Death in the Fifth Position

by Gore Vidal

  “Well, for one thing we happen to know he’s not a Communist and for another thing he’s going to tell all he knows about the Reds in the theater.”

  “It’s a closed hearing, too,” said Bush thoughtfully. “Got any idea about some of the names he’s going to mention?”

  “Nobody very big,” I invented glibly. “A few of the old North American Ballet Company people, that’s about all.”

  “You’ve been having a busy time, haven’t you, Pete,” said Bush, suddenly focusing his attention on me for the first time in our long if superficial acquaintanceship.

  “I’ll say.”

  “They really wind that Sutton case up?”

  “I think so … don’t you?”

  “Haven’t heard anything to the contrary … worked out very neatly, from the police’s point of view … no trial, no expense for the state … perfect case.” While we talked I kept trying to edge him into the empty classroom before the hour struck, before four o’clock when Wilbur would take a break, on the dot, because that’s a company rule which even the most temperamental choreographers have to obey. But Mr. Bush wouldn’t budge: the secret perhaps of his success. At four o’clock the door to the studio opened and thirty tired and messy dancers came charging out, heading for the dressing rooms, the drinking fountain, the telephone … I have a theory that dancers, next to hostesses, spend more time telephoning than any other single group in America.

  Elmer Bush kept on talking but his eyes looked like they were on swivels, like the chameleon who can see in all directions. At first he couldn’t spot anybody; then I waved to Jane who was standing by the door to the empty classroom, adjusting the ribbon to one of her toeshoes. It was five after four. She waved above the noisy crowd of dancers, parents and tiny tots (all the classes let out on the hour) and, breathless, came to us through a sea of sweating dancers.

  “This is the young ballerina in Eclipse, Mr. Bush … Jane Garden.”

  They shook hands and Jane was pretty enough to distract Bush’s attention long enough for Mr. Washburn to sneak past us, in the shadow of the corpulent teacher of dance with whom he pretended to talk. Before he got to the door, however, the first policeman had arrived.

  3

  It took them four hours to question the corps de ballet, parents, even the tiny tots, most of whom were whining loudly at this unexpected turn of events. But by the time Gleason had arrived, only the principals were left, all seated glumly in the studio, on that hard bench.

  The body of Magda had been taken immediately to the morgue and though none of us had seen it the rumor was that she had been pretty badly smashed by her fall from the window of the classroom adjoining the rehearsal studio.

  A policeman stood in the door of the studio, watching us as though we were wild animals. Inspector Gleason did not present himself to us upon arrival; we heard his full-throated Irish voice, however, as he had a desk set up for himself in the empty classroom. Here he received us, one by one.

  We talked very little during those hours. Mr. Washburn, with remarkable presence of mind, had summoned his lawyer who waited now with a brief case full of writs calculated to circumvent any and every vagary of justice.

  Eglanova, after one brilliant outburst of Imperial Moscow anger, had settled down to a quiet chat with Alyosha, in Russian. Alyosha was more nervous; he continually screwed and unscrewed his monocle, wiping it with a silk handkerchief. Jane, who sat beside me, wept a little and I comforted her. Wilbur, after a display of Dubuque, Iowa, temperament, settled down for a long tense quarrel with Louis, a quarrel which had nothing to do with Magda. For some reason Madame Aloin had been placed under suspicion as well as the pianist, a worm-white youth who acted exactly the way you would suppose a murderer at bay to act. Mr. Washburn was not with us long, since he was the first witness to be called. I might add that Elmer Bush had contrived to remain with us in the studio, after first phoning his numerous staff: this was one exclusive he was sure of … television star or not he was the same Elmer Bush who, twenty years ago, was the best crime reporter in the country. He chatted with everyone now … first with one; then with another, conducting a suave investigation which, I swear, was a good deal brighter than the one the taxpayer’s burden was conducting in the next room.

  “Come on, baby,” I whispered to Jane, my arm around her. “Don’t take it so hard. It’s just one of those things …” I whispered stupidly, soothingly, because after a while she stopped and dried her eyes with a crumpled piece of Kleenex.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “Not Magda … not like that.”

  “Tell them everything, Jane … everything. This is serious. Tell them about your being at Miles’ place.”

  “Poor Magda …”

  “You’ll do that, won’t you?”

  “What? Do what?” I told her again and she looked surprised. “But what’s that got to do with Magda?”

  “It may have everything to do with her, with all of us. Promise you’ll tell Gleason the whole story.”

  “If you think I ought to.”

  “I do. I’m sure all three of these things are connected.”

  “So am I,” said Jane, unexpectedly.

  I was surprised … she had always been very unrealistic about the trouble … almost as bad as Mr. Washburn and his “accident” theories. I asked her why she had changed her mind.

  “Something Magda said today … something about Miles … I don’t remember exactly what it was but she … I think she knew who killed Ella. I think Miles must have known all along and told her that day when he went to see her, when she was sick and her family happened to be out.”

  “She–didn’t tell you who it was?”

