CHAPTER XVA LATE HUNCH FOR LESTER
You might not guess it, but every now and then I connect with some true thought that makes me wiser above the ears. Honest, I do. Sometimes they just come to me by accident, on the fly, as it were. And then again, they don't come so easy.
Take this latest hunch of mine. I know now that my being a high-grade private sec. don't qualify me to hand out any fatherly advice to the female sex. Absolutely it doesn't. And yet, here only a few weeks back, that was just what I was doin'. Oh, I don't mean I was scatterin' it around broadcast. It had to be a particular and 'special case to tempt me to crash in with the Solomon stuff. It was the case of Lester Biggs—and little Miss Joyce.
Now you'd almost think I'd seen too many lady typists earnin' their daily bread and their weekly marcelle waves for me to get stirred up over anything they might do. And as a rule, I don't waste much thought on 'em unless they develop the habit of parkin' their gum on the corner of my desk, or some such trick as that. I sure would be busy if I did more, for here inthe Corrugated general offices we have fifteen or twenty more or less expert key pounders most of the time. Besides, it's Mr. Piddie's job to worry over 'em, and believe me he does it thorough.
But somehow this little Miss Joyce party was different. I expect it was the baby blue tam-o'-shanter that got me noticin' her first off. You know that style of lid ain't worn a great deal by our Broadway stenogs. Not the home crocheted kind. Hardly. I should judge that most of our flossy bunch wouldn't be satisfied until they'd swapped two weeks' salary for some Paris model up at Mme. Violette's. And how they did snicker when Miss Joyce first reported for duty wearin' that tam and costumed tacky in something a cross-roads dressmaker had done her worst on.
Miss Joyce didn't seem to mind. By rights she should have been a shy, modest little thing who would have been so cut up that she'd have rushed into the cloak room and spilled a quart of salt tears. But she never even quivers one of her long eyelashes, so Piddie reports. She just comes back at 'em with a sketchy, friendly little smile and proceeds to tackle her work business-like. And inside of ten days she has the lot of 'em eatin' out of her hand.
But while I might feel a little sympathetic toward this stray from the kerosene circuit I didn't let it go so far but what I kicked like asteer when I finds that Piddle has wished her on me for a big forenoon's work.
"What's the idea, Piddie?" says I. "Why do I get one of your awkward squad who'll probably spell 'such' with a t in it and punctuate by the hit-or-miss method?"
"Miss Joyce?" says he, raisin' his eyebrows, pained. "I beg your pardon, Torchy, but she is one of our most efficient stenographers. Really!"
"She don't look the part," says I. "But if you say she is I'll take a chance."
Well, she was all he'd described. She could not only scribble down that Pitman stuff as fast as I could feed the dictation to her, but she could read it straight afterward and the letters she turns out are a joy to look over. From then on I picks her to do all my work, being careful not to let either Mr. Robert or Old Hickory know what an expert I've discovered in disguise.
For one thing she's such a quiet, inoffensive little party. She don't come in all scented with Peau d'Espagne, nor she don't stare at you bored, or pat her hair or polish her nails while you're waitin' to think of the right word. She don't seem to demand the usual chat or fish for an openin' to confide what a swell time she had last night. In fact, she don't make any remarks at all outside of the job in hand, which is some relief when you're scratchin' your head to thinkwhat to tell the assistant Western manager about renewin' them dockage contracts.
Yet she ain't one of the scared-mouse kind. She looks you square in the eye when there's any call for it and she don't mumble her remarks when she has something to say. Not Miss Joyce. Her words come out clear and crisp, with a slight roll to the r's and all the final letters sounded, like she'd been taking elocution or something.
In the course of five or six weeks she has shed the blue tam for a neat little hat and has ditched the puckered seam effect dress for a black office costume with white collar and cuffs. She still sticks to partin' her hair in the middle and drawin' it back smooth with no ear tabs or waves to it. So she does look some old-fashioned.
That was why I'm kind of surprised to notice this Lester Biggs begin hoverin' around her at lunch time and toward the closin' hour. She ain't the type Lester usually picks out to roll his eyes at. Not in the least. For of all them young hicks in the bond room I expect Lester is about the most ambitious would-be sport we've got.
You see, I've known Lester Biggs more or less for quite some time. He started favorin' the Corrugated with his services back in the days when I was still on the gate and rated myself the highest paid and easiest worked officeboy between Greeley Square and Forty-second Street. And all the good I ever discovered about him wouldn't take me long to tell.
As for the other side of the case—Well, I ain't much on office scandal, but I will say that it always struck me Lester had the kind of a mind that needed chloride of lime on it. I never saw the time when he wasn't stretchin' his neck after some flossy typist or other, and as sure as a new one with the least hint of hair bleach showed up it would mean another affair for Lester. Maybe you know the kind.
