Death in the Fifth Position

CHAPTER SIX

1

Medical examination, inquest, more questioning … it promised to be a long day. When I was not participating in the official rites of investigation, conducted as solemnly as a church service by Gleason, I was at the office holding Mr. Washburn’s hand and battling some thirty newsmen who had appeared at nine o’clock in the morning (proving we were news) and stayed in the anteroom chatting with our duo-typists most of the day, complaining about the meager handouts they got from me. The police were saying nothing and I had silenced the members of our company. Even so there were a dozen wild theories in the air and the editorial in the afternoon Globe demanded that the murderer be instantly produced … if not, the Globe suggested balefully, there might be some changes made in the office of the Commissioner.

I was almost afraid to read the columns that afternoon. The news stories were all right: they just reported the facts, which were few … Third Murder in Ballet Mystery. But the columnists, in their own libelous way, were hinting pretty strongly that someone highly placed in the ballet world, in our company, had done the three murders. Needless to say, in spite of the official theory, everyone was convinced that there was a connection between the deaths of Miles and Ella and Magda. The Globe had the inside story. Beloved Elmer Bush had seen to that. His column made the front page … an exclusive report by An Eyewitness.

“Little did I think, as I talked with the beauteous Magda, that a few moments later she would lie broken and alone in the street below. She must have known even then what fate had in store for her. There was something other-worldly in her manner, a remoteness, a true serenity. I think she wanted to join her friend Miles Sutton in a better world, to be as one with the father of her unborn child. Yet as we stood talking to one another in that busy rehearsal studio, a murderer was watching us, plotting her destruction. Did she know his (or her?) identity? Yes, I have reason to believe she did …”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” said Mr. Washburn, draining his third shot of brandy.

“It’s more of the same,” I said, putting the paper down on the floor, to join the pile by my chair. We were in his office. One of the duo-typists had brought us sandwiches for lunch and the newsmen had momentarily deserted us. We were taking no calls and reading no mail.

“I wonder if we shouldn’t take that South American tour … we could leave next week … well, in two weeks’ time anyway. First Guatemala City then Panama, Bogotá, Rio, Buenos Aires …” Naming these remote places seemed to soothe my employer who sat now sniffing his empty brandy glass, his eyes bloodshot and glazed.

“I’m afraid the police wouldn’t let us go,” I said gently.

He pulled himself together with a visible effort. “You take over,” he said, as though I hadn’t been in charge all along, since nine anyway. “I’m going down to City Hall. After that, I’ll be at the studio in case you want me.”

“The rehearsals still going on?”

“Oh yes. Gleason was very decent about that. In fact, he’s moved into one of the classrooms … the one where …” He stopped. “I suppose he wants to be on the scene.”

“Try and stop them,” I said, as Mr. Washburn placed his panama squarely on the center of his long head, the grim parallel to the floor.

“Stop who?”

“The police … when you see them. I think they’re going to make an arrest.”

“What makes you think so?”

“First, because I’ve read the papers today. They want an arrest. And, second, because Jane is being watched by the police.”

“I’m sure they don’t suspect her.”

“It’s a toss-up, Mr. Washburn, between her and Eglanova.”

He shuddered. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.”

“I’m perfectly willing not to think it but some of these columnists won’t be so obliging. They’ve done everything except name names. ‘Jealous ballerina’ … that’s their line, and that could mean only one of two people.”

“Let’s wait until we come to this bridge,” said Mr. Washburn, with the air of a man ready to fall into a river. Then he left the office.

But I couldn’t wait. I wasn’t really worried about Jane. She was obviously innocent and if they indicted her they wouldn’t be able to convict. I was confident of that. But even if justice prevailed she would be marked all her life as the girl who had been accused of a murder. I can still remember what happened to a certain musical comedy star back in the Thirties.

I sat at Mr. Washburn’s desk for several minutes, more worried than I’d ever been in my life. Idly, with a pencil stub, I began to write names: Eglanova, Wilbur, Alyosha, Washburn, Louis … I stopped; then I wrote Jane’s name at the bottom. I made a box around it, carefully, an elaborate doodle, like a wall protecting her. I was confident that one of those six had been responsible for the murders. But which one? I had to admit to myself that for all I cared the murderer could go free. The Suttons and Magda meant nothing to me; if someone disliked them or feared them enough to want to kill them, well, that was hardly my business. A callous way of looking at things but you must remember that I liked the suspects, most of them anyway, and I wished them no harm … I’m not a crusader or a reformer and I have no passion for justice: not the crazy way the world is now at least. Official murder, private murder … what’s the difference? Not much, except when you’re involved yourself or someone you care about is. The more I thought about it the madder I got.

I was very grim when I wrote “Why?” at the top of the page; then, next to it, I wrote “How?” Just trying to be methodical made everything seem much better. At least it was all in front of me … like a crossword puzzle, or a double acrostic. If I could only fill in the blanks under each column I might be able to figure it out without leaving my desk … as you see, I have that happy faith in logic which only a liberal arts education can give.

