Laughing Gas

  'No, don't put your glass down. Just as you are. The cigarette in your mouth, I think. Yes, that's splendid.' April drew a deep breath.

  'Perhaps,' she said, 'you would prefer that I left you together?'

  'Oh, don't go,' I urged hospitably.

  'No, no,' said Miss Wycherley. 'I would like to interview you both. Such a wonderful chance, finding you both here like this.'

  'Exactly,' I agreed. 'Two stones with one bird. Dashed good idea. Carry on,' I said, closing my eyes so that I could listen better.

  The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and feeling considerably clearer in the bean. That strange, blurred sensation had passed. I take it that I must have dozed off for a moment or two. As I came to the surface, April was speaking.

  'No,' she was saying in a low, sweet voice, 'I have never been one of those girls who think only of themselves and their career. To me the picture is everything. I work solely for its success, with no thought of personal advantage. In this last picture of mine, as you say, many girls might have objected to the way the director kept pushing little Joey Cooley here forward and giving him all the best shots.' Here she paused and flashed an affectionate glance in my direction. 'Oh, you're awake, are you? Yes, I'm talking about you, you cute little picture-stealer,' she said with a roguish smile that nearly made me fall at her feet then and there. 'He is a dreadful, dreadful little picture-stealer, isn't he?' she said.

  'He certainly ran away with that one,' assented the horse-faced female.

  'Don't I know it!' said April with a silvery little laugh. 'I could see from the start what the director was trying to do, of course, but I said to myself: "Mr Bui winkle is a very experienced man. He knows best. If Mr Bulwinkle wishes me to efface myself for the good of the picture", I said to myself, "I am only too pleased". I felt that the success of the picture was the only thing that mattered. I don't know if you see what I mean?'

  Miss Wycherley said she saw just what she meant, adding that it did her credit.

  'Oh, no,' said April. 'It is just that I am an artist. If you are an artist, you cease to exist as an individual. You become just part of the picture.'

  That about concluded her portion of the entertainment, for at this point Miss Wycherley, perceiving that the mists of sleep had rolled away, turned to me and wanted to know what I thought about things. And as it happens that I hold strong views on the films, I rather collared the conversation from now on. I told her what I thought was wrong with the pictures, threw out a few personal criticisms of the leading stars - mordant perhaps, but justified - and, in a word, generally hauled up my slacks. I welcomed this opportunity of voicing my views,

  because in the past, whenever I had tried to do it at the Drones, there had always been rather a disposition on the part of my audience to tell me to put a sock in it.

  So for about ten minutes I delivered a closely reasoned address, and then Miss Wycherley got up and said it had all been most interesting and she was sure she had got some excellent material for to-morrow's paper, and that she must be getting back to the office to write it up. April conducted her to the front door and saw her off, while I, observing that one of my shoelaces had worked loose in the recent race for life, got out of my chair and started to tie it up.

  And I was still in the stooping posture necessitated by this task, when I heard a soft footstep behind me. April had returned.

  'Half a jiffy,' I said. 'I'm just—'

  The words died, in my throat. For even as I spoke them a jarring agony shot through my entire system and I whizzed forward and came up against the chesterfield. For an instant I had an idea that one of those earthquakes which are such a common feature of life in California must have broken loose. Then the hideous truth came home to me.

  The woman I loved had kicked me in the pants.

  Chapter 22

  I ROSE to ray feet with some of the emotions of a man who has just taken the Cornish Express in the small of the back. She was standing looking at me with her hands on her hips, grinding her teeth quietly, and I gazed back with reproach and amazement, like Julius Caesar at Brutus. 'I say!' I said.

  To describe myself as astounded at what had occurred would be to paint but a feeble picture of the turmoil going on beneath my frilly shirt. I had lost my grip entirely. I found the situation one in which it was not easy to maintain a patrician calm.

