Carfew--Impresario

by Edgar Wallace

CARFEW—IMPRESARIO

By EDGAR WALLACE

Author of "Sanders of the River," "Private Selby" "The Council of Justice," "Grey Timothy," "The People of the River," etc.

A THOUSAND pounds is a lot of money, but a thousand times a thousand is an unthinkable sum, unless you are a financier, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, or an exceedingly dishonest person.

The easiest way to visualise a million pounds is to reduce it to hundredweights and pounds. Carfew had done that often, but he had never got any further than five figures. They were really four figures that were constantly climbing to the very lip of five, and as constantly slipping down again.

Carfew learnt a lesson which all successful men must learn, namely, that Fate fixes an iron grating across the path of fortune. It may be fixed at the thousand-pound stage, or at the ten-thousand, or even the hundred-thousand-pound stage in the rock road. For many of us, alas, it is fixed away down in the foothills of the hundreds.

Try as a man may, with all the prestige and the influence and the good luck which is inseparable to success, he cannot turn that gate upon its hinges till the appointed time. Here he must sit among the ninety-nine, patiently, hopefully, uncomplainingly.

Woe to him if he shakes the gate or seeks to climb it. Down, down, down he will slip and tumble, battered and bruised and torn. The gates lower down, which bar the progress of lesser men, will obligingly open to let him slip through, and it is well if he misses the altogether miserable muddy pool on the edge of which all endeavours begin and in the cold depths of which every failure ends.

Let him sprawl into this, and hope of further exercise vanishes; he is expelled from Fortune's Alpine Club. No man climbs wholly by his own endeavour. He is hauled or pushed by fellow-climbers, and honourable members of the excelsior brigade sniff at the malodorous figure of failure, and refuse the help of their dainty hands to the grimy and undesirable scarecrow who has taken a course of financial mud-baths.

Carfew was standing in exasperated calm in the 99's; but, stretching his arm through the bars, he could, so to speak, gather the flowers of the '00's, and it was an annoying situation. He was somewhat handicapped by the delusion that he was the only man in the world who had ever been in his trying situation. Anyway, he would not have taken advice, because Carfew never sought advice—he was not poor enough.

It was a distressing position, because, to continue the imagery, there, shining ahead of him, was the golden gate of the million, and Carfew was seized with an insane desire to reach that gate before the clock struck forty.

He went to his broker—not for advice, be it understood. He wanted somebody to approve of him.

"I am making no headway, Parker," he said.

"You're making a steady income," said Parker, "and a steady income is the most progressive movement in the City."

"A steady income is stagnation," said Carfew loudly. "A steady income means too fat at forty. A steady income——"

"We'll cut out the speech," said Parker, "and get to the bright, brisk business."

Carfew frowned at him suspiciously.

"That's very gay talk for a man who wears white spats," he said inconsequently. "Where did you pick it up?"

The middle-aged Parker blushed guiltily and looked out of the window.

"Oh, I don't know," he said vaguely; "one absorbs slang from the office boy. You were saying, laddie——"

But Carfew was looking at him very hard.

"Laddie?" he repeated wonderingly.

"I'm busy," said Parker. With a look of preoccupation, he dipped his pen in the ink and looked round for something to write upon. "You stand here," he said irritably, "gagging—"

"Gagging?" repeated Carfew in awe. He drew a long breath. "You're on the stage," he said, in a hushed voice. "Oh, Parker, where are you appearing?"

"Rot!" snapped the other.

"You can't be one of the Parker Brothers," ruminated the other, "the Thrilling Exponents of Aerial Flight. You can't be Billy Parker, the Brainy Boy, a Terpsichorean Performer on the Big Boot. You aren't Parky Parky, the World's Rare Rythmetic Ragtime Reveller. You're not Cissy Parker, the Pretty and Passable Principal Boy——"

"Oh, shush!" snarled the respectable broker. "If you want to know, I'm behind 'Calumny.'"

"That I will never believe. You don't mean the play?"

The broker nodded.

"Why, it has been running two hundred nights!" said Carfew.

"That's right," said Parker; "I financed it. I don't usually go in for that sort of thing, but I read the play——"

"Two hundred nights!" said Carfew, and there was admiration in his voice. "Why, you devil, you're making money!"

"A little," said Parker, in the complacent tone which meant "much."

"I'm not going out of this office," said Carfew, with determination, "until I find out how much you have made."

Parker raised his eyebrows offensively.

"You don't expect me to tell you my private business, do you?" he asked.

"Yes," said Carfew.

"Well, I'm jolly well not going to," said Parker. "And I'm a busy man. Get a wiggle on you!"

