Writing for Vaudeville Part 63

BLACKMAIL A ONE-ACT PLAY BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

Author of "Van Bibber Stories," "Soldiers of Fortune,"

The Playlets, "The Littlest Girl," played by Robert Hilliard for ten years, "Miss Civilization," etc., and many full-evening plays.

BLACKMAIL

CHARACTERS

RICHARD FALLON, a millionaire mine owner.

"LOU" MOHUN, a crook.

KELLY, a Pinkerton detective.

MRS. HOWARD:

SCENE

The scene shows the interior of the sitting room of a suite in a New York hotel of the cla.s.s of the Hotel Astor or Claridge. In the back wall a door opens into what is the bedroom of the suite.

The hinges of this door are on the right, the door k.n.o.b on the left. On the wall on either side of the door is hung a framed copy of a picture by Gibson or Christy. In the left wall, half way down, is a door leading to the hall. Higher up against the wall is a writing desk on which are writing materials and a hand telephone. Above this pinned to the wall is a blue-print map.

In front of the desk is a gilt chair without arms. Above and to the right of the gilt chair is a Morris chair facing the audience.

In the seat of the chair is a valise; over the back hangs a man's coat.

In the right wall are two windows with practical blinds. Below them against the wall, stretches a leather sofa. On it is a suitcase, beside it on the floor a pair of men's boots. Below the sofa and slightly to the left stands a table, sufficiently heavy to bear the weight of a man leaning against it. On this table are magazines, a man's sombrero, a box of safety matches, a pitcher of ice water and a gla.s.s, and hanging over the edge of the table, in view of the audience, are two blue prints held down by pieces of ore. The light that comes through the two windows is of a sunny day in August.

WHEN THE CURTAIN RISES

RICHARD FALLON is discovered at table arranging the specimens of ore upon the blue prints. He is a young man of thirty-five, his face is deeply tanned, his manner is rough and breezy. He is without a coat, and his trousers are held up by a belt. He is smoking a cigar.

FALLON crosses to Morris chair, opens valise, turns over papers, clothing, fails to find that for which he is looking and closes the valise. He recrosses to suit case which is at lower end of the sofa. He breaks it open and searches through more papers, s.h.i.+rts, coats. Takes out another blue print, tightly rolled.

Unrolls it, studies it, and apparently satisfied, with his left hand, places it on table.

In attempting to close the suit case the half nearer the audience slips over the foot of the sofa, and there falls from it to the floor, a heavy "bull dog" revolver. FALLON stares at it, puzzled, as though trying to recall when he placed it in his suit case. Picks it up. Looks at it. Throws it carelessly into suit case and shuts it. His manner shows he attaches no importance to the revolver.

He now surveys the blue prints and the specimens of ore, as might a hostess, who is expecting guests, survey her dinner table. He crosses to hand telephone.

FALLON: (To 'phone.) Give me the room clerk, please. h.e.l.lo? This is Mr. Fallon. I'm expecting two gentlemen at five o'clock. Send them right up. And, not now, but when they come, send me up a box of your best cigars and some rye and seltzer. Thank you. (Starts to leave telephone, but is recalled.) What? A lady? I don't know any. I don't know a soul in New York! What's her name? What--Mrs.

Tom Howard? For heaven's sake! Tell her I'll be there in one second! What? Why certainly! Tell her to come right up. (He rises, muttering joyfully.) Well, well, well!

(Takes his coat from chair and puts it on. Lifts valise from chair and places it behind writing desk. Kicks boots under sofa. Places cigar on edge of table in view of audience. Looks about for mirror and finding none, brushes his hair with his hands, and arranges his tie. Goes to door L. and opens it, expectantly.)

MRS. HOWARD enters. She is a young woman of thirty. Her face is sweet, sad, innocent. She is dressed in white--well, but simply.

Nothing about her suggests anything of the fast, or adventuress type.

