Chapter 5 Malibu Fog
Maddie Ellis and the Malibu Movie Colony is an old-fashioned mystery serial set during the end of the silent movie era. In chapter 5, writer Maddie Ellis has an unsettling experience during her first night in the Malibu Colony beach house that is her new home. Is the incident connected to the unsolved series of burglaries that have plagued this remote community, or something more sinister? Join us as we travel back in time to January 1928.
The bed was comfortable, the night quiet except for the soft rush and rumble of the surf. Maddie was tired and fell asleep almost at once, but something disturbed her dreams. Was that the back door swinging open? Was that the sound of feet on the floor below? She was suddenly wide awake. She made herself lie still and listen. The footsteps were too light to hear, but the floorboards squeaked with each step, betraying the presence of the intruder. Whoever they were, they had walked with confidence through the room below. A few moments later, they retreated. Maddie heard the click of the door closing. She crept to the window to look out.
There should still have been moonlight, but a bank of fog had rolled in, blanketing the cove in darkness. Maddie thought she saw a shape moving away down the beach, but it was hard to tell much about it. She stood watching until her heart stopped beating so quickly and loudly.
Burglars with “cat-like tread” were all very amusing on the stage, where the chorus of The Pirates of Penzance tiptoed with mock solemnity across the boards, but not nearly so entertaining in the dark, in the middle of the night, when one was alone in the house. Maddie thought about going out into the night to look for footprints, or at least down stairs to check the house and to lock the door but she simply couldn’t. There didn’t seem to be much point, she told herself. She knew she had locked it before going to bed, and that had not stopped her nocturnal visitor.
Instead, she slipped across the room to the fireplace and grabbed up the poker. It was made of wrought iron and felt reassuringly heavy and solid. Despite the fear that made her heart pound she laughed at herself. What a ridiculous cliche, she thought. She checked to make sure her bedroom door was locked and went back to bed, taking the poker with her. She pulled the blankets up to keep warm rather than to sleep. Sleep was impossible.
Maddie rose just as soon as the sky began to grow light. It was a defused, gray light, unlike the vivid sky of sunset. She dressed quickly in a white silk blouse and charcoal-colored trousers, grateful for the ease and mobility this new fashion afforded. She pulled on a jacket, ran a comb through her short dark curls, and went downstairs. The living room appeared exactly the way she left it when she went up to bed the night before, but there was a lingering scent of cigarette smoke in the air. Maddie didn’t smoke. She couldn’t abide the smell, especially not stale smoke. That was the scent that lingered here: faint, but definite.
Maddie found traces of sand on the floor of the living room. She had been mindful of the new flooring and had carefully brushed her feet off on the mat. Milo might have left footprints when he came in from the beach, but the sand was still damp to the touch. The back door was shut and locked. There was no sign that the lock had been tampered with or forced—no scratches or other signs of damage. All of the house’s exterior doors were keyed the same, and the key was in Maddie’s pocket.
Maddie could not tell which of the footprints on the backdoor steps and in the fenced yard were new and which were left over from the previous day’s activities, but there was something that had not been there the day before: a cigarette butt, tossed near the doorstep. Sherlock Holmes, or that dapper but brainy little Belgian detective who had taken the literary world by storm,would have known instantly what type it was. Maddie didn’t, and doubted it would matter if she did. Neither Allan nor Milo had smoked when they visited the day before, and Mr Crosby and the watchman had come to the front door, not the back. It could have been dropped by almost anyone. Everyone smoked these days—men and women—and Hollywood people in particular were addicted to cigarettes and smoked them by the bushel.
Maddie walked out onto the beach, scanning the sand. One pair of footprints appeared to overlay the others: medium sized, unshod. The prints led down to the sea, where the tide erased them. It was impossible to tell if the trail would have led to the hypothetical boat alleged to have been used during the earlier burglaries, or along the beach.
Maddie walked along the shore in one direction and then the other, attempting to see if there were recent prints above the tideline. The fog eddied around her like a live thing. It hid the houses and muffled her in silence. She found half a mussel shell, shiny with seawater and bluer than the sky on a summer day, and a shard of pink and gold china. It was pretty, but the edges were still sharp, as if it had not been in the water for long. She did not find the trail of footprints. The whole time her only companions were the tiny white shorebirds that ran along the beach ahead of her. She paused to watch them dashing to the edge of the water and back again.
Back at the house, she inspected the living room. The footprints on the floor suggested that someone came in and went out almost at once. The sounds she heard also supported that conclusion. A sensible person would have let it go at that, she told herself, but she wanted to know what the intruder was after. Was he—or she—intent on burglary, or was there something else? An empty house would be an ideal location for smugglers to ply their trade.
The fireplace seemed the likeliest place for a smuggler to hide something: it was enormous, almost big enough to stand in. There was an alcove inside for storing firewood, but the wood was neatly stacked and there wasn’t a trace of sandy footprints anywhere near the hearth. Maddie took her search into the study, ruthlessly quashing the feeling that she was invading her friends’ privacy. They would want to know if someone was using their beach house for something illicit, she told herself, as she poked into drawers and cupboards. She found a dry bar containing a stash of whiskey, gin, and vermouth, hidden inside the antique globe. That was almost certainly the Harringtons’ private stash. There was nothing other than the liquor that appeared even remotely illicit.
