“You mean,” said Bruno quickly, “that there’s no direct evidence that DeWitt killed Longstreet? That DeWitt was decoyed to the Mohawk through the agency of someone whose identity he can’t disclose for personal reasons, that the cigar was planted on Wood’s body - in other words, that DeWitt was framed for Wood’s murder?” Bruno smiled. “Of course, that will be the defense, Mr. Lane, but unless the defending attorney produces the author of that call, in the flesh, he’s sunk. No, I’m afraid that argument won’t hold much water. Don’t forget that DeWitt’s silence, his unwillingness to talk, unless he radically changes his attitude, will tell severely against him. Even the psychology is with us.”

  “Listen,” said Thumm nastily, “this isn’t getting us anywhere. You’ve heard our side of the story, Mr. Lane. What’s yours?” He spoke in the truculent tone of a man who trod firm ground and defied his opponent to attack.

  Lane closed his eyes, smiling faintly. When he opened them again, they were very bright. “I find, gentlemen,” he said, twisting about in his chair to face both men, “that you make the identical error in your attitude toward crime and punishment that many producers make in connection with drama and its interpretation.”

  Thumm snickered loudly. Bruno sank back, frowning.

  “The error consists chiefly in this,” continued Lane genially, hands clasped on his stick, “that you approach your problem in the same manner of companions of my boyhood trying to gain admittance to the circus - by walking into the tent backwards - Perhaps that is not clear. I can make a pointed analogy from the drama.

  “Periodically we so-called artists of the theater are reminded of the immortality of the one dramatic Immortal by some producer’s announcement that he will once more stage Hamlet. What is the first thing this well- meaning but misguided producer does? He scrabbles about conferring with lawyers and drawing up impressive legal documents, all timed to a nicety with the publicized intention to star the eminent Mr. Barrymore or the great Mr. Hampden in that sorely mangled classic. The emphasis is placed entirely on Mr. Barrymore, or Mr. Hampden. The attraction is Mr. Barrymore, or Mr. Hampden. The public responds in exactly the same manner - they go to view the earnest efforts of Mr. Barrymore or Mr. Hampden and completely overlook the heroic witchery of the play itself.

  “Even Mr. Geddes’s venture, while it attempted to correct the evil of overemphasizing the star by engaging that excellent young player, Mr. Massey, in the title-role, was ill-advised because it mangled the play in another way. That Mr. Massey had never played Hamlet was an inspiration on Mr. Geddes’s part, and something of the original intention of the playwright was regained - to exhibit a Hamlet interesting for himself, and not for his reputation as an interpreter. The mangling, by lopping off speeches and directing Mr. Massey so that Hamlet became a downy-faced young man more athletic than philosophic, is another story…

  “But this matter of star-emphasis is cruel to the one great playwright of all time. In motion pictures a similar condition persists. Mr. George Arliss plays in the cinema version of a story dramatizing a historical character. Does the public flock to see Disraeli, the character, reanimated magically in the voice and the flesh? Or Alexander Hamilton? Not at all. They flock to see Mr. George Arliss’s delightful interpretation of merely another role.

  “You see,” said Drury Lane, “the emphasis is misplaced, the approach is distorted. Your modem system of criminal apprehension is as overbalanced, as profoundly fallacious, as the modern system of glorifying Mr. Arliss or casting Hamlet with Barrymore. The producer shapes Hamlet, whittles it, changes its proportions, redesigns it to fit Mr. Barrymore, instead of measuring Mr. Barrymore against the original specifications of the piece as fixed in their true proportions by Shakespeare. You, Inspector Thumm and District Attorney Bruno, commit the identical error when you shape the crime, whittle it, change its proportions, redesign it to fit John DeWitt, instead of measuring John DeWitt against the fixed specifications of the crime. Your loose ends, your shavings, your remnants of inexplicable facts and by-facts are the result of this too-elastic method of hypothesizing. The problem should be attacked always from the crime itself as an unalterable bundle of facts; and if a hypothesis results in conflicting or opposing loose ends, it is the hypothesis that is wrong. Do you follow me, gentlemen?”

  “My dear Mr. Lane.” Bruno’s forehead was corrugated, his whole manner subtly altered. “It’s a brilliant analogy and I don’t doubt it’s basically true. But, my God, how often can we use the method you suggest? We need action. We’re pressed by our superiors, the newspapers, and the public. If a few things are cloudy, it’s not because we’re wrong but because they’re unexplained, perhaps irrelevant, odds and ends.”

