Death on the Aisle (18 page)

“And,” Weigand explained further, “if you get them a cab you get a tip. Right?”

“All right,” Smith said. “So what, Captain?”

“Well,” Weigand said, “I wish you hadn't, this time. But you couldn't know, of course. What did the girl look like?”

She had been a pretty girl, slight and with brown hair—sorta light brown hair—hanging down almost to her shoulders, and no hat and large eyes and—

“She looked like a million,” Smith said. “Maybe that's partly why I didn't stop her.”

Weigand nodded slowly, thinking of the only girl he had seen in recent hours who matched the description of the attentive Mr. Smith. So Alberta James had also visited Miss Grady during the last hour or so that Miss Grady was alive. Weigand heard Pam say “Oh,” in a small, hurt voice beside him. Weigand discovered, a little to his surprise, that he felt much as Mrs. North sounded. The male, encroaching on the policeman, hoped for an instant that another attractive female was not going to be wasted.

Smith seemed to know nothing more. He went back to the lobby. Mullins looked after him, and then looked at Weigand.

“You know, Loot,” he said, “it's pretty near got to be a dame. Maybe not this James dame, but a dame. Because she wouldn't have let no guy—well, see her—(Mullins looked embarrassedly at Mrs. North)—well, nude sort of.”

“Naked,” Pam said. “I wondered how soon you'd think of that, one of you.”

Weigand smiled at her.

“I'd thought of it, Pam,” he said. “Only—don't be too innocent, you two. It could have been—”

“Oh, of course,” Pam said, sounding rather cross with herself. “Her lover, of course. Some man she wouldn't mind seeing her.” She paused. “Or really'd like to have,” she added, unexpectedly. Then she, in turn, looked embarrassed.

“Right,” Weigand said. “Or it needn't even have been that. She wasn't—well, strict. At least, I suppose she wasn't. Her virtue aside, I mean. She wouldn't have minded, particularly if there was some man she wanted to see and knew pretty well and if she were in a hurry to dress and go out, if—” He paused, the sentence beyond him.

“If he'd sat here in the living room, or even in the bedroom and talked through the door,” Pam finished for him. “Left open a crack so he could. Of course not.”

“And then,” Weigand said, “if this man went in suddenly she might be surprised for a moment and not move and then—well, it would only need a moment.”

“Of course,” Pam said. “So where are we? It could have been either a man or a woman. And it needn't be either Mr. Ahlberg or Alberta, because anybody could have come in. And—and—”

“Only,” Mullins said, “if it was Mr. Ahlberg, she'd have been dead when the James dame came and the James dame would have—noticed it. And said something. Wouldn't she?”

Pam thought a moment.

“Unless,” she pointed out, “Mr. Ahlberg went first and pretended to leave when Alberta came and then went back and drowned Miss Grady. It could have been that way.”

Weigand had almost stopped listening. But he broke in to tell them it was foolish to spend time guessing.

“After all,” he said, “we can always ask questions; else what are policemen for?”

Mrs. North was uncharacteristically silent on the ride back to the theatre. She sat beside Weigand in the back seat while Mullins, driving almost sedately with the Lieutenant to observe, coasted them along the lighted streets. She was so silent that Bill Weigand, conscious of her under his own thoughts, broke his own injunction against speculation.

“What did she know, I wonder,” he said, half to himself. “What did she know or what had she seen? And who would Evans have seen if he had turned around?”

Pam still did not speak, but only stared out of the window nearest her.

“Tired, Pam?” Bill asked.

She shook her head and after a pause said she wasn't tired.

“But I'm afraid I'm worried, Bill,” she said. “Because I don't want it to be the way it is. The way I think it is.”

And also, Pam thought, because I ought to tell him what I heard, back there behind the set and … She compromised with her conscience.

“One thing, Bill,” she said. “Ask Alberta James whether she has ever worked in a dress shop. Sometimes actresses do when they're out of engagements. Because maybe …” She let it hang there, and turned toward Bill Weigand to find him looking at her and smiling, without much enjoyment.

