Cabot smiled. “Exactly. Very wise, as always.”
“And really, it isn’t fair to ostracize someone who has not been convicted of any crime. Whatever people may think.”
“Well, true.” He clearly had his own opinions on the matter, and no intention of sharing them with me. “Thank you for your understanding. Don’t be surprised if I express my appreciation with an extravagant floral tribute.”
I laughed. “Just not lilies of the valley or red roses.”
He knew about that, but not the lilacs. “Of course not.”
We smiled together, balance restored, both of us knowing, if not acknowledging, that somehow this incident had moved us closer as friends and further from any pretense of a potential courtship.
Cabot drifted off, his eyes carefully, but unobtrusively, on his companion, while I circulated a bit, happily accepting introductions to families of the ensemble, then managing a bit of anodyne chat with the knot of society matrons who’d parked themselves near Mrs. G’s elaborately decorated tray of jam tarts.
One of the matrons motioned Louis and Anna over, ostensibly to praise their work, but really to show off her own lessons in musicianship and ultimately beat the others to the mark by asking them to write a “little entertainment” for her next bal masqué. Such a lucrative commission, though perhaps not an artistic triumph, would give them plenty of money to buy time to work on things they really enjoyed.
They gave me a subtle glance, which I returned, and the ladies never noticed as I made a graceful good-bye. Someday, we little canaries might sing, or write, only for our pleasure, but this was not that day.
My rounds next took me to Ruben and his mother. She was beautiful, clad simply but elegantly in a high-necked, garnet-colored taffeta dress, with skin like honey and the same deep brown eyes as his.
“Miss Ella, my mother, Susanna Avila.” Ruben presented me with a shy, but proud, smile.
The little I knew about Ruben’s situation was enough for me to understand that it was a great mark of trust for him to bring his mother to our gathering. He needn’t have worried. If anything, his mother looked more believably Cuban than he, and after the incident with Edwin Drumm, the company was firmly united in our acceptance of him, which clearly extended to her.
“An honor.” I greeted her warmly, shaking hands and putting a hand on her arm. “Your son is amazing.”
“He’s a good boy.” Susanna Avila smiled. “Good singer, too.”
“We agree on both counts.”
Mrs. Avila and I made conversation for a few more minutes, and I found myself drawn to her and not really shocked by her voice. I’d met a few people from Cuba and the waning Spanish Empire over the years, and she didn’t sound in the least like them. While she’d clearly and carefully lost any accent she once had, a faint echo in the rhythm of her speech reminded me of a young soprano from Georgia who’d understudied on our first tour, before quitting to marry the boy back home.
Whatever part of Havana—or Birmingham—was Mrs. Avila’s original home, she was a lovely, charming woman who’d done a magnificent job with her son, and I was delighted to know her. And their secrets were safe with us.
As the party wound down, I finally managed a return to the punch bowl and, hopefully, my own plate of treats, not that there were many left.
“Hey, kid. Tom and I saved some for you.”
Preston handed me a plate that did indeed have a selection of my favorites.
“Aren’t you sweet.”
“We know you.” He refilled his own glass. “I know why you serve this stuff, but I don’t think there’s one real drink in that entire bowl.”
“There’s not, and that’s why we serve it.”
“Probably wise. Imagine that bunch after a few belts.” He nodded at the matrons, who had presumably had their fill of critiquing the party and me, and had moved on to looking at each other with all the affection a mongoose shows a cobra.
“I’d almost change the recipe just to see it.”
We chuckled together.
“Don’t you dare. Gret . . . Mrs. Grazich outdid herself, and we don’t need drunken socialites in the punch bowl.”
“Mrs. G did indeed produce miracles,” I agreed, ignoring the slip. “I couldn’t do this without her.”
“Hmmm.” Preston sipped his punch. “What if, say, she found something else to do with her time?”
“Something else?” I strongly suspected what he meant. “Well, she’s a free woman, after all. I’ll just have to find another cook. But unless she takes religious vows, perhaps I can beg or bribe her to make an occasional batch of cookies and cater a special party once in a while.”
“I think it might be something a bit more secular.”
“Good thing. Being a nun doesn’t sound like any fun.”
Preston smiled a little. “She’d probably be willing to pitch in for you sometimes if you really needed her.”
“And if her other employer didn’t object?”
“Wouldn’t be your usual employer, kid.”
“So she’ll have room to negotiate.”
“I’d guess.”
“Well, if she has a good opportunity, she should take it.”
“Yes?”
“And if,” I said, carefully keeping my eyes on my plate, “someone were thinking of offering her an opportunity, they should perhaps get on with it.”
“Would she take it, do you think?”
“If it’s the opportunity I think it is, she won’t let him finish the sentence.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Preston smiling.
“Heller! You have to settle this!” Tommy called from across the room, where he was clearly having some minor argument with Yardley and Cabot. “You’re the only one who actually remembers all of Henry VIII’s wives . . .”
“My public calls. You always tell me not to let fear stop me.”
“I do, don’t I?”
