Laughing Gas

  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.

  But on top of this came other thoughts, notably the reflection that if Miss Brinkmeyer had fallen into the pool, it would not be long before she was seeking her bedroom in order to change her clothes. I was still uncertain about those frogs, but it was plain that I could not remain and conduct further researches. I might have secured the full quota or I might not, but even if I hadn't, I must depart while the strategic railways in my rear were still open.

  It had taken me some minutes to arrive at this conclusion, but once it had been arrived at I did not delay. My bedroom, as I have said, was next door but one. I nipped into it like a home-going rabbit.

  It was only after I had reached it that my efforts to solve the frog problem were rewarded with success. I remembered now. There had been eight frogs originally. Six I had on my person. The other two I had placed in my hostess's boots, where they still remained.

  Chapter 18

  THE effect of this discovery was to put a bit of a crimp in the wholesome enjoyment I had been feeling at the thought of Miss Brinkmeyer falling into the swimming-pool. I could see that a difficult and complex situation had arisen. It was too late now to go back and collect these frogs: yet to do nothing and just let Nature take its course must infallibly lead to unpleasantness on a rather major scale. For this was not one of those occasions when mere formal apologies would serve.

  It was, in short, not easy to see what to do for the best, and I was still wrinkling the brow and endeavouring to frame a practical policy, when the Filipino footman entered.

  'Excuse yes, you come no, please undoubtedly,' he said.

  Although, as I have indicated, I was in something of a doodah, curiosity for the moment overcame mental agitation.

  'Tell me,' I said, 'do you talk like that because it's the only way you can, or are you another of these character actors who appear to be such common objects of the wayside in this house?'

  He dropped the mask.

  'Sure,' he said, in faultless American. 'You got me right, brother. I do comedy bits and homely pathos. One of these days, if I can catch the old buzzard alone and he can't duck, I'm going to uncork a rapid-fire dialect monologue with the tear behind the smile that'll make Mr Brinkmeyer sign on the dotted line quicker'n a chorus girl can eat caviare. We're most of us in the profesh downstairs.'

  'So I am told. I say,' I said, for I was still hoping against hope, 'you haven't seen Chaffinch about anywhere, have you?'

  'He's gone.'

  'I know he's gone. I thought he might have come back.'

  'No, he's quit. He phoned me from the station an hour ago and said he'd had an unexpected legacy from his rich uncle in Australia and was leaving for New York right away. Lucky stiff.'

  I don't suppose I had really hoped much against hope, but I now ceased to hope against hope at all. In the light of this first-hand information, it would have been a fat lot of good trying to be optimistic. My intuition had not deceived me. The hound, as I had divined, had done a bunk with the syndicate's cash-box and was now far away. I uttered a soft moan and ran a fevered hand through my ringlets.

  However, one of the advantages of being Joey Cooley was that you were never able to worry about anything long, because just as you started buckling down to it, something even worse was sure to happen and you had to switch off and begin worrying about that.

  'Well, come on, kid,' said the footman. 'Snap into it.'

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'The old girl told me to fetch you along.'

  This was the point where I stopped worrying about Chaffinch. My jaw dropped a couple of notches.

  'She wants to see me?'

  'That's the idea.'

  'Did she say what about?'

  'No.'

  'The word "frogs" was not mentioned, by any chance?' 'Not that I know of.'

  A faint hope began to stir that this might not be the hand of doom falling, after all. I proceeded to Miss Brinkmeyer's room, and found that she had taken to her bed, beside which Mr Brinkmeyer was standing. The clothes which had been lying on the bed had been put away, and so had the boots with their sinister contents. Where they had been put, I did not know, but it seemed pretty evident that the worst had not yet happened, and this so bucked me up that I became rather breezy.

  'Well, well, well,' I said, tripping in, rubbing my hands and smiling a sympathetic smile. 'And how are we, how are we, ha, ha?'

  Something squashy hit me in the face. The patient had thrown a hot-water bottle at me. I saw what had happened. I had been too breezy. There is always this danger.

  'Will you stop grinning and giggling I' she cried.

