by Sarah Rubin
My heart sank. So much for Pete having a reasonable explanation, although at this point I wasn’t that surprised. The more I learnt, the more I was sure Della was right. Someone was trying to make a mess of things.
Pete lifted the casing of the limelight out of the box and held it out in front of him, his eyes practically glowing. ‘I could rebuild this,’ he said. ‘An original limelight would look great in your display, don’t you think?’
I nodded. It might not be what Linda was expecting, but it was better than anything else we’d found so far.
I started to help Pete put the pieces back in the box when something strange caught my eye. I pushed a scrap of hessian aside, uncovering what looked like a blob of melted copper the size of a loaf of bread.
I lifted it up carefully, because as soon as I touched it, I knew it wasn’t made of metal but glass.
‘Oh wow, look at that,’ Pete said. ‘I’ve heard of vitrified sandbags, but I’ve never seen one before!’
Kevin scooted in behind me and jostled my shoulder. ‘Sorry,’ he said, and backed up a few centimetres.
Looking more carefully, Pete was right. The blob was shaped just like the sandbags I’d seen hanging backstage, the ones that counterbalanced the curtains and helped lift the set into the flies when it was time for a scene change. But instead of brown hessian, it had a beautiful iridescent shimmer. Pete held out his hands and I passed it to him carefully.
‘What’s vitrified?’ Kevin asked.
‘It means turned into glass. It’s what happens when sand melts.’ I held out my hands and Pete handed the vitrified sandbag back. I put it on the table in the pile for the display. Then I frowned. ‘But I didn’t think building fires were hot enough to melt sand.’
‘Ah, but the Beryl fire was started by a limelight explosion.’ Pete nodded at the box. ‘Those got plenty hot, let me tell you.’
These things explode?’ Kevin asked. He took a large step away from the box at Pete’s feet.
‘Well, limelights were pretty unstable, but only when they were lit. Theatres had fires all the time.’ Pete shrugged. ‘Some people say the Beryl’s fire was a curse, though. For having the Midnight Star onstage.’
Something pinged at the back of my mind. I searched through the pile of boring papers until I found the loan agreement.
‘You mean this?’ I handed Pete the loan papers and he flipped through them with a low soundless whistle.
The Midnight Star.’ He shook his head.
‘What is it?’ I blew a loose strand of hair off my face.
Pete folded back the top three pages and then handed the pack back to me, revealing a grainy black and white photograph of the largest diamond necklace I had ever seen.
‘Wow,’ I said, but wow didn’t even start to cover it.
The Midnight Star wasn’t just a big diamond on the end of a chain. The whole necklace was a jewel-encrusted masterpiece. Five ornamental chains of silver and diamond created a sparkling crescent. There were six small diamonds embedded in the smallest link of just one of the five chains. I did a quick calculation: six diamonds per link times twenty-four links per chain times five chains equals seven hundred and twenty diamonds, and that didn’t count any of the larger stones.
Darker stones – rubies or emeralds, I couldn’t tell which in the black and white photo – dotted each chain, and more large diamonds hung like teardrops from the lowest strand of the necklace. At the very bottom hung the Star itself, a square diamond the size of a deck of cards, about five centimetres across set in a silver bracket with three more teardrop diamonds below.
Kevin whistled. ‘And I thought the fake one I saw yesterday was impressive.’
‘How did this ruin the Beryl?’ I asked, trying to look away, and failing. I’m not a diamond necklace kind of girl – I’d rather have a new graphing calculator – but I had to admit I was impressed.
Pete leant back on his heels. ‘Well, back in the 1920s Mr Franklin Oswald – he was the Beryl’s owner – got into financial troubles. He needed a hit to save the theatre. This was right before the Great Depression and a lot of Philadelphia theatres were struggling. There was a lot of competition and with the emergence of—’
Franklin Oswald was the Beryl’s owner. I made a mental note to add his journal to the display.
‘So they needed a hit . . .?’ I prompted. Pete’s stories had a way of taking dangerous side-tracks that could wind off in the most unrelated directions.
