“Not from the chorus; they were principals,” Masakowski returned. “You remember the last episode, ‘The Death of a Yogi’? Where, after thunder and lightning and tempest fail to rouse the ascetic from his contemplation Siva appears and summons the snake-queen to put her spell on him? Julia and Riccarda take the part of Siva. It’s no cinch for two people to be as perfectly synchronized in movement as those girls are—the illusion they give of a single body with four arms is perfect, and took a lot of rehearsing. With them out of the show we’ll have a tough time getting on, and we can’t cut out that number—it’s the hit of the piece.”
“And have you no understudies for them?”
Masakowski ran a thin, artistically long hand through thick, artistically long hair. “That’s just the trouble,” he almost wailed. “Toni’s understudied Julia, and we’ve another girl who can fill in with the second pair of arms—but they won’t act. They say there’s a jinx on the part and absolutely refuse to go on. And I can’t rehearse another pair of girls in time for the evening show, so—”
“Mademoiselle Toni?” de Grandin interrupted. “She is here, perhaps?”
“Yes, she’s here, all right, but—”
“Très bon. Me, I shall see her, talk with her, persuade her. I have the influence with that young lady.”
“Yeah?” The manager was unimpressed. “Get her to take that part tonight and I’ll give you and your friend season passes to any seats in the house
“Agreed, by blue!” the little Frenchman answered with a smile, and led the way backstage where electricians, performers and stage hands discussed the tragedy of the preceding night in the quaint jargon of their kind.
“HOLà MADEMOISELLE; COMMENT ALLEZ-VOUS?” de Grandin hailed Miss Fisk with a smile.
“Oh, good morning,” the girl returned. “Awful about Monsoor Orloff, ain’t it?”
“Deplorable,” agreed the Frenchman, “but if the so superb performance should cease on that account, the calamity would be complete. It rests entirely on your charming shoulders, Mademoiselle.”
“Huh?” She eyed him with quick suspicion; then, satisfied that he was serious: “How d’ye mean?”
He motioned her away from her companions before replying, then whispered, “Monsieur the Manager tells me you will not consent to do the dance of Siva—”
“I’ll tell the cock-eyed world I won’t!” she broke in vehemently. “Some one’s hung the Indian sign on that job, and I ain’t askin’ for nothin’ bul-lieve you me. First Félicie and Daphné take a powder on us; then this morning, right after Monsoor Orloff dies, Riccarda, and Julia turn up missing. Now they want me to take it on. Not much!”
“Mille pardons, Mademoiselle,” de Grandin answered in bewilderment, “what is it that you say concerning Mesdemoiselles Daphné and Félicie? They took a remedy? No, I do not comprehend.”
A little, gurgling laugh forced itself between the girl’s pretty, brightly painted lips. Then, with sudden seriousness, she explained: “A month ago, when the show was having its tryout up in Bridgeport, Old Orloff got some sort o’ note that scared him speechless. None of us knew just what it was, but he was like a feller with the finger on him—tore his hair—or went through the motions, rather, seeing he was bald as a skinned onion, and swore some enemy was out to wreck the show.
“Well, anyhow, he was more scared than a cat at a dog show for the next four days; then, when nothin’ happened, he kind o’ cooled down. But you should ’a’ seen him when Daphné and Félicie quit us without notice. You’d ’a’ thought—”
“Quit? How?” he cut in.
“How? Just quit, that’s all. They left the theater Sat’day night and never showed up again. None o’ us have heard a word from either of ’em. Unless”—she halted, and a shiver, as though from sudden chill, ran through her scantily clad, exquisite form—“unless that statue—” Again that odd, half-frightened halt in speech, again a shudder of repulsion.
“The statue, Mademoiselle?” de Grandin prompted as she made no move to finish.
“Sure, that’s another dam’ funny thing about this business, Doctor. We’d just struck this burg—city, I mean—when an express van backs up to the theater with that statue all crated up, and addressed to Monsoor Orloff. There was an anomonous note with it, too.”
“An anomonous—” de Grandin began questioningly, then: “Ah, mais oui, one apprehends. And this ‘anomonous’ message, Mademoiselle; it said what, if you remember?”
