A Friendly Game of Murder (10 page)

Chapter 14

“I
shall make some of my famous Café Alexander for you,” Woollcott said as he led them up the stairs. “That’ll heat you up lickety-split.”

They shook and shivered as they climbed up one concrete stairway and then another, which eventually brought them into the hotel’s kitchen. Soon Woollcott was banging around with pots and pans while Dorothy and Benchley, still frozen stiff, stood motionless with their backs against the hot radiator.

Woollcott couldn’t find a kettle or a percolator. So he filled a small pan half-full with water, lit one of the burners on the stove and set the pan down over the bright blue flame.

He waved a hand at Dorothy. “Mrs. Parker, hand me that large can of coffee, if you please.”

She turned around and pulled down from a shelf a five-pound can of Horn & Hardart coffee beans, and handed it to him. With the can in his hand, Woollcott searched for a coffee mill. His face lit up when he noticed a small sausage grinder mounted to the countertop.

“Mr. Benchley, your assistance please,” Woollcott said as he spilled a handful of the beans into the upturned mouth of the sausage grinder. “Turn that crank, if you would. The exertion will warm you up.”

Benchley turned the handle. The grinder made loud, angry crunching sounds as it crushed the beans. Woollcott grabbed the pan of boiling water from the burner to catch the coffee grounds.

“There we are.” He set the pan of coffee and water back on the burner. “Now, while we wait for it to steep, tell me what you were doing in that walk-in freezer.”

Dorothy told him everything exactly as it happened. Woollcott stopped her only once. “So you saw a man’s pants through the latch hole, and that man apparently wheeled Bibi away?”

She agreed that was what she had seen. She didn’t, however, go into detail about what she and Benchley were talking about when Woollcott banged on the door. Or how tightly they had held each other.

“So,” she asked, “what brought you to our rescue? How did you know we were trapped in there?”

“I didn’t.” He glanced at his pocket watch and checked the pan of boiling coffee. He snatched up a large spaghetti strainer, dropped in a piece of cheesecloth and placed it over a pie plate. Then he picked up the coffee pan and poured the steaming liquid into the strainer. He set aside the strainer, now lined with coffee grounds, and carefully poured the coffee from the pie plate into two coffee cups, which he had ready.

Fascinated, she watched his every move. “If you didn’t know that we were trapped in there, how did you come to find us?”

“After I left you in the switchboard room, I went back up to see Lydia to interrogate her thoroughly, as you did not allow me to do so in the first place,” Woollcott said. “But Lydia was a bundle of nerves, and I couldn’t get a straight word out of her. I’m not too proud to say that this hardened investigator realized he needed a woman’s conniving, feminine wiles to elicit answers from her. So I went looking for you.”

“Aleck, you’re not a hardened investigator, you’re a drama critic,” she said. “And if anyone I know has a woman’s conniving, feminine wiles, it’s you.”

“Well, that’s a fine thing to say to the person who saved your life,” he said without a trace of real anger. He was preoccupied with looking into drawers. “Mrs. Parker, you ungrateful wretch, would you please check the sink for two coffee spoons?”

She went to the sink, but it was empty. Next to the sink was an enormous barrel-like enamel contraption. It was filled with dirty silverware and ball bearings immersed in a blue liquid. “What is this?”

Woollcott didn’t even look up. “Is it a hopper of ball bearings and silverware immersed in a blue liquid?”

She looked inside the enamel barrel. “Yes, that’s exactly what it is.”

“It’s for cleaning and burnishing the silverware. The kitchen staff soaks the silverware overnight in that toxic concoction, and they swirl it around in the ball bearings, which loosens the bits of food from the cutlery. Then, in the morning, they rinse it off easily.”

She turned to him. “How do you know so much about the hotel’s kitchen?”

But he was busy reaching up into a high cabinet. He pulled down an amber bottle of cognac.

“Ah, here we are. Chef Jacques’ secret stash.” He turned to Parker and Benchley. “I make it my business to know.” He held up the bottle as though it were evidence of this fact. “You live here. You should do the same. The spoons, please? Careful, that liquid will burn your skin. Rinse it off immediately.”

She plucked two spoons out of the mouth of the big enamel barrel. Woollcott was right. The blue liquid began to sting right away. She turned on the cold-water faucet and washed it off her hands and the spoons. She dried the spoons on a dish towel and handed them to Woollcott.

He splashed a healthy amount of the brandy into each cup. Then he found a canister of sugar and measured out two heaping spoonfuls for each. He opened the icebox (a “warm box” now, as the block of ice had been removed—probably for cocktails) and took out a bottle of cream. He poured a large dose of the cream into each cup and stirred. He had already found a couple of nutmeg seeds, which he now dropped into the sausage grinder. He held each cup under the grinder for a quick sprinkle of the nutmeg.

