The seventh shot A detective story
cut out the whole finger-print business.”
“Cut it! Why? No good?”
“Too good!” sighed the discouraged playwright. He had, however, hauled
a lagging sense of humor out of the ordeal, for shortly after, he went
with Barrison to sit in a box in the dark auditorium, and evolved
epigrams of cynic derision as he watched the rehearsal of his play.
Barrison found him not half a bad fellow, and before the hot afternoon
wore itself out, they had grown quite friendly.
Barrison’s own part in the rehearsal was soon disposed of. After he had
explained the way the police detect finger prints upon objects that
seem innocent of the smallest impression, and illustrated on a page of
paper, a tumbler, and the surface of the table, his work was over for
the day. Mortimer promised to practice a bit, that the effect might be
quite technical and expert-looking. Barrison was to come to another
rehearsal in a few days and see how it looked. Then the detective found
himself free to enjoy the rest of the rehearsal, such as it was.
“Which won’t be much,” Carlton warned him. “This is just a running over
of lines for the company, and to start Miss Merivale off. Nobody will
do any acting.”
“The last act ought to be the most important, I should think,” said
Barrison.
“Oh, well, so far as action and hullabaloo goes—shots and soldiers
and that sort of thing. But it’s a one-man play, anyway, and I’ve had
to make that last act a regular monologue. It’s all Mortimer. He’s
A1, too, when he cares to take the trouble. Drunk now, of course, but
he’s no fool. He’ll keep sober for the opening, and if the women don’t
go dippy over his looks and his voice and his love-making, I miss my
guess. Now, watch—this is going to be one of the exciting scenes in the
play, so far as action goes. Pure melodrama, but the real thing, if I
say it as shouldn’t—girl in the power of a gang of ruffians, spies and
so forth. Night—dark scene, you know—a really dark scene, with all the
lights out, front and back. Pitch black. Just a bit of a wait to get
people jumpy, and then the shots.”
Willie Coster cried out: “Hold the suspense, folks! No one move. Lights
are out now.” He waited while ten could be counted; then deliberately
began to strike the table with his fist. “One—two——”
“Those are supposed to be shots,” explained Carlton.
“Three—four—five—six——”
“That’s enough!” interposed Dukane. “The women don’t like shooting,
anyway.”
“All right. Six shots, Mortimer. Now you’re coming on, carrying
_Lucille_—never mind the business. Miss Merivale, read your line:
‘Thank God, it’s you—in time!’ Right! All the rest of you—_hurry up_!
You’re carrying torches, you boobs; don’t you know by this time what
you do during the rescue? Oh; for the love of——”
He began to tell the company what he thought of it collectively and
individually, and Carlton turned to Barrison.
“All over but the shouting—and the love scene. Mortimer can do that in
great form, but you’ll get no idea of it to-day, of course. He isn’t
even trying.”
“He’s a good bit soberer than he was, though,” said Barrison, who was
watching the star carefully.
“Well, I’m inclined to think he is. Maybe he’ll wake up and do his
tricks, but you never can tell with him. There go the extras off; it’s
the love scene now.”
The last scene in the play was a short, sentimental dialogue between
_Tarrant_, the hero, and _Lucille_. Sybil read her lines from the part;
Mortimer knew his, but recited them without interest or expression,
giving her her cues almost mechanically, though his eyes never left
her face, and as they played on toward the “curtain,” he began to move
nearer to her.
“A little more down front, _Lucille_” said Coster from the prompt
table. “_Tarrant_ is watching you, and we want his full face. All
right; that’s it. Go on, _Tarrant_——”
“‘What do you suppose all this counts for with me,’” said Mortimer,
speaking slowly and with more feeling than he had used that afternoon.
“‘What does it all amount to, if I have not the greatest reward of
all—_Lucille_?’”
Barrison, listening to the sudden passion vibrating in the genuinely
splendid voice, thought he could begin to understand something of the
man’s magnetism. If he really tried, he could make a tremendous effect.
“‘But the honors that have been heaped upon you!’” read Sybil, her
eyes bent earnestly upon the page before her. “‘Your success, your
achievements, your——’” She stopped.
“Catch her up quicker, Mortimer!” exclaimed Coster. “We don’t want a
wait here, for Heaven’s sake! Speak on ‘your success, your’—speak on
‘your.’ Now, once more, Miss Merivale!”
“‘Your success,’” read Sybil again, “‘your achievements, your——’”
“‘Honors! Success! Achievements!’” Mortimer’s tone was ringing and
heartfelt. “‘What do they mean to me, _Lucille_—without you? They are
so many empty cups; only you can fill them with the wine of life and
love——’”
“Noah’s-ark stuff,” murmured Carlton. “Likewise Third Avenue melodrama.
But it’ll all go if he does it like that!”
“‘Lucille—speak to me——’”
“‘You are one who has much to be thankful for, much to be proud of!
Your medal of honor—surely that means something to you?’”
“‘Ah, yes! I am proud of it—the gift of my country! But it is given
to the soldier. The man still waits for his prize! There is only one
decoration which I want in all this life, _Lucille_, only one——’”
“_And_ so forth—all right!” said Willie, closing the manuscript; for
the final line of the play, the “tag,” as it is called, is never given
at rehearsals.
But Mortimer appeared to have forgotten this ancient superstition of
the theater—seemed, indeed, to have forgotten everything and everybody
save Sybil and the opportunity given him by the situation.
