Theater of the Crime (Alan Stewart and Vera Deward Murder Mysteries Book 6)

by Неизвестный

  Alan and Ben exchanged glances, shook their heads. “We don’t know what that is,” said Alan.

  “It’s made by the Otis Elevator people for lifting lovely ‘volunteers’ from the audience,” said Vera. “You notice they’re always lithe young ladies wearing evening gowns. First they’re hypnotized on stage, then slowly reclined backwards until they appear to be lying on the floor, and from there levitated four feet into the air—and most times made to disappear, leaving nothing but the silk that covered them.”

  “But St. Laurent didn’t perform that trick,” said Alan.

  “He could still have the equipment available,” said Vera, “stored backstage and shoved to the side.”

  Ben nodded slowly, closing his eyes a moment. “I can’t say we were looking for that last night when we did the quick walk through. We’ll have to pay the Paramount another visit. This time take you along with us.”

  “I’d be glad to go,” said Vera.

  “Stabbing is what’s known classically as an intimate crime,” said Ben, “in that you necessarily have to get close to the person you’re killing, instead of shooting them from twenty paces across a courtyard or a stage with a pistol, rifle, or bow and arrow. You add into this the defiling of the body with the lighter fluid, burning the face away, and we’re talking about serious rage here, like you’d find with romantic betrayal or deep seated hatred.”

  “Do you think there might have been forbidden love here?” asked Vera.

  “Between the victim and his killer? That’s always a possibility,” said Ben, “but we haven’t seen evidence to support or even suggest that yet. I’m inclined to think of revenge as a motive, where the killer wanted as large an audience as possible—so the whole world could see what he’d done...”

  “Alexander certainly helped pack the house with his gruesome prediction,” said Alan, “but I can’t figure, if it were him, how’d he get from one theater to the other.”

  “Stunt doubles?” asked Ben rhetorically. “That works better for an act like St. Laurent’s, but I can’t see a mentalist utilizing a stand-in.”

  “Me neither,” said Vera. “So...we watch his show tonight, time his intermission break, and see if it matches up with the start of the fire.”

  “And then he’d have to get back to the Orpheum and on stage,” added Alan.

  “Even if this part of the city had underground catacombs, like in Japan Town,” said Vera, “I’m thinking it’d take at least thirty minutes to make the round trip—and everything would have to work perfectly. There’d be no room for error.”

  “We can ask Sylvie about last night’s intermission,” said Alan.

  “We might have better luck asking someone who attended the show and not with close ties to it,” said Ben, “don’t you think?”

  “I got a feeling about her,” said Alan. “I think she’s a lot more involved than just another pretty face.”

  “What makes you think that?” asked Vera, her tongue moistening her lips.

  “I’m not sure,” said Alan. “She had a keen interest in everything we discussed—like it meant more to her business wise. I think she’s got a monetary stake in the show. I wouldn’t be surprised if she does a lot of the management and personal assistant chores for Alexander.”

  “As opposed to his being her sugar daddy?” asked Ben.

  “They might have that going on too,” said Alan, “that is when he’s not busy tapping the local talent pool, forcing her to sleep on the couch, but I got the feeling she has more of a business sense about her and a sense of her own independence. The looks are a bonus.”

  “I think we have a volunteer,” said Vera, “but if she’s the business brains, she might cover for him, because she counts on getting her paycheck at the end of the night.”

  Ben chuckled. “Is this going to cause a row between you two?”

  Vera backhanded Ben’s arm playfully. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Alan shook his head sheepishly.

  “You two can take the tour,” said Vera. “I’ve seen plenty of theaters from every angle. I’ll treat myself to a bag of popcorn and a soda. I’ll wait in my seat like a proper school girl.”

  “Me, too,” said Ben, “except for the proper girl part. There’s no sense in me tagging along on Alan’s tour. Sylvie might feel more comfortable talking if she doesn’t feel that she’s being interrogated.”

  * * *

  Alan knocked on the open door to dressing room B, where Sylvie leaned against a make-up station with her legs crossed in front, while visiting a man and a woman, seated across from her. Her pleated skirt stopped just below her knee, a far sight longer than the robe she’d worn earlier in the day. Sylvie glanced at Alan and smiled, nodding with her head for him to join her as she finished the conversation. The couple got up and left without making introductions, their business completed.

  “Where are your friends?” Sylvie asked.

  “Stage fright,” said Alan.

  “Seriously?”

  Alan grinned, hoping to make the joke work and make her feel more at ease. “No, not really. Vera once worked the stage, and Ben sort of did too. He wrestled professionally for years on a circuit. They didn’t figure things had changed all that much that they needed to tag along on a tour. When I left them they were talking about the history of the statue out front and not concerned about trap doors, secret passageways, organs, and klieg lights.”

  Alan extended his hand, and Sylvie slid her slender fingers into place making eye contact as they shook. She squeezed his hand politely before relaxing her grip. “I’m Alan Stewart, and I don’t believe I’ve heard yours, other than Sylvie.”

  “Sylvie Jourdan.”

  “My pleasure, Miss Jourdan.”

  “You said something about a statue?”

