I stomped out of the theater in a black mood. I wondered whether I should say goodbye to my fellow young ladies in the chorus, but I didn’t want to go up there and admit I was being given the boot. I’m not one that takes failure gracefully. I was really angry as I passed Henry and stepped out into the night. I couldn’t tell if I was more angry at Miss Lovejoy or at myself. I had been given an opportunity and I had failed.
I started to walk blindly down Broadway, pushing my way through the crowd. Newsboys were shouting out the latest headlines. Something to do with the ghost and the theater, from what I could hear. By tomorrow they would include the news about the spiritualists. Fine, I thought. Let her pay good money to hire those old quacks. A lot of good they’d do her.
Then I stopped dead in my tracks. Something wasn’t right here. The way I had been brought onstage at the perfect moment. The grand announcement to the press. It had all been staged for the maximum effect. Blanche hadn’t needed me there to make that announcement, in fact she had already told me that my services would no longer be needed. Then it dawned on me: Blanche was putting on another play. She had cast me in the role of ineffective detective, as often happens in these little melodramas. She hadn’t expected me to come up with anything because there was nothing to uncover.
I stood there, unmoving, while the crowd surged around me. Then I made my way out of the main stream of people and found a little café, where I sat with a cup of strong coffee, trying to put my thoughts in order. I was tempted to walk to Daniel’s place and talk the thing through with him. But after all my talk of being an independent woman and able to handle my own business life—very well, thank you—I could hardly go running to him when a perplexing problem turned up.
I sipped the coffee and tried to make sense of what had just happened. I thought through each of the incidents onstage—the face at the window that nobody else but Blanche saw, the wind machine, the jug of liquid flying all over her, and then the pillar falling, missing her by inches. Was it possible that Blanche had somehow orchestrated these things herself? It was, after all, her play. Maybe she and Bobby Barker had thought this up between them—even rigged it up between them. But why? The jug of lemonade was just annoying, but the pillar could have cost her her life.
Unless—unless she knew it would miss her because she had carefully moved her own mark a foot to the left. She was a veteran actress. She knew that timing was everything. She had timed the events to perfection.
The words veteran actress played over and over in my brain. I toyed with my spoon and gazed at the crowds surging past the window. Everyone had commented that Blanche was getting long in the tooth, too old really to play the ingenue, especially at a time when the Florodora girls had set the standard of beauty at a sweet sixteen.
So Blanche wanted to make a big comeback on Broadway. She had the play. It was good. She would shine in it, but . . . But she had to get people into the theater. And what better way than a mystery? Poor brave Blanche. The show must go on. What a trooper, continuing with a play even when her own life was in danger. And even a real detective couldn’t find any human explanation for the shocking events that had happened.
I saw it all now. When I had been brought in Blanche had seemed desperate to keep any news of the phantom out of the press, knowing full well that one of her cast would be bound to spill the beans, thus creating that delightful atmosphere of secrecy. She had built the tension perfectly and had achieved the desired result. The show was sold out for weeks. And I had played my part and was no longer needed.
I was really angry now. I suppose I was still too much the naïve little country bumpkin, but I had been used too many times recently. I wondered if Oona Sheehan was in on Blanche’s little scheme from the beginning and had calmly enlisted me for a second time to be made a fool of. I was about to go and confront her here and now, and let her know exactly what I thought of her. Oh, and to collect the money she still owed me.
Then I decided no, I’d go and confront Blanche instead and let her know exactly what I had discovered. I wasn’t such a bad detective after all, was I? I was sure that she had hired me because she knew I would fail, but I hadn’t failed. I’d come up with the truth, all on my own. And I’d make sure Blanche paid me well for my services, or I’d let the word out about what she was doing.
That stopped me in my tracks, of course. Threatening her like that was pretty close to blackmail and I wasn’t about to sink to that level. This would need more thought. I wasn’t sure how to handle this situation. Part of me thought that the sensible solution should be to take my fee, walk away, and say nothing. After all, what harm had she really done, apart from ruining a costume or two? Except for that one costume that caught fire and could have resulted in harm to a chorus girl, the accidents had all been aimed at herself and heaven knows that people have done even more outlandish things to try to gain the public’s attention. Mr. Houdini had supposedly had himself locked into a box and been dropped over a bridge in London to gain notoriety. Probably all was fair on the stage as well as in love and war.
But I did not like being duped in this way. I did see that if I confronted Miss Lovejoy, she could play the wronged innocent and demand proof of how I came up with these slanderous sayings, and of course I could give her none. I hadn’t managed to discover how any of the accidents had been caused.
It was then that a devious idea came into my mind. Blanche might well have something spectacular planned for tonight and not want my observant eyes around at the time. Well, I would show her. I’d slip back into the theater—after all, only Blanche knew that I’d been dismissed—and take up a good position where I could observe without being observed. I marched right back to the stage door and went back inside.
Henry looked perplexed. “Didn’t you already sign in once tonight?”
