by Rex Stout
“For myself.”
“What for?”
“Imperial necessity,” said Mr. Chidden, trying to make a joke of it.
“I suppose it’s clothes.”
Her tone was maddening. The flush was leaving her face now, and her lips were straightening out. These ominous signs, and the smart sarcasm of her voice, plunged Mr. Chidden quite suddenly into the depths of exasperated despair. From her appearance of nervous embarrassment, he had thought to take her by surprise and get the three dollars out of her before she realized what she was doing. But he knew that hope was gone as he saw her lips meet in the familiar straight line. Very well, he would fight for it.
“Yes, it’s clothes,” he replied, with sudden passion. “Why shouldn’t it be? I want three dollars.”
“You can’t have it.” Miss Maria returned the pocketbook to the drawer. “And, what’s more, you don’t need it.”
“No? I don’t?” shouted Mr. Chidden, advancing a step and pointing indignantly to a certain portion of his clothing. “Look at that! Just look at it! Perhaps there is men who can wear a pair of pants three years, Maria Chidden, but I’m not one of ’em. It’s unwholesome. Give me three dollars.”
For reply, Miss Maria closed and locked the drawer, returned to her chair, inserted the edge of a sheet under the hemmer, and started the machine. Her only audible comment was a grunt as she hitched the chair up closer.
Mr. Chidden choked with the helpless rage of the timid and oppressed.
“That’s right!” he yelled. “Shut your mouth and look mad. You can’t scare me. I need a pair of pants, and you know it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’ve got rich off of this boarding house, and I’ve slaved for you morning, noon and night for twenty years, and got nothing. What’s three dollars to you? Anyway, I’ve got it coming to me. I’ve earned it. Ain’t I? Haven’t I earned it?”
“Maybe,” was the calm reply. “But you’re not going to get it.”
“No? I won’t get it? All right! All right, then, I won’t get it!”
And Mr. Chidden, tasting defeat, sought for revenge. He tried to think of something to say that would give this tyrant pain. And what he found was:
“What was that little dago doing in here? I saw him come out.”
The machine stopped. Miss Maria arose. Her look was awful. Mr. Chidden met it bravely for three seconds, then began a precipitate retreat toward the door. He was halted by her voice. Anyone would have been.
“Robert!”
“Well?” he murmured, turning.
“Let me tell you right now, Mr. Comicci is no dago. He’s a gentleman. Dago, indeed! A worthless little thing like you to call him names! And you stand right up and insinuate your own sister! Yes, you did! And if ever I—Robert! Robert, come back here!”
But the call went unheeded. With his revenge, Mr. Chidden had swiftly flown—into the hall and down three flights of stairs to the cellar. There he halted and seated himself on an old box behind the coal pile. Almost immediately he jumped up again, ran to the cellar door, and bolted it. Then he returned to the box. This was the refuge he always sought when he required solitude. He took a pipe from his pocket, filled it, lit it, and leaned back against the whitewashed wall to puff and think.
First, he thought of pants. For two weeks now he had been screwing up his courage to the point of asking for three dollars—the price of a certain handsome garment displayed in Greenberg’s window on Eighth Avenue. And since his need was undeniable, he knew that if he had approached his sister in the proper manner, with a due amount of humility and appeal, he would have been successful. But he had allowed himself to be betrayed by a hasty impulse, and now he would probably have to wait another month.
What had set him off? Oh, yes, the dago. That was funny. Of course he had been mistaken; even a dago would not make love to his sister Maria, who was lean and old and rawboned. But then he had distinctly heard the kiss. What if it had really happened? Mr. Chidden puffed out a long column of smoke, and chuckled to himself. He would give anything to have seen the little dago trying to kiss Maria. For some time he sat smoking and grinning to himself, developing many amusing details of the imagined scene.
Then suddenly he sat up with a quick ejaculation, jerking the pipe from his mouth. By Heaven! He hadn’t thought of that! Could it be? Perhaps the little dago wasn’t such a fool, after all!