  To the idea that there was practically nothing that couldn't happen to the unfortunate bird who had been rash enough to take on the identity of little Joey Cooley I had become by this time, of course, pretty well accustomed. That T. Murphies and O. Flowers should be going about seeking to commit mayhem on my person I was able to accept as in the natural order of things. If it had been Miss Brinkmeyer who had thus booted me, I could have understood. I might even have sympathized. But this particular spot of bother had come as a complete surprise. When it came to April June catching me fruity ones on the seat of the bags, I was frankly unable to follow the run of what Mr Brinkmeyer would have called the sequence.

  'I say, what?' I said.

  In addition to being shaken to my foundations spiritually, I was in none too good shape physically. The wound was throbbing painfully, and I had to feel the top of my head to make sure that the spine had not come through. Not since early boyhood, a time when a certain exuberance in my manner had, I believe, rather invited this sort of thing, could I recall having stopped such a hot one.

  'I say, dash it 1' I said.

  Yet even now my love was so deep that had she expressed anything in the nature of contrition or apology -pleaded that her foot had slipped, or something like that -I think I would have been willing to forgive and forget and make a fresh start.

  But she didn't express anything of the dashed kind. She seemed to glory in her questionable conduct. There was unmistakable triumph and satisfaction in her demeanour.

  'There I' she said. 'How did you like that? Laugh that off!'

  But nothing was farther from my thoughts than merriment. I couldn't have laughed at that moment to please a dying aunt.

  For I saw now what must have happened. The exacting conditions of life in Hollywood, with its ceaseless strain and gruelling work, had proved too much for this girl's frail strength. Brainstorms had ensued. Nervous breakdowns had bobbed up. In a word, crushed by the machine, she had gone temporarily off her onion.

  My heart bled for her. I forgot my aching base.

  'There, there,' I said, and was about to suggest a cup of hot tea and a good lie-down, when she continued:

  'Maybe that will teach you not to go crawling to directors so that they will let you hog the camera!'

  The scales fell from my eyes. I saw that my diagnosis had been wrong. The shocking truth hit me like a wet towel. This was no nervous breakdown caused by overwork. Incredible though it might seem after all she had been saying about the artist not caring a hoot for personal glory so long as the picture came out well, it was straight professional jealousy. It was the old Murphy-Flower stuff all over again, only a dashed sight more serious. Because in adjusting my little difficulties with Thomas and Orlando I had had plenty of room to manoeuvre in. Now, I was cooped up within four walls, and who could predict the upshot?

  I have made it pretty clear, I think, in the course of this narrative, that what had so drawn me to April June had been her wistful gentleness. In her, as I have repeatedly suggested, I could have put my shirt on it that I had found a great white soul.

  There was nothing wistful and gentle about her now. The soft blue eyes I had admired so much were hard and had begun to shoot out sparks. The skin I would have loved to touch was flushed, the mouth set in a rigid line, the fingers twitching. She seemed to me, in brief, to be exhibiting all the earmarks of one of those hammer murderesses you read about in the papers who biff husbands over the coconut and place the remains in a trunk: and with all possible swiftness I removed myself to the other side of the chesterfield and stood staring at her dumbly. And, as I did so, I realized for the first time how
a hen must look to a worm.

  She went on speaking in tones that bore no resemblance whatever to those which had so fascinated me at our first meeting. The stuff came out in a high, vibrating soprano that went through me like a bradawl.

  'And maybe you'll know enough after this to keep away when I'm receiving the Press. I like your gall, coming butting in when a special representative of a leading daily paper is approaching me for my views on Art and the trend of public taste! You and your bouquets!' Here, baring her teeth unpleasantly, she kicked the nosegay. 'I've a good mind to make you eat it.'

  I sidled a little farther behind the chesterfield. Less and less did I like the turn the conversation was taking.

  'I did think I would be safe from you in my own home. But no. In you come oozing like oil.'

  I would have explained here, if she had given me the opportunity, that I had had an excellent motive in so oozing, for I had come solely in order to save her from a fate which, if not exactly worse than death, would have been distinctly unpleasant. But she did not give me the opportunity.

