I left Insomnia Lodge next morning eight and spent some in Parkington. Visions of bungling the execution kept me. Thinking that perhaps the cartridges the automatic had gone stale during week of inactivity, I removed them inserted a fresh batch. Such a oil bath did I give Chum - I called my pistol - now I could not get rid the stuff. I bandaged him up a rag, like a maimed limb, used another rag to wrap up handful of spare bullets.
A thunderstorm me most of the way back Grimm Road, but when I Pavor Manor, the sun was visible again, like a man, and the birds in the drenched and steaming trees. elaborate and decrepit house seemed to in a kind of daze, reflecting it were my own state, for could not help realizing, as my touched the springy and insecure ground, I had overdone the alcoholic stimulation .
A guardedly ironic silence answered my . The garage, however, was loaded with car, a black convertible for the . I tried the knocker. Re-nobody. With petulant snarl, I pushed the front - and, how nice, it swung as in a medieval fairy tale. softly closed it behind me, I my way across a spacious and ugly hall; peered into an adjacent room; noticed a number of used growing out of the carpet; decided master was still asleep in the bedroom.
So I trudged upstairs. My hand clutched muffled Chum in my , my left patted the sticky banisters. the three bedrooms I inspected, one obviously been slept in that night. was a library full of flowers. was a rather bare room with and deep mirrors and a polar skin on the slippery floor. There still other rooms. A happy thought me. If and when master returned his constitutional in the woods, or from some secret lair, it might wise for an unsteady gunman with long job before him to prevent playmate from locking himself up in room. Consequently, for at least five I went about - lucidly insane, calm, an enchanted and very tight - turning whatever keys in whatever there were and pocketing them with free left hand. The house being old one, had more planned privacy have modern glamour-boxes, where the bathroom, only lockable locus, has to be for the furtive needs of planned .
Speaking of bathrooms - I was to visit a third one when came out of it, leaving a waterfall behind him. The corner of passage did not quite conceal me. Gray-, baggy-eyed, fluffily disheveled in a scanty way, but still perfectly recognizable, he by me in a purple bathrobe, like one I had. He either not notice me, or else dismissed as some familiar and innocuous hallucination - , showing me his hairy calves, proceeded, sleepwalker-wise, downstairs. I pocketed my key and followed him into the hall. He had half opened his and the front door, to peer through a sunny chink as one thinks he has heard a half-hearted ring and recede. Then, still ignoring raincoated phantasm that had stopped in , master walked into a cozy boudoir the hall from the drawing room, which - taking it easy, knowing was safe - I now went from him, and in a bar-adorned gingerly unwrapped dirty Chum, taking care to leave any oil stains on chrome - I think I got wrong product, it was black and messy. In my usual meticulous way, transferred naked Chum to a clean about me and made for the boudoir. My step, as I say, springy - too springy perhaps for . But my heart pounded with tiger , and I crunched a cocktail glass .
Master met me the Oriental parlor.
“Now who are you?" he asked a high hoarse voice, his hands into his dressing-gown pockets, his eyes a point to the northeast of head. "Are you by any Brewster?"
By now it was evident to that he was in a fog completely at my so-called mercy. I enjoy myself.
"That's right," I answered . "Je suis Monsieur Brustère. Let us for a moment before we start."
looked pleased. His smudgy mustache twitched. removed my raincoat. I was wearing black suit, a black shirt, no . We sat down in two easy .
"You know," he said, scratching loudly fleshy and gritty gray cheek and his small pearly teeth in a grin, "you don't look Jack Brewster. I mean, the resemblance is not striking. Somebody told me he had brother with the same telephone company."
have him trapped, after those years repentance and rage . . . look at the black hairs on back of his pudgy hands . . . wander with a hundred over his purple silks and hirsute foreglimpsing the punctures, and mess, and of pain . . . To that this semi-animated, subhuman trickster who sodomized my darling - oh, my , this was intolerable bliss!
"No, I afraid I am of the Brewsters."
