The star producers
Mr. Homer Quarterstone was not, to be candid, a name to conjure with in the world of the Theatre. It must be admitted that his experience behind the footlights was not entirely confined to that immortal line: "Dinner is served." As a matter of fact, he had once said "The Baron is here" and "Will there be anything further, madam?" in the same act; and in another never-to-be-forgotten drama which had run for eighteen performances on Broadway, he had taken part in the following classic dialogue:
Nick: Were you here? Jenkins (Mr. Homer Quarterstone) : No sir. Nick: Did you hear anything? Jenkins: No sir. Nick: A hell of a lot of use you are. Jenkins: Yes sir. (Exit, carrying tray.)
In the executive line, Mr. Quarterstone's career had been marked by the same magnanimous emphasis on service rather than personal glory. He had not actually produced any spectacles of resounding success but he had contributed his modest quota to their triumph by helping to carry chairs and tables on to the stage and arrange them according to the orders of the scenic director. And although he had not actually given his personal guidance to any of the financial manoeuvres associated with theatrical production, he had sat in the box office at more than one one-night stand, graciously controlling the passage over the counter of those fundamental monetary items without which the labours of more egotistical financiers would have been fruitless.
Nevertheless, while it is true that the name of Quarterstone had never appeared in any headlines, and that his funeral cortege would never have attracted any distinguished pallbearers, he had undoubtedly found the Theatre more profitable than many other men to whom it had given fame.
He was a man of florid complexion and majestic bearing, with a ripe convexity under his waistcoat and a forehead that arched glisteningly back to the scruff of his neck; and he had a taste for black homburgs and astrakhan-collared overcoats which gave an impression of great artistic prosperity. This prosperity was by no means illusory, for Mr. Homer Quarterstone, in his business capacity, was now the principal, president, director, owner and twenty-five percent of the staff of the Supremax Academy of Dramatic Art, which according to its frequent advertisements had been the training ground, the histrionic hothouse, so to speak, of many stars whose names were now household words from the igloos of Greenland to the tents of the wandering Bedouin. And the fact that Mr. Quarterstone had not become the principal, president, director, owner, etc., of the Supremax Academy until several years after the graduation of those illustrious personages, when in a period of unaccustomed affluence and unusually successful borrowing he had purchased the name and good will of an idealistic but moribund concern, neither deprived him of the legal right to make that claim in his advertising nor hampered the free flow of his imagination when he was expounding his own experience and abilities to prospective clients.
Simon Templar, who sooner or later made the acquaintance of practically everyone who was collecting too much money with too little reason, heard of him first from Rosalind Hale, who had been one of those clients; and she brought him her story for the same reason that many other people who had been foolish would often come to Simon Templar with their troubles, as if the words "The Saint" had some literally supernatural significance, instead of being merely the nickname with which he had once incongruously been christened.
"I thought it was only the sensible thing to do — to get some proper training — and his advertisements looked genuine. You wouldn't think those film stars would let him use their names for a fraud, would you?
…I suppose I was a fool, but I'd played in some amateur things, and people who weren't trying to flatter me said I was good, and I really believed I'd got it in me, sort of instinctively. And some of the people who believe they've got it in them must be right, and they must do something about it, or else there wouldn't be any actors and actresses at all, would there?… And really I'm — I — well, I don't make you shudder when you look at me, do I?"
This at least was beyond argument, unless the looker was a crusted misogynist, which the Saint very firmly was not. She had an almost childishly heart-shaped face, with small features that were just far enough from perfection to be exciting, and her figure had just enough curves in just the right places.
The Saint smiled at her without any cynicism.
"And when you came into this money…"
"Well, it looked just like the chance I'd been dreaming about. But I still wanted to be intelligent about it and not go dashing off to Hollywood to turn into a waitress, or spend my time sitting in producers' waiting rooms hoping they'd notice me and just looking dumb when they asked if I had any experience, or anything like that. That's why I went to Quarterstone. And he said I'd got everything, and I only wanted a little schooling. I paid him five hundred dollars for a course of lessons, and then another five hundred for an advanced course, and then another five hundred for a movie course and by that time he'd been talking to me so that he'd found out all about that legacy, and that was when his friend came in and they got me to give them four thousand dollars to put that play on."
"In which you were to play the lead."
"Yes, and—"
"The play never did go on."
She nodded, and the moistness of her eyes made them shine like jewels. She might not have been outstandingly intelligent, she might or might not have had any dramatic talent, but her own drama was real. She was crushed, frightened, dazed, wounded in the deep and desperate way that a child is hurt when it has innocently done something disastrous, as if she was still too stunned to realize what she had done.
