“You can rest assured of that,” Captain Baxter promised. “Nolan Young, the county coroner, is an old comrade of mine.”
Shortly the men Chase had named found themselves back on the stage of the Salamanca Theatre. The setting held ever the ominous, musty gloom of a darkened Transylvanian crypt. All had changed from their costumes to street outfits, their dark suits blending with the dull grey of canvas flats painted to simulate funereal stone.
A further macabre note was struck by their posture, as they were seated on the prop caskets that added atmosphere to the sepulchral stage setting.
Rather than a dearth, Abel Chase found that he was confronted by a surfeit of suspects. Each actor had spent part of the evening on-stage; that was not unexpected. As the hapless Jonathan Harker, Timothy Rodgers had won the sympathy of the audience, and Abel Chase found him a pleasant enough young man, albeit shaken and withdrawn as a result of this night’s tragedy.
Joseph Winkle, accustomed to playing the depraved madman Renfield, tonight had transformed himself into the elegant monster for the play’s final act. Philo Jenkins, the shuffling, blustering orderly, had stepped into Winkle’s shoes as Renfield. It had been a promotion for each.
Yet, Abel Chase meditated, despite Captain Baxter’s earlier suggestion that Winkle might be a suspect, he would in all likelihood be too clever to place himself under suspicion by committing so obvious a crime. Philo Jenkins was the more interesting possibility. He would have known that by murdering Hunyadi he would set in motion the sequence of events that led to his own advancement into Winkle’s part as Renfield. At the bottom of the evening’s billing, he had the most to gain by his promotion.
And Rodgers, it was revealed, was a local youth, an aspiring thespian in his first significant role. It appeared unlikely that he would imperil the production with no discernible advantage to himself.
The director, Garrison, would have had the best opportunity to commit the crime. Unlike the other cast members, who would be in their own dressing rooms – or, for such lesser lights as Rodgers, Winkle and Jenkins, a common dressing room – between the acts of the play, Garrison might well be anywhere, conferring with cast members or the theatre staff, giving performance notes, keeping tabs, in particular, on a star known to have had a problem with drugs.
“Garrison.” Abel Chase whirled on the director. “Had Hunyadi relapsed into his old ways?”
The director, sandy-haired and tanned, wearing a brown suit and hand-painted necktie, moaned. “I was trying to keep him off the dope, but he always managed to find something. But I think he was off it tonight. I’ve seen plenty of dope fiends in my time. Too many, Doctor Chase. Haven’t you come across them in your own practice?”
“My degree is not in medicine,” Chase informed him. “While Miss Delacroix holds such a degree, my own fields of expertise are by nature far more esoteric than the mundane study of organs and bones.”
“My mistake,” Garrison apologized. “For some reason, powder bouncers seem to gravitate to the acting profession as vipers do to music. Or maybe there’s something about being an actor that makes ’em take wing. They start off sniffing gin and graduate to the needle. I could tell, Mister Chase, and I think Hunyadi was OK tonight.”
Chase fixed Garrison with a calculatedly bland expression. Unlike the actors Winkle and Jenkins, the director lacked any obvious motive for wishing Hunyadi dead. In fact, to keep the production running successfully he would want Hunyadi functional. Still, what motive unconnected to the production might Garrison have had?
And there was Samuel Pollard. As Van Helsing, Chase knew, Pollard would have appeared with the lined face and grey locks of an aged savant, a man of five decades or even six. To Chase’s surprise, the actor appeared every bit as old as the character he portrayed. His face showed the crags and scars of a sexagenarian, and his thin fringe of hair was the colour of old iron.
In response to Chase’s questions, Pollard revealed that he had spent the second intermission in the company of the young actress who had appeared as the character Mina, Jeanette Stallings.
“Is that so?” Chase asked blandly.
“We have – a relationship,” Pollard muttered.
Chase stared at the grizzled actor, pensively fingering his moustache. He restrained himself from echoing John Heywood’s dictum that there is no fool like an old fool, instead inquiring neutrally as to the nature of the relationship between Pollard and the actress.
“It is of a personal nature.” Pollard’s tone was grudging.
“Mr Pollard, as you are probably aware, I am not a police officer, nor am I affiliated with the municipal authorities in any formal capacity. Captain Baxter merely calls upon me from time to time, when faced with a puzzle of special complexity. If you choose to withhold information from me, I cannot compel you to do otherwise – but if you decline to assist me, you will shortly be obliged to answer to the police or the district attorney. Now I ask you again, what is the nature of your relationship with Miss Stallings?”
Pollard clasped and unclasped his age-gnarled hands as he debated with himself. Finally he bowed his head in surrender and said, “Very well. Doctor Chase, you are obviously too young to remember the great era of the theatre, when Samuel Pollard was a name to conjure with. You never saw me as Laertes, I am certain, nor as Macbeth. I was as famous as a Barrymore or a Booth in my day. Now I am reduced to playing a European vampire hunter.”
He blew out his breath as if to dispel the mischievous imps of age.
“Like many another player in such circumstances, I have been willing to share my knowledge of the trade with eager young talents. That is the nature of my relationship with Miss Stallings.”
“In exchange for which services you received what, Mister Pollard?”
“The satisfaction of aiding a promising young performer, Doctor Chase.” And, after a period of silence, “Plus an honorarium of very modest proportions. Even an artist, I am sure you will understand, must meet his obligations.”
Chase pondered, then asked his final question of Pollard. “What, specifically, have you and Miss Stallings worked upon?”
“Her diction, Doctor Chase. There is none like the Bard to develop one’s proper enunciation. Miss Stallings is of European origin, and it was in the subtle rhythms and emphases of the English language that I instructed her.”
With this exchange Abel Chase completed his interrogation of Rodgers, Winkle, Jenkins, Pollard, and Garrison. He dismissed them, first warning them that none was absolved of suspicion, and that all were to remain in readiness to provide further assistance should it be demanded of them.
He then sought out Claire Delacroix. She was found in the office of the theatre manager, Walter Quince. With her were Estelle Miller and Jeanette Stallings. Chase rapped sharply on the somewhat grimy door and admitted himself to Quince’s sanctum.
The room, he noted, was cluttered with the kipple of a typical business establishment. The dominant item was a huge desk. Its scarred wooden surface was all but invisible beneath an array of folders, envelopes, scraps and piles of paper. A heavy black telephone stood near at hand. A wooden filing cabinet, obviously a stranger to the cleaner’s cloth no less than to oil or polish, stood in one corner. An upright typewriter of uncertain age and origin rested upon a rickety stand of suspect condition.
Claire Delacroix sat perched on the edge of the desk, occupying one of the few spots not covered by Quince’s belongings. One knee was crossed over the other, offering a glimpse of silk through a slit in the silvery material of her skirt.