He was roused from these meditations by a collision with some solid body and, coming to himself, discovered that he had been trying to walk through his old friend, George Pybus of the Press department. George was standing beside his car, apparently on the point of leaving for the day.
It is one more proof of Montrose Mulliner's gentle nature that he did not reproach George Pybus for the part he had taken in darkening his outlook. All he did was to gape and say:
'Hullo! You off?'
George Pybus climbed into the car and started the engine.
'Yes,' he said, 'and I'll tell you why. You know that gorilla?'
With a shudder which he could not repress Montrose said he knew the gorilla.
'Well, I'll tell you something,' said George Pybus.
'Its agent has been complaining that we've been throwing all the publicity to Luella Benstead and Edmund Wigham. So the boss sent out a hurry call for quick thinking. I told him that you and Rosalie Beamish were planning to get married in its cage, but I've seen Rosalie and she tells me you've backed out. Scarcely the spirit I should have expected in you, Montrose.'
Montrose did his best to assume a dignity which he was far from feeling.
'One has one's code,' he said. 'One dislikes to pander to the morbidity of a sensation-avid ...'
'Well, it doesn't matter, anyway,' said George Pybus, 'because I got another idea, and a better one. This one is a pippin. At five sharp this evening, Standard Pacific time, that gorilla's going to be let out of its cage and will menace hundreds. If that doesn't land him on the front page ...'
Montrose was appalled.
'But you can't do that!' he gasped. 'Once let that awful brute out of its cage and it may tear people to shreds.'
George Pybus reassured him.
'Nobody of any consequence. The stars have all been notified and are off the lot. So are the directors. Also the executives, all except Mr Schnellenhamer, who is cleaning up some work in his office. He will be quite safe there, of course. Nobody ever got into Mr Schnellenhamer's office without waiting four hours in the ante-room. Well, I must be off,' said George Pybus. 'I've got to dress and get out to Malibu for dinner.'
And, so speaking, he trod on the accelerator and was speedily lost to view in the gathering darkness.
It was a few moments later that Montrose, standing rooted to the spot, became aware of a sudden distant uproar: and, looking at his watch, he found that it was precisely five o'clock.
The spot to which Montrose had been standing rooted was in that distant part of the lot where the outdoor sets are kept permanently erected, so that a director with – let us suppose – a London street scene to shoot is able instantly to lay his hands on a back-alley in Algiers, a mediaeval castle, or a Parisian boulevard – none of which is any good to him but which make him feel that the studio is trying to be helpful.
As far as Montrose's eye could reach, Spanish patios, thatched cottages, tenement buildings, estaminets, Oriental bazaars, Kaffir kraals and the residences of licentious New York clubmen stood out against the evening sky: and the fact that he selected as his haven of refuge one of the tenement buildings was due to its being both tallest and nearest.
Like all outdoor sets, it consisted of a front just like the real thing and a back composed of steps and platforms. Up these steps he raced, and on the top-most of the platforms he halted and sat down. He was still unable to think very coherently, but in a dim sort of way he was rather proud of his agility and resource. He felt that he had met a grave crisis well. He did not know what the record was for climbing a flight of steps with a gorilla loose in the neighbourhood, but he would have felt surprise if informed that he had not lowered it.
The uproar which had had such a stimulating effect upon him was now increasing in volume: and, oddly, it appeared to have become stationary. He glanced down through the window of his tenement building, and was astonished to observe below him a dense crowd. And what perplexed him most about this crowd was that it was standing still and looking up.
Scarcely, felt Montrose, intelligent behaviour on the part of a crowd with a savage gorilla after it.
There was a good deal of shouting going on, but he found himself unable to distinguish any words. A woman who stood in the forefront of the throng appeared particularly animated. She was waving an umbrella in a rather neurotic manner.
The whole thing, as I say, perplexed Montrose. What these people thought they were doing, he was unable to say. He was still speculating on the matter when a noise came to his ears.
It was the crying of a baby.