Some men might have laughed, but the Saint didn't laugh. He said in his quiet friendly way: "I suppose you checked up on your legal position?"
"Yes. I went to see a lawyer. He said there wasn't anything I could do. They'd been too clever. I couldn't prove that I'd been swindled. There really was a play and it could have been put on, only the expenses ran away with all the money before that, and I hadn't got any more, and apparently that often happens, and you couldn't prove it was a fraud. I just hadn't read the contracts and things properly when I signed them, and Urlaub — that's Quarterstone's friend — was entitled to spend all that money, and even if he was careless and stupid you couldn't prove it was criminal… I suppose it was my own fault and I've no right to cry about it, but it was everything I had, and I'd given up my job as well, and — well, things have been pretty tough. You know."
He nodded, straightening a cigarette with his strong brown fingers.
All at once the consciousness of what she was doing now seemed to sweep over her, leaving her tongue-tied. She had to make an effort to get out the last words that everything else had inevitably been leading up to.
"I know I'm crazy and I've no right, but could you — could you think of anything to do about it?"
He went on looking at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then, incredulously, she suddenly realized that he was smiling, and that his smile was still without satire.
"I could try," he said.
He stood up, long immaculately tailored legs gathering themselves with the lazy grace of a tiger, and all at once she found something in his blue eyes that made all the legends about him impossible to question. It was as if he had lifted all the weight off her shoulders without another word when he stood up.
"One of the first things I should prescribe is a man-sized lunch," he said. "A diet of doughnuts and coffee never produced any great ideas."
When he left her it was still without any more promises, and yet with a queer sense of certainty that was more comforting than any number of promises.
The Saint himself was not quite so certain; but he was interested, which perhaps meant more. He had that impetuously human outlook which judged an adventure on its artistic quality rather than on the quantity of boodle which it might contribute to his unlawful income. He liked Rosalind Hale, and he disliked men such as Mr. Homer Quarterstone and Comrade Urlaub sounded as if they would be; more than that, perhaps, he disliked rackets that preyed on people to whom a loss of four thousand dollars was utter tragedy. He set out that same afternoon to interview Mr. Quarter-stone.
The Supremax Academy occupied the top floor and one room on the street level of a sedate old-fashioned building in the West Forties; but the entrance was so cunningly arranged and the other intervening tenants so modestly unheralded that any impressionable visitor who presented himself first at the ground-floor room labelled "Inquiries," and who was thence whisked expertly into the elevator and upwards to the rooms above, might easily have been persuaded that the whole building was taken up with various departments of the Academy, a hive buzzing with ambitious Thespian bees. The brassy but once luscious blonde who presided in the Inquiry Office lent tone to this idea by saying that Mr. Quarterstone was busy, very busy, and that it was customary to make appointments with him some days in advance; when she finally organized the interview it was with the regal generosity of a slightly flirtatious goddess performing a casual miracle for an especially favoured and deserving suitor — a beautifully polished routine that was calculated to impress prospective clients from the start with a gratifying sense of their own importance.
Simon Templar was always glad of a chance to enjoy his own importance, but on this occasion he regretfully had to admit that so much flattery was undeserved, for instead of his own name he had cautiously given the less notorious name of Tombs. This funereal anonymity, however, cast no shadow over the warmth of Mr. Quarterstone's welcome.
"My dear Mr. Tombs! Come in. Sit down. Have a cigarette."
Mr. Quarterstone grasped him with large warm hands, wrapped him up, transported him tenderly and installed him in an armchair like a collector enshrining a priceless piece of fragile glass. He fluttered anxiously round him, pressing a cigarette into the Saint's mouth and lighting it before he retired reluctantly to his own chair on the other side of the desk.
"And now, my dear Mr. Tombs," said Mr. Quarter-stone at last, clasping his hands across his stomach, "how can I help you?"
Simon looked at his hands, his feet, the carpet, the wall and then at Mr. Quarterstone.
"Well," he said bashfully, "I wanted to inquire about some dramatic lessons."
"Some — ah — oh yes. You mean a little advanced coaching. A little polishing of technique?"
"Oh no," said the Saint hastily. "I mean, you know your business, of course, but I'm only a beginner."
Mr. Quarterstone sat up a little straighter and gazed at him.
"You're only a beginner?" he repeated incredulously.
"Yes."
"You mean to tell me you haven't any stage experience?"
"No. Only a couple of amateur shows."
"You're not joking?"
"Of course not."
"Well!"
Mr. Quarterstone continued to stare at him as if he were something rare and strange. The Saint twisted his hat-brim uncomfortably. Mr. Quarterstone sat back again, shaking his head.
"That's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of," he declared.
"But why?" Simon asked, with not unreasonable surprise.
