The Disappearing Dwarf

by James P. Blaylock

  ‘Been haberdashing long?’ the Professor asked in order to change the subject.

  ‘Long enough,’ Quimby said proudly. ‘I’ve got a bit of a reputation, actually.’

  ‘Do you?’ Bufo asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Quimby replied. ‘If there’s any special case, all up and down the Tweet, it’s “send ’em to Quimby.” That’s the word around here.’

  ‘Special case?’ Jonathan asked, envisioning a line of three-armed men filing into Quimby’s haberdashery.

  ‘Oh we get a few. I could tell you some stories. A man came in a week ago who was a case. Never seen anything like him. Tremendous fellow. Big around as I don’t know what. He came in the door sideways, but it didn’t make much difference. Sideways, frontwards, backwards – there wasn’t a lick of difference. I saw him coming in off the street and I shouted to my assistant, I says, “Bring in that extra bolt and about a gross of pins! The Pillar of Hyglea is coming in for a fit-up!” Pillar of Hyglea. That’s just what I said to him. And we needed that bolt, too, before we were through. It was a heck of a suit.’

  Gump and Bufo had lit up like lamps.

  ‘Big man, was he?’ Gump asked.

  ‘Didn’t I just say so?’

  ‘That’s right. So you did. My friend here does the most wonderful imitation of a fat man walking along a road. Not of your average fat man, of course, but of a really major fat man. Show him, Bufo.’

  Bufo gave Gump a look. ‘You do it so much better than I.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Gump said. ‘Not a bit of it. I’ve never seen anyone who could put on a really jolly fat man like you.’

  Bufo gave Gump another meaningful look, but he got up and did a creditable Squire imitation. Once at it, in fact, he seemed to sort of melt right into the part, and he went rotunding away across the floor, throwing in a few of the Squire’s odd mannerisms for extra effect.

  ‘My, he’s good,’ Quimby said. ‘That’s just the ticket! I’d swear you knew the man, if that were possible.’

  ‘Perhaps we do,’ Bufo said, leaving off and sitting down once again at the table. ‘Did he have a habit of making jokes out of things you’d say, things that weren’t really funny at all? Like you’d say, for example, “Looks like rain.” And he’d say something like, “Rain-brain-piggley-swain,” or some such thing and laugh like crazy. Like that was maybe the funniest thing he’d ever said?’

  ‘That’s your man!’ Quimby exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘That’s got to be him.’

  ‘And his head,’ Gump said. ‘Was it pointed a bit on top, so that it didn’t much matter whether he was wearing his pointy-cap or not?’

  ‘Exactly. I even made him a new cap, in fact, and discovered the most amazing thing. It didn’t make any difference what size I made. They all just rode a bit higher or lower on his head, that’s all. Fitting him with a suit was a challenge, but there was nothing to the hat. Come to think of it, the hat he wanted was just like yours.’ Quimby pointed at Bufo. ‘And he was just about your height too. Short fellow. Very short. You two come from the same part of the country?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bufo said.

  ‘No,’ Gump said.

  ‘That is, we might,’ said Bufo.

  And at the same instant, Gump said, ‘We used to.’

  ‘We might have used to,’ Bufo added weakly.

  Quimby looked as if he was thinking seriously of having another cup of Cap’n Binky’s blend. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know if he’s the one yet,’ Bufo said. ‘He may be anyone. And then again he mayn’t. Did he say what his name was?’

  ‘Yes,’ Quimby said. ‘Let me think. Brickie. Mickle. Smickle. Something like that. And he was a duke, I believe. Or a potentate of some sort.’

  ‘A squire?’ Gump asked.

  ‘That’s it! A squire,’ said Quimby.

  ‘Squire Myrkle, was it?’ Bufo asked.

  ‘Right again. And do you know what the weird thing was? He had the most amazing little round gold coins. They said “Linkman” on them, and they had a picture of a crazy looking bogger – might have been this fellow’s father – that said “King Soot” beneath it. They weren’t like any coins I’ve seen. Never heard of any King Soot either. But the coins were gold. There wasn’t any doubt about that. And you can’t argue with gold, as the saying goes. So you know this Myrkle?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Gump said. ‘He’s an old friend of the family. We aren’t looking for him or anything.’

  ‘Looking for him!’ Quimby said. ‘Don’t bite off more than you can chew! He’d be about as hard to find as the hippo at the duck farm.’

  ‘I say we’re not looking for him,’ Gump said.

  ‘Well I suppose,’ Quimby said. ‘If you find him, tell him Quimby the tailor sends his regards. He was a good customer. Finest suit I ever made. He wanted a “solid gold coat” he said when he came in. But I told him it would weigh about two hundred pounds so he gave up on it. Settled for Marston tweed. You can’t buy better tweed.’

  ‘Of course not,’ the Professor said.

  Jonathan nodded.

