five minutes, making sure to shake the Champagne King’s hand and thank him for the invite.
Miss Vance positioned herself near the bar, where we knew she would have easy access to the telephone.
“Good luck to us,” I said, and kissed her cheek, boldly.
Her eyes were glittering again. “Good luck to us,” she repeated.
I paused, my hand on her arm. “You love this, don’t you?”
Her smile was as enchanting as it was wide, the breeze catching the dark blonde tendrils and doing wonderful acrobatics with them. “Very much. . It’s better than opening night.”
Five minutes later, I was a floor below, on the starboard side of the Promenade Deck, in a suite where Charles Frohman was entertaining a slightly larger, even more star-studded group. The chubby frog prince of Broadway beamed as he moved throughout the crowd, leaning on his “wife” (that ever-present cane of his), seeming in less pain than before. The genial host was decked out in a dark suit with scarlet tie under a stiff white collar-formality and theatricality at once, a Napoleonic ring on his little finger to add a dash of Broadway flamboyance.
Everyone was dressed for dinner-men in formal wear, women in decollete gowns-but few were likely to bother with the dining saloon this evening: Generous trays of canapes were on the occasional tables, and Frohman’s girlish man William (as if having to keep track of Master-at-Arms Williams and Charles Williamson weren’t enough!) continually threaded through the room keeping Champagne glasses brimming. And the Champagne saw to it that the drawing room stayed alive with laughter and banter.
Vanderbilt and Williamson stood sipping Champagne, but the millionaire seemed gloomy, in the aftermath of his friend’s death, if not outright depressed. The art dealer was talking to everyone who happened by, full of personality, as if feeling the need to make up for his subdued friend.
Among the well-dressed, even glamorous crowd were Frohman’s theatrical entourage, including the actresses Josephine Brandell and Rita Jolivet, and the playwright Justus Miles Forman. In the midst of these fashionably dressed guests, an oasis of gauche, were the Bard of East Aurora and his bride; Hubbard was his usual floppy-tied self, in a tuxedo no respectable rental firm would let; his wife looked modestly attractive in an off-white silk gown appropriate for a wedding, circa 1900.
Right now Hubbard had found his way over to Williamson and Vanderbilt. The millionaire was staring into space, sipping his Champagne; but-judging by the snippet I heard-the art dealer had engaged Fra Albertus in a discussion of their common interest.
“You must not over-intellectualize art,” Hubbard was saying, and it frightened me to hear that view, because I agreed with it. “There is in most souls a hunger for beauty, just as there is a physical hunger.”
“But art is an intellectual process, too,” Williamson argued. “It must engage the mind as well as the heart.”
Hubbard shook his head. “Beauty speaks to the spirit through our senses-harmony as set forth in color, form and sweet sounds.”
“Art is a more complex thing than that, surely!”
The bard snorted a laugh. “Art is not a ‘thing’-it is a way.”
Back to aphorisms-but that, I had to admit, was a pretty good one.
I moved on, and suddenly I was facing my smiling host-homely as he was, his good nature made him appealing. “And where is your lovely friend. .Miss Vance?”
“She is, I’m afraid, representing us at the Kessler affair.”
“Well, I hope she’ll stop by and eat some of my food, and drink some of my Champagne.”
I smiled. “If Kessler doesn’t fill up his guests with bubbly, something’s wrong.”
“True enough,” he laughed. “Now, I want to make sure Miss Vance knows my interest in her thespian abilities is quite sincere. Will you be staying in London for a while?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps a week.”
“Splendid. I would like you and Miss Vance to be my guests, and accompany me to James Barrie’s new play,
“Mr. Frohman, that’s very generous!”
He raised a small chubby forefinger. “None of that-C.F., remember. C.F.!”
“Well, C.F., I accept your gracious invitation on both our parts.”
Before long I had managed to reach my goal-I meant to position myself near the desk, where the phone hid behind that enormous ship-shaped basket of flowers and fruit. Those flowers were doing fairly well, for as many days as had passed; I noted the card was signed by Maude Adams, the famous actress Frohman had discovered.
I nibbled canapes, but didn’t overdo the Champagne, chatting with whomever happened by. There was a great deal of war talk. . fairly optimistic, however: Allied advances on the Western front and in the Dardanelles, with the prospect of Italy joining the Allied cause.
Captain Turner himself came by, in a rare sociable mood. Several guests asked him about the new shipboard precautions-everyone had noticed them-and Frohman asked, “Are we in any danger, Captain?”
“In wartime there’s always danger,” Turner said. “But no cause for alarm. . I
Whether that was intended as a joke or not, it got a laugh that rippled across the suite, just as a bellboy was entering, to hand the captain a wireless message.* Turner bid some hasty good-byes and took his leave.
Shortly afterward, Williamson took his leave as well, thanking Frohman, saying he needed to drop by the Kessler party, out of politeness; C.F. understood. And Vanderbilt was left behind, with his Champagne and his doldrums.
“This war,” Hubbard was saying, a group of theatrical types gathering around a ham greater than themselves, “will progress from horror to horror. . Art, science, invention, man has lifted himself to the Matterhorn of Hope. . and now this.”
I used the phone, calling the Verandah Cafe, asking for Miss Vance, who soon came on the line; we spoke briefly. Then I wandered over to Vanderbilt.
“Mr. Vanderbilt,” I said, nodding.
“Mr. Van Dine.”
“If I might risk rudeness, I would like to ask a rather personal question.”
He looked at me curiously; an eyebrow lifted. He was a little drunk.
I asked my question. “You didn’t actually see that steward, Leach, come out of my room, did you?”
His eyes tightened. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Your friend Williamson saw it, but asked
Vanderbilt’s defensiveness vanished; he shrugged. “He told me what he’d seen, and that he was concerned- asked if I would go to Captain Turner about it. He was afraid to.”
“Afraid?”
“Well, he knew Turner wouldn’t turn me away-that I’d be taken seriously.”
“I see,” I said, as if that made sense.
The phone’s ring was almost lost in the cocktail chatter, but I heard it, and went to answer; but Frohman’s valet, William, reached for the receiver before I got there.
I said, “That will be for me.”
He made a face and said, “I’m sure. . Frohman suite!” He listened, then turned to me with surprised confusion, handing me the phone, saying, “It is for you, sir.”
“Mr. Williamson has arrived at the party,” Miss Vance’s voice said into my ear, over the sound of festivities on her end of the wire. “He’s making the rounds-no one will miss the fact that he was here.”
“Time for you to leave.”
“Yes it is.”
I hung up, because it was time for me to leave, as well. Making no good-byes, I slipped out, and I reached the door to Madame DePage’s suite just as Miss Vance arrived, looking fetching in her low-cut green silk gown, a small purse in hand.
We did not speak. She used her key in the door-these were her quarters, as well as madame’s, after all-and we went in to wait in the lavish suite, with its Louis XVI decor and walnut panelling, its residence-like windows
