Come Hell or Highball (2 page)

“On a first name basis already,” Horace muttered.

Beyond them, I saw someone dart behind a large tomb. I was pretty sure it was the red-haired chorus girl.

Was she eavesdropping?

“There will be other friends there, too, of course,” Olive said. “The Wrights have telephoned to confirm, and so has Lem Fitzpatrick. I thought, Lola darling, that even though you're in mourning, you could do with a little company.”

Company, my foot. Olive was inviting me so she could gloat about her motion picture guests. Society Matrons, if you're unfamiliar with the breed, groom and train to compete in matches more snappish and bitchy than those of the Westminster Kennel Club. I would know: I've attended dog shows
and
society luncheons.

“You're absolutely the elephant's elbow to invite me, Olive, but I'm afraid I simply couldn't.” I watched the red-haired girl creep out from behind the tomb and totter toward the parked motorcars. I looked back to Olive. “I must spend some time reflecting.” Reflecting, with a highball in one hand and a novel in the other. “And Hibbers said he'd help me sort through Alfie's things.”

At the mention of Hibbers, Olive's expression went brittle.

Hibbers, my butler, made tiny, crustless chicken sandwiches worthy of a buffet table in Elysium. His opinions on drapery fabrics were infallible, and his cocktails were the bee's knees. To top all, he was British. Hibbers was the envy of every Society Matron from the Gold Coast to Grand Central Station. And he was all mine.

“You're certain you couldn't pop by?” Olive feigned sadness.

“Positively certain,” I said. I bade Olive and Horace good-bye, and Berta and I made our escape.

*   *   *

“That Arbuckle woman is a demon,” Berta huffed.

“Don't you think that's a bit extreme?”

“Well, her husband
is
well fed.”

“That's in spite of Olive's efforts. Horace once confided to me, after two mint juleps and a sidecar, that she keeps everything in the kitchen but the carrots and celery under lock and key.”

Berta
tsk
ed her tongue.

We trotted along toward my Duesenberg Model A, which I'd left under a dripping oak tree. The Duesy was cream colored, with cinnamon brown wheel wells and whitewall tires.

Sure, a Society Matron like me should, by rights, be chauffeured about in something longer, lower, and blacker. But I insist upon driving myself. Duesenbergs, you know, are wickedly fast. The motorcar salesman said that they can reach 106 miles per hour on the highway. I was sold.

Although I couldn't, back then, imagine why I'd ever need to drive like a bat out of hell.

Through the misting rain, I spied a small, orange, puffy form bouncing behind the steering wheel. Faint yipping sounds pierced the air.

“Poor little Cedric,” I said, picking up the pace.

Berta shuddered.

When I got behind the steering wheel, Cedric, my Pomeranian, leapt onto my lap and licked my face.

“Did you miss me, peanut?” I cooed.

Cedric wiggled.

Some people find solace in philosophy or religion. Others find solace in mashed potatoes or a bottle of gin. I find solace in my dog's fluff. (All right—maybe I find a
pinch
of solace in tipply, trashy novels, and chocolate, too.)

Berta hoisted herself up onto the passenger seat and slammed the door. As usual, she and Cedric ignored each other.

I was just jamming my toe on the starter box when a figure moved into my peripheral vision.

 

2

“Mrs. Woodby?” the figure called. She was several paces from my motorcar, but I recognized her: the red-haired girl who'd been creeping around behind the tomb.

I rolled the window down.

“You're Mrs. Woodby, ain't you?” The girl stopped a pace away from my motorcar. Her fashionable yet cheaply made black cloche hat came down so far over her eyes, she had to tilt her chin to look at me. Large, luminous brown eyes lined in thick black. Shiny Cupid's bow lips. Imitation-alligator handbag with a missing glass eye.

“Yes, I'm Lola Woodby.”

“Awful sorry about your hubby, Mrs. Woodby.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said. “What is your name?”

“Miss Simpkin—Ruby Simpkin.”

“What is it, Miss Simpkin? Conscience flaring up? Thought you'd say a kind word to the missus to clear up your guilt? Believe me, there's no need for that. Alfie went through girls like—”

“No,” Ruby said, her voice flat. “Nothing like that. Alfie—I mean, Mr. Woodby, was … Well, I guess I did know him. Like you say. But I saw you didn't shed a single tear at the funeral.” She looked me straight in the eye. “You're glad he's pooped, ain't you?”