  ‘Well,’ Quimby said, ‘I feel better now. Tiptop. I’m going to my cabin and catch forty winks. It was nice to meet you, lads. Very nice indeed. Let me give you my card. When you’re in Landsend you might want a new suit of clothes.’ He gave each of them a copy of his business card. S. N. M. Quimby, Haberdasher was printed on it, and below the name was a picture of an animate suit of clothes walking along a road.

  ‘Very impressive card.’ The Professor tucked his away in his wallet.

  Gump and Bufo looked moderately proud. ‘We gave that lad a soaking, eh?’ Gump said.

  ‘That we did,’ Bufo confirmed. ‘Played on him like a fiddle Drew him out.’

  Gump smiled. ‘Wrung him out, I call it. He was pudding in our fingers.’

  ‘Modeling clay,’ Bufo said.

  ‘Chunk of soap,’ Gump added.

  ‘You did meet with a modicum of success,’ the Professor observed.

  ‘Two modicums,’ Jonathan finished up. ‘We know where the Squire was a week ago anyway. And there’s one thing we can count on. The Squire’s not the sort to be in any hurry. If he was in Landsend a week ago, he’s not far from there now.’

  ‘You’re right about that,’ said Gump. ‘We’ve traveled with the Squire more than once. He sets out at about noon, dawdles along for about a mile and a quarter, stopping along the way for lunch, and then he puts up for the night. That’s his way. He’s not your man when it’s speed you want.’

  ‘Good for us,’ Miles said. ‘But you’re overlooking the possibility that by now he’s not traveling alone. He might have bought that suit right off. Selznak may well have caught up to him since.’

  ‘That’s possible,’ Gump admitted. ‘When he disappeared he was wearing his silk pajamas and smoking jacket. He would have found a tailor right off. The Squire’s alert to the importance of correct clothes. Always has been. It’s the royalty in him. The blood.’

  ‘What all this means,’ Miles said, ‘is that anything might have happened in the week since. Anything at all.’

  ‘It might have,’ said Jonathan rationally. ‘And then again it might not have. There’s little we can do if it has, beyond sailing down to Landsend and having a look around.’

  ‘True enough,’ Miles said.

  ‘What time is it?’ Jonathan asked. ‘I’m about starved. It must be one o’clock by now.’

  ‘Ten past,’ Miles replied, examining his watch.

  ‘Where’s lunch then?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘There’s no lunch served on board today,’ the Professor told him. ‘The captain was telling me that we’re putting in at a village early this afternoon on the south shore. We’ll be there for a couple of hours. We can find a tavern.’

  About then the riverboat began to slow up. A bell clanged. Two sailors in dungarees and striped t-shirts ran past shouting, ‘Haul on the bowline!’ And Cap’n Binky hollered orders from the bridge. Clearly
they were putting into the shore.

  ‘Well, I’m for getting off this tub,’ Jonathan said, standing up. ‘I’m going to grab some stuff out of my cabin and be the first one down the plank.’

  ‘Me too!’ Gump shouted.

  ‘And me,’ said Bufo. ‘Let’s find us an apple pie and some ice cream.’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’ The Professor stood up to follow Jonathan and Ahab toward the door.

  Miles said that he would stay aboard and have another cup of Cap’n Binky’s blend. He was ‘studying it’ he said, but hadn’t come to any conclusions yet. He was fairly sure though that there was magic in it, that the process of brewing river-water coffee for thirteen years was bound to bring about a certain degree of enchantment, and that as a wizard, he was duty bound to investigate it.

  The Professor said that as a scientist he understood Miles’ interest. He would have the same interest, he said, if the effect of the coffee was due to scientific arcana of some sort. But science, he concluded, wouldn’t have much to do with a man’s mistaking a beanbag toad for a fish, so the whole mystery would have to be left in Miles’ hands.

  With that everyone except Miles pushed out and hurried to his cabin. The riverboat was moving slowly up a channel within a stone’s throw of the deep woods on the southern shore. A sailor hung over the side and dropped a knotted line into the river, shouting soundings up to Cap’n Binky on the bridge. Downriver about a hundred yards was a dismal looking little village with a single long pier thrusting out into the river. A half dozen lazy dogs lay about on the wooden slats of the pier, and two boys in straw hats fished off the end. One of them, as the riverboat drew up, pulled in a whacking great green river perch, a bug-eyed fish with scales the size of a person’s thumbnail. Everyone aboard the riverboat cheered for him, including Jonathan, the Professor, Bufo, and Gump, who were, by then, standing about waiting to go ashore.

  The boy held the fish aloft on the end of the line. Then he began struggling to remove the hook, but the fish, irritated at its condition, began to wiggle and bounce. Grabbing the thing by its enormous, splayed tail, the boy whacked it a half dozen times against a pier piling and put the whole issue to rest. ‘I got him!’ he shouted to the assembled passengers. ‘I took the fight right out of him!’

  Cap’n Binky tooted the riverboat horn a couple of times to show that the lad had the support of those on board. Then the boat hove in along the dock, the plank whacked down onto the boards, and three sailors dashed off and made the ship fast. Ten minutes later, the four found themselves pushing through a door on which hung a sign reading, remarkably enough, FAMOUS PIES – ICE CREAM.

