Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he said.

  She studied him thoughtfully. “You know, John, sometimes when I’m talking with you, I’ve noticed that you seem to . . . drift off in an odd way. It’s worried me. But now I think I understand.”

  “What do you understand?” He felt a sensation of panic.

  “You retreat from me, don’t you, John? Your mind runs off and hides in this little room, with this toy ship and the books.” Her smile was triumphant. “Isn’t that it?”

  Nothing could be the same now, he knew. He couldn’t come here again for peace and solitude. Not after this. “Yes, that’s right.”

  She moved slowly to the door, smiling at him. “I’ll know how to fix that in the future, of course. I’ll just laugh at you, my dear. I hardly think you’ll be able to dream about these toys while I’m laughing at you.”

  “No, I probably won’t.”

  “Good night then, John. Do see about the gardener first thing in the morning, please.”

  He sat still, staring at the clean floor and listening to her high heels picking their way carefully through the basement, and then ascending the stairs to the kitchen. He heard her steps above him crossing the dining room floor, and they died away as she went up to her room.

  John Marsh locked the door of his workshop and turned to his space ship and began working with controlled and desperate speed. He hardly knew what was driving him, or what he wanted; but he had to do what he was doing. He had loved space too long to have it laughed at, and he felt in some half-insane fashion that the gods of space wouldn’t let him down.

  He worked on furiously until something quite amazing happened . . .

  THE YOUNG officer from the Missing Persons Bureau was politely brisk, “Now, Mrs. Marsh, tell me what led up to your husband’s . . . er . . . desertion.”

  Irene Marsh had changed subtly in the week since her husband had disappeared. The quality of well-lubricated composure that had been her trademark was wearing a trifle thin. Her hair was not quite so well-cared for and there was a run in her stocking. Also, a tiny muscle was twitching in her cheek.

  “He did it to spite me,” she said, pacing the floor of the living room, her hands clasped tightly together. “He ran out, just to make me suffer. We haven’t a penny. Creditors are starting to hound me, do you hear? Me! I’ve got to sell this house, my car, and I’ve been posted at the club. He—”

  “Well, that’s not our concern, of course,” the officer said.

  “My lawyer told me to go to work!” Irene cried.

  “When did you see your husband last?” the officer asked brusquely.

  “Just a week ago tonight. I left him in his. workshop. The next morning, his bed hadn’t been slept in, so the maid and I went downstairs and forced the door of his workroom. It was empty, of course. He’s run out on me for spite.”

  “You’ve heard nothing from him?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve talked to the people he worked for?”

  “Yes, they don’t know a thing.”

  The officer frowned at his notes, then glanced at her with raised eyebrows. “Just a second. You said that you forced the door of his workroom. You mean it was locked from the inside?”

  “Why, yes, of course.”

  “Then how did he get outside?”

  THE MUSCLE in Irene’s cheek began to twitch at a slightly accelerated pace. “I never—”

  “I’d better have a look at that room,” the officer said.

  John Marsh’s workshop was silent and empty. The books stood in their accustomed places, the tools gleamed with oil.

  The officer poked around, then shrugged. “No way out except through that one door. And you insist it was locked, on the inside?”

  “Yes, we had to break the lock,” Irene whispered.

  She stared about the room and suddenly put both hands to her mouth to stifle a scream.

  “What is it?” the officer said in alarm.

  “Oh!” Irene sobbed.

  She sobbed because she knew. She knew with her unerring feminine instinct what had happened. She knew that John Marsh had got away to a place she couldn’t follow him.

  Because the shining model space ship was gone.

  THE TRAVELLING BRAIN

  First published in the March 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

  Tired of your wife—or your way of life? The follow Mortimer Mincing: just press the button, and hit a new combination . . .

  MORTIMER MINCING was a very happy man. He had a good, steady job with the Traveller’s Bank. His home, while modest and unassuming, was paid for. He was saving regularly for his old age, and his health was good. Physically he was not prepossessing; small, with narrow shoulders and a rather worried look about him, Mortimer was no matinee idol. But his faithful wife Minerva didn’t care. “There is more to marriage than . . . ah . . . physical things,” she said frequently, pursing her lips distastefully.

