Chapter VIII
Aubrey Goes to the Movies, and Wishes he Knew More German
A few doors from the bookshop was a small lunchroom named after thegreat city of Milwaukee, one of those pleasant refectories where thediner buys his food at the counter and eats it sitting in a flat-armedchair. Aubrey got a bowl of soup, a cup of coffee, beef stew, and branmuffins, and took them to an empty seat by the window. He ate with oneeye on the street. From his place in the corner he could command thestrip of pavement in front of Mifflin's shop. Halfway through the stewhe saw Roger come out onto the pavement and begin to remove the booksfrom the boxes.
After finishing his supper he lit one of his "mild but they satisfy"cigarettes and sat in the comfortable warmth of a near-by radiator. Alarge black cat lay sprawled on the next chair. Up at the servicecounter there was a pleasant clank of stout crockery as occasionalcustomers came in and ordered their victuals. Aubrey began to feel arelaxation swim through his veins. Gissing Street was very bright andorderly in its Saturday evening bustle. Certainly it was grotesque toimagine melodrama hanging about a second-hand bookshop in Brooklyn.The revolver felt absurdly lumpy and uncomfortable in his hip pocket.What a different aspect a little hot supper gives to affairs! The mostresolute idealist or assassin had better write his poems or plan hisatrocities before the evening meal. After the narcosis of that repastthe spirit falls into a softer mood, eager only to be amused. EvenMilton would hardly have had the inhuman fortitude to sit down to themanuscript of Paradise Lost right after supper. Aubrey began to wonderif his unpleasant suspicions had not been overdrawn. He thought howdelightful it would be to stop in at the bookshop and ask Titania to goto the movies with him.
Curious magic of thought! The idea was still sparkling in his mindwhen he saw Titania and Mrs. Mifflin emerge from the bookshop and passbriskly in front of the lunchroom. They were talking and laughingmerrily. Titania's face, shining with young vitality, seemed to himmore "attention-compelling" than any ten-point Caslon type-arrangementhe had ever seen. He admired the layout of her face from thestandpoint of his cherished technique. "Just enough 'white space,'" hethought, "to set off her eyes as the 'centre of interest.' Her featuresaren't this modern bold-face stuff, set solid," he said to himself,thinking typographically. "They're rather French old-style italic,slightly leaded. Set on 22-point body, I guess. Old man Chapman's apretty good typefounder, you have to hand it to him."
He smiled at this conceit, seized hat and coat, and dashed out of thelunchroom.
Mrs. Mifflin and Titania had halted a few yards up the street, and werelooking at some pert little bonnets in a window. Aubrey hurried acrossthe street, ran up to the next corner, recrossed, and walked down theeastern pavement. In this way he would meet them as though he werecoming from the subway. He felt rather more excited than King Albertre-entering Brussels. He saw them coming, chattering together in thedelightful fashion of women out on a spree. Helen seemed much youngerin the company of her companion. "A lining of pussy-willow taffeta andan embroidered slip-on," she was saying.
Aubrey steered onto them with an admirable gesture of surprise.
"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Mifflin. "Here's Mr. Gilbert. Were youcoming to see Roger?" she added, rather enjoying the young man'spredicament.
Titania shook hands cordially. Aubrey, searching the old-style italicswith the desperate intensity of a proof-reader, saw no evidence ofchagrin at seeing him again so soon.
"Why," he said rather lamely, "I was coming to see you all. I--Iwondered how you were getting along."
Mrs. Mifflin had pity on him. "We've left Mr. Mifflin to look afterthe shop," she said. "He's busy with some of his old crony customers.Why don't you come with us to the movies?"
"Yes, do," said Titania. "It's Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, you know howadorable they are!"
No one needs to be told how quickly Aubrey assented. Pleasurecoincided with duty in that the outer wing of the party placed him nextto Titania.
"Well, how do you like bookselling?" he asked.
"Oh, it's the greatest fun!" she cried. "But it'll take me ever andever so long to learn about all the books. People ask such questions!A woman came in this afternoon looking for a copy of Blase Tales. Howwas I to know she wanted The Blazed Trail?"
"You'll get used to that," said Mrs. Mifflin. "Just a minute, people,I want to stop in at the drug store."
They went into Weintraub's pharmacy. Entranced as he was by theproximity of Miss Chapman, Aubrey noticed that the druggist eyed himrather queerly. And being of a noticing habit, he also observed thatwhen Weintraub had occasion to write out a label for a box of powderedalum Mrs. Mifflin was buying, he did so with a pale violet ink.
At the glass sentry-box in front of the theatre Aubrey insisted onbuying the tickets.
