Stranger Than Truth

by Vera Caspary

  I was surprised. The question was too simple for that dramatic build-up. “It’s a good story. It’s one of the best Unsolved Mysteries we’ve ever had. You said so yourself, Mr. Barclay.”

  “I said it was good. I didn’t say it was the best. When a man wants something very much, his desire is likely to exaggerate, even to twist and pervert, the truth.”

  “But you said you liked it.”

  “When you’re in a tough spot and feel the world’s against you, John, do you ever stop to examine the causes of your grievance? I don’t mean the surface causes or what you believe is the other fellow’s reason for thwarting you. What I’m asking is that you search yourself and dig deep for the elements of your discontent.”

  “I’ve read My Life Is Truth, Mr. Barclay.”

  Barclay nodded. He began to speak again glibly as if he were repeating phrases he had learned by heart. “It’s not always a simple matter to discover the truth. We’ve got to dig deep to find the heart of weakness. What’s the core of that obstinacy, young man?” He paused and looked down at me in an eager, good-fellow manner. Since I did not answer he went right on. “Don’t be afraid of your weaknesses. All men are weak, none of us is perfect. Your pride won’t let you accept another man’s decision. Why not? Isn’t stubborn pride a blanket covering hidden shame? What weakness have you buried, so that you’ve got to be too proud and obstinate to obey orders?”

  His eyes were fixed upon my face. His smile was gentle but his manner compelling. I felt myself blush. This made me angry. I clenched my teeth and doubled my fists.

  Barclay turned away as if he wished to save me embarrassment. Munn and I watched him cross the office to the door of his private lavatory.

  “Stand up, John. Come here.” Barclay had opened the lavatory door.

  I knew what was coming. So did Munn. He grinned as he rose and stretched himself with an attempt at nonchalance. The inside of the lavatory door was a mirror. Barclay held the door open at an angle which reflected the three of us. It was cheap, a sideshow effect, but successful. The stilts which Munn used for legs gave him a full six feet and Barclay was two or three inches taller. I stand five foot five in my shoes.

  Barclay spoke softly. “You’ve got to face it, lad. It’s resenting the big fellow and wanting to show you’re stronger that’s made you into a little fighting cock who thinks he can whip the giant roosters.”

  Munn smiled and hummed softly.

  Barclay’s hand found my shoulder. “Sore, aren’t you? Not that I blame you. Pretty fresh of old man Barclay to bring this up. What the hell business is it of his?” He caught my eye, smiled ruefully. “You see, I can tell what you’re thinking. And I’m right about you. All the trouble you’ve ever had with other people is because you’ve made up your mind you won’t be dominated. You’re going to show them. You’re going to knock us big fellows right down into the gutter so we’ll have to look up to you. Right now, John, you feel like telling me to go to hell, don’t you?”

  It was true and I shook my head.

  “Say it aloud. Say, ‘Go to hell, Barclay. It’s not your business that I’m a pint-sized runt.’ You don’t know, fellow, how it’s going to help you to tell me right out loud what you feel.” He spoke gently. His eyes had grown moist with earnestness. “Don’t be ashamed because you’re not satisfied with yourself. All humans aspire to perfection. We all loathe our imperfections; we hide them as if they were sins. No man can escape the essential truth about himself; no man is ever free of shame and resentment until he sees the truth fully and shares the truth.” He raised his head and looked about, blinking as if he had come out of darkness into sunlight.

  Munn watched, titillated by my embarrassment. The lavatory mirror reflected his smirk. Barclay noticed and closed the door.

  “You’ve read my book, John. Then you know me for what I am. No man since Cain has ever loathed himself so violently as Noble Barclay. And look at me today,” he smiled as if he and I alone knew the story which had been printed in 6,182,454 copies and sixteen languages. Then, because I had not offered the expected response, he asked in a subdued voice, “You’ve read the Introduction, haven’t you?”

  “The Introduction,” Munn said pontifically, “is the greatest document on human despair ever written.”

  “We’re keeping you from lunch, aren’t we, Ed?” Barclay wet his lips.

  Munn’s grin faded. In some subtle way which he could not understand the dog had displeased the master. He shook his head, mumbled something about liking to have his meals on time, and left, tail dragging.

