A Respectable Actress (28 page)

“Oh? What for?”

“For preserving your perfect record of never having been reversed on appeal.”

“A jury declared her guilty.”

“Because you refused to declare a mistrial despite the strong possibility there was
a second shot in the theater that night.”

The judge waved his hand. “All right. Now, is the new witness prepared to give a
statement?”

“Yes, sir.” Philip motioned to a police officer stationed inside the judge's door.

The officer disappeared and returned with a woman dressed in a simple blue day dress,
her face half hidden by an enormous feathered hat anchored by two large pearl hat
pins.

India gripped the arms of her chair and forced air into her lungs. Here was the very
same woman India had seen loitering in the hallway at the theater wearing a distinctive
purple cloak. The cloak India had discovered hanging on the hall tree in Arthur Sterling's
house on Isle of Hope.

The officer showed her to a seat opposite the judge's gleaming wooden desk.

“State your name, please.” The judge opened a ledger and took up his pen.

“Laura Sinclair.”

The prosecutor came upright in his chair and grabbed his file.

“Now, Mrs. Sinclair,” the judge began. “You are not on trial, but you are bound to
tell the truth here just as you would be in court. Do you understand?”

The woman nodded, and India noted how her hands trembled.

“All right. Suppose you tell me what you know about the incident in the Southern
Palace Theater last December.”

“I went to the theater that night, but I wasn't intending to hurt anyone. Not when
I first arrived. I only wanted to talk to
Arthur . . . Mr. Sterling . . . to ask
him about . . . a personal matter.”

“And were you able to do so?”

“No. He wouldn't speak to me. He told me he was too busy. But then I noticed he had
plenty of time for Miss Bryson. She is . . . was . . . Miss Hartley's understudy.
Something came over me then, and I knew I'd have to do something drastic to make
him tell me why he no longer loved me.”

Beside India, Philip made a small noise in his throat. But his face was a mask of
professional objectivity as the judge motioned to Laura to continue.

“That night, before the show, I was waiting for Arthur in the hallway, and I heard
Mr. Philbrick telling him he wanted Miss Hartley to pretend to shoot Arthur on stage,
because he thought the play was too dull to impress an important critic.”

“I see. Go on.”

“Arthur spoke with Miss Hartley. He joked with her about wanting to do him harm because
he had upstaged her on opening night. When he left, I followed him to his dressing
room, where I saw him kissing that tart Miss Bryson. After giving him five years
of my life!” Her voice broke, but she gathered herself. “I knew then that his affections
were not true. I couldn't bear it. Not after everything I had done in order to be
with him.”

India thought of the red notebook filled with love notes. The burned chapel, the
missing slave girl. The gold necklace she'd found amid the ashes. Did Philip believe
her theory now? She stole a glance at him, but his expression was unreadable.

Laura Sinclair looked up at the judge. “May I have a glass of water?”

The officer poured from a pitcher sitting on a table behind the judge's desk and
handed the cup to her. She sipped and went on.

“I knew Miss Hartley kept a gun in her trunk in the trap room.”

“How did you know?”

“The day of the dress rehearsal, I came to speak to Arthur. I was standing near the
trap room when Miss Hartley came in to get some more hairpins from her trunk. She
had to take out several smaller boxes to find them, and that's when I saw the gun.”

Laura set the water glass on the floor beside her chair and drew a handkerchief
from her sleeve. “Everything went all wrong. I didn't intend to kill him. I thought
if he were wounded he would realize how much he needed me, and he'd forget about
Miss Bryson, and everything would go back to the way it was meant to be.”

Outside the chambers, a man began shouting and pounding on the door. The policeman
went out to quell the disturbance. Judge Bartlett leaned across his desk. “Mrs. Sinclair,
are you confessing to the murder of Arthur Sterling?”

The door flew open, and a large red-faced man charged into the room.

Startled, India yelped, “Mr. Philbrick?”

“Order!” The judge slapped his desk and got to his feet. “What on earth is going
on here?”

