The Saint and the Happy Highwayman s-21 Page 12

  Nevertheless, while it is true that the name of Quar-terstone 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 Tom
bs. 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 hatbrim 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 a
gain 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.