Teetotaled

by Maia Chance

  Berta chirruped. “How clever you are, Mr. Oliver!”

  “Only problem with that is,” Ralph said, “any Tom, Dick, or Harry can get their hands on rat poison at any garden or feed store.”

  “Still, you are brilliant,” Berta said.

  “Should we order?” I grumbled. “I’m famished.”

  After we ordered, Berta said, “I have just remembered something. When I was delivering my goods last night—”

  “Goods?” Ralph said.

  “Black-market chocolate and pretzels,” I said.

  “Course.” Ralph grinned.

  “—when I was delivering them, a nurse came into the East Ward and I hid myself in the second stairway until she was gone.”

  “What time?”

  “A little after eleven—I began my delivery rounds at eleven.”

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “No. I caught the briefest glimpse of her white pinafore before I hid myself.”

  “Then the thing to do is discover who was on duty last night,” I said. “That nurse might know something crucial about the killer.”

  “Yes,” Berta said. “Or she could be the killer.”

  We mulled that over. I hated to think that our list of suspects was longer than the five East Ward patients.

  “I’m not too keen on sneaking back into Willow Acres again,” I said. Actually, I suspected I’d pulled my hamstring while fleeing Nurse Astrid and the orderlies, but I’d say hamstring in front of my colleague Ralph Oliver when pigs flew. One doesn’t say hamstring while playing it close.

  “I am certain you will think of something, Mrs. Woodby,” Berta said. “You always do.”

  After we all polished off our desserts and split the bill, Berta and I excused ourselves. I tried to be nonchalant about it, but Berta was acting mysterious.

  “We have somewhere to be,” she said in a meaningful voice.

  “Got it,” Ralph said with a smile. “Nocturnal detective work. Do it all the time myself.”

  * * *

  After dinner, I telephoned Inchbald Hall again in the hopes of getting hold of Hermie. This time, the butler said he was at home.

  Success! Except … how could I learn if he’d come into the family millions as the result of his sister Muffy’s death? Asking him in person would be best. Then I could see if his face twitched.

  “Mr. Inchbald,” I said when I had him on the line, “this is Lola Woodby—we met at Willow Acres.”

  “Yes?” Hermie said dully.

  “I’m awfully sorry to bother you after, well, what happened to your poor sister, but I simply can’t stop thinking about what you said about poodle breeding—how it’s a balm for the soul and all that.”

  Hermie’s voice perked up. “Oh, yes?”

  “I was thinking of putting my dear tiny Cedric up to stud, and I was hoping you might be able to offer me a few tips. Could I pop by for a visit, say, tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  I crossed my fingers.

  “What about the next day,” Hermie said, “at, say, half past twelve?”

  “That’d be the duck’s quack, Mr. Inchbald.” I said good-bye and rang off.

  10

  Berta and I killed the time till eight thirty tidying up the yacht by lantern light. I discovered several big cans of drinking water and an unopened crate of caviar. If only I could also find a case of champagne; teetotaling didn’t agree with me.

  After tidying up, Berta and I changed into black clothing.

  “Is that what you are wearing, Mrs. Woodby?” Berta asked when I arrived on deck. An orange sherbet sunset streaked the sky.

  “What’s wrong with it?” I glanced down at my black silk dress that showed some leg, and my spiky Pinet pumps. “It’s all black.” Mentioning the foil-wrapped Hershey’s bar I’d wedged in my bodice was not necessary.

  “There is such an expanse of calf, you are in danger of glowing in the moonlight.”

  “I have stockings on!” Sheer stockings, yes, but geewhillikins, my calves weren’t exactly in danger of being mistaken for signal buoys, were they? “You’re going to be sweltering in that getup.” Berta wore a long-sleeved black wool dress, thick black stockings, and her painful-looking Edwardian boots.

  “I do not wish to be eaten alive by mosquitoes.”

  We motored through the balmy night to a sprawl of farmland behind the Van Hoogenband estate. I parked in a rutted tractor turnout and switched off the engine. The headlamps faded out and darkness expanded around us. Crickets chirped.

