The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  The butterfly instincts cried out for gayety and sunshine. The human feelings revolted against this heinous crime of science.

  As soon as I could adjust myself to the vast proportions of the flower garden and laboratory walls that surrounded me, I marched forth for that memorable first look at myself. A basement window became my mirror.

  As a butterfly I was a giant. My wings were as large as any I ever saw on a bona fide butterfly. They were a deep red blending into purple close to my body.

  But I was far more than a butterfly. My body was as large and plump as the body of any moth. And yet it was human in form. I possessed well-formed arms and legs and a round little head with a doll-like face. But, curiously enough, in addition to the human tongue in my mouth I possessed a butterfly tongue—a long hollow tube which I could uncoil from under my nose whenever I wanted to suck the nectar out of flowers.

  I fed myself, tried my wings in a momentous first flight, learned that I could camouflage myself from the curious eyes of bona fide butterflies by hiding among brown leaves with my wings closed.

  Presently I heard a conversation from one of the laboratory rooms and I crept along the window sill to listen.

  “Please, Madeline,” the scientist was pleading. “Don’t be so despondent. You haven’t smiled for days. Cheer up, can’t you? We’ve got so many interesting experiments to do . . . But I haven’t a heart for anything when you’re so blue.”

  Bitterness swept through me. “Interesting experiments!” I thought. “Dastardly crimes—luring men to these laboratories—transforming them into insects—for what? For the fanciful pleasure of Mademoiselle Butterfly! All because she loves butterflies!”

  I was trembling to the fingertips—yes, and to the wing-tips! The mad desire for revenge was already chasing murder schemes through my tiny brain.

  I listened. Madeline was moaning softly. Was it possible that she suffered an attack of conscience after playing her part in one of these vicious experiments?

  I moved farther along the window sill, hoping to catch a glimpse of her face. Unfortunately a stack of books cut off my view. Slowly, cautiously I crawled through the open window into the room, down onto the table, past the heap of books.

  I stopped short and my wings automatically folded. I had come within sight of Dujardin. He sat within three feet of me, resting one arm on the edge of the table. Like everything about me he looked gigantic. But it was his expression that fascinated me. Strange, I thought, that a man can appear so innocent and yet be so cruel.

  “Do you know what’s going to happen today, Madeline?” he said in a low sympathetic voice. “You’re going to have another new synthetic butterfly . . . One that you can call Raymond Quin—”

  “Please, father, don’t say it! I can’t stand the thought!”

  “Calm yourself, child. You’re my partner, you know. My world is your world. My scientific discoveries are yours.”

  He said it with compassion, and yet to me it represented the bluntest admission of cruelty—an admission that Madeline was as guilty as he. If I had had any doubts on this score before, these words erased them. How my passions mocked me!

  But now Madeline spoke, in a chill hurt voice, and her words hurled me back into confusion.

  “Father,” she said, “you have always told me that. I’ve wanted to be your partner, to share all your knowledge. But you have kept secrets from me.” Dujardin looked down at the desk intently. I slipped back out of sight. Then through a crack among the books I could see Madeline’s beautiful face, the beads that hung at her throat, her trembling fingers. My hatred melted. It was not only her beauty, nor her tear-filled eyes; it was a magnetic radiance—something subtle that my butterfly instincts sensed—something that connoted friendliness.

  “Father,” she pursued. “I want to go on sharing your work, but you must answer my questions. I won’t be put off this time. The disappointment is too deep.”

  “Madeline, you’re pampering yourself. After all, he was the great Quinton. You’ve read about him. You know he has been a ruthless heart-crusher—”

  “Why did he fail the Test of Dust, father? He didn’t lack courage. Nor understanding. And he did love me. I know it! . . . Oh, why did he have to submit to the test in the first place?”

  I crept back to the corner of the stack of books to gaze at Dujardin. He looked old, and his kindly face was a study in turmoil. His eyes seemed to be boring holes through the table.

