Turnabout

by Thorne Smith

  “Sally!” he called in a hoarse voice. “Are you walking in your sleep? Look at yourself.”

  “What do you mean?” she retorted, sidling up close to the statuesque Mr. Bentley, who was looking at her with glowing eyes. “Why don’t you look at yourself?”

  “I mean those things you’re wearing,” said Tim. “They’re not decent for public display. Go up immediately and put something on.”

  “Don’t be dull, Tim,” his wife replied. “These are hostess pajamas. They are supposed to be worn on informal occasions. Just such occasions as this—among friends.”

  “You’re putting it mildly,” replied Tim. “They don’t encourage friendship. They invite ruin.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Sally, smiling up slowly into Mr. Bentley’s eyes. “I’ve a remote idea myself that one seldom sleeps in them.”

  Mr. Bentley favored his audience with a laugh not unlike a neigh, a significant sort of a neigh.

  “All right!” cried Tim, thoroughly aroused by this little exchange. “I can play, too.” With this he stepped out from behind the portières and stood revealed to the company in his disheveled shirt. “This garment, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, turning slowly round with his arms extended, “is what is known as a host’s slip-on. It may not look so good, but it’s a damn sight franker and more practical than my wife’s costume.”

  Taking advantage of the small panic created by his sudden unveiling, Tim limped to a nearby table, from which he snatched a hip flask and helped himself to a powerful drink, a gesture which gave to his shirt an amusing frontal elevation. Amid the appreciative giggles of the women and the subdued expostulations of the men he turned his back on the company and, with as much dignity as he could command, limped painfully from the room, the shovel still in his hand and Dopey at his heels. In the hall he placed the shovel in the cane rack, to the everlasting humiliation of several snooty walking sticks, then slowly mounted the stairs, his modesty becoming more assailable the higher he proceeded. Even the violent slamming of the bedroom door failed to shut off from his ears the pent-up frenzy of a jazz orchestra avalanching from the radio. For a moment he stood looking irresolutely at the door, then, opening it a little, he listened, Dopey doing likewise.

  “Whoopee!” came the hearty voice of Carl Bentley. “Come on, gang. Let’s go.”

  “I wish to God you would,” muttered Mr. Willows. “You big, inane bastard. Having a real nice time, aren’t you? Seeing life in the suburbs. Wildfire! Aw, go to hell.”

  Once more he closed the door, this time quietly, and, hobbling over to a cabinet, took from it a glass and a bottle of whisky. Thus equipped he sought a chair and sat staring vacantly at Dopey sprawled out at his feet.

  “It’s a good thing, stupid, you don’t drink,” he observed. “You’re sufficient of a damn fool just as you are.”

  Dopey tried, but failed to understand. It didn’t matter. Everything was all right. He was comfortable.

  “Listen,” continued his master, choking over his drink. “I’ve a good idea to get drunk and beat you up… within an inch of your useless life… to a pulp… a regular jelly.”

  The dog’s snakelike tail thumped against the rug. His master was being funny. He was such a nice man. Dopey felt himself moved to kiss him, but was too comfortable to make the effort. Some other time. Wearily his eyes closed. He sighed. Things always worked out for the best.

  Tim Willows arranged himself another drink and sat listening to the radio. Gradually his feet began to tap time with the music. He had forgotten about his toe. Too bad he was such an indifferent dancer. He’d like to take a fling himself occasionally.

  “Obsolete,” he muttered gloomily. “Should be scrapped.”

  Mr. Ram looked thoughtfully down on man and beast. He felt that he would like to do a little something also about this dog. There was too much of it.

