The box from japan, p.21
The Box from Japan, page 21
“Yes,” agreed Harwood, “Mrs. Alwyndshire certainly should have been in this performance. But as you know, Sir Alfred, the performance does not go across the ocean on a regular wave broadcast, which could be secured for any hour, but on the so-called ether-stress beam, some Canadian’s invention. Have you heard of that?”
Sir Alfred nodded: “Oh yes, indeed.”
“For a solid 2-hour transmission like this,” Harwood went on, “the cost to the Americans who are putting on the test is somewhat less than by any other means of communication. But unfortunately, Sir Alfred, the ether-stress beam is tied up every week, week in and week out, from 8 o’clock each Wednesday evening—that is, Chicago time, Sir Alfred—till 4 in the morning Thursday, again Chicago time, under a contract by which the entire contents of the Midweek Pictorial and International News Weekly, of 39 Fleet Street, are reproduced complete in an American edition put out in New York and on press at the exact hour when the London one here goes on press—which is next noon—in New York. The black-and-white pictorial contents are merely telephotoed, but the text is set up automatically on the American Mergenthaler linotype machines, letter for letter, as it gets set up here in London, by a unique process of synchronized linotypes working with compressed air and perforated paper ribbons like the old-fashioned mechanical pianos, if you recall them. The linotypes, it seems, can be made to operate thus over any simple circuit, wire or beam, and since no bally high-priced operators are required on the other end, except to make corrections, the cost of the American edition is very, very low, you see. However, what I wanted to emphasize, Sir Alfred, is that the moment the typesetting starts in the plant on Fleet Street, it has to start in the one on Broadway, New York, and so the beam I speak of is hopelessly tied up, and every minute too, over that particular range of hours each week.” Harwood paused. “Indeed, I must caution you again, Sir Alfred, that even morning after tomorrow morning, Friday, that is, the performance here must terminate definitely by or before 4:00 a.m.—that is 10:00 p.m., Thursday, Chicago time, as the beam has to swing directly off the London pulsivitator—or whatever on earth they call the bally thing—onto the Paris one to—well now, I’ll just be sure and check myself up on these schedules.” Harwood withdrew a tiny red and gilt notebook from his checkered vest pocket and thumbed over its pages. “Yes, here are the time schedules we have to comply with. The wire circuits to the Regent Theatre here will be cut off promptly—and right on the dot!—at 4:00 a.m., so that several wire circuits into the London Times editorial offices can be closed, and certain matter go to the New York Times Syndicate, on the available wave lengths, for thirty solid minutes. This is a nightly contract, it seems, barring Wednesday nights, when the beam is in use a solid 8 hours as I described, and the London Times uses the cable. At any rate, Sir Alfred, we can’t go back on the beam, however, after the 30 minutes gap, calling it an intermission between acts, because the beam then has to swing directly off the London pulsivator—oh, it’s something like that, they call it—onto the Paris one to fulfill another nightly-except-one-night contract with some French news-bureau acting as European correspondent for the Chicago Tribute News Syndicate at Chicago. In view, therefore, of that complete cut-off, then, at 4 a.m. sharp, it would be very embarrassing for us to be playing here to empty space—or empty ether—” He stopped with a significant gesture.
“It would indeed,” agreed Sir Alfred. “But 2 hours, Harwood, is ample for Hamlet, at least in the special shortened form in which I always give it to the modern audience. We will time ourselves carefully, however, and have short intermissions, so that we may give our curtain definitely before we lose our channel at 4 a.m. prompt—or, as you say, 10:00 p.m. Chicago time.” He paused, reflectively. “Well, I’m sure now that everything is understood—and clear. The company are all informed of the rehearsal tomorrow morning, and the unusual hour of the test performance subsequently. And Miss Carwarden will play Ophelia in Mrs. Alwyndshire’s place. And so, again, for the third time, I must be off.” He gazed back of him in the direction from which he had come, off the visible part of the front stage. “I’ll just run down to my own dressing room now with my little incumbrance which I left on yon prop table, and then I’ll be having my man drive me to No. 10 Downing Street, where I shall be for good heavens knows how long, in case you should need to communicate with me about any further plans. My secretary is over there now, thank the Lord, at least holding a place for me in the reception room.”
