by Linda Barnes
“I wouldn’t worry about it. If one of these ropes breaks, you won’t even have a chance to yell.”
“Comforting.”
“Don’t fret.” Karen emerged from the wings and sprawled next to Spraggue on the floor. “The rope is two-thousand-pound test-weight stuff. Not cheap. This theater has one of the best counterweight systems I’ve ever seen.”
“Then why did the chandelier slip?”
“Improperly weighted. I released the rope clamp. If the weight on the carriage—”
“The carriage?”
“That thing backstage that looks like stacks of bullion in a bank vault. The weight on the carriage is supposed to equal the weight suspended from the batten. If it does, then no movement. The chandelier was a little underbalanced, that’s all.”
Spraggue lay back on the wooden floor. “I think,” he said, “that it might be a lot more fun to watch a performance from here. You could see all the lights glow and dim. The scenery would come closer, then fly away.”
Karen leaned back on one elbow. “I’ve always preferred to watch the technical stuff. When I was a kid my mom kept taking me to the ballet, hoping I’d beg for dancing lessons. I couldn’t take my eyes off the lights. Came home with a crick in my neck.”
Spraggue wondered how anyone could put in such long hours and seem so alert. He half-expected to see dark circles under her eyes, but the skin was as pale and clear there as elsewhere. No makeup, either.
He let the companionable silence deepen before breaking it with a carefully casual question. “You know a lot about this theater?”
“Old theaters are my love.”
“Tell me about this one.”
She pointed. “That’s where Sam Phelps died. Hanged himself from the fourth pipe. Properly weighted, too. There was some scaffolding on the stage. He climbed up, fastened the noose, and kicked the scaffolding down. It was a Saturday night. He hung there until Monday morning.”
“You think he haunts the place?”
“He’s supposed to put in an appearance every opening night,” she said. “Seriously, no. All theaters have legends attached to them. Show people are superstitious. ‘Break a leg’ instead of ‘good luck.’ No whistling in the dressing rooms.…”
“Never quote Macbeth.”
“Right.”
Spraggue hesitated. “Was Macbeth ever performed here? Do you know?”
“Once. It wasn’t successful.”
“Never is. I’ve heard more Macbeth horror stories—car crashes the night before opening; chicken-pox epidemics; box-office flops.”
“Macbeth was Samuel Phelps’s last production in this theater. A disaster, critically and financially. He killed himself closing night.”
“How did you know that?”
She smiled faintly. “I do my homework. I found an old book on Boston theaters down at Goodspeed’s. If you’re curious, I’ll lend it to you.”
“I’m curious.”
“It’s downstairs.” She got to her feet with a swift economy of movement.
Spraggue stood up. “I’ll walk with you.”
“After we get the book, we’ll run your scenes again,” Karen warned. “Then we’ll call it a night. Okay?”
“Fine. How about ice-cream cones at Brigham’s afterward?”
“No, thanks,” she said stiffly.
“A drink, then? It’s Saturday night in the real world.”
“Just another work night for me.”
“Sorry.”
They stepped over a tangle of backstage cables and made their way out the double doors into the gloomy hall. Sconces, fashioned to look like Elizabethan torches, cast dim shadows on the gray stone floor.
“You keep the book in one of the dressing rooms?” Spraggue asked. Eddie’s? he wondered.
“In the green room. I thought some of the actors might be interested.”
Downstairs, the green room was the first door on the left. The name was traditional rather than descriptive. The green room, the actors’ gathering place, was dingy battleship gray, highlighted with battered gold chintz-covered chairs and a sofa.
They found the book in one of the cupboards over the corner sink. Spraggue reached for it.
“Eddie says you saved his life,” Karen said abruptly.
“Actors. They exaggerate.”
“Not Eddie. It’s funny; I thought I was immune to actors, but I like Eddie. Thanks for helping him.”
That thin secretive smile again. Spraggue found himself hoping her immunity didn’t extend to all actors. And hoping she didn’t like Eddie Lafferty too much.
