THE VANISHING “DOUBLE”
The home of the star where the reception was held was the most gorgeous
place that Linda and Dot had ever seen. It was more like a palace than a
home—out in the rich, exclusive Beverly Hills section, among those of
other famous actors and actresses whose salaries soared into the
thousands. Compared to it, the Claverings seemed almost paupers, yet
they were the wealthiest people Linda had ever known.
“It’s just like a fairy-tale,” whispered Dot, as the girls left their
evening cloaks in a beautiful blue satin boudoir. “But what is there for
a girl like this to look forward to? Why, she has everything!”
“Almost too much,” said Linda.
“But her fame probably won’t last more than ten years at the most. I
read somewhere that even that is a long time for an actress. After that
she has to take character parts, and ‘what have you’.”
“That seems tragic—giving up what you like to do best. I expect to fly
till I die.”
“That’s just what your Aunt Emily says—only she means it differently.
That you’ll meet your death in the air.”
Linda laughed, and she and Dot hastened to join Mr. Von Goss, who was
waiting for them at the foot of the marble staircase.
“I sort of feel as if we were butting in,” whispered Linda. “Do I look
terribly countrified—or small-townish?”
“My dear, you’re as pretty as any star here, and lots prettier than
some,” replied Dot, reassuringly.
“Well, you surely look sweet in that peach chiffon, Dot. You look like
Paris itself.”
“Of course I do!” laughed the other girl. “I’m not going to have any
inferiority complex. And don’t you, either, Linda!”
Taking them into his charge, Mr. Von Goss led the girls about the
luxurious rooms, introducing Linda to everybody as the most famous girl
flier in the world. It was evident from his manner that he was entirely
convinced that she was the real Linda.
The effect of the reception as a whole was startling, overpowering.
Linda felt almost as if she wanted to gasp for breath, so overcome was
she by the brilliancy of it all. It was only when she met Ann Harding,
her favorite actress, that she really felt at home.
Miss Harding was amazingly beautiful—far lovelier than she seemed on the
screen, if such a thing were possible. Her rich, low voice was charming,
her complexion perfect, her golden hair like the pictures of a fairy
queen. Yet there was something sad in her beautiful brown eyes. She and
her husband had recently parted.
“Oh, I am so thrilled to meet you, Linda Carlton!” she said, holding
Linda’s hand in hers. “I am only an amateur flier, but I love it so. And
I have read about every single thing you have ever done.”
Linda blushed deeply at the praise; she wished she could summon courage
to tell Miss Harding that she was her favorite star, but she was too shy
to utter the words. She was afraid it might sound like idle flattery,
thought up on the spur of the moment.
Dot, however, came to her rescue.
“You’re Linda’s favorite actress, Miss Harding,” she announced, calmly.
“She goes to see all your pictures—two or three times. Especially the
one where you played a character named ‘Linda.’ Do you remember?”
“Indeed I do,” replied Miss Harding. “And I loved that part.”
The three girls sat down in a corner and actually were able to talk
flying without any interruption for about ten minutes. Then someone came
to claim Miss Harding, and Mr. Von Goss appeared for his protegees.
Nothing was said, during the entire reception, of the trouble Linda was
in, or of the fact that another girl was actually playing her part. The
director had asked the girls not to mention the fact, and they were glad
to accede to his wishes.
He took them to another room, a spacious hall with a beautiful shiny
floor and a marvellous orchestra, and introduced some younger men to
them, so that they could enjoy the dancing. Then a sumptuous supper was
served, and the party broke up before midnight.
“I never thought the reception would be over so early, Mr. Von Goss,”
remarked Dot, as the director drove the girls back to their hotel in his
car. “I always thought Hollywood went in for wild parties.”
The man shook his head.
“No. If anything, the stars keep earlier hours than ordinary people.
Many of them have to be on location early in the morning, and their work
is long and tiring. All the considerate hostesses arrange for their
parties to be early affairs.”
