Murder at Ebbets Field (21 page)

I
danced off second base, taking a long lead as Sloppy Sutherland went into his stretch. He spun, threw to the shortstop who snuck in behind me, and I dove headfirst back to the bag, my hand barely reaching it before the swiping tag came down on my wrist.

“Safe!” called the base ump.

Twenty thousand Dodger fans hooted in disagreement.

I called time, and stood up to brush myself off. The crowd continued booing and yelling. They packed Ebbets Field this Saturday morning to see the Dodgers eliminate us from the pennant race. There was no question that the Braves would win it. They had a nine game lead with only nine games left to play, and the Brooklyn fans wanted the death blow dealt to us in Flatbush.

As I stood on the bag, I was suddenly sent back to another Saturday less than two months ago. August first. Just like today, the Giants’ Christy Mathewson facing Sloppy Sutherland before the screaming patrons of Ebbets Field. But then there had been Florence Hampton seated in a box seat, waving her handkerchief, cheering her Dodger team. Now she was dead. And the hunchbacked Brooklyn batboy was gone from the scene, too. Also dead.

No! My mind was drifting off the game. This had never happened to me before; between the foul lines, I never thought of anything but the game in progress.

“Time!” I called.

“You already got time,” the umpire growled. “What’s your problem?”

“Uh, twisted ankle. Let me walk it off.”

“Go ’head,” he grudgingly agreed.

To the loudening hoots of the crowd, I walked on the outfield grass, trying to clear my head. Okay, two outs, top of the ninth, tie game, and who the hell ransacked my apartment while we were out of town—no, worry about that later. Should I be pretending to limp? Did I tell the ump which ankle was twisted? Tomorrow, it will all be over. Florence Hampton’s killer will be in jail. Baseball, baseball, dammit! Get your mind on the game . . .

“C’mon. Let’s get this show on the road!” Bill Klem bellowed from behind the plate. I went back to the base.

The show. After the game, I’d be off to the Vitagraph studio, seeing Margie for the first time since the road trip.... You’re going to get picked off, if you don’t get your head straight.

I took only a two-step lead off the bag, almost frozen, trapped between memories of the past and plans for the future, barely aware of what was happening now.

On Sutherland’s next pitch, Fred Merkle hit a shallow loop single to right field. The sound of wood on horsehide exorcised all nonbaseball thoughts from my brain and sent me racing for third. I didn’t think it was hit long enough for me to score, but McGraw windmilled his arms sending me home. It was risky, but the strategy was right: play for a win on the road, a tie at home. I took a sharp turn at third, so hard that I almost skidded into the waving McGraw.

The final sprint home, and I saw Casey Stengel’s throw coming into the plate. All the way on the fly, no cut-off. I was going to be out.

The throw was just off the mark, on the first base side of the plate, and Virgil Ewing had to move up the line to field it. I went into a wide hook slide away from him, as he swept across with the tag. And he missed me!

I sprung up, confident that I’d scored the go-ahead run. But as I trotted in to join my cheering teammates in the dugout, I didn’t hear any call by Bill Klem. I turned my head. Klem was standing with his arms crossed behind his back, bobbing up and down on his toes. No call.

Oh, jeez. I must have missed the plate when I slid. I hustled to the farthest end of the bench and took a seat trying to look inconspicuous. If Sutherland threw the next pitch, my run would count. I just had to hope—

“He missed the plate!” Wilbert Robinson screamed from the Brooklyn dugout.

Damn!

All he had to do was step on the plate, but instead Virgil Ewing spun toward the Giants’ dugout, and lumbered to the end of the bench nearest him. With the ball in his bare right hand, he started working his way up the line of players, tagging each one.

Hell, I wasn’t going to just sit and wait to be tagged out. I jumped up and sprinted past him. He lunged and missed me. But I still had to touch home plate.

Sutherland broke in from the mound to cover the plate. Ewing tossed the ball to him. I skidded to a stop, and headed back toward Ewing.

Hah! It worked. I caught Sutherland off guard—instead of stepping on the plate, he flipped the ball back to Ewing. I was now in a rundown between home plate and the dugout.

I changed direction again.

