Chapter 14

On Wednesday night Miss Delphine Harley was opening at Gilbert Miller's Theatre in Trumpet-vine, a new comedy by Philip Barry. Since the star, the manager and the playwright all enjoyed the highest popularity, it promised to be a triple-barreled social event, the most important of the pre-Christmas season. Miss Harley had sent Lee a couple of seats. When the night came he was in anything but the right mood for the furor of a fashionable first night, but it was Judy's turn to be taken and he could not bear to disappoint her; he dressed for it with a sigh. Judy had been looking forward to this for days ahead. Lee had presented her with a new dress that he had picked out himself, a soft, royal-purple satin with a billowing skirt. Choosing costumes for his girls was one of his most delicate pleasures.

Police were holding back the dense crowd in front of the theater. It was music in Judy's ears to hear the exclamations of the people as she crossed the sidewalk--and Lee did not find it exactly unpleasant. "Ahh! ain't she beautiful!...That's the prettiest one we seen...Who are they?...The little fellow is Amos Lee Mappin, the writer. I seen his pitcher in the paper."

The rear of the theater was jammed with people from the cheaper seats who had come down to see the arrival of the notables. From the stairway, which provided the best point of vantage, came shrill cries: "Look! there's Kitty Carlisle!...Oh, there's Vera Zorina!...Madge! Madge! there's Jimmy Stewart!...You're crazy! It's just a hall room boy thinks he looks like Jimmy. If it was Jimmy in person, he'd be mobbed!"

It was a long, slow business to get through to the aisle. "What a childish people we are!" grumbled Lee. "Will we ever grow up?"

Judy squeezed his arm. "I love it, Pop! I really feel like somebody when I am out with you!"

After the usual delay, the performance started. From the start it was evident that Gilbert Miller had another hit on his hands. The usually difficult first-night audience was lifted out of itself. Miss Harley's first act entrance was greeted with applause that stopped the show. She was playing the part of a county girl from Maryland who, when transplanted to New York, revealed all the devious cleverness of another Eve. The audience loved her. She gave a most brilliant performance, yet Lee, who knew her pretty well, had a feeling that something was amiss. Her art was perfect, but the natural, spontaneous humor that constituted her special charm, seemed a little strained, and when the curtain went down he said as much to Judy.

"Oh, I thought she was lovely!" said Judy enthusiastically.

It occurred to Lee that the girl's voice sounded a little self-conscious.

After the second act, while the theater rang with applause and the curtain was raised again and again to allow the smiling Miss Harley to acknowledge it, Lee wrote on the back of his card: "Congratulations! You were immense!" and sent it to the star's dressing room by an usher. He and Judy remained in their seats to avoid the awful crush at the back of the theater. Before the curtain rose again the usher brought Lee a note within a sealed envelope. It read:

Dear Lee:

I must see you tonight. Don't come to my dressing room, there'll be a mob there. I'll shake them as soon as I can and come to your place. So don't go to bed!

Yours,

D.

Lee handed the note to Judy. "There is something wrong!" Judy looked so queer while she read it that he was impelled to ask: "Do you know what it is?"

Judy was startled. "Good heavens, Pop! How should I know what's the matter? I scarcely know Miss Harley. I haven't seen her for ages. Whatever put such an idea into your head? I'm sure I'm not in Miss Harley's confidence..."

"Methinks she doth protest too much," murmured Lee, and Judy fell silent.

Anyhow, Judy lost a supper by it, for Lee felt that he ought to hasten home. He stopped at his favorite delicatessen on the way to buy smoked turkey and other delicacies, for Jermyn had not been instructed to stay up and he wasn't sure what there might be in the refrigerator. Jermyn was in bed, and while Lee waited for Delphine he bustled around setting the table, beating up eggs ready to scramble when she came in, and so on. Lee loved to fuss around kitchen and pantry, and was fond of complaining that he never got a chance.

Delphine did not keep him waiting too long. Looking through the open door into the dining room, she flung her arms around Lee. "Darling! How did you guess that I would be starved to death!"

"Well, you've done a good night's work," said Lee.

She accompanied him out into the kitchen while he cooked the eggs. "I love kitchens! Scrambled eggs and smoked turkey! My favorite combination. I hope you put water in the eggs instead of milk. Milk makes them tough."

Lee could see that she was nervous. He let her take her own time in coming to the point. She asked him questions without waiting for the answers.

"What did you think of the show tonight? Everybody said it went all right, but I know I was terrible. I couldn't keep my mind on the play. I was just an automaton. What a time I had getting away afterwards! I know I've made a hundred enemies. There was a supper party at Pierre's. I never should have got away if Gilbert hadn't helped me. He saw that I was all in..." And so on. And so on.

They carried the food into the dining room and sat down. Delphine refused a cocktail and Lee poured her a glass of Montrachet.

"Let me eat a mouthful before I tell you what I came for," she pleaded. "Honestly, I'm famished."

"Take your time," said Lee. "We have all night."

