There Is Something About a Dame

by Michael Avallone

  “Want to bet?” I grinned. “Stop playing the wounded Duchess. Let me see your driver’s license.” I made my manner brusque and official for two reasons. She wasn’t New York and she couldn’t have had that much experience with the Law.

  “Really—” Suddenly, she smiled helplessly. I got wary. She began to fish in a big leather purse on her knees. “Very well. Better to have done with this idiotic business—” I watched her carefully. Took in a firmly chiseled profile that was saved from the monotony of perfection by a lush, petulant lower lip. Her hair was Italian style and swept back from a high forehead. It was red, too. Savagely red. But she was as English as Piccadilly.

  And I had picked a dilly to pick on. I never expected a woman to act that way.

  Just as Sir Stewart St. James punched the Fiat’s horn impatiently, Milady swung into action. I don’t know how she did it but she managed a lot of things in less time than it takes to tell them.

  For a starter, she unlimbered the plaid-coated arm on the window and rammed it right into my solar plexus. While I tried to dodge, I got most of it but she was busy elsewhere. She had kicked the starter, silently engaged the clutch. I got a hand on the door and tried to hold on. She was ready for that too. The leather purse on her lap came down on my knuckles with the lightning speed of a dame who knew where all her reflexes were. She’d either loaded the thing with bricks or liked heavy cigarette lighters and compact cases. The howl that erupted from my throat would have done justice to the Abominable Snowman.

  Motor roaring like thunder, the Dodge shot away from the curb, flashed right by a startled Sir Stewart who had alighted from the Fiat and heeled around the next corner like a high-priced sports car. Leaving me with a throbbing hand and egg on my face.

  I walked slowly back to the Fiat.

  Sir Stewart read my face as well as he read lines.

  “Shall we go inside and discuss the Case of the Vanishing Red Dodge?”

  I liked his sense of humor. “Let’s.” I didn’t feel like talking just that second. Milady had given me something to chew on. I hadn’t seen an Englishman since The Bridge on the River Kwai and two in one night is more coincidence than my American mind would support.

  We got inside the ideal place to think. Sir Stewart St. James was well-fixed for his U.S. visit. The rooms were “comfy” all right. Especially the living room. It had all the trimmings and a lot of Merry Olde England extras that must have made the Great Man feel right at home. A fireplace that burned real logs between its fieldstone sides. A chestnut-stained bar that was given more importance as to position than three good chairs, a mile-long lounge and a card table that had four ottomans in position for a phantom game. The walls were barren of artwork. No Renoirs or Monroe calendars. My new client took my hat and disappeared down a short, dark hall. When he came back, I took a good look at him.

  His charcoal-grey tweeds fit him down to the shoe tops which were black-and-white Oxfords. His face was still familiar yet vastly new. He wore his hair long as if he were playing Heathcliffe instead of Henry the Fifth. But it was combed, well-kept and under control. His deep swarthiness was a new one on me. But I marked it off to plenty of Riviera and South American holidays and let it go at that. His deep burn was what made his horsey teeth so incredibly white.

  “Well,” he said briskly. “That’s better. A drink, of course, to tie us into the next set of sides.”

  “Of course.” We sounded like we were getting into a routine.

  “Do you favor a brandy? Courvoisier?”

  “I’m with you, Stew.”

  He chuckled again, deep, and moved to the bar. He busied himself with a bottle and some brandy glasses and all of it was so familiar. I half-laughed to myself, nursing my wounded knuckles to take the sting out of them.

  His back was to me. “Who was the fellah in the Dodge?”

  “Didn’t get a good look at him,” I lied, knowing full well he had to have gotten a good closeup of Milady as she whipped by him. “I expect it has something to do with what you need me for. As a matter of fact, it’s your turn on the stage, old man. If you want to pay fifty thousand dollars to locate a man, it’s got to be damn important.”

  He came back with the brandy and handed me my glass delicately. We measured each other over the rims and sipped without a toast.

