“Marvellous!” he said. “Astounding!”
Then, with an effort, he brought himself out of his trance.
“Mr Tombs,” he said firmly, “there’s only one thing for me to do. I must take you in charge myself. I have a wonderful staff here, the finest staff you could find in any dramatic academy in the world, past masters, every one of ’em—but they’re not good enough. I wouldn’t dare to offer you anything but the best that we have here. I offer you myself. And because I only look upon it as a privilege—nay, a sacred duty—to develop this God-given talent you have, I shall not try to make any money out of you. I shall only make a small charge to cover the actual value of my time. Charles Laughton paid me a thousand pounds for one hour’s coaching in a difficult scene. John Barrymore took me to Hollywood and paid me fifteen thousand dollars to criticize him in four rehearsals. But I shall only ask you for enough to cover my out-of-pocket expenses—let us say, one thousand dollars—for a course of ten special, personal, private, exclusive lessons…No,” boomed Mr Quarterstone, waving one hand in a magnificent gesture, “don’t thank me! Were I to refuse to give you the benefit of all my experience, I should regard myself as a traitor to my calling, a very…ah…Ishmael!”
If there was one kind of acting in which Simon Templar had graduated from a more exacting academy than was dreamed of in Mr Quarterstone’s philosophy, it was the art of depicting the virgin sucker yawning hungrily under the baited hook. His characterization was pointed with such wide-eyed and unsullied innocence, such eager and open-mouthed receptivity, such a succulently plastic amenability to suggestion, such a rich response to flattery—in a word, with such a sublime absorptiveness to the old oil—that men such as Mr Quarterstone, on becoming conscious of him for the first time, had been known to wipe away a furtive tear as they dug down into their pockets for first mortgages on the Tower of London and formulae for extracting radium from old toothpaste tubes. He used all of that technique on Mr Homer Quarterstone, so effectively that his enrolment in the Supremax Academy proceeded with the effortless ease of a stratospherist returning to terra firma a short head in front of his punctured balloon. Mr Quarterstone did not actually brush away an unbidden tear, but he did bring out an enormous leather-bound ledger and enter up particulars of his newest student with a gratifying realization that Life, in spite of the pessimists, was not wholly without its moments of unshadowed joy.
“When can I start?” asked the Saint, when that had been done.
“Start?” repeated Mr Quarterstone, savouring the word. “Why, whenever you like. Each lesson lasts a full hour, and you can divide them up as you wish. You can start now if you want to. I had an appointment…”
“Oh.”
“But it is of no importance, compared with this.” Mr Quarterstone picked up the telephone. “Tell Mr Urlaub I shall be too busy to see him this afternoon,” he told it. He hung up. “The producer,” he explained, as he settled back again. “Of course you’ve heard of him. But he can wait. One day he’ll be waiting on your doorstep, my boy.” He dismissed Mr Urlaub, the producer with a majestic ademán. “What shall we take first—elocution?”
“You know best, Mr Quarterstone,” said the Saint eagerly.
Mr Quarterstone nodded. If there was anything that could have increased his contentment it was a pupil who had no doubt that Mr Quarterstone knew best. He crossed his legs and hooked one thumb in the armhole of his waistcoat.
“Say, ‘Eee.’”
“Eee.”
“Ah.”
Simon went on looking at him expectantly.
“Ah,” repeated Mr Quarterstone.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said ‘Ah.’”
“Oh.”
“No, ‘ah.’”
“Yes, I—”
“Say it after me, Mr Tombs. ‘Aaaah,’ Make it ring out. Hold your diaphragm in, open your mouth, and bring it up from your chest. This is a little exercise in the essential vowels.”
“Oh. Aaaah.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
“I.”
“I.”
“Ooooo.”
“Ooooo.”
“Wrong.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Say ‘Wrong,’ Mr Tombs.”
“Wrong.”
“Right,” said Mr Quarterstone.
“Right.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr Quarterstone testily. “I—”
“Yes, yes, I.”
Mr Quarterstone swallowed.
“I don’t mean you repeat every word I say,” he said. “Just the examples. Now let’s try the vowels again in a sentence. Say this, ‘Faar skiies looom O-ver meee.’”
