The Case of the Solid Key Read online

  The Case of the Solid Key

  A Fergus O’Breen Mystery

  Anthony Boucher

  For

  MOTHER

  who is still trying

  to like mystery novels

  The characters and situations in this work are wholly fictional and imaginative; do not portray, and are not intended to portray, any actual persons or parties.

  THE PEOPLE INVOLVED

  Of the Carruthers Little Theater:

  RUPERT CARRUTHERS, managing director

  ADAM FENNWORTH, business manager

  MARK ANDREWS, stage manager

  LEWIS JORDAN, playwright

  CAROL DAYTON, actor

  HARDY NORRIS, actor

  FERGUS O’BREEN, actor

  FRAN OWEN, actor

  SARAH PLUNK, actor

  HILARY VANE, actor

  BETSY WEAVER, actor

  Of Metropolis Pictures:

  MAUREEN O’BREEN, head of publicity

  PAUL JACKSON, actor

  RITA LA MARR, actress

  VERNON CREWS, ribber

  Others:

  C. WILLOUGHBY IVERS, of the Southwest National Life Insurance Company

  ERICH MOSER, of the Wiener Neueste Kunstbühne

  DETECTIVE LIEUTENANT A. JACKSON, of the Los Angeles Police Department

  NORMAN HARKER, formerly of Oklahoma

  Chapter 1

  Norman Harker couldn’t have told anyone why he noticed the girl so particularly. There he was perched at the counter of the drugstore at Hollywood and Vine, eating his dinner and going over for the nth time his well-worn file of clippings on the Randolph case. It was hot, and his feet were tired; and his mind was occupied half with the ingenious use of sodium fluoride and half with his dwindling bank account and the great scarcity of jobs in Southern California, particularly of jobs that were not too curious about your last employer. He was beginning to regret leaving Oklahoma, perhaps even to regret Chloe and his grand gesture. And then he caught sight of the girl.

  The party was noticeable enough, arguing and protesting and jabbering, seventeen to the dozen. The two men were striking types, and the other girl, with her brilliantly blue eyes beneath the shock of black hair, was attractive enough to be conspicuous even here on the Boulevard. But the girl was—how would you go about describing her?—just another girl. Pale-brownish hair, quite straight; no make up; and a figure (as best one could discern above a table) which even a tight sweater did not make interesting.

  And just the same Norman’s eyes kept abandoning the fascination of the Randolph case for another glance at her. He couldn’t figure it. His first hypothesis was that it was her very ordinariness which interested him. Two months in Hollywood, where every waitress hopes that the next customer will be a casting director, had sated him with Glamour. But there was more to it than that. There was something indefinable about this girl—something like the light of an immortal lamp glimmering feebly through a crude shrine.

  Norman shook his head and asked the glamorous waitress for more coffee. When a man gets to phrasing his thoughts like that… Immortal lamps, whee! But despite his justified scorn for these thoughts, his head turned again. This time, by way of corrective discipline, he made himself concentrate on the men in the party.

  The one beside the girl was worth more than a glance. His face would dominate any group. Not that you noticed its features; the nose and mouth and chin were—well, a nose, a mouth, and a chin. That was that. But above these non-descript features was the blackest hair that Norman had ever seen—no trace of brown about it, but as purely and sheerly black as a witch’s cat. And across the face ran two lines of grizzle—a heavy mustache, and a pair of eyebrows which met in the center and formed one straight line, like a werewolf’s. Beneath the upper line of silver black hung two spots of purple—those are grapes that were his eyes.

  Norman turned back to his coffee, frowning. Fine figures of speech! In summing up the man’s appearance he had employed two allusions to black magic and one paraphrase of the description of a sea-rotting corpse. He supposed a psychic might say it was the fellow’s aura. And nonsense though such psychic phraseology might be, there was something about the man which seemed to demand description in such terms.

