by Alice Duncan
I could tell he considered his assignment a particularly asinine one—and I agreed with him. Granted, Pasadena wasn’t a crime-ridden city; still, I could understand why he considered his talents were being wasted on this particular job.
But by that time I could see a big huddle of people gathered ahead of us, so I didn’t tell him that, but pulled the Chevrolet over to the side of the road and parked behind a snazzy red, low-slung Stutz Bearcat that looked like Harold Kincaid’s. My heart rose slightly. If Harold had come to the set, perhaps the day might not be as awful as I feared.
Sam and I both got out of the car and stood glancing around at the other automobiles for a moment. Sam grunted again. “These people make too much money. Look over there. It’s a Pierce Arrow Special. And that’s a Bugatti racing car, or I’ll eat my hat.”
“A what?” I glanced from the machine he’d pointed out to Sam’s hat. It didn’t look awfully tasty.
“A Bugatti. Bugatti’s an Italian company that makes race cars. Huh. Damned picture people.”
Clearly Sam’s mood was as bad as, if not worse than, my own. I stared at the machine he’d called a Bugatti racing machine. “It looks like a couple of Franco American Spaghetti cans welded together and painted blue,” I said. “It’s ugly.”
“It might be ugly, but it’s fast. And expensive. And look at that Daimler touring car. I swear, your Chevrolet is the cheapest automobile on this piece of land.”
“It might be cheap,” I said, feeling a good deal of loyalty to my precious automobile—which had been run into a ditch not long ago and tenderly repaired by the Hull Motor Works people, “but it’s a good car.”
“I’m not saying it isn’t. All I’m saying is that these people make too much money.”
“Are you a Communist, Sam Rotondo?”
“No, I’m not a damned Communist! But I still think people ought to be paid what they’re worth. Not less, and definitely not more, and I’d say these picture people make way more than they should be making.”
“Maybe so,” I said somewhat wistfully. “Still, I’m glad some people make lots of money. Otherwise I’d be out of a job.”
“Huh.”
“But why is this fellow’s invention so important, anyhow? Do they honestly need three policemen, one of them a detective, to guard it? Do you really have to be here on the set every day because of a stupid invention?”
“The picture people think it’s that important.” Sam didn’t sound as if he agreed. “They say the German picture makers are out to steal American ideas.”
After a judicious pause, during which I reviewed my many grudges against Germans in general and the Kaiser in particular, I grunted, too. “They’re probably right. I wouldn’t put anything past the Germans.”
Sam gave me an ironic grin. “Is that why you begged the police department to let those two Germans into the country a couple of months ago?”
He would have to remind me of that, wouldn’t he? “They were different. They weren’t the Kaiser, and they were only trying to get by in the world, like the rest of us. And they weren’t thieves. Or picture people.”
Sam said, “Huh” again.
“But why does the Pasadena Police Department care what the motion-picture thieves do? Aren’t you guys generally called in after the crime is committed? Why all the support from the PPD? I still don’t understand.”
“It all comes down to money,” Sam told me, still grumpy. “The picture folks pay the City of Pasadena boocoo bucks to film within Pasadena city limits.”
“Really? I had no idea.”
“Yeah. Well, now you know.”
“I’m surprised Mrs. Winkworth allowed them to film on her property. She’s so prissy about how her grandson makes his money.”
“I don’t suppose she had much of a choice in the matter unless she wanted him to send her back to Arkansas.”
“South Carolina,” I said.
“Some damned southern state.”
And Sam Rotondo stomped off toward the huddled masses.
I followed him more slowly, scanning the crowd for someone I knew, preferably Harold Kincaid. But I didn’t see him. People in overalls were hammering away at something or other, men in knickerbockers and sporty tam-o’shanters conversed in groups, several women had clumped together and stood under a spreading oak tree, one of them fanning herself with her hand.
Then I heard, from the direction I wasn’t looking, “Daisy! Daisy! Over here!”
Harold Kincaid. Thank God. I turned and squinted, and sure enough, there was Harold, standing with another man and a woman. The trio stood beneath yet another spreading oak tree. I don’t know when this place had been built, but either somebody had built the houses around the trees, or the trees had been transplanted fully grown onto the grounds after the houses were built. Not that it matters, but I was glad the trees were there because they were beautiful.
