Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 163
As Topper sat there contemplating the deeply tanned figure of the German model he received the uncanny impression that eyes were contemplating him. For a moment he fought against the desire to look about him; then his resistance broke down. Had he known beforehand that he was going to encounter the reproving gaze of a python, still he could not have refrained from looking. The gaze that he did encounter was almost as dangerous. If anything, it was more so for his peace of mind.
What he actually did see was Marion Kerby fully and perfectly materialized. It was the first time he had seen her since she had returned, and his startled glance told him that hers was by all odds the loveliest figure on the beach. Everything else was forgotten — the trying events of the morning and the excitement that had so recently been occupying his attention. The beach faded away, and he saw her sitting there with the blue of the ocean at her back. Her slim body had been poured into a small, black, and well worn bathing suit. Her skin was glowingly tanned. Curls clustered unreasonably round her back-tilted head. He remembered the delicate, almost childlike, features of her face, the small impertinent chin, and the arched lips with their roving smile. He recalled the mad, eloquent beauty of her eyes, and again he looked into them, then hastily looked away. They were regarding him with scornful malevolence. Those lips he knew so well were curved in a dangerous smile. Topper hated to think of it as a grin, but it was almost that — a nasty grin. Topper waited in dread. For a brief moment she let her baleful gaze rest on the unsuspecting German model, then she looked significantly at Mr. Topper, who, although avoiding her eyes, knew exactly what was going on.
“Nice Topper,” she said in a low voice. “Animal man, Topper. I’ll cook your goose and hers, too, you leaky old bucket.”
Topper looked up at this odd appellation, but Marion Kerby was gone. A wild scream from the German model lifted him to his feet. She, also, was on hers, and now at last there was nothing left to prevent the sun from completing its task. The model was bereft of slightest pretense.
There were several things the lady could have done under the circumstances — several sensible, strategical moves she could have made. She could, for instance, have thrown herself to the beach and covered at least parts of her body with sand. Again, it would not have been unmannerly under the stress of the moment to snatch a towel from someone else and appropriate it for her own protection. She might even have used her hands and have run like hell for the bath houses, which were not far off. She could have done any one of these things or combined the best features of them all, but it just so happened that she chose to do none of them. Instead, she strode up to Mr. Topper, whom she mistakenly assumed to be the author of her predicament, and felled him with a single Teutonic blow. As the confounded man measured his length on the sand, the German model turned to find her bathing suit and towel dangling tauntingly before her eyes. The sight was to the lady as a red flag is to a bull. As the garments sped down the beach in the grip of an invisible force the German model sped after them. There was grim, implacable determination in the pumping of her legs. Her brown body with its narrow band of white was entirely forgotten in her pursuit of her stolen drapery. One arm was extended strainingly to reach what was rightfully hers, but her fingers, ever hopeful, never quite established contact. The towel and the bathing suit fluttered just beyond her grasp.
Thus passed the German model in impressive review. Spellbound, the beach regarded the spectacle, the climax of many mystifying events. At the end of the beach the flying articles turned sharply, and the German model followed after. When her ravished raiment came abreast of Mr. Topper, who had just risen, he received them full in the face. Once more he took the count.
“There!” came a voice in triumph. “I hope you got an eyeful as well as a faceful.”
As the German model made for Topper he sprang to his feet and held out the bathing suit and towel. His eyes were modestly averted. This was not a wise move. The model snatched her property, then promptly knocked Topper down again. For the third time he measured his length on the sand of the tranquil beach. This time he remained measured. Until things quieted down he had no intention of getting up. It was a sheer waste of effort.
At this point Oscar intervened in behalf of his old friend, Topper. The tail suddenly got into action and pursued the model to her bath house. More than the tail must have been in action if the frightened cries of the fleeing woman meant even a little bit. Once in her bath house she screamed for Monsieur Sylvestre, who from one thing and another was almost at the end of his rope.
“There’s a growl in my bath house,” she called in perfect English.
“A towel?” inquired the patron. “Madame, but yes, I caused it to be placed there myself.”
“Not this one, you didn’t,” cried the model, leaping unimproved from her bath house and frantically scratching at the door of another one.
The door flew open, and she stood confronting an elderly gentleman clad in spectacles only. This elderly gentleman had already received enough shocks on the float to scoot him through death’s door. The formidable appearance of the model slammed the door behind him. He collapsed in a heap. The lady almost did the same. Also, Monsieur Sylvestre. The next bath house was empty. Into it the model plunged. Entering bath houses at random was, of course, child’s play for Oscar. He was on the point of following the German model when he heard his master’s voice.
“Oscar, you devil,” called the Colonel. “Come here immediately and leave that lady alone.”
The tail swung round and trotted off in the direction of its invisible master. There was a jaunty flip in its carriage. It was a tail of considerable achievement.
Monsieur Sylvestre had abandoned the model to her noise and her nudity and was addressing Mr. Topper.
“M’sieu,” he was saying reproachfully, “at the proper time and in the proper place I am not saying that your conduct would have been other than quite correct, inevitable, in fact, but why did you undress the lady here on my once so tranquil beach?”
Mr. Topper raised his head wearily.
