Laughing Gas (14 page)

His words brought back the bleak future that lay before me.

'Yes, by Jove. You never told me I'd got to be kissed by old Brinkmeyer.'

This seemed to amuse him. I heard him snicker.

'That's what you're worrying about, is it?'

'Of course it is.' A sudden tremor seized me. 'You don't mean there's anything else, do you?'

He snickered again. A sinister snicker.

'You betcher. You don't know the half of it. If being kissed by old Brinkmeyer was all the trouble that was ahead of you, you could go singing about the house. It's the statue.'

'Eh?'

'Yessir. That's what you want to watch out for. That statue.'

'Watch out for it?' 'Yay.’

'What do you mean?'

I put the question a bit acidly, for he seemed to me to be talking drivel, and it annoyed me. I mean, how the dickens do you watch out for a statue?

'You've got to take steps.'

'What steps?'

'Immedjut steps. You got to act promptly. What you want to do is hustle round to the studio right away.
...
No, you can't go right away, because you've an elocution lesson.... I guess you won't be able to fit it in this morning.
...
But first thing this afternoon ...'

'What on earth are you talking about?'

'I was just wondering.
...
No, this afternoon's no good, either. Ther
e's those Michigan Mothers. Gee!
I guess you'll just have to let it go. Too bad.'

I was conscious of a sudden qualm about those Michigan Mothers. I don't know why. Probably because the way things were being sprung on me in this new life of mine had made me suspicious of dirty work on all sides.

'Listen,' I said. 'When you say I've got to receive these bally Mothers, what do I have to do?'

'Oh, nothing. They just kiss you.'

'What!'

'That's all. But, of course, it's going to cut into your time. I don't see when you're going to be able to get at that statue, quite.'

I ignored this babble of statues. My mind was wrestling with this frightful thing.

'They
kiss
me?'

'That's right. They form a line and march past, kissing you.'

'How many of them?'

'Oh, just a handful. This is only a branch lodge. I wouldn't say there'd be more than five hundred.' 'Five hundred!'

'Six at the outside. But, as I was saying, it'll take time. I don't see how you'll be able to attend to that statue.'

'But, look here, do you mean to say I've got to be kissed by Mr Brinkmeyer
and
six hundred Michigan Mothers?'

'It's a shame, because a couple of minutes with a sponge and some carbolic or sump'n' would prob'ly fix it. Well, I guess your best plan is stout denial. After all, they can't
know
it was you. Yes, take it by and large, seems to me that's the best thing. Just good little old stout denial. I've known it to work.'

It came to me as through a mist that he was saying something.

'What's that?'

'I'm telling you. You won't have time to sponge it off, so I say - stick to stout denial.' 'Sponge what off?'

'I'm telling you. I say they can't
know
it was you.' 'Know it was me what?' 'They may suspect, but they can't be certain.' 'Certain of what?'

'It might have been anyone. Just put that to them. Get tough. Say "Why me, huh? How do you know it was me? It might have been anyone". Ask 'em to prove it.'

'Prove what?'

'I'm telling you. About this statue.' 'What about it?'

'Day before yesterday,' said this ghastly kid, at last getting down to the stark facts, 'I went and painted a red nose on it.'

You can't reel much in a small telephone-booth, but I reeled as far as the conditions would permit. 'You painted a red nose on it?' 'Yessir.' 'Why?'

'It seemed a good idea at the time.' 'But, good Lord
...'

'Well, darn it, if there's a statue going to be unveiled and you suddenly find a pot of paint lying around on one of the sets, you don't want to waste it,' said the kid -reasoning, I had to admit, not unsoundly.

But though I could follow the psychology, it didn't make things any better for me. I was still shaken to the core.

'But what will happen when they see it?' 'Ah!'

'Hell's foundations will quiver.'

'There'll be a fuss,' he conceded. 'Yessir, there'll be a fuss, right enough. They'll start running around in circles yelling their heads off. But if you stick to stout denial you'll have 'em baffled.'

'I shall not have 'em baffled. They won't be baffled for a single ruddy instant. What's the use of stout denial? Do you think I haven't been you long enough to know that your name in this vicinity is mud? Miss Brinkmeyer will leap to the truth. She will immediately see all. A fat lot of good it will be denying it to her, stoutly or not stoutly.'

'Well, I don't see what else you can do.'

'You don't, eh?'

'No, sir, not now you haven't time to hustle along with a sponge of carbolic or sump'n'. Nothing to be done about it.'

I resented this supine attitude.

'There's a dashed lot to be done about it.'

'Such as —?'

Well, there, of course, he rather had me. Then a great idea struck me. I saw daylight. 'I'm going to get out of this.' 'What, away from it all?' 'Yes.'

'Where to?'

I felt better. The whole scheme was beginning to shape itself.

'Well, look here, you will be going back to England shortly.' 'Why?'

'Of course you will. You live there.' 'I never thought of that.' 'You've got to look after the estate.' 'Gosh! Have I got an estate?'

'Of course you've got an estate. And a social position and so on. Not to mention tenantry and what not. You'll have to be there to attend to things.'

'I couldn't do it!
'

'Whatl'

'No, sir. I couldn't do it in a thousand years. Look after an estate, what I mean, and maybe get the Bronx cheer from all that tenantry. I shan't go near England.'

'You will. And you'll be all right, because I shall be at your side, to advise and counsel. I shall sneak away from here and join you on the boat. You'll have to adopt me or something - old Plimsoll can tell us the procedure -and then I can live with you at Biddleford and in due season go to Eton and after that to Cambridge, and run the estate for you, and eventually be the prop of your declining years. You won't have to do a thing except just loll back and watch your arteries harden.'

