by Russell, Ray
‘Frustrating,’ I said.
‘Tragic. Poor Rinaldi was a far more pathetic figure than Rigoletto or Tonio. That soaring voice caged in that bent body. And so, since so many roles were denied him, he decided to create a role he would deny others. He would commission an opera with a great role in it for him, and he would allow no other to sing it.
‘The legend is that he went to Puccini—which is chronologically possible because Puccini was still very much alive and active at the time—but I happen to know it was a less illustrious composer he approached: me.
‘I was in Milan. He came to me with a libretto under his arm, a thick thing of many pages, all in longhand, bound with silk cord. He had written it himself, drawing freely upon Victor Hugo. Il Gobbo, it was called: The Hunchback.
‘The twisted little man came straight to the point, speaking in that rich voice that one could actually feel vibrating the eardrum. “Name any figure, maestro,” he said, “and it is yours.” I told him I was very busy with other commitments (which was not entirely a lie) and he said, ‘’Promise me only that you will read this. If, after having done so, you can resist it, I will not press the matter further.” His confidence both annoyed and intrigued me, so I made the promise; he left the libretto with me; and, that evening, I read it.
‘It was quite good. Of course, the basic story and characters were all in Hugo’s great novel, Notre Dame de Paris, but Rinaldi had done a quite competent job of scaling things down to the limitations of the operatic stage, providing plenty of theatrically effective scenes and situations. All this, mind you, was several years before the same story was filmed for the first time, with Lon Chaney. As for his verses, they were adequate—not great poetry, but cantabile: singable. Needless to say, he had written himself a great role in Quasimodo. But it was not merely a one-man show—I would not have been interested in that—it was a very effective drama, with other good roles, Esmeralda, Jehan, Phoebus, Gringoire; and great opportunities for music: the scene in the bell tower, the scene in the torture chamber, the chorus of beggars, Esmeralda’s dance...
‘In short, Rinaldi’s confidence was justified. I could not resist it. I got in touch with him the next day and told him I would do it.’
‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘You told him you would do it.’
‘What’s that, Mr Popowcer?’
‘But you did not do it, signore. You took that poor cripple’s money—worse, you allowed him to raise his hopes—and then you betrayed him!’
Del Medico’s voice trembled. ‘Wh... who are you?’
I rose slowly from my chair and advanced towards him. ‘Can you not guess?’ I said.
‘No... it’s impossible... You can’t be!’
And then he told me something that stopped me in my tracks, and made the blood seem to jell in my veins.
The Perils of Popowcer
Chapter One
Licked Before You Start
Sonya Gorchenkov laughed triumphantly at my predicament. I was hooked up, buck naked, to a polygraph machine. That’s right—a lie detector, but nobody gave a damn if I lied or levelled or clammed up. The polygraph needle reacted to every fluctuation of my blood pressure, heartbeat, pulse, respiration and perspiration. The slightest excitement of my senses, the merest upsurge of my emotions, and the polygraph would, in turn, activate a syringe that would empty a pint of cyanide into my veins. My only hope was to remain totally calm.
Sonya approached me slowly, tantalisingly. I muttered to myself, ‘Don’t lose your cool, Popowcer.’ Sonya wet her lovely lips and bestowed a light kiss upon my
MEMO
TO: THE PUBLISHER
FROM: THE AUTHOR
SUBJECT: GORDON W. POPOWCER
Sorry, pal, but it looks like this Popowcer character just doesn’t want to shape up. I’ve started four yarns about him, and each time I couldn’t get past the first chapter. Now, about that advance you laid on me. I’m not exactly in a position to pay it back right now, but as soon as I return from the Bahamas, I’ll make it up to you by starting a super new story about a terrific character named Jacksonville Florida, Jack for short. He’s got a glass eye which is really a miniature laser gun, and a prosthetic right hand that looks like the McCoy bat is made of stainless steel and can chop through a Honduras-wood door a foot thick. His arch-enemy is the gorgeous but half-human daughter of... never mind, all this and much, much more will be revealed in the gripping pages of Five Foot Two, Eyes of Goo, which you’ll be seeing in a few weeks. Well, the first chapter of it, anyway. Ciao, buddy. Hang loose.
