Lady in Peril

by Ben Ames Williams

  Tope nodded his assent and moved briskly toward the door. He saw Madison wiping his brow, his bald head; ordering his collar and tie before facing the eyes of the audience. The old man passed behind the boxes and came to where Clint and Clara and Miss Moss were sitting; and as he joined them, Madison came before the curtain and made his apologetic announcement. The murmuring crowd began to press in a great relief toward the doors.

  Clara stood up quickly; but Tope spoke to her restrainingly.

  “They want us to wait, Miss Jervis,” he explained. He pointed out: “You were back there between the acts, and during the second act. The Inspector in charge, Hagan is his name, wants to find out what you saw.”

  Clara cried: “No!” There was, to Tope’s ears, something like hysteria in her tones. “We didn’t see anything, don’t know anything,” she protested. “He has no right . . .”

  But Tope urged gently: “You want to help all you can, Miss Jervis. A man dead. That is serious business, for everyone. Nothing to be afraid of, to be panicky, or nervous; but a matter for cool heads, and straight thinking. You’ll see that . . .”

  But the girl insisted: “I won’t. I don’t know anything . . .”

  Miss Moss spoke crisply. “Clara, be still,” she said. And to Inspector Tope: “We will wait, of course.” And she asked: “What have they found out? What do they know?”

  Tope answered soberly: “Not much, ma’am. This man came to see Miss Cyr. And he’s dead in her dressing room. That’s all I heard.”

  “What does she say?” Clint asked sharply; but Tope shook his head.’

  “She’s upset, hasn’t been able to talk yet,” he replied.

  The audience had slipped away; and now ushers moved about the house, turning up seats with sharp, slapping sounds. The cleaning women began to appear. Miss Moss rose.

  “We might move into one of the boxes,” she suggested. “To be out of their way.”

  Tope agreed, and he led them through the row of seats to the side aisle, along the aisle to the box nearest. The door that admitted to the stage was just beyond. The lights in the theatre had been dimmed; only enough illumination remained to suffice for the work of house cleaning that now began. The old man saw them all seated, and he was about to return to the stage again, when Hagan appeared in the entrance of the box beside them here.

  They swung to look at him, and Inspector Tope, who was not likely to miss any betraying movement, even though he never appeared to be looking in more than one direction at a time, saw Clara’s hand press her throat. Then he introduced Hagan to them all, and Hagan said, in an apologetic tone:

  “We’re waiting for Doc Gero. That’s the medical examiner. But I’d like to ask you folks a few questions while we’re waiting.”

  Miss Moss said composedly: “We wish to help in every possible way.”

  Hagan nodded. “Naturally,” he agreed. He spoke to Clint, watching both the young people. “You were back there, all through the second act?”

  “Yes, sir,” Clint assured him.

  “Where did you go when you went back?” Hagan asked; and Clint considered for a moment, and then he said slowly: “I went to Mat’s dressing room. Mat Hews. It’s across from Miss Ransom’s; and Clara went in with her. When Hews and Miss Ransom went on, we stayed in the wings, watching the show. And after the curtain, we came out here.” Tope wondered whether Hagan would find this brief statement curiously incomplete; but Hagan only nodded twice, as though recording their movements in his memory, and he asked: “You know where Miss Cyr had her dressing room?”

  “Yes, sir,” Clint assented.

  “Could you see it, from where you were?”

  “No, you couldn’t very well see it unless you were behind the back drop that runs across behind the stage.”

  “So you didn’t see anyone go in or out of her dressing room?”

  “No. No sir.”

  “You see this man that came to call on her? A tall man, in evening clothes, with a soft black hat and a dark overcoat?” Clint said: “I must have been in Mat’s dressing room when he came in.”

  “You didn’t see him?” Hagan insisted.

  “No!”

  And Clara cried hotly: “He told you he didn’t! Why do you ask him again? What do you suppose we know about it? Why do you keep asking us? Mr. Hammond ran away, didn’t he? Isn’t that enough for you? I won’t have you . . .”

  Hagan said gravely: “Why, Miss Jervis, it’s my job to . . . Hullo, Dunning?”

