rescued the play The Vortex by writing Coward a cheque for £250 when it seemed that otherwise the production would collapse (according to Coward himself—“Present Indicative,” p. 188–it was for £200). The Vortex made Coward's name. Naturally, after all this fame and attention, Arlen felt somewhat anxious to write the book that would follow The Green Hat. Notwithstanding, Arlen wrote Young Men in Love (1927) and received mixed reviews. After Young Men in Love, Arlen continued with Lily Christine (1928), Babes in the Wood (1929), and Men Dislike Women (1931), none of which received the enthusiastic reviews that The Green Hat had received. Arlen also wrote a volume of Ghost Stories (1927), which were influenced by Saki, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Machen. Later life In 1927, Arlen, feeling ill, joined D. H. Lawrence in Florence, Italy. Lawrence was working on Lady Chatterley's Lover and Arlen served as a model for the character Michaelis. Arlen then moved to Cannes, France and, in 1928, married Countess Atalanta Mercati. They had two children, a son, Michael John Arlen born in 1930, and a daughter, Venetia Arlen, born in 1933. With his following novel, Man's Mortality (1933), Arlen turned to political writing and science fiction, brushing aside his earlier, smart society romances. Set fifty years in the future, in 1983, the book can be seen as portraying a Dystopia, whose rulers claim that it is a Utopia. Most critics compared it unfavourably with Huxley's Brave New World, which had been published the previous year. In the following years, Arlen also returned to gothic horror with Hell! Said the Duchess: A Bed-Time Story (1934). In his final collection of short stories, The Crooked Coronet (1939), Arlen briefly returns to his earlier romantic, but also comic, style. Arlen's claim to fame in the world of crime fiction rests on one short story, "Gay Falcon" (1940), in which he introduced gentleman sleuth Gay Stanhope Falcon. Renamed Gay Lawrence and nicknamed 'the Falcon', the character was taken up by Hollywood in 1941, and expanded into a series of mystery films with George Sanders in the title role. When Sanders left the role, he was succeeded by his brother Tom Conway, who played Gay Lawrence's brother Tom and also used the nickname 'the Falcon'. In 1939, when the Second World War began, Arlen returned to England. While his wife, Atalanta, joined the Red Cross, Arlen wrote columns for The