Murder Most Merry (17 page)

Then Michaels settled down to questions. When had she last seen the necklace? Was the lock forced? Had there been any prowlers around? What else was missing? And suchlike.

Beverly Benson answered impatiently, like she expected us to just go out there like that and grab the thief and say, “Here you are, lady.” She had shown the necklace to another guest early in the party—he’d gone home long ago. but she gave us the name and address to check. No, the lock hadn’t been forced. They hadn’t seen anything suspicious, either. There were some small things missing, too—a couple of diamond rings, a star sapphire pendant, a pair of pearl earrings—but those didn’t worry her so much. It was the emerald and ruby necklace that she wanted.

That left eyebrow went to work while Michaels thought about what she’d said. “If the lock wasn’t forced, that lets out a chance prowler. It was somebody who knew you. who’d had a chance to lift your key or take an impression of it. Where’d you keep it?”

“The key? In my handbag usually. Tonight it was in a box on my dressing table.”

Michaels sort of groaned. “And women wonder why jewels get stolen! Smith, get Ferguson and have him go over the box for prints. In the meantime, Miss Benson, give me a list of all your guests tonight. We’ll take up the servants later. I’m warning you now it’s a ten-to-one chance you’ll ever see your Christmas tree ornament again unless a fence sings; but we’ll do what we can. Then I’ll deliver my famous little lecture on safes, and we’ll pray for the future.”

When I’d seen Ferguson, I waited for Michaels in the room where the guests were. There were only five left, and I didn’t know who they were yet. They’d all taken off their masks; but they still had on their cartoon costumes. It felt screwy to sit there among them and think: This is serious, this is a felony, and look at those bright funny costumes.

Donald Duck was sitting by himself, with one hand resting on his long-billed mask while the other made steady grabs for the cigarette box beside him. His face looked familiar; I thought maybe I’d seen him in bits.

Three of them sat in a group: Mickey Mouse. Snow White, and Dopey. Snow White looked about fourteen at first, and it took you a while to realize she was a woman and a swell one at that. She was a little brunette, slender and cool-looking—a simple real kind of person that didn’t seem to belong in a Hollywood crowd. Mickey Mouse was a hefty blond guy about as tall as I am and built like a tackle that could hold any line; but his face didn’t go with his body. It was shrewd-like, and what they call sensitive. Dopey looked just that—a nice guy and not too bright.

Then over in another corner was a Little Pig. I don’t know do they have names, but this was the one that wears a sailor suit and plays the fiddle. He had bushy hair sticking out from under the sailor cap and long skillful-looking hands stretched in front of him. The fiddle was beside him, but he didn’t touch it. He was passed out—dead to the world, close as I could judge.

He and Donald were silent, but the group of three talked a little.

“I guess it didn’t work,” Dopey said.

“You couldn’t help that, Harvey.” Snow White’s voice was just like I expected—not like Snow White’s in the picture, but deep and smooth, like a stream that’s running in the shade with moss on its banks. “Even an agent can’t cast people.”

“You’re a swell guy, Madison,” Mickey Mouse said. “You tried, and thanks. But if it’s no go, hell, it’s just no go. It’s up to her.”

“Miss Benson is surely more valuable to your career.” The running stream was ice cold.

Now maybe I haven’t got anything else that’d make me a good detective, but I do have curiosity, and here’s where I saw a way to satisfy it. I spoke to all of them and I said, “I’d better take down some information while we’re waiting for the Lieutenant.” I started on Donald Duck. “Name?”

“Daniel Wappingham.” The voice was English. I could tell that much. I don’t have such a good ear for stuff like that, but I thought maybe it wasn’t the best English.

“Occupation?”

“Actor.”

And I took down the address and the rest of it. Then I turned to the drunk and shook him. He woke up part way but he didn’t hear what I was saying. He just threw his head back and said loudly. “Waltzes! Ha!” and went under again. His voice was guttural—some kind of German, I guessed. I let it go at that and went over to the three.

