Ellen Hart Presents Malice Domestic 15: Mystery Most Theatrical. Karen Cantwell
was looking for my seat when I saw a flash of white turning into the doorway for Box 5,” one matron told The Herald. “But when I got there, I could find no one.” She paused for dramatic effect. “That box was completely empty…and cold as the grave.”
At first, I dismissed the rumors as mass hysteria or, more likely, a publicity stunt by the management to sell more tickets.
Tongues wagged, of course. In the popular imagination, the ghost became equated with the tragic death of the builder’s wife. Some even dubbed the apparition “Clarissa.”
It saddened me and angered me in equal measure.
One day at Art’s I heard a stranger recounting another “ghost sighting” at the theater. I wanted to slug him, and probably would have, until something he said stopped me in my tracks.
“I was the first one up in Balcony B for Friday’s matinee, and suddenly the air smelled like my grandmother’s garden,” he told the barmaid. “There was no one there, so it couldn’t have been some dame’s perfume, but I swear I smelled lilacs.”
Lilacs. Clarissa’s favorite.
I’m not the superstitious type, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Clarissa was as determined as ever to be in the theater.
* * * *
My theory about a publicity stunt on the part of the theater management appeared to be wrong. About six months after the grand opening of the movie palace, my phone rang, and the operator announced a call from Jefferson 3-4-7-9.
“Mr. Jerome?” a nervous-sounding voice on the other end of the line said. “This is Sam Keene. I’m the box office manager over at the State. We need your help.”
Keene went on to explain that the theater management was getting concerned. The talk of a haunted venue at first seemed like it would draw audiences, so they encouraged it. But now they were beginning to see a fall-off in ticket sales, and wondered if some of the more timid theater-goers were staying away.
“We’d like to hire you to get to the bottom of this thing,” Keene said. “Whatever it takes.”
“I’ll need unfettered access to all areas of the theater—at all times of the day or night,” I told him.
“Of course,” Keene said. “We’ve thought about that, and we can provide you with a cover story. You’re doing follow-up work for Mr. Lamb, the architect, to make sure everything in the design is working out fine. That way, you’ll be able to talk to everybody from management to stagehands to patrons, and you can poke around the seating areas and backstage as well.”
I thought about it. I didn’t care about the theater’s sales numbers, but it might let me explore a bit about the rumors surrounding Clarissa. If I could help save her reputation and put the speculation about her to rest, it would be work well spent.
The theater’s generous fee for my services wouldn’t hurt, either.
“It’s a deal,” I said, and rang off.
* * * *
I arrived at the theater the next morning to begin my investigation. Keene met me at the door. He looked as nervous as he’d sounded over the phone. “I hope you understand, Mr. Jerome, we require the utmost discretion. We want to quell rumors, not start them.” He raised himself up to his full height, which came to my shoulders, and put on a most officious expression.
I fixed him with an icy stare. “I’m a professional, Mr. Keene, you don’t need to lecture me about discretion,” I said. “As to whether the rumors will be quashed by what I find, that remains to be seen.”
The cover story he provided for me worked well. I was given access to the public spaces, the stage area, even the dressing rooms.
I watched the scene painters go about their business creating the backdrops for live vaudeville acts, and got to visit the booth where the projectionist changed reels for the afternoon cinema. Even the organist let me up in the loft where the Wurlitzer’s pipes reverberated during the silent pictures.
They were all polite and explained to me whether their spaces worked for them, and noted problems they were having with the design. Like workmen everywhere, they had plenty of gripes.
They also had plenty of gossip, especially when they thought I wasn’t listening.
One day, as I pretended to sketch the rigging that soared eighty feet above the stage, I heard a stagehand named Tom Grady talking to his replacement at shift change. “I don’t want to put the heebie-jeebies on you, Frankie, but the oddest thing happened to me last night during the second show,” Grady said. “I was working the curtain between acts, and during intermission, I decided to take a cigarette break.” He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening. Because of the danger of curtains, scenery, and costumes catching fire and causing a stampede among three-thousand patrons, smoking was strictly forbidden in this area of the theater.
“I barely lit up when I heard a woman behind me scold, ‘Put out that coffin nail.’ I whipped my head back to see who was bossing me around, but there was no one there.” Grady nodded at his companion’s shocked expression. “Yeah, that’s how I felt. Very, very eerie, it was. Very eerie, indeed.”
I thought back to Clarissa chiding that swell over at Art’s with the very same words, and had to agree with Grady’s assessment.
For my survey of how things in the theater were working, some stagehands told me doors previously open were locked when they returned just moments later. Thespians complained about dresses falling off hangers or makeup jars toppling over. Even the organist said there must be a draft in his loft, because sometimes pages turned on their own.
I was walking down a corridor, wondering just what kind of a report I could write for Keene and how that would help the theater put the ghost stories to rest, when I heard voices raised in a dressing room a few doors down. With the hustle and bustle of act changes, no one noticed me as I positioned myself to hear better.
“Don’t you sweet-talk me anymore,” a woman’s voice said. “I’ve had it with your promises. You told me you’d give me a career on stage and a ring, and so far I’ve got neither!” I thought I recognized the voice as belonging to Vivian, the seamstress I’d seen on the arm of Clarissa’s husband at the wake.
I heard a man’s voice, but he was speaking lower, maybe even whispering, and I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
The woman raised her voice louder. “No, I mean it! I’m going to the cops. I found those wire cutters you had hidden in your office, and the bottle of laudanum, too. I bet you put that into the tea you asked me to take up to Clarissa that day. It must have made her dizzy and that’s why she fell when she saw Oscar die.” Vivian started sobbing hysterically. “How could you? That poor girl never hurt a fly.” Suddenly she screamed, “Felix! No!” and I heard a thud.
The door opened then and Clarissa’s husband stuck out his head, straightened his jacket, and looked to see if the coast was clear before stepping out.
That’s when he saw me. I watched recognition dawn in his eyes as he identified me from the honeymoon send-off over at Art’s.
One minute he was staring at me with a look of panic as he realized that I had heard everything. The next he turned and headed for the catacombs of the theater.
I was right on his tail.
The warren of hallways and secret passages connected backstage areas, dressing rooms, and exits. Even the actors and stagehands admitted to getting lost in the maze of dark, narrow passageways. I didn’t have a chance.
As a builder, Felix was likely to know his way around, I reminded myself, as I struggled to keep up with his zigzag course. One minute I’d catch sight of his coattails, the next there would be nothing there, only a pair of doors, unmarked, and me, wondering which he had run through.
Suddenly,