She began to shake.
Jack grabbed one of his torches and began to light an area of the stage I hadn’t even realized was part of the scene.
“What I can’t figure out is how you managed it all,” I said, aware that I needed to keep him talking.
He turned back to me, cocked his head. “Because I am Pygmalion, Detective. I take what is unfinished, imperfect— and create beauty.”
“You killed them all without leaving a single mark. The coroner has never seen anything like it,” I said. “How?”
He pulled a chair toward me, sat down, folded his arms, and regarded me soberly. “It’s a God-given gift.” Seeing that I was taken aback, he continued. “And the ideas themselves, Detective, came from the bard. I saw how the actor strangled his victim in a production of Othello when I was young. It was beautiful. And later, I realized I’d been blessed with the touch. The magic touch required to take a life,” he waved his hands, “and yet leave no sign.”
The man was a raving lunatic.
I swallowed hard, and said only, “You nearly managed to frame another man.”
He half danced across the stage toward Helen Bell. “Ever the detective, aren’t you? Focused only on these mundane details. You bore me.” He yawned.
He reached out to caress Helen’s head once again, ignoring her trembling. “It was fortuitous, of course, when I was assigned to help Frank Riley report on the murders.” He turned away, clapped his hands together once. “Ha! Poor Frank probably believes I’ve got the makings of a first-rate crime reporter now, with all the evidence I managed to gather and send his way.”
“But even before that, you’d laid the groundwork to frame Timothy Poe.”
He gave me an odd look. “Actually, I didn’t even know Poe was a suspect until the professor helping you told us. It gave me an idea. You see, I don’t mind telling you I was a bit nervous,” he said in a confidential whisper. “After all, I was being thrust into an investigation— about me. But then it occurred to me: I’d been given a unique opportunity. All I had to do was find a better suspect and serve him up.”
He circled the stage again, his voice taking on a scornful tone. “Poe was too easy, actually. Your police captain already suspected Poe because of his association with Pygmalion. Good fortune was looking out for me there. And then, when I followed him one day and learned his secret, why,” he paused, his lips spreading into a wide grin, “I saw he was the perfect scapegoat. He would be convicted of my crimes based on his reputation alone.”
“But you did more than just make use of the fact he has an African male lover. You framed him with fingerprints,” I said, pushing him to keep talking. “You planted hypodermic needles in his apartment.”
He looked pleased. “I don’t know what I’d do without Molly. That was her idea; and she followed through and orchestrated all of it. She even figured out how to position the syringe behind Miss Billings so it would discharge its contents when someone tried to remove it.”
“But she’s an actress,” I said, puzzled. “How did she learn to pull off something like that?”
“ ‘My dear old papa,’ ” he sang out loud, laughing across the stage. Then he stopped and turned. “Do you know the song? Though in this case, it should be your dear papa, Detective. He taught her everything he knew.”
So she had seduced my father, not the other way around. But I couldn’t imagine why. . . .
As though he had read my thoughts, he said, “I’ve really no idea why she targeted him, except that she thought he had skills and connections she could use.”
My father had mistakenly thought she wanted to bring him some happiness in his final days. It was shocking— and yet it made sense. She had ascertained the areas where her skills— and Jack’s— would prove lacking. My father had suited her purposes.
Just like the women she encouraged Jack to kill.
Jack continued to ramble on, but I focused instead on how I might tackle him and retrieve my gun— without endangering Helen Bell.
If only he would come closer to me.
He leaned over and grabbed the silk scarves that lay near the blue letter onstage.
“It is time,” he announced. Waving the Smith & Wesson, he indicated for me to step toward the chair.
Why doesn’t anyone come to help? What is taking my father so long?
I had one final surprise that might give us a little more time.
“Maybe your leading lady would like more jewelry,” I said as I pulled Francine Vandergriff’s diamond-and-sapphire ring out of my pocket and held it high. The diamonds glittered brilliantly in the light of the flickering torches.
He turned, eyes widening. The instant he recognized it, he crossed the stage and seized my wrist. “Where did you get this?” he snarled.
I leveled my gaze at him. “Right where you left it.”
He wrenched it from my hand, but then caressed it in his own. “My beautiful Francine,” he whispered. He placed it at the midpoint of his smallest finger, and a wild grin spread over his face. “You’re actually right. It’s better to have such baubles to remember those we loved. No need to keep a fine artifact like this buried in the ground, literally on the hand of one who can no longer appreciate it. Now, come sit.”
The man was a loose cannon. I had played my last card; the ring had momentarily distracted him, but now he appeared to have remembered his plan. I took a seat, struggling to control my fear.
“I’ll stay here. But let Miss Bell go.”
He took one of the scarves and let it dangle near my head. “How chivalrous of you, Detective. But I require a lady for my purposes.”
“According to Molly, you want to hurt Charles Frohman. It strikes me that there are better ways than injuring innocent women who have nothing to do with him.”
“Nothing? Did you say nothing?” He wheeled around and turned to face me. “They have everything to do with him. Whores to the success he promises. False promises leading to ruin— that was all he ever gave us. Me. My mother. Molly.”