Dopey’s name was Harvey Madison; occupation, actor’s representative— tenpercenter to you. Mickey Mouse was Philip Newton; occupation, photographer. (That was the guy Beverly Benson mentioned, the one she sounded that-away about.) And Snow White was Jane Newton.

“Any relation?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” she said, so soft I could hardly hear her.

“Mrs. Newton,” Mickey Mouse stated, “was once my wife.” And the silence was so strong you could taste it.

I got it then. The two of them sitting there, remembering all the little things of their life together, being close to each other and yet somehow held apart. And on Christmas, too. when you remember things. There was still something between them even if they didn’t admit it themselves. But Beverly Benson seemed to have a piece of the man. and where did Dopey fit in?

It sort of worried me. They looked like swell people—people that belonged together. But it was my job to worry about the necklace and not about people’s troubles. I was glad Michaels came in just then.

He was being polite at the moment, explaining to Beverly Benson how Ferguson hadn’t got anywhere with the prints and how the jewels were probably miles away by now. “But we’ll do what we can,” he said. “We’ll talk to these people and find out what’s possible. I doubt, however, if you’ll ever see that necklace again. It was insured, of course. Miss Benson?”

“Of course. So were the other things, and with them I don’t mind. But this necklace I couldn’t conceivably duplicate. Lieutenant.”

Just then Michael’s eye lit on Donald Duck, and the eyebrow did tricks worth putting in a cartoon. “We’ll take you one by one,” he said. “You with the tail-feathers, we’ll start with you. Come along, Smith.”

Donald Duck grabbed a fresh cigarette, thought a minute, then reached out again for a handful. He whistled off key and followed us into the library.

“I gave all the material to your stooge here, Lieutenant,” he began. “Name, Wappingham. Occupation, actor. Address—”

Michaels was getting so polite it had me bothered. “You won’t mind, sir,” he purred, “if I suggest a few corrections in your statement?”

Donald looked worried. “Don’t you think I know my own name?”

“Possibly. But would you mind if I altered the statement to read: Name, Alfred Higgins. Occupation, jewel thief—conceivably reformed?”

The Duck wasn’t so bad hit as you might have thought. He let out a pretty fair laugh and said, “So the fat’s in the fire at last. But I’m glad you concede the possibility of my having reformed.”

“The possibility, yes.” Michaels underlined the word. “You admit you’re Higgins?”

“Why not? You can’t blame me for not telling you right off; it wouldn’t look good when somebody had just been up to my old tricks. But now that you know— And by the way. Lieutenant, just how do you know?”

“Some bright boy at Scotland Yard spotted you in an American picture. Sent your description and record out to us just in case you ever took up your career again.”

“Considerate of him, wasn’t it?”

But Michaels wasn’t in a mood for bright chatter any longer. We got down to work. We stripped that duck costume off the actor and left him shivering while we went over it inch by inch. He didn’t like it much.

At last Michaels let him get dressed again. “You came in your car?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going home in a taxi. We could hold you on suspicion, but I’d sooner play it this way.”

“Now I understand,” Donald said, “what they mean by the high-handed American police procedure.” And he went back into the other room with us.

All the same that was a smart move of Michaels’. It meant that Wappingham-Higgins-Duck would either have to give up all hope of the jewels (he certainly didn’t have them on him) or lead us straight to them, because of course I knew a tail would follow that taxi and camp on his doorstep all next week if need be.

Donald Duck said goodnight to his hostess and nodded to the other guests. Then he picked up his mask.

“Just a minute,” Michaels said. “Let’s have a look at that.”

“At this?” he asked innocent-like and backed toward the French window. Then he was standing there with an automatic in his hand. It was little but damned nasty-looking. I never thought what a good holster that long bill would make.

“Stay where you are, gentlemen,” he said calmly. “I’m leaving undisturbed,
if
you don’t mind.”

The room was frozen still. Beverly Benson and Snow White let out little gasps of terror. The drunk was still dead to the world. The other two men looked at us and did nothing. It was Donald’s round.

