The Mystery of the Fiddling Cracksman Read online

  “And so,” he finished, “I began the book. And finished it—without any particular trouble. Macrae, Macrae and Macrae say that I have a plot-sense—for otherwise I never—so they say!—could have welded those quite disparate wild elements into still a fourth plot. They seem to think it’s a scream—I can’t, myself, see even a laugh in it!—it’s just tragic to me—the final rebellion of my soul against the impossible junk that’s been fed to the public for a hundred years. Mystery-melodramatic tripe—99 per cent of it.” He paused. “But Macrae Once, and Again, Incorporated, are certain it’ll have a sale. They say it represents a brand-new fiction form—‘fusion fiction,’ they call it.

  “In fact,” he went on, a bit sadly, “they gave me three of Van Dine’s books to run over and see if I could see any possible fusion there. I hit one off inside of an hour. Even the Senior Macrae laughed his sides off. So that settled it! I’m to tackle that, next. Right away, in fact. Another $500 advance when I finish it. It—”

  “But is Mr. Van Dine burlesquable?” the girl asked, naïvely. “I—I always thought he himself was burlesquing something else?”

  “Not bad, Laral!” Hemple replied with an amused smile. He shook his head. “No, Van Dine’s quite serious, evidently. And there’s plenty of chances to burlesque him. Take the instance in the Canary Murder Case of the map-diagram furnished the reader—where every piece of furniture in the room—the murder room, you know—was labeled—except the one piece that was used in the crime, and that would have made it possible for the reader to have guessed the mode of the crime! And that was there in the room, visible, all the time. I refer to the phonograph cabinet that spoke through the door—after its mistress was dead. So how about a huge, seven-page multi-folded insert in the burlesquing book—a diagram of every object in a whole flat building—but with not a blamed one labeled but a single ash-tray—or cuspidor? No, there’s a rich field there. In fact, the Van Dine fusion book is already named, so far as my publishers are concerned. Th’ Green Canary Mur-rther is to be its title.” He paused. “And after that, they want me to take three of this new popular German biographer’s biographies—and fuse them into a composite biography.” He sighed.

  “And that’s the whole story of Mr. Monte Zenda and me-self. In the meantime, Macrae-in-triplicate Incorporated are digging me up a British publisher who runs most of their books in Britain. That’ll mean extra money for me from the British Isles and Colonies. Then there’ll be the American cheap editions, a year after the $2.00 editions—just a few cents royalty there—to be sure—but it comes to a lot when you think of all the department stores and drug stores that sell the 75-cent books. Then there’ll be some newspaper syndication—$100 from each newspaper that buys the story—75 per cent of it going to me. Also there may be a movie bite. Macrae, Macrae, and Macrae think that Mr. Monte Zenda is just made to order for Laurel and Hardy. So you see—I’m all set. We can live—live without worry—and I can always go back to my old job if the public gets tired. In fact I’ll probably get tired of the stuff myself before they do. So naturally, darlin’—I want to marry you now. You’ve got my ring on your finger—but the day has never been set. And I don’t understand—I don’t understand—why we can’t set the day—why there should even be the shadow of an obstacle in our way.” He paused, and completed his dissertation. “True, our marriage will be founded on the rock of Life-As-It-Never-Is! For I’ve capitalized on Life-As-It-Never-Is. And before I get done, I’ll have squeezed more money out of Life-As-It-Never-Is than any person—not counting the billions of dollars already squeezed out by millions of individual hacks all pecking away on typewriters with their brains drunk on coffee. Or alky. Or hashish. Or morphine. Or whatever creates their wild plot inventions. For fifty years at least, my dear, the public has eaten up these weird pictures of Life-As-It-Never-Is—and now at last it gets shown, through an actual burlesque—not by me, gosh no!—but a burlesque of the very material by itself—that the far-fetched things that take place in fiction stories never happen, and never can happen, in the entire whole life of any one person—or any one-half dozen persons.”

  Billy Hemple stopped, with a curious gesture of complete finality.