“It wouldn’t be then, Sir Alfred,” inquired the manager, “that you are going over to see your brother, Sir George?”
“And pray why not, Harwood?” asked Sir Alfred in a kindly voice. “For who else do I know in affairs of State? Ah—it’s my having to wait my turn that puzzles you, eh? Well, my dear fellow, remember that after all Alfred Leets earned his title, whether justly or no, as a mummer, while Sir George earned his most truly as a diplomat and statesman. So mummer must wait on diplomat—else have his secretary do so for him. But it is only a passing visit on an inconsequential matter.”
“Nothing then, Sir Alfred, that might be connected with the Mexican Revolution? Rather, that is, the forthcoming recognition of the acting government of Mexico? I—I had been half inclined to—to—to perhaps ask you whether possibly you—you could put in a word for me.”
“Why—Harwood—what on earth can the Mexican situation mean to you—or to me, either? True, Sir George, as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, is handling the recognition of—Almedo—or shall I perchance say Jose Luis Rodriguez Almedo?—isn’t that his full name?—which takes place the coming Friday, I believe. But beyond that, it surely means nothing to you or to me, both engaged in the business and putative art of Thespis?”
“Ah, but it does, Sir Alfred,” declared the manager troubledly. “However, I see no reason why I shall have to presume upon your good nature. Because I have been fortunate in obtaining the official interposition of the highest man in Mex—”
But at this juncture there was a clatter of feet off stage, and a messenger boy in khaki, with khaki cap, like a little inverted pannikin, held on his head and slightly askew, by a patent- leather chin-strap, came undecidedly into view on the empty stage.
“’Oo’s Mister ’Arwood?” he called. “Doorkeeper h’outside said as ’e was h’inside an’—”
“Here boy, I’m Harwood. A telegram?”
“Nussir. A cyble. From British ’Onduras.”
“Here, give it here—quick!” Harwood took the extended blue envelope, and the hand that took it trembled just a bit. “Here—here’s sixpence for you.” The boy’s fist gobbled up the bright silver coin, and he vanished. The slam of a big door far off stage followed. Harwood was tearing open the envelope rapidly. The envelope of the missive fluttered to the floor. He unfolded the blue sheet. He read it rapidly. Then suddenly the color drained from his face—leaving it queerly white and drawn. He seemed to become suddenly feeble. He dropped down weakly on the huge green up-ended prop flower pot that had caught Halsey’s eyes first of all when this scene had crystallized into being.
Sir Alfred watched him with manifest concern. “What’s—what’s wrong, Harwood? Not—not bad news, I hope?”
“Yes, Sir Alfred. Very. A cable. From Mexico. That is, from Mexico by way of British Honduras. From a big Mexican lawyer—a lawyer whom my family hired. Senor Mendoza is his name—Senor Estaban Mendoza. He says that—but here, Sir Alfred, I’ll—I’ll read it.” With hands trembling, Harwood read aloud: “Intervention by Vice-President Guiterrez failure. Anticipate worst for ‘B’ after Friday. Mendoza.” He looked up helplessly at the Shakespearean actor. “Sir Alfred—would you—could you—that is—could you speak to Sir George—for me—about something?”
“I’ll do anything within my rights, Harwood, as a brother to Sir George,” said Sir Alfred cautiously. “But come, man, brace up. Tell me the facts—what is this all about? No, no, stay seated where you are—you’re looking rather white around the gills.”
