A Curtain Falls

by Pintoff, Stefanie

  Perhaps it was my mood more than the actual scenery. The shock of seeing my father last night and learning of his illness had worn off, but one thing remained unchanged: I still felt empty. Ten years since I had seen him, and I was struck by how little he had changed. Then again, most things didn’t— so why should he?

  The city never changed. The violent crimes and murders continued, unrelenting in their pace, despite our best efforts. No, not the private resources of Frohman, or the legwork done by the men whom Mulvaney commanded; not Alistair’s learning or even my own well-intentioned efforts to help. It all seemed futile— especially in the aftermath of another woman’s death.

  I turned my attention to the interview reports Mulvaney had given me last night to review, hoping his officers had uncovered some lead to move this investigation forward. His senior detectives had spoken extensively with the families of both Eliza Downs and Annie Germaine and met with numerous people associated with both the Garrick and the Empire— from janitors to ticket takers to ushers. They had analyzed the finger-print evidence gathered and even telephoned The Times to clear up their remaining questions. But by the time I finished reading, it became clear: each avenue they’d explored had failed to pan out.

  It was half past ten by the time I made it to the New Amsterdam. Unlike last time, there was a police officer by the front door to check my name against his list, as was customary before permitting anyone to enter what was now a crime scene. This was not Leon Iseman’s theater: the manager here was eager to accommodate police protocol.

  A wizened, frail man who seemed to disappear behind his thick black-rimmed glasses met me just inside the lobby and introduced himself as Al Straus. “I’ve worked in the theater business for most of my sixty years,” he said, adding with pride, “and I’ve worked for Mr. Erlanger in some capacity for over fifteen years.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Who was she?” I asked, accepting his offer to take my hat and coat.

  He beckoned with one finger. “Come. You’ll see soon enough.”

  I had no choice but to follow him, passing through one of the larger and more luxurious theaters I’d ever seen, though there was no time to register more than a quick impression of its art nouveau opulence. I made my way to the two small elevators on the eastern side of a long, dark corridor, almost tripping over a black cat who raced across my path in a panic. Al Straus explained that the cat had been given a permanent home there in exchange for his ser vices controlling the vermin population. In fact, I detected an unpleasant musky odor that was likely the product of several cats— or decomposing rodents— or both.

  Al turned the elevator crank once the door closed, and we ascended to the rooftop, which was actually a theater enclosed within a wall of windows. It overlooked the gardens that gave the space its name— and looking upward, I saw how the roof was designed to retract in warm weather. In the brutal heat of a New York summer, I could see how the space would lend itself to a comfortable evening of entertainment.

  “You go,” Al said, easing himself into a chair near the elevator. “I don’t want to see her again.” He nodded toward the stage, which now swarmed with men in blue and brown. I recognized Mulvaney’s tall frame immediately, as well as that of the senior detective he’d introduced me to at the Garrick Theater. David Marwin stretched out his hand in greeting, and several others nodded to me as I approached.

  Mulvaney was squatting down, examining a black mark on the floor. “Not important,” he said. He stood up with a look of relief. “I’m glad you’re here. You made good time coming in.”

  Around me, I saw a dozen or so officers milling about the stage, but one person was conspicuously absent: the victim.

  “Has the coroner already taken her?” I asked, puzzled.

  Mulvaney shook his head somberly.

  Marwin pointed to the stage curtains. “We haven’t even managed to get her down yet.”

  I followed his direction, looking up to the very top of the curtains.

  There, so high up it was no wonder that I hadn’t noticed her, was a macabre figure.

  More doll-like than human, she stared down at us with glassy eyes, clad in a mass of cascading sequined fabric and feather boas, all in emerald green. She swung to and fro— a movement that was at once slow and horrifying. Had he actually hanged her this time, not strangled her?

  “Maybe letting the curtain down would release her?” a young officer piped up in an earnest voice.

