Читать книгу Masks Off at Midnight - Valentine Williams - Страница 4

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The staircase at the Advertiser office was dark and smelt of printer’s ink. Paul Kentish went up it two steps at a time. Arrived in his shabby sanctum on the first floor, he sent his hat sailing across the room to land on a peg on the wall, surveyed his littered desk and called out ‘Oh, Miss Bernstein!’—all in one movement.

Miss Bernstein, small and dark and bespectacled and not half a year out of Laurel High School, came in. She was a girl with a one-way mind. The repository of all messages and telephone calls during Kentish’s frequent absences from the office, it was her habit, as soon as the editor appeared, to reel off a précis of all communications awaiting his attention in a toneless, unhurried voice. It was as though she had learned a piece by rote. Kentish knew better than to try to stop her. Before answering any questions she had to get this accumulation of pending business out of her system.

Before she had crossed the threshold she had begun to speak: ‘Good morning, Mr. Kentish. The printer was in and he’s short of a column and a quarter on page three and please what time were you expecting the flower show results because Hermann’s waiting to go to press with the Garden page and Mr. Waverly would like you to call him just as soon as you arrive and Mr. Harding’s compliments and he wishes to see you with reference to last week’s “Just Folks” and I paid thirty-nine cents on a parcel and will you be lunching at Tony’s because Mr. Brewster from Hicksville was in and said he might see you there!’

Kentish was emptying his pockets of a collection of scribbled notes and memoranda. ‘What’s eating the boss?’ he demanded absently. ‘Another complaint, is it?’

The secretary nodded serenely. ‘I guess so. Mrs. Fowler’s been complaining about that paragraph about her at the chicken dinner at the Presbyterian Hall...’

Kentish grinned. ‘We only said she ate her chicken in her fingers. What’s wrong with that? It’s a good old American custom, isn’t it?’

‘She says you’re conducting a—a vendetta against her. She says we made fun of her at the Boy Scout Rally, too. Anyway, she complained to Mr. Harding, Miss Turner told me...’

Kentish sat down and, picking up the telephone, rapidly dialled a number. ‘My respects to my esteemed employer,’ he remarked through the whirring of the disc, ‘and Mrs. Fowler is an old haybag. Before he wastes his time and mine passing on any more ridiculous complaints, I’d suggest he take a look at last month’s advertising revenue. Oh, hello, Swain,’ he said into the telephone, ‘is Mr. Waverly there? Yes, this is Mr. Kentish. He rang me!’

‘One moment, Mr. Kentish, sir,’ a suave English voice responded. ‘Mr. Waverly’s in the study. I’ll put you through!’

‘Listen, Ran,’ said Kentish as soon as Waverly’s cheery ‘Hello, Paul!’ had told him that Randolph Waverly was at the other end of the wire, ‘about tomorrow night. I’ve been on to New York about the sedan chair and they’ll deliver it sometime this afternoon without fail in time for the dress rehearsal tonight. I told ’em to bring it to the garden entrance—you know the southeast turret—and I want you to tell Swain to have it put in the Tower Room, to lock the room and let me have the key or else we’ll have people snooping in there and the secret will be out. Is that okay?’

‘Yes, I’ll see Swain about it. What have you done about the carbines for the escort?’

‘That’s all fixed up. There’s no hurry about it—they won’t be sending them round from the armoury until tomorrow evening. Meanwhile, the masqueraders will use the Tower entrance and assemble in the Blue Room, right?’

‘Okay. I thought you were coming over this morning?’

‘I am just as soon as I’ve finished my column. You’re taking the Denes to lunch with the Tallifers, aren’t you?’

‘Yep.’

‘I’m going, too. I’m anxious to meet your sleuth—he ought to be good for a par. But I’ll see you before then. In the meantime, rehearsal for the dances at eight o’clock tonight and dress rehearsal at nine. Constance Barrington promised me to have her costume there on time.’

‘An affair with gold trousers, is it?’

‘Yes...’

‘It just arrived, Barbara says. Constance is coming in before dinner for a last fitting...’

