Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (462 page)

SHADOW: Drunk?

RABBIT: HOW the deuce did you know?

SHADOW: Why (
laughs
) I thought he might be.

RABBIT: You’re tryin’ to kid me now. I’d really make a good alderman, tho’. I never was cut out for a crook. I was born for something better. Sometimes I get thinking that I ought to been a minister. Gosh! You ought to see me kiss a baby.

SHADOW: Don’t take advantage of a child, Rabbit. The poor things can’t defend themselves.

RABBIT: Hm?

SHADOW: I have no doubt you’re a pious youth and will make a simply great alderman and a model politician.

RABBIT: Well, how about you? You’re not so bad as you try to pretend to be. I don’t think you’re no crook at all. Why do you pack “p all the stuff you steal and send it back to the people you steal it from with “the compliments of the Shadow” on a little card? I seen you sendin’ back the stuff you steal. You act as if you were doing it for fun.

SHADOW: Maybe I am, Rabbit, maybe I am.

RABBIT: If you’re trying the crook business simply to find out what it’s like or to get fun out of it, why, you’d better cut it out. It doesn’t pay.

SHADOW: Enough of this. I intend to do a little work tonight and see what I can pick up around the place. I must get familiar with the house and introduce myself to the inhabitants. Let me see. “House owned by Mr. Connage, married. Two children, Hubert and Dorothy, twenty-two and eighteen respectively, and Miss Saunders, housekeeper.” Hubert must have been the one you say you are acquainted with.

RABBIT: Yes, we are on quite intimate terms.

SHADOW: I’ll look him up. In the meanwhile, of course, you’ll say nothing to any one about my being in the house.

RABBIT: Mum as a mouse.

SHADOW: And now for inspection.
(Exit the Shadow.)

(Enter Rudd in a light check suit smoking black cigar.)

RABBIT: Well look at the duds.

RUDD: A little tasty class. They belong to the butler. Mr. Connage didn’t have any sporty enough for me.

(Voice outside.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Beverly, oh Beverly.

RABBIT: Beat it quick.

RUDD: Stand your ground. It’s the lady of the house.

RABBIT: Oh. Oh.
(Shivering.)

MRS. C.:
(Coming in.)
Ah, callers.
(To the crooks.)
Good evening, gentlemen.

RUDD: Evenin’.

RABBIT: Howdy.

MRS. C.: Have you called to see Mr. Connage?

RUDD: Well not exactly.

MRS. C.: Or Miss Connage?

RUDD: Not minutely.

MRS. C.: Have you called to see me?

RABBIT: Not precisely.

RUDD: The truth is we’re aldermen from the Sixth Ward.

RABBIT: Personal friends of your son.

RUDD: What do they call you?

MRS. C.: I am Mrs. Connage. Well I’m afraid my son isn’t home yet.

RABBIT: Oh we just left him.

MRS. C.: IS he in the house?

RUDD:
(Aside to Rabbit.)
Lie to her. If she finds him drunk we’ll get kicked out.

MRS. C.: Where is he?

RABBIT: Why he’s pie-eyed.

(Rudd cautions him.)

RUDD: Sh-Sh.

MRS. C.: My son been having trouble with his eyes?

RUDD: He was half shot.

MRS. C.:
(Screams.)
Shot in the eye? Who shot him?

RABBIT: Well, when a guy gets half shot he usually does it himself.

RUDD: That’s so.

MRS. C.: He shot himself?

RUDD: He did.

RABBIT: J

RABBIT:
(Aside.)
A pretty mess.

MRS. C.: My heavens. This is terrible. Where is he?

RUDD: Why he’s here — I mean he’s — a —

RABBIT: Down town in a room of my boarding house.

(Mrs. Connage faints in the arms of Rabbit.)

RABBIT: Get some water quick.

RUDD: There ain’t none. Will whiskey do?

RABBIT: Anything.

(They give her whiskey. She revives.)

MRS. C.: I must go to him at once. Wait for me. I’ll get my wraps.

(Exit Mrs. Connage.)

RUDD: Well you did it.

RABBIT: You mean you did it.

RUDD: Whoever did it, between us, we’re in a pretty hole.

RABBIT: Well let’s clear out o’ here fore she comes down.

(They look out entrances.)

RUDD: Coast’s clear.

(They tiptoe out.)

(Enter Mr. Connage followed by Miss Saunders.)

MISS S.: But Mr. Connage.

MR. C.: No buts. My daughter informs me that you have been extracting bits of information from the servants and this alone would make me discharge you. But the idea of your throwing all my cigars out the window because you thought they were cartridges, that is too much!

MISS S.: But I did think they were cartridges. They smelt like it.

MR. C.: No matter. I asked you to leave in the morning and leave you shall. I am a man of my word.

MISS S.: But this is a serious step. Think. I have been with you so long and served you so well.

MR. C.: If you are here by tomorrow I will have you forcibly removed.

MISS S.: Such is my lot to be derided and misunderstood. Such is my fate.

MR. C.: Oh you still here?

MISS S.: Dear Mr. Connage —

MR. C.: Ohh!

(Violent ringings of the doorbell, shouts, hammering at door.)

EMMA K.: (
Coming in at back.)
Oh Mr. Connage, there are a lot of policemen at the gate all yelling that there’s a thief in the house. They’re breaking in.

MR. C.: A thief in my house?

MISS S.: Where, where?

EMMA K.: Oh what shall we do?

MISS S.: They’ve broken in.

EMMA K.: Here they come.

MR. C.: This is an outrage.

(Tramping in the hall. Enter a policeman.)

MCGINNESS: Stop. I’ll enter. Sir, there’s a burglar in the house. We saw him enter.

MR. C.: Impossible!

MCGINNESS: Nevertheless, it’s so.

