Death of a Beauty Queen (4 page)

‘Do you mean you've been making a book about the girls' chances?' he demanded. ‘Infernal cheek – I've a jolly good mind to show it to Mr Sargent.' He put the paper in his pocket. ‘If anyone wants it,' he said, ‘they can come and ask me, and I'll tell 'em what I think of ‘em.”

He walked off indignantly, leaving Wood quite breathless, and a little way down the corridor came on Sargent himself, still in the company of Paul Irwin. Had Sargent been alone, Beattie might quite possibly, in the heat of his indignation, have complained about this betting on the chances of the different competitors that had struck him as such a piece of impudence; but Paul's presence had on him the repressing, almost chilling, effect, it often exercised on younger people. Then, too, an indignant matron had just recognised the cinema owner, and now came hurrying up, eager to unburden herself of a grievance.

‘You said there wouldn't be any favouritism,' she protested ; ‘and there's my girl got to share her room with such a crowd none of them can't even turn round – and only one glass between them all – and there's that Caroline Mears got a room all to herself.'

‘She had to go somewhere, hadn't she?' Sargent defended himself. ‘I couldn't push her in where there wasn't any room already. I know we've had to ask competitors to put up with crowded conditions, and we couldn't make the crowding worse by putting more in a room, now could we?'

‘That's no reason why Caroline Mears should have a room all to herself,' insisted the still indignant matron, ‘and my girl not able even to get hold of a glass to see herself in – and “Private” and “No Admission” stuck on her door, so her ladyship shan't be interfered with. “No admission,” indeed,' she snorted. ‘Shows who's meant to win.'

‘We've nothing to do with the judging, that's for the committee alone' – Sargent explained mildly – ‘and that notice on the door has nothing to do with Miss Mears. What's happened is that Miss Mears's name was left out of the list by some accident. Her name wasn't down for any dressing-room, and they had to come and tell me one competitor had been forgotten – no accommodation provided, and every dressing-room crowded to capacity. I told them they had got to put her somewhere, and they said there wasn't any somewhere. They said: “We can't ask her to do her dressing in the corridor, can we?” So I said: “Well, there's my private office – stick her in there; only mind you leave the ‘No Admission' notice on the door, or someone will go barging in while she's pulling up her stockings.” So that's what was done. The “No Admission” notice is just one I put on myself, in the hope of having a corner to myself to-night. No chance of that now, though. The fact is, we've just had to manage the best way we can. This way, Mr Irwin.'

He hurried on, leaving a still profoundly dissatisfied lady behind him. Mr Irwin said:

‘Miss Mears's name having been forgotten seems to have turned out rather a good thing for her.'

‘She doesn't think so,' retorted Sargent. *You ought to have heard her shouting about having to dress in a man's office without so much as a looking-glass in the whole place, except the one she had in her handbag.'

They were passing now a side passage that branched off from the one they were following. At the end of this passage, where it turned towards the entrance used for scenery, was a door marked ‘Private' and further adorned with a piece of square cardboard, on which had been painted, with a brush dipped in ink, in large, intimidating letters, the words: ‘Keep Out – No Admission.' The door was half open, and standing on the threshold was a youngster of twenty-one or two, or thereabouts, his hand upon the door-knob. He was a slightly built youth, handsome, with small, well-formed features, and a skin like a girl's for its smoothness and softness. His eyes were good, too, set well apart, and very clear and bright, and veiled by long, curling lashes. The mouth, small and pouting, and the rather pointed chin, did not suggest any great strength of character – indeed the whole expression might have been thought weak and perhaps a little effeminate, though the set of the shoulders and a certain spring and ease in movement suggested a vigorous enough physique, as the ready smile, the bright and smiling eyes, suggested also a joyous gaiety of disposition. The resemblance to old Paul Irwin was marked – no one could have seen them together without at once understanding they were father and son – yet it was hard to say in what this resemblance consisted, for there was no strong likeness in feature, and the contrast between the severe and dour expression of the elder and the laughter-loving joyousness of the younger was sufficiently striking. They might, indeed, have stood for opposing types of the ‘grim' and the ‘gay,' though just now the boy looked anything but gay. For the instant he recognised his father all the fun and laughter fled from his face; he gave a gasp, a little jump, banged the door of the room, and vanished at a run.

