The Cutthroat Read online

  Barrett and Buchanan were sipping coffee in the Clark Theatre green room, where they had agreed to submit to “just a few questions.” Ticket sales were tapering off, and they could use all the help they could get. Their publicist was standing by warily, ready to pounce if the critic turned unfriendly or The Boys’ banter got out of hand.

  “Mr. Barrett was a callboy,” Buchanan answered, “where I was appearing in Hamlet, and—”

  Barrett interrupted. “I was the prompter, the callboy’s superior. Mr. Buchanan carried a lantern in Hamlet to indicate it was night, and it was my job to remind him to hold the lantern overhead and not block the audience’s view of Mr. Otis Skinner, who happened to be playing Hamlet.”

  “When Mr. Barrett wasn’t prompting, he was painting scenery,” said Buchanan. “On occasion, he presided over the opera glasses concession.”

  The reporter smiled uncertainly. “You gentlemen have different recollections of your early years.”

  “What did you say your name was?” asked Barrett.

  “Scudder Smith. New York Evening Sun.”

  The publicist interrupted. “I’m wondering why you don’t look familiar. I thought I knew everyone on the Sun.”

  “The Sun hired me when I contracted with the Denver Post and Mr. Preston Whiteway’s San Francisco Inquirer to publish stories that coincide with the opening of seat sales for road shows coming to their cities.”

  “Whiteway?”

  Smith took a letter from his coat pocket with Sun letterhead. “Here. Sorry, I should have shown you this earlier. My introduction from Mr. Acton Davies. You’ll see he mentions Mr. Whiteway.”

  The publicist handed it back with a much-warmer smile. Davies was the Sun’s chief critic and the acclaimed biographer of the theater’s legendary Maude Adams. Preston Whiteway’s San Francisco Inquirer anchored a fleet of newspapers, and he also owned Picture World, motion picture news reels seen in movie houses and vaudeville theaters across the continent.

  Barrett said, “Well, Mr. Scudder Smith of the Sun, the Post, and the Inquirer, what other questions may we answer?”

  “When did you become partners?”

  “Eons ago,” boomed Buchanan. “When was it, Jackson? It must have been aught three.”

  “Aught four,” said Jackson Barrett. “We produced a road tour of The Admirable Crichton. I was Crichton. Mr. Buchanan played Lord Loam.”

  “How many years after your Hamlet was that?”

  “Mr. Skinner’s Hamlet,” said Barrett. “Mr. Buchanan’s lantern.”

  “Ten years,” said Buchanan.

  “So you first met in ’ninety-four. Seventeen years ago.”

  “Seems longer,” said Barrett.

  “I could not help but notice how convincingly you conducted your sword fight. I fully expected blood to flow. I could have sworn you were fencing with real sabers.”

  “That is because we do not fence. We duel.”

  “To me it looked like a real fight to the death.”

  “Real sabers make real noise,” said Buchanan. “The clang of steel arrests the senses.”

  “And draw real blood,” Barrett added, “which keeps us on our toes.”

  “How did you learn such swordsmanship?”

  “The way we learn everything,” Buchanan answered bluntly. “Study. Practice. Rehearse.”

  Barrett said, “We take to heart the great showman David Belasco’s advice to actors. We never idle away the night hours in clubs and restaurants. Nor do we lie abed in the morning.”

  “But who taught you to fight so convincingly?”

  “A deadly duelist.”

  Pencil poised, the reporter asked the duelist’s name.

  “We pledged never to reveal his identity.”

  “Why not?”

  “Few who lost to him survived the experience.”

  Scudder Smith’s smile congealed as if he was unsure whether his leg was being pulled. He noticed their publicist shoot the actors a warning glance not to mock the press.

  Mock away, thought Smith.

  “Are there strains in this fraught production?”

  “‘Fraught’?” said the publicist. “What fraught?”

  “Are you dredging up that wire-story nonsense?” asked Barrett.