"Parker," cried the outraged Carfew, "restrain yourself! Tell me exactly how this sad affair came about."

Parker rang his bell ostentatiously, and his confidential stenographer came in with notebook.

"I am going to dictate some private letters," he said pointedly.

"Don't mind me," said Carfew, settling himself in the easiest chair.

"Private letters," repeated Parker.

"I shan't tell anybody," said Carfew; "I'm awfully discreet."

"I'll ring for you in a moment, Miss Simmons," said Parker wearily. And, when the stenographer had gone: "Now, my friend, what do you want to know? There's little to tell. I happened to hear from a literary friend that the play was a good one. I knew that the usual syndicate had rejected it. I was interested, and am still interested, in that white elephant, the Minister Theatre, so I risked a couple of thousand and put it on. It was better than leaving the theatre closed. That's all."

"How much money have you made out of it?" demanded Carfew sternly.

"Oh, twenty thousand or so," said the broker airily.

"Twenty thousand—or so!"

Carfew heaved a big and significant sigh.

"That's my business," he said, with tremendous emphasis.

"I must warn you"—Parker shook his forefinger of doom in the young man's face—"I must warn you that it was only by the greatest bit of luck that I made good——"

"Cut the scene," said the theatrical Carfew tersely; "it plays too long."

And he departed, his hat tilted on one side, his stick swinging, an impresario to the life.

There was nothing slow about Carfew. He moved like a hurricane. He hailed the first taxi-cab that came into view and ordered the driver to take him to Huggins.

Everybody knows Huggins—even a cab-driver knew Huggins. Huggins has an estate agency—none of your "Flats-from-£50-to-£120" agents. He deals in real estates, thinks in shootings, and lets lakes. If you want a theatre or a park or a mountain, you go to Huggins. People who, in the innocence of their hearts, go to him for £80 Bayswater maisonnettes are never seen again, or, if they are, are so broken in spirit and humbled in mien that you may be excused if you overlook them.

Mr. Huggins, the original Mr. Huggins, is dead. The present Mr. Huggins is the fashionable Huggins, the pomaded Mr. Huggins. His trousers are creased, his hair is parted in the middle, and he lives in a boudoir into which dukes who want to sell or rent their estates are admitted one by one.

So he impressed one.

There was a queue of dukes waiting when Carfew dashed up.

"Excuse me, sir," said one of the dukes, as Carfew shamelessly demanded that he should be seen first, "I have been waiting half an hour."

"I've come on business," said Carfew.

The duke, who was an insurance duke, desirous of placing a policy, scowled horribly, and remarked audibly to an earl, who had come for a caretaker's job, that for two pins he'd kick the bounder down the stairs.

"Hello, Hug!" said Carfew, as he entered the room, circumnavigating the spindle-legged furniture. "I want to see you."

"Really, Carfew," murmured the languid Mr. Huggins protestingly, "I'm afraid I can't see you without an appointment."

He sniffed a phial of perfume daintily.

"I want a theatre," said Carfew brusquely. "Take that look off your face and come down to life."

"A theatre?"

An unsuspected alertness came upon Mr. Adolphus Huggins. He had a theatre; he wished he hadn't. It was a legacy from his father. It had been closed for twelve years. Once upon a time playgoers did not object to turning down side-streets, threading their way through costermongers' barrows, running the gauntlet of a fried fish shop on the right and a pork butcher's on the left, to reach their objective.

This was a long time ago—probably in the days of Shakespeare. In its day, Cander Street, Tottenham Court Road, was a fashionable neighbourhood, and the tide of alien immigration had not risen, leaving on its doorsteps and beneath its corniced doorways a thin layer of all that may have been best in Poland, but which had undoubtedly deteriorated in transit.

The grimy doors of the New Time Theatre were ugly and discoloured. The iron gates which led to the entrance-court were rusted and broken, the boards affixed thereto, on which stars of the earth had been advertised, and such thrills proclaimed as "Shakespeare's Pathetic and Tragic Drama, 'Hamlet,' followed by that laughable farce, 'Did You Ever Take Your Wife to Peckham?'" which had appealed to the sensibility of the artistic, were now the happy hunting-ground of the fly poster.

"I have a theatre," said Mr. Huggins, "a good theatre, and the only theatre available in London just now"—which was true—"and I am prepared to discuss terms with you. For how long will you lease it?"

"How long will it take me to make twenty thousand or so?" asked Carfew.

Mr. Huggins looked at him long and compassionately.

"About a year," he said softly.

"I'll have a look at it," said Carfew.

