Murder, She Reported Page 8

  Chapter 8

  The heating was broken in the subway car Elizabeth rode home and one of the windows was open, letting in a frigid draft. A burly gentleman with a large handlebar mustache wearing mud-spattered work overalls tried to close it, but after several minutes was forced to throw up his hands in defeat. The window was hopelessly stuck.

  Elizabeth huddled in her seat. The conversation with Gloria had shaken her. She knew Gloria was as good as her word. If Elizabeth didn’t help clear Gloria’s name, her own name would end up being mud.

  By the time Elizabeth arrived home, she was chilled to the bone. She decided to make herself a cup of tea.

  She hung up her hat and coat and pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen. The kitchen had always been Elizabeth’s refuge—warm and cozy and always filled with good smells. Mrs. Murphy kept a jar of homemade cookies on the counter—coconut macaroons or oatmeal raisin—just for Elizabeth, Rose and James.

  Elizabeth used to do her homework at the kitchen table, comforted by Mrs. Murphy’s bustling movements as she peeled potatoes or cut up vegetables and Jones’s quiet but solid presence.

  Today Jones was seated at the kitchen table polishing several serving spoons and forks, just as Elizabeth had seen him do countless times over the years. Mrs. Murphy was at the counter working energetically on a piece of dough, which she was rolling into a circle. The front of her apron was dusted with flour and there was a streak of it in her graying hair.

  Elizabeth sniffed appreciatively. Mouth-watering smells emanated from the pots on the stove and wafted from the oven. Mrs. Murphy paused in her rolling to open the oven door and peer inside. Nestled in a roasting pan were several Cornish game hens.

  “They’re browning nicely,” Mrs. Murphy said with satisfaction, her face flushing in the blast of heat from the oven.

  “Is there a special occasion?”

  “It’s your mother’s dinner party,” Mrs. Murphy said, turning around. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

  Elizabeth groaned. She had forgotten. All she really wanted to do was get warm and then crawl into bed.

  Mrs. Murphy went back to working her pastry dough. “Can I get you something?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “I was going to make myself a cup of tea. I very nearly froze to death on the way home.”

  Mrs. Murphy turned around, her hands on her ample hips. “You really should be careful, missy, given how sick you were and all.”

  “But that was ages ago,” Elizabeth said. “I’m fine now.”

  Mrs. Murphy frowned as she retrieved a small pot from the rack, filled it with water and put it on the stove.

  “You gave us such a scare,” Mrs. Murphy said. “Didn’t she, Mr. Jones?”

  Jones looked up from the silver spoon he’d been polishing.

  “She certainly did.”

  “Well, I’m perfectly fine now,” Elizabeth insisted as Mrs. Murphy handed her a cup of tea.

  “We wouldn’t want to go through that again,” Mrs. Murphy said as she fitted her pie dough into a fluted pie plate. “You were in that hospital for so long sometimes we thought you’d never come out.” She reached for a blue-and-white-striped ceramic bowl and poured the contents into the pie. “And we didn’t know how you would come out when you did. Everyday there were pictures in the paper of children who’d been horribly crippled by that terrible disease.”

  Ever since Elizabeth had been diagnosed, Mrs. Murphy had refused to utter the word polio as if that would somehow be bad luck. As if it hadn’t already been bad enough luck that Elizabeth had contracted the disease in the first place.

  She’d never forget the look on her parents’ faces when the doctor gave them the news. Or the fear that had gripped her when they told her she would have to go to the hospital.

  Elizabeth was finishing her tea when the swinging door opened and her mother burst into the room.

  “There you are!” she exclaimed when she saw Elizabeth sitting at the kitchen table watching Jones polish an intricately carved silver pie server, carefully working the cloth into each of the crevices.

  Elizabeth looked up.

  “You haven’t forgotten our dinner party, have you? I’ve got you next to Thomas Hutchinson. I thought it would be nice for you young people to sit together.”

  “Mother! He’s at least thirty-five years old.”

