The Case of the Solid Key

by Anthony Boucher

  “I’ve got other ideas,” said Mark Andrews laconically.

  “And I, my pets,” said Hilary, “have my reasons for remaining. But you, Fergus? And you, Fran?”

  “Can’t we have reasons too?” said Fergus. “Mine’s Betsy. I can’t leave her unprotected.”

  “And you yourself, Harker?” Hilary insisted. “Didn’t I hear that you left a play with Carruthers?”

  “I’m in a state where I’d let a Jukes direct my play with a cast of Kallikaks, just so long as it got on the boards.”

  “Well,” Hilary smiled, “you’re not far off.”

  Fran had refilled her glass and again extended a wavering arm. “Ladies and gemman, to the eternal confounding of Rupert Jukes Carruthers!”

  “That’s no way to talk!” It was Carol Dayton’s shrill voice.

  Hilary Vane glanced back at the couch where the young Adonis lay half asleep. “Did you wear him out, dear?” he murmured sweetly. “And in front of all these people?”

  Carol disregarded him. “I thought it was time somebody had a good word to say for Mr. Carruthers. All of you going on like this behind his back, and after all he’s doing for you!”

  “Look, buxom,” said Fergus. “We pay our way here. We’re trying to get something. If we don’t get it, we’ve got a right to kick.”

  “Hmmf!” Carol tossed her red-gold head imperiously. “You’re talking like a lot of Communists!”

  Mark Andrews laughed. “Sure. Vane’s a commissar and I’m head of the Ogpu. But what’s that got to do with Carruthers?”

  “It’s just envy, that’s what it is. Like all these unions trying to run things. What right have they got to say what should be done, or you either? If you were smart enough to run a theater, you’d be running one.”

  “My dear Miss Dayton,” said Andrews slowly, “if I was low enough to chisel a good living out of struggling young people who can’t afford it, sure I’d be running a theater. I happen to have other ideas, and as soon as I get the chance you’ll see them in action.”

  “So when you go around insulting a better man than you are, you’re just being noble! Isn’t that nice? You know that Mr. Carruthers is running this theater because he has the brains and the guts to run it, and you’re abusing him just like a lot of New Deal Communists. It doesn’t pay to have brains and guts in this country any more. You just get taxed and penalized for it, and the weak take over because they think they have ‘rights.’ What right has a man to anything but what he can fight for and hold?”

  “Lewis Jordan would say,” said Mark Andrews, “that a man has a right to live in a world where he won’t have to fight. Where he can work well and live in peace.”

  “That’s what we’re coming to,” Carol snorted. “A wishy-washy world for you gutless milksops. But when a man like Mr. Carruthers, who has guts—”

  “Guts,” said Fergus, with quiet but intense fury, “are a noble and honorable heritage. They have descended from generation to generation in the O’Breen tribe along with that drop of blood which stems from the kings of Ireland. And may I be etergoddamnedernally struck dumb on this spot if I stand by and hear you apply the stirring and ringing term of guts to those qualities that you admire in Rupert Carruthers. You’re right; there isn’t a place in this country any longer for what you call guts. If you want their fitting abode, go find it in Berlin or in the Kremlin. And you won’t be bothered there by the absurd claims of the rights of the weak.”

  Carol tossed her head again. “And I thought you at least were a man! But you’re just like the—”

  “Look!” Fergus interrupted sharply. “Toss your head if you must, my fine filly, but stop brandishing your bosom in my face. It doesn’t distract me from the argument half so much as you expect.”

  “Girls! Girls!” shrilled Hilary Vane. “Such personalities! Now we don’t want to have a hair-pulling match, do we?”

  “I do,” said Betsy unexpectedly. “On account of because I bet if I pulled some I could see the roots and then I’d know how it got that color.”

  Carol sniffed. “You see, Fergus, what comes of keeping a child up so late. Nasty little temper!”

  “We’re all rather childish, aren’t we?” asked Hilary. “What do we have to squabble about so? Let’s all play a game and be friends.”

  “Ooooo. We’re going to play a game, Mr. O’Breen. What do you want to play?”

  “Post office,” said Fergus disgustedly. “I want to tell Miss Dayton where to deliver a letter.”