  I wondered whether I ought to leave, too, but Barclay was not through with me. He seated himself on the big red leather couch, and indicated that he wanted me to sit beside him.

  “Angry?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Why do you lie about it?” He threw back his head and laughed. “If you weren’t sore, you wouldn’t be human.” Leaning forward, his big, square-fingered hand on my knee, he whispered, “I was right though. Confess it. You hate being a runt, don’t you?”

  Rain beat against the windows. The room had grown dark. Barclay switched on a lamp. His movements were powerful and precise. He let his hand fall to my knee again and his dark, restless eyes searched my face. The lamplight made me feel naked.

  “Go on, say it. Tell me I was right. You’ve always wanted to beat the big guys, haven’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You’ll feel a heck of a lot better when you’ve said it aloud. You won’t be sore at me anymore. You’ll know that I know what’s at the bottom of John Ansell, just the way I know Ansell knows what’s at the bottom of Noble Barclay.”

  Although I had read that ultimate essay on human despair and knew the brighter facts about his regeneration, I was not so sure I knew what was at the bottom of Noble Barclay. Sincere prophet or clever charlatan? Twenty weeks after I had come to work for him I was no more certain than at my first interview.

  To keep him from eavesdropping on anymore of my inhibitions I said quickly, “Okay, you’re right.”

  “Good for you, John!” He extended his hand. His face was ingenuous, shy and happy. He clasped my hand with a powerful fist. He had won the round, but his pleasure in triumph was so naïve that I was not only free of resentment but glad I had acknowledged my shame.

  He had too much sense to rub it in. Our interview was over. “Sorry we can’t lunch together, but the Senator is waiting. Some other time, I hope.” He put on his camel’s hair coat, fished a pair of pigskin gloves out of the pocket, smoothed his white hair. As we went out he graciously held the door for me.

  We parted in the reception room. At the door of his private elevator, Barclay gave me a mock salute and a friendly grin. I felt fine. As I walked through the deserted general office, a lonely stenographer eating lunch out of a paper bag looked at me and smiled. My self-esteem grew. I was a pint-sized runt and I wasn’t afraid to say it aloud. I was a good guy; people liked me. Noble Barclay was sorry he couldn’t have lunch with me. My hand was sore from the clasp of that big fist.

  On my way to lunch I hurried, whistling, through the tunnel that led from the foyer of the Barclay Building to Ye Olde English Grille. The tunnel was damp and cold as if the wind and rain had penetrated its stone walls. I heard women’s voices, became aware of dark silhouettes.

  A bulky shape blocked my path. Until she spoke I did not recognize my good friend, Miss Kaufman. She told her cronies to go on while she stopped to ask about the Wilson story.

  “It’s out,” I told her.

  “Why?”

  “Mr. Barclay doesn’t want to run it.”

  “Doesn’t he like it?”

  “He thinks it’s great, one of the greatest stories ever written for Truth and Crime.”

  “Then why won’t he let you run it?”

  I couldn’t answer. After all that had happened it was still an unsolved mystery.

  Miss Kaufman’s questions had shattered me. I felt inadequate and no long
er the sort of man whose smile brings sunshine into the lives of lonely stenographers. The glow had faded and Barclay’s approval was no more than an ironic symbol of my defeat.

  As I entered the Grille, Barclay employees stopped eating to stare at the man who had defied the boss. From the round table at which the editors ate, Lola Manfred beckoned. I did not hurry to the seat she had saved for me. Through the smoke and steam of the restaurant I saw that Eleanor was not in her accustomed place.

  A waitress noticed and, with a jerk of her thumb, guided my glance. Although the Grille was situated in a structural steel building, it had been decorated to look like a seventeenth-century English inn. Heavy beams and plaster columns divided the room into a series of dim caves. Lights were hidden in lantern-like fixtures shaded in cloudy amber.

  Eleanor waved. She sat alone at the small table. She had on a black suit. It was tailored and severe, but there was nothing severe about Eleanor. She wore a white blouse with a lace collar and a bib or frill of lace cascading down the front. As I came close I decided that today I would tell her I thought her the most beautiful woman on earth.

