by Maia Chance
“She can hardly blame us if her daughter is a flibbertigibbet,” Berta said. “Poor girl. She was probably driven to madness by the rations. Perhaps she has returned to her mother.”
“Her mother is the one who corralled her here in the first place. If I hadn’t seen Pete Schlump loitering in the lobby just now, I would have guessed Grace had eloped with him. Look. Here’s a telephone.” We were in some sort of office adjacent to the kitchen, filled with grocer’s lists, stacks of clean napkins, boxes of rye bran biscuits, and crates of celery. I dialed the operator and had her put me through to Clyde’s Bluff.
“Well?” came Sophronia’s shrill voice down the line. “Did you retrieve it?”
Nuts. She hadn’t heard. “There have been … developments.”
“Developments?”
I explained how Willow Acres was in an uproar because of Muffy Morris’s death—I didn’t mention my suspicions of murder—and that Grace had taken the opportunity to tootle off to parts unknown in an Aero-Eight. By the time I was finished, I was somehow holding a box of rye bran biscuits and munching away.
“My daughter is missing? Muffy Morris is dead? This simply cannot be. Do you understand what a feat it was for me to secure Grace’s engagement to Gil Morris? Now the entire wedding could be called off! This is a disaster. How could you allow this to happen? I hold you entirely responsible, Lola Woodby.”
“Mrs. Whiddle, you employed my agency to retrieve Grace’s diary, not to baby-mind her.”
“Do not make excuses.”
I rolled my eyes at Berta—who could hear every word since her head was squashed against mine next to the telephone earpiece.
“What would you like us to do next, Mrs. Whiddle?” I asked. “Track Grace’s movements?”
“Certainly not. You’re fired.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Berta and I were back in our own dresses and hats, suitcases in hand, marching across Willow Acres’ front drive to the motorcar parking lot. Cedric trotted along behind us, wagging his plume of a tail. If I’d had a tail, it would’ve been between my legs. We had failed. Dismally.
Berta was the first to speak. “I did not mention it before, Mrs. Woodby, but I have been offered a cook’s position at an estate in Gloucester, Massachusetts. At this stage, I suspect it might be prudent for me to consider the job.”
“Maybe we should go and see Mrs. Whiddle,” I said. “Maybe she’ll reconsider. Someone has to find Grace, right?”
“I have always thought it beneath me to beg.”
“You’re right. Dignity is the name of the game.” Oh, what would become of me? I’d never cut it as a waitress.
I stuffed my suitcase in the Duesy, placed Cedric on the backseat, and shoved a package of rye bran biscuits into the glove box. The biscuits had tasted like a mattress when I first had them last night, but they were growing on me. Maybe my appetite was becoming, by some miracle, healthful.
I was about to climb behind the wheel when I noticed the limousine in the next spot. A Packard, brand-spanking-new, its black paint slick in the sunlight. A chauffeur stared out the windshield. Someone else was in the back.
Odd, but none of my beeswax. I got behind the Duesy’s wheel.
The rear door of the limousine swung open and a man stood up. “Mrs. Woodby?” He was heavy-jawed and hairy, like a gorilla in a snappy suit and a fedora.
“Yes?” I said.
“Senator Morris—Winfield Morris.”
Of course. I’d seen him not only in the newspapers, but also from afar at social functions. “How do you do?”
“I know that my wife is dead,” Winfield said. “That’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it? Dr. Woodby telephoned and I came right away.”
“I am terribly sorry for your loss, Senator Morris,” I said. “Muffy was a … a…”
“Don’t pull a muscle trying to make nice,” Winfield said. “Muffy was a harpy. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Woodby, I was waiting for you.”
“Me?”
“Dr. Woodby told me you drive a brown-and-white Duesenberg. She’s a beauty, all right. Look at the curve of that front wheel well. Wowza.”
Purring about motorcars when his wife had only just kicked off? What a fink. “Well, I was just leaving,” I said, “but it was nice to meet you, Senator—”
“We ought to talk.” Winfield tipped his head toward the limousine’s dim interior. “Come on in.”
“May I ask why?”
“I hear you’re a detective. I want to hire you.”