  “We neglected to discuss one pertinent point,” Berta said. “You do not intend to bring the dog, do you?”

  I glanced into the shadowy backseat, where Cedric sat, pert and panting gently. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “He is like a goiter on your neck, if you do not mind me saying so.”

  “The cutest goiter I’ve ever seen.” I addressed Cedric. “Sorry, peanut. Mommy will be back in jig time. Promise.” I was a terrible dog mother.

  Berta and I set off.

  “We really ought to invest in a flashlight,” I said after I twisted my ankle for the second time on the dirt road.

  “Mm. Or perhaps you ought to invest in proper shoes.”

  “These are more than proper. They’re Pinets.”

  “You are lucky you are not in a full body cast.”

  How could I admit that I didn’t want to go traipsing around in flat oxfords because of the 1 percent chance I’d run into a ginger-headed rotter?

  We traced the iron-fenced perimeter of Breakerhead until we found a side gate. I gave it a shake. Locked, of course.

  “We’ll have to scale it,” I whispered.

  “You first.”

  After some trial and error, I managed to get a toehold on an iron crossbar. Getting over was a bit tricky in a dress and I lost a shoe on the B-side, but I made it.

  I coached a huffing and puffing Berta over, too. She landed at my feet, and I gave her a hand.

  “I hope fleeing in a hurry won’t be necessary,” I said, stuffing my foot back in my shoe.

  “We shall move about utterly unseen, two stealthy shadows of the night.”

  I wished.

  Breakerhead’s windows blazed. Keeping to the shadows, we crossed the lawn and came to the side of the house. I stood on tiptoe and peeked through a lit-up window. Rich furnishings filled a large unoccupied room. We crept to the next window. Another unoccupied room, this one a library.

  We circled around and at last found where the household was congregating: the dining room. A Camelot-sized table glimmered with white linens, silver, crystal, and an urn of luscious-looking fruits. Jewel-hued tapestries covered the walls. Several servants scurried about—maids in black and white, a fellow with a towel over his forearm and a wine bottle at the ready—but only four people sat at the table.

  “That’s Eugene Van Hoogenband at the head of the table,” I whispered to Berta. He was fifty or so, with thick brown waves; a large, handsome face; and intelligent eyes.

  “He appears sneaky and arrogant,” Berta said.

  “Well, you don’t get to be one of the richest men in New York by being a dear old thing.”

  “He looks like a banker.”

  “Steel baron. Mills upstate. He’s a widower, from what I recall. That must be Josie at the foot of the table.” Josie was brown-haired and slim, with the prettiness of a girl in a soap advertisement. She stared at her plate.

  “Who is the elderly gentleman?” Berta whispered.

  “Not sure.” A gaunt old white-haired gent in a wheelchair sat on Van Hoogenband’s left. He gestured angrily with his fork. “Looks like he’s on a rant.”

  Someone else sat on Van Hoogenband’s right, but we couldn’t see around the high-backed chair. After a moment, the person leaned over to speak to Josie.

  “Golly,” I breathed. “It’s Senator Morris.”

  “Dining with friends while his wife is laid out on a slab somewhere?”

  �
��I suppose he couldn’t bear to be alone at such a tragic time.”

  Winfield tipped back his head and brayed with laughter.

  “Or maybe he’s in shock,” I said.

  “Disgusting.”

  A servant darted close to the window and Berta and I squatted out of sight. Our knees crackled like campfires. The servant pushed open the window, I guess to let in some fresh air, and then he was gone.

  “We must simply wait until dinner is over,” I whispered to Berta, “and then we can try to speak with Josie alone—the men will probably send her away so they can have their brandy and cigarettes.”

  “Brandy? Is not Senator Morris one of the foremost proponents of the Hearthside Movement?”

  “Well, sure. But Chisholm is the only politician in the entire state who actually lives by the Hearthside creed of temperance and family wholesomeness. The rest of them are the usual sort of politician.”

