Death in the Fifth Position

by Gore Vidal

  Then I asked if I should give Jane the full star treatment and he said we should first wait and see what the reviewers would have to say about her … needless to say they were all turning up again tonight. After that, he gave me some routine orders, ending with the announcement that Anna Eglanova would tour another year with the company, her thirty-second year as a star.

  “When did you sign her?”

  “This afternoon. She changed her mind about retiring, as I knew she would.” He was very smooth.

  Neither of us made any mention of the murder. Mr. Washburn had taken the public line that it had all been an accident, that no one connected with his company could have done such a thing but that of course if the police wanted to investigate, well, that was their right. In private he also maintained this pose and for all I knew he really believed it. In any case, his main interest was the box office and that had never been so healthy since Nijinski danced a season with the company a long time ago. If someone had the bad taste to murder a fellow artist he would wash his hands of them.

  3

  I was almost sick to my stomach during that night’s performance … experiencing double stage fright for Jane: first, because it was her big chance, as they say in technicolor movies, and second, because of that cable.

  Everyone in the audience was also keyed up. They looked like a group of wolves waiting for dinner. There was absolute silence all through the ballet … even when Louis, who is after all a big star, came on stage with that pearly smile which usually gets all the girls and gay boys.

  Jane was better than I thought she would be. I don’t know why but you never regard your lover as being remarkably talented; you never seem to think her able to do anything at all unusual or brilliant unless, of course, she’s a big star or very well known when you first meet her, in which case, you soon discover that she’s not at all what she’s cracked up to be … but Jane floored me and, I am happy to say, the critics, too. She lost the music once or twice and there was a terrible moment when Louis fumbled a lift, when she sprang too soon and I thought they would land in a heap on the stage but both recovered like real professionals and by the time she began her ascent by cable I knew that she was in, really there at last.

  I don’t need to tell you that I watched her rise in the air, slowly turning, with my heart thudding crazily and all my pulses fluttering. Even when the curtain fell I half expected to hear a crash from backstage. But it was all right and there she was, a moment later, standing on the stage with Louis, the corps de ballet behind them, as the audience roared its excitement, relief, disappointment … everything, every emotion swept over that stage like surf on a beach. She took seven curtain calls, by herself, and received all four of my bouquets as well as two others, from strangers.

  I ran backstage and found her in Sutton’s dressing room (now hers) with most of the company congratulating her, out of relief as well as admiration. I think they were all afraid that something might happen again.…

  Then the stage manager ordered everybody to get upstairs and change and I was left alone with Jane in the dressing room, among the flowers and telegrams from those friends who had been alerted.

  “I’m glad it’s over,” she said at last, her eyes gleaming, still breathing hard.

  “So am I. I was terrified.”

  “Me too.”

  “Of that cable?”

  “No, just the part. I didn’t have time to think of anything else. You have no idea what it’s like to come out on a stage and know that every eye is on you.”

  “It must be wonderful.”

  “It is! it is!” She slipped out of her costume and I dried her off with a towel … her skin glowed, warm and rich, like silk. I kissed here, here and there.

  4

  There is no need to describe my evening with Jane. It was a memorable one for both of us and, next morning, the sun seemed intolerably bright as we awakened, showered, got dressed, ate breakfast … all in a terrible hung-over silence which did not end until, of mutual accord, still without a word, we each took an Empirin tablet and together threw out the three empty champagne bottles (Mumm, Rheims, France); then I spoke: “ ‘April,’ ” I said thickly, “ ‘is the crudest month.’ ”

  “This is May,” said Jane.

  “And twice as cruel. I have a strange feeling that during the night the spores of some mysterious fungus or moss, wafted down from the planet Venus, lodged themselves in my brain, entering through some unguarded orifice. Everything is fuzzy and blurred and I don’t hear so well.”

  “You sound like you’re still lit,” said Jane, putting on a pink negligee which she had once bought at a sale to make herself look seductive over the morning coffee. Wearing only jockey shorts, I posed like Atlas before the full-length mirror on the bathroom door.

  “Do you think I’d make a dancer?”

  “You’ve made me, darling,” she said.

  “Shall I wash your mouth out with soap?”

  “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Not even on alternate Wednesdays?”

  “That’s matinee day … when I do Eclipse, twice.” And that was the end of our little game. In case you should ever have an affair with a dancer I recommend total resignation to the fact that the Dance comes first; not only in their lives (which is all right) but also in your life (which is not, unless you’re a dancer, too, or connected with it the way I am). After a time you will gradually forget all about the other world of Republicans and Democrats, Communists and Capitalists, Hemingway, the D. and D. of Windsor and Leo Durocher. I suppose in a way it’s kind of a refuge from the world, like a monastery or a nudist colony … except for the tourists: the lives of dancers are filled with the comings and goings of little friends and admirers, autograph hounds and lovers, and you never know who is likely to turn up backstage in hot pursuit of one of the girls, or boys. I’ve been very surprised, believe me, at certain respectable gentlemen who have unexpectedly revealed a Socratic passion for one of our dancing boys. If I should ever decide to go into the blackmail game I could certainly get some handsome retainers!

