Death of a Celebrity E-Book

Hulbert Footner

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Many guys wanted the playwright, Gavin Dordress, to die. Especially on the night of his party. Gail Garrett and Bea Townley openly quarreled for the main role in the play. The next morning Gavin Dordress was found shot to death, a chessman imprinted on his forehead, and nearby a letter of farewell that sounded suspiciously like one of his stage characters speaking. Then a new and amazing hint hastened the seemingly hopeless hunt.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER I

MISS GAIL GARRETT, accompanied by her elderly maid, Catherine, was on her way to dinner at Gavin Dordress’. She was appearing in Robert Greenfield’s play. White Orchids, at the time, and the party had been arranged for Sunday night to suit her convenience. She had not the expression of one who is looking forward to a good time. In the seclusion of the car her beautiful face was tense and stormy. When the cab stopped, she saw several men with square boxes hanging around the apartment house door, and she hesitated before getting out. “Press photographers? Who do you suppose tipped them off? Gavin wouldn’t.”

“They always seem to know where you’re going to be, Miss,” said Catherine.

It was a small apartment house, one tenant to a floor, and there was nobody to open the door of the car. “I don’t see why Gavin lives in such a dump,” grumbled Miss Garrett. “He doesn’t have to. Get out first and keep my skirt off the running- board.”

Catherine obeyed. Miss Garrett settled the collar of her ermine coat more becomingly around her neck, and assumed the famous smile. When she had descended, Catherine closed the door of the car, and hung behind so that she would not spoil the pictures. All the photographers tried to crowd in front of the star simultaneously. “Walk slowly,” said one. “Give us a chance.” Another was crying: “Look at me, Miss Garrett. Look at me!”

She smiled, the bulbs flashed; they made way for her, and she entered the building. As the sober Catherine followed, one of the young men winked at her broadly. “Hi, Toots!” he said softly.

Catherine glared at him, and all the young men laughed.

The entrance door led directly into a small, square foyer with a single elevator. The operator was a sharp-featured young white man with an insinuating smile. As soon as he had closed the elevator door, he turned around, saying: “Good-evening, Miss Garrett. Hope it’s not a liberty, but I seen you in your play on Thursday night. It was swell!”

Gail smiled automatically. “Thank you.” He went on: “If you would give me your autograph, Miss Garrett, I would value it above anything I own.” From his pocket he produced a fountain pen and a little pad. “I can’t write with my gloves on.”

“Sure you can! Plenty good enough.”

“Didn’t I give you my autograph before?”

“No, Miss,” he said with an open-eyed candour that was a little overdone. “Must have been one of the other boys.”

“Watch your car!” said Catherine nervously.

“That’s all right. She stops automatic at the top.”

At that moment the car did stop. As the operator still stood offering her the pen and the pad, Gail took them and scribbled her name as the quickest way of getting rid of him. “He had a nerve!” muttered Catherine when the elevator door closed.

“I am the servant of the public,” murmured Gail plaintively.

The door of the apartment was opened, not by Gavin’s Hillman, but a man engaged for the evening.

From the foyer double glass doors led into a sunroom which was filled with growing plants and had a little fountain playing in the middle. It was the penthouse which had attracted Gavin to the otherwise undistinguished apartment house on Madison Avenue. He had leased it while the building was still going up, and had designed the big sunroom after his own ideas. One side of it, filled with glass, made an immense how jutting into the roof- garden. Gavin was in the sunroom now, mixing a cocktail at a portable bar. Gail waved her hand to him and turned aside in the corridor leading to the bedrooms.

“You needn’t trouble to show me,” she said to the servant. “I know the way.”

In the guest-room Catherine took her mistress’ cape, and handed her what she required from the little dressing-case the maid carried. Gail studied herself in the mirror with the anxiety of a beauty of forty-three. Her figure was still willowy, but after forty, blonde hair, no matter what you do to it, is apt to betray. She was wearing a virginal dress of white chiffon with puffs at the shoulders and a skirt shirred in tiers. The tense look in her eyes displeased her.

