“Sit still!” John was whispering across the table. “He picks somebody out for this every night.”
Then she realized--it was the comedian, Sheik B. Smith. He was talking to her, arguing with her--about something that seemed incredibly funny to every one else, but came to her ears only as a blur of muddled sound. Instinctively she had composed her face at the first shock of the light and now she smiled. It was a gesture of rare self-possession. Into this smile she insinuated a vast impersonality, as if she were unconscious of the light, unconscious of his attempt to play upon her loveliness--but amused at an infinitely removed him, whose darts might have been thrown just as successfully at the moon. She was no longer a “lady”--a lady would have been harsh or pitiful or absurd; Rags stripped her attitude to a sheer consciousness of her own impervious beauty, sat there glittering until the comedian began to feel alone as he had never felt alone before. At a signal from him the spot-light was switched suddenly out. The moment was over.
The moment was over, the comedian left the floor, and the far-away music began. John leaned toward her.
“I’m sorry. There really wasn’t anything to do. You were wonderful.”
She dismissed the incident with a casual laugh--then she started, there were now only two men sitting at the table across the floor.
“He’s gone!” she exclaimed in quick distress.
“Don’t worry--he’ll be back. He’s got to be awfully careful, you see, so he’s probably waiting outside with one of his aides until it gets dark again.”
“Why has he got to be careful?”
“Because he’s not supposed to be in New York. He’s even under one of his second-string names.”
The lights dimmed again, and almost immediately a tall man appeared out of the darkness and approached their table.
“May I introduce myself?” he said rapidly to John in a supercilious British voice. “Lord Charles Este, of Baron Marchbanks’ party.” He glanced at John closely as if to be sure that he appreciated the significance of the name.
John nodded.
“That is between ourselves, you understand.”
“Of course.”
Rags groped on the table for her untouched champagne, and tipped the glassful down her throat.
“Baron Marchbanks requests that your companion will join his party during this number.”
Both men looked at Rags. There was a moment’s pause.
“Very well,” she said, and glanced back again interrogatively at John. Again he nodded. She rose and with her heart beating wildly threaded the tables, making the half-circuit of the room; then melted, a slim figure in shimmering gold, into the table set in half-darkness.
IV
The number drew to a close, and John Chestnut sat alone at his table, stirring auxiliary bubbles in his glass of champagne. Just before the lights went on, there was a soft rasp of gold cloth, and Rags, flushed and breathing quickly, sank into her chair. Her eyes were shining with tears.
John looked at her moodily.
“Well, what did he say?”
“He was very quiet.”
“Didn’t he say a word?”
Her hand trembled as she took up her glass of champagne.
“He just looked at me while it was dark. And he said a few conventional things. He was like his pictures, only he looks very bored and tired. He didn’t even ask my name.”
“Is he leaving New York to-night?”
“In half an hour. He and his aides have a car outside, and they expect to be over the border before dawn.”
“Did you find him--fascinating?”
She hesitated and then slowly nodded her head.
“That’s what everybody says,” admitted John glumly. “Do they expect you back there?”
“I don’t know.” She looked uncertainly across the floor but the celebrated personage had again withdrawn from his table to some retreat outside. As she turned back an utterly strange young man who had been standing for a moment in the main entrance came toward them hurriedly. He was a deathly pale person in a dishevelled and inappropriate business suit, and he had laid a trembling hand on John Chestnut’s shoulder.
“Monte!” exclaimed John, starting up so suddenly that he upset his champagne. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“They’ve picked up the trail!” said the young man in a shaken whisper. He looked around. “I’ve got to speak to you alone.”
John Chestnut jumped to his feet, and Rags noticed that his face too had become white as the napkin in his hand. He excused himself and they retreated to an unoccupied table a few feet away. Rags watched them curiously for a moment, then she resumed her scrutiny of the table across the floor. Would she be asked to come back? The prince had simply risen and bowed and gone outside. Perhaps she should have waited until he returned, but though she was still tense with excitement she had, to some extent, become Rags Martin-Jones again. Her curiosity was satisfied--any new urge must come from him. She wondered if she had really felt an intrinsic charm--she wondered especially if he had in any marked way responded to her beauty.
The pale person called Monte disappeared and John returned to the table. Rags was startled to find that a tremendous change had come over him. He lurched into his chair like a drunken man.
“John! What’s the matter?”
Instead of answering, he reached for the champagne bottle, but his fingers were trembling so that the splattered wine made a wet yellow ring around his glass.
“Are you sick?”
“Rags,” he said unsteadily, “I’m all through.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m all through, I tell you.” He managed a sickly smile. “There’s been a warrant out for me for over an hour.”
“What have you done?” she demanded in a frightened voice. “What’s the warrant for?”
The lights went out for the next number, and he collapsed suddenly over the table.
“What is it?” she insisted, with rising apprehension. She leaned forward--his answer was barely audible.
“Murder?” She could feel her body grow cold as ice.
He nodded. She took hold of both arms and tried to shake him upright, as one shakes a coat into place. His eyes were rolling in his head.
“Is it true? Have they got proof?”