  The other man was harder to pin down. He was not, like the girl, commonplace; but he was equally indescribable for a quite different reason. Every time you looked at him, he was something else again. His features seemed (though this was worse nonsense than any psychic had ever uttered) to be in a state of flux, as though he were an orphan bear cub who had grown to maturity without ever being licked into shape.

  Norman resolutely finished his apricot pie without looking again; but as he lit his after-dinner cigarette, he half turned. The party was rising to leave now. The Man with the Aura was saying, “I assure you of my utmost secrecy.”

  The other girl said, “You’d better, or I’ll sic my brother which is a detective on you. Coming, darling?”

  The girl shook her head. “I want to be alone, and that’s no act. See you tomorrow.” Her voice was undistinguished, possibly a trifle flat; but Norman found it as ridiculously fascinating as her face.

  “O.K.,” said the other girl, and then to the bear whelp, “Now what we’ve got to watch out for, Vernon …” The three went off, deep in inaudible discussion.

  In a properly constructed existence, Norman reflected, a bandit and a tiger would now enter at opposite doors, and the drugstore would burst into flames. He would vanquish the bandit singlehanded, make friends with the tiger, and on its back bear the girl to safety through the furious fumes. But life being what it drably is, what does a man do? Women don’t even drop handkerchiefs any more; and if you try an honest direct approach, they call a policeman.

  Norman refolded the Randolph clippings (sodium fluoride had lost all power to charm), crushed his cigarette, and handed Glamour a dollar bill. There was no use even turning around for another look. He would remember this one clear inexplicable moment out of all the painful helter-skelter of his months in Hollywood; and it would be perfect because it had been completely pointless.

  As he picked up his change he heard the girl’s voice. “But I tell you I can’t. I went and forgot my bag today. Maureen said they’d pay on the way out.”

  “Lady, I don’t care who said what. One sixty and tax is one sixty-five, and that’s what I want. And I want this booth too. There’s other people want to eat.”

  “But I can’t, I tell you. You’ll have to trust me. I could leave you this ring …”

  Norman looked at the booth. The girl’s plain face was twisted with pleading. The aproned man regarded the ring with the skeptical sneer of one who isn’t going to have anything put over on him.

  Norman pocketed his change and walked unobtrusively as far as the street door. Then he turned and hurried back into the store. He reached the booth with the breathless speed of a sprinter hitting the tape. “Darling!” he cried. “Am I unpardonably late? There was a traffic jam on Wilshire, and I—”

  His inspiration was justified. The girl picked up the cue without a second’s hesitation. “You’re just in time, dear. I left my purse at home, and those people went off and left me with the check. I seem to be under suspicion of fraud, arson, and attempted murder.”

  “Only attempted? Slipping a bit, aren’t you? How much is it?”

  “One sixty and tax is one sixty-five,” the man in the apron repeated doggedly. “And I want this booth.”

  Norman handed him the even change. “There you are, my man. And we’ll see how much trade you get from Metropolis Pictures after this. ’Ware angels in disguise!”

  The man counted the coins carefully, quite unperturbed by the thr
eat. “There’s people waiting for this booth,” he reiterated.

  “Come on, darling. We’ll have a liqueur at the Derby.” And Norman took the girl’s arm and steered her out onto the street.

  The girl had not said another word. He saw why now, as she released the giggles she had been controlling. They were good healthy giggles and they lasted a full minute. “’Ware angels, indeed!” she gasped as she regained her breath. “And aren’t you one just!”

  “I’m way behind on good deeds,” Norman explained. “My scoutmaster’s been giving me hell. Now where do we go?”

  “We?”

  “My scoutmaster’s very particular. He insists that a good deed lasting under an hour doesn’t really count. So where do we go now? How about”—Norman felt the cash left in his pocket and was reassured—“how about that liqueur at the Derby?”

  “Is this the real Saint George spirit? Did he rescue damsels only to take them to dens of iniquity and ply them with potions?” Her eyes were an off-shade between blue and gray, but smiling lights danced in them.