Captain Clark of the Space Patrol
The following quartet of miniature tales was recently discovered by me in an old yellow binder dating back to my elementary school days. I must have been about nine or ten when I wrote them, on lined two-hole loose-leaf paper, in black ink. (Anyone out there remember ink? It came in ‘bottles’ into which, we dipped the ‘nibs’ of our primitive ‘pens’.). All four of the stories feature the same character, Captain Clark of the Space Patrol. Some of my friends claim they can see the faint beginnings of my later style in these examples of juvenilia, other friends assure me there has been no change whatsoever. All I will say is that I’ve encountered science fiction a lot worse, written far more recently, by professionals much older than this pre-pubescent author—particularly on television, but not exclusively in that medium. I offer the stories without further comment, exactly as written, complete with howlers.
-R.R.
A REAL PATROLMAN
Captain Kane Clark of the Space Patrol was sitting in front of the Patrol’s headquarters when Dick Lee, a little friend of his came up to him.
‘Hello, captain!’ he said.
‘How are you, Dick?’ asked Clark.
‘Oh, fine. Who’s that man over there?’ asked Dick, pointing out an elderly looking man, with thick glasses and a trim cut goatee.
‘Why, that’s Doctor Emanuel Shard—our crime detection scientist. Swell guy.’
Dick appeared doubtful, and when Captain Clark left, he went to the building which held the crime detection laboratory, and went to Shard’s office.
Shard wasn’t in his office, but Dick found him in the laboratory.
‘Hello, Doctor Shard—oh, what are you doing? Listening in on the secret wave length? Don’t do that!’
Thar was precisely what Shard WAS doing. He dropped his earphone, and wheeled around. ‘You meddlesome baby!’ he screeched. ‘I’ll kill you for that! Spying, eh?’ And he pulled out a deadly D-ray gun—pressed the trigger.
The wall in back of the boy melted to nothingness, for he had jumped away. ‘Missed!’ yelled Dick, running down the corridor.
He reached a radiophone on a wall, and cried into it: ‘Operator, connect me with helmet phone number 279-B—quickly!’ The connection was made, and Captain Kane Clark’s voice sounded in the loudspeaker.
‘Who is calling?’
‘It’s me, captain—Dickie! Come to level A-22—now! It’s about Shard—but hurry!’
In fifteen seconds Clark stepped from an elevator, and stood beside the boy. ‘What is it, Dickie?’
‘It’s that Doctor Shard! He was listening on the secret wave—and tried to D-ray me, and —’
‘What?’ screamed Clark, The filthy skunk! When I get him —’
They caught Shard, just as he was about to escape via the window.
Captain Clark hissed at Shard: ‘You’ll get at least ten years on Ceres for this.’ Then, turning to Dickie, he said, ‘My boy, you certainly are a REAL PATROLMAN!’
ON THE TRAIL OF DOCTOR SHARD
Captain Kane Clark entered the office of his superior, Commander Norton.
‘You sent for me sir?’ asked the lithe young captain.
‘Yes, Clark. Doctor Shard has escaped from Ceres, the prison planetoid. Start for Ceres at once!’
Without further ado, Clark hired a space ship, and shot away from the Earth.
Two days later found him peering through his super lens telesc
opic periscope.
‘Swirling Suns! That’s a Ceres patrol ship up ahead—but, God, how fast it’s moving! I had better investigate.’
Turning his ship, he swung majestically over the Ceres ship, and, donning a space suit, climbed from the air lock on to the speedily moving ship from the prison planet.
Squinting through the quartz-glass windows of his helmet, and of the ship, he saw a man, dressed in a dull blue cloth, bending over the control panel. The man’s face was clearly visible to Clark.
‘Doctor Shard!’ he breathed.
Quickly he whipped a D-ray gun from its holster, and melted the quartz-glass porthole away.
Doctor Shard turned at the sound; saw Kane Clark’s grim visaged face through the helmet.
He took a deep breath—then gasped—the terrible realisation came to him—all the air had rushed out into the empty vacuum of outer space, when Captain Clark had melted away the window!
Shard stumbled weakly towards a cabinet, and withdrew a helmet and a D-ray gun. He put on the helmet.
Through Kane Clark’s earphones, rasped: ‘Don’t move, Clark—I have you covered!’
