“Like the animals, two by two,” said Lulu.
“No,” said Fred, coming up behind me. “An arc discharge. Or voltaic arc.”
Lulu and Eleanor both blinked at how that sounded in Fred’s Brooklyn accent.
“He reads science magazines,” I said.
“A little lightning bolt. A short-pulse electrical arc. But I can’t find what caused it,” said Fred. “I thought one of the cables was loose or torn. That might explain it. Why would it ground in Hal’s body…”
“Fred!” I said as Eleanor looked sick and Lulu fussed over her with consoling little pats.
“There’s no reason a spark should arc like that between the candlestick and Hal,” said Fred. “There was nothing touching the candlestick to cause that to happen.”
“Exactly as I wrote it,” Eleanor said again. “Lightning comes through the window, strikes the candlestick, and then strikes down the old man. All because he is moving the candlestick to see the sisters more clearly.”
“But Hal didn’t touch the candlestick,” I said. “He was supposed to rise from his chair and lift it after the big flash. Just after we switched the lights back on. Then he would have mimed a heart attack and dropped to the floor. That would have been the next scenario to film. But he hadn’t touched the candlestick yet. I’m sure that he was just sitting in his chair, waiting, when I flipped the switch.”
“I didn’t see him move,” said Lulu, “although that flash was so bright, I had sparks in my eyes. But it looked like there was just a fizz of electricity going from the candlestick to him. Without him doing a thing.”
“A fizz?” said Fred.
“I don’t read science magazines,” said Lulu. “Sort of a hiss. Like an electrical snake leapt out and bit him.”
Eleanor moaned a bit more and dropped her head into her hands.
“Eleanor,” Lulu said, very stern. “For all your claims of being descended from witches, you cannot make things happen just because you write them down. Not even little curses. If you could, half the reporters in New York would be lying dead by now.”
Eleanor raised her head and looked at Lulu. “I never wrote about the reporters. But I did write that scene with the guillotine.”
“That was not your fault,” said Lulu very firmly, not like her usual tones. Then, to Fred and me, she said, “It was the very first of our terror plays. Eleanor had a script that she found in France. She adapted it for me.”
“Horrific happenings in the French Revolution,” said Eleanor, with a resigned sigh. “Murder, mayhem, suggestions of lewd acts, even greater suggestions of diabolism, and a finale with a guillotine. Innocent girl loses her head while the howling mob watches. We called it Reign of Horror.”
“Sounds like a script that Sydney would love,” I said.
“It didn’t go over very well with the critics,” said Eleanor. “We hired a magician to provide the final scene with the guillotine, but it never worked like I wanted. So we kept making changes in rehearsals. Which just leads to disaster, as you know. Opening night was the worst. The damn thing stuck halfway down. There’s Lulu on the chopping block and nothing happens. So we cut the lights, dropped the curtain, and prayed everyone would think that was how it was supposed to go. But we were slaughtered in the papers.”
“So Eleanor rewrote the scene that night in absolute fury,” said Lulu, “and turned it around so that the magician is suddenly and permanently maimed by the very guillotine that he meant to use to destroy the heroine.”
“And what happened?” I asked.
“Exactly what I wrote,” said Eleanor again. “The stupid apparatus collapsed. Lulu walked away unscathed. But the stage magician, that poor man, lost his hand.”
“But that was an accident?” I said. It had to be an accident. Bad things don’t happen just because somebody writes a curse down.
“Gouts of blood and screaming accident. We dropped the curtain even faster. And had fabulous reviews the next day. Everyone wanted to come to our theater. But we never did Reign of Horror again,” said Lulu. “Eleanor did get her wish. Revenge and fortune, all at the same time.”
“That makes it sound like magic,” I said, trying very hard to sound skeptical. Except there had been all those hints from Ashcan Pete, Julius, Florie, and even Darrell, that magic existed in Arkham. And if it existed in Arkham, why not New York?
