The Cases of Susan Dare (12 page)

S
USAN DARE ROSE FROM
the stage and brushed dust from her skirt. Death in its primary form is never pleasant, and this death was particularly ugly. She felt a queer desire to move the man at her feet so that his battered head no longer hung over into the footlights.

She felt ill and terribly shaken. No wonder that Adelaide Cholster was uttering one hysterical sob after another.

Adelaide Cholster. Susan’s eyes went thoughtfully to the small group huddled at the other side of the stage. Adelaide was the faded little blonde—sister, was it?—of the murdered man.

The brown-faced woman in the dark knitted suit, who was so terribly controlled, was his wife, then. Jane they had called her. Jane Cholster.

Susan looked again at the man sprawled upon the stage. He was a large man, heavy but well proportioned. He was blond and probably older than his sister and wife. Of course, the heavy make-up on his mouth and chin was a little confusing.

Susan forced herself to look at his face again. His face was unpowdered, and his eyes had not been touched; his mouth, however, was strongly outlined in soft crimson, and a small beard made of crêpe hair had been fastened to his chin. He had been, then, ready for rehearsal when he was murdered. The blow that had killed him had to be one of enormous power.

“Killed by blunt instrument,” thought Susan and looked around the stage. It was set simply for an exterior, a balcony scene, with two long French windows opening at either side upon the balcony of which the footlights defined the limits.

There were a table and two chairs near one of the windows, but neither table nor chairs were heavy enough to deal the blow that had crushed out that hearty, strong life.

She looked again at the small group across the stage. Adelaide was sobbing now in the arms of the slim, dark young man—the one who had called himself Clare Dickenson and whom the others called Dickie.

Jane Cholster was lighting a cigarette, and her brown face, outlined clearly in the small light that the other man was holding for her, looked set. Her full-lipped, strong mouth, however, puffed steadily, her topaz eyes reflected a gleam from the light; Susan realized suddenly that she was an extremely attractive woman, although the charm lay in something aside from beauty. She glanced at the sobbing Adelaide and turned again to the man next her. “How much longer do you think it will be, Tom? Surely, they’ve had time to find the murderer. He must be somewhere in the theater.”

Tom (he had given his name to the constable as Tom Remy, Susan remembered) shrugged and lit a cigarette for himself. “No telling,” he said.

Beyond the footlights was a brightly lighted cavern that contained rows and rows of empty seats. Away at the back stood a man on guard—a townsman hastily deputized by the undeniably flustered constable. Below the stage now and then could be heard a rumble of heavy voices, or the bang of a door, or footsteps. They were searching the dressing rooms, the furnace and storage rooms, then.

The Little Theater movement, thought Susan rather dryly, must have been very successful to permit the use of so large a theater—large, at least, for the size of the town. And ambitious! She remembered the placards she had seen in the crowded little drugstore where she and Jim had stopped for directions to reach the theater—large handsomely printed placards announcing the Little Theater’s newest production which was to be
Private Lives
and which was to open the following night for a three-night run.

Well, it wouldn’t open.

The Cholsters—the murdered man, Jane Cholster, the sister—were all of them exactly the type to go in strongly and rather cleverly for amateur theatricals. They were quite evidently people of means, of leisure, and probably an intelligent understanding of the arts, including the art of playmaking.

The man they called Dickie was the director. He would be, then, professional: a man of experience as an actor and a director, paid probably a generous sum by the members of the Little Theater group. He had a thin dark face; clever dark eyes, and an air of quick authoritative efficiency.

Tom Remy, who stood quietly smoking, was a little more difficult to orient. He was tall, stooped, grayish around the temples, and so far had said practically nothing.

All of the faces except the director’s showed signs of make-up, though Jane Cholster had wiped her face thoroughly with her handkerchief. Adelaide lifted her head and sobbed, and Jane Cholster said rather sharply: “Stop that, Adelaide.”

“Why don’t they get a doctor?” sobbed Adelaide.

“There’s no use getting a doctor now,” said Tom Remy quietly. “The constable is doing everything he can.”

