by Maia Chance
“Geewhillikins,” I said. “Is there no end to our … fame? And—head detective?”
“I thought it sounded better. Now, then. About Beaulah Starr—”
“Yes, about her,” I said. I told Berta and Ralph how I’d witnessed Beaulah rescuing an inchworm with her cigarette tin. “So you see, she can’t be the murderer. Murderers don’t pamper bugs. Murderers squish bugs.”
Ralph hid a grin in his coffee cup.
“What is so humorous?” I asked.
Berta stared stonily at me for a full five seconds, holding a plate of bacon aloft just to torture me. At last she said, “I do believe that is the most frivolous thing that has ever escaped your lips, Mrs. Woodby. Why, just this morning I swatted two houseflies here in the kitchen. Does that make me a murderer?”
“No,” I mumbled. Berta set the plate of bacon down and I dug in. Honestly, I did suspect that Beaulah hadn’t told me everything she knew about Muffy’s death. She had been so shifty when we spoke in the hedge maze. But I was also convinced she wasn’t the murderer. After a few bites of bacon, I said, “Even if Beaulah is our top suspect, well, we should still continue to investigate Raymond, Hermie, Pete, and Grace. They were all at Willow Acres and Coney Island. That can’t be a coincidence. One lead we have is Mrs. Dun from Muffy Morris’s Swiss finishing school, remember? We still have our appointment to see her this morning at eleven o’clock.”
“I had forgotten all about that,” Berta said, ladling pancake batter onto a griddle. “However, first things first. You should begin by ringing up Beaulah Starr’s boarding house and Willow Acres and inquiring as to her whereabouts.”
“I should?”
“I am cooking pancakes. Or did you not wish to have pancakes, Mrs. Woodby? They are buckwheat.”
I went quickly to the telephone in the hallway, ignoring Ralph’s chuckles. He could chuckle all he wished, but I knew if it came down to the wire, he’d do handstands for Berta’s buckwheat pancakes.
“Hello,” I said when I was put through to Beaulah Starr’s boarding house in Hare’s Hollow. “Could I please speak to Miss Starr?”
“That harlot?” the landlady squawked. “Gone. She stopped in last night only long enough to pack a suitcase in a hurry.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Who did you say you were, young lady?”
“Oh, her—her sister.”
“You sound like a harlot, too. Your mother didn’t raise you girls right!”
“Beaulah packed a suitcase,” I said. “Did she say anything about where she was going and why?”
“I asked her about next month’s rent that’s coming due, and she yammered on with some crazy talk about someone trying to kill her—”
“Kill her?”
“Are you deaf, too? A deaf harlot! Last thing this world needs! I don’t have time for this. I’m making pickled carrots.” The landlady hung up.
My heart beat fast. Someone trying to kill Beaulah? That was a monkey wrench. I dialed 0 and had the operator put me through to Chisholm’s office at Willow Acres.
“Yes?” Chisholm said coldly.
“Hello, Chisholm darling,” I said. “Nurse Beaulah—is she in?”
“Lola, is that you? No. Nurse Beaulah missed her shift yesterday and then had the audacity to telephone and say she wouldn’t be in until further notice because someone is attempting to murder her.”
Uh-oh.
“I had not noted any paranoia in her behavior before,” Chisholm said. “It must be a recent development, doubtless the result of her excessive fondness for ham. I am pleased that you telephoned, Lola, because I have just spoken with your mother about your peculiar visit to Amberley two days ago, and we both—”
I hung up so fast, the ringer clanged.
Back in the kitchen, I told Berta and Ralph how Beaulah was on the run from someone trying to kill her.
“So she says,” Berta said. “I would warrant that it is a ruse—a smoke screen, you see, to deflect attention from her own nefarious actions. Every dime novel villain employs such a strategy.”
I looked at Ralph.
“I’ll stay out of this,” he said, glugging blueberry syrup on pancakes. “I’m only sticking around for the grub.”
“And the diary,” I said.
“And the diary.” He almost appeared nonchalant.
“I wonder where Beaulah has gone?” Berta said. “How will we find her now? She could be anywhere.”
“Hopefully she isn’t dead in a ditch,” I said.