“Café Alexander!” he announced, proudly handing the cups to Dorothy and Benchley. “Good for what ails you. Drink up.”

The warm kitchen had already removed most of the chill from her body, but she nevertheless accepted the cup gratefully.

Benchley raised his mug with that familiar merry twinkle in his eye. “Cheers to you, Mrs. Parker,” he said warmly. “Happy New Year.”

“Cheers to you, Fred,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Happy New Year.”

They clinked cups. And just like that, things were right again between them. Benchley was with her, and he would be by her side through this night, she knew, no matter what it brought. Certainly he would—wouldn’t he?

She smiled to herself and took a sip of the coffee. The hot, sweet liquid warmed her to her toes.

“Magnificent,” she said—and immediately regretted it. She hated to give Woollcott more stuffing for his overstuffed ego. Woollcott grinned with satisfaction.

“Oh, don’t look so smug,” she said to him. “A hot cup of that silverware liquid would taste good to me now.”

“If you say so,” he said, smirking. “But where were we? Ah yes, first the naked girl’s necklace goes missing. And then she is found in a room that is locked from the inside! Then, to top it off, the naked girl herself goes missing. Who would have taken her, and where did he take her? For we now can conclude, by the sight of the trousers, that the person you saw was indeed a man.”

“And why did he take her?” Benchley asked. “And why shove us into the freezer in the bargain?”

“No doubt he trapped you in there to make a clean getaway with Bibi’s body.”

“How inconsiderate,” Benchley said. “He could have simply asked us for the body. We would have gladly handed her over. No need to freeze us to death for it.”

Woollcott folded his arms over his big belly. “Then we can assume it was someone who didn’t want you to see him. He has a secret agenda. First he murders Bibi. Then he steals her body.”

Dorothy didn’t bother to argue now about whether Bibi was indeed murdered. She had come to that certain conclusion while she was inside the freezer. Someone wanted her and Benchley dead—or at least didn’t care if they remained alive or not—so it was only logical to believe that this same person had killed Bibi.

“As preposterous as that sounds, I’m afraid I agree with you, Aleck,” she said. “But who? And why?”

“If we find out the who, we shall quickly determine the why. Let us consider. . . .” A wicked look stole over Woollcott’s face. “Oh, that devious pair! What cunning! What boldness! What effrontery!”

“What—are you talking about?” Benchley asked.

“You mean,
who
am I talking about? None other than Hollywood’s sweethearts, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks!”

Dorothy sighed and drained her cup. “Aleck, just when I start to take you seriously, you jump right off the deep end. Are you still at a loss for your marbles?”

Woollcott raised a finger in the air. “Ah, but that’s the beauty of their plan. On the surface it does seem crazy. But take a closer look, and it’s devilishly clever. Think about it. Who was probably the last to see Bibi alive? Mary Pickford, correct?”

“Well, that may be true—”

“Of course it’s true,” he snapped. “Mary somehow killed Bibi in the bathtub, but then you and I appeared before she could get rid of the body. So what does Mary do? She enlists the help of her husband, who follows you down to the cellar, locks you in the cold storage closet and absconds with the body of his wife’s rival. You see? Mary and Douglas worked together. She did the killing, and he did the disposing. And then they can cover each other’s tracks. Devilishly clever!”

“It’s nuts, is what it is,” Dorothy said. “Why on earth would Fairbanks steal Bibi’s body? What would he need it for? He and his wife are the most successful couple on Broadway and in Hollywood. Why in heaven’s name would they waste their time—as well as jeopardize their reputations—on murdering Bibi in the first place?”

“Mrs. Parker has a point,” Benchley said.

Woollcott opened his mouth to speak, but Dorothy continued, “And why murder her in their own bathtub in the midst of their own party? No woman in her right mind would agree to sully her own home in such a way.”

“Ah, there’s the rub,” Woollcott said archly. “Perhaps she’s not in her right mind.”

Benchley nodded. “Aleck has a point. Mary was rather upset with Bibi. You told me so yourself.”

Woollcott stepped closer. “And didn’t she accuse Fairbanks of some kind of extramarital shenanigans, even bestowing that necklace on the young tartlet? Ahem, I mean starlet.”

Dorothy shook her head. “Aleck, you came looking for me because you thought Lydia was the guilty party. Now you have your sights set on Mary and Douglas? Whom will you accuse next?”

“Don’t get too comfy, Mrs. Parker,” he said, graciously taking her empty coffee cup from her. “I have only your word that you saw a man wheel Bibi away. And I have only your word that you had found Bibi already dead. You could be lying on both counts, for all I know.”

“All that you know could fill up this coffee spoon,” she said, handing him the utensil. “And there’d be room to spare.”

