Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 123, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 751 & 752, March/April 2004

Valentino’s Valediction by Amy Myers

Much of author Amy Myers’s work can be categorized as series historical mystery. Her best-known amateur detective, Auguste Didier, is an 1890s chef reluctantly turned sleuth; a second series features mid-Victorian chimney sweep Tom Wasp. With this new story Ms. Myers steps into the twentieth century and the world of early movie fandom. One of her Didier stories is scheduled for the June EQMM. Don’t miss it!

Until the Sheik galloped into her dreams, Ruby Smart had been happy enough with her husband Harold. After that, life at 12 The Cedars was never quite the same. A romp with Harold on Saturday night, however jolly, bore no comparison with Rudolph Valentino’s dark smouldering eyes as he threw her across his horse, grating out: “Lie still, you little fool.”

She could tell his voice was deep and sensuous, even though all you saw at the pictures was his lips moving and the words flashing up afterwards on the screen. The very thought of his being near her, bare-chested, nostrils flaring, made her shiver in anticipation. His hypnotic eyes seared right through her, doing odd things to her body.

She had been a little taken aback when she found out that they were doing the same odd things to Gladys Perkins, her chum at No. 16, but consoled herself that it was nice to have someone with whom she could pore over Picturegoer, dissect every sentence of Rudolph’s autobiography, wallow in his book of poetry, swap photographs, and queue up at the Picturedrome when Harold refused to go. Which was all the time now. And he refused to wear sideboards like Rudolph, so how could he blame her for going with Gladys, even if it was three times a week?

Last year she and Gladys had actually seen Rudolph, when he came to London for the first night of The Eagle. She and Gladys had taken the train to Charing Cross and walked all the way to the Marble Arch Pavilion — they’d had to, because the traffic was at a standstill. The newspaper next day said there were 5,000 people gathered outside, and she was one of them. She and Gladys had fought their way almost to the front, and Rudolph had looked right at her. Gladys said it was her he looked at, but Ruby knew different. After all, Gladys was a blonde and it was obvious Rudolph preferred dark-haired women like Ruby. Ruby had fainted dead away, and when she got home Harold hadn’t been in the least sympathetic. It had been a comedown returning home to Harold with her fish and chips making her gloves all greasy, but in her soul she was still with Rudolph being rescued from her runaway carriage by the handsome Cossack lieutenant, and this comforted her a lot.

“If only Harold had a chest like Rudolph instead of being all flabby and hairy,” Ruby had wailed to Gladys.

“I’ll tell you someone who has.” Gladys giggled.

“Frank?” Ruby couldn’t believe that of Gladys’s meek and mild husband. He was even plumper than Harold. He and Frank were chums, in a way, because they were both commercial travellers. Harold reckoned he had more style than Frank owing to the fact that Frank only dealt in kitchen goods, but Harold travelled in ladies’ stockings. It sounded funny to Ruby, the way he put it, travelling in ladies’ stockings, but when Harold got red in the face she stopped laughing. He did not like his pride hurt.

“No. Cyril Tucker,” Gladys said.

“Who’s he?” Ruby asked blankly, not being able to remember any film stars of that name.

“Keep a secret?”

“Of course,” Ruby breathed, leaning closer.

“Our milkman.”

Ruby was an innocent in such matters. “How do you know, Glad?”

“He obliges.”

“Obliges what?”

“When he comes for his money on a Friday, he — well, you know.”

Ruby didn’t.

“He doesn’t mind doing a Valentino for me,” Gladys amplified.

“Glad!” Ruby was overawed. “You mean he takes off his shirt for you?”

“More than that, Rube.”

Ruby’s bow-shaped mouth opened wide in shock. “Oh, Glad!” And when Gladys sniggered, she continued with dignity, “I’m going right home now and pretend you never told me that.” She’d never taken much notice of their milkman. He wore the usual blue-and-white striped apron over his clothes and a cap, and she’d not looked at him much otherwise. When she began to think, though, she supposed he was quite good-looking. How Gladys could, however. She decided not to see Glad for at least a day.

