The Cutthroat

33

The Deaver brothers were getting jumpy.

“Explain, again,” Jeff demanded. “Who is Isaac Bell?”

“Mr. Bell,” said Joe Deaver, “is a Hartford, Connecticut, insurance executive who—”

“We don’t need insurance! We won’t own anything to insure if Jekyll and Hyde closes on the road.”

Jeff hadn’t shaved or left their hotel suite in days. It had fallen to Joe to go out into the world, where, as luck would have it, he had been approached by a potential savior.

“A rich Hartford, Connecticut, insurance executive who’s put together a syndicate of investors to finance shows in the theater. He’s got some cockamamie idea to produce a musical play based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. We’re invited to the Queen City Club for lunch. We don’t want to keep him waiting. Get dressed!”

“We were going great guns,” moaned Jeff. “The show was making money hand over fist.”

“It also spends money hand over fist, which was fine as long as we filled the theaters. Now that we’re playing to some empty seats…”

“If Mother catches wind of this,” said Jeff Deaver.

“Don’t say it,” said Joe Deaver.

While the theatrical angels appeared fabulously wealthy to working actors and three-dollar-a-day stagehands, they actually existed on an allowance. It was generous enough to live large, but under the authority of Grandfather’s will, which compelled them to take the Deaver family name instead of their father’s, their mother held the purse strings. Since Mother blamed the theater for the showgirls who had seduced Father repeatedly, she would never release the next year’s allowance if she learned that they had lost this year’s investing in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

“I will slit that damned reporter’s throat and shove his leg through it,” said Jeff.

Joe had no doubt that Jeff would kill the reporter if opportunity arose, or he might even create the opportunity. “Don’t,” he said. “Even Mother would catch wind of that newspaper report.”

Mother was holed up in the family’s Lower Merion Main Line estate. The only visitors to her fifty rooms and two hundred acres — which Joe and Jeff dreamed of one day inheriting to subdivide — were her bankers and her priest.

“What’s this about Treasure Island? We don’t have any money for another play.”

“Which is why,” Joe explained patiently, “we will maneuver Mr. Isaac Bell into buying into our investment in Jekyll and Hyde. If these murdered girls sink us, we’ll at least get some of our money out.”

“But why would Bell invest in Jekyll and Hyde when the papers are full of murdered girls?”

Joe Deaver said, “Partly to involve Barrett & Buchanan in his pipe dreams for Treasure Island and partly to secure employment in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for a friend.”

Jeff Deaver grinned. At last, a motive he could understand. “Sounds like the insurance man fell for an actress.”

“Helen,” said Joe. “An attractive brunette who knows how to wear a gown. Bell claims she was a scholarship girl at Bryn Mawr who got taken under the wing of one of his investors.”

“A likely story.”

Joe shook his head emphatically. “Bell is as straitlaced as you’d expect of an insurance man. And I’m sorry to say Helen doesn’t come across as your average chorus girl on the make.”

“What part does she want?”

“Mr. Bell believes she should replace Barbara.”

“Barbara? No! Barbara makes a crackerjacks job of it. How do we know Bell’s friend is up to doing ‘general businesswoman’?”

Joe was running out of patience. He answered sharply.

“Your Barbara is paid twenty bucks a week to dust Jekyll’s library in one scene; speak the line ‘Mr. Hyde hasn’t come home yet, Dr. Jekyll’ in another; and get strangled any evening one of the regulars catches a cold. If Isaac Bell will cover half of our investment, I guarantee his friend Helen will be up to it.”

A Baltimore & Ohio fast freight from Pittsburgh slowed to enter the Cincinnati yards. A hobo dropped from a boxcar. A railroad detective ran after him with a billy club.

“Come here, you!”

Harry Warren did as he was told. His clothes were grimy, his hands and face smeared with coal soot, but a cop with a sharper eye might have noticed that he was fitter, stronger, and better fed than most who rode the rails.

“Where you think you’re going?”

“Hoping for Frisco.”

“You got yourself a long walk. And a busted head for stealing rides.” The yard bull whipped his billy skyward. “Tell your friends Cincinnati is off-limits.”

“Do you really want to try that?”

Warren’s tone was almost conversational. He waited for the yard bull to reconsider, but the man swung at him anyway. Seasoned hickory whistled. Parting the air that Harry Warren’s skull had occupied an instant earlier, the brutal blow ended up as a wild swing angled across the rail cop’s torso. When it smacked the gravel by his left foot, he was off balance, with his right side exposed.

Four inches of lead pipe had materialized in Harry Warren’s hand. He gauged his opportunity and applied the pipe to the yard bull’s skull well above his vulnerable temple with a force precisely calculated to flatten him facedown, head ringing, and legs too shaky to try to stand for several minutes.

“Which way’s the Lyric Theatre?”

“Huh?”

“The Lyric. Where they show Alias Jimmy Valentine. It’s about a detective trying to mistreat an innocent safecracker.”

An angry thumb gestured a route into the freight district.

Having ensured that he would be remembered as a tough who rode the rails if someone asked questions later, Harry Warren made a quick tour of streets clogged to a standstill by horse- and mule-drawn wagons, exasperated teamsters, and motor trucks belching blue exhaust. He breakfasted on sausages in saloons and washed them down with German beer. He met some local hard cases, and passed a pint of whiskey to a city cop; you never knew who’d come in handy later.

Quickly absorbing the nature of the city — skilled craftsmen packing saloons midday, their women working low-paying jobs in the factories — he worked his way to the section where they showed movies, vaudeville, and plays.

The Clark Theatre’s electrics ballyhooed

Posters out front showed a red airplane and a speeding subway.

Warren headed next door to the Lyric.

“Nate Stewart’s expecting me,” he told the old guy at the stage door and gave a name trusted by the wrong element in Hell’s Kitchen. “Tell him Quinn’s here.”

The head carpenter had received a telegram of introduction from a New York guy who knew Harry Warren as Quinn. A boy was sent running. Nate Stewart hurried out with a welcoming handshake.

“How was your train?”

“Free,” Harry Warren replied, with an us-against-the-bigwigs grin that said he saved his ticket money for better things. “Still got room for a sceneshifter?”

“You timed it perfect. The sons of guns at Jekyll and Hyde poached my top hand when their feller lit out for the Oklahoma oil fields.”

Lucy Balant loved the Dow Drugs pharmacy at the corner of Fifth and Vine, just down the street from Alias Jimmy Valentine. It had a Becker’s “iceless” soda fountain — the latest thing to chill syrups, soda water, and ice cream mechanically instead of with ice — which made drinks ambrosially colder on a hot day. The fountain was surrounded by an octagonal marble counter and sixteen stools that had a rapid turnover, since it was near the train station. So for an actress who finally had a steady job, even if it was only as an understudy, and could afford a treat, it was perfect to drop in for a quick ginger ale. Plus, the soda jerkers made darned sure mashers didn’t bother a girl alone.

A tall, dark-haired lady detective took the stool beside her the second it was empty. “I hope you remember me, Lucy.”

“Vividly. What are you doing in Cincinnati?”

“Hunting Anna’s killer.”

“Because of what happened to the vaudeville dancer?”

“The same man.”

Lucy shuddered. “It was horrible. Like hearing about Anna all over again. Have you seen those posters?”

“Did he look familiar?”

“He just looks like a guy. A well-off, older guy.”

“I keep hoping the poster will help. Doesn’t the picture remind you of anyone?”

“But it could be anyone.”

“Anyone in your show?”

“I suppose he looks a bit like Mr. Lockwood, and even a little like Mr. Buchanan or Mr. Barrett — I finally got to see Jekyll, the first act— It could even be Mr. Vietor. But of course it isn’t.”

“Does the man on the poster remind you of any man backstage at either show?”

“No. Why are you asking about the shows?”

“What about Jekyll and Hyde’s stage manager?”

“Mr. Young? I’ve never seen his face.”

“Your theaters are next door.”

“They say he never leaves the theater. Sleeps on a cot. Why are you asking about these men?”

“Because both their road shows toured in cities where women were murdered or went missing.”

Earlier that morning — in an elegant forest-green railcar parked on a private siding in Union Station — Grady Forrer had unrolled the map the Cutthroat Squad had last seen five days ago in Isaac Bell’s Lusitania stateroom. Bell, Archie Abbott, and Helen had weighted the curling corners with pocket pistols.

Three new lines intersected with the red line that depicted the Cutthroat’s trail of death across the Northeast and Middle West. Cities were now marked with the letters M or D. A yellow line looped from New York to Philadelphia to Boston and stopped in Albany, New York. A green line and a blue line ended beside the red in Cincinnati.

“What’s the short yellow line?”

“The Pharaoh’s Secret, a musical that closed in Albany. They sold the sets to a carnival and sent the actors home. Obviously, the murders and disappearances — M marks murders, D, disappearances — continued. The green line is Alias Jimmy Valentine. The blue is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

Helen Mills repeated for Lucy Balant the gist of what Isaac Bell had said.

“In one of these companies is a vigorous killer in his early forties who came from England in the heyday of touring theater. He’s had twenty years to make a career in America.”

“He’s an actor?”

“He could be any man in the theater. Actor. Director. Stagehand. Manager. Angel. Scenic designer. Rigger. Electrician. Carpenter.”

“Mr. Vietor — our Jimmy Valentine — is English.”

“So I hear.”

“But he is very nice…” Her voice trailed off. “Of course he would be if he was tricking girls—”

Helen Mills interrupted urgently. “I am not saying it’s him. Please don’t jump to that conclusion.” Just like Isaac Bell had warned. Do not condemn an innocent to a lynch mob.

Lucy Balant pondered what she had heard. The soda jerker, who was sweet on her, asked if she wanted another ginger ale. She shook her head and he went away.

Helen Mills said, “Please look at me, Lucy.”

Lucy turned to her.

The detective said, “I will do anything to stop this Cutthroat. But I need to operate in disguise and I can’t do that if you suddenly blurt out, ‘I know Helen. She broke into my room in Philadelphia. She’s a private detective.’”

“You’d be trusting your life with me.”

“You knew Anna Waterbury. She was not just a story in the newspaper, was she?”

“She was a nice girl.”

“There you have it.”

“Does your boss know you’re talking to me?”

“No,” Helen lied. Isaac Bell had been reluctant to let her operate in Cincinnati but had concluded he had no choice if he was going to plant a woman inside one or both of the touring companies. They had come up with a story to deal with the fact that Lucy Balant knew she was a Van Dorn detective.

“I’m working this case on my own. No one knows I’m here. I took time off— Actually, I quit.”

“What do you live on?”

“I’ve saved my money since I was an apprentice.”

“Helen, you’re taking all kinds of chances.”

“Worth it if I catch him.”

“Do you mind me asking what your disguise will be?”

