Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan (21 page)

Virgil Dobie saw reason in that. “And another thing—he can’t fire me for staying away if I show up, even at quarter of five. We’ll report for work. And on the way in we’ll stop at Wardrobe and borrow a veil and some prop flowers for you!”

So that is the way it happened. The inspector begged off, feeling that he didn’t quite belong. But Miss Withers, practically playing the unaccustomed part of flower girl and twelve bridesmaids, marched into Mr Thorwald L. Nincom’s story conference, followed by a blushing bride and groom.

For the rest of that day the ancient tragedy of poor Lizzie Borden was forgotten in this modern surprise romance between the loveliest secretary and the maddest hooligan writer in Hollywood.

Jill’s premise had been right. Mr Nincom slipped at once into the role of the crusty but warmhearted employer and played it for all he was worth. He grabbed up the telephone, ordered champagne from the nearest restaurant and cameras from Publicity.

The popping of corks drew Mammoth employees by the dozens into the Nincom offices. Writers, directors, secretaries, messengers, props, grips and cameramen….

The bride was toasted so many times that it appeared that she would be “brown on both sides,” as Doug August put it. Miss Withers watched the party develop, watched Virgil Dobie as he accepted glass after glass and put them quietly down for someone else to empty….

Melicent Manning was sobbing quietly in a corner. Frankie Firsk had his arm about Virgil Dobie’s shoulder and was making a speech, interlarded with quotations from the minor modern poets.

Wilfred Josef had just one glass of wine and then headed for the door where Miss Withers halted him. “What are you going to give the happy couple for a wedding present?” she asked.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Mr Josef said. His hand went instinctively to his beard, jerked away as he felt the charred remnants. “But here’s a limerick for you. There was a young lady named Jill, Who went after a man with a will. She sat down beside him and roped him and tied him, But I hate to be in at the kill.”

He nodded, smiled and was gone.

Willy Abend had started a crap game in the corner behind Mr Nincom’s desk and was doing rather well at it. And then Mr Nincom produced his baton from the desk and rapped with it for silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen—and friends!” he began. “It is my great pleasure on this happy occasion to announce my wedding present to the bride. During the last two months my whole unit has been going mad in an attempt to find the perfect person to play the part of Miss Lizzie Borden. Well, a great idea just came to me. Why should we look so far afield, why should we test every New York actress, every Hollywood star, when we have an opportunity of finding and developing real talent right here and now?—talent from this very office.”

Everybody hushed, wondering Mr Nincom drained his glass. “I want to announce that I intend to test Miss Jill Madison—the present Mrs. Virgil Dobie—for the part of Lizzie Borden!”

Jill, who was at the moment standing on a desk with a glass of bubbling wine in either hand, tried to say something. But Mr Nincom was in the groove.

“Right here in this room,” he continued, “we have the director, we have the stage crew—and there is no reason why we can’t costume Mrs Dobie, give her a scene to read and take the test over on one of the stages right now. And if it comes out well we’ll plaster the nation with announcements tomorrow morning!”

There were cheers. “Thank you,” said Mr Nincom. “I guess if Dave Selznick can get an unknown actress to play Scarlett, I can pull Jill out of the hat to play Lizzie. A last toast—good luck to Thorwald L. Nincom’s new discovery—and then we’ll make a test such as never was made before!”

There were tremendous cheers, and the party broke up.

Miss Hildegarde Withers seized upon Buster Haight outside in the studio street, a young man lost and unhappy and vaguely distressed. “Come, come!” she said. “‘False though she be to me and love, I’ll ne’er pursue revenge; for still the charmer I approve, Though I deplore her change….’”

“This is no time for Congrève,” said Buster. “He’s as outdated as Confucius.”

“What are you going to do?” she wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” said Buster. There was a wild and reckless expression around his young mouth, and his eyes had lost their color. “I’m supposed to be out here learning the picture business. Well, I guess I’m learning it the hard way.”

He turned and rushed off into the night, leaving Miss Withers shaking her head. She had dealt successfully with many ills, but youth was one which had no panacea.

The schoolteacher turned toward the Writers’ Building, sought her own office and sat down at her desk. Everything was just the same. The gas radiator leered at her from the corner, daring her to turn it on again. On the wall the photograph of the tired calla lilies struck a funeral note….

