A Respectable Actress

by Dorothy Love

  Lucinda, the maid, arrived to serve coffee. When she withdrew, Mrs. Mackay passed sugar and cream. “Are you all right, Miss Hartley? You’re awfully quiet.”

  “I’m all right. A bit tired.”

  “Your room is ready whenever you wish to retire.” Mrs. Mackay placed a hand on India’s arm. “I can only imagine how terrifying this whole thing is for you. If there is anything else at all that we can do for you, promise you’ll let me know.”

  “Thank you. I will.”

  Philip stood. “I should go and let India rest. We’re going to the theater tomorrow to have a look around.”

  “I thought you did that the last time you were in the city.” Mrs. Mackay rang the little silver bell beside her plate, summoning the maid.

  “I did, but India wasn’t with me. It will help to have her take me through the events of the evening in question.” Philip caught India’s eye. “I’ll come for you once the police escort arrives.”

  India looked up, alarmed. She had forgotten this detail.

  “Don’t let his presence rattle you. I want you to take your time and walk me through your movements that evening, just as we discussed.”

  “All right.”

  Philip clasped both of Mrs. Mackay’s hands. “Thank you for a lovely dinner, Celia.”

  “My pleasure. Our house is always open to you.”

  On his way to the front door, he stopped and placed a hand on India’s shoulder. “Try to get some rest.”

  When he had gone, India thanked her hostess, and Lucinda arrived to show India to her room on the second floor. A fire had been laid in the black marble fireplace. The room glowed with golden light.

  It was well appointed, with a view to the back gardens and to an old carriage house that seemed long abandoned, barely visible in the glow of gaslights lining the street. But India was too exhausted to take much notice of the fine linens, the elegant dressing table, and the matching escritoire. She could think only of sleep.

  She changed into her nightdress, washed her face and hands, and brushed her hair.

  “Miss Hartley?” Mrs. Mackay tapped softly on the bedroom door. “Are you still up?”

  In her bare feet, India padded across the room and opened the door.

  “You left your reticule in the parlor,” Mrs. Mackay said, handing it over. “I thought you might want it.”

  “Thank you. I hadn’t even missed it.”

  Mrs. Mackay’s violet eyes swept the room. “Is there anything else you need?”

  “I can’t think of a single thing. It’s been a long time since I slept in such a lovely place.”

  “Sleep as long as you want to in the morning. Frannie and I will be up early to attend morning prayers, but Lucinda will give you breakfast whenever you want it.” Mrs. Mackay paused. “How are you getting on with Mr. Sinclair?”

  “He has been most kind. And I have the greatest confidence in his abilities.” Even if he hadn’t taken seriously her theory about the burned chapel.

  “He seems quite taken with you,” Mrs. Mackay said. “I noticed at supper tonight he hardly took his eyes off you. That’s quite unusual for Philip.” Mrs. Mackay leaned against the door frame, seemingly in no hurry to leave. “He has been widowed for some time, but I think he is afraid that loving someone else would somehow diminish the affection he felt for Laura.”

  India was tempted to ask Mrs. Mackay about Laura Sinclair. Had she been a woman capable of deceit? But somehow, even thinking of such a question felt disloyal to Philip.

  “Of course this is not the time to think of romantic possibilities,” Mrs. Mackay went on. “But I do wish that dear man would fall in love again.” She smiled. “Maybe you are just the woman to dismantle the fortress he has built around that big heart of his. Once this dreadful court business is behind you.”

  “Mama?” Frannie Mackay appeared in the hallway, her dark curls falling into her eyes, a doll tucked under her arm. “You were ’sposed to read to me tonight ’cause Papa isn’t home.”

  “I’ll be right there, darling.” Mrs. Mackay clasped her daughter’s hand. “Good night, Miss Hartley. Sleep well.”

  CHAPTER 17

  JANUARY 29

  BULL STREET WAS CROWDED WITH PEOPLE TAKING advantage of the mild Sunday afternoon weather. On the corner a mother bent to speak to the little boy holding onto her skirts. A group of men dressed in their Sunday best stood beneath the ancient trees, smoking pipes and chatting. In the square, a young couple sat on a bench while a small black dog romped at their feet.

  Philip offered India an encouraging smile as they headed down the sandy street, but a familiar and persistent shadow of unease had entered the carriage with them. India feared that she would never again enjoy the luxury of an ordinary life.

  They drew up at the back entrance to the Southern Palace, where a red-bearded policeman in uniform waited. He wrenched open the door. “Better get her inside, Mr. Sinclair. I just chased off a reporter from the Georgia Enterprise who wanted to know why I was standin’ here when the theater’s been closed ever since—”

  “Thank you.” Philip got out and helped India down.