Eleanor looked at me. “I have always been very careful since then to, well, not be angry when I write. My grandmother used to say that it was anger, hate, and other terrible emotions that led the women in our family to black magic. She was always preaching about it. How our wicked witch of an ancestor was burned in Salem for cursing her neighbors and the rest of the family fled south. But that wickedness went with us, even unto the seventh generation, as per my hysterical old granny.” Eleanor’s sophisticated drawl had dropped into a more blurred cadence, one that I recognized from Southern actors and actresses. Not quite Dixie, but close.
“Eleanor,” said Lulu, draping her arms around her. “You are the least wicked woman that I know.”
“You didn’t mean to hurt Hal,” I said.
“No, of course not,” said Eleanor, “not at all. I quite adore him and love discussing chickens with him.”
“Well, then,” said Lulu.
“But I was angry when I wrote that scene,” said Eleanor. “I’ve been angry, just brimful of hateful anger, every time that Sydney teases me about that old manuscript of his. I wanted to show him.”
Lulu fussed and petted Eleanor some more. Eventually Eleanor agreed that the whole incident was just an accident. The pair decided to go for a drive, pleading a need to get out of the house.
“Would you like to go to the diner?” I said to Fred, who had sat silent, even slightly stunned through Eleanor’s story.
Fred looked at me oddly. “Did Eleanor just confess to being a witch? Do you believe her?” he said, as if I should have reacted more than I had. Except by now, someone telling me that magic might be real seemed like old news.
“I need to talk to Florie again,” I said to Fred. “We need to do that if we’re ever going to understand what is going on.”
Before we left, I hunted down Betsy in her room. I was worried about Renee and her strange behavior the night before. I asked Betsy to check on Renee.
“Of course,” said Betsy. “I was going to start writing to other studios. This is the last picture that I’m making with Sydney.” She rummaged through her trunk for stationery and envelopes.
“But what about Max?”
“Max is Max,” said Betsy with a sigh. “Cannot help loving those three worry lines in his forehead but I don’t like how he goes along with everything that Sydney says. He’s just a studio flunky.”
“Are you sure?” I said. There were times in recent days when I felt Max had more agency that we originally thought. That maybe he told what Sydney to do, and Sydney listened.
“It’s always about the studio. Nothing but how the studio trusts him to get things right and the studio knows that he’ll do what is necessary. I don’t think he even cared that Hal was hurt,” said Betsy, and she looked heartbroken at that thought.
Although I hated to agree, I had noticed how cool Max had been through the whole accident. It had been shocking to see Max making notes in his notebook as the ambulance came and took Hal away. And what about Paul? He’d been so unruffled about Paul even before Paul phoned him from the train station. As if he hadn’t cared that people were disappearing.
“I’m glad that Pola went with Hal,” I said. She’d grabbed her bag of knitting and climbed into the back of the ambulance last night. As far as I knew, she was still at the hospital.
“Yes,” said Betsy. “And I’m not sure that they’ll be back. Pola said something to me about how as soon as Hal is well, she’s taking him back to Anaheim.”
“What’s in
Anaheim?” I said.
“Her brother, and his chicken farm,” said Betsy with a slightly hysterical giggle.
It shouldn’t have been that funny, but it had been a terrible night. I started to giggle too. “So Hal will find out which comes first, the chicken or the egg?”
Betsy collapsed with a shriek of laughter. A shriek with a razor’s edge of hysteria to it. Arkham started to fray even our most determined, hopeful player.
I heard Fred shout up the stairs. “We need to leave,” he called.
I met him in the front hall.
“I need to swing by the University to pick up that microphone that they are lending me,” Fred said. “We record Lulu screaming and then shoot the final scene as soon as the sun sets during the solstice tomorrow.”
“Not another night shoot?” I said. “Not another shoot right after Hal’s accident?” What was Sydney thinking? None of us were ready to start filming again.
Fred nodded. “Candles down the hallway, flames flickering in the mirrors, and Lulu screaming at the entrance of the stranger.”
