by Rex Stout
By evening he had decided on nothing. After dinner he strolled up Broadway and bought a ticket for the revue. He was determined to find it amusing, for Mr. Henderson had said it was a bum show. It really bored him to death. But he stayed till the final curtain. Then he found himself on Broadway again.
Just how he got into Dickson’s is uncertain. He wanted a drink, and he wandered into the place and found himself in the presence of “the most famous cabaret in America.” Rick sat at a small table at one end of the immense, gorgeous room, watching the antics of the dancers and singers and other performers on the platform, and it was there that his idea came to him. Before he went to bed that night he had decided to give it a trial the very next day.
Accordingly the following morning he sought out a hardware store on Sixth Avenue and purchased thirty yards of first grade hemp rope and a gallon of crude oil. The cost was eight dollars and sixty cents. These articles he took back to the hotel, and for three hours he sat in his room rubbing the oil into the rope to bring it to the required degree of pliancy and toughness.
Then he spliced a loop in one end, doubled it through and made a six-foot noose—the size of the room would not permit a larger one—and began whirling it about his head. A sigh of satisfaction escaped him. Ah, the nimble wrist! And the rope would really do very well; a little limbering up and he would ask nothing better.
He pulled his traveling bag from under the bed, dumped out its contents and put the rope, carefully coiled, in their place. Then, with the bag in his hand, he descended to the street and made his way uptown to Dickson’s. At the entrance he halted a moment, then went boldly inside and accosted one of the young women at the door of the cloakroom.
“I want to speak to the manager of the show,” said he, hat in hand.
“You mean the headwaiter?” she hazarded.
“I don’t know,” replied Rick. “The man that runs the show on the platform. I saw it last night.”
“Oh,” she grinned. “You mean the cabaret.”
“Do I? Much obliged. Anyway, I want to see him.”
“It ain’t so easy,” the young woman observed. “The boss tends to that himself. I’ll see. Come in here.”
She led the way down a narrow, dark corridor to an office where stenographers and bookkeepers sat at their desks and machines, and turned Rick over to a wise-looking youth with a threatening mustache. The youth surveyed the caller with ill-concealed amusement at his ungraceful appearance, and when he finally condescended to speak there was a note of tolerant sarcasm in his voice.
“So you want to see Mr. Dickson,” he observed. “What do you want with him?”
“Listen, sonny.” Rick was smiling, too, quietly enough. “No doubt we’re having a lot of fun looking at each other, but my time’s valuable just now. I’m Rick Duggett from Arizona. Report the fact to your Mr. Dickson.”
Thus did Rick make his way into the presence of Lonny Dickson, the best known man on Broadway and the owner of its most famous cabaret. He was a large, smiling individual, with a clear countenance and a keen, penetrating eye. As Rick entered the inner office where he sat at a large flat desk heaped with papers, smoking a long thin cigar, he got up from his chair and held out a hand in greeting.
“Jimmie just told me,” he observed genially, looking Rick in the eye, “that a wild guy from the West wanted to see me. I’m kind of wild myself, so I don’t mind. But Jimmie didn’t get the name—”
“Duggett,” said Rick, taking the proffered hand.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Duggett. What can I do for you?”
Rick hesitated.
“It’s this way,” he said finally. “I’m from Arizona. I’m a son of misfortune. Two days ago I had a roll big enough to choke a horse, but night before last I let it out to pasture, as though I wasn’t green enough myself. So I’m broke, and it’s a long, long way to Arizona. Last night I happened in here and saw your show, and an idea came to me. It’s a new stunt for the show, and it ought to be pretty good. So I thought I’d—”
“What is it?” interrupted Mr. Dickson, whose cordiality had rapidly disappeared as he became aware of the nature of the visitor’s errand. This was just some nut looking for a job.
“Something new,” said Rick placidly. “I can’t tell you very well; I’ve got to show you. It’ll take five minutes. All I want is a room with plenty of space, say twenty feet on each side, and a high ceiling—”
“But what is it?” the other repeated impatiently.