  Helen waved a hand. “You make it sound as if he’s old enough to be your father, and you know perfectly well that isn’t the case.” Helen peered at Elizabeth. “You are going to change, aren’t you? You look a bit…shopworn, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m terribly tired. Couldn’t I have a tray in my room instead?”

  “Darling, don’t be ridiculous. Jones has already set the table. We’ll be an uneven number without you.”

  Mrs. Murphy leaned into the gap between Elizabeth and Helen.

  “I’m afraid that job is tiring you out too much. Like I said before, you have to be mindful of your health.”

  Elizabeth wanted to scream or tear her hair out or do something equally drastic.

  Instead she went up to her room to change.

  * * *

  —

  The faces around the dining table glowed ruddy in the warmth of the candles lighting the table. Cora Farthingale sat opposite Elizabeth. The sparkle of the diamond brooch pinned to her shoulder was enhanced by the glittering flames.

  Her husband, Charles, was to Elizabeth’s left and was involved in an intense conversation with Hugo VanderKamp across the table. Elizabeth stifled a yawn as Jones began to clear the dessert plates.

  Thomas Hutchinson leaned toward Elizabeth. He had a bland face and smelled medicinal—like soap or cough lozenges.

  “I suppose you’ve been terribly busy with the Daughters of Charity ball that’s coming up next month.”

  Elizabeth stared at him for a moment, weighing her response.

  “Actually, I’m not. I’m working.”

  Hutchinson looked as if he’d been given a jolt of electricity.

  “Working? You don’t say? Charity work, I presume?”

  “Hardly. I’m working for the Daily Trumpet.”

  She hesitated to mention that she was a photographer. Would he connect her with that front-page photograph of Gloria DeWitt?

  Elizabeth noticed her mother looking in her direction. Helen looked terribly pleased and nodded her head at Elizabeth in encouragement.

  Elizabeth shuddered. If her mother thought that she was going to take up with Hutchinson, with his pasty white face and old-fashioned assumptions about women…

  Finally, Helen pushed back her chair. Her discipline showed in her slim figure, set off by the draped plum-colored jersey dress she was wearing.

  “Ladies, shall we adjourn to the living room for some coffee and let the men have their brandy and cigars in peace?” She gave a throaty laugh.

  The ladies pushed back their chairs in unison, their skirts rustling as they stood up and followed Helen into the living room where the lights had been dimmed just enough to soften the ladies’ features and create pools of shadows in the corners of the room.

  Elizabeth chose one of the two armchairs placed opposite the sofa and sank into it gratefully. She envied her sister, Rose, who, at fourteen, was considered too young to attend dinner parties and was having a tray in the comfort of her own room.

  As soon as they were settled, Jones entered balancing a tray of Aynsley porcelain demitasse cups filled with strong, dark coffee.

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said, as she accepted one and took a sip.

  The low murmur of the ladies’ voices washed over her and she felt her eyes drifting closed until suddenly she heard someone mention Frances’s name.

  She sat up abruptly, nearly spilling her coffee. She placed the cup on the small table next to the arm
of her chair and leaned forward to listen.

  “I didn’t want to say anything during dinner,” Cora Farthingale was saying. “Not exactly comme il faut, if you know what I mean.” She tittered and smoothed the garnet-red velvet skirt of her dress. “But I can’t help thinking about that dreadful murder at Gloria DeWitt’s debut. Poor, dear Frances. What a terrible thing to have happened. Imagine.” She shuddered.

  Marguerite VanderKamp arched her brow. “Cora, dear, I don’t know why you’re so surprised. It’s exactly the sort of thing one would expect to happen to someone like Frances DeWitt.”

  Viola Partridge leaned forward in her seat, dark brown eyes vivid with excitement. “I heard she had a lover.” She leaned back in her chair with a smug expression on her face.

  Marguerite rolled her eyes. “That was hardly a secret, Viola. They weren’t particularly discreet. I saw them lunching together at the ’21’ Club. They looked very cozy, if I must say so myself.”

