Cue For Murder полностью

“Suppose that by taking the part of Vladimir and seeing the action of the play from Vladimir’s angle of vision this boy, Russell, will discover something about the action of the play that proves only one person could possibly murder Vladimir during the first act? And suppose the murderer realizes this? Then the boy wouldn’t be too safe would he?”

“You do have the nicest ideas,” said Basil. “But I’ve been over the script thoroughly, and I don’t see any way Vladimir could learn something that was not known to any other observer on stage or in the audience.”

“Everybody ready?” cried Milhau. “Shoot!”

The orchestra lights were dimmed but the stage remained a brightly lighted box.

One of the servants moved a domino. Four!

Six! cried Adeane.

Rehearsal had begun.

The full force of all Hutchins had said about eternal recurrence came home to Basil in the next few moments. To a layman there was something uncanny and even a little frightening about the way the actors repeated every word and inflection and gesture of the other evening as if they had ceased to be human beings and become mechanical toys who always did and said certain things when you wound up their springs. While one part of Basil’s brain kept his eyes on his watch and his hands busy with a pencil noting the time of each entrance and exit on the margin of Rod’s time table, another part of his brain was considering that law of intertia that makes momentum or habit such a tremendous power in the physical and psychical worlds. Everything was a part of it—planets and electrons going round and round the same orbits; Hindu marriage ritual still performed though its significance is forgotten; the intricate instincts of insects who also performed elaborate rituals without knowing why; the child who had to repeat a poem from the beginning in order to remember the last line; the embryo that has to recapitulate the development of the whole species before it can turn a cell into a man. No wonder the most evil and the most ridiculous beliefs became sacred once they were sanctioned by tradition. No wonder that “thinking is hard work while prejudice is a pleasure.” Obviously it was initiative in both act and thought which taxed the nervous system most exhaustingly and unpleasantly. But habit like a buoyant tide of psychic momentum bore the actors through their parts and enabled them to perform prodigious feats of memory repeating page after page of dialogue without mistake or omission.

Once more the domino game was broken up by the ring of the doorbell. Once more Wanda swept into the room saying: Is the master away? This morning her stage presence had the same quality that had held Basil’s attention the other evening; but she was less imposing in her plain black dress, and her lines seemed to come a little more rapidly.

“Are they taking it at the same pace they did the other night?” he asked Pauline.

“A shade faster,” she answered. “They’re nervous. That’s why Sam made them have this run-through. It’ll break the ice so they’ll be all right tonight.”

Again Wanda was at the fireplace. Again the doorbell rang. Again Leonard rushed into the room crying: The count’s room—quickly!

Even without costume and make-up he seemed another man on stage—taller and more robust as he strode to the alcove and threw the doors open.

Pauline gasped and caught Basil’s hand. Russell was lying on the couch exactly as Vladimir had lain, head turned to the audience, one arm dangling. It was as if time had been turned backward. Leonard opened his mouth and closed it as if he could not remember his next line. No one else moved or spoke. Then Russell shifted the position of his head. Someone laughed. It sounded like Adeane’s laugh.

“Steady!” Milhau used his top-sergeant voice again. “Russell!”

“Yes, Mr. Milhau?” The “corpse” sat up on the couch with a grin. Basil could almost hear the tension relaxing all around him.

“Be careful not to move at all after the doors are opened. Get into as comfortable a position as you can, and then keep perfectly still. I know it isn’t easy; but it can be done, and you’re supposed to be in a coma.”

“Yes, sir.”

“O.K.” said Milhau. “We’ll start at the beginning again.”

Pauline dropped Basil’s hand with a sigh. “That’s the first time I ever saw Leonard blow up in his lines.”

Wanda, Leonard, and Hutchins left the stage. The corpse rose and closed the alcove doors. The servants sat around the domino table again.

“Shoot!” said Milhau.

Four!

Six!

Is the master away?

The count’s room—quickly!