Ask Me No Questions

by Shelley Noble

“Oh, Lord,” Bev said sitting up. “Becker, here? In this house?”

  “Who is he?”

  “The most cutthroat, greedy, ruthless, bribe-taking cop in the city. And ugly as sin. He always reminds me of a giant fireplug.”

  “Fireplug?” Phil laughed. “He did look like a fireplug.”

  “The ugliest. But he’s never been interested in Reggie before.”

  “Well, apparently he’s interested now.”

  “I’ll call Freddy.”

  “Bev? How high does Freddy’s influence go?”

  “Oh, Lord, I don’t know. He knows people.”

  That sounded awfully vague to Phil.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about me,” Bev said. “I’m not about to be cowed by Detective Atkins or Charles Becker. I can hold my own. Lord knows I’ve had to.”

  “But if they come after you?”

  “Let them come. I didn’t kill Reggie or that man in the library. Or anyone else. So set your mind at ease.” Bev leaned back and stretched. “Now, no more worrying. This will all be over soon.”

  “I hope you’re right. Now, if we can just convince the detective sergeant.”

  Bev wiggled her shoulders. “I’m sure you have your ways.”

  “I don’t believe my ways will work any more than yours have so far.”

  Bev sighed. “Such a loss. That face and those shoulders wasted on a policeman.”

  “True,” Phil agreed, glad for the distraction. “Like a dime novel cowboy. Without the horse.”

  “True. A pity, really. And the New York police department does have a horse brigade. I’d love to see him mounted.”

  “I would, too.” Phil cut Bev a sideways look. “And I’d be happy to oblige.”

  Bev laughed, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “Phil! How absolutely naughty of you, but I completely concur. That chest, those arms—”

  Phil threw a toss pillow at her, which Bev hugged to her chest. They were laughing when Tuttle knocked on the door.

  “Yes, madam?”

  Immediately sober, Bev asked him to telephone Freddy and advise him of the latest development.

  “I suppose you pay him a fortune, too,” Phil said as soon as the butler was gone.

  “Alas, yes.” Bev lowered her voice. “But I trust Tuttle more than…” She tilted her head in the direction of the dressing room.

  Phil nodded. A loyal lady’s maid was worth her weight and more. A maid who could be bought was no better than a politician.

  Phil didn’t have to warn Bev to be careful. She evidently knew the full measure of her Elmira. Phil wished she could say the same for her own Lily. And yet there was something about the girl. Would she give up Lily for someone with brilliant references?

  Not for all the tea in China.

  * * *

  With Tuttle in charge of apprising Freddy, and since Bev had no personal secretary, Bev and Phil embarked on all things funereal. The dressmaker was summoned and arrived shortly after to take measurements and pick out patterns. Phil unbent far enough to allow a gray taffeta silk visiting dress to be made with an accompanying black-trimmed pelisse. It would soon be too warm to wear the pelisse anyway. A funeral dress was decided on by Bev, and suddenly taken up with the idea of the latest in widows’ fashion, she ordered several other dresses.

  As soon as the dressmaker departed, Bev and Phil began making lists and preparing the announcement while Tuttle ordered black-edged cards from the stationer.

  Detesting every moment, Phil put on a brave and practical face, knowing her experience would help to make the situation for Bev much less painful than her own had been.

  By the afternoon post, undertaker and stone-carver advertisements filled the silver salver. Mr. Brangle, Reggie’s solicitor, made arrangements with the police to release Reggie’s body to a reputable undertaker he knew personally.

  Freddy telephoned to say he had reserved Saint Bartholomew’s Church for services, which would be followed by a processional to Green-Wood Cemetery. He advised Bev not to insist on a private ceremony. Reggie was a popular man and his friends would feel slighted. And would probably show up outside the doors of the church in a rowdy state of inebriation.

  Neither Bev nor Phil much cared for their feelings, but Bev acquiesced. “We don’t want a drunken brawl over the casket,” she said. “Father would have a fit.”