“Eye-drops,” she said, and Catherine got out the bottle and the dropper.

“How do I look?” asked Gail when this operation was finished.

“Lovely, Miss,” said Catherine. “White suits you so well!”

“That’s what you always say,” grumbled Gail, “whether I am wearing black or red or green.”

Catherine primmed her lips a little. It was as if she had said: “Then why ask?”

“You may go now,” said Gail. “Tell Martin I shan’t want him again to-night. I’ll taxi home.”

“Is it safe?” murmured Catherine.

“If not, somebody will bring me.”

When she entered the sunroom Gavin came to meet her. He was frankly forty-five and handsomer than he had ever been, the lines in his face were lines of distinction.

“Lovely!” he murmured, picking up her hand and conveying it to his lips.

Gait’s smile became tight. “Only my hand?” she said.

“The servant is still in sight.”

She looked over her shoulder. “He’s gone now.”

He pressed her lips lightly with his own.

A flicker of anger crossed Gail’s face. “It wasn’t always like that,” she said.

“I didn’t want to rumple you, my dear.”

“Ah, don’t make pretences! I can see through you perfectly!”

“Cigarette?” he said, offering the box.

“No!” She immediately changed her mind, and helped herself. She turned away, and glancing in a mirror, tried to smooth her face out. “You can’t make me quarrel with you,” she said.

“I’m not trying to.” He was smiling broadly and that angered her afresh.

She struggled with it. “How about the new play? Is it finished?”

“All but,” he said. “In another week.”

“Tell me about it.”

“My dear,” he protested, “you know I never talk about my work. Wasn’t it Stevenson who said you must never show unfinished work to anybody?”

“That’s not what Stevenson said. He said never show unfinished work to women or fools.”

“Well, I never show it to anybody.”

“So you say. Mack Townley has announced that he is going to produce the play in January.”

“That’s the usual press stuff. Mack knows no more about the play than its title: The Changeling.”

“Do you mean to say he is willing to produce it sight unseen?”

“Well, after we have been working together for eighteen years that’s not very strange...Cocktail?”

“No, thank you.”

“I have got to the age where I need it.”

“This talk of your growing old is all nonsense,” said Gail angrily. “It doesn’t fool me.”

“You’re wrong,” said Gavin, holding his glass up to the light. “It’s the cause of the misunderstanding between us. I am getting old.”

She bit her lip.

“Well, never mind that...Am I to have the leading part in the new play?”

“Ah, don’t let’s talk business,” said Gavin cajolingly.

“I insist on an answer! That’s why I came early. You never give me a chance to see you alone. I have to make my plans as well as Mack Townley.”

“There is no part in it worthy of you,” said Gavin. “It’s a man’s play.”

“There must be a woman in it, or it wouldn’t be your play.”

“The only important woman’s part is that of a young girl.”

Gail flung her cigarette violently on the floor.

“I thought so! I thought so!” she cried. “Why don’t you say right out that I’m too old to act in your plays!”

“Gail, for God’s sake!” he remonstrated.

She looked more than her age now. The repulsion that she could see in his eyes made her worse.

“So this is what I get for having given you the best years of my life! For having devoted all my art to making you famous! You owe your fame to me! To me! Do you hear? Where would you have been if I had not breathed life into the silly puppets in your plays?”

Gavin’s face hardened. “You are a great actress,” he said. “I have never failed to acknowledge my debt to you...But just now you are making a show of yourself.”

“How dare you!” she gasped. “O God, that I should live to hear a man speak to me like that! I won’t bear it! I won’t...!”

He seized her wrists to make her listen to him.

“There are strange servants in the flat,” he said. “Do you want to read all this in the gossip columns tomorrow?”

“I don’t care! I don’t care!” she cried; nevertheless she lowered her voice. The husky tones were venomous. “I’m not going to take this from you! I’m not the sort of woman who can be chucked aside like an old hat. I’ll show you up. I’ll ruin you! O God! How I hate you! Smug and sneering as you are...”