“Do not be melodramatic, Mrs. Woodby.”
“I hope you’re correct about the smoke screen.” Coffee and bacon curdled in my stomach. “I’m going to telephone Raymond and Hermie to ask about what they saw at Coney Island yesterday. Who knows, one of them may have even seen Beaulah.”
But there was no answer at Raymond’s house in Hare’s Hollow—funny that not even his servants were picking up—and the butler at Inchbald Hall told me that Hermie was “most uncharacteristically” still abed. “I was forced to give the poodle an airing myself,” the butler said in a sour tone, and then restrained himself from revealing more, despite my prying.
I hung up. Hermie Inchbald had had a rough night. How come?
I reported all this to Berta and Ralph, but neither was too interested. Berta was still pondering how to locate Beaulah, and Ralph said, “Would you call up the Whiddle house, kid? Find out if we can see Grace about her diary?”
“You telephone Grace,” I said crossly. “I’ve earned my buckwheat pancakes by now. Ask the operator for Clyde’s Bluff.”
Ralph took his turn with the telephone, and in what seemed like one minute he returned. “A maid told me that Grace and her mother will be at—” He checked something in his notebook. “—Antoinette G. Lovell’s Bridal Shop on Fifth Avenue at one o’clock.”
Of course Ralph had gotten a maid to spill the beans.
“So we’ll head to the bridal shop together, like one big happy family,” Ralph said.
Peachy. Berta, Ralph, and I had three separate agendas. Berta only wished to hunt down Beaulah Starr. I wished to follow up on all the other suspects. And Ralph? All he cared about was finding out if Grace Whiddle’s diary contained the evidence he needed to bust Van Hoogenband for bribery.
It promised to be one zonker of a day.
We finished eating and cleaned up the kitchen. Ralph went outside with the Duesy keys and drove it around to the other side of the block in case Van Hoogenband was still searching for our lair. Meanwhile, Berta, Cedric, and I sneaked out of the building through the rear basement entrance, hurried down an alleyway, and found Ralph idling at the curb. We climbed aboard and motored off into the hot city to meet Mrs. Dun.
28
The Imperial Ballroom stood on jostling Forty-second Street. We couldn’t find a parking space, so Berta said she would wait in the double-parked motorcar while Ralph and I went in.
“But this is our investigation, Berta,” I said.
“Yes, but Mr. Oliver is so persuasive with ladies. Besides, what has Mrs. Dun to do with our chief suspect, Beaulah Starr? Nothing. You are wasting your time.”
I didn’t want to argue either point with Berta. Besides, she was minding Cedric.
Ralph and I went upstairs, through a pair of tall doors, and found ourselves in a cool, silent ballroom. Crystal chandeliers hung unlit, the dance floor gleamed, and the orchestra dais held nothing but empty chairs and music stands.
“You must be the detectives,” a woman said, coming toward us. She wore a sequined dress and high-heeled dancing shoes. Her dyed orange hair was tucked beneath a feathered headband. Bags puffed under her eyes.
“Mrs. Dun,” I said, holding out my hand, “I am Lola Woodby of the Discreet Retrieval Agency. This is my, um, assistant, Mr. Oliver.”
“He’s your assistant?” Mrs. Dun shook my hand in a hurry in order to move on to shaking Ralph’s. “Do you enjoy ballroom dancing, Mr. Oliver? We suffer a chronic shortage of
gentlemen here at the Imperial. Stop by anytime you like, and I’ll give you a discount.”
“Say, thanks,” Ralph said. “I just might take you up on that, if my boss here ever gives me a day off.” He winked at me. “She’s a slave driver.”
“You look like you’d be just velvety on your feet,” Mrs. Dun said.
“Let’s get down to business,” I interrupted, “for I know you must be very busy, Mrs. Dun. My partner, Mrs. Lundgren, tells me that you attended Institut Alpenrose the same time as did the late Muffy Morris, and that you knew something of a scandal attached to her.”