  “Yes, John Harte McGraw, once a King County Sheriff during the tough times and later the governor of the state, second one in fact. His statue’s planted on the plug of dirt out front of the theater. He’s best remembered as the man responsible for Seattle’s ship canal and major land work projects around the area, but most people here are new to town and never heard of him.”

  “Fame is so fleeting.”

  “That’s my point,” said Alan. “You have to capitalize on it while you can.”

  Sylvie nodded with a smile, her arms folded loosely across her chest. “So tell me, detective, did you really come early for a tour, or did you just want to talk to me alone?”

  “You’ve caught me red faced and ashamed of myself,” said Alan. “But while I’m here, can we do both?”

  Sylvie stared at Alan a moment, smiled, lowered her eyes, then her arms, and pushed away from the counter. “Sure. Why not? And by the way, I can tell you’re not ashamed of yourself.”

  “Really? Looks can be deceiving.”

  She took his hand and led him out the door and down a hallway. “The Orpheum has original paintings in the lobby that cost a bundle, I’m sure you’ve noticed, and for a while it had the largest seating capacity in the city, with 2,700 seats. The only theater with more seating is the—”

  “Paramount,” said Alan, “with 4,000.”

  “Correct,” said Sylvie, “but we sell out every night here at the Orpheum, “which I seriously doubt St. Laurent can say about the Paramount.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” said Sylvie, now letting go of Alan’s hand as they walked. “What the Paramount has in size in seating, they lack in backstage facilities. We have fourteen dressing rooms, most with their own baths, and the women’s lounges are magnificent. They’re huge.”

  “Why is that?” asked Alan.

  “Because the building designers are from the last century and were concerned about our delicate dispositions as the fair sex. They feared some of us might be taken with ‘the
vapors,’ whatever the hell they are.”

  Alan stopped a moment to laugh, and Sylvie smiled appreciatively. “They’re actually glorified smoking rooms for women who are worried about the disapproving looks their husbands or dates might give them if they smoked in public.”

  “I get it,” said Alan. “Old school. Do you smoke?”

  Sylvie shook her head. “No, but if I did, I wouldn’t worry about where I lit up. But I saw what it did to my mother and father, who always rolled their own and died young. I never found it attractive or sophisticated for that matter.”

  Before long, their meandering course took them underneath the stage, behind the orchestra pit, which had a peek-a-boo view of the audience. The organist walked past them, greeted Sylvie familiarly, and climbed onto the elevated platform with the large organ console.

  “Are there trap doors under this stage?” asked Alan.

  “Naturally, but here we call them ‘service doors.’ I suppose ‘trap’ implies we were in the business of shanghaiing drunken sailors, shipping them overseas on Yankee Clippers or Chinese junks.”

  Sylvie pointed out a set of bare wooden stairs in the shadows, which reminded Alan of the ones he used at the Paramount Theater. A few strands of jacketed electrical wire draped through the stage floor and were fastened to the stairs, running down the steps and below their feet to the orchestra pit.

  “Shanghaiing’s not something you do?” he asked, smiling wryly.

  Sylvie shook her head. “We don’t do much white slavery either, if that’s your next question. People get this idea that mentalists like Claude—Claude Alexander that is—can take over a person’s mind, particularly virgins and young women, seduce them into performing lewd and lascivious acts that they would never do otherwise, encouraging them to run away from their husbands or families and never to return. That’s old wives’ tales rooted in superstition and jealousy.”

  “You call him Claude?”

  Sylvie nodded. “He prefers Alexander on stage, as in Alexander the Great, the Greek conqueror of the world, but to family and close friends he’s Claude, and sometimes Alex.

  “I am curious about his reputation with women,” said Alan. “I’ve heard he’s been married several times, sometimes to more than one woman at the same time.”

  “Claude does like to be married, but you have to understand him. He grew up traveling on the road, raised by carnies and con artists. To him commitment is a vague concept. He actually has no idea what it means. Besides being married, he’s like a sailor with a girl in every port—actually that would be several girls in every port. His penis doesn’t have a conscience.”

  Alan caught himself starting to roll his eyes but stopped. He found Sylvie to be a younger version of Vera and didn’t want to discourage her from speaking her mind.

  “How long have you been with him?”

  “You mean: how old am I?”

  “That, too.”

  “I’m twenty-three, but in dog years I’m a lot older. My last four or five human years have been pretty intense.”

  “You like what you do?”

  They had reached a cozy pit under the stage with a comfortable swivel chair, table, hooded desk lamp, and a lined wicker basket, like those used for taking collections in churches. On top of the desk sat an old microphone, the sort radio stations used for broadcasting their shows, with a set of earphones pushed to the side.

  “This is where I hang out during the show,” she said. “It makes me feel close to the action, like I’m a major part of it, without actually being a performer myself. I have the advantage of watching the audience without their noticing, and I see what parts of the act work and what doesn’t.”

  “You run the business end of things, don’t you?” asked Alan

  “That’s right.”

  “Including the bookings?”

  Sylvie nodded.

  “So how come if you can fill the theater every night, why didn’t you get the Paramount, which has more seating?”