Gavin put in mildly: “I never sneered at anybody in my life.”

“You lie! You’re sneering now! I could kill you for the way you’ve used me! I could kill you...!”

A bell sounded in the distance. Gail caught her breath on a gasp, and running out, turned towards the guest-room at the end of the corridor. She passed the manservant on his way to the entrance door. Gavin poured another cocktail.

Emmett Gundy, the novelist, and his friend, Luella Kip, were on their way to Gavin Dordress’ apartment in a taxicab. Emmett was bundled up in a blue rumble-seat coat belted around the waist, the only one of that colour in New York, he claimed. With the collar turned up and his hat-brim snapped down in front, all that could be seen of him were his glittering dark eyes, and small, carefully-trained moustache. Louella was one of the army of free-lance writers who somehow managed to scrape a living without ever becoming known to the public. A little, faded woman with a harassed expression, she looked twenty years older than Emmett, but they were in fact the same age. Emmett looked her over critically. “That dress has seen better days,” he remarked.

“Well, you know the state of my wardrobe,” said Louella philosophically. “It’s the best I have. Mr. Dordress is a friendly man. He won’t care.”

“There will be others present.”

“If you are ashamed of my appearance you shouldn’t have brought me,” said Louella, plucking up spirit.

“Gavin invited you. I merely conveyed the invitation.”

“Were you hoping I would decline?” she asked quietly.

He did not answer her.

“Gavin will be friendly enough if you flatter him,” he said bitterly. “He doesn’t care who it comes from.”

“He doesn’t need flattery,” said Louella. “He’s at the top of his profession.”

“You would say that. Just to be disagreeable. You mean that he makes more money than any other playwright of the day. Money isn’t everything. As a matter of fact, Gavin Dordress hasn’t a spark of original talent. What he has is a talent for publicity. He understands the politics of the theatre. He knows what wires to pull. It is Gail Garrett and Mack Townley who have made him.”

“Everybody else says that it was Gavin Dordress who made them.”

“O, I dare say! Nothing succeeds like success. He’s got you going like all the other women. Gavin has made his way step by step through using women. A male charmer, that’s what he is.”

“How can you say such a thing?” she murmured.

“But he can’t fool me,” Emmett went on. “I’ve known him too long. I’ve known him since he was a half-baked frosh in college.”

“You were a freshman, too, then.”

“Sure; but I made good. I was famous before I graduated from college. My first book sold forty thousand copies. It was four or five years after that before Gavin even got a production. His first play was a complete flop.”

“I hate to hear you talk about him like that,” murmured Louella. “Your oldest friend!”

“Sure, he’s my friend. So what?”

“It sounds as if you hated him.”

“Don’t be silly. I see him as he is, that’s all. He can’t pull any wool over my eyes.” Emmett laughed bitterly. “I’ve got to hand it to Gavin for his cleverness. I only wish I could get away with it. It doesn’t pay to be sincere. Tripe is what they want, and tripe is what they pay for!”

This started Louella’s thoughts in a new direction.

“What did Middlebrook say about your novel?” she asked.

“He was keen to publish it,” said Emmett, “but I told him to go to hell.”

“Why?” she asked blankly.

“Because he suggested certain changes that showed he completely misunderstood it. I took the script and walked out.”

“O, Emmett!”

“Well, do you expect me to prostitute myself to an ignorant fool like Middlebrook? He’s a butcher, not a publisher. He buys and sells novels by the pound-like the tripe they are!”

“What will you do?” she murmured. “What will we both do?”

“Have you been turned down, too?” he asked sharply. “Your articles for the Metropolitan?”

“No,” she said sadly. “I give them what they want. I have no talent, so it doesn’t matter. But they have reduced my rate. There are so many younger writers in the field.”

“Middlebrook is not the only publisher,” growled Emmett.