  “Hello,” I muttered as I stood awkwardly beside the table. Opposite her a tilted chair showed that a seat had been reserved.

  “Would you like to sit here?” Eleanor said.

  “Thanks.” I tried to be nonchalant, as though I ate lunch with her every day.

  “Were you fired?”

  “Oh! That’s it. I’m the man of the hour. Everyone in the place is talking about me.”

  She smiled. “You hardly made a secret of your feelings about the Munn memo. What happened?”

  “I wrote a story and thought it was good. Your father doesn’t want to run it.”

  “Why not?”

  The waitress handed me a bill of fare. I pretended not to know what I wanted. Eleanor’s question embarrassed me. I had been crazy about her since that August noon when she had first smiled at me across the table where editors and privileged editorial assistants lunched. Evidently Eleanor had liked me, too, for she had gone to lunch with me the next week. I had taken her to a quiet, expensive restaurant and everything had been wonderful until I asked her about her father, her life with the Truth-Sharer and how it felt to be the Truth Girl. That had been a terrible mistake. She was sensitive on the subject. Since then I had been obliged to find excuses to visit Lola Manfred in the Truth and Love office, hoping Lola’s assistant would be there. Sometimes at night I waited in the corridor until Eleanor came along, and rode downstairs with her in the elevator and made excuses about dining in Greenwich Village, so I could sit beside her on the bus.

  “Why wouldn’t Father let you run it?” Eleanor persisted. “What kind of story was it?”

  They had piped-in music at the Grille. A brass band played the Fledermaus waltz. Dishes clattered on tin trays and all around us people were watching. We were the most interesting couple in the place, Barclay’s daughter and the guy who had defied her father and her father’s Number One stooge. I did not mention the Warren G. Wilson story to Eleanor that day because I wanted to talk of something pleasanter than my quarrel with her old man.

  I said, “It must be Thursday. What’s there about Thursday that always makes them play Viennese waltzes?”

  “All right, skip it. But you weren’t fired?”

  “Would you care if I had been?”

  Eleanor looked over my shoulder at Lola Manfred. They exchanged some sort of signal.

  “What’s that about?” I wanted to know.

  “I won a dollar on you. I bet you wouldn’t be fired. Lola was sure that Ed Munn would stick his knife into your back.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t take any bets on myself. I’d have been on Lola’s side. For a while I was seeing myself in the Sunday Times—‘Young Man, Editorial Experience, Will Travel…’”

  “Were you frightened?”

  “Frightened isn’t the word. Realistic.”

  “I’m glad you weren’t fired, but I’m gladder that you risked it. Most of the others around here—” her scornful glance included them all, Henry Roe of Truth Magazine, Tony Shaw of Truth and Beauty, Lola Manfred, the associate editors, sub-editors, readers, and Edward Everett Munn who was eating health salad at a side table “—most of them think only of their jobs. They show off a lot and sometimes they laugh at Father. But when they get upstairs they’re afraid to express their opinions. They’re yes-men. You’ll never be a yes-man if you live to be a hundred.”

  I was glad I had defied Munn and stood up to Barclay. Eleanor admired me. I ate up her praise like a two-dollar minute steak and begged for more. “Yes-men don’t die in gutters. I’m looking for a nice sunny gutter with running water.”

  “I’d rather have you die in the gutter than be like those others.”

  She said it defiantly, as if she were telling her father and all the yes-men how she felt about gutters. I thought of her standing up to Munn and the office stooges, defending and praising the lone rebel, John Miles Ansell. I wanted to thank her by saying something gallant and wonderful.

  “You’re looking extra beautiful today. More beautiful than yesterday or last week or the first time I saw you.”

  “Don’t kid me. I’m not even pretty.”

  Eleanor’s face was a contradiction, delicately modeled with a fine, faintly aquiline nose, almost hollow cheeks and a broad firm jaw. The jaw saved her from fragility. I liked the contrast between the delicate nose and the definite chin. Her eyes were set deep and heavily shadowed. At the first glance they seemed dark, but it was always pleasant to discover and rediscover their gray transparency. The shadowed eyes gave her a dark look so that she seemed like a brunette, but her skin was pale ivory and all the small curls around her forehead fair enough to show she had been born blonde.

