The Lady Has a Scar Read online

  THE LADY HAS A SCAR

  HANK JANSON

  This edition first published in the UK in 2013 by

  Telos Publishing Ltd,

  17 Pendre Avenue, Prestatyn, LL19 9SH, www.telos.co.uk

  Telos Publishing Ltd values feedback. Please e-mail us with any comments you may have about this book to: [email protected]

  ISBN:

  This edition © 2013 Telos Publishing Ltd

  Novel by Stephen D Frances

  Cover by Reginald Heade

  Silhouette device by Philip Mendoza

  With thanks to Steve Holland

  The Hank Janson name, logo and silhouette device are registered trademarks of Telos Publishing Ltd

  First published in England by S D Frances, 1950

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The appeal of the Hank Janson books to a modern readership lies not only in the quality of the storytelling, which is as powerfully compelling today as it was when they were first published, but also in the fascinating insight they afford into the attitudes, customs and morals of the 1940s and 1950s. We have therefore endeavoured to make The Lady Has a Scar, and all our other Hank Janson reissues, as faithful to the original editions as possible. Unlike some other publishers, who when reissuing vintage fiction have been known to edit it to remove aspects that might offend present-day sensibilities, we have left the original narrative absolutely intact.

  The original editions of these classic Hank Janson titles made quite frequent use of phonetic ‘Americanisms’ such as ‘kinda’, ‘gotta’, ‘wanna’ and so on. Again, we have left these unchanged in the Telos Publishing Ltd reissues, to give readers as genuine as possible a taste of what it was like to read these books when they first came out, even though such devices have since become sorta out of fashion.

  The only way in which we have amended the original text has been to correct obvious lapses in spelling, grammar and punctuation, and to remedy clear typesetting errors.

  Lastly, we should mention that we have made every effort to trace and acquire relevant copyrights in the various elements that make up this book. However, if anyone has any further information that they could provide in this regard, we would be very grateful to receive it.

  1

  I went to Hugh Burden’s party only because Dane Morris suggested it.

  There was no reason I should go except I was bored. My special friend, Sheila Lang, was in Florida judging a beauty contest and, of course, I’d never met Hugh Burden.

  Unhurriedly I tooled the car along Milwaukee Avenue, past Binster’s Golf Club and the Skyways Airport and out towards Burden’s place.

  Dane was silent, morose. He didn’t look like a guy who was going to a party. He looked like he’d won a sweepstake but lost the ticket.

  Dane was the Chronicle’s drama critic. He was a stocky, middle-aged guy with black hair smarmed back over his head. He wore a carefully-trimmed moustache, his cheeks were fleshy and his big, wide brown eyes were made beautiful by eyelashes that would have looked fine on a dame but somehow didn’t go with the breadth of his shoulders. He wore a perpetual air of thoughtfulness, and when you talked with him he watched you with those big, wide eyes so thoughtfully you wondered if you were saying all the wrong things.

  I wasn’t altogether surprised Dane wasn’t bubbling over with the joy of life. As the Chronicle’s drama critic he had to know a good deal about the theatre. He had to know a good deal about plays, the writing of plays and the people who acted in them. And much of his time he had to spend writing about Hugh Burden’s plays.

  That was where he felt the rub. Whatever else his faults were, there was no denying that Hugh Burden was a successful playwright. Right then, he was earning royalties from two plays playing simultaneously in Chicago and New York.

  And they were good plays, too. The theatre world knew it, Hugh Burden knew it, the theatre financiers knew it and the box office returns showed the public knew it.

  Dane Morris knew it, too. And since he was a newspaperman first and an individual afterwards, he wrote up those plays as they should be written up, acclaimed them and showered praise upon them.

  But doing that made him sweat blood. You see, if there was anybody in the theatre world Dane had any reason to hate, for sure it was Hugh Burden.

  Dane Morris had a regular job on the Chronicle. He earned his food and shelter, and if he went carefully he sometimes had a few bucks over to buy a few drinks or to splash on a dame. But there’d been a time when Dane Morris was ambitious. He’d been aiming high, like five million guys in Chicago are doing all the time.

  Yeah, the spark of ambition had burned deeply inside Dane Morris. His knowledge of the theatre, his stage-craft, his writing ability, plus unlimited labour had at last resulted in one of his own countless plays being presented on the Chicago boards.

  It’s a major achievement getting a play staged. It shows a guy’s got a lot of ability, a lot of ingenuity, a lot of influence and a great deal of luck.

  And when Dane’s play finally achieved the distinction of being produced, the first of his ambitions had been realised.

  But getting a play produced is only one half of the battle. The second half is making that play cover its expenses.

  It’s been said anybody can write a play, but it takes a genius to get it produced. Like all these clever sayings, it ain’t exactly true. But the theatre is just a business, like producing battleships is a business. There are wheels within wheels.

  All kinds of wheels revolve behind the scenes. And they all have to be taken into account. A perfectly good play, acclaimed by the critics, may be brought off before the end of the first week due to a whim of fate. A spell of good weather, a big fight, or even bad advertising, can affect attendance the first few nights and the play is a failure.

