“The clause in the agreement I mentioned says that whenever I make one of these arrangements, I have to stand surety for its successful completion. If it doesn’t come off, I’m really in hot water. I didn’t realize the danger I was in until my last arrangement almost fell through . . .
“Look,” he said, struck by a sudden thought, “for a moderate fee—say, three thousand—I could arrange for you to get in touch with him yourself. That way, any arrangement that was made would be between the two of you, and I wouldn’t be involved.”
“No, thanks,” said Peter. “I’m familiar with what eventually happens to people who make pacts with the devil. I prefer to work through a middleman. That’s why I came to you.”
“He’s not a devil,” said Dr. Arsoldi impatiently. “This is the Twentieth Century. There’s no need to postulate the supernatural every time something comes up that’s outside the realm of our immediate experience. If you simply assume that he comes from a world with a science far in advance of ours, it makes for a much more acceptable explanation.”
“Wherever he comes from, I want no personal dealings with him,” said Peter decisively. He reached down and picked up the bundle of bills. “Sorry we couldn’t reach an agreement.”
“So am I,” said Dr. Arsoldi, watching the money disappear with hungry eyes. “But much as I love money, I love living more.”
AFTER a sleepless night and a restless morning, the obvious solution suddenly popped into Peter’s mind. He rushed downtown to see Dr. Arsoldi.
“I’ve got it,” he said triumphantly.
“Got what?” asked Dr. Arsoldi. “The perfect safeguard. All you have to do is arrange matters so I couldn’t back out if I wanted to! Set some sort of a penalty so severe that I no longer have any choice in the matter.”
The doctor’s face took on a look of sudden interest. “That’s an angle I hadn’t thought of . . . What do you have in mind?”
“For the penalty?”
“No, for the operation. My colleague would take care of the other.”
“All I need for the perfect murder is a light snowfall.”
“Go ahead,” said Dr. Arsoldi. “Every night my cousin takes a walk in the park after dinner. He always takes the same route. He makes a complete circuit of the lake and then comes back across the middle of the commons. Nobody is ever out there at night. When he’s found in the morning with his throat torn out, and no tracks in the snow but his own and those of a wolf, I think it would be rather difficult to implicate me in the affair.”
“So you want to become a werewolf,” said Dr. Arsoldi. “It’s a nice idea. I’m sure my colleague would be pleased with it.”
Peter produced the money again. “Is it a deal?”
An obvious struggle went on inside Dr. Arsoldi. Finally it subsided, and he picked up the sheaf of bills and dropped them in his pocket.
“There’s a market half a block west,” he said. “If you’ll run down and pick me up a live chicken, I’ll take up this matter with my colleague at once.”
THERE was a slight powdering of snow drifting down from a gray sky when Peter Vincent next saw the good doctor.
“Here’s what you asked for,” he said, tossing two small packages on the desk. “And don’t think finding a sample of wolf blood in New York City is an easy job . . . I tried half the veterinarians in town before I found one who could help me. As luck would have it, he was boarding an animal act whose owner was down with the flu. I passed myself off as a biologist who was working on canine blood types and got a specimen without any trouble. He sent it over by special messenger a half an hour ago.”
“And the sample from your cousin?”
“I managed to break a glass at the right time and scratched his hand slightly. I got a little smudge on my handkerchief. It’s in the package with the brown wrapping.”
Dr. Arsoldi rubbed his hands. “Fine,” he said, “fine! Come back in about an hour and I’ll have everything ready for you . . .”
When Peter returned, there was a strong odor of brimstone in the air. He sniffed and looked at Dr. Arsoldi questioningly.
“Oh, that,” said Dr. Arsoldi. “He evidently comes from some place with an atmosphere containing a high percentage of sulphur dioxide. There’s no need to assume that every living thing in the Universe has to be an oxygen breather.” He sounded as if he were more interested in convincing himself than he was Peter. “If one postulates a greatly advanced race which has developed a method for warping space that makes instantaneous transmission of material objects possible—”
“What about the chicken?” interrupted Peter.