Rick looked at him.
“Gosh, you’re not wild,” he observed with a twinkle in his eye. “You’re just plain sassy. Didn’t I say I had to show you? Haven’t you got a room around here somewhere of the general size I indicated? Haven’t you got a pair of eyes to look at me with?”
The frown left Dickson’s brow, and he laughed.
“Well, you’re wild enough for both of us,” he declared. “I guess you’ll get back to Arizona all right, someway or other. As for your stunt for the cabaret, it’s a thousand to one that it’s rotten. Naturally you can’t be expected to know anything about cabarets. However, I’ll take a look. Come on, we’ll go up to the banquet room on the next floor; I guess you’ll find it big enough.”
“Much obliged,” said Rick.
He picked up his traveling bag and followed the restaurant proprietor out of the office.
The evening of the following day the patrons of Dickson’s of Broadway were treated to a surprise.
Do you know the main room at Dickson’s?
The first thing you notice about the place is the light—dazzling, glaring, bold; a perfect riot of light, whitish yellow, that comes from four immense chandeliers suspended from the ceiling and innumerable electric lamps on the marble pillars, attached to the walls, on the tables, everywhere.
Then your ears are assaulted, and you hear the clinking of glasses, the muffled footsteps of waiters, the confusing hum of conversation from half a thousand tongues, and mingled with all this a sound of music, now suppressed, now insistent, that comes from the orchestra on the rear of the raised platform at one side. On the front of this platform, of which a fair view may be had by each of the hundreds of diners and drinkers packed in the immense room, the cabaret performers appear in turn.
It was the height of the dinner hour, a little after seven. A young woman in a low-necked blue dress with cowlike eyes had finished three verses and choruses of a popular sentimental song, and the orchestra had rested the usual three minutes. Then they struck up again for the next “turn,” and a girl appeared on the platform, followed by a man.
The girl—a lively little black-haired creature with sparkling eyes and a saucy, winning smile—was no stranger to the habitués of the place; she had been dancing there for several months. But always alone. Who was this fellow with her? They opened their eyes at his strange appearance.
He was a tall, ungainly chap, wearing the costume of a moving picture cowboy, and in his hand he carried a great coil of rope. There was an expression of painful embarrassment on his brown face as he glanced from side to side and saw five hundred pairs of eyes looking into his from all parts of the large, brilliantly lighted room.
The girl began to dance, swinging into the music with a series of simple, tentative steps, and the man roused himself to action. He loosened the coil of rope and began pulling it through a loop at one end to form a noose. Then slowly and easily, and gracefully, he began whirling the noose in the air. It was fifteen feet in diameter, half as wide as the platform.
The girl, quickening her steps with the music, swerved suddenly to one side and leaped into the center of the whirling coil of rope. Then the music quickened again and the rope whirled faster, while the dancer circled round and round its circumference in a series of dizzy gyrations. Suddenly the man twisted to one side, with a quick and powerful turn of the wrist, and the rope doubled on itself like lightning, forming two circles instead of one. The girl leaped and danced from one to the other.
The music
became more rapid still, and the rope and the dancer, whirling with incredible swiftness in the most intricate and dazzling combinations, challenged the eye to follow them. The nooses of the rope, which had again doubled, came closer together, until finally two of them encircled the girl at once, then three, then all four, still whirling about her swiftly revolving form.
All at once the orchestra, with one tremendous crash, was silent; simultaneously the man gave a sudden powerful jerk with his arm and the dancer stopped and became rigid, while the four nooses of the rope tightened themselves about her, pinning her arms to her sides and rendering her powerless. One more crash from the orchestra, and the man ran forward, picked the girl up in his arms and ran quickly from the platform.
The applause was deafening. Dickson’s had scored another hit. All Broadway asks is something new.
Back of the platform the man had halted to place the girl gently on her feet and unwind the coils of rope. That done, she took him by the hand to lead him back to the platform for the bow. He hung back, but she insisted, and finally she dragged him on. They were forced to take another, and a third. When they returned from the last one they found Lonny Dickson himself waiting for them at the foot of the platform steps.