  “No,” Hilary announced. “We’re going to play Indications. I always think that’s such a good game for actors. There’s actually a certain amount of training inherent in it—almost Stanislavsky, one might say. Now, Fergus, if you and Mark will be captains—”

  “Hello!” came a fresh voice from the top of the stairs leading to the garret. “Is the party still going on?”

  “Sarah!” cried Hilary. “Join us, dear. We need you.”

  Norman had risen instantly and crossed to the stairhead.

  “Now everybody knows how to play, of course,” Hilary went on. “Oh, excepting Mr. Harker. And Betsy, you haven’t played before, have you? Very well, you two listen and I’ll try to explain briefly.”

  But Norman heard little of the explanation. “I’m so sorry about last night, darling,” Sarah was whispering. “I can’t tell you how sorry; but it was one of those things. I simply couldn’t help it. And tonight I had to see an agent who thought maybe—but there isn’t even any use talking about it because it turned out I wasn’t the type. But from now on I promise you—”

  “The party separates into two groups,” Hilary was saying, “and each group writes down phrases on slips of paper—slogans, titles, quotations, anything. Then—”

  “You promise …?” Norman repeated.

  “Not much, I’m afraid.” He could see her wry smile in the gloom of the garret. “But anyway … I’ll be around.”

  “And remember the essence is the use of pantomime. Not a single spoken word and absolutely no props. Of course we use certain arbitrary symbols, such as …”

  “Darling,” said Norman. “No, not darling. That’s too common hereabouts. One word is too often profaned. But Sarah, dear Sarah—”

  Sarah squeezed his hand gently. “Come to the party,” she said.

  “I just know I can’t do it,” Betsy was protesting, “on account of I’m not smart that way, really I’m not, I mean I’m not dumb but I’m just not smart this way and I’ll make a terrible fool of myself.”

  “I’m taking you, Harker,” said Mark Andrews. “Come over at this end of the room.”

  “And that,” said Fergus, “leaves Sarah for us. We’re one more. You’ll have to compose five sentences for us, and we’ll turn out four humdingers for you, and we’ll average the times. All right everybody.”

  Norman retired with his group—Mark Andrews, Hilary, and the still-indignant Carol Dayton. The idea, he gathered, was to suggest phrases for the opposing side to act out and guess, and dutifully he proposed whatever popped into his mind. After vetoing several of his suggestions, Andrews and Hilary finally accepted The grave’s a fine and private place, over the bitter protests of Carol, who maintained that nobody would ever have heard of it before and who was this Andrew Marvell anyway?

  “His girl friend held out on him,” said Norman. “Which was one of the greatest breaks that English poetry ever had.”

  But he paid little attention to the others’ suggestions and gathered only the faintest idea of how the game was played. Sarah, he noticed, was equally unconcerned by the activities of her side. From time to time she smiled at him across the dim room. There had been something perfect in that moment of union at the stairhead—something perfect in itself, and infinitely promising of perfection to come.

  Hilary stabbed his pencil into the paper, with a definite gesture like Hamlet and his tablets. “There we are,” he announced. “Those five should hold them.” He tore the paper into separate strips, one for ea
ch phrase, and folded them neatly. “Ready, the rest of you?” he called across the room.

  “Ready,” said Fergus. “If anybody can read Fran’s writing. She insisted on being secretary.”

  “I was a good secretary,” said Fran heavily. “I could do shorthand too. Maybe I should have done them in shorthand, Fergus.”

  Fergus glanced at one of the slips. “I think you did, my sweet.” He folded the slips and put them on the center table beside Hilary’s. “We’ll go first; we have more people. Who’ll start? Betsy, you’re youngest.”

  “Please, Mr. O’Breen, couldn’t somebody else ’cause I’ve never played before and if I saw somebody else do it first then maybe I could—”

  “O.K. Sarah, you’re an old hand at this. Go ahead.”

  Sarah advanced to the table, picked up one of the slips which her opponents had prepared, opened it, and showed it to them. It was Norman’s quotation from Marvell, and her glance showed that she realized who had chosen it, and perhaps even why.

