Jim took off his hat, and as the constable, puffing and clutching his revolver, addressed himself to Mrs. Cholster, Jim drew Susan aside.
“My God, Sue,” he said under his breath, “what a case! The whole theater’s locked up tight. The sheriff’s at the other end of the country. And I’ll bet my hat the murderer’s right here. Have I got a story or have I got a story?”
“You’ve got a story,” said Susan rather somberly. She glanced toward the sprawled gray figure, and Jim caught the look in her eyes. “I know, Sue,” he said. “But, after all, it happened.”
He stopped abruptly, struck by something the constable was saying, and Susan listened also.
“—And so the sheriff said over the telephone to keep you all here till he got back. He said he’d start right off quick. Now, I’m sorry about this, Mrs. Cholster; but it can’t be helped.”
“But this is preposterous!” Jane exclaimed. “Do you realize that while you are holding us here my husband’s murderer is escaping?”
“Well,” said the constable slowly, “we ain’t so sure about that.”
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.
“That’s easy to answer, ma’am. According to this Dickenson fellow, nobody went out the front door of the theater. And the stage entrance is bolted on the inside. So it stands to reason that the murderer’s still here.”
“Do you mean to say that you will not even permit my husband’s body to be cared for? I insist upon calling Dr. Marks. And also my lawyer.”
“Now, Mrs. Cholster,” the constable said, “there ain’t no call for you to talk like that. The sheriff said to hold you here, and that’s what I’m going to do. He’s got to see the body just as it is, and we can’t move it till he looks at it and till the coroner looks at it. And I got to go ahead with my inquiry. That’s my duty, and I’d advise you folks not to resist the law. I got two deputies here with me, and all of us is armed.”
Jane’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Did the sheriff say to allow reporters here?” she asked sharply.
“Reporters,” said the constable largely, “is always permitted. Dunc, you might take something and cover Mr. Cholster.”
Tom Remy stepped forward. “Let’s get this straight,” he said. “Are you holding us for murder?”
Adelaide blinked and gave a little scream, and the constable said:
“Well, there ain’t anybody else around, is there?”
There was, not unnaturally, an abrupt silence.
Jane Cholster’s face was ashy again under the brown, but set and guarded. Tom Remy’s eyes retreated, and Adelaide blinked and gasped and balled her handkerchief at her mouth, and Dickenson’s handsome dark face became an impassive mask with only his quick dark eyes alive.
Around them the old theater was very still. Its stage that night already had played a strange and tragic drama, and Susan felt eerily that it was waiting for the play to go on, to play itself out. Below were passages and empty dressing rooms. Above was a dim loft extending mysteriously upward.
The constable’s voice broke the silence. “I reckon,” he said, “I’d better ask you some questions. And I reckon I don’t need to tell you that you’d better tell the truth. Now, then, there’s some chairs back there somewhere. Dunc,” he continued, “bring them out. We may as well be comfortable.” The little deputy disappeared, and the constable turned and shouted toward the bulky, dark figure standing at the back of the house. “Don’t let anybody in, Wid, till the sheriff gets here.”
“Here’s a chair, miss,” said Dunc’s small voice to Susan, and she accepted it.
She looked at the other people seating themselves in a kind of circle on the stage.
Was Jane Cholster’s character so strong that she could indefinitely withhold any signs of grief and shock? Was Adelaide so loving and so tender that she must collapse frequently into sobs? Was either of these women physically strong enough to deal the crushing blow that had been dealt Brock Cholster?
Jane was slender and brown and looked as if her muscles were hard. She must have, too, a tremendous reserve of nerve power. She sat now quietly erect and graceful—but under her quiet you felt that muscles might be gathered ready to spring.
Jane was only of medium height, but Adelaide looked small beside her. She huddled in the armchair that the deputy had given her. Her faded blonde curls were pushed up away from her puffy little face. She was older than Susan had surmised, for there were definite little pouches under her eyes and in the corners of her chin. Susan was vaguely aware that Jim and the constable were talking in a low murmur, there near the body; her eyes traveled on to the nervous, dark young director and to Tom Remy.
