ALM02 The Death of a Celebrity Read online

  DEATH OF A CELEBRITY

  Hulbert Footner

  Miss GAIL GARRETT, accompanied by her elderly maid, Catherine, was on her way to dinner at Gavin Dordress’. She was appearing in Robert Greenfield’s play. White Orchids, at the time, and the party had been arranged for Sunday night to suit her convenience. She had not the expression of one who is looking forward to a good time. In the seclusion of the car her beautiful face was tense and stormy. When the cab stopped, she saw several men with square boxes hanging around the apartment house door, and she hesitated before getting out. “Press photographers? Who do you suppose tipped them off? Gavin wouldn’t.”

  “They always seem to know where you’re going to be, Miss,” said Catherine.

  It was a small apartment house, one tenant to a floor, and there was nobody to open the door of the car. “I don’t see why Gavin lives in such a dump,” grumbled Miss Garrett. “He doesn’t have to. Get out first and keep my skirt off the running-board.”

  Catherine obeyed. Miss Garrett settled the collar of her ermine coat more becomingly around her neck, and assumed the famous smile. When she had descended, Catherine closed the door of the car, and hung behind so that she would not spoil the pictures. All the photographers tried to crowd in front of the star simultaneously. “Walk slowly,” said one. “Give us a chance.” Another was crying: “Look at me, Miss Garrett. Look at me!”

  She smiled, the bulbs flashed; they made way for her, and she entered the building. As the sober Catherine followed, one of the young men winked at her broadly. “Hi, Toots!” he said softly.

  Catherine glared at him, and all the young men laughed.

  The entrance door led directly into a small, square foyer with a single elevator. The operator was a sharp-featured young white man with an insinuating smile. As soon as he had closed the elevator door, he turned around, saying: “Good-evening, Miss Garrett. Hope it’s not a liberty, but I seen you in your play on Thursday night. It was swell!”

  Gail smiled automatically. “Thank you.” He went on: “If you would give me your autograph, Miss Garrett, I would value it above anything I own.” From his pocket he produced a fountain pen and a little pad. “I can’t write with my gloves on.”

  “Sure you can! Plenty good enough.”

  “Didn’t I give you my autograph before?”

  “No, Miss,” he said with an open-eyed candour that was a little overdone. “Must have been one of the other boys.”

  “Watch your car!” said Catherine nervously.

  “That’s all right. She stops automatic at the top.”

  At that moment the car did stop. As the operator still stood offering her the pen and the pad, Gail took them and scribbled her name as the quickest way of getting rid of him. “He had a nerve!” muttered Catherine when the elevator door closed.

  “I am the servant of the public,” murmured Gail plaintively.

  The door of the apartment was opened, not by Gavin’s Hillman, but a man engaged for the evening.

  From the foyer double glass doors led into a sunroom which was filled with growing plants and had a little fountain playing in the middle. It was the penthouse which had attracted Gavin to the otherwise undistinguished apartment house on Madison Avenue. He had leased it while the building was still going up, and had designed the big sunroom after his own ideas. One side of it, filled with glass, made an immense how jutting into the roof-garden. Gavin was in the sunroom now, mixing a cocktail at a portable bar. Gail waved her hand to him and turned aside in the corridor leading to the bedrooms. “You needn’t trouble to show me,” she said to the servant. “I know the way.”

  In the guest-room Catherine took her mistress’ cape, and handed her what she required from the little dressing-case the maid carried. Gail studied herself in the mirror with the anxiety of a beauty of forty-three. Her figure was still willowy, but after forty, blonde hair, no matter what you do to it, is apt to betray. She was wearing a virginal dress of white chiffon with puffs at the shoulders and a skirt shirred in tiers. The tense look in her eyes displeased her. “Eye-drops,” she said, and Catherine got out the bottle and the dropper.

  “How do I look?” asked Gail when this operation was finished.

  “Lovely, Miss,” said Catherine. “White suits you so well!”

  “That’s what you always say,” grumbled Gail, “whether I am wearing black or red or green.”