He cocked his head, looking more than ever. "Guess again, Punch."
"Ah," Punch, "so you have not come bother me about those long-distance calls?"
" do make them once in a , don't you?"
"Excuse me?"
I said had said I thought he had he had never -
"People," he , "people in general, I'm not accusing , Brewster, but you know it's absurd way people invade this damned house even knocking. They use the vaterre, use the kitchen, they use the . Phil calls Philadelphia. Pat calls Patagonia. refuse to pay. You have a accent, Captain."
"Quilty," I said, "do recall a little girl Dolores Haze, Dolly Haze? Dolly called Dolores, Colorado?"
", she may have made those calls, . Any place. Paradise, Washington - Hell Canyon. Who ?"
"I do, Quilty. You , I am her father."
"Nonsense," he . "You are not. You are some literary agent. A Frenchman once translated Proud Flesh as La Fierté de la Chair. ."
"She was my , Quilty."
In the state he was in could not really be taken aback anything, but his blustering manner was quite convincing. A sort of wary kindled his eyes into a semblance life. They were immediately dulled again.
"'m very fond of children myself," he , "and fathers are among my best ."
He turned his head away, looking something. He beat his pockets. He to rise from his seat.
"Down!" said - apparently much louder than intended.
"You need not roar at ," he complained in his strange feminine . "I just wanted to smoke. I'm for a smoke."
"You're dying anyway."
", chucks," he said. "You begin to me. What do you want? Are French, mister? Woolly-woo-boo-are? Let's go to barroomette and have a stiff -"
saw the little dark weapon lying my palm as if I were it to him.
"Say!" he drawled ( imitating the underworld numbskull of movies), "'s a swell little gun you've got . What d'you want for her?"
I down his outstretched hand and he to knock over a box on low table near him. It ejected handful of cigarettes.
"Here they are," said cheerfully. "You recall Kipling: une femme est une femme, mais un Caporal est une cigarette? Now we need matches."
"," I said. "I want you to . You are going to die in moment. The hereafter for all we may be an eternal state of insanity. You smoked your last cigarette . Concentrate. Try to understand what is to you."
He kept the Drome cigarette apart and munching bits of .
"I am willing to try," he . "You are either Australian, or a refugee. Must you talk to me? is a Gentile's house, you know. , you'd better run along. And do demonstrating that gun. I've an Stern-Luger in the music room."
I pointed at his slippered foot and crushed trigger. It clicked. He looked at foot, at the pistol, again at foot. I made another awful effort, , with a ridiculously feeble and juvenile , it went off. The bullet entered thick pink rug, and I had paralyzing impression that it had merely in and might come out again.
" what I mean?" said Quilty. "You be a little more careful. Give that thing for Christ's sake."
He for it. I pushed him back the chair. The rich joy was . It was high time I destroyed , but he must understand why he being destroyed. His condition infected me, weapon felt limp and clumsy in hand.
"Concentrate," I said, "on the of Dolly Haze whom you kidnaped -"
" did not!" he cried. "You're wet. I saved her from a pervert. Show me your badge instead shooting at my foot, you ape, . Where is that badge? I'm not for the rapes of others. Absurd! joy ride, I grant you, was silly stunt but you got her , didn't you? Come, let's have a ."
I asked him whether he wanted be executed sitting or standing.
"Ah, me think," he said. "It is an easy question. Incidentally - I a mistake. Which I sincerely regret. see, I had no fun with Dolly. I am practically impotent, to the melancholy truth. And I gave a splendid vacation. She met some people. Do you happen to know - "
with a tremendous lurch fell all over me, sending the hurtling under a chest of drawers. he was more impetuous than vigorous, I had little difficulty in shoving back into his chair.
He puffed little and folded his arms on chest.
"Now you've done it," he . "Vous voila dans de beaux draps, mon vieux."
His French was improving.
I around. Perhaps, if - Perhaps I - On my hands and knees? it?
"Alors, que fait-on?" he asked me closely.
I stooped. He did move. I stooped lower.
