The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  “It’s wholly our pleasure, y’know, Mr Austin,” Vance drawled. And, as if further inspired by his surroundings, he leaped over a chair and turned a double somersault with an agility I hardly knew he possessed, as if the Douglas Fairbanks Black Pirate regalia gave him an athletic ability he otherwise lacked. Austin and his guests laughed delightedly, particularly a lovely red-haired flapper-type, quite obviously designed to represent the vivacious Clara Bow, with the beauty and personality of the original.

  Austin performed the introductions. “Mr Vance, this is Miss Molly Hawley.” Vance smiled and bowed to the waist in the best Fairbanksian manner. “And I am sure you are acquainted with her father, Judge Peter Hawley.”

  Judge Hawley, a slight, distinguished-looking man of late middle age, was known to both of us. But we hardly recognized him as the judge, he so resembled Henry B. Walthall in his greatest role, that of the Little Colonel in The Birth of a Nation.

  It occurred to me as we met the other guests how strangely appropriate their costumes were. For example, Arletta Bingham, a society flirt with many broken hearts (and homes) in her wake, was well cast as the vamp Theda Bara. Markham, in white ten-gallon hat and flamboyant cowboy garb, made a perfect Tom Mix. Indeed, much of the same kind of personal magnetism that had made Mix a star had led the voters of New York to put Markham into office.

  Sergeant Ernest Heath of the Metropolitan Police, a frequent participant in Vance’s previous cases, was among those present, rather surprisingly. In Heath’s case no costume was necessary, since he bore an uncanny resemblance to the humorous character actor Eugene Pallette.4

  Broadway playboy Roger Kronert impersonated country-boy hero Charles Ray – he appeared at the party in bare feet, blue jeans, checkered shirt, and wide-brimmed straw hat, a fishing pole over his shoulder.5 The most amazing and startling figure was struck by Broadway producer George Gruen, known as “the new Flo Ziegfeld”. It was appropriate that the creator of incredibly elaborate stage shows should turn up with the most elaborate disguise of all, an incredibly faithful imitation of Lon Chaney’s famed Phantom-of-the-Opera makeup, which has precipitated feminine screams of terror in movie houses throughout the world. Aside from the makeup, Gruen’s costume consisted of traditional evening dress and an all-enveloping black opera cape.

  It was a highly successful evening, made so not only by the inventive clowning of the host but by the astonishing vigor with which Vance threw himself into his swashbuckling role, doing everything like Fairbanks short of swinging from the chandelier. Only on a few occasions, in the early part of the evening, did any discordant notes introduce themselves, but those few incidents certainly foreshadowed the tragedy that was to strike before the gay festivities ran their course. It appeared that while all of the guests were wishing Jack Austin good luck, a few of them were not really on the best of terms with their host.

  It was no secret, for one thing, that Arletta Bingham was being summarily cast off by the departing Austin, and Miss Bingham was far more accustomed to rejecting than to being rejected. As the evening wore on, and drink loosened her tongue, her gay veneer began to slip away and a hidden bitterness to show itself.

  “You’re a big man, aren’t you, Jack?” she slurred. “Going to be a big talking, singing, dancing movie-talkie-singie star. Well, ain’t that swell?”

  “It’s such a wonderful thing!” exclaimed Molly Hawley. “To be seen by millions of people all over the world in one performance, where on the stage you can display your talent only to a few hundred at a time.”

  “I feel it’s a great opportunity,” said Austin, with feigned humility. “I hope I’m worthy of it.”

  George Gruen entered the discussion suddenly. He, like Miss Bingham, was beginning to wobble on his feet. “Talking pictures are just a fad, Jack! They’ll never catch on with the public. They go to movies to sleep – to be stimulated, they go to the theatre. And talkies will neither stimulate them like the legitimate theatre nor let them rest like the movies. Jack, take my word for it, you’re making a terrible mistake.”

  “If that is so, George, I shall come back to Broadway, and I’m sure you’ll be glad to give me a job.” Austin drifted away to join another group of guests, and the conversation quickly became more openly bitter.

  Arletta Bingham cackled drunkenly, “Broadway forgets fast. In three or four years his name won’t mean a thing. He’ll be a forgotten has-been. He won’t even be able to get a job.”

