My life had been so dull up to that point.
The noodle shop was a small place with a counter and stools. I struggled up onto mine, still lost in memories, and Ernie plunked himself down without any great effort.
“All right,” he said, butting in to my nostalgic mood without apology. “Tell me what happened last night. And don’t leave out anything.”
So, interrupted only once when Charlie, the proprietor of the shop, took our orders for pork and noodles, I did, trying to recollect every tiny detail. When I was through speaking, our noodles had been set in front of us, and we dug in.
After taking several bites, Ernie returned to the subject of the murder. “You say Mrs. Hartland’s son was supposed to be there but wasn’t?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. Wonder what his story is.”
“Mrs. Hartland said he was sick.”
“Huh.”
By George—which, by a strange coincidence, was the son’s name—I hadn’t considered the possibility that George Hartland might have faked his illness and done his mother in under cover of darkness as the séance progressed, probably because of some fabulous inheritance. Hedda Heartwood must have been a wealthy woman at the time of her death. Such an act would be most heartless and appalling. Imagine a child killing a parent . . .
I decided I’d best not think about children killing parents in general, but to concentrate on George Hartland’s alibi for the prior evening. As I munched my pork and noodles (enlivened by a whole host of vegetables, lest you get the idea the meal wasn’t healthy) I pondered what I could do to investigate this aspect of the crime.
I could call Rupert! He’d know if anything unusual had happened outside the séance room. Perhaps. He was a new employee; it was possible he wouldn’t have recognized anything out of the ordinary. But he did have access to the rest of Mr. Easthope’s staff so he could ask, couldn’t he?
“Well?” Ernie sounded miffed, and I realized he’d been speaking to me.
“I’m sorry, Ernie. What did you say?”
He heaved an aggrieved sigh. “For the love of God, pay attention, will you?”
“I already apologized,” I snapped, miffed in my own right. After all, Ernie had been acting like a bear with a thorn in its paw all morning long. All I’d been doing was thinking.
“I said do you know for a fact that Mrs. Hartland’s son was sick?”
“Of course I don’t. I don’t know George Hartland from Adam.”
“Hmm.” Ernie spooned some savory broth into his mouth.
“Anyhow, I thought you didn’t want to handle Mr. Easthope’s case.” Poor Mr. Easthope. I felt just awful for him.
“I don’t want to handle it,” growled Ernie. “But I’m afraid my secretary aims to involve herself in it whether I want her to or not, so I figure I’d better know what’s going on.”
“Nonsense.” I felt my cheeks get hot. I don’t know why. After all, I should be proud of myself for my willingness to help a friend in need. But Ernie made it sound as if I were a blithering idiot for caring at all. In spite of my embarrassment, I knew myself to be in the right. I ate some more noodles.
“Phil is going to check on Hartland’s whereabouts at the time of the killing, so don’t you go getting involved in it.”
Well, really! “Listen to me, Ernie Templeton, and listen well. You have no right to dictate my movements outside of office hours!”
He rolled his eyes, lifted his bowl, and downed the last of his broth. Before you take him to task for bad manners, this was a common practice among the residents of Chinatown and, no matter what my mother would surely say, I honor cultural traditions. In fact, when I’d finished the last of my pork and noodles, I did likewise.
When I set my bowl back on the counter, I muttered, “Well, you don’t.”
“I know, I know.” Ernie tossed some money onto the counter and slid off his stool.
Being considerably shorter than he, I made a leap for it, landed on my feet, and followed my annoying employer to the front door of the noodle shop. Charlie called something after us. I presume it was a pleasant farewell, although he’d spoken in Cantonese, so who really knows? Not I, certainly.
Ernie held the door open for me to pass through. “But if you have a brain in your head, you’ll let the police handle the matter and won’t get involved. That’s their job, and you don’t know what you’re doing.”
That cut me to the quick. “Darn you, Ernie Templeton. I may not be a trained private investigator, but I’m intelligent and resourceful, and I know how to telephone people and ask questions!”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” growled Ernie, stomping back to Hill Street and his Studebaker. “You’re liable to put yourself in danger doing stuff like that. Remember what happened last month? If you hadn’t stuck your nose into the investigation, you wouldn’t have got yourself in trouble.”
“That’s not fair! It’s not my fault that Ned turned out to be crazy!”
His back was to me, but I know darned well that he rolled his eyes again. Phooey.
* * * * *
Ernie’s appointment book was jammed for the rest of the day. He didn’t seem awfully happy about it, although there was no time to ask him why. I should have thought he’d be pleased with all the new work my advertisement had generated, but all he did was scowl at me between appointments.
Finally at about ten minutes past five o’clock, after closing time, the last client left the office and I heaved a gratified sigh. Ernie might not think much of my investigative capabilities, but he couldn’t fault my ingenuity in drumming up business. I had just put my hat on and slipped my handbag under my arm and was about to bid Ernie a good-night when he turned to face me—he’d just seen the client out of the office—and gave me a hideous frown.
