The savage salome (12 page)

half—I hope," he said, grinning at me. "What did you think of it?"

"Great," I said sincerely.

"Strauss would never have gotten away with it, if it wasn't opera," he said, still grinning. "The first time it played the Met was around 1907, I think. It only lasted a couple of performances—there was a hell of a scream about outraged public morals and all that jazz. 'Perfumed decadence,' one of the critics called it—not bad, eh?"

"I'll let you know after the dance," I told him.

I walked back to Margot's dressing room, and met Rex Tybolt on the way. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic to see me.

"How are things, Rex?" I asked politely.

"Fine, I think," he muttered. "Look, Boyd—about last night, I—" He stopped suddenly, staring at something in back of me for a few moments, then walked on past me quickly.

I turned around and saw Earl Harvey standing there, his eyes calculating, the white tape across the bridge of his nose emphasizing the dirty color of his eyes.

"What the hell are you doing backstage, Boyd?" he rasped.

"Protecting my client's interests. Earl," I said gently. "Like you even get close to her and I'U give you a busted spine to keep the nose company!"

His face darkened rapidly and he opened his mouth wider to say something violent—then suddenly changed his mind and walked away from me quickly. By the time I got into the dressing room, it was time for Margot to be backstage again ready for the curtain, so I kept her company back as far as the stage manager's box.

The second half of the opera was even better than the first. Donna Alberta's Dance of the Seven Veils was performed with a frank enthusiasm that had the audience gasping for breath. There was an absolute silence throughout the whole theater as the tension grew with each discarded veil.

The last veil fluttered gently to the floor, leaving her clad in a tiny, flesh-colored bra and G-string, which would be almost invisible to the audience out front. Her head bowed slowly toward Herod and her majestically curved

torso froze in a gesture of supplication. Bathed in brilliant white light, her body became a marble statue given life by some pagan god.

"Man!" Alex said hoarsely as he punched five buttons in a row along his switchboard. "She could make a million in burlesque!"

You could feel it took the audience another five minutes to catch up with the action after that, and I was right with them. By then, Salome had successfully demanded Jokanaan's head, and Herod was feeling the first pangs of remorse. The fights dimmed gradually as the executioner disappeared through the trap door in the center of the stage which represented the cistern where Jokanaan was imprisoned.

Then, as Salome triumphantly commanded Jokanaan's head be brought to her, the stage blacked out completely. Five seconds later, a shaft of blue fight from a single spot showed the tense, kneeling Salome beside the cistern. You could feel the shudder run through the audience as the black arm of the executioner slowly appeared through the hole, bearing a silver shield with the head of Jokanaan upon it.

I remembered Rex Tybolt had told me the clay model was a hell of a good likeness, and it was. Salome seized it eagerly as Herod hid his face in his cloak, and then she suddenly dropped it.

"Cheez!" Alex muttered desperately, "I knew somebody had to blow it sometime during the first night— but why now?"

Donna Alberta stood there without moving, as if she was transfixed to the stage, for a timeless moment before she crumpled to the floor.

"My God!" Alex yelped in anguish, frantically pushing buttons. "What did I do, this should happen to me?"

For another agonizing ten seconds nothing happened on stage—then Luis Navarre finally acknowledged Alex's frantic cuing, and the action continued to the quick cfimax as the soldiers rushed forward to crush Salome beneath their shields.

The curtain came down to thunderous applause from the audience—and stayed down. I followed Alex as he rushed onto the stage to the tight knot of people gathered

around Donna's limp body. Margot was kneeling down beside her when I pushed my way into the group, and she looked up with a reassuring smile on her face.

"She's all right," Margot said in a relieved voice. "Just fainted, that's all."

"You think, maybe the prima donna is sick?" Navarre asked anxiously.

"Nerves," Margot said briskly. "When she dropped the head, I guess her nerves were so taut she—" Her voice trailed away into silence as she looked at the head which lay on the floor beside Donna Alberta.

Margot's face went a gray color and her eyes bulged with a glassy stare.

"What is it?" Alex asked urgently. "What's wrong?"

She lifted a trembling arm and pointed—^the head of Jokanaan was surrounded by a glistening dark pool of wetness.

