The Mystery of the Fiddling Cracksman Read online

  “Presently Griggins came down. And Billy—my heavens!—he had a basket nearly as big as a clothes hamper, just piled with manuscripts that had never apparently even been opened. There must have been hundreds in it. And he—Mr. Hoggenheimer—spoke to me.

  “‘Young lady,’ he said, ‘it’s true that I produce one-act plays—and that I can book them for 22 weeks—no, by God, I can’t at that!—I forgot about the Garbo Theater at Cinci—and the Dietrich at Louisville—going ‘all-screen’ this week. That I can book them,’ he went on, Billy, ‘for 20 weeks—and 20 weeks only!—over Eastern Circuit, which comprises my theaters. But have you stopped for a minute, young lady, to reflect that the screen has killed off nearly all vaudeville in America today? That three times as many of my theaters today are all-screen as legit? Have you even stopped to reflect, young lady, that practically the whole of the half-billion or so of skilled professional vaudeville playlet writers who used to write playlets when you were in diapers,’—yes, Billy—those were his frank words!—‘that used to write playlets,’—he said, ‘when there were hundreds and hundreds of vaudeville theaters in operation in America—are still sending ’em in? This basket, young lady,’ he went on, ‘contains just the quota that have been mailed into my home here during the last month and a half—by people who have looked me up in the Chicago telephone book in the public libraries of their own cities. Or have my Chicago address down. Why—down at the offices of Hoggenheimer Incorporated, Producers and Theater Managers, in the Screen and Footlights Building across from the City Hall, I can show you not less than 2000 more playlets, written by some of the best old-timers in the country. Old-timers who know every trick to hurl across the footlights at an audience. Old-timers who have cut their eye teeth by seeing some of their playlets go over—and some fail, because of defects. Why, girl, my playreaders down there at Screen and Footlights Building haven’t even opened up the last 2000 scripts received. May not even start on ’em for a year yet. If we don’t just return ’em all unread at that. Young lady—you’d just better catch yourself a husb—’”

  “Woops!” said Billy Hemple. “And he had to hop right onto the old trauma—with hobnailed shoes?”

  “And—how!” the girl replied ruefully. She paused. “Well, it sort of looked, Billy, as though I was sunk before—before I even left shore. And so I frankly asked him: ‘Then—then I haven’t any chance whatsoever, Mr. Hoggenheimer?’

  “‘None,’ he said, quite positively. ‘None of the whole million or so of you submitting playlets has any chance—considering the small number of playlets we produce—as compared with the huge number being submitted today. About the only chance any of you ever have is that occasionally a playlet sort of—sort of fits a certain actor. But then, his inclinations have to be consulted on that. If he’s in Hollywood working—he’s not interested in a vaudeville tour. If he’s at leisure—maybe he is. If he takes to it, we often buy the playlet outright from the author. For $500 or so. And by ‘outright’—I mean the author waives all his rights in it. We buy it that way because most actors today demand to be run on the playbill as the author of the playlet themselves. They think it lends both the playlet and themselves a valuable glamour. In which, of course, they’re quite right.’

  “Then, Billy,” the girl went on, “I—I riz up. I told him a little about what I felt about giving other people credit for what you do yourself. From the way I poured out my feelings, it was plain he knew that something was eating me way down deep—from ‘way back when.’ And I told him, too, that it was more than plain now that I didn’t have a chance—for that even if my playlet were worth accepting, I’d never let it go out under another person’s name for one million dollars a week royalty. Never!

  “At which he just laughed. In a sort of nasty way. And said, sort of cuttingly: ‘Yes, young lady, I meet your kind—and always among amateurs. And that’s another reason you can’t compete with the professionals. They’ll take the cash—and let the credit go—as Omar Khayyam said. But you—your ego is too swollen for your own good!’”

  “Gosh, Laral,” Billy Hemple put in, “he’s—he’s a hard-boiled bird, isn’t he?”

  “All of that,” she replied. “A most unpleasant sort of man. But he must be pretty much in love with his wife—because my youth, my frock—and my best silk stockings didn’t get anywhere with him!”

  She paused a second and then went on.

