Hardboiled Ep 3—“No Wit, No Help Like a Dame’s”
ANNOUNCER: Empress of Blandings Productions presents radio’s newest detective—Jack Cassidy, PI—and her thrilling adventures, in—HARDBOILED!
MFX: Opening theme
EFFY: Jack? You busy?
JACK: Not especially.
EFFY: There’s a woman waiting to see you.
JACK: Yeah? What sort of a woman?
EFFY: American, I think. Classier sorta broad than you usually see around these parts. Very anxious to talk to a detective.
JACK: O.K., send her in.
EFFY: Miss. St. Clair? Miss Cassidy can see you now.
SFX: Footsteps approaching, and door closing
JACK: (narrating) Effy had been right to say that Miss. St. Clair wasn’t the sort of broad you usually see on the streets of Edmonton. In fact, she wasn’t the sort of broad you see anywhere except on the silver screen, making eyes at Gary Cooper or Clark Gable. I’ve never been the sort of dick who itemizes, in internal monologue, the positive attributes of the dames who walk into my office. I try to keep my internal monologues chivalrous. But I discovered, as I offered my new client a chair, that the eyes which were gazing up at me had already begun to make the mien of detached cynicism that’s so essential to this business difficult to maintain.
VIVIAN: Thank you, Miss Cassidy, for seeing me so soon. I—I was beginning to lose hope that anyone would be able to help me out of this mess.
JACK: And what mess is that?
VIVIAN: I—oh, it’s rather difficult to know how to begin. Could I—could I trouble you for a light?
JACK: Sure. (SFX: click) And now, what brings you into my office?
VIVIAN: Well—I’m here—I suppose—because I—I’ve lost something.
JACK: Something like a priceless object, or something like a husband?
VIVIAN: In actual fact, Miss Cassidy, I’ve lost both of those things—exactly those things.
JACK: I see. And which would you like me to find?
VIVIAN: When you find the one, you may be sure you’ll find the other. But—I may tell you candidly that I am more concerned over the safety of the priceless object. I should be perfectly content if I never had to set eyes on the husband again, only when he left, he took the Lucrezia Diamond with him.
JACK: The—?
VIVIAN: It’s been in my family for—oh, generations. I don’t know how much it’s worth. It’s very large—perhaps the size of a cherry. And very beautiful.
JACK: And you’d like it back.
VIVIAN: And I’d like it back.
JACK: What makes you think he hasn’t hocked the thing?
VIVIAN: Well—there’s a sort of legend attached to the Lucrezia Diamond. Apparently it once belonged to Lucrezia Borgia—
JACK: Italian dame, liked to bump off people who got in her way? Is it supposed to be cursed or something?
VIVIAN: No. At least not as far as I know. You can see, on the bottom of the diamond, that it used to be part of a necklace—supposedly, Lucrezia Borgia used to wear around her neck a whole chain of these diamonds, and it brought her good fortune. Or something like that—I don’t remember all of the details. Anyway, after she died, it was broken apart, and the individual pieces were sold all over the world. I suppose they’re each worth quite a lot—but if all of them could be recovered and reunited as one artefact, collectors would pay an almost unfathomable amount for them. And so, as I understand it, they’ve become a sort of holy grail for high-class criminals. Every con artist or jewel thief worth his salt dreams of becoming the person to track down all of the Lucrezia Diamonds. That’s what I’ve heard from the detectives who were working the case in New York, anyway.
JACK: And your husband was one of these unsavoury characters?
VIVIAN: I didn’t think so at first. Although I never did want to marry him. It was doomed to failure. His father and my father are businessmen in New York. They wanted to cement the merger of their two companies with the marriage of their offspring.
JACK: Sounds awfully feudal.
VIVIAN: Oh, it was. And Nicolas St Clair—my husband—was a feudal lord of the most brutish type. He ruled his demesne with a rod of iron. And that included me. Any love he’d had for me turned to loathing within a few months. His family is quite nouveau, and he himself is—well—not exactly charming—and people began to say, increasingly openly, that he’d married up—that he was lucky to have found me. This, of course, was only more fuel for the fire of his resentment. And then one night—he left to buy cigarettes, and never returned. He took with him the diamond, five hundred dollars from my wallet, and my dignity. The latter two are, I suspect, irrecoverable. But I would like the diamond returned to me. It has tremendous sentimental value.
