Stranger Than Truth

by Vera Caspary

  He turned to the nurse. “Could he have a cigarette, young lady? I don’t smoke myself but when a smoker gets a piece of startling news he reaches for a cigarette. Will you get one for him?”

  “He’s not supposed to smoke.”

  “Get him a drink of water, will you?”

  “Do you want one?” she asked.

  “I don’t mind if I do,” I said.

  She poured some water from a glass jug. I saw the look of disappointment in Barclay’s face.

  “Look, my pretty,” I said to the nurse, “Mr. Barclay wants to talk to me privately. Would you mind stepping out for a few minutes?”

  She went.

  Barclay winked at me. “You’re an astute person.”

  “I’d be a moron not to understand those elephantine tactics.”

  He laughed again. I stood in well with Noble Barclay; he liked me for being fresh. I finished drinking my water, and as I put the glass back on the bed table, I remembered something. “I’ve got it,” I cried. “The water. Last night I took a drink of water…”

  “I have a favor to ask of you,” he interrupted. “I happen to be interested in the English Grille and I’d be grateful if nothing more was said about those shrimps you ate last night.”

  I looked around. There were no bars on the windows and the walls weren’t padded. I tried to ask a couple of questions, but Barclay rode over my interruptions like a hopped-up jalopy. He was not so much concerned, Barclay said, with the financial returns from the Grille as with the fate of Smith, its proprietor. Smith was one of his followers, an ex-dipsomaniac reclaimed by Truth-Sharing.

  “His story is remarkably like my own,” Barclay assured me. “And since you’ve read the Introduction, you must realize how I feel about Smith’s making good. Don’t repeat what I’ve told you about him because it wouldn’t help his morale if the story became common gossip. Smith’s pulled himself out of the gutter, so to speak, and made a pretty good thing of the Grille. That’s why I feel so strongly about this affair last night. If the story got out, it might ruin the restaurant. And God knows what would happen to Smith.”

  “Wouldn’t his belief in Truth help him survive it?” I asked, not without malice.

  “It was the belief that he was a failure that made him shun Truth and sent him on the downward path. A repetition of the experience might doom the man.” He caught my eye and asked for understanding. “Keep it under your hat, won’t you, Ansell?”

  I leaned back upon the pillows, closed my eyes, tried to look sick. I needed time to think about Barclay’s sudden generosity and his unctuous interest in Smith. A bribe had been offered, so that I should forget I had taken a drink of water from a blue carafe on the desk in my office.

  Curiosity tore at my guts, made me sicker than the poison. I knew that I’d get nowhere by asking questions. There was only one way for me to find out what really had happened. As long as I worked at my job and kept quiet about the water in my carafe, I could do as much undercover investigation as I wanted. When I found the answer, I promised myself, I would spare no one. You can’t poison an Ansell and get off without paying the price.

  There was no danger. “You think I’m astute, Mr. Barclay. But what if I should happen to eat shrimps again?”

  “You’re too clever for that. From now on you’ll be more careful.”

  There was a long silence. I looked at Barclay and he looked at his reflection in the mirror. The smooth son-of-a-bitch took it for granted that his bribe was enough to make me forget that drink of water.

  The nurse knocked at the door, peered in and opened it wider to admit a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums. Behind them came Eleanor. When she saw me leaning weakly against the pillows she let out the prettiest little groan I ever heard.

  “You’re all right now, aren’t you?” she whispered, her breath catching between the words.

  I enjoyed her sympathy and kept up the fraud. Barclay beamed as if he dropped happiness into our outstretched hands.

  “I’ll leave you kids alone now,” he said. “You’ve probably got a lot to say to each other.” At the door he saluted me. “Anything you need, John, just say the word. And don’t worry about the job. We’ll get someone to pinch-hit until you’re well again. Good-bye, kids.”

  He left. Eleanor took off her hat and gave the flowers to the nurse.

  “Take a long time finding a vase,” I said. “My weakened condition requires that I spend some time alone with this young lady.”