Now, with all these mother-love pictures so popular, the presence of a baby on the lot was not in itself a thing to occasion surprise. It is a very unambitious mother in Hollywood who, the moment she finds herself and child doing well, does not dump the little stranger into a perambulator and wheel it round to the casting-office in the hope of cashing in. Ever since he had been with the Perfecto-Zizzbaum, Montrose had seen a constant stream of offspring riding up and trying to break into the game. It was not, accordingly, the fact of a baby being among those present that surprised him. What puzzled him about this particular baby was that it seemed to be so close at hand. Unless the acoustics were playing odd tricks, the infant, he was convinced, was sharing this eyrie of his. And how a mere baby, handicapped probably by swaddling-clothes and a bottle, could have shinned up all those steps bewildered him to such an extent that he moved along the planks to investigate.
And he had not gone three paces when he paused, aghast. With its hairy back towards him, the gorilla was crouching over something that lay on the ground. And another bellow told him that this was the baby in person: and instantly Montrose saw what must have occurred. His reading of magazine stories had taught him that, once a gorilla gets loose, the first thing it does is to snatch a baby from a perambulator and climb to the nearest high place. It is pure routine.
This, then, was the position in which my distant cousin Montrose found himself at eight minutes past five on this misty evening. A position calculated to test the fortitude of the sternest.
Now, it has been well said that with nervous, highly-strung men like Montrose Mulliner, a sudden call upon their manhood is often enough to revolutionize their whole character. Psychologists have frequently commented on this. We are too ready, they say, to dismiss as cowards those who merely require the stimulus of the desperate emergency to bring out all their latent heroism. The crisis comes, and the craven turns magically into the paladin.
With Montrose, however, this was not the case. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of those who knew him would have scoffed at the idea of him interfering with an escaped gorilla to save the life of a child, and they would have been right. To tiptoe backwards, holding his breath, was with Montrose Mulliner the work of a moment. And it was the fact that he did it so quickly that wrecked his plans. Stubbing a heel on a loose board in his haste, he fell backwards with a crash. And when the stars had ceased to obscure his vision, he found himself gazing up into the hideous face of the gorilla.
On the last occasion when the two had met, there had been iron bars between them: and even with this safeguard Montrose, as I have said, had shrunk from the creature's evil stare. Now, meeting the brute as it were socially, he experienced a thrill of horror such as had never come to him even in nightmares. Closing his eyes, he began to speculate as to which limb, when it started to tear him limb from limb, the animal would start with.
The one thing of which he was sure was that it would begin operations by uttering a fearful snarl: and when the next sound that came to his ears was a deprecating cough he was so astonished that he could keep his eyes closed no longer. Opening them, he found the gorilla looking at him with an odd, apologetic expression on its face.
'Excuse me, sir,' said the gorilla, 'but are you by any chance a family man?'
For an instant, on hearing the question, Montrose's astonishment deepened. Then he realized what must have happened. He must have been torn limb from l
imb without knowing it, and now he was in heaven. Though even this did not altogether satisfy him as an explanation, for he had never expected to find gorillas in heaven.
The animal now gave a sudden start.
'Why, it's you! I didn't recognize you at first. Before going any further, I should like to thank you for those bananas. They were delicious. A little something round about the middle of the afternoon picks one up quite a bit, doesn't it.'
Montrose blinked. He could still hear the noise of the crowd below. His bewilderment increased.
'You speak very good English for a gorilla,' was all he could find to say. And, indeed, the animal's diction had been remarkable for its purity.
The gorilla waved the compliment aside modestly.
'Oh, well, Balliol, you know. Dear old Balliol. One never quite forgets the lessons one learned at Alma Mater, don't you think? You are not an Oxford man, by any chance?'
'No.'
