McNally's Bluff (13 page)

“One question before I go. Who, besides you, had a map of the maze, showing the way to the goal, or had access to it?”

“I had the only one, which the police have confiscated. Only the architect of the maze knew the secret and he gave me the map. I doubt if even the men who did the planting could figure it out. Of course Marlena had access to my copy.”

But that’s not how she got to the goal of the maze.

“A final piece of advice.” I spoke as we left the den and made for the front door. Tilly was nowhere in sight. “I would not appear on the Macurdy show if I were you. Nor should your maid, if she’s asked.”

“Why not?” he snapped.

“It would not help your reputation as a publicity hound and it would cast doubts as to the depth of your sorrow. Not to mention that everything you say can, and will, be held against you. Keep a stiff upper lip, Mr. Hayes, but keep it shut.”

“There’s a limit to what I’ll take from you, Archy, and if I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”

“Meaning you’ll go on the show?”

“Meaning I haven’t made up my mind.” We arrived at the front door and he put his hand on the big brass knob. “What’s your next move, Mr. Detective?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea, Mr. Hayes.”

“Try to learn what the police are thinking. That guy; Eberhart, is your pal, right?”

“He’s an acquaintance, Mr. Hayes. I’ll stay in touch.”

“You want a retainer?”

“Check your mail. It comes with a self-addressed return envelope.”

He opened the door and bowed me out.

I walked very slowly to the Miata, the note in my pocket feeling like a piece of the family silver I had pinched from my unsuspecting host. When on official business I always drive with the top up as a young man racing around Palm Beach in a convertible suggests frivolity. It also serves as a cover when I want to read a clandestine note passed to me by the help and not be viewed doing so from an upstairs window.

I got in the car and even fastened the seat belt before extracting the treasure from my pocket.

“When you read this, I’ll be browsing in the bookstore on South County Road.”

Matthew Hayes had best keep a watchful eye on his wallet.

T
HE CLASSIC BOOKSHOP IS
a Palm Beach favorite with locals as well as our winter visitors and this afternoon it was bustling with patrons in search of a good read. The Classic bills itself as a Full Service Bookstore and is true to its word. Autographed first editions, book signings and interviews with authors are just some of the reasons the shop is such a popular community gathering place.

Its logo appears in bold black letters over the canopy that shades the large display window, and two palm trees flank the storefront. Entering, I nodded to several acquaintances before spotting a woman, all in black, whom I suspected was my date. She was browsing in the mystery section which I thought was rather germane to the events that brought us here. And, how clever of her to have picked the Classic for our rendezvous. Owing to the shop’s popularity it was a venue that would cause the least amount of speculation should we be observed, as opposed to a corner table in a tacky saloon.

Not wearing a hat I couldn’t tip it, but I did perform a slight bow. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Thank you for coming, Mr. McNally.” She was indeed all in black, from shoes to slacks to blouse with décolletage that showed a hint of black bra. The dark glasses completed a picture of someone striving for anonymity and failing miserably In Palm Beach on a sunny fall afternoon, she stood out like a giraffe frolicking with penguins.

“Thank you for asking,” I said. “I take it you have something you’d like to impart that you did not want Mr. Hayes to hear. Yes?”

Examining the paperback titles, she replied, “Someone visited with Madame the night of the gala. The night Madame died.”

This was certainly a revelation. “And who was the caller?”

“Mrs. Taylor,” she muttered through pursed lips.

“Carolyn Taylor?” I questioned, unable to mask my astonishment.

“Yes, her.” Tilly continued to look at the spines of the shelved paperbacks and not at me. It was most distracting: We were also blocking the aisle to the annoyance of the browsers.

I touched Tilly’s elbow and gently moved her toward the rear of the shop. “Carolyn Taylor called on Marlena the night of the party? By invitation? They knew each other?”

“I don’t know if she was invited upstairs, but they knew each other. Since we came here Madame has met with Mrs. Taylor many times. I drove Madame to luncheonettes and coffee shops in West Palm and Lake Worth where Mrs. Taylor would be waiting. They talked over coffee and sandwiches. I was never invited in so I don’t know what they talked about.”

