RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Weird Tales, September 1940, with "The Blind Farmer and the Strip-Dancer"
MY professional engagements as an obliging corpse have always been legitimate. I really make a most convincing corpse—I wish you could see me. Certainly none of my clients can complain that they have not had their money's worth. You see, my heart is on the right side of my body, and it beats very slowly—barely forty to the minute. In fact, it does not really beat at all.
It just flutters. By drinking the liquid that my uncle discovered in a remote South American village, I am able to fall at will into a sleep that has every appearance of death itself; even my lips turn blue. The liquid kills the sensory nerves and removes all traces of abdominal reflexes. It makes me unconscious, and I am, to all intents and purposes, dead.
Physically abnormal as I was, the discovery that with a little medical assistance I could make an excellent living by simulating death, really opened to me the only vocation for which I could hope. James F. Bronson had found a profession.
My chief trouble was in keeping out of the hands of crooked clients. I might have been a rich man a dozen times over, had it not been for my own code of ethics.
After I picked up young Dr. Roesche and instituted him as a partner in my operations, things went beautifully. He had brains and was straight as a string. Once he was satisfied that I would enter into nothing illegal, I could count absolutely upon him. Poor Roesche! As a medical man, he was always tempted by the scientific aspects of my case; but he was always headed off by the necessity of three meals per diem.
"It's nothing rare to have the heart on the right side as you have, Bronson." he would say. "Your attendant peculiarities, however, are different. With a heart that flutters instead of beating regularly, and a slow heart at that, and with your barrel chest that even cheats a stethoscope, you're worth prolonged observation—"
"What's the bank balance?" I would ask, and that settled it.
It was Roesche who really put my original profession on a business basis. He would precede me to a chosen city and conduct the discreet advertising we employed. The replies flocked in, and he would separate the sheep from the goats. It has always amazed me to find how many people jump at the idea of employing a corpse. Even the most reputable clients would usually have some shady work in prospect. Others would expect to get my services for a small sum; but we played no pikers game. My services came high, and deservedly so.
We got all sorts of insight into human nature. One man, in Seattle, wanted to use me in a queer way. His son was a reckless driver, and hopelessly reckless. The father wanted to hire me and fake an accident in which the son would think he had killed me; he had all the details drawn up, too. When I pointed out that this was no cure for reckless driving, that it was horribly cruel and might result in a deranged mind for the boy, the father broke down and begged me to do it anyway; he wanted to kill or cure. Perhaps he was right, at that, for a few months later the boy and two other people died in a smash-up.
When the astonishing affair of the strip dancer came to us, Roesche and I had arrived together in a big eastern city, which was run wide open.
On this occasion I took over the answers to the advertisement myself. One of the first that I opened hit me right between the eyes; I could feel a certain desperate quality in the words that appealed to me. It lies before me as I write:
Dear Sir:
I would like an interview. You may be able to help me, and no one else can. The lives and happiness of several people may depend on it. Your advertisement has given me courage to make this appeal. Please see me.
Viola Dane.
She appended her address.
I gave her an appointment, and when she showed up, Roesche was parked in the bathroom of our hotel suite. I never interviewed anyone without precautions, as I had a horror of being entangled in anything that might prove downright illegal.
Miss Dane was small but exquisitely proportioned, radiant with the most superb youth and beauty; you would have thought she did not have a trouble in the world. She was very expensively gowned. Her jewels were magnificent enough to be vulgar. I was not surprised when she informed me that she was a dancer in a night club here, a famous one.
"I can pay for your services," she said almost impatiently. She was suffering from some intense agitation. "But can you really pretend to die, so it would look real? Would a doctor be fooled?"
"Many doctors have been," I said, smiling. "That is, under ordinary circumstances. I won't submit to hospital or fluoroscope tests, of course. Suppose you tell me how you expect me to help you?"
Experience had given me quite a professional air. Also, I had let my beard grow, the better to conceal my natural pallor and to preserve it. This lent me an appearance of age and dignity.
"Well," she responded, "there was a man—a man named Ascher—"
Right there, she bogged down. She was pale and nervous, unable to go on, her slim jeweled fingers twisting and untwisting.
She seemed gripped and checked by a certain horror of saying any more, yet driven to it by a still more powerful necessity.