“Thank you,” was all Harwood said. He did, however, remain seated. “It’s—it’s about my brother, Sir Alfred. Basil Harwood. Just a lad, that’s all. Legal age—and a little more. He’s a scenic artist—a very promising one, too, I believe. The Theatre Nationale of Mexico City was preparing for a huge season of new plays. President Almedo, it seems, never lets revolutions interfere with his one passion—the theater. Basil heard there was plenty of work to be had there. So he went over. That was just a few months ago. He did get considerable sets to execute. But he also happened to meet the famous Mexican actress, Rosa Palacio, through discussing with her the settings for her own play. She was much older than he—but she—well—she fell in love with him. Pretty badly, as I understand. A friend of Basil’s, you see, at Mexico City, got a letter out to us—afterward—telling us the whole situation. But—” Harwood’s face grew deeply distressed. “This Rosa Palacio, Sir Alfred, was—she was Almedo’s—mistress. Yes, there’s no doubt of it. Almedo was furious when he discovered she was in love with an English boy. She was foolish enough, you see, to ask Almedo to free her from all entanglements. Basil was followed continuously by Almedo’s confidential secret agents after that. He was picked up one day on the Plaza de la Constitución, and taken immediately to the military gaol. A crudely drawn pencil map of the Quitaxico fortress just outside of Mexico City was found on him. It showed the exact locations in the fortress walls to which the big dummy guns had been transferred—the guns, Sir Alfred, that can’t shoot—and where the big defense guns, of exact similar appearance—sat. The dummies, it seems, can be differentiated from the shooters, up close to the fortress walls. And Basil had been out to the Quitaxico region that morning, on a street car, sketching the hills west of the fort, for a Mexican setting in a play. He had used his professional pass from the Theatre Nationale to get inside the sentry lines. As for military things, Sir Alfred, why—he doesn’t know the difference between a gun emplacement and an automatic-plane air-torpedo. I give you my solemn word on that.
“He was, of course, court-martialed, but false evidence, Sir Alfred, was given by a witness that he had been seen coming in and going out of a house on Avenue Cinco de Mayo, occupied at the time by a man called Gonzalez de Eshara who was known to be a secret agent of the rebel chief, Cifuentes. Sentence, however, on Basil, was withheld, Sir Alfred, by Almedo’s direct orders. It’s plain that that sentence would have been nothing other than to be shot—as a military spy. Except, Sir Alfred, Almedo wouldn’t risk shooting an English boy, even in the face of his own rights as military dictator, directly on the eve of England’s official recognition of him—for England’s and the United States’ recognition is the one thing he needs to get ammunition, if not empty shells, grenades, bombs and so forth to stuff with the nitro-cellulose products he is able to turn out in his huge Picric Acid Products plant at Yacatzatlan; so the verdict was, by his orders, that final sentence was merely suspended till the Revolution was overcome. And Basil was locked up incommunicado in Bastile Luis Potosi. He got one interview—and one only—with his friend. The friend who wrote us. And he passed his friend a very terrible piece of information—for our family, at least. It was that he had inside information from a friendly gaoler that he was to be shot peremptorily, a few hours after England recognizes Almedo, and while the Revolution is still definitely in existence and military law is still offcially supplanting civil law in Mexico.
“Of course we got a big Mexican lawyer, Sir Alfred, this Senor Mendoza, and he was so high up that he was able to get a personal investigation by the Vice-President of Mexico himself, Senor Ramon Guiterrez. Guiterrez was personally convinced, so Senor Mendoza cabled us in code from British Honduras—as, in fact, he has cabled me quite openly here, through a clerk of his who has occasion to fly down to British Honduras three days a week—that the boy had been what Americans, Sir Alfred, call ‘framed,’ by some clique of military hangers-on in Almedo’s entourage, and that he was going to appeal personally to Almedo to free Basil altogether. But he’s failed, Sir Alfred. This cable—” He nodded despairingly. “You see, after all, Guiterrez was elected to his office on the Liberal platform—and Almedo on the Anti-Foreign Investment, pledged to limit all foreign investment down there. So there’s no deep feeling of friendship such as running mates would ordinarily have. God, Sir Alfred, I see I’ve been far too sanguine—I had utter hopes and expectations that Senor Guiterrez, being himself convinced of Basil’s non-complicity in this thing, and his plea based on that, would take care of everything satisfactorily. And now—now—now it’s failed.” Harwood swallowed hard. “The cruelest man, that Almedo, Mexico ever had in her presidential chair, Sir Alfred; a human devil, if there ever was one. And where a devil loses a woman whom he desires mighty badly, that’s—that’s dynamite in the fire for somebody, every time. Now I know that the minute, Friday, that England officially recognizes Almedo, I—I shall lose my brother.” He turned, stary-eyed, to the carpenter. “Hacker, bring—bring me that lithograph—and the gilt frame you made for me.”
