by Isaac Asimov
“It is remarkable,” mused Graham, “the intensity with which I am not listening and the distinctness with which I do not hear a word you say.”
“Still,” said de Meister, “there is no denyin’ my book world suits me better. It is somehow more fascinatin’, freer from dull logic, more apart from the necessities of the world. In short, I must go back, and to active participation. You have till tomorrow!”
Graham hummed a gay little tune with flat little notes.
“Is this a new threat, de Meister?”
“It is the old threat intensified. I’m going to rob you of every vestige of your personality. And eventually public opinion will force you to write as, to paraphrase you, de Meister’s Compleat Stooge. Did you see the name the newspaper chappies pinned on you today, old man?”
“Yes, Mr. Filthy de Meister, and did you read a half-column item on page ten in the same paper. I’ll read it for you: ‘Noted Criminologist in l-A. Will be inducted shortly draft board says.”‘
For a moment, de Meister said and did nothing. And then one, after another, he did the following things: removed his monocle slowly, sat down heavily, rubbed his chin abstractedly, and lit a cigarette after long and careful tamping. Each of these, Graham Dorn’s trained authorial eye recognized as singly representing perturbation and distress on the part of his character.
And never, in any of his books, did Graham remember a time when de Meister had gone through all four consecutively.
Finally, de Meister spoke. “Why you had to bring up draft registrations in your last book, I really don’t know. This urge to be topical; this fiendish desire to be up to the minute with the news is the curse of the mystery novel. A true mystery is timeless; should have no relation to current events; should-”
“There is one way,” said Graham, “to escape induction-”
“You might at least have mentioned a deferred classification on some vital ground.”
“There is one way,” said Graham, “to escape induction-”
“Criminal negligence,” said de Meister.
“Look! Go back to the books and you’ll never be filled with lead.”
“Write them and I’ll do it.”
“Think of the war.”
“Think of your ego.”
Two strong men stood face to face (or would have, if Graham weren’t still horizontal) and neither flinched.
Impasse!
And the sweet, feminine voice of June Billings interrupted and snapped the tension:
“May I ask, Graham Dom, what you are doing on the floor. It’s been swept today and you’re not complimenting me by attempting to improve the job.”
“I am not sweeping the floor. If you looked carefully,” replied Graham gently, “you would see that your own adored fiance is lying here a mass of bruises and a hotbed of pains and aches.”
“You’ve ruined my end table!”
“I’ve broken my leg.”
“And my best lamp.”
“And two ribs.”
“And my fishbowl.”
“And my Adam’s apple.”
“And you haven’t introduced your friend.”
“And my cervical verte-What friend?”
“This friend.”
“Friend! Ha!” And a mist came over his eyes. She was so young, so fragile to come into contact with hard, brutal facts of life. “This,” he muttered brokenly, “is Reginald de Meister.”
De Meister at this point broke a cigarette sharply in two, a gesture pregnant with the deepest emotion.
June said slowly, “Why-why, you’re different from what I had thought.”
“How had you expected me to look?” asked de Meister, in soft, thrilling tones.
“I don’t know. Differently than you do,-from the stories I heard.”
“You remind me, somehow, Miss Billings, of Letitia Reynolds.”
“I think so. Graham said he drew her from me.”
“A very poor imitation, Miss Billings. Devastatin’ly poor.”
They were six inches apart now, eyes fixed with a mutual glue, and Graham yelled sharply. He sprang upright as memory smote him a nasty smite on the forehead.
A passage from Case of the Muddy Overshoe occurred to him. Likewise one from The Primrose Murders. Also one from The Tragedy of Hartley Manor, Death of a Hunter, White Scorpion and, to put it in a small nutshell, from every one of the others.
The passage read:
There was a certain fascination about de Meister that appealed irresistibly to women.
And June Billings was-as it had often, in Graham’s idler moments, occurred to him-a woman.
And fascination simply gooed out of her ears and coated the floor six inches deep.
