It was nearly midnight when Bobby Wilkins’ chauffeur reported over the
telephone to Jimmy Martin and McClintock, who had been keeping anxious
vigil in the office all night.
“There ain’t a sign of him,” he said hurriedly. “I waited right where
you told me to wait, and if he’d have been anywhere within a couple of
miles I could have seen him after it got dark. The moon has been shining
bright for a long time, and I had a pair of glasses with me. I’m afraid
it’s all up with him if he hasn’t landed some place else along the
coast. It’s tough for all of us if anything’s gone wrong, ain’t it?”
The chauffeur was instructed to make another trip to the selected
landing place and to stay there until dawn when relief was promised.
Jimmy was pale and over-wrought when he hung up the telephone receiver
and turned to McClintock.
“If he had landed any place else,” he remarked, “he’d have made every
effort to get to a phone. He’d know we’d be worried. Gee, Mac, supposin’
somethin’s happened to ’em. If there has little old Robert B. Remorse’ll
be my side-partner for life. He told me he’d be prepared for all
emergencies and he’s there with the nerve, but maybe they ran into a
squall or something. Why’d I ever think of this stunt? I’ve got too much
imagination, Mac, I’ve got to teach it to lie down and behave.”
The two sat up all night, smoking incessantly and discussing the variety
of fates which they fancied might have overtaken the adventuresome Bobby
Wilkins and his distinguished fellow passenger. Jimmy called up one of
the newspaper offices every fifteen minutes for news, but there wasn’t
any worth mentioning. The dirigible had not been sighted by any ship
with which the navy wireless had been able to get into communication and
the half dozen destroyers sent out to search for it were reported to be
without definite information.
The entire country seethed with the story in the morning. The Associated
Press had carried fifteen hundred words into every newspaper office in
every city of importance from coast to coast and the big dailies in
Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston had three and four column stories from
their metropolitan correspondents, liberally illustrated with pictures
of the Hon. Betty, who was one of the most photographed women of her
time. McClintock, who had no knowledge of Jimmy’s promise to keep Bobby
Wilkins’ real name out of print, had blurted it out to a group of
reporters in the evening and the salient facts concerning the modest
wearer of three war medals were incorporated in all of the accounts.
Robert Wilkins, Sr., forgot that he was a mere business machine, wiped a
few tears out of the corners of his eyes, looked tenderly at a picture
of a curly headed boy he always kept in one of the drawers of his desk
and started east on a special train.
The total haul in the New York morning papers was seventy-six columns of
solid reading matter and thirty-eight photographic illustrations. Every
angle of the story was covered in great detail and in addition to the
main narrative there were extended biographical sketches of the Hon.
Betty and of Bobby Wilkins. There were cabled stories from London
concerning the festive career of the former and containing an expression
of deep concern from the British premier. There were also eulogies of
the one time ace from personages no less important than the American
commander in chief in France and the generalissimo of the allied armies.
All in all it was the most spectacular “feature story” in years and the
greatest achievement in the history of American press agentry.
McClintock admitted that much when the first editions came in.
“Jimmy,” he said, “it’s a dog-goned shame that you’ve got to lie low and
never get credit for this. Still you’ve got company. I was reading in
the paper the other day that there’s a well defined rumor that the more
or less celebrated covenant of the well known League of Nations was
finally framed up by a clerk in the British foreign office. You can drop
over later on and take a little drink with him and cry it all out on
each other’s shoulder.”
Jimmy’s only response was a mournful attempt at a smile. He lit another
cigarette, jerked out of his chair and began to swear softly as he
walked up and down the room. He made a vicious lunge with his foot at a
waste-basket and kicked it through the door into the next office. Then
he took off his soft hat, rolled it into a lump and slammed it down on
the floor with a wide, sweeping gesture.
“I don’t mind that so much,” he said testily. “After landin’ a smear
like that, though, I’d kinda like to have a good time with myself for a
few minutes. I’d kinda like to throw a few assorted flowers up in the
air and let ’em drop on me, but I’m so gosh-darned worried about what’s
actually happened that I can’t even have that much fun.”
His anxiety increased as the day wore on and the early editions of the
evening papers which played up the story even more extensively than the
“mornings” failed to buoy him up. There was still no word of the N-24,
and navy department officials in Washington were reported to be gravely
alarmed at the possibilities.