“They’re trying to get the murderer before he has a chance to escape,” said Dickie quickly and in an efficient manner. “He must be somewhere in the building. The only possible way of escape would have been by the front door, and he didn’t go that way.”

Adelaide turned a small puffy face, on which heavy make-up was grotesquely streaked with tears, toward the other side of the stage and saw Susan. “Who’s that?” she said.

Jane’s topaz eyes gave Susan a cool glance.

“She came in with the reporter.”

“Reporter!” cried Adelaide. “What reporter?”

“The reporter from the
Record.
He was in Kittiwake for a story about something or other—spring floods probably, nothing else has happened here—and heard about the murder.”

Dickie turned quickly to Tom Remy.

“Oh, is he the fellow that came in with the constable?” His quick clever eyes darted to meet Susan’s. “Are you a reporter, too?”

“No. My name is Dare.” She looked at Jane. “May I do anything to help you?”

“Nothing, thank you,” said Jane. She glanced at the others and said, as if not wholly conscious of them or of Susan: “Miss Cholster. Mr. Remy. Mr. Dickenson.”

Something banged heavily below, and Adelaide cried: “What
are
they doing?” There were footsteps on the stairway off toward their right, resounding heavily and rousing dull murmurs that were echoes.

“I wonder if they’ve found anybody,” said Tom Remy. And then the three men were in the wings and approaching the stage again, the constable, red and puffing a bit, in the lead, an assistant (also, Susan suspected, hastily deputized) following him, and Jim Byrne bringing up the rear.

Jim took off his hat, and as the constable, puffing and clutching his revolver, addressed himself to Mrs. Cholster, Jim drew Susan aside.

“My God, Sue,” he said under his breath, “what a case! The whole theater’s locked up tight. The sheriff’s at the other end of the country. And I’ll bet my hat the murderer’s right here. Have I got a story or have I got a story?”

“You’ve got a story,” said Susan rather somberly. She glanced toward the sprawled gray figure, and Jim caught the look in her eyes. “I know, Sue,” he said. “But, after all, it happened.”

He stopped abruptly, struck by something the constable was saying, and Susan listened also.

“—And so the sheriff said over the telephone to keep you all here till he got back. He said he’d start right off quick. Now, I’m sorry about this, Mrs. Cholster; but it can’t be helped.”

“But this is preposterous!” Jane exclaimed. “Do you realize that while you are holding us here my husband’s murderer is escaping?”

“Well,” said the constable slowly, “we ain’t so sure about that.”

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.

“That’s easy to answer, ma’am. According to this Dickenson fellow, nobody went out the front door of the theater. And the stage entrance is bolted on the inside. So it stands to reason that the murderer’s still here.”

“Do you mean to say that you will not even permit my husband’s body to be cared for? I insist upon calling Dr. Marks. And also my lawyer.”

“Now, Mrs. Cholster,” the constable said, “there ain’t no call for you to talk like that. The sheriff said to hold you here, and that’s what I’m going to do. He’s got to see the body just as it is, and we can’t move it till he looks at it and till the coroner looks at it. And I got to go ahead with my inquiry. That’s my duty, and I’d advise you folks not to resist the law. I got two deputies here with me, and all of us is armed.”

Jane’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Did the sheriff say to allow reporters here?” she asked sharply.

“Reporters,” said the constable largely, “is always permitted. Dunc, you might take something and cover Mr. Cholster.”

Tom Remy stepped forward. “Let’s get this straight,” he said. “Are you holding us for murder?”

Adelaide blinked and gave a little scream, and the constable said:

“Well, there ain’t anybody else around, is there?”

There was, not unnaturally, an abrupt silence.

Jane Cholster’s face was ashy again under the brown, but set and guarded. Tom Remy’s eyes retreated, and Adelaide blinked and gasped and balled her handkerchief at her mouth, and Dickenson’s handsome dark face became an impassive mask with only his quick dark eyes alive.

Around them the old theater was very still. Its stage that night already had played a strange and tragic drama, and Susan felt eerily that it was waiting for the play to go on, to play itself out. Below were passages and empty dressing rooms. Above was a dim loft extending mysteriously upward.

