Henry said he was downstairs in the lobby with his Uncle George. I remembered his Uncle George, didn’t I— the man who had come into rehearsal the night before? I said rather grudgingly that I did remember Uncle George and asked them up.
When they arrived, Henry was apologetic about disturbing breakfast, but Uncle George Kramer was plump and pleased with himself. He was still wearing the derby hat and still carried the large portfolio under his arm. When I introduced them to Lenz, Mr. Kramer looked ingratiating and said, in what sounded like extremely efficient German:
“Serh geehrt, Herr Doktor.”
I liked him even less than I had the night before.
Neither of them mentioned Comstock and, presumably, they hadn’t heard the news. I saw no reason to pass it on to them and depress myself so early in the morning by having to talk about it. There was a rather strained pause
which Dr. Lenz broke by launching into a long and congratulatory speech to young Henry about his play. Henry turned a modest pink and squirmed. I knew how much he hated the limelight, so I changed the subject by asking if they were visiting us for any particular reason.
Mr. Kramer glanced significantly at Henry and said: “We have come on a little matter of business, Mr. Duluth. I think my nephew would prefer to explain the situation to you.”
Henry obviously didn’t prefer to do anything. But in a hasty speech which gave the impression of rehearsal, he explained that his uncle had a photographic studio in New York and had been freelancing for one of the big weekly picture magazines. Mr. Kramer, it seemed, was eager to give his nephew’s play a free boost by taking candid camera shots of the show in rehearsal and getting them printed in this magazine which had an enormous circulation. Would I object?
Mr. Kramer had opened the portfolio to show me samples of his Art. They were unexpectedly good. In spite of my distrust of him as a man, I saw no reason to object to something which would give us such obviously useful publicity. I said it would be okay by me.
Mr. Kramer beamed. “That is very kind of you, Mr. Duluth. Believe it or not, I hadn’t the slightest idea my nephew was in New York until I happened to run him to earth yesterday. Guess he’s too high and mighty these days to bother with his old uncle.” He laughed heartily. “But I read the play in bed last night and I’m amazed Henry could have turned out something so slick. There are fine photographic possibilities there, too. I’m particularly keen to shoot the scene in the first act where they put old Comstock in the coffin.”
That seemed rather to force the issue. I looked at Iris; I looked at Lenz; finally I looked at Henry and said: “Then you haven’t heard about Comstock? He died last night—a heart attack.”
Henry’s mouth opened; he pushed anxiously at his drooping black hair. “A heart attack, Mr. Duluth!” He paused. “How—I mean after what happened last night, what Miss Ffoulkes told us, there wasn’t anything back of it, anything that scared him, was there?”
The new theatrical life was bewildering enough for poor Henry without his having to hear about the malicious influence that seemed to be attacking his play. I thought I’d better produce something non-committal and reassuring to tell him.
“Comstock just went back stage and found a broken mirror,” I said. “He was superstitious and it upset him. His heart went on the blink. That’s all.”
It wasn’t a convincing story but it seemed to satisfy Henry. The young playwright gave a sigh of relief and patted at his forehead with a handkerchief.
Uncle George, however, seemed unnecessarily curious. He said: “Who broke the mirror?”
I made some vague remark about not actually knowing. Then, to my complete surprise, Kramer announced: “If a mirror was broken in that theater last night, I’d have a pretty good hunch who broke it.” He turned to his nephew. “Wouldn’t you, Henry?”
I hadn’t expected deduction from Uncle George. Neither, apparently, had Henry.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Who do you mean?”
“Wessler, of course.” George Kramer’s punched beady eyes settled on me. “Didn’t you know about how Wessler’s always breaking mirrors?”
I said I didn’t. But he’d gotten me curious.
“I heard about it all through a friend of mine, a fellow who worked as nurse to Wessler at the Thespian Hospital when he and his half-brother were recovering from that airplane accident.” Uncle George waved an arm with the airy gesture of a born raconteur. “Of course, they kept it pretty secret but I’m in well with that place. I’ve done some photographic work for their laboratories. Even got my nephew a job there once.” He gave an avuncular laugh. “That’s how I was let in on the story.”