“But the novel has been turned down so many times!”

“Gavin could help me if he wanted to,” said Emmett sorely. “With a recommendation from him any publisher would bring it out.”

“Have you asked him?”

“Sure, he’s read the script.”

“What did he say?”

“He intimated that he didn’t think much of it. O, very delicately, of course. Suggested that I try something else. Pure professional jealousy. He is enough of a writing man to recognise real talent when he sees it. You can hardly blame him. Said that novels were a bit out of his line, and offered me a hundred to tide me over.”

“Another hundred?”

“Well, why not? What’s a lousy hundred to Gavin? He makes a hundred thousand a year.”

“But it mounts up so. How will you ever pay him back?”

“That’s the least of my troubles.”

“Emmett,” she said earnestly, “let’s start in on your script to-morrow and go over it chapter by chapter...”

“So you think I can no longer write,” he said harshly. “You, too!”

“No, Emmett, no! I believe in you. I shall always believe in you.”

“You think you can teach me how to write!”

“No I have no talent. I have never had any illusions about that. But I’ve been through a hard school. I know what the public wants. At least I know what they say the public wants. If we could just fix this novel up so you could get an advance on it, you could bring it out under another name if you were ashamed of it.”

“That would be artistic suicide.”

“But you must live! Gavin Dordress will get tired of lending you money. It’s only human nature.”

“Is that a way of saying that you’re getting tired of helping me out?”

Louella lowered her head. “Emmett, how can you say such things to me? After all these years!”

“For God’s sake, don’t turn on the waterworks,” he said irritably, “or you will look a sight when we get there.” He lit a cigarette.

Louella dried her eyes. After a moment or two she returned to the charge. “You see, if you could somehow wangle an advance on this novel, it would give you the time to write something really fine; something they would have to take.”

“I have never allowed anybody to tell me what I ought to write,” he said harshly, “and certainly I’m not going to begin now. Please change the subject.”

“If there could only be some understanding between us, these troubles would be easy to hear,” she murmured. “What would we care if...if...”

“O, for God’s sake, don’t get emotional!” he said. “We’re almost there!”

After a silence Louella said very low: “I suppose you look on me as a drag on you now. If I were strong enough I ought to leave you.”

“So you’re talking about deserting me now,” he-said. “I thought we were leading up to that.”

She put her hand over his-briefly. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll never leave you...unless you wish me to.”

The car stopped. “Press photographers?” she said uneasily.

Emmett turned down the collar of his coat. “Gavin Dordress doesn’t often entertain,” he said. “Naturally it has news value.”

“How did they know about it?”

“Well, I tipped them off if you must know. Won’t do me any harm to be shot as a guest of the great man-...You go in first. It’s me they want.”

The photographers glanced indifferently at Miss Kip and Mr. Gundy. Louella disappeared within the apartment house, while Emmett lingered on the step as if he wanted a last puff or two at his cigarette. “Well, boys,” he said pleasantly. “Always on the job!”

“Are you a friend of Gavin Dordress?” asked one.

“The oldest friend he’s got,” said Emmett with a careless air. “So what?”

They focused their cameras, and set off the flashes while Emmett nonchalantly flipped the ash from his cigarette. “What name?” asked the young photographer who had first spoken. “Emmett Gundy. Emmett with two t’s, please.”

“What’s your line, brother?” asked another photographer.

Emmet looked at him coldly. “Novelist,” he said. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

He went on into the apartment house and the four young men grinned at each other. The one whom Emmett had rebuked asked: “Is this guy Gundy such a muchness?”

“Nan,” said another. “I seem to remember that he wrote a novel of college life way back before the war. That was before I was breeched.”

“It’s always the way with these has-beens.”

