Murder, She Reported

by Peg Cochran

  It seemed to be working. She examined the last picture she’d developed and was struck not by the gruesomeness of the image but by the clarity of the photo and its composition. She thought Kaminsky would be pleased.

  Elizabeth had just finished up when there was a knock on the door.

  “You done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We’ve got another story. Grab your coat and let’s go.”

  Clouds had moved in since that morning and the wind had picked up, swirling trash along the gutter like miniature tornadoes. Elizabeth put her head down and pulled her collar closer around her neck.

  “This story’s right up your alley,” Kaminsky said as he held the door open for Elizabeth. “Big society dame. Apartment on Central Park South—the works. One of your crowd, I suppose.”

  Elizabeth groaned silently. If only she hadn’t let Kaminsky persuade her to drink that shot of whiskey. It sounded as if she’d let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

  “You won’t tell anyone else, will you?” she said, the wind catching her words and snatching them away.

  Kaminsky bent his head closer to hers. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Elizabeth wondered why he never seemed to have any gloves with him.

  “What I don’t get,” Kaminsky stopped and faced Elizabeth, “is why you want to keep it a secret?”

  Elizabeth had thought about that a great deal.

  “I didn’t want anyone to think I’d gotten the job because of my family or their money or their connections. And I didn’t want to be…different.”

  “The rich ‘are different from you and me,’ ” Kaminsky said. He ducked his head. “F. Scott Fitzgerald in his short story ‘The Rich Boy.’ ”

  Elizabeth stared at Kaminsky.

  He shrugged. “I like to read. Although I prefer Hemingway to Fitzgerald, if you want to know the truth.”

  “What else don’t I know about you?” Elizabeth said as they trotted down the stairs to the Lexington Avenue subway.

  She realized she knew very little about Kaminsky at all—unless you counted the fact that he liked onions on his egg salad sandwiches, smoked Camels and preferred Old Schenley’s to any other brand of whiskey.

  Elizabeth felt something tacky on the bottom of her shoe and stopped to look. It was a piece of chewing gum.

  “Here, let me.” Kaminsky held out his hand.

  Elizabeth slipped off her shoe and handed it to Kaminsky. She hobbled on one foot while he quickly dispatched the piece of gum with the blade of his pocketknife.

  “There you go. Good as new.” Kaminsky handed Elizabeth her suede oxford. “Let’s hurry. The train’s pulling in.”

  They got off the train at the Sixty-eighth Street stop.

  “We can walk up to Seventy-second Street and take the crosstown bus. The dame lives in the Dakota. That’s that pricey apartment building on Central Park West. But I suppose you already know that.”

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “What’s her name?”

  Kaminsky pulled his notepad out of his pocket and flicked the pages as they walked.

  “Here it is. Lady Rosalind Darlington.” He looked up. “Do you know her?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Is she…dead?”

  “No. She’s been robbed. And claims to know who did it, too.”

  Elizabeth felt a sense of relief. One dead body a day was enough for her.

  They took the bus across town and arrived in front of the magnificent Dakota. They entered the building underneath the enormous porte cochere, where horse and carriages used to pull up to allow their occupants to alight under its shelter.

  The doorman, his uniform positively dripping with gold braids and buttons of every sort, buzzed Lady Darlington and they were soon waved to the elevators that led up to her apartment.

  A butler wearing nearly as much gold trim on his uniform as the doorman ushered them into a salon with fourteen-foot ceilings and inlaid wood floors.

  The salon was enormous—bigger than the one in Elizabeth’s parents’ apartment—and elaborately furnished with luxurious fabrics, crystal chandeliers and more gold accents than even the butler’s uniform.

  A woman was reclining on a Louis XIV sofa upholstered in rose-and-cream-striped brocade. She was wearing a flowered silk kimono over wide-legged pink silk pants, the hue matching the flowers on her top. She had a cigarette in a long rhinestone-studded holder in one hand and the receiver of a white-and-gold telephone in the other.

