Say Yes to Murder - Todhunter Ballard (book club recommendations .TXT) 📗

I like about pictures. No sleeper jumps, no more hotels. I’m home… to stay. When my granddaughter gets back from Europe she and I are going to settle down and enjoy it.”

From the look of her she wasn’t going to enjoy anything too long. Her granddaughter was back, but she wasn’t here. Lennox frowned as he crossed to the bedside, then he wiped the frown off his face and stood smiling down at the old actress.

“Hi, trouper.”

“I’ve been waiting for you, Willie.”

“I’d have been here a lot sooner,” he told her, “but I did not want to wake you.”

“Wake me?” she was scornful. “Only fools and lazy people sleep. I’ve never had time.”

He said: “You’re going to take a lot of time in the next few days and get yourself thoroughly rested.”

“That,” she said definitely, “is what you think. But never mind me. What did you find out from that Kingstone cat?”

Lennox looked at her. “Where’d you get the idea Kingstone was a cat?”

“I asked my maid.” The actress’ eyes were fever-bright. “My maid knows everything worth knowing about anyone in this town, and all she asks is a chance to gossip. I asked her last night, after we got home, and she certainly gave me an earful. The dame really gets around.”

Lennox said: “And I thought I sent you home to sleep.”

“I did sleep,” she protested, “but I had to know. What is it, Willie? Blackmail?”

Lennox hesitated, not knowing what to say. If he didn’t tell her she would worm the news of Kingstone’s death out of someone. He decided on the truth. In the long run it would be better.

“I don’t know,” he said in a low voice. “I couldn’t talk to her, Mary. She was dead before I got there.”

The sick woman did not speak, nor did she move for a full minute. He began to fear that the shock of the news had been too much for her. But her eyes were open, and her breathing seemed, to his untutored eye, regular.

“Dead,” she said finally. It startled him to have her speak. “How did she die, Willie?”

“Someone killed her, Mary. She was dead when I got there.”

“Did Jean…”

He said: “No,” too hastily. “Of course not. Why should she?”

The old lips twitched as she tried to smile. “People do strange things—unaccountable things, my boy. I’ve known all kinds of people in all types of places. I haven’t been surprised at anything for years. Are you lying to protect me?”

“I’m smarter than that.”

“I hope so,” she said half to herself. “It’s never wise to put off anything that must be faced. I’m disappointed in Jean. I tried to keep her clear of the show business. I love it, but it’s not a good life, especially when one is young and impressionable. You get a false set of values.”

Lennox patted her hand. “You’re talking too much.”

“That’s all I’m good for, talking. I want you to understand, I’ve hardly seen Jean since she got back, but she’s a nice kid, and Bill, she’ll have my dough.”

Ho managed to laugh. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been propositioned by a girl’s grandmother. Have you told her that you’re sick?”

She shook her head. “This is nothing.”

“Still,” he said, “she has a right to know. I’m going to bring her to see you at four. You should rest until then.”

He left the sick room, spoke to the nurse, and went down the hall. A man had been leaning against one of the porch posts. He flipped his cigarette away and straightened. “How is she?” Lennox recognized the piano-player, Strong.

“Better,” he said, and was not certain that he was telling the truth.

Strong grunted. “That darn maid wouldn’t let me see her. Gosh, Mary and I were young together.” He was silent, his faded eyes staring out at the palm-lined street. “The first job I’ve had in months, and it folds.”

Lennox couldn’t be sure which the man was worried about, his job or Mary’s condition.

3.

Spurck was in an uncertain humor. He had already fired the studio’s highest-paid writer, had a battle with his leading producer, was fast working himself up to a point where he would wire his resignation to the New York office. There was one thing about the production head Lennox liked—when one of these moods attacked him he never took his ill humor out on the underlings who dared not fight back. He battled with men who were competent to look after themselves—Lennox included—and he was mustering his strength for his attack when Bill entered the high-ceilinged room.

“So!” he said, puffing out his cheeks until his face was perfectly round. “It isn’t enough that our best leading man gets killed and our best actress gets sick. No! You have to do something also. You have to get yourself mixed up in a murder. What is it you were doing at that Kingstone apartment? Or may I not ask?”

“You may not,” Lennox told him. “That was strictly my own business.”

“And a fine business!”

Spurck had been married for forty years and never had there been the slightest whisper of irregularity in his relations with any woman. Lennox knew that contrary to general opinion Hollywood was filled with men who were faithful to their wives. But Spurck’s conduct led all the rest, and he never hesitated to condemn the conduct of others.

“Now look!” Lennox said, knowing he had an argument on his hands. “I could have had legitimate business up there…”

“With such a woman it is doubtful,” Spurck said accusingly. “Mind you, I am not the first to cast a stone, y’understand? And when a girl is dead she is dead, no matter what she was before. But she is not the type which I would wish a son of mine to know, and I couldn’t regard you better if you were a son.”

