Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 243
Still carrying the coffee, Fanny departed on her errand. The moment the maid was gone, Lorna approached the door behind which she had left a skeleton putting on her husband’s pajamas. There was no doubt about that. One could not be mistaken about a skeleton, no matter how much brandy one had consumed. Nevertheless something was radically wrong. Fanny had said that her husband was sleeping in there like a babe. Lorna found it difficult to conceive of either her husband or Señor Toledo sleeping like a babe. They might sleep like a beast, but certainly not like a babe.
Quietly she opened the door and looked in and caught her breath with a little gasp. There lay her husband sleeping, if not like a babe, at least like a log. Unconscious of the change that had taken place in his anatomy, Quintus Bland in the flesh lay inertly in his bed. In some mysterious way the potent fumes of the chemical mixture he had created had become dormant during his slumbers, with the result that Bland’s flesh had once more reappeared. He was no longer a fluoroscopic man.
Having satisfied herself that her husband had returned, Lorna closed the door and retreated to the guest room to think things over. She had seen no broken bones about the room, yet quite obviously something had happened to Señor Toledo. She wondered if her husband had chased him from the house.
While she was pondering over this mystery, Bland himself awoke and sprang from the bed. He had a confused but strong impression that he had turned to a skeleton. And even as he stood by the bed struggling to collect memories of the previous night, his body began to fade until he was once more a fleshless man. His pajamas slipped from him as he moved across the room to a long mirror. Mr. Bland did not care. What good were pajamas to a skeleton? What good was anything to a skeleton? A drink, Mr. Bland decided.
Fanny, having provided her mistress with aspirins, was moved to take another look at Mr. Bland. Accordingly she armed herself with fresh coffee and the paper, then quietly approached the door. This she opened and looked into the room. The next moment Lorna was summoned to the hall by a series of screams. Her own nerves were so jumpy she was screaming a little herself. The sight of Fanny served to calm her. The maid was in a bad way. Never had she looked less passionate or felt less so.
“What is it?” demanded Lorna.
“It’s Toledo,” gasped Fanny.
“Is he back again?” exclaimed Lorna.
“I don’t know about that,” said Fanny, “but there’s a skeleton in there and he’s looking at himself in the mirror.”
“Why shouldn’t he look at himself in the mirror, Fanny?” said Lorna. “Do try to be reasonable.”
Fanny laughed hysterically.
“Reasonable?” she retorted. “I don’t think it’s reasonable for a skeleton to look at himself in the mirror. If I was a skeleton I’d want to see as little of myself as possible.”
“Did you see anything of Mr. Bland?” asked Lorna.
“No, ma’am,” replied Fanny. “Perhaps Toledo, the skeleton, has destroyed him.”
“Without further words Lorna hurried to the door and rapped sharply upon it.
“Toledo,” she called, “where is my husband?”
“Search me,” was the indifferent reply.
“Oh,” breathed Fanny, “I’d hate to do that.”
“Toledo,” repeated Lorna, “tell me this instant what you have done with my husband.”
“He’s gone,” said Mr. Bland. “He took one good look at me and then he went away.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“He didn’t even say how-do-you-do,” complained Mr. Bland. “He just went away — fast.”
Exasperated, Lorna threw open the door. The skeleton of Bland stepped out into the hall. Once more curiosity overcame Fanny’s fear. She placed herself behind her mistress and awaited further developments.
“Don’t be afraid,” Lorna reassured her. “Señor Toledo can be most annoying, but he is quite harmless.”
“I wouldn’t touch a hair of your head,” Mr. Bland told Fanny, “except for amusement.”
“It wouldn’t amuse me,” said Fanny. “Think of something else to do.”
“I wonder,” said Lorna, “why my husband left the house without saying a word to anyone.”
“Perhaps,” Mr. Bland suggested, “he didn’t want to become involved. Look at his situation. He comes home late at night and finds a skeleton in his bed. Quite naturally he concluded that you had gone in for skeletons and brought one home with you to take his place. Knowing you as he does, he doesn’t put anything past you. From Phil Harkens to a skeleton is merely a — —”
“That will do, Toledo,” Lorna hastily broke in. “Go downstairs and get yourself a drink. Fanny will bring you some coffee. And do stop gossiping like an old woman.”
