Murder in the Grand Manor Read online

  Murder in the Grand Manor

  Tom Hoke

  Murder in the Grand Manor

  Tom Hoke

  Chapter One

  Jim Smith knew this was going to be a memorable trip when his headlights picked out the figure of a woman talking animatedly to a palmetto during a driving rain storm. Peering through the blur of water on his windshield, he found himself staring at gold opera pumps, a dripping outer garment of some shiny material hanging nearly to the ground, and two hats stuck squarely one upon the other on her head.

  Suddenly she turned, waved a gloved fist at his lights, and disappeared around the left side of the building.

  In disbelief, he nosed the rental car closer to the looming building and a neon sign spelled out G R A D M A O R, with enough space to allow for the true name, which according to his directions, could only be Grand Manor. Three stories high, all but Murder In The Grand Manor obscured by dark, wet foliage, the hotel appeared scarcely grand and by no means a manor.

  The attendant in the gas station back up the road had warned him. The attendant had showed some surprise when Jim asked how to find the Grand Manor Hotel. "That place is dead, even if it's still running. You won't like it." He started talking about a new casino hotel. "Look", Jim cut him off, "I want the Grand Manor. You DO know where it is?"

  Out of sheer curiosity, Jim added, "What's the matter with the Grand Manor?"

  The attendant shrugged. "It used to be the town meeting place a few years ago.

  Everybody stopped at the bar sometime during the day. A guy always knew what was going on in town then. You know, Rotary Club, Lion’s Club, and Garden Club luncheons, that sort of thing. And the bar always had at least a dozen people in it." He shook his head. "They put in a new bridge and a higher road separating the town from the old hotel. I guess that was the end. Nobody goes there no more."

  Then he waxed philosophical, "The town fell apart in a way. Since it got divorced from the Grand Manor, Bay St. Louis ain't the same, just a bunch of houses scattered around. Without a central meeting place, there's nothing to hold the town together." He looked at Jim Murder In The Grand Manor curiously. "You got a friend staying there?" he asked.

  Jim turned up his raincoat collar. "No," he said quite truthfully. "I don't have a friend staying there." Jerry Duprey was no friend of his, especially after this morning. However, a thousand bucks said he had to find Duprey and take him back to Fort Worth, Texas. Most of all, he wanted a word or two with Jerry Duprey.

  Jim took a deep breath and slammed the car door as he ran for the unappealing entrance, shoes crunching on the crushed shell of the driveway. A single naked street light threw waving shadows of heavy Spanish moss in continuous motion across the face of the building. A wet strand dangling eerily from a long branch of an enormous live oak tree brushed his head. Ancient the Grand Manor might be, but dry it looked, and nothing else mattered at the moment.

  The building must have been a hundred or more years old. There was a vestibule between the lobby and the cracked sidewalk outside.

  The vestibule was only three feet deep and as long as the inside lobby, with a ragged carpet and not one single stick of furniture for embellishment. The length of the vestibule had casement windows one could hardly see Murder In The Grand Manor through, which had nothing to do with the rain. The dampness and a strong smell of mildew hit him as he grabbed open the outside door. He could see through windows in the inner door. A wobbly ceiling fan turned jerkily as it dangled precariously from a ten foot ceiling. Several rickety floor lamps offered the lighting arrangement for the lobby.

  Amazingly, just as he opened the outer door, a fat bellboy in a white coat a size too small, opened the inner door Jim was peering through as if on schedule. He glanced at Jim with little interest. His "You want a room?" nearly inspired Jim to an equally idiotic answer. He came within an ace of announcing he was looking for a fourth at bridge. Instead, Jim nodded shortly, his eyes running past the excess of rattan furniture to a desk in the right corner, and the key holding wooden cubbyholes. The desk was presided over by an anemic little guy with a triangular head and thick rimmed glasses. Straight ahead were a couple of French doors marked Dining Room.

  Another sign announced: Closed. He was glad he wasn't hungry.

  Jim sloshed over to the desk. "Do you…?" he began, but the desk clerk interrupted with a nod. "Single and a bath down the hall, eighty dollars a day." His pasty face was expressionless.