  Midway through an analysis of her last night’s performance in Eclipse, the phone began to ring: friends and and relatives of the new star … so I left her to enjoy their admiration.

  It was another hot day, windless and still, with not a cloud in the harsh blue sky. I walked to our office, keeping in the shade of buildings, enjoying the occasional blasts of icy air from the open doors of restaurants and bars.

  The newspapers were very gratifying. We were still on the front page, or near it, and the Globe had a feature article on the life of Ella Sutton, implying, as did nearly all the other papers, that an arrest would soon be made, that the murderer was her husband … naturally, they all kept this side of libel; even so it was perfectly clear that they thought him guilty … all except the Mirror which thought it was a Communist plot. The Globe carried a six-column story of Ella’s life with pictures of her from every phase of what turned out to be a longer and more varied career than even I had suspected. Dancers are such liars (and so are press agents, God knows) that as a result the facts of any star’s life are so obscure that it would take a real detective to discover them, or else a good reporter with access to a first-rate morgue, like the Globe’s.

  There was nobody in the office; except one secretary, another sack of mail, and so many messages marked urgent that I didn’t bother to look at any of them; instead, I just relaxed and read the true story of Ella’s life. I was surprised to note that she was thirty-three years old when she crossed the shining river so abruptly, that she had been dancing professionally for twenty years, in burlesque, in second-rate musical comedies and, finally, in the celebrated but short-lived North American Ballet Company which was to ballet in the thirties what the Group Theater was to the drama … only a good deal more left wing than the Group, if possible. There was a photograph of her at that time all done up like a Russian peasant woman with her eyes looking north to the stars. When t
he North American folded, she danced for a time in night clubs; then, just before the war, Demidovna emerged on our startled ken, to be rechristened the next year Ella Sutton, prima ballerina but never assoluta. It was a good piece and I made a mental note to call the Globe and find out who had written it … the by-line Milton Haddock meant nothing, I knew.

  The next few hours were occupied with business … the ballet’s and my own. Miss Flynn implied that my presence in my office might make a good impression. I promised to drop by later. It wasn’t until I had finished my twentieth phone call and dispatched my eleventh bulletin to an insatiable press that Mr. Washburn phoned me to say that the inquest had been held without excitement and that I had better get over to the funeral home on Lexington Avenue where Ella Sutton was to make her last New York appearance.

  All the principals were there when I arrived, including the photographers. Eglanova wore the same black lace dress and white plumed hat that she had worn the day before and she looked very cool and serene, like a figure carved in ice. Louis had broken down and put on a blue suit and a white shirt, but no tie … while Alyosha, Jed Wilbur and Mr. Washburn all managed to look very decorous indeed. Miles looked awful, with red gritty eyes and a curiously blotched face. His hands shook and once or twice during the ceremony I thought he would faint … now just what was wrong with him? I wondered. He seemed not always to remember where he was and several times he yawned enormously … one photographer, quicker and less reverent than his fellows, snapped Miles in the middle of a yawn, getting the picture of the week for, when they ran it the next day, the newspapers commented: husband of murdered star enjoying a joke at funeral. I don’t need to say that everything connected with the death of Ella Sutton was in the worst possible taste and, consequently, we had the most successful season in the history of American ballet.

  The service was brief, inaccurate and professional. When it was over, the casket and at least a ton of flowers were carried out of the room by four competent-looking young thugs in ill-fitting cutaways and the long journey to Woodlawn began, three limousines transporting the funeral party. If Ella had had any family they did not choose to appear and so she was buried with only her un-grieving husband and her professional associates at her grave. I must admit that there are times when I hate my work, when I wish that I had gone on and taken my doctorate at Harvard and later taught in some quiet university, lecturing on Herrick and Marvell, instead of rushing about with side shows like this, trying to get the freaks in to look at some more freaks. Well, another day another dollar as the soldiers in the recent unpleasantness used to remark.

  “How is the investigation coming?” I asked Mr. Washburn as we drove back to town; Alyosha sat silently on the back seat with us while two girl soloists sat up front with the driver.

  “I’m afraid I’m not in Mr. Gleason’s confidence,” said Mr. Washburn easily. “They seem very busy and they seem quite confident … but that’s all a part of the game, I’m told … to pretend they know who it is so that the guilty party will surrender. Not that I, for one minute, think any member of the company is involved.”

  Mr. Washburn’s unreality had a wonderfully soothing effect on me; I responded just like a prospective patron.

  We both were rudely jolted out of this quiet mood when, upon arriving at the theater, a plain-clothes man announced that Gleason would like to see me. I exchanged a startled glance with Mr. Washburn who turned visibly gray, thinking no doubt of those shears, of Eglanova’s being involved in a scandal, of no season this fall because of no star.

  Gleason, smoking a slobbery, ill-smelling cigar, looked every inch a Tammany man. His secretary sat at another desk, shorthand pad before him.

  “Come in, Mr. Sargeant.” Oh, this was bad I thought.

  “How are you today, Mr. Gleason?”

  “I have some questions I want to ask you.”

