Prima Donna at Large (22 page)

“I should loathe it. But face facts, Gerry. Nobody else benefited from Duchon's ‘accident' as much as Jimmy. He was the first one I thought of when I heard what had happened.”

I didn't answer right away. My fondness for Jimmy had blinded me to some dark side of his nature that I simply did not wish to see? What nonsense; I felt foolish even thinking it. Yet … “Do you really think he could have done it?”

“I really do,” Emmy said quietly.

We rode in silence for a couple of blocks, and then Emmy asked me to take her to an uptown gallery where she was meeting Caruso. The gallery was auctioning off some eighteenth-century Flanders lace the tenor wanted to bid on. That was good news. If his mind was on precious lace, then he wouldn't be pestering me for a while. We delivered Emmy to the gallery door on upper Madison.

My next—and last—stop was the Belasco Theatre, on West Forty-fourth Street. There was no place to park, so I told the chauffeur to keep going around the block until he saw me come out. I went into the small lobby and hesitated; I thought David Belasco would probably be upstairs in his private rooms, but I heard voices coming from the auditorium. I pushed through the swinging doors to the back of the seating area.

The Belasco is quite a theatre; it impresses me all over again every time I go there. At the back of the auditorium stands a handsome screen of carved wood and crystal glass to protect the audience from drafts. The auditorium chairs are made of heavy wood and upholstered in a rich, dark leather; the back of each chair is embossed with an emblematic design of some sort, a different design for each chair. Over the proscenium opening hangs a large painting, and along the sides are murals and occasional tapestries. The paintings are all of symbolic figures—Tranquility, Grief, Music, Blind Love, and the like. Overhead the ceiling is made up of a number of rich stained-glass panels lighted from above; the panels feature the coats-of-arms of Shakespeare, Goethe, Racine, other writers. The Belasco Theatre is grand enough to be an opera house, although the seating capacity is a little small for opera—only about a thousand, I think.

A rehearsal was in progress. David Belasco was sitting in the seventh or eighth row, putting his actors through their paces. I sat down behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned, his face showing an annoyance that quickly turned into a welcoming smile when he saw who it was. (Nice.) “Gerry!” he said softly. “You have come to tell me you are going to act in one of my plays!”

“Not this time, I'm afraid,” I said with mock regret. “But I would like a few moments of your time. I can see you are busy, but—”

“Say no more.” He turned the rehearsal over to an assistant and invited me up to his rooms for tea. But I didn't want to keep him away from his rehearsal that long, so I suggested we talk where we were. We moved to the back of the auditorium, where our voices wouldn't disturb the actors, and Belasco remarked astutely, “Something is troubling you. The smile is as bright as ever, but today it hides something not very happy. Tell me.”

“It's what happened at
Carmen
” I sighed. “You know the police think I put the ammonia in Duchon's throat spray. Either I or Jimmy Freeman—Lieutenant O'Halloran has made that quite clear. I am a
suspect
, David!”

He took off the glasses he'd started wearing lately and tucked them away in a pocket. “I know Lieutenant O'Halloran, Gerry, and the man is no fool. He won't arrest you for something you didn't do. Do you know what I think? I think he's fishing, just tossing out a line to see if he can get a nibble or two.”

“Well, I wish he'd stop tossing it in my direction.” I brooded for a moment. “What's bothering me is all those contradictory stories we told. I can't get it straight, all those different movements.”

“I was backstage only ten minutes or so,” Belasco said apologetically. “How can I help?”

“You were there during the intermission between Acts I and II, right after I threw my castanets at Duchon—correct?”

“Correct.”

“You told Lieutenant O'Halloran you saw Scotti backstage then, didn't you?”

Belasco rubbed his temple with one finger. “I've been thinking about that. Scotti said he wasn't backstage then, didn't he? I could have been mistaken—perhaps I saw him out front. But I
thought
it was backstage where I caught a glimpse of him, and since I went backstage only after the first act, it would have had to be then. But now I'm not so sure.”

“What was he doing when you saw him?”

