by Vera Caspary
“Have you considered my proposition?” he inquired.
Barclay cleared his throat and looked obliquely toward Edward Everett Munn who stood with his thumbs thrust into his vest.
“Your claim is fraudulent,” Munn asserted. “We know there’s nothing to it. What proof can you produce that Barclay stole your idea? Either you withdraw everything you claim or we hand you over to the police.”
Barclay smiled. He had recovered with remarkable speed from his paralysis of die previous day. “You seem to be suffering from an obsession, Mr. Wilson. It’s true that I once knew a Homer Peck,” he uttered the name with delicate sarcasm, “and I don’t deny having once or twice discussed my theories with him. But to say that my philosophy was your idea, your creation, is worse than fraudulent; it’s just plain crazy. I don’t like to prosecute, and so I advise you, for your own sake, to forget the whole thing.”
Barclay’s earnestness astonished Wilson. That a man could appear so artlessly honest while flagrantly lying seemed so incredible that Wilson stammered and sputtered as if he were the liar. The knowledge of right did not uphold Wilson. Emotion robbed him of self-assurance.
“Will you leave now, Mr. Wilson?” asked Munn in a voice greasy with triumph. “Mr. Barclay is a busy man; he has more important…”
Wilson rose. Inwardly he quivered. “Very well, gentlemen, if that’s the way you feel.” In the voice of Caspar Milquetoast he added, “I shall have my attorneys file suit at once.”
“I thought you were going to bring it to the attention of certain publishers. You seemed so sure yesterday that they would finance your suit,” gloated Munn.
Wilson stood silent for a moment, leaning upon his stick. It took all of his strength to carry out the bluff. “I’m afraid, Mr. Munn, that there will be quite enough notoriety without seeking sensational publicity. Last night I had the opportunity of giving my story to reporters, but I withheld it. Certain valuable papers were stolen from my room.” He paused, noting the glance that traveled between Barclay and Munn. His courage quickened. “I prefer to handle the matter in the conventional way, through my attorneys. Incidentally, you gentlemen have either had faulty legal advice or…”
“We have the best lawyers in New York,” Munn boasted.
“Perhaps you neglected to acquaint them with all the facts. Surely they must know that, merely by writing to the Register of Copyrights in Washington, any citizen of the United States can institute a search into the status of a copyright. The cost is one dollar.”
“What good would that do?” asked Munn, licking dry lips.
“I don’t believe it would be difficult for said citizen to obtain copies of those passages of the Wilson course which, as I informed you yesterday, are identical with Mr. Barclay’s writings.”
“Wait, Homer,” Barclay commanded as Wilson strolled toward the door. “Perhaps we’d better talk this over.”
“What is there to discuss?” queried Wilson, nonchalantly flourishing his stick.
Barclay was taking no chances. “Even though I think you’re bluffing, I don’t like the idea of a lawsuit. We may not seek publicity, but we’re sure to get it. And since my career and my reputation are founded on a belief in truth, it won’t do me any good to be involved in such a suit, even though I’d be sure to win it.”
Munn was dissatisfied. He mumbled something at Barclay who frowned and snapped, “Sit down, Ed. Let me handle this.”
Wilson sat down, too. “What’s your proposition, Noble?”
“I’m not ungrateful for the help you once gave me,” Barclay began. “While it isn’t as important a part of my book as you seem to believe, I’d like to reward you for the assistance. Do the right thing by you, Homer. Maybe even better than the right thing.” He leaned back in his chair, working earnestly at the role of philanthropist.
Wilson saw that Barclay was genuinely alarmed, and the knowledge gave him the effrontery to bargain. They settled for twelve hundred dollars a month. It was a lot of money, particularly at that time, but only a splinter off the bulk of Barclay’s income.
6.
As time went on, Wilson succeeded in raising his monthly income to two thousand dollars. It was not that he needed the money so much as that he enjoyed the game of extortion. In the old days when he had promoted correspondence courses he had invented fictions for fleecing suckers of five dollars a month; now he used the same methods, but the stakes were higher.