CHAPTER II

SIEBERT ACKROYD and Cynthia Dordress were driving up the Avenue from Washington Square in Siebert’s little convertible with the top down. It was a typical November night, cold, with sparkling stars. Cynthia was enveloped in a beaver coat, Gavin’s gift, and had a chiffon veil around her trim head to keep her hair in place. When her hair was covered, it emphasized the clean, pure line of her profile. Siebert was a big young man with strongly-marked features and a look of resolution that verged on impatience. Most men, seeing the look in his eye, addressed him politely. “What a night!” he said. “I wish we could drive right through until morning, without having to go to that silly party at your Dad’s.”

“Dad’s parties are not silly,” said Cynthia.

“By morning we could be in Virginia,” murmured Siebert. “You are sweet enough to eat.”

“Long before morning we should be quarrelling.” said Cynthia.

“Well, is it my fault that we always seem to get in a quarrel?”

“Is it mine?” countered Cynthia.

“Let’s not start anything now,” said Siebert quickly. “Let me put the case to you in a matter-of-fact way without any heat or passion. I am horribly in love with you. I have gone all out. To be beside you like this is heaven for me. Does that make you sore?”

“Of course not,” she said in a softened voice.

“You have me to make or break,” he went on. “You come between me and everything. Naturally, such a state of suspense is hell on earth. I am good for nothing.”

“That seems a little excessive to me,” said Cynthia.

“Excessive!” he exclaimed. “Do you want a half portion of love? Do you wish that I wasn’t completely in love with you?”

“No...yes...I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it would be better for you it you weren’t.”

“Do you love me back again?”

“Well, yes, in a way.”

“In a way!...In a way!” he muttered, pounding a fist on his thigh. “That’s what gets me! How can any warm-blooded person be in love ‘m a way’?”

“Well, it hasn’t swamped my intelligence,” said Cynthia.

“Meaning that it has mine.”

“Now you’re beginning to quarrel.”

“No! No!” he said quickly. “I am perfectly cool and reasonable. I’m trying to get to the bottom of this. I’m head over heels in love with you, and you love me ‘m a way’; why don’t we get married?”

“I’ve told you so many times...”

“Yes, but always with anger and insults. Consequently it wasn’t convincing. Let’s talk it over calmly. We could afford to get married. My agency is only a small affair, but it’s solidly founded because I only accept authors for my clients who have something in them, and I do so well for them they will never leave me. Year by year it is bound to pay better. O, God! to think of having a home! To come home to you at night...”

“You forgot that I have my job, too, at the clinic.”

“I admit I am jealous of your job,” said Siebert “You are not hard-boiled enough to deal with sick people all day. It takes too much out of you.”

“I have the feeling of being useful,” said Cynthia. “There is nothing to beat it.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you worked at home. You should write like your father, and let me be your agent.”

“I have no talent for writing.”

“Well, I concede the job at the clinic,” he said. “We can afford a good servant. Don’t you want a home, too? Wouldn’t it be lovely to meet in our own home after work and be together until we went to work again?”

“Yes,” said Cynthia a little faintly; “but...”

“Then why don’t we do it?” Taking a hand from the wheel he felt for Cynthia’s hand, but she drew it back out of reach.

“This is where we begin to quarrel,” she said sadly. “Not to- night,” said Siebert. “You couldn’t make me mad.”

“This longing to be together,” she murmured, “this love, doesn’t last-or at least it changes very much. All older people, all books tell you that.”

“The heck with them!” said Siebert. “I will never change.”

“And when it changes, we’ve got to have something more solid to go on with.”

“Time will take care of that.”

“You are simply refusing to face things. That’s what brings couples to Reno.”

“Cyn, for God’s sake, if we love each other, why go behind it?”

“You’re such a boy!” she murmured.

“Is that where I fall short?”

“Yes. I see through you too clearly. You’re no wiser than I am. You never surprise me.”

“Well, I’m damned!” he muttered. And after a silence, grimly: “I could surprise you all right, if I didn’t love you so damned much!”

“I shall never marry,” said Cynthia, “unless some man wants me who I feel is bigger and cleverer than myself, and who has reserves that I cannot enter into.”