Cornelius Philbrick wrenched free and stood before the judge, panting heavily. “I
admit I'm not the most upstanding
citizen in Savannah, but I can't stand by and watch
the woman I love go to the gallows for a crime she didn't commit.”

India blinked. The woman he loved? What was he talking about? She and the theater
manager barely tolerated each other. Especially after he'd threatened to replace
her.

Philip got to his feet. “Maybe you ought to explain yourself, Mr. Philbrick.”

The theater manager expelled a noisy breath. “Laura doesn't know how I feel about
her. I never got up the nerve to tell her. But it made me angry to see the way Sterling
treated her. Trampling on her tender feelings as if they didn't matter.”

India stared at him. So it was Laura he loved, although she clearly cared for no
one but Mr. Sterling. What a strange tale this was.

Mr. Philbrick turned to Laura Sinclair, who had gone pale as milk. “I saw you standing
in the wings that night holding a gun, and I guessed what you had in mind. It's true
I wanted to sensationalize the play to get people talking about it, but I never intended
anyone to actually get hurt. So I took my own gun and followed you into the wings.
I knew Miss Hartley's weapon was the fake and wouldn't fire. I had to stop you. I
intended to shoot the gun from your hand. To save you from committing a crime.”

Inexplicably, Laura laughed. “Oh, Cornelius. I'm afraid you wasted your gallantry
unnecessarily.”

“What do you mean?”

“The gun you saw in my hand was the fake one. After the prop manager placed it on
the table on the stage, I took Miss Hartley's gun from her trunk and switched them.”
Laura's eyes
went hard. “I admit I'm a coward. I wanted to hurt Arthur, but I wasn't
brave enough to do it myself.”

The judge pressed the heels of his hands to his temples and laced his fingers over
his head as if to keep the facts from escaping. “Just a minute here, Mr. Philbrick.
Are you asking me to believe that you actually expected to shoot a gun from her hand
without harming her? And from the shadowed wings of a packed theater? It seems to
me such a feat would have required an extraordinarily steady aim.”

“I know it sounds unlikely. But in my younger days I was part of a troupe of traveling
entertainers—magicians, acrobats, jugglers, and the like. My specialty was trick
shooting.” Mr. Philbrick shrugged. “In the war I was a sharpshooter. General Johnson
once told me I was the best shot in the whole army. But that night at the theater,
I missed my target and hit Mr. Sterling instead.”

The judge shook his head. “And you let Miss Hartley take the blame.”

“I never thought a jury would convict someone as famous as Miss Hartley. I thought
she'd get off, and no one would be the wiser.”

“Why confess now?” the judge asked.

Mr. Philbrick crossed the room and took Laura's hand. “I already told you why.”

Philip looked ashen.

“Philip?” Laura looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “There's something
else you deserve to know.”

He held up both hands, palms out. “I think I've had all the revelations I can take
for one day.”

She shook her head, and the feathers on her hat fluttered. “Judging from the extraordinary
measures you took to defend Miss Hartley and keep her from sentencing, it's something
you'll be glad to know.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “All right. Let's have it.”

“I'm not your wife.” She dropped her gaze. “I never was.”

C
HAPTER
24

J
UDGE
B
ARTLETT FROWNED
. “W
ELL
, M
RS
. S
INCLAIR
, that's quite a statement, but let's stick to the topic that brought us here.” He swiveled in his chair to face the trembling theater manager. “Now, Mr. Philbrick, as I understand it, you are admitting to shooting Arthur Sterling.”

“Not intentionally.” Mr. Philbrick licked his lips. “But yes. The fault is wholly
mine.”

“You realize you will be brought before an inquest jury and most likely indicted.”

“I expect so,” Mr. Philbrick muttered.

“Very well.” The judge pointed to Laura. “Don't you go anywhere until the prosecutor
decides what to do with you.”

