The Day the Laughter Stopped, page 15
Ten minutes later, Roscoe glanced at the clock on the mantlepiece in Room 1220, saw that it was three o’clock, and realized with a start that Fred would be back soon with the car. Roscoe was still in his pyjamas. Being so casually dressed in his own rooms was one thing; he could hardly ride with Mae Taube through the streets of San Francisco dressed like that. He put ‘Three O’Clock in the Morning’ on the Victrola, walked into his bedroom, and shut and locked the door. Then he stepped over to the bathroom to wash before dressing. The bathroom door was not locked, but something was blocking it and he could not open it fully. Virginia Rappe was kneeling on the floor, vomiting into the toilet, groaning and reeling.
Roscoe slid into the bathroom and held her steady while she vomited, then picked her up, shut the toilet, and sat her down on the toilet seat. He asked her if there was anything she needed. Clutching her stomach and wincing in pain, she told him that she had these sick spells from time to time. Roscoe gave her a glass of water, which she drank; she asked for another and drank half of that. Then he helped her up and into the bedroom, and sat her on the single bed. Telling him that she just wanted to lie down for a while, she flopped down on the bed, her head towards the bottom. Roscoe lifted her legs on to the bed, then went back to the bathroom to wash up. A fastidious man, Roscoe regularly took three baths a day.
When Roscoe came back into the bedroom, it was 3.09 p.m. He heard Virginia moaning, but she was nowhere in sight. She had rolled off the small bed on to the floor between the single and double beds. There was not enough room for Roscoe to get around by the bedside and pick her up, so he pulled her up into a sitting position, then, lifting her up, stretched her out on the double bed. She promptly turned over on her left side, vomited on the pillow and down the side of the bed, and started to groan again.
Roscoe hurried to the door, unlocked it, and went into the central reception room, 1220, in search of Maude Delmont. It was 3.10 p.m. He had been absent from the party for ten minutes.
Maude was nowhere to be seen; she was still closeted with Lowell Sherman in the bathroom of Room 1221. Roscoe told Zey Prevon that Virginia was sick, and Zey hurried into the bedroom. At that moment, Maude Delmont emerged from Sherman’s bedroom. Roscoe told her what had happened, and she and Roscoe followed Zey into Roscoe’s bedroom.
Virginia was sitting up on the edge of the double bed, fully dressed. She then began tearing at her clothes and frothing at the mouth. Roscoe felt the general effect was of someone in a terrible temper. She began to rip her clothes from her body, and screamed, ‘I’m hurt! I’m dying. I know I’m dying!’ Pieces of her clothing flew in all directions as she tore at her dress, her stockings, her garters and her shirtwaist. Maude and Zey tried to restrain her. She moaned and screamed.
Roscoe turned from the window and spoke to Zey: ‘Get her out of here, she makes too much noise.’ The girls’ attempts to restrain the hysterical Virginia were in vain. One of her sleeves was hanging by a few threads, and she kept pulling at it, trying to remove it. Laughing, Roscoe moved towards her and ripped off the sleeve, saying, ‘All right, if you want that off, I’ll take it off for you.’
Zey pushed him away, saying, ‘Stop that Roscoe, she’s sick.’
Roscoe was not impressed. ‘She’s not sick,’ he said. ‘Just putting it on.’
Ira Fortlouis, meanwhile, was still in the reception room getting drunk on the bootleg liquor. Roscoe walked out and saw him and decided he’d had enough of the garrulous gown salesman for one day. He spoke to Lowell Sherman, who quietly told Fortlouis that he had to leave the party because reporters were coming up to interview Roscoe. Slightly aggrieved, Fortlouis exited.
At that point, Mae Taube arrived, ready for her car drive. A few words with Roscoe and a look in Room 1219 convinced her that Roscoe was going to be slightly delayed.
A few moments later, Fred Fischbach came back from viewing the seals. He had left a fairly quiet party and returned to a madhouse. Told that his friend Ira Fortlouis had ‘left’, he walked down the hotel corridor, caught up with Fortlouis, exchanged a few words with him, and returned to the Arbuckle suite. He entered the bedroom he shared with Roscoe, and saw Maude and Zey trying to restrain Virginia in her hysterical strip. The two women began to remove her clothes, which by now were in shreds.
