Genteel Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (10 page)

Mrs. Hanratty shook her head in good-natured wonder, Pa and Billy joined Billy’s war-injured friends, Spike and I walked with Mrs. Hanratty to join the circle of
dog-obedience trainees, and then commenced the only truly good hour of my weekend.

Oh, very well, so life wasn’t all bad. At church the next day, we choir members produced a rousing rendition of “Come, Christians, Join to Sing,” and following that, we all partook of the covered-dish social in Fellowship Hall.
Generally we only had cookies and coffee after church, but one Sunday each month was designated covered-dish Sunday.
Aunt Vi had brought one of her more delicious chicken-in-cream-sauce dishes
and
a caramel cake. What with Vi’s contribution and
the rest of the
wonderful food the other women of the church brought, about all that went on in the Gumm-Majesty household that particular Sunday afternoon was a whole lot of napping.

And then it was Monday. Or Doomsday, if you were me.

Mind you, I’ve been in worse places and predicaments in my life. I was arrested in a speakeasy one time, for pity’s sake, and all I’d been doing there was conducting a séance, being too intelligent to drink my hard-earned money away or to break the law
. . . well, not on purpose
, anyway
. And I’d darned near been killed by a couple of thieving anarchists a few months earlier
, and I hadn’t done anything wrong that time except teach a cooking class for which I was totally unqualified
. But except when Harold
had been
driving me to that wretched speakeasy, I can’t recall a single other time when I’d
experienced such dread as
when
I headed
to a job
.

I didn’t mind so much being spiritual advisor to Lola de la Monica, although I can’t really say I liked the woman very much. But attempting to discover who was sending poison
ed
-pen letters to Monty Mountjoy—under Sam Rotondo’s nose, and without allowing Sam to find out what I was doing and why—was a prospect that thrilled me not at all.
In fact, it made me want to run away and hide.

Also, why was Sam going to be there? He wouldn’t tell me. Did he know about the threatening letters? Why would the Pasadena Police Department deploy a detective and two uniformed outriders to seek out the author of threatening letters? I feared there was a deeper
and far more
sinister
purpose for Sam’s attendance at the picture shoot, and he’d already let slip that it concerned Monty Mountjoy.

Was Monty Mountjoy a secret drug addict?

Was he a secret drug
pusher
?

Was he hand in glove with bootleggers?

Was he, God forbid, some kind of perverted person who enjoyed dallying with children? The mere thought made me sick.

I
n any case, i
f he was any of those things, I didn’t want to know. My initial impression of Monty was that he was a kind and gentle and genuinely nice man. I didn’t want him to be a crook.

And I really and truly didn’t want to have to hang out anywhere near Sam Rotondo for a job that might well last
for
weeks and weeks.

Chapter Five

As soon as I entered the drive and stopped the Chevrolet before the grand iron gateway
separating
Mrs. Winkworth’s estate
from the vulgar world
, I understood why at least one of the
Pasadena
coppers had been sent to this so-called set. In all his uniformed glory, he stood guard at the gate. I guess the regular gatekeeper wasn’t tough enough for the job. Or perhaps the picture-makers expected violence to erupt on the set and needed men with guns to quell it. Ghastly thought
.

The policeman, whose badge said his name was Thomas J. Doan, approached the driver’s side of the machine. “Name please?” he snapped. It didn’t sound to me as if he much wanted to be there. I understood completely
, as I shared his sentiment
.

“Mrs. Majesty,” said I, similarly snappish.

He lifted a clipboard I hadn’t noticed before and scanned
what seemed to be a list of
typewritten
names.
Then he squinted at me again. “Mrs. Desdemona Majesty?”

Swallowing a sigh—my advice
to anyone who might be reading
this journal
is never to make a life-altering decision when you’re ten years old—I said, “Yes.”

“Identification?”

“Identification? What do you mean?”

“Do you have some form of identification on you? I’ll need to see confirmation that you are who you say you are.”

My jaw dropped. “You need to see identification to allow me on
to a picture set?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good heavens, why?”

Officer Doan’s
complexion
had begun to deepen
to a
slightly
mauve hue
, and I decided to ask somebody else why armed guards were needed at
Mrs. Winkworth’s
gates. This man clearly didn’t care to be questioned
about his duties by little old me
.

“Just a minute.” I fumbled in my handbag and eventually found my California State driving license, which said I was Mrs. William “Daisy” Majesty. No mention of anyone named Desdemona, but how many Majestys were there in this particular policeman’s world? I shoved the license at him and said, “Here.”

He squinted at my license for what seemed like eons. Mind you, the sun that day was
glorious
, but I think he only squinted because he thought it made him look
rugged. Maybe he wanted to get a part in the next western picture the studio made
. Stupid man. Then he looked at me again. “Daisy is a nickname? Short for Desdemona?”

“Yes.”

“Well . . .”

All right
, here’s the thing. I didn’t want to be there. I was already in a bad mood. If this wretched policeman kept me waiting much longer, I’d jolly well snatch my license from his brutish grip and drive back home. I could always telephone Monty and tell him I’d been turned away at the gate.

