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

The first act finished and the lights were dimmed. I was becoming stiff and tired up here, but obviously I couldn’t get down for another hour. Were there to be no more ghostly appearances, I wondered, now that Miss Lovejoy had won over her audience and assured a sold-out house?

The second act got started. We came to a scene when the girls are onstage alone. It was a naughty song about how they would like to dance the cancan at the Moulin Rouge. At the end of it, the girls line up to do a high-kicking number in their underwear. Very risqué. I was enjoying the absolute symmetry of their line when suddenly something went flying down onto the stage. It struck the girl on the end of the line on the head, knocking her to the stage with a sickening thud. The girl beside her was pulled down to her knees. There were screams from the girls onstage as well as from the audience. The orchestra faltered as male actors rushed onto the stage. They lifted the thing off the girl and turned her over. It was Lily.

“Is there a doctor in the house? Somebody call a doctor!” someone was yelling.

I had just started to climb down when I thought I saw a flash of movement, high on the wall on the other side of the stage. Did I dare to try and cross the catwalk? I didn’t have the nerve, and besides, I didn’t want to confront any kind of adversary at this height. I climbed down as quickly as I could. As my foot hit the bottom step I was grabbed.

“Got ya. This is the one who done it,” one of the stagehands shouted. “I caught her coming down.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I was up there spying for Miss Lovejoy. Besides, whatever it was that dropped, fell from the other side of the stage. Now let go of me and let’s see if we can catch the person that did it. Come on. Follow me.”

He did, unwillingly. We rushed around the back of the set.

“Did anybody climb down from any of the ladders over here?” I demanded of the stagehands who were standing looking shocked.

“Nobody.”

“Then I suggest some of you go up there and look for the one who did this. He or she will still be hiding up there.”

Again they did as I said, looking at each other uncertainly.

I turned to see the scene onstage. The curtain had been brought down. There was a buzz of anxiety from the audience. A group of people were kneeling or standing around Lily. I could now see that the object that had fallen was a sandbag, one of those used to secure the backdrops when they are hauled up into the flies.

“She’s dead,” I heard somebody say. “It must have broken her neck.”

Then I saw Blanche Lovejoy. She was standing there with a look of utter horror on her face. She had turned so pale that her face was almost green. I had seen her when the lemonade had been thrown over her, when the pillar had fallen, and she had looked shaken each time. Now I realized that she had been acting before. That had been stage fear. This was the real thing. Blanche Lovejoy was terrified.

All around me I could hear whispers about the ghost, quiet sobbing. I stepped out onto the stage. “Somebody call the police,” I said.

“The police? No, not the police,” Blanche said quickly. “This was either the work of the ghost or a horrible accident. Somebody left a sandbag balanced in the wrong place or a rope broke. And it couldn’t have been aimed at me this time. I wasn’t even onstage in that scene.” She sounded hysterical.

“Someone’s been killed. The police need to investigate,” I said. “If you don’t call them, I’ll do so myself.”

“What are you doing here, anyway? I fired you,” she said.

“Keeping an eye on you, Miss Lovejoy. Making sure you stayed safe.”

“And I did, didn’t I?” She put a hand to her mouth. “It was poor dear little Lily . . .”

I left the stage, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Lily, the one who couldn’t always be trusted to keep her mouth shut, who had made some interesting hints that she knew something . . . I started to climb the stairs from backstage to the dressing rooms. It had just occurred to me that maybe there was a walkway around the wall that led straight to the upper level without crossing the backstage area at all. It had also occurred to me that certain people were in the theater but not onstage when the accidents happened. People I had overlooked because they were so unlikely.

I ran along the narrow hallway and pushed open the door of the wardrobe room. Madame Eva looked up in surprise, pins sticking from her mouth.

“Whatever is it, my dear?” she asked.

“One of the chorus girls has been killed,” I said. “A sandbag fell on her. You didn’t see anyone in the hallways up here, did you?”

“My dear, I have been trying to fix the costume that had lemonade thrown all over it,” she said. “I haven’t had time to wander around. Poor Miss Lovejoy, she will be desolate.”

I closed the door and ran down the hall to Blanche’s dressing room. Martha looked up as I came in without knocking.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “You don’t just barge in here.”