This discourse, set off by my bloodied sword, did work to admiration. So entirely, forsooth, did she melt and tremble, that I had a great mind to ravish her at once. But then I did bethink me that I would become master of one hundred thousand pounds if we were wed -- which moneys, of a certainty, I would never get if ever her dried-up old Aunt found out that I had violated her niece’s honour. Natheless, I must confess that somewhat more than this did prompt my present hesitancy. For now (as when I very nearly swived her in the garden) I did find myself once again quite damnably unmanned by an inebriating glut of sweetful smell. And yet I know not whether this unnerving aromatick surfeit was some manner of perfume upon her person -- or perhaps her very breath, as if she, herself a blossom, did exhale supernal fragrance.
But in any event, the short of the matter is that -- o’erstepping these dead dogs -- I did now lead my charmer from her chamber, down-stairs and past a bare bevy of enchantments in the parlour, out the hall-door of this bawdy-house and to the fond arms of her blubbering aunt. Indeed, I could not have wished for this business to go more to my full content. Of course Potter’s wonted surliness -- as he helped me into coach -- did some-deale ruffle my enjoyment. But elsewise, in all my life, I think I never did feel myself to be more supremely happy. Even her aunt’s infinite tiresome talk (which I make some doubt whether I could otherwise have borne) did not mar the singular complacence of this journey. Indeed, the old jade’s prattle did once quite entertain me: for she most expresssly took occasion to say how exceeding well-opinioned of me she was and that she did only desire that she could likewise estimate her husband -- whom she now did rate but as an arrant churl and whoremonger. At which I could not chuse but smile -- all the more for that my charmer’s eyes did now, meseem’d, to look on me with love. And for this one moment I did bask in her regard. But too soon the pillar’d front of Chommeley Hall did come in view -- and Lenore did notice to me the primroses growing next the steps and how the very snows were a-melting and the sweet air gentled with the warmth of early Spring.
And thereupon we uncoach’d and my charmer pluck’d a yellow primrose and gave it me -- by reason whereof I was (I do confess) much pleased . . . and in good hopes that full soon I would get both her maidenhead and her money. Then it was, standing there next my coach and quite glutting myself with looking upon the over-sweet deliciousness of her person, that I did find myself strangely discomposed, as tho’ I had been dizzied by a surfeiting on comfits. Indeed I could scarce now stand for the weakness of my legs and all the sweetmeats of her beauty did swim before me -- her grey eyes, her lips, her cheek, and the sarsenet softness of her bosom . . . yet no longer warm and quick but suffused by a brave stillness -- so that she did seem, on a sudden, no more than a portrait in miniature of a woman looking back at Smedlow from the locket in his hand.
Chapter XXII.
Containing a two-car garage, a coach-and-four, a Widow’s tears, Mr. Potter’s smile and several other matters too surprizing to divulge.
“Well, now, look at that,” said Lemuel Lee, turnin’ into the driveway and pointin’ at the windshield with his finger: “just exactly like you asked . . . I brung you back to yer little goddamn home.”
Smedlow, looking up from his locket and still finding himself much dizzied and disordered in his mind, did not at the very first quite recognize what he was seeing. But then -- yes, oh, oh yes, here they were again: his own disheveled boxwood beside his own split-level ranch house, his own plastic garbage pail outside his own two-car garage, his own Adirondack chairs and barbecue and bug-zapper on his own red cedar deck.
“Now don’t I treat you good?”
Smedlow watched his chauffeur pull up to the garage, turn off the ignition, and then reach his paw across the passenger seat to open up the door:
“Come on now, fella, wake up: we’re here.”
The detestable German shepherd stretched himself and yawned. Smedlow watched it jump down from the seat, stroll across his driveway, across his tulip bed, look back at him and then squat in defecation on his lawn. Why yes, of course, it had begun -- the desecration of his household gods.