“And who is playing the stranger?” I said. It had been vague in all the discussions so far.
“Jim, he’s the only actor left,” said Fred. “Sydney wants him in the hood.”
“The stranger is the hooded man?” I said. That was odd. The hooded man usually showed up earlier in a Fitzmaurice film and never had much to do with the actual plot.
“Yes,” said Fred. “Guess the hooded man finally gets something to do. Make Lulu scream.”
“Jim wore the hood and cape in the last film, so I won’t have to make any changes,” I said. As the tallest of our three regular actors, Jim made a fine skinny hooded man with the cape going all the way down to his ankles.
As we passed through the main door out of the house, I glanced down the hallway. The mirrors were playing the same tricks that I’d noticed the first day in Arkham. Showing other rooms in impossible angles. I couldn’t see either Fred or myself in the reflections, but I could see through the open doors of the kitchen to Mrs Mayhew arguing with the cook about something. Both of them had hands waving in the air like witches trying an incantation over the cauldron. But I suspected it was just a discussion of the soup for lunch.
The mirrors also showed Sydney and Max entering the library, with the rows of books behind them like dark bricks in a cemetery wall. A wall filled with the dreams of dead men encased in gold-tooled leather bindings.
Betsy had joined Eleanor and Lulu in the sitting room, as if none of them could bear to be alone. Eleanor was still pale, and Lulu was watching her with narrowed eyes. Betsy was writing busily at a desk, planning a future far away from all of us. Max would miss her once she was gone, I thought. But Betsy was also right in thinking that he’d never notice her until she was gone. He was too busy trailing after Sydney, trying to be like Sydney, from his well-tailored suits to his fancy cigarette case.
I looked for Jim, but he was the only one out of sight. Perhaps because he was sitting in the window seat. Knowing Jim, he was probably napping upright.
Fred tugged at my shirt sleeve to get my attention. “Are you coming or going?” he said, while I stood frozen halfway in and halfway out of the door.
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s the problem. I don’t know where we are going next.”
“Velma’s Diner first,” said practical Fred. “It’s almost lunch time. You’ll feel better after a sandwich.”
“That’s your answer to everything,” I said. “More food.”
Fred nodded. “It’s a simple answer but it works most of the time.”
Velma’s was busy, but nobody paid much attention to us. All the booths and tables were full, so we sat at counter stools. After a few minutes, Florie swung by with a coffee pot in one hand and a pair of menus in the other. She slapped the menus down in front of us.
“The movie folk,” she said. “But less of you than last time.”
“Just us two,” agreed Fred. “How’s the turkey sandwich?”
“Not bad, but the roast beef is better,” said Florie. “Less of you at the Fitzmaurice place too. Hear the woods have been playing tricks.”
I must have started, because she put the coffee pot down and patted my hand. “Can’t keep secrets in Arkham,” she said. “At least not for long. Got one missing, one in the hospital, and one sensible enough to walk herself out of that house, or so I hear.”
“Paul went back to California,” I said. “Hal’s in the hospital and Pola’s with him.”
“Smart woman. Knitters nearly always are,” said Florie, leaning on the counter with her notepad like she was taking our order. “You sure that one of you went back to California?”
“Yes, Paul went back more than a week ago,” I counted the days since we had filmed in the woods.
“Guess that’s why Mrs Mayhew had Humbert take his trunk up to the attic, then,” said Florie.
“No,” I said more slowly. “Max shipped it out. Didn’t he, Fred?”
Fred nodded, but Florie just shook her head.
“Florie, how do you know about the trunk?” I asked.
“Humbert,” said Florie. “He’s kin. Besides, he eats here regularly enough. Heavy trunk, he said. Lots of things for a man to leave behind.”
“Paul is in California,” I said, more firmly. “If not, where would he be?”
“Now that,” said Florie, “is a very good question.” Somebody further down the counter shouted for more coffee. Florie picked up her pot. “So, turkey or roast beef?”
“Roast beef,” Fred said.
