Page 84 of In a Far-Off Land
Max took a puff of the cigarette, then passed it to me with a wink. A wink! He was enjoying himself and I was about to fall apart. “The thing is,” Max said to Louella, “he had something on both of you. Something big.”
Louella squirmed like a worm on a hook. “Lies.”
“Maybe.” Max shrugged. “We’ll get to that later. Right now, let’s talk about Felix Young.”
Hearst leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Never heard of him.”
“He’s nothing,” Max went on. “Just a bit actor at Cosmo. But maybe he does side jobs for you once in a while. Maybe he goes by the name Feng Li and poses as a butler at Lester’s place during a big shindig.”
“This Feng fellow—” Brody jumped in with questions for Max. “It’s his job to get this thing Lester is holding over their heads? The bit he was blackmailing them with?”
“That was Hearst’s plan.” Max nodded, warming to his role. “But he didn’t tell his gal pal, Louella, and as it turned out, she had a plan of her own because she wanted this item just as bad. She wanted it not just to stop Roy from blackmailing her, but to use it against her friend William, if the need arose.” He raised his brows. “She wanted to search the office, where she figured he kept it. But she needed Roy kept busy. So Louella set it up to distract Roy Lester with one of his favorite things.” He jerked his head toward me. “A redhead.”
My face burned. I deserved it, but the humiliation still got to me. How confident I’d been, how sure I’d be the next star at Cosmopolitan. And here I was, just a pawn in a sordid game.
Brody was nodding along. “Meantime, Hearst sees Roy is busy at the party and sends Feng up to search the bedroom for this item. He not only wants to stop the blackmail that’s putting his studio under, but it wouldn’t hurt to have the goods on Louella if he ever needs ’em.”
Max jumped in. “Let’s just say—to keep it simple—that the item is a...” At this point, Max played it up, looking toward the ceiling as if pulling the word out of thin air. “A diary. A diary where maybe Roy Lester recorded some goings-on that William and Louella want to keep quiet.”
Hearst tensed. Louella went pale and swallowed hard.
Max went on. “Unfortunately for Lester, poor chump, he couldn’t wait to get upstairs with his prize, not knowing that his bedroom was already occupied.”
I tried not to flinch. Louella’s worried gaze bounced from Maxto Brody like she was watching a tennis match and had money onit.
Max sounded for all the world like he was recounting the plot of a recent film. “So Lester gets to his room and surprises Feng. They struggle, and Feng gets the knife. Kills him. Or maybe killing Lester was the plan all along, seeing as how it solved the problem of Lester’s contract pretty neatly.”
Hearst jerked upright. “Now see here! I never told Feng to—”
“I thought you didn’t know the man?” Brody cut in, his eyebrows hitched high.
“It’s Victoria you should be looking at,” Hearst blurted. “She’s the one who set me up with Feng in the first place. If I’d known she was trying to get rid of—” Hearst shut his mouth with a snap, but he’d already said too much.
Brody looked at Max, then me. The last piece of the puzzle. Victoria had wanted a divorce and Roy Lester wasn’t giving it to her. If she’d set Hearst up with Feng, then paid Feng to make sure she was conveniently widowed—that took care of her, nice and neat.
“Be that as it may...” Brody laid a finger along his chin and looked quizzically at Max. “I’m wondering, where was Miss Sinclaire when all this was happening?”
I swallowed, ready to speak, but Max beat me to it. “Passed out, after Lester gave her his absinthe nightcap.” He put his hand over mine again. “Didn’t see a thing until she woke up the next morning.”
Hearst made a grunt of derision. Louella looked like she wasn’t buying it. Funny how it was the one thing we knew for sure, but nobody could believe it.
Brody pulled at his mustache, but he seemed willing to go alongwith Max’s story. “So then, Mr. Feng didn’t get the diary, but did manage to knock off Roy and skedaddle.”
“Yep.” Max took the cigarette from my fingers and tapped the ash on his saucer. “So Hearst and Louella, here, they still have a problem. They don’t have the diary. They figure maybe somebody took it. Either Feng double-crossed Hearst and he has it. . . or maybe Minerva Sinclaire does. She was the last person with Lester at the party, to be fair. Not to mention they need a patsy for the murder—a patsy that doesn’t point to Hearst. So Hearst sends his goons to find Feng and sends his friends on the force after Miss Sinclaire.”
I chanced a look at Oscar. Nothing about his part in this would make it into the story. That was a sure thing.
“They found Feng,” Brody finished the tale, “and maybe it was an accident or maybe he threatened to rat out Hearst. Fact is, Feng’s as dead as Roy Lester, and that’s pretty convenient for you, Mr. Hearst.”
Hearst sat, his face like stone.
“Two murders,” Brody said, stroking his mustache, “and both of them pointing to William Randolph Hearst.”
Hearst leaned back and crossed his arms. He didn’t seem a bit worried. “Good story, Detective. You should make it into a film. But if you had any real evidence, we’d be at the Hall of Justice instead of here.” His granite gaze landed on me. “You told me you’d give up the diary, Miss Sinclaire, so hand it over.”
My pulse sped up.
Louella leaned forward, her voice breathless. “Minerva, dearest, you assured me I could have that diary. Are you reneging on your promise?”