“Not at all,” said Helen, relieved that she had put over the story. “I don’t want to shock you if we bump into each other. I will masquerade as an actress reading for “general businesswoman” jobs in Jekyll and Hyde and Jimmy Valentine.”

Lucy said, “Ours is getting antsy to go back to New York.”

“I heard.”

“I wanted it,” said Lucy. “The stage manager keeps saying I’m too short. But you’re really tall. Have you ever been on the stage?”

“In school.”

“Good luck with Jimmy Valentine. You’ll need it, because you sure won’t get Jekyll and Hyde.”

“Why not?”

“I hear that the boyfriend of the girl who has it is a Jekyll and Hyde angel.”

“Mine’s a bigger angel.”

Lucy’s big eyes grew enormous. “You have a boyfriend who invests in the theater?” An up-from-under glance unspoken asked, is that how you can afford to quit your job?

Helen stuck to her story that she was working alone. “He’s not my boyfriend. I just met him on this investigation. He’s married. But he’s actually very nice. And when people assume he’s helping me for the wrong reasons, he sets them straight.”

Lucy nodded. “You have to be careful on the road. That’s for sure.” She gave a rueful laugh. “The awful joke is, the nicer they are, the more careful they are, too. So you end up with both of you being careful and no one making the first move. Which reminds me, Helen, speaking of moves: When you read for Jimmy Valentine? Look out for Mr. Lockwood.”

“A grabber?”

“He thinks he’s irresistible.”

“Thanks for the warning. What do you hear about grabbers at Jekyll and Hyde?”

Lucy Balant grinned. “Girls hope Mr. Buchanan will grab them. But he refuses to have anything to do with actresses. Nice as can be, but strictly business. They say he goes with rich ladies because they don’t need anything from him.”

“And Mr. Barrett?”

“Oh, Mr. Barrett! I was introduced to him at a cast party in Chicago. He did that older gentleman thing where he bows over your hand. Then he looks in your eyes. He had me blushing like I was fourteen.” Lucy fanned her cheek with her napkin. “But, not a chance. Everybody says he’s all business, too.”

“What about your Jimmy Valentine?”

“Mr. Vietor is a gentleman. He’s been coaching me, actually. There’s a part that might come open if the girl takes a job in New York. I might be able to get it. Or at least read for the stage manager when Mr. Vietor thinks I’m ready.”

“Now you warned me, Lucy. And I must warn you. Be very, very careful who you ever go with alone. Particularly a man in his forties. Anna was not the only petite blonde this Cutthroat killed.”

“Mr. Vietor’s only in his thirties.”

“But don’t actors sometimes ‘adjust’ their age?”

“Mr. Vietor wouldn’t bother. He’s so handsome, who cares how old he is?”

34

“When did you first join forces, Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan?”

The New York Sun assistant theater critic — a natty gent with gin on his breath and a flawlessly knotted bow tie — had caught up with the Jekyll and Hyde company in Cincinnati.

Barrett and Buchanan were sipping coffee in the Clark Theatre green room, where they had agreed to submit to “just a few questions.” Ticket sales were tapering off, and they could use all the help they could get. Their publicist was standing by warily, ready to pounce if the critic turned unfriendly or The Boys’ banter got out of hand.

“Mr. Barrett was a callboy,” Buchanan answered, “where I was appearing in Hamlet, and—”

Barrett interrupted. “I was the prompter, the callboy’s superior. Mr. Buchanan carried a lantern in Hamlet to indicate it was night, and it was my job to remind him to hold the lantern overhead and not block the audience’s view of Mr. Otis Skinner, who happened to be playing Hamlet.”

“When Mr. Barrett wasn’t prompting, he was painting scenery,” said Buchanan. “On occasion, he presided over the opera glasses concession.”

The reporter smiled uncertainly. “You gentlemen have different recollections of your early years.”

“What did you say your name was?” asked Barrett.

“Scudder Smith. New York Evening Sun.”

The publicist interrupted. “I’m wondering why you don’t look familiar. I thought I knew everyone on the Sun.”

“The Sun hired me when I contracted with the Denver Post and Mr. Preston Whiteway’s San Francisco Inquirer to publish stories that coincide with the opening of seat sales for road shows coming to their cities.”

“Whiteway?”

Smith took a letter from his coat pocket with Sun letterhead. “Here. Sorry, I should have shown you this earlier. My introduction from Mr. Acton Davies. You’ll see he mentions Mr. Whiteway.”

The publicist handed it back with a much-warmer smile. Davies was the Sun’s chief critic and the acclaimed biographer of the theater’s legendary Maude Adams. Preston Whiteway’s San Francisco Inquirer anchored a fleet of newspapers, and he also owned Picture World, motion picture news reels seen in movie houses and vaudeville theaters across the continent.

Barrett said, “Well, Mr. Scudder Smith of the Sun, the Post, and the Inquirer, what other questions may we answer?”

“When did you become partners?”

“Eons ago,” boomed Buchanan. “When was it, Jackson? It must have been aught three.”

“Aught four,” said Jackson Barrett. “We produced a road tour of The Admirable Crichton. I was Crichton. Mr. Buchanan played Lord Loam.”

“How many years after your Hamlet was that?”

“Mr. Skinner’s Hamlet,” said Barrett. “Mr. Buchanan’s lantern.”

“Ten years,” said Buchanan.

“So you first met in ’ninety-four. Seventeen years ago.”

“Seems longer,” said Barrett.

“I could not help but notice how convincingly you conducted your sword fight. I fully expected blood to flow. I could have sworn you were fencing with real sabers.”

“That is because we do not fence. We duel.”

“To me it looked like a real fight to the death.”

“Real sabers make real noise,” said Buchanan. “The clang of steel arrests the senses.”

“And draw real blood,” Barrett added, “which keeps us on our toes.”

“How did you learn such swordsmanship?”

“The way we learn everything,” Buchanan answered bluntly. “Study. Practice. Rehearse.”

Barrett said, “We take to heart the great showman David Belasco’s advice to actors. We never idle away the night hours in clubs and restaurants. Nor do we lie abed in the morning.”

“But who taught you to fight so convincingly?”

“A deadly duelist.”

Pencil poised, the reporter asked the duelist’s name.

“We pledged never to reveal his identity.”

“Why not?”

“Few who lost to him survived the experience.”

Scudder Smith’s smile congealed as if he was unsure whether his leg was being pulled. He noticed their publicist shoot the actors a warning glance not to mock the press.

Mock away, thought Smith.

“Are there strains in this fraught production?”

“‘Fraught’?” said the publicist. “What fraught?”

“Are you dredging up that wire-story nonsense?” asked Barrett.

Scudder Smith said, “Everyone’s read about the Jekyll and Hyde jinx — launched in blood — Medick falling to his death and Miss Cook’s husband’s yacht exploding. And wherever you play, girls disappear or die.”

Buchanan’s cheeks and forehead reddened. “Women are murdered all the time.”

“And disappear often,” Barrett added. “Can’t say I blame them, judging by their male prospects.”

The publicist lied manfully: “Here’s a fact for Acton Davies. And Mr. Preston Whiteway, too. Ticket sales are up since that wire-service article. I hate to sound cold and heartless, but lots of folks are drawn to bloodshed.”

Scudder Smith jotted his notes in practiced shorthand. Here it comes, boys, both barrels: “If that’s true,” he said, “then business is about to boom.”

“How do you mean?”

“My newspaper’s Research Department put together a map of all the murders and disappearances.”

“So?”

“Then they mapped the route of your tour. Guess what? The maps match.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Maps of bloodshed. Often when you play a town, a girl disappears or dies.”

Barrett said, “But we played head to head with Alias Jimmy Valentine in most venues. Go talk to them.”

“I have appointments to interview Mr. Vietor and Mr. Lockwood as soon as we wrap up our conversation with just a few more details.”

“You can’t print that nonsense.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Smith. “At least not yet.”

Buchanan spoke in a voice trembling with emotion. “We are carrying eighty people. Eighty people whose jobs depend on this tour continuing.”

Scudder Smith said, “I sympathize with every one of them. I’ve lost many a job in my life.”

Jackson Barrett said coldly, “I hope you’ll remember that when you get closer to ‘yet.’”

“Of course I will,” said Scudder Smith. “I am not a stone. Where did you say that Hamlet was playing when you met?”

“A godforsaken hole out west,” said Buchanan. “In the endless wastes between Denver and San Francisco.”

“Mr. Skinner warned those who would jump ship, ‘The Rocky Mountains are littered with the bones of actors attempting to get home to New York.’”

“Where, exactly, out west?”

“Butte, Montana. In a tent.”

“Of course, you’d already acted in New York before you met? Both of you?”

“If a platform stood a single step above the sidewalk and had a bedsheet for a curtain, we played it,” said Jackson Barrett.

“What year did you first act in New York?”

John Buchanan swept to his feet, saying, “You’ve entertained us far too long, Mr. Smith. Thank you for your time. We are so glad you liked our play.”

The publicist opened the door.

Smith closed his notebook and stood up with a gleam in his eye that suggested the morning’s work was done. “Oh — I almost forgot. Sorry. Just one more question. Where were you gentlemen born?”

“Under a cabbage leaf.”

“In a stork’s nest.”

Scudder Smith laughed dutifully. “But our readers would love to know more about your backgrounds.”

“They may read about them when we write our memoirs,” said Barrett, and they swept Smith out the door.

“If you’re in need of a ghostwriter,” Smith called over his shoulder, “I’m your man,” and added for the publicist, “Why wait ’til they’re old men? Let their admirers read the memoirs of spectacular actors in the full tide of life.”

The publicist walked him to the stage door, musing, “I could imagine paying a ghostwriter.”

“I don’t come cheap.”

“We would match your rate — provided the New York Sun, the Denver Post, and the San Francisco Inquirer never print the phrases ‘map of bloodshed,’ ‘murdered girls,’ ‘launched in blood,’ nor the word ‘jinx.’”

Scudder Smith went straight to Central Union Station. In a far corner across the passenger hall an unmarked doorway led to the private car platforms. A burly railroad cop blocked the way.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Smith showed him his badge.

“Sorry, sir. Say, would you happen to know, is Van Dorn hiring?”

“Protective Services is always on the lookout for good men,” said Smith. “Best way to get noticed, put on a clean shirt and polish those shoes.”

He walked out under the train shed, keeping an eye peeled for anyone watching from the other private cars parked on the siding. Fortunately, those cars blocked the view from the long Jekyll & Hyde Special parked far away. At the end of the row was a luxurious car, enameled a rich forest green. Curtained windows gleamed like crystal; loops of telephone, telegraph, and electric wires snaked into the station’s systems; and a flinty-eyed conductor in a uniform decorated with gold piping guarded the door.