“Get out of this room, June,” he ordered.
“I will not.”
“There is something I must discuss with MI. de Meister, man to man. I demand that you leave this room.”
“Please go, Miss Billings,” said de Meister.
June hesitated, and in a very small voice said, “Very well.”
“Hold on,” shouted Graham. “Don’t let him order you about. I demand that you stay.”
She closed the door very gently behind her.
The two men faced each other. There was that in either pair of eyes that indicated a strong man brought to bay. There was stubborn, undying antagonism; no quarter; no compromise. It was exactly the sort of situation Graham Dom always presented his readers with, when two strong men fought for one hand, one heart, one girl.
The two said simultaneously, “Let’s make a deal!”
Graham said, “You have convinced me, Reggie. Our public needs us. Tomorrow I shall begin another de Meister story. Let us shake hands and forget the past.”
De Meister struggled with his emotion. He laid his hand on Graham’s lapel, “My dear fellow, it is I who have been convinced by your logic. I can’t allow you to sacrifice yourself for me. There are great things in you that must be brought out. Write your coal-mining novels. They count, not I.”
“I couldn’t, old chap. Not after all you’ve done for me, and all you’ve meant to me. Tomorrow we start anew.”
“Graham, my-my spiritual father, I couldn’t allow it. Do you think I have no feelings, filial feelings-in a spiritual sort of way.”
“But the war, think of the war. Mangled limbs. Blood All that.”
“I must stay. My country needs me.”
“But if I stop writing, eventually you will stop existing. I can’t allow that.”
“Oh, that!” De Meister laughed with a careless elegance. “Things have changed since. So many people believe in my existence now that my grip upon actual existence has become too firm to be broken. I don’t have to worry about Limbo any more.”
“Oh.” Graham clenched his teeth and spoke in searing sibilants: “So that’s your scheme, you snake. Do you suppose I don’t see you’re stuck on June?”
“Look here, old chap,” said de Meister haughtily. “I can’t permit you to speak slightingly of a true and honest love. I love June and she loves me-I know it. And if you’re going to be stuffy and Victorian about it, you can swallow some nitro-glycerine and tap yourself with a hammer.”
“I’ll nitro-glycerine you! Because I’m going home tonight and beginning another de Meister story. You’ll be part of it and you’ll get back into it, and what do you think of that?”
“Nothing, because you can’t write another de Meister story. I’m too real now, and you can’t control me just like that. And what do you think of that?”
It took Graham Dom a week to make up his mind what to think of that, and then his thoughts were completely and startlingly unprintable.
In fact, it was impossible to write.
That is, startling ideas occurred to him for great novels, emotional dramas, epic poems, brilliant essays-but he couldn’t write anything about Reginald de Meister.
The typewriter was simply fresh out of Capital R’s.
Graham wept, cursed, tore h
is hair, and anointed his finger tips with liniment. He tried typewriter, pen, pencil, crayon, charcoal, and blood.
He could not write.
The doorbell rang, and Graham threw it open.
MacDunlap stumbled in, falling over the first drifts of torn paper directly into Graham’s arms.
Graham let him drop. “Hah!” he said, with frozen dignity.
“My heart!” said MacDunlap, and fumbled for his liver pills.
“Don’t die there,” suggested Graham, courteously. “The management won’t permit me to drop human flesh into the incinerator.”
“Graham, my boy,” MacDunlap said, emotionally, “no more ultimatums! No more threats! I come now to appeal to your finer feelings, Graham-” he went through a slight choking interlude-”I love you like a son. This skunk de Meister must disappear. You must write more de Meister stories for my sake. Graham-I will tell you something in private. My wife is in love with this detective. She tells me I am not romantic. I! Not romantic! Can you understand it?”
“I can,” was the tragic response. “He fascinates all women.”
“With that face? With that monocle?”
“It says so in all my books.”
