Murder, Stage Left

by Robert Goldsborough

  She leaned forward, lips pursed, and placed a hand on his desk. “Who told you that?” she demanded.

  “Is it true?”

  “Oh, I did make a few suggestions from time to time, nothing that I would call major changes.”

  “How did Mr. Breckenridge react to your suggestions?”

  “He agreed with some, disagreed with others,” she said. “I do not see where this is relevant.”

  “Perhaps it is not,” Wolfe conceded. “Did you enjoy amicable relations with others in the cast?”

  “Amicable? I suppose so. They all knew their lines and were well prepared, at least most of the time. That goes a long way toward ensuring good relations on any production.”

  “How did you feel about Mr. Lester, a newcomer to what is termed legitimate theater, joining the company?”

  Ashley inhaled. “I will be honest. I did not know what to expect, given his lack of stage experience,” she said. “In the time since Brad joined us, I must say I have been pleasantly surprised.”

  “Do you have thoughts as to why Mr. Breckenridge chose him?”

  More inhaling. “All I can surmise is that Roy felt his name had . . . box-office appeal.”

  “There were others in the cast—albeit two of them young—who had Broadway credits, yourself, of course, included. Do you feel it was necessary for the producer to choose a man whose career was defined by motion pictures?”

  “I do not know the answer, Mr. Wolfe,” she said stiffly.

  “Did you ever raise that question with Mr. Breckenridge?”

  “I do recall being somewhat surprised at the choice, and in fact, I did ask Roy about it. He said, ‘I always like to take chances, and I’m taking one on Brad. I think he’s got what it takes to handle the role.’”

  “Did it bother you that Mr. Lester was billed ahead of you?”

  “I find that question to be offensive!”

  “Why? I should think you would have had every right to be offended that you were not given top billing. Given your experience, it would have been a natural reaction from one who has a healthy sense of self.”

  “I don’t have to take this from you any longer,” she said, standing.

  “Sit down, Ashley!” Lewis Hewitt said, now on his feet. “This is a murder investigation. You cannot just walk out of here!”

  “Investigation—by a private eye? What kind of an investigation is that?” she fired back, small fists clenched.

  “I said, sit down!” I had known Hewitt for a number of years, albeit not well, and I had always considered him to be genial and gregarious, but this was a side of the man I had not seen. I could tell even Wolfe was impressed by his commanding demeanor and was thankful for it.

  Ashley Williston sat, teeth clenched and hands in her lap, looking like a petulant child. She clearly knew Hewitt was now the key to her future, at least as far as Death at Cresthaven was concerned.

  “Assuming you get information you feel is germane from the advertisement, do you plan to share it with the police?” Wolfe asked.

  She smiled tightly. “I suppose so, of course. Were you hoping I would share it with you?”

  “Only if you saw fit.”

  “I have been doing some research on you, Mr. Wolfe,” Ashley said, “and I have learned that you have a longtime assistant named Archie Goodwin. Yet he is not here. Not that there is anything wrong with your man Mr. Panzer, whom I have just met,” she said, favoring Saul with a thin smile.

  “Mr. Goodwin is otherwise occupied.”

  “Of course. I am sure you often handle several cases at once. Do you have anything else to ask me?”

  “Not at present.”

  “Well, I have something to ask you—all of you, really. What is the current condition of poor Max?”

  “He remains comatose, and his condition continues to be critical, but stable,” Hewitt said.

  “Well, that is something, anyway. May I leave now, Lewis?” she asked. “Or do any of you have further questions?”

  Hewitt looked at Wolfe, who moved his head back and forth a fraction of an inch. “I do not. Thank you for coming. Mr. Panzer will show you out.”

  Ashley rose smoothly and glided from the room without a backward look, as if she were leaving the stage at the close of an act. The only thing missing was applause.

  I got back to the office and had settled in at my desk when Saul returned from escorting Ashley Williston to the front door. “You certainly took your time,” I said. “Did the lady beguile you?”

  “You know how it is, Archie. Some got it, some don’t. I just happen to be one of the lucky ones.”

  “Yeah, put me down as envious.”

  “If we can dispense with the raillery, I would like each of your thoughts regarding Miss Williston,” Wolfe said as he polished off his second beer.

  “You mean you are actually soliciting our opinions?” I asked, feigning surprise. “Okay, I will go first: When I met her during my time masquerading as Alan MacGregor, boy reporter, I thought she was arrogant, self-centered, and narcissistic. Watching her today only confirmed my original appraisal. As to whether she is capable of murder, my vote is still out.”

  “But if she were the murderer,” Hewitt said, “would she spend a substantial amount on an advertisement soliciting information about the killing?”

  “That might be just the thing a murderer would do to deflect suspicion from oneself,” Panzer put in. “Besides, she figures to be a wealthy woman. The ad’s cost would hardly put a dent in her pocketbook.”

  “I must agree with Saul,” Wolfe said. “A wily murderer—and our Miss Williston manifestly possesses wiles—might well behave as she has. This woman is a machinator.”