At noon the British embassy gave out the announcement that “a
distinguished person” had cabled for detailed information and had begged
to be kept in hourly touch with the developments. Flaming head-lines
carried the legend “King Anxious About Lost Dirigible.” Upon reading
this three rival publicity promoters who had suspected the presence of
the fine Italian hand of Jimmy Martin in the proceedings from the
beginning and who had foregathered for lunch in their favorite club,
simultaneously started out on a joint jamboree that was to become a
memorable minor historical incident in the turgid annals of Broadway. It
offered the only means of escaping from the tragic feeling of profound
and passionate envy that surged up from the very depths of their beings.
At 3 o’clock as Jimmy, red-eyed and haggard, nodded at his desk between
telephone calls, a messenger boy dropped a cablegram in front of him. He
tore it open and gazed bewilderingly at this cryptic message:
HAMILTON, BERMUDA.
JAMES T. MARTIN.
JOLLYLAND PARK,
CONEY ISLAND, N. Y.
COME ON IN—THE WATER’S FINE—GIVE
MY REGARDS TO LOLITA, BUT CAN’T
SAY I’M SORRY IT HAPPENED AS YET.
BOBBY WILKINS.
Jimmy gave a second look at the heading and rushed into the next office
where McClintock was snoring sonorously on a sofa. He shook the manager
savagely and waved the cablegram in front of his eyes.
“All’s right with the world, Mac,” he shouted joyously. “They’ve landed
in Bermuda. Can you beat that fresh son-of-a-gun doin’ a thing like
that? What’s the big idea, I wonder?”
McClintock grabbed the message and read it hurriedly.
“I guess maybe he’s mailing the answer,” he remarked. “It beats me.
You’d better get a wire off to him asking for particulars.”
The shrill summons of the telephone brought Jimmy back into his own
office the next moment. The voice of his friend, Lindsay, the day desk
man of the Associated Press, came over the wire in crisp, staccato
sentences.
“Got some news for you,” he said. “It’s going to make this morning’s
headlines look sick. Here’s the way our first bulletin reads:
“‘Washington, D. C.—July 7—The British ambassador has just given out the
following cablegram received from the Governor-General of the Bermuda
Islands:—‘Please announce to press the marriage this morning in St.
John’s chapel, Hamilton, of the Hon. Elizabeth Ardsley Ashley, eldest
daughter of Lord Norbonne, Bart., of London, England, to Robert Benjamin
Wilkins, Jr., only son of Robert Benjamin Wilkins, Sr., of Chicago,
Ill., U.S.A. The ceremony was entirely informal.’”
“I’m ordering three thousand words from our Bermuda correspondent,” went
on Lindsay, “and I’m having London break the news gently to dear, old
dad. I suppose if I came down on Sunday with the wife and the kiddies
you could slip us into a few of your side-shows.”
“Say,” responded Jimmy exultingly, “you’re goin’ to get a life pass good
for each and every attraction within the big enclosure.”
As he hung up the telephone and swung around in his swivel chair the
door leading into the hall opened ever so gently and the pale and
tear-stained face of Lolita Murphy peered through the opening. Jimmy
gazed at her, open-eyed, as she came slowly into the room. He noticed
that she had a crumpled bit of paper in her hand.
“Jimmy,” she said timidly, as she held out her arms in appealing
suppliance, “I’m just a—just a foolish small town kid. I didn’t
understand—I didn’t understand.”
Jimmy, in a daze, took the paper which she held towards him. It was
another cablegram. He smoothed it out and the peace that surpasseth
understanding settled down upon him as he read these words:
HAMILTON, BERMUDA.
LOLITA MURPHY,
JOLLYLAND PARK,
CONEY ISLAND, N. Y.
WON’T IT EASE YOUR DISAPPOINTMENT
A LITTLE TO KNOW THAT THE
MAD IMPULSIVE THING I DID YESTERDAY
AND THE RASH ACT I HAVE JUST
COMMITTED IN THE CHAPEL HAVE
TRANSFORMED ME INTO QUITE THE
HAPPIEST WOMAN ALIVE—BOBBY HAS
TOLD ME ALL ABOUT EVERYTHING AND
HE FEARS THAT YOU MAY THINK YOUR
FRIEND MR. MARTIN HAD A FINGER IN
THE PIE—HE HAD NOTHING TO DO
WITH IT, MY DEAR—IT WAS JUST FATE.
OUR BEST REGARDS TO YOU BOTH.
ELIZABETH ASHLEY WILKINS.
McClintock, coming into the room just then, tip-toed out again and
closed the door softly behind him, thus proving himself to be a
gentleman of singular tact and discretion.
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