  Chapter 3

  Good Clean Fun

  In the lounge below, everything was getting better and better. That is, if noise counted. Something in the nature of a celebration in joint honor of modern and ancient days was in progress. It was rather a loose, heavy-handed affair, but those present seemed to enjoy it. Figuratively speaking, Diana was dancing improperly on the belly of a prostrate Volstead, while Bacchus poured gin in his eye. This interesting blending of Dionysian and suburban rites was, as a matter of fact, nothing more nor less than a typical cocktail-necking party such as many find it necessary to attend in order to discover if sex still appeals. The Pagan and Christian eras endeavored to merge while still retaining the worst features of both. The result was an evening of nice clean fun. After all, what is a neck more or less, plus adjacent territory, among friends? Wives were not so much exchanged as released on short-term loans. This was the modern touch, the smart thing to do. The festivities over, these fair ladies would be returned to their husbands a little bit thumbed and dog-eared and more than a little drunk. It was one of those sportive occasions at which enmities are inevitably aroused and sordid recriminations incubated, for by the very nature of things there are few husbands and wives whose limits of conduct and powers of self-control register exactly the same. One or the other member of the tandem is sure to go too far. Then all hell pops.

  Husbands and wives who intend to carry on together at all permanently should never attend the same cocktail-necking party unless one of them passes out and is unable to know what the other is doing. Otherwise it either cramps the style of both or furnishes the divorce courts with fresh customers.

  Really, it’s the devil and all to be modern—much too much of a strain. It involves, oddly enough, a swift return to a primitive state of arboreal promiscuity. Few people can follow this path with linked hands and light hearts. Each side is too heavily weighted with inhibitions and prejudices. Each side is vainly endeavoring to nibble the icing of the cake in order to retain the whole. The result is rather crummy.

  Into Mrs. Tim Willows’s party half a dozen fresh votaries had been introduced. They had been rung up and called in, and among them were a couple of unattached young women.

  There is nothing like the presence of a couple of young women, unattached, among a number of not too old matrons to accelerate the tempo of a party. The young matrons were immediately put on their mettle when Joy Tucker and Agatha Green appeared. Then the married ladies started in to prove to the world that they had found in the matrimonial state a great deal more than they had lost. As a corollary of this they naturally had more to give. On the other hand the virgins hinted of fair but difficult, although not impassable, territory still unexplored. This, of course, was a challenge to the adventurous. Altogether it was a stimulating and healthy form of competition from which the males as usual profited, adding thereby to their already overflowing reservoirs of complacency.

  Naturally there was little conversation. Under the most favorable circumstances there would have been little conversation. These people were not so constituted. However, everybody talked a great deal and shouted even more. Risqué stories which were neither risqué enough nor funny enough occasioned sporadic gales of laughter. And through it all, above and around it all, piercing the smoke and perfume and the good old American tang of gin, the tireless-tongued radio lashed dancing couples into fresh paroxysms of activity.

  It was just as well that Tim Willows remained alone in his room save for the companionship of Dopey and Mr. Ram. To begin with, at such parties he was not so good. He generally drank too much and observed too much, and the more he drank the more he observed, until at last he saw things that were not there at all. Then, again, his ideas of necking were disconcertedly crude… .He believed in treating a girl like a human being entitled to an intelligent exchange of ideas. Frequently women who had been gamely prepared to offer almost unlimited necking facilities were surprised to find that they had actually been talking for at least half an hour with Tim Willows, and enjoying it. This rather frightened them. They became a trifle subdued. Several stiff drinks of gin were required t
o bring them back to their former state of carefree animalism. On the other hand, there had been several occasions when only the intervention of Sally and several husbands had prevented him from dragging some woman upstairs and teaching her what for, as the English insist on having it. He steadfastly refused to remember these occasions, claiming that he had been too far gone in his cups to know what he was doing. Tim Willows was too simple and direct a person to be a successful modern. He belonged to a vanished era when people talked and played and loved with effortless enjoyment.

  For another reason it was just as well that Tim remained in his room. It was Carl Bentley’s evening. By tacit consent the women of the company had left that gentleman to Sally. He was her man. Not even the young women attempted to horn in. Had they tried, their efforts would have proved fruitless. Carl Bentley was now hot on the scent. He had put in some of his best work on Sally and he had reason to believe that his campaign would soon be crowned by a complete capitulation. Sally was the pick of the lot, by far the most desirable woman in town, with no exceptions.