The front compartment, paneled in rosewood, was furnished like a millionaire’s rolling office, with a desk of quartered oak, a comfortable leather armchair, a telegraph key, and a glass-domed stock-ticker machine. Neither the desk nor the chair were in use. Chief Investigator Isaac Bell was on his feet, about to spring.

“What do you think of them?”

“Mighty full of themselves,” said Scudder Smith.

“Is either a murderer?”

“Hard to tell.”

“Is either undeniably innocent?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“How’d they react to the map?”

“Stopped cracking jokes— Of course, if they’re what they say they are, then the map hits them right in the wallet.”

“Where were they born?” asked Bell.

“They dodged that like in every article we read about them. It’s a practiced duet.”

“Did they say how they mastered the saber?”

“They claim they took lessons from a deadly duelist on the lam. Thing is, a bit of mystery never hurt a show business career.”

“I dislike mysteries.”

“Like P. T. Barnum says, ‘Always leave ’em wanting more.’”

“Are they coy or are they lying?”

“Anna Waterbury was not the first thespian to rewrite her past,” said Smith, regretting it instantly as fire exploded in his old friend’s eyes. Better change the subject. “I wonder if I might wet my whistle?”

Bell directed him to the sideboard with a brusque nod. Scudder Smith poured gin and tossed it back. “I must admit, I enjoyed myself. I miss my newspaper days.”

“Did you detect a trace of an English accent in either of their voices?”

“No more than any actor,” said Smith.

Bell nodded grimly. He had heard many an American actor affect an English-sounding drawl with upper-crust pretensions, often at a volume to project expression to the balcony seats. “Actor speak,” Archie Abbott dubbed the stagy elocution delivered with faithful diction, exquisite inflection, and commanding posture.

“I set it up to take another shot,” said Scudder Smith. “I got the publicist interested in me ghostwriting their memoirs. Or do you want Helen or Archie?”

“It’s my turn,” said Bell.

35

As they did most evenings in every city they played, Jackson Barrett and John Buchanan walked home to their train after the show. At the station tonight, just inside the private platforms entrance, a tall, lean, golden-haired young gentleman in a white suit touched the brim of his hat in a friendly salute.

“Good evening, Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan. I am Isaac Bell, and I would be honored if you would join me for supper in my car.”

Bell gestured toward a palatially fitted dark green and gold car, which the actors had already noticed was cut several notches above the other millionaires’ train cars parked overnight in Cincinnati.

Buchanan demurred. “Thank you, Mr. Bell. But it’s been a long day.”

“It’s been many long days for me,” said Bell, “but I am at last in a position to make a lucrative proposal.” He gestured again to the car, adding, “I know I can’t lure you with champagne, but my cook grills one of your favorite dishes — Maryland rockfish.”

“How’d you find that out?” asked Buchanan.

Bell answered with an easy grin, “I am new to the theater, but by exercising due diligence on behalf of my syndicate, I learned that actors are famously hungry after a performance — ravenous after a brilliant one — and that you two have a particular preference for rockfish. Though we Hartford Yankees call them striped bass.”

Barrett asked, “Where’d your cook get rockfish fresh in Cincinnati?”

“He traded the champagne you don’t drink for iced beauties from a St. Louis express.”

“I am persuaded,” said Barrett.

“Me, too,” said Buchanan.

Bell led them into his car. A first course of chilled Gulf shrimp and Maine lobster was laid out on a candlelit dining table set with silver, crystal, and Staffordshire bone china decorated with scenes from Shakespeare.

As Archie Abbott had predicted, Barrett and Buchanan tore into the shrimp and lobster in appreciative silence. Bell watched in awe as they tackled striped bass, asparagus tips, and new potatoes Parisienne as avidly, and it was only over Baked Alaska that Jackson Barrett finally asked, “What lucrative arrangement are you proposing, Mr. Bell?”

Bell said, “I had lunch with your angels, as theater folk call them, and concluded I would rather approach you directly.”

“In other words, they weren’t interested?” asked Barrett.

“They were more interested in persuading me to share in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“Why?”

“Come now, gentlemen, that wire-service story is no secret. I’m sure you’ll weather it, but the Deavers’ desire to spread the risk and get some of their money out is reasonable. I personally have little doubt that your Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will tour for many years.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” said Buchanan.

“But at some point, I imagine, you would want to move on.”

“Where?”

“A new show,” said Bell.

“Leap from a sure thing into the pit of speculation?” said Buchanan. “No thank you, sir. The only new show I’d do would be made with the wave of a magic wand instead of money — but still sells tickets for money.”

“First rule of the stage,” Barrett chimed in. “Cherish your hits. When you close a good play, you miss it forever. You’ve been immortal — a god — until the curtain comes down on your final performance. Next morning, you’re knocking on a banker’s door with your hat in your hand.”

Bell said, “My syndicate will pay for you to make a new play. You will have no concerns about raising money.”

“Why us?”

“Your modernized Jekyll and Hyde demonstrates that Robert Louis Stevenson is as sure a financial thing as the original was twenty-five years ago. You’re the men to do it next for Treasure Island.”

“Didn’t we hear Julie Goodman is writing a Treasure Island?” Buchanan asked Barrett.

“It doesn’t matter what Jules Eckert Goodman is doing,” Bell said dismissively. “Ours is a musical play.”

“A musical? What a strange idea.”

Bell returned a thin smile. “Our due diligence went beyond rockfish. You’ve done musicals. And they made money.”

“Well, we didn’t lose any,” Buchanan admitted.

Bell said, “Critics and audiences applaud your alternating roles in Jekyll and Hyde. They will love Treasure Island. You’ll be Long John Silver one night, Mr. Barrett, and Squire Trelawney the next.”

The actors regarded Isaac Bell with shrewd expressions that told the tall detective that he had lassoed their attention. Time to act on Archie Abbott’s advice: The language of the theater is cash.

“Treasure Island will make you rich. Royalties for the script alone could run as much as fifty thousand—before you count your profits from the Broadway production and the road show.”

“There is one big, insurmountable problem with Treasure Island,” said Buchanan.

“I see no problem. Mr. Stevenson’s widow accepted our offer for the rights, and a million boys and girls who loved the book are now adults who will line up to buy tickets.”

“The problem is, no girl in the story,” said Barrett. “No romance. No hope of hero and heroine falling in love. A musical Treasure Island must have a romantic angle if it’s to play to bigger audiences than children’s Christmas pantos.”

“But there is a girl,” said Bell.

Barrett laughed. “What are you proposing, bring young Jim Hawkins’s mother on the voyage?”

Buchanan joined the laughter. “Jim’s mother falls for Long John Silver. Silver is reformed by love and turns his Spyglass Tavern into a Methodist mission.”

“Dr. Livesey is your girl,” said Isaac Bell.

The actors’ eyes lighted up like double eagle gold pieces.

Barrett said, “Change Squire Trelawney’s sidekick to his fiancée.”

“No women doctors in the eighteenth century,” Buchanan protested.

Bell said, “Your modernized Treasure Island will be taking place in the twentieth century—here-and-now 1911, just like Jekyll and Hyde.”

Barrett said, “No pirates in 1911. The Royal Navy exterminated them.”

Isaac Bell looked them both in the eye. “We have no shortage of cutthroats in 1911.”

Barrett and Buchanan exchanged a glance.

Buchanan said, “True,” and Isaac Bell smothered his impulse to level a gun in their faces and demand, “Tell me what is true.”

“But with no pirates,” Jackson Barrett asked, “where did the lost treasure come from?”

Bell was ready for that one. “The Spanish — American War.”

“Yes!” Barrett said, suddenly excited. “They lifted the treasure when the Maine blew up in Cuba.”

“Long John Silver betrayed Cuban rebels,” said Buchanan, and the actors chorused the 1898 battle cry: “Remember the Maine!”

Bell asked, “Can you persuade Miss Isabella Cook to play Dr. Livesey?”

“Miss Cook will demand a share.”

“Whatever agreement you made that makes her happy in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will be fine with me— Which reminds me, I want to see your production again before I report to my investors.”

“You will be our guest tomorrow evening.”

“No thank you, I will buy my ticket. This is strictly business. But there is a favor I would ask you.”

“Name it!”

“If we decide to go forward with Treasure Island, I would like to spend time with your Jekyll and Hyde company — backstage, and aboard your train when you leave for the West.”

“You’ll find it quite dull, Mr. Bell,” said Buchanan. “Strictly business.”

“Melodramas are short on the ‘chorus girls’ of lore,” said Barrett.

“I’m recently married,” Bell grinned back at him. “No need of chorus girls. But I’m obliged to learn enough ins and outs of the theater arts to protect my partners.”

“Let’s hitch your car to our train,” said Jackson Barrett.

“Ride along to San Francisco,” said John Buchanan.

“You’ll be our caboose.”

“I could not ask for more,” said Isaac Bell.

36

The Cutthroat brushed spirit gum on his upper lip and cursed out loud. He had just shaved, his skin was raw, and it stung like the devil. It would sting even worse when he removed the mustache, this time an enormous affair trimmed in the walrus style. He fanned the lace backing with his souvenir program and fixed it under his nose.

He was dressed in blue-striped overalls over a red-checked shirt, which he had bulked up with horsehair padding. Now he perched a battered derby on his head and wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose. Pipe cutters, wrenches, hacksaw, files, and a gasoline blowtorch arrayed in a wooden toolbox completed the portrait of a master gas fitter. He even had a card from the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Company emblazoned with the motto “Heat with gas, light with electricity.” The company was expanding, enjoying great success with modern, up-and-coming customers like the Van Dorn Detective Agency on Plum Street.

He hefted the toolbox on his shoulder, sauntered out of his yellow cottage by the river, walked to the streetcar stop, and rode into the center of town. Off near Plum Street, he walked to the Van Dorn office on the ground floor of a substantial-looking building. The private back door was down an alley, but he walked in the street entrance.

They had one wall plastered with wanted posters — including a copy of the imaginatively aged one of himself that had riveted his eye in the red-light district. The sharp-eyed young detective, working in vest and shirtsleeves, had a pistol in a shoulder holster. He jumped up from his desk with an eager-to-help smile.

“Hello there. What can I do for you?”

“I’m supposed to check your meter.”

The detective opened a door to the cellar stairs. “Give a shout if you need anything.”

“Thank you.” The Cutthroat paused on the steps to look at the wall of posters. “Do you think you’ll catch all those guys?”

“That’s our job.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Catch them all?”

“We never give up.”

“Never?”

The Cutthroat studied his poster. He recognized the hand of a newspaper illustrator back in London. A decent artist, but the likeness wasn’t specific. He was tempted to stand beside it, yank off his walrus mustache, and ask, “Look familiar?”

He could use every tool in his box. Theater lights were all electric now, but he had learned gas fitting back in his apprentice days when footlights, wing lights, and border lights burned “town gas.” Here in Cincinnati, it was the new and abundant and more potent “natural,” taken from the ground instead of manufactured from coal.

