by Linda Barnes
“I heard that tape tonight,” she went on. “You can’t believe that voice was mine.”
“I’ve never heard you whisper. You’re a good actress. I give you credit for that. And credit for knowing that you can’t prove your innocence by screwing me.”
“Couldn’t I prove someone else’s innocence?” she said archly.
“How?”
“If he were screwing me.…”
“Who?”
“John Langford. This afternoon. Here, right from rehearsal up until the party. He wouldn’t have had time to set up all that stuff.” She paused briefly. “How’s that for an alibi?”
“Pretty good. For both of you.”
“Of course, John is up to something, Michael. He won’t say what, but it has nothing to do with me. I’d hate to think I was the cause of all this upset.”
Spraggue took her pointed chin in his hand. “You would love it, Emma. Look at all the intrigues you’ve already created in the cast. One of your more successful experiments.”
“You find me cold?” She shrugged. “John only thinks about himself. Wouldn’t it be lovely if his dismal past caught up in time to prevent him from playing the Crowning Role of His Career?”
Spraggue grunted.
“You’re so noncommittal, Michael.”
Spraggue toweled himself, started to dress. “I have to go home.”
“You can sleep here.”
She was incredibly beautiful, hair damp, a towel draped loosely around her. He refused; there was work to be done. But he hadn’t minded being experimented on for a few hours.
He called a cab.
As he walked down the front steps ten minutes later, a small dark car pulled away suddenly.
By the time he got to his aunt’s, it was five A.M. She’d left the porch light on. Spraggue thanked her silently as he fumbled for his little-used key.
The handwriting on the pages, carefully folded under the jade bowl in the library, was Pierce’s—the finished timetable of the suspects evening activities. No note from Aunt Mary; she must have pried nothing out of Karen. Spraggue mastered the desire to call the stage manager, but couldn’t control the wish that she, not Emma, had invited him home.
Wait. There was a note in another hand, not Aunt Mary’s; an unfamiliar rounded, schoolgirl scrawl. Half a torn-out notebook-page signed “Georgie.”
Michael dear,
Exonerated at last! Now admit it, I couldn’t have gotten all that sound stuff and bought all those rats and set the whole thing up when I was right here in your lovely house all afternoon. Your aunt, who is a darling, will alibi me.
See how right you were to trust me? And I appreciate it, appreciate it, appreciate it! Believe me.
Spraggue smiled, tucked the folded sheet of paper in with Pierce’s report, added them to Hurley’s envelope, and headed for the kitchen. On the top shelf of the refrigerator, from a small silver tray, a frosted glass of milk and a tiny strawberry confection stared at him. Mary must have told Dora that he’d be in late.
He took the pastry and the tray, substituted a Pepsi for the soporific milk, and went up to the tower, the bedroom he’d had as a boy. He tiptoed past the south guest room. He wasn’t sure where Mary had put Georgina.
In the tower, the sheets were turned down. Fresh towels and soap in the bath. Spraggue stripped off his clothes and settled into bed, stuffed two plump pillows behind his back, and turned the reading lamp on full.
Pierce’s timetable was neatly margined and columned, printed in his tiny, precise hand. The first column, headed “Suspects,” listed the cast, the director, and the house manager. The second column read: “Location at 11:15.” The third: “Seen by.” The fourth: “11:55.” The fifth reiterated the third: “Seen by.”
The “stars” of the evening had been quickly vouched for. Langford, Ambrose, Darien had ways of making their presence felt. Dennis Boland, the plump Spider, had danced attendance continuously on Darien. Emma Healey hadn’t been quite so loyal to John Langford. She’d moved around a lot, but in that red dress she’d had plenty of observers. Both Mary and Pierce reported positively that she hadn’t left the room.
Spraggue pulled the thin blanket up over his knees; the late summer nights were getting chilly. He stretched his arms over his head and yawned, took a long sip of his caffeine-laced drink.
The other actors, according to Pierce’s table, were harder to place, less colorful. Greg Hudson, Pierce thought, had been too drunk to carry out any action needing a modicum of finesse. Deirdre, no one could place exactly. Eddie was vouched for by Karen, dancing with her. Damn … Gus Grayling, Mary was sure, hadn’t left his clutch of admirers or released Georgina’s hand for more than an instant. So much for the timetable.
