The Blonde Died Dancing (17 page)

In a moment I could move again, and in a little while I was running. When I got to Third Avenue I took a thorough look at the block behind me. Kipp wasn’t in sight.

I started slowly down the west side of Third Avenue, searching for Steve. I heard him call to me before I saw him. He was standing in the narrow entrance to the cold water flats above a butcher shop. I went to him, stepped into the vestibule and put my arms around his neck.

“Connie, the tape…”

“Yes, here they are. Steve, should I come to the office with you?”

“No, you go back to the school… I’ll call you there. I think I’ve got it, Connie, but I might be wrong. Maybe it’s nothing, a washout…”

“But what is it, Steve? Maybe I can help you figure it…”

His head jerked up. He was seeing something hideous over my shoulder.

“Kipp,” he said.

He grabbed my wrist, dragged me through the door. He pulled me, stumbling, running, racing, up five flights of stairs. He thrust open the roof door. I followed him through it. He hesitated a moment and I caught up to him. To our left was the wall of a higher building. Steve turned to the right and, almost before I realized what he was going to do, he had jumped to the next building’s roof.

“Come on, Connie…”

I looked down into the five story chasm. I shuddered.

“Steve, I can’t…”

“All right. Stall Kipp off somehow… I’ll call you at the school…”

He ran to the roof door, tried it. It was locked. He went to the next roof door, and it opened for him. He waved, blew me a kiss, and he was gone.

I turned back to the door of the roof I was on. Then, hastily, I crouched down behind a chimney. I tried desperately to think of what I would say to Wendell Kipp. He was standing just inside the door, peering out onto the roof. He was just standing there; he hadn’t seen me. He was afraid to come out on the roof and, perhaps, face the Waltzer. Then he backed away and disappeared.

I waited a moment before I went to the head of the stairs. I could hear him hurrying down them to the street. I started quietly after him. When I saw him again he was across the street, looking up at the roof. He was a man in an advanced state of acute indecision. Then, abruptly, he darted down Third Avenue.

I darted up Third Avenue, found a cab headed west and collapsed into it. I managed to tell the nice man where I wanted to go.

Leone was involved with some students at her desk. I went straight to Studio K. I hadn’t time to really collect myself when my two o’clock pupil arrived. The poor fellow was rather perplexed by his teacher’s demeanor. He kept offering me a penny for my thoughts. They weren’t worth that; they were, to put it mildly, disorganized.

The hour finally ended, and I was alone. I took a deep breath. These were five minutes I might use to be of some help to Steve. I telephoned Leone from my studio to see if he had called; he hadn’t.

The door of my studio opened and a little pixie of a man bounced into the room. The bright smile on his chubby, glowing face faded at the sight of me.

He said, “Sorry, my mistake. I’m supposed to be in Studio K.”

“This is K,” I said.

“Oh… but my teacher is Miss Farrell. Is she ill?”

I gaped at the cherub. Did he live under a stone, couldn’t he read, how in the world could he not have heard that Anita Farrell had been murdered?

“No,” I said, “she’s not ill, but…”

“But she won’t be here?”

“No,” I said, “she won’t be here…”

“And you’re to give me my lesson?”

“Yes…”

“Splendid!” he said. “My name is Ralph Tolley.”

I said, “Oh, my God!”

Mr. Ralph Tolley
turned his head and looked over his shoulder.
My reaction to his self-identification had been so violent that he couldn’t believe it was just he who had caused it. I tried to cover my confusion.

“Oh, my God,” I said again, but not quite so hysterically, “you’re not
the
Ralph Tolley… I’ve been hearing so much about?”

Now Ralph Tolley was pleased. “Heard so much about? Who from?”

“Oh… the other girls… teachers…”

“I’ve always had Miss Farrell… except once. Then I had Hooray Rose.”

“That’s who… Hooray is mad for you!”

“Well! Well, well!”

I saw Ralph make a mental note in his mental little black date book. I was being mental, too. There were some things I had to find out about Mr. Tolley and it would take a little doing.

“Jeepers,” I said girlishly, “you’d think Leone Webb or somebody would have let me know you were here so… so I could have put a flower in my hair.”

He grinned and told me just what I wanted to hear. “I don’t think Miss Webb or anyone knows I’m here. I came right to the studio here. I thought I was late.”

