The Cases of Susan Dare (14 page)

The constable said something again about the uncertainty of alibis, and Susan drifted away.

No one looked at the small figure in brown that unobtrusively crossed the stage, rounded the end of the set, and found herself in the dim world backstage. Now Susan could see the fly loft more clearly, though it was still a mysterious dark realm draped in a ghostly etching of ropes. Away up there were—what did they call them? Grids, was it?—great pulleys, anyway, over which the ropes passed. And nearer but still far away, flys and borders and drops and even empty battens were hanging motionless in the musty air. A theater has, as if distilled within it, a life of its own, and Susan, standing backstage, was strongly aware of that sentience. Voices drifted to her, and Susan turned and made her way toward the railed stairway that descended to the dressing rooms.

The air was colder and felt dank, and the musty smells were heavier. As she reached the last step she reminded herself that the whole place had been thoroughly searched.

The narrow passage ran up and down, with doors opening from it. It was lighted, of course; they had turned on every light in the theater. The light, however, rather emphasized its dreariness. There were six dressing rooms. Two of them were empty; the other four had, each of them, a make-up box on the table below the mirror. Susan entered swiftly one after another.

The first was probably Adelaide’s, for a beige coat was flung hurriedly over the chair, and the top layer of the make-up box (Susan paused to remark the extremely nice make-up box that Adelaide had chosen to supply herself with for use merely as an amateur) had been removed, as if hastily, and lay on the bare table with its sticks of grease paint spilling. Pink powder lay open, also spilling, and a box of rouge. Susan looked carefully at the many sticks and pencils—liners, weren’t they called?—and their colors and went on to the next dressing room. It was empty except for a gray cap and a make-up box—the make-up box was open and was much like Adelaide’s. Because of the cap, Susan felt reasonably certain that it was the room the dead man was supposed to have used.

The other two dressing rooms were across the narrow passage and past an expanse of whitewashed wall and were not directly opposite the first two rooms. The first one held another handsome make-up box, identical with the other two. It was closed, but there was a towel on the table with wisps of powder on it, and two or three cigarette ends and ashes were on the floor. Probably that was Jane’s room, and she had apparently finished her make-up and closed the box. In the remaining room there was no make-up box at all, although on the table lay a box of tan powder, a black eyebrow liner, and a stick of carmine lip paste. Tom Remy, then, used only the barest essentials. Susan pulled her loose pigskin glove over her hand and picked up the stick of lip paste. And just then something flickered in the wavery mirror before her.

Susan stared and whirled.

The doorway was bare and there was only whitewashed wall opposite. Surely there had been a motion there at the door. Surely—she put down the carmine paste and was at the door. The passage was dreary and empty.

But she realized suddenly that she could no longer hear voices from above.

Well, she had seen what she came to see. She would return. The passage, however, was rather dark. And certainly very quiet. And the door to the room that had had the gray tweed cap in it was closed.

She stopped abruptly.

She had left it open. She was sure of that.

Quite suddenly and absurdly, she was frightened and wanted to scream. And just then there was a rustle in the room and a quick metallic click. The door swung wide, and Tom Remy stood on the threshold and saw her.

He said calmly: “Oh, Miss—er—Dare. You look frightened.”

“I—I didn’t know you were here,” said Susan.

His eyes retreated to dark, enigmatic slits, and for a long moment he stood there looking at her. Then he said finally and very slowly: “Yes, I—I came down to get Miss Adelaide’s coat.”

“What is your profession, Mr. Remy?” She was relieved to find that her question sounded quite steady.

“I’m a painter.”

“Landscape?” inquired Susan.

“Portraits,” he said. “Why?”

“There’s a beige coat in the dressing room nearest the stairs,” said Susan. “Did you—”

A figure emerged rather promptly from Adelaide’s dressing room. It had the beige coat over its arm and was Dickenson. He looked at them and said: “I’ve got her coat, Tom.”

“Why, I—” said Tom Remy and stopped abruptly and said: “Oh, I see.”

Which was it, thought Susan, preceding the two men up the stairway, who had been watching her? And why? At the top of the stairs she paused to look at the door that was the stage entrance.

