THE FLAPPER'S FAN

Chapter 18 - Stay with me Darling

I stared at the man on the floor.  My first thought was it was Nick, but I noticed immediately the body shape was different, the hair lighter in colour and not as thick.  Who was he, and was he alive?  I couldn't tell as he was face down, but I thought I could discern movement in his chest, breathing perhaps.  The white haired man waved me to the trunk beneath the window and I perched upon it looking from Grace to her captor with confusion.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Why not ask Miss Howard?  After all, she is the one who has been blackmailing my wife and I," he said.

"I have not!" Grace cried, causing Sarah to whimper with fright.  She jiggled the baby on her knee until the infant calmed.

"You may have got that gangster to do the dirty work, but we know it was you!" he growled.  His voice was upper class, posh we Aussies would call it in my time, and looking at him carefully I could see his clothes, though unfashionable, were well tailored and his shoes handmade.  This was no thug.  Why would he think Grace had been blackmailing him?

"Why would I do such a thing?" Grace pleaded.  "For what purpose?"

The man on the floor moaned and sat up slowly.  We all watched and as he moved his hand away from his face I could see who it was. I let out my breath. It wasn't Nick. It was the same man who had shared the love scenes with Grace in Big City, the actor Burt Calwell. 

"Darling, are you alright?" Grace cried, reaching out her hand. As I looked from the man on the floor to baby Sarah, the resemblance was obvious.  This was definitely her father, and Grace's reaction only proved I was right.  It was when he spoke I was truly surprised.  I had been expecting an American accent, but it was just as posh as the white-haired man and I suspected I knew the reason why.

"Yes, just a bit sore."  Burt glared at the older man as he rubbed his head.

"I'm sorry son, I didn't realise it was you." The old man said, although he didn't sound sorry at all.

"That is why you are sorry, sir?  Not because you forced your way into this house and are holding my wife and child at gunpoint?"

The old man's face grew purple with rage and his whiskers trembled as he spoke.

"She is no wife!  She has barely divorced the last husband - an American gangster no less!  We will not have it, Albert, do you hear me?"

"She is my wife, father, we were married in America before we returned.  I sent you a telegram."

"I do not accept it!" the old man roared, causing Sarah to start crying again.

"You have no choice!  It is done!"

"She has been blackmailing me, for money!  She is a nobody, an actress and I will not have it!"

"She has not been blackmailing you, father.  She has no need, she has more than enough money of her own.  I don't know who is responsible, and I promise you I will find out, but it was not Grace."  Burt placed himself in front of Grace and the baby.  I knew with certainty he would take a bullet for them, as surely as I knew the old man would never shoot his son.

"I think I know who the blackmailer is," Grace said tentatively.  Burt turned to look down at her.

"I think it is Roberto."

Burt looked stunned.  "Roberto?  But why?  He has been the one to help us since the beginning."

"He came to see me," Grace began.  Burt's jaw tensed, he was obviously not happy to hear of his wife's secret assignations.  "Besides you and I, he was the only one who knew about us, and about Sarah.  He told me my life was in danger."