“Oh. Well, then, I guess you didn’t get Miss Webb’s message. At your hotel, I mean.”

“Message?”

“Yes, she left a message for you that Anita… Anita wouldn’t be here today. In case you wanted to postpone your lesson.”

Like a little angel, Ralph said, “Oh, I haven’t been to my hotel. I checked my luggage at the station and came right here.”

“Isn’t this exciting!” I said. “I’m the only one in practically the whole wide world who knows you’re back in town!”

“Why, I guess you are at that. But I don’t see what’s exciting about it.”

“Well, thrilling then. Did you have a nice trip? Business or pleasure?”

“A combination of both.”

“How fortunate you are that you can manage that combination!” I said heartily. “What business are you in?”

“Well, strictly speaking, I’m retired. But I do a bit of prospecting.”

“Prospecting?”

“For uranium.”

“Oh, of course. Then you’ve been in the wilds of Canada all week?”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” the little man shouted.

“Don’t what?” I inquired.

“Find out.”

“Find out what?” I inquired, this time adding a quizzical smile.

“Where.”

“Where what?” I just inquired.

“Where I expect to make my strike. Down at the hotel they’re always trying to find out where I go, but oh, no, I won’t tell them.”

“So nobody knows but you and your Geiger counter. Is it nice of you to keep all that uranium to yourself? Or haven’t you found any yet?”

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

I almost asked oh, no, I don’t know what and started that routine again, but I checked myself. I didn’t want to waste any more time than necessary. Somehow I had to tuck this miner away out of sight until Steve had had time to prove he hadn’t murdered Anita Farrell. Unfortunately, that wasn’t for very long. It was, in fact, just fifty-five minutes until four o’clock when Bolling had called the meeting which would prove Steve was the Waltzer. But if Bolling, or anyone else, got connected with Ralph Tolley, that meeting would not be necessary. Steve wouldn’t even have his fifty-five minutes.

“But I’ll tell you this much,” Ralph was saying. “I was getting real close this trip. But I had to stop. I was coming down with the sniffles.”

“The sniffles… oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be upset. It was a false alarm. I wouldn’t expect you to dance with me if I had the sniffles.”

“Don’t be silly.”

I would have danced with Ralph Tolley if he had had the cholera. It had suddenly become very necessary for me to dance with him. I had just remembered a dirty little trick of Anita’s that I could use to spirit Ralph away. I went to the music controls.

“What shall we begin with?” I asked.

“Well, my waltz is weak.”

“Let’s strengthen that waltz of yours.”

What my pupil’s waltzing lacked in technique was made up for in exuberance. If he brandished his Geiger counter with half so much enthusiasm, he was a cinch to be a millionaire by Christmas. It wasn’t until the third time around the studio that I caught up to him, got close enough to him to double-cross him.

I put my left foot under his right one. When he landed on it I cried out with a painful groan that was not wholly hypocritical. I sat down on the floor and grabbed my ankle. Poor Mr. Tolley was almost tearful. He kept mumbling how sorry he was.

“No,” I said. “My fault.”

“Shall I call a doctor?”

“No! No… this often happens to me. I’ll be all right, except that in about half an hour my ankle will swell like a balloon…”

“I’d better call a doctor…”

“No! But there’s something you can do. You can help me home.”

“Of course, certainly.”

“You run ahead and find a cab, hold it at the door for me…”

“Then I’ll come back and help you…”

“No!” I said irritably. “Didn’t you hear me? I’ll be all right for a while. You get that cab, hold it, stay with it. I’ll follow you down in a minute.”

“All right…”

“And listen. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention this to a soul. If Mr. Bell heard about my weak ankles… well, it would mean a dishonorable discharge for me… abject poverty.”

“I won’t tell a soul.”

“And hurry… don’t stop to talk to anybody!”

“Of course not.”

. He hurried away. I got to my feet and went to the door of the studio. I waited until I heard an elevator’s doors open and close, then I grabbed my coat and headed cautiously for the reception room. Caution was unnecessary; the room was empty.

Twenty minutes later… thirty-five minutes to four… I was limping into our apartment, Mr. Tolley’s hand under my elbow. I let him escort me into the bedroom. I sat on the edge of my bed.

