The Final Curtain

by Gilbert, Morris

  “See anyone?” he questioned.

  “Not a soul. Once I thought I heard a door closing, but I couldn’t be sure.”

  Savage nodded, then winced as pain laced through his head. “Glad you didn’t find him, Dani. Might have been bad.”

  “What happened, Ben?”

  “I got to wondering if I could turn up something, so I came back to give the dressing rooms a going over. I told Stan I’d lock up when I left, and as soon as he was gone, I started prowling around. Didn’t find anything, but I really didn’t expect to. Then I got a feeling that somebody was watching me. I’ve had it a time or two. So I tried to sneak up on whoever it was. But looks like he did better than I did.”

  “Did you get a look at him?”

  “Not really. I was cat-footing along, and I glimpsed some sort of movement to my right. Tried to move away, but he nailed me.” An odd light came into his eyes, and he said thoughtfully, “Takes a pretty good guy to do that to me, Boss. I may have lost a step—but this guy is pretty good! Well, I went out like a light. Next thing I knew, you were cuddling me in your lap.”

  Dani ignored that, asking, “What was he doing, do you think?”

  “Nothing good,” Savage grunted. He got to his feet, swayed slightly, then ordered, “We’ll have to check everything. And we’ll have to find out who has an alibi.”

  “That’ll be hard, Ben.” Dani sighed. “We can’t just demand that they tell us what they did after they left the theater.”

  “No, I guess not. But we can check around, see if he’s left any little goodies.”

  “I’ll help,” Dani offered quickly. “But what are we looking for?”

  “Don’t know. Anything that looks out of place. First thing, we’ll go over all the props.”

  Together they went through every item in the prop room, but found nothing unusual. Dani watched as Savage checked the ropes and cables that moved the overhead scenery, but that, too, seemed perfectly in order. Finally, in desperation, they wandered around the stage, randomly looking at objects and props.

  Finally Savage said in disgust, “I can’t find a thing out of place.”

  “Maybe you scared him off before he could do anything.”

  “Maybe.” He got to his feet. “We’ll have to let Goldman know about this.”

  Dani nodded and followed him as he left the stage. As they passed the prop room, she paused, wondering.

  “What’s the matter?” Savage asked.

  “I don’t know,” she murmured. Struggling with some vague idea, she answered slowly, “Something was different about one of the props.”

  “Let’s have another look,” he said at once. They went to the prop room, and Dani let her eyes run over everything. “Anything ring a bell?” he asked.

  Dani was about to shake her head when her eyes fell on a package. “That’s it, Ben,” she told him. “The package I give to Jonathan in the second act.” She moved to pick it up and studied it. “It looks just the same but—” She looked at him. “It’s heavier than I remembered.”

  “Give it to me,” he ordered at once and took it from her. “We’ll let the police lab check it out.” He turned, and the two of them went to the spot where he had been knocked down. Suddenly he stopped, bent over and picked something up.

  “What is it?” Dani asked.

  “Dunno.” Handing her a small item, he questioned, “Ever see anything like this?”

  After looking at it carefully, Dani said, “Yes.” Her mind ran back to the last time she had seen such an object. “It’s a dove lapel pin. Christians wear them sometimes.”

  “How’d it get here?” he wondered.

  Dani shook her head, not wanting to speak. Finally she had to admit, “The last time I saw a pin like this, it was on Tom Calvin’s lapel. He—he wears one like it a lot.”

  Savage gave her a keen look. “He could have lost it anytime, I guess.”

  Dani nodded, but suggested, “Let’s go tell Goldman.”

  Neither of them said anything until they left the theater. They got into Ben’s car, and as he started the engine, she admitted, “I guess Tom Calvin is last on my list of suspects, Ben.”

  “You really like the guy, don’t you?”

  “He’s nice. I can’t believe he’d kill anyone.”

  Savage touched the accelerator, sending the car leaping forward to catch a green light. “Maybe this one will turn out all right,” he comforted her. But a thin edge of doubt in his voice depressed Dani, and she didn’t speak again.