JACK: Besides the fact that it doesn’t seem right to let a worm like that make off with a priceless heirloom. So he’s not what you’d call a career criminal?
VIVIAN: Oh, no. Just a failed businessman who turned to a life of crime. He was always embarking on schemes that went bust, and I suppose the idea of a scheme that could pay out so tremendously—a scheme for which he already had the first piece of the puzzle—was too tempting to resist.
JACK: And what makes you think he’s in Edmonton?
VIVIAN: I’ve been tracking him with the help of other private detectives across North America since he disappeared. It seems he discovered that one of the other diamonds is owned by a private collector here, and made his way to Edmonton in search of it.
JACK: Got it. All right, Mrs. St Clair, I’ll do my level best to find your husband and the necklace. Do you have a photo of him?
VIVIAN: Yes—here. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Will—will cash be all right, for your retainer?
JACK: Certainly.
SFX: Rustle of bills.
VIVIAN: Is that enough?
JACK: That’s plenty.
VIVIAN: Oh, Miss Cassidy, I can’t thank you enough.
SFX: Feet walking, door opening
JACK: Where can I reach you?
VIVIAN: At the Hotel MacDonald. Ask for Vivian St. Clair. Miss Vivian St Clair, I prefer to say now.
JACK: Of course. Good-bye, Miss St. Clair.
SFX: Feet walking, door opening and closing
EFFY: Well?
JACK: Well, what?
EFFY: Well, are you going to take her on?
JACK: What do you mean? I have taken her on.
EFFY: You think she’s on the level?
JACK: Sure, she’s on the level. Why wouldn’t she be on the level?
EFFY: I don’t know. I just—I just wasn’t sure about her.
JACK: Just because a dame has a fox fur and is dazzlingly beautiful and smokes cigarettes out of a cigarette-holder don’t mean she’s up to no good.
EFFY: You thought she was beautiful?
JACK: Well, you know, if you like that sort of thing.
EFFY: (moue) A little showy for my taste.
JACK: Your taste?
EFFY: My taste in clothing. I mean, if you’re just visiting a detective in Edmonton you don’t need to waltz in wearing faultless Vionnet.
JACK: Come on, Eff, she’s a fish out of water. A New York socialite tracking down her property in the middle of the prairies. Ease up a little, would ya?
EFFY: O.K., O.K. I promised I wouldn’t complain about customers as long as they paid up front. I’m sure she’ll be a model client. Anyway, lost Borgia diamonds! That’s even better than ghosts!
JACK: Effy!
EFFY: What?
JACK: You have got to stop listening at my door.
EFFY: What? And waste valuable time listening to you explain the case to me afterwards? No, thank you.
MFX: Transition
JACK: I would’ve vouched for Miss St. Clair being on the level any day, but Effy got me worked up enough that I wired a contact I had in New York, just to make sure. He confirmed what she’d told me: that Vivian St. Clair was a well-known New York heiress whose diamond had been stolen; that her ne’er-do-well husband was supposed to be involved, but his family were trying to hush that side of things up; and that there had been no sign of the necklace appearing on the black market or any other colour of market since its disappearance. He was also able to tell me something that Vivian hadn’t mentioned: the diamond had last been valued at a cool three million bucks.
MFX: Tag
JACK: I set out with the picture Miss St. Clair gave me and spent my afternoon flashing it before clerks and bellhops and landladies at hotels and boarding houses across the city. But I had to hop a streetcar across the river before I hit pay dirt. The first person to recognize him was the fellow behind the front desk of the Commercial Hotel in Strathcona. He was a grimy, greasy sort of specimen, which I assumed was as per hotel policy in order to conform to the aesthetic of the lobby.
CLERK: Hm. I dunno if I seen that guy. Maybe. Maybe not.
SFX: Clink of coins
CLERK: Lemme take a closer look. Yeah, sure, I seen that guy. He checked in here two days ago. Barely left his room ’cept to come down to the bar and drink us practically dry.
JACK: Did he ask to have anything placed in the hotel safe?
CLERK: We don’t have no hotel safe. But that’s funny, cause he asked if we did when he got here.
JACK: Yeah?
CLERK: Yeah. Bellyached about it too, when I said no we don’t.
JACK: What’s his room number?
CLERK: Lessee….302. But he won’t answer his door. He don’t even let housekeeping in, he ain’t going to open it for no private dick. Most likely he’ll be down in the bar pretty soon, though, ’s’gettin’ on for six o’ clock. You can stick around there, if you like.