Mr. Huggins hesitated.

"I'd like to have time to brush it up a bit," he said.

Carfew went down to see the theatre next day.

It was slightly soiled, it was dingy, it was without an electric installation, but, to his surprise, the seating accommodation was in good condition. The stage mechanism, too, was workable, though here, again, the absence of electric lighting was a tremendous handicap. Carfew had a quick eye for possibilities. He saw them in the New Time Theatre.

He struck a bargain with Huggins—a bargain that took away the other's breath when he came to realise how bad a bargain it was for the owner.

Carfew called in an electrical engineer.

"Get some sort of an installation in for the stage," he said. "No fancy work—County Council requirements and nothing else—a good big splash of light in the roof of the auditorium, plugs for the projectors in every part of the house. I'm going to introduce a new art into the theatre. I'm the greatest reformer that ever happened."

Later Carfew sent an identically worded note to every paper in London. It ran:—

"I have taken the New Time Theatre. I have taken it because I believe there is room in London for the stupendous art of Frac. Herr Wilhelm Emile Frac is a young Bavarian. His works are unknown; his artistry is the precious possession of the few. His extraordinary lighting schemes, unique and bizarre, have been perfected in the obscurity of his little village. Yet Herr W. E. Frac, shrinking modestly from publicity, has gained fame amongst those select connoisseurs who can best appreciate his art.

"My friends tell me I shall lose a fortune; I believe that I shall make one. I believe that the brilliancy of Frac's genius will astound, convince, and attract London."

"What is the name of the play?" asked a reporter, a little weary of the omnipotent Frac.

"The play?" said Carfew thoughtfully. "Oh, the play—well, that's rather a secret. In fact," he said, in a burst of confidence, "that is one of the secrets—the greatest secret."

"Who is the author?" demanded another inquisitive scribe.

"That I am not at liberty to say," replied Carfew solemnly; "in fact, he or she desires that the matter should be kept a dead secret. But"—he grew impressive—"if you knew the author's name, you would be in possession of one of the biggest sensations that has ever been published."

"Not——" asked the reporter eagerly.

"Hush!" said Carfew, finger to lips.

As a matter of fact, he had not thought of the play. He dined with Parker on the night of the interview.

"I suppose I ought to get a play?" he said dubiously, in a tone which implied that it was not a matter which was really important one way or the other.

"You had better," said Parker gently; "the audience might be disappointed. Not even the sight of you in evening-dress would be regarded as sufficiently humorous to compensate——"

"I'll write one myself!"

Carfew sprang up, fired with the splendour of the idea.

"Sit down!" begged Parker. "You are dining at my club, and I am responsible for the behaviour of my guests. Besides—oh, I am on the committee."

"I will, by George!" Carfew was bubbling over with inspiration. "Parker, I'll write a play that will set London talking!"

"You've started with my fellow-members," said Parker.

"Waiter!"

He called a servant.

"Get Mr. Carfew a piece of paper and a pencil. He wants to write a play."

The waiter, with an imperturbable face, bowed and went away.

"I'll put you into it," said Carfew, speaking rapidly. "You shall be a comic old man who marries the cook, who poisoned her master's dinner because she was hypnotised by a rajah whose sacred idol had been stolen by the master when he was in India. But you see through it——"

"Through India?"

"Don't be stupid—no."

"Ah, I see," said Parker nodding, "through the idol—it's a crystal idol."

"That's an idea," said Carfew enthusiastically, "a crystal idol, stolen from a palace——"

"A crystal palace?"

But Carfew was scribbling furiously. One piece of paper was not enough for his needs; another sheet was sent for, another and another, then—

"Bring all the paper there is in the club, Robert, if there is as much," said Parker seriously; and Robert, who knew his Mr. Parker, replied as gravely.

It may be said that never since the day when Lucullus dined with Lucullus had one man enjoyed his own company so much as Carfew enjoyed Carfew. As for Parker, he was a screen to reflect the brilliancy of his guest, a background to throw him into relief, a modern chorus to cry heartily, "Aye, aye, my lord!" or, in the sadder mood, "Oh, horror! Oh, horror!"

The play, the plot, and the cast underwent startling revolutions in the course of the dinner. In describing the evening to a confidant, Parker said—

"The play began as a comic opera without music; by the time we got to the joint, it was a roaring farce … We had coffee in the smoking-room, and Carfew brought tears to my eyes as he described the death of little Rolando da Sforza, the natural son of the Duke of Milan, poisoned by Lucretia Borgia, who was jealous of the influence wielded by Beatrice D'Este over her husband, the Duke of Ferrara."