  “And you’ll still be a living legend in every bed on Broadway,” said Roger Kronert, raising his glass in facetious salute. The vamp snarled sullenly and took a gulp of her drink. As Kronert passed, she aimed at his bare toes with a vicious thrust of her heel and narrowly missed.

  George Gruen was talking to his drink more than to those around him. “He’s a welsher, that Jack Austin. He’s a dirty welsher.”

  “Come, come, George,” replied Monty Baby, a well-known Broadway agent, wearing the familiar hat, vest, and glum expression of Buster Keaton. “You let him out of his contract like a gentleman. Why spoil it now?”

  “He had no right,” the quasi-Opera Phantom moaned. “He’s a welsher. He wants to ruin me on Broadway.” It was well-known that with so many of Broadway’s top stars heading west, Gruen was having trouble finding a star for his new show, reportedly a weak vehicle that would take the artistry of an Al Jolson, an Eddie Cantor, a George Jessel, or a Jack Austin to put it across. Austin’s leaving the cast had been a well-publicized blow to the producer, but Gruen had been very sporting about it – at least in the theatrical pages.

  Another bad moment came when one of the waiters, elaborately moustached in the manner of lead-Kop Ford Sterling, spilled a tray of drinks on Jack Austin. It was a comical incident, as the waiter’s fumbling and Austin’s reaction had the style of a well-planned Hollywood “sight gag”. However, it soon became clear the incident was not planned and Austin was surprisingly angered by it. “You idiot!” he said between clenched teeth. “Get out of here!”

  “But, Mr Austin –” the unfortunate servant began.

  “Get out of here!” Austin iterated. Then he virtually chased the serving man back toward the kitchen. Recovering his composure, he returned to his guests in the comical tramp walk.

  “What a temper,” said a startled Clara-Molly Bow-Hawley, who had been looking on in shock.

  Another young woman, dressed in the homely garb of the perpetual ingenue Mary Pickford, replied, “You needn’t know Jack Austin long to find out about that. I know. I loved him. Once.”

  Shortly, the latter-mentioned lady, a New York debutante named Edna Stuyvesant, was cavorting with Vance and Austin in a manner reminiscent of the United Artists partners, Pickford, Chaplin, and Fairbanks.6 This entertainment served to get the party back to its previous quotient of merriment, and it remained so until eleven o’clock.

  At that hour, with most of the guests at the height of their enjoyment and many of them more-or-less intoxicated, it was suddenly realized that their host had not put in an appearance for some time.

  “What can have happened to him?” asked Molly Hawley.

  “He’s dropped out of sight,” Roger Kronert observed.

  “I remember him steppin’ into the library around nine-thirty, and I don’t believe I’ve seen the boy since,” said Vance. “I’ll see if he’s become ill or something.” And he strode toward the door of the library, hurling the huge punch bowl on his way. Markham, Heath, Stitt the butler, several other guests, and I followed him, though walking around the punch bowl. What we saw when Vance opened the library door was enough to bring the festivities of the evening to an abrupt halt.

  Jack Austin lay dead on the floor of the library, near the fireplace. His tramp costume was covered with blood, his Chaplinesque moustache pitifully askew. He had seemingly been stabbed several times, and the apparent weapon, an ornately chased Oriental letter opener, lay near the body.7

  “He’s done away with himself,” said Roger Kronert.

  “
Quite impossible, old chap, judging from the placement and multiplicity of the wounds,” said Vance.

  “Then he’s been murdered!” exclaimed Sergeant Heath.

  “Deucedly penetratin’, Sergeant.”

  “Who could have done this?” Judge Hawley whispered.

  “Virtually anyone here, I should think,” replied Markham grimly.

  “Or an outsider,” offered Heath, indicating the open window.

  “It must have been a prowler,” Hawley said shakily.

  Vance, kneeling beside the body, had made a discovery. “I think the old boy’s tryin’ to tell us something, Markham. Look at what he’s clutchin’ in his right hand.”

  “A pair of cheaters!” exclaimed Heath.

  “But Austin didn’t wear eyeglasses,” said Judge Hawley.