MFX: Transition
JACK: I tipped the man handsomely and settled myself down in the bar to wait. The place was empty except for the barman, who was busy rubbing dirty glasses with a dirtier cloth. I sat down and ordered a whiskey and soda from him, before I suddenly realized he was somebody I knew.
HARRY: Hiya, Miss Cassidy! Good to see you again.
JACK: Well, if it isn’t my old pal Horse-Face Harry!
HARRY: Sh! It’s just plain old Harry Hoffman now. I’m tryin’ to go straight.
JACK: Shame. Horse-Face Harry has a nice ring to it. But I’m glad to see you’re not in the cooler.
HARRY: That opera singer dame agreed not to press charges, thanks to you. Hey, hold on—you can’t be in here.
JACK: Beg pardon?
HARRY: Ain’t no dames allowed in bars—leastways, not without an escort. Do you got a male escort?
JACK: Harry, shut your trap and get me a whiskey, would you?
HARRY: O.K. Sorry, Miss Cassidy. Say, are you looking for someone in this joint?
JACK: I am. This guy. Know him?
HARRY: Sure, I seen him around.
JACK: Know anything about a package he’s carrying around with him?
HARRY: Maybe. Is it something real valuable?
JACK: Maybe. What do you know?
HARRY: He was real sore about the fact that we don’t have a safe here at the hotel, and when he found that out he asked which way to the nearest train station, and then he walked out the door and came back half an hour later. I figger he’s storing whatever-it-is in a lockbox down there. (beat) Not that I been giving it too much thought. It don’t matter to me a bit where people keep or don’t keep their valuables.
JACK: Well, good thinking, anyway, Harry.
HARRY: Yeah. I ain’t really been fraternizing with him, on account of he’s obviously a crook, and I don’t swing with that crowd.
JACK: What makes you so sure he’s a crook?
HARRY: It’s obvious. Takes one to know one. Not that I am one. It’s like what they say about ducks.
JACK: About—?
HARRY: You know, a bird that honks like a duck—no, wait. If it has webbed feet, and it walks on those feet—hang on—if a duck can swim and fly, and I sees that duck swimming and flying and walking in a duck sorta way, then I says to myself—
NICK: Hey. Barman?
HARRY: Oh, sorry, mister. What can I getcha?
NICK: Scotch, neat. And be quick about it.
HARRY: Yessir, right away. (In an undertone, to JACK) See what I mean? Quack, quack.
JACK: (narrating) In the photograph Miss St Clair had shown me, her husband appeared to be a broad-shouldered, hulking specimen of a man, with a large jaw and hooded, sullen eyes. He’d certainly looked like he was much too brutish for his delicate, beautiful wife, but I’d allowed for the possibility that the camera is not always flattering. Now that he was sitting at a table in front of me, I saw that he was, if anything, even hulkinger and more brutish. His large chin was a little bluer and his sullen eyes a little more bloodshot, but otherwise the likeness I’d been carrying around with me was an excellent one.
NICK: Barman! Another one over here, pal!
HARRY: Comin’ up!
JACK: (Clears throat) Excuse me. Nicholas St. Clair?
NICK: You talkin’ to me?
JACK: Are you Nicholas St. Clair?
NICK: Who wants to know?
JACK: I’m here on behalf of an interested party—
NICK: You some kinda dick?
JACK: Well, yes.
NICK: A dick. (laughs) A lady dick. That’s a good one. And I’ll bet I know who this “interested party” is, too.
JACK: I was wondering if you—
SFX: (Screech of a chair being pushed back)
NICK: Listen here, pal. You can just head right on back to this interested party, and you can tell her from me I said to get lost. You can tell her if she doesn’t quit tailin’ me around P.D.Q. I’ll see she regrets it. Think you can remember all that?
JACK: What exactly d’you mean by “regrets it”?
NICK: Maybe you’d like a little preview.
HARRY: (perky) Here’s your scotch!
NICK: (growls) Forget it. Since when do you let two-bit gumshoes creep around this joint anyway? I’m out of here.
SFX: Retreating footsteps.
HARRY: Sorry I butted in, Miss Cassidy. I was getting real nervous about what a character like that might do to a lady like you.
JACK: Thanks, Harry, that’s real chivalrous of you. Well, I guess I’d better trot around to the train station. It’s right around here, isn’t it?