  Phil wrote the obituary and funeral times for the newspaper. Marguerite called several times offering to help, which Bev graciously didn’t accept, but with such heartfelt gratitude Marguerite could not take offense.

  Or at least shouldn’t, thought Phil. After Marguerite’s second telephone call, Bev finally agreed to let her choose the flowers and the casket blanket, and hung up with a “whew.”

  Phil didn’t know quite what to make of Marguerite Beecham. Lovely, demure, sympathetic. Phil didn’t trust those people. In her experience, benign people were invariably found to slowly disappear into nothing or to have a dastardly hidden agenda. She didn’t take Marguerite as the disappearing type.

  Though to be fair, Marguerite had given her no real reason to distrust her.

  By late afternoon, Phil was more than willing to return to her room for a lie-down before dinner and the arrival by Daniel Sloane.

  “I tell you, Lily,” Phil confided as she soaked in a hot tub, “this house is teetering on the brink of something. I’m just not sure what.”

  “Scandal,” Lily said, letting the word roll off her tongue.

  “Well, murder of one’s husband and then an unknown murder victim in the library does lend itself to speculation.”

  Lily rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “The mister was a gambler as well as a r-r-roué.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Phil said, thinking of the odd assortment of furniture and artwork. Maybe it wasn’t the Reynoldses’ eclectic spirit that replaced old valuable artwork by modern, less expensive furnishings. Lord, she’d seen enough of that in the great old houses of England. In the gradual depletion of artwork in her own rambling old mausoleum of a castle. In the paste jewelry worn around the necks of a multitude of impecunious duchesses and countesses.

  “He consorts with not-so-savory characters.”

  Phil perked up. “And you know this how? I thought the staff became mum when you were nearby.”

  Lily gave her that brief flash of smile. “Stupid ser-r-rvants. I go where I want. They do not always see.”

  “Ah. How clever of me to hire an invisible lady’s maid.” And what worked one way could also work the other. She liked Lily for her spunk and her bravery. But she would do well to follow her own admonishments to Bev. Be discreet until she knew Lily to be trustworthy and true.

  She shook it off. Ridiculous. The girl was one in a million.

  Which made Phil think of racing odds. Was the man in the library a thief after Reggie’s winnings? Possibly one of Reggie’s racing associates?

  What else would he be doing in the library? And when did he break in? What if he’d been dead for days? Well, maybe not days, but for a day. And who shot him? And why was his hand still in the desk drawer?

  Who knew murder could be so complicated?

  * * *

  Phil and Bev sat half the evening drinking martinis and waiting for the arrival of Bev’s father. Evidently it was taking him longer than expected to return to Manhattan. By ten o’clock Phil was ready to climb the walls. She was used to being bored at Dunbridge, especially being in mourning, but there was a whole world of excitement just beyond the doors of the brownstone. And here she sat, getting tipsy from good gin but for no good reason.

  Finally, at eleven, Bev took herself off to bed. Phil would have gone to the library for a book if she’d been able to get in. But the detective had taken the only two keys.

  She went upstairs to find Lily sitting in the dressing room.

  “Do you spend all your time here waiting for me?” Phil asked. “They have an intercom here if I need you.”

  “No. But Elmira went u
p to her mistress so I came, too.”

  “Ah.”

  “Are you ready for bed, madam?”

  “I am not.” Phil paced to the window, looked out, not really expecting to see anyone. She didn’t, except for a constable who seemed to be assigned as their personal bodyguard. Did they really need a bodyguard, or was the detective afraid that they would try to run?

  She dropped the curtain with a huff.

  “What is it, madam?” Lily asked, returning from the dressing room with Phil’s nightgown folded over her arm.

  “This is so infuriating.” Phil paced back to where Lily was standing by the bed. Looked at her from head to toe. “We really must get you new clothing.”

  Lily smoothed down her apron. “Is that what is annoying you, madam?”

  “No, no, but it must be rectified. Tomorrow. Regardless of dead men and obnoxious detectives, we must get you clothing. We’ll take Preswick. He’ll know best how to outfit a maid.”