  For while he spoke, Dunning had appeared in the curtained doorway of the box. The officer reported: “Doc Gero’s here. Looking at the body now.”

  Inspector Hagan rose. “Excuse me, folks,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll be back. You wait here!”

  He turned away; and Tope, after a moment’s hesitation, looked at Miss Moss. She nodded as though in a command to him; so he followed Hagan through the stage door once more. Hagan said over his shoulder to the older man:

  “The girl knows something!”

  But he seemed to expect no reply, and Tope made none. Around Lola Cyr’s dressing room, a score of people now were gathered, standing in little groups and clusters, watching that closed door. Hagan opened the door and went in, but Tope stayed outside. He surveyed the folk around him; and then he saw Mat Hews. The older man smiled at the younger; and Mat asked in a low tone:

  “Is Clara all right?”

  “She’s upset,” said Tope. “That’s all.”

  The boy frowned ruefully. “Of course,” he agreed.

  Tope watched him. “But she needn’t be,” he suggested. “She and her brother were in your dressing room, or Miss Ransom’s, all through the intermission. They didn’t see anything, didn’t see anyone come in. They told Hagan so.”

  Mat looked at the older man. “They did?” he asked, and his lips were stiff.

  “So they’re all right,” Inspector Tope repeated. “Hagan wants to talk to them a little more, that’s all.”

  Young Mat Hews lighted a cigarette attentively, and he moved away. The Inspector watched him, but he waited here beside the closed door. He had time for thought, and things to think about.

  More than once, in these many years of his service, he had acted upon a guess, a hunch, a premonition, an instinctive certainty without factual proof to support it. To use any capacity is to develop it; Tope could read a riddle that might utterly perplex another man. It seemed to him that he read in some measure this whole riddle now. When after a time Hagan came out of the dressing room with Doctor Gero, Tope approached them. He knew the doctor of old; they had worked together many times; they clasped hands now, and Hagan said briefly:

  “He was shot. One shot. Thirty-two, Doc says. Close range. And the gun is gone.”

  He added: “Doc knows him, too.”

  Inspector Tope looked inquiringly at Gero, and the Medical Examiner nodded.

  “I used to know him, that is,” he corrected. “He was a doctor here in town; something shady about him; chased women more than he should. A fellow named Canter!”

  Tope stood very still; and Doctor Gero reflected: “He was likely to end this way, in some woman’s dressing room, with a bullet in him. He was that kind of man!”

  Inspector Tope remained a moment more with wagging head, his hands swinging. Then he turned aside, and he said: “I’ll be with Miss Moss and the Jervis children, Hagan. When you want them.”

  Hagan assented, and Tope moved away.

  He found these three in the box where he had left them, Clara still as stone, Clint and Miss Moss talking quietly. Their eyes rose to meet his as he appeared; and the Inspector sat down, and he said briskly:

  “Well, things are clearing up. The dead man is a doctor named Canter.”

  He saw, from the corner of his eye, Clara’s shuddering movement; but Miss Moss assented calmly.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I thought that must be so!”

  6

  INSPECTOR Tope had a masterly gift for inactivity. He could strike swift
and surely when he chose; but also he could wait, as passive as a turtle on a rock, for days on end. He had built his professional career on the belief that if you give a thief—or a murderer—enough rope, he will hang himself. So tonight he was content to play the part of spectator and nothing more.

  Yet though it was true that as he had told Miss Moss he was no longer an officer of the law and bound to its enforcement, this could not prevent his speculations, his shrewd and wise conjectures. And in this particular matter, he had a new and keener interest in watching Miss Moss, in marking how she foresaw each step in the progress of events. An hour ago she had startled him by voicing a question that had only begun to take shape in his own mind. She had asked Clint: “Did Miss Cyr have a caller between the acts; was this man larger than Mr. Hammond?” And now again, when she heard the incredible news that the dead man was that same Doctor Canter who had tended Clarence Peace after his accident two years ago, who had involved Clara Jervis in an ugly scandal, who was presumably in California even now, her only comment was:

  “I thought that must be so!”