  “A debatable question… As a matter of fact, Mr. Bruno,” replied Lane abruptly - his face became smooth and enigmatic again, “to depart from this pleasant discussion, I agree with you that the law should take its course. Arrest Mr. DeWitt for the murder of Charles Wood, by all means.”

  He rose, smiled, bowed, and quickly left the room.

  Bruno returned from escorting him to the elevator in the corridor with a worried face. Thumm regarded him from his chair with the characteristic savagery of his expression gone.

  “Well, Thumm, what do you think?”

  “Damned,” said Thumm, “if I know what to think. In the beginning, I thought he was a doddering old blowhard, but now… He got to his feet and began to pace the rug. “That spiel of his just a minute ago wasn’t the prattling of a feeble-minded old has-been. I don’t know… By the way, you’ll be interested to learn that Lane had lunch with DeWitt today. Mosher reported to me a while ago.”

  “Lunch with DeWitt, eh? And he didn’t breathe a word about it,” muttered the District Attorney. “I wonder if he hasn’t something up his sleeve regarding DeWitt.”

  “Well, he isn’t cooking up anything with DeWitt,” said Thumm grimly,

  “because Mosher says DeWitt looked like a beaten dog when Lane left.”

  “Maybe,” sighed Bruno, sinking into his swivel-chair, “maybe he’s on our side after all. And if there’s the ghost of a chance that he’ll turn something up, we’ve got to stick with him and take our medicine… Not,” he added with a final scowl, “that it isn’t bitter!”

  Scene 10

  THE HAMLET

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 7 P.M.

  Mr. Drury Lane, accompanied by a Kozaku of a man - rawboned, with blue jowls that shook fiercely at every stride - came into the foyer of his private theater at The Hamlet. The theater led off a corridor parallel to the vast main hall, and was entered through a magnificent wall of glass. The foyer was uncolored by the gilt glories of the average theater. The predominating note was bronze and marble. In its exact center stood a remarkable sculpture. It was a replica in bronze of Lord Gower’s famous memorial - Shakespeare seated on a high pedestal; below, at each side, stood figures of Lady Macbeth, Hamlet, Prince Hal, and Falstaff. Beyond the foyer towered a single portal of bronze.

  Lane, keenly watching the lips of his gesticulating companion - dwarfing his own tall, slender figure - opened this door; they entered the theater itself. There were no loges, no rococo decorations, no spectacular crystal chandeliers suspended from the high ceiling - no balcony, no sweeping murals.

  On the stage a bald-headed young man in a dirty smock was standing on a ladder, brandishing a paint-brush with free vigorous strokes on a back-drop, in the midst of a curious impressionistic scene - an alley lined on both sides with queer distorted habitations.

  “Bravo, Fritz!” said Lane clearly, pausing at the rear of the theater to survey the young man’s handiwork. “I like that.” Despite the fact that the theater was empty, there was not the slightest echo of Lane’s voice.

  “Now,” said Lane, sinking into a seat in the rear row, “attend, Anton Kropotkin. You are inclined to undervalue the potentialities of your countryman’s piece. There is real Russian fervor concealed beneath its grotesqueries. To translate the play into English will dilute its Slavic passion. To rewrite the play in terms of Anglo-Saxon background, as you so terrifyingly suggest, would…”

  The bronze door clanged inward and the tiny humped figure of Quacey shambled into the theater. Kropotkin swung his bulk, and Lane followed the direction of the Russian’s eyes. “Quacey. Do you invade the sanctity of the drama?” Lane asked affectionately. Then his eyes narrowed. “You seem tired, poor ugly Quasimodo. What’s the trouble?”

  Quacey pottered to an adjoining seat, grumbling a greeting to the huge Kropotkin. He said peevishly: “I have had a day - only the good God above has such days. Tired? I am - I am torn to pieces!”

  Lane patted the ancient’s hand, quite as if the wrinkled cripple had been a child. “And were you successful, gnome?”

  A flash of teeth in Quacey’s leathery face. “But how could I be? Is that the way these South American consuls serve their countries? It is shameful. All out of town. All on vacation… As it is, I wasted three hours in futile telephone calls and-”

  “Quacey, Quacey,” said Lane, “acquire the patience of the neophyte. Have you tried the Uruguayan consul?”

