The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  Yolanda’s curiosity was aroused more than ever when she saw that Jolly John had got his White Paper Wand. This “wand,” which appeared to be a short cane made of sections of tightly rolled white paper, was the one possession which John How guarded and treasured above anything.

  Now he was unwrapping a strip of the gleaming white paper from one end of it. In appearance the wand remained unchanged.

  “Scissors?” Yolanda volunteered.

  He tore off a six-inch sheet, set the White Paper Wand aside, and took the scissors. They flashed in his clever hands, scraps of paper fell to the porch floor, a simple little paper doll took form within his fingers.

  “To test this man,” said John How in an undertone, “to see if him trustworthy.”

  He gave the gleaming paper doll a flip over the porch rail. It floated down to the driveway.

  The handbill man came along presently, trudging back toward town. The gleaming white paper doll caught his eye. With an attitude of curiosity he bent to pick it up.

  At his touch it exploded in his hands.

  From the porch rail Yolanda saw it happen. Jolly John jerked her back so that she would not be noticed, though she could still see the handbill man. But she saw the flash of yellow fire, the wisp of brown smoke. In that flash the little white paper doll was gone.

  “Fire not hurt him,” John How whispered. “Only ploove him not trustworthy. Must remember. Tall man. Blond hair. Much muscle . . .”

  Yolanda found herself less concerned with Jolly John’s description than with the handbill man’s frightened, puzzled manner. He rubbed his hands and looked about with an injured expression as if wondering why he’d been made the victim of some chemist’s prank. Then he shrugged and strode on briskly toward town.

  Yolanda wanted to go to the show.

  Of all the persons who lived in Yolanda’s castle-like mansion on Rocky Hill Drive—mostly crabbed relatives and sleepy servants—only John How, the Chinese cook, took any interest in her.

  She begged him to take her.

  “If handbill man not trustworthy,” said Jolly John, “how untrustworthy must Siamese hypnotist be.”

  “You’re funny, Jolly John,” Yolanda retorted. “Anyone who touches your magic papers would make them explode.”

  John How shook his head. He marched her back to the rear porch and had her pick up the scraps that had fallen to the floor.

  Her fingers touched them hesitantly. There was no flash of fire. She simply gathered them up and dropped them in the wastebasket.

  “See, you trustworthy,” Jolly John smiled. “Now, if you want to go to show, I take you. If you wise, you stay, I give you show right here.”

  And so it happened that Yolanda spent the afternoon listening to John How’s story, and failed to hear the ring of the telephone when her friend Katherine Knight tried to call her to make a date for the hypnotist’s show.

  CHAPTER II

  The Tragedy of the Chiams

  In his broken way, Jolly John How did his best to lead Yolanda into an appreciation of the weird and bloody history of his people, whom he called the Chiams.

  “All through second world war, I live in cave to watch treasure,” said John, and the jolly lines of his withered brown face grew deep with pain. “I shoot people.”

  “You—?”

  “I guard the cave. Toward last of war I hear much digging. Think treasure sure gone now. At last a hole appear in wall, big enough for arm to reach through. Then hand appear. Start to grab jewels. I shoot. Hand jerk back, then start to come again. I shoot again. Wait awhile. Many hours it come. Always I shoot close to fingers. Always hand give quick jerk. Finally go away.”

  “Was it a very valuable treasury, like a bank?”

  “Like all the banks.”

  The Chiams, Jolly John went on, had been bound together for hundreds of years by the existence of that treasury of gems and precious metals. They had built it up by industry and thrift, each adding to it when his fortunes permitted.

  But the joy of every year was the Chiam Day, when every one of the thousands of Chiams would come to the society’s headquarters, each to draw his annual prize from the treasury.

  “Would you draw a prize?” Yolanda asked.

  “Every year. Once got fine lump yellow gold. Once, ruby. Many fine prizes. Everybody same. Everybody happy.”

  “What did you do with all your prizes?”

  “When war come, all my jewels and gold taken by Japs. Now war all gone, many years gone. But happiness has not come back.”

