It would not do to voice these fugitive thoughts.
"Well—" he said uncertainly. They were standing outside the geneticist's house, which was on a back street near Wilshire and Vermont. Now that Juniper-Hallett was no longer dazzled by the approaching headlights of matrimony, he could see the swarm of problems ahead of him clearly enough.
Janet was waxing her nose. She said: "I'll have to go back to the Stromberg building for a few days, anyway."
"What? But I always thought—I was led to believe—gulp—"
"That a bride went to live with her husband? Don't be silly, darling. I'll have to break the news gently to my parents. Or they'll make a frightful row. I can't go to live with a member of a rival company without my own company's consent, you know."
"Oh, very well." Juniper-Hallett had an uneasy feeling that his wife would always be about three jumps ahead of him in making decisions. "Every hour we're separated will be hell for me, sweetheart."
"Every minute will be for me, precious. But it can't be helped."
It was too early to go to bed, besides which Horace Juniper-Hallett's mind was too full of a number of things. Instead of heading for his rooming house, he walked along Wilshire Boulevard toward Western Avenue. The Crosley building reared into the low clouds ahead of him. The sight always aroused Juniper-Hallett's pride in his company. Time had been when such tall buildings were forbidden because of earthquakes. Then they had excavated the San Andreas rift and filled it full of graphite. This, acting as a lubricant, allowed relative motion of the earth on the two sides to be smooth instead of jerks.
A light, cold drizzle began; one of those Los Angeles winter rains that may last for an hour or a week.
If he made good as a businessman, he'd soon be able to move into the Crosley building with the executives and full-blooded nobility. If—
"Hey!" Juniper-Hallet saw Justin-Walsh running toward him, making aggressive motions with his duelling stick. The Stromberg must have been hanging around the Crosley building just in case. He yelled: "You're the punk who stole my clothes!"
"Now, Your Loyalty," said Juniper-Hallett, "I'll explain—"
"To hell with your explanations! Defend yourself!"
"But the chief's order—"
Whack! Juniper-Hallett got his stick up just in time to parry a downright cut at his head. After that, his reflexes took hold. The sticks swished and clattered. Pedestrians formed a dense ring that would suddenly bulge outward when one of the fighters came close to its boundary.
Lane-Walsh was stronger, but Juniper-Hallett was faster. That, with sticks of the standard Convention weight, gave him an advantage. He feinted a flank-cut; followed it by a left-cheek-cut. He was a little high; the stick hit Lane-Walsh in the temple. The heir to the Stromberg vice presidency dropped his stick, and followed it to the pavement.
Juniper-Hallett saw a policeman coming up, drawn by the crowd and the clatter of sticks. Juniper-Hallett pushed out through the opposite side of the ring. The crowd knew what to do: they opened a lane for him, meanwhile getting as much as possible in the way of his pursuer. Juniper-Hallett ducked down the stairs of the Western Avenue station of the Wilshire Boulevard subway before the cop broke through the crowd. After all, the young man had furnished them with free entertainment.
But, though Juniper-Hallett got away, the police soon learned who had sent Justin Lane-Walsh to the hospital with a fractured skull. Everybody knew the colors of the Crosley Co., which appeared on the raincoat Juniper-Hallett had been wearing as well as on his suit. His brief case identified him as of the rank of businessman. And, of the members of that order, there was only one Crosley of Juniper-Hallett's physical properties in Los Angeles at that time.
They picked him up late that night, still riding the subway back and forth and wondering whether to give himself up to them, go home as if nothing had happened, or take an airplane for Mongolia.
3
They led him into the Crosley Co.'s private courtroom, wherein cases between one member of the company and another were normally decided. The Old Man was there, and the chief of police, and all the Crosley higher-ups. Juniper-Hallett looked around the semicircle of stony faces. Whether they felt sorrow, or indignation, or hostility, they gave no sign.
Archwin Taylor-Thing, chairman of Crosley, cleared his throat. "Might as well get this over with. Get it over with," he muttered to nobody in particular. He stepped forward and raised his voice. "Horace Crosley Juniper-Hallett, Esquire, you have been found unworthy of the honors of businessmanhood. Hand over your briefcase."
