through a hooded yoke of green cloth, it created the impression of a human head atop an elongated frog body. It was a nice effect, but tough on the knee joints.
“Don’t tell me,” I said, “Addison Tate was also filling the frog boy slot?”
“No,” said Patrell. “Actually, we hired a young lady last month. Mathilda Horn. Lovely girl, but she hasn’t turned up yet. I believe last night’s events may have unsettled her.”
“I’ll need three dollars a week, just like my brother.”
“Two.”
“Two-fifty.”
Patrell snorted as he reached into his pocket for a walnut. “Dash, it’s not a talent slot.” He picked up a rock from the “Wild Man of Borneo” exhibit and cracked the nut with it. “Your mother could do the frog boy act. I’m offering you two dollars a week until Miss Horn returns. What do you say?” He held out the cracked walnut and I helped myself to half.
“Ribbit,” I said.
The next three weeks passed pleasantly enough as we fell into the routine of the Ten-in-One. We did modest business throughout the afternoons, but drew rather larger and more boisterous crowds in the evenings, when young couples could be relied upon to be strolling past on their way to the theater or a dinner. I made myself useful by filling various slots behind the scenes as well as on the platform. After a couple of days, when Mathilda Horn returned to take up her duties as frog boy, I was promoted to the sharp-shooter slot recently vacated by Addison Tate. I should confess that I do not possess any native skill with a pistol, but the international success of Miss Annie Oakley-“The Peerless Little Sure Shot”-had created a public demand that every dime museum and carnival in America was now obliged to fill. Though I have never handled a live firearm in my life, only blank cartridges, I found as many others had done that sleight of hand offered an acceptable substitute. In my version of the sharp-shooter act, a volunteer from the audience made a selection from a deck of playing cards. After an appropriate interval of shuffling and cutting, I invited the spectator to throw the entire pack into the air. As the loose cards fluttered down, I gave a wild cry-the Rebel Yell, as interpreted by the son of an Orthodox rabbi-and fired my pistol. In short order the selected card was found to have a bullet hole in its center. The act drew enthusiastic applause whenever I performed it, but suffice it to say that Little Sure Shot had nothing to fear from me.
Harry, meanwhile, was doing yeoman service with his card manipulations, delighting the crowd with flashy overhand shuffles and hand-to-hand cascades, followed by platform effects such as the rising cards and the vanishing bird cage. If at times his stage manner appeared stiff, if not wooden, his audiences were generally forgiving. This may have had something to do with the pleasant addition of Bess striking poses at his side. She was easy on the eyes, I don’t mind telling you.
Between shows Harry took every opportunity to make enquiries about the disappearance of Addison Tate. As a rule he did not mingle easily with other performers, but his path was greatly smoothed by the trays of pecan rolls that our mother sent along each morning for fear that our new friends-especially Mr. Grader, the living skeleton- were not getting enough to eat. Even so, Harry’s attempts to strike up even the most casual conversation had the sound of a man practicing a new language. “Say, did you happen to see the newspaper this morning?” he would ask. “I see that Jimmy Sheckard got yet another hit for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms! He certainly is handy with a baseball bat, is he not? I wonder, was Addison Tate fond of baseball? Whatever happened to him, do you suppose?”
If these forays lacked subtlety, it emerged that our colleagues were not at all reluctant to discuss the abrupt departure of Mr. Tate. It was the custom of the performers to withdraw into a back room and pass around flasks of tea between shows. As the days progressed, the tea gave way to stronger restoratives, and the conversation flowed more freely. By the end of the second week, our new friends had advanced no fewer than a dozen explanations for Addison Tate’s behavior, ranging from brain fever to a sudden impulse to run off and join the French Foreign Legion. “If you ask me,” said Emma Henderson one afternoon, pulling off the “Bearded Lady” chin piece she wore, “he was up to no good from the moment he got here. I always saw him sneaking around behind the platform. Very odd, I call it.”
“Sneaking around?” Harry asked. “How do you mean?”
“Nipping off to the back alley. Like he was looking for something, or meeting someone, but didn’t want you to know. I never believed that business about his sick mother, not me.”
“That’s not what you said at the time, Emma,” said Nigel Kendricks, setting his “Wild Man of Borneo” wig and mask on an empty stool. “You were willing to give him a week’s pay, just like the rest of us.”
“Oh, he was a charmer, I’ll grant you that,” said Miss Henderson. “He certainly charmed you, didn’t he, Mathilda? Quite the rogue, that one.”
Miss Horn looked away, her face flushing scarlet. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Emma,” she said.
Miss Henderson snorted. “I’ve seen the way you looked at him, dear. A blind man couldn’t have missed it.”
I leaned forward and patted Miss Horn’s arm. “There, now. One never knows what the future holds. There’s always another trolley coming along, they say.” I gave her what I hoped was a charming, even roguish smile.
Miss Horn glanced at me as though I were some simple-minded relation with whom she was obliged to make small talk. “Perhaps so,” she said, “but I find I prefer to walk.” She stood and brushed at the folds of the green cloak she wore for the frog boy routine. “If you’ll excuse me, I must get ready for the three o’clock.” She turned and drifted toward the platform, with Miss Hendricks trailing behind her. I stood watching them with my hands in my pockets.
“Strange how that woman manages to resist your charms, Dash,” said Harry, sidling up behind me. “You of all people, with your experience of women that spreads over three separate boroughs.”
“I’m just being sociable,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“She missed a day and a half of work and he didn’t fire her,” said Bess. “For Gideon Patrell, that’s something akin to a proposal of marriage.”
“I’m sure Mr. Patrell is only concerned with the best interests of the show,” I said. “I feel the same way.” I pulled the Navy Colt from its holster and made a show of examining it.
“Perhaps,” said Harry. “Still, it might be best for all concerned if you-that’s very odd.”
He was staring at me. “What is it?” I asked
He took the pistol from my hands. “You say this is Addison Tate’s gun? The one he dropped after he shot Mr. Patrell?”
“The very one. Mr. Patrell gave it to me when I took over the sharp-shooter act.”
Harry examined it cautiously and gave the barrel a tentative sniff. “This pistol has been fired, Dash.”
“Of course it’s been fired, Harry. I’ve been firing it eight times a day for the past two weeks. Ten times on Saturday.”
“But you’ve been using blank cartridges, Dash.”
“Blank cartridges still leave a heavy odor of gunpowder. That’s what you smell.”
“Indeed?” Harry waved a hand as though the remark was beneath his notice. He turned the gun over in his hands several times. “You’ve been rather careless with this firearm, Dash.”
“How so? I’m shooting blanks. It’s not as if I’m going to hurt anyone.”
“The handle. You told me it was genuine ivory, did you not?”
I nodded.
He fingered a series of scores and ridges along the bottom of the ivory grips. “You told me that Tate was unusually careful with this gun. He even had Mr. Patrell lock it up in the strongbox each night. Now it looks as if it has been chewed by a dog.”
I took the pistol and examined the scarred grip. “Huh. I hadn’t noticed that. It must have happened when Tate dropped it.”
“Perhaps. It is but a trifle, of course, but there is nothing so important as trifles.”
“Harry, why do you insist on making a mystery out of it? Next you’ll be telling me that it’s a three-pipe