  Before Jim could come up with an appropriate response, a whistle split the damp atmosphere of the lobby, and came close to splitting his eardrums. He wheeled, as well as one can wheel in wet shoes. In the left corner of the room dripped the female he had seen chatting with the palmetto. She stood under a small, neat sign which made lots of sense: BAR. The sign cheered his heart, but he braced as she again stuck two fingers in her mouth and blasted the air. This time she punctuated the whistle with a bellow, "Annie! You have a visitor. Come on down and see who's here!" she yelled, staring at Jim across the lobby.

  The desk clerk drew in his breath audibly. The fat one picked up a newspaper and challenged the bottom of a wicker chair with his weight.

  A dripping female strolled toward Jim unbuttoning her coat, without disturbing the balance of her two hats. One was pink and one was purple, as he could see now. They were somewhat the worse for water. She pulled off the coat, and he gave it a triple take. It was real mink, very good but somewhat old mink…inside, that is. The shiny stuff he had noted earlier was the lining. Mink in the middle of the summer on the Gulf Coat is head shrink material. Wrong side out, full length mink, anywhere, would have sent a reputable psychiatrist to the funny farm.

  The woman was on a collision course with him, and Jim felt she might have walked through him if a skittering on the stairs hadn't stopped her. He followed her eyes to the staircase. Beside an antique cage elevator marked Out of Order, a small, white haired woman dressed in lime Capri pants and a maroon BS letter sweater, descended with all the dignity of the Queen Mother. She nodded regally three times as she hit the bottom step: once to the desk clerk, once to Jim, and once to the gal with the hats. The fat character didn't look up from his paper, so his presence was not acknowledged.

  "Annie!" The lady in the hats shouted. "This is your nephew, Charlie! Put on your glasses!"

  From somewhere in the recesses of her ample bosom, which was difficult to reach through the top of the letter sweater, Annie drew out a pair of pince-nez glasses on a purple cord, carefully adjusted them and moved closer to Jim. To his astonishment, she smiled broadly.

  "Why, it IS Charlie! How wonderful my dear boy!" She gave her friend a quizzical look, grabbed Jim by both arms, stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss in the region of his chin.

  Jim felt the whole bit was getting out of hand, especially the appellation "boy". Thirty five summers and winters told him he was no Murder In The Grand Manor "boy", and neither was she his aunt. He leaned back weakly against the desk and inadvertently rested an elbow on the bell. This brought the fat bellboy from behind his paper.

  Aunt Annie's next words proved interesting.

  "Mr. Leddon," she said imperiously, "Please open up the room next to mine for my nephew…the thirty dollar one with the shower. I shall want him near me, of course."

  The desk clerk with the triangular face looked at the wet one trailing the wet mink, and then at Aunt Annie. He said a little too heartily, "Of course, Miss Gary, right away." He stared at Jim dubiously, realizing he had lost the game.

  "May I have your bag, sir?" Jim held out his keys to the bellboy. He was wet and tired, but the change in the room price interested him.

  The Grand Manor was where he wanted to be, and if this was the only way he could get
a room without paying a small fortune, he could play along with it. For the moment he would have acknowledged being

  Rebecca of

  Sunnybrook Farm to get out of his wet clothes.

  And Miss Annie Gary, if a bit addled, did not seem too formidable.

  Against the suspicions on Leddon's face, he patted the little woman affectionately on the shoulder and made like Charlie.

  "It has been a long time, Auntie," he allowed heartily. His six-two frame blocked Leddon's view of Miss Annie, whose unexpected wink almost made Jim laugh.

  She extended a regal hand to her wet friend, who came forward and took it, her black eyes riveted on Jims face. "This is Lady Mantel, Charlie, whose eyes are certainly better than mine." Aunt Annie smiled. "You may not remember, but I think you met aboard her yacht in Gulfport years ago. Of course you were very young."

  Jim was saved from replying by the arrival of the fat one with his bag. He managed to sideswipe Jim when he switched it from one hand to the other, muttering something about rocks. Jim tried on a bright smile for size.