Parker preserved a scrap of the original dialogue.

Lucretia (entering drawing-room with a cup of poison): So at last I have you in my power!

Beatrice (looking up from her knitting): Hello, Lu! (With a weary gesture) You might ring for tea. I've got a thirst I would not sell for money. Hast thou seen Il Moro, my husband?

Lucretia (concealing poison behind piano): Nay. Dids't thou expect him? I suppose he's gallivanting about town with Lucretia Civilla, as usual. Ha! ha! ha! (Sneers.)

Beatrice: Dry up, Lu! You are always trying to make mischief.

[Enter Mary with tray.]

Put it down, Mary; don't fuss around. Get out, wench!

Mary: Yes, ma'am. The butcher's called. Will you have chop or sausages?

Lucretia (aside): My chance! (Aloud) Methinks I would like to see those sausages, dear Beat, for are not the sausages of Milan famous all over the world? Prithee, girl, bring them. [Exit Mary.]

Beatrice: You take an interest in my affairs, Lu?

Lucretia (carelessly): Oh, yes, I am considered quite a connoisseur of sausages.

[Re-enter Mary with sausages on a golden tray.]

Ah, yes! (She empties cup of poison over them surreptitiously.)

At last! At last!

[Curtain.]

Carfew sat up that night to finish the play, then, thoroughly exhausted, he went to bed. He woke up at five o'clock in the afternoon, had a bath, and settled himself down to the enjoyment of reading his work. He read it through very carefully, then he read it again, then he laid the play, sheet by sheet, on the fire and watched it melt.

And somehow, with the burning of the play, a doubt as to his own wisdom arose. The papers which remarked upon his enterprise had damned it with praise so faint that one needed an ear-trumpet to distinguish it.

All Carfew's friends who knew anything about theatrical matters—and it seemed he had not a friend who wasn't an expert—told him he was mad. They said this sadly or cheerfully or offensively, according to their several temperaments, but they were equally definite.

And time went on. He had not arranged for a play; he had engaged no company.

The theatre distressed him to tears. The unsavoury approaches, the neighbourhood, the impossibility of the whole thing oppressed him.

The New Time Theatre was flanked and faced by gloomy houses which at one time had accommodated snug bourgeoisie. Chairs had waited at these doorways to carry bewigged gentlemen to Lord Mayoral receptions; linkmen had diced away the weary hours of waiting before these portals. Now twenty families occupied each home. Broken windows were patched with paper, bare rooms echoed to the shrill and unintelligible voice of the alien child. Poverty, grim and uncleanly, lurked in the deep unlighted basements, or strove vainly on top attics against the ravening wolf of hunger. Gander Street was a street of despair, a street of sin and sorrow, a stark, bleak street of hungry ugliness.

Carfew went down to the theatre one night to meet an unfortunate young scenic artist and to inspect the electric installation.

The artist was voluble and keen, in contrast to Carfew, who was gloomy and calculating. His calculations took the shape of working out the amount of money it would require to clear out of the business.

Usually he did not "clear out" of a business except with profit to himself. He had cleared out of a certain Tobbins, Limited, a fairly rich man.

An idea struck him just as he was entering the theatre with the scene-painter. This Tobbins enterprise had brought him into touch with a singular girl. She had been his co-director in the great undertaking, and had acquitted herself well—for a girl. He vent into the dusty box-office and wrote a note. This he despatched by taxi-cab to Dulwich, with instructions to wait for a reply.

His inspection of the lighting arrangements cheered him up. He switched on the footlights, darkened the gaunt stage, turned it blue and red and orange by the mere clicking of switches, and felt he was getting some of his money's worth.

He turned on all the lights of the auditorium and turned them off again; he manipulated the electric "limes" which he had had placed in the gallery, the dress circle, and the boxes. He experimented with every tint and colour he had at hand, and passed two pleasant and elevating hours in the amusement.

He came out into the vestibule, taking a tolerant view of the impetuosity which had landed him in a somewhat expensive position. He was in time to welcome a slim and pretty girl who came half running through the vestibule with outstretched hand.

"It is good of you to come," he said.

"It is," she agreed, "remembering that you have so shockingly neglected me."

"Affairs," he said. He waved his hand wearily. He was weighted at once with the destinies of humanity. He was the busiest man in Europe, the sought and the pursued, the dictator to innumerable secretaries, the shaper of industrial policies. In that wave of the hand you saw, if you were willing, the crowded ante-room where sat the princes of commerce awaiting momentous interviews; you saw the presses of London working day and night on Carfew's prospectuses; you heard the buzzing of Wheatstone instruments transmitting cipher despatches from one foreign minister to another, and heard the dried-pea rustle of wireless words waking the silence of oceans. You saw all this, if you were willing. May Tobbin was quite unwilling.

