Delphi complete works of.., p.253
Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 253
“I don’t know how you did it,” he managed to say at last, “but won’t you take it off? I don’t want to be seen talking to a person with such a beard.”
“What’s wrong with the beard, rat?” the skull rasped dangerously. “Feel it! Stroke it!”
“Oh, no,” babbled Mr. Blutter. “Oh, no, indeed. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Feel it! Stroke it!” said the skull inflexibly.
The arrival of the conductor saved Mr. Blutter from losing what little mind he had. Automatically the conductor accepted the two commutation tickets and punched them. It was not until he was returning them to their individual owners that he noticed anything wrong. It was the bearded skull’s hand that first attracted his decidedly unfavorable attention. The beard was the next point of interest. Over this he lingered a moment with rapidly mounting astonishment, but it was not until he looked at the face itself that he received the full shock of the object he was scrutinizing.
“Who are you?” demanded the conductor. “You’re not Mr. Bland.”
“No,” mumbled a cracked voice through the beard. “I’m Mr. Bland’s grandfather. He said you wouldn’t mind.”
“Never knew he had a grandfather,” said the conductor.
“Why should you?” asked the beard. “My grandson has lots of things he never told you about.”
“What happened to your hands?” the conductor wanted to know.
“My hands?” repeated the beard. “Oh, those. I started biting my fingernails when I was a baby, and I just kept on going.”
“Mean to say you bit your hands off?” incredulously demanded the conductor.
“Nibbled,” Mr. Bland corrected. “Nibbled. It took years and years to do it. Now there’s nothing left to nibble, so I’ve broken myself of the habit. I’m a very old man, you know.”
“Well, you’d better tell your grandson,” said the conductor, “that he ought to buy you a pair of gloves. Your hands are a sight.”
“He did,” mumbled Mr. Bland. “He bought me a pair of gloves, but I ate holes in the fingers. There was fur inside. I boggled a bit at the fur, but finally I got used to it. Never got to like it much. Too old, I reckon. Did you ever try fur?”
The conductor gulped, then shook his head. This horrid old man was positively making him sick.
“Don’t,” said Mr. Bland briefly. “It gets in the teeth.”
The conductor gagged slightly and passed to the next seat, but his mind was not on his work. His thoughts kept reverting to Mr. Bland’s grandfather and his unattractive ways. He was about the oldest old man the conductor had ever seen. He looked more dead than alive. However, if he could eat fur and get away with it he must have a strong constitution.
Being a natural-born gossiper, the conductor did not delay long in telling some of his more favored passengers all about the strange old grandfather of Mr. Bland and of how he had nibbled off his hands and then started in on fur-lined gloves. Soon Mr. Bland was the center of no little attention. Heads were turned in his direction, and low conversations ensued. Mr. Bland was not happy about this, but Mr. Blutter was still less happy. He was looking around for a means of escape when he felt five bony talons burn into the flesh of his thigh. Involuntarily he uttered an inarticulate cry. This attracted even more attention.
“No, you don’t,” grated Mr. Bland. “You’re going to stay here and keep me company, and when the train reaches the station you’re going to help me along the platform. See this?”
Under the cover of the seat ahead Mr. Bland pulled up the right sleeve of his coat and displayed the bare bone of his arm.
“Oh!” gasped Mr. Blutter, fairly cringing in his seat. “Oh! I can’t last much longer. Please don’t show me any more awful things.”
“I’m like that all over,” Mr. Bland informed him with a note of pride. “Would you like to see my ribs? You can look right through them.”
“I don’t want to look,” said Mr. Blutter.
“Then how’s this?” continued Mr. Bland, giving his beard a slight twist. “Do you like it better on the side or in the middle?”
“Off,” said Mr. Blutter.
“Can’t take it off,” Mr. Bland observed reflectively, “because then I wouldn’t be my own grandfather, and if I’m not my own grandfather who the hell am I?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“I’m an average American husband,” announced Mr. Bland. “A part of the buying public, and you’re my very old and very dear friend. How about stroking my beard?”
