The Famous Dar Murder Mystery (14 page)

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Authors: Graham Landrum

BOOK: The Famous Dar Murder Mystery
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Harriet Bushrow
I don't know what people are going to think of me, but I do have a pretty good reason for almost everything I do.
As I sat there in the meeting listening to the first part of what Opal Ledbetter had to say, I thought I would die of boredom. Opal had a cousin who went to West Point. And so she thinks she is in a better position to understand the military than almost anybody else.
While she was talking, I looked at my nails, and then out the window, and then at my nails again. I thought: Lord, if you are going to take me, why didn't you take me before Opal began?
Then she started talking about this terrible moral menace, and I realized that she was talking about the old Borderville State Bank. It's down on the corner of Division and Seventh streets. It has had something in it—different little businesses and then unoccupied for stretches at a time—longer than most people can remember.
But I can remember, because Lamar had our money in the Borderville State Bank when it went under and we lost our last penny. And then we lost our big lovely home, and there is no telling what we would have done if Lamar hadn't got a job in Washington with the New Deal.
So I have lots of reasons to remember that building.
Well, as I sat there I began to work it out. Baker Comming was the president of that bank and Horace Ainesworth was in it with him.
They were married to the two Drover girls, and so the bank really belonged to the wives. But back in those days, if a girl with money married, she turned over all business matters to the man. And the way those things were managed was sometimes devious—still is, for that matter.
As I was thinking about all of this, it seemed to me that the actual bank building was in Jane's name. (That's Jane Drover that married Ainesworth. They didn't live here, but they used to be in town quite a lot). So though it was her money in the bank and her property that the bank occupied, the property was not owned by the bank.
The Ainesworths—and the Commings too—lost everything they had invested in the bank when it failed; but Jane still had the bank building. A lot of people thought the building should have been sold to make good the loss to the depositors. But nobody was around to buy the property, so it wouldn't have made any difference anyway. It's a wonder the building didn't go for taxes.
Well, I was sitting there thinking about that and wondering if the property was still in Jane's family; and of course that would point to that Yardley boy. And I tried to figure out just what kin he was to Allen Comming, Jr., but I'm not as good at that kind of thing as Lizzy Wheeler is. Then the idea popped into my mind that Duncan Yardley might be the one running that club Opal was talking about.
Of course I had never laid eyes on this Yardley boy, but I knew his grandmother—Tony—and she was about as harum-scarum as I ever came across.
As I told in my “last installment,” after watching the Borderville Transfer for a month, I had a bee in my bonnet about that thing, and it struck me that
this
thing might be something like it.
And that was why I began to get at Opal Ledbetter at that chapter meeting, because I knew right then that I would have to see the inside of that club if it killed me to do it. But at the same time, I wanted someone to go with me. Maybe someone to keep me in line! Though as you'll see, I didn't exactly stay in line.
Now, I know that I have the reputation for being bold. The way I behaved when I was a girl was the despair of my poor mother. But there are some things that stump me just a little. Because of what I suspected, I was a little put off with the idea of going through the front doors of that club. Of course, the way Opal was talking about it, it sounded worse than a whorehouse, and I never even dared speak that word until I was in my dotage. Still, that wasn't what bothered me about going there alone.
Well, who was there to go with me?
My first thought was about Helen Delaporte. But she plays the organ at the Episcopal church, and we just couldn't have her going in to look at those naked men. What I needed was a companion like myself, so that people would put our actions down to senility. I thought of different ones, and then that little Mrs. Hardacre solved the problem with her motion.
So it was to be Opal Ledbetter and me. Bless Opal's pure, Baptist soul. It was going to kill her to go into that place, but she saw it as her duty, and I'll hand it to her: She'll do her duty in spite of the devil and Ned Drummond.
I warned her. I said, “Now Opal, you just sit there. I'll do the ‘vestigatin'.”
Well, the place opens at nine o'clock. With the daylight saving it is so light at nine that going into a place like that at that time is a downright public event. But anyhow …
I got myself all dressed up for this act. I painted my nails bright red and loaded my face with all the make up I had. I even got an eyebrow pencil. To look at me you would have thought I was the worst old harridan that ever was. And that was just the impression I wanted to give.
As for Opal, she just looked like her own Baptist self. Nothing could ever make her look different.
We went in my car and parked on Poplar Street—quite a distance away, you see.
There was a time when this bank building was used as a dress shop, and the big show window that was installed then is still there. Of course, that wouldn't do for a nightclub. So they had the glass all painted over in black and here and there great huge gold coins painted on it—I guess because it is called the Gold Coast.
Inside, it was very different. To tell the truth, the room wasn't convenient for a nightclub. It's too long and narrow. If they had put the floor show down at one end, the people at the other end wouldn't be able to see; and then there is the problem of what you would do about the doors.
There was the front door, naturally; and then only one door down at the other end that used to lead to the safedeposit boxes and Baker Comming's office and all that. Well, you can see that a nightclub has to have a kitchen and dressing rooms and rest-rooms. So they had to put all that sort of thing on the other side of that door at the back. But fortunately the back of the building made an
L
, and there was enough space to crowd it all in.
I must say that given the problem they had, the decorators absolutely transformed the place.
