The Eighth Circle

by Stanley Ellin

  “There’s a girl here to see you, Mr. Kirk,” said Miss Whiteside. Her voice was as peculiar as her expression.

  “A young lady?”

  “A girl,” said Miss Whiteside coldly. “A little one with a big mouth.”

  It was introduction enough. He knew, even before she made her entrance, that it was Megan Harlingen.

  10

  Entrance was the only word for it. No tragedienne walking onstage for her big scene—certainly, no tragedienne who might weaken under the handicaps of a nose made glowing pink by the cold, conspicuously grimy knuckles, twisted stocking seams, and a tendency to wobble on high heels—could have done better. Megan was indifferent to the handicaps. Her overcoat was draped casually over her shoulders. The skirt of her bouffant pink lace dress ballooned out over an assortment of crinolines and swayed languorously as she moved. Her hauteur was magnificent.

  “I’m very glad I was finally allowed to see you,” she told Murray. “There are some people—”

  “She said she needed carfare to get back to school,” Miss Whiteside cut in, “and I said you were busy, and I’d be glad to oblige. And then—well, I’m surprised you didn’t hear the fuss right through the door, Mr. Kirk!”

  Megan’s lip curled. “I did not make a fuss. I simply made it clear that I cannot possibly accept money from strangers.”

  “You sure did!” Miss Whiteside retorted inelegantly, and for the second time that afternoon the office door was slammed shut with explosive impact.

  It seemed to jar Megan. She essayed a smile, and then, in the face of Murray’s stony silence, removed it. “I’m sorry,” she said weakly. “I really didn’t mean to make her angry.”

  “No?”

  “No, I really didn’t.”

  Murray sighed. “In that case, Megan, let me reveal a deep, dark secret to you. Miss Whiteside is one of those eccentrics who will get angry when someone is rude to her. Come to think of it,” he added with bleak significance, “she’s a lot like Mrs. Donaldson in that respect.”

  “Mrs. Donaldson? Oh, you mean Didi.”

  “I mean Didi.”

  “Isn’t that a curious name?” Megan said brightly. “Wherever did she get it, Murray?”

  He looked at her blandly, and remained silent.

  Megan abstractedly started to gnaw a thumbnail. “I guess she told you what happened, didn’t she? I mean, about what I said to her?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, she shouldn’t have. She only did it so she could look unspeakably heroic and pitiful. If you weren’t a man you’d know that right away.”

  “I don’t think so, Megan. She had a choice of either clouting you one in front of company or unburdening herself to me, and I’d say she made the charitable decision. But what gets me is why you made that crack to her in the first place. What was the point of it?”

  “I’m sorry, but I would rather not say. I’m sure you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Don’t pull rank on me, sister. Just answer the question.”

  “Well, all right!” Megan said despairingly. “I only wanted—is she your girl friend?”

  “She is not, and don’t change the subject.”

  “Then I suppose she’s your mistress, isn’t she?”

  “Megan!” He said it with outrage, because he had an idea it was the noise expected from him. Expected, at least, by propriety, if not by Megan. Actually, for the first time since he had dragged himself out of bed that morning he felt that the day was bright with promise, and life full of unexpected little bounties.

  Megan did not seem to share that feeling. “I don’t care,” she said sullenly. “She looks like a mistress.”

  “Megan, since you probably don’t even know what the word means—”

  “I do know. It’s in lots of books. And the man who lives downstairs from us—”

  “Mr. Walters?”

  “Yes, Mr. Walters. Well, he has a mistress, and I saw her myself. He brought her up to a party one night, and she got drunk, and they had a shattering argument. She said everyone else there was in analysis and she wanted to be in analysis, too, and he said it was too expensive, and she went home crying. I was right there when it happened.”

  Murray wistfully thought of the tape recorder locked away out of reach. “That’s very interesting, Megan, but just a little bit irrelevant. What I’m waiting to hear is why you were rude to Didi.”

  “I am telling why, and I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just merely hinting to her in the nicest possible way that she looked all wrong.”

