A Friendly Game of Murder (5 page)

Chapter 6

“A
ll right, everybody!” Douglas Fairbanks announced to the crowd of partygoers in his apartment. “It’s eleven thirty. Time to go down to the lobby for the countdown to midnight!”

Dorothy straightened up in her armchair.
Eleven thirty already?
How had the time slipped by so quickly?
One minute she and Benchley were enjoying a quiet drink together—then another drink, and then another—and the next minute it was only half an hour until midnight.

She had not talked things out with Mary Pickford, as she had told Fairbanks she would do. And she had not cornered Woollcott alone for the game of Murder either.

The only thing she had done was to waste time with Benchley. For this, she was happy.

But she wasn’t done with Benchley yet—she wanted to be beside him at the stroke of midnight to plant a New Year’s kiss on him.
What might happen next?
she wondered. They were quarantined in this hotel for the foreseeable future.
Who knows?

Benchley stood up. “Shall we go down to the lobby?”

Dorothy jumped to her feet. “Certainly.”

In a moment they had crowded into the small elevator with a handful of other guests, including Lydia Trumbull. Dorothy looked around, hoping Mary Pickford might also be aboard, but she wasn’t. Maurice, the elevator operator, strained to close the doors. It was so crowded that he had trouble pulling the lever to make the elevator descend.

Some of the people on the elevator were grumbling about being kicked out of the Fairbanks’ party all at once.

“That was the bum’s rush,” said one man—an insurance salesman type, Dorothy thought.

“Never saw a party end so fast,” said the woman with him.

Benchley, good-natured as he was, turned to explain. “Don’t hold it against the Fairbankses. It’s the Algonquin tradition. On New Year’s Eve, everyone gathers in the lobby to watch the big grandfather clock count down to the stroke of midnight. People stand on chairs and literally jump into the new year for good luck. The waitstaff parades around and bangs on pots and pans to scare away evil spirits from entering the new year.”

“Speaking of spirits,” the man said, “are there any drinks available in the lobby?”

Benchley thought about this. “Did you bring any with you?”

“No.”

“Then you might want to make a resolution to do so next year,” Benchley said as pleasantly as possible.

The man frowned and muttered to the woman. “The Hotel Astor, it ain’t. That’s where we’ll stay next time.”

And thank goodness for that,
Dorothy thought.

The elevator stopped, and Maurice struggled to open the doors. The passengers on the elevator spilled out into the lobby, where a party was just getting in full swing. Loud jazz music was coming from somewhere—Dorothy was too short to see through the crowd whether there was a real band or a phonograph. In the center of the lobby, the armchairs and coffee tables had been moved away and the carpet rolled up. Young men and women began spinning and bopping to the latest dance craze, the “Black Bottom Stomp.”

Benchley bent to Dorothy’s ear and yelled to be heard above the din. “That wonderful gent on the elevator needn’t have worried.” He pointed to a number of liquor bottles being passed around the crowd. “The waitstaff—and Frank Case—have their work cut out for them to chase all these spirits away.”

Dorothy and Benchley weaved their way through the bustling crowd toward the dining room. As they did so, Dorothy managed to grab a bottle. Dinner service was long over, but the dining room was still nearly as crowded as the lobby. Dorothy plucked two empty glasses from the Round Table, poured some booze into them and handed one to Benchley. They clinked glasses and sipped.

She spotted Arthur Conan Doyle, followed by a young man, entering the room. They must have just arrived downstairs, Dorothy thought, because Doyle seemed to be wandering around, looking for a friendly face. She waved them over.

“Ah, Mrs. Parker, Mr. Benchley, is your game over?” Doyle shouted genially.

“Not quite,” Dorothy said, reminded again that she had to somehow get Woollcott alone. Then she looked at the handsome young man with Doyle—but perhaps he was not quite as young as he seemed from across the room. He appeared to be in his thirties. He had bright eyes, a square jaw and a suntanned face. “Who’s this?” she asked.

Doyle turned as though he had forgotten. “Oh, I beg your pardon. This is Quentin’s new attendant, Mr. Jordan.”

Dorothy shook his hand. He had a firm, dry grip. “Just Jordan?”