  The Chiams, he explained, were struggling valiantly year after year to reorganize, and to recapture their old customs. But there were lots of troubles. Jap Imperialists were still trying to spread anarchy among the Chiams. Many people believed that the joys of Chiam Day would never come back. “Why not?”

  “Because treasure is still hidden.”

  “Then the Japs didn’t get it?”

  “No. Almost, not quite. But still trying.”

  “And it’s still hidden in that cave where you kept the hand jerking back?”

  Jolly John smiled faintly. “No . . . no . . . Not there any more. Maybe no one know where . . . No one but my White Paper Wand.”

  “Your Wand!”

  “Maybe it know.”

  “You mean that you know?”

  “Maybe I come to America so I don’t know.” John How leaned back in his chair. His almond eyes roved across the Chinese decorations along the walls. “Only the White Paper Wand—”

  “But you came over to take care of me. I remember. I was only seven when my parents died. And my father’s best friend, Harrison O’Connor, was supposed to take care of me. But he was tied up with business matters in the Orient. And I was to stay here. So Harrison O’Connor brought you over—he and his son—and a few weeks later they went back and left you here.”

  “Your memory very good,” said John How.

  “I remember it all because right away you taught me to make paper dolls and helped me make one of each person—yourself, and Mr. O’Connor, and his son—”

  “You still have?”

  “I have the one of you. Would you like to see it?”

  He ran to her room and returned with an old suitcase. She knew exactly where to look, among the pack of cut-out dolls, to find the old battered paper representation of John How.

  “And Mr. O’Connor?” Jolly John asked.

  “I buried it after he died. Out in the garden.”

  “And the son—Carter O’Connor?” Yolanda reflected. “I lent it to

  Katherine Knight and she lost it. That was ten years ago. Carter O’Connor was thirteen and we were only seven, but we both had fallen in love with him and quarreled about him. And finally I lent her the paper doll of him to make peace.”

  Yolanda laughed as these childish memories came back to her. But John How smiled dreamily. Perhaps his thoughts were thousands of miles away.

  She guessed that he may have come to America, not only to take care of her, but also to escape political dangers that threatened him in the land of the Chiams.

  She inquired on this point, and John How unfolded a fuller story of the underground activities along the Mandarin road. The Japanese Imperialists were carrying on their treacherous propaganda, trying to seize an economic stranglehold on the Chiams.

  “But time will soon be ripe,” Jolly John said, “when White Paper Wand will return to find treasure, and treasure will unite people.”

  “How soon will it be safe?”

  “When times are safe for honesty, times are safe for Chiams. From hundreds of years all Chiams are most honest.”

  All of this news left Yolanda fairly breathless. How strange that this quaint little old cook, the same Jolly John who had watched her cut out paper dolls for the past ten years, could be carrying such mighty secrets.

  Amusing, thought Yolanda, that he should give the White Paper Wand credit for bearing the secret. But if he preferred to talk in symbols she would do the same.


  “Aren’t you afraid the Wand will give away the secret?”

  “It would flash fire before it would yield to hands of untrustworthy.”

  “Or might it not forget where it left this priceless treasure?”

  “Does homing pigeon forget where to fly?” John How asked.

  “These wrappings of paper are wings of white pigeons.”

  “All right,” Yolanda laughed, thinking that the little old Chinese was making a game of mystifying her. “The paper wrappings are white pigeons and the pointed silver knob is a skyrocket. When the time comes I suppose such a Wand will shoot away and fly to the other side of the ocean.”

  “When the time comes—”

  An ungentle call from another room broke in upon their confidential talk. It was an aunt, one of the elderly relatives who had moved into the Rocky Hill mansion after the death of Yolanda’s parents.

  “Yolanda! Where on earth are you? Come answer the telephone, for heaven’s sake. Your friend Katherine’s been trying all afternoon—”

  Yolanda hurriedly gathered up her suitcase of cut-out dolls. In her haste she tore the head of the Jolly John doll.

