by George Baxt
“I do not need any comments from you, Herr Wagner!” shouted Hitchcock, followed by some nervous tittering.
A woman’s shriek scythed through the stage. Farber turned in the direction of the sound.
“My father! My father!” screamed Rosie Wagner. “Somebody has murdered my father!”
Rudolf Wagner had fallen across the keyboard, a knife in his back and a frown on his face.
Four
Detective Inspector Wilhelm Farber was seething with indignation. How dare a murder occur practically under his very distinguished nose while he was investigating an earlier one? And again, no witnesses. The two violinists, who gave their names as Martin and Johann, claimed to have been busy sorting and selecting sheet music in the respite provided by the clumsy chorus girl. When they heard the cacophony from the keyboard, they thought it was Wagner giving vent to frustration and impatience.
“He was frequently frustrated and always impatient,” said Martin, wheezing, which he did when nervous.
Johann added, “I think he was also upset when he caught this person staring at him from behind that piece of scenery. “
Farber asked Hitchcock, who was now convinced his movie was jinxed, “Do you suppose it’s our friend with the shattered face?”
“I suppose it could be.” He asked the musicians, “Did either of you see this man?”
Johann scratched his chin. Martin shifted from one foot to the other. Both were uncomfortable and wary. Army veterans who distrusted and despised authority, they were old friends and survived by remaining trapped within the limits of their meager ambitions.
Farber prodded them. “A man has been seen around here with a terribly disfigured face. Did either of you see him?”
After a moment, Johann spoke. “I caught a glimpse of him yesterday. But not today. I didn’t see him today. Martin? Did you see this man?”
“I don’t see anybody but my sheet music. You know how lost I get when I’m concentrating.” He explained to Farber and Hitchcock. “I’m a very heavy concentrator. When I concentrate, I’m no use to anybody but myself.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been very helpful,” said Farber. Hitchcock wondered if he was often given to such bizarre overstatement. When they were out of earshot of the musicians, Farber said, “You have just witnessed two superb examples of why Germany is so slow in recovering from the disaster of the war. Two idiots. Well, Hitchcock, I am stumped.”
“We need a cup of strong tea.” He led the way to the refreshment cart. It was now almost two hours since Wagner’s murder, and Farber, with an efficiency that impressed the very fastidious director, had interrogated over two dozen people who had been stationed in the vicinity. The results were disheartening, but Farber never gave way to any emotional display of disappointment, even when Wagner’s daughter Rosie carried on in anguish and hysteria and had to be sedated, a performance Hitchcock and Alma found suspect, knowing the animosity between the girl and her father. One of Farber’s subordinates approached him as he stirred his tea and gave him some information. Farber listened gravely, thanked the man, and stared into his tea while Hitchcock wondered if the peasant type guarding the refreshment cart would challenge him to a hand wrestle if he reached for a pastry.
“Well, Herr Hitchcock,” said Farber, “it seems the knife that killed Wagner is the same weapon that killed Anna Grieban.”
Hitchcock’s eyes widened with astonishment. “You mean the murderer carried that weapon onto the lot, as brazen as you please?”
“Why not? It can be brought in a briefcase, a handbag, a paper bag containing presumably a sandwich and a piece of fruit; it could be concealed in a newspaper. And now we know for sure there was a link between Grieban and Wagner.”
“Perhaps they were lovers and a jealous lover decided to put paid to the situation.”
“I can’t much envision those two cooing at each other, could you?”
“I don’t remember noticing any intimacy between them here on the set. But on the other hand, I haven’t been noticing too much of anything except that I’m about to get behind in my shooting schedule and I can ill afford that. I know they’ve known each other for some time, but that’s not unusual in film circles, especially in one so incestuous as this one in Munich. Film people are terribly clubby, even when they despise each other.”
“How many more shooting days are left to your film?”
“I can afford another ten. Then I must start preparing the next one.”