  Catherine primmed her lips a little. It was as if she had said: “Then why ask?”

  “You may go now,” said Gail. “Tell Martin I shan’t want him again to-night. I’ll taxi home.”

  “Is it safe?” murmured Catherine.

  “If not, somebody will bring me.”

  When she entered the sunroom Gavin came to meet her. He was frankly forty-five and handsomer than he had ever been, the lines in his face were lines of distinction. “Lovely!” he murmured, picking up her hand and conveying it to his lips.

  Gait’s smile became tight. “Only my hand?” she said.

  “The servant is still in sight.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “He’s gone now.”

  He pressed her lips lightly with his own.

  A flicker of anger crossed Gail’s face. “It wasn’t always like that,” she said.

  “I didn’t want to rumple you, my dear.”

  “Ah, don’t make pretences! I can see through you perfectly!”

  “Cigarette?” he said, offering the box.

  “No!” She immediately changed her mind, and helped herself. She turned away, and glancing in a mirror, tried to smooth her face out. “You can’t make me quarrel with you,” she said.

  “I’m not trying to.” He was smiling broadly and that angered her afresh.

  She struggled with it. “How about the new play? Is it finished?”

  “All but,” he said. “In another week.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “My dear,” he protested, “you know I never talk about my work. Wasn’t it Stevenson who said you must never show unfinished work to anybody?”

  “That’s not what Stevenson said. He said never show unfinished work to women or fools.”

  “Well, I never show it to anybody.”

  “So you say. Mack Townley has announced that he is going to produce the play in January.”

  “That’s the usual press stuff. Mack knows no more about the play than its title: The Changeling.”

  “Do you mean to say he is willing to produce it sight unseen?”

  “Well, after we have been working together for eighteen years that’s not very strange… . Cocktail?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I have got to the age where I need it.”

  “This talk of your growing old is all nonsense,” said Gail angrily. “It doesn’t fool me.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Gavin, holding his glass up to the light. “It’s the cause of the misunderstanding between us. I am getting old.”

  She bit her lip. “Well, never mind that … Am I to have the leading part in the new play?”

  “Ah, don’t let’s talk business,” said Gavin cajolingly.

  “I insist on an answer! That’s why I came early. You never give me a chance to see you alone. I have to make my plans as well as Mack Townley.”

  “There is no part in it worthy of you,” said Gavin. “It’s a man’s play.”

  “There must be a woman in it, or it wouldn’t be your play.”

  “The only important woman’s part is that of a young girl.”

  Gail flung her cigarette violently on the floor. “I thought so! I thought so!” she cried. “Why don’t you say right out that I’m too old to act in your plays!”

  “Gail,
for God’s sake!” he remonstrated.

  She looked more than her age now. The repulsion that she could see in his eyes made her worse. “So this is what I get for having given you the best years of my life! For having devoted all my art to making you famous! You owe your fame to me! To me! Do you hear? Where would you have been if I had not breathed life into the silly puppets in your plays?”

  Gavin’s face hardened. “You are a great actress,” he said. “I have never failed to acknowledge my debt to you… . But just now you are making a show of yourself.”

  “How dare you!” she gasped. “O God, that I should live to hear a man speak to me like that! I won’t bear it! I won’t…!”

  He seized her wrists to make her listen to him. “There are strange servants in the flat,” he said. “Do you want to read all this in the gossip columns tomorrow?”

  “I don’t care! I don’t care!” she cried; nevertheless she lowered her voice. The husky tones were venomous. “I’m not going to take this from you! I’m not the sort of woman who can be chucked aside like an old hat. I’ll show you up. I’ll ruin you! O God! How I hate you! Smug and sneering as you are …”

  Gavin put in mildly: “I never sneered at anybody in my life.”

  “You lie! You’re sneering now! I could kill you for the way you’ve used me! I could kill you …!”

  A bell sounded in the distance. Gail caught her breath on a gasp, and running out, turned towards the guest-room at the end of the corridor. She passed the manservant on his way to the entrance door. Gavin poured another cocktail.

