The bag stood on the dressing table—a very ordinary bag of black calfskin scuffed and cracked with age. Basil looked inside. Sewn to the lining were loops and pockets something like the interior of a woman’s sewing bag. All but one were filled with surgical instruments. There was nothing to indicate whether that one had contained a knife recently or not. Basil took out a probe and examined it in the intense glare that came from the high-powered bulbs framing the mirror. The blade bore the name of a Boston manufacturer. It was good steel, freshly cleaned, though the edge was dull. The handle was engraved rather elaborately with a spiral pattern of grooves and “lands” like the interior rifling of a gun barrel in reverse, though the grooves were much deeper and the lands correspondingly higher.
“This is the instrument you’d probably need if you were probing for a bullet,” said Basil, picking up a probe.
“Is it?” Rod was interested. “Then I shan’t worry about the missing scalpel. What do I take the bullet out with?”
“Rod, don’t be an idiot!” cried Pauline. “As if anyone in the audience could see what you’re using when you’re way back in the alcove. All they get is a flash of light along the blade. You might just as well use a bread-knife.”
“I don’t care whether they can see me or not,” retorted Rod. “I’m like Milhau—I want realism. Everything must be authentic.”
Pauline and Leonard laughed. Evidently Milhau’s “realism” was a running gag.
But Rod was serious. “Even if the audience can’t see the knife, I can.”
“Exactly,” agreed Rod. “It has a psychological effect on me to know I’m doing the right thing in the right way whether the audience knows it or not. I never could see anything funny about the fellow who blacked all over for
“Are you sure it was a scalpel you used during rehearsal?” asked Basil.
“Well, it was a knife like this.” Rod held up a scalpel. “That’s another reason I’m pretty sure a knife is missing. I have a distinct impression that there was a pair of these, and now there’s only one.
Basil turned to Pauline. “Did you search the set thoroughly?”
“Indeed I did. I spent about five minutes poking into everything there.”
“And you’re sure the knife isn’t in here?” Basil turned back to Rod. “You might easily have laid it down somewhere in this room instead of returning it to the bag after the pre-view.”
“That’s what I thought. But I’ve looked and so has Leonard, and it just isn’t here.”
Basil’s glance swept the small room. It was furnished sparingly—rug, couch, dressing table, bench, wardrobe, and washstand. All the movable furniture was pushed back against the walls leaving a space about fourteen feet square in the middle of the room.
“No windows?” remarked Basil.
“There are no windows backstage even in dressing rooms,” explained Leonard. “If there were, daylight might filter onto the set in the wrong place. Or a draught might blow against a sturdy brick wall until it flapped like a flag, and the audience would see it was only painted canvas.”
Basil sat on the upholstered couch and slipped his hand down between seat and back. He fished out a cigarette stub, two hairpins, a broken pencil, a ten-cent piece, and a small nail file, but nothing that remotely resembled a surgical knife.
Pauline was watching him curiously. “You really think it matters?”
“Well . . . a sharp knife isn’t a good thing to leave lying around.” He made his voice casual.
“But it wasn’t sharp!” protested Rod. “Those knives haven’t been used for years.”
“Then your realism didn’t extend to sharpening the knife?” murmured Basil.
“No. Too much like work when they’re as blunt as that. Besides, I’ve cut myself with a razor too often to hanker after handling a really sharp knife on stage.”
“They’re quite sharp enough as they are.” Leonard displayed a small, dark cut on his right forefinger. “I did that just now when Rod asked me to go through the bag for him.”
“Better put iodine on it,” said Basil. “Tetanus germs thrive in dusty places.”
Leonard laughed, but Pauline found a bottle of iodine on the dressing table and insisted on applying it.
Basil pulled out the dressing-table drawer. Nothing there but the expected array of cosmetics, combs, and brushes.
“When did you first realize the knife was missing?”
“Just about ten minutes ago. I opened the bag to put in some gauze dressings I had bought for tonight—more realism—and I noticed that empty pocket. I wasn’t sure whether it had been empty before so I went to Leonard’s room and asked him if he could remember. He said he thought the kit was complete the last time I had it on stage. That was yesterday. He came back here to help me look for it. We met Pauline outside, and it was she who suggested I might have left it on the set. She went off to look for it there.”
