At nine o’clock Mabel Normand had been lying in bed with her book, waiting in vain for William Desmond Taylor to call.
He had then been dead for approximately an hour.
It is to be noted that in the room where the body was found were three framed pictures of Mabel Normand. On February 18th there was publicity given to a locket with a photograph of Mabel Normand and bearing the inscription, “To my dearest.”
For a while the investigation followed routine lines. There was some indication that a mysterious man had stood back of Taylor bungalow waiting for an opportunity to slip in through the door. He was apparently someone who had reason to believe that by waiting in that position an opportunity would present itself — perhaps someone who knew that Taylor had or was going to have a woman visitor and that he would quite probably escort this woman out to her automobile. In any event, there was a litter of cigarette stubs indicating that someone had stood there waiting for some little time.
It is reported that there was a mysterious handkerchief bearing the letter “S” lying near the body. One of the police detectives picked this up and rather casually left it lying on a table. When he looked for it again, it had disappeared, and apparently has never been heard of since.
This ushers in the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t phase of the case. With bland, disarming casualness, “authorities” and others toss off statements which make the reader dizzy.
We may as well begin with the Mabel Normand letters. Apparently Mabel Normand’s first knowledge of what happened was when Edna Purviance (who, it will be remembered, occupied the other side of the William Desmond Taylor bungalow) telephoned her on the morning of February second and told her that Taylor was dead. Miss Normand seems to have gone directly to the bungalow and asked for certain letters and telegrams which she had sent to Taylor. She was very anxious to have them returned to her and said that she knew exactly where they were.
From a study of the newspapers it is not always easy to reconstruct exactly what happened and the order in which it happened. In the Los Angeles Examiner of February 10, 1922, it is stated that when Peavey found Taylor’s body, the first person he telephoned was Charles Eyton, manager of the Lasky Studios. Eyton and other picture people seem to have been on the scene nearly an hour before the police arrived. Some eight days after the murder a writer was to state boldly in the press, “The mad effort being made by the powers in the Hollywood motion picture colony to block the investigation will avail them nothing now that Woolwine has assumed command.” Woolwine, it is to be noted, was at the time the district attorney.
The day before that statement, a newspaper had printed that, “It is suspected that both of them [picture actresses] are revealing only half truths because the complete disclosure might affect their professional interests. And it also is suspected that pressure has been brought to bear on them from others in the industry not to make disclosures which would injuriously affect the sales value of their pictures.”
It is therefore understandable that against such a background we will find rumors and contradictions, naive explanations which fail to explain. Facts are to be glossed over with a smear of whitewash, evidence will vanish from under our noses.
But piecing together the facts solely from what the public was able to read in the press, we proceed to consider the rather remarkable history of these Normand letters.
In an interview on February 5th, Mabel Normand stated to a reporter, according to the published account, “I sought those letters and hoped to get them before they reached the scrutiny of others. I admit this, but it was for only one purpose — to prevent terms of affection from being misconstrued.”
However, on February 7th we find a published quotation from Miss Normand to this effect: “There have been insinuations made that I went to Mr. Taylor’s house after the inquest Saturday to seek some of my letters to him. That is grossly erroneous. I went to the bungalow at the request of the detectives and in their company and solely for the purpose of showing to them the exact location of the furniture as it was placed in the room before I left. It was to show how disordered the place had become after the intrusion of the murderer.”
In any event, it seems that Miss Normand arrived at the house and made a request for her letters and was given permission to take them. It is not clear from whom she made this request, exactly when it was made, or who gave her the permission. But she is reported to have said that she knew where they were and to have gone immediately to the top drawer in Taylor’s dresser in his upstairs bedroom.
The letters weren’t there.
Under date of February 7th it was stated in the press that it is believed a man of high position and influence in the motion-picture world may have taken the Mabel Normand letters, and perhaps others too, in order to protect the fortunes of actresses in whom he had a business interest.
Public Administrator Frank Bryson claims that when his representatives arrived at the Taylor home Thursday morning, the room was filled with detectives, motion-picture people, and reporters, and the premises were swarming with them.
The Examiner of February 9, 1922, contains the following: “ ‘It is very evident,’ one of the officers said, ‘that someone who entered the house shortly after Taylor’s body was found made a thorough search and took all letters which Taylor had received from women, or men, which might aid in solving the mystery of his death.’ ”
Now then, surprise, surprise! On February 10th, Frank Bryson, the Public Administrator, stated that he had found the Normand letters concealed in Taylor’s apartment, “under a double lock.” Where were these letters between February 1st and February 9th? Is it possible that the officers searching the house did so in such a slipshod manner that these important letters, “under double lock,” were not discovered for a period of more than a week? “Under double lock” is slightly reminiscent of the subtitles of the period. Figuratively it is an expression which hints at impenetrable security. Taken literally it means two locks. There is no specific interpretation given of how it was used in the quoted statement.
On February 11th Mabel Normand’s attitude toward these letters discovered “under double lock” seems to have been almost casual. She is quoted as saying, “My letters to him — I would gladly set them before the world if the authorities care to do that. I have nothing to conceal... I have been charged with trying to recover those letters; with trying to conceal them. That is silly. If those letters are printed you will see that they are most of them casual...”
And on February 10, 1922, the district attorney, Thomas Lee Woolwine, stated that the Normand letters contained nothing helpful in the investigation. Another official who had read them said that they were not the burning missives which they had been imagined to be. Apparently these letters were returned to Miss Normand. On February 14th Miss Normand admitted that she now had the letters.
There seems to be no explanation as to why letters which had been “under double lock” in Taylor’s residence had been overlooked for a period of some eight days.
In fact, the William Desmond Taylor murder case as reported in the press has some of the Alice-in-Wonderland qualities which leave the thoughtful reader rubbing his eyes.
There is yet another letter to figure in the investigation. Police opening a book in the library some time after the murder noticed that a letter fell out. The letter had the crest of M.M.M. and read: “Dearest, I love you. I love you. I love you,” followed by several cross marks and one big cross mark and signed, “Yours always, Mary.”