Laughing Gas (20 page)

'I say,' I said, 'I was out in the garden just now, and a boy with spots on his face popped
up over die wall and said "Yah!
" Who would he be? He seemed to know you.'

He considered.

'Spots?'

'Yes.'

'What sort of spots?'

'The ordinary kind. Spotty spots. And he had red hair.' His face lightened.

'I guess I know who you mean. It must have been Orlando Flower.' 'Who's he?'

'Just one of these ham actors that's jealous of a fellow's screen genius. Pay no attention to him. He don't rate. We were in a picture together once, and he thinks I squared the cutting-room to snip out his best scenes. Did he say anything besides "Yah"?'

'He called me Little Lord Fauntleroy.'

'That was Orlando Flower all right. He always called me Little Lord Fauntleroy. You don't have to worry about him. I just used to sling oranges at the poor sap.'

'What an extraordinary coincidence! I slung oranges at him.'

'You couldn't have made a better move. Keep right on along those lines. It's what he needs.' He paused, and moved to the window, scanning the terrain below with a keen eye. 'Well, those cops seem to have beaten it. I guess I'll be scramming, too. But give me that notebook first.'

'Notebook?'

'Sure. I told you that's what I came for.' 'What notebook?'

'I told you about that, too. You remember? When we were in that waiting-room. The notebook where I used to write down folk's names that I was planning to give a poke in the snoot to.'

I viewed him with concern. My old fears about lowering the Havershot prestige had become active again. Whatever his antecedents may have been, he was now the head of the family, and any shoving in prison cells that might happen to him would reflect upon the proud Havershot name. On his own showing, he had already rendered himself liable to the processes of the Law by aggravated assault on the persons of a press agent, a director, two supervisors and Miss Brinkmeyer, and here he was, contemplating fresh excesses.

'You don't want to go poking any more people in the snoot,' I urged.

'I do, too, want to go poking lots more people in the snoot,' he rejoined with some warmth. 'Where's the sense in having this lovely wallop of yours if I don't use it? There's a raft of guys down on that list, but I can't seem to remember them without the prompt copy. So come across.'

'But I don't know where your dashed notebook is.'

'It's in your hip pocket.'

'What, this hip pocket?'

'That's right. Reach for it, buddy.'

I reached, as desired, and found the thing. It was a rather dressy little brochure, tastefully bound in limp mauve leather with silver doves on it. He took it with marked gratification.

'Attaboy, Junior,' he said. 'Louella Parsons gave me that for a Christmas present,' he added, fondling it lovingly. 'She told me to write beautiful thoughts in it. And did I what! It's full of beautiful thoughts. Thanks,' he said. 'Good-bye.'

He made for the window.

'And you'll send that money by messenger right away?' I said. I didn't want any mistake about that. He paused with one leg over the sill. 'Money?'

'That money you're going to let me have.' He laughed heartily. In fact, he laughed like a ruddy hyaena.

'Say, listen, he said. 'I was only kidding you when I told you I was going to give yo
u that money.' I reeled. 'What!’

'Sure. It was just a bit of phonus-bolonus. I was stringing you along so's I could get hold of that notebook. I'd be a fine sap giving you money. I want it all myself.' He paused. He had been turning the pages of the notebook, and now a sudden pleased smile came into his face. 'Well, for sobbing in the beer!' he said. 'If I'm not the goof! Fancy me forgetting her! Believe it or not, it had absolutely slipped my mind that the one person I've always wanted to poke in the snoot was April June.'

I reeled again. The child, the notebook, and the room seemed to swim about me. It was as if this frightful speech had been a fist that had smitten me on the third waistcoat button.

Until he spoke those dreadful words, my whole mind had been absorbed by the horror of his treachery in the matter of that money. It had not occurred to me that there might be still darker depths of infamy to which he could descend. Now, all thoughts of money left me. I uttered a strangled cry.

