Ask Me No Questions

by Shelley Noble

  “Freddy Beecham is out for what he can get, any way he can get it, and you don’t want to be a part of that. Reggie wouldn’t want you to do that.”

  “Bobby, I’m sorry. But it’s been decided.”

  Bobby shook his head. For a terrible moment Phil was afraid they’d have to call the footmen to bodily remove him from the room.

  “Look. I’m gonna tell you straight. Reggie owed a lot of money, fixing up the farm and building the training track, the horses. It all cost a lot more than he figured.”

  “I gave him plenty,” Bev said, an edge to her voice.

  “Well, he tried to double it, but he got scorched. He was going to win it all back with Devil’s Thunder. Somebody killed him before he could. I’ll go, but don’t blame me when it all comes tumbling down.”

  He stood, fists clenched, hulking over Bev like an angry gargoyle.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as you’re gonna be. Remember that.”

  He brushed past Phil and Tuttle. Tuttle, recovering, quickly followed him. Phil had to run to catch up.

  “Bobby, wait.”

  He barely hesitated.

  “Do you know something concrete, or are you threatening Mrs. Reynolds?”

  “Threatening? Lady, Reggie was my best friend. What kind of man do you think I am?” And with that he stormed out of the house.

  What kind, indeed, Phil wondered as she returned to the parlor.

  “I feel terrible,” Bev said. “But it’s like Freddy said. The man was a prizefighter. Not the most scrupulous of creatures. To be in charge of my fortune, or what’s left of it … What was Reggie thinking? Am I wrong to trust in Freddy? Phil, say something.”

  “I think we must be missing something, Bev.” And it’s time I put my mind to finding out what it is.

  * * *

  That night, after sending Bev to bed with a sleeping powder, Phil called her two servants together.

  Lily took her usual place next to the stack of books with a pad and pencil placed in front of her. Preswick refused to sit until Lily pulled his chair from the hallway and placed it at the study table.

  Phil paced the room while the other two waited patiently for her to begin.

  “Time is passing. We need to take this dilemma by the horns and shake it until we get some answers.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Preswick said.

  Lily merely picked up her pen. “Ouch.” She shot Preswick an angry look. “Yes, my lady.”

  “Excellent. Now, this is what we know. And it only goes this far. No one else is to know anything, because, quite frankly, I have no idea whom we can trust.

  “What we know is Reggie is dead. Possibly shot with Bev’s pistol. A man was found dead in the library, also shot with Bev’s pistol. At least Detective Sergeant Atkins thinks so.” She glanced at Lily to make sure she was getting this all down.

  Lily finished writing and looked up. “She shot both of them?”

  “A logical conclusion, except that the man in the library, according to Tuttle, must have been shot before Reggie was shot, not after as I have been assuming.”

  “So how did the pistol get back in the library?” Preswick asked, finally unbending to enter into the investigation.

  “Exactly, because the library was kept locked and Bev didn’t have the key.”

  “So she says,” Lily said.

  “So she says, and so says Tuttle.”

  “Who is a loyal servant to the family,” added Preswick.

  “So she might have shot a burglar before leaving the house to come to the docks. Locked the library door with a key that presumably doesn’t exist. Killed Reggie and somehow got back into the library without anyone seeing her and threw the pistol on the floor for the police to find.”

  “That would be a stupid thing to do,” Lily said.

  “Indeed.” Phil took another turn to the window and back. “Bev is flighty, and sometimes silly, but she isn’t stupid. And I really don’t think she’s a murderess. And evidently John Atkins didn’t either, or he would have arrested her.

  “We’ve been thinking in terms of a lovers’ triangle, or an unknown killer with an as yet unknown motive.”

  “The jockey Eddie,” Lily said.

  “Perhaps, but why? And how would he—or for that matter Bev or Mimi LaPonte—be connected to the dead man, a local crook?”

  “What was the dead man doing in the library, my lady?” Preswick said.

  “Stealing something,” Lily said, and added, “my lady.”

  Phil put her hand to her forehead. “I think we can dispense with the ‘my lady’ while we’re investigating, don’t you? I never noticed before how it clutters a conversation.”

