“They aren’t here right now, Mr. Bush … is there anything I can do for you?”
“Call me Elmer,” said the great man mechanically, taking in the room with a reporter’s eye, a lecher’s eye too, for his gaze paused longer than necessary over one of the girls, a slim brown-haired number with a T-shirt. “Nice place you people have here. Terrible neighborhood, though. Been fighting for years now to get it cleaned up. Made absolutely no headway. When do you expect Wilbur?”
It took me a moment to separate the question from what had promised to be a thoughtful Elmer Bush report of city-planning. “Well, you know he’s pretty busy with that new ballet.”
“They’re rehearsing it here.”
Since this wasn’t a question, but a statement, I had to agree. “But nobody’s allowed in the studio while he’s working. He’s very difficult.”
“We’ll see how difficult he is when that committee gets through with him in Washington.”
“How did you know about that … Elmer?” I asked, very folksy, my eyes round with admiration.
“Never ask an old reporter to tell his sources,” chuckled Bush, pleased with the effect he thought he was making.
“Why, I only heard about it an hour ago.”
“That so? Then tell me this … how do you people plan to get your big wheel off the spot?”
“Well, for one thing we happen to know he’s not a Communist and for another thing he’s going to tell all he knows about the Reds in the theater.”
“It’s a closed hearing, too,” said Bush thoughtfully. “Got any idea about some of the names he’s going to mention?”
“Nobody very big,” I invented glibly. “A few of the old North American Ballet Company people, that’s about all.”
“You’ve been having a busy time, haven’t you, Pete,” said Bush, suddenly focusing his attention on me for the first time in our long if superficial acquaintanceship.
“I’ll say.”
“They really wind that Sutton case up?”
“I think so … don’t you?”
“Haven’t heard anything to the contrary … worked out very neatly, from the police’s point of view … no trial, no expense for the state … perfect case.” While we talked I kept trying to edge him into the empty classroom before the hour struck, before four o’clock when Wilbur would take a break, on the dot, because that’s a company rule which even the most temperamental choreographers have to obey. But Mr. Bush wouldn’t budge: the secret perhaps of his success. At four o’clock the door to the studio opened and thirty tired and messy dancers came charging out, heading for the dressing rooms, the drinking fountain, the telephone … I have a theory that dancers, next to hostesses, spend more time telephoning than any other single group in America.
Elmer Bush kept on talking but his eyes looked like they were on swivels, like the chameleon who can see in all directions. At first he couldn’t spot anybody; then I waved to Jane who was standing by the door to the empty classroom, adjusting the ribbon to one of her toeshoes. It was five after four. She waved above the noisy crowd of dancers, parents and tiny tots (all the classes let out on the hour) and, breathless, came to us through a sea of sweating dancers.
“This is the young ballerina in Eclipse, Mr. Bush … Jane Garden.”
They shook hands and Jane was pretty enough to distract Bush’s attention long enough for Mr. Washburn to sneak past us, in the shadow of the corpulent teacher of dance with whom he pretended to talk. Before he got to the door, however, the first policeman had arrived.
3
It took them four hours to question the corps de ballet, parents, even the tiny tots, most of whom were whining loudly at this unexpected turn of events. But by the time Gleason had arrived, only the principals were left, all seated glumly in the studio, on that hard bench.
The body of Magda had been taken immediately to the morgue and though none of us had seen it the rumor was that she had been pretty badly smashed by her fall from the window of the classroom adjoining the rehearsal studio.
A policeman stood in the door of the studio, watching us as though we were wild animals. Inspector Gleason did not present himself to us upon arrival; we heard his full-throated Irish voice, however, as he had a desk set up for himself in the empty classroom. Here he received us, one by one.
We talked very little during those hours. Mr. Washburn, with remarkable presence of mind, had summoned his lawyer who waited now with a brief case full of writs calculated to circumvent any and every vagary of justice.
Eglanova, after one brilliant outburst of Imperial Moscow anger, had settled down to a quiet chat with Alyosha, in Russian. Alyosha was more nervous; he continually screwed and unscrewed his monocle, wiping it with a silk handkerchief. Jane, who sat beside me, wept a little and I comforted her. Wilbur, after a display of Dubuque, Iowa, temperament, settled down for a long tense quarrel with Louis, a quarrel which had nothing to do with Magda. For some reason Madame Aloin had been placed under suspicion as well as the pianist, a worm-white youth who acted exactly the way you would suppose a murderer at bay to act. Mr. Washburn was not with us long, since he was the first witness to be called. I might add that Elmer Bush had contrived to remain with us in the studio, after first phoning his numerous staff: this was one exclusive he was sure of … television star or not he was the same Elmer Bush who, twenty years ago, was the best crime reporter in the country. He chatted with everyone now … first with one; then with another, conducting a suave investigation which, I swear, was a good deal brighter than the one the taxpayer’s burden was conducting in the next room.
“Come on, baby,” I whispered to Jane, my arm around her. “Don’t take it so hard. It’s just one of those things …” I whispered stupidly, soothingly, because after a while she stopped and dried her eyes with a crumpled piece of Kleenex.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “Not Magda … not like that.”
“Tell them everything, Jane … everything. This is serious. Tell them about your being at Miles’ place.”
“Poor Magda …”
“You’ll do that, won’t you?”
“What? Do what?” I told her again and she looked surprised. “But what’s that got to do with Magda?”
“It may have everything to do with her, with all of us. Promise you’ll tell Gleason the whole story.”
“If you think I ought to.”
“I do. I’m sure all three of these things are connected.”
“So am I,” said Jane, unexpectedly.
I was surprised … she had always been very unrealistic about the trouble … almost as bad as Mr. Washburn and his “accident” theories. I asked her why she had changed her mind.
“Something Magda said today … something about Miles … I don’t remember exactly what it was but she … I think she knew who killed Ella. I think Miles must have known all along and told her that day when he went to see her, when she was sick and her family happened to be out.”
“She–didn’t tell you who it was?”
“Do you think I would be sitting here like this scared to death if she had? I’d be right in there with that policeman, telling him I wanted somebody arrested before … before this happens again.” She shuddered suddenly and I felt cold myself. I looked about the room wildly, wondering who it was. Which of these people was a murderer? Or had someone who wasn’t even here killed Ella and Magda, a maniac in the corps de ballet …?
“I wonder just what happened?” I asked, changing the subject.