Cue For Murder полностью

“The three things that no murderer can ever quite eliminate: the victim, the weapon, and the psychology of the crime. First, the weapon. It is the one tangible thing we possess that we are absolutely certain has been in contact with the murderer. Second, the victim. We don’t know who he is now, but as soon as his identity is established it should tell us something about the identity of his murderer. Third, the psychology of the murder—the subtle traces of character that are left behind in all acts of criminal behavior. This murderer has been clever about eliminating all the usual clues. But there has to be a victim, there has to be a weapon, and there has to be a mind behind that weapon. Perhaps the mind is our best bet. Every murder committed is in itself a clue to the nature of the mind that conceived it, and a mind is almost as individual as a fingerprint. Our job is to find out which of three people has the sort of mind that would act as this murderer has acted.”

“I don’t see how the weapon is going to help us.” Foyle picked up the knife again. The fly shot into space at a tangent. “Anyone in the theater could have taken it from Rodney Tait’s dressing room, including Tait himself. Anyone could have sharpened it in the knife-grinder’s workshop next door. And fingerprints don’t show on that grooved handle.” With a sigh, he laid it back on the table. The fly hovered over the blade for an instant; then it swerved and sank to the handle.

Basil drew near the table—so quietly that the fly did not move. “That’s queer.”

“What is?”

“There are bloodstains on the blade, but this fly keeps going back to the handle. It hasn’t settled on the blade once in all the time we’ve been here.”

The fly rocketed once more as Foyle picked up the knife by the handle. “Feels kind of sticky. What is there besides blood that would attract a fly? Gravy?”

“Yes. Or a sugar bowl.” Basil was conscious of a teasing, fugitive fragrance as he bent over the knife—something like the air in a walled orchard. “You might ask Lambert to test that handle for traces of sugar.”

Lambert was the city toxicologist who had made a name for himself identifying chemical ingredients in the smallest bits of matter—grease spots on a waistcoat, grime under a fingernail, the accumulation of dust in the welt around the sole of a shoe.

“Why sugar?” asked Foyle.

“Just an idea,” responded Basil. “Probably a foolish one. I haven’t worked it out yet.”

“Am I interrupting?”

It was Pauline. She came through the wings her hair in a misty disorder, her eyes like wilted bluebells. “I should get a bonus from the Police Department for this! It’s hard work.” She dropped into a chair Basil had pulled back for her. “And I don’t believe I’ve found your black cloak after all. I’ve made a list.”

“Let’s hear it.” Foyle was a little wary of this amateur assistant. Basil stood behind her chair looking over her shoulder at the paper in her hand.

“Well, in Wanda’s dressing room there’s a yellow satin housecoat and a dressing gown of chartreuse wool crêpe. Neither of those would fill the bill. Fedora doesn’t wear any coats or cloaks in the rest of the play, so that was all. Leonard wore a spring overcoat to the theater this evening—pale gray herringbone tweed. The uniform he wore on stage as Grech is dark blue, with silver braid and buttons that would shine in the dimmest light. His dressing gown is a clear cardinal red. There’s no other wrap in his room, and—” She hesitated, frowning.

“And Rodney Tait?” prompted the Inspector.

“I knew he was out of it before I started to look. Otherwise—” She smiled, “I wouldn’t have looked. The overcoat he wore to the theater is of beige camel’s hair. His dressing gown is light blue flannel. The long Russian overcoat he wore on stage as Dr. Lorek is black but it is fur-lined with a collar of silver gray squirrel. That collar would look pale in any light, and anyone can see the fur was sewn to the cloth by a professional furrier. It couldn’t have been removed and replaced quickly by an amateur like Rod, just as Leonard couldn’t have removed and replaced the intricate silver braiding on his dark blue coat. And that’s the lot. I looked all through the dressing rooms. I even looked in Milhau’s office. I looked through the lockers the stagehands use in the recreation room under the stage. There just wasn’t any long black cloak or even a darkish overcoat or dressing gown that would look black in a dim light.”

“What about the sable cloak Wanda wore in the first act?” asked Basil.

“Oh!” Pauline was startled. “I never thought of that. It wasn’t in her dressing room. I suppose she’s taken it home with her already.”

“It was a very dark brown,” went on Basil. “It enveloped her from head to heels, and it even had a hood. If she wore it over the house coat would the yellow satin show?”