She picked up the phone; managed to get a night line before Gertrude closed up and went home. There was a great deal to do, and Miss Withers was afraid that it was too late to do it.

But she made certain calls anyhow.

After a while she heard someone come down the hall. A light burned in Virgil Dobie’s office.

“Oh, hello,” he said, when she burst in.

“What’s the matter, Mr Dobie, did you get tired of the celebration?”

He nodded. “They’re all over on the test stage, making shots of Jill. Honestly, do you think she could play Lizzie Borden?”

“Anything can happen in Hollywood,” said Miss Withers. “If I remember correctly, one of our biggest stars was jerking soda when she was discovered, and another was manicuring fingernails.”

It was at that moment that a messenger boy brought in a package wrapped as a gift. “For Mr and Mrs Virgil Dobie.” It turned out to be a thousand aspirin tablets in a large bottle. “With the best wishes of Wilfred Josef,” was the card.

So Josef had decided upon a wedding present after all. “At least it’s something we can use,” Dobie said.

Miss Withers nodded. “A very useful present. You’ve been looking a bit headachy all day.”

She brought a glass of water, watched while Virgil Dobie tossed off three pellets; “If you don’t mind, I’ll borrow a couple of them myself,” she said, and did. “I’ll take them later,” added Miss Withers.

But it was only ten minutes later when she burst back into Virgil Dobie’s office, her face white as a sheet. She faced the man, her hands trembling.

“Those pills!” she cried. “They I mean—”

“What, the aspirin?”

“I just started to take one—and they’re
not
aspirin! Didn’t you notice the bitter taste? Well, you should have. I should have guessed when they came from Wilfred Josef, the man to whom your prank gave a lifelong phobia. He cannot even light a cigarette because of the joke you pulled on him—no wonder he gave you this kind of wedding present!”

Dobie stared at her blankly.

“It’s
poison!”
cried Miss Withers. “Arsenic, I think. I spat it out. Don’t you notice anything?”

Virgil Dobie sank back in his chair. “Poison? Oh, come, come. Josef wouldn’t do that—”

“Wouldn’t he! Practical jokers always run into somebody who won’t take the joke if they keep on long enough. And you took
three
of those pills—”

“But I had a headache!” Dobie protested. “I didn’t imagine—”

“So had I! Neither did I!”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Miss Withers snatched up the telephone. “Don’t you worry!” she said. “There is plenty of time. Hello? I want the studio infirmary. Yes. Yes? Doctor Evenson? Can you get over here right away?—and bring a stomach pump?”

Virgil Dobie didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that anybody would try to murder him—not just because of a practical joke that he had played days ago….

But he leaned back on the couch in his office, a grayish-green look on his face. And after a few moments Dr Evenson arrived, nodded at Miss Withers and started to open his instrument case.

“I’ll wait outside,” said the schoolteacher.

It was nearly half an hour later when Dr Evenson emerged. He seemed very pleased with himself. “Everything will be okay,” he told Miss Withers. “The man is in fine shape.”

“You’ve been wonderful, Doctor,” she assured him. Then she went back into the office.

Virgil Dobie lay on the couch, and his face was a pale puce color now. But he lifted his hand feebly. “Don’ tell Jill …” he managed. “Worry her. No good. I’m okay….”

“Of course you’re okay,” said the schoolteacher. “You’re fine.”

“That stomach-pump thing,” he said loudly, “that’s a terrible thing to go through. Almost rather die from poison, eh? Sure—I’d rather die from poison….”

“You won’t die from anything,” she advised him. “Because I was right here on the spot. Now just relax, Mr Dobie. I’ll keep this from your wife until you feel better. She’s very busy at the moment over on the test stage, so she’ll never know….”

“Thanks,” said Virgil Dobie fervently. “You’re a swell guy. A fellow can really talk to you.

His speech was louder now, and he seemed to have trouble with his consonants. “Yes sir, some women understand men, and you’re one of them….”

“Thank you,” said Miss Hildegarde Withers. “I understand about headaches, too, because I have one.” She rubbed her forehead.

“Sure,” Virgil Dobie said. “All intellectual people have headaches. I have ’em at the drop of a hat. Sign of brains….”