The second document was in another hand, bold sweeping capitals, sprawling grandiose loops. Arthur Darien’s sketchy cast list for that 1974 production of Macbeth. A lot of good that would do; Darien seemed to remember so little. Maybe he had blocked it out of his mind. A few of the names Spraggue recognized. Darien had by no means used a cast entirely composed of unknowns. Alison Arnold had flown in exalted company. No one from Darien’s Dracula cast had been involved in the ill-fated Macbeth. Spraggue shrugged. He’d expected as much. A drive for revenge seven years later spoke of more than a colleague, more even than a friend. Who in the company was related to Alison Arnold?
Spraggue ran the parade of suspects through his ever-sleepier mind.
Caroline. Had she a niece, a daughter named Alison? None of her husbands had been named Arnold. A niece, more likely. But she had been such a good friend of Darien’s—and for so long, years before ’74. If you believed her stories. Her tale about Darien and Spider and their shared Brooklyn boyhood, had been contradicted by Darien himself.
Langford. Was John up to something, as Emma had said? Screwing someone else in the company, determined to infuriate Caroline further? What had he meant by that remark at the party, that quick, cryptic “I was afraid you might be too late”?
Greg Hudson and Eddie Lafferty were both more likely suspects than Caroline or John. Prospective younger brothers to Alison. Arnold? Had that been Greg’s car out in front of Emma’s apartment?
Spraggue shook himself as his head fell forward. Still one more document to study: the Dracula script. Combination dress rehearsal-press preview tonight, and he was still unsure of several lines and cues. He’d certainly have done a great job if, despite no disturbance at the performance, the play bombed because he’d never bothered to learn his lines!
He studied until eight, then thought about breakfast. Too tired to eat. Just one phone call. Fred Hurley.
Hurley must have just gotten to his desk. Spraggue could hear him slurping coffee, almost smell it over the line.
Spraggue sat up straight, tried to make his voice sound alert. “Hurley, good stuff you sent me.” The detective always responded well to early-morning praise.
Hurley took time out from coffee drinking to answer, “Wait’ll you get the bill!”
“Just wanted to make sure you’d received the passes.”
“Yeah. Thanks. My wife’s looking forward to it.”
“Bring her backstage afterward.”
Hurley’s voice turned wary. “Sure. And I did what you said with those other passes, too. You expecting something to blow up tonight?”
“No,” Spraggue said easily. “But I want to make sure.”
“Okay,” Hurley said gruffly. “Then I’ll see you this evening. I’ve got work to do, you know.”
“Anything on Alison Arnold’s family?”
“Yeah. Telex from New York. You’ll love it. Father died, mother remarried, moved out of state, name unknown.”
“Great,” Spraggue sighed.
“Anything else comes in, I’ll call you.”
“I’ll be at my aunt’s.”
Spraggue hung up. He stretched back out on the bed. Now, if Mary could just get someone to send along those last two résumé photos. No problems with John, Caroline, Gus Grayl
ing. They were well known; so many people could guarantee that the woman posing as Caroline Ambrose for Darien’s production was the same Caroline Ambrose they’d seen on Broadway, on TV. But the others were more difficult. That man up at Theater Calgary had finally sent an old photo of Deirdre. Different hairstyle, but definitely the same person. And Emma … No trouble there. Everyone who’d worked with Emma Healey remembered exactly what she looked like. Spraggue indulged in some remembering, too.
The others.… Was Greg Hudson the real Greg Hudson? Had he done what his résumé said he’d done? Or did the résumé belong to another actor—to the real Gregory? And Eddie.… How well could he really see without his glasses? Eddie and Karen … Karen and Eddie.…
At nine o’clock, the morning of the press preview, Spraggue fell into a light, uneasy sleep.
Chapter Twenty-three
“So glad you could make it,” Greg Hudson said as Spraggue sat down to apply his greasepaint. “It is seven o’clock; Arthur expects us in the green room at seven-fifteen, so you’d better step on it.”
