Cue For Murder полностью

Rod started to go with her, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t bother to come with me, Rod. Sam Milhau is driving me home. We have a few things to talk over before tonight. The boy who was to play Desiré has fallen ill, and we’ll have to cut out his lines. Fortunately there are only a few!”

Rod seemed a little piqued at this dismissal. Pauline was amused. Leonard’s thoughtful eyes followed Wanda as she passed through the crowd like a breeze through a field of poppies, leaving a trail of turning heads behind her.

A waiter presented a tray of French pastry. Pauline took a strawberry tart. Basil and Rod followed suit. Leonard eyed the remaining tarts and savarins with distaste and shook his head.

“Poor Wanda!” cried Pauline. “She’s beginning to ham off-stage as well as on!”

Leonard’s long face broke into a wry grin of appreciation, but Rod was dismayed.

“That’s not like you, Pauline. Great artists have to be conceited. Don’t you remember what Huneker said about Rodin? His vast store of conceit kept him going all the years the public neglected him.”

“The public isn’t neglecting Wanda,” returned Pauline. “Not with two press agents working night and day to keep her on every theatrical page in town. And it’s not her conceit I mind; it’s her hypocrisy. She leads the sort of life most suburban housewives would give their eye-teeth to lead; but she flatters them by pretending that they’re the lucky ones and that she’s the martyr to circumstance who deserves everyone’s sympathy. She never sends her picture to the papers without a covering letter to explain that she just hates publicity. She never wears an orchid without telling everyone present that what she really wanted was a simple bunch of violets. You’re never quite sure whether she’s apologizing for being a success or rubbing it in. I suppose it’s her idea of being ‘democratic.’ I prefer honest snobbery.”

“Pauline!” protested Rod. “That isn’t fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Pauline lifted her chin and looked at him. “I believe you’re half in love with her!”

It was the true word spoken in jest. Rod chose to take it lightly. “Don’t be silly!” he cried. “We’re just good friends.”

“You sound like an old, divorced couple!” Pauline shut her notebook with a snap and rose. “Can I give anyone a lift uptown?”

“Yes,” said Rod. “If you’re including me.”

“Of course.” Pauline took a narrow envelope out of her purse and turned to Basil. “Here’s your ticket for tonight. She thrust the envelope into his hand. “Do come if you can! Better dress. Wanda likes her first nights plushy. Good-by!” Pauline slipped away in the crowd. Rodney Tait followed her.

There was a flicker of mild amusement in Leonard Martin’s eyes. In a close-up he looked sickly and underweight; he was gaunt to the point of emaciation. Loose skin sagged in folds and creases on his long face as if he had lost flesh recently. It had a dark tinge, nearer bronze than tan, that contrasted vividly with his pale blue eyes and the fringe of sandy hair above his ears. His high, bald forehead shone waxily in the brightly lighted room. His manner was gentle, almost apologetic. Basil wondered what part such a tired, discouraged, quiet, little man could play in a dashing melodrama like Fedora.

He was speaking now in a voice as mild as his eyes. “I suppose we’ve confirmed your belief that all theater people are crazy?”

“Stimulating is the word I should have used.”

“Wanda is certainly stimulating.” Leonard exhaled a deep sigh. His breath was heavy as if he had been eating overripe fruit. “She’s rather like an X-ray,” he mused. “When you’re first exposed to her, you think there’s no harm done! Her technique is so obvious! Then weeks, or even months later, you may discover you’ve been badly burned.”

“Is that what happened to young Tait?”

“I don’t know. But Wanda ought to leave Rod alone. He’s only a boy and she—well, she wouldn’t like me to say how long she’s been on the stage. . . . I must be off now. Shall I see you this evening?”

“I expect so.” Basil looked down at the ticket envelope in his hand. It was covered with fine print, but two words stood out in larger type: Royalty Theatre. “Have you seen the pictures?” he asked suddenly. “There’s a rather curious animal study over here.”

They squeezed through the crowd to the first row of a group standing in a semi-circle before a small painting in oils. At a little distance it looked like a turquoise matrix. There was a brown plain wide open to a turquoise blue sky mottled with tan clouds. Cunning perspective gave the spectator a feeling of infinite distance, airy and sunlit. In the foreground, drawn on a small scale, there was a row of crumbling Doric columns. A tiny brown ape sat on one of them, cross-legged, holding a yellow bird. He had just pulled off its wing. Three pear-shaped drops of dark red blood were falling toward the ground, high-lighted like rubies.