“That is a bit difficult to explain, I’ll admit, but that’s no reason to—”
Pete interrupted again. “Did he bring it?”
Dr. Arsoldi nodded and handed him a small bottle containing perhaps an ounce of a colorless liquid.
“Is that all?” said Peter. “I expected something more spectacular.”
“You’ll find the results impressive enough. Two minutes after you drink it, you’ll take on your new form. The rest is up to you.”
“Thanks,” said Peter, pocketing the bottle. “Keep your eye on the newspapers. This should rate headlines in tomorrow’s noon edition.”
“I hope there’s no slip-up,” said Dr. Arsoldi. “Remember, I have to stand surety for you.”
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” said Peter breezily.
“I hope for your sake I haven’t. If you suddenly changed your mind, the consequences would be equally unfortunate for you. Your suggestion about arranging things so you couldn’t back out was an excellent one. Have you wondered why I wanted a sample of your cousin’s blood?”
“I was a bit curious,” admitted Peter.
“It was my colleague’s idea. He used it in preparing the contents of the bottle I just gave you. Once you make the change, you won’t be able to regain human form until you’ve tasted your cousin’s arterial blood.”
“I see what you mean,” Peter said thoughtfully. “I hope none of the park policemen carry guns loaded with silver bullets.”
PETER Vincent checked his watch, opened his bedroom window, removed his clothes, and then, satisfied that everything was ready, tossed down the contents of the little bottle in one gulp.
There was a sudden buzz from the telephone beside his bed. Peter grimaced in annoyance and picked it up.
“Yes?”
“This is Dr. Arnett, down at the Stuyvesant Dog and Cat Hospital. I’ve just discovered that an unfortunate mistake was made, and I thought I’d better call you at once.”
Peter felt a sudden strangeness that warned him that the change was about to begin.
“What mistake?” he asked roughly.
Dr. Arnett sounded most apologetic. “I should have got the specimen myself, but Mrs. Datesman’s Angora had a terrible toothache, and you know how Angoras are.”
“No, I don’t,” snapped Peter. “What about the sample?”
“Well, I sent the kennelman to get it, and it seems he got mixed up and drew a specimen from the wrong animal. You see, Mrs. Lincoln’s son brought her ‘Wolfie’ in this morning for a mange treatment, and . . .”
Peter started to say something, but his vocal chords weren’t operating.
“I know it sounds stupid,” said Arnett, “but the kennelman thought I said ‘Wolfie’ instead of wol—”
Peter’s ears joined his vocal chords as he felt a sudden twisting slithering change start inside him. It didn’t hurt; he just felt different—as if he had suddenly turned into an almost fluid jelly and was about to run out across the floor. All his senses were disconnected. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear; he was lost in a wet and sloppy darkness. Then he felt a sudden surge of rhythmic contractions as the undifferentiated cellular mass that had been his body began to take on a new shape.
Suddenly he could see again—but not very well or very far. And he could breathe—but only with difficulty. He seemed possessed of a severe case of
asthma. When his sense of touch returned, it brought with it an intolerable itch on his left side. One hind foot kicked automatically at a large hairless spot where the mange was especially severe, but it didn’t do much good. Without thinking, he turned and snapped at the smarting area. That didn’t do much good either.
From the telephone that rested on the thick carpet beside him, the voice of Dr. Arnett went on and on in explanation and apology.
Peter didn’t wait to hear him out. He had urgent business to attend to.
ANTHONY Lan walked over to the large picture-window, pulled aside the curtains, and looked out into the darkness.
“Expecting somebody, dear?” asked his wife Muriel.
He shook his head. “I just wanted to see if he was still there.”
“Who?”
“Take a look. There beside the elm tree.”
Muriel peered out the window. “Why, the poor little fellow! He looks cold. Where did he come from?”