  “Do you think I would be sitting here like this scared to death if she had? I’d be right in there with that policeman, telling him I wanted somebody arrested before … before this happens again.” She shuddered suddenly and I felt cold myself. I looked about the room wildly, wondering who it was. Which of these people was a murderer? Or had someone who wasn’t even here killed Ella and Magda, a maniac in the corps de ballet …?

  “I wonder just what happened?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “I know,” said Elmer Bush smoothly; he had sat down next to me without my knowing it … what a break this was for him: witness, or near-witness to a murder, a flashy, glamorous murder. He could hardly keep a straight face, hardly disguise his delight at what had happened. “A terrible tragedy,” he said in a low voice, the one used to announce the death of forty passengers on a transatlantic airliner, or corruption in Washington. “How did it happen?”

  “She was pushed through the window … one minute after four o’clock,” said Elmer and the tip of his tongue, quick as a lizard’s, moistened his lips.

  “By party or parties unknown,” I said.

  “Exactly. Her purse was found on the floor; her body on the sidewalk seven stories below.”

  “The purse …”

  He finished my sentence: “Had been searched. Its contents were scattered over the floor. Whoever did it must’ve grabbed the purse away from her and then, quick as a flash, shoved her through the window and searched the handbag for something …”

  “Robbery?” suggested Jane weakly.

  We both ignored her. “I wonder what they were looking for?”

  “When we know that,” said Elmer slowly, in his best doom voice, “we will know who killed Ella and Miles Sutton.”

  I remember hoping at the time that the three murders were totally unconnected, just to prove this unctuous vulture wrong.

  “Tell me,” said Elmer gently, turning to Jane, “did she seem at all odd to you when you went into that room together?”

  “Sweet Jesus!” I cried softly, turning to Jane. “You weren’t with her, were you? You weren’t there, too?”

  “Always on the spot,” said Jane with a faint attempt at lightness.

  “Does Gleason know this?”

  “I plan to tell him … honest I
will, Peter.”

  “He knows anyway,” said omniscient Elmer. “Did she say something which might throw any light on what happened?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Why did you go in there with her?”

  “Now listen, Bush,” I snapped, “stop playing Mr. District Attorney. She’s gone through enough.”

  “That’s all right, Peter.” She rallied a bit. “Magda wasn’t feeling well. She’s going … she was going to have a baby and she suddenly felt sick. I took her in there when the rehearsal was over … it was the only place on the floor where she wouldn’t be crowded. Then I left her and talked to you … Maybe she fell. She could have, you know. Those windows … well, look over there: they almost go down to the floor.”

  “Fell? After first emptying her purse over the studio floor?” Elmer shook his head. “Somebody shoved her. Was there anybody else in the room?”

  Jane shook her head wearily. “I said it was empty.”

  “Anybody could have gone in there,” said Elmer Bush, staring at the door at the far end of the room, behind which we could hear the distant rumble of Gleason’s voice as he questioned Mr. Washburn.

  The interviews went fairly fast. Eglanova, Alyosha, Wilbur, Louis, Madame Aloin, the pianist, Jane, myself. By the time my turn came around, it was already dark outside and the overhead fluorescent lights had been turned on, a ghastly blue light, reflected by tall mirrors.

  The first thing I noticed was the window. For some reason I had supposed that it had been open when she fell out. It hadn’t occurred to me that she would have been pushed through a pane of glass … which is what had happened.

  Gleason looked much as ever and I noticed the same pale secretary was on hand taking notes; otherwise, the room was empty … no police, no furniture, no rifled handbag.

  We got through the preliminaries quickly. I could see that he was not very much interested in me … possibly because Elmer had already told him that I was with him in the hall when the murder took place … what was that wonderful word they use to describe someone being pushed through a window: defenestration?

  He wanted to know what, if anything, Magda had said to me that morning.

  “She didn’t talk much to me … I know she told Jane about her abortion. She was going to have it tomorrow; that was her plan.”

  “In the meantime she was going to live with Miss Garden?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ordinarily you live in Miss Garden’s apartment?”

  I blushed. “For the last week or so,” I said. “Do you plan to book me for lewdness?”

  Gleason showed his teeth in a friendly snarl. “This is homicide, Sargeant, not the vice squad.” He enjoyed saying my last name; he made it sound like a police rank, a subordinate rank. “We have reason to think the deaths of Ella Sutton and Magda Foote were the work of the same person.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because a few days ago at the theater, Magda told us, Jane and me, that she knew Miles was innocent and that he knew who had killed Ella. I asked her then if he’d told her and she said no he hadn’t but I thought she was lying … I’m positive she was lying. I’ll bet anything Magda knew.”

  “If she knew why didn’t she come to us?”

  “I don’t know why. For one thing, she probably didn’t care whether you ever caught Ella’s murderer or not … after all she hated Ella and Miles’ death was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “As far as we know. Why wouldn’t Miles Sutton have told us who killed Ella when he knew he was our number one suspect, that we were going to arrest him the second we could break his alibi … and we broke it, finally.”

  “According to Magda, he wasn’t going to say anything until the trial … or until you arrested him. I think he hoped you wouldn’t be able to pin it on anybody.”

  “That wasn’t very realistic.”

  “I’d hardly call a man as far gone on drugs as Miles realistic … remember that whoever killed Ella was doing him a service. He wouldn’t turn the murderer in … unless it was to save his own neck.”

