Last Laugh, Mr. Moto Read online

  “Very good,” Mr. Durant answered. “You are very kind. I understood you would be. When Mr. Kingman arrives I’d like to have a conversation with him. I haven’t seen him lately, but he used to be quite a friend of mine.”

  “Why,” said Henry, “there’s nothing easier, Mr. Durant. I’ll send him directly up to your room, if that is what you want.”

  “That is most obliging of you,” said Mr. Durant. “Perhaps if you will show me the room I might go up now. My bag is at the airline office, if you will send for it. I am rather tired. I have just got off the plane.”

  “You did entirely right in coming here first,” Henry said. “It’s a nice room. Just one other guest upstairs—a Swedish gentleman, but I am sure he won’t disturb you.”

  “A Swede?” said Mr. Durant. “What’s a Swede doing here?”

  Henry shrugged his shoulders.

  “A mate from one of the banana boats,” he said. “Just here for a rest. He won’t disturb you.”

  “Well, let us go,” said Mr. Durant, and he nodded at Bob Bolles and smiled, and Mr. Durant and Henry walked up a flight of stairs behind the bar while Bob Bolles sat staring into his half-empty glass. He was glad that Henry was gone. It seemed to him that Henry’s manner was particularly greasily unctuous that morning. It was none of his business, but there was always something mysterious about Henry’s friends. He had seen other curious people come in and out of Henry’s, but that was what you could expect in a gambling joint. He sat there waiting for Henry to come back, and he did not like it.

  “Bolles,” he said to himself, “you’re mighty near on the beach.”

  CHAPTER II

  When Henry came back ten minutes later his hair was as slick as ever and his walk was sprightly, but Bob could see that Henry was worried about something.

  “I didn’t know you ran a hotel here,” Bob said.

  “What?” said Henry. “What did you say?” Henry was looking out the open door to the street and he seemed to have forgotten that Bob was there.

  “I didn’t know you ran a hotel,” Bob said.

  “Oh, not a hotel, really,” Henry answered. “Just a place where a few personal friends sometimes stop.” Henry drew a colored handkerchief from his breast pocket and patted his forehead softly with it.

  “Oh,” Bob said, “so this Durant is a friend of yours.”

  “A business acquaintance,” Henry said. “Let me see. What was it we were talking about?”

  “About the police,” Bob said.

  “The police?” Henry’s hand moved with a quick, involuntary jerk and his colored handkerchief hung limply between his fingers.

  “Yes,” Bob said. “You were saying the police say I make too much trouble. Well, it looks as though a cop is coming in here now. That’s Inspector Jameson, isn’t it? How are they going, Inspector?”

  Henry gave a startled look at the door. He had not seen the new visitor as soon as Bob had, but when he did Henry smiled and put his handkerchief back in his pocket. In Henry’s business he naturally had an understanding with the island police.

  “Oh,” he said, “good morning, Inspector Jameson.” A red-faced, middle-aged man in carefully tailored white ducks and with a close-cropped mustache and very square shoulders walked toward them. Inspector Jameson was carrying a swagger stick and he had the appearance of an English sergeant major. His uncompromising steadiness showed that he had been in the Army once.

  “Hello, Chief,” Bob said. “How’s the Empire holding up this morning?”

  “Now, now,” said Inspector Jameson. “That will be enough of that. The Empire can do very well without being asked for by the likes of you.”

  “All right,” Bob said. “It was just a courteous question. I like the Empire and I can’t help being worried about it.”

  “Good morning, sir,” Henry said. “A lovely day, isn’t it?”

  Inspector Jameson disregarded the question. He walked over to the table and halted, looking at Bob Bolles in a steely way.

  “I don’t like jokes,” Inspector Jameson said. “If I had ever had you on parade, sir, you would have learned what was fitting. The trouble with the Empire is all the silly people—French, Germans and Americans.”

  “Yes,” Bob answered. “How about a drink, Inspector?”

  Inspector Jameson looked at the bottle on the table with stony distaste.

  “No,” he said. “This is an official call. I’ve been looking for you, Mr. Bolles.”