  “And why,” Madeline’s voice continued, “must these four walking statues always live with us, watching over our shoulders, listening to us talk, turning our home into a concentration camp? Why, father, won’t you ever tell me? I know there must be something dreadful that you’re hiding. If so, I want to share it.”

  “Madeline, my child, I think we are about through with the four Heffles. I’ve called the governor and asked him to arrange passages for them—”

  His eyes, lifting slowly, came to a stop—on me.

  I flinched, and my instincts told me to fly. Instead, I froze in my tracks. But it was vain to hope that he didn’t see me. His eyes widened, his lips parted. I could fairly feel his astonished gaze.

  He rose slowly, and a wondrous amazement lighted his face. If I had been in sympathy with him I might have seen a glorious victory in his expression.

  I ducked out of his sight, crept along the back of the books.

  Over the top of the stack his arm suddenly appeared—causing me to crouch with fear—and closed the window. I heard him moving about, closing all the windows and doors.

  “What’s the matter, father?” Madeline asked.

  “Matter, dear?” The exuberance in his voice was ill-suppressed. “I’ve just discovered—I mean, I’ve just recalled—”

  “Yes?”

  “I know now what became of that lost lantern—the one I used to mature the tadpoles.”

  “You’ve been worrying about that lantern for days,” said Madeline.

  “Gaston must have taken it to use for a flashlight the night that Raymond Quinton left us,” said Dujardin. “You’ll find it sitting on the floor near the end of the Test tunnel. Please go get it at once.”

  Madeline left. Dujardin closed the door after her. Then he reached to the wall for a butterfly net.

  And while his back was turned, I obeyed my instinct to take flight. I leaped up on a shelf and hid behind some bottles.

  “Quinton! . . . Raymond Quinton! . . . Where are you hiding? . . . Come out. I want to talk with you.”

  With his butterfly-net poised in his right hand, the scientist paced back and forth, his burning eyes combing the walls, the floor, the nooks and crannies among the scientific apparatus.

  “Quinton, wherever you are, I know you can hear me. Come out. I’ve got to talk with you. Everything depends upon it.”

  He mopped perspiration from his cheeks and the backs of his hands.

  “Quinton!”

  Desperation was in his voice. He laid down the net and began moving books, test tubes, bottles.

  “Oh, there you are! Thank goodness. I was afraid you’d got out before I closed the window. That would be dangerous. You’re the answer to a scientist’s dream, but you mustn’t fall into the wrong hands. Do you understand me?”

  Between two bottles I peered out at him defiantly, but I was trembling from toes to wing-tips.

  “Listen to me, Quentin,” he said, drawing closer. “The four Heffles mustn’t see you. And Governor Revel—”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Stay where you are,” Dujardin whispered.

  Did he think I was in danger of running off, with all the doors and windows closed?

  Well, I was. Hiding behind those bottles had given me ideas. My brain might be small but it was on fire with purpose of my own. A bottle of poison would be all I needed to wreak my revenge. But I mustn’t be captured.

  The scientist opened the door long enough to admit Gaston.

  “I’ve come to say goodbye,” said G
aston. He was dressed for travel, but he removed his hat, opened his coat, and started to open a window.

  “Please!” the scientist restrained him. “I’m keeping a certain temperature.”

  “Yes, and I’m running a temperature,” said Gaston. “This place is a bake-oven. But it’s all for science, I suppose.”

  “It’s all for science,” Dujardin smiled, breaking off to give me a stern look.

  Nobody seemed to know it, but I was yelling, “Gaston! Gaston!” at the top of my voice. What a fate! My shrill little notes must have been too high for the human eardrum to hear.

  Nevertheless, I meant for Gaston to see me. I flew down from the shelf—and Dujardin swung the net over me with a deft wrist. He tossed me—net and all—into a large drawer and closed it. It all happened so swiftly and easily that Gaston didn’t even see me. If he had he might have paid no attention, for he was preoccupied with his own affairs.