He found the live-gas inlet pipe, found the master cock, and closed it. He removed the meter from the inlet and outlet pipes. The inlet and outlet holes were supposed to be tightly corked to keep air away from the residual gas inside the meter. Instead, he left them open and laid the meter on the cellar floor, directly under the service pipe, which would get you sacked in a flash by any supervisor who noticed. Then he bridged the inlet and outlet pipes with a prethreaded length of lead pipe, in which he had drilled a microscopic pinhole. He opened the master cock. The gas that leaked slowly through the pinhole would gather in the cellar.

Air entering the uncorked meter would form a highly volatile mix with the gas inside it. He slipped the end of a long length of slow-burning fuse in one of the holes, uncoiled it along the cellar wall, and lit the fuse. When the slowly smouldering flame finally ignited the air — gas mix in the meter, that small explosion would set off the rest of the accumulated gas as powerfully as a blasting cap exploded dynamite.

He climbed the stairs and closed the door.

“What’s that I smell?” asked the detective.

The Cutthroat plucked the blowtorch from his box. “I had to sweat a pipe.”

“Hope you didn’t fire that thing up to look for a leak,” the detective joked.

The Cutthroat laughed along with him. “Believe it or not, no matter how often we warn the public not to, people still light a match when they smell gas in the dark. Sorry about the stink, it will dissipate before you know it.”

Isaac Bell tipped his hat to Isabella Cook.

The actress was drinking tea in a wicker peacock chair in the Palace Hotel’s Palm Court. Other ladies were wearing wide-brimmed, flower-and-feather-heaped Merry Widow hats that were getting tangled in the high-back chairs. Miss Cook sat, unentangled and stylish, in the latest Paris fashion: a Paul Poiret turban hat. Instead of merely framing her lovely face, the close-fitting turban made it all the more beautiful by allowing her eyes, her bow lips, and her aquiline nose to emphasize themselves.

“I have been looking everywhere for you, Miss Cook.”

“Purchasing a ticket will bring you near for three more nights at the Clark Theatre. After that, you may enjoy repeat performances in St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco.”

Bell said, “I can’t risk shouting my proposal in the theater. The audience would lynch me for interrupting your performance.”

She looked him up and down with a small smile and a shrewd eye. “It looks to me like they’ll have their hands full if they try. Who are you, sir?”

Bell swept his hat off his head. “Isaac Bell. May I sit with you?”

“What do you want, Mr. Bell?”

“I have a proposal that will make you rich and happy.”

“I fell for that line when I married.”

Bell said, “I offer my condolences. I know you were widowed last fall.”

She ignored his condolences, and asked, “Is yours a financial proposal?”

“It is.”

“Sit down, Mr. Bell.” She beckoned a waiter, and Bell ordered tea. They shared small talk about Cincinnati and the pleasures and tribulations of traveling, she on the stage, Bell selling insurance to banks and railroads and timber barons. She asked where he lived when he wasn’t traveling.

He answered truthfully as it meshed with his Dagget, Staples & Hitchcock insurance cover. “My wife and I have a house in San Francisco.”

“New-built since the earthquake?”

“One of the few that survived on Nob Hill.”

She looked suitably impressed by Nob Hob, and Bell said, “I read in the Chicago papers that you are close friends with Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan.”

“We’ve worked together in the past. And we’re having a fine time at present. The Boys are serious businessmen and spectacular showmen — a rare combination in the theater.”

“Where are they from?”

“The thee-ah-tore!” Miss Cook emoted with a devilish smile, and Bell, who had liked her immediately, liked her more. “Born in a properties trunk.”

“Both of them?” he asked, going along with her joke to steer her toward the mystery of where they were born.

“Where else would they be born, Mr. Bell? Some dreary inland city? Some soul-smothering small town bereft of art and theater?”

“I read in the magazines that you’re from a small town.”

“I know of what I speak. Though I confess, had I been born in a grand city, I might have aspired to no higher station than the youngest president of the Ladies Garden Improvement Society.”

“Certainly the most compelling,” said Bell.

“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Bell?”

“No, ma’am. I never flirt with beautiful women.”

Mobile eyebrows joined the smile. “Why not?”

“I am faithful to my wife.”

“Pity… What is your offer?”

“I’ve suggested backing a new play for Barrett & Buchanan. I hope you will find it engaging, too, which is why I was asking about their background. As fiscal agent for my syndicate, I am obliged to know the nature and background of potential partners.”

“Their ‘nature and background’ is an open book. They’ve been on the stage their entire lives, and have a reputation for as much honesty as can be found in most producers. Seriously, Mr. Bell, had there ever been a hint of fraud, I would not be in business with them. No, I think you can rest easy on that count. They are what they appear to be — undefeated men of the theater.”

“It sounds like you admire them.”

“I admire survivors who succeed with a minimum of damage to others. The theater is not easy. They do it well. Which is why I don’t care where they were born. For that matter, I don’t know why you care. Now, tell me about your proposal. That’s what got you seated beside me.”

“I am obliged by my principals to conclude arrangements with Barrett & Buchanan first. After that, I have the deepest hope that you will be interested, too.”

“Before you waste your time, let me caution you: I will not work for them,” she said. “I will work with them.”

“That goes without saying,” said Bell. “The sensation you’ve made of Jekyll and Hyde guarantees that you would be a principal, too.”

“Then I look forward to answering more due diligence questions.”

“Well, I’m curious about one thing. It seems strange that the actor Medick and your husband, Rufus Oppenheim, died within days of each other.”

“Strange? Bizarre, is more like it. None of this — a sensational run on Broadway, a first class tour, my ‘triumphant return’—would have happened if they didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Medick owned tour rights to Richard Mansfield’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Barrett & Buchanan backers would never invest in their new version while Medick was still making a go of it on the road.”

“No wonder you say ‘bizarre.’ Is it true that Medick fell from a fire escape?”

“Pursued by a husband, went the story. Medick was a renowned, shall we say, ‘swordsman,’ hated by grooms, cherished by brides.”

“Like John Buchanan?” asked Bell.

“Where did you get that idea?”

“Due diligence includes weighing gossip.”

Isabella Cook shook her head. “Mr. Buchanan never dips his pen in the company ink. He conducts his escapades where they are nobody’s business — far from the stage, and higher up the social scale, where smirking moralists are shunned.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. Is Mr. Barrett as sensible?”

“In my experience,” she said, “Mr. Barrett, too, steers clear of actresses— How did we get on escapades, Mr. Bell?”

“Two freak deaths back-to-back — Medick’s fire escape and your husband’s yacht.”

“I almost died, too, speaking of bizarre, but the tender had just taken me ashore to have lunch at the Knickerbocker. I heard the explosion as I stepped onto the pier. I turned and saw a nightmarish sight — where the boat had been — a horrible ball of fire. Sheer luck I had the appointment. Not that ‘luck’ is a word one uses around death.”

“Who were you meeting for lunch?”

“The Boys. Jackson and John wanted me to persuade Mr. Oppenheim to let me return to the stage. Which, of course, he never would have. Men are impossible that way, aren’t they? How long have you been married, Mr. Bell?”

“We will celebrate our first anniversary next week.”

“Do you allow your wife to support herself in her own career?”

“She was in the habit long before I met her.”

“What does she do?”

“She makes movies.”

“Really? I often sneak into afternoon shows. Great fun. I’m sure I’ve seen hers.”

“She is Marion Morgan Bell.”

“Marion Morgan! Of course. The filmmaker who married an insurance man. You’re the insurance man — but not so staid as the label implies — I love her films.”

“She’d love to get you in one.”

“I cannot imagine working with movie manufacturers,” Isabella Cook replied coolly. “On the stage, I play to my audience — not some faceless entity snipping bits of celluloid.”

“Marion is too lovely to be a faceless entity. She’s a knockout— Forgive me! That was thoughtless.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Rhapsodizing about my marriage when you just lost your husband.”

Isabella Cook brushed the back of Bell’s hand with her fingertips and raised cool, clear eyes to his. “Rufus Oppenheim was a dog.”

Back in his railcar, Isaac Bell wired New York:

He was grasping at straws.

If only he could come up with some way to distract the Cutthroat. Make him look over his shoulder. Throw him off balance, before he killed again.

37

“Miss Mills,” said the Alias Jimmy Valentine stage manager. “I want you to read these lines with Mr. Douglas Lockwood, who plays Detective Doyle.”

Helen Mills nodded eagerly.

Lockwood was tall and handsome, with a stern manner that fit the character of Doyle, the detective determined to send reformed safecracker Jimmy Valentine back to prison. He took Helen’s arm firmly in his strong hand and stood very close.

He spoke his line.

Helen spoke hers. “Yes, Mr. Doyle.”

The stage manager asked them to do it again. Still holding her arm, Lockwood repeated his line. Helen repeated hers. Then Lockwood addressed the stage manager as if Helen was not standing on the stage between them.

“She’s a bit green. Stiff as a board, actually. Perhaps not hopelessly… What time is it? I’ll tell you what, let me rehearse her a little. I’ll bring her back shortly.”

“Half an hour, Mr. Lockwood.”

“Come along, dear. Bring your script.”

Lockwood led her through the wings and back to the principals’ dressing rooms and opened a door with his name on it. It was comfortably sized, with a lighted mirror for putting on makeup, a washstand with running water, and a couch.

“Sit there. Now, here’s the thing, dear. If you’re going to put this part across, you’ve got to give the impression that you are attracted to Detective Doyle. He’s a breath of fresh air in your constrained life, and, frankly, quite exciting compared to the boys who hang about trying to court you. So when you say, ‘Yes, Mr. Doyle,’ you must say it as if you are happy — delighted, even — to agree to whatever he proposes… O.K.? Now, let’s try it. Here, I’ll make it easy, I’ll sit next to you.”

He sat close to her, took her arm firmly, and spoke his line.

Helen said, “Yes, Mr. Doyle.”

“No, no, no, no.” Apparently baffled, and sounding impatient, he ran his fingers through his hair. Then he patted her shoulder.

Helen Mills said, “I think I could relax a little if you just talked to me for a moment. Tell me about yourself.”

Lockwood smiled, and asked in a husky voice, “What do you want to know?”

“Oh, I don’t know… Where were you born? You sound as if you’re from England.”

“Well, that’s very sweet of you to say, but I’m afraid my birthplace is not quite so romantic.”

“I read in a magazine that you’re from London.”

“You’re confusing me with my fellow star. Mr. Vietor is from England.”

“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry,” Helen said. In fact, Grady Forrer’s researchers had queried the magazine’s editor, who stood by the story but offered no actual proof.

“Sometimes publicists exaggerate.”

“Where were you born?”

“Jersey City. Just across the river from New York. You’re not from New York, are you?”

“Oh, gosh, just a little town you never heard of, in Maryland.”