  “All right,” Bob said. “Nice to see you, Inspector.”

  Inspector Jameson cleared his throat. His face was lined with disapproval and distaste. His voice was strictly official, according to regulations.

  “Mr. Bolles,” the Inspector said, “I am here on the line of duty and you know me and I know you. You have been here two weeks with your schooner, making, if I may say so, a problem of yourself when the police have other things to think about. And I don’t want none of your lip either, Mr. Bolles. It was the same the last time you were here and the time before that. We have tried to make allowances, since regulations are to make matters happy for visitors on this island.”

  “But I am happy,” Bob said. “I’m always happy. You ought to learn to relax, Inspector.”

  “None of that, sir,” the Inspector said. “You are a man, sir, who should be a gentleman. Your kind is very bad, sir, when it goes bad. We have tried to make every allowance, but it will have to stop.”

  “Oh,” Bob said, “will it?”

  “It will,” the Inspector said. “I should suggest that you and your boat and your nigger leave here in twenty-four hours.”

  Bob stood up. He felt his face growing red.

  “Do you realize,” he asked, “that you’re talking to a United States citizen?”

  The Inspector watched him, but he did not appear impressed.

  “We know all about you,” he said. “We know about every bit of riffraff that drops into this town. You’d be wise to remember what I said, Mr. Bolles. We should like it if you were not here tomorrow.”

  Inspector Jameson turned slowly on his heel and walked majestically to the street, while law and order walked invisible behind him. Bob Bolles had seen his kind before in a dozen other British colonies. He had laughed, but Inspector Jameson stood for the British Empire. He was the sergeant who looked after the black sheep in Kipling’s poem. He was the thin, red line of heroes. He was Waterloo and Dunkirk. Bob Bolles looked up at Henry.

  “The British can turn out a model,” he said.

  Henry did not answer. He was watching Inspector Jameson cross the street.

  “You read about them,” Bob said, “but you can’t believe it. He doesn’t think, does he? He just reacts. An Army man, isn’t he?”

  Henry did not answer.

  “I never had a run-in with that kind before,” Bob said, “except once when the ship called at Singapore.” Suddenly his eyes grew narrow and he looked hard at Henry. “It couldn’t be, not possibly—or could it—that you have been complaining to get me out of here?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Oh, no, Mr. Bolles,” he said. “Why, you and I are friends.”

  “Then lend me some money,” Bob said.

  Henry glanced toward the street. He had a habit of looking in all directions at once.

  “I can do better for you,” he said, “because I’m really a friend of yours, Mr. Bolles, and I can prove it. There was a party here yesterday, a nice young couple from New York. They want a yacht for charter. I spoke about you. I can get you four hundred dollars for a month.”

  “No one sails her but me,” Bob said. “I don’t want her piled up somewhere.”

  “You did not let me finish,” Henry answered, speaking quickly. “Four hundred dollars for charter, fifty dollars a week for yourself as skipper, twenty dollars for your boy as crew.”

  Bob Bolles whistled softly and poured himself another drink.

  “Who are they?” he asked. “They’re not your style.”

/>   “They were seeing the sights last night,” Henry said. “They came down from the Myrtle Bank. Their name is Kingman.”

  “Kingman?” Bob Bolles repeated. “Is he the one your friend upstairs wants to see?”

  Henry patted the folds of his yellow necktie and stood up a little straighter.

  “I said they were a nice young couple from New York,” Henry said. “Mr. Durant is a stranger to me and I am sure I don’t know how he knows Mr. Kingman, and besides it should not matter to you, should it?”

  “It just strikes me as funny,” Bob said. “You say they are nice people.”

  “Well, they are,” Henry said, “very nice people—New York socialites and very rich.”

  Bob Bolles laughed.

  “No nice people hang out in this joint, Henry—just boys like me. You might find a murderer here, but not a New York socialite.”

  Henry’s shoulders gave a little spasmodic jerk as though someone had hit him on the back, but he was hurt rather than angry.

  “You very well know,” he said, “that a great many socialites come down from the hotel for roulette. There is a certain romance and color here that they do not find at the hotel. That was how I met Mr. and Mrs. Kingman—just down for the roulette. They are very romantic. They wish to take a private cruise, because they are interested in lonely islands. And they pay well. Money is no object. What more do you want?”

