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developed a rapport, and this mode of communication was its foundation. And playful flirtation its only function, as Carlotta spoke French as well as Emmie.
    “What can you tell us about the White Rats?” Emmie asked her.
    “The White Rats? They’re the vaudeville union. They won that big strike last year. You remember.”
    “What strike?”
    “The strike against United Booking. You see, the way it works in vaud, to get into the big time, you have to go through the agents in United Booking. Which is really run by the same people who own the theatres, Keith and Albee, and all them. They had a sweet setup where the act had to pay a fee to United Booking. So instead of paying you $50 a week, they were only paying you $45, cuz they got $5 back.”
    “So the Rats won?” I asked.
    “Yeah, they won that round. They’re still trying to get rid of cancellation clauses, and how they can change your tour when you’re out on the road. You think you’re going from Buffalo to Rochester, but they send you to Boston and you lose a day’s work.”
    “Why’s it such a secret then?” Emmie asked.
    “Cuz the circuit will blackball anyone caught in it. They learned from the last time.”
    “Was Ernie a member?”
    “Ernie? I doubt it.”
    “What do you make of this?” Emmie handed her the note she’d found. “It was in Ernie’s room.”
    “Who’s Erbe?”
    “We were hoping you could tell us that. What about the W.R.?”
    “Search me. That what got you thinking Ernie was a White Rat?”
    “Yes, partly. Someone at his boarding house mentioned them, too.”
    “Ernie only had time for two things, vaud and women. The last one I saw him with was a real swell. He didn’t even introduce me, crossed the street just to avoid it.”
    “Another actress?”
    “I doubt it, she seemed above work.”
    Thibaut rejoined us and when we’d all finished eating, both he and Carlotta went off to their respective rooms.

5
    The most confounding characteristic of Emmie’s notions is their perishability. No sooner does she construct some outlandish scenario than she abandons it. And so it was that afternoon when I attempted to chide her about her theory that the White Rats were a gang of ruthless assassins.
    “Assassins? What are you talking about, Harry?”
    “Never mind. I must have dreamt it. Who’s the suspect of the hour?”
    “What about Carlotta?”
    “You think she wanted to kill Ernie?”
    “Perhaps she was more upset with him than she’s let on. She could have quite easily invited him there.”
    “Yes,” I said. “But she was as surprised as the rest of us that he was dead.”
    “That could just have been a carefully rehearsed pose.”
    “Only if Carlotta had the talent to pull it off,” I pointed out. “I have another theory. What if one of the other Chinamen had some grievance with the fellow who was supposed to have played the victim?”
    “The man who stopped to tie his shoe?”
    “Yes. Maybe they had their eye on the same girl.”
    “Or better yet, there was an ancient feud between their families.”
    “Ancient feud?”
    “Yes. Dating back to the fifth century, when a wicked and depraved landowner absconded with the beautiful young wife of the village blacksmith. He took her to his mountaintop retreat, where her cries for help couldn’t be heard.”
    “Then she escaped, running across the moors. At which point he sent his pack of giant canines after her. I noticed The Hound of the Baskervilles on your night stand, Emmie.”
    “It needn’t follow that line exactly.”
    “There is a much simpler explanation. The gun was there as the result of accident.”
    “How is that possible?” she asked.
    “Carlotta may have picked up the wrong gun someplace and not realized it. And Lou Ling probably wouldn’t have noticed until he’d fired it.”
    “But if she hasn’t been working, where else would she have been using it?”
    I couldn’t answer that.
    “Harry, suppose someone else knew about Carlotta’s