"What do you charge?" she asked, as though trying to gain time. I helped her, by explaining that my fee depended entirely on the work in view, and by stressing the fact that nothing illegal would be considered.
And still her face was white and set, her eyes were desperate. Nothing I could say would penetrate her agitation or put her at ease.
"I—I'm going to be married before long," she blurted out. "But that has nothing to do with the matter, really."
She paused again. I gave no hint that I knew she was lying. If a woman's going to be married, everything in her life revolves around that focal point. Suddenly she got off on another tack.
"Viola Dane is my professional name," she said. "My real name is Viola Hartzell. I used to live on a farm near Lebanon; that's fifty miles from here. My folks are there now. My father's nearly blind; cataracts. I haven't seen him or my mother for—for two years."
This came with a rush. Her composure was returning, she was getting her emotions under control, and now she settled down to what she must say. And she showed a delicacy about saying it, a hesitant choice of words, a slight flush as she spoke, which proved that, whatever her business, she was no hardened sinner.
And this was perhaps curious, for she was a strip dancer in that night club, the type of girl most persons would think callous and long past any delicacy. Which goes to prove that generalities are wrong, and that none of us really know much about our neighbors.
"There—there was a man named Ascher," she said again. "Felix Ascher. He was a commission buyer, and he was in Lebanon at harvest time buying up crops. We raise a lot of fruit around there. This was two years ago, or a little more. It's awfully hard for me to say, Mr. Bronson, but I must make you understand. I really knew nothing at that time, and I suppose it was my own fault. You see, my father was a terribly stern man—"
I began to feel ashamed of the fact that Roesche was listening, as she proceeded.
Well, it was the old story, or I thought it was. This man Ascher skipped out, and in her back-country town a girl who had a baby and no marriage license was up against plain hell. And this poor kid had been up against something far worse. Her old man was one of these hell-bent puritans who would wreck the whole world rather than compromise with Satan, and who ruled his own roost despotically. And her father had aimed to treat her like Sally Jennings. She went on to tell me about Sally.
"She was an awfully nice little girl, Mr. Bronson, sweet and shy and pretty. In high school she got to going with Willy Smith, who worked in the men's furnishings store after school hours. Well, it came out that she was going to have a baby, and she did. She was more surprised than anyone else; I guess she never did know just how it had happened. She was only fifteen, you see. That was five years back. Her folks took the baby away from her and she never did know where it went.
"She's still there in Lebanon. She does the housework at home, and sometimes she comes downtown and everybody looks after her and talks, but nobody will associate with her or even speak to her. She looks like she spent half her time crying, and I suppose she does. Willy still works in the store, but he never liked her after that happened. Anyhow, his folks wouldn't let him marry that kind of girl, though Sally's father tried to make him do it. So that's what I had to look forward to all my life. Do you get the picture?"
I got it. She was flushed and earnest now, the words rolling out of her without any hesitation. She made me see this poor little tyke of a Sally, condemned to a living hell all the rest of her life in that backwater town.
"What happened?" I asked quickly. "With you, I mean."
She laughed. Not a hard laugh at all, but one of really happy triumph.
"Oh, I let them think I was broken-spirited and hopeless. And before the baby was born, while I could still get around pretty well—I just skipped out one night and headed for the city. It was pretty tough going, but I won through. The baby's with me now, and you bet he stays with me, too!"
"Good for you!" I exclaimed. "Where's Ascher?"
"Oh, him! Nobody knows." She accepted a cigaret and was grateful. "He just disappeared. He went out west and could never be traced. Believe me, I tried! Well, Mr. Bronson, that's why I'm here. I want you to be Felix Ascher."
"You—what?" I blurted out. Just then the telephone rang. It was Dr. Roesche, from the adjoining room, with the door closed now.
"Listen, Jim," he said. "I was reading about this girl in the paper last night. She's playing around with that fellow Wilson—you know, the one who inherited all the paint and varnish millions, and who made such a God-awful fool of himself on Broadway last year. He lives in this burg. The paper said wedding bells might ring shortly."
"All right," I replied, speaking for her benefit. "Suppose you come upstairs. I want you to meet a lady who's here. Five minutes? Right."
I rang off and turned to Viola.
"That's my partner, Dr. Roesche. He must work with me in whatever I undertake, so he'll have to hear what you say. I can sketch in the story for him later. Now, what's this about wanting me to be Ascher?"