“It sounded kind o’ nutty to me; sumpin about some sculptor havin’ seen the show in Bridgeport and fallen ravishin’ly in love with the Dance o’ Siva, or some such nonsense, and how he’d set up day and night chiselin’ out a representation o’ the divine pantomime, or sumpin, and wouldn’t Monsoor Orloff please accept this token of an anomonous admirer and well-wisher, or sumpin like that.
“Old Orloff—Monsoor Orloff, I mean—was pleased as Punch with it and had it set up in the lobby. It’s out there now, I guess, but I don’t know. The thing always gave me the creeps—it looks so much like Daphné, and every time I went past it, it seemed like she was somewhere tryin’ to tell me sumpin, and couldn’t, so I just quit lookin’ at it.
“Now Julia and Riccarda have vanished into thin air, as the feller says, just like Daphné and Félicie, and I should take Daphné’s place? I—guess—not! My mother didn’t raise any half-wit children.”
De Grandin gave his small mustache a soft, affectionate pat, then twisted its twin needle-points with such sudden savagery that I feared he’d tear them loose from his face. “Mademoiselle,” he asked abruptly, “you are Irish, are you not?”
“Yes, of course; but what’s that got to do with it?”
“Much; everything, perhaps. Your people see much farther through the mysteries of life—and death—than most. Will you await us here? We would examine this statue which affects you so unpleasantly.”
THE STATUE OF SIVA stood upon a three-foot onyx pedestal in the theater’s main lobby, and represented a slender, graceful four-armed female figure seated cross-legged, feet drawn up so far that they rested instep-down upon the bent thighs, soles upward. A pair of arms which grew naturally from the shoulders were bent at obtuse angles, thumbs and fingers daintily joined, as though holding a pinch of powder. Immediately below these arms there sprang from the axillæ a second pair of limbs, which extended outward to right and left, the right hand clasping what appeared to be a wand tipped by an acorn, the left hand cupped, a twisting flame of fire rising from its hollowed palm. Upon its head was set a seven-spindled crown. The head was slightly bent, eyes closed, a look of brooding calm upon the small, regular features. The whole thing was executed in some smooth, black, gleaming substance—whether lacquered bronze, ebony or stained and varnished plaster I could not say—and the workmanship was exquisitely fine, even the tiny lines in the palms of the hands and soles of the feet and the scarcely perceptible serrations in the lips being represented with a faithfulness exactly reproducing nature. Save for a gem-studded collar, armlets, bracelets and anklets, the form was nude, but the gently swelling breasts were so slim and youth-like as almost to suggest a being of a neuter gender, a form endowed with grace, charm and beauty, yet sexless as an angel of the Apocalypse.
De Grandin walked slowly round the sculptured figure, examining it critically. “By blue,” he murmured, “he was no jerry-workman, the one who made this thing. But no, his technique, it is—cordieu, my friend, I think it too perfect!”
Vaguely, I understood his criticism. No connoisseur of art, I was yet aware of some subtle difference between the life-sized effigy before us and other works of sculpture. Other statues I had seen suggested life, action or emotion, expressing their themes through representation rather than through reproduction. This thing was no simulacrum of humanity, it was humanity’s own self, complete to the tiniest, faintest anatomical detail, and differed from other statuary as a bald and literal photograph differs from a portrait done in oils. Something not to be defined, somet
hing which impressed no physical sense, yet which impressed me sharply, repulsed me as I looked upon the statue.
“Morbleu!” the little Frenchman’s sharp ejaculation brought me back from the thoughtful mood into which I’d lapsed. “Les mouches, my friend, do you see them?”
“Eh?” I asked. “Mouches—flies? Where?”
“There, cordieu!” he answered in a low, hard whisper. “See, regard, observe them, if you will.” His slender, well-manicured forefinger pointed dramatically to several tiny inert forms lying on the polished plinth on which the statue sat. They were a half-dozen common houseflies, still and dead, some turned back-down, some lying on their sides.
“Well?” I asked wonderingly.
“Well be baked and roasted on the grates of hell!” he answered shortly. “Your nose, my friend, can you use it? What is it that you smell?” Seizing me by the neck he thrust my face forward so violently that I thought he’d bruise my nose against the statue’s polished, ebon surface. “Smell, smell—smell it, mordieu!” he commanded angrily.