  To Inspector Tope himself the identification of the dead man had come as a complete surprise; so it was the more astonishing to him that Miss Moss showed no surprise at all. And he wondered whether this were because she had facts unknown to him upon which to base her conclusions, or whether it was merely that her instinct was more alert than his. She was a woman, he perceived, whose attainments were not easily to be matched by any man . . .

  “A doctor named Canter, yes,” he heard himself saying, in a matter-of-fact tone, as though this name could have no meaning to these others here. “Doctor Gero, the Medical Examiner, knew him. Gave him a bad character.”

  Miss Moss reflected: “I presume he was shot during the cannonade in the second act, or someone would have heard.”

  “He was shot, yes,” Tope assented. In the dim light here his eyes were screened, but they were attentive too. For he had not told them the manner of this killing.

  She seemed to read his thoughts; she said simply: “He was shot, was he not?”

  And Tope nodded. “He was,” he agreed. “I wondered how you knew.”

  Miss Moss considered him with a grave attention. “I suppose,” she suggested, “that we are all suspects, just now. Yet—you and I were together, Inspector.” She smiled faintly. “Need you try to trap me?”

  The old man sat with wagging head. He looked at her, and he looked at Clint and Clara here. The girl, he saw, was more composed than she had been a while ago. Clint leaned taut and tender by her side, somehow protectingly; but Clara’s head was high, her eyes were steady. And Tope spoke to them and to Miss Moss together, with a sober gravity.

  “Why, I’ll tell you, ma’am,” he proposed. “You’re sensible, and so am I. Let’s have some calm, sensible talk together.”

  He leaned forward, his fat hands upon his knees. “Here it is,” he said. “I’ve been in a lot of affairs like this; and there’s always someone, and sometimes a lot of people, afraid of getting mixed up in it, or afraid of something else. So they tell part of the truth, or none of the truth. Or sometimes they lie!”

  He paused, went on:

  “Now, ma’am, there’s this about a lie. It can’t stand alone. It’s got to have other lies to prop it up. You have to be mighty clever, and have a mighty good memory, to make a lie stand up in a thing like this.

  “And there’s another angle, too. If there’s been a killing, and you haven’t had any part in that, it don’t matter what else you’ve done. The police want the killer, and they want him quick; and they don’t care if you’ve robbed, or burned, or stole, or what not. So long as you’re not in the killing, they’re not thinking about you, right at the time.”

  He hesitated, and these three sat very still. He said at last more gently:

  “What I’m trying to tell you all is this. I know, and we all know, that Miss Jervis or her brother here didn’t kill this man. Neither one of them. If they had, they’d have acted different. But we all know that they saw this Doctor Canter back there, and maybe talked to him. It’s certain they’ve got something they ought to tell. Only they’re afraid. Miss Jervis is afraid of being mixed up somehow in it, and Clint is afraid for her . . .”

  Clint interjected in a slow heat: “Clara’s all right! I won’t have her dragged in. Canter had it coming to him. Plenty!”

  “He got it—plenty,” Tope reminded them. “And that’s all right. But you folks made a mistake.” His tone was almost pleading. “You told Hagan you didn’t see Canter back there. Well, I know you did; and you can be sure there were others saw you looking at him, and maybe talking to him. If you’d been one of the actors, or a stage hand, or something, nobody would have paid any attention to you, or noticed what you did. But you were an outsider, and Miss Jervis too, and Canter; and it’s safe to say that someone saw every move you made.” He pounded his knee in a sober emphasis. “The thing I’m telling you is, don’t lie; don’t hide things. Tell Inspector Hagan the truth. Help him all you can. Because the sooner this is cleared up, the better for all of you.”

  There was a moment’s silence; and he watched them, waited.