  "Aunt Annie, I must get out of these wet clothes. Perhaps you and Lady Mantel will join me for lemonade in the bar in a few minutes?"

  He could have made a fortune from one portrait of these two. Lady Mantel poked accurately at her top hat and gave Aunt Annie a meaningful look. Whatever that meant, Jim was soon to find out. Aunt Annie played with her pince-nez purple string like the glasses were a yo-yo. She looked at Jim and closed her eyes in sort of a disparaging gesture. Then she opened them and the two ladies exchanged raised eyebrows. Aunt Annie said kindly, "It has been a long time, Charlie. Both of us are extremely allergic to lemons." They turned, crossed the lobby, and made a bee-line for the bar.

  Leddon had his back to Jim, and there was nothing left to do but follow the bellboy up a creaky staircase. At the top of the first flight he went right. A stretch of high-ceilinged dark hall had one eight foot narrow window at the far end. Wheezing noisily from his effort, he fumbled a large key into the lock and introduced Jim to his quarters. Jim gave him a buck, closed the door on the silent scowl, and turned on the ceiling light to get the full effect.

  If this was the thirty dollar room, it was over-priced. It was tired…the whole room was tired. Print drapes were limp, the wallpaper a startling potpourri of red roses peeled in spots.

  The bed sagged in despair under a mustard-colored chenille spread. There was a ceiling fan above the light. He found the switch, flipped it, and threw open the window.

  Clumps of wet shrubbery pushed against the screen. He hoped prayerfully if Jerry Duprey was under this roof, he had equally inviting quarters.

  Jim needed more complications like he needed a hole in his head. Obviously the Grand Manor was not receptive to guests. He wondered why? What about the two old dames, and where in the hell was Jerry Duprey? He decided on the oblique approach in the face of Leddon's jerking the welcome mat out from under him. And maybe, if they weren't completely insane, Aunt Annie and Lady Mantel could clue him in on the inhospitable reception from Management. At least he could get a drink downstairs. He looked at the pint in his bag and decided to save it.

  The tiny bathroom with a shower drew his immediate attention. He draped wet clothes over the end of the iron bedstead and gave the shower a try. Then he climbed into slacks and a sport shirt and reluctantly added a coat to cover his shoulder holster, and headed out of the room, with the bar the only bright spot on the current horizon.

  Leddon stared at him as he came down the stairs. "I assume you would like to register?"

  He pointed to the book in front of him which offered Jim a blank page, and Leddon kept his hand on it while Jim picked up the pen. "I can hardly wait," Jim assured him, and remembering his name was Charlie, signed Charlie Smith in his most dashing handwriting. The Smith was uninspired, but real at least. From the look Leddon flashed, he was not happy with the signature. Jim added

  "Chicago" and the arrival of two soaked salesmen let him off the hook. He crossed the lobby fast and turned into the bar as he heard Leddon give them the eighty bucks a day routine. He didn't wait for their answer.

  The Grand Manor bar was a cozy room twenty by forty-five feet. At the far end of the room was a large, lumpy man, whose jowls and fleshy nose were outlined by indirect lighting below. Obviously, the lighting was intended to be romantic, but struck Jim as plain spooky.

  A skinny little man with one foot on the bar railing nursed a can of beer, and a jukebox played music from the 80s.

  He stood in the doorway until his eyes became accustomed to the dim lighting. The bartender didn't look up. Finally Jim found Aunt Annie and Lady Mantel, seated against the wall on a bench. They had their heads together and both were drinking some sort of concoction through straws from tall glasses.

  The two old girls looked up expectantly as he slid into a chair across from them. The big bartender came around the bar and lumbered over. He didn't seem to be any happier to see Jim than the desk clerk had been. Before Jim could speak his piece, his newly acquired Auntie delivered an edict: "Another double Camille, George, for my nephew."

  "Double WHAT?" Jim asked as he turned back to the bar.

  Aunt Annie grinned. "Never mind, Charlie, you’ll like it. I invented it." She sipped from her glass. "A jigger of cherry brandy and two of scotch," she announced proudly. "Soda water and a cherry and that's it! It’s named after Hurricane Camille which hit here in

  1969.