He caught the girl in his arms and delivered the closing line in a
voice that was broken with passion:
“‘The decoration that I want is your love, _Lucille_—your kiss!’”
And he pressed his lips upon hers.
Sybil wrenched herself free, flaming with indignation. Crane, very
white, started forward. Mortimer, white also, but with a very slight,
very insolent smile, wheeled to meet him. But Dukane, moving with
incredible swiftness, stood between them. His face was rather stern,
but his voice was as level and equable as ever as he said quietly:
“All right, all right—it is the business of the piece. But just a bit
premature, Mortimer, don’t you think? Suppose we let Miss Merivale get
her lines first? There will be plenty of time to work up the action
later. Rehearsal dismissed, Willie. Have every one here at nine sharp
to-morrow. What’s the matter with _you_?”
For Willie Coster was sitting, pale and furious, by the prompt table,
swearing under his breath with a lurid eloquence which would have
astonished any one who did not know him of old.
“Damn him!” he ended up, after he had exhausted his more picturesque
and spectacular vocabulary. “He’s said the tag, gov’nor—he’s spoken the
tag—and queered our show!”
“Oh, rot, Willie!” said Dukane impatiently. “You’re too old a bird to
believe in fairy tales of that sort!”
But Willie shook his sandy, half-bald head and swore a little more,
though more sorrowfully now.
“You mark my words, there’ll never be any luck for this show,” he
declared solemnly. “Never any luck! And when we open, gov’nor, you just
remember what I said to-day!”
CHAPTER IV
THE LETTER OF WARNING
“But isn’t it very early to stop rehearsal?” asked Barrison of John
Carlton.
“Of course it is. They ought to have gone over the whole act again, and
lots of the scenes several times. That rescue stuff was rotten! But
it’s an off day. Something’s wrong; I’m not sure what, though I _think_
I know. Oh, well, it’s all in the day’s work. Wait till you’ve seen as
many of your plays produced as I have!”
“It’s as mysterious to me as one of the lost arts of Egypt. I couldn’t
think out a scene to save my neck.”
“And yet,” said John Carlton reflectively, “a detective gets an immense
amount of raw dramatic material in his business. He must. Now, right
here in our own little happy family circle”—he waved an arm toward
the stage—“there’s drama to burn! Can’t you see it—or are you fellows
trained only to detect crime?”
“How do you mean—drama?” queried Barrison, seeking safety in vagueness.
“Well,” said Carlton, reaching for his hat and stick, “it strikes me
that your well-beloved and highly valuable central planet draws drama
as molasses draws flies. Pardon the homely simile, but, like most
geniuses, I was reared in Indiana.”
“He’s a queer sort of chap,” said Jim, looking at the tall actor as he
stood talking to Dukane, his heavy, handsome profile clearly outlined
against an electric light.
“Queer? He’s a first-class mystery. ‘He came like water, and like wind
he goes’—though I hope he’ll prove a bit more stable as a dramatic
investment. Seriously, no one knows anything about him. He’s Western, I
believe, and I suppose Dukane fell over him some dark night when he was
out prospecting for obscure and undiscovered genius.”
“He’s good looking.”
“My son,” said Carlton, whose familiarity and colloquialism were in
striking contrast to the grandiloquent lines he gave his characters to
speak, “wait till you see him in khaki, with the foots half up and a
little incidental music on the violins going on! Manly beauty is not a
hobby of mine, but I’ve had experience with matinée idols, and I bet
that Mortimer is there with the goods. What are you laughing at?”
“The difference between your stage dialogue and your ordinary
conversation.”
“Oh, well, I can’t help talking slang, and I don’t know how to write
it so that it sounds like anything but the talk of a tough bunch in a
corner joint.” He stopped abruptly at the entrance to the box and said,
as though acting on impulse:
“See here, speaking of Mortimer, did you ever see a three-ring circus?”
“Yes. I always found it very confusing.”
“Me, too. Mortimer doesn’t. He likes it. Takes three at least to
make him feel homelike and jolly. He’s been—between ourselves—the
temperamental lover with Grace Templeton, and the prospective fiancé
with Miss Legaye; at least, that’s how I dope it out; and now it looks
as though he was going to be the bold, bad kidnaper with this charming
child just arrived in our midst. What do you think, from what you’ve
seen to-day?”
“He hasn’t been himself to-day,” answered Barrison. “And, anyhow, there
can’t be a three-ring circus with one of the three features absent.
Miss Templeton, I understand, is not to be counted any longer.”
He spoke with rather forced lightness. He disliked bringing women into
conversation. He did Carlton the justice, however, to see that it was
not a vulgar predilection for gossip which centralized his interest in
the three who had received Mortimer’s attention. Obviously he looked
upon them as cold-bloodedly as did Dukane; they were part of his stock
in trade, his “shop.”
“Not to be counted any longer! Isn’t she just? If you’d ever seen the
lady you’d know that you couldn’t lose her just by dismissing her.”
Barrison had seen her, but he said nothing.
“However,” went on the author, leading the way out of the box and
through the communicating door between the front and back of the house,
“it’s none of my business—though I’ll admit it entertains me, intrigues
me, if you like. I _can_ talk something besides slang. I’m nothing but
a poor rat of an author, but if I were a grand and glorious detective
with an idle hour or so to put in, I’d watch that combination. I’m too
poor and too honest to afford hunches, as a rule, but I’ve got one
now, and it’s to the effect that there’ll be more melodrama behind
the scenes in ‘Boots and Saddles’ than there ever will be in the show
itself!”