'No need to do the kiss?' said Mr Brinkmeyer, rather pleadingly. 'Just walk the kiss, eh?'
'Certainly. I don't suppose you want to kiss the little insect more than is absolutely necessary,' said Miss Brinkmeyer, and with these offensive words took her departure. I waited till she had disappeared, then fixed Mr Brinkmeyer with a steely eye.
'Brinkmeyer,' I said, in a low, hard voice, 'was this your idea?*
He disclaimed the charge vehemently. 'Sweet suffering soup-spoons, no I Given a free hand, I wouldn't touch you with a pair of tongs.' It was exactly how I felt.
'Same here,' I said. 'I wouldn't touch you with a pair of tongs.'
We gazed at each other with something like affection. Twin souls.
'How would it be if we just shook hands?' I suggested. 'Or you could pat me on the back.'
'No. I've got to kiss you. She says I must. Well, it'll all be over this time to-morrow. There's that. But I wish I'd stuck to the cloak and suit business.'
I was still much moved. I felt that the responsibility should be fixed.
'If it wasn't your idea, whose was it?'
He scowled.
'It was that press agent guy of yours - that Booch - who thought it up. He said it would mean publicity of the right sort, darn him. And Beulah said it was a great notion. Gee! I'm glad that fellow got poked in the snoot. A mystery, they call it. The mystery to me is why nobody ever thought of doing it before.'
I started. The words had touched a cord in my mind.
'Poked in the snoot? Did somebody do that to him?'
'Did they I Haven't you read the paper?'
'Not that bit.'
'Lookut!' said Mr Brinkmeyer, diving for the periodical and opening it at the middle page. His face had lost its drawn look. He had become virtually gay and practically bobbish.
I took the paper, and headlines met my eye. As follows:
STRANGE OCCURRENCE AT MALIBU
MYSTERY FIEND SMITES TWO
POKED US IN SNOOT,' SAY VICTIMS
The report beneath these headlines ran thus:
It will be no use Love sending a gift of roses to Cosmo Booch, noted press agent, or Dikran Marsupial, ace director, for some little time to come, because they won't be able to smell 'em. Both are home at this writing with swollen noses, the result of an encounter with what appears to have been a first-class fiend.
As Faust once remarked, there are moments when a fellow needs a fiend, but neither Cosmo Booch, ace press agent, nor Dikran Marsupial, noted director, needed this one when he descended on the former's cosy little cottage beside the sad sea waves of Malibu. They were playing checkers and did not require a third.
AN EYE-WITNESS
As to what it was all about, your correspondent has to confess himself a trifle fogged. Cosmo, questioned over the telephone at a late hour last night, was incoherent. So was Dikran. Each made odd spluttering noises, but contributed little or nothing to ye corn's enlightenment. Fortunately, there turns out to have been an eye-witness in the shape - if you can call it a shape - he would do well to knock off starchy foods - of George G. Frampton, well-known and popular member of the Hollywood Writers' Club.
FIEND GIVES GEORGE ELBOW
George G. Frampton, as all the world knows, is attached to the commercial side of the Screen Beautiful (ace motion-picture magazine), and it was in the course of one of his whirlwind drives for subscriptions, advertisements, or what have you that he found himself at Malibu. He was, indeed, on the point of calling upon Mr Booch to take up the matter of a half-page in the Special Number, when he was interested to find himself thrust to one side by a fiend.
LEAPED FENCE
George knows very few fiends, and this one, he says, was a complete stranger to him. He describes him as of powerful physique, and gorillaesque features, and states that he was dressed in a quiet grey suit with suede shoes, as worn by the better class of fiend. He leaped the low fence which separates the Booch domain from the waterfront and proceeded to the porch.
IN A FLASH
It all happened, says George, who can turn a phrase as well as the next man, in a flash. The fiend leaped on to the porch and immediately dispelled any notion that might have been lurking in the minds of the checker players that here was a mere kibitzer who had come to breathe down the backs of their necks and offer advice, by pasting Cosmo Booch squarely on the schnozzle. And while Cosmo was calling on the Supreme Court to have this declared unconstitutional, he did precisely the same to Mr Marsupial. He then left by the front or carriage entrance.
MENTALLY UNBALANCED?
The whole affair is wrapped in mystery. All your correspondent could get from the two victims was the statement: 'He poked us in the snoot.' They were unable to offer any explanation. They had never seen their assailant before, nor - this is our guess - do they want to see him again. All they want is something to reduce the swelling. Another facet of the mystery is - Why, if he was going to punch anybody, did not the fiend punch George G. Frampton? The fact that, being in a position to poke George in the snoot, he did not do so opens up a disquieting line of thought. Is the locality haunted by a mentally unbalanced fiend?