With a grateful heart, I made my way to Harold. That day, although I was technically there to work, I’d dressed for the weather, which had been warm for several days. It was almost June, after all. Mind you, sometimes June and July in my fair city could be kind of cool and foggy, but the weather was prime that day. Anyhow, I wore a white-and-cream spotted voile dress with a wide boat-shaped neck trimmed with some embroidered ribbon I’d got cheap at Maxime’s. The dress was comfortable, with a hip-length, unfitted bodice, which means I didn’t have to wear any particular corseting. Heck, for all I knew, I was going to spend the entire day out of doors, and I didn’t aim on being any more uncomfortable than I had to be. In addition to low-heeled shoes, I also had on a wide-brimmed straw hat that I’d decorated with more of the cheap embroidered ribbon. Believe me, nothing I wore that day looked cheap. I’d gone to great lengths to make sure of it. I looked as fashionable as any darned picture star, if I do say so myself.
Actually, Harold said so too, as soon as I got close enough for us to chat without hollering. Good old Harold. He always made me feel good about myself, which is a marvelous quality in a friend.
“You are absolutely ravishing today, Daisy. Love the ensemble. It goes perfectly with your hair.”
I’d thought the same thing when I’d bought the fabric, but I didn’t say so. My hair is kind of a darkish red-brown color. Maybe auburn describes it. Anyhow, the tan embroidery accentuated the color of my hair. My eyes are blue, and my outfit didn’t do a darned thing for them, but you can’t have everything.
“Thanks, Harold. You’re looking pretty spiffy yourself.”
He, too, wore knickerbockers and appeared as if he were about to step out onto the golf course. I presume the men were dressed sportily in deference to the weather, just as I was.
“Standard set wear,” he said. “Let me introduce you to my assistant, Lillian Marshall. Lillian, this is my dear friend and my mother’s particular spiritualist, Desdemona Majesty. If you’re a friend, she might let you call her Daisy.”
I held out my hand and laughed lightly. “How do you do, Miss Marshall? Please do call me Daisy. Desdemona is my professional name.”
“Oh. Kind of like Lola de la Monica?” Lillian shook my hand and grinned. “Pleased to meet you, Daisy. Harold’s told me ever so much about you. Please call me Lillian.”
After shooting Harold a suspicious glance, I said, “I hope he hasn’t told you too much.”
Harold laughed. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Some secrets I keep locked tight in my heart.”
“Didn’t know you had one, old man,” said the fellow who stood with Harold and Lillian.
“Oh, yes,” Harold said, turning a lifted-eyebrow gaze upon his male companion. “I guess I forgot you, John. Daisy, please allow me to introduce you to John Bohnert. John’s the head director for this picture. Don’t believe a word the man says to you.”
“Harold!” But Mr. Bohnert chuckled. “He’s being terribly unkind to me, Miss Majesty.”
“She’s Missus Majesty, John, and she means it, so none of your shenanigans,” Harold said sternly.
Lil
lian giggled again. John heaved what I’m sure was meant to be a heart-wrenching sigh. “Be still my heart. Such a sad tragedy.”
He was trying to be funny. If he only knew.
And then a high-pitched shriek came to us from what looked like a marble building standing some yards off.
The four of us said as one, in a rather melodious chorus, “Lola de la Monica.”
“God, the woman drives me insane,” said Harold.
“Oh, goody. And I’m supposed to be her mainstay and support whilst this picture is being made.” I grimaced at Harold.
“You’re the one?” John said, sounding surprised. “Why, I expected some old Gypsy crone in a black dress and flowing scarves.”
“No,” said I. “The only flowing scarves you’ll see around here, if the one time I met her is any indication, will be those on Miss de la Monica.”
“What’s she yelling about now?” wondered Lillian.
“God knows,” said Harold.
John heaved a sigh that sounded genuine this time. “I’d better go find out. Lord, I love my job.”
And he strode off in the direction from which Miss de la Monica’s scream had come.
“Brave fellow,” I said.
“You betcha,” said Lillian. “Wait until you have to sit through a fitting.”
I gazed with horror at her. “Will I have to do that?”
Harold answered that question. “Probably. When Lola hires someone, she expects that person to be at her beck and call.