  “Well, he talked a little further along the lines of his business. And so, since I saw he was getting restive, I put in my last desperate shot.

  “‘Well, Mr. Hoggenheimer,’” I begged, “‘would you at least read my playlet?’

  “‘What would even be the use?’ he came back grumpily. ‘I’ll warrant—since it’s an amateur playlet—that it calls for a revolving stage and not less than $10,000 worth of special stage construction. Whereas, all we have to play playlets on in vaudeville, you know, where the act has to give way to another act, every 20 minutes or so, is a common everyday ordinary stage with nothing more complex than the usual trapdoors studded here and there about it.’

  “‘Well,’ I retorted, ‘that’s all my playlet requires—a common everyday stage, with’—and now I was mimicking him, but he didn’t know it—‘with a few trapdoors studded about it.’

  “‘Well, congratulations on that,’ he said ironically. ‘The first amateur who ever kept practical stage limitations in mind!’

  “With that much of an opening, I pressed on desperately. ‘Then—then you’ll read my playlet, Mr. Hoggenheimer?’

  “‘We-e-ll,’ he countered, ‘we-e-ll—but first—what is it—comedy—or tragedy?’

  “‘Well,’ I told him, ‘it’s supposed to have a few smiles in it—at the proper points—but it isn’t comedy. It’s a straight dramatic piece.’

  “‘Then my reading it’s all out,’ he answered, with an air of complete finality. ‘For I’m producing absolutely nothing on Eastern Circuit—and permitting nothing on it—but comedies—straight comedies. For one thing, my belief is that the world would rather laugh than—than emote. For another thing’—And here, Billy, the shrewd salesman in him came forward,—‘I have a chance to sell the movie rights on some of our one-act comedies to Vitaphone. But nary a movie sale can I get on a one-act straight serious piece.’

  “‘But how do you know what you will do,’ I asked desperately, ‘when you haven’t even seen my playlet?’

  “‘What’s it about?’ he asked with a groan.

  “I told him. That is, I gave him a brief idea—very, very brief. He stood thinking.

  “‘Well,’ he grunted, ‘give it here. And I’ll give it a reading. From first page to curtain. But see that your address is on it—so that Griggins can mail it back to you.’

  “And with that much accomplished, Billy, I passed my script over to him—and made a—a getaway before he should change his mind.”

  Billy Hemple was reflective for a few seconds.

  “Of course you copyrighted your script before—”

  “Copyrighted?” the girl replied. “Why—can you do that—before a playlet is produced?”

  “Yes, indeed,” he affirmed. “By depositing certain typed copies at Washington. And filling out certain forms. And sending a dollar. And you shouldn’t have left any playlet—good, bad or indifferent—with anyone—if for no other reason than that it might have a pivotal idea which could be turned over to some pet playwright and—”

  “Oh—I’m not afraid of that, Billy. True, Mr. Hoggenheimer did say that he had a professional writer who did him dozens of successful one-act plays which he produced right along—although under lots of different names. An—an—an Archie Selryne. Yes, that was the name. And so I thought I–”

  “Archie Selryne, eh?” the man put in. “Yes. I heard of Archie Selryne there in New York. He’s made a fortune writing one-act comedies. About $250,000. Been at it for 40 years. He supports
about five mistresses—is drunk all the time between playlets—and has never less than 10 running at the same time on that Eastern Circuit. Well, things all come together now in my mind. I heard of Hoggenheimer, too. But only as the ‘Big Boss’ on Eastern Circuit. And that he lived in Chicago. That makes him Hoggenheimer, all right. They say plenty about him. There in New York. That he’s an unscrupulous devil—and does everybody he can—if not in one way, then in another. I hope you at least kept a copy of your playlet?”

  “Of course, Billy. A single carbon copy, naturally, for you to read. A dithering optimist, maybe I was, at that, to think that you might even want to see it.”

  “Be yourself, Laral Craig,” was all he said.

  And was silent a long time. Then he spoke again:

  “Well, hon’, you have as much chance against these other thousands of playwrights—and the pet, Archie Selryne—as an Orangeman at an Irishman’s picnic. So—what?”