The matrons took their leave quite early, soon followed by the Winslows and the rest of the artists. In a particularly interesting twist, Cabot offered to squire Hetty home, as well as Mrs. Van Vleet, which my reporter friend accepted with an acquisitive gleam in her eyes.
The party was quickly running down to Tommy and the sports writers, which would be my cue to take to my bed for what beauty sleep I could manage. I put down my glass and began one last circle of the house to be sure I hadn’t missed anyone, to find Gil in the drawing room, studying our bookshelves.
“You and your cousin are quite widely read.”
“One or the other of us will read anything.” I shrugged. “Would you like to borrow something, since you can’t have brought a good supply along?”
“Thank you. I would, actually.” He pulled out an edition of John and Abigail Adams’s letters. “They were a fascinating couple.”
“Well matched. And he greatly respected her judgment.”
“As any man with a clever wife should.”
“I’d like to think so.” I smiled at that.
“But also very much in love, I’ve read. He missed her terribly when he had to go abroad.”
“Being apart is an awful strain on a marriage.”
“Duty is all well and good, but a man should try to stay with his wife if he can.”
“Should he?” I had the feeling we were no longer talking about the Adamses.
“Well, if one is fortunate enough to find true love, it makes no sense to then sit on opposite sides of an ocean.”
“Even with true love, it’s not always so simple.”
He looked up from the book then, his eyes on mine in the light of the nearby oil lamp, bottomless and intense. “Perhaps it should be.”
“Perhaps.”
For a long moment, we stood there, just gazing at each other. Want, love, need . . . Whatever word I could’ve chosen, it would have been inadequate. No denying the attraction, but it went far further and deeper than that, a real connection of mind and soul.
“Heller!
Want to play checkers with the boys?”
For the second time tonight, we stepped apart guiltily, this time, though, we weren’t even touching.
As he walked into the room, Tommy chuckled and smiled at Gil. “You’re welcome to stay for the tournament.”
“I’m sorry,” I said briskly, “but you’ll be playing without me. I’m so tired, I hardly know what I’m doing.” I bowed to both. “Good night.”
“Good night, Shane.” Gil bowed. “Sleep well.”
“Get some rest, Heller.”
As I headed upstairs, I heard Tommy and Gil talking, but I couldn’t make anything out and, really, had no need to know.
Chapter 27
Not Holmes, but Marry, ’Tis Enough
His Grace appeared in the parlor just before noon the next day, with a sheaf of papers and a troubled expression that didn’t lift, despite his approving glance at my pansy-print day dress.
“Am I interrupting your preshow rest?”
“Not at all.” I had just risen after a night of rather unsettling dreams. And no, not happily unsettling. “This close to the end, we float through in a fog of memorization and exhaustion, anyway.”
“You never seem to be slipping away.”
I grinned at him. “Then I’m doing it right.”
He did not return the smile. “And I haven’t done right by you, and your unfortunate baritone.”
“What?”
“I only just looked at this autopsy report. You will want to send it to your friend the detective after I explain what I found.”
“I will?” I returned his sharp glance with my own.
“I am reasonably convinced they’ve arrested an innocent man.”
“Oh, dear.”
He nodded to the coffee table. “Here. I’ll lay it out for you.”
“All right.”
We sat down on the settee together, any romantic undercurrents between us obviously buried by our mutual concern for Albert.
“These things aren’t normally matters for ladies, of course, but as you’ve studied such reports before . . .”
I couldn’t hide my indulgent smile.
“You are the woman I am courting, Shane. Allow me to observe at least the outlines of the forms.”
“Of course.”
“Right, then.” He put the report on the table and pointed to a sentence. “It’s exactly as you suspected. The issue is indeed the wounds.”
I read aloud what he indicated. “Deep stabbing laceration of the carotid artery in a downward trajectory.”
“How tall is Albert?”
“His exact measurements are in Anna’s costume book, of course, but he’s a bit taller than me and noticeably shorter than you. Say, just under six feet.”
“Before we go to the appropriate authorities, we’ll want the precise number. But that’s close enough. Florian was six feet two.”
“So there is no way that Albert, five feet ten or so, could stab down at his neck in a standing surprise attack.”
“None.”
We nodded together and just looked down at the report for a moment, absorbing the enormity of it.
“Shane, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you—”
“You agreed to take a look for my sake, believe or not. That’s quite enough.”
“I should have done it immediately. That envelope sat on my bureau for days, even after they sent the right report.”
“You’re working on other matters, as well.” Which I am not going to ask about. “Let’s just worry about clearing Albert now.”
“All right. So what do we do? I hate the thought of that poor young man in the Tombs.”
“It’s about as you said. I’ll send word to Cousin Andrew, and you’ll lay out the evidence for him. He’ll probably be the one to go to the DA.” And to rub the Broadway Squad’s face in it.
“How long do you think it will take to free him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps closing night at least.”
I just stared at Gil then, impressed and amazed that he understood what would matter most to a singer.
“I am a friend of the company, after all,” he added.
