Torchy and Vee
start and the "Yours to a finish, Bonnie," endin' when I lugs it into
the private office.
"I expect this must have been meant for Mr. Robert; eh, Mr. Ellins?"
says I, handin' it over.
It's written sort of scrawly and foreign on swell stationery and Old
Hickory don't get many of that kind, as you can guess. He reads it clear
through, though, without even a grunt. Then he waves me into a chair.
"As it happens, Torchy," says he, "this was meant for no one but me."
"My error," says I. "I didn't read it, though."
He don't seem to take much notice of that statement, just sits there
gazin' vacant at the wall and fingerin' his cigar. After a minute or so
of this he remarks, sort of to himself: "Bonnie, eh? Well, well!"
I might have smiled. Probably I did, for the last person in the world
you'd look for anything like mushy sentiments from would be Old Hickory
Ellins. Couldn't have been much more than a flicker of a smile at that.
But them keen old eyes of his don't miss much that's going on, even when
he seems to be in a trance. He turns quick and gives me one of them
quizzin' stares.
"Funny, isn't it, son," says he, "that I should still be called Dear Old
Pal by the most fascinating woman in the world?"
"Oh, I don't know," says I, tryin' to pull the diplomatic stuff.
"You young rascal!" says he. "Think I'm no judge, eh? Here! Wait a
moment. Now let's see. Um-m-m-m!"
He's pullin' out first one desk drawer and then another. Finally he digs
out a faded leather photograph case and opens it.
"There!" he goes on. "That's Bonnie Sutton. What about her?"
Course, her hair is done kind of odd and old-fashioned, piled up on top
of her head that way, with a curl or two behind one ear; and I expect if
much of her costume had showed it would have looked old-fashioned, too.
But there wasn't much to show, for it's only a bust view and cut off
about where the dress begins. Besides, she's leanin' forward on her
elbows. A fairly plump party, I should judge, with substantial,
well-rounded shoulders and kind of a big face. Something of a cut-up,
too, I should say, for she holds her head a little on one side, her chin
propped in the palm of the left hand, while between the fingers of the
right she's holdin' a cigarette. What struck me most, though, was the
folksy look in them wide-open eyes of hers. If it hadn't been for that I
might have sized her up for a lady vamp.
"Good deal of a stunner, I should say, Mr. Ellins," says I; "and no half
portion, at that."
"Of queenly stature, as the society reporters used to put it," says Old
Hickory. "She had her court, too, even if some of the sessions were
rather lively ones."
At that he trails off into what passes with him as a chuckle and I waits
patient while he does a mental review of old stuff. I could guess near
enough how some of them scenes would show up: the bunch gatherin' in one
of the little banquet rooms upstairs at Del's., and Bonnie surrounded
three deep by admirin' males, perhaps kiddin' Ward McAllister over one
shoulder and Freddie Gebhard whisperin' over the other; or after
attendin' one of Patti's farewell concerts there would be a beefsteak
and champagne supper somewhere uptown--above Twenty-third Street--and
some wild sport would pull that act of drinking Bonnie's health out of
her slipper. You know? And I expect they printed her picture on the
front page of the "Clipper" when she broke into private theatricals.
"And she's still on deck?" I suggests.
Old Hickory nods. He goes on to say how the last he heard of her she'd
married some rich South American that she'd met in Washington and gone
off to live in Brazil, or the Argentine. That had been quite a spell
back, I take it. He didn't say just how long ago. Anyway, she'd dropped
out for good, he'd supposed.
"And now," says he, "she has returned, a widow, to settle on the old
farm, up somewhere near Cooperstown. It appears, however, that she finds
it rather dull. I can't fancy Bonnie on a farm somehow. Anyway, she has
half a mind, she says, to try New York once more before she finally
decides. Wants to see some of the old places again. And by the great
cats, she shall! No matter what my fool doctors say, Torchy, I mean to
take a night or two off when she comes. If Bonnie can stand it I guess I
can, too."
"Yes, sir," says I, grinnin' sympathetic.
Well, that was 1:15 a.m. And at exactly 2:30 he limps out with his hand
to his right side and his face the color of cigar ashes. He's in for
another spell. I gets his heart specialist on the 'phone and loads Mr.
Ellins into a taxi. Just before closin' time he calls up from the house
to say that he's off to the sanitarium for another treatment and may be
gone a couple of weeks. I must tell Mr. Robert about those options,
have him sub. in at the next directors' meetin', and do a lot of odd
jobs that he'd left unfinished.
"And by the way, Torchy," he winds up, "about Bonnie."
"Oh, yes," says I. "The lady fascinator."
"If she should show up while I am away," says Old Hickory, "don't--don't
bother to tell her I'm a sick old man. Just say I--I've been called out
of town, or something."
"I get you," says I. "Business trip."
"She'll be disappointed, I suppose," goes on Mr. Ellins. "No one to take
her around town. That is, unless--By George, Torchy!--You must take my
place."
"Eh?" says I, gaspy.
"Yes," says he. "You lucky young rascal! You shall be the one to welcome
Bonnie back to New York. And do it right, son. Draw on Mr. Piddie for
any amount you may need. Nothing but the best for Bonnie. You
understand. That is, if she comes before I get back."
Say, I've had some odd assignments from Old Hickory, but never one just
like this before. Some contract that, to take an ex-home wrecker in tow
and give her the kind of a good time that was popular in the days of
Berry Wall. If I could only dig up some old sport with a good memory he
might coach me so that I might make a stab at it, but I didn't know
where to find one. And for three days there I made nervous motions
every time Vincent came in off the gate with a card.
