by George Baxt
“Please, Herr Hitchcock. You will consider me for your mountain film?” Hans Meyer sounded desperate enough to make Hitchcock suspect he was being pursued by the police.
“I will consider you. Leave your name, your phone number, and your credits with my script girl, Miss Grieban—that is, if you can locate her. And if you do, please tell her I would like to see her at my side ready to begin a day’s shooting on this misbegotten mess I’m involved in. Alma!” He had spotted Alma chatting with Miles Mander, one of the film’s leading men. Alma acknowledged Hitchcock with a wave of her hand and crossed to him as Hans Meyer and Fredrick Regner departed in separate directions.
“The actors are getting restless,” said Alma. “When do you start your first setup?”
“The actors are fortunate they are employed, and you may quote me.” Hitchcock made no effort to disguise his annoyance. “And as for getting started, I’m not ready for that until the bloody script girl arrives to confer with me so I can confer with the bloody camera operator. The bloody pastries were bloody awful this morning.”
“Other than that, dear, what’s your mood?”
“My mood is one of gratitude that you are here with me”—his voice was softening— “helping to make this ill-starred adventure bearable. And if your good behavior continues, I shall demand we set a date for our wedding, at which point I’m sure we’ll both be delighted to rid ourselves of our virginity. “
“Oh, hush up, Hitch. Rosie! You there, Rosie!”
Rosie Wagner was looking more than usually unattractive that morning. She had been chatting with the actor Hans Meyer when Alma hailed her, and she turned with a start like a child caught raiding a biscuit box. Rosie hurried to Alma and Hitchcock. “Good morning, Miss Reville. Herr Hitchcock. Is something?”
“Is something indeed,” said Alma briskly. “Where’s Anna Grieban this morning?”
“Oh? She is not here?” She looked like a fawn at bay. “She is not. Don’t you report to her first thing in the morning?”
“This morning I am typing script revisions.” She was holding the sheets of paper behind her back and now displayed them as though they were a cache of fine jewels.
“Well, go find her. We’ll be late getting started this morning, and we can’t afford that.”
“And who is this?” asked Hitchcock, as a tall man in his mid-forties wearing a raincoat and a bowler hat approached. “Not another mountain actor, I pray.”
The man removed the bowler and inquired, “Herr Hitchcock?”
“I hope you’re not an actor. I’ve already had one actor too many this morning.”
“I’m Detective Inspector Wilhelm Farber.” Hitchcock paled. Police. He was terrified of the police.
Hitchcock bravely struggled out of his chair and shook the man’s proffered hand. “How do you do. I have no part for a policeman in this film, Herr Detective Inspector.” The man smiled. He liked Hitchcock on sight. He nodded at Alma while Rosie scurried away with Alma’s order.
“I am not looking for a part as an actor, although…” Hitchcock started to tremble. “…I was once told I might have a future in the theater. But no, I find police work much more challenging. Is there someplace we might talk in private?”
“I seem to recall being assigned a small office. Don’t I have an office somewhere in the vicinity, Alma?” Alma led them to the office. When the three were seated, Hitchcock behind a fragile desk with his hands folded over his stomach, wondering if Alma knew how to bake a cake with a file in it, asked Herr Farber, “Of what am I accused?”
“Oho, you are accused of nothing, Herr Hitchcock. Why are you so defensive?”
Why indeed? wondered Alma, who knew Hitchcock’s fear of the police and made a mental note to try to do something about that in the very near future.
“I am not being defensive,” said Hitchcock. “I was just making a small joke. Terribly small, since you didn’t find it funny.”
“Anna Grieban was in your employ?” Alma didn’t like the use of the word was.
Neither, apparently, did Hitchcock. “What do you mean, ‘was’?”
“She is dead.”
“Dear God,” gasped Alma. Hitchcock feared the worst. Policemen don’t arrive to announce death by heart attack or vehicular accident or infected hangnail.
“That is terrible news,” intoned Hitchcock gravely, tempted to add, And where the hell do I get that competent a script girl on such short notice?
