Sophie had come to meet her. "You should see her," she said. "Lotta is very special."
"All right, tonight then?"
"And for supper, afterwards?" he suggested.
After he had gone, Sophie warned her. "You've never been to a melodeon, and most of them won't accept women customers, but when Miss Lottie is playing, they relax the rules.
"Mary Ann, that's Lottie's mother, won't stand for any nonsense, either. It's in their contract that one obscene word and they leave, and she means it. But the miners all love Lottie, so they like it that way."
"Is she really good?"
"She's the greatest natural clown I ever saw. Sings, dances, mimics-she's good, Grita. Very good."
"How old is she?"
"I don't know; fourteen I'd guess. She might be a year older. They never talk about age. But remember what I said about melodeons. They are very rough.
"But don't worry." she added. "I know some of the boys will be there tonight. The Knickerbrocker Hook and Ladder Company as well as the Lafayette outfit. I don't know who said it, but somebody did, that the fire companies were to San Francisco what the Cossacks were to Russia. And they like Lottie and nothing's going to happen while she's in the theater. You can bet on it."
The melodeon was jammed to the doors with a sweating, cheerful crowd, drinking, smoking, and shouting back and forth across the room.
One of the Knickerbrockers suddenly stood up and shouted. When he had the attention of all, he said, 'When the little lady comes on the stage, we'll have no sound but applause, d' you ken what I mean? If there's anybody makes trouble, he'll be thrown out, an' if there's more trouble, the Knickerbrockers will clear the room."
"And the Lafayettes will help!"
The performance that followed was like none Grita had ever seen. Lotta might not be an actress; she was certainly a superb and talented clown. She sang, she danced, and worked with energy and skill.
"Now you see," Sophie said as they left the theater, "the kind of competition we have."
"She's very good," Grita said. "Very, very good, and she's still very young."
At Winn's Branch, over supper, the talk changed to mining and to Virginia City. "You should be thinking about the future," Hesketh suggested. "There are good investments in mining stock if you choose with care. I'd be glad to offer any suggestions I can. And certainly, as far as the Comstock is concerned, I know which mines are worth investments and which are not."
"I know nothing about mines," Grita said, "although it must be exciting to dig gold and silver right from the ground."
"You've never invested in stocks?" he asked.
Albert Hesketh, she thought, had a strange shading to his voice whenever he asked a pointed question. It was something she had detected at once, although she doubted that many did. He was not skillful in disguising his interests, and she was shrewd enough to know that while he might be interested in her as a woman, it was a secondary interest.
"Of course not," she spoke casually. "When one is in the theater, there's little chance to think of anything else. I've had my own company for only a year or so, and we have been reinvesting whatever we have made in costumes and equipment."
The talk changed to other topics and Hesketh was quiet, thinking. Could he be mistaken? Was he going to all this trouble for nothing?
Where was Will Crockett? Was he in San Francisco? Or worse, was the information from the records of the Solomon long out of date or false? Suppose even now Crockett was making arrangements to meet the owner of that stock and to buy it? Suppose Crockett was about to do as he had done, and pitch him right out of office? At the thought his face went almost white with a sudden burst of fury, and he looked up to see Grita Redaway looking at him.
"Mr. Hesketh? Aren't you feeling well?"
"Quite well." He stood up. "I must keep you no longer. Our carriage should be waiting."
Later, as she went up the steps to her door and put the key in the lock, she wondered again. He was odd, very odd.
She opened the door and stopped very still. Someone had been here.
Her flat had been entered while she was gone.
Suppose that someone was still here? She dropped her keys into her purse and took hold of the .44 derringer.
She took a slow, deep breath.Careful now! Don't turn your back. Be ready.
She put a foot against the door and pushed it shut.
Chapter XXVII
Nothing happened.
She waited, listening. Her eyes swept the room. She had left a script open on the table with a pencil beside it for making notations. The script was still open but not at the place where she had stopped work.
Gun in hand she pushed open the door into the small kitchen-empty.
She looked across at the bedroom door, which she always left open when she was in the apartment alone. It was closed.
She started to glance up at the beam where her things were hidden, then averted her eyes. If someone was watching or listening they would expect her to check to see if her things were still hidden, and in that way they would find them. The lace curtains were drawn but the heavier curtains were not. If she went to that beam, somebody standing across the street on the sidewalk would see what she did.
Crossing to the bedroom door, she took the knob in her left hand and opened the door, pushing it wide.
Empty!
Carefully, she looked around, then ventured inside. The mattress was a bit askew, as if someone had looked under it and then hurriedly replaced it.
A complete search of the flat revealed that someone had entered, searched it very carefully, trying to leave behind no evidence of his entry. It had been very well done, and with someone less ordered the visit might have gone unnoticed.
She had been going through the script making notations and had left it open where she stopped work, with the pencil laid carefully alongside. Now the pencil was moved and the script open at a different page. Somebody must have brushed against the table and the script had flopped shut. He had hastily opened the script, having no idea of the page or that it would be noticed.