  “Yes, my—yes,” Preswick said.

  “Everyone gambles, at least a little,” Phil said. “I plan on putting something down on Devil’s Thunder if we ever make it to the races. It would be disloyal not to.”

  “People lose their fortunes through ill luck.”

  “True, Preswick. But I don’t see how gambling could play into the two murders.”

  “What if the dead man was putting the squeeze on Mr. Reynolds?”

  “Lily, you will not use phrases of that ilk in the presence of your mistress or any person of quality. You should not use it at all,” Preswick admonished her.

  “They said it in the kitchen. Is it slang, then?”

  “Yes, my dear, it is.” Phil smiled at Preswick. “I told you she was a quick learner.”

  Preswick’s countenance didn’t change, but she’d known him long enough to see that he was becoming proud of the girl.

  “So he comes in to squeeze Reggie,” Phil began. “Reggie shoots him? Then later shoots himself? Then how does the pistol get back to the library?”

  “If there were two of them like we thought at first, they came in to steal the money, got in a fight, and one of them killed the other.”

  “Then takes the money or whatever it was, follows Reggie, kills him, and then returns here and breaks in again to put the gun back?”

  Lily sighed. “That would be stupid, too. Besides, they didn’t break in.” She slumped back. “None of this makes sense.”

  “No it doesn’t. But it will … eventually.”

  It was late when Phil called an end to their speculations. Lily closed the notebook on a yawn. Tuttle rose stiffly from his chair and returned it to the hall before bidding them good night.

  Neither Lily nor Phil spoke while Lily brushed out Phil’s hair and helped her into bed. They’d speculated, analyzed, made a list of events, a list of clues, a list of possible suspects and motives. There were too many of each. And yet each time they tried to whittle them down, a new idea arose to prevent them. What they all needed was a good night’s sleep and a fresh brain.

  But Preswick would be at his superfluous post first thing in the morning. And Lily would be up even before that. Phil knew she had a lot to do tomorrow, she just wasn’t sure what.

  It had been a long, exhausting day, and Phil fell asleep immediately. She awoke just as quickly. Sat bolt upright in her bed. A thought had awakened her, an elusive scent in her memory. A reason for killing Reggie that she couldn’t grasp. A sense that they had been looking at the crime scene from the inside out, when it should have been the other way around.

  Then all thoughts dissipated like John Atkins’s dandelion, and she fell back asleep and dreamt of flowers.

  * * *

  Phil didn’t expect to find Bev at the breakfast table the next morning. Tuttle, however, was waiting for her with the newspapers turned to page six.

  “Mrs. Beverly Reynolds and Lady Philomena Amesbury, Countess of Dunbridge, who is visiting Mrs. Reynolds from England,” the article began, “were set upon by ruffians as they exited the Lincoln Safe Deposit Company yesterday a little after two o’clock. Mrs. Reynolds’s purse was stolen. No one was injured.”

  “Outrageous,” Phil said. “It took less than two minutes for the entire episode to occur.” Either
Detective Sergeant Atkins was correct about the journalists or he’d leaked the information himself. “Well, at least the town will have something other than murder to gossip about for a refreshing change.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Oh, I am sorry, Tuttle,” Phil said, noticing he was holding the coffeepot at the ready.

  While he poured her coffee, she scanned the rest of the headlines, turned to the sports and racing news and perused the latest results of the Jamaica races. There was a small item about Reggie’s death and the state of betting on Devil’s Thunder. The odds were still favoring Thunder, with a horse named Shadow Boxer the next favorite at 10–1.

  She put the paper aside and went to the buffet to fill her plate with eggs, bacon, and tomato. Tuttle set a stand of toast next to her plate.

  “I expect Mrs. Reynolds will sleep in this morning,” Phil said.

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Good. She needs her rest.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Phil sighed. Somehow here in America, hearing “my lady” after every other word seemed absurdly out of place.

  The front bell sounded and a minute later a footman came to the door of the dining room and motioned to Tuttle.

  “Pardon me, my lady.”