'I came down in '26. Since then I have been knocking around a good deal, and a friend of mine in the circus business suggested to me that the gorilla field was not overcrowded. Plenty of room at the top, was his expression. And I must say,' said the gorilla, 'I've done pretty well at it. The initial expenditure comes high, of course ... you don't get a skin like this for nothing ... but there's virtually no overhead. Of course, to become a co-star in a big feature film, as I have done, you need a good agent. Mine, I am glad to say, is a capital man of business. Stands no nonsense from these motion-picture magnates.'
Montrose was not a quick thinker, but he was gradually adjusting his mind to the facts.
'Then you're not a real gorilla?'
'No, no. Synthetic, merely.'
'You wouldn't tear anyone limb from limb?'
'My dear chap! My idea of a nice time is to curl up with a good book. I am happiest among my books.'
Montrose's last doubts were resolved. He extended his hand cordially.
'Pleased to meet you, Mr ...'
'Waddesley-Davenport. Cyril Waddesley-Davenport. And I am extremely happy to meet you, Mr ...'
'Mulliner. Montrose Mulliner.'
They shook hands warmly. From down below came the hoarse uproar of the crowd. The gorilla started.
'The reason I asked you if you were a family man,' it said, 'was that I hoped you might be able to tell me what is the best method of procedure to adopt with a crying baby. I don't seem able to stop the child. And all my own silly fault, too. I see now I should never have snatched it from its perambulator. If you want to know what is the matter with me, I am too much the artist. I simply had to snatch that baby. It was how I saw the scene. I felt it ... felt it here,' said the gorilla, thumping the left side of its chest. And now what?'
Montrose reflected.
'Why don't you take it back?'
'To its mother?'
'Certainly.'
'But ...' The gorilla pulled doubtfully at its lower lip. 'You have seen that crowd. Did you happen to observe a woman standing in the front row waving an umbrella?'
'The mother?'
'Precisely. Well, you know as well as I do, Mulliner, what an angry woman can do with an umbrella.'
Montrose thought again.
'It's all right,' he said. 'I have it. Why don't you sneak down the back steps? Nobody will see you. The crowd's in front, and it's almost dark.'
The gorilla's eyes lit up. It slapped Montrose gratefully on the shoulder.
'My dear chap! The very thing. But as regards the baby...'
'I will restore it.'
'Capital! I don't know how to thank you, dear fellow,' said the gorilla. 'By Jove, this is going to be a lesson to me in future not to give way to the artist in me. You don't know how I've been feeling about that umbrella. Well, then, in case we don't meet again, always remember that the Lotos Club finds me when I am in New York. Drop in any time you happen to be in that neighbourhood and we'll have a bite to eat and a good talk.'
And what of Rosalie, meanwhile? Rosalie was standing between the bereaved mother, using all her powers of cajolery to try to persuade Captain Jack Fosdyke to go to the rescue: and the Captain was pleading technical difficulties that stood in the way.
'Dash my buttons,' he said, 'if only I had my elephant gun and my trusty native bearer, 'Mlongi, here, I'd pretty soon know what to do about it. As it is, I'm handicapped.'
'But you told me yesterday that you had often strangled gorillas with your bare hands.'
'Not gor-illas, dear lady – por-illas. A species of South American wombat, and very good eating they make, too.'
'You're afraid!'
Afraid? Jack Fosdyke afraid? How they would laugh on the Lower Zambesi if they could hear you say that.'
'You are! You, who advised me to have nothing to do with the man I love because he was of a mild and diffident nature.'
Captain Jack Fosdyke twirled his moustache.
'Well, I don't notice,' he sneered, 'that he ...' He broke off, and his jaw slowly fell. Round the corner of the building was walking Montrose Mulliner. His bearing was erect, even jaunty, and he carried the baby in his arms. Pausing for an instant to allow the busily-clicking cameras to focus him, he advanced towards the stupefied mother and thrust the child into her arms.
'That's that,' he said carelessly, dusting his fingers. 'No, no, please,' he went on. 'A mere nothing.'
For the mother was kneeling before him, endeavouring to kiss his hand. It was not only maternal love that prompted the action. That morning she had signed up her child at seventy-five dollars a week for the forthcoming picture, 'Tiny Fingers,' and all through these long, anxious minutes it had seemed as though the contract must be a total loss.
