[Celebrity Murder Case 04] - The Talking Pictures Murder Case Read online

  “I'm not in a state,” replied Annamary angrily “You're the one who's in a state You're always in a state. And when will I learn my dialogue? Somebody's got to help me with my dialogue! Where's Henry Turk? Henry! Are you here?” She was told her director was on the adjoining stage setting up for the next day's shooting. “I need to see him. Somebody go get him.” Somebody went to get him. Annamary walked briskly out the door trailed by her mother and Ethel Swift.

  Hazel was standing near the body staring at the stocking that presumably was used to strangle her “Silk,” she murmured.

  Villon overheard her “What about it?”

  “That stocking. It’s silk That's all.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  She knew she must protect Mallory. “Ummm we have a dinner date.”

  “We do5”

  “We do.”

  “Well, now it’s pretty obvious we don’t. So why don’t you run along home—”

  She interrupted him abruptly “I’m on a story. I’m staying here until I get it all. And especially now that here comes the thundering herd “ Her rival reporters were streaming onto the stage followed by photographers.

  Villon shouted to Mallory, “Keep this gang back! Hey, you bozos!” he shouted to a group of studio policemen. “Get those reporters and photographers out of here! Get going! Get the lead out!”

  “Get the lead out!” echoed Alexander Roland as Jason Cutts returned to his side “Out with it, out with it. What did Jay Mack tell you?”

  Jason was gasping for breath. “He says we're okay. Because it's being shot in color, he doubled up on the insurance “

  'Thank God for small favors. Now listen, I want you to draw up a list of replacements for Fairweather There's that new girl over at Paramount—”

  “Jeanette MacDonald.”

  That’s her. Call them and see if she's available.” Jason started to hurry off but Roland grabbed him by the collar “Stop rushing away until I finish! Jack Warner has a whole harem full of sopranos. Let me see … he's got Vivienne Segal . and Bernice Claire “

  “I never heard of her. Who is she?”

  “She’s a San Francisco girl. They found her there.”

  “Who else sings?”

  “Bebe Daniels sings. And Swanson “

  Swanson forget. She'll cost an arm and a leg. How do you know Daniels sings?”

  “She's doing Rio Rita for the new Radio Pictures

  “Imagine that! Bebe singsl Her agent offered her to me for next to nothing if I'd give her a break in a talker and I turned him down Why didn't he tell me she sang, I'd have signed her up on the spot.” Cutts remained silent. He knew his boss knew absolutely nothing about musical talent. The man was tone deaf.

  Cutts said, There's a cute young kid at Universal, Jeanette Loff “

  “Not opposite Carewe. She'd look like his daughter.”

  “Mr. Roland, if I may offer a suggestion …”

  “Go ahead, I'm listening “ Cutts almost swooned. Alexander Roland was going to listen to a suggestion—something that happened as infrequently as the summer solstice.

  “Since we have to reshoot from the beginning, why not replace Carewe with a younger man, then we could pair the girl with anyone we like.”

  “What younger men? Who do you have in mind?”

  “There's John Boles …”

  “Not Boles He's in everything. Somebody else.”

  “Walter Pidgeon?”

  “You call him young? He's almost forty.”

  “Alexander Gray. Dennis King …”

  “Now, Gray isn't such a bad idea.”

  “He's just finished one for Warner Now if we could team him up with someone like Jeanette MacDonald, together they might go great in a series.”

  “Operetta stars in a series? Are you crazy? In another year or so audiences will be so fed up listening to all this yowling and howling the singers will be hitchhiking their way back east. Get on the phone and see if you can line up Gray and MacDonald, but don't sound desperate! It'll cost too much!”

  “But Mr Roland, it's all over town already that Fairweather's dead!”

  “Already? Already? What has become of decency and fair play?”

  * * *

  Villon, Mallory, and all of their team busied themselves interrogating the cast and crew of Daughter of the Casbah. The coroner had arrived grumpily, having been called away from his dinner. Before setting to work examining the corpse, he told Villon that Alicia Leddy had positively been strangled with the scarf, but her death had not been instantaneous.