  We made ourselves as comfy as we could underneath the window. When Berta wasn’t looking, I took the Hershey’s bar from my bodice and broke off a few squares. The gents’ talking went on and on, but I couldn’t distinguish their words. Josie never spoke, which wasn’t surprising. She was destined to be a wealthy wife, and her training had doubtless begun in the cradle. From time to time, I stole a peek through the window. Servants whisked a parade of lavish courses on and off the table. Wine flowed.

  It was between dessert and the cheese and fruit course that I saw the figure in the garden. I sucked in a breath.

  “What is it?” Berta whispered.

  “Look.” I pointed. A human-shaped black figure, barely visible against the inkpot saturation of the gardens, crept along. It disappeared around the corner of the house. “Do you think the Van Hoogenbands have some sort of night guard?”

  “They very well may. Surely their silver alone is worth a king’s ransom.”

  “We’ve got to be careful, then.”

  “I was already being careful, Mrs. Woodby. Did you steal one of my Hershey’s bars?”

  I swallowed chocolate. “Borrowed it.”

  We waited some more. No second sighting of the figure. I took a peek through the window just in time to see Josie get up and pass into the next room.

  “She’s on the move,” I said softly.

  There was no time to stash the chocolate away. Berta and I hunched below window level and crept to the next portion of the house. We peeked through. Josie was in a sitting room with a mounted tiger’s head and scarlet wallpaper. She shut the doors and went to a sideboard, where she poured herself a large portion of what looked like whiskey from a crystal decanter. She knocked it back.

  “Goodness,” Berta whispered, “she does that with as much practice as a merchant seaman.”

  “What do you know about merchant seamen, Berta?”

  “Enough.”

  Josie dried the whiskey glass with a cloth and left it on the sideboard. She crossed to yet another set of doors.

  Once again, Berta and I scrambled along the side of the house and came up for air outside the music room. The music room had those floor-level French windows, and they were wide open to the warm night. We lurked in the shadows. Josie sat at the grand piano. She began to play. Well, sort of.

  Berta winced. “Do you suppose her musical abilities have been weakened by the large portion of liquor she consumed?”

  “The piano sounds like broken factory machinery. How is she doing that?”

  “I cannot bear it any longer. Besides, the gentlemen will not stay in the dining room forever.” Berta stepped through the windows.

  Since Berta was correct and we didn’t have forever, I followed her inside.

  11

  Josie screamed when she saw Berta and me coming through the French windows. Her piano exercise tinkled to a stop. She half rose from the piano bench. “Who are you?”

  “Miss Van Hoogenband, I beg that you keep your voice low,” Berta said.

  Berta’s homey voice had a calming effect on Josie, who repeated more softly, “Who are you?” She eyed our black clothes and the twigs and leaves stuck to them. “Have you been spying on me?” Her gaze fell on the chocolate in my hand. “And eating candy? Like you’re at the pictures?”

  “No, no,” I said. I stuffed the chocolate down my bodice. “I mean, we have been watching you, but only to look for an opportunity to speak to you alone. We are private detectives and we’ve been hired to look into the disappearance of your friend Grace Whiddle.”

  Josie’s eyes went hard. “Who hired you?”

  “We’re not at liberty to say,” I said, borrowing a line from Ralph Oliver’s book.

  “You don’t look like detectives,” Josie said. “In the pictures, they’re always fellows, and they’ve got fedoras.” She pointed at Berta’s huge handbag. “What’s in there?”

  “Cookies,” Berta snapped. “Oh yes—and this.” She pulled the mascara-blotched business card from her handbag and passed it to Josie.

  Josie looked at the card with a smirk and set it on the piano.

  “Miss Van Hoogenband,” I said, “have you seen Grace Whiddle since she disappeared from Willow Acres Health Farm this morning?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  A pause. “No.”

  “Any contact with her? Telephone calls, a note?”

  “No.”

  “Did she have any beaux other than Mr. Morris?”

  Josie chewed her lip.

  “Miss Van Hoogenband,” I said, “Grace could be in danger.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I decided not to tell her that Muffy’s death hadn’t been an accident. No need to alarm her. “Because she’s a young, innocent, naïve girl out in the world alone.”

