Laughing Gas (18 page)

She thrust something into my hand. It was a large, succulent pork pie.

I had nothing to say. In these supreme moments one hasn't. I just raised the thing to my lips and dug my teeth into it.

And, as I did so, the door burst open, and there was Miss Brinkmeyer, looking like Lady Macbeth at her worst.

'Just as I suspected!
' she cried. 'I knew someone was bootlegging the stuff to him, and I had an idea it was you all the time. Miss Bannister, you're fired
!'

I stood at the crossroads. Two alternatives presented themselves before me. I could stop eating and plead for Ann with all the eloquence at my disposal, or I could keep

on pitching in, so as to wolf as much as possible before the pie was wrested from my grasp.

I chose the nobler course. I pleaded.

Not a damn bit of use, of course. I might just as well have remained silent and devoted my energies to getting mine while the going was good. The verdict was in, and there was no appeal. Acting from the best and kindliest motives, my benefactor had got the boot.

I was told to be quiet. I was shaken. I was depied. Ann popped off. The Brinkmeyer popped off. I was alone.

With a moody oath, I began to pace the floor. This took me near the window. Being near the window, I glanced out of it. And there, snipping a bush that stood beside the outhouse, was the gardener with the squint and the wart on his nose.

I paused, rigid. The sight of him had opened up a new line of thought.

A moment later, I was on the outhouse roof, attracting his attention with a guarded 'Hoy!'

Chapter 17

The
line of thought which the sight of this squint-cum-warted gardener had opened up was, briefly, as follows. I had Joey Cooley's assurance that the honest fellow had Mexican horned toads in his possession, and was prepared to supply them gratis with no cover charge, provided that their destination was Miss Brinkmeyer's bed. And what had suddenly occurred to me, as these ideas do, was that there was no reason now why I should not avail myself of his services.

There could be no question that La Brinkmeyer badly needed a horned toad in her bed. If ever a woman had asked for one, she was that woman. And it now struck me that the only objection to allotting her one - the fear of an aftermath or bitter reckoning - had been removed. That whole aspect of the matter could be dismissed, because when the storm burst I shouldn't be there. As soon as the butler returned with the cash and put me in funds, I proposed to absent myself. Establishing contact with the reptile, therefore, and grabbing her hair-brush and hastening to get in touch with me, Miss Brinkmeyer would find that my room was empty and my bed had not been slept in.

So I nipped on to the outhouse roof and called 'Hoy I' and the gardener came civilly up to ascertain my wishes.

I found that by lying on my stomach and shoving my head out I was able to conduct the conversation in a cautious undertone.

I came to the point at once. It was no time for beating about the bush.

'I say,' I said. 'I want a horned toad.'

He seemed interested.

'For the usual purpose?'

'Yes.'

'You desire quick delivery?'

'Immediate.'

He sighed.

'I am sorry to say I am all out of horned toads at the moment.' 'Oh, dash it.'

'I could do you frogs,' he said, on a more hopeful note. I considered this.

'Yes, frogs will be all right. If slithery.'

'The ones I have are very slithery. If you will wait, I will fetch them at once.'

He went off, to return a few minutes later with a covered basket, which he handed
up
to me, saying that he would be glad if I would let him have it back when I had finished with it, as it was the one in which one of his colleagues kept his lunch. I reassured him on this point, and sped off to do the necessary.

The discovery of Miss Brinkmeyer's gala costume laid out on the bed in her room, ready to be assumed for the evening's binge, caused me to make some slight alteration in my plans. I placed a frog in each boot and distributed the remainder among the various objects of lingerie. It
seemed to me that the moral eff
ect of this would be greater than if I inserted them between the sheets.

The gardener was waiting below when I reached the roof again. He said he hoped that all had gone well, and once more I was struck by the purity of his diction, so out of keeping with his Japanese exterior.

'You speak extraordinarily good English,' I said.

He seemed gratified by the tribute.

'Very kind of you to say so, I'm sure,' he replied with the suggestion of a simper. 'I fancy, however, that you are labouring under a slight misapprehension. You have probably been led by my make-up into supposing that I am of foreign extraction. This is not the case.'

'Aren't you a Jap?'

'Externally only. I came here in this rude disguise in the hope of attracting Mr Brinkmeyer's notice. Once on the spot, you see, there is always the possibility of being able to catch the boss's eye. B-M have a Japanese picture scheduled for production, and I am hoping for a small role.'

'Oh, I see.' I had been in Hollywood long enough to know that very few things there are what they appear to be. 'You're an actor?'

'I play character parts. And I am hoping that an occasion may arise which wil
l enable me to run off some littl
e scena which will impress Mr Brinkmeyer. But I realize now that I would have done better to join the indoor staff. They are in so much closer contact with Mr Brinkmeyer. I particularly envy Chaffinch.'

'Chaffinch?'

'The butler. He is very fortunately situated.' 'But he's not an actor?'

'Oh, yes, indeed. Virtually all the domestic staffs of the big motion-picture magnates are composed of character actors. It is the only wa
y we can get at them. It is perfectl
y useless going to these casting offices. They just take your name, and there is an end of it. That's the trouble with Hollywood. The system is wrong.'

I was amazed.

'
Well, I'm blowed!
He took me in.' 'I expect so.'

'I could have sworn he was genuine. That stomach. Those bulging eyes.'

'Yes, he is quite the type.'

'And he talked about serving with his lordship and all that.'

'Atmosphere. He is a most conscientious artist.'

'Well, I'm — Gol
ly!' I said, breaking off abruptl
y. A sudden frightful thought had come to me. 'Here, take this basket. I've got to make a phone call.'

