A Fatal First Night

by Kathleen Marple Kalb

  “What?” Tommy and Gil asked in unplanned unison.

  “Richard III. Eamon would be the third Richard if he managed to get rid of Ruben.”

  The men just shook their heads, giving me almost exactly the same wry face.

  And then Tommy grinned. “Mother was right.”

  “What?” Gil and I both spoke, though I quickly realized what Toms meant.

  “She said the second sight told her Albert was innocent.” He laughed. “And this time, she was right.”

  “We’ll never live this down.” I shook my head. “Too bad she didn’t see the real killer, too.”

  “Too much to hope for,” Gil said, carefully keeping a neutral tone. “We have plenty of suspicions.”

  “But we can’t prove anything,” Tommy agreed. “We’ve got enough to clear Albert, but nothing more than a theory pointing to Eamon or perhaps a stray stagehand. And still two shows to go.”

  Gil nodded to him and turned an icy glare on me. “And you are not to go out and look for evidence.”

  “I’m staying in and resting before the show.”

  “And that’s all you’re doing, Heller.” Tommy joined Gil in the glare. “Or you’ll answer to us both.”

  I sighed and put my hands together for a mock bow of submission. “Yes, O great masters.”

  Like my beau’s Queen and Empress, they were not amused. (Not that she ever actually said that!)

  “Come along, Barrister.” Tommy pointed Gil to the door as both loftily ignored my sarcasm. “We need to talk to Cousin Andrew the Detective.”

  “Is he really the Father’s cousin?” Gil asked as he stood. “Or yours?”

  “Father Michael’s, for sure. Ours, probably not, but with Irish families, you never really know.”

  Gil chuckled. “Rather like the British aristocracy. We know we’re all related, but only a few genealogists—and obsessed great-aunts—know precisely how.”

  They smiled together as they headed for the door, but then they turned back to me.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Have a very restful afternoon, Shane.”

  “Or else.”

  * * *

  While I did not obey the letter of the orders from my protectors—and at least one of them surely did not expect me to!—I did obey the spirit. I had no intention of launching a confrontation with Eamon or any other foolish thing they might have thought I’d do.

  I also wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of a stagehand. Booth hired the hands, and it was fair to say that we did not look exhaustively into the bona fides of casual scenery movers. There had never been a need to do so.

  We probably should have had Booth take a good look at the rest of the hands after the incident with Drumm, but quite honestly, I hadn’t had time to string together two thoughts that didn’t involve the show, the end-of-run reception, or keeping my injured arm clean. All right, a few thoughts of Gil, too. I am well aware that this is not even a decent explanation, never mind an excuse.

  With everything in the air, though, I had to do something. Even if I had no plan to take rash action, I had less than no intention of sitting on my chaise, waiting for the next thing to happen. There’s nothing wrong with research, after all. And the best source of information was the morgue. The Beacon morgue, that is.

  I put on my boring dark blue coat and my second-best purple hat, because there was no need to be that inconspicuous, grabbed a small basket of molasses cookies from a suspiciously blooming Mrs. G and a program that listed the stagehands, since I didn’t remember all their last names, and set out for the news office.

  “Back to hats once more,” Hetty groused as I handed over the basket.

  “No.”

  “Oh, yes. Morrison says as soon as I find a new investigative story or another woman murders her husband, he’ll happily let me at it, but until then, somebody’s got to handle the girly stuff, and that somebody is me.”

  “Well, there’s something up at the theater, and you might well find yourself a lead.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “Really?”

  “Too early to be sure, but there’s a good chance you can get an exclusive interview with a man who was wrongly accused.”

  “What do you need?”

  “I don’t know yet. Right now, I just want to see whatever you have on Florian Lutz and the parish where he, Albert, and Eamon lived.” I held up the program. “Perhaps also to see if any of these stagehands have a history of trouble.”

  “To the morgue, then.”

  We didn’t get very far with the unfortunate Mr. Lutz. There was one brief article on the murder of his wife in Cleveland, a feature on Lutz Pianos, and nothing more until he was the victim himself several weeks ago.

  Last year’s feature on Lutz Pianos proved surprisingly helpful, though. The reporter described the building of a piano and the skillful work of Papa Lutz and his helpers, including one Eamon Morrissey. He would have known Florian’s story well then, and quite likely the man himself, making it very easy for him to lure the poor fellow to Albert’s dressing room. That surely put him at or near the top of the suspect list.

  Even so, there were signs of rather serious trouble in the wings. Two of the stagehands had been involved in minor scrapes over the past couple of years. One had been arrested after a particularly nasty bar brawl in the Theater District, an incident in which Edwin Drumm was also taken in. The other had been accused in a burglary and later cleared when another man was arrested. The address of the break-in was a street away from the Lutz workshop. So the alleged burglar, too, might know everyone involved well enough. All unsettling, but proving nothing, especially since I could not say with certainty how tall either of them were.

  Except that the wrongly accused burglar, Rodney Jones, had the same last name as a man who died in a scrap that had ended in a stabbing in Five Points a year ago. Of course, many people, including several named Jones, die in stabbings in Five Points in any given year and not all of them have anything to do with us. Or Connor.

