The Cutthroat, Page 2

  “Any more biff-bang?”

  “Mr. Hyde escapes a howling Times Square mob on the subway.”

  “Jekyll and Hyde is set in London.”

  “London’s old hat. I moved it to New York. Jekyll lives in a skyscraper.”

  Buchanan worried that erecting, striking, and transporting stage sets for a subway train would cost a fortune. Except a New York subway was not a bad idea if you subscribed to the Weber & Fields theory that audiences were more apt to respond in familiar, “realistic” settings. It worked for laughs. Could they put it across for melodrama?

  “We’ll cut down the subway for the tour.”

  “Don’t patronize me with your cutting-down!” Barrett shot back.

  “We’ll be carrying sixty people on the road,” Buchanan answered coldly, and they exploded into a red-faced, clenched-jaw shouting match.

  “Melodrama is whipsawed! Why else are we attempting bloody Othello?”

  “Cutting down saves money so we can make money.”

  “Movies are driving us out of the theaters, and theater audiences are nuts for vaudeville.”

  “Your free spending will kill us.”

  “Damn the expense! We’re dead without spectacle.”

  Their stage manager stuck his head in the door with a finger to his lips.

  “Angels,” he whispered.

  “Thank you, Mr. Young. Send them in.”

  The partners manufactured warm smiles for their investors.

  Joe and Jeff Deaver, almost as tall as Barrett and Buchanan and considerably heavier than in their college football days, were heirs to their mother’s locomotive factories and their father’s love of showgirls. Decked out in capes and top hats, twirling canes, and trailing the scent of the perfumed blondes they’d parked in the hall, they could finance Jekyll and Hyde with a stroke of a pen.

  “Your timing is exquisite!” boomed Barrett.

  “I’ll say. We just got invited to back Alias Jimmy Valentine. Broadway and a tour. They’ve got Vietor from England to play Valentine. And Lockwood to play Doyle. We’re going to clean up.”

  “Not so fast,” said Barrett.

  “Why?”

  “Opportunity has arisen closer to home,” Buchanan explained. “Poor Medick is dead.”

  Jeff, the brains of the duo, asked, “Is your Jekyll ready?”

  Barrett nodded, arousing Buchanan’s suspicion that his partner’s “tinkering” had included private negotiation with the moneymen. “We are ready to go.”

  “Do you have Isabella Cook?”

  “We’ll find a way.”

  “If you get Miss Cook on board, we say the heck with Jimmy Valentine,” said Joe. “Don’t we, Jeff? Vietor wants too much dough just ’cause he’s English. And Lockwood’s always getting chorus girls in trouble.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jeff said. “Medick’s young. What killed him?”

  “They say he fell from a fire escape. Fourth floor.”

  “That’s crazy. The man was terrified of heights. We had him in our Black Crook. Remember, Joe? They couldn’t get him near the orchestra pit.”

  “Something’s fishy. What was he doing on a fire escape?”

  “Exiting a lady’s back door,” said Jackson Barrett, “pursued by a husband.”

  ACT ONE

  SPRING 1911 (SIX MONTHS LATER)

  1

  On the second floor of New York’s finest hotel, the Knickerbocker, at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street, the Van Dorn Detective Agency’s Chief Investigator sized up a new client through the reception room spy hole. The Research Department had provided a snapshot dossier of a “stiff-necked, full-of-himself Waterbury Brass King worth fifty million.”

  Isaac Bell reckoned they had their facts straight.

  William Lathrop Pape looked newly rich. A broad-bellied man in his early fifties, he stood rock-still, gloved hands clamping a gold-headed cane. His suit and shoes were English, his hat Italian. He boasted a heavy watch chain thick enough to moor a steam yacht, and his cold gaze bored through the front desk man as if the young detective were a piece of furniture.