“He followed me home from the park. Dam near scared the life out of me, too. I was crossing the common when I heard a snarl from a clump of bushes off to one side. It wasn’t a very snarly snarl—if you know what I mean—but it gave me a bit of a turn. I swung around and saw him waddling toward me as fast as his legs would carry him, snorting and puffing like a steam engine. When he got almost to me he crouched down and made a leap as if he was trying to get up to lick my face, but he was so old and fat he was barely able to get off the ground. I tried to shoo him away, but he kept following me. Every once in a while he’d make another run and try to jump up on me again.”
“Sounds like love at first sight,” laughed Muriel. She looked out again at the small white shape that crouched shivering on the snow-covered lawn. “Tony, it’s cold out there. We can’t leave the poor thing out all night. He’ll freeze to death.”
“He’s old and he’s mangy and he probably smells,” Anthony grumbled. “He’d be better off out of his misery.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m going to bring him in. I’ll call the Animal Rescue League to come around and pick him up in the morning.”
When Muriel returned with the animal, she placed it gently down on the rug in the middle of the living room. Anthony sniffed and buried himself behind his newspaper. Peter lay quiet for a moment, soaking in warmth and gathering his strength. Then, with a sudden pistoning of little legs, he hurled himself at his cousin.
The newspaper went flying, and for a moment there was a mad tangle of dog and man.
“Get this beast off me,” yelled Anthony.
Muriel finally stopped laughing long enough to go over and pick the small dog up by the scruff of the neck. She held it up.
“He likes you.”
“Likes me in a pig’s eye! He acted as if he wanted to tear my throat out!”
“With what?” said Muriel. “The poor old fellow hasn’t got any teeth.” She sat down with the fat little poodle in her lap and patted him on the head. “Maybe he has senile delusions,” she said. “Maybe he thinks he’s a wolf.”
ELEVEN seconds after the Animal Rescue League put Peter Vincent out of his misery, Dr. Arsoldi’s colleague arrived to put him in his.
LOVER BOY
Sheldon pulled a devilish clever deal . . . but isn’t “pull” a synonym for “jerk” ?
SHELDON’S thin aristocratic face reflected a mixture of defiance, despair and horror, as he stood in the center of the housekeeper’s sitting room and looked down at the fat woman sprawled out on the worn divan.
“I’ll do anything you say,” he said. “Anything but that! I’ll—I’ll set up a trust fund so that you’ll never have to worry about money again as long as you live. But I won’t kill her. I love her. Can’t you understand that? I love her!” Mrs. Higgens looked up at him contemptuously. “Love!” she snorted. “That’s a laugh. You knock off her old man so you can marry her and get your mitts on his money, and now you go soft and start talking about love. It’s no soap, lover boy—you belong to me and nobody else. You’re going to feed her enough champagne at the wedding supper so that she gets good and loaded, and then you’re going to see that she accidentally falls off the bedroom balcony while she’s out getting a breath of fresh air. That’s the way it’s going to be. Period! You see?”
“I’ll kill myself first!”
MRS. Higgens popped another chocolate in her mouth, sucked on it noisily, then drawled, “It’s a nice idea, lover boy, but let’s face it—you just ain’t got the guts. And since you haven’t, there’s nothing you can do but what I tell you, when I tell you, the way I tell you. You’re mine, little man—until I get tired of you or death doth us part.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she knew the chain of thought her last words had triggered inside his head.
“And it better be your death that does the parting, lover boy, not mine. I know, with the kind of dough you’re going to have after the wedding, it wouldn’t be too hard for you to arrange an accident . . .” She let her voice trail off, then gave a nasty chuckle. “If it wasn’t for that package of evidence I got tucked away where you’ll never find it. Your story about old man Arnett busting his head falling downstairs wouldn’t be worth spit if the police got their hands on my signed statement and a blood-stained poker with your fingerprints on it. Just don’t forget that, and we’ll get along fine.”
She waved one pudgy hand in a gesture of dismissal. “You’d better go down and find your little Virginia. She’ll be wondering what happened to you.” She sighed and leaned back luxuriously. “But first give me a little kiss to tide me over till evening.” Her voice sharpened. “And kiss me as if you meant it!”