“Here, Tom,” said Dickenson suddenly. “Take this coat on to Adelaide, will you? I’ll—er—be there in a minute, tell her.”

“All right,” said Remy briefly.

“This is the stage entrance?” murmured Susan.

“Certainly. Bolted up tight. Not even the cat could get in.”

“Of course,” said Susan. “I see.” She looked at the bolt, then lifted it and put her gloved hand on the under side of the heavy latch. The door opened, and night air swept in, and a stalwart figure loomed out of the darkness beyond.

“Hey, there,” it said truculently. “Shut that door and stay in there, miss.”

“Well guarded,” said Dickenson. His thin lips smiled, but his eyes looked worried, and Susan let the bolt fall back into place. He turned as she turned, and walked toward the stage beside her.

“That,” said Susan, “is, of course, the switchboard?” She indicated the panel set into the wall.

He nodded. “Here’s the signal for the asbestos curtain,” he volunteered. “It’s the only curtain or drop in the theater that’s controlled by an electric switch. The rest of these are lights.”

She walked out on the stage. Jane Cholster was still sitting coolly in the seat she had chosen. Tom Remy was bending over her, and both were talking.

Adelaide, wrapped now in her beige coat, was sitting near them, staring at nothing.

Away at the back, the constable was having a conference with the deputy on guard at the door. The other deputy—Dunc—was sitting on the stage looking thin and disconsolate. Jim was nowhere to be seen.

Susan approached the deputy, and he sprang up with a startled look and put his hand on his revolver. Dickenson was watching her from the wings with steady, knowing black eyes. She said in a low voice to the deputy: “Have any of those people down there moved about the theater much?”

“Huh?” He had pale blue eyes which opened in surprise. “No, I guess not. That is, Tom Remy went downstairs a few minutes ago. And this young Dickenson fellow, too.”

“Which one first?”

“Dickenson, I think.”

Susan said slowly: “I believe that one of them is going to try to hide something. Something that’s important. Do you—”

“Sure! I get it! I’ll watch every move they make.” His eyes had lighted up, and her tone must have carried conviction, for he did not question her, which was as well, for Dickenson was crossing the stage to her side. She turned toward the French doors, and again he turned with her, followed her as she went through them and stopped when she stopped.

Furniture for a drawing room was crowded in space between the two sets. A light couch, several chairs, a table.

“It’s for the second act,” said Dickenson, watching her. Curious, said something in the back of Susan’s mind, how quickly we are removed from the deputy—from the people sitting out there in the house. It’s almost as if we were entirely alone. She moved a little away from the slender, dark figure but he moved also. She was acutely conscious of his dark eyes, and of his shoulder all but touching her own as she bent closer to scrutinize the couch.

“They looked here for a weapon, I suppose,” she said.

“Yes, I—I think so.”

She moved around the couch, and he followed her. She was aware of his silent graceful tread behind her as she walked out into the wings again and around behind the second act set. She was plunged at once into a dark world of empty spaces that seemed, somehow, not empty. She looked up again into the shadowy loft.

Against the dark old wall and about thirty feet above the stage was a small wooden platform. Narrow wooden steps led upward to it, and ropes from away overhead dropped in long taut lines to its railing … Susan turned toward it, and the man at her side said suddenly:

“See here, you aren’t going up in the fly gallery, are you?”

“Why not?” said Susan, wondering what he would say.

“Well, it’s—it’s against union rules, you know. Nobody but stage crew is permitted up there. And—and then there must be two men; I mean to manipulate the ropes, you know. It’s—rather dangerous. Nearly had an accident myself once—fellow let down what looked like an empty rope, not realizing it held a weight. Came very near to hitting me. Since then, believe me, I warn my casts to stay away from the gallery. These amateurs—I say, what in the world do you want to go up there for? There’s nothing there.”

He wasn’t as quick-witted as somehow she had expected him to be; otherwise his objections would have been more forceful.

She put her hand on the railing of the steps and was glad it was there, for Susan had never liked a ladder or anything remotely resembling it.

