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

He offered a smoke from a pack of Young’s favorite Turkish tobacco, Murads.

“Bless you, Quinn.”

The twitch in Young’s cheek that the regular stagehands said always jumped like a frog on closing days and opening days—when every stick of scenery and every stitch of costume had to be loaded onto the train the second the curtain came down—was barely pulsing.

They lit up. Warren said, “I overheard the boys saying you stand in for Barrett and Buchanan.”

“Who said that?”

“Couple of sceneshifters . . . Do you?”

“On occasion.”

“You must be one slick fencer to survive that Dream Duel.”

“So far, at least.”

“And a heck of an actor to make Mr. Hyde as evil as they do.”

Young smiled at the compliment. “Thank you, Quinn. It’s harder than dueling, I’ll tell you that.”

“Do folks in the audience ever complain?”

“No, bless them. They’ve been kind. I actually receive ovations. Often more sustained than Barrett’s or Buchanan’s.”

“Do the stars mind?”

“Green-eyed with jealousy?” asked Young, with another smile.

“For all your extra applause.”

“They’re too grateful for the chance to pull a disappearing act. And of course they’re not in the theater when I receive my applause. At least not the one I’m standing in for that night.”

“Where do they go on their disappearing acts?”

Henry Young shrugged. “Who knows. Mr. Barrett is probably off writing. He constantly tinkers with scripts.”

“Buchanan a writer, too?”

“Not that I’m aware of— What’s the time? I must go. Thanks for the smoke.”

“Anytime, Mr. Young. Say, what’s the news? Are we closing?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

Harry Warren reported to Isaac Bell in the privacy of a windblown platform between two cars. They were into Colorado now, and Bell could feel the engine begin to strain on the light but constant grade that presaged the Rocky Mountains.

“My gut said don’t push him any further. What do you think?”

“You nailed his leverage. Barrett and Buchanan are willing to overlook Young’s past because they can count on him to stand in for their ‘disappearing acts.’ How long do they disappear?”

“The news backstage is, Mr. Young fills in for one or two nights in a row.”

“How often?”

“Not often. Couple of times a month.”

“Mr. Buchanan probably disappears with his rich girlfriends. Where do you suppose Barrett goes to write?”

“I’ll ask around. Somebody’ll know.”

“What do you think about Mr. Young?” Bell asked.

“I don’t see how the stage manager would ever find the time to kill anybody.”

“Archie says the same. So does Helen.”

“How about you, Isaac?”

“I’m not so sure.”

The rumor that the Jekyll & Hyde Special would not stop for their scheduled performances in Denver was about to meet its test. The stage manager announced a full company meeting. Actors, musicians, sceneshifters, riggers, carpenters, wardrobe ladies, ticket sellers, and callboys crowded into the dining car and waited anxiously while stopped outside the city center in the 36th Street yard. Their locomotive took on water and their tender’s coal, and they waited some more when grocery trucks and butchers’ wagons parked beside the dining car. When the train was replenished, would it be shunted toward Union Station or onto the main line west across the Rockies?

John Buchanan looked relaxed and in charge.

Jackson Barrett, too, looked like he hadn’t a worry in the world.

Maybe the worst rumors weren’t true?

Are you kidding? Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan are actors. Who knows what they’re thinking or how they feel?

“O.K.,” said Buchanan. “Is everyone here? We have our cast. We have our backstage people and our out-front people. We have our train crew. We have our stewards and cooks. We have our guests—the angelic Mr. Bell, the journalistic Mr. Smith, and the ‘filmalistic’ Mrs. Marion Morgan Bell—more about her in a moment. We even have the pilot of our Jekyll and Hyde billboard in the sky, and if Mrs. Bradford looks too young to fly a biplane, look again, for she is a married woman and the mother of two little girls almost as pretty as she is.”

“Get on with it,” Jackson Barrett muttered through an opaque smile.

“Hazel Bradford,” Bell whispered to Marion, “set speed and altitude records last year.”

Buchanan stepped back, and said, “Your turn.”

Jackson Barrett said, “The rumors you’ve heard are NOT true. Our tour is NOT over.”

Eighty people smiled.

“So don’t worry. Our play lives on. And will continue to live on as no Broadway play ever has before.”

Everyone leaned forward to hear what the devil that was supposed to mean.

“After Denver and San Francisco, we will immediately steam down to Hollywood, which is just outside Los Angeles, where Marion Morgan Bell will transform our play into a movie. Yes, you heard right. A movie.”

Buchanan said, “Our final performances will play to Marion Morgan Bell’s cameras rather than on the stage. We will continue salaries at their current rate. Anyone who absolutely must get back to New York, we understand, and will replace you.”

“But,” said Barrett, “we hope that everyone will make the time to be watched by movie audiences forever.”

Bell whispered to Marion, “Congratulations. You’ve got your four-reeler.”

“Your investment syndicate doesn’t exist. How am I going to pay for it?”

“I’ve already spoken with Uncle Andy that you’re coming straight from San Francisco to Los Angeles to set up a four-reeler of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

The formidable Andrew Rubenoff, a onetime banking colleague of Bell’s father and a friend of Bell’s, had shifted his assets from steel, coal, and railroads to autos, airplanes, and movies and moved to California.

Bell grinned. “He’s deeply impressed that you snagged Isabella. You have your syndicate, Rubenoff and Bell.”

With that, the tall detective strolled casually from the dining car, accepting congratulations from well-wishers. He kept smiling until he was alone in his private car at the back of the train, where he laid his long fingers on his telegraph key and pondered what to send.

He was running out of time. The show would be in and out of San Francisco and on the way to Los Angeles before he knew it. If he didn’t arrest the Cutthroat before Marion finished the movie, the murderer would have his