A search of the kitchen cupboards also failed to yield anything out of the ordinary. In addition to the groceries Maddie brought with her, the shelves yielded a large box of pilot biscuit, a jar of pickled onions, a bag of sugar, a packet of lemon-flavored gelatin, and four large tins of cocoa—pink, with a redoubtable Dutch housewife neatly attired in cap and apron holding a chocolate pot on the front.
Maddie smiled. The cocoa must be Daniel’s, she decided. Belle was a dedicated coffee drinker, like Maddie herself. All of the tins and cans and packets were new and sealed. She amused herself for a moment imagining what sort of a meal one might make with those ingredients. Not a very satisfying one, she concluded.
Maddie checked the linen closet and the medicine cabinet in the back bathroom, but found only linens in the former and a packet of patent antacid powder in the latter. It was all terribly sensible and ordinary.
Maddie abandoned the search and made herself a pot of coffee. She was still deep in thought, the coffee cold and untouched on the table in front of her, when Milo arrived.
“Coffee!” he exclaimed. “Can I have some, too? I hope it’s not too early for social calls, or that my presence here will harm your reputation.”
“The only reputation I care about at the moment is that of my profession as a writer,” Maddie said wryly. “A successful one. I’ll make some more coffee. This pot has gone cold. It should be better than yesterday’s tea. I’m hoping the stronger flavor disguises the taste of the water.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Milo said, surprised. “The rainy season is late this year. That may be why the water tastes peculiar.”
“Where does the water come from?” Maddie was curious. The salt marsh and lagoon suggested that any groundwater here was likely to be even more salty than the water that came from the tap.
“There’s a dam about three miles up Malibu Canyon,” Milo told her. “That reservoir provides almost all of our water. They say that the water may run dry but the gin never does, and that’s mostly what everyone drinks around here.”
“I’ve heard that the rumrunners use this beach for smuggling, is that true?”
Milo shrugged. “Probably. There’s no shortage of liquor here, and there’s a long tradition of smugglers using this coast to smuggle everything imaginable, from opium to human cargo. You aren’t still thinking about the Pirates of Penzance, are you?”
Maddie hesitated for a moment. “I am, because, you see, they paid the house a visit last night, or someone did.”
It took a moment for Milo to understand what she was saying. “Someone broke into your house?” he said, aghast. “My dear girl, are you quite alright?”
“I’ll admit it was frightening, but as far as I can tell, nothing was taken and no harm was done.”
“Have you reported it to the sheriff?” Milo asked. “There’s a telephone at the general store across the road and the station is just a few miles up the road. We can go now.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” Maddie said. “I doubt they would take it seriously.” She realized she was still holding the coffee pot and went to refill the kettle. “Would you like some breakfast, Milo? I was going to make some eggs.”
“Let me do it,” Milo offered. “I’m quite good at cooking eggs as long as you don’t mind them scrambled. Sit down. Should you have some sugar in your coffee? It’s supposed to be good for shock. Are you certain you are quite well?”
Maddie laughed. “Please don’t worry, Milo. It was an alarming experience. I admit I was frightened, but I’m not at any risk of fainting or having the vapours.”
“Well, at least tell me what happened,” Milo said.
She told him about the night’s adventures while he prepared the food.
“I think you should tell the police,” Milo said, again. “Or at least let the watchman know.”
“A whiff of cigarette smoke, the sound of creaking floorboards, and a few inconclusive footprints isn’t proof of a crime,” Maddie said. “The sheriff would write me off as a hysterical female who was wasting his time and the watchman doesn’t look up to the challenge of tackling midnight intruders. He looks like a stiff breeze could blow him over, poor man. But I would like to know more about the other incidents. Do you know any of the people whose homes have been burgled or broken into, Milo?” Maddie asked. “Can I talk to them?”
“Louise Fazenda and her husband Hal had their house broken into,” Milo replied, setting plates of eggs and toast on the table. “You can ask them about it. Neil Hamilton’s place was burgled, too. I think it was one of the first, or no, maybe Leon Verlaine’s was the first. I was hoping to introduce you to Verlaine this weekend. Hoffmann told me he’d be here.”
“Excellent, we can ask him about the burglary and find out if he’s feeling up to resuming work on the film,” Maddie said, and the conversation turned from midnight alarms to their film project.
The eggs were perfectly cooked and the toast only slightly burnt. Maddie was surprised to find how much better the food made her feel. “Bless you, Milo,” she said, and meant it. “The eggs were lovely.”
They set the dishes in the sink to soak and walked to the door together. Maddie paused on her doorstep in astonishment. The fog had burned off, the sun was high in the sky, and it was so warm that it seemed far more like July than January. The beach was no longer an empty stage set; it was alive with noise and color and life. Umbrellas were unfurled in front of the houses. People were walking along the shore or sitting on the sand. Somewhere a phonograph blared “My Blue Heaven,” while children shrieked and chased each other. Maddie felt as if she had awakened from a troubling dream, but the strange events of the night stayed with her, a piece of darkness the sunlight and warmth could not dispel.