MacDunlap stiffened. “Ah ha. You again. Dope! If only you ever stopped long enough to let your mind know what your typewriter was saying.”
“You insisted. Feminine trade.” Graham didn’t care any more. Women! He snickered bitterly. Nothing wrong with any of them that a block-buster wouldn’t fix.
MacDunlap hemmed. “Well, feminine trade. Very necessary. -but Graham, what shall I do? It’s not only my wife. She owns fifty shares in MacDunlap, Inc. in her own name. If she leaves me, I lose control. Think of it, Graham. The catastrophe to the publishing world.”
“Grew, old chap,” Graham sighed a sigh so deep, his toenails quivered sympathetically. “I might as well tell you. June, my fiancee, you know, loves this worm. And he loves her because she is the prototype of Letitia Reynolds.”
“The what of Letitia?” asked MacDunlap, vaguely suspecting an insult.
“Never mind. My life is ruined.” He smiled bravely and choked back the unmanly tears, after the first two had dripped off the end of his nose.
“My poor boy!” The two gripped hands convulsively.
“Caught in a vise by this foul monster,” said Graham.
“Trapped like a German in Russia,” said MacDunlap.
“Victim of an inhuman fiend,” said Graham.
“Exactly,” said MacDunlap. He wrung Graham’s hand as if he were milking a cow. “You’ve got to write de Meister stories and get him back where, next to Hell, he most belongs. Right?”
“Right! But there’s one little catch.”
“What?”
“I can’t write. He’s so real now, I can’t put him into a book.”
MacDunlap caught the significance of the massed drifts of used paper on the floor. He held his head and groaned, “My corporation! My wife!”
“There’s always the Army,” said Graham.
MacDunlap looked up. “What about Death on the Third Deck, the novel I rejected three weeks ago?”
“That doesn’t count. It’s past history. It’s already affected him.”
“Without being published?”
“Sure. That’s the story I mentioned his draft board in. The one that put him in l-A.”
“I could think of better places to put him.”
“MacDunlap!” Graham Dorn jumped up, and grappled MacDunlap’s lapel. “Maybe it can be revised.”
MacDunlap coughed hackingly, and stifled out a dim grunt.
“We can put anything we want into it.” MacDunlap choked a bit.
“We can fix things up.”
MacDunlap turned blue in the face.
Graham shook the lapel and everything thereto attached, “Say something, won’t you?”
MacDunlap wrenched away and took a tablespoon of cough syrup. He held his hand over his heart and patted it a bit. He shook his head and gestured with his eyebrows.
Graham shrugged. “Well, if you just want to be sullen, go ahead. I’ll revise it without you.”
He located the manuscript and tried his fingers gingerly on the typewriter. They went smoothly, with practically no creaking at the joints. He put on speed, more speed, and then went into his usual race, with the portable jouncing along merrily under the accustomed head of steam.
“It’s working,” he shouted. “I can’t write new stories, but I can revise old, unpublished ones.”
MacDunlap watched over his shoulder. He breathed only at odd moments.
“Faster,” said MacDunlap, “faster!”
“Faster than thirty-five?” said Graham, sternly. “OPA [The Office of Price Administration was in charge of gasoline rationing at this period. Remember “A”stickers? D.R.B.] forbid! Five more minutes.”
“Will he be there?”
“He’s always there. He’s been at her house every evening this week.” He spat out the fine ivory dust into which he had ground the last inch of his incisors. “But God help you if your secretary falls down on the job.”
“My boy, on my secretary you can depend.”
“She’s got to read that revision by nine.”
“Ifshe doesn’t drop dead.”
“With my luck, she will. Will she believe it?”
“Every word. She’s seen de Meister. She knows he exists.”
Brakes screeched, and Graham’s soul cringed in sympathy with every molecule of rubber frictioned off the tires.
He bounded up the stairs, MacDunlap hobbling after.