“Union rules aren’t applying tonight,” she said lightly and started upward.

It was not a pleasant climb. The steps were very narrow and very steep, and she was altogether too acutely aware that he was still following her. Step by step, just there below her heels. Oh, well—she could always call out to the people below. That is, if there were need. But she rather wished she had waited for Jim.

And when she reached the small gallery it seemed very much farther to the floor of the stage than the same distance had seemed looking up. She closed her eyes against a momentary dizziness and clung to the heavy railing.

“If you’re looking for clues,” said Dickenson’s suave voice at her side, “there’s nothing at all here. Don’t you think you’d better go down again? I can’t have you fainting on my hands up here.”

Susan opened her eyes.

“I’m not fainting,” she said. “What are these things called?” She touched one of a line of long wooden pegs fastened along the railing, from which extended the ropes.

“Pins,” he said briefly. “Ropes pass over those pulleys up there and are looped in a half-hitch around these. Holds them. It takes an expert to manipulate these things. The flys and drops are very heavy, you know. The new theaters have everything controlled by electricity. It’s grand when you get in a place like that.” His eyes slid toward her face, and he said: “I shouldn’t dare to work one of these myself; though, of course, I’ve done it now and then in rehearsals. But the weight is much heavier than you’d think. Knew of a fellow once that got his ankle twisted in one of the coils, the thing got away from him, and he was carried clear up to the grids—an eighty-foot drop below.” He looked at her more fully and said very slowly and markedly: “It’s very dangerous.”

He knows that I know,
thought Susan.

She looked downward. The back part of the stage was spread out below her as if it were on a platter. But the exterior set and the border above it cut off, except for a band of brighter light, a view of the deputy and of the seats. There were people near—yet no one was to be seen. And no one knew where she was.

It looked a long distance to the floor below. How easy an accident would be—how easy a slip and a fall!

It was just then that she saw the loops of rope. The loops that were not quite like those other loops—the loops that were irregular and lacked entirely the sureness that marked those about the other pins. For her life she could not have refrained from putting out her hand and clutching the rope above that pin.

“Look out,” said Dickenson in a swift hard voice.

Susan was looking upward through the dimness of the loft. It was dust that made it so dim—a lazy fog of dust hanging up there, moving in its own mysterious course. What did that rope support in the midst of the masking dusk?

Dickenson’s hands, like steel, were on her own. “Stop that,” he said. And then Susan knew that someone was moving on the floor below. It was a small figure in a beige coat, and it looked up and said: “Dickie. Dickie, darling, what
are
you doing?”

Susan could feel Dickenson’s muscles jerk at the sound of Adelaide’s voice. But he did not relinquish his grip, although he called out in a strange voice:

“Go back to Jane, Adelaide. And stay there. Go on—”

But Adelaide too was staring upward into the purple fog of dust. Susan, fascinated, watched her small face become rigid and her eyes become fixed and black and horrified.

“
Dickie
—” screamed Adelaide and turned blindly and fell in a huddled queer heap.

Dickenson released Susan’s hands and was climbing down the steps. The deputy reached Adelaide first, and then Jane came hurrying from somewhere, and Tom Remy followed. By the time they had moved Adelaide to the couch and pushed things about to give her air, the constable and Jim were there, too.

Susan clung to the railing and watched. The figures below were foreshortened and queer, but every word floated up to her ears.

So that was the weapon. But what was the motive?

Her knees were unsteady, and she glanced at the steep narrow steps at her side and did not want to undertake that descent It was always easier to climb a ladder than to go down it again. Jim, below, was looking for her.

She whistled softly, and he saw her, though no one else looked away from the couch where Adelaide was lying. His eyes looked relieved, and he walked directly under the gallery and said softly:

“Come down.”

Susan looked at the ladder-like steps again and shook her head. “Can’t.”

He started to speak, stopped, and decided to join her. Her breath began to come more evenly as she watched his gray shoulders come nearer and nearer.

He emerged onto the gallery and said rather grimly: “I was looking for you.”

“And high time,” said Susan unsteadily. “Take a girl for a ride, plunge her into murder, and leave her there, scared half to death.”