Fanny, who delighted in gossip, felt a little more favorably disposed toward this amazing freak of nature. Perhaps from him she might be able to learn all sorts of interesting things about the events of last night. With a queer, uneasy sensation at her back she allowed Señor Toledo to follow her downstairs. A short time later Lorna appeared dressed for the street. She found the skeleton of her husband sitting in an easy chair. He was contentedly sipping a highball.
“Hope you don’t mind my not dressing,” said Mr. Bland politely, laying aside the paper.
“Not at all,” replied Lorna, taking a drink herself. “I don’t believe in half-measures, Toledo. If you’re going to be a skeleton, I say whole hog or nothing. You either should be seen not at all or seen at your best, or rather, your worst. I’m going out to think things over. Make yourself at home.”
As Lorna left the house, Mr. Bland poured himself another drink. He continued to repeat this operation until finally he fell asleep in the chair, the newspaper abandoned on his lap.
Some time later Mr. Bland was awakened by a small, quickly smothered cry. Whether it was a cry of fear or appreciation, he was unable to decide, so confused was his state of mind. Fanny, the maid, was standing before him. Fear could hardly account for the expression on her face. Her eyes were large and wild-looking, and when Mr. Bland discovered he had regained his flesh his eyes looked as wild as Fanny’s.
“Why, Mr. Bland,” she said in a hushed voice, “you’re all naked.”
“Not quite,” replied Mr. Bland, taking a firm grip on the newspaper on his lap.
To his great consternation Fanny leaned over and scanned an advertisement.
“My,” she sighed wistfully, “they’re having such a lovely sale at Macy’s. Have you finished with the paper, Mr. Bland?”
CHAPTER SEVEN: THINGS GET NO BETTER
TAKING an even firmer grip on the newspaper, Quintus Bland looked defiantly at the passionate maid.
“Fanny,” he said, “I have long suspected there was little good in you. Now I know it. Clear out, you trull.”
“Half a moment,” said Fanny. “I want to take just one more look at those cute little scanties in that advertisement.”
“Wish I had a pair on myself,” muttered Mr. Bland.
Fanny laughed merrily.
“Wouldn’t you look funny?” she said, bending over the newspaper.
“Are you nearsighted?” asked Mr. Bland, pressing back against the chair. “Don’t come an inch nearer.”
It was in this somewhat unconventional position that Lorna Bland found the two of them when she quietly entered the room on her return from her walk. To make matters even worse, she had also heard Fanny’s merry laughter. Busy, the square dog, added to the complications. On seeing his naked master he emitted an excited yelp and, with one of his most springy pounces, landed heavily upon the newspaper. As the dog established contact Mr. Bland gave a grunt of dismay.
“Take him away,” he called to his wife. “Yank him off me. Can’t you see this fool dog is destroying my last shred of decency?”
“I don’t care if he claws it to pieces,” declared Lorna, sounding as if she meant every word she had said.
“But I do,” protested her husband. “I’m in a hell of a fix.”
“I suppose,” observed Lorna, “there’s no need to ask the meaning of this lovely little tableau I so thoughtlessly interrupted? Had I waited a bit longer it would have broken into frantic action, no doubt.”
“Honest, Mrs. Bland,” said the now no longer passionate maid, “it wasn’t that. It wasn’t what you mean.”
“What minds you women have,” said Bland in a despairing voice. “All the time evil.”
“Shut up, you senile wreck,” snapped Lorna, then added, turning on Fanny, “What was it, then, you trollop?”
“I was just taking a look at an advertisement,” was the trollop’s lame reply.
Lorna gave a little snort of disgust.
“It’s a sweet and pungent way to be looking at an advertisement,” she said. “And that’s about one of the stupidest lies I’ve ever been told.”
“I tell you,” Mr. Bland put in desperately, “we’ll all be sorry if Busy digs a hole through this paper.”
