The Cutthroat (Isaac Bell 10)

“Any more biff-bang?”

“Mr. Hyde escapes a howling Times Square mob on the subway.”

“Jekyll and Hyde is set in London.”

“London’s old hat. I moved it to New York. Jekyll lives in a skyscraper.”

Buchanan worried that erecting, striking, and transporting stage sets for a subway train would cost a fortune. Except a New York subway was not a bad idea if you subscribed to the Weber & Fields theory that audiences were more apt to respond in familiar, “realistic” settings. It worked for laughs. Could they put it across for melodrama?

“We’ll cut down the subway for the tour.”

“Don’t patronize me with your cutting-down!” Barrett shot back.

“We’ll be carrying sixty people on the road,” Buchanan answered coldly, and they exploded into a red-faced, clenched-jaw shouting match.

“Melodrama is whipsawed! Why else are we attempting bloody Othello?”

“Cutting down saves money so we can make money.”

“Movies are driving us out of the theaters, and theater audiences are nuts for vaudeville.”

“Your free spending will kill us.”

“Damn the expense! We’re dead without spectacle.”

Their stage manager stuck his head in the door with a finger to his lips.

“Angels,” he whispered.

“Thank you, Mr. Young. Send them in.”

The partners manufactured warm smiles for their investors.

Joe and Jeff Deaver, almost as tall as Barrett and Buchanan and considerably heavier than in their college football days, were heirs to their mother’s locomotive factories and their father’s love of showgirls. Decked out in capes and top hats, twirling canes, and trailing the scent of the perfumed blondes they’d parked in the hall, they could finance Jekyll and Hyde with a stroke of a pen.

“Your timing is exquisite!” boomed Barrett.

“I’ll say. We just got invited to back Alias Jimmy Valentine. Broadway and a tour. They’ve got Vietor from England to play Valentine. And Lockwood to play Doyle. We’re going to clean up.”

“Not so fast,” said Barrett.

“Why?”

“Opportunity has arisen closer to home,” Buchanan explained. “Poor Medick is dead.”

Jeff, the brains of the duo, asked, “Is your Jekyll ready?”

Barrett nodded, arousing Buchanan’s suspicion that his partner’s “tinkering” had included private negotiation with the moneymen. “We are ready to go.”

“Do you have Isabella Cook?”

“We’ll find a way.”

“If you get Miss Cook on board, we say the heck with Jimmy Valentine,” said Joe. “Don’t we, Jeff? Vietor wants too much dough just ’cause he’s English. And Lockwood’s always getting chorus girls in trouble.”

“Wait a minute,” Jeff said. “Medick’s young. What killed him?”

“They say he fell from a fire escape. Fourth floor.”