Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

Murder... Though It Have No Tongue by Maeva Park

Fraility, thy name ain’t necessarily “woman”.

Two passions remained to Cora Ransome, once the darling of the silent screen — Mon Repos, her boarding house for retired actors and actresses; and the semi-weekly showing of silent films in which she and her aging friends had starred. She lived — they all did — in a sweet, vague no-man’s land, a land which actually had been theirs, when they were young and beautiful and talented and rich, with castle-like homes and yachts and custom-built limousines.

When Conrad Dillingham, like a ghost from the past, arrived at Mon Repos, Cora had her first sense of being jolted into the present, and she did not like the feeling.

She had gone out that night to buy popcorn — her old ladies and gentlemen liked a big bowl of freshly-buttered popcorn to munch as they watched themselves on the screen.

When she arrived home, she perched her shabby little Renault precariously on the steep hill, got out, and stood looking with fondness and admiration at the silvered old mansion, with its gabled roof, its many cupolas and bits of gingerbread. The house seemed to be floating, drifting on air, and the lights of Hollywood, far below, were like stars shining in an upside-down sky.

A tall man was mounting the steps of the house, and Cora recognized that erect carriage, that immensely tall figure, with the outmoded, yet dashing black cloak thrown across his shoulders.

He turned. “Cora Ransome!” he cried. “After all these years — but I’d have known you anywhere.”

She knew that it was true. Her pretty, round face, with the small mouth so typical of the beauties of her day, was unlined, and still had the expectant look of the eternal ingenue. Her fair hair was streaked with grey, but it was soft and plentiful, and her blue eyes were only slightly faded.

“Conrad Dillingham,” she said, somewhat less enthusiastically. “No one has seen you for years.”

“Ah, well,” he said absently, “I’ve been in Europe for a long time.”

He was looking at the neat wooden sign which swung gently in the breeze. “My Repose,” he translated. “That’s a lovely name, Cora, a lovely promise for an old actor like me.”

He was not young, of course; he had been her co-star. Yet there was something of perpetual youth in the flamboyant handsomeness of that face, with its strong, straight nose, its jutting chin. His hair was silver, but otherwise he seemed scarcely changed from the dashing young man who had been one of the famous lovers of the silent days.

He roused her from her thoughts by asking politely, “May I come in?”

She unlocked the front door and led the way down the hall. “We’re viewing movies tonight,” she said. “Walter Williamson — you remember him, of course — is operating the projector. Just go in and have a chair; I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve popped the corn.”

She opened the door of the projection room which she had had installed in the big house years ago, when she had been the biggest star of them all. Darkness filled the little room, except for the flickering shadows on the screen, and the only sound was the little tinkle-tinkle of old-time piano music on the tape recorder.

Watching Conrad as he sat down, his back straight as a ramrod, his grey-gloved hands resting on the gold top of his cane, she wondered why he had bothered to come back, after all these years. It was not like Conrad to feel the pull of old friendships, nor to yearn for rest and tranquillity, after the hectic years.

When she went back with the big bowl of popcorn, the movie was nearly over. It chanced to be one in which she and Conrad had starred, with Minnie Gordon as comedienne and Grant Lester as villain. The train careened down the track, with Grant at the throttle, and Conrad struggling masterfully to wrest the controls from the villainous Lester. There was Cora tied to the tracks, her small face pleading, pleading to be set free. Once again, Cora Ransome felt the old fear, the old excitement, the old sense of immediacy.

The reel went to its expected climax, and Cora switched on the lights. The viewers blinked at one another, emerging reluctantly from the dream, back into reality.

“I have a surprise for you,” Cora said, in the little, birdlike voice which had been her chief reason for retiring, when talkies came in. “You all remember Conrad Dillingham! He’s just back from Europe.”

All the old actresses, with their softly-painted faces, all the old actors with their carefully-lifted chins their military bearing, turned in their chairs. Conrad Dillingham stepped forward.

“My dear friends!” he said. “How wonderful to see you all again.”

Lillian Boone, who was tall and white-haired and regal, asked in a tone which was ice itself, “Well, Conrad, to what do we owe this honor, after so many years?”

His great, sonorous tones filled the room. “To friendship, of course, my dear Lillian. I’ve come back — for old times’ sake.”

Mrs. Carstairs, who had been Sally Jones in the old days, went up and put her tiny hand in Conrad’s. “Where are you staying?” she asked.

Conrad turned his searching, black-eyed look on each of them in turn — on sweet Sally Carstairs and Grant Lester and Lillian Boone, and fat old Casper Cuthbert, once the funniest man in the movies, on little Betsy Moore and Anthony Meriweather, who walked with a cane now, but once had been as heroic as Conrad himself, handsome, noble-browed, a little larger than life; on Geroge Masters and Minnie Gordon and Helen Johnson. Ten of them, in all, besides Cora herself, and Conrad, of course.

Cora loved having them about her, these aging actors and actresses, with their remembrances of past glory. She felt fiercely protective toward them; they were her bulwark against a changing, unfamiliar world, as she was theirs. All their little airs and pretenses were so harmless; even their tiny jealousies were childlike and unimportant.