My jaw fell open. I heard Berta gasp.

“Well, I never!” I said.

Ruby leaned in. “I ain't saying you chilled him off, but I bet you wanted to. He carried on with near every bird at the Frivolities. Tossed me over after only two months. Two! I know I ain't as young as some of the other girls, but I still got—”

“Miss Simpkin,” I said. “I was fully aware of my husband's various … gentlemanly pastimes. So if that is all you wished to tell me, then—” I reached around Cedric to the steering wheel.

“No, it ain't. I wanted to ask you a—a sorta favor.” She pressed her lips together. “I heard you, back there, talking with the Arbuckles.”

“You
were
eavesdropping, then.”

“I heard them inviting you to their country house and all that.”

“I declined the invitation.”

“Well, supposing you changed your mind.”

I lifted my eyebrows.

Ruby crept closer. I caught a whiff of discount perfume. “This is real sticky and hush-hush, see, but I need something.” She looked past me, at Berta. “Who's she?”

“My cook.”

“Funny, a grande dame like you motoring your cook around.”

Grande dame?
“You may say anything you like in front of Berta. She has been with me for seven years.” Seven years and twenty pounds. “Go ahead, Miss Simpkin.”

“Well, it's like this, see. I need something. From the Arbuckles' country house.” She fiddled with her handbag's clasp.

“You want me to—what? Steal from my friends? For one of my husband's chorus girl mistresses?” I laughed aloud from the sheer outrageousness of it. “That's what the Frivolities are, right? A sequins-and-feathers revue?”

“Yeah.” Ruby's shoulders slumped.

“What was it you thought I'd nick for you?” I asked. “Jewelry? A priceless oil painting?”

“It ain't nothing like that. It's something that—it's mine. And I want it back.” She jutted her chin. “I woulda paid you, you know.”

“I am not presently in need of funds.”

“Fine. Looks like I'll have to get it myself.” She spun around and crunched away down the gravel drive.

“Floozy,” Berta said.

We watched until Ruby reached the one remaining motorcar in the cemetery besides mine, a junky Model T with a sagging rear fender. She bent in front of the bonnet and cranked the engine to a chug before settling into the driver's seat.

Was I crazy to pity her?

The Model T rattled away through the cemetery gates.

“Dear old Alfie did know how to pick them,” I said, and stomped on the Duesy's starter box.

*   *   *

I lurched into gear, rolled out of the cemetery, and took the coastal highway toward home. It was only a few miles from the cemetery, through lush woodland and waterlogged meadows, which now and then afforded glimpses of the misty gray sound. Along the way, we passed many grand gatehouses, stone walls, and ornate iron gates that marked entrances to the palatial estates along this, the sumptuous Gold Coast.

My own house, which Alfie had named Folie Maison, snuggled back in the trees, only its four brick chimneys visible from the road.

I braked at the wrought iron gates, and the gatekeeper scurried out of the little brick and half-timber lodge. He gave me a salute. “Mrs. Woodby,” he said. He jogged over to unlatch the gates. He wore a black armband. Very proper. He
also
wore a sickly little smile, and he kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Mr. Blunt seems … jumpy,” I said to Berta.

“Perhaps because he consumes nothing but tinned kippers and chicory.”

As we waited for Mr. Blunt to drag the gates open, my eyes strayed to the ivy-draped pillar upon which one gate was hinged. I blinked.

“Amberley?” I said. “
Amberley?
Berta, what has happened to the sign?” I pointed. Where there had been a sign reading
FOLIE MAISON
in gilt, there was now a sign that read
AMBERLEY
in square black letters.

Berta's eyes widened. “Good gracious, I do not know, Mrs. Woodby. Someone has changed the sign. How very odd.”

“It was changed today. This morning, while we were at the funeral. I would've noticed it, otherwise. I motored through the gates twice yesterday.”

Berta met my eyes. We both knew who had changed the sign.

I set my mouth and zipped the Duesy through the gates. My thoughts were twirling as I roared up the lane. Several other motorcars were parked in the circular driveway, and still more by the carriage house.

