Queens Full (4 page)

“You heard him, Conk.”

“Yes,” the doctor said. “‘The heroine.'”

“That's what he said.” Ellery turned away. He felt as empty as Benedict looked.

“The heroine.” Dullman laughed. “Get what you wanted, Queen? Feel like a big man now?”

“He didn't know her name,” Ellery said, as if this explained something important. He was wiping his face over and over.

“I don't understand,” Dr. Farnham said.

“Benedict arrived so late tonight there wasn't time for introductions. He could only identify her by her role in the play. The heroine.”

Ellery turned away.

“But I took Joan's appendix out when she was fifteen,” Dr. Farnham muttered, as if that absolved her. “My father delivered her,” as if that clinched it.

Someone rapped on the door. Dullman opened it.

“I'm told something's happened to Mr. Benedict—”

“Well, look who's here,” Dullman said. “Come on in, Bluefield.”

ACT II. Scene 2.

Scutney Bluefield's shoes and the cuffs of his trousers were soaked.

“I've been walking and walking. You see, I couldn't stand what he was doing to the play. I felt that if I stayed one minute longer …”

“Scutney,” Ellery said.

“And how dreadful,” Scutney went on, still looking at the occupied chair. “I mean, he doesn't look human any more, does he? I've never seen this kind of death.”

“Scutney—”

“But he brought it on himself, wouldn't you say? You can't go about humiliating people that way. People who've never done you any harm. Who killed him?”

Ellery swung the little man around. “You'll have to talk to your audience, Scutney. I think you'd better use the word accident. And tell your ushers privately not to allow anyone to leave the theater until the police get here.”

“Who killed him?”

“Will you do that?”

“Yes, of course,” Scutney said. He squished out, leaving a damp trail.

Ellery wandered back to the dressing table. All at once he stooped for a closer look at the knife handle.

Dr. Farnham stirred.

“It's a fact they're taking their sweet time,” Dullman said. “You want out, Doctor?”

“I left my wife in the audience,” Farnham said stiffly.

“Don't worry about Molly, Conk.” Ellery dug a small leather case out of his pocket. “And you're my corroborating witness to Benedict's statement.”

“That's right,” Dullman said. “I didn't hear a thing. I don't have the stomach that goes with ears like yours.”

The case produced a powerful little lens, and through it Ellery examined the handle of the knife on both sides.

“What,” Dullman jeered, “no deerstalker hat?”

Ellery ignored him. The heavy haft had been recently wound in black plastic friction tape. An eighth of an inch from the edge, the tape showed a straight line of thin, irregular indentations some five-eighths of an inch long. In a corresponding position on the underside there was a line of indentations similar in character and length.

Ellery stowed away his lens. “By the way, Dullman, have you seen this knife before?”

“Any particular reason why I should tell you?”

“Any particular reason why you shouldn't?”

“It's not mine. I don't know whose it is.”

“But you have seen it before.” When Dullman did not answer, Ellery added, “Believe me, I know how sincerely you wish you were out of this.” The way Dullman's glance shifted made Ellery smile faintly. “But you can't wish away Benedict's murder, and in any case you'll have to submit to police questioning. Where have you seen this knife before?”

Dullman said reluctantly, “I don't even know if it's the same one.”

“Granted. But where did you see one like it?”

“In that metal tool chest just outside. It was a big-bladed knife with a black-taped handle. From the look of this one I'd say they're the same, but I can't swear to it.”

“When did you see it last?”

“I didn't see it ‘last,' I saw it once. It was after the first-act curtain. Benedict had weakened one of the legs of the set couch with his damn-fool gymnastics during that scene with the Truslow girl, and even the stage crew was demoralized. So I decided to fix the leg myself. I went for tools, and that's when I spotted the knife. It was lying on the top tray of the chest in plain sight.”

“Did you notice any peculiar-looking indentations in the tape?”

“Indentations?”

“Impressions. Come here, Dullman. But don't touch it.”