  “You’re a deep satisfaction to me, Mr. Noon. One approaches America with all the trepidation of the typical tourist, you know. The travel folders shriek of the charms and qualities of a place and often the visitor is appalled by what the truth really is.”

  “The Bible lets me down once in awhile too,” I agreed. “So many contradictions. But please, let’s get to the point.”

  “Precisely.” He showed me the teeth again. “Is the Empire State Building that high? Are the women quite as romantic as implied? Lastly, and happily, I find a man who is the professional private detective, and to my extreme surprise, he is the man incarnate.”

  “You didn’t bring me here to deck me with posies,” I suggested.

  “Quite, quite. But forgive me. You are becomingly heroic and I’ve enough director in me to be pleased with the man I have chosen to play the part. An audience would believe you.”

  “Hooray for type-casting. Now, let’s get on with the libretto, shall we? You want to find Memo Morgan. You want to give me fifty gees to accomplish just that. Why?”

  “Another of your charms, Mr. Noon, is your obvious familiarity with the world of Thespis. I find that agreeable too.”

  “Memo Morgan, huh?” I reminded him.

  He stopped admiring me. The change in him was fantastic. His horsey grin eclipsed into a brooding frown. His jaw muscles worked and he twirled the brandy glass between fingers that were both long and strong. I sighed. It looked like the party scene from The Darker Hour but I decided to give him a break and not think of everything he did in terms of his reputation.

  At the fireplace he turned and placed the glass down. He could hold his own with any lush. The glass was empty.

  “All right, Johnny-to-the-point. I’ll give it to you straight. In a manner to delight your Yankee bluntness.”

  “Here, here.”

  A thin smile applauded that.

  “What do you know about the man Morgan?”

  This time I twirled my glass.

  “He’s about fifty, never finished public school, is loved by all of Broadway and has a photographic mind that once earned him a large chunk of cash on TV. Beyond that, it’s hard to say. No family or allegiance to anyone.”

  Sir Stewart got intense. He seemed to lean from the fireplace.

  “What about you, Mr. Noon—do you believe that?”

  “Do I believe what?”

  “Do you believe in the existence of the photographic mind? Is it conceivable that a man could have such powers as to absorb and hold something he has read, to the letter, regardless of its length or complexities?”

  “Well—”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  It’s peculiar, isn’t it? We get in the habit of accepting so many things. Like so many parrots, we learn by rote. Learned men use the expression, photographic mind, and we agree without thinking. Now I was thinking. It’s a great notion that a man could commit the blueprints of a complex structure to his head, then sit down, far, far, away and draw an exact duplicate. Spy stories love that sort of hocus-pocus. It makes fascinating reading and fascinating thinking. But is it true? I didn’t know for sure, and suddenly, I had the feeling I didn’t want to be quoted. The payola scandals on TV where the quiz contestants had been given the answers were still too fresh in my memory.

  “Speak up, Mr. Noon.” Sir Stewart wasn’t going to let up. “A man like you has to have an opinion on this.”

  “Look, Sir Stewart. I know Memo Morgan has a fabulous memory. He works at it. I’ve seen it in action. But this photographic mind business—I can’t honestly say.”

  His eyes glittered. “You incline to doubt then? You
will admit that?”

  I shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m from Missouri. In this country that means I gotta see it to believe it. But what the hell has my opinion got to do with this job, will you kindly tell me?”

  Sir Stewart St. James seemed to grow a foot as he drew himself up stiffly. His smile was almost defeatist. He spread his large hands and quietly gave me the News of the Day.

  “Your opinion is as invaluable as your services,” he intoned solemnly. “Memo Morgan purportedly knows the entire folio of an undiscovered, lost play that will astound the world if it is ever brought to light.” He turned and started to poke around in the fireplace which wasn’t even lit. “The author should be very familiar to you, old boy.” He turned again and looked at me steadily. “Fellow by the name of Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. I rather like to think of him as Christopher Marlowe.”

  “I’ll have another brandy,” I said. “Make it a double.”

