Tom Hoke - Murder in the Grand Manor

Jim Smith knew this was going to be a memorable trip when his headlights picked out the figure of a woman talking animatedly to a palmetto during a driving rain storm. Peering through the blur of water on his windshield, he found himself staring at gold opera pumps, a dripping outer garment of some shiny material hanging nearly to the ground, and two hats stuck squarely one upon the other on her head.

Suddenly she turned, waved a gloved fist at his lights, and disappeared around the left side of the building.

In disbelief, he nosed the rental car closer to the looming building and a neon sign spelled out G R A D M A O R, with enough space to allow for the true name, which according to his directions, could only be Grand Manor. Three stories high, all but Murder In The Grand Manor obscured by dark, wet foliage, the hotel appeared scarcely grand and by no means a manor.

The attendant in the gas station back up the road had warned him. The attendant had showed some surprise when Jim asked how to find the Grand Manor Hotel. "That place is dead, even if it's still running. You won't like it." He started talking about a new casino hotel. "Look", Jim cut him off, "I want the Grand Manor. You DO know where it is?"

Out of sheer curiosity, Jim added, "What's the matter with the Grand Manor?"

The attendant shrugged. "It used to be the town meeting place a few years ago.

Everybody stopped at the bar sometime during the day. A guy always knew what was going on in town then. You know, Rotary Club, Lions Club, and Garden Club luncheons, that sort of thing. And the bar always had at least a dozen people in it." He shook his head. "They put in a new bridge and a higher road separating the town from the old hotel. I guess that was the end. Nobody goes there no more."

Then he waxed philosophical, "The town fell apart in a way. Since it got divorced from the Grand Manor, Bay St. Louis ain't the same, just a bunch of houses scattered around. Without a central meeting place, there's nothing to hold the town together." He looked at Jim Murder In The Grand Manor curiously. "You got a friend staying there?" he asked.

Jim turned up his raincoat collar. "No," he said quite truthfully. "I don't have a friend staying there." Jerry Duprey was no friend of his, especially after this morning. However, a thousand bucks said he had to find Duprey and take him back to Fort Worth, Texas. Most of all, he wanted a word or two with Jerry Duprey.

Jim took a deep breath and slammed the car door as he ran for the unappealing entrance, shoes crunching on the crushed shell of the driveway. A single naked street light threw waving shadows of heavy Spanish moss in continuous motion across the face of the building. A wet strand dangling eerily from a long branch of an enormous live oak tree brushed his head. Ancient the Grand Manor might be, but dry it looked, and nothing else mattered at the moment.

The building must have been a hundred or more years old. There was a vestibule between the lobby and the cracked sidewalk outside.

The vestibule was only three feet deep and as long as the inside lobby, with a ragged carpet and not one single stick of furniture for embellishment. The length of the vestibule had casement windows one could hardly see Murder In The Grand Manor through, which had nothing to do with the rain. The dampness and a strong smell of mildew hit him as he grabbed open the outside door. He could see through windows in the inner door. A wobbly ceiling fan turned jerkily as it dangled precariously from a ten foot ceiling. Several rickety floor lamps offered the lighting arrangement for the lobby.

Amazingly, just as he opened the outer door, a fat bellboy in a white coat a size too small, opened the inner door Jim was peering through as if on schedule. He glanced at Jim with little interest. His "You want a room?" nearly inspired Jim to an equally idiotic answer. He came within an ace of announcing he was looking for a fourth at bridge. Instead, Jim nodded shortly, his eyes running past the excess of rattan furniture to a desk in the right corner, and the key holding wooden cubbyholes. The desk was presided over by an anemic little guy with a triangular head and thick rimmed glasses. Straight ahead were a couple of French doors marked Dining Room.

Another sign announced: Closed. He was glad he wasn't hungry.

Jim sloshed over to the desk. "Do you?" he began, but the desk clerk interrupted with a nod. "Single and a bath down the hall, eighty dollars a day." His pasty face was expressionless.

Before Jim could come up with an appropriate response, a whistle split the damp atmosphere of the lobby, and came close to splitting his eardrums. He wheeled, as well as one can wheel in wet shoes. In the left corner of the room dripped the female he had seen chatting with the palmetto. She stood under a small, neat sign which made lots of sense: BAR. The sign cheered his heart, but he braced as she again stuck two fingers in her mouth and blasted the air. This time she punctuated the whistle with a bellow, "Annie! You have a visitor. Come on down and see who's here!" she yelled, staring at Jim across the lobby.

The desk clerk drew in his breath audibly. The fat one picked up a newspaper and challenged the bottom of a wicker chair with his weight.

A dripping female strolled toward Jim unbuttoning her coat, without disturbing the balance of her two hats. One was pink and one was purple, as he could see now. They were somewhat the worse for water. She pulled off the coat, and he gave it a triple take. It was real mink, very good but somewhat old minkinside, that is. The shiny stuff he had noted earlier was the lining. Mink in the middle of the summer on the Gulf Coat is head shrink material. Wrong side out, full length mink, anywhere, would have sent a reputable psychiatrist to the funny farm.

The woman was on a collision course with him, and Jim felt she might have walked through him if a skittering on the stairs hadn't stopped her. He followed her eyes to the staircase. Beside an antique cage elevator marked Out of Order, a small, white haired woman dressed in lime Capri pants and a maroon BS letter sweater, descended with all the dignity of the Queen Mother. She nodded regally three times as she hit the bottom step: once to the desk clerk, once to Jim, and once to the gal with the hats. The fat character didn't look up from his paper, so his presence was not acknowledged.

"Annie!" The lady in the hats shouted. "This is your nephew, Charlie! Put on your glasses!"

From somewhere in the recesses of her ample bosom, which was difficult to reach through the top of the letter sweater, Annie drew out a pair of pince-nez glasses on a purple cord, carefully adjusted them and moved closer to Jim. To his astonishment, she smiled broadly.

"Why, it IS Charlie! How wonderful my dear boy!" She gave her friend a quizzical look, grabbed Jim by both arms, stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss in the region of his chin.

Jim felt the whole bit was getting out of hand, especially the appellation "boy". Thirty five summers and winters told him he was no Murder In The Grand Manor "boy", and neither was she his aunt. He leaned back weakly against the desk and inadvertently rested an elbow on the bell. This brought the fat bellboy from behind his paper.

Aunt Annie's next words proved interesting.

"Mr. Leddon," she said imperiously, "Please open up the room next to mine for my nephewthe thirty dollar one with the shower. I shall want him near me, of course."

The desk clerk with the triangular face looked at the wet one trailing the wet mink, and then at Aunt Annie. He said a little too heartily, "Of course, Miss Gary, right away." He stared at Jim dubiously, realizing he had lost the game.