  So Carl Bentley danced with Sally, drank with Sally and whispered suggestively in Sally’s small pink ear. Above stairs Tim just drank and sought comfort in Kai Lung, than whom there is hardly a greater comforter, thanks to Ernest Bramah. When the unattached young women began to tap dance more with their abdomen than their toes, Bentley took advantage of the occasion. Everybody was present and accounted for, although neither clean nor sober.

  “Sally,” said Mr. Bentley in a voice almost as low as his intentions, “let’s go out to the kitchen where there aren’t so many people. You can’t hear yourself think in here.”

  Sally looked indifferently round the room and carelessly moved off kitchenward. The blood was racing in her veins and her head felt delightfully dizzy and confused. Nothing much mattered except a good time… a little life. This man, Bentley, was so much more dominating and possessive than Tim. She liked that. Tim, in spite of his horrid ways, was rather too much of a gentleman. He made no parade of virility. He did not endeavor to master her. Sally decided he was not quite big enough. She preferred the size of Carl Bentley. He could smother her, and at the moment she felt like being smothered. It must be said for Sally that she was far, far from being herself. Modern gin is not a good thing for good girls, although it is awfully good for bad ones. Carl Bentley, well knowing this, followed her with a bottle.

  What happened in the kitchen is nobody’s business. It should be stated, though, that Tim Willows and his dog descended into the small pandemonium of the lounge only a few minutes after the disappearance of Sally and Carl Bentley. He was just in time to witness Vera Hutchens slapping her husband in the face because that unfortunate gentleman had remonstrated with her for kissing the same man too long and too often.

  “He always gets like this,” she complained to the company at large. “Because he has a nasty mind he thinks everybody else is like him. Insults me, he does. Well, just to satisfy you, my dear,”—and here she laughed recklessly—“I’ll kiss him as much as I like and you won’t stop me.”

  This she proceeded to do. Throwing herself into the arms of a tall, quiet person who was extremely well heeled with grog, she satisfied herself and her husband as well as the man she was kissing. It did not matter so much to the man. He hardly knew whom he was kissing. He was just kissing some woman and so far that was all right.

  “Suburbia at play,” observed Tim in his quiet, sardonic voice. “Don’t you girls and boys ever learn any new games?”

  Tim was regarded with interest, particularly by several women in the room. He had managed to struggle into a pair of pajama trousers and was wearing a magnificent dressing gown. His feet were encased in a pair of comfortably padded slippers. He had done things to his hair and tidied himself up generally. Few persons if any realized how hinged Tim Willows really was.

  “Carry on,” he continued pleasantly. “Some of you men who are able had better do something about Hutchens or we’ll be having a murder on our hands.”

  This was nearly the truth. Hutchens, Vera, and the man of her choice were involved in an unseemly tussle. Vera was beginning to scream and cry, and the men were calling each other some pretty bad names. It was not a thing to see, yet at these parties it was always being seen.

  Tim, whose dim but all-observing eyes had noted the absence of his wife and Carl Bentley, moved quietly toward the kitchen. Dopey, his ears flat against his head, followed fearfully. Quietly Tim passed through the pantry and opened the kitchen door. So engrossed was Bentley in his occupation that he failed to note the presence of an observer. Tim gazed thoughtfully at the man’s back for a moment, then, lifting Mrs. Twill’s heavy rolling pin from the rack close at hand, he brought it down violently on Mr. Bentley’s head. That misguided gentleman swayed gently on his feet, then crumpled to the floor.

  “Sorry,” said Tim, looking coldly at a white-faced Sally, “but really, you know, the kitchen is no place for this sort of thing. One doesn’t play with fire here, one actually uses it. But, of course, you know nothing about that.”

  He rummaged about in a drawer and produced a long, sharp knife. With this he approached the prostrate figure.

  “My God, Tim,” breathed Sally as the room spun round and round her, “what are you going to do?”

  Tim was cold white drunk and his words seemed to proceed from an ice box rather than from a man’s chest.