“First name’s Benedict. Everybody just calls me Jordan,” he said with a wry smile—and an American accent. Dorothy had expected that because Dr. Hurst was British, his attendant would be as well. But he was handsome, she thought, no matter what his nationality was.

“Nice to meet you, Jordan,” Benchley said, stepping forward to shake the man’s hand, nearly shoving Dorothy out of the way. “Here, have a drink.”

Benchley took two more glasses from the Round Table, poured a healthy splash from the bottle into each one and handed them to the two men.

They raised their glasses in a toast.

“To auld lang syne,” Doyle said in his soft Scottish burr.

“To better luck next year,” Dorothy said.

“Two’s company, three’s a crowd,” Benchley said.

Dorothy gave him a quick, inquisitive look, but he avoided her eyes.

They clinked glasses and drank.

“So, where is the good doctor, Arthur?” Benchley asked.

Doyle knitted his bushy brows in frustration. “Good and drunk, that’s where he is. He threw us out of his room. Wanted to be alone, he said. Quentin always did get into a state when he overdid it on the bottle. I had forgotten. I’ve never seen him like this before, though.” He glanced at Jordan. “We’ll give him a little while to settle down, then perhaps we’ll go up and check on him.”

Jordan didn’t answer this. He merely nodded his head stoically. He was either too new or too polite to say a harsh word against his current employer—though he likely had a few choice words to say, Dorothy presumed. Dr. Hurst didn’t seem like the sweetest person to work for even when sober, she thought.

“Where are you from, Mr. Jordan?” Benchley asked. “From your sunny complexion, I’d say you recently arrived from down south?”

Jordan opened his mouth to answer, but Dorothy interrupted. “Not so fast. Let us guess! What do you say, Artie? How about bringing Sherlock Holmes’ powers of observation to bear on Mr. Jordan? Let’s see if we can figure out everything about him.”

Doyle rolled his eyes and sighed. “Can you imagine how many times I’ve been asked to do that? If I had a shilling for every such request—”

“Oh, you’re full of shillings,” she said. “I thought you might get in the spirit of it if we all pooled our thoughts. Never mind. Mr. Benchley and I will give it a try ourselves. Then you be the judge. What do you say?”

Doyle rubbed his big hand on his chin. “Very well, I won’t be such a spoilsport to prevent you from trying. If Mr. Jordan is willing . . . ?”

“Sure,” Jordan said, evidently amused to be the center of attention. “Knock yourselves out.”

Dorothy eyed him from head to foot, taking in every detail. Next to her, Benchley fidgeted. She didn’t look at him.

Could he be jealous?
she wondered.
Jeez, I hope so.

After a moment of examining the handsome man, she said, “I have it. You’re a former cowhand, recently back from the range. But you weren’t born out there. You were raised here on the East Coast. You went to Princeton, I think. But now you’ve returned because you were injured roping cattle or whatever it is cowhands do. You don’t dance, and your favorite food is chili.”

“Amazing!” Jordan said. “How did you come to those conclusions?”

Benchley was angry—a rare emotion for him. “Please don’t tell me she’s right!”

Jordan laughed. “Not even close.”

Dorothy frowned. “Fine, Fred. You play Sherlock.”

“Very well,” Benchley said, smiling warmly again. He rubbed his hands together. “My turn. You were a lifeguard on the beaches of sunny Florida. But you left to join the military during the Great War, where you saw action and were permanently injured. So you returned to Florida as a lifeguard. But having seen action on the front, you bored quickly of the quiet, sunny seaside. So you recently moved to New York to try your hand at acting. But with no experience and no luck, you were forced to take a job as the manservant to Dr. Hurst. You love pimentos, and your family is Scandinavian. Case closed.”

“Brilliant,” Jordan said, laughing.

Now Dorothy felt her face flush with envy. “Don’t tell me
he’s
right?”

“Not by a mile,” Jordan said, laughing even harder. “But how did you get those wild ideas?”

Dorothy and Benchley looked at each other. Dorothy spoke first. “First, your foot. I couldn’t help but notice—and I gather Mr. Benchley did, too—that you limped when you came this way, and anyone can see you’re wearing an oversized orthopedic shoe on your left foot. So I suppose each of us concluded you’d been injured not long ago. Not so recently as to require you to wear a cast, but recent enough that you’re still suffering from the injury.”