And so it might have ended, had Harold not complained about having sardines on toast for his tea two days running. It put her in a bad mood, and she told him he was jolly lucky to get any tea at all, considering she’d only just got back from a reshowing of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. What did he expect? she hurled at him.

“What I expect,” Harold said pathetically, “is a wife who doesn’t have Rudolph Valentino tucked up in our spare room.”

“Oh, Harold.” Ruby was mortified at this unfair criticism. “You can’t deny me that. Here I am every day all alone.”

The spare room was her temple — or, rather, her tent, her Room of Araby. It was swathed in yards and yards of white sheeting and curtain net from Woolwich Market, and below it was a divan with a pillow and cover almost exactly like in the film. From the walls Rudolph gazed down at her in adoration as the Sheik, the Young Rajah, Monsieur Beaucaire (holding a lute in a way which Gladys said looked so naughty), and as Julio, the sultry tango dancer. Words from the films adorned each wall, painstakingly typed out on their old typewriter, together with the sheet music of “The Sheik of Araby,” which she thumped out on the piano wistfully when Harold was away. (He said it disturbed his digestion.)

“I don’t know why you do it,” he said, perplexed.

“I just like him.”

“He looks like a pouf.”

“A what?”

Harold reddened. “Never you mind.”

“I won’t have you being rude about Rudolph. You’re just jealous.”

“I’m not,” Harold cried defiantly.

“Oh, Harold.” Ruby relented, sighing deeply. “If only you were more masterful.”

Ruby was never quite sure what had made her take the final step in providing herself with her own sheihk. She thought it was probably the waste.

As she looked round her Room of Araby the day after that conversation with Harold, it occurred to her that her body was crying out for the intimate attentions of a sheik. Unfortunately Rudolph himself was far away and could not be counted upon for this task. He would never realise how desperately she needed him. She was forced to face the fact that meeting his eyes across the crowd was the nearest she would ever get to him. And Harold wasn’t sufficient replacement. When he rolled over, just grunting, “Goodnight, old girl,” she was left with a feeling that life must have more to offer her.

She slept alone in the Room of Araby when he was away on his travels, imagining her sheik by her side, and those eyes staring down at her. Longingly, desirously. In her heart, she was Lady Diana Mayo from the film, not Ruby Smart, and at last she had decided she could wait no longer.

Cyril Tucker, or Rudolph as he was to her, had proved to be everything Gladys had said and more. It was a little hard the first time. As he took off that awful cap, she saw immediately that the sleeked-down dark hair was a considerable improvement. And those sideboards! She had self-consciously led the way upstairs, wondering if her stocking tops were showing under the scallops of her short skirt and trying to pull it down in case. Once his apron, waistcoat, shirt, and vest went, magic had taken the place of doubts as to the wisdom of this venture. His manly chest flexed magnificently as he strode meaningfully towards her.

Ecstatically, she had swooned in his arms, then felt herself lifted high in the air, then tossed mercilessly onto the divan. Her body ached for him, but she trembled with delicious fear, as had Lady Diana Mayo.

“Why have you brought me here?” she uttered the famous words.

Her eyes closed, then flew open again, so as not to miss a moment of this rapture. Slowly, silently, menacingly, he bent over her, eyes fixed desirously upon her person.

“Are you not woman enough to know?” he grated on cue. Then his hands removed the white jumper Mum had knitted her last Christmas, he patted her feet, just as Rudolph had in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, then slowly and sensuously drew off Harold’s best artificial silk stockings from her legs and invitingly stroked Lady Diana’s camiknickers.

“Oh, Rudolph,” she sighed, happy at last as she lay back to accept her fate.

It had become a regular fixture. Gladys had already bagged Friday lunchtime, and even Rudolph could not manage more than one Lady Diana a morning, so it was arranged that Tuesday afternoon after he finished his rounds would be a very nice time to call.

When, at the beginning of August, 1926, Harold announced he had to go to York, up north somewhere, for four weeks, Saturday afternoon was temporarily added to the itinerary. After all, she had several weeks to pass before the London release of Son of the Sheik, and needed something to take her mind off the long hours of waiting.