‘Oh, right, sorry.’ Pete cleared his throat and reeled the story back to the point. ‘Oswald used the last of his money to commission The Curse of the Casterfields by some hot new playwright and put on a lavish production. And then, to top it all off, he borrowed this to use on opening night.’ He nodded towards the picture in my hand, brows furrowed like he’d told me they’d tried to use a live crocodile onstage.
‘And that was bad?’ Kevin asked.
‘Theatre people think it’s bad luck to use real jewellery onstage,’ I said. Della had a pair of real diamond earrings she wore for auditions, but she’d never wear them in an actual show. She also wouldn’t accept flowers before the curtain call. Or even look at a peacock feather. Theatre people had a superstition about practically everything. ‘But you don’t seriously think the Beryl is cursed, do you?’
Pete nodded, his face grave. ‘On opening night, the Midnight Star was onstage and the fire started. The necklace went missing in the confusion. Oswald had to use all the money he’d raised to repay the owner. There was nothing left to restore the Beryl. Kittie Grace died and The Curse of the Casterfields was never performed again. If that doesn’t sound like a real curse to you, I don’t know what will. Franklin Oswald never recovered. He died without a penny to his name.’
‘Why didn’t Mr Oswald just sell the Beryl?’
‘He tried, but no one wanted to buy it. And then the markets crashed and no one had the money to buy it. The Beryl stayed in the Oswald family until his grand-niece bequeathed it to the city. People said Mr Oswald got a little odd after the fire. He became fixated on finding the Star. Spent every last penny he had on trying to track it down, and then some. That’s why none of this stuff got thrown away.’ Pete gestured to the piles of boxes and bags and other debris behind me. ‘Oswald was obsessed.’
‘So what happened to it?’ Kevin asked, his eyes wide with anticipation.
‘No one knows – the Midnight Star was never found.’
The two of them grinned at each other and then at the mountain of boxes we had yet to search.
‘Well, at least that explains why some of these boxes are full of junk,’ Kevin said. ‘Oswald couldn’t risk throwing anything away.’ He rubbed his hands together and pulled a cardboard document box from the top of the stack balanced against the back wall. He held it to his ear and shook it gently, like a kid with a birthday present.
‘Wait, you don’t think it’s still in here?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Why not?’ Kevin asked.
‘No, Alice is right,’ Pete said, his voice heavy. ‘Mr Oswald went over the Beryl from top to bottom. He even lived here once he lost his house. If the Star was here I’m sure he would have found it.’
I remembered the mouse-infested bedding with a shudder.
Kevin just shrugged. ‘Well, I’m going to pretend it’s still here. It’ll make cleaning this room much more exciting.’
He put the box on the table and peeled back the lid.
He looked so disappointed I almost laughed.
‘More papers,’ he sighed.
I expected Pete to be disappointed too, since he’d sounded pretty interested in finding the Midnight Star too. But the papers made him just as excited. Pete moved so fast to get a look inside, Kevin practically bounced off his stomach.
Kevin stared at him, his mouth hanging open, and then he turned to me. I just shrugged. Everyone’s got something they’re passionate about. Me, I like numbers. Kevin liked seeing how many spitballs he could shoot at a classmate before
he got sent to the principal’s office. Pete liked theatre relics.
‘Oh,’ Pete said. Or rather, he made the shape of the word with his mouth, I think he was too excited to get the sound out.
‘What?’
‘It’s the script, the original script. Look at it. Oh! Look, there are stage directions. Someone’s pencilled in stage directions.’
He gathered up the papers in his big meaty hands as if they were rose petals. As he lifted up the last few pages, I noticed something underneath them, five large black and white photos.
‘Who are they?’ Kevin asked, picking up the picture on top.
Pete glanced at the photos and then back at the script, torn between which one needed more ogling.
‘Whoa, get a load of this guy.’
