“I don’t want to take your things....” Jane demurred.
“They aren’t mine. They belong to the theater,” Valerie said. “Come on. If you have a minute, I’ll take you to the dressing rooms.”
Jane started and looked at Sloan. She realized that, as he’d hoped, a plan had arisen.
“I’ll come down with you, see what’s there. We’ll need our costumes for tomorrow, so we might as well take care of this now,” he said.
“You’ll both do it!” Henri clapped his hands. “That’s delightful.”
“Come on, then. Let’s go,” Valerie said.
Alice stuffed the last of her sandwich in her mouth and washed it down with water. “Hold on. I’m coming, too.”
They left the bar and entered the theater, walking down the aisle and over to the wings and then the area behind the stage, where the dressing rooms were situated against the back wall.
As they paused at Valerie’s door, Sloan looked at her.
She recognized his silent question. This one?
She shook her head, indicating with a movement of her chin that she’d been in the room next door.
But they went inside Valerie’s, and she rummaged through the racks of period clothing. Jane waited for Sloan to take the lead.
He did. “I was just thinking.... Alice, you’re a little taller than Valerie. I guess it doesn’t have to be exact, but Jane is taller than both of you. Maybe something you have in your dressing room would fit better.”
“Sure,” Alice said, “and if not, we have more in the basement. In storage.”
“Except I’m not going down there,” Valerie insisted.
“Something here should work,” Henri said.
“Might as well try my stuff first,” Alice said. “Because it’s true. We didn’t take Jane’s height into consideration.”
They moved into the next room. As Jane went through the costumes, Alice perched on her dressing-table chair and Valerie leaned against a prop box. Henri seemed interested in her possible choice of costume.
“The blue! That’s a copy of Sage’s costume from The Heiress. That would be great!” he said.
While Jane pulled out the costume and oohed and ahhed over it, Sloan walked to the back of the room.
“Hey, Henri,” he called, kneeling down. “What’s this?”
“Huh?” Henri joined him. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “It’s a big brass pull on the floorboard, I guess.”
“It’s a trapdoor. Where does it lead?”
“Well, it could only lead to the basement—or to more floorboards,” Alice said.
“Do not open it!” Valerie shrieked. “Not if it leads to the basement.”
“It might’ve been a cubby where the old actors and actresses stuffed their valuables,” Alice suggested.
“Or it might’ve been for extra costume pieces, accessories, stuff like that,” Jane murmured.
“Let’s see,” Sloan said.
Jane had never thought of herself as a weakling, so she was glad to see that, at first, it seemed to be sealed tight. But Sloan levered himself against it and pulled harder—and the trapdoor opened.
It didn’t lead to the basement. It led to a dark compartment. Something seemed to glimmer.
Sloan pulled out a flashlight and pointed it down into the hole that was about two feet deep.
Valerie let out a scream. “Didn’t I tell you not to open anything that might lead to the basement!”
“That—that’s not the basement,” Alice said.
“Those are bones!” Valerie wailed. “I’m getting out of here. No, no, I’m not. I’m not going anywhere alone. Oh! Lord, what’s happening in Lily?”
Sloan looked at her. “It’s all right, Valerie. They’ve been here for a very long time. You can see that the fabric—the dress—is nearly decayed. It looks as if a body was left here and it decayed and...it must have smelled like hell. I wonder why someone didn’t find it back then.”
“Oh, how horrible,” Valerie said.
Henri was down on his knees, horrified as he stared into the hole.
“Someone’s found it recently,” he said, a catch in his throat.
“How do you know?” Alice asked.
“Because this body is lacking something it should have,” Henri said.
“What?” Valerie demanded.
“Her head,” Jane said softly.
*
It did seem most likely that someone—playing a trick on the cast at the theater—had found the space beneath the floor, taken out the skull and set it on a wig stand. Despite the fact that he knew the bones had to be as old as the mummified remains discovered in the desert, Sloan called in the county medical examiner to retrieve them.
Alice moved into Valerie’s dressing room for the time being. She’d switch with either Brian or Cy after Silverfest had come and gone.
Once the hoopla over the bones had ended, the afternoon was wearing on and Henri, though pensive, was also eager to get his cast out onto the street to start entertaining the locals.