HARRY: Yeah. Just two blocks thataway, you can’t miss it.
JACK: Thanks.
HARRY: Oh, uh, Miss Cassidy? Maybe you better take this, um, key with you.
JACK: Key? “#36”—what’s this?
HARRY: I guess it must open one of those lockboxes at the station.
JACK: Where did you get this?!
HARRY: I found it.
JACK: When?
HARRY: About twenty seconds ago.
JACK: Where?
HARRY: (guilty) Uh…in that guy’s pocket.
JACK: (mock horror) Harry! You pickpocketed him? I thought you’d gone straight!
HARRY: Yeah, but he was sittin’ there bein’ so disrespectful to you, Miss Cassidy! Anyhow it don’t count as stealing if you steal things from crooks, right? I mean, that’s just common sense.
JACK: You got a telephone I can use?
HARRY: Sure. Just back through there.
SFX: Phone dialling
VOICE: (filter) Good afternoon, The Hotel MacDonald.
JACK: Hi there. Could you put me through to a Miss Vivian St. Clair?
VOICE: (filter) One moment please.
SFX: Dial tone
HARRY: Hey, did that duck guy steal whatever he’s got from somebody? You think there might be a reward for helpin’ find it?
VIVIAN: (filter) Hello?
JACK: Miss St. Clair? It’s me. Can you meet me at the Strathcona Canadian Pacific Railway Station in fifteen minutes? I think I might be onto something.
MFX: Transition
SFX: Busy train station background noise
JACK: That was quick.
VIVIAN: (breathless) I got here as fast as I could. Do you think it really is—?
JACK: Well, we can hope.
VIVIAN: Oh, Miss Cassidy, how can I ever repay you?
JACK: You already have repaid me, Miss St. Clair, in good Canadian dollars. And let’s hold off on the gratitude stuff til we make a hundred percent sure this is legit. We don’t know for sure this is where he stashed the thing.
VIVIAN: What else could it possibly be? I feel sure this is it! Number thirty-six, number thirty-six—here!
SFX: Key turning in a lock, little door opening. Vivian catches her breath
JACK: Well.
VIVIAN: I might have known it. I might have known he’d be one step ahead—
JACK: I’m awfully sorry I dragged you all the way out here for an empty box.
VIVIAN: No. No. That’s all right. I - (miserable) oh, God.
JACK: Listen, Miss St. Clair, this isn’t over. I know where he’s hiding out now—and I have a friend—a sort of a friend—who works there. I’ll do whatever it takes to track this ice down for you. I swear.
VIVIAN: Really?
JACK: Of course! (beat) Shall I—shall I call you a cab?
VIVIAN: Oh, I—I don’t think I can face being all alone in a hotel room just now.
JACK: Well—uh—well—why don’t you come back to my—office? We could…talk over the case. See if there’s any more useful information you can give me.
VIVIAN: Yes—yes, Miss Cassidy, I think that would be very nice.
MFX: Transition
SFX: Door opening
JACK: Well—have a seat.
VIVIAN: Thank you.
JACK: Can I offer you anything? Whiskey? Or, uh…(SFX: Drawers opening and shutting)…whiskey? Sorry, I’m not exactly set up to entertain…
VIVIAN: Whiskey would be very nice. Thank you.
SFX: Drinks being poured.
JACK: So. (clears throat) The case.
VIVIAN: Yes. The case. Er—Miss Cassidy—
JACK: Jack will be fine.
VIVIAN: Well—Jack, then—I really did want to thank you.
JACK: I haven’t accomplished a damn thing for you yet.
VIVIAN: I don’t mean for trying to help me recover the diamond. I mean for—really listening to me.
JACK: I’d be a pretty poor detective if I didn’t listen to my clients.
VIVIAN: Then I suppose most detectives must be pretty poor detectives. Jack—when I came into your office you treated me like a human being. Do you know what I mean? You didn’t—you didn’t say “Don’t worry, ma’am, there’s nothing to fret your pretty little head about,” or, “What kind of man would run from a beautiful dame like you?” or, “Of course, it’s natural for a woman to go to the ends of the earth for the sake of some jewellery.” Things like that.
JACK: If it’d put you more at ease I could try saying a few of those things now.
VIVIAN: You’re being flippant. But I mean it. When I walk into most PI’s offices I can feel them sizing me up—you know the way men do.