“Nope,” Jordan said. “What else?”

She bit her lip, and said, “You don’t have a particularly noticeable accent or manner of speech, so I assumed that you’re not from, say, Chicago or Boston. Or Albuquerque or Alabama, for that matter. And I figured if you did have an accent before, you lost it at college, because you speak like an educated man. From the ornate ring on your finger, I guessed your alma mater was Princeton.”

“Nope,” Jordan said.

“My turn,” Benchley said. “You have the suntan and sort of flashy looks of an actor, so I assumed you wanted to try your luck on Broadway. But, seeing as you’re employed with Dr. Hurst, I gathered it had not worked out.”

“You gathered wrong,” Jordan said. “But what about my favorite foods? Wherever did you get those?”

Dorothy leaned close to him. “You have a little fleck of red on your bottom lip. I assumed it was chili, since you came from out west—or so I thought.”

“I assumed pimento, because it looks red like pimento,” Benchley said. “Maybe from a cocktail olive?”

Jordan shook his head.

“Red herring, perhaps?” Benchley asked sourly.

Jordan laughed. “And my family being Scandinavian?”

“Well,” Benchley said weakly. “You have blue eyes, like the Swedes often do. . . .”

Doyle frowned and clucked his tongue.

“Fine,” Dorothy grumbled at Doyle. “If you’re so clever, you figure him out, Sir Arthur Conan Holmes.”

Doyle sighed. “He was born and raised in Philadelphia. He never worked as a cowboy or went to war, because he has a clubfoot, which he was born with. But despite his physical impairment, he became proficient as a golfer as a young man—even becoming a private tutor to well-to-do clients. That explains his rather permanent suntanned complexion and his gentlemanly manner of speech. But golfing can be an expensive pursuit, one that he could not pursue without additional assistance from time to time. So he recently used his connections among the wealthy to secure a well-paid but short-term position with Dr. Quentin Hurst, who is traveling for a few weeks in the States. Meanwhile, Mr. Jordan hopes to visit as many golf courses as possible, weather permitting. And he won the ring in a tournament.”

Dorothy and Benchley were momentarily dumbstruck. Then Dorothy asked, “But what’s his favorite food?”

“Lobster,” Doyle said wearily.

They looked to Jordan. “Don’t tell us he’s right?” Benchley asked.

The handsome man nodded. “Every word. Nailed it exactly.”

“You
can
do it. You
can
read a person like a book!” Dorothy said to Doyle. “You are Sherlock Holmes!”

“Oh, nonsense!” Doyle said, exasperated. His walrus mustache fluttered. “He told me his entire life story upstairs while Quentin took a short doze. The only thing I observed was the clubfoot.”

“Even the lobster?” Benchley asked.

“Dr. Doyle and I ordered it from room service,” Jordan explained.

“I don’t believe it,” Dorothy gasped.

“It’s true,” Jordan said. “That’s my life to a tee.”

“No, not that!” she said gruffly. “Since when does the Algonquin serve lobster?”

“It was the special tonight. Ask one of the staff yourself.” Jordan pointed to a short line of waiters emerging from the kitchen doors. They carried various pots and pans, along with metal and wooden spoons and utensils. As they gathered into a group, a quickly moving figure caught Dorothy’s eye. She turned and saw Alexander Woollcott bustling through the dining room toward the lobby.

“What time is it?” she asked.

Doyle fished a gold pocket watch out of his vest, and popped it open with one hand. “Quarter to midnight.”

She glanced at Benchley. Would she have enough time to follow Woollcott, “murder” him and get back soon enough to kiss Benchley at midnight?

She looked back toward Woollcott. He walked out of the dining room and disappeared into the crowd in the lobby.

She set her glass down on the table and turned to Benchley. “I need to bump off to dash off Woollcott—no, vice versa, I mean! Dash off to bump off Woollcott. So I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” She gave his arm a squeeze and reluctantly went after Woollcott.

Chapter 7

D
orothy had two goals in the next fifteen minutes—to kill Woollcott and kiss Benchley—and she’d better not get them mixed up.

