Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 174
Marion, releasing her hold on the old gentleman, followed the direction of Mr. Topper’s gaze. Then with a wild cry she dived head foremost over the body of her late victim and landed on the veranda with the beard clutched firmly in her hand.
A gasp of dismay fell from the Colonel’s unseen lips, after which the air became so shot with oaths, imprecations, and obscenities, it was impossible to decide whether Marion or the Colonel held the advantage. Fortunately Marion decided, but solely for tactical reasons, to dematerialize. Where a woman had once been, the numerous spectators now saw merely a beard and a heap of clothes busily engaged in calling each other the vilest of names. Presently the clothes arose, clutching a roll of francs, and followed the beard down the veranda.
“Get along there,” the clothes were heard to remark to the apparently cowed beard. “I’ll tell Clara Hart exactly what you tried to do, and if she lets you into her bed again I’ll never speak another word to her.”
It was difficult for the spectators to conceive of anybody letting that beard into bed even once, let alone again.
“But, Marion,” they heard the beard protesting, “hang it all, I was merely having a bit of a joke with Topper.”
“Ha! Ha!” laughed the clothes, so viciously that several persons present turned quite faint, especially when they saw the roll of francs being shaken in the air. “You’ll know better next time than to play jokes with my money and my man.”
Her man turned, and after mumbling an apology to the old gentleman, hurried away. The old gentleman followed his example, vowing to himself that in future, if he ever needed to scratch, he would make no effort to conceal his intentions. He would go even further than that. He would publicly announce them, so that there would be no possibility of mistake.
When Mr. Topper entered his room a few minutes later he was surprised and not especially delighted to be greeted by a burst of laughter. Marion, Mrs. Hart, and the Colonel, in the best of spirits, were seated round a bucket from which protruded the neck of a huge bottle. No longer content with quarts, they were now ordering magnums.
“What the hell,” began Topper, “was the meaning of that shameful brawl? Haven’t you any better sense — —”
But Topper never finished his sentence. Guiltily his three friends faded out. Only the occasional movement of a glass gave witness to the fact that they were there at all.
“Oh, all right,” he declared at last, getting no kick from scolding at space. “We’ll say no more about it. If you all are so downright low that you can forgive and condone deliberate theft and doublecrossing, I see no reason why I should complain. It would be useless.”
Topper had spoken the truth. Marion Kerby’s anger against the enterprising Colonel had quickly evaporated. He had offered her a bottle of wine, and when Mrs. Hart’s back was turned, slipped her a thousand francs. As the wine was charged to Topper and the francs had been detached in the scuffle from Marion’s own roll the Colonel felt he could well afford this amicable gesture. Furthermore, Marion was so lost to honesty herself that she appreciated rather than deplored the Colonel’s efforts to provide as handsomely for himself as possible. That he had failed so lamentably only added piquancy to the situation.
At Topper’s hopeless words the three of them agreeably appeared once more, the Colonel, with his unfailing courtesy, providing Mr. Topper with a glass of wine. Topper polished it off with an absent-minded flip, then sank wearily to the side of the bed.
“I feel as if I’d lived all of my life in Monaco,” he remarked, “so many things have happened.”
“Well, nothing more is going to happen now,” Marion Kerby assured him comfortingly. “We’re going to have a nice normal time. First you’re going to buy us a bottle of wine, and then we’re all going out and peer at a lot of silly-looking fish.”
“Can’t I go alone?” asked Topper wistfully. “I really would like to get a good look at all those fish and things.”
Cries of horror and incredulity escaped the lips of his companions.
“What!” exclaimed Marion. “We could never hear of such a thing. Who can tell what terrible things might happen to you alone?”
“I’d like to know what hasn’t happened to me already?” asked Mr. Topper hopelessly.
“There’s lots left unhappened,” was Marion Kerby’s reply.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Looking at a Lot of Fish
MR. TOPPER NEVER did get a good look at all those fish and things. However, he did manage to look at some fish, and that was more than enough.
On the way to look at these fish, the Colonel insisted on a momentary interlude at a pleasantly situated sidewalk café overlooking the harbor of Monaco. It was a stage setting valued at many millions of dollars, represented chiefly by yachts and the money expended on their upkeep. It was a heady sort of paradise in which the most expensive things seemed attainable in the smiling presence of the Goddess of Chance. Mr. Topper had a feeling that beneath it all something was being held in check — concealed from the eyes of the spectators. At first he had suspected something straining, desperate, and tragic, but as he sat there and looked about him he decided that the principal quality lying beneath the surface gaiety of Monaco was one of utter and abject boredom. He even went so far as to attribute the many suicides induced by the place simply and solely to that — insufferable ennui. People did not kill themselves because they had lost all their money, but merely because they were so tired of Monaco they did not have the strength to leave it any other way.
“I don’t know why I ever yielded to your entreaties,” declared Marion, squinting thoughtfully at him through the ice in her glass. “You’re such an old frump, Aunt Cosmo. And I don’t know why we ever came to this dump, either. If you took away those lovely mountains behind us and sank all those yachts out there, this town would be just a glorified Atlantic City, and the dear God knows, nothing could be worse than that.”