“In other words, a Gavin Dordress,” he said with extreme bitterness.

“Now you’re just being hateful.”

“This feeling for your father is ridiculous!”

“It’s not ridiculous; it’s only unusual. The circumstances are unusual. It’s just a year ago since I saw my father for the first time. My mother was a foolish, light-headed woman. She was jealous of his popularity and his fame. Soon after I was born she divorced him, and regretted it as long as she lived. She kept me away from him, and he made no effort to see me because, as he has told me since, he thought the most important thing was not to come between a child and its mother. Her bitterness against him was pathological, and naturally I absorbed it. I grew up thinking of him as a kind of monster.

“When I did go to see him after my mother’s death, it was not with any idea of finding a father; I simply meant to use him as a means of getting on in the world. And then when I saw him and talked to him...O, Siebert! I thought I was hiding my hatred and bitterness, but of course he instantly saw it, though he made believe not to. He was so funny and human and casual; so honest! Not like a father at all, but somebody my own age. I felt a sympathy and understanding such as I had never known in my mother. Yet he didn’t make any effort to win me over, but just let me alone. All my defences went down immediately. I wanted to grovel before him then. I felt as if it would take the rest of my life to make up for the way I misjudged him.”

“Well, that’s all right,” said Siebert grudgingly. “Gavin’s a right guy. He’s your father. He doesn’t conflict with me. I aim to be your husband.” He laughed, not very mirthfully. “A fellow is heavily handicapped in marrying the daughter of such a superman, but I’ll chance it.”

Cynthia did not respond to the laugh. “You don’t understand,” she said. “During the past year my father has given me an ideal that I-well, I couldn’t take anything less than my ideal, could I?”

Siebert glanced at her in dismay. “Cynthia!”

“You asked for the plain truth,” she cried, “and there it is!”

“Damn Gavin Dordress!” he said savagely.

“I hate you when you talk like that!” said Cynthia, teething. “You are merely coarse and shallow! You understand nothing!”

“Damn him!” said Siebert. “I hate him!”

Cynthia was near tears then. “You knew him before I came on the scene. It was at his place that I first met you. You were his friend.”

“Sure, I was his friend. I don’t mean to say that Gavin is a crook or anything. But if he comes between me and you I hate him! It’s a natural feeling and I’m not ashamed of it. Damn him! I say. I’m no pious saint to turn the other cheek. If anybody hurts me I’m going to strike back!”

“Well, I’m glad you have shown yourself in your true colours!” said Cynthia.

“God! I’d like to shake you!” groaned Siebert. “I’d like to shake some sense into your silly head!”

“Really!” said Cynthia.

They drove up in front of Gavin’s house. “I suppose we’ve got to sit through this damn dinner,” he growled.

“I’ll see that you’re not placed beside me,” said Cynthia.

“Go on in,” he said. “I’ll find a parking place and follow.”

The bulbs flashed as Miss Dordress crossed the sidewalk.

“Hold your head up!” yelled the photographers, but she only pressed it lower. When Siebert followed a few minutes later, one said:

“Wipe off that scowl, brother.”

“Go to hell,” said Siebert. The bulbs flashed anyhow.

“Miss Dordress’ escort,” said a voice. “What’s the name, please?”

“Julius Caesar,” said Siebert.

CHAPTER III

THOUGH he was not a tall man and far from slender, Amos Lee Mappin stepped out with a good stride, and little Fanny Parran, clinging to his arm, was obliged almost to trot to keep up. Fanny’s littleness, her dimples, her blonde curls and her lisp gave her the artless charm of a child, but a man who assumed to talk baby-talk to her was apt to get a shock.

She said: “On the level, Pop, you didn’t wangle this invitation for me, did you? Was it Mr. Dordress’ very own idea to ask me?”

“Absolutely,” said Lee. “He said to me: ‘Lee, I’m short of a female for Sunday night. Do you think that cheeky little secretary of yours would condescend to accept an invitation?”