  11

  Nero Checks Out

  * * *

  Goldman looked down at the paper, then glanced across his desk at Dani and Ben. “The package had a bomb inside,” he told them. “Plastic job. Anyone opening that package would have gotten creamed.”

  “Any prints?” Dani asked quickly.

  “No—and not much hope of tracing any of the components. Most of it was standard stuff—he knew what he was doing, all right. He knew something about demolitions.”

  It was early, and a rare, bright sunshine broke through the single window in the lieutenant’s office. Dani had spoken to him on the phone, then taken the package by the station. She had not slept well, and the yellow sunshine did nothing to cheer her up. “It was meant for Jonathan Ainsley, Jake. In the play, I give him the package, and he opens it up. It’s in the second act.”

  “What’s inside?” Goldman asked. “I mean when the bomb’s not there.”

  “A silk scarf,” Dani said. “Usually it weighs almost nothing.”

  Ben put in suddenly, “I wrap the scarf up after every performance. Part of my job.”

  Goldman considered him, then asked dryly, “But not this time?”

  “I’d already wrapped it up for the next performance. I always do that.”

  “Then the mysterious slugger who put you down must have done the thing again—took the scarf out and put the bomb inside.”

  “It has to be that way,” Dani interjected. “And it could have worked, too!” She bit her lip, thinking of the horrifying alternative. “Would the bomb have hurt me, Jake? I am no more than four or five feet away when Jonathan opens it.”

  “Dunno.” He shrugged. “My guess is that you might get hurt—but Ainsley would take the worst of it.”

  “Did you tell him about the bomb, Jake?” Dani asked.

  “Yes. He was pretty shook up—or seemed to be,” Goldman said. “I told him again he ought to call the play off, but he just insisted there was too much riding on it. Guess you two ought to ask for a bonus. You sure saved his bacon, which I pointed out to him.”

  Dani shook her head. “No, Jake, in a way it was blind luck. If Ben hadn’t been around to get in the killer’s way, we’d never have suspected a thing. Ainsley would have been killed tonight at about nine-thirty.” She got to her feet, walked nervously to the window, and stared down at the street below. She turned, complaining, “This thing is so complex! Almost everybody in the cast has a motive—and most of them have the opportunity for murder. But nothing hangs together.”

  “Let’s go over it one more time,” Goldman suggested. “First, Ainsley almost gets run down by a car, then somebody takes a shot at him. Of course, that’s all on his say-so. Nobody actually saw that going on. Any one of the cast could have pulled both those little stunts.”

  “Exactly!” Dani nodded, her black hair stirring as she jerked her head. “But then the real thing—Amber’s murder. What about the store, the one Ben found the receipt on, what was it?”

  “Empire Sporting Goods,” Goldman reminded her. “Nothing doing—at least for now. The clerk our man talked to said he was busy that day. They were having a sale on ammunition.” He shook his head grimly. “Isn’t that wonderful? The one day we need to check somebody, the store has a sale! Our man said that the clerk was pretty up-tight about cops for some reason, but he couldn’t shake him. Not much to hope for there.”

  “So—anyone could have put the real slugs in the thirty-eight.” Dani pondered
that. “But it’s Jonathan who’s been threatened. Why kill Amber?”

  “Two reasons,” Goldman answered. “One, somebody wanted to kill the LeRoi woman for reasons having nothing to do with Jonathan Ainsley and the play. Any ideas?”

  Dani hesitated, trying to decide whether to tell what she’d heard from Sir Adrian. Finally she said, “I don’t think it means anything, but Sir Adrian had his trouble with her.”

  “Heard about that,” commented Goldman. “She put him through the hoops, didn’t she?”

  “Oh, it was a long time ago, Jake!”

  “So what? Sometimes that makes it worse. I mean, when a man can’t get rid of something like that, it starts to fester.”

  “I suppose we have to count Lockridge in,” Ben agreed. “But what about Ainsley himself? It would be a pretty cute way to get rid of excess baggage. And he made it pretty clear that’s what he felt about Amber LeRoi. Everybody heard him say he wished she was dead.”

  “He was just talking,” Dani objected.

