Death in the Fifth Position

by Gore Vidal

  I said hello to Jane who was standing by the drinking fountain reading the rehearsal schedule with a preoccupied frown.

  “How did it go?” I asked.

  She jumped. “Oh, it’s you. I’m like a cat today. It went O.K. Nobody was thinking about the ballet except Wilbur.”

  “What’s the ballet like?”

  “I don’t remember a thing.” She shuddered. “That policeman! He gives me the shivers. For some reason he’s decided that I know a great deal more about all this than I do. He’s been asking me questions all morning. Where was I at such a time, how well did I know Ella … as if I had anything to do with this mess. I couldn’t get it through his head that my only connection with the murder was through Magda who was a friend of mine and not much of a friend … I mean she latched onto me during her troubles with Miles just because I’m so goddamned sympathetic.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s any use my telling you again what a mistake you made in going to Miles’ apartment that night, and not telling Gleason about it …”

  “No use at all. What are you doing right now?”

  “I have to see Wilbur on business. Then I’m off to dinner with some people … newspaper people. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “Try and finish early. I’m going to be home all evening. I don’t know when I’ve ever been so jittery.”

  I said that I would and she disappeared into the ladies’ dressing room. I was about to go into the studio where I could see Wilbur talking to some dancers, when Louis hove-to, flashing that ivory smile … uncapped teeth, by the way.

  “What’s new, Baby?”

  “About that Harlem deal,” I said. “I’d like to go up there some time.”

  “That’s a good boy. I knew you come around.” He gave me a sweaty hug. “We go tonight … unless you rather go straight on to my place.”

  “I’d like to see Harlem first. I’m writing a book.”

  “That’s a hot one,” said Louis who liked only comic books about Superman and Prince Valiant and Terry and the Pirates. We made a date to meet at eleven in the Algonquin lobby.

  I avoided Gleason who was, I gathered, in the classroom sifting evidence. Wilbur had obviously forgotten our appointment but he was pleasant enough and suggested I go to his apartment with him while he changed clothes.

  Jed lived in a small apartment in one of the drearier housing projects on the East Side … one of those red brick fortress jobs with tiny windows, the perfect place for a true liberal to get that anthill feeling, that sense of oneness with everyman.

  I sat in his living room while he showered and dressed. I cased everything, much the way I had in Eglanova’s apartment, and with the same result. It is difficult to search a room for nothing in particular; on the other hand, you get some feeling of the owner’s character. In this case, a rather negative feeling. Everything was functional, 1930-modern, lots of chrome and natural-wood finishes and no decorations other than an abstract painting on the wall, so abstract that it would take an art-lover more dedicated than I to tell whether it was good or bad. In the bookcase were twenty or thirty books on ballet, and nothing else. I was quite sure that the inevitable reference works of the left wing could be found in the bedroom, hidden away while the heat was on.

  “I’ve never been so tired,” said Wilbur, coming back into the room wearing a T-shirt and a pair of slacks which hung loosely from his thin body. “Want a drink?” We had bourbon and water.

  Then he sat at the other end of the gray and gold couch and looked at me expectantly.

  “It’s about these Washington hearings,” I said. “I wanted to know when you were going down and when you’d be back and how you’d like us to handle the publicity … especially for Chicago where we may run into trouble. You see, Mr. Washburn has dropped the whole public relations end in my lap and I don’t quite know how to handle it.” I was dazzlingly glib.

  “I wish I knew what to say,” said Wilbur, twisting a lock of hair. “Because of this murder business I can’t go away yet. It takes precedence, I gather, over a Congressional subpoena. I suppose, though, that as soon as they arrest whoever they’re planning to, I’ll be able to go down, testify, and be back in a couple of days. Don’t worry; they won’t find anything. Try and convince that fool Washburn, if you can. I’m sure he thinks I’m a Russian spy.”

  “He’s an alarmist.”

  “This mess all dates back to my connection with the North American Ballet. Two of the dancers were party members and the rest of us were sympathizers … I’ve already admitted that a hundred times. Unfortunately this is a competitive business and people have been trying to knock me off for years. If you get to the top they’ll use any stick to beat you with. This Communist scare was made to order for my enemies. But I’ll lick them yet; if I have to go through a thousand investigations.” Wilbur was properly truculent and I couldn’t help but admire his spirit. He was not going to knuckle under; the toughness that had got him where he was hadn’t deserted him. I felt, though, that he tended to over-dramatize the situation … I mean, after all, who really gives a damn about a choreographer, a dancing master, a twinkle-toes expert; it’s a minor art form in a second-rate theater, for which sentiment I could probably be run out of town.

  “Have you much to do with Gleason?” I asked, before he could go into the inevitable “I-am-a-suffering-artist-who-has-struggled-to-bring-beauty-into-the-world” routine that so many of our talented corn balls slip into at a moment’s notice.