“That you are.” I smiled at him but shook my head at the thought of poor Albert. “I doubt he’ll be in any shape to finish the run.”
“Likely not, after all that time in gaol. Another loss for him.”
I turned my mind to the practicalities. There was a fairly simple solution. “We don’t really need two Richards in London, but many companies do travel with doubles for lead roles.”
They might alternate as Richard and Neville, actually, since Eamon certainly wasn’t welcome on this tour.
“And you and Tom can likely put in a good word here between now and then.”
“We certainly will.” I nodded. “It won’t make up for losing this opportunity, but he’s quite good, and we’ll help him find more.”
Gil finally smiled. “Your new project?”
“I imagine so.” I thought about it. “First, we get him out. Then we get him back to form and start working on recovering his career. And finish the run, of course.”
“And then you prepare for London.”
A different note in his voice made me look up at him. Our eyes locked, and despite everything else, for a second we just sat there, drawn together. London would mean a real, formal courtship . . . and then what?
“Yes,” I said slowly. “London. Assuming we all live that long.”
I’d intended it as just a touch of wry gallows humor, but Gil’s gaze sharpened on me with real concern. “If not Albert, who, Shane?”
“Someone who means the company ill, I suspect.” I remembered Tommy’s earlier speculations, when it had been nothing but an outside, fantastic possibility. Not a fantasy now.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if Albert didn’t kill Florian, then someone else is out there. Which makes me wonder about some of our other incidents, like the gunfire after the benefit.”
“I assumed it was aimed at Mr. Coughlan.”
“As did we all. Not to mention the sword theft—”
The front door slammed. “Heller!”
Gil and I reflexively moved to opposite corners of the settee as Tommy walked in, assessing the situation with a smile.
“Paying respects after the reception?” he asked.
“Not quite. I’ve just finished explaining to Shane that Albert Reuter is almost certainly innocent.”
“He is?”
“Not tall enough to deal the fatal blow,” Gil said.
The three of us looked at each other, all ticking through the list of tall men who would be found backstage. It would almost have to be someone who did not attract notice from the company—a hand or even a member of the cast, horrible thought though that was.
“Was the night of the benefit Mr. Coughlan’s first appearance?” Gil asked.
“And his only one.” Tommy shook his head. “He stays away from respectable precincts unless he has a good reason.”
Gil reflected. “He’s also somewhat shorter than either of us, if I recall.”
“He is.” Tommy nodded.
I ignored the note of satisfaction in Gil’s voice at literally topping Connor. “Booth is taller than both of you, but . . .”
“I surely hope not.” Tommy’s face tightened. “He’s been our New York stage manager for years, and I can’t imagine. . .”
“Anything is possible, but he’s a good man, with no reason to wish us ill.” I thought about it. “At least a couple of the stagehands are tall enough. And many of them are new for the run.”
“Yes, including the wretched Edwin Drumm.”
“He was too short and would never have done anything that might benefit Ruben,” I pointed out.
Tommy gave me a very concerned glance. “An accomplice we didn’t catch?”
Gil offered another candidate. “What about that large redheaded young man who plays Neville?”
“Eamon.” I winced as I said his name. “But he confessed all.”
“No.” Tommy shook his head. “He confessed all we’d caught him at.”
Sickening thought, but not impossible. “He knew Albert.”
“And he certainly gained by his disgrace.” Tommy scowled. “Not to mention his little campaign of sabotage against Ruben.”
“He’d killed once and didn’t want to have to do it again?” I asked. If that bloody scene had been Eamon’s first murder . . .
“Maybe.” Tommy swallowed hard and cleared his throat as he remembered the gore. “Or feared he would get caught.”
Gil had been carefully observing all of this and finally added his own thoughts. “A great deal of dangerous work to move up in the company. Is it really worth so much?”
“A starring role is worth your life if you’re a singer.” Tommy nodded to me.
“No question. And certainly worth someone else’s.”
“What you are saying is that you would kill or die for your career?” Gil had an expression of shock and quite possibly disgust, one that I’d never seen before.
Tommy very subtly glanced to me.
“No, no. I wouldn’t.” I met Gil’s gaze steadily. “The people I love are worth my life. A role isn’t.”
“But?”
We were suddenly right at the heart of the matter. Is the music worth everything else in my life, and if not, how much am I willing to give for the rest? And what is he willing to give for me?
“But . . .” I took a breath as I collected my thoughts. “A leading role, a chance, feels like your life. If you’re a bit unbalanced to begin with, who knows?”
“And singers do sometimes become unbalanced over the need to succeed,” Tommy agreed. “Unfortunately, I’ve seen it a few times. People who simply don’t have the talent to make a profession of it but want it so much that they can’t admit that.”
“So such a person might be dangerous?” Gil asked, with a relieved expression that belied the words. Relieved, I didn’t doubt, to pull back to the safer matter of murder.
“Could well be dangerous,” Tommy agreed. “It may have been in front of us all along.”
“Eamon.” I had to admit, at least to myself, that we might have another villain among us. Villain. “Richard III.”
A Fatal First Night Page 21