The Sunday paper, cocooned in its green plastic bag, still lay waiting to be picked up off the blacktop. Ordinarily, Agnes would have eviscerated it by now, cut out all its recipes and coupons and crossword puzzles and then gone on to scour it for bargains, celebrity gossip, and death notices of relatives and friends. Smedlow also noticed, as his captor retrieved the collapsible wheelchair from the trunk, that Agnes also hadn’t yet cleaned up the usual mess of milk cartons, egg shells, coffee grounds and toilet-paper rolls which some garbage-plundering raccoon had scattered beside the mailbox.
“You won’t be needin’ this no more,” said Lemuel Lee, grabbin’ the definitely pawnable antique silver locket and shovin’ it into his ass pocket. “Okay now, pal,” he said, reachin’ out for a bear hug: “upsy-daisy.”
In another instant Smedlow found himself being wheeled down the brick path to the cellar door. Why, it looked like the lawn hadn’t been cut in over a week. Agnes was probably in Trenton visiting her sister -- or maybe off in some motel giving head to that shyster.
Smedlow was now obliged to wait in front of the storm door while the little ape brought up a wad of phlegm -- and then spat it out into the foundation planting. But otherwise he hardly heard a sound -- neither an air conditioner nor a dog’s bark: only the distant whirr of a weed-whacker coming from the far side of the cypress hedge.
Agnes had obviously replaced the broken glass in the storm door. Of course this pathological vandal couldn’t resist breaking it again -- kicking out the glass and opening the door . . . before getting down to the more important business of violating the inner door by jimmying the lock. It was only another moment before Smedlow found himself once again being wheeled into his own mildewed basement, his own private storeroom of memories and junk and gloom.
Now -- just exactly as Smedlow had expected -- his captor plucked a sledgehammer off the wall and began wheeling him toward the back of the cellar -- evidently with the thought of forcing him to watch the destruction of his x-ray machine and plaster dental casts and drill. But -- by a stroke of amazing good luck -- the wheelchair abruptly stopped right beside the furnace, the brute’s lust suddenly inflamed by the sight of one of Agnes’ less dowdy brassieres dangling on the clothesline above the washer. This, too, it seemed, was much more than the abominable little deviant could resist. For suddenly he walked away from the wheelchair, leaving Smedlow within easy reach of the filing cabinet, while he himself went off to palpate the silken cups, before turning his attention to a dusty cardboard box of National Geographics -- no doubt in hopes of coming upon some Kodachrome photos of half-clad female aborigines.
There was no saying how long the little creep would keep on doing this. With his moronically short attention span he would probably soon tire of pornographic pleasures and crave the more immediate stimulus of violence. So, thought Smedlow (staring ahead of him at the tantalizingly close black metal box), if he was ever going to get his own precious dental x-rays from this filing cabinet, it would have to be now. There wasn’t a single second to lose.
He tried to lift up his obscene right hand -- a plague of wrinkles and warts and bulging veins -- to reach out with his mind into the foulness of this alien body. Yes, it was true that his captors had subjected him to their ghastly surgery. Yes, yes, they had had their little fun with him. But what they didn’t know was that ever since then he had been preparing for just such a chance as this -- acquiring ever greater and more formidable physical mastery. Not only had he long ago learned how to blink and move the eyes: he had also taken even the most fleeting opportunity to lift this arm and assume command of these repulsive fingers. He now focused the full force of his attention on the brown-nailed thumb and forefinger . . . and then -- like the claw of a surprised lobster -- they suddenly began to move.
A quick glance aside assured him that the little pervert was still safely engaged in flipping
through magazines, prowling for filth. With difficulty Smedlow now managed to bring together the crustacean thumb and forefinger -- an action which, however, became easier as he repeated it, over and over again, while at the same time he located and activated the muscles which made the arm extend -- propelling the hand all the way forward to the black metal drawer. Quite easily, now, he made the two fingers clasp the handle -- and then made the arm pull back. It was now only a matter of making the pincers release the handle, and then of getting the arm to lift slightly up and then reach forward again.
And now, finally, he lowered the hand down into the twilight of the open drawer. He always kept his own file in the front. Unable to see more than a shadowy blur of folders, he made the thumb and forefinger grab the first file . . . and then made the arm pull back.
