“Nice guy,” said Pete, when they were outside, “and he sure likes to talk.”
“Yes, even though I guess we stirred up some bad memories for him,” said Bob. “He looks as if he’s seeing Ramon Desparto again, hanging in the fork of a tree with his neck broken.”
11
Friends and Enemies
THE MOTEL THAT Estelle DuBarry managed was on a side street off Hollywood Boulevard. When Bob rang the bell outside the office, an ageing woman with bleached blonde, curly hair and very black eyelashes came to the door.
“Miss DuBarry?” said Bob.
“That’s right.” She squinted slightly, as if she might need glasses.
“Elliott Farber told us you might be willing to talk with us,” said Bob. “We’re doing a paper for school. It’s a summer project on the history of the motion picture.”
“Why, how nice!” said the woman. “I’ll be happy to talk with you.” She opened the screen door and swung it wide. The boys went into a stuffy little room that was part office and part living-room. They took seats, and the faded actress immediately launched into the tale of her career in films. She had come to Hollywood as a young girl, and had taken a screen test. She told them how she had been given roles in several unimportant pictures and a few important ones. And since Estelle DuBarry’s career hadn’t been outstanding, she soon ran out of things to say to the boys.
Jupiter mentioned Madeline Bainbridge then, and the atmosphere in the little room changed abruptly.
“That terrible woman!” cried DuBarry. “She hated me. She always hated me! I was pretty, and not so high and mighty as she was. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be running this crummy motel today. If it hadn’t been for her, Ramon and I would be married and living in some big house in Bel Air!”
There was shocked silence. DuBarry glared at Jupe and he looked away. “Mr Farber mentioned a coven,” he said at last. “Can you tell us anything about the coven?”
The colour left Estelle DuBarry’s face, then flooded back in a crimson tide. “We . . . we were just playing games, you know,” she said. “We didn’t believe in it. Except for Madeline. She believed in it.”
“So you didn’t believe in witchcraft, and you still don’t?”
“Of course not!” cried the former actress.
“You said an interesting thing a few moments ago,” said Jupe. “You said that if it weren’t for Madeline Bainbridge, you and Ramon Desparto would be living in Bel Air today. How could that be? Ramon Desparto died in an accident.”
“That was no accident!” cried the woman. “It was . . . it was . . .”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Bob moved awkwardly in his chair. “It was very nice of you to take the time to see us,” he said. “Do you know of anyone else we should see–any friend of Madeline Bainbridge who might still be in touch with her? Or with her secretary for that matter?”
“I do not,” said the woman.
“There was a man named Charles Goodfellow,” said Jupe. “Do you know what became of him?”
She shrugged. “He just dropped out of sight.”
“I see,” said Jupe.
The boys left, and walked down the drive to the car, where Beefy waited.
“She doesn’t know anything that can help us,” said Bob.
“She thinks Bainbridge murdered Desparto,” Pete put in. “I think she’s really afraid of Bainbridge.”
“Elliott Farber suggested as much,” said Jupe. “I wonder if Ted Finley will have any information we need.”
“I wonder if Ted Finley will even talk to us,” said Bob.
“I imagine he will,” said Jupiter. “Madeline Bainbridge is big news today, after the theft of those films. Ted Finley won’t object to being associated with her.”
Jupe proved to be correct. After a quick lunch, he telephoned Ted Finley from Beefy’s apartment. He got an answering device, but Ted Finley called back almost immediately. The old character actor was cheerful and co-operative. He quickly admitted that there had been a coven, and that he had been a member. However, although he expressed great admiration for Madeline Bainbridge, he denied that he was ever in touch with her.
“Nobody keeps in touch with Madeline,” he said. “That chauffeur of hers–that Gray–he took over completely once Madeline retired. He always answered the telephone, and he always said she didn’t want to talk to anyone. For a while after Desparto died, I tried to keep her from being a complete hermit. It didn’t do any good, and after a while I gave up. Maybe things will be better, now that her pictures have been sold to television.”
“And stolen,” Jupe reminded him. “They’re being held for ransom.”
