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СКАЧАТЬ while you’re messing up your fingerprints.”

      “I expect so.” I stuck it in my breast pocket. “But you know as well as I do that fingerprints or no, eventually they’re going to find out I was in Nellie’s office this morning.”

      “Nonsense.”

      “It isn’t nonsense. They always do.”

      “How?”

      “I don’t know, but they always do. One leaves spoors or something.”

      “Does one? How awful.”

      “And unless they find out who did it, I can’t prove I didn’t, when it comes right down to it.”

      “Then by all means we must find out who did do it.”

      It seemed so simple the way she said it.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      I LOOKED AT MY WATCH as we pulled up in front of Sardi’s. Only four hours since I had been here before and it seemed like four years.

      The meter said eighty cents and Maggie gave me a dollar, which I gave to the driver, and we got out.

      The sidewalk in front of Sardi’s is strictly Actors’ Equity property. From ten in the morning till one at night you can always find one standing there. Musicians have their own Wailing Wall around Fiftieth Street somewhere; vaudevillians in front of the Palace; the radio people, a sheltered lot, have theirs on the third floor of NBC or CBS on Madison. Models are around Grand Central and Park, but actors are loyal to Forty-fourth Street between Eighth and Broadway. And they were there in full force today, and it didn’t take long for Maggie and me to find out that Nellie had been discovered.

      Just about my most unfavorite actor in the world would have to have the pleasure of telling us what we already knew only too well. He spied us standing by the curb and came rushing over. Ted Kent is his name, or at least that is what he uses. I suppose the basic reason I don’t like him is very simple; he always gets all the parts I want and when you get right down to it, that’s the main reason most actors don’t like other actors they don’t like.

      Ted is about my height, maybe a couple of inches shorter without his trick you-can-be-taller-than-she-is shoes and is a perfect example of a successful Operation Hollywood. The right people, the publicity, the small part, the screen test and the Hollywood contract. Only they didn’t pick up his option so he headed straight back to Broadway with quite a bit of money and new teeth, trying to get that part that will shoot him back to the coast again.

      As he greeted us, he gave me a very small hello, which was all right by me, and Maggie a very big kiss—which wasn’t.

      “Maggie, darling. Have you heard?” He was a darling boy, too. “Nellie is dead!” And he sort of stood back on one foot and waited for us to take it big. We must have both felt it was better to play dumb and we did what was obviously expected.

      “No!” said Maggie. “Who did it?”

      Ted gave her what I thought was a funny look and said, “But, darling, nobody did it. She just collapsed. Heart, I expect.”

      “Are you sure?” I said.

      “What do you mean, am I sure? Of course I’m sure. Heart failure, I think, or drunk—you know she drank like a fish. Anyway, she fell over on that spindle she had on her desk, you know.” I admitted I did know. “And she died. File and forget, I say.” He practically giggled at that one. Maggie and I looked at each other. I think my sigh of relief must have reached the East River.

      “How do you know?” Maybe he wasn’t straight on his facts. Maybe this was all just a trick by the police to find out who really did it. When you’ve convinced yourself that you are a key witness in a murder scene it’s a little disconcerting to be told that it isn’t a murder at all and just a simple case of alcohol or heart failure. I can’t say I was sorry that it was turning out this way, but I’m afraid the ham in me was feeling cheated as if I had been fired from a show before it even started rehearsals.

      Ted tried to wither me with a look, but I don’t wither very easy by guys like Ted. “Everybody knows. The police have been here asking questions and having a big time. They’re still up in her office now waiting for the meat wagon.” You could tell in his day he’d been in some pretty lousy shows, too. A couple of other people joined our clump attracted by Ted’s overloud voice—which was the idea—and, goosed up by a bigger audience, Ted really put out.

      “Libby Drew found her…she was just dropping in, making the rounds, and saw her lying on her desk, blood all over the place running over the floor…”

      “But…” I started to interrupt but Maggie silenced me with a stiff poke in the ribs. Ted chose to ignore my attempted interruption and went merrily on, practically drooling at the mouth.

      “Of course, you know Libby, sly puss that she is…. Did she make with the screams and bring everybody running as anyone else would do it?” He answered himself. “No indeed, the little brat carefully took the elevator down to the main floor, probably pulled her dress off one shoulder, put eyeshadow under her eyes and staggered all the way across the street into Sardi’s and announced it like a messenger in Macbeth. What a performance! Nothing like it since the Cherry sisters. I was having lunch with Terry and Lawrence…. They’re doing a new show and there’s the dream part for me…”

      “Okay, okay,” I said. “Cut to the finish.” He gave me a nasty look but went on with his story….

      “Well, you can imagine what a stir there was. The place was jammed to the ears. Vincent Sardi called the police right away, and everyone tore out and up to her office. And sure enough there she was dead as a door nail. What a crush in that little office. Everyone was there. Stanley and Brock and Cheryl and George…”

      “Spare us the society notes. Then what?” I said.

      “Well, after a while the police came and all of us except Libby had to leave.”

      A policeman wandered about muttering for the crowd to break it up and move along, but after a while gave it up as a bad job because you can’t break up a crowd of actors. They just shift into other groupings. Ted took off his hat, held it in his teeth and pulled out a pocket comb and combed his hair. Maggie and I just stood there watching him. When every hair and wave was arranged to his satisfaction he wiped off the comb, stuck it back in his pocket, carefully replaced his hat and kissed Maggie on the cheek again.

      “Well, darling, I’ve got to fly. Let’s have lunch one day. I’ll call you. Be sure and see the morning papers, I think my picture’s in them. Of course Libby hogged most of them. But the lad from the Brooklyn Eagle was very nice. Remembered me from my last picture with Paramount. Bye now.” And he was off down the street headed toward Broadway.

      “Let’s have a drink before I vomit.” I took Maggie’s arm and led her into Sardi’s.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      SARDI’S RESTAURANT IS REALLY just one big room divided by some chest-high partitions with benches or, in the chi-chier places, I expect they would be called banquettes. All the woodwork is dark brown and the chairs and benches are covered with dark leather and the walls are shingled with caricatures of well-known theatrical people. Needless to say, one of me is not included. СКАЧАТЬ