  Scudder Smith said, “Everyone’s read about the Jekyll and Hyde jinx—launched in blood—Medick falling to his death and Miss Cook’s husband’s yacht exploding. And wherever you play, girls disappear or die.”

  Buchanan’s cheeks and forehead reddened. “Women are murdered all the time.”

  “And disappear often,” Barrett added. “Can’t say I blame them, judging by their male prospects.”

  The publicist lied manfully: “Here’s a fact for Acton Davies. And Mr. Preston Whiteway, too. Ticket sales are up since that wire-service article. I hate to sound cold and heartless, but lots of folks are drawn to bloodshed.”

  Scudder Smith jotted his notes in practiced shorthand. Here it comes, boys, both barrels: “If that’s true,” he said, “then business is about to boom.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “My newspaper’s Research Department put together a map of all the murders and disappearances.”

  “So?”

  “Then they mapped the route of your tour. Guess what? The maps match.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maps of bloodshed. Often when you play a town, a girl disappears or dies.”

  Barrett said, “But we played head to head with Alias Jimmy Valentine in most venues. Go talk to them.”

  “I have appointments to interview Mr. Vietor and Mr. Lockwood as soon as we wrap up our conversation with just a few more details.”

  “You can’t print that nonsense.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Smith. “At least not yet.”

  Buchanan spoke in a voice trembling with emotion. “We are carrying eighty people. Eighty people whose jobs depend on this tour continuing.”

  Scudder Smith said, “I sympathize with every one of them. I’ve lost many a job in my life.”

  Jackson Barrett said coldly, “I hope you’ll remember that when you get closer to ‘yet.’”

  “Of course I will,” said Scudder Smith. “I am not a stone. Where did you say that Hamlet was playing when you met?”

  “A godforsaken hole out west,” said Buchanan. “In the endless wastes between Denver and San Francisco.”

  “Mr. Skinner warned those who would jump ship, ‘The Rocky Mountains are littered with the bones of actors attempting to get home to New York.’”

  “Where, exactly, out west?”

  “Butte, Montana. In a tent.”

  “Of course, you’d already acted in New York before you met? Both of you?”

  “If a platform stood a single step above the sidewalk and had a bedsheet for a curtain, we played it,” said Jackson Barrett.

  “What year did you first act in New York?”

  John Buchanan swept to his feet, saying, “You’ve entertained us far too long, Mr. Smith. Thank you for your time. We are so glad you liked our play.”

  The publicist opened the door.

  Smith closed his notebook and stood up with a gleam in his eye that suggested the morning’s work was done. “Oh—I almost forgot. Sorry. Just one more question. Where were you gentlemen born?”

  “Under a cabbage leaf.”

  “In a stork’s nest.”

  Scudder Smith laughed dutifully. “But our readers would love to know more about your backgrounds.”

  “They may read about them when we write our memoirs,” said Barrett, and they swept Smith out the door.

  “If you’re in need of a ghostwriter,” Smith called over his shoulder, “I’m your man,” and added for the publicist, “Why wait ’til they’re old men? L
et their admirers read the memoirs of spectacular actors in the full tide of life.”

  The publicist walked him to the stage door, musing, “I could imagine paying a ghostwriter.”

  “I don’t come cheap.”

  “We would match your rate—provided the New York Sun, the Denver Post, and the San Francisco Inquirer never print the phrases ‘map of bloodshed,’ ‘murdered girls,’ ‘launched in blood,’ nor the word ‘jinx.’”

  Scudder Smith went straight to Central Union Station. In a far corner across the passenger hall an unmarked doorway led to the private car platforms. A burly railroad cop blocked the way.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Smith showed him his badge.

  “Sorry, sir. Say, would you happen to know, is Van Dorn hiring?”

  “Protective Services is always on the lookout for good men,” said Smith. “Best way to get noticed, put on a clean shirt and polish those shoes.”