The next question was how he got in and if he would return. He certainly had found nothing, unless he had gotten inside the beam, and she doubted that. Unless an extremely tall man, he would have to stand on a chair to reach it, and no chairs seemed to have been moved.
If he was just a thief, he would not come back. But what if he were looking for some one thing? Having not found it, he would certainly try again.
But what could it be? She was involved in no intrigue. She had no blackmailing letters or secret formulas such as used in melodramas.
She had nothing but a few old letters, kept for sentiment's sake, and that old stock. There was a letter or two from Val, also.
She drew the shades, turned the lights low, and began to prepare for bed. She kept the derringer close to her hand. She propped a chair under the doorknob, pushing it up until it was snug and tight.
The balcony? She had not looked to see if a man could scale the front of the building, but all these houses had a lot of gingerbread decoration, so it might be possible. Also, someone might somehow come up the back and come over the roof.
All the while she was preparing for bed she thought of it, but it made no sense, unless that old stock had suddenly become valuable, and that was unlikely.
Yet Al Hesketh had mentioned stock several times, suggesting she invest, and asking if she had ever invested ... but that was just talk. Albert Hesketh was a mining man, a businessman, and not a thief. Besides, he had been with her.
Turning out the lights she went to the beam, slid back the panels and felt for the stocks. They were still there. Tomorrow, in the daylight, she would examine them, then she would at least know what she had. She had kept them for sentiment's sake. Some had belonged to her father, some to her aunt. To be honest, she had always hoped they might be worth something, despite repeated assurances they were not.
There was that long ago letter from Val,
when he told her of the money he had invested for her from that old debt owed to her father, or something of the kind.
She started to get into bed, then crossed the room and looked down into the street. All was dark and still. The street was ghostly at this hour. She started to turn away; did something move in the shadows over there?
She looked for a moment longer, saw nothing, and decided it was her imagination. She got into bed, keeping the derringer at hand.
When growing up in Paris, she had read the stories, basically true but highly colored, of the master detective and former criminal, Vidocq. Later, when active in the theater, she had often talked of him with d'Arlange, a French actor who had become her friend through her Uncle Andre.
"Look about you," d'Arlange suggested, "it is not necessary to have a gun or a knife to kill. Everywhere are weapons! Clubs with which to strike, cords with which to strangle! Any object that can be picked up can be a weapon!
"And for defense as well. Look about your room! Here there is a chair, there a table, a lamp! Study your room and the house where you live! Learn to know every room. Tip a chair in front of your pursuer, then hit him with anything when he falls! You can throw wine into the eyes! Or hot tea!
"Study your own room, your own house, your own neighborhood as if it were a battleground. Learn how to use it for defense, for escape, for counterattack!
"Have a plan! Know what you will do if your attacker comes through a door. Know what to do if he comes in through a window. Nobody need be helpless.
"I once knew a sea captain's wife who was much alone, and she was about to open a shop and had carpenters and painters in. She lived in a room above the shop, and one night she heard someone down below. She went down the steps and was just in time to see a man climbing through the window.
"She had no weapon, so she took the brush from the the red paint pot and as he reached for her she slashed him across the eyes with her red paint brush! He opened his mouth to howl, and she thrust the brush down his throat, then she dumped the paint over his head and began flailing him with the empty bucket.
"He fled, and the police caught him only down the block, and he was in a sorry state, paint all over and cuts on his scalp, half blind and choking as well. And she? A few flecks of red paint on her flannel nightgown!"
She dropped off to sleep at last, and awakened with the sunlight streaming through the window.
After a while she sat up, propped pillows behind her, and returned to the examination of the script. It was a play she had not seen before, and interesting. In San Francisco there were a number of playwrights, far from professional, in most cases, yet quite capable. This play was by one of those, and there was talk of producing it.
Yet she could not concentrate. After a few minutes she put the play down and sat thinking. Suppose Albert Hesketh did believe she had some valuable stock? Suppose he had deliberately taken her to the theater to get her out of the flat so the thief could work? Nothing in life had impressed her with the idea that all motives were pure. It was distinctly unflattering for a successful actress, said to be beautiful, to be courted simply because she might have valuable stock, yet she would not be the first to be sought after for profit.
Suppose she led him to believe she did have stock, she could be vague about what and where, as she indeed was. Suppose she dangled the bait?
She got up, bathed and dressed, thinking about Albert Hesketh. What was it about him that made her uneasy? Was it his eyes, which were cold as steel marbles? Was it his features, that had too little mobility? Or that he so rarely smiled, and when he did it was stiff and artificial? She admitted, at last, that she had never felt comfortable in his presence.
Yet he was always the gentleman, if a little too precise, a little too perfect. He did and said all the right things, but somehow she doubted if he felt any of them. He puzzled her, but now she was angry, too. If he had, indeed, been responsible for the forced entry into her flat, she would be furious.
It was not that far, she decided. Today she would walk to the theater. She put the .44 in her handbag, closed and locked the door behind her.
She smiled ruefully as she turned the key in the door. A lot of good that would do!