“Well, maybe the solution will materialize before you are finished here.” Hitchcock doubted it, but did not voice the thought. He knew enough about murder to accept that, without witnesses or clues, the chances of apprehending the murderer would be slim.
“By the way,” asked Hitchcock, wondering that if in fact there was a clue, information that Farber might have elected to withhold from him, “were there any fingerprints on the knife?”
“The hilt was wiped clean. And, what’s worse, it’s an ordinary kitchen knife, one that can be bought all over the country. A very cheap utensil.”
“But effective.”
They saw Alma walking briskly toward them. “Ah so, Miss Reville,” said Farber with a smile, “and how is the daughter?”
“Well, you won’t believe this, but Rosie’s hysteria has developed into catatonia. She’s been taken to a sanatorium.” Alma took Hitchcock’s cup and sipped his tea. “Awful.”
“Yes, that’s very sad,” said Farber.
“I meant the tea.”
Hitchcock reclaimed the cup and, his face screwed up with thought, stared into space. Alma busied herself ordering coffee and a sandwich while Farber made notes in his pad. “I wonder if catatonia can be faked. “
“Not this case,” said Alma. “I was there in the studio doctor’s office. That nice young actor… what’s his name again… Hans something…”
“Meyer… Hans Meyer… he climbs mountains…”
“Yes, Hans Meyer. He helped carry her to the office.
We saw her sink into this spell and for a moment there the doctor thought she’d had a stroke or some form of apoplexy. She went all gray…”
“She was gray to begin with,” said Hitchcock.
“This was a paler shade, dear, and then she broke out into this dreadfully cold, clammy sweat, and you can’t fake that, my darling.”
“No, I suppose you can’t.”
“Anyway, Herr Farber, Im sure you’ll want to discuss this yourself with the doctor.”
“Oh, yes. I shall discuss it with the doctor. Then I shall write my report, and like the efficient detective that I am, I shall pursue all leads, especially when they are as nonexistent as in this case, and then go on to another case. And perhaps someday in the future, with any luck the near future, there will be a sudden stroke of luck and someone will remember something and bring it to me and I will have found my killer. And now, having shared one of my favorite fantasies with you, I shall go and speak with the doctor.” He patted Hitchcock on the shoulder and then, to Alma’s surprise, took Alma’s hand, the one holding the sandwich, and kissed it. “Ah,” he added, “knockwurst. How I adore knockwurst. “And with that, he went in search of the doctor.
“Well, for heaven’s sake! I’ve never had my hand kissed before.”
“Don’t become addicted. I’m not versed in continental manners. I suppose there’s no point in resuming shooting until after the lunch break.”
“The company’s been at lunch for the past half hour. I told the third assistant to let them go when we took Rosie to the doctor’s office. I might also add, our two American stars have gone back to their hotels…”
“No!”
“… much too upset by Wagner’s murder to be of any use to us in front of the camera. They promise to be on hand bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“That blows it.” He sought the comfort of the pastry tray.
“Not at all. I took the liberty of laying on a sequence of atmosphere shots you can take wi
th the chorus, the dress extras, et cetera, et cetera, and that can give us a full afternoon’s work. Besides, it’ll give you more footage to work with when we get down to editing. It’ll give the film a bit of an expensive look.”
Hitchcock smiled warmly as he caressed Alma’s cheek. “You are devilishly clever, Miss Reville. Promise to remain forever on my team.”
She crossed her heart with an exaggerated gesture. “Now what do you think?”
“About what?”
“The murders, of course.”
“Frankly, I’m not too sure what to think.” He shared the information he’d received from the detective, and then they walked about the set for a while in silence. “It’s patently obvious Anna and Wagner were mixed up in something together, or perhaps were privy to the same dangerous information.”
“What kind of information, do you think?”
“I’m not quite sure. The disfigured face has something to do with it, I’ll bet my last shilling on that. You know, there’s Anna Grieban’s husband.”
“Presumed missing in action.”
“Not at all. We don’t know that for a fact at all. All we know is there’s no sign or word of him after the war. He was supposed to be something special in the looks department.”
