Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

“Yes. It burns up.”

  “But the coal doesn’t,” Melton said triumphantly. “Three days ago I put a couple of shovels of coal in the furnace. I’ve had a red bed of coals ever since. The house is warm. It shouldn’t be.” He reached over to an end table and scrabbled at some papers. “I even figured out how long it should have taken the coal to burn. The answer is four hours at the outside. Not three days.”

  “What about that automatic stoker idea?” Michaela asked, “Did you look?”

  “Well, I didn’t use an X ray. But I looked. Yeah. I’ll, show you.” He stood up, seized Michaela’s hand, and they headed for the cellar, by-passing the eccentric refrigerator.

  The cellar was capacious, cement-floored, and with six-by-six vertical supporting beams here and there. In one corner, by the coal bin, was the furnace, a bulging, dirty-white object with insulated pipes sticking out of it and wandering across the beams of the ceiling. All the draughts were shut, but the hydrostatic thermometer atop the boiler read 15b. Melton opened the metal door. The bed of coals glowed red; ripples of wavy heat-motion ran across its surface.

  “Where’s the stoker?” he asked. “Built in,” Michaela suggested hopelessly. “It’s a big furnace.”

  “The boiler’s like a jacket. That fattens it out.”

  “Why not let the fire go out and start another? Maybe—”

  “Let it go out? I can’t make it go out. I can’t even shake it through the grate.” He seized an iron crank and demonstrated. “The house is too hot, even with all the windows open. When snow sets in, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

  Michaela turned abruptly toward the stairs. Melton said, “What’s the matter?”

  “The doorbell.”

  “I didn’t hear it.”

  On the landing, Michaela paused to look down at her husband. “No,” she said reflectively, “one doesn’t. Hadn’t you noticed?” She made a despairing gesture and departed, leaving Melton to stare after her. Now that he thought of it, not once in the past three days had he heard the doorbell ring. Yet, he recalled now, there had been callers—mostly salesmen determined to sell the new tenants insulation, paint jobs, extermination equipment, and subscriptions to magazines. Somehow it had always been Michaela who had answered the door. Melton had taken it for granted that he had been in a part of the house where it wasn’t easy to hear the bell.

  He scowled at the furnace, his thin, saturnine face set in troubled lines. Very easy to say, “Ignore the matter.” But you couldn’t. Not even the single matter of the furnace. And there had been others. What was wrong with the house?

  Superficially nothing. Certainly nothing that a prospective tenant would notice on inspection. The title search had showed no flaws; an architect had approved Melton’s plan to buy the place. So they had moved in, grateful for a pied a terre after months of vain househunting. During the war, when economic masses were artificially migrated, rents soared and housing was a vital problem.

  But 16 Pinehurst Drive seemed exactly what they wanted. It wasn’t ultra-modern; it had a certain solid air of assurance about it. It had sat for fifteen years facing the Hudson Palisades across the river, like a prim dowager austerely gathering gray stone skirts about her. The foundation was stone; the upper stories—it was a two-story house—were wooden frame. And the layout of the rooms was ideal for their menage, Melton and Michaela and her brother Phil, who lived with them when he wasn’t off on a binge, as he was, presumably, at present.

  So they had moved in, the furniture had been installed, and the trouble began. Melton wished Phil were here. The guy, for all his erratic tendencies, had the ability to take things for granted; he exuded reassurance. But Phil hadn’t even seen the new house yet.

  He did not, therefore, know about the hall light, upstairs, which after a few experiments the Meltons had decided not to use at all. There was something about it. It altered complexions oddly, and had a quality of semifluorescence. Not quite that, but neither Michaela nor Melton liked to see each other in its illumination. The bulb wasn’t at fault; they’d tried several—new ones at that—and the quality of the light was unchanged.

  Now why in the devil—?

  Yesterday, when Melton had gone to the refrigerator for ice cubes, he had got a tremendous shock. Electrical disturbance of some sort, obviously; but to see an aurora borealis effect in your refrigerator is inevitably disturbing. And there were other things, shading into subtleties of sensation and emotion, that couldn’t be captured in words. The house wasn’t haunted. It was rather, Melton felt, simply too efficient—in an extremely off-beam way.