  He walked out under the train shed, keeping an eye peeled for anyone watching from the other private cars parked on the siding. Fortunately, those cars blocked the view from the long Jekyll & Hyde Special parked far away. At the end of the row was a luxurious car, enameled a rich forest green. Curtained windows gleamed like crystal; loops of telephone, telegraph, and electric wires snaked into the station’s systems; and a flinty-eyed conductor in a uniform decorated with gold piping guarded the door.

  The front compartment, paneled in rosewood, was furnished like a millionaire’s rolling office, with a desk of quartered oak, a comfortable leather armchair, a telegraph key, and a glass-domed stock-ticker machine. Neither the desk nor the chair were in use. Chief Investigator Isaac Bell was on his feet, about to spring.

  “What do you think of them?”

  “Mighty full of themselves,” said Scudder Smith.

  “Is either a murderer?”

  “Hard to tell.”

  “Is either undeniably innocent?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “How’d they react to the map?”

  “Stopped cracking jokes— Of course, if they’re what they say they are, then the map hits them right in the wallet.”

  “Where were they born?” asked Bell.

  “They dodged that like in every article we read about them. It’s a practiced duet.”

  “Did they say how they mastered the saber?”

  “They claim they took lessons from a deadly duelist on the lam. Thing is, a bit of mystery never hurt a show business career.”

  “I dislike mysteries.”

  “Like P. T. Barnum says, ‘Always leave ’em wanting more.’”

  “Are they coy or are they lying?”

  “Anna Waterbury was not the first thespian to rewrite her past,” said Smith, regretting it instantly as fire exploded in his old friend’s eyes. Better change the subject. “I wonder if I might wet my whistle?”

  Bell directed him to the sideboard with a brusque nod. Scudder Smith poured gin and tossed it back. “I must admit, I enjoyed myself. I miss my newspaper days.”

  “Did you detect a trace of an English accent in either of their voices?”

  “No more than any actor,” said Smith.

  Bell nodded grimly. He had heard many an American actor affect an English-sounding drawl with upper-crust pretensions, often at a volume to project expression to the balcony seats. “Actor speak,” Archie Abbott dubbed the stagy elocution delivered with faithful diction, exquisite inflection, and commanding posture.

  “I set it up to take another shot,” said Scudder Smith. “I got the publicist interested in me ghostwriting their memoirs. Or do you want Helen or Archie?”

  “It’s my turn,” said Bell.

  35

  As they did most evenings in every city they played, Jackson Barrett and John Buchanan walked home to their train after the show. At the station tonight, just inside the private platforms entrance, a tall, lean, golden-haired young gentleman in a white suit touched the brim of his hat in a friendly salute.

  “Good evening, Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan. I am Isaac Bell, and I would be honored if you would join me for supper in my car.”

  Bell gestured toward a palatially fitted dark green and gold car, which the actors had already noticed was cut several notches above the other millionaires’ train cars parked overnight in Cincinnati.

  Buchanan demurred. “Thank you, Mr. Bell. But it’s been a long day.”

  “It’s been many long days for me,” said Bell, “but I am at last in a position to make a lucrative proposal.” He gestured again to the car, adding, “I know I can’t lure you with champagne, but my cook grills one of your favorite dishes—Maryland rockfish.”

  “How’d you find that out?” asked Buchanan.

  Bell answered with an easy grin, “I am new to the theater, but by exercising due diligence on behalf of my syndicate, I learned that actors are famously hungry after a performance—ravenous after a brilliant one—and that you two have a particular preference for rockfish. Though we Hartford Yankees call them striped bass.”

  Barrett asked, “Where’d your cook get rockfish fresh in Cincinnati?”

  “He traded the champagne you don’t drink for iced beauties from a St. Louis express.”

  “I am persuaded,” said Barrett.

  “Me, too,” said Buchanan.

  Bell led them into his car. A first course of chilled Gulf shrimp and Maine lobster was laid out on a candlelit dining table set with silver, crystal, and Staffordshire bone china decorated with scenes from Shakespeare.

  As Archie Abbott had predicted, Barrett and Buchanan tore into the shrimp and lobster in appreciative silence. Bell watched in awe as they tackled striped bass, asparagus tips, and new potatoes Parisienne as avidly, and it was only over Baked Alaska that Jackson Barrett finally asked, “What lucrative arrangement are you proposing, Mr. Bell?”

  Bell said, “I had lunch with your angels, as theater folk call them, and concluded I would rather approach you directly.”

  “In other words, they weren’t interested?” asked Barrett.

  “They were more interested in persuading me to share in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

  “Why?”

  “Come now, gentlemen, that wire-service story is no secret. I’m sure you’ll weather it, but the Deavers’ desire to spread the risk and get some of their money out is reasonable. I personally have little doubt that your Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will tour for many years.”

  “From your lips to God’s ear,” said Buchanan.

  “But at some point, I imagine, you would want to move on.”

  “Where?”

  “A new show,” said Bell.

  “Leap from a sure thing into the pit of speculation?” said Buchanan. “No thank you, sir. The only new show I’d do would be made with the wave of a magic wand instead of money—but still sells tickets for money.”

  “First rule of the stage,” Barrett chimed in. “Cherish your hits. When you close a good play, you miss it forever. You’ve been immortal—a god—until the curtain comes down on your final performance. Next morning, you’re knocking on a banker’s door with your hat in your hand.”

  Bell said, “My syndicate will pay for you to make a new play. You will have no concerns about raising money.”

  “Why us?”

  “Your modernized Jekyll and Hyde demonstrates that Robert Louis Stevenson is as sure a financial thing as the original was twenty-five years ago. You’re the men to do it next for Treasure Island.”

  “Didn’t we hear Julie Goodman is writing a Treasure Island?” Buchanan asked Barrett.

  “It doesn’t matter what Jules Eckert Goodman is doing,” Bell said dismissively. “Ours is a musical play.”

  “A musical? What a strange idea.”

  Bell returned a thin smile
. “Our due diligence went beyond rockfish. You’ve done musicals. And they made money.”

  “Well, we didn’t lose any,” Buchanan admitted.

  Bell said, “Critics and audiences applaud your alternating roles in Jekyll and Hyde. They will love Treasure Island. You’ll be Long John Silver one night, Mr. Barrett, and Squire Trelawney the next.”

  The actors regarded Isaac Bell with shrewd expressions that told the tall detective that he had lassoed their attention. Time to act on Archie Abbott’s advice: The language of the theater is cash.

  “Treasure Island will make you rich. Royalties for the script alone could run as much as fifty thousand—before you count your profits from the Broadway production and the road show.”

  “There is one big, insurmountable problem with Treasure Island,” said Buchanan.

  “I see no problem. Mr. Stevenson’s widow accepted our offer for the rights, and a million boys and girls who loved the book are now adults who will line up to buy tickets.”

  “The problem is, no girl in the story,” said Barrett. “No romance. No hope of hero and heroine falling in love. A musical Treasure Island must have a romantic angle if it’s to play to bigger audiences than children’s Christmas pantos.”

  “But there is a girl,” said Bell.

  Barrett laughed. “What are you proposing, bring young Jim Hawkins’s mother on the voyage?”

  Buchanan joined the laughter. “Jim’s mother falls for Long John Silver. Silver is reformed by love and turns his Spyglass Tavern into a Methodist mission.”

  “Dr. Livesey is your girl,” said Isaac Bell.

  The actors’ eyes lighted up like double eagle gold pieces.

  Barrett said, “Change Squire Trelawney’s sidekick to his fiancée.”

  “No women doctors in the eighteenth century,” Buchanan protested.

  Bell said, “Your modernized Treasure Island will be taking place in the twentieth century—here-and-now 1911, just like Jekyll and Hyde.”

  Barrett said, “No pirates in 1911. The Royal Navy exterminated them.”

  Isaac Bell looked them both in the eye. “We have no shortage of cutthroats in 1911.”

  Barrett and Buchanan exchanged a glance.