He leaned back against the wall and began to think in earnest, forgetting to smoke. He remained thus for half an hour, silent, motionless, rapt. Then he slowly arose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and went upstairs to look at the dining-room clock. It said a quarter past eleven, which meant that Miss Maria had left fifteen minutes before on her daily trip to the Eighth Avenue markets.
“Now’s my chance!” muttered Mr. Chidden.
He mounted to the second floor and passed to the rear of the hall. The door, behind which he had heard the kiss an hour before, was closed. Getting no answer to his knock, he pushed it open and entered. Leaving the door ajar, he tiptoed across to the old-fashioned desk and raised the lid, disclosing to view an orderly heap of receipts, bills, and other papers, and two medium-sized books bound in imitation leather. He took out one of the latter, laid it on the desk, and opened it.
He was nervous; he kept glancing behind him every second, and his fingers trembled, but he finally found what he wanted on page 47. At the top of the leaf was written: “Giacomo Comicci, came in Sept. 22, third-floor front, $5.00.” Beneath this was a list of dates a week apart, and after each date appeared the entry: “Paid $5.00.” But at March 16th the entries of payments halted, though the dates continued. Mr. Chidden glanced at the calendar on the desk, which displayed in black type: “June 28.” Then he went down the line of dates with his finger, counting.
“By Polly!” he exclaimed aloud, for getting the danger of his situation. “He hasn’t paid a cent for fifteen weeks!”
All was clear. His suspicions were justified. No wonder the little dago was trying to kiss Maria! Then another thought came: Never before had any roomer succeeded in remaining under Maria’s roof for more than three consecutive weeks without paying rent, and here—nearly four months! Gradually, reluctantly, Mr. Chidden arrived at the painful conclusion that not only had Mr. Comicci given Maria the kiss, but also that she had been glad to get it.
But he knew his sister Maria. She was a prude if ever there was one. No man—not Don Juan himself—could ever have succeeded in planting the salute of love on her chaste cheek without having first declared the most honorable intentions. By Polly! There could be no doubt of it! The little dago was trying to marry Maria!
Mr. Chidden was thinking fast, but it was some time later, back in the cellar, that he arrived at this startling conclusion. As soon as it entered his mind, it crowded everything else out. He felt himself suddenly confronted by a fearful and wholly unexpected danger. His brain whirled.
True, he had told himself daily for the past twenty years that he was living the life of a slave, and he had made spasmodic and energetic, but fruitless, attempts to get out of it. Handyman in a rooming house is not a position either of honor or of ease, and his sister Maria had taken all the profits. But still the work was not really hard, he never had to worry about anything, he usually got clothes when he had to have them, and he could always squeeze a little spending money out of Maria when his need was urgent. And Maria had saved up something like ten thousand dollars. Not that he wanted or expected her to die, or anything like that; but the fact remained that the ten thousand existed, and that he was her brother, her only living relative.
And now this little dago—
About the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Chidden mounted to the third floor and knocked on the door at the front. His was no coward spirit. He had no special design or object; he merely wanted to face the enemy and appraise him. Signor Comicci opened the door.
“I’ve come to see to the gas,” said Mr. Chidden, entering.
“There is nothing wronga weeth eet,
” answered the Italian.
Without bothering to reply, Mr. Chidden got a chair from a corner and carried it to the middle of the floor under the chandelier; then, mounting on it, he proceeded to examine the top of the burner with a singular expression of hostility, due, perhaps, to the fact that every now and then his eyes shifted for a quick glance at the Italian, who stood beside the chair looking up curiously. The look was curious, and nothing more; there was certainly nothing vicious in the face, with its twinkling gray eyes beneath the straggling brown hair. But Mr. Chidden found it evil; and he was on the point of making an ill-natured remark, when it occurred to him that, in the role of spy, it is necessary to submerge the violent emotions.
“I guess it’s all right,” he said finally, descending from the chair.
Mr. Comicci nodded amiably.
“Gives trouble sometimes,” continued Mr. Chidden. “On account of the mantle. Jets is easy. But I suppose a good light.”