  “Time in!” said Mark Andrews, watch in hand, and Sarah began to act out the quotation in pantomime for her side to guess. It was a deft and dexterous performance, a joy to watch. Each of her miming movements was lovely in itself and, what was more to the purpose, infinitely expressive. Fergus apparently possessed that quality even more valuable in the game than pantomimic ability, that sixth sense which leads you to amazingly rapid intuitive success. In an amazingly short time he called out the complete quotation.

  “Fifty seconds,” said Andrews. “Good work. Now you can time me, O’Breen.”

  Mark Andrews was not such a sheer pleasure to the eye as Sarah, but he was equally efficient. Without the wasted motion of one muscle, he set forth his phrase; and Norman found himself, to his own surprise, guessing it almost without conscious effort and calling it out. It was (an ingenious choice) that amazing inscription which decorates the back doors of Los Angeles busses: Do not leave arms in doors after alighting.

  Fergus looked up from his watch. “One minute even. We’ve got a slight lead, but not enough to count. Do you want to try now, Betsy?”

  “All right, Mr. O’Breen. But you won’t have even a slight lead after I get through I bet on account of I just don’t even know what I do now.”

  “You go and take one of those papers and read it to yourself. If you don’t know what the quotation means, ask the other side and they’ll whisper it to you. Then act it out for us.”

  “And I can’t talk?” Her voice was wistful.

  “Not a peep out of you. Now go ahead.”

  Hesitantly Betsy went to the table, chose a paper, read it, and squealed. “Only I don’t know what it means,” she added.

  “We’ll take time out,” said Mark Andrews. “Here, let’s see. Well, I will be …! Who wrote this?”

  Fergus was on his feet, and curiosity glinted in his eyes. “What goes on?”

  “This was in our pile, but God knows how it got there or what it is. Listen: If your death is of any use to R. C., hold tight to life this week.”

  Hilary peered over Andrews’ shoulder. “And I could almost swear that’s my handwriting. It’s just like the other slips. But that wasn’t one of those we put in.”

  “Do I act it out now, Mr. O’Breen?” Betsy asked.

  “No, Macushla. You sit down and let The O’Breen do a bit of pensive pacing. Hilary, you wrote out those slips?”

  “I wrote out the others.”

  “And put them there on the table, all in a heap?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I put ours there later. The table was clear when you set them down?”

  “Nothing on it but ash trays and glasses.”

  “Ash Trays and Glasses,” Fergus repeated. “There’s a title for one of your futility plays, Norm. Now who else went near that table?”

  A yawn made an ugly gap in Hardy Norris’ handsome face. “What’s the point of all this, O’Breen? Why so much to do about a gag that missed fire? Let’s get on with the game.”

  “Yes,” Carol agreed loyally. “Have Betsy pick out another. Or better yet, let’s just skip her.”

  “I don’t want to be skipped. I haven’t ever played this game and I’ll probably be terrible but I bet you are too and I want to try anyway so please let’s go on.”

  “Are you sure, dear, you wouldn’t sooner play jacks?”

  “Hush your miaow, my fine feathered feline,” said Fergus. “Now who else went near that table? First Hilary to put his slips there; the table was clear before that. Then me, to put down our slips. Then Sarah to pick one out. Then Andrews. Then Betsy. And everybody else all the time in their respective places at opposite ends of the garret. Right?”

  “But what does it mean?” There was a note of terror in Fran Owen’s voice. Her question seemed to imply, “Won’t somebody tell me it doesn’t mean what I think?”

  “So far as I know,” said Sarah quietly, “we know only one person named R. C. And we all know him. But how could anyone’s death …?”

  Fergus tucked the slip and one of the already used slips into his pocket. “If anybody prefers to make a statement …? Hilary? Sarah? Andrews?”

  “Fergus?” Hilary mimicked him. “Betsy? There are five, you know.”

  The room was silent, and not comfortably so. Was it coming now? Norman thought. Was this petty business, which Fergus seemed to take so seriously, the lighting of the fuse to set off the blast he had been dreading?

  “O.K.,” said Fergus. “Sit back and have your quiet laugh, whoever you are. It’s nice to know a person with the breadth of vision to see the low-comedy, practical-joke angle on murder.”