“Turkey,” I said.
Then, after she walked away, we both looked at each other, remembering the clawmarked tree and the man’s coat waving from the branches overhead.
“And that was definitely blood on the ground,” I said to Fred as we waited in a noisy, crowded diner for the world to stop spinning out of order.
Fred shook his head. “We don’t know it was Paul’s blood. Max got a phone call from him.”
“Max got a call from somebody saying he was Paul,” I said. “Remember, he said that he picked it up and there was Paul. That the phone hadn’t rung yet.”
“So?” said Fred.
“What if it was Sydney, on his extension upstairs?” There were two phones in the house. The main one was on a little table downstairs just outside the library door but there was another in the little study just off Sydney’s bedroom. It had been installed for his grandfather, Sydney told us, after the old man had trouble going up and down the stairs. He used it to talk to Mrs Mayhew downstairs as much to call out, so Sydney said.
Florie slapped our sandwiches in front of us. Fred took a big bite of roast beef and chewed thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t Max know it was Sydney?”
“Sydney’s good at imitating voices,” I said. “Remember last year, at the cast party, when he did everyone, including how you talk about your camera 242 and Betsy’s giggle when she slaps down her cards?” It had been a little uncanny, listening to Sydney parrot our pet phrases and vocal expressions back to us. His imitation of Paul asking to borrow a cigarette off Hal was particularly good.
Fred chewed some more but he didn’t disagree that Sydney could have pulled off a quick conversation as Paul. “But why?” he said. “Why would he go to the trouble?”
“So we’d stop looking for Paul,” I said. “Because if we knew something had happened to Paul, we might stop working.”
“We’d never stop filming,” said Fred, a little shocked at the idea.
“Why? Why do we keep going? Is a movie so important that we have to finish it, no matter what?” I said. “Even if it kills someone? Because that’s what the studio expects us to do.”
“Jeany!” Fred said and then stopped. Because I was right. That was what the studios expected. There was money in movies, lots of money and m
ore every day, but only if new movies kept coming out and kept getting bigger, kept getting better, kept bringing people into the theater. Like Eleanor’s play where the magician lost his hand. Like the film where the plane crashed. People might have been shocked or even horrified, but as Lulu said, the reviews were smashing.
“Accidents happen,” said Fred. “But we don’t get paid if the films don’t get made and keep getting made. That’s all that’s happening. Maybe Sydney is cutting a few corners, but not more than usual.”
“What if Sydney promised the studio something truly shocking?” I said. “Like that flyer film, where the pilot died.”
“Nobody planned on that,” said Fred. “It was a night landing and they made an error.”
“But their studio still released the film,” I said. “Sydney quoted the LA Times about it, ‘what is gone in the flesh will live forevermore on the screen.’”
Directors cut corners, studios cut corners, everyone wanted something more and the business folks didn’t really care what happened to the artists as long as the films were released and tickets sold. Fred was sticking his head in the sand if he thought Sydney and Max were immune to such pressures.
Fred shook his head. His sandwich was nothing but crumbs on this plate. I had barely touched mine as I considered all the ways that Sydney might do something truly horrible to the cast.
“I don’t see how these accidents could be anything but accidents,” said Fred, more slowly than before. I could almost see the thoughts tumbling through his head. Thoughts too terrible for a nice man who just liked to invent things. “It makes no sense that Sydney would ruin his own work.”
“There’s something strange about this script that Sydney has,” I said. “And this ending with the hooded stranger. I think he promised the studio something terrible.”
“Jeany, the studios, all the studios, are getting more and more nervous about moral codes, church protests, and civic investigations,” said Fred. “If Sydney did anything dangerous, anything wrong, that might cause the studio to abandon this project. That’s why we’ve got Max. To keep an eye on Sydney. Not just watch the expenses, but to stop Sydney from causing the type of trouble that might land us in the newspapers in the wrong way. They don’t want another Fatty Arbuckle.”
Mask of Silver Page 22