“So why not kill him? What did these women ever do to you?”
With a savage voice, Jack replied, “He ought to feel the same pain I felt watching the dreams I loved die. Because tonight, I destroy his reputation once and for all.”
He turned and grabbed a large jug filled with a liquid that sloshed as he carried it close to the chaise longue. “This,” he said, looking all around him, “should’ve been my birthright. My legacy.” He splashed some of the liquid toward one of the torches. It must have contained alcohol, for it made the torch blaze hotter and higher, igniting the wood scenery behind it.
Jack fanned the flames, laughing, before turning to the next torch. He repeated the same action as before, and, with a deliberateness that chilled me, he turned and doused Helen Bell with the same liquid.
He reached for his torch.
I dove for Helen, grabbing her feet and yanking her off the chaise longue, out of his grip.
He charged toward me, pointing the Smith & Wesson directly at my head. I managed to shove Helen behind me; with feet and hands still bound, she could not move of her own accord.
“Desdemona doesn’t burn,” I said.
Jack stared at me, blinking in astonishment. “You’re right,” he finally said. He threw one arm out wide. “This shall be her funeral pyre, but first she ought to die according to script.”
Come closer. Come closer.
I leaned back on the floor, pushing my back against Helen, prepared to kick him the moment he came near.
But he stepped back and leveled the gun at me. “You, on the other hand . . .”
No . . . no . . . I fought rising panic as I realized what he meant to do. I looked around wildly, but there were no good options.
If I moved, I exposed Helen to his shot.
If I stayed in position, I died.
It was hopeless either way.
The shots took forever to come— first one deafening crack, followed immediately by another. I pr
epared myself for the searing pain and blackness that would end it all.
Instead, Jack cried out and fell forward, hard, grasping at his side. He dropped the Smith & Wesson.
I lunged for it, grabbed it tightly.
But he wasn’t down.
And in a matter of seconds, he had a second gun in hand.
Louie’s gun. Of course.
I had no choice. I pushed Helen Bell to my left— hard. I winced, hearing her shriek in pain as she hit part of the wooden scenery. But at least she was out of the line of fire.
Who had shot Jack? I looked around the theater before I leveled my gun at him.
He looked back at me and laughed. “Interesting situation we got here, isn’t it?” He pointed his own gun at me. “Who shoots whom first?” Another laugh. “Bang.”
Then his eyes changed and I knew he would shoot now. I had to take my shot.
But a dark figure rose behind him, knocking him to the ground.
“No!” he cried out.
“No!” I echoed loudly, though the word seemed to come from somewhere else.
And a single gunshot sounded.
My father had tackled him. My father— who was supposed to have left the theater for safety. He should not have come back.
Now, he rolled over, clutching his gut, and I realized that he was badly hit.
He lay helpless and bleeding while Jack continued, out of control.
Jack reached for the jug of alcohol and spilled it around my father. Next, he began sloshing it wildly over everything. I turned my face away as the liquid landed on me, narrowly avoiding my eyes.
“Stop!” I commanded, my gun pointed directly at him. I would take the shot if he gave me no choice.
“Police!” The word came from the back of the theater.
Jack stood up, stooped in pain, but able to walk.
He was going for the torches. He meant to light up the whole place.
“I said police! Halt!” I recognized Mulvaney’s voice.
But Mulvaney was too far away.
Jack laughed— a fiendish laugh as he reached out with two hands toward the nearby torches.
We were covered in the alcohol. My father, Miss Bell, and I— we would all die a fiery death unless I did something.
With a deep breath and something that might have been a prayer, I took the shot.
Then I watched him fall to his knees, just shy of the torches— and saw the dark stain spread over his chest.
He fell to the floor, but managed to heave himself backward into one of the flaming torches.
As it toppled over, igniting an explosion of fire, I dropped my gun, grabbed Helen and my father, and pulled both of them off the stage seconds before the flames would have enveloped us.
“Are you all right?” I asked him.
But the moment I looked at his ashen face— even before I noticed the gaping wound in his chest— I knew the answer was no. He’d already lost way too much blood. Jack’s shot must have hit its mark.
I reached behind me and made short work of Helen Bell’s restraints. “Are you okay?” I asked her.
She nodded mutely.
Mulvaney was at my side, and I was conscious of several officers surrounding us.
The fire was burning out of control, the heat terrific.
“Help me.” I started to pull my father down the aisle, closer to the door. My right arm was throbbing in pain. There was no way I could lift him, so I continued to drag him away from the heat and the fire until two police officers took him from me, gently lifting him and carrying him out of the building.
Mulvaney was behind me, helping Miss Bell.
I gave him a weary glance. “There’s a woman in the dressing room backstage, too. Someone should get her— and place her under immediate arrest.”
Mulvaney’s eyes were sorrowful when they met my own.
“Schneider, Arnow,” he called out. “Get your men to evacuate the dressing rooms backstage. A female suspect is secure back there.”
I almost mentioned the two bodies onstage, but as I looked back at the raging fire, I realized it was too late. As Jack had planned, the stage had become a funeral pyre— but not for Miss Bell. Instead, for Louie, dead by Jack’s hand. And Jack himself, killed by my own.
