Death in the Fifth Position by Gore Vidal Read Free Book Online Page A

deceased?”
    “Who?”
    “Miss Sutton … who do you think I meant? Mayor La Guardia.”
    “I’m sorry if I misunderstood you, Mr. Gleason.” Oh, I was in splendid form, putting my head right into the noose, but what the hell … tonight there’d be champagne. “I met Miss Sutton the day I came to work for the ballet … yesterday afternoon.”
    “As what?”
    “As special public relations consultant … that’s what it says on that paper in front of you.”
    “Are you trying to get funny with me?”
    “Certainly not.” I looked offended.
    “How well did you know the … Miss Sutton?”
    “I met her yesterday.”
    “You never saw her outside of work then?”
    “Not very often.”
    “How often?”
    “Never, then.”
    “Well, which is it, never or occasionally?”
    “Never, I guess, to speak of … maybe now and then at a party before I’d met her … that’s all I meant.”
    “It would help if you say what you mean the first time.”
    “I’ll try.”
    “Did she have any enemies that you know of?”
    “Well, yes and no.”
    “Yes
or
no, please, Mr. Sargeant.”
    “No … not that I know of. On the other hand, I gather that nobody liked her.”
    “And why was that?”
    “I’m told she wasn’t very easy to work with and she was unpleasant to the kids in the company, especially the girls. She was set to be the big star when Eglanova retired.”
    “I see. Does Egg … lanova look forward to retiring?”
    “Wouldn’t you after thirty years in ballet?”
    “I’m not in ballet.”
    “Well, neither am I, Mr. Gleason. I know almost as little about this as you.”
    Gleason gave me an extremely dirty look but I was full of beans, thinking about how I had handled Washburn.
    “Was her marriage to Miles Sutton a happy one?”
    “I suggest you ask him; I’ve never met him.”
    “I see.” Gleason was getting a little red in the face and I could see that I was amusing his secretary, a pale youth who was taking down our conversation in shorthand.
    “Now then: where were you at the dress rehearsal yesterday afternoon?”
    “Backstage mostly.”
    “Did you notice anything unusual?”
    “Like what?”
    “Like … never mind. What were your movements
after
the rehearsal?”
    “Well, I went out and had a sandwich; then I called up the different newspapers … about the Wilbur business. I got back to the theater about five-thirty.”
    “And you left it?”
    “Not until after the murder last night.”
    “Who did you see when you returned at five-thirty, who was backstage?”
    “Just about everyone, I suppose: Mr. Washburn, Eglanova, Giraud, Rudin … no, he wasn’t there until about six, and neither was Miles Sutton now that I think of it.”
    “Is it customary for all these people to be in the theater such a long time before a performance?”
    “I don’t know … it was a première night.”
    “Eglanova was not in the première, though, was she?”
    “No, but she often spends the day in the theater … so does Giraud. He sleeps.”
    “By the way, do you happen to know who will take Sutton’s place tonight?”
    I paused just long enough to sound guilty; I kicked myself but there was nothing to be done about it. “Jane Garden … one of the younger soloists.”
    But he missed the connection, I could see, and not until all the interviews had been neatly typed up and my fingerprints had been discovered on the shears would he decidethat I had cut the cable so that Jane could dance the lead in
Eclipse.
    He asked me a few more questions to which I gave some mighty flip answers and then he told me to go, very glad to see the last of me, for that day at least. I have a dislike of policemen which must be the real thing since I’d never had anything to do with them up until now, outside of the traffic courts. There is something about the state putting the power to bully into the hands of a group of subnormal, sadistic apes that makes my blood boil. Of course, the good