“I’ll have Tuttle ring for a taxi, Marty,” Bev said.
“On a reporter’s salary? I’ll walk up to the Seventy-Second Street station and take the subway. It’ll be faster anyway.”
Phil, inspiration striking, followed them to the door.
“I was thinking, Miss Rive…” Phil began.
“Lord, call me Marty. Everyone does.”
“Marty. Bev and I are planning to meet for lunch tomorrow.”
Phil saw Bev blink before she said, “That’s right, we are.”
“Would you care to join us? We could meet you at your offices and you could show us around a bit. It sounds so exciting.”
Bev bit her lip. Phil silently ordered her not to laugh.
“If I don’t have to dress. I’ll be in uniform, white-collared shirt and tweed skirt. No hat.”
“Excellent. Shall we say one o’clock?”
“Sure. Until tomorrow, then.”
Phil and Bev stood on the landing watching her walk briskly toward Broadway and the subway station.
“Brr, better her than me,” Bev said. “Come back inside. Tuttle, are there some of those sandwiches left? I swear I could eat a horse, well, not a horse, I love them too much. But something. I was so busy trying to play the distinguished hostess that I couldn’t swallow a thing.
“And I’ll make us something to drink that’s a little less…”
“Awful,” Phil supplied.
“I was going to say festive, but it was awful, wasn’t it? Thank heavens I didn’t offer it to Mrs. Abernathy.”
“So tell me more about your friends Roz and Marty,” Phil said, once Bev had fitted them out with champagne and Tuttle had returned with sandwiches.
“Well, we met at Vassar. Marty was the bane of her family, a firebrand suffragette, justice and equality and all that stuff. They sent her to college only because she threatened to run away to California if they didn’t. But, alas, breeding will out, and the more middle-class girls never warmed to her.”
Bev took another sip of her champagne and rested her head against the cushion of the high-backed settee. “Roz was young and impressionable. She was certainly innocent at the beginning; still acts like it, now that I think about. It’s like she’s regressed into the past.”
“You haven’t kept in touch?”
“Not really. Her parents took her out after the second year, and after that our paths never really crossed. She married Jarvis Chandler and took up with Imogen Trout, a piece of cheap cloth, if you ask me. I see her name in the papers occasionally. Not that I really care, but it bothers Marty. They were closer at school. I rarely saw either of them until Roz called and asked me to fill in as hospitality chairwoman for someone who had to drop out.
“Which, now that I think of it, was merely a ploy to get you to be hostess. Real countesses aren’t exactly thick on the trees … or whatever that saying is.”
“You mean you weren’t even one of the sponsors of this charity ball until recently?”
“Gad, no. I just write a check every year and call my duty done. But I was trying to speed along my return to society. She suggested that it would be good to have an important person to act as hostess and asked me if I knew anyone, and I guess I sort of suggested you.”
Phil rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.
“Now, Marty, on the other hand … Lord, what a kickup when she told her family that she was going to pursue journalism. A Rive doesn’t pursue anything; it comes to them. There was a fight to the finish between Marty and her father, who had encouraged her to go to college in the first place. She stormed out, moved out, and scrimps by on a reporter’s salary, hence the subway.”
“He disowned her?” Phil could certainly relate.
“Oh, he would forgive her, but she won’t capitulate, though at this point her mother is so upset that she could keep her job and get a generous allowance if she would just apologize. Stupid, I know. Keep the job and take the money. What’s she holding out for?”
“Pride?” Phil suggested.
“So why this sudden interest in journalism?” Bev’s eyes narrowed, then brightened. “Are you working on a new case?”
“Heavens, Bev. I’m merely curious.”
“Ha. You do have a new case. Tell me all about it.”
“There’s nothing to tell. Well, perhaps a little something, but I’m not certain yet.” Phil held up a preemptory hand. “If it is something, you’ll be the first to know.” Of course she would never be able to tell Bev everything. Bev took too much delight in the world to hold her tongue.
“That’s why you want to have lunch with Marty. To have a snitch in the newspaper office.”
“I would never,” said Phil. Not exactly. “I just thought it would be useful to know an insider who could check facts on any rumors that come our way.”
“You’re so clever. Marty will love it. She’s dying to do something important.”
“You’re not to tell her. Though I have no doubt she was willing to meet us because she has similar plans for me if we continue our acquaintance.”