Ruby looked up with red-rimmed eyes as Gladys came through the back door. She, too, was clad all in black. They had been in mourning for several days now. It was lucky Harold was still away up north or he’d have kicked up such a fuss. Frank never said a word, according to Gladys. He understood. Frank always did, not like Harold, Ruby thought enviously. How could anyone not share their grief? Rudolph was dead. Gladys’s and her lives were over. Romance had ended. There would be no more films after Son of the Sheik.

The tragedy had come out of the blue. First came the shock that Rudolph was ill and had to have an operation for gastric ulcer and appendicitis. Then the relief when it was successful and he was said to be recuperating well. Then came the terrible news that he was dead. It was unbelievable. How could they let him die? Each morning she seized the newspaper to read every tiny detail. She realised that she was not alone in her loss. Women, and men, too, had flocked to Campbell’s Funeral Parlor on Broadway, and mounted police had to be called in to prevent the crowds storming the parlor in their grief. Inside lay his — oh, she could hardly bear to read it — poor body in a bronze coffin, his beautiful face and shoulders exposed.

“Look, Ruby!” Gladys sniffled, thrusting yet another newspaper under Ruby’s nose. “Isn’t that Harold?”

“Harold? Glad, don’t make jokes at a time like this.” Ruby glanced at the photograph of the queue waiting to enter the funeral parlour. And, yes, it did indeed look rather like Harold in the queue. But how could it be? She supposed that could have been his Homburg hat, and that certainly resembled his samples case of ladies’ stockings. Nevertheless Ruby was quite sure it could not have been Harold.

“He’s up north somewhere, so it can’t be.”

“Looks like him, Rube.” They agreed it was queer but they had a more pressing problem to consider: Cyril. Was it, or was it not, morally right to continue with Cyril’s services, when Rudolph himself was dead?

Gladys was in no doubt that it was. After all, she explained: “It’s like his spirit come to bless us, isn’t it?”

Ruby found that very consoling. Even so, she thought it right to wear a black armband when she saw Cyril on Saturday, and insisted on keeping it on after he had ripped all her clothes off, even her rubber corsets, and had her shivering helplessly before him. Cyril had sniggered when he saw it, and she reproved him.

“Don’t laugh, please.” Sometimes it occurred to her that Cyril was a little common.

“Whatever you say, Ruby. You’re the boss.”

“No, you are, Rudolph.”

Cyril had belatedly remembered his role, picked her up and thrown her on the divan most satisfactorily. (On one terrible occasion he had missed and it had been most painful.) His eyes smouldered and if only she could ignore his flashy new combinations, the illusion would be complete. What did he think she had provided all the proper costumes for? She had given him Don Alonzo’s gaucho hat, his matador’s jacket, Monsieur Beaucaire’s wig, his sheik’s turban complete with tassel, and the Young Rajah outfit. Finally, the offending combinations were removed.

“Lie still, you little fool,” he whispered, looking almost as handsome as Rudolph himself.

Even though Rudolph was dead, it was a great comfort to Ruby to know that he lived on at 12 The Cedars.

“Yes, it’s probably me.” Harold gave a cursory look at the newspaper picture on his return on the Monday evening.

Ruby, who had assumed by now that the man in the photograph could not possibly have been her husband, was flabbergasted. “But you said you were going to York.”

“New York, I said.”

Ruby tried to take this in, and fastened on the one salient point. “But why go to the funeral parlour? You didn’t even like Rudolph.” Then a warm glow spread through her. “Oh, Harold, did you do it for me?”

“No, Ruby. I killed him, you see. Then I thought I’d take a last look at my handiwork.”

Ruby didn’t understand. “What do you mean, killed him?”

“I murdered him.”

With this pronouncement, Harold sat down with the Daily Mail as though he were asking for a cup of tea.

“Who?” she shrieked.

“Your precious Rudolph Valentino.”

“Don’t make fun of me, Harold.”

“I’m not, Ruby. You said I should be more masterful, so I went out there and murdered him.”

The room spun around her. “You’d never kill anyone.”