He waved a hand gracefully. “Nothing in particular that I remember. It was just a glimpse.”

“What about Morris? Pasquale Amato said he saw him backstage
before
the first act.”

“Amato is mistaken. Morris was with me, remember. I would have known if he'd gone backstage then.”

“He was with you all the time?”

“Yes.”

“He didn't leave you at all? Not even for a minute?”

“Not even for a minute. Unless you want to count the time he went into the gentlemen's restroom.”

I stared at him. “How long was he gone?”

He looked surprised, thought a minute, and then looked even more surprised. “Rather longer than he should have been, come to think of it.”

“Long enough to slip backstage?”

“Possibly. Yes,” he mused, “he would have had time.”

“Before you ask,” I said, “I do not think Morris Gest doctored the throat spray. I don't think that at all.”

“Morris was very angry at Duchon,” Belasco said. “Angrier than I've seen him in a long time. He felt Duchon had made a fool of him.”

Belatedly I remembered David Belasco and his son-in-law were not exactly the best of friends. “Nevertheless,” I said firmly, “if Morris did go backstage before the opera, it had to be for some reason other than putting ammonia in the spray bottle. That's just not his style, David. He'd be more likely to get even by arranging a public humiliation of some sort—he'd want people to know about it.”

“But why would he have gone backstage then?”

“That's what I'd like to know. And why would he lie about it?”

“To avoid being suspected? To keep
me
from finding out? Lord knows what he was up to.”

I sighed. “I'm going to have to ask him about it.”

Belasco smiled—rather wickedly, I thought. “Let me take care of that for you.”

“Gladly. You'll call me?”

“As soon as I find out something.”

I let him go back to his rehearsal then. I went out and stood in front of the theatre entrance, waiting for my chauffeur. Jimmy Freeman had lied about when he put on his costume, and now it looked as if Morris Gest had lied about going backstage before the opera. Who else had lied? Scotti?

The chauffeur pulled up to the curb, and I sank gratefully into the back seat. I could feel the weariness working its way through my bones; who would have thought detective work was so
exhausting
? Scotti and I had planned to go to the theatre that evening—Ethel Barrymore in
The Shadow
at the Empire—but I was going to beg off. When I got home I wanted a bath, food, and sleep, in that order.

But what I wanted was going to have to wait. I was just taking off my shoes when Bella came in to say Lieutenant O'Halloran had just arrived.

Back on with the shoes. I found O'Halloran standing at the window, gazing down on the darkening street. “Good evening, Lieutenant,” I said, and waited.

He took his time about turning to face me, and when he did I didn't like what I saw. His face was dark and drawn, angry. He spoke two words: “Philippe Duchon.”

“You've talked to him? He's able to communicate?”

“No, Miss Farrar, he is not able to communicate. He never will communicate. Not ever. Duchon is dead.”

The floor gave a sudden lurch beneath my feet. “Dead? But Dr. Curtis said—”

“He killed himself. He opened a vein in each wrist and bled to death. One of the hospital nurses found him this morning.”

Something happened to my knees just then: they stopped working. I felt myself sinking toward the floor when O'Halloran grabbed my arm and got me seated on the sofa.
Phillipe Duchon had killed himself
. That's what he'd said.

“Do you have any smelling salts?” O'Halloran asked. “Shall I call the maid?”

“I'm not feeling faint, Lieutenant,” I said as steadily as I could. “It's just that my legs suddenly turned to jelly.”

He looked me straight in the eye, satisfied himself I wasn't going to have hysterics or pass out, and pulled up a chair to sit opposite me. “He left a note. Just one line, in French, and his signature. It translates, ‘My life is already ended.' That's all.”

“He didn't mention …?”

“Any names?
Your
name? No. Only ‘My life is already ended.' You know what struck me about that? You said just about the same thing, the last time I talked to you. You said whoever put the ammonia in the throat spray had virtually killed Duchon. You said his life was over.”

I dropped my forehead into my hands. “Any singer would have told you the same thing, Lieutenant,” I muttered.