  Lily made a sour face.

  Phil stopped her with a motion of her hand. “What bothers me is this situation we find ourselves in. Two murders: Reggie’s and the body in the library. What an absurd thing to say; it sounds like something out of a dime novel. And now Detective Atkins has taken the keys so that none of us can get in. And I don’t have a thing to read.”

  “He is not stupid, that one.”

  “No, I’m afraid he isn’t. Which of course could be a good thing.” Or very bad if he decided Bev had killed her husband.

  “Do you need to get into the library for a book?”

  Phil raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And if I did?”

  Lily shrugged one shoulder.

  “I don’t suppose you have skills in opening locked doors?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Then let us go.”

  “Not yet, madam. There will still be servants about.”

  “Oh.” Phil returned to the window. Her lady’s maid was an enigma, but could she really open locked doors? Phil could hardly wait to find out. She looked out the window again. The constable was still there. Only now he was talking to someone. A man in a dark overcoat.

  She pulled aside the drapes and peered around the edge. A match flared in the night, and the man in the overcoat walked off down the street without looking back. Phil peered after him, which was ridiculous. Just because the deliciously devious Mr. X lingered under the lamppost the night of the wake didn’t mean he’d return. Though the idea was intriguing.

  She kept watch for a while longer, listening to Lily rummage in the dressing room, doing whatever maids did. The constable never left his post except to walk a few feet to either side of the lamppost and back again.

  Finally, Lily returned and said, “This would be a good time to fetch your book, madam.”

  Lily stuck her head out the door, looked both ways down the hallway, then motioned Phil to follow. They tiptoed down the stairs like two thieves in the night.

  They had every right to be here. And Phil did need something to read.

  Downstairs was dark, something Phil hadn’t taken into account, and she didn’t dare turn on a lamp for fear of alerting the constable outside or waking Tuttle or Preswick. She stood blinking, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light, when she felt Lily’s fingers on her wrist and she was being pulled into an even darker passage.

  Phil tried to move as stealthily as possible, but what with dead people and police investigations and funeral preparations, she hadn’t had time to change her attire all day and now she cursed her stiff, noisy skirts.

  They stopped abruptly at the library door. She felt Lily kneel down.

  “What are you doing?” Phil whispered. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “Not necessary,” Lily whispered.

  Phil peered into the darkness. Heard Lily’s steady breathing. And a click. Lily stood, the door opened.

  Phil considered her lady’s maid with ever growing interest and admiration. “I don’t suppose I should ask where you learned that particular skill?”

  “No … my lady,” Lily said, and pushed her mistress inside.

  6

  Phil stood perfectly still. The library was pitch-black except where the drapes were slightly parted, and a tiny sliver of moonlight cast a wedge of light across the desktop. But beyond the heavy desk, all was in shadow, the bookshelves towered over her, and Reggie’s reading chair was posed like an amorphous nighttime monster.

  Phil shook her herself. This was no time for lurid imaginations.

  Lily eased the door closed. “What are we looking for?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll need some light.” Phil moved toward the desk, her hand outstretched. “Damn, I wish I had a torch. We’ll just have to turn on a lamp. Pull those drapes fully shut.”

  Lily seemed to glide, phantomlike, toward the window. But when she got there, instead of pulling the drapes closed, she opened them wider. “The windowpane is cut out.”

  “Yes. The inspector—I mean detective—and I discovered it yesterday. We think the thief cut it out in order to unlock the latch.”

  Lily studied the latch. “But the latch is painted over. He did not come through here.”

  Phil groped her way over to the window and looked at the lock more closely. Had Atkins noticed that and chosen not to point it out?

  Of course. He had no reason to include her. She frowned at the latch. From the tail of her eye she caught movement below them and stepped back into Lily. “There’s someone down there.”

  Lily pressed in beside her. “The constable. Do you think he saw us?”

  They both stepped from the window simultaneously.

  “We have every right to be here,” Phil said, with more calm than she actually felt. “I’m just looking for something to read.”