Lockwood sighed. “You Southern girls are just so exciting, I lose all control around you.”

“Please let go of me, Mr. Lockwood.”

“Now, dear, just relax and get into the mood of your line. You are, after all, saying yes.”

“My ‘yes’ does not go backstage.”

“It better if you want to get on the stage,” he said curtly. “Now, come on, dear, we don’t have all afternoon. I can get you this part with a snap of my fingers.”

“If you don’t take your hands off me, Mr. Lockwood, I will floor you.”

He reached toward her blouse with one hand while attempting to get up her skirt with the other. “You can’t floor me. I’m bigger than you are.”

She could hear Isaac Bell. “You’re a strong girl, Helen. Never give up. Go straight at him.”

“What if he’s too big to fight?”

“Feint. Throw him off.”

Helen laughed loudly.

“Are you laughing at me?”

Lockwood suddenly got a mean look on his face. He raised a hand to slap her.

That left him wide open.

“Thank you for reading, gentlemen,” said Henry Young. “We will be in touch.”

Four actors smiled gamely, thanked the stage manager, and headed up the aisle of the empty theater.

“Mr. Abbott, could you stay a moment longer?”

Archie Abbott approached the stage.

Henry Young, tall and rangy as a stork — a powerful stork — stood in front of the stylish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde set. One eye was twitching with anxiety. A role had opened up when a Jekyll and Hyde actor was lured back to New York to read for a new play by Paul Armstrong — the toast of the town for his Jimmy Valentine and glad to do Joseph Van Dorn a favor. The stage manager needed a replacement desperately or he would be going on himself.

“More than only a moment, I hope,” Abbott said, with a professional smile that projected cheerful confidence in his talent, sober habits, and a willingness to work hard.

“Mr. Abbott, I remember you from some years back, do I not?”

“You have an astonishing memory, sir. It was back in aught two. I read for you for a road tour of Mr. Belasco’s The Heart of Maryland.”

“The Midwestern spring tour, I believe it was.”

“I didn’t get the part.”

“You were too young. As you might be, I fear, for this role. Keep in mind that Mr. Pool has been Mr. Hyde’s butler for over twenty years.”

“As much as it pains me to say it, sir,” said Archie Abbott, “I sincerely believe I can play a man in his fifties.”

“I have other reservations.”

“May I hear them,” asked Archie Abbott, “that I might put them to rest?”

“The way you just ‘elocuted’ that statement is my next reservation. You do call up the impression of being to a high manner born. Will we be asking too much of the audience to believe that you are a butler?”

“The best butlers I know can more easily pass for a gentleman than most so-called gentlemen. Granted, some in the audience may not know from personal experience that a gentleman’s butler is expected to bring a cool head and a keen eye to his tasks, but all will appreciate his positive attitude.”

When Henry Young still looked dubious, Abbott promised, “But I have no doubt I can give the impression of servility.”

The stage manager remained silent.

Abbott decided this conversation would have ended already if he weren’t a serious contender for the part. “You mentioned other reservations, sir?”

“I find it difficult to believe that you really want the part.”

“I want it very much, sir. I need this job.”

“But,” the stage manager said, “I’ve heard that you married well.”

“An heiress,” said Abbott.

“Extremely well.”

“A lovely heiress,” said Abbott. “Kind, generous, intelligent, extraordinarily beautiful, and destined to inherit many railroads from a doting father, who is an old man with a weak heart.”

“Then why do you want a small role in a play that is leaving godforsaken Cincinnati for ever more godforsaken points west?”

“She came to her senses.”

“The girls in the Jimmy Valentine company told me that Mr. Vietor claims he entered boarding school in Bedford in 1888,” Helen Mills reported to Isaac Bell.

“Bedford’s seventy miles north of London. Hour and a half on the train.”

“The trouble is, Mr. Bell, Vietor says he was twelve at the time.”

“Twelve?”

“He was still in school in ’ninety-one, age fifteen. Which would make him thirty-five today. Not in his forties.”

“When did he come to America?”

“First time was ’ninety-seven.”

“At twenty-three.”

“He made a name for himself in London first. Back and forth ever since, touring.”

Bell said, “I’ll cable Joel Wallace to check at the Bedford School, but it could take forever. He must be lying about his age. If Mapes was right, Vietor’s got to be in his forties.”

“And there is something else, Mr. Bell. He’s coaching Lucy Balant for a bigger part. I warned her not to be alone with any man. Including him. I’m not sure she’ll listen.”

Bell said, “I’ll tell Harry Warren to keep a close watch on him. Who else in the Valentine cast?”

“The actor who plays Detective Doyle is definitely lying about his age. He claims thirty-two. A girl who knew him well swears he’s fifty-two. And he told me he was born in Jersey City, not London.”

“How do you rate him?”

“He sounds English to me, but, like Archie says, most of them do. But he’s nowhere as young as thirty-two. Fifty, if he’s a day.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“His slow reflexes.”

38

A life in the theater, both on the stage and behind the scenes, had taught Henry Booker Young the protocol for conducting a reading for a part to be won by an angel’s protégée. An air of business as usual was expected of the stage manager. But brusque impatience was to be leavened with kindness. And talent, no matter how sparse, was to be noted and somehow praised. Particularly when the angel — the tall, handsome, and, to Young’s eye, dangerous-looking Mr. Bell — was sitting on the edge of his seat in the front row of the otherwise empty house, watching like a mother falcon.

“Can you tell me about your work on the stage, Miss Mills?”

Helen Mills answered in a rush. “I was Nora in A Doll’s House, Gwendolen Fairfax in The Importance of Being Earnest, Candida in Candida, and—”

“Where did you perform these roles?”

“Bryn Mawr.”

“The college.”

“Yes, Mr. Young.”

“Have you performed with any legitimate companies?”

“This will be my first.”

“Have you ever read for any legitimate companies?”

Helen looked flustered.

“Well, have you?”

“I read for Jimmy Valentine.”

“How did you make out there?”

“I decided against taking the part.”

Young smiled thinly. “That would jibe with a story making the rounds about Mr. Lockwood’s broken nose. Was it you, Miss Mills, who socked the star?”

“I’m afraid I lost my temper.”

Young sounded sympathetic: “It is not easy to be an attractive girl in the theater. However, I would caution you to ponder precisely how much you are willing to sacrifice to go on the stage.” He was stepping so far beyond the unspoken boundaries of awarding a job to an angel’s protégée that the angel himself stiffened visibly.

Isaac Bell made him nervous. While seemingly typical of the wealthy men who pursued actresses, something about him seemed off. He was so much more fit and alert than layabouts like the Deaver brothers. And Bell seemed truly concerned for the girl’s well-being, almost a fatherly concern — though if he were her actual father, he would have been no more than nine or ten years old when she was born. Maybe it was true that Helen Mills was the niece of one of his investors. Maybe Tennyson was thinking of stage managers when he wrote: “Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die.”

He plowed ahead, determined for some perverse and unsafe reason he could not quite put his finger on, to shield her from disappointment. “Women of privilege rarely make a go of it in the theater. Give me a shopgirl for the ferocious ambition and hard work the stage demands.”

“Don’t worry about privilege, Mr. Young. I was a scholarship girl in college. I grew up in a mill town without a pot to— I mean, a penny to my name.”

“Excellent,” said Henry Young. He had been misled by the young woman’s striking poise. “The general business you will read for will include occasionally appearing as a housemaid, wielding a feather duster, in Mr. Hyde’s library, and standing by to be strangled on a regular basis. See if you can put this over.”

He handed her a page of playscript. “Take your time. Tell me when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“Go on, then.”

She rolled the paper into a cylinder, which she held like a feather duster, lowered her eyes as if timid or dazzled by her employer, and read, “‘Mr. Hyde hasn’t come home yet, Dr. Jekyll.’”

“You’ll do.”

“Do you mean I get the role?”

“You will be paid twenty dollars per week, take your meals on the train, occupy an upper berth in the Pullman car, and buy your own clothes.”

Isaac Bell cleared his throat. It sounded like a growl.

“All right, Mr. Bell, we’ll provide costumes, and she may descend to the first lower berth that becomes available.”

James Dashwood talked his way into the Clark Theatre and wandered around asking for Henry Young until he found him.

“Detective Dashwood.”

“You remember me?”

“I’m a stage manager, I can never forget a face even when I want to. It was in Boston. You were wondering whether Anna Waterbury read for me, and you thought you had seen me before. Did you figure out where?”

“Syracuse. Obviously, I didn’t ‘see’ you: I was still a kid out west when you were the Syracusan Stock Company’s treasurer.”

“You must have seen an old wanted poster.”

“Do Barrett and Buchanan know?”

“All of it. The ticket fraud. The gambling that drove me to the fraud. The foolish going on the run. The arrest. The prison sentence.”

“Why did they hire you?”

“They say I learned my lesson.”

“So they trust you.”

“I’ve never given them reason not to.”

Dashwood raised a skeptical brow.

Young said, “They are decent men, Detective— Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to load eighty people and two sensational scenic effects featuring the height of mechanical realism onto a railroad train.”

Isaac Bell gathered the Cutthroat Squad in his car.

“We’ve infiltrated both tours and narrowed the field of suspects. Harry Warren and Grady Forrer exonerated the Alias Jimmy Valentine head rigger, Bill Milford, and scenic designer, Roland Phelps, who grew up in New York and were definitely living in the city during the Ripper’s rampage in England — Milford in the Tenderloin, Phelps in his family’s Washington Square town house.

“Helen Mills has eliminated the actor Lockwood, from Alias Jimmy Valentine, by establishing that he is neither strong enough nor quick enough to overwhelm his victims. On the other hand, she has learned that Lucy Balant is getting ‘coached’ by the star of the show, Mr. Vietor. Her roommate, Anna Waterbury, was coached by the Cutthroat. So we keep the book open on Mr. Vietor. Fortunately, Jimmy Valentine will catch up with us in St. Louis the day after tomorrow.

“Meanwhile, Grady discovered the Deaver brothers spent their college years, in the late eighties and early nineties, in England after being kicked out of schools in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. But the time I spent with them convinced me that neither Joe Deaver nor Jeff Deaver has the brains not to trip himself up for twenty minutes, much less never get caught in twenty years.”

“Are you sure it’s not an act, Mr. Bell?”

“Edwin Booth could not put over such an act. Now, what about Mr. Rick L. Cox, the lunatic writer?”

“Cox,” said Forrer, “was locked up in a Columbus asylum before Beatrice Edmond was murdered in Cincinnati.”

Bell said, “Scudder and I couldn’t pry much out of Jackson Barrett and John Buchanan.”

“Opaque,” Smith interrupted. “No clue that either’s from London.”

Dashwood relayed Henry Young’s claim that Barrett and Buchanan trusted their stage manager not to defraud them.

“Go back and find out what he has on them. What’s his leverage? Somehow they have each other by the short hairs.”

