Laughing Gas

  'You must have made them sit up a bit with those buffets of yours,' I said. 'They sounded good ones.'

  'They were. I nearly sprained my wrist. I don't know whether it's Tommy or Orlando, but one of them's got a head like concrete, darn him. Still, all's well that ends well. Hullo! I thought you told me they didn't hurt you?'

  'No.'

  'Then why are you limping?'

  It was an embarrassing question. After the stand I had taken in our conversation that afternoon, championing April June's sweetness and gentleness against all counterargument, it would have made me feel a bit of a chump to reveal what I might call the paper-knife side of her character. I feared the horse-laugh and the scornful 'I told you so.' The best of women cannot refrain from these.

  'I'm a bit stiff’ I said. ‘I’ve been sitting.'

  'And sitting makes you stiff, does it? You octogenarians! It's always your joints that go back on you. What were you doing there, anyway? Had you been calling on April June?'

  'I did look in for a moment.'

  'Knowing that Tommy Murphy and that Flower boy were just lurking and waiting for their chance! Really, young Joseph, you ought to scrap that head of yours. It isn't worth the upkeep. What did you want to see April June about?'

  Here, too, I was unable to reveal the true facts.

  'I went to give her a nosegay.'

  'A what?’

  'Flowers, you know. A bouquet.' She seemed bewildered. 'You didn't.' 'Yes, I did.'

  'Well, this beats me. I simply can't understand you, Joseph. One of these strange, inscrutable personalities, if ever there was one. I've heard you say a hundred times that you think April June a pill. In my presence, you have many a time and oft alluded to her as a piece of cheese. And yet you brave fearful perils to bring her gifts of flowers. And when I ventured on a few criticisms of her this afternoon, you drew yourself up to your full height and bit my head off.'

  Remorse gripped me.

  'I'm sorry about that.'

  'Oh, don't apologize. All I'm saying is that it's puzzling. By the way, how much of that pork pie did you manage to get away with? I left early, if you remember.'

  'Not much. I'm frightfully sorry about that, too.'

  'I bet you are.'

  'I mean that you should have lost your job because of your kindly act.'

  'Oh, that's all right. I wasn't looking on it as my life work, anyway. Don't give it a thought, Joey. By this time to-morrow I expect to be your late hostess's press agent. I was coming to see her, to talk things over, and that's how I happened to be on the spot just now. I suppose I ought to go back, but I don't like to leave you alone. I shouldn't be surprised if Tommy and his little friend weren't still lurking in the shadows somewhere. They're like the hosts of Midian. They prowl and prowl around.'

  Precisely the same thought had occurred to me. I begged her with a good deal of earnestness on no account to leave me alone.

  'Yes, I think you need my stout right arm.' She mused for a moment. 'I'll tell you what let's do. Could you manage a soda?'

  'I certainly could.'

  'All right. Then if you don't mind me taking you a little out of your way, we'll go to the Beverley-Wilshire drugstore and I'll buy you one. I can phone her from there.'

  I assured her that I did not mind how much out of my way she took me, and in another jiffy we were breezing along - she talking idly of this and that; I silent, for my soul was a mere hash of seething emotions.

  And if you want to know why my soul was a mere hash of seething emotions, I'll tell you. It was because in the brief space of time which had elapsed since she had caught Tommy Murphy and Orlando Flower those two snorters on their respective earholes, love had been reborn within me. Yes, all the love which I had lavished on this girl two years ago and which I had supposed her crisp remarks at Cannes had put the bee on for good was working away at the old stand once more, as vigorously as ever.

  Many things, no doubt, had contributed to this. Reaction from the meretricious spell of April June, for one. Her gallant behaviour in the late turn-up, for another. But chiefly, I think it was her gay, warm-hearted sympathy, her easy kindness, her wholesome, genial camaraderie. And, of course, that pork pie. Anyway, be that as it may, I loved her, I loved her, I loved her.