In the street, passersby swarmed around my father and me.
“I’ve imagined my own death countless times,” he said in large, gasping breaths. “But never like this.”
I placed more pressure on his chest wound, attempting to stem the massive flow of blood. “Don’t give up yet,” I warned.
“It’s all right, Simon.” He smiled weakly. “Your mother would be proud.” His breaths were ragged. “I’m going out aces-up. It was my last hand . . . and I played a good turn.”
And so he had. He’d saved two lives tonight— Helen’s as well as my own.
And so I held him tightly until his ragged breaths stopped altogether, and Mulvaney’s hands gently pried me away. Other men hoisted his body up onto a stretcher and into the coroner’s wagon, taking him to places I would not follow.
Watching him go, I felt emptiness no longer. Instead, I was conscious of a profound sadness for what was lost— which was really the promise of everything that might have been.
Sunday
April 1, 1906
CHAPTER 35
Dobson, New York
“It’s a grand sight, isn’t it?” Mulvaney’s voice boomed from behind me. “Spectacular, in fact.”
I gazed out over the Hudson River, leaning forward against the iron railing so that the Conduit Cable Factory to our south would not obstruct my view. “You came all the way here to join me in admiring the scenery?”
“Dammit, Simon, you know I didn’t.” He pulled a cigarette from its tin and lit it, taking slow, deliberate puffs.
“It’s hard enough to admit I was wrong . . . or to apologize, say that I’m sorry,” he finally said. “It’s harder still to know that I made a terrible mistake. And that my mistake caused the death of your father.”
I turned to Mulvaney. His eyes were puffy circles with dark bags underneath. And it was the first time I’d seen him light a cigarette in more than a year. “Only one person killed my father: the man who shot the gun. Jack Bogarty. Or Robert Coby. Or whoever he was in the end.”
Mulvaney nodded. “It’s what we say in order to live with ourselves: blame it on the bad guy. But it’s not always true. We make mistakes, too. And they have consequences. . . .” His voice choked up.
“I’m not minimizing the consequences.” I steadied my gaze when I looked at him. “But in this case, it was always going to be Jack’s fault. And the fault of those who had the ability to stop him, like Molly.”
He took several rapid puffs from his cigarette, then tossed it into the river. “I’m sorry, Simon. I should have listened to you. Or at least heard you out.”
“I expect you to remember that, next time,” I said with better humor. “Let’s walk.” I pointed toward the dirt path that followed the river.
“Has Poe been released?” I asked after we had continued for several minutes.
“I oversaw his release myself, Friday night. I think he’s left for Eu rope, already. Can’t blame him.” Mulvaney hung his head low. “I feel awful about it, but there’s nothing I can do. The fact is, he’ll never work here again.”
“Perhaps he’ll be happier. People are more tolerant on the continent. Or so I hear,” I said.
“Molly Hansen took Poe’s place in the Tombs. Your professor has been by several times to talk with her,” Mulvaney said. “I think he fancies her to be his next research subject— assuming she isn’t given the death sentence after her trial.”
But she wouldn’t be executed— at least, not if Alistair and his connections were helping her. I didn’t mind; I had no death wish for Molly Hansen, so long as she remained in jail, unable to harm anyone else.
“So you have all the evidence you need?” I asked.
Mulvaney whistled. “Y
ou should have seen the mother-lode of evidence we found in Bogarty’s apartment. The man was addicted to his journal; he wrote everything down. In addition to the eyewitnesses from Friday night, there’s plenty to implicate Molly as well.”
We continued walking, watching the ferryboats, barges, and sailboats pass up and down the river. A peaceful April afternoon.
“Was there any truth to Jack’s claim that Frohman was actually his father?”
“Not that we can find,” Mulvaney said. “Who knows? It’s not as though Frohman would acknowledge it now, absent any proof to force his hand.”
“How is Detective Marwin doing?” I asked.
“Better,” Mulvaney replied. “They were eventually able to move him to a hospital; a few days ago, he went home.”
He shot me a sideways look. “He’s not coming back to the department, though. It means there’s an open spot, if you want it.” More humbly, he added, “I’d be honored to have you. And the top brass authorized a starting bonus— designed to cover what you spent on labor for hire and suffered in lost salary.”
I nodded, but said nothing.
He stopped short. “Speaking of that labor, I meant to tell you first thing— one of the men helping you, Isador, is going to make a full recovery. He was knocked unconscious Friday night, not killed.”
I looked at him sharply. “But I checked. He had no pulse.”
Mulvaney chuckled before saying good-naturedly, “I guess miracles can happen, Ziele. Or— given the circumstances that night— maybe you just didn’t give it enough time.”
Either way, I was glad to hear some positive news come out of that awful night.
“There’s one more thing, Ziele,” Mulvaney added, his voice sober. “There’s going to be an article in The Times tomorrow. I spoke with Ira Salzburg— and though they’re slightly embarrassed, they’re going to use it. It will sell them a lot of papers.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”
“They’re going to run a story by Jack Bogarty. Sort of an ‘in his own words’ feature.”
A Curtain Falls Page 29