“Faaar skliies looom O-ver meee.”
“Daaark nught draaws neeear.”
“The days are drawing in,” Simon admitted politely.
Mr Quarterstone’s smile became somewhat glassy, but whatever else he may have been he was no quitter.
“I’m afraid he is a fraud,” Simon told Rosalind Hale when he saw her the next day. “But he has a beautiful line of sugar for the flies. I was the complete gawky goof, the perfect bank clerk with dramatic ambitions—you could just see me going home and leering in the mirror and imagining myself making love to Brigitte Bardot—but he told me he just couldn’t believe how anyone with my poise couldn’t have had any experience.”
The girl’s white teeth showed on her lower lip.
“But that’s just what he told me!”
“I could have guessed it, darling. And I don’t suppose you were the first, either…I had two lessons on the spot, and I’ve had another two today, and if he can teach anyone anything worth knowing about acting, then I can train ducks to write shorthand. I was so dumb that anyone with an ounce of artistic feeling would have thrown me out of the window, but when I left him this afternoon he almost hugged me and told me he could hardly wait to finish the course before he rushed out to show me to John Van Druten.”
She moved her head a little, gazing at him with big sober eyes.
“He was just the same with me, too. Oh, I’ve been such a fool!”
“We’re all fools in our own way,” said the Saint consolingly. “Boys like Homer are my job, so they don’t bother me. On the other hand, you’ve no idea what a fool I can be with soft lights and sweet music. Come on to dinner and I’ll show you.”
“But now you’ve given Quarterstone two hundred pounds, and what are you going to do about it?”
“Wait for the next act of the stirring drama.”
The next act was not long in developing. Simon had two more of Mr Quarterstone’s special, personal, private, exclusive lessons the next day, and two more the day after—Mr Homer Quarterstone was no apostle of the old-fashioned idea of making haste slowly, and by getting in two lessons daily he was able to double his temporary income, which then chalked up at the very pleasing figure of two hundred dollars per diem, minus the overhead of which the brassy blonde was not the smallest item. But this method of gingering up the flow of revenue also meant that its duration was reduced from ten days to five, and during a lull in the next day’s first hour (Diction, Gesture, and Facial Expression) he took the opportunity of pointing out that Success, while already certain, could never be too certain or too great, and therefore that a supplementary series of lessons in the Art and Technique of the Motion Picture, while involving only a brief delay, could only add to the magnitude of Mr Tombs’s ultimate inevitable triumph.
On this argument, for the first time, Mr Tombs disagreed.
“I want to see for myself whether I’ve mastered the first lessons,” he said. “If I could get a small part in a play, just to try myself out…”
He was distressingly obstinate, and Mr Quarterstone, either because he convinced himself that it would only be a waste of time, or because another approach to his pupil’s remaining nineteen thousand dollars seemed just as simple, finally yielded. He made an excuse to leave the studio for a few minutes, and Simon k
new that the next development was on its way.
It arrived in the latter part of the last hour (Declamation with Gestures, Movement, and Facial Expression—The Complete Classical Scene).
Mr Quarterstone was demonstrating.
“To be,” trumpeted Mr Quarterstone, gazing ceiling-wards with an ecstatic expression, the chest thrown out, the arms slightly spread, “or not to be.” Mr Quarterstone ceased to be. He slumped, the head bowed, the arms hanging listlessly by the sides, the expression doleful. “That—is the question.” Mr Quarterstone pondered it, shaking his head. The suspense was awful. He elaborated the idea. “Whether ’tis nobler”—Mr Quarterstone drew himself nobly up, the chin lifted, the right arm turned slightly across the body, the forearm parallel with the ground—“in the mind”—he clutched his brow, where he kept his mind—“to suffer”—he clutched his heart, where he did his suffering—“the slings”—he stretched out his left hand for the slings—“and arrows”—he flung out his right hand for the arrows—“of outrageous fortune”—Mr Quarterstone rolled the insult lusciously around his mouth and spat it out with defiance—“or to take arms”—he drew himself up again, the shoulders squared, rising slightly on tiptoe—“against a sea of troubles”—his right hand moved over a broad panorama, undulating symbolically—“and by opposing”—the arms rising slightly from the elbows, fists clenched, shoulders thrown back, chin drawn in—“end them!”—the forearms striking down again with a fierce chopping movement, expressive of finality and knocking a calendar off the table.
