Story Excerpts

Margo and the Femme Fatale
by Terence Faherty

“The next time the station is passing out free Dodgers tickets, Miss Banning, keep me in mind.”

Margo, the Banning addressed, stopped in mid stride. “I beg your pardon,” she said.

She liked the man who’d stopped her, Sid Matthews, one of the panelists on the radio show she oversaw, Gotham Goings On. Matthews was a moonlighting sports columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, who reminded Margo of her grandfather, being short and gray and liberally sprinkled with cigar ash, and he was the least troublesome of the show’s three regulars. The least temperamental, as well. Even this remark about free tickets, which would have sounded like a complaint if Mamie Gallagher, Gotham’s statuesque show business expert, had made it, was merely a pleasant greeting from the smiling Matthews.

What had stopped Margo in her tracks—only ten minutes from airtime, the busiest ten minutes of her Sunday afternoons—was the remark’s complete lack of sense. Matthews proceeded to thicken the fog.

“Your station’s political commentator, what’s-his-name Cleghorn—”

“Cyrus P. Cleghorn,” Margo said.

“—was hurrying out as I came in today. Told me he’d been given tickets to Brooklyn’s doubleheader against the Cardinals this afternoon. I wouldn’t mind having a couple of those myself.”

“Your paper doesn’t get you tickets?”

“My press pass gets me into the press box. But these tickets were for the owner’s box, the best seats in Ebbets Field. You can smell the chewing tobacco from those.”

Margo could only shrug. “First I’ve heard about tickets,” she said.

Matthews looked as puzzled as Margo felt. “That’s strange. Cleghorn said that the ducats came from you. That’s what Philip St. Pierre told him when he passed them over. He said you knew Cleghorn was a big Dodgers fan.”

The only things Margo knew about Cleghorn were that he suffered from dandruff and he’d picked Wendell Willkie in last year’s presidential election, a Roosevelt landslide. But something else Matthews had said was a ray of light: The man at the center of the mystery was Philip St. Pierre, the third member of the Gotham Goings On panel.

St. Pierre was Gotham’s expert on local crime, though his commentaries had taken on a more international flavor some months back when he’d suddenly declared war on Nazi saboteurs and spies in the New York area. Since then, the radio criminologist had been racking up successes and steadily adding members to his spy busting squad, as Margo, the first draftee, knew only too well. She also knew that St. Pierre was always either working an angle or working out the next one.

Margo would have gone directly to the source to ask about his latest scheme if it hadn’t been so close to broadcast time. She told Matthews to report for duty and then hurried to the control booth of Studio A. When she arrived, she saw that St. Pierre was already seated inside the little paneled studio beyond the control booth’s soundproof glass, chatting away with Mamie Gallagher.

Conspiring, Margo thought, as she always did when she saw two blonds in conversation. Her own hair was currently auburn.

She picked up the clipboard which held her program notes. Gallagher, St. Pierre, and Matthews all submitted a list of topics each week, though only Matthews’s list could be relied on. Gallagher, for example, never mentioned the unauthorized commercials she inserted for the furriers and dress salons she supported and who—if Margo’s suspicions were correct—supported her in return. On her current sheet, Gallagher had listed the “latest dirt” on a Broadway director’s divorce and a belated review of the play Minuet, which had been broadcast on New York’s experimental television station in July.

Television, Margo thought and sniffed loudly.

Very loudly, apparently, because her boss, Raymond Pedigo, turned in his seat at the control board and said, “Ah-ha. I heard you had a cold, Margo.”

She was about to deny the report when something on her clipboard caught her eye. She’d flipped ahead to St. Pierre’s list of topics. It consisted of a single item, printed boldly: “Affect a cold and go home sick.”

“Yes,” she said to Pedigo. “It came on rather suddenly.”

“Summer colds are the worst. You know my policy, Margo. If you’re sick, you’re home. Bud can keep the program log today.”

In the studio, St. Pierre was smiling at her as though he’d heard the whole exchange.

“Right,” Margo said. After quietly removing St. Pierre’s note, she handed the clipboard to the second man at the control console, Bud Budwing, and left the booth, so dazed by this turn of events that she thought she might actually be coming down with something, possibly brain fever. Once out in the radio station’s reception area, she told the young woman behind the desk that she was going home sick.

The receptionist, whose name was Jinx, replied, “I heard. Mr. St. Pierre left you a get well card.”

“What, no flowers?”

Margo waited to open the plain white envelope until she was inside one of Radio Center’s free-falling elevators. The envelope contained a sheet of writing paper folded into a square. Unfolding it revealed the blue emblem of the Yale Club, St. Pierre’s current residence, and a handwritten message: “Clifford is waiting with the car. You’ll need a dress suitable for afternoon tea on Fifth Avenue—think ‘timeless elegance.’”