  “Gleason?” He looked bewildered, the autobiography of Jed Wilbur, mid-twentieth-century choreographer, halted at the first chapter. “You mean that Inspector? No, not since yesterday when he had us all in. I’ve got enough to worry about without getting mixed up in these murders. Do you realize that they may not let us go to Chicago next week? That my ballet may not be ready even if we do go, what with all these damned interruptions? It was godawful today … I can tell you that. The company was worse than usual … if that could be possible. It was like running through molasses. I’ll tell you one thing, though, which I haven’t even told brother Washburn; if we’re not allowed to go to Chicago I’m going to break my contract. I’ve already talked to my lawyer and he says that I’ve a legal right to.”

  “I’m sure Gleason will have solved the case by then, before the Chicago opening.”

  “I hope so.” Wilbur poured himself another drink.

  “Who do you think did it?” My question was abrupt.

  “Did what? The murders? I haven’t the slightest idea. Tell me did that ape from the Veterans’ Committee show up today … what’s his name, Fleer?”

  “I don’t think so. Mr. Washburn and I sent away most of the callers … including the press.”

  “He has a personal grudge against me. I swear he has. This is downright persecution. Why, of all the liberals in New York, in the theater, did he have to go after me? The one who really cares just about as much about politics as … as Eglanova.”

  “After all you said yourself the reason … I mean, you’re the first in your profession. You’re a big target. If they could knock you off that would really be something for them … a real victory. Justify their whole existence.”

  This neatly tendered wreath of laurel was received in grateful silence as he absorbed my statement about his preeminent position in the ballet: Wilbur … then Tudor, Balanchine, Ashton, Robbins. This brief meditation put him in a good humor. His expression grew more gentle, almost relaxed.

  I repeated my earlier question.

  “Who killed Ella and the others? Well, I’m not sure that any opinion I would have would be worth a damn. You see, I’m new to the company. I don’t have much idea of all the politics and so forth.… As a matter of fact, I’ve been so involved in my own mess that I haven’t paid as much attention to all this as I probably should. But just remember that it isn’t easy to create two ballets, defend your reputation and worry about a few murders, too. I figure if I survive the next month I’m going to Bermuda for th
e rest of the summer, right after the Chicago première. I can’t take much more.”

  “But you have known all the people involved for a long time. The ballet’s a pretty small world no matter which company you’re with.”

  “That’s true. But ballet companies are like families. They are different on the inside … no matter how well you know them from the outside.”

  “You knew Ella a long time?”

  “Oh yes. In fact, except for Louis, she was the person I knew best in the company.”

  “How long did you know her?”

  “You sound just like that policeman.” He smiled at me.

  “I’m pretty concerned. This is my bread and butter. You can always go on to another company, to Broadway. I’m on a salary, and there aren’t many jobs around as pleasant as this.”

  “I see what you mean. O.K.… Ella Sutton. How long did I know her? Since Nineteen Thirty-seven, when she was in the North American Ballet. She joined it the month it folded; even so she danced several leads and got her first recognition.”

  “Did you see much of her after that?”

  “Very little. We never worked together from that day until she got Washburn to hire me to make some new ballets for her.”

  “I didn’t know Ella was responsible for hiring you.”

  “She was indeed. I suspect she was the most ambitious dancer in the history of ballet. She felt she had mastered the classics and the Grand Saint Petersburg chestnuts; she wanted to branch out … to prove she was a great dramatic dancer like Nora Kaye. So she got Washburn to hire me … for which I could kill her.…” He laughed, suddenly aware of what he had said. “If somebody hadn’t taken care of that already. As far as I’m concerned, in spite of the success of Eclipse, my little association with your company has taken ten years off my life.”

  “Did you like Ella?”

  “Certainly not. She was a bitch, not at all the kind of woman I like,” he said, making a perfunctory effort to show his aversion to Ella was not a general one, did not include the entire sex … which of course it did. “But she was one marvelous dancer. I felt, working with her this season, that she might easily have become the finest ballerina of our time … and I’ve worked with the whole lot, with just about every important dancer in the world.”

  “Who do you think killed her?”

  He frowned; then he finished his drink. “You know,” he said at last, “I’ve gotten so nervous lately with all these investigations that I hardly dare open my mouth to say it’s a warm day for fear some bastard will twist what I say around and use it against me.”

  “Well, there’re only two of us here. You need two witnesses, don’t you, to prove a statement? You can tell me what you think, if you want to.”

  “Then I may as well say what I think … not what I know; and if you quote me on this I’ll deny it till I’m blue in the face. From what little I know of this company and the way it’s put together, I’d say the Russians did it.”

  “Eglanova?”

  “And Alyosha … one or the other or both. I mean who else had any real motive? Aside from Miles, and I still think maybe he did it; though that makes Magda’s death seem a little crazy … which makes me also think that the whole thing might be the work of a lunatic. God knows we have enough of them in ballet—and more than our share in this company.”

  “I don’t think Eglanova would ever take such a chance.”

