PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 March 1939, Page 12

PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY

MRS PATRICK MACGILL.

CHAPTER X (Continued)

The latter grim hint dealt another shattering’ blow to Peggy’s confidence. But she gathered the shreds together and remained calm.

’■Blackmail?” she suggested, quietly, her blue eyes raking the other girl’s painted face with shrivelling contempt. Something seemed to snap in Opal Orth, and loose all that was evil within her. The sight of Peggy’s proud, fearless, genuinely youthful beauty, in which even the searching Californian sunshine could find no flaw, seemed to act upon her like a match laid to a trail of gun-powder. Peggy used scarcely any makeup off stage, while her own toilet was a matter 01. .hours. Before it had reached its present shade of brassy blondness, Opal Orth’s hair had been all kinds of colours. It was the sight of Peggy Rooney’s glossy blue-black curls, so richly profuse and natural, which she pushed carelessly off her forehead with a troubled movement of her slim little hand, that seemed to twist the iron of envy in the older woman’s heart and hammer it into hate. Without the slightest warning; she suddenly jumped up from her seat and darted across the room to where Peggy sat on the low divdn, her hand still upon the hat with the pink roses which lay by her side. Opal Orth seized the shining blueblack mass in both her strong, capable, cruel looking hands—hands that belied the apparent youth of face—and before Peggy could prevent her, she tore at the curls with the viciousness of a tigercat, pulling Peggy’s head backwards and forwards with relentless energy until the young girl, already worn out with a sleepless night and the shock of David’s plight, suddenly crumpled up in a quiet heap and lay helplessly at her rival’s mercy to do with as she wished. For a moment Opal Orth stood staring down at Peggy as if hardly realising what she had done. Then, as she dashed to the bathroom for water to sprinkle over Peggy’s face and hands, she became violently agitated, unable to account for this, as for a hundred of other wayward impulses blindly obeyed in her tempestuous life. She was sobbing hysterically, crying out “PeggylPeggy, darling, forgive me! 1 did not mean to do it,” when, a few minutes later, the front of her dress sopping wet, and the cold water stinging the aching parts of her scalp where the hair had been pulled, Peggy sat up, a bewildered stare in her blue eyes. The hand that held the glass ot water to her lips was trembling so much that more of the liquid flowed down Peggy’s chest than her throat, and she took the glass away, gasping, “That- will do. I’ll hold it!" Opal Orth relinquished the glass and went and sat down in her chair; her fashionable hat was pushed askew', giving her a rakish look denied by her ravaged face and shrinking, trembling

figure. “I’m sorry, kid . . . "she began, ano suddenly it seemed as if the real woman spoke. The voice, momentarily shorn of artifice and the effect oi countless elocution lessons, was somehow reminiscent of a shim: but its sincerity could not be doubted. Peggy rose, acutely embarrassed and unhappy, and walked towards the bathroom. “I do not think that you need stay any longer, Miss Orth,” she said, with a pointed glance towards the door. “As you have so much influence with Mr Finklesteen, would you mind telling him that it will be impossible for me to act this afternoon?” Without another word, Peggy opened the bath-room door, and Opal Orth, sitting hunched in her chair, staring vacantly ahead with big fear-haunted miserable eyes, nodded vaguely, and the next instant heard the sound of running water. CHAPTER XI. When Peggy returned to the livingroom, refreshed by a warm bath, clad in cream silk negligee that threw her dark beauty into exquisite relief, she expected to find Opal Orth gone. She must have imagined that she had heard the outer door shut; Opal was still crouched in her chair as she had left her half an hour before, apparently not having moved. Peggy felt awkward. She was, however, the first to speak. The apartment was her home for the present; her visitor was no longer welcome. “I think that your car has stayed the allotted time for parking outside the apartment, Miss Orth,” suggested Peggy, pointedly. Opal looked up miserably, her blackeyes filled with the restless demon o', a tortured, (inquiet spirit. "I couldn’t go without telling you a few things that may make you think a

little less hardly of me," she said, apologetically. “There is not much to be said for a woman who forces herself into anothei woman's apartment with the news that the previous night her sweetheart hat killed a man; and, as that were not sufficient, to commit 'an entirely unprovoked assault. Really, Miss Orth, 1 am wondering if you are quite sane! Perhaps this dreadful news you have brought me of David is only something of your own imagination, after ail." “I wish io heaven it were!” The emphasis dispelled the brief hope. Suddenly the thought of David sleeping in this woman's apartment, whether he had killed a man or not, spurred Peggy into activity. His place was in his own apartment, and she would see that he was taken there. The truth or otherwise of Opal Orth’s wild story' could be investigated later. Without a word, Peggy disappeared into her bedroom, and five minutes later reappeared in a street suit and hat. Crossing to the telephone she dialled the number for a taxi, and leaving Opal just where she was, walked out of the apartment and down the stairs without another word. Realising what had happened, Opal Orth got up heavily ITom her chair, feeling, somehow, that her mission had miscarried from beginning to end. She got downstairs just in time to hear Peggy giving her own address to thedriver of her taxi. “Horne as fast as you can!” she ordered the Filipino chauffeur, who had been out all the previous night, and who looked ready to fall asleep at his wheel. “Beat that taxi,” she ordered, leaning forward witli an angry scowl as Peggy’s taxi kept abreast of her car and, though Peggy was leaning back