  “I may have judged you too harshly, Dujardin,” he was saying. “I’ll admit I was pretty much wrought up on the night that Quinton disappeared.”

  “You thought that I had sent him away?” said the scientist.

  “I thought worse things than that. You see, in the first place I couldn’t conceive of Quinton’s failing in any fair test. In the second place I was sure that if he did fail, he wouldn’t sneak off the island by cable. And I still don’t understand his doing it. But he “must have.”

  “What do you mean?” said the scientist.

  From the rattle I knew that Gaston must have been taken a newspaper from his pocket.

  “If this news story is correct,” said Gaston, “Raymond Quinton is now in a hospital, wounded from an air crash.”

  “Ugh?” the scientist gulped.

  “He flew a pursuit plane during the march on Paris. He must have reported within twenty-four hours after he left here. And you know how fast things have gone to pieces.”

  “M-m-m.”

  “So I’m heading back to the continent at once. He may be in bad shape. I want to see him.”

  “Yes—so do I.”

  “Would you come along?” Gaston asked eagerly.

  “Ugh—no—no. I couldn’t think of it. My experiments, you know. I’m in a dilemma—”

  “I thought so. You’re all needles and pins. But this damned room is so warm—” There were sounds of opening windows and Gaston concluded, “There, you’ll feel better.”

  Then a taxi honked and one of the Heffles trooped in to help Gaston off. The scientist made him promise he would return with a report on Raymond Quinton’s condition. Gaston promised and departed.

  The scientist opened the drawer, squinted his eyes at me dubiously. He got a magnifying glass and looked me over from all angles. He was troubled.

  “I wish I knew,” he said, “whether you can understand me.”

  While he was muttering over me, Madeline returned and the lantern with the amber beam was in her hand.

  “How did you know I’d find it there, father?” she asked.

  His back was turned to her and he began to wad the net around me.

  It was pointing straight at the lower end of that pink stone you turned into a butterfly hatchery,” she continued. “You don’t suppose the beam will have any effect on the new butterfly you promised me?”

  “Come here, Madeline,” said the scientist gravely. “I’ve something to show you.”

  Madeline bent over the net eagerly, then, seeing me, drew back in amazement. I trembled, uncertain whether the sight of me was repulsive. Her shocked expression turned into delight.

  “What a curious little fellow!”

  “That’s what the lantern did,” said the scientist.

  I flapped my wings and tried to get out.

  “Oh. Isn’t he the clever little thing. Why, he’s a regular little man.”

  The scientist caught his breath as if afraid to speak.

  “Father, how ever did you do it? I think it’s wonderful! Aren’t you pleased?”

  “Should I be?” he said.

  “But of course! It’s your proof, at last! If you’ve taken an ordinary butterfly chrysalis and made it develop—”

  “We won’t discuss the methods just yet, my dear. I don’t want you to tell anyone—”

  “Oh, we can’t keep it a secret! This is a discovery! You’ll be famous! When you tell your fellow scientists—”

  “I’ll tell them nothing,” said Dujardin stoutly. “Their respect is more important to me than anything else in the world. I’d die before I’d lose it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Madeline managed to take her eyes off me, turning them challengingly on her father. “Can there be anything disreputable about this? You’ve treated a butterfly chrysalis in a new way and created a new creature—and he’s cunning! Look at him. He’s going to be my friend right from the start.”

  “Madeline, listen to me,” Dujardin said severely. “In this house we never know when the butlers are eavesdropping. They mustn’t learn of this. Never. Do you hear?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the governor—you mustn’t tell him either.”

  “I won’t tell. There’s only one person in the world that I might tell.”

  “You mean—”

  “Raymond Quinton. He would understand, father. He understood everything in the Test-of-Dust. I know he did. I could never keep a secret from him. That’s how it is when you love someone deeply—”

  “So you loved him deeply.” Dujardin’s thoughts seemed to be a hundred miles away. He became silent. I knew better than Madeline the deep conflict that tormented him. Not until Gaston returned from the continent would he know whether I was Raymond Quinton or some freak of nature that had sprung from an unknown source.

