第3章

Yes, that was a thriller and a piece of excellent work.In the act a real 32-caliber revolver was used loaded with a real cartridge.

Helen Grimes, who is a Western girl of decidedly Buffalo Billish skill and daring, is tempestuously in love with Frank Desmond, the private secretary and confidential prospective son-in-law of her father, "Arapahoe" Grimes, quarter-million-dollar cattle king, owning a ranch that, judging by the scenery, is in either the Bad Lands or Amagensett, L.I.Desmond (in private life Mr.Bob Hart) wears puttees and Meadow Brook Hunt riding trousers, and gives his address as New York, leaving you to wonder why he comes to the Bad Lands or Amagansett (as the case may be) and at the same time to conjecture mildly why a cattleman should want puttees about his ranch with a secretary in 'em.

Well, anyhow, you know as well as I do that we all like that kind of play, whether we admit it or not--something along in between "Bluebeard, Jr.," and "Cymbeline" played in the Russian.

There were only two parts and a half in "Mice Will Play." Hart and Cherry were the two, of course; and the half was a minor part always played by a stage hand, who merely came in once in a Tuxedo coat and a panic to announce that the house was surrounded by Indians, and to turn down the gas fire in the grate by the manager's orders.

There was another girl in the sketch--a Fifth Avenue society swelless--who was visiting the ranch and who had sirened Jack Valentine when he was a wealthy club-man on lower Third Avenue before he lost his money.This girl appeared on the stage only in the photographic state--Jack had her Sarony stuck up on the mantel of the Amagan--of the Bad Lands droring room.Helen was jealous, of course.

And now for the thriller.Old "Arapahoe" Grimes dies of angina pectoris one night--so Helen informs us in a stage-ferryboat whisper over the footlights--while only his secretary was present.

And that same day he was known to have had $647,000 in cash in his (ranch) library just received for the sale of a drove of beeves in the East (that accounts for the price we pay for steak!).The cash disappears at the same time.Jack Valentine was the only person with the ranchman when he made his (alleged) croak.

"Gawd knows I love him; but if he has done this deed--" you sabe, don't you? And then there are some mean things said about the Fifth Avenue Girl--who doesn't come on the stage--and can we blame her, with the vaudeville trust holding down prices until one actually must be buttoned in the back by a call boy, maids cost so much?

But, wait.Here's the climax.Helen Grimes, chaparralish as she can be, is goaded beyond imprudence.She convinces herself that Jack Valentine is not only a falsetto, but a financier.To lose at one fell swoop $647,000 and a lover in riding trousers with angles in the sides like the variations on the chart of a typhoid-fever patient is enough to make any perfect lady mad.So, then!

They stand in the (ranch) library, which is furnished with mounted elk heads (didn't the Elks have a fish fry in Amagensett once?), and the d'enouement begins.I know of no more interesting time in the run of a play unless it be when the prologue ends.

Helen thinks Jack has taken the money.Who else was there to take it? The box-office manager was at the front on his job; the orchestra hadn't left their seats; and no man could get past "Old Jimmy," the stage door-man, unless he could show a Skye terrier or an automobile as a guarantee of eligibility.

Goaded beyond imprudence (as before said), Helen says to Jack Valentine: "Robber and thief--and worse yet, stealer of trusting hearts, this should be your fate!"With that out she whips, of course, the trusty 32-caliber.

"But I will be merciful," goes on Helen."You shall live--that will be your punishment.I will show you how easily I could have sent you to the death that you deserve.There is _her_ picture on the mantel.I will send through her more beautiful face the bullet that should have pierced your craven heart."And she does it.And there's no fake blank cartridges or assistants pulling strings.Helen fires.The bullet--the actual bullet--goes through the face of the photograph--and then strikes the hidden spring of the sliding panel in the wall--and lo! the panel slides, and there is the missing $647,000 in convincing stacks of currency and bags of gold.It's great.You know how it is.Cherry practised for two months at a target on the roof of her boarding house.It took good shooting.In the sketch she had to hit a brass disk only three inches in diameter, covered by wall paper in the panel; and she had to stand in exactly the same spot every night, and the photo had to be in exactly the same spot, and she had to shoot steady and true every time.

Of course old "Arapahoe" had tucked the funds away there in the secret place; and, of course, Jack hadn't taken anything except his salary (which really might have come under the head of "obtaining money under"; but that is neither here nor there); and, of course, the New York girl was really engaged to a concrete house contractor in the Bronx; and, necessarily, Jack and Helen ended in a half-Nelson--and there you are.

After Hart and Cherry had gotten "Mice Will Play" flawless, they had a try-out at a vaudeville house that accommodates.The sketch was a house wrecker.It was one of those rare strokes of talent that inundates a theatre from the roof down.The gallery wept; and the orchestra seats, being dressed for it, swam in tears.

After the show the booking agents signed blank checks and pressed fountain pens upon Hart and Cherry.Five hundred dollars a week was what it panned out.

That night at 11:30 Bob Hart took off his hat and bade Cherry good night at her boarding-house door.

"Mr.Hart," said she thoughtfully, "come inside just a few minutes.