  Bob wondered even then why Henry had been so generous as to offer him such a job, because it was not like Henry, but when a chance like that came out of the blue, all you could do was take it.

  “All right. I’ll take them if they’re fools enough. What’s your commission?”

  “Twenty pounds,” Henry said, “should be my commission, but for you it will be nothing. Shall I telephone them now to come here? You are hardly dressed to call at their hotel.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bob said. “Why aren’t you taking a commission? What is there fishy about this?”

  Henry’s face was always tranquil and it showed neither surprise nor hurt.

  “Don’t be a fool,” he said. “Look at me. Can I afford to do anything fishy? I’ll telephone them and perhaps you’d better go in back and shave.” He picked up the bottle and the glass. “And you might at least say thank you.”

  “Thanks, Henry,” Bob said. “But I’d like to know what you’re getting out of it. Oh, well, never mind.”

  Henry rang a bell for a boy to watch the barroom.

  “I shall telephone from my office,” he said. “You can shave in my own washroom with my own razor. You see, I really treat you as a friend.”

  They crossed the back courtyard which had been planted with palms and bougainvillaea to form at night a garish electrically lighted garden and came into Henry’s gambling parlor. The long room with its slot machines and chemin de fer and roulette tables seemed to be lying in a drunken sort of sleep waiting for evening. Louis, the croupier, and his assistants would not come on until evening and the room’s only occupants were two barefoot colored women emptying ash receptacles and aimlessly brushing the floor. Henry’s office, which was just beyond the tables, was furnished with a violent green carpet, two leather upholstered armchairs, a comfortable couch, and a battered roll-top desk and a telephone.

  Henry sat down at his desk and lifted up the telephone receiver. “The lavatory is over there. You will find the razor in the cabinet,” he said.

  Henry’s office and lavatory were both what Bob expected, neither of them very attractive and neither very clean. A towel on the rack by the washstand was smeared with lipstick. The medicine cabinet above it was filled with headache remedies, perfume bottles, an atomizer, and hair tonic. He was not particular, but somehow the idea of using Henry’s razor did not appeal to him. He could hear Henry calling the hotel and asking for Mr. Kingman.

  “Hey,” Bob called, “have you got any clean blades?”

  “Is not the old one all right?” Henry asked.… “Yes, Mr. Kingman, please.”

  There had been a time when Henry had treated him with an obsequious sort of respect. Bob knew that it was his fault that the relationship was changed, and it irked him that the proprietor of a cheap saloon and gambling joint should be doing him a favor.

  “Oh, Mr. Kingman,” he heard Henry say, “I have the man here now.”

  Henry was speaking of him in the tone he might have used when he told a customer that he would have two jolly girls and an automobile ready in half an hour.

  “Yes,” he heard Henry say, “I believe he would be glad to leave at five o’clock. Yes, I’ll have him waiting for you.”

  Bob wiped his face on the corner of the towel and walked into the office.

  “Now you look quite the gentleman,” Henry said. “They are coming right over—Mr. Kingman and his lady. It’s lucky for you this happened.”

  “Yes,” Bob said, “it’s lucky.”

  Bob saw Henry’s brown eyes examining his clean face and clothes.

  “You’re not wearing a necktie. I can lend you one.”

  “Listen, Henry,” Bob said. “If they don’t like me the way I am, to hell with it. What are you so damned anxious about?”

  There was no longer much doubt that Henry was going to get something handsome out of it somehow. They were back in the front room again when a car from the hotel drew up by the door and a man and a girl got out. Henry hurried to meet them and the three walked together to a corner table where Bob was standing. Their clothes looked like models from an expensive store window in New York—just the thing for that winter cruise in the tropics. They had an air of plenty of money and of tourists’ wide-eyed innocence, even before they spoke.

  “This is the man,” Henry said. “This is Mr. Kingman—Mr. Bolles.”

  Bob shook hands with Mr. Kingman, and Mr. Kingman’s hand was cool and very strong. He was a good-natured looking man in his middle thirties with an easy, pleasant smile.

