Chapter Six
Maddie Ellis and the Malibu Movie Colony is an old-fashioned mystery serial set during the end of the silent movie era. In chapter 6, writer Maddie Ellis puts the unsettling events of the previous night’s break-in behind her, and with her new friend, film director Milo Devlin, explores a different side of the Malibu Colony that is her new home. But just because the sun is shining and the beach is filled with life and color doesn’t mean that something sinister isn’t happening in this remote and exclusive community. Join us as we travel back in time to January 1928.
Inside the house it was cool and quiet. Outside, it was now hot and bright. People laughed, children shrieked, a phonograph provided a tinny counterpoint. Maddie tried to picture the London flat she had left behind less than a month ago, with the frost on the window and the radiator grumbling, but all she could see was the hot, sunny beach stretching before her, a summer day in January.
Maddie knew she should finish unpacking and get to work on her first draft of the revised screenplay. She was here to fix the script for the Sands of Afar. The mystery of who had broken into the beach house in the night was an unwelcome distraction. However, when Milo invited her to join him for a walk she readily agreed.
“I’ll take you to meet Louise and Hal,” Milo volunteered. “You’ll like them, and we can ask them about the burglaries.”
The beach that had been so ominously shrouded in fog and darkness just a few hours before now bustled with people, lounging on the sand and paddled in the water. Brightly-colored umbrellas blossomed all over the shore like an improbable garden of oversized flowers. As they made their way along the crowded shore, Milo introduced Maddie to everyone he knew. She tried to keep track, but so many of the people she met looked so much alike. Everyone was fit. Everyone was young, or trying to look that way.
“They can’t all have houses here,” Maddie said. “Can they?”
“The ones who do all have house parties when the weather is nice,” Milo said. “This is the first sunny weekend of the new year, so everyone is out in force today. Don’t worry, it isn’t like this during the week. Not in the winter. But you do have to expect a zoo on the weekends.”
“That’s good to know,” Maddie said, relieved.
“It looks like Louise is at home,” Milo pointed to an unpainted shack of a house. The windows and front door were open. Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” poured forth, competing with the music coming from the beach.
Milo led his way confidently to the gate. It was decorated with a life preserver that had “Hal-Louise” stenciled on it in red paint.
“Louise?” Milo called to the open door. “Do you have a moment? It’s Milo Devlin. I want you to meet someone.”
“Come in!” a voice caroled back.
The inside of the shanty was delightful. There was a big, open fireplace with sea shells on the mantelpiece. Not the exotic kind purchased from a gallery, but treasures from the beach outside the door: abalone shells with melting rainbow colors, wavy turban shells with glimmers of mother of pearl on their weathered exteriors, a huge clamshell the size of a desert plate, and a dish of sea stones worn, smooth, and round. The furniture was made of wicker, with overstuffed cushions patterned with sailing ships and seagulls in blue and white. Rugs woven out of sea grass covered a floor made out of wide pine planks. The famous comedienne sat in the middle of the floor. She was wearing a turquoise-striped kimono over pink silk beach pajamas, and turning the crank of an ice cream maker under the watchful gaze of a terrier puppy.
Louise had graduated from playing endearing airheads to more matronly roles, although she was only in her early thirties. She made a charming picture with the pup and the bright colors and her expression of amused delight. Maddie liked her at once. Here was someone who was a real person, a kind person, someone with character and a sense of humor.
I can’t get up,” she told them, laughing. “The ice cream will melt if I stop for even a moment, but please come in and make yourselves at home.”
Milo made the introductions. The puppy waddled over, stubby tail wagging. Maddie knelt down to greet it.
“That’s Tad, short for Tadpole,” Louise told her. “Don’t believe his innocent looks. He’s a scoundrel.”
“He’s a dear,” Maddie said. The pup turned his attention to Milo’s bare toes.
“Ow! I need those, friend,” Milo told the pup, trying to gently extricate his foot from the pup’s sharp teeth without overbalancing. He had set his cane down when they entered the house and was clearly at a disadvantage.
Maddie scooped up the pup and redirected him back towards Louise.
“Come here, Tad, leave them alone,” Louise said, gathering him into her lap with one hand. “Sorry, Maddie, Milo, he’ll chew on anything he can get those shark teeth into.”
“What flavor is the ice cream?” Milo asked, after cautiously moving away.