  Josie burst out laughing so hard, she had to brace herself against the piano.

  Berta and I exchanged a glance.

  “Are we meant to understand that Grace Whiddle is not innocent and naïve?” Berta asked.

  “She has everyone fooled.” Josie wiped a tear of mirth from her eye. “Her mother. Mrs. Morris. Gil, especially.”

  “Her fiancé, Gil Morris?” I asked.

  “That’s right. Poor sap is always writing her treacly poems and giving her wilted bouquets and his absolutely hideous paintings, that sort of thing. Completely goofy about her—and he never even saw Grace without her glasses on.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll figure it out. You’re detectives, aren’t you? Now, if you don’t mind, I must return to my piano practice or Father will scold me.”

  “It is a wonder your father does not pay you to keep away from that thing,” Berta muttered.

  “I beg your pardon?” Josie said.

  I said, “Tell me about Grace’s diary, Miss Van Hoogenband.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “We suspect that her diary is related to her disappearance. Was there anything written in it that might’ve provoked someone to, say, kidnap her?” I didn’t think that Grace had been kidnapped, but I’d decided to put the fear of God in Josie. Little snot.

  Josie sat on the piano bench. “She’s crackers about that diary. She writes in it every day, sometimes more than once, and she carries it with her everywhere.”

  “But what does she write?”

  “She won’t tell me. I always thought it was histrionics about her mother—she’s always pipped about her mother, who’s just about the biggest flat tire in the state—and maybe her feelings about getting married to Gil.”

  “She isn’t in love with Gil?” I asked, playing dumb.

  “Gosh, no. Have you met him?”

  “No,” I said. But I had seen his oil painting of the farm animals in Sophronia’s powder room. That painting would stop love dead in its tracks. “What about her feelings for Muffy Morris? Did she describe those in her diary?”

  “I told you,” Josie said, “I’ve never read Grace’s diary. But I know who has. Miss Cotton.”


  “Of Miss Cotton’s Academy for Young Ladies?”

  “Do you know it?”

  “Vaguely.” I had, in fact, attended Miss Cotton’s Academy, a stuffy Manhattan finishing school, during my eighteenth year. “How did Miss Cotton come to read the diary?”

  “Well, Grace was writing in her diary during Personality Development class one day, and the teacher, Miss Ames, caught her at it, confiscated the diary, and handed it over to Miss Cotton. Grace was in an absolute panic, but we got it back. We sneaked into Miss Cotton’s office one evening.”

  “Wowie,” I said. “That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “We bribed the janitor with absolute bushels of ciggies.”

  Note to self: Speak with Miss Cotton.

  “Do you suppose Grace was capable of, say, killing a person?” I asked.

  “Killing?” Josie giggled, but then her face went serious. “Well, maybe her mother.”

  “What about her mother-in-law?”

  “You don’t mean that Mrs. Morris was murdered? Senator Morris told me it was her heart.”

  “No, no,” I said quickly. “I’m only attempting to understand what sort of girl Grace is.”

  “A dumb Dora. Her head is in the clouds—she talks about running away to be a burlesque dancer or a motion picture actress, but she’s as glamorous as a steamed mussel.”

  “I thought you were friends.”

  “We are. But I’m the head friend, and it’s handy having Grace around. Father says you never get anywhere in life by being a patsy.”

  The double doors swung open, and a huge man in evening clothes lurched into the room. His mug was fringed with spiky hair and, along the hairline, a long scar. It looked as though someone had sawed off the top of his head like a boiled egg, rummaged around inside, and then stitched it back on in a hurry.

  Berta and I shrank back. A brain surgery scar? was my only coherent thought.

  “Hands up, ladies,” the man said in a voice like a broken outboard motor. He waved a hefty pistol.

  Berta and I raised our hands. As I did so, the chocolate bar remnant came unwedged from my décolleté and fell on the carpet.

  “Miss Van Hoogenband,” Mr. Egghead said, “your father wants you ta go ta your room.”