Thirty-Three

Are you well, Mrs. Chapman?” Babe Greer asked me when I walked onto the backlot of the Selig studios the next morning. “I was so sorry to hear about your brother. Did you know Col. Selig’s missing? No one’s seen him since the day before yesterday. Detective Whitbread has come by several times—yesterday and first thing this morning. He seems quite short tempered about it.”

“Is Detective Whitbread here now?” I asked. I feared he’d warn me off if he saw me.

“No, he’s been and gone. I think he was going to the Selig offices downtown on Randolph Street. Of course, it may be that Col. Selig is there but, in the meantime, did you know they’re filming the Leopard Queen scenes with the very leopards who attacked Mr. Leeder? Isn’t that a scandal? I said so to Alonzo, and he agreed with me. I wouldn’t go anywhere near those cats. What if they attack again? Really!”

I felt repulsion at the thought, myself. The animals that had ripped the producer apart were back and working, as was Kathlyn Williams. “What about the Wizard of Oz?” I asked.

“Oh, they finished all that yesterday. They’ve torn it down already, it’s gone.” Babe sounded satisfied as if she, too, lived for the constant change of scenery and props that was the film business. I was glad the excuse for the children to sneak up to the studios was gone and I resolved to be sure to mention the obliteration of Oz when I returned home.

A group of people were milling about the jungle set. As I walked in that direction, I passed the long, low cages for the leopards. They were empty. Big Otto stood in a spot beyond the cages hosing down a small elephant that slowly swayed its head from side to side, relishing the spray. The fetid smell of animals hung over the area.

Beyond the crowd of people, Otis Turner stood waving his arms and talking through his megaphone, while Kathlyn Williams lay on a rock as if asleep. The leopards paced around superciliously, stopping to rub against Kathlyn’s body now and then. Olga stood beyond the sidelines, occasionally whistling, or motioning with her hands to communicate with the cats.

I wondered at Kathlyn’s composure. A man had been killed by those leopards just a few days before, yet there she was, lying still in the midst of them.

“They gave her a sedative,” Babe Greer whispered in my ear. “The cats, too. Seems like they’ve got some tabby naptime medicine. Olga fed it to them. They’ll do anything for her.” Two of the cats continued to stroll, marching back and forth as regular as a clock pendulum, while the third one slept at Kathlyn’s feet. In response to prompts from Turner, the actress raised herself up and began to stretch, showing a strong resemblance to the cats.

“She’s either very brave or very foolish,” Babe Greer whispered. “Alonzo says they’re man-eaters now that they attacked Mr. Leeder. They get a taste for human flesh, he says.” She shivered. “Do you think Kathlyn will be implicated in the murders? Maybe that’s how she can do it. Maybe she doesn’t care anymore, knowing she’ll have to stand trial, too.”

I looked at her eager face. “I think Alden has saved her from that,” I said. “He confessed and he insists she knew nothing of his acts.” I’d promised Clara I would respect her agreement with Alden. If he had to make such a mess, at the very least Kathlyn’s child ought to make it through unharmed. Something good had to come from all of this. Babe Greer’s interest had all the marks of common human curiosity and gossip. I didn’t want to feed it, so I turned away and headed back toward the leopard cages. There must be something I could do to discover who the real culprit was.

Babe Greer stared at me as I walked away, but she remained with the others, all of them waiting breathlessly for Kathlyn Williams to be attacked. I would hear about it if that happened, I didn’t need to see it.

By the time I reached the cages, Big Otto was cleaning them out. An old blanket had been placed over the chaise lounge to cover the blood stains. He had a pail and shovel to remove the leopard droppings, and a pitchfork to bring in more hay from a small wheelbarrow by the door. I felt the cool iron of the black bars of the cage. Big Otto eyed me suspiciously.

