Gin and Panic

by Maia Chance

  “There might’ve been, yes.” Miss Murden uncapped the milk and poured it into the saucepan.

  “What sort of pudding are you making?” I asked.

  “Arrowroot.”

  Berta sniffed. “The lowest form of pudding.”

  “Just for the sake of argument,” I said, “if Mr. Montgomery was murdered, who do you suppose did it?”

  “Don’t go trying to make me point fingers.”

  Berta said, “Who else was in the house when the shot was fired?”

  “Why do you two want to know all of this, anyway?”

  “I am a great reader of Lurid Tales magazine,” Berta said.

  “My adolescent nephew reads that nasty pulp. Ghosts and goblins and vampires and killer robots and monster squids?” Miss Murden snorted. “Not suitable for a grown woman.”

  “It is most diverting,” Berta said, “and it has alerted me to the fact that things are not always what they seem. What is more, we are private detectives.” She pulled one of our business cards from the capacious black handbag she always carried and placed it on the counter next to Miss Murden. “We have been hired by Lord Sudley to investigate Mr. Montgomery’s death.”

  “My.” Miss Murden glanced at the card with contempt as she stirred her pudding. “You have been reading Lurid Tales. Well. I’ll tell you who was in the house and could’ve done in poor Mr. Montgomery. In theory, that is, because the police did say it was suicide, and you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Go on,” I said. I noticed for the first time that, despite her drab black dress, Miss Murden wore a saucy pair of high black T-straps with teardrop cutouts. I’d drooled over the exact pair in the window of Wright’s Department Store just last week. Quite a costly pair of kicks for a servant.

  “First off,” Miss Murden said, “you two were in the house. What do any of us know about you? Showed up out of the blue—”

  “We were with Coral in the drawing room when the shot was fired,” I said.

  “Hmph.” Miss Murden stirred the milk in the saucepan. “Weren’t Mrs. Bradford and Mr. Monroe in the drawing room with you, too?”

  “No, actually. Only Coral. Mrs. Bradford stepped out to use the powder room, and Mr. Monroe said he had a telephone call to make, so they were both gone.”

  “Aha. There are your murder suspects.”

  “What about servants?”

  “There is only one servant living in the house besides myself, and that’s Mwinyi—Lord knows if I’m saying that right.”

  Mwinyi was surely the manservant I had noticed carrying trays up and down the stairs for Coral.

  “Only two servants for such a large house?” Berta said.

  “Mr. Montgomery didn’t live here most of the time. Mwinyi was hired to be Mr. Montgomery’s valet, although here at the house he has been acting as valet, butler, and chauffeur. I’m more a caretaker, really—I have my own nice, snug little apartment on the third floor. This fall was the longest Mr. Montgomery ever stayed here at a stretch. Coral liked it here, he said, although I never hear the end of her whining about how dull Carvington is, and she flits down to New York City at the drop of a hat. Mwinyi drives her. Awful waste of gasoline, when she could be taking the train. The cleaning ladies come only on Mondays and Fridays, so they weren’t here today. Big parties like this run me ragged, doing all the cooking myself, although Mr. Montgomery’s guests always drink more than they eat.”

  “Was Mwinyi inside the house when the shot was fired?”

  “He was out with the hunting party. Oh, I nearly forgot. That pompous college student was in the library today when it … happened.”

  “College student?” Berta said.

  “His name is Theo Wainwright. Drinks endless cups of tea and never looks me in the eye, even though everyone knows who his mother was.”

  “Who was his mother?” I asked.

  “Never you mind.”

  I squirrelled that tidbit away for later.

  “What was he doing inside the house?” Berta asked.

  “Looking at moldy old books that belong to this house. He has been for a few months now—since September. Mr. Montgomery gave him permission—Theo claims he needs the books for his studies—but Mr. Montgomery didn’t want him taking the books out of the house on account of them being terribly fragile. Mildew farms is what I call them. I’d burn the lot.”

  “Where might we find Theo Wainwright?” Berta asked.

  “At the college. History department.” Miss Murden stirred arrowroot powder into the bubbly milk. “Or at Mrs. Noll’s boardinghouse on Scrimshaw Street.”