Sheldon was seized with a momentary fill of obstinacy. “The nights are bad enough,” he said. “At least you can leave me alone during the day.”
“Lover boy!”
It was only a whisper, but it held a quality of command that caused him to stiffen convulsively, as if a flying stiletto had suddenly pierced him between the shoulder blades. With a wretched attempt at an affectionate smile, he walked woodenly over and knelt beside her.
“That’s better, lover boy,” she crooned as she drew him down to her. “This is the way it’s going to be with us—for ever and ever.”
A S Sheldon walked down the back stairs from the servants’ quarters to where Virginia was waiting, he found himself fingering a business card in his jacket pocket. Every word of the prediction whispered by the small, dark man who had accosted him after the funeral was coming true. Every single word.
He pulled the card out for the tenth time and looked at it. On it were a neatly engraved name and address—DeWitt Norman, Room 427 Temple Building—but as he stared reflectively at the oblong white cardboard, two words, written in a strange archaic script, suddenly appeared and then just as suddenly vanished.
DEATH INSURANCE
Mr. Norman looked quite human—except for his eyes. They glowed with a strange rubylike fire in the semi-darkness of his dimly lighted office.
“She’s a monster,” said Sheldon. “A demon—a succubus who’s fastened onto me and won’t let go. Her flabby body is bad enough, but what’s inside is worse. I look into her eyes and see crawling things leering out at me. I listen to that croaking voice whispering obscene suggestions in the night and . . .” His hands moved as if they were gripping a fat neck, then fell helplessly to his sides. “Sometimes I think she’s possessed!”
Mr. Norman grinned. Sheldon noticed something odd about his teeth. They were more pointed than they had any right to be. “In her case, it hasn’t been necessary,” he said. “She’s been doing such an effective job all by herself that she hasn’t needed any inside help. That’s not the immediate point, however. You obviously came to see me about something more concrete than a mere discussion of the villainous nature of the late Mr. Arnett’s housekeeper. Right?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” said Sheldon slowly. “I’ve had a strange feeling that you might—er—help me.” He seemed to be having
trouble formulating his words.
“By removing this female?” asked Mr. Norman helpfully. “Why, of course. That’s my business. You’d be surprised at the number of amateurs who come to me for help in tidying up jobs they’ve botched. And yours, if you don’t mind my saying so, was a singularly clumsy affair. Permitting a servant to wander in, right in the middle of your operation, then letting her get away with a piece of such incriminating evidence as the murder weapon—really!”
“How was I to know she was watching?” Sheldon burst out. He stopped suddenly, his eyes widening. “How did you know about that?” he demanded hoarsely.
“The usual way. The home office supplies us with leads on prospective clients, and I got a routine notice on you the day after Mr. Arnett’s unfortunate—accident. But as my client—” his voice seemed to italicize the word—“you may rely on my discretion, just as you would upon that of your doctor or lawyer. Ours is an extremely ethical profession, you know. It has to be. But back to business.” He gave Sheldon a calculating look. “You do want to go on with this, don’t you?”
SHELDON gulped and nodded. “Good,” said Mr. Norman. “If we can agree on the details now, I’ll draw up a policy and send it directly to the home office for approval. It should be ready for your signature by tomorrow.” He tapped the desk-top thoughtfully with long tapered fingers. “Ordinarily, I would recommend what is often incorrectly referred to as an Act of God—something like a bolt of lightning or a small twister—but in this case, the party you are concerned with has been clever enough to protect herself against such obvious measures. Her death would immediately insure yours, since that package of incriminating evidence would be forwarded to the police at once.”
“Couldn’t you just arrange to have the package destroyed?” Sheldon suggested.
Mr. Norman shook his head regretfully. “It wouldn’t be ethical. The president of the bank that has custody of the package is also a client of mine. No, what is needed is a procedure that will keep Mrs. Higgens alive and, at the same time, helpless.”
Collected Fiction Page 18