  “You’ll notice,” said Vance, “that they are of the large, round type affected by the motion-picture comedian Harold Lloyd. If one of the guests here to-night had come as Harold Lloyd, we might regard this as a most rewardin’ clue to the miscreant’s identity. However, I don’t recall anyone wearin’ such a costume.”

  Stitt, the butler, suddenly spoke up. “Harold Lloyd sent his regrets, sir. He could not come.”

  Vance rose. “Ah. Then there was to be a Harold Lloyd here tonight?”

  “Yes, sir. Mr Archie Belmont.”

  The name brought several gasps from the group. All the guests, suddenly sober, were now gathered around the body.

  “Why, he hated Jack!” Arletta Bingham exclaimed.

  Roger Kronert supported this contention. “He was supposed to get the part in that talkie they signed Jack Austin for. He hated Austin’s guts.”

  “Seems a likely suspect, Vance,” Markham said.

  “It’s possible,” Vance murmured.

  “Open and shut, if you ask me,” said Heath. “I’ll call the lab boys. Show’s over now, folks,” he added, dispersing the crowd. “Let’s give this corpse some air.”

  “Vance and I will have to talk to this fellow Belmont, see what sort of alibi he has,” said Markham. “You can hold the fort here, Heath. We’ll want to question everyone later, so no one may leave.”

  Several protests came from the assembled guests.

  “Save your breath, folks!” Heath said. “This is a murder investigation. It’s not a party no more.”

  “In that case, Mr D.A.,” said Arletta Bingham tauntingly, “hadn’t you better get out of that cowboy outfit before you carry this any further?”

  And suddenly we all realized how absurd we looked. Markham in his Tom Mix regalia, Vance in his Black Pirate apparel, Judge Hawley in a Confederate Civil War uniform, Roger Kronert barefoot in a tuxedo, Gruen in his opera cape and hideous makeup. With all merriment vanished, we looked rather pathetic and comic and even, taken in conjunction with the brutally murdered little tramp figure, somewhat terrifying.

  I shall never forget that macabre scene. With Austin’s murder, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Buster Keaton had all vanished, leaving only their outward habiliments behind. All of their merry spirit was washed away by the destructive tide of violent, unanticipated death.

  “Yes,” said Markham, “I think we should change into street clothes. Inconveniently, Mr Vance, Mr Van Dine, and I all arrived in costume, but I think those of you who donned your costumes here could be allowed to change. Then, Sergeant Heath will want to take your statements. Carry on, Heath.”

  “But, Mr Markham, if you leave now, you’ll miss Doc Doremus.”8

  “So we will. Well, if he says anything really funny, write it down. Mr Van Dine may be able to use it in a footnote.”9

  Stitt provided us with Belmont’s address, a plush Park Avenue apartment, and soon Vance, Markham, and I were in a taxicab on our way there, glad to leave the horror of deflated dreams behind us at the now-somber Austin mansion.

  “All that blood,” Markham, still in the all-white uniform of a wild west “good guy,” was saying, “The murderer had to be spattered with it, Vance! And so I don’t see how it could be someone who was at the party. Any of them could have slipped into the library unseen, but how could they have gotten out and rejoined the party without being covered with enough blood to give them away to the other guests?”

  Vance did not attempt to answer the question.

  “I’m sure Belmont is our man, Vance. It appears the simple, uncomplicated product of a diseased, insane, vengeful mind. Don’t you agree?”

  Vance said sorrowfully, “Markham, old dear, I make it a practice not to jump to conclusions about people whose psyches I have not probed. Belmont may prove to be psychologically incapable of this murder. I will know soon enough.”

  Markham snorted. “If you had to present a case to a jury, Vance, you’d be more interested in hard-core evidence.”

  “Quite so, but I am an amateur in crime detection. Once I find a murderer, I have no taste for mountin’ him in a big album like a prize postage stamp. I’m not int’rested, y’know, in your stupid courts and your silly rules of evidence. That’s your department, my dear chap, and the people of New York pay you handsomely for it.”

  Markham grunted in reply. That was the extent of our conversation en route to Belmont’s quarters.