Eglanova. Why? Well, she didn’t want to retire. She knew that Mr. Washburn could not get another ballerina with her pull at the box office for at least a year … except Ella Sutton. That was motive enough for someone of Eglanova’s dedication. As for Miles and Magda, I was convinced that their deaths were connected with Ella’s, that they had been killed because they knew who the murderer was … which took care of the “Why?” of their deaths. So the only important motive was the original one: who wanted to kill Ella Sutton; who had the strongest known motive? The answer was Eglanova. When could she have done the murders? Presuming that Miles had been murdered in some mysterious way. Well, she was at the theater from dress rehearsal to performance, almost continuously. She could have cut the cable any time. And Miles? She was at the party Alma Edderdale gave and she could have left at any time, gone to his apartment and climbed the fire escape without being seen by the police. But even as I checked her in, made it possible for her to have visited Miles, I felt a certain misgiving: it was not in character. Anna Eglanova might in a rage eliminate a rival, but I could hardly see the great ballerina skulking up a fire escape in the middle of the night. Of course everything is possible. As for Magda … well, any of my six suspects could have pushed her out of that window. There was such confusion when the rehearsal broke up that someone could have followed Magda into the classroom, grabbed the purse, shoved her out the window and slipped back into the studio, all undetected.

Sadly, I crossed out “How?” at the top of the page. It wouldn’t work, or rather it worked too well: no one had an alibi. Each time the doughty six had been in the same place at more or less the same time and all had equal opportunity to commit the murders. So, instead of “How?” I wrote a large question mark over the column next to “Why?” Here I recorded the mysteries.

Opposite Eglanova’s name I wrote “Shears.” If she had sliced the cable, why did she leave the shears in her own dressing room? That was a problem which I left unsolved as I moved on to the next name on the list.

Wilbur. Why? God knows. He didn’t get on with Sutton but obviously if he hated her, for some reason as yet unknown, he would hardly have come to work in the same company with her, create a whole new ballet around her. Was he jealous of her? No. He didn’t like women to begin with; nor did their love interests overlap. Professional jealousy? None that I could see. Something in the past, perhaps? Mysteries? Why did he quarrel with Ella the afternoon of the day she was killed?

Alyosha. Why? Love for Eglanova and hatred of Ella his ex-mistress. That was clear-cut, a perfect crime of passion. He had been married to Eglanova, left her for Ella who had deserted him; then he went back to Eglanova, as official slave and acolyte, and now, seeing that Eglanova was soon to be succeeded by Sutton, he lost his head and removed Ella from this vale of tears. Mysteries? Why would he put the shears in Eglanova’s dressing room, implicating her if he’d done the murder for love of her? My head began to ache. Those god-damned shears … they made a mess of every theory. Then a new idea occurred to me. Suppose the person who had done the murder had put the shears some place else and then another villain had, for malicious reasons, put them in Eglanova’s room from which I moved them again … button button who’s got the button?

Washburn. Why? Well, he is the most devious man alive. For all I know he may have wanted to get rid of both Sutton and Eglanova, and he saw this as a perfect way to take care of them. Among the mysteries was the fact of that letter I found from Armiger, the English ballerina. Why had Mr. Washburn wanted to engage a big star when the succession had already been arranged, when it had been all but announced that Sutton was to succeed Eglanova for the next season? And what was Mr. Washburn really up to at Miles’ apartment that night?

Louis. Why? I could think of no reason. There was an old rumor in the company that Ella fancied him but since he was so obviously interested in the other side he could hardly have been disturbed by her love for him, presuming that glacier had ever experienced such a tender emotion. I made a note to ask Louis about Ella; it was possible that he had some unsuspected slant on her character. More and more I was convinced that her character would provide the clue to the puzzle.

Jane? Well, despite the mysterious visit to Miles and her incriminating presence in the classroom with Magda, she had no motive. She was not in line to succeed Sutton even though she was the understudy in Eclipse. She had no professional reason for wanting Ella out of the way and after living a while with her, I was fairly sure she had no private reason as well; their private lives had never touched, as far as I knew.

Gloomily, I studied the page, awaiting revelation. None came. The thought that my hypothesis might be wrong was chilling. I was going on the theory that X had killed Ella, that Miles had found out and was on the point of revealing X’s identity to the police when X, getting wind of this, jammed Miles’ head into that gas burner, not knowing that Miles had somehow gotten a letter or document off to Magda, his proof that X had done the murder. Then X had made a date with Magda to meet her at the studio to discuss the letter … perhaps, even to buy it from her. When she wouldn’t hand it over X had seized the purse which contained whatever it was the murderer wanted and shoved Magda through the window. That was my theory, the police’s theory, too. But suppose Miles had killed Ella and then died of a heart attack and that Y, for reasons unknown, killed Magda? Or suppose … But I made up my mind not to think of any more difficulties. First, I would follow the obvious line; if that failed … well, it wouldn’t fail. As I look back on it now, I think my confidence in myself at that point was remarkably unjustified.

I had reason to believe from Gleason’s behavior that morning at the inquest that he was planning to make an arrest in the next twenty-four hours … Elmer Bush had said as much in his column and he had undoubtedly got it from the horse’s ass. I looked at my watch. Three-thirty. I had less than a day in which to find the murderer.

I spent about twenty valuable minutes on the telephone, lining up the suspects, making appointments for spurious reasons. Then I told the duo-typists that they would see me no more that day. If the press wanted news, I recommended they contact Gleason, or Elmer Bush. Miss Flynn wished me luck.

Eglanova’s maid let me in without comment. I sometimes wonder if she knows any English. From the bathroom I heard Eglanova’s voice above a Niagara of bathwater. “Peter! I am right out in one minute!”