  “Oh,” he said. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Bolles.”

  His accent had a careless drawl and the words were clipped in a way that reminded Bob of a British-educated European’s speech. It was the assured, hard-to-identify accent of a well-bred, widely-traveled man and Bob Bolles decided that he liked him. Mr. Kingman’s nose was thin and a little too long, his complexion was pale but healthy, his eyes and his mouth were both steady. When Mr. Kingman looked Bob over, the smile on his thin lips was reflected in his eyes, and Bob could not have helped smiling back.

  “We’re—we’re shot with luck to meet you, Mr. Bolles,” Mr. Kingman said, and Bob Bolles always remembered how Mr. Kingman hesitated, seeming to grope for the right colloquial phrase. “Let’s sit down and talk this over—with a bottle of champagne. This is Mrs. Kingman.”

  She was a tall girl, just the type he particularly liked. He imagined that she could dance beautifully. Her hair was dark, almost black, and her eyes were dark blue, and her face was tanned and healthy.

  “How do you do?” Bob said.

  She looked surprised when he spoke to her, as if she must have thought that he would be a good deal worse than he was.

  “Oh, Mac,” she said, “not champagne.”

  “Now, Helen,” Mr. Kingman said, “this is our vacation, dear.”

  She looked at Bob, as though she wanted to be sure that he understood.

  “He’s been working so hard,” she said. “Those New York law firms!”

  “Leo,” Henry called to the bar boy, “a bottle of Veuve Clicquot—on the house.”

  “Mr. Bolles,” Mrs. Kingman said, “I feel so much better, now that I’ve seen you. You look so perfectly reliable—and this is one of Mr. Kingman’s most absurd ideas.”

  Mr. Kingman smiled.

  “Now, wait a minute, sweet,” he said. “You know you promised, didn’t you, to let me do the talking? Maybe I’d better give you a picture of what’s in my mind, Mr. Bolles, before we get down to facts.” He raised his glass and laughed. “It’s simply that I’d like to get away from everythin
g for a while—telephone, telegraphs, everything. Maybe you’ve felt that way yourself.”

  “Yes,” Bob said, “I feel that way a good deal of the time.”

  “When you’re a—” Mr. Kingman began, and his forehead puckered slightly as though he found a momentary difficulty in thinking of the next word—“a kid, you have ideas which sometimes stay with you. Do you know what I mean?” He looked around the table almost appealingly. “When I was a kid I always thought of the tropics—lonely islands, the Spanish Main—you know. Maybe you read about pirates yourself once, Mr. Bolles.”

  “You’re in the right place for pirates,” Bob said, and he glanced at Henry. Mr. Kingman seemed lost in his own thoughts.

  “Those ideas stay with you sometimes—the sea, the loneliness of the sea. Now, back at home, I’ve done a lot of reading.”

  “And he never lets me interrupt him,” Mrs. Kingman said, “never.”

  “Well, now I’ve got my chance,” Mr. Kingman said. “I suppose it sounds silly to you, Mr. Bolles, but it came over me when I landed here, why not? Why not charter a comfortable boat and get off away from jazz music, off to islands that I’d read and dreamed about, where none of these cruises stop—off—” He paused again, as if trying to think of a word. “Off to loneliness.”

  He stopped and looked around the table, as though he had made a considerable effort and waited for an approving answer. Again Bob tried to analyze his speech. It seemed strange that Mr. Kingman kept striving to use colloquial expressions.

  “There are a lot of lonely islands, if that’s what you want,” Bob said.

  Mr. Kingman smiled happily at Mrs. Kingman.

  “You know,” he said, “this is just my luck, isn’t it? Now, I don’t know who you are, Mr. Bolles, from—from Adam, but you’re just what I’ve been looking for. I think we’re going to have a—a swell time. Don’t you like him, Helen?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Kingman said, “I do, Mac.”

  “There you are,” Mr. Kingman said. “I hope you don’t mind my being so informal, Captain, but it’s just as well to like someone if you’re going to sea with him. Now, they say you have a boat—”