And he sure dressed the part, on and off. The Tin-Horn Sport Cut clothes that you see advertised so wide must be made and designed 'special for Lester. I remember he sprung the first pinch-back coat that came into the office. Same way with the slit pockets, the belted vest and other cute little innovations that the Times Square chicken hounds drape themselves in.
I wouldn't quite say that he'd pass for the perfect male, either. Not unless you count the bat ears, face pimples, turkey neck and the cast in one eye as points of beauty. But that don't seem to bother Lester in the least. He knows he has a way with him. His reg'lar openin' is "Hello, Girlie, what you got on the event card for tonight?" and from that to makin' a date at Zinsheimer's dance hall is just a step. Oh, yes, Lester is some gay bird, if you want to call it that.
And all on twenty a week. So of course that interferes some with his great ambition. He used to tell me about it back in the old days when I was on the gate and hadn't sized him up accurate. Chorus girls! If he could only get to know some squab pippin from the Winter Garden or the Follies that would be all he'd ask. He would pick out his favorite from the new musical shows, lug around half-tone pictures of 'em cut from newspapers, and try to throw the bluff that he expected to meet 'em early next week; but as we all knew he never got nearer than the second balcony he never got away with the stuff.
"Suppose by some miracle you did, Lester?" I'd ask him. "What then? Would you blow her to a bowl of chow mein at some chop suey joint, or could you get by with a nut sundae at a cut-rate drug store? And suppose some curb broker was waitin' to take her out to Heather Blossom Inn? You'd put up a hot competition, you would, with nothing but the change from a five left in your jeans."
"Ah, just leave that to me, old son," he'd say, winkin' devilish.
And the one time when he did pull it off I happened to hear about. A friend of his who was usher at the old Hippodrome offered to tow him to a little Sunday night supper at the flat of one of the chorus ladies. Lester went, too, and found a giddy thing of about forty fryin'onions for a fam'ly of five, includin' three half-grown kids and a scene-shiftin' hubby.
That blow seems to discourage Lester for a week or so, since which he has run true to form. He'll run around with lady typists, or girls from the cloak department, or most anything that wears skirts, until they discover what a tight-wad he is and give him the shunt. But his great aim in life is to acquire a lady-friend that he can point out in the second row and hang around for at the stage door about midnight.
So when I sees him flutterin' about Miss Joyce, and her making motions like she was fallin' for him, I didn't quite know what to make of it. Course, now that she's bucked up a bit on her costume she is more or less easy to look at. For a little thing, almost a half portion, as you might put it, she has quite a figure, slim and graceful. And them pansy brown eyes can light up sort of fascinatin', I expect. And being so fresh from the country I suppose she can't dope out what a cheap shimmy lizard Lester is. It's a wonder some of the other typists hadn't put her wise. They're usually good at that. But it looks like they'd missed a trick in her case, for one noon I overhears Lester datin' her up for an evenin' at Zinsheimer's. And when he drifts along I can't resist throwin' out a hint, on my own account.
"With Lester, eh?" says I, humpin' my eyebrows.
"Oh, I know," says Miss Joyce. "But I do love to dance and I—I've been rather lonely, you see."
I saw. And of course after that there was nothing more to say. She didn't tell me as much, but I understand that it got to be a regular thing. You could tell that by the intimate way Lester tips her the wink as he swaggers by. He didn't take any pains to hide it, or to lower his voice when he remarks, "Well, kiddo, see you at eight thirt., eh?"
As long as she kept her work up to the mark, which she does, it wasn't any funeral of mine. I never have yearned to be a volunteer chaperon. But I was kind of sorry for little Miss Joyce. I expect I said something of the kind to Vee, and she was all for having Mr. Piddie give her a good talking to.
"No use," says I. "Piddie wouldn't know how. All he can do is hire 'em and fire 'em, and even that's turnin' his hair gray. It'll all work out one way or another, I expect."
It does, too. But not exactly along the lines I was looking for it to develop. First off, Lester quits the Corrugated. As he'd been on the same job for more'n six years, and gettin' worse at it right along, the blow didn't quite put us out of business. We're still staggerin' ahead.
"What's the scheme, Lester?" says I. "Beatin' the office manager to it?"
"Huh!" says Lester. "I've been plannin' to make a shift for more'n a year. Just waitin' for the right openin'. I got it now."
"The Morgan people sent for you, did they?" says I.
"They might have, at that," says Lester, "only I'm through bein' an office slave for anybody. I'm goin' in with some live wires this time, where I'll have a chance."
But it turns out that he's been taken on as a sidewalk man by a pair of ticket speculators—Izzy Goldman and his pal, who used to run the cigar stand down in the arcade. They handled any kind of pasteboards, from grandstand parade tickets to orchestra seats.
"Yes," says I, "that'll be a great career. Almost in the theatrical game, eh? You'll be knowin' all the pippins now, I expect."