  “How do you know where he lives?” I asked.

  “Carvington is a very small town.” Miss Murden’s tone strongly suggested she thought I had toasted corn flakes for brains.

  “A few minutes before the shot was fired in Rudy’s bedroom,” I said, “there was another loud popping sound. Some of us in the drawing room thought it was a gunshot from the hunting party, but someone mentioned it might’ve been you with a meat tenderizer or some such gadget here in the kitchen.”

  Miss Murden shrugged. “Might’ve been. I was down here slaving over the hot stove during that evil hour. Oh yes—I remember that I did knock a metal bread pan from a high shelf. Metal pans on these stone floors make such a racket. Now, if it was murder—which it wasn’t—but if it was, well, now that I’m thinking on it, I’d place my bets on that Mrs. Bradford.”

  “Isobel?” I said. “Why? She seems such a stodgy, proper type.”

  “Seems, yes, but she’s also a snoop.”

  Berta and I leaned in. “Oh?” we both said.

  “She’s been here only since yesterday, but I keep catching her where she doesn’t belong. Poking through the library in the wee hours with a flashlight. Knocking on animal-head trophies like she’s trying to figure if they’re hollow or not.”

  Well, well, well.

  Miss Murden cast a narrow look toward the kitchen stairs. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she’s snooping right now.”

  “What do you suppose she’s looking for?” I asked.

  “Who knows? Hidden treasure? Government bonds? Maybe she’s one of those mediums, looking for the ghost.”

  “Ghost?” Berta breathed. Every issue of Lurid Tales featured at least one story involving séances, ectoplasm, and mysterious cold zones.

  “This house is haunted,” Miss Murden said with satisfaction. “A lady in white roams the estate. She’s been known to push people, so you’d best be careful on the stairs at night.”

  Goose bumps sprang up on my arms. “You know,” I said, “there was one other person in the house when Mr. Montgomery was murdered.”

  “Who?” Miss Murden said.

  “You. Any reason you’d wish to be rid of your employer?”

  Miss Murden pointed at the stairs with a pudding-globbed spoon. “Out!”

  I reached for the cake.

  “Leave that!”

  Berta managed to make a dignified exit with her plate of sandwiches, but I slunk upstairs empty-handed.

  “Isobel Bradford, snooping around the estate and knocking on hunting trophies?” I said to Berta once we were shut into her bedroom with our bologna sandwiches. “That sounds suspicious.”

  Berta’s large, well-appointed guest room overlooked the moon-burnished sea. On a point to the west, a lighthouse splashed its light out into the vast blackness. Here inside, however, a coal fire wafted delicious heat. The velvet chairs were squashy and the lamps subdued. My own chilly room, which I suspected was a renovated linen closet, wasn’t large enough for a business meeting, and with its sloped ceilings, even Berta was in danger of bumping her head.

  “I wonder if Isobel is searching for the same rhinoceros trophy that Lord Sudley is,” Berta said. “I would not get too cozy with him if I were you, Mrs. Woodby.”

  “Me, cozy with a client? Never.” Actually, cozy sounded aces. Cozy with Ralph. I gave myself a mental slap and stuffed more sandwich in my mouth. Ralph was
Off-Limits.

  Berta had her notebook and pencil out. “I shall position Isobel Bradford at the top of the suspect list. I did not take to her. She is one of those sour, judgmental women.”

  “It was awfully suspicious the way she excused herself to go to the powder room only a minute or so before the shot was fired.”

  “Would she have had time to reach Rudy’s bedroom?”

  “Easily, if she’d been brisk about it. Up the stairs and to the north side of the house. Did you notice that his bedroom is right above the drawing room, and that his window was open when his body was found? That’s why we were able to hear his argument with Coral and then the gunshot so clearly, since Isobel opened the drawing room window. And remember that we smelled gunpowder?”

  “I wonder why his bedroom window was open. The weather does not really recommend it.”

  “Perhaps the killer fled through the window—down a ladder, maybe.”

  “We would have seen it from the drawing room.”

  “True. Maybe they went through the window and up to the roof?”

  “We must examine the outside of the house.” Berta was writing in her notebook. “I am also including Miss Murden on the suspect list, as well as Glenn Monroe and the college student who was studying in the library.”