  “Interesting that she took notice of Archie’s absence,” Hewitt observed. “Do you feel she added things up and came to the conclusion that he and Alan MacGregor are one and the same?”

  “I do not,” Wolfe said. “She is far too self-absorbed to make such a deduction.”

  “You have the rest of the day to recover from Miss Williston’s visit before the arrival of yet another female in the brownstone,” I told Wolfe. “Melissa Cartwright will come calling at nine tonight.”

  He answered with a glower.

  Chapter 25

  I found myself increasingly space deprived, given that I had spent so much time on my feet in that alcove no larger than a Manhattan telephone booth—make that a small Manhattan phone booth. The good news was that I probably would have to use the peephole only two or three more times during this case: to observe the interviews with Melissa Cartwright tonight and Brad Lester tomorrow morning and—just maybe—to watch over a gathering of the whole crew in the office for what Cramer refers to as one of Wolfe’s “charades.”

  “Tell me your thoughts about this young Cartwright woman,” Saul Panzer asked me as we sat in the office with Lewis Hewitt a few minutes before she was scheduled to arrive.

  “She is young, close to thirty, attractive although not what I would term beautiful, and enthusiastic about her burgeoning career. She has a freshness about her that borders on naïveté, which means she can easily play an ingénue. Would you agree?” I asked Hewitt.

  “Pretty much. I can’t say that I know her well at all, but she seems to make friends quickly and be easy to work with. She—”

  The doorbell rang, my cue to disappear yet again. From the peephole, I watched Saul escort Melissa into the office and get her seated in the red leather chair. She wore low-heeled white sandals and a simple and demure light-green summer dress that went well with her red hair. She nodded and said a soft hello to Hewitt and then looked around the office in awe, focusing on the big Gouchard world globe with its diameter of thirty-two-plus inches. Here we had the ideal suspect in a classic whodunit mystery, the person least likely to commit a murder, I thought. She is a picture of fresh
-faced innocence—in other words, the perfect killer.

  Wolfe walked into the office, dipped his chin slightly in our guest’s direction, and got himself seated while placing yellow Odontoglossums in the vase on his desk. He asked our guest if she desired something to drink—she didn’t—then pushed the buzzer for beer, which Fritz delivered. If Melissa was surprised at Wolfe’s appearance, she did not show it.

  “I trust it has not been an inconvenience for you to come here today,” he said.

  “No sir, not in the least; I will do anything I can to help. All of this has been awful,” she replied, licking her lips.

  “You are among the younger players in the Death at Cresthaven cast. Have the more senior members of the troupe treated you well?”

  “Oh, they have, by all means,” she said, nodding vigorously.

  “How would you describe your relations with Mr. Breckenridge?” Wolfe asked.

  Melissa took a deep breath before answering. “He was a very encouraging person, very positive.”

  “Did everyone else involved with the production get along well with him?”

  “As far as I know,” she said, nodding again.

  “How about Miss Williston? She is in possession of a very strong personality.”

  “Ashley has . . . a lot of ideas, and she wants to share them.”

  “Good ideas?”

  “Some of them are. But on occasion, Mr. Breckenridge reminded her—nicely, of course—that he was the director.”

  “How did she react to these squelches?”

  “Well, I would not call them squelches exactly,” Melissa said, shifting in her chair. “They were really more like gentle reminders that he was the one in charge. These reminders caused Ashley to become, well . . . I would say more subdued.”

  “And not altogether happy?”

  “Yes, that’s true.” She looked at Hewitt and then at Saul as if seeking affirmation. “Um . . . might I have some water?”

  Wolfe dipped his chin at Saul, who went to the kitchen, coming back in less than a minute with a glass of water with ice.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m battling a summer cold. You know how it is, going from the heat outside to air-conditioning and then back to the heat again, et cetera.”

  Wolfe did not know, of course, as he rarely left home. He waited a few seconds before continuing. “Overall, would you say the morale of the cast was high?”

  Yet another nod. “It seemed like it to me. I’ve been in a few Broadway productions before, and I would say this was pretty typical of the morale in those other shows.”

  “Can you conceive of any reason someone would want to kill Mr. Breckenridge?”

  “No, I cannot, sir,” she said, kneading her small hands in her lap.

  “Who were you closest to in the cast?”

  Melissa closed her eyes, as if thinking about the question. “I guess . . . it would have to be Max—Mr. Ennis.”

  “Indeed? Why was that?”

  “Well, I confided in him when I had a problem. He was a good listener and very sympathetic.”

  “What was the nature of these confidences?”

  “Mostly involving my family back in Michigan. After thirty-five years of marriage, my parents are getting a divorce, and I am sick about it, but I could not return home because of our performance schedule.”

  “What about now? The show is in abeyance.”

  She sighed. “The only good thing about what has happened is that I am able to return to Lansing. I’m taking the train there in a few days, and I will try to get them to reconcile, but I am not optimistic.”

  “Back to Mr. Ennis. Can you think of a reason why he would attempt to kill himself?”

  “No, I can’t, unless it was because of his health. Max seemed to be in pain much of the time, although he did an awfully good job of hiding it, especially when he was onstage.”