“I never wanted to before.” There was a touch of complacency in Harold’s voice. He was smiling in a most peculiar way, and Ruby felt quite uneasy. The newspapers said Rudolph died of complications after the operation, so were they covering something up? If so, what was it? And if Harold had murdered him, what was her husband doing safely back home instead of being locked up in Sing Sing like in the films?

Then she realised this was all nonsense. Harold was pulling her leg. “He died of complications after a gastric ulcer and appendicitis,” she said scornfully, “and anyway he was in hospital when he died.”

“Recuperating on the ninth floor of the Polyclinic Hospital. Armed guards all around.”

“There you are, then. You couldn’t have murdered him.” Not that Ruby had really thought he had, but all the same it was a relief to know he couldn’t possibly have done so. But why was he still grinning at her?

“Ah, but it wasn’t a gastric ulcer, was it? It was arsenic,” Harold informed her.

“Arsenic?” she shrieked. “That’s poison.”

“Yes, and it doesn’t half do nasty things to your stomach.”

“How could you get close enough to Rudolph to poison him?” Ruby hardly dared breathe his sacred name in company with such an outrage.

“It was easy. He was taken ill at a party, and I was there.”

“How did you get to a party with Rudolph?” She couldn’t believe it, no, she couldn’t.

“I met this fellow in the hotel who told me he was a chum of your precious Rudy. He said he was off to a party in an hour or two being given for him by a friend of his, Barclay something or other. So I told him my wife was a fan and she’d never forgive me if I let an opportunity to meet him slip by.” Harold giggled. “I got this rat poison easily enough, and poured it into this drink I handed him.” Ruby gave a faint cry. “When the party broke up, I followed the Great Lover back to his hotel and waited outside for a while. Sure enough, an ambulance was called an hour or two later and off he went to hospital. I bet he didn’t look so handsome then.” He glanced at her stupefied face. “Shall I show you the tin? Would that convince you?”

“Harold,” she moaned, backing away from him. She was already convinced. There was his picture in the newspaper and he knew details the papers hadn’t revealed. She, Ruby Smart of Blackheath (well, Woolwich really, only it was nearly Blackheath) was responsible for the death of Rudolph Valentino. There’d be a trial. She’d have to give evidence. She would call it Blackheath then. All these thoughts raced through her mind and then her brain clarified.

“I’ll have to go to the police.”

Harold looked serious. “Of course, Ruby. I’d expect you to. It’s only right. I’m ready to face the consequences like a man.”

Feeling the whole weight of the world on her shoulders, Ruby put on her best dress next morning and took the 11:18 train to Charing Cross. This was too serious a matter for the Woolwich police station. She had to go to the top. She walked self-consciously to Scotland Yard on the Embankment. She wasn’t even nervous. She was doing this for Rudolph, sacrificing her own husband for justice.

The gentleman at the desk was very polite when she said she’d come to report a murder. Had it just happened, he asked? No, she explained, about two weeks ago in America. She was asked to wait and another gentleman came almost straightaway, though he wasn’t in uniform, which rather disappointed her.

Ruby sat primly on the chair, smoothing her skirt down. It would never do to display too much thigh here. It would be letting Rudolph down.

“You tell me about it, Mrs. Smart,” the policeman said encouragingly. “Who’s dead?”

And so she explained everything.

“Rudolph Valentino, eh?” was all he commented.

To her great indignation, she could see he was trying not to laugh.

“Well, Mrs. Smart, I think your husband is having you on, don’t you?”

“No,” she said truthfully. “He wouldn’t do that.” But then she wondered whether perhaps he was right. After all, she had been so sure it was York Harold was going to. The policeman then sent for someone to make her a nice cup of tea, and assured her, as he ushered her out, that he would make enquiries with the FBI in America.

That sounded right to Ruby, but she ventured to ask, “When will you arrest Harold? I’ll have to pack something for him, you see.”

“We’ll let you know,” he replied gravely. “It’ll be out of my hands, Mrs. Smart.”

