And now we were the Troubled Waters Company; we were a high-power, beautifully efficient unit; we were heading straight to the top with all flags flying.
And we’d done that despite every sort of obstacle. We’d been through hell and we’d proved we had enough guts to rise like a flock of phoenixes from our own ashes.
We rated all the luck that was coming to us.
That’s the way I was thinking as I sat there in the house watching my players putting on the star performances of their careers. Wessler was immense. Gerald, Theo and Iris gave one hundred percent support Mirabelle made her entrance and lit the whole dreary theater up like a flame.
I knew Mirabelle would go all out to justify her script alterations. And she did. When the act went into the new scene she kept the tempo keyed up by the sheer force of her own personality. Even though the others were a bit uncertain with their business, she took the whole responsibility off my shoulders. She was really directing and acting at the same time, something that no one in the theater could do as impressively as Mirabelle.
And, in spite of the fact that it had its origin in a simple desire to get rid of George Kramer, the revised scene was an infinite improvement on the old sequence. It had a slashing, exciting speed. Wessler and Gerald went out to search for the body of Mirabelle’s “friend” in the flood. While they were gone, the three women sat around the stage motionless, exchanging only a few terse sentences until the men came back again carrying the coffin. Those moments had a simplicity, a starkness that had never been there before.
I leaned forward in my seat, watching as Gerald and Wessler laid the coffin reverently on the boards. Without a word, Wessler crossed to Mirabelle, took her arm and dragged her to the casket.
She stood there, her head tilted defiantly backward, her hands on her hips. Wessler was glaring at her. For a split second they held that pose—the tough honky-tonk girl and the tyrannical patriarch facing each other and hating each other over the body of the girl’s elderly pick-up.
Then, very slowly, Wessler stooped; his huge hands moved to the catches; he swung open the lid of the coffin. My attention was riveted on Mirabelle as she shrugged contemptuously and glanced down into the coffin. It was a superb piece of playing. She had that character down pat —to the last flicker of an eyelash. I was thinking how Brooks Atkinson was going to rave and Gilbert Gabriel and Wolcott Gobbs.
And then, suddenly, everything went mad. As I watched, I saw the blood drain out of Mirabelle’s cheeks; I saw her eyes narrow to needle points of horror; saw her lips drop open and stick in a white, meaningless smile.
Wessler gave a thick gasp. Then he was at her side, his great arm sliding roughly around her waist, supporting her.
It was horrible seeing them both that way, as if they had switched into some utterly different play, some drama of panic outside my comprehension.
Gerald and Iris and Theo had broken the scene and were running toward them.
“Mirabelle,” I began, “what the hell…?” But her eyes were still fixed on the coffin, staring blindly down. She didn’t look up. She didn’t seem to be conscious that anyone was near.
Then she laughed, a high, strangled laugh. “We changed the first act. We changed the first act to get rid of Kramer. That’s what we did. And he’s still here! My God, Kramer was here all the time…”
For the first second that amazing speech meant nothing to me. I jumped from my seat and sprang up onto the stage with Eddie following. The others were all clustered around the casket. Someone screamed—I think it was Theo. I heard Iris calling: “Peter, look!” I pushed roughly through to Mirabelle and Wessler. I stared straight down into the coffin.
The shock of what I saw came before I was ready for it It didn’t seem real. It was something impossibly grotesque, devised by the imbecile mind of the Dagonet Theater.
That coffin was not empty. Stretched inside it, plump hands clasped peacefully over his vest, lay Uncle George Kramer.
I didn’t move for a moment I didn’t speak; I didnt think; I didn’t feel. I just stared in fascination at those plump, white hands, at the round plump face which stared unwinkingly back from wide, sightless eyes. There was a smile on George Kramer’s lips, a stiff idiotic smile as if his mouth were held up at the corner by pins. His skin was tight and glossy like wax; there were bluish patches like spattered ink.
