Annie through womankind in the pathetic form of Clarise.
“What’s your last name, Clarise?” I said.
“Clarise Peary. I usually work the telephones on…”
I wrote Clarise Peary’s name in my expense book right under the nickel I had spent on the call to Rathbone’s house. Clarise squirmed inside her dark blue NBC jacket. I had discovered back in my cop days that people didn’t like having their names written down.
“Well,” she hesitated, “if Mr. Rathbone is expecting you…”
“He is not expecting me,” I said, leaning forward, not very proud of myself for intimidating a part-time clerk, “he is anxious to see me while I am not in the least anxious to see him. My time,” I said, noticing again from my watch that time had stopped at two-ten, “is valuable.”
“Paddy will take you to the studio,” she sighed, looking anxiously at a couple who had come through the main door and were heading for her desk. She clearly feared having to handle two questions at the same time.
“Thank you,” I said officiously. She smiled, showing a crack in her face powder. The guard with the grey hair nodded and started down the hall toward a door. I followed him. He opened the door and I stepped through.
“You know,” he said with a faint Scottish accent, “that talk wouldn’t have fooled the regular girl for a second. Schubert’s, hell.” He chuckled.
“Then why aren’t you tossing me out?” I said, hurrying to keep up with him as we went past glassed-in rooms of equipment and jacketless men with earphones.
“My name’s Whannel,” he said. “Worked at Warner’s till last year. Got fired for drinking on a job-a job you got me sent on.”
“I remember,” I said. “Flynn. You and another security guy named Ellis were supposed to watch Errol Flynn. He got you drunk.”
“And we got canned,” he said, pointing to a thick wooden door. Above the door was a sign reading “On the Air.” The sign was lighted.
“Then why didn’t you turn me back at the desk out there?”
“Getting fired from Warner’s was the best thing ever happened to Jack and me. NBC has better pay and hours, and I don’t have to walk all over that damn lot. Be quiet when you go in there. They’re not on the air, just rehearsing. Take it easy.”
“You too,” I said, and he left me. I walked into the studio as quietly as I could. It was a bigger room than I expected, with a stage and a small darkened space for about 30 chairs. I took a seat in one of the chairs. A handful of people were listening to the rehearsal.
On the stage was a slightly raised platform with a microphone and two men standing at it with scripts in their hands. To their left was an organ, but no one was there. To their right was a small flight of four steps leading to a contraption that looked like a glassless window. On the platform behind the steps was a wheel mounted on a table with a handle in the center of the wheel so it would be turned. Another contraption on wheels next to it held small wooden doors, one on each side, and next to the steps was a wooden box filled with sand. A man was standing in the box, with a script in his hand.
Behind the two men at the microphone was a glass partition with three men seated behind it all wearing earphones.
“Take it from the top of four, Nigel,” came a voice. “One more time and then all the way through.”
A portly man with a grey mustache wearing a dark suit and vest nodded. I recognized him from dozens of movies as Nigel Bruce. At his side stood Basil Rathbone in a tweed jacket and sweater. Rathbone looked out into the audience and directly at me, as if he knew me, and then turned back to the script.
Bruce let his face become perplexed so he could fall into character and said something like, “Rain had always depressed him when he wasn’t working on a case,” and the man in the box shuffled his feet, ran up the four stairs and opened one of the doors.
Rathbone said something like “Aha, we have a visitor,” and the show went on with Rathbone as Holmes discovering a mad old killer named Amberly, who has gassed his wife and her doctor to death in a sealed room. Up to the last minute, I suspected Professor Moriarty, even though he had nothing to do with the episode.
After the announcer stepped forward and reminded the dozen people in the audience that “A little cold may be the start of a serious illness,” I vowed to take his advice and buy some Bromo Quinine Cold Tablets. The show came to an end, and the director’s voice came across tinny and cracked, saying, “That’s good enough for day. Thanks Basil, Nigel.”
Rathbone smiled and waved toward the glass partition, and Bruce nodded. A guy in the audience ran up on the platform to help the sound-effects man wheel away his props, and a woman with a script in her hand started to talk to Bruce. Looking less thin than he did in the movies, Rathbone walked directly toward me with his hand outstretched. I would have guessed he was a few years older than I was. His grip was firm and up close he gave the impression of being both agile and solid.
“You must be the man who so urgently has to see me,” Rathbone said as precisely as he spoke on the radio, though a bit faster. “Let me guess what it’s all about. You are a representative of Howard Hughes, conducting some kind of investigation about our dinner last week. Your investigation concerns something violent or potentially dangerous. It does not involve any danger to my person, but it does involve something to do with national security, or at least Mr. Hughes thinks it does.”
Rathbone took out a silver cigarette case, offered me one, which I refused, lit his own and looked at me with some amusement.
“Pretty good,” I said, as Nigel Bruce and the woman moved past us saying good night to Rathbone, “Holmes couldn’t have done it better.”
Rathbone laughed and ushered me out into the hall.
“Holmes,” he said, “had a little trick which I have learned. He withheld obvious information and disclosed things in an order designed to surprise his audience. My wife called me and told me someone had called and mentioned Hughes and that she had told him I was rehearsing. The only contact I have had with Hughes in the last three years was at his home last week. He talked about the war and seemed particularly agitated. When I saw you sitting in the audience, clearly a man who has known violence in his life as evidenced by your visage, I began to put things together. You are not a policeman or you would have so announced yourself. You did not rush over here. Hence, my life was in no danger. So I took a few chances and sounded a bit like Holmes. I amuse myself at it occasionally. Would you care for a cup of coffee or tea?” I said yes, and he guided me into a lounge with leather chairs where a couple in their early 30’s were whispering in the corner. The woman was hiding tears and the man pretending he had not seen us.
Rathbone and I went to a table, and he disappeared for a few minutes to return with two cups, one with tea, and one with coffee.
“You drink coffee normally,” he said, “but today you are quite willing to drink tea.”
“How did you know?” I said, drinking the tea while he took the coffee.
“Elementary My Dear.…”
“Peters, Toby Peters.”
“Peters,” said Rathbone. “You paid particular attention when Mr. Knox read our commercial for cold tablets, leading me to think that you had a cold or feared one. Then as we walked here it was quite evident that you held yourself a bit erect as if you had a tender back, possibly a cold in your lower back. If I may add, the condition of your clothes indicates that you are not particularly wealthy. Therefore, you need the money Hughes is paying you and probably have a fear of growing ill and not being able to collect it or do your job. Like most Americans, you equate tea with healing and believe it has some kind of medicinal effect. Therefore…”
“Thanks for the tea,” I said. “Let’s talk about the Hughes party.”
“Gladly,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Hughes is an odd creature and rather commanded me to show up at his party, which almost decided me not to go, but he called personally and said it had something to do with the war effort. I’ve been working particularly hard to get Americans to support the British effort. I know what the Germans can do. I was in the last war you know, and I have a rather vicious scar on my leg where the barbed wire caught to prove it. I also have the memory of my brother John, who died in that war, and my mother, who never recovered from the shock of John’s death and died soon after. Be patient with me Mr. Peters, I have a fondness for detail, but you’ll see it all has a point in the end.”
I started to protest, and glanced at the couple arguing in the corner. Rathbone continued with his voice