Archie Abbott said, “Gossip says Henry Young rarely leaves the theater ’til it’s time to board the train to the next city.”

Bell wrapped it up. “We are down to Barrett, Buchanan, Vietor, and Young— Back to it, everyone! See you tomorrow in St. Louis!”

They were trooping out of the car when an explosion rattled the windows.

“That was close.”

Isaac Bell said, “Better see if we can help. Go first, James, you’re the detective. The rest, remember to act like regular helpful citizens.”

They hurried into the station hall, Dashwood in the lead.

People were crowding out the front entrance. From there, they saw a pillar of smoke lit orange by flames rising several blocks over. They joined the mob running toward it. Bell forged ahead, with a sinking feeling it was on Plum Street. He caught up with Dashwood, and they reached Plum just as teams of wild-eyed fire horses pulling steam pumpers thundered toward the smoke. It was gushing from the field office’s shattered front door and windows and from the building next door.

“Our chief works late most nights.”

Bell shoved through the crowds. He skirted the firemen, who were stringing their hoses and raising ladders to the next-door windows, and cut down the side alley. The back door had been blown open. He ran into the dark, shouting for the chief.

“Sedgwick! Jerry Sedgwick!”

No one answered. Bell soaked a hand towel in the lavatory, covered his mouth and nose, and ran up the hall to the front office. The interior was demolished. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling. The cellar door was open. Flames were leaping from the stairs.

He pushed into the front room, where a wall of smoke and flame stopped him short. Through it, he thought he could see a figure slumped over the desk. At that moment, the firemen finished tying into the city hydrants. Hose water blasted through the windows, scattering glass and dropping flames to the floor. The smoke shifted. Jerry Sedgwick was there, coughing violently and trying to stand.

Bell got halfway to him before the water stopped. By the time he reached the chief’s desk, flames were jumping to the ceiling again, and the wet towel he pressed to his face had dried stiffly in the heat. Bell slung Sedgwick over his shoulder and tried to retrace his steps. But the smoke was suddenly so dense, he could not see the way. The water streams sprayed again, knocking down smoke. The respite was brief, the smoke thicker. He was running out of air.

“Mr. Bell!”

Dashwood was calling.

“Mr. Bell! Isaac!”

Bell staggered toward the sound of his voice.

He saw Dashwood reaching for him and, behind the young detective, the alley door. He pushed Sedgwick into Dashwood’s arms. In the alley, half a dozen deep breaths of cool, fresh air had the eager chief gasping, “I’m O.K. I’m O.K.”

“Hospital,” said Bell.

“No! I’m O.K. I gotta talk to you.”

“Talk in the ambulance,” said Bell.

The Cutthroat Squad had swung into action, quietly bribing an ambulance crew for their help and the police to clear a path. Once inside the motor wagon, Bell asked, “You sure you’re O.K.?” Sedgwick had lost his eyebrows and most of his hair.

“I mined coal when I was a kid. This was nothing compared to that. Mr. Bell, he blew us up.”

“Who blew us up?”

“Gas fitter said he was from Cincinnati Gas and Electric, and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Little while ago, I smelled something funny and went down to check. He had unhooked the meter and laid a slow fuse. That’s what I smelled. I went to put it out, but I was too late. It blew me back up the stairs. What I don’t know is, who he was and why he did it.”

Bell exchanged a glance with Dashwood.

Dashwood said, “Sounds like he knows we’re here?”

“Not the Cutthroat Squad,” Bell said after a moment’s reflection. “More likely, our wanted poster set him off. And now we know something else about him.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s a counterpuncher.”

When the Jekyll & Hyde Special started out for St. Louis, Bell joined the closing-night cast party in the dining car. While pretending to trade small talk, Archie Abbott explained the gas-fitter connection to the Cutthroat.

“If we’re right that he’s had backstage experience, it’s no coincidence that he’s a gas fitter. These days, lighting effects are all electrical. But theater electricians also manage water effects, like rain and floods. That’s because plumbing and gas fitting are similar trades and used to fit pipes to light theaters with gas.”

“He’s an actor, first and foremost,” said Isaac Bell. “It’s one thing to know how to be a gas fitter, but to impersonate a fitter — to costume himself and portray himself as a workman so believably that he could fool an operator as sharp as Jerry Sedgwick, inside our field office, which has his face on a wanted poster — the Cutthroat has got to be one heck of an actor.”

39

“My so-called St. Louis Express was late,” said Marion Morgan Bell. “I missed the show, and I haven’t even changed, but I hoped I could catch you before you left the theater.”

Isabella Cook was removing makeup in her Grand Opera House dressing room.

She inspected the tall blonde and liked what she saw. Stylish in a traveling outfit of tweed jacket, boot-length straight skirt, and a snug cloche hat, Marion Morgan had forthright sea-coral green eyes and a sure-footed smile — clearly a woman like herself who got things done and done right.

“Your husband claimed he was faithful to his wife. One look and I’m not surprised.”

“Sounds like you tested him.”

“It would have been a mug’s game. Have you eaten?”

“On the train, thank you.”

“Would you like a glass of wine — I’m having several.”

Her maid poured a glass of Billecart-Salmon Brut champagne for Marion and topped off Isabella’s, who said, “Your telegram was the first I’ve ever had that offered immortality.”

“Isaac wrote me that you expressed a low opinion of ‘movie manufacturing.’ I wanted to capture your attention.”

“You have it. What’s your pitch?”

“There will come a day when the last men and women who were thrilled by you tonight in St. Louis will pass from this earth and take their memory of your performance with them. But if you allow me to film your performance, it will live forever.”

“But I won’t live forever.”

“But we will both live longer than we can imagine when we’re this young. Isaac was just in London and he saw my film of King Edward’s funeral procession. I haven’t been in London in a year, but it’s still showing in the movie theaters. If you let me film your performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you can see your Gabriella Utterson again and again, year after year, for the rest of your life — and so can your audience.”

“They’ll get bored after the second decade.”

“Not of the performance I saw in Columbus,” said Marion, and Isabella Cook laughed.

“Are you always so persuasive?”

“Only for good causes.”

“Do you have your Isaac wrapped around your finger?”

“We wrap each other.”

Isabella Cook sighed. “I’ll bet you do… Would he happen to have a brother?”

Marion shook her head, with a small smile. “He’s an only child. His mother died when he was a little boy… I want to move the play out of doors, beyond the confines of the stage.”

“Why?”

“When Mr. Hyde stalks your Gabriella in a storm, I want beautiful Central Park buffeted by a gale.”

“Why?”

“Death is a thief. It steals our joys. When we take Gabriella Utterson out of doors, we will see her joy in the sun, in the rain, in the snow and trees and sky — the joy she will lose if the evil in Jekyll and Hyde takes her life.”

“How do you go about ‘buffeting’?”

“I haven’t done any yet, but while I was shooting a comedy at Biograph last month, a scenic designer, Mr. Sennett, invented a wind machine that I’m going to try.”

“What is a ‘wind machine’?”

“An enormous propeller spun by an airplane motor.”

“Pointed at the actors?”

Marion Morgan smiled. “Did I promise it would be easy?”

Isabella Cook laughed.

“What do say, Miss Cook?”

“I am leery of any performance I can’t control. Technically, Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan direct the play. But I do nothing on that stage that I don’t want to. I am an intelligent woman who trusts her instincts. But when your camera stops rolling, the show is only half done. I won’t be around when you make the final decisions pasting up the film the audience sees.”

“Of course you’ll be around.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m also an intelligent woman who trusts her instincts. My instinct tells me that you make decisions for the good of the show. Editing is a painstaking process. You may stand beside me as long as you can bear it.”

Isabella Cook put down her glass. She shook her head. “Why don’t we discuss this in the morning?”

Marion looked crestfallen.

Isabella Cook said, “Let me guess. You don’t want to see your Isaac if you can’t tell him you talked me into this.”

Marion nodded.

Isabella Cook said, “I have a hotel suite for when I’m bored with the train. Stay the night there. We’ll talk in the morning — but no promises.”

“Good morning, Mr. Bell!” cried the stage door tender at the Olympic Theatre, where Alias Jimmy Valentine was breaking St. Louis box office records. “How may we help you this morning?”

Expecting to have to talk his way into the star’s dressing room, Isaac Bell found himself greeted like royalty. News traveled fast in the theater, and angels backing new musicals were not turned away from stage doors.

“May I see Mr. Vietor?”

The door tender snapped his fingers. “Quinn!” he called to a sceneshifter, slouching nearby. “Take Mr. Bell to Mr. Vietor’s dressing room.”

Harry Warren tugged his forelock. “Right this way, Mr. Bell.”

Bell tipped him a dollar. “Here you go, pal.”

“Mighty generous, sir.” Quinn pocketed the dollar and banged on Vietor’s door. “Mr. Isaac Bell to see you, Mr. Vietor.”

The curly-haired Vietor flung his door open with a handsome smile. He was nearly as tall as Bell, and as tight and slim. He had a big voice. “Mr. Bell, I’ve heard so much about you. Do come in.”

Bell said, “I bring regards from a mutual acquaintance, James Mapes.”

“Mapes. Oh, cheery Mapes. What a happy soul. Did you see him in London?”

“We had drinks at the Garrick.”

“How did my name come up?”

“Mapes indicated an empty space on the portrait wall that was waiting for you.”

“Cheery Mapes. What a sweet thought. Come in, come in. Would you have a drink?”

“Thank you, no. I’ve got a long day ahead. Don’t let me stop you.”

“I’m the same way. Can’t touch a drop until the show is over. Sit, Bell. Sit.”

Bell took the armchair. Vietor perched on a stool at his makeup table. Turning half away from Bell, he studied the mirror. Bell wondered, why did he put on stage paint so early? Finally, Vietor glanced away from the glass, opened a drawer, and took out a silk jewelry sack.

“Have you seen the show?”

“In New York. I told Mapes I truly believed that your Jimmy Valentine was going straight.”

Vietor untied the drawstrings, fished out a gold ring, and began fiddling with it.

“Did Mapes tell you he coached me?”

“He sounded very proud of your success,” said Bell. “He believes it’s your Jimmy Valentine that will put you on the wall at the Garrick.”

Vietor watched the ring fly between his fingers. “I’ll bet he said I was a dark soul.”

The actor’s manic excitement had bounced unexpectedly from exhilaration to contemplation, and Bell saw an opportunity to draw him out. “Mapes said, ‘Subduing the dark side of Vietor’s character was like pulling teeth.’”

“Ha! He loves that silly phrase— How old do you think I am?”

Bell studied him closely. “Forty-six.”

“My Lord! Where did you get that idea?”

“You’re not thirty-six.”

“Sad but true. See this?” Vietor held up the ring. “My grandmother’s wedding ring. She must have been a huge woman, big as a house. See?” He worked it onto his left ring finger. “And my hands are not that small.”