Juniper-Hallett handed it over. Archwin of Crosley took it and gave it to His Economy, the treasurer.
"Your fountain pen, sir."
Juniper-Hallett gulped at giving up the last emblem of his status. Archwin of Crosley broke the pen over his knee. He got ink down his trouser leg, but paid it no attention. He threw the pieces into the waste-basket.
He said: "Horace Crosley Juniper-Hallett, Esquire no longer, you are hereby degraded to the rank of whitecollar. You shall never again aspire to the honorable status of businessmanhood, which you have so lightly abused.
"Furthermore, in accordance with the agreement of this honorable company with the City of Los Angeles, we are compelled to expel you from our membership. From this time forth, you are no longer a Crosley. You shall, therefore, cease using that honorable name. You are forever excluded from the Crosley section of the Imperial Nominatorium. Neither we nor any of our affiliated companies will have any further commerce, correspondence, or communication with you. We renounce you, cast you out, utterly dissociate ourselves from you.
"Go, Horace Juniper-Hallett, never to return."
Juniper-Hallett stumbled out.
He was halfway home, shuffling along with bowed head, when he put a hand in his coat pocket for a cigarette. He snatched out the note he found, which had gotten there he knew not how. It read:
Meet me twenty-three o'clock basement Kergulen's Restaurant tomorrow night. Don't tell anybody. Anybody. A.T.T.
Juniper-Hallett decided he could defer thoughts of suicide, at least until he saw what the Old Man had up his sleeve.
Juniper-Hallett's old friend, the geneticist, was surprised, a week later, to get a visit from Janet Juniper-Hallett, nee Bickham-Coates. The girl looked a good deal thinner than when Carey-West had seen her last. She poured out a rush of explanation: "Father was wild—simply wild. This is the first time they've let me out of the Stromberg building—and they sent my maid along to make sure I wouldn't sneak off to Horace. Where is he? What's he doing?"
"He was in once after his expulsion," said the geneticist. "He looked like a wreck—unshaven, and he'd been drinking pretty hard. Told me he'd moved to a cheaper place."
"What'll we do? Isn't there any way to rehabilitate him?"
"I think so," said the old gentleman. "If he can get along for a year, and move to some city other than the capital, I could arrange to have another radio company take him in. The Arsiays are looking for new blood, I hear."
Janet's eyes were round. "Do companies actually take in outcasts like that?"
The geneticist chuckled. "Of course they do! It's highly irregular, but it does happen, if you know how to finagle it. Our man won't have to stay proletarianized forever. These water-tight compartments that our fine Corporate State is divided into, have a way of developing leaks. You're shocked, my dear?"
"N-no. But you sound almost as if you approved of the way they did things back in the Age of Promiscuity, when everyone married and worked for whomever he pleased."
"They got along. But let's decide about you and Horace."
She sighed. "I can't live with him, and I can't live without him. I'd almost rather become a dormouse than go on like this."
"Now don't look at me, my dear. I wouldn't sell you any hibernine if I thought you should take it. Don't want to spend my declining years in jail."
Janet looked puzzled. "You mean you might approve of it in some cases?"
; "Might, though you needn't repeat that. In general, the laws against the use of hibernine are sound, but there are cases—"
The doorbell rang. Carey-West admitted Horace Juniper-Hallett, dressed as a proletarian, and whistling.
"Janet!" he yelled, and reached for her.
"Why, Horace!" she said a few minutes later. "I thought you were a wreck. Didn't you mind being expelled and degraded—and even being separated from me?"
He grinned a little bashfully. If he'd thought, he'd have put on a better act. "That was all a phony, darling. The general performance, that is. I really got drunk. But that was at the Old Man's orders, to make it more convincing."
"Horace! What on earth do you mean?"