The sight of his own name -- Max Nathan Smedlow, D.D.S. F.A.C.D. -- on the manilla folder was almost more earthly happiness than he could bear: for without solid scientific proof like this Agnes would never be able to identify his butchered carcass and prove that he was dead. Yes, this is what he -- Max Nathan Smedlow -- could accomplish -- even after they had made a mockery and a freak of him and consigned him to the terrible, intimate hell of Siamese twins.
“Freeze!” yelled a voice.
“You have the right to remain silent!” said another.
The policeman who now emerged from the impenetrable gloom behind the stainless steel instrument table and high-speed drill was holding -- with both hands, stretched at arms-length in front of him -- a large, black, ugly-looking revolver. In the sudden confusion Smedlow’s first impression (aside from the extreme shock and unpleasantness of seeing this gun) was that this policeman was young, too young, and that he had just exactly the kind of meaty, flat-topped head and piggy nose which he remembered from Scooter Hessenbacher -- the single most repugnant of the brainless rowdies who had delighted in jeering at his fat and dunking him when he was at camp.
“Anything you say can, and will, be used against you,” said a second cop, who now lumbered out from behind the furnace. “You have the right to consult with an attorney . . . and/or . . . to have one present when questioned by the police. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you.”
“I’ll take those dental records from you -- sir -- if you don’t mind,” snarled the first cop, who by now -- with his outstretched revolver -- was cautiously advancing toward Smedlow, squinting at him and chewing on his gum.
And then the younger cop grabbed the manilla folder and Smedlow got a strong whiff of aftershave and noticed the purple blotch of a hickey on his flaccid neck.
“Rufus Wilmot Griswold,” said his older, wearier, more phlegmatic-looking cohort, “I’m arresting you for the murder of Max Nathan Smedlow.”
And then the younger and more hateful of the two cops (Guberman it said on the name-tag on his chest) frisked him -- pulled something out of his jacket pocket and shoved it in his face:
“Would you mind, sir, telling me what you’re doing with this?“
It was all happening so fast that, for a moment, Smedlow didn’t recognize what he was seeing -- his own cigarette lighter with his own initials, MNS, etched onto its tarnished silver surface.
“Hey, Sarge, looks like I found somethin’!”
“You can come on out now, folks,” said the Sergeant: “We’ve got him covered.”
And that is when (in the far corner of the cellar, beyond the washer and the dryer and the laundry sink) Agnes stepped out of the broom closet, wearing her ridiculous puffy pink slippers and a raincoat over her washed-out pink flannel nightie. A large man with a Roman nose and a great, unkempt shock of silver hair was shuffling out solemnly behind her.
“Ma’am,” said the Sergeant some seconds later, the muzzle of his gun in front of Smedlow’s eyes, “can you identify this old gentleman as the individual you saw stealing from your house and driving off with your little dog?”
“Yes,” sobbed Agnes, “yes, yes I can.” The ordeal seemed to be too much for her. For now the man with the silver mane placed his big, hairy hand on her shoulder, as if to lend his strength in the moment of her trial.
“Yes, that’s him,” repeated Agnes, only now appearing to find the courage to look straight at Smedlow: “Yes, I’m sure of it.”
“And can you identify this lighter?” said the younger cop, again displaying the tarnished silver lighter on his wide, pink palm.
Here Agnes nodded, covered her mouth and started making a succession of gasps that gave off wheezing sounds. Smedlow could see that she was seriously concentrating now, scrunching up her eyes and cheeks, forcing the tears out of herself the way she always did when she really wanted to get something -- a diamond ring, a Caribbean cruise or access to his bank account. “I . . . I,” she stammered, as if, in the excess of her grief, she couldn’t catch her breath. “I . . . gave it . . . to my husband,” she finally managed to say. -- ”And those,” she said, suddenly pointing, “those are Maxie’s shoes!”
“And, Mr. Silver,” said the Sergeant to the big man towering beside her, “will Mrs. Smedlow here swear to that in her deposition?”
“Certainly,” agreed the lawyer, “and that those are Dr. Smedlow’s dental records.”
