CAPTAIN STRANGWISE ENTERTAINS A GUEST
It was the slack hour at the Nineveh Hotel. The last groups about the
tea-tables in the Palm Court had broken up, the Tzigane orchestra had
stacked its instruments together on its little platform and gone home,
and a gentle calm rested over the great hotel as the forerunner of the
coming dinner storm.
The pre-dinner hour is the uncomfortable hour of the modern hotel de
luxe. The rooms seem uncomfortably hot, the evening paper palls, it is
too early to dress for dinner, so one sits yawning over the fire,
longing for a fireside of one’s own. At least that is how it strikes
one from the bachelor standpoint, and that is how it appeared to affect
a man who was sitting hunched up in a big arm-chair in the vestibule of
the Nineveh Hotel on this winter afternoon.
His posture spoke of utter boredom. He sprawled full length in his
chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes
half-closed, various editions of evening papers strewn about the ground
at his feet. He was a tall, well-groomed man, and his lithe, athletic
figure looked very well in its neat uniform.
A pretty little woman who sat at one of the writing desks in the
vestibule glanced at him more than once. He was the sort of man that
women look at with interest. He had a long, shrewd, narrow head, the
hair dark and close-cropped, a big, bold, aquiline nose, and a firm
masterful chin, dominated by a determined line of mouth emphasised by a
thin line of moustache. He would have been very handsome but for his
eyes, which, the woman decided as she glanced at him, were set rather
too close together. She thought she would prefer him as he was now,
with his eyes glittering in the fire-light through their long lashes.
But what was most apparent was the magnificent physical fitness of the
man. His was the frame of the pioneer, the man of the earth’s open
spaces and uncharted wilds. He looked as hard as nails, and the woman
murmured to herself, as she went on with her note, “On leave from the
front.”
Presently, the man stirred, stretched himself and finally sat up. Then
he started, sprang to his feet, and strode easily across the vestibule
to the reception desk. An officer was standing there in a worn uniform,
a very shabby kit-bag by his side, a dirty old Burberry over his arm.
“Okewood!” said the young man and touched the other on the shoulder,
“isn’t it Desmond Okewood? By Jove, I _am_ glad to see you!”
The new-comer turned quickly.
“Why, hullo,” he said, “if it isn’t Maurice Strangwise! But, good
heavens, man, surely I saw your name in the casualty list... missing,
wasn’t it?”
“Yep!” replied the other smiling, “that’s so! It’s a long story and
it’ll keep! But tell me about yourself... this,” he kicked the kit-bag
with the toe of his boot, “looks like a little leave! Just in from
France?”
He smiled again, baring his firm, white teeth, and looking at him
Desmond suddenly remembered, as one recalls a trifle, his trick of
smiling. It was a frank enough smile but... well, some people smile too
much.
“Got in just now by the leave train,” answered Desmond.
“How much leave have you got?” asked Strangwise.
“Well,” said the other, “it’s a funny thing, but I don’t know!”
“Say, are they giving unlimited leave over there now?”
Desmond laughed.
“Hardly,” he replied. “But the War Office just applied for me to come
over and here I am! What they want me for, whether it’s to advise the
War Council or to act as Quartermaster to the Jewish Battalion I can’t
tell you! I shan’t know until tomorrow morning! In the meantime I’m
going to forget the war for this evening!”
“What are you going to do to-night?” asked Strangwise.
Desmond began to check off on his fingers.
“Firstly, I’m going to fill the biggest bath in this hotel with hot
water, get the biggest piece of Pears’ soap in London, and jump in:
Then, if my tailor hasn’t betrayed me, I’m going to put on dress
clothes, and whilst I am dressing summon Julien (if he’s maitre d’hôtel
here) to a conference, then I’m going to eat the best dinner that this
pub can provide. Then...”
Strangwise interrupted him.
“The bath is on you, if you like,” he said, “but the dinner’s on me and
a show afterwards. I’m at a loose end, old man, and so are you, so
we’ll hit up together! We’ll dine in the restaurant here at 7.30, and
Julien shall come up to your room so that you can order the dinner. Is
it a go?”