  “Oh, you mean Sweater Vest.” I popped the last bit of sandwich into my mouth.

  “I believe Miss Murden said his name is Theo Wainwright.”

  Good thing Berta had a good memory for names.

  At any rate—hooray!—we had our suspect list:

  Isobel Bradford

  Miss Murden

  Glenn Monroe

  Theo Wainwright

  This murder investigation would be different from the others. We’d be organized. Efficient. Superbly logical. And with only four suspects, why, we’d be clinking celebratory glasses of bootleg bubbly in record time. “Do you think Miss Murden is to be trusted about who was in the house?” I said. “There are nearly twenty other guests, to begin with.”

  “We must confirm all that she told us. And I must add that her supposedly fresh mayonnaise is not very nice.”

  “Isn’t it? I hadn’t noticed.” I reached for a second sandwich.

  5

  At half past eight, Berta and I sailed down the grand staircase together, following the sounds of blaring phonograph jazz and raucous laughter. The drawing room was a mirage of cigarette smoke, cocktail glasses, and sequined dresses.

  “Whew. If Rudy truly wanted a big, riotous wake, he’s certainly getting it,” I said to Berta in the doorway. “Let’s split up. Search for Glenn Monroe, Miss Murden, and Isobel Bradford, and grill them like hot dogs.” Our fourth suspect, the college student Theo Wainwright, would surely not be at the party. We’d track him down tomorrow.

  Berta nodded and trooped into the party. She was dressed in a capacious green tunic with a jagged hem and a leather belt, green woolen stockings, a feathered green hat, and her usual painful-looking Edwardian boots. Robin Hood, she’d informed me, although I’d been thinking elf.

  I thought I’d been cleverly glamorous, costuming myself as Diana the huntress in a long, gauzy, Greeky thing and a quiver of toy arrows tied to my back with gold braid. However, at least half the flapper mistresses were also attired as Diana. There was a plump Diana with a splendorous Grecian hairdo; a tall, thin Diana with scarlet-tipped fingernails and an ivory cigarette holder; and a Diana with a finger-waved bob, Cupid’s bow lips, and rhinestones on her shoes. I adored the shoes.

  “Ah, another Diana.” Lord Sudley appeared beside me. He looked absurdly dashing in a sort of medieval tunic, boots, cloak, and a feathered headdress.

  “I think I’ll need a drink before taking a stab at your costume,” I said.

  “Gronw the Radiant. Chap from a Welsh myth. He falls in love with—and murders someone for, actually—a woman named Blodeuwedd. She’s beautiful. Made of flowers and whatnot.” Lord Sudley lowered his voice. “I’ve just gotten off the telephone with Rudy’s lawyer’s office in New York. The firm has handled the Montgomery family’s private business for decades. It seems that Mr. Eccles is on holiday in Florida, and although he is evidently boarding the first available train north, he will not arrive here at the house until the day after tomorrow.”

  “And you’ve got the jimmies about that?”

  “Well, yes, actually. You see, Rudy’s parents are deceased and he had no wife or children—no heirs, you understand—and his one sibling died years ago in a motorcar accident in Italy. I’m certain Rudy must have written out a will, but as things stand right now, I’ve no idea who owns this house. It’ll all become clear when Mr. Eccles arrives, I suppose. But in the meantime—” He looked around the escalating party. “—I do hope that whoever inherits this house won’t mind stains on the carpets.”

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions about this afternoon,” I said, “since you were out with the hunting party.”

  “Of course.”

  “To begin with, why did Rudy return to the house?”

  “He realized that he’d forgotten his lucky rabbit’s foot. He wouldn’t hunt without it in his pocket—a silly superstition. And I gathered that Coral accompanied him to help him look for it—she said something about men being awful about finding things.”

  “And were all the hunting guests accounted for out there by the trees when the shot was fired?”

  “Oh yes. We were standing about and trading pleasantries and so forth. Everyone was in good spirits, although jolly impatient to begin shooting.”

  “Why didn’t you simply start without Rudy?”

  “He was our host. That would’ve been frightfully rude.”

