Magic, page 13
“He had called me in the morning, and before night fell, I was at my North Dakota house. I remember being grateful that it was early fall. I would have hated to have to go there with two feet of snow on the ground and the temperature forty below.”
Rubin, who was listening intently, said, “I suppose that your butler, in weather like that, would have chosen some other place as a hideout. He would have told you he was going southeastward and you would have gone to your home in Florida, if you have one.”
“I have a home in Georgia,” said Wayne, “but you are correct otherwise. I suppose that is what he would have done. In any case, when I arrived in North Dakota, I found that Cecil was not yet there. I got in touch with the people who care for the place in my absence (and who know me only as a ‘Mr. Smith’), and they assured me that nobody, to their knowledge, had arrived. There were no signs of any very recent occupancy, so he could not have arrived and been waylaid in the house. Of course, he might have been interrupted en route.
“I spent the night in the house, a very wakeful night as you can imagine, and an uncomfortable one. In the morning, when he still had not arrived, I called the police. There were no reports of any accidents to planes, trains, buses, or cars that could have possibly applied to Cecil.
“I decided to wait another day or so. It was possible, after all, that he might have taken a circuitous route or paused on the way, ‘holed up,’ one might say, to mislead his pursuers, and would soon take up the trip again. In short, he might arrive a day late, or even two days late.
“On the third morning, however, I could wait no more. I was certain, by then, that something was very wrong. I called my New York home, feeling he might have left a message there, and was rather berating myself for not having made the call earlier for that purpose; or, if no message had been received, to have left the number at which I could be reached when the message came.
“At any rate, on the third morning I called, and it was Cecil who answered. I was thunderstruck. He had arrived on the afternoon of the day I had left. I simply said I would be home that night and, of course, I was. So you see my difficulty, gentlemen.”
There was a short silence at the rather abrupt ending to the story, and then Rubin said, “I take it that Cecil was perfectly safe and sound.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I asked him about the pursuers, and he smiled faintly and said, ‘I believe I eluded them, Mr. Wayne. Or I may even have been entirely mistaken and they did not really exist. At least, I wasn’t bothered at all on my way home.’”
“So that he got home safely?”
“Yes, Mr. Rubin.”
“And the exhibition curios were intact?”
“Entirely.”
“Even the ring, Mr. Wayne?”
“Absolutely.”
Rubin threw himself back in the chair with an annoyed expression on his face, “Then, no, I don’t see your difficulty.”
“But why did he tell me he was going northwestward? He told me that distinctly. There is no question of my having misheard.”
Halsted said, “Well, he thought he was being followed, so he told you he was going to the North Dakota place. Then he decided that either he had gotten away from the pursuers, or that they didn’t exist, and he thereupon switched his plans, and went straight to New York without having time to call you again and warn you of that.”
“Don’t you think, in that case,” said Wayne, with some heat, “he might have apologized to me? After all, he had misled me, sent me on an unnecessary chase into North Dakota, subjected me to a little over two days of uncertainty during which I not only feared for my collection, but also felt that he might be lying dead or badly injured somewhere. All this was the result of his having told me, falsely, that he was heading northwestward. And then, having arrived in New York, he might have known, since I wasn’t home, that I had flown to the North Dakota house to be with him, and he might have had the kindness to call me there and tell me he was safe. He knew the North Dakota number. But he didn’t call me, and he didn’t apologize to me or excuse himself when I got home.”
“Are you sure he knew that you were in North Dakota?” asked Halsted.
“Of course I’m sure he knew. For one thing, I told him. I had to account for the fact that I had been away from home for three days. I said, ‘Sorry I wasn’t home when you arrived, Cecil. I had to make a quick and unexpected trip to North Dakota.’ It would have taken a heart of forged steel not to have winced at that, and not to have begun apologizing, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all.”
There was another pause at this point, and then Avalon cleared his throat in a deep rumble and said, “Mr. Wayne, you know your butler better than any of us do. How do you account for this behavior?”
“The logical feeling is that it was just callousness,” said Wayne, “but I don’t know him as a callous man. I have evolved the following thought, though: What if he had been tempted by the ring and the other curios himself? What if it was his plan to dispose of them for his own benefit? He could tell me that he was being pursued, and that would send me off on my foolish mission to North Dakota so that he would have a period of time to put away his ill-gotten gains somewhere and pretend he had been robbed. See?”
Rubin said, “Do you know Cecil to be a dishonest man?”
“I wouldn’t have said so, but anyone can yield to temptation.”
“Granted. But if he did, he resisted. You have everything. He didn’t steal anything.”
“That’s true, but his telling me he was going northwestward and then never explaining why he had changed his mind tells me that he was up to skulduggery. Just because he was too fainthearted to go through with it this time doesn’t excuse him. He might be bolder the next time.”
Rubin said, “Have you asked him to explain the northwestward business?”
Wayne hesitated. “I don’t like to. Suppose there is some explanation. The fact that I would ask him about it would indicate that I didn’t trust him, and that would spoil our relationship. My having waited so long makes it worse. If I ask now, it would mean I have brooded about it all year, and I’m sure he would resign in resentment. On the other hand, I can’t think what explanation he might have, and my not asking him leaves me unable to relax in his presence. I find I am always keyed up and waiting for him to try again.”
