Carfew Produces

by Edgar Wallace

By EDGAR WALLACE

Author of "Sanders of the River," "Private Selby" "The Council of Justice," "Grey Timothy," "The People of the River," etc.

THERE is an uninteresting part to every theatre—a part which is so isolated from the luxury of the auditorium and from the glamour and mystery of the stage as to be associated with neither. It is usually reached from a frowsy little side-street through an ugly narrow entrance. The stone stairs are steep, and the flagged landings are restricted to the accommodation of one portly tenor and a large soprano. As many as four juvenile "leads" have passed one another on these dismal gas-lit spaces; but then juvenile "leads" are notoriously thin and willowy and supple, and it is possible, by flexion and an adroit manipulation of bodies, for quite a number of juvenile "leads" of both sexes to pass and repass in the most confined spaces with no other misadventure than the catching of a loose hook in an astrachan collar or the mysterious whitening of a politely-raised sleeve, due probably to the brushing against a damask cheek in passing,

No doors lead from stairway or landing. The walls are solid and unpromising. They are dull yellow, and have a make-believe dado of dull red, with an inch-deep black line to mark where wall and dado meet.

You climb and climb till you reach a door which ungraciously says "Manager, Private." Other information is occasionally displayed on a hanging card or on type-written notices recklessly pasted upon the panels of the door. These are to the effect that callers can only be seen by appointment, that silence is to be regarded as a polite form of refusal, that artistes will be kept to the strict terms of their contracts, and that no gagging of a political character will be permitted.

The particular theatre which is dealt with here is in Wraybourn Street, London, West Central. It is the Gorgon, and the inevitable flight of stairs from the inevitable side-street leads to an office which, in addition to the announcements of which an assortment is given above, bore at the time covered by this narrative the magic words "Mr. Felix Carfew."

His office was a small one. It conveyed the impression to anyone who had mounted the breathless stairs that it was hardly worth while. It had been papered daringly, by an earlier occupant, with a pattern which was unnecessarily busy.

That this was the well-head of Art was indicated by the ceiling decorations, for a chromographic Cupid lounged on a couple of convenient clouds and amused himself, as boys will, by aiming a pink dart at Carfew's blue tobacco jar.

Carfew himself was an impresario.

He wore a tall shiny hat on the back of his head, and lavender spats. The walls and the mantelshelf—on which reposed the tobacco jar aforesaid—were covered with unframed photographs.

Carfew had emerged from the chrysalis of management. A young man of sanguine temperament who finds a three hundred night success at the first time of asking may be excused the conviction that "failure" is a word which Fate has obligingly expunged from the lexicon of life.

Carfew had taken the Gorgon Theatre without one single doubt as to the wisdom of his proceedings. Parker, who was his broker, broke the habits of a lifetime and came westward in the forenoon, at Carfew's earnest request.

He climbed the interminable stairs, examined with great earnestness the notices pasted to Carfew's door, and found his client in his important occupation.

"Sit down, Parker," said the young man. "I'm frightfully busy, but I can give you ten minutes."

Parker, who knew his Carfew, ignored the impertinence.

"Well," he asked, "have you quarrelled with your leading lady yet?"

Carfew's smile exactly blended the qualities of pity and superiority which is calculated to reduce the person to whose subjugation it is directed to a condition of pulp.

"There's a lot of nonsense talked about the stage," he said. "The manager of the Œdipus told me to-day that he'd been two months casting a play. I cast mine in four hours."

"Perhaps he isn't as clever as you," reflected the unimpressed Parker, rubbing his chin with the gold head of his walking-stick.

Carfew eyed him severely.

"There is no 'perhaps' about it," he said; "it's a question of instinct and intuition. I was born with the stage sense, Parker; it's a gift—you can't cultivate it. It grows with you."

"With you," corrected Parker, "not with me, I am happy to say."

"I cast the play in four hours," said Carfew complacently. "I took a trip from London to Margate by steamer, and did the whole thing between Old Swan Pier and the Pavilion."

"Who is your producer?" said Parker.

"I am producing 'Wastepaper' myself," said Carfew, with an assumption of carelessness. "After all, as I say, the stage sense is born with one; it is a divine gift."

Parker made a disrespectful noise.

"I've always thought you were a born something," he said crudely.