"Watch me," says Lester.
Well, I didn't strain my eyes. I'd have been just as pleased to know that Lester was going to slip out of my young life forever and to forget him complete within the next two days. Only I couldn't. There was Miss Joyce to remind me. Not that she says a word. She ain't the chatty, confidential kind. But it was natural for me to wonder now and then if they was still as chummy as at the start.
He'd been away a month or more I expect, before either of us passed his name, and then it came out accidental. I starts dictatin' a letterto a firm in St. Louis, Lester & Riggs. The name sort of startles Miss Joyce.
"I beg pardon?" says she, her pencil poised over the pad.
"No, not Lester Biggs," says I. "By the way, how is he these days?"
"I'm sure I don't know," says she. "I—I haven't seen him for weeks."
"Oh!" says I. "Kind of thought you'd be droppin' him down the coal shute or something."
She shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. "It was he who dropped me," says she. "Flat."
"Considerin' Lester," says I, "that's more or less of a compliment."
"I am not so sure of that," says Miss Joyce. "You see, he was quite frank about it. He—he said I had no style or zipp about me. Well, I'm afraid it's true."
"Even so," says I, "it was sweet of him to throw it at you, wasn't it?"
She indulges in a sketchy, quizzin' smile. "I think some of the girls at Zinsheimer's had been teasing him about me," she goes on. "They called me 'the poor little working girl,' I believe. I've no doubt I looked it. But I haven't been able to spend much for clothes—as yet."
"Of course," says I, throwin' up a picture of an invalid mother and a coon-huntin' father back in the alfalfa somewhere. "And so faryou ain't missed much by not havin' 'em. I should put Lester's loss down on the credit side if I was makin' the entry."
"He could dance, though," says Miss Joyce, as she gets busy with her pencil again.
Then a few weeks later I was handed my big jolt. We was gettin' out a special report for the directors' meetin' one day after lunch when right in the middle of a table of costs Miss Joyce glances anxious at the clock and drops her note book.
"I'm so sorry," says she, "but couldn't we finish this tomorrow morning?"
"Why, I suppose we might," says I, "if it's anything important."
"It is," says she. "If I'm not there by 3 o'clock the stage manager will not see me at all, and I do so want to land an engagement this time."
"Eh?" says I gawpin'. "Stage manager! You?"
"Why, yes," says she. "You see, I tried once before. I was almost taken on, too. They liked my voice, they said, but I wasn't up on my dancing. So I've been taking lessons of a ballet master. Frightfully expensive. That's where all my money has gone. But I think they'll give me a chance this time. It's for the chorus of that new 'Tut! Tut! Marie' thing, you know, and they've advertised for fifty girls."
I suppose I must have let loose a gasp. Thismeek, modest young thing, who looked like she wouldn't know a lip-stick from a boiled carrot, plannin' cold-blooded to throw up a nice respectable job and enter herself in the squab market! Why, I wouldn't have been jarred more if Piddie had announced that next season he was going to do bareback ridin' for some circus.
"Excuse me, Miss Joyce," says I, "but I wouldn't say you was just the kind they'd take on."
"Oh, they take all kinds," says she.
"Better brace yourself for a turndown, though," says I, "I see it coming to you. You ain't the type at all."
"Perhaps you don't know," says she, trippin' off to get her hat.
Ever see one of them mobs that turns out when there's a call for a new chorus? I've had to push my way through 'em once or twice up in some of them office buildings along the Rialto, and believe me, it's a weird collection; all sorts, from wispy little flappers who should be in grammar school still, to hard-faced old battle axes who used to travel with Nat Goodwin. So I couldn't figure little Miss Joyce gettin' anything more'n a passing glance in that aggregation. Yet when she shows up in the mornin' she's lookin' sort of smilin' and chirky.
"Well," said I, "did you back out after lookin' 'em over?"
"Oh, no," says she. "I was tried out with the first lot and engaged right away. They're rushing the production, you see, and I happened to fit in. Why, inside of an hour they had twenty of us rehearsing. I'm to be in the first big number, I think—one of the Moonbeam girls. Isn't that splendid?"
"If that's what you want," says I, "I expect it is. But how about the folks back home? What'll they say to this wide jump of yours?"
"I've decided not to tell them anything about it," says she. "Not for a long time, anyway."
"They might hear, though," I suggests. "Just where do you come from?"
"Why, Saskatoun," says she, without battin' an eyelash.
"Oh, all right, if you don't want to tell," says I.
"But I have told you," says she. "Saskatoun."
"Is it a new hair tonic, or what?" says I.
"It's a city," says she. "One of the largest in British Columbia."
"Think of that!" says I. "They don't care how they mess up the map these days, do they? And your folks live there?"