“I tell you, Monsieur Sylvestre,” he said weakly, “I was not within six feet of the woman when the event occurred. I am not in the habit of undressing ladies either in public or private.”
The patron elevated his eyebrows and gazed out to sea. He was thinking of how ungallant Mr. Topper was. So unlike a Frenchman, who was always willing to lend a helping hand.
There was only one thing left to do about it. Monsieur Sylvestre did that thing.
He shrugged.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Interlude on the Rocks
UNSEEN WAVELETS SLIPPING furtively over low-lying rocks. Night time now. Far out across the ocean the bald head of the moon is pushing up the darkness. Topper is on the rocks. Alone. He smells the night around him. Topper is almost doglike about it. He has a yen for the fragrance of night. Mimosa blended with wet sea grass, and over all the heavy, sweet, compelling scent of tropical flowers swimming on the breeze from near-by estates. There are trees behind Topper. The sea lies in front. Under him and about are the rocks — dark, crouching, motionless. Somewhere close at hand lies a little sandy beach — a shallow scoop of sand about as large as a bathtub. This quiet secluded place Topper discovered for himself. He comes here when the mood is on him. He comes here and sits and looks and smells. Sometimes he thinks things. But what things he thinks would be difficult to say. Men like Topper, men whom life has given to believe that they are unoriginal, ordinary, humdrum creatures, have a habit of keeping their thoughts to themselves. Yet what thicker skinned poets glowingly put down on paper some of these stout and seemingly commonplace gentlemen have been nourishing in secret all their lives.
Topper is fascinated by this spot. Close to the surface of the water the rocks step far out from the shore. Occasionally a reef breaks through. When the sea is running strong and the wind blows flat across it he experiences a comforting sensation of isolation as the waves drive in around him. Even the sea gulls in this place seem to be of a different tribe — solitary, lost, and a little eerie.
“Not much pickings for them here,” Topper had once thought. “Look sort of foolish, though, bringing a package along. Sea gulls don’t eat crumbs. Great chunks at a gobble.”
A little more than a week has passed since the episode of the beach, or, rather, the episodes on the beach. During all this time Topper has not been favored by the company of his unseen friends. He has been left with a sense of injury. Some explanation was due him, some slight form of apology. He himself had been forced to explain although he had failed lamentably. The story of the unveiling of the model had been told with extras to Mrs. Topper by her snooty English friends.
“What perverted impulse prompted you to snatch the bathing suit off that lewd woman?” Mrs. Topper had asked when the snooty friends had at last departed, their good works left behind them.
“I had nothing to do with her bathing suit,” Topper wearily denied.
“You must have,” went on his wife. “The woman actually knocked you down. Fancy that, being knocked down on a public beach by a naked woman.”
“I don’t like to fancy it,” said Mr. Topper, closing his eyes on the horrid memory.
“I don’t know what has come over you,” Mrs. Topper hurried on. “Are you going to make your life just one attempted assault after another? First Félice, then this German model.”
“No,” replied Topper darkly. “I’m going to succeed the next time.”
“Well, I hope you do,” snapped his wife, “and get such ideas out of your mind for good and all.”
“That German model was nearly naked, anyway,” Mr. Topper observed.
“I know,” Mary Topper replied, “but that nearly, as small as it was, meant everything.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Topper. “I readily admit that.”
“It didn’t seem to faze her, though,” Mrs. Topper observed, “the way she went rushing about in that shocking condition.”
“I was a lot more injured than shocked,” said Mr. Topper.
“I can well imagine that,” replied his wife, “letting yourself be knocked down by a naked woman.”
“But, my dear, if I had knocked the naked woman down,” Topper protested, “people might have mistaken my intentions entirely.”
“And they wouldn’t have been far wrong,” declared Mrs. Topper quite unreasonably. “What’s going to become of you, I’d like to know? You can’t go dashing about France pulling skirts off servant girls and bathing suits off German models.”
Mr. Topper did not know what was going to become of him. He told Mrs. Topper that he did not care a damn. To proclaim his innocence any further would be, he knew, worse than useless. He collected his hat and stick and made for the door. His wife’s voice followed after. It was her parting shot.
“And if you are seized with an impulse to claw the clothes off some woman you meet in the street,” she told him, “I advise you to count up to twenty, no matter how much you feel like it.”
Topper laughed mirthlessly.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m going to leave a trail of stripped bodies behind me.”
“Well, don’t drag them into the house,” was all his wife replied.
Topper had been afraid to attempt the beach since the day he had been thrice knocked down upon it. He did not know what had become of the German model, but reports had it that she was back at her old stand. He wondered how she could do it. She was made of ruggeder stuff than he was, that was certain. What would she do to him if he appeared in her presence? Would she arise and knock him down — cause another scandal? Topper rather suspected she would. That German model seemed to thrive on public scandals. She was a public scandal herself.
Instead of frequenting the beach Topper took to the Esterel Mountains. Here in deep quiet valleys he considered many things at leisure, hardly realizing he was thinking at all. There was always some hustling little stream to keep him company, and the fantastic coloring of the great rocks rising high above him pleasantly occupied his eyes. It was quiet back here in the mountains. All the world seemed to have moved to the beach. It was a rare occasion when he met another human being. Even the bird life was of a desultory nature. Solitude was deep but not oppressive. When he caught the dark shadow of a fish moving in the clear waters of a stream he felt a sense of mystery and surprise. He was not entirely alone.