She entered the jam-packed Algonquin lobby and looked at the crowd. She didn’t see Woollcott anywhere. How could she trap him alone in this mob scene?

Suddenly Mary Pickford emerged from the mass of people. She had cleaned up her mascara-streaked eyes and looked entirely better. She greeted Dorothy.

Dorothy responded, “So you’ve set things straight with Douglas? All’s well and understood?”

Mary shook her head. “No, I’ve been avoiding him the whole evening. If he wants to play his childish games with that little slut, let him play.”

Dorothy was surprised by this. “But I told you that necklace wasn’t his in the first place—”

“Time I took matters in my own hands,” Mary interrupted, her face set with purpose. “As far as I know, that tramp is still up in my bathtub—she was in there when I left just a moment ago. And who knows if Douglas is now with her? It’s a good time to find out.”

Before Dorothy could respond, Mary brushed past her and toward the elevator. But it gave Dorothy an idea. . . . She just had to find Woollcott.

She looked around and spotted two waiters she recognized, Luigi and Pietro. They were setting up chairs and getting ready for anyone foolhardy enough to jump off them “into” the new year at midnight. She rushed over to them, clapped a hand on Luigi’s shoulder and quickly hoisted herself up to stand on the seat of one of the chairs.

“Mrs. Parker!” Luigi shouted. “It ain’t midnight yet!”

“I want to get a head start,” she said. Then she gazed over the heads of the crowd and finally spotted Woollcott’s top hat. She jumped down and weaved in his direction through the well-dressed partygoers. She found Woollcott chatting with Harpo Marx, as usual.

She shoved herself between them. “Aleck, I need your help quickly!”

He looked at her skeptically. Dorothy continued, “Mary Pickford and Doug Fairbanks are in a pickle. Bibi Bibelot is in a pickle, too—she’s perfectly pickled, as a matter of fact. Being in that tub all night has made her completely smashed. Mary says they can’t get her out of the tub. They need your help.”

“And why me? Why must I help?” Woollcott asked.

“Please, Aleck. No time for questions. She’ll drown in there.”

“Impossible,” he sneered. “Bibi couldn’t drown in a bathtub half filled with champagne.”

Harpo smiled. “Did you see her chest? She’s so buoyant, she couldn’t drown in the middle of the Atlantic.”

“Well, fine, then,” she said angrily. “Douglas and Mary asked for your help specifically, because you’re so discreet and tactful in these embarrassing matters. But if Little Acky can’t be bothered to help the world’s most wonderful celebrity couple, then I suppose—”

“I never said that I wouldn’t help!” Woollcott cried. “Of course I can help Douglas and Mary.”

He turned on his heel and strode through the mob; his prodigious belly parted people like a snowplow. Now she had him—well, almost. She’d find a way to corner him up in the Fairbanks’ apartment. She’d “murder” him quickly, then hurry back down to grab Benchley for a smooch at midnight. What a lovely way to enter the New Year!

Dorothy followed in Woollcott’s wake as he moved toward the elevators. Mary Pickford was nowhere in sight, and Dorothy presumed she’d already gone up to her penthouse suite. But if the penthouse was not empty, perhaps Dorothy could “murder” Woollcott in the elevator? Woollcott stopped to press the elevator button, and Dorothy paused right behind him. The elevator door opened and disgorged a small crowd. Waiting inside was Maurice the elevator operator. No, that idea wouldn’t work. She had to get Woollcott alone.

She quickly came up with another idea. She could get up to Fairbanks’ penthouse
before
Woollcott! She turned away from the elevator and rounded a corner. She pushed through a swinging door to an empty service passage. Bare light bulbs hung overhead—even so, the corridor seemed dark and shadowy. She moved quickly to the end of the passage, where a door led to a serving pantry and dark stairs descended to the basement. But there was also a door to a service elevator that the waiters used for delivering room service and the housemaids used for moving their cleaning carts from floor to floor.

Having lived in the Algonquin for a few years now, Dorothy knew of this service elevator, although she had never used it before. She pressed the call button and heard the deep rumble of gears turning somewhere.

She had an eerie feeling and glanced over her shoulder. No one was there.