'That's the idea, is it?'

'And a jolly good idea.'

'I see.'

'And, of course, in order to get away, I shall require money. You must, therefore, send round immediately by bearer in a plain sealed envelope a few hundred dollars, enough to pay my fare to — Hullo I Hullo I Are you there?'

He wasn't. At the first mention of parting with the stuff he had hung up.

I came out of the booth -
I
might say distraught. Yes, I will say distraught, because distraught was just what I was. I could see no happy ending. Actions speak louder than words, and from the fact that this foul child had bunged the receiver back on its hook the moment we started to go into committee of supply, it was clear that he had definitely declared himself out of the financial end. He was resolved to stick to his cash like glue and not let me have a penny of it.

And cash from some source I must secure with the minimum of delay. The storm clouds were gathering. Ere long the lightning must strike. After what the kid had told me about the statue, it did not need a razorlike intelligence to show me that things were hotting up, and that flight was the only course.

To remain here would mean not only being subjected to a deluge of kisses from Mr Brinkmeyer and the Michigan Mothers - this I might, by biting the bullet and summoning up all my iron fortitude have endured - but shame and exposure in the matter of the statue's red nose. That was the rub. For following swiftly on that shame and exposure would come the reckoning with Miss Brinkmeyer - a woman who already had been restrained from clipping me on the earhole only by the exercise of willpower beyond the ordinary. No amount of will-power could prevent her taking action now. I could not but feel that on an occasion like this it would probably run to a Grade A spanking with the back of a hair brush.

Yes, unquestionably I had got to get the stuff.

But, equally unquestionably, there didn't appear to be a single damned source from which I could do so.

There was Eggy
, of course. He, no doubt, if informed of the position of affairs, and made to understand that only a temporary loan from him stood between a fondly loved cousin and the back of Miss Brinkmeyer's hairbrush, would let me have a bit. But how was I to establish contact with him? I hadn't a notion where he was living. And my movements were so restricted that I was not in a position to go wandering from party to party till I hit on one where he was gate-crashing.

Besides, I had to have money now, immediately. In another few hours it would be too late.

It was hopeless. There was nothing to be done. It was an unpleasant conclusion to be forced to come to, but there was no getting away from it, I was stymied. I would have to stay where I was and accept what the future might bring, merely trusting that when the worst happened a telephone directory or a stout bath towel placed in the interior of my knickerbockers would do something to ease the strain.

Musing thus, I came abreast of the drawing-room. This drawing-room hadn't a
door, just an archway with cur
tains across it. And suddenly, as I was about to pass by, from the other side of these curtains there proceeded a voice.

'Oh, yes,' it said. 'Oh, quite.'

I halted, spellbound. The speaker was Eggy.

Chapter 14.

I
thought
for a second that I must have imagined it. I mean, it seemed too good to be true that the one chap I wanted to see should have popped up out of a trap like this so exactly at the psychological moment. I couldn't have been more surprised if I had been Aladdin just after rubbing the lamp.

To make sure, I crept to the curtains and peeped through.

It was Eggy all right. He was sitting on the edge of a chair, sucking the knob of his stick. Opposite him sat Miss Brinkmeyer. Her back was towards me, but I could see Eggy's face clear enough. It was, as always at this time of day, greenish, though not unpleasantly so. He is one of those fellows with clean-cut, patrician features whom green rather suits.

Miss Brinkmeyer was speaking.

‘I’
m glad you agree with me,' she said, and there was an unwonted chumminess in her manner, as if she were getting together with a kindred soul. 'As a teacher of elocution, you should know.'

The mystery was solved. Putting two and two together, I was enabled to follow the run of the scenario. I remembered that Ann had told me that she had got Eggy a job. The kid Cooley had mentioned that I had an elocution lesson this morning. And when the footman had announced his arrival just now, Miss Brinkmeyer had said: 'What ho, the elocution teacher', or words to that effect.

All quite simple, of course, and I wasn't a bit surprised to find Eggy operating in this capacity. Since the talkies came in, you can't heave a brick in Hollywood without beaning an English elocution teacher. The place is full of Britons on the make, and if they can't get jobs on the screen, they work the elocution-teaching racket. Refer-

ences and qualifications are not asked for. So long as you're English, you are welcomed into the home. I am told that there are English elocution teachers making good money in Hollywood who haven't even got roofs to their mouths.

'Nothing,' said Miss Brinkmeyer, continuing, 'is more important in talking pictures than a good accent. Looks, acting, personality
...
they don't mean a thing if you've got a voice like a bad dream.'

'True.'

'Like this child has. Have you ever seen him on the screen?'

'Well, no. What with one thing and another —' 'There you are. And you come from England.' 'Yes.'

'London?' 'Yes.'

'Lived there right along, I guess?' 'Oh, rather.'

'And you've never seen a Cooley picture. That's what I mean. Mr Brinkmeyer will have it that the little boll-weevil's voice is all right, because look what he grossed last time in Kansas City or wherever it may be, and all stuff like that. But what I tell Mr Brinkmeyer is that America isn't everything.'

'Quite.'

'You can't afford to neglect Great Britain and the Dominions. Look how he flops in London, I tell Mr Brinkmeyer. And now you bear me out by saying you've never so much as seen him.'

'Ah.'

'I guess pretty nearly nobody has over there, judging by the returns. And why? Because he's got an Ohio accent you could turn handsprings on.'