Sagging slightly, I said, “Wonderful.”
“Buck up, kiddo,” Harold said, patting me on the back. “This shoot won’t last forever. Today they’re finishing building the stable.”
“The stable? Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot to ask what the picture’s about.”
“Can’t you guess?” Harold made a sweeping gesture. “It’s the Old South, risen again, with ladies in hoop skirts and gents in buckskin riding trousers. And horses. Lots of horses.” Harold wrinkled his nose.
“Your stepfather has horses,” I reminded him.
“And he can keep ‘em,” said Harold firmly. “What’s more, he can keep them away from me.”
“Gee, I think they’re pretty,” said Lillian in a wistful tone.
“Do you ride, Lillian?” I asked her.
“Good heavens, no. But I do think horses are pretty. And I think the ladies in their full skirts and the gentlemen in their riding habits look ever so elegant and graceful.”
I surreptitiously gave Lillian the once-over, and could understand her romantic notions. There she stood, lost in admiration of her mental images, her hands clutched to her meager bosom—and I don’t believe the meagerness of her bosom had anything to do with a bust-flattener. Her hair was what they call a mouse-brown color, and it had been carved into a severe, practical bob. Lillian Marshall was definitely no beauty. Mind you, she wasn’t ugly, but she was about as plain as a woman could be and she evidently took no pains with her wardrobe or hair, which seemed kind of odd to me as she was Harold’s assistant. She wore a plain brown skirt and a plain white shirt, thick cotton stockings and extremely sensible shoes.
Harold must have seen me eyeing Lillian because he leaned over and whispered, “You shouldn’t believe what you see any more than you should believe anything John Bohnert says. Lillian is the best assistant any costumier ever had.”
“I’m sure she is,” I whispered back.
Then we saw, coming toward us at a dead run, Gladys Pennywhistle, her spectacles bouncing. “Daisy!” she cried. “Daisy, we need you at once. Now! Oh, please, come at once!”
Harold, Lillian and I exchanged a glance. I gulped. Lillian adopted a pitying expression and reached out to pat my arm. Harold said, “Good luck, kiddo.”
So, bracing myself for what was to come and pasting on a smile that felt as phony as a three-dollar bill, I called out to Gladys, “Coming, Gladys! I’m right here,” and I walked toward my doom.
Chapter Six
Very well, so it wasn’t my doom toward which I walked. What I walked toward was the huddle of people surrounding Lola de la Monica, who was, according to Gladys’s panting explanation, experiencing a major temperament.
“Having a temper tantrum, is she? How come?”
Gladys drew a handkerchief from a pocket of her sensible blue suit pocket, wiped her brow, and said, “Who knows? The woman is impossible.”
Oh, boy. Was I ever happy to hear that.
“I thought you were Mrs. Winkworth’s secretary, Gladys.”
She huffed. “I am, but she’s lending me to the picture folks for the duration of this shoot.”
“You don’t sound awfully happy about that.”
“I’m not,” she said succinctly, and speeded up her pace. I got the impression she didn’t want to talk about how she managed to get “borrowed” by the picture folks.
I heard the sobs as we approached the group, and a man turned toward us. John Bohnert. As soon as he saw me, he heaved a breath of relief and smiled. I smiled back, but I didn’t mean it.
“Thank God.” He turned back to a heap on the ground I presumed to be Lola de la Monica. “Everything’s all right, Lola. She’s right here.”
Up from the ground she arose. I think that’s a slightly revised line from an old hymn, but I don’t mean it in any sort of reverential context here. What she did was leap to her feet, and I saw that her dark hair streamed wildly down her back, her face was beet red, her eyes swollen, and her garments, which had started out that morning white, were streaked with grass stains. Harold was going to love that, if she was wearing a costume he’d designed for the picture. In short, she put me in mind of the mad Mrs. Rochester before she threw herself from the burning roof of Thornfield Hall—or did she burn up in the Hall? Pooh, I can’t remember. At any rate, she was every inch a wild woman.
“Mrs. Majesty!” Lola cried, using every ounce of dramatic training she’d ever had and then some. “I need you! Come to my dressing room at once!”