  “I would a tale unfold…”

  EIGHT

  Sir Stewart St. James poured without saying another word. He didn’t have to follow up his verbal dynamite too quickly. The explosion hadn’t quite settled down in the living room just yet.

  “You don’t really believe that,” I said.

  “Do I not?” He eyed me curiously. “Must I damn my dreams so swiftly? You miss the point, Mr. Noon. Else you fail to see the significance of such a find.”

  “Can it,” I growled. “Even a hick would know what undiscovered Shakespeare would mean in terms of dollars and cents. You’d better start from the beginning.”

  “It is the beginning for me. The Mohammedans have their Koran, the Hebrews have their Torah and the Christians have the Bible. But for the genuine Thespian there is but one god. An obscure actor who wrote plays and called himself William Shakespeare. I prefer to favor the Christopher Marlowe identity. But Shakespeare or Marlowe, the play’s the thing.”

  “One thing at a time. What’s this Marlowe business? I’m hazy on that.”

  Sir Stewart looked surprised.

  “Haven’t you read Calvin Hoffman, Mr. Noon? Hoffman believes, like myself and many others, that Christopher Marlowe is actually the man who wrote the plays and sonnets which the world attributes to that actor of the Globe company, W. Shakespeare. The Bacon myth is too tedious for support. You may recall that Marlowe was reported murdered in a tavern but it was simply a hoax designed to save himself from being burned at the stake for atheism. So in hiding, and protected by friends, he wrote the great works that live to this day. I one day intend to prove that Marlowe is William Shakespeare. Hence my consuming inter—”

  “Okay, okay. I understand your fifty thousand dollar interest but how about some facts, Sir Stewart? I’ve got some for you too but I’m saving them for later. Besides a few questions.”

  He sternly settled himself on the long lounge and regarded me for a sober instant. I sipped my brandy while he warmed himself up for his tall tale. It was going to be about ten miles tall I could see. I’m no English scholar but I’d never heard of any undiscovered, lost play signed by W. Shakespeare, Esq. But the Marlowe angle gave everything a new twist.

  Sir Stewart cleared his throat with some Courvoisier and stared at the shining amber depths of the glass as he talked.

  “It is England, 1944. A patrol of American GIs, following the early morning invasion of the Normandy coast, makes its way back to the English shore. Their LST landing craft had been destroyed by German batteries before they could beach. Only three of the original party manage the waters of the channel. In the fog and confusion, they swim the wrong way. Possibly, they were deserting. Who can say? At any rate, on June 7, the day following the invasion, they find themselves face to face with the white cliffs of Dover. They are hungry, cold, soaked to the very skin and desperately in need of food, water and shelter. Unhappily, they have landed at a point of the cliffs that is miles from the nearest hamlet. It is still dark and confusing. They stagger about in the darkness, cursing as you Yankees will in moments of extreme difficulties and generally behaving like children lost in the woods.”

  “It was a lousy war,” was all the comment I had to offer.

  “Agreed. Agreed. But in the foraging about the countryside among the cliffs, they stumbled upon a fissure in the rocks that was completely hidden by foliage of some sort. The cave was a refuge for the night and therefore most welcome. Dry and cold, but dry nonetheless. They spent the night there, deciding that the morning was soon enough to get their bearings. They tried to build a fire with bits of twigs and grass but whatever matches they had were completely useless until morning. They separated the matches and lay them out in the cave to dry and fell fast asleep.”

  “Quite a bedtime story,” I said. “But go on.”

  “One of the men woke before the others. It was daylight then and some cold sunlight was spilling into the cave. This early riser was cold and shivering. He began to search the cave, which was narrow and elliptical in shape. The man began to burrow about for wood and grass with which to build a fire of some sort. It seems he found a niche no wider than a foot cut near the ceiling of the cave. He stuck his hand in and came away with a buckram leather case. It was incredible, of course. The case was worn, faded and had a tendency to come apart in his numbed fingers. It was fastened around with a piece of string and sealed with a lump of sealing wax that had the redness of royalty.