  Minerva was Mortimer’s greatest blessing. She had toned down his youthful exuberance after their marriage, had banked, so to speak, his mildly glowing fires of passion.

  Life was not a gamble, Minerva had shown him. It was an orderly, business-like affair,-, to be conducted with propriety and self-restraint. Frugal, determined, and cautious, she had seen to it that they bought their house and car, and planned for their old age. In this dedicated program there had been no time for children or hobbies.

  “Children cheat you out of your own life,” Minerva frequently said with a baleful glance at the heavens—as if her remark were directed against all unborn children who might be scheming to cheat her out of life. “Hobbies are a waste of time,” she insisted.

  Mortimer, like most men, had looked forward as a young man to raising a family. It wasn’t such a strong need, obviously, since Minerva, had talked him out of it easily enough. But he had enjoyed thinking about having a son. A nice, husky kid he could take to football games, say; or a daughter. A sweet little kid who’d sit in his lap while he read the comics to her.

  But those ideas—“poppycock” was. Minerva’s word for them—were part of his past, like his golf games, and the poker parties he’d once enjoyed.

  And good riddance, too, perhaps.

  The golf was never very important to him. He liked playing in the mornings, when the green fairways were still wet, and the sun was palely warm on the horizon. That was nice, of course. And the kidding around in the locker rooms, and the cup of coffee on the veranda after the match, and the feeling of being clean and tired and relaxed. But he hadn’t actually been any good at golf, and Minerva had made him realize it was a waste of time. ‘If you didn’t do a thing well, then stop it’, was her advice. It was the same with poker. He seldom won. But the stakes were small, and he rather liked sitting, around some friend’s kitchen table drinking beer, and chatting about work, and hoping for a Royal Flush.

  But it was no pastime for a banker, obviously. Not that he was a banker with a capital B. No, Mortimer was just another of the young-old men in, clean shirts who worked in Small Loans. Two years ago the president of the bank had looked at him with a flight frown: “Who the hell is that?” he had later asked, an assistant. “That’s Mortimer Mincing, a very steady chap,” he was told. “Been with us sixteen years.”

  “Hmmm” the president had said.

  The next, day he had stopped at Mortimer’s” desk and said, “Well, hello there, Mincing. Been hearing good things about you.” He had gone on, and had never had any occasion to speak to Mortimer again. But he had left behind a small glow of pride in Mortimer’s body. He had told Minerva about it, and she had smiled pursing her thin lips, obviously pleased. They had speculated for some, time about the identity of the person who had said the good things about Mortimer, and what their nature had been; but since nothing ever came of the president’s, comment they eventually stopped talking about it.

  AS USUAL, on this particular March evening, Mortimer entered his home at a quarter of six. He put his hat and coat i
n the hall closet and entered the living room. Minerva rose from her chair, to greet him, a tall, thin woman with graying hair, and a lined, slightly suspicious face. Everything about her was neat and orderly; the plain gray, frock, the no-nonsense black shoes, the practical, steel-rimmed-spectacles. The room, the house itself, reflected her own air of antiseptic order. It was clean, neat, and colorless.

  “Good evening, Mortimer,” she said, as he touched her cheeks with his lips.

  “Good evening, my dear.

  “Dinner will be ready when you wash your hands. Did you have a good day?”

  “Oh, yes, the usual. Excuse me, my dear,” he said, and he went upstairs to the bathroom and washed his hands.

  After dinner, which was well-balanced and dietetically impeccable, with a variety of vitamin-crowded things such as leek, chard, kale, and cabbage, Mortimer helped his wife with the dishes. The chores done, the garbage set out in its neat gleaming can, the kitchen door locked and bolted, they repaired to the living room to read through the evening papers. Mortimer didn’t, smoke—it smelled up the house, Minerva complained—so there was nothing to distract him from the comics, the foreign news, and the little items about townspeople.

