The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders Page 6

  I gulped, and turned sadly to the door. Then for a mo-ment he seemed to gather shreds of his sanity together. "I say, Rajah," he piped up. I turned.

  "If I don't see you again, Rajah, I want you to have something to remember me by." He reached for his tie and pulled out the stickpin with the rock the size of a postage stamp. I'd forgotten about it, no kidding. He handed it to me, and I thanked him. And I meant it.

  "You'll come again, though?" he asked wistfully.

  "Sure I will, Cadwallader." I turned to the door again. Darned if I didn't want to bawl, Mr. Gupstein.

  I told the doctor he'd be sent for, and got out of the sanitarium safely. Then I looked the sparkler over care-fully again, and I decided it's worth at least five G's. So I'll come out ahead on the deal as soon as I cash in on it.

  First, I was going to appraise the stone, so I trotted into one of the ritziest shops in town. I knew I'd have to pick an expensive joint to flash a rock that size without arousing too much suspicion.

  There was only one clerk behind the counter and an-other customer was ahead of me. I began to look around, but when I caught part of the conversation, I froze.

  "... and since then," the clerk was saying, "you haven't heard a word from or about your brother, Mr. Van Aylslea?"

  The customer shook his head. "Not a word. We're keep-ing it from the press, of course."

  I took a close look. The bloke was older and not so heavy, but I could see he resembled my

  kleptomaniac teacup.

  So as quietly as though I was walking on eggs, I eased out of the shop. But I waited outside. I figured I might do Cadwallader a final favor. When Van Aylslea came out, I buttonholed him.

  "Mr. Van Aylslea," I whispered. "I'm Operative Fifty-three. Your brother is at Bide-a-Wee Sanitarium."

  His face lighted up, and he shook my hand and patted my shoulder like a long-lost brother. "I'll get him right away," he said.

  "Better stop for a saucer," I called after him as his car started, but I guess he didn't hear me.

  I drifted on. If that stone had belonged to the Van Aylsleas and if they traded at that particular shop, they might recognize it, so I figured I'd had a narrow squeak.

  It occurred to me that it had been in my tie when I talked to Cadwallader's brother, which had been a foolish chance to take, but I guess he didn't notice it. He was too excited.

  Well, that takes me up to a few minutes ago, Mr. Gupstein. I decided to skip the appraisal and come right to you for advice.

  Are you willing to approach the Van Aylsleas for me and find out if they want to offer a reward for the rock? I understand, Mr. Gupstein, that you have handled deals like that very successfully, and I'd rather not risk trying to peddle it if they offer a good reward.

  And the Van Aylslea guy I just left looked like a reason-able guy who—

  Huh? You say you know the family and that the brother is almost as batty as Cadwallader, and that he's a klepto too, at times?

  Nix, Mr. Gupstein, you can't make me believe that he's slicker than his brother with the finger-work. That's im-possible. Mr. Gupstein. Nobody could be smoother than—

  Oh, well, let's not worry about that. The point is, are you willing to handle the deal for me?

  The stickpin? Why, it's right here in my tie, of course, where it's been ever since . . .

  Huh?

  ...Well, Mr. Gupstein, I'm sorry I took up your time. But this decides me, Mr. Gupstein. When two amateur dips give me a cleaning the same week, I'm through.

  I've got a brother-in-law who's a bookie and wants to give me a good, honest job. And I'm taking it. I've lifted my last leather.

  You're darned right I mean it, Mr. Gupstein. And to prove it, here's your billfold back. So long, Mr. Gupstein.

  Good Night, Good Knight

  The bar in front of him was wet and sloppy; Sir Charles Hanover Gresham carefully rested his forearms on the raised dry rim of it and held the folded copy of Stage-craft that he was reading up out of the puddles. His fore-arms, not his elbows; when you have but one suit and it is getting threadbare you remember not to rest your el-bows on a bar or a table. Just as, when you sit, you always pull up the trouser legs an inch or two to keep the knees from becoming baggy. When you are an actor you remem-ber those things. Even if you're a has-been who never really was and who certainly never will be, living—barely —off blackmail, drinking beer in a Bowery bar, hung over and miserable, at two o'clock on a cool fall afternoon, you remember.

