A Pinch of Poison (31 page)

Weigand tried not to look at Dorian. He looked at Dorian. She nodded with animation. Weigand sighed and indicated attention to the short, round man with the heavy face who sat next to Christopher.

The round man stood up, as straight as a round man could.

“I am Max Ahlberg,” he said. “I am producing this play. It is a beautiful play, Inspector. Whatever they say, it is a beautiful play. They are ruining the theatre with what they say.”

“Who?” Weigand asked, involuntarily.

“The god-damn critics,” Mr. Ahlberg said. “But they will love this play. Even they will see that it is a beautiful play. And if they like it—um-m-m!”

The “um-m-m!” was ecstatic. A child anticipating the most shining of parties might have sounded so. In spite of himself, Weigand smiled in sympathy with Mr. Ahlberg's anticipatory exultation. Mr. Ahlberg sighed.

“They are smart-alecks, the critics,” Mr. Ahlberg said, grimly. “For a laugh they will kill anything.”

Mr. Ahlberg made what might have been a little bow toward Weigand and sat down. Kirk spoke from his seat.

“They'll like it, Maxie,” he promised, as a parent to a child. “This is the sort of thing they go for, Maxie.”

But Maxie seemed sunk beyond recall. Weigand declared a moment of silence over him and then continued.

You would never, Weigand decided, lose Miss Mary Fowler in a crowd. She stood quietly and gave her name and Weigand caught himself trying not to stare. She was a heavy woman with a heavy, chiseled face. Her hair was black and pulled back from a broad, low forehead and a little row of bangs was left behind. There was a thickness about her body which loose, flowered clothing did nothing to ameliorate. When she gave her name her low voice sounded younger than she looked—younger and more vibrant. But it was none of these things which made Weigand stare. He stared because Mary Fowler seemed to be staring outlandishly herself.

It took him only an instant to realize that the stare was physical; that Miss Fowler seemed to be staring because, more alarmingly than any he had ever seen, her eyes protruded from her head. They were not merely prominent; they seemed about to pop out. Weigand decided he had never seen anything quite like them before, and never wanted to again. But there was nothing in his voice as, nodding in acknowledgment of her name and giving Mullins time to write it down, he said:

“You are designing the costumes, Miss Fowler?”

“Yes,” she said. If she sensed the revulsion in Weigand she did not notice it by the inflection of her voice. Probably, Weigand thought uneasily, she was used to being stared at. He nodded, dismissingly, and she sat down again.

The man who stood up on her left said he was Percy Driscoll. He looked, Weigand decided at once, like nothing on earth except the successful actor he presumably was. He was, Weigand guessed, in his late forties; he was suave and mannered with the suavity of middle-aged success and the manner of one who lives by manner. And the light, falling from above, accentuated the pouches under his eyes.

“I think,” Driscoll said, after he had named himself, “that we're all giving you a wrong impression, Lieutenant Weigand. An impression of flippancy and—animosity toward poor Carney. I'm sure that doesn't really represent our feelings. A regrettable impression.”

His intonation was British. Weigand corrected it—stage British. But it fitted like a glove, long worn. Weigand said, “Right.”

“I take it you liked Bolton, Mr. Driscoll?” Weigand said.

Driscoll said Bolton had been a fine chap, a very fine chap. And a very dear friend. Weigand waited a minute, heard nothing more, and said, “Thank you.” Driscoll sat down. The man next to him stood up and faintly caricatured Driscoll in gesture and inflection.

“F. Lawrence Tilford,” the man said. “Actor.”

He managed to make the few words rotund. He was, Weigand decided, in his middle sixties. He had … Weigand hazarded a guess:

“Didn't you play with Booth?” Weigand asked.

“As a boy, my dear sir,” Mr. Tilford told him. “As the merest boy. But I have never forgotten—”

“Thank you,” Weigand said. “I was sure you had!”

Tilford stood looking at Weigand.

“Thank you, Mr. Tilford,” Weigand repeated. He repeated it with finality. Mr. Tilford sat down. He sat down and sighed deeply.

“And you,” Weigand said to the very lovely young woman, in a simple, vividly colored, green dress, who sat next Tilford, “must be Ellen Grady.”