“One more mistaken idea shot to pieces,” laughed Dot.
“We’ve had a marvellous time, Mr. Von Goss,” said Linda, as the car
stopped at the Ambassador. “We never can thank you enough. And I’m so
glad we could go tonight, for we’ll probably be flying home tomorrow.”
The man raised his eyebrows.
“I’m not so sure we can clear things up by then. But I hope so. At any
rate, I’ll meet you both at the airport at two o’clock in the
afternoon.”
The girls said good night to Mr. Von Goss and went to their room, but
they found that they were not sleepy. The party had been too exciting to
settle down and forget it so soon.
“It does kind of get into your blood,” remarked Linda, as she took off
her most elaborate evening gown. “All the rush and splendor and
excitement, I mean.”
“Weakening?” teased Dot.
“You mean go into pictures myself, if I had the chance? No—never! Why,
you can’t tell me Ann Harding’s happy. Or Joan Crawford.... No, it’s not
satisfying, like flying. I know what I love best, and I mean to stick to
it!”
“Wise girl!” was the comment. “But you surely have Mr. Von Goss
worried.”
“No wonder. He says he advanced that other girl fifteen thousand
dollars, just for the use of my name, and he’s already spent at least a
hundred thousand on the story and the sets.”
“It seems as if you just couldn’t let him down, Linda.”
“I’m not letting him down. I never made any promises to him. He’s being
let down because he was so careless.”
For at least an hour the girls continued to discuss the party and the
stars, until at last they settled down to sleep, thankful that they had
no need to get up early in the morning.
They combined breakfast and lunch the following day at noon, and went to
the flying field a little before two o’clock to be on hand when the
false Linda should arrive.
Linda was intensely excited. She tried over and over to picture to
herself what this meeting would be like, whether the girl would be
humble and sorry, whether she would try to work on Linda’s sympathies by
telling of some pressing need she had for money, or whether she would be
flippant and self-assured, still insisting that she was the real Linda
Carlton.
Mr. Von Goss’s car appeared shortly after Linda and Dot arrived, and
they recognized Mr. Leslie Sprague in the back seat. Both men nodded to
the girls, who had dismissed their taxi and were standing beside one of
the hangars, talking to an attendant.
“See your names in the paper, girls?” he was asking them.
“No. When?” inquired Dot.
The mechanic picked up a newspaper and handed it to them. There was a
picture, somewhat poor, to be sure, of Linda and Dot in their flying
suits and an account of their arrival, recalling the incident of their
strange landing at Kansas City. Underneath were the names, “Miss Sallie
Slocum and Miss May Manton.”
“How did they ever get that picture?” demanded Dot.
“Snapped it when you weren’t looking. Those newspaper reporters are up
to all sorts of tricks. The beacon light is bright, and he had a special
camera.”
Linda looked serious.
“This may make trouble for us, Dot,” she said, in a low voice.
The director and his secretary got out of the car and advanced towards
the girls just as an airplane loomed into view. Linda stared excitedly
at the sky, trying to make out what kind of plane it was. It was not an
autogiro.
“There she is!” shouted Mr. Von Goss, and Mr. Sprague took off his hat
and waved it violently into the air.
“The secretary’s pretty keen about the false Linda, or I miss my guess,”
whispered Dot, in her companion’s ear. “Look how excited he is! How
wildly he’s waving!”
The aviatrix, who was just overhead, suddenly banked her plane, and made
a turn to the left. Then she nosed her plane higher into the air.
“Doing some stunts for us!” exclaimed Mr. Von Goss. “She’s a great
little flier, all right—”
“She’s—she’s going away!” faltered Linda, in deepest disappointment.
“Probably forgotten something,” remarked Leslie Sprague, casually. “I
was almost certain, anyhow, that she said three o’clock—not two. She’ll
most likely be back at three.”
“You mean to say we’ll have to wait a whole hour?” demanded Dot, as the
plane disappeared in the distance.
“That’s up to you,” returned Sprague, nonchalantly.