Only Conrad — Conrad was different. He had always been different, taking money and women and good times where he found them. Cora shuddered when he finally answered Sally.

“Where else should I stay, but among my dear friends?” he asked, winningly, spreading his blue-veined hands in a helpless gesture.

He’s broke, Cora thought grimly. That’s why he’s here, among his dear friends.

“I’m sure Cora can find room for me,” he said, looking at her, repeating the phrase he had used before. “For old times’ sake.”

Cora set her little mouth determinedly. For once, she intended to turn someone away. But at that precise moment, Conrad suddenly clutched at his breast pocket. “In here!” he gasped.

Grant and Walter gave him a tablet from the flat tin in his pocket, gave him water to drink, helped him to a chair. In a few minutes, he brightened and the color came back to his face.

He leaned back against the chair. “The old ticker,” he said, almost cheerfully, “isn’t what it used to be.”

He tapped his breast pocket. “I carry my medicine here, always. It saved my life last year, in Italy.”

Casper Cuthbert cackled. “Can’t go chasing those pretty young things around so much any more, can we, Conrad?”

Conrad gave him a repressive look. “I never had to chase them, Casper; they chased me.”

Casper flushed an unbecoming red, but said nothing.

“Do you think I could get to bed now, Cora?” Conrad asked weakly.

Cora opened her lips, but the “no” would not come out. For too many years, she had said “yes” to her friends from the old days, taking them in when they had nowhere else to go, using her modest annuity to keep the big house running, whether the room rent came in or not. She could not — not quite — turn away this man with the thin, blue-white line still around his lips.

And so Conrad Dillingham moved into Mon Repos, and gradually — or so it seemed to Cora — the light, the gentleness, the other-day quality seemed to move out of it.

In their place, Conrad brought discord and unhappiness. Into her home, in which she had perpetuated the old, silent-film world, there had crept the atmosphere of some off-beat foreign-language movie, macabre and bitter.

Much, of course, lay in the slyly malicious remarks Conrad made to everyone.

“Minnie,” he said one day at the luncheon table, “remember that time you and your husband and Jim Gallagher took the trip on your yacht?” He paused to pat his lips gently with a stiff white napkin. “Strange, how only the two of you returned — you and Jim. They never found your husband, did they?”

Minnie’s face was a dull, sickly white, and everyone industriously avoided looking at her.

Cora cast a furious look at Conrad, but he went on blandly spooning up his fruit cocktail. Minnie Gordon was a grandmother now, respectable and contented; her life in the old, wild days had nothing to do with her present placid existence. Cora felt a wave of murderous hatred for Conrad sweep over her.

Sometimes it was Cora herself who was the target of his remarks. “What a pity you never married, Cora,” he said slyly one day. “A pretty, famous woman like you! I’m sure any number of men would have been delighted to catch Cora Ransome.”

Cora’s cheeks went hot with anger, but she turned away without answering him, and heard his sneering little laugh behind her.

As the days went by, her mind seized upon the fanciful idea that he was a parasite upon her house. As he waxed younger and gayer and healthier-looking, the others became quieter, older, drained of energy. Conrad had, for each of the inhabitants of Mon Repos, his little subtle dig, his small, deadly shaft of wit tipped with venom. And from them, she soon realized, he was getting something more concrete than words.

On the day that George Masters asked her, apologetically, if she would mind if he delayed paying his rent until the end of the month, Cora knew that something must be done.

“George,” she said quietly. “Has Conrad been asking you for money?”

George answered evasively, “He borrowed fifty, for old times’ sake.”

Cora said nothing more, and went grimly about her work. The following afternoon, she saw Conrad Dillingham leaving Helen Johnson’s room. He was slipping something into his pocket, and there was that little smug, self-satisfied smile upon his face. Cora felt suddenly that she’d always hated that smile.

She went back to the big, quiet kitchen and started dinner preparations, but inside she felt such a burning anger as she had not experienced since her youth. Conrad was milking her people dry. Peeling potatoes viciously, she suddenly threw down her knife and marched off in search of him.

She found him in his room, and when he saw her expression, a look of genuine amusement crossed his face.

“Cora, Cora,” he admonished, “It doesn’t become you to lose your temper. You’re the gentle type.”

“Even the gentle type has a breaking point,” she said grimly. “Now I want the truth, Conrad. Have you been blackmailing my tenants?”

“Now however could I do that?” he asked. “Surely these dear people have nothing to hide.”

Cora clasped her hands together, so that their trembling wouldn’t show. “Everyone in the world has something to hide, and with these people, perhaps there’s a bit more. Those were wild old days we all shared. But they’re respectable, aging people now, with families who could be hurt by your snide tales. But I tell you, none of these people is well enough off to support you, Conrad Dillingham.”

He smiled. “That’s all very interesting. Now tell me, do you have anything to hide, Cora?”

“Never mind me. I’m not afraid of you, Conrad. Just leave my friends alone, if you want to remain in my house.”

She turned to leave, but not quickly enough to miss his parting shot. “Oh, I think you’ll keep me, Cora dear. I don’t think you really could turn me out, if it came to a showdown, do you?”

