“It might have made it easier for us if you’d been able to remember at the time.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“I wonder if you realize how serious all this is, Mr. Sargeant.” For some reason Gleason had decided to handle me with tenderness.
“I do.… It was a dumb thing, wasn’t it? For someone deliberately to put the shears in her wastebasket to throw suspicion on her … I mean, if she had cut the cable she’d never keep The Murder Weapon in her own dressing room.”
“Very sound reasoning,” said the detective; if I hadn’t already been acquainted with his simple mind I would have thought he was indulging himself in a bit of irony at my expense.
“What did the autopsy turn up?” I asked, disregarding all his previous statements to the effect that it was not my place to ask questions.
“If you would just let us …” He began with a show of patience.
“Mr. Gleason,” I lied, “I have the representatives of all the wire services, foreign and domestic, as well as reporters from every daily in town, waiting at my office for some word from Anthony Ignatius Gleason as to the outcome of the autopsy this morning.…” That did the trick … Gleason for Mayor, Honest, Courageous, Tireless.
“As a rule the district attorney’s office handles releases to the press but since the boys are so eager you can tell them that Miles Sutton had a heart attack and fainted, falling face forward onto the lighted stove. He was not attacked or poisoned … unless you can call a system which looked like a drugstore poisoned.”
“That’s certainly a load off my mind,” I sighed. “Everybody else’s, too.”
“It would seem,” said Gleason, “that the case is closed.”
“Seem? Weren’t you going to arrest him for murder?”
“Oh yes.”
“He did kill her, didn’t he?”
“We believe so.”
“Then tell me; why did you wait so long to arrest him? What couldn’t you prove?”
Gleason blinked and then, quite mildly, answered: “Well, it happened that of all the people involved Sutton was the only one who had an alibi … the only one who could not, if his story was true, have gone backstage between five and eight-thirty and cut the cable.”
I whistled.
“There are times when a good alibi can be more suspicious than none at all. But we managed to break it. I won’t say how because we weren’t entirely sure but we had a theory and we thought we could prove it in court.”
“Then I can tell the papers that the case is finished?”
Gleason nodded. “You can tell them that.”
“They’ll want to interview you.”
“They know where to find me,” he said quietly … Gleason for Governor, Man of the People.
Needless to say, my announcement to the press that afternoon caused a sensation. Everyone in the company was wild with excitement and relief and I felt like a hero even though I was just the carrier of the good news from Aix to Ghent.
After the last reporter had cleared out of the office, grinding the last cigarette butt into the expensive carpet, I sat back and enjoyed a few minutes of much needed solitude. The two secretaries in the next room made a restful steady noise of typing: “Miss Rosen and Miss Ruger, the talented duo-typists, made their Manhattan debut last night at Town Hall with a program which featured Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Two Typewriters with Black and Red Ribbons.” I seldom get a chance to be alone any more … it wasn’t like college or even the army when I would have long stretches of being by myself, when I could think things out, decide what to do next, figure just where I stood on any number of assorted topics like television, Joyce, deism, marionettes, buggery and Handel’s Messiah. Maybe I should take a long rest … I’d saved up quite a bit of cash and … but my dream of solitude was shattered by a telephone call from Miss Flynn.
“I have had an inquiry from the Benjamin Franklin Kafka Foundation; they would like to know if you could handle their account for the next six months. I indicated that I would communicate with you.”
I asked what sum they had suggested and when she told me I said that I would accept. We talked business for a few minutes. Then she suggested that I come by the office and read the mail.
“I’ll be over this afternoon. The case is finished, by the way.”
“That should be nice for the dancers.”
“For all of us.”
“Are you to continue with those clients much longer?”
“Only another week.”
“* * * * * * * *”
I did not get over to my office that afternoon, however, for just as I hung up the telephone Miss Ruger announced that the Executive Secretary of the Veterans’ Committee awaited my pleasure.
“Show him in,” I said.
A thick burly veteran of the First World War rushed toward me; I slipped behind my desk, afraid of being tackled.
“The name’s Fleer, Abner S. Fleer.”
“My name is …”
“I’ll come straight to the point … no use mincing matters, is there? When you got something to say say it, that’s what I say.”
“Shoot!” I said, showing that I could talk straight, too.
“We’ve been picketing your show, right?”
“Right.”
“I’ll bet you’d like us not to picket your show, right?”
“Wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“It happens to be a very useful form of promotion, Mr. Frear.”
“Fleer. That remains to be seen. Veterans are staying away … I can tell you that.”
“Even without the veterans we are sold out not only for this season, but also on the road. We go to Chicago next week.”
“Only because you’ve been cashing in on the other immoral goings-on in your show.”
“You’re referring to the murder?”
“I am indeed.”
“Well, a man killed his wife and now the man is dead of a heart attack … so that’s all over.”
“We have reason to believe that your company is a hotbed of Reds and other undesirables.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Mister, we have spent close to a hundred thousand in the last year to root Reds and other perverts out of our way of life, in government, entertainment and the life of everyday … and we’re doing it. We have reason to believe this man Wilbur is a party member.”
“If you can prove it why don’t you get him indicted? Or whatever the procedure is.”
“Because these fellows are slippery. Oh, we’ve been tipped off but that’s a long way from getting a gander at his membership card.”
“Then why don’t you wait until you have got it … save a lot of bother.”
“There’s a moral issue involved. It may take us years to track him down … in the meantime he is corrupting our cherished ideals with his immoral dances. We want to put him out of commission right now and we’re appealing to you as fellow Americans to help us.”
“But I’m not convinced he is a Communist and neither is Mr. Washburn.”
“We can show you reports from a dozen sources …”
“Malicious gossip,” I said righteously.
“Are you trying to defend this radical?”
“I suppose I am. He is a great choreographer and I don’t know anything about his politics and neither do you.”
“By the way, Mister, just what are your politics?”
“I am a Whig, Mr. Fleer. The last President I voted for was Chester A. Arthur.” On this mighty line, I got him out of the office, still shouting vengeance on all who attempted to sully our way of life.