  Old Brinkmeyer, in his kindly way, tried to pour oil on the troubled waters.

  'She's nervous,' he said apologetically. 'She's had a bad shock.'

  'I'll bet she has,' I agreed, switching off the smile, as it didn't seem to have gone with a bang, but plugging away at the sympathy. 'Bound to tickle up the nervous system, getting bunged into swimming-pools. I said to myself when I saw what was happening —'

  Miss Brinkmeyer, who after launching the bottle had sunk listlessly back against the pillows, sat up.

  'Did you see it?'

  'Oh, rather.'

  'Would you be able to identify the scoundrel?'

  'Fiend,' corrected Mr Brinkmeyer, who liked to get these things right. 'Must have been that fiend we've been reading about in the papers.'

  'Would you be able to identify this fiend?'

  'Oh, absolutely. Short, slight chap with delicate, handsome features.'

  Miss Brinkmeyer snorted.

  'He was nothing of the kind. He was enormous and looked like a gorilla.' 'I don't think so.'

  'Tchah!' said Miss Brinkmeyer, with that warmth which she so often displayed in my society. 'The child's an idiot.'

  Mr Brinkmeyer again essayed a spot of oil-pouring. 'Here's an idea,' he said. 'Could he have been a gorilla?'

  'You're an idiot,' said Miss Brinkmeyer. 'Worse than the child is.'

  'I was only thinking that they're doing a Darkest Africa picture down at M.G.M. —'

  'Oh, go into your dance,' said Miss Brinkmeyer wearily.

  'Well, one of the gorillas might have got loose,' urged Mr Brinkmeyer deferentially. 'Anyway, the cops'll be here soon. Maybe they'll find a clue.'

  'Maybe they won't,' said Miss Brinkmeyer, who seemed to have little faith in the official force. 'Still, never mind that now. What I wanted to see you about was this: I've put those Michigan Mothers off.'

  'What!' I cried. This was great news. 'Told them to buzz back to Michigan, eh? Splendid. You couldn't have done better.'

  'Don't talk like an imbecile. Of course I have not told them to go back to Michigan. I've postponed the reception till to-morrow. I'm much too unstrung to meet them today.'

  'And she can't come to the unveiling of the statue,' said Mr Brinkmeyer. 'Too bad, too bad.'

  'I certainly can't. And I can only hope that you and the child between you will not mess the whole affair up. Well, that's all. Take him away,' she said to Mr Brinkmeyer, closing her eyes after a short, shuddering look at me and sinking wearily back on the pillows again. 'The sight of him seems to make me worse. It's that fatheaded stare of his, I think, principally. Take him back to his room and keep him there on ice till it's time to go to the studio.'

  'Yes, my dear,' said Mr Brinkmeyer. 'Very good, my dear. And you try to get a nice, long sleep.'

  He led me out. His manner, until the door had closed behind us, was the quiet, sober manner which one likes to see in a brother who tiptoes from a sister's sick-bed. Nothing could have been more correct. But out in the passage it relaxed a trifle, and when we had entered my room he beamed like the rising sun and slapped me on the back.

  'Whoopee!' he said.

  The slap had been so hearty t
hat it had sent me reeling across the floor. I fetched up against a chest of drawers and turned enquiringly.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'She's not coming to the statue.'

  'So I gathered.'

  'You know what this means?' said Mr Brinkmeyer, trying to slap me on the back again but missing by several inches owing to my adroit footwork. 'It means I'm not going to wear my cutaway coat and stiff collar.'

  'Oh?'

  'And I'm not going to wear a gardenia.' 'Oh?'

  'And I'm not going to wear spats.'

  I found his enthusiasm infectious.

  'And the kiss,' I cried. 'We'll cut the kiss?'

  'Sure.'

  'Just exchange a couple of civil nods, eh?' 'That's right.'

  'In fact, why not eliminate the whole unpleasant nosegay business altogether?'

  But he was not, it appeared, prepared to follow me quite so far as that. He shook his head.