“She was murdered,” said Farber.
“That’s even worse news,” commented Hitchcock.
“Quite brutally.” Alma’s hand covered her mouth, her face screwed up with horror.
Farber directed his attention to Alma. “You are connected with this film? With Herr Hitchcock?”
Hitchcock answered for her. “She is my assistant and my fiancee, in no particular order. And as of this moment, she is also my new script girl, with no increase in salary.”
“Oh, Hitch, really,” said Alma. He could see she was shaken by the terrible news.
“How did Miss Grieban die?” asked Hitchcock.
Farber told them, sparing no gruesome detail.
“Twenty-nine stab wounds?” asked Hitchcock with a look of incredulity, while inwardly thinking, how delicious! “Twenty-nine! It was either the act of a maniac or a knifer badly in need of practice. “
“She was not a pleasant sight. Her body was found by a tenant who is now in hospital in a state of shock. “He looked from one to the other. “Tell me, please. What do you know of Miss Grieban?”
“I don’t know too much at all,” said Alma, “although I was the one who hired her. You see, coming from England to film here, we weren’t too familiar with the film work force in Munich, so we asked around for suggestions. As a matter of fact, I think we got Anna with an introduction from Freddy Regner.”
“Who is this Freddy Regner?” Farber had whipped a notebook and pencil from his inside jacket pocket and was taking notes, first, Hitchcock noticed, licking the lead end of the pencil. What a marvelous idea, thought Hitchcock, death from lead poisoning by someone who licks pencil ends. He heard Alma telling Farber that Freddy was a scriptwriter. Hitchcock added that Regner had a film shooting in the adjoining stage. “I would like to speak to this Regner.”
“He’s about,” said Hitchcock. “In fact, he gave me a script to read this morning.” He said to Alma, “I left it on my chair. I hope nobody pinches it.” Alma couldn’t care less about anybody’s script; she was too preoccupied with the ugly thoughts of Anna Grieban’s horrible murder. “Would you like Alma to fetch Freddy?”
“Soon. There’s plenty of time/’
Oh no, there isn’t, thought Hitchcock, I’ve a day’s shooting ahead of me, and every minute I spend with you is costing us money we can’t well afford to spare. He heard Alma saying something about dining the previous evening with the Fritz Langs.
“Of course!” cried Hitchcock. “We saw her last night. Why, we’re probably among the last to see her alive!” How, wondered Alma, can the man speak with such relish when a colleague has been so brutally dispatched? But then, she reminded herself, that’s Hitch. His sense of humor would always transcend his sense of tragedy. “She was with this terribly fascinating man. Face very ghastly, very disfigured. Bad plastic surgery, or perhaps nothing much that plastic surgery could do to improve it. Undoubtedly a veteran of the late unpleasantness.”
“You mean the war, of course.” Farber’s pencil flew across the page.
“Oh, indeed, I mean the war. My film is not yet completed.”
“And did you speak to Miss Grieban and this man?”
“I was most anxious to,” explained Hitchcock. “That face, I mean it is so distinctive, I want to capture it on film. But they had an argument.”
“Ah! You overheard this argument?”
“Oh, no, they were on the opposite side of the room near the string orchestra. “From the sound stage, they could hear Rudolf Wagner and the violinists tearing into a
Lehar melody. “But we did see Anna slam her hand on the table, looking quite irate…”
“A woman scorned, perhaps?” suggested Farber.
“A woman angry, that I can assure you,” countered Hitchcock.
“And after she slammed her hand on the table?”
“She grabbed her handbag and fled.”
“With her escort in pursuit?”
“No, he had to settle up the bill first. Then he pursued.”
“You have no idea of this man’s name?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Perhaps Freddy Regner knows,” suggested Alma. “We saw him speaking to the man here at the studio yesterday.” Farber lowered the pad and pencil, a look of fascination on his face. “You had seen him earlier in the day here?” Alma and Hitchcock nodded. “And you had no opportunity to speak to him then?”
