Tell Me, Pretty Maiden by Rhys Bowen Page B

little assignment for you.”
    I might have known, I thought.
    “Oh, no thank you,” I said, jerking my hand away from her. “What is the phrase? Once bitten, twice shy.”
    “But it’s not for me, this time,” she said hastily. “It’s for my dear, dear friend Blanche Lovejoy.”
    “Blanche Lovejoy?” I asked. The name somehow rang a bell.
    “You must know Blanche,” Oona said. “Everybody knows Blanche. Her name is a household word.”
    “I haven’t been in New York long,” I said, feeling stupid. “Although I know I’ve heard the name.”
    “She is only one of New York’s best-known and best-loved entertainers. She was in A Country Maid, and Springtime Follies . Both of them huge hits.”
    Neither meant a thing to me, but then I hadn’t exactly had the money to go to the theater much.
    “She hasn’t had a show on Broadway for a year or so,” Oona went on, “but she has a new show opening this week at the Casino. Best location in town. She has high hopes for it, because frankly the leading roles don’t come so easily when an actress turns thirty-five.”
    “Sarah Bernhardt seems to have no problem,” I said. “I bumped into her going into the elevator. She must be over forty.”
    Oona laughed merrily. “Close to sixty, my dear. But then the divine Sarah is an institution. For the rest of us mere mortals our careers are over when we lose our looks. I have five more years, at best.” She gave a wonderfully dramatic sigh and put a hand to her breast.
    “And what will you do then?” I couldn’t resist asking. “I presume you’re accumulating a nice little nest egg.”
    “My dear, I shall marry well,” she said. “Before I’m too old I shall let some very rich man snap me up and spend the rest of my life in pampered luxury.”
    “Artie Fortwrangler, for example?” I asked, referring to a young man I had met on the ship.
    “Oh merciful heavens. So you bumped into Artie, did you? I don’t intend to be that desperate.” She laughed. “I was thinking more of a European. A duke maybe, or an Italian prince.”
    Yvette burst upon this scene of self-adoration with a curt. “Your tea, Madame,” putting the tray down so firmly that the teacups rattled. “Do you wish me to pour?”
    “No, thank you, Yvette. That will be all,” Oona said, waving her away.
    As she retreated Oona muttered, “I suppose French maids have a certain flair, but they always make one feel that they are doing one a favor and are being ill-used. Rose was so amiable.”
    I wasn’t going to allow her to slip back into reminiscences about Rose. “So to return to Blanche Lovejoy,” I said. “You told me she has a new play opening this week. Why do you think she needs my services?”
    Oona leaned closer to me, as if she didn’t want to be overheard. “Because, my dear, she thinks that the theater may be haunted.”
    “Haunted?” I couldn’t help smiling. “What does she think I could do about it? She needs a spiritualist if she wants communication with the dead.”
    “She believes the ghost is trying to kill her. She wants someone from the outside to prove to her that she is not imagining things, that she is not going off her head. You can do that for her, can’t you?”

SEVEN
    I came out of Hoffman House and paused to turn up my collar against the bitter chill of the wind that blew down Twenty-fifth. I was annoyed that I had come away empty-handed—I didn’t think that she’d post that check without more prompting, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. I had half-promised Miss Sheehan that I would visit Blanche Lovejoy, and I had to admit that I found the assignment intriguing. Ghost hunting was something I hadn’t tackled before. But I already had a case I was working on for at least another week, which would be too late for Miss Lovejoy. That’s not to imply that she would have been killed by then. She had apparently invested a considerable amount of her own money in the venture and was threatening to