Lennox said: “Thanks.” Once in a while Spurck’s uncontrolled emotions embarrassed him. “Look, Sol. No matter what the wiseacres around town will have to say, I had a perfectly good reason for being there last night, and in a sense it was business.”

Bill paused, and Spurck was silent as if expecting him to elaborate. He didn’t, and the production chief said plaintively:

“No one ever tells me anything.”

“This,” said Lennox, “has nothing to do with the studio. Let’s talk about business.”

Spurck was still not appeased, but he had no alternative. After an hour’s discussion it was decided to stop work on the Heyworth picture, and Lennox was assigned the unpleasant job of telling Kitty Foster. He dreaded it for blocks—all the time it took his cab to carry him through Hollywood and out to Holmby Hills.

Kitty’s house was huge, much bigger than it looked from the street, built of flat yellow stone split to almost the thickness of slate and trimmed at the corners with fire brick. The cab pulled around into the circular drive and stopped before the entrance.

Lennox told the driver to wait, got out, and punched the bell. The houseboy who answered looked uncertain as he saw who it was.

Lennox said, “Good morning, Togo,” and stepped into the square entry hall. “Miss Foster up?”

The boy didn’t know exactly how to proceed. Lennox helped him out. “She’ll see me,” he prophesied. “This is business.”

The morning papers were scattered in crumpled disarray around the corner chair, proving that Kitty Foster had already seen the news.

Bill got a cigarette from a mirrored box on the low end table and looked around the room. Four years ago Kitty had lived in a court on Santa Monica, doing extra work, when Lennox had spotted her and arranged a bit in a General picture.

Now she was a star with a home of her own, four cars, five servants and half a dozen dogs. If she followed the usual evolution she would own a racing stable by the start of the following season. He had helped her with it all, serving as teacher, arranging the proper contacts, the proper dates.

The houseboy disturbed his thoughts. Togo said, “She say come down to the pool, please,” and went hurriedly away, obviously glad to escape before the impending battle materialized.

Lennox went out the French door at the end of the hall, crossed the multicolored tile terrace, and went down the steps.

The girl half sat, half reclined on a beach divan in the shade of a striped umbrella. She wore a one-piece suit of white with cutouts fore and aft at the waist. There was a flowered beach robe across the table at her side.

“Hello, Bill. Come for a swim?”

He had spent hours in that pool. It was hot, and the water looked inviting, but he declined. “No thanks. On business,” he told her, looking at her keenly in expectation of a blow-up. “I’ve been talking to Spurck,” he went on cautiously. “Heyworth’s death naturally knocked the picture into a cocked hat. We’ll have to re-title and, of course, re-shoot every scene he was in. We may even have to rewrite it.”

“What a heck of a business!” she said explosively. “A man dies and all anyone thinks of is changing the picture so no one will ever recognize it. Cripes! Why didn’t I keep on selling thread.”

“You can always go back,” he said. “But the studio has to go on, and they have five hundred thousand tied up in the little epic already.”

Kitty made no effort to hide her anger. “You always pick a fight,” she complained. “When Togo said you were here my first impulse was to have you thrown out. Then I decided that it wouldn’t buy me anything to quarrel with you. But I’ve changed my mind again, Bill. I’m going to quarrel. And not only that—I’m going to hang a murder rap on you and make it stick!”

He tried to laugh, but his lips were frozen. She didn’t give him a chance to talk. “I wasn’t in love with Heyworth,” she said. “It was good business to have my name linked with his.”

“You never were in love with anyone but yourself,” Lennox said.

She nodded. “Yes I was—a long time ago. He handed me the old song and dance, and when he got tired he moved on. I’ve never forgotten it, William. As far as I’m concerned men are something to use. I used to be afraid of them. I used to think they were smart. Now I know better.”

“Yes,” he said, and his grin was bitter.

“Yes! Listen, Bill. I haven’t got anything against you. You gave me a lift, and I know it, but I also know that you can’t do me any more good. I’m not going to have it whispered around this town that any black-haired snip took Heyworth away from me—even if she is Mary Morris’ granddaughter.”

The skin along Lennox’ jaws felt as if it were stiff like parchment. “I don’t quite see what you’re getting at.”

“Don’t you?” Her voice was deceptively soft. “You will in a minute, chum. I know where you were yesterday afternoon. I saw you leave that apartment house, and I saw you drive Leon Heyworth’s car away. The police might be interested to know just why the car was parked in the side street below Jean Jeffries’ apartment when Heyworth was apparently killed in his own garden. Don’t you think they might be interested?”

He stared at her, wondering what appeal he could make that might perhaps touch her. He had no illusions. This woman was making no idle threat. She meant exactly what she said, and the worst part of it was that she could easily tell the police without involving herself more than she chose.

He wondered suddenly if she had actually