[Celebrity Murder Case 04] - The Talking Pictures Murder Case

by George Baxt

  “You can think what you like! It doesn't mean a thing to me!”

  Much as he disliked Marie Darling, Villon had to admire her. Grudgingly, but it was admiration. She was a tigress when it came to protecting herself and her young. He wondered if someday soon he might have to cage the creature. “Thank you, ladies. You've been very helpful.”

  Watching him depart, Ethel Swift commented, “He's really some looker “ She heard neither agreement nor disagreement. The fitting continued in an uneasy silence.

  “How come you don't like jelly apples?” Bertha Graze asked Jim Mallory

  'They're bad for the teeth “ He tried to avoid the unpleasant sight as she began demolishing the glazed fruit, but there were mirrors all over the place reflecting Bertha and her jelly apple in various ugly angles

  “So you want to know about the reading I gave Lotus Fairweather?”

  'That's right.”

  “You know, that’s privileged information. Being a cop, you should be familiar with that. You know, like what a lawyer and a doctor knows is privileged information. Like Swiss banks too, you know?”

  “I know. Now shall I repeat the question or are you going to start talking?” He wasn't willing to take any bets as to how much truth he'd hear

  “It was a pretty quick reading. I didn't go into much depth. You see, the lady had a certain odor and it was a very hot day and even with six electric fans going full blast, it wasn't what I would exactly call a very pleasant experience “ She placed the stick that had held the demolished apple in an ashtray and licked each sticky finger on her right hand. Mallory was the soul of patience. He hoped she wouldn't suggest a short bout of wrestling “One of the dancing girls in her movie had recommended she see me. Let me see now, yeah …” Her tongue was busily engaged working a piece of apple free from a space between her back teeth. It made her look as if she had three puffy cheeks “She was worried about how the movie would turn out As I recall, I told her it wouldn't.”

  “Meaning she might be dead?”

  “Oh no no no. Nothing like that. I didn't see a dark spot.”

  “What's that?” As Bertha explained, Mallory's mouth formed an O but he made no comment.

  “Actually, I didn't need to look into my crystal ball to find the bad news. It's been all over town that Casbah is a lemon and she was no good in it. There's another one like her, this Carlotta King in John Boles's Desert Song. Brutal, I hear, real brutal “ She now had an oversized finger in her oversized mouth prying at the offending piece of apple. Mallory was glad he hadn't eaten dinner yet.

  “You told her the picture would flop.”

  “Oh sure It's best to level with the clients. They know you can’t be accurate about everything But I made her feel better when I told her her marriage would be more solid than ever. She was kind of cute. You see, I always fish around to see if maybe they're having a little hanky-panky on the side. So I asked her, 'Are you in love with a married man?' and she said, 'Why, yes, my husband ’ Cute, no?”

  No, thought Mallory, but said nothing.

  Bertha Craze sighed with relief. She had disgorged the piece of apple. “So she was murdered? Strangled with a silk stocking and then sent into space from the flies without a parachute. Boy, what won't some people think of next?” She was rummaging about in a half-filled box of chocolates “Damn, the clients are always eating the soft centers.” Mallory could see she had no soft center. “Well, what else do you expect me to tell you?”

  Somehow, Mallory hadn't expected this visit to be so futile. He persisted “You're sure you saw no, uh, dark spot, was it?”

  “Dark spot.”

  “You saw none for Fairweather.”

  “So help me Hannah.” Her right hand raised to swear an oath. “As a matter of fact, you want to hear a hot one?” She popped a chocolate-covered almond into her mouth. “I saw one of my own today!” She told him about the incident with Thelma Todd “Nearly knocked the wind out of my sails!”

  “Didn’t it frighten you?”

  “Well, I have to admit for a couple of minutes there it did. But then I looked at Toddy—that's what we call Thelma—and saw how unnerved she was. I mean she runs with a real fast crowd and some pretty questionable hombres, let me tell you. Anyway, I figured there’s no such thing as getting crossed dark spots and it was all for her so I didn’t even charge her for the reading.“

  Mallory was wondering if Thelma Todd was doing a movie for Diamond Films at the moment. He asked Bertha if she knew.