  But you always read Stagecraft.

  He was reading it now. "Gambler Angels Meller," a one-column headline told him; he read even that, casually. Then he came to a name in the second paragraph, the name of the playwright. One of his eyebrows rose a full millimeter at that name. Wayne Campbell, his patron, had written another play. The first in three full years. Not that that mattered to Wayne, for his last play and his second last had both sold to Hollywood for very substantial sums. New plays or no, Wayne Campbell would keep on eating caviar and drinking champagne. And new plays or no, he, Sir Charles Hanover Gresham, would keep on eating hamburger sandwiches and drink-ing beer. It was the only thing he was ashamed of—not the

  hamburgers and the beer, but the means by which he was forced to obtain them. Blackmail is a nasty word; he hated it.

  But now, possibly, just possibly-Even that chance was worth celebrating. He looked at the bar in front of him; fifteen cents lay there. He took his last dollar bill from his pocket and put it down on the one dry spot on the bar.

  "Mac!" he said. Mac, the bartender, who had been gazing into space through the wall, came over. He asked, "The same, Charlie?"

  "Not the same, Mac. This time the amber fluid."

  "You mean whiskey?"

  "I do indeed. One for you and one for me. Ah, with the Grape my jading life provide ..."

  Mac poured two shots and refilled Sir Charles's beer glass. "Chaser's on me." He rang up fifty cents.

  Sir Charles raised his shot glass and looked past it, not at Mac the bartender but at his own reflection in the smeary back-bar mirror. A quite distinguished-looking gentleman stared back at him. They smiled at one another; then they both looked at Mac, one of them from the front, the other from the back.

  "To your excellent health, Mac," they said—Sir Charles aloud and his reflection silently. The raw, cheap whiskey burned a warm and grateful path.

  Mac looked over and said, "You're a screwy guy, Charlie, but I like you. Sometimes I think you really are a knight. I dunno."

  "A Hair perhaps divides the False and True" said Sir Charles. "Do you by any chance know Omar, Mac?"

  "Omar who?"

  "The tentmaker. A great old boy, Mac; he's got me down to a T. Listen to this:

  After a momentary silence spake Some Vessel of

  a more ungainly Make: 'They sneer at me from

  leaning all awry: What! did the Hand then of

  the Potter shake?'"

  Mac said, "I don't get it."

  Sir Charles sighed. "Am I all awry, Mac? Seriously, I'm going to phone and make an important appointment, may-be. Do I look all right or am I leaning all awry? Oh, Lord, Mac, I just thought what that would make me. Hamawry."

  "You look all right, Charlie."

  "But, Mac, you missed that horrible pun. Ham awry. Ham on rye."

  "You mean you want a sandwich?"

  Sir Charles smiled gently. He said, "I'll change my mind, Mac; I'm not hungry after all. But perhaps the exchequer will stand another drink."

  It stood another drink. Mac went to another customer.

  The haze was coming, the gentle haze. The figure in the back-bar mirror smiled at him as though they had a secret in common. And they had, but the drinks were helping them to forget it—at least to shove it to the back of the mind. Now, through the gentle haze that was not really drunkenness, that figure in the mirror did not say, "You're a fraud and a failure, Sir Charles, living on black mail," as it so often and so accusingly had said. No, now it said, "You're a fine fell
ow, Sir Charles; a little down on your luck for these last few—let us not say how many-years. Things are going to change. You'll walk the boards; you'll hold audiences in the palm of your hand. You're an actor, man."

  He downed his second shot to that, and then, sipping his beer slowly, he read again the article in Stagecraft, the actor's Bible.

  GAMBLER ANGELS MELLER

  There wasn't much detail, but there was enough. The name of the melodrama was The Perfect Crime, which didn't matter; the author was Wayne Campbell, which did matter. Wayne could try to get him into the cast; Wayne would try. And not because of threat of blackmail; quite the converse.

  And, although this didn't matter either, the play was being backed by Nick Corianos. Maybe, come to think of it, that did matter. Nick Corianos was a plunger, a real bigshot. The Perfect Crime wouldn't lack for funds, not if Nick was backing it. You've heard of Nick Corianos. Legend has it that he once dropped half a million dollars in a single forty-hour session of poker, and laughed about it. Legend says many unpleasant things about him, too, but the police have never proved them.