  “That’s ridi—” Mulvaney started to cut him off with a brusque reply, then caught himself. “Of course. There’s no ladder or elaborate staging gear nearby. There wouldn’t be, during wintertime. He simply hoisted her up with the curtain.” He gave the young officer an approving nod. “Good thinking.”

  “How did you find her?” I asked. “I wouldn’t think anyone came up here this time of year.”

  Mulvaney’s reply was bitter. “They don’t. We’d never have learned about her death if he hadn’t wanted us to.”

  “He?”

  Mulvaney’s eyes were somber. “The killer left us another love note of sorts.” He turned, picked up a twelve-by-eighteen-inch poster of the kind usually displayed in theater lobbies, and presented it to me.

  I reached for it, then hesitated. “It’s been dusted for prints already?”

  Mulvaney indicated that it had been, adding, “Not that it will do us any good. It’s covered in them. Seems half of New York has been touching this poster. Still . . .” He handed me a pair of cotton gloves like the ones he already wore.

  I donned them quickly, then held the poster up to the light. Against a black background, a woman in a form-fitting dress with a large feather boa leaned into a man wearing a tux as though they were dancing. In bold yellow lettering, the play’s title read PYGMALION. Beneath the figures, I read two names. The woman’s name was emblazoned in red on the lower right: EMMALINE BILLINGS.

  “Is that her name?” I glanced at the woman still suspended high above us. The morning sun caught the sequins in its light, and they glittered madly— just like in the playbill poster.

  “We’re pretty sure,” Marwin said. “We’re checking to find out whether she’s missing. I’m confident we’ll be able to make a positive identification as soon as we bring her down.”

  “What about this other name listed? Walter Howe?”

  “He appears to be another repertory actor who is performing in several of this theater’s productions—The Merchant of Venice and Richard III among them,” Marwin said dryly. “I’ve sent an officer to find and interview him right away.”

  But I remained confused. “Please walk me through what happened. I still don’t understand how this poster,” I tapped the playbill with my left forefinger, “led you to this murder victim.” I glanced upward once again.

  Marwin sighed. “Mulvaney told you that the New Amsterdam was a syndicate theater, right? At the moment, what’s playing downstairs is a rotation of about six repertory productions, from several Shakespearean plays to a revival of Beau Brummel. What is not playing is a production of Pygmalion on the roof at the Aerial Gardens, like you see advertised here.” Marwin pointed to the relevant area of the poster.

  Mulvaney picked up Marwin’s train of thought. “The janitor cleaning the building this morning in preparation for today’s matinee noticed this poster was a fake— but an unusual one. He recognized the advertised leading actor’s name as real. So he took an elevator ride upstairs to investigate and make sure no monkey business was going on.” He drew in his breath. “That’s when he found her. He called Mr. Straus, who promptly informed us.”

  We all stared at the woman’s lifeless form as someone found the rope pulley and began orchestrating the curtain’s slow descent. The levers squealed in protest after so many months of disuse.

  As she came down, the curtains seemed to envelop her like a cocoon.

  I glanced back at Mr. Straus. He was not watching; his head was burrowed in his hands.<
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  “Was there a letter left on the stage?” I asked Mulvaney.

  “Not that we’ve found,” he replied.

  “Have you checked whether The Times got a letter?”

  Mulvaney swore softly under his breath and I realized he’d not thought to do so.

  “Don’t worry— I’ll check with them myself after we finish here,” I said.

  It took two full minutes until the curtain was lowered and she was before us, regarding us with dull, lifeless green eyes that matched her dress.

  “Her face looks just like the others’,” I whispered as she was hoisted down to stage level at last.

  Like Eliza Downs and Annie Germaine before her, she was impeccably made up, with full rouge and eye shadow.

  Her arms were covered in long, white kid gloves, and the green feather boa she wore seemed to move in the breeze, though it was really just the aftereffect of her descent.

