“It’s acting on two levels,” Eve murmured. “Just as Draco is. Neither of them show the face of their character until the last scene.”
“They’re both very skilled.”
“No, they’re all skilled. All used to manipulating words and actions to present an image. I haven’t chipped through the image yet. Sir Wilfred believes he’s defending an innocent man, and in the end learns he was duped. That’s enough to piss you off. If we’re correlating life and make-believe. It’s enough to kill for.”
He’d thought the same himself, and nodded. “Go on.”
“The character of Diana believed every bullshit line Vole fed her. That his wife was a cold bitch, that he was innocent, that he was going to leave her.”
“The other woman,” Roarke put in. “The younger one. A little naive, a little grasping.”
“In the end, won’t she figure out she was duped and used and be mortified? Just as Carly learned she was duped and used and mortified. As Christine learned. And there’s Michael Proctor standing in the wings, hungry to take it all on.”
She studied the faces, listened to the voices, measured the connections. “It’s one of them, one of the players. I know it. It’s not some tech with a grudge, or with dreams of being in the lights. It’s someone who’s been in the lights and knows how to wear the right face at the right time.”
She fell silent again, watching the play progress, searching for some chink, some instant when a glance, a gesture indicated the feelings and plans beneath the facade.
But no, they were good, she mused. Every one of them.
“That’s the dummy knife, first courtroom scene. Freeze screen, enhance sector P-Q, twenty-five percent.”
The screen shifted smoothly, with the evidence table enlarging. The knife on it was in clear view from this angle, and enlarged, Eve could see the subtle differences between it and the murder weapon.
“The blade’s nearly the same size and shape, but the handle’s a bit wider, thicker. It’s the same color, but it’s not the same material.” She let out a breath. “But you wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking for it. You expect to see the prop, so you see it. Draco could have looked right at it, hell, he might have picked it up himself, and he wouldn’t have noticed. Resume normal play.”
Her head was beginning to throb lightly. She barely noticed when Roarke began to rub her shoulders. She watched the change of scenes, the curtain drop, the soundless circling of one set for another. A few techs slipped across behind the curtain, nearly indistinguishable in their traditional black.
But she spotted Quim. He was clearly in charge now, in his element. He gestured, a kind of theater sign language that meant little to her. She saw him consult briefly with the prop master, nod, then glance downstage left.
“There.” Eve leaped to her feet again. “He sees something, something that doesn’t fit. He’s hesitating, yeah, just for a second, studying. And now he’s moving off in the same direction. What did you see? Who did you see? Damn it.”
She turned back to Roarke. “That was the switch. The real knife’s on the courtroom set now. Waiting.”
She ordered the disc to reverse, then set her wrist unit to time, and replayed. “Okay, now he spots it.”
Behind her, Roarke rose, moved to the AutoChef and ordered her coffee. When he stepped beside her, she took the cup without realizing it, drank.
On-screen, extras moved out to their marks. The bartender took his position, techs vanished. Areena, dressed in the cheap and gaudy costume that suited a mid-twentieth-century barfly, took her seat on a stool at the end of a bar. She angled herself away from the audience.
A train whistle blew. Curtain up.
“Two minutes, twelve seconds. Time enough to stash the knife. Right in the roses, or somewhere no one would notice until it could be moved. But it’s close. Very close. And very ballsy.”
“Sex and ambition,” Roarke murmured.
“What?”
“Sex and ambition, That’s what killed Leonard Vole, and that’s what killed Richard Draco. Life imitates art.”
• • •
Peabody wouldn’t have said so, at least not if she used the animated painting she was currently trying to study. And pretend she understood. She sipped the champagne Charles had given her and struggled to look as sophisticated as the rest of the guests at the art show.
She was dressed for it, at least, she thought with some relief. Eve’s Christmas present to her had been her gorgeous undercover wardrobe designed by Mavis’s wonderful lover, Leonardo. But the shimmering sweep of blue silk couldn’t transform the Midwestern sensibility.
She couldn’t make head nor tail of the creeping movement of shape and color.
“Well, it’s really…something.” Since that was the best she could come up with, she drank more champagne.