  “You know something, I don’t know what she's up to professionally right now. I could tell you plenty something else, but then, like I said before, that's privileged information. Say, would you like a Baby Ruth to munch on?”

  Helen Roland had been studying Herbert Villon carefully She liked the easy and affable manner in which he asked questions. She could tell that her husband also liked him, even if he might possibly be a suspect in the murders of the two women. Villon was determined to jog Roland's memory, determined to know who had told him Alicia Leddy had been strangled with her scarf.

  Alex Roland snapped his fingers. “By golly! It was when I was settling with Marie Darling to have Annamary replace Leddy. Jack was sitting just where you're sitting, Mr Villon It was Jack who said she was strangled with the scarf.”

  “You're sure, now.”

  “It was Jack. Ask him yourself. There he is walking to the parking lot with that Gerber kid.”

  Villon went to the window and raised it. “Jack Darling!” he shouted. “Jack Darling!”

  Rita Gerber turned in the direction of Villon's voice. “Jack,” she said, “it's Villon, the cop. He's yelling for you.”

  Jack turned, looked up, and saw Villon. “You want me?”

  “Very much.”

  FOURTEEN

  Rita Gerber accompanied Jack Darling to Alexander Roland's office. She had no intention of remaining in the street unprotected. Jack parked her with Jason Cutts, then went into Roland's office, where Helen Roland greeted him warmly. Villon interrupted their scene and asked Jack to take a seat.

  Villon half sat on Roland's desk, facing Jack. “Mr. Darling, earlier today in this office you said Alicia Leddy was strangled with her scarf.”

  “Wasn't she?”

  “She was. But how did you know?”

  “I was on the stage when she was murdered. I'd been helping Henry Turk get her through a difficult scene, or at least a scene that was proving difficult for her.”

  “Mr Darling, the fact that she was strangled with a scarf was withheld from the press. Only a few of us knew that was how she died. So how did you know?”

  Jack looked boyishly bewildered. “Someone must have let it slip. Jesus Christ, you don't think I killed her, do you?” Villon said nothing. Helen Roland looked embarrassed. Alexander Roland could have been holding a straight flush in a poker game. “I had a date to take her out tonight, for crying out loud!” Roland had a slight coughing fit as his mask slipped Helen Roland smiled. Jack blushed, remembering Leddy had been Roland's girl

  “Do you remember where you were standing when you overheard the information?”

  Jack was fumbling for words “Well, gee, not precisely.” Helen Roland was thinking he needed to be chewing on a piece of straw and standing, shifting bashfully from one foot to the other, to complete the characterization of an innocent backwoods youth “I remember there were two women extras seated nearby and, well, gee, Mr Villon, there was an awful lot of activity because of the murder and people were talking all around me and I guess it was then I heard it.”

  Villon knew he had no case against Darling. He might be telling the truth and if he wasn't, Villon had no way of challenging him “You didn't happen to borrow your old musketeer costume from wardrobe this afternoon?”

  “What for?” asked Jack with a nervous laugh.

  Villon told him what his mother and Carrie O'Day had seen at the time of Leddy's murder, a masked musketeer near the scene of the crime. Jack denied borrowing the costume
.

  “I'm sorry I can't be of more help to you, Mr Villon “

  “So am I.” Villon was not satisfied. “We'll be talking again.”

  After Jack left, Alexander Roland suggested drinks and, while he was pouring them, told them about Jack's projected first talker, Margin for Terror. “A young modern-day Bluebeard, how about that for a change of image?”

  “I think it's a wonderful idea,” said Helen Roland, taking a glass of claret from her husband

  “Funny,” said Villon

  “What's funny?” asked Roland, handing Villon a bourbon neat

  “Jack Darling as a lady-killer.”

  Hazel Dickson hailed Jim Mallory as he stepped out of his tired roadster “You got anything interesting for me?”

  “I’ve been talking to the eighth wonder of the world, Bertha Craze.”

  “What about?” They were walking briskly to the executive building

  “About dark spots.”

