A Friendly Game of Murder (4 page)

Dorothy grabbed Fairbanks’ arm. “What’s wrong with Mary?” she asked gently.

Fairbanks stopped. His wife continued on to the kitchen, shoved open the swinging door and disappeared inside.

“Aw, she thinks I had something to do with that girl in there.” Fairbanks waved a hand at the bathroom.

Dorothy leaned toward him. “
Did
you have something to do with that girl in there?”

“Heck, no.” Fairbanks frowned. “I told Mary that, but she won’t listen. She just got more steamed.”

“Lot of that going around.” Dorothy nodded in the direction of Lydia Trumbull, who stood where Fairbanks had left her. And Lydia still stared angrily at Bibi in the bathtub. “Leave Mary alone for now. In the meantime, why don’t you go see what you can do for Lydia? I’ll talk to Mary in a little while, once she settles down. Okay?”

Fairbanks nodded and strolled over to Lydia.

Benchley, who had been standing nearby the whole time, took a step closer to Dorothy. “What was all that about?”

She didn’t answer him directly. “Have you noticed that if you put a naked woman into a crowded room, the men go crazy—”

“But the women go crazier?” he said, finishing her thought. She nodded and patted his arm.

Fairbanks made an announcement. “All right, folks. Let’s liven this party up. How about a song from Lydia? What do you say?”

There was a smattering of applause. Fairbanks walked Lydia over to an upright piano—a player piano. He fiddled with it a moment and soon the piano started playing a loud, jaunty tune.

Lydia sang along in a clear, lilting voice,
“In the morning . . . in the evening . . . ain’t we got fun. . . .”

“Not yet, we don’t,” groused Woollcott, suddenly standing by Dorothy. “Come gather ’round, children. It’s time for Murder.”

Chapter 4

W
oollcott shepherded them toward an empty corner of the room and away from the music.

“Follow me, little lambs,” he said. “The carnage will commence shortly.”

Dorothy and Benchley followed. After them came Harpo, Jane and Ruth.

Woollcott looked everyone over. “A pitiful shame that many of the usual members of our group couldn’t join us here tonight. Well, that’s their loss.”

Dorothy thought the same thing. Then she spotted Doyle standing by himself again, looking isolated and irritated. Just a few paces away stood Dr. Hurst at the bar; he was getting angrily and progressively drunk. Doyle appeared to be distancing himself from his old friend.

“I’ll be right back,” Dorothy said to Woollcott.

She went over to Doyle and grabbed him by the sleeve. “Come on, Artie. If your old pal wants nothing to do with you, then come have fun with some new pals.”

Doyle went along with her. He smiled gamely. “So I shall. And gladly.”

They rejoined the group. Woollcott eyed Doyle. “Ah, another lamb for the slaughter. Welcome again, Arnold.”

Dorothy chuckled. “His name is Arthur.” She winked at Doyle and wondered to herself,
Now, how is Aleck going to react when someone lets him know that this old gent is perhaps the most famous author in the world?
She couldn’t wait to find out. But now was not yet the time to tell Woollcott.

“Yes, well,
Arthur
,” Woollcott continued, “you may need instruction on this devilish little game of ours. You’ll be pleased to know that it is actually quite simple. There is a murderer and there is a detective. Everyone else is a potential victim or a suspect.”

Doyle nodded. “And, as Mrs. Parker informed me, the murderer and detective are chosen by pulling slips of paper out of a hat?”

“Precisely.” Woollcott snatched his top hat off the head of Harpo Marx, who had somehow put it on. “I’ll take that now, my moronic friend.” Then he dipped his chubby hand in his jacket pocket and withdrew a wad of paper slips. He dropped these into the upturned top hat. “We all draw from the hat. Whoever selects the detective slip announces it to the group.” He looked sidelong from one person to the other. “But whoever draws the murderer slip must keep it secret.”

Doyle asked, “How exactly does the murderer . . . commit murder?”

“A worthy question, my portly friend,” Woollcott said, drumming his fingers on his own big belly. “After we draw the slips, we disperse to our previous diversions and discussions, resuming our frivolity in the party as though this game is not even taking place.”

“But of course it is?” Doyle said, more a statement than a question.

“Most certainly it is, Arthur, old boy.” Woollcott smiled deviously. “While we interlocute and imbibe with the other party guests, we also surreptitiously play the game, always on the lookout for the murderer.”