  “Who is he? What did he look like? Is he terribly handsome?” Cora said, pausing with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth.

  “The usual, if you know what I mean. Matinee idol good looks but clearly not…well, I don’t mean to sound snobbish….”

  The ladies nodded their heads in understanding.

  “But there was something…smarmy about him. I can’t imagine how Frances could allow herself….”

  Cora gave Marguerite a pitying look. “I’m not surprised. Frances was hardly one of us, no matter how much money she spent on her clothes and hair.”

  “But who is this fellow?” Viola sounded querulous.

  Marguerite took a sip of her coffee. “I don’t know his name. Just another Lothario with too much Brylcreem in his hair and one of those pencil-thin mustaches that looks as if they can’t make up their mind whether they want to grow one or not.”

  “Do you remember Dolores Bennett?” Viola said, looking from one woman to another.

  “Vaguely.” Marguerite took a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her nose. “Didn’t she have a nervous breakdown or something?”

  “They said at the time that she was suffering from exhaustion, but you’re right, darling, it was a nervous breakdown. Because of some man, apparently.”

  “Surely not because of Arthur Bennett. He was as tame as an old blind dog.”

  Viola shook her head and the diamante combs in her hair quivered. “Of course not. It was that lover of hers. I do wish I knew his name! But do you suppose it’s the same fellow?”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Marguerite drawled. “But why did she have a nervous breakdown? Did Arthur find out?”

  “I don’t think so, but apparently the fellow up and demanded money from her. Can you imagine? Here Dolores was imagining herself as some sort of femme fatale when all along the fellow just wanted money.”

  Cora sniffed. “Suppose that fellow who had been romancing Frances was after the same thing—payment of some kind. It positively makes one blush at the implications.”

  “And”—Marguerite leaned forward, steadying her coffee cup with her hand—“what if she said no and he got mad and he killed her?”

  The ladies looked at one another.

  “It’s possible,” Cora said. “I wonder if the police have thought of that.”

  “Do you think we should tell them?” Viola asked. “About the lover, I mean.”

  Helen cleared her throat. “I don’t think we want to get involved with the police, do we? After all, we don’t know anything for a fact. We might end up with our names in the paper or something dreadful like that.”

  The women murmured agreement.

  “Or with our picture on the front page like Frances’s poor stepdaughter Gloria.”

  Marguerite glanced around with a sly look on her face. “Or murdered like poor, dear unlamented Frances herself.”

  * * *

  —

  “Well, I think that was a success, don’t you?” Helen turned to Elizabeth as she shut the door on the last of their departing guests with a sigh. Cora Farthingale had been inclined to linger, and although her husband had cleared his throat several times and made to get up from his seat on the sofa more than once, Cora had determinedly ignored him. She had even ignored the occasional dainty yawn that Helen had gone to no pains to hide.

  Finally Charles Farthingale, putting his hands on his knees, had thrust himself up from the soft confines of the living room sofa and announced in his gruff voice that it was high time they were going.

  Cora had looked disappointed and as if she was about to argue, but Helen and George had jumped to their feet as well making feeble and obviously insincere pleas for them to stay just a bit longer.

  Fortunately, Charles had got his hand on Cora’s elbow by then and was already steering her toward the door, where Jones was standing ready with Cora’s luxurious mink coat and Charles’s dark gray wool one.

  Alone in her room, Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief as she drew the long chintz curtains over the bedroom windows. She was achingly tired, but her mind was spinning as she slipped into her nightgown. She was tempted to skip her nightly ablutions but her mother’s warnings about cleaning off one’s makeup before bed rang in her ears. She didn’t want to wake up in the morning and find her complexion, of which she was rather proud, covered in blemishes.

  She padded into the bathroom in her bare feet, her toes curling up as she hit the cold tiles underfoot. She retrieved the familiar jar of Pond’s cold cream from the medicine chest and began to cream her face.