And he was lying there with no visible wound, no visible sign of struggle—just straight and rigid and horribly dead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MY voice, when it came, sounded like the whine of a mosquito. “Eddie, help me get him out of the coffin.”
My stage-manager was there at my side. I saw his strong arms slide into the coffin and under Kramer’s arms. I got hold of the legs. We lifted. While the others backed away, we slung Kramer out onto the stage.
He lay there, his legs sprawled crazily sideways. I dropped on my knees. Feverishly I pushed him upward so that we could see his back. There was no sign of a wound there. Eddie took his shoulders, lowered them. My hand groped for the wrist, feeling for the pulse.
There wasn’t any, of course. I’d known that From the beginning I’d known he was dead.
Djmly I became aware of the others—Mirabelle’s face drawn and haggard, Theo, her lips gripped between her teeth; Iris and Gerald. … I seemed to see them like blurred shadows thrown on a screen.
“Gerald,” I called. “Get the women away. And Wessler! All of you get away.”
I tried to say something else, but suddenly the words wouldn’t come. I seemed to be drifting into some warm, sickly miasma.
Then I heard Iris’s voice like a faint scratching on my eardrums. “Eddie, get Peter away! Get him away from that coffin. Don’t you see? It’s the gas—the fumigation gas!”
I felt arms around me, dragging me. I made an enormous effort to move my legs forward. Right, left, right, left. Something scraped past me and then slammed back —the swing-door. I was out in the passage, lying limply against Eddie’s shoulder. Gradually things began to slide back into focus. First the iron banisters of the passage, hard, gleaming, then a hand, curved over my sleeve; then Iris’s face, white and anxious, close to mine.
“Peter, are you all right? Tell me.”
“Sure I’m all right. But…”
“It was that hydrocyanic gas. It must have been. Some of it must have been left in the coffin,” said Iris urgently. “The hydrocyanic gas, it almost killed you—and it killed Kramer.”
Someone opened the door to Wessler’s dressing-room. We all trooped in. I sat down on one of the bare wooden chairs. I felt better sitting down. Eddie put a cigarette into my mouth. He was gazing at me ruefully.
“Feel pretty groggy myself,” he said. “I guess Miss Pat-tison’s right. It was that hydrocyanic gas.”
“But Kramer!” said Theo bleakly. “We ought to go back on stage and get Kramer.”
“It’s no use,” said Eddie. “He’s dead. Better not touch him any more than we can help. He must have died a couple of minutes after we put him in the coffin this morning. That damn stuff must have been hanging around in the upholstery. It works instantly. Even—even when we were looking for him to tell him we didn’t want him around any more, even then I guess he was dead. Naturally, I never thought to look in the coffin.”
For a second or two we all stood and sat in that small dressing-room, staring at each other.
Then Mirabelle whispered: “But what shall we do?”
It seemed only too evident what we had to do. “Get down to the doorman’s room, Gerald,” I said, “and call the police.”
“The police!” echoed Iris.
“Of course the police. We’ve got to bring the police into it now.” All of a sudden it struck me as funny, savagely, tragically funny. I’d had the mystery sewed up. I’d had Kramer as the villain of the piece. Everything was in the bag. The play was saved. And now this— Kramer dead, asphyxiated by hydrocyanic gas in a coffin!
Gerald still stood by the door
.
“What are you waiting for?” I said. “Get the police. And— call headquarters, try to get Inspector Clarke. God knows, I haven’t the slightest idea whether you can get any policeman you want. But he’s a pal of mine. It would be better to get him.”
Gerald slipped out of the room. He was back soon. He said he had contacted Inspector Clarke and that he’d be right over. If it was possible for anything to improve the situation, that did. Clarke had been on a case once before when I’d been involved. I knew he’d take care of my interests as far as he could.
That indeterminate period of waiting covered some of the worst minutes in my life. None of us talked. But it was more than obvious what the others were thinking. I was thinking it myself. There was no getting around it.