“And what is he doing in the meanwhile?” Doyle asked.

“He or
she
—we do not discriminate in the gender of our murderers on this side of the Atlantic, old duck,” Woollcott scolded. “The object of our murderer is to secure one of us alone and point to that victim and declare: ‘You are dead.’”

Doyle raised his bushy eyebrows. “So it’s an elaborate game of tag, is it?”

Woollcott sighed. “Isn’t it all an elaborate game? Isn’t this fancy party just a gathering of whelps in a schoolyard? Isn’t the New York Stock Exchange just an elaborate form of bartering wampum? Isn’t the U.S. presidency just an elaborate form of king of the hill? I put it to you, dear Arthur, that we are always nothing but children playing schoolyard games.”

Doyle’s hackles rose at this. “My good sir, you go too far—”

Dorothy intervened. “Going too far—that’s the story of Woollcott’s life, Artie.” She turned to Woollcott. “Enough woolgathering, Aleck. Just get back to explaining the game.”

“Quite right, Mrs. Parker,” Woollcott said. “Where was I? Oh yes. At some point the murderer must be alone with his or her intended victim, tell the victim that he or she has been murdered, and then—vamoose! This leaves the deceased victim exactly where the murderer encountered this unfortunate person. And there the victim must stay until found.”

“So much for the unfortunate victim,” Doyle said. “What of the detective?”

Woollcott’s eyes gleamed. “Ah, this is the detective’s shining hour, although I daresay I’ve solved many a case in well under an hour. Some in mere minutes. In any event, once the murder victim is found, the detective then questions each player—each suspect—in turn, interrogating them and determining their exact whereabouts—”

“And
when
abouts,” Dorothy added.

“Mrs. Parker, as always, hits the nail on the head,” Woollcott said with a little bow to her. “By gathering the wheres and whens of each suspect, the detective deduces, as they say, who done it. Let’s say, for example, that Harpo here is our victim, found in the hallway. And our Mrs. Parker was with him—and no one else—between nine thirty and nine forty-five in the hallway. So in this simplistic example I easily point the finger at Mrs. Parker as our murderer. And it’s another case closed for Detective Woollcott. Do you follow?”

“Painstakingly, yes, I do,” Doyle said.

“And now are you game to join us in a little Murder?” Woollcott’s beady eyes twinkled.

Harpo Marx crept up behind Doyle and slung his arm around the big man’s neck.

“As intriguing as it sounds, I thank you, but no, I shan’t play your game,” Doyle said, peeling Harpo’s arm from around his shoulders. “Perhaps you’ll permit me to merely be a bystander, an observer.”

Woollcott’s face was pink. “After asking me to explain the entire game in detail, you choose not to play?” he huffed. “My dear sir, you put yourself at risk of being a victim of hot-blooded murder, game or no game!”

Doyle puffed out his big bear chest, ruffling his walrus mustache, and smiled. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take, Mr. Woollcott. But don’t let me delay you any further. Please, get the game afoot.”

Woollcott, obviously a little physically intimidated, nodded and turned away from Doyle. “So we shall. Okay, boys and girls, pick your poison.” He held up the top hat and offered it to Dorothy.

“No, please, Aleck,” she said, pointing to him. “Ladies first. You start.”

Woollcott glowered, but all the same he reached into the hat and drew out a slip. His frown changed to a wicked grin as he looked one by one at the other players. “Oh ho, little lambs, I am the detective!” He held up the slip so they could see it. “You’d better be crafty, my fair murderer. Little Acky has never lost a case!”

Harpo was the next to pick from the hat. True to form, he gave himself away—he stuck out his tongue as though eating something disgusting. He was merely a suspect, Dorothy knew. If he had picked the
murderer
slip, he would have smiled ear to ear.

The hat was handed around the circle. When it came to Benchley, he didn’t take a slip. Instead he offered the hat to Dorothy.

“Robert, please!” Woollcott admonished.

“I’d rather play dead,” Benchley said with a smile, “than play one of your parlor games.”

“Pick the right slip,” Dorothy said, “and you could play both.”

But Benchley just shook his head, passed the hat to Dorothy and took a step back next to Doyle. This didn’t surprise her, although she couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. Too bad he didn’t want to play. If she “murdered” him, she could have him alone for hours.