Obediently I contracted my nostrils in a sniff, then wrenched loose from his grip. “Why, it smells like—like formalin,” I muttered.
“‘Smells like formalin’?” he mimicked. “Grand Dieu des porcs, it is formalin, great stupid-head! What does it here?”
“Why—” I began, but:
“Parbleu, yes; you have said it—why?” he interrupted. “Why and double why, my friend. That is the problem we are set to solve.”
Drawing a letter from his jacket he emptied the envelope, swept the defunct insects into it and placed it tenderly in his waistcoat pocket. “Now for Mademoiselle Hélène,” he announced, leading the way backstage once more.
“Mademoiselle,” he whispered when the girl, obedient to his beckoning finger, joined us in a secluded corner, “you must go on tonight. You and Mademoiselle Dorothée must impersonate the Great God Siva at tonight’s performance. I—”
“Says you,” the girl broke in. “Listen, I’m not takin’ any chances with that part. Last night some darn fool was whistlin’ in his dressing-room, and you know how unlucky for the show that is—I know it; didn’t I like to get choked to death as I was leavin’ the theater? This morning, on my way here, I ran head-on into a cross-eyed man, and a black-cat an’ two kittens crossed my path just as I turned into the alley to the stage door. Think I’m goin’ to take on that hoodoo part with all them signs against me? Not much! Four girls who did that Siva dance before have disappeared. How do I know what’s happened to ’em? Who knows—”
“I do!” de Grandin’s interruption was sharp as cutting steel. “I can say what their fate was—they were murdered!”
“My Gawd!” Amazement, incredulity, but, strangely, little fear, showed in the girl’s startled face.
“Perfectly, Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle Niki and Monsieur Orloff, they were murdered too, if not by the same hand, undoubtlessly by the same gang.
“Attend me—” His voice was low, scarcely above a whisper, but freighted with such authority that the girl forbore to interrupt, though we saw curiosity pressing at her lips like water at a straining dam when the freshets swell the streams in springtime. “I have every reason to believe these deaths and disappearances were due to a campaign of murder and intimidation subtly planned and craftily carried out by a quartet of the shrewdest criminals which the world has ever seen,” he continued. “I tell you this because I think you can be trusted.
“Furthermore, Mademoiselle, because I think you have the courage of your splendid Irish race I ask that you will do this dance tonight; perhaps tomorrow night, and several nights thereafter. The miscreants who murdered Mesdemoiselles Niki, Félicie and Daphné, who killed Monsieur Orloff and also doubtless did away with Julia and Riccarda, will unquestionably attempt your life if you perform this dance. For your protection you have only Jules de Grandin and le bon Dieu; yet it is only by luring them to attack you that we may hope to apprehend them and make them pay the penalty for their misdeeds. I do not minimize the danger, though Heaven, especially when it has Jules de Grandin as ally, is mighty to protect the innocent. Will you accept the risk? Will you help us in our aim to fulfil justice?”
For a long moment Helen Fisk looked at him as though he were a total stranger. Then, gradually, a look of hard determination came into her face, a stiffening in her softly molded chin, a hardening in her eyes of Irish blue. “I’ll do it,” she agreed. “Gawd knows my teeth’ll be chatterin’ so’s I can’t say my Hail Marys, but I’ll take it on. If it’s the only way to get the scum that did in Félicie and Daphné, I’m game to try, but I’ll be so scared—”
“Not you; I know your kind; you will laugh at danger—” de Grandin told her but:
“Yeh, I’ll laugh at it, all right—from the teeth out!” Miss Fisk cut in.
“N’importe; that you do laugh at all is all that matters,” he assured her. “Mademoiselle, je vous salue!” He bent his sleek, blond head, and a quick flush mounted Helen Fisk’s cheeks as for the first time in her life she felt a man’s lips on her fingers.
HE WAS BUSY IN the laboratory most of the afternoon, and when he finally emerged he wore a faintly puzzled look upon his face. “It was formalin, beyond a doubt.” he announced, “but why? It are most puzzling.”
“What is?” I asked.
“The manner of those flies’ demise. I have examined their so small corpses, and all are filled with formaldehyde. Something lured them to that sacré effigy of Siva, and there they met their death—died before one could pronounce the so droll name of that Monsieur Jacques Robinson—and died by formalin poisoning. The statue, too, as you can testify, gave off the perfume of formaldehyde, but why should it be so?”