Rosalie was in Montrose's arms, sobbing.
'Oh, Monty!'
'There, there!'
'How I misjudged you!'
'We all make mistakes.'
'I made a bad one when I listened to that man there,' said Rosalie, darting a scornful look at Captain Jack Fosdyke. 'Do you realize that, for all his boasting, he would not move a step to save that poor child?'
'Not a step?'
'Not a single step.'
'Bad, Fosdyke,' said Montrose. 'Rather bad. Not quite the straight bat, eh?'
'Tchah!' said the baffled man, and he turned on his heel and strode away. He was still twirling his moustache, but a lot that got him.
Rosalie was clinging to Montrose.
'You aren't hurt? Was it a fearful struggle?'
'Struggle?' Montrose laughed. 'Oh, dear no. There was no struggle. I very soon showed the animal that I was going to stand no nonsense. I generally find with gorillas that all one needs is the power of the human eye. By the way, I've been thinking it over and I realize that I may have been a little unreasonable about that idea of yours. I still would prefer to get married in some nice, quiet church, but if you feel you want the ceremony to take place in that animal's cage, I shall be delighted.'
She shivered.
'I couldn't do it. I'd be scared.'
Montrose smiled understandingly.
'Ah, well,' he said, 'it is perhaps not unnatural that a delicately nurtured woman should be of less tough stuff than the more rugged male. Shall we be strolling along? I want to look in on Mr Schnellenhamer, and arrange about that raise of mine. You won't mind waiting while I pop in at his office?'
'My hero!' whispered Rosalie.
9 THE NODDER
THE presentation of the super film, 'Baby Boy,' at the Bijou Dream in the High Street, had led to an animated discussion in the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest. Several of our prominent first-nighters had dropped in there for a much-needed restorative after the performance, and the conversation had turned to the subject of child stars in the motion-pictures.
'I understand they're all midgets, really,' said a Rum and Milk.
'That's what I heard, too,' said a Whisky and Splash. 'Somebody told me that at every studio in Hollywood they have a special man who does nothing but go round the country, combing the circuses
, and when he finds a good midget he signs him up.'
Almost automatically we looked at Mr Mulliner, as if seeking from that unfailing fount of wisdom an authoritative pronouncement on this difficult point. The Sage of the bar-parlour sipped his hot Scotch and lemon for a moment in thoughtful silence.
'The question you have raised,' he said at length, 'is one that has occupied the minds of thinking men ever since these little excrescences first became popular on the screen. Some argue that mere children could scarcely be so loathsome. Others maintain that a right-minded midget would hardly stoop to some of the things these child stars do. But, then, arising from that, we have to ask ourselves: Are midgets right-minded? The whole thing is very moot.'
'Well, this kid we saw to-night,' said the Rum and Milk. 'This Johnny Bingley. Nobody's going to tell me he's only eight years old.'
'In the case of Johnny Bingley,' assented Mr Mulliner, 'your intuition has not led you astray. I believe he is in the early forties. I happen to know all about him because it was he who played so important a part in the affairs of my distant connection, Wilmot.'
'Was your distant connection Wilmot a midget?'
'No. He was a Nodder.'
'A what?'
Mr Mulliner smiled.
'It is not easy to explain to the lay mind the extremely intricate ramifications of the personnel of a Hollywood motion-picture organization. Putting it as briefly as possible, a Nodder is something like a Yes-Man, only lower in the social scale. A Yes-Man's duty is to attend conferences and say 'Yes." A Nodder's, as the name implies, is to nod. The chief executive throws out some statement of opinion, and looks about him expectantly. This is the cue for the senior Yes-Man to say yes. He is followed, in order of precedence, by the second Yes-Man – or Vice-Yesser, as he is sometimes called – and the junior Yes-Man. Only when all the Yes-Men have yessed, do the Nodders begin to function. They nod.'
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