He rang the bell and burst in at the door. Reginald de Meister standing directly inside received the full impact of a pointing finger, and only a rapid backward movement of the head kept him from becoming a one-eyed mythical character.
June Billings stood aside, silent and uncomfortable.
“Reginald de Meister,” growled Graham, in sinister tones, “prepare to meet your doom.”
“Oh, boy,” said MacDunlap, “are you going to get it.”
“And to what,” asked de Meister, “am I indebted for your dramatic but unilluminatin’ statement? Confusin’, don’t you know.” He lit a cigarette with a fine gesture and smiled.
“Hello, Gramie,” said June, tearfully. “
“Scram, vile woman.”
June sniffed. She felt like a heroine out of a book, tom by her own emotions. Naturally, she was having the time of her life.
So she let the tears dribble and looked forlorn.
“To return to the subject, what is this all about?” asked de Meister, wearily.
“I have rewritten Death on the Third Deck.”
“Well?”
“The revision,” continued Graham, “is at present in the hands of MacDunlap’s secretary, a girl on the style of Miss Billings, my fiancee that was. That is, she is a girl who aspires to the status of a moron, but has not yet quite attained it. She’ll believe every word. “
“Well?”
Graham’s voice grew ominous, “You remember, perhaps, Sancho Rodriguez?”
For the first time, Reginald de Meister shuddered. He caught his cigarette as it dropped. “She was killed by Sam Blake in the sixth chapter. She was in love with me. Really, old fellow, what messes you get me into.”
“Not half the mess you’re in now, old chap. Sancha Rodriguez did not die in the revision.”
“Die!” came a sharp, but clear female voice, “I’ll show him if I died. And where have you been this last month, you two-crosser?”
De Meister did not catch his cigarette this time. He didn’t even try. He recognized the apparition. To an unprejudiced observer, it might have been merely a svelte Latin girl equipped with dark, flashing eyes, and long, glittering fingernails, but to de Meister, it was Sancha Rodriguez -undead!
MacDunlap’s secretary had read and believed.
“Miss Rodriguez,” throbbed de Meister, charmingly, “how fascinatin’ to see you.”
June retreated with dignity behind the nearest chair.
Mrs. de Meister,” said Reginald pleadingly, and turned helplessly to Graham Dom.
“Oh, you have forgotten, have you, you smooth talker, you low dog. I’ll show you what it means to deceive a weak woman. I’ll make you mince-meat with my fingernails.”
De Meister back-pedaled furiously. “But darling-”
“Don’t you make sweet talk. What are you doing with this woman?”
“But, darling-”
“Don’t give me any explanation. What are you doing with this woman?”
“But darling-”
“Shut up! What are you doing with this woman?”
Reginald de Meister was up in a comer, and Mrs. de Meister shook her fists at him. “ Answer me?”
De Meister disappeared.
Mrs. de Meister disappeared right after him. June Billings collapsed into real tears.
Graham Dorn folded his arms and looked sternly at her. MacDunlap rubbed his hands and took a kidney pill.
“It wasn’t my fault, Gramie,” said June. “You said in your books he fascinated all women, so I couldn’t help it. Deep inside, I hated him all along. You believe me, don’t you?”
“A likely story!” said Graham, sitting down next to her on the sofa. “ A likely story. But I forgive you, maybe.”
MacDunlap said tremulously, “My boy, you have saved my stocks. Also, my wife, of course. And remember-you promised me one de Meister story each year.”
Graham gritted, “Just one, and I’ll henpeck him to death, and keep one unpublished story forever on hand, just in case. And you’re publishing my novel, aren’t you, Grew, old boy?”
“Glug,” said MacDunlap.
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes, Graham. Of course, Graham. Definitely, Graham. Positively, Graham.”
“Then leave us now. There are matters of importance I must discuss with my fiancee.”
MacDunlap smiled and tiptoed out the door.
Ah, love, love, he mused, as he took a liver pill and followed it up by a cough-syrup chaser.
***