“Room to spare?” His smile hardened. “Speaking of rooms, what do you say we go up to Fairbanks’ penthouse and question its occupants? Then you’ll see how much I know.”

Chapter 15

T
hey rode in the service elevator. It was darker and noisier than the passenger elevator, but it was also right next to the kitchen. So it was too handy to pass up.

“Aleck, this is preposterous,” Dorothy said. “Why would Doug Fairbanks and Mary Pickford allow Bibi to sit naked in their bathtub all night, then kill her by some mysterious means but allow her body to be placed in their bed, then demand that it be removed, and then steal the body back? It makes no sense.”

Woollcott gazed at her over the rims of his eyeglasses. “Do you have a better theory? I’m all ears.”

“You’re all wet,” she mumbled.

She didn’t have a better theory—although she had a different one.
What if Lydia Trumbull murdered Bibi?
Lydia’s whereabouts were unknown at the time of the murder. She was apparently one of the last to see Bibi alive. And she most certainly had an axe to grind against Bibi. Also, Dorothy thought, that fainting spell did not seem like the reaction an innocent woman might have to an accusation—even for an actress.

“Benchley, you’re painfully silent,” Woollcott said. “Something on your mind?”

Benchley shot a guilty glance at Dorothy.

Woollcott became impatient. “Come on. Out with it. What—or
who
—is on your mind?”

Dorothy held her breath. Was it
she
who was on his mind?

“Go on,” Woollcott urged. “Tell us who it is.”

“Dr. Hurst,” Benchley finally said.

Dorothy silently exhaled.

Woollcott raised his eyebrows. “You have my attention. Please speak, Robert. Expatiate. Proclamate. Divulge. Tattle. Spill the beans!”

Benchley took a deep breath. “Well, Dr. Hurst certainly seemed rather displeased with Bibi. Remember how he entered the bathroom during the party, shut the door and then emerged soon afterward? What if he did something to her at that time, something that later killed her?”

Woollcott frowned, although he was clearly intrigued. “Go on.”

“Immediately after, Dr. Hurst became drunk and argumentative. Fairbanks asked him to leave, and Doyle escorted him down to his room, where he fell asleep under the watchful eye of his valet. A perfect alibi. But if I’m right, he had already meted out Bibi’s death sentence well before she actually died. Perhaps he employed a poison that only a doctor might have.”

Dorothy looked up at him with admiration.
What a clever fellow my dear Fred is!

“Mr. Benchley,” she said, “no one would ever guess it from your angelic appearance, but you have quite a devilish mind to come to such a devious conclusion.”

The elevator arrived at the top floor. Woollcott didn’t make a move to open the door. He seemed displeased—displeased with a reasonable alternative to his theory against Fairbanks and Pickford. “But if it was Dr. Hurst, why would he seem so alarmed when he was brought up to examine the body?”

Benchley shrugged. “Lousy bedside manner?”

Dorothy spoke up. “You were the one who cried murder, Aleck. And that was right after you noticed that Bibi’s locket was missing. That was Dr. Hurst’s locket. So, it’s no wonder that he was alarmed. Don’t you find that significant?”

Woollcott held up a hand. “Ah, but Dr. Hurst then said the necklace was worthless. And he evidently had entrusted its care to Fairbanks. Don’t
you
find it significant that said locket then wound up around Bibi’s neck, and then subsequently disappeared while Dr. Hurst was no longer in the penthouse but down in his room? It directs the blame toward Fairbanks, not Dr. Hurst. And, last but not least, the door was locked—from the inside! And there’s no reason to believe that Dr. Hurst or Lydia Trumbull had a key.”

“Well . . .” Dorothy felt as though Woollcott had somehow turned her words against her. And she was about to argue that although Dr. Hurst
said
the locket was worthless, perhaps it really wasn’t. Perhaps it had sentimental value, or some other value. Perhaps Dr. Hurst said it was worthless just to keep himself from looking guilty. But Woollcott didn’t give her the chance to speak.

“Enough of this gibberish!” he said, flinging open the elevator door. “Let’s talk to Douglas and Mary, and get to the bottom of this.”

But when they entered the penthouse, the place was empty. They looked in every room, but there was no sign of Fairbanks or his wife.

“Now what?” Dorothy asked.

Woollcott hesitated, then thoughtfully moved toward the bathroom. “As they say in the detective novels, let us reconstruct the scene of the crime. Mrs. Parker, show us exactly how you entered this room in the first place, and then every step afterward. Leave out nothing.”

“But, Aleck, you were here when I found her—”

“No, I most certainly wasn’t. When I arrived, you were standing over the bath. What did you do just before that? Show us step-by-step. Leave nothing out.”