Spraggue ignored him, opened his makeup kit, laid out pencils and brushes in a neat row. Hudson didn’t want an elaborate explanation of his sporadic rehearsal attendance any more than he wanted to know the exact number of laboratory-animal-supply houses in Boston. He just had a case of pre-performance jitters.
“Do you think my base is too pale?” Greg asked petulantly.
“Light’s bad down here.” Spraggue stared at Hudson critically. “Looks okay. If Darien throws up, you can change it for opening night.”
“Not before some press creep writes that I look like a pasty-faced turkey.”
“You don’t like the critics?”
“Love ’em, love ’em all.” Hudson posed in front of the mirror, adjusted his cravat, ruffled his hair. “You should have been here earlier. Fur’s been flying. The great Gustave doesn’t like his program credit. Wants his name up with the immortal Langford and Our Lady of the Orchids.”
“Gus?” Spraggue checked his base. Good color. He hoped he’d have enough time for the spirit gum on his chin to set properly. It itched.
“I’ve worked with Gus before,” said Hudson with a sigh. “This is general procedure. He mouses around all rehearsal, just begging you to step on him. And then when you finally do, he throws a tantrum. Much too late to do any good. Stalked right out of his dressing room. Called it ‘a dim and nasty closet’ unsuited to his position in the company.”
“Where’d he go?”
“He grabbed Eddie’s room. The kid was late. And when Eddie finally does walk in, he’s not wearing his glasses. Method acting, you know. He sees there’s someone else in his dressing room, so he figures he counted wrong. Goes on to the next room and blunders into Lady Caroline in the raw. Poor jerk couldn’t even see!”
Spraggue chuckled. “Did she send him scurrying or attack him?”
“You should have heard the screams! I thought one of last night’s rats was chomping on her toes. Karen came down and smoothed everything out. Eddie’s sharing his room with Gus, poor slob.”
“Should we invite Gus in here?” Spraggue asked reluctantly. “It is bigger.”
“No way. Let the lunatics stay together. He’d just take it as an insult, Spraggue.”
“An insult?”
“Believe me. When he’s like this, if you say hello to him, it’s an insult.” Greg paused for breath. “That beard makes you look older. I like it.”
Spraggue changed the subject. “Time?”
“Four minutes to company call. Far as I can tell, Langford hasn’t even shown up yet.”
Spraggue grunted, concentrated on lining his forehead.
“And Emma is here, so it’s not that. She didn’t happen to come with you, did she?”
Spraggue glanced up. It had been Greg in that car last night. “No,” he said evenly.
Footsteps echoed down the stone passageway, quick, loud, and angry. A door banged shut, swung open, and was firmly reclosed. Greg leaned out acrobatically into the hallway, turned back to Spraggue, and giggled.
“Judging,” he said, eyebrows elevated, “by the dramatic entrance, the majestic footsteps, the lateness of the hour, I would say that the great Langford has arrived. And it sounds like he’s throwing a fit of his own!”
Emma Healey, lovely in innocent Lucy’s pale blue, hurried past the doorway.
“Ah, love,” murmured Greg Hudson, “or should I say ‘Ah, lust’? Wonderful how these womenfolk do rush to their afflicted menfolk. No sooner had Grayling exited stage right in a huff, than little Georgina ran off to join him in his exile. Think I’ll throw a tantrum and see who I get.… Deirdre’s much too tall and grim.… Eddie, now, he’s a dear, but so isolated, so lonely. And the stage manager’s got a thing for him, don’t you think? I don’t suppose you’d come to my aid. I’m not particular. I’d take comfort from anyone, except, I think, Caroline. One has to draw the line somewhere.”
The whistling started down the corridor—low, mournful notes, no familiar tune.
“Who is doing that?” Caroline demanded, voice shrill through her closed dressing-room door. “Stop it at once!”
“Bad luck.” Hudson’s face was grave. “Bad luck. Just what we need tonight.”
“You believe that?”
“Well, I don’t whistle in my dressing room and I don’t quote the goddamned Scottish play. And I wish to hell somebody’d stop that whistling!” He raised his voice on the last phrase and hollered it down the hallway.
The whistling ceased.
