“Dr. Willing? This is Lazarus, the knife-grinder in the alley beside the Royalty Theatre. Excuse me for bothering you; but something has happened, and you said—”
“What has happened?”
“Well . . .” The voice was still fainter. “Someone has been in my workshop again.”
“Was the door forced open?”
“No, that wasn’t necessary, because the broken window latch hasn’t been repaired yet.”
“Then how do you know anyone has been there?”
“Because of Dickie.”
“Dickie?”
“My canary. Don’t you remember? He’s been let out of the cage again. I don’t see why anybody should do such a thing but—somebody did.”
Chapter Twelve. Encore
A THRILL OF EXCITEMENT poured through Basil’s nerves. He had a sharp sense of something ominous and evil. His taxi seemed to crawl through the westward traffic. He left it at the corner of 44th and Fifth and walked the rest of the way to the theater.
He had to cross the street to get past the box-office door. There was a great turn-out for the “second first night” of Fedora as one of the critics called it. The sidewalk in front of the theater was black with people and car after car discharged its load of sensation-hungry men and women—the same type that haunts dreary courtrooms during a spectacular murder trial. Milhau’s taste might be questioned, but his business sense was beyond reproach.
Basil slipped through the crowd to the mouth of the alley—an inconspicuous figure this evening in a light overcoat and a soft felt hat. There was a light in the window of the knife-grinder’s shack. Lazarus opened the door himself. His time-worn face was always so grave that it was hard to tell now if he were really more troubled than usual. He led the way to the bird cage. Dickie had decided on the avian equivalent of a night raid on the ice box. He was plunging his beak into his seed cup so vigorously that the seeds were sprayed all around the floor of the cage. His small, beady black eye rolled as if he were enjoying such unaccustomed late hours.
“Are you sure he couldn’t have escaped by himself this time?” asked Basil.
“Oh, no. I went out to get a bite to eat, and I left Dickie in his cage with the door securely latched. When I came back the cage was empty, and the door was standing open. Dickie was flying all around the room. I had some trouble catching him—I was afraid I might hurt him. He seems all right now but—after this I don’t like to leave him alone here tonight. . . .”
Basil saw that to an old man without a future, without a family, and perhaps without friends, this pet canary meant more than an ordinary man leading a normally gregarious life could understand. “If you’ll wait here until the performance is over, I’ll see if the bird can’t be taken elsewhere for a while.”
“Thank you, I’ll be glad to wait.” Lazarus sat down at the grindstone and took up a pair of shears. “I have plenty of work to do.”
Basil’s glance fell on a long, red mark like the scratch of a cat’s claw across Lazarus’ forefinger. “Have you cut your hand?”
“Oh, that.” Lazarus smiled. “See the scars?” He held out his hand, and Basil saw a dozen faint, thin white lines across the forefinger. “If you ever find an unidentified corpse with scars like that on his forefinger you’ll know he’s a knife-grinder. No matter how careful a grinder is he always cuts that part of his finger every few months.”
At the stage door Basil saw one of the assistant producers. “Where is Mr. Milhau?”
“In his apartment, Dr. Willing. I’ll show you the way.”
“I know the way to his office already.”
The man grinned. “His apartment is something else again.”
They passed down a dimly lit passage and went up a narrow, enclosed stairway to the top of the theater. To Basil’s surprise he was ushered into a comfortably furnished living room.
“Hello, come right in!” Milhau was holding a champagne cocktail in one hand, and his plump cheeks were flushed a bluish pink. His thick, pale lips stretched in a rubbery smile, but his eyes were glazed and unhappy. “I live in the country so I don’t use this place much,” he confided. “And then only when I’m in town for the night. It was built and furnished by the former owner of the theater.”
Through a haze of cigarette smoke Basil saw a group of men and women clustered around a buffet supper table. They were mostly assistants and secretaries from Milhau’s office; but Basil caught a glimpse of Margot’s splashy black poppies on their white ground surrounded by a group of men, and he saw Pauline’s light brown curls bronzed by lamplight.
“Aren’t you going to watch the performance?” he asked Milhau.
“Oh, yes.” Milhau chuckled like Santa Claus with a surprise in his pack. “Grab a cocktail and a plate of creamed chicken, and I’ll show you.”
“I’ve just had dinner, thank you.”
Milhau led the way to the end of the room where Pauline and Margot were sitting. He stepped to the wall and touched a spring. A panel in the wall slid back noiselessly. Basil looked down through the opening into a brilliantly lighted world. The walls were painted red and blue and green. There was a silver samovar in front of a fireplace and a table set for dominoes in the center. It was an oblique of the stage.
“Mrs. Ingelow didn’t want to appear in public this evening,” went on Milhau. “So I told her we could watch the whole performance very comfortably from up here without anyone knowing she was in the audience.”
Basil’s glance circled the stage. “You can’t see the alcove from this angle?”
“Only when the doors are open. Then we get a foreshortened view of it.”
Basil told Milhau about the canary.
“That’s too bad. Lazarus is attached to that bird. He’s had it three or four years. I can’t understand anyone playing a joke on a nice old man like that.”
“It happened before you know. Just before the other murder.”
“I know, but what can I do?”
“Why not tell Adeane he needn’t play Vladimir? You could use a dummy tonight.”
“A dummy always looks like a dummy.” Milhau pouted like a spoiled child. “A rich man like Ingelow is always making enemies, but nobody has it in for Adeane. He’s a harmless little guy who writes bum plays. Just because he’s playing Vladimir doesn’t mean his life’s in danger. Besides—”
“Besides what?”
“It’s too late now.”
Basil’s glance followed Milhau’s through the gap in the wall. The curtain was rising.
By this time Basil knew that wretched play of Sardou’s by heart. Even the fact that he was seeing it from a bird’s-eye view failed to give it any novelty. He marveled at the ability of the actors to put so much freshness and vitality into those never-to-be-forgotten lines.
Four! Six! Is the master away?
“Too fast, too fast!” muttered Milhau in real distress.
Basil, his eyes on the stage, heard Pauline’s voice: “They’re nervous. All of them.”
He turned his head to smile at Pauline and caught the glitter of triumph in Margot’s eyes. After all, this was why she was doing it—to rasp all their nerves until the guilty one broke down.
It was impossible to see the actors’ faces. Even their figures were rudely foreshortened. But their voices came through clearly, each one taut and humming as wire stretched to breaking point. Their words tumbled out of their mouths faster and faster, as if they were frightened amateurs. The gestures that were so carefully formed the first night and even at the rehearsal were sketchy and blurred now—rather like a shorthand version of something that had been written in precise script.