Carfew had chosen his play with some care. It was a problem play. It was the sort of play which, in book form, would have been barred at the libraries. "It dealt with life," explained Carfew enthusiastically—"real life that ordinarily is never touched upon save by daring Sunday newspapers with a large and decadent reading public."

The author was unknown.

"Theophilus Grudge," said Carfew impressively. "Have you ever heard of him?"

"No," confessed Parker. "Is it a man?"

"The name of Theo Grudge," said Carfew, in a voice shaken by emotion, "will ring through London. He has the original view. This play may not be popular. I do not aim at popularity. My object is to raise the theatrical art."

Parker yawned insolently.

The play, went on Carfew, was about two women and a man. One of the women loved the man, and the other was married to him. It was very sad. Then came another man who had heard that the first man was a convict, and told his wife. The wife said "Ah!" and clutched her throat. Then the second man went to the lady who loved the first man, and told her, and she said "Ah!" too, but clutched his throat. Then the first man came in and said, "What does this mean?" to his wife, and she said, "I know all—all—all!"

"Ah!" said Parker thoughtfully. "Then it's not a musical comedy?"

Carfew choked.

"It's a play," he said shortly, "which will pull all London."

Parker maintained his attitude of studied politeness.

"In the meantime," he mid, "I am not sure whether you're pulling my leg or not. I think the best thing you can do is to get a little humour into it. Who is rehearsing it, by the way?"

"I am," said Carfew, with a cough.

"Ah, yes," said Parker offensively.

It is the easiest thing in the world to produce a play for a London audience, and "Wastepaper" was no exception. You simply assemble your company, hand the members their parts, and there you are. The responsibility thereafter lies very largely with Providence.

Carfew's view of life was that all the past had been ordered for his comfort.

Thus Edison had been born on a certain day in order that he might have his many electric appliances ready against Carfew reaching maturity. Stephenson had worked with no other object in view than that he should have railways shipshape by the time Carfew could afford to travel first-class. Marconi—— But why enumerate the folk who owed their existence and their fame to the fact that they were necessary to Carfew's well-being?

Carfew was a theatrical manager by accident. He had produced a play which had fluked a success. Carfew took credit for the joyful result, for the division of responsibility as between Carfew and Providence was so arranged that, if things turned out well, Carfew had succeeded in spite of Providence, and if they failed, they had failed in spite of Carfew.

He walked down the stone stairs after Parker had left, passed through a narrow passage, through innumerable iron-guarded doorways, and came to a large open space of flooring which sloped gradually down to a congested border of electric bulbs. Beyond this was a dark and cheerless auditorium sheeted with holland.

The stage—for such it was, and it will serve no useful purpose to deceive you—was occupied by some dozen ladies and gentlemen. They wore ordinary clothing. The ladies wore furs and veils, and such as were on speaking terms with one another were discussing their former triumphs, each taking no notice whatever of anything the other said, but waiting for an opening which would allow them to continue their own stories, which the other had so meanly interrupted.

"… I couldn't find my make-up anywhere, so I just dabbed a bit of powder on my nose and walked on. The play was going badly till then, but from the moment I stepped on to the stage it just woke up. There were three curtains after the first act. …"

"Of course I had to gag. She was fluffing all over the shop—didn't know a line, my dear. If it hadn't been for me, the play would have been a dead failure. They called me in front six times, and naturally she was as wild——"

"I had to take on the part at ten minutes' notice, and learn my lines during the waits. I don't know how it is, but I seem to have the gift of acting … The papers were full of it the next morning."

Carfew heard the scraps with growing irritation. Nothing annoyed him more than egotism in people. His ideas on the stage had undergone an extraordinary revolution since his first association with the men and women who claimed it as their profession. They were so stupid; they listened to him with such evident boredom; they had so few interests, and knew so little about the world.

They had received his story of how he had saved Europe from war, by his dexterous handling of the German Ambassador, with polite "Oh, yeses!" and "How wonderfuls!" They had listened with patent weariness to his account of how he preserved the Spanish succession, and it was only when he spoke of the immense sums of money which he had made by the exercise of his qualities that they regarded him with the admiring interest which a small and select gathering of the Munchausen Lodge might have displayed toward Past Grand Master Ananias.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," said Carfew briskly, "we will run through the first act. Clear the stage, please. Enter the Duke of Bulberry."

The Duke of Bulberry, a pale young man in a straw hat, took farewell of his friends in one comprehensive glance and retired to the wings. Here he rid himself of his inertia and came back briskly.