“Hitch! Do you suppose the disfigured face is Grieban’s husband?”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking, strangely enough.”
“And if he is, he came back and found her having an affair with Wagner and killed them.”
“In 1925, seven years after the war ended? That’s a terribly long period of procrastination, especially for a jealous husband.”
“Supposing he was in hospital all these years, getting his face patched up.”
“We’ve seen the results. He should sue.”
“Skip the levity and concentrate on the facts.” They were sitting on the stage of The Pleasure Garden, Alma having long since lost interest in her sandwich and now nursing her coffee. “He could have been sequestered in hospital for a good many years. We know of such cases in England. Let’s say three or four years.” She paused.
“I’m waiting.” The company was beginning to straggle back to the stage, and Hitchcock was anxious to get on with his job.
“Then he’s finally released. Looking the way he does and being the decent sort…”
“Decent sorts don’t commit murders.”
“They do in a fit of passion. Even decent sorts turn indecent when sex rears its inquisitive head.”
“How would you know, Miss Susy Prude?”
“I’ve read Elinor Glyn. Anyway, upon leaving hospital and being decent about it, he remains in the background.”
“Wouldn’t Grieban know he was in hospital?”
“It’s more than likely she didn’t know. The way his face was shattered, dear God knows what happened to the rest of his body. How the poor soul must have suffered.” She looked anguished for a moment and then continued her dissertation. “Probably everything or just about everything of his was blown away…”
“Oh, my dear, not everything!”
“… his identification tags… all that sort of thing…”
“But there’s one flaw in your theory.”
“And what’s that?”
“His fingerprints. From the brief glimpses we’ve had of him, his fingers appeared to be quite intact.”
“Hitch, must you be so tiresome?”
He got to his feet. “Time to get back to work.” Then he went strangely silent.
“What’s wrong?”
“You said this actor Hans Meyer helped carry Rosie Wagner to the doctor’s office.”
“Yes, he appeared quite concerned.”
“What was he still doing hanging about? I saw him early this morning. I thought I’d gotten rid of him.”
“Well, obviously you hadn’t.”
“I wonder if he’s still around. “
“No, he went with Rosie in the ambulance.”
“A total stranger accompanies the afflicted mouse to the sanatorium? How odd.”
“Perhaps he wasn’t a total stranger. You said the film community here was wholly incestuous.”
“I somehow got the impression that the unappetizing Rosie Wagner wasn’t the sort to be offered up on anybody’s plate. Farber shared that opinion too.”
“Oh, come now, Hitch, We know loads of men and women who dote on ugliness. What’s her name, that musical-comedy actress, the one who haunts the alleyways under the bridges in search of derelicts, and what’s his name, that strange playwright who absolutely goes ga-ga over women with deformities? And what’s his name, the author who left his wife to run off to Switzerland with a double amputee?”
“Why, my dear Miss Reville, I am thoroughly astonished at this revelation of the underbelly of your education.”
“Don’t play the innocent with me.”
“Well, I suppose Herr Farber—I find him a charming man, by the way—will be on to Hans Meyer. It’s not our problem. Our problem is right here…” which he emphasized with a wide gesture of his hands that seemed to encompass the entire stage, “so let’s get to work.”
La-la-la-la… la-la-la…
“Oh dear,” said Alma, as her voice choked on the last la, “poor Rudolf Wagner will never ever be published.” And to Hitchcock’s perplexed astonishment, she burst into tears.
