The Casino Theater on Broadway at West Thirty-ninth was where Blanche Lovejoy’s new play was about to open. I wasn’t at all sure what I could do for Blanche Lovejoy. How did one prove that a theater was or wasn’t haunted? If I made actual communication with a spirit, she’d stop production and that would presumably put a lot of people out of work, unless she could find another theater at the last minute. And to be quite honest, I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted a face-to-face encounter with a ghost, especially a malevolent one that was trying to kill Miss Lovejoy.
As soon as I spotted the Casino Theater, I could tell that Miss Lovejoy wouldn’t want to move to another theater unless it was absolutely necessary. It was a magnificent-looking building—more sultan’s palace than theater, with carved stonework, arch-ways, vaulted windows. Lit only by the electric lights from the buildings around it, the stonework seemed to glow. On one corner a round tower seemed to reach up into the heavens and I could just glimpse the metallic dome on top. There was a sign on the marquee, although it wasn’t yet illuminated.
OPENING NEXT WEEK,
Miss Blanche Lovejoy
makes her triumphant return in
Ooh La La.
The engraved glass front doors were firmly locked but I finally located the stage door down an alleyway. I went in and found myself in a dimly hit hallway.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a voice from the darkness demanded.
I must have jumped a mile. I hadn’t seen the little kiosk built into the wall and the man’s face in the window floated like a disembodied head. “We’re not open to the public,” he said. “So I must ask you to leave right away.”
“I have a message for Miss Lovejoy,” I said. “From Miss Oona Sheehan. It’s urgent.”
“From Miss Sheehan, huh?” I could now see that he was an older man with a round face and not much hair, and most of him was hidden behind the booth in which he sat, making me feel that I might be talking with the man in the moon. “What a lovely gracious lady she is. So you know Miss Sheehan, do you? She worked here a couple of years ago.”
“I know Miss Lovejoy will want to see me as soon as she has a minute,” I said.
“From Miss Sheehan, you said?” He repeated the words.
“Yes.”
“They’re in run-through. We open next week.”
“I won’t disturb her until she has a minute free,” I said, “but Miss Sheehan was most insistent that the message be passed along tonight.”
He squinted at me, sizing me up. “Well, you can’t be trying to get a job,” he said. “We’ve all the chorus girls we need.”
“Do I look like a chorus girl?” I asked.
“You’d be surprised. It takes all types, my dear. When they first come in here, all fresh-faced and no lipstick or rouge, you’d think they were somebody’s granddaughter, straight from the farm. Soon they start dressing themselves up and painting their faces and then they look like everyone else in this ridiculous profession. Some of them aren’t changed by it, but for some of them it goes to their heads. Well, it would, wouldn’t it? Stage-door Johnnies with more money than sense, flowers, champagne out of slippers. Nonsense all of it and it makes some of the girls go off the rails. I try and keep an eye on them. Sort of grandfather figure . . . I’m Old Henry. That’s what they call me. Old Henry.”
I could tell he liked to talk and that we’d be there all night if I wasn’t careful. From far off I could hear the thump-thump of music and then female voices raised in song. Then squeals. Then a deep man’s voice shouting, “Wait, don’t go!”
“Coming to the end of act one,” Old Henry said. “That will be the bathing number. You can tell by the shrieks. If you go through now, you’ll have a chance to see Miss Lovejoy in her dressing room between acts.”
“Thank you.” I gave him my brightest smile.
“And what did you say your name was, young lady? You have to sign in before I let you go any farther.”
“It’s Kitty Kelly,” I said, coming up with the first Irish name that popped into my head. I scribbled it on a sign-in sheet. “And how do I find Miss Lovejoy’s dressing room?”
“Follow this passage to the end. Go left. Up some stairs. Round the corner and then down the hall. You’ll see her name on the door with the star on it. But don’t go anywhere near the stage or you’ll get me in trouble. Miss Lovejoy don’t like outsiders watching until it’s all just so. Thinks it brings bad luck. Very superstitious theater folk are, you know.”
I was about to leave when something struck me. “Henry,” I asked, “does this theater have a reputation for being haunted?”
His expression changed instantly. “Hold on. You better not be tricking me, young lady. If you’re one of them lady newspaper reporters . . .”
“No, why would I be?” I said.
“Then why did you ask that about the place being haunted?”
“Because I’m sensitive to these things. You know that we Irish have the second sight—and I got a definite feeling of a hostile presence.”
He leaned out of his booth. “For pete’s sake, don’t go saying that to Miss Lovejoy. She’s in a bad enough state as it is.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Silly little accidents, really, but she thinks there’s more to it. A scenery flat falling over when she was singing, and a breeze almost starting a fire when it knocked over one of the candles onstage. Theaters are big drafty places. Accidents do happen. But she’s scared it’s something more. There, I’ve said more than I should. You can ask her yourself, if you want to hear more.”