JACK: Men don’t usually size me up quite that way.
VIVIAN: No. I suppose not.
JACK: May I ask? Is that why you hired a woman detective in Edmonton?
VIVIAN: I didn’t know you were a woman when I came to your office. But I was glad to discover you were.
JACK: I’m sorry.
VIVIAN: For what?
JACK: Well, on behalf of my trade, I suppose. Can’t be easy, putting your case in the hands of so-called professionals who only want to think about how beautiful you are.
VIVIAN: Do you?
JACK: What?
VIVIAN: Do you think about how beautiful I am?
JACK: …I should hope I don’t waste time thinking about how beautiful any of my clients are. When there’s a case to be solved, I mean.
VIVIAN: You’re not very much like other women, are you?
JACK: I know long hair is back in fashion now, but I’m such good pals with everyone at the barbershop now I couldn’t break their hearts by growing mine out.
VIVIAN: I don’t just mean your hair.
JACK: Then I’m not quite sure what you do mean, Miss St. Clair.
VIVIAN: Vivian.
JACK: Vivian.
VIVIAN: I don’t mean any offence. I—I sometimes feel like I’m not quite like other women myself.
JACK: How so?
VIVIAN: I always—I always dreaded getting married. Even before I knew I was to marry that oaf—even when I was a little child, I felt that if I had to marry a man, something in me would—would die. I know that sounds silly—
JACK: No—
VIVIAN: I mean, I really have nothing to complain about. I’m more or less free of a marriage I never wanted—I’m still rich and still—well—beautiful. I have no reason to be dissatisfied with my life.
JACK: That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be.
VIVIAN: May I ask you a question, Jack? Do you dress—you know—the way you do—with the trousers, and the jacket and everything—purely in order to be taken more seriously in your profession?
JACK: Not really. If anything, it has the opposite effect.
VIVIAN: Then why do it?
JACK: Remember what I said about hurting the feelings of my barber? Well, if you think barbers are easily offended, you should meet my haberdasher—
VIVIAN: Jack, will you give me a serious answer to a serious question?
JACK: I don’t know if I have a good answer to your question. I dress this way because...
VIVIAN: Because?
JACK: Because it’s right.
VIVIAN: Right?
JACK: I don’t know how else to put it. I remember the first time I looked in the mirror after having my hair cropped and putting on men’s clothes and it was the first time I ever felt…true.
VIVIAN: You’re very brave.
JACK: Not really.
VIVIAN: You are. There’s no hypocrisy about you. (Quietly) I’ve never said or done anything that felt true in my life.
JACK: I’m sure you have.
VIVIAN: No.
JACK: Well, if what you’re doing right now doesn’t feel true, what would?
SFX: Kiss!
A longish one. I don’t know how long kisses can last in an audio medium before it’s just gross squelching.
JACK: Vivian, I—
VIVIAN: Shh.
More kissing, until—
SFX: Door opening
EFFY: Oh! I’m sorry.
JACK: Effy!
VIVIAN: Oh!
EFFY: It was unlocked, so I just—I wanted to pick up some files—
JACK: Oh—Eff, I—
EFFY: But, you know what, they’re really not that important. I’d better be going—
JACK: Effy, wait, stop—
EFFY: No, no, it’s late. I don’t want to miss the last streetcar home—
JACK: Listen—
EFFY: I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to barge in—
JACK: Effy!
SFX: Door slam
Ad break!
ANNOUNCER: The thrilling adventures of Jack Cassidy will return in a moment. But first, we’d like to share some important information with you. Located right on Whyte ave and just off Gateway is a historic building that houses dozens of local Albertan artists. The Old Strathcona Arts Emporium is a space that welcomes anyone who wants to showcase their art with affordable rates and retail support. Inside you will find that it has become home to painters, photographers, crafters, jewelers, furniture artists, upcyclers, and makers of all kinds. Within the first 60 days of being open, 50 artists have signed up to be a part of this market-style, open-6-days-a-week Emporium - and more sign up everyday. It is a magical place. The artists that sign up can feel it right when they walk in, and, folks, they can’t wait to share that magic with you. There is truly something for everyone in the Old Strathcona Arts Emporium and new artists move in every Monday! See you there soon! We now return you to the episode in progress: No Wit, No Help Like A Dame’s!
SFX: (typewriter in the background)
EFFY: (stiffly) Oh, good morning, Jack.