  Elizabeth felt remarkably dowdy in comparison with her dark green twinset, green-and-gray plaid wool pleated skirt, and even her new suede oxfords, which had seemed so fashionable when she bought them but now seemed quite dull and ordinary.

  “Darling, I really must go,” Lady Darlington said into the telephone. “Yes, it was truly dreadful. No, I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about a thing.” She looked at Elizabeth and Kaminsky and rolled her eyes. “Bye, darling. I’ll see you tomorrow at Felicity’s for lunch. It will be a dreadful bore, but what can one do?”

  Lady Darlington replaced the telephone receiver in the cradle and flicked the ash that had accumulated on the end of her cigarette in the general direction of the gold-rimmed porcelain ashtray on the table beside the sofa.

  Lady Darlington had coal black hair piled on top of her head, eyes the same color with the longest lashes Elizabeth had ever seen and a generous mouth made up with lavish amounts of bright red lipstick. Her long nails were scarlet as well as her toes, which peeked out from the peep-toe of her marabou mules.

  She got up from the sofa in one fluid movement, walking toward Kaminsky with her hand extended, palm down, as if she expected him to kiss it.

  Kaminsky stuck his hands in his pockets and Lady Darlington was forced to eventually let her arm drop. She turned to Elizabeth and gestured toward the camera case slung over her shoulder.

  “Will you be taking pictures? Be sure to get my good side.” She turned her head to the right and lifted her chin.

  “Do you want to tell us what happened first?” Kaminsky rooted around in his pocket for his notebook and pencil.

  “Do sit down.” Lady Darlington motioned toward two gold-and-cream brocade chairs.

  She took up her position on the sofa again, propped up on a mound of silk pillows. She reached for a pack of Chesterfields on the coffee table and fit one into her cigarette holder. She looked at Kaminsky expectantly, but when he didn’t move, she rang a small gold bell and summoned the butler. He lit her cigarette and then without a word withdrew.

  “So what happened?” Kaminsky said again. “You were robbed?”

  “Yes.” Lady Darlington breathed out a plume of smoke.

  “What did the thieves take?”

  Lady Darlington arched a penciled brow. “Not as much as they’d hoped, I should imagine. The diamond-and-ruby Tiffany bracelet Otto Mayer gave me. Poor dear, he was quite infatuated but he had this terrible tic, you see. After a while, I simply couldn’t abide it.” She fiddled with the fringe on one of the pillows, letting it run through her fingers.

  “There was a rather nice pair of diamond-and-sapphire earrings that Lucky Marcelliano gave me after we had that fight that time. He threatened to shoot me, but I knew he didn’t mean it. Still, I locked him out until he came back with one of those nice red boxes from Cartier all tied up with white satin ribbon.”

  “Anything else?” Kaminsky looked up from his pad.

  “A few other bits and pieces. A silver necklace, some topaz earrings. Fortunately, I keep most of my jewelry in a safe deposit box at Chemical Bank—all the lovely pieces from Lord Darlington’s family. I’m quite sure that sister of his—Lady Fiona—expected me to give them back when Lord Darlington met his untimely end after a night of overindulging in single malt whiskey and por
k belly. But why I should return them, I honestly can’t imagine.” She flicked ash into the ashtray.

  “Although I do have a little safe here in the apartment, I got careless and left it open, I’m afraid.” She sighed loudly. “I thought I could trust him.”

  “Him?” Kaminsky raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes. Guy. Guy something-or-other.” She gave the name the French pronunciation. “Dupont,” Lady Darlington said suddenly. “Guy Dupont. Charming fellow. But sticky-fingered, obviously.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “What do they all look like these days? Tall, slim.” She tapped her upper lip with her index finger. “One of those small indeterminate mustaches that are so in vogue at the moment.”

  “When did this happen?”