  “Why is she standing?” Marwin whispered.

  It was unsettling, the way she slumped against the fabric yet managed to stand. A death pose meant to mimic the appearance of life.

  My voice caught in my throat. “Looks like he made her cooperate while he attached her to the curtain. He killed her afterwards— else he’d never have been able to secure her.”

  From somewhere behind the curtain, a policeman called out, “Hey, you won’t believe this! He literally sewed her on here.”

  Mulvaney, Marwin, and I lifted the far-left edge of the heavy velvet curtain and ducked under it.

  Several dozen long needles— along with a series of long green stitches made with thick embroidery thread— pinned her clothing tightly to the red velvet curtain.

  “Well, unless we plan to undress her to remove her body, I’d guess we’d better undo this threading,” Marwin said.

  “Wait,” I stopped him. “Evidence, remember?”

  I gestured to the officer assisting us to hand me the black No. 2 Bulls-Eye Kodak camera and took several pictures of the odd threading. When I finished, I returned the camera to the officer.

  “Can’t we just cut the curtain around her body?” the young officer piped up.

  The man to his left shook his head. “The material’s much too heavy. And he’s got her pinned so high up, it’d be hard to cut.”

  “Give me some scissors,” Marwin commanded. “I’ll just cut away some of the threads so we can get the needles out.”

  It fell to me to bring Al Straus back to the stage area to identify Miss Billings. He halted halfway there, clutched my arm, and rasped the two words we needed to hear: “It’s her.” He held up his hand and turned away again, his voice breaking as he said, “Please.”

  Despite the fact that I had dozens of questions about who Emmaline Billings was and how she might have found herself in this deserted theater in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, I decided to give Mr. Straus a few moments to recover himself. Then I heard Marwin cry out in pain, and I pivoted sharply.

  “What the hell?” Mulvaney was livid as he rushed over to Marwin, who was doubled over in agony.

  “Something stabbed me,” he said through clenched teeth, clutching his hand. “And it stings.”

  “Where is it?” Mulvaney pulled the curtain out, but there were at least twenty sewing needles still pinned through the curtains.

  Writhing from the pain, Marwin nonetheless forced himself to gesture to the area where he had been working. “I’ll be fine. I just wasn’t expecting it. And the thing was damn sharp.”

  “All right.” Mulvaney set his jaw squarely. “Let’s get on with this and get her down. Dr. Wilcox will be here any moment, and he can’t begin to examine her when she’s still strung up on the curtains. But be careful, all of you, with those needles. There may be another one hidden.”

  “And when you find whichever one stabbed Detective Marwin,” I added, “be sure to set it aside for fingerprint evidence. It will be set at an angle; else it couldn’t have pricked him.”

  I observed his hand, which now had a raw, angry mark just above his wrist. It was starting to look nasty. But when I mentioned it, he brushed off the injury and rejoined the two other officers, who set about methodically, but gingerly, taking out the stitching.

  I ducked under the curtain once again and surveyed the woman now identified as Miss Emmaline Billings. She was petite, very slightly built. She could be no more than five foot one, I was certain. And she looked very young— under twenty, if I had to hazard a guess. Her natural jet-black hair had been pulled back and supplemented with a black wig that did not perfectly match, but did allow for multiple ringlets of curls to run down her back. I looked in the folds of her feather boa, even just under the edges of her white gloves. But I saw nothing resembling a letter of the sort I had half expected to see— certainly given the pattern established by the murders of Eliza Downs and Annie Germaine.

  I was once again startled by a cry, followed by the awful sound of a person vomiting.

  I was on the other side of the curtain in an instant.

  It could not have been five minutes since I had seen Marwin draw himself up, claiming he felt fine.

  But now I watched him collapse onto the floor with a soft thud, his face sickly and blue.

  The officers who had been helping him now looked on as Mulvaney dropped to the floor beside Marwin. Even Al Straus rushed back onto the stage.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Mulvaney said roughly. “Go get some help!”