  Minerva knitted complacently. Another day was done, added, to the thousands of others which she had efficiently finished and put behind her. It had been another little triumph. Nothing had gone amiss. Minerva was a good woman by conventional standards. She kept a clean house, set a good table, and didn’t run around with strange men. True, she hadn’t been, tested on this last score—but it could be inferred from her normal conduct that she would, meet any such temptation with unflinching sternness. Also, as is the case with conventionally good women, she was generous with lesser, or weaker, creatures. That is, she was generous with moral disapproval.

  “The Chadwicks, I see, are having a baby,” she announced now, through censured lips. “They’ll find out soon enough what they’re” getting in for.”

  “That so?” Mortimer said.

  “Yes, indeed. Mark my words! That Florence Chadwick needs a little come-down, if you ask me. Weeding her garden in those shorts and kissing her husband right out on the street. Oh, they think they’re very smart and modern, I’m sure. With their cocktail parties, and friends coming in at all hours. Wait till they have a crying brat on their hands. They’ll sing a different tune.”

  “Weeds the garden in shorts, eh?”

  Minerva eyed Mortimer sharply. “Naturally that would interest some men,” she said. “I dare say that’s why she does it.”

  MORTIMER looked noncommittal.

  “Perhaps,” he said, knowing that agreement was essential to harmony. Still, the thought of Florence Chadwick in shorts! She was a slim, friendly girl, about nineteen or twenty, with bright blonde hair, and wonderful legs.

  Mortimer had said good morning to her a few times. The thought of her in shorts; walking and bending in a flower garden, was a sharp prick of desire. He ignored the sensation; turned his mind from the slow, almost forgotten hunger, quickly and guiltily.

  “—he’s two months behind in his rent, and they’re going to chuck him out next week. Good thing, too. He’s a disgrace to the neighborhood.”

  “Who, dear?”

  “You might listen while I’m talking,” Minerva said, with a little sigh. “I was speaking of Professor Walthouski. Professor, my foot. He’s probably some foreign spy.”

  Professor Walthouski lived across the street from the Mincings. He was a bald-headed gnome of a man who gossip said, was a once renowned, scientist who had suffered some sort of mental crack-up. Mortimer had nodded to him a few times. He seemed all right. Pleasant smile, bright eyes. But lonely. As if he were waiting for mail, or for someone to talk to him.

  He’d asked Mortimer in for a cup of coffee once, but Mortimer had declined. He knew how Minerva felt about the old man, and he didn’t want to upset her.

  “Yes, they’re chucking him out.” Minerva said, in a satisfied voice. “I never trusted him, you know. He’s a foreigner, and you can’t trust foreigners. I’ll be glad to get a decent, God-fearing American in his place.”

  “Yes, that would be nice,” Mortimer said absently.

  It was then nine o’clock. Minerva put away her-sewing. She and Mortimer retired early. It was the healthy way of life. No salt or spices, plenty of chard, kale, and cabbage, no tobacco or liquor, of course, and plenty of calm, refreshing sleep.

  When Mortimer’s time at the bank was up, they were going to spend their declining years at a little resort in the Eastern mountains. It was the place where they now took their vacations. A two-storied hotel, it catered to a genteel clientele consisting mainly of retired school teachers and asthma victims. It faced a rocky field that sloped up a low mountain: On good days everyone sat in rockers on the porch “and looked at the rocky field.

  When it rained one sat inside and looked at the samplers on the wall. It suited Minerva ideally, and of course Mortimer liked it too. That’s why they led such abstemious, healthful lives. In order to have that many more years to rest and regard the rocky field.

  “I’m going up how, my dear,” Minerva said. “You’ll be coming presently?”

  “Of course, my dear,” Mortimer said, standing. He wound the clock and was about ready to snap off the lights when the front doorbell rang.

  MINERVA put a hand nervously to her throat. She was the type who always expected the worst. Penny postcards were portents of disaster until she had skimmed their inevitably serene messages. Anything outside her rigid little life was ominous and suspicious. And a caller at nine in the evening was miles outside her life.