Margo stepped out into the heat of the day, marveling at the number of times counterespionage work required a change of wardrobe. She’d so far been asked to dress up as a maid and as a deckhand on a crab boat, though in each case the costume had been provided. Today’s change would be a challenge, she knew. Though, like any up-and-coming professional woman in 1941, she owned an afternoon dress or two, hers were more dated than timeless and more shopworn than elegant.

As promised, St. Pierre’s driver, Cliff Cleary, was waiting at the curb next to the spy smasher’s gleaming Packard Super-8. The former linebacker blushed at the sight of her. He always did, but today it settled Margo’s nerves. Whatever the state of Cleary’s own nerves, he managed to drive her to her little apartment house in Greenwich Village without a mishap. It being Sunday, her roommate, a model for several top fashion designers, and her neighbor, a shoe buyer for Macy’s, were both at home, recovering from their Saturday nights. Margo was able to borrow a striking blue dress, matching shoes, and a handbag only slightly too sequined for an afternoon affair, even on Fifth Avenue.

She switched on the apartment’s radio while she dressed. The set, which happened to be tuned to Gotham Goings On, came to life while Philip St. Pierre was speaking.

“. . . me to explain. The Soviet delegates are in the United States to negotiate an arms purchase, perhaps the first step toward a Russian Lend-Lease. Little did they know that by stopping over in New York they were risking the success of their mission. In Washington, should they make it, they’ll only be surrounded by politicians and lobbyists. Here in New York, they’re in deadly danger from Nazi spies and assassins—”

“Not to mention the outrageous prices, Philip darling,” Mamie Gallagher cut in. “Thank God for reasonable little shops like Marcel’s—”

Margo switched off the set with emphasis just as Cliff Cleary sounded his horn. A few minutes later, they were speeding back uptown in light traffic. Though they made good time, Philip St. Pierre, freed from his broadcast duties, was already on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street awaiting them.

Or perhaps waiting for next year’s Easter Parade to start, Margo thought. In his pearl-colored suit and matching homburg, St. Pierre certainly looked ready to have his picture taken for the rotogravure. Habitually overdressing had worked out for him for once, she concluded, as St. Pierre was always properly dressed for tea. He raised his stick to signal them.

“Good work, Clifford,” he said as he slipped into the back seat. “Extremely good work, Margo.”

Margo adjusted her hemline. “If you’d tell me ahead of time about these costume parties, I could come to work prepared.”

“If you came to work dressed like that, poor Sid Matthews would swallow his cigar. Once around the park, Clifford. We don’t want to be too early.”

“Speaking of Sidney,” Margo said. “He told me something curious just before I was laid low by my summer cold. Something about Dodgers tickets.”

“And you’d like an explanation? I’m disappointed, Margo. You know my methods. Apply them.”

Margo had already devoted some thought to the subject while being driven about. “You found out somehow that Cyrus Cleghorn roots for the Dodgers, so you handed him seats to the owner’s box to get him out to Brooklyn. If I had to guess how you got the tickets, I’d say it was your gangster buddy Dante the Inferno Giancarno. I remember he was wearing a Brooklyn cap when you introduced us. Did he strong-arm the owner?”

“Surely not. Dante is the soul of tact. But why would I care how Cyrus Cleghorn spent his Sunday afternoon?”

“Because he was invited to this mysterious Fifth Avenue affair, and you weren’t. I’m guessing you volunteered to take Cleghorn’s place so he could enjoy his peanuts and Cracker Jack with a clear conscience.”

“Very good, Margo.” St. Pierre pulled a cream-colored card from his breast pocket. “Our secondhand invitation.”

Margo examined the card. “A reception in honor of a Soviet delegation? The one you were talking about on the air just now?”

“The very same. Back in 1939, when the Soviets invaded Finland, my cousin Franklin froze all Soviet assets in US banks. Now that the Soviet Union’s been invaded by Germany, those funds have been released. This delegation is here to use the money to buy war material. Fighter planes, specifically. Our opponents would like to stop them.”

This was the first time St. Pierre had brought up his supposed kinship with the president since the day he and Margo began catching spies together. Margo ignored the urge to pursue the opening and stuck instead to the matter at hand.

“What makes you think our opponents will be visiting. . .” She consulted the card again, “Mrs. Constantine Volganzy?”

“Also known as Countess Vera Volganzy. I think our enemies will be there because I believe the countess to be an enemy herself. You mentioned Dante Giancarno and his ball cap just now. I’m sure you remember the case that brought you three together.”

“Of course, Philip. It’s only been a month. You were after Wilhelm Friedel, a Nazi courier who’d jumped bail. You knew he was leaving the country on a yacht called the Spindrift. Your friend Dante, the patriotic gangster, lent us his gunmen, himself, and a launch fast enough to catch the Spindrift, which we did.”

“Speaking of Dante,” St. Pierre said with a casualness bordering on indifference, “has he called to ask you out? He told me he intended to.”

Margo heard the front seat groan as Cliff Cleary leaned backward to hear her answer. St. Pierre had tilted his long nose her way as well.

“Let’s focus, boys,” she said. “What does this Countess Volganzy have to do with Friedel?”

