Script for Scandal by Renee Patrick

Author:Renee Patrick [Renee Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2019-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

My traitorous shoelace had come undone again. I tied it with a double knot stout enough to support a ship’s anchor, visualizing Bette Davis rolling those oh-so-expressive eyes, as I waited for Edith outside her office.

‘There you are!’ She beetled in, fussing with her hairpins. ‘I must have missed you.’

‘That’s OK. I ran into everyone else. Did you see Bill?’

‘Bill? Ihnen? Is he here?’ She checked her hairpins again. ‘I didn’t see him, either. Now. What’s going on?’

I told Edith about my fateful evening. She expressed sympathy over my ordeal. ‘A dexterous piece of deception on Sylvia’s part. She not only knew what pages she could pass off as her own without discovery, but developed sufficient acumen to offer Mr Dolan suggestions on Streetlight Story’s script.’

‘Suggestions he actually took,’ I said in wonder. ‘Do you buy Gene’s notion of why she’d do it?’

‘Given Mr Fentress told the authorities Miss Ward was his mistress, it’s entirely plausible.’ The telephone interrupted her. She uttered a string of crisp syllables into the receiver, then set it down. ‘I have a thought about one aspect of this matter. I’ll elaborate after a trip to the workroom. Care to come along?’

Not one of the dozen or so heads bent over sewing machines looked up when Edith entered the expansive workroom. But somehow those machines thrummed faster, the seamstresses operating them instinctively sensing their boss’s arrival. Edith strode over to a shapely dress form, the gown draped upon it familiar yet foreign.

‘Is that Brenda’s dress for the nightclub scene?’ I asked over the machines’ murmur.

‘We reused the original skirt. The production may have a higher budget, but that’s no cause to waste the studio’s money.’

Atop the long skirt of soft black crepe, the newly constructed bodice shimmered in pale pink beading with darker bands on the collar and sleeves. The height of elegance, the dress guaranteed all eyes would be on Brenda well before Luddy called ‘Action’.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I breathed.

‘Presentable, perhaps. With a few alterations.’ After exchanging sentences in Spanish with a nearby seamstress, Edith patted her shoulder in commendation. The woman’s evident pride nearly bore her aloft.

A sight across the workroom made Edith blanch. To my amazement, I heard her curse under her breath before she sprinted toward a woman who appeared to be proffering a box of chocolates to a pair of seamstresses.

Unable to resist, I trailed after Edith.

My first surprise came when I recognized the mystery woman as Paulette Goddard. The raven-haired actress had made an impression as the barefoot waif who wins Charlie Chaplin’s heart in Modern Times – and another when she pulled off the trick in real life. The exact nature of the cohabitating couple’s relationship remained an enigma; the gossip columns regularly speculated on whether Chaplin and Goddard were in fact married, and if so when and where the ceremony had been performed. Land or sea? Catalina or China? There was certainly an Oriental influence on Goddard’s bewitching silk shantung dress in navy and rose, the navy bolero jacket trimmed in rose braid.

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