“I can’t be, of course,” he told her gently, “but I’m hoping. Look, let’s not give up yet. I’m afraid he’ll have to start going through the mill. It’s not in my power to stop that, but if we keep at it, we’ll turn up something yet. I’m sure of it. And of course, not a word to any of them that we’ve had this talk, that the case is still wide open as far as I’m concerned. Do you understand? That would be fatal. Whoever the killer is, he must feel that my colleagues and I are definitely off the scent, are satisfied we have the right man.”
“But even so,” she whimpered, “he won’t show his hand again until — until Frankie’s out of the way and it’s too late. Maniac or not, he’ll realize that if it happens again while Frankie’s being held in jail, that’s proof-evident that Frankie didn’t do it, and the whole thing’ll be re-opened. He’ll lie low—”
“He’ll try to, you mean, if we let him. But remember this is something he can’t control. If we can find the link, the right impetus that sets him off, he won’t be able to.”
“Suppose there isn’t any?”
“There has to be. There always is, even in the worst cases of this type.”
There was a knock at the door, and Hoff the janitor stuck his head in. “Your boss is on the wire,” he told Billie. “They got a new man, he says, and they’re down at Dryden Hall, ready to begin rehearsing. They want you down there right away.”
“My brother’s in jail accused of murder, and I’ve got to make sweet music.” She smiled bitterly at the dick.
“Keep your eyes open, now,” Lindsey warned her under his breath. “Watch all of them, watch every little thing that goes on, no matter if it seems important to you or not. And keep in touch with me. Give me your address and phone number, in case I want to reach you.”
He took out a pencil stub, jotted down her address and number, stuck the slip in his pocket.
Chapter Four
Bolero
The new man supplied by the Mad House to take Thatcher’s place was named Cobb. He wouldn’t have been a union-member if he hadn’t known how to handle his instrument, and the tunes were the tunes of the day, familiar to every professional, so it was just a matter of blending him in with the rest of them, smoothing down the rough edges, and memorizing the order in which the numbers came. Even so, Dusty kept them at it until half an hour before it was time to climb on the shell at the Troc. It was, if nothing else, as good a way as any of taking their minds off what had happened.
“We can’t keep it from breaking in the papers,” Dusty told them while they grabbed a quick bite on their way over to work, “because it’s in New York this time and not out in the sticks, but with a little luck we may be able to keep them from digging up about what happened the other two times. Keep your mouths closed now, all of you. Don’t talk to any reporters. The agents’ll all wash their hands of us, and we won’t be able to get a booking for love or money if we once get tagged as a jinx-band. Those things spread around awful quick, and are hard to live down. People don’t want to dance with... with death kind of peering over the musicians’ shoulders at them.” This was said out of earshot of the new man. “And keep quiet about the first two times in front of Cobb.”
The girl just sat there at the end of the counter, sipping her coffee quietly and looking covertly at them one by one. “One of you,” she thought, “sitting so close to me I could reach out and touch you, is a killer. But which one?” It seemed so hard to believe, watching them.
There was the strain of what had happened on all their laces, of course, but there was no private guilt, no furtive remorse, no sign of self-consciousness or wariness. “Maybe,” she thought, “he doesn’t even remember it himself after it happens each time, in which case— Oh Lord, how am I ever going to be able to tell?”
“O. K., ready, folks?” Dusty asked, slipping down from his high stool. “Let’s go over and climb in the box.”
Everyone paid for himself. There was no Frankie to pay for her now, but just as she was opening her pocketbook, Dusty thoughtfully waved her aside and put the money down for her.
“What’d that dick have to say after we left?” he asked her on the way over.
“Oh, nothing. He’s dead sure Frankie did it. Nothing’ll change his mind about that.”
“I know this sounds like hell, but what do you think yourself?”
“I’m afraid he did. Dusty. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. He acted too funny about it from beginning to end.”
He slipped his arm around her waist, tightened it encouragingly for a moment. “Keep your chin up, pal,” he said.
The men climbed right into the box to play for the rather second-rate supper show the Trocadero put on, but Billie, who didn’t have to canary until the straight dance-numbers later on, went down to the dressing-room and dispiritedly changed into evening dress. “If I were only a mind-reader,” she thought. “If I could only see behind their faces. One of them is a mask hiding death!”
There was a perfunctory rap at the door. “They’re starting number one now.” She got up and went upstairs, stood in the entry way to one side of the box, out of sight of the tables in front. Number one was Sing for Your Supper. It looked funny to see Cobb sitting up there in Thatcher’s chair. She watched their faces closely one by one. Nothing showed. Just guys making music.
Dusty looked over to see if she was ready, then they slowed a little to let her come in and pick it up. She stepped out in front of them and a spotlight picked her out.
The phone was ringing when she let herself into her flat at half past three that morning. It was Lindsey. “Did you notice anything?” he asked.
“I couldn’t tell. He’s good, whoever he is.”
“Keep watching. It’s too soon yet. Anyone come back with you?”
“Dusty wanted to bring me home, but I told him I’d be all right.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.” She hung up the phone and suddenly threw her head down and burst into tears.
Lindsey turned away from the window when Billie started to speak. “We’ve got to do something soon, Lindsey,” she said. “It’s six weeks now. Do you know what this is doing to my brother? He’ll be bugs by the time we get him out of there. I saw him yesterday, and he’s ready to fall apart.”
“I know. I’ve tried everything I can think of, and it’s no go,” the detective answered. “I’ve been over those coronary findings until I know them backwards. I’ve communicated with the officials in Michigan and I’ve interviewed the ones down in Atlantic City. They couldn’t help me. I even went over personally and looked at that shack while I was down there. It’s still about the same as when you people used it, but it didn’t tell me a thing.”
She sat down at the piano and started to play aimlessly.
“I’ve even dropped in at the Troc more times than you know, watching them while they didn’t know it.”
“You have?” she said in surprise. “I didn’t see you.”
“I had a get-up on. I couldn’t detect a sign of anything on any one of them. It must be so damn deep, so latent, that he doesn’t know he’s got it himself.”
She went ahead playing. “Then what good is it trying to find it? It may never come out again.”
He started pacing back and forth. “It’s got to, it always does.”
“What makes you so restless, Lindsey?” she asked over her notes. “You’re as bad as one of us jitter-bugs. Sit down and relax.”
He sank into a chair, immediately got up again, began parading around some more. “It’s got my goat!” he seethed. “I know I’ve got it figured right, I’m dead sure of it, but I’ve got to sit back with my hands folded until he’s good and ready to give himself away again!”