I screeched to a stop.

“Calm yourself, Mrs. Woodby,” Berta said.

“Calm?” I shouted.

Folie Maison was an enormous house—a mansion, really—built to look like a Tudor cottage: brick, with brown and white half-timbering on the top half, and loads of chimneys and mullioned windows and steeply gabled wings. Ivy crept up the foundation stones.

I stormed up the wide front steps, Cedric pattering at my heels.

Just as I reached for the iron handle, the huge front door swung inward.

“Hibbers!” I said, tearing off my hat.

“Madam.” Hibbers, my butler, was tall and distinguished, with not a wrinkle on his dark suit, nor a single hair out of place on his graying head. He really spruced up a doorway.

“Who has changed the sign at the front gates?” I asked. “It was Chisholm, wasn't it?—Mr. Woodby, I mean to say. Where is he?”

I was about to toss my hat into Hibbers's usually welcoming hands, when I noticed that he held his
own
hat in one hand. And a suitcase in the other.

Uh-oh.

“I regret to inform you, madam,” he said, “that I must give notice.” He placed his bowler hat on his head and slid around me.

I followed him. “You're quitting? But I've treated you so well! Now that Alfie's gone, there won't be such a mess to clean up. No more mad parties, I promise, and—”

“That is precisely the trouble, madam.” Hibbers placed his suitcase on the rack of his black Chrysler, which was parked in the driveway.

“What do you mean?”

He buckled the luggage rack's straps.

“Do you want a raise?” I said. The thought of life without Hibbers and his little sandwiches, his angelically shaken cocktails, made my throat ache.

Hibbers slid behind the steering wheel and slammed the door. “You do not fully comprehend, madam,” he said out the window. “I shan't work for that insect.”

“Insect?” I said. But I knew who he meant. “You don't work for Chisholm. You work for me! And where are you going?”

He started the engine. “Dune House.”

“What?”
Dune House was Horace and Olive Arbuckle's estate, three miles down the road.

“Mrs. Arbuckle has, many times in the past, extended me offers of employment. I have decided at last to accept, as their butler, Mr. Hisakawa, was quite abruptly dismissed recently. Good afternoon, madam.”

He swung the Chrysler around the drive with a spurt of white gravel, and rumbled away down the tree-lined drive.

I stared, dumbfounded, until the chrome bumper disappeared from view. Raindrops smacked my face. All my relief—and even, I confess, glee—over my newly minted widowhood was shriveling.

The front door was open. Subdued voices and the scent of coffee drifted out. A cold luncheon had been planned for the funeral guests, and then Chisholm and I were to meet the lawyer in the library for the reading of Alfie's last will and testament.

But it was starting to look like Chisholm had already gotten a sneak peek at the will.

How I pined for one of Hibbers's highballs. And how I hankered to short-sheet Chisholm's bed.

I swooped Cedric into my arms. He nuzzled my cheek.

“It'll be all right, peanut,” I whispered to him. “I hope.”

*   *   *

The good news, it turned out, was that Alfie hadn't actually written a will, so everything went to me. The bad news was, there wasn't a nickel to inherit.

I perched in a green leather chair in Folie Maison's library, opposite the lawyer. He was a grayish little fellow with a nasal voice. The last of the funeral guests had trickled away after gorging themselves on smoked salmon sandwiches and Berta's miniature napoleons.

“Nothing,” I repeated to the lawyer. “How could I be flat broke when Alfie was so wealthy?”

“Although your late husband was the elder of the two Woodby children,” the lawyer said, “your mother-in-law, Rose, controls most of the family fortune.”

Rose was a tyrannical invalid who lived in secluded splendor in Palm Beach, Florida. She was far too delicate to have traveled up for Alfie's funeral. Besides, she'd never cared much for Alfie. She doted on Chisholm—who at that moment lurked near the fireplace.

“Father had the foresight to tie up Alfred's inheritance in trust before he went to his reward fifteen years ago,” Chisholm said. “It was doled out to Alfred as a monthly allowance.”

Like dog treats. It made perfect sense. Still, this was all news to me.

“Your late husband was … indiscriminate in his spending habits,” the lawyer said. “Were you aware that he owned three yachts? Six racehorses?”