  “I’m going to cut his damn head clean off,” he told his wife, “and throw it in the faces of your friends. That will teach them to behave themselves—fighting and screaming and semi-fornicating all over my house… what a way, what a way. Yes, off goes this one’s head. Want to kiss it good-bye while it’s still on?”

  With a shuddering cry Sally dropped to her knees beside the still figure of Mr. Bentley. She placed a hand over his heart and looked up at her husband with a drawn face.

  “Tim,” she said at last, “you’ve killed him. His heart has stopped beating and he isn’t breathing any more.”

  This information considerably sobered Tim. He walked over to the kitchen table and picked up a bottle of gin, from which he drank deeply. After this he passed it to Sally, who followed his example.

  “Lock the door,” he said, and seated himself an the table.

  Sally obeyed and then seated herself beside her husband. Together they gazed down upon the victim of the rolling pin.

  “He wasn’t much of a guy,” observed Tim, hoping thereby to comfort his wife.

  “I know,” replied Sally, “but if every guy that wasn’t much was murdered there wouldn’t be many guys left.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that,” said Tim. “What did you want to go messing round with him for?”

  “He was all right,” answered Sally. “Big and strong and passionate. You know how it is.”

  “Yes,” said Tim rather gloomily. “I know how it was. Did you like him better than me?”

  “No, not so much, but a girl gets that way on gin.”

  “Sally, these parties are rotten things. This should teach us a lesson.” Tim looked at her seriously.

  “Sure they are. I’m through with all of it,” said Sally. “Everything.”

  “So is he—through for good, and so am I.”

  Sally passed him the bottle and Tim drank mechanically. So did Sally. Both of them by this time were quite too numbed to realize the seriousness of what had happened.

  “Guess you’re a murderer, Tim,” said Sally at last.

  “Sure I am,” agreed Tim. “A confirmed murderer. What do you do in such cases? Telephone the police or just send for an undertaker and try to sneak him into a grave?”

  “They’d be the last persons I’d telephone to,” replied Sally. “Under the circumstances.”

  “Which are murder,” added Tim with almost morbid enjoyment.

  “Murder most foul,” Sally managed to extract from some dim recess of her memory.

  “He certainly does look murdered,” reflected Tim. “Never saw a
man look quite so dead. And just to think he was kissing hell out of you only a short time ago. By rights you should be stretched out beside him.’

  “If you’re not more careful of what you’re saying I’ll turn you over to the police,” replied his wife. “That would be a good joke on you.”

  “You’ve got a hot sense of humor. What are we going to do with his nibs?”

  Sally took a sip from the bottle and considered this in silence. From the lounge came the clatter of the radio and the hubbub of many voices.

  “Bury him,” she said at last. “That’s what they do with bodies. They bury them.”

  Mr. Willows regarded the erstwhile Carl Bentley distastefully.

  “We’d have to dig a regular Panama Canal to tuck that body in,” he observed. “Why didn’t you philander with a dwarf if you had to amuse yourself?”

  “Wish I had now,” said Sally. “By the time we’ve finished a trench for this one, the neighbors will think we’re getting ready for a barbecue.”

  “A quaint whimsy,” murmured Tim. “The bottle, please.”

  While Tim was drinking, the handle of the kitchen door rattled violently and a man’s voice called out, “What goes on in there, a murder or something?”

  “Something,” called back Sally. “Go away and rattle another door.”

  “Oh, Sally,” came a girl’s voice. “What we know about you.”

  “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” murmured Sally.

  “That wisecrack about murder wasn’t so dulcet,” remarked Mr. Willows. “We should be doing something about this body of ours. So far we’re safe. Dopey was the only other witness and he crammed himself so deep in his box I doubt if he saw anything. He hasn’t opened his eyes since. Guess he never will. Dogs don’t like murders.”

  “Well, I don’t exactly gloat over them myself,” said Sally. “Somehow or other I don’t feel like the wife of a murderer, but never having been the wife of a murderer before, of course I don’t know. How do you feel?”