Murder Your Darlings Read Free Page A

lobby, Luigi looked right at Faulkner and pointed him out to the other men. The policemen moved forward. Frank Case and Luigi followed.
    Dorothy didn’t like the belligerent look in the detective’s dull gray eyes.
    “You,” the detective barked at Faulkner. “What’s your name?”
    Faulkner trembled. “William—”
    “Dachshund,” Dorothy said.
    “William Dachshund ?” the detective said, shouldering his way past Benchley and Sherwood. “A German, are you? I’m not surprised.”
    Dorothy said, “And you are?”
    She noticed that the heavyset detective seemed to have no eyebrows. It gave the man an appearance of constant alarm. His small, almost clownlike derby hat seemed about to tumble at any moment from his big head.
    He looked down at her as if just noticing her. “Detective O’Rannigan.”
    “Orangutan?” Benchley muttered. “A monkey, are you?”
    “What was that?” he spat.
    Benchley merely smiled innocently.
    Sherwood addressed the hotel manager. “What’s this all about, Frank?”
    Now Woollcott reappeared, still agitated. “Yes, what the devil is this all about?”
    It took a lot to disrupt the sangfroid of a hotelier such as Frank Case. He attempted his usual calm demeanor, but not entirely convincingly.
    “Oh, it’s nothing much,” Case said, rocking back on his heels. “A little matter of a dead man in the dining room. Your waiter, Luigi, found him under your celebrated Round Table.”
    Benchley, as if reading Dorothy’s mind, said, “You think it was something he ate, Frank?”
    Case frowned at him.
    “Not a chance,” O’Rannigan said in all seriousness. “It was murder. He was stabbed.”
    “Stabbed?” Woollcott said. “In the middle of the Algonquin dining room?”
    “Stabbed through the heart,” the detective said.
    “Just a minute,” Sherwood said. “Was this someone from our circle?”
    Frank Case shook his head.
    “That ain’t the half of it. He was stabbed,” O’Rannigan grumbled emphatically, “with a fountain pen.”
    Benchley looked to Dorothy. “Mightier than the sword, indeed.”
    She replied, “He took his writing a little too close to heart.”
    “Shut up, wiseacres,” the detective said. Then he jerked a thumb at Luigi. “Here’s the good part. The waiter here says he saw your Mr. Dachshund loitering suspiciously in the lobby late this morning.”
    Luigi hunched his shoulders innocently. Dorothy patted his arm as if to say not to worry.
    “You can’t blame the wop for squealing,” the detective said, then turned to Faulkner. “As for you, Dachshund, don’t move from that spot. We need to have a little talk with you.”

Chapter 2
    The detective and uniformed officers moved away, with Case and the waiter following. As soon as they were out of earshot, Dorothy grabbed Faulkner’s sleeve.
    “Let’s get him out of here,” she said to Benchley.
    “Okay,” Benchley said. “Why?”
    “We have to hide him,” she said, “so he’ll be safe.”
    “Well,” Benchley said, “there’s the matinee of Ziegfeld’s Hotsy-Totsy Hootenanny! , which is playing to an empty house. You can bet no one will see him there.”
    She turned to Faulkner. “Come on, Billy. I live here at the Algonquin. I have a suite upstairs. You can hide out there.”
    “Hide?” Faulkner said. “But I haven’t done anything.”
    “That didn’t stop them from arresting Sacco and Vanzetti,” she said.
    “Those two are accused of being anarchists and common criminals,” Woollcott said, eyeing Faulkner. “Is Mr. Dachshund an anarchist or a common criminal?”
    Faulkner stepped forward with an eager smile. “I’m a writer as well as a tremendous fan of yours, Mr. Woollcoat.”
    Woollcott’s mouth puckered. “ What did you just call me?”
    Faulkner’s smile faltered. “Mr. Wool”—he glanced at Benchley—“ coat ?”
    “It’s Wooll cott , you cotton-mouthed country bumpkin.” His furious nasal voice made it sound almost like wool-cut . “Where’s the