  “She did?”

  “Of course, she did. Her dress was cut down to here, and when she crossed her legs her skirt was up to here so you could see she was wearing black lace underwear when it was hardly lunchtime, and perfume so you couldn’t breathe, and all that fur and jewelry just for visiting. It was too perfectly disgusting for words.”

  “A hopeless case,” Murray agreed somberly. “It’s a wonder you had the courage to tackle it.”

  Megan’s eyes narrowed. “And that isn’t all. The way she was hanging on to you—well, maybe you didn’t mind, but you don’t know how it looked. I mean, wouldn’t you think a grown-up woman has enough strength to walk into a room without hanging on to people and fixing their ties and patting their hair all the time? Especially with everybody sitting and watching?”

  Sudden comprehension smote Murray full on the brow. He looked at Megan now, positive that he recognized the classic symptoms of jealousy.

  “Megan, Miss Whiteside said you needed carfare to get back to school. What are you doing away from school, anyhow?”

  “Oh, that. Well, we’re supposed to work on medieval costumes, and Miss Vincent gave me permission to go to the Forty-second Street Library after lunch and make notes about them. I mean, as long as I got back in time for rehearsal. So then I found out I didn’t have money to get back, and I knew your office was around here, and I looked in the telephone book. It’s perfectly all right to be out of school if you have permission. Everybody knows that. It’s unspeakably progressive there.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  She had a handbag the size of a small valise slung on her arm, and he deftly twitched it away and turned it upside down over the desk. From it poured an amazing trove, ranging from lipstick-smeared tissues to paper clips, and among the trove, naked and accusing, were some crumpled dollar bills and a scattering of coins. “Well?” said Murray.

  Megan swallowed hard. “Now, isn’t that funny? I looked and looked—”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Oh, no. You happened to be around here, and you thought it would be just dandy to drop in for a visit. But you ought to know that—” He stopped short, a golden prospect opening before him. “Megan, who’s in charge of your rehearsal?”

  “Miss Vincent.” Megan forlornly started to sweep her horde back into the handbag. “And she did so give me permission.”

  “I believe that. You don’t talk about her personal affairs in school, do you, Megan? About the case your father and I are working on?”

  “I never say a word.”

  “Did you ever mention me to the other ki—to anyone there?”

  Megan nodded.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Only that you’re a real private detective, and I know you. They think it’s utterly breathtaking and heroic.”

  “That’s very kind of them. And to show there’re no hard feelings, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll drive you back to school myself. Think we’ll have time on the way for a sundae at Rumpelmayer’s?”

  “You will?” said Megan dazedly. “I mean-oh, yes!”

  Obviously, it was a day bright with promise for all lovers.

  The pink lace dress was embellished with a large chocolate stain by the time they arrived at the school, but neither that nor the fact that rehearsal was already in progress could keep Megan from walking on air as she paraded Murray down the aisle of the auditorium. At a glan
ce the surrounding seats appeared to be empty, but then, here and there, heads popped up like frogs surfacing on a lily pond. The eyes fixed on Murray, however, had no glazed and froggy indifference in them. They gleamed with avid interest.

  On the stage Ruth Vincent, a tulip rising above a wind-swept patch of weeds, was putting her class through its uncertain paces. A company of villagers was in the throes of a morris dance accompanied by the mournful, reedy wailing of a recorder. The instrumentalist—Murray surmised that this must be the hapless William Hollister Three—sat in a chair tilted back at a precarious angle to the wall, and paid no attention to Ruth’s efforts at conducting. The dancers gaily bounced back and forth and paid no attention to the recorder. Then, magically, the sounds of recorder, of thumping feet, and of intermittent giggling faded into silence. Ruth, wise in her office, looked around to see why, and one look was enough.