against the cushions with her eyes closed, it was possible to see her through the window. However the higher powered car beat the humbler taxi by almost 10 minutes. Opal was in her bedroom changing her outdoor clothes when she hoard Peggy’s ring, followed by her quiet, well-bred voice asking for herself. Having his orders, the butler reported that his mistress was out. “She is not out, and will you please tell her that if she does not admit me I will go straight to the police station,” said Peggy in so clear and determined a voice that Opal-Orth suddenly called from her bedroom, "All right. Wells, let Miss Rooney in." CHAPTER XII. David was lying just as Opal Orth, assisted by her chauffeur, had placed him on the outside of her own big pseudo-Empire bed, covered with a luxurious silk eiderdown that he continually kicked and shrugged off his fevered body and just as often Opal replaced it, tucking it round David’s shoulders with tender, lingering little puts. The room was close, stuffy, ridiculously feminine and over-furnished, and the windows were all shut. David was still fast asleep, apparently, his face was flushed with a queer, purple colour, and his breath came in staccato gasps that vaguely

alarmed Peggy. Her first action was to go to the windows and flng them all open; her second, to moisten her handkerchief in a glass of water that stood by the bed. and wipe the restless, though sleeping face quietly and firmly. “Miss Orth, where is your .telephone?” she asked abruptly. “Wh-what are you going to do?” asked Opal Orth, instead of answering Paggy’s question. “Do? Why, what should have been done hours ago! Call a doctor,’ said Peggy, impatiently. As she spoke, Peggy’s eyes fell upon an absurd Watteau shepherdess on a table placed on the other side of the bed. The crook was a pencil, so Peggy guessed that it concealed the telephone. She was correct. It did. She knew of no doctor, in particular, but she knew the best place to get information of that sort. Dialling the number of the Y.W.C.A. she got the little blonde secretary and asked for the best not the most expensive, she emphasised, knowing that more often than not the two do not go together —but the best and most reliable doctor in Los Angeles. “1 think Dr Patrick Murphy is the man you want. Wait a minute, honey. I’ll give you the number. Not for yourself, I hope, dearie, is it?" asked the kindly little ■ Y.W.C.A. secretary m genuinely perturbed tones. “Oh, no. Thanks ever so much,” replied Peggy, briskly, taking down the number on the telephone pad with the crook of the Watteau shepherdess. Though the news of David was .so terrifying, and he looked so ill lying on Opal Orth’s bed, Peggy was conscious of being strangely, unaccountably buoyed within, thrilled with a sense of strange adventure baffling, to analyse, but at heart she was captain of her own soul. Her crisp, clean, well defined mentality was in such utter contrast to the behaviour of the woman whose entile

being revolved around her sex attraction for the male. Opal felt angry, thwarted, utterly futile, conscious that matters vital to her happiness, and the success of her plans were being taken out of het hands by this slim, dark, cool young person who seemed utterly unimpressed by anything except the necessity for getting a doctor for David. Peggy was fortunate in finding Dr Murphy at home. “Could you come at once to 1094, Sunset Boulevard—the La Plante Apartments. There is somebody here who is very ill, I am afraid, Peggy told him. as calmly as she could. Her ears were delighted by the sound of a rich Irish brogue by way of reply asking if the patient were a man or a woman. “A man,” replied Peggy, adding, "It is nice to hear an Irish brogue, Doctor.” “An’ sure, asthore, its good lo hear so pretty a voice from yourself, so it is,” returned the gallant Patrick Murphy, with a rich Irish chuckle. Arrived, the doctor —a big, brawny, black-haired Celt of the Spanish type, about 50 or so—gave a swift, appraising glance around the luxurious apartment ,'is he asked the whereabouts of the patient. “In here, Doctor. This way. He isn’t

joing to die, is he?” Opal begged to enow, almost before Dr Murphy had he chance to glance at David. “Is ho your husband?” he asked, iharply. looking up at the painted, agitated face with an inward disapproval hat expressed itself on his rugged feaures more clearly than he imagined. Before Opal could answer. Peggy, who had not so far been able to put in i single word, contributed to the discussion in a fashion that made Opal Orth long to commit a second assault upon her. ■•Mr Whitley is my fiancee, Dr Murphy. I am an actress and came to ! 101 l wood expecting work. Miss Orth tlso came and brought my fiancee ; along as her manager, bill he is no longer in her employ." Opal Orth’s black eyes were glitter- • ing dangerously; the air grew lense ■ with a feeling drama, of human wills clashing. “All this is very interesting, but how does it affect Mr Whitley?" asked the doctor, looking up from his examina- ; tion of David's chest with a quizzical look in his eyes. “In this way, Doctor. Mr Whitley • has very little money, and he is several thousand miles away from his own home. 11 it is not dangerous to move him, I should like you to recommend a good, moderately-priced hospital, and I will be responsible for him," replied Peggy, quietly, so that the good im- . pression she had made upon the doctor on the telephone was maintained and even heightened. “David shall have the best hospital in Los Angeles, and I will cable to New York for the finest specialists for what- ! ever is wrong with him,” cried Opal j Orth, looking down upon David from the end of the bed like a tragedy queen. (To be Continued).