“I have been looking everywhere for you, Miss Cook.”
“Purchasing a ticket will bring you near for three more nights at the Clark Theatre. After that, you may enjoy repeat performances in St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco.”
Bell said, “I can’t risk shouting my proposal in the theater. The audience would lynch me for interrupting your performance.”
She looked him up and down with a small smile and a shrewd eye. “It looks to me like they’ll have their hands full if they try. Who are you, sir?”
Bell swept his hat off his head. “Isaac Bell. May I sit with you?”
“What do you want, Mr. Bell?”
“I have a proposal that will make you rich and happy.”
“I fell for that line when I married.”
Bell said, “I offer my condolences. I know you were widowed last fall.”
She ignored his condolences, and asked, “Is yours a financial proposal?”
“It is.”
“Sit down, Mr. Bell.” She beckoned a waiter, and Bell ordered tea. They shared small talk about Cincinnati and the pleasures and tribulations of traveling, she on the stage, Bell selling insurance to banks and railroads and timber barons. She asked where he lived when he wasn’t traveling.
He answered truthfully as it meshed with his Dagget, Staples & Hitchcock insurance cover. “My wife and I have a house in San Francisco.”
“New-built since the earthquake?”
“One of the few that survived on Nob Hill.”
She looked suitably impressed by Nob Hob, and Bell said, “I read in the Chicago papers that you are close friends with Mr. Barrett and Mr. Buchanan.”
“We’ve worked together in the past. And we’re having a fine time at present. The Boys are serious businessmen and spectacular showmen—a rare combination in the theater.”
“Where are they from?”
“The thee-ah-tore!” Miss Cook emoted with a devilish smile, and Bell, who had liked her immediately, liked her more. “Born in a properties trunk.”
“Both of them?” he asked, going along with her joke to steer her toward the mystery of where they were born.
“Where else would they be born, Mr. Bell? Some dreary inland city? Some soul-smothering small town bereft of art and theater?”
“I read in the magazines that you’re from a small town.”
“I know of what I speak. Though I confess, had I been born in a grand city, I might have aspired to no higher station than the youngest president of the Ladies Garden Improvement Society.”
“Certainly the most compelling,” said Bell.
“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Bell?”
“No, ma’am. I never flirt with beautiful women.”
Mobile eyebrows joined the smile. “Why not?”
“I am faithful to my wife.”
“Pity . . . What is your offer?”
“I’ve suggested backing a new play for Barrett & Buchanan. I hope you will find it engaging, too, which is why I was asking about their background. As fiscal agent for my syndicate, I am obliged to know the nature and background of potential partners.”
“Their ‘nature and background’ is an open book. They’ve been on the stage their entire lives, and have a reputation for as much honesty as can be found in most producers. Seriously, Mr. Bell, had there ever been a hint of fraud, I would not be in business with them. No, I think you can rest easy on that count. They are what they appear to be—undefeated men of the theater.”
“It sounds like you admire them.”
“I admire survivors who succeed with a minimum of damage to others. The theater is not easy. They do it well. Which is why I don’t care where they were born. For that matter, I don’t know why you care. Now, tell me about your proposal. That’s what got you seated beside me.”
“I am obliged by my principals to conclude arrangements with Barrett & Buchanan first. After that, I have the deepest hope that you will be interested, too.”
“Before you waste your time, let me caution you: I will not work for them,” she said. “I will work with them.”
“That goes without saying,” said Bell. “The sensation you’ve made of Jekyll and Hyde guarantees that you would be a principal, too.”
“Then I look forward to answering more due diligence questions.”
“Well, I’m curious about one thing. It seems strange that the actor Medick and your husband, Rufus Oppenheim, died within days of each other.”
“Strange? Bizarre, is more like it. None of this—a sensational run on Broadway, a first class tour, my ‘triumphant return’—would have happened if they didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Medick owned tour rights to Richard Mansfield’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Barrett & Buchanan backers would never invest in their new version while Medick was still making a go of it on the road.”
“No wonder you say ‘bizarre.’ Is it true that Medick fell from a fire escape?”
“Pursued by a husband, went the story. Medick was a renowned, shall we say, ‘swordsman,’ hated by grooms, cherished by brides.”
“Like John Buchanan?” asked Bell.
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Due diligence includes weighing gossip.”
Isabella Cook shook her head. “Mr. Buchanan never dips his pen in the company ink. He conducts his escapades where they are nobody’s business—far from the stage, and higher up the social scale, where smirking moralists are shunned.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Is Mr. Barrett as sensible?”
“In my experience,” she said, “Mr. Barrett, too, steers clear of actresses— How did we get on escapades, Mr. Bell?”
“Two freak deaths back-to-back—Medick’s fire escape and your husband’s yacht.”
“I almost died, too, speaking of bizarre, but the tender had just taken me ashore to have lunch at the Knickerbocker. I heard the explosion as I stepped onto the pier. I turned and saw a nightmarish sight—where the boat had been—a horrible ball of fire. Sheer luck I had the appointment. Not that ‘luck’ is a word one uses around death.”
“Who were you meeting for lunch?”
“The Boys. Jackson and John wanted me to persuade Mr. Oppenheim to let me return