*'Blood?" Alex croaked in frantic disbelief.

Chapter Ten

LIEUTENANT CHASE LOOKED AT fflS WATCH

and gruntly sourly, then looked at me with a positive loathing on his face.

"One A.M.," he snarled. "We'll be here all night! Give it to me again, Boyd."

"I was here by mvitation," I repeated patiently. "Margot Lynn invited me. The stage manager can alibi me anyway —we were together the whole time in his box, except for intermission."

"The Lynn dame is your client, isn't she?"

"That's right," I agreed. "She was nervous, that's why she wanted me around."

"Nervous of what?" Chase barked.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Just nervous, I guess."

"I got a nasty feeling you're holding out on me, Boyd," he said coldly. "If you know anything I don't, you'd better give it to me now,"

"If I find any definite proof, I'll hand it straight over, Lieutenant," I said carefully.

"Yeah." He didn't sound convinced. "This whole case bugs me! First I get a jack-in-the-box corpse that pops up to greet me like something out of the late, late show. Now I got this—a decapitated head handed up on a shield into the middle of an opera!"

He shook his head slowly. "What kind of a maniac is this?"

"I can't figure how he got away with it," I said. "With the number of people backstage the whole time."

"There's a passageway under the stage to the trap door," Chase said. "The entrance is way back in the

wings and there's a pile of old props and junk stored around it—with everybody else working, concentrating on the action of the opera, it would be easy for anyone to sneak in there.

"The prop man put the clay model of the head, and the shield, at the foot of the steps leading up to the trap door," Chase continued. "That was before the play started —then directly after intermission, Tybolt went into the passageway. There was a bit in the second part where Salome talked to him while he was down in the dstem, right?"

"Right," I agreed.

"When that was finished, the only other person to go down was the guy playing the executioner. The way he tells it, it was pretty dark down there. The shield with the head on it was where it should've been, so he picked it up and handed it out to Donna Alberta on stage without a second look."

"Where was the body?" I asked.

"Halfway down the passageway—^but no sign of a weapon." Chase shook his head again. "Whoever it was must have used a meataxe to decapitate Tybolt the way it was done—severed cleanly in one blow."

I didn't care to think about that for too long. "The murderer must have been waiting for Tybolt in the passageway then?" I prodded.

"That's how it figures," Chase agreed morosely. "He must have waited until Tybolt had sung his last line, then gone into the tunnel and killed him."

"Hacked off his head, then substituted it for the clay model already on the shield," I said nervously. "Just thinking about it makes me scared of the dark!"

"He left the body near the entrance from the wings," the lieutenant growled. "Far enough away from the trap door to be sure the guy playing the executioner wouldn't notice when he came down."

I lit a cigarette and tried to see the bright side. "It lets my chent off the hook—she was on stage from intermission right through, so Margot Lynn couldn't have done it."

"Yeah, I know." The sour look returned to his face. "On the same count, neither could Navarre or Donna

Alberta, either. I figured both Kendall and Tybolt were killed by the same person, and this second murder narrows down the suspects in a big way—to just three people—Harvey, Kasplin, and the Mills woman."

"None of them have alibis?" I queried.

Chase snorted. "Harvey claims he was in the manager's office along with his stooge, Benny Carter, the whole time. But who'd take the word of a stinking little punk with a record like Benny's got? Kasplin claims Tybolt spoke to him during intermission, said he had something urgent and confidential to tell him so would Kasplin wait in his dressing room until he was through with his singing bit from the tunnel. So Kasplin sat in Tybolt's dressing room waiting patiently—and was still sitting there when somebody came in and told him there'd been a murder."

"You believe that?" I asked.

"It means nothing either way," Chase said with a shrug. "It's the truth or he's lying—I got to prove which and it won't be easy."

"How about Helen Mills?"

His nose wrinkled disgustedly. "There's something about that dame that really bugs me—maybe it's those big cheaters and the sly look in back of them. Opening nights always make her nervous, she said, so she sat in Donna Alberta's dressing room until it was all over—alone."

"With only three suspects it shouldn't be too hard, Lieutenant," I said stupidly.

