Cue For Murder полностью

“That’s right,” answered Milhau. “I know it sounds cockeyed. But I can explain. Vladimir has no lines to speak. He has hardly any acting to do. He just lies still at the back of the stage in a dim light and plays dead. He doesn’t have to be an actor any more than the dead men in Arsenic and Old Lace or the convicts in The Man Who Came to Dinner. He isn’t listed on the program. When Bernhardt did Fedora in Paris, Vladimir was always played by one of her boy friends who was not an actor. Edward VII was one of them, and nobody in the audience recognized him. The gilded youth of Paris got a kick out of being kissed by Bernhardt in public—all the thrills of going on the stage and none of the hard work. As soon as Wanda heard about that she wanted to invite one of her pals to play Vladimir here on the opening night. I said ‘Okay’ and never thought anything more about it. We used a dummy during rehearsals. I suppose this must be some guy she invited, but—. Good Lord, I have no idea who he is!”

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THE HANDS of the Tilbury clock were pointing to ten-fifty-eight when a long, black limousine turned into West 44th Street from Broadway. The crowd was so dense that the car had to crawl an inch at a time. A mounted policeman leaned down from his horse and yelled at the chauffeur: “Wha’d’ye think yer—Oh.” His voice died away and his hand touched his cap as the pale beam of a street lamp crossed the tight, unsmiling profile of a man who sat alone in the darkness of the tonneau. “This way, Inspector!” The horse plunged ahead forcing the crowd back from the path of the car. It halted at the mouth of an alley. The door opened, and a compact, wiry figure just tall enough to meet the physical requirements of the New York Police Department stepped out. Eyes that darted here and there took in the scene swiftly. Then with the straightened back of a man resisting the drag of a heavy burden newly placed upon his shoulders, Inspector Foyle walked down the alley to the Stage Door of the Royalty Theatre.

A lieutenant from the Homicide Squad met him at the door and conducted him to the stage itself. The curtain was raised, the auditorium empty. Under the glare of footlights and a double bank of auxiliary lights overhead, the scene looked rather absurdly like the second act of a routine mystery play. An assistant medical examiner was working over a still figure in an alcove at the rear of the set. A police stenographer was writing in a notebook at a table in the foreground. A fingerprint man was busy with lens and insufflator over a silver samovar and a set of Sèvres tea cups. A police photographer was focusing a camera on the stage from the wings. Other detectives were comparing a designer’s drawing of the set with an architect’s plan of the theater building and scrutinizing every square inch of the actual boards and scenery.

Close at hand there was no illusion of a princely “parlor in the antique Muscovite style.” Here it was painfully obvious that the carved oak doors were plywood encrusted with plaster and paint, the Byzantine frescos crude oils on canvas, and the burning embers in the fireplace an artful contrivance of red cellophane and winking electric light bulbs.

A fat fly from the alley had drifted through the stage door with the Inspector. Now it cruised lazily around the set on transparent wings exploring the scene with detached, almost scientific interest in the odd behavior of the human species.

Without removing hat or coat, Foyle dropped into the armchair before the “fire” where Fedora had waited for Vladimir during the first act. Shoulders hunched, chin sunk on his chest, he listened impassively to the lieutenant’s verbal report.

“And no one in the theater could identify Vladimir?”

“No one.”

“Where is Miss Morley now?”

“Her maid took her to her dressing room before we got here. There’s a doctor with her now. The others are in Milhau’s office.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, sir. Except one witness who says he knows you. Some name like Billings.” The lieutenant consulted his notes. “No, Willing. A Dr. Basil Willing. I didn’t pay much attention to him. Put him with the others in Milhau’s office. There’s always one fellow in these mix-ups who claims to be an intimate friend of yours or the Commissioner’s. It usually turns out he sat next to you at a ball game once twenty years ago.”

A smile softened the Inspector’s close mouth. “New to Homicide, aren’t you?”

“Transferred from Narcotics when Lieutenant Samson was detailed to Enemy Aliens, sir.”

“Well, if you stick around long enough, you’ll find out that Dr. Willing is a mighty handy man to have around when you’re trying to break a tough case. Incidentally, he’s one of the D.A.’s medical advisers. I’ll see him at once.”