Murder at the Mikado

by Julianna Deering

  Drew opened the passenger side door and helped her in and then got behind the wheel. “I still don’t know. If Mrs. Landis confessed her affair with Ravenswood after the boy was born, surely Landis had to admit the possibility that the child wasn’t his. If he didn’t send her off then, why should he now?”

  Nick climbed into the backseat. “True enough. Unless she had convinced him the affair was over before the child was conceived.”

  Drew gave him a rueful smile. “Hardly a question a gentleman could ask a lady.”

  “Unless that gentleman happens to be with the police and specifically given the duty to ask, I suppose.” Nick shook his head. “What a bit of work this Ravenswood must have been. That song in Penzance might have been written for him. ‘Shocking tales the rogue could tell . . .’ ”

  “Yes, well, evidently ‘nobody can woo so well.’ It’s a wonder our Miss Cullimore stayed with him as long as she did.”

  “The theater,” Madeline said in reply. “He gave her the starring roles, equal billing with him, as best I can tell, paid the bills and let her do fairly well as she pleased. Seems she found that enough reason not to leave him.”

  “As Tennyson said, ‘The jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels.’ ” Drew frowned, considering. “I wonder what this newspaper woman has to do with any of it. What do you say? Shall we go see if she’s in?”

  The offices of the Winchester Tattletale were on the fourth floor of a ramshackle building in the older part of Winchester’s business section.

  “They might at least have an elevator,” Nick huffed as he reached the landing between the third and fourth floors. “I thought gossip columns and smut were all the rage. Oughtn’t they be making money hand over fist?”

  “Perhaps the owner merely keeps all the profits for himself,” Drew said.

  Madeline grinned at him. “Maybe the squalid setting keeps the writers in the right frame of mind. I mean, just look at the kinds of stories they specialize in.”

  She scampered up the last flight of stairs, with Nick and Drew right after her. They all stopped short before an open door with a glass insert. The lettering on the glass was backward from that side, yet Drew could still read Winchester Tattletale stenciled on it. Even if the lettering hadn’t been there, he would have had no doubt that they were in the right place.

  There was the clash of voices from a number of telephone conversations, half-shouted, rapid-fire questions, the scribble of blunt pencils on scratchpads, and the clattering away of several typewriters. Above that was the sound of arguing, the voices belonging to a large middle-aged man in a shiny suit and a short thirtyish woman with unnaturally red hair. Neither of them seemed the slightest bit concerned about the rather pungent vocabulary they were both using.

  Drew knocked, quite politely, on the doorframe. “Pardon me.”

  Neither the man nor the woman noticed him, and the rest of the office roared on unabated.

  Drew cleared his throat. “Pardon me, but I’m looking for Miss Tracy.”

  Again no one took notice, and finally Nick put two fingers into his mouth and gave a piercing whistle.

  “Good afternoon,” Drew said into the sudden silence, his voice pleasant. “May I presume you are Miss Tracy?”

  “No,” she said, penciled brows drawn tightly together. “I’m Audrey Sherman, her secretary. Who are you?”

  Drew removed his hat. “I’m Drew Farthering. My friends and I would very much like to speak to Miss Tracy. Could you please direct us to where we might find her?”

  The redhead placed her hands on her hips. “Well, I wish I knew. I’ve been trying to reach her all day. I suppose she’s getting the story on Ravenswood, seeing they were such friends and all, but it’s not like her to not at least call in. Not after three days.”

  “Oh, come along, Audrey,” the man said, scowling at Drew. “I need you to type up my story for me. Won’t take a minute. There’s really nothing to it.”

  “If there’s nothing to it, you type it. I’ve got to get Miss Tracy’s column ready in case she doesn’t get back in time again.” She gave Drew an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but I really must get this seen to.”

  “Do you typically write her column for her?” Drew asked.

  “Not write it, no, but I have been known to type up her notes now and again when she’s out on a story. She was planning on a column about that duchess who’s carrying on with her chauffeur behind her husband’s back, you know the one, but I’m sure she dropped it when the Ravenswood news broke. Came in Monday morning at seven as always, read the front page, and was out like she was shot from a cannon.”