  “Maybe, but the man sort of loses it from time to time,” Ben observed. “But let’s say Amber told Ainsley that her sugar daddy who was footing the bill for the play was about to pull out. Then he gets the idea of using the gun with live ammo to knock her off. Who’s going to believe he did it deliberately? Even you don’t believe that, do you, Jake?”

  “It’d be a hard thing to prove in court, the district attorney says,” Goldman admitted. “But I’m not ruling it out.” He shifted in his chair. “It’s that blasted chandelier thing that bugs me!”

  “Me, too,” Dani chimed in. “I guess because it was aimed at Lyle. Nero hates him, but Nero was standing not five feet away from me when it happened. He couldn’t have cut that rope!”

  “That bothers me, too,” Goldman agreed. Reaching to his left, he pulled open a cabinet door and removed a paper bag. “Here it is,” he said, taking out the rope. I’ve looked at it so much I can’t even think about it. Either one of you see anything at all funny about it?”

  Dani took the rope and stared at the end carefully. “It’s just a cut rope,” she contended. “The only thing is that it’s not exactly a clean cut.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said quickly. “Half of it is a clean cut, but the other side is sort of frayed. But that could be explained by the weight of the chandelier.”

  “I see what you mean.” Goldman nodded. “The knife sliced through the rope cleanly for the first half; then the weight of that big lamp just snapped the rest of the strands.” He stared at it, shook his head, then added, “I guess it could be. I’ll run it by the lab again, but they won’t be much help.”

  “Remember, it was Jonathan who shoved Lyle out of the way of that chandelier,” Dani put in.

  “He said he couldn’t tell if it was falling right on top of him or Lyle Jamison,” Goldman reminded her. “Anyway, once we’ve crossed those two off the list, everybody else is accounted for. You were close to Nero, so he couldn’t have cut the rope. We’ve talked to everybody in the cast. None of them was alone when the thing fell.”

  “I keep remembering what Sherlock Holmes said to Dr. Watson.” Dani smiled grimly. “‘If everything that seems possible will not explain the circumstances, Watson, you must look to all that remains—the impossible.’ Which in this case would be the Phantom of the Theater the tabloids are having such fun with.”

  “It might be an outsider,” Ben noted doubtfully. “But I can’t see how. It’s a small world back behind that curtain. Anybody who doesn’t belong would be spotted at once. No, it has to be an inside job.”

  “I think you’re right, Savage.” Goldman took a folder from the cabinet. “Here are the letters. Not much for us there. No prints at all.”

  Dani studied the letters carefully. “I wish Jonathan had kept the first threats. Did you ask him if they were like these two?”

  “Said he thought so.” Goldman asked suddenly, “Why would the killer use two different styles? The first two typed, the others made of words glued on paper?”

  “I’ve wondered about that,” Dani told him. “And there’s more than that. Something’s different about the style—the way he says things. Look—the first two notes are pretty straightforward.” She read the first note aloud: “‘Ainsley—I am going to destroy you. A man such as you doesn’t deserve to live. You have ruined my life, so now I do not propose to let you live. You escaped this morning, but you cannot escape forever.’” She tossed it on the desk, admitting the other note was pretty much the same. “But as you say, the physical appearance is different, letters glued on paper. But what comes to me is the difference in style.”

  “How do you mean, Danielle?” Goldman demanded.

  Dani read the note aloud: “‘You have chosen to ignore my warnings. Now it is put out the light, and then put out the light. You owe God a death. You have twenty-four hours to live.’”

  “What’s all that stuff about putting out the light?” Goldman asked.

  “It’s from Othello, and the part about owing God a death is from one of the history plays of Shakespeare, Henry IV.” She picked up the third sheet and read it to them: “‘Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.’ That’s from Julius Caesar. ‘If the play goes on, a life goes out. Members of the cast, will you die for a monster like Jonathan Ainsley? One of you certainly will have a “final curtain” if the play goes on!’”

  “So the last two have lines from Shakespeare, and the first two don’t,” Goldman said slowly.