Henry shuffled his feet as if he was afraid his uncle was boring us. But Lenz showed sudden interest. He leaned across the remains of the scrambled eggs and said: “Perhaps you’d be good enough to tell us what you know, Mr. Kramer.”
“Surely:” Kramer crossed pudgy hands over a neatly vested paunch. “You know that airplane accident smashed up Wessler’s half-brother. He got hit on the head and he’s more or less permanently nuts, they tell me. Well, it seems it did something to Wessler’s eyesight, too. When they got them both to the hospital at first, he couldn’t see at all, and they figured he’d be blind for some time. But his vision came back before they expected —one day when he was alone in his private room. This friend of mine told me Wessler had always been stuck on his looks; he’d been called the most handsome man in Austria and everything. Well, when he found he could see again, the first thing he thought about was his face. He was scared to hell something might have happened to disfigure him. They hadn’t told him, you see, just how bad the damage was.”
Mr. Kramer obviously sensed that he had aroused our interest. Obviously, too, he enjoyed being the center of attention. “Yes, Wessler got out of bed, took all the bandages off and went to the mirror. This happened, of course, before the plastic surgery operations. You can imagine how he felt when he saw himself in the glass— all burnt and lacerated. When he was still blind, I’d been called in to take some photographs of the injuries for the plastic surgery people and I can tell you just what a terrible sight he was. No wonder he went crazy for a while. This pal of mine who was nursing him at the time went in and found him hitting at the mirror with his bare fists. He smashed it and he smashed every other glass he could lay his hands on while he stayed at the hospital.”
Kramer smiled knowingly. “He was hard to handle after that. He found out about the photographs I’d taken and he made me destroy every darn copy and negatives, too. For days afterwards he lay there in his room with the shades drawn—in the dark. He couldn’t even stand the idea of his face being seen. And he wouldn’t ever let my friend nurse him again—in spite of the fact that he was the only person in the hospital who could speak German. He was switched to taking care of Von Brandt. He never saw Wessler again. That’s why I said it was pretty obvious who broke that mirror at the Dagonet.”
In spite of Kramer’s unpleasantly gloating narrative style there was something tragic about that story. I’d never realized Wessler had been submitted to that cruel shock. It explained so much. It explained why he had refused the second star dressing-room at the Dagonet because the mirror didn’t suit him. It explained that touching little speech about mirrors he had delivered on the stage last night.
And it brought out something far more alarming. It showed how utterly defenseless my Austrian star would be if anyone got it into his head to frighten him—through mirrors.
George Kramer was still holding the floor. “My nephew tells me there were some pretty funny things going on at the Dagonet last night,” he was saying. “Of course, it’s none of my business, but if I was Mr. Duluth, I’d keep my eye very closely on Wessler.”
“You are not suggesting,” put in Lenz curiously, “that Mr. Wessler is liable to do anything—abnormal?”
“I’m not suggesting anything.” Kramer threw out plump hands in a gesture that vulgarly caricatured one of Lenz’s
favorite mannerisms. “I’ve done a lot of stage photography, true. I’ve even acted in my time, but I’m not a producer like Mr. Duluth. Even so, I can tell you this. If I was running a show, I wouldn’t touch Wessler. He may be a fine actor, but he’s just about ready to go off the deep end any minute, the way his half-brother did, believe you me.” The beady eyes turned back to me. “Are you running an understudy for him, Mr. Duluth?”
I was beginning to resent Mr. Kramer. “No,” I said shortly. “He refuses to have anyone understudy him except Von Brandt, his half-brother, and he’s completely out of the running. I’m depending entirely on Wessler.”
“Do you think you’re wise?” Kramer’s pink face loomed at me above the coffee percolator. “Of course, I know suggestions aren’t well taken from outsiders. But I am Henry’s uncle and I’m interested to see the boy gets a fair break with his first play. Why don’t you line up someone else for that part—just in case? It’s too late now I guess to make a real change. But I can tell you someone who’d play that part swell. He’s free at the moment and I happen to know he’d jump at being a sort of unofficial understudy.” “Whom do you mean?” I asked.