  Sir Charles smiled at the thought—Nick Corianos getting away with The Perfect Crime. He wondered if that thought had come to Corianos, if it was part of his reason for back-ing this particular play. One of life's little pleasures, thinking such things. Posing, posturing, knowing you were ridiculous, knowing you were a cheat and a failure, you lived on the little pleasures—and the big dreams.

  Still smiling gently, he picked up his change and went to the phone booth at the front of the tavern near the door. He dialed Wayne Campbell's number. He said, "Wayne? This is Charles Gresham."

  "Yes?"

  "May I see you, at your office?"

  "Now listen, Gresham, if it's more money, no. You've got some coming in three days and you agreed, definitely agreed, that if I gave you that amount regularly, you'd—"

  "Wayne, it's not money. The opposite, my dear boy. It can save you money."

  "How?" He was cold, suspicious.

  "You'll be casting for your new play. Oh, I know you don't do the actual casting yourself, but a word from you —a word from you, Wayne, would get me a part. Even a walk-on, Wayne, anything, and I won't bother you again."

  "While the play runs, you mean?"

  Sir Charles cleared his throat. He said, regretfully, "Of course, while the play runs. But if it's a play of yours, Wayne, it may run a long time."

  "You'd get drunk and get fired before it got out of rehearsal."

  "No. I don't drink when I'm working, Wayne. What have you to lose? I won't disgrace you. You know I can act. Don't you?"

  "Yes." It was grudging, but it was a yes. "All right—you've got a point if it'll save me money. And it's a cast of fourteen; I suppose I could—"

  "I'll be right over, Wayne. And thanks, thanks a lot." He left the booth and went outside, quickly, into the cool, crisp air, before he'd be tempted to take another drink to celebrate the fact that he would be on the boards again. Might be, he corrected himself quickly. Even with help from Wayne Campbell, it was no certainty.

  He shivered a little, walking to the subway. He'd have to buy himself a coat out of his next—allowance. It was turning colder; he shivered more as he walked from the subway to Wayne's office. But Wayne's office was warm, if Wayne wasn't. Wayne sat there staring at him.

  Finally he said, "You don't look the part, Gresham. Damn it all, you don't look it. And that's funny."

  Sir Charles said, "I don't know why it's funny, Wayne. But looking the part means nothing. There is such a thing as make-up, such a thing as acting. A true actor can look any part."

  Surprisingly, Wayne was chuckling with amusement.

  He said, "You don't know it's funny, Gresham, but it is. I've got two possibilities you can try for. One of them is practically a walk-on; you'd get three short speeches. The other—"

  "Yes?"

  "It is funny, Gresham. There's a blackmailer in my play. And damn it all, you are one; you've been living off me for five years now."

  Sir Charles said, "Very reasonably, Wayne. You must admit my demands are modest, and that I've never in-creased them."

  "You are a very paragon of blackmailers, Gresham. I assure you it's a pleasure—practically. But the cream of the jest would be letting you play the blackmailer in my play so that for the duration of it I wouldn't be paying you blackmail. And it's a fairly strong supporting role; it'd pay you a lot more than you ask from me. But—"

  "But what?"

  "Damned if you look it. I don't think you'd be convinc-ing, as a blackmailer. You're always so apologetic and ashamed about it—and yes, I know, you wouldn't be doing it if you could earn your eats—and drinks—any other way. But the blackmailer in my play is a fairly hard-boiled mug. Has to be. People wouldn't believe in any-body like you, Gresham."

  "Give me a chance at it, Wayne. Let me read the part."

  "I think we'd better settle for the smaller role. You said you'd settle for a walk-on, and this other part is a little better than that. You wouldn't be convincing in the fat role. You're just not a heavy, Gresham."

  "Let me read it. At least let me read it."

  Wayne Campbell shrugged. He pointed to a bound manuscript on a corner of his desk, nearer to Sir Charles than to him. He said, "Okay, the role is Richter. Your biggest scene, your longest and most dramatic speech is about two pages back of the first-act curtain. Go ahead and read it to me."