"We came out right after supper," said Titania as they entered, "so asto get in before the crowd."
It is not so easy, however, to get ahead of Brooklyn movie fans. Theyhad to stand for several minutes in a packed lobby while a stern youngman held the waiting crowd in check with a velvet rope. Aubreysustained delightful spasms of the protective instinct in trying toshelter Titania from buffets and pushings. Unknown to her, his armextended behind her like an iron rod to absorb the onward impulses ofthe eager throng. A rustling groan ran through these enthusiasts asthey saw the preliminary footage of the great Tarzan flash onto thescreen, and realized they were missing something. At last, however,the trio got through the barrier and found three seats well in front,at one side. From this angle the flying pictures were strangelydistorted, but Aubrey did not mind.
"Isn't it lucky I got here when I did," whispered Titania. "Mr.Mifflin has just had a telephone call from Philadelphia asking him togo over on Monday to make an estimate on a library that's going to besold so I'll be able to look after the shop for him while he's gone."
"Is that so?" said Aubrey. "Well, now, I've got to be in Brooklyn onMonday, on business. Maybe Mrs. Mifflin would let me come in and buysome books from you."
"Customers always welcome," said Mrs. Mifflin.
"I've taken a fancy to that Cromwell book," said Aubrey. "What do yousuppose Mr. Mifflin would sell it for?"
"I think that book must be valuable," said Titania. "Somebody came inthis afternoon and wanted to buy it, but Mr. Mifflin wouldn't part withit. He says it's one of his favourites. Gracious, what a weird filmthis is!"
The fantastic absurdities of Tarzan proceeded on the screen, tearingcelluloid passions to tatters, but Aubrey found the strong man of thejungle coming almost too close to his own imperious instincts. Was nothe, too--he thought naively--a poor Tarzan of the advertising jungle,lost among the elephants and alligators of commerce, and sighing forthis dainty and unattainable vision of girlhood that had burst upon hisburning gaze! He stole a perilous side-glance at her profile, and sawthe racing flicker of the screen reflected in tiny spangles of lightthat danced in her eyes. He was even so unknowing as to imagine thatshe was not aware of his contemplation. And then the lights went up.
"What nonsense, wasn't it?" said Titania. "I'm so glad it's over! Iwas quite afraid one of those elephants would walk off the screen andtread on us."
"I never can understand," said Helen, "why they don't film some of thereally good books--think of Frank Stockton's stuff, how delightful thatwould be. Can't you imagine Mr. and Mrs. Drew playing in RudderGrange!"
"Thank goodness!" said Titania. "Since I entered the book business,that's the first time anybody's mentioned a book that I've read.Yes--do you remember when Pomona and Jonas visit an insane asylum ontheir honeymoon? Do you know, you and Mr. Mifflin remind me a littleof Mr. and Mrs. Drew."
Helen and Aubrey chuckled at this innocent correlation of ideas. Thenthe organ began to play "O How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning" and theever-delightful Mr. and Mrs. Drew appeared on the screen in one oftheir domestic comedies. Lovers of the movies may well date a newscreen era from the day those whimsical pantomimers set
their wholesomeand humane talent at the service of the arc light and the lens. Aubreyfelt a serene and intimate pleasure in watching them from a seat besideTitania. He knew that the breakfast table scene shadowed before themwas only a makeshift section of lath propped up in some barnlike motionpicture studio; yet his rocketing fancy imagined it as some arcadiansuburb where he and Titania, by a jugglery of benign fate, werebungalowed together. Young men have a pioneering imagination: it isdoubtful whether any young Orlando ever found himself side by side withRosalind without dreaming himself wedded to her. If men die a thousanddeaths before this mortal coil is shuffled, even so surely do youthscontract a thousand marriages before they go to the City Hall for alicense.
Aubrey remembered the opera glasses, which were still in his pocket,and brought them out. The trio amused themselves by watching SidneyDrew's face through the magnifying lenses. They were disappointed inthe result, however, as the pictures, when so enlarged, revealed allthe cobweb of fine cracks on the film. Mr. Drew's nose, the mostamusing feature known to the movies, lost its quaintness when soaugmented.
"Why," cried Titania, "it makes his lovely nose look like the map ofFlorida."
"How on earth did you happen to have these in your pocket?" asked Mrs.Mifflin, returning the glasses.
Aubrey was hard pressed for a prompt and reasonable fib, butadvertising men are resourceful.
"Oh," he said, "I sometimes carry them with me at night to study theadvertising sky-signs. I'm a little short sighted. You see, it's partof my business to study the technique of the electric signs."