  “Blessed,” said Norman, “be the ply that binds. Shall it be the Derby? Or Sardi’s or La Conga or—?”

  “Rescuing me,” the girl observed pensively, “has set you back one sixty-five already, and that suit’s no custom-built job. Besides, you’ve just mentioned places we can walk to, so you probably haven’t even got a car.”

  Norman bridled. “I assure you that I would not invite you to—”

  “No, darling, please. No car is fine, but no high horse either. I’m just being sensible. If you must debauch me, let’s be economical about it. We’re going to Joe’s.” She took his arm and steered him east.

  So it was as simple as that. Life was well regulated, after all, and anything but drab. You didn’t need tigers and bandits and fires. Melodrama was superfluous.

  Though no tiger, he reflected, looked quite so flagrantly melodramatic as the man with the werewolf eyebrows.

  In a more exotic situation, Joe’s might have been called a bistro or a Lokal. In a tougher neighborhood, it would have been a joint or a dive. As it was, in the ordinary and uncolorful lower-middle-class section of Hollywood, it was just Joe’s, a spot where people dropped in partly to nurse a beer and mostly to talk.

  By the third beer, Norman Harker had almost finished his autobiography. The girl listened well—not in tolerant and passive silence, but with responsive alertness. She smiled at his description of the deathly dullness of life in Oklahoma, she seemed interested even in the routine of work in the bank, and she sympathized warmly with his narrative of struggles in Hollywood, since victory in an amateur play contest and a small legacy from an uncle had tempted him to try his fortune here.

  “But what you said in the restaurant …” Her voice sounded almost apprehenisve. “Was that just a gag, or have you managed to land something with Metropolis?”

  “Just a gag. I’ve been there, of course. I’ve left applications for reading and research. Same as I’ve left applications at the aircraft factories and taken civil-service exams.”

  “But I thought you came out here with hopes of a writing job?”

  “I did. You must have been around Hollywood enough to know just how cockeyed those hopes were. You’ve got to have a name before you can even get your stuff read. To sell anything, you’ve got to have an agent; to get an agent, you’ve got to have sold something.”

  “I know. It’s vicious. But why research and aircraft and civil service? If you don’t get the breaks, can’t you simply go back to Oklahoma and pick up where you left off in the bank? There’s a good sensible career; no agents, no producers—”

  “No,” said Norman. “The fact is—Well, I can’t. That’s all. I’m out here for good. I’ve got enough to live on for another month or two, and after that—”

  “Then even a research job at Polly could mean a lot?”

  “One hell of a lot.”

  “But why? Did you embezzle from the Oklahoma National? Is Saint George a fugitive? This sounds exciting.”

  “It isn’t,” said Norman curtly.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. But it does seem funny when the local boy can’t even go home and have fatted calf … Look, darling. Your play.”

  “What about it?”

  “If,” she said reflectively, “you could get that produced, then agents and producers and people might see it and you’d have a name of sorts and then …”

  “But where? How? If I can’t get anybody to look at it—”

  “Even a little-theater production would help. Scouts cover those things. Tell me about your play. What’s it like?”

  “Well, you see, it—No. For three beers I have talked about me, because you’re the first person in months who’s been willing to listen. But for the next three we’re going to talk about you. Do you realize I don’t even know your name yet?”

  “Please can’t I be a Woman of Mystery? Ships that pass in the night and stuff? We’ll probably never see each other again, and you can remember me as a sweet and nebulous—”

  “Sweet and nebulous hell! First the name, then the phone number, and then the next night you’re free. Information in order requested.”

  “My! These Oklahoma men! Such creatures of impulse!”

  Norman took out his pen and address book. “Name, please?”

  She shook her head smiling. “Darling, this gallant rescue is the first romantic thing that’s ever happened to me. Let’s please keep it that way. Names are what belong with the things that happen every day.”

  Norman grinned. “Very well, Miss Hari. Or may I call you Mata?”

  “Please do.”

