Death on the Aisle (11 page)

“As the sparks fly upward,” Weigand said. “What did you and Dr. Bolton confer about after lunch today, Mr. Ahlberg?”

“Confer?” Ahlberg repeated. “Me and Bolton?”

“Confer,” Weigand said. “He hurried back from lunch to see you. Why?”

“Oh,” Ahlberg said. “That. I didn't wait. I went to the Astor and had lunch and forgot Dr. Bolton, except I got nervous indigestion from thinking about him. He was trying to ruin me.”

“Really?” Weigand said. Mr. Ahlberg didn't need encouragement.

“He should write a play,” Mr. Ahlberg said. “He should write his own plays. Always beefing—always wanting to fire somebody. Kirk. Grady. The colored lady.”

“Really?” Weigand said. “Why?”

“He should direct,” Mr. Ahlberg said. “He should act all the parts. He should produce too, maybe. Always what other people do is wrong with Dr. Bolton. Like this morning, he flares up and says he's pulling out.”

“Withdrawing his backing, you mean?” Weigand asked. Mr. Ahlberg was proving very interesting.

“Absolutely,” said Maxie Ahlberg. “Take out the money. And the set not paid for and opening in a week. Always troubles. So I went to the Astor.”

Weigand was a little puzzled. Mr. Ahlberg had gone to the Astor for a long lunch instead of meeting his partner for an important conference?

“Sure,” said Mr. Ahlberg. “I know Bolton.” He paused. “I knew Bolton for years,” he corrected. “Always he flared up, usually he calmed down. When he was upset I didn't confer with him.”

It was, Mr. Ahlberg insisted through several more questions, as simple as that. Several things during the morning rehearsal had upset Carney Bolton to the point where he threatened to withdraw his money. He had instructed Ahlberg to meet him immediately after lunch to talk it over. Ahlberg had decided to ignore the instructions, hoping that later Bolton might have calmed down, might even have forgotten his whole intention. Mr. Ahlberg had had a long lunch, meeting several friends, and had then returned to the theatre and let himself in through the front door and come down to a seat.

“Like I did later,” Ahlberg said. “When you re-enacted it, like it says in the papers.”

Ahlberg, questioned carefully, was less talkative about the relations of others in the company to Bolton. He had heard of Penfield Smith's difficulties with the physician; he thought it had been a dirty shame. Maybe Bolton was making a play for Miss James; who could tell? Mr. Ahlberg's shoulders disclaimed knowledge. Miss James was a nice little actress; a very sweet kid. Better she should pay more attention to Humpty Kirk, who was a nice boy. Mr. Ahlberg forgot to be worried and beamed paternally when he considered Mr. Kirk and Miss James.

“By the way,” Weigand said. “Were the front doors locked when you came in? I assume you have a key?”

They were. Mr. Ahlberg did have a key. So far as he knew nobody else did, except probably Bolton.

As to the time of his entrance through the lobby, Mr. Ahlberg was pleasingly certain. He had looked at his watch as he opened the outer doors and his watch had showed 1:20, maybe 1:19. And now, at any rate, his watch was right with Weigand's, which was, because Weigand had set it half an hour before for just such purposes, almost certainly right with God. Weigand audibly approved of Mr. Ahlberg, who knew not only where he was going, but when.

“As a matter of routine,” Weigand said, “did anybody see you? At the doors? In the lobby?”

Ahlberg saddened and shook his head. When he was opening the doors, anybody might have seen him. “Half the people on Broadway.” But he didn't know. He had seen nobody he knew then or until he joined the rehearsal group. Weigand told him not to worry about it, and let him go.

Mr. Ahlberg went. Mullins, looking after him, said he was a nice little guy.

“It seems to me, Mullins, that you are getting very fond of people here lately,” Weigand said. “You want to watch that. How are you going to give guys a going over if you love them all?”

“Now listen, Loot,” Mullins said.

“However,” Weigand added, “Maxie does seem like a nice little guy. Of course, that doesn't say he didn't kill Bolton.”

Mullins thought it over, and nodded.

“Keys to the front door,” he said. “He could've come in any time and nobody seen him. But look—if he bumps Bolton where's his money coming from for the show?”