“I did attend Institut Alpenrose, yes. I know what you’re thinking—why would a dancing instructress have had such an education?” Mrs. Dun smiled bitterly. “A finishing school education is perfectly useless if one doesn’t marry well, as I have spent the last two decades learning. Mr. Dun is in the upholstery trade. And the scandal? Yes. Well, no. I mean to say—I did not like to speak of this on the telephone because it’s so indelicate, but there was a scandal, yes—all of us girls were aware of it to one degree or the other. But it wasn’t Muffy. It was Violet Wilbur.”
I frowned. “Miss Wilbur told me the scandal was Muffy’s.”
“Well, she would, wouldn’t she? Deflecting attention from herself, probably.”
“What did Miss Wilbur do?” I asked.
“Carried on with the horseback riding instructor during her final year at the school. A German man. Married with two small children. Well, he lost his job, of course, and Violet was very nearly expelled. So was Muffy, now that I think of it.”
“Muffy? Why?”
“She aided Violet in the whole deception. Lied for her, that sort of thing, in order for Violet to sneak off to the stables for her assignations.”
“But the girls weren’t expelled?”
“No. In the end, the headmistress decided—this is only what I heard, I don’t know for certain—she decided that Violet had in fact been victimized by the man.”
“Because he was older than she?”
“That, and because it turned out he was some sort of criminal. A burglar. Stole silverware, paintings, that sort of thing, from the villas about the lake when their owners were not there. So everyone suddenly began boo-hooing for poor, frail little Violet having been seduced by a scoundrel, and—you’ve met her, yes?—so then you can imagine how smug she was about that.”
“You don’t suppose she was a victim?”
“Oh no. She was a thrill-seeker, particularly when it came to boys. She preferred the baddest boys in the village. Then I believe even those boys bored her, and that’s when she started working on a grown man.”
“You fancy Violet seduced him?”
“Well, I would not go that far. But mark my words, Violet Wilbur is no victim. How can I put this? She sort of thrives on the energy of bad men, gulps it down like, oh, like Nosferatu sucking blood—did you see that picture? Women like her—we’ve met them before, haven’t we?—when men mistreat them, it seems to make them feel delicate and feminine. Didn’t you see that little scandal about Violet published in the papers about, oh, five years ago? She’d been carrying on with a dashing fellow who was smuggling naughty books into the country.”
This didn’t sound like the Miss Priss Violet Wilbur I knew. “And this horseback riding instructor,” I said, “what was his name?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Was it Tibor Ulf?” Ralph asked.
Mrs. Dun tipped her head. “Tibor Ulf? It could have been, I suppose.”
I knew Ulf was innocent of shooting Senator Morris, but it was possible, by a stretch, that he was Violet Wilbur’s former lover. Although Ulf didn’t strike me as capable of either burgling villas or seducing schoolgirls. Despite the muscles and the postage stamp–sized shorts, he had a courtly, old-fashioned air.
“Was anything of this scandal published in the Swiss newspapers at the time?” I asked.
“Oh no. The school kept it all very hush-hush. Now, that is all I know, so if you haven’t any more questions, I must begin preparing for my eleven-thirty Beginning Viennese Waltz class. I must move everything against the walls. Last week one couple crashed into and destroyed the Victrola in the middle of ‘By the Beautiful Blue Danube.’”
“I think that is all for now, Mrs. Dun,” I said. “Thank you, and if you think of anything else, please do telephone the agency.” I rummaged in my handbag for a card but remembered too late I didn’t have one. Ralph scribbled my telephone number on the back of one of his cards.
“Good-bye,” Mrs. Dun said, her eyes latched longingly on Ralph.
Not that I could blame her, but gee whiz.
* * *
“Quick,” I said to Berta as I climbed into the Duesy’s passenger seat. “Pass me the Alpenrose directory.”
Berta, in the backseat, was flushed for some reason, and Cedric’s leash was clipped on. Berta handed over the directory. I flicked through and found Violet Wilbur’s address and rattled it off to Ralph. He fired up the engine and we were off.
“Would you please tell me what is happening?” Berta said.
I told her how Violet, according to Mrs. Dun, had had an affair with the German horseback riding instructor at Institut Alpenrose. “Maybe it was Tibor Ulf,” I said. “Maybe Violet is still in love with him now. She said something to the effect that she’d do anything for the man she loved—oh yes, that she’d ‘walk the plank’ for him.”