  “Well, Billy, all I know is that I can’t and won’t let that woman over on the other side of Lawrence Avenue lord it over me. If I fail in the case of Mitzi—as it seems quite plain that I will—then I’ll have to try again—comedy, as Mr. Hoggenheimer specifies—and if I fail there—then I’ll have to try again—and I’m going on, Billy, on and on and on, writing playlet after playlet—till my name runs 20 weeks on a playbill. Probably by that time I’ll be a crochety old woman, and you’ll have been married for years to some really nice sensible girl—but I do know that not until I have shown Miss Sheldack that I can put over the thing she’s so sarcastic about—that I don’t have to ‘hook myself a husband’—is my life solved. After that, Billy—I’ll be glad to wash dishes, raise babies, keep a home—or what not—for the rest of my days.”

  “Nothing will change you on this, Laral?” And he knew even as he spoke, by the set of her little chin, by the way her even white teeth closed together, that nothing would.

  “I’ve—I’ve got to show her,” she said. “I—I won’t let her rub it into me—like this. No, Billy, I won’t marry you—until I’ve won.”

  “All I know,” he grunted savagely, “is that I’d like to bust Miss Sheldack one on her long, hooked snoot. She starts in 11 years or so ago, it seems, to mess up my life today. Well, you’ve got a psychic trauma all right—and it’s my bad luck. I won’t attempt to argue you out of it. I’ll hope for the millionth chance—that for some darned reason Hoggenheimer finds he can’t let your playlet go. That—”

  “But,” she sighed, “he’s off of serious pieces—which rather lets me out, doesn’t it? Billy, the cards are stacked this time—I fear. So don’t—don’t sign any leases on any apartments—in Hyde Park.”

  “I won’t,” he retorted gloomily.

  And both were silent.

  The girl looked at her wrist watch.

  “Terribly tired, Billy? Do you want me to fix up your bed for you now?”

  “Well—presently,” he said. “Presently. This—this news has waked me up. I’d rather talk a little while longer.”

  “That’s swell for poor me,” she returned with a half smile. “Because I’m going to use you now for a font of knowledge. Billy, have you stopped to think that I’ve seen no newspapers for 6 long months? And that there’s been something literally screaming forth—between the lines, anyway—from the papers of the past three days that has me all—up in the air? In fact, I—I don’t understand it at all. I don’t see what it’s all about. But I want the truth. Billy, are we going to have war with Japan? About this little island—no—I don’t know what on earth island the papers are referring to. That’s how ign’ant I am. And if we are going to have war will—will you have to go?”

  He gazed at her sadly for a long minute. Her eyes fastened on him troubledly. Then he answered her direct query.

  “Since you ask,” he said, quietly, “I’ll answer. Yes—to my mind—and in the mind of most everybody in official diplomatic circles—we are 100 per cent certain to have war with Japan in 23 days. Not 22 days, nor 24 days—but 23 days! A naval war, however. One that will be fought in the Far Pacific—undoubtedly around Hawaii—and the Philippine Islands. Which latter islands will fall to Japan. And become her permanent possession. There will be no fighting here in our own country—unless perchance Japan captures Alaska in a sally of some sort and using it as an air-base, flies a few high-speed bombers down and maybe bombs Seattle a bit, merely as an impudent gesture. The war will last 3 months—no more—but how many thousands of bluejackets will be shot to pieces and drowned—and how many millions of dollars in valuable dreadnaughts will go to Davy Jones’ locker, I’m not able to tell you. But answering your specific question: Since I’m not a sailor—don’t know port from larboard—am not a gob, in other words—and since the regular Army and Air Service are ample to protect the Western coast—I won’t even be invited to be in it.”

  “Merciful heavens, Billy!” she ejaculated. “And that’s—that’s what the papers are talking about? And all of this—came up in the last 6 months? Can’t—can’t it be averted?”

  He shook his head firmly. “It appears not. Not a chance! Or at best, about as much chance as your Mitzi has of playing its one week on Broadway—and on Randolph Street, Chicago—and its other 18 cities—with Hoggenheimer accepting only comedies, and a million professional writers ag’in’ you.”

  “But what,” the girl asked bewilderedly, “what has caused this locking of horns, Billy, between two great Powers?”

