“You realize what you’re saying?”
“Yes, Inspector. They joined the Party and belonged, for a time, to the same cell. Ella, however, was not very much interested in politics, or anything else which didn’t help her to get what she wanted professionally … she was a true artist when it came to her work: she would do anything to get ahead. I believe she became a Communist to impress Jed, who was indifferent to her sexually; and she became Alyosha’s mistress to please him … even taking a Russian name for a while in an attempt to make people believe that she was a White Russian born in Paris. All of this you can find in old interviews.
“As you probably know, she quickly lost interest in Alyosha who adored her but cared for the dance more; he refused to push her ahead in the company as fast as she thought she should go. She deserted him finally and married the next most powerful person, from an artistic point of view, Miles Sutton, the conductor. Their marriage was never very happy. She had a bad temper and she was a natural conniver. I suspect much of the trouble she had with the men in her life came from the fact that she was either quite indifferent to sex or else she was, in actual fact, a Lesbian. In any case, she went quickly to the top, and, finally, this season, she got her dearest wish when she prevailed upon Washburn to fire Eglanova. Meanwhile, however, Ella had made a great deal of trouble for herself. She had got involved with Jane Garden in an abortive affair … she was genuinely attracted to Jane who is not, contrary to your recent theory, a Lesbian … that’s one of those things I would know better than you without any evidence. And Ella had decided to shed Miles and marry Louis, partly out of attraction (she seemed always to care only for men and women who would have nothing to do with her) and partly because it would be a glamorous marriage or alliance: the king and the queen of ballet.
“Everything might have worked out perfectly if Louis had ever shown the faintest interest in her, but he didn’t and there were bitter quarrels. Miles, who now no longer lived with Ella, fell in love with Magda and, as you know, got her pregnant. Even in ballet circles that sort of thing presents a problem and he did his best to get Ella to divorce him. She took it all very lightly … it was the sort of thing that amused her and she made it clear that he would have to work his problems out on his own time. I think she was indignant, deep down, that he had preferred another woman to her even though they no longer lived together, even though she despised him … naturally, he could have killed her. But he didn’t. So, by the time Eclipse was to be prèmiered, Ella had infuriated Miles and Magda, Louis, Mr. Washburn by threatening to leave the company and take Louis with her, Eglanova by succeeding her, Alyosha for deserting him and for getting his beloved Eglanova fired, Wilbur for having blackmailed him into joining the company.…
“Now when I had found out all these things, it occurred to me that the person who killed Ella would, naturally, be the one with the most urgent motive or, failing that, the one whose monomania was equal to hers. The most urgent motive was her husband’s and I was just as sure as you were that he killed her. But we were all wrong. That left Eglanova, Alyosha, Louis, Wilbur, Mr. Washburn and Jane. I knew Jane hadn’t done it. Mr. Washburn, despite a rather sinister nature, had no motive, other than exasperation. Eglanova and Alyosha seemed likely candidates, for nearly the same reason. Louis had no apparent motive. Wilbur had an excellent one.
“Ella needed Wilbur for two reasons: she wanted a modern ballet and she wanted to go into musical comedy. They had grown apart over the years and when she first had Washburn approach him the answer was no. He didn’t like the Grand Saint Petersburg Ballet and he had no intention of leaving his own company, or Broadway. Ella then went to see him and told him, in her definite way, that if he didn’t accept Washburn’s offer she would give evidence in Washington that he had been, and for all anybody knew now, was still a member of the Communist Party … and she had proof. She was the sort of girl who never let go of anything which might one day prove useful. Needless to say, Wilbur joined the company. But like everyone else connected with this mess, he had more than one iron in the fire: you see, he had been in love with Louis for years. Which was, as far as he was concerned, the one good thing about his predicament, about his giving in to Ella.
“Everything might still have turned out all right if Ella had not gone too far and if Louis had been a little brighter. The Grand Saint Petersburg doesn’t have much of a reputation for chic but it is a money-maker and Wilbur was allowed a free hand and he did create for Ella what many people think is his best ballet—Eclipse. As for Ella’s going into musical comedy, well, there was nothing wrong in that either. She could have gotten a job with any management in town on her own … so there was no reason why Wilbur shouldn’t sponsor her. The complication arose when Ella became interested in Louis and Louis, who was not at all attracted to Wilbur, used Ella as an excuse for his own coldness, saying that she was the one woman he had ever loved and that they were to be married. Poor Wilbur took this as long as he could. Louis would even pretend to make love to Ella in his dressing room when he knew Wilbur might be within hearing distance.
“This crisis came to a head the afternoon of the day Ella was killed. Wilbur told her he wasn’t going to stay in the company another minute, that he was going to break his contract. She told him if he did she would expose him as a Communist and that would be the end of his career. So, believing that he would lose his career as well as his love to Ella, he cut the cable; then he put the shears in Eglanova’s dressing room since she seemed as likely a suspect as any.”
I stopped, expecting some outcry from the Inspector, but there was none. “Go on,” he said.
“Fortunately for Wilbur, Miles was immediately suspected and, as fortunately, Miles died a natural death before he was arrested. The case would have ended there except that Miles had known all along that Wilbur was the real murderer … Wilbur never knew that Ella, a very efficient woman, had somehow managed to get hold of his membership card in the Party years ago and, with an eye to the future, had kept it. She was a very shrewd woman … the more you study her life the more you have to admire her for the sheer audacity she displayed. If she had been able to identify a bit more with her friends and victims she’d still be alive … might even have ended up being adored by everyone like old Eglanova.”
“Why didn’t Sutton give us this card?”
“He would if you’d tried to arrest him. He was not rational … no man as heavily doped as he was could be. Besides, he must have regarded Wilbur as a benefactor.I do know, though, that he discussed the whole thing with Magda that day he went to Magda’s apartment and he either gave her Wilbur’s membership card then, or else told her where it was in case something should happen to him. If he didn’t give it to her then she could have got it the night she came to his apartment. No matter how she got it, the card was in her possession at the time of her death.”