  Lady Darlington waved a hand in the air. “It must have been while I was asleep. I went to bed early and Guy stayed up to have a brandy and his cigar in the library. When I woke up this morning, he was gone. I’d thought he’d gone back to his place—I’ve rented a small apartment in the Ansonia Hotel for him. And my little drawstring bag with my jewels was gone. And lo and behold the door to the safe was standing wide open.”

  “Could we get a picture of the safe?” Elizabeth asked. “Showing the empty interior?”

  “Wonderful idea,” Lady Darlington said, swinging her legs off the sofa and standing up. “Ruby tried to warn me about him, but I couldn’t help myself. He was so much fun.”

  “Warn you?” Elizabeth said, as they followed her out of the room and down a corridor lined with gilt-framed paintings.

  “She said he positively broke poor Prudence’s heart and was seeing Mabel and Gertrude at the same time without either one knowing about it.”

  She opened a door and the scent of gardenia mixed with face powder rushed out. “So you can’t say I wasn’t warned.”

  A bed, surrounded by drapes hanging from a coronet attached to the ceiling, dominated the room. The bed was covered with a peach satin bedspread and heaped with lacy pillows and bolsters. A mahogany vanity with a gilt chair in front of it was against one wall. An elaborately framed mirror hung above it. A long dresser was on the other wall. It was covered with a lace dresser scarf and had a gold ormolu clock with a marble base in the center.

  Kaminsky walked over to the dresser and picked up a sterling silver–framed photograph. He held it toward Lady Darlington.

  “Is this the fellow?”

  Lady Darlington peered at the picture. “Yes, that’s him.” She took the photo from Kaminsky and handed it to Elizabeth. “He’s quite handsome, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said.

  The man in the picture wasn’t Elizabeth’s type at all with his patent leather hair and pencil-thin mustache. He was posing against a backdrop of a large stately Georgian-style brick house. To Elizabeth, he looked rather unsavory.

  She also recognized him as the man she’d seen at Gloria’s debut, standing behind Frances in that intimate pose with his hands on her shoulders.

  Lady Darlington removed a painting from the wall above the dresser—a pastoral watercolor that looked like some of the works Elizabeth had seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, although she couldn’t recall the artist—and put it to one side. A small steel safe was built into the wall behind it. She twirled the combination dial to the right, then the left and then back to the right again and the door sprang open.

  It was, indeed, empty.

  Lady Darlington waved a hand in front of it like a magician conjuring a rabbit out of a top hat.

  “See?”

  Elizabeth removed her camera from its case, inserted a flashbulb and took a photograph of the interior of the empty safe.

  “So do you know where this Guy fellow came from?” Kaminsky said, eschewing the French pronunciation Lady Darlington had used.

  Lady Darlington shook her head. “I’m afraid not.” She gave a rueful smile. “His manners were impeccable, he was well-dressed, he knew opera—at least the French ones—and I assumed that someone could vouch for him.” She frowned. “And to think I spent all that money on that gold cigarette case from Van Cleef and Arpels for his birthday.”

  She gave Kaminsky a sad look. “I’m afraid I’ve reached the point in life now where I buy the men presents, rather than the other way around.”

  “You were paying him?” Kaminsky said.

  Lady Darlington looked shocked. “No, no, nothing so crass as that.” She straightened the inlaid ivory comb and brush set on her vanity. “Just the occasional present—whenever his interest seemed to be flagging.”

  “I see.” Kaminsky pocketed his notebook.

  “What about the police?” Elizabeth said, picking up her camera again.

  “Darling, if you’re going to take my picture, let’s go back to the salon. The light is better in there.” Lady Darlington led the way out the door. “The police didn’t hold out much hope,” she said over her shoulder. “The pieces have probably already been taken apart and melted down by now.”

  “What about catching the thief?” Elizabeth said.

  “They made it obvious that wasn’t a priority. It was clear that, in their opinion, I got what I deserved.”

  Chapter 11

  “How are you feeling?” Kaminsky said as they exited the subway at Grand Central Station. “Normally I would recommend some hair of the dog, but not in your case.”