  That sent Mr. Straus back to the elevator with more energy than I had thought the theater manager was capable of. I went to the curtain and scanned the mess of threads and needles that pinned Miss Billings to the curtain. We now needed the needle that had stabbed Detective Marwin more than ever.

  It took me some moments to find it, for it was well hidden and sharply angled. I swore softly under my breath as I took my knife and pried it away from its embroidered cocoon. It was a hypodermic needle. And it had been sewn— or, as we now knew, booby-trapped—in such a way as to stab whoever tried to remove the needles and thread immediately above it. I took one of the cotton gloves I always carried with me and tucked the needle— now important evidence— inside. I placed it carefully within the front pocket of my brown leather satchel.

  I regarded Marwin, who looked ghastly ill. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”

  “Dr. Wilcox should have been here already,” Mulvaney muttered as he checked his pocket watch. “Let’s get Marwin downstairs.”

  “All right. On the count of three, we’ll lift,” I said. The man was now thoroughly incapacitated, so I knew he would be a deadweight. It was an unfortunate term— and the more closely I looked at him, the more concerned I became.

  “Wilcox will be here any minute,” Mulvaney said, to reassure himself as much as the rest of us.

  We struggled to make it downstairs. Finally, we maneuvered him onto the floor in the lounge and, in relief, I silently blessed Mulvaney’s brawny heft.

  We had just made him comfortable when the coroner’s physician, Max Wilcox, came through the door. It took him only seconds to assess the situation. I explained the bizarre positioning of the corpse upstairs and how Detective Marwin had been stabbed by a needle. “It was a hypodermic needle strategically placed among sewing needles so as to injure him, you understand.”

  The doctor listened intently, all the while checking the detective’s pulse and clammy forehead. He grabbed a vial of ammonia from his medical bag and held it to the man’s nose, then administered artificial respiration.

  Nothing had any effect.

  “Let me see that needle.”

  I complied with his demand.

  He squeezed the small syringe while holding on to the glove and tasted the tiny droplet that emerged.

  A look of surprise followed by horror passed over his face. His two words told us all we needed to know.

  Bitter almonds.

  Mulvaney and I exchanged stricken looks; we knew exactly what that meant. The taste of bitter almond
was a sure indicator of cyanide. And there was no poison more deadly.

  “Bring in the gurney. We’ve got to get this man moved.” Wilcox’s directions to his assistant were curt.

  “What about the dead woman upstairs?” his assistant asked, confused.

  “She can wait. She’s beyond my help.” Wilcox stood and mopped his brow. “But with this man, I think there’s still a chance.” He considered his patient once again. David Marwin appeared to be conscious, but just barely. “Where can we move him?”

  “You don’t want the nearest hospital?” Mulvaney asked.

  The doctor made a snap decision.

  “No hospital. There’s no time. I need the closest bed where I can attend to him and make him comfortable.”

  Mr. Straus, who had been hovering behind us, suggested, “There’s a ladies’ lounge with sofas right off the lobby.”

  “Good. Now, I need hot water. Brandy. And plenty of buckets.”

  Wilcox looked up in amazement when no one moved.

  “You’ve got to make haste, all of you.” He gave us a meaningful look. “Time, you see, is of the absolute essence.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The City Room, Times Building—Forty-second Street

  It fell to me to check whether The Times had received another letter from this killer. To be honest, I was happy to have something to occupy myself. The Times building was just around the corner from the New Amsterdam Theater— and I was of no use to Marwin just pacing in the lobby.

  Entering the City Room at The Times for the second time this week, I was struck that the atmosphere was only slightly less frenzied this Sunday afternoon than it had been Friday evening. Reporters still furiously typed at their desks, trying to meet the day’s deadline as editors barked orders. There were simply fewer of them on the job today. And without Ira Salzburg’s presence, the mood was noticeably lighter.