"My dear fellow, anyone would take you for a professional actor! I've been in the theatrical business all my life — I was on Broadway for ten years, played before the King of England, produced hundreds of shows — and I'd have bet anyone I could pick out a professional actor every time. The way you walked in, the way you sat down, the way you use your hands, even the way you're smoking that cigarette — it's amazing! Are you sure you're not having a little joke?"
"Absolutely."
"May I ask what is your present job?"
"Until a couple of days ago," said the Saint ingenuously, "I was working in a bank. But I'd always wanted to be an actor, so when my uncle died and left me twenty thousand dollars 1 thought it was a good time to start. I think I could play parts like William Powell," he added, looking sophisticated.
Mr. Quarterstone beamed like a cat full of cream.
"Why not?" he demanded oratorically. "Why ever not? With that natural gift of yours…" He shook his head again, clicking his tongue in eloquent expression of his undiminished awe and admiration. "It's the most amazing thing! Of course, I sometimes see fellows who are nearly as good-looking as you are, but they haven't got your manner. Why, if you took a few lessons—"
Simon registered the exact amount of glowing satisfaction which he was supposed to register.
"That's what I came to you for, Mr. Quarterstone. I've seen your advertisements—"
"Yes, yes!"
Mr. Quarterstone got up and came round the desk again. He took the Saint's face in his large warm hands and turned it this way and that, studying it from various angles with increasing astonishment. He made the Saint stand up and studied him from a distance, screwing up one eye and holding up a finger in front of the other to compare his proportions. He stalked up to him again, patted him here and there and felt his muscles. He stepped back again and posed in an attitude of rapture.
"Marvellous!" he said. "Astounding!"
Then, with an effort, he brought himself out of his trance.
"Mr. Tombs," he said firmly, "there's only one thing for me to do. I must take you in charge myself. I have a wonderful staff here, the finest staff you could find in any dramatic academy in the world, past masters, every one of 'em — but they're not good enough. I wouldn't dare to offer you anything but the best that we have here. I offer you myself. And because I only look upon it as a privilege — nay, a sacred duty, to develop this God-given talent you have, I shall not try to make any money out of you. I shall only make a small charge to cover the actual value of my time. Charles Laughton paid me five thousand dollars for one hour's coaching in a difficult scene. John Barrymore took me to Hollywood and paid me fifteen thousand dollars to criticize him in four rehearsals. But I shall only ask you for enough to cover my out-of-pocket expenses — let us say, one thousand dollars — for a course of ten special, personal, private, exclusive lessons… No," boomed Mr. Quarterstone, waving one hand in a magnificent gesture, "don't thank me! Were I to refuse to give you the benefit of all my experience, I should regard myself as a traitor to my calling, a very — ah — Ishmael!"
If there was one kind of acting in which Simon Templar had graduated from a more exacting academy than was dreamed of in Mr. Quarterstone's philosophy, it was the art of depicting the virgin sucker yawning hungrily under the baited hook. His characterization was pointed with such wide-eyed and unsullied innocence, such eager and open-mouthed receptivity, such a succulently plastic amenability to suggestion, such a rich response to flattery — in a word, with such a sublime absorptiveness to the old oil — that men such as Mr. Quarterstone, on becoming conscious of him for the first time, had been known to wipe away a furtive tear as they dug down into their pockets for first mortgages on the Golden Gate Bridge and formulae for extracting radium from old toothpaste tubes. He used all of that technique on Mr. Homer Quarterstone, so effectively that his enrolment in the Supremax Academy proceeded with the effortless ease of a stratospherist returning to terra firma a short head in front of his punctured balloon. Mr. Quarterstone did not actually brush away an unbidden tear, but he did bring out an enormous leather-bound ledger and enter up particulars of his newest student with a gratifying realization that Life, in spite of the pessimists, was not wholly without its moments of unshadowed joy.
"When can I start?" asked the Saint, when that had been done.
"Start?" repeated Mr. Quarterstone, savouring the word. "Why, whenever you like. Each lesson lasts a full hour, and you can divide them up as you wish. You can start now if you want to. I had an appointment…"
"Oh."
"But it is of no importance, compared with this." Mr. Quarterstone picked up the telephone. "Tell Mr. Urlaub I shall be too busy to see him this afternoon," he told it. He hung up. "The producer," he explained, as he settled back again. "Of course you've heard of him. But he can wait. One day he'll be waiting on your doorstep, my boy." He dismissed Mr. Urlaub, the producer, with a majestic ademan. "What shall we take first — elocution?"
"You know best, Mr. Quarterstone," said the Saint eagerly.
Mr. Quarterstone nodded. If there was anything that could have increased his contentment, it was a pupil who had no doubt that Mr. Quarterstone knew best. He crossed his legs and hooked one thumb in the armhole of his waistcoat.