"Oh, I'm technically an outcast, working as an ashman for the City of Los Angeles. But actually, I'm doing a secret investigation for the Crosleys. Lord Archwin saw me after the ceremony and told me if I was successful, he'd have me reinstated and—oh, goo!" Juniper-Hallett's boyish face registered dismay. "I forgot I wasn't supposed to tell anybody, even you!"
"Huh," said Carey-West. "A fine Sherlock your chairman picked."
"But now that you've gone that far," said Janet thoughtfully, "you might as well tell us the rest."
"I really oughtn't—"
"Horace! You don't mistrust your wife, do you?"
"Oh, very well. I'm supposed to find out about this stolen dormouse. And I'm starting with the Strombergs."
"My company!"
"Yep. Remember, we're trying to stop the feud and bring about a merger between your company and mine. So it's mine as well as yours, really."
"But my own company—"
Juniper-Hallett did his best to look masterful. "That's enough, Janet old girl! You want me reinstated and everything, don't you? Well, then, you'll have to help me."
The precise form of that help Janet learned the following evening. She was sitting at her window in the Stromberg building, which towered up out of the clump of low and often fogbound hills in the Inglewood district. She was watching the lights of Los Angeles and reading "How to Hold a Husband," by the thrice-divorced Vivienne Banks-Carmody. She was also scratching Dolores behind the ear. Dolores was purring.
Came a knock, and Dolores, who was shy about strangers, slunk under the bed. Janet opened the door. She squeaked: "Hor—"
"Sh!" said Juniper-Hallet, slipping in and closing the door behind him. A fine rain of powdered ash sifted from his work-clothes to the carpet.
"How on earth did you get in here?" she whispered.
"Simple." He grinned, a little nervously. "I stuck a wrench into the works of the ash hopper and jammed it. While the boys were clustering about it and wondering what to do, I slipped in through the kitchen door. I rode up the service elevator; nobody stopped me." He sat down, rustling and clanking a bit. His clothes bulged.
"How did you know how to get here? The place is like a maze."
"Oh, that." He took a huge fistful of papers from under his coat, leafed through them, and selected one. "They gave me a complete set of plans before I started out. I've got enough tools and things hung around me to burgle the National Treasury. I'm supposed to climb through your air conditioning system to the laboratory, to see if they've got the stolen dormouse there."
"But—"
He stopped her with a wave. "I can't start until early in the morning, when things'll be quiet."
"About when?"
"Between three and four, they told me. You've had your dinner, haven't you, darling?" He took out a sandwich and munched.
"But Horace, you can't stay here!"
"Why not?" He rose and entered the bathroom to get a glass of water."
"I have to get to bed some time, and I can't have a man—"
"You're my wife, aren't you?"
"Good Service, so I am! This is frightful!"
"What do you mean, frightful?" he said indignantly. "Matter of fact, I was considering—"
A knock interrupted him. Janet asked: "Who's there?"
"Me," said the voice of Janet's mother.
"Quick, Horace! Just a minute, mother! Hide under the bed! Dolores won't hurt you."
"Who's Dolores?"
"My cat. I'll be right there, mother. Quick, please, please!"
Juniper-Hallett, thinking that his bride might have shown a little more enthusiasm for his company, stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth, put away the transparent sheet it had been wrapped in, and rolled under the bed. Janet opened the door.
"I thought I'd spend the night with you," said Janet's mother. "I've been having those nightmares again."
Janet gave a vaguely affirmative reply. But Horace Juniper-Hallett did not hear it. His hand was clutching his mouth, which was open in a silent yell. Every muscle in his body was at maximum tension.
Two feet from his head, a pair of green eyes, seemingly the size of dinner plates, were staring at him.
When the first horrifying shock wore off, Juniper-Hallett was able to reason that if Janet wanted to call a full-grown puma a "cat," she had every right to do so. But she might have warned him.
Dolores opened her fanged mouth and gave a faint snarl. When Juniper-Hallet simply lay where he was, Dolores relaxed.