George Kramer tapped a cigarette against a fat thumb. “Roland Gates,” he said.
Until then I hadn’t really thought of Uncle George as sinister. He’d just seemed an over-fed, inquisitive busybody. But now that round face with its little mustache seemed charged with sudden malignance. Perhaps it was the shock of discovering him as an associate of Roland Gates, Mirabelle’s ex-husband; perhaps it was a stray recollection of the way both Mirabelle and Wessler had stared at him last night on the stage—as if they had been afraid.
But for some reason I had the crazy sensation that he knew much more than he had a right to know and that he was making some obscure threat.
I had to say something. “I’m perfectly satisfied with Wessler. And it’s absolutely preposterous to consider Gates.”
“You mean because of Miss Rue just having divorced him?” Kramer wagged his head sagely. “Oh, I don’t think Miss Rue would object. When she and Mr. Gates were playing together I did a lot of work for them and I flatter myself that I knew Miss Rue quite well. She’s an artiste— an artiste to the bone. If we could get her to see that Gates would be right in that part, she’d never let anything personal stand in the way.”
My only impulse at that moment was to kick Mr. Kramer out of the apartment on the point of my toe. He seemed to get the vague impression that he wasn’t going over so well for he changed the subject abruptly. He said, with an odd glance at Henry: “While we’re on the subject of changes in your cast, Mr. Duluth, I guess you’ll have to be looking around for another actor to fill Comstock’s place. I don’t want to push myself but, as I said, I’ve done a bit of acting in my time. I’d be highly honored if you could give me a chance to take over—just to be in my nephew’s play.”
I thought that was about the goddamndest nerve Td ever run up against. But once again I was stalled from speaking my mind. While Henry and I were staring at Kramer with a sort of apoplectic awe, Dr. Lenz took command of the situation.
Very firmly, in a tone of voice I had learned to respect, he said: “I’m sure Mr. Duluth would be more than glad to give you a trial in the part, Mr. Kramer. He was just telling me, the moment before you arrived, that he would very much like to get a man of your type to play that particular role.”
That, of course, was the most arrant of lies, and if anyone in the whole length of Manhattan but Lenz had said it, I would have sprung into battle. But I knew Lenz; I knew he had a very good reason for whatever he was doing; I suspected also that his reason was somehow connected with the miserable affair of the Dagonet. Therefore, although the words blistered my tongue, I said I would be extremely pleased to have Kramer take over
Comstock’s role. I told him to come around to rehearsal that morning at eleven-thirty.
I did add, however: “I suppose you know you’ll have to spend quite a few minutes shut up in a coffin?”
George Kramer was grinning as if his very best dreams had come true. “That doesn’t bother me, Mr. Duluth. We’ll all have to put in a long stretch in a coffin sooner or later. Might as well get used to it now.”
That was a joke. None of us were polite enough to smile —not even Henry who seemed as distraught by this sudden turn of events as I was myself.
To my extreme relief, they left then. I went with them to the door. While Kramer tilted the derby hat onto the back of his head and strolled jauntily toward the elevator, Henry hovered behind. He was twisting a limp black forelock with nervous fingers.
“I hate to bring this up, Mr. Duluth,” he stammered. “But living in New York’s turned out to be a lot more expensive than living at home. The five-hundred-dollar option you let me have is gone. I was wondering whether you could advance me another five hundred on royalties.”
“Sure,” I said. I was mildly surprised that the parsimonious Henry should run through five hundred dollars in less than two months, but I was used to impoverished authors. I scribbled a check in the living-room and brought it out to him. After all, I was anticipating breaking box-office history. A five-hundred advance to Henry seemed like a pretty safe bet.
He took the check with a sudden, rather attractive smile. “Thank you, Mr. Duluth. You—you don’t know what this means to me.”
As he spoke, I happened to glance at Kramer. He had strolled back and was standing quite close to us, whistling softly through his teeth. There was a peculiar smile on his lips and he was staring straight in our direction.