"Say 'Eee.' "
"Eee."
"Ah."
Simon went on looking at him expectantly.
"Ah," repeated Mr. Quarterstone.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said 'Ah.' "
"Oh."
"No, ah."
"Yes, I—"
"Say it after me, Mr. Tombs. 'Aaaah.' Make it ring out. Hold your diaphragm in, open your mouth and bring it up from your chest. This is a little exercise in the essential vowels."
"Oh. Aaaah."
"Oh."
"Oh."
"I."
"I."
"Ooooo." "Ooooo."
"Wrong."
"I'm sorry…"
"Say 'Wrong,' Mr. Tombs."
"Wrong."
"Right," said Mr. Quarterstone.
"Right."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Quarterstone testily. "I—"
"Yes, yes, I."
Mr. Quarterstone swallowed.
"I don't mean you to repeat every word I say," he said. "Just the examples. Now let's try the vowels again in a sentence. Say this:
'Faaar skiiies loooom O-ver meee.' "
"Faaar skiiies loooom O-ver meee."
"Daaark niiight draaaws neeear."
"The days are drawing in," Simon admitted politely.
Mr. Quarterstone's smile became somewhat glassy, but whatever else he may have been he was no quitter.
"I'm afraid he is a fraud," Simon told Rosalind Hale when he saw her the next day. "But he has a beautiful line of sugar for the flies. I was the complete gawky goof, the perfect bank clerk with dramatic ambitions — you could just see me going home and leering at myself in the mirror and imagining myself making love to Greta Garbo — but he told me he just couldn't believe how anyone with my poise couldn't have had any experience."
The girl's white teeth showed on her lower lip.
"But that's just what he told me!"
"I could have guessed it, darling. And I don't suppose you were the first, either… I had two lessons on the spot, and I've had another two today; and if he can teach anyone anything worth knowing about acting, then I can train ducks to write shorthand. I was so dumb that anyone with an ounce of artistic feeling would have thrown me out of the window, but when I left him this afternoon he almost hugged me and told me he could hardly wait to finish the course before he rushed out to show me to Gilbert Miller."
She moved her head a little, gazing at him with big sober eyes.
"He was just the same with me, too. Oh, I've been such a fool!"
"We're all fools in our own way," said the Saint consolingly. "Boys like Homer are my job, so they don't bother me. On the other hand, you've no idea what a fool I can be with soft lights and sweet music. Come on to dinner and I'll show you."
"But now you've given Quarterstone a thousand dollars, and what are you going to do about it?"
"Wait for the next act of the stirring drama."
The next act was not long in developing. Simon had two more of Mr. Quarterstone's special, personal, private, exclusive lessons the next day, and two more the day after — Mr. Homer Quarterstone was no apostle of the old-fashioned idea of making haste slowly, and by getting in two lessons daily he was able to double his temporary income, which then chalked up at the very pleasing figure of two hundred dollars per diem, minus the overhead, of which the brassy blonde was not the smallest item. But this method of gingering up the flow of revenue also meant that its duration was reduced from ten days to five, and during a lull in the next day's first hour (Diction, Gesture and Facial Expression) he took the opportunity of pointing out that Success, while already certain, could never be too certain or too great, and therefore that a supplementary series of lessons in the Art and Technique of the Motion Picture, while involving only a brief delay, could only add to the magnitude of Mr. Tombs's ultimate inevitable triumph.
On this argument, for the first time, Mr. Tombs disagreed.
"I want to see for myself whether I've mastered the first lessons," he said. "If I could get a small part in a play, just to try myself out…"
He was distressingly obstinate, and Mr. Quarterstone, either because he convinced himself that it would only be a waste of time, or because another approach to his pupil's remaining nineteen thousand dollars seemed just as simple, finally yielded. He made an excuse to leave the studio for a few minutes, and Simon knew that the next development was on its way.
It arrived in the latter part of the last hour (Declamation with Gestures, Movement and Facial Expression — The Complete Classical Scene).
Mr. Quarterstone was demonstrating.