“That is very intemperate,” Berta said. “Do you suggest Violet Wilbur murdered the Morrises to somehow benefit Mr. Ulf? Have you forgotten he is in jail?”
I shrugged. “Maybe her plan backfired. It’s only a half-baked theory.”
“Half-baked?” Berta sniffed. “It is still batter in the bowl.”
“What’s your plan if you find Violet at home?” Ralph asked me.
“Confront her and hope she cracks?” I said. “She does have fragile nerves.”
“I made progress in the investigation while you were in the Imperial Ballroom,” Berta said.
I swiveled in my seat. “I thought I saw a glint in your eye.”
“Beaulah Starr mentioned that she has a friend who works in a feed store, so Cedric and I walked to a public telephone booth and rang up the Hare’s Hollow feed store.”
“You left a double-parked motorcar empty?” Ralph asked. “It could’ve been towed.”
“One must take great risks to make great strides,” Berta said. “And I did make a great stride. Beaulah’s friend—described as her best friend by the man I spoke with on the telephone—is named Harriet Klipper, and she will be in to work at the feed store at three o’clock this afternoon. I shall telephone again then, and I expect to discover Beaulah’s whereabouts. I do hope you will not utterly exhaust us dashing to and fro for no reason until then, Mrs. Woodby.”
“No reason?” I cried.
“We must not forget your little problem of straying from the topic,” Berta said.
“Just because I’m not ready to dismiss all our other suspects yet doesn’t mean—”
“Ladies, ladies,” Ralph said. “It’s okay to go sniffing down two different trails. That’s what it’s like working with a partner.”
A pause. Cedric panted and traffic clamored past.
“Have you ever worked with a partner, Mr. Oliver?” Berta asked.
“Nope. And you two are reminding me why.”
* * *
Violet’s town house on the Upper West Side was a trim white stone affair with topiaries on the porch, one block away from Central Park. Somebody was in the process of moving in next door: Two movers’ vans half blocked the street, and sweaty men in coveralls carried furniture through the front door. Ralph parked at the curb behind the movers’ vans.
Violet wasn’t at home, her maid told Ralph and me as we stood on the porch. Berta had once again elected to wait in the motorcar with Cedric.
“Miss Wilbur is giving a lecture this evening,” the maid said. “At the Xavier H
ouse Hotel. You could see her there.”
“What time?” I asked.
“Seven o’clock, I think, because this morning Miss Wilbur’s gentleman told…” The maid fell silent and she bit her lip. She’d been instructed not to blab.
“Gentleman?” I prompted.
“I spoke out of turn, ma’am. I really can’t say.” The maid glanced over her shoulder into the entry hall.
Ralph and I traded a look.
“Is Miss Wilbur’s gentleman still here?” I asked the maid.
She pinched her lips and blinked. “Never said that.”
Violet’s gentleman was inside. I was sure of it. This confirmed that Violet’s gentleman couldn’t possibly be Tibor Ulf, since he was in jail.
Why did I suddenly feel like a hound sniffing blood?
“Well, thank you,” I said.
The maid shut the door.
Ralph and I walked toward the Duesy.
“I want to go in the house,” I said in an excited whisper. “I’m perishing to find out who Violet’s gentleman is. This is important. I just know it.” I stopped on the sidewalk next to the Duesy. “I’m going to march right back up to the front door and demand that the maid let me in. I’ll say Violet borrowed something from me—a piece of jewelry—and I urgently need it back.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Ralph said. “See that balcony on the second story?”
“Yes.”
“And see how the town house next door has its own second-story balcony?”
“You don’t mean—”
“Why not? There’s a parade of moving men going in and out. We can say we’re real estate agents if anyone asks, go upstairs, out onto that balcony, and climb over to Violet’s balcony. Piece of cake.”
“Monkey business,” Berta said out the Duesy’s open window. “I shall continue to wait in the motorcar.”
29
Sneaking into Violet Wilbur’s town house really was a piece of cake. At first. The next-door moving men didn’t question Ralph and me as we went inside and upstairs. I would’ve liked to think this was because of my dazzling smile or Ralph’s masterful stride, but it was probably because the moving men were too hot and wheezy to talk.
