The Blonde Died Dancing (4 page)

The next morning
I awoke before Steve. He was still sleeping heavily, and the ashtrays in the living room told me why. It must have taken him until almost daybreak to smoke that many cigarettes. My husband was a very worried man.

He was trapped; there was nothing that he could do to help himself. The taking-off place for the solution to this murder was the Crescent School of Dancing, and Steve couldn’t show his face there. He would at least be recognized as a pupil of Anita’s, if not as the Waltzer himself. Steve’s hands were tied, but there was something I could do. It was something I was going to do without telling Steve. Almost certainly he wouldn’t let me do it. I had to get out of the apartment without waking him.

I dressed as quickly as possible. I didn’t bother with any breakfast. I stopped only long enough to check on a hunch I had. It was a good hunch. In the back of the register I found a list of all the present customers of the Crescent School of Dancing with their addresses. I learned that Mr. Ralph Tolley lived at the Macklin Hotel on West Fifty-fourth Street.

I called the Macklin from the first drugstore I came to on my way downtown. Mr. Tolley was still away. The switchboard girl didn’t know where he was or when he would be back. Yes, she said, he still had his room there. I hung up, feeling a little better. Mr. Tolley hadn’t as yet made a liar out of Steve by telling the cops that he, not my husband, took the Saturday lesson at three o’clock from Anita Farrell.

I took a cab downtown and I arrived at the Crescent School of Dancing just after the first classes got under way at ten o’clock. I had a bad moment when I faced the smart receptionist with the bejeweled glasses. But if she had somehow noticed me lurking in my corner the night before, she didn’t remember me. When I asked to see Mr. Oliver Bell, the proprietor of this establishment, she was most helpful. In reply to my inquiry, she thought there was a good chance that Mr. Bell might be hiring a new dancing teacher. She showed me directly to his office. She told him what I wanted to see him about, and efficiently disappeared.

Oliver Bell rose from behind the half acre of shining mahogany that was his desk and regarded me with somber brown eyes that almost matched his tie, suit and socks. He was a handsome man in his middle forties. His hair was dark and thick. The wave in it was carefully nurtured. His clothing, everything within reaching distance of him, was pin neat.

Even his charm was tidy. There was just the right amount of it at the right time. Here was a man whom elderly ladies probably doted upon, matrons admired and ingénues adored. I could see why the Crescent School of Dancing was such a tremendous success.

He smiled at me. “You wish to join our faculty?”

“Yes, Mr. Bell.”

“And your name is…”

I didn’t bother him with the detail that I was Connie Barton, the Waltzer’s wife. I had a big, black lie all ready for him. I said, “My name is Hester Frost.”

“Hester.” He sounded relieved, as though he had been afraid that all of my type blondes would be named Bubbles St. Claire. “Are you married, Hester?”

I lowered my eyes. “Not yet, sir.”

“How old are you, Hester?”

I raised my eyes, defiantly. “Twenty-three.”

He seemed to believe me; I began to like him. He said, “Have you had any experience in teaching dancing?”

“Well,” I said, “to be perfectly honest, very little.” I smiled modestly. “But I have four brothers and I taught them all to dance and they’re all wonderful dancers. At least, everybody raves about their dancing, to be perfectly honest.”

“That’s a good recommendation.” He shot me two ounces of his sedate charm. “Many of our students are brothers,” he said, twinkling.

I laughed. But gently, to show him that, although I had enough sense of humor to appreciate his, I was also very well bred.

He said, “You know, Hester, I like to think of us as a family institution… all brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles, all learning to dance for our pleasure and health.”

He stepped to a panel on the wall and turned a knob over the words FOX TROT. Music seeped into the room. He came to me.

“Shall we dance?” he said.

“Why, I’d love to, Mr. Bell.”

This was hardly true. This was one dance that I would have given ten years of my life to sit out. But I rose and did my best to float into his arms.

We danced. We fox-trotted. Mr. Bell switched the music dial and we waltzed. Then, after another flick of the dial, Mr. Bell was leading me through a rhumba. By the time we were writhing into a samba, I had regained enough poise to realize that I was indeed dancing with a dancing master.