“Go on, Pop!” said Fanny. “Mr. Dordress never said that. He is too dignified.”

“You don’t know the half of it, my child. Of course I couldn’t swear to his exact words, but that was the sense of it.”

“O, dear!” said Fanny after a moment. “I suppose he does think I’m pretty fresh.”

“Well, he’s considered a good judge of human nature.”

“I didn’t tell you what happened that day he came to your office, Pop. I was ashamed.”

“Good God! Did you assault the man?”

“Don’t try to be funny!...You see, the Police Commissioner was with you, and Mr. Dordress had to wait a few minutes in the outer room. He looked at me in such a friendly way, I mean as if I was a human being, and not just a piece of office furniture, and we got to talking. I can’t tell you just how it came about-I was fussed, you see, at being noticed by the great man, and I heard myself saying: ‘Mr. Dordress, I think the women in your plays are terrible!’”

Lee chuckled. “Not a bad opening. And what did Gavin say?”

“He said: ‘I think so too!’”

Lee laughed aloud. “It is undoubtedly to that that you owe your invitation to dinner. Gavin is fed up with women who throw fits over him. Strange as it may seem, he’s a modest man.”

“How kind of him to ask little me!” said Fanny “Do I look all right, Pop? I won’t disgrace you?”

“You do, and you will not,” said Lee calmly. “You know that very well already, so stop insulting my intelligence.”

“Some men wouldn’t force me to fish for compliments,” said Fanny.

“I’m your boss, not your boy friend.”

“Who will be there besides us?”

“I gather it’s a kind of class reunion; Yale ‘13. Mack Townley and his new wife...”

“That’s Beatrice Ellerman. She’s beautiful.”

“Hm!” said Lee.

“Don’t you like her, Pop?”

“A man never likes the young wives of his old friends. I think she’s taking Mack for a ride.”

“But surely, with his experience he ought to know what he’s doing. After all the beautiful actresses he has hired and fired in his productions.”

“That’s just it. Over-confidence. Mack thinks he knows the sex. A man can’t have his guard up all the time. She watched him until he lowered it, and pinked him! No man is safe.”

“You have escaped.”

“That’s because I know my own weakness. I never try conclusions with a woman. I run away.”

“Have you never been in love?”

“Never! I would as soon toy with a cobra!”

“I think you’re lying!...Who else will be there?”

“Emmett Gundy.”

“Who’s he?”

“Another one of our classmates. He writes novels. At least, I suppose he still does. I haven’t seen anything from his pen lately. In college Emmett was considered the brightest of the lot. But he seems to have flashed in the pan.”

“Who is asked for him?”

“I don’t know. Years ago Emmett had a girl called Louella Kip. Sweet little thing, and absolutely devoted to him. I have forgotten whether he married her. Gavin keeps up with him.”

“You four were special friends in college?”

“Yes, pretty close. But in a little gang like that there are always fellows who pair off. Gavin and I were the closest. We had been to prep school together. Great days! Seems like yesterday. How well I remember when we discovered the Phoenician alphabet in an old book. For years we used to correspond in it.”

“Your class was quite a distinguished one,” said Fanny, “what with Gavin Dordress and Mr. Townley and this novelist whoever he is.”

“Gavin Dordress is the only real star we produced.”

“O, I don’t know, Pop, you’re not so dusty. Of course, you haven’t an immense popular following like Gavin Dordress, because you’re a specialist. But you’re known, your books sell. You’re at the head of your speciality.”

“Crime, eh?”

“I love it!” said Fanny. “How did you come to adopt crime, Pop?”

“I suppose it’s because I’m such a mild man...And of course Gavin’s daughter and her young man will be there,” he went on.

“He’s cute,” said Fanny.

“Quite!” said Lee. “Six foot two of cuteness!”

“And what lady will Mr. Dordress ask for himself?”

“O, Gail Garrett, of course.”

“Why ‘of course’? Is that still going on?”

“I don’t understand you.”