Dear Reader,

Harlequin is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary in 2009 with an entire year’s worth of special programs showcasing the talent and variety that have made us the world’s leading romance publisher.

With this collection of vintage novels, we are thrilled to be able to journey with you to the roots of our success: six books that hark back to the very earliest days of our history, when the fare was decidedly adventurous, often mysterious and full of passion—1950s-style!

It is such fun to be able to present these works with their original text and cover art, which we hope both current readers and collectors of popular fiction will find entertaining.

Thank you for helping us to achieve and celebrate this milestone!

Warmly,

Donna Hayes,

Publisher and CEO

The Harlequin Story

To millions of readers around the world, Harlequin and romance fiction are synonymous. With a publishing record of 120 titles a month in 29 languages in 107 international markets on 6 continents, there is no question of Harlequin’s success.

But like all good stories, Harlequin’s has had some twists and turns.

In 1949, Harlequin was founded in Winnipeg, Canada. In the beginning, the company published a wide range of books—including the likes of Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Hadley Chase and Somerset Maugham—all for the low price of twenty-five cents.

By the mid 1950s, Richard Bonnycastle was in complete control of the company, and at the urging of his wife—and chief editor—began publishing the romances of British firm Mills & Boon. The books sold so well that Harlequin eventually bought Mills & Boon outright in 1971.

In 1970, Harlequin expanded its distribution into the U.S. and contracted its first American author so that it could offer the first truly American romances. By 1980, that concept became a full-fledged series called Harlequin Superromance, the first romance line to originate outside the U.K.

The 1980s saw continued growth into global markets as well as the purchase of American publisher, Silhouette Books. By 1992, Harlequin dominated the genre, and ten years later was publishing more than half of all romances released in North America.

Now in our sixtieth anniversary year, Harlequin remains true to its history of being the romance publisher, while constantly creating innovative ways to deliver variety in what women want to read. And as we forge ahead into other types of fiction and nonfiction, we are always mindful of the hallmark of our success over the past six decades—guaranteed entertainment!

Kiss Your Elbow
Alan Handley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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ALAN HANDLEY

Emmy® Award-winning director Alan Handley had a celebrated career on stage and in television that spanned thirty years. He started off as a stage actor in the 1930s before moving into directing and producing shows such as The Dinah Shore Show. He won an Emmy® for directing a Julie Andrews special in 1965. He passed away in January 1990 at the age of 77.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER ONE

I WAS IN BED—WHICH IS WHERE I usually am at ten o’clock in the morning—when the phone rang.

“What’s with you? This is Nellie.” As though it was necessary to tell me who it was with that croak for a voice, even if she did wake me up. I lit a cigarette because she liked to talk for a long time and so do I and she was paying for the call and I didn’t have anything else to do.

“I’m still in bed.”

“Well, do you think you could get that long lean brownness the hell out of that bed for a job?”

“How much? It’s a nice bed.”

“Twenty-five a day for maybe three days or more. Of course, if you’re not interested, I got a book full of youth and beauty right here at my elbow.”

“If it’s more of those smoker pictures, the answer is no.”

“Now, Timmy, darling, you know that wasn’t my fault. They told me that short was only for advertising purposes. Besides, the money was good.”

“Well, I don’t need that kind of advertising yet. What’s the gag this time?”

“Can you be in my office in an hour?”

“Tell me now.”

“I tell you nothing till you sign Nellie’s little receipt book. Do you or don’t you?”

“Make it an hour and a half?”

“Who’s there with you?”

“Nobody,” I said. “And besides, what’s it to you?”

“If there’s nobody there, you can make it in an hour. Eleven sharp. Those are my last words.” And she banged up the receiver.

Twenty-five bucks a day for three days…that must be a picture…maybe I can get a close-up…be nice to the cameraman and the assistant director…one good close-up…who knows what might happen? Once more into the breach, dear friends…

So I got up, showered and started to get dressed. Thank God I had a clean shirt and my suit had just been pressed, because for twenty-five bucks a day, no matter what tricks Nellie was cooking up for me, I had to be good. I got into my gray double-breasted, which is one of my two answers to a couple of my more unkind friends that I have got another suit besides a dinner jacket. I did look through the pockets of my evening clothes to see how much money I had. There was nine dollars and some change together with match folders from the Barberry Room, the Stork and the Ruban Bleu. Diana, the woman I’d been out with last night, and I had certainly been on the town. I had to get this job of Nellie’s or I was going to be very, very hungry in a couple of days.

I put the money in my pocket and the folders in the bureau drawer where I save the ones from the tonier places. It sometimes impresses people when you’re trying to get a job if you pull out one from the Stork or “21.” I finished dressing and put on my coat and hat and went out.

The rooming house where I live was nicknamed the Casbah by one of the inmates after seeing that Boyer movie a long time ago and the name stuck. It’s just off, but not quite far enough off, Sheridan Square and on Saturday nights when the visiting firemen make a tour of Greenwich Village—which usually means Jimmy Kelly’s or a couple of the joints on Fourth Street—we get the usual drunks being sick in the vestibule or ringing the bell and asking for Marge. The Casbah like most rooming houses usually has a couple of transient Marges in spite of the professional jealousy of Helga who runs it, but on a Saturday night the Marges can pick their own drunks.

In the hall I ran into Kendall Thayer, who promptly hit me for a couple of bucks and I, like a dope, let him have them.

Whenever I get really depressed, which isn’t often because I have a lot of little tricks worked out to keep it from happening, I think of Kendall Thayer. He’s a but-for-the-grace-of-God-there-I-go lad. He’s me in cornstarch. Years ago he was a very famous silent picture leading man with a swimming pool and the works, but the bottle moved in and the works moved out, and now he’s ended up just another lush in the smallest and cheapest room in the Casbah, and, believe me, that’s small and cheap.

Like the rest of us, he feels that a break is just around the corner, the break that will get him another movie contract and put him right back up there. After all, he says, C. Aubrey Smith and Edmund Gwenn can’t live forever, just as I say that Tyrone Power and Hank Fonda and Gregory Peck weren’t born on a movie set, and people lent them dimes to eat in their day, too.

Kendall manages to get odd jobs once in a while with radio audience-participation shows where they have plants in the studio. He usually gets five bucks a throw and six cakes of soap or a carton of breakfast food, which he tries to peddle to other people in the Casbah, but recently business has been off all over town.

“You going out, Tim?” he asked me.

“Yeah, got a call,” I said, dealing him out the two dollars. That left me seven.

“Going to be out long?”

“I don’t know. Hope it’s for a job. Why?”

“I was just wondering if you’d let me have the key to your door. I left your phone number and I’m expecting a call and it’s rather important. I’d prefer it didn’t come over the house phone.” I could understand that because the only phone besides mine in the Casbah is out in the hall and everybody knows what is said over it even before the person talking.

So I said, “Sure. Here’s the key, but don’t mess with my studs and cuff links.” He gave me what, I am sure, back in the silent days was famous as his rueful smile, and I went on downstairs and out on the street.

I stopped at the Riker’s on the corner of Sheridan Square for orange juice and coffee and went down the subway hole at exactly ten forty-five.

I took the uptown local to Fourteenth Street and closed my eyes and prayed. If there’s one thing that’s going to drive me nuts quicker than anything else, it’s living on a local subway stop.

I used to be able to treat it as a game. But now I’ve gotten superstitious about it. It’s become an omen, and can wreck my whole day.

