Drury Lane’s Last Case

6 Help Wanted

“I always thought,” said Patience over the grape-fruit, “that research students of literature were like research chemists — bowed, thin young men with a fanatical light in their eyes and a total absence of sex appeal. Are you the exception to the rule, or have I been missing something?”

“I’ve been missing something,” asserted Mr. Rowe, swallowing a mouthful of fruit powerfully.

“I notice that that spiritual lack hasn’t affected your appetite!”

“Who said it was spiritual?”

The waiter took away the empty rinds and replaced them with cups of consommé.

“Lovely day,” said Patience hurriedly, and took a hasty sip of soup. “Tell me something about yourself, young man. Pass the biscuits?... I mean, make it a personal biography.”

“I’d rather make it a cocktail. George here knows me, and even if he doesn’t it won’t make any difference. George, a couple of Martinis. Dry as hell.”

“Shakespeare and Martinis!” murmured Patience, giggling. “How refreshing! I see it all now. That’s why you’re a scholar and still resemble a human being. You sprinkle the dusty page with alcohol, and somehow it burns, doesn’t it?”

“Like the very devil,” grinned young Mr. Rowe. “As a matter of fact, you’re betraying a most becoming ignorance. I’m deathly sick of lunching intelligent women.”

“Well, I like that,” gasped Patience. “Why, you insolent B-Bacchus! I’ve my M.A., I’ll have you know, and I wrote a scintillating paper on The Poetry of Thomas Hardy!”

“Hardy? Hardy?” asked the young man, wrinkling his firm straight nose. “Oh, the versifier!”

“And just what did you mean by that crack? I’m betraying ignorance of precisely what?”

“The essential spirit of old Will. My dear girl, if you had a really deep-seated appreciation of Shakespeare, you would know that his poetry needs no external stimulant. It burns with its own fire.”

“Hear, hear,” murmured Patience. “Thank you, sir. I shall never forget this little lesson in æsthetics.” There were two fiery pink spots in her cheeks, and she tore a biscuit in half.

He threw back his head and roared, startling George, who was approaching with a tray on which stood two frosty amber-filled glasses. “Oh, good Lord!” he gasped. “She can’t take it! I think we’re both a little mad... Ah, George. Set them down, my boy... Down the hatch, Miss Thumm?”

“Miss Thumm?”

“Darling!”

“Patience to you, Mr. Rowe.”

“Very well, Patience it shall be.” They drank gravely; their eyes met over the brims of their glasses and they laughed together, choking over the cocktails. “And now for the autobiography. My name is Gordon Rowe. I shall be twenty-eight come Michaelmas, I am an orphan, I have a pitifully small income, I think the Yankees have a rotten team this year, I see Harvard has bought a swell quarter-back, and if I look at you much longer I shall be tempted to kiss you.”

“You’re a strange young man,” said Patience with a furious blush. “No, no, that doesn’t mean acceptance, so you’d better drop my hand; those two old ladies at the next table are looking at you with disapproval... Heavens, I’m mortified! Blushing like any callow schoolgirl at mere mention of a kiss! Are you always so flippant? I’d rather looked forward to an engrossing discussion about the splitting of the infinitive as split by John Milton, or the domestic problems of the Lepidoptera.”

He stared at her, his grin fading. “You’re horribly nice,” he said, and attacked his chop furiously, and for the moment there was silence. When he looked up they examined each other with searching seriousness, and it was Patience’s eyes which fell. “To tell the truth, Pat — I’m glad you let me call you that — this sort of childish vulgarity is my escape. It’s not very bright, I know, and I’ve never felt myself capable of holding my own in the social sense. I’ve devoted the best years of my young life so far to getting an education, and these last few years to doing something earth-shaking in the line of literary research. I’ve enormous ambition, you know.”

“Ambition never ruined any young man,” said Patience softly.

“Thanks for the kind words, young lady. I’m not the creative type, though. Research fascinates me. I suppose I should have gone in for biochemistry, or astrophysics.”

Patience devoted herself chastely to her salad. She toyed for an instant with a crisp emerald leaf of cress. “I’m really... oh, it’s silly.”

He leaned forward and took her hand. “Please tell me, Pat.”

“Mr. Rowe, they’re looking!” said Patience, but she did not withdraw her hand.

“Gordon, please.”

“Gordon... You’ve hurt me,” said Patience tragically. “Oh, I know it was ragging, and all that, but the fact is, Mr. Rowe — very well, Gordon! — I despise most women for their doughty minds.”

“I’m sorry,” he said contritely. “It was a poor joke.”

“No, it’s more than that, Gordon. I’ve been making poor jokes, too. I’ve never found anything I really wanted to do, while you—” She smiled. “Of course, it sounds ridiculous. But the only thing that differentiates us from the lower primates is the power of reasoning, and I don’t see why the mere fact that a woman is biologically different from a man should prevent her from cultivating her mind.”

