Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan Page 16

  When Mr Pape took his departure she made a number of neat notations on a sheet of paper. The case was winding up—she could see that. Only there were still so many, so very many, loose ends.

  She called up the inspector, advised him that Virgil Dobie owed his bookie $1742, and that he had expected to collect five thousand from the policy carried by Saul Stafford.

  “That’s good enough for me,” Piper told her. “I’m sticking right here with the lieutenant, and we’ll soon track the guy down. They just wired that the plane stopped at an airport fifty miles this side of Albuquerque.

  To gas up, I suppose. But it took off again before anybody could pick ’em up.”

  “Oscar, did anybody report a girl’s being on that plane?”

  The inspector didn’t think so. And therefore Miss Hildegarde Withers’ grim certainty became more certain than ever.

  Something had happened to Jill Madison.

  It was a bitter pill for Miss Withers to take. Sleuthing was fun, right enough, but she had no patience with detectives who let people go on being murdered under their very noses. She might have seen the light earlier—she might have prevented this last tragedy.

  That was water over the dam anyway. “Oscar,” she said into the telephone, “I want you to meet me as quick as ever you can get there at Jill Madison’s apartment. What? No, she won’t be there. Never mind how I know.”

  The place turned out to be a small, neat apartment house with yellow shutters, located on a side street between Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Oscar Piper arrived just at the moment when Miss Withers had identified the separate entrance of Jill’s apartment by its folded Examiner, the bottle of Grade A on the stoop and the feeble electric light burning over the door.

  “The first thing the police do when anybody disappears or is murdered is to search their apartment,” she told the inspector. “I wanted to beat them to it. Now all we have to do is to get in….”

  She made tentative experiments with a hairpin, but the lock was modern. She looked under the door mat, beneath a flower pot and on top of the doorjamb, but found no key cached there. And there was really no satisfactory excuse that they could give to the manager of the place.

  “Unless you could flash your badge,” Miss Withers suggested hopefully. But that fell through, too, because there was no resident manager here.

  “I’d better go back downtown and get the lieutenant and some skeleton keys and a search warrant,” the inspector said. “Or, better still, we could drop the whole thing and—”

  “Eureka!” cried the schoolteacher happily, discovering that the side window was partially open. It was easy enough to pry through the screen, raise the window higher….

  They were finally inside, standing in the middle of a little living room crowded with books and furniture and ash trays. Even the goldfish bowl was crowded with weird, goggling fish.

  Into the bedroom—in which quite evidently someone had dressed in a hurry. Two evening dresses had been tried and found wanting, left lying on the bed. Several pairs of dance sandals lay scattered about, a costume-jewelry bracelet hung on the bedpost and a faint film of powder floated in the air.

  “Just what in blazes are we looking for?” the inspector demanded unhappily.

  “I’ll know it when I find it,” Miss Withers said grimly. And then they heard the sound of a key in the front door. It opened, and Virgil Dobie stood in the doorway, as surprised as they.

  For a moment time stood still. Then: “You’re under arrest,” Oscar Piper greeted him. “Come clean, what did you do with her body?”

  Dobie’s thick eyebrows went up almost to his hairline. “What body?”

  “Jill Madison’s, of course!” cut in Miss Withers.

  “Nothing, yet,” said Virgil Dobie seriously. “But I was just going to carry it across the threshold. Tradition and good luck and all that….”

  They realized, a bit late, that Jill stood behind him—Jill Madison, alive and well and covered with orchids.

  “We flew to New Mexico,” Dobie began to explain. “Is that any reason for—?”

  “You can be the first to congratulate us!” Jill greeted them, her voice faintly shrill and strained. “We’re married!”

  *See The Puzzle of the Red Stallion. Crime Club, 1935.

  *N.B. All the same. Miss Withers followed it for the last week of the 1940 race meeting at Santa Anita, using the picks of Mr Oscar Otis of the Los Angeles Times, and had (paper) profits of $1675. Verb. sap.

  XI

  The Tale must be ABOUT DEAD BODIES,

  Or very wicked people, preferably both….