If, when I get to Fourteenth Street, which is an express stop, and the express is waiting right there…it’s a red-letter day. Then all I have to do is run across the platform and there I am at Times Square in two stops. But when the local pulls in and there isn’t an express there, I start quietly blowing my top. It’s ridiculous, I know, but so is the superstition about whistling in dressing rooms or saying the last line of a play in rehearsal. I don’t suppose I make or lose two minutes either way, but this subway business when it doesn’t work out right is the black cat across my path, or the broken mirror. And today when I decide I’ll take a chance and change to an express, it gets lost over in Brooklyn or someplace and I know of two locals, at least, that beat me to Times Square. That was a sure sign that today was going to be a not day and I should have stayed in bed.

I got to Times Square nervous and mad and feeling like saying to hell with Nellie and going over to one of the flea-bag movies on Forty-second Street and giving my evil omens time to cool off. I would have, too, except that I had just seven bucks in the whole world, and twenty-five bucks is twenty-five bucks.

So I walked up Times Square past the Paramount Theater Building—which when I first came to New York was considered a cathedral of the motion picture or something, but is now just where high school kids play hookey with name bands. And then on the corner of Forty-fourth Street, which I had to pass to get to the Shubert Building and Nellie’s office, was Walgreen’s Drug Store.

When you’re in grammar school, there’s always a Sweet Shop or Pete’s where you go after school and hang around. In prep school or high school there’s the Jigger Shop or Joe’s or Ye Sweete Shoppe, and in college there’s the Den or Mike’s, so you might know that when you enroll in the theater there would be some hangouts, too. There are, and one of them is Walgreen’s Drug Store. And it’s the first rung on the ladder. When you get a little bit better jobs you start dropping in at Sardi’s, and then, maybe the first time you get billing, it’s “21” and Toots Shor’s or the Stork or Morocco, and when you’re tops it’s the Colony at the right table.

Anyhow, here’s Walgreen’s. I guess it’s a good idea having a place like that. Trying to get ahead in the theater is a lonely business and any opportunity to huddle in groups is gratefully received. But I didn’t have time to huddle this morning.

The little bar in Sardi’s restaurant was empty except for the bartender polishing glasses. After all, eleven o’clock is a little early even for actors to start in—except the ones that can’t get out of bed without brushing their teeth with a belt of gin, and they were still in bed…belting away.

Nellie’s alleged office is across the street from Sardi’s in the Shubert Building, and Nick Stein with a couple of polo-coated singers was already in the elevator when I got on. Nick’s an assistant press agent and runs a syndicated gossip column in a lot of out-of-town newspapers. I give him tips once in a while, and he mentions me once in a while and also gives me ducats for shows he’s handling, which are useful for paying back obligations and, sometimes, you can even sell them.

“What’s with you, Tim?” Nick asked me. “Get any items? Did you make the rounds last night?”

“Yeah,” I said. “When I think of the ulcers I save you…” I told him one I’d heard about the Broadway producer who’d been clipped for plenty by three previous wives, so now, every time he gave his current wife a present he actually insisted she sign a paper saying it was hers only so long as she was married to him. “How’s that?”

“Not bad. Stop by the office with me, and I’ll fix you up for a show tonight.” So I rode up to the tenth floor, and Nick gave me three seats to one of his frantic flops one jump ahead of the stop clause.

Coming back to the hall with the tickets, the indicator said both elevators were on the ground floor, so it was quicker to walk down to Nellie’s office. Somebody else was on the stairs a couple of flights below me. I couldn’t see who it was though I could hear shoes clanging on iron treads. Whoever it was seemed to be in an awful hurry.

Nellie’s roost consists of two connecting cubicles at the end of the dark corridor. Waiting actors are the only ones that ever use the tiny front room, except when Henry Frobisher is producing a play and then Nellie gets grand and installs a secretary who is usually some unemployed actor working for peanuts on the chance that Nellie will get him a job with Frobisher, which, of course, she never does.

The first room was empty when I opened the door and walked in, which wasn’t unusual because most people who make the rounds have learned that Nellie doesn’t show till after lunch unless she’s very busy and that’s practically never. By waving aside the stale cigarette smoke laced with gin that hung from the ceiling like portieres, I could make out Nellie leaning over her desk and I started to walk back to her.

I guess I must have said something silly, like “Boo! you pretty creature.” I usually do, but it didn’t make any difference whether I did or not because Nellie didn’t hear me. Nellie couldn’t hear me. Nellie was dead.

CHAPTER TWO

I JUST STOOD THERE STARING at her. She was flopped across her desk and had filed herself about as neatly as anything else in that rats’ nest on her old-fashioned country editor-type filing spindle. I could see the heavy wrought-iron base of the spindle jutting out around the edges of her right breast. There wasn’t much blood, which is probably the reason I didn’t start heaving, because in the army I developed sort of a thing about blood.

Nellie alive and kicking is nobody’s dream girl. She’s a chiseler, an agent, a sharpie with a shady buck. She’s fat and sloppy and although she undoubtedly owns another dress, I don’t remember ever seeing her in any but this mottled grayish-green job which bitchy actors are apt to swear stopped being a dress years ago and now just grows on her like moss. But all the same, I was kind of fond of her.

I felt for her pulse, which wasn’t—and that’s all. I’ve done enough of those where-were-you-on-the-night-of bills in summer stock to know better than to start juggling bodies around now.

Lying open and almost hidden under one pudgy arm and doing its bit toward helping her hair sop up the blood was Nellie’s Youth and Beauty Book, which was, besides the phone and spindle, all of Nellie’s office equipment. In it she kept all the names of actors and producers she knew, listed her appointments and stuffed it full of letters and bills. She must have had it refilled every year because it always had the same tooled leather cover.

Falling into the old first-act routine, I slid the book out from under her arm and looked at the page for today. As I figured, my name was down for an eleven o’clock appointment. There were three other entries ahead of mine. One I knew very well: Maggie Lanson. She was to be there at eleven, too. Nellie was supposed to have been at Chez Ernest, the chi-chi dress place at ten. The other name I couldn’t recognize. There were just initials for the last name. It was Bobby LeB. and he had an appointment for ten-thirty. That was all for the morning, but in the afternoon she was to see Henry Frobisher at his office at three-thirty, and she had a dinner date with a little ingenue around town I knew, as who didn’t, named Libby Drew.

Suddenly the phone rang. That was the cue for me to start blowing up in my scene and almost closed me before I opened. I had moved the corpus—at least the arm—when I pulled out the book, and I didn’t want to get in any jam. My name was in that book and there was nobody around to knock some sense into me, and the damned phone kept ringing and ringing and I couldn’t bring myself to answer it. Suddenly I got a load of a scene behind a gauze scrim I didn’t want any part of—me sweating under a lot of blinding lights with all the Irish character actors in town waving rubber hoses at me and shouting, “Who done it, Runch?” and me not being able to tell them. When I play that scene I want to have a few of the toppers.

Then the montage began. You know, lots of presses running and front pages flying at you like bats out of hell and banner heads screaming “Actor Slays Agent” and “Fiend Convicted.” If only the phone had stopped that ringing or I had stopped that nonsense of thinking I was playing the lead in some crappy whodunit at the Rialto and done what I should have done, everything would have been all right. At least for me. But no…Once a ham always a ham. So I picked up the Youth and Beauty Book and stuck it under my coat—still like in reel two—and copped a sneak.