"My dear ," he said, "stop trifling with life death. I am a playwright. I written tragedies, comedies, fantasies. I have private movies out of Justine and eighteenth-century sexcapades. I'm the author of -two successful scenarios. I know all the . Let me handle this. There should a poker somewhere, why don't I it, and then we'll fish out property."
Fussily, busybodily, cunningly, he had again while he talked. I groped the chest trying at the same to keep an eye on him. of a sudden I noticed that had noticed that I did not to have noticed Chum protruding from the other corner of the chest. fell to wrestling again. We rolled over the floor, in each other's , like two huge helpless children. He naked and goatish under his robe, I felt suffocated as he rolled me. I rolled over him. We over me. They rolled over him. rolled over us.
In its published , this book is being read, I , in the first years of A.D. (1935 plus eighty or ninety, live , my love); and elderly readers, will recall at this point the obligatory in the Westerns of their childhood. tussle, however, lacked the ox-stunning fisticuffs, flying furniture. He and I were large dummies, stuffed with dirty cotton rags. It was a silent, soft, tussle on the part of the literati, one of whom was utterly by a drug while the other handicapped by a heart condition and much gin. When at last I possessed myself of my precious weapon, the scenario writer had been reinstalled his low chair, both of us panting as the cowman and the never do after their battle.
I to inspect the pistol - our might have spoiled something - and my wind before proceeding to the item in the program. To fill the pause, I proposed he read own sentence - in the poetical I had given it. The term " justice" is one that may be happily used in this respect. I him a neat typescript.
"Yes," he , "splendid idea. Let me fetch my glasses" (he attempted to rise).
"No."
" as you say. Shall I read loud?"
"Yes."
"Here goes. I see 's in verse.
Because you took advantage a sinner
because you took advantage
you took
because you took advantage my disadvantage .. .
"That's good, know. That's damned good."
. . . I stood Adam-naked
before a law and all its stinging stars
" stuff!"
. . . Because you advantage of a sin
when I helpless moulting moist and tender hoping the best
dreaming of marriage in mountain state
aye of a litter Lolitas ..
"Didn't get that."
Because took advantage of my inner essential
because you cheated me -
"A repetitious, what? Where was I?"
Because cheated me of my redemption
because took
her at the age when
play with erector sets
"Getting smutty, ?"
a little downy girl still wearing
still eating popcorn in the colored
where tawny Indians took paid croppers
you stole her
from her wax-browed dignified protector
spitting into his heavy-lidded
ripping his flavid toga and at
leaving the hog to roll upon new discomfort
the awfulness of love violets
remorse despair while you
took dull doll to pieces
and threw head away
because of all you
because of all I did not
have to die
"Well, sir, this certainly a fine poem. Your best far as I am concerned."
He and handed it back to me.
asked him if he had anything to say before dying. The automatic again ready for use on the . He looked at it and heaved big sigh.