  Madeline murmured dreamily that she was thinking of writing a letter to Raymond Quinton.

  Her father advised against it. The mail service was so badly disrupted from the march on Paris, he said, that a letter would never reach Quinton, wherever he might be.

  Disconsolate, Madeline decided to go to her butterflies; but instead, she began talking to me, lifting my net to admire my bright colors as I fluttered under her hands.

  “You’re a little wonder!” she said.

  Just then Z. Heffle stepped into the room.

  Madeline gathered my net close in her hands to keep me out of sight, and catching a cue from her father she thrust me into the big open drawer.

  “The governor to see you,” said Z. Heffle.

  Madeline went out, when Governor Revel marched in. The doors were closed. Evidently the governor desired a private conversation with Dujardin alone. I wondered if I had been forgotten. Fortunately, I hadn’t given away my advantage—that I could hear and understand every word that was said.

  “You’re a bit premature, aren’t you, Dujardin, trying to send your four butlers away?”

  “I’ve finished,” said Dujardin bitterly. “Yon can call off your watchdogs.”

  “You don’t have to be uncivil,” Governor Revel’s voice took on that satiny tone that I never trusted. “If you’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain, our beautiful friendship goes on untarnished. But I’ve a suspicion,” his words suddenly struck out like pointed icicles, “that not all of those ten murders have been committed.”

  “Governor Revel! What are you saying!” These words were so much camouflage, I was certain, for the scientist followed up with a tense whisper. “Some one might be listening.”

  “What’s the difference?” Governor Revel snapped. “The Heffles know. If your daughter gets in on it, that’s her own fault. All right. You remember our bargain—”

  “It wasn’t a bargain!” Dujardin’s words were like steel.

  “I put the Heffles here to make it a bargain,” the governor snarled. “Fortunately I had you squirming. You had made one little scientific mistake that involved a life and I knew it. And I knew you were in a sweat to make your fellow scientists think you had a clear record.”r />
  “So you had me,” said Dujardin coldly. “And you browbeat me into doing murders for you. Do we have to go into all that?”

  “It’s my theme song,” said the governor in gloating tones. “It’s my bedtime prayer. It’s my Sunday dessert. Ten political enemies on the continent! They had rubbed me in the dust, the damned aristocrats! They had tried to hold me down!”

  “And you became governor in spite of them.” The scientist seemed to be forecasting the coming line of a familiar phonograph record.

  “I—the hater of aristocrats—became this island’s governor in spite of them! But every one of the damned hyenas had a nephew or a son—and I didn’t forget.”

  “So you plotted revenge.”

  “Yes, and you were the man to help me. I learned about that natural pit of green water, somewhere in the tunnels under this hill—green water that would shrink and shrivel any creature—what was that noise?”

  The noise was my scrambling around inside the butterfly net. I was going to get out of this prison or break my wings trying. I had heard enough. If there was any way in the world to give this information to Madeline—to tell her that her father had been framed—

  “There’s something in that drawer,” the governor growled.

  “A mouse most likely. See here, Governor Revel, I’m terribly busy. If you’ve come to gloat about getting rid of your enemies without staining your hands—”

  “Have I got rid of them?” The governor shouted it so fiercely my antennae shook. “How do I know you’ve put these ten deals over? What evidence do I have?”

  “What evidence do you want?”

  The governor disregarded the question. He was raving, now. “How do I know that you haven’t hoaxed me, the same as you’ve hoaxed your daughter, telling her that her lovers escaped by the cable. How do I know but what they did escape by the cable?”

  This was too much for me. I gulped. The cold facts were coming thick and fast, now. Almost faster than I could swallow them. And yet I could readily believe, when I recalled Gaston’s doubts about the cable story, that this was simply a convenient falsehood for Madeline’s benefit. Yes, and for the benefit of all who might try to raise a fuss about the mysterious disappearance of ten men.