The Cutthroat

Isaac Bell felt as if the black sky had fallen on his head.

A young girl’s crush, just as Wayne Barlowe had guessed. If not the angelic gentleman the illustrator had proposed, could a handsome actor have caught her eye? All the more dazzling in limelight and theater makeup?

“He was an actor?”

“No.”

“No?” Bell’s hopes soared as quickly as they had fallen.

“They never let him act — except once he carried a spear.”

“Then what did he do at Wilton’s?”

“Everything. He wore a sandwich board to tout the show. He ran for beer. One day, I watched him paint the scenery in the backyard. He sold sweets and passed out programs. Sometimes, he was a callboy, knocking on dressing room doors. And he stood right at the elbow of the prompter himself.”

An all-rounder, thought Bell. A boy-of-all-work assigned every job that needed doing in the theater. But how deep was their connection?

“Did he hand you a program?”

“I couldn’t get in that night. I had no money. By the time I earned it, he was gone.”

“Did you help him paint scenery in the yard?”

Emily’s face fell. “He chased me off.” She grew restless, her hands fluttering.

Bell asked, “How often did you see him on the stage with a spear?”

“Once.”

“Only once?” How did one sighting on the stage stick him so deep in her memory?

“And once when he carried a lantern.”

“So only twice?”

“Twice.”

“But you said you went often.”

“He wasn’t always there.”

Bell was aware that laudanum addicts were prey to hallucinations. As hallucinations went, her handsome callboy was a doozy.

“Emily, would you like to keep his picture?”

“Yes, please.”

Bell helped her work it inside the envelope. She hid it in the folds of her shawl.

“Where do you live?” he asked.

“They give me a cot at the Salvation Army. I help in the kitchen.”

“I’ll walk you home,” said Bell.

“Why?”

“Because I am going to give this sack of half crowns to the Army commander to be sure you’re taken care of.”

Emily got a crafty look in her eye. “If you give it to me, I can take care of myself.”

“I would rather give it to someone I can trust to keep you safe.”

“You think I might spend it on laudanum.”

“No ‘might’ about it,” said Bell so firmly that she dropped the subject with an abject nod.

At the door of the soup kitchen, she blurted, “Don’t tell nobody what I said.”

“I won’t.”

“He’ll come for me.”

“Don’t worry,” said Isaac Bell, hearing his own words ring hollow, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t… Emily? What was the callboy’s name?”

“Jack.”

“Jack? Do you remember his last name?”

“Spelvin.”

“Jack Spelvin?”

“Handsome Jack.”

20

“Here’s a strange one,” said Harry Warren, reading from the Research Department report that Isaac Bell had ordered sent every morning to the Cutthroat Squad.

Helen Mills, James Dashwood, Archie Abbott, and several other detectives in the New York field office bull pen not of the Cutthroat Squad looked up from their work.

“What’s strange?”

“Woman throat slashed and carved up in Cleveland.”

“Sounds like our man.”

“Except she was a six-foot-tall brunette.”

“Prostitute?”

“Banker’s wife.”

“Crescent carvings?”

“None reported.”

“Shouldn’t Cleveland send a man to the morgue?”

“Already did. No carvings.”

“Sounds like a coincidence.”

“Who wants to tell Mr. Bell it’s a coincidence?”

A profound silence settled over them — the Chief Investigator took a dim view of coincidences in general and an even dimmer view of coincidences offered as explanations. The silence was broken suddenly by James Dashwood, who was thumbing through a pile of old issues of The Clipper, the actors’ weekly that listed jobs.

“There you are!”

“Who?”

“Stage manager I told you about. For Jekyll and Hyde? I knew I recognized him.” He held up The Clipper. “Henry Young.” He pointed to a line drawing of an actor playing a villain in an 1897 melodrama.

“That’s not a wanted poster.”

“I know. But now I know he was working in a Syracuse stock company in the late nineties.”

Joseph Van Dorn burst into the bull pen. Last heard from, the Boss was in Washington, and the detectives jumped to their feet. “Who’s heard from Isaac?”

Archie Abbott said, “He had Joel Wallace cable me to check up on Lord Strone. He’s the—”

“British spy. What does he want with a British spy?”

“To see if Strone’s still in business.”

“Is he?”

“He’s kind of disappeared on his yacht.”

“That’s all you’ve heard from Isaac?”

“Well, he cabled Marion when he arrived in London.”

“Maybe we should install his wife down here to keep up with him.”

Van Dorn stormed off. Looks were exchanged. The Boss was losing patience with the Cutthroat Squad.

Archie Abbott waited until the front desk telephoned that Van Dorn had gone downstairs for a late breakfast. Quickly, he stood up and gathered his things. “See you tomorrow.”

“You’re going home at ten in the morning?”

“I’ve got tickets to see Jekyll and Hyde again.”

“It closed. It’s on the road, remember?”

“I’m seeing it in Columbus.”

“You’re going all the way to Ohio to watch a play?”

“Lillian invited Marion Bell. Marion missed it in New York, and now she misses Isaac, so we’re taking her with us.”