  And at the same moment, some 8 miles across Chicago—but only as the crow flies!—in a dingy little rented furnished flat on Halsted Street near Maxwell—great melting-pot corner of the city where down on the sidewalk below passed red-fezzed Turks, turbaned East Indians, long-bearded Jewish rabbis, check-suited negroes with huge glass sparklers in their ties, well-fed Greeks with velours hats, little olive-complexioned Italians in flamboyant striped green suits, impassive-faced Chinese in black coolie jackets—a man whose own face was as yellow as saffron itself sat alone in a gas-lit room carefully tuning up a violin with the aid of a small pitchpipe whose tone matched his instrument’s A-string, and in a precise English whose very precision showed that it was not his natural tongue, he was saying to himself for at least the dozenth time that day:

  “And so—so—it was the Lawndale Avenue John Craig after all—blunderer that I am! But all is clear at last. And tonight—little wooden crooner!—I win one of the most luscious tricks ever played in this great London-of-the-West. So now—little sob-belly, with your four strings that can sing like four cats on a fence!—we’ll just rehearse that last difficult measure over again. For we must not fail!”

  CHAPTER V

  Destiny in the Person of One Hoggenheimer!

  Following Billy Hemple’s complete and exhaustive dissertation on what he thought of romantic fiction, a momentary silence dropped between himself and Laral Craig.

  And he broke it.

  “Well,” he ventured, “I’ve unburdened myself from A to Izzard about the fool book—spouting 90 per cent personal opinions and 10 per cent facts. But anyway—you have it all. So come now. What’s—what’s this nonsense about a man named Hoggenheimer dictating whether our marriage can or cannot take place? That—that smacks too much of this fiction stuff I’ve been analyzing—to sound convincing.”

  The girl was regretfully silent. At length she answered him.

  “Well, Billy, I’m afraid he does hold our marriage in the palm of his hand. And what’s worse—I’m afraid he’s just going to toss it into the bottom of the deep blue sea.” She paused. “But I’ll explain. From the beginning. And that, at the same time, will clear up why I cut myself off from all newspapers for nearly six long months.”

  She was evidently casting about in her mind where to begin. And soon she spoke:

  “Once upon a time, Billy, a little girl—about 7 years old—was riding downtown on—on a Clark Street car—and a conversation held between a couple of ladies riding behind her fell on her very juvenile ears. It appears that one of the women was a famous and well-paid writer of dramatic vaudeville playlets—remember, this was back some 13 years ago when we had more vaudeville than we have today—and the woman’s name was Carrie LeMar. Not that it matters at all. But she was telling the other woman about how her last sketch was practically accepted before it was written—and about the great pleasure and thrill she derived at seeing her brainwork first come to life—either in rehearsal or on the opening night.”

  “I can see what’s coming,” commented Billy Hemple, “You were the little girl? And you conceived one of those infantile obsessions to become a writer of one-act plays for vaudeville? Little boys, you know, see garbage men atop nice shiny garbage wagons—”

  “And want to become garbage drivers,” the girl smiled. “Yes. I was only 7, you see—and my life’s ambition was decided for me. It—but don’t get me wrong. I haven’t laid out a whole career of writing vaudeville playlets for the rest of my life.”

  “Well, I hope not, darlin’. For the screen has put the vaudeville world nearly out of commission. There’s just one decent circuit today—of not more than 24 large American cities, including, of course, our own Chicago here. And two other little dinky strings—one South somew
here—and one out West.”

  “Yes,” she said, “and this Samuel Hoggenheimer owns all the theaters in the whole string—the decent string, that is. He—”

  Billy Hemple leaned forward. His eyes were bright.

  “Laral Craig—have you written a vaudeville playlet?”

  “You—you wouldn’t be jealous, would you, Billy?” she asked plaintively. “If—if I had?”

  “God no—I’d—I’d be tickled to death. Except—” His face fell. “Vaudeville—Good Lord, Laral—from what I understand—”

  She raised a slim hand.