JACK: (ditto) Good morning, Effy.
JACK: (Narrating) The atmosphere when I arrived in the office the next morning was—as I probably could have anticipated—somewhat strained.
JACK: Any messages come in for me?
EFFY: No. No messages.
JACK: O.K. Well. I’ll, uh, be in my office.
EFFY: O.K.
JACK: O.K.
SFX: Door shuts. Typewriter is silenced. Jack sighs heavily. Door opens. Typewriter resumes
JACK: Say, Effy—
EFFY: (stiffly) Yes, can I help you?
JACK: Uh….no, never mind.
SFX: Door shuts. Typewriter is silenced. Dialling phone, then ringing.
VOICE: (filter) Good morning. The Hotel MacDonald.
JACK: Good morning. I was hoping to speak to, uh, Miss St. Clair?
VOICE: (filter) Certainly. Just one moment.
SFX: Dial tone
VOICE: (filter) I’m sorry, ma’am, Miss St. Clair is not in her room. Would you like to leave a message?
JACK: Yeah, uh, just say that Jack Cassidy called, and will call again. Thanks.
SFX: Hang up.
Pause. JACK takes a deep breath, then—
SFX: Door opening
JACK: Hey, Eff?
EFFY: (still chilly) Yes?
JACK: I, uh, I was just wondering if I could ask your advice about this case.
EFFY: (ditto) I don’t know if I’d be much help to you. I’m just a secretary.
JACK: C’mon, Eff. Are you sore at me?
EFFY: Why would I be sore at you?
JACK: I’m sure I don’t know. Disturbed, maybe, but not sore.
EFFY: I’m not disturbed! And I’m not sore either. At least I don’t think I am. Actually, I guess—
JACK: What?
EFFY: I guess. I guess I should apologize—for barging in last night—
JACK: No! No. No need to apologize.
EFFY: We’ve never really talked about—
JACK: No.
EFFY: I mean, I talk about my boyfriends—
JACK: Yes.
EFFY: But I’ve never wanted to enquire—
JACK: Sure.
EFFY: And—and it’s not any of my business, but—I just—think you should be careful.
JACK: (bristling very slightly) Careful?
EFFY: I don’t mean in general. I just mean—with Miss St. Clair.
JACK: What is it exactly about Miss St. Clair that you don’t like?
EFFY: I don’t know. I can’t explain it.
JACK: Try.
EFFY: I—don’t trust her, somehow.
JACK: Women’s intuition?
EFFY: Something like that. I don’t know. I just—when I walked in last night—and saw you, and—well—I don’t understand why, but I—I—
JACK: Well?
EFFY: I didn’t—like it.
JACK: (cold) I think I understand why.
EFFY: No, I—
JACK: Just try to put it from your mind. I’ll keep my personal life personal and you never need to think about it again, agreed?
EFFY: Jack—
SFX: Phone ringing
EFFY: (audibly wretched) Jack Cassidy Detective Agency. (beat) It’s Miss St. Clair. For you.
JACK: Hello?
VIVIAN: (filter, distressed) Jack! Jack, is that you?
JACK: Yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?
VIVIAN: Oh, Jack, please, you have to help me. He’s coming—he’s coming for me, and I don’t know what to do—
JACK: Your husband’s coming? Where are you now?
VIVIAN: I’m still at the Hotel MacDonald. Come, please, come at once—please, I think he might even want to kill—(she screams, and the line goes dead)
EFFY: What is it? What’s wrong?
JACK: Miss St. Clair’s in trouble. Call up McGregor—send him down to the Mac. You stay here, and if she calls back, tell her I’m on my way.
MFX: Transition
SFX: Knock knock knock
JACK: Miss St. Clair? Vivian? Are you in there?
VIVIAN: (muffled) Yes—oh, Jack—
JACK: I’m coming in, all right?
SFX: Door opening
JACK: Vivian? There you are! What’s the matter?
VIVIAN: Jack—I’m so sorry—
JACK: Sorry for wh—
SFX: Wham
JACK: (narrating) The next thing I knew the door had slammed shut behind me, and something big and heavy had cracked down on my head. With the benefit of hindsight it was most likely some kind of blackjack, but I didn’t have much time to mull it over then, because it was being used just as God intended blackjacks to be used, and knocked me unconscious.