  An electrician was telling Villon, “Well, she was carrying on about getting protection, you know, scared stiff because of Alicia Leddy's murder. She kept insisting she be given a bodyguard and said she was going to phone her agent and demand he get her a bodyguard. So the last I saw her I guess she was going to her dressing room to use the phone “

  “She must have a maid, doesn't she? Aren't all stars assigned a maid?”

  “Only if they don't have one of their own. Fairweather has— had, you know—that’s her over there with the bag of peanuts. The Chinese girl sitting on the steps.”

  'Thanks You've been helpful.” The electrician felt as though he'd been pinned with an invisible medal. Villon was heading toward Fairweather's maid. Hazel Dickson crossed his path.

  “What did the coroner tell you just now?”

  “You don't miss a trick, do you?”

  That's why I'm so good.” She winked “Come on, Herb. I'm on my way to a big hoist in salary.”

  Villon wondered what it was that had first endeared her to him. She had ordinary, homely looks. She didn't dress particularly well He sometimes wondered how she could see, the way she pulled her cloche hats down so tightly on her head. She occasionally talked out of the side of her mouth, probably because that's what so many girl reporters did in the talkers. And she pushed food onto her fork with her fingers. She must have had an awful childhood.

  “Herb!” he heard her say. “Where are you? You're miles away.”

  “I wish I was.“ He told her what the coroner had told him “Leddy was strangled by that scarf.”

  “And this one with a silk stocking and then dropped from the flies. Why didn't anybody hear her scream? I've been asking around and absolutely no one so far heard her scream.”

  “She was already dead before being carried to the flies.”

  “So why bother carrying her up there?”

  “For the effect, baby, for the effect.”

  “I don't get you.”

  “Where's your sense of showmanship? Haven't you seen enough murder mysteries to recognize that shock effect that makes the audience scream? The body falling out of the closet?

  The body falling through a trap door? The corpse pinned to the library wall with a Ubangi spear?”

  “Ubangi?”

  “Love to. Your place or mine?”

  “Not funny, Villon. Hey, wait a minute. Showmanship, huh? Somebody making a grandstand play. She thought for a moment and then spoke the name with some hesitation. “Alexander Roland?”

  “Why not?”

  “Roland would screw up his own works? It doesn't make sense.”

  “It does if you know the tough spot he's in with his whole operation. His empire is very shaky financially. The bankers are calling in their markers. He's got a dozen talkers in release out there, but they're getting little action. He's not as shrewd as Metro with their backstage musicals and thrillers or Warner with his gangster pictures and newspaper pictures. Warner is even cutting down on his operettas - in fact, he's sending some into release without the song numbers.”

  Hands on hips, Hazel demanded, “How do you know so much about what's going on in pictures?”

  “I'm movie crazy, you know that, cutie. I read all the trades. I hang out at Musso and Frank's and the Brown Derby. I've got my ear to the ground I like to know what's going on.”

  “Alexander Roland is not the killer type.”

 
“What's a killer type?”

  Like a shot, she replied, “Marie Darling.“

  “That is positively a killer type. In fact, in my books she's a killer's killer.”

  “Could she have carried Lotus Fairweather up to the flies?”

  “! think she's been carrying heavier loads than that.”

  “Why would she want to kill Fairweather?”

  'Who said she did?” He was anxious to get to the Chinese maid “You're the one who branded her the killer type. To me, she's just another ogress of a show business mother. She's right up there in the rogues’ gallery with Mama Gish and Peg Tal- madge and a new one in town named Rosie Green whose kid Mitzi looks to make it big at Paramount unless Mama's big mouth gets them both exiled back to New York. Now go ask questions somewhere else. I've got somebody I want to talk to.”

  Hazel followed him with her eyes, making a mental note to cross-examine him about the Chinese maid later.

  The maid continued munching a peanut as Villon introduced himself. “I understand you were Miss Fairweather's maid?”