Sargent began to laugh, but checked himself as he saw the old man wince with sudden pain.

‘I've never seen the boy run from me before,' he said, though more to himself than to his companion.

‘Oh, he just felt caught out,' Sargent remarked, a little sorry for the old man, who seemed to feel so keenly an action that in the circumstances appeared quite trivial and natural.

‘I never thought to see him run from me,' Paul repeated, in the same low voice. He was evidently deeply hurt. ‘Leslie always trusted me before,' he said, and again it was almost a kind of radiance with which he spoke his son's name.

‘Oh, you know, when a girl comes along...' said Sargent vaguely.

‘Yes, it's her doing – well, she shall never marry him,' Paul answered, with slow and fierce determination. ‘It would be his ruin.'

‘Well, she's given him up – I know that,' Sargent insisted. ‘You needn't worry.'

‘I'm not worrying,' Paul retorted, ‘for I am taking steps to make sure – quite sure. If she cared for him, it might be different, but all she wants him for is what she Can get from him.' He raised both hands in a gesture that was eloquent of controlled and strong resolve. It was evident that the cinema owner's assurance that Caroline had given Leslie up made no impression on his mind. He could not conceive it, as even thinkable that any girl should be willing to give up his Leslie. Turning sharply upon Sargent, he said, in different tones:

‘Your “No Admission” notice doesn't seem to be very effective. Leslie had evidently been in to see Miss Mears. You allow visits to the girls' dressing-rooms, then?'

‘Most certainly not,' declared Sargent angrily. ‘We can't prevent some youngsters from misbehaving, but it's most irregular – most improper. Though I must say I thought Leslie was just going in, not coming out.'

‘Coming out, I think,' insisted Paul coldly.

Before Sargent could reply, someone calling him by name came hurrying up, and Sargent turned, by no means sorry for the interruption.

‘Well, I'm here. What is it now?' he asked.

‘It's about the Ellis girl,' the new-comer said. ‘There's complaints that Miss Mears tricked her into running off the stage the way she did by telling her she would be disqualified if she didn't. Some of them are saying she ought to have a chance to show again.'

‘Certainly not,' answered Sargent. ‘If she's fool enough to believe all she's told it's her look-out. No one can show twice – out of the question.'

‘If you ask me, I think Miss Mears ought to be disqualified herself,' the other grumbled. ‘It was a dirty trick to play.'

‘Most likely it was only meant for a joke; she never thought it would be taken seriously,' suggested Sargent.

‘Well, you had better come and talk to Miss Ellis yourself,' replied the new-comer, who was one of Sargent's associates. ‘She went right in off the deep end when she understood. Looked like murder, and went tearing off to Miss Mears's room. I thought there was going to be trouble, but she came back. She said she hadn't dared to go in for fear what she might do. You had better come and try to smooth her down, if you can.'

‘Oh, all right,' said Sargent wearily. ‘You'll excuse me, Mr Irwin. This is the sort of thing that happens when you try to run a Beauty Competition.'

‘It was a dirty trick,' his associate repeated. ‘Miss Mears may be a beauty, and she may be the winner, but she ought to be penalised all the same.'

‘She will be,' Paul said, in his grimmest tones. ‘No one ever escapes just punishment, I will see if I can find Leslie,' he added, to Sargent, and, turning his hack, walked slowly, with long strides, down the passage leading to the door marked ‘No Admission.'

He had taken off his hat, and his hair he wore a little long stirred in the draught blowing down the passage from an open window by the big door where scenery was taken in when occasion required.

Whether telepathy and thought-transference are facts or no, whether the tale is true that in primitive communities news, especially bad news, tragic news, is transmitted at a speed even modern science can neither rival nor explain, it is at least certain that a rumour can pass through a crowd as lightning flashes from sky to earth.