I buzzed off and dashed down to the telephone-booth in the hall. It was no moment for speculating as to what I should say if Miss Brinkmeyer caught me at the instrument, I was a-twitter with apprehension, and I'll tell you why.

In entrusting to this Chaffinch the negotiations in the matter of the tooth, my whole policy had been based on the belief that he was the butler he pretended to be. The honesty of butlers is a byword. There is no class of the community more trustworthy. A real butler would perish rather than stoop to anything which might even remotely be described as funny business.

My acquaintance with actors of the minor type, on the other hand, had left me with a rooted conviction that they are hot. I may be prejudiced, allowing my outlook to be coloured by the fact that during my University days a member of the cast of
His Forgotten Bride,
playing the small towns, once took five quid off me in a pub at Newmarket at a game which he called Persian Monarchs, but that is how I feel. Ever since that occasion, I have said to myself: 'Reginald, avoid actors. They are mustard.'

And so, as I searched through the telephone directory for the number of the
Screen Beautiful,
nameless fears surged in my bosom. For the first time, it had struck me like a blow from a stuffed eel-skin that if this bally
Screen Beautiful
was housed within anything like a reasonable distance, Chaffinch should long since have returned from his mission. I had seen him start off directly after lunch, and it was now well past four o'clock.

And it wasn't as if he had walked. With my own eyes I had beheld him get into a taxi.

I found the number, and the awed manner in which my name was received at the office switchboard might have gratified me, had the circumstances been other than what they were. But this, unfortunately, they were jolly well not. Respect was no good to me. I wanted reassurance.

But I didn't get it. Two minutes later, the blow had fallen and I knew the worst. I was informed by the editor in person that five thousand dollars in small bills had been handed to my agent more than an hour and a half ago. And when, endeavouring t
o control my voice, which
showed a disposition to wobble all over the scale, I asked how long it would take to do the point-to-point trip in a fleet taxi, I was told ten minutes. It was then, cutting short some rot at the other end about illustrated interviews and personal messages, that I hung up the receiver.

There was no possibility of mistake. The facts were plain. My innocence had been taken advantage of. Trusting blindly to this blighted Chaffinch, I had been done down, double-crossed and hornswoggled. No doubt this fiend in butler's shape was even now on his way east with the stuff in his jeans, gone beyond recall.

I had certainly not had good luck with this telephone-booth. Twice only had I entered it, and on both occasions I had come out distraught. I had writhed in agony the first time, and I writhed in agony now. The thought that there was no cash coming to me and that I must abandon my dreams of escape into a wider, freer world made me stagger like Eggy on his birthday.

And then, creeping softly into my mind, there came another thought. Madly confident of being able to make a speedy getaway from the danger zone, I had filled Miss Brinkmeyer's bedroom with frogs.

I wasted no more time in fruitl
ess regret. I had come down those stairs pretty quick. I went up them even quicker. Unless those frogs were gathered and removed with all possible despatch, the imagination boggled at the thought of what would ensue. The issue was clearly defined. I had got to get them out before Miss Brinkmeyer discovered them, or I should be properly parked up against a fire-plug.

I don't know if you have ever tried to gather frogs. It is one of the most difficult forms of gathering there is. Rosebuds - easy. Nuts in May - simple. But to collect and assemble a platoon of lively young frogs against time is a task that calls for all that a man has of skill and address.

The situation was further complicated by the fact that I could not at the moment r
ecall how many of the creatures
I had strewn. The gardener had given me of his plenty, and I had just scattered them carelessly, like a sower going forth sowing. I had not bothered to count. At the time, anything in the nature of a census would have seemed immaterial. It was only now, as I stood stroking my chin reflectively, and trying to remember whether the six I had in my pocket completed the muster-roll, that I appreciated the folly of being casual in matters of this kind.

I stood pondering with bent brows, and might have gone on pondering indefinitely, had not my meditations been interrupted by the dickens of an uproar in the garden below. Stirring things seemed to be in progress. Alarums, as the expression is, and excursions. What impressed itself chiefly on the ear was a shrill feminine squeaking.

Well, if the hour had been two in the morning, I should, of course, being in Hollywood, have taken no notice, merely assuming that one of the neighbours was giving a party. But as early as this it couldn't be a party. And, if not a party, I asked myself, what?

It took me but an instant to slide to the window and look out. I found myself gazing upon the spacious grounds and part of the marble swimming-pool, but unfortunately my view was a good bit obstructed by a pergola covered with vines. The squeals were proceeding from some point outside my range of vision. For the time being, therefore, this female squealer was to me simply a voice and nothing more. Cross-examined regarding her, all I could have said at this juncture was that she had good lungs.

The next moment, however, further data were supplied. Round the corner of the swimming-pool, moving well, came Miss Brinkmeyer, and close on her heels a figure dressed in a quiet grey suit. And as its lower limbs twinkled in the evening light, I saw that they were finished off with powder-blue socks and suede shoes.

I don't suppose it is given to many fellows to stand looking out of a first-floor window, watching themselves chivy
a middle-aged lady round a swimming-pool. The experience, I can state authoritatively, is rummy.

It takes the breath a bit. And yet, mind you, distinctly diverting. My relations with Miss Brinkmeyer being what they were - she, I mean to say, since my arrival in this joint having shown me so consistently her darker, less lovable side - I found myself enjoying the spectacle wholeheartedly. So much so that my annoyance when the runners passed out of sight was considerable.

And when, a moment later, there came to my ears the squishy slosh of a heavy body falling into water, I cursed pretty freely. I had that sickening feeling of having missed something good which is always so rotten.