Cue For Murder полностью

“That’s what it is. Didn’t you notice how she got in all her points in the very act of deprecating them? Sable, not mink; two homes and a villa in Florida; a huge household staff; etc. She couldn’t have told you more if she’d been bragging about those things instead of deploring them, now could she? You see, luxury is the breath of life to Wanda. Years ago, as a child, she was starved of comforts and even necessities, and she’s always trying to get the chill of that early poverty out of her bones. When she first came to New York, green and raw from a factory town, she used to admire quite openly everything that glittered. She would go to the most elaborate trouble to drag the conversation around to mention of some well known person she had met. If you gave her an orchid or an opera ticket she would tell everyone she knew all about it. Her snobbery was so transparent it was innocent and childlike. I thought it rather attractive for that reason. But others did not agree with me. She was well and truly snubbed. After a year or so she developed the formula you heard today as protective coloring, to wit: a cruel fate has imposed a life of luxury and ostentation upon her, but she remains a simple soul at heart who longs for nothing so much as hard work and obscurity. Since the modern mind is as prudish about snobbery as the Victorians were about sex, this blatantly phony, pseudo-democracy of Wanda’s has made a big hit with everybody. She is no longer snubbed by the rich and famous, for she tells them to their faces that she loathes their riches and despises their fame; and they are impressed by her righteous scorn for them as they would be impressed by nothing else. As for the poor and obscure—well, you can imagine how they eat it up. Her personal popularity dates from the day she had a poor-little-rich-girl interview published in one of the women’s magazines. Wanda Morley says that the poorest housewife rich in a home and babies is far happier than a woman like herself who has nothing but the hollow joys of fame and glamour. . . . I really believe Pauline is the the first person who’s ever said to Wanda: Well, if you don’t like this sort of life why not give it up? That was hitting below the belt!”

They turned into East 51st Street past old slum houses converted into prosperous dwellings with gaily painted doors and arty brass knockers.

“Why does Miss Morley hate canaries?” inquired Basil.

“Because she used to be a canary herself.”

“She—what?”

“‘Canary’ is jive slang for a girl who sings with a hot band. Wanda got her start as a canary. Those were her leanest years. It wasn’t just that she went hungry. She had no professional dignity; no one took her work seriously. She doesn’t like to be reminded in any way of the time when she sang for her supper. I remember one evening we were at Sam Milhau’s house in the country, and a pet canary he had began to sing. Wanda screamed at it: ‘Stop that noise!’ No one but me knew her well enough to know why.”

“You’ve known her a long time?”

“Ever since she first joined one of Sam’s companies.” Leonard smiled reminiscently, almost sentimentally. “She was a regular little guttersnipe in those days—or shall we be polite and say gamine? But there was something attractive about her—a black-haired, yellow-eyed alley kitten, a scrapper tough as they come, all legs and bones and claws. I liked her better then than I do now. She was real then. Of course, the reality is still there; but it’s buried under layers and layers of egoism. I don’t suppose she can help it. We all worship our creator, and so the self-made worship themselves. It isn’t ordinary selfishness—it’s the occupational disease of the successful. Wanda shows it in a thousand little ways, from taking the largest piece of candy in the box to talking the way she did just now about the murder. You heard her say that the murder was committed in order to hurt her feelings and her career? That the murderer was mocking her when he planned his crime so she would weep over the stage death of a stage lover who was really her lover and really dead without her knowing it? Of course, the truth is probably that the murderer was not thinking of her at all. But she transposes everything into terms of its effect on herself. She hardly seemed to think of Ingelow at all. He was just the poor sucker who got murdered. The only important thing about his murder was its effect on Wanda Morley—her reputation, her fortunes, her future.”

“You must have been standing in that French window for some time before you spoke!” remarked Basil.