My astonishment turned to disbelief. “Did Mr. Hayes know Mrs. Taylor was friendly with his wife? Did he know they were meeting clandestinely?”

Tilly shook her head. “I don’t believe he knew.”

Not being able to see her eyes went a long way in reinforcing my distrust in her story. “But if Mrs. Taylor came to the house, he must have seen her.”

“She came to the house the night of the party, just like everyone who was invited. Remember when the lights went out before the presentation, then the spotlight came on and moved up the stairs to the balcony where Marlena was standing? We rehearsed that several times the night before the gala. I was on the balcony, in a corner where I was hidden from view, but close to the stairs.

“Just when the spotlight illuminated Madame I saw Mrs. Taylor on the second-floor landing. She ran into the upstairs hall. When the presentation was over and the light faded, I quickly led Madame off the balcony and to her bedroom. Mrs. Taylor was not there.”

“You mean Mrs. Taylor went back downstairs, to the party?”

“I don’t know where she went. I only know that she was not in Madame’s bedroom when we got there.”

“Did you tell Madame what you had seen?”

“No,” she answered. “Madame and Mrs. Taylor were so secretive about their relationship I thought it best not to mention the incident. Perhaps Mrs. Taylor had arranged to bring something for Madame that was not my business to know.”

My, my, wasn’t Tilly the most circumspect of ladies-in-waiting.

Carolyn was with us, downstairs, when the lights came back on and people began queuing up to draw names out of the hats. But was she there from the time the lights came back on or did she arrive moments later? I honestly didn’t know. Hayes was talking, people were milling about, I couldn’t swear who was or wasn’t present at that exact moment.

Tilly’s news was so startling I was having a difficult time taking it all in. Also, we had to keep walking, pretending interest in the books on display without hampering the efforts of more serious shoppers. Perhaps the Classic wasn’t the ideal place for this meeting but now that we were here I had no choice but to make do. Carolyn Taylor and Marlena Marvel were friends who met regularly at off-beat coffee shops in the surrounding area, but never in Palm Beach proper? It was possible, as all things that are not impossible are possible. But was it likely? Of course not.

Carolyn could have mounted the stairs when the lights went out. Sticking close to the wall she would have gone undetected by the meandering spotlight. Marlena was highlighted for a minute, perhaps two. During that time Carolyn could have come back down or, when the spot faded and before the lights came back on, she could have done it. In fact, there was so much confusion at the time, she could have made it down unseen even if the lights came on before she reached the last step. Possible, yes. Likely, no.

Most curious of all, why was Tilly telling me this? So I asked her, “Why haven’t you told this to the police or Mr. Hayes?”

“I don’t want to get involved with the police,” she stated vehemently.

Probably because you might have to give them your real name. Could I believe anything this woman said?

“And Mr. Hayes? Surely you’re not concerned about getting involved with him, as you already are.”

“I am loyal to Madame, Mr. McNally. If she didn’t want Mr. Hayes to know about her relationship with Mrs. Taylor, it is not my place to tell him. Also, I do not want Mrs. Taylor to get in trouble for something that may be easily explained.”

Her altruism did not warm my heart. “So why are you telling me?”

She heaved a sigh and began to sniffle. Unable to see behind the dark glasses I could not tell if this sudden display of emotion was real or feigned. “I am so confused, Mr. McNally,” she sobbed, “and I don’t know what to do so I turn to you for guidance. Mr. Hayes says you are most respected in Palm Beach for your—what is the word? Discretion?”

Between her outfit and now obvious distress, we were being anything but discreet in the Classic Bookshop. I again took her by the elbow, but this time I guided her out of the shop. In the bright light of day she looked even more bizarre. “Have you told anyone else the story of Mrs. Taylor being on the second floor the night of the party?” I questioned.

“Yes, sir.”

“Who?”

“I will not tell you,” she brazenly informed me. Or should that be she did
not
inform me?

“Out of loyalty, I presume.”

“Yes, sir.”

People strolled by in shorts and sandals giving us the eye.
Check out the tall dude in a tan gabardine suit that looks a bit snug about the waist and the little woman in widow’s weeds.

“You know, Tilly, I will have to report this to the police and to my client, who is your boss. Both of whom you do not want to tell yourself.”