MFX: Sting
JACK: (narrating) When I came around I found myself bound hand and foot on the very nice Hotel MacDonald carpet. The first thing I registered was the small, solid-looking lockbox sitting on an end table nearby, which I could only assume held the Lucrezia Diamond. But the second thing I saw distracted me from that prettily handily. There were two figures standing over me. The first was Vivian St Clair—and the second was her looming, lumbering husband, Nicholas. Both of them were holding heaters, and both those heaters were pointed directly at my face.
NICK: (gloating) Well, if it ain’t my old friend from the Commercial. Real nice of ya to drop by.
JACK: Miss St. Clair, what—
NICK: Miss St. Clair! Miss St. Clair, the dame calls you! Hah! You put it over on her but good, didn’t ya!
VIVIAN: Nick, shut up. Jack, I really am sorry about this—
JACK: Yeah, that roscoe you’re sticking at my snoot looks mighty apologetic. Were you in this together the whole time?
NICK: Of course!
VIVIAN: No.
NICK: Well, we had a bit of a short falling-out, as you might say. But my dame knows which side her bread is buttered on, don’t she? Once she realized the only way to get her mitts on the ice here (SFX: a diamond rattling in a metal box) was to come crawlin’ back into my good graces, well, missy detective, she came a-crawlin.
JACK: I don’t understand. I thought you were trying to get away from her.
NICK: Oh, sure, yeah, of course! Tryin’ to escape her terrible marriage, naturally! Ha, ha!
VIVIAN: Shove it, Nick.
NICK: Oh, baby-doll, what the hell does it matter what we say to her, huh? She’ll be dead in a few minutes anyway.
JACK: Why kill me? Why not just skip town with the diamond?
NICK: (beginning to slur his words very slightly) Well, seems my ever-lovin’ kitten here spilled a few too many beans to you yesterday in the hopes of getting her mitts on me, and it wouldn’t be so hotsy-totsy to have you spill all those same beans to the coppers, would it? (increasingly slurred) Nah. You know too much. It won’t take too much extra time to blow your brains out before we catch the first train out of this grease spot of a city. By the time the cops arrive, we’ll be…we’ll be long gone. (coughs) Long gone.
VIVIAN: Are you all right, honey?
NICK: Yeah…yeah. I’m just feelin’ a little…a little, uh…
SFX: Thud
JACK: Is he…unconscious?
VIVIAN: Oh, Jack! Jack, my darling, are you all right?
JACK: Vivian, d’you mind telling me what the hell is going on?
VIVIAN: Well, I had to play along! I had to make him think I had been swayed by his offer of reconciliation! He arrived at the hotel room and said he was willing to let bygones be bygones and come back to me, if I joined him in his life of crime to find the rest of the diamonds! And when he insisted we had to murder you in order to get away safely, what could I do?
JACK: Seems to be there’s quite a number of things you could have done before you let him—wait a minute. Did you drug him?
VIVIAN: Of course! I told him I quite saw his way of thinking, I told him I missed him and loved him desperately, and then I offered him a drink into which I had deposited a—how would you say it, in the parlance of your profession? A “Mickey Finn”?
JACK: You cut it a little close, it seems to me.
VIVIAN: It was all I could think to do. I would never have really let him shoot you! Are you all right? You’re bleeding!
JACK: I’ll survive. (grunts)
VIVIAN: Don’t try to sit up! You might have a concussion.
JACK: I had my secretary ring the police after I got your call. Sergeant McGregor and his men will be here any minute—I should be in the lobby to meet em—
VIVIAN: Nonsense. You stay right here and I’ll go down and send them up to this room.
JACK: But—
VIVIAN: Jack! How many fingers am I holding up?
JACK: Um…several?
VIVIAN: Lie here and look at the ceiling and don’t move. I’ll be back in just a moment.
SFX: (retreating footsteps, and door closing)
JACK: (mumbling to herself) Atta girl, Jack, just stride straight into the room without looking around for danger. I fear no man’s blackjack when a woman in distress places herself in my protection…idiot…
SFX: (door opening)
McGREGOR: Jack!
JACK: Sarge! That was awfully quick.
McGREGOR: Are you all right?
JACK: Never better, sir. Just testing the quality of this carpeting. (grunts) Hey—where’s Miss St. Clair?
McGREGOR: Miss who?
JACK: Young woman in a fox fur and an expensive hat? She said she was going to meet you in the lobby.
McGREGOR: Red-haired doll?
JACK: Yeah.