“It’s the fashion to be horrified at the mere notion,” grinned the young man.

“I know it is, and I detest the fashion. I don’t believe the full force of the mind’s possibilities struck home to me until I met Drury Lane. He’s... oh, he tones you up, he makes you want to think, to know. And it doesn’t prevent him from being a very charming old gentleman, either... But we’ve strayed from the point.” She withdrew her hand shyly and regarded him with earnest eyes. “Do tell me about your work, and yourself, Gordon. I’m really interested.”

“There’s so little to tell,” he said with a shrug of his big shoulders. “It’s just work, eat, the gym, and sleep. Work’s the most important part of it, of course. There was something special in Shakespeare that gripped me. There never was such genius. Oh, it goes more deeply with me than admiring the polish of a phrase or the acute philosophy behind a Hamlet or Lear conception. It was the man himself. What made him what he was? What was his secret? From what source did he draw his inspiration, or was it just a fire inside himself? I wanted to know.”

“I’ve been to Stratford,” said Patience softly. “There’s something there. It’s in the old Chapel Lane, the Stratford Church, the air—”

“I spent a year and a half in England,” muttered Rowe. “It was hellish work. Following a trail so faint it was half imagination. And, by heaven—”

“Yes?” whispered Patience, her eyes glowing.

He cupped his chin in his hands. “The most important part of an artist’s life is his formative years. It’s the period of his intensest passions. His senses are at their fullest vigor... And what do we know about the Maytime in the life of the greatest poet the world has ever produced? Nothing. There’s a blank in the story of Shakespeare which must be filled in if we’re ever to reach a sensitive and intelligent appreciation of the artist.” He paused, and something almost frightened crept into his tired hazel eyes. “Pat,” he said in a slightly unsteady voice, “I think I’m on the right track. I think— ”

He stopped and fumbled for his cigarette-case. Patience sat very still.

He put the case back into his vest pocket without opening it. “No,” he muttered. “It’s premature. I don’t really know. Yet.” Then he smiled. “Pat, do let’s talk about something else.”

She sighed with minute care, never taking her eyes from him. Then she smiled back. “Of course, Gordon. Tell me about the Saxons.”

“Well,” he said, slumping boyishly in his chair, “there’s precious little to tell. I got old Sam Saxon interested in my — let’s call it a hunch. I suppose he took a shine to me; he never had any children. And despite certain defects in his character he was a genuinely passionate lover of English literature. Gruff old boy, but he insisted on financing my researches in the approved way — took me under his wing, into his house... Then he died. And I’m still working.”

“And Mrs. Saxon?”

“The incomparable Lydia.” He scowled. “Old fuss-budget, and that’s a generous estimate. I suppose I shouldn’t bite the hand that’s feeding me, but she’s a little trying at times. Knows absolutely nothing about literature, and even less than that about her husband’s collection of rare books. Let’s not talk about her. She’s an unpleasant female.”

“Just because she can’t discuss quartos and octavos with you!” laughed Patience. “Who takes care of the Saxon collection? You?”

“Now you’re dipping into ancient history,” chuckled Rowe. “Fossil by the name of Crabbe. There’s poetic justice for you! I? My dear girl! Old Eagle-Eye, I call him, and he is. He was Mr. Saxon’s librarian for twenty-three years, and I believe he’s more jealous of the stuff in his care than even old Sam himself was.” A shadow flitted over his face. “Now he’s absolutely king-pin. Mr. Saxon provided in his will that Crabbe continue as curator of the collection. It will be more inaccessible than ever.”

“But weren’t you working in the Saxon library?”

“Under very close surveillance, I assure you! Crabbe saw to that, and he sees to it now. I don’t know one quarter the stuff that’s there. For the last few months I’ve been cataloguing and overseeing the specific items willed to the Britannic; rather set me back in my work, but Mr. Saxon asked me to do it in his will and it was little enough... Look here, Patience, I’ve bored you stiff. Please tell me about — you.”

“Me? There’s nothing to tell,” said Patience lightly.

“I’m serious, Pat. I... I think you’re the most... Oh, very well! But tell me.”

“If you insist.” She explored the recesses of her handbag for her mirror. “My career may be summed up in a single phrase: I’m a sort of modern Vestal Virgin.”

“That sounds formidable,” smiled the young man. “I don’t think I quite understand.”

“I... I’ve dedicated my life to... something.” She poked her hair about as she peered into the tiny mirror.

He eyed her keenly. “To cultivation of mind?”

She put the mirror away, and sighed. “Oh, Gordon, I don’t really know myself. I’m — I’m a little foggy sometimes.”