“Oh, well, if I must.” She closed the bathroom door. “When I arrived, the penthouse was empty. The bathroom door was closed. If you’ll recall, Aleck, I had told you that Mary had wanted your help to pry Bibi out of the bathtub. So I thought it’d be a hoot if you opened the bathroom door and instead of finding Bibi, you found me.”

“And then you’d ‘murder’ me, per the rules of the game.”

“That was my idea, yes. So when I found the bathroom door locked, I recalled that Fairbanks had said that there was a key in a kitchen drawer.”

She proceeded to show them the drawer where she had found the key, although the key was no longer there. They went back to the bathroom door, and she pointed to the key in the lock, right where she had left it. She opened the door. “There was a towel on the floor against the inside of the door—”

“On the inside?” Woollcott asked. “That’s very strange, don’t you think?”

“More than strange,” she said. “How did the murderer place a towel on the inside of the door—and why?”

“It’s impossible,” Benchley said. “If there was a towel against the door
inside
the bathroom, that means the murderer either left the room by other means—or didn’t leave at all.”

They all looked at the tub where Bibi had been, and thought the same thing.
Had Bibi left the tub at some point, put a towel down against the door and then gotten back into the tub?

“It makes no sense!” Woollcott said.

“Then Bibi’s
murderer
must have done it somehow,” Benchley said.

“But if so,” Woollcott asked, “how did he get out the door, yet leave the towel against it?”

“He
or
she,” Dorothy said.

“Whoever!” Woollcott said. “Someone murdered Bibi, then disappeared like a ghost. I don’t like it.”

They looked all around the room. The only doorway in or out was the one in which they were standing. There was no skylight or air shaft in the ceiling. The only window was four feet off the floor and barely large enough for Dorothy to fit through—and there was a twelve-story drop on the outside.

Woollcott pursed his lips. “For the time being, let’s not concern ourselves with how the murderer left the room. Let’s get back to reconstructing the scene of the crime. Mrs. Parker, that’s your cue.”

Dorothy said, “As I told you before, I opened the door, which pushed aside the towel, and then I saw Bibi in the tub—”

“Show, don’t tell,” Woollcott said. “What kind of writer are you?”

She approached the tub with much less urgency than when she had originally found Bibi’s body. “I went over, knelt down and, let’s see, I felt her cheek. She was ice-cold. Her skin was white.”

“And the room?”

“The room?”

“Was it cold? It was roasting during the party.”

Dorothy stood up. “You know, it
was
cold. Well, it was cold after I opened the window, at least.”

“So
you
opened the window?” Woollcott asked. “I remember closing it.”

“Yes, I—” She was ashamed to admit she had panicked. “I needed some fresh air. So I opened the window.” She reached toward it.

“Stop,” Woollcott commanded. “That ice bucket on the floor and that broken glass. Were they there when you found Bibi?”

Dorothy hesitated.

Woollcott yanked his silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to pick up a shard of glass. “Perhaps Bibi was poisoned!”

“Poisoned?”

“She took a drink, felt the poison at work in her body, then dropped the glass on the floor in her agony. As her life shattered, so did this glass,” he said dramatically.

“No, that wasn’t it,” Dorothy said. “Both the glass and the ice bucket were on the radiator. I knocked them over in my hurry to open the window. That’s all.”

“Was the glass empty?”

“I don’t know. I think so.”

“Well, Bibi may still have been poisoned. But now that the glass is broken, it’s doubtful we shall ever know,” he said disdainfully. “And the ice bucket, was it empty, too?”

“No, there was some ice in it. That I remember. It had spilled out when the bucket tumbled over.”

“That’s strange, because the floor is dry now. Must not have been much ice.” Woollcott nodded thoughtfully, though she knew he made nothing of this information. “So you carelessly knocked over the champagne glass and ice bucket—”

“Aleck, really,” Benchley said. “She had just discovered a dead body. Give her some latitude.”

“Not attitude,” Dorothy said.

Woollcott continued, “Then you stood up and threw open the sash.”

She nodded and opened the window as she had earlier. Looking outside, she saw that the city was snowbound and quiet. It had been loud before, as crowds throughout New York were counting down to midnight.

Behind her, Woollcott asked, “And then what did you do?”

“I took in some fresh air.”

“Mrs. Parker, you don’t have to tell us every breath you took.”

“You said to tell you step-by-step, leaving nothing out.”

“Very well,” he sighed. “And then?”

“Then I turned around, and you were standing there.” She pointed.

Woollcott moved backward to the bathroom doorway. “And I said, ‘Happy—’”

“Footprints!” Benchley shouted, almost in her ear.

“What?” Woollcott asked.

“Look, footprints.” Benchley pointed out the window. “Footprints in the snow, on the roof! What do you make of that?”

“Someone took the road less traveled by?” she said.