Bev sucked in her breath. “Use your confidence? Phil, she wouldn’t. Marty is totally trustworthy.”
“Perhaps. But she is a journalist and she needs to further her career. It must be hard to live on her salary. Speaking of which, does she wear tweeds when covering society events? Her skirt today wasn’t port à prêtez.”
“Actually it was a Madame Laferrière.” Bev bit her lip. “Her mother does slip her the odd bit in order to maintain her wardrobe. She can’t have her daughter running around in rags. But mum’s the word.”
Easier said than done in Bev’s case.
“Marty works hard, but at least she still knows how to have fun. But poor Roz married a man twenty-five years older and very particular about his reputation.” Bev’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “You should give her advice on how to work around that little impediment.”
“I think I’ll leave Rosalind Chandler to her own marriage. Now, I’d better have Tuttle telephone for a taxi for me. It’s been a long day.”
“You can’t leave so early.”
“Bev, I’ve had an exhausting day. I’m going to take a long soak in the tub and go to bed.”
“You, exhausted? Why I remember—” Her expression changed. “You’re expecting a visitor. Do I know him? I want every juicy detail tomorrow.”
“As wrong as your red Christmas cocktail,” Phil said with more bite than she’d intended as the day came rushing back: the discovery of the dead man, the sense of panic when she thought it was Mr. X, the despair of not knowing if she would see that particular visitor again.
“I hate to disappoint you, Bev, but there is no visitor in my evening plans. I’ve decided to make our first Christmas in New York the best it can be. I have a lot to do, shopping, planning, cards to write … Don’t you?”
“Oh Lord, yes. I have to get gifts off to Connecticut.” She shuddered dramatically. “Since I refused to spend Christmas with my relatives, the least I can do is overwhelm them with my generosity.”
A hot soak in lavender beads should have revived Phil’s mood, and it did until it didn’t. She went over the afternoon’s events, time after time. Remembering every detail of the dead man in the nickelodeon—an excellent title for a dime novel if ever there was one.
Only she’d been so surprised at the discovery that her escape had passed in a fog. The manager, who might not be the manager but possibly her elusive comrade in investigation, or even the killer, or … And there still remained a tiny, tenacious grain of doubt that the dead man had really been the ultimate disguise, and the most interesting man of her acquaintance had been hauled away in a coroner’s van.
Why didn’t he send her word? Chastise her for being late for her appointment, which she hadn’t even known about—and may have consequently caused the man’s demise?
And with that idea, tears threatened to overflow. She reined herself back in. Countesses didn’t cry, not even when they were tired, hurt, or frightened. Not even in private. At least not anymore.
She just needed to pull herself together and figure out where to begin her investigations about why and who and what on earth for?
“Madam, you’ll be puckered to a prune if you don’t get out of the tub now.”
Lily stood holding a warmed towel before her, and Phil reluctantly got out of the tub and let Lily wrap it around her.
“You can go now, Lily. I’ll see myself to bed. Leave the window open a bit.”
“It’s freezing outside.”
“I like the fresh air.”
“Pfft, he won’t be climbing up five stories of the Plaza for all the world to see. Not in this weather.” Lily huffed out a sigh. “Why can’t he use the door like a gentleman?”
Phil smiled, her first real smile since her visit to the Theatre Unique. “That would show a distinct lack of imagination.” And if one thing was certain, he never lacked imagination in anything he did.
“What do we do now?”
Phil summoned up the remnants of her sangfroid. “I think the best thing we can do at the moment is to continue to check the papers on the outside chance”—a phrase she’d picked up at the Belmont track last summer—“that we receive another message.”
“And if we receive no message?” Lily asked, her brow beginning to furrow.
“Then we’ll improvise until we do.” Phil had never in her brief career as a crime solver waited for instructions before proceeding. This time would be no different.
A stack of newspapers lay perfectly folded on the table when Phil went into breakfast the next morning. Even with Preswick’s careful eye for detail, she could tell that at least some of them had already been opened and refolded for her perusal.
“So,” she said. “No news of our deceased theatergoer?”
“No, my lady,” Preswick said, pouring her a cup of hot coffee. “Most likely the evening posts.”
“Hopefully we won’t have to wait. Mrs. Reynolds and I are having lunch with a friend of hers who just happens to work for the Times as a society reporter.”
“Indeed, my lady.” Preswick’s voice registered no surprise.