EMMA K.: There is no burglar.

MISS S.: There may be.

MCGINNESS: If you are concealing him — Leon!

(Enter Leon Dureal.)

LEON: Oui, oui, monsieur.

MCGINNESS: Guard the stairs! Marshal the inmates. Search the house. We have reason to believe that the thief is none other than the famous Shadow himself.

MISS S.: The Shadow?

MR. C.: In my house?

MISS S.: Terrible!

EMMAK.: Awful!

VOICES OUTSIDE: Catch the thief. After him. Catch the Shadow. Nab the crook.

(Enter the girls.)

DOROTHY: What is the matter?

MR. C.: These men say there’s a burglar in the house.

LEON: Up ze stairs, men. I will lead and for ze honor of ze gen d’armes of France. Forward brave comrades.

MCGINNESS: Up the stairs.

MR. C.: One hundred dollars to the one that catches him.

MISS S.: One hundred dollars!

ALL: The Shadow! After him! Down with the thief! Capture the burglar! A cool hundred! Nab the reward!
(Etc.)

(All talking at once, they rush out of the room. Enter the Shadow around the door at left.)

SHADOW: Well here’s a pretty fix, to say the least. Policemen all around the house. Policemen in it and all looking for me. They probably saw me coming in. How to get out is what’s worrying me.

(Enter Hubert from right.)

HUBERT: What’s all this row about? Why, what do you want here?

SHADOW: Are you Mr. Hubert Connage?

HUBERT: Yes, Mr. — Mr. — ?

SHADOW: Johnston. I called to see about the furnace.

HUBERT: Why our furnace is all right. You’ve got the wrong house.
(Edges him toward door.)

SHADOW: The truth is, I called to see your father. Is he in?

HUBERT: He is.

SHADOW: But you will do just as well. Let me see. What day of the month is this?

HUBERT: The twenty-second, I think. I never keep track after twelve o’clock.

SHADOW: Well, to proceed to business. This is the twelfth.

HUBERT: NO, I said I never keep track after twenty-two — I mean twelve o’clock.

SHADOW: Well twenty-two years ago next April — May —

HUBERT: Hm!

SHADOW: Why, what’s the matter?

HUBERT: YOU been drinking too?

SHADOW: NO, certainly not. That’s the new fashioned way. Instead of saying “April and May,” you say “April-May.” Like, for instance, “April, maybe June, but always March.”

HUBERT: Yes. What?

SHADOW: YOU understand, I hope.

HUBERT: Clear as mud.

SHADOW: Listen. As I said, twenty years ago —

HUBERT: YOU said ten.

SHADOW: Did I? Split the difference and call it fifteen. Add six makes twenty-one; add seven and divide by two — I have fourteen, what have you?

HUBERT: GO on. I want to see how much a fellow sees and hears when he’s drunk or how much he thinks he hears. Do you think you can persuade me I’m talking to you? You can’t. I’m in bed sleeping as comfortable — (
Turns but jails out of chair.)
Why in the dickens didn’t you try and persuade me I wasn’t?

SHADOW: Because of Irving Berlin. Do you realize that he made thirty thousand on “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”?

HUBERT: Look here — this is gone far enough. I’ve made aldermen and been to sleep tonight but I’m awake now and I never listened to such a lot of nonsense as you’ve been talking. What in the devil are you doing in the house anyways?

VOICE OUTSIDE: After him. Catch the Shadow! Shackle the thief!

HUBERT: The Shadow, why here? What are
you
doing here? The Shadow. The Shadow. Are you the Shadow? Well, I’ll be —

SHADOW: Surprised.

HUBERT: I guess they’ve got you now, Mr. Shadow, or whatever they call you. When I yell, as I’m going to, it’s Sing Sing for you.

SHADOW: But you won’t yell.

HUBERT: I won’t?

SHADOW: YOU won’t.

HUBERT: And why not?

SHADOW: Because I say so.

HUBERT: We’ll see. Fa — !

SHADOW: Stop. Hand up!

HUBERT:
(Puts hand up.)

SHADOW: Hand down. I have no gun.

HUBERT: I’m a fool. Fath — !

SHADOW: One more word and your fiancée, Miss — Miss — (
looks at paper)
Miss Helen Mayburn, will know where you were those three days last week. And it wasn’t Atlantic City.

HUBERT: Good heavens! What do you want?

SHADOW: I intend robbing this house if there is anything here that interests me.

HUBERT: What do you want of me?

SHADOW: Your absolute silence concerning me, nothing else.

HUBERT: Well you shall have it since you know so much. And how did you know I was in prison three days last week?

SHADOW: Simply enough. I was the policeman who arrested you. I saw you were drunk, saw you break in an old man’s derby, and I thought I’d give you a vacation.

HUBERT: YOU were that ugly cop with the long beard?

SHADOW: A rather doubtful compliment but I was he or he was I. Anyways, the problem now is this. They saw me enter this house. Some of them are in it. Some are out of it. I’ve got to get out.

HUBERT: Well 1 hope they catch you.

SHADOW: Remember, not a word from you.

HUBERT: They’ll catch you anyways.

SHADOW: They can’t.

HUBERT: Can’t?

SHADOW: Look here — when you were little did you ever chase a reflection?

HUBERT: Yes, but never caught it.

SHADOW: Of course not. Not only because you couldn’t catch it but because it was an impossibility. Did you ever hear of a captured shadow?

HUBERT: NO.

SHADOW: Of course not. There’s no such thing. It’s contrary to science. Now, I’m a shadow. So there you are.

HUBERT: You will be a captured Shadow before four hours.

SHADOW: Think as you please. I shall permit you to retire now. Good evening.

HUBERT: What?

SHADOW: YOU may go.