It was an easy deduction; the semicircle was running out of women and there was an Ellen Grady featured on the program. Miss Grady looked as if she would be featured on a program, or know the reason why she wasn't. Looking at her admiringly, Weigand doubted whether there would ever be a good reason why—she was slight and blond and perfect, with a cameo face so clearly cut and so expressive even in repose that the woman who wore it would never have to wonder too much about anything. Miss Grady stood with absolute control and absolute poise.

“I am Ellen Grady,” she said. Her voice, lighter than that of Alberta James, had something of the same quality. And she might have been saying, “I am Helen of Troy.”

“You play the lead?” Weigand said, politely.

“One of the leads only,” Miss Grady corrected him. “Mr. Driscoll plays opposite me.”

“Yes,” Weigand said. “You and Mr. Driscoll play the leads?”

Miss Grady inclined her head. There was great dignity in the inclination; it was as if Miss Grady were, at the same time, bowing to fate. She would prove to be, Weigand decided, quite a girl. The case was looking up. Involuntarily, he looked at Dorian, and wished he hadn't. Dorian nodded with excessive enthusiasm and made gestures of applause.

“Right,” Weigand said. Miss Grady sat down. Weigand ran out the rest. Paul Oliver was a blond young man who looked like a football player and radiated innocence, Weigand decided. Ruthmary Jones was ample and white-toothed and black of face, and it was disconcerting to have her answer with a British intonation more pronounced than that of Driscoll. She was West Indian, Weigand gathered, and very superior; then he remembered the broad, bubbling humor of her playing in something he had seen the year before and almost beamed on her.

And the next three were named, respectively, Mahoney, Fleming and Lawson, and were, again respectively, electrician, stage hand and stage hand. They seemed rather bored with the whole matter. Pam North seemed about to rise, but Weigand, to his own surprise, quelled her with a glance. He said a general “Thank you.”

“I'm afraid I'll have to keep you here for a time longer,” he said. “I shall need to talk to each of you separately. Meanwhile, make yourselves as comfortable as you can, and don't try to leave the theatre. I should prefer that, so far as it's possible, you stay on, or in the vicinity of, the stage. Right?”

Nobody said it wasn't right, although several looked the words. Mr. Christopher sulked obviously. It was too bad about him, Weigand decided. It was going to keep on being bad. He left the circle as it began to break into groups and found the temporary flight of stairs reaching down from the stage to the orchestra aisle up which he had climbed a few minutes before. He started down them, thought of something, and called, “Mr. Kirk.”

Kirk turned from Ellen Grady and said, “Yes?”

“I want your help, Mr. Kirk,” Weigand said. Mr. Kirk followed.

III

T
UESDAY—3:45 P.M. TO 4 P.M.

At the foot of the steps down from the stage, Weigand turned to Kirk.

“What I want,” he said, “is to have you—”

He was interrupted by a heavy, official voice from up the aisle, which said: “Lieutenant?” Weigand said, “Yes?”

“The doc's here,” the voice told him. “Wants to see you.”

Weigand said “Right” and went up the aisle toward the knot of men about the huddled body. Kirk, after hesitating a moment, followed him. As they were halfway up, flashlights suddenly glowed, focusing on the body of Dr. Bolton. And a well-known voice said:

“Damn it! How do you expect a man—”

Weigand, followed by Kirk, appeared and Dr. Jerome Francis, assistant medical examiner, stood up.

“This,” Dr. Francis said, “is the devil of a place for a cadaver. You'd have to be an acrobat.”

“Well,” Weigand said. “I didn't put him there, Doctor. And where would you have been all these hours? Out seeing a man about a guinea pig?”

It wasn't, Francis said with some exasperation, “all these hours.” It was exactly … he looked at his watch … one hour and sixteen minutes since word came through about Weigand's corpse.

“And,” Dr. Francis said, “there were two ahead of you.” He looked at Weigand. “Every corpse in its turn, Lieutenant,” he said. “We can't make exceptions.”

Weigand half smiled at him.

“Right,” he said. “And now you're here?”

“Now I'm here,” Francis said, “I'd have to be an acrobat. But it's a corpse.”

Weigand said he thought it was. How long had it been?

“And don't put on your song and dance about exactitude,” the detective advised. “We've been over that. Just a close guess, seeing as it's a nice fresh one.”