Part of me felt like leaping into my motorcar and zooming away. Senator Morris gave me the creeps. But another part of me felt like doing the cancan across the parking lot. Hallelujah! The Discreet Retrieval Agency was saved!
Berta tossed her suitcase in the Duesy, slammed the door, and bustled around to my side. “I am Mrs. Lundgren, Mrs. Woodby’s detecting partner,” she said to Winfield. “Did you say you would like to do business in your motorcar?”
Winfield’s face stretched in an oily smile. “Yes. Yes, I would.”
I lowered my driver’s-side window so Cedric would have some fresh air. Then Berta, Winfield, and I scooted into the backseat of the limousine. I was in the middle. Winfield reeked of spicy aftershave lotion and sweat. His stubby thighs strained his trousers.
“How did you hear of our agency?” Berta asked. “Was it the one-and-a-half-inch-square advertisement in The New York Evening Observer?”
“Sure,” Winfield said. “Yep.”
“But how did you know we’d be here at Willow Acres?” I asked.
“Do you always grill your clients like this? Seems like I should be grilling you, not the other way around.”
“We are a discreet agency,” Berta said. “We take only the most select jobs.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Well, how’s this for a select job?” Winfield said. “My wife was murdered, and I want you to figure out who did it.”
I swallowed. “Why do you believe she was murdered? I was told she, ah—”
“Drank herself to death? That’s what Dr. Woodby said. But he also told me a couple of other things. He said she was holding an empty bottle of rum. Muffy hated rum. He said there was a full bottle of gin in the room. If Muffy could’ve lived in a fish tank full of gin, she would’ve.”
I gave Berta an I told you so look.
Winfield continued, “Fact is, that’s why Muffy was booked into Willow Acres in the first place—to dry out. Seems like the murderer tried to make it look like Muffy drank herself to death in order to damage me. Politically, I mean.”
“You believe that political sabotage was the murderer’s motive?” I asked.
“Of course. What else could it be? Muffy didn’t have any enemies. She was a lump. Never did much but drift around the house in her dressing gown and drink herself silly—when she wasn’t going to expensive health farms to try and dry out. With the dough I spent last year on her health farms, I could’ve bought a Rolls-Royce. But I was only too happy to keep her out of sight. At a dinner at the British embassy last month, she passed out facedown in a bowl of soup.”
“Oh my,” Berta said.
“Why don’t you go to the police about this?” I asked.
“I can’t have all this go public. Shamuses never keep their traps shut.”
“Will you give us a list of your political enemies?”
Winfield hacked out a laugh. “Course not! What, you think I want you two dames trying to blackmail me? No. It’s your job to figure out who killed my wife, and keep the whole thing hush-hush.” Winfield removed his fedora and smoothed back his thinning hair with a palm. He replaced the fedora. “So. Are you taking the case or not?”
Berta and I exchanged a glance.
“Yes,” I said. “We’ll take the case.”
6
“Senator Morris is a cheapskate,” Berta said. We rumbled out of Willow Acres’ gates, passing a few shabby reporters. All the Duesy’s windows were down; the
day was heating up. “No payment at all until the murder is solved?”
“What can I say?” I said. “He’s a politician.”
“I must make him reconsider. How will we ever get by?”
“We’ll find Muffy’s killer before we run out of savings.”
“What have you in the way of savings, Mrs. Woodby?”
“Oh, something in the ballpark of sixty-three dollars. You?”
“One hundred. But the rent—”
I stomped on the gas pedal.
I hoped we weren’t out of our league. Sure, we had one cracked murder case under our belts, but we’d bumbled around a great deal. What if our success had only been beginner’s luck? Winfield had told us to check in with him at his country house at ten o’clock tomorrow, and he’d made it clear that he expected results.
“The Foghorn?” I called over the wind.
Berta was clutching her battered felt hat. “Yes. And do step on it. I am faint with hunger.”
“Have a rye bran biscuit. They’re in the glove box.”
“I would rather eat nails.”
