Poor Butterfly

“We’ll get Raymond out of here,” I assured her.

“I think this Erik is really going to try to kill me,” she said with a shiver that went through us both.

“You want to have Stokowski call the whole thing off?”

She went rigid. Her back went straight.

“No,” she said. “If I quit, if there is no performance, no opera, then Lorna and that poor man will have died for nothing.”

“Sounds like the war,” I said.

“Perhaps it is,” she agreed, moving to her dressing table and sitting.

I leaned over and kissed her.

“Did he bleed on my wig?”

“No.”

“Why … who killed that poor man?”

“The why I know,” I said. “He knew who killed Lorna and who’s been playing Phantom. He wasn’t a harmless old bat. He was an actor hired, blackmailed, or bribed into helping our Erik, but he didn’t count on killing.”

“Now he’s dead,” she said. “These are very trying circumstances in which to give a performance.”

“I’ll give you that,” I said, grimacing as I leaned against the dressing table.

“You’re in pain?” She touched my cheek.

“Maybe just a little,” I admitted.

It was hard to carry on a tender conversation with a skewered corpse in the closet and the police outside the door looking for me. Luckily, Gwen came knocking within fifteen minutes.

“It’s me,” she said. “Are you decent? The policeman is being kind enough to help me with the costumes.”

I knew a hint when I heard one. I went back in with Raymond. He was still dead. The door opened and Gwen said. “Right over there.”

“Sure,” said Sunset. Then he left and the door was closed and locked.

When I came out this time, Gwen was piling wigs and a big leather box on the dressing table. A stack of silly-looking costumes was on the floor.

Another knock at the door. This time it was Jeremy, Shelly, and Gunther. When the door was locked, Gunther moved to Gwen’s side and patted her hand. Shelly looked at the room in confusion; Jeremy leaned back against the door, arms folded.

“What’s going on?” Shelly inquired, adjusting his glasses.

I moved to the closet and pushed open the curtain.

“I think he’s dead, Toby,” Shelly said seriously.

“I think so, Shel,” I agreed.

“I don’t care to be around dead people,” said Shelly, beads of sweat now clear on his forehead. “Especially ones with big knives in them.”

“None of us do,” I said, closing the curtain.

“Why couldn’t we meet upstairs where there aren’t any dead people?” Shelly asked. “This place looks like the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera.”

“That’s just what it is, Shel,” I said.

Vera explained her plan. We were all going to get dressed as Japanese, complete with wigs and makeup. Even Raymond. Then at curtain time we’d all come streaming out and sweep right past. Sunset and his cavalry.

“I don’t like it,” said Shelly, “I don’t look Japanese.”

“You will when Gwen and I finish with you,” said Vera. “We haven’t much time.”

Finding costumes for Shelly, me, and Raymond proved easy. Jeremy and Gunther were the big problems. Gwen managed a transformation of Gunther, but Jeremy proved too great a task. They gave up.

While we dressed, I got the information that would make sense out of most of what was going on.

Shelly had found Snick Farkas in front of the Opera after looking around the neighborhood for hours. Farkas had camped on the steps, five-dollar bill in hand, watching Souvaine’s troops while he waited for someone to tell him how to buy a ticket. Shelly had told him there were no tickets for the dress rehearsal but he could get him in. Farkas had been more than happy to come.

“He’s sitting in the back row,” said Shelly, shifting his cigar stub so Gwen could apply makeup to his cheeks.

Gunther’s information was even more valuable and came in a rectangular envelope he handed to me.

“You will find in the envelope the playbill for the performance of La Fanciulla del West on March 15, 1936,” said Gunther. “However, the event never came to pass. I called the office of the newspaper in Cherokee, Texas, which I got from the information operator. A woman named Esther Trosow, who serves as editor, read to me the news item of that day. It seems there was an unfortunate incident. A person who played a bartender in the production was killed. The company was gone before the sheriff, a man named Pyle, could investigate fully. Citizens were upset that they did not get their money back.”

“How’d you get this?” I asked, opening the envelope and trying not to wrinkle the rubber bald pate Vera had placed on my head.

“Miss Trosow informed me that a gentleman from Cherokee who had been manager with the Wild Bill Hickok Opera House had moved to Santa Rosa and that he might have more information. With Miss Trosow’s help, I located the man, who informed me that he had kept both the clippings and the playbill for the event because it marked the end of any attempt to bring opera to Cherokee, Texas.”

“Did you look at this?” I asked Gunther, who was adjusting the sleeves on his tiny costume.

“I did,” he said.

“What?” cried Shelly, turning his head and dropping a clump of ashes on his costume.

“For starters,” I said. “The part of Minnie was sung by …”

“Supposed to be sung by,” Gunther corrected.

“Supposed to be sung by,” I amended, “Lorna Bartlett.”

“Lorna Bartholomew?” Shelly asked.

I didn’t answer.

“A man named Roger Griffith was supposed to play three parts in the opera,” I went on. We all looked at the dead Raymond, who, propped in the corner, sword now removed from his chest and placed neatly in his sash, looked like John Carradine as a transvestite.

A knock at the door and a voice. “Ten minutes to dress rehearsal.”

“Thank you,” called Vera, who no longer looked like Vera but a white-faced Japanese with a pile of dark hair.

“What else?” asked Shelly, admiring himself in the mirror. He looked like an Oriental version of Fiorello La Guardia.

“There’s a picture here,” I said. “Not a good one, but a picture from the Cherokee Daily Indian, a picture of guy who was supposed to sing the lead in La Fanciulla del West.”

I passed the picture around. No one said a word. I dropped it back in the envelope and stuffed the package in my purple kimono.

Another knock and the voice. “On stage.”

“Let’s do it,” I said.

Jeremy lifted Raymond Griffith’s body with one hand and I moved behind him. Gwen, not in costume, was at the rear of the parade. Vera led us out the door. We all pretended to exercise our voices.

People, some in costume, some carrying instruments, were scurrying around. Sunset, Preston, and uniformed police were standing off to the side examining faces. Preston looked directly at me. I opened my mouth and let out a falsetto “Fa, Fa, Fa,” and kept in the middle of the crowd.

We moved onto the stage. The curtain was down. There was a thronelike chair in one corner of the Japanese home set. Jeremy and I placed the dead Raymond in the chair, and I asked Jeremy to find Farkas and sit with him. Jeremy nodded and left the stage. Gwen squeezed Gunther’s hand and moved off.

“The first scene,” Vera said to me, “is supposed to be between Pinkerton and Cio-cio-san’s maid. There’s a