  “I know, Billy. Only too well. But let me tell it.” She paused. “Well, when I was about 9, I had a particularly mean teacher. In the Lincoln Grammar School—if you know where that is. And one day she asked me what I was going to become when I grew up. Innocently I told her. A writer of one-act plays for vaudeville. And then and there, Billy Hemple, I—I sealed my doom. I—I was branded. For every time she called on me to recite after that—she always sardonically told the rest of the class that Miss Laral, who was going to write vaudeville playlets when she grew up, would now be heard from!”

  “I can probably tell you why that was,” put in Billy Hemple. “She was probably a disappointed writer of some kind herself. Had done a novel—or short story—or something—that hadn’t been accepted—and she’d got a frustration.”

  “Very possibly, Billy. I’m sure I don’t know. But anyway, my glittering reputation followed me—all through grammar school—all through high school. All of my old classmates told all of the new ones—and everywhere I was known as the girl who was going to become famous by having her vaudeville playlets produced. And to tell you the truth, Billy, I’d long since lost all my desire at even becoming a playwright.

  “But anyway,” she went on with a bitter sigh, “who should pop up again as one of my teachers in the senior high at the Carl Schurz High School, but my old grammar school teacher from the Lincoln School. And one day she called me up. After school, that is. And she sez to me—sez she—” The girl smiled, though mirthlessly: “‘Miss Craig, I want to give you a piece of real good advice. You’re not fitted at all for creative work—much less ever doing anything like you’re reputed to be going to do. My friendly suggestion to you is that you catch yourself a husband just as quick as you can—get yourself rooted safely in a home—have babies—and do the thing you can do. Which is to take care of a husband’s welfare.’”

  “Gosh,” commented Billy Hemple, “she talked as if you’d have to angle long and hard for a husband.” He gazed at the girl’s pretty face with its dark eyes. “Listen—was she pretty herself—or homely—or—”

  “Some day,” the girl said solemnly, “I’ll show her to you. She’s retired from teaching now and lives north of this district. Often we meet over on Lawrence Avenue when I’m buying the household food supplies for ’Liza. I shouldn’t say it, I know, Billy, but she is a most terrible creature. Hobbles along on a cane. Has a long, hooked nose and thick-lensed silver spectacles perched ’way out on that nose, her hair flying in all directions. But she never fails to survey me very sarcastically over the rims of those spectacles, when we do meet. And to say: ‘Well, Miss Craig, have you managed to land yourself a husband yet?’”

  “Why—why the old she-devil,” he half choked. “When we’re married I’ll—”

  “Walt, Billy! Have you stopped to think what a terrible psychological effect this has had on me? When I met you and began to see marriage looming up—then I began to realize that I was—was just a big flop—that everybody who had ever known me had drunk in that myth that I would some day write successful one-act playlets—playlets that at least would be performed!—and yet here I was, about to do exactly what that old devil of a Miss Sheldack—that’s her name—had advised me to do, in the absence of any talents whatsoever: catching myself a husband. Billy, then and there, I told myself—between my gritted teeth—that I’d never, never, never marry any man—you—nor anybody else—unless and until I’d shown them all—Miss Sheldack in particular—that I could do it—that I could write a playlet—that I could get it produced—could have it played in a real theater—in a big city. I—”

  “Hon’,” he said solemnly and pityingly, “you’ve had what is known as a psychic trauma. That’s all it is. A psychic—”

  “A trauma. Yes. I know it. But there it is—and what are you going to do about it? For a trauma is an injury.” She paused. “Well, I had had a pivotal idea in my head for some few years, Billy, for a little playlet. And as vaudeville kept shrinking and shrinking steadily up—my little idea still never would develop. And about that time I attended a lecture of old Dr. Phineas Stonerood, Ph.D. at the Fine Arts Building. He is supposed to be a great psychologist. And he touched on problems in creative art. Particularly those in the different writing fields. And he said that wherever one had an idea—a dramatic idea—or one involving some interesting contrasting characters—which would not round itself out to proper completion—there was one treatment, and one only, that would make it do so.”

  “Ha!” he said. “And so that was it? To cut yourself off from all newspapers—for a half year?”