  “I tried to, but their manager told me they’d already had a booking for these dates.”

  “Is that Nikolai Ivanovich?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  Alan waited patiently, sensing more to come.

  “I didn’t want to appear arrogant,” said Sylvie, “but I asked who they’d booked that could match our box office draw. Nick said Frederic St. Laurent, and I told him I didn’t think vaudeville magic acts could fill the theater and he should consider us for these nights instead, because they fit our tour dates better. He agreed but said St. Laurent had guaranteed him a sellout performance, even promising a co-billing with Madam Zarenko’s act.”

  “Let me get this straight,” said Alan. “St. Laurent arranged the booking and promised to bring Zarenko’s act with him?”

  “That’s right.”

  Alan shook his head as he thought. “I could swear that Tasha told us the contract offer came from Nick Ivanovich.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Sylvie. “Claude blew a fuse when I told him we could only get the Orpheum and would have to play more dates. When he heard what Nick said, he told me that had to be a lie, because Zarenko and Ivanovich were once married, and he couldn’t imagine Nick signing any contract with her—even if it made both of them money.”

  Alan’s mouth sagged opened as he stared at Sylvie. “Are you serious about this? They were married?”

  “Years ago in Europe, according to Claude, and from what he said, there were parting shots—quite literally—but I don’t know who shot at whom. So, detective, this fire you’re investigating could very well have been deliberately set, with Zarenko trying to kill her ex-husband or get back at him by destroying his holdings.”

  “How does Alexander know this?” asked Alan, “and don’t tell me ‘because he’s psychic’!”

  “He’s really close to Alexander Pantages,” said Sylvie.

  “Another ‘Alexander’. How does that come into play?”

  “This one’s Greek. Between the Greeks and the Russians, there are a lot of them running around town, especially in the entertainment and restaurant business. That’s why I call mine ‘Claude,’ which is his real first name. At any rate, Claude and Pantages got their starts in Alaska, back during the Gold Rush when they were kids. Rumor has it that Claude shot and killed a man named Soapy Smith, a notorious cheat who extorted Pantages, taking everything he had. Running a dodge on Pantages would have been one thing, but using muscle and threats another. Claude offered to help and provided his own force, in the form of a Colt Peacemaker. He shot and killed Soapy Smith, claiming self-defense, and Pantages has been beholden to him ever since.”

  “How’d Pantages hear about Zarenko and Ivanovich being married?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Sylvie said, sitting down in the reclining chair while Alan stood nearby. She stretched out, put her feet up on an orange crate, a poor substitute for an ottoman, and crossed her legs slowly. “Pantages ran afoul of the law with an underage girl about ten years back, long before I met Claude. He’d been convicted of statutory rape and fought it on appeal. A shrewd businessman would have cut his losses, bribed a judge for early release, and kept his fortune intact, but not Pantages. He had a reputation and honor he felt he needed to recover. So he fought long and hard on appeal and eventually prevailed. While doing so his business suffered horribly, and he spent all his money on attorney fees. Deep in hock, he sold his theaters to the new kid in town, Nikolai Ivanovich.”

  “How many theaters.”

  “Five of Seattle’s best, I’m told.”

  “That must’ve taken some serious cash for that kind of real estate, despite it being the Depression,” said Alan.

  “I imagine so, but I think Claude would’ve helped Pantages financially, if he’d known about the troubles, but he had his ow
n legal problems in California at the time and might have been unavailable. Long before I met him, Claude spent time in prison for a statutory rape charge of his own, he spent time hiding out from G-men for rum running, he spent time running from angry husbands, he spent time shacked up with Hollywood celebrities, and he spent time unavailable, shacked up with some rich patron somewhere else, possibly in Mexico. He needed a manager to tap his potential and keep him pointed in the right direction, finding his business compass so to speak.”

  “And you’re the one who’s done that?”

  Sylvie nodded. “Claude has unbelievable earning potential, largely untapped till now. His box office take on this tour is phenomenal, and then he’ll supplement it when we’re done by catering to the stars and their private needs.”

  “Before I take my seat, I wanted to know about your intermissions. Do you take them?”

  “Of course we do. The theater wants to make money selling popcorn and bonbons, but Claude doesn’t like vendors roaming the aisle during his act, so he takes a fifteen minute break during the show, about an hour and ten minutes into it.”

  “Is that what happened last night?”

  Sylvie nodded.

  “How about the night of the prediction?”

  “We’d barely gotten started,” said Sylvie, glancing away. “Most unusual. We had to mop up a water spill and do some other tidying up, so that one ran to about twenty-five minutes. Because of that we didn’t take one later, because people have babysitters and need to get home.”

  “Your business skills are incredible,” said Alan. “How’d you learn so much while you’re still so young?”

  “Hard knocks and experience. Probably the same as you and your detective work. How’d you get into something so rough and tumble while so young?”

  “How about we talk about it after the show, over a drink or coffee? Can you get away for that?”

  “Can I date you, or am I Claude’s girl? Is that what you’re asking?”

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  * * *

  “He’s quite good,” whispered Vera, leaning slightly closer to Alan, forty-five minutes into the show.