Hutchins considered the question carefully before he answered. “Toward the end of the act I had an impression that Vladimir’s portrayal of a dying man was overdone. At the time I thought his dying was unreal because he was overacting. Now, I think it seemed unreal because it was the real thing—which always seems out of key in a world of make-believe.”
“That’s interesting,” said Basil, “because I had the same impression; and when two witnesses reach the same conclusion independently it’s apt to be the truth. Can you say at what moment his overacting began?”
“I’m afraid not. Can you?”
Basil shook his head ruefully and took something out of his overcoat pocket—a manuscript bound in blue paper. “Do you recognize this script, Mr. Hutchins?”
“I believe it is Miss Morley’s.”
“As Siriex you have a line to speak on page 19 of Act I.” Basil read aloud from the script: “He cannot escape now, every hand is against him! Did you underscore that line in Miss Morley’s script?”
“Certainly not.” Hutchins was candidly puzzled.
“Did you underscore it in your own script?”
“No, I checked all my lines lightly in red ink. I didn’t underscore any of them.”
“Can you think of any reason why anyone else should wish to call attention to that line of yours in Miss Morley’s script?”
“No, I can’t.” He frowned, considering the question. “Of course, this is a revision as well as a translation of the original Fedora. We had some trouble finding a copy of the play. We tried various booksellers and libraries, both public and private, without discovering it. They had other plays of Sardou’s, but not Fedora; and Miss Morley had set her heart on doing Fedora. Finally at a music publisher’s we found a libretto of the opera Giordano wrote around Sardou’s play. It was in Italian, and Milhau had a translation made with a good deal of adaptation and modernization. Some superfluous characters were cut out; and in the course of the re-shuffling this line of mine was transferred from the end of the scene to the beginning, and the wording was altered. Originally it read: He cannot escape now, all the shadows are converging. It refers, of course, to Vladimir’s murderer when the police are closing in on him. But it is not a vitally important or significant line in the play, for as you doubtless recall, Vladimir’s murderer does escape at the end of the first act. The line has nothing to do with Miss Morley except that she as Fedora is listening to Siriex when he delivers it. I see no reason why Miss Morley or anyone else should mark that line in her script. I can see no reason why anyone should underscore it in any script unless—”
“Unless what?”
Seymour Hutchins’ fingertips brushed his eyes as if he were pushing away something that obscured his vision materially. “In view of what has happened could this marked passage have been a message of some sort? A warning? Or a threat?”
“A warning to whom?”
“I don’t know. It was just . . . an idea . . .”
V
The last of the five witnesses interviewed that evening faced Basil and Foyle with a certain truculence. His streamlined, bullet-shaped head was too small for the fleshy throat, thick wrists, and muscular forearms revealed by an open-necked short-sleeved shirt. Close-cropped, reddish hair grew so low on his forehead that it looked like a fur cap. His reddish-brown eyes were shrewd and impudent.
“Are you Dr. Willing, the psychiatrist?” he demanded.
“Yes.”
“Then maybe you can help me with my play. It’s about a nymphomaniac, and I was wondering—”
“We are here to investigate a murder,” interrupted Foyle, in his harshest voice. “Your full name is Derek Adeane, and you are an actor?”
“That’s my stage name. My real name is Daniel Adelaar—too long to put up in lights.”
Basil wondered if length were really the only objection to professional use of this Teutonic name at the present time. The bullet-shaped head suggested Prussian blood and Adeane seemed to have a little of the unimaginative Prussian’s inflexible insensibility to the reactions of others. He had already rubbed Inspector Foyle the wrong way, and now he proceeded to do so again. “I’m not really an actor,” he said arrogantly. “I’m just acting temporarily until I can find a producer for my play. The first act takes place in a waterfront saloon, and—”
Again Foyle cut him short. “Interesting as the play may be, I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone its discussion to another occasion.”
“Sure. Any time you like.” Adeane was impervious to irony.
“I understand you were one of the domino players on the stage before the curtain rose this evening?”
“That’s right. I play Nicola, one of Vladimir’s servants.”
“And you saw Vladimir when he crossed the stage to enter the alcove just before the curtain rose?”
“Uh-huh.” Adeane’s restless eyes followed the fly still banking and diving like a miniature plane above the knife on the table. Transparent wings folded, and the fly alighted on the handle. Again the Inspector slapped at it. Again it buzzed angrily as it soared into the air. But it didn’t go far away. It circled twice and returned to the handle of the knife.
“Suppose you tell us just what happened,” said Foyle.
Adeane yawned. Basil had an impression that Adeane became bored whenever a conversation shifted from such interesting subjects as himself, his career, and his play. “He came through that gap in the wings and crossed the stage,” said Adeane. “The double doors were closed. He opened them and went inside, shutting them behind him.”
“How did he look? Normal in every way?”
“Yeah.” Adeane’s eyes were still following the fly. His brow puckered as if something puzzled him. He seemed to be giving Foyle the lesser part of his attention. “Of course, he was all made up for the part of Vladimir—a white face with blue shadows around the eyes, mouth, and gray lips. But you could tell it was just make-up. He crossed the stage with a firm step, rather briskly because he was a bit late. The curtain was due to rise in three minutes, and he had to get settled on the bed before it rose, so there wouldn’t be any noise from behind the double doors after the first act began. Those doors are pretty flimsy—plywood and ground glass. If he’d moved around in the alcove after the curtain rose the audience could have seen his shadow on the glass panels.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Black socks and trousers, white shirt open at the throat.”
“Did anyone else enter the alcove afterward?”
“Not until Grech—that is Leonard Martin—threw open the doors during the first act. He and Wanda and Rodney Tait all had to enter the alcove in the course of the play.”
“According to others on the stage at that time, you were the only person who spoke to Vladimir when he crossed the stage. What exactly did you say?”
Adeane frowned as if he were trying to recall his words. Suddenly he laughed. “Good God, it sounds funny now!”
“What does?”
“What I said.” He laughed again, with apparently genuine amusement. “I said: ‘Hello, so you’re the corpse!’ ”
VI
When Adeane had gone, Foyle ambled back to his chair meditatively. “Sure is a queer set-up. I’m pretty good at reading emotions in faces and behavior. I have to be. But actors are trained to fake their emotions in every detail—eyes, face, voice, carriage, hands, feet, everything! And they can do it off stage as well as on. It is a world of make-believe—false names and false faces! How can I tell which one of these is playing a part?”