Zey suggested that they stand Virginia on her head. She’d apparently read somewhere that that was the thing to do when someone became hysterical. Fred, who was a giant of a man, obligingly jumped on the bed, caught hold of Virginia’s ankles, and suspended her now-nude body in space. If nothing else, it stopped her screaming for a while. Then Alice Blake reappeared on the scene. Where she had been and whom she had been with, are still unknown. Maude suggested they dip Virginia in a cold bath. Fischbach, the gentle giant, picked Virginia up, carried her to the bathroom, and immersed her in very cold water. Nobody seemed sure how long she should be left there. After a while, Zey got anxious and suggested Virginia be removed. Again Fred picked her up and carried her back, placing her on the single bed.
Alice Blake proposed they try bicarbonate of soda; she happened to have some in her bag. They mixed it with water and gave it to Virginia, who had lapsed into a kind of stupor. She drank it, not knowing what they had given her, and immediately vomited the mixture.
Next someone suggested lumps of ice. The St Francis Hotel in 1921 could boast that it had dispensed with the old-fashioned method of serving ice chipped from large blocks. It could offer ice cubes. Maude wrapped the ice cubes in a towel and put it first on Virginia’s head, then on her abdomen. The other girls placed ice over Virginia’s body.
If these wide-ranging treatments seem bizarre, remember that most of the party guests were intoxicated in varying degrees. Maude, flapping about in Lowell Sherman’s yellow silk pyjamas, was totally drunk. The alcohol, together with Virginia’s hysteria, was hardly conducive to cool behaviour in any of the guests.
While the ice was being applied, Roscoe re-entered the room. Virginia had started to scream again. He picked up a piece of ice and asked Maude what the hell she was doing. Weaving, Maude shouted, ‘Leave her alone, I know what I’m doing.’ Roscoe put the piece of ice back, on Virginia’s vulva, remarking as he did, ‘This will make her come to.’ It had no effect, however.
Roscoe moved to the window and glanced out to see if people could hear the commotion. Maude Delmont let out a piercing scream. Roscoe turned and shouted back, ‘Shut up or I’ll throw you out of the window.’
It was obvious that the do-it-yourself cures were having only a detrimental effect. Roscoe went back into the reception room, where Mae was still patiently waiting, and said, ‘Mae, do me a favour, please. Would you phone down below and get the manager up here? We can’t leave her screaming like that all day.’
Mae phoned the main desk. A few moments later one of the assistant managers of the St Francis Hotel, Harry Boyle, hurried to the luxury suite.
Meanwhile, Roscoe had gone back to his bedroom and told Maude to get out of Sherman’s pyjamas and into her dress before the manager appeared. This Maude did.
A few minutes later, Assistant Manager Harry Boyle knocked on the door of Room 1221, and was let in by Roscoe, who was talking to Mae Taube. The time was 3.30 p.m. Roscoe explained to the manager that Virginia had had three drinks and had become hysterical. Boyle was taken to Roscoe’s bedroom, where the others were doing what they could for the still-nude Virginia. Roscoe asked the manager if he could have another room for the sick girl. Boyle immediately said yes.
Taking Fred Fischbach’s robe from a closet, Roscoe draped it around the girl and picked her up. He and Boyle, accompanied by Maude, went out into the corridor and made their way towards the new room, 1227. Virginia’s body was soaking wet, and Roscoe had difficulty supporting her. Boyle took the girl from him and placed her in a bed in the new room. When Roscoe asked the manager to get a doctor, Boyle assured him that he would do so immediately and would let the movie star know the outcome of the doctor’s visit. Satisfied that he had done all he could, Roscoe returned to his own suite. Meanwhile, Maude had collapsed on the bed next to Virginia and had gone to sleep.
Back in Roscoe’s suite, the party picked up again. Reinforcements arrived – showgirls Betty Campbell and Dollie Clark. Roscoe and Mae had by now abandoned their plan to go for a car ride, although Roscoe promised to take Mae to dinner in the hotel restaurant that evening.
Harry Boyle had trouble locating a doctor. The hotel doctor, Dr Arthur Beardslee, could not be found. Eventually Boyle located an alternative, Dr Olav Kaarboe. Boyle called him at 4.30 p.m., and he was at the hotel by 4.45. On the way up to Virginia’s room Harry Boyle told him that there had been ‘a gay party in Mr Arbuckle’s suite and the lady has had too much to drink’.
