by Don Wilcox
The young man smiled blandly as her dark eyes turned on him, sharp and accusing. “I must have placed tickets with your grandfather for an excursion ride—the Rainbow Excursion. You see, I’ve taken a job as an agent—”
“Grandfather didn’t tell me—gracious, I forgot all about grandfather. He’ll be looking for me—and Larry, too. I’d better go. Here’s your book, Mr. Early.”
“You’re sure you won’t have dinner with me?”
The girl shook her head. “When a girl’s got an aged grandfather to look after, not to mention a—a friend—”
“Some other time, then?”
“I—I don’t know.” She started to hurry on. She rounded the corner, then a strange thought stopped her. She whirled, ran back, bumped squarely into the same young man at the same corner.
She fell, though Wayne Early did his best to catch her.
“So you were following me,” she said angrily as he tried to help her to her feet.
“I wasn’t, but I—” He hesitated, puzzled by her sudden change of mood.
“Well, don’t. That’s what I came back to tell you.” Her eyes blazed with a mysterious fury.
“You don’t have to warn me, Miss Londotte. I’m no football man. Two spills of this kind are enough. But what upset you? I mean—”
“That book—”
“Where the hell—” Wayne Early grabbed at his pockets, but at that instant he saw, and Barbara saw, where the book had gone. In the spill it had slid to the very edge of the deck, barely balanced.
The next wave struck the ship, the book bounced over and was gone.
Or would have been, if Wayne Early hadn’t plunged right over the deck after it.
Barbara chased into the ship’s offices spreading the alarm, the whistles blew, the boat lurched, music and dancing and card parties came to a rude stop, everyone scurried out to the decks to see the lifeboat lowered to pick up the man overboard.
Ten minutes after the excitement was over, Wayne Early, clad in dry clothes, emerged from his stateroom to find Barbara waiting outside the door.
“Well here we are again,” he smiled. “Suppose you finish what you started to tell me.”
“You’re not to speak to me again, Mr. Early, until you’re ready to come clean about that book.” Her voice strained in an effort to be severe. “Grandfather and Larry and I have come for a carefree vacation, and I’m not going to have it marred by—”
“What in the devil are you talking about?”
“I don’t know what your game is, but you’ve got our names in your book—”
“For tickets—”
“Tickets! I’ve just recalled the Sumerian characters, Mr. Early, I know the title of that book.”
“What it is? . . . Tell me . . . I swear I don’t know.”
His evident sincerity did not temper Barbara’s venom.
“The title is Book of Death,” she said icily. “Until you can explain that, you needn’t speak to me again.”
CHAPTER III
So this was Congo Gardens!—gala, happy, carefree Africa!—the newest, brightest, most popular playground of the new merry age! As Paris, half a century before, had been the earth’s mecca of merriment, so Congo Gardens was becoming, in this new age, the festival city of all civilization.
Sparkling confetti was showering down over the pier as the Sunny Wave landed. An orchestra rang through loud speakers. Barbara caught her breath with excitement.
“How do you like it, Granddaddy?”
“Where’s a restaurant?” said the old man. “It’s time for my bowl of bread and milk.”
“Why grandaddy, shame on you. With all this merriment.”
Together Barbara and her boy friend helped the old man down the gangplank. He bore heavily upon his silver headed cane, and he was annoyed by Larry LeBrac’s interfering with that arm. He was a man of great bulk, and his muscles weren’t equal to the task of walking down a gangplank. His face showed the torture he was undergoing. His flabby cheeks sagged, one of his eyelids dropped shut with every jogging step like something on a loose hinge.
“Keep your eyes open for a restaurant,” Judge Londotte repeated as the threesome plodded along. “A good restaurant. No more of that watery milk like we had on the ship. If I can’t get a good bowl of bread and milk in this place, we’ll go right back to America.”
“Now don’t start worrying, Granddaddy. You were the one that wanted this trip—”
“Barbara, do you hear that orchestra?” Larry LeBrac was prancing like a high-strung horse.
