The Adventures of Hiram Holliday (6 page)

He read the caption below: 'This charming portrait by De Brasse of the Princess Adelheit Von Furstenhof of Styria, and her nephew Duke Peter, is on exhibition currently at the Sartor Galleries in New Bond Street, and was painted two summers ago at Castle Furstenhof, Ober Zeiring. The Princess has not been in London since the
Anschluss,
indeed, there has been speculation in some quarters as to her whereabouts. Her many friends in London society have missed gay and gracious "Princess Heidi," as she is known.'

Hiram Holliday smiled a little smile to himself and leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Then he carefully tore out the page, folded it and placed it in his pocket.

When he got to London, t
he news of the accord in Munich
was out. He had to shake h
imself to realize what had hap
pened because he had been in another world. He took a cab
and drove to his room in Bruto
n Street. There were two cable
grams waiting for him there.
They had been addressed to him
care of the
Sentinel
Bureau in Fleet Street, and sent on over.
He opened one. It was brief and
to the point. It said: 'Sorry.
You're fired!' It was signe
d 'Joel Smith,' the head of the
Sentinel
copy-desk. He felt it
slip through his fingers to the
floor. He had forgotten about h
is fantastic performance in the
Sentinel
Bureau the day before.
Of course, they had cabled New
York about it. Probably tho
ught he was drunk. Mechanically
he opened the second cable. He lo
oked at the signature first. It
was 'Beauheld, Managing Editor,
N.Y. Sentinel.
^’
His glasses
seemed to blur and he ha
d to read it twice.

'Congratula
tions. You're hired. I made S
mith fire you. To hell with the
copy-desk. You're writing for me now. Leave for Paris at once.
Instructions there.'

Paris - Go to Paris.... He suddenly raised his arms and laughed a half laugh, half sob
. Then he realized the umbrella
was still crooked on his arm. He took it off and pressed the handle to his cheek. On an impulse he suddenly reversed it and examined the ferrule. There was a darkish stain on it. He fingered it half incredibly. It was in
dubitably blood. And this time h
is laughter rang gay and clear....

SANCTUARY
IN
PARIS

How Hiram Holliday Left Paris

Twenty
minutes before the departure of the 1048 Air France plane for Prague, the waiting-room of the Central Airport of Paris at Le Bourget was in something of a gay uproar. Grognolle, the great silent cl
own of the Cirque Antoine, Grog
nolle,
le Melancolique (Il ne parle
jamais)
who had taken all Paris by storm, was departing to fill an engagement in the capital of Czechoslovakia. ' Goodness knows,
ces pauvres,'
said one of the airline's officials, 'those poor people need someone to make them laugh. And we, too.'

The official was somewhat harassed, what with the gay crowd of laughing, voluble circus people from the Antoine who had come to see Grognolle off, the throng that had suddenly materialized in the waiting-room, as the magic of Grognolle's name spread, and the interminable police who were always looking for this one, or that one, and expected the overworked airline people to act as guardians of the portal, and produce wanted men like rabbits out of a hat.

This time it was an American by the name of Hiram Holliday who had disappeared under strange circumstances at a time, it seemed, when the police were rather anxious to secure his person for questioning. They had been watching the airport for days. Ah, these times, these bad times. Evil days and evil people, and Paris rocking again under the exposure of the great Vinovarieffplot, revealed, in an American newspaper, that pact of evil, unquestionably authenticated, involving Russians in Nazi pay, which had threatened the very existence of France and had again plunged Europe into political turmoil.

Ah, well - the official re-checked the list of passengers bound for Prague - Van der Aadt, a Dutch K.L.M. official; a Mrs Stoddart, an American lad
y with her two daughters; M. St
Cloud, a French racing man and his wife; Schmidt, a German business man travelling alone; Grognolle - ah, that funny man, two nights ago the official had been to the Cirque Antoine, and had laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks, and two Czechs. That completed the list.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked up, as the noise in the waiting-room redoubled and the crowd clamoured for a glimpse of the great clown.

It had begun with the arrival
of the party in two cars. Some
one had said:
'C'est le Grognolle!
^’
and the name had run like
a fire around the vast steel and
concrete hall. Everyone crowded
to see, the porters, and the attend
ants, and the Customs officers,
the passengers and the loiterers.

'Grognolle, Grognolle!' they cried.
...
'Bravo, Grognolle
...
see how modest he looks
...
the little dark one with him they say is his sweetheart
...
Grognolle,
regardez moi.
..
see, he never speaks, not even out of the circus. No one has ever heard him speak.
Au revoir,
Grognolle.... Give us your autograph, Grognolle
...
even in real life he looks sad
...
but so droll
...
come back to us soon, Grognolle
...
may we shake your hand, Grognolle.
...
Look at us in your funny way, Grognolle
...'
and then there would be a sudden wave of laughter ripple over the crowd, and the shuffling of feet on the stone floor as more and more people ran to see him.

The great clown really was not much to look at, he was even a little shabby, in the way of those of the circus when they don their street clothes, in a too big overcoat and a muffler wound around his neck, and a drab velour hat that seemed to perch on top of his head. He wore spectacles and seemed to be a little bewildered and shy of all the attention and excitement, but in spite of his appearance of being no longer young nor of good figure, he must really be the very devil of a fellow, for look how that small, pretty, dark-haired one clings to his arm, and see, there are tears in her eyes. Who is she ? Why, that is the famous Lisette Pollarde, the bareback rider, queen of the Cirque Antoine. These people are so difficult to recognize in their street clothes, are they not ?

