Tell Me, Pretty Maiden (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #7)

As I alighted from the trolley on Broadway the newsboys were hawking the evening edition of the newspaper. “Read all about it,” a scrawny little chap was shrieking in his high-pitched voice. “Phantom haunts theater. Blanche Lovejoy’s life threatened by theater ghost.”


“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I muttered. It seemed as if Lily had been wined and dined sufficiently to spill the beans last night. I didn’t fancy facing Miss Lovejoy.





EIGHTEEN

I could hear Miss Lovejoy’s strident voice booming through the vast expanse of backstage as I came in through the stage door and signed the book. She had definitely seen the evening papers by the sound of it.

“Trouble tonight, Henry,” I muttered.

He nodded. “She came in with a face fit to curdle cream. If she finds out who let the cat out of the bag then one understudy better be ready to go on tonight. It couldn’t have come at a worst time, with opening night only two days away.”

As I went up the stairs to report to Miss Lovejoy, I encountered her storming down the hallway.

“When I find out, I’ll kill ’em,” she was screaming. She broke off when she saw me. “Oh, it’s you at last, is it? About time you showed up. You’ve seen, I suppose? All over the town. Couldn’t be worse.” She wagged a threatening finger in my face. “Who told the newspapers? I want you to find out which of them it was. I’m paying you to be my detective. You damned well better find out for me.”

“It may not have been anyone in the cast,” I said. “At least not deliberately. There have been reporters hanging around the stage door every night. Perhaps they managed to overhear conversations. The girls were pretty upset when they came out of the theater last night.”

“I suppose so,” she said grudgingly. “But it’s your fault. I thought you’d have found out something by now. I’m paying you to find out whether it really is a ghost that’s haunting me.”

“I’m not a miracle worker,” I said. “I kept my eyes and ears open last night. I ran to investigate as soon as that wind started and nobody was there.”

“So it is a ghost. It has to be a ghost,” she said, giving the most dramatic shuddering sob. “I knew it. The theater is cursed. My play is cursed. I’m ruined, ruined.” She started to walk down the hallway at a great pace. I had to break into a trot to keep up with her. “I should have hired a spiritualist to begin with. Someone who knows how to communicate with spirits. A spiritualist could find out why the ghost hates me so, what I have done that it wants to bring about my ultimate destruction.” Her voice was loud enough to be heard in the back row of the upper balcony. “We should find out who has died recently and died bearing a grudge against me.”

I tapped her on the shoulder as we came to the staircase. “So does that mean you no longer require my services?”

“What?” She turned back to me as if she was surprised to find me there.

“You say you’re going to hire a spiritualist to contact the ghost. So you no longer need me?”

“I suppose I still want you onstage, close to me,” she said. “I need someone to protect me.”

“I can’t protect you from a ghost,” I said. “And I don’t actually believe in ghosts myself. I’d like enough time to prove that your accidents are not caused by a spirit but by a real human who carries a grudge against you.”

“If only that were true.” She clasped her bosom. “But who could that be? Everyone adores me.”

I didn’t mention that half her chorus was not too fond of her, for a start.

“So you want me to go up to Madame Eva for my costume fitting, I take it?”

“Of course. Dress rehearsal at seven, as scheduled. The show must go on.” This was said loudly as several cast members were coming up the stairs. Then in a lower voice she said to me, “But first run down to the stage door and see if a package was delivered to Henry for me.”

I went back down and the package was there. As I carried it up to Blanche’s dressing room I heard the chink of bottles inside. Blanche was obviously going to bolster her confidence with her calming mixture and with bourbon.

Madame Eva must have been a miracle worker. She had a costume more or less finished. It was a black-and-white gingham skirt, a white blouse, and a big black bow to be tied at my neck. I put it on while she clucked and fussed around me, pinning furiously, poking at my lack of a corset and muttering, “Such a large waist. Well, there’s nothing I can do about that.”