“Well,” Weigand said, “didn't you ever hear of insurance, Sergeant? Of partners mutually insuring themselves in each other's favor? I suspect we'll find that that happened here. And in that event, Bolton dead would be worth more to Ahlberg than Bolton alive and
planning to withdraw his backing
.”

Mullins thought it over. Mullins said “Yeh!” They summoned Mary Fowler.

Miss Fowler seemed sunk in calm; at peace on the bottom of a troubled sea. She stood in the doorway solidly, looking with quiet interest at Weigand out of protuberant eyes. When he invited her to sit she sat, and thereafter did not move. She seemed free from those nervous compulsions which keep most men and women uneasily in motion even when invited to repose. She thanked the lieutenant for the chair and waited. Her unhurried dignity gave Weigand no obvious approach.

He was, he told her, sorry to have had to keep her waiting. He regretted the inconvenience which was, however, inseparable from murder investigations. She said “Yes, Lieutenant,” in an unhurried and huskily musical voice. It was a voice, Weigand thought, which should belong to a beautiful woman. He asked her about the afternoon.

She had, she told him, gone out to lunch when the morning rehearsal broke. She had hoped to talk with Mr. Kirk about the costumes during the morning, and confer with Miss Grady and Miss James. There turned out to be no opportunity. She had gone home for samples, then up to Forty-eighth Street and had lunch at the Tavern. She had not hurried getting back; Mr. Kirk had had an appointment for lunch which would, she supposed, keep him so late that he would want to start rehearsing as soon as he got back to the theatre. It was a few minutes after one before she herself got back. This wasn't unusual; she usually took her time over lunch, having no reason for promptness. She had gone first to the front doors, and, when she found them locked, had gone down the passage at the side of the theatre to the stage door.

“As I did later during the re-enactment,” she said.

Weigand nodded.

“Why did you think the front doors would be unlocked?” he asked. “Weren't they usually locked?”

“No,” she said. “Not ‘usually.' Sometimes they were locked, sometimes they weren't. And sometimes when they were, Mr. Evans would be in the lobby and would open them.” She smiled slightly. “After a good deal of grumbling,” she added.

“But today he wasn't?” Weigand supposed.

“Yes,” she said. “He was; but he wouldn't hear me—I'm sure he did hear me, because I tapped on the glass with a coin and he looked around. Then he pretended he didn't hear me, or see me either, and walked off.”

“‘Because he knows it teases,'” Weigand said. “Did anyone else see you, Miss Fowler? We have to check up on these things.”

“Of course,” Miss Fowler said. “And as it happens somebody did. A mounted policeman; and his horse. He seemed a little suspicious—the policeman—and said something about the doors being locked and to try the stage entrance. I stopped and said something to him, I think, and petted the horse. Then I went through the stage entrance and out front until Mr. Kirk and the others should be free.”

“And Miss James joined you,” Weigand said, “as she did when we ran through it?”

Miss Fowler nodded. Miss James had found a material she wanted to have used for her first-act dress and wanted Miss Fowler to pass on it. Miss Fowler had gone back and they had taken it to the stage door and looked at it in daylight. She had stayed with “Berta” for a quarter of an hour or so and had then gone back and watched the rehearsal through to its unexpected climax.

Weigand suddenly drew the piece of orange silk from his pocket and held it up.

“Was this it?” he said.

Mary Fowler looked at it with quiet interest.

“Oh, no,” she said. “It was a blue material—a blue crepe. Not at all like this.”

Weigand said, “Right,” and let the silk fall on the table. It lay there brightly, but Miss Fowler, after her first appraisal, did not seem to notice it. Weigand took up another line.

“Did you know Dr. Bolton well?” he inquired. Rather to his surprise, she nodded.

“Quite well, some years ago,” she said. “He was my physician at one time, when I was on the stage myself. And we were quite good friends for a time.”

Weigand nodded, waiting for her to go on. She looked at him inquiringly.

“But that was several years ago,” she said. “I hadn't seen much of him lately—since I quit acting.”

Weigand nodded.

“By the way,” he said, “would you care to tell me whether he was interested in anybody in the cast—specially interested, I mean? I suspect you would have noticed.”