“Please pull it back,” said Blutter. “Beards don’t grow like that even on a face like yours.”
“Very well,” Mr. Bland agreed amiably. “Back goes the beard. And just in time, too. Here we are.”
Mr. Blutter’s relief in putting that trip behind him was short-lived. This was due to the fact that Mr. Bland’s trousers slipped over his pelvis about halfway down the platform, and he, the redoubtable Blutter, had to assist in securing them while all the world looked on. What Mr. Blutter saw of Mr. Bland during this feverish and complicated procedure improved his morale very little.
“I’ll hold ’em up,” Mr. Bland told him, “while you twist the belt.”
“What will I twist around?” Mr. Blutter chattered.
“I’ve a bit of a spine back there. Twist it around that.”
“If I wasn’t so damned scared of you,” said Blutter in a burst of frankness, “I’d like to twist your spine off.”
“You can have a twist if you like,” Mr. Bland replied generously. “I can grow another one.”
With his trousers securely in place, Mr. Bland took his unwilling companion’s arm and continued on down the platform, shuffling noisily as he went.
“Can’t you lift your feet a little?” complained the freely sweating Blutter. “We’re conspicuous enough as it is without you making all that noise.”
“No,” said Mr. Bland. “My shoes would come off. If you think the rest of me is horrid you should take a look at my feet.”
At the telephone booths Mr. Blutter was released from his terrific ordeal, but not before he had experienced the harrowing sensation of shaking hands with a skeleton.
“Good-bye, old chap,” said Mr. Bland. “Be a good average American husband, and some bright day I’ll drop round to call on you and the — er — missus. I think that’s the acceptable term for the average American wife, or is it ‘the little lady’?”
Without stopping to answer, Blutter sped like an arrow from the bow the instant his hand was released from the blood-chilling grasp of that fleshless hand.
Mr. Bland watched the retreating figure of Mr. Blutter, then mentally took stock of the situation.
“I’m in one hell of a fine fix,” he said to himself. “Here I stand with an obviously false beard, no flesh at all, and a pair of treacherous trousers. What am I going to do? I’ll get picked up sure as shooting if I try to barge along on my own. Wonder what Lorna’s doing.”
Feeling much more miserable than he was willing to let himself know, he turned toward a telephone booth, the queer, awkward figure of what recently was a man, now entirely cut off from the flesh-and-blood people milling busily round him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE WHITTLES REAPPEAR
IT WAS an inspiration on Mr. Bland’s part to think of Claude Whittle. Both Whittle and his wife were cast in an imperturbable mold. They could take an animated skeleton in their stride without batting an eyelid. More than that, they could bring themselves to associate with that same skeleton on terms of unstrained equality. Sound people in a tight fix. Mr. Bland was certain that if any man’s fix was tight, his was that fix. Accordingly he dialed Mr. Whittle’s hotel and was soon connected with that gentleman himself.
“Hello, Whittle,” he said when a mild voice at the other end of the line had announced that its owner was there. “This is Quintus Bland.”
“What a name that first half is,” said the mild voice plaintively. “You can’t imagine how silly it sounds just coming out of nowhere, although when I saw you last you were nearly next to nothing yourself. It’s raining.”
“Listen,” said Mr. Bland, “are you sure you’ve finished about my name and your zippy little weather reports? I’m paying for this call and you’re using it all up.”
“People so seldom telephone me,” Mr. Whittle explained, “I’m actually telephone hungry — starved, I might say. Famished. Where’s your body now?”
“That’s just the trouble. I haven’t any body.”
“But you did have some body? Is that it? I’m no detective. Never was.”
“Don’t you ever stop drinking?” Mr. Bland demanded. “I’ll try again. Listen well. I did have a body only a few minutes ago, but the damned thing has done a bunk on me and left me stranded in the D. L. & W. station with a long white beard and no place to go.”
“Whose beard is it?” asked Mr. Whittle.
“Does that mean a lot to you?” Mr. Bland replied impatiently.