  Research had not discovered why the industrialist needed private detectives, but whatever William Lathrop Pape’s troubles, he had pulled numerous wires for a personal introduction to Joseph Van Dorn, the founder of the agency. As Van Dorn was three thousand miles away in San Francisco, it had fallen to Isaac Bell to extend the favor requested by an old friend of the Boss.

  “O.K. Bring him in.”

  The apprentice hovering at Bell’s elbow raced off.

  Bell stepped behind Van Dorn’s desk, cleared candlestick telephones and a graphophone diaphragm out of his way, and laid down his notebook and fountain pen. He was tall and about thirty years of age, built lean and hard, with thick golden hair, a proud mustache, and probing blue eyes. On this warm spring day, he wore a tailor-made white linen suit. The hat he had tossed on Van Dorn’s rack was white, too, with a broad brim and a low crown. His made-to-order boots were calfskin, well worn and well cared for. He looked like he might smile easily, but a no-nonsense gaze and a panther’s grace promised anything but a smile were he provoked.

  The apprentice delivered Pape.

  Isaac Bell offered his hand and invited him to sit.

  Pape spoke before the apprentice was out the door. “I was informed that Van Dorn would make every effort to be here.”

  “Sincere as Mr. Van Dorn’s efforts were, they could not free him from previous obligations in San Francisco. I am his Chief Investigator. What can the Van Dorn Detective Agency do for you?”

  “It’s imperative that I locate a person who disappeared.”

  Bell picked up his pen. “Tell me about the person.”

  William Lathrop Pape stared, silent for so long that Bell wondered if he had not heard. “The person’s name?” he asked.

  “Pape! Anna Genevieve Pape,” said Pape, and fell silent again.

  “A member of your family?” Bell prompted. “Your wife?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then who?”

  “My daughter, for pity’s sake. My wife wouldn’t . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Bell asked, “How old is your daughter, Mr. Pape?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “When did you last see Anna?”

  “At breakfast on February twenty-seventh.”

  “Did she often go away for long periods of time?”

  “Of course not. She lives at home, and will until she marries.”

  “Is she engaged?”

  “I told you, she’s only just turned eighteen.”

  Isaac Bell asked a question that he was reasonably sure he already knew the answer to. “When did you report that the girl was missing?”

  “I’m doing that right now.”

  “But today is March twenty-fourth, Mr. Pape. Why have you waited so long to raise the alarm?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It is the first question the police will ask when they get wind we’re looking.”

  “I do not want the police involved.”

  The tall detective had a steady, baritone voice. He used it to speak soothingly as if explaining a disappointment to a child. “Police involve themselves when the facts of a case indicate the possibility of foul play.”

  “She’s an innocent girl. There’s no question of foul play.”

  “Policemen suspect the worst. Why did you wait so long to raise the alarm if Anna’s disappearance was unusual?”

  Pape gripped his stick harder. “I suspected that she ran away to New York.”

  “What did she want in New York?”

  “To become an actress.”

  Isaac Bell hid a smile. The situation was immensely clearer.

  “May I ask why you have come to the V
an Dorn Agency at this juncture?”

  “She should have come home with her tail between her legs after a couple of weeks.”

  “Are you concerned for her safety?”

  “Of course.”

  “But you still waited another week after those ‘couple of weeks’?”

  “I kept waiting for Anna to come to her senses. Her mother has persuaded me that we cannot wait any longer . . . Listen here, Bell, she was always a levelheaded child. Since she was a little girl. Eyes wide open. She’s no flibbertigibbet.”

  “Then you can comfort your wife with the thought that a girl with Anna’s qualities stands a good chance of a successful career in the theater.”

  Pape stiffened. “She would disgrace my family.”

  “Disgrace?”

  “This sort of behavior attracts the newspapers. Waterbury is not New York, Mr. Bell. It’s not a fast city. My family will never live it down if the papers get wind of a well-born Pape on the stage.”

  Bell’s manner cooled. “I will have a Van Dorn detective familiar with the theater districts work up the case. Good afternoon, Mr. Pape.”