  After the nurse had gone Eleanor sat in the armchair halfway across the room. She had become prim. Her skirt crept up and she pulled it down over her knees. I broke the news about the new job.

  “Isn’t Father wonderful!” she said.

  I was irked. When a man tells his girl about a raise and a big job, she ought to praise him. I’m glad you clipped that coupon, John. Now you are a big executive and we can get married. If she read the ads in the Barclay Truth magazines she’d know she ought to praise the man rather than her father.

  “Why did you come here, Eleanor?”

  “I … I…” she stumbled over the words. “I heard you were ill. I was worried.”

  “Worried about me? I didn’t know you’d care enough to worry.”

  “I liked you from the very first day,” Eleanor said. The sun shining through the big window turned her hair to gold. Her skin was pale ivory gilded by the sunshine.

  “I didn’t know it,” I said. “You were so elusive.”

  “Elusive?”

  “I thought you regretted having gone out with me that time,” I said. “I thought you were angry because I’d asked too many personal questions. I had no idea you were so sensitive.”

  Her hands were folded in her lap. She looked down at them. When the cynics at the Editors’ Table made fun of Noble Barclay, she tightened into a steely mold. “People are always asking questions. They think they can find out more about Father by being nice to me.”

  “Thanks,” I said, “for your frank opinion. It’s nice to know what someone really thinks of you.”

  She jumped up and came over to the bed. “You’ve got to understand, Johnnie. I’m not suspicious. It’s only the way people have always acted toward me. Being his daughter isn’t easy, you know.”

  “Evidently you’ve changed your opinion of me. That’s something to be thankful for.”

  “I was sorry I got angry with you that day,” she confessed. “Only I didn’t know what to do about it. I never had the courage to admit it, but I hoped you’d forgive me.” The shy color crept back into her face. “Honestly, you won’t believe it, but I used to wait for you to come out of your office, so we could ride down together in the elevator, and I’d hope you were having dinner in the Village, so we could be together on the bus.”

  “Did you?” I cried. “That’s why I went downtown so often. Don’t you know I live uptown? I liked riding on the bus with you…”

  “Once you said you were in a hurry and were taking a cab, and asked if you could give me a lift. Remember?”

  “As soon as you got out, I told the driver to turn around and take me back uptown.”

  “Did you!” she cried.

  “Let’s not beat around the bush,” I said. “I’m crazy about you and I didn’t know whether you liked me or loathed me. Every time I tried to make a date, you’d pull that startled-faun stuff and…”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Not afraid of me,” I laughed. “Why, I thought you had written me off because I was kind of fresh about your old man. I was afraid you’d want a guy to believe in that stuff about purging your unconscious and secrets being festering sores. By me, that’s a lot of…”

  “Stop it,” she said. “Please, let’s not talk about it.”

  “If we’re going on from here, we’ve got to talk about it.”

  “Please.”

  “How can we be friends, how can we ever mean anything to each other if we’re afraid to talk about something as close to you as that? Besides,” I couldn
’t help sounding facetious, “isn’t that the basic tenet? Face the truth, uproot shame, confess…”

  “I love my father.”

  She said it as if I had denied her that right. Her eyes looked dark because the pupils were dilated, and hard cords rose in her neck.

  “Naturally,” I said. “Naturally you do, he’s your father. It’s only natural for you to love him.”

  She crouched over the bed. Her voice was low and level, without inflection. “He believes every word of it. Everything he writes is completely sincere. The Introduction—it’s his own story. He went through hell and he saved himself and he believes he can save other people.”

  “I wish you weren’t so unhappy, kid.” I reached for her hand.

  Eleanor smiled, the radiance returned and her hand lay warm in mine. “What makes you think I’m unhappy? I want you to believe in my father. You don’t have to believe in Truth-Sharing but believe in him, a good man, a sincere man.”

  My hand tightened around hers. “Okay, I believe he’s sincere.”

  “Do you really?”