After some current event pictures the programme prepared to repeatitself, and they went out. "Will you come in and have some cocoa withus?" said Helen as they reached the door of the bookshop. Aubrey waseager enough to accept, but feared to overplay his hand. "I'm sorry,"he said, "but I think I'd better not. I've got some work to doto-night. Perhaps I can drop in on Monday when Mr. Mifflin's away, andput coal on the furnace for you, or something of that sort?"
Mrs. Mifflin laughed. "Surely!" she said. "You're welcome any time."The door closed behind them, and Aubrey fell into a profoundmelancholy. Deprived of the heavenly rhetoric of her eye, GissingStreet seemed flat and dull.
It was still early--not quite ten o'clock--and it occurred to Aubreythat if he was going to patrol the neighbourhood he had better fix itsdetails in his head. Hazlitt, the next street below the bookshop,proved to be a quiet little byway, cheerfully lit with modestdwellings. A few paces down Hazlitt Street a narrow cobbled alley ranthrough to Wordsworth Avenue, passing between the back yards of GissingStreet and Whittier Street. The alley was totally dark, but bycounting off the correct number of houses Aubrey identified the rearentrance of the bookshop. He tried the yard gate cautiously, and foundit unlocked. Glancing in he could see a light in the kitchen windowand assumed that the cocoa was being brewed. Then a window glowedupstairs, and he was thrilled to see Titania shining in the lamplight.She moved to the window and pulled down the blind. For a moment he sawher head and shoulders silhouetted against the curtain; then the lightwent out.
Aubrey stood briefly in sentimental thought. If he only had a coupleof blankets, he mused, he could camp out here in Roger's back yard allnight. Surely no harm could come to the girl while he kept watchbeneath her casement! The idea was just fantastic enough to appeal tohim. Then, as he stood in the open gateway, he heard distant footfallscoming down the alley, and a grumble of voices. Perhaps two policemenon their rounds, he thought: it would be awkward to be surprisedskulking about back doors at this time of night. He slipped inside thegate and closed it gently behind him, taking the precaution to slip thebolt.
The footsteps came nearer, stumbling down the uneven cobbles in thedarkness. He stood still against the back fence. To his amazement themen halted outside Mifflin's gate, and he heard the latch quietlylifted.
"It's no use," said a voice--"the gate is locked. We must find someother way, my friend."
Aubrey tingled to hear the rolling, throaty "r" in the last word.There was no mistaking--this was the voice of his "friend andwell-wisher" over the telephone.
The other said something in German in a hoarse whisper. Having studiedthat language in college, Aubrey caught only two words--Thur andSchlussel, which he knew meant door and key.
"Very well," said the first voice. "That will be all right, but wemust act to-night. The damned thing must be finished to-morrow. Youridiotic stupidity--"
Again followed some gargling in German, in a rapid undertone too fluentfor Aubrey's grasp. The latch of the alley gate clicked once more, andhis hand was on his revolver; but in a moment the two had passed ondown the alley.
The young advertising agent stood against the fence in silent horror,his heart bumping heavily. His hands were clammy, his feet seemed tohave grown larger and taken root. What damnable complot was this? Asultry wave of anger passed over him. This bland, slick, talkativebookseller, was he arranging some blackmailing scheme to kidnap thegirl and wring blood-money out of her father? And in league withGermans, too, the scoundrel! What an asinine thing for old Chapman tosend an unprotected girl over here into the wilds of Brooklyn . . . andin the meantime, what was he to do? Patrol the back yard all night?No, the friend and well-wisher had said "We must find some other way."Besides, Aubrey remembered something having been said about the oldterrier sleeping in the kitchen. He felt sure Bock would not let anyGerman in at night without raising the roof. Probably the best waywould be to watch the front of the shop. In miserable perplexity hewaited several minutes until the two Germans would be well out ofearshot. Then he unbolted the gate and stole up the alley on tiptoe,in the opposite direction. It led into Wordsworth Avenue just behindWeintraub's drug store, over the rear of which hung the great girdersand trestles of the "L" station, a kind of Swiss chalet straddling thestreet on stilts. He thought it prudent to make a detour, so he turnedeast on Wordsworth Avenue until he reached Whittier Street, thensauntered easily down Whittier for a block, spying sharply forevidences of pursuit. Brooklyn was putting out its lights for thenight, and all was quiet. He turned into Hazlitt Street and so backonto Gissing, noticing now that the Haunted Bookshop lights were off.It was nearly eleven o'clock: the last audience was filing out of themovie theatre, where two workmen were already perched on ladders takingdown the Tarzan electric light sign, to substitute the illuminatedlettering for the next feature.