  'Trying to attract all the attention to yourself, as usual. Well, if you think you can get away with that, think again.

  You can just throw hay on that idea. You expect me, do you, not only to act as a stooge for you in front of the camera, but to sit smiling in the background while you horn in and swipe my interview?'

  Again I endeavoured to assure her that she was totally mistaken in her view of the situation, and once more she nipped in ahead of me.

  'Of all the nerve! Of all the crust! Of all the — But what,' she cried, breaking off, 'is the sense of standing here talking about it?'

  I felt the same myself. It seemed to me that nothing was to be gained by continuing the conference.

  'Quite,' I said. 'Right ho. Then I'll be pushing, what?'

  'You stay where you are.'

  'But I thought you said—'

  'Let me get at you!'

  I could not accede to her request, which even she must have seen was unreasonable. With a swift movement of the hand she had possessed herself of a large, flat, heavy paper-knife, and the last thing I was prepared to do was to let her get at me.

  'Now, listen,' I began.

  I got no further, because, as I spoke, she suddenly came bounding round the side of the chesterfield, and I saw that it was no time for words. Acting swiftly, I did a backwards leap of about five feet six. It was the manoeuvre which is known in America as beating the gun. With equal promptitude she did a forwards leap of perhaps four feet seven. And I, hearing that paper-knife whistle past my knickerbockers, put in a sideways leap of possibly three feet eight. This saved me for the nonce, but I could not but note that my strategic position had now changed considerably for the worse. She had driven me from my line of prepared fortifications, and I was right out in the open with both flanks exposed.

  The moment seemed ripe for another attempt at conciliation.

  'All this is most unpleasant,' I urged.

  'It'll get worse,' she assured me.

  I begged her not to do anything she would be sorry for later. She thanked me for the thought, but protested that I was the one who was going to be sorry. She then began to advance again, stealthily this time, like a leopard of the jungle; and, as I backed warily, I found myself reflecting how completely a few minutes can alter one's whole mental outlook. Of the love for this girl which so short a while before had animated my bosom there remained not a trace. That paper-knife of hers had properly put a stopper on the tender passion. When I remembered that I had once yearned to walk up the aisle by her side, with the organ playing 'The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden', and the clergyman waiting to do his stuff, I marvelled at my fat-headedness.

  But she didn't give me time for anything lengthy in the way of musing. She leaped forward, and things began to brisk up again. And it was not long before I saw that this was going to be quite a vigorous evening.

  To describe these great emotional experiences in detail is always pretty difficult. One is not in the frame of mind, while they are in progress, to note and observe and store away the sequence of events in the memory. One's recollections tend to be blurred.

  I can recall setting a cracking pace, but twice the paper-knife caught me on the spot best adapted for its receipt, once when I had become entangled in the standard lamp by the fireplace, and again when I tripped over a small chair, and both were biffs of unparalleled juiciness. Their effect was to bring out all that was best in me both as a flat racer and as a performer over the sticks, and I nipped away and took almost in my stride the piano on which in happier circumstances she had once played me old folksongs. I found myself behind the chesterfield again.

  And such was the lissomeness which peril had given me that I think that I might now have managed to reach the door and win my way to safety, had not an imperfect knowledge of local conditions caused me to make a fatal bloomer. She was coming up smartly on my right and like an ass, I thought that it would be quicker to go under the chesterfield instead of round it.

  I have said that I had sat many a time in this room and knew it well, but when I did so I was referring to that part of it which met the eye. I had no acquaintance with the bits you couldn't see. And it was this that undid me. Thinking, as I say, to take a short cut by wriggling under the chesterfield and coming out on the other side - a manoeuvre, mind you, which would have been Napoleonic if it had come off, because it would have put me within nice easy distance of the door - I dropped to the ground. Only to discover, as I started to wriggle, that the bottom of the bally thing was not a foot from the floor. I got my head in, and then I stuck.

  And before I could rise and make for more suitable cover, she was busy with the paper-knife.