  Sir Charles's fingers trembled just slightly with eager-ness as he found the first-act curtain and thumbed back. He said, "Let me read it to myself first, Wayne, to get the sense of it." It was a longish speech, but he read it rapidly twice and he had it; memorizing had always been easy for him. He put down the manuscript and thought an instant to put himself in the mood.

  His face grow cold and hard. Iris eyes hooded. He stood up and leaned his hands on the desk, caught Wayne's eyes with his own, and poured on the speech, his voice cold and precise and deadly.

  And it was a balm to his actor's soul that Wayne's eyes widened as he listened to it. He said, "I'll be damned. You can act. Okay, I'll try to get you the role. I didn't think you had it in you, but you have. Only if you cross me up by drinking—"

  "I won't." Sir Charles sat down; he'd been calm and cold during the speech. Now he was trembling a little again and he didn't want it to show. Wayne might think it was drink or poor health, and not know that it was eagerness and excitement. This might be the start of it, the comeback he'd hoped for—he hated to think how long it had been that he'd been hoping. But one good support-ing role, and in a Wayne Campbell play that might have a long run, and he'd be on his way. Producers would notice him and there'd be another and slightly better role when this play folded, and a better one after that.

  He knew he was kidding himself, but the excitement, the hope was there. It went to his head like stronger drink than any tavern served.

  Maybe he'd even have a chance to play again in a Shakespeare revival, and there are always Shakespeare revivals. He knew most of every major Shakesperean role, although he'd played only minor ones. Macbeth, that great speech of Macbeth's—

  He said, "I wish you were Shakespeare, Wayne. I wish you were just writing Macbeth. Beautiful stuff in there, Wayne. Listen:

  Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

  To the last syllable of recorded time; And

  all our yesterdays have lighted fools

  The way to dusty death. Out, out—"

  "Brief candle, et cetera. Sure, it's beautiful and I wish, too, that I were Shakespeare, Gresham. But I haven't got all day to listen."

  Sir Charles sighed and stood up. Macbeth had stood him in good stead; he wasn't trembling any more. He said, "Nobody ever has time to listen. Well, Wayne, thanks tremendously."

  "Wait a minute. You sound as though I'm doing the casting and have already signed you. I'm only

  the first hurdle. We're going to let the director do the
actual cast-ing, with Corianos's and my advice and consent, but we haven't hired a director yet. I think it's going to be Dixon, but it isn't a hundred per cent sure yet."

  "Shall I go talk to him? I know him slightly." "Ummm—not till it's definite. If I send you to him, he'll be sure we are hiring him, and maybe he'll want more money. Not that it won't take plenty to get him any-way. But you can talk to Nick; he's putting up the money and he'll have a say in the casting."

  "Sure, I'll do that, Wayne."

  Wayne reached for his wallet. "Here's twenty bucks," he said. "Straighten out a little; get a shave and a haircut and a clean shirt. Your suit's all right. Maybe you should have it pressed. And listen—" "Yes?"

  "That twenty's no gift. It comes out of your next."

  "More than fair. How shall I handle Corianos? Sell him on the idea that I can handle the part, as 1 did you?"

  Wayne Campbell grinned, lie said, "Speak the speech, I pray you, as you haw, pronounced it to me, trippingly on the tongue; but if you month it, as many of your play-ers do, I had as lief the towncrier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air—I can recite Shakespeare, too."

  "We'll not mention how." Sir Charles smiled. "Thanks a million, Wayne. Good-by."

  He got the haircut, which he needed, and the shave, which he didn't really need—he'd shaved this morning. He bought a new white shirt and had his shoes shined and his suit pressed. He had his soul lifted with three Manhat-tans in a respectable bar—three, sipped slowly, and no more. And he ate—the three cherries from the Manhattans.

  The back-bar mirror wasn't smeary. It was blue glass, though, and it made him look sinister. He smiled a sinister smile at his reflection. He thought, Blackmailer. The role; play it to the hilt, throw yourself into it. And someday you'll play Macbeth.

  Should he try it on the bartender? No. He'd tried it on bartenders before.

  The blue reflection in the back-bar mirror smiled at him. He looked from it to the front windows and the front windows, too, were faintly blue with dusk. And that meant it was time. Corianos might be in his office above his club by now.