“I had to slip out to buy some more face cream,” I said, smiling sweetly, and then hurried past him. I made as if to climb the stairs, but instead I went into the backstage area. All was quiet and dark there. The set was ready for curtain-up and the stagehands were probably taking a well-deserved smoke outside. I looked around to see where I might hide and not be noticed. Then the idea came to me that I could climb up one of those ladders into the flies. I could then perch on one of the crosswalks and have a perfect view of the stage. If anything happened tonight, I’d let Miss Lovejoy know that I was prepared to talk to the press should she try any more of her tricks.
I looked around once more and then found a ladder and began to climb. It is not easy to climb ladders in tight skirts and pointed shoes, trust me. I took it slowly and carefully and came out to a little platform, high above the stage. I don’t usually have a fear of heights but I have to confess that it did look an awfully long way down. I stood on the platform, holding onto the ladder that disappeared into darkness as it continued up to an even higher level. At eye level with me a walkway spanned the stage and behind it various backdrops hung, waiting to be lowered into place. It was a remarkably small space I was standing on and I didn’t want to let go of the ladder.
I had no idea what time it was and how long I would have to wait up here before curtain-up. It also occurred to me that I would be well and truly stuck after the performance started. Too bad for me if I needed a visit to the unmentionable. I wondered if I dared hitch my skirts up and sit, with my legs dangling over the edge. I was just considering how I might accomplish this when I felt the ladder vibrating in my hands. Someone was climbing up toward me. I was well and truly trapped, unless I dared to brave the walkway across to the other side. It was only about a foot wide, with thin railings on either side, and looked about as appealing as walking a tightrope.
It would surely only be one of the stagehands, I told myself, as I peered down to make out the top of a head coming toward me. He’d get a fright when he saw me, but I’d explain how I’d been instructed to keep a secret watch on Miss Lovejoy from up here and all would be well. I stood back against the wall and waited. A face appeared as a white blob in the blackness. I gasped as Desmond Haynes hauled himself up beside me with one fluid movement.
“So?” he said. “May one ask what you are doing up here? Taking up an aerial act, are we?”
“May one ask what you are doing up here?” I answered, sounding braver than I felt. He was a slim and elegant young man but he stood a good deal taller than me.
“As for that, I often study my choreography from above,” he said. “The patterns emerge, you know.”
“May I point out that nobody is onstage yet.”
“How true,” he said. “So would you care to answer my question, or should I summon the police right away and have you arrested as an intruder?”
“Have me arrested? I like that,” I retorted.
“Blanche told me she had fired you. So I ask you once again, what do you think you are doing up here?”
I tried to come up with a clever answer but my brain wouldn’t work in the rarified atmosphere of this great height. All I could think about was holding onto that rail for dear life in case he tried to push me down.
“Whatever it was,” I said, “I now have the answer to my problem. It was you all along, wasn’t it? I saw how alarmed you were when I joined the company.”
“Oh, you’re right,” he said. “I have been keeping an eye on you, and I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you won’t be allowed into this theater again.”
“I bet,” I said.
“I told Blanche from the beginning she was a fool to hire you. Anyone could tell instantly that you’d never been an actress, never even been onstage. So now that I’ve got you here, I’m going to find out the truth. Who sent you? Who is behind this?”
“Behind what?” I stared at him defiantly, eye to eye.
“Do you want me to spell it out?”
“Finding out the truth about you, Mr. Haynes? Is that what you mean? Finding out that you were the one behind all those so-called accidents?”
I knew I was taking a huge risk. I kept telling myself to shut up but somehow I couldn’t. It’s always been a failing of mine.
I saw his eyes narrow. He was frowning at me. “Nice try,” he said, “but you won’t get away with it.”
“What do you plan to do? Try and hurl me to the stage? Oh, believe me, I’m no delicate little flower. I can deliver a nasty kick when I have to. And I’ve got a good set of lungs on me. One scream from me and everyone will come running.”
He was still frowning.
“How can you live with yourself, that’s what I’d like to know,” I went on, having now got my steam up. “Miss Lovejoy thinks you are her friend. She hired you. She gave you a job.”
“I am her friend.”
“Then why try to wreck her play?”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you trying to say that you were not planted here to cause the accidents?”
“What? I was brought here to keep an eye on Miss Lovejoy,” I said. “Strictly undercover, of course. I’m a private detective.”
“Good God,” he said. “And all along I thought you were the one up to no good.”
“And I thought you were the one acting suspiciously.”
“It seems I might have been under a misapprehension. I was so worried about these damned accidents. I thought somebody wanted to close our show before it started.”
“But they’ve had the opposite effect, haven’t they?” I asked. “Your show is a huge hit. It will run for months. People will come just to see if the ghost makes an appearance.”
“You’re right,” he said. “So do you think there is a ghost? I can’t really believe that, but I’ve no other explanation. God knows I was watching from the stalls each time and saw nothing.”
“And I was positioned onstage, in the glare of the lights, where it was impossible to see what was going on backstage.”
He nodded. “Whose idea was that?”
“Blanche’s. She wanted me near her. For protection.” I wondered about saying more. Should I hint that I suspected Blanche herself had orchestrated the whole thing? He was, after all, her friend. “Leave me up here this evening,” I said. “And don’t mention this to a soul. By the end of the night I may have seen something that can provide proof, one way or another.”
“All right,” he said. “One way or another, I’d certainly like to know.”