Delphi complete works of.., p.246
Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 246
“Sure,” said the drunken mortician, growing a little tired of the Rev. Watts. “We give them the run of the house.”
He was about to raise his voice in an impassioned cry for Charlie when a wilder cry than any he could utter issued from coffin 1007-A.
“Calling Mr. Jessup!” came the hollow voice of Mr. Bland, who had arrived at a facetious stage of inebriety. “Paging Mr. Jessup!”
“Charlie,” roared Mr. Brown, endeavoring to drown out the sound of Bland’s voice. “I say there, Charlie, my boy.”
His boy, looking unusually pale and wan, appeared from the outer shop.
“What is it, Mr. Brown?” he asked.
“Ah, there you are, Charlie!” cried the relieved mortician. “What did we do with Jessup? The Rev. Watts here wants to view his remains, but damn me — begging your pardon, sir — if I can remember what we did with the jolly old corpse.”
“We shipped a Jessup out to Chicago the first thing this morning,” Charlie said, hoping to impress the Rev. Watts favorably by his alertness.
“Dear me!” exclaimed the Rev. Watts, now looking thoroughly startled. “What in the world did you do that for?”
“He insisted on seeing the World’s Fair,” sang out the coffin. “You know, the Century of Progress.”
“Shouldn’t Mr. Jessup’s remains have gone to the World’s Fair?” asked the confused mortician. “I don’t mean that, either.” Here Mr. Brown raised his voice significantly. “I hope someone,” he said, “will learn to mind his own business.” Then, addressing the dazed minister, once more he asked, “Shouldn’t we have shipped Mr. Jessup to Chicago?”
“No, you shouldn’t have shipped Mr. Jessup to Chicago,” retorted the minister, who was rapidly losing both his temper and his dignity. “Mr. Jessup was to be buried right here at home. He has never been to Chicago.”
“Then it’s high time he went,” asserted the coffin. “It will do the poor stiff a world of good.”
“Who is the godless person speaking from that coffin?” demanded the Rev. Watts in a shaken voice.
“He’s a new arrival,” answered Mr. Brown. “Guess he hasn’t got used to the place yet. He’s always gabbing and chattering away just as if he were at a party.”
Once more the Rev. Watts pressed a hand to his temple.
“There is something decidedly wrong here,” he said in his coldest voice. “And there’s something decidedly wrong with you, Mr. Brown. Also, there is something most irregular in the conduct of that coffin.”
“Bah!” shrilled the coffin. “One thousand thunders! There’s nothing wrong with either of us.” The voice broke into a high-pitched, quavering song. “Pals, always pals,” it wailed, then stopped abruptly. “It’s too good for him,” it concluded. “Far too good.”
“Who’s in that coffin?” demanded the Rev. Watts.
“I’m not sure,” said Mr. Brown. “I’m not sure.”
“No wonder you shipped poor Jessup to Chicago,” the minister observed with a nasty smile. “Not only are you intoxicated yourself, but also you’ve managed in some way to get one of your inebriated friends into that coffin. I’m going to investigate this and then take steps to see that your license is revoked, Mr. Brown.”
Thus speaking, the minister squared his narrow shoulders and walked over to the coffin. Interested Mr. Brown followed him. Charlie contented himself with waiting in the background. As the Rev. Watts peered down at the skeleton of Mr. Bland, partially concealed behind his formidable beard, one fleshless hand shot up and seized the minister by the lapel of his coat. With a sharp intake of breath the Rev. Watts leaped back and collapsed into a chair.
“Be calm,” said the skeleton, sitting up in the coffin. “Pull yourself together. Mr. Brown, give the parson a drink.”
Scarcely realizing what he was doing, the Rev. Watts accepted a stiff shot of applejack, which he poured into his shaken and still quivering body.
“Have another?” asked Mr. Brown.
“Pour it out,” gasped the Rev. Watts, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I’ll take it when I stop burning. What is it, embalming fluid?”
Mr. Brown nodded.
“My own preparation,” he said.
