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“ANNOUNCER’S HOLIDAY”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

By

VAL GIELGUD.

(Author of “Africa Flight,” “Outpost in China,” etc.)

CHAPTER VI. <Contlnuert>“As a statement,” said Charles, “that strikes me as comprehensive, but vague." “I don’t think,” said Superintendent Moresby, “that you’d be much the wiser for the details of Casimir Knoski’s dossier. But you can take it from me that he’s a very complete scoundrel. I don’t suppose you ever heard of ‘The Broken Men’? The most dangerous anarchist group that ever threatened the peace of Europe. Casimir ran that show. He was also behind last year’s attempt by the Archduke Ottokar Maximilian to regain the throne of Styria and the Islands. The Archduke was shot, you remember. The whole thing was a fiasco—and Casimar Konski as usual faded quietly and safely into the obscurity of his own underworld.”

"Do you mean to say, Moresby, that a man with a record like that can live under your noses in Limehouse, plotting all sorts of devilry, and you do nothing about it?” “It’s not criminal to live in Limehouse, even under a false name,” said the Superintendent. “Still, if your Reichenberg is really Casimir Konski, it’ll be the business of one of my colleagues to keep an eye on him. By jove!" And for one moment Moresby abandoned his phlegmatic calm. “Reichenberg must be Konski. The real von Reichenberg was one of ‘The Broken Men,’ and was killed in an aeroplane over Breslau. I remember the name now. I wonder what his real game is.” “Preventing a mesailliance with an actress seems pretty small beer after his other activities,” said Charles. And he took his departure, wondering what lay behind the Superintendent’s massive forehead and eyes, which he knew were far less glazed than they appeared. CHAPTER VII.

All London First Nights are very much the same. The same singular collection of those who make a business of staring at celebrities, lines the entrance to the theatre; the same celebrities, notorieties, and nonentities pass by; the same delay takes place before curtain-rise; the same exhibition of inhibited hysteria occurs in the gallery; the same conversation and counterJrushing echo across the stalls; the actors enjoy the utmost of that same fantastic mixture of agony and satisfaction the author spends the same two hours and a half in purgatory; and the same critics write very much the same notices. And the next night it all happens over again in another theatre. But to Geoffrey Allardyce, looking rather distinguished in his white tie and tails, a gardenia in his buttonhole and Lucia, admirably gowned and very elegant beside him, the first night of “The Girl from Vienna” was something of an occasion. His job kept him from being a constant theatre-goer. He had frankly looked forward to seeing Lucia again. And he was more than just curious to observe Miss Greta Mahler, who was presumably the cause of all his trouble.

The dinner at the Havana had been an undoubted success. To think of Lucia as some sort of cross between a common-place decoy and a foreign spy —as Charles Bland, hot from Scotland Yard—had besought him to do, had been for Geoffrey quite impossible. She had sat facing him, her eyes sparkling, evidently enjoying herself so naively, that he could not see her in any role but that of a young pretty girl having a pleasant evening in agreeable company. The only thing that marked her out from other young women in the restaurant—apart from her face and her dress—was her certainty on the subject of what she wanted to eat and drink, and even that certainly resolved itself into a meal conventional to the degree of grilled sole and chicken a I'Americaine.

In admirable seats—to be exact, stalls in the fifth row—they sat and waited for the piece to begin. Geoffrey’s heart was beating considerably faster than normal, and as the house lights dimmed he felt a firm little hand slip into his own large moist one. He glanced sideways at Lucia, but her profile was only a blur in the dimness., and she looked fixedly to the front. But when Geoffrey closed his fingers over her hand, she made no move to withdraw it.

From a perch high up in the very corner of the gallery, Charles Bland peered down through excellent opera glasses to see how Geoffrey was carrying off his role. “Curse Geoff—and myself as far as that goes,” he murmured, to the surprise and indignation of a middle-aged spinster next to him, who was eating an apple out of a string bag, and whose eyes seemed about to pop from their sockets. “Why, the girl's a raving beauty, and he’s flirting with her under my name!” But at that moment the curtain went up, and Charles temporarily forgot Lucia in the excitement of seeing no less than thirty-two blonde beauties prance blithely onto the stage, wearing bathing suits and singing of the delights of Dalmatia at the tops of their voices.