He was clicking his tongue in gentle self-reproach.

'Here I've been, wasting my time on all this small stuff, when I ought to have been giving her hers right away. Well, I'll be off and attend to it now.'

I found speech.

'No, no!'

'Eh?'

'You wouldn't do that?' 'I certainly would.' 'Are you a fiend?'

'You betcher I'm a fiend. See daily press.' He trousered the notebook, shoved the other leg over the sill, and was gone.

A moment later, his head reappeared.

'Say, I knew there was something I wanted to tell you/ he said. 'Watch out for Tommy Murphy.'

He vanished again. There was a scrabbling noise and a thud. He had dropped to the ground and was off upon his hideous errand.

Chapter 19

I
stood
aghast. Then tottering to the bed, I sat aghast. What the little perisher had meant to convey by those parting words I had no idea, nor did I devote any time to trying to fathom their mystic significance. My mind was wholly occupied with the thought of the fearful predicament of the woman I loved. Contemplating the ghastly outrage which this young bounder was planning, I found everything swimming about me once more. My blood froze and my soul recoiled in horror.

And talking of souls, what beat me was how the dickens he came to have one like the one he'd got. In our first conversation, if you recollect, he had mentioned a mother who lived in Chillicothe, Ohio. Surely this mother must have taught him the difference between right and wrong and instilled into his infant bosom at least the rudiments of chivalry. The merest A B C of mothercraft, that, I should have supposed. I know, if I was a mother, the very first thing I would do would be to put the offspring straight about the homage and deference which the male owes to the more delicate sex and give him the low-down on the iniquity of pulling this James Cagney stuff.

But I soon abandoned this train of thought. It was no time for sitting weakly on beds and speculating about mothers. April, I saw, must be warned, and that without delay. She must be approached immediately and informed that if the Lord Havershot, for whom she had begun to entertain feelings deeper and warmer than those of ordinary friendship, called at her home and showed signs of trying to get within arm's reach, it was imperative that she cover up and sidestep. If possible, she must be given a few elementary lessons in the art of ducking and rolling away from the punch. Only
thus could the shapeliest nose
in Hollywood be saved from a brutal assault which might leave it slanting permanently sideways.

Two minutes later, I was in the telephone-booth, hunting feverishly through the J's in the directory.

Her name was not there. The numbers of famous stars, I should have remembered, are seldom recorded. It would be necessary for me, I perceived, to repair to her house in person. I left the booth with that end in view, and ran into Mr. Brinkmeyer in the hall.

The president of the Brinkmeyer-Magnifico Motion Picture Corporation had unmistakably gone about his task of scrapping the cutaway-coat-and-stiff-collar programme in a big way. He was loosely and comfortably dressed in a tweed suit which might have been built by Omar the Tent Maker, and his neck was draped in roomy flannel. No spats appeared above his violin-case shoes, nor was there a flower in his buttonhole.

There were, however, flowers in his hand, and these he now offered to me.

'Hello,' he said affably. 'I thought you were in your room. We'll have to be starting in a minute. I was just coming to give you this.'

I looked at it dully. Preoccupied.

'The nosegay,' he explained.

I took it in an absent manner, and he laughed merrily. I had never seen a sunnier motion-picture president.

'Gosh!' he said. 'You're all dolled up like a gangster's corpse, aren't you? You look like a dude waiting at a stage door. Gee! It kind of brings back the old days. When I was in the cloak and suit business, I used to wait at stage doors with bouquets. I remember once —'

I checked him with a gesture.

'The story of your life later, Brinkmeyer, if you don't mind,' I said. 'I can't stop now.' 'Eh?'

'Most important appointment. Matter of life and death.'

He stared. It was plain that he was fogged. His air was
164

that of a man who would appreciate a fuller explanation. 'Eh?' he said again.