The maid withdrew and, feeling like a Pinkerton man, I covered the living room and the bedroom with the speed of an Electrolux vacuum cleaner. Needless to say, I found nothing of interest. The rooms were an old-fashioned clutter of photographs and bric-a-brac and antimacassars, establishing, as her legs did not, that Eglanova was an Edwardian, a displaced person in time.

“If I keep you waiting, I am sorry,” she said, sweeping down on me in a creation of mauve satin, her head wrapped in a towel. “I wash my hair. First, soap and water. Then gasoline. Gives marvelous luster. Even during the war I use gasoline. I tell authorities Eglanova’s hair important, too. They give me little coupon book … so nice of them. And people say Americans are barbarians!” She sat down in her usual place by the window. I sat opposite her. The inevitable hot tea and lemon was brought us.

“You like nougat?”

I shook my head and watched, fascinated, while she devoured two large awful-looking pieces of nougat. “From admirer,” she said, her mouth full. “He sends me nougat from Rome, Italy. Only place for nougat … and Parma violets: I eat pound of violets at one sitting once when I dance in Florence.”

“I’ll stick to tea.”

“You never be big and strong,” she said and took a swig of tea. Outside the sun glared, like a globe of brass in the afternoon.

I decided the direct approach was best. “I think they’re going to arrest Jane.”

Eglanova blinked, as though I had made a move to strike her. Unsteadily, she put her tea beside the gaily painted nougat box on a marble-topped table. “What … why you think this?”

“She’s being watched every second by a plain-clothes man … the way they watched Miles when he was to be arrested.”

Eglanova smiled wryly. “They watch me, too, Peter. I am no fool. I know all along they suspect me. I have engaged two lawyers … in case.”

“Yes, they suspect you, too, but they’re making a case against Jane. Like a fool, she went to see Miles the evening he was killed, or died. She was with Magda in that classroom before Magda died.”

“But, child, she is so safe! She had no reason to kill Sutton. She never has reason. Surely even that brute who asks questions must know this thing.”

“I’m sure he knows it and I’m also sure that he has to arrest somebody or there’ll be trouble for him and the police department, from the papers, from the public.”

“So they give her trial and she is innocent.”

“In the meantime her reputation is ruined. All her life people will say: ‘Oh, yes, she was mixed up in that ballet murder.’ Because by the time the case falls flat, the real murderer will have covered his tracks and the case might never be solved and she’ll always be suspected. People will say a smart lawyer got her out of it. You know the way they talk. They always want to believe the worst.”

“Poor little Jane.”

“I want to stop it before we really have to say poor little Jane.”

Eglanova laughed. “And I help you? They arrest poor Anna Eglanova instead?”

“They would never arrest you.”

“I am not so sure of that. Of course I did not kill this vile woman but I tell you one thing: if I did kill her I would do such good job there be no talk of murder. I know ways,” and looking like a real murderess she shut those Asiatic eyes of hers until they were like black slanting lines drawn on her white face.

“Then who did kill her?”

“Meaning if I did not? Ah, you are not gallant.”

“No, I didn’t mean that.”

“I don’t know. I think sometimes I know but I am afraid … very afraid.”

“Think back to that night at the theater. Can’t you remember anything which might help us, you and Jane and me?”

“I try. God how I try all time! I go to Greek church and pray something happen … that whole thing be forgotten by a miracle. But no miracle, and I remember nothing. I am in dressing room almost all time. I go for little dinner across the street. I come back. I stay in dressing room. Why I never even know where cable is until afterward. After all, I am not in ballet. I pay no attention to ballets in which I am not dancing. I had no idea I was connected with whole thing until Ivan told me about shears and how you save me embarrassment. For which I am so grateful.”

“Then try and help now.”

“I pray for miracle. Otherwise I can do nothing.” She had never seemed so oriental to me before … like a peasant woman in Samarkand.

“Who do you think killed Ella?”

She looked away, very pale. “Don’t ask me this question.”

“But you want to help.”

“Not like this … not to hurt people I care about.”

“If you don’t help, Jane will be hurt … maybe you will be, too.”

“I have good lawyers,” she mumbled, looking away, out the window at the sunlit yard, at the garbage pails gleaming dully in the light.

“And so has Jane,” I lied. “We’ve already discussed what their strategy will be if she is indicted. They intend to incriminate you as the person with the greatest single motive.” This was wild but it had the effect I wanted.

Her head jerked around toward me and the narrow eyes opened wide … I saw, I think for the first time, that Eglanova’s eyes were as gray as metal, as silver as steel.

“Let them. I am not afraid.”

“Not even of the publicity, of the months in and out of court? Because they won’t be able to convict her and they’ll indict you next and maybe they’ll be able to make the conviction stick, lawyers or no lawyers.” It is not possible for a white face to turn pale but if it were I could have seen the change right then and there … as it was her face sagged.

“Then they find out truth,” she said at last, slowly, looking at me all the time with those silver cat’s eyes of hers.

“And the truth?”

“Don’t you know? Can’t you guess? It is so plain. It is why I have not slept for weeks. Why I grow sick. Why I almost fall off arabesque in Swan Lake on the last night … I am so weak … not because those terrible men throw things at stage, like I said, but because I am frightened for some person I adore!”

“For whom?”

“For Alyosha.”