The hall was empty. I had another brain wave and walked back up to the tenth floor and got on the elevator there and rode down. The only stop was the fifth floor where two polo coats got back on.

I did a walk-not-run out onto Forty-fourth and aimed west. I didn’t want to pass Sardi’s or Walgreen’s again because by this time I had worked myself up to such a point that if somebody had said Boo! to me, I’d have waved aside the black mask and asked for that final cigarette.

CHAPTER THREE

I WALKED UP EIGHTH AVENUE for a couple of blocks trying to decide what to do. The Forty-second Street fleabags didn’t seem to solve anything, though in all the books, ticket stubs seem to be wonderful alibis—except that the people that use them for alibis always seem to end up in the last chapter behind the eight ball. Which is where it looked like I was going to end up without costing me forty cents, either. Of course, I shouldn’t have taken the Youth and Beauty Book.

And then I thought of Maggie Lanson. Even if her name hadn’t been in the book for an eleven o’clock appointment, sooner or later I would have thought of Maggie Lanson. She is the only other person I know of in the world that feels the same way I do about most things. We are, as she is wont to say after a couple of slugs of pernod, sympatique.

She’s exactly my age, thirty-two, and was terribly pretty about ten years ago but the pernod hasn’t helped that part of it much. She’s quite rich, mostly from an early husband she divorced about seven years ago, and she tries to be an actress when she thinks of it. That was how I first met her. We were in the same show, my one hit, for six months right after her divorce. I guess she felt she had to have something to do nights.

I don’t know if I thought she would be able to tell me who had done Nellie in. Maybe she was early for her appointment or maybe she didn’t keep it at all—which wouldn’t be unusual. And if she did maybe she knew this Bobby LeB. She knew the most alarming collection of people. Anyway, Maggie was the only person in the world I wanted to see.

Her apartment, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and one of the Sixties, is on the fifth floor, and there is a buzzer system and a work-it-yourself elevator. I had a key because she didn’t mind my dropping in if I was in the neighborhood—whether she was there or not—provided I called up first and emptied the ash trays when I left. I dialed her number in the corner drugstore (only in that section of town they are called “chemists” or “apothecaries”) before walking over, but there wasn’t any answer so I went up to her apartment and let myself in.

It’s a nice apartment if you don’t mind stripes. Mostly gray and yellow stripes and lots of flowers. But the chairs are comfortable and the Capehart works and there’s generally plenty to drink. A big living room with a practical fireplace, a foyer, bedroom and bath and a minute kitchenette in which ice cubes are the only thing she knows the recipe for. I poured myself a mahogany Scotch because by this time it was two minutes after twelve, which made it legal as far as I’m concerned. Then I sat down and started thinking about how soon what had happened was going to hit me and what a jerk I was not to leave that damn book in Nellie’s office and call the cops. I took out the Youth and Beauty Book. The blood had dried on its edges, and on the page that had been open were a few squiggles in an unpleasant shade of brown that had been painted with Nellie’s own blood—her hair having been the paintbrush—when I pulled it out from under her.

It was a sort of hammering with a couple of low moans thrown in, all kind of muffled. It would go on for a minute, then stop for a few, then start again. At first I thought it was only that I should have watered my drink, but when it came the third time I knew it wasn’t the Scotch and it wasn’t me—it was in Maggie’s bathroom. So I got brave by finishing off the Scotch and, making with a bookend, walked over to the bathroom door.

As I was in this far, I might as well shoot the works. I grabbed the bookend even tighter and started to open the bathroom door, only there wasn’t any doorknob. It was lying on the floor right by the door. I picked it up and fit the square rod in the hole as quietly as I could, which wasn’t very, since I was holding the bookend at the same time. Softly I turned it and threw open the door.

There was Maggie, nothing on but a nightgown, lying on the bathroom floor with her chin in one hand and languidly pounding on the pipes under the wash basin with a big empty mouthwash bottle in the other. She looked up from her pounding and after reeling in her eyes, she recognized me.

“Angel,” she said, “for God’s sake bring me a drink.” She tossed the bottle in a corner where it shattered around a couple of times then lay still. I walked over to help her. My shoes crunched broken glass on the tile floor. “What happened to you?” I helped her to sit up. She yelped and, rolling over on one hip, looked at her behind. Blood was staining her sheer nightgown.

“Now isn’t that maddening? A brand-new one, too. Well, don’t just stand there, darling. Get me out of here.” I picked her up, carried her into the bedroom and deposited her gently, stomach down, on the bed. The cut wasn’t very deep, but was bleeding quite a lot. I gave her a face towel to hold on it while I ransacked the medicine cabinet.

“It was that damned doorknob coming off. I’ve been trapped in there for hours. I broke a couple of bottles pounding on the pipes, but no one would come. If you’re expecting to find bandages in that thing you’re wasting your time…. There’s nothing but sleeping pills.” She was right. “Call the superintendent. He’s very sweet. I don’t think it’s worth quite all this fuss, though I’m glad you came in when you did. I was running out of bottles. What about that drink?” I came back to the bed.

“Maggie, how drunk are you?”

“I’m not drunk, Timmy. Honestly I’m not. Well, maybe a little hungover, but I was in there for over two hours, and I do think I should be allowed to be just a little testy, if I want.”

“Can you grapple with a horrid fact?”

“Couldn’t it wait till I got bandaged up and had a real drink? It’ll keep that long, won’t it?”

“Yes. I think it’ll keep that long.” I phoned the superintendent on the little house phone, and he promptly brought bandages, Mercurochrome and a screwdriver.

He was most apologetic and fixed the doorknob in a few minutes. He could have done it even quicker if he had kept his eyes on his work instead of Maggie, who was still on the bed covered with a blanket trying to negotiate, while lying on her stomach, the drink I had mixed for her. I finally got him out and left Maggie to fix the bandage by herself and started pacing back and forth in the living room.

The cut wasn’t at all serious, but I was still a little queasy from it. Bleeding women, two in the same hour, were rapidly getting me down.

Maggie finally came out of the bedroom dressed in a blue housecoat with more stripes and brushing her hair.

“I know I’m stuck with that adhesive tape for the rest of my life. I used practically the whole roll.”

“At least you’ve got a cast-iron alibi.”

“Whatever should I want an alibi for?”

“Did you have any appointments this morning?”

The brush stopped in midair. “Oh my God, Nellie! I forgot all about it. She called yesterday and told me to come in this morning for a job. I’d better phone her.”

“You needn’t bother. She’s been murdered.”

“What a pity. Oh, well, I don’t suppose I’d have gotten the job anyway.”

“Maggie, I said that Nellie’s been murdered.”

“I heard you, dear. And about time, too, if you ask me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“But, angel…she’s an agent.”

“Maybe so, but sooner or later the police are going to want to know who killed her.”

“What are you getting in such a tizzy about? It isn’t anybody we know, is it?”

“Maybe it is.”

“Oh, good. Who? Tell me.”

“I thought perhaps you’d know something about it. That’s why I came here this morning.”

“Believe me, Timmy, I’ve got something better to do than go around murdering Nellie Brant. I think I will now have another drink. No, you stay here, I’ll get them this time. Since I can’t sit down, I might as well be busy.” She went into the foyer to the bar and brought us back a couple of straight Scotches. “Would you like to play Gin Rummy? We could do it on the mantelpiece.”

