“Then if Ingelow had lived to sign the new will, Mrs. Ingelow would have got nothing but her divorce settlement?”
“Sure. Oh, I know it’s a motive, but she wasn’t on stage last night, so she couldn’t—”
“One moment.” Basil stopped him. “Mrs. Ingelow was on stage last night. I saw her leaving the alcove shortly before the curtain rose.”
Milhau swore under his breath. “What are you trying to do? Railroad the only prospect I’ve got to the Tombs for murder? My God! If Wanda had to kill somebody why, oh, why, did she pick the fellow who was backing her show?”
“You think Wanda did it?”
“Well . . .” Milhau shuffled his feet. “I don’t know. But . . . who else?”
“Rodney? Leonard? Or Mrs. Ingelow herself? They all had the same opportunity as Wanda.”
“I don’t see Rod or Leonard as a murderer, do you?” Milhau’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “They’re both ordinary, everyday fellows, and Mrs. Ingelow didn’t need the money that badly. She had a big divorce settlement.”
“Did Wanda need money?”
“She always needs money.”
“I think you’d better introduce me to Mrs. Ingelow,” said Basil.
“O.K.” Milhau was reluctant.
At close range Margot’s hard, smooth brown face looked as if it had been carved from wood and polished. The pale eyes and white teeth were like the ivory eyes and teeth set in dark fetish masks from Africa. Any other woman in the world would have shown some trace of embarrassment in her situation. But Margot did not. A man was talking to her as they approached. She dismissed him with a smile. When she saw Basil, the smile faded. As Milhau mumbled an introduction, she stared at Basil with blank insolence.
“No doubt you’ve forgotten me,” he said. “But I remember you clearly. We passed each other backstage at the Royalty last night.”
Eyelashes the same light brown as her skin flickered under the impact of this. “Won’t you sit down?” She ignored Milhau as he slumped on the bench beside her. “Then it’s you who told the police I was at the theater last night?”
“Dr. Willing is the police,” put in Milhau woefully. “At least, he’s hand in glove with them. He’s in the District Attorney’s office.”
“Oh.” Margot thawed a little. “An inspector came to my apartment just as I was leaving for the theater this morning. He kept me nearly an hour. I can’t understand why. Isn’t it obvious that that woman did it?”
“What woman?”
“Why, Wanda Morley, of course!”
Basil matched her directness. “You had motive and opportunity yourself.”
“Motive? Oh, the will. How sordid! Do you really believe I would kill my husband to prevent his signing a will leaving everything to another woman?”
“It has been done.”
“But I didn’t have to do it.”
“No?”
The waiter brought broiled lobsters. Margot waited until they were served. When the waiter was gone, she resumed. “You see, Dr. Willing, John was never going to sign that will leaving everything to Wanda.”
“Why not?”
“John and I were reconciled.”
“Rather sudden, wasn’t it?”
“No doubt it seemed sudden to Miss Morley.” Margot’s thin lips curled contemptuously.
“Was there any special reason for it?”
“I told John I was going to have a baby.”
“Oh.”
Basil’s expression amused Margot. She laughed aloud. “My dear Dr. Willing, you didn’t suppose I really was going to have a baby did you?”
“Wouldn’t it have been a little embarrassing when the expected heir did not appear?”
“Oh, I should have had one afterward. I was a fool not to have had one before, but I never realized that John cared about that sort of thing.”
“Why didn’t you come forward to identify Vladimir as John Ingelow when the morning papers carried the story of Vladimir’s murder?” asked Basil.
“It’s one thing to be innocent and quite another to appear innocent,” retorted Margot. “I knew the first suspect in the eyes of the police would be whoever inherited the Ingelow fortune. That happened to be I. So I hoped the police would never learn that I had been in the theater last night or even that I knew John was playing Vladimir. I felt sure someone else would identify him in a short while.”
“When did this reconciliation take place?”
“Last night. That’s why I went backstage. I was desperate. I had to do something to keep John from making a fool of himself over Wanda—a woman nearly twice his age. He had refused to see me again, but I knew he was playing Vladimir the opening night of Fedora. I tried to see him when he got back from Panama a few days ago, and I overheard him discussing the Vladimir business with Wanda on the telephone. It seemed a unique chance to have a word with him. I bought a ticket and bribed an usher to show me the way backstage.”
“By way of the fire escape?”
“Of course not! What ever made you think of such a thing? I went through the box-office door and then through the door that leads backstage from the orchestra seats. I waylaid John just as he was coming in the stage door. We stood there talking for about twenty minutes. Then he went on to Wanda’s dressing room.”
“So that was what delayed Ingelow,” said Basil. “And then?”
“He promised to give up Wanda and come back to me. You see how silly it is to talk about my killing John for money. I was to have all the money and John too.”
“But now you have all the money without John. Perhaps you prefer it that way. There are many wives of rich men who would.”
Margot considered this without emotion. “I won’t pretend I was madly in love with him but—I was sort of used to him. I wouldn’t have stabbed him just to get rid of him.”
“And what were you doing on stage when Adeane and I saw you leave the alcove?”
“After John left me, I suddenly decided I wanted him to take me home after the first act was over. The sooner I got him away from Wanda’s influence the better. So I crossed the stage to the alcove and waited for him in there. But when the actors began to gather on the stage I was afraid I might be caught there when the curtain rose. So I left the alcove before he came and crossed the stage to the wings in order to go round in front. That must have been when you saw me.”
“Then according to you, Wanda Morley had no motive for stabbing Ingelow. When he saw her in her dressing room after his interview with you he must have told her that he was going back to you and that his new will would never be signed.”
“No, he didn’t,” put in Milhau. “The police have been all over that with Wanda’s dresser. By the time Ingelow got to Wanda’s dressing room, she was fully dressed and there were several people there—her press agent, some boys from my office, and so on. She was worrying about her sable cloak—it hadn’t been delivered on time—and Ingelow had no chance to talk to her privately. Her dresser daubed his face with that corpse make-up. Everybody assumed he was some friend of Wanda’s playing Vladimir, but nobody knew who he was, and nobody paid any particular attention to him. You know how it is backstage on a first night—regular madhouse.”
“Wanda had every reason to believe he had signed the new will leaving everything to her,” insisted Margot. “And that’s why she killed him. It’s as simple as that.”
“It might be,” admitted Basil. “But of the two motives, yours is the more solid; for you did get the money, and she didn’t.”