  “Yolanda, are you coming or aren’t you!” the voice screeched impatiently.

  “Coming,” Yolanda called. Her eyes lifted to meet the gentle smile of Jolly John. “I’m so sorry. What made me do that?”

  “Never mind a little tear,” said Jolly John. “Old doll like old man, not much good any more.”

  She shook her head slowly, denying his words. “After what you’ve told me this afternoon, I knew that this doll is the most wonderful of all.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And if I can ever help you—you and your Chiams—in any way—”

  “Thanks some more. Now you must answer telephone.”

  Katherine Knight’s call was to learn whether Yolanda was going to the hypnotism show, as Katherine wanted to go with someone.

  Yolanda couldn’t think of going, now. But she couldn’t tell Katherine why, for fear of betraying John How’s confidences. She found herself in an awkward position as the telephone conversation proceeded. Katherine, usually unaggressive, was all eagerness to see the show.

  Yes, Yolanda would admit that she wanted to see it, too, even though she was afraid. . . . Afraid of what? Nothing in particular, except that she just didn’t trust hypnotists—that is, Siamese hypnotists. Anyway she wouldn’t go unless Jolly John would go along, and she knew he wouldn’t—“No, I don’t want to urge him. I’m sure he’d rather not. Please don’t coax. Well—just a moment.”

  Yolanda turned from the telephone to Jolly John.

  The little old Chinese nodded. “All right. Cannot resist two charming girls. Will go.”

  CHAPTER III

  The Charms of Tolozell

  At eight-thirty that evening Yolanda and her friend Katherine followed the little old Chinese down the aisle to a side seat near the front. The theater was crowded and full of the noise of chattering children and raucous youth. Among the latter there was a decided air of skepticism. These older boys and girls were assuring themselves that whatever might happen in this mysterious game of hypnotism, it was probably all done with mirrors, or similar trickery.

  “He won’t hypnotize me,” one pudgy red-haired lad blustered. “If he tries to get me up on the stage, I’ll hypnotize him.”

  These boasts stoutened the hearts of the most timid; and Yolanda wondered if even the grown-ups might not be whispering similar defenses among themselves.

  As for Yolanda and Katherine, the old Chinese had solemnly warned both of them not to allow themselves to be used as subjects.

  “Maybe this Tolozell someone I once knew, long time ago,” he had said.

  “Are you from Siam?” Katherine asked.

  “Once lived along Old Mandarin Road, between Siam and China. Many people pass. Maybe one of them this Tolozell.”

  Now the footlights blazed on, the crowd silenced into breathlessness, the curtain rose and the show was under way.

  Down from either side of a throne at the rear center of the stage came two husky young men who were obviously attendants. They were not prepossessing as to appearance, and they were dressed in gray street clothes and made up in a colorless fashion as if to attract as little attention as possible. If they were not American, at least they had none of the exotic look of a Siamese hypnotist. They took their stations near the wings, bowed, and became statues. Yolanda decided that one of them was the big blonde handbill man.

  All eyes focused on the figure who sat in the center of the throne: Tolozell himself.

  The throne did much to build him into a figure of power and brilliance. It was heavy with lush black velvet draperies, which swept upward from the floor toward some mysterious elevation back of the floodlights. The inner draperies were dull yellow velvet, and Tolozell’s hulking form stood out from this lighted background like a purple monument.

  Deep, mysterious, breath-taking purple—it dominated the whole stage. It shone from his jeweled headband, his flowing robe, the sharply creased trousers with the gold stripes on the sides, even his shoes.

  Yolanda thought his black, black hair was tinged with purple, too. The glistening locks hung to his shoulders and draped his cheeks and chin to inclose his coppery yellow face.

  It was an ugly face. Yolanda was studying the sullen eyes, the brutal, twisted mouth, when John How whispered to her.

  “Lookee, his left hand. I know this Tolozell. He is half Siamese, half Japanese. Many times came through gates of China, down Mandarin Road, with hypnotism exhibition. I know his hand.”