“Oh, yes, Pam,” he said. “I'll ask her that, all right. And also Miss Fowler.” He paused, reflecting. “And of course,” he added, “there's always Mr. Christopher. Mr. Christopher likes nice things.”

Neither spoke again until Mullins pulled in in front of the theatre.

“Although,” Weigand said then, “we may be barking up the wrong tree, Pam. Maybe she did it herself.”

“The wrong clothes tree?” Pam said. “Or is it clothes horse? But why should she? It wouldn't have been in character.”

Weigand's shoulders answered. They went on through the lobby.

XII

T
UESDAY—11:35 P.M. TO
W
EDNESDAY, 12:15 A.M.

“All right,” Weigand said, curtly, to Humphrey Kirk. “Get everybody on stage.”

Kirk looked puzzled and worried, but Weigand's face did not encourage enquiry.

“Everybody on stage,” Kirk called. “The Lieutenant wants to say something.”

When he had them there, Weigand spent more than a minute staring at them; letting his gaze go over them slowly, without friendliness.

“All right,” he said, finally. “One of you killed Ellen Grady. For the benefit of the others, killed her by drowning her in her bathtub some time after seven o'clock this evening. The same one of you killed Bolton and tried to kill Evans by pushing him down the stairs from the lounge to the basement. Anybody want to say anything?”

Nobody did. Weigand waited.

“Right,” he said. “And once more, to all but one of you—anybody who knows anything he hasn't told is in danger. Ellen Grady knew something. She's dead. Evans almost found out something. For the benefit of everybody, he didn't. He doesn't know who pushed him.… But he is in the hospital, and it's only luck he isn't in the morgue.” He paused again. “One of you doesn't care who he kills,” he added. “I'm warning the rest.”

He waited, looking at them coldly. They were uneasy now, finally, there on the lighted stage with the shadows behind them; with the shadows of the now unlighted auditorium dark behind the thin crescent of light which lay across only the nearest seats. They looked at Weigand and then away from him; they looked quickly at one another and then away. Those standing or sitting nearest the shadows, nearest the doors and windows and the fireplace which opened into the set, edged forward into the light.

“I'll have men around,” Weigand told them. “They'll do what they can. But maybe it won't be enough. If one of you knows something, it won't be enough for him. I can't promise it will be.” He pushed again. “Stay here until I tell you you can go,” he directed. “That's all.”

“Shall we go on rehearsing?” Kirk asked. Weigand stared at him.

“I don't care what you do,” he said. “So long as nobody leaves the theatre. But I want Miss James.”

Kirk seemed about to say something. Weigand waited for him, making the wait obvious. Kirk finally shrugged and turned away.

“Miss James,” Weigand said, raising his voice. “I want to talk to you now. Detective Stein will show you where.”

The girl looked very small beside the detective as they went up the aisle, out of the crescent of light into the darkness. Weigand watched them go. He'd let her wait a bit, he decided. He summoned Mullins with a gesture and started toward the door upstage left. Kirk watched him.

“If you want—” Kirk began. Weigand stopped him.

“I don't want anything,” Weigand said. “I want to look around.”

Weigand led Mullins behind the set, along the passage made by the canvas wall of illusion and the brick wall of real estate. They rounded the corner by the windows, and came out into a relatively open area. Here was waste space, full of oddments—nondescript chairs, a bench along one wall; a wall of canvas masking a door opening off the set. Ahead of them was the beginning of a corridor, and Weigand headed for it. It was short and ran to a flight of stairs leading down to the stage door. Just beyond its opening onto the stage area, another corridor branched from it to the right and off this corridor a flight of iron stairs rose.

“Dressing rooms up there,” Mullins said. He pointed up the stairs. “And back there.” He waved along the branching corridor.