There was always great mystery surrounding the payments. Each month Wilson was obliged to meet Munn in a crowded hotel lobby, railroad station or department store, where the two should not be conspicuous. Munn never came to Wilson’s rooms. On several occasions, when illness prevented Wilson from keeping the appointment, the money was sent (in a plain wrapper) by messenger. And when he was in Maine or Florida, it arrived by registered mail.
Wilson acquired expensive tastes, patronized the best tailors, enjoyed rare wines and became a collector of first editions. These did not satisfy him. The game of extortion began to bore him and he found easy living poor ointment against the itch of frustration. He envied Barclay’s fame, resented the rosy glow of righteousness that surrounded the publisher of the Truth Magazines. With masochistic energy Wilson tormented himself by reading Barclay’s sensational love and crime stories.
“Every month he gets worse. I’d like to expose him,” Wilson frothed.
“Yeah? And what’d you do if people stopped buying his magazines? Where’d your pleasant two grand a month come from?” his old friend asked.
During the depression she had become a literary whore, selling her talent and experience to the various publishers of cheap love magazines. It was inevitable that she should wind up in Barclay’s office. She stayed there, Wilson often said, to torment him. He had offered a number of times to share his ill-gotten income, but the woman refused. This was not because she scorned his method of getting a living, but from a perverted sense of independence. They had once tried living together, but she had become a slut and Wilson a fussy old maid, and all that remained of their love was a skeleton’s shadow. They quarreled furiously, let months pass in sulky loneliness. Invariably one or the other suggested forgiveness, reunion was celebrated, they drank too many toasts and quarreled again.
At one such feast Wilson announced, “I’ve decided at last. I’m going to write a book about Barclay. I’ve got to tell the whole story. As long as I keep silent, I’m as bad as he is.”
“Isn’t this attack of conscience striking you rather late in life, Homer?”
“All the more reason for my wanting to expiate my sins.”
“You’ve made your gutter and you’ll have to lie in it.”
“I’m going to publish all the evidence, prove all the facts. In my chapter on the theft, I’ll have the Wilson course printed on the left-hand pages, Barclay’s Truth on the right.”
“Think of your carcass, dear. And your plush-lined, foie-gras consuming gizzard. Think of that poor frayed lacework that used to be your lungs. How long could you survive in a real gutter?”
“You can help me,” Wilson said. “I want to find out about Barclay’s private life, about his home, his wife, his children…”
“You know what your trouble is, Homer?” She would never use the new name. “You lie in bed too late in the morning. Idling there, contemplating your navel, you fall victim to morality. If you’d leap out of bed, do fifty nip-ups, drink a tall glass of hot water and the juice of two lemons, you’d never worry about such things. Consider Barclay; he doesn’t smoke Coronas or drink Liebfraumilch, and certainly he never disturbs his metabolism by thinking. ‘Yond Cassius…’”
“I’m serious, damn you.”
“What is it you want to know, Homer? About those adorable twins, presented by Gloria, the Perfect Mother. Perhaps you’d like to learn the truth about the second marriage…”
“I know all about that.”
“Who told you?”
“Janet.”
“Oh! Where’
d you meet the second Mrs. Barclay?”
“I made it my business. She’s quite willing to help me with the book. The period just after he started lecturing on Truth-Sharing and then got her father to back him in publishing the book is Janet’s. She hasn’t forgotten a detail.”
“Janet, I take it, nurses an asp in her bosom. Did Noble ever confess to her, in the dark reaches of the night that he’d swiped his credo?”
Wilson shook his head. He had asked this question of Janet and she had assured him that Barclay had always acted as if Truth-Sharing had come as divine inspiration.
“Janet’s furnishing me with material on the transition period. Messiah-to-publisher in one easy jump. She’s got all the dope on the early days of the magazines, but I need information on his present life, not only what I glean from his magazines, but what it’s actually like. Truth in a Fifth Avenue duplex. Do you know the present Mrs. B.?”