I said nothing for several minutes and Eglanova, as though shocked herself by the enormity of what she had said, drank tea quickly, a thin trickle of it on her chin.

“Why did he do this?” I asked at last, softly, respectful of the panic which had brought her to make such an admission.

“We were married,” she said at last. “For a number of years. I am bad on time. I don’t remember how many years, but a long time, in this country, after I come with Grand Saint Petersburg from Paris. Then we grow apart. He is old man and I am young woman. He is tired and I am in my prime so we part, on good terms. I have my private life but I do not marry again. Alyosha falls in love with Ella and he loves her a long time, but like an old man … a mistake I tell him but he doesn’t listen, no, he thinks he can hold this little corps de ballet girl, but of course, she sees better opportunity and marries Miles, poor stupid Miles, who is fooled by tricks as old as woman. Then she becomes great star and Alyosha hates her, worse even than Miles. And he comes to me and I comfort him … we have no bitterness, Alyosha and I. He is like a brother to me always. When Washburn tries to replace me with Sutton, Alyosha is just like a madman …”

“And Alyosha killed Ella?”

She nodded, not looking at me. “I think that is what happened.”

“Do you mean to tell me that after he killed Ella he put the murder weapon in your room … to throw suspicion on you?”

“I don’t know … I don’t know … I don’t know what happened after that … maybe he uses something else to cut with. I only tell you all this now because I have very little time, because I can dance only one two more seasons and because I have so little time I cannot be involved for many months in courts, with lawyers. I put dance ahead of Alyosha … ahead of me, child, ahead of everything. It is the big thing … and though I love Alyosha I never ask him to kill this Sutton.” She stopped abruptly and put her empty tea glass on the table with a click. “He was not wise but he is old man and very bitter. You should have seen him the way he was in Russia … yes, I am almost old myself. I remember him when he was young dancer … so handsome, such man! you have never seen such man! Women, men, children they fall in love with him, follow him in streets everywhere he goes. Then we leave Russia and go on tour and all Europe loves him. Not because he is such good dancer like Nijinski but because he is so beautiful, because he is so good … but that was a long time ago, child. We are old now.” And I saw the tears in her eyes. She did not speak to me again and so, with a murmured good-by, I left her.

3

I had made a date to see Jed Wilbur after rehearsal, at four-thirty. I arrived at the studio just as the place was breaking up. It looked strange seeing our dancers in their tights running in and out between plain-clothes men in double-breasted suits with snap-brim hats worn like uniform caps.

I said hello to Jane who was standing by the drinking fountain reading the rehearsal schedule with a preoccupied frown.

“How did it go?” I asked.

She jumped. “Oh, it’s you. I’m like a cat today. It went O.K. Nobody was thinking about the ballet except Wilbur.”

“What’s the ballet like?”

“I don’t remember a thing.” She shuddered. “That policeman! He gives me the shivers. For some reason he’s decided that I know a great deal more about all this than I do. He’s been asking me questions all morning. Where was I at such a time, how well did I know Ella … as if I had anything to do with this mess. I couldn’t get it through his head that my only connection with the murder was through Magda who was a friend of mine and not much of a friend … I mean she latched onto me during her troubles with Miles just because I’m so goddamned sympathetic.”

“I don’t suppose it’s any use my telling you again what a mistake you made in going to Miles’ apartment that night, and not telling Gleason about it …”

“No use at all. What are you doing right now?”

“I have to see Wilbur on business. Then I’m off to dinner with some people … newspaper people. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Try and finish early. I’m going to be home all evening. I don’t know when I’ve ever been so jittery.”

I said that I would and she disappeared into the ladies’ dressing room. I was about to go into the studio where I could see Wilbur talking to some dancers, when Louis hove-to, flashing that ivory smile … uncapped teeth, by the way.

“What’s new, Baby?”

“About that Harlem deal,” I said. “I’d like to go up there some time.”

“That’s a good boy. I knew you come around.” He gave me a sweaty hug. “We go tonight … unless you rather go straight on to my place.”

“I’d like to see Harlem first. I’m writing a book.”

“That’s a hot one,” said Louis who liked only comic books about Superman and Prince Valiant and Terry and the Pirates. We made a date to meet at eleven in the Algonquin lobby.

I avoided Gleason who was, I gathered, in the classroom sifting evidence. Wilbur had obviously forgotten our appointment but he was pleasant enough and suggested I go to his apartment with him while he changed clothes.

Jed lived in a small apartment in one of the drearier housing projects on the East Side … one of those red brick fortress jobs with tiny windows, the perfect place for a true liberal to get that anthill feeling, that sense of oneness with everyman.

I sat in his living room while he showered and dressed. I cased everything, much the way I had in Eglanova’s apartment, and with the same result. It is difficult to search a room for nothing in particular; on the other hand, you get some feeling of the owner’s character. In this case, a rather negative feeling. Everything was functional, 1930-modern, lots of chrome and natural-wood finishes and no decorations other than an abstract painting on the wall, so abstract that it would take an art-lover more dedicated than I to tell whether it was good or bad. In the bookcase were twenty or thirty books on ballet, and nothing else. I was quite sure that the inevitable reference works of the left wing could be found in the bedroom, hidden away while the heat was on.

“I’ve never been so tired,” said Wilbur, coming back into the room wearing a T-shirt and a pair of slacks which hung loosely from his thin body. “Want a drink?” We had bourbon and water.