“All right, Mercy Allcutt, what’s this about an ad in the Times? Three people told me they heard about me through my ad in the Times.”
I lifted my chin. “Good for you. Advertising pays.”
“Maybe. What I want to know is who paid for the advertising.”
Curse the man. He was still frowning. “I did. And I should think you’d be thanking me instead of frowning at me!”
He walked slowly toward my desk, looking fierce. It was an effort, but I didn’t flinch. “If I ever decide to advertise my services, it will be my decision, and it will be my money that pays for it. I want that clearly understood.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“It’s not absurd. It’s the honorable way to do business. All right. How much did the ad cost?” He started fishing in his trousers pocket.
“Oh, for heaven’s—”
“Damn it, how much did it cost?”
I gave up. “A dollar and a half for the week.”
He slapped a dollar bill and a half-dollar onto my desk. I didn’t pick up the money, but only stared at it dumbly. “Don’t you ever do something like that behind my back again.” And with that, he turned and exited the office before me.
Well.
Darn him, how could he make even the most helpful of gestures seem like a wicked betrayal? I only wanted the best for his business. After all, I depended on his success for my own employment. It wasn’t my fault I had money of my own, was it? What was he so angry about? I didn’t understand.
Then it occurred to me that perhaps my initiative (not to mention my money) had hurt his pride. I guess I could understand that, but understanding didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, I plunked myself down in my chair and hauled out my hankie to blot the tears that spilled over and ran down my face.
Curse it, why couldn’t I ever do anything right? I couldn’t please anyone. Not my mother, not Ernie, not anybody.
I had just settled into a state of pitiful self-contempt when a light knock came at the office door. Surprised—after all, most of the offices in the Figueroa Building were already closed—I sniffled and said, “Come in.”
The door opened slowly, and Sylvia Dunstable peeked her head in. “Are you busy, Miss Allcutt?”
Was I busy? Not unless you counted feeling sorry for myself as being busy. “Not at all. Please come in, Miss Dunstable.” I made a quick last swipe at my tears and hoped the ravages of self-pity weren’t visible on my features.
“I just wondered if you’d seen the afternoon edition of the Times.” She held out a newspaper. “I picked one up when I went to the newspaper’s office to deliver Mr. Carstairs’s letter.”
“Oh, he wrote that letter?” I felt slightly better. It had been I who’d suggested he write letters to the Times and the Examiner. Perhaps I wasn’t a total failure after all.
“Yes. One to the Times and one to the Herald Examiner. That was a brilliant idea of yours.”
My mood lifted another tenth of an inch.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.” She held out the paper and I took it.
The headlines slashed across my vision like a knife: HEDDA HEARTWOOD SLAIN! POLICE SUSPECT POISON!
Oh, dear. My mother was going to have fifty fits. Not only was her daughter working for a living, but she was directly involved in the largest scandal to hit the motion-picture industry since the Taylor murder.
“Good heavens,” I whispered.
“Read the article,” Sylvia suggested. “It gets worse.”
I looked up at her, praying she hadn’t really said that. “It does?”
She nodded. So I read the article and discovered she was right. There, on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, was my name, Mercedes Louise Allcutt, listed as an attendee at the séance during which Mrs. Hartland had been foully done to death. They’d even spelled it right. My name, I mean. Lots of times people get my last name confused with Louisa May Alcott’s. Miss Alcott was supposed to be a distant relation but who really cares, besides my mother?
I wondered if I could take a room in a hotel for the night. That pleasant notion had barely skimmed my brain before I thrust it aside as cowardly and unfair to Chloe and Harvey. Not to mention Buttercup. If I didn’t show up to bear the brunt of our mother’s wrath, said wrath would descend upon Chloe, and she didn’t deserve it. I didn’t, either, but at least I wasn’t pregnant.
My heart throbbing with dread, I went home.
Chapter Nine
The following morning when I walked to Angel’s Flight, I was still smarting from last evening’s crushing diatribe that had been delivered with vigor and scathing contempt by my mother. Every time I passed a newspaper stand or a kid hawking papers on the street, I cringed.
“Read all about it!” cried the urchin standing outside the Angel’s Flight depot. “Hedda Heartwood murdered! Read all about it!”
Since I didn’t believe I could feel any worse, I bought a newspaper and perused it after I took my seat. The article didn’t add much to my knowledge of the events surrounding the crime. Hedda Heartwood was really Vivian Hartland. There were only eight people in attendance at the séance, nine if you counted Fernandez. The séance had been conducted by Angelique and Anthony d’Agostino and had been held in the home of Mr. Francis Easthope, a costumier for the Nash Studio in Los Angeles. Oh, Lord, there was Harvey’s studio’s name, right there in print.
Feeling as if a dart had lodged in my heart, I folded the paper on my lap, set my handbag on it, folded my hands on top of them both, and stared out the window. Three minutes later, at the bottom of Angel’s Flight, I got off and walked down Broadway to the Figueroa Building, feeling perfectly awful.