Ihe first act proceeded very much according to the immemorial plan of all musical comedies. The girls were pretty, the colouring was brilliant and gay, the plot was perfectly imbecile, and the comedian had the time of his life. Charles—a theatre-goer from his youth up—was beginning to yawn, when there sounded off very convincingly Hie roar of an aeroplane, and there descended from "the flies" in a bright pink parachute, the heroine. Greta Mahler herself, making the most effective of entrances, and displaying effectively the legs which had made her internationally famous. When Miss Mahler had been released from the parachute, had settled her frock, and established herself against the background of blonde bathing beauties to sing her first number in

comfort Geoffrey had leisure and full opportunity to study her face. And at once the whole of t’ e rest of the elaborate production ceased to exist as far as he was concerned. It was a charming face: rather impudent, gay, debonair; the nose a trifle tip-tilted, the eyes large and blue, the lips deliciously curved but firmly set and guaranteeing the character which was implied by a stubborn little chin. Naturally fair hair, soft and wavy, curled back from a broad and generous forehead. She was exquisite. And Geoffrey, staring at her a little unhappily, could not find it in his heart to blame Prince ‘Xavier.’ Automatically his hand lost its grip of Lucia’s. It was her turn now to glance uneasily at his profile, and to see enough of its expression to make her bite her lip, blink once or twice, and wish that she were not wearing eye-black, which cannot be guaranteed not to run. “The Girl from Vienna” proceeded on its melodious way. Most of the critics had already jotted down “an evening typical of the convention of Central Europe with an attractive new leading lady” as quite sufficient to give them a basis for the morrow’s story. Some had even been rash enough to leave the theatre—and heard about it the next day from their editors. For at the end of the second act a sensation occurred, rendering “The Girl from Vienna” memorable in the monotonous series of first nights. The usual misunderstanding had taken place. The hero—wearing the becoming, if improbable, uniform of the Dalmatian Horse-Marines—had suspected Miss Mahler of casting eyes of love upon a stout and monocled Highness of Styria—who was in reality her blameless uncle. A duet had assisted them—at a range of approximately three feet—to part for ever in the presence of the complete chorus, male and female. Miss Mahler was left near the front of the stage. The chorus wept artistically into Dalmatian-coloured handkerchiefs in the background under a perfect kaleidoscope of coloured limelights. Miss Mahler, looking so woe-begone and simultaneously so graceful and appealing that Geoffrey Allardyce could hardly bear it, drooped elegantly towards the boards. The orchestra wailed sentimentally, tugging at the heart-strings. The curtain began to descend in the slowest possible time.

And at that moment one of those heavy pieces of metallic apparatus inseparable from lighting-rails in theatres and film-studios, crashed down on the stage within a foot of Miss Mahler’s pretty head! Her faint was entirely in the part and passed practically unnoticed. But the best will in the world could not ignore the hideous discords that marred the orchestra’s finish of the act, nor the startling crash of splintering wood that the hastily dropped curtain could not entirely smother. The stage-manager knew his business, for the house lights went up and the curtain remained down without explanation. Accordingly the faint stir of curiosity in the audience, which might easily have led to a panic, was promptly killed. Charles Bland found himself standing on his feet in the gallery, and becoming a figure of some unpopularity in his immediate surroundings. He only had time to notice that Lucia and Geoffrey were no longer in their seats, before he was compelled to sit down again. He did not notice that a slim masculine figure, which had been sitting well back in one of the boxes, had also risen, paled to the lips and vanished into the darkness.

"What the devil is it all about?” asked Geoffrey, with pardonable heat. He found himself, Lucia still tugging at his sleeve, in the little passage running beside the theatre towards the stage door. “Casimir,” said Lucia breathlessly, and dragged him forward. Geoffrey twisted his arm free. “Casimir?” he repeated blankly. "Reichenberg—Konski—Oh, what does it matter,” gasped the girl. “No,” said Geoffrey. “I’m hanged if I’ll run in blinkers even with you! What are you talking about?” “Murder,” said Lucia briefly. “Do you want a sermon on the subject?” Geoffrey stared. Then he walked on towards the stage-door. He had to, for Lucia had left him and was already engaged in earnest conversation with the stage-doorkeeper. That worthy, a sleepy individual with a grizzled walrus moustache, a briar pipe, and an expression of disillusionment, appeared quite unmoved. "Oh for heaven’s sake give him some money!” said Lucia, turning to Geoffrey as he came up. "We must see her!” “See who?”

“The Mahler.” “But why?” “We've got to warn her—” “Now look ’ere,” said the stage-door-keeper, peering out of his cubby-hole, i rather like an elderly badger emerging from his burrow, I want to know wot all this is abaht!” Geoffrey pulled himself together. "This lady is a — er cousin of Miss Mahler’s,” he said. “She wants to see her about—er a family matter during this interval." "No one allowed behind without stage-manager’s permission—strict orders.” "Of course," said Geoffrey soothingly. And a Treasury note slid unobtrusively across the sill of the window of the cubby hole. It disappeared remarkably promptly. (To be Continued).

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19401230.2.90

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1940, Page 10

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,786

“ANNOUNCER’S HOLIDAY” Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1940, Page 10

“ANNOUNCER’S HOLIDAY” Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1940, Page 10

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