A Friendly Game of Murder Read online

  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

  Dorothy 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.”

  Chapter 8

  It was twelve midnight. Cheering erupted from the lobby and the city streets. This happy roar was accompanied by the clangs of pots and pans, the wails of horns and sirens, and the blares of noisemakers.

  Dorothy momentarily forgot about the cold, dead body in the bathtub next to her. She even forgot about Alexander Woollcott, who stood directly in front of her with a puzzled look on his chubby face.

  For the moment her mind was occupied only by the frustrating realization that she had missed her perfect opportunity of planting a kiss on Benchley at midnight.

  “Mrs. Parker?” Woollcott was saying softly. “What, pray tell, is going on here?”

  “Bibi’s dead,” Dorothy said.

  “Dead?”

  She looked down at the pale, lifeless body. “If she’s not dead, then she’s a much better actress than any of us gave her credit for.”

  “What—?” Woollcott hesitated. “What should we do?”

  “What do you think? Call down to Frank Case, of course. He’s the manager. He’ll know what to do.”

  Woollcott turned to find the phone. Dorothy wanted to leave the bathroom, too, but she found a morbid fascination in staring at the beautiful young girl.

  Something’s wrong with this picture. . . .

  Dorothy bent closer. All around Bibi’s mouth and chin, the skin was pink and blotchy, like a stain or a rash. Almost like a burn. That’s odd.

  But that wasn’t the strangest thing. . . . Bibi, as a corpse, didn’t have the vivaciousness and audaciousness of the living girl. She was not just naked but bare. Raw. Vulnerable. Stripped of life, in every sense of the word.

  Poor Bibi. Is this what you get for having fun? For being brash and silly?

  Dorothy found her mind wandering. She stared at the ice bucket and the shards of shattered glass on the tile floor. A steamy wisp of vapor crept out of the metal bucket as the last pieces of ice slowly melted. Like the soul leaving the body. Dorothy shivered again and told herself it was because the bathroom was so chilly.

  Woollcott hurried back in, looked again at Bibi and then at Dorothy. “Let’s shut this window. You’ll catch your death of a cold.” He flung the sash down quickly.

  They stood silently for a minute, both looking at the body. Then Woollcott said, “Our magnificent hotel proprietor will be up momentarily.”

  “Perhaps he’ll have housekeeping clean up this mess.”

  Woollcott ignored her stab at humor. “What do you think happened to her?”

  Dorothy didn’t answer. She was wondering the exact same thing.

  He said, “I can’t stand to see her lying there wet as a clam. Should we drain the tub?” He reached for the chain attached to the tub plug.

  She stopped him. “Don’t. You’re liable to throw out the Bibi with the bathwater.”

  He turned, a quizzical look on his face. “She’s not going to go down the drain.”

  “Leave her be. She went out of this world the way she came into it—naked and wet. Let’s let Frank Case decide what to do.”

  A moment later they heard the ding of the elevator. Frank Case entered the apartment, with Douglas Fairbanks and Robert Benchley in tow.

  “Oh, dear,” Case said.

  “Oh, Bibi . . .” Fairbanks slapped his forehead. “Someone remind me to never throw another party.”

  Benchley spoke under his breath. “Never throw another party, Douglas.”

  Case looked to Dorothy and Woollcott. “How did it happen?”

  “No idea,” Dorothy said. “This is how I found her.”

  Case put a hand to his chin. “I’d call the ambulance, but we’re quarantined. And, well, it’s apparently not an emergency at this point anyway. I know, I’ll get Dr. Hurst. He helped me earlier.”

  “Very little a doctor can do for her now,” Dorothy said, moving next to Benchley for comfort.

 
Benchley sighed in agreement. “She needs an undertaker, not a doctor.”

  “Besides,” Fairbanks added, “that Dr. Hurst was dastardly drunk when I threw him out of here an hour ago. He should be sleeping it off in his room by now.”

  Dorothy asked, “What about Dr. Doyle?”

  “Who is Dr. Doyle?” Woollcott asked.

  “Artie,” she said. “The one who wouldn’t play your game of Murder.”

  Woollcott looked skeptical. “That old bear? He’s a practicing physician?”

  She considered this. “Nope, I guess he’s not. Not practicing anymore, at any rate. But he’s caring—and smart.”

  “I’ll bring them both,” Case said, walking quickly out the door. “Perhaps two inadequate doctors will add up to one good one.”

  After he left, Fairbanks smiled ruefully, rubbing his hands. “Well, isn’t this a lovely kettle of fish! Mary’s going to just treasure this—” He paused, dismayed. “Say, where is Mary?”

  Benchley looked around as if Mary Pickford would suddenly pop up from behind the sink.

  Dorothy said, “I saw Mary down in the lobby just before midnight. She told me she was coming up here to pry Bibi out of the tub.”

  “She did?” Fairbanks’ handsome face looked worried. “So where is she?”

  Dorothy shrugged. “We haven’t seen her.”

  Without a word, Fairbanks left the bathroom and called out in the apartment, “Mary! Darling, are you here?”

  It took Fairbanks only a minute to walk through the entire apartment. When he didn’t find his wife, he went out the front door without a word to the trio in the bathroom.