“Rather,” laughed Desmond, “I’ll eat your dinner, Maurice, and you
shall tell me how you managed to break out of the casualty list into
the Nineveh Hotel. But what do all these anxious-looking gentry want?”
The two officers turned to confront a group of four men who were
surveying them closely. One of them, a fat, comfortable looking party
with grizzled hair, on seeing Desmond, walked up to him.
“Hullo!” said Desmond, “it’s Tommy Spencer! How are you, Spencer?
What’s the betting in Fleet Street on the war lasting another five
years? Have you come to interview me?”
The tubby little man beamed and shook hands effusively.
“Glad to see you looking so well, Major,” he said, “It’s your friend we
want...”
“What? Strangwise? Here, Maurice, come meet my friend Tommy Spencer of
the “Daily Record,” whom I haven’t seen since we went on manoeuvres
together down at Aldershot! Captain Strangwise, Tommy Spencer! Now,
then, fire away; Spencer!”
Strangwise smiled and shook his head.
“I’m very pleased to know your friend, Desmond,” he said, “but, you
know, I can’t talk! I had the strictest orders from the War Office...
It’s on account of the other fellows, you know...”
Desmond looked blankly at him. Then he—turned to Spencer.
“You must let me into this, Spencer,” he said, “what’s old Maurice been
up to? Has he been cashiered for wearing shoes or what?”
Spencer’s manner became a trifle formal.
“Captain Strangwise has escaped from a prisoners’ of war camp in
Germany, Major,” he said, “we’ve been trying to get hold of him for
days! He’s the talk of London!”
Desmond turned like a shot.
“Maurice!” he cried, “’pon my soul, I’m going to have an interesting
evening... why, of course, you are just the sort of fellow to do a
thing like that. But, Spencer, you know, it won’t do... fellows are
never allowed to talk to the newspaper men about matters of this kind.
And if you’re a good fellow, Spencer, you won’t even say that you have
seen Strangwise here... you’ll only get him into trouble!”
The little man looked rather rueful.
“Oh, of course, Major, if you put it that way,” he said.
“... And you’ll use your influence to make those other fellows with you
drop it, will you, Spencer? And then come along to the bar and we’ll
have a drink for old times’ sake!”
Spencer seemed doubtful about the success of his representations to his
colleagues but he obediently trotted away. Apparently, he succeeded in
his mission for presently he joined the two officers alone in the
American Bar.
“I haven’t seen Strangwise for six months, Spencer,” said Desmond over
his second cocktail. “Seeing him reminds me how astonishing it is the
way fellows drop apart in war. Old Maurice was attached to the Brigade
of which I am the Brigade Major as gunner officer, and we lived
together for the best part of three months, wasn’t it, Maurice? Then he
goes back to his battery and the next thing I hear of him is that he is
missing. And then I’m damned if he doesn’t turn up here!”
Spencer cocked an eye at Strangwise over his Martini.
“I’d like to hear your story, despite the restrictions,” he said.
Strangwise looked a trifle embarrassed.
“Maybe I’ll tell you one day,” he replied in his quiet way, “though,
honestly, there’s precious little to tell...”
Desmond marked his confusion and respected him for it. He rushed in to
the rescue.
“Spencer,” he said abruptly, “what’s worth seeing in London? We are
going to a show to-night. I want to be amused, mark you, not elevated!”
“Nur-el-Din at the Palaceum,” replied the reporter.
“By Jove, we’ll go there,” said Desmond, turning to Maurice. “Have you
ever seen her? I’m told she’s perfectly marvelous...”
“It’s an extraordinarily artistic turn,” said Spencer, “and they’re
doing wonderful business at the Palaceum. You’d better go and see the
show soon, though, for they tell me the lady is leaving the programme.”
“_No!_” exclaimed Strangwise so suddenly that Desmond turned round and
stared at him. “I thought she was there for months yet...”
“They don’t want her to go,” answered Spencer, “she’s a perfect
gold-mine to them but I gather the lady is difficult... in fact, to put
it bluntly she’s making such a damn nuisance of herself with her
artistic temperament that they can’t get on with her at all.”