Dr Kaarboe entered Room 1227 with Boyle. Maude was on one bed, Virginia on the other. Virginia was as Boyle had left her, covered by the bedclothes. Maude was lying on top of her bed, naked from the waist down. Boyle pulled her dress down and shook her gently to wake her. Dr Kaarboe asked Maude what had happened. Maude, sleepy, did not like being bothered. ‘Oh, I guess it was just a little too much party,’ she yawned. ‘Virginia just had a little too much to drink and got drowsy. There’s nothing the matter with her.’
Dr Kaarboe asked Virginia how she was feeling. She didn’t answer, so he lifted her head from the pillow and repeated his question. He asked her if she was hurt, and she merely turned her head away from him. He examined her and found normal pulse and normal heart reaction, and the strong odour of alcohol on her breath. It appeared to the doctor that no special medication was called for; she had simply had too much to drink. He examined her body and found no marks or bruises on it. He asked her if she had been injured in any way, but apart from turning her head away, she didn’t respond. She was obviously not in any pain: she lay still, not writhing or clutching her stomach. Indeed, her hands were under her head and she gave the impression of being pleasantly drowsy. Dr Kaarboe asked if anything special had happened, and repeated his question about whether Virginia had sustained any injury. Maude’s answer to both questions was negative. Maude gave the doctor the impression that she ‘was indifferent and just wanted to be left alone’. Kaarboe told Maude that if she needed any further help, she should call.
Harry Boyle and the doctor walked over to Roscoe’s suite. Roscoe asked the doctor how Virginia was. Dr Kaarboe said that there was nothing seriously wrong with the girl, that it was just a case of drinking too much. Declining an invitation to stay for a drink, the doctor and the assistant hotel manager left.
The party was still going strong. Irvan Weinberg, another friend of Fred Fischbach’s, phoned. Weinberg had with him a young actress, Doris Deane, whom he wanted to introduce to Fred and Roscoe. While speaking to her, Fred casually mentioned Virginia’s ‘ripping her clothes off and carrying on’. Doris, a nondrinker at the time, shyly declined the invitation to come up to the suite. She and Fischbach discovered that they were both going back to Los Angeles by boat the next day, and Fred promised to introduce her to Roscoe.
On the Victrola, Marion Harris was singing ‘I’ve Got the Wonder-Where-He-Went-and-When-He’s-Coming-Back Blues’. Lowell Sherman chased Betty Campbell into his bedroom. Betty quickly locked herself into the bathroom and stayed there until Sherman had retreated and she was able to join the main party. Then Sherman chased Dollie Clark into his bedroom, threw her on the bed and dived after her, but Dollie rolled out of the way and rushed out to Roscoe. Both showgirls told Arbuckle what had happened. He told them that some of the guests were obviously feeling the effects of the bootleg liquor, and roundly criticized Sherman, declaring, ‘If you want to have an orgy, then get your own apartment. Don’t do it in mine.’ Roscoe assured the two girls the incident would not recur. Both girls were later to comment on his kindness, and also on his concern about Virginia.
Roscoe crossed to one of the windows in the reception room as dusk approached. Looking out across the city, he asked, ‘What’s life all about?’ He turned to the partygoers. ‘I’ll jump out of this window if somebody will jump with me. Come on, who’s going to jump with me?’ Not surprisingly, there was no reply. The highballs he had been drinking had made him melancholy. ‘If I jumped out of this window,’ he said quietly, ‘everybody would talk about me tomorrow. The day after, they’d go to the ball game.’ The room was suddenly quiet. The situation could go many ways. Then Roscoe hunched his shoulders and grinned his famous foolish grin. Everyone laughed and the party swung into action again.
At ten minutes to seven, an uninvited guest arrived – George Glennon, the hotel detective. Having been advised of Virginia’s illness, he had decided to check out the situation; he knew that a hotel guest who becomes ill on the premises has an unfortunate tendency to blame the illness on the hotel. First, Glennon had gone to see Virginia, but he found her asleep. He talked with Maude, who assured him that everything was fine. There were no problems, nobody was to blame for Virginia’s illness – it was due to ‘too much party’. Reassured, Glennon dropped in at the party and talked to a number of the guests. Without exception they confirmed Maude’s statement. Convinced that nothing untoward had happened, Glennon departed.