  On the other hand, a mediocre play may score heavily for reasons that are not even apparent to the promoters, and may continue running for two or three years.

  Yeah, the destiny of a play is always in the balance. But when the wheels behind the scenes are operating, when there is manoeuvring and determination that one particular play shall not succeed, it stands a poor chance.

  The chances were that Dane Morris’s play was a good play. The chances were it would have had a good run. He wouldn’t exactly have made his fortune from it. But the first rung of the ladder to fortune would have been climbed. There’d have been other plays, more royalties and – who knows? – perhaps immortality.

  Dane didn’t realise at first what had happened. His play came off at the end of the first week, and for the next two weeks he went around like a doomed man. His world had collapsed. But after a time he began to get a clear picture of what had happened. Casual words were dropped here and there by the chattering, gossipy theatre folk. And after that, careful enquiries put him wise.

  In a nutshell, not only Dane’s play but the whole of his future had been deliberately sabotaged. And the guy behind it was Hugh Burden.

  Hugh Burden had his reasons without a doubt. He was an established playwright. He was jealous of his position and wary of competition. He must have seen in Dane’s play the possibilities of real competition. So he went to work
with the critics. Coercion, subtle suggestions and even in rare cases open bribery got Dane’s play a bad press. Actors and actresses, encouraged by the possibilities of parts in one of Hugh Burden’s plays shortly to be produced, acted disinterestedly and woodenly, knowing that the continuation of Dane’s play might lose them a part in Burden’s play, which would be sure to have a long run.

  The Angel who had sponsored Dane’s work was anxious to be a successful promoter. Just the whisper that he might be allowed to sponsor Burden’s next play was sufficient to get him wildly excited. He carved down expenses, he starved Dane’s play of advertising publicity, he economised on the cast, insisting on ruthless cutting and elimination of incidental characters.

  With the prospect of being a Burden sponsor, the Angel was only too anxious to seize his opportunity at the end of the week of withdrawing Dane’s play and transferring his financial resources to what promised to be a more profitable venture.

  As I said before, the theatre’s a business like all other industries. And cut-throat competition can be expected there in the same way that it can be expected from manufacturers competing to sell vacuum cleaners.

  But it was tough on Dane. It didn’t only lose him the opportunity of a lifetime. It lost him his future and killed that spark of ambition that had been burning so brightly inside him. In the theatre profession, as is so often the case, he was acclaimed as a drama critic but described as hopeless at play-writing.

  But Dane had to go on living. And the salt was rubbed into his wounds. He had to go on writing about the theatre, and quite a lot of the time he was writing about Hugh Burden’s plays. And they were good. Nobody could deny that. And so Dane had to acclaim this man who had destroyed his work and his only chance of obtaining success.

  I wasn’t surprised Dane wasn’t looking bucked at the prospect of spending an evening at one of Burden’s parties. But there was no way that he could avoid it. Burden’s private life was as important as his theatrical life to the newspapers. What Burton did was news. And Dane’s job was to collect that news.

  Five miles past the airport, Dane said: ‘Take the next road on the left and it’s about a mile along, up the hill. You can’t miss it. A big, white-stone house on the left.’

  ‘I bet you hate that guy,’ I said softly.

  His face was impassive. He said in an even voice: ‘I got over hating him a long while ago. You just have to take life the way it is.’

  ‘Maybe there’s lots of guys who aren’t so philosophical as you,’ I said. ‘Sometime, some place, Hugh Burden is gonna get himself in real trouble.’

  ‘That’s happening all the time,’ he said drily.

  I’d never met Hugh Burden, but I’d heard a lot about him. He was successful. But the trouble was he knew it. He didn’t wait to be told he was good. He told everybody first. He’d made plenty of money and he told the whole wide world. If his best friend had a car and a chauffeur, Hugh Burden would get himself two cars and two chauffeurs. If his next-door neighbour built himself a swimming pool, Hugh Burden built himself a lake. He was that kinda guy. He always wanted to go one better than anyone else. No matter what it cost.

  He was that way with dames, too. If any actress considered beautiful and attractive was said to be a perfect match for some guy other than Hugh Burden, he’d set out to prove it wasn’t true. The trouble was, he had the personality to do it. He’d break up any engagement on the impulse of the minute, exercising his charms upon the dame of the moment until she knew he was the one man in the world for her. Dames are soft about guys like that. Each one forgot there’d been a procession of dames before her. They were charmed and dallied with by Burden as long as it pleased him, and then dropped with a bang. It took them months and years to gather up the scattered pieces of their broken hearts.

  Not that Burden was particular about his conquests. He’d as readily woo a shop-girl for a night as a society dame for a week. He was that kinda guy. All was grist that came to his mill. Or, to put it another way, all was female that came to his flat. And did his mill grind! The best and the worst that went into Hugh Burden’s love factory could not be so distinguished when finally ejected. All was unsuitable for further use for a very long time.