“No, I would not like to play Gin Rummy. Please, Maggie, I’m serious.”

“I’m sorry, Timmy. I do mean to listen but that affair with the bathroom has made me rather jumpy. I wish I could sit down.” She pulled some pillows from the couch and lined them up on the floor and lay on her stomach. “There, that’s much better. Now tell me everything in one word.”

“Well, Nellie called me up this morning and…”

“What time was that?”

“About ten o’clock, I think.”

“And she was dead when you saw her, whenever it was? As a matter of fact, I don’t imagine she was dead at all. Probably drunk. She’s a notorious nipper.”

“She was dead, all right. I took her pulse. She was still warm, but definitely dead.”

“Oh, but that doesn’t mean a thing. I’m forever reading about people with no pulse at all carrying on like mad. I read about a chicken with his head chopped completely off, mind you, living to a ripe old age.”

I didn’t like it one bit that my big moment did not turn out to be a big moment after all. And besides, I knew Nellie was dead. The picture of that body kept coming into focus in spite of the Scotch. I kept fighting it, trying to make it vague and blurry again, but it didn’t work. I lay down on the floor beside Maggie and stared up at the ceiling.

“Here, lift up your head a minute.” I lifted up my head and she pushed a pillow under it. “Now lie back.” She stroked my forehead. Her hand was cool. It felt good. “Now then, tell me all. She called you at ten and then what happened?”

I told her exactly what had happened, or at least as near as I could remember. She thought it over for a moment.

“What about fingerprints? They’re very smart this season.”

“I had my gloves on,” I said. I was rather pleased with myself not to be caught with that one.

“Pretty damned clever, aren’t you, to…”

“Actually, I didn’t really plan it that way,” I said. “It just happened.”

“…to be able to take a pulse with your gloves on.” She finished on what I thought was an unnecessarily triumphant note.

And, of course, I must have taken my gloves off to feel for Nellie’s pulse. I admitted that rather sheepishly.

“And did you put your gloves back on right after you picked up the Youth and Beauty Book?” I couldn’t remember. “And did you close the door after you left?” Yes, I was positive of that. “Well, then, you have probably left a print large as life and twice as natural on the office door.” I tried desperately to remember if I had put my gloves back on or not.

“But what if I did,” I said defensively. “They won’t necessarily know whose they are. I’m not in the rogues’ gallery—yet.”

Maggie regarded me with what I can only describe as a pitying expression.

“Well, what’s wrong now?”

“But you were in the army, weren’t you? You can remember that much, can’t you?” After four years of that production you’re not liable to forget it in a hurry, and I told her so. “Remember that little card you had to carry about with you that had that repulsive picture of you on it…I could never understand why you didn’t go to a really good photographer….”

“So what? I didn’t leave my, what you describe as ‘repulsive,’ portrait on the doorknob, did I?”

“You might just as well have. In case you don’t recall, your fingerprints were on that card, too, with a copy probably crouching somewhere in a Washington filing cabinet, with your repulsive portrait on the same page, waiting for just this moment.”

I got up and walked over to the window and looked down on Fifth Avenue. It was all crawling and busy and it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t snowing and it looked fine. Central Park was pleasant, too, even for February. It looked like I would like to keep on seeing it for quite a while yet, but the odds at the moment were less than even.

“Well, I suppose I ought to save the taxpayers some money and give myself up before they go to all that trouble and expense of spreading a dragnet to apprehend the fiend. A flock of New York’s Finest are no doubt right this minute combing the Casbah from top to bottom.”

Maggie gingerly got to her feet somewhat like a camel, one end at a time. After several exploratory pokes, she evidently decided she could navigate under her own power and came over beside me at the window. The sunlight made her hair shine. I was going to miss that, too. She took my arm and very gently led me to the couch and pushed me down on it. She stood in front of me with arms folded and just looked at me. I resented being treated like an idiot.

“Now you listen to me for a minute,” she began. “You’ve been having one hell of a fine time working yourself up to a good second-act curtain and it’s all a lot of nonsense.”

“That’s all right for you to say. You’re not wanted for murder.” I started to get up and she pushed me back down again. I considered swatting her.

“But that’s the point,” she went on. “You didn’t kill that old battle-axe, did you? Or did you?”

“Of course not, but…”

“Then as far as I can see all you did was not tell somebody you found her murdered—if she was murdered, which I doubt. It might have been an accident.”

“I took the book away.”

“That’s another thing. Why ever did you do that?”

“Well, it had my name on it and your name on it and that would have meant that we were there, and there you are.”

“So what? I wasn’t there.” Then her eyes got very round and she suddenly bent over as if to kiss me, but midway she yelped from the reminders that she wasn’t quite capable of such action yet. “But you, darling, you were trying to shield me. I think you’re wonderful. Let’s have another drink.” And we did and I began to feel better. It’s nice being thought a gentleman capable of shielding someone from something. We got all the pillows from the chairs and couch and put them on the floor and lay down with our drinks.

“Now then,” I said, after we were comfortable. “What were you about to be all stern about a minute ago?”

“It’s all really too simple. You’ve done all the wrong things so far just because you’re a ham at heart and you felt you had to pad your part. Anybody but an actor would have given a yell and, when people started to come running, said ‘look what I found’ but not you, you little Hamlet you…Oh, no…Well, anyway you’ve done it and that’s that. As it stands now we’ve got two choices. You can call up the police right now and tell them all about it. How you are going to alibi taking that filthy book I have no idea.”

“What’s the other choice?” I asked. “If I do that it will mean a lot of explaining. I’m liable for attempting to obstruct justice or concealing evidence, or something.”

“Then we could just assume that you did put your gloves back on or someone messed up your prints after you left, and then we could burn the Youth and Beauty Book to a crisp and cast the ashes off the Triboro Bridge.”

That sounded good so far.

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll just say no more about it.”

“Oh, fine. But don’t forget the book was open on her desk and the heavy of the piece might have seen our names as well as one Bobby LeB., whoever the hell he is.”

“Then I think a bit of dialogue with Mr. LeB. is clearly indicated. Very subtle-like…underplayed, but very, very fraught. Where does he live?”

“I don’t even know who he is much less where he lives.”

“Then maybe it’s all in the Youth and Beauty Book. Practically everything else is, God knows. Get it up!”

I got it up. The dried blood didn’t make the job any more appetizing. Nellie had not been the most efficient person in the world, and the book had, on the whole, somewhat the aspect of a sheaf of used Kleenex.

Slips of paper with phone numbers and random addresses were stuck all through, as well as some empty envelopes and dull-looking bills, even her bank book.

After a couple of hours we had to give up the search for Bobby LeB.’s address. Though, as Maggie pointed out, we certainly discovered a lot of unmarried actors and actresses whom we never suspected before, answering to the same phone numbers. The only information we could discover about Mr. LeB. was that the last year he had several appointments with Nellie, but not at any regular intervals and he was always entered only as Bobby LeB. or once or twice simply B. B., which we took to mean our boy.

I got interested in her bank book. Nellie was doing a great deal better financially than either of us would have imagined. You would have gathered from her books that what money she did have she made selling shoestrings and gum, along with Apple Annie, in theater lobbies. But according to her bank book she was almost in the surtax brackets. Every month for the last year there was a five-hundred-dollar lump deposit in addition to littler ones during the month. My nose began to twitch as I pointed this out to Maggie.

