The Mystery of the Rogues' Reunion - Marc Brandel [9]
Jupe had a plan that might help him win that quiz show prize. It was a strategy that seemed to him more likely to work because of the way he had been behaving ever since he had walked into the sound stage. He hadn’t done it deliberately. Not at first, anyway. It had just happened. He had hardly said a word to anybody.
All the other Wee Rogues had chatted. But Jupe hadn’t joined in. He had only listened. He felt he knew quite a lot about what Bonehead and Footsie and Bloodhound were like now. But they had no way of knowing a thing about him.
“Good evening,” Milton Glass said in a cheerful, welcoming voice.
The talk show had started. The three television cameras were rolling, taping as Luther Lomax, watching the monitoring screens in the mobile control room, switched from one camera to another picking the angles he liked best.
“I want you to meet some old friends of yours,” Glass went on. “You’ve all been watching them on this network for several weeks now, and you’ve been writing us thousands of letters about them, wanting to know what happened to them all, how they turned out in later life. Now you’ll be able to find out for yourselves. Because here they are.”
He paused for a second and his teeth flashed like sheet lightning.
“The Wee Rogues.”
As he spoke a group picture of the kids as they had been was projected on the white wall behind them. Milton Glass went on to explain that he was very sorry, but one of the Wee Rogues, the young man who had played Flapjack, wasn’t here today. The studio had done
everything it could to find him, but apparently he was no longer living in California and it had been impossible to trace him.
“Maybe he’s in jail,” Bonehead put in helpfully.
Milton Glass ignored that suggestion except for a slightly embarrassed smile. One by one he asked the Rogues to introduce themselves.
Peggy was first.
“I used to be known as Pretty Peggy,” she said. “But that was a long time ago and, as you can all see, I’m just Peggy now.”
“Oh, come on.” Glass turned his smile on her. “You mustn’t be so modest, Peggy. You’re still as pretty as a picture.”
Peggy didn’t smile back at him. “These days I would rather be complimented for my intelligence,” she said.
Milton Glass’s chuckle sounded a little hollow to Jupe. The First Investigator leaned back in his chair, looking beyond the cameras at the electricians and grips who were gathered around the edge of the set. He could make out Bob and Pete among them. Jupe knew that none of the cameras was focused on him yet, because Bonehead would be the next to introduce himself, so he shrugged slightly and winked at the other two Investigators.
Jupe was signalling to them not to be surprised by anything he might do or say when it was his turn to speak. Bob’s glasses seemed to flash back an answering signal of support to him.
Jupe’s glance moved slightly to the right. He had caught sight of another familiar face in the background. Gordon Harker, the tall, black chauffeur who had driven him to the studio, was walking quietly across the sound stage towards a clump of unused arc lights on their long metal poles.
“I was the one with the shaved skull,” Bonehead was saying. “I guess I was supposed to be pretty dumb.” He was looking at Milton Glass with his sharp, hard eyes. “Would you say I’ve changed much?”
You had to hand it to Glass, Jupe thought. The talk show host didn’t lose his good humour for a second. Ignoring Bonehead’s obvious hostility, he kept smiling at him as though he were his favourite person in the world.
“You were known as Bonehead, isn’t that right?” he asked cheerfully.
“That’s right. But then maybe I wasn’t as boneheaded as I seemed. Maybe I was just a pretty good actor. Lots of talent.’’
Bloodhound and Footsie were next. They announced their old movie names as drily as though repeating their Social Security numbers.
“Bloodhound.”
“Footsie.”
Milton Glass tried to draw Footsie out a little.
“Why Footsie?” he asked. “Why were you