Mr. Von Goss reached into his pocket and extracted a clipping. It was
the newspaper picture of Dot and Linda, with the fictitious names under
it.
“Sprague showed me this,” he said, handing the clipping to Linda, with a
suspicious look in his eyes.
Linda trembled in spite of herself, but Dot immediately explained how it
had happened. Mr. Von Goss, however, looked doubtful of the truth of the
story, and Sprague listened with a nasty grin on his face.
“We’ll have to talk this over later,” the director said finally. “I have
an appointment now. As soon as the girl arrives, you better all come
straight to the studio, where we can compare licenses, and so on.”
“Where is mine?” demanded Linda.
“Sprague’s keeping it. He’ll hand it over when the time comes.”
With a brief nod of good-bye, the two men drove away together, and the
girls stood watching them in dismay.
“Something tells me that that young lady won’t be back here,” Dot said
dismally.
“I’m afraid not. Maybe she even saw us, for her plane was pretty low.
And if she had glasses—”
“Of course she had glasses! No girl who plays a tricky game like this
one is going to go about unprepared. It would be like a gangster without
a gun.”
They waited impatiently for over an hour, but nothing happened, and even
the men did not return. Other planes flew into the busy airport, landed
and took off, but there was no sign of Linda’s “double.”
Bored with the inactivity, they strolled over to the hangar where the
Ladybug was housed, and looked her over.
“I’d fly over to the studio if I only had my licenses,” said Linda. “But
I hate to break laws—even though it isn’t my fault.”
“That man has no right to keep them!” stormed Dot. “I’ll bet Sprague’s
at the bottom of this.”
“He’s still trying to protect his girl-friend, I’m sure of that....
Well, Dot, we may as well go back to the hotel, for if she should
arrive, I feel confident that Mr. Von Goss would call us there.”
Linda’s confidence, however, was sadly misplaced. For no one at the
studio called to inform her that the other girl landed her plane right
on the set a little after three o’clock.
With the neatness of a born flier, she brought her plane to the ground,
climbed out of the cockpit and strolled into Mr. Von Goss’s office. The
director had not yet returned, but Sprague was sitting at his desk. In a
few words he explained the situation, but before the girl could make any
reply, Mr. Von Goss walked in.
“You’ve heard the story, Miss—Carlton?” he asked, hesitating a little
over the name.
The girl, who really resembled Linda to a remarkable degree, laughed and
shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m used to things like that,” she said. “It used to worry me at first,
but I never pay any attention to them now. Why, Mr. Von Goss, you can
see for yourself how absurd the claim is! The girl’s real name—Sallie
Slocum—has been printed in the newspaper twice.”
“Yes, of course that’s true. But how about those license cards?”
“Your detective will soon prove them counterfeits. And the signatures
forged.”
Still, the man hesitated.
“The other girl said something about taking a test. Said she was the
only licensed mechanic in the country. That made it sound pretty genuine
to me.”
Again the girl laughed.
“That was a clever ruse,” she said. “But probably Miss Slocum has passed
that test since I did, and thinks she knows more than I would.... No,
Mr. Von Goss, I haven’t time to fool around here taking tests. I’ve got
to be on my way tomorrow. So if you want me in the picture, you’ll have
to let me go through my stunts now.”
“I don’t see how it can be done—” began the director.
“Very well, then,” agreed the girl. “I’d better give you back your
check, because I’m really too busy to wait around here. After all, the
money doesn’t mean much to me—and I don’t need the publicity!”
Mr. Von Goss looked at her keenly. She must be the real Linda, he
thought, or she certainly wouldn’t talk like this. It never occurred to
him that she was acting.
“No—I don’t want to give up now. We’ll go through with your part of the
show.... Sprague, get the people on the wire....”
And so, while Linda and Dot were patiently waiting for their telephone
call at the hotel, the impostor almost completed her part in the
picture, promising to return for only a couple of hours’ work in the
morning.