It gave me suddenly and furiously to think when I realized that he was not looking at me. He wasn’t looking at Henry, either. Those smug, piggy eyes were fixed greedily on the check in his nephew’s hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I WAS sure then that Henry Prince himself was not going to get one cent of that five-hundred dollar check, that it was Uncle George who had wanted the money and had somehow forced the boy into borrowing it from me. The more I saw of Mr. Kramer, the more sinister he became and the more emphatic became my indignation at Lenz for injecting him into my company.
I found the doctor sitting placidly in the living-room, lost behind the New York Times. I went into a tirade. I told him what had just happened about Henry and the check. I told him how Mirabelle had reacted to Kramer last night. I pointed out that he was an associate of the man I feared more than anyone on Broadway—Roland Gates. It wouldn’t have been possible to choose a worse person to add to the company, particularly now when we were all pretty jittery anyway.
Dr. Lenz laid the New York Times on his large knees and smiled at me benignly. “I agree with every word you have said,” he remarked. “Mr. Kramer struck me as an extremely unpleasant type of person. It also occurred to me that he is more than likely to have been connected with the disturbances which took place last night at the Dagonet.”
I stared. I said: “Then why the hell …?”
Dr. Lenz brushed the sentence away uncompleted. “You have every right to know my motives for urging you to cultivate Mr. Kramer. In medicine we frequently administer what is known as a provocative dose. When we believe a patient to be suffering from a certain disease and yet have no means of verifying our diagnosis, we inject into his system a certain drug which we know will aggravate the symptoms of the disease in question, should the disease be actually present. Adapt that to our own problem. We believe that there is something vitally wrong at the Dagonet. We know that certain members of your company have reacted abnormally to Mr. Kramer. By putting them into close and constant contact with him, we may be able to force a crisis—provided Mr. Kramer does have some connection with the disturbances. Should his pres-sence at the Dagonet bring about violent reactions, we shall have a far greater chance of putting our finger on the focus of infection. If, on the other hand, he is accepted without friction, at least we shall be able to eliminate him as an irritant factor.”
He produced his spectacles and pointed t
hem at me. “Perhaps you understand now, Mr. Duluth. Mr. Kramer is to be our provocative dose.”
That, of course, was satanically ingenious. But I wasn’t entirely sold. There was danger for the play.
“It’s like giving somebody strychnine,” I said, “to find out whether he’ll die.”
At that moment the telephone shrilled. It was answered by Iris who had been lurking in the kitchen, pretending she hadn’t been listening to Lenz’s conversation. She kept the receiver to her ear for a few moments and then passed it to me.
“Wessler,” she said. “And ready to explode.”
She was right. My Austrian star was calling from his apartment. He was fighting mad. He had just returned from the Dagonet where he’d gone to get his hat and cloak which he had left there the night before. The one thing I’d hoped wouldn’t happen had happened. He’d got to his dressing-room before Eddie had been able to repair the damage. He had found the crushed statuette and the cracked mirror.
“Who is thees who come into my room, spoils my dolls and the mirror break?” he asked with an indignation which did odd things to his English. I could visualize him at the other end of the wire, a heroic bearded figure towering over the telephone. “That dressing-room I take special because the mirror suits. Now she is broke.”
I tried to calm him down, but all the time I was thinking how Kramer must have been wrong on one point, at least. Wessler didn’t break that mirror himself.
“It was just an accident,” I concluded feebly.
“Accident?” He tossed the word back to me. “You need not tell me an accident. Because I know. They do it, I know. They crush my leetle doll; they take my clay too. Yesterday the clay from which I the dolls make it was in the dressing-room left. Now it is gone and special from Wien I have it sent. They steal that too.”
I knew exactly who Wessler meant by “they.” He was too much of a gentleman to accuse Mirabelle and Gerald outright, but he, like Theo, thought they were back of it. I struggled to think of something soothing to say. I hadn’t the slightest idea who could have stolen his modeling clay. Finally I promised to have Eddie Troth look into the matter.
Puzzle for Players Page 7
