The Cutthroat

Head to toe, his costume was black, his shirt and trousers as tight-fitting as a dancer’s, his hat, helmet-like and unadorned, a stark frame for his grotesquely bloated face mask. He wore a cape that came below his knees.

Marion picked up the megaphone she would need when the wind machine crackled and whirled into action.

“Ready, Mrs. Bell!”

“Lights!”

“Dynamo ready!” Rennegal called.

“Kellan, start the motor!”

“Contact!”

Mrs. Rennegal threw an electrical switch placed well out of range of the propeller. Its violent whirlwind yet to come.

Young Kellan gave the propeller a couple of turns, and when he reached a compression-resistance point, tugged up hard. Two more pulls and the Curtiss clattered to life, pistons popping, valves rattling, propeller building a stiff breeze. Even at idling speed, the silk strips danced and Jekyll’s and Hyde’s capes fluttered.

“Lights!”

Mrs. Rennegal engaged the belt drive powering the dynamo. The Cooper Hewitts flooded a harsh blue-green glare on Jekyll and Hyde.

“Cameras!”

Davidson and Blitzer began to crank slowly.

Marion shouted, “Mr. Barrett, Mr. Young: Good and evil battle to the death. Be ferocious — just please don’t accidentally kill each other, because we have a lot more film to make — if it ever stops raining.”

Jekyll and Hyde poised for engagement.

“Speed!”

Davidson and Blitzer cranked their cameras to take twenty frames per second.

Jekyll and Hyde saluted each other as a gesture of respect by raising the blades in front of their faces. The scenario, adapted loosely from the play, called for their first exchange to be aggressive. No hallucinogenic flouncing about, but good and evil tested severely. The hard beats of saber on saber rang loudly.

Jackson Barrett was still getting used to the idea that the audience in a movie would not hear the actual steely battle clang of the sabers, but the orchestra’s sound effects. On the other hand, the fact that they would not hear any words the actors spoke made for a rather fun game.

“Are you up for a fencing lesson, Mr. Young?”

In answer, the stage manager attacked without engaging in any feint, and Barrett was stunned to see Young use a counterbeat that swept under Barrett’s blade.

“The cameras are making you bold. Slow down.”

Hyde’s next lightning thrust actually forced Barrett to retreat.

His anger mounting, he snarled, “I’m putting a halt to this before I hurt you, and hurt you badly.”

He advanced to attack.

The stage manager surprised him with a sharp parry, then disengaged and executed his own attack with a sudden leap.

“Your moves are inventive,” said Barrett, with a quick parry. “You must have been practicing since the last time we were onstage.”

The stage manager had yet to speak. It was as if he were devoting himself to every move far in advance. Seeing Young display his sudden skills stunned Marion and the crew. They knew this was unlike any previous movie duel, as he handled a saber with unbelievable agility that was never there before.

“Mr. Young, if you try that again, I shall make you very sorry. Now, follow my lead. I will attack and you will retreat.”

Barrett tested him with a couple of hard beats, striking steel to steel, feinted with a hard beat, and lunged into a calculated move to show the audience the evil Mr. Hyde as if he were a rat scurrying down a dark alley.

It was becoming clear that Young was more adept than Buchanan with a saber. Barrett soon realized he was against one as good, if not better, with a sword than himself.

The stage manager made a direct riposte that ended in a thrust with no feints but with a total circle around Barrett’s blade. Barrett was half a second too quick to disengage and avoid Young’s offensive action.

Everyone on the set stood mesmerized, not certain if the fight had really become a vicious battle or only staged action for the movie.

Hyde waited to parry until Jekyll’s sword arm was fully extended and the point of his saber was only one inch from piercing his shoulder. His riposte pierced the sleeve on Barrett’s out-thrust and carved a deep cut in his forearm.

“A late parry, Mr. Hyde? You have neither the sense of distance nor the point control with your tight grip to put one over. How did you do that?”

Hyde gave no answer, and Barrett began to use tactics he hadn’t used in years. He deflected Hyde’s next attack with a straight, smooth line without wavering to attract a reaction — a swift, strong, clean parry without him seemingly noticing the blood flowing from his forearm.

Hyde did not immediately reengage Barrett but stepped back, gave his opponent a grotesque grin through his makeup, and spoke loudly so his voice carried to the crew over the wind machine.

“Jack Spelvin, my name is Isaac Bell, I am an investigator with the Van Dorn Detective Agency. I arrest you for the murder of Anna Waterbury and only God knows how many other women.”

50

Barrett shouted, “Are you crazy? Your fellow detectives arrested Buchanan. He’s the Ripper.”