CHAPTER XVII

P.S.—But What a P.S.!

Pell Barneyfield, striding along the green-plush-carpeted corridor of the 30th floor of Cleveland’s Plaza Towers toward his cubicle of a room, wondered in just how few words he could set down, for Erlys, this day’s amazing developments in his strange search. This day comprising, that is, the time from his awakening, at ten A.M. to now, three in the afternoon. As he reached the panelled maple door of his room, and withdrew his key, he had to shift to his other arm the quartette of surveying books—including one Spherical Trigonometry—and one Essentials of Navigation—which he’d just bought in a bookshop around the closest corner.

Had bought against a stay in this room of—who knew what?

Opening the door, he went in, and closing it and locking it behind him, sailed his wide-brimmed grey hat on to his bed, set down the surveying books on a chair, and strode straight over to the mahogany desk where stood his portable machine. Alongside that little panelled hotel-provided clock-calendar which seemed ever to be shouting forth the message that tempus was fugiting, by hour, by day. And withdrawing from the pigeon-hole his rolled-up “report” to Erlys, of yesterday, just short of four in the afternoon, and running its last page into his machine, he proceeded to add to it a P.S. Though what—a P.S.!

For it ran, as he hammered it out:

“P.S. [writ at 3 P.M. in the afternoon of Thoisday, June the fift’!]

“Erlys Darling:

“What a break I got!

“What a break!

“Except that—

“Ah me!

“Except that!

“Well, to begin with, this is being written the afternoon after that I wrote yesterday—and all of which lies in front and ahead of it—and was written before taking a nose-dive into a sleep that lasted—well, b’lieve it or not, it lasted seventeen hours and fifty-nine minutes, and terminated only five hours ago.

“And before this laddy-buck was even out of his pyjamas, he did have—and now hold on to your shoesies!—he did have no less than the whereabouts—oh, let me say the tail thereto—a then-tenuous tail, perhaps—of the man whose name he came here to Cleveland to ascertain.

“Right!

“Daniel Wickersham Forrest, Esquire.

“Unbelievable, almost. Yes, unbelievable.

“The information came in the form of a morning newspaper gently laid at my door by this hostelry here which charges me seven dollars a day for this broom-closet—broom-closet where now I must camp, camp, camp, until!

“The newspaper was a Morning Echo. And carried a short syndicated story, arising originally in Shore City, in which a missing young duchess of England—the Duchess of Bluecastle—popped up in America, recognized at the scene of an auto accident, whilst drawing away, with her escort, in a car. Recognized primarily by her compact or something of that kind.

“The recognizer—or rather recognizers—were, it seems, two reporters, one of whom promptly climbed out of the car they were in and got to a wire, and made haste to phone into his paper the story—such as ’twas. Namely, that the very much non-est duchess had popped up. But the other reporter, who remained behind—well, you know the old cliché in drama? ‘Follow that car’? He followed the car in question—and to no less than—a parsonage! Where, while he waited outside, this couple, then inside, did no less than—right!—get married. And then, tripping out, gave Mr. Reporter the slip, and how—thanks to his being in a more or less ancient jallopy. But he was able to go back to the parsonage, barge in, and so much as extract from the marriage records the groom’s name. And had a far better story by far than the first reporter. Namely, that the missing Duchess of Bluecastle had marrit one, Daniel Wickersham Forrest, an American.

“Scoop! On all reporters who just get out of cars, and phone in stories—and don’t follow things up.

“Well, one read of that story, and believe you me, my sweet gal, but I had the clergyman of that parsonage on the long-distance wire, and by dint of a wail of life and death, and all, and how I’d come to Cleveland to find exactly that chap Forrest, did ascertain that she and he had mentioned, the night before, that they were aiming, or heading, towards the Hawthorne Arms Hotel, in a city called Haven Towne.

“Right! I got the Hawthorne Arms at this particular city as fast as twenty-ump long-distance telephone girls, working in relays, could get it. Came near accidentally asking to speak to the Duke and Duchess of Bluecastle—but saved myself just in time. And asked for Mr. Forrest. And got him.

“Golly, it seems a shame even yet to me to have had to disturb anyone on a honeymoon—the way I did—why, this couple had only been dug in for a few hours—but needs must when the devil drives, and—She came on the wire first, and proved to be one real gal. All courtesy—and a yard wide. And then he, afterward, came on—and proved to be as much.

“He seemed still kind of dazed and stunned—seems he didn’t know, at time of the marriage, he was marrying a duchess. And—but let’s not get off on that tack. This story is the story of me, not him. Well, I gave him the unqualified lowdown: a gal—supposed to be my sister—I hoped not—believed not—yes, I gave him the lowdown.

“But alas, Erlys, Dan’l doesn’t know where he was born. A fact! Because of subsequent confidences, which he didn’t have to give to me—a stranger—I know he’s shooting straight on this. He doesn’t know where he was born. Has always known when—his birthday, in short—has known that, from the time he’s been able to cut a cake with candles on it. But where—no—the only comment he ever had on that was from a father who died when he was fourteen, and left him orphaned, and who once remarked that when he, Dan’l, got big enough to be able to remember things, he’d be trusted with his place of birth. When his father died he, like us, got taken by some other people who knew nothing of the precious whereabouts of his birth. Nor—

“But here’s the amazing angle, Erlys.

“He’s a poet. Oh, not by full vocation, no—for actually he’s an architect, and so far as my ever having found him via phone directories, I never would have, for he’s listed in his own home burg as ‘The T-Square Architect Service’! But he’s a poet as—as avocation—you know? And has had work published in magazines—in England, too.