Lorna laughed mirthlessly.
“I should worry,” she flung at her husband. “It doesn’t matter to me if he claws all the skin off your bones.” She stopped abruptly, then turned to Fanny with a glittering eye. “And that reminds me,” she continued. “Where’s that skeleton got himself to? What’s become of Señor Toledo?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” the maid replied. “After you left he fell asleep over his drink. Later, when I came to ask if he wanted a cup of coffee, there sat Mr. Bland as naked as a babe.”
Lorna looked at Mr. Bland and shivered.
“So instead of withdrawing like a modest, self-respecting woman,” she said, “you just ambled up to the naked babe and began to read advertisements off him, laughing merrily the while.” She turned furiously on her squirming husband. “Speak up, you dirty dog,” she snapped.
“Then call off this other dirty dog,” Bland pleaded. “I can’t use my hands.”
Lorna collected Busy and stood looking down at her husband.
“Well?” she said. “Go on.”
“When I got to the station,” he began, “I suddenly came over sick, as they say, so I returned home and went directly to bed.”
“Then what did you come down here for?” asked Lorna.
“To get my pipe,” said Bland at random.
“You don’t smoke a pipe,” said Lorna.
“Eh!” exclaimed Mr. Bland. “What? I don’t smoke a pipe? By jove, so I don’t. Now isn’t that odd?”
“Yes,” answered Lorna. “It’s impossible. Did you see a sleeping skeleton in this chair?”
“Sure,” lied Quintus Bland. “He was just leaving. He sent you his regards. And I saw him when I first got up. That’s why I went away. I’m not so used to skeletons.” Here he laughed falsely. “Funny things, skeletons. This one called himself Toledo.”
“It’s strange,” observed Lorna, looking thoughtfully at her husband, “I can never get you two together. There’s some funny business going on.”
“You’re right, there is,” agreed Quintus Bland, taking the offensive. “The minute my back is turned, you pop a skeleton into my bed. What’s the meaning of that? What does this Spanish atrocity mean to you? Where did you dig him up?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” put in Fanny, following close on Mr. Bland’s lead. “Whoever heard of a real live skeleton? It’s against nature, say I.”
“Fanny,” said Lorna in a quiet voice, “the next time you want to seduce my husband I’ll appreciate it if you don’t pick out the most public room in the house.”
“Didn’t try to seduce your husband,” retorted Fanny. “I’ve got all my clothes on.”
“That isn’t saying much,” replied Lorna, “if you wear as little as I do.”
“But it’s your husband that’s naked,” protested the girl.
“He’s more thorough about it than you are, Fanny,” Lorna told her. “That’s the only difference. I suppose he chased you downstairs?”
“That’s just what he did,” lied Fanny. “He ran after me making noises.”
“What sort of noises?” asked Lorna.
“You know,” said Fanny significantly. “Those sort of noises.”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” replied Lorna. “You’d better explain.”
“Passionate whoops,” said Fanny. “You know, passionate whoops.”
Lorna looked mildly surprised.
“Mr. Bland has never whooped passionately at me,” she said. “I should think it would be most disconcerting.”
“She’s lying,” broke in Quintus Bland. “I was too sick to whoop passionately at anybody. Besides, I don’t know how to whoop that way. It never occurred to me to try.”
“I hope it never does,” said Lorna. “I’d forget what it was all about.”
“And along the hall he came bounding and pounding,” Fanny continued, elaborating her story. “His great arms were thrashing about. Oh, Mrs. Bland, it was terrible.”
“And when he had chased you downstairs,” said Lorna, “he promptly forgot what he was chasing you for, so he sat down and began quietly to read the paper. Is that it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Fanny. “He came over sick like and collapsed in that chair.”
“She’s a liar,” said Mr. Bland.
“Of course she is,” said Lorna. “You’re both liars.”
“Am I to sit here all day naked?” her husband demanded, “or will you send that Jezebel away and let me get upstairs? She’s feasted her eyes quite enough.”
“I’d like to know what on,” said Fanny, coolly surveying the naked man. “It would take some eye to pick a feast off you.”