  “She's got more than spots, she's got blotches “

  “Don't you know about Bertha's dark spots?”

  “Everybody knows about them. Not even Rinso can wash them out.”

  “You seen Villon?”

  “I'm waiting for him. He's up there with Alex Roland. I'm starving. Let's go get him.” They saw Jack Darling and Rita Gerber hurrying out of the building.

  Rita asked Jack, “What was that all about?”

  “A load of nonsense. Nothing worth discussing.” Rita was wondering what had happened in the office that caused Jack's face to age so dramatically “Not so fast!” cried Rita as Jack gripped her arm and hurried her into the parking lot. When they reached her car, he opened the front door for her. “I’ll phone you later, okay?”

  “I thought you were going to follow me in your carl”

  “I have to have a talk with my mother Urn … something's come up about my first talker. You know how it is.”

  “Not really, but I'm learning.” She got behind the steering wheel and flashed him a loving look. “Until later “

  She wasn't sure he heard her, he had hurried away so quickly.

  Ethel Swift had been called to the telephone, leaving Annamary alone with her mother Marie said angrily, “How dare you speak so rudely to me?”

  “What are you talking about?” Marie was truly bristling. “Well? What's eating you?” She was busy draping a boa around her shoulders, searching for an effect.

  “Eating me! I’ll tell you what's eating me! Telling me to hold my tongue because it's big enough.”

  “Well, it is.” She flung the boa aside and crossed to a table where she found a silver fox fur.

  “And in front of that damned detective. What's gotten into you? You don't seem to give a damn I've finally gotten you a talker!”

  “You're damned right I don't give a damn!” She tossed the silver fox aside and continued rummaging among scarves and boas and assorted fur pieces Ethel Swift had laid out for her. “I told you I don't want to work anymore. I'm rich. I want to give it up.”

  “You'll be bigger than ever in talkers!”

  Annamary turned on her mother with a ferocity that took even the formidable Marie by surprise “I'm a silent picture actress! All of us silent queens became stars because of our faces, not because of our voices. Listen to me. Do you hear me?”

  “I ain't deaf! Stop yelling!”

  Annamary took a strong grip on her mother's shoulders, her blazing eyes searing into Marie's “Listen to my voice. Listen to it. It's not much of a voice, Mama “

  “It’s perfectly fine!”

  “You say that because you want it to be perfectly fine. But it doesn't suit the image I created in silents. Its small, it's weak, I should be behind a five-and-dime counter selling toffee.”

  “Never!”

  “I'm only doing this dreadful film with that dreadful actor just to prove to you I’ll never make it in talkers. I can coast along for a picture or two like Virginia Valli and Barbara Bedford, but they're finished. I've seen their talkers. They can't compete with the new women.”

  “Pfahl”

  “Come down to earth, Mama. I'm also older than most of them. I'm too old to be playing an eighteen-year-old bride, sneakers or no sneakers. The new actresses have nothing to worry about because the audiences have nothing to compare them to. They're coming on fresh and new with experience in the theatre. They can compare me to the dozens of silents they've seen me in. That was a big mistake keeping me in pigtails and bare feet for so many years, the way it will prove to have been a mistake keeping Jack in tattered jeans and straw hats and playing peek-a-boo with silly little girls out in the pasture. They probably won't boo me off the screen the way they did John Gilbert, maybe they'll be respectful out of loyalty and even love. But we both know better. The fans are fickle, they're like, cheating husbands and wives. Always on the lookout for the new thrill, the new sensation. I've got nothing new to offer them.”

  “You're a great star,” said Marie boldly. Jack had entered and was listening. He was affected by what his sister was saying; he looked old and tired.

  “That was yesterday. Today I'm a part of movie history. Tomorrow I’ll be as forgotten as a one-night stand.”

  Marie covered her ears with her hands. There were tears in her eyes. “I won't hear this! I won't! I won't! I won't! Your success is all I have to live for!”

  Jack stepped between his mother and his sister. “Maybe Annamary's right.”

  “You're not giving yourselves a chance! At least wait and see how the public reacts. Don't you have the courage to do that?”

