A Chorus of Detectives Read Online Free Page A

center of the stage. When it was open, a pneumatic platform could be elevated thirty feet from the substage floor. It was especially effective for raising devils from Hell and the like, but it was not needed at all in I Pagliacci . No one on stage or off was even thinking about the trap door.
    By the time Caruso made his entrance, even the Metropolitan’s real audience was as keyed up as the make-believe audience on the stage. A small platform stage had been erected stage left, and it was there Caruso stood with Emmy Destinn and Pasquale Amato and sang. And he sang with an intensity and vigor that showed he was determined to make up for the flaw that had marred Vesti la giubba . The chorus filled up the rest of the stage to the right of the platform stage. Some were sitting, some were standing in various casual postures. None were expecting disaster.
    Then, without even a sound to give warning, the trap door fell open. Three men of the chorus who’d been standing on the trap dropped out of sight through the hole in the stage floor. Shouts of alarm interrupted the music; Amato jumped down from the platform stage and elbowed his way to the open trap. In the orchestra pit, Quaglia made the cut-off sign with his baton. Caruso and Emmy, still on the platform stage, were craning their necks and trying to see what was happening.
    One of the falling men had managed to grab the edge of the stage and there he hung precariously, screaming for help. Amato and three of the chorus men caught hold of his arms and hauled him to safety. Thirty feet below the open trap, on the pneumatic platform that had not been raised because it was not needed, lay the other two choristers. The leg of one was twisted awkwardly under him; the other’s neck was broken.
    The dead man was the new tenor.

2
    Two baritones sat in Delmonico’s Restaurant on Fifth Avenue, nibbling at appetizers while they waited.
    Pasquale Amato gazed around the interior of what was once the most famous restaurant in New York. “Delmonico’s,” he said, “do you think they really tear it down?”
    â€œ Sì ,” Antonio Scotti answered without hesitation. “Its day of hay is over. All the good old places, they tear them down. Me, I must find new place to live. Next year the Knickerbocker becomes a place of commerce.” He made a face. “Offices instead of homes.”
    â€œSo much progress,” Amato said wryly.
    Scotti changed the subject. “When Rico gets here, we must not mention last night at all. He is not well and must not excite himself. We do not talk about it. You agree?”
    â€œI agree. But how do we keep Rico from talking about it?”
    â€œWe interrupt with much rudeness and talk of something else. You know how superstitious he is. He will look back and see the break in the voice as an omen. His voice, it never breaks before, ever. Then when it does, a man dies.”
    The two baritones were silent, thinking of this latest tragedy to befall the Metropolitan Opera chorus. Only a catastrophe as great as that could overshadow the lesser tragedy of the great Caruso voice’s having cracked on a high note.
    Finally Amato stirred. “He sings too often. He should slow down—perhaps stop altogether for a while.”
    Scott threw up both hands. “ You tell him that! Perhaps he listens to you. He does not listen to me, he does not listen to Dorothy, he does not listen to the doctors—”
    Just then the object of their concern came bustling in, looking and sounding like the old Caruso they knew so well. “ Scusa, scusa … I am late! The time, it goes so fast! You do not start without me? Eh, let us order without delay.”
    With Caruso’s arrival, three waiters quickly materialized around the table. The singers ordered their lunch; Caruso tried to heed his wife’s warnings and eat only a steak, but at the last moment he yielded to temptation and asked for a side dish of