“How do you do?” She dropped her bag on the dressing table and threw her coat onto the sofa. “Have you come to help Perry?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Thank God.” She flounced onto the chair and peered at herself in the dressing table mirror. “I want it all gone. Every single thing. Gone. I don’t want to see so much as an eyelash of hers in this room.”
“I’m not your servant, Dotty,” he said with a steely edge to his tone.
“I know you’re not, darling, but I’m finding that woman’s things everywhere. It’s very upsetting.”
“You can say her name. Or are you afraid if you say it, she’ll come back to haunt you?”
She pulled a face at her reflection. “Don’t even joke about such a thing. I swear I can feel her presence in here.” She waved a hand at the box. “That’s why I want it all gone. Hopefully her spirit will leave with her things. God knows there are enough memories of her at every turn in this place, I don’t need more.”
Mr. Alcott discreetly tucked the letter and ring back inside the box and picked it up. “She was a star here for a long time, Dotty. You can’t erase her a mere week after her death.”
“I don’t want to erase her, Perry, but Culpepper is being excessive. He’s just doing it for the publicity, you know.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Keeping her things around. Her picture on the posters, photographs in the foyer, her name on my door. While the newspapers are still talking about her, he’ll continue to associate her with the Playhouse. Ticket sales have been good since she died. Did you know that?” She looked at me over her shoulder before turning back to the mirror. “The seats have been full, whereas they were half empty before.”
Mr. Alcott rested the edge of the box on the dressing table and glared at her reflection in the mirror. “Are you suggesting Culpepper killed her for publicity?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I never said that. But let’sbe honest with one another. Her star wasn’t going to be rising for much longer. She only had a few years left before her looks began to fade. When that happened, the public would move on and Mr. Culpepper would need a new star to attract the audiences again. The lovers would disappear too, of course.”
“Lovers?” I asked. “Plural?”
Dotty looked up at me through her lashes and smiled. “She’d be a fool to have just one.”
“Wouldn’t that invoke jealousy?”
“Yes! But isn’t that the fun of being beautiful? Come now, Miss Fox. Don’t look so shocked. I’m sure Pearl had a lot of fun, but she also knew it couldn’t last forever. She’d be the first to admit that her life was better off ending now at the height of her fame.”
“Dotty!” Mr. Alcott cried.
She removed a hairpin and a tendril of blonde curls fell past her shoulder. “Although I’m sure she would have wished to die in a different manner.” She shivered. “Her scream as she fell was blood-curdling.”
“You were here in the theater when she died?” I asked.
“Of course. We all were. We had a show that night.”
“Where were you?”
“In the privy, if you must know. I’d just come out when I heard her scream. Then there was silence. It was very strange. Unnatural, almost.”
“It took everyone a few moments to work out where the scream had come from and what it meant,” Mr. Alcott said quietly. “Then Pearl was found and…it was chaos.”
“Who found her?”
“Culpepper was first on the scene,” Dotty said. “He shook her as if he couldn’t believe she was gone. Then when it did sink in, he held her in his arms.”
Mr. Alcott wiped away a tear. “I can’t talk about this anymore. Forgive me, Miss Fox, but I think we’re finished here.”
I followed him out and we walked back along the corridor together. “What will you do with her things?” I asked.
He studied the box in his arms. “Give them to her sister, I suppose.”
I was about to ask him if I could keep the letter and ringfor a while when the door we were passing by suddenly opened and Mr. Culpepper almost bumped into me.