"Maybe you got the whole deal figured already, wise guy?" he snarled. "Like motive and everything, huh?"

"I'm sorry," I said hastily. "I was trying to cheer you up a little."

"Don't!" he snapped. "I figured it the same way— with three suspects, simple! But it don't work out that way. We got here within fifteen minutes of your call— the doorman swears nobody but nobody left the theater in that time. I've had a dozen men combing the whole backstage area for the last two hours and they still can't find the murder weapon. Figure that one out, Boyd. How do you hide something big enough to cut off a man's head in one swipe?"

"I dig your problems, Lieutenant," I said sympathetically.

Chase gave me a dirty look. "You don't know how lucky you are, Boyd," he said slowly. "Having that stage manager to give you a cast-iron alibi!"

"Have you found any connecting motive for the two murders yet?" I asked hopefully.

"No!" he bellowed irately. "Get the hell out of here and stop wasting my time." I was halfway toward the door when he shouted again. "You're the last on the Hst. I guess there's no point in keeping them here any longer—tell the rest of them they can go on home."

"Sure, Lieutenant," I said politely.

I nearly made the door when he spoke again, his voice suddenly soft. "Boyd?"

"Lieutenant?" I turned my head wearily and looked at him.

"Somebody cracked Harvey's nose for him but he won't say who," Chase went on in that mild voice. "Benny Carter's got a nasty bruise on his nose and he's not saying, either. Funny kind of coincidence, huh?"

"I should laugh?"

"Maybe you know who did it to the both of them?"

"No," I said innocently. "What makes you think I would?"

"It's the kind of strong-arm tactics a cheap private eye like you would use, that's why!"

"Maybe they had a fight among themselves, Lieutenant," I suggested. "How about that?"

His face was wistful. "Before I'm through with this case, I'll get something on you that'll stick, Boyd." A dreamy look came into his eyes. "And when I do I'll use it to beat you over the head so hard, you'U finish up looking the way Tybolt does right now!"

"Lieutenant," I said incredulously, "does this mean you don't like me?"

I got out of the manager's office fast before Chase gave me a detailed list, and went back to the bit players' dressing room where the rest of them sat waiting glumly for the good word from Chase.

It was a quarter of two when we got inside my

apartment. I eot busy making a couple of king-sized drinks, while Margot sank thankfully into the nearest armchair.

I handed her a drink, then sat on the couch facing her and lifted my glass. "Cheers," I said thirstily. "I can sure use this!"

"Amen," she said fervently, tilting the glass to her lips. "Ah, that's better," she said approvingly after a five-second interval. "It's been a rough night!"

"It sure has," I agreed. "One bright spot—^you had a cast-iron alibi being on stage the whole time, so you aren't Chase's favorite suspect any more."

"That's fine," she said without any real enthusiasm.

Her dark eyes searched my face carefully. "Danny— did you tell him about Harvey and the blackmail?"

"Not yet," I said. "I need your statement first."

Margot finished her drink, then leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes.

"Danny—^you know why Rex was murdered, don't you?"

"No," I said truthfully. "Do you?"

"I think it's painfully obvious," she said in a low voice. "He talked to you."

"Huh?" I grunted.

"Told you about the blackmail," she went on slowly. "You told Harvey and he killed Rex to make sure he kept his mouth shut!"

"So?"

"So I've changed my mind," she whispered. "I'm not about to make any statement, Danny, I'm sorry."

"You're not serious?" I yelped.

Her eyes opened and looked at me with a level, determined gaze. "I was never more serious in my whole life!" she said in a tone of complete finality.

"What happened to that conscience of yours?" I sneered. "That justice-before-my-career bit you played in your dressing room before the curtain went up?"

"My conscience dropped dead with sheer fright when it saw Rex Tybolt's head on the floor beside Donna." She shuddered violently. "It'll haunt me the rest of my life."

"If you make that statement, you won't need to worry

about Harvey any more—^he'll be locked up tight awaiting trial," I told her.

Margot shook her head firmly. "It's too big a chance to risk it, Danny. Paul Kendall had his throat cut—Rex Tybolt had his head severed from his body!" She shuddered again. "I don't want to be the next in line!"