A Curtain Falls (32 page)

Too easy, in fact.

Wednesday
March 21, 1906

The Coby Residence, Bay Avenue, Shelter Island

Cold sleet fell that morning— the kind that made me wish I were anywhere other than aboard a small ferry bound for Shelter Island. It had not been an easy journey. Alistair and I had taken the first train of the day from New York, bound for the town of Greenport, Long Island. From there, we’d transferred to the ferry that now lurched across the choppy gray waters. As we crossed Greenport Bay toward the Shelter Heights dock, I gripped the railing hard, fixing my line of sight at the spit of land I saw before me. Alistair stayed under the scant shelter provided by the pi lot-house, apparently preferring the captain’s cigar smoke to the elements. We had prevailed upon Isabella to stay in the city, asking her to work with Dr. Vollman in examining the additional samples of handwriting I had secured last night. Their findings would supplement what ever evidence we uncovered this day.

I needed the air and the feel of the cutting rain against my face. It kept my senses alert, and though the damp caused my right arm to throb, even that sensation calmed me in a fashion. The turbulent water tossed the ferry about as though it were a child’s toy, and I fought an irrational sense of panic. I’d no doubt we would make it. But I disliked ferries of all kinds.

Not for the first time in recent days, I asked myself: why was I doing this? The official investigation had gone wrong and familiar allies had deserted me. I was jeopardizing my livelihood— and possibly all common sense— to conduct what was a rogue investigation.

I wanted to believe that I was gathering evidence for Mulvaney so I could clear the name of an innocent man— before another actress’s murder accomplished that goal. But was I being honest with myself? Maybe I was heeding not the call of justice but the selfish desire to prove I was right— that I had not lost the instincts and skills that had once made me one of the city’s finest detectives. In any event, I now found myself traveling through uncertain waters, assuming a role that was strange to me.

As we began to dock, I entered the pi lot house and attempted to engage the ferryman in conversation. “Those of you who are year-round residents must be a tight-knit community. Do you know the Coby family on Bay Avenue?”

He didn’t even turn to look at me, staying focused on the wheel of his boat.

“We’re visiting them today,” I added after a few moments.

This time, he turned, regarding me with suspicious eyes that mirrored the blue-and-gray expanse around us. “You boys sure about that? Ain’t no Cobys on this island. Not anymore.”

Alistair’s reply was smooth. “I hope we were not misinformed. We were told the family of Robert Coby still lives on Bay Avenue.” He paused, then added, “We need to locate Mr. Coby’s family with regard to an important business matter. I’m an attorney-at-law from the city, you see.”

The ferryman raised his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows and muttered something about city folk minding their own business.

I tried again. “But someone must be left who can help us.”

He glared at me before making a curt reply. “If she even agrees to see you, Mrs. Layton will be no help.”

Then, pulling his cap over his ears, he ignored our questions, and our efforts to learn more were of no avail.

As we approached the ferry landing, soaked through and chilled, we looked across the street and saw Prospect House, a majestic white hotel that seemed to stretch half a mile long beside the green expanse that was named Prospect Park, just like its Brooklyn counterpart. Alistair had explained to me earlier that the area was a popular summer resort, but I had not expected to see a building on this grand a scale.

“Let’s stop in there for a moment and get something hot to warm us up. It will only take a few minutes,” Alistair said.

I checked my watch and overruled him. We had spent most of the morning in transit, and what ever awaited us on Bay Avenue, I was ready to confront it without delay.

We circled Prospect Park and turned the corner onto Bay Avenue. Alistair had explained that the neighborhood we were in, known as Shelter Heights, had been designed as a planned community. In fact, during this morning’s long train ride, Alistair had given me a virtual treatise on its history: how landscape
architects including Frederick Law Olmsted had designed it to be a resort setting, with more than a hundred cottages laid out on scalloped roads rising to ever greater heights, many with sweeping views of the water. Each was an easy walking distance to the ferry, Prospect Park, and Union Chapel— which we soon saw, set far back from the road in a grove. Bay Avenue itself was lined on each side by rows of neatly buttoned-up, white summer cottages with steeply pitched gable roofs and elaborate wood trim on their windows, doors, and front porches.

The house at number 13 was near the end of the street, at the corner of Waverly Place. It stood slightly apart from its neighbors, much like a neglected, ugly stepsister embarrassed to draw too close. For though it shared their architectural features, its wood trim was broken and shingles were falling off, its paint was chipped and peeling, and there were multiple shattered windows on its top floor.

Our steps slowed the moment we saw it.

“Does anyone live there?” Alistair asked in disbelief.

“Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” I replied. Of course I’d seen people living in even more-deplorable conditions, simply not amid what was supposed to be a luxurious resort community.

Even worse, its front veranda was filled with furniture, abandoned toys, and all manner of trash. We stared, silent, for several minutes before gathering the courage to go on— and squeezing past the piles of refuse, we made our way to the front door. I took a deep breath and sounded the knocker.

Though all was silent inside, we could make out the slight glow of a light from the back of the house.

I rapped the knocker again, more loudly this time.

We heard slow, shuffling footsteps making their way toward
the door, and instinctively I backed up— forcing Alistair to do so as well. Based on what the ferryman had told us, I expected a Mrs. Layton to answer the door. But we didn’t know whether she actually would— or even if she did, what her connection to the Coby family would be.

The woman who answered our knock glared at us from behind the screen. “What do you want?” The question may have been belligerent, but her voice— quavering and timid— was not.