“Is it true that the leopards develop a taste for human flesh, once they’ve killed a man?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes in his bald head. “Only if they eat the body,” he said and I shivered at the thought. “We found them before they could do that. They go for the jugular, the big vein in the neck.” He pointed to his own neck, rocking his head to the side. “One of them got him there, and bit his head too. But they’d already been fed, you know. They weren’t hungry, we feed them well. Someone must have prodded them to make them angry.”

I stared at him. Someone had prodded them? Someone had left Leeder in the cage, then gone outside and used a stick to disturb the beasts? How horrible.

“What would you do if you were sleeping in your bed and somebody broke in and started poking at you? When you saw a stranger, wouldn’t you attack him to defend yourself? It is what they did. They were prowling around all upset when we got here. They didn’t attack to eat him, it was provoked. That’s why we moved them. Olga could tell. It was not the fault of the cats.”

I watched in silence as he finished his work, then he turned to a rope and pulley at the side of the cage. “You see this? This is how you get them out one at a time. That’s the way to do it. You put meat there, at the end. You hoist this.” He pulled on the rope and a metal sheet that formed a gate inside the long cage was lifted. “As soon as one is through, you drop it.” He let go of the rope and the metal hit the ground with a clang, forming a barrier between the main cage and the smaller, lower part at the end. “It’s all safe, unless you want to do harm.” He grunted. He was offended that Leeder’s death might have been blamed on the cage itself.

“My brother has confessed to luring Mr. Leeder into the cage and locking him in,” I said. Alden had said nothing about poking the animals to make them attack, though. He’d told Whitbread he just left the man there, expecting nature to take its course. From what Big Otto said, perhaps that was not enough. If he had locked Leeder in the cage, could someone else have come and provoked the animals?

Big Otto straightened up and looked at me. “I’m surprised. I think Leeder was a big showoff. I thought he might have come in with a lady…to show her how he’s a big strong guy, he can play with leopards. I’ve seen him do this before with other ladies. Olga and me, we told him not to do that. But he’s a big ladies’ man, big showoff.”

“You’d seen him in the leopards’ cage before?” I asked. I knew Leeder had pursued women, but in the cage? We thought he’d been there to blackmail someone, not to romance a woman. “Did anyone besides you and Olga know he did that?” I asked the big man.

“The girls he took there, for sure.” Big Otto shrugged. “You want to know, ask Olga.” He picked up his pail and shovel and walked away toward the shed where the key to the cage was kept.

I stood deep in thought for some minutes, then I heard a swish behind me. I turned and jumped away, as Olga sauntered along with the three leopards on leads. She took them to the shack where she retrieved the key, then led them back to the cage, detaching their leashes from their collars as she released each one into the cage. They appeared to suffer her touch haughtily before loping off into their home.

“Good girls,” she said in her throaty voice as she locked the door. “You will be beautiful on the film, beautiful.” Draping the leashes over her arm, she turned toward me.

“Miss Olga,” I said, “Big Otto told me that Arnold Leeder had entered the cage in the past, to impress young women. Is that true?”

She spat on the ground. “He was a pig. He tries to scare the girls to seduce them. He threatens to put them with the cats.”

“My! Did he threaten Kathlyn Williams that way?”

“Kathlyn? No. She goes of her own accord. She can walk with the cats. They have an understanding. Leeder was just a pig. He understood nothing.”

She certainly seemed to have disliked Leeder. I wondered how deep that dislike ran. Had Leeder propositioned her? Or perhaps he’d blackmailed her for something. “Have these leopards ever harmed anyone besides Mr. Leeder?” I asked.

She frowned at me and her whole tall figure tightened up with anger. “What do you accuse us of? You leave the cats alone, they leave you alone, it’s simple.”

She seemed very defensive, which made me wonder if there had been other incidents. Could she have been blackmailed to hide them? It frustrated me to know Detective Whitbread would be able to demand the woman’s cooperation in a way I couldn’t. Before I could challenge her, Babe Greer came running up and took my hand in hers.