At ten minutes past seven, Virginia had another visitor, the house physician of the St Francis, Dr Arthur Beardslee. He had returned to the hotel and had been told of Virginia’s illness and of the colleague who had been summoned in his absence. Like George Glennon’s, Dr Beardslee’s call was merely routine. And, like Glennon, Dr Beardslee was a realist about what went on in the city; he was sophisticated, a club man, a man about town.
As a result of Glennon’s visit to the room, Virginia had awakened. She was in great pain. When Dr Beardslee examined her, she held her stomach and complained of severe pain in the lower abdomen. Having examined her reflexes, the doctor tried to palpate and percuss her abdomen – that is, to feel and to tap it with his fingers. Virginia cried out at the slightest touch of the doctor’s hand. So that he could finish the examination, Dr Beardslee gave her an injection of morphine and atropine. While he waited for the injection to take effect, he asked Maude Delmont to tell him what had happened. Maude told the doctor about the party and said that Virginia had been attacked by Arbuckle. She was interrupted by Virginia, who vigorously denied that this was true. In answer to the doctor’s questions, Virginia said that Roscoe had neither attacked her nor attempted to have sexual intercourse with her. Beardslee then examined Virginia, concentrating on her abdomen.
Dr Beardslee was later to swear an oath that at this point in Virginia’s illness he was not able to form an opinion, but that ‘I knew I was dealing with a surgical abdomen. It was self-evident. It was an abdomen which would require surgical interference. An operative case.’
If Dr Beardslee knew that the evening of 5 September, his subsequent behaviour was extraordinary. He left Virginia Rappe’s room. He did not tell either woman that Virginia should be hospitalized immediately. He did not say that an operation was needed. He prescribed no medicine or treatment. He did nothing.
In Roscoe’s suite the party continued. Roscoe, Lowell Sherman, and Fred Fischbach left and joined Mae Taube for dinner in the hotel restaurant at 8.00 p.m.; after dinner they went to the ballroom. Uninhibited by their host’s temporary absence, the partygoers in Room 1220 carried on, joined now and then by new guests. Having tired of her role as nurse and recovered from the effects of her earlier attack on the whisky supply, Maude returned to Room 1220 with renewed vigour.
At 8.45 p.m. Dr Beardslee returned. While he had made his rounds at the St Francis Hospital, the sick girl had been on his mind. Maude was called away from the party and joined the doctor in Room 1227.
Virginia was quieter now; the injection had had an effect. She was resting, so Beardslee did not examine her. Maude told him that the young woman was all right now, and he left.
Roscoe returned to his suite with his dinner guests to find Maude Delmont reeling around the room. She poured out a half-pint of gin, drank it all at once, and shouted at Roscoe that he had had no right to go to dinner without taking her with him. ‘I’m not playing bloody nurse to that sick creature. I want to have some fun.’ So saying, she took off her clothes.
Roscoe had never met this woman before the party; now he had seen more of her than he cared to. He phoned for the hotel detective, George Glennon, and asked him to send Maude back to the Palace Hotel, and to arrange for a nurse to look after Virginia. At 11.45 p.m., George Glennon appeared and, taking Maude Delmont with him, went to question Virginia Rappe directly.
‘Do you believe that the St Francis Hotel is in any way responsible for your present condition?’
‘No. They are not responsible,’ she replied.
‘Did Mr Arbuckle hurt you?’
‘No. He never hurt me.’
‘Then who hurt you?’ Glennon asked.
‘I do not know,’ a puzzled Virginia answered. ‘I may have been hurt by falling off of the bed.’
At the time Virginia made these statements she seemed to be suffering no pain and to have a clear head. When he had recorded this conversation in his notebook and felt that he had done all he could, the hotel detective joined Maude Delmont in a drink.
Obviously enjoying each other’s company, Maude and the detective left Virginia in Room 1227 and went to Roscoe’s suite. The party was finally over. Roscoe and Fred Fischbach were packing their cases, preparing to return to Los Angeles the next day. When Maude and Glennon came in looking for more drinks, Fischbach told them to help themselves. Taking the remains of the Scotch, they returned to Room 1227, had a meal sent up to the room, and, as instructed by Fischbach, had it put on Roscoe’s bill.