“Sadly, no,” said Hitchcock, looking like a dejected basset. “He was terribly quick on his feet. Now you see him, now you don’t. Alma caught him right here on our sound stage peeping from behind a piece of scenery. At least Alma says she saw him. I didn’t.”
“I positively saw him,” said Alma. “He seemed to be fascinated by an original melody composed by our pianist, Rudolf Wagner.”
“Wagner seems determined to play it all this season,” offered Hitchcock.
“It’s very lovely.” Alma began humming it and then blushed. The very idea of such frivolity appalled her, with Anna Grieban probably lying on a slab at the morgue.
“Charming,” said Farber. “So, this is all you can tell me?”
Hitchcock’s face was a blank. Alma shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps,” began Hitchcock, “I should make a general announcement to the company of this awful tragedy, and then perhaps some others might come forward with some helpful bits of information about Anna. But, Mr. Detective, I must get on with my filming.”
“By all means. Now I would like to meet this Fredrick Regner.”
“I’ll fetch him,” volunteered Alma, and left.
As Hitchcock led the detective away from the office, Farber asked, “Your film, it deals with murder?”
“No, it deals with chorus girls, who, I might add, deserve to be murdered.”
“You do not have much faith in this film you are making? Then why do you make it?”
“Because it was placed on a platter and handed to me. It is my first opportunity to direct.”
“Congratulations! I hope you catch much success!”
“I hope you catch your murderer.”
Hitchcock mounted the stairs to the stage of The Pleasure Garden and shouted for the company’s attention. He told them the news of Anna Grieban’s murder, which was met with a chorus of gasps and cries of “oh, no,” and “Gott im Himmel.” Hitchcock introduced Detective Inspector Farber and asked that he be given complete cooperation. Meanwhile, he added, Miss Reville would take over as script girl and work should commence immediately.
Alma had found Regner and turned him over to the detective, who led him to a secluded corner of the sound stage. Regner was of no help. Yes, he remembered the man with the disfigured face, but no, he had no idea who he was, a total stranger to him. The detective knew nothing of Regner’s having said he directed the man to Stage Three when the man appeared on Stage One because Hitchcock and Alma had neglected to mention it. Yes, he had recommended Anna Grieban because she had been script girl on two of his earlier films and was quite competent. When the Pleasure Garden company set up shop at the studio, she hadn’t worked for months and was destitute, and he was delighted to recommend her. “Surely,” he reminded Farber, “you can see how squalid her quarters are.”
“So you have seen them?” Farber was pleased to see the writer’s face redden.
“Well, yes, once. She… er… one time invited me for a schnapps.”
“I hope it was a good schnapps.”
“Not bad,” said Regner with an expansive smile.
Farber then spoke to Rosie Wagner, having been told by Alma that she was Anna Grieban’s assistant. Rosie cowered as the detective began his questioning. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“I’m afraid!”
“Of what?”
“You!”
“Why, for pity’s sake?”
“You won’t arrest me?”
“What for?” He was tempted to say, Better such a plain frump should be kept under lock and key rather than be permitted to roam at large blemishing the landscape.
“When I was a little girl, my father always threatened to put me in jail!” Farber was interested in meeting a man of such admirable character and discrimination.
He said instead, “You must learn to forgive parents for the foolish threats they make to their small children. It is not easy being a parent. I have three of my own. Monsters, each and every one of them. Especially the two girls. Very devious and dangerous. They leave their roller skates on the staircase for me to trip over.”
Rosie said something like “heh heh.” Farber gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed that was what passed for laughter. She seemed less ill at ease now and picked at a pimple on her chin. “You will question my father?”
“Why?” Farber’s hand holding the pencil was poised in midair.
“He also knows Anna Grieban. I mean knew. He is over there. At the piano.”
“Ah! The one who composed the melody Miss Reville hums so charmingly. How nice, father and daughter working together.” He wondered if what she had now said was “Ugh.”