  “You’re dazzling.”

  “Because I bet on you?”

  “Eleanor,” I began. “Eleanor…”

  “Yes?”

  “Eleanor, we ought to celebrate tonight, you and I.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  “Gutters. Or not getting fired. Anything you like, just so we celebrate.”

  She laughed again. Eleanor was glad I had asked her out to dinner. All the time I’d been seeking excuses to visit the Truth and Love office and waiting in corridors, Eleanor had expected me to ask her for a date. And I had thought the warmth and graciousness was just natural charm, that she would have greeted any other man, Henry Roe or Tony Shaw or even Edward Everett Munn, with the same measure of enthusiasm.

  “Tonight then, Eleanor?”

  “Tonight.”

  We ordered ice cream and drank two cups of coffee, so that we’d have an excuse to linger at the table. We sat through Tides from the Vienna Woods, Southern Roses and Vienna Blood. When we left the restaurant was almost empty. I pulled out Eleanor’s chair and held her coat. When my hand brushed against her arm she quivered slightly and pulled away.

  The strains of Vienna Blood followed us through the tunnel.

  “May I have the waltz, Madame?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  I held out my arms and we waltzed down the tunnel. She had always seemed tall to me, but when we danced together I noticed that the shoulder of her plaid coat was lower than my shoulder. This fact delighted me. Tall girls make me sensitive about my size.

  Eleanor gave me her address and told me to call for her at seven. I went back to the office and phoned Jean Pierre’s. I told Gustav to save the best table and select the choicest duck. I told him we’d start with champagne cocktails. I owned the world.

  The phone rang. It was the Production Department.

  “They want to know when the new Unsolved Mystery’s coming through,” Miss Kaufman said.

  “So they’ve discovered my Pyrrhic defeat?”

  “Everyone in the office always finds out your business before you do. Once when I was working on Truth in Pictures, Mr. Barclay decided to kill the magazine. Mr. Munn was supposed to tell the editor, but he forgot,
and a whole issue was printed before anyone let us know we didn’t exist.”

  “Wasn’t he fired?”

  “Mr. Munn is never fired. Production’s still on the wire, Mr. Ansell. What shall I tell them?”

  I promised Production the new copy that night. I should have started working at once, but I felt good and stood idle, my hands in my pockets while I whistled Vienna Blood. “Something’s happened to you, Mr. Ansell.” “What makes you think so, Miss Kaufman?” “You ought to be furious. Working like you did on that Wilson story, checking all the details yourself and writing it so well, and then they want you to substitute some old piece of junk that you throw together in a couple of hours.” “That’s life. Get me the file on Dot King, please.” The Unsolved Mystery was an advertised feature of Truth and Crime and had to be included in every issue. There was no time now to get a staff writer on the story, so I decided to write it myself. Fortunately we had used other versions of the case and had the facts on hand. And there were pictures left over from a story in Truth and Love, June, 1937. We used a stock layout and sent the photos to the Production Department with Rush stickers on them. We had to get a Rush release on the story, too. Since he had got his way about the Wilson piece, Munn graciously allowed the new manuscript to go through his office, sight unseen. We needed a sight-unseen release from Mr. Barclay so that we could send copy to the printer as fast as it came out of the typewriter.

  “You’d better get Mr. Barclay’s release yourself, Mr. Ansell. You know Grace Eccles. If I ask a favor she’ll probably stall until Mr. Barclay’s gone for the day and she can get me blamed for inefficiency. But if you ask her, we’ll have it in five minutes.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  Miss Kaufman raised a shaggy eyebrow. “You’re an attractive young man.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll exercise my charms.”

  Mr. Barclay’s secretary smiled at me over her typewriter. She was a scrawny female with a rough skin that she tried to conceal with layers of cosmetics. The structure of curls on her head looked like carved mahogany. She swung around in her swivel chair, clasped her long white hands and looked expectant. I leaned over the desk as I told her that I needed help in overcoming an insurmountable obstacle, and added plaintively that this was an appeal to her well-known generosity.