Harlequin and Columbine Part 11

"No," Tinker corrected. "He did."

"And you haven't heard--"

"Twelfth," urged the operator, having opened the door. "Twelfth, if you please, gentlemen."

"I haven't heard anything to cause excitement," said Tinker, stepping out. "I haven't heard anything at all." He pressed the tiny disc beside the door of Potter's apartment. "What's upset you?"

With a pathetic gesture Canby handed him Potter's note. "What have I done? What does he think I've done to him?"

Tinker read the note and shook his head. "The Lord knows! You see he's all moods, and they change--they change any time. He knows his business, but you can't count on him. He's liable to do anything--anything at all."

"But what reason--"

The j.a.panese boy, Sato, stood bobbing in the doorway.

"Mis' Potter ka.s.see," he said courteously. "Ve'y so'y Mis' Potter ka.s.see n.o.body."

"Can't see us?" said Tinker. "Yes, he can. You telephoned me that he wanted to see me, not over a quarter of an hour ago."

Sato beamed upon him enthusiastically. "Yisso, yisso! See Mis' Tinker, yisso! You come in, Mis' Tinker. Ve'y so'y. Mis' Potter ka.s.see n.o.body."

"You mean he'll see Mister Tinker but won't see anybody else?" cried the playwright.

"Yisso," said Sato, delighted. "Ve'y so'y. Mis' Potter ka.s.see n.o.body."

"I will see him. I--"

"Wait. It's all right," Tinker rea.s.sured him soothingly. "It's all right, Sato. You go and tell Mr. Potter that I'm here and Mr. Canby came with me."

"Yisso." Sato stood back from the door obediently, and they pa.s.sed into the hall. "You sidowm, please."

"Tell him we're waiting in here," said Tinker, leading the way into the cream-coloured salon.

"Yisso." Sato disappeared.

The pretty room was exquisitely cheerful, a coal fire burning rosily in the neat little grate, but for its effect upon Canby it might have been a dentist's anteroom. He was unable to sit, and began to pace up and down, shampooing himself with both hands.

"I've racked my brains every step of the way here," he groaned. "All I could think of was that possibly I've unconsciously paralleled some other play that I never saw. Maybe someone's told him about a plot like mine. Such things must happen--they do happen, of course--because all plots are old. But I can't believe my treatment of it could be so like--"

"I don't think it's that," said Tinker. "It's never anything you expect--with him."

"Well, what else can it be?" the playwright demanded. "I haven't done anything to offend him. What have I done that he should--"

"You'd better sit down," the manager advised him. "Going plumb crazy never helped anything yet that I know of."

"But, good heavens! How can I--"

"s.h.!.+" whispered Tinker.

A tragic figure made its appearance upon the threshold of the inner doorway: Potter, his face set with epic woe, gloom burning in his eyes like the green fire in a tripod at a funeral of state. His plastic hair hung damp and irregular over his white brow--a wreath upon a tombstone in the rain--and his garment, from throat to ankle, was a dressing-gown of dead black, embroidered in purple; soiled, magnificent, awful.

Beneath its midnight border were his bare ankles, final testimony to his desperate condition, for only in ultimate despair does a suffering man remove his trousers. The feet themselves were distractedly not of the tableau, being immersed in bedroom shoes of gay white fur shaped in a Romeo pattern; but this was the grimmest touch of all--the merry song of mad Ophelia.

"Mr. Potter!" the playwright began, "I--"

Potter turned without a word and disappeared into the room whence he came.

"Mr. Potter!" Canby started to follow. "Mr. Pot--"

"s.h.!.+" whispered Tinker.

Potter appeared again upon the threshold In one hand he held a large goblet; in the other a bottle of Bourbon whiskey, just opened. With solemn tread he approached a delicate table, set the goblet upon it, and lifted the bottle high above.

"I am in no condition to talk to anybody," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I am about to take my first drink of spirits in five years."

And he tilted the bottle. The liquor clucked and guggled, plashed into the goblet, and splashed upon the table; but when he set the bottle down the gla.s.s was full to its capacious brim, and looked, upon the little "Louis Sixteenth" table, like a sot at the Trianon. Potter stepped back and pointed to it majestically.

"That," he said, "is the size of the drink I am about to take!"

"Mr. Potter," said Canby hotly, "will you tell me what's the matter with my play? Haven't I made every change you suggested? Haven't--"

Potter tossed his arms above his head and flung himself full length upon the chaise lounge.

"STOP it!" he shouted. "I won't be pestered. I won't! Nothing's the matter with your play!"

"Then what--"

Potter swung himself round to a sitting position and hammered with his open palm upon his knee for emphasis: "Nothing's the matter with it, I tell you! I simply won't play it!"

"Why not?"

"I simply won't play it! I don't like it!"

The playwright dropped into a chair, open-mouthed. "Will you tell me why you ever accepted it?"

"I don't like any play! I hate 'em all! I'm through with 'em all! I'm through with the whole business! 'Show-business!' Faugh!"

Old Tinker regarded him thoughtfully, then inquired: "Gone back on it?"

"I tell you I'm going to buy a farm!" He sprang up, went to the mantel and struck it a startling blow with his fist, which appeared to calm him somewhat--for a moment. "I've been thinking of it for a long time. I ought never to have been in this business at all, and I'm going to live in the country. Oh, I'm in my right mind!" He paused to glare indignantly in response to old Tinker's steady gaze. "Of course you think 'something's happened' to upset me. Well, nothing has. Nothing of the slightest consequence has occurred since I saw you at rehearsal.

Can't a man be allowed to think? I just came home here and got to thinking of the kind of life I lead--and I decided that I'm tired of it.

And I'm not going to lead it any longer. That's all."

"Ah," said Tinker quietly. "Nerves."

Talbot Potter appealed to the universe with a pa.s.sionate gesture.

"Nerves!" he cried bitterly. "Yes, that's what they say when an actor dares to think. 'Go on! Play your part! Be a marionette forever!' That's what you tell us! 'Slave for your living, you sordid little puppet!

Squirm and sweat and strut, but don't you ever dare to think!' You tell us that because you know if we ever did stop to think for one instant about ourselves you wouldn't have any actors! Actors! Faugh! What do we get, I ask you?"

He strode close to Tinker and shook a frantic forefinger within a foot of the quiet old fellow's face.