Death in the Fifth Position Read Online Free PDF

first few months he was on to her, too. Only she’d never let him get a divorce. He was too useful to her, a perfect front …”
    “And then he killed her.”
    Jane shuddered. “Don’t even think it,” she said in a low voice. “He’s so wonderful … I mean as a conductor; I don’t know him very well outside the theater. Anyway he’s a nice man and Ella was a bitch and I see no reason for him to get in trouble on her account,” she concluded spiritedly, disregarding all ethics in her emotional summary.
    “I suppose he’s the likeliest suspect,” I said. I was curious about the whole affair, as anyone would be. It was an unusual experience to be involved in a murder during one’s first day on a new job. Yet, aside from the novelty of my situation, it had occurred to me dimly that some end might be served by this event, that I might somehow be able to make use of this tragedy, an ignoble sentiment certainly but then I belong to an ignoble tribe which trades on the peculiarities and talents of others, even on their disasters.
    “I guess so,” said Jane unhappily. “Lord knows he hated her. On the other hand so did a lot of people. Eglanova, for instance.”
    “Why? What did she have against Ella?”
    “Don’t you know?” And for the first time (but not the last) I received that pitying dancer’s glance whichimplied that though I might not be entirely a square I was none the less hopelessly ignorant of all that really mattered: the dance and its intricate politics. I said I didn’t know, humbly.
    “Mr. Washburn was all set to fire Eglanova this year. She’s practically blind you know. It’s got so even the audience notices it … why they even applaud her when she finishes a pirouette in the right direction … then she’s always losing her partner in
Giselle.
She’s lucky she’s got Louis. He adores her and he follows her around on stage like a Saint Bernard. If she had any other partner she’d’ve ended up among the violins in the orchestra pit long ago.”
    “So Washburn was going to get rid of her?”
    “I should say so. Only he acted as though she were retiring of her own free will. We were to end this season at the Met with a Gala Eglanova Evening, to celebrate her thirty-one years as a star; only now … well, I suppose she’ll have to do the next season. You see Ella was all set to take her place.”
    “Can’t they get somebody else?”
    Jane looked as incredulous as any girl can at five in the morning after a tough night’s performance and a questioning by the police. “You don’t seem to realize that this is the oldest ballet company in the world and that it has to have a
prima ballerina assoluta
and there’s only a half dozen of those in the world and they’re all engaged like Markova, Fonteyn, Danilova, Toumanova, Alonso … or else too expensive for Mr. Washburn,” she added, deflating somewhat the pretensions of the Grand Saint Petersburg Ballet. I knew already, from personal experience, that Mr. Washburn was a tight man with a dollar.
    “So Eglanova might have cut that cable?” The memory of those shears still bothered me; I tried to think of something else … I had not yet mentioned finding them to the police … or to anyone.
    “Oh, don’t be silly,” said Jane. But she had no other comment to make about this theory.
    “She must’ve been awfully ambitious,” I said sleepily; my eyes beginning to twitch with fatigue.
    “Ella? Oh, I’ll say she was. She wanted to do
Swan Lake
at the Met on opening night … instead of on Wednesday matinees and every night in all cities with a population under a hundred thousand. And she would’ve too.”
    “Was she that good?” It was hopeless to ask one dancer about the talents of another but I was thinking of something else now. I paid no attention to what we were saying. My hand was now on top of hers and I was so close to her that I could feel through my own body the quickened beating of her heart.
    Jane