  Emmett Gundy, the novelist, and his friend, Luella Kip, were on their way to Gavin Dordress’ apartment in a taxicab. Emmett was bundled up in a blue rumble-seat coat belted around the waist, the only one of that colour in New York, he claimed. With the collar turned up and his hat-brim snapped down in front, all that could be seen of him were his glittering dark eyes, and small, carefully-trained moustache. Louella was one of the army of freelance writers who somehow managed to scrape a living without ever becoming known to the public. A little, faded woman with a harassed expression, she looked twenty years older than Emmett, but they were in fact the same age. Emmett looked her over critically. “That dress has seen better days,” he remarked.

  “Well, you know the state of my wardrobe,” said Louella philosophically. “It’s the best I have. Mr. Dordress is a friendly man. He won’t care.”

  “There will be others present.”

  “If you are ashamed of my appearance you shouldn’t have brought me,” said Louella, plucking up spirit.

  “Gavin invited you. I merely conveyed the invitation.”

  “Were you hoping I would decline?” she asked quietly.

  He did not answer her. “Gavin will be friendly enough if you flatter him,” he said bitterly. “He doesn’t care who it comes from.”

  “He doesn’t need flattery,” said Louella. “He’s at the top of his profession.”

  “You would say that. Just to be disagreeable. You mean that he makes more money than any other playwright of the day. Money isn’t everything. As a matter of fact, Gavin Dordress hasn’t a spark of original talent. What he has is a talent for publicity. He understands the politics of the theatre. He knows what wires to pull. It is Gail Garrett and Mack Townley who have made him.”

  “Everybody else says that it was Gavin Dordress who made them.”

  “O, I dare say! Nothing succeeds like success. He’s got you going like all the other women. Gavin has made his way step by step through using women. A male charmer, that’s what he is.”

  “How can you say such a thing?” she murmured.

  “But he can’t fool me,” Emmett went on. “I’ve known him too long. I’ve known him since he was a half-baked frosh in college.”

  “You were a freshman, too, then.”

  “Sure; but I made good. I was famous before I graduated from college. My first book sold forty thousand copies. It was four or five years after that before Gavin even got a production. His first play was a complete flop.”

  “I hate to hear you talk about him like that,” murmured Louella. “Your oldest friend!”

  “Sure, he’s my friend. So what?”

  “It sounds as if you hated him.”

  “Don’t be silly. I see him as he is, that’s all. He can’t pull any wool over my eyes.” Emmett laughed bitterly. “I’ve got to hand it to Gavin for his cleverness. I only wish I could get away with it. It doesn’t pay to be sincere. Tripe is what they want, and tripe is what they pay for!”

  This started Louella’s thoughts in a new direction.

  “What did Middlebrook say about your novel?” she asked.

  “He was keen to publish it,” said Emmett, “but I told him to go to hell.”

  “Why?” she asked blankly.

  “Because he suggested certain changes that showed he completely misunderstood it. I took the script and walked out.”

  “O, Emmett!”

  “Well, do you expect me to prostitute myself to an ignorant fool like Middlebrook? He’s a butcher, not a publisher. He buys and sells novels by the pound-like the tripe they are!”

  “What will you do?” she murmured. “What will we both do?”

  “Have you been turned down, too?” he asked sharply. “Your articles for the Metropolitan?”

  “No,” she said sadly. “I give them what they want. I have no talent, so it doesn’t matter. But they have reduced my rate. There are so many younger writers in the field.”

  “Middlebrook is not the only publisher,” growled Emmett.

  “But the novel has been turned down so many times!”

  “Gavin could help me if he wanted to,” said Emmett sorely. “With a recommendation from him any publisher would bring it out.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  “Sure, he’s read the script.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He intimated that he didn’t think much of it. O, very delicately, of course. Suggested that I try something else. Pure professional jealousy. He is enough of a writing man to recognise real talent when he sees it. You can hardly blame him. Said that novels were a bit out of his line, and offered me a hundred to tide me over.”

