A Curtain Falls (39 page)

I went with the first thing that popped into my head. “If Jack is such a fine name, why did you tell Miss Bell that your name was Charlie?”

“Simple logic.” He sprang out of the chair and circled behind Helen Bell. “She might have told her friends all about me,” he waved his hands, then leaned down low, “even told them my name. They might have remembered that she was stepping out with a theater critic from
The New York Times.
And then,” he made a mock sigh, “policemen like you would have wanted to talk with me after she turned up dead.”

“She doesn’t have to die,” I said calmly.

“What?” He staggered back as if in shock. “Of
course
she has to die. Desdemona
always
has to die. It’s her fate. The great bard has decreed it.”

“Helen is not Desdemona,” I said, trying again. “You can end all this now. Just put down the gun and walk away.”

Helen Bell began to cry, which prompted Jack to move closer to her. His long fingers stretched out and caressed her head. “Don’t cry, my love. Desdemona never cries. She thinks only of her love for the man who must kill her. Who must preserve her honor . . .”

She began to shake.

Jack grabbed one of his torches and began to light an area of the stage I hadn’t even realized was part of the scene.

“What I can’t figure out is how you managed it all,” I said, aware that I needed to keep him talking.

He turned back to me, cocked his head. “Because I am Pygmalion, Detective. I take what is unfinished, imperfect— and create beauty.”

“You killed them all without leaving a single mark. The coroner has never seen anything like it,” I said. “How?”

He pulled a chair toward me, sat down, folded his arms, and regarded me soberly. “It’s a God-given gift.” Seeing that I was taken aback, he continued. “And the ideas themselves, Detective, came from the bard. I saw how the actor strangled his victim in a production of
Othello
when I was young. It was beautiful. And later, I realized I’d been blessed with the touch. The magic touch required to take a life,” he waved his hands, “and yet leave no sign.”

The man was a raving lunatic.

I swallowed hard, and said only, “You nearly managed to frame another man.”

He half danced across the stage toward Helen Bell. “Ever the detective, aren’t you? Focused only on these mundane details. You bore me.” He yawned.

He reached out to caress Helen’s head once again, ignoring her trembling. “It was fortuitous, of course, when I was assigned to help Frank Riley report on the murders.” He turned away, clapped his hands together once. “Ha! Poor Frank probably believes I’ve got the makings of a first-rate crime reporter now, with all the evidence I managed to gather and send his way.”

“But even before that, you’d laid the groundwork to frame Timothy Poe.”

He gave me an odd look. “Actually, I didn’t even know Poe was a suspect until the professor helping you told us. It gave me an idea. You see, I don’t mind telling you I was a bit nervous,” he said in a confidential whisper. “After all, I was being thrust into an investigation— about me. But then it occurred to me: I’d
been given a unique opportunity. All I had to do was find a better suspect and serve him up.”

He circled the stage again, his voice taking on a scornful tone. “Poe was too easy, actually. Your police captain already suspected Poe because of his association with
Pygmalion.
Good fortune was looking out for me there. And then, when I followed him one day and learned his secret, why,” he paused, his lips spreading into a wide grin, “I saw he was the perfect scapegoat. He would be convicted of my crimes based on his reputation alone.”

“But you did more than just make use of the fact he has an African male lover. You framed him with fingerprints,” I said, pushing him to keep talking. “You planted hypodermic needles in his apartment.”

He looked pleased. “I don’t know what I’d do without Molly. That was her idea; and she followed through and orchestrated all of it. She even figured out how to position the syringe behind Miss Billings so it would discharge its contents when someone tried to remove it.”

“But she’s an actress,” I said, puzzled. “How did she learn to pull off something like that?”

“ ‘My dear old papa,’ ” he sang out loud, laughing across the stage. Then he stopped and turned. “Do you know the song? Though in this case, it should be
your
dear papa, Detective. He taught her everything he knew.”

So she had seduced my father, not the other way around. But I couldn’t imagine why. . . .

As though he had read my thoughts, he said, “I’ve really no idea why she targeted him, except that she thought he had skills and connections she could use.”

My father had mistakenly thought she wanted to bring him some happiness in his final days. It was shocking— and yet it made sense. She had ascertained the areas where her skills— and Jack’s— would prove lacking. My father had suited her purposes.

Just like the women she encouraged Jack to kill.

Jack continued to ramble on, but I focused instead on how I might tackle him and retrieve my gun— without endangering Helen Bell.

If only he would come closer to me.

He leaned over and grabbed the silk scarves that lay near the blue letter onstage.

“It is time,” he announced. Waving the Smith & Wesson, he indicated for me to step toward the chair.

Why doesn’t anyone come to help? What is taking my father so long?

I had one final surprise that might give us a little more time.

“Maybe your leading lady would like more jewelry,” I said as I pulled Francine Vandergriff’s diamond-and-sapphire ring out of my pocket and held it high. The diamonds glittered brilliantly in the light of the flickering torches.

He turned, eyes widening. The instant he recognized it, he crossed the stage and seized my wrist. “Where did you get this?” he snarled.

I leveled my gaze at him. “Right where you left it.”

He wrenched it from my hand, but then caressed it in his own. “My beautiful Francine,” he whispered. He placed it at the midpoint of his smallest finger, and a wild grin spread over his face. “You’re actually right. It’s better to have such baubles to remember those we loved. No need to keep a fine artifact like this buried in the ground, literally on the hand of one who can no longer appreciate it. Now, come sit.”