All along the west wall, as you go in, the floor has been tiered so that there are three rows of tables elevated enough to give a view of the whole room. Then there is a long dance floor along the opposite wall. At the far end of the dance floor is the bar, and near the bar an electric organ thing. And then there is a combo that sits there by the organist. The cash register and all of that is actually in what used to be the show window when the building was a dress shop.
It all looks very snappy. The dance floor looks like it is covered with some kind of vinyl or polished linoleum with gold-looking coins for a design. Then the tiers for the tables are covered with shag carpeting in shades of orange. Hanging from the high ceiling they have some very fancy fixtures. It almost seemed like they were trying to make the place look respectable. Maybe taking off your clothes is respectable now; I wouldn't know.
Opal and I got a table near the rear door because I intended to give the whole club a good inspection before I left. Opal needn't have worried very much about being seen, for the lights were turned way low.
When we got there, there weren't an awful lot of women yet. So a waiter—they have young men for the ladies' night, I suppose—came up to take our order. Opal said she would like a Coca-Cola, and I took a screwdriver. The organist—that was a young man too; just the whole show was men—started some of that beeping and booping that they call music. It was plenty loud enough to suit me at the beginning, but it got louder as the evening went on. Finally the room was tolerably full and the combo came out and a master of ceremonies.
He was in tails and a top hat and said a number of things of a suggestive nature. I was pleased to see that most of them
went over Opal's head, and I really didn't understand some of it myself, though I laughed as if I did.
All this time the air was getting thicker with smoke, and sure enough I thought I smelled a kind of sweet smell like they say pot makes. I had my eye peeled to catch any transaction if I could, but the lights were too dim.
You never saw such a gaggle of women in your life. I was glad to see that there weren't many real young girls. Most of the women looked to be in their thirties. But there were women there in their forties and more.
Pretty soon the emcee announced the name of the first stripper. He must have been popular, because the women went wild, whistling and screaming and banging on the tables.
The lights went down to almost nothing, and a big spot was thrown on the back entrance, and here he came, a good-looking young man in a glittery tuxedo that seemed to be carrying out the “gold coast” theme.
The young man began to dance, and presently he gave a big kick, let out a yell, and took off his coat. He tossed it into the air and the emcee caught it, and the young man went right on jigging. Then in a minute he took off his bow tie and flung it into the air. The emcee dashed out again and caught it.
Each time the young man gave an extra big kick and yelled, it was a sign he was going to take off something else. The women just went wild.
Off came the shirt. Well, there was an undershirt underneath that. Then the undershirt came off, and I'll have to admit that that young man was right well developed.
The next time something had to come off, he came down to the lowest tier of tables, swung his foot up on one of them, reared back and snapped his fingers, yelling while one of those
silly women there unlaced his shoe. Then he took the shoe and tossed it to the emcee.
After he got off his shoes and socks, he took off his trousers; and there he was in boxer shorts like the ones Lamar used to wear, only they weren't so baggy as Lamar's.
I'll have to admit that that boy looked very sexy gyrating around in those shorts; but if there is any art in it, it is an art I am not accustomed to.
Finally he unfastened the boxer shorts one button at a time and did a kind of shimmy as they fell to the floor leaving him in just a gold G-string a little bigger than three postage stamps.
Those crazy women were in a regular pandemonium, shouting and applauding and whistling. And the more eagerly they responded, the more vulgar the dance got.
There didn't seem to be a hair on his body; and by that time, he had worked up quite a sweat and simply glistened. Meanwhile, from somewhere they had begun to manipulate colored lights so that they flashed on him, and he writhed around there in those changing lights. When he turned his back, there was so little of the G-string back there that it looked like he was totally nude. I didn't dare look at Opal, though I would have given a pretty penny for a snapshot of her face just then.
About that time I began to see what the purpose of the whole procedure was. The young man danced up among the tables and came wiggling around among the shrieking women as they stuffed bills into the band that held up his G-string. I saw one woman tuck in a twenty dollar bill, and she looked like she was old enough to be a grandmother. Well, everybody to her own notion!
After he had enticed as much money out of the crowd as he thought he could, he gave a huge leap, gathered up all his clothes from the emcee and went running out the rear door
yelling like an Apache Indian. The women were beside themselves.
Then it calmed down and the combo quit for a breather.
I whispered to Opal and told her to stay right where she was, because I was going on my tour of inspection.
Taking my pocketbook, I slipped through the rear door. Just beyond it, I found that I was standing in a hall that led off to my left to an office of some kind and to my right to a door that opened on Seventh Street. Directly ahead of me was a stairway going down to the basement. From odors that wafted upstairs, I could tell that they had had to put the kitchen down there, which wouldn't be at all convenient. And sure enough, just about that time, I had to get out of the way of a waiter with a big tray. Later on, I found out that the dressing room for the dancers was down there too.
Down the hall a little way to the right was the ladies' rest room, which was where I wanted to go first. It was done up in fancy wallpaper that didn't disguise the fact that the place was none too clean. I cased the joint and saw that it would suit my purposes just fine. I was ready to operate.
I went back into the hall and turned toward the end where I had seen the office. The hall itself was not very brightly lighted, which was all to the good for my purposes. I boldly opened the office door and walked quickly into the room.
There were two men sitting there on either side of a big desk. I opened my eyes very wide.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” I said. “I thought this was the ladies' room.

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