The Blind Barber

there?'

'Why not? Good God! what have you got into your head, anyhow?'

'All right, old man, if that's what you want!' He was affable. 'I admit I'd rather talk to you alone, but I won't argue. Suppose we go up to the writing-room, where it'll be quiet.'

On the way he talked steadily and with sprightly bounce of other matters, laughing heartily, amid many jocose references. The white-panelled writing-room was deserted. He led them to an embrasure of full-glass windows, where the morning sun was muffled by thick curtains, and quiet was broken only by the pounding of the engines. Here, when they were seated, he ran a hand through his bristly hair, fidgeted, and suddenly shot into action.

'Now, I want to help you, old man,' he explained, still confidentially, 'but you see, it's a case of mutual benefits, you see? You're young, and you don't understand these things. But when you get older and have a wife and family, ah!' said Mr. Woodcock. He made an impressive gesture. 'Then you'll understand that business isn't only a matter of favours. All right! Now, frankly, you're sort of in a jam, aren't you?'

'Shoot,' said Warren briefly.

'Well then. I don't know what went on on the boat last night, that everybody's talking about; I don't want to know. It's none of my business, see? But I do know what happened yesterday afternoon. A roll of film was stolen from your cabin, wasn't it? No, no, don't answer, and don't interrupt.

'I'm going to show you,' continued Mr. Woodcock, after a pause in which he demonstrated himself an admirable showman—''m going to show you,' he went on, rather sharply, 'a little moving-picture of my own as to what might have happened. I don't say it did happen, y'unnastand. You wouldn't expect me to pin myself down to that, would you? I say it might have happened. All right! Now here's my little moving-picture. I'm coming along the gangway down on C deck, see? about ha'-past four yesterday afternoon, and I've just been up sending off a radio to my firm, and there's nothing on my mind. All of a sudden I hear a noise behind me when I'm passing one of those little offshoots of the gangway, and I turn around in time to see a guy ducking out of it, and across the gangway into the wash-room. All right! And I see this bozo's got a whole mess of movie film that he's trying to stuff under his coat—

'U-uh, now!' said Mr. Woodcock warningly, 'don't interrupt! Well, suppose I see this guy's face so that if I haven't seen it before I'd know it again wherever I saw it; just-suppose that. I wonder what it is, but I figure it's none of my business. Still, I think there may be a angle to it, see, so I sort of go down and take a peek. But all I can see is a door sort of open and a lot of film and film-boxes scattered around on the floor; and I see a guy — maybe yourself — sort of getting up from the floor with his hands to his head.

'And I think 'Whu-o, Charley! You'd better get out of this, and not be mixed up in any trouble,' see? Besides, the guy was coming round and didn't need any help, or I'd have stopped. But then I get to thinking—'

'You mean,' said Warren, rather hoarsely, 'you saw who—?'

'Now go easy, old man, go easy. Let me show my picture now!'

His picture, they discovered, exhibited a sort of strange interlude in which Mr. Woodcock's memory spoke to him. Apparently he was a great hand at reading die tabloids and scandal sheets, explaining also that he was a subscriber to the magazine True Sex-Life Stories. One of the papers, it appeared, had recently published a red-hot, zippy item straight from the capital city. It was couched in the form of innuendo, inquiring what Big Shot had a nephew who could always get a job turning a camera crank in Hollywood; furthermore, was it possible that the afore-mentioned Big Shot, in a sportive mood, had been indiscreet before a camera; and, if this were within the limits of possibility, who was the woman in the case?

'Woman?' said Warren uncontrollably. 'Woman? There's no woman! Why, my un —'

'Steady,' interrupted Morgan, his face stolid. 'Mr. Woodcock's doing the talking.'

Woodcock did not even smile or contradict. He probably expected this. He was still helpful, concerned; but there were tighter wrinkles round his jaw and his eyes were expressionless. 'So maybe I'm thinking to myself,' he pursued, jerking his wrist and shoulder with a curiously Hebraic gesture while the sharp eyes fixed Warren, 'about a very funny cablegram I overhear in the wireless-room. And maybe I don't make much sense out of it, see? because I don't hear much of it; except that it's about a movie film and also about somebody being bare. Now, now, old man, you needn't look so funny at me — I understand how these things are. But I think, 'Charley, maybe you're wrong. Maybe it was just an ordinary stick-up job. And if it was, then of course there'll be a noise about it this evening, and Mr. Warren'll report he's been robbed.' All right! Only,' concluded Mr. Woodcock, leaning over and tapping Warren on the knee, 'there wasn't, and he didn't.'