SHE pressed out her cigaret.
"The idea came to me when I read your ad." she replied. "First, I want to make you understand the reasons. My mother and I have always been very close, but she'll never go back on her principles. My father's not well, he won't live long; but they'd never let me come near them as things are now. This whole affair has just about broken my father's heart. He's stern and hard, but we always did love each other very dearly, and I'm the only one of their children left. There's the big element—affection. The only way they'll receive me or see me, is as Ascher's wife, so I'm going to be just that. If you could see them and know them, you'd realize that their position isn't as unreal as it seems."
Just then Roesche came and knocked. I brought him in, introduced him, and in a few words sketched the situation as though he knew nothing of it.
"But where'll I come in, Miss Dane?" I asked in some perplexity. "All those people will know that I'm not Ascher."
"No. We'll deal with my mother, my father, and my Uncle Ezra who lives with them; just those three. They never had dealings with Ascher, I doubt if they ever more than saw him in passing. And with your beard, that makes everything quite certain. I can get a marriage certificate forged easily enough. You go there with me pretend to be Ascher and the father of little Felix, and my husband. Do you see now?"
I did not, and said so. It looked fantastic and senseless to me.
"I don't go around pretending to be another man, Miss Dane, except as part of my own work. My business is simulating dead men."
"That's exactly the point," she broke in eagerly. "I'm coming to that, Mr. Bronson. I know that my folks would like nothing better than to give the baby a home. If I could leave him with them, he'd have a good home, a fine upbringing. They'd love him dearly and he'd inherit all my father's money. I thought we might go there for a short visit, just two or three days. Then you could die. You might be quite ill when we got there. It wouldn't involve anything wrong at all. It would simply make everything right between me and my parents."
"And," said Roesche, "you'd be rid of the kid and free to marry someone else."
That shot went home. She looked at us, her cheeks burning, her eyes ablaze. Before she could burst out with hot words, I cut in quietly.
"You mentioned marriage, Miss Dane. Let's have no evasions, please. I hate to pry, and yet I must satisfy myself. Does the man you're going to marry know all this story?"
"He knows all of it; every bit," she said.
I believed her, and somehow I felt a little flash of admiration for her. Why? Hard to say. She wakened it, that's all. I could well credit that her impulses might be mixed, that she might have more than one end in view. People are not simple; they are complex. They seldom move along straight lines to some sure and single objective.
"Then," I replied, "he must be a very fine and understanding man."
"He's not." A trace of a bitter smile touched her lips. "He just doesn't give a hang. I didn't say I was making a love match, did I?"
This was her one show of hardness, and I was sorry I had wakened it in her. At least, it proved to me that she was no liar.
"Give me a chance to talk this over with Dr. Roesche," I said. "I'll telephone you after luncheon; I can't jump at decisions, in my business. But I warn you that such a plan will be expensive. I take big chances and get paid accordingly."
She pulled three rings from her fingers and dropped them on the table.
"You can get five thousand for these anywhere, or I can. Is that enough?"
It was. I told her to keep the rings until she had my answer, and with this she left us. When she was gone, I lit a cigaret and looked at Roesche.
"What d'you make of it?"
"Simple enough. She's got the paint and varnish account hooked," he said cynically. "Wilson won't marry her and take over the kid. So she parks the kid in a soft spot and is free. Then she lands him for keeps and alimony later. But what of it? Nothing illegal that I can see, and her money's good. Why not?"
Somehow I could not quite agree with him. What stuck in my mind was the story she had told me so earnestly, the picture of that pitiful little Sally Jennings, and this girl's own initiative in evading a similar hell. A girl who had fought like that for her illegitimate child was not parking him in order to cut loose. Not much.
"Maybe not." Roesche shrugged at my argument. "But she's doing it. She's tempted to do it in order to marry Wilson. Then she'd be set for life, see? You notice what she said, that he didn't give a hang about her story. He wouldn't. He's a wild one himself."
After lunch I telephoned Viola and then went to her apartment. The baby was there, with a nurse, and he was a cute kid right enough. When I was alone with Viola, I went at her without evasion.
"I want to understand this thing fully, Miss Dane; and somehow I don't get it. Isn't there more to the whole thing than you've told me?"
"Yes, there is, but I don't know how to make you see it," she said slowly. "Your friend, Dr. Roesche, puts a cold blanket on me. I don't like him."