* * *
We didn’t speak again until we’d resuscitated ourselves with chicken-fried steak, potatoes, buttery green beans, and coffee at the Foghorn Inn’s restaurant in Hare’s Hollow. Hare’s Hollow is a shingled seaside town six miles from Willow Acres and only a few miles from the mansion I used to call home. The rambling Foghorn is a popular spot for economical holidaymakers, and the scent of fryer grease permeates every leatherette booth in the restaurant.
The waitress stopped by our table again, and Berta and I both ordered a slice of lemon meringue pie. It was going to take a lot of pie to erase the memory of those celery salads.
“We’ll be systematic this time,” I said. I dug a pen out of my handbag and smoothed out a scrap of paper. “Professional. No bumbling. Let’s list the possible murder suspects.”
“To narrow things down,” Berta said, “Muffy’s corpse had entered full rigor mortis. That means she had been dead for at least four hours.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“Mexico City Mayhem.”
“If Muffy had been dead for at least four hours when we saw her,” I said, “then she was killed while the East Ward was locked up for the night.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that limits the suspects to those inside the ward, doesn’t it? Besides you, me, and Muffy, there was only Violet Wilbur, Hermie Inchbald, Grace Whiddle, Raymond Hathorne, and Pete Schlump. Five suspects. This’ll be as easy as ABC.” On the floor, Cedric made sticky gobbling noises. I ducked my head under the oilcloth. “No!” He’d found a french-fried potato; I caught a glimpse of it before it disappeared between his chops. I sat up. “Cedric shouldn’t be eating starchy foods. They’ll go straight to his tummy, and then he’ll be out of a job.”
Berta sipped her coffee. “If I may be so bold—do you realize how absurd you sound?”
I tapped my pen on the table. “I wish we knew how Muffy was killed, since it wasn’t the tiddly.”
“Poison, I presume.”
“Okay, but what kind?”
“I cannot think how we could come by such information without directing unwanted attention to ourselves. We would have to ask Dr. Woodby, or the police. It simply would not do.”
“We could poke around Muffy’s room at Willow Acres a little more.”
“That would be most imprudent, Mrs. Woodby.”
“Probably.” I studied the list of five suspects. “Who seems the most like a stony-hearted killer to you?”
“Grace Whiddle.”
“Really?”
“Her upcoming marriage was not a love match. What better way to stall or even prevent the wedding than to kill her future mother-in-law?”
“I can think of several better ways, but all right.” I scribbled on the scrap of paper: #1 Grace Whiddle. “It doesn’t make her look cherubically innocent that she ran off right after the murder. When you were speaking with her privately, did you get the impression she could kill someone?”
“No. She seemed mild and rather dim. However, I once knew a young boy in Sweden who was believed to be a half-wit, yet he won a scholarship to study engineering at university. You never can tell.”
“Next, Hermie Inchbald, Muffy’s brother,” I said. “He ought to be at the top of the list, if only because as a family member, he could have scads of motives.”
“Are there Inchbald millions?”
“Naturally. Haven’t you heard of Inchbald and Sons, Fine Clothiers? The company has been around since before the Civil War.”
“Could the Inchbald millions be at stake?”
“We should find out.” I wrote, #2 Hermie Inchbald.
“Then there are Raymond Hathorne and Violet Wilbur,” Berta said. “Oh yes, and Pete Schlump.”
“Raymond is a newcomer to New York. He comes from someplace in Canada—Quebec, judging by his accent. Pete runs in a completely different social set than the rest. And Violet Wilbur? Would the doyenne of tasteful décor indulge in murder?”
“I can envision it quite perfectly. It is not as though her floor was soiled by Muffy’s death.”
The waitress brought our pie. My first heavenly bite was ruined by a terrible thought. “Wait,” I said. “Senator Morris suggested that the murderer was one of his political enemies.”
“Well,” Berta said, “could not one of those suspects be his political enemy?”
“Difficult to picture. Raymond Hathorne, maybe.”
“That reminds me—just between you and me, Mrs. Woodby, Raymond Hathorne seems rather too forward.”
“The year is 1923, Berta. Guys and girls flirt these days. Besides, I’m a widow, not some naïve young prune who requires a chaperone.”
“I cannot disagree with that. However, his sweet talk seemed most familiar.”