Bell recalled that Anna Waterbury had told Lucy Balant that the “old” Broadway producer who coached her wore a wedding ring. “Do you wear it?” he asked.

“Not really.” Vietor looked in the mirror again. He turned fully toward it. He found Bell’s eyes in the reflection. “The past catches up.”

“What past?” asked Bell, with the strong feeling that he was about to hear a confession.

“The lies.”

“What lies?”

“Well, I’m not about to blurt it out to a complete stranger.”

“You’ve already started.”

“Ha! I suppose I have.”

His door flew open and a very pretty petite blonde burst in. “Mr. Viet— Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize.”

Vietor sprang to his feet. “That’s all right, dear. Come in. Meet Mr. Isaac Bell. We have a mutual friend in London. Mr. Bell, Miss Lucy Balant, a very talented young actress.”

“Mr. Bell! How nice to meet you. You’re the angel— Oh, I beg your pardon, that was really silly of me.”

“I’ve been called worse things,” said Bell. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Balant.”

“Now, Lucy, could you come back in ten minutes? Mr. Bell and I have a little bit more catching up to do.”

Lucy said good-bye, and closed the door behind her.

“Well, there you have it.” Vietor tossed the ring high, caught it nimbly, and eyed Bell through it like a spyglass.

“Have what?”

“Forty-six. You called it spot on — I don’t give a damn that I’m old. A girl as bright and wise as she will never find a man her own age worthy of her, much less able to match her spirit and cheer her to victory. I will take care of myself, hurl myself into physical culture. I won’t die young. I won’t require a nurse. Bell, you’ve been so helpful, I should make you my— No, we’ll do it in London. Mother’s there, can’t travel anymore. Mapes’ll be best man. But I do hope you can come.”

“What?” asked Isaac Bell.

“I’m going to marry that girl. There! I’ve said it. Mr. Bell, your jaw has dropped.”

Isaac Bell laughed out loud. He stood up and offered his hand. “May I congratulate you, sir? I wish you and the young lady all the happiness in the world.”

He could have added, Thank you, Mr. Vietor. Thank you, Lucy Balant. The Cutthroat Squad is down to three men in one show.

Isabella Cook eyed Marion Morgan over the rim of her coffee cup. Neither woman appeared to have slept soundly.

“Where would we make this movie?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles,” the actress groaned. “After months on the road? Must we?”

“The light is perfect, and it rarely rains. I can take pictures three hundred and twenty days a year in every imaginable location. And, by the way, women can vote in California.”

“I hope I wouldn’t have to stay there long enough to vote.”

“I will go ahead and have everything waiting. If all goes well, I’ll have you on your way to New York in two weeks.”

“Only two weeks?” Isabella Cook brightened. “I’ll pretend I’m visiting my husband in Hell.”

“Longer, of course, when you stay for editing… May I ask Isaac to approach Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan on behalf of his syndicate?”

“That will take some persuading. They can be grimly hidebound and staunchly old-fashioned. But here’s the trick — tell your Isaac that the one thing The Boys love more than money is credit. They’re clever businessmen, but they are actors at heart. Actors love credit. Immortality tops the bill.”

Reckless? asked the cautious voice that kept him free.

Aren’t detective posters warning prostitutes about you?

Not in St. Louis. A most satisfactory boom back in Cincinnati probably made detectives think twice about posters. Besides, the socialite who had aroused his interest was no girl of the streets but a country-club lady of the suburbs.

I’m not reckless.

Still, unplanned murders, like rich food and strong drink, were luxuries best indulged in measured doses. Impulse doubled the odds of capture. But tonight felt like one of those nights when the excitement was worth taking chances, a night to “test his mettle” on a woman of higher rank.

Undisciplined?

What are you doing?

Petite and blond. A wealthy young lady. Good taste said let her go. Caution said let her go. Wisdom said let her go. But she had run and been hiding and now he found her again, his Emily. He hungered for the moment he saw the shock in her eyes.

James Dashwood watched an alley off Market Street that led to the Grand Opera House’s stage door. This late in the evening, he hoped to ambush Henry Young if he left to sleep on the Jekyll & Hyde train after the final curtain. Suddenly he got a surprise.

The scraggly-haired writer, the lunatic Cox, whom Dashwood had last seen in Boston shouting, “I wrote that!” wandered up Market and stopped at the mouth of the alley. There, he lurked as if building courage to charge the stage door.

Dashwood walked up to him. “Hello again, Mr. Cox. What brings you to St. Louis?”

The writer straightened up to his full height. Many inches taller than Dashwood, he stared down at the young detective with smouldering eyes. “Hello again? What do you mean ‘again’? Do I know you?”

“We met in Boston.”

Rick Cox shook his head emphatically.

Dashwood said, “At a rehearsal for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“Were you one of the ushers who threw me out of the theater?”

“No. But I did see it happen. What brings you to St. Louis? Last I heard, you were locked up in Columbus.”

“I got out.”

“Out the front door or over the wall?” Dashwood’s mild joke had the effect he desired. A small smile softened the writer’s angry face.

“Front door.”

“When was that?”

“Few weeks ago.”

Back to five suspects, thought Dashwood. He had to keep him talking. “How’d you manage that? They just let you go?”

“They couldn’t keep me when I stopped paying.”

“Paying? Paying for what?”

“It’s a private asylum. Barrett & Buchanan paid for the first week. I paid an extra couple of days myself. I reckoned I needed more time to calm down.”

“Where’d you get the money?”

“Royalties. Barrett & Buchanan pay me a percentage — a small percentage, a pittance — so I don’t sue ’em for stealing my story.”

“Which one stole your story? Barrett? Or Buchanan?”

“Both.”

Dashwood said, “I don’t understand. If you get money, they didn’t exactly steal your story.”

“But they get the credit. And I can’t live with that anymore.”

James Dashwood said, “May I buy you a drink?”

Suspicion hardened Cox’s features again. “Why?”

“I’m a Van Dorn private detective,” said Dashwood, watching for a reaction.

Cox leaned closer. “Are you really? Are you working on a case?”

“I was taking the night off, when I saw you.”

There were many saloons around Union Station. They entered one with prosperous-looking patrons. Cox said, “This will be on me.”

“No, I invited you. It’s on me.”

“I may be Barrett and Buchanan’s patsy, but I’m still better paid than a gumshoe. Even a Van Dorn.”

Cox ordered whiskey. Dashwood asked for beer.

“Mud in your eye.”

Dashwood sought Cox in the mirror behind the bar and, when they locked gazes, said, “I don’t see the payoff. How is shouting in theaters going to get you credit?”

Cox tossed back his whiskey and juggled the glass in his hand as if weighing the wisdom of a refill. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. So far, all shouting’s gotten me is arrested and thrown in the bughouse.”

“Then what were you doing hanging around the theater tonight?”

“Just calming down… trying to figure things out… planning on how to get the credit I deserve.” Cox glanced outside the windows where crowds of people were suddenly sweeping along the sidewalk toward the train station. Curtains had descended and theatergoers were hurrying home to the suburbs. Something caught Cox’s eye and riveted his attention.

“I have to go. Meet me here tomorrow for lunch. Thanks for the drink.”

“You paid,” said Dashwood. “Thank you.”

“Lunch! Tomorrow.”

Cox pushed through the swinging doors. Dashwood lost sight of him in the crowd.

“Sleep tight,” said Isaac Bell’s conductor, which struck Bell as an unusually personal remark coming from the taciturn old geezer.

“Good night, Kux.”

He showered in the marble bathroom, poured two fingers of Bushmills, and carried the whiskey into the owner’s stateroom at the back of the car. The lights were low, the bed had been turned down, and his heart soared.

“Don’t be frightened. It’s only me.”

“Marion!” Bell scooped her into his arms. “Where did you come from?”

“New York.”

“This is wonderful. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“I had a business meeting. If it didn’t go well, I might have wanted to slink off by myself.”

“I’m glad it went well.”

“It went very well. Isabella Cook agreed to be in my movie.”

Bell let go of her. “Which movie?”

“What I told you: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“No,” said Bell.

“No? Why not?”

“It’s too dangerous. Fifty-fifty odds one of The Boys is the Cutthroat. If not, he could be their stage manager. I don’t want you anywhere near the Jekyll and Hyde company until we have him in chains.”

“Isaac, if I can make this movie, I can tell Preston Whiteway and Picture World to go jump in a lake.”

“I thought you told him that when you made The Iron Horse.”

“I didn’t burn that bridge, and I’m glad I didn’t. I’ve had no luck putting a four-reeler together on my own. Jekyll and Hyde is the best shot I’ve had since.”

“I won’t put you in danger.”

“I won’t let go of this opportunity. I’m sure nothing will happen to me.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not good enough.”

“But I know, I just can’t put it in words.”

Bell said, “Why don’t we sleep on it? Talk it over in the morning.”

“I’m not tired.”

“You’re not? Neither am I.”

Reckless? the Cutthroat asked again.

The theater train, a limited-stops express that ran on the suburban commuter line, pulled out of Union Station at ten minutes to midnight. Forty minutes to Tuxedo Park. Forty minutes to decide.

Reckless?

Maybe I was in my younger years.

Undisciplined?

Do you take me for a fool? Discipline is second nature now, my sturdy watchman, ever-vigilant, acutely observant.

He had sharpened the instincts he had been born with. He had grown so sharp at gauging menace, so skilled at covering his tracks, that the odds of getting captured had long ago shifted in his favor.

Reckless? It would be impossible to be reckless. And he had the advantage tonight of operating on familiar territory, for to his eye the Midwestern cities were all similar, with the theaters short train rides from the wealthy suburbs. Cincinnati was the first place he settled after sailing from England on an ancient “half clipper” cotton ship. It was returning empty to New Orleans. The other passengers joked that they were carried as ballast, but her captain was pocketing the ticket money and could care less about his name or whether he owned a passport or landed in New Orleans disguised as a sailor.

A showboat — a theater on a Mississippi River barge — brought him to Cincinnati, where he met a woman with money. After she died, the yellow cottage on the river had been his to visit intermittently for nearly twenty years.

He knew the territory. The theater train carried a gay crowd of mostly younger people who could afford to sleep late the next morning. That they all knew each other — Tuxedo Park being a town of prosperous businesses that benefitted from proximity to its powerhouse neighbor on the Mississippi River — made it even riskier as he would have to pry her loose from the clods vying for her attention.

I know the risk.

He took a seat at the back of the car a couple of rows behind her and imagined the opening sequences of the drama. It started with a curtain-raiser on a quiet suburban pavement that was darkened by the spring-budding trees filtering the streetlamps. She would say something like, “You look familiar.”

And they would start to walk down tree-lined streets that grow increasingly dim and narrow.

“Would you tell me your name, miss?”