“Merely the difference between an old hooker in cotton tights and one in silk,” replied Mr. Topper. “And please, Marion, don’t do those things to your face. The passers-by will think you’re a half-wit or something. Furthermore, the only entreating I did was to entreat you to get out of my bed.”
“I must have missed my direction,” was Marion’s calm retort, “or got the signals mixed. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Here we are.”
“And Monaco always gives me a feeling of unrest,” said Colonel Scott. “I was trying to explain it to Mrs. Hart, but the poor thing can’t understand. She likes it here because there are so many things to buy — so many useless, expensive things. As for myself, I’d feel more at home either in an old-time brothel or the cloister of a monastery, if you can get what I’m driving at.”
“I’m sure, Colonel, you’d do equally well in either setting,” Mr. Topper replied politely.
“He’d be more at home not in the cloister,” Mrs. Hart contributed in a bored voice.
“Monaco’s glamour fails to glam,” continued Marion. “It’s like a reformed prostitute looking at a peepshow through smoked glasses. When the exploitation of vice becomes perfected — all smooth and polished and refined — I begin to lose interest in vice itself. Of course, that doesn’t go where you are concerned, Topper, my stout fellow.”
“Well, you might as well lose interest in that, too,” said Mr. Topper. “I’m going to look at a lot of fish.”
More drinks followed, and more time was wasted, if such a thing is possible as wasting time at a sidewalk café. One by one Mr. Topper’s companions drifted away from the table. After that he either forgot all about them or they forgot all about him. It came to the same thing. Topper found himself alone. It was the psychological moment to look at a lot of fish. He did not give one snap of his fingers for his friends. To prove this he tried to snap his fingers. No sound came. That did not matter either. Probably very important persons were unable to snap their fingers. He called the waiter and endeavored to show him how he, Topper, could not snap his fingers. As luck would have it, this time they snapped smartly. Nodding his head moodily, he left the place and hailed a cruising Victoria.
“Fish,” he muttered tersely but inclusively to the driver. “Chez poisson.”
“M’sieu,” inquired the driver, “is it that you would buy of fish, or do you refer to some particular fish, perhaps?”
Mr. Topper thought this over.
“I do not know any particular fish,” he replied, somewhat sadly, “nor do I want to buy any fish. Just fish is all I ask. Let me see some of them.”
The driver shrugged, as French drivers will. He gazed patiently over the harbor, and prepared himself to wait until this inebriated American had settled in his own mind just what he wanted to do about fish. Mr. Topper was seized with the fear that between them he and the driver might make a mess of this business and that in the end he would see no fish at all. In spite of his mental agitation all he could say when he stepped into the Victoria and next addressed the driver was merely, “Fish.”
The driver shrugged again and drove Mr. Topper off to the fish market. Here he turned in his seat and looked inquiringly at Topper’s face to see his reactions to these fish. Utter hopelessness was registered on Mr. Topper’s face. He shook his head and wiggled his hands in a fashion which to him was eloquently fishlike.
“Not dead fish,” he told the driver reproachfully. “I do not desire to look upon the remains of a lot of dead fish. Behold, man, I want fish that go vite.”
Mr. Topper’s hands darted out at the driver, who ducked just in time. It looked very much as if the man in the Victoria were attempting to hypnotize the man on the box. The driver alighted and held an animated conversation with a group of prospective fish eaters. Much argument and even more scrutinizing. Tolerantly amused glances were directed at Mr. Topper. He hated all this exceedingly. Presently a gendarme approached and looked inside Topper’s passport as if hoping to find some fish concealed between its pages. Then, after a few hurried words to the driver, he strolled away, leaving Topper wistfully gazing after him. Thereupon the driver returned to his place of duty and smiled reassuringly at Mr. Topper.
“M’sieu,” he cried, “we march! It is that I know now. You want to see some fish. We go.”
Topper smiled back feebly.
“I don’t know whether I do or not,” he replied. “I grow more than a little fatigued with fish.”
He sighed and leaned back in the carriage. This was like everything else in a foreign land. One had to work so hard to get any place that one was too tired and upset to enjoy it when one got there. Sightseeing was a demeaning occupation. He would abandon fish.
On his way back to the hotel he stopped at a sidewalk café to refresh himself and brace his nerves. Here he sat looking at the harbor and wondering what all those tourists debarking from an ocean liner were going to do with their time, money, and expectations. He hoped they would never see a fish wearing a blue-black beard. For a while they were going to have a pretty confused and anxious time of it, he decided. Preoccupations with details would make them forget they were in Europe at all. Luggage would vanish, husbands get drunk, children lost, hotels be misunderstood, food suspected, and the customs of the country severely criticized, before they would settle down to the fact that they were not having a particularly good time, but that, after all, they really were abroad, which was more than their neighbors at home could say. There was a kick in that, at any rate. Then there would always be the solace of picture postcards. Nothing like those things to get one back to good solid ground. After one had sent a flock of these garish missives home one felt as if one were really beginning to get to know the country a bit. They were the lowest common denominator of foreign travel. So thought Mr. Topper over his several drinks. He began to feel sorry for fish and tourists alike. His sympathy even embraced his missing companions, including the rump of Oscar, or his head. They were so bad, the lot of them — such terrible companions. Marion probably needed a dress. He himself needed evening clothes. He would arise now and purchase things with a large hand. If he bought enough garments, some of them might fit somebody.