  “But our man was not thinking of kings. He broke the seal and separated what appeared to be the cover of the thing from the mass. If he had been hoping for food or some hidden treasure, his disappointment must have been bitter. He had uncovered a pile of closely packed manuscript sheets. Some one hundred and fifty in all. So frayed and discolored with age that they had almost turned to parchment brown.” Sir Stewart drew a deep breath and continued. “Our man looked at the sheets in the mouth of the cave and when he saw that only narrow, cramped lines of Old English lettering crowded the sheets of paper in his hands, his simple mind concluded that, at least, the paper would serve greatly to start a fire. He threw the leather folder down and went to see if the matches were dry and to arouse his sleeping comrades.”

  “Who was this unimaginative GI?” I asked.

  Sir Stewart smiled with the futility of it all.

  “A rather illiterate Spanish boy who knew little of letters. His name was Roberto Diaz and he passes out of this tale because he never survived the war. Killed by machine gun fire in Aachen when the three men eventually rejoined their unit. Am I boring you, Mr. Noon?”

  I grinned. “You have no idea what an improvement you are over television. Carry on.”

  “When his comrades saw his find, one of them who knew what he was about, grabbed the sheets and peered at the pages closely. According to my informant, the other man, his eyes got as round and as wide as searchlights and he began to whoop and holler and dance about the cave. Roberto shrugged it off and prepared his fire. The man who told me this story assumed nothing at the time. He became a car salesman for an English firm after the war. His name was Arthur T. Zwick. And he further states he was more concerned about getting a square meal inside him at the time.”

  “The middle man was Memo Morgan, I take it.” I’d never thought of Memo as being a vet. The war was so far back in my own memory. “Where is Zwick now?”

  Sir Stewart looked worried about that. “In England as of this writing. Still selling cars. He told me this story just three months ago when I was presenting Henry the Fifth to West End audiences. He came backstage to my dressing room and charmed me with the whole fantastic tale. I have sworn him to secrecy until I contact the Morgan man. Even Mr. Zwick was unimaginative, as you say. He knew nothing about titles or Shakespeare. He simply wondered if I had ever got around to hearing about such a play.”

  “Let’s leave Zwick for the moment. There’s more to your story. There’s got to be.”

  His brandy glass was empty again but he made no move to refill it.

  “Truth to tell, there is. Our three lost me
n left the cave, found a road leading to Canterbury, hopped a ride on one of our lorries and rode into London to report to American headquarters. Still according to Zwick, Morgan read every one of the sheets he had saved from the fire during the drive in. It took hours, you know. Canterbury isn’t a hop-and-skip to London. In point of fact, Zwick remembers with what care and close scrutiny did Mr. Morgan peruse those aging sheets. So there it is—and was—I have an eyewitness testimony that my missing man read the manuscript found in the cave somewhere along the white cliffs of Dover. Considering that the man is world-famous now for his photographic memory, you can see how important that fact looms.”

  I was slow this time. “I don’t dig you. If he’s got the manuscript—”

  He sprang to his feet like a jumping jack and paced the space between the card table and the lounge like a father in the waiting room of a maternity ward. He was too much of a gentleman to kick one of the tall ottomans.

  “That’s the damnable part of the whole fabric! When I think of how that priceless memorabilia sat waiting for three hundred odd years only to be dashed to dust by an unthinking Providence, I could cry out my anger to the gods! What in heaven justifies such devilish mockery—?” He subsided wearily and sank back into his chair again. “The lorry was strafed by a Focke-Wulfe, off course, and burned where it stood. The driver and our three men managed to escape being reduced to ashes. Not so the manuscript, whatever it was. So what may have been William Shakespeare’s (or Christopher Marlowe’s) last play fluttered away to infinity in a burning motor lorry on the Canterbury Road on June 8, 1944. That day is anathema to me.”

  I probed my mind. “Let’s regroup here a minute. The car salesman, Zwick, told you this story three months ago in London. Not knowing what a bee he was putting in your famous bonnet. How was he sure it was Shakespeare? How can he be sure it was a play?”