  Gleason asked me some more questions, about members of the company, about Magda, pointless questions, or so they seemed to me … and probably were in fact because it was quite obvious that the police were completely at sea. I was then told to come back the next day for questioning, to stay in New York City at an address where I could be reached at a moment’s notice … I gave him Jane’s address.

  She was waiting for me in the reception hall. Everyone had gone except Louis and herself and Wilbur. Louis had apparently just come from the shower room for his hair was gleaming with water, the celebrated black curls damp and straggly. Jane was also in her street clothes, looking very pale, her face not made up. Wilbur was talking excitedly, “As if I didn’t have enough trouble without all this. A major investigation hanging over my head … I was supposed to go to Washington tomorrow … and a half-finished ballet and now one of those god-damned murder investigations this company seems to specialize in. I wish to hell I’d stayed in musical comedy. Nothing like this ever happened there.”

  “Shows we were just waiting for you, Jed,” said Louis amiably. “It was all Mr. Washburn’s idea to knock you off so Alyosha would remain the greatest living choreographer.”

  “Much help you’ve been through all this,” said Jed spitefully. Jane and I got out before the lovers quarreled.

  We both took it for granted that I was not going to go to my place after what had happened. Jane was terrified at the thought of being alone.

  “I’m sure it’s a lunatic,” she said, when we were back at the apartment, eating cold cuts and drinking beer from the near-by delicatessen. “How do we know he isn’t going to murder everybody in the company while the police sit by and let him kill us, one by one?”

  “Come on, kid,” I said, as calmly as possible. “Get a grip on yourself. Your old buddy is right here with you.”

  “I’m still frightened,” she said, chewing a piece of liverwurst thoughtfully. “Not just of the murderer either.”

  “The police?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you tell Gleason about having been at Miles’ apartment?”

  “I told him everything.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear,” I said heartily, beginning to slip out of my clothes.

  “Pull the shade down,” said Jane.

  “You are jumpy.” As a rule we never put the shade down or put the lights out either. But I went over to the window and drew the curtains; they stuck a little and by the time I had pulled them together I had seen the plain-clothes man across the street, watching the apartment.

  I remember thinking how unusual it was to be making love to a girl who was thought by some to have murdered two, maybe three people.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1

  Medical examination, inquest, more questioning … it promised to be a long day. When I was not participating in the official rites of investigation, conducted as solemnly as a church service by Gleason, I was at the office holding Mr. Washburn’s hand and battling some thirty newsmen who had appeared at nine o’clock in the morning (proving we were news) and stayed in the anteroom chatting with our duo-typists most of the day, complaining about the meager handouts they got from me. The police were saying nothing and I had silenced the members of our company. Even so there were a dozen wild theories in the air and the editorial in the afternoon Globe demanded that the murderer be instantly produced … if not, the Globe suggested balefully, there might be some changes made in the office of the Commissioner.

  I was almost afraid to read the columns that afternoon. The news stories were all right: they just reported the facts, which were few … Third Murder in Ballet Mystery. But the columnists, in their own libelous way, were hinting pretty strongly that someone highly placed in the ballet world, in our company, had done the three murders. Needless to say, in spite of the official theory, everyone was convinced that there w
as a connection between the deaths of Miles and Ella and Magda. The Globe had the inside story. Beloved Elmer Bush had seen to that. His column made the front page … an exclusive report by An Eyewitness.

  “Little did I think, as I talked with the beauteous Magda, that a few moments later she would lie broken and alone in the street below. She must have known even then what fate had in store for her. There was something other-worldly in her manner, a remoteness, a true serenity. I think she wanted to join her friend Miles Sutton in a better world, to be as one with the father of her unborn child. Yet as we stood talking to one another in that busy rehearsal studio, a murderer was watching us, plotting her destruction. Did she know his (or her?) identity? Yes, I have reason to believe she did …”

  “I don’t want to hear any more,” said Mr. Washburn, draining his third shot of brandy.

  “It’s more of the same,” I said, putting the paper down on the floor, to join the pile by my chair. We were in his office. One of the duo-typists had brought us sandwiches for lunch and the newsmen had momentarily deserted us. We were taking no calls and reading no mail.

  “I wonder if we shouldn’t take that South American tour … we could leave next week … well, in two weeks’ time anyway. First Guatemala City then Panama, Bogotá, Rio, Buenos Aires …” Naming these remote places seemed to soothe my employer who sat now sniffing his empty brandy glass, his eyes bloodshot and glazed.

  “I’m afraid the police wouldn’t let us go,” I said gently.

  He pulled himself together with a visible effort. “You take over,” he said, as though I hadn’t been in charge all along, since nine anyway. “I’m going down to City Hall. After that, I’ll be at the studio in case you want me.”

  “The rehearsals still going on?”

  “Oh yes. Gleason was very decent about that. In fact, he’s moved into one of the classrooms … the one where …” He stopped. “I suppose he wants to be on the scene.”

  “Try and stop them,” I said, as Mr. Washburn placed his panama squarely on the center of his long head, the grim parallel to the floor.