In London, long past business hours, a light still blazed in an office in Whitehall. Sir Arthur Willing was a tall, solidly built, distinguished-looking gentleman in his midforties. Now slouched in a chair at a conference table, he seemed to his colleagues to have shrunk. The two men with him watched as Sir Arthur carefully applied a lighted match to the bowl of his brier pipe. The other men were undoubtedly subordinates because they sat patiently like subordinates, waiting for their chief to light his pipe satisfactorily and address them. The thin young man with sparse red hair was named Nigel Pack. Nigel was now two hours late for a supper date with a secretary, but she was so besotted with him that she had told him he could arrive at her flat at any hour of the night and be warmly welcomed. It was a flat she shared with two other girls, but fortunately, they had separate bedrooms. Sitting across from Nigel was another young man, whose name was Basil Cole. Basil’s sideburns and mustache met on his cheeks to give him the look of a perpetually inquisitive simian. Women sometimes weren’t sure whether they were expected to kiss him or feed him peanuts.
“Well, now,” said Sir Arthur, as he sat back with a discontented look on his face, “as my father would have said in a rare sober moment, we are in the shit.”
“It’s not all that bad, sir, is it?” asked Nigel.
“Oh, not all that bad,” mocked Sir Arthur. “We lose two of our best informants in Munich, which means God knows if the others are in jeopardy too, and the man says, ‘It’s not all that bad, sir,’ as though he were diagnosing a sprained ankle. And what do you think, Cole?”
Basil Cole folded his arms and spoke with authority. “I agree with your father. We’re in the shit.”
“And there’s nothing we can do about it either,” added Sir Arthur morosely. He turned to Nigel. “I suppose the others have been cautioned?”
“Duncan has gone to ground somewhere in upper Bavaria. The other one has chosen to brazen it out in Munich so he can keep an eye on Hitchcock and Miss Reville.”
Sir Arthur leaned forward with his hands folded on the table, a pained expression on his face. “Exactly what is there about them that makes them so suspicious?”
“Miss Reville did seem to be playing up to Rudolf Wagner a bit.” It was Nigel Pack who had spoken, and Basil Cole shifted in his chair.
Sir Arthur said, “Well, Wagner did have a bit of a reputation for womanizing, didn’t he? He’d been having it off with Grieban, hadn’t he?”
Basil Cole said, “Well, hadn’t just about everyone? We know the woman for an easy mark. For a while there she was out on the streets. Her dossier tells us she sold her body to everyone but science.
”
“She was a good operator.” And for Sir Arthur, that was the supreme accolade. “Aren’t Miss Reville and Hitchcock engaged to be married?” Cole nodded. “Neither one of them has been previously involved?”
“That’s right,” said Cole.
“So I hardly think it likely Miss Reville was trying to arouse Wagner’s sexual interest.”
Nigel Pack picked up the thread of conversation. “But she did trouble to memorize the melody, and that’s most bothersome.”
“It’s a charming melody,” said Sir Arthur. “I’d hate to lose it.”
“It’s safe,” said Cole.
“You mean so far it’s safe,” said Pack.
“At any rate, Reville did recommend Wagner’s talent as a composer to the director Fritz Lang.”
“Well, that’s what’s bothering me,” said Sir Arthur, suddenly getting to his feet and pacing the room. “His wife’s quietly active with this Hitler movement. She’s a known anti-Semite.”
“We’re not without those in our own midst,” said Cole. “But not as virulently active as she is. That woman could be dangerous. Do you suppose she tried to recruit Hitchcock and Reville?”
“We don’t know that for a fact,” said Pack, “but they’ll bear closer watching in the future. They’re staying on in Munich for another film. And that’s a rather sudden decision.”
“Not all that sudden,” said Basil Cole. “Balcon’s operation…”
“Balcon?” snapped Sir Arthur.
“Michael Balcon. Hitchcock’s producer and very good friend.” Basil Cole was now referring to some papers on the table in front of him. “Balcon’s operation is a hand-to-mouth existence. He makes his deals where and when he can. Apparently the German side is quite pleased with Hitchcock’s work and opted to continue with a second film. This one’s to be called The Mountain Eagle.”
“This could all be part of a clever plot to provide Hitchcock and Reville with a cover to keep them in Munich without arousing any suspicion, couldn’t it?” Sir Arthur was having trouble with his pipe and seemed about to declare war on the bowl of tobacco, which refused to remain ignited.