“That’s not the only thing that makes a stage murder difficult,” replied Basil.
“Hell, is there something else?”
“Timing.”
“Timing?”
“In a play, every line and gesture and bit of action has to be timed so accurately that the performance will last a certain period, each actor will get his cues at certain fixed moments and the whole thing will have pace and co-ordination. Most people have no idea how long it takes to do any specified thing—to walk across a room or carry on a conversation. But actors learn to think of their speeches and gestures and actions in terms of time. I suspect that this murderer knew exactly how long the action of stabbing would take and that he timed that action to fit smoothly into the chronological mosaic of the play. Many murderers are caught because they make some mistake in timing. An actor turned murderer is not likely to do that.”
“This is a streamlined murder!” exploded Foyle. “Only three suspects and no clues, no alibis, no fingerprints, no footprints, no motives, no telltale looks or gestures! How can anyone crack a case like that?”
“We have just three points of departure,” returned Basil.
“And they are?”
“The three things that no murderer can ever quite eliminate: the victim, the weapon, and the psychology of the crime. First, the weapon. It is the one tangible thing we possess that we are absolutely certain has been in contact with the murderer. Second, the victim. We don’t know who he is now, but as soon as his identity is established it should tell us something about the identity of his murderer. Third, the psychology of the murder—the subtle traces of character that are left behind in all acts of criminal behavior. This murderer has been clever about eliminating all the usual clues. But there has to be a victim, there has to be a weapon, and there has to be a mind behind that weapon. Perhaps the mind is our best bet. Every murder committed is in itself a clue to the nature of the mind that conceived it, and a mind is almost as individual as a fingerprint. Our job is to find out which of three people has the sort of mind that would act as this murderer has acted.”
“I don’t see how the weapon is going to help us.” Foyle picked up the knife again. The fly shot into space at a tangent. “Anyone in the theater could have taken it from Rodney Tait’s dressing room, including Tait himself. Anyone could have sharpened it in the knife-grinder’s workshop next door. And fingerprints don’t show on that grooved handle.” With a sigh, he laid it back on the table. The fly hovered over the blade for an instant; then it swerved and sank to the handle.
Basil drew near the table—so quietly that the fly did not move. “That’s queer.”
“What is?”
“There are bloodstains on the blade, but this fly keeps going back to the handle. It hasn’t settled on the blade once in all the time we’ve been here.”
The fly rocketed once more as Foyle picked up the knife by the handle. “Feels kind of sticky. What is there besides blood that would attract a fly? Gravy?”
“Yes. Or a sugar bowl.” Basil was conscious of a teasing, fugitive fragrance as he bent over the knife—something like the air in a walled orchard. “You might ask Lambert to test that handle for traces of sugar.”
Lambert was the city toxicologist who had made a name for himself identifying chemical ingredients in the smallest bits of matter—grease spots on a waistcoat, grime under a fingernail, the accumulation of dust in the welt around the sole of a shoe.
“Why sugar?” asked Foyle.
“Just an idea,” responded Basil. “Probably a foolish one. I haven’t worked it out yet.”
“Am I interrupting?”
It was Pauline. She came through the wings her hair in a misty disorder, her eyes like wilted bluebells. “I should get a bonus from the Police Department for this! It’s hard work.” She dropped into a chair Basil had pulled back for her. “And I don’t believe I’ve found your black cloak after all. I’ve made a list.”
“Let’s hear it.” Foyle was a little wary of this amateur assistant. Basil stood behind her chair looking over her shoulder at the paper in her hand.
“Well, in Wanda’s dressing room there’s a yellow satin housecoat and a dressing gown of chartreuse wool crêpe. Neither of those would fill the bill. Fedora doesn’t wear any coats or cloaks in the rest of the play, so that was all. Leonard wore a spring overcoat to the theater this evening—pale gray herringbone tweed. The uniform he wore on stage as Grech is dark blue, with silver braid and buttons that would shine in the dimmest light. His dressing gown is a clear cardinal red. There’s no other wrap in his room, and—” She hesitated, frowning.
“And Rodney Tait?” prompted the Inspector.
“I knew he was out of it before I started to look. Otherwise—” She smiled, “I wouldn’t have looked. The overcoat he wore to the theater is of beige camel’s hair. His dressing gown is light blue flannel. The long Russian overcoat he wore on stage as Dr. Lorek is black but it is fur-lined with a collar of silver gray squirrel. That collar would look pale in any light, and anyone can see the fur was sewn to the cloth by a professional furrier. It couldn’t have been removed and replaced quickly by an amateur like Rod, just as Leonard couldn’t have removed and replaced the intricate silver braiding on his dark blue coat. And that’s the lot. I looked all through the dressing rooms. I even looked in Milhau’s office. I looked through the lockers the stagehands use in the recreation room under the stage. There just wasn’t any long black cloak or even a darkish overcoat or dressing gown that would look black in a dim light.”
“What about the sable cloak Wanda wore in the first act?” asked Basil.
“Oh!” Pauline was startled. “I never thought of that. It wasn’t in her dressing room. I suppose she’s taken it home with her already.”
“It was a very dark brown,” went on Basil. “It enveloped her from head to heels, and it even had a hood. If she wore it over the house coat would the yellow satin show?”
“I suppose not.” Pauline’s smile had faded. She looked utterly spent. “I don’t like Wanda, but I don’t believe she would commit murder. Think what this means to her—wrecking her opening night, ruining her play. . . . Well, here’s the list, Inspector. I’ve done my good deed for the day—or was it a bad deed? Anyway, I’m going home.”
“I’ll take you home,” said Basil. “There’s nothing more to be done here tonight.”
VII
The street outside was almost empty now. Basil hailed a taxi, and they drove to Pauline’s apartment on the upper East Side.
“What shall I say? Thank you for a lovely evening, Dr. Willing? I did so enjoy the murder—we must do this again!” She smiled ruefully and held out her hand.
“It was you who supplied the tickets and the murder! My idea of an evening’s entertainment is much less ambitious. . . .” He took her hand and turned it over. The palm of her white glove was still streaked with black. “How did that happen?”
“Oh!” She looked down at her glove with a fastidious grimace. “I must have done that on the backstage fire escape. The dust of ages has sifted all over it in a fine black powder.”
“Were you star-gazing?”
“No, there were no stars tonight. My watch stopped at seven-thirty, and I wanted to reset it. That fire escape is the only point in the theater where you can see the Tilbury clock.” Her laughter bubbled. “Are you suggesting that I was the mysterious dark figure on the fire escape?”