The Blind Barber (3 page)

“Ay could never get dat girl to go out again. Ha-ha-ha!”

“But I don’t see the point,” protested Peggy Glenn, who was regarding him in some perplexity. “How is that like Curt Warren?”

“Ay don’t know,” admitted the other, scratching his head. “Ay yust wanted to tell de story, ay guess … Maybe he is sea-sick, eh? Ha-ha-ha! Ah! Dat remind me. Haff ay ever told you de story about de mutiny ay ’ave when de cook always eat all de peas out of de soup and—”

“Sea-sick?” the girl exclaimed indignantly. “Bosh! At least—poor old fellow, I hope not. My uncle is having a terrible time of it, and he’s suffering worse because he’s promised to give a performance of his marionettes at the ship’s concert … Do you think we’d better go and see what’s wrong with Curt?”

She paused as a white-coated steward struggled out of a door near by and peered round in the darkening light. Morgan recognised him as his own cabin steward—a cheerful-faced young man with flat black hair and a long jaw. He had, now, a rather conspiratorial manner. Sliding down the gusty deck, he beckoned towards Morgan and raised his voice above the crash and hiss of water.

“Sir,” he said, “it’s Mr. Warren, sir. ’Is compliments, and ’e’d like to see you. And ’is friends too … ”

Peggy Glenn sat up. “There’s nothing wrong, is there? Where is he? What’s the matter?”

The steward looked dubious, and then reassuring, “Oh no, miss! Nothing wrong. Only I think somebody’s ’it him.”

“What?”

“Hin the eye, miss. And on the back of th ’ead. But ’e’s not a bit upset, miss, not ’im. I left ’im sitting on the floor in the cabin,” said the steward, rather admiringly, “with a towel to ’is ’ead and a piece of movie film in ’is ’and, swearing something ’andsome. And ’e’d taken a nasty knock, miss; that’s a fact.”

They stared at each other, and then they all hurried after the steward. Captain Valvick, puffing and snorting through his moustache, threatened dire things. Tearing open one of the doors, they were kicked by its recoil in the wind into the warm, paint-and-rubbery odour of the corridor. Warren’s cabin, a large double which he occupied alone, was an outside one on C deck, starboard side. They descended heaving stairs, struck off past the gloomy staircase to the dining-room, and knocked at the door of C 91.

Mr. Curtis G. Warren’s ordinarily lazy and good-humoured face was now malevolent. The odour of recent profanity hung about him like garlic. Round his head a wet towel had been wound like a turban; there was a slight cut of somebody’s knuckles. Mr. Warren’s greenish eyes regarded them bitterly out of a lean, newly-scrubbed face; his hair, over the bandage, stuck up like a goblin’s; and in his hand he had a strip of what resembled motion-picture film with perforations for sound, torn at one end. He sat on the edge of his berth, faintly visible in the yellowish twilight through the porthole, and the whole cabin was wildly disarranged.

“Come in,” said Mr. Warren. Then he exploded. “When I catch,” he announced, drawing a deep breath like one who begins an oration, and spacing his words carefully—“when I catch the white-livered, greenly empurpled so-and-so who tried to get away with this—when I get one look at the ugly mug of the lascivious-habited son of a bachelor who runs around beaning people with a black-jack—”

Peggy Glenn wailed, “Curt!” and rushed over to examine his head, which she turned to one side and the other as though she were looking behind his ears. Warren broke off and said, “Ow!”

“But, my dear, what happened?” the girl demanded. “Oh, why do you
let
things like this happen? Are you hurt?”

“Baby,” said Warren in a tone of dignity, “I can tell you that it is not alone my dignity which has suffered. By the time they have finished stitching up my head, I shall probably resemble a baseball. As to my deliberately encouraging all this to happen … Boys,” he said, appealing moodily to Morgan and the captain, “I need help. I’m in a jam, and that’s no lie.”

“Ha!” growled Valvick, rubbing a large hand down across his moustache. “You yust tell me who smack you, eh? Ha! Den ay take him and—”

“I don’t know who did it. That’s the point.”

“But why … ?” asked Morgan, who was surveying the litter in the cabin; and the other grinned sourly.

“This, old son,” Warren told him, “is right in your line. Do you know if there are any international crooks on board? The Prince or Princess Somebody kind, who always hang out at Monte Carlo? Because an important State document has been pinched … No, I’m not kidding. I didn’t know I had the damned thing; never occurred to me; I thought it had been destroyed … I tell you I’m in bad trouble, and it’s not funny. Sit down somewhere and I’ll tell you about it.”