“Hanged if I know,” I answered. “It’s really a most remarkable piece of work, that statue. Some one with an uncanny gift for sculpture must have seen that dance and have been so inspired by it that he made the thing and gave it to poor Orloff, but—”
“Quite yes, that is the story we have heard,” he acquiesced, “but has it not the smell of fish upon it? Artists, I know, are not wont to hide their light beneath a bushel-basket. But no. Rather, they will seek for recognition till it wearies you. Why, then, should a man with talent such as this one had seek anonymity? Such modesty rings counterfeit, my friend.”
“Well,” I temporized, “vanity takes strange forms, you know, sometimes—”
“Vanity, ha! Tu parles, mon ami!” With a sudden dramatic gesture he struck both hands against his temples. “Oh, Jules de Grandin, thou great stupid-head, how near they came to giving you the little fish of April, even as they did to poor, dead Orloff! But no, you are astute, shrewd, clever, mon brave, they shall not make the monkey out of you!
“Au ’voir, my friend,” he flung across his shoulder as he hurried from the room, “I have important duties to perform. Be sure you’re at the theater on time. A spectacle not upon the program will be shown tonight, unless I greatly miss my guess!”
TRYING TO LOOK AS unself-conscious as possible—and succeeding very poorly—Detective Sergeant Jeremiah Costello, star sleuth of the Harrisonville police force and bosom friend of Jules de Grandin, strolled back and forth across the theater lobby, his obviously seldom-used dinner clothes occasioning him more than a little embarrassment. Here and there amid the fashionable audience hurrying toward the ticket-taker’s gate I descried other plainclothes men, all equally uncomfortable in formal clothes, but all alert, keen-eyed, watchful of every face among the crowd. The effigy of Siva, I noted, had been taken from the lobby.
Backstage, uniformed men mounted guard at every vantage-point. It would have been impossible for anyone not known to have gone ten feet toward dressing-rooms or wings without being challenged. Outside in the alley by the stage door a patrolman supplemented the guardianship of the regular watchman, and a limousine was parked across the alleyway, a uniformed policeman in the tonneau, another perched alertly in the cab beside the chauffeur.
The show began
as usual, spectacle followed spectacle, each in turn being hailed with tumultuous applause. When “The Death of a Yogi” was presented we watched breathless as Helen Fisk and her partner did the sitting dance of Siva and the daughter of Kadru lured the young ascetic’s soul from out his body with her venomed Judas-kiss.
“Well, so far everything’s all right,” I congratulated as the purple curtains drew together before the stage, but de Grandin cut my optimistic statement short.
“Will you observe them, my friend?” he whispered jubilantly, driving his sharp elbow into my ribs. “Parbleu, do they not look as sad as the stones in the road?”
Up the center aisle, with anger, something like chagrin upon their swarthy faces, came the same trio we had noted on the previous occasion. With them, whispering excitedly to the slender, light-hued man, was a short, thick-set, bearded ruffian, impeccable in evening dress, but plainly out of place in Occidental clothes. He was black as any negro out of Africa, but his straight, black hair and curling beard, parted in the center, and the wild, fanatic rolling of his bloodshot eyes labeled him an Asiatic, and one habituated to the use of opium or hashish, I guessed.
“A little while ago he rose and left the others,” de Grandin whispered with a chuckle. “When he went out he looked for all the world like Madame Puss intent on dining on canary-bird; when he returned, parbleu, he made me think of a small dog who creeps back to his master with his tail between his legs. The gendarmes we had set on watch had spoiled his fun completely!”
CONVOYED BY POLICEMEN, THE members of the Issatakko troupe left the theater, their guardians staying with them till their doors were safely locked. “Now, I’m afther thinkin’ we can go to bed, sors?” Costello asked as he reported all the actors had been safely taken home.
“There is a guard at Mademoiselle Hélène’s house?” de Grandin asked.
“There is that, sor,” the sergeant answered. “I’ve got a felly on patrol in th’ street, an another in th’ alley at th’ back. I’m thinkin’ it’ll be a dam’ smart man as gits into that young lady’s house tonight widout a invitation.”
The Dark Angel Page 46