  “She wore dirty underwear.”

  Villon smiled. He could see he had himself a live one here “I'm not interested in her underwear.”

  “You should be. Somebody might have killed her because she was such a slob. Never washed her makeup off before she went home. Next day you'd still see traces of it on her chin and neck. Very filthy. My mother begged me to wear rubber gloves in the dressing room.”

  “What's your name?”

  “Ah Fong Gu. That means 'Little willow in the wind who will withstand the force of a hurricane and the cruelty of a brutal husband as he will have given her a lavish dowry.' Call me Loretta.”

  “How long have you worked for Miss Fairweather?”

  “They hired me a week before shooting “ She stared into the bag of peanuts ‘That's about five weeks ago.”

  “You didn't like her, I gather “

  “Oh, not so. Only her unclean habits. I felt very sorry for her. She was so old “ She made it sound as though old age were an unpardonable sin. He'd always been led to believe that Orientals venerated their elders. “I mean so old for pictures. She knew it, too She kept saying, 'I’ll never make another film after this. I'm lucky I got this one.” The girl shrugged and flashed a winning smile “Maybe she was psychic. Maybe she knew she was going to die. She had her fortune told last week.”

  “Do you know the name of the fortune-teller?”

  “That fat one. Just about everybody goes to her for advice.”

  “You mean Bertha Graze?”

  “Yes, that's her. I think she’s a load of baloney. Nobody can predict the future.”

  “I thought you Chinese invented astrology.”

  “No, we didn't. The Egyptians did. We invented spaghetti. It's true Marco Polo took it back to Italy with him.”

  “When did you last see Miss Fairweather?”

  “Lying there on the concrete.”

  “I mean alive.”

  “Ummm, I guess about half an hour before she came flying down.” Villon found her nonchalance about the murder charming and hated himself for it. “She came into the dressing room to use the phone and asked for privacy so I gave it to her. I went to the commissary to buy these peanuts. Want some?”

  “No, thanks They'll spoil my appetite “

  “How come? They're more appetizing than that thing over there “ She pointed at the corpse.

  “Did she have any enemies?”

  “How should I know? She didn't confide in me. I was like a piece of furniture to her. You know, utilitarian .‘Loretta do this, Loretta do that, would you scratch my back please?' Do I have to hang around here much longer? I've got two kids who need their supper - my husband works nights.“

  Two kids! Villon repressed his astonishment. She looked seventeen years old.

  “I'm twenty-eight.” She might have been reading his mind. The charming smile was back “Everybody thinks I'm ten years younger than I am. Catch me five years from now and two more babies, I’ll look thirty years older. I'II look like my grandmother. Is it okay if I go home?”

  ‘The studio has your address and phone number?”

  ‘They sure do.”

  He bid her good night and went in search of Jim Mallory, but the coroner stopped him.

  “Much like the other one,” the coroner told him, “except she has broken bones from the drop. Nothing to do with her death. She was dead before she came down. Like Leddy, crushed carotids, couple of bruises indicate some small bones are probably fractured. This one's no chicken, you know “

  “I know, and she knew.” He left the coronor and resumed his search for Mallory.

  Mallory was questioning Willis Loring, who was standing on his status as a star to carp about this invasion of privacy. Unimpressed by the bluster, Mallory nailed every word to Loring's ear “You were present at the scene of a murder and therefore you are subject to questioning. If you're not happy giving me some answers here we can always retire to headquarters. But the coffee's terrible there.”

  Villon joined them and recognized a display of Hollywood temperament immediately. Mallory had probably made the mistake of interrupting the actor while he was putting the make on one of the slave girls. “How we doing?” he asked Mallory. Mallory said with a slight trace of sarcasm, “Mr. Loring is finding it difficult to be cooperative.”

