"Well!" gasps Vee. "Is that your little Miss Joyce?"

"I can hardly believe it," says I.

"I should hope not," says Vee. "But she is cute, isn't she? And see that kick! Oh-h-h-h!"

I was still red in the face, I expect, when I trails out at the end of the act and discovers Lester leanin' against the lobby wall.

"Say, Torchy," says he husky, "did--did you see her?"

"Miss Joyce?" says I. "Sure. Some pippin in the act, isn't she? Didn't she send you word she was goin' to be in this with Ronald Breen?"

"Me?" says he. "No."

"That's funny," says I. "She told me weeks ago. I hear she's pulling down an even hundred and fifty a week. By next season she'll be starrin'."

"And to think," moans out Lester, "that I pa.s.sed her up only a few months ago!"

"Yes," says I, "considerin' your chronic ambition, that was once when you were out of luck. And the worst of it is that maybe she was only usin' you to practice on all along. Eh?"

Perhaps it wasn't a consolin' thought to leave with Lester, but somehow I couldn't help grinnin' as I tossed it over. And me, I'm doping out no more advice to young ladies from Saskatoun or elsewhere. I'm off that side-line permanent.

CHAPTER XVI

TORCHY TACKLES A MYSTERY

I'll admit I didn't get all stirred up when Mr. Robert comes in from luncheon and announces that this Penrhyn Deems person is missing.

"On how many cylinders?" says I.

I might have added, too, that even if he'd been mislaid permanent I could struggle along. First off, anybody with a name like that could be easy spared. Penrhyn! Always reminded me of a headache tablet. Where did he get such a fancy tag? I never could believe that was sprinkled on him. Listened to me like something he'd thought up himself when he saw the chance of its being used so much on four sheets and billboards. And if you'd ask me I'd said that the prospect of his not contributin' any more of them musical things to the Broadway stage wasn't good cause for decreein' a lodge of sorrow. Them last two efforts of his certainly was punk enough to excuse him from tryin' again. What if he had done the lines and lyrics to "The Buccaneer's Bride"? That didn't give him any license to unload bush-league stuff for the rest of his career, did it?

Begun to look like his first big hit had been more or less of an accident. That being the case maybe it was time for him to fade out.

Course, I didn't favor Mr. Robert with all this. Him and Penrhyn Deems was old college chums together, and while they ain't been real thick in late years they have sort of kept in touch. I suspect that since Penrhyn got to ratin' himself as kind of a combination of Reggie DeKoven and George Cohan he ain't been so easy to get along with. Maybe I'm wrong, but from the few times I've seen him blowin' in here at the Corrugated that was my dope. You know. One of these parties who carries his chest out and walks heavy on his heels. Yes, I should judge that the ego in Penrhyn's make-up would run well over 2.75 per cent.

But it takes more'n that to get him scratched from Mr. Robert's list.

He's strong for keepin' up old friendships, Mr. Robert is. He remembers whatever good points they have and lets it ride at that. So he's always right there with the friendly hail whenever Penrhyn swaggers in wearin'

them noisy costumes that he has such a weakness for, and with his eyebrows touched up and his cutie-boy mustache effect decoratin' that thick upper lip. How a fat party like him could work up so much personal esteem I never could understand. But they do. You watch next time you're on a subway platform, who it is that gazes most fond into the gum-machine mirrors and if it ain't mostly these blimp-built boys with a 40 belt measure then I'm wrong on my statistics. Anyway, Penrhyn is that kind.

"This is the third day that he has been missing, Torchy," says Mr.

Robert, solemn.

"Yes?" says I. "Seems to me I saw an item about him in the theatrical notes yesterday, something about his being a. w. o. l. Kind of joshing, it read, like they didn't take it serious."

"That's the disgusting part of it," says Mr. Robert. "Here is a man who disappears suddenly, to whom almost anything may have happened, from being run over by a truck to robbery and murder; yet, because he happens to be connected with the theatrical business, it is referred to as if it were some kind of a joke. Why, he may be lying unidentified in some hospital, or at the bottom of the North River."

"Anybody out looking for him?" I asks.

"Not so far as I can discover," says Mr. Robert. "I have 'phoned up to the Shuman offices--they're putting on his new piece, you know--but I got no satisfaction at all. He hadn't been there for several days. That was all they knew. Yes, there had been talk of giving the case to a detective agency, but they weren't sure it had been done. And here is his poor mother up in New Roch.e.l.le, almost on the verge of nervous prostration. There is his fiancee, too; little Betty Parsons, who is crying her eyes out. Nice girl, Betty. And it's a shame that something isn't being done. Anyway, I shall do what I can."