Either of the men might have been physically capable of that blow, providing a suitable weapon were at hand. (“Weapon?” thought Susan parenthetically. “What happened to it? And what was it?”)
Neither, however, looked exactly athletic, although you couldn’t measure the strength that sheer emotion might give to inadequate muscular force.
Tom Remy was smoking again; his eyes were narrowed into lines that made them look sharp and very observant and yet altogether unfathomable. As Susan watched, he gave Jane Cholster a long look which she returned, and Susan had a curious feeling that there was an unspoken communication between them, although neither face changed at all.
The dark young director passed a hand over his smooth black hair and said suddenly: “Who put the curtain up?”
“Curtain?” said Jane slowly. The constable turned abruptly to join the small circle, and Jim followed him, and the man Dickenson said quickly:
“Curtain, of course. It was down when I arrived, for I glanced at the stage. I didn’t put it up. Who did?”
No one replied, and the constable said:
“What’s all this about a curtain? You mean the fire curtain? It’s a village ordinance that it—”
“Exactly. Of course. I know.” Dickenson’s interruptions were sharp and quick. “Certainly it was down. And when I came out of the office down there—” he motioned, with the nervous quickness that characterized his gestures, toward the door leading to the foyer—“and walked up here, the curtain was up.”
“It was you that discovered the body?”
“Of course. You know that. I told you when I telephoned for you.”
“When did you know it was Mr. Cholster?”
“I—” he closed his eyes for an instant as if to recall and Susan could see a little flutter of his eyeballs under his thin dark lids—“I believe I was only aware that the curtain was up and that there was something humped up there. But I hurried up to the switchboard and turned on the lights and saw it was Mr. Cholster. I thought, of course, he’d fainted or something and ran out on the stage. And I stopped about there and knew—what had happened.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I—I think I called out. Everybody else, you know, was downstairs getting ready for rehearsal. Then I ran back to the telephone in the office again. When I came out, Tom and Mrs. Cholster and Adelaide were all on the stage—”
“You had the main door locked when I got here,” said the constable. “How was that? When did you lock it?”
“I had locked it as soon as everybody got here. Locked it simply because we needed a good last rehearsal, and if I had left the door unlocked we’d have been continually interrupted. A lot of Kittiwake residents prefer sneaking in to dress rehearsal to coming around the next night and paying for their tickets.”
Jim cleared his throat gently, and the constable cleared his also and said politely: “Did you say something, Mr. Byrne?”
“I was only wondering,” said Jim, “why you didn’t use the stage entrance. It would seem more convenient.”
“Well, it isn’t,” said the young director rather snappishly. “There’s no key to the thing extant, and you have to bolt it on the inside. It’s bolted now.”
“Then the only exit for the murderer was the door that the deputy is guarding now?”
/> “Yes,” said Dickenson.
“And the door to the office is just at right angles to it there in the foyer, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then you must have seen anyone entering or leaving the theater?”
“Why, I—” His quick dark eyes swept around the circle and he said—“that’s what I thought when you first questioned me. But I suppose I could have been mistaken.”
The constable cleared his throat again and looked at Jim, who said:
“I hope you don’t mind letting me get this straight? You told the constable you arrived at the theater at about twenty minutes to eight?”
“Yes.”
“You had called a dress rehearsal at eight?”
“I had said make-up at eight sharp. Rehearsal at eight-fifteen.”
“Was it customary to make up for dress rehearsal?” asked Jim, Irish honey on his tongue. “I thought that was only to get used to properties—all that.”
“Well,” said the director hesitating, “it is. But you see—” he paused, and then said with abrupt candor—“but you know how it is with amateurs. They like the smell of grease paint.” Dickenson stopped rather short and said: “Are you conducting this inquiry or getting a story for your paper?”
Jim said: “You unlocked the theater when you arrived?”
