No one but an architect would give a damn about a crooked wood molding. Even most architects wouldn’t care. But Layton couldn’t let it go. It was in his nature to be a real fussbudget when it came to architectural details. Anything the slightest bit out of harmony or balance would irritate the hell out of him. When a project of his had almost finished construction, Layton would walk through and make a long list of the tiniest things to be corrected, like a hairline crack in a plaster wall or a sloppy paint drip. He wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. Layton stared at the section of wall for almost a minute. It was indeed odd. Why was there a bulge at the bottom of the wall when the rest of it was so perfectly flat? Why was the one piece of molding so cockeyed?
Layton peered out into the darkened theatre. Strange how a place that was usually so bright and full of enjoyment could look so sinister and evil. He’d waited until the charwomen had finished cleaning the auditorium to return after 3:00 a.m.. Turning on one of the overhead gallery lights, he started prodding around the plaster on the sidewall with his jackknife. He only wanted to probe a little bit, but consumed with curiosity, he kept chipping away. The plaster dropped off, exposing a one-foot-square area of brick. Compared to the wall around it, the mortar joints were sloppily done, and the brick bulged out. Layton easily dislodged one brick, then another and another, revealing a ledge next to a cavity behind the wall. This wasn’t unusual; theatres, like other buildings, needed space to run plumbing, gas, and electrical lines.
But when the hole in the brick wall came fully open, Layton noticed an odd smell. It wasn’t gas. He struck a match, peered in, and reared up in panic. The match singed his finger; he backed into the edge of the bench across the aisle, sending a jolt of pain through his body. His breath came in hard pants, and his heart was racing. He looked around. Was he alone? With trembling fingers, he lit another match and stuck his head back in the opening.
About six inches away was the foot of a skeleton. He knew it belonged to a human because of a prior experience with skeletons. Seeing the bones unleashed a flood of memories. It brought back his days as a young architect, working for John Hicks. He’d been given the unpleasant task of supervising railway spur construction in the resort town of Bournemouth, on the Dorset coast. The spur passed through a church graveyard, which meant digging up coffins to be reinterred at another location. Some had rotted through, exposing the grisly looking skeletons. As they were lifted from their graves, browned and disconnected bones tumbled free. The skulls looked as though they were grinning at him. It made the hair stand up on the back of young Layton’s neck—the same sensation he was experiencing now.
But while Layton was terrified by the sight, an irresistible urge to look inside the opening suddenly took control of him. It was as if the hole in the wall was beckoning him, drawing him forward. Its pull was overpowering. As he gazed at the void, he reached into his jacket pocket and took out another match, then slowly walked toward the wall. He half expected something to leap out at him from the square black hole. Layton was scared but at the same time very elated. Stooping over, he struck the match and stuck it into the opening. The dim, yellowish light shone on a full skeleton lying faceup on the ledge. It looked like it was taking a nap. With his free hand, Layton took hold of the foot and carefully inched the bones toward him.
The skeleton dragged along the ledge of the cavity with a grating, scratching sound. The match burned out, but he didn’t need another one with the gallery lights above. The legs emerged, then the pelvis. The rib cage, with the arms by its sides, then the skull squeezed through. When he had dragged the skeleton to the gallery aisle, Layton knelt to examine it. The bones weren’t completely bare; the muscle and sinew, still attached to them, looked like varnished leather. The next thing that struck him was the odd shape of the backbone, which curved sharply to the side.
Layton was now sweating and breathing hard, amazed at the sight before him. He suddenly jerked his body around to check again to make sure he was alone. The vast space of the theatre felt menacing and haunted. He sat on the bench behind him and gazed wide-eyed at the bones. He closed his eyes and gripped the edge of bench to calm himself down. Then, taking a big, deep breath, Layton gingerly picked up the bones and eased them back ever so slowly into the hole. But when he stacked the bricks back in the opening, he paused. How stupid of him. It would be plain as day that the body had been discovered. Whoever had put this poor devil here hadn’t wanted anyone to know about it.
Layton stared at the hole for almost a minute. He couldn’t leave it like this.
He walked down to the backstage and took the spiral stair that led to a vast subterranean space twenty feet high and directly beneath the stage. A complex set of hydraulic-powered machinery lurked before him in the darkness. These devices raised or lowered sections of the stage and operated the traps performers used to ascend or descend during their turns, for, say, a magician disappearing in a puff of smoke. The upper level where the machinery was housed was called the mezzanine. The lower, where crew workshops and storage rooms were located, was the cellar. Here was the building maintenance shop, which held everything that might be needed to make repairs. Two thousand people twice a night, six days a week, put constant wear and tear on a structure, especially the walls.
At the workbench, Layton prepared a large blob of plaster and cement mortar on a hod. Then he took a trowel and walked back up to the gallery. As the son of a mason, he’d learned how to lay a brick wall and plaster it by the time he was ten years old. Repairing the gallery wall was not difficult; he re-created the bulge so no one would know the spot had been touched. But the plaster patch was white, while the rest of the wall was a yellowish-cream color. Touching up paint was another routine maintenance task; Layton went back downstairs and found the right can of color on a shelf. Normally, one would let plaster dry before painting, but of course, he didn’t have the time to wait for that.
Finally, he replaced the molding as he had found it and stood back to critique his work. The patch was darker than the surrounding wall, but over time, it would lighten. Besides, the gallery was always filled with clouds of thick cigarette smoke. Nobody would notice. The last thing to do was clean up the plaster he had broken off.
But… His heart sank. What about the person who’d buried the poor bugger behind the wall to start with? Who would do such a thing?
As Layton put the tools away, his thoughts returned to the skeleton. If he reported what he’d found to the police, they’d naturally start asking questions about himself—what was he doing up there that time of night? Why did he think something was amiss about the wall and start poking at it? What was his job at the Grand? And who exactly was Frank Owen—where did he come from, and what was his background? The local press who hovered around police stations for big news would be on top of the discovery of the body in a second and hunt down Layton to ask him questions. Their scrutiny would be withering. If they took photographs of him, the jig would definitely be up. Someone in England would see his picture and figure out that Frank Owen was Douglas Layton, the Butcher of the West End. He’d be out of a job, and the press and public would hound him for months as they had before the trial. Layton’s life now was on an even keel, and he was happy for the first time in years. No, the mystery was his to unravel.
Why was the man hidden behind the wall? The murderer could have dumped the body in a river or buried it in a forest. But bodies float up or are dug up by animals. The killer must have wanted to be absolutely sure no one would find his victim. Layton slumped on the bench, doing the math in his head. The body must have been hidden while the building was under construction, over four years ago, in 1901.
But who was this man? What had he done to deserve such a fate?