Greg took a deep breath. “See? That episode upset Caroline. But does anyone go off to soothe Our Lady? Not our boy Eddie. He finds her a predatory old hag. Not you. Not me. Now, if our great director were here, or our rotund house manager, you’d see another story entirely. They care: If this weren’t Arthur’s play, that woman wouldn’t be near a starring role. You can see it, can’t you? She’s not that good. She lets them all take it away from her—Langford, Emma—hell, she just about asks you politely to please steal the damn scene—”
Karen Snow’s clear voice interrupted Hudson’s outburst. “Green room in two minutes, please! Two minutes!”
Plenty of time. Dracula didn’t make his entrance until the middle of Act One. Langford could dress after the meeting. Spraggue zipped his striped medico trousers and pulled on his jacket as he strode down the hall.
Despite their paint and powder, the actors looked unnaturally pale. Deirdre’s lips moved silently; she had trouble remembering lines. Georgina and Gus Grayling stood off to one side, whispering united against the world. Hudson looked even paler than he had in the dressing room. Last night’s drinking bout, or a more recent affliction?-He was none too steady on his feet.
Darien arrived, to the actors’ polite applause. Caroline, entrance neatly timed to follow the director’s, came in and kissed Darien warmly. She squeezed his hand while he spoke.
Standard director’s speech number two: thank you for your hard labor; give your all tonight.
Spraggue hardly listened. He kept his eye on his fellow actors. Emma Healey came in late. John Langford never showed.
The gathering was brief. Spraggue hurried back to his dressing room, knotted his tie, and powdered off his makeup.
The performance elapsed with all the sequenceless urgency of a nightmare. Scenes shot by, punctuated by applause. Lights dimmed, blackened, sparkled, dimmed again.
“It’s not going too badly.” Standing in the wings, Spraggue felt Karen’s presence before he heard her whisper and only then realized, how keyed up he was, every nerve primed for some new disaster.
“Did you notice the blooper Langford pulled?” she went on. “Must have skipped six deathless pages. Emma brought him right back, spoon-fed him the lines, while Caroline looked on with great cow eyes.”
“Wish I’d seen it,” Spraggue said.
“They’ll razz him forever. The infallible British actor!”
Blackout. Karen disappeared. Spraggue
flexed the tense muscles in his shoulders, took three deep breaths, walked onstage.
The curtain rose in darkness. Spraggue froze in his final scene position, stage right. Lights flared, glowing like a galaxy of sudden stars.
Greg Hudson spoke first, darting angrily around the set, searching the rocky crypt for the casket of the Vampire King.
HARKER: The Slovaks brought the coffin in here! I swear they did!
VAN HELSING: No exit.
HARKER: We’ll catch them! Make them talk!
SEWARD: No time, Harker. The sun’s almost down.
VAN HELSING: Come, if the coffin was brought in here, it must be here. Perhaps a secret panel? A hidden room?
SEWARD: A trapdoor?
HARKER: Take that wall, Doctor. I’ll try this one. Professor, tap on the floor. Mina, help me.
VAN HELSING: She’s weak, Jonathan. I doubt she can aid us.
SEWARD: Stay with her then, Professor. Jon and I will search.
Search they did. Forty-five seconds of busy silence with all the classic elements: life-and-death conflict, good colliding with evil, and a time limit—urgency. Spraggue and Hudson pounded the set, stirring up clouds of dust, listening frantically, intensely, for a hollow sound. They strained to lift papier-mâché rocks, felt in crannies for secret levers.
HARKER: How can we get in?
SEWARD: There must be a way—something—to—
Caroline laughed, a low, cunning growl.
VAN HELSING: She knows.
HARKER: Mina.
SEWARD: Help us, Mina.
MINA: You poor petty fools! You think you can defeat him? Here, in his own land?
SEWARD: Jon, take the pick. We’ll break the wall down!
MINA: Fools!
HARKER: I felt something give! Keep working! The crack’s widening!
With a snarl, Caroline threw herself on Hudson, tearing the pick from his hands. The fight was on.
All Hudson’s careful choreography paid off. Caroline fought like a madwoman, shrieking abuse at the three men, determined to protect her Vampire Lord. Seward twisted the weapon from her grasp. Van Helsing caught her arms, pinned them behind her. The men carried her, kicking and screaming, downstage, away from Dracula’s hidden lair.