“Do you know this lady of the artistic temperament, Maurice?” asked
Desmond.
Strangwise hesitated a moment.
“I met her in Canada a few years ago,” he said slowly, “she was a very
small star then. She’s a very handsome and attractive girl, in spite of
our friend’s unfavorable verdict. There’s something curiously real
about her dancing, too, that you don’t find in this sort of show as a
rule!”
He stopped a moment, then added abruptly:
“We’ll go along to the Palaceum to-night, if you like, Desmond,” and
Desmond joyfully acquiesced. To one who has been living for weeks in an
ill-ventilated pill-box on the Passchendaele Ridge, the lights and
music and color of a music-hall seem as a foretaste of Paradise.
And that was what Desmond Okewood thought as a few hours later he found
himself with Maurice Strangwise in the stalls of the vast Palaceum
auditorium. In the unwonted luxury of evening clothes he felt clean and
comfortable, and the cigar he way smoking was the climax of one of
Julien’s most esoteric efforts.
The cards on either side of the proscenium opening bore the words:
“Deputy Turn.” On the stage was a gnarled old man with ruddy cheeks and
a muffler. a seedy top hat on his head, a coaching whip in his hand,
the old horse bus-driver of London in his habit as he had lived. The
old fellow stood there and just talked to the audience of a fine
sporting class of men that petrol has driven from the streets, without
exaggerated humor or pathos. Desmond, himself a born Cockney, at once
fell under the actor’s spell and found all memories of the front
slipping away from him as the old London street characters succeeded
one another on the stage. Then the orchestra blared out, the curtain
descended, and the house broke into a great flutter of applause.
Desmond, luxuriating in his comfortable stall puffed at his cigar and
fell into a pleasant reverie.
He was contrasting the ghastly nightmare of mud and horrors from which
he had only just emerged with the scene of elegance, of civilization;
around him.
Suddenly, his attention became riveted on the stage. The atmosphere of
the theatre had changed. Always quick at picking up “influences,”
Desmond instantly sensed a new mood in the throngs around him. A
presence was in the theatre, an instinct-awakening, a material
influence. The great audience was strangely hushed. The air was heavy
with the scent of incense. The stringed instruments and oboes in the
orchestra were wandering into rhythmic [Updater’s note: a line appears
to be missing from the source here] dropped.
Maurice touched his elbow.
“There she is!” he said.
Desmond felt inclined to shake him off roughly. The interruption jarred
on him. For he was looking at this strangely beautiful girl with her
skin showing very brown beneath a wonderful silver tiara-like
headdress, and in the broad interstices of a cloth-of-silver robe with
short, stiffly wired-out skirt. She was seated, an idol, on a
glittering black throne, at her feet with their tapering dyed nails a
fantastically attired throng of worshipers.
The idol stirred into life, the music of the orchestra died away. Then
a tom-tom began to beat its nervous pulse-stirring throb, the strident
notes of a reed-pipe joined in and the dancer, raised on her toes on
the dais, began to sway languorously to and fro. And so she swayed and
swayed with sinuously curving limbs while the drums throbbed out faster
with ever-shortening beats, with now and then a clash of brazen cymbals
that was torture to overwrought nerves.
The dancer was the perfection of grace. Her figure was lithe and supple
as a boy’s. There was a suggestion of fire and strength and agility
about her that made one think of a panther as she postured there
against a background of barbaric color. The grace of her movements, the
exquisite blending of the colors on the stage, the skillful grouping of
the throng of worshipers, made up a picture which held the audience
spellbound and in silence until the curtain dropped.
Desmond turned to find Strangwise standing up.
“I thought of just running round behind the scenes for a few minutes,”
he said carelessly.
“What, to see Nur-el-Din? By Jove, I’m coming, too!” promptly exclaimed
Desmond.
Strangwise demurred. He didn’t quite know if he could take him: there
might be difficulties: another time... But Desmond got up resolutely.
“I’ll be damned if you leave me behind, Maurice,” he laughed, “of
course I’m coming, too! She’s the most delightful creature I’ve ever
set eyes on!”
And so it ended by them going through the pass-door together.