  Elizabeth shuddered. She was never drinking again. At least not beer or straight whiskey.

  “I’m actually getting hungry.”

  She realized that not only had her stomach settled but it was actually grumbling a little.

  “We’d better get some food into you, then. The Automat okay with you?”

  “Sure.”

  They walked the short distance to the nearest Horn & Hardart. Elizabeth took a one-dollar bill from her purse and approached the glass booth where a woman wearing rubber tips on her fingers doled out twenty nickels. Elizabeth stowed the coins in her change purse and walked over to the wall of small glass windows with the SANDWICHES sign above it.

  Elizabeth had been to a Horn & Hardart Automat once before when the nanny, who had taken care of her and her siblings when they were small, had brought them downtown to do some shopping and to see the Christmas decorations in the store windows. Nanny had then taken them for hot chocolate and pie at the Automat and had made them promise not to tell their mother.

  The idea of dining at the Automat still gave Elizabeth a small illicit thrill. She scanned the selections and put her nickel into the slot for a chicken salad sandwich on white bread. The glass door went up, and Elizabeth slid out the plate.

  Kaminsky had already secured them a spot at a table, and Elizabeth carried her plate over to where he was sitting.

  “I got you a cup of coffee,” Kaminsky said, taking a bite of his coconut custard pie.

  “Thanks.”

  Elizabeth slid onto the chair, took a napkin from the holder on the table and spread it open on her lap.

  “What did you make of Lady Darlington?” Kaminsky asked, as he scraped up the last bit of his pie.

  “She didn’t seem terribly upset about being robbed.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen dames get more worked up over the theft of a couple of cheap dime-store costume pieces. It sounds like she’s got plenty more.” Kaminsky stirred his coffee. “She must have been quite a looker in her day.” He shook his head. “And now she’s been reduced to being romanced by gigolos like that Guy fellow.”

  Elizabeth put down her sandwich. “You know, Gloria’s stepmother Frances apparently had a lover. At least according to some friends of my mother’s who knew Frances—and obviously didn’t like her.” Elizabeth picked up her sandwich again and took a bite. “I saw her with a man at Gloria’s debut. It was Guy Dupont.”

  “The fellow who sto
le Lady Darlington’s jewels?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “What I wonder,” she said, brushing a crumb from her lip with her napkin, “is whether Frances was giving him money too.”

  “Or presents.” Kaminsky pushed his empty plate away from him. “Either way, it comes down to the same thing. The women were paying for attention from this man.”

  “And what if these women suddenly decided to stop paying—whether it’s with gifts or actual cash?”

  Kaminsky shrugged. “He moves on to someone else?”

  Elizabeth tapped her chin with her index finger. “What if they don’t want to be bothered?”

  Kaminsky wrinkled his brow. “I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

  “Let’s say Guy is getting money from Frances DeWitt.”

  “Okay.”

  “All of a sudden Frances changes her mind and decides she doesn’t want to pay Guy anymore.”

  “Or”—Kaminsky pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose, making a sound like a trumpet—“maybe she doesn’t have any more money. Maybe her husband is becoming suspicious and wants to know where all this dough is going.”

  “Yes. So Frances puts a stop to the payments. But Guy isn’t happy about that. And let’s say Guy doesn’t believe that Frances doesn’t have access to any more money. So what does Guy do?”

  Kaminsky stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket. “He threatens to tell the husband.”

  “That’s right. He blackmails his victim.”

  Kaminsky sat up straighter in his chair. “But she’s not going for it.” Kaminsky’s voice had an excited edge to it. “And she refuses to pay.”

  Elizabeth was excited now, too. “And Guy gets mad. Very, very mad.”

  Kaminsky nodded. “They argue.”

  “And he…” Elizabeth formed a gun with her thumb and index finger and aimed it at Kaminsky. “Pop, pop.” She leaned back in her chair triumphantly. “He kills her.”

  “I like your theory. But there’s no way to prove it.”

  “But you do think it’s possible, don’t you? It all adds up.”