“Gloria? She’d be as helpful as a Truth and Beauty editorial.”
“How about the daughter?”
“A lovable kid,” the woman said. “Completely bewildered because the world isn’t what Father told her. She’s like a child brought up in orthodoxy and beginning to wonder whether she’ll commit herself to eternal hellfire by daring to question it.”
“She’s the one for me then. I want you to arrange a meeting.”
“You’re cooking your goose, my dear man, and I’m not going to add to the seasoning.”
Wilson paid no attention to the woman’s protests. He knew what he wanted. “You must arrange a meeting, but don’t introduce us. I want the girl to trust me…”
“How you flatter me. Homer. Eleanor’s downright fond of me. I’ve been a radiant influence since she’s come into the office. Just at present I’m trying to help her decide to own up to Father that she’s revolted by the creature he’s chosen for a son-in-law. She’s touchingly respectful of my opinions.”
“Just the same she must know you’re anti-Barclay. I want my friendship with her to be unsmirched by the enemy hand.”
“You needn’t think I’ll help you.”
“I have an idea. You take her to dinner some night, not here, we’re too well known. Have you ever gone to Jean Pierre’s? I eat there sometimes; the food is remarkably good. You take her there and in the midst of dinner, remember some engagement and excuse yourself…”
“What a loathsome idea! I’ll do no such thing.”
A week later she took Eleanor to dine at Jean Pierre’s, saw but did not recognize Wilson at the next table, remembered erratically that she had forgotten the young admirer who, even now, waited hungrily in the lobby of the Lafayette, asked Eleanor to forgive her and dashed off.
The next morning in the office Eleanor confessed to the woman that she had let herself be picked up by a middle-aged man of the world. Throughout the winter the girl continued to dine with Wilson, to visit his apartment, listen to his records, look at his books and pictures, and, in the office, to boast of her friendship with this cultured and unusual man.
The woman, petulant because she imagined Wilson in love with the young girl, drank too much and accused him of seducing Barclay’s daughter. Wilson lost his temper and reminded her that drunkenness and promiscuity did not enhance her charms. They parted enemies and saw each other only once again.
They met on Fifth Avenue in front of the Public Library. The woman said, “It’s ages since we’ve seen each other. What the hell are you sulking about?”
“Why should you want to see me? As long as there’s a young fool and a bottle of cognac to amuse you, what need have you for my company?”
“It’s so delightful seeing you, Homer. You say the sweetest things. How’s young love?”
“Don’t be an idiot.” He tucked his arm under the woman’s. “You know I’ll always love you, you alley-cat. Come along and have dinner with me.”
“I have a date.”
“Leave him waiting in the lobby of the Lafayette. I’m in a sentimental mood.”
They dined in the Oak Room of the Plaza and Wilson talked about his book. He expected to have it finished within a month. “I want to thank you for arranging that meeting with Eleanor.” He spoke cautiously, aware that the girl’s name might cause a torrent of jealousy.
“Has she been useful?”
“Wonderful. She’s grateful to have someone like me, disinterested, with no preconceived Barclayan prejudices, to talk to.”
“You’re really a rat, Homer, taking advantage of her girlish confidences. She doesn’t know about the book, does she?”
“Only that I’m writing one. But I haven’t told her what it’s about. I told her the title, but that can’t mean anything to her.”
“Oh,” said the woman, affronted. “You’ve never told me the title.”
“I haven’t seen you since I decided on it. The Autobiography of Homer Peck. How do you like it?”
Later, while they were drinking coffee, the woman said, “I wish you hadn’t told her about the book.”
“Why?”
“She might talk about it. Remember what happened to your papers that other time.”
“Nonsense. There’s nothing to worry about. As soon as the book’s finished I’m going to put a copy in a safe-deposit vault. Did I tell you I’d finally persuaded Mrs. Armistead to make another deposition?”