“Obviously blackmail.”

She was not impressed.

“Oh, really! It was a sad day for the world when you discovered circulating libraries.”

“But how else can you explain it? You know she didn’t cast that many shows.”

“Maybe she had an income. Maybe she had property. People do get five hundred dollars a month without resorting to blackmail.”

“But that would explain everything. Why she was murdered.”

“Here we go again. Timmy, look me in the eye.” I did. “Do you really believe all that junk?”

“No, I guess not. Not really.”

“Then that’s all right. Otherwise I might start worrying.” I stuffed the bank book back in the Youth and Beauty Book and tossed it on the floor.

“Well, what do we do now?”

“I know a man who used to be in naval intelligence during the war. I’ll bet he could help us. We could certainly use a little intelligence around here. Do you want me to call him up?”

“Let me try first before we send for the fleet,” I said.

“Well, I only wanted to be helpful. Have you eaten?”

“No. Have you?”

“I’m starved. Let’s go to Sardi’s for lunch.”

“Oh, no we won’t,” I said.

“The murderer always returns to the scene of his crime.”

“My pal!”

“Well, why not? You’ve done all the wrong things so far. One more couldn’t make much difference. We can drop in at Nellie’s office casual-like and you can get a quick swipe at that doorknob, and we can pitch that damned book in a corner of her office and just forget all about it.”

I helped her up off the floor.

“Okay. What can we lose?”

She went into the bedroom to dress while I had another drink, but it didn’t help much. I started to get depressed all over again. I took my drink and leaned against the bedroom door.

“You know, Maggie, if you cut down on your drinking and got more sleep you’d be a good-looking girl. Somebody might even marry you again.”

“Why, thank you, darling. But who? And why the overwhelming flattery? What have I done to deserve it?” She stopped brushing her hair and looked at me in the mirror. For some reason I felt a little embarrassed.

“It just seems kind of pointless all this nipping about, frittering around in the theater. Where does it get you?” She swiveled around from her dressing table.

“What about you?”

“Never mind me. Besides, I can’t do anything else. The theater’s all I know.”

“You did all right in the army. People told me. I asked.”

“Oh, the army. That’s different. Latch on to a good sergeant and you can’t miss.”

“It’s none of my business, I know,” Maggie said earnestly. “But do you mean to just keep on like this…you know what I mean…sort of…I mean, not ever…well, you know what I mean…” She finished lamely, strangely shy for her.

Yes, of course, I knew what she meant. And no, of course I didn’t mean to keep on like this. I was a man with a plan. A three-year plan. Operation Hollywood. I wanted to be an actor! So I made a bargain with myself while waiting in a cigarette camp near Le Havre to be shipped home. Three years to get a good part on Broadway or back to the salt mines.

It all seemed so simple—in Le Havre.

Who gets all the best parts in New York? Movie actors. Okay, so get to be a movie actor. How? Well, first you’ve got to be seen in the right places, get a little publicity. That’s the magic—publicity. And in the right places you’ll meet the right people who’ll maybe give you a small part and then maybe your picture in the paper and bingo!—a screen test and a contract. Six months on the coast and six months in New York for a play. Then every day is Christmas and you even plan whose stocking will be hanging up beside yours.

That was thirty-five months ago and gives you a rough idea how punchy you can get after four years in the army.

Four weeks more and Operation Hollywood would end with a whimper and with it my chance for the big money. But a bargain’s a bargain. I hope I hadn’t forgotten how to pilot a bulldozer.

There was no point in telling all this to Maggie—now. If things had only worked out differently…

“Timmy, what is the matter with you?”

“What? Oh, nothing. Just indulging in a little wishful thinking.”

“What about?”

“Hoping I’m not going to spend the rest of my all-too-brief life running away from a murder rap.”

“Oh.” Maggie turned back to the mirror and finished her face. I went over to the closet and got out her mink coat and helped her on with it. I wrapped my arms around her and stood that way for a moment. I needed someone to hang on to. I buried my face in the shoulder of her coat. It was cool and faintly perfumed. She reached up and patted my cheek.

“Now stop worrying. Everything’s going to be all right.”

While I was out in the hall putting on my coat she brought the Youth and Beauty Book.

“Here.” She handed it to me. “You ought to be able to drop it in a corner easily while you’re messing up your fingerprints.”

“I expect so.” I stuck it in my breast pocket. “But you know as well as I do that fingerprints or no, eventually they’re going to find out I was in Nellie’s office this morning.”

“Nonsense.”

“It isn’t nonsense. They always do.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but they always do. One leaves spoors or something.”

“Does one? How awful.”

“And unless they find out who did it, I can’t prove I didn’t, when it comes right down to it.”

“Then by all means we must find out who did do it.”

It seemed so simple the way she said it.

CHAPTER FOUR

I LOOKED AT MY WATCH as we pulled up in front of Sardi’s. Only four hours since I had been here before and it seemed like four years.

The meter said eighty cents and Maggie gave me a dollar, which I gave to the driver, and we got out.

The sidewalk in front of Sardi’s is strictly Actors’ Equity property. From ten in the morning till one at night you can always find one standing there. Musicians have their own Wailing Wall around Fiftieth Street somewhere; vaudevillians in front of the Palace; the radio people, a sheltered lot, have theirs on the third floor of NBC or CBS on Madison. Models are around Grand Central and Park, but actors are loyal to Forty-fourth Street between Eighth and Broadway. And they were there in full force today, and it didn’t take long for Maggie and me to find out that Nellie had been discovered.

Just about my most unfavorite actor in the world would have to have the pleasure of telling us what we already knew only too well. He spied us standing by the curb and came rushing over. Ted Kent is his name, or at least that is what he uses. I suppose the basic reason I don’t like him is very simple; he always gets all the parts I want and when you get right down to it, that’s the main reason most actors don’t like other actors they don’t like.

Ted is about my height, maybe a couple of inches shorter without his trick you-can-be-taller-than-she-is shoes and is a perfect example of a successful Operation Hollywood. The right people, the publicity, the small part, the screen test and the Hollywood contract. Only they didn’t pick up his option so he headed straight back to Broadway with quite a bit of money and new teeth, trying to get that part that will shoot him back to the coast again.

As he greeted us, he gave me a very small hello, which was all right by me, and Maggie a very big kiss—which wasn’t.

“Maggie, darling. Have you heard?” He was a darling boy, too. “Nellie is dead!” And he sort of stood back on one foot and waited for us to take it big. We must have both felt it was better to play dumb and we did what was obviously expected.

“No!” said Maggie. “Who did it?”

Ted gave her what I thought was a funny look and said, “But, darling, nobody did it. She just collapsed. Heart, I expect.”

“Are you sure?” I said.

“What do you mean, am I sure? Of course I’m sure. Heart failure, I think, or drunk—you know she drank like a fish. Anyway, she fell over on that spindle she had on her desk, you know.” I admitted I did know. “And she died. File and forget, I say.” He practically giggled at that one. Maggie and I looked at each other. I think my sigh of relief must have reached the East River.

“How do you know?” Maybe he wasn’t straight on his facts. Maybe this was all just a trick by the police to find out who really did it. When you’ve convinced yourself that you are a key witness in a murder scene it’s a little disconcerting to be told that it isn’t a murder at all and just a simple case of alcohol or heart failure. I can’t say I was sorry that it was turning out this way, but I’m afraid the ham in me was feeling cheated as if I had been fired from a show before it even started rehearsals.

