Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

“Sir Inspector.”

“Ask Dr. Eszterhazy if he can see me.”

“My master is expecting the Sir Inspector. Please to go right up. I will tell the housekeeper that she may bring the coffee.”

The caller, who had expelled a slight sough of surprise at hearing the first sentence, displayed a slight smile at hearing the last. “Tell me, Lemkotch, does your master know absolutely everything?”

The stalwart, grizzle-haired servant paused a moment, then said, casually, “Oh yes, Sir Inspector. Everything.” He bowed again, and departed on his errand.

The caller trod heavily upon the runner of the staircase, of a dull, ox-blood color which seemed to glow in the gaslight. It had been pieced together from a once-priceless Ispahani carpet which had suffered damages during the Great Fire of ’93 and had been presented by an informal syndicate of the poorer Armenian merchants.

“This is for remembrance,” the spokesman said.

And Eszterhazy’s reply was, “It is better than rue.”

He said now, “You are welcome, Commissioner Lobats. You are not, as you know, invariably welcome, because sometimes you bring zigs when I am engaged in zags. But this business of the young Englishwoman, Polly Charms, promises to be of at least mild interest.”

Lobats blinked, gave a respectful glance at the signed cabinet photograph of The Presence in a silver frame, considered a few conversational openings, decided, finally, on a third.

“Your porter is well-trained in simple honesty,” he said. “He greets me simply as ‘Sir Inspector,’ with none of this ‘High-born Officer,’ with the slight sneer and the half-concealed leer which I get from the servants in some houses… I needn’t say which. Everyone knows that my father is a butcher, and that his father carried carcasses in the Ox Market.”

Eszterhazy waved a dismissal of the matter. “All servants are snobs,” he said. “Never mind. Remember what one of Bonaparte’s marshals said to that hangover from the Old Regime who told him, ‘You have no ancestors.’ ‘Look at me ,’ he said; ‘ I am an ancestor.’”

Lobats’s heavy lips slowly and silently repeated the phrase. He nodded, took a small notebook from his pocket, and wrote it down. Then his head snapped up. “Say… Doctor. Explain how you knew that I was coming about this Polly Charms…” His eyes rested upon another framed picture, but this one he recognized as a caricature by the famous newspaper artist, Klunck: a figure preternaturally tall and thin, with a nose like a needle and the brows bulging on either side like a house-frow’s market-bag. And he wondered, almost bitterly, how Eszterhazy could refrain from rage at having seen It — much less, framing it and displaying it for all to see.

“Well. Karrol-Francos,” Eszterhazy began, almost indulgently, “you see, I get my newspapers almost damp from the press. This means that the early afternoon edition of the Intelligencer got here at eleven o‘clock. Naturally, one does not look for a learned summary of the significance of the new price of silver in the Intelligencer , nor for an editorial about the Bulgarian troop movements. One does not read it to be enlightened, one reads it to be entertained. On hearing about this — this exhibition, shall we call it — upon the arrival of the Intelligencer I turned at once to the half-page of ’Tiny Topics’…you see …”

Lobats nodded. He, too, no matter what he had heard or had not heard, also turned at once to the half-page of “Tiny Topics,” as soon as he had the day’s copy of the Intelligencer to hand. And, even though he had already turned to it once, and already read it twice, he not only turned to see it in the copy which Eszterhazy now spread out over his desk, he took out his magnifying glass. (Lobats was too shy to wear spectacles, coming of a social class which looked upon them as a sign of weakness, or of swank.)

NEW INTERESTING LITTLE SCIENTIFIC EXHIBIT

We found our curiosity well repaid for having visited a little scientific exhibit at the old Goldbeaters’ Arcade where we saw the already famous Mis Polly Charms, the young Englishwoman who fell into a deep sleep over thirty years ago and has not since awakened. In fact, she slept entirely the raging cannot-shot of the Siege of Paris. The beautiful tragic Englishwoman, Mis Polly Charms, has not seemingly aged a day and in her condition of deep mesmerism she is said to be able to understand questions put to her by means of the principle of animal magnetism and to answer the questions put to her without waking up; also for a small sum in addition to the small price of admission she sings a deeply affecting song in French.

Lobats tapped the page with a thick and hairy finger. “I’ll tell you what, Doctor,” he said, gravely. “I believe that this bit here — where is it? — what rotten ink and type these cheap papers use nowadays…move my glass…ah, ah, oh here it is, this bit where it says, ‘In fact she slept entirely the raging cannot-shot of the Siege of Paris,’ I believe that is what is called a misprint and that it ought to read instead…oh…something like this: ‘In fact, she slept entirely through the raging cannon- shot of the Siege of Paris,’ or something like that. Eh?”

Eszterhazy looked up. His gray eyes sparkled. “Why, I believe that you are quite right, Karrol-Francos,” he said. “I am proud of you.”

Commissioner Lobats blushed, and he struggled with an embarrassed smile.

“So. Upon reading this, I looked to see the time, I calculated that the Intelligencer would reach you by twenty minutes after eleven, that you would have read the item by eleven-thirty, and that you would be here at ten minutes of twelve. Do you think it is a case of abduction, then?”

Lobats shook his head. “Why should I try to fool you? You know as well as I do, better than I do, that I’m a fool for all sorts of circus acts, sideshows, mountebanks, scientific exhibitions, odd bits, funny animals, house-hauntings, and all such—”

Eszterhazy snapped his fingers, twice. In a moment his manservant was at his side with hat, coat, gloves, and walking stick. No one else in the entire Triune Monarchy (or, for that matter, elsewhere) had for manservant one of the wild tribe of Mountain Tsiganes; no one else, in fact, would even have thought of it. How came those flashing eyes, that floating hair, that so-untamed countenance, that air of savage freedom, here and now to be silently holding out coat, hat, gloves, and walking stick? Who knows?

“Thank you, Herrekk,” said Eszterhazy. Only he and Herrekk knew.

“I will tell you, Commissioner,” Eszterhazy said, “ so am I! ”

“Well, Doctor,” the Commissioner said, “I thought as much.”

Chuckling together, they went down the stairs.

At least one of the goldbeaters was still at work in the old Arcade, as a rhythmical thumping sound testified, but for the most part they had moved on to the New. Some of the former workshops were used as warehouses of sundry sorts; here was a fortune-teller, slightly disguised as a couturière; there was a corn-doctor, with two plaster casts in his window showing BEFORE and AFTER, with BEFORE resembling the hoof of a gouty ogre, while AFTER would have been worthy of a prima ballerina. And finally, under a cheaply painted and already flaking wooden board reading The Miniature Hall of Science, was a sort of imitation theater entrance. Where the posters would have been were bills in Gothic, Avar, Glagolitic (Slovatchko), Romanou, and even — despite the old proverb, “There are a hundred ways of wasting paint, and the first way is to paint a sign in Vlox”—Vlox. The percentage of literacy among the Vloxfolk may not have been high, but someone was certainly taking no chances.