“Did it bring that skeleton back from hell?” the minister inquired.
“Listen to me, Watts,” the skeleton began furiously. “You’ve got away with that stuff about hell altogether too long. I’ve looked all over for such a place, and damn me if I can find it.”
With a hand that trembled, the minister raised the glass to his lips and drained his second drink. Fortified by this, he addressed himself to the skeleton.
“I don’t know who you are,” he said. “I don’t even know what you are, but would you mind telling me how you expect anyone to give you a Christian burial if you keep on talking and singing and popping out of your coffin like a veritable jack-in-the-box?”
“I’m going to bury myself,” declared Mr. Bland. “I’m perfectly competent to do so, and it will be much less expensive.”
“Perhaps that would be wiser after all,” said the minister, holding his glass to Mr. Brown. “I’m sure I could never bury you if you kept interrupting the service and joining in the hymns. Would you mind telling me what you have found on the other side?”
“On the other side of what?” asked Mr. Bland.
“On the other side of the grave,” replied the minister.
“I haven’t even been buried yet,” said Mr. Bland, “but after I’m once planted I’ll come back and slip you the dope.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” the Rev. Watts said hurriedly. “I’m not as anxious to know as all that.” He turned to Mr. Brown. “This embalming fluid is excellent stuff. It’s far too good for your patrons. Ha, ha! Must have my little quip even in the face of that god-forsaken-looking object. Just a dash this time.”
“Then you don’t think I’m drunk?” asked the mortician.
“Far from it,” replied the minister. “You’re mad. We’re both mad. That creature in there cannot be real. It’s a figment of our crazed imaginations. I hope the seizure passes, or we’ll have to be put away. Oh, look!”
The figment of their imaginations was crawling out of its coffin. When it reached the floor it walked noiselessly to the jug and helped itself to a long drink, then calmly sat down in the other chair.
“Why,” asked the Rev. Watts, “are you clad only in your drawers? That’s no way to get buried. I can understand the drawers, of course, and I’m gratified you still have some sense of decency left.”
“A man is born naked into this world,” replied Mr. Bland. “I see no reason why he shouldn’t leave it in much the same condition.”
“Then why don’t you shave that beard off?” the Rev. Watts asked on a note of drunken triumph. “I hope for your mother’s sake you weren’t born into the world with that.”
“If you don’t like my beard,” said Mr. Bland, “I’ll take the damn’ thing off.”
To the horror of the Rev. Watts the skeleton tugged at his beard and passed it to Mr. Brown, who playfully affixed it to his own chin and stood frowning down at the minister.
“I can’t stand it,” gasped that gentleman. “Already I’ve stood too much.”
Rising feebly from his chair, he made a zigzag passage for the door. Here he halted and looked back.
“When a mortician and a skeleton start wearing one and the same beard,” he said, “it’s high time for a mere minister to make himself scarce.”
“How about another drink?” asked Mr. Brown.
“Not while you have that beard on,” said the Rev. Watts. “Take it off like a good chap and bring me just a dash. My legs are acting in the strangest manner.”
A few minutes later Officer Donovan, who was still misdirecting traffic, was the recipient of another shock.
“Holy mackerel,” he muttered to himself. “What’s come over this burg, anyway? There goes the Rev. Watts, and he’s crocked to the eyes.”
Although crocked to the eyes, as Donovan had expressed it, the Rev. Watts was feeling better than he had felt in years.
“Want to know what they did with old Jessup?” he asked a passing stranger, clutching the man by the arm. “They shipped old Jessup to the World’s Fair, remains and all. Extraordinary piece of carelessness. Has its amusing side, however. Old Jessup at the World’s Fair — think of it! What a way to be.”
Dismissing the man with a wave of his hand, the Rev. Watts continued on his way. As he lurched round the corner he lifted his hoarse voice in a plaintive song having to do with the continuous loyalty of pals. Those who were privileged to hear the singing of the Rev. Watts were more astonished than entertained.