"Most of them," says she. "Two of my brothers are up at Glen Bow, raising sheep; one of my sisters is at Alberta, giving piano lessons; and another sister is doing church singing in Moose Jaw. If I had stayed at home Iwould be doing something like that. We are a musical family, you know. Daddy is a church organist and wanted me to keep on in the choir and perhaps get to be a soloist, at $50 a month. But I couldn't see it. If I am going to make a living out of my music I want to make a good one. And New York is the place, isn't it!"
"It depends," says I. "You don't think you'll get rich in the 'Tut! Tut! Marie' chorus, do you?"
"Perhaps they'll not keep me in the chorus," says she. "It's the back door, I know, but it was the only way I could get in. And I'm going to work for something better. You'll see."
Yep, I saw. Miss Joyce resigned at the end of the week, and it wasn't ten days before I gets a little note from her saying how she'd been picked out to do a specialty dance and duet with Ronald Breen. Mr. Breen had done the picking himself. And she did hope I would look in some night when the company opened on Broadway.
"I expect we'll have to go; eh, Vee?" says I when I gets home.
"Surely," says Vee.
Well, maybe you've noticed what a hit this "Tut! Tut!" thing has been making. It's about the zippiest, peppiest girl show in town, and that's saying a lot. It's the kind of stuff that makes the tired business man get bright in the eyes and forget how near the sixteenth of January is. I thought first off we'd have to putoff seeing it until after Christmas, for when I finally got to the box office there was nothing doing in orchestra seats. Sold out five weeks in advance. But by luck I happens to run across Lester Biggs in the lobby and for five a throw he fixes me up with two places in G, middle row.
"It's a big winner," says he.
"Seen it yourself?" I asks.
"Not yet," says he. "Think I can pull it off tonight, though."
"Good!" says I. "I'll be looking for you out front after the first act."
And, say, when this party who's listed on the program as Jean Jolly comes boundin' in with Ronald Breen I'll admit she had me sittin' up with my ears tinted pink. No use goin' into details about her costume. It's hardly worth while—a little white satin here and there and a touch of black tulle.
"Well!" gasps Vee. "Is that your little Miss Joyce?"
"I can hardly believe it," says I.
"I should hope not," says Vee. "But she is cute, isn't she? And see that kick! Oh-h-h-h!"
I was still red in the face, I expect, when I trails out at the end of the act and discovers Lester leanin' against the lobby wall.
"Say, Torchy," says he husky, "did—did you see her?"
"Miss Joyce?" says I. "Sure. Some pippinin the act, isn't she? Didn't she send you word she was goin' to be in this with Ronald Breen?"
"Me?" says he. "No."
"That's funny," says I. "She told me weeks ago. I hear she's pulling down an even hundred and fifty a week. By next season she'll be starrin'."
"And to think," moans out Lester, "that I passed her up only a few months ago!"
"Yes," says I, "considerin' your chronic ambition, that was once when you were out of luck. And the worst of it is that maybe she was only usin' you to practice on all along. Eh?"
Perhaps it wasn't a consolin' thought to leave with Lester, but somehow I couldn't help grinnin' as I tossed it over. And me, I'm doping out no more advice to young ladies from Saskatoun or elsewhere. I'm off that side-line permanent.
CHAPTER XVITORCHY TACKLES A MYSTERY
I'll admit I didn't get all stirred up when Mr. Robert comes in from luncheon and announces that this Penrhyn Deems person is missing.
"On how many cylinders?" says I.
I might have added, too, that even if he'd been mislaid permanent I could struggle along. First off, anybody with a name like that could be easy spared. Penrhyn! Always reminded me of a headache tablet. Where did he get such a fancy tag? I never could believe that was sprinkled on him. Listened to me like something he'd thought up himself when he saw the chance of its being used so much on four sheets and billboards. And if you'd ask me I'd said that the prospect of his not contributin' any more of them musical things to the Broadway stage wasn't good cause for decreein' a lodge of sorrow. Them last two efforts of his certainly was punk enough to excuse him from tryin' again. What if he had done the lines and lyrics to "The Buccaneer's Bride"? That didn't give him any license to unload bush-league stuff for the rest of his career, did it?Begun to look like his first big hit had been more or less of an accident. That being the case maybe it was time for him to fade out.
Course, I didn't favor Mr. Robert with all this. Him and Penrhyn Deems was old college chums together, and while they ain't been real thick in late years they have sort of kept in touch. I suspect that since Penrhyn got to ratin' himself as kind of a combination of Reggie DeKoven and George Cohan he ain't been so easy to get along with. Maybe I'm wrong, but from the few times I've seen him blowin' in here at the Corrugated that was my dope. You know. One of these parties who carries his chest out and walks heavy on his heels. Yes, I should judge that the ego in Penrhyn's make-up would run well over 2.75 per cent.
