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

swung it high and far, and yanked it in from the arc of the swing and under the wheels.

You are brilliant.

The lunatic hurled himself under a speeding train.

Brilliant.

He retrieved the cane he had dropped, sheathed his blade, and waited outside in the vestibule while the train slowed for Tuxedo Park. The passengers hurried out of the car. He followed them from the lavish stone station, wrapping his cape tightly closed to cover the blood that soaked his coat and trousers. Ahead, he could hear the blonde laughing with her friends, escaping him again.

Leaving him still hungry.

“Isaac!” Marion said in the night.

Bell came awake in an instant, reaching under the pillow, eyes glittering like cobalt. She had turned on a light.

“I know why I know the Cutthroat won’t hurt me if he is in the Jekyll and Hyde company.”

Bell let go of the gun, sat up, and put an arm around her shoulder. “Tell me.”

“You think it’s highly likely that the Cutthroat is in the Jekyll and Hyde company.”

“Likely enough to make it too dangerous.”

“He won’t hurt me. He can’t hurt me. Because if he wants to have the movie made, he needs me alive.”

Isaac Bell broke into a broad smile.

“Are you laughing at me?” she asked.

“No. I am, as always, grateful for your wisdom. But this time even you don’t fully understand what you’ve reckoned.”

“I told you, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Thanks to you, I don’t have to worry about anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve come up with the ideal way to distract him. If the Cutthroat is Barrett or Buchanan or Henry Young, he won’t hurt anyone because he won’t risk getting caught until after you finish the movie in Los Angeles. That gives me the entire tour across the West to nail him before he murders another woman.”

41

“Immortality, Mr. Bell?”

Barrett and Buchanan eyed Isaac Bell skeptically over their coffee cups. Their train had just crossed the Missouri–Kansas line and was passing through oil fields littered with abandoned derricks.

“Next, you’ll sell us the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“On top of Treasure Island.”

The tall detective found no humor in their banter. Not when he knew that these men were two of his three suspects. The odds were, one of them had slaughtered Anna Waterbury and Lillian Lent and Mary Beth Winthrop and how many more girls who had died in terror.

“A movie will make your performances live forever.”

“We weren’t aware you were involved with motion pictures, Mr. Bell.”

“My wife is a filmmaker. Marion Morgan Bell.”

Both actors’ eyebrows shot upward. Buchanan said, “You are married to Marion Morgan? She made The Iron Horse. You saw it, Jackson, about the western railroads.”

Barrett was studying Bell closely. “So you are not a complete stranger to show business, Mr. Bell.”

“I believe I can persuade her to immortalize your production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a big film. Three full reels. Maybe four.”

John Buchanan shook his head. “Absolutely not. If the audience can watch a movie, why would they come to our show?”

“They can read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But they still come to your show.”

“Interesting,” Barrett said. “It is something to consider.”

“Someday in the future,” Buchanan added vaguely.

Bell said, “You would have to do it immediately after your last performance in San Francisco. It can be made fast and inexpensively only while your company is still together, your scenery and costumes intact.”

“Who will pay for it?” asked Buchanan. “You’re talking about carrying the entire company during the process, not to mention what cameras and that sort of thing cost.”

“My syndicate will put up the money in exchange for half the profits. Your movie rights to your play will keep the other half.”

“This will take some pondering.”

“Why?” asked Bell. “It was your idea.”

“Our idea? What are you talking about?”

“Mr. Barrett, you said you wished your play would not disappear. And, Mr. Buchanan, you wished you could sell tickets to a production that cost nothing to make. Didn’t you?”

“Wishes.”

“I’m offering you your wishes. If you must ponder, ponder two unique facts about movies. One, a movie preserves your play—and, particularly, your performances—for the ages.”

Barrett nodded.

Buchanan said, “Yes, yes, immortality. There’s where you started. What is the other unique fact?”

“An all-new kind of ‘magic wand’ profit never seen before in the history of the theater. Speaking in round numbers, let’s say your play wraps eight thousand a week, provided you crowd the theater. But your play costs you seven thousand a week in salaries and expenses. Each and every week, whether or not you crowd the theater.”

Bell watched Barrett and Buchanan exchange raised eyebrows, again. The Hartford insurance man had learned a thing or two.

“To make your movie will cost you nothing. When it plays in every movie house in the country, it will bring in twenty, thirty, fifty thousand a week. Every week. While your cost every week will remain zero.”

“I like that,” said Buchanan.

“Money and immortality,” said Barrett. “Very tempting, Mr. Bell.”

“Your idea, gentlemen. All I did was listen to you. But speed is of the essence, unless you’re willing to go to the expense of starting from scratch with a whole new company, scenery, and costumes.”

Barrett and Buchanan looked at each other and traded silent nods.

“What’s the next step?”

Isaac Bell stood up. “We shake on it, and then I will do everything in my power to talk my wife into it.”

“If she won’t,” said Barrett, “we’ll find someone else.”

Bell jumped at the chance to make Marion bulletproof.

“That won’t be necessary. We have already discussed it.”

“Was talking her into it a negotiating ploy?”

“Guilty,” said Bell. “It’s a terrible insurance man habit. The customer wants his steel mills insured for the lowest premium. I sympathize but must ‘clear it with my underwriters,’ who are real skinflints. Fact is, there’s really no one else to film your play better than Marion, and she is so excited about moving it out of doors, beyond the confines of the stage. When Mr. Hyde stalks a