“The Spindrift belonged to her, until it was stolen some weeks back. Or so she now claims. The yacht was a present from her financier father on the occasion of her marriage to Count Volganzy, an impoverished and feebleminded Balkan playboy who lives to play polo. The countess’s pursuits are far more practical. I believe she’s something of a financier herself. In fact, I suspect her of secretly backing a good portion of the fascist espionage effort on the East Coast. I’m fairly certain that she provided Wilhelm Friedel’s bail money.”

“Why would a fascist sympathizer be entertaining Russian diplomats?”

“Why indeed. It can’t be to wish them well. I think you and I should be there to warn the Russians to be on guard. And to guard them, if it should come to that. Besides, I’ve always wanted to meet a femme fatale in the flesh. I’m told the countess resembles Joan Bennett, the movie star, now that Miss Bennett has gone from blonde tresses to brunette.”

Margo, who preferred Jean Arthur, said, “Are you sure you can handle the temptation?”

“That’s why I have you, Margo. If she should start to sing, you can tie me to the mast. I think we’ve stalled long enough, Clifford. Take us back to Fifth Avenue and head uptown.”

St. Pierre then began to fidget, which made Margo nervous in turn. She diverted herself with the parade of Gilded Age mansions sweeping past her window.

“What’s going to happen to all these old piles?” she wondered aloud.

“A few are already schools,” St. Pierre said. “Others, museums. I think there’s even a consulate or two. One, our destination, might be called a secret consulate. There it is on the right, Clifford, that Italianate structure in white marble, built by the countess’s grandfather and no doubt modeled after a famous Venetian palazzo, or maybe two. There’s a parking space opening up for us in the same block. It’s almost as though they were expecting us.”

“Bite your tongue,” Margo said.

The mansion’s front doors were guarded by a pair of footmen, the first Margo had ever seen in the flesh. They briefly examined the cream card St. Pierre handed them and then threw open the heavy doors.

Margo inhaled involuntarily at the revealed splendor. “An odd place for Communists to come.”

“Any port in their current storm. I think—”

Margo would never hear that particular thought. A tall, thin man with dark, ridiculously curly hair and wild, protruding eyes came up to them in a rush.

“Gilbert, old man. Thank heaven for a friendly face. What a day we are wasting!”

“I beg your pardon,” St. Pierre said.

“We should be enjoying a chukker or two on such a glorious afternoon, what?”

The man’s thick and hard-to-place accent, his reference to polo, and the fact that he was scandalously underdressed in a houndstooth sport coat and baggy flannels allowed Margo to conclude that this was their host, Count Constantine Volganzy, the feebleminded nobleman who had provided his bride with a title.

St. Pierre had apparently arrived at the same conclusion. “I’m afraid, Count—”

“Call me Connie, please. I love it when Americans call me Connie. Come in and have a drink. We’re in the foyer today—so much less formal than the great hall. And cooler, what?”

The “foyer” was actually a reception room of gray stone with a fireplace on one end whose hearth was as large, Margo judged, as her bedroom. One of the foyer’s walls was made up entirely of tall windows that overlooked a courtyard. A string quartet played softly by the light from those windows. For their own amusement, apparently, for no one in the crowd of a hundred or so people appeared to be listening.

Volganzy waved to a passing footman who was balancing a tray of champagne glasses. The count handed one glass to Margo and another to St. Pierre before taking a third for himself. He raised his glass, opened his mouth as though to give a toast, and then shut it quickly.

Margo turned to follow his gaze and found herself face-to-face with a striking woman whose violet frock seemed to glow in the gray room.

“Vera, my dear,” Volganzy said. “These are polo friends of mine. They do not want to talk any of your boring politics.”

So this was the femme fatale. Margo agreed that she did resemble Joan Bennett, with her high-arched eyebrows, a straight nose that broadened at the tip, and lips that would take some time to rouge. And to unrouge, a challenge the grinning St. Pierre seemed to Margo to be contemplating. The countess was perhaps a year or two older than the actress, and her lustrous dark hair longer, reaching almost to her shoulders.

“It’s impossible to imagine your wife saying anything boring,” St. Pierre crooned. He then drank to her, while Margo wondered if she might actually have to tie him to something.

Volganzy’s laugh was a startling, high-pitched titter. “Very gallant, Gilbert. Come and see my latest trophy. The count linked arms with St. Pierre and addressed his wife over his shoulder. “You entertain this charming young lady for a moment, my dear.”

Margo watched the men go with alarm. Just two hours back she’d been planning to spend a quiet evening with the Sunday funnies. Now she was alone with a real-life Dragon Lady. Without thinking, she raised her glass to her lips.

“I wouldn’t do that,” the countess said in a whisper.

“I beg your pardon?”

Countess Volganzy smiled sweetly. “If you drink from that glass, you’ll never leave this house alive. . . .”

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Copyright © 2024. Margo and the Femme Fatale by Terence Faherty