“There was also a tragedy with her husband.”
“She has a husband?”
“Had.”
“You knew him?”
“Oh, he was long gone before I knew Anna. I only met Anna on a movie about two years ago. The husband she married before the war. She was just a child then, she told me. But she loved him very much. From the way she described him, he must have had the looks of a Greek god.”
“Not a German god?”
“I don’t recall our gods being famous for their looks.”
“So this husband was killed in the war, I presume?” asked Farber.
Wagner shrugged. “I don’t know if he was killed or not, but he didn’t come home to her.”
“Now comes a very commonplace question in these investigations. Do you know if she had any enemies?”
Wagner told him with great satisfaction, “My daughter detested her.”
“So I gather. But do you think your daughter capable of such a dreadful murder?”
“Rosie is a very dreadful daughter.”
“So are mine. I have two.”
“My sympathies.”
“Did you know a friend of Anna Grieban’s who has a tragically disfigured face?”
Wagner ran his fingers across the keys. “I never heard her speak of any such person.” He softly began playing his own composition.
“You didn’t notice him yesterday here in the studio?”
“At the studio, I notice only my piano and my employers. I provide mood music for the actors, the violinists, and myself, that is all we do here.”
“That is a charming melody you are playing. It’s your own, right?”
Wagner looked up from the keyboard. “How do you know this?”
“Miss Reville hummed it for me. She thinks you are very gifted.”
“She is a lovely woman, Miss Reville. She told me she recommended me last night to Fritz Lang, the director.”
“Oho, that’s big time! Not like this fat man Hitchcock.”
“Do not overestimate Mr. Lang, or underestimate Mr. Hitchcock. Is there anything else I can tell you?”
“I don’t know,” said Farber affably, “is there?”
Hitchcock had solved the problem of the trick shot. “All right, everyone,” he shouted, “let’s try to get this one in one take! Actors, please keep your positions until I call for action.”
“Musicians!” cried Alma. The music began. The detective Farber now stood behind Hitchcock, watching the director’s rear end quiver as he prepared the intricate scene. Alma stood next to him, and behind her was Fredrick Reg- ner. Hans Meyer, the actor who professed to know about mountains, tiptoed about quietly in the background.
Hitchcock barked in succession. “Camera! Action!” The clapper boy held his board, on which was lettered the number of the scene and the day’s date, in front of the camera, and the camera operator cranked away. Virginia Valli and Carmelita Geraghty came dancing out with the chorus, lavish smiles on their faces, doing their utmost to keep their high kicks in precision. Alma once again, as during the day before, was beginning to suffer from nausea induced by the cigar and cigarette smoke of the atmosphere players at the Pleasure Garden tables. The orchestral trio was providing a bouncy melody that sounded something like a bastardization of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band/’
A chorus girl tripped.
“Bloody hell!” shouted Hitchcock as he began tearing at his thinning hair. “Cut! Cut! Goddamn it, cut!”
A deadly silence descended over the sound stage, a deadly silence broken by the crashing dissonance of the piano keys.
“I do not need any comments from you, Herr Wagner!” shouted Hitchcock, followed by some nervous tittering.
A woman’s shriek scythed through the stage. Farber turned in the direction of the sound.
“My father! My father!” screamed Rosie Wagner. “Somebody has murdered my father!”
Rudolf Wagner had fallen across the keyboard, a knife in his back and a frown on his face.
Four
Detective Inspector Wilhelm Farber was seething with indignation. How dare a murder occur practically under his very distinguished nose while he was investigating an earlier one? And again, no witnesses. The two violinists, who gave their names as Martin and Johann, claimed to have been busy sorting and selecting sheet music in the respite provided by the clumsy chorus girl. When they heard the cacophony from the keyboard, they thought it was Wagner giving vent to frustration and impatience.
“He was frequently frustrated and always impatient,” said Martin, wheezing, which he did when nervous.
Johann added, “I think he was also upset when he caught this person staring at him from behind that piece of scenery. “
Farber asked Hitchcock, who was now convinced his movie was jinxed, “Do you suppose it’s our friend with the shattered face?”
“I suppose it could be.” He asked the musicians, “Did either of you see this man?”
Johann scratched his chin. Martin shifted from one foot to the other. Both were uncomfortable and wary. Army veterans who distrusted and despised authority, they were old friends and survived by remaining trapped within the limits of their meager ambitions.
Farber prodded them. “A man has been seen around here with a terribly disfigured face. Did either of you see him?”
After a moment, Johann spoke. “I caught a glimpse of him yesterday. But not today. I didn’t see him today. Martin? Did you see this man?”
“I don’t see anybody but my sheet music. You know how lost I get when I’m concentrating.” He explained to Farber and Hitchcock. “I’m a very heavy concentrator. When I concentrate, I’m no use to anybody but myself.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been very helpful,” said Farber. Hitchcock wondered if he was often given to such bizarre overstatement. When they were out of earshot of the musicians, Farber said, “You have just witnessed two superb examples of why Germany is so slow in recovering from the disaster of the war. Two idiots. Well, Hitchcock, I am stumped.”
“We need a cup of strong tea.” He led the way to the refreshment cart. It was now almost two hours since Wagner’s murder, and Farber, with an efficiency that impressed the very fastidious director, had interrogated over two dozen people who had been stationed in the vicinity. The results were disheartening, but