Philip glanced at Mr. McLendon. “I promised her I'd put in a good word with you in
exchange for her clearing Miss Hartley. After all, the only thing she's really guilty
of is intent. And since Mr. Philbrick has confessed—”

“Mr. McLendon.” Judge Bartlett motioned to the prosecutor, who had listened to the
entire exchange without uttering a word. “You will withdraw all charges against Miss
Hartley and expunge the record.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“The sooner the better.” Philip gathered his papers and rose from his chair. “Thank
you, Judge.”

India slumped in her chair. Her ordeal was over, or nearly so. But her heart ached
for Philip. And what on earth had Laura meant, that she was not really his wife?

“Miss Hartley.” The judge scribbled on some papers as he spoke. “On behalf of all
of us, I apologize for putting you through this. I wouldn't blame you if you never
wanted to set foot in our city again.”

He motioned for an officer to take charge of Mr. Philbrick. Laura Sinclair grabbed
her cloak and reticule and fairly ran from the room, the faint scent of gardenias
lingering in her wake. The others followed, leaving India and Philip alone.

India rummaged in her reticule for a handkerchief and blotted her eyes. She felt
elated and dispirited at once. Now that she was free, she and Philip would go their
separate ways. In time, she would recede into his memory as just another case. He
would forget her. And she must try to forget him. Though at this moment, that seemed
impossible.

Now Philip smiled down at her. “Thank God this nightmare is over.”

“Yes.”

“What will you do now?”

She had never let herself think too much about the future, but now that she had one,
where would she go? What would she do with the rest of her life? Fate had handed
her a second chance. It was up to her to make the most of it. To find some higher
purpose to her days. “I'm not sure. For now, I'm simply grateful that I don't
ever
again have to set foot inside the Chatham County Jail. And it's all down to you.
I can never repay you for all you've done.”

“It was your suspicions about Laura that broke the case.” He picked up his leather
satchel and offered her his arm. “We caught a lucky break. Seeing you go free and
the appropriate perpetrator apprehended is more than enough.”

They left the judge's chambers and started down the hallway to the front entrance.
Through the window, India saw that a crowd was already gathering on the front lawn.
She recognized a couple of the reporters who had covered her trial, and she let
out a disgusted sigh. Half the world made their living off the miseries of the other
half, and there was nothing to be done about it.

“Mrs. Mackay's carriage is waiting,” Philip said. “She and I agreed you'd be better
off at her house than at the hotel.” He gestured toward the street. “It seems the
public's interest in your story hasn't yet waned. Just stick to me, and let me do
the talking. Once they have a statement, they'll go away.”

She clung more tightly to Philip's arm, not wanting to think about tomorrow, when
he would no longer be her protector.

He pushed open the courthouse door, and the crowd surged toward them, shouting a
barrage of questions.

“Miss Hartley, how does it feel to be free?”

“Are you going back on the stage?”

“Miss Hartley, is it true you were in love with Mr. Sterling?”

Philip tightened his grip on her arm. “Miss Hartley and I are both delighted with
the outcome of today's proceedings. It has been a harrowing experience. Now she needs
time to rest. We ask that you respect her privacy.”

“Mr. Sinclair, is it true the woman who testified this morning is your wife?”

“We have nothing more to say. Now please let us pass.”

Philip pushed through the onlookers and helped India into the waiting carriage. She
tucked her skirts around her to make room for him, but he shook his head. “I have
some things to do. Give my best to the Mackays.”

He signaled the driver, and the carriage began to move. India watched him until he
was lost in the crowd. She looked out the carriage window as they drove toward Madison
Square. Palmettos rattled in the wind. A thin shaft of sunlight pierced the gray
morning clouds and glinted off the windows of shops lining the street. Now that she
had come so close to losing her freedom, every small detail of this ordinary morning
took on new significance. Perhaps one day, this feeling would fade, but for now,
she relished every sight and sound. Every breath felt like a gift.

The carriage drew to a stop. The driver helped her alight. Looking up, she saw movement
at the window. The door opened before she had mounted the steps.

Celia Mackay, dressed in a simple forest-green day dress, clasped both of India's
hands. “You're here, so I suppose that must mean Philip has won your freedom.”