“And after she slammed her hand on the table?”
“She grabbed her handbag and fled.”
“With her escort in pursuit?”
“No, he had to settle up the bill first. Then he pursued.”
“You have no idea of this man’s name?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Perhaps Freddy Regner knows,” suggested Alma. “We saw him speaking to the man here at the studio yesterday.” Farber lowered the pad and pencil, a look of fascination on his face. “You had seen him earlier in the day here?” Alma and Hitchcock nodded. “And you had no opportunity to speak to him then?”
“Sadly, no,” said Hitchcock, looking like a dejected basset. “He was terribly quick on his feet. Now you see him, now you don’t. Alma caught him right here on our sound stage peeping from behind a piece of scenery. At least Alma says she saw him. I didn’t.”
“I positively saw him,” said Alma. “He seemed to be fascinated by an original melody composed by our pianist, Rudolf Wagner.”
“Wagner seems determined to play it all this season,” offered Hitchcock.
“It’s very lovely.” Alma began humming it and then blushed. The very idea of such frivolity appalled her, with Anna Grieban probably lying on a slab at the morgue.
“Charming,” said Farber. “So, this is all you can tell me?”
Hitchcock’s face was a blank. Alma shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps,” began Hitchcock, “I should make a general announcement to the company of this awful tragedy, and then perhaps some others might come forward with some helpful bits of information about Anna. But, Mr. Detective, I must get on with my filming.”
“By all means. Now I would like to meet this Fredrick Regner.”
“I’ll fetch him,” volunteered Alma, and left.
As Hitchcock led the detective away from the office, Farber asked, “Your film, it deals with murder?”
“No, it deals with chorus girls, who, I might add, deserve to be murdered.”
“You do not have much faith in this film you are making? Then why do you make it?”
“Because it was placed on a platter and handed to me. It is my first opportunity to direct.”
“Congratulations! I hope you catch much success!”
“I hope you catch your murderer.”
Hitchcock mounted the stairs to the stage of The Pleasure Garden and shouted for the company’s attention. He told them the news of Anna Grieban’s murder, which was met with a chorus of gasps and cries of “oh, no,” and “Gott im Himmel.” Hitchcock introduced Detective Inspector Farber and asked that he be given complete cooperation. Meanwhile, he added, Miss Reville would take over as script girl and work should commence immediately.
Alma had found Regner and turned him over to the detective, who led him to a secluded corner of the sound stage. Regner was of no help. Yes, he remembered the man with the disfigured face, but no, he had no idea who he was, a total stranger to him. The detective knew nothing of Regner’s having said he directed the man to Stage Three when the man appeared on Stage One because Hitchcock and Alma had neglected to mention it. Yes, he had recommended Anna Grieban because she had been script girl on two of his earlier films and was quite competent. When the Pleasure Garden company set up shop at the studio, she hadn’t worked for months and was destitute, and he was delighted to recommend her. “Surely,” he reminded Farber, “you can see how squalid her quarters are.”
“So you have seen them?” Farber was pleased to see the writer’s face redden.
“Well, yes, once. She… er… one time invited me for a schnapps.”
“I hope it was a good schnapps.”
“Not bad,” said Regner with an expansive smile.
Farber then spoke to Rosie Wagner, having been told by Alma that she was Anna Grieban’s assistant. Rosie cowered as the detective began his questioning. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“I’m afraid!”
“Of what?”
“You!”
“Why, for pity’s sake?”
“You won’t arrest me?”
“What for?” He was tempted to say, Better such a plain frump should be kept under lock and key rather than be permitted to roam at large blemishing the landscape.
“When I was a little girl, my father always threatened to put me in jail!” Farber was interested in meeting a man of such admirable character and discrimination.
He said instead, “You must learn to forgive parents for the foolish threats they make to their small children. It is not easy being a parent. I have three of my own. Monsters, each and every one of them. Especially the two girls. Very devious and dangerous. They leave their roller skates on the staircase for me to trip over.”
Rosie said something like “heh heh.” Farber gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed that was what passed for laughter. She seemed less ill at ease now and picked at a pimple on her chin. “You will question my father?”
“Why?” Farber’s hand holding the pencil was poised in midair.
“He also knows Anna Grieban. I mean knew. He is over there. At the piano.”
“Ah! The one who composed the melody Miss Reville hums so charmingly. How nice, father and daughter working together.” He wondered if what she had now said was “Ugh.”
“So what can you tell me about Anna Grieban?”
“She was very bossy. She didn’t like me.” Farber was beginning to adore the late script girl. “But I am a good worker.” Farber asked Rosie about the man with the disfigured face, but Rosie could tell him nothing; in fact, Rosie added up to a wasted ten minutes. Farber dismissed her and went to her father.
“Poor Anna,” said Wagner, having some free time while Hitchcock was busy solving the problem of a difficult trick shot. “She was a very intelligent person, but very unlucky.”
“How so?”
“Well, you saw the sordid hovel she lived in.”
Farber smiled. “She served you her schnapps there?”
“No schnapps. Tea and biscuits. Stale biscuits. She was poverty-stricken. “
“But she made good money when she worked, didn’t she?”
“Surely you jest, Herr Farber. In our miserable economy what is good money?”
“Yes, yes, I understand. Even millionaires are having difficult times.”
Wagner wondered if the detective was a Communist.
