Thar"s old Lem Robbins, who allus does the cookin". Hey, Lem!"
Lem waves cordial and waddles down to meet us. He"s a fat, grizzled old pirate who looked bored and discontented.
"Got anybody with you, Lem?" asks the native.
"Not to speak of," says Lem. "Only a loony sort of gent that wears skin-tight barber-pole pants and cusses fluent."
"That"s Penrhyn!" says Mr. Robert. "Dressed as a fool, isn"t he?"
"You"ve said it," says Lem. "Acts like one, too. Hope you gents have come to take him back where he belongs. Needs to be shut up, he does."
"But where is he?" demands Mr. Robert.
"Out back of the house, swingin" an old boat-hook and carryin" on simple," says Lem. "I"ll show you."
It was some sight, too. For there is the famous author of "The Buccaneer"s Bride," rigged out complete in a more or less soiled jester"s costume, includin" the turkey red headpiece with the bells on it. He"s standing on a heap of sh.e.l.ls and waving this rusty boat-hook around. Course, I expects when he sees Mr. Robert and realizes how he"s been rescued he"ll come out of his spell and begin to act rational once more. But it don"t work out that way. When Mr. Robert calls out to him and he sees who it is, he keeps right on swingin" the boat-hook.
"Glory be, Bob!" he sings out. "I"ve got it at last."
"Got what, Penny?" demands Mr. Robert.
"My drive," says he. "Watch, Bob. How"s that, eh? Notice that carry through? Wouldn"t that spank the pill 200 yards straight down the fairway? Wouldn"t it, now?"
"Oh, I say, Penny!" says Mr. Robert. "Don"t be more of an a.s.s than you can help. Quit that golf tommyrot and tell me what you"re doing here in this forsaken spot when all New York is thinking that maybe you"ve been murdered or something."
"Eh?" says Penrhyn. "Then--then the news is out, is it? Did you bring any papers?"
"Papers?" says Mr. Robert. "No."
"Wish you had," says Penrhyn. "Got everyone stirred up, I suppose? Tell me, though, how are people taking it?"
"If you mean the public in general," says Mr. Robert, "I think they are bearing up n.o.bly. But your mother and Betty----"
"By George!" breaks in Penrhyn. "That"s so! They might be rather disturbed. I--I never thought about them."
"Didn"t, eh?" says Mr. Robert. "No, you wouldn"t. You were thinking about Penrhyn Deems, as usual. And I must say, Penny, you"re the limit.
I"ve a good notion to leave you here."
"No, no, Bob! Don"t do that," pleads Penrhyn. "Disgusting place. And I dislike that cook person, very much. Besides, I must get back. Really."
"Want to relieve your poor old mother and Betty, eh?" asks Mr. Robert.
"Yes, of course," says Penrhyn. "Besides, I want to try this swing with my driver. Bob, I"m sure I can put in that wrist snap at last. And if I can I--I"ll be playing in the 90"s. Sure!"
He"s a wonder, Penrhyn. He has this hoof and mouth disease, otherwise known as golf, worse than anybody I ever met before. Took Mr. Robert another ten minutes to get him calmed down enough so he could tell how he come to be marooned on this island in that rig.
"Why, it was that new press agent of Shuman"s, of course," says Penrhyn.
"That Weeks person. He did it."
"You don"t mean to say, Penny," says Mr. Robert, "that you were kidnapped and brought here a prisoner?"
"Not at all," says Penny. "We drove down here at night and came in a boat just at daylight. Silly performance. Especially wearing this costume. But he insisted that it would make the disappearance more plausible, more dramatic. Wouldn"t tell me where we were going, either.
Said it was a club house, so I thought of course there would be golf.
But look at this hole! And I"ve had four days of it. Mosquitoes?
Something frightful. That"s why I"ve kept on the cap and bells. At first I put in the time working over one of the songs in the new piece. Wrote some ripping verses, too. They"ll go strong. Best thing I"ve done. But after I had finished that job I wanted to play golf; practice, anyway.
And I was nearly crazy until I found this old boat-hook and began knocking oyster sh.e.l.ls into the water. That"s how it came to me--the drive. If I can only hold it!"
I suggests how Mr. Weeks is probably plannin" for him to stay lost until over Sunday anyway, so he can work some big s.p.a.ce in the newspapers.
"Oh, bother Mr. Weeks!" says Penrhyn. "I"ve had enough of this. The new piece is going to go big, anyway. Come along, Bob. Let"s start. I"ll "phone to mother and Betty, and maybe I can get in eighteen holes this afternoon. Brought some clothes for me, didn"t you? I must change from this rig first."
"I wouldn"t," says Mr. Robert. "It"s quite appropriate, Penny."
But Penrhyn wouldn"t be joshed and makes a dive for his suitcase. We lands him back on Broadway at 4:30 that same afternoon. My first move after gettin" to the Corrugated general offices is to ring up Whitey Weeks.
"This is Torchy," says I. "And ain"t it awful about Penrhyn Deems?"
"Eh?" gasps Whitey. "What about him?"
"He"s been found," says I. "Uh-huh! Discovered on an island by some fool friends that brought him back to town. I just saw him on Broadway."
"The simp!" groans Whitey.
"You"re a great little describer, Whitey," says I. "Simp is right. But next time you want to win front page s.p.a.ce by losing a dramatist I"d advise you to lock him in a vault. Islands are too easy located."
CHAPTER XVII
WITH VINCENT AT THE TURN
It was Mr. Piddie who first begun workin" up suspicions about Vincent, our fair haired super-office boy. But then, Piddie has that kind of a mind. He must have been born on the dark of the moon when the wind was east in the year of the big eclipse. Something like that. Anyway, he"s long on gloom and short on faith in human nature, and he goes gum-shoein" through life lookin" as slit-eyed as a tourist tom-cat four blocks from his own backyard.
Course, he has his good points, lots of "em, or else he never would have held his job as office manager in the Corrugated Trust so long. And there"s at least two human beings he thinks was made perfect from the start--Old Hickory Ellins and Mr. Robert. The rest of us he ain"t sure of. We"ll bear watchin". And Piddie"s idea of earnin" his salary is to be right there with the restless eye from 8:43 until 5:02, when he grabs his trusty commutation ticket and starts for the wilds of Jersey, leavin" the force to a whole night of idleness and wicked ways.
Still, I am a little surprised when he picks out Vincent.
"I regret to say it, Torchy," says he, "but someone ought to have an eye on that boy."
"Oh, come, Piddie!" says I. "Not Vincent! Why, he"s a model youth.
You"ve always said so yourself--polite, respectful, washes behind the ears, takes home his pay envelope uncracked to mother, all that sort of thing. Why the mournful headshake over him now?"
"I can"t say what it is," says Piddie, "but there has been a change.
Recently. Twice this week he has overstayed his luncheon hour. Yesterday he asked for his Liberty bond and war saving stamps from the safe. I believe he is planning to do something desperate."
"Huh!" says I. "Most likely he"s plotting to pay off the mortgage on the little bungalow as a birthday present for mother."