George Kramer had been a blackmailer. Only that afternoon T had learned just how real a menace he might have been to almost anyone in my company. In spite of our efforts to get him out of the cast, he had stuck; he’d hung around where he wasn’t wanted. And now he was dead.
I kept telling myself that it was an accident. Somehow that deadly gas had collected in the coffin; somehow it hadn’t evaporated; merely by chance Kramer had been carried in the coffin behind that tormentor where we couldn’t see whether or not he had climbed out I tried to pretend to myself that this was the way it had happened. But I couldn’t, because I knew too much. I knew about the other things that had occurred at the Dagonet. I knew that someone had deliberately let the rats out of Eddie’s traps.
That little fact, which had seemed so ridiculously meaningless, now took on alarming proportions. No one bothers to let rats out of traps without a good reason. Now I could see an incredibly sound reason for that deliberate piece of sabotage. If someone had been eager to have the Dagonet fumigated, if one of the many people who wanted Kramer out of the way, had already thought out an intricate plan for staging this “accident” to cloak a …
I didn’t use the word “murder”—not even to myself. I didn’t dare burn my boats so irrevocably. But, inside me, I was sure as I had ever been of anything that murdered was the word for Kramer.
And the police were coming. In a few minutes they would be there, asking questions for which there were no answers except the answers that would reveal so much that we had been trying to keep dark.
Less than half an hour ago, I’d felt on top of the world, with success spread out at my feet, real and positive as Manhattan Island from the Empire State Building. Now we had this on our hands—something far too big for us to cope with ourselves. The whole flimsy card castle was crumbling. It looked like the end of Troubled Waters, Peter Duluth, Inc. and my come-back.
And for me—what?
I suppose we’d been sitting around in that dressing-room for about fifteen minutes before we heard footsteps ascending the stairs outside. Mirabelle started. Wessler gazed fixedly at the door. Iris, her voice very low and husky, said:
“The police.”
Still pretty unsure on my feet, I crossed to the door. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was going to say to the police. I opened the door and closed it behind me. I looked down the corridor, thinking: “This is the end.”
Then a faint hope stirred inside me. It was not Inspector Clarke of the Homicide Squad who was moving up the stairs. It was Dr. Lenz. … Dr. Lenz who always appeared miraculously when I needed him most.
I went up to him. I clutched his arm. I said: “Thank God you’ve come.”
His gray eyes were placid. “What is the matter, Mr. Duluth?”
Swiftly I told him everything.
Not once did that steady gaze flicker. He merely said:
“And Mr. Kramer is on the stage?”
“Yes. But you can’t go near. The gas …”
“The gas should have dissipated by now.” He patted my shoulder. “Please try not to distress yourself more than you can help. Join the others. I will be with you immediately.”
He eased me toward Wessler’s dressing-room. Before I shut the door behind me, I caught a glimpse of his wide, black-coated back disappearing onto the stage.
Less than five minutes later he joined us. His bearded face was grave but it showed absolutely no sign of concern.
“I have examined Mr. Kramer,” he said. “It seems to me there is no doubt but that he died from hydrocyanic gas poisoning.” He paused, regarding his thumbnail. “In fact, I was able to look into the coffin itself. I saw there a whitish residue such as is left by the fumigator’s discoids. It is clear what must have happened. Last night, during the fumigation, a discoid must have slipped into the coffin. Since it was cool inside and there was little ventilation, the process of evaporation would have been considerably slowed up and what gas there was would have become absorbed by the upholstery. When Mr. Kramer was lowered into the coffin, the warmth of his body speeded up the vaporization of the discoid. Almost immediately, before he had time either to realize what was happening or to struggle, he must have lost consciousness; in a short time, he must have died. I can see no reason why anyone should be blamed.”
His solemn gaze moved to each of us in turn.
“I feel sure that the police must adopt the same attitude as I. It was an unusual but a very understandable accident.”
I stared at him. “You really think it was an accident?”