As a result of these long walks Topper was losing weight and toughening his muscles. He felt better physically as well as mentally. He no longer cared a rap what other people thought. And strange to say it was here in these solitudes that he discovered he loved France. His casual conversations with the back-country people he met from time to time in the course of his walks did much to dispel the impression made upon him by the franc-frantic denizens of the resort towns. Topper had a desire to return to these quiet places some day before he died. He scarcely realized how deep that desire was rooted in him.
He felt the same way about these rocks and the little beach he had discovered. This spot would dwell in his memory. He would harken back to it. The moon was up now. A silvery path ran from it to the rocks. Topper saw in fancy a figure drifting towards him down the moon path. Then, very quietly, a small hand nuzzled its way into his. He knew without turning his head that Marion Kerby was back. She would do a thing like that, taking his welcome for granted like a stray pup.
“Yes?” he said, still gazing out to sea.
“I feel like the incidental music for Amos and Andy,” she murmured.
“It must be a terrible feeling,” replied Topper.
“No, it isn’t. It’s nice for a change. I feel all holy and sunsetlike inside. Still, sort of, and very, very tender — like a good woman about to be bad.”
“Your hair is blowing in my mouth,” was Topper’s reply to this. “Do something about it.”
“Then bite it off,” continued the low voice. “I’ll grow some new hair.”
Topper thought this remark far from holy and tender, but he made no reply.
“Oscar can do his hind legs now,” offered the voice a little timidly. “And much of his upper rump.”
“I don’t care if he can do himself into a pack of bloodhounds,” replied Mr. Topper. “Where have you been all this time? Answer me that.”
“All right,” said Marion in an injured voice. “Don’t bite my head off. I don’t mind about the hair. You can chew on that till the cows come home.”
“I don’t care to chew on that until the cows start out even,” said Mr. Topper. “I’m not a hair chewer.”
“I know you’re not,” Marion put in placatingly. “But I do think you might show some interest in Oscar’s rump, especially his upper rump.”
“Do you expect me to sit here on these rocks and go into ecstasies over the shaggy rump of a lunch-snatching dog?”
“Well, the Colonel is greatly encouraged, and we all feel sort of good about it. A fish did it.”
“What! How could a fish possibly influence Oscar’s upper rump?”
“Can’t quite say,” she replied. “But he saw a fish in a tank the other day, and from that moment he began to materialize his hind legs and upper rump.” The voice trailed off for a moment, then resumed musingly, “I guess Oscar had never seen a fish before — not a real live fish, that is. Strange, isn’t it, never having seen a fish!”
“And he probably thought,” remarked Mr. Topper sarcastically, “that if a fish could get away with a funny tail like that, he himself had little of which to feel ashamed.”
“Perhaps,” Marion replied. “You may be right, but deep emotion has always affected Oscar’s rump proper and upper rump.”
“There’s not a proper part in all of that dog’s body,” declared Mr. Topper.
“How about mine?” Marion asked demurely.
“Nor yours either,” said Topper. “Are we to sit here all night discussing Oscar’s rump? I’ve asked you where you have been for so long? And while we’re on the subject of rumps, I’d like to take yours across my knee and give it a good sound drubbing.”
“I’d quickly do away with mine,” replied Marion. “On second thought, though, go right ahead. I don’t mind brutality. I lived with a brute all my life.”
“George treats you a damn sight too well. By the way, just where is he now?”
“I’ve given him the slip. He’s drinking up all the francs he won by cheating at Monte Carlo. That’s where we were — at Monte Carlo. We always go there when we feel the need of money. The Colonel thought it up.”
“And the delicious Mrs. Hart put the idea in the Colonel’s mind,” said Mr. Topper.
“Wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Marion agreed. “She’s a rare trollop, that one, but a lovable old tear-sheet withal.”
“And you’re no lily, yourself,” replied Mr. Topper.
“I am so,” said Marion. “I’m a tiger lily. Feel my teeth.”
Topper’s neck was sharply bitten in a spot where the marks of teeth would be sure to attract unfavorable attention.
“You’re branded now,” continued Marion, laughing softly. “From now on you are my mustang. Go on and act wild.”
“Marion,” said Topper reprovingly. He hesitated a moment, then turned, and for the first time met the irresistible invitation of her eyes. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, taking her in his arms. “You’re the very soul of depravity, and yet, you’re better than a sermon.”
“Let’s deprave,” murmured Marion, snuggling her pliant body close to the man. “I’m not exactly off you, either, my old and rare.”
Then Topper did act wild, wilder than he had ever acted in his life. Being thrice flattened against the sand was a small price to pay, he decided, for those moments of complete forgetfulness he spent with Marion by the little, hidden beach. The moon kept rising higher, and if it was at all disconcerted by what it saw, it did not bat an eye. The moon had been witnessing such meetings since the world was first made to shine on. At this late date it was shockproof.