CHAPTER NINE: 1007-A PAYS A SOCIAL CALL
WHEN THE wide front door of the Bland residence moved ominously open, Lorna was rising from a solitary luncheon. Solitary, that is, save for the unresponsive presence of a collapsed and deflated Busy who, an hour or so earlier, like a singed bat out of hell, had come streaking up the drive in a high state of nerves.
For a while thereafter the square dog had conducted himself in a suspicious and alarming manner. With mounting anxiety his mistress had watched him alternately staggering and creeping about the house, carefully avoiding dark corners and glancing over his shoulder as if some unseen and unwanted presence were silently stalking his tracks.
Finally Lorna found herself becoming as nervous as the dog. She began to wonder why the animal had returned home unescorted by his drunken and lecherous master. Also, she began to wonder about that fine fellow himself.
She was not long in finding out.
Through the front door four dark-clad gentlemen entered with a certain air of subdued briskness, bearing with them good old model 1007-A. Following close upon the heels of his cherished coffin appeared a flushed, disheveled, yet happily beaming Mr. Brown. The business in hand was dispatched quickly and quietly, yet not without a somewhat decently festive air. Before Lorna had had time to appreciate fully the inwardness of the events taking place in her home, she found herself in possession of one large and imposing coffin and one obviously drunken Mr. Brown, neither of which she wanted with any great degree of yearning.
Nevertheless she was interested if not gratified.
Hovering curiously in the door of the living room, Lorna looked first upon the mortician and then upon the coffin. The coffin, she decided, was in far better condition. After industriously mopping his brow with a deep-bordered mourning handkerchief, Mr. Brown turned suddenly upon the lady of the house and held up a protesting hand.
“Now don’t be morbid,” he told her. “You couldn’t get a better coffin if you tried, and besides, I’m sweating like a bull.”
“Just how does a bull sweat?” asked Lorna coolly.
“How should I know?” replied Mr. Brown a little impatiently. “Like anyone else, I suppose. Only on a larger scale.”
“I’ve never seen a bull sweat on any scale at all,” observed the woman.
“Then you haven’t missed much,” said Mr. Brown. “Although it might be worth watching, but don’t tax me with it. Maybe bulls are sweatless for all I know, or maybe they sweat like — like — —”
“A drunken mortician,” suggested Lorna sweetly.
“Eh, what’s that?” he exclaimed. “Who’s a drunken mortician?”
“You are,” Lorna told him.
“I didn’t come here to quarrel,” said Mr. Brown with dignity. “So don’t go on about it.”
“You know,” continued Lorna, her voice unpleasantly calm, “no matter how much I may crave and admire that coffin, Mr. Brown, you can’t come swooping into my house and forcing the thing on me without any previous warning. I might die from the shock, and that coffin is far too large for me. I’d rattle around in the thing like a pea in a pod.”
“Do you always run on like that?” asked Mr. Brown, not insultingly, but from an honest desire to know.
“More or less,” said Lorna.
“More,” contributed the coffin in a decided but muffled voice. “Never, never less. She always goes on and on and on — endlessly and tiresomely — fiendishly!”
Sleepily the voice droned itself into silence.
“Who said that?” demanded Mr. Brown before Lorna had time to put the same question to him.
“I don’t know,” she replied, “but whoever it was I’d like to wring his lying neck.”
She advanced into the room and held a clenched fist directly over the coffin.
“Why his lying neck, madam?” Brown asked quickly to distract her attention.
“Why not his lying neck?” she snapped. “What else should I wring?”
“Far be it from me to say,” said Mr. Brown, “but I might suggest his teeth — people lie through their teeth, you know.”
“But people don’t always have teeth,” she retorted, “and they always have necks.”
“Why not wring his hand?” he asked her.
“I don’t know who he is,” she said.
“You don’t know who who is?” inquired Mr. Brown.
“You’re very drunk,” she assured him.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he admitted. “Is there anything in the house?”
“It’s over there on the table,” she said. “Help yourself and pour me one, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” said Mr. Brown, simply. “In fact, I’d rather like it.”