"To be," trumpeted Mr. Quarterstone, gazing ceilingwards with an ecstatic expression, the chest thrown out, the arms slightly spread, "or not to be." Mr. Quarterstone ceased to be. He slumped, the head bowed, the arms hanging listlessly by the sides, the expression doleful. "That — is the question." Mr. Quarterstone pondered it, shaking his head. The suspense was awful. He elaborated the idea. "Whether'tis nobler" — Mr. Quarterstone drew himself nobly up, the chin lifted, the right arm turned slightly across the body, the forearm parallel with the ground — "in the mind" — he clutched his brow, where he kept his mind — "to suffer" — he clutched his heart, where he did his suffering — "the slings" — he stretched out his left hand for the slings — "and arrows" — he flung out his right hand for the arrows — "of outrageous fortune" — Mr. Quarterstone rolled the insult lusciously around his mouth and spat it out with defiance — "or to take arms" — he drew himself up again, the shoulders squared, rising slightly on tiptoe — "against a sea of troubles" — his right hand moved over a broad panorama, undulating symbolically — "and by opposing" — the arms rising slightly from the elbow, fists clenched, shoulders thrown back, chin drawn in — "end them!" — the forearms striking down again with a fierce chopping movement, expressive of finality and knocking a calendar off the table.
"Excuse me," said the brassy blonde, with her head poking round the door. "Mr. Urlaub is here."
"Tchah!" said Mr. Quarterstone, inspiration wounded in mid-flight. "Tell him to wait."
"He said—"
Mr. Quarterstone's eyes dilated. His mouth opened. His hands lifted a little from his sides, the fingers tense and parted rather like plump claws, the body rising. He was staring at the Saint.
"Wait!" he cried. "Of course! The very thing! The very man you've got to meet! One of the greatest producers in the world today! Your chance!"
He leapt a short distance off the ground and whirled on the blonde, his arm flung out, pointing quiveringly.
"Send him in!"
Simon looked wildly breathless.
"But — but will he—"
"Of course he will! You've only got to remember what I've taught you. And sit down. We must be calm."
Mr. Quarterstone sank into a chair, agitatedly looking calm, as Urlaub bustled in. Urlaub trotted quickly across the room.
"Ah, Homer."
"My dear Waldemar! How is everything?"
"Terrible! I came to ask for your advice…"
Mr. Urlaub leaned across the desk. He was a smallish, thin, bouncy man with a big nose and sleek black hair. His suit fitted him as tightly as an extra skin, and the stones in his tiepin and in his rings looked enough like diamonds to look like diamonds. He moved as if he were hung on springs, and his voice was thin and spluttery like the exhaust of an anemic motorcycle.
"Niementhal has quit. Let me down at the last minute. He wanted to put some goddam gigolo into the lead. Some ham that his wife's got hold of. I said to him, 'Aaron, your wife is your business and this play is my business.' I said, 'I don't care if it hurts your wife's feelings and I don't care if she gets mad at you, I can't afford to risk my reputation on Broadway and my investment in this play by putting that ham in the lead.' I said, 'Buy her a box of candy or a diamond bracelet or anything or send her to Paris or something, but don't ask me to make her happy by putting that gigolo in this play.' So he quit. And me with everything set, and the rest of the cast ready to start rehearsing next week, and he quits. He said, 'All right, then use your own money.' I said, 'You know I've got fifty thousand dollars in this production already, and all you were going to put in is fifteen thousand, and for that you want me to risk my money and my reputation by hiring that ham. I thought you said you'd got a good actor.' 'Well, you find yourself a good actor and fifteen thousand dollars,' he says, and he quits. Cold. And I can't raise another cent — you know how I just tied up half a million to save those aluminum shares."
"That's tough, Waldemar," said Mr. Quarterstone anxiously. "Waldemar, that's tough!.. Ah — by the way — pardon me — may I introduce a student of mine? Mr. Tombs…"
Urlaub turned vaguely, apparently becoming aware of the Saint's presence for the first time. He started forward with a courteously extended hand as the Saint rose.
But their hands did not meet at once. Mr. Urlaub's approaching movement died slowly away, as if paralysis had gradually overtaken him, so that he finally came to rest just before they met, like a clockwork toy that had run down. His eyes became fixed, staring. His mouth opened.
Then, very slowly, he revived himself. He pushed his hand onwards again and grasped the Saint's as if it were something precious, shaking it slowly and earnestly.
"A pupil of yours, did you say, Homer?" he asked in an awestruck voice.
"That's right. My star pupil, in fact. I might almost say…"
Mr. Urlaub paid no attention to what Quarterstone might almost have said. With his eyes still staring, he darted suddenly closer, peered into the Saint's face, took hold of it, turned it from side to side, just as Quarterstone had once done. Then he stepped back and stared again, prowling round the Saint like a dog prowling round a tree. Then he stopped.
"Mr. Tombs," he said vibrantly, "will you walk over to the door, and then walk back towards me?"
Looking dazed, the Saint did so.
Mr. Urlaub looked at him and gulped. Then he hauled a wad of typescript out of an inside pocket, fumbled through it and thrust it out with one enamelled fingernail dabbing at a paragraph.
"Read that speech — read it as if you were acting it."
The Saint glanced over the paragraph, drew a deep breath and read with almost uncontrollable emotion.