Ted tried to wither me with a look, but I don’t wither very easy by guys like Ted. “Everybody knows. The police have been here asking questions and having a big time. They’re still up in her office now waiting for the meat wagon.” You could tell in his day he’d been in some pretty lousy shows, too. A couple of other people joined our clump attracted by Ted’s overloud voice—which was the idea—and, goosed up by a bigger audience, Ted really put out.

“Libby Drew found her…she was just dropping in, making the rounds, and saw her lying on her desk, blood all over the place running over the floor…”

“But…” I started to interrupt but Maggie silenced me with a stiff poke in the ribs. Ted chose to ignore my attempted interruption and went merrily on, practically drooling at the mouth.

“Of course, you know Libby, sly puss that she is…. Did she make with the screams and bring everybody running as anyone else would do it?” He answered himself. “No indeed, the little brat carefully took the elevator down to the main floor, probably pulled her dress off one shoulder, put eyeshadow under her eyes and staggered all the way across the street into Sardi’s and announced it like a messenger in Macbeth. What a performance! Nothing like it since the Cherry sisters. I was having lunch with Terry and Lawrence…. They’re doing a new show and there’s the dream part for me…”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Cut to the finish.” He gave me a nasty look but went on with his story….

“Well, you can imagine what a stir there was. The place was jammed to the ears. Vincent Sardi called the police right away, and everyone tore out and up to her office. And sure enough there she was dead as a door nail. What a crush in that little office. Everyone was there. Stanley and Brock and Cheryl and George…”

“Spare us the society notes. Then what?” I said.

“Well, after a while the police came and all of us except Libby had to leave.”

A policeman wandered about muttering for the crowd to break it up and move along, but after a while gave it up as a bad job because you can’t break up a crowd of actors. They just shift into other groupings. Ted took off his hat, held it in his teeth and pulled out a pocket comb and combed his hair. Maggie and I just stood there watching him. When every hair and wave was arranged to his satisfaction he wiped off the comb, stuck it back in his pocket, carefully replaced his hat and kissed Maggie on the cheek again.

“Well, darling, I’ve got to fly. Let’s have lunch one day. I’ll call you. Be sure and see the morning papers, I think my picture’s in them. Of course Libby hogged most of them. But the lad from the Brooklyn Eagle was very nice. Remembered me from my last picture with Paramount. Bye now.” And he was off down the street headed toward Broadway.

“Let’s have a drink before I vomit.” I took Maggie’s arm and led her into Sardi’s.

CHAPTER FIVE

SARDI’S RESTAURANT IS REALLY just one big room divided by some chest-high partitions with benches or, in the chi-chier places, I expect they would be called banquettes. All the woodwork is dark brown and the chairs and benches are covered with dark leather and the walls are shingled with caricatures of well-known theatrical people. Needless to say, one of me is not included. New ones are added from time to time, I suppose, though I don’t know where they find the room to hang them, unless it’s the ladies’ room.

It was almost empty when Maggie and I came in. Just a few people were scattered around starting the five o’clock jump a little early. Just like we had been doing all day. We sat down and ordered drinks. Maggie shed her mink and pulled off her hat. I lit her a cigarette. She took a deep drag, blew it out and slumped back against the wall. I was slumping some, too; I was feeling definitely let down and very, very tired.

“Anyway it was fun while it lasted.” Maggie smiled at me. “You know I feel kind of sorry for the old gal. Heart failure. I didn’t know she had a weak heart. I didn’t even suspect she had a heart for that matter.”

“I don’t think it was heart failure.”

“Oh, Timmy, now don’t start that murder game again. You’d think someone had broken your bicycle or something. So you’re not a wanted man…you’re still young…there’s still something to live for…if you’re real good and eat your broccoli you may find another body one day.”

“All the same, did you ever step on a nail when you were a kid?”

“No, I’ve never enjoyed that sort of thing.”

“Well, I have lots of times, and with my full weight on it it didn’t go in even an inch.”

“You can scarcely compare the bottom of your foot with Nellie’s right mammary gland, after all.”

“There’s not that much difference.”

“Well, dear, you ought to know.”

“Oh, shut up.” Then I remembered what Ted Kent had said. “Still, one way to find out—I might ask Libby Drew what the police thought when they found Nellie.”

“Knowing Libby, if it would help get her picture in the paper, I’m surprised she didn’t confess to doing in Nellie herself.”

I nudged Maggie as the front door swung open and Henry Frobisher walked in. We watched him as he slowly came across the room and sat down at a wall table, two away from us. I’d been wondering about him, off and on, all afternoon. Frobisher had billing in the Youth and Beauty Book, too. An appointment with Nellie at three-thirty this afternoon. It was now about four-thirty and had Nellie been alive, he would have been just coming from it.

I’d put Frobisher at around fifty-five and, although it had started creeping back, he was by no means a scratch-bait boy yet. Maybe it was the sunlamp tan, or, maybe, his eyebrows bleached out more than his brown hair, which was graying at the proper places; anyway, his eyebrows blended strangely into his high forehead and made his face look naked.

His newest show, A Kiss Thrown In, starring Louise Randall, had been in rehearsal for two weeks and I couldn’t tell whether it was going badly, or whether Nellie’s death had upset him. No matter what caused it, I have never seen a man look so tired and still move. He sat back, ordered a drink and looked around the room. His gaze finally hit us and he gave us a vague smile. But I wasn’t going to waste any chances to talk to any producers, even if he didn’t have anything for me in his show….

“Wasn’t that awful about Nellie?” I said across two tables.

“Yes, tragic, tragic.” He seemed to be looking right through me.

“I didn’t know she had a weak heart, did you?”

“No. No, I didn’t.” He looked at Maggie. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Lanson.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Frobisher. How’s the show going?”

“Still pretty rough. We’re doing a bit of rewriting.” Maggie didn’t need a job and I did. I wanted to be in on the conversation.

“Mr. Frobisher, you knew Nellie pretty well, didn’t you? I mean, she cast most of your shows and all that.”

“Yes, I’ve known Nellie for a good many years, fine woman.”

“Well then.” I leaned toward him. “Can you think of any enemies she might have had?”

“Enemies?” He looked a little startled at that, and I noticed for the first time that his eyes were almost green. “Good heavens no, what makes you ask that?”

“Don’t mind him, Mr. Frobisher.” Maggie pulled me gently back against the wall. “He’s been in so many mysteries, he’s trying to make one out of this.”

Mr. Frobisher picked up his drink and came over and sat down on the bench next to me.

“I don’t understand what you mean. Do you think she was killed? Murdered?”

I had been thinking that to myself ever since I had found her, but now that someone else said it it sounded a little foolish. Something in Frobisher’s manner of asking it, his soft, rather clipped voice, seemed to make my even having thought it vulgar and very corny.

“No, I guess not,” I finally admitted. “But did you ever step on a nail when you were a kid?”

The moment I said it I felt ridiculous.

“No, I don’t believe I ever did. I may have, though it’s been a long time since I was a kid.” Wistful is the word, I think, for the smile that followed. “But what has my not having stepped on a nail got to do with Nellie?”

“Well, you know that thing she fell on, the desk spindle…it wasn’t much larger than a good-size nail.”