Dr. Francis wanted to know if it would be all right to take it out. Weigand nodded. They took Dr. Bolton out, with some difficulty, and laid him in the aisle. Kirk made a small, distressed sound and Dr. Francis looked up at him.

“You'll get used to them,” Dr. Francis assured him.

“My God!” Kirk said. “I hope not.”

Dr. Francis was busy. He took temperatures and examined eyes. He bent fingers and swore mildly when ink from the fingerprint pads came off on his hands. He grumbled that “they ought to wipe them off.” After a while he stood up.

“Under three hours,” he said. “Over an hour. I'd suggest you split the difference.”

Weigand looked at his watch.

“Three hours ago it was a quarter to one,” he said. “And everybody was out to lunch. An hour ago it was a quarter to three, and everybody was here and Bolton was dead. I was here myself, Doctor. And you could have been.”

Francis said he wouldn't want to guess any closer. But about two hours ago, more or less, ought to place it. Say between a little after one and a little after two; say—

“During the run-through,” Kirk said suddenly. “We started it at 1:15 and ran until—” He broke off. He yelled, “Jimmy!” Jimmy, from the stage, said, “Yeh, Humpty.”

“Give me the times on the second-act run-through,” Kirk directed.

“Today?” Jimmy called. Then, when Kirk answered with a yell, Jimmy said, “Sure.” He crossed to a table near the footlights and stared down at it and turned papers.

“One-twelve to 1:58,” Jimmy called. “With four script pages to go. And it's running long, Humpty.”

“It won't,” Humpty said. “Wait till we get it set. Forty minutes flat.” He turned to Weigand and resumed his natural voice.

“I remember, now,” he said. “We didn't quite finish—had about four minutes to go, at a page a minute. I stopped them and came back to talk to Bolton; and found him dead.”

Weigand said, “So.”

“What about?” he said.

Kirk said there was a laugh where Bolton said there wasn't a laugh—just there, before the act wound up. Kirk had tried a new timing on it and wanted to see what Bolton thought now.

“Now,” Kirk said, thoughtfully, “I guess I'll just keep it in.”

They turned from murder easily, these people, Weigand thought. He had a feeling that Bolton's death was secondary to Kirk; that the long director, with the collapsing forelock, honestly felt murder irrelevant when compared to the timing of a laugh—that all the others, up there on the stage, thought “Two in the Bush” more important, at the moment, and their parts in it more important, than any number of men dead in aisle seats. He regarded Kirk a moment interestedly, and then recalled them both.

“Do
you
happen to know when Dr. Bolton came back from lunch?” Weigand said. Kirk pushed back the lock of red hair. It fell down again.

“Yes,” he said. “I saw him.” He paused. “At least,” he said, “I saw him start in through the stage door. I was up the street a little ways, and I saw his back. That was—oh, about one o'clock. I'd had a sandwich and come back—” He broke off and a surprised look came over his face. He stared at Weigand, and there seemed to be reproach in his stare.

“That's one for the book,” Kirk said. “I had an appointment and damned if I didn't forget it altogether. I was thinking about the last act and got an idea and came back to find Smitty and talk it over with him. I just put down my sandwich in the middle and came back, all full of it. And then I saw Bolton going in.”

“And did you see him inside?” Weigand wanted to know. Kirk thought and shook his head. He said that that didn't, however, prove anything. Bolton could have been almost any place in the theatre, and Kirk, who was looking for Smitty, wouldn't have seen him.

“And did you see Mr. Smith?” Weigand wanted to know. Kirk hadn't; Mr. Smith wasn't there. He came in after the run-through had started and Kirk by then was deep in the second act and didn't stop. And Bolton? Kirk shook his head. He supposed Bolton was in the theatre, but as for being sure—

“Look, Lieutenant,” Dr. Francis broke in. “Don't let me interrupt you. But I'm going. This one's dead and you can have it taken away. We'll do an autopsy tonight, just for the hell of it, but I can tell you now he was stabbed.” Weigand said he could have told Dr. Francis that. Francis nodded.

“Between the occiput and the atlas, or first vertebra,” Francis said. “Just below the foramen magnum, in other words. Very neatly, with a very sharp ice-pick—by a person who knew the place to stab. And then he just twitched a couple of times. And …”