But it takes more'n that to get him scratched from Mr. Robert's list. He's strong for keepin' up old friendships, Mr. Robert is. He remembers whatever good points they have and lets it ride at that. So he's always right there with the friendly hail whenever Penrhyn swaggers in wearin' them noisy costumes that he has such a weakness for, and with his eyebrows touched up and his cutie-boy mustache effect decoratin' that thick upper lip. How a fat party like him could work up so much personal esteem I never could understand. But they do. You watch next time you're on a subway platform, who it is that gazes most fond into the gum-machinemirrors and if it ain't mostly these blimp-built boys with a 40 belt measure then I'm wrong on my statistics. Anyway, Penrhyn is that kind.
"This is the third day that he has been missing, Torchy," says Mr. Robert, solemn.
"Yes?" says I. "Seems to me I saw an item about him in the theatrical notes yesterday, something about his being a. w. o. l. Kind of joshing, it read, like they didn't take it serious."
"That's the disgusting part of it," says Mr. Robert. "Here is a man who disappears suddenly, to whom almost anything may have happened, from being run over by a truck to robbery and murder; yet, because he happens to be connected with the theatrical business, it is referred to as if it were some kind of a joke. Why, he may be lying unidentified in some hospital, or at the bottom of the North River."
"Anybody out looking for him?" I asks.
"Not so far as I can discover," says Mr. Robert. "I have 'phoned up to the Shuman offices—they're putting on his new piece, you know—but I got no satisfaction at all. He hadn't been there for several days. That was all they knew. Yes, there had been talk of giving the case to a detective agency, but they weren't sure it had been done. And here is his poor mother up in New Rochelle, almost on the verge of nervous prostration. There is his fiancée, too; little Betty Parsons, who is crying her eyes out. Nice girl, Betty. And it's a shame thatsomething isn't being done. Anyway, I shall do what I can."
"Sure!" says I. "I hadn't thought about his having a mother—and a girl. But say, Mr. Robert, maybe I can put you next to somebody at Shuman's who can give you the dope. I got a friend up there—Whitey Weeks. Used to do reportin'. Last time I met him though, he admitted modest that Alf. Shuman had come beggin' him to take full charge of the publicity end of all his attractions. So if anybody has had any late bulletins about Mr. Deems it's bound to be Whitey."
"Suppose you ring him up, then," says Mr. Robert.
"When I'm trying to extract the truth from Whitey," says I, "I want to be where I can watch his eyes. He's all right in his way, but he's as shifty as a jumpin' bean. If you want the facts I'd better go myself. Maybe you'd better come, too, Mr. Robert."
He agrees to that and inside of half an hour we've pushed through a mob of would-be and has-been chorus females and have squeezed into the little coop where Whitey presides important behind a big double-breasted roll-top. And when I explains how Mr. Robert is an old friend of Penrhyn's, and is actin' for the heart-broken mother and the weepin' fiancée as well, Whitey shakes his head solemn.
"Sorry, gentlemen," says he, "but we haven'theard a word from him since he disappeared. Haven't even a clue. It's an absolute mystery. He seems to have vanished, that's all. And we don't know what to make of it. Rather embarrassing for us, too. You know we've just started rehearsals for his new piece, 'Oh, Say, Belinda!' Biggest thing he's done yet. And Mr. Shuman has spent nearly $10,000 for the setting and costumes of one number alone. Yet here Deems walks off with the lyrics for that song—the only copy in existence, mind you—and drops out of sight. I suppose he wanted to revise the verses. You see the hole it put us in, though. We're rushing 'Belinda' through for an early production, and he strays off with the words to what's bound to be the big song hit of the season. Why, Miss Ladue, who does that solo, is about crazy, and as for Mr. Shuman——"
"Yes, I understand, Whitey," I breaks in. "That's good press agent stuff, all right. But Mr. Ellins here ain't so much worried over what's going to happen to the show as he is over what has happened to Penrhyn Deems. Now how did he disappear? Who saw him last?"
Whitey shrugs his shoulders. "All a mystery, I tell you," says he. "We haven't a single clue."
"And you're just sitting back wondering what has become of him," demands Mr. Robert, "without making an effort to trace him?"
"Well, what can we do?" asks Whitey. "If the fool newspapers would only wake up to the fact that a prominent personage is missing, and give us the proper space, that might help. They will in time, of course. Got to come to it. But you know how it is. Anything from a press bureau they're apt to sniff over suspicious. As if I'd pull one as raw as this on 'em! Huh! But I'm working up the interest, and by next Sunday I'll bet they'll be carrying front page headlines, 'Where is Penrhyn Deems?' You'll see."
"Suppose he should turn up tomorrow, though?" I asks.
"Oh, but he couldn't," says Whitey quick. "That is, if he's really lost or—or anything has happened to him. What makes you think he might show up, Torchy?"
"Just a hunch of mine," says I. "I was thinking maybe some of his friends might find him somewhere."