“You go straight to the doctor!” Peggy Glenn said, warmly. “If you think I’m going to have you laid up with amnesia or something—”

“Baby, listen,” the other begged, with a sort of wild patience; “you don’t seem to get it yet. This is dynamite. It’s—well, it’s like one of Hank’s spy stories, only it’s something new along that line, now that I come to think of it … Look here. You see this film?”

He handed it to Morgan, who held it up for examination against the fading light through the porthole. The pictures were all of a portly, white-haired gentleman in evening clothes, who had one fist lifted as though making a speech and whose mouth was split wide as though it were a very explosive speech. There was, moreover, a very curious, bleary look about the dignified person; his tie was skewered under one ear, and over his head and shoulders had been sprinkled what Morgan at first presumed to be snow. It was, in fact, confetti.

And the face was vaguely familiar. Morgan stared at it for some time before he realised that it was none other than a certain Great Personage, the most pompous starched-shirt of the Administration, the potent rain-maker and high priest of quackdoodle. His cheerful, soothing voice over the radio had inspired millions of Americans with dreams of a fresh, effulgent era of national prosperity in which there should be instalment plans without ever any payments demanded, and similar American conceptions of the millennium. His dignity, his scholarship, his courtly manners—

“Yes, you’re right,” Warren said wryly. “It’s my uncle. Now I’ll tell you about it … and don’t laugh, because it’s absolutely serious.

“He’s a very good fellow, Uncle Warpus is; you’ve got to understand that. He got into this position through the ordinary, human behaviour that might happen to anybody, but others mightn’t think so. All politicians ought to have a chance every once in a while to blow off steam. Otherwise they’re apt to go mad and chew off an ambassador’s ear, or something. With the whole country in a mix-up, and everything going wrong, and wooden-heads trying to block every reasonable measure, there are times when they explode. Especially if they’re in congenial company and have a social highball or two.

“Well—my hobby is the taking of amateur moving-pictures, with, Lord help me, sound. So about a week before I was to sail I was due to visit Uncle Warpus in Washington for a good-by call.” Warren put his chin in his hands and looked sardonically on the others, who had moved backwards to find seats. “I couldn’t take my movie apparatus abroad with me; it was much too elaborate. Uncle Warpus suggested that I should leave it with him. He was interested in such things; he thought he might get some pleasure in tinkering with it, and I should show him how to work everything …

“On the first night I got there,” pursued Warren, taking a deep breath, “there was a very large, very dignified party at Uncle Warpus’s. But he and a few of his Cabinet and senatorial cronies had sneaked away from the dancing; they were upstairs in the library, playing poker and drinking whisky. When I arrived they thought it would be an excellent idea if I arranged my apparatus, and we took a few friendly talking-pictures there in the library. It took me some time, with the assistance of the butler, to get it all arranged. Meanwhile, they were having a few friendly drinks. Some of ’em were a good deal the strong, silent, rough-diamond administrators from the prairies; and even Uncle Warpus was relaxing considerably.”

Warren blinked with reminiscent pleasure at the ceiling.

“It all began with much seriousness and formality. The butler was camera man, and I recorded the sound. First the Honourable William T. Pinkis recited Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
That
was all right. Then the Honourable Secretary of Interstate Agriculture did the dagger scene from
Macbeth
, a very powerful piece of acting, with a bottle of gin as the dagger. One thing led to another. Senator Borax sang ‘Annie Laurie,’ and then they got up a quartet to render ‘Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight?’ and ‘Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet.’ …”

Sitting back in the berth with her back against the wall, Peggy Glenn was regarding him with a shocked expression. Her pink lips were open, her eyebrows raised.

“Oh, I say!” she protested. “Curt, you’re pulling our legs. I mean to say, just fancy our House of Commons … ”

Warren raised his hand fervently. “Baby, as Heaven is my witness, that is precisely—” He broke off to scowl as Morgan began laughing. “I tell you, Hank, this is serious!”

“I know it,” agreed Morgan, growing thoughtful. “I think I begin to see what’s coming. Go on.”

“Ay t’ank dey did right,” said Captain Valvick, nodding vigorously and approvingly. “Ay haff always wanted to try one of dem t’ings too. Den ay giff my imitation of de two cargo-boats in de fog. It is very good, dat one. I show you. Ha-ha-ha!”

Warren brooded.

