The Cutthroat (Isaac Bell 10)

“She was in the habit long before I met her.”

“What does she do?”

“She makes movies.”

“Really? I often sneak into afternoon shows. Great fun. I’m sure I’ve seen hers.”

“She is Marion Morgan Bell.”

“Marion Morgan! Of course. The filmmaker who married an insurance man. You’re the insurance man—but not so staid as the label implies—I love her films.”

“She’d love to get you in one.”

“I cannot imagine working with movie manufacturers,” Isabella Cook replied coolly. “On the stage, I play to my audience—not some faceless entity snipping bits of celluloid.”

“Marion is too lovely to be a faceless entity. She’s a knockout— Forgive me! That was thoughtless.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Rhapsodizing about my marriage when you just lost your husband.”

Isabella Cook brushed the back of Bell’s hand with her fingertips and raised cool, clear eyes to his. “Rufus Oppenheim was a dog.”

Back in his railcar, Isaac Bell wired New York:

SPEED UP INVESTIGATING

MEDICK FIRE ESCAPE

OPPENHEIM YACHT

He was grasping at straws.

If only he could come up with some way to distract the Cutthroat. Make him look over his shoulder. Throw him off balance, before he killed again.

37

“Miss Mills,” said the Alias Jimmy Valentine stage manager. “I want you to read these lines with Mr. Douglas Lockwood, who plays Detective Doyle.”

Helen Mills nodded eagerly.

Lockwood was tall and handsome, with a stern manner that fit the character of Doyle, the detective determined to send reformed safecracker Jimmy Valentine back to prison. He took Helen’s arm firmly in his strong hand and stood very close.

He spoke his line.

Helen spoke hers. “Yes, Mr. Doyle.”

The stage manager asked them to do it again. Still holding her arm, Lockwood repeated his line. Helen repeated hers. Then Lockwood addressed the stage manager as if Helen was not standing on the stage between them.

“She’s a bit green. Stiff as a board, actually. Perhaps not hopelessly . . . What time is it? I’ll tell you what, let me rehearse her a little. I’ll bring her back shortly.”

“Half an hour, Mr. Lockwood.”

“Come along, dear. Bring your script.”

Lockwood led her through the wings and back to the principals’ dressing rooms and opened a door with his name on it. It was comfortably sized, with a lighted mirror for putting on makeup, a washstand with running water, and a couch.

/> “Sit there. Now, here’s the thing, dear. If you’re going to put this part across, you’ve got to give the impression that you are attracted to Detective Doyle. He’s a breath of fresh air in your constrained life, and, frankly, quite exciting compared to the boys who hang about trying to court you. So when you say, ‘Yes, Mr. Doyle,’ you must say it as if you are happy—delighted, even—to agree to whatever he proposes . . . O.K.? Now, let’s try it. Here, I’ll make it easy, I’ll sit next to you.”