Rubin said, “Then it seems that if you don’t ask him, but convince yourself he’s guilty, your relationship is ruined. And if you do ask him and he convinces you he’s innocent, your relationship is ruined. What if you don’t ask him, but convince yourself he is innocent?”
“That would be fine,” said Wayne, “but how? I would love to do so. When I think of my long and close association with Alfred Pennyworth, Cecil’s uncle, I feel I owe something to the nephew—but I must have an explanation and I don’t dare to ask for it.”
Drake said, “Since Tom Trumbull knows about all this—What do you say about it, Tom?”
Wayne interposed. “Tom says I should forget all about it.”
Trumbull said, “That’s right. Cecil might have been so ashamed of his needless panic that he just can’t talk about it.”
“But he did talk about it,” said Wayne, heatedly. “He casually admitted that he might have been mistaken about being pursued, and did so as soon as I got home. Why didn’t he apologize to me and express regret for the trouble he had put me to?”
“Maybe that’s what he can’t talk about,” said Trumbull.
“Ridiculous. What do I do? Wait for a deathbed confession? He’s twenty-two years younger than I am, and he’ll outlive me.”
“Then,” said Avalon, “if we’re to clear the air between you, we must find some natural explanation that would account for his having told you he was heading northwestward and that would also account for his having failed to express regret over the trouble he put you to.”
“Exactly,” said Wayne, “but to explain both at once is impossible. I defy you to.”
The silence that followed endured for quite a while until Rubin said, “And you won’t accept embarrassment as an explanation for his failure to express regret?”
“Of course not.”
“And you won’t ask him?”
“No, I won’t,” said Wayne, biting off the remark with decision.
“And you find having him in your employ under present conditions is wearisome and nervewracking.”
“Yes, I do.”
“But you don’t want to fire him, either.”
“No. For old Alfred’s sake, I don’t.”
“In that case,” said Rubin, gloomily, “you have painted yourself into a corner, Mr. Wayne. I don’t see how you can get out of it.”
“I still say,” growled Trumbull, “that you ought to forget about it, Bruce. Pretend it never happened.”
“That’s more than I can do,” said Wayne, frowning.
“Then Manny is right,” said Trumbull. “You can’t get out of the hole you’re in.”
Rubin looked about the table. “Tom and I say Wayne can’t get out of this impasse. What about the rest of you?”
Avalon said, “What if a third party—”
“No,” said Wayne instantly. “I won’t have anyone else discussing this with Cecil. This is strictly between him and me.”
Avalon shook his head. “Then I’m stuck, too.”
“It would appear,” said Rubin, looking about the table, “that none of the Black Widowers can help you.”
“None of the Black Widowers seated at the table,” said Gonzalo, “but we haven’t asked Henry yet. He’s our waiter, Mr. Wayne, and you’d be surprised at his ability to work things out—Henry!”
“Yes, Mr. Gonzalo,” said Henry, from his quiet post at the sideboard.
“You heard everything. What do you think Mr. Wayne ought to do?”
“I agree with Mr. Trumbull, sir. I think that Mr. Wayne should forget the matter.”
Wayne rolled his eyes upward and shook his head firmly.
“However,” Henry went on, “I have a specific reason for suggesting it, one that perhaps Mr. Wayne will agree with.”
“Good,” said Gonzalo. “What is it, Henry?”
“I couldn’t help but notice, sir, that all of you, in referring to what Mr. Pennyworth said on the phone, mentioned that he said he was going northwestward. That, however, isn’t quite so. When Mr. Wayne first mentioned the phone conversation, he quoted Mr. Pennyworth as saying, ‘I’m going northwest.’ Is that correct?”
Wayne said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, that is what he said, but does it matter? What is the difference between ‘northwestward’ and ‘northwest’?”
“A huge difference, Mr. Wayne. To go ‘northwestward’ can only mean traveling in a particular direction, but to go ‘northwest’ need not mean that at all.”
“Of course it needs to mean that.”
“No, sir. I beg your pardon, Mr. Wayne, but ‘to go northwest’ could mean one’s intention to take a plane belonging to Northwest Airlines, one of our larger plane lines.”
The pause that followed was electric. Then Wayne whispered, “Good Lord!”
“Yes, sir. And in that case, everything explains itself. Mr. Pennyworth may have been mistaken about being followed, but, even if he thought he was, he was not sufficiently worried over the situation to follow any circuitous route. He told you he was taking a Northwest airplane, speaking of the matter elliptically, as many people do, and assuming you would understand.
“Despite the name of the plane line, which may have been more accurate at its start, Northwest Airlines serves the United States generally and you can take one of its planes from Minneapolis to New York, traveling eastward. I’m sure that but for the coincidence that you had a home in North Dakota, you might have interpreted Mr. Pennyworth’s remark correctly.