The elevator arrived, and she quickly pulled open the door. It was not manned by an elevator operator. She’d have to work it herself. She closed the door and threw the lever, and the elevator car began its ascent—she could see its progress through a small window in the door. She took a step backward and sighed, leaning against the rear wall as if she had escaped something fearful, although there was nothing to be scared of.

Suddenly her feet went out from under her. She landed on the dirty elevator floor in a heap with the wind knocked out of her. Groaning, she put the palm of her hand down to push herself up. But when she did, she felt something very cold. Shocked, she pulled her hand off the floor and examined it. Attached to her palm were two chunks of white ice. She flicked them off with the fingernail of her other hand. The ice chunks had left two painful red marks on her palm.

She finally stood up and rubbed her hands together. Some New Year’s Eve this was turning out to be!

* * *

Dorothy stopped the service elevator at the top floor. She quietly opened the door and listened. No one seemed to be around. The only thing she could hear was the vague and distant murmur of voices coming from the lobby.

She tiptoed down the hall toward the Fairbanks’ suite. Woollcott was nowhere in sight. The service elevator had arrived before the guest elevator, which probably had to make a stop or two. But where was Mary Pickford? And where were Douglas Fairbanks and Bibi Bibelot, for that matter?

Dorothy peeked into the open double doors of the suite. The place was empty but a real mess. Bottles and glasses were on every surface. Ashtrays full of cigarette and cigar butts were on every table, and a foggy haze of smoke still filled the room.

The door to the bathroom was closed.

She moved silently into the suite, looking left and right. She moved toward the darkened bedroom. No one there.

She crossed back through the parlor and went through the open door to the kitchen. The room was empty.

It was getting close to midnight, she knew. Woollcott would be here any moment.

She backed out of the kitchen and then moved stealthily toward the bathroom door. She put her ear to it. Nothing.

She knocked lightly.

No one answered.

She drew in her breath and whispered, “Anyone in there?”

Still no answer. She turned the knob and pressed the door.

It wouldn’t move. She turned the knob the other way and pressed the door harder.

Locked.

Now what fresh hell is this?

She remembered that during the party Fairbanks had asked Mary for a key to the bathroom. Mary had said something about a kitchen drawer. Dorothy tiptoed back to the kitchen and searched through one drawer, then another. She finally found the one drawer that every kitchen has—the one full of junk. Inside it were a few pencils, some rubber bands, scissors, spare change, bobby pins, a thimble, thumbtacks—and a ring of keys.

Dorothy grabbed the key ring and hurried back to the bathroom door.

She heard the ding of the elevator bell from the hallway.
Woollcott!
He’d be here any second!

Sure, she could catch him alone in the parlor—but it would be far better if he opened the bathroom door expecting to find a naked Bibi and instead discovered Dorothy there to “murder” him! That would show him. He always thought he was so smart.

She tried one key, then the next, in the lock. Neither of them fit. Moving frantically, she tried a third. It gave a satisfying click in the lock, and she turned it. She spun the knob and pushed the door. But something gently slowed the door from opening. Something was on the floor right behind the door. She looked down.
A towel. Why would someone leave a towel . . . ?

Then Dorothy looked at the bathtub. She gasped.

Bibi—naked, white, silent and motionless—still lay in the tub. Her head lolled to the side. Her eyes were open, gazing at nothing.

Dorothy rushed to the tub. Kneeling beside it, she placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder, then on her cheek. Bibi’s skin was ice-cold.

Suddenly Dorothy felt a wave of panic flood into her. She couldn’t seem to breathe. She stood up, and the room swam around her. She steadied herself and lurched toward the window. Below the window was an ice bucket and a champagne glass resting on the radiator. She knocked them out of the way with a shatter and a clang on the tiled floor. She grabbed at the window with rising panic—was it stuck shut? No, but it was closed tight. She flung up the sash, had a momentary glimpse of the snowy city nightscape and then she gulped in cold night air.

After a moment, the icy air—and not looking at Bibi—seemed to clear her head.

From the lobby below, and outside in apartments and gatherings everywhere in the city, she could hear a rising clamor.
“Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”

“Happy New Year?”

She turned. Woollcott, his eyebrows raised above his round eyeglasses, stood in the doorway.

Dorothy pointed to Bibi’s body. “Not for her, it ain’t.”