  “Five Points again,” I said.

  “Your old gangster friend who got shot at on his way out of the theater?”

  “Not a friend.”

  “Safer that way.”

  “No question. But it does make one wonder.”

  “Surely does.” Hetty chewed reflectively on the end of her pencil. “Especially since the sports writers agree that if you’re borrowing money, the money’s coming from Five Points, and it best be paid back on time. With interest and plenty of it.”

  “Do they now?”

  “They do. They also warned me to ask no further, since gangsters won’t harm a good woman, but they’re not sure a reporter would qualify.”

  “Men.” I sighed. “A working woman isn’t a good woman?”

  “Just the same foolishness you get on occasion.”

  “Ah, yes, the legions who can’t tell a singer from a soubrette.”

  We shook our heads.

  Hetty toyed with her pencil. “At any rate, I’ve also managed to learn from the stock sale records that Hosmer had made a bit of a killing in recent weeks.”

  “So he paid it back.”

  “Well, you’d surely think so. No one would be fool enough to try to cheat the gangsters.”

  “No one’s that stupid,” I agreed. “I still prefer the Frenchman as the killer, whatever Dr. Silver thinks.”

  “Me too. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all nothing but a nasty fight over a woman, just in a Fifth Avenue mansion instead of a grubby tavern.”

  “And what a woman,” I said. “You’re right to doubt her.”

  “How so?” Hetty’s eyes gleamed.

  “She affects a French accent to match the name, right? But it didn’t sound quite right to me, and I spoke to her in French last night.”

  “And?”

  “Didn’t understand a word. Gave me a rusty little ‘mais oui’ in response.”

  Hetty grinned. “I knew there was something wrong with her.”
>
  “There is definitely something going on there. What, if anything, it has to do with the rest, who knows?”

  “I’ll nose around a bit.”

  “A whopper of a story either way.” I borrowed the phrase from the sports writers.

  “So true. Enough for a really good follow-up article.”

  “And by then, there will probably be another case.”

  She looked sharply at me.

  “It’s New York. We all know.”

  “We do.”

  “And I know,” I said, with a look to the clock, “that I have to start thinking about getting up to the theater.”

  “Two more nights.” She smiled at me.

  “I’ll miss the show, but the London run is coming.”

  “Ah, London.” She chewed her pencil again. “And what are you going to do when you get there?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “He does seem like a good man.”

  “He is. But even the best men . . .”

  “Are still men.”

  I took a breath. “In any case, expect to hear from Toms or me this evening, once we know how everything turns out. Hopefully, we can get you away from the hats for a bit.”

  “A resolution for which I shall devoutly hope.”

  Chapter 28

  The Capture of the Sword Thief

  After my trip to the morgue, I headed down to the theater. I was a bit early, but I’d been in no mood to dally about the house.

  Before I arrived in my dressing room, the stagehand Rodney Jones, of all people, walked up to me. Definitely tall enough, dark haired, and fairly young, and I thought new for this run.

  “Miss Ella? A moment?”

  “Of course.”

  “The rest of the crew just wants you and Mr. Ruben and Mr. Tommy to know that we don’t hold with Edwin Drumm’s nonsense.”

  “Oh. Thank you so much.” It warmed my heart that he—and they—had actually taken the time to talk among themselves and to us. “You told Mr. Ruben?”

  “Absolutely. A lot of us—and our das—remember missing out on jobs because we’re Irish or Italian or Jewish, and we don’t want him thinking we’re like that.”

  “Thank you.” I patted Rodney Jones’s arm, smiling at his way of referring to his father, which marked him as the same kind of Irish as Tommy and me.

  He nodded. “I’m ashamed that anyone on our crew would do that. And I thought Morrissey was better than that.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not well. He and I grew up in the same parish as Albert and that poor man who got killed.”

  I marked the way he described it. “You don’t think Albert. . .”

  Rodney Jones sighed. “I really don’t know. We all got along back then. Guess I just don’t like the idea of someone my baby sister made First Communion with being a killer.”

  “Understandable.” I gave him a reassuring nod and said the only thing I could until I was sure Albert was free and safe. “He’s a good man, Albert. It will come out all right.”

  “Sure hope so. Thing is, I—and the rest of the men—really didn’t like the idea of that Drumm fellow making us look bad.”

  He was very deliberately bringing the conversation back to his main point. What I could not say for sure was whether it was with good intent or to distract me from looking too closely at his connections to Albert, Florian, and Eamon.

  For the moment, I took it at face value. “You’re a very good crew. I know you won’t come to London with us, but I hope you’ll be available next time we have a run here.”

  “And I surely hope you’re not involved in any of the mess in this run,” I didn’t say.

  “Thank you, Miss Ella. Mr. Booth has already written me a very nice recommendation for the new revue moving in across the street.”

  “Excellent. Thank you again.”

  “Glad to. Some things just aren’t right. It’s New York, Miss Ella. We’re better than that.”

  We shared a proud smile, as New Yorkers of every stripe sometimes will. “Absolutely, we are better than that.”