He poured two drinks, gave one to Lorna. Then both sat down and thoughtfully surveyed the coffin.
“It’s a lovely thing,” she said at last. “Lovely.”
“Exquisite,” agreed Brown. “Would you care for one just like it, only smaller?”
“It would make the room too crowded,” she said. “And besides, I couldn’t afford it unless on partial payments.”
“That might be arranged,” said Mr. Brown. “You could sell the sofa to begin with.”
Lorna considered this, then suggested another drink.
“Tell me,” she said when she was given one. “Who is really going to get this coffin?”
“Eh!” Brown exclaimed. “I don’t quite understand.”
“I mean,” she said, “that you’ve made a mistake, Mr. Brown.”
“Of course, I have,” he admitted. “I shipped Mr. Jessup to the World’s Fair. That was an amusing blunder.”
“Who’s Mr. Jessup?” Lorna asked.
“I don’t quite know myself,” said Brown, in some perplexity, “but I’m given to understand he was one of my transient corpses.”
“Do any of them stay with you permanently?”
“No corpse stays with me permanently,” Brown declared with emphasis. “Not if I know it.”
“I guess you’d know it,” said Lorna.
“ ’Most anybody would,” said Mr. Brown.
“Is this one going to stay permanently with me?” she asked him.
“That’s up to you,” he told her.
“Then I say no,” she declared. “There are enough queer things in this house already.”
“There’s nothing queer about a corpse,” said Mr. Brown.
“Not when it stays in its proper place,” she answered. “But the middle of my best room is no proper place for a corpse. People would begin to talk.”
“Let ’em,” said Mr. Brown largely. “Let ’em talk their blasted tongues off. If you want a corpse in your home there’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t have your corpse — or a baker’s dozen of corpses, if you care for so many.”
“But I don’t want one corpse in my home,” she protested, “let alone a baker’s dozen of them. By the way,” she added, “just how could you make up a baker’s dozen of corpses, Mr. Brown?”
“Quite simply,” said Mr. Brown. “Just toss in an extra arm, or leg, or, for full measure, a good torso.”
“Gr-r-r,” came from the coffin. “How can they do it?”
“Did you hear that?” asked Lorna.
“No,” lied Mr. Brown. “Is there a dog in the house?”
“Yes,” replied Lorna.
“Then that explains it,” said Brown.
“A baker’s dozen of dogs wouldn’t explain it to me,” she declared. “There’s something funny about that coffin. Who really owns it?”
“Your husband bought that coffin,” said Mr. Brown.
“Then where is my husband?”
“Why, he’s in the coffin,” Brown told her. “I thought you knew that.”
“Why in the world does he want to be in a stuffy old coffin?” asked Lorna.
“Why does anyone want to be in a coffin?” countered Mr. Brown.
“Damned if I know,” said Lorna frankly. “Do you, Mr. Brown?”
“All of my clients want to be in coffins,” he replied.
Lorna laughed scornfully.
“They can’t help themselves,” she answered. “They have to be in coffins.”
“Well,” said Mr. Brown, “your husband is one of my clients.”
“You mean to say,” asked Lorna, “that my husband actually wanted to be in that coffin?”
“Couldn’t keep him out of it,” Brown declared proudly. “He’s crazy about that coffin — admires it quite sincerely.”
“It’s one thing to admire a coffin,” said Lorna, “and quite another to crawl into one. Take me, for example. I admire that coffin, but I’d go to the most extreme lengths to keep myself out of it.”
“You could be in far worse places,” observed Mr. Brown defensively.
“Perhaps,” she admitted, “but in comparison with that coffin the foulest gutter would be a bed of roses to me.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Brown, now thoroughly aroused. “And if you lay long in a foul gutter you’d jolly well need a coffin. What do you think of that?”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she answered. “It takes a strong constitution to lie in a foul gutter.”
“I never lay in a foul gutter,” said Mr. Brown.
“What sort of gutters do you lie in?”
“I’ve never lain in any gutter at all,” he answered.
“Then,” said Lorna, crushingly, “you don’t know life.”