“Do you know what your destiny is, young woman?” said Rowe.

“Tell me!”

“You’re destined to lead a very prosy life, my dear.”

“You mean — marriage, babies?”

“Something of the sort,” he said in a low voice.

“How horrible!” Patience rose, the pink blobs annoyingly red. She was conscious of them, for they seemed to be burning holes in her cheeks. “Shall we go, Gordon?”

Inspector Thumm reached his office in a lather of thought. He grunted at Miss Brodie, marched into his sanctum, hurled his hat across the room to the top of the safe, and threw himself into his swivel-chair with a scowl.

He put his large feet on the desk, and then after a moment drew them down. He fished in his pockets for a cigar and, finding none, rummaged in the depths of a drawer until he found an eroded old pipe, which he filled with an evil-looking shag tobacco, lit up, and puffed on sourly. He fingered his calendar. He rose and began to pound his floor. Then he sat down again, cursed beneath his breath, and jabbed a button on the underside of his desk-top.

Miss Brodie hurried in, breathless.

“Any calls?”

“No, Inspector.”

“Any mail?”

“Why, no, Inspector.”

“For God’s sake, didn’t Tuttle send me any report on that Durkin case?”

“No, Inspector.”

“Damn his pop-eyes— All right, all right, Miss Brodie!”

Miss Brodie’s moon eyes were at the full. She gulped: “Yes, Inspector,” and fled.

For some time he stood staring out the window at Times Square. The pipe fumed with horrid fecundity.

Suddenly he sprang to his desk, pounced on the telephone, dialed Spring 7-3100. “’Lo!” he growled. “Put me on to Inspector Geoghan. Yeah, yeah, Geoghan! Listen, flattie, no arguments. This is Thumm talkin’.” He chuckled at the police operator’s astonished bellow. “How’s the family, John? Your oldest must be big enough to enter rookie college, I bet!... Fine, fine. Give me Geoghan, you old war-horse... Hello, Butch? Thumm!”

Inspector Geoghan swore fluently.

“Welcome home,” snarled Thumm. “That’s a fine reception! Listen, Butch, and none of your Tenth Avenue lip... Yes, yes, I’m in the pink. I know you’re all right, because I saw that damned gorilla’s face of yours in the papers this mornin’ and you looked as disgustingly healthy as usual... Yeah! Say, what d’ye remember about a cop named Donoghue who left the force about five-six years ago? I remember he was attached to H.Q. under you when you were a Captain — where you should ’a’ stayed, you Commissioner-suckin’ baboon!”

Inspector Geoghan chuckled. “Still the same pleasant old Thumm. How the hell do you expect me to remember a flatfoot that far back?”

“Why, he saved your life once, you ungrateful skunk!”

“Oh! Donoghue. Why the devil didn’t you say so in the first place? Sure I remember him. What d’ye want to know?”

“Rate him for me. Any black marks against him? What kind of a record did he have, Butch?”

“A-one. None too many brains, as I recall, but so honest he wouldn’t take a fin from a speakie. Too damned honest for his own good. Didn’t play ball, and that kept him from stripes.”

“Clean slate, hey?” muttered the Inspector.

“As a whistle. Seem to remember I was sorry to see him go. Romantic Irishman, Donoghue. Only he got romantic about the wrong thing — Duty. Ha, ha!”

“Still harpin’ on the same smelly old joke, I see,” growled Thumm. “Butch, I’ll live to see the day when you’re Commissioner. Good-by, damn you, and come up to my office some time.”

He replaced the receiver tenderly and scowled at his calendar. After a moment he picked up the telephone again, repeated his call to Police Headquarters, and asked for the Missing Persons Bureau.

Captain Grayson, head of the Bureau, was an old friend. Thumm tersely related the story of Donoghue, the peculiar circumstances surrounding his disappearance, his description and habits. Grayson, whose duty it was to investigate all cases of missing persons under the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department, promised to institute a quiet inquiry. Then the Inspector switched his call back to Inspector Geoghan.

“Listen, Butch, I’m in again. Got a line on a smooth crook who makes a specialty of stealing rare books? Guy wore a funny kind of blue lid — I dunno, might be a habit of his.”

“Book-snatcher eh?” said Geoghan thoughtfully. “Blue hat... Can’t remember a mug of that description offhand, but I’ll find out and call you back.”

“Thanks. I’ll be waiting.”

A half hour later Geoghan telephoned. There was nothing in the criminal records of the Bureau of Identification which involved a man specializing in the theft of rare books and who moreover had a habit of wearing a blue or bluish hat.

The Inspector stared dismally out of his window. The world seemed very dreary at the moment. Finally he sighed, fished a sheet of note-paper out of his desk, unscrewed the cap of his fountain-pen, and began laboriously to write: