The Cutthroat by Clive Cussler (popular books to read txt) 📗

“What did she want in New York?”

“To become an actress.”

Isaac Bell hid a smile. The situation was immensely clearer.

“May I ask why you have come to the Van Dorn Agency at this juncture?”

“She should have come home with her tail between her legs after a couple of weeks.”

“Are you concerned for her safety?”

“Of course.”

“But you still waited another week after those ‘couple of weeks’?”

“I kept waiting for Anna to come to her senses. Her mother has persuaded me that we cannot wait any longer . . . Listen here, Bell, she was always a levelheaded child. Since she was a little girl. Eyes wide open. She’s no flibbertigibbet.”

“Then you can comfort your wife with the thought that a girl with Anna’s qualities stands a good chance of a successful career in the theater.”

Pape stiffened. “She would disgrace my family.”

“Disgrace?”

“This sort of behavior attracts the newspapers. Waterbury is not New York, Mr. Bell. It’s not a fast city. My family will never live it down if the papers get wind of a well-born Pape on the stage.”

Bell’s manner cooled. “I will have a Van Dorn detective familiar with the theater districts work up the case. Good afternoon, Mr. Pape.”

“Hold on!”

“What?”

“I demand you personally conduct the search if Van Dorn can’t.”

“The agency parcels out assignments according to their degree of criminality. Mr. Van Dorn and I specialize in murderers, gangsters, bank robbers, and kidnappers.”

At the moment, he was supervising investigations into train robbers derailing express cars in the Midwest, bank robbers crisscrossing state lines in autos, Italian gangs terrorizing the New York docks, a Chicago jewel thief cracking the safes of tycoons’ mistresses, and blackmailers victimizing passengers on ocean liners.

“A temporarily missing young lady is not the line I’m in. Or are you suggesting she was kidnapped?”

Pape blinked. Obviously accustomed to employees obeying his orders and his whims, the industrialist looked suddenly at sixes and sevens. “No, of course not. I checked at the station. She bought a train ticket to New York— Bell, you don’t understand.”

“I do understand, sir. I was not much older than Anna when I went against my own father’s wishes and became a detective rather than follow him into the banking business.”

“Banking? What bank?”

“American States.”

“You made a mistake,” said Pape. “An American States banker faces a lot more lucrative future than a private detective. Take my advice: you’re a young fellow, young enough to change. Get out of this gumshoe business and ask your father to persuade his boss to offer you a job.”

“He is the boss,” said Bell. “It’s his bank.”

“American States. American Stat— Bell? Is your father Ebenezer Bell?”

“I mention him to assure you that I understand that Anna wants something different,” said Bell. “Your daughter and I have disappointed fathers in common— Now, by any chance have you brought a photograph?”

Pape drew an envelope from an inside pocket and gave Bell a Kodak snapped out of doors of children in a summer camp theatrical performance. Anna was a cherubic, expressive, fair-haired girl. Whether she was levelheaded did not show—perhaps a tribute, Bell thought with another hidden smile, to her thespian talent.

“Shakespeare,” said Pape.

Bell nodded, engrossed in memories the picture brought forth. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“How did you know?”

“They made me play Oberon when I grew too tall for Puck— Anna’s a pretty girl. How old was she here?”

Pape muttered something Bell couldn’t understand. “What was that, sir?” He looked up from the photograph.

The Brass King had tears in his eyes. “What if I’m wrong?” he whispered.

“How do you mean?”

“What if something terrible happened to her?”

“Young women come to the city every day,” Bell answered gently. “They eventually find something they want or they go home. But, in either event, the vast, vast majority survive, enriched, even happy. I would not start worrying needlessly. We’ll find your daughter.”

2

Eighteen-year-old Anna Waterbury read Variety aloud to Lucy Balant, her roommate in Mrs. Shine’s Boarding House for Actors. They had pooled nickels to buy the show business magazine and—like a sign from Heaven, thought Anna—Variety headlined the new Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tour about to cross the country on Barrett & Buchanan’s private train.

“‘Jackson Barrett and John Buchanan—matinee idols who ignite melodrama like dreadnoughts on a rampage—will trade title roles as they did on Broadway. The chief interest centers around the struggle between the good and evil halves of the same man. Isabella Cook portrays the innocent love interest tormented by Hyde. Miss Cook returns to the stage after two years’ retirement, during which she was married and widowed by the late Theatrical Syndicate chief, Rufus S. Oppenheim, who drowned when his yacht exploded.’”

Anna whispered, “Can I tell you a secret?”

Lucy was reading the Wanteds over her shoulder. “Look! ‘Wanted for Permanent Stock. General businesswoman. Must be tall, young, experienced, and have good wardrobe. Join at once. Sobriety, wardrobe, and ability essential. Long season. Money, sure—’ How tall is ‘tall’?”

Anna said, “It’s a secret.”

“What?”

“You have to promise never, ever tell anyone.”

“O.K., I promise.”

“There’s a man who’s going to coach me to read for a role in a big hit.”

“Is he a teacher?”

“No! Much better. He’s a producer. A Broadway producer who knows someone in a big hit.”

Anna’s friend looked skeptical, or possibly envious. “Did he take you to Rector’s?”

“Rector’s? No!”

“Anna! A sport should at least treat a girl to a Beef Wellington. I mean, what does he want for ‘coaching’?— Why are you laughing?”

“Because three weeks ago I wouldn’t have known what ‘a Beef Wellington’ meant.”

Anna Waterbury had learned so much so fast since coming to New York, Beef Wellington was the least of it. “I am,” she said, “the only graduate in the history of St. Margaret’s School for Girls who knows to ask whether a road offer includes train fare.”

Not to mention who supplied costumes. And to dodge theatrical managers who got the artist, coming and going, by appointing themselves her agent. And to never, ever take a job with the circus. Not that