  “Did he discuss his condition with you?”

  “No, never. He was always willing to listen to my problems, but he never shared his own troubles with me. He was a very self-sufficient individual. I asked him once if there was anything I could do, but he seemed embarrassed by the question and the attention, and he insisted he was fine, although I knew that definitely was not the case.”

  “Do you find it unusual that arsenic, probably in rat poison, was involved both in Mr. Breckenridge’s death and Mr. Ennis’s apparent suicide attempt?”

  “I was not aware of that.”

  “One might be tempted to make the case that Max Ennis poisoned Mr. Breckenridge and then utilized the same substance in an attempt to do away with himself.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Melissa said, leaning forward and showing emotion for the first time.

  “Did you not tell the police you overheard Messrs. Brecken­ridge and Ennis having a heated argument?” Wolfe asked.

  “Yes, yes, I did. I heard them in Max’s dressing room as I was walking down the hall. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, and I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but they both sounded angry, very angry.”

  “Did you mention this to anyone?”

  “Uh . . . yes, I did. I told that policeman, the one who always seems to be angry himself.”

  “Inspector Cramer?”

  “Yes, that’s the man.”

  “In his job, he has a lot to be angry about,” Saul said.

  “After hearing this exchange, did you observe anything backstage or perhaps in rehearsals that suggested a reason for the apparent animosity?” Wolfe posed.

  “No, nothing that I could see, sir.”

  “How would you describe your relationship to Mr. Peters?”

  Melissa looked surprised. “Steve? Why do you ask?”

  “He is the person nearest your age in the cast. I am curious as to whether that may have drawn you closer together.”

  “Well, we are close to the same age, of course, and Steve is a very likable person. So I guess you could say we’ve become somewhat friendly as we’ve gotten to know each other.”

  “How would you define ‘somewhat friendly’?”

  That brought color to her cheeks. “I am not sure what you mean.”

  “Come now, Miss Cartwright. Did your friendship extend beyond what might be expected in an amiable professional relationship?”

  “I do not really think that is anyone’s business,” she said with a sniff. Her primness was getting on my nerves.

  “Normally, I would agree,” Wolfe replied evenly. “However, this is a discussion involving a murder along with what appears to be a suicide attempt. I am sure the police already have asked you questions that made you uncomfortable.”

  “They did not ask me about Steve.”

  “But I am.”

  “I think I would like to leave now,” she said, easing out of her chair.

  “Melissa, please sit down and answer Mr. Wolfe,” Hewitt told her in a tone that was at once both soft and firm.

  She sat. “I am finding this very uncomfortable,” the actress said. Whatever else you do, don’t start crying, I thought. If she did, Wolfe would then march out of the room.

  “Go on,” Hewitt urged her.

  “Steve and I . . . We like each other, quite a lot.”

  “Was this mutual attraction obvious to others in the company?” Wolfe asked.

  “I really don’t think so. By design, we rarely spoke to each other backstage or downstairs, except when necessary. At those times we spent together, meeting for a lunch or taking a walk, it was always far from the theater, often down in the Village, where others from the cast were not likely to go.”

  “It has been suggested that Miss Williston was attracted to Mr. Peters.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The source is irrelevant,” Wolfe said. “Is it true?”

  “S
he is not a terribly nice person,” Melissa replied, taking a deep breath. “Have you spoken to her?”

  “I have.”

  “Then you must know what she is like,” Melissa said, anger now creeping into her voice.

  “How did Mr. Peters react to the woman’s advances?”

  “He hated it, he absolutely hated it! He told me Ashley made his flesh crawl—that is exactly the phrase he used. But he felt he had to maintain good relations with her. After all, she does have a lot of influence in the theater community, and it is not smart to get on her bad side.”

  “Did he tell you what ‘maintaining good relations with her’ entailed?”

  “Not in so many words, but I have now come to know Steve well enough to be absolutely positive that he had no interest whatever in the so-called charms of Miss Ashley Williston.”

  “It would seem the intrigues among members of the production have led to a high degree of tension.”

  Melissa pursed her lips and nodded. “It is natural to come to that conclusion, all right. However, rehearsals always went fairly smoothly, and the relatively few performances we staged before . . . before what happened were well received, both by reviewers and the audiences. It seemed like we were going to have a long run, until, well . . .”

  “If this production is forced to close down permanently, what will you do?” Wolfe asked.

  “I suppose I will try to find something else on Broadway, if I am lucky. Otherwise, perhaps a production in some smaller theater, hopefully right here in New York. I can tell you this: I certainly do not want to go back home to Lansing permanently, under any circumstances.”

  “I must excuse myself and tend to other business,” Wolfe said, rising and walking out without another word.

  Melissa looked at Hewitt and then at Panzer with a puzzled expression. “Did I offend him?”

  “It was not anything you said,” Saul assured her. “Mr. Wolfe tends toward brevity and does not indulge in small talk.”

  “Mr. Panzer is right,” Hewitt added. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “Do you think there is any hope that the show will start up again?” she asked him.