"Now look here, Mac," said. "You are drunk and I a sick man. Let us postpone matter. I need quiet. I have nurse my impotence. Friends are coming the afternoon to take me to game. This pistol-packing farce is becoming frightful nuisance. We are men of world, in everything - sex, free , marksmanship. If you bear me a , I am ready to make unusual . Even an old-fashioned rencontre, sword or , in Rio or elsewhere - is excluded. My memory and my eloquence not at their best today but , my dear Mr. Humbert, you were an ideal stepfather, and I did force your little protégée to join . It was she made me remove to a happier home. This house not as modern as that ranch shared with dear friends. But it roomy, cool in summer and winter, in a word comfortable, so, since intend retiring to England or Florence , I suggest you move in. It yours, gratis. Under the condition you pointing at me that [he swore ] gun. By the way, I do know if you care for the , but if you do, I can you, also gratis, as house pet, rather exciting little freak, a young with three breasts, one a dandy, is a rare and delightful marvel nature. Now soyons raisonnables. You will wound me hideously and then rot jail while I recuperate in a setting. I promise you, Brewster, you be happy here, with a magnificent , and all the royalties from my play - I have not much the bank right now but I to borrow - you know, as Bard said, with that cold in head, to borrow and to borrow to borrow. There are other advantages. have here a most reliable and charwoman, a Mrs. Vibrissa - curious - who comes from the village a week, alas not today, she daughters, granddaughters, a thing or two know about the chief of police him my slave. I am a . I have been the American Maeterlinck. Maeterlinck-Schmetterling, says I. Come on! All is very humiliating, and I am sure I am doing the right . Never use herculanita with rum. Now that pistol like a good fellow. knew your dear wife slightly. You use my wardrobe. Oh, another thing - are going to like this. have an absolutely unique of erotica upstairs. Just to mention one item: in folio de-luxe Bagration Island by explorer and psychoanalyst Melanie Weiss, a lady, a remarkable work - drop gun - with photographs of eight and something male organs she examined measured in 1932 on Bagration, in Bards Sea, very illuminating graphs, plotted love under pleasant skies - drop gun - and moreover I can for you to attend executions, not knows that the chair is painted - "
Feu. This time I something hard. I hit the back a black rocking chair, not Dolly Schiller's - my bullet hit the surface of its back whereupon it went into a rocking act, so and with such zest that any coming into the room might have flabbergasted by the double miracle: that rocking in a panic all by , and the armchair, where my purple had just been, now void of live content. Wiggling his fingers in air, with a rapid heave of rump, he flashed into the music and the next second we were and gasping on both sides of door which had a key I overlooked. I won again, and with abrupt movement Clare the Impredictable sat before the piano and played several vigorous fundamentally hysterical, plangent chords, his quivering, his spread hands tensely plunging, his nostrils emitting the soundtrack snorts had been absent from our fight. singing those impossible sonorities, he made futile attempt to open with his a kind of seaman's chest near piano. My next bullet caught him in the side, and he rose his chair higher and higher, like , gray, mad Nijinski, like Old Faithful, some old nightmare of mine, to phenomenal altitude, or so it seemed, he rent the air - still with the rich black music - thrown back in a howl, hand to his brow, and with his hand clutching his armpit as if by a hornet, down he came his heels and, again a normal man, scurried out into the hall.
see myself following him through the , with a kind of double, triple, jump, remaining quite straight on straight while bouncing up twice in his , and then bouncing between him and front door in a ballet-like stiff , with the purpose of heading him , since the door was not properly .
Suddenly dignified, and somewhat morose, he to walk up the broad stairs, , shifting my position, but not actually him up the steps, I fired or four times in quick succession, him at every blaze; and every I did it to him, that thing to him, his face would in an absurd clownish manner, as he were exaggerating the pain; he down, rolled his eyes half closing and made a feminine "ah!" and shivered every time a bullet hit as if I were tickling him, every time I got him with slow, clumsy, blind bullets of mine, would say under his breath, with phoney British accent - all the dreadfully twitching, shivering, smirking, but withal in a curiously detached and even manner: "Ah, that hurts, sir, enough! , that hurts atrociously, my dear fellow. pray you, desist. Ah - very , very painful, indeed . . . ! Hahl This is abominable, you should not - " His voice trailed as he reached the landing, but steadily walked on despite all the I had lodged in his bloated - and in distress, in dismay, understood that far from killing him was injecting spurts of energy into poor fellow, as if the bullets been capsules wherein a heady elixir .
I reloaded the thing with hands were black and bloody - I touched something he had anointed with thick gore. Then I rejoined him , the keys jangling in my pockets gold.
He was trudging from room room, bleeding majestically, trying to find open window, shaking his head, and trying to talk me out of . I took aim at his head, he retired to the master bedroom a burst of royal purple where ear had been.
"Get out, get of here," he said coughing and ; and in a nightmare of wonder, saw this blood-spattered but still buoyant get into his bed and wrap up in the chaotic bedclothes. I him at very close range through blankets, and then he lay back, a big pink bubble with juvenile formed on his lips, grew to size of a toy balloon, and .