That evening, after the inept little maid had cleared away the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher, Cora tidied the big, dark dining room and set the bowl of flowers back on the polished mahogany dining table. Then she went to stand in the living-room archway, her delicate little hands clasped in front of her.

“Anyone for films tonight?”

The old faces turned toward her like flowers to the sun, their false teeth flashed brilliant smiles, and the little murmur went round the room: “Yes, indeed, Cora. That would be wonderful!”

They all trooped into the projection room, and Walter set to work. Cora sat with her little feet — she had been famous for those tiny feet — close together.

Looking down, she said casually, “Do you remember ‘Murder Has Many Faces’? You were in it, Walter, and Minnie, and so was I. It was about an unusual form of murder, if you’ll remember. I wonder if you could find that one in the files, Walter?”

Everyone was strangely quiet tonight. They watched the movie, and Cora thought, with satisfaction, each of them seemed to tuck away its message into some remote corner of the brain.

The final reel was barely over when Conrad came striding in, his impressive face ruddy-cheeked and glowing from the fresh air, his eyes twinkling with malice.

“Well, well,” he said, looking around the room, “hiding away from life as usual, I see. Why don’t you people get out and do a little living, like me?”

“Because living costs money,” Lillian Boone said tartly.

Conrad smiled. “You were all rich, once. If you had guarded your investments, as I did, you’d all be living on Easy Street.”

He is insufferable, Cora thought. He hasn’t paid a penny of board, either. I’ll throw him out.

Yet she knew she wouldn’t. She felt strongly that, if she were to make such a move, he would manage to disrupt her little way of life. His tiny veiled threats had become much more frequent since she’d faced him with his blackmailing.

On Friday, Conrad kept to his room, and when he came down to breakfast on Saturday, his face was an odd grey color.

“No, no,” he said angrily to the maid, when she served his eggs. “Just bring me some tea and toast.”

No one asked after his health, and he stayed in his room the rest of the day. In the evening, to Cora’s surprise, he went into the projection room with the others, to watch the Saturday night movies. He rejected popcorn scornfully, but sat erectly in his seat, watching his dashing, much younger self, as he swept across the small screen. She had an odd little feeling that he was afraid to be alone tonight, that he wanted to be near human beings.

The music on the tape recorder tinkled on, and the former actors and actresses sat enthralled, each of them lost, quite obviously, in dreams of past glory.

Cora, sitting two seats away from Conrad, heard a small gasp. She looked over and saw his well-manicured hand clutching at his breast pocket, his eyes pleading with her.

Lillian Boone, in the row ahead, turned around to look at Conrad. She half rose from her seat, then her eyes met Cora’s, and she turned away again, back to the film.

Cora leaned over to Casper Cuthbert, who sat near the tape recorder. “Turn up the music,” she ordered. “This is the exciting part.”

Which of them turned to look at Conrad, gasping for breath, clutching at air? Cora would never know, she didn’t want to know. Sitting erectly, tidily, as she always sat, she watched the screen.

When the film had ended, and the music was switched off, Cora heard a little scream from Sally Jones Carstairs.

“Conrad is ill! Look at him!”

There was general alarm then, and confusion, and Cora trotted off to the telephone to call an ambulance. It was, however, much too late. Conrad Dillingham had died from a heart attack.

The police lieutenant who came, as a matter of routine, to check on sudden death, was very kind, very considerate of the elderly inmates of Mon Repos.

“Did any of you know that Mr. Dillingham had a heart condition?” he asked.

“He did have a mild attack the day he moved in here,” said Cora. “But I didn’t think it was as serious as it must have been. He went out a great deal and seemed in good health, although I suppose he must have been ill. Conrad was always a bit foolhardy.”

The old people sat and rocked gently.

Lt. Denton wrote busily. “Well,” he said philosophically, “he had a full life, anyway, and a pretty long one.”

He snapped his notebook shut. “Funny, he was married and divorced a couple of times, years ago, yet he didn’t leave any survivors. Too bad. They say one of the big studios is about to pay a fortune for the rights to his life story. It’ll go to the state or some distant cousin, I suppose.”

After he had left, Cora went upstairs and unlocked the big cedar chest in which she kept the most cherished mementoes of her days of glory. She took out the document at which she had not looked in many years — her marriage license.

At first she had kept it a secret because it had been an unpopular thing for a feminine star to marry; later because she had hated her husband, and had been ashamed of the brief marriage. She had wanted only to forget it.

It’s really too bad, she thought regretfully, that I can’t admit I was still Conrad’s legal wife, and claim the money from his life story. Mon Repos wouldn’t need board money to keep going then. If my dear friends couldn’t pay, it wouldn’t matter. But then, I suppose I should be thankful Conrad didn’t admit that I was his third wife, and try to get half of Mon Repos from me. He threatened it, but he didn’t have a chance to do it.

She ripped the marriage license into tiny pieces and burned them in the empty fireplace. Then she went into the bathroom and washed her hands carefully with soap and water.

It really wouldn’t do, she knew, to give the police a reason to suspect that Conrad’s demise had been a matter of... well, certainly not commission. Call it omission, she thought placidly, remembering that old silent film, “Murder Has Many Faces”.