CHAPTER XXII

P.S.—To End All P.S.’s!

With a jerk, Pell pulled from his machine his “report” to Erlys—or at least the last page thereof—which “report” had been growing, steadily over the days—but had never gotten mailed—for the simple reason that it had never really gotten anywhere—had never contained any conclusive information by which to justify itself.

Reading the P.S. he had just written, he nodded satisfiedly. For it ran:

“June the 11th,

“3:35 P.M.

P.S. (ag’in.)

“Erlys Dearest:

“I finally got—the information!

“Yes, reached, through that London investigator, the charwoman named Mary, who—

“Yes, the telegram in her possession, from twenty-five years ago, announcing the birth of a boy named Daniel Wickersham Forrest—

“Yes, the name of the spot on this little old globe of ours where the said telegram got sent from.

“And so now—I’m off. For certain fee payments, in volving a hundred-dollar bonus and certain trans-Atlantic phone charges reversal, for one certain Englishman across the waters who’s done so darned much for me, are all released now, by phone. And probably going across on the cables right now. And I’m all packed and everything—only one suit of pyjamas, you know, plus now four new books on surveying. I’ve even got certain dope already, via phone, from the Arrow Air Lines. And in less than one hour will be winging it gaily to—

“Or at least towards—yeah, towards—for direct air connection isn’t possible, nay!—towards a town where reposes the birth-certificate of another little boy than one, Dan’el Forrest—one named Clive Woodmal. Bearing, the latter—a footprint. And which footprint, I hope—

“But, darling, the ultimate end and final outcome of this story is one that can’t be written. Or telegraphed. Or anything. In view of the time-scheme—as now is!—plus the fact that the show is in ‘Little Australia’ now, no less—well, anything I might despatch after tonight wouldn’t get to you a whit sooner than I could fetch it myself. So fetch it myself—I shall. And, if negative, tell you frankly so. And if not negative, lay in your lap—whatever I have to lay there.

“Well—here’s hoping!

“For I don’t want you to marry Golden-Tongue. But do know that if the reasons that you are marrying him are found not to exist at all, at all, at all—then you won’t—marry him. That’s logic enough—for me.

“And I don’t want you as any sister, either. No, I want you as—

“Nuff sed!

“Love, and plenty dubitation, believe you me! For I found, in the Public Library here, that that drug, Karachi, which Dr. Bhodpur gave me, can produce the darndest hallucinations of alleged memory—just as the doctor said. And that therefore those hazy diaphanous memories about being at a water tank in a coach, with a little boy—can be hallucinatory. In which case—aw, why borry trouble yet?

“’Spose I just sign this report just ‘love’ eh?

“Pell.”

He tilted back troubledly in his hotel chair.

“Hm?” he said. “Now wouldn’t it be a fine thing if now, f’instance, this step-by-step report—the last word I can get out to her—got lost there on the lot—as things do at a circus every day, by the score—and Golden-Tongue, as official receiver of all lost property, got it back—and read it, naturally!—and seeing that I’d gotten this close—shot the works—rang Goodbourne Fairlie, ’way off in London—cunningly maneuvered out of him, with that golden snake-tongue of his, the precious info in the charlady telegram—and then got somebody—somebody—in the particular town I haven’t even reached yet—to get over to the birth records, and sneak out one birth-certificate?”

He laughed uneasily.

“I must be thinking—in terms of B-movies. Golden-Tongue—Golden-Tongue hasn’t got resourcefulness enough—to do all that. And besides—what earthly use is this fool report anyway—to Erlys? Just a—a hopes-raiser—minus any real twenty-four-carat info. Just—”

He nodded firmly.

“There’s only one report in this affair that’s worth a damn. That’s me. With a photostat in my mitt of a witnessed birth-certificate, a print of my own tootsie-wootsie—and one reading-glass big enough to reveal a wart on a flea’s belly—

“Yeah, me. I’m the—”

And in sudden illumination with respect to the futility of all he’d written these days—he tore to fine pieces the letter-report he’d been faithfully typing out in so many hopeful instalments. Scrambling up the pieces in a pile on the desk, and dropping half in the wastebasket, and half in his sun-scorched coat-pocket.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “the only thing that counts two whoops in hell in this affair is the goods—themselves. Twenty-four-carat—and a yard wide. So-o twenty-four-carat—and so-o wide—that—that when Golden-Tongue, damn him, tries to golden-tongue ’em right out of the way, as he will—as he will, ab-so-lutely!—he’ll take a nose-dive—on his filthy ear—clear to hell and—”

He hopped up. Apoplectically red. Purple, in fact, had he known it.

“Come on, Pell,” he said, gently and soothingly to himself. “Come, boy—come! You got to fly now—right over one of the great American lakes. You got to get to the city of—you got to—come on, Clod. Git goin’!”