“Is that all you got to say about my idea, for gossakes?” snarled Lew, brandishing the bottle.
Butcher stuck his head into the room. “Well, Ellery, what do you think?”
“My honest opinion?”
“Give me anything else and I’ll fire you out on your ear.”
“I think,” said Ellery, “that it’s an inspired notion that will never get beyond the planning stage.”
“See?” cried Lew. “You hooked me to a Jonah!”
“What makes you say that?”
“How do you propose to get those four to work in the same picture? They’re mortal enemies.”
Lew glared at Ellery. “The romance of the century, the most publicized cat-fight of the last twen’y years, terrific box-office appeal in four big star names, a honey of a human-int’rest story — an’ he throws cold water!”
“Turn it off, Lew,” said the Boy Wonder. “That’s the major problem, of course, El. Attempts have been made before to cast them in teams, but they’ve always failed. This time I have a hunch it will be different.”
“Love will find a way,” said Lew. “The future Mrs. Butcher wouldn’t throw her tootsie, would she?”
“Shut up,” said Butcher, reddening. “As far as that’s concerned, Lew has an in, too. He’s Blythe’s second cousin; aside from her father and Lew, Blythe hasn’t any relatives, and I think she likes this screwball enough to listen to him.”
“If she don’t,” grinned Lew, “I’ll break her damn’ neck.”
“The four of them are broke, too — they always are. I’m prepared to offer them whopping big contracts. They simply won’t be able to afford to turn it down.”
“Listen,” said Lew. “When I show ’em how they’re gonna play a picture biography of themselves to an audience of millions, they’ll be so damn’ tickled they’ll fall all over themselves grabbin’ for the contracts. It’s in the bag.”
“I’ll tackle Bonnie and Ty,” said the Boy Wonder crisply, “and Lew goes to work on Blythe and Jack. Sam Vix, our publicity head, will start the ball rolling in the mags and papers.”
“And I?”
“Hang around Lew. Get acquainted with the Stuarts and the Royles. Gather as much material on their personal lives as you can. The biggest job will be weeding, of course. We’ll meet again in a few days and compare notes.”
“Adios,” said Lew, and wandered out with Butcher’s bottle under his arm.
A tall man with a windburned face and a black patch over one eye came strolling in. “You want me, Butch?”
“Meet Ellery Queen — he’s going to work with Lew Bascom on the Royle-Stuart imbroglio. Queen, this is Sam Vix, head of our publicity department.”
“Say, I heard about you,” said Vix. “You’re the guy worked here for six weeks and nobody knew it. Swell story.”
“What’s swell about it?” asked Ellery sourly.
Vix stared. “It’s publicity, isn’t it? By the way, what do you think of Lew’s picture idea?”
“I think—”
“It’s got everything. Know about Blythe’s old man? There’s a character for pictures! Tolland Stuart. I bet Blythe hasn’t even seen the old fossil for two-three years.”
“Excuse me,” said the Boy Wonder, and he disappeared.
“Park the carcass,” said the publicity man. “Might as well feed you dope if you’re going to work on the fracas. Stuart’s an eccentric millionaire — I mean he’s nuts, if you ask me, but when you’ve got his dough you’re just eccentric, see what I mean? Made it in oil. Well, he’s got a million-dollar estate on top of a big butte in the Chocolate Mountains — that’s below the San Bernardino range in Imperial County — forty rooms, regular palace, and not a soul on the place but himself and a doctor named Junius, who’s the old man’s pill-roller, nose-wiper, hash-slinger, and plug-ugly all rolled into one.”
“Pardon me,” said Ellery, “but I think I’d better see where Lew—”
“Forget Lew; he’ll turn up by himself in a couple of days. Well, as I was saying, they spin some mighty tall yarns about old man Stuart. Hypochondriac to the gills, they say; and the wackiest personal habits. Sort of hermit, I guess you’d call him, mortifying the flesh. He’s supposed to be as healthy as a horse.”
“Listen, Mr. Vix—”
“Call me Sam. If there’s a trail down his mountain, only a goat or an Indian could negotiate it. Doc Junius uses a plane for supplies — they’ve got a landing-field up there; I’ve seen it plenty of times from the air. I’m an aviator myself, you know — got this eye shot out in a dog-fight over Boileau. So naturally I’m interested in these two bugs up there flying around their eagle’s nest like a couple of spicks out of the Arabian Nights—”
“Look, Sam,” said Ellery. “I’d love to swap fairy tales with you, but right now what I want to know is — who in this town knows everything about everybody?”
“Paula Paris,” said the publicity man promptly.
“Paris? Sounds familiar.”
“Say, where do you come from? She’s only syndicated in a hundred and eighty papers from coast to coast. Does the famous movie-gossip column called Seeing Stars. Familiar!”
“Then she should be an ideal reference-library on the Royles and the Stuarts.”
“I’ll arrange an appointment for you.” Vix leered. “You’re in for an experience, meeting Paula for the first time.”
“Oh, these old female battle-axes don’t faze me,” said Ellery.
“This isn’t a battle-axe, my friend; it’s a delicate, singing blade.”
“Oh! Pretty?”
“Different. You’ll fall for her like all the rest, from wubble-you-murdering Russian counts to Western Union boys. Only, don’t try to date her up.”
“Ah, exclusive. To whom does she belong?”
“Nobody. She suffers from crowd phobia.”
“From what?”
“Fear of crowds. She hasn’t left her house since she came to the Coast in a guarded drawing-room six years ago.”
“Nonsense.”
“Fact. People give her the willies. Never allows more than one person to be in the room with her at the same time.”
“But I can’t see— How does she snoop around and get her news?”
“She’s got a thousand eyes — in other people’s heads.” Vix rolled his one eye. “What she’d be worth to a studio! Well, I’ll ring her for you.”
“Do that,” said Ellery, feeling his head.
Vix left, and Ellery sat still. There was an eldritch chiming in his ears and the most beautiful colored spots were bouncing before his eyes.
His telephone rang. “Mr. Queen?” said the Second Secretary. “Mr. Butcher has had to go to the projection room to catch the day’s rushes, but he wants you to call your agent and have him phone Mr. Butcher back to talk salary and contract. Is that all right?”
“Is that all right?” said Ellery. “I mean — certainly.”
Salary. Contract. Lew. Paula. The old man of the mountains. Napoleon brandy. Gatling-gun Butch. The wild Royles and Stuarts. Crowd phobia. Chocolate Mountains. High pressure. Super-spectacle. Rushes... My God, thought Ellery, is it too late?
He closed his eyes. It was too late.
Chapter 3
Mr. Queen Sees Stars
After two days of trying to pin somebody into a chair within four walls, Ellery felt like a man groping with his bare hands in a goldfish bowl.
The Boy Wonder was holding all-day conferences behind locked doors, making final preparations for his widely publicized production of Growth of the Soil. The earth, it seemed, had swallowed Lew Bascom. And every effort of Ellery’s to meet the male Royles and the female Stuarts was foiled in the one case by a nasal British voice belonging to a major-domo named Louderback and in the other by an almost incomprehensible French accent on the lips of a lady named Clotilde, neither of whom seemed aware that time was marching on and on and on.