One glance at my companions told me I was stuck. Nobody else evinced the slightest tendency to come to my aid or that of Miss de la Monica. In fact, all the persons gathered there stepped back a pace or six and left me to the demented female.
I reminded myself that I was being paid for this—and a good deal, too—held out one of my well-manicured, very white (because I always wore heavy gloves and a wide-brimmed hat when working in the garden or pruning our orange trees) hands, and said in my most soothingly ethereal spiritualist’s voice, “My dear Miss de la Monica, this will never do. You must take control of the demons haunting you. Yes, I will come to your dressing room, and we will deal with this problem.”
Although I noticed a good deal of eye-rolling and significant-glance-passing going on among the assembled watchers, I paid no heed. My focus was on Lola de la Monica, and Gladys had been absolutely correct: she was in the very midst of a major temperament. Lucky me. I’d been elected the animal-trainer in this particular circus.
Taking one of Lola’s arms, I guided her to— And then I stopped in my tracks and remembered something vital. I had no earthly idea where her dressing room was. I turned toward where I’d last seen John Bohnert. Where he’d been standing not seconds earlier, now stood, rather like a largish, immovable boulder, Sam Rotondo, his fists on his hips, his legs apart and planted solidly on the well-tended lawn, frowning at me.
Giving him back a good, hot scowl of my own, I let my glance slide sideways and whispered to the stranger standing beside Sam and whom I hadn’t yet met, “Can you direct me to Miss de la Monica’s dressing room, please? I fear she’s rather too upset to provide coherent directions.”
The man I’d addressed gulped, exposing a fairly protuberant Adam’s apple as he did so, and said, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll take you right there.”
Bless the fellow, he stepped right up, took Lola’s other arm, and we headed toward the marble-like building I’d noticed a few minutes earlier, Lola staggering every now and then as if the weight
of her problems was tilting her slightly off kilter. It passed through my mind to wonder if the woman had been drinking, but it was only about nine in the morning. Then again, she did belong to the maniacal world of moving pictures, and those folks were an odd lot, even if you didn’t believe everything you read in the papers.
The building we arrived at in a few moments turned out to be yet another grand house on the grounds of the Winkworth estate. I learned later that there were a total of three houses situated on those massive grounds: Mrs. Winkworth’s, Mrs. Hanratty’s and this one, which had been unoccupied until the motion-picture folks took it over for The Fire at Sunset.
The fellow helping with Lola dropped her arm, which precipitated another stagger, this one guiding us right for several steps. By the time I’d managed to get us on-course again, the man had opened the door and was hurrying back to us, looking as if he feared his departure might have permanently damaged Our Star.
“I’m so very sorry, Miss de la Monica!” cried he. “I only wanted to open the door for you.”
For this man, evidently I didn’t exist. Huh.
“It’s all right, Homer, darling,” whispered Lola in a failing voice. “I know you meant well.”
Homer, eh? Was this the genius Caltech professor who’d invented the wobble-free camera-moving device? As I helped him heave Lola into the house, I gave him a good once-over and decided he fitted the absent-minded-professor stereotype fairly well, except that he wasn’t bald. His eyeglasses were every bit as thick as those Gladys wore, and the expression on his face matched Gladys’s when she’d gazed with adoration at Monty Mountjoy. I felt sorry for both of them in that moment: Gladys because Monty would never be hers for reasons already pointed out; and Mr. Fellowes because Lola de la Monica didn’t have a care for anyone in the universe except herself.
“Just take me to the sofa, please, will you?” Lola murmured as if she were Carmen dying in the last act.
“Tell me where it is, and I’ll be delighted to do so,” I said with a trifle more acid in my voice than I’d meant to allow.
It didn’t matter. Lola was performing for the male present at the moment, which was a good thing since he seemed to know where the desired sofa was. He steered us left into a big living room, and together we managed to get Lola over to the massive red crushed-velvet sofa against the far wall. I don’t know why she couldn’t have used the smaller, plainer one near the door, but I guess she knew her business. As she sank onto the sofa, I saw with some amusement that the deep red of the velvet, her grass-smeared white gown, her black hair, and her makeup formed another nearly perfect rendition of an artwork, this one perhaps by one of those pre-Raphaelite guys. Rosetti maybe. Or perhaps Burne Jones. Lola would have done either one of them proud.