  “Hold on!”

  “What?”

  “I demand you personally conduct the search if Van Dorn can’t.”

  “The agency parcels out assignments according to their degree of criminality. Mr. Van Dorn and I specialize in murderers, gangsters, bank robbers, and kidnappers.”

  At the moment, he was supervising investigations into train robbers derailing express cars in the Midwest, bank robbers crisscrossing state lines in autos, Italian gangs terrorizing the New York docks, a Chicago jewel thief cracking the safes of tycoons’ mistresses, and blackmailers victimizing passengers on ocean liners.

  “A temporarily missing young lady is not the line I’m in. Or are you suggesting she was kidnapped?”

  Pape blinked. Obviously accustomed to employees obeying his orders and his whims, the industrialist looked suddenly at sixes and sevens. “No, of course not. I checked at the station. She bought a train ticket to New York— Bell, you don’t understand.”

  “I do understand, sir. I was not much older than Anna when I went against my own father’s wishes and became a detective rather than follow him into the banking business.”

  “Banking? What bank?”

  “American States.”

  “You made a mistake,” said Pape. “An American States banker faces a lot more lucrative future than a private detective. Take my advice: you’re a young fellow, young enough to change. Get out of this gumshoe business and ask your father to persuade his boss to offer you a job.”

  “He is the boss,” said Bell. “It’s his bank.”

  “American States. American Stat— Bell? Is your father Ebenezer Bell?”

  “I mention him to assure you that I understand that Anna wants something different,” said Bell. “Your daughter and I have disappointed fathers in common— Now, by any chance have you brought a photograph?”

  Pape drew an envelope from an inside pocket and gave Bell a Kodak snapped out of doors of children in a summer camp theatrical performance. Anna was a cherubic, expressive, fair-haired girl. Whether she was levelheaded did not show—perhaps a tribute, Bell thought with another hidden smile, to her thespian talent.

  “Shakespeare,” said Pape.

  Bell nodded, engrossed in memories the picture brought forth. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

  “How did you know?”

  “They made me play Oberon when I grew too tall for Puck— Anna’s a pretty girl. How old was she here?”

  Pape muttered something Bell couldn’t understand. “What was that, sir?” He looked up from the photograph.

  The Brass King had tears in his eyes. “What if I’m wrong?” he whispered.

  “How do you mean?”

  “What if something terrible happened to her?”

  “Young women come to the city every day,” Bell answered gently. “They eventually find something they want or they go home. But, in either event, the vast, vast majority survive, enriched, even happy. I would not start worrying needlessly. We’ll find your daughter.”

  2

  Eighteen-year-old Anna Waterbury read Variety aloud to Lucy Balant, her roommate in Mrs. Shine’s Boarding House for Actors. They had pooled nickels to buy the show business magazine and—like a sign from Heaven, thought Anna—Variety headlined the new Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tour about to cross the country on Barrett & Buchanan’s private train.

  “‘Jackson Barrett and John Buchanan—matinee idols who ignite melodrama like dreadnoughts on a rampage—will trade title roles as they did on Broadway. The chief interest centers around the struggle between the good and evil halves of the same man. Isabella Cook portrays the innocent love interest tormented by Hyde. Miss Cook returns to the stage after two years’ retirement, during which she was married and widowed by the late Theatrical Syndicate chief, Rufus S. Oppenheim, who drowned when his yacht exploded.’”

  Anna whispered, “Can I tell you a secret?”

  Lucy was reading the Wanteds over her shoulder. “Look! ‘Wanted for Permanent Stock. General businesswoman. Must be tall, young, experienced, and have good wardrobe. Join at once. Sobriety, wardrobe, and ability essential. Long season. Money, sure—’ How tall is ‘tall’?”

  Anna said, “It’s a secret.”

  “What?”

  “You have to promise never, ever tell anyone.”

  “O.K., I promise.”