Then he sat at the other end of the gray and gold couch and looked at me expectantly.

“It’s about these Washington hearings,” I said. “I wanted to know when you were going down and when you’d be back and how you’d like us to handle the publicity … especially for Chicago where we may run into trouble. You see, Mr. Washburn has dropped the whole public relations end in my lap and I don’t quite know how to handle it.” I was dazzlingly glib.

“I wish I knew what to say,” said Wilbur, twisting a lock of hair. “Because of this murder business I can’t go away yet. It takes precedence, I gather, over a Congressional subpoena. I suppose, though, that as soon as they arrest whoever they’re planning to, I’ll be able to go down, testify, and be back in a couple of days. Don’t worry; they won’t find anything. Try and convince that fool Washburn, if you can. I’m sure he thinks I’m a Russian spy.”

“He’s an alarmist.”

“This mess all dates back to my connection with the North American Ballet. Two of the dancers were party members and the rest of us were sympathizers … I’ve already admitted that a hundred times. Unfortunately this is a competitive business and people have been trying to knock me off for years. If you get to the top they’ll use any stick to beat you with. This Communist scare was made to order for my enemies. But I’ll lick them yet; if I have to go through a thousand investigations.” Wilbur was properly truculent and I couldn’t help but admire his spirit. He was not going to knuckle under; the toughness that had got him where he was hadn’t deserted him. I felt, though, that he tended to over-dramatize the situation … I mean, after all, who really gives a damn about a choreographer, a dancing master, a twinkle-toes expert; it’s a minor art form in a second-rate theater, for which sentiment I could probably be run out of town.

“Have you much to do with Gleason?” I asked, before he could go into the inevitable “I-am-a-suffering-artist-who-has-struggled-to-bring-beauty-into-the-world” routine that so many of our talented corn balls slip into at a moment’s notice.

“Gleason?” He looked bewildered, the autobiography of Jed Wilbur, mid-twentieth-century choreographer, halted at the first chapter. “You mean that Inspector? No, not since yesterday when he had us all in. I’ve got enough to worry about without getting mixed up in these murders. Do you realize that they may not let us go to Chicago next week? That my ballet may not be ready even if we do go, what with all these damned interruptions? It was godawful today … I can tell you that. The company was worse than usual … if that could be possible. It was like running through molasses. I’ll tell you one thing, though, which I haven’t even told brother Washburn; if we’re not allowed to go to Chicago I’m going to break my contract. I’ve already talked to my lawyer and he says that I’ve a legal right to.”

“I’m sure Gleason will have solved the case by then, before the Chicago opening.”

“I hope so.” Wilbur poured himself another drink.

“Who do you think did it?” My question was abrupt.

“Did what? The murders? I haven’t the slightest idea. Tell me did that ape from the Veterans’ Committee show up today … what’s his name, Fleer?”

“I don’t think so. Mr. Washburn and I sent away most of the callers … including the press.”

“He has a personal grudge against me. I swear he has. This is downright persecution. Why, of all the liberals in New York, in the theater, did he have to go after me? The one who really cares just about as much about politics as … as Eglanova.”

“After all you said yourself the reason … I mean, you’re the first in your profession. You’re a big target. If they could knock you off that would really be something for them … a real victory. Justify their whole existence.”

This neatly tendered wreath of laurel was received in grateful silence as he absorbed my statement about his preeminent position in the ballet: Wilbur … then Tudor, Balanchine, Ashton, Robbins. This brief meditation put him in a good humor. His expression grew more gentle, almost relaxed.

I repeated my earlier question.

“Who killed Ella and the others? Well, I’m not sure that any opinion I would have would be worth a damn. You see, I’m new to the company. I don’t have much idea of all the politics and so forth.… As a matter of fact, I’ve been so involved in my own mess that I haven’t paid as much attention to all this as I probably should. But just remember that it isn’t easy to create two ballets, defend your reputation and worry about a few murders, too. I figure if I survive the next month I’m going to Bermuda for the rest of the summer, right after the Chicago première. I can’t take much more.”

“But you have known all the people involved for a long time. The ballet’s a pretty small world no matter which company you’re with.”

“That’s true. But ballet companies are like families. They are different on the inside … no matter how well you know them from the outside.”

“You knew Ella a long time?”

“Oh yes. In fact, except for Louis, she was the person I knew best in the company.”

“How long did you know her?”

“You sound just like that policeman.” He smiled at me.

“I’m pretty concerned. This is my bread and butter. You can always go on to another company, to Broadway. I’m on a salary, and there aren’t many jobs around as pleasant as this.”

“I see what you mean. O.K.… Ella Sutton. How long did I know her? Since Nineteen Thirty-seven, when she was in the North American Ballet. She joined it the month it folded; even so she danced several leads and got her first recognition.”

“Did you see much of her after that?”

“Very little. We never worked together from that day until she got Washburn to hire me to make some new ballets for her.”

“I didn’t know Ella was responsible for hiring you.”

“She was indeed. I suspect she was the most ambitious dancer in the history of ballet. She felt she had mastered the classics and the Grand Saint Petersburg chestnuts; she wanted to branch out … to prove she was a great dramatic dancer like Nora Kaye. So she got Washburn to hire me … for which I could kill her.…” He laughed, suddenly aware of what he had said. “If somebody hadn’t taken care of that already. As far as I’m concerned, in spite of the success of Eclipse, my little association with your company has taken ten years off my life.”