“Mr. Bell,” I said, “you dance divinely!”

“Thank you,” he said. His voice took on an inspirational tone. “And you know, I had to learn! Many people ask me if I were born dancing. No, I had to learn… and I didn’t learn until I was an adult.”

“One is never too old,” I said bitterly, “to learn to dance.”

“Exactly. And when my wife saw the pleasure dancing afforded me, she insisted our three sons learn. But we couldn’t afford that.” Mr. Bell chuckled. “Mrs. Bell said it would be cheaper to start a school of our own and so we did.”

“Seriously?”

“No, not seriously. But it was Mrs. Bell who inspired this school.”

“She must be a wonderful woman.”

“Yes, she was.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. How proud she’d be of our three boys. They’re all grown up and in college now.”

“All three in college! Where?”

“Harvard,” Mr. Bell said, “Yale and Princeton.”

“Well! And where did you go to school, Mr. Bell?”

“Arthur Murray’s,” Mr. Bell said.

Now we were waltzing again, and I began to feel that I had surely made the grade and the job was mine. Mr. Bell seemed to be enjoying dancing with me. Then I noticed that he seemed to be enjoying himself too much. He didn’t have to hold me this tight. This cheek-to-cheek business, for instance… and then, really, after all!

I put one foot behind his heels and gave him a push. He was surprised. Sitting there on the floor he looked very surprised indeed. But before I could speak the words of a woman outraged, he was smiling at me and he and his sedate charm were back once more on their feet.

“Hester,” he said, “you have passed both tests. Not only the dancing test, but the character test. I am sure that you will keep any overly amorous pupil in his place. I’m sure that you would never encourage this sort of thing.”

“No, sir, not during business hours,” I said, and added quickly, “nor after business hours. Emphatically, Mr. Bell.”

“Fine. This is one of our most important rules here. We never, no matter how much we are urged, make dates with our students. We never see them except in the studio. That applies also to the faculty members of the opposite sex. We remember that this is a place of business, not a social club for boys to meet girls. Romance is a beautiful thing, Hester, and I approve of it heartily. But it can undermine and demoralize a business institution such as this one.”

“I promise,” I said, “not to fall in love with any pupil or teacher.”

“Fine.” Then his charm evaporated and he was a troubled man. “You undoubtedly know,” he said, “about our tragedy of last evening.”

“I read about it,” I admitted.

“A terrible thing. My school in all its eighteen years has never been touched by even the breath of scandal. I have guarded its reputation with all my strength. And that, Hester, has been the key to my success.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I am fortunate in having an uncanny ability to judge character. I know, for instance, that you are exactly the sort of person we want on our faculty.”

“I’m sorry I proved it to you so violently. Did I hurt you?”

“Not at all, and please don’t apologize. It was gratifying to me that you have so much strength of conviction. I have never before been knocked completely off my feet. Now… where was I?”

“You have an uncanny ability to judge character.”

“Yes, I do. I interview every single person who wishes to enroll with us as a student and my only slip in all these years was when I accepted the monster who was Miss Farrell’s pupil last evening at seven o’clock.”

“The monster?”

“Miss Farrell’s murderer. I failed to detect in him the depravity which he displayed here at seven o’clock.”

“Oh. You mean it was… an act of passion?”

“What else?”

“Well… I don’t know. I didn’t gather from the papers that Miss Farrell had been… I mean, to put it delicately, raped.”

“There was… no, none of that, no. But what other motive could there have been? In my opinion, it was definitely a sex crime. This Waltzer, as the newspapers are calling him, is obviously a sex maniac.”

“My goodness!”

“And I… I failed to detect that in my interview with him.”

“Oh.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “You remember interviewing him, then? You… remember who he is?”

“No, I don’t. I simply mean that when I interviewed him I accepted him as a normal human being who sincerely wished to improve his dancing, not as a monster who was using my school to meet attractive young women. Being a most attractive young lady yourself, I’m sure you appreciate my desire to protect my teachers.”

“Oh, I do, Mr. Bell, I do! Thank you for protecting us against monsters like the Waltzer!” I wondered if the monster was still asleep or if he had started worrying about me. “Are the police getting close to him?”