  Honestly, this bunch didn’t seem to bother much about manners. One man was swinging from a chandelier in nothing but his striped underwear.

  “Oh—I nearly forgot,” I said. “A few minutes before the shot was fired, those of us in the drawing room heard another sound that Berta thought might’ve been a gunshot, although Glenn Monroe insisted it was a bottle cork or a meat mallet—”

  “Ah yes. That was a gunshot.”

  “It was?”

  “Mm. The manservant, Mwinyi, accidentally fired one of the shotguns while cleaning it.”

  Good. That was one loose thread neatly snipped away. “Isobel Bradford,” I said. “Rumor has it she’s been snooping around the house and—” I watched Lord Sudley closely. “—poking around the hunting trophies.”

  “Good heavens! Isobel?”

  “Perhaps she wants the same rhinoceros trophy that you do?”

  “I very much doubt that. My reasons are … rather personal, shall we say.” Lord Sudley shook his head. “Prim, proper old Isobel snooping? I simply can’t picture it.”

  “You know her well, then?”

  “Actually, I only just met her here at the house yesterday evening, but I knew her late husband, Winslow Bradford, like a brother. We met years ago at the Scion Club in New York and, along with Rudy, he formed our little hunting trio. He always spoke a great deal about Isobel, so over the years I formed a rather vivid impression of her.”

  “Isobel never went on the hunting trips?”

  “Oh no. She always stayed home. Winslow said she never went hunting, not even for fowl, so I’m a bit surprised she came here, but now that you say she’s been snooping, well, it makes a bit more sense. She must have been looking for something that belonged to her husband.”

  “Why do you refer to her in the past tense?”

  “Don’t you know? She’s gone.”

  “Gone!”

  “Motored off as soon as the police and the ambulance left, actually.”

  “Where to?”

  “Why, to her home, I presume. In Boston.”

  “Don’t you see? Isobel is beginning to look like the most promising suspect on the list, and now that she’s gone…”

  “Yes, I do see. Suspicious with knobs on. Don’t despair, Mrs. Woodby, or—may I call you Lola?”

&
nbsp; “Please.”

  “Good—and do call me Eustace.”

  I bit my lip to keep myself from laughing.

  “Frightful name, I realize. Makes me sound like a fat little boy in a crested blazer. Later on I’ll see if I can dig up Mrs. Bradford’s telephone number and address from my book, all right?”

  “Peachy.”

  “Oh, and if you manage to procure my trophy tonight—my motorcar is the black Duesenberg in the front drive.”

  “Duesenberg,” I murmured dreamily.

  “And I would be most obliged if you’d tell me the moment you’ve succeeded. It will be such a great weight off the old bean. My bedroom is second on the right at the top of the stairs.” Something indefinable glinted in Lord Sudley’s—Eustace’s—eye.

  Why were my cheeks hot? This was strictly business.

  He smiled. “But where are my manners? You look thirsty—what’s your poison?”

  “Highball, if you can scrounge one.”

  “I’ll do my utmost.”

  As soon as Lord Sudley disappeared into the riot, I frantically scouted for Berta. Our prime suspect, Isobel Bradford, had vamoosed. We needed to give chase.

  But before I could spot Berta, I was waylaid by Coral.

  She had emerged from her bedroom, then. Why?

  “My, Mrs. Woodby,” she said, “your costume is so very original.” She sipped her bloodred drink. Ice cubes clacked and I caught a whiff. Campari. Shudder. “Only joking, cutie! And don’t look at my costume like that!” She wore a rust-colored silk confection of a dress with what I took to be real fox ears and foxtail attached to her skirt and headband. Strands of milky, lustrous, cylindrical beads hung around her neck. “The fox was already dead, and now that Rudy’s gone I don’t see why we’ve got to tiptoe around his bally moth-eaten collection of animal cadavers like they’re holy relics.” She smiled, revealing small white teeth.

  Oh, what I would’ve given to bump Coral to the top of the murder suspect list. Too bad she’d been with Berta and me and wasn’t a suspect at all.

  “Are you feeling better?” I asked delicately.

  Coral sniffed. “You’re not going to tell me I should be tearing out my hair still, are you?”