  “Uruguay? Uruguay?” squeaked the old man. “Don’t believe I have. Uruguay? Is that a country in South America?”

  “Yes. I believe you will have better fortune there.”

  Quacey made a face, a very ugly face indeed, punched the big Russian’s ribs out of sheer malice, and pattered out of the theater.

  “That accursed mouse!” growled Kropotkin. “He keeps my ribs sore.”

  Ten minutes later, as Kropotkin, Hof, and Lane sat about discussing a new play, the ancient shuffled into the theater again, grinning. “Oh, a noble suggestion, Mr. Drury. The Uruguayan consul won’t be back until Saturday, October the tenth.”

  Kropotkin heaved to his large feet and thundered down the aisle. Lane’s brow wrinkled. “Unfortunate,” he murmured. “Is he on vacation also?”

  “Yes. He’s gone back to Uruguay and no one in his consulate can - or is willing to - supply information. The consul’s name is Juan Ajos, A-j-o-s…”

  “I’ll tell you,” said Hof thoughtfully, “I’d like to try an experiment with this opus, Mr. Lane.”

  “Ajos-” began Quacey, blinking.

  “Yes, Fritz?” said Lane.

  “How about partitioning the stage laterally? The problem is not too difficult mechanically.”

  “I just had a telephone call-” began Quacey desperately, but Lane was Watching Hof.

  “It will bear consideration, Fritz,” the actor said. “You-”

  Quacey was tugging at Lane’s arm. He turned his head, “Oh, Quacey! Was there something else?”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you,” snapped Quacey. “Inspector Thumm telephoned that he has just arrested John DeWitt.”

  Lane waved his arm indifferently. “Stupid, but useful. Was there anything further?”

  The hunchback polished his bald dome with the flat of his hand. “The Inspector said that he will get a quick indictment but the trial will not come up for about a month. The Court of General Sessions, he said, does not convene before October. Or something like that.”

  “In that case,” said Lane, “we will permit Mr. Juan Ajos to spend his sabbatical in peace. You have earned a rest, Caliban. Off with you!… And now, Fritz, let us vivisect this inspiration of yours.”

  Scene 11

  OFFICES OF LYMAN, BROOKS & SHELDON

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, IO A.M.

  Mrs. Fern Dewitt paced the floor of the reception-room like a leopardess with lashing tail. She wore a suit trimmed with leopard, a turban trimmed with leopard, very odd shoes trimmed with leopard. In her black eyes the wicked ferocity of the leopardess flashed. The aging, carefully lacquered face might have been a totem mask hiding centuries of cruelty. And, beneath the veneer of that face, too, something of elemental fear.

  When the reception-clerk opened the door and said that Mr. Brooks would see her now, Mrs. DeWitt was sitting quite still in a chair. The performance had been for her own voluptuous edification only. Smiling thinly, she picked up her leopard-trimmed purse and followed the clerk through a long corridor lined with law books to a door on which was lettered: Mr. Brooks. Private.

  Lionel Brooks was like his name - leonine. He was large physically, with a heroic shock of blond hair turning gray. He was dressed soberly, and his eyes were filled with dark worry.

  “Sit down, Mrs. DeWitt. Sorry to have kept you waiting.” She complied stiffly and refused a cigarette. Brooks perched on the edge of his desk and spoke abruptly, gazing off into space.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’ve asked you to call. The matter, I’m afraid, has serious implications, and it’s a very difficult one for me to broach. You’ll understand that I’m merely an intermediary, Mrs. DeWitt.”

  She said, without moving her artificially red lips: “I quite understand.” Brooks plunged ahead. “I visit Mr. DeWitt every day in his cell. Of course, lie is charged with first-degree murder and the law will not release him on bond. He’s taking his confinement - well, philosophically. But that’s not what I wanted to say primarily. Mrs. DeWitt, your husband commissioned me yesterday to advise you that, if he is acquitted of the murder charge, he will institute divorce proceedings against you immediately thereafter.”

  The woman’s eyes did not waver for an instant; there was no inner shrinking as from an unexpected blow. Something in the depths of her large Spanish eyes began to simmer, and Brooks went on hurriedly.