“It’s an American orchestra, isn’t it?” Barbara asked.
“You know it—they’re doing the Dream of Carniola—the smash of the hour!”
Judge Londotte growled bitterly, “My bowl of bread and milk, Barbara.”
“I heard you, Granddaddy.”
“Why does he have to interrupt me?” Barbara pacified him by loading him into a taxi. The party sped away to a hotel. It turned out to be quite an expensive hotel, and Judge Londotte had trouble with the clerk. Tomorrow, he said, he’d find a decent place at decent prices.
Barbara didn’t go out that night. The old man was too tired to move a step, and he mumbled in hurt tones when she talked of exploring the bright lights with Larry. So she blissfully sat by the radio, to be sharing the orchestra that Larry had gone to hear, but turned it low so the Judge was spared. He had had all the gayety he could stand for one night . . .
Barbara Londotte’s parting words had left Wayne Early stinging.
All night he puzzled over the matter, retracing in his mind the chain of events that had led him to take this job. The following day he browsed through the carnival town looking for an interpreter of the Sumerian and finding none.
He thought of flying to Cairo, Egypt, where, in accordance with the suggestion of a friend of a friend, he had secured this mysterious job a few days before. But this course seemed unwise. He might not get back in time to conduct his first Rainbow Excursion, four nights hence. And he was reluctant to bother his superiors with trifling complaints.
However, the following day he received a telegram announcing that a company official would stop over in Congo Gardens that night.
Wayne’s interview with the official that rainy evening finally led up to a blunt question. Was there a racket back of these Rainbow Excursions? What was the game?
“That’s a hell of a question,” the official said evasively. “You’re getting your money, aren’t you? . . . Then why worry? The other agents on the job seem to like it.”
“Okay. I’ll like it, I guess.”
“Haven’t you even taken a boat load over yet?”
“First one is three nights off,” said Wayne.
“Don’t let it bother you. Just check your tickets and you’ll be all right. Your instinct will tell you what to do.” There wasn’t a thing about the official’s manner to cause suspicion and when Wayne boiled it down the only source of his worries had been a girl’s funny notions about the ancient language insignia. Wayne therewith resolved to forget the whole business—all except the girl. He didn’t want to forget her.
Not until two evenings later did Wayne make contact with the Londotte party. Then it was not Barbara that he found, but the huge decrepit old man, cruising along under the colored lights of the fairway in a taxi.
“Judge Londotte!” Wayne called from his sightseeing rickshaw.
“Huh? Stop this blasted taxi, boy.
Someone called me.” The old man craned falteringly toward the rickshaw. He batted his eyes blankly, his flabby face shuddered.
Wayne stepped up and made himself known. He was the agent who had sold Judge Londotte three tickets for the Rainbow Excursion. The aged man finally remembered, and grudgingly accepted the young fellow’s handsome handshake.
“Of course you’re having a fine time, Mr. Londotte? How are you feeling?”
“I’m feeling rotten—but why should I tell you?”
“Anything I can do? Always gla
d to be of service.”
“Double damn it, I’ve been over these grounds twice trying to find my granddaughter. She ran off and left me in that rat hole of a restaurant. Left me by myself, an old man like me.”
“Never mind,” Wayne said cheerily. “She’s probably having the time of her young life—she and her musical Romeo. I wouldn’t disturb her—”
“She can’t do this to me. She knew I wanted to move to a cheaper hotel tonight. She’s got no business leaving me stranded with the baggage. I’ll tell her so, too, the minute I find her.” The Judge rapped his silver-headed cane on the taxi door.
“If you insist on hunting her down,” said Wayne, “let me help you. You’ll get around much better in a rickshaw.”
It was nothing short of a fight to make the fuming old gentleman leave his taxi, but at last they were moving along the glittering walks side by side in two rickshaws.
“Does your granddaughter have any chance to enjoy herself?” Wayne asked.