“Would you mind,” I said, “my slippers… they’re in that closet there.”

“Not at all,” Ralph said.

He opened the closet door, stooped into it to look for the slippers which were under my bed. Swiftly, silently, as treacherous as a lady coyote fighting for her mate, I was behind Ralph. With a diabolical thrust I sent him tumbling into the closet. I slammed shut the door. I locked it.

Inside the closet there was a great thrashing about.

“Mr. Tolley,” I called, “listen to me. I’ll let you out as soon as I can…”

He began pounding at the door, yelping at me.

“Mr. Tolley,” I pleaded, “don’t be a problem…” He pounded harder, yelped louder.

“All right!” I shouted. “If you’re going to be unreasonable…”

I left him and hurried out of the apartment.

It was seventeen minutes to the hour of four when I saw the clock over the elevators of the dancing school building. I was my elevator’s only passenger. I leaned back against the rear wall and tried to think of an explanation for my absence if Leone demanded one of me. But I couldn’t seem to concentrate. I was only thinking of Steve… he had seventeen minutes left… how was he doing… where was he? Suddenly I realized that the elevator boy was speaking to me.

I said, “I beg your pardon?”

“He got another one.”

“Who? Who got another what?”

“I just this minute heard it on the radio in the basement. A news flash. The Waltzer has struck again!”

“What?”

“Yep. Again. Murdered her and hid the body.”

“Who… whom did he murder now?”

“A new teacher at the school… Hester Frost.”

“Hester Frost!” I covered my face with my hands. “Oh, no, not Hester!”

“Yep. You know her?”

I nodded. “Hester and I were very close. How did it happen?”

“He lured her into a rendezvous on Third Avenue. Some guy named Wendell Kipp seen them together. He tried to intervene, but the Waltzer dragged Hester up on a roof. That’s the last she was ever seen.”

“Poor Hester.”

“The police,” the boy said, “are searching for the body.”

“And when they find it,” I said, “it will no doubt be mutilated.”

“Yep,” the boy said. “Mutilated beyond recognition.”

The elevator door slid open. Leone Webb was at her desk. She was turned to her typewriter on its wheeled table. There was a chance that she was too involved to notice me. I was careful not to disturb her. I made it. I got through the reception room, into Studio K. This would be the safest place for Hester Frost to be when the news of her horrible end hit the school.

It was twelve minutes to four…

Steve had had more than two hours to work on the tapes, to try to find in them the solution to Anita’s murder. He had been interested only in the Stubby recording and then only in certain portions of it. There had been something on that tape that had given him a clue, that had given him hope. I forced my mind back, trying to remember every word of dialogue, every inflection of those two voices.

Come on, Stubby, let’s talk… don’t wanna talk… dinner at Margiotti’s… you hated Walter… you killed Walter… you did the world a favor…

Steve had spoken to me then. The volume had been too loud, he’d said, it was blurring. But he hadn’t wanted me to play that part over again; it was the end of it he wanted especially to hear. I paced back and forth along the mirrored walls, trying to remember exactly how the record had ended.

Anita’s voice had been a wheedling whisper.
That was smart, Stubby… last August it was… and the police still think it was an accident…
Stubby’s voice had broken through hers, his speech drunker, drowsier than before.
Tired… so tired… gold medal… Then Anita again, pleading. Wait, Stubby, don’t fold up on me…
And in loud disgust:
… oh, damn you, Stubby …

That was the end of Stubby, there wasn’t any more because the phone had rung and Anita had answered it. She had said,
Hello… the same to you, too… who is it… just a second…

The recording had stopped there.

It was eight minutes to four, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be the one who had ferreted out the secret in that tape. If Steve hadn’t succeeded in doing it…

I stopped my pacing and I was staring at the floor in the center of the room… at a small piece of black paper that lay there.

It hadn’t been there a few moments ago; on this smooth, glistening floor it was as conspicuous as a muddy dinosaur footprint. I took a step toward it and saw what it was. It was a silhouette of me, a cut-out of my unclassical but serviceable profile. I was intrigued, I was irresistibly drawn to this minor work of art and, as I stepped closer, I saw the heavy darning needle sticking through it. I was about to bend over and pick it up when I jerked back. I stepped quickly away, back to the mirrored wall.