  Watching her walk up the aisle toward him, Murray had to marvel at himself. He was thirty-five years old, sound of mind, and certainly neither a libertine nor a romantic. He had learned the hard way that what separates the men from the boys is the ability to weigh and measure emotions carefully before doling them out. Youth was the hot time, the time when the kettle was always boiling and never empty, the time for the foolishness of excess. But a full-grown man, as Frank Conmy put it, is someone with sense enough to count his fingers after he shakes hands with anyone, including his own mother. And Murray marveled, because, while he knew this was the indisputable truth, he also knew, looking at Ruth Vincent, that in him was all the heat, the foolishness, the constriction in the belly, of his seventeen-year-old counterpart, and was glad of it.

  This is my beloved, he thought, and, recklessly scrambling his poetry, She walks in beauty, like the night—

  She walked in temper as well, but Megan, who might have been expected to quail before it, only rallied with banners flying. Clearly working on the assumption that the way to avoid disaster is to plunge into your story fast, tell it breathlessly, and omit all compromising details, she rattled away for two minutes without a break. At the conclusion of the narrative Murray had a dazzling picture of himself as a St. George in armor, one foot manfully propped on the body of a dying dragon, while Ruth looked highly skeptical.

  “And what about your dress, Megan?” she said. “You certainly weren’t wearing that one when you left here at lunchtime. Do you always change into party clothes when you go to the library?”

  That was the most unkindest cut of all. Megan’s shoulders drooped, her lower lip trembled, her eyes filled, and Ruth looked stricken. “Oh, never mind,” she said hastily. “Get up on the stage and find your place, Megan. And don’t ever dare—” But Megan had already fled. It was hard to tell, as she galloped onto the stage, where she was instantly enveloped by chattering classmates, whether she was laughing or crying.

  Murray said to Ruth: “You remind me of Mark Twain’s wife. You know, the time she wanted to show him how ugly his swearing sounded, so she tried it herself, and he told her that she had the words right, but the music just wasn’t there. I think Megan’s got you buffaloed.”

  “Megan’s got everyone buffaloed.” When Ruth smiled a small dimple appeared near the corner of her mouth. No, not a dimple, he saw, but the faint tracing of an old scar. And trust the gods to put it where it would make her even more beautiful. “But she really went too far this time,” Ruth said. “She had no right to bother you with her nonsense.”

  “It wasn’t any bother. Cross your heart and promise not to tell, I was faced by something bigger than both of us. She’s got a fearful crush on me. I think it’s called an unspeakably heroic crush.”

  “Oh? You seem pretty much pleased about it.”

  “Sure I am. I like girls to have crushes on me. I’ll admit that in Megan’s case there’s a discrepancy in age, but after all, Juliet was only fourteen, wasn’t she?”

  “She was, but she never had to worry about flunking French and algebra. I hate to blight love’s young dream, my friend, but Megan’s a complete featherhead as it is. If you encourage her at all, she’ll be impossible to handle.”

  “I see. Well, would it be considered encouragement if I waited until you were finished here, and drove you home afterward?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, I live down on Barrow Street in the Village. I’m sure it’s out of your way.”

  “It isn’t. Try again.”

  “And I know you’d be bored silly, sitting through this rehearsal. We’ll be here for another hour.”

  “I’ll enjoy every minute of it. I can just sit and watch that girl there. The one who’s crossing the stage now. My God, she isn’t fourteen, too, is she?”

  “Who? Oh, that’s Evvie Tremayne. No, she’s sixteen. And will you please turn around. She’s only walking like that because she knows you’re looking at her.”

  Murray obediently turned his back to the stage. “You see? And you said I’d be bored. Now you only have one excuse left.”

  “Oh, damn!” Ruth said in exasperation. “I’ve been trying to tell you politely that I don’t want you to take me home. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No, because I wanted to talk to you about Arnold, and this looks like a perfect chance to do it. It might be very helpful to me.”

  He had been saving that as a trump card, confident it would take the trick, and it did. Ruth looked apprehensive. “What about him? I mean, there’s nothing wrong, is there?”