  But Clara said at last: “You don’t understand, Inspector.” She smiled faintly. “You can’t understand, I expect; because you’ve been a policeman so long. But you see, people are brought up now to be afraid of policemen. Suppose you’re driving a car and you see a policeman ahead. You always slow down, just a little, instinctively. Because no one ever knows when he is going to be arrested, summoned to court, fined for some traffic violation. Maybe it didn’t used to be so, before automobiles, but we all break laws now. No one drives a car around the block without breaking two or three laws. So we’re all criminals, and we’re all mistrustful of policemen. They have so much power! If a policeman stops your car and takes you to court for speeding, you haven’t a chance, even though all the other cars on the street were going just as fast as you were. You’ll be convicted, and fined . . . It happens to all of us. We all know policemen are tyrannous, and treacherous, when they choose to be, and lenient to some and hard on others; so we’re bound to be afraid of them! And when a person is afraid, he will always lie!”

  Tope wagged his head. “I know,” he agreed. “That’s true. A lot of it. It hadn’t ought to be so; and it didn’t used to be so. I can remember when I was a youngster, if a thing was against the law, you didn’t do it. And grown-ups weren’t afraid of policemen. But now, most people have either been to court or they’ve got out of going by knowing someone that could take care of them.”

  He urged slowly: “But this is murder, Miss. You can trust Inspector Hagan in this. I’m giving you good advice. Honest I am!”

  Clara laughed softly, touched his hand. “There!” she whispered. “You’re nice! Even if you are a policeman, I’m not afraid of you . . .”

  So Inspector Tope understood that these young people would go their own gait for all his urgencies; and he sighed wearily and said no more. They sat waiting, in the dim-lit auditorium where the cleaning women were finishing their tasks; and by and by a policeman in uniform, young Tim O’Malley, came to fetch them. He appeared in the entrance to the box and spoke to Inspector Tope.

  “Hagan wants you folks, Inspector,” he explained.

  “Hello, Tim,” Tope returned. “All right, we’ll come along.”

  Clara, a sudden tremor in her tones, protested: “If he wants to see me, he can come out here!”

  But Miss Moss rose briskly, and she collected her belongings; her pocketbook, her glasses, her handkerchief.

  “Nonsense, Clara!” she exclaimed. And to O’Malley: “Of course, we’ll come, officer!” And to Tope then, as they followed the policeman: “I want to see, to hear. I want to know what happens.”

  Tope stood aside to let her pass. Clara made some protest still; but Miss Moss was already gone, and Clint took the girl’s arm and in some degree compelled her. A moment later they came into the wide emptiness of the st
age.

  The naked light from that great bulb for a moment blinded them. Tope saw Hagan, and Mat Hews, and Kay, and Max Urbin, and Madison, and some of the stage hands, and the lesser figures in the cast; and these folk all looked toward the little group in silence. Only Mat moved toward them, toward Clara’s side.

  Hagan waited where he was while they approached him. Miss Moss went directly to him; and Clint and Clara came upon her heels, reluctantly. Tope was behind these two. He remarked the fact that though Mat came loyally to stand by Clara, Kay stayed aloof.

  Then Miss Moss spoke to the Inspector.

  “You sent for us?” she said.

  Inspector Hagan nodded. His eye met that of Tope, and then returned to her again. He did not look at the younger folk. He said slowly:

  “Yes, ma’am, I did. I needed you.”

  “How can I help you?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “Well, I’ll tell you,” Tie explained.

  And then he was silent, for there was a little stir at one side. A policeman opened the door of Miss Cyr’s dressing room and two men came out, in the white uniforms of hospital orderlies! They carried between them a stretcher, and upon it, all uncovered, lay a stark, still form.

  Tope heard the low, choking whispers all around him; then a pounding silence. In this dreadful silence the two men bore their burden across the stage, and the folk in the way drew hurriedly back to let them pass. Everyone watched them, save that Tope looked at Hagan, and Hagan watched Clara’s white countenance, and Miss Moss looked all around, from one face to another, with quick, inquiring eyes.

  Then the orderlies were gone, and Clara met Inspector Hagan’s glance, and her chin lifted in a steady courage and she smiled.

  And Miss Moss prompted him crisply: “You were saying something, Inspector. Before your—experiment!”

  He nodded almost sheepishly. “Why, yes,” he confessed. “I was telling you how it stands, now.”

  And he spoke more harshly.