Higgins nodded thoughtfully. “Understand you been looking for me.”
Quade sat down across the room from Higgins. Charlie Boston remained standing near the door, decidedly uncomfortable.
Quade said, “Tommy Slocum wants to see you.”
Higgins shrugged. “So?”
“That’s all. Tommy Slocum asked me to bring you to him. He didn’t tell me why.”
Higgins regarded Quade thoughtfully. “How much will he pay?”
Quade became suddenly annoyed. Ever since morning people had been giving him hints of things, had taken for granted he knew what they were talking about. He had played up to them, fishing out scraps of information. But as far as knowing anything definite was concerned, he was completely at sea. In a dead calm that seemed to presage the coming of a hurricane.
He said, testily: “I don’t know a damn thing. Tommy Slocum seemed to think I did; so did Christopher Buck and Thel — and someone else. I don’t know anything.”
“From the way you talked this morning you knew everything,” Willie Higgins said. “You said you were a human encyclopedia, or something, didn’t you?”
“But I’m not a mind reader! All I know is that you’ve got something, or know something, that Tommy Slocum wants. And it has some bearing on Stanley Maynard’s murder.” He shot a speculative look at Higgins. “Would you be knowing anything about that?”
“I would not. The only thing I know, Quade, is that you’re a damn liar.”
Charlie Boston growled deep in his throat. Higgins glanced at him and Boston became quiet. Higgins went on:
“Not that it’ll do you any good, but I was down at the Slocum Studios this morning. I saw you come up with a rattle-trap flivver. And now you’re driving a big yellow bus that cost. So...”
“So why does Tommy Slocum want you?” Quade snapped.
“Maybe because he killed Stanley Maynard.”
“I don’t think he did,” Quade said, slowly.
“I think he did.”
Quade sawed the air impatiently. “All right, how much do you want for — it? I’ll tell Slocum your proposition; that is, if you won’t go and talk to him yourself.”
“I won’t,” said Higgins. “At least, not in his place. But you can tell him that the price is a half million.”
He got up and grinned crookedly. Charlie, seeing him approach, stepped hastily away from the door. With his hand on the knob, Higgins turned. “And if you’re figuring on putting me at the studio when that business happened, don’t waste your time. I’ve got four different alibis.” He went out.
Charlie Boston shivered. “I could hear wings flapping!”
“Oh,” said Quade, “he didn’t look so tough.”
“No? What about that bulge under his coat? You suppose that was a ham sandwich?”
“A half million,” Quade said, thoughtfully. “And Maynard was going to sue for a million.”
“For what?”
“That’s one of two things I don’t know. The other thing is — who killed Stanley Maynard?”
Slocum studios’ gateman was so impressed by Quade’s yellow car that he permitted him to walk through the gates without a pass. Boston went to park the car somewhere on the street.
Quade sauntered into Miss Hendrick’s office. “Morning,” he said pleasantly. “Can you tell me where the sound room is? I believe they’re waiting there for me.”
“Studio Twelve, on the second floor,” replied Miss Hendricks.
Quade nodded. “Say, if my secretary, Charlie Boston, the big lug who looks like a heavy-weight wrestler, comes looking for me, keep him here.”
He went out and climbed a flight of stairs. Studio Twelve was a large room, soundproofed.
“I’m the new voice of Desmond Dogg,” Quade told a young fellow.
“It’s about time you got here,” the fellow snapped. “We were just getting ready to go out and find another sap.”
Quade showed his teeth in a cold smile. “Bring on your dog!”
Several men were gathered around a microphone and a layout of crazy objects. The young fellow snatched up several sheets of music.
“I’ll explain what we’re doing,” he said crisply. “Desmond Dogg’s a St. Bernard. In this particular scene he’s pulling the old rescue scene. Christopher Cat—”
“Christopher?” Quade asked.
“Yes, Christopher. And don’t interrupt. Christopher Cat’s lost in the snowstorm. Desmond Dogg has this keg of rum tied about his neck and is leaving the hospice to rescue Christopher. The wind’s howling — that’s Felix — and it’s snowing like hell. Desmond — that’s you — is running down the mountain.”
“With the keg of rum around my neck?” Quade asked.
“Yes, and don’t interrupt again. You’re galloping through the snow. You bark, woof-woof, and then you sing: ‘Here I come with a keg of rum.’ All right, Felix — wind!”
A skinny fellow with a big Adam’s apple stepped up to the microphone and whistled softly. Amplified, the sound was very much like the howling of a blizzard.
“O.K.,” said the young director. “Now, you, Oscar — Desmond’s feet crunching the snow.”
Another man brought a bowl of baking soda up to the microphone, stuck an iron pestle into it and twisted it. The result was a sound like feet crunching on snow.
“Swell,” said the director. “Now, we’ll get together on it. Felix, wind! Oscar, snow! And, you, whatever your name is, you bark, ‘Woof-woof,’ and sing — in a dog’s voice!”
The wind howled and the snow crunched under Desmond Dogg’s feet and Quade barked and sang in a tone that might have sounded like a dog’s if a dog could sing.
When they finished the director held out his hand to Quade. “My name’s Needham. You did that better than Pete Rice. He just couldn’t get that dog quality into his voice.”
“I’m a success!” Quade murmured.
“Sure, why not? I’ll talk to Tommy Slocum and have him give you a contract. Now then, Miss Phillips! Come over here and do your meowing!”
Miss Phillips, imitating Christopher Cat, was good enough to stampede a convention of rats, Quade thought.
They rehearsed the scene a half-dozen times, then recorded it. Needham, the director, put them through two more scenes, then called a halt. “That’ll be all until this afternoon. I want to see the film run off again.” He turned to Quade, “Like to come to the sweat box?”
It sounded interesting, so Quade went along. The room they went to was a miniature theater; a couple of dozen chairs in the rear, a projection room and a screen.
“You know how these cartoon pictures are made, don’t you?” Needham asked Quade.
“Lot of drawings photographed, eh?”
“Ten to fourteen thousand for a single reel which lasts about eight minutes on the screen.” He held up a stack of celluloid rectangles.
“The animators make the original drawings on large pasteboard strips. There are forty to sixty scenes, or frames, to a picture. The animators draw these, put in the animals. The graduation of the movements is drawn on these celluloid panels. The photographer puts a ‘cel’ on the frame, photographs it, then puts down the next. The whole thing is speeded up, makes your movement.”
“And ten to fourteen thousand complete drawings are made?”
“Only of the animals in their movements. Girls do that, from the animators’ originals. Some girls do the tracing, others the filling in and the graduation of the movement. It’s expensive business. Some of our technicolor films cost as much as a complete seven-reel film put out by other studios.”
“Well,” said Quade, “some people prefer Desmond Dogg to Clark Gable.” Needham grunted, called toward the projection room. “O.K., Clarence!”