  “I didn’t say that. It’s just a matter of getting some personal information about him, but if you—”

  “That’s ridiculous; you know I want to help any way I can. I’ll be with you as soon as I’m finished here. No, don’t sit there; you’re enough of a distraction for this crew as it is. One of those seats in the last row would be better.”

  He took a seat in the last row, and, despite the magnificent confusion on the stage and the sleep-provoking thump of couplets delivered with all stress on rhythm and none on sense, was able to get a fair idea of what it was all about. The village, it seemed, had been invaded by a devil who was now busily instructing its inhabitants in the delights of sin. Especially, if one judged by the male villagers, in the delights of whacking each other over the head with rolled-up play scripts whenever teacher’s back was turned. Then, at the height of the orgies, noisily symbolized by the morris dance, Death in the person of Megan Harlrngen entered to serve a grim warning. The villagers were led by her to the brink of hell itself and shown the varied punishments awaiting them unless they repented in time.

  Largely because Death had difficulty in remembering her lines and had to be prodded through them, word by word, there was no time to unveil the final scene. Instead, the curtain came down on a speech by Ruth, delivered with ringing sincerity.

  “Megan,” she said, “you have a flawless memory for anything you’ve ever seen in the movies or on television right down to the commercials. It is really a remarkable memory in its way. Can’t you, for heaven’s sake, apply one small fraction of it to this?”

  But, Murray thought, even without its final scene the play’s happy ending was inevitable. The villagers, with the possible exception of Evvie Tremayne, reform; they return to their proper medieval lives; they save themselves for their medieval purgatory. About Goodwife Wanton he was not so sure. She might think she was going along with the crowd, but nature was betraying her every undulating step of the way. And why not? as Frank Conmy would have said. Wasn’t that nature’s business?

  It was. Take a man who’s sitting on top of the world—on top of the St. Stephen, at least—and who has health, wealth, and women, all in fair measure. He knew what he wanted, and now it’s his. He has it made. And then along comes nature telling him that the full sum of this isn’t worth one of Ruth Vincent’s fingernails. Telling him, in effect, that all he’s living for now is to take and keep Ruth for himself.

  It could be done; it had to be done. The sole obstacle was Lun
deen and the way she felt about him. If the man went down protesting his innocence and his purity of soul to the bitter end, he’d be a martyr to her afterward, and martyrs are perversely attractive objects to women, by and large. So the one problem was how to wrap up Lundeen so tight and sink him so deep that nothing could be salvaged of him. He had to be finished off so thoroughly that there wouldn’t be more than a bad memory left of him while he rotted away his two-and-a-half-to-five in jail. That was it. That was everything. After that there would be no problems left, at all.

  In the car Ruth said: “If you’re showing the traditional male annoyance at having had to wait for a woman, please don’t. I told you it would take time.”

  “What? Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking anything like that.” He drove with his eyes fixed straight ahead, careful not to turn and look at her profile, or even glance at the slender legs outstretched beside his. “I happened to be thinking about the play.”

  “Thinking what about it?”

  “Oh, about the way Death always pops up in those old moralities to scare people back to righteousness. But since even the dumbest peasant knew his days were numbered anyhow, would he really scare that easily?”

  “Sure he would. After all, it wasn’t just a matter of dying. It meant closing your eyes one minute, and then opening them in front of the gates of hell where the sign said Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. That should have been enough to terrify anybody, don’t you think?”

  “Except the righteous, of course.”

  “Oh, you know how the righteous are; they’re always the most terrified of all when it comes to facing judgment. And it was literally a time of judgment. Death was only something that brought you before the Judge.”

  “A sort of glorified cop?”

  Ruth drew in her breath sharply. “Yes.”

  “Not in Everyman he wasn’t. Seems to me that in Everyman Death was police, judge, and jury all in one. Real Star Chamber stuff, as our friend Harlingen would say. How do you figure that?”

  “You mean, you’ve read Everyman?” Ruth said in surprise, and clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh, damn! That certainly sounded condescending, didn’t it? But it really wasn’t meant to be. Or was it?”