Dullman looked and shook his head. “I didn't see anything like that. I'm sure I'd have noticed. I remember thinking how shiny and new-looking the tape was.”

“How soon after the curtain came down was this?”

“Was what?”

“When you saw the knife in the chest.”

“Right after. Benedict was just coming offstage. He went into the dressing room here while I was poking around in the tools.”

“He was alone?”

“He was alone.”

“Did you talk to him?”

Dullman examined the pulpy end of his cigar. “You might say he talked to me.”

“What did he say?”

“Why, he explained—with one of those famous stage leers of his—exactly what his plans were for after the performance. Spelled it out,” Dullman said, jamming the cigar back in his mouth, “in four-letter words.”

“And you said to him—?”

“Nothing. Look, Queen, if I went after every bum and slob I've had to deal with in show business I'd have more notches to my account than Dan'l Boone.” Dullman grinned. “Anyway, you and the doctor here say you heard who Benedict put the finger on. So what the hell.”

“Who occupies the dressing room just above this one?”

“Joan Truslow.”

Ellery went out.

The lid of the chest marked
Tools
was open, as he had seen it on his backstage tour early in the evening. There was no knife in the tray, or anywhere else in the chest. If Dullman was telling the truth, the knife in Foster Benedict's back almost certainly had come from this tool chest.

Ellery heard two sirens coming on fast outside.

He glanced up at the narrow landing. The upper dressing room door was halfway open.

He sprang to the iron ladder.

ACT II. Scene 3.

He knocked and stepped into Joan Truslow's tiny dressing room at once, shutting the door behind him.

Joan and Roger jumped apart. Tears had left a clownish design in the girl's make-up.

Ellery set his back against the door.

“Do you make a habit of barging into ladies' dressing rooms?” Roger said truculently.

“No one seems to approve of me tonight,” Ellery complained. “Rodge, there's not much time.”

“For what?”

But Joan put her hand on Roger's arm. “How is he, Mr. Queen?”

“Benedict? Oh, he died.”

He studied her reaction carefully. It told nothing.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Even though he was beastly.”

“I saw his lips moving during your speeches in that couch scene. What was he saying to you, Joan?”

“Vile things. I can't repeat them.”

“The police just got here.”

She betrayed herself by the manner in which she turned away and sat down at her dressing table to begin repairing her make-up. The trivial routine was like a skillful bit of stage business, in which the effect of naturalness was produced by the most carefully thought-out artifice.

“Anyway, what are people supposed to do, go into mourning?” Roger sounded as if he had been following a separate train of thought. “He was a smutty old man. If ever anyone asked for it, he did.”

Ellery kept watching Joan's reflection in the mirror. “You know, Rodge, that's very much like a remark Scutney made a few minutes ago. It rather surprises me. Granted Benedict's outrageous behavior tonight, it was hardly sufficient reason to stick a knife in his back. Wouldn't you say?” The lipstick in Joan's fingers kept flying. “Or—on second thought—does either of you know of a sufficient reason? On the part of anyone?”

“How could we know a thing like that?”

“Speak for yourself, Rodge,” Ellery smiled. “How about you, Joan?”

She murmured, “Me?” and shook her head at herself.

“Well.” Ellery pushed away from the door. “Oh. Roger, last night in Arch Dullman's room, when Benedict was first mentioned as a substitute for Manson, I got the impression you knew Benedict from somewhere. Was I imagining things?”

“I can't help your impressions.”

“Then you never met him before tonight?”

“I knew his smelly reputation.”

“That's not what the lawyers call a responsive answer,” Ellery said coldly.

Roger glared. “Are you accusing me of Benedict's murder?”

“Are you afraid I may have cause to?”

“You'd better get out of here!”

“Unfortunately, you won't be able to take that attitude with the police.”

“Get out!”

Ellery shrugged as part of his own act. He had baited Roger to catch Joan off guard. And he had caught her. She had continued her elaborate toilet at the mirror as if they were discussing the weather. His hostile exchange with Roger should have made her show some sign of alarm, or anxiety, or at least interest.