“And they’ll be ransomed,” predicted Finley. “They’re priceless. Now that you young folks will have a chance to see them, I expect I’ll be getting a lot of calls about Madeline.”
“Just one more thing, Mr Finley,” said Jupe. “Do you know what happened to the man named Charles Goodfellow? He’s the only one of Madeline Bainbridge’s close friends that I haven’t been able to locate.”
“Goodfellow? No, can’t say that I do know. He was kind of a dim young man. Maybe he went back home–wherever that might be–and got a job clerking in a hardware store or something.”
Jupe thanked the actor, and Ted Finley hung up.
“Nothing,” Jupe said to his friends. “He doesn’t know anything and hasn’t been in touch with Bainbridge for years.”
“We haven’t contacted Gloria Gibbs yet,” Bob reminded Jupe. “You have the name of the broker she works for.”
Jupiter nodded. “I’ll call her, but I think we’re wasting time.”
In a dogged and discouraged way, Jupiter dialled the number of Gloria Gibbs’s employer. The woman who answered the telephone turned out to be Gloria Gibbs herself. She was even less helpful than Madeline Bainbridge’s other friends had been, and more hostile. “That was all a long time ago,” she said, “and I don’t feel that I’m any more important because I once knew that blonde witch.”
“Yes, she was a witch,” said Jupe quickly. “You were a member of her coven, weren’t you?”
“Yes, and it was a big bore. I don’t like staying up late just to dance around in the moonlight.”
Gloria Gibbs then brusquely denied ever being in touch with Madeline Bainbridge, or with the missing coven member, Charles Goodfellow. She announced in sharp tones that Clara Adams was a poor, beaten-down creature in whom nobody would be interested, and she hung up.
“Unpleasant woman,” was Jupe’s comment. “However, she only confirms what others have told us. There was a coven, but if that’s the sinister secret in Madeline Bainbridge’s memoirs, it isn’t making anyone nervous. We don’t know about our missing coven member, Charles Goodfellow, but no one else is worried about witchcraft. So that’s not it unless . . .” Jupe stopped and frowned. “Jefferson Long!” he said. “He’s the only one who wouldn’t admit to being a member of the coven. But he couldn’t have stolen the manuscript. He was on camera with Marvin Gray at the time the manuscript was taken.”
“He could have hired somebody,” Pete suggested. “And maybe Gray did mention it to him. He could even have told him it was here, and then forgotten he did it.”
“It’s a bare possibility,” said Jupe, “but not likely. Where would Long find the time to arrange a theft while he was busy setting up an interview? Still, for some reason Long makes me uneasy. I wonder what the law enforcement people really think about him.”
“You think he’s a phoney?” asked Pete.
“I had the impression he was playing a role,” said Jupe. “He seems to know everybody in law enforcement in Southern California. If that’s true, he’s got to know Chief Reynolds in Rocky Beach. Let’s see if the chief can give us some background on him. Somehow I’ll believe the chief better than I’ll believe a lot of plaques and scrolls.”
12
The Man from Arson
“JEFFERSON LONG?” Chief Reynolds leaned back in his swivel chair. “Sure, I know Jefferson Long. He shows up at every convention of law enforcement people that’s held anywhere in the state.”
The Chief of Police of Rocky Beach leaned forward and stared curiously at The Three Investigators. The boys sat on straight chairs across the desk from him. “Why are you interested in Long?” he wanted to know.
“I can’t say exactly without betraying a confidence,” Jupe told him.
“Hm!” said the chief. “That sort of talk usually means your juvenile detective firm has a client. Okay. Just so you keep out of trouble.
“I’ve seen Long around at meetings, and every once in a while I watch him on television. He’s okay. He gives people some straight scoop on crime and criminals. Of course, he claims to be an investigative reporter. That would mean that he actually does some detective work on his own. He doesn’t. In my opinion, he’s just a brain-picker–he gets his information from people who have done the hard work of digging out facts. I don’t even think he’s all that interested in law and order. He just latched on to that as a cause; he wanted to make a name for himself and promote his crime reports on TV.”