Basil turned to the theatrical page.
OPENINGS TONIGHT
At the Royalty Theatre this evening, Sam Milhau is reviving Sardou’s Fedora starring Wanda Morley. According to Mr. Milhau’s office, Fedora, usually considered a romantic melodrama, will be staged tonight with the strictest realism. Action and dialogue have been brought up to date. The Russian Revolution of 1917 replaces a Nihilist plot in the original version, and the players will appear in modern dress. Miss Morley is, of course, playing the title role created by Bernhardt. Rodney Tait, her leading man, is making his first appearance on Broadway after winning laurels on the West coast; and a distinguished supporting cast includes Leonard Martin who is returning to the New York stage after a year’s illness.
“That all?” The bartender was disappointed.
“There’s something under Stage Notes.”
They read it together.
There may be jealousy and bickering in some theatrical companies, but according to Sam Milhau, the company that is opening tonight at the Royalty in his revival of Fedora is just one big, happy family; and no member of that family is more beloved than the star, Wanda Morley. Even the stagehands have fallen under Miss Morley’s spell. They have all clubbed together in order to send her a floral tribute on the opening night. “Just because she’s regular guy,” explained one of the electricians. “And we want her to know we’re all rooting for her!”
The bartender grinned. “The things them press agents think of!”
The street door flew open as if a gust of wind had blown it in. A young man swaggered up to the bar. He was about Basil’s own height, just under six feet, and he was dressed as Basil was dressed—patent leather shoes, dark overcoat, white gloves and muffler, and what Parisians used to call a “hat with eight reflections.” But there was a difference. Perhaps nothing tells more about a man’s temperament than the angle at which he wears a top hat. Timidity carries it as straight as a book balanced on top of the head to improve posture. Toughness pushes it far back to expose a tousled forelock. Gaiety tips it to one side. But arrogance tilts it as far forward as possible, carrying the head high and the chin thrust out to keep the brim from sliding down over the eyes. This young man was arrogant. Hat balanced precariously just above the bridge of his nose, he peered through the shadow the brim cast across his eyes like a half-mask and gave his order curtly: “Rum, gum and lime.”
The bartender was polishing a tumbler. He paused to rest two hands on the counter and responded deliberately: “That’s a new one on me.”
“Two jiggers of rum, one of lime juice, and one of sugar-cane syrup,” retorted the young man impatiently. “If you haven’t any syrup, grenadine will have to do. And fill it up with ice and soda.”
The bartender measured the ingredients gravely. The young man took a sip from his tall, pinkish drink and made a face. “Sugar-cane syrup is better!”
The bartender cast an eloquent glance at Basil. Sugar-cane syrup indeed! What next?
Basil remembered that Adler, the psychologist, claimed he could always tell whether a man had been the eldest, youngest or middle child of his family the moment he entered a room. Surely Adler would have classified this young man as a youngest child or an only son. Once he must have been the “baby” of a doting family, and he had never got over it. There was perennial immaturity in every word and gesture, though physically he looked about thirty. His face was fair and smooth. He might have been handsome in a sulky way if his lower lip had not been so full and protruding it was almost pendulous.
He had finished his drink. He took out a billfold of black pinseal. It contained a thick wad of greenbacks and some sort of official card in a cellophane pocket. He peeled off a five-dollar bill and slapped it down on the mahogany counter. “Where’s the stage door of the Royalty Theatre? I’ve been walking all around the square looking for it!”
The bartender returned the four dollars’ change. “It’s right next door. You have to go down the alley to get to it.”
The young man took a cigarette from a crumpled packet and stuck it in his mouth so it dangled damply from his lower lip. Somehow that was as insolent as the exaggerated angle of his hat. A match flared in the dusk and spotlighted his face. As the mirror behind the bar caught the image in the window, there seemed to be dozens of fair young men in shiny black hats lighting cigarettes in a long vista of reflections like a visual echo. He tossed his burnt match on the floor and the picture vanished. He strode through the doorway, his unbuttoned overcoat swinging from his shoulders as loosely as a cloak.
“Some young fool with too much money for his own good!” surmised the bartender. Basil paid for his own drink and went outside.
Night had fallen. In the pallid glare of the street-lamps the pavement was a dusty gray blushing here and there under neon signs. Down a narrow alley that ran between theater and taxpayer a dingy light shone on a sign painted Stage Door. The warm evening had brought out several flies that banked and plunged like miniature dive bombers around the kitchen door of the cocktail bar. Half-way down the alley a frame shack huddled against the side wall of the taxpayer. There was a crude sign outlined in white paint:
MARCUS LAZARUS
Knives and Scissors Ground
Saws Filed and Set
If it has an edge, we sharpen it!
Curiosity drew Basil toward the scene of the “burglary.” As he turned the corner into the alley, the wind passed him with a thin tuneless whistle. Light shone from one small, unshaded window in the wall of the shack. Through a broken pane he saw an old man in shirt sleeves sharpening a pair of shears. A shower of blue sparks sprayed from a humming grindstone worked with a foot treadle like a sewing machine. The light from an oil lamp picked out each finest wrinkle in the cobweb of lines that seamed the old face and left the rest of the workshop in shadow. It was like a little genre painting of the Dutch or Flemish School. Fancy supplied catalogue notations: MAN WITH SHEARS; attributed to Rembrandt or his School. Note mellow, golden flesh tones and fine detail in treatment of face and hands . . .
Basil’s glance searched the shadows beyond the lamplight. Something dangled from a wire hooked to the ceiling. It was covered with a piece of burlap. It looked like a birdcage . . .
A sudden swishing sound startled him. As he turned his head, something darted past his eyes and fell at his feet with a crisp rustle. It seemed to be a booklet bound in paper, about the format of a theater program but more bulky.
As a psychiatrist he had often observed that most people never look above their own eye-level without provocation. He himself was no exception to the rule. Though he had been looking all around him since entering the alley he had not looked up once. Now he raised his eyes. Beyond the low roof of the taxpayer, skyscrapers were piled as carelessly as a child’s blocks against an inky, blue sky. The side wall of the theater towered on his right, sheer and blind as a cliff. A red glow pulsated against the drab stone like the flicker of firelight. Apparently it came from the winking neon signs on Broadway beyond the taxpayer. A fire escape zigzagged down the wall. On the top landing, Basil could just make out a dark, faceless figure—a still shade among shadows that quivered as the light came and went. It was so shrouded in some sort of long cloak or overcoat, he could not see if it were man or woman. It was motionless as an animal when it “plays dead” in order to escape notice.