  “It wasn’t much of a chance since she knew Miles would be blamed for it, as he was. Or maybe she had Alyosha do it for her. He certainly hated Ella … though I suppose if he did it he wouldn’t have planted those shears in Eglanova’s room. That’s more the sort of thing she might’ve done, an obvious stunt to make herself seem victimized. But that’s all theorizing. Ideally, I’d be very happy if the police just gave up, or arrested the janitor, somebody who didn’t have a thing to do with ballet but if they have to arrest the old girl, or Alyosha, I wish they’d hurry up and do it so I can go to Washington and clear myself. I don’t want anything to affect my chances for the fall, with that musical … it’s the biggest chance I’ve had in the commercial theater and I’m looking forward to it … and not just to the money either.… It’s a chance to do something big … something nobody else has done before.”

  He talked awhile about the great things he intended to do; I then asked him if the rumor I’d heard about Louis’ going into musical comedy was true.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Some of the boys in the company … you know how they chatter.”

  “We talked about it once. I don’t think he wants to leave the ballet.”

  “He’d be good in musicals,” I said.

  “You never can tell.” Then Wilbur steered the subject back to himself and before I left he had given me a number of pronouncements to give to the press about his political status.

  4

  It was almost seven o’clock when I met Alyosha at the Russian Tea Room on Fifty-seventh Street, a favorite meeting place for the ballet, where the Russians often sit for hours at a time drinking tea and eating pressed caviar.

  I found Alyosha at his usual table, just inside the main room. He was going through his mail when I joined him; he was as dapper as ever, his monocle in place, a glass of vodka at his elbow. I remember thinking at the time that if he was a murderer, he was certainly a cool one. Except for the marks of fatigue which were standard equipment for the members of the Grand Saint Petersburg Ballet Company that season, he could not have been more relaxed as he motioned me to the chair opposite him.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, ordering bourbon. “But I’ve been at the office, trying to keep the newspapers in line.”

  “They are like wolves,” said the old gentleman, placing a cigarette in his long onyx holder. “They smell blood and they want more of it.”

  “I know one thing: they’re crazy for an arrest.”

  “And this Inspector plans to give them one, I am sure.”

  “The wrong one, too, I’ll bet.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Alyosha sadly.

  “I wish I could head them off.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. I only meant I wished I could … because of Jane.”

  “Is she involved?”

  I was quick enough, fortunately, to get out of that one. I did some extraordinary feints and maneuvers. “We’re going to be married,” I said. “And all this is making things so difficult for us … her being in Wilbur’s new ballet … the strain of doing Eclipse night after night, terrified that someone may do the same thing to her that they did to Sutton. Well, it isn’t the most wonderful climate for love.”

  “Love makes its own climate,” said Alyosha with a warm smile. “Let me congratulate you.”

  “Thank you … I appreciate that.… But don’t say anything to the company about it … for now.”

  “I shall be very discreet.” He toasted me in tea and I toasted him in bourbon. We talked for a while of love and marriage and he told me about himself and Eglanova. “What a divine woman she is! I have never known any woman so without vanity or meanness. Oh, I know that seems strange since she is such an egotist about her work, but that is natural.… It is the ballet she cares about, not Eglanova. In a way it is like the priesthood for her, for us. You Americans are not quite the same thing. You think of money and glamour and all that, not of the thing itself, the dance, the work, the magic. In a way our marriage was perfect.”

  “But it ended.”

  “All things must … in our world sooner than later. I was infatuated with someone else and so it ended. Yet Anna never reproached me, not once.”

  “With Ella?”

  “Yes … I am afraid everyone knows. I made a fool of myself, but I don’t blame her. We were such different people. I thought first of ballet then of her and she thought only of herself; she thought because I loved her I’d give her the great roles but I saw that she wasn’t ready and I refused, thinking that ballet came first w
ith her, too, that she would know, as I knew, that she wasn’t ready. So she married Miles and suddenly, pouf! like that, she was ready: overnight she was a great ballerina. Sad woman … she ended the way she deserved.”

  “Did you hate her so?”

  “For a long time but not in the last year. I felt something would happen … I am not superstitious but I think sometimes a terrible deed casts a shadow before it. I saw the shadow some time ago. I knew she would not be allowed to live much longer … and I was sorry for her. After all, I had loved her once.”

  “I have some news,” I said, interrupting this mystical reverie.

  “News?” He put the onyx holder down and looked at me politely.

  “The police are going to arrest the murderer tomorrow.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I found out this afternoon … through the grapevine … the warrant is being prepared now.”

  “But they can’t do this to her … they can’t!” He fell with the grace of a dying swan into my little trap … unless of course I had fallen into his trap: at the moment, I wasn’t sure which, but I bluffed it through.

  “I’m afraid they can. After all, even a great dancer like Eglanova is at the mercy of the law.”

  “I know, but we must stop them.” He let his monocle drop; he was suddenly haggard-looking. “She mustn’t be brought to trial.”

  “But if she’s innocent she’ll be let off.”

  “Innocent!” he groaned.

  “Do you think she really killed Ella?”

  “Who else?” His voice was strained and it quavered; he sounded very old.

  “Did you talk to her about it?”

  “Never. We have never discussed Ella alone together since it happened. I knew. She knew that I knew, from the beginning. There was never anything to say.”

  “Did you talk like this to Gleason?”

  “Of course not. I made up lies! oh, such lies, such confusion! They may never straighten out all the things I tell them.”