“Mrs. Chapman, I’m so glad you’re still here. I’m so excited. Col. Selig’s decided that now’s the time. He left instructions that Alonzo and I should announce our engagement on film and that we should do it now. Isn’t it wonderful? There’s to be champagne and flowers and Alonzo will get down on one knee and give me the ring. It’s all being set up in the drawing room where they film the melodramas. You must come and be an extra. We’ll all be in evening gowns with diamonds—of course they’re paste—but the ring is real. They’ll look just wonderful. Olga, you must come, too. It’s to be a big scene with everybody in it and they need people to fill in the crowd. They’ll film it and release it next week, along with our latest comedy. Come on. Costuming is waiting.”

I hesitated, unwilling to be filmed. I was not an actress, and the idea appalled me, but she insisted. “Really, you must come. Olga, you’ll come, too?”

The Leopard Lady nodded. “I will change to the evening gown,” she said.

Babe turned back to me, seizing my right hand in both of hers and pulling. “Mrs. Chapman, you must come. The colonel’s arranged everything.”

“He’s back, then?” The prospect of interviewing the head of the film studios made me follow her.

“Not yet. He’s not back yet, but he’ll be back soon and he left all the directions.”

I allowed myself to be pulled across to the main building. We mounted the stairs to the second floor where the wardrobe mistress was in charge. She directed us to a large room full of gowns. I tried to protest that I wasn’t part of the studio, but Babe insisted that they needed more people in the background. In the end, I decided it would be fun…a little adventure.

We were plucked and prodded, then buttoned into splendid dresses with low-cut bodices. Corsages of carnations and white roses were even provided for each of us. The gown they put me into was of a heavy ivory damask with long strings of pearls running from my neck to my knees. They produced a huge wide-brimmed hat of shiny black straw with creamy silk and gauze around the brim. Dangling fake diamond earrings and long kid gloves, with shiny bracelets clasped around my wrists, finished my costume. Then I was pushed out the door, to allow them to work with the other people being gussied up—more women in gowns; and men in morning suits with striped pants, waistcoats, and cutaway jackets. Large boxes at the door held carnation boutonnieres for the men.

We waited in the hallway until we were all led up to the third floor. In the bright open spaces, women in gowns and magnificent hats were paired with men in top hats and herded toward the drawing room set, which was arranged with gilt furniture with embroidered seats. People began to be placed around the set, just as if they, too, were pieces of furniture.

Babe waved to me from across the room. She was being posed beside Alonzo in front of a mantelpiece. There was a six-piece orchestra in one corner, and waiters, balancing trays filled with flutes of champagne, brushed against me as I made my way to her. Otis Turner was giving orders, setting everyone up. He and his cameramen were the only ones in ordinary dress. I saw Kathlyn Williams in a stunning low-cut gown beside Olga and Big Otto on the other side of Alonzo.

Yelling at the cameramen, Turner was warning people not to drink the champagne until the toast, which would be given by Charles Clooney, who usually played the villain. Turner grabbed Babe and Alonzo and placed them before the camera to rehearse. I stopped to watch Alonzo go down on his knee while Babe looked away shyly as he mimed slipping a ring on her finger. I thought of the day when Stephen had proposed to me and how embarrassed we would have been for such an audience. Especially since I’d refused his first proposal.

“Mrs. Chapman, have you seen Col. Selig?” There was a light touch on my shoulder to get my attention and I turned, at first not recognizing the young man. It was Tom Mix, dressed in a light gray morning suit, and holding a shiny top hat in his gloved hand. He looked so different, not being in his usual cowboy attire, that I barely recognized him. I wondered what my son Jack would have thought of his cowboy hero dressed in such an outfit.

Another vaguely familiar face pushed through after him. “I’ve got to see him. You’re with the police, aren’t you? Do they have him? Where is he?”

At the sound of his voice, I recognized Broncho Billy. “No, I’m sorry. I have no idea where Col. Selig is.”

“Is that policeman here?” Broncho Billy asked.

“I don’t believe so. I heard he was down at the Randolph Street offices.”