Kevin held up a glossy 8×12 photograph. A man stared out at me with large wet eyes, his hair slicked back against his head. It was a black and white photo, so it was hard to tell, but he seemed very pale, with dark smudges around his eyes and dark lips that had just a hint of a sneer.
‘That’s the actor who played Matthew Strange’s role. He was quite famous in the twenties,’ Pete said. ‘I saw his picture in the paper when I was researching the Beryl.’
‘You were researching? Why?’ I asked. Had Pete been researching the history of the Beryl, or the history of the Midnight Star? I felt strangely relieved that he hadn’t noticed me with Franklin Oswald’s journal.
Pete looked at me like I was the crazy one. ‘Because it’s interesting. Oh look, there’s more.’
The next photo was of an actress. She was pretty in a china-doll kind of way, her eyes and lips looked almost painted on. Her hair was bobbed and the fringe cut a harsh line across her forehead. She must have stared straight into the camera lens because I could almost feel her watching me from the photo.
I shivered and pulled out the next photo quickly, covering the woman’s watchful eyes. ‘Who’s this?’ The picture was of a girl in her early teens, her long hair hanging over her shoulders in two neat tails. ‘She must have had the same role as Della.’
Pete sucked in a sharp breath and froze.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked quickly, handing both the photos to Kevin.
‘Your sister,’ Pete said sheepishly. ‘I got so caught up, I forgot she sent me to get you.’
‘Della did? Why?’
‘She wouldn’t say. She just sent me to go find you and tell you to go to her dressing room.’
‘Maybe she’s found a clue,’ Kevin said.
I made a sharp be quiet gesture. I’d been serious when I told Della to keep the case a secret. I didn’t want to start a riot by asking everyone about an evil ghost. But Pete didn’t seem to notice.
‘I’m sure she’s fine. She said she would have come herself but she needed to “secure the scene”.’
Kevin gave me another, very meaningful look. He was practically dancing from one foot to the other. I guess he’d had enough of the gas house for one morning.
I took the script out of Pete’s hands and stacked it carefully on the table. The handwritten notes were scrawled in a tight neat hand that would probably look very impressive in a display case. ‘I’m sure she’s fine, but we’ll go check on her just in case. Do you want to pack up that light and take it with you?’
Pete face brightened so much it practically glowed.
Kevin helped Pete get the pieces of the limelight back into the box, then held the door while Pete angled his way into the hall.
‘Thanks, you guys. This is going to be such a treat,’ he said, using his chin to point at the box. He sighed happily. ‘I sure envy you two. Promise to let me know if you find anything special?’
‘Sure,’ I said.
I was pretty sure when Pete said ‘anything special’ he meant ‘the Midnight Star’. It looked like Franklin Oswald wasn’t the only one obsessed with the necklace. I wondered how many other people in the cast and crew might be secret treasure hunters too.
Once Pete was gone, I locked the gas-house door, double-checking to make sure it was secure. Then I turned to Kevin.
‘Right, let’s go see what my sister wants.’
‘Della?’ I’d barely knocked on the door and it flew open.
‘There you are,’ she said, grabbing my arm and dragging me inside. ‘What took you so long?’
I opened my mouth to tell Della to stop being so impatient, but when I took a closer look, I stopped.
It looked like a small tornado had touched down in the middle of the room. Small silvery shards of mirrored glass blanketed the floor like a layer of sparkling ice. The rest of the room looked untouched, but I didn’t think Della would have called me just to help her clean up a broken mirror.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘You tell me! I came back to get changed into my next costume and I found it like this.’ Della waved her hand at the mess.
‘Whoa.’ Kevin stood in the doorway staring at the mess. ‘Did you tick someone off or something?’
Della’s face went from pale to ashen and I glared at Kevin.
‘It’s the ghost,’ Della whispered. ‘It must be angry. With me.’ The panic in her voice multiplied with every word.
Normally, I’d have thought my sister was just being dramatic. But as I looked around I couldn’t help but shiver. Someone had been through that room. And they’d been angry enough to make a pretty big mess.
