Chapter Six
A dark slim silhouette decorated the cover page of the program, a three-quarter back view of a man enveloped in black velvet. The long cape swirled fantastically into a border design. To the right of the figure, in bold, black caps, the title, Dracula. Underneath, in elegant script: “Directed by Arthur Darien.”
“I like it;” Spraggue’s Aunt Mary said. “Very Aubrey Beardsley.”
Spraggue turned the page. The cast list was next, in order of appearance:
| JONATHAN HARKER | Gregory Hudson |
| COUNT DRACULA | John Langford |
| THE BRIDES OF DRACULA | Deirdre Marten |
| Gina Phillips | |
| RENFIELD | Edward Lafferty |
| DR. JOHN SEWARD | Frank Hodges |
| MINA MURRAY | Caroline Ambrose |
| LUCY WESTENRA | Emma Healey |
| DR. ABRAHAM VAN HELSING | Gustave Grayling |
Spraggue let his eyes close while his aunt pored over the list, shutting out the vast proportions of the balconied, two-story library of the old Spraggue house. Even the Cézanne over the marble fireplace offered no relief to exhaustion-blurred eyes. What time was it? One o’clock? Two? Never too late for Aunt Mary.
He grinned at the back of her variegated head. She had hoped for a smooth transition, a graceful fading from red to silver. But the process seemed to have halted halfway, leaving untidy patches of both colors. Oddly enough, it suited her perfectly.
“Well?” she said, her clear voice belying her sixty-seven years.
Spraggue took a long sip of syrupy amber wine, a ’59 Beerenauslese Aunt Mary had brought up from the cellar to celebrate his new job. He smiled his appreciation. Mary tapped the cast list sharply with a painted fingernail.
“That,” said Spraggue hastily, “minus one, plus one, is the list of suspects.”
“Who’s out?”
“Frank Hodges. I’ve got his part. He could have been playing the tricks up until last week, but he had nothing to do with today’s games. Definitely in New York. I spoke to him on the phone. He wished me luck.”
“Did you tell him you were investigating the—”
“No. Things like that have a way of getting around. I called to humbly ask him for any character insight he might offer me on Dr. John Seward. I had a hard time getting him off the line.”
Aunt Mary crossed off Hodges’s name. “And whose name gets added?”
“Don’t scrawl it on the cast list. She’s crew. The stage manager. Woman named Karen Snow.”
“Nice name.”
“Seems a nice person,” said Spraggue shortly.
“What about the rest of the crew?”
“Darien says they’re out. There’s a fat guy named Dennis, the house manager. I’d like to know more about him. But Darien assures me he’s out of the running.”
“And how reliable is Mr. Darien?” asked Aunt Mary mildly.
Spraggue yawned. “How reliable is anyone in this business?”
“What I meant was, is he drinking?” Spraggue’s eyebrow went up again. “You know about that?”
“Doesn’t everyone? Don’t you remember that business with the auto crash? The Boston papers hardly touched it, but the New York press went after Darien with a vengeance.”
“An accident—” Spraggue said, dredging up bits and pieces of the story from his memory.
“A woman was killed. I don’t recall the name. An actress, I think. Unknown.”
“And Darien was charged?”
“No,” Aunt Mary said positively. “The public prosecutor wanted to go for vehicular homicide. Said Darien was drunk. He so often was at that time. But someone slipped up. I forget. Either no breathalyzer test was given or the results were lost or tampered with. A police officer lost his job over the mixup. Darien got off with bruises and bad press.”
“As far as I know, Darien’s stone-cold sober.” Spraggue pulled a folded scrap of paper out of his pocket. “But even if he isn’t drinking now, this could encourage him to start.”
He handed a facsimile of the note he’d found on Darien’s desk to his aunt. “It came attached to a dead bird.”
She fingered the note thoughtfully. “Whose suicide does this refer to?”
“Samuel Borgmann Phelps.”
“Ah.”
“You knew him?”
“Of him. When I was a teenager, attending a performance at Phelps’s Boston Rep was the thing to do. He held the most marvelous parties, right up until the end. Thought he’d turn Boston into Broadway. No one knew how badly off he really was. The family had generations of wealth behind it. Or so everyone thought.”
“What happened to them?”
“The Phelps family? I don’t know. He had children, I’m sure.’ There was a huge turnout at the funeral. Would you like me to find out?”
“I can—”
“I would like to help, Michael. And I do enjoy snooping. One of the few vocations eminently suited to the elderly.”
“Well, I could use someone to do a résumé check. See if these folks have all done what they’ve claimed.”
“Wonderful.” Aunt Mary beamed. “And what about money, Michael? Who has a major financial interest in Darien’s success or failure? He’s no Sam Phelps; he can’t handle everything on his own. I could ask around Massachusetts Council of Arts membership, a sound credit rating, a reputation as an eccentric, and dithery ways go far when asking impertinent questions.”
“Terrific.” Spraggue smiled at his anything-but-dithery aunt. “I’ll keep my eye on the cast. If my eye will stay open.”
“Early rehearsal tomorrow?”
“Two-one, Two-two, and Two-three. All scenes I yak my head off in.”
“Don’t drive back to Cambridge then,” Mary said earnestly. “The tower room is always ready for you here. Dora cherishes the thought that someday you’ll get fed up with your own cooking and move back.”
“If I ever do, it’ll be for Dora’s strawberry tarts.”
“Seriously, Michael, it is your house—”
“And you live in it for me. It’s too damn big, Mary. I’m uncomfortable here. We’ve been through this—”
Aunt Mary rang the bell on the desk top. Pierce ushered Spraggue out, wished him a safe drive. The butler refused to respond to Spraggue’s wink. Sometimes the dignity of his position overcame the memories of the hide-and-seek games he had played with Michael many years before.
Spraggue drove home at a leisurely speed. The wine had left him relaxed, a little high. To pass the time, he recited his lines, enjoying the baritone echo in the small space. Act Two, scene one finished. Now Two-two. Then Two-three. Numbers.
He pulled the car off to the side of Hammond Street, flicked on the dome light. Then he began to fumble methodically through his pockets. The note, Greg’s note in the bloody sack. What were the numbers?
He found it finally, carefully placed in his wallet. Yes. Four numbers—one Roman, three Arabic. The first one, Roman: that would be the act number. Then the scene. Then the line. Act One, scene five, line thirty-eight.
Spraggue’s fingers scrabbled through the blue-bound Dracula script. Act One. Act one, scene two. Scene three. He flipped the page, stopped, turned back.
He was wrong. Dracula had no fifth scene in the first act.
He drove the rest of the way home in silence.