  “Of course, Tuttle, but if it’s Bobby Mullins, please send him away. Mrs. Reynolds has had quite enough upset from that quarter.” Phil reached for a piece of toast. The brownstone was becoming quite as busy as Victoria Station.

  “Miss LaPonte is at the door, demanding to see you or Mrs. Reynolds.”

  “Good heavens, show her in.”

  Tuttle bowed and withdrew, but returned almost immediately, Mildred Potts, pressing behind him, somewhat like a racehorse at the starting line. As soon as she was inside, she rushed to where Phil was seated.

  “Good morning,” exclaimed Phil. “Miss LaPonte, won’t you be seated. Have you breakfasted? Coffee, perhaps?”

  Mimi shook her head energetically, cut a look toward Tuttle.

  “Thank you, Tuttle, that will be all.”

  Tuttle hesitated, then left the room.

  “Do sit down,” Phil said, marveling at the transformation of the woman before her. She might be doing a melodrama at Drury Lane as the grieving widow. She was dressed in a drab black gown and a black picture hat with equally black plume and veil that Phil remembered seeing as a part of her Florodora costume.

  Fortunately, she was holding a black handkerchief in one hand and a tapestry bag in the other, or Phil had no doubt that she would have entered wringing her hands and thrown herself at Phil’s feet.

  “Please.” Phil gestured to the chair and hoped that Tuttle would have the good sense to keep his mistress from making a surprise appearance.

  “I don’t have time to socialize, Lady Dun … whatever. I heard what the coppers did over here, and somebody broke into my rooms while I was performing last night. They left it in a terrible shambles.”

  “How awful. Do you think it was the police?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody saw them and they didn’t leave no calling card.”

  Mimi had moved far enough to stand behind the chair but made no move to sit down.

  “I need to talk to Mrs. Reynolds, but that stiff shirt wouldn’t let me in.”

  “So you asked for me, very wise. What seems to be the problem?”

  “They’re gonna kill me.”

  But not before you kill the mother tongue, thought Phil, and kept her sympathetic expression in place. “Who is going to kill you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know who Reggie told.”

  Oh, Lord, thought Phil. It was more than a lovers’ triangle. “Well, sit down and tell me all about it.”

  Mimi looked around the room, then pulled out the chair and sat down, keeping the bag in her lap.

  Phil poured a cup of coffee and placed it before her. She stared at it as if it might be poisoned. Her whole demeanor was getting a bit tiresome.

  “Now Miss LaPonte, why would someone want to kill you? Perhaps we can figure out who it is.”

  Mimi blinked several times. Her lip quivered.

  Phil realized she was sincerely frightened and relented. “Now my dear, tell all.”

  Mimi sniffed. “The book.”

  Phil sat very still, determined not to show excitement. The book that Reggie had promised to Daniel Sloane? It must be. Surely he hadn’t been killed over a tell-all bit of gossip. Or had he? Was Mimi’s life really in jeopardy?

  “It was just a joke at first, you know?”

  Phil made encouraging murmurs.

  “Me and Reggie. We’d be with people and they’d go beyond the line…” She paused for a reminiscent smile. “Sometimes Reg and I did, too.”

  Spare me the details, Phil thought.

  “At first it was just me, writing like a diary. Ya know, in case I became famous and had to write my memoirs. People can do the craziest things. And I wrote ’em all down. Then I’d read them to Reggie and he laughed like they was the funniest things he’d ever heard. And said to keep it up. It was a gold mine.”

  A gold mine? Mildred Potts was the “lady” who wrote the scandal book? The mind boggled.

  “So I did. Sometimes he’d tell me about things he’s seen or heard and we’d laugh till we was about to bust. Then after a while Reggie, he gets on the bandwagon, so to speak, and he starts writing stuff down, too.

  “Sometimes I wrote about Mrs. Reynolds. She’s no saint, no matter what people think. I didn’t let Reggie know about those.”

  Really, Phil would be amazed if anyone thought Bev a saint; still she held her peace. Was Mimi LaPonte, Mildred Potts, about to try a little blackmail? Well, wouldn’t she be surprised.

  “I felt a little bad about that, ’cause I think we could probably have been friends if I hadn’ta stolen her husband.”