  “There’s a man who’s going to coach me to read for a role in a big hit.”

  “Is he a teacher?”

  “No! Much better. He’s a producer. A Broadway producer who knows someone in a big hit.”

  Anna’s friend looked skeptical, or possibly envious. “Did he take you to Rector’s?”

  “Rector’s? No!”

  “Anna! A sport should at least treat a girl to a Beef Wellington. I mean, what does he want for ‘coaching’?— Why are you laughing?”

  “Because three weeks ago I wouldn’t have known what ‘a Beef Wellington’ meant.”

  Anna Waterbury had learned so much so fast since coming to New York, Beef Wellington was the least of it. “I am,” she said, “the only graduate in the history of St. Margaret’s School for Girls who knows to ask whether a road offer includes train fare.”

  Not to mention who supplied costumes. And to dodge theatrical managers who got the artist, coming and going, by appointing themselves her agent. And to never, ever take a job with the circus. Not that anyone had offered her any job in anything, yet.

  “Welcome to Broadway,” Lucy fired back. She was jumpy, waiting to hear if she got the understudy part in Alias Jimmy Valentine, a big sensation based on an O. Henry story, which was sending a road company to Philadelphia. They had both tried out for it, but only Lucy had been called back for a second reading.

  “No,” said Anna. “He’s not like that. He’s a sweet old thing.”

  “How old?”

  “I don’t know—old as my father. He limps, on a cane. Besides, he’s married. He wears a ring. He doesn’t hide it. He’s full of wonderful advice.”

  “Like what?”

  “Give the star the center of the stage and stay out of his way.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I can’t tell you his name. He made me promise— Why? Because the cast would resent me if they knew he got me the part.”

  “What big hit?”

  Anna dropped her voice even lower, and she looked around, though who else could fit in their tiny room? “This!” She waved Variety. “The spring tour for Jekyll and Hyde! I can hardly believe my luck.”

  There was a brisk knock at the door, and their landlady flung it open with an unusually warm smile. “Lucy Balant, you have a visitor.”

  Bouncing up and down besi
de Mrs. Shine, cap in hand, was a callboy from Wallack’s Theatre. “Stage manager says to pack your bag!”

  Lucy was out the door in minutes. “Good luck, Anna. Don’t worry. It’ll be your turn next.”

  Anna went to the narrow window and craned her neck to watch Lucy trotting alongside the callboy. She had a strong feeling that it really would be her turn next. What would she do if the nice old gentleman asked her to dine at Rector’s? She knew in her heart that she did not have to answer that because he wouldn’t. He really did want to help her. Although maybe after she got the part, he might ask her there to celebrate. Fair enough. As long as he brought his wife.

  3

  ALL CLOTHES WASHED GOOD AS NEW

  THEATRE COSTUME OUR SPECIAL

  Isaac Bell hurried out of the Chinese laundry.

  A broad-shouldered hard case in an overcoat and derby blocked the sidewalk.

  “Care to tell me why the Chief Investigator of a private detective agency, with field offices in every city worth the name, and foreign outposts in London, Paris, and Berlin, is personally sleuthing for one missing young lady?”

  “I wondered when you’d show, Mike. Your plainclothes boys were pretending not to watch me exiting Hammerstein’s stage door.”

  “I train them to dislike surprises.”

  Captain “Honest Mike” Coligney commanded the New York Police Department’s Tenderloin station house. His precinct included much of the Theater District and the hotel and boardinghouse neighborhoods where actors lived. Bell had worked closely with him years ago on the Gangster case, but operating on the same side of the law at sharply different angles made them competitors as much as allies. The policeman danced an elaborate ballet with the politicians who bossed New York City. The private detective was beholden to none. Coligney had six thousand cops backing him up, Bell had the Van Dorn Agency’s ironclad guarantee: “We never give up! Never!”

  “Haven’t seen you in a while,” said Coligney. “Where you been?”

  “Out west.”

  “What brought you back?”