Ed McBain - Ten Plus One

Carella asked Miss Moriarty if there was anyone at the school now who might remember Blanche Lettiger as a student, and Miss Moriarty promptly took the detectives to Professor Richardson in the speech and dramatics department. Richardson was a thin old man with the manner and bearing of a Shakespearean actor. His voice rolled from his mouth in golden, rounded tones. He spoke forcefully, as though he were trying to give the second balcony its money’s worth. Carella was certain every word he projected was heard all the way uptown in the squadroom.

“Blanche Lettiger?” he said. “Blanche Lettiger?”

He put one slender hand to his leonine head, closing the thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose, lost in silent thought. Then he nodded once, looked up and said, “Yes.”

“You remember her?” Carella asked.

“Yes.” Richardson turned to Miss Moriarty. “Do you recall the Wig and Buskin Society?”

“I do,” she said.

“Then you must also remember The Long Voyage Home. ”

“I’m afraid I missed that one,” Miss Moriarty said tactfully. “The school’s drama groups do so many shows.”

“Mmm, yes, well,” Richardson said. He turned back to Carella. “I was faculty adviser of the group for four successive years. Blanche worked with us in that play.”

“ The Long Voyage Home ?”

“Yes. A very nice girl. I remember her very well. And the play, too. It was the first production we did in the round. Blanche Lettiger, yes, that’s right. She played one of the…ah…ladies of easy virtue.”

“What do you mean?” Carella said.

“Well…” Richardson paused, glanced at Miss Moriarty, and then said, “One of the prostitutes.”

Carella glanced at Meyer, but neither of the detectives said anything.

“She was a very nice child,” Richardson said. “Rather intense, somewhat brooding, but nice nonetheless. And a very good actress. The play is set in a London waterfront dive, you know, and the girl Blanche played spoke with a cockney dialect. Blanche mastered the tones and accent almost immediately. A remarkable feat, very. She had an excellent memory, too. She had memorized all of her sides”—Richardson paused here to see whether or not anyone had caught his use of the professional term “sides,” and then, getting no reaction, continued—”in the first two nights of rehearsal. She had quite the largest female part in the play, you know. Freda. The girl who has the long talk with Olson and then is instrumental in drugging him before he’s shanghaied. We did the play in the round, the first time anything of the sort had been tried at this school. We used the school theater, of course, but we banked rows of rented bleachers on the stage, and the performers worked in the center of it. Very exciting. In one scene, if you recall the play…”

“Mr. Richardson, I wonder if…”

“…one of the sailors, Driscoll, is supposed to throw the beer in his glass into the face of Ivan, the drunken Russian sailor. Well, when…”

“Mr. Richardson, do you know if…?”

“…the actor hurled the contents of his glass, he spattered half a dozen people sitting in the first row. The immediacy of playing in the round is difficult to…”

“Mr. Richardson,” Carella said firmly, “did Blanche Lettiger…?”

“…imagine unless you’ve done it. Blanche was excellent at it. She had a very expressive face, you see. In the scene with Olson, she was required to do a lot of listening, a task even professional actresses find difficult. It was especially difficult here because we were working in the round, where every nuance of expression is clearly visible to the audience. But Blanche carried it off beautifully, a remarkable performance, very.”

“Did she want to…?”

“The play isn’t one of my particular favorites, you know,” Richardson said. “Of the Glencairn series, I much prefer The Moon of the Caribbees, or even In the Zone. But Moon of the Caribbees has four women, who are all West Indian Negresses, which would rather have limited our female casting; there are, after all, white students to consider, too. In the Zone, of course, has an all-male…”

“Would you know whether Miss Lettiger…”

“…cast, and this is, after all, a coeducational institution, so we eliminated that one. As a matter of fact, The Long Voyage Home, despite its shortcomings, was extremely well suited to our needs. With the exception of two rather small parts at the very end of the play, the parts are rather well…”

“Mr. Richardson,” Carella said, “would you know whether or not Miss Lettiger had any idea of becoming a professional actress? Or was this simply another extracurricular activity for her?”

“I honestly don’t know how serious she was about the theater. We discussed it peripherally once or twice, but my notion is she was undecided. Or perhaps intimidated, I’m not sure. I think the city overwhelmed her a bit. She was, after all, only eighteen years old, and from a small town in Indiana, very. The notion of attempting to conquer the professional theater must have seemed extremely far-fetched to her.”

“She was a speech and dramatics major, though?”

“Yes. But, of course, she was only here at the school for one term, not even a full semester.”

“Had she spoken to you about leaving school?”

“No.”

“Were you surprised when she left?”

“Mr. Canella, the one thing an instructor…”

“Carella.”

“Carella, yes, forgive me. The one thing an instructor learns over the years is never to be surprised by anything a student says or does.”

“Does that mean you were surprised?”

“Well, she was an excellent student and, as I told you, a talented girl, very. Yes, I suppose I was surprised.”

“Was she in any production besides the O’Neill play?”

“No.”

“Was she in any of your classes?”

“No.”

“Would you know if she had any relatives in this city?”

“I’m sorry, I have no idea.”

“Well, thank you,” Carella said.

“Not at all. My pleasure,” Richardson answered.

They left him in his small office and walked downstairs with Miss Moriarty. “He’s a crashing bore, very ,” she said, “but his memory is good, and I’m sure he gave an accurate picture of Blanche Lettiger as she was then. Was it at all helpful?”

“Miss Moriarty,” Carella said, “the terrible thing about detective work is that you never know what’s helpful and what isn’t until all the pieces fit together at the end.”

“I’ll remember that,” Miss Moriarty said. “It’ll no doubt help me in my sworn and unceasing battle against Holmes.”

“May the best man win,” Carella said.

They shook hands with her and walked out into the sunshine again.

“What do you think?” Meyer asked.

“I don’t know what to think. Why’d she drop out of school so suddenly? Good student, good marks, interested in extracurricular stuff.” Carella shrugged.

“It’s pretty unusual, isn’t it? Especially when she came all the way from Kokomo.”

“No, not Kokomo, some town near it.”

“Yeah, what was the name of that town again?”

“Jonesville, something like that.”

“Jonesboro,” Meyer said.

“That’s right.”

“You think we ought to get a flier out?”

“What for?”

“Routine check on her family, relatives, I don’t know.”

“What good would it do? I’ll tell you what bugs me about this girl, Meyer. She breaks the pattern, you know? Before, there was at least some kind of slender thread. Now…” He shrugged. “This bothers me. It really does.”