"Sure!" says I. "I hadn't thought about his having a mother--and a girl.

But say, Mr. Robert, maybe I can put you next to somebody at Shuman's who can give you the dope. I got a friend up there--Whitey Weeks. Used to do reportin'. Last time I met him though, he admitted modest that Alf. Shuman had come beggin' him to take full charge of the publicity end of all his attractions. So if anybody has had any late bulletins about Mr. Deems it's bound to be Whitey."

"Suppose you ring him up, then," says Mr. Robert.

"When I'm trying to extract the truth from Whitey," says I, "I want to be where I can watch his eyes. He's all right in his way, but he's as shifty as a jumpin' bean. If you want the facts I'd better go myself.

Maybe you'd better come, too, Mr. Robert."

He agrees to that and inside of half an hour we've pushed through a mob of would-be and has-been chorus females and have squeezed into the little coop where Whitey presides important behind a big double-breasted roll-top. And when I explains how Mr. Robert is an old friend of Penrhyn's, and is actin' for the heart-broken mother and the weepin'

fiancee as well, Whitey shakes his head solemn.

"Sorry, gentlemen," says he, "but we haven't heard a word from him since he disappeared. Haven't even a clue. It's an absolute mystery. He seems to have vanished, that's all. And we don't know what to make of it. Rather embarra.s.sing for us, too. You know we've just started rehearsals for his new piece, 'Oh, Say, Belinda!' Biggest thing he's done yet. And Mr. Shuman has spent nearly $10,000 for the setting and costumes of one number alone. Yet here Deems walks off with the lyrics for that song--the only copy in existence, mind you--and drops out of sight. I suppose he wanted to revise the verses. You see the hole it put us in, though. We're rushing 'Belinda' through for an early production, and he strays off with the words to what's bound to be the big song hit of the season. Why, Miss Ladue, who does that solo, is about crazy, and as for Mr. Shuman----"

"Yes, I understand, Whitey," I breaks in. "That's good press agent stuff, all right. But Mr. Ellins here ain't so much worried over what's going to happen to the show as he is over what has happened to Penrhyn Deems. Now how did he disappear? Who saw him last?"

Whitey shrugs his shoulders. "All a mystery, I tell you," says he. "We haven't a single clue."

"And you're just sitting back wondering what has become of him," demands Mr. Robert, "without making an effort to trace him?"

"Well, what can we do?" asks Whitey. "If the fool newspapers would only wake up to the fact that a prominent personage is missing, and give us the proper s.p.a.ce, that might help. They will in time, of course. Got to come to it. But you know how it is. Anything from a press bureau they're apt to sniff over suspicious. As if I'd pull one as raw as this on 'em!

Huh! But I'm working up the interest, and by next Sunday I'll bet they'll be carrying front page headlines, 'Where is Penrhyn Deems?'

You'll see."

"Suppose he should turn up tomorrow, though?" I asks.

"Oh, but he couldn't," says Whitey quick. "That is, if he's really lost or--or anything has happened to him. What makes you think he might show up, Torchy?"

"Just a hunch of mine," says I. "I was thinking maybe some of his friends might find him somewhere."

"I'd like to see 'em," says Whitey emphatic. "It--it would be worth a good deal to us."

"Yes," says I, "I know how you feel about it. Much obliged, Whitey. I guess that's all we can do; eh, Mr. Robert?"

But we're no sooner out of the office than I gives him the nudge.

"Bunk!" says I. "I'd bet a million of somebody else's money that this is just one of Whitey's smooth frame-ups."

"I hardly think I follow you," says Mr. Robert.

"Here's the idea," says I. "When 'The Buccaneer's Bride' was having that two-year run Penrhyn Deems was a good deal in the spotlight. He had write-ups reg'lar, full pages in the Sunday editions, new pictures of himself printed every few weeks. He didn't hate it, did he? But these last two pieces of his were frosts. All he's had recent have been roasts, or no mention at all. And it was up to Whitey to bring him back into the public eye, wasn't it? Trust Whitey for doing that."

"But this method would be so thoroughly cold-blooded, heartless,"

protests Mr. Robert.

"Wouldn't stop Whitey, though," says I.