  It seemed to speak to my very soul. I remember, even in that supreme moment, wondering how the dickens a female of her slight build and apparently fragile physique could possibly get that wristy follow-through into her shots. I had always looked upon the head master of my first school as a very fine performer with the baton, but he was not in it with this slim, blue-eyed girl, I suppose it is all largely a matter of timing.

  'There,' she said, at length.

  I had got round the chesterfield now, and we stood regarding each other across it. The brisk exercise had brought a flush to her cheek and a sparkle to her eyes, and she had never looked more beautiful. Nevertheless, the ashes of my dead love showed no signs whatever of bursting into flame again. I rubbed the spot and eyed her sombrely. It gave me a certain moody satisfaction to think that she was not going to be warned of what awaited her when Reginald, Lord Havershot, at last found his way to her door.

  'There,' she said again. 'That'll teach you. Now scram.' Even had the word been unfamiliar to me, I would have gathered from the gesture which accompanied it that I was being dismissed from her presence, and I was all for it. The quickest way out was the way for me. I made for the door forthwith.

  And then, in spite of everything, my better self asserted itself.

  'Listen,' I said. 'There's something —' She waved the paper-knife imperiously. 'Go on. Get out of here.' 'Yes, but listen ...'

  'Scram,' she said haughtily. 'This means you.'

  I sighed resignedly. I shrugged my shoulders. I think, though I am not sure, that I said: 'So be it.' Anyway, I started to move for the door again. And then something over by the window caught the corner of my eye, and I stopped.

  There, with their noses pressed against the glass, were Tommy Murphy and Orlando Flower.

  I stood congealed. I saw what had happened. From the fact of their standing side by side in apparent amity, it was evident that the state of friction which had existed between them existed no more. They must have talked things over after my departure and decided that the best results were to be obtained by calling a halt on cut-throat competition and pooling their resources. They had formed an alliance. A merger is, I believe, the technical term.

  The faces disappeared. I knew what this meant. These two young bl
ots had gone off to take up a commanding position outside the front door.

  April June advanced a step.

  'I told you to scram,' she said.

  I still hesitated.

  'But, I say,' I quavered, 'Tommy Murphy and Orlando Flower are out there.' 'What of it?'

  'We're not on very chummy terms. In point of fact, they want to knock the stuffing out of me.' 'I hope they do.'

  She hounded me to the front door, opened it, placed a firm hand on the small of my back, and shoved. Out into the night I shot, and as the door slammed behind me there was a whoop and a rush of feet, and with a sickening sense of doom I realized that I was for it. Only fleetness of foot could save me now, and I was no longer fleet of foot. Nothing slows up a runner like the sort of thing I had been going through. The limbs were stiff and in no sort of shape for sprinting.

  The next moment eager hands had clutched at me, and with a stifled 'Play the game, you cads!' I was down.

  And then, just as I was trying to bite the nearest ankle in the hope of accomplishing something, however trivial, before the sticky finish came, a miracle happened. A voice cried: 'Stop that, you little beasts!', I heard the musical ring of two well-smacked heads, followed by two anguished yelps, and my assailants had melted away into the dusk.

  A hand seized my wrist and helped me to my feet, and I found myself gazing into the sympathetic eyes of Ann Bannister.

  Chapter 23

  A SNORT of generous indignation told me that Ann's fine nature was deeply stirred. And even in the gathering darkness I could see her eyes flashing.

  'The little brutes,' she said. 'Did they hurt you, Joey dear?'

  'Not a bit, thanks.'

  'Sure?'

  'Quite. They hadn't time. Owing,' I said, with genuine feeling in my voice, 'to your prompt action. You were magnificent.'

  'I did move pretty quick. I thought they were going to massacre you. Who were they?' 'Tommy Murphy and Orlando Flower.' 'I'd like to boil them in oil.'

  I, too, felt that a touch of boiling in oil would do the young hell-hounds good, and regretted that it was not within the sphere of practical politics. However, I pointed out the bright side.