“Unfortunately, he had the cunning to steal our engagement book and none of the staff can remember at the moment who Miss Farrell’s seven o’clock pupil was. But the police are working on our bookkeeping records and, by a system of elimination, they will soon figure out who it is.”

“I hope so,” I said, but unfervently.

“This tragedy has naturally thrown us into a turmoil. But the police expect to cause us very little inconvenience. They know who the killer is, and it is simply a matter of finding him. They are anxious to have us go on here as if nothing had happened. Now, Hester…”

“Yes, Mr. Bell?”

“I hope I have put your mind at ease, because I am going to ask you to do something at which a person of less character might balk.”

“I’ll try not to balk.”

“I am anxious that our usual schedule be interrupted as little as possible. I want all my teachers to take their regular pupils. Therefore I am asking you to take Miss Farrell’s place.”

“Oh,” I said. I tried not to sound pleased that I had accomplished my mission. So I said it again, working in just a touch of distaste.

“Oh,” I said.

“Does that upset you, my dear? I believe that I can assure you that the Waltzer will not return to the scene of his crime.”

“I’m not upset,” I said.

We then discussed terms. That is, Mr. Bell told me what my pay was to be. He gave me some fatherly advice, some professional tips and a rather timid pat on the back. He pressed a button on his desk and in a moment the door swung open. The receptionist said, “Yes, Mr. Bell?”

“Leone, this is Hester Frost. Hester, Miss Leone Webb.”

“How do you do, pleased to meet you,” we girls said to each other.

“Leone,” Bell said, “will you help Hester to become acclimated? She is one of us now. She’s taking Anita Farrell’s place. Show her to Studio K and explain… well, everything, please.”

I saw the receptionist’s shoulders stiffen and her head move in protest, but Mr. Bell was already attacking a stack of correspondence. We had been dismissed. Leone Webb looked silently at him for a moment, then beckoned to me. I followed her.

She led me to the locker room and assigned me a locker. She was no small-talker; she was brisk and efficient. She took me through the reception room and down the hall that led to the door marked Studio K. She pushed it open.

I closed my eyes for a second. Yesterday these mirrored walls had shown a thousand figures crumpled on the shining floor, had reflected a thousand blouses growing crimson. Now they mirrored nothing but more mirrored walls. The room was bare, cold and impersonal.

I was suddenly cold, too, with a seeping wave of fright. Perhaps I had been wrong to do this. Perhaps I should have told Steve my plan, so he wouldn’t have let me do it.

Leone said, “Is something wrong?”

“No… it’s nothing. I’m a little nervous… about teaching, I mean.”

“The first day is tough. After that, you’ll enjoy it, I’m sure.”

She stepped past me through the doorway and moved quickly across the studio. She stopped before a row of small black dials. Above them was a black grilled loud speaker, below them, in a niche, a telephone.

“The music is piped in here,” she said. “This dial is for fox-trot, this for rhumba, this for waltz, this is for samba.” She touched another dial. “You control the volume here. You understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

“The telephone is an inside one… it’s connected to my desk. If you should need any help, if there’s anything you want to know about, call me. Don’t hesitate, it’s my job to help you. All right now?”

“All right,” I said, “and thanks.”

She started for the door, then turned back. “One more thing, and please don’t be offended. If I were you, I’d tone down my lipstick a little. You look a bit too provocative.”

I doubted that, so I didn’t waste any time taking her advice. I barely waited for her to close the door before I started my inspection of the studio. I looked first for a concealed door, a camouflaged window. Then I searched for a crevice large enough for an arm to reach through, then for a hole large enough for a bullet to enter.

Foot by foot, inch by inch, I went over the gleaming walls. There was nothing. There was no way for a murderer to enter this place except through the studio’s only door.

Once again I had proved conclusively that only Steve could have murdered Anita Farrell.

My new career began;
I was a teacher of the dance. But I didn’t let that interfere with my mission at the school. While I waltzed and fox-trotted, rhumbaed and sambaed, I delved into the life of the late Anita Farrell.

Each of her ex-students was, of course, full and overflowing with the killing. They talked readily about Anita, but it was just a kind of macabre ode to the departed.