He turned once more to Sir Alfred, a bit composed, for he seemed now to be clinging more and more to the lone ray of hope provided him by Sir Alfred’s family connections with the British Foreign Office. “As you know, Sir Alfred, I am managing also a small house out in the East End devoted to the cheapest of cheap melodrama. The Bucket of Blood, it’s called. It’s in Stepney. Next week we have on a Mexican drama in which one scene shows the home life of a ruthless, blood-thirsty Mexican bandit. It displays the parlor of a cabin in lower Sonora, and requires a property consisting of this bandit’s crayon portrait hanging on the wall of his home above an altar. And do you know, Sir Alfred, that try as we might we could not get a face vicious and cruel enough to carry far over into the pit until, by Jove, the idea came to me to use a lithograph of this little known Almedo, touched up a bit only around the neck.” By this time the carpenter had stepped up to the front bearing a big oblong lithograph with a bright cheap piece of gilded wood around it—obviously a stage “prop.”
Sir Alfred stood during the explanation, with troubled face, leaning on his cane with his back partly to the footlights. Harwood, his round face under his topper still terribly distressed, held up the portrait with both hands a few feet from Sir Alfred, and the latter, accompanied by one, Carr Halsey of Chicago and one Braisted, also of Chicago, all gazed at the “prop” in interest.
A malevolent face it was indeed, that of a man perhaps 53 years in age, swarthy and with drooping mustaches, with narrow brow, close-set beady black eyes and slightly misshapen teeth. Like the faces of many criminals, it was asymmetric, and moreover had an eye which deviated slightly outward. It appeared to fill nicely the requirement of a bandit in home life, and Harwood, holding it up a moment longer, in silence, handed it back to the carpenter who stood it against the brick wall at the back of the stage and climbed down into his trapdoor again. Sir Alfred was speaking.
“A villainous face, to be sure,” he said. “Too villainous, indeed, to deserve the rule of such a huge wealthy country as Mexico has become in the last ten years. As for being a bit—er—calloused to the rights of—er—individuals, Harwood, he is, after all, you know, the typical soldier-of-fortune. I know more, you see, Harwood, than an actor would logically know about Almedo—and the whole Mexican situation, indeed, through talking with Sir George. Sir George tells me that Guatemala, Honduras, and Salvador have all been Almedo’s political and military stages in the past, as much as has Nicaragua, of which country we were just speaking a while hack, and which fact we naturally know from Almedo’s official position there during the latter years of the Canal construction. Sir George tells me, too, that Almedo would not be president of Mexico today were it not for the distinction he got down there in Latin America when he climbed to such a unique position in little Nicaragua as he did: of becoming Supreme Military and Political Dictator there—he’s half Nicaraguan, it seems, on his mother’s side, and so was able in that way to qualify on the technical matters of citizenship. His dictatorship was, Sir George claims, in degree of scope and power, one of the most absolute suzerainties history has ever known, outrivalling by many, many points that famous iron dictatorship which Mussolini—do you remember Mussolini?—exerted for so long in Italy. On top of which he held the tolerance, if perhaps not the beaming good will, of the United States which exerts a more or less paternal and watchful eye down in that part of the world. Do you recall, Harwood, how from 1935 to 1937 Almedo successfully quelled two successive revolts of West Nicaragua trying to set up a republic of its own against East Nicaragua, with the result that the United States kept its hands ever off because of the sure and resolute way in which he dealt with affairs Nicaraguan? Even we profited greatly from his firm management of things, for, though we had our Canal zone well covered with British bluejackets, a revolution at that time would only have tied up railroads more or less, and hampered and complicated canal construction. And do you recall how when Costa Rica, in 1936, declared war against him—he worked so fast and adroitly on that little country, landing half of his army, or about 2000 men, in San Jose within 4 hours, and forcing Costa Rica to sue for peace in less than 12 hours?”
“Yes,” Harwood assented, but he was like a man still in a daze. “I—I haven’t followed those things very closely, Sir Alfred, but—but our solicitor here who put us in touch with Senor Mendoza stated to us that it was only because Mexico herself couldn’t—couldn’t agree on a man to run on the Anti Foreign Investment or Limitationist presidential platform, and because Almedo strolled back there at that psychological moment, plumed with—with the honors of that 2-year successful dictatorship in Nicaragua, that he climbed into power. Although our solicitor said, too, that there was a hint of big money back of Almedo—money of an unknown source—bigger money than a mere soldier-of-fortune like him could—could command.”