She interrupted his thoughts. “Do you know who did it?”
“Huh?”
“Spraggue, I know about you. I know you’re not here just to act—”
“That obvious?” he asked.
The color in her cheeks deepened and she looked away. “To me, yes. I’m the one who had to get rid of the regular understudy so Darien could bring you in. I’m the stage manager. It’s my job to know everything that goes on in this company.”
“Congratulations. You do your job well.”
“I’d rather have information than compliments. Why you? Why does Darien think you can find the joker?”
Spraggue sighed. “Once upon a time I was a private detective. Believe it or not.”
“And you gave it up to play games onstage.”
“I started out as an actor. RADA. Rep. Some Off-Broadway.…”
“Movies. You were good.”
“Thanks.”
“And?”
“I discovered I wasn’t all that fond of actors. I developed a dislike for agents. The whole business turned me off. I’m basically nosy; I was always getting involved in stuff I had no business getting involved in. So one day I shocked my family and friends and applied for a private investigator’s license.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“It got a little too real for me. Hurt people stayed hurt.” She nodded. “No curtain calls.”
“Right.”
“Did you find out anything at Eddie’s?”
“No.”
Her dark eyes peered into his. “Cautious. That’s good, I suppose. Still, if you need any help, remember I’m always around.”
Spraggue doubted he’d have any trouble remembering. “Do any of the others know why I’m here?” he asked.
“The actors?” Karen grimaced scornfully. “I doubt it. If Langford knew, he’d get appointed your deputy or take over altogether. He’s our number-one busybody. The others spend every waking moment in total self-absorption.”
“Still,” Spraggue said, “they seem to have plenty of time to dwell on each other. John and Emma, Greg and Emma, John and Caroline Ambrose—”
“That’s not affection; that’s just reflected ego.”
Spraggue grinned and recalled the unopened book in his hand. He checked the index quickly, riffled through the yellowed pages until he found the small section on the Fens Theater. The stage manager read over his shoulder, comfortably close.
One quarter of the first page was devoted to a faded photograph. Beady dark eyes glared from a pale wrinkled face. Hawk-nosed and thin, the lower half of his face obscured by a graying beard, Samuel Borgmann Phelps had been a striking man.
Spraggue stared at the picture, a faint memory clutching at his mind. “He looks—” he began.
At that moment, they heard the noise overhead.
“What’s that?” Karen’s voice sank to a whisper.
“Cleaners?”
“No.”
“Stay here.” Spraggue started for the door.
“No. I know this theater better than you.”
“Please. It’s not chauvinism, just a safety precaution. Be my backup.”
She nodded. “I’ll give you five minutes.”
“Fine. Then bring something to hit somebody with.”
“Okay.”
“But not me.”
“Do you have a gun?” she whispered.
“Never touch them.”
“Here, take a flashlight. You might need it.”
Spraggue turned at the door and disappeared.
At the foot of the stairs, he halted and slipped his feet out of too-new loafers. The wooden stairway was creaky enough without shoes. He kept to one side, testing carefully with his weight as he progressed. The noise upstairs continued, a regular metallic banging coming from over the wood shop. Spraggue reviewed the plan of the theater in his head. The stage was over the shop. Heavy metallic thuds. Just the sort of noise Karen had made as she added and subtracted the bricklike counterweights from the carriage.
Spraggue doubled his pace. If someone were playing with the weights, he’d have to catch him in the act. He’d have to find out which of the heavy iron pipes looming over the stage was dangerously underbalanced. Have to find out before any of the actors worked onstage again.
Double doors to the stage straight ahead. Spraggue’s hand touched the light switch, darkened the hall. He twisted the knob silently and pushed open the right-hand door.
He could see nothing at first, the blackness was so profound. The clanging continued. The briefly opened door had gone unnoticed.