  “Did she say where she was going?” Madeline asked.

  “Never said a word to me or anyone as far as I can tell,” Audrey said. “Just grabbed up a stack of papers from her bottom drawer and dashed off. But she has a nose for a story, so I’m certain she’s off about Ravenswood.”

  “Very well.” Drew handed her one of his cards. “I would be very much obliged if you would ask Miss Tracy to telephone me when she comes in. Tell her I won’t keep her but a moment.”

  “All right.” Audrey grabbed a paper clip from a nearby desk and clipped the card to her notepad. “Can’t guarantee she’ll call, but I’ll tell her.”

  “She might like to know it’s about the Ravenswood case,” Drew added. “Unofficially, of course.”

  The man had said nothing all this while, but now he looked uneasy. “Are you with the police?”

  “Just this morning, in point of fact,” Drew said, ignoring Madeline’s reproving look. “Do you know anything about the Ravenswood matter, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Poste. Alvin Poste.” The man looked a bit green. Drew nodded at Nick, who pulled out a small notebook and jotted down the name. “Look here, besides what’s been in the paper, I don’t know anything about Ravenswood.”

  “You work here at the Winchester Tattletale, do you, Mr. Poste?” Nick asked, his voice taking on an impersonal yet official tone as he scribbled away.

  “I do.” The man squirmed and fidgeted with his collar. “Notable deaths is my line.”

  Drew blinked. “And you aren’t interested in the Ravenswood case? I should think, as local deaths go, his would be considered ‘notable.’ ”

  Poste shrugged. “I have what I need, and my column on him was in yesterday’s edition, thank you.”

  Audrey smirked. “He mostly takes what he reads in other papers, fancies it up a bit, and puts it in his column. Or were you planning to get additional information from Miss Tracy when she gets back in?”

  Poste merely looked down his nose at her and then looked at Drew, eyes anxious. “See here, I don’t want any trouble with the police.”

  Drew shook his head. “I can’t promise you won’t have, Mr. Poste, but you can rest easy about us. We are just making an unofficial inquiry. As a personal favor to someone and nothing to do with the police at all.” He looked once again at the woman. “I hope to hear from Miss Tracy soon. It’s quite important.”

  She tapped the card that was clipped to her notepad. “I won’t forget.”

  Eight

  What do you think, darling?”

  The workmen had finished the paint and wallpapering portion of the remodeling and gone to eat their midday meals. That gave Drew and Madeline some time to inspect the place alone.

  “I think it’s going to be lovely,” she told him, “once the smell of paint and wallpaper paste and sawdust has gone away and all the furniture put back where it belongs.”

  He chuckled. “We have three weeks until the wedding. I’m certain it will smell of nothing but furniture polish and roses once we move in.”

  She wrapped her arms around him. “I think it’s rather nice that neither of us have slept in here yet. It will make it all the more special when we do.”

  “Three weeks seems a very long time just now,” he said with a sigh.

  “I know.” She kissed his cheek and then pulled away from him. “But it’s not
forever.”

  “Even if it seems so.” He gave her a determined smile. “Very well, Mrs. Farthering-to-be, what if we turn our thoughts to matters we can do something about?”

  She pursed her lips. “You mean the Ravenswood case.”

  “I do. Shall we go down to the library and see what we ought to do next?”

  He took her arm and escorted her out of the room and down the hallway.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from that lady reporter yet, have you?” she asked.

  “Not yet, no. I’d like to solve this case and not have it to worry us anymore.”

  “So would I.”

  He was puzzled by the storminess in her expression, but then she smiled again.

  “Where do we go next?”

  He considered for a moment. “Well, as they say, we need to find out who would benefit from Ravenswood’s death. Financially. What do you say, darling? Would you care to pop round to the Tivoli and talk to this business manager of his?”

  “Well, all right. I just wish you weren’t doing any investigating right now.”

  “But, darling, what about poor Landis? It wouldn’t do him much good for us to look into the case any other time. And if his wife isn’t guilty, it would be awfully sad for him to lose her, wouldn’t it?”