"He's the only man I'll trust to bring me back to life and handle all details. Of course, I'm not interested in the morality or ethics of your purposes—"
"It isn't morality. It's everything here, inside of me," she broke out, with both hands at her breast. Her eyes were shining with a strange new light. "It's the baby. What chance has he got in the world, with me? If they think he has a name, everything will be right for him at home, he'll be welcomed and loved, he'll have a chance for a fine straight life there—"
Almost incoherent, she broke off. Suddenly she smiled and leaned forward, looking me in the eyes.
"See here, Mr. Bronson! I just can't explain; I can't find the words. But I feel sure you'll understand if you only go there. I'm quitting my position Sunday night. We could drive up there on Monday. If you'd spend an hour on the farm, you'd realize everything that's so hard for me to tell you. I can't fight your thoughts, your ideas of me, except by giving you other ideas. Will you do it? Then, if you don't want to go through with the rest of it, I'll quit."
And she meant quit, too. Upon the word, the lights went out of her eyes and her shoulders drooped for an instant. This decided me.
"We leave on Monday," I said. "What's the name of the town—Lebanon? I'll have Roesche go on by train and wait for word from me."
She brightened, and flashed me a smile. "Thank you! Come around for me at two, on Monday afternoon. We can be up there in an hour and a half. Will you drive my car? Good. And I'll have the five thousand dollars ready for you then, too."
SHE was as good as her word. When I took her bags out to
the car on Monday afternoon, she handed me an envelope with
the money in it. And I noticed that she was not wearing her
rings.
I drove, and she held the baby; the nurse was left behind. Roesche had gone on to await word from me at the Lebanon Hotel, and he was rather sour about it all, still insisting the game had a catch in it somewhere. He did not cotton to Viola Dane any more than she did to him. I rather thought he might be right, too; but it was this very uncertainty, this element of risk, which made my odd profession so fascinating to me.
We drove up into the fruit country, and she greeted every hamlet, every landmark, with delighted recognition, as though she had been away twenty years instead of two.
She was sparkling, eager, filled with excited suspense. As we drove, a disturbing thought occurred to me, and I voiced it.
"If we're staying with your people, won't they expect us to occupy a room together?"
She gave me a quick, gay laugh. "Oh, you don't know our farm! There's room and to spare; that's why my uncle lives with us. I had two brothers and a sister, and they're gone now. The flu epidemic carried them off. I'll take one room with the baby, and you can have another room next it; that'll be quite all right. What worries me is whether you'll be able to fool our old country doctor. He's pretty shrewd."
I smiled. "I can stand any but the most simple test of all—a mirror to the nostrils. I can't very well stop breathing, you know. But I'll take care of that, all right."
We came to Lebanon in good time. It was a sleepy little town around a courthouse square, and nothing to be proud of. As we passed the dingy hotel, I thought of Roesche holed up there, and chuckled.
Then we were heading out into the country.
Twenty minutes later, we were at our destination. And it astonished me.
The farmhouse was large enough, truly; it was well painted, and everything about the place was neat as the proverbial pin. Having been brought up on a farm, I could appreciate the fine points of this one.
"Here, hold the baby!" exclaimed Viola Dane. Then she was out of the car and dashing for the side door of the house. I held the baby and waited for the resultant explosion.
There was none. Nothing happened for a long time; it seemed long to me, at least. At length the baby let out a wild squall, and this got action. Viola came out, and her mother with her; a handsome, muscular woman of forty-five, with splendid stalwart features and brave eyes. A fine, straightforward woman, who came to me and gave me a quick grip of the hand, a sweeping, searching look, and then turned to the baby.
"Take your husband inside, Vi," she said. "Give me that child—glory be, my own grandchild in my arms! I'll go get your Uncle Ezra. He's in the orchard. We're having the spraying done, now, with a power sprayer. Welcome to you, son. Go right in."
No frills about her. She headed for the orchard, and Viola led me toward the house.
"It worked, it worked!" she breathed excitedly. "I didn't even have to show the forged wedding license; I don't want to do that if I can help it."
I went in with her, and not a bit comfortable about it either.
Her father was a massive, stooped man of fifty, practically blind and much broken; he seldom left his chair. Yet he had a remarkable face and a more remarkable personality. He gripped my hand, passed his fingers over my face, put an arm about his daughter, and tears crept out on his cheeks.