“I will,” I said. “You can be sure I will.”
I set off down a narrow passageway that became darker and darker until, by the time I reached the steep iron stairs, I had to almost feel my way upward. The stone wall felt cold to my touch and unseen breezes wafted around me. I could hear more jolly music coming from what sounded like far below me now, but up here it was chill and quite deserted. I told myself firmly that I didn’t believe in ghosts, but my heart was beating rather faster. When I saw a billowing white shape out of the corner of my eye, I almost tumbled back down the stairs until I realized it was a curtain, hiding some kind of doorway.
Then I was angry with myself for being so stupid. I who had taken on my brothers in a dare to sit in the churchyard all night after old Dan O’Haggerty had been buried. I came out to an iron platform from which a spiral staircase dropped straight down into a cavernous backstage area. A backdrop and pieces of scenery blocked the brightly lit stage from my view, but I could hear the echo of voices, although I couldn’t make out the words. Then, just as I left the platform to take the passage to Miss Lovejoy’s dressing room, a horrible scream filled the theater. I told myself that it was only part of the play, but it made my blood run cold.
Almost immediately afterward there came the pounding of running feet and the iron stairway vibrated as a bevy of chorus girls came running up.
“Did you see it?” one of them was whispering.
“I didn’t see anything, myself, but Clara swears she felt it moving behind her. She said it made her go all cold and shivery all over.”
“Poor Blanche. This will be the end of her if it goes on.”
They were coming toward me. I hadn’t yet found Blanche Lovejoy’s dressing room and there was nowhere to hide, so I flattened myself against the wall for them to run by me. This turned out to be a mistake. The first girls saw me moving in the darkness and started in fear. One of them gave a little scream.
“It’s up here. I can see it now,” another one whimpered.
“It’s all right, ladies, I’m quite human, I can assure you,” I said loudly.
“What are you doing up here? You’ll get in awful trouble.” A tall blonde pushed past the others. “Miss Lovejoy don’t allow no public before opening night.”
“She sent for me,” I said. “She knows I’m coming. I was told to wait in her dressing room.”
“She won’t be in no state to talk to anybody,” the lanky girl said. “She’ll need a sedative after what happened.”
“What did happen?” I asked. “I heard the scream.”
“She saw a face at the window,” one of the girls whimpered.
“Window?”
“In the scene she was doing, she is supposed to open the window and look out,” the tall blonde said. “She went to the window and saw a face outside, staring at her.”
“Did any of you see it?”
“We weren’t onstage,” another girl said. “But Clara said she was waiting in the wings and she felt something brush past her—something cold and clammy, she said.”
“Trust Clara,” the blonde said with a sniff. “She’s a bundle of nerves all the time.” She glanced back down the stairs. “We’d better beat it. We’ll be in big trouble if we’re not in our dressing room when Blanche comes up.”
As one they ran on together like a gaggle of slim white geese, all jockeying for position. I found Blanche Lovejoy’s dressing room. It had her name and a star on the door. I wasn’t sure what to do next—wait in the dark hallway and risk scaring Blanche to death or go ahead into her dressing room and risk scaring her equally when she entered. But she wouldn’t want me down in the theater either. I decided to go into the room. At least I’d look less threatening in brightly lit surroundings.
Just to make sure, I tapped on the door. When it opened slowly and I saw a hideous form on the other side, it was all I could do not to scream and run. But I stood my ground and found myself staring at an old woman, bent over and with a nose like a witch’s. I almost believed she was the ghost until she cocked that head, like an old bird, and said, “I don’t know you. Go away. I’ll not have you upsetting Miss Lovejoy.”
“I don’t intend to upset her,” I said. “I’ve come to help her. Oona Sheehan sent me—to help deal with the ghost.”
“Well, I never.” The old woman was still looking at me with birdlike eyes. “You’d better come in then.” She ushered me into a small, cluttered room. I had expected a star’s dressing room to be spacious and glamorous, like Oona Sheehan’s rooms at the Hoffman House, but you could hardly swing a cat in here. Straight in front of me there was the dressing table with its mirror surrounded by electric lightbulbs and sticks of grease paint strewn higgledy-piggledy all over the table. On one side there was a screen, blocking off part of the room and hung with several costumes. In the other corner there was an armchair and a table beside it with a bottle of Irish whiskey on it.
“You heard the scream, did you?” the old woman asked. “Something else must have happened then.”
“She saw a face at the window when she went to open it.”
“Oh dear. She’ll be in a proper state then. I’d better find her calming mixture.”
“Calming mixture?”
“Her doctor makes it up special. I’m not quite sure what’s in it but Miss Lovejoy says it’s like laudanum, only better. Opium, I suppose. Or morphine. Or both. Wait—that’s her coming now. You go and sit over there so you don’t startle her.”
