Free Death on the Aisle by Frances and Richard Lockridge

forward. They talked and Kirk pointed at the stage. Then Smith pointed. Then they both got up, walked back up the aisle for about half its length and stood talking. Then Smith came down again and Kirk crossed through a row in the center section and walked down the left-center aisle to Christopher. He pointed and Christopher nodded. Christopher drew something which looked at that distance like an envelope from his pocket and wrote on it.
    Kirk left him, walked back up the aisle and sidled through another row of darkened seats. He reached a little glow in the darkness and sat down beside it. The glow became two glows, one larger than the other. That would almost have to be Ahlberg, unless there was an added starter; Ahlberg with a cigar, Kirk with a cigarette.
    Ellen Grady and Tilford were alone on the stage now, talking slowly, as if searching for words. The tempo of the dialogue was off; it no longer glinted. Tilford, as Martin Bingham, was slower, heavier, more matter of fact. He was, Weigand decided, intended to be—probably he had been cast to be. Then Ruthmary Jones, the colored maid, came on and began to clear away coffee cups. Only there were no coffee cups. She cleared away imaginary coffee cups, having answered an imaginary bell.
    â€œProps,” Pam told him in a whisper. “Isn’t it funny? There aren’t any yet. Because then they would have to put on a property man. So they just pretend. Like Thornton Wilder.”
    â€œWhat?” said Weigand. “Oh—that. Yes.”
    â€œ Ask Mr. Wade and Miss Sally to come here a minute, please Gladys ,” Tilford said.
    â€œ I’ll ask them , Mr. Bingham,” Gladys said.
    She went off. After a moment, Alberta James and Hubbard came on. The tempo picked up again; the stage filled with undercurrents. It was a long scene and Weigand grew interested in it. Kirk was back beside him and he had not seen or heard Kirk coming.
    â€œGood enough to eat,” Kirk said. “Lovely scene.”
    â€œYes,” Weigand said.
    The scene built up, quickening. Then it was broken, just before what might have been a climax. Driscoll and Ellen Grady came back through the door at Weigand’s right. They were talking. Hubbard caught up a line from Ellen, smoothly, and twisted it. A new tempo began, slow, then quickening. The scene built again, grew sharper and more intense than the one before. There was edged laughter in it, and under the laughter a twang of stretched nerves. Weigand was, he realized, in danger of forgetting the murder.
    Then the scene began to break again. Wade and Sally left the stage and, a few minutes after them, Carter. Bingham and the woman he wanted to marry—the woman who was tying his middle-aged life in knots, revealing motives in it which had long been hidden, linking it to the lives of thousands of other middle-aged men caught between new and old things—were alone on the stage. Now the tempo was slow again, and now it was quickening, building to a climax. Weigand was, in spite of himself, carried out of the world of murder into the world Penfield Smith was so artfully building in the lighted box. Bingham crossed to the window, looked out casually for a moment. Then the acting of Lawrence Tilford stiffened Bingham’s body. You could see Bingham’s attention caught and held by something outside; feel Joyce Barber’s words glancing unheard from some new isolation. Tilford turned suddenly and Weigand could see words forming on his lips.
    Then, from the rear of the theatre, there was a hoarse, galvanizing shout—wordless, then shaping into words.
    â€œCarney!” the voice shouted. It rose high, cracked a little. “ Carney! ” And then, lower but desperate in the silence. “ My God, he’s dead! ”
    In spite of himself, although now he knew what this must be, Weigand started to his feet; turned to run toward the sound. Besides him Pamela North said “Oh!” Shudderingly,