The old man answered with a snarl and a grunt.
“Too bad,” said Wayne. “She’s a lovely girl—oh, yes, I’ve met her. She rather fell for me on board the Sunny Wave.”
“Gr-r-r.” The massive old man trembled,
“I can’t remember meeting a peachier girl than Barbara Londotte,”, Wayne continued. “I don’t suppose she comes to Congo Gardens often. While she’s here you ought to let her have the time of her life.”
“What about me?”
“She’s been here four nights, now, hasn’t she?”
“I say, what about me?”
“Maybe she is having the time of her life. For her sake, I hope so.”
“Double damn it, I’m entitled to some consideration. You said you were going to find her. Well, get the hell busy.” Wayne turned to the boys who were pushing the rickshaws. “Ride us to all the best music spots in Congo Gardens.”
Carried away by the strains of an exotic melody—a new smash, as Larry LeBrac called it—Barbara Londotte was at last having an evening of enjoyment.
She had hated to run off from her grandfather, but his growl had become unbearable. Beside, the days were slipping away and she hadn’t had a. taste of carnival fun yet. The first three nights had been utterly ruined.
On the night they had arrived she had stayed with her grandfather, and Larry had gone out alone.
The second evening it had rained, and Judge Londotte had scolded and fretted because they were still living in the expensive hotel. And Larry had gone berserk with a frenzy of composing and had spent half the night banging out snatches of weird melody on the piano. in one of the hotel parlors—until the management had to put a stop to it. Then last night, just as Barbara and
Larry were setting out for a night of music and dancing, some dreadful publisher’s agent had caught Larry at the hotel door and asked to hear his musical composition. So they had gone back to the piano, just to run over the number once.
But that had turned out to be only the beginning. They spent an hour at the piano, while Barbara sat back in her new silver evening dress and dancing pumps and red Spanish shawl, waiting, doing her best to be charming. Then the publisher’s agent insisted upon drinks, and he and Larry got tight and began to argue.
They had to scare up a phonograph and some records to settle the argument. They played one horrible record over not less than twenty-five times, trying to determine whether the bassoon solo depicted the comedy of life or the tragedy of death. And when the publisher’s agent, after two more drinks, declared belligerently that it depicted the comedy of death, Larry wanted to fight.
So in the end the evening came to utter ruin. The publisher’s agent even admitted, finally, that he had no authority to buy Larry’s song. Barbara was utterly depressed.
Consequently, Barbara was breathing with relief this evening. For once, she’d gotten away from grandfathers and publisher’s agents and quarrels and bickering. Larry was thoroughly enjoying himself, and to Barbara that meant everything. It was when he was in these hyper-romantic moods, stirred by a good orchestra, that Barbara felt the glow of his ardor most keenly.
“Barbara,” he was half-whispering, “what you just said about that music—it shows how deeply you feel the things I feel. That music is me, Barbara, the very soul of me. You enter into it like no one else can.”
“The Congo Gardens have carried you away,” Barbara teased. “You’re talking thin air.”
He brushed his lips against her forehead as they danced.
“Listen! They’re going into that new smash. I could sing that one like nobody’s business—especially if you’d sit right over there and toss me a smile on every third note.”
“Go ahead, basso profundo,” Barbara said. “The lid’s off. Sing it!”
Larry believed in obeying every musical impulse. He mounted the orchestra platform, adjusted the microphone, and raised an eyebrow toward the leader who hold him to “take it away.” The orchestra was with him, and so was the crowd, from the first note. And how he sang! Barbara caught her breath. This was glamour to write home about.
If her smile had anything to do with Larry’s singing, it was no wonder he was putting the song over big—
But the chorus broke off unfinished. A guttural voice cut into the music and everyone turned to see what was the matter. Some of the crowd shrank back as though expecting a police raid Or a bandit hold-up.
The roar, however, was a familiar one to Barbara Londotte. She turned to see her grandfather riding across the floor in a rickshaw.