“Mr. Pennyworth, under the impression he had told you he was flying to New York, said he would see you soon—meaning, in New York. And he hung up suddenly probably because his flight announced that it was ready for boarding.”
“Good Lord!” said Wayne, again.
“Exactly, sir. Then when Mr. Pennyworth got home and found you had been to North Dakota, he could honestly see no connection between that and anything he might have done, so that it never occurred to him to apologize for his actions. He couldn’t have asked you why you had gone to North Dakota; as a servant, it wasn’t his place to. Had you explained of your own accord, he would have understood the confusion and would undoubtedly have apologized for contributing to it. But you remained silent.”
“Good Lord!” said Wayne, a third time. Then, energetically, “I have spent over a year making myself miserable over nothing at all. There’s no question about it. Batman has made a terrible mistake.”
“Batman,” said Henry, “has, as you yourself have pointed out, the great advantage, and the occasional disadvantage, of being only human.”
PRINCE DELIGHTFUL AND THE FLAMELESS DRAGON
KING MARCUS AND HIS COMFORTABLE consort, Queen Ermentrude, were going to have a baby. At least the queen was, but the king was a very interested bystander. They were both in their late thirties and had more or less given up hope of having one, and had even discussed adoption, but had to give that up, too, when it turned out that no foundlings of royal birth were available. Of course, anything less than royal birth was unthinkable.
But then, as so often happens, just talking about adoption resulted in a physiological stirring and before you could count the taxes wrung out of ten peasants, the queen was whispering the glad tidings to the king. His eyes opened wide and he said, “Now how on Earth did that happen?” and the Queen said, rather tartly, that if he didn’t know, no one did.
As the time approached (and for some reason no one can understand, it takes a queen just as long to have a baby once it gets started as it would a milkmaid) the problem of the christening arose.
The queen, who was feeling very uncomfortable by now and was wishing it was all over, said, “I do hope it will be a boy and that he will have all the characteristics expected of a respectable prince, because, my dear, I really don’t think I can go through this a second time.”
“We will make sure, my royal love. We will invite every fairy in the kingdom to the christening and, of course, they will ensure that he will be brave, handsome and everything else that is good and wonderful.”
“Are you sure?” said Queen Ermentrude. “I was speaking to the sorcerer yesterday and he said that actually it is all a matter of genes.”
King Marcus frowned. “Do you mean a child of mine will have to wear barbarian pantaloons?”
“No, dear, not jeans. Genes. They’re pronounced the same but if you listen closely you will hear that it isn’t a j, but a soft g.”
“What are soft-g genes?”
“I don’t know, but we all have them, you see.”
“Well,” said the king, quite irritated, “I don’t believe in this superstitious nonsense of having something we don’t know or understand. We know and understand these fairy godmothers and that’s what it’s going to be.”
“Very well, my dear,” said the Queen, “but I hope you don’t leave one out.”
The King laughed. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
Both Marcus and Ermentrude had heard many stories of fairy godmothers not being invited to christenings. Invariably, they turned out to be particularly malevolent and, of course, they would show up anyway and make life very hard for the poor infant. You would think royalty would know better than to omit a malevolent fairy, but it happened amazingly often.
This was not going to happen to King Marcus and Queen Ermentrude, however. They consulted the Fairy Directory and made certain that the royal scribe indited an invitation to each and every one.
And that was a mistake, for it meant that an invitation went out to the fairy, Misaprop, and if the royal couple had known just a little more about it, they would certainly have omitted her. To be sure, she was the nicest and sweetest fairy godmother anyone could imagine, so that leaving her out would not have disturbed her at all. And if she were invited, she was the life and soul of the party, always laughing, always telling jokes, always singing songs. You might wonder therefore what could possibly be wrong either way. Well, once she attended a christening, she would insist on giving the baby a present, and that’s where the trouble came in.
She didn’t mean to do it, you know, but she always managed to get the spell wrong.
And that’s the way it was. Fairy after fairy approached the crib in which the new young prince was lying. (It was indeed a prince and after he was born, Queen Ermentrude said very plainly—once she managed to get her breath back—that there would be no more.) One after another bestowed gifts on him—charm, a stately carriage, a luminous intelligence, a sense of humor, and so on and so on.
And then along came the fairy, Misaprop, and waved her wand over him and said the mystic words that would make him the most graceful prince who ever lived.
—The only thing was that she dropped her wand just before she got to the crib, and she was so flustered (heaven only knows why, for she was always dropping her wand) that she picked it up by the wrong end, and you know what that means.
One of the other fairies stepped forward and said, “Misaprop, dear, you’re holding your wand—” but it was too late. Misaprop had pronounced the spell, waving the butt of the wand over the baby prince’s dear little head and, of course, a characteristic that was precisely the opposite of what Misaprop intended flowed out over that head like a drunken halo.
It didn’t take the royal parents long to find out that something had gone wrong. The prince was three years old before he could walk more than two cubits without falling down. He couldn’t pick up anything at all without dropping it a few times first. And he was always in the way. The royal butler was forever tripping over him and always did so when he was carrying the best wine. The little prince just never got it through his head that he ought to get out of the way of people.
