The Fixer
Summary
Rye’s gilded parlors inhale the scent of orange-blossom and panic one April dusk when two Fowlers—one a velvet-pocketed bridegroom, the other a hawk-nosed envoy—slip into the same skin. Bill, whose only passport is audacity, swaps names with the diplomat, chloroforms a constable, and mails home postcards of imaginary conquests from a Mexico that exists only in dime-novel fever. Meanwhile Isabel Dare, widowed but not yet wife, clutches a telegram that may resurrect her first spouse; her daughter Dorothy clutches a soldier who keeps being ordered to places maps can’t pronounce. Into this cobweb of forged signatures and borrowed monocles glides Christopher Cutting, alias “The Fixer,” a pint-sized puppeteer armed with ether, banknotes, and a conscience that files its nails in the dark. Every alibi he spins tightens the noose: a bandit general wants ransom, the real William Fowler wants credit, and a birthmark—inked somewhere no gentleman mentions—holds the power to unmake every lie. The climax is a duel fought not with sabers but with reflections: two men in identical uniforms, one adored, one absurd, while a brick hurled from the gods decides which story the town will engrave on its marble memory.
Synopsis
When Bill Fowler decided to wed wealthy widow Isabel Dare of Rye, New York, he gave a bachelor dinner. And the dinner degenerated into a quiet game with sugar for dice until Constable Zack arrived with sleuths galore and landed them everyone safe and sound in the local calaboose. So Christopher Cutting, Bill's friend "The Fixer" put his brain to work, chloroformed Zack and hustled Bill home in time for the wedding. Meantime, Isabel's daughter Dorothy bids her sweetheart Lieutenant Ned Hemmingway, U.S.A. a tearful good-bye; he was going away with William Fowler on a dangerous mission to Mexico. (Diplomat William Fowler and bridegroom Bill Fowler are two different people.) But that didn't deter Bill. He stole the identity of Wm. Fowler and when Constable Zack arrived Bill told his bride that Zack was a special messenger from the President come to escort him to Mexico. Zack escorted him to the calaboose and "The Fixer," fixed it again, this time with cash, not chloroform. One lie begets another. Bill couldn't go home so soon, so "The Fixer" found a scheme. They went to Mexico and sent letters home from Laredo telling of their thrilling adventures and their diplomatic triumphs. Unfortunately, they are captured by bandit general Gomez, and treated ignominiously. They escape and find the real Wm. Fowler is famous. Bill wires the folks back in Rye and they send him a telegram inviting him to a reception in his honor. Unhappily for Bill, the real William Fowler gets the invitation and accepts. Meantime Isabel receives word her former husband may be alive. The former husband looks like the real diplomat. When Bill arrives and gets the ovation the diplomat is left in the cold. Bill is dressed like a major general and no one believes the real agent who is plainly dressed. Isabel, seeing the agent, believes him her former husband and drops at his feet pleading for mercy. Bill sees her and challenges the agent, who accepts. In the course of the duel, "The Fixer" saves Bill by hitting the diplomat with a brick from behind. Isabel then discovers the absence of a birthmark which proves he is not her husband, and the party are faced by the problem of which is the real government agent. Lieutenant Hemingway settles the matter by persuading the diplomat to see Bill's predicament and he departs without disproving Bill. Lieutenant Ned and Dorothy embrace; Bill and Isabel are reconciled and Cutting gets what all good fixers get: nothing.