I confess that I danced like a cat on hot bricks. I wouldn't have minded him staring and saying 'Eh?' but the trouble was that while doing so he remained rooted to the spot, and his physique was such that he blocked up the entire passage. There wasn't room to edge past him, and he was not one of those men you can brush aside. And unless I could speed without delay on my mission of mercy, April June's nose was not worth a moment's purchase.

What the upshot would have been, had the deadlock continued, I cannot say. But fortunately there now proceeded from upstairs, rending the air and causing the welkin to ring like billy-o, a female scream. I recognized it immediately for what it was - the heart cry of a woman who has just found a frog in her bedroom.

'Gosh 1' said Mr Brinkmeyer, quivering all over as if he had heard the Last Trump.

He turned and began to mount the stairs. It would not be correct to say that he leaped up them, for I suppose a full thirty years must have passed since he had been able to leap up anything: but he got off the mark with a swiftness most commendable in a man of his waistline. And the obstacle between me and the front door having been removed, I nipped ahead pretty smartly myself, and before you could say 'Service and Co-operation' was out on the steps.

The car was waiting there, with the chauffeur sitting woodenly at the wheel. I tapped him on the arm.

'Take me immediately to Miss April June's house,' I said.

The chauffeur was a square, stocky man with a face like a suet pudding. It was a face that did not mislead the observer. Looking at it, you felt that there sat a slow-thinking man, and he was a slow-thinking man. He eyed me bulbously.

'How's that?'

'Take me at once to Miss April June's house.' 'Whose house?' 'Miss April June's.'

'You want to go to Miss April June's house?' 'Yes. At once.'

He sucked in his lips thoughtfully. 'You're going to the studio.' 'Yes. But —'

'The studio - that's where you're going.' 'Yes. But—'

'I was told to bring the car round to take you and Mr Brinkmeyer to the studio.' 'Yes, yes. But —'

'And you can't go to the studio till Mr Brinkmeyer's ready. But I'll tell you what I'll do, while we're waiting,' he said, stepping down from his seat. 'I'll recite you "Gunga Din". See? Then you go to the old man and you say: "That's a very remarkable chauffeur you've got, Mr Brinkmeyer. Seems to me like he's wasted, driving a car. You'd ought to use him in a picture." Lookut,' said the chauffeur. ' "Gunga Din", by the late Rudyard Kipling.'

I uttered a wordless protest, but you cannot stop 'Gunga Din' addicts with wordless protests. He drew a deep breath and raised one arm stiffly. The other he kept across his stomach, no doubt for purposes of self-defence. He looked more like a suet pudding than ever.

' "You may talk o' gin and beer —" '

' "I don't want to talk o' gin and beer".'

' "When you're quartered safe out 'ere—" '

'I want to go —'

' "An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it".' 'Look here —'

' "But when it comes to water you will do your work on slaughter" - other way round, I mean to say - "an' you'll lick the
bloomih' boots of 'im that's got it".'

He removed the arm that lay across his stomach and raised it - first, however, warily lowering the other and putting that across his stomach. I suppose all reciters learn to take, these precautions.

' "Now in Injia's sunny clime
..
." ' Here he apparently noticed that I was a restless audience who was going to be difficult to hold, for he added: 'And so on and so forth,' as if feeling that it would be necessary to condense the thing a bit. ' "Was our regimental
bhisti,
Gunga Din",' he concluded hurriedly.

He paused for breath here, and I seized the opportunity to offer him ten dollars if he would take me to April June's.

You wouldn't have thought a gleam could have come into those eyes, but one did. 'Got it on you?' 'No.'

'I thought you hadn't. It was "Din! Din! Din! You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din! Hi! Slippy
hitherao
! Water, get it!
Panee lao
..."
'

I abandoned the fruitless task. It was a long, long trail to April June's bijou residence on Linden Drive, and I had hoped not to be compelled to undertake it on foot, but I saw that there was no alternative. Leaving him babbling about "squidgy-nosed old idols", I sped out into the great open spaces.