Certainly the great audience assembled in the Brush Hill Central Cinema for the choosing of the Brush Hill Beauty Queen had been growing a little restless, and, collectively, was glad of a fresh distraction. A girl of beauty is no doubt a joy for ever, but a whole procession of them all through a long evening is apt to blunt the edge of appreciation. Cheers and yawns go but ill together, and it had become a trifle wearisome to clap and stamp every time there appeared a fresh pretty girl almost exactly like the last pretty girl. By eleven o'clock, freckles and a snub nose would most likely have won warmer appreciation than the brightest of eyes and the most cleverly designed complexion.

As for the judging committee in the big stage box, one member had already fallen asleep. Luckily a fellow committee-man had awakened him before his snores had been recognized for anything but the grunt of less and greater approval he had previously been emitting. But whereas score-cards had at first been marked in precise detail – so much more for the enchanting tilt of a nose, so much less for a mouth a trifle too large, something extra for a graceful walk, a minus for a stumble or for hands that looked a little large – though, indeed, one committee-man, a fervent admirer of a certain renowned film star, had been giving plus marks for really substantial hands and feet – by this hour of the night a general estimate had become the rule, and shortcomings and defects that earlier had been smiled at tolerantly, a weary committee now tended to regard as fatal.

‘Wasting time, that's all it is,' grunted the man who had just been awakened, and who was consequently in a very bad temper. ‘That last girl had thick ankles – oughtn't to have been let on. We've all given Miss Mears top marks. She's bound to be the winner.'

The joint honorary scorers at the back of the box agreed. It was their task to add up the marks assigned to each competitor, add in agreed proportion the number of seconds the applause of the audience had continued, and then certify and announce the result. One of them said now:

‘Yes. C. Mears is well ahead.'

‘What's that?' asked the chairman. ‘Caroline Mears?'

He was a prominent local politician, and possessed the sort of voice necessary to prominent local politicians, both for emphasising their own arguments and bawling down those of opponents. So the question he had meant only for the hearing of his fellow judges was plainly audible to members of the audience sitting near.

‘Caroline Mears?' someone repeated. ‘Which one's that? Is she the winner?'

‘Can't be,' a neighbour protested. ‘The thing's not over yet.'

‘Well, what's happened to her, then?' a third asked.

‘Something happened to Caroline Mears?' inquired, excitedly, yet another.

People near looked round interestedly. In their weary state, half hypnotised into a condition of torpor by the seemingly endless procession of loveliness passing across the stage, a new interest was very welcome.

‘Caroline Mears?' they repeated to each other. ‘Something happened? Why? What?'

But no one knew. The name, the question, passed over the assembly like a breeze blowing across a field of ripe corn. ‘Caroline Mears?' people said to each other, and one could follow the progress of the name across the auditorium as one could follow the wake of a darting fish through calm water. ‘Carrie Mears?' they repeated to each other. ‘What about her?' ‘She's the winner.' ‘She can't be, not yet.' ‘She's disqualified.' ‘What for?' ‘There's been cheating.' ‘Who? How?' ‘Well, anyhow, something's happened.'

A general restlessness developed. The unlucky girl at the moment on the stage was hardly noticed. She might not have been there, and her frock and her complexion, on which so much anxious care and attention had been bestowed, were quite wasted. Even some of her score-cards never got marked, for the members of the committee, too, were asking each other what all the excitement was about, and the prominent local politician said, in the bellowing undertone that was his idea of a whispered aside:

‘What's started them off like this? Has anything happened? Is something wrong?'

‘Something wrong,' repeated again one or two who overheard, and the phrase flashed through the auditorium so that scarcely had it been uttered before it reached the uniformed commissionaire at the entrance.

‘Something wrong?' he repeated, and beckoned to a passing policeman. ‘Seems there's something wrong,' he said. ‘Just stand by a moment, will you?'

‘What is it?' asked the policeman.

‘I don't know,' answered the commissionaire. ‘Carrie Mears, they say.'