“Thank you,” Miss Withers told him. “Do you suppose that George Spelvin has headaches?”

Dobie frowned. “Spelvin? Oh yes. You know about that, don’t you? Guess there’s no use trying to fool you.”

“Not much,” confessed Miss Withers.

“Well, why not?” he went on, his voice loud and stumbling and insistent. “This income-tax thing is terrific. Out here in pictures we make big salaries for a few years, five or ten at the most, but Uncle Sam wants the same percentage as he’d take from any stockbroker who has a sure thing for life. You can’t blame us for trying to dodge—”

“Dodge? Just what do you mean?”

“Why, the way I did. I lent a lot of money to Derek Laval—only there isn’t any such guy—and charged it off to a loss. So did Saul; so do lots of guys. Derek Laval is a phony, a nom de plume. Whenever any of the boys gets into a hell of a jam he gives that name, whether it’s a traffic ticket, a girl, or what?”

“Of course,” chimed in Miss Withers. “Whether he is arrested for speeding or held for being in a raided night spot or playing polo against the rules laid down by the studio….”

Dobie nodded again. “That must have been Doug August playing polo. He’s not the only one to take a phony name. Spence Tracy usually has to play under the name of Murphy when he’s making a picture because Metro don’t like the idea of his risking that million-dollar face. As for the rest of the boys, anybody in Hollywood is likely to give the name of Derek Laval, when he gets in a jam. It’s like the actors—when they have to play two parts in one play they take the name of George Spelvin for the minor part.”

He frowned and tried to sit up. “Say, why am I talking your arm off like this?”

Miss Withers smiled. “But, of course, Mr Dobie. You have every reason to co-operate with me. After all, the murderer is a menace to each and every one of us until he is caught.”

“That’s right,” Dobie admitted, still speaking a bit thickly.

“He killed your collaborator and best friend in cold blood. He tried to kill me because I was snooping too close and he succeeded in doing away with a studio driver and a girl hitchhiker. And he killed Lillian Gissing….”

“Yeah. And to top it all off he just tried to kill me!”

Miss Withers hesitated. “Yes,
didn’t
he? But don’t worry about that. Doctor Evenson got it out of you before it could do you any real harm.” She smiled. “You feel better, don’t you?”

Dobie decided that he did. “My headache is better anyway,” he said. “Nothing like a dose of arsenic to cure a bad case of migraine, what?” He shook his head as if to clear it from cobwebs. “Say, wait a minute, doesn’t this solve the whole case? Why don’t you call in the police and have them arrest Wilfred Josef?”

“For several reasons,” said Miss Hildegarde Withers. “And the most important one is that it just occurred to me that the handwriting on the note attached to that aspirin bottle isn’t Wilfred Josef’s at all!”

“What? But—but whose is it then?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” lied Miss Hildegarde Withers. “But during my investigations I’ve managed to collect samples of the handwriting of most of the characters involved in this case. I think if you don’t mind I’ll borrow that card and start making some comparisons….”

“Go ahead,” muttered Virgil Dobie. “Things are moving too fast for me. I’ll just lie here and let things stop whirling around in my head….”

She started to leave, and he started up. “Oh, before I forget,” he called after her. “Thanks for saving my life.”

Miss Withers took a bow and then went back to her own office. Things were not working out quite as she had hoped. She felt very much out of her element, very much alone and bewildered….

And the least of her problems was the matter of who had written the note attached to the bottle of aspirin tablets. She had taken a desperate chance, had played her ace in the hole. And it had come to nothing.

She couldn’t take this case to the police. She couldn’t even take it to the inspector. It was woven all of moonbeams, gossamer thin….

She called Mr Nincom’s office, but there was no answer. The great man must still be superintending the screen test which was his wedding present to the luscious Jill.

She called Chief Sansom, but he seemed to be out. “When he comes back I’ll have him check with you,” was the best information she could get. And finally she called the inspector, both at his hotel and at downtown headquarters. Another blank….

“Just tell him it’s a ‘4-11’ in Miss Withers’s office,” she left the message. That meant “riot call” in police code.

She sat there for half an hour, made little meaningless diagrams on sheets of paper. And then finally there came a knock on her door. It was Virgil Dobie, his hair dark as if it had been recently drenched with water.