  DOROTHY SAYERS

  BOTH MR AND MRS DOBIE wore the dazed and brittle look which passes for ecstatic happiness among newly married couples. “We were married by a justice of the peace in Mesa City at nine o’clock this morning,” the groom informed their uninvited callers. “Then we climbed right back into the plane.”

  “Congratulations, I’m sure,” offered Miss Withers. Her mind was going around and around. The entire jigsaw was stirred up as if some mad simian had swung down by his tail and maliciously mangled it into pi. “I should hate to confess to you the suspicions that we’ve been sharing. After what’s been happening—”

  Virgil Dobie said he understood. “Maybe you think this isn’t just the proper and fitting time to get married?” He put his arm around the bride. “Well, it seemed to me that Jill might possibly need a little protection. With people getting murdered all around her …”

  The inspector nodded. “We had no business busting in here in the first place, and I guess we’d better be going now. Come on, Hildegarde, let’s find another tree to bark up.

  “Just a minute,” said the schoolteacher absently. “I don’t—” Then she whirled on Virgil Dobie. “Young man, would you mind answering two or three questions for me?”

  “Why—that depends on what they are.”

  “Here goes,” said the schoolteacher. “First, just how much money do you owe your bookie, Mr Parlay Jones?”

  “Not a dime. Next question?”

  “Aha!” cried Miss Withers. “You’ll be surprised to know, young man, that I had a talk with him this morning and that he said your account was seventeen hundred and something—”

  “It is,” Virgil Dobie assured her. “Only he owes it to me. I’ve been beating him about a hundred bucks a day, and it’s piled up.”

  “You know, Hildegarde,” put in the inspector, “sometimes bookies do owe people.”

  “Tell it to Ripley,” she snapped. “But, Mr. Dobie, isn’t it true that Saul Stafford was in debt to the bookie?”

  “Sure he was,” said Dobie. “He didn’t have the system I use. Saul tried to pick horses on form and because he liked the color of their eyes. I’ve got a system that’s as good as an annuity any day. When I get tired of Hollywood I’m going to take my system and try it at every track in America. Pittsburgh Phil the Second—”

  “But Saul Stafford never used your system?” she went on.

  “No, and that’s why he died owing his bookie.”

  “Of course, if you wanted to be nice you could pay off Saul Stafford’s account with Parlay Jones, using the insurance money that you are going to get as beneficiary!”

  Virgil Dobie blinked. “Insurance money? Oh, you mean Saul’s policy?” He shook his head. “That would be a nice idea, only there isn’t any insurance money. Saul let his policy lapse months ago.”

  “You knew that? When did you find it out?”

  “At the time, of course. Harry Pape wrote me about it, not wanting to lose an account. He thought maybe I could talk Saul into keeping up the premiums, but I couldn’t.”

  “If you’re quite through,” Jill began desperately, “I—”

  But Miss Withers wasn’t. “Just one question more, and then we’ll leave you two lovebirds alone. I just want to ask you, Mr Dobie—who is Derek Laval?”

  There was a short pause. “Laval? Why, everybody knows him. He’s at every cockta
il party and premiere in town. Sort of Hollywood fixture, like Prince Mike Romanoff or Sy Bartlett or…”

  “Or George Spelvin?” said Miss Withers softly.

  It was almost a full minute before Virgil Dobie remembered to take a breath. But the expression which came over his face was almost one of relief.

  “Yes, like George Spelvin,” he admitted.

  The inspector looked so blank and bewildered at this point that Miss Withers turned to him. “George Spelvin, the well-known actor,” she reminded him. He nodded, vaguely remembering the name.

  “Thank you both so much,” Miss Withers was saying briskly. “I’m sorry we interrupted you, and I hope you’ll forgive us for housebreaking. But there have been several murders, and I think it would be awfully nice if there weren’t any more.”

  She was about to herd the inspector out of the place, but Jill would have none of that. “Please!” she cried. “This isn’t just an ordinary day. It’s supposed to be a happy day, a celebration. Won’t you drink a toast with us—please?”

  Swiftly from the tiny, crowded kitchenette she produced a small bottle and four glasses. “It ought to be champagne,” she explained. “But this will have to do—it’s California brandy.”