So! Passengers for Rome! Passengers for Berlin! Passengers for London!
Enfin,
passengers please for Prague, at Portal four. Gendarmes here, hold back that crowd. They cannot all go through the gate.

The crush surrounding the clown began to move slowly towards the door leading to the field. Gendarmes in their blue capes fought valiantly to open up a passage. Grognolle shuffled with the mob, the girl on his arm with her pretty, frank face pressed to his shoulder. Once in a while, he would stare with sad eyes at someone in the crowd, a curious, pathetic, poignant stare that seemed to contain a world of yearning and desire, and the person stared at would break into shrieks of hysterical laughter which would spread until everyone was laughing, that is, everyone but Grognolle, and the girl on his arm, who was crying.

There were two men standing on either side of the door. The airline official knew they were detectives. They watched the passengers pass through. But they shook hands with Grognolle, and one of them, favoured with that strange, melancholy look, began to laugh, and they both clapped him on the back, and said: 'But, he is magnificent,' and permitted the girl to go through the gate with him, and many others squeezed through also, and so there was confusion and pushing, and shouting around the plane, and pilots and
mecaniques
from other ships came over to see the excitement. Grognolle was the last one on board.

He stood for a moment by the steps, a queer, silent, heavy-set, ungainly figure. He put his arms around the girl and leaned down and kissed her, mounted the steps, turned for a moment and lifted his hat to the crowd, and nobody laughed then. Instead, they raised a great cheer and hand-clapping, and yelled: 'Bravo, Grognolle....'

Then the gendarmes drove the spectators back, the silver, Air France, stubby-winged plane roared its engines and moved off. All the people stood on the airport apron and waved their hats and their handkerchiefs as the ship raised itself from the ground and disappeared towards the east.

The flight was what might be described as routine and uneventful, most of it being conducted above the clouds. Some of the passengers stared curiously at Grognolle, who dozed part of the way, or sat quietly and read out of a book. Five hours later they felt their way down through the cloud bank into rain and landed at the Prague airport. The travellers stretched themselves and climbed out of the ship. A Czech immigration official in khaki collected their passports as they descended the steps from the plane, and directed them to the waiting-room. The immigration official checked and stamped the documents quickly in his little office, the Dutchman, the French couple, the American lady with her daughters, the German business man, and the American by the name of Hiram Holliday. Because it seemed a curious name, the official thumbed through the pages - 'Hiram Holliday - height, five feet, eleven inches; hair, sandy; eyes, blue; scar on right wrist. Place of birth, New York City, August 10, 1899; Occupation - copy-reader,' and then the picture of an inoffensive-looking, sandy-haired man with a round face, bespectacled and with a good mouth.

He stamped a page, pencilled his initials, stuck his head close to the little window and called:'Meester Holliday ?'

The man known as Grognolle started a little, and then said: *Yes ?' and moved forward to the window.

The official, quickly checked the picture in the passport with the man who stood before him.

'Have you any Czech crowns with you, Mr Holliday ?'

The man who had been Grognolle said: 'Three hundred.'

The official made a notation and then handed the little red booklet through the window, and said: 'Your passport, Meester Holliday. I hope you enjoy your stay in Prague. Proceed now to the baggage examination inside.'

'Thank you very much,' said Hiram Holliday, with something of a sigh. He went to the counter where a bored Douanier marked his bag with an' X' in chalk, without bothering to open it. Then he went out, climbed into a taxicab and said: 'Ambassador Hotel.' He slumped back in the seat as the cab jerked forward. He noticed that his hand was shaking a little.

How Hiram Holliday Came to Paris

It all began, the whole, absurd, fantastic, unbelievable adventure, in the smart, glittering Dunhill shop at the top of the rue de la Paix, where Hiram Holliday exchanged apologies and umbrellas with the large man with the spade beard, the morning coat and striped trousers and a bowler hat, a pleasant and polite gentleman with kind eyes shining behind gold pince-nez attached to a black ribbon, rather a fatherly sort of character, and the last person in the world Hiram would have suspected of being capable eventually of trying to kill him.

Or perhaps the unseen strands of the dangerous web began to weave about him much earlier, even shortly after he arrived from London, to report for orders at the Paris Bureau of the
New York Sentinel
For, Hiram Holliday was not exactly received with open arms by his colleagues in Paris.

Clegg, the Paris Bureau Chief, was a tired man of some twenty-three years of experience in the French capital, and he was having troubles of his own, when Holliday arrived and asked for orders. A new man on a foreign beat is practically worthless the first two or three years until he begins to get the hang of things and makes contacts and friends. Also, Beauheld, the managing editor of the
Sentinel,
had been little less than vague in his instructions for Holliday. Truth to tell, now that the first enthusiasm over the remarkable story Holliday had filed from London had died down, the editor was slightly at a loss as to how exactly to use him. He was even in some doubt as to whether Holliday could do it again, as indicated by his cable to Clegg:

Sending you Holliday who filed a knockout story from London stop' used to be on our copy-desk stop may have makings of a reporter if it wasn't an accident stop turn him loose on anything you think he can do.

Beauheld.

Clegg said: 'Ha
...
hmmm. Holliday? Oh, yes. Holliday. Beau cabled me about you. Damned if I know what to do with you. Nice story you had out of London, but it's a little different here. Matter of fact we're busy as hell on a tough yarn and I'm afraid you wouldn't be much good on it.' He said it in a manner that left no doubt that what he actually thought was that Hiram would, if anything, be very much in the way. 'Why don't you just sort of take it easy and take a look around the town; there's a hell of a lot to see, and meet some of the boys, and maybe you can do some sort of a piece on the city a little later. Come in here and use the office any time. Glad to have seen
you....'