“Did you like Ella?”

“Certainly not. She was a bitch, not at all the kind of woman I like,” he said, making a perfunctory effort to show his aversion to Ella was not a general one, did not include the entire sex … which of course it did. “But she was one marvelous dancer. I felt, working with her this season, that she might easily have become the finest ballerina of our time … and I’ve worked with the whole lot, with just about every important dancer in the world.”

“Who do you think killed her?”

He frowned; then he finished his drink. “You know,” he said at last, “I’ve gotten so nervous lately with all these investigations that I hardly dare open my mouth to say it’s a warm day for fear some bastard will twist what I say around and use it against me.”

“Well, there’re only two of us here. You need two witnesses, don’t you, to prove a statement? You can tell me what you think, if you want to.”

“Then I may as well say what I think … not what I know; and if you quote me on this I’ll deny it till I’m blue in the face. From what little I know of this company and the way it’s put together, I’d say the Russians did it.”

“Eglanova?”

“And Alyosha … one or the other or both. I mean who else had any real motive? Aside from Miles, and I still think maybe he did it; though that makes Magda’s death seem a little crazy … which makes me also think that the whole thing might be the work of a lunatic. God knows we have enough of them in ballet—and more than our share in this company.”

“I don’t think Eglanova would ever take such a chance.”

“It wasn’t much of a chance since she knew Miles would be blamed for it, as he was. Or maybe she had Alyosha do it for her. He certainly hated Ella … though I suppose if he did it he wouldn’t have planted those shears in Eglanova’s room. That’s more the sort of thing she might’ve done, an obvious stunt to make herself seem victimized. But that’s all theorizing. Ideally, I’d be very happy if the police just gave up, or arrested the janitor, somebody who didn’t have a thing to do with ballet but if they have to arrest the old girl, or Alyosha, I wish they’d hurry up and do it so I can go to Washington and clear myself. I don’t want anything to affect my chances for the fall, with that musical … it’s the biggest chance I’ve had in the commercial theater and I’m looking forward to it … and not just to the money either.… It’s a chance to do something big … something nobody else has done before.”

He talked awhile about the great things he intended to do; I then asked him if the rumor I’d heard about Louis’ going into musical comedy was true.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Some of the boys in the company … you know how they chatter.”

“We talked about it once. I don’t think he wants to leave the ballet.”

“He’d be good in musicals,” I said.

“You never can tell.” Then Wilbur steered the subject back to himself and before I left he had given me a number of pronouncements to give to the press about his political status.

4

It was almost seven o’clock when I met Alyosha at the Russian Tea Room on Fifty-seventh Street, a favorite meeting place for the ballet, where the Russians often sit for hours at a time drinking tea and eating pressed caviar.

I found Alyosha at his usual table, just inside the main room. He was going through his mail when I joined him; he was as dapper as ever, his monocle in place, a glass of vodka at his elbow. I remember thinking at the time that if he was a murderer, he was certainly a cool one. Except for the marks of fatigue which were standard equipment for the members of the Grand Saint Petersburg Ballet Company that season, he could not have been more relaxed as he motioned me to the chair opposite him.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, ordering bourbon. “But I’ve been at the office, trying to keep the newspapers in line.”

“They are like wolves,” said the old gentleman, placing a cigarette in his long onyx holder. “They smell blood and they want more of it.”

“I know one thing: they’re crazy for an arrest.”

“And this Inspector plans to give them one, I am sure.”

“The wrong one, too, I’ll bet.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Alyosha sadly.

“I wish I could head them off.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I only meant I wished I could … because of Jane.”

“Is she involved?”

I was quick enough, fortunately, to get out of that one. I did some extraordinary feints and maneuvers. “We’re going to be married,” I said. “And all this is making things so difficult for us … her being in Wilbur’s new ballet … the strain of doing Eclipse night after night, terrified that someone may do the same thing to her that they did to Sutton. Well, it isn’t the most wonderful climate for love.”

“Love makes its own climate,” said Alyosha with a warm smile. “Let me congratulate you.”

“Thank you … I appreciate that.… But don’t say anything to the company about it … for now.”

“I shall be very discreet.” He toasted me in tea and I toasted him in bourbon. We talked for a while of love and marriage and he told me about himself and Eglanova. “What a divine woman she is! I have never known any woman so without vanity or meanness. Oh, I know that seems strange since she is such an egotist about her work, but that is natural.… It is the ballet she cares about, not Eglanova. In a way it is like the priesthood for her, for us. You Americans are not quite the same thing. You think of money and glamour and all that, not of the thing itself, the dance, the work, the magic. In a way our marriage was perfect.”

“But it ended.”

“All things must … in our world sooner than later. I was infatuated with someone else and so it ended. Yet Anna never reproached me, not once.”

“With Ella?”

“Yes … I am afraid everyone knows. I made a fool of myself, but I don’t blame her. We were such different people. I thought first of ballet then of her and she thought only of herself; she thought because I loved her I’d give her the great roles but I saw that she wasn’t ready and I refused, thinking that ballet came first with her, too, that she would know, as I knew, that she wasn’t ready. So she married Miles and suddenly, pouf! like that, she was ready: overnight she was a great ballerina. Sad woman … she ended the way she deserved.”