I stuffed my mouth with meringue. Truth was, Raymond Hathorne’s flattery could get him everywhere with me, if only because I was desperate for a distraction from Ralph Oliver’s absence. “Let’s stick to business,” I said. “Could Violet Wilbur be Senator Morris’s political enemy? Could Grace be? That sounds absurd, doesn’t it?
“It occurs to me that, although Senator Morris believes his wife’s murder was motivated by politics, he could be mistaken. Politicians are paranoid. Narcissistic.”
“Well, okay, Dr. Freud. Let’s keep all possibilities open, then.” I ate more pie. “What about Pete Schlump?”
Berta’s fork hovered midair. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Pete is a national treasure. He has more important things to do than dabble in crime.”
“I’m not so sure. He is taking a hiatus smack in the middle of baseball season.”
“I did not like to mention it, since he confided to me in the strictest confidence,” Berta said, “but his nerves are, as he termed it, shot.”
“Is that the reason for Schlump’s Slump? Nerves?”
“‘Schlump’s Slump’ is such an unkind phrase, but yes. He said that he checked in to Willow Acres in the hopes of saving his nerves and, hence, his pitching career. No. Pete could not have killed Muffy. He has no motive.”
Privately, I thought Berta was starstruck. Last year she listened to the entire World Series broadcast—New York Giants versus Yankees—on the radio set in the butler’s pantry.
“Then it’s settled,” I said. “Grace Whiddle and Hermie Inchbald are our top suspects, so the first order of business is gathering more information about them. Foremost, where Grace might’ve run off to, and also whether or not Hermie stood to gain anything in the way of family money with his sister dead. We should try to convince Sophronia Whiddle to speak to us, and attempt to telephone Hermie Inchbald, too, wherever he lives. Oh—and if we have a chance to quiz anyone about Muffy Morris, we should take it.”
Berta nodded.
The waitress brought the bill, and Berta and I split it fifty–fifty, leaving more pennies and dimes on the table than was entirely swish.
&nb
sp; * * *
“I do not believe we have enough money for a hotel tonight,” Berta said to me as I climbed into the telephone box under the stairs in the Foghorn’s lobby. “But it seems that our plans may keep us on Long Island for at least a day more.”
“I know.” I settled Cedric on my lap and unhitched the telephone earpiece from its cradle. “I’ll think of something.”
I asked the operator to connect me to the Inchbald residence.
“Inchbald Hall in Oyster Bay?” she asked.
“Sure. Yes, that’s the place.” It had to be.
A butler answered. He told me that young Mr. Inchbald was still away on a holiday. I said thank you and disconnected.
“I think Hermie is still at Willow Acres,” I said to Berta.
“That is odd. One would have thought he would wish to leave the place where his sister had died.”
“I agree. Makes him look a tad suspicious, doesn’t it?”
Next, I telephoned Sophronia Whiddle’s house, Clyde’s Bluff, but her butler told me that she was unable to accept my call. Butlers.
I hung up. “Does that mean Sophronia doesn’t wish to speak with me, or that she’s in hysterics about her runaway daughter?”
“Probably both,” Berta said.
“This leaves us no choice but to call upon her in person.”
I gave the fellow at the lobby desk a dime for the two calls and we headed for the Duesy.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, we rolled to a stop in the side porte cochere at Clyde’s Bluff.
“Looks like Sleeping Beauty’s castle,” I said, switching off the engine. “Imagine building a French château on Long Island.” I checked my makeup in the rearview mirror. My precious Guerlain lipstick was faded from lunch, but I hated to reapply it. The tube was down to its last creamy, vamp-red dregs. I would have to bite the bullet and buy a—gulp—drugstore lipstick.
“The French château style does suggest a certain misplaced sense of grandeur,” Berta said. “Although, Mrs. Whiddle does not appear to have enough funds to pay a gardener.”
Where the lawns must’ve once been, a field hummed with insects. A dry, crumbling fountain sprouted weeds. “Mr. Whiddle worked on Wall Street, but he died several years ago,” I said. “If Sophronia is low on lettuce, that would explain her eagerness to hitch Grace to Gil Morris, love or no. She wants Grace to marry money.”