"I'm glad you folks are here," he said very simply. "It's been a long time. Where's the baby?"
"Mother's got him," Viola replied. "She went to bring Uncle Ezra."
That was all; no dramatics, no religious sentiment, no Old Homestead stuff. Yet the man's personality, strong and stark and dominant, was over the whole place. No reproaches to me. He talked about the homely things of the farm, the animals and crops and changes. He was the kind of man who does his praying behind closed doors; the strong kind. I began to sense that if the girl had gone a bit wrong it was probably her own fault—as she had admitted.
Her mother came back with the uncle. He was a fine deep-eyed man, saying little but making himself felt. A younger man than Hartzell, he had the same quality of deep reserve; he was the one who kept up the farm nowadays.
Mrs. Hartzell was different. She was brisk, always busy about something, always chirping out bright comments. Those straight, stalwart eyes of hers left you with the feeling that she knew a lot she didn't care to say.
There were no servants; just the three of them here, one crippled and done for, the other two running the place. They were homely, competent, calm. The whole place reflected the people in it. If Hartzell had money, as Viola had suggested, it was in the bank; things here in the house were not for display but for comfortable use.
"Well, I guess you folks want to get settled," Mrs. Hartzell said at length. "Fetch in your luggage and I'll get the south room ready. Ain't in much need except of airing."
Viola drew her mother aside, speaking quickly and softly, but the blind man's ears caught the words.
"What's that? Heart trouble? Real sick?" he repeated, leaning forward. "Son, I'm sorry. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd call you by that name. I've come mighty close to cursing you; and now I'm glad your trouble ain't to my door. Ma, you'd better telephone Doc Torrens to come and look him over. I got a lot o' faith in Torrens."
Viola staved this off, somehow. We fetched in the bags and got settled, and the afternoon wore on. The more I saw of this house, the more I was impressed by its placid, steady strength; no other words could express the feeling.
Dusk was gathering, and Mrs. Hartzell was bustling about her belated dinner, when Viola took the baby upstairs to get him down for the night. She asked me to come along. Her mother had got an old crib out of the attic, and she put the baby to bed in this. Then she turned to me. "Well, what's your decision?"
"Oh, that's all settled," I told her. "Go on with it, of course."
"And do you understand my reasons, the things I couldn't explain?" She gestured toward the sleeping child. Her voice was soft but passionate. "Think what his life would be with me, an artificial life, with servants and money and all sorts of deviltry; and think of him here in this house, living this life, simple and fine and good, with these people—can you see that it'll break my heart to give him up, and yet it's the only thing, the only hope, for his whole life and future?"
She made a mistake in asking me. After the brief contact with these people, I began to see things with different eyes. I began to feel that Roesche had been right about her. And I resented the idea of tricking these relatives of her.
"You may be thinking of his future," I said, "and you may be thinking of your own. It's no affair of mine."
She flinched, as though I had struck her, but I went on downstairs and left her there. It was none of my business, after all; and I hate these sentimental women.
My words must have got under her skin, for she was pretty distant all evening. I occupied a bedroom to myself, without incident, and in the morning got hold of her, alone. We had to settle on a program.
"All right," she said quietly. "Shall we say tomorrow afternoon, late?"
"Good enough," I replied. "Make it five o'clock? Then I'll drive into town this morning, see Roesche, and make arrangements. What about the undertaker, the funeral, and so on? You've got to think about that angle."
"I have already," she said. "Country people around here don't go in for embalming, much. The undertaker will bring a coffin from town tomorrow night, and you'll be buried next day. I thought Dr. Roesche might come out and spend the night, and get you away. He could be a friend of mine from the city—though I hate to call him a friend," she added spitefully.
"Then I'll have him come out with your Doctor Torrens."
WHEN I announced that I was driving into town that
morning, Uncle Ezra said he'd go with me and fetch back a
sack of chemicals for the sprayer. There was nothing for it
but to take him along, so right after breakfast the two of
us got off.
We were no sooner away from the farm than Ezra Hartzell ran a hand over his short, square beard, and made a remark that petrified me.
"Viola's a right smart girl," he observed meditatively. "I wonder she ain't scart that the real Felix Ascher might show up some day."