“You seem to know a good deal about it.” I could feel my face starting to redden, so I took a quick gulp of my old-fashioned.

“Oh, I’ve been going to see Nellie for about ten years, and that office hasn’t changed a speck of dust in all that time.”

“But I still don’t see why you think she was murdered.”

Maggie was getting bored and she started shrugging on her coat. Frobisher and I helped her.

“It’s pure frustration, Mr. Frobisher. Nellie called him in about a job this morning, and he thinks it’s very inconsiderate of her to die before he got it. Which reminds me. We ought to send flowers. Do you know where the funeral’s going to be?”

“Why yes, I find myself rather in charge. Tomorrow, three o’clock, the Henderson Funeral Home.” He turned to me. “I’d appreciate it if you would be a pallbearer and help get the casket to the station. Her niece is coming up from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to take the body back there for burial.”

I said I’d be glad to. As a matter of fact, I was very flattered that he had asked me.

“If you were a friend of hers, Mrs. Lanson, perhaps you’d like to come, too?”

“Thank you,” said Maggie. “I would, very much.” She stood up. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Frobisher, and good luck on your show.”

I left money for the drinks and a tip on the table, making a mental note to nail Maggie for her share. Mr. Frobisher stood up with us.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Lanson, and thank you.” He looked at me. “Goodbye.” I got my hat and coat from Renee and it wasn’t till we got out on Forty-fourth Street that I realized that in spite of my blue-shirt lead performance, Mr. Frobisher didn’t even know my name.

CHAPTER SIX

MAGGIE REALLY NEEDN’T have been in such a hurry to leave even if her plaster was itching. After all, it wasn’t every day I got the chance to have a drink with a producer and she shouldn’t have blatted out that I had an appointment with Nellie that morning and I told her so.

“I’m dreadfully sorry, angel, but you were rather tiresome about it. All that nail rigmarole. Besides, my bottom hurts like blazes.”

We started walking toward Broadway, and I began to feel ashamed of myself. Actually, what difference did it make to me? I had missed out on a job. That’s happened before. But, nevertheless, I couldn’t help feeling there was something fishy about it. It must have been all because of that damned Bobby LeB. I tried to explain this to Maggie.

“Then for heaven’s sake find him and get it out of your system. You won’t be happy till you do. It oughtn’t to be too difficult. Equity could tell you how many LeB.’s there are—if he’s an actor, and I can’t imagine anyone willingly setting foot in Nellie’s rats’ nest unless he were. Incidentally, with all your starry-eye-making at Frobisher, we forgot to eat. Let’s go into Walgreen’s.”

As we tried to weave through the mob of bobby-sox autograph hunters waiting for the Paramount performers to come out of the stage door, one of the more unappetizing ones disengaged herself from the rest of the covey, sauntered over, and stood right in front of me shoving a grimy autograph book and pen in my face. She wore the usual year-round uniform: saddle shoes, plaid skirt and sweater.

“Sign here, will you?” she commanded. “And make it ‘To Bertha Oliphant with love.’”

“Why do you want my autograph?” I asked. “I’m not famous.”

“You’re an actor, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Sign here.” Pleased, I signed with protestations of undying love to Bertha Oliphant.

“Jeez, thanks,” she said when she read my love note. “That’s swell.” She started to go back.

“Don’t you want mine, too?” asked Maggie.

“What for?” asked Bertha.

“I’m an actress,” said Maggie.

“Don’t give me that stuff, lady. And paper costs money.”

“What makes you think I’m not an actress?”

“Listen, lady,” said Bertha patiently, “it’s the mink. If you’re an actress and got a mink coat, I know you. And I don’t know you.” This put Maggie in her place.

“But why did you want my autograph?” I asked. “You don’t know me.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, I’m different, see. I’m what you might call a speculator. Them other jerks over there—” she tossed her head in the direction of the other autograph hounds “—they just get people already famous.” She sniffed contemptuously. “I think you gotta look ahead. How do I know, someday you might amount to something.”

“Do you stop everybody that comes along this street?” I asked her. I was starting to get an idea.

“Of course not. Only people who look like they’re gonna be something.”

“Thank you, I’m sure,” said Maggie.

“You’re doin’ all right, kid,” said Bertha, eyeing the mink.

“Were you here this morning?” I asked her.

“Sure I was.”

“Could you let me see the ones you collected this morning?”

“What for?” Bertha asked suspiciously. “You want to buy some? If you’re in the market I got some exclusives, home.”

“I want to see if somebody passed by about eleven o’clock.”

“What’s the name? Lots of people passed here.”

“Bobby LeB.,” I said, “I don’t know his last name, just LeB.”

“Why, Timmy, aren’t you clever,” said Maggie.

“It’s just a chance.” But Bertha squelched it.

“Nope. No Bobby LeB.’s this morning. Never heard of him.”

“Can I see your book anyway?”

“I tell you I ain’t got no Bobby LeB., or whatever the hell his name is, so you’re just wasting my time.” It took a dollar to persuade her. “Okay. This part here’s the ones I got this morning.”

There were only about seven, and I was disgusted to see that just before mine was Ted Kent’s. The third sheet down, however, was blank with an inky smear across it as though a pen had been dug into it. I asked Bertha what that was for.

“Oh, that lousy rat. Damn near ruined my fountain pen. New one, too.”

“What did he do?”

“Oh, he got snotty when I asked him to sign. Wish I’d belted him.” She looked like she was just the girl that could do it.

“Do you remember what he looked like?” I practically had on my two-visored cap and a meerschaum.

“Sure I do. Never forget him. Had on them dark glasses, kinda peaky. You know.”

“Harlequin…Yes, go on.”

“Yeah, well he had on a pair of them harlequin gimmicks and a polo coat, and he was carrying a box. A big one. He jabbed me with it while I was holding up my book and new pen. Ruined the whole sheet.”

“Why did you ask him to sign in the first place? Did he look important?”

“Well, not important, maybe. Different sort of.”

“How different?”

“Jeez, I don’t know. Just different. You have to know about things like that. I can’t tell you exactly. Oh—oh…here comes Charlie.” She snatched back the book and was off in hot pursuit. We started again for Walgreen’s. Perhaps I was getting somewhere. The time was right….

“Honestly, Tim.” Maggie looked at me admiringly. “You amaze me.”

“I amaze myself, sometimes,” I said modestly for what I considered a tasty bit of sleuthing. A murderer would be nasty about signing his name.

“But it’s so silly. In the first place this Bobby may not look like an actor at all.”

“He’d have to with that name.”

“It’s perfectly asinine to expect that rude little girl would ask him for his autograph.”

“Just because she didn’t want yours is no reason…”

“What’s more, there are at least three other ways he could have gone—west toward Eighth Avenue, through Shubert Alley and on the other side of this street. For that matter he might have taken a taxi.” I wasn’t feeling quite so pleased with myself now.

“Maggie, do you honestly believe it is all as simple as they say? Heart failure?”

“I don’t believe anything about it, one way or the other. It’s none of my affair nor, actually, is it yours, now. I always thought playing Private Eye would be sheer heaven. But you know how silly the whole idea is. You’re just getting out of character, darling. Stick to your top hat and cigarettes and don’t try making with the derby and cigars. Go ahead, try and find your Bobby LeB., if it’s going to keep you awake nights. That’s perfectly harmless, but leave that other stuff to the boys who can’t dance divinely, or you’ll get in trouble.”