  The policeman unlocked the door and ushered them inside. India stood motionless in the dim hallway that led to her dressing room, and beyond to the spiral staircase and the stage. She was overcome with sadness and fear, and yet strangely peaceful too. The hours spent on the stage were a refuge from her grief over her father’s passing. Disappearing into her stage role, pretending to be someone else, had allowed a respite, however brief. She led them to her dressing room and pointed out where she had been sitting when Mr. Sterling had stopped at her open doorway to discuss the night’s performance. Where his new companion, Miss Bryson, had stood. Where the mysterious woman in the dark cloak had waited none too patiently.

  “So this is where you stopped first, when you arrived that night?” Philip turned away from the policeman and spoke in low tones.

  “No. I had just come in when I heard a noise on the stage, and I went up there to see what had happened. That was when I saw Mr. Quinn. He had fallen off a ladder, but luckily he wasn’t hurt.”

  “Show me.”

  India led him and the policeman up the staircase to the stage and pointed out the corner where she had seen the young stagehand.

  “How long were you up here?”

  “I don’t know. Five minutes? Maybe ten. Mr. Quinn told me he’d noticed that Mr. Sterling had upstaged me on opening night. He was hoping to remedy the situation by installing an additional mirror that would cast more of the limelight onto the stage.”

  Philip moved about the stage, his golden eyes taking in every detail. “Did you talk to anyone else while you were up here?”

  “No. I returned to my dressing room and waited for Fabienne to arrive.”

  He paced the perimeter of the stage, his footfalls echoing in the cavernous space. Reaching the slightly raised area near the footlights, he knelt and ran his fingers along the wooden floor. “This is the trapdoor?”

  “Yes. The room directly below is where Mr. Philbrick allowed me to keep my father’s things.”

  “Where th
e gun was kept.”

  “Yes.”

  He got to his feet. “Where were you standing when the gun discharged?”

  She walked him through the stage set, pointing out the settee that was positioned upstage, facing the audience, and the small table downstage where she expected to find the prop weapon.

  “And when Mr. Sterling fell?”

  “I dropped the weapon then, and I ran to Mr. Sterling. Everything afterward is muddled. But last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I kept going over it in my mind, and I remembered thinking at the time that I might have heard a second shot.”

  He put a hand on her arm. “Wait a minute. A second shot? Are you sure?”

  “I think so. Just after the gun went off. But it was most likely the delayed sound effect. Perhaps an echo. Or the sound of something being dropped backstage.”

  “This could be important.” Impatience tinged his words. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Everything was in chaos. People were screaming, running every direction, shouting. The police arrived almost at once. I was shocked and scared. It’s hard to remember everything that happened, and when. But—”

  “You about done here, Mr. Sinclair?” The red-bearded policeman jangled the set of keys on a chain at his waist. “I’m missin’ my Sunday dinner.”

  “Just a minute, Officer.” Philip turned back to India, one brow raised in question.

  She glanced at the darkened circle where Mr. Sterling’s blood had seeped onto the stage. “I think I must have screamed. Someone turned the lights up. You know the rest.”

  Philip stood in her place on the stage and raised one arm, as if sighting a weapon. He dropped onto the floor in the same spot where Mr. Sterling had fallen, then rose to run his fingers over the boards and along the wall at the back of the stage, like a physician palpating a patient’s skin. He paused. “Officer.”

  The policeman hurried over and heaved an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Mr. Sinclair.”

  Philip handed the officer a small round ball. “I want this marked as evidence.”

  India’s heart sped up. “What is it?”

  “It looks like a lead ball from a revolver.”

  “But how could—”

  Philip stopped her with a quick shake of his head. “I think we’re finished here. Let’s lock up, officer, and you can go home to your Sunday dinner.”

  On the way out of the theater, Philip paused for another quick sweep of India’s dressing room, then peered into the empty trap room and slid open the trapdoor. “I’ve always wondered how those things work.”

  “Trapdoors can be tricky,” India said.

  They reached the door that opened onto the street.

  “Once, during a performance of Macbeth in Baltimore, I stepped backward and nearly fell into the trap room below. One of the stagehands literally shoved me back onto my feet.” India pulled on her gloves. “He was eating an apple at the time, and it flew out of his hand and landed beside the witches’ cauldron. Everyone had to step around it for the remainder of the first act.” Philip laughed, and she joined in. India heard a muted oath as a newspaper reporter lurking at the end of the alley regarded her through narrowed eyes.

  JANUARY 30

  “All rise.”

  Philip took India’s hand and drew her to her feet as the judge entered the packed courtroom. Noise from the courthouse filtered in—footsteps on the stairs, the closing of doors, the buzz of conversations punctuated by bursts of laughter. Shards of sunlight poured through the windows, stabbing her eyes. The trees lining the street still dripped water from last night’s rain.