I turned and gave him a look, and what he read in my face brought a thin smile to his lips.
"Ain't no use in wasting a lot o' talk," he went on. "I don't hold it against you, none. You're her husband, and I guess you know the whole story. It was cute of you folks to come here this way and fix things up with her ma and pa. That ain't my business; I'm glad of it."
"What makes you think I'm not Ascher?" I got out. He chuckled, and the chuckle sent a shiver through me.
"Easy enough, son. After she left home that way, I left too. I follered this man Ascher clear out west, and caught up with him. And there ain't no danger of him coming back. Not ever. I ain't told a soul about it, not even her pa; he don't hold with settling matters that way."
I was wordless before the implication of what he said; his silence was as grim as his hard straight eyes. The less talk the better, I thought. He had no intention of spoiling Viola's little plan, took me to be her actual husband, and was satisfied with the whole affair. Talk was risky. So I changed the subject and he never referred to it again.
We left the car before the antique hotel and separated. I found Roesche in one of the slatternly rooms, and he greeted me with relief. We lost no time in settling all the details of our business.
"The blowoff comes at five tomorrow afternoon," I told him. "And at five o'clock, you be talking with this Doctor Torrens, see? When the telephone call comes, you run out to the farm with him. You're a friend of Viola's from the city. I'm afraid of these country doctors; they're shrewd, as a rule. I want you to make the mirror test yourself."
Roesche chuckled. "Sure; leave that to me. I'll get ahead of him with the mirror, all right. How about the funeral arrangements?"
I explained Viola's plan. As he would be at the house, he might arrange to telephone the undertaker; thus he could insure getting a solid top coffin. The effects of the drug would last several hours, and during the night he could replace me with a couple of weighted bags and screw down the lid hard and fast. Once we got this done, I could make my getaway and all was jake. That Roesche could steer everything properly was certain. We were accustomed by this time to be ready for any emergency that might arise. On one occasion Roesche had even helped sit up all night with the corpse.
So I drove back with Uncle Ezra and his sack of chemicals, and we talked farm on the way home.
All this day and the next, I hung around the place. The Hartzell's pretended no affection, but treated me with a homely politeness; Uncle Ezra really took a shine to me, thinking that he had pierced my secret, and rather respecting me for the part he thought I was playing.
Viola put sunshine into the house, and her parents were insane about their grandchild. At first I was tempted to think they would have forgiven everything if she had just shown up with the baby; but I soon perceived otherwise. That father of hers, under the surface, was like grim death. Legitimacy meant everything to him; a matter of principle. Viola had figured things out very correctly after all, and her apparently fantastic scheme was the only one to have gained the end in view.
During these two days, I was astonished at my own changing viewpoint of everything in life—a temporary change to be sure, due to the influence of these people around me, but a very definite change. All the old standards of life and living seemed false, unreal, far away. If I could feel this so strongly, Viola Dane, who was emotionally stirred besides, must have felt it even more acutely.
So far as her child was concerned, this was the ideal place for him. No doubt about that.
WEDNESDAY afternoon drew on. It was four o'clock; in
another hour we would put on the act. I was on the front
porch, talking with Hartzell, who sat in his chair drinking
in the afternoon warmth. Viola was helping her mother
in the kitchen. The telephone rang, and Mrs. Hartzell
answered, and then came to the door.
"It's a friend of yours from the city, son," she said to me. "A Doctor Something—I couldn't get the name. Why don't you ask him to come out for dinner?"
"Thanks, I will," and I made a jump for the room inside. Something was wrong, or Roesche would never be ringing me.
"Hello!" I said. "This is a surprise; glad to hear from you! So you're in Lebanon? The folks would like you to come out to the house for dinner. You will? Fine!"
"I'm not the only one," came the voice of Roesche, more sardonic than usual. "Pin your ears back, Jim! That fellow Wilson was just here—yeah, the paint and varnish playboy. He was asking how to get to Viola's place. He's on the way there now, and burning up the road. If there's any hitch in the program, give me a ring back. If not, I'll stick to the outline."
"Fine," I said, and rang off. "He'll be out, Mrs. Hartzell," I said. "Viola, let's take a walk down the road—what say?"
She knew something was up, and whisked off her apron. We sauntered away from the house, and once we were out of sight, I halted and told her about Wilson. She went white as a sheet.