  “Another hundred?”

  “Well, why not? What’s a lousy hundred to Gavin? He makes a hundred thousand a year.”

  “But it mounts up so. How will you ever pay him back?”

  “That’s the least of my troubles.”

  “Emmett,” she said earnestly, “let’s start in on your script tomorrow and go over it chapter by chapter… .”

  “So you think I can no longer write,” he said harshly. “You, too!”

  “No, Emmett, no! I believe in you. I shall always believe in you.”

  “You think you can teach me how to write!”

  “No I have no talent. I have never had any illusions about that. But I’ve been through a hard school. I know what the public wants. At least I know what they say the public wants. If we could just fix this novel up so you could get an advance on it, you could bring it out under another name if you were ashamed of it.”

  “That would be artistic suicide.”

  “But you must live! Gavin Dordress will get tired of lending you money. It’s only human nature.”

  “Is that a way of saying that you’re getting tired of helping me out?”

  Louella lowered her head. “Emmett, how can you say such things to me? After all these years!”

  “For God’s sake, don’t turn on the waterworks,” he said irritably, “or you will look a sight when we get there.” He lit a cigarette.

  Louella dried her eyes. After a moment or two she returned to the charge. “You see, if you could somehow wangle an advance on this novel, it would give you the time to write something really fine; something they would have to take.”

  “I have never allowed anybody to tell me what I ought to write,” he said harshly, “and certainly I’m not going to begin now. Please change th
e subject.”

  “If there could only be some understanding between us, these troubles would be easy to hear,” she murmured. “What would we care if .. if…”

  “O, for God’s sake, don’t get emotional!” he said. “We’re almost there!”

  After a silence Louella said very low: “I suppose you look on me as a drag on you now. If I were strong enough I ought to leave you.”

  “So you’re talking about deserting me now,” he-said. “I thought we were leading up to that.”

  She put her hand over his-briefly. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll never leave you . . unless you wish me to.”

  The car stopped. “Press photographers?” she said uneasily.

  Emmett turned down the collar of his coat. “Gavin Dordress doesn’t often entertain,” he said. “Naturally it has news value.”

  “How did they know about it?”

  “Well, I tipped them off if you must know. Won’t do me any harm to be shot as a guest of the great man-… You go in first. It’s me they want.”

  The photographers glanced indifferently at Miss Kip and Mr. Gundy. Louella disappeared within the apartment house, while Emmett lingered on the step as if he wanted a last puff or two at his cigarette. “Well, boys,” he said pleasantly. “Always on the job!”

  “Are you a friend of Gavin Dordress?” asked one.

  “The oldest friend he’s got,” said Emmett with a careless air. “So what?”

  They focused their cameras, and set off the flashes while Emmett nonchalantly flipped the ash from his cigarette. “What name?” asked the young photographer who had first spoken. “Emmett Gundy. Emmett with two t’s, please.”

  “What’s your line, brother?” asked another photographer.

  Emmet looked at him coldly. “Novelist,” he said. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

  He went on into the apartment house and the four young men grinned at each other. The one whom Emmett had rebuked asked: “Is this guy Gundy such a muchness?”

  “Nan,” said another. “I seem to remember that he wrote a novel of college life way back before the war. That was before I was breeched.”

  “It’s always the way with these has-beens.”

  SIEBERT ACKROYD and Cynthia Dordress were driving up the Avenue from Washington Square in Siebert’s little convertible with the top down. It was a typical November night, cold, with sparkling stars. Cynthia was enveloped in a beaver coat, Gavin’s gift, and had a chiffon veil around her trim head to keep her hair in place. When her hair was covered, it emphasized the clean, pure line of her profile. Siebert was a big young man with strongly-marked features and a look of resolution that verged on impatience. Most men, seeing the look in his eye, addressed him politely. “What a night!” he said. “I wish we could drive right through until morning, without having to go to that silly party at your Dad’s.”