  “And did you break into the room, too? Because the door was locked. They’ll arrest me.”

  “They absolutely will not.”

  “How will you stop them?”

  “I’ll tell them I did it.”

  “But you don’t know how.”

  “You’ll teach me as soon as we get upstairs.”

  She and Phil pressed their faces back to the window. Phil leaned into the casement and tried to search the tiny patch of garden below.

  “Do you see anything?”

  Lily shook her head. “Are you sure someone was down there?”

  “I thought so, but most likely it was just shadows.” Phil turned from the window and sucked in her breath. Wordlessly, she pointed to the hulking shadow standing in the far corner.

  “It’s a coatrack, madam. A jacket is hung on the hook.” Lily’s voice quivered slightly, and Phil wasn’t sure if it was from relief or laughter.

  “So it is,” Phil said, chagrined at her own imagination.

  “Are you sure he was a thief? What is there to steal in a room filled with books?”

  “Bev said Reggie kept large sums of money here. See if you can find a safe.”

  Phil leaned over the desk to open the center frieze drawer, stopped with her hand two inches from the drawer pull, then snatched her hand away. “Wait!”

  Lily’s hand was already reaching for her skirts and the knife hidden at her leg.

  “Fingerprints,” Phil explained.

  “What, madam?”

  “How stupid of me. That detective will look for fingerprints, if he hasn’t already. We can’t touch anything.”

  Lily turned both hands over and studied her fingers. “Then how are we to find anything?”

  “I don’t—” The sentence stuck in her throat.

  Across the room, there was a soft click and the doorknob began to turn.

  Lily turned to Phil.

  “Fingerprints be damned,” Phil said. “Lily, the door!”

  Lily whirled around. A Meissen vase sat on a pedestal table a foot away. She grabbed the vase with both hands and lifted it over her head, just as the door opened.

  “Not the Meissen!” Phil hissed as Preswick steppe
d into the room.

  There was a moment while Phil watched in horror as Lily juggled the vase as she tried to change direction. And for a precarious moment Phil was sure the priceless antique would crash to the floor, destroying it and rousing the entire household.

  But she should have known better. Without a hitch, Preswick shut the door, walked over, and plucked the vase away just as it began to fall. He placed it carefully onto the pedestal and turned in full butler disapproval to confront the miscreants.

  “My lady,” he said at his blandest.

  “Ah, Preswick, you startled us. What are you doing here?”

  “I noticed that Lily had not returned to her chamber.” He paused to give Lily his sternest look. Instead of being cowed like a good—and Phil might add humble—servant would, Lily thrust out her chin and glared back at him.

  “I thought perhaps something might be amiss. And so I took the liberty of—”

  “He decided to spy on me,” Lily snapped.

  “See here—”

  “Not now, you two,” Phil said, coming closer to them.

  “I had no need to spy on you. I merely did the obvious.” He gave Phil a deadpan look. “I supposed you would not be able to resist the challenge of a locked room, and here you are.”

  “Actually, I’m glad you came, Preswick. You’ll know much better than either of us what to look for.”

  “Look for?” Preswick said, momentarily startled out of his butler demeanor. “And may I ask, my lady, how you managed to enter this room? Tuttle was very irate that the inspector had confiscated the only two keys, thus preventing the chamber maids from doing their work.”

  “Yes, well. We were forced to stoop to a bit of…”

  “Lock picking,” Lily supplied, and Phil could have stepped on her toe. Preswick would be outraged. “My mistress needed a book to read.”

  Preswick didn’t bother replying, merely looked down his rather formidable nose. It made no impression on Lily. At least not outwardly. Phil had thought she had as much sangfroid as the next person, but her maid could give as good as she got.

  And for some reason that made Phil a little sad.

  “Yes, I know, Preswick. Very unbecoming activity for the Dowager Countess of Dunbridge. But needs must. That detective sergeant is not being cooperative. And I’m afraid he may suspect Bev of both murders. And yes I agree that being involved in two murders isn’t good for my reputation.”