"Oh!" she said. "Then—then he must have found that I went away with a man. He's frightfully jealous. And he's come—"
"He sure has," I said, as she paused. "Looks like his dust down the road now. That's why I got you out here. Whatever play you make, make it here, away from the house. Going to tip him off to the game?"
Her head came up. She gave me one look, and in this moment I caught a flash of her mother in her face.
"I am not," she said quietly. Then she turned away, looking down the road at the approaching dust, in silence. It was none of my business, but I was curious to see how she would handle her marrying friend.
It was a big car, a roadster, and Wilson was in it. He was nothing to write home about; a flabby-faced man with hot, intolerant, arrogant eyes. He brought the car to a halt and stared at us, without getting out.
"Hello, Vi!" he exclaimed. "Hope I'm not intruding on your rural felicity?"
"You are," she said in a curt voice. It sounded, somehow, like her father.
"Oh, come now!" Wilson lost his sneer. "What do you mean, running off like this without a word to anybody? I came along to meet the family, Vi—"
"Well, you have your wish," she said. "Mr. Wilson, this is my husband, Felix Ascher."
Her words hit out like a blow. I was dumbfounded; Wilson sat there with his jaw hanging. Then he straightened up.
"My God!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "You mean—is this the man—"
"This is the man," cut in Viola steadily, calmly. "And we're married. If you hadn't come here with a sneer on your lips, I'd have told you in another manner; but you've asked for it and you can have it straight."
Wilson never uttered another word. He blinked at me, looked at Viola, then leaned forward, started his engine again, and drove away.
"Whew!" I drew a deep breath. "There goes a lot of money, Viola. You certainly didn't use much tact in the way you broke the news."
"Tact? To hell with tact!" She whirled on me savagely, angrily, her voice lashing out at me. "I'm sick and tired of your taunts and disbeliefs. You've thought all the time that I just wanted to be free to go marry that man. Well, maybe I did, among other things, but I've changed my mind. I'm going to stay right here with my baby, understand? That's all there is to it. Now come on back to the house and do what I've paid you to do, and I never want to see you again."
She flounced away toward the house. When I got over my amazement, I followed her, and chuckled to myself. She had certainly put a final and complete spoke in Roesche's argument and in our half suspicions of her!
And I was glad. All the fine things I had sensed in her at our first meeting, were now confirmed.
Our program went off like clockwork. I put the drops in my eyes, took the dose of the drug that would put me to sleep, and as Roesche had timed the mixture and dosage accurately, there was absolutely no mistake.
At five o'clock, Viola telephoned to Dr. Torrens in Lebanon. Roesche was in his office, and came out to the farm with him, took care of the mirror test the first thing, and assisted to certify that I was dead as a doornail.
I DO not wish to convey any sense of jaunty smartness on
my own part. I was only too poignantly aware of the grief
and shock that this business must bring to the good people
around. This is one aspect of my singular profession from
which I always shrink.
It is the only form of harm I have ever knowingly done anyone, and is not nice to think about even now.
Roesche did his work, as always, with the perfect timing and aplomb of a vaudeville artist. That night he brought me back to life; and before departing in the darkness, I helped him screw down the lid on my own weighted coffin. We had no chance to talk of other matters, however.
Not until he joined me in the city, two days later, could he ask me what had become of the paint and varnish playboy. I told him, and he whistled softly.
"So I was wrong! And that explains it, too—the change in her. Well, I have to hand it to that girl after all."
SIX months later, we were in the City of The Saints,
deeply involved in a ticklish job which made us a pile
of money but can never be put into print. One morning,
Roesche came into my room, wearing an expression of cynical
exultation.
"Say! Remember that girl back east—that strip dancer, Viola Dane? Well, cast your headlights on this, and then tell me how wrong I am!"
He put before me the rotogravure sheet of a Sunday supplement, which carried a lovely photo of Viola Dane, pretty much in the nude. Beneath it was the caption:
THE SCREEN'S NEWEST RECRUIT
Beautiful Viola Dane, Acclaimed by Critics
As Having The Most Beautiful Figure in Hollywood
"How's that?" exclaimed Roesche. "Am I right, eh? Am I right?"
"No," I said. "You're wrong, and you were always wrong about her. She just weakened, that's all."
Which was probably the case. Some of these days I'll ring her up and ask her.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.