  I was driving very slowly. The houses in this district were class. There was plenty of space around and between them, and you didn’t live in this neck of the woods unless you also had a private yacht on the lake, a bungalow in Florida and a bank balance that took two clerks to keep check of.

  ‘What the hell’s biting you, Dane?’ I said. ‘You’re squatting there like a broody hen. So you don’t like the guy. But it’s been that way a long time. You don’t have to die of grief on account of it.’

  ‘I’m not thinking about Burden,’ he said.

  I looked at him from the corner of my eye. ‘Got behind with your rent?’

  He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s worse than that. It’s Stella.’

  I sighed, nodded my head understandingly. ‘Woman trouble, huh?’

  He scowled. ‘Bad trouble, I’m afraid.’

  Stella Moore was a girl Dane had met just a year before. I knew he was planning on marrying her just as soon as he could add a few more dollars to his weekly pay cheque. I’d met her with Dane a coupla times, had drinks with them. She was a cute kid. Redheaded and vivacious. Adaptable, too. Her speciality was singing heartbreaking torch songs in nightclubs.

  She had the husky kinda voice and the right kinda figure to sing those songs with pathos in her voice and unshed tears shining in her eyes so the customers got all soft and sentimental inside. But she could act, too, and during the past few months had been getting prominent parts in farce.

  ‘There’s one good remedy,’ I said wisely. ‘Just give her a good spanking. Dames need that from time to time.’

  He scowled oven more darkly. ‘It’s gone beyond that,’ he said. ‘We don’t see each other no more.’

  I was surprised. I’d always felt those two would make a match.

  ‘Serious?’ I asked. ‘Or just a quarrel?’

  ‘Serious,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said sympathetically. ‘I thought you two …’

  ‘So did I,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t have to feel so bad about it,’ I said comfortingly. ‘Just humble your pride a little, ring her up, go and see her, tell her you’re sorry it all happened.’

  ‘D’you think I’m a damned fool?’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you think I’d do that if it would help?’

  ‘What’s the trouble then?’

  I saw his hands clench tightly. His knuckles stood out whitely. ‘She’s got it bad,’ he said. ‘She’s got Burden trouble.’

  I managed to keep control of myself. I said quietly, ‘You mean, she and Burden?’

  ‘Started a fortnight ago,’ he said. ‘That guy’s influence over women is just uncanny. From the time he dated her, she broke it off with me.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that. Won’t answer my letters, won’t answer the door to me, won’t speak to me on the telephone. Just as though I’d never known her.’

  ‘And she’s going with him?’

  ‘Everywhere,’ he said bitterly. ‘Everywhere.’

  Well, it was none of my business. No guy owns a dame and no dame owns a guy. Everybody’s an individual. You can’t make a dame love a guy. She either does or she doesn’t.

  I saw Burden’s stone-white house, swung round off the main drag and around up the long gravel drive to the front door. There were about two dozen cars parked out in front. I coasted into line with the others, switched off the engine, and climbed out.

  ‘We’re here,’ I said.

  Dane scowled through the windscreen. He was still scowling as he climbed out of the car.

  ‘You’re supposed to look happy,’ I said. ‘Remember? This is a party. You’re gonna enjoy yourself, fella.’

  ‘There’s only one thing I’d really enjoy,’ he said, and just for
a moment the look on his face frightened me.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘I’ll guess.’

  ‘You’ve guessed right,’ he said. ‘I’d like to kill Burden. I’d like to settle him once and for all.’

  2

  A pretty, chicory-coloured maid opened the door. She was wearing a short, white, belted frock, white shoes and a maid’s cap. She held one finger to her lip for silence and beckoned us in.

  Somebody was playing the piano, somebody who really knew how to finger the ivories. It was one of those dreamy, mysterious compositions of Debussy.

  ‘Come right on in,’ she whispered hoarsely. She pointed to a door on the left.

  Dane and I stood quietly in the doorway. It was a big room, about the size of a skating rink. The walls were almost entirely composed of modern steel-framed windows. There was a very thick carpet, very little furniture and about 80 folk distributed around the room.

  Although the party was yet young, already the haze of cigarette and cigar smoke was hanging heavy in the air. Everybody had a drink in their hand and everywhere you looked there were decanters and plates of sandwiches.

  But nobody was doing anything much except listening intently to the guy who was caressing the ivory keys of the big grand piano with long, sensitive fingers.

  I nudged Dane. ‘Look at that,’ I whispered. I nodded my head.

  ‘I know,’ he said savagely. ‘I know.’

  Stella was leaning across the piano, her cheek resting on her hand and her glorious auburn hair glowing like a setting sun. There was a serene, happy look on her face and her eyes were staring dreamily into those of the piano-player. The way he looked at her you would have thought he was playing just for her alone and nobody else existed.

  He wasn’t the kinda guy you’d have liked to look at twice. He had thick black hair, cropped short so that it looked stubbly, and a rugged face with a square, hard jaw. He was wearing slacks and a crisp white shirt and his rolled-up sleeves showed strong, muscular arms covered with long, thick, curly hair. He was the last guy in the world you would have called a pretty boy.