She motioned to the armchair. I obeyed just as the door burst open and two people came in. I suppose I had been expecting Blanche Lovejoy to be another Oona Sheehan—a delicate beauty. But the woman who came in was more cart horse than racehorse. She was big-boned, with an almost mannish face and a great mound of brassy blonde hair that made the face seem even bigger. She had a booming deep voice. What’s more, she was swearing like a trooper.
“Jesus, Robert, don’t you damned well dare try to patronize me as if I was a goddamned idiot child. I know what I saw and I am not going out of my head and you blasted well better do something about it, or this show is not going to open. You hear me?”
“Blanche, please, be reasonable.” The second person had come halfway into the room. He was a small, round, bald-headed man, with sagging jowls and a mournful expression like a blood hound’s, and he reached out to touch her. “Blanche, baby, sit down and have a drink. You’ll feel better. Come to think of it, I could do with one, too.”
“I am not your baby. I’m nobody’s baby. Get out and leave me alone,” she shouted. “And drink your own whiskey. You can go to hell, all of you.”
“But what about act two?”
“I’ll come down for act two when I’m good and ready.” She said. “If I’m good and ready.” She literally shoved him out of the door and slammed it shut. “Martha, I need my calming mixture.”
“Of course you do, my darling precious one,” Martha said. “Why don’t you lie down and Martha will bring it for you.”
“And a drink,” Blanche added, sounding like a petulant child now. “A big drink.”
Her eyes turned toward the bottles on the table and she saw me.
“What’s she doing here? Who let her in? What did you let her in for?” she demanded.
Before Martha could answer, I got to my feet. “Miss Lovejoy, I’m here because Oona Sheehan sent me,” she said. “I’m Molly Murphy. She said you needed my services.”
“Molly Murphy?”
“Private investigator,” I said. “I gather you’ve been having a spot of trouble in the theater.”
I saw light dawning on her face, a face that must have been made for the theater. All her expressions were larger than life—her anger, her despair, and now her radiant smile.
“Miss Murphy—you came. Thank God,” she said.
Soon I was sitting beside Blanche Lovejoy while she reclined behind her screen and worked her way through a large tumbler of neat whiskey.
“I was so excited about this play, Miss Murphy,” she said. “I had such high hopes for it. After all this time, a chance to star again on Broadway. I even invested my own money in the production and that wonderful songwriter George M. Cohan wrote a new song just for me. It’s called ‘That’s the Way the French Do It!’ Rather naughty, you know, but that’s what my public has come to expect. I made my name singing naughty songs in vaudeville, after all, didn’t I?”
I nodded as if I was aware of this.
“And the part is just right for me. All the leading roles in musical comedy recently have been for silly little girls. As if I could sit on a swing in Florodora like that awful little Nesbitt girl. I’d break most swings unless they had iron chains. The public doesn’t want real women anymore. It wants girlish fantasy. Sixteen-year-olds who flutter their eyes and exude innocence coupled with budding ripeness. And look at me—among all that budding ripeness, I’m just an old overripe tomato.”
I thought the drink and the calming mixture might be making her maudlin, so I interrupted. “So why don’t you tell me what’s been happening at the theater?”
“This theater, my dear Miss Murphy, is haunted.” She delivered the line as if she was playing to the top balcony. Then she raised herself from her reclining position. “Ever since we started rehearsals here little things kept going wrong. Unimportant things to begin with—a table falling over and spilling water over the stage. My dress getting caught on a nail and ripping.”
“They could happen in any theater, I should imagine.”
“Of course. That’s why I didn’t think twice until I realized that all the accidents were directed at me.” She took another generous gulp of whiskey and coughed. “That dress that got ripped on a nail. I went back and examined the wall, and there was no nail! It was perfectly smooth. And then the accidents became more serious: the scenery flat that crashed to the ground just inches from where I was standing, and that candle that fell over and started a small fire. If it had fallen in the other direction it would have landed on my skirt and I should have burned to death.”
“But what makes you think it’s a ghost, Miss Sheehan?” I asked.
“Because I have seen it,” she hissed. “It is all dressed in black with a white face and dark eyes full of hatred. It was staring at me today when I went to open the window. After I screamed people ran behind the set but there was nobody there. So who else could it be but a ghost? And you can feel the presence, too. At least I can feel it. The horrible chill as if someone is drowning me in cold water.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “You’re Irish. You must have contact with the spirit world.”
“Not personally,” I said, “but I do believe that we Celtic people have second sight. And if you listen to my mother, half the people in my village have seen a ghost at one time or another.”
“There, you see. I knew you’d be the right person when Oona suggested you.”
“But what exactly do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Watch out for me. Follow me around. I want to know if you can see the ghost, too, because if you can’t there is only one other option.”
“And what is that?”
“That someone is deliberately trying to kill me.”