  And a lot of use it was loving her, I felt bitterly, as I champed a moody nut sundae at the drug store while she did her telephoning. Of all sad words of what-d'you-call-it and thingummy, the saddest are these - It might have been. If only I'd had the sense of realize right away that there could never be any other girl in the world for me, I wouldn't have fooled about eating ice-cream at that party of April June's, and I wouldn't have started the old tooth off, and I wouldn't have gone to I. J. Zizzbaum at the same time that little Joey Cooley was going to B. K. Burwash, and, in short, none of this business would have happened.

  As it was, where did I get off? She was betrothed to my cousin Eggy, and, even if she hadn't been, I was in no possible shape to ask her to share my lot. All the old obstacles which I had recognized as standing between myself and April June stood just as formidably between myself and her. In what spirit, even if she had been free, would she receive a proposal of marriage from Joey Cooley?

  Heigh-ho, about summed it up, and I was murmuring it to myself in a broken sort of way, when she came out of the telephone-booth and joined me in a second nut sundae.

  'I've talked to her,' she said. 'Everything's set.'

  I didn't know what she meant by this, but I said 'Oh, yes?' and plugged away at my sundae, finishing it as she began hers. She asked me if I would like another. I said I would, and she ordered it. A princely hostess.

  'Well,' she said, resuming conversation, 'you've had a busy afternoon, haven't you?'

  I laughed a trifle mirthlessly.

  'I have, indeed.'

  'How did everything go off?'

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'Mr Brinkmeyer's statue. The unveiling.'

  I started as if she had bitten me in the leg. A lump of nut sandae fell from my nerveless spoon. Believe it or not, what with the pressure of other matters, I had clean forgotten all about that statue.

  'Gosh I' I exclaimed. 'What's the matter?'

  It was some moments before I could speak. Then, frankly and without evasion, I told her all. She listened with flattering attention, pursing the lips a bit when J came to the frog motif.

  'You think Miss Brinkmeyer has found those frogs?' she said.

  'If I can read the female voice aright,' I replied, 'I am dashed certain she has found them. And by this time she will have learned that I gave the unveiling ceremonies a miss, and it will have been reported to her that the statue, when unveiled, had a red nose. In short, if ever a bloke was in a hell of a jam, I am that bloke.'

  'You mustn't say "Hell", Joey.'

  'There are times,' I replied firmly, 'when one has jolly well got to say "Hell". And this is one of them.' She seemed to see my point. 'Yes, you're certainly in a swivet.'

  The word, I took it, was American for "soup". I nodded gloomily.

  'Still, there's one thing. They'll have forgotten all about it to-morrow.' 'You think so?' 'Well, of course.' Her optimism infected me. 'That's fine,' I said. She rose.

  'The best plan is for me to take you home now,' she said. 'Come along. Everything's going to be all right.'

  I allowed her to escort me to the Brinkmeyer residence. And it was only after she had left me at the gate that I saw the flaw in her specious reasoning. True, when one took into consideration the speed with which life in Hollywood moved, it might quite well happen, as she predicted, that the morrow would bring oblivion. But what she had omitted to take into her calculations was what the dickens was going to happen to-night.

  I found my thoughts straying in the direction of Miss Brinkmeyer. After all that had occurred, it seemed too much to hope that I should find her in sunny mood. In fact, the nearer I got to my destination, the more firmly convinced did I become that that hair-brush of hers mu
st be regarded as a moral certainty.

  It was, accordingly, in pensive mood that I shinned up on to the outhouse roof. And I hadn't set foot on it before I began to suspect the worst. There was a light in my bedroom, and I found the circumstance sinister.

  Moving softly I crossed the roof, and peered in. It was as I had feared. That light indicated trouble. The blind had not been drawn, and I was enabled to get a clear view of the interior.

  My inspection revealed Miss Brinkmeyer sitting bolt upright in a chair. Her face was stony, and yet one noted on it a certain wistful, yearning look, as if she were waiting for something. She wore a pink dressing-gown, and in her hand, tightly grasped, was a hair-brush.

  That look was explained. The something for which she was waiting was me.

  I tiptoed back across the roof and noiselessly descended into the garden. I could see that what the situation demanded was clear, hard, intensive thinking. And I was burning up the brain cells pretty earnestly, when all of a sudden I became aware of a bloke standing beside me.