But a week went by and no Bonnie blew in from up state. Maybe she'd
renigged on the proposition, or had hunted up some other friend of the
old days. Anyway, I'd got my nerves soothed down considerable and was
almost countin' the incident as closed, when here the other day as I
drifts back from lunch Vincent holds me up.
"Lady to see Mr. Ellins," says he. "She's in the private office."
"Sad words, Vincent," says I. "Don't tell me it's Bonnie."
"Nothing like that," says he. "Here's her name," and he hands me a
black-bordered card.
"Huh!" says I, taking a glance. "Senora Concita Maria y Polanio. All of
that, eh? Must be some whale of a female?"
"Whale is near it," says Vincent. "You ought to see her."
"The worst of it is," says I, "I gotta see her."
He's no exaggerator, Vincent. This female party that I finds bulgin' Old
Hickory's swing desk chair has got any Jonah fish I ever saw pictured
out lookin' like a pickerel. I don't mean she's any side-show freak. Not
as bad as that. But for her height, which is about medium, I should say,
she sure is bulky. The way she sits there with her skirts spreadin'
wide around her feet, she has all the graceful outlines of a human water
tower. Above the wide shoulders is a big, high-colored face, and
wabblin' kind of unsteady on top of her head is a black velvet hat with
jet decorations. You remember them pictures we used to see of the late
Queen Victoria? Well, the Senora is an enlarged edition.
I was wonderin' how long since she came up from Cuba, and if I'd need a
Spanish interpreter to find out why she thinks she has to call on the
president of the Corrugated Trust, when she rolls them big dark eyes of
hers my way and remarks, in perfectly good United States: "Ah! A ray of
sunshine!"
It comes out so unexpected that for a second or so I just gawps at her,
and then I asks: "Referrin' to my hair?"
"Forgive me, young man," says she. "But it is such a cheerful shade."
"Yes'm," says I. "So I've been told. Some call it fire-hydrant red, but
I claim it's only super-pink."
"Anyway, I like it very much," says she. "I hope they don't call you
Reddy, though?"
"No, ma'am," says I. "Torchy."
"Why, how clever!" says she. "May I call you that, too? And I suppose
you are one of Mr. Ellins' assistants?"
"His private secretary," says I. "So you can see what luck he's playin'
in. Did you want to talk to him 'special, or is it anything I can fix up
for you?"
"It's rather personal, I'm afraid," says she. "The boy at the door
insisted that Mr. Ellins wasn't in, but I told him I didn't mind
waiting."
"That's nice," says I. "He'll be back in a week or so."
"Oh!" says she. "Then he went away before my note came?"
Which was where I begun to work up a hunch. Course, it's only a wild
suspicion at first. She don't fit the description at all. Still, if she
should be the one--I could feel the panicky shivers chasin' up and down
my backbone just at the thought. I expect my voice wavered a little as I
put the question.
"Say," says I, "you don't happen to be Bonnie Sutton, do you?"
That got a laugh out of her. It's no throaty, old-hen cackle, either.
It's clear and trilly.
"Thank you, Torchy," says she. "You've guessed it. But please tell me
how?"
"Why," says I, draggy, "I--er--you see----" And then I'm struck with
this foolish idea. Honest, I couldn't help pullin' it. "Mr. Ellins," I
goes on, "happened to show me your picture."
"What!" says she. "My picture? I--I can hardly believe it."
"Wait," says I. "It's right here in the drawer. That is, it was. Yep!
This one. There!"
And say, as I flashed that old photo on her I didn't have the nerve to
watch her face. You get me, don't you? If you'd changed as much as she
had how would you like to be stacked up sudden against a view of what
you was once? So I looked the other way. Must have been a minute or more
before I glanced around again. She was still starin' at the picture and
brushin' something off her eyelashes.
"Torchy," says she, "I could almost hug you for that. What a really
talented young liar you are! And how thoroughly delightful of you to do
it!"
"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Anyway, it's the picture he showed me when
he was tellin' about you."
"Perhaps you wouldn't mind, Torchy," she goes on, "telling me just what
he said."
"Why, for one thing," says I, "he let out that you was the most
fascinatin' woman in the world."
Another ripply laugh from Bonnie. "The old dear!" says she. "But then,
he always was a little silly about me. Think of his never having gotten
over it in all these years, though! But he didn't stay to meet me. How
was that?"
I hope I made it convincin' about his being called before a Senate
Committee and how he was hoping to get back before she showed up. I told
it as well as I could with them wise friendly eyes watchin' me.
"Perhaps, after all," says she, "it's just as well. If I had known he
had this photo I never would have risked coming. Now that I'm here,
however, I wish there was someone who----"
"Oh, he fixed that up," says I. "I'm the substitute."
"You!" says she. Then she shakes her head. "You're a dear boy," she goes
on, "but I couldn't ask it of you. Really!"
"Sure you can," says I. "You want to see what the old town looks like,
have a little dinner in one of the old joints, and maybe make a little
round of the bright spots afterwards. Well, I got it all planned out.
Course, I can't do it just the way Mr. Ellins would but----"
"Listen, Torchy," she breaks in. "I regret to admit the fact, but I am a
fat, shapeless, freaky-looking old woman. Ordinarily that doesn't worry
me in the least. After fifteen years in the tropics one doesn't worry