It was cool and dark in the theater. The stagedoor entrance was unlocked and she went in, pausing for a moment, listening for sound. There was none.
She was early, but not much. They should be here by now. It was unreasonable that not even one was here. She crossed the stage in the dim light, glancing out over the rows of empty seats. Thank God she'd never had them empty like that for a performance!
Backstage she hesitated and looked around. It was eerie. For the first time she realized that never before had she been in a theater alone.
From behind her she heard a faint creak, as of a footstep. She turned sharply.
Nothing, only the vague half-light that filtered in from far-off windows, somewhere on the second story behind the balcony.
Opening her purse, she took the derringer into her hand. Its weight was reassuring, yet the silence was there.
Something stirred.
She looked back. Her dressing room door was behind her. If she got in there, closed the door, but what if thesomething was there? Waiting for her?
She was being a fool. There were always sounds in an empty building. Changing temperatures could make boards creak and groan, even pop.
She took a step back, reaching for the doorknob, her purse hanging over her wrist. Her hand felt for the knob and there was a sudden movement from behind. Her wrist was grasped by a strong, bony-fingered hand and jerked sharply, the handbag was jerked from her arm and she was shoved violently. She staggered forward, heard running steps, and she toppled and fell to her knees.
She looked up. For one instant she saw the running man on the stage, almost at the other end.
She fired.
He staggered, cried out, and dropped her purse, clutching his hand. She lifted the derringer for another shot, but he was gone.
She got up, staggered, and stood erect. Her purse lay on the stage and she walked to it, holding the gun in her hand.
From outside she heard running feet and then they were crowding in, her friends, the cast-even Dane Clyde. How long since she had seen him?
"Grita!" Rosie shrilled. "Whathappened?"
"A man tried to snatch my purse. I shot at him."
"You hit him, too." Clyde pointed at a drop of blood on the stage. Then he saw the derringer. "You mean you hit him withthat? At that distance?"
Stunned, she put the gun into her purse. She must remember to reload it. That was her only thought. The gun, her only protection, was half-empty.
They were all around her, chattering, asking questions, saying how awful it must have been.
"He was waiting in my dressing room," she said. "He was waiting there, and there was no one around."
"We stopped to have a drink," Sophie said. "I'm sorry, but when someone is buying-"
"It's all right. I wasn't hurt. Just frightened, that's all."
"If you can shoot like that when you're frightened," Dane Clyde commented, "I'd not like you to shoot at me when you're calm!"
"It was luck, an accident. Just an accident."
The stage manager, Richard Manfred, crossed over to them. "All right, it's all over. Let's get down to business."
Later, when they stopped for tea, Dane Clyde walked over to her. "If you'd like, I'll reload your derringer. I've just come over from Virginia City and have my own gun in my carpetbag with some extra powder and shot."
"Oh, would you?"
He went for his bag, returned, and she watched him load the gun. "You're very good," she said.
"When you travel that road, you'd better know what you're doing. Besides, there's been some trouble over there. It hasn't actually come to shooting yet, but-"
"Shooting? In the theater?"
He chuckled. "No, it hasn't gotten that bad, but I've some friends in the mining business, and sometimes things
get a bit sticky."
Sophie and Rosie came over. "Are you all right, Grita?" Sophie asked. "You must have had a scare."
"If we just hadn't stopped!" Rosie complained. "But that nice Mr. Hesketh-"
"Who?" Dane turned sharply around. "Did you say 'Hesketh'?"
"Of course. He's a friend of Grita's and when he offered to buy-"
Hesketh, Grita thought.... last night and now.
Chapter XXVIII
Grita turned to Dane. "Do you know him?"
"I know who he is. Albert Hesketh is a mining man from Virginia City, and he recently got control of the Solomon, one of the best of the mines. Be careful of him."
"What do you know about him?"
"When it comes to that, I know next to nothing. He has been in Virginia City for some time, and they say he came there from California. He was keeping books at the Solomon, and then all of a sudden he simply took over.
"Will Crockett trusted him and all the while Hesketh had been plotting to take the mine away from him. He did just that, and Will Crockett disappeared."
"Murdered?"
"I doubt it. We think he's looking for some missing shares of Solomon stock which, if he could get them, would return control to him."
"Unless Hesketh got them first?"
"Exactly."
After rehearsal Manfred joined her at the door. "Wait, and we'll walk home with you. You seem to be a target for this sort of thing." He gave her a searching glance. "Where did you learn to shoot like that?"
"I don't know how to shoot. I just fired."
"Sometimes instinctive shots are the most accurate. After all, it's just like pointing your finger and you have been doing that all your life.
"You hit him in the hand or arm, I think. That's just a guess, but he dropped your purse, which I am sure was not his intention.
"Back in East Texas, where I come from, we have a man named Cullen Baker who always shoots like that. He's very good."
Dane Clyde joined them and they started up the street. "Are you still planning to come to Virginia City?"
"Oh, yes! Mr. Maguire has scheduled us to play there for at least two weeks. We will do four different plays, two the first week and two the second, and then probably a repeat, depending on how they do."
Comstock Lode (1981) Page 20