We are watching developments closely
.
Mr Brinkmeyer, who had been reading over my shoulder, seemed a bit querulous.
'I can't see what they want to call him a fiend for,' he said. 'Why fiend? Sounds kind of a good scout to me.
Stepped right up and let him have it. I'd like to meet that fellow.'
'So would I’ I said, and I meant it. I wished to get in touch with little Joey Cooley without delay, and reason with him.
For I had read this excerpt, as you may suppose, with mixed feelings. While the broad, basic fact that the man responsible for me getting kissed by the President of the Brinkmeyer-Magnifico Motion Picture Corporation had got it on the nose was far from displeasing, I could not disguise it from myself that the thing cut both ways.
However much your soul may have gone into someone else's body, you see, you can't help feeling a sort of responsibility for the body that used to be yours before someone else's soul went into it. You don't want the new tenant damaging its prestige and lowering it socially.
If this sort of thing was to continue, it seemed to me a mere question of time before the escutcheon of the Haver-shots would be blotted by the circumstance of the head of the family getting bunged into a dungeon cell for thirty days without the option.
I felt very strongly that this child Cooley must be talked to like a father. Some older and wiser head must buttonhole him and counsel prudence and restraint.
As I reached this conclusion, the footman entered.
'Telephone perhaps possibly,' he said.
'For me?' said Mr Brinkmeyer.
'No, thank you, please. For the young juvenile.'
'That's right,' I said. 'I was expecting a call. Lead me to the instrument.'
Chapter 13
THE telephone was in a sort of booth place along the hall. I closed the door carefully to ensure privacy, and flung myself on it, making eager hunting noises. 'Hullo,' I said. 'Hullo. Hullo.'
It was plain the moment he gave tongue that the child was in the pink. There was a merry ring in his voice. 'Hello? Is that you?'
'Yes.'
'This is the hundred and fiftieth Duke of Havershot'
'Not Duke. Earl. And third, you ass.'
'Well, how's everything? Have you had breakfast?'
'Yes.'
'How were the prunes?' 'Damn the prunes!' He chuckled fruitily.
'You'll have to learn to love them, buddy. Guess what I had for breakfast?'
'I decline to guess what you had for breakfast.'
'Well, believe me, it was good. Say, listen, have you seen the paper?'
'Yes.'
'Read about the Malibu Horror?' 'Yes.'
'Rather a good notice, I thought. Say, listen, did you ever do any boxing?' 'Yes.'
'I thought you must have. My timing was nice.' 'It wa
s, was it?'
'Yessir. I seemed to be getting a lot of steam behind the punch. Well, I'm much obliged. I got those two bozoes a couple of beauts! You'd ought to have seen it. Bam. ... Wham! ... and down they went. I near died laughing.'
It seemed to me that it was time to squelch this kid. Too bally exuberant altogether. He appeared to be under the impression that this was the maddest, merriest day of all the glad new year - a view in which he was vastly mistaken.
I spoke with considerable acerbity. 'Well, you've gone and landed yourself in a nice posish. A dashed nice posish, I don't think.' 'Says which?'
'What the hell do you mean, says which?' 'I mean, why?'
'Do you realize diat you are a fugitive from justice?' 'What of it?'
'You won't be so dashed airy when the hands of the gendarmes fall upon your shoulder and they shove you in chokey for assault on the person.'
He laughed jovially. Getting more exuberant all the time.
'Oh, that's all right.’ 'You think so, do you?'
'Sure. Those two ginks had never seen me before. You never met them, did you?' 'No.'
'Well, then.'
'But suppose you run into them again.' 'They won't recognize me.' 'Of course they will.'
'No, they won't. Not after I've shaved off this moustache.
I uttered a quavering cry.
'You aren't going to shave off my moustache?'
I spoke with feeling, for I loved the little thing. It had been my constant companion for years. I had tended it in sickness and in health, raising it with unremitting care from a sort of half-baked or Hitler smudge to its present robust and dapper condition. More like a son than a moustache it had always been to me.
He appeared to be not without decent instincts, for there was a marked touch of remorse in his voice as he replied.
'Got to,' he said regretfully. 'It's going to make all the difference.'
'It took me years to grow it.'
'I know, I know. It's a shame. Say, listen, I'll tell you what I'll do to meet you. You can cut off my curls.' 'Oh, right ho. Thanks.' 'Don't mention it.'
This gentleman's agreement concluded, he dismissed the subject and turned to one which he evidently considered of greater import.
'Well, that's that. Now I want to talk about this statue thing.'
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. There'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 the
re 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.