“Selig’s not there. We’ve already tried.” Broncho Billy pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “I can’t be too late. I must reach him. Look here, Mix, is there somewhere I can go to send a wire? I’ve got an address. I think I can get to him in time.”

Mix excused himself and his companion, then elbowed through the crowd, presumably to lead Broncho Billy to Col. Selig’s office so he could send his wire. I wondered what it was all about. Suddenly, I was aware of young boys handing out little pouches of confetti, warning as they did, “Not till the toast,” and, “Wait till Mr. Turner says,” and “Wait for Mr. Turner to say it’s time.”

“Attention. Attention,” Turner projected through his mega-phone. I cringed at the noise, balancing a glass of champagne and the packet of confetti. Babe Greer slid up next to me.
“Isn’t it exciting, Mrs. Chapman? I’m so glad you’re here. Just think, you’re going to be in a moving picture. Won’t your children love to see it!”

I gasped at the thought. I could just hear my children insisting we go to a nickelodeon to see me. That was not what I’d hoped for, and it certainly wasn’t what I’d worked for, all those years at the university and the settlement house. It was too ridiculous.

I gritted my teeth with dismay, then forced myself to nod and smile at Babe. She looked glorious in a gown of ivory satin and wore a sparkling net in her hair, as well as a coronet of white roses. Swirling filigrees of some silvery substance decorated the bodice and hem of her gown. Her arms were bare of gloves, so that the ring could be slipped on her nervous finger. She squeezed my arm before hurrying back to her place by the mantel.

Meanwhile, Otis Turner was apologizing for Col. Selig. He said the filmmaker had intended to be present for the occasion but was called away. Then Turner explained how the scene would be filmed, admonishing us not to release the confetti until they were done with the proposal and toast. As the crowd parted for the camera, I looked around. There must have been two hundred people, two dozen waiters, and three cameramen all packed into a lavishly decorated set. Yet, it had all been conjured up in only an hour. And all by the hidden hand of Col. Selig. It bore the marks of his design, even if he was mysteriously missing. It reminded me of the scene in the Wizard of Oz where all the townspeople were gathered to watch the wizard sail away on his balloon, without Dorothy. I began to wonder about Col. Selig. Who else could manipulate so many people without seeming to do so? Could he have caused the murders without being present, just as he’d arranged for this huge scene to unfold in his absence? Could he have had Hyde killed, without pulling the trigger himself? And Leeder? Col. Selig was like a puppet master who controlled the puppets without strings. Was he the man behind the curtain of the murders? But what would have been his motive?

I turned my attention back to the scene being filmed and saw Alonzo Swift get down on one knee and offer the ring to Babe Greer, just as he had in the rehearsal. She looked meekly away but stuck out her hand, fingers splayed to receive it. They did this while Turner yelled at them and other people milled around till the camera stopped. Then the scene was repeated twice more, before Charles Clooney raised a glass for a silent toast, moving his mouth, and looking around as we all raised our glasses and the camera turned on us. Then we were told to drink up. That, too, was repeated twice more with waiters racing to refill the glasses between times. It was a strange mixture of real and unreal, as we celebrated a real engagement multiple times. I could see, by her joyous expression, that Babe was pleased about it, although I was only confused. Perhaps it was the champagne. I began to feel it running through my veins and rising to my head. With a false toast, paste jewelry, and costumes in a pretend drawing room we wished them well.

After the toast, we waited again while waiters circulated to refill glasses before the throwing of the confetti. We were warned this would only happen once and the scene was rehearsed twice up to the point of releasing the confetti. By the time they were ready for the real thing, I was feeling ridiculously unsteady on my feet. I clutched at a nearby chair and found it less than stable. Juggling my glass and my pouch of confetti, and feeling the room begin to spin, I moved to sit down. When the final yell to throw came, I managed to toss my bits of paper into the maelstrom that descended on the couple, but then felt the room swirl away from me, as darkness moved in swiftly from all sides.