  “He has authorized me to offer you a settlement of twenty thousand a year, Mrs. DeWitt, for the remainder of your unmarried life, if you will not contest the divorce and will assist in consummating it with the least possible publicity and fuss. I feel, Mrs. DeWitt, that under the circumstances” - Brooks stood on his feet and turned his back to go around his desk - “under the circumstances, Mr. DeWitt is making a very generous offer.”

  Mrs. DeWitt said in a hard voice: “And if I fight the action?”

  “He will cut you off without a penny.”

  The woman smiled a hideous smile, because the flame behind her eyes did not go out and only her lips curved. “It seems to me that both you and Mr. DeWitt are overoptimistic, Mr. Brooks. There is such a thing as alimony, you know.”

  Brooks sat down and studiously lit a cigarette. “But there won’t be any alimony, Mrs. DeWitt.”

  “That’s a strange statement from a lawyer, Mr. Brooks.” The rouge on her cheeks burned like fire. “Certainly a cast-off wife is entitled to support!” Brooks winced at the metallic quality of her voice; she spoke in a detached mechanical manner that was inhuman. “You are not a cast-off wife, Mrs. DeWitt. If you should contest this action and force us to go to trial, you may take my word for it that the sympathy of the Court will be with your husband, Mrs. DeWitt, not with you.”

  “Please come to the point.”

  Brooks shrugged. “Very well, if you insist. - Mrs. DeWitt, there is only one charge on which the plaintiff in a divorce proceeding may bring action in New York State. Mr. DeWitt is in possession of proof - I’m sorry to have to say this, Mrs. DeWitt - proof that doesn’t have to be manufactured, either, of your infidelity!”

  She was very still this time; one eyelid drooped a little and that was all. “What proof?”

  “A signed statement from a witness who swears over legal signature that you and Harley Longstreet occupied Longstreet’s apartment early on the morning of February eighth of this year, at a time when you were supposed to be visiting for the week-end out of town. You were observed, the statement makes clear, in flimsy nightdress at eight o’clock in the morning, Mr. Longstreet was in pajamas, and at the moment the witness saw you both, you were on terms of unmistakable intimacy. Shall I be more specific, Mrs. DeWitt? Because the sworn statement goes into harrowing detail.”

  “That’s quite enough. Quite enough,” she said in a low voice. The flame beyond her eyes was flickering; she had relaxed and was human again, trembling like a callow girl. Then she tossed her head. “Who is this dirty-minded witness of yours - a woman?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” snapped Brooks. “I see what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is a bluff, or a put-up job.” His face hardened and his tone became cold and impersonal. “I assure you that we are in possession of that document, and we have the witness, a perfectly reliable person, to back it up. I assure you, too, that we can prove this incident in Longstreet’s apartment was not the first between you, although it was probably the last. I repeat, Mrs. DeWitt, that under the circumstances Mr. DeWitt is being generous. I advise you from my experience in these matters to accept the offer - twenty thousand a year for the remainder of your unmarried life, if you keep quiet and help us secure the divorce without a blast of notoriety. Think it over.”

  He rose with finality, towering over her. Hands folded in her lap, she sat staring down at the rug. Then, without a word, she slipped out of the chair, and went to the door. Brooks opened it for her, escorted her to the reception- room, pressed the elevator-button, and in silence they waited for the elevator. When it came he said slowly: “I’ll expect to hear from you within a day or so - or from your attorney, Mrs. DeWitt, if you decide to retain one.”

  As if he did not exist she brushed by him and entered the lift. The elevator-boy grinned and Brooks, shaking himself, stood thoughtfully alone.

  Roger Sheldon, the junior partner, poked his curly head into the reception- room. He made a face. “Gone, Lionel? How’d she take it?”

  “I’ve got to give her credit. She swallowed it like a major. She has plenty of guts.”

  “Well, this ought to please DeWitt. That is, if she doesn’t squawk. Think she’ll fight?”

  “It’s hard to tell. I have a hunch, though, she knows that Anna Platt’s our witness, because the Platt woman says that she thinks Mrs. DeWitt saw her that morning when she peeped into the bedroom. Damn these women!” He stopped short. “Say, Roger,” he muttered, “that gives me an unpleasant thought. You’d better detail somebody to watch Anna Platt. I’m none too sure of her honesty of purpose. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. DeWitt tries to buy her off, and if she denies that statement on the witness-stand…