  Dimly, India heard the recitation of the charges against her and the judge’s quick greeting to the men seated in the jury box. Behind her, spectators jostled for seating on the polished wooden benches, their excited whispers mingling with the rustling of fabrics as they settled in.

  In the front row, newspaper reporters juggled bulky cameras, notebooks, and their winter coats, some of them clearly taking an unseemly delight in her misfortune. The morning’s edition of the Savannah Morning Herald had featured a drawing of her and Philip laughing as they exited the theater under a headline that read “Murder No Laughing Matter.”

  Philip told her not to worry about it, but her mind filled with the heavy, relentless beat of doubt: she was an outsider. The gun was hers. Everyone knew Arthur Sterling had upstaged her the night before and that she had upbraided him for it.

  Though Philip was feeling even more confident after finding the ammunition lodged in the wall, perhaps it would prove to be unrelated to her case. She pressed her hands to her midsection and tried to breathe.

  Judge Bartlett, a brittle old man with a head of cotton-fluff hair, paged through a stack of documents and cleared his throat. “Mr. McLendon, are you ready to proceed?”

  The prosecutor, whose appearance and demeanor oozed Southern charm, stood. “We are, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Sinclair?”

  Philip nodded.

  “Very well, Mr. McLendon, call your first witness.”

  India heard Philip draw in a long breath. She reminded herself to remain calm and impassive, even as her character was impugned in open court. Before her on the table sat a pad and pencil. A glass of water. At her feet, the small travel satchel packed with the few things she would be allowed to have in her jail cell: her comb, clean stockings, a small bottle of rosewater Mrs. Mackay had pressed into her hands at the last moment.

  “Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, his voice rich and melodic, “the people call Dr. Wakefield Adams.”

  The doctor, a rotund man with the ruddy complexion and bulbous nose of a habitual imbiber, made his way to the front of the room and was sworn in.

  “Now, Dr. Adams,” Mr. McLendon began. “Were you called to the Southern Palace Theater on the evening of December 20 of last year?”

  “No, sir. I wasn’t called there. I was already there. To see Miss Hartley’s play.”

  “Oh?” The prosecutor turned to look at the jury. “So you were an eyewitness to the shooting?”

  India shifted in her chair. Clearly, Mr. McLendon knew what he was doing. Even she knew that a lawyer never asked a question unless he already knew the answer.

  “Yes, sir, I was in the third row when the shot was fired.”

  “And did you see who fired that shot?”

  “It was Miss Hartley.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “Well, sir, I saw that Mr. Sterling had been shot, so I left my seat and ran onto the stage to see if I could help him.”

  “And what did you see, Doctor?”

  “He’d been hit once in the left femoral artery. He was bleeding bad.”

  “And did you render aid?”

  The doctor nodded. “I applied a tourniquet and stayed with him until he was taken to the hospital.”

  “And did you have occasion to examine Mr. Sterling after that?”

  “I went by the hospital the next morning.”

  “And how was your patient faring by then?�
�

  “He was dead.”

  The prosecutor paused to let the murmurs die down, and to let the weight of the doctor’s words sink in. “No further questions.” He turned to Philip. “Your witness, Mr. Sinclair.”

  Philip got to his feet. “Doctor, I wonder if you could stand and show the jury the location of the femoral artery.”

  The witness glanced up at Judge Bartlett, who nodded. “Go ahead, Dr. Adams.”

  The doctor stood. “The femoral artery runs through the thigh and is the main artery that supplies blood to the lower limb.”

  “And can you identify for the jury the approximate location of Mr. Sterling’s wound?”

  The doctor pointed to a spot on his own thigh, just below the hip.

  “Thank you, Doctor. Be seated.” Philip paused. “Now, when you were tending Mr. Sterling, did you observe the nature of the wound?”

  “Certainly. There was just one. A small, rather neat hole, typical when a cartridge penetrates flesh at fairly close range.”

  “A cartridge?”

  “Metal cartridges tend to make a smaller hole than a lead ball.”

  Philip paused to look at the jury. “I see. Any other visible wounds to Mr. Sterling?”

  “No, sir. Not that I recall.”

  “Did you notice whether the cartridge had lodged in the patient, or whether it had exited Mr. Sterling’s body?”

  “No, I did not. I was just trying to keep the poor man from bleeding out.”

  “Did you notice an exit wound later on?”

  “No, sir.”

  “In your report, did you make a determination as to the type of bullet that injured Mr. Sterling?”

  The doctor shrugged. “I’ve seen enough such cases in my time to know I was most likely looking at a wound from a metal bullet. But it made no difference by then.”

  “So it’s likely the bullet remained in the body of the deceased and was buried with him.”