"No, do not lie to me. You have already given me the answer for which I have been waiting. I am not ungrateful for what you once did for me, but I see now that that kind act was only a part of your scheme to ensnare my better nature in the toils of your unhallowed passions, as though pure love were a thing that could be bought like merchandise. Ah, yes, I loved you, but I did not know that that pretty face was only a mask for the corruption beneath. How you must have laughed at me! Ha, ha. I brought you a rose, but you turned it into a nest of vipers in my bosom. They have stabbed my heart! (Sobs.)"
Mr. Urlaub clasped his hands together. His eyes bulged and rolled upwards.
"My God," he breathed hoarsely.
"What?" said the Saint.
"Why?" said Mr. Quarterstone.
"But it's like a miracle!" squeaked Waldemar Urlaub. "He's the man! The type! The face! The figure! The voice! The manner! He is a genius! Homer, where did you find him? The women will storm the theatre." He grasped the Saint by the arm, leaning as far as he could over the desk and over Mr. Quarter-stone. "Listen. He must play that part. He must. He is the only man. I couldn't put anyone else in it now. Not after I've seen him. I'll show Aaron Niementhal where he gets off. Quit, did he? Okay. He'll be sorry. We'll have a hit that'll make history!"
"But Waldemar…"
Mr. Urlaub dried up. His clutching fingers uncoiled from Simon's arm. The fire died out of his eyes. He staggered blindly back and sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
"Yes," he whispered bitterly. "I'd forgotten. The play can't go on. I'm sunk, Homer — just for a miserable fifteen grand. And now, of all times, when I've just seen Mr. Tombs I"
"You know I'd help you if I could, Waldemar," said Mr. Quarterstone earnestly. "But I just bought my wife a fur coat, and she wants a new car, and that ranch we just bought in California set me back a hundred thousand."
Mr. Urlaub shook his head.
"I know. It's not your fault. But isn't it just the toughest break?"
Quarterstone shook his head in sympathy. And then he looked at the Saint.
It was quite a performance, that look. It started casually, beheld inspiration, blazed with triumph, winked, glared significantly, poured out encouragement, pleaded, commanded and asked and answered several questions, all in a few seconds. Mr. Quarterstone had not at any period in his career actually held down the job of prompter, but he more than made up with enthusiasm for any lack of experience. Only a man who had been blind from birth could have failed to grasp the idea that Mr. Quarterstone was suggesting, and the Saint had not strung along so far in order to feign blindness at the signal for his entrance.
Simon cleared his throat.
"Er — did you say you only needed another fifteen thousand dollars to put on this play?" he asked diffidently, but with a clearly audible note of suppressed excitement.
After that he had to work no harder than he would have had to work to get himself eaten by a pair of hungry lions. Waldemar Urlaub, once the great light had dawned on him, skittered about like a pea on a drum in an orgy of exultant planning. Mr. Tombs would have starred in the play anyhow, whenever the remainder of the necessary wind had been raised — Urlaub had already made up his mind to that — but if Mr. Tombs had fifteen thousand dollars as well as his genius and beauty, he would be more than a star. He could be co-producer as well, a sharer in the profits, a friend and an equal, in every way the heir to the position which the great Aaron Niementhal would have occupied. His name would go on the billing with double force — Urlaub grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil to illustrate it:
SEBASTIAN TOMBS
and
WALDEMAR URLAUB
present
SEBASTIAN TOMBS
in
"LOVE — THE REDEEMER"
There would also be lights on the theatre, advertisements, photographs, newspaper articles, news items, gossip paragraphs, parties, movie rights, screen tests, Hollywood, London, beautiful and adoring women… Mr. Urlaub built up a luminous picture of fame, success and fortune, while Mr. Quarterstone nodded benignly and slapped everybody on the back and beamed at the Saint at intervals with a sublimely smug expression of "I told you so."
"And they did all that to me, too," said Rosalind Hale wryly. "I was practically Sarah Bernhardt when they'd finished… But I told you just how they did it. Why do you have to let yourself in for the same mess that I got into?"
"The easiest way to rob a bank is from the inside," said the Saint cryptically. "I suppose you noticed that they really have got a play?"
"Yes. I read part of it — the same as you did."
"Did you like it?"
She made a little grimace.
"You've got a right to laugh at me. I suppose that ought to have been warning enough, but Urlaub was so keen about it, and Quarterstone had already made me think he was a great producer, so I couldn't say that I thought it was awful. And then I wondered if it was just because I didn't know enough about plays."
"I don't know much about plays myself," said the Saint. "But the fact remains that Comrade Urlaub has got a complete play, with three acts and everything, god-awful though it is. I took it away with me to read it over and the more I look at it the more I'm thinking that something might be done with it."