“Then you’ll have to come with us, Mr. Griswold,” said the Sergeant while Patrolman Guberman took the handcuffs off his belt.
Smedlow could plainly see that this flat-topped gorilla was now doing his very best to hurt him, roughly grabbing his right hand, putting on the cuff and squeezing it closed just as tightly as he could.
“I bet,” he said, now putting on the second cuff and crushing it shut, “that when you’re as rich as you are, you figure you can do any goddamn thing you want. But you can’t, see. Cause you can’t escape the law.”
By the time Smedlow found himself being wheeled out of his basement, a small but ugly crowd had gathered on his front lawn. In the noisy, pushing confusion shutters clicked, neighborhood adolescents waved and clowned in front of the news cameras, TV news reporters stuck their microphones in his face and the Sergeant walked stolidly beside him, keeping them all back until the wheelchair at last made its way to the squad car.
Standing in the driveway, Agnes’ lawyer was being videotaped for the evening news.
“Mrs. Smedlow wants finality, that’s all,” he was saying. “She’s been through a terrrible ordeal.”
“All right, mister, let’s go,” barked Patrolman Guberman, lifting Smedlow up while the Sergeant reached to open the back door.
“Did the NYPD get that search warrant yet?”
“Yeah, yeah, they oughta be here any minute now,” said the Sergeant, checking his wristwatch and then scowling back at Smedlow from the driver’s seat: “Lucky you: they’re comin’ all this way to get you cause you’re such a . . . BIGshot. The NYPD don’t mess around. They know just what to do with guys like you. ”
“Yeah, he oughta get the chair,” said Patrolman Guberman, shaking his flat-top with disgust and then stuffing his mouth with a virgin stick of gum.
“If it hadn’t a been for your chauffeur over there,” continued the Sergeant, “we wouldn’t never a cracked this case. But he tipped us off . . . played you like a . . . chump.”
Looking out his window past the crowd of neighbors still trespassing on his lawn, Smedlow first caught sight of the yokel’s dog humping an Irish Setter below the bathroom window and then of the yokel himself standing on the deck -- surrounded by TV cameras and by a host of reporters holding out their mikes. It was bad enough to see him standing there -- smirking and triumphant. But it was even worse to see something floating just above his head -- the dim mirage of a tricorn hat, the spectral steps and vaporous columns. He tried desperately, as they materialized and darkened, to keep seeing through them to the black roof and white aluminum siding and red cedar deck of his own split-level ranch house. He endeavoured, with all his might and main, to blink away the filmy women and the horses and the coach. And yet he could not
chuse but see them most distinctly now -- my exquisite charmer and her tedious aunt and their ill-complexioned serving-woman, my gallant coach-and-four and this base, insufferable fellow Potter standing without the pillar’d front of Chommeley Hall. Nor could I in the leastwise divine why this shitten varlet was smirking most abominably as presently a second coach came wheeling post-haste up the avenue.
Indeed, standing there conversing with my charmer and near to swooning from the surfeit of her honeyed beauties, I could not have been more rudely interrupted -- nor withal more puzzled-- by this most unforeseen arrival. But I was not fain long to wonder why this raskall Potter was now so damnably a-smiling. For presently this coach did stop hard by me -- and disburthen itself of all the vile creatures pent within: and there before me stumbled out my pissabed Cousin Fawncey. No sooner had this blinded, groping asse uncoach’d, than my manservant Potter gan paying his attentions to him, murmuring syrupy courtesies and leading him about the whiles some fumbling, cringing constable with his staff of office and his pack of halbardiers had the face to approach my person.
And now (in the presence of my charmer) I must needs be charged with all the supposed crimes which this very rogue and whoreson black-guard Potter had laid at my door: the quite necessary bleeding of a chamber-maid, the unavoidable eating of one hag and sundry beggars, the well-deserved dispatch and harvesting of a meer whiffling bugger of a book-monger. These accusations would, by themselves, have been quite nettling enough. But now (whilst my charmer did look at me with much amaze) I must moreover be indicted of hiring the ruffians who had stolen her away.
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