  She pouted. “Maybe he’d be better off without her.”

  “Darling! Whether or not I might agree with you, he loves her and very much wants her cleared of suspicion. We ought to at least want the truth to be known, eh?”

  “Yes, I know. I know.” Still she pouted. “I’d just feel better if she wasn’t involved at all.”

  “Well, she won’t be at the Tivoli, just a desperately dull bookkeeper who probably won’t tell us much of anything useful. Now, would you or would you not like to come see him with me?”

  Finally she smiled. “Who could resist such an invitation?”

  Soon they were once again at the Tivoli’s stage door. It took a few determined knocks, but eventually the door opened.

  “Well, good afternoon, Mr. Farthering. Miss.” Grady beamed at them, leaning on the handle of his push broom. “Back again, are you? I’m afraid Miss Cullimore ain’t in yet. Nor Mr. Benton, if that’s who you come to see. Should be soon, but not yet.”

  “Actually,” Drew said, “we were hoping to speak to Mr. Zuraw. Is he in?”

  “Oh, him. Right.” The stageman motioned them into the hallway and pointed. “Go round the corner there, to your right and all the way at the back. His office is the last on the right.”

  “Excellent.”

  Drew flipped half a crown into the air. Grady caught it neatly and tucked it into his waistcoat pocket. Whistling, he carried on with his sweeping.

  Drew and Madeline followed his directions and soon found themselves at the end of a long, ill-lit corridor with doors at regular intervals along both sides.

  “Storage rooms, it seems,” Drew said, peeping into one and then continuing on down the hallway. “And the office of one Mr. Lew Zuraw.”

  He knocked on the last door on the right.

  “Yes, yes,” said a rather exasperated-sounding voice. “Come in. Come in.”

  Drew gave Madeline a wink. “Unless I am much mistaken, that is the accent of our slightly foreign Mr. Zuraw.”

  He opened the door, and he and Madeline stepped into a little hole of an office, remarkable for the amount of papers stacked on every available surface. Zuraw was just as Benton had described him: thick mustache, thick glasses, and thick middle. He squinted at them over the spectacles perched on his knobby nose.

  “Did you want something?”

  Drew removed his hat and gave the man his card. “My name is Drew Farthering, and this is Madeline Parker. We don’t want to disturb your work, but we thought perhaps you could answer a few questions about Mr. Ravenswood’s death.”

  “Ah, Miss Cullimore said you might wish to talk to me.”

  “I understand you were present at the little party after the last performance of Mikado,” Drew said. “Is that correct?”

  Zuraw nodded his balding head. “I’ve already told the police everything, but I suppose we must go through it all again.” He jabbed a stub of a pencil toward a pair of well-worn chairs piled with papers. “Sit. Sit.”

  “Thank you, er . . .”

  “Oh.” Zuraw looked around as if noticing the mess for the first time. “Anywhere. Anywhere.”

  Drew stacked the papers on the already cluttered floor and then pulled the chairs closer to the desk.

  “Could you tell us about that night?” he asked once he and Madeline were seated. “About the party.”

  Zuraw shrugged. “Nothing much to tell. After the show, everyone gathered in Mr. Ravenswood’s dressing room for champagne and congratulations. He made a speech, mostly telling us all what a fine fellow he was. There wasn’t enough champagne but for everyone to have one drink, save himself, so it was rather a quiet affair and broke up early.”

  “Was Mr. Ravenswood intoxicated?” Madeline asked.

  “Tipsy more like, I’d say.” Zuraw pulled out a large handkerchief and polished his glasses. “I never saw Mr. Ravenswood actually drunk, though he certainly could put it away when he liked. The only way one could ever tell he’d really had too much was he got sullen. Not generally a sullen man as a rule. Not sober anyway.”

  “So he wasn’t sullen that night?” Drew asked.

  “Not at all. He seemed in a jolly humor. Thick as thieves with that reporter he’s friends with, of course, but happy to talk to anyone.” Zuraw grinned. “So long as it was about himself.”