I made the introductions, but she seemed not to hear me. Instead, she stared into my face, and for a moment her eyes flashed with something like recognition. “Robby, is that you?”

“I’m not Robert,” I said gently, “but I came to ask you about him.”

Her confused brown eyes watered slightly as she stared at me with a vacant expression.

“May we come in?”

Her eyes lit up with a flash of comprehension. “Have you seen him recently?”

“We’d like your help figuring that out.” I opened the wooden screen door that still separated us. “May we?” I asked again.

Again, she seemed not to have heard or comprehended— but then she finally stepped back and permitted us to enter. Arms folded, she eyed us suspiciously.

I could see her more clearly now that we were inside. Her heavyset frame was bundled in at least two shawls; they hung over a green floral dress. It was no wonder, as the house was frigid and damp.

Plip-plop. Plip-plop
. The rain beat a steady rhythm as it dripped into pails placed strategically throughout the first floor, including two in the entry hall itself. I suspected the broken
windows we’d observed were responsible— but the house was in such disrepair, there were no doubt many sources to blame. Water always found its own path, often far from the root of the problem. That lesson I’d learned the hard way in the Lower East Side tenement building where I’d grown up.

“Perhaps we can help you lay a fire, Mrs. Layton. Where do you keep your wood?” I asked.

Her answer was a blank stare.

“Do you have a covered porch out back?”

She continued to ignore my question, but as my coat was still on, I ventured through the kitchen to the back porch, where I found a small stockpile of wood. There was not much— but it was enough to build a fire and warm her sitting room. We could help her secure more later on.

I corralled Alistair into helping me carry in several logs and, together, we followed Mrs. Layton into her front parlor, laid the logs in the fireplace, and coaxed them into roaring flames. Only then did we settle back into uncomfortable hard-back chairs and survey the rest of the room.

It was tired and broken-down, filled to capacity with the residue of her life. The fireplace wall was lined with old newspapers, piled at least five feet high and three rows deep. When Alistair pointed out that it wasn’t safe to keep newspapers like that, especially so close to the fireplace, she laughed— a full cackle that revealed a mouthful of missing teeth.

“My reviews,” she said, chortling. “Well, some mine, some hers. My mother would’ve said old news is no news and not worth keeping around. God knows she never kept anything of ours. But I like seeing ’em.”

“What kind of reviews?” I asked, wanting her to clarify.

“Theater reviews. Sure, we were actresses once. She got lots of write-ups.” She looked in the direction of the window as though she were acknowledging another person— so convincingly that I actually turned my head. But of course no one was there.

“Who is she? A friend?” I asked.

But she didn’t answer. She crossed her arms, then graced us with another toothless grin. And I could not help but wonder: was she a bit off in the head, or simply ignoring half of my questions?

Alistair picked up one of the yellowed papers and handed it to her.

“May we see the review in this one?”

She emitted another laugh that was almost a cackle as she opened the paper and flipped the brittle pages so vigorously that they began to disintegrate and fall to the floor right in front of her. But when she found what she wanted, she cradled its page with surprising delicacy— even as the remaining pages she held dropped to the floor.

Alistair and I both drew nearer to see what she held. The strong scent of old newspaper and smoke mingled with her own odor: musky and slightly sour. The smell of unwashed old age. Breathing through my mouth, I focused on the yellowed page she showed us. A vibrant young woman in a lacy dress twirled onstage as a young man held her one outstretched arm.

“That’s her,” she said. “She played Rosalind in
As You Like It.
”

I scanned the article below the picture. The reviewer focused upon the production’s elaborate staging, but did mention an Elaine Coby briefly. Was this the woman beside me— before
marriage changed her name and age ravaged her looks? She was a “refreshing new voice” with “surprising emotional range.” She was also beautiful. It was sad to think what was lost, assuming she had evolved into the woman here— alone and apparently half addled by dementia.

“The review is a glowing one; you must have been quite talented when you were young,” I said.

“Not me,” she said, irritated. “Didn’t I just say it was
her
? I’d left the stage before she even got her first role.”

“Who is she?” I hoped she would remain cognizant.

“Elaine, my sister,” she said, her tone irritated. She seemed to think she’d told me half a dozen times. Her earlier reply at least answered my question about their age difference. It had to be significant, probably well over a decade— even assuming she had not aged well, which I presumed, given her current living conditions.

We returned to our seats and I asked her for clarification. “She was much younger than you?”

At first, she seemed not to hear me— but finally she nodded. “We both started out working in repertory theaters; me in the seventies, she in the eighties,” she said. “I was good. Elaine was better. Once, she had a supporting role in a production with Ellen Terry.”

“Ah, the fabulous Ellen Terry,” Alistair said, working hard to gain Mrs. Layton’s trust. “I saw her perform with Henry Irving in
King Arthur
maybe ten years ago. Her Guinevere was the finest performance I’ve ever seen.”

“That was Elaine’s dream,” she said in a soft voice, “until they took it all away.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Who else?” She sighed in frustration. “Charlie Frohman ended her career with a few choice words. He and his brother— they and their clerk spread lies about her. They didn’t just end her stint at the Garden. They made sure she’d never work again, anywhere, just because she was with child.”

Alistair explained that Mrs. Layton was apparently referring to an earlier time period, when Charles Frohman had gotten his start in the theater by working with his older brother Daniel at Madison Square Garden. Even when he’d been new to the business, Charles had been controlling of his performers and particular about their conduct— especially their moral behavior.

“What clerk?” I asked.

“Iseberg,” she said with a shudder. “Horrible man. He was sweet on Elaine. But then he turned on her when she needed his help most.”