The man was a loose cannon. I had played my last card; the ring had momentarily distracted him, but now he appeared to have remembered his plan. I took a seat, struggling to control my fear.

“I’ll stay here. But let Miss Bell go.”

He took one of the scarves and let it dangle near my head. “How chivalrous of you, Detective. But I require a lady for my purposes.”

“According to Molly, you want to hurt Charles Frohman. It strikes me that there are better ways than injuring innocent women who have nothing to do with him.”

“Nothing? Did you say nothing?” He wheeled around and turned to face me. “They have
everything
to do with him. Whores to the success he promises. False promises leading to ruin— that was all he ever gave us. Me. My mother. Molly.”

“So why not kill him? What did these women ever do to you?”

With a savage voice, Jack replied, “He ought to feel the same pain I felt watching the dreams I loved die. Because tonight, I destroy his reputation once and for all.”

He turned and grabbed a large jug filled with a liquid that sloshed as he carried it close to the chaise longue. “This,” he said, looking all around him, “should’ve been my birthright. My legacy.” He splashed some of the liquid toward one of the torches. It must have contained alcohol, for it made the torch blaze hotter and higher, igniting the wood scenery behind it.

Jack fanned the flames, laughing, before turning to the next torch. He repeated the same action as before, and, with a deliberateness that chilled me, he turned and doused Helen Bell with the same liquid.

He reached for his torch.

I dove for Helen, grabbing her feet and yanking her off the chaise longue, out of his grip.

He charged toward me, pointing the Smith & Wesson directly at my head. I managed to shove Helen behind me; with feet and hands still bound, she could not move of her own accord.

“Desdemona doesn’t burn,” I said.

Jack stared at me, blinking in astonishment. “You’re right,” he finally said. He threw one arm out wide. “This shall be her funeral pyre, but first she ought to die according to script.”

Come closer. Come closer.

I leaned back on the floor, pushing my back against Helen, prepared to kick him the moment he came near.

But he stepped back and leveled the gun at me. “You, on the other hand . . .”

No . . . no . . .
I fought rising panic as I realized what he meant to do. I looked around wildly, but there were no good options.

If I moved, I exposed Helen to his shot.

If I stayed in position, I died.

It was hopeless either way.

The shots took forever to come— first one deafening crack, followed immediately by another. I prepared myself for the searing pain and blackness that would end it all.

Instead, Jack cried out and fell forward, hard, grasping at his side. He dropped the Smith & Wesson.

I lunged for it, grabbed it tightly.

But he wasn’t down.

And in a matter of seconds, he had a second gun in hand.

Louie’s gun. Of course.

I had no choice. I pushed Helen Bell to my left— hard. I winced, hearing her shriek in pain as she hit part of the wooden scenery. But at least she was out of the line of fire.

Who had shot Jack? I looked around the theater before I leveled my gun at him.

He looked back at me and laughed. “Interesting situation we got here, isn’t it?” He pointed his own gun at me. “Who shoots whom first?” Another laugh. “Bang.”

Then his eyes changed and I knew he would shoot now. I had to take my shot.

But a dark figure rose behind him, knocking him to the ground.

“No!” he cried out.

“No!” I echoed loudly, though the word seemed to come from somewhere else.

And a single gunshot sounded.

My father had tackled him. My father— who was supposed to have left the theater for safety. He should not have come back.

Now, he rolled over, clutching his gut, and I realized that he was badly hit.

He lay helpless and bleeding while Jack continued, out of control.

Jack reached for the jug of alcohol and spilled it around my father. Next, he began sloshing it wildly over everything. I turned my face away as the liquid landed on me, narrowly avoiding my eyes.

“Stop!” I commanded, my gun pointed directly at him. I would take the shot if he gave me no choice.

“Police!” The word came from the back of the theater.

Jack stood up, stooped in pain, but able to walk.

He was going for the torches. He meant to light up the whole place.

“I said police! Halt!” I recognized Mulvaney’s voice.

But Mulvaney was too far away.

Jack laughed— a fiendish laugh as he reached out with two hands toward the nearby torches.

We were covered in the alcohol. My father, Miss Bell, and I— we would all die a fiery death unless I did something.

With a deep breath and something that might have been a prayer, I took the shot.

Then I watched him fall to his knees, just shy of the torches— and saw the dark stain spread over his chest.

He fell to the floor, but managed to heave himself backward into one of the flaming torches.

As it toppled over, igniting an explosion of fire, I dropped my gun, grabbed Helen and my father, and pulled both of them off the stage seconds before the flames would have enveloped us.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

But the moment I looked at his ashen face— even before I noticed the gaping wound in his chest— I knew the answer was no. He’d already lost way too much blood. Jack’s shot must have hit its mark.

I reached behind me and made short work of Helen Bell’s restraints. “Are
you
okay?” I asked her.

She nodded mutely.

Mulvaney was at my side, and I was conscious of several officers surrounding us.

The fire was burning out of control, the heat terrific.

“Help me.” I started to pull my father down the aisle, closer to the door. My right arm was throbbing in pain. There was no way I could lift him, so I continued to drag him away from the heat and the fire until two police officers took him from me, gently lifting him and carrying him out of the building.

Mulvaney was behind me, helping Miss Bell.

I gave him a weary glance. “There’s a woman in the dressing room backstage, too. Someone should get her— and place her under immediate arrest.”

Mulvaney’s eyes were sorrowful when they met my own.

“Schneider, Arnow,” he called out. “Get your men to evacuate the dressing rooms backstage. A female suspect is secure back there.”