  The inspector accepted his glass somewhat reluctantly, feeling that he was inside this apartment under somewhat false colors. Miss Withers also shied off somewhat from the idea of drinking even this small thimbleful of spirits.

  But it was a wedding day. “Er—to the bride!” she managed, and then took a tentative sip of the fire water.

  The inspector was equally conservative. Only Jill Madison—now Jill Dobie—did full justice to the toast. For the groom barely wet his lips.

  “I’m sorry,” said Virgil Dobie when he saw that they were all looking at him. “But I just made a resolution. I’m on the wagon, for good and all. I’ve seen too much of what effect this sauce—I mean alcohol—has on people. Look what it did for Saul Stafford. Two drinks, and he’d talk your arm off. And I have an idea he’d be alive and with us today if he hadn’t hit the bottle.”

  Jill stared at her husband, extremely amazed. “But—but that’s wonderful! If you really mean—”

  Virgil Dobie really meant it. “I’m a new man,” he informed them. “Watch me. Eight hours’ sleep a night, up bright and early and to the studio by nine o’clock, no more gags, plenty of yeses for Mr Nincom….”

  “Speaking of Mr Nincom,” Miss Withers put in, “he feels very strongly about your disappearance today. In fact, he seemed to infer that you were fired. Shouldn’t you telephone him or something?”

  “Wait!” Jill interrupted. “I know that man better than any of you. There’s still time enough. It would be better if we walked in on him. The happy couple and so forth—he couldn’t resist being nice about the whole thing.”

  Virgil Dobie saw reason in that. “And another thing—he can’t fire me for staying away if I show up, even at quarter of five. We’ll report for work. And on the way in we’ll stop at Wardrobe and borrow a veil and some prop flowers for you!”

  So that is the way it happened. The inspector begged off, feeling that he didn’t quite belong. But Miss Withers, practically playing the unaccustomed part of flower girl and twelve bridesmaids, marched into Mr Thorwald L. Nincom’s story conference, followed by a blushing bride and groom.

  For the rest of that day the ancient tragedy of poor Lizzie Borden was forgotten in this modern surprise romance between the loveliest secretary and the maddest hooligan writer in Hollywood.

  Jill’s premise had been right. Mr Nincom slipped at once into the role of the crusty but warmhearted employer and played it for all he was worth. He grabbed up the telephone, ordered champagne from the nearest restaurant and cameras from Publicity.

  The popping of corks drew Mammoth employees by the dozens into the Nincom offices. Writers, directors, secretaries, messengers, props, grips and cameramen….

  The bride was toasted so many times that it appeared that she would be “brown on both sides,” as Doug August put it. Miss Withers watched the party develop, watched Virgil Dobie as he accepted glass after glass and put them quietly down for someone else to empty….

  Melicent Manning was sobbing quietly in a corner. Frankie Firsk had his arm about Virgil Dobie’s shoulder and was making a speech, interlarded with quotations from the minor modern poets.

  Wilfred Josef had just one glass of wine and then headed for the door where Miss Withers halted him. “What are you going to give the happy couple for a wedding present?” she asked.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Mr Josef said. His hand went instinctively to his beard, jerked away as he felt the charred remnants. “But here’s a limerick for you. There was a young lady named Jill, Who went after a man with a will. She sat down beside him and roped him and tied him, But I hate to be in at the kill.”

  He nodded, smiled and was gone.

  Willy Abend had started a crap game in the corner behind Mr Nincom’s desk and was doing rather well at it. And then Mr Nincom produced his baton from the desk and rapped with it for silence.

  “Ladies and gentlemen—and friends!” he began. “It is my great pleasure on this happy occasion to announce my wedding present to the bride. During the last two months my whole unit has been going mad in an attempt to find the perfect person to play the part of Miss Lizzie Borden. Well, a great idea just came to me. Why should we look so far afield, why should we test every New York actress, every Hollywood star, when we have an opportunity of finding and developing real talent right here and now?—talent from this very office.”