  Loring said to Villon, “I find all his questions pointless. I was sitting and talking to one of the young extras when the body landed, so you can't suspect me of killing her. I mean I'm a superb athlete and in magnificent condition”—Villon expected him to flex his muscles, but the actor disappointed him—”but I couldn’t have made it down from the flies before her body landed. I’m good, but not that good.” Villon toyed with suggesting he might have used a stunt double but swiftly decided the actor would not be amused. “Which one of the girls were you talking to?” asked Villon. Mallory was relieved he had taken over the questioning. Mallory was tempted to lay one on Loring, the man was that obnoxious.

  “I don't see her around “ He craned his neck in all directions, looking to Villon like an eccentric Hindu dancer “Her name was Abigail something or another “

  “Well, you keep looking for Miss Something or Another and please don't leave this set without my permission.“

  “Now, you see here!”

  “I don't see here because all I see is a dead body and that's the second one today and from the way things look to me there could very well be a third before the night's over. Don’t pull any star crap on me, mister I don't need you for a movie, I need you to cooperate when we ask questions. It's not my fault you were on the lot catting around …”

  “How dare you!”

  “… I repeat, catting around trying to find yourself a nosh for the night. You egos disgust me the way you prowl around and prey on these kids as though it was your feudal right.”

  “How very moral of you, Mr. Villon. As a matter of fact, you might be happy to know that from time to time an occasional kid says no.” He added with a growl, “You hypocrite.“

  Villon and Mallory left him lighting a cigarette. Jack Darling was still with Rita Gerber who, fortunately, had repaired her makeup Villon led Mallory to the couple.

  Villon said to Gerber, “I saw how shaken up you were. I'm sorry it affected you so badly.”

  Gerber’s eyes widened “Affected me! You didn't see it happen! She came diving down at me like a bomb from an airplane! She missed hitting me by inches!”

  “Rita might have been crushed to death,” said Jack.

  Gerber took back the spotlight “I wasn't all shook up because the old bag bought a one-way ticket. It was realizing I could have been killed. On loan-out, yet!”

  Villon asked Jack, “You saw the body drop?”

  “I was talking to a sound technician about some ideas I've got “ He favored Villon with his famous yokel grin They're pretty revolutionary. You see, I’m directing my first talker and I'm goi
ng to show Alex Roland how innovative I can be.“ Villon wondered privately if the young man had invented the wheel but then admonished himself for such a frivolous thought. He needed food. Jack Darling continued, “Anyway, I heard someone say 'Here she comes now' or something like that, and I heard someone scream—”

  “That was me,” said Rita.

  “So I turned and the body came whooshing down, like I said before, it was a miracle it missed killing Rita “

  Villon said to Mallory, 'The poor killer. He might have killed two birds with one stone.” Mallory hoped the others hadn't heard him.

  Rita asked plaintively, “What happens now?”

  “We keep hunting for the murderer,” said Villon

  “I mean with the picture!”

  “I'm sure Mr Roland is at this very moment phoning around for a replacement for Miss Fairweather.”

  “Do I have to stick around? I'm pooped “

  “I’ll let you know when you can leave,” said Villon in a friendly tone of voice “I see there’s a table set up over there with refreshments. Why don't you refresh yourself?”

  Jack and Rita watched the two officers walk away in search of a murderer. When they were out of earshot, Gerber said to the actor, “Are you really directing your first talker?”

  Jack said firmly, “I’m directing it,” almost adding, “or else.”

  “Is there a part in it I can do?”

  “I don't know What can you do?”

  “If you go home with me, I’ll show you.”

  Villon was waiting while Mallory stopped to light a cigarette “Do you know anything about this fortune-teller Bertha Graze?”

  “Much the same that you do, I suppose. She has a network of spies who supply her with inside info she uses in her fortune- telling routine. She’s been suspected of trafficking in blackmail but she’s never been nailed, never been brought up on charges. A lot of biggies in town swear by her when they're not swearing at her. She's so obese, the city's considering rezoning her, and you don't want her as an enemy “

  “Have a talk with her It seems last week she predicted Fairweather's fortune.”

  “You mean misfortune, don’t you?”

  “That's what I'd like to know.”