“Well, as I say, one little thing led to another. The signal for the fireworks was when one Cabinet member, who had been chuckling to himself for some time, recounted a spirited story about the travelling salesman and the farmer’s daughter. And then came the highlight of the whole evening. My uncle Warpus had been sitting by himself—you could almost see his mind going round
click-click
—
click-click
—and he was weighed down by a sense of injustice. He said he was going to make a speech. He did. He got in front of the microphone, cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, and then the cataract came down at Lodore.

“In some ways,” said Warren, rather admiringly, “it was the funniest thing I ever heard. Uncle Warpus had had to repress his sense of humour for some time. But I happened to know of his talent for making burlesque political speeches … Wow! What he did was to give his free, ornamental, and uncensored opinion of the ways of government, the people in the government, and everything connected with it. Then he went on to discuss foreign policy and armaments. He addressed the heads of Germany, Italy, and France, explaining exactly what he thought of their parentage and alleged social pastimes, and indicating where they could thrust their battleships with the greatest possible effect … ” Warren wiped his forehead rather dazedly. “You see, it was all done in the form of a burlesque flag-waving speech, with plenty of weird references to Washington and Jefferson and the faith of the fathers … Well, the other eminent soaks caught on and were cheering and applauding. Senator Borax got hold of a little American flag, and every time Uncle Warpus made a particularly telling point, Senator Borax would stick his head out in front of the camera, and wave the flag for a second, and say, ‘Hooray!’ … Boys, it was hair-raising. As an oratorical effort I have never heard it surpassed. But I know two or three newspapers in New York that would give a cool million dollars for sixty feet of that film.”

Peggy Glenn, struggling between laughter and incredulity, sat forward, with her bright hazel eyes fixed on him; she seemed annoyed. “But I tell you,” she protested again, “it’s absurd! It—it isn’t
nice
, you know … ”

“You’re telling me,” said Warren, grimly.

“ … and all those awfully nice high-minded people; it’s disgusting! You can’t really tell me! … Oh, it’s absurd! I don’t believe it.”

“Baby,” said Warren gently, “that’s because you’re British. You don’t understand American character. It’s not in the least unreasonable; it’s simply one of those scandals that sometimes happen and have to be hushed up somehow. Only this one is a scandal of such enormous, dizzying proportions that—Look here. We’ll say nothing of the explosion it would cause at home. It would ruin Uncle Warpus, and a lot of others with him. But can you imagine the effect of those pronouncements on, say, certain dignitaries in Italy and Germany? They wouldn’t see anything funny about it in the least. If they didn’t jump up and down, tearing out handfuls of hair, and rush out and declare war immediately, it would be because somebody had the forethought to sit on their heads … Whoosh! T.N.T.? T.N.T.’s as mild as a firecracker compared with it.”

It was growing dark in the cabin. Heavy clouds had massed up; there was a tremble through the ship above the dull beat of her screws, and a deeper thunder and swish of water as she pitched. Glasses and water-bottle were rattling in the rack above the washstand. Morgan reached up to switch on the light. He said:

“And someone stole it from you?”

“Half of it, yes … Let me tell you what happened.

“The morning after that little carnival, Uncle Warpus woke up with a realisation of what he’d done. He came rushing into my room, and it appears he’d been bombarded with phone-calls from other offenders since seven o’clock. Fortunately, I was able to reassure him—as I thought, anyhow. What with other difficulties, I’d taken in all only two reels. Each reel was packed into a container like this … ”

Reaching down under his berth, Warren pulled out a large oblong box, bound in steel, with a handle like a suitcase. It was unlocked, and he opened the snap-catch. Packed inside were a number of flat circular tins measuring about ten inches in diameter painted black, and scrawled with cryptic markings in white chalk. One of these had its lid off. Inside had been jammed a tangled and disarranged spool of film from which a good length seemed to have been torn off.

Warren tapped the tin. “I was taking some of my better efforts with me,” he explained. “I’ve got a little projector, and I thought they might amuse people on the other side …

“On the night of Uncle Warpus’s eloquence, I was a little tight myself. The packing up I left to the butler, and I showed him how to do the marking. What must have happened—I can see it now—was that he got the notations mixed. I carefully destroyed two reels that I thought were the right ones. But, like an imbecile”—Warren got out a pack of cigarettes and stuck one askew into his mouth—“like an imbecile, I only examined one of the reels with any care. So I destroyed the Gettysburg Address, the Dagger Scene, and the singing of ‘Annie Laurie.’ But the rest of it … well, I can figure it now. What I got rid of were some swell shots of the Bronx Park Zoo.”