Raffles shrugged. “As to who we are, he probably made enquiries of the butler, or somebody in the local pub. Assuming the butler was not in on the robbery, of course, and that wouldn’t surprise me in the least! Betray us? I hardly think so, Bunny. Didn’t you see his face when I mentioned — and his betrayal of us? Honour among thieves, Bunny, that’s the watchword.” And he lit another Sullivan and laughed at my expression.
The insurers were interested in the fake necklace, very interested indeed. They called in Scotland Yard, and Mackenzie himself arrested Morgan for insurance fraud. The day after the news of the arrest broke, the shares in the Megalithic Trust began to slide; when trading resumed after the holiday, dealings in the shares were suspended; ten days into the new year the firm went bust, and Mackenzie’s investigation was widened to include all Morgan’s business dealings. And at the spring assizes, Morgan was sentenced to ten years in the Dartmoor quarries.
The fence who had betrayed Raffles simply disappeared. I gather that the police view was that he had feared their attentions and had left the country to escape detection, but I rather fancy that the squalid alleys and rotting wharfs by the London river could tell a different tale.
All was not unrelieved gloom and despondency, though. Raffles and I — and the unknown burglar, too, I have no doubt — had a very merry Christmas, and a prosperous start to the New Year.
The Sound of One Foot Dancing
by James Van Pelt
I shook the chains holding the soundstage’s side doors locked, then started the long walk through the darkened studio to check the front. The day had been a full one. Mr. Sandrich, the director, had the crew knock down the Lincoln Day set and assemble the 4th of July one. He didn’t like three of the flats, and they had to be redone. The dancers and extras got antsy, and all the while reporters were trying to get in to interview Fred Astaire about how he felt about yesterday’s declaration of war. In the meantime, one of our cameramen had a son on the Arizona, and he didn’t come to work because the navy hadn’t told him whether his boy was alive or not, so I doubled as studio security and camera grip. I’d been thinking about quitting, you know, joining the war effort and all.
It was three in the morning, and I should have been going home myself, but a percussive tapping from the Holiday Inn set kept me here. Tired as I was, I had to smile. Astaire was practicing by himself again. It didn’t matter when Sandrich called the day, Astaire stayed to work. I’d heard he weighed a hundred and forty pounds when the picture started. The Paramount doctor said he was down to one twenty-six and prescribed thick steaks, which were delivered from the commissary every night at seven. He hardly touched them.
The front doors were locked, so I found a chair in the dark beside the set and watched Fred Astaire dance. Only one overhead spot was turned on that isolated him in its lighted circle. His hands were in his pockets, and he danced with only one foot. The taps flew briskly, different rhythms, slow at first, a quick rattle, then a steady syncopation. He switched, so now his other foot beat out a rhythm. His head was down. I’d seen him do this before, a dancer’s warmup. Soon, he started moving on the stage, more ice skating than dancing, in and out of the light.
I relaxed into the seat. The steady tapping of his flashing feet lulled me and excited me too. No one could be so tired that watching Fred Astaire wouldn’t wake him. Without music, he made tunes. Without a partner, he made a duet. His hands were out, practicing one side of a routine I recognized. It was the part from Flying Down to Rio where he and Ginger Rogers danced across seven white grand pianos. He hummed the tune, turning, turning, dipping and sliding, in the light and out. I could almost see Ginger, dress flying, anticipating his moves. He’d told me once, “Of course Ginger was able to accomplish sex through dance. We told more through our movements instead of the big clinch. We did it all through dance.”
Astaire accelerated. His feet hardly touched the stage, while his tapping seemed not to come from him, but to be an accompaniment. I’d seen him dance many nights, but not like this, one hand curled around an invisible waist, the other in the air, holding an invisible hand. Round and round. Through the light, brilliantly lit, and than back to the dark, a gray shape swirling, tapping, humming his musical part.
Then, he stopped. “Where’d you go?” he said, his voice echoing in the empty studio. “Where’d you go?”
I cleared my throat. He jumped. He didn’t know I’d been watching. “Where’d who go, Mr. Astaire?”
“Is that you, Pop?” He shaded his eyes from the spot and peered toward me.
“Yes, sir. Nice dancing, sir.”
“Where’d the girl go?” He looked at his empty hand, puzzled.
“Girl, sir? We’re alone. Studio’s locked up.”
“There was a girl... about yea tall. Dark hair. Round face.” His voice trailed off. “We were dancing.”
I stood, my skin as cold as marble. “You must be tired, sir. It’s time to go home.”
He looked at me, his forehead and cheeks white in the spot, his eyes deeply shadowed. Then he glanced behind him as if he’d heard a noise. “I was holding a girl, I could have sworn...”
I rattled my keys. “It’s been a long day, Mr. Astaire. I’ll open the door for you.”
When he was gone, I crossed the cavernous space, past the Valentine Day’s set, through the little tree-lined road for the carriage ride, where Bing Crosby sang “Easter Parade” to Marjorie Reynolds, through the Holiday Inn set — the Christmas tree was next to the piano; they’d do the “White Christmas” bit this week — and then to the north doors.
They were secure, I knew they were, but I checked them anyway. When I came to the door, my hand trembled. The big deadlock turned stiffly — the door wasn’t used much — and I pushed it open with my shoulder. Outside in the California night I saw a narrow alley, a low wall, and on the other side, shining in the starlight, the glistening mausoleums and tombstones of the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery. Rudolph Valentino is buried there, and so is Douglas Fairbanks. I also saw Lillian’s grave, not so new now, tucked away inconspicuously next to the gaudier displays.
Lillian, who answered a call for dancers last year, who lined up with the rest, who made the first cut because she wasn’t too tall, or too short, or too fat, who waited for her chance to dance, and when they called her name she stood, took her spot on the stage, put her hands on her hips, poised for the music to begin, like a thousand other girls over the years. I watched her because I always watch the dancers’ auditions. Except this time, for this girl, before the music started, she swayed and fell.
I sighed. Lots of girls faint. They stand around all day, their hopes in their throats, and then their turn comes. So I walked forward, fingering the smelling salts in my pocket. She’d come to, another embarrassed performer. But she didn’t. The studio doctor got there within minutes. The other dancers, all hopefuls, surrounded us.
“She’s gone,” the doctor said.
A dancer shrieked. “It was just sleeping pills! It couldn’t have killed her.”
I learned that day how strong, how obsessive, the Hollywood dream is. Lillian had looked like a shoe-in for the part. If she flubbed her audition, then the other dancer thought she’d have a better chance, so she’d slipped her the drugs.
The doctor told me later, “Lillian must have had a weak heart, Pop, for her to collapse that way.”