“Certainly. That is, I unlocked that one door.”
“Who arrived next?”
“Jane—Mrs. Cholster, and—Brock. They came together.”
Jim turned to Jane Cholster.
“Mrs. Cholster, do you know of anything that was worrying your husband? Was he quite as usual tonight?”
“Quite,” said Jane Cholster steadily. “He was a little sleepy, owing to having been gardening most of the afternoon. If you are trying to make out that my husband had any enemies, you are wasting your time. He had none.”
The constable spoke suddenly. “Now, Mrs. Cholster,” he said, “you and Miss Adelaide, there, living so close to him all in the same house—and Mr. Remy the next-door neighbor—between you, you ought to be able to give some sort of helpful evidence. This murder had a motive. It wasn’t an accident. And it wasn’t robbery. Nothing’s been taken from Mr. Cholster. You’d ought to be more helpful, Mrs. Cholster.”
“But I tell you—” Jane paused to control the impatience in her voice—“I tell you there is nothing,” she said. “Nothing. He was in no quarrel. He had no enemies.”
“The village has it that he’s a rich man.”
“Not rich,” said Jane. “He was no millionaire.”
“Did he leave any insurance?”
“Really, Mr. Lambrikin,” said Jane, the dangerous light flaring in her eyes again. “You’ll have to ask our lawyer about that. I can tell you, however, that my husband was always very generous with me and with Adelaide. It is true that he controlled all the Cholster money—my money and Adelaide’s inheritance, as well as his own. But he gave us anything we wanted. His will is no secret either: our own money was to revert to each of us and to each of us half of Brock’s estate. I assure you that there is no motive for murder there. If either of us wanted money we had only to ask for it at any time.”
“After Mr. and Mrs. Cholster arrived at the theater, what happened? Did they stop to speak to you?” It was Jim again, all his Celtic grace so smoothly to the fore that even Dickenson did not question his right to inquire.
“They stopped there in the doorway, and we chatted a moment. Then they said they were going down to the dressing rooms to make up, and Brock said he’d decided it would change his appearance more to an audience of townspeople if he wore a beard, and he’d got one already made. He handed Mrs. Cholster his make-up box and cap, and she went on into the theater while Brock showed me the beard—it’s there on his chin now—and then he went on.”
“I arrived next,” said Tom Remy suddenly. “I stopped, too, and spoke to Dickie, and then went directly through the house—up those steps and, without even glancing out on the stage, to the dressing rooms. The stage was dark. And I do remember that the curtain was down.”
“Did you see the Cholsters downstairs?” asked the constable quickly.
“I saw Mrs. Cholster,” said Tom Remy slowly. “She stood there in her dressing-room door. I spoke to her a moment and went on to my own dressing room. But I do not believe that Mrs. Cholster left her dressing room at all until we heard Dickie shouting for us from up here.”
“Why do you think that?” said Jim.
“Because,” said Tom Remy, “I could hear her voice.”
“Her voice?” cried the constable. “You mean she was talking to somebody? That would be Mr. Cholster, then. Was that—”
“No,” said Jane. “I was not talking to my husband. I never saw him again alive after I left him at the door of the office back there.” She stopped—deliberately, Susan thought—after throwing out the word “office.” The constable’s eyes went to Dickenson, who looked suddenly white.
Jim said: “To whom were you talking, Mrs. Cholster?”
Susan caught a tiny flame in Jane’s eyes. She said: “I was rehearsing my lines.”
Dickenson had got his breath.
“If you think that I killed Brock and dragged him up here to the stage you are wrong. I couldn’t have lifted him. It’s physically impossible.”
“Maybe,” said the constable. “But as to that, I don’t know as any of you could have lifted him. Or struggled with him, for that matter. He was easy stronger than any one of you. Any one of you.” He looked speculative and added: “Of course, two of you—”
“The wound,” said Jim in a voice without any inflection at all, “was in the forehead. Somebody had to be very close to him. And directly in front of him. Therefore someone he knew and did not fear.”