Greatly relieved, Ruby had her tea and left. After all, Harold knew she was coming here, so she wasn’t worried about getting home quickly — even though she suddenly realised it was Tuesday and she’d forgotten to cancel Cyril’s visit. Harold must have been at work, though, and even if he were home early Cyril would have thought up some excuse. When she got back home, Harold was indeed there, however. He was watering the tomatoes. A keen gardener, was Harold.

“I’ve done it,” she announced, just a little uncertain of her reception.

“Oh, good. By the way, Ruby, I’ve put a little memento from New York for you in the spare room.”

She flew upstairs, half expecting to find Rudolph’s dead body, maybe even something personal to him. Heart aflame, she could see just a single red rose, very withered — as one would expect if Rudolph had handed it to Harold two or three weeks ago. Underneath, however, was a little note from Harold:

“Ha, ha, I was joking, Ruby.”

She didn’t know whether to be furious or relieved. She decided on fury for tonight and then she’d relent tomorrow.

The next morning she duly relented. First of all, she’d found the receipts from his hotel while he’d been away, and that had been in York, not America. So it was a joke, although one in very poor taste. Never mind. Perhaps since he was disappointed yesterday, her very own Rudolph in the form of Cyril would come this afternoon instead. After all, she and Gladys had agreed Valentino was immortal, and so she could mourn him through Cyril. That’s what Gladys was going to do anyway.

Strangely, no milk had been delivered that morning. It didn’t arrive until lunchtime, and was then delivered by a new unknown milkman. “Where’s our usual man?” Ruby asked, trying to sound as if she didn’t care.

“Don’t know, missis. Didn’t turn up for work.”

Now that was unlike Cyril. Perhaps he was ill, she thought, although he had certainly been in the pink of health last week. He’d danced the tango with her, she swathed in a sheet, he bare-chested. It was a preliminary to a most exciting sequel, when he steered her to the divan, whipped off her sheet, and proceeded to treat her very masterfully indeed.

“What’s up, Ruby?” asked Harold, who had belatedly told her he had the week off.

“Our milkman’s ill,” Ruby said, trying not to go pink.

“He’s getting quite a reputation round here,” Harold observed.

“For not delivering milk?”

“With the ladies. So Frank says.”

Ruby was instantly alert. “I haven’t heard.”

“You wouldn’t,” Harold replied darkly. “Wouldn’t be surprised if some jealous husband hadn’t done him in.”

No milk? Frank involved? Ruby couldn’t wait for Harold to go out so she could run round to Gladys’s. At last, he went, and the minute Gladys saw Ruby she burst into tears.

“Rudolph’s dead,” she moaned.

“Well, I know that, Glad. It’s awful, but Rudolph’s in heaven now.”

“Not him. Our Valentino. Cyril.”

“Cyril?” Ruby went white. What was this all about?

“Strangled with a stocking, he was,” Gladys continued. “Found in the woods at Shooter’s Hill.”

“I can’t believe it,” Ruby gasped. “Not Cyril.”

Even as she said it, though, she thought of Harold being alone in the house when Cyril would have called yesterday. Thought of what Harold had said about jealous husbands, and wondered if by any terrible chance Harold knew about Cyril somehow. But how could he? They’d been so careful, she and Gladys. There was no doubt there was something odd about Harold yesterday, though. Yet how would Harold have got the body to Shooter’s Hill? Almost instantly she realised how he could have managed it. Behind The Cedars was a back alleyway which the dustmen used. Cyril used to leave his horse and cart there out of sight when he called as Valentino. All Harold would have had to do was hide the body amongst the milk cans and bottles, put Cyril’s cap and big apron on, and drive off. He liked driving horses and carts. He’d told her once it all came of having an auntie who lived out Dartford way in the country.

Ruby’s imagination worked overtime.

“What kind of stocking was it?” She blurted out the question without thinking how odd this sounded.

“How would I know?” Gladys shrugged.

When Harold came back with the evening papers, it was all over the front cover. “That’s our milkman,” she said to him, as he hung up his coat and handed it to her to read.

“That’s right,” Harold said in his jolly tone.

“It says he was strangled with a silk stocking.”