“Excuse me,” said the brassy blonde, with her head poking around the door. “Mr Urlaub is here.”
“Tchah!” said Mr Quarterstone, inspiration wounded in mid-flight. “Tell him to wait.”
“He said—”
Mr Quarterstone’s eyes dilated. His mouth opened. His hands lifted a little from his sides, the fingers tense and parted rather like plump claws, the body rising. He was staring at the Saint.
“Wait!” he cried. “Of course! The very thing! The very man you’ve got to meet! One of the greatest producers in the world today! Your chance!”
He leapt a short distance off the ground and whirled on the blonde his arm flung out, pointing quiveringly.
“Send him in!”
Simon looked wildly breathless.
“But…but will he…”
“Of course he will! You’ve only got to remember what I’ve taught you. And sit down. We must be calm!”
Mr Quarterstone sank into a chair, agitatedly looking calm, as Urlaub bustled in, Urlaub trotted quickly across the room.
“Ah, Homer.”
“My dear Waldemar? How’s everything?”
“Terrible! I came to ask for your advice…” Mr Urlaub leaned across the desk. He was a smallish, thin, bouncy man with a big nose and sleek black hair. His suit fitted him as tightly as an extra skin, and the stones in his tie-pin and his rings looked enough like diamonds to actually be diamonds. He moved as if he were hung on springs, and his voice was thin and spluttery like the exhaust of an anaemic motorcycle.
“Niementhal has quit. Let me down at the last minute. He wanted to put some goddam gigolo into the lead. Some ham that his wife’s got hold of. I said to him, ‘Aaron, your wife is your business and this play is my business.’ I said, ‘I don’t care if it hurts your wife’s feelings and I don’t care if she gets mad at you, I can’t afford to risk my reputation on Broadway and my investment in this play by putting that ham in the lead.’ I said, ‘Buy her a box of candy or a diamond bracelet or anything or send her to Paris or something, but don’t ask me to make her happy by putting that gigolo in this play.’ So he quit. And me with everything set, and the rest of the cast ready to start rehearsing next week, and he quits. He said, ‘All right, then use your own money.’ I said, ‘You know I’ve got ten thousand pounds in this production already, and all you were going to put in is three thousand, and for that you want me to risk my money and my reputation by hiring that ham. I thought you said you’d got a good actor.’ ‘Well, you find yourself a good actor and three thousand pounds,’ he says, and he quits. Cold. And I can’t raise another penny—you know how I just tied up half a million to save those aluminium shares.”
“That’s tough, Waldemar,” said Mr Quarterstone anxiously. “Waldemar, that’s tough!…Ah…by the way…pardon me…may I introduce a student of mine? Mr Tombs.”
Urlaub turned vaguely, apparently becoming aware of the Saint’s presence for the first time. He started forward with a courteously extended hand as the Saint rose.
But their hands did not meet at once. Mr Urlaub’s approaching movement died slowly away, as if paralysis had gradually overtaken him, so that he finally came to rest just before they met, like a clockwork toy that had run down. His eyes became fixed, staring. His mouth opened.
Then, very slowly, he revived himself. He pushed his hand onwards again and grasped the Saint’s as if it were something precious, shaking it slowly and earnestly.
“A pupil of yours, did you say, Homer?” he asked in an awestruck voice.
“That’s right. My star pupil, in fact. I might almost say…”
Mr Urlaub paid no attention to what Quarterstone might almost have said. With his eyes still staring, he darted suddenly closer, peered into the Saint’s face, took hold of it, turned it from side to side, just as Quarterstone had once done. Then he stepped back and stared again, prowling around the Saint like a dog prowling around a tree. Then he stopped.
“Mr Tombs,” he said vibrantly, “will you walk over to the door, and then walk back towards me?”
Looking dazed, the Saint did so.