"You're a funny boy," she said. "You and your affairs! I've read about this." She nodded menacingly at the discoloured door of the dress circle. "Whatever made you do it?"

"Oh, this," said Carfew contemptuously—"this is just a—er—side-line—a little hobby."

She made no reply, but walked into the dress circle, Carfew following.

"Sit down by me," she invited, "and tell me the truth. You will be telling yourself something you haven't heard since the days of Tobbins, Limited."

Carfew began on the heroic note, continued flamboyantly, reached, under her calm and patient cross-examination, the level of cold fact.

"So you've got the worst theatre in London," she summarised the situation, "situated in the worst slum in the West End. You have no play, no players, no ideas worth tuppence"—Carfew winced—"nothing but some pretty lights and pieces of coloured glass."

"I haven't told you my great idea," protested Carfew.

"You haven't," she admitted, "and you needn't invent it on the spur of the moment."

They stood in silence, cogitating the position. In this silence they became aware of the presence of a third party, the young scenic artist.

"Oh, yes," said Carfew awkwardly, for him, "I promised you that I would give a definite order—well——"

He glanced despairingly at the girl, but she was too absorbed to assist him.

"Now, suppose," said Carfew, still keeping his eye on May Tobbin, "suppose we have a castle scene, high mountains and things, and snow."

Still he received no encouragement from the slim figure that had seated itself in the one chair which the hall boasted. Her brow was knit in a frown, and she had clasped one knee in a very frenzy of thought.

"Suppose——" began Carfew.

She glanced round thoughtfully. Standing by the door was an old man, whose general dinginess and dilapidation was in keeping with the character of the building, which, for a miserable twenty-five shillings per week, it was his duty to cherish.

"What is his name?" she asked, in a low voice.

"He answers to the name of George," said Carfew, "but I am not certain if that is his name."

"George," she called, and the old man started violently and came towards her, the keys of the building in his hand.

"Closin' up now, miss?" he said hopefully.

"No. I want to speak to you. Do you know this neighbourhood?" she asked.

"Know it?" George smiled, as Lucifer might smile if anybody had asked him whether he used a sulphur bag for rheumatism. "Know it?"

"I gather you do," said the girl. "Tell me, do you ever have people here—nice people?"

George scratched his head.

"I've lived in this neighbourhood," he began, "for nigh on forty-three years come October 28——"

"We don't want the story of your life, George," said Carfew. "Do you know the neighbourhood, and do nice people come here?"

"Shimmers," said George, "only slummers. We have had princesses down here—you've heard tell of the Blanket an' Coal League?—but, bless your heart, they don't come now; it's out of fashion, slummin' is."

"I thought so," said the girl, clapping her hands. "That is capital."

She swung round on the young painter.

"Paint a scene, a real good one, representing this street."

"Cander Street?"

She nodded vigorously.

"Cander Street," she said, "and an interior of Cander Street—the most wretched hovel you can find—and an attic of Cander Street—three strong scenes. You understand?"

She spoke rapidly, excitedly, and Carfew watched her in perplexity.

"Lock up, George," she said briskly. "Come along, Mr. Carfew; we're going to write a play."

•••••

"The story of the play itself," wrote the dramatic critic of The Daily Post Messenger, "calls for little notice. Well acted as it is, with the extraordinary lighting effects by M. Frac, it brings home to the spectator something of the conditions of life in the foreign quarters of London—something of the conditions in which the underworld live.

"It was a bold attempt on the part of Mr. Carfew to rename the theatre 'The Slum,' bolder still to portray the life of the very street in which the theatre is situated. It gave, and gives, fashionable London an opportunity of slumming without the discomforts and risks attendant upon that one-time fashionable practice. 'The Other Way,' despite its poor dramatic quality, will continue to draw crowded houses. The scene between Pepita and Lorenzo and the waif is the best thing in the play. But undoubtedly what appeals, and will appeal, to the playgoer is the novelty of the production—the programme girls in picturesque tatters, the pallid green lights over the entrance. … Amongst those present were the Duke and Duchess of Wellfort—her Grace is the president of the Blanket and Coal League, which has done so much for this district—the Earl of Collborough, the Penservian Ambassador, and the Countess Czectiovic. … The bookings are tremendous, and Her Serene Highness the Princess Pauline of Saxe-Gratz and suite will be present at to-night's performance."

Copyright, 1913, by Edgar Wallace, in the United States of America.