“Raspberry!” Louise said. “It’s going to be good, too, if it ever freezes. Come to supper tonight and have some—both of you—five o’clock. It’s just fried chicken and salad, nothing fancy, but you’ll have a chance to meet some of the neighbors. Everyone stops in on Saturday nights. Be an angel, Milo, and change the record before you go?”
Milo switched “Blue Skies” for “See You in My Dreams.” They thanked Louise and left her cranking the ice cream with one hand and holding the puppy with the other, while the sound of Ray Miller and his orchestra filled the air. This was clearly not the time to discuss burglary.
No one was home at Neil Hamilton’s place, but Milo said that the trim sailboat anchored off shore belonged to him and that he would probably be at Louise’s for supper.
“She wasn’t kidding,” Milo said. “Everyone really does show up. It’s the only decent food in the whole place.”
Leon Verlaine wasn’t at home either, but his valet, an older Englishman who would have made a splendid stage butler, assured them that he would be there that evening.
Maddie and Milo made their way back down the beach, picking their way through the mob of beachgoers. Milo introduced her to the actor Monte Blue, but he was in pursuit of his daughter—a tiny tot of two or three who was shrieking with glee and running towards the water as fast as her short legs would carry her. They stopped to say hello to Maddie’s friend Alan Dwan, who was also out for a morning walk, and Maddie also got her first look at the sport of surfing. There were three men out at the surf break near the pier waiting for waves. A fourth was riding the swell in a straight line towards the shore with seemingly effortless grace. Maddie suspected that it was far harder than it looked, but the sight delighted her.
The beach was so crowded now that she was glad to turn her back on it. She said goodbye to her genial escort and headed for home. As she unlocked the door the phonograph on the beach was blaring “The Best Things in Life Are Free.”
“If only they were,” Maddie said to the suit of armor as she stepped inside the cool, still room and shut the door on the sun, the glare, and the blare. She made herself a sandwich, brought it upstairs with her and ate it as she unpacked her faithful Remington typewriter.
It didn’t take long to arrange her desk to her satisfaction. Blank paper in its box on one side of the typewriter, a tray for finished pages on the other, a battered inkwell and pen tray patterned with Chinese dragons, a new notebook for jotting down anything that needed to be jotted, an old one with her notes on the screenplay she was tasked with rewriting, and a little Egyptian cat statue, purchased in the suq in Luxor, Egypt, for luck and company. The only sounds she heard for the next couple of hours was the clacking of the typewriter keys, punctuated with the bell-like “ting” when she reached the end of the line of type.
By four o’clock she had her first round of revisions for The Sands of Afar laid out in black and white, and she had also typed up the events of the break-in. She took the newly-typed pages and prudently stuck them at the bottom of the box of typing paper, with the blank pages on top. She didn’t like how easy it was for people to break into the house.
Maddie stretched. She must see about getting a more comfortable chair. A quick shower in the lavishly baroque bathroom revived her. The sun was low now. Maddie slipped into an elegant persimmon-colored dress, added a long string of beads—they were only glass, but Maddie loved them for their apple-green color—and pulled on a sleek black jacket of Chinese silk. A breeze was blowing in from the sea and the air was much cooler. Bright red lipstick and a beaded hairband made to look like a spray of green leaves completed her ensemble. She doubted that people dressed formally for supper on the beach, but she would rather be overdressed than underdressed. There wasn’t any point in ruining a good pair of shoes traipsing along the shore. She opted for the little fabric sand shoes she had purchased at the same time she acquired her swimsuit.
Milo arrived a few minutes before five. He had added a sweater to his attire but was still barefoot and had neither a hat nor a tie. They walked up the beach together in the light of the fading sunset. The sky was as orange as Maddie’s dress, and the water as dark as tarnished silver. Maddie paused once more to admire the Hamiltons’ yacht riding at anchor.
“They’ll be at the party,” Milo told her.
“Who owns that one?” Maddie asked, pointing to a second, larger yacht that had just sailed into view. They watched it approach. As it came along the coast a flag billowed out, big and black, decorated with a skull and crossbones.
“I don’t know,” Milo said, “but it looks all the world like another act of the Pirates of Penzance for you. “‘For it is a glorious thing,’ you know, ‘to be a Pirate King.’”
“So I’ve heard,” Maddie said. “But I suspect it might be an even more glorious thing to be a successful film actor with money to spend on boats and pirate flags.”
They could hear the party getting underway up the beach—there was music and laughter and an enticing smell of good things to eat. They hurried on, pirates forgotten.