The constable’s voice broke the silence. “I reckon,” he said, “I’d better ask you some questions. And I reckon I don’t need to tell you that you’d better tell the truth. Now, then, there’s some chairs back there somewhere. Dunc,” he continued, “bring them out. We may as well be comfortable.” The little deputy disappeared, and the constable turned and shouted toward the bulky, dark figure standing at the back of the house. “Don’t let anybody in, Wid, till the sheriff gets here.”

“Here’s a chair, miss,” said Dunc’s small voice to Susan, and she accepted it.

She looked at the other people seating themselves in a kind of circle on the stage.

Was Jane Cholster’s character so strong that she could indefinitely withhold any signs of grief and shock? Was Adelaide so loving and so tender that she must collapse frequently into sobs? Was either of these women physically strong enough to deal the crushing blow that had been dealt Brock Cholster?

Jane was slender and brown and looked as if her muscles were hard. She must have, too, a tremendous reserve of nerve power. She sat now quietly erect and graceful—but under her quiet you felt that muscles might be gathered ready to spring.

Jane was only of medium height, but Adelaide looked small beside her. She huddled in the armchair that the deputy had given her. Her faded blonde curls were pushed up away from her puffy little face. She was older than Susan had surmised, for there were definite little pouches under her eyes and in the corners of her chin. Susan was vaguely aware that Jim and the constable were talking in a low murmur, there near the body; her eyes traveled on to the nervous, dark young director and to Tom Remy.

Either of the men might have been physically capable of that blow, providing a suitable weapon were at hand. (“Weapon?” thought Susan parenthetically. “What happened to it? And what
was
it?”)

Neither, however, looked exactly athletic, although you couldn’t measure the strength that sheer emotion might give to inadequate muscular force.

Tom Remy was smoking again; his eyes were narrowed into lines that made them look sharp and very observant and yet altogether unfathomable. As Susan watched, he gave Jane Cholster a long look which she returned, and Susan had a curious feeling that there was an unspoken communication between them, although neither face changed at all.

The dark young director passed a hand over his smooth black hair and said suddenly: “Who put the curtain up?”

“Curtain?” said Jane slowly. The constable turned abruptly to join the small circle, and Jim followed him, and the man Dickenson said quickly:

“Curtain, of course. It was down when I arrived, for I glanced at the stage. I didn’t put it up. Who did?”

No one replied, and the constable said:

“What’s all this about a curtain? You mean the fire curtain? It’s a village ordinance that it—”

“Exactly. Of course. I know.” Dickenson’s interruptions were sharp and quick. “Certainly it was down. And when I came out of the office down there—” he motioned, with the nervous quickness that characterized his gestures, toward the door leading to the foyer—“and walked up here, the curtain was up.”

“It was you that discovered the body?”

“Of course. You know that. I told you when I telephoned for you.”

“When did you know it was Mr. Cholster?”

“I—” he closed his eyes for an instant as if to recall and Susan could see a little flutter of his eyeballs under his thin dark lids—“I believe I was only aware that the curtain was up and that there was something humped up there. But I hurried up to the switchboard and turned on the lights and saw it was Mr. Cholster. I thought, of course, he’d fainted or something and ran out on the stage. And I stopped about there and knew—what had happened.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I—I think I called out. Everybody else, you know, was downstairs getting ready for rehearsal. Then I ran back to the telephone in the office again. When I came out, Tom and Mrs. Cholster and Adelaide were all on the stage—”

“You had the main door locked when I got here,” said the constable. “How was that? When did you lock it?”

“I had locked it as soon as everybody got here. Locked it simply because we needed a good last rehearsal, and if I had left the door unlocked we’d have been continually interrupted. A lot of Kittiwake residents prefer sneaking in to dress rehearsal to coming around the next night and paying for their tickets.”

Jim cleared his throat gently, and the constable cleared his also and said politely: “Did you say something, Mr. Byrne?”

“I was only wondering,” said Jim, “why you didn’t use the stage entrance. It would seem more convenient.”

“Well, it isn’t,” said the young director rather snappishly. “There’s no key to the thing extant, and you have to bolt it on the inside. It’s bolted now.”

“Then the only exit for the murderer was the door that the deputy is guarding now?”