After some debate he decided that the best thing to do was to return tohis room at Mrs. Schiller's, from which he could keep a sharp watch onthe front door of the bookshop. By good fortune there was a lamp postalmost directly in front of Mifflin's house, which cast plenty of lighton the little sunken area before the door. With his opera glasses hecould see from his bedroom whatever went on. As he crossed the streethe cast his eyes upward at the facade of Mrs. Schiller's house. Twowindows in the fourth storey were lit, and the gas burned minutely inthe downstairs hall, elsewhere all was dark. And then, as he glancedat the window of his own chamber, where the curtain was still tuckedback behind the pane, he noticed a curious thing. A small point ofrosy light glowed, faded, and glowed again by the window. Someone wassmoking a cigar in his room.
Aubrey continued walking in even stride, as though he had seen nothing.Returning down the street, on the opposite side, he verified his firstglance. The light was still there, and he judged himself not far outin assuming the smoker to be the friend and well-wisher or one of hisgang. He had suspected the other man in the alley of being Weintraub,but he could not be sure. A cautious glance through the window of thedrug store revealed Weintraub at his prescription counter. Aubreydetermined to get even with the guttural gentleman who was waiting forhim, certainly with no affectionate intent. He thanked the goodfortune that had led him to stick the book cover in his overcoat pocketwhen leaving Mrs. Schiller's. Evidently, for reasons unknown, someonewas very anxious to get hold of it.
An idea occurred to him as he passed the little florist's shop, whi
chwas just closing. He entered and bought a dozen white carnations, andthen, as if by an afterthought, asked "Have you any wire?"
The florist produced a spool of the slender, tough wire that issometimes used to nip the buds of expensive roses, to prevent them fromblossoming too quickly.
"Let me have about eight feet," said Aubrey. "I need some to-night andI guess the hardware stores are all closed."
With this he returned to Mrs. Schiller's, picking his way carefully andclose to the houses so as to be out of sight from the upstairs windows.He climbed the steps and unlatched the door with bated breath. It washalf-past eleven, and he wondered how long he would have to wait forthe well-wisher to descend.
He could not help chuckling as he made his preparations, remembering anoccasion at college somewhat similar in setting though far less seriousin purpose. First he took off his shoes, laying them carefully to oneside where he could find them again in a hurry. Then, choosing abanister about six feet from the bottom of the stairs he attached oneend of the wire tightly to its base and spread the slack in a largeloop over two of the stair treads. The remaining end of the wire hepassed out through the banisters, twisting it into a small loop so thathe could pull it easily. Then he turned out the hall gas and sat downin the dark to wait events.
He sat for a long time, in some nervousness lest the pug dog might comeprowling and find him. He was startled by a lady in a dressinggown--perhaps Mrs. J. F. Smith--who emerged from a ground-floor roompassed very close to him in the dark, and muttered upstairs. Hetwitched his noose out of the way just in time. Presently, however,his patience was rewarded. He heard a door squeak above, and then thegroaning of the staircase as someone descended slowly. He relaid histrap and waited, smiling to himself. A clock somewhere in the housewas chiming twelve as the man came groping down the last flight,feeling his way in the dark. Aubrey heard him swearing under hisbreath.
At the precise moment, when both his victim's feet were within theloop, Aubrey gave the wire a gigantic tug. The man fell like a safe,crashing against the banisters and landing in a sprawl on the floor.It was a terrific fall, and shook the house. He lay there groaning andcursing.
Barely retaining his laughter, Aubrey struck a match and held it overthe sprawling figure. The man lay with his face twisted against oneout-spread arm, but the beard was unmistakable. It was the assistantchef again, and he seemed partly unconscious. "Burnt hair is a grandrestorative," said Aubrey to himself, and applied the match to the bushof beard. He singed off a couple of inches of it with intense delight,and laid his carnations on the head of the stricken one. Then, hearingstirrings in the basement, he gathered up his wire and shoes and fledupstairs. He gained his room roaring with inward mirth, but enteredcautiously, fearing some trap. Save for a strong tincture of cigarsmoke, everything seemed correct. Listening at his door he heard Mrs.Schiller exclaiming shrilly in the hall, assisted by yappings from thepug. Doors upstairs were opened, and questions were called out. Heheard guttural groans from the bearded one, mingled with oaths and someangry remark about having fallen downstairs. The pug, frenzied withexcitement, yelled insanely. A female voice--possibly Mrs. J. F.Smith--cried out "What's that smell of burning?" Someone else said,"They're burning feathers under his nose to bring him to."
"Yes, Hun's feathers," chuckled Aubrey to himself. He locked his door,and sat down by the window with his opera glasses.