Mr Urlaub looked at him and gulped. Then he hauled a wad of typescript out of an inside pocket, fumbled through it and thrust it out with one enamelled fingernail dabbing at a paragraph.
“Read that speech—read it as if you were acting it.”The Saint glanced over the paragraph, drew a deep breath, and read with almost uncontrollable emotion.
“No, do not lie to me. You have already given me the answer for which I have been waiting. I am not ungrateful for what you once did for me, but I see now that that kind act was only a part of your scheme to ensnare my better nature in the toils of your unhallowed passions, as though pure love were a thing that could be bought like merchandise. Ah, yes, I loved you, but I did not know that that pretty face was only a mask for the corruption beneath. How you must have laughed at me! Ha, ha. I brought you a rose, but you turned it into a nest of vipers in my bosom. They have stabbed my heart! (Sobs)”
Mr Urlaub clasped his hands together. His eyes bulged and rolled upwards.
“My God,” he breathed hoarsely.
“What?” said the Saint.
“Why?” said Mr Quarterstone.
“But it’s like a miracle!” squeaked Waldemar Urlaub. “He’s the man! The type! The face! The figure! The voice! The manner! He is a genius! Homer, where did you find him? The women will storm the theatre.” He grasped the Saint by the arm, leaning as far as he could over the desk and over Mr Quarterstone. “Listen. He must play that part. He must. He is the only man. I couldn’t put anyone else in it now. Not after I’ve seen him. I’ll show Aaron Niementhal where he gets off. Quit, did he? Okay. He’ll be sorry. We’ll have a hit that’ll make history!”
“But Waldemar…”
Mr Urlaub dried up. His clutching fingers uncoiled from Simon’s arm. The fire died out of his eyes. He staggered blindly back and sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
“Yes,” he whispered bitterly. “I’d forgotten. The play can’t go on. I’m sunk, Homer—just for a miserable three thousand pounds. And now, of all times, when I’ve just seen Mr Tombs!”
“You know I’d help you if I could, Waldemar,” said Mr Quarterstone earnestly. “But I just bought my wife a fur coat, and she wants a new car, and that yacht we just bought set me back twenty thousand.”
Mr Urlaub shook his head.
“I know. It’s not your fault. But isn�
��t it just the toughest break?”
Quarterstone shook his head in sympathy. And then he looked at the Saint.
It was quite a performance, that look. It started casually, beheld inspiration, blazed with triumph, winked, glared significantly, poured out encouragement, pleaded, commanded, and asked and answered several questions, all in a few seconds. Mr Quarterstone had not at any period in his career actually held down the job of prompter, but he more than made up with enthusiasm for any lack of experience. Only a man who had been blind from birth could have failed to grasp the idea that Mr Quarterstone was suggesting, and the Saint had not strung along so far in order to feign blindness at the signal for his entrance.
Simon cleared his throat.
“Er…did you say you only needed another three thousand pounds to put on this play?” he asked diffidently, but with a clearly audible note of suppressed excitement.
After that he had to work no harder than he would have had to work to get himself eaten by a pair of hungry lions. Waldemar Urlaub, once the great light had dawned on him, skittered about like a pea on a drum in an orgy of exultant planning. Mr Tombs would have starred in the play anyhow, whenever the remainder of the necessary wind had been raised—Urlaub had already made up his mind to that—but if Mr Tombs had fifteen thousand dollars as well as his genius and beauty, he would be more than a star. He could be co-producer as well, a sharer in the profits, a friend and equal, in every way the heir to the position which the great Aaron Niementhal would have occupied. His name would go on the billing with double force—Urlaub grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil to illustrate it:
SEBASTIAN TOMBS
and
WALDEMAR URLAUB
present
SEBASTIAN TOMBS
in
LOVE—THE REDEEMER
There would also be lights on the theatre, advertisements, photographs, newspaper articles, news items, gossip paragraphs, parties, movie rights, screen tests, Hollywood, New York, beautiful and adoring women…Mr Urlaub built up a luminous picture of fame, success, and fortune, while Mr Quarterstone nodded benignly and slapped everybody on the back and beamed at the Saint at intervals with a sublimely smug expression of “I told you so.”
The Happy Highwayman (The Saint Series) Page 13