“Ah, but any singer didn't.
You
did. Well, you were right. Did you know he would commit suicide? Or were you just hoping he would?”

If he'd thrown a bucket of ice water in my face, he couldn't have shocked me more. When I was sure my voice was under control, I stood up and said, “Get out of my home, Lieutenant O'Halloran. Get out right now.”

He gave me a sarcastic smile and headed toward the door. But when he had the door open, he turned for one departing shot. “By the way, I spent an hour in the district attorney's office this afternoon. They were arguing about whether this was a case of manslaughter or not. Do you know what manslaughter is, Miss Farrar?”

What was he talking about? “What?”

“Manslaughter is causing someone else's death without meaning to. An accident, say, or simple negligence, or the result of some act committed without malice. Involuntary killing. One of our prosecutors is saying whoever doped the throat spray didn't intend for Duchon to die, and that makes it manslaughter.”

“But … but Duchon's suicide was the direct result of his using that spray!”

“Exactly. And there was malice in the act of tampering with the spray—malice of the nastiest sort. There's no doubt in my own mind what we've got here. It's murder, Miss Farrar. Now I'm looking for a murderer.”

He closed the door behind him. I went over to the window and watched until he left the building and got into a waiting motor car. He was barely visible in the near-dark, that bearer of tragic news. Philippe Duchon was dead—by his own hand, but another hand had helped.

Duchon was dead, and he'd gone to his death thinking I was responsible.

12

I lay with my head back and my feet up on the sofa (not my sofa) and listened to my partner in detection, advisory capacity only, ranting and raving. I'd told Caruso about O'Halloran's visit the night before a good ten minutes ago and he hadn't stopped yelling yet.

“
Non posso capirlo
—I do not understand!” he protested for about the hundredth time. “Lieutenant O'Halloran is not that kind of man—he does not
bully
. He hints, he insinuates, but he does not
bully
.”

“Well, he gave a good imitation of a bully last night,” I said wearily. “He served warning on me, Rico. He thinks I did it.”

“Ridicolo.”

We were in Caruso's apartment in the Hotel Knickerbocker. I'd gone there to keep him from coming to my place; I had a performance that night and needed most of the day to myself, and here I could just get up and leave whenever I wanted. Caruso never took hints about leaving.

He'd already known about Duchon's suicide when I arrived that morning. The police had notified Gatti-Casazza, who'd taken on the chore of telephoning everyone else. He'd even called me, after Lieutenant O'Halloran had left. Caruso had been as shocked as I was, but not really surprised. The suicide was as understandable as it was deplorable; we could all imagine what Duchon must have been going through these last few days, knowing he would never sing or even talk again. Now when it was too late I regretted every harsh word I'd ever spoken to him.

Finally Caruso's indignation sputtered itself out. “Mario!” he bellowed. “Bring us coffee, please.”

Mario, the perfect valet, had anticipated his employer and had the coffee pot and cups already set out on a tray. Mario was a nice-looking young man with a shock of thick black hair that kept falling into his eyes. As he poured out the coffee and handed me my cup, he murmured, “Do not worry, Signorina Geraldine. Lieutenant O'Halloran, he never puts so great a lady as you in the jail-house.”

So he'd been listening; I smiled at him anyway. “Thank you, Mario.”

Caruso gulped his coffee and then sat down briskly at his writing table and took out some paper, all business. “Now, tell me what you learn yesterday.”

I tried to get my thoughts in order. “The most important thing was that Jimmy Freeman lied about not getting into costume early,” I said reluctantly. “Gatti-Casazza thinks he did
not
get into costume before the first act started, but he's the only one who says so. Three other people, including myself, saw him dressed before the performance began.”

Caruso was busy scribbling away. “Mmm. That does not look good, no?”

“The fact that he got into costume so early might not mean anything in itself. But the fact that he lied about it—well, you're right, that does not look good.”

“Do you talk to Jimmy?”

“Not yet. I want to wait until after tonight.” Tonight was the performance of
Madame Sans-Gêne
that Jimmy was scheduled to sing.