  “From all stimuli, Billy, yes, that would stir up new conjectures. Not from books nor stories nor plays, no—because, he said, those—in the absence of the other kind of stimuli—would only help. And Heaven help me if his formula had excluded those—or I would have been bored sick in the last five months! Yes, his formula involved cutting off all newspapers from oneself for a half year or so. And instructing all those with whom one came in contact that no topics of the general day were to be discussed, for those topics would only serve as sources of new thoughts, new ideas, new conjectures. And defeat the plan. Under the conditions he laid out, the faintest idea, Dr. Stonerood said, would reach successful fruition. And so that was why I—well—chopped myself off of all newspapers—and why I instructed you—and Father, too—and even Eliza—not to ever refer to a single item that appeared in any newspapers.

  “And you’ve all been very good in that way,” she went on, “’specially since you didn’t know what I was driving at. And so you’re entitled at least to know that my little playlet idea did develop—and did grow. Naturally I read hundreds of other playlets—to get an idea of the proper structure, and the way such things should be presented on paper—and all that—for that kind of reading wasn’t barred to me. And to cut my long story short, Billy, I finished my playlet day before yesterday. While you were still there in New York. I made the last change in it. And it was done. Done as good as at least I shall ever be able to make it.”

  “What’s—what’s its name?” he asked. “I’m really proud of you, darlin’—although at the same time, awfully sorry that it should have been a form of writing that’s almost as extinct now as—as the Duck Billed Dinosaur. What’s its name?”

  “Mitzi,” she said. “Just—Mitzi.”

  “Character playlet?” he asked.

  “Yes. Though there’s happenings in it—naturally.”

  “Is it humorous—serious—trag—”

  “It’s done in a serious vein,” she said quietly, though with a note of regret in her voice that showed plainly.

  He offered no further queries.

  And she was silent for about a quarter of a minute.

  “And now,” she resumed, suddenly, “we come to Hoggenheimer. The man who holds our destiny. Yes, Billy—really he does—and our destiny doesn’t look very good—as I’ll explain. And for all of which—I’m sorry.” She paused, “I braved the lion in his den. Yes. Hoggenheimer himself. For he prefers Chicago as a home, it seems, because of its lake breezes. I went over to Lake Shore Drive—his home there—with my script. I wore my prettiest frock—and my best silk stockings. Although I didn’t get to first base through either of them!” She gave a rueful little smile. “However, I didn’t get thrown out on my shell-like ear, either
. The butler let me come in the hall. And wait. In a nice, big hand-carved throne-chair that gazed across an expanse of polished hardwood floor toward a huge wood-burning fireplace. And believe me, Billy, I was nervous. I opened my bag once to get out my powder puff to powder my nose—and I guess I scattered the contents, rouge sticks, money and what-not else, all over the entire Hoggenheimer residence! In fact, at the moment when Mr. Hoggenheimer ultimately did put in an appearance, I was nowhere else but undignifiedly down on my knees collating together my belongings.”

  The girl paused, shaking her head in remembrance of the experience with the Powers-That-Be. Then she continued.

  “But back to little me—sitting in the hand-carved throne chair. The great man himself, at this particular time, was engaged for the moment in a room right off the hall—the sliding doors were partly open—and I could pick up what was going on. Some doctor was taking a—now what do you call it?—yes—an electro-cardiograph of his heart—and after about twenty minutes Mr. Hoggenheimer came out, chatting with the doctor, and went as far as the front door with him. Yes—that was the time little me had to be found—of all times!—on her hands and knees, scraping her things together off the floor! Anyway he—and I mean Mr. Hoggenheimer, and not the doctor he came out with—is a big fleshy-looking man, about 48 years old, shinily baldheaded on top of his head, his face muscles a bit flabby. I suppose all that’s connected in some slight measure with his having to have a tachy-cardiograph made.

  “‘And now, young lady,’ he said as he closed the door and came up to where I managed hastily to get myself sitting again, ‘what can I do for you?’

  “I told him I had written a one-act vaudeville play.

  “‘My God!’ was all he said, Billy. And added, with nearly a groan, ‘Another!’

  “In fact, Billy, he threw up his hands. And turned wearily to the butler who was close by. ‘Griggins,’ he said, ‘run upstairs to my workshop on the floor just above—and bring down that wicker basket.’