But Benchley never played these games, and she understood. In the same way that she didn’t like how New Year’s Eve had become an occasion of compulsory fun, Benchley didn’t enjoy the orchestrated amusement of parlor games at any time of the year.

Dorothy debated with herself for a moment. If Benchley wasn’t going to play, why should she? But then she considered that the game really wouldn’t take much time away from Benchley, especially if she was merely a suspect. She poked her hand into the hat and pulled out a slip. She unfolded it.

MURDERER
, it read. She felt a thrill of power in seeing that word.

To her own amazement, she managed to suppress a smile. She even kept herself from glancing at Woollcott, which would have told him that she had picked the murderer slip. Instead she merely folded up the little piece of paper, clutched it in her hand and passed the hat back to Woollcott.

She would get him, though. Woollcott would be her victim! Then how would he go about solving his own murder? She grinned inwardly at the delicious, malicious thought of it. Little Acky had never lost a case? He was sure to lose this one.

Suddenly the sound of breaking glass startled Dorothy from her thoughts. The music and singing stopped. Dorothy spun around. At the bar Dr. Hurst was arguing with Douglas Fairbanks.

“Had enough to drink, have I?” Dr. Hurst was shouting. “No impudent Yank is going to tell me to hold my liquor!”

Fairbanks put his hand on Dr. Hurst’s arm. Fairbanks smiled warily, as though he were trying to calm a bucking horse. “Easy now, Doctor. Maybe we should get you back to your room—”

“Unhand me!” Dr. Hurst said, pulling his spindly arm away. Scotch spilled from the bottle in his hand. “You have some cheek, Mr. Fairbanks! First I entrusted you with a very valuable item, which then quickly appeared around the neck of that naked harlot in your bathtub! How irresponsible and disgraceful of you! And now you have the audacity to prohibit me from your self-proclaimed hospitality? You Hollywood fraud!”

Fairbanks, though usually genial and generous, had clearly had enough. He would not be called a “Hollywood fraud” in his own apartment in front of his friends. He grabbed the old man by the back of his jacket and nearly hoisted him off his feet.

“You,” Fairbanks called to Doyle. “You came in with him. You take him out.” As an afterthought, he added, “Please.”

Without waiting for Doyle, Fairbanks pulled Dr. Hurst toward the front door.

“I say—” Doyle muttered, and rushed after them. “You Americans. It’s almost enough to try a man’s patience.”

Chapter 5

D
orothy watched as Fairbanks practically shoved Dr. Hurst out the double doors.

Doyle rushed toward Fairbanks. “That’ll do, sir!” he said angrily, his big hands balled into fists. “Must you treat him so roughly? The man is nearly seventy years old.”

“Then he’s old enough to know better,” Fairbanks said furiously, but quickly regained his composure. “I’m sorry, sir. But I won’t have angry drunks in my home, no matter how old they are. Now please take him down to his room and see him to bed. He’s had more than enough.”

Doyle went into the hallway to tend to Dr. Hurst. Fairbanks threw the doors closed and slapped his hands as though to dust them off.

Bibi’s laughter trilled from the tub. “Oh no, Douglas. You didn’t toss out my rich old British doctor? I was saving him for later!”

Fairbanks raised a hand to his forehead. “Another one to deal with,” he muttered to himself. Then, louder, “You’d better get out of that tub soon, Bibi. You’ll turn into a pickled prune.”

She called out, “And you’ve turned into a pickled prude!”

Bibi and the crowd in the bathroom laughed and jeered.

Fairbanks shook his head resignedly and went back to the bar to oversee his butler cleaning up the broken glass and spilled scotch.

Dorothy felt something tugging at her hand. She turned to find Benchley pulling the slip of paper out of her grasp. He unfolded it with a mischievous twinkle in his eye and read it.

“Ah, Mrs. Parker,” he whispered. “It’s the role you were born to play.”

“Who, me? A femme fatale?” she whispered back. “Only if your name is Woollcott.”

“So he’s your target?”

She nodded. “Such a large target will be hard to miss.”

“And how do you plan to kill Little Acky—and the rest of the evening?”

She shrugged. “Somehow I must get him alone. Perhaps you could help me with that.” She smiled. “As for killing the rest of the evening, perhaps you could help me with that, too.”

They clinked glasses and had a cheerful sip as warmth and contentment settled through them. But as Dorothy lowered her glass, she spotted Mary Pickford, who had returned from the kitchen and was talking animatedly with Lydia Trumbull.