  Phil seriously doubted it.

  “And I’m thinking how’s it all gonna end. With my name up on the marquee of some big Broadway theater and all the stories of my love affairs and people I partied with.”

  An automobile backfired outside, and Mimi squeaked. “They’re gonna kill me.”

  “Because of a few risqué stories? That doesn’t seem likely. Who knows about the book?”

  “Nobody. Reggie said we wasn’t to tell. I didn’t see what the big deal was. Some of the things were pretty funny and I thought people might get a kick out of them, you know?”

  Phil nodded, wondering how much the woman was going to ask for.

  “Then Reggie started writing down things that happened when I wasn’t around. And he said it was our insurance policy. Sometimes he’d talk like that, and it would give me the willies.

  “Now Reggie’s been killed, and Bobby’s disappeared, and there’s—”

  “Wait. Bobby’s disappeared? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. He’d said he’d accompany me to the theater on account of those threats, but he didn’t come.”

  “It’s still quite early. Are you sure he isn’t just running late?”

  “I’m sure, I tell you. No one’s seen him at his lodgings or down at the pub. I think they musta killed him, too. I gotta get out of town. You have to help me.”

  “Calm yourself. We saw Mr. Mullins last night. He was angry at something that happened at the stables. Maybe he just, um, ‘tied one on,’ I believe is the expression, and is sleeping it off somewhere.”

  Mimi shook her head. “They killed Bobby, too. They musta found out I gave him the book for safekeeping after they killed Reggie.”

  “Who is they?”

  “I tell ya, I don’t know. Some rich pooh-bah that don’t want his wife gettin’ into trouble. We got real juicy stories in it. Some of these fine ladies sure know how to get rambunctious.

  “I’m gonna be next. They’re probably waiting for me outside your door.”

  And to Phil’s discredit, her first thought was, We can’t possibly withstand another murder so close to home.

  “I need to get
out of town. I want five thousand dollars.”

  Ah, now it comes. “Miss Potts, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time. Poor Bev doesn’t have a cent to her name. Reggie spent it all. And I … well, I just arrived from England. I have no banking arrangements set up as yet. I’m afraid you’ll have to take your book elsewhere.” Phil smiled ruefully but couldn’t keep from holding her breath. She wanted that book. “I’m sorry. Perhaps one of your other subjects will be able to help you.”

  “I bet Mr. Sloane would pay to keep his daughter’s name out of the papers.” A determined half smile quivered on Mimi’s lips.

  Phil almost felt sorry for her. Almost. “I’m afraid Mr. Sloane is quite used to seeing his daughter’s name in print.”

  Mimi gave up all pretense. “You have to take it.” She fumbled in the bag pulled out a red leather-bound notebook.

  Phil pushed back her chair and rose. “I’m sorry, Miss Potts, I’d like to help, but unfortunately it is out of the question.”

  “A thousand, then,” Mimi said, jumping up to stop Phil’s exit. “A thousand and you can have it. Burn it or sell it to one of them scandal sheets, I don’t care. I don’t want it.”

  “Then why don’t you burn it?”

  “Reggie said to guard it with my life, but I thought he was just saying that.”

  “Who is ‘they,’ Mildred?”

  “The men who Reggie wrote about.”

  And now the plot thickens. This book was not just about ladies but also about gentlemen behaving badly. Reggie must have had real knowledge that could be dangerous. And Phil wanted that notebook.

  “Sit down, Miss Potts. I cannot in good conscience let you go out to an uncertain fate.”

  Mimi sat. Phil buzzed for Tuttle and asked him to send for Lily.

  Lily appeared two minutes later. Phil took her aside and explained quietly what she needed and cued Lily on what to bring. Lily curtseyed and withdrew.

  “Where will you go?” Phil asked, just to pass the time until Lily returned.

  “Home, maybe. If my parents will take me back. I don’t know.”

  “Ah, and where is home?”

  “Why do you want to know? Are you going to tell them?”

  “Just making conversation, my dear. I don’t know who they are.”

  “Well, I don’t either, but Reggie did and now he’s dead.”