Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

The other night at a party I met my last love again. I don’t mean my latest; my last, I mean my final one. And he was as taking and as debonair as ever, but not to me anymore; a little older maybe, and we said the things you say, holding tall glasses in our hands to keep from feeling lonely, keep from feeling lost.

“Hello, Annie. How’ve you been?”

“Hello, Dwight. Where’ve you been keeping yourself lately?”

“I’ve been around. And you?”

“I’ve been around, too.”

And then when there wasn’t anything more to say, we moved on. In opposite directions.

It isn’t often that I see him anymore. But whenever I do, I still think of her. I wonder what really did become of her.

And just the other night, suddenly, for no reason at all, out of nowhere, the strangest thought entered my head for a moment...

But then I promptly dismissed it again, just as quickly as it had occurred to me, as being too fantastic, too utterly improbable. The people you know never do things like that; the people you read about may, but never the people you know.

The desk clerk received a call early that afternoon, asking if there was a “nice, quiet” room available for about six o’clock that evening. The call was evidently from a business office, for the caller was a young woman who, it developed, wished the intended reservation made in a man’s name, whether her employer or one of the firm’s clients she did not specify. Told there was a room available, she requested, “Well, will you please hold it for Mr. Edgar Danville Moody, for about six o’clock?” And twice more she reiterated her emphasis on the noiselessness. “It’s got to be quiet, though. Make sure it’s quiet. He mustn’t be disturbed while he’s in it.”

The desk man assured her with a touch of dryness, “We run a quiet hotel altogether.”

“Good,” she said warmly. “Because we don’t want him to be distracted. It’s important that he have complete privacy.”

“We can promise that,” said the desk clerk.

“Thank you,” said the young woman briskly.

“Thank you,” answered the desk man.

The designated registrant arrived considerably after six, but not late enough for the reservation to have been voided. He was young — if not under thirty in actuality, still well under it in appearance. He had tried to camouflage his youthful appearance by coaxing a very slim, sandy mustache out along his upper lip. It failed completely in its desired effect. It was like a make-believe mustache ochred on a child’s face.

He was a tall lean young man. His attire was eye-catching — it stopped just short of being theatrically flamboyant. Or, depending on the viewer’s own taste, just crossed the line. The night being chilly for this early in the season, he was enveloped in a coat of fuzzy sand-colored texture, known generically as camel’s-hair, with a belt gathered whiplash-tight around its middle. On the other hand, chilly or not, he had no hat whatever.

His necktie was patterned in regimental stripes, but they were perhaps the wrong regiments, selected from opposing armies. He carried a pipe clenched between his teeth, but with the bowl empty and turned down. A wide band of silver encircled the stem. His shoes were piebald affairs, with saddles of mahogany hue and the remainder almost yellow. They had no eyelets or laces, but were made like moccasins, to be thrust on the foot whole; a fringed leather tongue hung down on the outer side of each vamp.

He was liberally burdened with belongings, but none of these was a conventional, clothes-carrying piece of luggage. Under one arm he held tucked a large flat square, wrapped in brown paper, string-tied, and suggesting a picture-canvas. In that same hand he carried a large wrapped parcel, also brown-paper-bound; in the other a cased portable typewriter. From one pocket of the coat protruded rakishly a long oblong, once again brown-paper-wrapped.

Although he was alone, and not unduly noisy either in his movements or his speech, his arrival had about it an aura of flurry and to-do, as if something of vast consequence were taking place. This, of course, might have derived from the unsubdued nature of his clothing. In later life he was not going to be the kind of man who is ever retiring or inconspicuous.

He disencumbered himself of all his paraphernalia by dropping some onto the floor and some onto the desk top, and inquired, “Is there a room waiting for Edgar Danville Moody?”

“Yes, sir, there certainly is,” said the clerk cordially.

“Good and quiet, now?” he warned intently.

“You won’t hear a pin drop,” promised the clerk.

The guest signed the registration card with a flourish.

“Are you going to be with us long, Mr. Moody?” the clerk asked.

“It better not be too long,” was the enigmatic answer, “or I’m in trouble.”

“Take the gentleman up, Joe,” hosted the clerk, motioning to a bellboy.

Joe began collecting the articles one by one.

“Wait a minute, not Gertie!” he was suddenly instructed.

Joe looked around, first on one side, then on the other. There was no one else standing there. “Gertie?” he said blankly.

Young Mr. Moody picked up the portable typewriter, patted the lid affectionately. “This is Gertie,” he enlightened him. “I’m superstitious. I don’t let anyone but me carry her when we’re out on a job together.”

They entered the elevator together, Moody carrying Gertie.

Joe held his peace for the first two floors, but beyond that he was incapable of remaining silent. “I never heard of a typewriter called Gertie,” he remarked mildly, turning his head from the controls. “I’ve worn out six,” Moody proclaimed proudly. “Gertie’s my seventh.” He gave the lid a little love-pat. “I call them alphabetically. My first was Alice.”

Joe was vastly interested. “How could you wear out six, like that? Mr. Elliot’s had the same one in his office for years now, ever since I first came to work here, and he hasn’t wore his out yet.”

“Who’s he?” said Moody.

“The hotel accountant.”

“Aw-w-w,” said Moody with vast disdain. “No wonder. He just writes figures. I’m a writer .”

Joe was all but mesmerized. He’d liked the young fellow at sight, but now he was hypnotically fascinated. “Gee, are you a writer?” he said, almost breathlessly. “I always wanted to be a writer myself.”

Moody was too interested in his own being a writer to acknowledge the other’s wish to be one too.

“You write under your own name?” hinted Joe, unable to take his eyes off the new guest.

“Pretty much so.” He enlarged on the reply. “Dan Moody. Ever read me?”

Joe was too innately naive to prevaricate plausibly. He scratched the back of his head. “Let me see now,” he said. “I’m trying to think.”

Moody’s face dropped, almost into a sulk. However in a moment it had cleared again. “I guess you don’t get much time to read, anyway, on a job like this,” he explained to the satisfaction of the two of them.

“No, I don’t, but I’d sure like to read something of yours,” said Joe fervently. “Especially now that I know you.” He wrenched at the lever, and the car began to reverse. It had gone up three floors too high, so intense had been his absorption.

Joe showed him into Room 923 and disposed of his encumbrances. Then he lingered there, unable to tear himself away. Nor did this have anything to do with the delay in his receiving a tip; for once, and in complete sincerity, Joe had forgotten all about there being such a thing.