  Annamary returned to finding something appropriate to throw around her shoulders for a crucial scene in which she would be fighting off the advances of the film's villain. “I'm doing the film, aren't I, Mama. See? I'm looking for something effective for one of my big moments. I do a lot of screaming in that scene. But you know something, Mama? I've never had to scream before I don't know how to scream. Maybe I'd better hire Laura Hope Crews or Constance Collier or Alison Skipworth or one of those other ladies they've imported to teach us silent stars how to talk.” She smiled at her brother. “We should have made tests, Jack We should have taken time to learn how to produce pear-shaped vowels and to bear down on our consonants.”

  “Oh, here you are!” Willis Loring sounded like Stanley discovering Dr Livingstone. “How much longer will you be? I'm hungry It's way past dinnertime.”

  “What's the matter, dear? Couldn't you find a diversion for the evening?” Annamary was playing with an ermine scarf.

  “Of course I could.“ said Willis coldly. “But I thought I'd stay at home with you tonight for moral support. Tomorrow's your big day, your first talker “

  “And after I have spoken, will you teach me how to walk?”

  “Well,” he said huffily, “if you choose to be hostile, I can always find a warm welcome at Madam Blanche's.”

  “Oh God, what a ghastly life I have,” said Annamary.

  Jack took her hand “Would you want to relive it?”

  “Sweetie, only if I could do the casting.”

  Jason Cutts had gone home for the night and Hazel Dickson and Jim Mallory crashed the get-together in Alexander Roland's office Jim Mallory recounted to Villon his interview with Bertha Craze, after which Alexander Roland said, “If anybody in this town needs killing, it's that dreadful woman.”

  “Someone did try to kill her once, remember?” Helen Roland was the cynosure of the gathering.

  “When was this?” prodded Villon.

  “A few years back Come on, Alex, you remember.”

  “I do’ When was this?”

  “About two years ago She was rushed to the hospital, suffering, the newspapers said then, from food poisoning. She recovered but her parrot died.”

  Villon was fascinated. “What parrot?”

  Helen Roland explained, “She used to have a parrot. She was always feeding it the same garbage she eats. So whatever poisoned her killed her parrot It obviously did not
have Bertha's magnificent constitution. It was in the news just once, I think,- there was never a follow-up. But as I recall it had something to do with a box of biscuits she received in the mail.”

  Villon said to Mallory, “Jim, see if we've got anything on that in the files. Use the phone in the outer office “ Mallory went to the outer office and made himself comfortable at Jason Cutts's desk while phoning headquarters.

  Villon questioned Roland. “Have you had some run-ins with Graze?”

  “Some! Some, he asks me! Constant run-ins with her.” He turned to his wife, “Tell him, honey! Tell him how many times she's tried to make trouble for my actors. A terrible woman!1'

  Villon was angry. “Why haven't you brought charges against her?”

  “Are you crazy? That woman has this whole town by the little ones. If she ever tells what she knows, Hollywood would be evacuated in under five hours?”

  Hazel said, “And there's been only one attempt on her life? Fascinating “

  When Ethel Swift returned to wardrobe, Willis Loring was gone Jack took Marie's arm and led her outside

  “I don't know what's gotten into you two! Annamary is not right. It's just her nerves, that's all And how dare you say maybe she is right! Don't you want to be in talkers?” She might have been offering him ice cream.

  “Mama, I've got to tell you something “

  “Now you just wait a minute. I'm not letting you get cold feet too! You're going to do Margin for Terror if I have to chain you to the set.”

  “Mama, I may be in some kind of trouble.”

  Frances Goldwyn, the picture of serene beauty, poured after-dinner coffee for herself and her husband in the drawing room of their beautiful mansion. Goldwyn returned from the library, where he had taken an urgent phone call. He was lighting a cigar and looked thoughtful.

  ‘Trouble?” asked Mrs Goldwyn.

  'Trouble for Louis Gross.“ Gross was another independent producer

  “That man is always in trouble. He has no right producing pictures. He's only in it for the variety of women he can try to molest.”