Rosalind was aghast.
"You don't mean to say you'd really put your money into producing it?"
"Stranger things have happened," said the Saint thoughtfully. "How bad can a play be before it becomes good? And how much sense of humour is there in the movie business? Haven't you seen those reprints of old two-reelers that they show sometimes for a joke, and haven't you heard the audience laughing itself sick?… Listen. I only wish I knew who wrote Love — the Redeemer. I've got an idea…"
Mr. Homer Quarterstone could have answered his question for him, for the truth was that the author of Love — the Redeemer resided under the artistic black homburg of Mr. Homer Quarterstone. It was a matter of considerable grief to Mr. Quarterstone that no genuine producer had ever been induced to see eye to eye with him on the subject of the superlative merits of that amorous masterpiece, so that after he had grown weary of collecting rejections Mr. Quarterstone had been reduced to the practical expedient of using his magnum opus as one of the props in the more profitable but by no means less artistic drama from which he and Mr. Urlaub derived their precarious incomes; but his loyalty to the child of his brain had never been shaken.
It was therefore with a strange squirmy sensation in the pit of his stomach that Mr. Quarterstone sat in his office a few mornings later and gazed at a card in the bottom left-hand corner of which were the magic words, "Paragon Pictures, Inc., Hollywood, Calif." A feeling of fate was about him, as if he had been unexpectedly reminded of a still-cherished childhood dream.
"Show her in," he said with husky magnificence.
The order was hardly necessary, for she came in at once, shepherded by a beaming Waldemar Urlaub.
"Just thought I'd give you a surprise, Homer," he explained boisterously. "Did your heart jump when you saw that card? Well, so did mine. Still, it's real. I fixed it all up. Sold her the play. 'You can't go wrong,' I said, 'with one of the greatest dramas ever written.' "
Mrs. Wohlbreit turned her back on him coldly and inspected Mr. Quarterstone. She looked nothing like the average man's conception of a female from Hollywood, being gaunt and masculine with a sallow lined face and gold-rimmed glasses and mousey hair plastered back above her ears, but Mr. Quarterstone had at least enough experience to know that women were used in Hollywood in executive positions which did not call for the decorative qualities of more publicized employees.
She said in her cold masculine voice: "Is this your agent?"
Mr. Quarterstone swallowed.
"Ah—"
"Part owner," said Mr. Urlaub eagerly. "That's right, isn't it, Homer? You know our agreement — fifty-fifty in everything. Eh? Well, I've been working on this deal—"
"I asked you," said Mrs. Wohlbreit penetratingly, "because I understand that you're the owner of this play we're interested in. There are so many chisellers in this business that we make it our policy to approach the author first direct — if he wants to take any ten-per-centers in afterwards, that's his affair. A Mr. Tombs brought me the play first, and told me he had an interest in it. I found out that he got it from Mr. Urlaub, so I went to him. Mr. Urlaub told me that you were the original author. Now, who am I to talk business with?"
Mr. Quarterstone saw his partner's mouth opening for another contribution.
"With — with us," he said weakly.
It was not what he might have said if he had had time to think, but he was too excited to be particular.
"Very well," said Mrs. Wohlbreit. "We've read this play, Love — the Redeemer, and we think it would make a grand picture. If you haven't done anything yet about the movie rights…"
Mr. Quarterstone drew himself up. He felt as if he was in a daze from which he might be rudely awakened at any moment, but it was a beautiful daze. His heart was thumping, but his brain was calm and clear. It was, after all, only the moment with which he had always known that his genius must ultimately be rewarded.
"Ah — yes," he said with resonant calm. "The movie rights are, for the moment, open to — ah — negotiation. Naturally, with a drama of such quality, dealing as it does with a problem so close to the lives of every member of the thinking public, and appealing to the deepest emotions and beliefs of every intelligent man and woman—"
"We thought it would make an excellent farce," said Mrs. Wohlbreit blandly. "It's just the thing we've been looking for for a long time." But before the stricken Mr. Quarterstone could protest, she had added consolingly: "We could afford to give you thirty thousand dollars for the rights."
"Ah — quite," said Mr. Quarterstone bravely.
By the time that Mrs. Wohlbreit had departed, after making an appointment for the contract to be signed and the check paid over at the Paragon offices the following afternoon, his wound had healed sufficiently to let him take Mr. Urlaub in his arms, as soon as the door closed, and embrace him fondly in an impromptu rumba.