Well, Helen! This is fine! G.o.d bless you, this is the best thing that's come my way since I left Alaska. And I never saw you looking better.

MRS. HOWARD: (Taking his hand.) And, it's good to see you, d.i.c.k.

(She staggers and sways slightly as though about to faint.) Can I sit down? (She moves to Morris chair and sits back in it.)

FALLON: (In alarm.) What is it? Are you ill?

MRS. HOWARD: No, I'm--I'm so glad to find you--I was afraid! I was afraid I wouldn't find you, and I _had_ to see you. (Leaning forward, in great distress.) I'm in trouble, d.i.c.k--terrible trouble.

FALLON: (Joyfully.) And you've come to me to help you?

MRS. HOWARD: Yes.

FALLON: That's fine! That's bully. I thought, maybe, you'd just come to talk over old times. (Eagerly.) And that would have been fine, too, understand--but if you've come to me because you're in trouble, then I know you're still my good friend, my dear old pal.

(Briskly.) Now, listen, you say you're in trouble. Well, you knew me when I was down and out in San Francisco, living on free lunches and chop suey. Now, look at me, Helen, I'm a bloated capitalist.

I'm a millionaire.

MRS. HOWARD: (Nervously.) I know, d.i.c.k, and I'm so glad! That's how I knew you were here, I read about you this morning in the papers.

FALLON: And half they said is true, too. See those blue prints?

Each one of them means a gold mine, and at five, I'm to unload them on some of the biggest swells in Wall Street. (Gently.) Now, all that that means is this: I don't know what your trouble is, but, if money can cure it, you _haven't got any trouble_.

MRS. HOWARD: d.i.c.k, you're just as generous and kind. You haven't changed in any way.

FALLON: I haven't changed toward you. How's that husband of yours?

(Jokingly.) I'd ought to shot that fellow.

MRS. HOWARD: (In distress.) That's why I came, d.i.c.k. Oh, d.i.c.k--

FALLON: (Anxiously, incredulously.) Don't tell me there's any trouble between you and Tom? Why, old Tom he just wors.h.i.+ps you.

He loves you like--

MRS. HOWARD: That's it. And I want to _keep_ his love.

FALLON: (Laughingly.) Keep his love? Is that all you've got to worry about? (Throughout the following scene, Mrs. Howard speaks in a fateful voice, like a woman beaten and hopeless.)

MRS. HOWARD: d.i.c.k, did you ever guess why I didn't marry you?

FALLON: No, I knew. You didn't marry me because you didn't love me, and you _did_ love Tom.

MRS. HOWARD: No, I didn't know Tom then. And I thought I loved you, until I met Tom. But I didn't marry you, because it wouldn't have been honest--because, three years before I met you, I had lived with a man--as his wife.

FALLON: Helen! (His tone is one of amazement, but not of reproach.

In his astonishment, he picks the cigar from the table, puffs at it standing and partly seated on the table.)

MRS. HOWARD: (In the same dead level, hopeless voice.) I was seventeen years old. I was a waiter girl at one of Fred Harvey's restaurants on the Santa Fe. I was married to this man before a magistrate. (Fallon lifts his head.) Three months later, when he'd grown tired of me, he told me the magistrate who had married us was not a magistrate but a friend of his, a man named Louis Mohun, and he brought this man to live with us. I should have left him then, that was where I did wrong. That was all I did that was wrong. But, I couldn't leave him, I couldn't, because I was going to be a mother--and in spite of what he had done--I begged him to marry me.

FALLON: And--he wouldn't?

MRS. HOWARD: Maybe he would--but--he was killed.

FALLON: (Eagerly.) You?

MRS. HOWARD. (In horror.) G.o.d, no!

FALLON: It's a pity. That's what you should have done.

MRS. HOWARD: He was a gambler, one night he cheated--the man he cheated, shot him. Then--my baby--died! After two years I came to San Francisco and met you and Tom. Then you went to Klondike and I married Tom.