“Did you hate her so?”

“For a long time but not in the last year. I felt something would happen … I am not superstitious but I think sometimes a terrible deed casts a shadow before it. I saw the shadow some time ago. I knew she would not be allowed to live much longer … and I was sorry for her. After all, I had loved her once.”

“I have some news,” I said, interrupting this mystical reverie.

“News?” He put the onyx holder down and looked at me politely.

“The police are going to arrest the murderer tomorrow.”

“How do you know?”

“I found out this afternoon … through the grapevine … the warrant is being prepared now.”

“But they can’t do this to her … they can’t!” He fell with the grace of a dying swan into my little trap … unless of course I had fallen into his trap: at the moment, I wasn’t sure which, but I bluffed it through.

“I’m afraid they can. After all, even a great dancer like Eglanova is at the mercy of the law.”

“I know, but we must stop them.” He let his monocle drop; he was suddenly haggard-looking. “She mustn’t be brought to trial.”

“But if she’s innocent she’ll be let off.”

“Innocent!” he groaned.

“Do you think she really killed Ella?”

“Who else?” His voice was strained and it quavered; he sounded very old.

“Did you talk to her about it?”

“Never. We have never discussed Ella alone together since it happened. I knew. She knew that I knew, from the beginning. There was never anything to say.”

“Did you talk like this to Gleason?”

“Of course not. I made up lies! oh, such lies, such confusion! They may never straighten out all the things I tell them.”

“Even so they will arrest her tomorrow.”

“Then we must get Ivan. We must engage lawyers. The best in America … I am told in this country with a good lawyer you can escape anything.”

“It’s been known to happen. She already knows the police suspect her, that they may arrest her any minute.”

“I should be with her now.”

“I’m not sure that’d be such a good idea.” For the moment, I didn’t want any of these people getting together and comparing notes; if they did I might find myself in serious trouble. “You see the police are watching her and if they think you might be an accomplice of some sort your testimony in her favor won’t be worth a cent.”

“Even so …”

“Besides, she told me she was going to be with her lawyers this evening. Wait until tomorrow. That’s the only thing to do, the only really intelligent thing to do …” I talked for several minutes, trying to divert him; then, still unsure as to whether I had or not, I left.

5

Mr. Washburn arrived ten minutes late for dinner with me at a little French restaurant on Fifty-fifth Street. A place with good food and dim lights.

“Elmer Bush is going to drop by in an hour,” said Mr. Washburn, sitting down, not even bothering to say good evening.

“Is that a good idea?”

“Good idea or not we have to see him. He’s in charge around here, just as much as Gleason.” This last name, on his lips, became a curse.

We ordered a light cool dinner. The room was dark but not air-conditioned … it was a little like being in a cave somewhere in Africa.

“The police are going to make an arrest, aren’t they?”

He nodded.

“Jane?”

“I’m doing everything I can to stop it. I’ve been at City Hall all afternoon. I’ve talked to the Mayor, to the Governor up in Albany.”

“I suggest you find her a good lawyer.”

“Benson will represent her … I’ve seen to that, at company expense.” I knew then he was serious; Mr. Washburn doesn’t like to spend money.

“Jane doesn’t know yet, does she?”

“I don’t think so. You’re the one who sees her.”

“She’s home now. She suspects they might … it’s so damned awful, so stupid! Didn’t you explain to Gleason that there is no motive, absolutely none? That regardless of circumstantial evidence, the state is going to look damned funny when they try to convict her?”

“He seems confident.”

“But can’t you stop him? A trial like this could ruin her.”

“I can’t do anything more than get her acquitted. She will be acquitted … I’m sure of that.”

It’s a good thing, I suppose, that I have a great deal of self-control because my impulse at that moment was to rush straight to Gleason’s office and tell him exactly what I thought of his investigation.

“Besides,” said Mr. Washburn, “I have reason to believe that the trial will be speeded up so that Jane will be through in time for our Los Angeles opening.”

I was beginning, dimly, to see the plot. “You seem very confident,” I said, “that by the time the trial is over the police will have lost interest in the case … that Eglanova will be out of danger.” I was now fully aware that Jane was to be the lightning rod for the whole company in general and for Eglanova in particular.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said my employer sharply and I shut up. There was plenty of time for saying what I had to say.

We ate the first course in silence; then, when the entree arrived, I asked, very casually, “Tell me, Mr. Washburn, why you were trying to get Armiger to take Eglanova’s place, before Ella was killed.”

I suppose if I had spat in his face I would have made less effect; he sat back in his chair abruptly and his chin jerked up, like a boxer off guard.

“How did you know I’d written her?”

“I saw her answer on your desk one day.”

“I’m not sure I approve of your reading my mail.”

“It was accidental, believe me. I don’t usually read other people’s mail. I’ve been wondering, though … been wondering quite a bit lately whether that might tie in with the murders. You see, it’s more important to me to get Jane off the hook than it is for you to save Eglanova.”

“You haven’t mentioned seeing that letter to anyone, have you?”

“Not yet. But I plan to tell Gleason about it tomorrow … any stunt I can think of to throw him off the track.”

“It could be misinterpreted.” Mr. Washburn was worried.

“It would provide a mild diversion. They might even suspect you.”