  The windows had been hard to open, extremely hard—for a while. Then, without any particular reason, they had all yielded as though greased, just in time to prevent the Meltons from dashing out of their overheated house to get a breath of fresh air. Melton decided to look up a friend, whom he’d met while handling the Instar Electric account. The man was a technician of some kind, and might be able to explain a few puzzling matters. Like the mice. If they were mice. There was something scuttling around at night, certainly too small to be a troll Michaela contended, and the traps Melton set caught nothing.

  “Not those mice,” Michaela had remarked. “They’re too smart. One morning you’re going down in the cellar and find a trap reset, with a tiny glass of whiskey as the bait. That’ll be the end of you.”

  Melton was not amused.

  A shrunken little man in baggy pants and a suede jacket appeared suddenly on the staircase landing and looked at Melton. Melton looked back in a baffled manner.

  “Furnace trouble, huh?” the man said. “Your wife said you couldn’t figure it out.”

  Michaela came into view. “This is Mr. Garr. I phoned him today.”

  Garr’s leathery face cracked into a grin. “Got my name in the phone book under about everything,” he said. “Wiring, plumbing, painting—plenty of folks get trouble that ain’t just in one line. Like your furnace.” He walked over to examine it. “Tinsmith—furnace man—electrician—you got to be all of ’em to get along. What’s the matter with the thing?”

  “The blower doesn’t work,” Melton said, avoiding Michaela’s accusing stare.

  Garr used a flashlight, traced wires, and did things with a screwdriver. Sparks scattered. He finally examined the hydrostat atop the boiler, lifted its cap, and clucked. “Leak,” he said. “See the steam coming out? All rusted. The wires are grounded.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “Gotta get another hydrostat. I’ll pick one up, Mr. . . . uh . . . Melton. You don’t need a blower much anyway. That all?”

  Michaela said firmly, “No, it isn’t. We put a few shovels of coal in that furnace three days ago, and it’s still going.”

  Garr didn’t seem impressed. He looked into the furnace, nodded in a pleased sort of way, and asked, “How many shovels didja say?”

  “Four,” Melton told him.

  “Ain’t enough,” Garr said helpfully. “You keep the coal a few inches lower than the door, see? That way, you get better heat.”

  “The house is too hot now. How do you make a furnace go out?”

  “She goes out. Just leave her alone. Or shake her down through the grate.”

  “She won’t shake. Try it yourself.”

  Garr tried it. “That’s right. Guess she’s fused. I’ll have to get some tools and new grates to fix that, maybe.” He straightened and peered around the cellar. “Darn nice house you got here, though. She’s well built. Good, solid beams.”

  “Mice,” Melton said.

  “Li’l field mice. You get ’em all around this part of the country. You keep a cat?”

  “No.”

  “Keep one,” Garr advised. “I got one, but she’s always having kittens. Next time she has a batch, I’ll save one for you. Yep, you got a nice house here. Anything else need fixing?”

  Melton refrained from mentioning that Garr hadn’t fixed anything yet. “You might look at the refrigerator,” he suggested. “It’s been giving some
trouble.”

  Upstairs, in the kitchen, the refrigerator looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth, which was true. The ice cubes were still red, but Garr no doubt decided the Meltons were freezing strawberry pop or cherry juice. He produced a can of oil and squirted some into the motor. “Don’t ever use heavy oil on this,” he observed. “She’ll gum up on you.” He indicated bottles of beer in the refrigerator. “Good brand, that. I always get it.”

  “Have a glass,” Melton said. He poured for the two of them. Michaela refused beer and went in search of the dregs of her cocktail. Melton perched himself on the edge of the sink, kicking his long legs idly, and watched the refrigerator balefully.

  “I was thinking there might be a short somewhere,” he suggested. “I . . . uh . . . got a bit of a shock when I opened the thing yesterday.”

  Garr set down his glass. “Yeah? Let’s see.” He unscrewed the metal wall plate and blinked at what he saw. “Funny. I never saw a hook-up like that.”

  Melton leaned forward. “That so?”

  “Hm-m-m. She’s D.C., but—somebody screwed this up for you, Mr. Melton.”

  “How?”

  “Amateur electricians,” Garr said scornfully. “What’s this wire doing here? And this thing—what is it, anyhow?”