  “Maybe he knows you, too,” Katherine Knight suggested.

  Yolanda couldn’t see anything peculiar about the left hand at first. It was just the sort of square, solid looking hand one would expect of a man of such bulk and apparent strength. But soon she realized that he had a tic—a nervous clutching of the left hand, which repeated two or three times every minute.

  The hypnotist rose from his throne and slowly descended the steps to the carpeted stage floor. The people hushed until they could hear the quiet swish of his purple shoes. His eyelids half lowered, seemed to be looking at the whole audience at once, gathering everyone into their spell. Onlookers began to scrunch down in their seats as if to get out of sight.

  He came to the front of the stage, stopped, bowed ever so slightly, and said, in perfect English, “Ladies and gentlemen . . . How do you do.”

  It was a low voice, meant to sound as friendly as possible. It brought an audible response from the audience, a collective sigh and murmur that spelled the easing of tension.

  From that moment on the Siamese hypnotist had the house in the palm of his hands. He began talking casually, telling how his bus had come over various highways, most of them excellent, though there had been a detour in an adjoining state. He drew three or four maps from his pocket. Talking on, he opened the maps, and one of them slipped down over the footlights.

  An accommodating boy from the front row recovered it and handed it up to him. Tolozell rewarded the little fellow with some pieces of candy.

  Within five minutes Tolozell had six boys on the stage ready to be told what to do.

  The little old Chinese cook at Yolanda’s side whispered, “Velly clever fellow. Maybe soon he will have clandy for me.”

  “But you wouldn’t go up on the stage, would you?” Yolanda whispered.

  “Never can tell. Sometimes get strange impulses when in excited crowd.”

  With frequent hints from Jolly John How, Yolanda and Katherine tried to understand all that followed. Luckily the little old Chinese had known a little of the hypnotist’s art in times past.

  Yolanda knew that Jolly John always talked in understatement; and she soon gathered that he had had some mysterious contact with this very Tolozell before. When, where, or how, she could not be sure. But the twitch of that left hand brought back John How’s vivid story of guarding the Chiam treasure.

  “
I hope he doesn’t see you,” Yolanda whispered.

  “Most clever hypnotist not come for nothing,” said John How.

  The six boys were quick to fall under the hypnotist’s spell, which was scarcely a spell at all, it came over them so simply.

  The attendants brought chairs for all of them and they grinned and swaggered like young princes at the elegant treatment. Each boy promised that he would help the hypnotist, gladly carrying out any orders; and with that promise the foundation for the hypnotic demonstration was safely laid.

  The boys were told to relax in their chairs, and with the repeated words, “Relax, relax, reeelax,” the low humming voice of Tolozell became an invitation to sleep.

  The Siamese hypnotist took plenty of time, repeating the call, “Sleeeeep, sleeeeep, sleeeeep.”

  The boys began to nod.

  Suddenly the hypnotist changed his manner. In a sharp voice he said, “Try to sleep.[1] Keep trying. You can’t do it, because you promised to obey me. But try, try, try!”

  With this change of manner Tolozell apparently succeeded in putting the boys in the proper frame of mind to accept suggestions. For a moment later they were answering his beck and call.

  “Up here, please, young man. Your name? . . . Never mind, I’ll call you Bill. From now on your name is Bill, see? Now tell me, Bill, what’s your name?”

  “Bill.”

  “That’s right. Bill, do you see this calendar?”

  Tolozell pointed to thin air, but the boy nodded as if he saw something.

  “All right, Bill, you’d better get busy and tear the sheets off that calendar until you come to the present month.”

  Bill went to work tearing off invisible sheets. Another lad, who had been named Tom, helped pick them up off the floor and pile them together; a third boy lighted them with invisible matches; and a fourth warmed his hands over the fire that wasn’t there.

  While Tolozell and the boys carried on, the attendants came down into the crowd and accepted a few more volunteers to help with the performance. Four young men stepped up, and Tolozell promptly hypnotized them and told them they were excellent baseball players.