  It's a Force 5 drink!" Jim cringed at the concoction.

  When he tasted it, he realized it was appropriately named. "You like it, Charlie?"

  Aunt Annie cocked her head to one side and peered at him.

  "I'm crazy about it, Auntie," he answered as he managed to get his breath. Over his shoulder he called: "George, bring me a bourbon and water for a chaser!" He was crazy, all right.

  But he wasn't alone.

  George brought the bourbon and water, slapped it down on the table and waddled off.

  Jim abandoned the Camille and took a long pull on the bourbon. He had drunk a lot better whiskey, but the bourbon was an improvement and his stomach began to get untied.

  "Ladies, shall we dispense with the fun and games. Your act is great. But I seem to have marched into the middle of something most peculiar. And you do owe me an explanation."

  Jim leaned back and crossed his arms.

  Severity of his expression was lost in the semi-darkness of the room. But the old dames were quite aware he was going to come up with a few questions. Lady Mantel pulled a fan out of the front of her dress and began fanning herself…let's say around the middle of her forehead, which kept her eyes away from his.

  Aunt Annie was staring at the jukebox, swinging her pince-nez in tune to the music as if he weren't there at all.

  Jim slapped his hands down on their table.

  "Could I have your attention for a moment, please!" he offered sarcastically. The pince-nez swung to a slow stop. Lady Mantel's fan quit waving and lowered so he could see her eyes.

  They told him nothing at all. The two old gals looked at each other and then back at him.

  Aunt Annie tapped on the table with her index finger.

  "Lena, Lady Mantel, thought it up. We are potted palms!" she added hastily as if she had read his mind. "The battier we are, the safer we are." She sighed. "You see, Charlie, there's something funny going on around here."

  "You don't say!" Now here was an understatement if he had ever heard one.

  They both nodded solemnly. Aunt Annie went back to twisting her pince-nez glasses on the purple velvet cord. Lena, Lady Mantel, adjusted her hats and stared at him with black, opaque eyes. Aunt Annie leaned over the table and hissed, "There's something going on right here in this room, as a matter of fact. George has a gun on you, Charlie!"

  With magnificent control, he glanced around the room. The skinny beer drinker was mumbling over his beer can. And Aunt Annie was absolutely right! George was glaring in his direction, and on the bar, a
lmost covered by a newspaper, the business end of a thirty-eight was aimed, not at all casually, at him.

  Chapter 2

  Just to set the record straight, Jim wouldn't have picked the southern part of Mississippi for a jaunt in the middle of summer. He was geographically and historically ignorant about this part of the South, not to mention the mores of the people. But, while he loved to paint and would like to spend most of his hours painting portraits, there was always the matter of MONEY. This he had decided a long time ago, when he first thrust upon the world his virile portraits, and found he could only eat every other day on their proceeds. So, through trial and error, he became a detective. A painter gets to know faces and the things going on behind them. What's wrong with this for a detective?

  He was about a thousand miles due south of Chicago, and less than half a block from getting wet in a bay emptying directly into the Gulf of Mexico, because minding somebody else's business was his business. Maybe he should have remained a portrait artist. If he had been inclined toward clairvoyance, he might have.

  A dame had walked into his Chicago office, presented him with a good solid Chicago name he recognized, dropped five one hundred dollar bills and an airline ticket on his desk and announced: "I want my husband back!" Just like that.

  He reacted as a good detective should. "And where is your husband, Madame?" You never asked why they left, so as usual he asked where the guy had gone. It sometimes helped, although the wife usually didn't know.

  This babe was brassy, shrill, expensively dressed, and premeditated in her actions. She narrowed her eyes, chewed on her left thumb nail, and instead of saying, "I don't know," she said precisely: "My husband is at the Lost Horizon Motel in San Antonio, Texas."

  "Now that's appropriate," Jim thought to himself, "but why didn't she go get him?"

  She told him quite firmly, "You will find him in Room 118. Tell him I'll make a stink in all the papers if he doesn't get his butt back here without his lady friend."