Lily’s, however, did. “How will a lady who writes about weddings help us catch a killer?… My lady.”
“Actually, I’m not sure she can,” Phil said, suddenly feeling hungry. She reached for a piece of toast. “But it can’t hurt to have a friend in the news business.”
“Shall I accompany you?”
“Not today, Lily. I want you and Mr. Preswick to stand by in case something comes while I am out.” Seeing Lily’s crestfallen face, she added, “It’s less than two weeks before Christmas and we’ve just begun to decorate. We shall have Christmas in every corner.”
She didn’t miss the hopeful look Lily shot the stolid butler. He was as enigmatic as the Sphinx, not that Phil had actually seen that wonder, but she had no doubt that she would return to an apartment filled with greenery.
Phil was waiting downstairs when Bev’s Packard pulled up to the curb just after noon. And though it took nearly thirty minutes before the auto stopped in front of the New York Times building, it was well worth the wait.
Built at the intersection of Broadway and Forty-Second Street, which had been renamed Times Square in honor of the new building, its twenty-five stories of arched windows and Doric columns was impressive. Phil took a moment just to look up at its dizzying height before she and Bev joined the throngs of people entering the building.
They stopped at the information desk, where they were given directions to the nineteenth floor.
There were four elevators, and Phil had to admit she felt a wave of trepidation as they stepped inside. She was quite accustomed to taking the elevator to her fifth-floor apartment at the Plaza, had even braved going to the seventeenth floor of the hotel, once.
But twenty-five floors. It was rather daunting. Bev, however, was an old hand. She had grown up in publishing circles and had been to the Times building many times. Phil lifted her chin and prepared to stay calm, and before she knew it, they were stepping off onto the editorial rooms on the nineteenth floor.
Bev stopped at the reception desk to ask for Martha Rive.
“Marty had to run down to seventeen. You’re the friends she’s meeting for lunch? You’re to meet her there.” She grimaced. “Trouble in the newsroom, so brace yourselves. Bedlam. Carr’s having a meltdown.” She flashed a perfunctory smile and went back to her magazine, and Phil and Bev took the elevator two floors down to the newsroom.
Bedlam was an apt description. A sea of desks, some occupied by men in white shirts, sleeves rolled up, ties loosened, scribbling away or yelling into the telephone or across the room. Some unoccupied but for half-eaten lunches and coffee cups balanced precariously on piles of paper.
Cylinders ran up the side of the wall, transporting papers from floor to floor. A few women were clacking away at typewriting machines. A young man pushed a mail cart down one of the narrow aisles, dropping bundles off and occasionally pausing for a brief word.
The volume was almost painful.
Bev was not at all daunted. “She’s probably in the managing editor’s office,” she shouted over the din. “Carr Van Anda, friend of Papa’s, very smart. Knows the news before it’s news. You’ll like him.”
Bev headed toward the back of the room, where several doors led to offices. Before they’d gone far, she pulled up short. “There’s Marty.” She changed course and veered to the right, skirting the mail boy, who practically threw himself across a nearby desk to get out of the way.
Phil hurried after her.
At the far side of the room, crammed in between a filing cabinet and a typewriting machine, Martha Rive was bent over a desk riffling through a handful of papers. She dropped those and scooped another handful, saw Bev and Phil, and waved the papers at them.
“Bit of a kerfuffle,” Martha said as she continued to riffle through the sheets. “Tommy Green missed his deadline, lead story. Big exposé. Big problem. Can’t find him anywhere. Carr is having a fit.”
Marty slapped the papers on the overcrowded desk. “He held the presses for him last night, then had to go with a different lead. Not a happy man this morning.”
The words had barely left her mouth when a door at the end of the room banged open, rattling the frosted glass, and a man stormed out. With a high forehead and rimless glasses, dressed in an immaculate black suit, he looked the epitome of a scholar.
He was followed by a younger man, tall, blond, dressed in a fashionable sack suit, his classic features marred by consternation.
They made a beeline for the three women.
“Oh, Lord,” Martha said, and slapped a smile on her face.
“Carr Van Anda,” Bev told Phil. “And Sydney Lord, associate news editor. Greek God unto himself. Marty’s nemesis.”
“Have you found anything?” Carr Van Anda demanded, coming to a stop and sliding slightly on a piece of paper that had found its way to the floor.