  He laughed bitterly.

  “A trauma, my dear! The wounded vanity of a woman. Because of which we have to go through the bloodiest old conflict this side of the globe has ever seen!”

  CHAPTER VI

  Charley Lee Hears Bad News

  Charley Lee, whose peculiar unfortunate status among his own Chinese race was known as cheng-fong-gwai—or, literally translated: “same-like-foreign-devil-and-not-of-us”—made his way slowly and painstakingly along the sixth-floor corridor of the Otis Building. His slowness was due partly to the cane he carried in his hand. And partly to other things. Three months ago he might have swung briskly and energetically along this same corridor—but not tonight, for one leg was now shorter than the other, and the longer leg was hideously gnarled—its bones held none too well together in seven places by silver plates and screws. The tall cheval-like mirror obligingly set in the marble-paneled wall at the first turn of the corridor—no doubt for the use of pretty stenographers hurrying out at noontimes for lunch—showed a quite pleasant-faced young Chinese of about 30, dressed neatly in an unobtrusive blue serge suit, with eyes that though oblique were kindly. The lobe of his right ear was entirely missing, as though torn off; and across his chin was a long thin scar whose whiteness contrasted vividly with the citron complexion which it marred.

  Proceeding along thus, he studied each transom in turn, and finally stopped in front of one which bore the number 696. Although it was 11 o’clock at night, the transom was brightly lighted, as was the ground-glass panel beneath. Lowering his gaze, he stood for a fraction of a second, reading the inscription painted on that ground-glass panel. And which read, simply:

  ENOCH TRIGG

  Attorney-at-Law

  Charley Lee turned the knob and walked in. An elderly man in a bat-wing collar, with iron-gray hair and eyes framed in heavy gold-rimmed spectacles, looked up from an old-time roll-top desk where he was shuffling over several papers.

  “Charley!” he exclaimed. “Charley Lee! Didn’t expect to see you back in the land of walking people for at least a couple of days yet. Did you leave the hospital before my letter reached there? Still—” He glanced at a clock ticking away on the wall, as though the time of night for this call quite precluded that possibility. He rose hastily and placed a chair for his visitor. “Here, boy—and you are a boy yet to me, Charley—30, aren’t you now?—yes—sit down. You don’t look a bit strong yet.”

  “No, I’m not,” adm
itted the younger man, sinking into the chair with a sigh of relief. “But regarding that letter, Mr. Trigg, it’s worrying me. It reached me late yesterday afternoon, just as I was pulling out of the hospital. And so since you said that you and your partner would be out of town all day today, but would be back in the evening working till ’way after midnight tonight on some special case for tomorrow, I—I came on down as fast—as fast as a pair of hopelessly damaged pins could bring me. It’s bad news, I’ll warrant. Else you wouldn’t—” He broke off. “Gad, Mr. Trigg—don’t forget I’ve been on my back for three months, and that—that money was absolutely my last dependence.”

  For several minutes the lawyer stared from the window out into the blackness of LaSalle Street without speaking. Then, as though to defer something unpleasant that had to be said, he drew over a note-pad.

  “First—give me your new address, Charley. Where did you locate?”

  “I got myself a cheap room down on North Clark Street near the river,” the Chinese replied. “A rooming-house that doesn’t object to my color. Number 535 and Room No. 26.”

  Trigg wrote the street and number carefully down and filed it in one of the pigeonholes of his desk. He stared troubledly off into space a minute. Then he reached into another one of the pigeonholes of the desk, and withdrew a narrow packet of papers.

  “Charley, I’m afraid it is bad news,” he stated, a look of pity lighting up his face for a bare instant as he caught sight of Charley Lee’s oblique brown eyes staring at him so eagerly. “Not good news at any rate, Charley, not good news.” He paused, studying the papers. “Do you mind if I recount for Joseph—Joe Winship—my partner, you know—the facts—just as they stand? And carry matters up to the occurrence of day before yesterday—which same occurrence, Charley, caused me to drop that letter to you? Joe would have to look after the filing of various papers on your matter anyway, you know. As I’m going out of town again for a week.”