When Topper eventually returned to his hotel, several attendants followed his progress bearing packages in their arms. He had bought enough clothing to costume a small musical comedy. He bathed, shaved, drank a bottle of cool wine, then sent for a valet. When the man arrived Topper considered him in silence.
“Do you speak English?” he asked at last.
“But, yes, m’sieu,” answered the man. “Of a perfection.”
“That would be too good for me,” replied Topper. “I wouldn’t understand you. Just get some of these clothes on my body, and we’ll call it square. Hand me that glass first. I’m mentally and physically exhausted. Are you ever that way?”
“After arranging some of my gentlemen for their evenings,” replied the valet, “I am frequently unable to enjoy those of my own.”
“I can well understand that,” said Mr. Topper, “after looking at some of the nervous wrecks littering up this coastline.”
“I do not understand why they come here,” went on the valet, deftly flicking Topper’s legs into a pair of trousers. “Each year I see them older and wearier and their women younger and fresher. Money can make much of life, m’sieu, but there comes a time when even the youngest of mistresses cannot renew youth itself.”
“I dare say you’re right,” said Topper somewhat sadly, catching sight of his own face in the mirror. “There comes a time, doesn’t there, my friend?”
“Like a thief in the night,” replied the valet.
“Well, thank God, we have a few more nights left,” was Mr. Topper’s answer to this.
In a none too festive frame of mind, Mr. Topper dined alone that night. In spite of the simple dignity of the meal he had to confess he missed his friends. In their rooms were the various presents he had bought them. He wished they had been there to receive them. It would have been nice to see them open the packages. Topper’s mind was essentially simple. Unexpectedly his thoughts were interrupted.
“Listen to me, you,” came a voice, pitched in a low, furious key. “I’m not dining with you tonight. I doubt if I ever eat again. You’ve actually sickened me, you have. How much money did you spend for all those things upstairs? Don’t lie, mind.”
“Not much, Marion. Only several thousand francs. Why?”
“Not much,” gasped the voice. “Several thousand francs. Oh, God, do You hear this man? All of that money wasted when we could have stolen these things without the loss of a franc. It’s a crime before Heaven.”
“But, my dear,” protested Topper, “would not that have been stealing and isn’t stealing a crime?”
“No, you ninny, that would not have been stealing and stealing isn’t a crime when you steal from thieves.”
“There’s something in that,” propitiated Topper.
“Bet your boots there is,” said Marion. “And even if there wasn’t, do you want to know what we’re going to do?”
“I’d rather not,” replied Mr. Topper. “Your voice doesn’t sound any too agreeable.”
“I’ve made a list of all those shops that robbed you,” Marion went on. “The three of us are going right back and get ours, good and plenty.”
“Don’t do that,” protested Topper. “I don’t want the money.”
“Then we’ll keep it ourselves just as we had intended to do all the time.”
“I thought you might like the things,” he mumbled. “Some of them, at any rate. Aren’t any of them any good?”
Suddenly he felt two lips brush lightly across his wrist. Topper was so startled, his fork clattered against his plate.
“Thanks for that flame-colored gown,” a voice murmured in his ear. “I’ll try to pour myself into it, but with you around I can’t tell from one minute to the next how long I’ll stay poured. See you later.”
Much to Mr. Topper’s embarrassment, his head was jerked back at an awkward angle and his mouth was resoundingly kissed.
“Oh! I could tear you to pieces,” a woman’s voice exclaimed.
“You almost have,” he muttered.
When Marion had left, the man she could have torn to pieces kept his eyes fixed on his plate. He strongly suspected that the waiter, who was, in truth, looking at him with a puzzled expression, was thinking him slightly daft. Topper wondered how he could explain to the man in French that occasionally he talked to himself in English just to keep from forgetting his native tongue. Topper abandoned the idea. It was altogether too involved. As he made his way through his solitary repast he thought about Marion Kerby. He might just as well be married to her the way she went on about things. And he was seldom comfortable with her, yet never quite himself without her. Both ways, she was a lot of trouble. Affection was the thief of freedom. Love lowered a man’s morale.
His dinner finished, Topper took a cab to the Casino, where he strolled from room to room, wondering how so many people could lose so much money and still retain their reason. Perhaps they were mad already. That was why they were there.
Finding a vacant place at a table, he sat down. For the next fifteen minutes he made mildly inquiring bets, until his modest stack of chips had been unemotionally collected by an apparently self-refrigerating croupier.
It was at this moment that Mr. Topper noticed for the first time that a gentleman on his right seemed to be consumed with a timid desire to make him a little present. A stack of chips from the man’s pile was unobtrusively edging its way along the table. With increasing annoyance Mr. Topper watched the chips furtively slide in his direction and take up a position in front of him.