"Nine o'clock!" he said, addressing the melancholy stalls. "She promised to be 'ere by eight. Well, you can never trust a woman to keep an appointment."

Carfew raised his hand.

"Where did you get that line from?" he demanded.

The Duke looked across at him with a pained expression.

"I put that in, Mr. Carfew," he said patiently. "It's a line that always gets a laugh."

Carfew breathed heavily.

"You're not supposed to get a laugh," he said. "You are a tragic duke. You have lost money—you don't joke about such things. Please speak the lines that the gods—that the author has given you. And be careful about your h's."

The duke stiffened.

"I 'ope," he said, with a touch of hauteur, "that I can speak the King's English, Mr. Carfew. I 'aven't been told durin' my eight years' experience on the stage, both legitimate and the 'alls, that I've trangressed the bounds, so to speak. I've played with the leading artistes of the day. I've been a top liner on the bill at the leadin' vaudeville——"

"Go on with the part, please," said Carfew.

The young man drew a long breath.

"It is now nine o'clock," he said, "and she 'as not come! What can keep 'er? Ah, 'ere she is!"

"Come on, Miss Tilby," said Carfew. But Miss Tilby at that moment was explaining to an envious small-part lady the extraordinary fascination which she wielded over provincial audiences.

"Miss Tilby—Miss Tilby!"

In various tones, from the indignant one of Carfew to the gentler admonitory of her dearest friend, the presence of Miss Tilby was demanded.

She came on the stage a little flurried.

"Sorry," she said.

"Ah, 'ere she is!" said the duke encouragingly.

"Why, duke," said Miss Tilby, coming down stage and offering a gloved hand, "I have kept you waiting! But I've been to visit a poor woman, and it is better that dukes should wait than that the poor should suffer."

"In the name of Heaven," said Carfew, pale but determined, "who told you to say that? It's not in the play, and it's nothing whatever to do with the play."

"I put it in, Mr. Carfew," said the lady coldly. "It seems to me that this play wants strengthening up a bit, and it's a line that always gets the hand in the provinces."

"Cut it out," said Carfew.

Miss Tilby shrugged her beautiful shoulders.

"If I don't know what makes a play——" she began.

"You don't," said Carfew brutally.

"I know a great deal more than you," flamed the girl. "Mr. Carfew, let me tell you that I am the idol of the provinces. I play to more money than any other lady in the business. When I was in Wolverhampton, they ran special trains to bring the people into the town to hear me. And I'm not going to be spoken to as if I was the dust beneath your feet!"

"I——" said Carfew.

"I am the idol of the provinces!" she went on, with an angry sob in her voice. "I've played in America, South Africa, and Australia. Merciful Heavens, that I should have come to this!"

"You can say this," said Carfew to the representative of The Dramatic News, "that the idea of 'Wastepaper' being a problem play is quite erroneous. It is a forceful drama—in fact, by certain standards it is a melodrama. After all, is not melodrama the very essence of dramatic presentation? The scene where the duke throws the heroine into the Seine, and she is rescued by the hero disguised as a gendarme, is going to be the thrill of London."

The reporter went away, and Carfew returned thoughtfully to the stage. It wanted a fortnight to the opening, and his leading lady had thrown up her part, and, so far, no other leading lady had pleased him. Unless, of course——

A girl who was sitting on the angry waves which distinguished the second act, rose as he walked on to the stage. She showed her even white teeth in a smile.

"Hullo!" said Carfew, brightening up. "You're Miss Carrington, aren't you?"

"That's me," she said brightly. "I got your 'phone message. What do you want?"

He explained that Miss Tilby had left him. She was quite unsuitable for the part; she hadn't the voice or the presence or the manner. She couldn't "get it over the foot-lights." He did not say that Miss Tilby had thrown up the part. He was representing the managerial side of the business, and from that aspect a leading lady never throws up—she is just unsuitable and cannot "get it over."

The girl stared at him seriously as he outlined the plot, then shook her head regretfully.

"Drama isn't in my line," she said. "I'm straight comedy. Why don't you make it straight comedy? Cut out the murder in the second act and take them to Paris. I could do a solo dance that would bring the house down. Really, even straight comedy is a bit out of my line."

"My dear girl——" began Carfew, but she stopped him.