  I was supposed to be a sick man but my strength was remarkable. I put my arms around Eleanor and pulled her down beside me on the bed. Unfortunately the nurse came in and we were forced to separate.

  Eleanor stayed over an hour. We talked about my new job and she kept telling me how important it was. “There’s one thing about Father that no one can deny. He’s a brilliant businessman and he’d never have given you that wonderful job if you didn’t deserve it.”

  I’d been able to stand up against Barclay’s flattery, but Eleanor’s praise sold me one hundred percent on that brilliant young editor, John Miles Ansell. Hard work, intelligence, tact and good sense—that’s how I became a success at twenty-six.

  After five days at the hospital, I was discharged. The doctor advised a few days’ rest and Barclay said I could have a two-week vacation with pay. I went home to see my mother and to brag to the family and old friends about the new job. They were plenty impressed. After all, two hundred a week.

  After a few days the adulation ceased to satisfy me. I wanted to get back to work and to Eleanor. Over the long-distance wire she had confided that she missed me.

  On Thursday, December sixth, just two weeks after the excitement, I came back to work. My pockets were full of notes jotted on old envelopes and business cards. These were bright ideas for Truth Digest.

  Everyone came into my new office to congratulate me. On the wall above my desk hung Noble Barclay’s picture autographed to his dear friend, John Miles Ansell. Directly under it was a chromium tray with a Thermos jug and glass. They were made of green plastic to harmonize with the interior decoration, but otherwise they were exactly like the blue carafe and glass in the Truth and Crime office.

  I made a vow. No matter how thirsty I might become, I’d never take a drink from that jug. For the past two weeks I’d been trying to figure out the movements and motives of the character who had tried to poison me. Any office stooge might have done the trick. The whole staff had known that I intended to work late that night. Miss Kaufman had been instructed to tell the night watchman that I would return at eleven. Instead, I had come back at seven-thirty. Whoever had slipped a dose of poison into the blue jug must have visited my office while I was eating lamb chops at the Grille.

  Most of the office staff left at five-thirty. Those who stayed were concentrated on overtime work: finishing manuscripts, reading proof, checking copy, balancing accounts. Nine chances out of ten, no one would have noticed an intruder in my office. There were so many legitimate excuses he—or she—might have offered that such a visit would hardly have been counted an intrusion. Or even remembered.

  Anyone who worked later than seven signed the book when he left. Therefore, I figured, it had probably been between five-thirty and seven that the bichloride had been dropped into the water in the blue carafe.

  If I had died that night, there would certainly have been an autopsy followed by an investigation. But the police would have stumbled up a dozen blind alleys before they found a straight path. I was a new employee; I had no enemies in the office. My arguments with the boss and his aide had concerned editorial policy. No sane policeman would consider that motive for murder. It is much simpler to fire a troublesome employee than to have him killed.

  No one in the office had the slightest suspicion of dirty work. To everyone except myself the link between my fight over the Wilson story and the alleged seafood poisoning was invisible. And sometimes I wondered whether I hadn’t been delirious that night.

  I wanted to hear office gossip. I questioned my stooge tactfully.

  What worried Miss Kaufman was the fact that I had eaten seafood. “I thought you had an allergy. I remember distinctly one night when you worked late, Mr. Ansell, you asked me to have your dinner sent up and you said you ate everything but shellfish. You said you were allergic to lobster, crabs, clams, oysters and shrimps.”

  “Okay, Miss Kaufman, I’m allergic. But I was careless that night. I ordered lamb chops but they took so long to cook them that I told the waitress to bring me a shrimp cocktail. I can’t digest shrimps and that’s why I got sick. Are you satisfied?”

  “It’s none of my business.” Miss Kaufman was rummaging in the bottom drawer of the desk. Her back was toward me and I studied the curves under her thin silk dress. “You’d better take this home with you.”

  “What is it?”

  She handed me a manuscript envelope. “The Wilson story.”