“Great stuff, Duggett,” he said enthusiastically. “You put it over fine, especially with only one day’s rehearsal. It’ll improve, too. I’ve been paying Miss Carson fifty a week. I’ll make it a hundred and fifty for the turn, and you and she can split it fifty-fifty.”
“Much obliged,” replied Rick calmly. His face was flushed and his brow covered with perspiration. He turned to his partner.
“Shall we have a drink on it, Miss Carson?”
They found a table in a corner back of the platform. Miss Carson, a rarity among cabaret performers, was even more pleasing to look at when you were close to her than on the stage. Her sparkling eyes retained all their charm, and the softness of her hair, the daintiness of her little mouth, the fresh smoothness of her cheeks, became more apparent. She was panting now from her exertions, and her flushed face and disarranged hair made a lovely picture.
“Really,” she said, as she sat down, “I ought to ask you to wait till I go to the dressing room and repair damages.”
“Oh, that can wait,” declared Rick. “If you knew how nice you look right now you wouldn’t want to fix up anyway. I suppose we ought to drink to each other with a bottle of champagne, but to tell the truth I was kind of hungry this evening and I’m afraid I about finished my little stake. I’ll corral Dickson for an advance tonight and we’ll have the wine later.”
But Miss Carson protested with a gay smile that she never drank anything stronger than mineral water, so that was all right. More, a little exclamation of horror escaped her when she saw Rick swallow three fingers of whiskey straight, after clinking glasses with her.
“That awful stuff!” she exclaimed. “It’ll kill you. I thought you mixed water with it or something.”
“I haven’t got that low yet,” Rick declared. “But there’s a funny thing, I was thinking just then that I’ve been drinking too much since I came East. Out home I don’t touch it oftener than once in two months, though I do fill up pretty well then. You know—” he hesitated—and blushed! “You know,” he went on, “I’m glad you don’t drink.”
“Yes? Why?”
“Lord, I don’t know. I’m just glad.”
“Well, so am I. I never have. But listen, Mr. Duggett. Mr. Dickson said he was going to give us a hundred and fifty and we could split it fifty-fifty. I won’t do that—divide it even, I mean. I was only getting fifty alone, so it’s quite evident that the hundred belongs to you.”
“You don’t say so,” Rick smiled at her. “Now, that’s just like you.” (How in the world could he have known what was just like her, having met her only twenty-four hours before?) “But you’ve got it wrong. The hundred is yours. I wouldn’t be worth two bits without you.”
“Mr. Duggett, the increased value of the turn is due entirely to you, and you must take the extra money. I insist.”
“Miss Carson, you really ought to have the whole thing, only I need a stake to get back home, so I’ll agree to take one-third. Not a cent more.”
They argued about it for twenty minutes, and at the end of that time compromised on an even split.
“It must be terribly exciting out in Arizona,” observed Miss Carson after a pause.
Rick lifted his eyebrows.
“Exciting?”
“Yes. That is—well—exciting.”
“Not so as you could notice it. Oh, it’s all right. I don’t kick any. Plenty to eat, a good poker game whenever you’re loaded and a dance every once in a while. And of course lots of work—”
“But I didn’t mean that,” Miss Carson put in. “Working and eating and playing cards and dancing—why, that’s just what the men do in New York. I meant Indians, and things like that.”
“Yes, the Indians are pretty bad,” Rick agreed. “You’ve got to keep your eye on ’em all the time. They’ll get anything that’s loose. Worst sneak thieves in the world. But I don’t call that very exciting. In fact, I guess I’m having the most exciting time of my life right now.”
“Oh, so you like New York?”
“I should say not. That is, I didn’t mean New York. I meant right now, here at this table.”
“My goodness, I don’t see anything very exciting about this,” the girl smiled.
