“I suppose he’s the hero?” A spark of mischief danced in Margot’s eyes.
“There isn’t any hero.” Adeane was aggrieved. “These are just weak, ignorant people warped by life in a smug, hypocritical society. I’ve shown them just as they really are—ugly and vicious and cruel—but human and pathetic. Squeamish people won’t like the scene where Bugsy kills the crippled child, but if there are any realistic minds in the audience they will welcome such an honest, unflinching statement of fact. When the curtain rises, Bugsy is discovered in a drunken stupor. Lulu comes in and starts kicking him in the groin. He pulls out a handful of her hair, and—”
“It’s no use, Mr. Adeane.” Margot dropped the script on the table. “I’m not going to put on your play.”
Adeane was astonished. “But you haven’t read it!”
“No. I’ve made up my mind.” Margot answered crisply. “There are enough horrors in real life, especially in war time. People don’t want to see them on the stage as well.”
“But—” Adeane began to bluster. “Putting on a play like this is a public service. It’s the only way to show up life for the rotten mess it is. Besides—” He turned abruptly from the ideal to the practical. “People will pay real money to see that scene where Bugsy and Flo—just wait until I read it to you.”
He stretched out a hand toward the manuscript, but before he could pick it up Margot was on her feet. “I have an idea,” she cried. “I am going to back a play—but not this one!”
“You have another one in mind?”
“Yes. Wait a minute.” She darted inside. They could hear her dialing a telephone.
Adeane looked at Basil and sighed. “If only she’d listened to that one scene. I got it out of a book on psychopathology—Krafft-Ebing—and—”
“That sounds rather second-hand,” said Basil. “I thought realists got their stuff from real life. Why don’t you try writing a play around something in your own experience?”
“But my life is so dull!” Adeane was appalled. “Nothing ever happens to me! I’ve never met a sadist or a nymphomaniac or even a murderer—”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”
“Oh!” Adeane was startled. “You mean—last night? Funny, I didn’t get any kick out of last night at all. Just hours of waiting for that inspector to question me, and then a few minutes of questioning, and then—home. Even murder is dull when it happens to me. Only one thing I saw seemed sort of interesting.”
“What was that?”
“When you and the Inspector were questioning me, did you happen to notice that fly?”
“Fly?” Basil was startled. He had not credited Adeane with any powers of observation.
“Uh-huh.” Adeane’s eyes were on the horizon. The sun had gone. The gray clouds were massing and spreading. Already they darkened the whole sky and dulled the sparkle of the city below. “The knife that killed Ingelow was on the table, remember? And there was a house fly buzzing around. It kept settling on the handle of the knife instead of the blade. But there was blood on the blade. I thought flies always went for blood. It seemed sort of queer.”
Margot’s voice came through the open window. “Mr. Milhau, please. . . . Sam? . . . Yes, yes, never mind that. I don’t care whether Wanda’s sorry or not! The point is this: I want you to carry on with the production of Fedora. . . . Yes, I said Fedora. I’ll back you to the limit. . . . No, I do not want to see a play by Granby Saunderson or anyone else! It’s Fedora or nothing! And it must be played exactly the same way by the same actors. I’ll send you a check. . . . Wanda needn’t know who’s putting up the money. . . . Nonsense! The murder will be good publicity. . . . Who’ll play Vladimir? My dear Sam, that’s your headache. . . .”
They heard the receiver click into place. When she came back her eyes were defiant.
“Mrs. Ingelow!” protested Adeane. “That awful romantic twaddle of Sardou’s! It was only staged as a vehicle for Wanda. Nobody liked it. But Destroying All Twigs is stark reality. It has the makings of a smash hit!”
Margot’s thin lips were set close in a taut smile. She looked at the sky. “Better come inside. It’s going to rain.”
The living room seemed shadowy now the sky was overcast. Margot stood at the open window for a moment, her back half turned toward the two men, her eyes on the sky.
“Just what is the idea of going on with Fedora?” demanded Adeane.
“Don’t you understand?” She glanced back over her shoulder.
Basil answered for Adeane. “The play’s the thing with which to catch the conscience of the king?”
“Exactly. John was killed during a performance of Fedora by one of three actors taking part in the play. I can watch all three every night and see which one really has the best opportunity to murder Vladimir during the action of the play. I’m reconstructing the crime—not just once, but every night as long as Fedora runs. Sooner or later as that scene is repeated over and over again the murderer’s nerves will crack and he’ll give himself away . . . or she . . .”
“But they might not play the scene exactly the same way they did last night,” objected Basil.
“Actors tend to play a scene pretty much the same way night after night,” argued Margot. “Habit is what makes it possible for them to remember a part. Milhau directed, and he’ll see to it that they stick to his direction.”
“You’ve forgotten one thing,” put in Adeane. “Stage people are superstitious. You’ll never get any actor in that company to play Vladimir again.”
“Oh, we’ll get somebody!” returned Margot airily. “Somebody who needs the money badly.”
“Why don’t you put on my play as well as Fedora?” insisted Adeane stubbornly. “Suppose I leave the manuscript with you, and when you’ve read it—”
“I don’t want to back any play except Fedora,” answered Margot. “Wanda Morley has cured me of all interest in the theater. I’ve had enough of the stage and stage people to last me all the rest of my life.”
“You’ll be sorry.” Adeane sounded more like a defeated salesman than a disappointed dramatist. “You’re throwing away a fortune. Sooner or later I’m going to get a backer for that play, and then just watch my dust! Where’d you leave the script?”
“I think it’s on the terrace,” Margot replied indifferently.
Adeane thrust his way past her and jerked open the terrace door. Wind hurled a handful of raindrops in his face. “Hey!” He sprang forward with the cry of a lioness who sees her cub attacked. The wind was tossing loose sheets of white paper about the terrace with the heavy playfulness of a gamboling elephant. There was typewriting on the sheets. They had come from Adeane’s script.
Basil went to help him gather the scattered pages together. By great good luck not a single page had blown over the parapet, but all of them were blistered with rain. Adeane stuffed the sodden mass between the green paper covers. “How did that happen?” he muttered.
There was no sign of the brass staples that had held the pages of the script together. Each page was loose and at the mercy of the wind.
“But the wind couldn’t have undone those staples!” Adeane’s eyes were on Basil angry and puzzled.
“Are you sure the staples weren’t loose?”