“With this parting shot she flounced away to the door.
“Is that so?” Mr. Bland called after her. “Why don’t you tell your mistress you wanted me to give you the newspaper?”
The maid did not deign to answer as she sailed out of the room.
“Well,” said Lorna with a philosophical shrug, “what with lecherous husbands, disappearing skeletons, and numpholeptic maids it’s a charming little household.”
“You’d better include yourself in the picture,” Mr. Bland retorted. “You and your black underwear with the lace.”
Lorna studied him darkly.
“Get upstairs, you passionate whooper,” she said. “I’m through with you for good.”
And she too sailed from the room.
“Nice women,” Mr. Bland muttered moodily to space. “Charming creatures, the both of them.”
For a few minutes he sat brooding over the respective exits of Fanny, the passionate maid, and Lorna, his incensed wife. Then he did the best thing a man could do under the circumstances. He took a drink. Feeling somewhat better, he relaxed in his chair and considered the situation. Here he was back in the flesh again. But how long would he stay that way? Mr. Bland had lost all confidence in his body. It seemed to be in a constant state of flux. This made any consistent line of conduct well-nigh impossible. He was either coming or going. At one moment he might be Señor Toledo, an animated skeleton, at the next Quintus Bland, a naked photographer. In either form he was equally embarrassing to himself and disconcerting to others. One ray of hope — perhaps these rapid changes in his physical composition were due to a gradual diminishing of the potency of the fumes he had inhaled. Mr. Bland heartily hoped so. He took another drink. He got up and surveyed his body to make sure it was still there. It was. He went upstairs and covered it with garments. Then he returned to the bottle.
By the time he had finished with this he did not much care whether he was Quintus Bland in the flesh or Señor Toledo in the bone. He even found himself missing Toledo a little. A skeleton had its points, although Bland could not think of any good ones at the moment. Feeling more cheerfully disposed towards life than he had in the last twenty-four hours, he collected his hat and stick, then quietly left the house with Busy at his heels. Mr. Bland had decided to walk to the village for the purpose of getting a shave, his own hand being too unsteady to attempt that delicate operation. From an upper window Lorna watched the lank figure of her husband as he walked down the drive. What was he up to now? she wondered. Strange things were going on in the house. She strongly suspected Mr. Bland of being at the bottom of them. Stripped of flesh, he would look exactly like Señor Toledo, she decided, yet did not all skeletons look almost exactly alike? Lorna found herself sorely perplexed in mind as well as physically jaded. Accordingly she did the best thing a woman could do under the circumstances. She went downstairs, called for a fresh bottle, and took a drink. It did her a world of good.
In the meantime Quintus Bland had pursued his way to the village. He was now reclining in a barber’s chair with a steaming towel covering his face. Busy, having growled defiantly at a glittering boiler containing more steaming towels, had curled himself up in a corner with an eye cocked on this object lest it should attack him unawares.
The shop was owned by a small, dark, emotional Italian known as Tony — perhaps the only Tony in existence outside of a speakeasy. Mr. Bland had known him a long time. He was fond of Tony. And Tony was fond of Mr. Bland. Mr. Bland was a very fine gentleman. Tony would shave him well, as if his skin were made of the most perishable fabric. Little did the Italian realize how perishable Mr. Bland’s skin really was.
In the next chair the local mortician was having his cheerful face shaved. The local mortician’s name was Brown. In the lives of the families thereabouts Mr. Brown played rather an intimate part. He was literally with them from the cradle to the grave. When they were alive he sold them beds, and when they were ready for more permanent repose he provided them with coffins. Consequently he had come to regard births and deaths in the light of dollars and cents. An old gentleman with a bad cough or a young matron in an interesting condition were equally dear to his heart. Both were prospective clients. As a matter of business expediency Mr. Brown had developed two totally different personalities. The Brown who sold a crib was not at all the Brown who sold a coffin. The Brown of cribs and furniture was a jovial, amusingly insinuating man of the world. The Brown of coffins was as lachrymose and gently morbid as the most bereaved widow could wish to encounter.