Marty shook her head. “We sent Eddie the mail boy down to his apartment earlier this morning, but Tommy didn’t answer the door and none of the neighbors had seen him since yesterday morning. I looked in his desk: nothing intelligible there.”
“Eddie, get over here!” Van Anda yelled. The mail boy left his trolley among the forest of desks and hurried over.
“No sign of him? You’re sure?”
Eddie nodded. He was slim, wiry, and practically quaking in his shoes.
Mr. Van Anda waved him away, frowned. “This is not like Tommy. Not when he’s working on a big story. Where’s Harry?”
“I sent one of the typewriter girls to look in editorial and typing,” Marty said.
“Eddie, leave the mail and go help look for Harry.”
“Yes, sir.” Eddie pirouetted midstep and hurried away in the opposite direction.
“Carr,” Marty said. “If you’ll calm down for a minute, look who’s here.”
Van Anda blinked as if it was the first time he’d noticed his surroundings, squinted, and poked his head forward. “Bevy Sloane? My goodness. Mrs. Reynolds. What brings you to the madhouse? How are you? Sorry about Reg. How’s your father?” He swiveled his head toward Phil.
“My friend, the Countess of Dunbridge,” Bev said. “Lady Dunbridge, may I present Carr Van Anda, managing editor of the Times.”
Dowager countess, actually, but who was quibbling?
“Ah, Lady Dunbridge, I don’t believe I’ve had the honor.”
“A pleasure,” Phil said, accepting his handshake.
Sydney cleared his throat.
“Oh, and Sydney Lord,” Marty said, so begrudgingly that Phil wanted to laugh.
“My pleasure.” He smiled and bowed over Phil’s hand. A charmer for sure and very nice-looking.
Phil turned her attention back to Mr. Van Anda. “It’s certainly exciting here.”
“It’s bedlam most days, but today is unusually so. Can I help you ladies in any way? Unless you want a sneak peek at our New Year’s Eve electric ball. That I can’t do. Hell, today I can’t even find my ace reporter.”
“We just came to claim Marty for lunch,” Bev said. “But we seem to have caught her at a bad time.”
“Well, I don’t want to ruin your plans, but—”
“Not at all,” Phil said. “We’re happy to wait.”
“Go ahead, Miss Rive. You’ve done more than your share of searching. But if you do see Tommy, tell him to get his … self in here immediately. Lady Dunbridge, I hope you’ll come back for a tour when things are a bit calmer. Bevy, tell your father hello when you see him. Ladies…”
With a crisp bow, he hurried away, got halfway across the floor, and yelled, “Sydney, send Harry straight to my office.”
“Of course, sir,” he said, his voice tight where a moment ago it had been all smooth condescension. “Lady Dunbridge, it’s been a pleasure. I’m sorry that I can’t spare a few minutes to show you around, but we have a responsibility to get the news out on time. ‘All the news that’s fit to print,’” he added, quoting the Times’s banner.
“And some that isn’t,” said Marty, under her breath.
Sydney either didn’t hear or chose to ignore her statement. “Just be sure to find Harry before you leave, Marty. To my office first.” He turned on his heel and strode away.
“Like hell I will,” Marty spat. “Come with me to fetch my things from the editorial floor and we’ll leave these gentlemen to deal with the crisis.”
The reception area was amazingly quiet. Marty pressed the call button. The far elevator opened and they hurried toward it. The door opened and two people stepped out: the mail boy who had just left them and a petite young woman, head bent, red hair twisted onto the top of her head. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, and Phil was reminded of a few trips to the headmistress at Madame Floret’s école in Paris.
“Harry,” Marty said. “Thank God. You were about to ruin my luncheon plans. Carr wants to see you in his office yesterday. Do you know where Tommy is?”
The young woman shook her head but didn’t look up.
“What is wrong with you? When did you see him last? He’s missed his deadline.”
The young woman finally glanced up. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been recently crying. Her eyes met Phil’s for a mere second before she quickly looked away.
But in that brief second Phil recognized her. In the light and dark flickering of the moving picture, Phil hadn’t known the color of her hair or her eyes, but she now recognized the same fullness of lips, the pointed chin, and the boyish shape beneath her coat she’d noticed then.
It was the girl in the movie house. And Phil knew in that instant that she knew exactly what had happened to Tommy Green—and so did Phil.