The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,47
from the low-key producer would have amused Gibson; right now, it merely seemed grotesque.
“Think about it,” Welles said. “The killer knows that we are aware a murder has been committed. If we go about our business as if nothing has happened—and, again, if the killer is one of our own—he or she may well tip their hand...express in some fashion surprise, behave nervously, or even blurt something incriminating.”
“Possibly,” Gibson granted.
“Also,” Welles said, “while I undertake to go on with my broadcast-business-as-usual, you, Walter...if I am not imposing...could make a few discreet inquiries around the building.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
Welles made an expansive gesture. “Well, on Sunday this building is something of a skeleton operation...so to speak. The offices, whether clerks or executives, are shut down—really, only the seventeenth floor, which is the news department, and the twentieth and twenty-first floors, where the studios are, are in use.”
Gibson asked, “What about the eighteenth and nineteenth floors?”
“Strictly offices. Some are assigned permanently, others are for general use.”
Lifting his eyebrows, Gibson said, “Plenty of places for a killer to hide.”
“Yes, but I’m not suggesting you search a twenty-two-floor office building.”
“Thank you so much. What are you suggesting, Orson?”
“Seek out the other security people, the actors and crew on the floor above us...working on Norman Corwin’s show, for instance...and say that Mr. Welles wondered if any of them have seen his wife, Virginia, today. Then ask the same thing about George Balanchine. In addition, ask if they saw Dolores Donovan at all today, away from her desk—and who she might have been speaking with.”
Finally Gibson was starting to buy in. “And whether or not any suspicious characters are around? Madden’s boys?”
Welles thought about that. “Maybe limit that query to the security guards. They’d note a presence like that, and you could say ‘Mr. Welles has had some death threats’ or some such.”
Fumbling for a fresh Camel, Gibson said, “So let’s say I agree to gather this info, Orson. Then what?”
“Right after the broadcast, you let Jack and me know what, if anything, you’ve discovered. Then...by all means...we call the authorities.”
“How do we explain waiting more than an hour to report a murder?”
With a gesture reminiscent of a ringmaster introducing an elephant act, Welles said, “We tell the truth—that we saw what appeared to be the dead body of our receptionist. That we found the door to be locked, and went after the key, and fetched our security guard...but found the studio empty.”
“What about the evidence traces we discovered?”
“That,” Welles said, raising a forefinger, “would be best discreetly left unremarked upon. The police are quite capable, I’m sure, of discovering clues for themselves.”
“What do we say to the cops,” Gibson said, “when they ask us what we thought when the corpse disappeared?”
“We say,” Welles said, with a pixie smile, and a mock-innocent tone, “that we simply didn’t know what to think...that we got quite naturally caught up in the pressures and deadlines of putting on our weekly broadcast, but that after the show, we determined we needed to inform them of what we’d seen.”
Sighing, Gibson asked, “Isn’t Howard Koch a lawyer? Maybe he could advise us as to whether we’d be breaking any laws, waiting to make that call—”
“I would suggest not,” Houseman said. He was clearly on Welles’s side in this. “Howard is indeed an attorney, which means he’s an officer of the court. He would be legally required to make that call, immediately.”
Gibson was shaking his head, not in a “no” fashion, rather indicating his uncertainty. “The odds of us...of me...solving this thing in the next hour is, well, it isn’t much, Orson.”
Welles looked somber now; that flash of a pixie smile had been only a mild interruption in his desperate state. “It isn’t much, Walter—but it’s all I have. I’ve been framed for murder, dear boy. And the only Shadow that can help me now is a shadow of doubt cast over my guilt...which I am counting on you to conjure.”
CHAPTER SIX
WAR OF THE WELLES
AT 7:56 P.M., E.S.T., MISS Holliday was wandering through Studio One with a wastebasket in hand, a Joannie Appleseed in reverse, bending to pluck the litter of the long day, chiefly waxy sandwich paper and empty cardboard coffee cups. It wouldn’t do for anyone to step on such refuse and make an uncalled-for impromptu sound effect.
As she completed her task and disappeared with her small infectious smile through a doorway, Orson Welles—his shirtsleeves rolled up—stepped up onto his platform-style podium. To his left was Bernard Herrmann at his