A: Fixin up a design for the set, mostly. Checkin to see what flats and doors and stairs I had around the dock, and puttin a design on paper.
Q: Was the scene dock door open or closed?
A: Open. You know how hot it gets in there, middle of the afternoon. No ventilation at all. One of these days, I’m goin to knock a window in the wall there, Ling or no Ling. I put it up high enough, nobody’s goin to get in from outside.
Q: Could you see the stage at all, from where you were working?
A: Part of the time. Up till maybe three-thirty, I was around and about in the dock there, cataloging what I had to work with, lumber and paint and muslin and the rest of it.
Q: And after three-thirty?
A: I was workin on paper, on the design. I pulled my little table over by the door, for the breeze, and sat there the whole time after that, right up to six o’clock.
Q: All right, now. Your scene dock is off the wings to stage-left, the opposite side from the green room and “the dressing rooms. And you were sitting in the doorway, looking out toward the stage. Could you see Russ Barlow?
A: Over there at the lightboard? Sure. He had a light playin right on him, where he was workin there. I don’t know if he could see me so good, inside the doorway like I was.
Q: Well, how much were you looking out at the stage? I mean, most of the time you were looking at the paper you were working on, weren’t you?
A: Maybe half and half. I’d keep lookin out there, visualizing the way the sets would go — we got a three-set show for next week, with set changes at the scene breaks, so I got to figure stuff with double-sided flats, swiveled on king pins, and stuff like that. I did a lot of lookin out at the stage, trying to see how it would all fit. I could look right through the double arch in the set on that side, and see the sofa and Russ both.
Q: And you didn’t see anyone else on-stage at all?
A: Not a one. I couldn’t see Heather on the sofa because of the angle.
Q: Well, would it have been possible for anyone to have walked out on stage, maybe out to the middle—
A: You mean kill Heather while I was sittin there? Not a chance. I was facin that way all the time, and lookin out every few seconds.
Number five: Russ’s story was corroborated by Charlie. This still left Charlie a suspect during the first act, but it also limited the time of the murder to before three-thirty.
Number six: When I went back and asked Charlie how much “Captain” Einstein had asked him, I got the same answer as from Russ. Einstein had wanted to know where he was, and if he’d been looking at the stage steadily for three hours, and a simple no was all the answer he stayed around for.
After Charlie, I questioned Archer Marshall, phony director, who smelled, as usual, of Kentucky’s finest:
Q: You were running a line rehearsal all afternoon, is that right?
A: Absolutely.
Q: You started the rehearsal at twenty to three?
A: I suppose it was something like that. I called the rehearsal for two o’clock, but you know the kind of cooperation I get around here.
Q: But everybody was present when you did get started?
A: In body, if not in mind.
Q: During the afternoon, I suppose people left the group from time to time, to go to the bathroom or whatever. Did you ever have to wait for somebody, who’d stayed away too long?
A: Oddly enough, no. But of course it was just the first rehearsal, so I suppose they weren’t bored with the show yet.
Q: Did you have to have someone read for somebody else who was absent at any time during the rehearsal?
A: That is one practice I refuse to have anything to do with, particularly in a line rehearsal.
Q: Well, Edna read for Heather, didn’t she?
A: Andy, you don’t want me to speak unkindly of the dead, do you?
Q: All right, never mind—
A: We could consider ourselves fortunate if Heather attended any rehearsals, but certainly not a line rehearsal.
Q: All right. Now, what about you? Did you leave the group at any time?
A: Oh, am I a suspect? Hew delightful.
Q: Did you?
A: Yes, I suppose I did. I imagine someone else w ill tell you if I don’t.
Q: Where did you go?
A: Over to the house a minute. I suppose I was gone five minutes in all.
Q: You left the theater completely? Did you leave the door unlocked when you went out?
A: No. It locks automatically when you close it. I unlocked it when I came back, and then it locked again.
Q: What did you go over to the house for?
A: These questions are getting just a trifle personal, Andy. I don’t want you to think I murdered poor Heather, of course, but on the other hand you aren’t an official investigator, are you?
Q: All right, never mind that. Just tell me when you went over to the house.
A: When? To the minute? I really couldn’t say.
Q: During which act, then?
A: Oh, first act. Definitely. I couldn’t have lasted into the sec— Well. Is that all?
That was all. Marshall had gone over to the house for his bottle, of course. If he was telling the truth. On the other hand, he’d very conveniently gone after that bottle during the first act, which had been going on during the time span I was interested in.
Number seven: Archer Marshall was still a suspect.
After Archer, I questioned Ling:
Q: All I want to know is where you were between three and three-thirty yesterday afternoon.
A: You’ve got it narrowed down that much?
Q: I sure do.
A: Well, I’ll be derned. Good boy, Andy. I was in the office, upstairs over the lobby.
Q: Anybody with you?
A: Not a soul. Just me and the phone. That rang from time to time, but I wouldn’t know exactly when.
Q: You’ve got a window in the wall overlooking the auditorium. Did you spend any time looking through that window, watching the rehearsal going on?
A: You mean, did I see anybody slink away and go around the side toward the stage? Sony, Andy. I was at my desk all afternoon. Doing my own typing a lot of the time, in fact, since Archer stole Edna from me.
Q: Okay, Ling. Thanks.
A: If you’ve got it narrowed way down like this, Andy, down to a specific half-hour, you ought to go talk to Einstein.
Q: I want to hand him the killer on a platter.
A: Silver salver.
Q: I never pronounce that right.
A: Anyway, you ought to go to Einstein with what you’ve got. Really, Andy. Maybe it’ll get him on the stick. Besides, if you get too close, the killer may go after you.
Q: That’s a happy thought.
A: You talk to Einstein, Andy.
So I talked to Einstein. I had the suspects narrowed down to nine, half the original number. Of the nine now exonerated, I was one and so was Edna, Russ was fully accounted for, and six of the actors had parts sufficiently large in act one to preclude their leaving the group for any length of time. That left, still on my list of suspects, the other six actors, plus Charlie Wilbe and Ling and Archer Marshall.
I gave it all to Einstein, carefully and in detail, and he sat there behind his desk and just looked at me. No expression at all. He was a short and heavy man, well-jowled, and when he had no expression at all on his face he had no expression at all. Just a head, with smallish eyes and roundish nose and palish lips.
When I was finished, he nodded once and said, “Very cute. Very neat.”
“I just asked questions,” I told him. “I just asked around, that’s all.” I was feeling kind of smug, and proud of myself.
Then he said, “Now, you tell me just one thing more, my city-slicker friend.”