During the silence they could hear some children crying out and pelting past the door of the writing-room. The engines throbbed faintly. Slowly Warren passed his hand over his forehead.

'There've been some funny interpretations put on all this,' he said in a strained voice, 'but this is the limit. A woman!… All right to you, old horse,' he added, with sudden crispness. 'You're wrong, of course; but this isn't the time to discuss that. Who was that man who stole the film? That's what we want to know. What is it you want? Money?'

Clearly this had never occurred to the other. He jumped on the seat of the window. 'I may not be as big as you,' he said quietly, 'but you try offering me money again, and, by God! you'll regret it. What do you think I am, a blackmailer? Come on, old man' — his voice changed and his eyes had a hopeful and propitiatory gleam—'come on now. I'm a business man and this is the biggest chance of my life. I'm only trying to do my job, after all. If I can put this across, I'll be in line for an assistant-vice-presidency. I'm giving it to you straight: if I'd thought that anything really important'd been stolen, or anything like that, I wouldn't hold out on you for a second. But I figure it this way. What's happened? An old guy, who ought to know better, has played sugar-daddy and got himself into a jam with a woman, and there's a picture of it. All right! I don't wish him any bad luck — I sympathise, and I offer to help. I offer to tell you who's got it, so's you can get it back… well, whatever way you like. But I figure I rate a favour in return. And if that's not fair, I don't know what is.'

The man was desperately serious. Morgan studied him, trying to understand both the man's ethics and the man's nature. He was a problem aside from both the grim and the comic. That a governmental stuffed-shirt had been caught in a compromising position with a woman before somebody's moving-picture camera he thought of as neither serious nor ridiculous; in all probability he simply supposed that, if a government official got into difficulties they would be difficulties of that nature, to be judged solely from how he could use the fact in a legitimate business fashion. Morgan looked at Warren, and he could see that the latter considered it all fair enough.

'Good enough,' said Warren, nodding grimly. 'You've got a right to proposition me. Fire away. But what the devil can / do for you?'

Woodcock drew a deep breath.

'I want a signed testimonial, with a picture,' he said, 'for the newspapers and magazines.'

' Testimonial? Hell, yes, I'll give you a testimonial for anything,' Warren returned, staring. 'But what good can I do you? What — Wait a minute. Holy smoke! You don't mean a bug-powder testimonial, do you?'

'1 mean,' said Woodcock, 'I want a recommendation for a certain article which my firm is about to place on the market and which I invented. Mind, old man, if I didn't know this thing was a world-beater I wouldn't try to sell you the idea. I'm not going to ask you to accept anything sight unseen. I'm going to show you,' said Mr. Woodcock, suddenly taking out a long package from under his coat like an anarchist who gets his victim in a corner with a bomb. 'I'm going to show you that this little gadget will really do everything we claim for it in the advertising campaign. Yes, I want a testimonial, old man… But not from you.'

'He means, Curt,' said Peggy, regarding Mr. Woodcock with a fascinated horror—'he means, you see—'

Woodcock nodded. 'You get it lady. I want a testimonial of endorsement from the Hon. Thaddeus G. Warpus for the Mermaid Electrically-fitted Mosquito Gun, fitted with Swat No. 2 Liquid Insect Exterminator; saying that he personally uses it at his country home in New Jersey, and warmly recommends it. This is my chance, and I'm not going to miss it. For years we've been trying to get testimonials for our stuff from the big shots or the society women. And we can't. Because why? Because they say it isn't dignified. But what's the difference? Cigarettes, toothpaste, face cream, shaving soap — you'll get them recommended all right, and what's the difference? I'm not asking you to recommend a bug-powder, but a neat, svelte-looking, silver-plate and enamel job. Let me show it to you, let me explain how it works — that combines all the advantages of a double-