  'Hey,' he said.

  'Hullo?' I said.

  'Are you the Cooley kid?' he said. 'Yes,' I said.

  'Pleased to meet you,' he said. A civil cove. 'Pleased to meet you,' I replied, not to be outdone in the courtesies. 'Right,' he said.

  Something wet and sploshy came slapping over my face, and I smelt the smell of chloroform. And it was suddenly borne in upon me that, on top of everything else I had been through that day, I was now being kidnapped. It seemed to me to put the tin hat on things.

  'Well, this is a nice bit of box-fruit!' I remember saying to myself as I passed out.

  And I meant it.

  Chapter 24

  CHLOROFORM is a thing I don't happen to be frightfully well up on - all I know is what I read in the thrillers - but in ordinary circs, I imagine, it doesn't take the bloke on the receiving end very long to come out from under it. And had all this occurred in the afternoon's earlier stages, I have no doubt that I should have been up and about in no time, as good as new.

  But it will be recalled that I had had rather a full day, of a nature to tax the constitution and sap the vitality and all that, and that I hadn't been any too robust to start with. The result was that, having gone off like a lamb, I stayed off like a lamb, taking no interest in the proceedings for a very considerable time. I have a sort of dim recollection of going along in a car and fetching up at a house and being carried in; but the first thing I really remember is waking up in bed and finding that it was next morning. Bright sunlight was streaming in at the window, one or two birds were doing a spot of community singing, and the distant sound of church bells told that it was Sunday.

  There's nothing like a good sleep for putting one in form. Tired Nature's sweet restorer, somebody calls it, and he's not so far wrong. I was delighted to find that, except for a little stiffness about the curves, natural after that paper-knife episode, I felt quite myself again. I rose and went to the window and looked out.

  The house stood at the bottom of a lane, at the end of which was a main road or sorts. The Ventura Boulevard I discovered that it was later. This was a part of the country I had not seen before, and I was examining it with interest, when I suddenly became aware of a scent of sausages and coffee so powerful and inviting that I sprang for my clothes and started making my simple toilet without further delay. A moment before, I had been speculating as to the chances of these birds who had kidnapped me cutting fingers and things off me and slipping them in the parcel post in order to encourage the Christmas spirit in whoever was supposed to kick in with my ransom; but it didn't seem to matter so much now. I mean to say, if they let me get at those sausages first, I wasn't disposed to be fussy about what they did afterwards.

  I was nearly ready for the dash downstairs, when there was a bang on the door and a voice spoke.

  'Hello, there,' it said.

  'What ho,' I replied.

  'How's it coming?'

  'How's what coming?'

  'How do you feel?'

  'Hungry.'

  'Okay. There's sausages and pancakes.'

  'Pancakes?' I said, my voice trembling.

  'Sure,' replied this unseen bloke. A matey desperado. 'You just slip on something loose and come and join the party.'

  Two minutes later, I was in the living-room, taking my first look at the gang. They were seated round a table, on which was a dish of sausages so vast that the sight of it thrilled me like a bugle. It was plain that there was going to be no stint.

  As these were the first kidnappers I had met, I drank them in with a natural curiosity. There were three of them, all wearing full-size beards which made them look like a group photograph of Victorian celebrities. I can't say that all this foliage made for chic, but I suppose fellows in their line of business are obliged to think more of the practical side of things than of appearances. In any case, things were not as bad as they might have been. The beards were false ones. I could see the elastic going over their ears. In other words, I had fallen among a band of criminals who were not wilful beavers, but had merely assumed the fungus for purposes of disguise.

  It may be that this discovery prejudiced me in their favour, but I must say they seemed very decent coves. There appeared to be a distinct disposition to set the young guest at his ease. They introduced themselves as, respectively, George, Eddie, and Fred, hoped I had slept well, and invited me to seat myself at the table. George helped me to sausages, Eddie said that the pancakes would be along in a minute and that if the sausages were not fixed as I liked them I had only to say the word, and Fred made a civil apology about the chloroform.

  'I'm sorry about that, kid,' he said. 'You're feeling all right after it, eh?'