  While I had been away, the February issue of Truth and Crime had gone to press. Munn had got one of the staff writers to finish the Dot King piece. All copies of the Wilson story were to have been destroyed.

  “Mr. Munn asked me to bring them to his office,” Miss Kaufman said. “He thought I’d only made the usual three carbons, but I always make an extra one for the author in case he ever wants to do a book. You’d better put this where no one will ever find it.”

  “Thanks, Miss Kaufman. And look, can you get me a large picture of a shrimp salad or a shrimp cocktail?”

  “Shrimp salad or shrimp cocktail, Mr. Ansell!”

  “Very large and preferably in color. I’d like it framed.”

  “What for?”

  “To hang over my desk,” I said. “So that I never forget why I’m here.”

  She stared at me and shook her head slowly. I have often seen the same look on my mother’s face and the same bewildered movement of her head.

  At half past twelve I washed my hands and combed my hair carefully. I intended to celebrate my promotion by taking Eleanor to an expensive restaurant.

  Munn was in the washroom. “Congratulations, young fellow.” The clown’s mouth curved as if his smile had just been put on with grease paint.

  I plunged my hands into the hot water. “Thanks, Mr. Munn.”

  “A great honor for a young man like you. Most fellows twice your age’d give their eye teeth for a chance like that.”

  “My eye teeth have been extracted. I gave them up for my dear old Alma Mater, the University of Hard Knocks.”

  He made an effort to laugh. “When Barclay asked me about promoting you, I gave him my frank opinion of your ability. Maybe you can guess what I said.” He looked at me expectantly, waiting as if I were his partner in the minuet. “I’ve always admired your talents. Even when I was obliged to disagree with you on certain matters of policy, I respected your opinions.”

  I hoped my face showed contempt. If there is any creature lower than the snake it’s the stooge. Now that I had become editor of Barclay’s best magazine, Edward Everett Munn was on my side. He’d always respected my opinions.

  “Let’s have lunch someday,” he said, looking at his wrist watch. “At my club. Sorry, I must run now. Got a date.”

  I took a lot of trouble with the part in my hair and worked over my tie. Then I strolled toward the Truth and Love office, making myself walk slowly so that I should not seem too anxious.

  “Wha
t about lunch?” I asked, throwing open the door.

  “What about it?” echoed Lola Manfred.

  “Where’s Eleanor?”

  “Gone to lunch.”

  I was staggered. “Lunch! Alone?”

  “She went with some of the girls, I think.”

  “But I…”

  “Did you invite her?” Lola interrupted. “I think she was waiting all morning for an invitation. That’s the trouble with you men. You always take us so for granted.” Lola’s voice, which usually was pitched so that deaf people three miles away could hear her without earphones, softened.

  “Take her away from here, Johnnie. If you love the gal, get her out of this hell hole.”

  I stared. For the first time since I had known Lola I understood what people meant when they spoke of her faded beauty. Like everything else in the Barclay offices the legend of Lola Manfred had seemed false to me. In the 1920s Lola had been a slim poetess, the toast of Greenwich Village. She was supposed to have deserted a millionaire husband in Paris to live her own life, to write delicate verses about love and death, and to starve.

  That was long ago. It was hard to associate the editor of Truth and Love with a slim girl who had written a slim book of sad little poems. Lola’s legs were still lovely but the rest of her body was grossly fat, all bloat and alcohol. She had the eyes of a child, round and wide-set and blue as flowers.

  “How long have you worked here, Lola?”

  “Countless centuries. Only God’s old enough to remember.”

  “Why do you call it a hell hole?”

  She looked at me sadly, holding her head on one side and narrowing her blue eyes. “I’m tired, Ansell. A weary trollop.”

  “Have lunch with me?”

  “Second fiddle? Time was when they asked me for my own sake. Ah, memory! ’Tis all the aged strumpet has left. Where do we eat?”

  I felt gallant. I saw myself, one of those world-weary youths of 1925, drinking myself to death for love of Lola Manfred. “How about the Algonquin?”