Sutherland realized his mistake and waved his glove, screaming, “Throw it! Throw it!”

Ewing yelled back, “I’ll get the sonofabitch myself!” Not a smart thing to yell. Did he think I couldn’t hear him?

Knowing there would be no more throws, I sprinted headlong for home, with the sound of Ewing’s shin guards rattling behind me as he gave futile chase. I stepped full in the middle of the plate, and Bill Klem called, “Safe!”

I trotted triumphantly back to the Giants’ dugout. A rundown between home plate and the dugout—only in Brooklyn.

From the bench, I watched contentedly as Ewing and Sutherland started quarrelling, then shoving, then throwing punches. This time they weren’t faking it.

My run did hold up for the win, deferring for at least another day elimination from the pennant race. The victory did nothing to endear me to the Dodger partisans at the Vitagraph studio, and their greetings when I arrived were decidedly cool.

Except for Margie’s. Her greeting was a long kiss and a tight hug. Then a few more kisses. She made it hard to keep my mind on what I had to do today.

“Are they still planning to finish the picture today?” I asked her. The studio had been set up like the inside of a castle, and the actors and actresses were all wearing the costumes of knights and ladies.

She nodded. “They only have one more scene to film. Mr. Carlyle had them shoot it exactly like a stage play. In sequence and with every line spoken.”

“But it’s a movie. Nobody will be able to hear them.”

“That’s the way he wants it. He says nobody is going to meddle with his
Hamlet.
You’d think he wrote it instead of Shakespeare.”

“Elmer Garvin is going along with him?”

“He doesn’t know what else to do. I think Mr. Garvin’s relieved, really. None of the long movies he was trying to make worked out. Now he just has to keep a camera rolling while Mr. Carlyle takes care of the rest.”

“Where is Carlyle?”

“In the dressing room, I think.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “Let me talk to him.”

She let me go, after another hug.

Arthur V. Carlyle was alone in the men’s dressing room. He stood before a mirror, adjusting and smoothing his costume. He was dressed all in black—tights that weren’t flattering to his knobby knees, a loose woolen shirt, and a velvet cape attached with a gold clasp. Gold was the only other color he wore—heavy chains hung around his neck, and a tight gold belt girded his waist. A small dagger was tucked in the front of the belt, and a dueling sword hung from its side. His hair had been dyed so that not a trace of gray showed. He looked as he had on the poster I’d seen in the Somerville Theater.

“Mr. Carlyle,” I said.

He turned slowly to face me. “Ah, Mr. Rawlings.”

I dug into my jacket pocket and pulled out a rolled up handkerchief. I took a step toward Carlyle as I unfolded the cloth. Then I held up the small syringe that had been wrapped in it. “This what you were looking for when you broke into my apartment?” I asked.

Carlyle chuckled. “My boy, I did no such thing. I suspect it was a Mr. William Murray of the
Public Examiner
who did that. He seems to have something of a vendetta against you, by the way. Come to think of it, I do seem to recall speaking to him on the telephone a few days ago. And I might have mentioned to him that you had something hidden in your residence that would incriminate you in Miss Hampton’s death . . . and that you were out of town in the event somebody wanted to uncover this evidence.” He added with a disapproving sniff, “Apparently, Mr. Murray is not a very capable burglar.”

Apparently, he wasn’t much of a music fan either. If Murray had cranked up my Victrola, he would have heard a strange rattling sound.

“Margie told you the deal,” I said. “And you agreed to it.”

“Did you expect me to concede without a fight?”

“It’s over. You know it’s over. Accept it. I will stick to my offer: I won’t tell the police until the picture is finished. Then you turn yourself in.”

In a flash, his sword was unsheathed and its tip pressed against my Adam’s apple. “And if I choose not to accept your offer?” he taunted. The swiftness of his move was more shocking to me than the result.

I backed away, but he stayed with me, walking forward and keeping the pressure on my throat. The prop sword wasn’t razor-sharp, but it had enough of a point that it was a hair away from puncturing my throat.