Thus the conversation began; and, despite a certain wary hesitancy of manner, Mr. Comicci entered into it with zest and affability. Within three minutes he was telling of his sorrow at having been compelled to give up his studio on Tenth Street, declaring that overhead light was essential to his art; after which he discoursed for some time on the stony path of the artist, especially the artist in marble and bronze.
“So costly the material!” he complained, while Mr. Chidden nodded in the effort to appear sympathetic. “Look at this! Just the marble, eet costa five dollar!”
He indicated a figure group, a boy sitting on a man’s knee, half-finished. Mr. Chidden displayed a diplomatic interest, eyeing the group with the air of a man who understands more than he is willing to admit. He had to pay for the pretense. From that figure they passed to another, and another. The room was full of them—just begun, half finished, and completed. The Italian dragged them from all sorts of places—a leaping frog in bronze from under a heap of sketches, a boy with a flute from a soiled laundry bag, a girl poring over a book from a drawer of the wardrobe.
“I show you something,” he said suddenly, going to a corner where stood a table with something on it covered with a dark cloth. “Eet has been at Demarest in exhibit. Only yesterday eet came back. I did eet long ago—so beautiful—see!”
He carefully removed the dark cloth, displaying the figure of a woman in white marble. There was no drapery. Her arms were crossed on her breast, and one knee was bent a little inward; her head was half turned, as if in shamed modesty. It was beautiful.
“By Polly!” exclaimed Mr. Chidden, after a minute’s critical survey; and then he added thoughtfully: “Bare as a picked chicken.”
It was the sight of that nude figure that gave Mr. Chidden his idea. But it came later—three or four days later—for in the presence of the figure he was really somewhat abashed. And the seed of Mr. Chidden’s strategy was the muttering to himself as he went downstairs after leaving Mr. Comicci:
“I’d like to see Maria’s face when she looked at that!”
The immediate effect of his visit was to soften his suspicion of Mr. Comicci. He seemed so harmless and amiable, and, poor devil that he was, what did it matter if he beat Maria out of some rent? Mr. Chidden was only too glad to see his sister done for once. He began to doubt if the kiss had really been delivered; and, looking at Maria’s face, he strongly doubted if any man, in any extremity, would have the temerity to kiss her.
It was about a week later that his doubts vanished decidedly and suddenly. Coming through the hall one afternoon, he heard an indistinct murmur of voices behind the closed door of the parlor. As his footsteps approached, the voices became silent; but as he reached the top of the stairs on the floor above, they came again to his ears, very faintly. Instantly he was suspicious. He halted, and stood still to think, with a hesitation born not of any scruples of morality, but to bolster up his courage. Then he returned to the stairs and descended slowly, noiselessly. From the hall the voices were audible, but he could not catch the words. He tiptoed cautiously to the door of the library in the rear and across to the curtains that hung between that room and the parlor, and, with a beating heart and set lips, he peeped through their folds.
What he saw was his sister Maria seated on the green plush sofa, her face redder than ever, and an absurd tenderness in her eyes, gazing fondly at Mr. Comicci, who was kneeling on the carpet at her feet and holding fast to both her hands!
The Italian’s voice came, plainly audible.
“You will! You will!” he murmured passionately.
He began to plant furious kisses all over her hands. She shook her head.
“I’m too old. You can’t love me,” the astonished Mr. Chidden heard her say.
“Ah!” groaned the lover. “Ah, what is age when one is beautiful? So beautiful! Eet is to break my heart!”
Still she shook her head, but with less determination. It was easy to see that she was yielding. The ardent wooer took one knee from the floor, passed an arm around her waist, and resumed the hand-kissing.
“So beautiful and pure!” he cried in an exalted whisper. It was wonderful. No one but a Latin could possibly have done it. “I implore you—ah—make me happy! Be my wife!”
And then came the voice of Minnie, the kitchen girl, from below:
“Mr. Chidden! Mr. Chid-den!”
Mr. Chidden, with an inward curse, turned so quickly that he nearly betrayed himself by knocking over a lamp pedestal. The voice of Minnie continued, rising higher. He tiptoed silently into the hall and down the stairs, meeting Minnie at the foot.
