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Spraggue. Are you?”
    â€œNo.” Spraggue kept his gaze level. “Ghosts don’t bother me much.”
    â€œNot even the ghosts of suicides?”
    â€œYou mean old Phelps?”
    â€œYou know about him.” Deirdre nodded approvingly. “Suicides are funny. They can just become vampires. No need to get bitten.”
    â€œSpontaneous vampire generation,” said Spraggue gravely.
    She laughed. “It’s not that you’re unafraid of ghosts. You just don’t believe in them; that’s a very different thing. If I were you, I wouldn’t stay here alone tonight.”
    â€œI don’t intend to stay long,” Spraggue said. “Once over tomorrow’s blocking and I’m gone. I’ll probably catch up with you before you get on the trolley.”
    To his relief she picked up a jacket off a chair. “Good-bye then,” she said. Her high-heeled shoes made no sound on the steps or the carpeting. She disappeared into the lobby. Spraggue heard the door swing shut. Silence.
    He moved quickly. The switch that turned off the work lights was near the double doors. Thank God for that. At least he wouldn’t have to wander across a pitch-black stage hoping Deirdre didn’t rehearse with the trapdoors open. He climbed up the stairs to Darien’s office.
    The lock was old and rusty. Spraggue worked carefully with the picklocks for ten minutes before it yielded.
    He pulled the shade on the window overlooking Huntington Avenue, resisting the impulse to open it and disperse the office’s stuffy sick-sweet smell, before flicking on the faint overhead bulb. The desk, the sideboard, a single two-drawer file cabinet; the search shouldn’t take long. Facts. He needed facts: résumés, programs, financial data. If he waited for Darien to “ascertain the propriety of releasing such documents,” the damn show would be over.
    The bottom drawer of the file cabinet was the bonanza. Résumés neatly filed in alphabetical order, a program mock-up on oversized cardboard sheets. The file folder marked FINANCIAL was empty.
    He searched the other drawers again. Maybe Darien had taken the stuff to his hotel room to glance over. Maybe the fat house manager kept those files. By the time he got the paperwork over to the all-night photocopying place in Harvard Square, replaced the originals, had that nightcap with Aunt Mary.… time for rehearsal again!
    He paused for a moment with his hand on the light switch. A red leather blotter lay slightly askew on the desk. He retraced his steps.
    The missing file wasn’t underneath. Financial records wouldn’t be stuffed into a small unsealed white envelope.
    Spraggue straightened the blotter, then lifted it again. The printing, that’s what was familiar. There was more to go on here; this letter had been through the mail. Three whole lines of letters and numbers in penciled block caps. Not just a name, not just a few numbers.…
    Spraggue slid the letter out of the envelope, spread it on the desktop. This one was easy to understand, too:
    MR. DARIEN , the letter read. IS ONE SUICIDE ENOUGH FOR THIS THEATRE??? ENCORE !!!
    Spraggue wrinkled his nose. The room’s odor seemed suddenly stronger. He crouched. Near the wastebasket, it was almost unbearable.
    Using the tips of his fingers, staying an arm’s length away, he tossed aside a few discarded sheets of paper.
    The bird was large, black, and dead. No signs of violence on it. Terrible stink, all the same.
    At least, Spraggue thought, it’s not an albatross.

Chapter Six
    A dark slim silhouette decorated the cover page of the program, a three-quarter back view of a man enveloped in black velvet. The long cape swirled fantastically into a border design. To the right of the figure, in bold, black caps, the title, Dracula . Underneath, in elegant script: “Directed by Arthur Darien.”
    â€œI like it;” Spraggue’s Aunt Mary said.