“No,” admitted the mild voice reflectively, “but it’s sort of interesting. You have a beard, you say, and it’s white. That means you have a white beard when one really gets down to brass tacks. What more do you want — another beard?”
“God, no!” exclaimed Mr. Bland, slipping another coin in the slot at the urgent behest of the operator. “I’ve got enough beard to last one a lifetime if I’m careful. I want you to come over here and get me.”
“You or the beard?” asked Mr. Whittle.
“Me in the beard,” said Mr. Bland.
“Will you wear the beard for me?” the mild voice asked with increased animation.
“What do you think I’m going to do with it, wave it like a flag?”
“You could,” said Mr. Whittle after a short pause, “That is, if it’s long enough, and the way I figure it, a beard doesn’t have to be so long to be waved like a flag. I’m to look for a skeleton in a white beard, is that it?”
“You’re to be prepared for a skeleton in a white beard,” Mr. Bland told him.
“Oh, I won’t mind greatly,” said Mr. Whittle. “You’re not as bad as loathsome reptiles, at any rate. If I could stand you in a pillowcase I guess I won’t balk at a beard. Where will you be?”
“In one of those private washrooms.”
“Oh, I know those places,” said Mr. Whittle. “Went to sleep in one of them once and they thought I’d committed suicide.”
“You were drunk,” said Mr. Bland.
“Yes,” said Mr. Whittle sorrowfully, “I was drunk.”
“You won’t be long, will you?” asked Mr. Bland, a note of real anxiety creeping into his voice. “And you won’t forget all about me?”
“Certainly not,” protested Whittle. “Pauline will remind me. She’s collected my clothes already. There’s something morbid about that woman the way she falls for the abnormal. She wants to know if your beard flows.”
“Freely,” said Mr. Bland, “and without stint.”
“I can hardly wait,” came the mild voice of Mr. Whittle. “How will I know which one you are in?”
“Just call my name softly,” replied Mr. Bland, “and I’ll snap right out.”
“Well, don’t snap out too fast,” said Mr. Whittle. “I’m willing, but my heart is weak, and your beard might get caught in the door. I won’t say ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ because the last person who said that to me I called an exceptionally vile name. Shall I ring off now?”
“Why not?” said Mr. Bland.
“All right, I’ll do it,” the voice of Whittle replied, “but isn’t it funny, me looking for a skeleton with a white beard in a gentleman’s private washroom. Don’t you think so, or do you know of something funnier?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you,” said Mr. Bland. “Get started.”
“Don’t forget,” came the voice of Whittle faintly. “I’m going now. Good-bye.”
Mr. Bland returned the receiver to the hook and got himself into a private washroom as unobtrusively as possible, warning the Negro attendant not to disturb him until called for. When the Negro looked at the size of his tip, each tooth in his head fairly gleamed its gratitude.
“Thank you, boss,” he said. “Thank you kindly. You can stay a solid month, and if you want your meals brought in, I’m your man.”
Mr. Bland entered the small room and, knowing the casual ways of the Whittles, sat down and prepared himself to wait for an indefinite period. However, on this occasion Claude Whittle did not tarry long on the way. About an hour after Mr. Bland had heard his voice over the wire he heard it again outside the door to his room.
“George,” Mr. Whittle was saying to the attendant, “I’m looking for a white beard feebly supported by a tall, thin gentleman. Have you seen anything like it?”
“Sure have, boss,” replied the attendant. “He’s right in there, suh, and he can stay just as long as he wants.”
“Good!” cried Mr. Whittle; then, slightly elevating his voice: “Señor Toledo, how long do you want to stay in there?”
“Señor Toledo doesn’t want to stay in here another minute longer,” replied Mr. Bland. “Señor Toledo comes.”
Unlatching the door, he stepped out and faced Mr. Whittle. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he outfaced that gentleman, for after one swift look at Mr. Bland and his beard, Mr. Whittle’s eyes fell.
“Well?” said Mr. Bland, feeling somewhat self-conscious. “What do you think of me?”