“Who? Oh, Rosetta Beach, the summer-resort girl who first called it Truth-Sharing. So she’s agreed to reveal her scarlet past? Probably old enough now to enjoy talking about it.”
“The book’ll be a sensation. In a way I’m pleased that those first documents were stolen. This will be a mature work, not written in the white heat of anger, but upon calm reflection…”
“With fewer clichés, I hope. And what do you propose to live on when the monthly income ceases?”
“The book will make money.”
“Not that much.”
“What do I care? It’s more important for me to get the truth told at last. I’ve saved a little and there are my books; they’re worth quite a nice little sum. I’ll have enough to last me…” He paused, and with a brief shrug, added, “I haven’t long, you know.”
He said it coolly as a man might say that he expected rain by morning. The woman was moved. She had been inconstant, but she had never been fonder of another man. Because she could not let him see her distress, she laughed a little. “Before you throw away your lovely income, will you buy me a double Courvoisier?”
“I’ll buy you a bottle.”
That was the last gift and the last time she saw him. When, on the following Sunday night she heard that Warren G. Wilson had died as the result of a shot in the back, she drank the rest of her good brandy. When that was gone she drank an inferior kind, and when she had finished that she drank bad whiskey. To have gone to the police and told what she knew of Wilson and his plans for exposing Barclay was too great an ordeal. Her courage was of a low order and her stomach weak. She had no real evidence, only the history of a man’s life and the knowledge of an old secret. The police would have asked questions and the woman, in answering, would have been obliged to review the ugly past and look full upon the spectacle of her failure.
Frequently at night a specter visited her bedroom. It was not the shade of Homer Peck, but the seedy ghost of the woman’s integrity. More than once she vowed on the empty bottle to tell what she knew of Wilson’s life and the causes of his death. By day the ghosts faded, alcohol diluted her courage, the woman clung desperately to the livelihood she loathed. She became petty and childlike in hinting of dangerous knowledge.
At first skeptical, the murderer grew more and more nervous. Of late he has attempted appeasement, flattered the woman, sent roses and come to pay court at her home. It has begun to look as if he wanted people to suspect an affair between Lola Manfred and Edward Everett Munn.
Part Seven
THE TERRACE
“For the mystery man or woman, the person in whose burdened heart a secret is borne, I have
no less pity than for the incurable invalid. Secrets are illness, secrets are festering sores…”
My Life Is Truth
NOBLE BARCLAY
FROM ELEANOR TO JOHN
New York, May 29
DEAREST:
How does it feel to be grass-widower? Are you eating lonely dinners in the kitchenette, thinking wistfully of the little woman, or are you doing the town, like the rest of the Hollywood husbands, with one of those glamorous blondes? At the risk of becoming a repulsively possessive wife, darling, I entreat you to scrounge all possible dinner invitations from happily married friends, or work at night or read good books. Cold baths, exercise and a bland diet are also said to be helpful.
As for me, I started missing you before I kissed you goodbye, and since then I’ve been breathing in a vacuum. There are one hundred and forty million people in this nation, but when you’re not around, the continent seems uninhabited. Aside from that, it was a comfortable trip and you were probably right in insisting that I come and face it.
Well, Johnnie, I’ve faced it. I saw Father today. If my typing is uneven, it’s not the machine. My hands still don’t work right and when I hold out my arms, my fingers wave like Old Glory in a spanking wind. All that I regret is that I decided to save money by staying here instead of taking a room at a cheap hotel. A drawer in a filing case would be preferable. Visiting here is like spending a holiday in a state penitentiary.
Not that luxury is lacking. I have the nursery suite, the twins and the nurse having been sent by Gloria to the country place. It makes me feel rather like the princess in the tower, for the place is guarded by everything but bloodhounds. Father is alleged to be off on some secret mission of national importance, for it would not be appropriate to suggest that a man of his energy would merely retire. And to hint of the true conditions would be the basest heresy.