"I'd like to see 'em," says Whitey emphatic. "It—it would be worth a good deal to us."
"Yes," says I, "I know how you feel about it. Much obliged, Whitey. I guess that's all we can do; eh, Mr. Robert?"
But we're no sooner out of the office than I gives him the nudge.
"Bunk!" says I. "I'd bet a million of somebody else's money that this is just one of Whitey's smooth frame-ups."
"I hardly think I follow you," says Mr. Robert.
"Here's the idea," says I. "When 'The Buccaneer's Bride' was having that two-year run Penrhyn Deems was a good deal in the spotlight. He had write-ups reg'lar, full pages in the Sunday editions, new pictures of himself printed every few weeks. He didn't hate it, did he? But these last two pieces of his were frosts. All he's had recent have been roasts, or no mention at all. And it was up to Whitey to bring him back into the public eye, wasn't it? Trust Whitey for doing that."
"But this method would be so thoroughly cold-blooded, heartless," protests Mr. Robert.
"Wouldn't stop Whitey, though," says I.
"Then we must do our best to find Penrhyn," says he.
"Sure!" says I. "Sleuth stuff. How about startin' at his rooms and interviewin' his man?"
"Good!" says Mr. Robert. "We will go there at once."
We did. But what we got out of that pie-faced Nimms of Penrhyn's wasn't worth taking notes of. He's got a map about as full of expression as the south side of a squash, Nimms. A peanut-headed Cockney that Penrhyn found somewhere in London.
"Sure I cawn't say, sir," says he, "wherethe mawster went to, sir. It was lawst Monday night 'e vanished, sir."
"Whaddye mean, vanished?" says I.
"'E just walked out, sir, and never came back," says Nimms. "See, sir, I've 'ad 'is morning suit all laid out ever since, sir."
"Then he went in evening clothes?" puts in Mr. Robert.
"Not exactly, sir," says Nimms. "'E was attired as a court jester, sir; in motley, you know, sir, and cap and bells."
"Wha-a-at?" says Mr. Robert. "In a fool's costume? You say he went out in that rig? Why the deuce should he——"
"I didn't ask the mawster, sir," says Nimms, "but my private opinion of the matter, sir, is that he was on 'is way to a masked banquet of some sort. I 'appened to see a hinvitation, sir, that——"
"Dig it up, Nimms," says I. "Might be a clue."
Sure enough, Nimms had it stowed away; and the fathead hadn't said a word about it before. It's an invite to the annual costume dinner of the Bright Lights Club.
"Huh!" says I. "I've heard of that bunch—mostly producers, stage stars and dramatists. Branch of the Lambs Club. Whitey would have known about that event, too. And Alf. Shuman. If Deems had been there they'd have known. So he didn't get there. I expect hewore a rain coat or something over his costume, and went in a taxi; eh, Nimms?"
"Quite so, sir," says Nimms. "A long raincoat, sir."
"But," breaks in Mr. Robert, "a man couldn't wander around New York dressed in a fool's costume without being noticed. That is, not for several days."
"You bet he couldn't," says I. "So he didn't."
That's a good line to pull, that "he couldn't, so he didn't," when you're doin' this Sherlock-Watson stuff. Sounds professional. Mr. Robert nods and then looks at me expectant as if he was waitin' to hear what I'd deduce next. But as a matter of fact my deducer was runnin' down. Yet when you've got a boss who always expects you to cerebrate in high gear, as he's so fond of puttin' it, you've got to produce something off-hand, or stall around.
"Now, let's see," says I, registerin' deep thought, "if Penrhyn was to go anywhere on his own hook, where would it be? You know his habits pretty well, Mr. Robert. What's your guess?"
"Why, I should say he would make for the nearest golf course," says he.
"He's a golf shark, is he?" says I.
"Not in the sense you mean," says Mr. Robert. "Hardly. Penrhyn is a consistent but earnest duffer. The ambition of his life is tobreak 100 on some decent course. He has talked enough about it to me. Yes, that is probably where he is, if he's still alive, off playing golf somewhere."
"Begging your pardon, sir," puts in Nimms, "but that could 'ardly be so, sir, seeing as 'ow 'is sticks are still 'ere. That's the strange part of 'is disappearance, sir. 'E never travels without 'is bag of sticks. And they're in that closet, sir."
"Couldn't he rent an outfit, or borrow one?" I suggests.
"He could," says Mr. Robert, "but he wouldn't. No more than you would rent a toothbrush. That is one of the symptoms of the golf duffer. He has his pet clubs and imagines he can play with no others. I think we must agree with Nimms. If we do, the case looks serious again, for Penrhyn would certainly not go away voluntarily unless it was to some place where he could indulge in his mania."
"That's it!" says I. "Then he's been steered somewhere against his will. That's the line! Which brings us back to Whitey Weeks. Who else but Whitey would want him shunted off out of sight for a week or so?"