“Right over to the orchestra!” The old man growled to the boy who was pushing him. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. There. Stop that damned music. Come down from there, you. Where’s my granddaughter?”
Larry LeBrac moved down from the platform, crestfallen, helpless.
“Wait, Granddaddy,” Barbara cried, elbowing through to the rickshaw. “Don’t break up the song—”
“Song! Song! Come here, both of you. I’ve been searching the grounds for two hours, damn it.”
The orchestra had come to a limping stop. The listeners were grumbling protests. Some people ought to be confined in cells, they said, to keep the peace. Judge Londotte silenced all murmurs with an ugly snarl.
“Granddaddy,” Barbara gasped. “You’re spoiling everything.”
“Shut up. Who’s paying for this trip? I am. I’m entitled to some consideration. You ought to be ashamed, running off with this frog-voiced monkey.”
“Granddaddy, please. You’re embarrassing me to tears.”
“I told you, Barbara, double damn it, we’ve got to move tonight. We’re through with that highway robber joint they call a hotel. Come on, you—” But Barbara had already fled. Larry, burned up with humiliation, was torn between following after her and waiting for the irate old man. The crowd’s stares imprisoned him and he waited.
Barbara had walked out the first exit as fast as she could go. She crossed under the floodlights of a parkway, dodged a shower of confetti, tried to lose herself in the moving throngs.
Suddenly her way was blocked by a rickshaw, and a voice that she certainly knew called, “Watch the stop lights. Miss Londotte. Don’t crash into me.”
“Oh—it’s you.”
“Early is the name.” Wayne stepped out of the rickshaw and made a deep bow. “My chariot, Miss, at your service. Your grandfather and I have been looking for you. I think he went over to the dance pavilion—pardon me, but did I say the wrong thing?”
“Nothing you might say could make the least difference.”
“Well, well, well.” Wayne cocked his head. “Quite a cold spell we’re having here in the tropics, isn’t it, Miss Londotte? I fell as if I’ve been hung in the refrigeration room for the season.”
“If you’ll step aside, please—”
“One moment, my friend,” said Wayne Early. “If nothing I say can make any difference, I may as well say it.”
“Well?”
“You’re not having any fun. Yo
u haven’t had a minute to enjoy yourself since you came. Your grandfather told me.”
“He told you?”
“Unintentionally, of course. I can see how true it is. A charming kid like you ought to get away from your responsibilities. I’ll appoint myself a committee of one to see that you do it.”
“Oh—I—no, I mustn’t—”
Wayne discarded her protests in favor of the strong gleam of interest in her dark eyes. He turned abruptly to the rickshaw boy, handed him a bill.
“I’m renting this go-cart for the rest of the evening,” he said. He helped Barbara into it and wheeled her off to see the sights.
CHAPTER IV
It was the fifth night, and at last, thought Barbara, the Londotte trio had got the carnival spirit. They had all three bought costumes for the masquerade street dance. They would dance until after midnight. Then, at the bewitching hour of two in the morning, they would gather at the Rainbow Lake pier for the second event of the night, the long promised scenic excursion.
These plans, for once, had suited both Larry and Judge Londotte. Larry had assured himself that there would be interesting music at both events, and that was enough to account for his eagerness.
The grandfather, while not admitting any anticipation of pleasure, withheld some of his usual grumbling. Barbara’s walkout of the previous evening had perhaps been a lesson to him. She had come home late and had summarily announced that she had had too wonderful a time to do any apologizing to anyone.
That was strange behavior for Barbara, and Larry had expected the old man to blow up.
The old man didn’t. Perhaps he was too exhausted. Perhaps he was leaving the blowing-up to Larry. The matter of getting moved to cheaper quarters was the chief burden on the grandfather’s mind; and by afternoon of this day that matter was taken care of.
They had moved into a private home far out in one of the Congo Garden suburbs, a residential section that was out from under the expensive police regulations of the main city.