‘Good. I’ll be right along. Bye-bye!’ Kentish hung up.

Without an instant’s pause he swung his swivel chair round to a battered typewriter that was screwed to a slab projecting from the desk, inserted a sheet of copy-paper, typed ‘P.K.’ in the right-hand corner and below ‘Add “Just Folks.”’ Then, after a preliminary scrabble among his notes, he began to write.

‘Just Folks’ was the title of the gossip column which, following the precedent of metropolitan journalism, he had succeeded in grafting upon the old-established and, until his advent, extremely ponderous Advertiser. Nobody quite knew why Kentish, with Groton and Harvard as his background, should have been content, at the age of twenty-five, to bury himself alive, as his father in Philadelphia put it, as the editor of an obscure Long Island newspaper. But then Paul’s career in journalism had been, from the outset, the despair of his family. Rejecting an offer to join the staff of the staidest of the Philadelphia newspapers, on leaving college he had gone to New York and without influence, and the depression notwithstanding, talked himself into a job on the most sensational and harum-scarum of the tabloids. Two years of newspaper work in New York had fired him with the ambition to become his own master. As a stepping-stone to the attainment of this goal he had deliberately chosen the Laurel Advertiser, which, after almost a century of existence, was slowly but surely slipping downhill into bankruptcy. The investment of the whole of his available capital secured him the editorship in succession to an alcoholic son-in-law of Harding, the elderly and muddling proprietor, and the promise of a free hand, and while his methods frequently scandalized the owner, the slowly mounting curve of the Advertiser revenue went far to reconcile Harding to hard-hitting editorials on local politics and the incorrigible personalities of his young editor’s best beloved brain-child ‘Just Folks.’

For a good ten minutes the ancient typewriter rattled like a machine-gun. With a guttural ‘Goot morning, Paul!’ the German printer appeared and retired with the Flower Show copy and a sheaf of book notes which had arrived by the morning mail. Miss Bernstein looked in with the news that Mr. Harding was asking for Mr. Kentish. But the young man paid no heed, pounding away at the typewriter keys. He smiled a good deal as he wrote, pausing only to crush out a cigarette and light another, while he glanced through the sheet in the machine.

At last he had finished. In answer to his shout Miss Bernstein tripped in. ‘Printer!’ said the young man, giving her the typewritten sheets and, as she retired, picked up the telephone and furiously dialled a number.

‘Laurel House,’ a woman’s voice answered.

‘Is that you, Jennie?’ Kentish said eagerly.

‘She’s out, I think, Paul,’ the woman replied.

‘Oh, hello, Mrs. Tallifer! If she’s not there, it doesn’t matter!’

‘She spoke of going to play golf. Wait a second! Here she is!’

A girl’s voice, warm and caressing, now spoke. ‘Hello, Paul!’

His voice, eager and tender, seemed to echo her tone. ‘’Lo, Jen! Up bright and early, aren’t you?’

‘I thought I’d play a round of golf before lunch. This life is getting me down. Why don’t you come along?’

‘Wouldn’t I love to? But Thursday’s my busy day—besides, I have this darned pageant on my neck!’

‘How’s it coming, Paul?’

‘All right. Will your costume be ready for the dress rehearsal tonight?’

‘I hope so. I’m seeing about it this afternoon.’

‘Did you get to bed all right last night?’

‘Yes. What time was it?’

‘I dunno. Round five, I guess. It was fun, wasn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh. You’re good on a party, Paul!’

‘To hell with the party! I was thinking of you and me, out in the outboard motor together!’

She gave a little crooning laugh. ‘It was kind of nice under the moon. But that was last night. I can’t feel very sentimental on a glorious morning like this.’

Paul sighed. ‘I can, Jen. Well, see you at lunch. You’re going, aren’t you?’

‘Sure. At the Yacht Club at one. I must run now if I’m to get any exercise!’

‘Slow back and keep your eye on the ball...’ With a thoughtful, rather weary air, he replaced the receiver and went upstairs to the proprietor’s office.