Washburn snorted. “As if I would make such trouble for myself! All I have to do is fire a ballerina … it couldn’t be simpler. I don’t have to kill them … though there are times when I have been greatly tempted.”

“Why did you write Armiger?”

“Because right after we opened in New York, Sutton told me that she and Louis were planning to quit the company and go into musical comedy, into night clubs, to make money. I was furious, of course; I did all I could to stop her, promised her more money than Eglanova gets … everything, but she said she’d made up her mind.”

“Then that clears you.”

“Not entirely,” said Mr. Washburn very distinctly, his eyes on mine. “I found out after I wrote to Armiger that Ella had said nothing to Louis about this plan of hers … or rather they had discussed it but neither, according to him, had decided to leave the company. For some reason she wanted to upset me, to get me to promise her more money which I did and which I was bound to give her after Eglanova left. That’s the way the situation was when she died. She hadn’t told me she would stay with us but I knew, after talking to Louis, that she would.…”

“But in the meantime you had written that letter to Armiger.”

“To several other dancers, too.”

“Very messy.”

“I sometimes wish I had stayed in Bozeman.”

“Stayed where?”

“Bozeman, Montana. That’s where I was born.… I still own property there. I came East about twenty years ago and my ex-wife got me into ballet.” This was an unexpected confidence. As a rule, Mr. Washburn never made any reference to his life before the ballet, nor could one find out much about him before his ballet days. I know. I tried soon after I joined the company; out of curiosity, I looked him up and found almost nothing at all. His birthplace is recorded, officially, as San Francisco, the child of Anglo-Russian parents; his mother was supposed to have been a dancer called the “Pearl of the Baltic.” None of this of course was true … a real New York biography! much glamour and no facts.

“In a way,” said Mr. Washburn after a brief reminiscence or two on his early days, “this may be a blessing for all of us.”

“What may be?”

“Their putting Jane on trial. They haven’t a chance in the world of making any case against her stick because she is so obviously innocent and, let’s face it, of almost all the people involved in this business she is the one least likely to be hurt by a trial. They might make a case against Eglanova or Alyosha or even against me, and make it stick regardless of how innocent we are in fact …”

“But is Eglanova innocent?”

“I have never allowed myself to think of her or anyone else connected with my company as a murderer.”

“Then you should allow yourself to think right now that somebody we both know is responsible for those murders and that Jane is scheduled to take the rap for that somebody. It might be a good policy for us to co-operate with Gleason and help him catch the real murderer instead of trying to confuse him the way you’ve been doing for the last few weeks, helping him make a case against Jane whom you know is innocent.”

“I’ve done no such thing. I …”

“Then why did you tell Gleason about seeing Jane at Miles’ apartment? Especially when you made it a point to tell me you hadn’t mentioned it to Gleason.” This was wild but I had to take chances; it worked.

“I didn’t want to upset you and then have you disturb Jane when she was working on a new ballet. Of course I told Gleason. How would it have looked if I hadn’t? He knew anyway.”

“I don’t like this …”

“In which case you may want to find a job somewhere else,” said Mr. Washburn looking at me coldly, a piece of lettuce sticking to his lower lip.

“I have other jobs,” I said brazenly. “Which is fortunate … especially if they start investigating those letters you wrote Armiger and the other dancers.”

“Are you trying to blackmail me? Because if you are …”

“Christ no!” I said. “I’m just trying to make a little sense out of the mess you and the others have made. I don’t know why but it seems that everybody connected with this company has a constitutional aversion to telling the truth which is very nearly miraculous … I mean just by accident the truth will sometimes out, but not in this set. I’m sick to death of all the shenanigans … yours, too, Mr. Washburn.”

“A fine speech,” said Elmer Bush appearing out of the shadows.

“A little joke,” said Mr. Washburn easily, getting to his feet. “How are you, Elmer? Let me order you a drink.”

“The boy may be right,” said Elmer, accepting a gin and tonic from a waiter. “Sometimes it’s best to be direct.”

“He’s very much upset, as he should be.”

“Over that girl? Well, he has every reason to be,” said Elmer Bush, giving me his serious television gaze, the one denoting sympathy, compassion.

“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing exactly what he meant.

“You better get her a good lawyer; she’ll need one, starting tomorrow.”

“I’ve got Benson for her,” said Mr. Washburn. “And of course we’ll take care of the bond.”

“She’s innocent,” I said, wearily.

“Perhaps,” said Elmer Bush, “but the police and the press both think she killed Ella to get her part in that ballet.”

“Thin motive, isn’t it?”

“They may have evidence we know nothing about,” said Elmer, looking as though he knew all sorts of things nobody else did … which was possible. If it was, I had another puzzle dropped in my lap … and there wasn’t much time to unravel all the threads, to work everything out.

“Do you mind,” said Mr. Washburn, turning to me with icy formality. “Elmer and I …”

“I’m on my way,” I said, getting to my feet. I gave them a brisk good night. Then I headed down the street to the Blue Angel. There, sitting in a booth at a black table under a red light, I pulled out my sheet of paper and began to go over the names, solving some of the old mysteries, adding the new ones I’d come across during the evening, making brief notes on my conversations with the suspects. While making those notes, I figured out who killed Ella Sutton. There was the solution in front of me, in black and white. The only bad thing was that I didn’t have one bit of evidence to prove what I knew. I was very pleased with myself; I was also scared to death.