Rod shook his head. “There’s only one other woman in the cast besides Wanda, and she’s a fluffy little blonde with curls.”
“Light eyes in a brown face and hair the same color?” repeated Pauline. “And a black-and-white dress. That sounds like Magpie.”
“Who is Magpie?”
“Oh, she’s just a woman you see around town at night clubs and so forth. Her real name is Margaret Ingelow. People call her Margot to her face, and Magpie behind her back, because she always wears black and white. She lives near Philadelphia—Huntingdon Valley, I think—but she has an apartment in New York. Her husband, John Ingelow, is working on some sort of war job in Panama. He inherited an engineering company. She was the daughter of a Washington surgeon, but there was nothing to distinguish her from hundreds of other girls until she married him. She’s a good horsewoman. She used to ride other people’s horses at the Horse Show here. That was where she met Ingelow. I have a vague idea they’re separated now.”
“Was she educated in France?” asked Basil.
“No, but I believe her husband was. Why?”
Basil let that question slide. “What would she be doing backstage at the Royalty?”
“I suppose she knows Milhau or somebody in the cast. She’s been stage-struck for some time.”
“I see.” Basil reflected a moment and then smiled. “How convenient it would be if we were in a small town instead of New York. Then I could stroll down to the village post office or the drugstore soda fountain and be reasonably certain that Margaret Ingelow would drop in sooner or later, so I could have a glimpse of her without deliberately seeking her out or getting the police to do so for me.”
Pauline was amused. “Basil, where do you spend your spare time in New York?”
“I don’t have much spare time. I suppose I spend most of it in libraries or theaters or the homes of people I know. Why?”
“It’s high time you got out of your rut,” returned Pauline. “If you don’t look out you’ll develop into an old fogey. Don’t you realize that modern New York is a small town with a completely village mentality? Haven’t you ever noticed that people in offices gossip around the water cooler just the way peasants in Syrian villages gossip around the village well? You wouldn’t find Magpie in a post office or a drugstore even if she were in the country, but if you want to see her without seeking her, all you have to do is to lunch at Capri’s in New York. She’s there every day.”
“Is she?” Basil was interested. “Then suppose you two meet me there for luncheon today. Shall we say one o’clock?”
“We’ll be there.” Rod rose. “This has been less of an ordeal than I expected. No association test—no lie detector—no psycho-analysis. You just ask ordinary questions like a policeman.”
Basil seized his opportunity. “Would you like an association test? I’ll give you a very brief one—a single word. You’re supposed to answer instantly with the first word it brings into your mind. Ready?”
“Shoot!” Rod was grinning as if this were a parlor game, but Pauline looked anxious.
“Canary.”
“Blood.”
Basil’s face was impassive. “Any idea why a canary should make you think of blood?”
“We had a pet canary at home when I was a boy. It got out of its cage one day and flew around the room. I tried to catch it, and I was pretty clumsy. I was only six or seven at the time. I caught it by one leg and—” He made a little grimace as if the memory were still an emotional sore. “The leg came off in my hand. The poor bird wilted and bled profusely, but it didn’t die quickly. My father had to chloroform it. The dreadful thing about cruelty to animals is that they judge you solely by your actions—never by words. You can never apologize or explain to them that your act was unintentional. That was the first time I saw death and the first time I saw blood flow from an act of violence. The fact that it was inadvertent didn’t make me feel any the less guilty, and I’ve always had a guilty feeling about canaries ever since.”
Pauline was watching Basil’s face. “That isn’t the way a murderer would talk, now, is it?”
“Unfortunately, murderers have no special way of talking.” Basil’s equable tone made his words inoffensive. “It would make things much easier for us if they did.”
When the pair had gone, Basil went back to the living room and turned over his file of recent newspapers until he came to a Sunday edition that devoted considerable space to stage and screen. He found what he was looking for in a picture section dedicated to churchgoers promenading on Easter Sunday, a few weeks earlier:
Miss Wanda Morley snapped on Fifth Avenue with her leading man, Mr. Rodney Tait. An engagement is rumored. . . .
It was a blurred action snapshot taken in bright sunlight. Wind molded Wanda’s print dress to her body and pushed back the floppy brim of her wide spring hat. One hand held the hat; the other was linked through Rod’s arm. They were looking into each other’s eyes and laughing happily. For a young man who was engaged to another woman the pose seemed a little indiscreet. . . .
Frowning, Basil cut out the picture and put it away in his desk. Then he tucked Wanda’s script of Fedora under one arm and set out for her house.
Chapter Six. First Lady
WANDA MORLEY lived in a little house with a garden that went down to the edge of the East River. It was perfection in miniature—a doll’s house for a child princess. The walls were white-washed brick, roof and shutters were green, and the door was painted yellow. A mulatto maid answered Basil’s ring. He gave his name and waited in a shallow green and white hall, wondering if Wanda would receive him. The maid returned and led him up a flight of narrow, curving stairs to a long, pale drawing room with French windows that gave on a balcony overlooking garden and river. Though it was nearly noon, Wanda was at breakfast on the balcony—a Swiss breakfast of coffee with hot milk, hot buttered rolls, and honey. Her dark hair was gathered in a loose coil on the nape of her neck. She looked rested and comfortable in beautifully cut slacks of gray flannel and a yellow sweater.
The morning sun brought out lines in her face that Basil had not noticed before. Ordinarily he found the look of disillusioned maturity more interesting in women than the blank freshness of youth. But middle age had carved lines of slyness in Wanda’s face that were unpleasing in spite of her vivid coloring and regular features. There was still a certain melancholy in her eyes, but the morbid hysteria of last night was gone. He had an impression that she was essentially a practical person. As soon as the first shock of any disaster was over, she would pick up the pieces and put them together somehow. She would never nurse a grief and wallow in it for sheer emotional luxury.
“Dr. Willing, how nice of you to call! And how nice of you to bring my script back!” She smiled, eyes narrowed against the sun. Their golden color was no trick of eye shadow or indirect lighting. Here in the sun’s glare he could see the irises plainly, and they were a pure, buttercup yellow without a trace of chartreuse or hazel. He recalled a tale he had read years ago in French because it was then considered too “daring” for translation into English: La Fille aux Yeux d’Or. Was Wanda as savagely sensual as Paquita Valdes? Then he remembered that Balzac had wanted to call the story La Fille aux Yeux Rouge and that it was his publisher who had insisted upon changing the red eyes to gold. . . .