“What the heck do you want?” he demanded savagely.
“The man’s here for the bottles,” she replied in a tone of surprise at his manner of unaccustomed violence.
After all, as he told himself when he had retired to the cellar that evening to think, the interruption was of little consequence. He had seen and heard enough. Whether Maria had said yes or no, it was certain that she would eventually say yes.
“Indecent amorosity!” said Mr. Chidden aloud.
He sat down and began to think.
And fate played into his hands. The scheme was his own, but opportunity came from Maria herself. It was the next morning when she called him upstairs to order him to beat the parlor rugs and lay a fire in the grate. This in preparation for a meeting of the Help a Little Club, to be held on Thursday.
It was not the first time Mr. Chidden had been called on to prepare for the Help a Little Club, an organization of ladies of Maria’s church, who met weekly to sew for charity and to gossip. Always, hitherto, as he had carried the rugs into the back yard, he had cursed the club for that addition to his labors; and so he did on this occasion. But suddenly, as he was arranging the paper and kindling in the grate, he recognized opportunity. He stopped, stood up, and frowned.
“Great legs!” he cried; and repeated: “Great legs!”
And as he finished laying the fire, a continual grin of humorous and vengeful expectancy covered his face.
That afternoon he made his simple preparations. They consisted of a trip to the paint shop on Eighth Avenue, where he procured a ten-cent can of black paint and a small brush. He carried them to the cellar and concealed them in an old barrel.
Thursday morning came, and with it a display of unexampled energy on the part of Mr. Chidden. The furnace ashes were attended to before breakfast, and by nine o’clock he had completed all the tasks that usually took him till noon. This was a mistake, but it was perceived by no one.
At twenty minutes past nine, Mr. Comicci came down the stairs and went into the street for his morning walk. Mr. Chidden witnessed his departure from the dining-room window. He waited five minutes, then went to the cellar for his paint and brush. As he came back up, he threw a hasty glance into the kitchen, where his sister Maria and Minnie were busied in the preparation of dainties for the expected guests. Then he passed swiftly upstairs to the third floor and entered Mr. Comicci’s room.
Straight to the table in the corner
he went, and drew off the dark cloth. He had no time to be embarrassed by the nudity of the marble lady; he had work to do. He took his brush and paint and went at it. In ten minutes he had finished. He replaced the cloth, hid the brush and paint under his coat, and returned to the cellar, where he buried the implements under a pile of wood.
“There!” he breathed, his heart still thumping from a sensation of perilous adventure. “If only the dago don’t lift that cloth! Well, it’s a chance!”
There was nothing to do now but wait for afternoon and the arrival of the Help a Little Club. But the wait was not so tedious as it might have been, after Mr. Comicci had returned from his walk, for he spent most of the time loitering about the lower hall, expecting momentarily to hear a door thrown violently open upstairs and the voice of the Italian raised in wrath. But neither of these sounds came, though the guests did.
At the appearance of the first of them, a little after two o’clock, Mr. Chidden retreated to the floor above, having been instructed by Maria to keep out of the way. By three the parlor was full, and Mr. Chidden could hear the confused hum of their voices through the closed door. He could imagine them—old ladies, middle-aged ladies, fat ladies, lean ladies, amiable ladies, sour ladies, sitting in two or three circles, with both their tongues and needles running at the rate of two hundred strokes a second.
He had decided to wait till four o’clock before beginning operations, but half an hour before that time arrived, he was frightfully impatient; and he kept listening fearfully for indications of the discovery of his plot upstairs. At length he could bear it no longer. He made his way, with a strange reluctance, to the door of the third-floor front. There he hesitated, then raised his hand and knocked sharply. The Italian’s voice came:
“Come in!”
As he opened the door, Mr. Chidden couldn’t help sending a quick glance toward the rear corner, and he gave a little sigh of relief as he saw that the table and its cloth-covered statue were in their normal position. He turned to Mr. Comicci, who stood in an attitude of polite inquiry.