“Hold that thought,” Dorothy said to Benchley. “I promised Fairbanks I’d talk to Mary for him. Some kind of lovers’ spat. Be back in a minute.” She patted his arm and went across the room to the two women.

Mary Pickford and Lydia Trumbull saw her coming and stopped talking.

“Good evening, ladies,” Dorothy said. “Don’t stop chatting on my account.”

They smiled politely but didn’t answer. She had seen them stealing glances toward Bibi, who was still in the bathtub. “So, is anyone else in for a swim?” Dorothy asked brightly.

“Don’t make me think about it.” Mary shuddered. Her girlish face was stormy. Her mascara had smeared from her tears and darkened her lovely eyes. “I can’t even think about using that tub after
she’s
been in it. My very own bathtub!”

Dorothy looked to Lydia for her response.

“I haven’t a word to say about that terrible girl,” Lydia said, although she undoubtedly had many words to say about Bibi, Dorothy thought.

Dorothy spoke sweetly. “Well, you know what I always say: If you have nothing nice to say about someone, come sit down next to me!”

She grabbed both their hands and led Mary and Lydia toward a cluster of empty chairs near the kitchen door. She sat the women down and leaned in close. “Now, what exactly is going on between you and Douglas and that Bibi in there? Tell Dottie all about it.”

Mary sniffled. Lydia patted her on the shoulder.

“I think Douglas is having an affair with that little tramp,” Mary said, anger and sorrow in her voice. “She’s certainly made herself quite at home, hasn’t she?”

“There, there . . .” Lydia said.

Dorothy would have sympathized with Mary, but she knew Mary was wrong. “I refuse to believe it, Mary. I can’t believe it,” she said. “Why would Doug ever cheat on you? You’re not only beautiful and talented, but you’re Hollywood royalty. And you’re one of the nicest and most charming people I have the pleasure to know. And Doug is certainly not so stupid that he can’t see through the glossy veneer of that vapid vamp in there.”

Mary shook her head. “If it wasn’t for the proof, I might say you’re right, Dottie. But now I know different.”

Lydia nodded her head sadly.

“Proof?” Dorothy asked. “What proof?”

“That necklace!” Mary said, her voice husky with choked emotion. “That silver necklace. I saw it on my dresser earlier in the evening. I naturally figured it was a gift that Douglas intended to give to me. But then Bibi stepped out of my own bedroom stark naked except for that necklace! Can you believe that—my own husband making a present to his little slut on New Year’s Eve, in my own apartment? How dumb does he think I am?”

Dorothy stifled a knowing chuckle. She opened her mouth to explain that the necklace wasn’t from Fairbanks. It was from Dr. Hurst. And furthermore it wasn’t a gift. Bibi must have taken it—

But Mary kept talking, “And look at her in there living it up. She doesn’t think that I know something’s going on? How dumb does
she
think I am?”

Dorothy began again to explain, but now Lydia spoke up.

“Not as dumb as I feel,” she said ruefully. “Bibi’s been upstaging me for months now. At first I figured it was simply a matter of her taking any opportunity she could get. She’s young and hungry and ruthless. But as of tonight I know she’s been trying to upstage me on purpose.”

“On purpose?” Dorothy asked doubtfully.

Lydia spoke bitterly; her pale blue eyes were as hard and cold as ice. “Didn’t you notice how she waited until just the moment that Doug introduced me, and then she burst forth like the great whore of Babylon? Not only does she want to take my place on Broadway, but she wants to take my place in society—and humiliate me in the bargain!”

Before Dorothy could answer, Woollcott sauntered past them and pushed open the door to the kitchen. This was her chance to get him alone! Murdering Woollcott in the kitchen would be perfect.

Dorothy rose and spoke quickly. “Mary, don’t do anything rash. I know full well that Douglas is not cheating on you with that woman. But wait here, and I’ll explain it all. I just have to kill Alexander Woollcott, and I’ll be right back.”

She left them with stunned expressions on their faces and pushed open the door to the kitchen. Woollcott stood in front of the wide-open wooden door of the icebox. He was dipping his fingers into a bowl of pink cake frosting. He turned as she entered. He had a pink frosting mustache above his thin upper lip.