Spraggue stood in the stage-left wings, fifty feet away from the counterweight system at stage right. Fifty feet of black silence crammed with cables, steps, platforms, miscellaneous noise traps. He pressed against the back wall of the stage, started moving—cautiously, silently—toward stage right, testing the path with a stockinged foot before each step. He hardly breathed.
He was twenty feet away, when it happened. His feet came to a boundary, a barrier. It felt like a pile of lights, different sizes and shapes. He couldn’t stretch across it, couldn’t find the inches of bare floor to stand on. If he moved against them, the lights would roll, careen into one another. The joker would flee.
Spraggue tensed. Only twenty feet away, the noise from the counterweights was still rhythmic. He lowered himself to his knees, hands scrabbling on the floor for the proper utensil. His outstretched right arm touched a C-clamp. It would have to do.
He feinted once, then tossed the C-clamp center stage. As soon as it hit, hard and loud, Spraggue turned the flash light beam full on the stage-right wings. He faced the joker.
For the first motionless seconds, Spraggue thought he must be hallucinating. A nightmare apparition stood before him. A vampire: caped, gloved, hooded in black. No face, no features, only darkness. The figure shrank from the light, as if the flash-beam were some holy relic. The shape moved. Only then did Spraggue see the startled eyes.
The figure darted for the rightmost edge of the grand drape. Spraggue went after it, clambering over platforms and steps—
Afterward, he remembered the sounds very clearly. The click that must have been the rope clamp giving way, the whine of rushing ropes, the tremendous clang as the iron suspension batten, suddenly unweighted, hit the gridiron, snapped the cable, and fell. Cold air rushed by his face; the stage floor shook beneath him. He reached up, slightly ahead, and felt the thick iron bar resting at an angle, not fifteen inches from his head.
The sudden silence was piercing. Then gray dust, untouched for almost half a century, filtered down from the fly gallery and settled over the stage like choking dirty snow.
Chapter Ten
Something wet trickled down Spraggue’s forehead. As he lifted a shaking hand to explore, all the stage lights flared at once. Then Karen screamed.
“Lie still,” she said quickly. “I’ll call an ambulance. It won’t take long—”
Spraggue scrambled to his feet. “I don’t need one,” he said.
She caught his wrist in a steel grip. “Lie down!” Her voice gritted through clenched teeth.” The police, then. Whatever you want. Just lie down. If you could see yourself.…”
Spraggue stared down at his hand. His fingers were sticky where he had touched his forehead—and in the sudden glaring light, distinctly red. He raised the hand to his nose and sniffed.
“Please lie down.” Karen’s voice was nurse-to-hysterical-patient firm.
“I’m not hurt, Karen.”
“You look—your head!”
“The pipe missed. Something spilled—”
Karen shifted her gaze from Spraggue’s bloody face to the stage. She folded her arms tightly against her chest as if warding off a sudden chill.
The staircase on stage right, part of the Westenra-house set, had saved Spraggue’s life. Its ornate balustrade lay shattered, but the main platform had held. One end of the iron batten straddled it, ten feet up. On stage left, unimpeded except for rehearsal furniture, the batten had crashed to the stage floor. A pool of dark liquid spread over center stage.
“Blood.” Karen shivered as she knelt by the puddle. “Where would someone get all that blood?”
Spraggue held up a battered tin bucket. “I was afraid the company ghost was monkeying with the weights. Now it looks as if he had something less lethal on his mind.”
“You could have been killed.”
“By mistake. If I hadn’t interrupted him—”
“Did you see him?” Karen asked intently.
“Not to name.”
The stage manager’s face fell.
“Dark eyes, I think. I couldn’t get a fix on height with all these steps and platforms.”
“Sex?”
Spraggue sighed. “A black, shapeless cloak—the same outfit that baffled Eddie yesterday. I thought he was a fool for not noticing more. I’ll have to apologize.”
“But even with a cape,” Karen insisted, “you can tell something about shape. Can’t you rule Gus Grayling out? He’s fat.”
“Whoever it was moved well, like a thin person. I couldn’t hear footsteps when he ran.”