"Didn't I always tell you that play was a knockout?" he crowed. "It's taken 'em years to see it, but they had to wake up in the end. Thirty thousand dollars! Why, with that money I can—" He sensed a certain stiffness in his dancing partner and hastily corrected himself: "I mean, we — we can—"
"Nuts," said Mr. Urlaub coarsely. He disengaged himself and straightened the creases out of his natty suit. "What you've got to do now is sit down and figure out a way to crowbar that guy Tombs out of this."
Mr. Quarterstone stopped dancing suddenly and his jaw dropped.
"Tombs?"
"Yeah! He wasn't so dumb. He had the sense to see that that play of yours was the funniest thing ever written. When we were talking about it in here he must have thought we thought it was funny, too."
Mr. Quarterstone was appalled as the idea of duplicity struck him.
"Waldemar — d'you think he was trying to—"
"No. I pumped the old battle-axe on the way here. He told her he only had a part interest, but he wanted to do something for the firm and give us a surprise — he thought he could play the lead in the picture, too."
"Has she told him—"
"Not yet. You heard what she said. She gets in touch with the author first. But we got to get him before he gets in touch with her. Don't you remember those contracts we signed yesterday? Fifty percent of the movie rights for him!"
Mr. Quarterstone sank feebly on to the desk.
"Fifteen thousand dollars!" He groaned. Then he brightened tentatively. "But it's all right, Waldemar. He agreed to put fifteen thousand dollars into producing the play, so we just call it quits and we don't have to give him anything."
"You great fat lame-brained slob," yelped Mr. Urlaub affectionately. "Quits! Like hell it's quits! D'you think I'm not going to put that play on, after this? It took that old battle-axe to see it, but she's right. They'll be rolling in the aisles!" He struck a Quarterstoneish attitude. " ' I brought you a rose,' " he uttered tremulously, " 'but you turned it into a nest of vipers in my bosom. They have stabbed my heart!' My God! It's a natural! I'm going to put it on Broadway whatever we have to do to raise the dough — but we aren't going to cut that mug Tombs in on it."
Mr. Quarterstone winced.
"It's all signed up legal," he said dolefully. "We'll have to spend our own dough and buy him out."
"Get your hat," said Mr. Urlaub shortly. "We'll cook up a story on the way."
When Rosalind Hale walked into the Saint's apartment at the Waldorf-Astoria that afternoon, Simon Templar was counting crisp new hundred-dollar bills into neat piles.
"What have you been doing?" she said. "Burgling a bank?"
The Saint grinned.
"The geetus came out of a bank, anyway," he murmured. "But Comrades Quarterstone and Urlaub provided the checks. I just went out and cashed them."
"You mean they bought you out?"
"After a certain amount of haggling and squealing — yes. Apparently Aaron Niementhal changed his mind about backing the show, and Urlaub didn't want to offend him on account of Aaron offered to cut him in on another and bigger and better proposition at the same time; so they gave me ten thousand dollars to tear up the contracts, and the idea is that I ought to play the lead in Niementhal's bigger and better show."
She pulled off her hat and collapsed into a chair. She was no longer gaunt and masculine and forbidding, for she had changed out of a badly fitting tweed suit and removed her sallow make-up and thrown away the gold-rimmed glasses and fluffed out her hair again so that it curled in its usual soft brown waves around her face, so that her last resemblance to anyone by the name of Wohlbreit was gone.
"Ten thousand dollars," she said limply. "It doesn't seem possible. But it's real. I can see it."
"You can touch it, if you like," said the Saint. "Here." He pushed one of the stacks over the table towards her. "Fifteen hundred that you paid Quarter-stone for tuition." He pushed another. "Four thousand that you put into the play." He drew a smaller sheaf towards himself. "One thousand that I paid for my lessons. Leaving three thousand five hundred drops of gravy to be split two ways."
He straightened the remaining pile, cut it in two and slid half of it on to join the share that was accumulating in front of her. She stared at the money helplessly for a second or two, reached out and touched it with the tips of her fingers, and then suddenly she came round the table and flung herself into his arms. Her cheek was wet where it touched his face.
"I don't know how to say it," she said shakily. "But you know what I mean."
"There's only one thing bothering me," said the Saint some time later, "and that's whether you're really entitled to take back those tuition fees. After all, Homer made you a good enough actress to fool himself. Maybe he was entitled to a percentage, in spite of everything."
His doubts, however, were set at rest several months afterwards, when he had travelled a long way from New York and many other things had happened, when one day an advertisement in a New York paper caught his eye:
14th Week! Sold out 3 months ahead!
The Farce Hit of the Season:
LOVE — THE REDEEMER
by Homer Quarterstone
Imperial Theatre. A Waldemar Urlaub Production
Simon Templar was not often at a loss for words, but on this occasion he was tongue-tied for a long time. And then, at last, he lay back and laughed helplessly.
"Oh well," he said. "I guess they earned it."