And Shard’s earphones roared: ‘Oh, yeah? Say any prayers your miserable soul knows, you bloodthirsty fiend—because you’re going to die—here and now!’
From the captain’s D-ray gun came a barrage of pure white flame. It struck Shard, he gasped, screamed and, in a few seconds, was a pile of unwholesome ashes.
‘A fitting end for a heartless rat!’ said Captain Clark to himself.
PIRATES OF SPACE
‘Remain quiet, and you shall be unharmed. Make a sound, and I’ll burn you to a cinder!’
It was Duval, the space pirate, commanding the passengers of the rocket liner, ‘Bluestreak.’
His men searched the passengers and their cabins, then reported to Duval. ‘We cannot find the Moonstone crystal, sir—but we have this loot.’ The man showed Duval a box, filled with priceless jewels.
‘Bah!’ he yelled. ‘I must have the Moonstone, and by the nine moons of Saturn—I’ll get it!’
Now, it so happened that Interplanetary Rocket Lines, owners of the ‘Bluestreak’ had assigned a government agent, Captain Kane Clark, of the Space Patrol, to guard the precious Moonstone crystal.
Clark was disguised as an elderly man, and was on the ship. He rose from his seat, and faced Duval.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I am in charge of the priceless jewel you have just mentioned. I will give it to you if you let the ship go peacefully on its way.’
The Moonstone crystals were mined frequently from the crystal mines of the Moon, but this particular one had a strange difference—it was rich in radium! Moon radium, the most rare and deadly of elements!
Duval said, ‘Very well, old man, give me the Moonstone, and I’ll leave you in peace. But mind you, it must be the REAL Moonstone!’
‘It will be,’ said the disguised Clark, ‘no worry of that.’ Captain Clark fumbled in a box, and withdrew a heavy lead container. This he handed to Duval.
‘Is this the genuine article?’ asked the wily space pirate. ‘Of course it is,’ replied Clark, ‘see for yourself.’
Duval opened the leaden container, and gazed at the shining jewel within. Then he screamed, slapped down the lid, dropped the container, and covered his eyes with his hands, ‘I’m blinded!’ he screamed, ‘That cursed Moonstone!’
‘Yes, Duval,’ said Kane Clark, removing his disguise. ‘The radium element in the Moonstone blinded you. You’ll find it’s not safe to play the game of crime when the Space Patrol is around!’
SENTENCED BY THE LAW
Jon Duval, former space pirate was in the Court of Ceres, the prison planetoid. A week before, he had been blinded by a radium Moonstone. It was a trick on the part of Captain Kane Clark of the Space Patrol.
The judge looked down at the sightless prisoner, and said, ‘Jon Duval, this court has found you guilty of twenty-five robberies and seven first degree murders. Therefore, I sentence you to death by the D-ray, one month from this day, at midnight. Next case!’
Duval was led away.
Weary, unseen days rolled slowly by. Always, in his mind, he pictured that fatal moment when he opened the lead container of the Moonstone crystal, and the radium rays burned into his eyes; rendered them useless.
A month passed. At 11:30 at night, a guard and a priest entered Duval’s gloomy cell. He was to begin the long walk towards the dread room where he would be D-rayed to death.
They started. As they walked, instead of a repentance for his sins coming over him, an intense hatred welled up within him. Hatred for—Captain Kane Clark!
As a ruse, Duval slumped to the floor. The guard bent to lift him up. As Duval was being lifted, he felt for the guard’s D-ray gun—and found it!
Instantly he destroyed every thing around him! He stumbled blindly through the corridor.
An alarm rang out. Clark, who was on special duty at the Ceres prison, was notified immediately.
‘Captain Clark—Jon Duval has escaped!’
Clark went after Duval, and found him, outside the prison, running madly. ‘Stop, Duval!’ yelled Kane Clark.
‘Clark!’ screamed the blinded convict. He wheeled about. ‘It would be terrible to live with my eyes burned out—I’ll kill myself—but I’ll kill YOU first, Clark!’
Surmising where the patrolman was, by the sound of his voice, Duval levelled his weapon, and—fired!
But his ‘aim’ was poor. However, Clark choked and screamed, to deceive him.
Duval then turned the gun towards himself, and squeezed the trigger. The flame consumed him.