My mood didn’t improve when I found Lulu in tears again that morning. I wanted to turn around and run far, far away, but I wasn’t so poor a friend as that. Therefore, I approached the receptionist’s desk in the lobby and said, “What’s wrong, Lulu? Is it Rupert?” I couldn’t imagine what could have happened to Rupert, unless the L.A.P.D. had wired Oklahoma and discovered he was wanted for tipping over an outhouse. That seemed a remote possibility to me.
She looked up. Her eyes were streaming, her mascara was smudged, and her nose was almost as red as her fingernails (which she’d managed to polish sometime in between bouts of tears, I guess). “Oh, Mercy, they questioned him all night at the police station!”
“Why’d they do that?” It seemed a peculiarly fatuous thing to do, since Rupert was a brand-new employee at the Easthope establishment and didn’t know anybody who’d attended the séance except me.
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “They’re gonna pin it on him! I know they’re gonna pin it on him!”
I sat in the chair in front of the receptionist’s desk and patted Lulu’s hand. “They won’t do that, Lulu. They have no reason to. They probably only wanted to find out what Rupert could remember of the events of that night.” That made sense to me, as I intended to do the same thing.
Sniffling pathetically, Lulu’s watery gaze surveyed me, for signs of sincerity I presume. “You really think so?”
“Yes, I do,” I said bracingly. “In fact, I’d like to speak to Rupert myself.”
“Oh!” Lulu seemed to forget her misery. “Is Ernie investigating?”
Oh, boy, I hated to tell her that my hard-hearted employer had no intention of helping out Mr. Easthope. Ergo, I waffled. “I’m going to make a few inquiries for the firm.”
“I’m so glad Ernie’s going to help!” And Lulu burst into tears again.
With a sigh, I decided to take the stairs up to the third floor, figuring the exercise would do me good. By the time I reached my office I was puffing a little, but I felt virtuous, which was a definite improvement over how I had been feeling.
I entered the office cautiously, fearing that perhaps Ernie had arrived early again that day, but let out a sigh of relief when I saw no sign of him. Good. That meant I could go through my morning routine of dusting and tidying without being lectured as I did so.
As I wielded my dust cloth and tidied things that were already tidy, I mulled over what I might do to help the police catch Mrs. Hartland’s killer. I definitely needed to talk to Rupert and find out exactly what had gone on behind the scenes on the night of the murder. And if I could, I’d like to speak with Mr. George Hartland, too, and find out if he’d really been sick or had only been pretending. You never knew about people. Even if he had been faking an illness, that didn’t necessarily mean he was a murderer. Maybe he just didn’t like séances. Or his mother’s friends. Or something.
Nuts. Investigations were so complicated.
Ernie entered the office with Phil Bigelow about a half hour after I got to work. I’d been dreading his advent since he’d been so peeved with me the day before, but both men smiled as they sailed past my desk and on into Ernie’s office, so I guess I was forgiven for drumming up so much business. Men.
Mr. Bigelow didn’t stay in Ernie’s office for long. He lounged out of it and over to my desk maybe five minutes after the two men arrived. Ernie was right behind him. I looked up at them wit
h trepidation. It wasn’t like Mr. Bigelow to want to chat with me, since he was Ernie’s friend.
“Phil has to ask you some questions, Mercy,” Ernie said, clarifying matters.
“Me? You want to ask me questions?” I pointed at my chest.
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
“For Pete’s sake, Mercy, you were at the scene of the crime,” Ernie explained irritably. “Of course, he wants to ask you questions. He wants to ask everybody who was there questions.”
That made sense. “Oh, of course. Please, Mr. Bigelow, take a seat.” I gestured at the chair beside my desk.
“Call me Phil,” he said, smiling in a friendlier manner than he’d thus far exhibited since I saw him at Mr. Easthope’s house.
“Thank you. Please call me Mercy.” My mother would die if she knew her daughter was on a first-name acquaintanceship with a policeman.
He drew a notebook out of his coat pocket. “All right, Mercy. Ernie says you’re the one who got Rupert Mullins the job at Mr. Easthope’s place. Is that correct?”
“Well . . . yes, it is. Rupert needed a job and Mr. Easthope needed to get rid of those spiritualists who’ve been bleeding his mother dry. He suspected they were crooks, and I figured putting Rupert in his home would kill two birds with one stone.” Poor phrasing. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Right. So this Rupert kid was supposed to be kind of like a spy?”
I thought about that. “Kind of. I thought Rupert Mullins and Mr. Easthope could help each other, if you see what I mean. Rupert, as a houseboy, might unearth some of the tricks of the d’Agostinos’ trade.”
“d’Agostino,” said Mr. Bigelow—I mean Phil. “Right.”
“What do you mean by that? Isn’t that their name?”
Ernie snorted. “Not by a long shot. They’re really a pair of shysters by the name of Clyde and Maude O’Doyle, and they’re from Saint Louis, Missouri.”
“My goodness.”
“And they’re married.”
“My goodness!” I don’t know why I was so surprised. I guess because they looked more like brother and sister than husband and wife.
