“It is not what I want … no, he is fool. His only hope was they could not prove he did it. But they always can once they know. Today they almost did.”
“When?”
“This morning at the … what they call it?”
“Inquest?”
“What funny word! Yes, they make it clear they watch him. He will not conduct tonight … or ever!” she added … this time like a wicked witch placing a curse.
“You sound as if you hated him.”
“I? I hate Miles? He is best conductor I have had since Paris. I shall grieve when he is gone … you may be confident. No, I am angry with him. He wants to kill wife … fine! I am all for it … like nature: get rid of what does not make you happy. If he tell me first, if he come to me for advice, I say, certainly go kill her but do it natural … so you won’t be caught. What is point of getting rid of nuisance only to be put away yourself? I have contempt for bad artists. He is hysterical fool. He lose his head. She refuses to give him divorce so he rushes backstage and cuts cable. Then he is in trouble.”
“Perhaps he didn’t do it?”
“Oh yes he did … Miles is only person who is big fool enough to do it that way. I push her out of window in fit of anger. Ivan or Alyosha would poison her. Jed Wilbur would shoot her … Louis he would strangle her. Psychology!” said Anna Eglanova, winking solemnly at me.
“You seem to have thought a lot about it.”
“Who has not? Remember I am the one who must dance with that assistant conductor leading the orchestra always two bars behind me who am always on beat. I am martyr to this man’s foolishness.”
“Are you glad of the new season?”
Eglanova sighed, “Ah, Peter, I am old, I think. Thirty-one years is a long time to do Swan Queen.”
“But you’ll never retire?”
“They will carry me protesting from the stage!” she laughed. “They will have to kill me, too. And I tell you one thing … no fall from a cable would break these tough bones!” and she slapped her thighs.
Alyosha Rudin, in a white suit, stood in the doorway, bowing. “Shall I go away?” he asked gallantly.
“My old friend has caught me in a compromising situation! Defend your honor, Alyosha! challenge him! I demand it!”
He smiled and took my hand, forcing me gently back into my chair. “Don’t get up. I will sit here.” And he pulled up a deep leather chair and joined us by the bow window. “I am too old for duels.”
“How he has changed!” mocked Eglanova.
“But only for the better, Anna, like you.”
“For that I give you chocolates.” He actually ate one, I saw, marveling at his constitution … in this heat a lettuce leaf seemed too heavy for my stomach.
“I have been with Miles,” said the old man. “He is in terrible state. I think he will have a breakdown, or worse.”
“His own fault.”
“Be charitable, Anna.”
“I am not responsible for his condition. I told him six months ago to divorce Ella no matter what she said … go ahead, I say, you have one life; you don’t live forever … go ahead, I say, and divorce her whether she likes it or not. What can she do? That’s what I told him.”
“But Anna, obviously she could do something otherwise he wouldn’t have waited like this; and then …”
“Killed her! Such big fool!”
“We know no such thing.”
“Oh, we don’t ‘know no such thing,’ ” mocked Eglanova. “Tell that to this fat and ugly man who smokes cigars … tell him.”
“I know it looks very bad.”
“Oh … but I forget. The little one …”
“Magda? Her family is with her. What more?”
“Ah, what more indeed!”
“Then you know about Magda?” They both looked surprised, as though I had suddenly asked where babies came from.
“There are no secrets here,” said Alyosha gently.
“And now, can you not understand why I am furious with that idiot? It is all right to kill the wicked, to kill oneself, but not to hurt an innocent, oh, that is not moral … I swear that is wrong … Alyosha, tell me, tell him, that it is wrong.”
“Sad … too sad,” murmured the old man, accepting tea from the maid.
“Has Miles been to see her?” I asked.
“I think so,” said Alyosha, “as often as possible … but it’s not been easy.”
“The police?”
Alyosha nodded. “It is the end of Miles if they find out and they will certainly find out … something which is known to fifty people is hardly a secret.”
“The fool got desperate,” said Eglanova, pointing her feet. “She would not free him and there was the other girl enceinte … such mess!”
“Why was he afraid to divorce Ella?”
“Who can tell,” said Alyosha uneasily.
“Who can tell? Ha! I can tell … in this room at least. She would have exposed him. She was capable of that … he told me once that she’d threatened to make public private things if there was divorce against her.”
“What private things?” I asked.
“Anna!” Alyosha’s usually gentle voice was harsh and warning … the way it was at rehearsal when the corps de ballet was off.
“Why make such secret? It is obvious to all but a baby like this. Miles takes drugs … not little ones like so many music people, no, big ones, dangerous, expensive ones. The sort that will kill you. I should know. My husband Feodor Mihailovitch died from opium at the age of thirty. He was big man, bigger than you, Peter, but when he died he weighed five stone … how much is that? seventy pound!”
2
Miles Sutton was not at the theater that night. According to the note on the bulletin board, he was home, sick, and until further notice the orchestra would be under the direction of Rubin Gold, a bright nervous young man with insufficient experience and a regrettable tendency to follow the music instead of the dancers.
After taking care of my usual chores at the box office, getting all the movie stars in their seats and one thing or another, I went back to Jane’s dressing room, my first glimpse of her since our hung-over morning.
She was just getting into her tights when I marched into the dressing room. “Good God! You frightened me.”
“You don’t expect your buddy to knock, do you—or send a note back?”
“Of course not.” She went on with her dressing in spite of a number of distracting things which I thought of to do to her just then, those little peculiarities of behavior which are always a lot of fun at the time but might look alarming to a man from Mars, or even to a man from the police department. “I don’t know why I’m so jittery,” she said. “But I tell you I know something’s going to happen.”
“You mean to the cable?”
She yelped and looked at me furiously. “Don’t even suggest such a thing! No, I was thinking of Miles. Everybody says the police are ready to arrest him.”
“What’s been puzzling me is why they didn’t do it a long time ago.”
“I don’t know … not enough evidence … oh, darling, I just feel awful.”
I had a brave masculine moment, holding her in my arms while she shuddered a bit and gave way to some healthy old-fashioned female nerves; then, remembering that she was a dancer and not a woman, she broke the clinch and began to paint her face.
“Did you see Magda today?” I asked.
She nodded. “The poor thing’s out of her mind … her family isn’t much help either. They’re very Boston and though they’re perfectly nice to her you can see they think it’s the end of the world, her carrying the bastard child of a murderer … oh, it does sound awful, doesn’t it?” Intently, she placed a set of eyelashes in place.