Cue For Murder полностью

Wanda had listened to all this with absorption. Now her smile was challenging. “I’m afraid of you, Dr. Willing! You notice too many things. And you put them together too quickly. I’m glad I have no idea what you’re thinking about me at this moment!”

“I’m thinking that you were most unwise to mislead the police last night by pretending you didn’t know Vladimir. I suppose it was you who took the labels out of his clothing and destroyed the card in his wallet?”

“How dare you suggest—”

“You had the opportunity. He left his coat and other things in your dressing room. Your maid took you back there after your faint—before the police arrived. Why did you do it?”

“I was frightened. I didn’t want the police to connect him with me. I hoped they wouldn’t identify him for a long time. I flushed the labels and the draft card down the drain. I didn’t know how to get rid of the clothes. My maid was going to put them somewhere else when the police arrived. What else could I do?” She leaned forward in her chair, tense and supple as a coiled spring. There was irritation in her voice and a hint of bitterness. “Everyone thinks I murdered him! Everyone hopes that I murdered him! Of all the people on stage I did have the best opportunity. That last scene where I clasped the body . . . and wept over it . . .” A trace of emotion shook her voice.

“As I recall it there were two scenes where you clasped the body and wept over it. The first was just after Leonard as Grech opened the alcove doors and Vladimir was discovered to the audience. The second was at the end of the first act just after Rodney as Lorek announced Vladimir’s death. Those two occasions bracketed the first act—one at the beginning, one at the end. Both times you actually touched Vladimir’s cheeks and lips with your lips, as well as your hands. The shock of a stab wound should have made his skin cool to the touch, and lips are more sensitive to temperature than fingertips. Did you notice anything different between the first time you kissed him on stage and the second?”

Wanda closed her eyes for a moment. Was she overcome with emotion? Or merely trying to summon the memory of last night as vividly as possible? Her eyelids lifted slowly, as if the weight of the heavy black lashes dragged them down. “At the time, I thought nothing was wrong with him. A stage kiss is different from an ordinary kiss. I barely touched his lips with mine. But now—as I look back in the light of what has happened—it seems to me that his cheek and lips were colder than they should have been.”

“The first time? Or the second?”

“Both times.”

“You realize that would mean he was stabbed at the beginning of the first act? And that only one person approached him on stage before you did?”

The golden eyes widened with horror. “What have I said! Poor Leonard would never do such a thing! It’s ridiculous! What possible motive could Leon have? I was the only person in the company who knew John. When the police discover that they’ll argue that I’m the only person who could have had a motive for stabbing him. That’s why I lied about knowing him last night. It was just self-preservation.”

“There is another possibility—Margaret Ingelow.”

“But she wasn’t on stage!”

“Not after the curtain rose. But she was seen leaving the alcove and crossing the stage just before the curtain rose. Apparently she left the alcove after Vladimir had entered it, and she was the only person to do so before Grech opened the alcove doors.”

Wanda smiled her wry, uneven smile. “So there are four of us? Leonard, Rod, Magpie, and me! It could have been Magpie, I suppose . . .”

Basil noticed that Wanda preferred the derisive “Magpie” to the sedate “Margot” as a nickname for Margaret Ingelow.

“John could have been dying or dead all through the first act without one of us suspecting anything wrong. How awful!” Wanda shivered under her sweater in the warm sun.

“Are you sure no one else in the company knew Ingelow by sight?”