“But, of course, Mr. Duluth.” Lenz’s raised left eyebrow indicated mild surprise. “What reason is there to believe otherwise?”
I could have told him a dozen reasons. But I didn’t. For I realized what he was doing then. He was doing what none of us had the nerve to do. In so many words he was saying: “Keep your mouths shut and maybe we’ll get away with it. It’s our only chance.”
He didn’t put it that crudely, of course. But I’m sure there wasn’t a person in the room who didn’t get his meaning, when he added: “I’m certain you all agree that this play means a great deal to each one of us. We have already had trouble—very unfortunate trouble with Mr. Comstock. It is a difficult situation. One is apt to imagine foolish things—that the two accidents, for example, must necessarily be connected. I suggest that we all banish fancies of that kind from our minds. I also suggest that we should only cause a great deal of confusion if we told the police anything more than the bare facts of what has happened tonight.”
It was unscrupulous, of course. It was anti-social and immoral and downright criminal. Lenz was a wonderful man.
His serene gaze traveled around the room.
“Is there anyone who disagrees with me?”
I looked at the others. I knew it was just as vital in their lives as it was in mine to save the show.
“No,” I said, “there isn’t anyone who disagrees with you.”
“There certainly isn’t,” said Iris firmly.
Which seemed to set the stage for the arrival of the police.
There was a whole carload of them, Inspector Clarke himself, quiet and alert, a medical examiner, a photographer and several plainclothesmen. For a couple of hours they swarmed over the theater. Lenz appointed himself mouthpiece for our faction. He explained about the fumigation; he pointed out the remnants of the discoid; he told an extremely convincing story for the accident theory, with all the weight of his massive reputation behind him.
Inspector Clarke seemed suitably credulous. Although he was one of the smartest men in the squad, he had worked with Lenz on a homicide case before and it must have been almost impossible for him to suspect that so important a personage would hold back a deliberate murder from the police.
Finally I was questioned. I didn’t lie because I wasn’t given the opportunity. I merely said that Kramer was a member of my company; that his role had made it perfectly natural for him to have been left unnoticed in the coffin; that I knew next to nothing about his private life. I did, however, hold back the fact that Kramer had been Henry Prince’s uncle. Although I was sure my author would be only too willing to join our conspiracy of silence, I would have hated like hell to have him thrown up again
st one of Clarke’s concise interrogations. Guile was not Henry’s long suit.
Finally everything seemed over. The medical examiner had borne out Lenz’s theory as to the cause of death and the probability of its being accidental. The police were ready to go.
Believing fervently in Santa Claus, I went downstairs with Inspector Clarke. He was extremely pleasant. He chatted about our friendship in the past and offered messages of good luck for my future.
But at the stage door, he paused. His young, shrewd eyes watched me curiously.
“That’s a pretty darn good fumigation company you employed, Mr. Duluth. It’s kind of surprising they’d have done something as careless as dropping one of those discoids in that coffin.”
“Y-yes,” I said. I’d never thought of it from the viewpoint of the fumigation company.
Clarke shrugged. “Of course, I’m not an expert but I’d have thought any discoid put in that coffin last night would have been harmless by the time you started rehearsal. But Lenz says the gas could have got soaked into the upholstery. Guess he knows.” He paused. “I believe that stuff’s pretty easy to obtain—that hydrocyanic gas. Anyone can buy it in some form or other at the drug store, can’t they?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, I’ll take the whole business up with the fumigating people right away. Guess I’ll know more about the set-up then.” He paused a moment. “Having kind of bad luck around this place, aren’t you, Mr. Duluth? First that old fellow Comstock—and now Kramer.”
Until then no mention had been made of Comstock.
I said as casually as I could: “Yes, Comstock had a heart attack at rehearsal. Poor old guy. Lenz was around at the time but there was nothing we could do.”
“Dr. Lenz was around, eh? He’s a fine man.” Clarke glanced up. “They tell me he’s backing the show.”
Puzzle for Players Page 15