“So what can you tell me about Anna Grieban?”
“She was very bossy. She didn’t like me.” Farber was beginning to adore the late script girl. “But I am a good worker.” Farber asked Rosie about the man with the disfigured face, but Rosie could tell him nothing; in fact, Rosie added up to a wasted ten minutes. Farber dismissed her and went to her father.
“Poor Anna,” said Wagner, having some free time while Hitchcock was busy solving the problem of a difficult trick shot. “She was a very intelligent person, but very unlucky.”
“How so?”
“Well, you saw the sordid hovel she lived in.”
Farber smiled. “She served you her schnapps there?”
“No schnapps. Tea and biscuits. Stale biscuits. She was poverty-stricken. “
“But she made good money when she worked, didn’t she?”
“Surely you jest, Herr Farber. In our miserable economy what is good money?”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Even millionaires are having difficult times.”
Wagner wondered if the detective was a Communist. There was a lot of that going around these days, but he didn’t have the courage to inquire.
“There was also a tragedy with her husband.”
“She has a husband?”
“Had.”
“You knew him?”
“Oh, he was long gone before I knew Anna. I only met Anna on a movie about two years ago. The husband she married before the war. She was just a child then, she told me. But she loved him very much. From the way she described him, he must have had the looks of a Greek god.”
“Not a German god?”
“I don’t recall our gods being famous for their looks.”
“So this husband was killed in the war, I presume?” asked Farber.
Wagner shrugged. “I don’t know if he was killed or not, but he didn’t come home to her.”
“Now comes a very commonplace question in these investigations. Do you know if she had any enemies?”
Wagner told him with great satisfaction, “My daughter detested her.”
“So I gather. But do you think your daughter capable of such a dreadful murder?”
“Rosie is a very dreadful daughter.”
“So are mine. I have two.”
“My sympathies.”
“Did you know a friend of Anna Grieban’s who has a tragically disfigured face?”
Wagner ran his fingers across the keys. “I never heard her speak of any such
person.” He softly began playing his own composition.
“You didn’t notice him yesterday here in the studio?”
“At the studio, I notice only my piano and my employers. I provide mood music for the actors, the violinists, and myself, that is all we do here.”
“That is a charming melody you are playing. It’s your own, right?”
Wagner looked up from the keyboard. “How do you know this?”
“Miss Reville hummed it for me. She thinks you are very gifted.”
“She is a lovely woman, Miss Reville. She told me she recommended me last night to Fritz Lang, the director.”
“Oho, that’s big time! Not like this fat man Hitchcock.”
“Do not overestimate Mr. Lang, or underestimate Mr. Hitchcock. Is there anything else I can tell you?”
“I don’t know,” said Farber affably, “is there?”
Hitchcock had solved the problem of the trick shot. “All right, everyone,” he shouted, “let’s try to get this one in one take! Actors, please keep your positions until I call for action.”
“Musicians!” cried Alma. The music began. The detective Farber now stood behind Hitchcock, watching the director’s rear end quiver as he prepared the intricate scene. Alma stood next to him, and behind her was Fredrick Reg- ner. Hans Meyer, the actor who professed to know about mountains, tiptoed about quietly in the background.
Hitchcock barked in succession. “Camera! Action!” The clapper boy held his board, on which was lettered the number of the scene and the day’s date, in front of the camera, and the camera operator cranked away. Virginia Valli and Carmelita Geraghty came dancing out with the chorus, lavish smiles on their faces, doing their utmost to keep their high kicks in precision. Alma once again, as during the day before, was beginning to suffer from nausea induced by the cigar and cigarette smoke of the atmosphere players at the Pleasure Garden tables. The orchestral trio was providing a bouncy melody that sounded something like a bastardization of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band/’
A chorus girl tripped.
“Bloody hell!” shouted Hitchcock as he began tearing at his thinning hair. “Cut! Cut! Goddamn it, cut!”
A deadly silence descended over the sound stage, a deadly silence broken by the crashing dissonance of the piano keys.