Again he nodded drunkenly.
“Then you’ve got to get out of the country now! Do you understand, John? You’ve got to get out now, before they come looking for you here!”
He loosed a wild glance of terror toward the entrance.
“Oh, God!” cried Rags, “why don’t you do something?” Her eyes strayed here and there in desperation, became suddenly fixed. She drew in her breath sharply, hesitated, and then whispered fiercely into his ear.
“If I arrange it, will you go to Canada tonight?”
“How?”
“I’ll arrange it--if you’ll pull yourself together a little. This is Rags talking to you, don’t you understand, John? I want you to sit here and not move until I come back!”
A minute later she had crossed the room under cover of the darkness.
“Baron Marchbanks,” she whispered softly, standing just behind his chair.
He motioned her to sit down.
“Have you room in your car for two more passengers to-night?”
One of the aides turned around abruptly.
“His lordship’s car is full,” he said shortly.
“It’s terribly urgent.” Her voice was trembling.
“Well,” said the prince hesitantly, “I don’t know.”
Lord Charles Este looked at the prince and shook his head.
“I don’t think it’s advisable. This is a ticklish business anyhow with contrary orders from home. You know we agreed there’d be no complications.”
The prince frowned.
“This isn’t a complication,” he objected.
Este turned frankly to Rags.
“Why is it urgent?”
; Rags hesitated.
“Why”--she flushed suddenly--”it’s a runaway marriage.”
The prince laughed.
“Good!” he exclaimed. “That settles it. Este is just being official. Bring him over right away. We’re leaving shortly, what?”
Este looked at his watch.
“Right now!”
Rags rushed away. She wanted to move the whole party from the roof while the lights were still down.
“Hurry!” she cried in John’s ear. “We’re going over the border--with the Prince of Wales. You’ll be safe by morning.”
He looked up at her with dazed eyes. She hurriedly paid the check, and seizing his arm piloted him as inconspicuously as possible to the other table, where she introduced him with a word. The prince acknowledged his presence by shaking hands--the aides nodded, only faintly concealing their displeasure.
“We’d better start,” said Este, looking impatiently at his watch.
They were on their feet when suddenly an exclamation broke from all of them--two policemen and a red-haired man in plain clothes had come in at the main door.
“Out we go,” breathed Este, impelling the party toward the side entrance. “There’s going to be some kind of riot here.” He swore--two more blue-coats barred the exit there. They paused uncertainly. The plain-clothes man was beginning a careful inspection of the people at the tables.
Este looked sharply at Rags and then at John, who shrank back behind the palms.
“Is that one of your revenue fellas out there?” demanded Este.
“No,” whispered Rags. “There’s going to be trouble. Can’t we get out this entrance?”
The prince with rising impatience sat down again in his chair.
“Let me know when you chaps are ready to go.” He smiled at Rags. “Now just suppose we all get in trouble just for that jolly face of yours.”
Then suddenly the lights went up. The plain-clothes man whirled around quickly and sprang to the middle of the cabaret floor.
“Nobody try to leave this room!” he shouted. “Sit down, that party behind the palms! Is John M. Chestnut in this room?”
Rags gave a short involuntary cry.
“Here!” cried the detective to the policeman behind him. “Take a look at that funny bunch across over there. Hands up, you men!”
“My God!” whispered Este, “we’ve got to get out of here!” He turned to the prince. “This won’t do, Ted. You can’t be seen here. I’ll stall them off while you get down to the car.”
He took a step toward the side entrance.
“Hands up, there!” shouted the plain-clothes man. “And when I say hands up I mean it! Which one of you’s Chestnut?”
“You’re mad!” cried Este. “We’re British subjects. We’re not involved in this affair in any way!”
A woman screamed somewhere, and there was a general movement toward the elevator, a movement which stopped short before the muzzles of two automatic pistols. A girl next to Rags collapsed in a dead faint to the floor, and at the same moment the music on the other roof began to play.
“Stop that music!” bellowed the plain-clothes man. “And get some earrings on that whole bunch--quick!”
Two policemen advanced toward the party, and simultaneously Este and the other aides drew their revolvers, and, shielding the prince as they best could, began to edge toward the side. A shot rang out and then another, followed by a crash of silver and china as half a dozen diners overturned their tables and dropped quickly behind.
The panic became general. There were three shots in quick succession, and then a fusillade. Rags saw Este firing coolly at the eight amber lights above, and a thick fume of gray smoke began to fill the air. As a strange undertone to the shouting and screaming came the incessant clamor of the distant jazz band.
Then in a moment it was all over. A shrill whistle rang out over the roof, and through the smoke Rags saw John Chestnut advancing toward the plain-clothes man, his hands held out in a gesture of surrender. There was a last nervous cry, a chill clatter as some one inadvertently stepped into a pile of dishes, and then a heavy silence fell on the roof--even the band seemed to have died away.
“It’s all over!” John Chestnut’s voice rang out wildly on the night air. “The party’s over. Everybody who wants to can go home!”
Still there was silence--Rags knew it was the silence of awe--the strain of guilt had driven John Chestnut insane.