  Since it was the next to last night of the run, once back in my dressing room, I spent a little time collecting some of my extra things so they could be easily scooped up and taken back to Washington Square. And then a treat, a chance to sit down on the settee with a fashion book for a few minutes of relaxation.

  I was puzzling over a diagram of a new design for garters—who knew such things required diagrams?—when Booth walked into the dressing room, holding young Mack McTeer by the scruff of the neck. Actually, the collar of her school uniform, but the point is made. My missing sword was in his other hand.

  “Look who I found trying to return this to the prop table.”

  I just shook my head. “Oh, Mack.”

  “Miss Ella—”

  “I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding, Booth. I’ll deal with this.” I stood and took the sword.

  “We should turn her over to her future brother-in-law.” The stage manager scowled down at Mack, who at least had the grace to look suitably terrified. “But if you prefer to mete out appropriate punishment, I won’t argue.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

  He nodded and bowed himself out. “Good luck with that one.”

  I motioned to the settee. “Sit.”

  Mack complied, watching me with big scared eyes. Good. I needed all the help I could get. On the fairly rare occasions I dealt with children these days, they were small and adorable, not half-grown and obstreperous.

  “So?” I asked.

  “I wanted to see what it was like. I wasn’t going to keep it.”

  “All right.” I believed her, and I was starting to feel at least a little sorry for her. “You are obviously not normally in the habit of stealing things.”

  “No.”

  “So why did you take my sword? Do you want to be a singer or an actress?”

  “I don’t think so.” Her voice was small and tight, and she wasn’t looking at me.

  “Well, then?”

  “I’m tired of being a good little girl.”

  “Ah. What does that mean?” I sat down on the arm of the settee. “You want to be bad?”

  “No.” Mack shook her head and looked up at me, her mouth working and her eyes fluttering as if she was about to cry. “I don’t want to be what everyone tells me to be.”

  “Now, that makes some sense.” I smiled, but she didn’t smile back. “So what do you want to be?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to be somebody’s wife or mother or servant or something.”

  My sympathy for her grew. “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “I wasn’t an especially good little girl, either.”

  “Really?” Her eyes widened, and she gave me a small smile.

  “And I definitely didn’t dream of growing up to be at someone else’s mercy, be it a husband or children or whatever.” I patted her arm. “But I also understood that I have to obey the rules to get what I want.”

  She dropped her eyes and drooped a little.

  “I’m sorry, Mack, but everyone has to learn what the rules are and where the lines are in this world.”

  “But the rules are stupid!”

  “Some of them are. Some of them are actually very important, because they show us how to treat other people right.”

  “They are?”

  “The trick is knowing the difference.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged. I wasn’t at all sure what I was supposed to do with this girl, but she clearly needed a bit of extra care. I suspected neither overwhelmed Mother McTeer nor her older sister, who would soon have a great deal more on her plate, we hoped, had the time for it.

  Neither did I, really, but the show was ending, and perhaps a feisty young lady would at least provide some useful training if I did indeed have a child of my own one day. The thought suddenly occurred that any offspring of Gil’s and mine would be at l
east as incorrigible as Mack.

  Probably more so. I did not need an article on heredity to guess that.

  Not a line of thought I needed to pursue with all the other matters hanging fire at this exact second. I decided we’d best move on.

  “So here is how we are going to proceed.” I put my hand on her arm again, and she turned to me. “First, you will make this right with a very pretty apology to Mr. Booth and the prop master. Just tell them how sorry you are for their trouble, and that such a thing will never happen again.”

  She nodded and snuffled a little.

  “And then you’re mine.”

  Mack’s eyes widened. “What? What does that mean?”

  “Well, I’m not entirely sure, but you clearly need someone to take you in hand a bit.”

  “Maybe. Ma’s busy taking care of the little ones, and all I hear is, ‘Mary Grace, go do something constructive.’ ”

  “Constructive we can do.” I was starting to get an idea. “We’ll start with a reading course. What are you interested in?”

  “Everything?”

  “Good answer.” I stood and walked over to my trunk, where I’d packed away the books I’d been reading during the run. “Well, next week, once I’ve rested up from the show, we’ll go to the lending library and start working our way through the stacks. For now, perhaps something here will be a start.”

  She came over to me but hesitated at the trunk. “Can I?”

  “Certainly. See what you like.”

  She spent a few minutes carefully picking up books and turning them over in her hands, reading the first pages, opening to the color plates, and gently closing them before picking up the next one. When I was her age, books were the treasure of the world. Still are, at some level.

  “Is this one all right?” Mack held up one of Tommy’s books that he’d left with me at some point: The Steam Engine and Other Inventions.

  “Of course.” I smiled reassuringly again. “Enjoy.”

  “Thank you, Miss Ella.”

  “Just bring it back without any odd marks, or Toms will kill me.”

  “Right.”

  Booth knocked on the door. “Two-hour call, Miss Ella.”

  I looked at Mack. “Time for your first lesson.”

  To her credit, she straightened up and nodded to me. “What do I do?”