  “Anything you want to know,” I said graciously.

  “Why didn’t you mention at our previous interview that you had handled those shears?”

  “What shears?”

  “The Murder Weapon.”

  “But I don’t remember handling them.”

  “Then how do you explain the fact that your fingerprints are on them … yours and no one else’s?”

  “Are you sure they’re my fingerprints?”

  “Now look here, Sargeant, you’re in serious trouble. I suggest for your own good you take a more constructive attitude about this investigation or …” He paused, ominously, and I saw in my mind’s eye the rubber hose, the glaring Klieg lights and finally a confession thrust under my bloody hand for that shaky signature which would send me to the gates of heaven for the murder of a ballerina I had never known, much less killed. It was too terrible.

  “I was just asking, that’s all. I mean you never did fingerprint me …”

  “We have ways,” said the Inspector. “Now what were you doing with those shears between dress rehearsal and the murder?”

  “I wasn’t doing anything with them.”

  “Then why …”

  “Are my fingerprints on them? Because I picked them up off the floor and put them on top of the tool chest.”

  Gleason looked satisfied. “I see. And are you in the habit of picking up tools off the floor—is that your job?”

  “No, it’s not my job, but I am in the habit of picking things up … I’m very neat.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “I don’t know why you keep accusing me of trying to amuse you … it’s the last thing I’d try to do. I’m just as serious about this as you are. More so, because this scandal could louse up the whole season,” I added, piously, speaking the language of self-interest which men of all classes and nations understand.

  “Then will you kindly explain why you happened to pick up The Murder Weapon and place it on that tool chest.”

  “I don’t know why.”

  “But you admit that you did?”

  “Of course … you see I stepped on them and almost fell,” I lied: how many years for perjury? threescore and ten; can I get there by amber light? yes, and back again.

  “Now, we’re getting somewhere. Why did you step on them?”

  “Don’t you mean where?”

  “Mr. Sargeant …”

  I spoke quickly, cutting him short, “I’m not sure just where I was.” (This uncertainty might save me yet, I thought, watching that grim youth take down my testimony … well, I wasn’t under oath yet.) “Somewhere near the dressing rooms. I damn near fell. Then I looked down and saw those things at my feet and so I picked them up and put them on the box.”

  “What time was this?”

  “About ten-thirty.”

  “After the murder?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Didn’t you think it peculiar that a pair of shears should be lying out in the open like that?”

  “I had other things on my mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, Ella Sutton, for instance … she had been killed a few minutes before.”

  “And you made no connection between the shears and her death?”

  “Of course not. Why should I? For all we knew at the time, the cable might have broken by itself.”

  “When you did discover that the cable had been cut, why didn’t you tell me at our last interview that you had handled The Murder Weapon?”

  “Well, it just slipped my mind.”

  “That is no answer, Mr. Sargeant.”

  “I’d like to know what you want to call it then?” I was getting angry.

  “Do you realize that you could be under suspicion right now for the murder of Ella Sutton?”

  “I don’t realize any such thing. In the first place you’ll find that my fingerprints are on the cutting end of the shears, not the handle … also the fact that there are no other prints on it means that whoever did cut the cable had sense enough to wipe the shears clean.”

  “How do you know there were no other prints?”
/>
  “Because you said there weren’t … and, in case you still aren’t convinced, I may as well tell you that I had less motive than anyone in the company for killing Sutton. I told you I didn’t know the woman, and that’s the truth.”

  “Now, now,” said the Inspector with a false geniality that made his earlier manner seem desirable by comparison. “Don’t get hot under the collar. I realize that you had no motive … we’ve checked into all that. Of course it doesn’t do your girl friend any harm, having Ella Sutton gone, but that of course would hardly be reason enough for murder … I realize that.”

  He was playing it dirty now but I said nothing; he had no case and he knew it. He was only baiting me, trying to get me to say something in anger which I would not, under other circumstances, say … something about Miles or Eglanova, or whoever they suspected. Well, I would disappoint him; I composed myself and settled back in my chair; I even lit a cigarette with the steadiest hand since the 4-H Club’s last national convention.

  “What I would like to know, though, is the exact position of the shears, when you first stumbled over them.”

  “That’s hard to say. The north end of the stage, near the steps which go up to the dressing rooms.”

  “Whose rooms are there?”

  “Well, Sutton’s was, and Eglanova’s, and the girl soloists share a room. The men are all on the other side.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Sargeant, who do you think killed Ella Sutton?” This was abrupt.

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t ask you if you knew … we presume you don’t know. I just wondered what your hunch might be.”

  “I’m not sure that I have one.”

  “That seems odd.”

  “And if I did I wouldn’t be fool enough to tell you … not that I don’t want to see justice triumph and all that, but suppose my guess was wrong? … I’d look very silly to the person I’d accused.”

  “I was just curious,” said Gleason, with that same spurious air of good fellowship and I suddenly realized, like a flash, that, motive or not, I was under suspicion … as an accomplice after the fact or during the fact or even before it for all I knew. Gleason was quite sure that I was, in some way, on the murderer’s side.