Stay calm, stay calm, I told myself. My impulse was to knock the sword aside and tackle him. But that could force his hand, and I would be impaled. The thing to do was remain composed and firm. If I showed a belief that there was no chance of him killing me, maybe he’d get that feeling, too. “Margie and I aren’t the only ones who know,” I mumbled, trying to speak without moving my larynx. “Look at the syringe. There’s no needle on it. It’s already being tested for arsenic.” Actually, the needle was still stuck in the sound chamber of my Victrola where it had broken off.

Carlyle didn’t remove his eyes from mine, but I saw some hesitancy in them and the pressure of the sword eased slightly.

He stood back from me, his arm holding the sword straight out. Why hadn’t he gone for the dagger? It looked far more deadly than the sword.

Hah! I
was
right about him. He didn’t have what it took to kill close up and personal. With growing confidence, I said, “This isn’t your style, Mr. Carlyle. Leaving poison for somebody to drink or tying a string around a spotlight and pulling it or switching bottles for somebody else to hit me on the head.
That’s
the way you do things.”

“I didn’t switch the bottles,” Carlyle said quietly. “Somebody was just careless with them.
I
am not careless.”

I took that as an admission to the other attempts. “No, you’re not. You planned things very carefully. Especially William Daley’s murder. That was nicely done.”

Carlyle acknowledged the compliment with a nod and a smile. I was back on plan, using the best weapon I had against him: his own ego.

“You arranged to be in a play,” I went on, “during the first part of the world baseball tour. It gave you an alibi. The problem was the theater crowds were too good, even though your performances were so bad—”

His eyes blazed. “Only because I
wanted
them to be bad. I was playing the role of a bad actor.”

“Understood,” I acknowledged. “So you claimed laryngitis to get out of the contract . . . because you had to get on a boat to England. In time to take the
Lusitania
back to the United States with William Daley. You disguised yourself as a waiter?”

“A steward. And it’s a ship, not a boat.”

“And you poisoned William Daley because he cheated you out of your money.”

“It wasn’t the money. It was my dream. He almost scuttled my dream of recording
Hamlet
on film.”

Carlyle’s hand trembled slightly and the blade of the sword wobbled. Then he dropped his arm and lowered his head. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I’m not much of a murderer. I can’t kill you.” He tensed as if expecting me to attack him; I still held back. Then he lifted his head again. “I
am
an actor,” he said with deep pride. “Allow me to perform my final scene, and I shall confess to the police.”

As he moved to the door, I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “One more question. Why try to kill Virgil Ewing? That was you, too, wasn’t it?”

Carlyle said matter-of-factly, “Yes, that one was rather easy. I played a locker room attendant—”

“It’s called a clubhouse man.”

He smiled. “Yes, well, I simply went in with a stack of towels. An old theater trick: directing the audience’s attention where you want it. If you’re bringing somebody something they want, they look at
it,
not at the person who’s carrying it.”

“Like if you bring them a bottle of champagne.”

“Exactly.” And another smile crossed his face.

“But why Ewing? How does he fit in?”

“The same principle: misdirection. You were getting a little too inquisitive. I thought if Mr. Ewing was to be killed, you would direct your attention to Mr. Sutherland or one of Miss Hampton’s other suitors.”

“An innocent twelve-year-old boy
died
just because you wanted to throw me off your track.”

“Yes. So?”

The deal’s off.

I swung my fist up, then held back. I had to let Carlyle go ahead with his scene. I still needed him to confess.

I opened the dressing room door and through clenched teeth said, “After you, Mr. Carlyle.”

The actors and actresses, wearing garish makeup and elaborate costumes that were no doubt designed by Carlyle, were all in position. Elmer Garvin barked, “Start camera!” and the cameraman cranked away.

Arthur Carlyle stood center stage and began his dialogue, “Come, for the third, Laertes ...” He spoke loudly, as if forcing the film to record his voice as well. He spoke strange words that made no sense to me, and I thought there were advantages to pictures being silent.

I stopped listening to the words and just watched the action, eager for the conclusion. Margie stood next to me, our hands locked together.

There was a sword fight between Carlyle and another character, the two of them swapped weapons, people started stabbing each other. All this to the accompaniment of the actors’ loud jabbering. It looked like everyone was dead, so I figured it must be just about over.