She smiled.

“I see you know his reputation, Lieutenant,” she said. “There was usually some woman in whom he was—specially interested. I suppose this time it was Miss Grady. But I haven't had much opportunity to notice—I've only dropped in and out, of course. Still, I should think it would be Miss Grady. She's a very beautiful young woman.”

“Not Miss James?” Weigand asked.

Miss Fowler shook her head, rather emphatically.

“Oh, no,” she said. “She isn't at all the type for Dr. Bolton. I'm sure he wasn't interested.”

Weigand nodded. He fingered the orange silk.

“By the way,” he said, “are you sure you haven't seen this before? It seems to come in your department.”

He held it out to her.

“Look at it,” he urged. She looked at it, as one who does an unnecessary duty. She did not touch it. She shook her head.

“I'm not using anything remotely that color,” she said. “Or even anything it would go with. Why, Lieutenant?”

“Because,” Weigand said, “this silk was in Bolton's hand when he was killed. So naturally we're interested.”

Miss Fowler said she saw; but she shook her head again.

“It isn't a color we could possibly have used, Lieutenant,” she said.

Weigand nodded.

“It would have been all wrong for everything—in color, I mean,” she insisted.

“Right,” Weigand said. He pushed the piece of silk back in his pocket. He made a business of consulting notes. He said he thought that that was all, for now.

“As other points come up,” he told her, “I may have to ask you a few more questions.”

She said she understood. If she could, at any time, be of any help—She stood up and Weigand stood with her. She went out, moving with uncommon grace for so substantial-seeming a woman. Weigand stared after her for a moment, and then called to Stein to send in Mr. Christopher.

Mr. Christopher came, scowling. He sat and fidgeted. He had come to the theatre after the rehearsal started, sat in one place, done nothing and seen nothing. He knew Dr. Bolton only slightly and had no views about him; he had heard that Bolton was making a play for Miss Grady, and assumed it to be true. He hadn't paid much attention.

“Once and for all, officer,” he said, “I don't know anything about this. Keeping me here is merely—an imposition.”

Weigand said he was sorry if Mr. Christopher had been inconvenienced. No doubt he had wasted Mr. Christopher's time and his own.

“However,” Weigand explained, “we can never know that until after we
have
wasted it, of course. We have to ask the questions before we can know the answers. A great deal of everybody's time is necessarily wasted in this business.”

Christopher did not look particularly mollified, but he nodded.

“And now you're through with me, I gather?” he said.

Weigand nodded.

“I should think so,” he said. “For the time being at any rate. Oh—one more thing.”

He took out the piece of orange silk and held it up before Christopher. Christopher stared at it, and at Weigand. No, he had never seen it before. It was interesting that it had been found in Dr. Bolton's hand but, Christopher's tone commented, not very interesting.

Would it, Weigand wanted to know, be a color which would clash with the colors of the set—one that Miss Fowler would, therefore, not think of using? Christopher appeared more interested. After looking at the silk he shook his head slowly.

“Not necessarily,” he said. “The set is fairly neutral—we plan to fill it with color. Something like this might fit in.” He stared at Weigand with an expression which seemed accusing. “People all the time talk about clashing colors,” he said. “An artist can put almost any colors together. You'd think most people are blind.”

“So,” Weigand said, “this might conceivably have been used?”

“Yes,” Christopher said. “Although I haven't seen it before, and of course I would have to be consulted. But we might have used it, if one of the girls had been sold on it.”

“Right,” Weigand said. He looked at the silk with new attention.

“By the way,” he said, “this could be used with blue, couldn't it? As trimming or—something?”

“As an accent,” Christopher enlightened him. “With some blues, certainly. Rather obvious, of course—but so many people prefer the obvious, don't you think, Lieutenant? I—”

Weigand was saved from answering, and Christopher from finishing the sentence, by the appearance of Stein in the doorway, heralded by a quick knock.

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Stein said. “But we've found Evans—the custodian. He's out, cold.”

“What?” said Weigand. He stood up and moved toward Stein. Mullins followed him and waved Christopher into limbo in passing. Christopher looked indignant.