“Two, actually.”

“Two?” Ruby wailed. “How do you know?”

“One stocking is strong, so I tell my ladies,” Harold carefully explained. “But it’s not that strong. Our milkman was a big man, Ruby. Bigger than Valentino. But then you’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

Ruby couldn’t speak for fear at first, then she managed to say, “What can you mean, Harold?”

“I said some jealous husband probably did him in. It was me. I’ve been jealous of him for some time. He would keep leaving his blessed turban in the spare room. I couldn’t stand it, Ruby. I was joking about the first Valentino, but I decided to murder this one for real. I got the idea in York. There was an American newspaperman in the hotel who got all the details about Valentino’s death, more than the papers here carried. So I decided to act. Do you know, Ruby, I believe I’m becoming very masterful indeed.”

Ruby let out one long wail, as Harold went on to describe exactly how he’d killed Cyril Tucker and how he’d got the body to Shooter’s Hill — just the way she’d thought. He even considerately described a birthmark on Cyril’s chest for her, just in case she should be in any doubt.

“I suppose you’ll have to tell the police, otherwise they’ll suspect all the other husbands around here,” Harold said, using his jolly voice again.

“All?” Ruby repeated faintly.

“Oh yes. Our Rudolph was quite a Casanova. Quite a Valentino, in fact. He had a day for each of you. You weren’t the only one. I wonder what you’ll all do now?”

Ruby suddenly found her voice. “I’m going to tell on you. You killed my very own Rudolph.”

“I’m glad you believe me, Ruby. I did bring his Monsieur Beaucaire wig with me to convince you. I found it in the cart.”

Ruby screamed. Sobbing, she ran from the room. She had to get back to Scotland Yard to tell them the terrible truth. She didn’t even stop to put her best dress on this time, and she ran all the way from Charing Cross to the Embankment. She was quite out of breath by the time she finally panted up to the front desk.

“It’s me again, Mrs. Ruby Smart,” she told the man.

He grinned at her. “I’ll take your statement, madam.”

“No, I must see the policeman I saw yesterday.”

She had to wait some time on this occasion, and when he appeared she wasn’t taken to another room, but had to tell him the awful truth then and there.

“My husband did it. Rudolph Valentino, no, I mean the milkman in the woods. He’s Valentino. My husband murdered him.” She saw the disbelieving look in his eyes, and struggled on desperately. “It was really Cyril Tucker, well, you know that, but we call him Rudolph Valentino, and my husband—”

“Now, Mrs. Smart, we’ve already arrested a man in connection with that. Frank Perkins, I think he lives further up your street.”

“Frank? But he didn’t, he couldn’t. Oh no, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“We had good reason to arrest him, Mrs. Smart. You’ll see it all in the papers tomorrow, no doubt, so I’ll tell you. He had all the Valentino kit in his study, poor fellow. Wigs, turbans, whips. Round the bend with jealousy. So you go home and have a nice cup of tea, Mrs. Smart.”

She wasn’t even entitled to receive one here today. Frank couldn’t possibly have been involved. It was obvious Harold was trying to blame it on Frank and now they weren’t even listening to her, and Harold would go scot-free. Perhaps it was all a joke. Pehaps Frank really had done it, but somehow she knew that couldn’t be true. Anyway, she’d done her best, and it wasn’t her fault they wouldn’t listen. She put her key in the lock and turned it. As she kicked off her shoes inside so as not to dirty the desert-coloured carpet (her choice), she could hear voices from upstairs, which was odd. And odd sounds, too. Thumps and giggles.

Coming from the Room of Araby.

Indignant and terrified at the same time, she raced up the stairs as she heard the grating sound: “Lie still, you little fool.”

It must be one of her gramophone records. It must be. Heart pounding, she threw open the door.

Rudolph Valentino in sheik’s outfit, minus the top half, but including a whip, didn’t even look up. Below him Lady Diana Mayo sighed in ecstasy. Gladys had found another sheik.

“Harold! What are you doing?” Ruby moaned.

Harold grinned before he turned back to his captive: “Are you not woman enough to know?”