"Listen to me, Bright Eyes," she said kindly, laying her hand on his arm. "Your old play won't run two weeks. The public doesn't want murder; it wants amusement. Try it as a straight comedy—a foreign nobleman courting an American heiress, and all that sort of thing."

Carfew sent for his business manager.

"Have you put out the billing?" he asked.

His business manager, who was known as Frank, and had apparently no other name, nodded familiarly.

"What have you called 'Wastepaper'?" asked Carfew.

Frank looked round the room for inspiration.

"We've called it 'Wastepaper,'" he said cautiously.

"Don't get funny with me!" roared Carfew. "Is it a tragedy, a drama, or a farce?"

Frank drew himself up.

"It is called a 'play,' Mr. Carfew," he said stiffly, "and I'd like to say that I'm not used to being addressed in this manner you employ. I've been managing houses now for twenty years, and I'm supposed to be the very best man in the profession. I've refused good offers to come to you. Every proprietor in London is after me."

"They've got you," said Carfew bitterly.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

A pale and haggard Carfew sat in the stalls a week before the opening. His hands were pushed into his trousers pockets, his silk hat was on the back of his head. A weary orchestra glared back at him with malice and resentment, but Carfew did not care.

The leading lady stood by the footlights, her hand on her hips, and scowled at him, and the remainder of the company stood around, looking at each other with significant smiles.

"Say," said the lady by the footlights, "you don't expect me to come on after the comedy scene?"

Carfew nodded.

"Well, you can have your part," said the lady. "I don't wonder Miss Carrington threw it up."

She spoke excitedly, and with an accent which told of a youth spent in an exclusive seminary in Portland, Maine.

"You understand, Mr. Care-few, that I star in my country. I was the idol o' Broadway and the best-known actress in the Eastern States, An' if you think I'm going to stand for having my entrance killed——"

Carfew rose slowly to his feet.

"Miss van Ryan," he said, "to please you I've turned this play into a musical comedy, to please you I've engaged a ragtime chorus and dressed the play regardless of expense. If there is any other suggestion you care to make, just slip it across."

"Say," she cried, and leant across the footlights, "can't I make my entrance from the orchestra?"

Carfew laughed long and wildly.

"Make it from the roof, Amelia," he said.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

The dress rehearsal of "The Wastepaper Girl" was not an immense success. Ever and anon the new American producer would say from the stage—

"How did it go?"

And as ever, Carfew would reply hollowly: "Rotten!"

The Duke of Bulberry was out of voice. His entrance song—

Though I am a duke,
It is only a fluke
That I managed the title to snaffle.
My young Cousin Fred
Fell out of bed,
And I won the rank in a raffle,

did not "get over."

Then the new beauty chorus went all agley. Carfew distinctly saw three girls pointing their right toes when they should have been jiggling their left toes. And the leading comedian forgot his lines about Home Rule, and the second comedian said: "Why, who is coming this way? By Jove, it is Lydia Kinsella!" (Chord.)

The latest leading lady—she was English—was annoyed.

"You don't expect me to drift on to the stage like a piece o' paper, do you?" she asked wrathfully. "I want people to know who I am. I've played in the best theatres in England——"

"And you're the idol of Birmingham," said Carfew savagely, "and the police stop the traffic when you start singing. I know all about it. Give her a chord, Aleck."

This to the weary conductor, the only friend Carfew had by this time.

The first act proceeded, the second act was worse.

In the end Carfew made a little speech.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "after this play has been produced, I hope you will all keep in touch with me. I am particularly anxious to mail you a verbatim account of my bankruptcy proceedings. In my evidence before the Official Receiver, I shall mention you all by name, and explain how much acting, singing, and dancing each one of you contributed to my failure. Good night!"

*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

"The Wastepaper Girl" was obviously a success. Carfew knew that he was in for a long run before the curtain finally fell, before the frantic calls for "Author!" brought him to the footlights.

He supped with Parker that night.

"What I like about your play," said Parker, "is its uplifting quality. Never, in one play, have I seen anything so moving. Seriously, Carfew, you are rather a wonder. How do you do these things?"

"Parker," said Carfew solemnly, "I am the best producer in Europe. I've got Reinhardt lashed to the mast. I'm the idol of the profession, and the people will do anything for me. I just know what the public want, and I go for it. Do you get me, Steve?"

"I get you," said Parker, without exactly comprehending what he was getting.

{Copyright, 1914, by Edgar Wallace, in the United States of America.}