Lady Bickham-Smith was talking: "—and even if your father is a bit rigid in his ideas, Janet, it was a crazy thing to do, don't you think? You don't really know anything about this man—"
"Mother! I thought we weren't going to argue about that—"
Dolores kept her great green eyes open with a faint, lingering suspicion, but did not move as Juniper-Hallett touched her head. He stroked it. Dolores' eyelids drooped; Dolores purred. The sound was like an egg-beater churning up a bowlful of marbles, but still it was a purr.
The Juniper-Hallett's mucous membrane went into action. He just stopped a sneeze by pressing a finger under his nose.
His nasal passage filled with colorless liquid. His eyes itched and watered.
He was allergic to cats, and he'd been neglecting his injections lately. And cats evidently included lions, tigers, leopards, pumas, jaguars, ounces, servals, ocelots, jaguarundis, and all the other members of the tribe.
In an hour, when he was treated to the sight of the bare ankles of the two women, moving about preparatory to going to bed, he had the finest case of hay fever in the City of Los Angeles, which stretched from San Diego to Santa Barbara. And there was nothing he could do about it.
But, he assured himself, no situation would ever seem grotesque to him again.
4
Juniper-Hallett awoke after five or six hours' fitful slumber. He tried to raise his head, bumped it on the bottom of the mattress, and realized where he was. It seemed incredible to him that he should have slept at all under those bizarre circumstances.
But there he was, with a gray wet dawn coming in through the windows, and Dolores' head resting peacefully on his stomach.
After several years, it seemed, of his lying and silently sniffling, the women got up and dressed. Janet said: "I didn't . . . yawn . . . sleep very well."
"Neither did I. It's that beast of yours. I wish you wouldn't keep her in here, Janet. She gives me the willie-jitters. She kept purring all night long, and it sounded just like a man snoring."
When Lady Bickham-Smith had departed, Juniper-Hallett rolled out from under the bed. When he got to his feet, he threw back his head, closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and gave vent to a sneeze that fluttered the pages of a magazine on the table. He looked vastly relieved, though his eyes were red and watery and his hair was mussed. "There," he said. "I've been wadtig to do that all dight!"
"Was that all you thought about last night?"
"Just ab—Do, of course dot!"
"Darling!"
"Sweetheart!"
She stepped back and looked at him. "Horace, did you snore last night?" Her tone suggested that she wished she'd known about this sooner.
"How should I dow? Have you got sobe ephedride id your bathroob?"
"No
, but Pamela Starr-Gilligan, down the hall, may have some. Why?"
Juniper-Hallett gestured toward the puma, who was standing with her forepaws on the window sill, looking at the rain. "I'b afraid that whed we have our owd hobe, dear, it'll have to be without her."
"Oh, but Horace, how frightful! I love Dolores—"
"Well, let's dot argue dow. Will you get be sobe ephedride, old girl, before I drowd id by owd hay-fever?"
When she returned with the medicine, she found a thinner-looking Juniper-Hallett eating another sandwich and examining the air conditioning registers. On the floor lay a lot of engineering drawings, a coil of rope with a hook at one end, a flashlight, and a couple of burglarious-looking tools.
"Horace! What on earth—"
He blew his nose violently and explained: "I'm trying to figure out which system would get me to the lab quicker, the risers or the returns." He looked at the plans. "Let's see. The Stromberg building has a low-velocity air conditioning system designed to furnish six air changes an hour with a maximum temperature differential of thirty degrees centigrade and a trunk line velocity of three hundred meters per minute. Ducts are of the all-asbestos Carey type. There are 1,406 outlet registers and 1,323 return registers, mumble-mumble-mumble— Looks like the distance is the same in either case; but if I take the warm air side I'll get toasted when I get down near the furnace. So it'll be the returns."
He took his ephedrine and addressed himself to the return register. The grate was locked in place, but the frame to which it was hinged was held to the wall by four ordinary screws. These he took out in a hurry. He stowed his elaborate apparatus about his person, kissed his bride, and pushed himself into the duct head first.
The duct dropped straight for two feet, then turned horizontally. The corner was square, and was full of little curved vanes to guide the air around. Juniper-Hallett fetched up against these while his legs were still in Janet's room.
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