“Better put iodine on it,” said Basil. “Tetanus germs thrive in dusty places.”
Leonard laughed, but Pauline found a bottle of iodine on the dressing table and insisted on applying it.
Basil pulled out the dressing-table drawer. Nothing there but the expected array of cosmetics, combs, and brushes.
“When did you first realize the knife was missing?”
“Just about ten minutes ago. I opened the bag to put in some gauze dressings I had bought for tonight—more realism—and I noticed that empty pocket. I wasn’t sure whether it had been empty before so I went to Leonard’s room and asked him if he could remember. He said he thought the kit was complete the last time I had it on stage. That was yesterday. He came back here to help me look for it. We met Pauline outside, and it was she who suggested I might have left it on the set. She went off to look for it there.”
Basil nodded. Apparently each one of the three had been alone ten minutes ago. Any one of them could have been the dark figure on the fire escape. . . .
“Could the knife be on one of the other sets?”
Rod shook his head. “Dr. Lorek and his surgical bag only appear in the first act. I play another part in the second half of the play. Sardou wrote before the days of Equity salaries, and he didn’t care how many characters he had. Milhau has cut out all the walk-on parts he could and doubled up on those that appear only in the first act.”
“I hate to break up this party,” drawled Leonard, “but do you realize the curtain will rise in three minutes, and I have to go on in seven minutes?”
Basil rose. “If I were you, I’d be careful of that knife on stage tonight. Perhaps it would be wiser to forget realism for once and carry an empty bag. You could make the motions of probing for a bullet without any probe.”
“But that would spoil everything!” exclaimed Rod. “The flash of light along the blade of the knife is what makes that scene!”
Leonard was gazing at Basil in astonishment. “You don’t think this knife business is serious, do you?”
“It’s probably just mislaid—a case of first-night jitters. But—” Basil hesitated.
What did it all amount to? A surgical knife lost . . . a burglar who broke into a knife-grinding shop without stealing anything . . . a canary let out of its cage . . . a script of Sardou’s Fedora with one rather ominous line underscored. . . . The rest was “atmosphere,” not evidence. The District Attorney’s office was not interested in atmosphere. Neither was the Police Department. . . .
III
Pauline led Basil briskly through the semi-darkness, swerving now and then to avoid a tangle of rope or a dangling wire. The canvas wall was on their left, the brick wall of the theater on their right; and the roof so high above their heads that the ceiling was lost in shadow. They passed the plywood door and came to the end of the canvas wall. There was a narrow gap between it and the proscenium arch. Through this gap Basil had a glimpse of men gathering around a table set for a game of dominoes—actors assembling on stage to be discovered by the audience when the curtain rose.
Beyond them at the rear of the stage there was a double doorway. As Basil watched, it opened, and a woman came out drawing the doors together behind her. She crossed the stage with a firm, slow step. The glare of the footlights fell on a hard, sun-browned face—eyes narrow; nose sharp; lips thin and resolute. Light brown hair, straight as pine needles, coiled in a neat roll on the nape of her neck. Her sun-baked skin was almost the same shade of tan as her hair, but her eyes were light. She wore no make-up save a slight reddening of the lips. Her dress was a stiff silk, striped diagonally in black and white. It was crisp, severe and dashing—a style that suited her. Cloak and gloves were black. As the cloak flowed behind her Basil remembered that the figure on the fire escape had been a dark one.
She reached the gap in the wings. Her pale eyes dwelt on Basil briefly—a cool, inimical stare. Then she passed him, disappearing among the shadowy shapes beyond the stage.
Pauline touched his arm. “What are you waiting for? We must hurry!”
Directly in front of them was a heavy door covered with green baize. A faint buzzing came through it, as if bees were swarming beyond. When Basil opened the door for Pauline, the buzzing became a shrill clatter of many tongues. They were on the frontier between reality and illusion. In one step they passed from the actor’s raw world of seam and packthread to the cushioned, gilded world of the spectator where canvas is stone; spotlight, moonlight; and rouge, the first bloom of youth.
On this side of the curtain all the hangings were ripe red plush; all the fringe a glittering gilt; all the paneling figured walnut; all the pillars veined marble, and all the chandeliers dripping with crystal prisms. The domed ceiling was painted with a billowy Aphrodite supported by bulbous cherubs on pink cotton clouds against a turquoise blue sky.
“A perfect setting for Fedora,” whispered Basil.
“Isn’t it?” responded Pauline. “Sam Milhau was pretty clever not to streamline this place. If only the footlights were gas jets Belasco’s ghost could feel at home.”
As if their entrance had been a signal every light in the house went out except the dim red exit lights that pricked the darkness far back under the first balcony. They were at one end of a corridor that embraced the orchestra seats in a half-circle. They hurried around to the head of the center aisle. As they reached it, the footlights flashed on—a crescent of yellow glare that sculptured the lower folds of the curtain while everything above swam in a watery twilight without color or contour. The clatter of tongues died away in a silence taut with expectation.
They were stopped half-way up the aisle by an usher with a flashlight. “Your tickets?”
Basil fumbled in his breast pocket, found the envelope Pauline had given him. “We’ve just been backstage. Can you take the stubs and check my hat and coat for me?”
“I shouldn’t, but I will. This way, please.”
He led them down the center aisle to seats in the fourth row and thrust souvenir programs into their hands—sumptuous affairs of cream-colored parchment bound with crimson cord and a sketch of Wanda on the cover. The star did not believe in hiding her light under a bushel. . . .
Basil glanced toward the critics’ row. “Wonder what they’ll say?”
“Formula X31B2,” answered Pauline. “Last night the brilliant artistry of the American theater’s first lady, Miss Wanda Morley, infused life and passion into the sawdust and tinsel of a creaky old melodrama by Victorien Sardou. When will our theater provide the gifted Miss Morley with a vehicle worthy of her great talent and beauty? It never occurs to them that Wanda chooses bad plays on purpose so she’ll always seem better than the play.”
“And the audience?”
“They’ll eat it up. Look at them now—watering at the mouth.”
Every seat in the house was filled, and filled magnificently. A Wanda Morley opening was one of the few events that could make a New York theater look as festive as the opera. Every silver fox farm in the West must have contributed its quota of pelts to the scene, while Siberia must have been entirely denuded of mink and ermine. There was a vast display of bald heads and boiled shirts among the men; of shaved armpits and shoulders coated with liquid powder among the women. In spite of the elaborate artifice of jewels, silks, and coiffures, the feminine faces looked strained and haggard in the cold twilight as their eyes settled hungrily on the curtain.
Basil’s glance came back to Pauline and dwelt approvingly on her simple, long-sleeved, long-skirted dress of clear azure. “You’re the only one who doesn’t look like a singe endimanché.”