“Of course not. You’re looking in the wrong direction. You’re looking at me and I’m looking at you. You know, it’s a funny thing about your eyes. They look like the eyes of a pony I had once, the best that ever felt a saddle. The only time I ever cried was when he stumbled in a prairie dog hole and had to be shot.”
This was not the first compliment Rick had ever paid a woman, but you may see that he had not practiced the art sufficiently to acquire any great degree of subtlety. It appeared nevertheless not to be totally ineffective, for Miss Carson turned away the eyes that reminded Rick of his lost pony. She even made inquiry about the pony’s name and age, and why his stumbling in a prairie dog hole necessitated his death; also what is a prairie dog and a hole thereof?
At their next appearance on the platform they repeated their former success. There seemed little doubt that they were to be talked of on Broadway, and that meant profitable popularity. Miss Carson was delighted, and Rick found himself echoing her pleasure. Besides he was pleased on his own account, for two reasons: he was going to have no difficulty getting back to Arizona without revealing his disgraceful adventure to the boys, and he was going to get back from Broadway itself at least a part of that which Broadway had taken from him.
After this second performance they would not be needed again for more than two hours, and Rick changed into his street clothes and went out for a walk. It may as well be admitted that his thoughts during this long stroll were mainly of his cabaret partner, but there was another idea in his mind at the same time. He did not leave Broadway, and his eye ran ceaselessly over the faces of the passersby; also he stopped in every café, though he drank not at all. He was hoping that he might run across Mr. Henderson.
At eleven o’clock he was back at Dickson’s. Miss Carson found him in front of the dressing room and informed him that their call would be at 11:24. The immense dining room was filling up rapidly with the supper crowd from the theaters.
Waiters and omnibuses trotted swiftly up and down the aisles, there was a continuous line of new arrivals streaming in from the doors at both ends, and corks were beginning to pop. Two numbers of the supper cabaret had already done their turns, and the sentimental soprano was standing at the rear of the platform squeezing the bulb of an atomizer and half choking herself.
When the time came for the Rope Dance, as Lonny Dickson had decided to call it in his advertising copy for the following day, Rick Duggett was surprised at the ease with which he walked out on the platform, bowed and began loosening his coil of rope.
Miss Car
son was daintily performing her short opening dance to the music of the orchestra. Rick got his noose arranged, stepped forward to his position in the center of the platform and started the rope slowly whirling. This was easy. He got it a little higher and went a little faster. There would still be at least a minute before the music cue came for the dancer to leap into the whirling circle, and Rick allowed his gaze to wander over the throng of faces turned toward him from every side. The scene spread out dazzlingly from the raised platform.
All at once Rick’s head became rigid and his eyes fixed themselves in an unbelieving stare. This lasted for half a moment; then suddenly he started and jumped forward and shouted at the top of his voice: “Damn!”
Miss Carson stopped short with amazement in the middle of her dance. The orchestra wavered and was silent. The clinking of knives and forks and the hum of conversation was suddenly hushed all over the room. Rick stood at the front edge of the platform, still staring at something with a wildly inquiring eye, his arm still moving mechanically around his head as the noose whirled in a great circle.
And then those who followed the direction of Rick’s gaze saw a man—a stout, red-faced, middle-aged man—suddenly rise to his feet from a table near the center of the room, cast one quick, startled glance at the cowboy on the platform and dart madly down the aisle toward the door.
The rest happened so quickly that no eye was swift enough to follow it. There was a lightning gleam from Rick’s eye, a powerful, rapid movement of his arm, and the whirling circle of rope shot out and whizzed through the air over the heads of the amazed throng, leaving behind it, like the tail of a comet, the line whose other end was firmly grasped in Rick’s hand.
It was a perfect throw, worthy of the champion of Eastern Arizona. Straight as an arrow the noose went to its mark, dropping with precision over the head of the red-faced man, far across the room. Rick lunged backward, jerking in his arm, and the noose tightened about the man’s body, below his breast.
Rick leaped from the platform and dashed down the aisle, pulling in the rope as he ran to keep it taut. In a second he had reached the side of his captive, thrown him to the floor and sat on him.