“It was a great performance,” he was shouting. “I want to thank you one and all. If you can find any tables still standing, champagne will be served as long as you care to stay.”
It seemed to Rags that the roof and the high stars suddenly began to swim round and round. She saw John take the detective’s hand and shake it heartily, and she watched the detective grin and pocket his gun. The music had recommenced, and the girl who had fainted was suddenly dancing with Lord Charles Este in the corner. John was running here and there patting people on the back, and laughing and shaking hands. Then he was coming toward her, fresh and innocent as a child.
“Wasn’t it wonderful?” he cried.
Rags felt a faintness stealing over her. She groped backward with her hand toward a chair.
“What was it?” she cried dazedly. “Am I dreaming?”
“Of course not! You’re wide awake. I made it up, Rags, don’t you see? I made up the whole thing for you. I had it invented! The only thing real about it was my name!”
She collapsed suddenly against his coat, clung to his lapels, and would have wilted to the floor if he had not caught her quickly in his arms.
“Some champagne--quick!” he called, and then he shouted at the Prince of Wales, who stood near by. “Order my car quick, you! Miss Martin-Jones has fainted from excitement.”
V
The skyscraper rose bulkily through thirty tiers of windows before it attenuated itself to a graceful sugar-loaf of shining white. Then it darted up again another hundred feet, thinned to a mere oblong tower in its last fragile aspiration toward the sky. At the highest of its high windows Rags Martin-Jones stood full in the stiff breeze, gazing down at the city.
“Mr. Chestnut wants to know if you’ll come right in to his private office.”
Obediently her slim feet moved along the carpet into a high, cool chamber overlooking the harbor and the wide sea.
John Chestnut sat at his desk, waiting, and Rags walked to him and put her arms around his shoulder.
“Are you sure you’re real?” she asked anxiously. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“You only wrote me a week before you came,” he protested modestly, “or I could have arranged a revolution.”
“Was the whole thing just mine?” she demanded. “Was it a perfectly useless, gorgeous thing, just for me?”
“Useless?” He considered. “Well, it started out to be. At the last minute I invited a big restaurant man to be there, and while you were at the other table I sold him the whole idea of the night-club.”
He looked at his watch.
“I’ve got one more thing to do--and then we’ve got just time to be married before lunch.” He picked up his telephone. “Jackson? . . . Send a triplicated cable to Paris, Berlin, and Budapest and have those two bogus dukes who tossed up for Schwartzberg-Rhineminster chased over the Polish border. If the Dutchy won’t act, lower the rate of exchange to point triple zero naught two. Also, that idiot Blutchdak is in the Balkans again, trying to start a new war. Put him on the first boat for New York or else throw him in a Greek jail.”
He rang off, turned to the startled cosmopolite with a laugh.
“The next stop is the City Hall. Then, if you like, we’ll run over to Paris.”
“John,” she asked him intently, “who was the Prince of Wales?”
He waited till they were in the elevator, dropping twenty floors at a swoop. Then he leaned forward and tapped the lift-boy on the shoulder.
“Not so fast, Cedric. This lady isn’t used to falls from high places.”
<
br /> The elevator-boy turned around, smiled. His face was pale, oval, framed in yellow hair. Rags blushed like fire.
“Cedric’s from Wessex,” explained John. “The resemblance is, to say the least, amazing. Princes are not particularly discreet, and I suspect Cedric of being a Guelph in some left-handed way.”
Rags took the monocle from around her neck and threw the ribbon over Cedric’s head.
“Thank you,” she said simply, “for the second greatest thrill of my life.”
John Chestnut began rubbing his hands together in a commercial gesture.
“Patronize this place, lady,” he besought her. “Best bazaar in the city!”
“What have you got for sale?”
“Well, m’selle, to-day we have some perfectly bee-oo-tiful love.”
“Wrap it up, Mr. Merchant,” cried Rags Martin-Jones. “It looks like a bargain to me.”
THE ADJUSTER
At five o’clock the sombre egg-shaped room at the Ritz ripens to subtle melody — the light clat-clat of one lump, two lumps, into the cup, and the ding of the shining teapots and cream-pots as they kiss elegantly in transit upon a silver tray. There are those who cherish that amber hour above all other hours, for now the pale, pleasant toil of the lilies who inhabit the Ritz is over — the singing decorative part of the day remains.
Moving your eyes around the slightly raised horse-shoe balcony you might, one spring afternoon, have seen young Mrs. Alphonse Karr and young Mrs. Charles Hemple at a table for two. The one in the dress was Mrs. Hemple — when I say “the dress” I refer to that black immaculate affair with the big buttons and the red ghost of a cape at the shoulders, a gown suggesting with faint and fashionable irreverence the garb of a French cardinal, as it was meant to do when it was invented in the Rue de la Paix. Mrs. Karr and Mrs. Hemple were twenty-three years old, and their enemies said that they had done very well for themselves. Either might have had her limousine waiting at the hotel door, but both of them much preferred to walk home (up Park Avenue) through the April twilight.
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 191