And she was so right!

CHAPTER SEVEN

IN WALGREEN’S THERE WAS just the usual crowd of civilians. It was way past even the most leisurely lunchtime for actors. No matter how good you were at it, you couldn’t nurse an egg-salad sandwich and chocolate malted till almost four-thirty.

I ordered a ham and cheese and coffee, and Maggie had a tuna-fish salad and coffee. We just sat there until the plates came sliding up. I always meant to find out how they manage to get two slices out of one leaf of lettuce. It wasn’t till I started eating that I realized how hungry I was so I ordered another of the same. After we finished I reached for a cigarette and felt the tickets that Nick Stein had given me.

“Would you like to go to the theater tonight?” I asked Maggie.

“Is it a real show or some more of your passes?” She’d been with me before and was naturally a little suspicious.

“That new Lucille Blake thing. Not supposed to be too bad.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Not tonight. I still feel a little strange and you must admit that this has been a rather hectic day. First that damn doorknob and then you rushing in and confessing to a murder. Why don’t you ask your precious Bobby LeB. to go?”

“Not a bad idea if I knew where to find him. Might take Libby Drew and find out what she knows.”

“She’d be thrilled to death. Which reminds me I didn’t pay for the drinks.”

She reached into her purse and put some money in my hand. I didn’t see how much it was. “Here, take this and pay for them, will you? You can pay me back from the reward.”

“What reward?”

“Why else are you so intent on playing Dick Tracy?”

“I still owe you some.” But I didn’t try to give it back.

“Yes, dear, I know, but don’t let it keep you awake nights. It doesn’t me. Call me in the morning and let me know what Libby does for you…in solving your precious little mystery, I mean.” She patted my cheek. “But don’t forget Nellie’s funeral in the afternoon. She’ll give a better show dead than Lucille Blake alive.”

And knowing an exit line when she says one, Maggie walked out of the drugstore pulling on her gloves. A nice girl. Has sense, too, though you generally overlook it when she starts being vague; but this afternoon she wasn’t vague at all. I knew she was right. It was silly, I suppose, getting myself mixed up in this Nellie thing. Maybe I was just bored. I felt bored a lot since I got out of the army, but who didn’t. Hell, I might as well finish it up now that I had started. Call up Libby and see if she wanted to go to the theater tonight. I gathered the checks and walked over to the cashiers. It was then that I looked at the money Maggie had put in my hand. Two fifty-dollar bills…enough to last me for a month, if I was very careful. The cashier gave me some nickels with the change, so I went down to the deserted basement and telephoned Libby. She was delighted to go to the theater with me and would meet me at Louis Bergen’s bar at eight-fifteen, and I’d better get the Bronx Home News or some such paper tomorrow, she might have her picture in it. I told her I would and hung up.

The clock on the wall said it was only about ten minutes to five…a lot sure had happened in one day. That’s what comes of getting up before noon.

If I hurried I might have time to get over to Equity before it closed. Then I could ride home on the Fifth Avenue bus and maybe catch a nap before meeting Libby.

The old brownstone on West Forty-seventh Street where Equity has its offices is something right out of Charles Addams and the only reason I ever go there is to advise them of a change in my address or see if the bond is posted for that turkey I may get a walk-on in.

I climbed the creaky stairs up to the third floor information section where they have all the addresses. The fussy little old lady in charge behind the wire fence was just getting ready to go. She was alone—her handmaidens must have jumped the gun. With a great deal of pursing of lips, she finally consented to ask me what I wanted.

“Yiss? And what is it you require?”

“It’s kind of silly,” I said. “But I’m trying to locate someone, but I only know his first name and last initial.” I gave her the teeth, but she was having none of it.

“Are you an Equity member?”

“Yes, for eight years. My name is Tim Briscoe.” This seemed to mean something to her.

“Briscoe…Briscoe? Oh, yes. Someone just asked for your address and phone number not half an hour ago.”

“Who was it? Do you remember?”

“Certainly. It was dear Henry Frobisher. Such a fine man, a real gentleman. I was with him in Bless You, Darling. Perhaps you saw it?” I hadn’t. She preened herself and patted her hair back in place. “Of course, it was just a tiny part, the party scene in the second act. I wore purple and ecru lace. Dear Henry was so kind about the part being so small, but I do think it better to have a small part with a first-rate management than a lead with some fly-by-night, don’t you?” I heartily agreed. She rambled on.

Why would Frobisher want to see me? And I thought he didn’t even know my name. I wondered if it was too late to call him. No, he didn’t look like he was going back to his office when we left him. Anyway, Kendall Thayer was at the Casbah and he was pretty good about taking messages for me.

“And wasn’t that tragic about his son?” Purple and Ecru Lace was still rolling along.

“His son?” I wasn’t paying much attention, trying to puzzle out why he should want my phone number.

“Being killed in the war. Such a blow to dear Mr. Frobisher. An only son, too. I met him once, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.” And I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to get Bobby’s address and beat it home and find out if Frobisher had called and if so why. But Tootsie, here, was determined to take me down Memory Lane, willy-nilly. “Such a lovely boy, too. So well mannered. Mr. Frobisher brought him to rehearsal. Such a tragedy. Were you in the service, too?” I admitted I was. “Mr. Frobisher’s son was killed in action. In Normandy, I believe,” she said accusingly. Well, my God, Tootsie, I’m sorry. I apologize. I did not mean to offend you. I know I’m not lovely or very well mannered, and my father can’t give you a job in purple and ecru lace, but please don’t make me feel guilty just being alive.

“I’m sorry, Mrs…. Mrs….”

“Tuckerman. Mrs. Tuckerman. Of course, my stage name was Marianne Rice, but then…”

“Yes, well, Mrs. Tuckerman, I’m really in rather a hurry….”

“Oh, yiss, of course,” she said coldly, all efficiency again. “Now who was it you wanted to locate? It’s really past hours, you know.” I told her what I knew and she flew to the files.

“We have a Robert LeBor, but he is in Hollywood now. Would he be the one?”

“No, I shouldn’t think so. Any others?”

“There’s a Robin LeBaron…but of course he’s dead, poor soul, so I should scarcely think he would be the one you are after, would you?”

“Scarcely. Is that all?”

“Yiss, that is all. Are you quite sure he is a member of Actors’ Equity?”

“No…not exactly.”

“Well, really, Mr. Briscoe.” Angrily she took her coat from a cupboard and started to put it on.

“Can you suggest any other place I might look? You’ve been so kind and helpful perhaps you might know some other place.” That thawed her out a little. She paused for a second.

“Is your friend a member of the profession?”

“I’m almost positive of that.”

“There are still, you know, other organizations. Professional organizations—AFRA, Screen Actors Guild, Chorus Equity and, I believe, those night club entertainers have some sort of an organization, too.” I hadn’t thought of that possibility. My thanks were slightly overdone, but she must receive a kind word so seldom that by the time I had escorted her down to the street and said goodbye I was pretty sure I could play gin rummy with those address cards from now on.

There must be someone I knew who was a member of those other unions, and I could get them to check for me. It was such a long shot that there didn’t seem to be any particular need for secrecy. And if questioned, I could always say I found a watch or a ring with an inscription. “Ever thine, Bobby LeB.,” or some such.

And Mr. Frobisher wanted my phone number. Money in my pocket and a phone call from a top-flight producer. What more could I ask?

Things were certainly looking up.

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