“Ah, there you are!” she said. “I want to have a couple words with you—”

The next two words from her mouth should have been
you’re dead
. But a sharp, loud crack made her turn her head. On the other side of the small kitchen stood a man in dark blue overalls. The man faced the sink; his back was to her. He raised his arm—it held an ice pick—and jabbed it into the sink with another loud crack, followed by a clinking sound.

Dorothy stepped forward to get a better look. There was a large block of ice in the sink, and the man had broken smaller chunks from it. Dorothy recognized him as the workman who had spilled the entire container of ice when Bibi had made her grand appearance. Now he clearly had to make more ice to replace the large amount he’d spilled—no wonder he seemed to be doing it so resentfully.

The iceman, sensing someone behind him, turned angrily toward Dorothy. He held the ice pick up high; its sharp metal tip glistened right in front of her eyes. She raised her hands in surrender.

“Okay, I get the point,” she said. “You want to be left alone.”

The man had a rough young face with a thin, upturned nose. He sneered at Dorothy and spun back around to chip more ice from the block.

At the icebox, Woollcott looked expectantly at Dorothy as he sucked the last of the frosting from his fingers. “You had something to say to me?”

Drop dead,
she wanted to say.

She had been thwarted. She couldn’t “murder” Woollcott with a witness in the room. She spoke through gritted teeth. “You have frosting on your lip, fat boy.”

Woollcott smiled devilishly, licking his lips. “Not quite the cutting remark I expected of you, Mrs. Parker. Better luck next time.” He shut the icebox door and brushed past her; the kitchen door swung behind him.

Damn! She blew it. Surely now he knew that she was the murderer. Even worse, she had put him on the defensive because now he certainly knew that she was gunning for him. She had completely lost the element of surprise. She stomped her foot in frustration.

The iceman turned, anger on his dirty face, the ice pick in his hand.

Indifferent now, she waved at him as though he was a gnat. “Oh, shove it up your ass.”

* * *

Back in the parlor, Dorothy faced the cluster of chairs, but Mary Pickford and Lydia Trumbull were gone. She glanced around the noisy, crowded room but didn’t see them anywhere.

Benchley ambled up to her. “There you are, Mrs. Parker. You said you’d be back in a minute. That was a while ago.”

“Forgive me, Fred,” she said, truly sorry. She had so wanted to spend the evening with him, and she was doing everything but that. “Let’s get a drink and settle in.”

They threaded their way to the bar, only to find that most of the booze was gone—casualties of the fracas between Dr. Hurst and Doug Fairbanks and of the other partygoers’ heavy drinking.

“Now what do we do?” Dorothy asked.

Together they slowly turned their heads toward the bathroom.

“The tub,” Benchley said, “is full of champagne.”

They could see that Bibi was still ladling it out to the hangers-on, while the nuns continued their vigil and observed her disapprovingly.

Dorothy asked, “Dare we dabble in the devil’s brew?”

Benchley glanced into his empty glass. “Let’s see, prohibition or perdition? We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”

“Then what the hell,” she said, linking his arm in hers. “Let’s go.”

It was hot inside the crowded little bathroom. Dorothy noticed beads of sweat on the nuns’ heavy brows. As Benchley slowly approached the bath, he leaned momentarily against the radiator beneath the frosted-glass window. He nearly jumped at the heat of it. The only person who didn’t seem bothered by the temperature was the naked girl in the tub.

Before Dorothy and Benchley even asked, Bibi had filled their glasses. “Two more satisfied customers,” she said merrily. Then Bibi eyed Benchley with that devious look she had first given to Dr. Hurst. “What do you do for a living, sweetie?”

Benchley smiled genially. “As little as possible.”

Dorothy had to hand it to him: Benchley was still trying to avoid looking directly at Bibi.

But Dorothy wasn’t shy about looking at her and evaluating her perfect body, her flawless skin and her pixie nose. Then Dorothy noticed something else about Bibi. . . . She was still wearing the silver locket—the one Mary Pickford was so upset about. Without having thought about it until now, Dorothy had assumed that Dr. Hurst had demanded the locket back when he’d had Bibi alone, yet here it was still around her pretty neck.

Why would Dr. Hurst be so adamant about Fairbanks protecting his locket,
she wondered,
yet leave it with this girl when he had the chance to take it back?

“Excuse me,” Bibi said to Dorothy. “My eyes are up here.”

“So they are.” Dorothy looked up at her. “But who really cares about your eyes?”