Jane leaped to her feet. “How dare you say such things! It is not true.”
“Jane—Jane—” said Tom Remy, with again a guarded note of warning in his voice. “Look here, Constable, I am sure that Mrs. Cholster was in her dressing room downstairs from the time I arrived to the time we heard Dickie shouting for us here on the stage.”
“We ain’t saying Mrs. Cholster is the murderer,” said the constable. “But Brock Cholster’s dead, ain’t he? Now then, Dickenson, you claimed that you saw everybody that entered the theater tonight.”
“I thought so,” he said rapidly. “But now that I’ve had time to think of it I realize that someone might have entered without my knowledge—”
“You said you were in the office the whole time from your arrival till everybody was here. Who came last? Miss Adelaide?”
“Yes, Adelaide. Yes, I said that in the haste of the moment when you arrived, Constable. But now I realize that someone must have slipped past the office door when I wasn’t looking.
“And then slipped out again after he’d murdered Brock Cholster?” inquired the constable heavily.
“Exactly,” said Dickenson eagerly. “That’s what must have happened. There’s no other explanation.”
“It’s pretty late for it, Dickenson,” said the constable. “And it ain’t reasonable to suppose that you saw everybody else that entered the theater and were sitting right there by the door from the time you unlocked it until you locked it again, and yet the murderer got past you twice without your seeing him. No, it ain’t reasonable. Now, Miss Adelaide, what’s your story?”
“Why, I—I came in, as Dickie said. And I went along the aisle there at the side and up those steps—just as the others did, I suppose, and then immediately down to my dressing room. That’s all I know. That is, till I heard Dickie calling for us up here on the stage, and we all hurried upstairs and saw—” she gave a convulsive shudder and finished—“saw him.”
“Was the curtain up when you came along the aisle?”
She blinked, hesitated, and then was certain. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t remember it at all.”
“Was the stage dark?”
“Yes. Yes,
it must have been.”
Jim coughed lightly, and the constable looked at him, and Jim said: “Odd that no one heard any noise—”
“Did anyone hear a noise?” asked the constable directly.
No one replied, and the small silence grew oppressive. Again Susan was acutely conscious of the empty waiting theater, of the spaces, of the shadows, of the empty passages and rooms below them. Behind them, of course, was the balcony set with its French doors, and wings jutting out that looked like brick walls with vines over them. She glanced up and over her shoulder into what she could see of the loft. It, too, was dim in spite of lights, and hung with great ghostly ropes that stretched hazily upward into darkness.
She wondered if anyone could conceal himself up there in the dim reaches of the loft, clinging somehow to perilous ropes, and decided that it was not possible. She did not, however, like those mysterious dark spaces above and out in the wings.
The constable sighed and said: “Mrs. Cholster, didn’t you hear anything?”
Jane Cholster moistened her lips.
“I heard nothing like—like a blow,” she said as if forcing out the words. “I did hear someone on the stage. Arranging it, I thought, and supposed it was Mr. Dickenson. I didn’t give it much attention.”
“Mr. Remy?”
“Why, I—I didn’t hear anything like a blow, either. Could we have heard that?”
The constable glanced toward the heap under its covering and said: “I think you could have heard it. Did you hear anyone on the stage?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom Remy. “I remember thinking that Dickie was getting the stage ready, but I don’t know why I thought that—must have heard some sound, I suppose. Certainly,” he added, as if making amends to Dickenson, “I had no reason to think it was Dickenson except that he usually arranged the stage for us. And it was only a vague recognition of someone moving about above us. Then there was, too, a sort of rumbling sound.”
“A rumbling sound—”
“That was the ventilator,” said Dickenson at once. “I had turned it on—the switch is in the office—to see how it worked. It’s a recent addition and wasn’t made for old theaters. It makes a lot of noise here. We can only use it between acts and when the theater is empty. But I was not arranging the stage.”
The Cases of Susan Dare Page 10