  “Go to the door, Mortimer.”

  “Very well.” Mortimer opened the door and blinked with surprise at the smiling but care-lined face of Professor Walthouski.

  “Good evening,” the professor said hopefully. He had a large box under his arm, and his near-sighted eyes were entreating. “I saw your light and . . . I thought I’d come in and say—well, you know, hello.”

  “We were just, retiring,” Minerva said.

  “Oh! I see,” the professor’s tone cried of disappointment. He was a small man, with bushy gray hair, and a kind but hopeless-looking face. “You see, I needed someone to talk to, and I thought—”

  “Come in for a moment, anyway,” Mortimer said. His words shocked him slightly. Inwardly, he cringed from Minerva’s reaction. But she contented herself with a little sniff.

  “I’m going on up,” she said. “I shall expect you shortly. Good night, Professor.” She used his title the way she would throw out the word dogcatcher.

  She ascended the stairs, a picture of stately irritation, and Mortimer led the professor into the living room and snapped on the light. “Sit down,” he said.

  “Thank you, thank you,” the professor said. He seemed overcome by the hospitality. He put his burden on the coffee table, and drew a large slightly soiled handkerchief from his pocket. He blew his nose lustily and then returned the handkerchief to his pocket. “You see, I had to talk to someone tonight,” he said. “It is so good of-you to help me.”

  “Why do you have to talk to someone tonight?”

  The professor patted the heavy box which he had placed on the coffee tables and said, “This is the reason. My last invention, and my greatest one, Mr. Mincing.”

  MORTIMER looked at the box with more interest. It was about the size of a table radio, and one side of it was generously studded with dials and rheostats. Two rubber tubes emerged from the inside of the box, and at the ends of these hung a gadget that looked like a doctor’s stethoscope.

  “What is it?” Mortimer asked.

  “Well—this sounds silly, I know—but I’m not quite sure,” the professor said apologetically: “It began years ago as a means to improve the practice of anesthesia. I worked on the principle that if the brain, memory and personality of a. man could be removed from his body during an operation, then the body would naturally feel no pain.”

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p; “Well, that’s logical enough,” Mortimer said, rather interested.

  “Yes, but where would the mind go when it left the body? That was the problem. Finally, I worked out a theory. We could send the brain to the mind of another human being. Supposing, for instance a man was being operated upon. We divorce his body from his brain. We send the brain to his wife, where it would, to put-it simply, set up housekeeping until it was time to return to its own body.”

  Mortimer thought of setting up housekeeping in Minerva’s mind, and shivered slightly.

  The professor was smiling triumphantly. “You see how it works out?”

  “Yes, yes,” Mortimer said. “Then what’s your problem?”

  “That’s the hitch,” the professor said, chewing his lip. “There is a problem. I couldn’t control just where the brain would go, you see. It might wind up in the head of some diamond miner in Africa, for all I could tell.”

  “Well, it would be rather exciting for the travelling brain, I think,” Mortimer said. He had determined to humor the old boy, although he was obviously a prime loony-bin candidate.

  “Yes, but it’s not very scientific,” the professor said, chewing his lips again. “I couldn’t be sure that I could get the brain back into its original body. That could cause all sorts of trouble, of course.”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” Mortimer said.

  “The thing is, I’ve never tried it on anyone,” the professor said, looking at Mortimer with an expression of hopeful appraisal. “I . . . well, I don’t know how to put it, but I’ve been getting forgetful of late. I’m slipping a bit, I think. And this is my last invention. But before I end my career I’d like to try it, on someone.”

  “Well, naturally,” Mortimer said.

  “You do see my problem, don’t you?” the professor said eagerly. “You will, help me, won’t you?”

  “Me?” Mortimer said.

  “Yes, I have no one else to turn to.”

  MORTIMER thought of half dozen ways of saying no. But then he reconsidered. It wouldn’t take, more than a minute or so, and it would please this old man. “All right,” he said.