  “Yes, but I was with Jonathan when he got the first ones.” She narrowed her eyes, thinking about it. Slowly she added, “He literally slumped down, almost fainted! It really hit him hard. And the last one affected him just as badly. Every time he almost passed out.”

  “He didn’t take on so about the first notes.” Ben nodded. “Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “Well, we weren’t there when he got them,” Dani admitted. “But when he told us of them, he treated them much more lightly.”

  “Can’t make anything of that in court,” Goldman said. “The man’s an actor, isn’t he? He can put on any front he wants to. The only hope is to find the typewriter that these first two were typed on or the magazines that the words were clipped from for these two.”

  “Small chance of that, I guess,” Ben muttered. “I can’t think of a single case where that ever happened.” He gave Dani a queer glance, then asked, “What about the pin?”

  “The pin comes from a Christian organization called the Overcomers,” Goldman said. Removing the pin from an envelope, he stared at it. “They give them out by the handfuls, they tell me. They also said that Tom Calvin is a member.”

  “Oh, yes.” Dani nodded. “He wears one of those most of the time. I think it’s sort of a test for him. It’s a pretty worldly bunch, so he wears it to make a statement about being a Christian.”

  “Any other Christians in the cast?” Goldman asked.

  “Well, just me.”

  “He could have dropped it anytime,” Goldman decided. “But we’ll have to consider it. I’ll go see him, try to find out where he was at the time you were getting your brains scrambled, Savage. Well, that’s all.”

  Dani left the office with Ben, but he got in his car and drove away, saying little. For a little while Dani roved the streets, taking in the huge canyons created by the towering skyscrapers. Then she decided to have a talk with the clerk at Empire Sporting Goods. It meant a taxi ride, and as usual, she felt that she was overcharged, but in less than half an hour, she was entering the store.

  It was a fairly large store, packed with weight machines, football equipment, skin-diving gear, and just about every other sort of equipment. She made her way to the gun department, in one corner of the store. A thin young man with a bad complexion was just concluding a sale. He handed a package to a man in thick, rubber-soled boots, saying, “Hey, you’re gonna like this little number, Mr. Meyer. Appreciate your business!”

  He turned to Dani. “Help you, miss?”


  “I need a little information,” she tossed at him quickly. She decided not to use her shield, mostly because Goldman had said the clerk was hostile to policemen. Giving him a warm smile, she explained, “I have a friend who’s having a problem—a pretty serious one. The police are mixed up in it.”

  His face went stiff, and she knew that she had the right man. “Well, I try to stay as far away from the cops as I can,” she added.

  “You got that right, lady!” the clerk agreed. “Hey, is this about the thirty-eight shells? A cop was in here yesterday, tryin’ to pump me.”

  “I guess so. There was some trouble, and the law is trying to pin it on my friend. So what I need to do is talk to whoever made the sale.”

  The clerk hesitated, then leaned forward. “That’d be Benny Allen,” he whispered. “I didn’t tell that to the cops, though. I don’t tell them nuttin’!”

  Dani said quickly, “Me neither! So can I talk to Benny?”

  “Naw, he ain’t here. He won a trip to London couple of weeks ago. He left day before yesterday.”

  Dani let the disappointment show in her face. “Oh, I wish I could have talked to him before he left. When do you think he’ll be back?”

  “Next Wednesday. I know, ’cause I’m havin’ to work double time while he’s gone.” He gave a quick look around, and grew confidential. “I think Benny told me about the thirty-eight shells though.”

  “Really!”

  “Yeah, I think so. We get all kinds in here, but Benny said this customer was kind of strange. Said she didn’t know beans about guns.”

  Surprise that it had been a woman kept Dani from answering. She’d almost stepped out of her role again!

  After giving her an odd look, the clerk went on, “Benny said she came in looking sort of—well, guilty, you know. Like she was doin’ something wrong. Benny said, ‘She acted like she was gettin’ the ammo to knock somebody off.’”

  “Did Benny say what she looked like? I want to be sure it is my friend.”

  “Naw. We didn’t talk about it much. He just mentioned it as he was leaving to catch the plane.” The man leaned forward, and curiosity sharpened his eyes. “Sounds like your friend’s got big trouble, huh?”