“And only the morning of the day he got married, he got a letter from a British ‘admirer’ of one of his poems, evidently poked into the slot of the magazine publishing house door there in London, with the necessary airmail stamps on it, for filling in of address and forwarding, for his address was filled in with red ink, and the letter was shot over here.

“It was from an English office-building charlady—identity unknown— except that she was named—Mary!

“Ah me! Mary! It couldn’t have been Diana—or Patricia—or anything else. But had to be—Mary.

“But this particular ‘Mary’ holds the answer to my—our—problem. For—but here!—read, now, the letter he got from this charlady—he got it, you see, the morning of the day he got married—had it in his back pocket—had it there yet, on this Haven Towne honeymoon of his—was able, therefore, to read it to me right on the phone. I took it carefully down—and herewith paste it atop this sheet of paper—read—and don’t weep!

‘London,

‘June 2nd.

‘My Dear Boy:

‘Happening to see today, in a British magazine here, a poem signed with your name, gave me a huge thrill and great pleasure. Indeed, to know that your father’s son reached artistic and creative heights like that is the most delightful experience I could have. You wouldn’t know who I am. And since you would have been but a small boy when he died—I learned of that in an American newspaper in the Public Library here—you will never even have heard of me. I am today just Mary—a London office-building charlady. Facilis est descensus Averno, you know?

‘When I first met your father, he was a dramatic critic, and I an actress—playing in America, and—but what does it matter? I loved him, but he only admired me. Later married your mother. He thought enough of me, however, to send me a most enthusiastic telegram, an hour or so after you were born, telling me of your arrival. A thing I’ve kept all the years, as my most prized possession.

‘I went to London not long after. Did nicely for a while. Then—had fewer parts. Later, as such beauty as I had, faded—less parts. And finally none. And then on down and down. And today I’m just where many such as I wind up. Just a charlady. For office buildings. Known as Mary. Just Mary!

‘I wish you great success in your work, and I shall always keep an eye out—at least in the particular magazine where I saw your poem “Shadows”—for later work by you.

‘mary.’

“So there you are, Erlys! Mary—a London charlady—been so long there now she probably talks Cockney!—has and possesses a telegram sent her by Dan’el Forrest’s father when he was born. That telegram contains the place of sending. The city, town, village or hamlet. The information I needs must have. If I am to find and inspect the birth-registration certificate of Clive Woodmal, born at same time, via same doctor.

“So-o-o—I shot the works. Realized, for the first time, why I’ve been blindly saving my mazuma—for some years! ’Twas for all this. Must have been! Well, I shot the financial works. Got, from a detective agency in Cleveland, the name of an A. No. 1 London private investigator who is hundred per cent, ethical. Name: Goodbourne Fairlie. Address: 17, Ferntower Road.

“Called him—by trans-Atlantic phone.

“Found him—at leisure. Soon to sit down, in fact, to his dinner. For London, don’t forget, is running six hours later than here.

“I put the whole story to him, though quite condensed, of course. Including the fact of one deadline caused by one girl marrying one spieler whose divorce decree—yeah, you know. So, he’s starting the search at once—immediatemente. Oh, it won’t be a pushover, Erlys. Mary! He says there are more London charladies named Mary than cats on Guildford Street—whatever that means. And that I believe. But since one should have in her the semblance of a once lady—perhaps even the mien of an actress—well, that gives him a sort of a break. And there are charlady associations as well, he says. And whatnot.

“He’s already been cabled the ten dollars a day he asks, but covering all the days from now till my deadline. Why am I so reckless? Listen, were you ever called a clod, and—ne’ mind.

“He’s also been promised one hundred dollars bonus if he lands her—and my info—yeah, a copy of that telegram from Dan’l Forrest’s father—before you—yes, you—run off in the heat of the day with Golden-Tongue.

“He’ll call me back here by trans-Atlantic phone the moment something breaks.

“And so I’m settling down now with some surveying books, to camp in this room and wait for that phone to ring and hear Central say, ‘We have a call for you, sir, from London’.

“And then I’ll lope—for wherever that telegram was originally sent from—to find the filed birth-certificate—with footprint!—of little Mr. Clive Woodmal—the footprint being mine as of today, on small scale, I hope—I hope.

“Love to you, Erlys. Don’t take any wooden nickels or spielers with silver tongues only.

“I’ll report next only when I have something to report.

“Pell.”

To complete that P.S. Pell had had to fill the white space on the bottom of yesterday’s report—and both sides of another sheet as well! And now, with the fully completed report of two days’ events in his hands, he sat back and thought.

“What’s the use,” he asked himself, “of sending this—now? And maybe, at wrong juncture, raising hopes—expectations—a hundred things that might later—have to be hit on the head?” He shook his own head. “No, I’ll send this only when I can include in it something—that’s really hot. Really hot! That we’ve reached Mary the Mysterious Charlady!—that she has the old telegram she claims—that we have the name of the town—that the said name is—Yeah, then and then only.”

And rolling up his now several page report, he shoved it into a pigeon hole of the desk. And went over to where he’d set down his stack of books. And prepared to wait for the message: “We have a call for you, Mr. Barneyfield, from London!”

And as he took up the topmost tome, he made one comment.

“Good going to you, my British investigator—off four-thousand miles there—in London. I wonder what you’re doing right now? And what—but don’t, whatever you do, forget the deadline—and the bonus promised—if you beat it. Yep, one hundred dollars—thirty-five pounds plus. A hell of a lot of luck to you, Goodbourne Fairlie!”