  Carol Dayton laughed shrilly. “There you are. You’re afraid, afraid just because somebody wrote a few silly words on a scrap of paper. I suppose that’s somehow an infringement of your precious rights. If you had the—”

  “Before,” Fergus cut in icily, “Miss Dayton starts throwing her guts around again, I’d like to make a speech. It consists of one short sentence and it goes like this: if anybody here can think of a reason why his death could be of use to anyone, let him remember that gags don’t always stay gags. That’s all. Take another slip, Betsy.”

  There was a silence rich in sudden distrust. Norman saw Fran try vainly to focus a suspicious gaze on Hilary. He saw Mark Andrews stare long and perturbedly at Fergus. He saw Carol Dayton trying to live up to her cynical role and trembling a little underneath it. And he saw Sarah look automatically to him for reassurance.

  “That brief and succinct investigation, Fergus, had an almost professional quality.” Hilary Vane’s voice was light and gay, his lips curled agreeably, but his eyes were serious and brooding.

  Chapter 6

  At half-past seven the next morning, Norman Harker stared at his alarm clock and wondered what was inspiring it to ring so furiously in the middle of the night. Slowly he became conscious of the time announced on its dial and began to wonder instead why he should have resolved to get up at such an incredibly virtuous hour.

  He had not drunk much at the party; but a little bad sherry can do more toward the next morning than vasty potions of good whisky. There were fuzzy brown curtains to be cleared away before he could reach his memories.

  These came piecemeal. Sarah … Betsy and an extortionate contract … Fran drinking to the damnation of Carruthers … Sarah … a silly game and in the midst of it a threat of murder … Fergus taking over professionally, a new and sharply efficient Fergus … Sarah …

  All of which was no doubt fascinating and eventually good material, but nowhere could he see a motive for getting up at seven-thirty. Then at last he remembered. Carruthers … a bastard with knobs on … the play … see Carruthers about the play.

  As he dressed and breakfasted, he tried to go over the coming dialogue in his mind. It was difficult, like one of those scenes which simply will not come right and leave you impotently stranded before your typewriter while the tray fills up with pipe ashes and the paper remains virgin.

/>   On the one hand was his extreme disinclination to trust Rupert Carruthers with anything after all he had heard yesterday. On the other hand was his desire to get his play produced, a desire so intense that he would take almost any chances to gratify it. Of course if Carruthers disliked the play, the problem solved itself; he was simply back where he had been on Monday, an unproduced playwright with no prospects.

  But his vanity balked at so direct a solution. Wasn’t it far more likely that Carruthers saw possibilities in the script and was firmly resolved to do it? And in that case the real problem arose: Should he risk any or all of his remaining capital on a production and on the meager chance of establishing himself thereby? Fergus had promised that he’d pull wires at Metropolis through Maureen and see positively that a scout covered the show; surely in that case …

  And Carruthers could not be so black as he had been painted last night, when Carol Dayton’s defense had made him seem far more menacing than had the attacks of the others. If he were such an utter rat, would Lewis Jordan have entrusted The Soul Has Two Garments to him?

  Norman was still unresolved when he approached the shabby building that was the Carruthers Little Theater. Everything was silent. It was too early yet for the daily confusion of rehearsal activity. The main door was still locked. Norman stepped across what had once been a flower bed and peered in the window of the office. The drab and disordered little room was empty.

  He looked at his watch. Eight twenty-five. Probably Carruthers, unused to such overprompt keeping of appointments, hadn’t showed up yet. Norman lit his pipe in the shelter of the building and then took a few turns in the bright morning sun, rehearsing his phrases.

  “One thing must be clear, Mr. Carruthers, before we embark on …”

  “You understand, of course, that I am hardly in a position to …”

  Then he snapped his fingers, like a slovenly amateur who forgets his cue. The workshop. Carruthers had said he might be out there, working on—what was it?—on fire effects for the prologue of the Jordan play.

  The workshop, formerly the garage of the house, was easy to find. Like the main building, it was of simple frame construction. Once it might have been painted white. The large front doors, which had admitted the automobiles, were closed by a rusty padlock, with cobwebs woven about the staples. Obviously this door had not been used since the garage had become a workshop.