“I did what I had to do, Mr. McNally, and you must do what you have to do.”

“Translation. I force your hand, the story gets out, and your loyalty is never breached.”

She shrugged. “I did my duty.”

“After a fashion, I would say.”

“Goodbye, Mr. McNally.”

She turned to leave but I stopped her with a gentle tap on the shoulder. “One more thing, Tilly. Mr. Hayes told me you made tea for Marlena after the presentation. Is that right?”

“It is,” she said. “I always serve her hot tea which she takes in her bath following the show.”

“Where did you brew it? Downstairs, in the kitchen?”

“No. We keep an electric perk in the bedroom. I boiled the water in it and poured from it to make the tea.”

“And was the perk filled and ready to be turned on when Marlena was performing?”

“It was.”

“So anyone who happened to be on the second floor that night could have tampered with the tea water. Isn’t that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Tilly shook her head violently, sobbed and fled.

I got back to the McNally building only a few minutes before Mrs. Trelawney announced the arrival of Laddy Taylor. This precluded me from briefing the sire on my meetings with Matthew Hayes and Tilly. So eager was

Laddy to accuse his stepmother of a heinous crime he was some ten minutes early for his three o’clock appointment.

Father and I stood as Laddy rudely brushed past Mrs. Trelawney and entered the inner sanctum, brandishing a newspaper. “Digitalis poisoning,” he said by way of greeting, “isn’t that enough reason to request and be granted an order to exhume my father’s body?”

Father responded with all the zeal of an English butler putting a bourgeois intruder in his place. Motioning to a visitor’s chair, he invited, “Won’t you have a seat, Mr. Taylor?”

Taking the hint, Laddy calmed down and sat down.

“You know my son, Archy?” father introduced me.

Laddy looked at me, nodded, and put the newspaper on father’s desk. “You’ve seen this?” he said.

Laddy Taylor has got to be getting on to forty, give or take, and is of average height. He is beginning to show the signs of one who has gone through life in the fast lane, pausing only to refuel at pit stops along the way. He has the beginning of a paunch, his hair is thinning and his clothes are strictly off the rack. One could see why his disinheritance had him grabbing at straws to keep from descending any lower.

“If you’re referring to the fact that Mrs. Hayes, or Marlena Marvel as she was known, died of digitalis poisoning, I have seen it as has all of Palm Beach and most of the United States,” father said, his fingers ever so slightly pushing the newspaper back toward Laddy Taylor.

“You called me yesterday, as soon as the news was made public,” father continued, “and demanded we use the information as a basis for requesting permission to exhume the late Mr. Taylor’s body. I fail to see the connection between the cause of Mrs. Hayes’s demise and ordering a writ of exhumation.”

“Then let me fill you in, sir,” Laddy boomed, leaning forward in a most belligerent manner. “My father was on a digitalis regimen due to his heart condition. Now we know that Marlena Marvel died of digitalis poisoning shortly after she was visited by Carolyn the night of the murder.”

Taken by surprise, father blinked, but I immediately put in an appearance. “How do you know Mrs. Taylor visited Mrs. Hayes that night?” I asked.

Laddy finally acknowledged my existence by turning his attention from father to me. His reply was short and curt. “Someone told me.”

“The maid, Tilly?”

For a moment I thought I had caught him off guard, but he rallied and snapped, “She told you?”

So Laddy was the other person Tilly had confided in but refused to reveal his name. Why? And was Laddy disturbed by the fact that Tilly had talked to me behind his back, as it were? I felt as if I were once again in the Amazin’ Maze of Matthew Hayes, alone, and without a map to the goal—or the exit.

Father and I have worked together long enough for him to immediately realize that I was privy to certain facts I had yet to pass on to him. He gently stroked his mustache, watched and listened.

“You and Tilly are acquainted,” I stated.

“We are,” Laddy admitted, “not that it’s any of your business, and my relationship with Tilly has nothing to do with the reason I’m here.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Taylor, but I think it’s the only reason you’re here,” I countered. “I have been employed by Mr. Hayes to make inquiries into his wife’s death which you just termed a murder, but I believe the police have yet to determine that.