“Don’t let’s take that up at this moment,” replied Mr. Whittle. “Give me a little time to analyze my emotions. I will say this, however, you’re not an anticlimax. Pauline has a taxi waiting.”
The door to the taxi swung open at the approach of Mr. Bland and his escort. A woman’s low voice came from the semidarkness of its interior.
“Is he wearing any drawers?” Pauline wanted to know.
“How about yourself?” snapped Mr. Bland as he jackknifed himself through the low door.
“What do you think I am?” asked Pauline Whittle indignantly. “A prude?”
“Do you know what she’s trying to get at?” inquired Mr. Whittle in his mild, patient manner.
“I hope she isn’t trying to get at anything,” replied Mr. Bland.
“Come, come,” said Mr. Whittle.
“I asked merely because I want to have a clear understanding of the situation,” Pauline explained. “If his trousers fall off in the lobby it would be well to have a second line of defense.”
“My drawers are no defense at all,” said Mr. Bland. “They’re a second source of anxiety. If my trousers fall off in the lobby my drawers will accompany them. They have always been too large.”
“I say, lady,” said the taxi driver, thrusting his head through the partition window, “is there anything criminal in this?”
“There is,” replied Pauline. “Now do you feel at home?”
“It’s all right by me,” said the driver, “but that’s a damn’ poor disguise. The dumbest flattie on the force could spot him a mile off.”
“We’re not going to let him play with flatties,” said Pauline. “He’s keeping under cover. Snap to it and drive on. You’re carrying the oldest gunman in the world. He’s likely to knock you over just in the spirit of fun.”
“Okay, lady,” said the driver. “Tell the old murderer I’m on his side.”
The Whittles lived in a large and ostentatious uptown hotel. About it there was no suggestion of home atmosphere. For this reason the Whittles liked it, never having been able to get through their heads what home life was all about. It was frankly a pagan temple, this huge structure dominating the Gay White Way. It offered every modern convenience except a morgue. Its Turkish baths and dormitories did much to keep gangsters both clean and sober. In luxurious suites of rooms beautiful women lived not such beautiful lives. And almost everybody had a good time until he was either shot down or kicked out. So far the Whittles had managed to avoid both of these unpleasant occurrences.
When the trio emerged from the taxi its bearded member was discovered wearing Mr. Whittle’s raincoat. It was much too short for him, but that slight detail made little difference. Mr. Bland could look no worse than he did regardless of what he wore.
“Pull your coat collar up and your hatbrim down,” Pauline commanded, “and hang onto your pants and beard.”
“Trousers,” muttered Mr. Bland. “I keep on telling you.”
The desk clerk’s name was Booker, and his eyes were harassed and weary from looking into so many different types of faces. Booker believed there was not a face in all the world of which he had not seen the counterpart. He promptly revised his opinion when he looked into Mr. Bland’s. Confronted by this somewhat synthetic gentleman, Booker for once lost his air of cynical detachment. He held his left hand up before his eyes and told off the fingers with his right. Once more he looked at the bearded face as if still unconvinced. Then he repeated the performance, only this time he held up his right hand and counted its fingers with the left.
“Why are you doing that?” asked Mr. Bland. “You’re making me very nervous.”
“You’ve already made me that,” said Booker. “I was trying to discover if I was losing my eyesight. I almost wish I were.”
“This gentleman is a friend of ours,” Pauline Whittle explained. “He wants a large room with a bath.”
“I should say,” replied Booker, “the gentleman wanted a doctor, or a barber, or better still, a hearse.”
“Nonsense,” snapped Mrs. Whittle. “Señor Toledo is a distinguished Spanish magician.”
“Then Señor Toledo should play some tricks on himself,” said the clerk. “He’ll have a hard time holding an audience if he doesn’t do something about his appearance.”
Annoyed, Mr. Bland held two fleshless fingers directly beneath Booker’s nose, then snapped them suddenly. The resulting noise was not unlike the explosion of a small firecracker.
“Bah to you,” said Mr. Bland. “Do I get a room or don’t I?”