“Right,” Weigand said. “Where's the door to the basement?” He found it before Mullins could answer, and said “Right” again, this time to himself. As they faced the stage door, the door to the basement area was on their left. It was only a few feet in from the stage door itself. Weigand opened the basement door and stared down into the shadows. There were stairs leading down from this door also, he discovered. He said, “Um-mmm.” Then he turned, walked back, opened the door which led into the set, stumbled over the two-by-four which made an awkward threshold and came out on the stage. Everybody stared at him. He paid no attention. He went to the windows which cut off the corner of the room and stared out of them. Then, to Mullins, whom he had left behind, he called suddenly:

“Move around a bit, Sergeant.”

There were the rather heavy sounds of Mullins moving around a bit.

“Right,” Weigand said. He paid no attention to the people who were staring at him, went back through the door in the set, and collected Mullins from the corridor.

“Could they of?” Mullins asked.

“Yes,” Weigand said, “they could of.”

“Have,” Mullins said.

“Have is right,” Weigand said. “Come on.”

He led Mullins around a corner, found the door leading to the orchestra, and went along the side aisle, up the slight slope, to the rear of the auditorium. Then he paused and looked back.

“Either way would have worked,” he said. “Only why take a chance?”

“Yeh,” Mullins said. “Under or over. Maybe because it was quicker?”

Weigand said it could be. Only there seemed to be no reason why anybody should cut it that close.

“Of course,” he added, “there may have been reasons.”

He led on up the stairs to the mezzanine and opened the door into the office. The lights there were momentarily blinding, although they were bright only by contrast to the shadows elsewhere. Stein, who had been sitting beside the desk, stood up as Weigand and Mullins came in. Weigand nodded and jerked his head toward the door.

“Hang around where they can see you,” he directed. “Maybe somebody will want to spill something.”

He walked around the desk and sat down behind it. Mullins pulled a chair up so he could rest his notebook on a corner of the desk. Then they both looked across at Alberta James, sitting on a straight chair facing them. She looked very slight and her soft hair framed her face disarmingly. But she was pale and her hands clutched each other in her lap. Weigand's voice when he spoke was level and impersonal.

“I have a good many things to ask you, Miss James,” he said. “You don't have to answer. If you had nothing to do with these murders, you'll be wise to answer. If you had something to do with them, I'd advise you not to talk. Whatever you say, Sergeant Mullins will take down, and after it is transcribed, I'll ask you to initial each page and sign the last page. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” the girl said. Her voice was very low.

“As an alternative to this,” Weigand said, “I can take you to the station house, and have one of the assistant district attorneys question you with me. You'll be allowed to telephone a lawyer, if you want one. We may let him in, if we have to. But we don't have to without an order, or unless we charge you with something. Is all this clear?”

“Very clear,” the girl said. “I haven't done anything. I'll answer any questions you like.”

“Right,” Weigand said. “I'm telling you all this, Miss James, because there are several circumstances you'll have to explain. We know a good deal more now than we did earlier.”

“I haven't done anything,” the girl repeated. Her head was back and she was facing the detectives and her eyes were afraid.

“Right,” Weigand said. “I hope you haven't. Now—you heard me say that Ellen Grady has been killed?”

She nodded.

“Very well,” Weigand said. “You went there this evening; went to see Miss Grady. Why?”

“What makes you—” she began. Then she stopped. “All right,” she said. “I went to see her. For a very foolish, trivial reason.”

“Which was?”

“She is—she was—the lead. So she could decide, with the help of Miss Fowler, what she wanted to wear in the different acts. And she could object if I wore something which she thought clashed with her clothes or—made them less effective. I wanted to wear a blue dress in the first act, accented with orange. I didn't know whether that would be all right with her. I didn't get a chance to ask her today and so—well, it was on my mind and I thought ‘Why not go around now and ask her?' So I did.”

She spoke with little hesitation, as if she had formed the explanation in her mind while she waited. As, Weigand decided, she unquestionably had. Which, he qualified to himself, proved nothing—whether it was true or false, she would have known the explanation would be needed, and would have formulated it in her mind.

“Right,” Weigand said. “You saw Miss Grady?”

“Yes, for a moment. She said it would be all right.”

“I see,” Weigand said. “Now—tell me about it. Was she alone? How long did you stay?”