  Everybody hushed, wondering Mr Nincom drained his glass. “I want to announce that I intend to test Miss Jill Madison—the present Mrs. Virgil Dobie—for the part of Lizzie Borden!”

  Jill, who was at the moment standing on a desk with a glass of bubbling wine in either hand, tried to say something. But Mr Nincom was in the groove.

  “Right here in this room,” he continued, “we have the director, we have the stage crew—and there is no reason why we can’t costume Mrs Dobie, give her a scene to read and take the test over on one of the stages right now. And if it comes out well we’ll plaster the nation with announcements tomorrow morning!”

  There were cheers. “Thank you,” said Mr Nincom. “I guess if Dave Selznick can get an unknown actress to play Scarlett, I can pull Jill out of the hat to play Lizzie. A last toast—good luck to Thorwald L. Nincom’s new discovery—and then we’ll make a test such as never was made before!”

  There were tremendous cheers, and the party broke up.

  Miss Hildegarde Withers seized upon Buster Haight outside in the studio street, a young man lost and unhappy and vaguely distressed. “Come, come!” she said. “‘False though she be to me and love, I’ll ne’er pursue revenge; for still the charmer I approve, Though I deplore her change….’”

  “This is no time for Congrève,” said Buster. “He’s as outdated as Confucius.”

  “What are you going to do?” she wanted to know.

  “I don’t know,” said Buster. There was a wild and reckless expression around his young mouth, and his eyes had lost their color. “I’m supposed to be out here learning the picture business. Well, I guess I’m learning it the hard way.”

  He turned and rushed off into the night, leaving Miss Withers shaking her head. She had dealt successfully with many ills, but youth was one which had no panacea.

  The schoolteacher turned toward the Writers’ Building, sought her own office and sat down at her desk. Everything was just the same. The gas radiator leered at her from the corner, daring her to turn it on again. On the wall the photograph of the tired calla lilies struck a funeral note….

  She picked up the phone; managed to get a night line before Gertrude closed up and went home. There was a great deal to do, and Miss Withers was afraid that it was too late to do it.

  But she made certain calls anyhow.

  After a while she heard someone come down the hal
l. A light burned in Virgil Dobie’s office.

  “Oh, hello,” he said, when she burst in.

  “What’s the matter, Mr Dobie, did you get tired of the celebration?”

  He nodded. “They’re all over on the test stage, making shots of Jill. Honestly, do you think she could play Lizzie Borden?”

  “Anything can happen in Hollywood,” said Miss Withers. “If I remember correctly, one of our biggest stars was jerking soda when she was discovered, and another was manicuring fingernails.”

  It was at that moment that a messenger boy brought in a package wrapped as a gift. “For Mr and Mrs Virgil Dobie.” It turned out to be a thousand aspirin tablets in a large bottle. “With the best wishes of Wilfred Josef,” was the card.

  So Josef had decided upon a wedding present after all. “At least it’s something we can use,” Dobie said.

  Miss Withers nodded. “A very useful present. You’ve been looking a bit headachy all day.”

  She brought a glass of water, watched while Virgil Dobie tossed off three pellets; “If you don’t mind, I’ll borrow a couple of them myself,” she said, and did. “I’ll take them later,” added Miss Withers.

  But it was only ten minutes later when she burst back into Virgil Dobie’s office, her face white as a sheet. She faced the man, her hands trembling.

  “Those pills!” she cried. “They I mean—”

  “What, the aspirin?”

  “I just started to take one—and they’re not aspirin! Didn’t you notice the bitter taste? Well, you should have. I should have guessed when they came from Wilfred Josef, the man to whom your prank gave a lifelong phobia. He cannot even light a cigarette because of the joke you pulled on him—no wonder he gave you this kind of wedding present!”

  Dobie stared at her blankly.

  “It’s poison!” cried Miss Withers. “Arsenic, I think. I spat it out. Don’t you notice anything?”

  Virgil Dobie sank back in his chair. “Poison? Oh, come, come. Josef wouldn’t do that—”

  “Wouldn’t he! Practical jokers always run into somebody who won’t take the joke if they keep on long enough. And you took three of those pills—”