  'Never better,' I assured him. 'Never better.'

  'Swell. You see, George and Eddie been giving me the razz on account of me slipping the sponge on you that way ...'

  'You shouldn't ought to have did it,' said George, shaking his head.

  ' 'Tisn't as if he'd of been likely to of squawked,' said Eddie.

  'Yay, I know,' said Fred, 'but there's a right way and a wrong way of doing everything. A fellow's got his technique, hasn't he? The artist in a fellow's got to have expression, hasn't it?'

  'That's enough,' said George, who appeared to be something in the nature of president of this organization, speaking with rather a frigid note of rebuke. 'You go and look after those pancakes.'

  'Oh, shoot,' mumbled Fred - evidently dashed, poor chap. 'I don't see where a fellow's technique's got to be stifled.'

  He shuffled off into the kitchen, and George seemed to think it necessary to make an apology for him.

  'No hard feelings, I hope?' he said. 'Fred thinks too much about technique. It's his temperament. You gotta excuse it.'

  I begged him not to give the matter another thought.

  'Anyway,' said Eddie, 'I'll say this for him - he cooks a pancake that has to be tasted to be believed.'

  And shortly afterwards Fred returned with a smoking platter, and I tested the statement and found it correct. I am not ashamed to confess that I pitched in till my insides creaked. It was only some little time later that I found myself in a position to listen to the breakfast-table conversation.

  Like all other breakfast-table conversations taking place at that moment in the Hollywood zone, it dealt with the motion pictures. George, who was reading the Sunday paper while he stirred his coffee absently with the muzzle of his automatic, said he saw where this new Purity Drive seemed to be gaining ground. He read out a paragraph about there being a rumour that Mae West's next picture was going to be Alice in Wonderland.

  Fred and Eddie said they were glad to hear it. Eddie said it was certainly time somebody came along and threw water on the flames of the tidal wave of licence which had been poisoning the public mind, and Fred said Yay, that was about the way he had always felt.

  'This is going to be a break for you, kid,' said George. 'Your stuff's clean.'

  'Ah,' said Fred.
/>
  'You'll find yourself on top of the heap.'

  'Sure,' agreed Eddie. 'He'll reap his reward.'

  'If,' said George, striking a warning note, 'they give him the right sorta story. Clean or not clean, you gotta have a strong, human, compelling story. These guys that do your stuff, kid, they don't seem to have good story sense.'

  'Ah,' said Fred.

  'You gotta watch out for that, kid,' said Eddie. 'It's the system that's wrong,' said George. 'I blame the studio heads.'

  'The Moguls,' said Eddie. 'The Mandarins,' said Fred.

  'The Hitlers and Mussolinis of the picture world,' said George. 'What do they do? They ship these assortments of New York playwrights and English novelists out here and leave it all to them. Outside talent don't get a chance.' 'Ah,' said Fred.

  'Well, lookut,' said George. 'Some guy from outside grabs him a swell idea for a picture, and what happens? The more he submits it to the Script Department, the more they don't read it. I've got a whale of an idea at this very moment for a story for you, kid, but what's the use? They wouldn't so much as look as it.'

  'Was that the one you were telling us about Tuesday?' asked Eddie.

  'The one about Public Enemy Number Thirteen?' asked Fred.

  'Sure, that's the one,' said George, 'and it's a pippin.'

  'You bet it's a pippin,' said Eddie.

  'That's just about what it is,' said Fred.

  I finished my pancake.

  'It's good, is it?' I said.

  'I'll say it's good,' said George.

  'I'll say it's good,' said Eddie.

  'I'll say it's good,' said Fred.

  'I expect it's good,' I said.

  'Listen!' said George, in a sort of ecstasy. 'Listen, kid. Get a load of this, and see if it's not like mother makes. There's this gangster that's been made Public Enemy Number Thirteen - see - and he's superstitious - see -and he feels he won't never have any luck just so long as he's got this Thirteen hoodoo - see - so what does he do?'

  'Get this, kid,' said Eddie.

  'Get this, kid,' said Fred.

  They were leaning forward, their beards twitching with excitement.