No such luck.

Officer Doan handed back my license and said, “Go on in.”
Not a smile did the man crack. He might have been made of stone, except that he could move his limbs.

I guess the regular gate guard pressed the button from inside the gatehouse
at
a
signal from Doan
, because the big gates swung open, and there was no escape. I drove through them.

The day only got better when the first person I saw after I’d driven onto the Winkworth grounds was Sam Rotondo. I’m being sarcastic, in case you didn’t notice.
Anyhow, Sam was just walking down the wide marble steps of the front entrance,
which led
to the drive over which the portico arched. Therefore, he saw me coming.

Naturally, Sam being who he was, scowled at me. I pulled the Chevrolet to a stop beside him. “This isn’t my idea, Sam Rotondo, so don’t you start in on me. I practically had to be fingerprinted
by one of your policeman pals
in order to gain access to this stupid picture set.”

“I wasn’t going to start in on you. Officer Doan was
only
doing his job.”

We frowned at each other for another second or two.

Then Sam said, “You’re in a good mood today, aren’t you?”

“I’m not the one who frowned first,” I told him.

He rolled his eyes
and muttered something I didn’t catch. It was probably just as well
.

So, Officer Doan having proved such a dud, I asked Sam, “What’s the reason for the tight security, Sam? Do you expect a
mob
of respectable Pasadenans to
storm the palace
in revolt against the moving-picture industry
or something?”

“Of course not,” Sam said, as if my question had been utterly ridiculous.

“Well
then, why’d I have to show my identification? I felt as though I were being
allowed into the
presence
of a royal personage
.”

“Where are you
going
now?” Sam asked, completely ignoring my question.

I held on to my temper with some effort. “Mr. Mountjoy told me to drive through the portico and head out to what he called the north forty. I guess there’s a big field somewhere
on these massive grounds
that they’re using to build the set.”

“There is.
There are signs tacked up to point people in the right direction.
Will you drive me out there so I don’t have to walk? It’s getting hot.”

I considered Sam’s question. Which was a heck of a lot more than he’d done to mine.

He must have realized that, because he said
, I presume as an inducement
, “I’ll tell you why security’s so tight.”

I thought I alre
ady knew why security was tight
but didn’t let on. Anyway, I kind of hoped I was wrong. Not that I thought the Pasadena Police Department would blab about Monty Mountjoy’s sexual preferences, but news had a tendency to leak out. However, I was kind of surprised that Sam was breaking his silence on the issue, and I definitely wanted to know what he knew.

“All right, then. Get in.” I lifted my handbag off the passenger’s seat, threw it in the back, and Sam opened the door and entered the Chevrolet. I thought I was being pretty darned nice, all things considered.

As soon as Sam
had settled
in
to
the machine and shut the door, I put my foot on the gas pedal, let up on the choke, and we putted off to the north forty, which Monty had told me was somewhere beyond the rose gardens. He’d said all I needed to do was follow the first right-hand road I got to
, and continue to be guided by the arrows tacked up on trees along the way
. Except for the prior year when I’d visited the gigantic Castleton estate in San Marino, I’d never seen such extensive grounds. They looked as if they were manicured by
a herd of
professional
gardener
s every
single day, too.

In spite of myself, I said before Sam could satisfy my curiosity about the security question, “Boy, this place is the cat’s pajamas, isn’t it? It’s positively gorgeous. It must take a staff of hundreds to keep it in trim.”

“It does,” grumbled Sam.

I got the feeling he shared Billy’
s opinion of picture stars who made monstrous amounts of money while the rest of us
common folk
plodded along
, scraping by from week to week
whilst working every bit as hard, if not harder, than the rich picture stars. I’d learned in my tenth year that
worth
and wealth
have nothing
to do with each other
, so I was used to it
.

Lawns rolled on forever, and flowers grew positively everywhere. Sure enough, we soon came to a road that bisected the one we were on
. A big white arrow pointed to the right-hand path
. This place was as big as a village all by itself. In actual fact, it had some out buildings that looked like they might house permanent staff. And all for the sake of one little
,
old woman who didn’t appreciate her good luck. I tried not to be bitter.

“So tell me about the security,” I said as soon as I’d turned onto the appropriate road.

“New invention,” said Sam, as if that explained everything there was to know about the security question.

I’d have stared at him balefully if I weren’t driving. “What do you mean,
new invention
, Sam Rotondo? People are inventing new things all the time, and they don’t all require armed guards and
detectives
to keep people away from them
. Darn you! What’s going on?”

“All right, all right,” Sam said with a deep sigh. “Some guy named Homer Fellowes—he’s
one of those
scientific genius
es
at Caltech—has invented a new motion-picture
device. From what I’ve been told, you put t
he camera on it, strap it down—the camera, I mean—
and this special devise is
supposed to
hold the camera
steady,
so the picture doesn’
t wobble. The thing
rolls, which, naturally,
allows the camera to be
moved
around from place to place
. It’s supposed to make the pictures look more realistic.”