McGREGOR: We passed her on our way into the hotel, going out.
JACK: …What? Are you sure?
McGREGOR: Yeah. Seemed in quite a hurry, too. Skedaddled down the steps and practically threw herself into a taxi. What’s wrong? Whoa, easy, Jack! Don’t try to stand, you’re not steady on your feet—
JACK: The box—
McGREGOR: Eh?
JACK: There was a box, a grey metal box, here on this end table—
McGREGOR: Grey box? She had that under her arm.
JACK: Dammit!
McGREGOR: Jack, what’s going on?
JACK: (bitter) It’s a bit of a long story, Sergeant, and one in which I don’t come off very well. That fellow there can give you a clearer explanation than I can, most probably, when he comes around. You’ll probably want to cuff him before he does, though.
McGREGOR: Uh….I don’t think there’s any need to cuff this particular specimen, Jack.
JACK: What? Is he—
McGREGOR: Dead as a doornail. What happened?
JACK: (sighs) He was poisoned, Sarge. Poisoned by that same dame you saw skedaddling down the stairs and into a taxi.
MFX: Transition
SFX: Door opening
EFFY: Jack! You’re not supposed to be back at the office. The doctor said not to do any work for at least four days, or until you stop seeing two of everything, whichever comes first. I said I’d field all your calls until then.
JACK: Well, it’s been two days and I’m down to seeing about one and a quarter of everything. And I’m not here to work. I’m here to celebrate.
EFFY: Celebrate what? I thought the St. Clair case went horribly.
JACK: Oh, it did. I’m not celebrating that. I’m celebrating having the best possible secretary with the finest-tuned intuition a detective could ask for.
SFX: Pop
EFFY: Champagne? Jack! What’s going on? Are you still concussed?
JACK: Nope. Just grateful. You were right and I was wrong and I’m woman enough to admit it. And woman enough to spend a whole dollar and thirty-five cents on making it up to you.
EFFY: But we don’t know for certain that Miss St. Clair was a bad egg. Maybe she just—panicked and fled.
JACK: You’re right. We don’t know for certain that Miss St Clair was a bad egg. We don’t know anything for certain about Miss St. Clair—because we’ve never met Miss St. Clair.
EFFY: Huh?
JACK: I had another wire from my contact in New York. He said that Vivian St. Clair hasn’t left Manhattan since the diamond disappeared, and that her husband turned up, contrite and embarrassed, a few days after he ran out on her. He also said that police now believe the diamond was taken by a small group of known career criminals. When I wired him back asking for descriptions, he said one of them is a big hulking brute of a man with a large chin, and another is a beautiful and notorious confidence woman with red hair.
EFFY: Gosh!
JACK: “Gosh” is right.
EFFY: So the whole thing was hooey?
JACK: Well, it was probably true that she’d tracked her erstwhile accomplice to Edmonton, and wanted my help sniffing him out. But the rest was hooey. My contact said he’d heard that our “Vivian” and “Nick” had some kinda falling out, and he lit out for the prairies without her. I guess once she tracked him here and realized she couldn’t steal the diamond away from him she worked her feminine wiles on him until he agreed to patch things up. And then she figured it would be prudent if he happened to croak and leave her the ice.
EFFY: D’you know their real names?
JACK: The gentleman we knew as Mr. St. Clair apparently goes by the colourful moniker of “Chicago Ed.” But Vivian, it seems, has had several dozen aliases over the years.
EFFY: Well, even if I guessed she was bad news, I must admit I never guessed any of this. I can’t even explain why I didn’t care for her.
JACK: Intuition, of course. But your intuition was faultless, and I’m sorry I thought it was anything else. Champagne?
EFFY: Jack! You’re so sweet. Thank you.
SFX: Pouring
JACK: Skin off your nose.
EFFY: Mud in your eye. Um—Jack—
JACK: Yeah?
EFFY: Are you…?
JACK: What?
EFFY: Well, I just. I know it’s upsetting, when you’re fond of a….client, and then it turns out that that…client…was maybe not such a good client, after all—
JACK: Effy—
EFFY: So, you know, if you’d ever like to, uh, talk about it—
JACK: Nope.
EFFY: Nope?
JACK: Nope.
EFFY: O.K.
JACK: O.K. So.
EFFY: So. Success to crime!
JACK: Success to crime! Cheers!
EFFY: Cheers!
SFX: Clink