  “Very well, Mata. This night is ours in blissful anonymity. Far off the cannons roar, but here in this rose-scented arbor of tender vines and vinous tendrils—”

  “Is your dialogue always like this?”

  “You inspire me, my sweet.”

  “Maybe I see now why agents don’t—”

  “Hush. Let no word of such crass matters pass your rose-petal lips. And now shall we order another magnum of the vintage champagne, lovingly nestled in damask within a sterling ice bucket? Shall we watch the fine bubbles eagerly rise, like the incessant pantings of an amorous goldfish, to free themselves at last in the attar-cloyed air? Shall we do that?”

  “La, Captain! Champagne? One bathes in that! Fie, and a pox on’t. Two beers!”

  “At Athens,” Norman announced as the beers came, “they were wise enough to erect an altar inscribed: To the Unknown God. Following their sage example,” he lifted his glass, “I give you: The Unknown Goddess.”

  A half giggle escaped her pink and unrouged lips. “This is fun. I feel as though I were in a movie. No,” she added hastily. “In a novel. That’s nicer. Or a play. That’s best of all.”

  “You don’t like movies, Mata?”

  “They’re all right. But they’re not important the way plays are. They don’t make you come alive all over and tingle way down to your toenails. The play isn’t just the thing; it’s all things.”

  “But not to all men.”

  “I know. And movies are to all, and so that’s where the money is, and that’s really why you’re sticking on in Hollywood and trying to get even a picayune job in a studio when you’ve got what’s probably a simply swell play eating holes in your brief-case. You do have a brief-case, don’t you?”

  “A liege and loyal one, named Aldiborontiphoscophornio.”

  “Named which?”

  “I call him Charlie. And speaking of names—”

  “No.”

  “All right. But tell me something about you. Let me not burst in ignorance.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Anything. Everything. What is your history?”

  “A blank, my lord.”

  “You never told your love?”

  “I never had one. I told you this evening was the first exciting thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Is love always exciting?” />
  “Of course!” She was stoutly defensive. “Let me go on being a romantic. It has to be exciting.”

  “And how do you spend your time aside from not being in love?”

  “That takes up most of it. But besides that I act.”

  “Mata my darling! This is splendid. Now the adventure’s complete; the spell’s wound up. An actress! And you never even proffered your slipper for my beer! Or shall we go find a carriage and drag you through the streets?”

  “I didn’t say I was an Actress with a capital A. I said I act. Some day I will be an actress and then you’ll be proud to say you once spent an evening with—” She halted.

  “Yes, Mata? With …?”

  A slender young man with bright red hair and a shockingly yellow polo shirt turned from the bar, saw them, and bore down. “Hiya, Sarah!” he called.

  Norman burst out laughing. “Peace, darling, it’s truly wonderful!”

  The redhead stood, whisky glass in hand, and surveyed them wonderingly. “What happened? How did I slay him? God knows it’s something to think I can still get a laugh after the way I murdered my lines at rehearsal today, but I would like to know just how I did it? Was it timing or inflection or what?”

  “Probably your shirt,” said the girl tartly.

  “That shirt, madam, is an intrinsic part of the O’Breen personality. It hides the hide and sometimes hides the dirt. I’ll have no aspersions. But who’s your panicked friend, and why is it upsogoddamnedroarious if I say, ‘Hiya, Sarah!’?”

  Norman tried to calm himself with beer, but choked on it. “I think,” he finally managed to say, “I like Mata better.”

  “Thanks, darling,” said the girl.

  The redhead set his glass on the table and pulled up a chair. “For your information, you lovely people, I’m joining this party. The name’s O’Breen, and I’m the lousiest damned character juvenile that even the Carruthers Little Theater has ever been blessed with.”

  “My name’s Harker,” said Norman, “and I write plays bad enough for you to star in.”

  “Fine. We’ll form a company. And what’ll we do with Miss Plunk here? Now look. If you’re going to start making a scene every time I mention this wench’s name, it’s apt to play hell with our blithe conversation.”