  Drew nodded. “Besides the reporter, was there anyone else there who wasn’t part of the company?”

  “Not that I noticed. No. It wasn’t much of a party at all.”

  Madeline looked at Drew, then smiled at Zuraw. “Do you know Fleur Landis?”

  “I’ve met her. Well, Fleur Hargreaves they call her more often than not, but yes, I’ve met her. Mr. Benton says she’s the one who killed Mr. Ravenswood.”

  “And what do you think of that theory?”

  “I can’t really say, I’m afraid. I don’t know her more than to say good day to, myself. They say she and Mr. Ravenswood were carrying on some years ago, but that was well before my time here.”

  “So she hasn’t been around the theater lately?” Drew glanced at Madeline, but her expression didn’t change. “I mean, you haven’t seen her about during the rehearsals or anything?”

  “No, no, I don’t mean that at all. She’s been about right enough.” Zuraw nodded rapidly. “Always telling the actors what they ought to do and such. When I first saw her, I thought, with her looks and all, she must be an actress trying to get work. Just the past three or four weeks now, though, I didn’t see her about much. I mean, I’m not really one to notice other people’s business, so I’m not saying she wasn’t here now and again, but I didn’t see her about often.”

  “Right,” Drew said. “Where did you see her when she was in?”

  “About the theater, of course, usually during the afternoon. And I heard her and Mr. Ravenswood squabbling from time to time in his dressing room and sometimes in the hallway.”

  Madeline frowned. “Every afternoon?”

  “No,” Zuraw said. “Several afternoons, but not with any kind of regularity. Just now and again.”

  “What else was she doing besides squabbling?” Drew asked. “Just now and again.”

  “I saw her near Mr. Ravenswood’s dressing room a couple of times while he was out. And when she was leaving the theater one time, I saw her then. Alone. Before that, I saw her talking to Miss Cullimore.” Zuraw’s forehead wrinkled. “That’s all that comes to mind just now.”

  “Do you suppose she and Mr. Ravenswood were seeing each other again?” Madeline asked.

  “Hard to say, miss, but I wouldn’t have thought so. She seemed to be badgering him about something. Something she didn’t want him to do.”

  Drew’s eyes met Made
line’s. That was more or less what Miss Cullimore had said. “Do you know what that was?”

  Zuraw shook his head. “None of my business. Mr. Ravenswood paid me to see to the books, and that’s what I did. So long as Miss Cullimore keeps me on, I’ll carry on doing it. Anything else is between the parties in question and their own consciences.”

  “I see.” Drew glanced at the stack of checks Zuraw was writing. “I see you’re in charge of disbursements as well as simply keeping the books.”

  “That’s right. I pay the bills, including the payroll. Manage the bank account. Everything to do with money, I see to.”

  “And you don’t have trouble keeping everything straight?” Drew gestured to the clutter. “In all this?”

  Zuraw looked at him coldly. “I know where everything is, young man.”

  “Oh . . . certainly. So, how did you and Ravenswood get along?” Drew asked. “Any disagreements over how things ought to be managed?”

  “Not at all. He didn’t much care how everything was handled so long as it was handled. If the bills were paid and the troupe had their wages and he had enough left over to live as pleased him, he didn’t much mind.”

  “And Miss Cullimore?” Madeline asked.

  “She asked a question or two here and there, and I told her I was happy to show her the books. But she’s an actress. She doesn’t know a debit from a credit and doesn’t care to be taught. I told her to have an audit if she liked, but she didn’t seem to care for that idea, either. Mr. Ravenswood only laughed at her and said she shouldn’t worry her pretty head over such things, that it was all seen to.”

  Drew looked again at the stack of checks on the man’s desk. “I understand the theater was owned by Ravenswood.”

  “By him and the bank,” Zuraw clarified. “Mostly the bank. You know how it is, Mr. Farthering, especially in the early years of a mortgage. Most of the payment goes for interest, and the principal stays almost the same. If you’re asking if someone killed Mr. Ravenswood for his interest in the Tivoli, I’d say no. It would be precious little to commit a murder for.”