Ezekiah Harding was a dingy, harassed-looking old man. He wore a short, yellowish-white beard, a black broadcloth suit of ancient cut and gold spectacles. His office was as drab as himself, with grimy, ink-spotted furniture and discoloured walls hung with posters turned out by the private printing works which was part of the Advertiser business.

‘Ah, Paul,’ he said, handing the editor a letter from the desk, ‘we must be a little more careful about the gossip column. Mustn’t be too personal. Our subscribers don’t like it!’

The old buzzard, Kentish said to himself. Why can’t he bawl a fellow out and be done with it, instead of this allusive method of approach? He had the greatest contempt for Harding who would have liked to bully his editor as he bullied Miss Turner, his elderly and acidulous secretary. But Paul Kentish with his good clothes and pleasant, easy manners left the small-town tradesman slightly bewildered and he was always careful to treat him with the greatest respect.

Kentish read the letter through in silence and handed it back. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ he demanded rather truculently.

The old gentleman rubbed his hands together with a nervous movement. ‘Perhaps we might drop Mrs. Fowler from our columns for a bit, since she speaks of a vendetta...’

Kentish shrugged. ‘I dare say the paper will survive it!’

Harding seemed relieved. ‘Very good, ah, very good!’ He motioned to a chair. ‘Sit down, Paul, there was something else...’ And as the young man, with a markedly suspicious air, took the chair he indicated, he went on, taking a galley proof from his desk, ‘It’s about this editorial of yours, I mean the one about the Laurel Ridge incorporation scheme...’

The editor struck out his chin. ‘Well, what about it?’

Old Harding plucked at his beard. ‘We go a little far, I think. “Deliberate tax-dodging,” “impudent flouting of the opinion of all decent-minded people”—strong language, Paul!’

‘It’s not nearly strong enough, if you ask me. This incorporation racket has gone far enough. If rich men in other parts of Long Island have been able to get away with it, it’s because there’s been no organized body of public opinion, no courageous newspaper, to fight them...’

‘Quite, quite. But the tone of this article...’

Kentish’s blue eyes grew angry. ‘This attempt to separate an integral part of Laurel from the rest of the town for administrative purposes is a matter of public interest. The Advertiser has the right, indeed it has the duty, to comment on it...’

Old Harding cleared his throat. ‘Whether the proposed incorporation is justifiable is a matter of controversy...’

‘Rubbish. It stands to benefit one person, and one person only, as you know...’

The other fidgeted with the proof. ‘That may be. All the same, I’d like you to read your editorial through again and, ahem, see if you can’t tone it down a little. Eh, my boy?’ He held out the printed slip.

Kentish had stood up. Now he put his hands behind his back. ‘I can’t do that, Mr. Harding...’

‘We can’t print it as it stands,’ the old man cried stubbornly. ‘It’s nothing but a veiled attack on Mr. Hordern!’

‘And supposing it is,’ the editor retorted with considerable briskness. ‘It’s he who’s trying to put this racket over, isn’t it?’

‘Mr. Hordern spends a great deal of money in the town. We don’t want to antagonize him...’

‘You mean he spends money with us for the bank printing, don’t you? It doesn’t amount to so much. We can do without it...’

‘Brent Hordern is one of our leading citizens...’ He broke off, fumbling with his glasses. ‘Moreover, this business is under certain obligations to him...’

‘You mean, the note at the bank?’

‘Exactly!’

‘To hell with him!’ exclaimed Kentish violently. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we can transfer the account elsewhere, can’t we? The whole town’s on our side in this fight, Mr. Harding—we’re building up good will, you have to think of that!’

‘This editorial must be altered,’ the old proclaimed tremulously.

‘Not by me,’ said Kentish firmly. ‘This fellow who’s come busting in here with his money can buy the bank, and the power station, and God knows what else, but he can’t buy me! However, it’s your paper and if you insist on soft-pedalling on one of the most barefaced and impudent attempts at tax-dodging this town has ever known, go ahead! But don’t ask me to crawl to Brent Hordern, for I won’t do it!’

With which he strode out of the proprietor’s room.