Clark glanced at his watch. ‘Twelve o’clock,’ he murmured. ‘The sentence was carried out—Duval died at midnight—by D-ray!’
Unholy Travesty
(In which the author, on a dare, undertakes to self-satirize his own canon of Gothic novellas, ‘Sardonicus,’ ‘Sagittarius,’ and ‘Sanguinarius,’ published collectively as ‘Unholy Trinity.’)
In the harsh and horrid winter of 18–– (Thursday, the fifth of ––––, to be exact, for it is not meet that I be imprecise or chary in the setting down of any small or large particulars of this astounding chronicle), I, Sir Bosley –––––, went forth from my beloved London; sojourning across the hostile plains of Central –––––, from thence into the mountains of the dreaded ––––– Range, finally to arrive at the remote and legend-haunted principality of Upper –––––, where, in sinister majesty, crouched that dark and awesome castle of my host, the feared and fearful Baron –––––.
My first sight of that castle is branded upon my memory to this day. On a preposterous and perilous promontory it perched, gaunt in the moonlight, grimy in the sunlight, flayed by the slash and howl of storms. Its gardens, lush with mandrake root and wolfbane once, had fallen into tangled, acrid chaos. The fine great rooms were echoing and hollow, blighted by the noisome smell of rot, littered with the carcasses of bats and armadilloes, torn parchments, rusted flagons, old Dixie Cups, and other awful offal. Sometimes a carrion bird would flap and screech, frightened, I suppose, by the fog machine.
Met at the portcullis of the castle by a deaf-mute dwarf, I was led into the great hall, passing sundry suits of armour, marble statuary, Iron Maidens, Spanish boots, vast spiderwebs, and suchlike artifacts of great interest and antiquity. In one alcove, a pitiable wretch lay stretched in mortal agony upon the rack, but this did not arouse my comment or alarm for it is not meet to criticise or cast aspersions on the timeworn customs and traditions of those far-flung folk not fortunate enough to have been born in England’s green and pleasant land. After all, I reasoned, wretch-stretching is probably quite common in this part of the world, so I adopted a broad mind and cheerful tolerance towards it.
The dwarf led me to the entrance of a drawing room (or, possibly, quartering room, for I am not as learned as I might wish in these subtle distinctions), and then hobbled away, alternately wheezing and cackling in a
most colourful Middle-European manner.
What I saw in that room quite disconcerted me!
In the drawing room stood a beauteous lady. Her smile, her very presence, stunned me, and I entered the room, reeling.
‘Am I dreaming?’ I said.
‘No, you are reeling,’ corrected the lady.
‘Do I have the honour of addressing the Baroness?’
‘You do,’ cooed the lovely creature, ‘but, Sir Bosley, surely you have not forgotten me?’
Again I reeled, and semi-pivoted. ‘That face,’ I stammered, ‘can it be? Is it possible? No, no, it is not meet! Would Destiny, in all its waywardness and whimsy, place me, its paltry pawn, again within an arm’s length of my dear, my darling, my long-thought-dead delight-of-heart?...’
‘Yes, Bosley!’ she cried. ‘It is none other! It is your own devoted Gwen! Your own dear Lady Gwendolyn Blushmore!’
Upon receipt of this intelligence, I reeled yet again, on this occasion colliding painfully with an Ottoman and an anti-macassared Morris chair that seemed placed, by dint of malice, in my path. I uttered a sharp cry and rubbed my shinbone vigorously.
‘Oh fie, Sir Bosley,’ she chided. ‘Have you no words of tender greeting at this reunion?’
‘My own soul’s-ease,’ I said feelingly, ‘no words, no turgid porridge-pot of adjectives and participles and suchlike; nay, not even the most pungent and most purple periods which I, in my most knightly fervour and flamboyance, might dredge up from all the half-remembered Gothic tales and wild romances I have avidly consumed in idle hours, could truly and with fine exactitude express the joy, astonishment, keen rapture and most high transport of glee I feel in gazing once again upon my Gwendolyn’s dear orbs—those large, round, lovely orbs which—’
At this, the lady slapped my face! Confusion, shame, dyspepsia and doubt transfixed my body and impaled my mind. What had I said to offend? Then, as comprehension dawned, I instantly assured her: ‘No, no, dear Gwen, not those orbs! I meant your eyes!’