"But you don't think he would go so far as to kidnap Penrhyn, do you?" asks Mr. Robert.
"Who, Whitey?" says I. "He'd kidnap his grandmother if he saw a front page story in it. Maybe he'd had this disappearance stunt allworked up when Mr. Deems balked. So he gets him when he's rigged up in some crazy costume, with all his regular clothes at home, and tolls him off to some out of the way spot. See? In that rig Penrhyn would have to stay put, wouldn't he? Couldn't show himself among folks without being mobbed. So he'd have to lay low until someone brought him a suit of clothes."
"That would be an ingenious way of doing it," admits Mr. Robert.
"Believe me, Whitey has that kind of a mind," says I, "or else he wouldn't be handling the Alf. Shuman publicity work."
"But where could he have taken him?" asks Mr. Robert.
"We're just gettin' to that," says I. "Where would he? Now if this was a movie play we was dopin' out it would be simple. He'd be taken off on a yacht. But Whitey couldn't get the use of a yacht. He don't travel in that class, and Shuman wouldn't stand for the charter price in an expense bill. A lonesome farm would be a good spot. But Penrhyn could borrow a rube outfit and escape from a farm. A lighthouse would be a swell place to stow away a leading librettist dressed up in a fool's costume, wouldn't it? Or an island? Say, I'll bet I've got it!"
"Eh?" says Mr. Robert.
"He's on an island," says I. "High BarIsland. It's a place where Whitey goes duck shootin' every fall. He belongs to a club that owns it. Anyway, he did. Used to feed me an earful about what a great gunner he was, and what thrillin' times he had at the old shack. Down somewhere in Barnegat Bay, back of the lighthouse. Yep! He's there, if he's anywhere."
"Sounds rather unlikely," says Mr. Robert. "Still, you seem to have an uncanny instinct for being right in such matters. Perhaps we ought to go down and see. Come."
"What, now?" says I. "Right away?"
"There is his mother, almost in hysterics," says Mr. Robert, "and his sweetheart. Think of the suspense, the mental strain they must be under. If we can find Penrhyn we must do so as quickly as possible. Let's go back to the office and look up train connections."
Well, if we'd started half an hour earlier we'd been all right. As it was we could hang up all night at some dinky junction or wait over until next morning. Neither suited Mr. Robert. He 'phones for his tourin' car and decides to motor down into Jersey. Also he has a kit bag packed for two of us and collects from Nimms a full outfit of daylight clothes for Penryhn.
We got away about five o'clock and as Mr. Robert figures by the Blue Book that we have only a hundred and some odd miles to run he thinks we ought to make some place near BarnegatLight by nine o'clock. Maybe we would have, too, if we'd caught the Staten Island ferries right at both ends, and hadn't had two blow-outs and strayed off the road once. As it is we finally lands at little joint that shows on the map as Forked River about 1 a.m. There wasn't a light in the whole place and it took us half an hour to pry the landlord of the hotel out of the feathers. No, he couldn't tell us where we could get a boat to take us out to High Bar at that time of night. It wasn't being done. Folks didn't go there often anyway, and when they did they started after breakfast.
"It'll be there in the morning, you know," says he.
"That's so," says Mr. Robert. "Have a motor boat ready at nine o'clock. Not much use getting there before 10:30. Penrhyn wouldn't be up."
That sounded sensible to me. When I go huntin' for lost dramatists I like to take it easy and be braced up for the day with a good shot of ham and eggs. This part of the program was carried out smooth. And it's a nice little sail across old Barnegat Bay with the oyster fleet busy and the fishin' boats dotted around. But the native who piloted us out was doubtful about anybody's being on High Bar.
"I seen some parties shootin' around on Love Ladies yesterday," says he, "an' a couple morewas snipin' on Sea Dog, but I didn't hear nary gun let off on th' Bar."
"Oh, my friend doesn't shoot, anyway," says Mr. Robert.
"Ain't nothin' else for him to do on High Bar," says the native, "less'n he wants to collect skeeter bites."
When we got close enough to see the island I begun to suspicion I'd missed out on my hunch, for there ain't a soul in sight. We could see the whole of it, too, for the highest part isn't much over two feet above tide-water mark. Near the boat landing is the club house, set up on piling, with a veranda across the front. The rest of High Bar is only a few acres of sedge and marsh.
"Yea-uh!" says the native. "Must be somebody thar. Door's open. Yea-uh! Thar's old Lem Robbins, who allus does the cookin'. Hey, Lem!"
Lem waves cordial and waddles down to meet us. He's a fat, grizzled old pirate who looked bored and discontented.
"Got anybody with you, Lem?" asks the native.
"Not to speak of," says Lem. "Only a loony sort of gent that wears skin-tight barber-pole pants and cusses fluent."