  “Plastic?”

  “Part of a thermometer, maybe. I dunno. Hm-m-m.” Garr wagged his head, made sparks fly with his screwdriver, and jerked a little. “I better throw the switch.”

  “I’ll do it,” Melton said. He went down into the cellar, studied a few fuse boxes, and located the master switch. He threw it to the Off position, yelling the news up to Garr. After a moment Garr yelped. Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  Garr, rubbing his hand, appeared, “You didn’t throw the switch,” he said reproachfully.

  “Sure I did,” Melton said. “Look.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Well, maybe . . .” He fumbled around. Presently he unscrewed some of the fuses. “You go up in the kitchen and lemme know when the refrigerator stops working, I plugged it in again.”

  Melton obeyed. Michaela came to watch. “Find anything?” she asked.

  “I dunno,” Melton said, listening to the low purr of the motor. “The previous tenant probably rewired the house.”

  “Who was he?” Michaela murmured. “Einstein? Or a Martian?”

  “Probably a ham electrician who thought he knew more than he did.”

  Michaela stroked the sleek white enamel of the refrigerator. “Only two years old. It really hasn’t been weaned yet, Bob. The wrong kind of juice might upset its digestion.”

  “If I had the variety of food inside me that that icebox has in its innards, I’d be screaming for soda bicarb,” Melton said. “Hello, Mr. Garr. Fix it yet?”

  Garr’s withered brown face looked troubled. “She’s still running, huh?” he remarked. “Never stopped once?”

  “Not once.”

  “She ain’t on any of those fuses, then. I’d have to tear down the wall to trace the circuit.” He looked doubtfully at the wall socket.

  “Listen,” Melton said, “I’ve a pair of rubber gloves somewhere. Would they help.”

  “Yep,” Garr nodded. “I’ll just finish my beer while you get ’em. Goes flat in a hurry, don’t it?”

  “Mike,” Melton said, “replenish Mr. Garr’s glass.” He departed.

  “Yep,” Garr said. “Mm-m . . . thanks, Miz Melton. You got a nice place here. I was telling your husband. Well built.”

  “It’ll do, for a while. Later on I want to get a lot of new stuff in the kitchen. Those glass-fronted ovens and refrigerators—you know?”

  Garr made a face. “I seen the ads. Ain’t practical. Glass,” he said plaintively, “what’s the use of it? O.K. to let the sun in, maybe, but—nuts, if you’ll pardon the expression, Miz Melton.”

  “Sure,” Michaela said.

  “A glass front on the icebox. She’ll frost up. Same with the oven—steam. Might as well have good, solid metal. Visible this, visible that, all over the kitchen.” He pointed to a metal container on the floor. “Visible garbage. That’s where it’ll end.”

  “I could do without that.”

  “All that stuff’s O.K., I suppose, but the average guy won’t want it. I wouldn’t. I got my house fixed up the way I want. I’m handy around the place. Got my lamps rigged so they’ll slide up and down their poles. Fixed a cut-off on the phone so I won’t be bothered nights. A man monkeys around his house and fixes it up to suit himself.”

  “Here’re the gloves,” Melton said, coining back. “I think you can pretty much tell what a man’s like by seeing where he lives.”

  Garr nodded emphatically. “That’s right. A place fixed up like in one of them home furnishing magazines—it may be pretty, but you don’t dare set down in a chair without dusting your pants.”

  “Well,” Michaela said practically, “this house was empty when we moved in.”

  “First time I’ve been in it for ten years,” Garr said. “People named Courtney lived here then. Contractor, he was. The whole family went to California, and a guy named French moved in.”

  “What was he like,” Melton asked quickly.

  “I never seen him. He didn’t go out much.”

  “He never called you for repair work?”

  “Guess he did it himself,” Garr said, with a scornful look at the wall socket. “I’ll fix this.” He did, with swift accuracy. After he had screwed the plate back in and plugged the socket into place, he stood up with a grunt. “That’ll do it. Anything else?”

  “The bell.”

  “Won’t she work?”

  “Not exactly,” Melton said. “That is—”

  “Mind going out and trying her?” Garr suggested.

  “O.K.”