“What about Emma? Can’t you rule her out?”
“I’d hate to think I couldn’t recognize that body anywhere.”
“Close your eyes. See it again, just the way it was,” Karen ordered.
“I’m almost sure it couldn’t have been Emma,” Spraggue said.
“Dark eyes,” Karen muttered. “Dark eyes. Darien’s are blue. That lets him out. Eddie can’t see without his glasses.…”
“Wait a minute, Karen. I said I thought he had dark eyes. I’m not sure.”
“What else have we got to go on?” she said angrily.” You’re a trained observer, as an actor and a detective! I’m just voting to trust your first impression.”
“Thanks. But as far as eliminating suspects, you’re the only one absolutely in the clear.”
“Me!” The stage manager’s right hand came up almost automatically and Spraggue prepared to dodge the slap. It never came. Instead Karen began to laugh. “Me,” she repeated incredulously.
“You all right?” Spraggue asked.
“I will be. I’ve got to get a crew in to clean all this up. Someone to replace the batten.… Darien will have three kinds of fits—”
“Let him,” Spraggue said. “Help me reconstruct the trick. Then you can call Arthur.”
“I’ll look around,” she said, “while you’re cleaning up. You look like Jack the Ripper. Towels and soap in the dressing room. Use cold water. Hot water just sets the stain.”
“Back in two minutes. Look, theorize, but don’t touch anything.”
Karen searched, her hands firmly clasped behind her back to avoid temptation. By the time Spraggue returned, damp but unbloodied, she had found the bits of rope—one tied around the bucket, one connected to a batten near the fallen pipe.
“The bucket must have dropped,” she said. “Did you hear it?”
“No. But if it fell with the pipe, one sound would have drowned out the other.”
“Okay, Spraggue. So what we have is one bucket filled with blood hanging from a batten. Ropes to two different battens. What was our vampire up to?”
“A blood bath, I think,” said Spraggue. “What’s rehearsing tomorrow morning?”
“Act Two.”
“Can y
ou take down the batten with the rope attached? We’ll have to reconstruct the trick exactly to determine the intended victim.”
“Sure.” Karen moved off into the wings.
“Take it down slowly.”
The heavy bar descended, bare except for the crystal chandelier—and a length of rope, tied to the pipe at one end.
“All right,” said Karen, striding back onstage. “Show off. Isn’t this where you’re supposed to take a quick look at the knot and pronounce it the work of a left-handed midget from South Carolina?”
Spraggue examined the rope, the piece tied to the batten and the piece on the bucket. Dime-store clothesline doubled up and tied with plain square knots. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said.
“So the bucket is tied to the batten …” she prompted.
“To the two battens,” Spraggue corrected.
“Ah.”
“What?”
“I see it,” Karen said grimly.” What a rotten—”
“How?”
“It’s easy. The batten that fell, that was the stationary support. The joker attached the bucket.”
“Yes.”
“But then he also attached it to another pipe, circling the rope around the bucket’s middle. And the pipe he attached it to is Number 6.”
“So?”
“So Number 6 moves, Spraggue. During Act Two, scene two. I raise it about two feet.”
“Why?”
“To clear the chandelier out of the way before the next scene change. One less thing to do later.”
Spraggue nodded. “When Number 6 batten goes up, the bucket tips over. Who’s beneath?”
“Act Two,” Karen murmured. “Let me check the prompt-book.”
She was gone less than a minute. Spraggue never lost the sound of her footsteps.
“Act Two.” She reappeared and positioned herself onstage, lining up carefully with the fallen batten, stationing herself even with the shredded rope. “It would have been Emma.”
“Emma,” he echoed, seeing her bright red hair darkened with blood.
“Why Emma?”
“Why any of them?” Spraggue said sharply.” Why Georgie or Deirdre? Why Greg Hudson? Why Eddie?”
“All of them? What happened to Georgie?”
“It’s not important, Karen. I’d tell you if it were.”