"That's Penrhyn!" says Mr. Robert. "Dressed as a fool, isn't he?"
"You've said it," says Lem. "Acts like one,too. Hope you gents have come to take him back where he belongs. Needs to be shut up, he does."
"But where is he?" demands Mr. Robert.
"Out back of the house, swingin' an old boat-hook and carryin' on simple," says Lem. "I'll show you."
It was some sight, too. For there is the famous author of "The Buccaneer's Bride," rigged out complete in a more or less soiled jester's costume, includin' the turkey red headpiece with the bells on it. He's standing on a heap of shells and waving this rusty boat-hook around. Course, I expects when he sees Mr. Robert and realizes how he's been rescued he'll come out of his spell and begin to act rational once more. But it don't work out that way. When Mr. Robert calls out to him and he sees who it is, he keeps right on swingin' the boat-hook.
"Glory be, Bob!" he sings out. "I've got it at last."
"Got what, Penny?" demands Mr. Robert.
"My drive," says he. "Watch, Bob. How's that, eh? Notice that carry through? Wouldn't that spank the pill 200 yards straight down the fairway? Wouldn't it, now?"
"Oh, I say, Penny!" says Mr. Robert. "Don't be more of an ass than you can help. Quit that golf tommyrot and tell me what you're doing here in this forsaken spot when all NewYork is thinking that maybe you've been murdered or something."
"Eh?" says Penrhyn. "Then—then the news is out, is it? Did you bring any papers?"
"Papers?" says Mr. Robert. "No."
"Wish you had," says Penrhyn. "Got everyone stirred up, I suppose? Tell me, though, how are people taking it?"
"If you mean the public in general," says Mr. Robert, "I think they are bearing up nobly. But your mother and Betty——"
"By George!" breaks in Penrhyn. "That's so! They might be rather disturbed. I—I never thought about them."
"Didn't, eh?" says Mr. Robert. "No, you wouldn't. You were thinking about Penrhyn Deems, as usual. And I must say, Penny, you're the limit. I've a good notion to leave you here."
"No, no, Bob! Don't do that," pleads Penrhyn. "Disgusting place. And I dislike that cook person, very much. Besides, I must get back. Really."
"Want to relieve your poor old mother and Betty, eh?" asks Mr. Robert.
"Yes, of course," says Penrhyn. "Besides, I want to try this swing with my driver. Bob, I'm sure I can put in that wrist snap at last. And if I can I—I'll be playing in the 90's. Sure!"
He's a wonder, Penrhyn. He has this hoofand mouth disease, otherwise known as golf, worse than anybody I ever met before. Took Mr. Robert another ten minutes to get him calmed down enough so he could tell how he come to be marooned on this island in that rig.
"Why, it was that new press agent of Shuman's, of course," says Penrhyn. "That Weeks person. He did it."
"You don't mean to say, Penny," says Mr. Robert, "that you were kidnapped and brought here a prisoner?"
"Not at all," says Penny. "We drove down here at night and came in a boat just at daylight. Silly performance. Especially wearing this costume. But he insisted that it would make the disappearance more plausible, more dramatic. Wouldn't tell me where we were going, either. Said it was a club house, so I thought of course there would be golf. But look at this hole! And I've had four days of it. Mosquitoes? Something frightful. That's why I've kept on the cap and bells. At first I put in the time working over one of the songs in the new piece. Wrote some ripping verses, too. They'll go strong. Best thing I've done. But after I had finished that job I wanted to play golf; practice, anyway. And I was nearly crazy until I found this old boat-hook and began knocking oyster shells into the water. That's how it came to me—the drive. If I can only hold it!"
I suggests how Mr. Weeks is probably plannin' for him to stay lost until over Sunday anyway, so he can work some big space in the newspapers.
"Oh, bother Mr. Weeks!" says Penrhyn. "I've had enough of this. The new piece is going to go big, anyway. Come along, Bob. Let's start. I'll 'phone to mother and Betty, and maybe I can get in eighteen holes this afternoon. Brought some clothes for me, didn't you? I must change from this rig first."
"I wouldn't," says Mr. Robert. "It's quite appropriate, Penny."
But Penrhyn wouldn't be joshed and makes a dive for his suitcase. We lands him back on Broadway at 4:30 that same afternoon. My first move after gettin' to the Corrugated general offices is to ring up Whitey Weeks.
"This is Torchy," says I. "And ain't it awful about Penrhyn Deems?"
"Eh?" gasps Whitey. "What about him?"
"He's been found," says I. "Uh-huh! Discovered on an island by some fool friends that brought him back to town. I just saw him on Broadway."
"The simp!" groans Whitey.
"You're a great little describer, Whitey," says I. "Simp is right. But next time you want to win front page space by losing a dramatist I'd advise you to lock him in a vault. Islands are too easy located."