  We found Belmont at home alone. He greeted us affably enough. At first glance, it seemed unlikely he had been out that evening. He appeared to all the world like a man spending a quiet evening at home.

  “We expected to see you at Jack Austin’s party to-night, Mr Belmont,” said Markham.

  “What a bore that would have been! He sent over a costume for me to wear – a Harold Lloyd getup. I sent my regrets. I hope I never see that ham again.”

  “You probably won’t,” remarked Markham heavily. “Have you sent the costume back?”

  “No, it’s still here. Why? What’s this all about?”

  “May we see the costume, please?”

  “Yes, of course. What’s happened anyway?”

  “Jack Austin was murdered tonight, Mr Belmont. He had a pair of Harold Lloyd glasses clutched in his hand when we found him.”

  Belmont looked up with a start. “Murdered? Say, you surely can’t think that I –”

  “We understand that you hated Jack Austin because he was chosen for that part in the talkie picture.”

  Belmont laughed. “Look, that’s one of those things that happen. It would have been a great opportunity for me, but I’ve lost parts before. I was disappointed, but I’d hardly commit murder over it. As for hating Austin, I’ll admit I was no fan of his. He was an insufferable egotist, an impossible man to work with, and an utter cad, a one-hundred per cent wretch. Whoever killed him deserves a medal. But I am not the man.”

  “Mightn’t you get that part now that he’s dead?” inquired Markham.

  “A possibility. But it hadn’t occurred to me until you just mentioned it.”

  Markham’s expression indicated he doubted the statement. In the meantime, Belmont had found the box the costume had come in. The familiar Harold Lloyd glasses, however, were absent.

  “I don’t understand it,” muttered Belmont. “I must have mislaid them.”

  “Perhaps you mislaid them at Jack Austin’s home, Mr Belmont. Perhaps, during your struggle, he grabbed them off your very nose.”

  “Mr Markham, why would I wear the Harold Lloyd costume at all, if I wasn’t even going to the party? That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “I don’t pretend to understand the mind of a cold-blooded murderer. Mr Belmont, by the authority vested in me by the people of New York County, I arrest you for the murder of Jack Austin and remind you that anything you say may be used against you.”

  “Tut! Tut! Markham,”10 said Vance softly. These were the only words he uttered while we were in Belmont’s apartment. They were enough to show Markham that Vance felt the District Attorney was proceeding too hastily, and Markham seemed uneasy after the arrest was made.

  Back at the Austin mansion, we found that Heath ha
d been hard at work taking statements from the guests.

  “I think they can go home now, don’t you, Vance?” Markham said hopefully. “I imagine we can consider this investigation as good as closed.”

  “Not quite, Markham,” Vance replied. “I am not convinced that Mr Belmont is psychologically capable –”

  “Psychology again!” Heath exclaimed disgustedly. “Mr Vance, I know you’ve done some good work in the past, but you can’t take every case like it’s a page out of – who’s the fellow?”

  “Freud, you mean? My dear Heath, a psychological approach is suitable to any problem of crime. And there are other people far more psychologically capable of committing this crime, people in this house now.”

  Before the discussion could continue, Stitt approached us, still ludicrously dressed as one of Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops. “Mr Vance,” he said stiffly, “I think there is something you should know.”

  “What is that?”

  “Those glasses that Mr Austin had in his hand are not the same pair that were sent to Mr Belmont.”

  “They weren’t, eh? Then there were two pairs?”

  “Yes. The pair that Mr Austin had in his hand were given him by Mr Harold Lloyd himself. They occupied an honored place on the mantelpiece in the library.”

  “I see. Then they were always here, not brought in by someone from outside. That puts a pos’tively different light on matters, y’know. He grasped ’em not from the nose of his murderer, as Mr Markham has postulated, but from the mantelpiece.”

  “In an effort to tell us the murderer’s identity,” said Markham.

  “Quite so. Changes matters a bit, eh what?”

  Markham appeared exasperated. “But, Vance, I honestly don’t see how this development changes anything. I still would put the same interpretation on the clue, wouldn’t you? That is, as an indication of the guilt of the man who was to impersonate Harold Lloyd – that is, Archie Belmont.”