She ate, but did not on that account stop talking. "This play has been the very devil to lick into shape! Casting trouble; one part after another. They wanted me to open cold in it, but I absolutely refused. So we were booked for Monday and Tuesday nights in Syracuse. That meant two performances and two whole days of rehearsing. I got back to New York at four this afternoon and had to drive direct to the theater to run through my scenes with Claude Danforth. A good actor, but he will not listen during a scene. It's maddening! This turkey is delicious. So I didn't get home until after six, just time enough for a bite and back to the theater again..." She suddenly laid down her fork and looked at Lee imploringly. "Good heavens, Lee! I don't know what you will say to me! I am frightened out of my wits!"

"How can you be afraid of me?" said Lee. "I am so little!"

"You're little," she said, "but, Oh, my!...Lee, I found that I had a guest in my apartment...Whom do you think it was?...It was...It was Al Yohe."

"Good God!" said Lee. He was not, however, greatly surprised. He had felt it coming.

Delphine nodded her head violently. "Yes, Al Yohe. Did you ever hear of such a colossal nerve? Making himself perfectly at home. Waited on hand and foot by my two adoring maids."

"Is he still there?" asked Lee grimly.

"I don't think so. You can call up if you like. I told him I was going to tell you."

"Then he won't be there now," said Lee, resuming his meal.

"Of course, I ought to have called you up before the performance," Delphine went on, "but I just couldn't bring myself to do it! The poor lad had flung himself on my mercy with complete confidence that I wouldn't betray him. And those terrible stories in the papers today and all! And if I had given him up, I would certainly have lost both my maids. Just at the beginning of the season, too, it would have been beastly awkward. As soon as I settle down in this part I want to do a little entertaining..."

"So you had dinner with him."

She nodded with a guilty smile. "And I never was better entertained, Lee. He's so beguiling! I tried to be stern with him, but he made me laugh!"

"How long had he been there?"

"Since yesterday at half past one."

"Was he disguised?"

"His hair was dyed black and he wore a cunning little mustache. That was all except a grocer's apron and a basket of vegetables."

"Vegetables!"

"Yes, he came to the service door yesterday with his basket. He sat down in the kitchen, and within half an hour, I gathered, had my cook and my housemaid completely charmed. He told them who he was. They knew he was a friend of mine and they put him in my spare bedroom and went out to do his shopping for him. Later in the afternoon--this is the most incredible part, Lee--he told them his wife was short of money and he wanted to get in touch with her and give her some. His wife, Lee! Did you know he had a wife? A wife and a baby!Al Yohe!"

"I knew it," said Lee. "Go on."

"It didn't make any difference with those two infatuated females...Well, it didn't make any difference with me, either! Al is such a lamb! But I'm truly sorry for the woman who married him! He put on a pair of black glasses Cook had bought for him, and took a stick, and Cook led him through the streets as if he were blind. Cook is so respectable, you know, she in herself would be the best of disguises. Everybody looked at them so sympathetically, she said."

"What's your cook's name?"

"Rose. Mrs. Rose Craigin. She's sixty if she's a day, but still romantic!"

"Al Yohe is a devil!" said Lee.

"That's what I said. But so beguiling, Lee! The way his eyelids fold at the corners...They met his wife in the park. Such a sweet girl, Cook said. And the baby, of course. He gave her money and Cook led him back to my place. Nobody suspected them. Nobody would ever suspect them."

"He spent the night in your apartment?"

"Yes. And all day today. Incidentally, Lee, he couldn't have gone to Philadelphia yesterday, because both girls swear that the three of them played five hundred all evening with a dummy in my dining room. But wouldn't it be terrible if they had to testify to that. I'd be disgraced!"

"Perhaps it won't be necessary," said Lee dryly. "I am already satisfied that he wasn't in Philadelphia."

"Well, if he didn't kill the man in Philadelphia, perhaps he didn't kill the man in New York, either. Lee, I simply cannot believe that Al Yohe is a murderer!"

Lee snorted indignantly. "Just because his eyelids fold so sweetly at the corners! Really, Delphine, you are as bad as your maids! I thought you had more sense!"

"Well, I'm only a woman," she retorted with spirit, "and perhaps weak where a handsome young man is concerned. But I have not altogether taken leave of my senses at that. I've been around; I've known a lot of men and I would be willing to bet my last dollar that this man has not got a murder on his conscience!"

"I hope to God you may be right," said Lee. "Drink your wine."

As soon as she left him, Lee dutifully conveyed Delphine Harley's story to Inspector Loasby by telephone. The Inspector was bitter.

"You are always telling me just too late where Al Yohe could be found!"

"I lost no time in passing it along," said Lee.

"By God!" exploded Loasby. "I'm going to prosecute those two maids for concealing a criminal! I'll make an example of them!"

"You'll have to arrest Miss Harley, too," Lee pointed out. "Do you want to take that responsibility?" Loasby subsided in sullen profanity.

"Don't waste your time in such side issues now," Lee urged. "After we clean up this case it will be time enough to decide who's to be punished."

Loasby immediately sent men to Miss Harley's apartment, but, of course, the bird had flown hours before. The frightened maids asserted that he had left immediately after Miss Harley went to the theater. At that time he had no disguise except his dyed hair and his little mustache. Once more the city had swallowed Al Yohe.