The make-up table had been shifted to one side and put back in the wrong place. A large bottle of baby powder lay on its side, its contents dusting the floor with fine white powder. Across the room the floor was scratched where someone had dragged a metal folding chair under the air vent. I frowned and climbed on to a chair for a better look. The screws on the vent cover had been removed and put back. Bright new scratches marked the metal.
Kevin whistled.
‘OK, Della, try to stay calm. Kevin, shut the door.’
Della didn’t respond, she was too busy doubled over and gasping for air. I sat my sister down in one of the camping chairs and pushed her head between her knees. I wasn’t sure how much of it was an act and how much of it was real, but then again, Della is a method actress, so it was basically the same either way.
It just didn’t make sense. There was hardly anything in the room to start with, so what was the point of searching it? Unless it was just to upset Della, or Vivian.
I remembered how Vivian had reacted to the ghost light being left off. If someone was trying to ruin the show, they were running out of time. Moving props and breaking the set hadn’t worked. Maybe they were trying something more drastic. A cold spike of fear ran down my spine. If someone really wanted to ruin the show, how far would they go?
Della sniffed and took a deep shuddery breath.
‘You should make her breathe into a bag,’ Kevin said. He was trying to be helpful, but all he got was one of Della’s dirty looks. It was one of her better ones too. I figured if she could hand out looks like that she was going to be OK, so I knelt in front of her and asked a question.
‘Was the dressing room like this when you came in?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I came in at about eight thirty this morning, and everything was fine. And then I went and did my scenes, and when I came back here, it was like this.’ She swept her arm in a wide arc, displaying the room like it was a game-show prize.
‘Is anything missing?’ I asked.
Della shook her head. ‘Ghosts don’t steal things.’
‘Della, listen,’ I said, crouching beside her. ‘This isn’t a ghost.’
She opened her mouth to protest and I held up my hand. ‘It isn’t. Look.’
I pointed to the fine layer of baby powder on the floor next to the make-up table. Della followed my finger, her red eyes widening as she saw what was there. A footprint.
I waited for the meaning to sink in. It wasn’t a detailed print, so it was no good for identifying the culprit, but it did prove one thing. Della sucked in her breath. ‘Ghosts don’
t leave footprints,’ she said, her voice hollow.
I nodded and tried not to look smug. Della didn’t need an I told you so.
‘Someone is actually doing all this. They’re actually trying to ruin the show!’ As Della spoke, her fear melted away, burnt to a crisp by the heat of her anger. Her cheeks were so red they looked like they might burst into flames. ‘I understood an angry spirit. But why on earth would a person do something like this? It makes no sense.’
She stood up suddenly. The full skirt of her maid costume sent a gust of air rushing across the dressing room floor.
‘Wait,’ I said, but it was too late. The fine dusting of baby powder shifted and the footprint was gone. I groaned. Della had just destroyed our first real clue. Della was too upset to notice.
‘Well, they’re not going to get away with it.’ She spun to face me. ‘You are going to figure out who it is and stop them.’
Della said it like she was giving me an order. I swallowed, hard. Arguing with my sister wasn’t going to bring the footprint back. Besides, the important thing was Della didn’t think it was a ghost any more. And she was still counting on me to crack the case. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I let her down. Apart from the show being ruined and the Beryl turning into a multiscreen cinema, Della would think of a million ways to torture me for the rest of my life.
‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ Della added. ‘Help me clean this mess up.’
She picked up the small wastepaper basket and started carefully brushing the shards of glass off the make-up table. I grabbed a broom from the corner, one of Della’s props, and started sweeping up the mess on the floor.
‘Wait,’ Kevin said. Della and I both turned to look at him. ‘Well, didn’t you want to preserve the scene of the crime, or something?’
Della snorted. I guess she didn’t think the police would be interested in dressing-room vandalism. Kevin looked at me, his eyebrows raised in a question and I motioned for him to take some pictures with his phone. For some reason he was still holding the head-shots we’d just found, and he fumbled awkwardly as he tried to get his phone out of his pocket.