  As tired as she was, she was glad her mother had insisted on her joining the dinner party. So the ladies thought Frances had had a lover. Elizabeth thought back to Gloria’s debut and the man she had seen standing behind Frances’s chair during the dance. Had that been Frances’s lover, she wondered? The two had looked intimate enough. She remembered seeing the man again in the Astor Bar.

  Elizabeth put her hair up in pin curls, put a hairnet over them and finally she was ready for bed. She was pulling back the down comforter on her four-poster bed when there was a muffled scream from outside her bedroom door followed by the sound of running footsteps.

  She shoved her feet into her slippers, grabbed her robe and slipped into it, opening the door to the hall as she tied the belt around her waist.

  Her father was in the foyer by the front door bending over a figure on the floor. Elizabeth realized with a start that it was her mother.

  She hurried over, her slippers making a clapping sound as they slapped against her heels.

  “What happened? What’s going on? Mother, are you hurt?”

  Her mother’s face was white and twisted with pain.

  Her father’s expression was grim. “Your mother’s slipped, and I fear she’s broken her leg.”

  “I thought I heard someone scream.” Mrs. Murphy appeared behind them.

  “It’s Mother. She may have broken her leg.”

  Mrs. Murphy was still in her housedress but had removed her apron and taken down her hair. Her lips fell in pleats around her mouth, which was slightly caved in, and it was obvious she’d already taken her dentures out for the night.

  “Oh, my heavens,” Mrs. Murphy said, covering her mouth with her hand.

  Jones appeared then, still fully dressed in his black pants, starched white shirt and black jacket, looking as alert as if it was the middle of the day and not nearly midnight.

  “I’ll ring for an ambulance,” he said in a calm voice.

  Elizabeth knelt next to her mother, and smoothed Helen’s hair back gently. Helen’s eyes had an unfocused look, and she was moaning softly under her breath. Elizabeth looked up. “Perhaps we should get something to cover her with.”

  “I’ll get a throw from the living room,” Mrs. Murphy said, scurrying off.

  “I went to check to be sure the front doo
r was locked,” Helen said in a low, pained voice. “I was afraid I might have forgotten to latch it after the Farthingales left. I must have slipped on something.” She closed her eyes, her mouth twisted to the side.

  “That marble floor is slippery,” Mrs. Murphy said, rocking back and forth on her heels, her arms folded across her chest. “Especially in those delicate shoes you’re wearing.” She pointed to the plum-colored satin pumps that matched Helen’s dress.

  Elizabeth heard a noise and turned around. Rose appeared in the foyer, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “What’s happened?”

  Elizabeth had hoped Rose would sleep through to morning and not have to witness their mother in such obvious pain.

  “Mother’s had an accident,” she said, getting up and putting an arm around her sister. “She may have broken her leg. I’m sure she’ll be fine in no time.”

  Elizabeth could feel Rose trembling. “Why don’t you get your robe while we wait for the ambulance to arrive?”

  Rose had a bewildered look on her face as she turned and went back down the hall to her room.

  Presently, they heard sirens in the distance, the sound getting louder and louder until it ended abruptly in a wail outside the building.

  “I think they’re here,” George said.

  He opened the door to the apartment and stepped into the hall.

  Soon the foyer was filled with people in white bustling around Helen. Elizabeth stood back as Helen’s leg was placed in a splint before she was carefully moved to a stretcher.

  George grabbed his coat from the closet and was buttoning it as he started out the door.

  “I’m going with Helen,” he said. “I’ll telephone as soon as I know something.”

  Watching the ambulance crew maneuver the stretcher through the door brought back a rush of memories Elizabeth didn’t want to face. She remembered her mother and father’s worried faces as they peered at her wrapped in a white blanket, lying helpless on the stretcher while they prepared to take her out to the ambulance. She remembered looking up at the ceiling as they made their way out the door, wondering if that was to be the last glimpse she’d ever have of her home.