  'No. I guess we'll have to keep the nosegay sequence. It's one of the things the sob-sisters are sure to write up, and if she doesn't see anything about it in the papers to-morrow, she'll ask questions.'

  I saw that he was right. These presidents of important motion-picture corporations are no fools.

  'Yes,' I conceded. 'That's true.'

  'But no kiss.'

  'No kiss.'

  'And no stiff collar, no gardenia, and no spats. Whoopee!' said Mr Brinkmeyer once more, and on this cheerful note withdrew.

  For some moments after he had left, I paced the floor in a state of no little exhilaration. The future, true, had not entirely lost its grim aspect. Those Michigan Mothers had merely been postponed, not cancelled: the statue's nose remained as red as ever: and two of my frogs were still at large. But I had been sufficiently schooled by adversity by this time to be thankful for anything in the shape of a bit of luck, and the thought that I was not going to be kissed in public by T. P. Brinkmeyer was enough to make me curvet about the room like one walking on air.

  And I was still doing so when I was brought to a halt by the sight of a cupboard door opening cautiously. A moment later, a face appeared. A face which, despite the fact that its upper lip had recently been shaved, I had no difficulty in recognizing.

  'Hello,' said the Cooley child, emerging. 'How's tricks?'

  A wave of indignation passed through me. I had not forgotten his behaviour on the telephone.

  'Never mind about tricks,' I said frostily. 'What the devil did you ring off for like that when I was talking to you on the phone? What about that money?'

  'Money?'

  'I told you I had to have money in order to get away.' 'Oh, you want money, do you?'

  'Of course I want money. I explained the whole situation in the most limpid manner. If I don't get some in the next couple of hours, ruin stares me in the face.'

  'I see. Well, I haven't any on me, but I'll go and send you some.'

  I felt that I had misjudged this lad.

  'You will?'

  'Sure. Don't give the thing another thought. Say, did you hear all that out in the garden? Nice little bit of luck, finding her like that. I never expected I'd get such quick action. Matter of fact, I wasn't gunning for her at all, really. I came to get that notebook.' He broke off. 'Hello! Listen. That'll be the constabules.'

  Voices had become audible below. One was Mr Brinkmeyer's, and mingling with it came the deep notes that always proceed from the throats of the gendarmerie. Once you've heard a traffic cop asking for your driving licence, you cannot fail to spot the timbre. 'You'd better leg it,' I advised.

  He betrayed no alarm. His air was that of one who has the situation well in hand.

  'No, sir,' he said. 'I'm safe enough here. This is the last place they'd think of looking. They probably imagine I'm a mile away by now. All they'll do is fuss around for a while, and then go and spread a drag-net and comb the city. Well, buddy, I'm sitting on top of the world. I'm having one swell time. Yessir! Those two guys yesterday, a couple of supervisors this morning, and now Ma Brinkmeyer. I'd call that a pretty good batting average. How's everything coming out at your end?'

  It was pleasant to be able to pour out my troubles into an attentive ear. I told him about Chaffinch, and he was becomingly sympathetic. I told him about the frogs, and he said whatever might happen, I should have the consolation of knowing that I had done the fine, square thing. When I told him about Ann's dismissal, he dismissed the affair with a wave of the hand.

  'She's all right. She's going to get some press-agent job. Say, I ought to put you wise about that, by the way.'

  'She told me.'

  'Oh, she did? Okay, then. Well, I hope she lands it, because she's one of the best, Ann is. She didn't say who she was going to be press agent for, but one of the big stars, I guess. So she'll be all right.'

  I might have informed him that Ann's prospective employer was April June, but I thought it wiser to refrain. Experience had taught me that any mention of April June was likely to draw some distasteful crack from him, which could not fail to cast a blight on our newly formed intimacy. I did not wish to have to tick him off for some ill-judged speech, when it was so imperative that he be conciliated and given no excuse for changing his mind about that money. So I merely said: 'Oh, ah,' in a guarded manner, and turned to a subject which had a good deal of interest for me, viz., the mystery of the spotted boy.

  '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, tastef
ully 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 you 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.