He left gloomily.

He was not prepared for the police officer he found in charge below, despite a forewarning of long standing. On the retirement of Wrightsville's perennial chief of police, Dakin, the old Yankee had written Ellery about his successor.

“Selectmen brought in this Anselm Newby from Connhaven,” Dakin had written, “where he was a police captain with a mighty good record. Newby's young and he's tough and far as I know he's honest and he does know modern police methods. But he's maybe not as smart as he thinks.

“If you ever get to Wrightsville again, Ellery, better steer clear of him. Once told him about you and he gives me a codfish look and says no New York wiseacre is ever going to mix into
his
department. It's a fact there ain't much to like about Anse.”

Ellery had visualized Chief of Police Newby as a large man with muscles, a jaw, and a Marine sergeant's voice. Instead, the man in the chief's cap who turned to look him over when he was admitted to the dressing room was short and slight, almost delicately built.

“I was just going to send a man looking for you, Mr. Queen.” Chief Newby's quiet voice was another surprise. “Where've you been?”

The quiet voice covered a sting; it was like the swish of a lazily brandished whip. But it was Newby's eyes that brought old Dakin's characterization into focus. They were of an inorganic blue, unfeeling as mineral.

“Talking to members of the company.”

“Like Joan Truslow?”

Ellery thought very quickly. “Joan was one of them, Chief. I didn't mention Benedict's talking before he died, of course. But as long as we had to wait for you—”

“Mr. Queen,” Newby said. “Let's understand each other right off. In Wrightsville a police investigation is run by one man. Me.”

“To my knowledge it's never been run any other way.”

“I've heard tell different.”

“You've been misinformed. However, I've known and liked this town and its people for a long time. You can't stop me from keeping my eyes open in their interest and reaching my own conclusions. And broadcasting them, if necessary.”

Anselm Newby stared at him. Ellery stared back.

“I've already talked to Dr. Farnham and Mr. Dullman,” Newby said suddenly, and Ellery knew he had won a small victory. “You tell me your version.”

Ellery gave him an unembroidered account. The police chief listened without comment, interrupting only to acknowledge the arrival of the coroner and issue orders to uniformed men coming in to report. Throughout Ellery's recital Newby kept an eye on a young police technician who had been going over the room for fingerprints and was now taking photographs. Times had certainly changed in Wrightsville.

“Those words Benedict said, you heard them yourself?” the chief asked when Ellery stopped. “This wasn't something Farnham heard and repeated to you?”

“We both heard them. I'm positive Dullman did, too, although he pretended he hadn't.”

“Why would he do that?”

Ellery could not resist saying, “You want my
opinion
, Chief?”

The dull blue eyes sparked. But he merely said, “Please.”

“Dullman is walking on eggs. This thing is the worst possible break for him. He wants no part of it.”

“Why not?”

“Because to admit he heard Benedict's accusation would mean becoming an important witness in a sensational murder case. Dullman can't stand the publicity.”

“I thought show people live on publicity.”

“Not Dullman. For an Actors' Equity member like Benedict or Manson to work in an amateur company, it has to be a legitimately amateur operation from start to finish. Arch Dullman is an operator. He makes an undercover deal with someone like Scutney Bluefield—desperate to run a successful amateur playhouse—in a setup that otherwise satisfies Equity's strict specifications. Dullman delivers a name-actor—one who's passé in the big time and who'll do anything for eating money—in return for taking over behind the scenes, with Bluefield fronting for him.”

“What's Dullman get out of it?”

“He pockets most—or all—of the box-office take,” Ellery said. “If this deal with Bluefield became a matter of public record, Dullman might never represent a professional actor again.”

“I see.” Newby was watching his technician. “Well, that's very interesting, Mr. Queen. Now if you'll excuse me—”

Take that, Ellery thought. Aloud, he said, “Mind if I hang around?”