Or would’ve been if I hadn’t played football in high school. It was a crazy chance, but I took it. I was the closest to him, only his eyes were on Michaels. It was a good flying tackle and it brought him to the ground in a heap consisting mostly of me. The mask smashed as we rolled over on it and I saw bright glitters pouring out.

Ferguson and O’Hara were there by now. One of them picked up his gun and the other snapped on the handcuffs. I got to my feet and turned to Michaels and Beverly Benson. They began to say things both at once about what a swell thing I’d done and then I keeled over.

When I came to I was on a couch in a little dark room. I learned later it was the dressing room where the necklace had been stolen. Somebody was bathing my arm and sobbing.

I sort of half sat up and said, “Where am I?” I always thought it was just in stories people said that, but it was the first thing popped into my mind.

“You’re all right.” a cool voice told me. “It’s only a flesh wound.”

“And I didn’t feel a thing.... You mean he winged me?”

“I guess that’s what you call it. When I told the Lieutenant I was a nurse he said I could fix you up and they wouldn’t need the ambulance. You’re all right now.” Her voice was shaky in the dark, but I knew it was Snow White.

“Well, anyways, that broke the case pretty quick.”

“But it didn’t.” And she explained: Donald had been up to his old tricks, all right; but what he had hidden in his bill was the diamonds and the sapphire and the pearl earrings, only no emerald and ruby necklace. Beverly Benson was wild, and Michaels and our men were combing the house from top to bottom to see where he’d stashed it.

“There,” she said. She finished the story and the bandaging at the same time. “Can you stand up all right now?”

I was still kind of punchy. Nothing else could excuse me for what I said next. But she was so sweet and tender and good I wanted to say something nice, so like a dumb jerk I up and said, “You’d make some man a grand wife.”

That was what got her. She just went to pieces—dissolved, you might say. I’m not used to tears on the shoulder of my uniform, but what could I do? I didn’t try to say anything—just patted her back and let her talk. And I learned all about it.

How she’d married Philip Newton back in ‘29 when he was a promising young architect and she was an heiress just out of finishing school. How the fortune she was heiress to went fooey like all the others and her father took the quick way out. How the architect business went all to hell with no building going on and just when things were worst she had a baby. And then how Philip started drinking, and finally— Well, anyways, there it was.

They’d both pulled themselves together now. She was making enough as a nurse to keep the kid (she was too proud to take alimony), and Philip was doing fine in this arty photographic line he’d taken up. A Newton photograph was The Thing to Have in the smart Hollywood set. But they couldn’t come together again, not while he was such a success. If she went to him, he’d think she was begging; if he came to her, she’d think he was being noble. And Beverly Benson had set her cap for him.

Then this agent Harvey Madison (that’s Dopey), who had known them both when, decided to try and fix things. He brought Snow White to this party: neither of them knew the other would be here. And it was a party and it was Christmas, and some of their happiest memories were Christmases together. I guess that’s pretty much true of everybody. So she felt everything all over again, only—

“You don’t know what it’s done for me to tell you this. Please don’t feel hurt; but in that uniform and everything you don’t seem quite like a person. I can talk and feel free. And this has been hurting me all night and I had to say it.”

I wanted to take the two of them and knock their heads together; only first off I had to find that emerald and ruby necklace. It isn’t my job to heal broken hearts. I was feeling O. K. now, so we went back to the others.

Only they weren’t there. There wasn’t anybody in the room but only the drunk. I guessed where Mickey and Dopey were: stripped and being searched.

“Who’s that?” I asked Snow White.

She looked at the Little Pig. “Poor fellow. He’s been going through torture tonight too. That’s Bela Strauss.”

“Bella’s a woman’s name.”

“He’s part Hungarian.” (I guess that might explain anything. ) “He comes from Vienna. They brought him out here to write music for pictures because his name is Strauss. But he’s a very serious composer—you know, like...” and she said some tongue twisters that didn’t mean anything to me. “They think because his name is Strauss he can write all sorts of pretty dance tunes, and they won’t let him write anything else. It’s made him all twisted and unhappy, and he drinks too much.”