«You're durn tootin' I will,» said I, rising stiffly from my seat. The effect, in the shadowy alcove, was probably uncanny. The Captain gave a throbbing cry. He turned and fled for the door. My blood was up, however, and regardless of the pins and needles I pursued him, snatching a prize elephant's tusk as I ran. While yet he scrabbled at the latch I let him have it. He fell.
I felt Brynhild beside me, a true comrade. «Forgive me,» I said. «I have deceived you.»
«You have saved me. My hero!»
«But I'm not stuffed,» I murmured.
«At least,» said she, «you have more stuffing in you than that great beast.»
«He will need it now, Brynhild. Or the mountainous carcass will become offensive.»
«Yes, We'll call in Harringay.»
«Good old Harringay!»
«A clean kill, Squirrel mine! Great hunting!»
«Thank you.»
I put one foot on the mighty torso, then the other. Our lips were on a level.
«Brynhild! May I?»
«Yes.»
«Really?»
«Yes.»
It was a divine moment. We sank upon the skin of a giant panda. Bogey knocked in vain.
Next day, of course, we were married.
HALFWAY TO HELL
Louis Thurlow, having decided to take his own life, felt that at least he might take his own time also. He consulted his bank-book; there was a little over a hundred pounds left. «Very well,» said he. «I'll get out of this flat, which stinks, and spend a really delightful week at Mutton's. I'll taste all the little pleasures just once more, to say good-bye to them.»
He engaged his suite at Mutton's, where he kept the pageboys on the run. At one moment they had to rush round into Piccadilly to buy him chrysanthemums, in which to smell the oncoming autumn, which he would never see. Next they were sent to Soho to get him some French cigarettes, to put him in mind of a certain charming hotel which overlooked the Seine. He had also a little Manet sent round by the Neuilly Galleries —«To try living with,» he said, with the most whimsical smile. You may be sure he ate and drank the very best; just a bite of this and a glass of that, he had so many farewells to take.
On the last night of all he telephoned Celia, whose voice he felt inclined to hear once more. He did not speak, of course, though he thought of saying, «You should really not keep on repeating 'Hallo,' but say 'Goodbye.'» However, she had said that already, and he had been taught never to sacrifice good taste to a bad mot.
He hung up the receiver, and opened the drawer in which he had stored his various purchases of veronal tablets.
«It seems a great deal to get down,» he thought. «Everything is relative. I prided myself on not being one of those panic-stricken, crack-brained suicides who rush to burn out their guts with gulps of disinfectant; now it seems scarcely less civilized to end this pleasant week with twenty hard swallows and twenty sips of water. Still, life is like that. I'll take it easy.»
Accordingly he arranged his pillows very comfortably, congratulated himself on his pyjamas, and propped up a photograph against his bedside clock. «I have no appetite,» he said. «I force myself to eat as a duty to my friends. There is no bore like a despairing lover.» And with that he began to toy with this last, light, plain little meal.
The tablets were not long in taking effect. Our hero closed his eyes. He put on a smile such as a man of taste would wish to wear when found in the morning. He shut off that engine which drives us from one moment to the next, and prepared to glide into the valley of the shadow.
The glide was a long one. He anticipated no landing, and was the more surprised to learn that there is no such thing as nothing, while there is quite definitely such a thing as being dead in the most comfortable bedroom in all Mutton's Hotel.
«Here I am,» he said. «Dead! In Mutton's Hotel!»
The idea was novel enough to make him get out of bed at once. He noticed that his corpse remained there, and was glad to observe that the smile was still in place, and looked extremely well.
He strolled across to the mirror to see if his present face was capable of an equally subtle expression, but when he came to look in he saw nothing at all. Nevertheless he obviously had arms and legs, and he felt that he could still do his old trick with his eyebrows. From this he assumed that he was much the same, only different.
«I am just invisible,» he said, «and in that there are certain advantages.»
He decided to go out at once, in order to have a bit of fun. He went down the stairs, followed a departing guest through the revolving door, and in two minutes he was walking down Cork Street. It appeared to be just after midnight; there was a bobby, a taxi or two, and a few ladies, none of whom took any notice of him at all.
He had not gone twenty yards, however, and was, as a matter of fact, just passing his tailor's, when a lean dark figure detached itself from the shadows which hung about the railings in front of the shop, and coming up close behind his elbow, said, «Damn and blast it, man, you have been a time!»
Louis was a little put out at finding himself not so invisible as he had thought. Still, he glanced at the stranger and saw that his eyes were as luminous as a cat's eyes, from which it was plain that he could see better than most.
«Do you mean,» said Louis, «that I've been keeping you waiting?»
«I've been hanging about here, freezing, for a week,» said the stranger peevishly.
Now it was only September, and the nights, though nippy, were not as cold as all that. Louis put two and two together. «Is it possible,» said he, «that you have been waiting to — to take me in charge, so to speak, on account of my recent suicide?»
«I have,» said the fiend. «You'll come quietly, I suppose.»
«My dear fellow,» said Louis, «I know you have your duty to do, and in any case I'm not the sort of person to make a scene in the street. I'm sorry if I've kept you hanging about in the cold, but the truth is I had no idea of your existence, so I hope there'll be no ill feeling.»
«I've got an ill feeling all right,» replied the other, grumpily. «I swear I've got the 'flu, curse it!» And with that he sneezed miserably. «The worst of it is,» he added, «we've got such a human of a way to go. I shall be fit for nothing for weeks.»
«Really, I can't bear to hear you sneeze like that,» cried our hero. «Have you ever tried the Quetch at the Rat Trap Club?»
«What Quetch?» asked the other, between sneezes.
«It tastes like liquid fire,» replied Louis. «I believe it's made from plum stones, though why I can't tell you. Possibly to cure your cold.»
«Liquid fire, eh?» observed the stranger, his eyes glowing like cigarette ends.
«Come and try it,» said Louis.
«I don't know,» said the other. «We're a week late through your fault. I don't see why we shouldn't be half an hour later through mine. I suppose there'll be trouble if they hear of it.»
Louis assured him that this last half-hour must be put down to his account also. «You caught the cold through my delay,» said he. «Therefore I am responsible for the time you take to cure it.» The fiend obviously believed this, which caused our hero to reflect that he must be a very simple fiend.
They set out for the Rat Trap Club. Passing through Piccadilly Circus, the fiend indicated the Underground, saying, «That's where I'm going to take you when we've had this drop of what-d'ye-call-it.»
«That does not take you to Hell,» said Louis, «but only to Barons Court. The mistake is pardonable.»
«No mistake,» replied the fiend. «Let's cross the road this way, and I'll show you what I mean.»
They went in, and travelled down the escalator, chatting very affably. It was fairly crowded with more ordinary passengers, but our friends attracted no attention whatever. There are a great many fiendish-looking individuals travelling on this subway, and others of a corpsy appearance. Besides, now I come to think of it, they were invisible.