  Michaela watched Garr. After a few seconds Garr gave her a quick glance. “She’s all right,” he said. “No short there, anyway.”

  “You, uh, heard the bell?”

  “Sure I heard it. Why? Didn’t you?”

  “I . . . yes, I heard it,” Michaela said, though she had only felt it, “It works now, Bob,” she added, as Melton came back into the kitchen.

  “It does?”

  “Right as a trivet,” Garr said. “Well, I’ll be getting along, then.”

  “What do I owe you?” Melton asked.

  Garr named a low sum. Melton paid it, they had another beer, and Michaela said, “There’s the bell. Excuse me.”

  Melton finished his beer in a hurry. He hadn’t heard anything. Michaela reappeared, said, “It’s Phil. He wants a drink,” and left the cocktail shaker on the sink. Garr shook hands cordially and departed. Melton sighed, glanced up thoughtfully at the bell annunciator on the wall, and opened the icebox. A ghastly blue radiance hit him in the face. His left hand, outstretched to seize a tray of ice cubes, started to tremble. The skin and flesh was gone from it. He slammed the door, then looked at his hand again. It had returned to normal.

  Melton picked up a bottle, several glasses, and went into the living room, where Phil Barclay, his brother-in-law, was slouched casually on the couch. Phil was a small, slender man of forty, immaculately dressed as always, with a round, mild face that was slightly bloated at the moment. He cocked a blond eyebrow at Melton.

  “Straight, Bob?”

  “Straight,” Melton said grimly. “You’ll take it and like it.”

  “I always do,” Phil said. He poured whiskey down his throat, shivered, and relaxed. “Ah. A hair of the dog. Oooh.”

  “Hangover?” Michaela asked sympathetically.

  “Certainly,” Phil said with dignity, fumbling in a pocket. He handed a folded paper to his sister. “Here’s the check on ‘Nymphs Secret.’ Wesley had it for me down at the gallery Friday.”

  “Not bad at all,” Michaela said, examining the check.

  “Not bad for a week’s work on that canvas. Well, put it in the family fund. No more work for me for months at least. Another drink, please.”

  “You loo
k like you’ve had plenty,” Melton said.

  Phil gave him a long, probing stare. “You don’t look too good yourself,” he said. “In fact, you’re sweating.”

  “It’s hot.”

  “It’s too hot,” Phil agreed. “You’ll use up all the coal in a month at this rate. Or is it oil?”

  “Coal,” Melton said, “and we won’t use it up. Not in this house.”

  “I don’t like it either,” Phil said unexpectedly. Michaela put her palms together and leaned forward. “What is it, Phil?” she asked. He grinned. “Nothing. This is the first time I’ve been inside here, you know. No, I don’t want to look around. I . . . came up here day before yesterday.”

  “Weren’t we home? You had a key, though.”

  “I had a key,” Phil said staring at nothing, “but I decided not to use it. The bell wasn’t working, so I knocked on the door. Then—” Melton’s tongue circled his lips. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Phil said flatly. “Nothing at all.”

  “Then why—”

  “I was a little high. I was jittery. There weren’t any ghosts. There was—” Phil paused. “I really don’t know, Bob. But I decided to go back to town.”

  “Were you afraid?” Michaela asked.

  Phil shook his head. “That was odd. I wasn’t afraid, really. There was nothing to be afraid of. I simply decided against coming in.”

  “But why?” Michaela wanted to know. Her voice was high-pitched. “That’s no reason, and you know it.”

  Phil poured the last drops from the bottle, and held it up. “See this! It’s empty. But you know what’s been in it. You can smell the whiskey.”

  Melton slammed his fist down on his knee. “That’s it,” he snapped. “That so-and-so French! Who was he? And what did he do to this house? Hex it?”

  Quite suddenly there was a sound, a mournful, hooting cry with a curious timbre of hollow distance. Melton felt a second’s disorientation. Then he identified it: a tug, on the twilit river.

  “You’ve got it bad.” Phil said quietly. “If that can make you jump—”

  “So I need a sedative. I’ve been working hard.”

  “Well,” Phil said, getting up, “I guess I’ll look around the joint, after all. Stay put, Mickey. I’ll find my way. O.K., if you insist, Bob.”