They were turning into a lane when the curtain crashed down.

The imagined encounter evaporated. A man, who had entered the car from the vestibule behind him, leaned close and whispered,

“I know who you are. You thought you could evade me. I want my credit.”

40

The Cutthroat caught a glimpse of long, stringy hair.

He stood up, brushed past Rick Cox, and whispered, “Follow me.”

He pushed through the vestibule door onto the open platform between the cars. Cox caught up with him in the near darkness. Faces lit only by the glow from the cars ahead and behind, ears half deafened by the thunder of the engine and the wheels clattering on track joints, they stared at each other. Cox’s weirdly mobile features reflected a dozen questions. He blurted one.

“Why are you wearing a false beard?” Cox glanced back at the car at the gay crowd in the bright lights and for a second, the Cutthroat saw, he fixed on the petite blonde with the musical voice. It all dawned on the lunatic in a flash. “Oh… No… You!”

He reached to tug the Cutthroat’s beard.

The Cutthroat blocked him with his cane. As he did, he twisted the head, yanked out the blade, and rammed it deep into Cox’s belly. He had murdered many, many more women than men. But their internal anatomy was the same, at least when it came to organs that mattered. He gripped his weapon with both hands and used all his might to drag it up through the sternum.

He checked that no one was coming from either car. Then he stepped over the side chains, pulled the body under them, leaned out into the slipstream and held on with one hand while he pulled Cox with the other. Calling on almost superhuman strength, he lifted Cox’s body beside him, swung it high and far, and yanked it in from the arc of the swing and under the wheels.

You are brilliant.

The lunatic hurled himself under a speeding train.

Brilliant.

He retrieved the cane he had dropped, sheathed his blade, and waited outside in the vestibule while the train slowed for Tuxedo Park. The passengers hurried out of the car. He followed them from the lavish stone station, wrapping his cape tightly closed to cover the blood that soaked his coat and trousers. Ahead, he could hear the blonde laughing with her friends, escaping him again.

Leaving him still hungry.

“Isaac!” Marion said in the night.

Bell came awake in an instant, reaching under the pillow, eyes glittering like cobalt. She had turned on a light.

“I know why I know the Cutthroat won’t hurt me if he is in the Jekyll and Hyde company.”

Bell let go of the gun, sat up, and put an arm around her shoulder. “Tell me.”

“You think it’s highly likely that the Cutthroat is in the Jekyll and Hyde company.”

“Likely enough to make it too dangerous.”

“He won’t hurt me. He can’t hurt me. Because if he wants to have the movie made, he needs me alive.”

Isaac Bell broke into a broad smile.

“Are you laughing at me?” she asked.

“No. I am, as always, grateful for your wisdom. But this time even you don’t fully understand what you’ve reckoned.”

“I told you, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Thanks to you, I don’t have to worry about anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve come up with the ideal way to distract him. If the Cutthroat is Barrett or Buchanan or Henry Young, he won’t hurt anyone because he won’t risk getting caught until after you finish the movie in Los Angeles. That gives me the entire tour across the West to nail him before he murders another woman.”

41

“Immortality, Mr. Bell?”

Barrett and Buchanan eyed Isaac Bell skeptically over their coffee cups. Their train had just crossed the Missouri — Kansas line and was passing through oil fields littered with abandoned derricks.

“Next, you’ll sell us the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“On top of Treasure Island.”

The tall detective found no humor in their banter. Not when he knew that these men were two of his three suspects. The odds were, one of them had slaughtered Anna Waterbury and Lillian Lent and Mary Beth Winthrop and how many more girls who had died in terror.

“A movie will make your performances live forever.”

“We weren’t aware you were involved with motion pictures, Mr. Bell.”

“My wife is a filmmaker. Marion Morgan Bell.”

Both actors’ eyebrows shot upward. Buchanan said, “You are married to Marion Morgan? She made The Iron Horse. You saw it, Jackson, about the western railroads.”

Barrett was studying Bell closely. “So you are not a complete stranger to show business, Mr. Bell.”

“I believe I can persuade her to immortalize your production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a big film. Three full reels. Maybe four.”

John Buchanan shook his head. “Absolutely not. If the audience can watch a movie, why would they come to our show?”

“They can read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But they still come to your show.”

“Interesting,” Barrett said. “It is something to consider.”

“Someday in the future,” Buchanan added vaguely.

Bell said, “You would have to do it immediately after your last performance in San Francisco. It can be made fast and inexpensively only while your company is still together, your scenery and costumes intact.”

“Who will pay for it?” asked Buchanan. “You’re talking about carrying the entire company during the process, not to mention what cameras and that sort of thing cost.”

“My syndicate will put up the money in exchange for half the profits. Your movie rights to your play will keep the other half.”

“This will take some pondering.”

“Why?” asked Bell. “It was your idea.”

“Our idea? What are you talking about?”

“Mr. Barrett, you said you wished your play would not disappear. And, Mr. Buchanan, you wished you could sell tickets to a production that cost nothing to make. Didn’t you?”

“Wishes.”

“I’m offering you your wishes. If you must ponder, ponder two unique facts about movies. One, a movie preserves your play — and, particularly, your performances — for the ages.”

Barrett nodded.

Buchanan said, “Yes, yes, immortality. There’s where you started. What is the other unique fact?”

“An all-new kind of ‘magic wand’ profit never seen before in the history of the theater. Speaking in round numbers, let’s say your play wraps eight thousand a week, provided you crowd the theater. But your play costs you seven thousand a week in salaries and expenses. Each and every week, whether or not you crowd the theater.”

Bell watched Barrett and Buchanan exchange raised eyebrows, again. The Hartford insurance man had learned a thing or two.

“To make your movie will cost you nothing. When it plays in every movie house in the country, it will bring in twenty, thirty, fifty thousand a week. Every week. While your cost every week will remain zero.”

“I like that,” said Buchanan.

“Money and immortality,” said Barrett. “Very tempting, Mr. Bell.”

“Your idea, gentlemen. All I did was listen to you. But speed is of the essence, unless you’re willing to go to the expense of starting from scratch with a whole new company, scenery, and costumes.”

Barrett and Buchanan looked at each other and traded silent nods.

“What’s the next step?”

Isaac Bell stood up. “We shake on it, and then I will do everything in my power to talk my wife into it.”

“If she won’t,” said Barrett, “we’ll find someone else.”

Bell jumped at the chance to make Marion bulletproof.

“That won’t be necessary. We have already discussed it.”

“Was talking her into it a negotiating ploy?”

“Guilty,” said Bell. “It’s a terrible insurance man habit. The customer wants his steel mills insured for the lowest premium. I sympathize but must ‘clear it with my underwriters,’ who are real skinflints. Fact is, there’s really no one else to film your play better than Marion, and she is so excited about moving it out of doors, beyond the confines of the stage. When Mr. Hyde stalks a girl through the storm in Central Park, she will fashion a wind machine to buffet the trees. And you will fight your Dream Duel in a hurricane.”

“I, for one, will send my understudy,” said Buchanan.

“Me, too,” Barrett grinned. “Poor Mr. Young will have his hands full standing in for both of us.”

“Is Mr. Young a fencer, too?” asked Bell.

“Enough of one to spell us on occasion.”

Barrett said, “But, seriously, if for some reason your wife can’t—”

Isaac Bell answered firmly, “If Marion Morgan Bell can’t make the movie, we won’t pay for it. And we won’t release the rights.”

“Then it will behoove us to be most persuasive. When can we meet her?”

“Soon as we get to Denver. Let’s say lunch tomorrow at the Brown Palace, if we can round up Miss Cook and your stage manager.”

“Henry Young is not a principal.”

“My wife will have questions of a technical nature best addressed to the stage manager.”

42

The Cutthroat dreamed he was a boy in London.

The boy found a broken sword. He polished the rust with sand and honed both edges like a Roman gladius. He stole a file and shaped the broken end to a needle point.

He dreamed they chased him through narrow streets.

He fled to a seaport that reeked of salt and grease and smoke.

He sprawled, seasick, retching his guts out on a splintered deck. The ship finally stopped moving in a hot Southern city where the girls spoke French.

He killed them and fled up the Mississippi River on a steamboat. No — the dream went backwards and started over. The steamboat was behind him. He was on an immense raft, a floating theater, pushed by a steamboat. Up the wide, wide river from New Orleans, day and night, day and night, day and night, Memphis, past Cairo, up the Ohio River. Off the raft at Louisville, on again, and up the river, and off at Cincinnati. Safe at last.

Suddenly he was an animal sleeping in his den.

He was a wolf. Something paced at the mouth of the cave.

He opened his eyes.

He lay still, adrenaline overflowing his arteries, heart thundering, every sense aware.

His dream wolf had felt a presence.

He steadied his breath and stilled his heart. What did it mean?

Eighty men and women were sleeping on the train. This late at night, the only sounds he heard were mechanical — the huff of switch engines, wheels grinding on rails, the muffled clash of couplers, the hoot-hoot of engine signals, the clank of bells, the urgent hiss of locomotives bleeding steam, and the long, long whistle of a train leaving for the West — this train, this special bound for Denver — rumbling out of the yards, thumping through switches, then smooth on the main line, swaying as it picked up speed, whistle howling, drive wheels thundering.

What had his instincts latched onto? What had he noticed? It was there, almost beside him, something close, which he could not quite touch yet. He had to let his mind drift… The broken sword had started his dream. He remembered it well. He had found it when the tide exposed the muddy Thames bank. It took an edge beautifully. A razor’s edge. It was eventually too light, for he had taken on size and developed hard muscle as he grew older. The double-edged Roman short sword was a better fit, and he had used a variety of them—gladius, the longer spatha, the short puglio dagger — choosing one over the other on whim, enjoying one or the other, before moving on to thinner, whippier blades he could hide in a cane.

He sat up in bed, his mind clamoring.

Change plagued touring companies. Every imaginable mishap felled actors. They got sick. They got drunk. They got pregnant. They couldn’t remember lines anymore. They were arrested for debt, locked up for bigamy. They married. They divorced. They even got homesick. Or they simply vanished. But whatever the mishap, the company had to replace them, and backstage people, too — carpenters, riggers, electricians, wardrobe. So regular turnover was typical of a road show. But he could not recall as many new faces as he saw in the Jekyll and Hyde company — all at once, back in Cincinnati.

Two actors: the new Mr. Pool, Archibald Abbott; the new maid, Helen Mills; a replacement stagehand named Quinn, just hired away from Jimmy Valentine. Then there was the newspaper reporter who had talked his way into the publicist’s good graces, Scudder Smith; and the Hartford angel, Isaac Bell; and now Bell’s wife, Marion Morgan Bell, who had looked familiar, though they had never met before the movie meeting the day before.

The wolf of my dream knows that his den has been invaded.

I am no longer safe when I sleep.