  ‘This is the place!’ Jonathan said, seeing a waiter go past carrying a steaming pie that was about six inches deep. They lunched, finally, on pie and ice cream just like Bufo suggested, all of them having agreed that a more substantial meal could always be gotten later in the day.

  11

  An Infernal Device

  The night came early, and with it came the river fog. Jonathan and the Professor stood at the starboard rail, watching the dark south shore slide past in the dim distances. At first the ragged top of the forest was a black slash against the evening sky, but as the sun fell farther in the west, the sky and the shadowy forest blended into one amorphous darkness and, by seven o’clock, both sky and forest were obscured by the night and by the rising fog. A mournful horn moaned from the bridge every once in a while, and ghostly disembodied voices drifted down on the wet air to where Jonathan and the Professor stood. Now and then there sounded a returning moan as another boat splashed past somewhere out on the river.

  A clattering of footsteps came up behind them. Jonathan turned to see the cook, carrying two slop buckets and wearing a striped shirt, advancing toward him. He nodded, drew up to the rail, and pitched the slops into the river. One pail, Jonathan could see, had been filled entirely with wet coffee grounds. The cook set his empty pails on the deck and lit his pipe. He seemed inclined to talk.

  ‘Quite a fog,’ Jonathan observed.

  ‘Yep,’ the cook answered. ‘Comes up most every night. You get used to it after a while. Sort of get to like it. It quiets things down a bit.’

  ‘Pretty dangerous, though, isn’t it, running in the fog like this?’

  ‘Naw,’ came the reply. ‘Water’s good and deep all the way out to Landsend. We don’t even take soundings from here on in. Everyone knows we use the deep channel, so they stay out of our way. Is that the sort of danger you had in mind?’

  The question seemed peculiar, especially in light of the odd babbling that the captain had done when they first came aboard. ‘That was part of it.’ Jonathan pulled out his own pipe.

  ‘But it weren’t all of it?’

  ‘Not all.’ The Professor seemed to be catching on. ‘There were rumors, back at Tweet River Village. The captain seemed pretty lively on the subject. Is any of it true?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ the cook said, puffing away. ‘This is a crazy section of river. I wouldn’t go ashore now for all of Sikorsky’s gold, leastways not on the south shore – north shore ain’t so bad. But the south shore …’ and he shook his head to indicate his attitude toward the south shore. ‘I’ve seen things come out of that fog,’ he said. Then he stopped and shook his head again.

  ‘Things?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘So to speak. I ain’t sure what. Sometimes I think it’s just shadows; sometimes I think it ain’t.’ The cook tamped the bowl of his pipe, inspected it, and leaned his elbows on the rail, peering out into the foggy night. His speech had given Jonathan a case of the creeps. ‘That ain’t what worries Cap’n Binky though, I don’t expect. He don’t much care for ghosts as long as he’s full of that crazy coffee of his. He’s on the watch, is what I think.’

  ‘Sikorsky?’ Jonathan asked, playing a hunch.

  ‘Aye,’ the cook said.

  Jonathan shot Professor Wurzle a puzzled look and got one in return. ‘He turns up everywhere, doesn’t he?’

  ‘At least,’ the cook said. ‘I don’t know why Cap’n Binky doesn’t just give him the blamed pot. It ain’t worth fighting over. Two-thousand-year-old coffee ain’t worth fighting over.’

  Now the Professor was really interested. ‘Sikorsky wants that coffee pretty badly, then?’

  ‘Offered to buy it. There wasn’t any amount he wouldn’t have paid, or so they say. He was crazy for it. Crazier he got, the more Cap’n Binky wouldn’t sell. Sikorsky wanted half of it, but the Captain said that when he brews a cup of coffee he don’t cut no corners. It’s all or nothing for him. All for him, that is, and nothing for Sikorsky.’

  ‘Good for him.’ Jonathan liked to see that kind of artistic dedication. ‘Hang Sikorsky.’

  The cook nodded agreement. ‘There’s them who would like to. Don’t think they ain’t tried.’

  The muffled clang of a bell reached them from somewhere out on the water. It sounded as if it were a long ways off or were being rung from beneath the river itself. But just a moment later a trade barge slipped past not thirty feet distant, lamps lit all up and down the deck. They could see the lamps first, materializing out of the fog like the luminous eyes of a deepwater fish. Then the dark shadow of the barge slid past, seemingly empty. In a moment the whole thing had disappeared.

  ‘I ain’t so sure though that Sikorsky himself hasn’t got a hand in all this here.’ The cook waved out over the river.

  ‘You mean in this night business from the south shore you were talking about?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘That’s right. That’s more Sikorsky’s style. Horrors and such. He just don’t seem to me to be the type to mess around with infernal devices. Not Sikorsky.’

  ‘Infernal devices!’ Jonathan said. ‘Is that so?’

  The cook looked half-surprised, as if he’d been caught out. ‘I thought you said you’d heard the rumors.’

  ‘We did,’ Jonathan said. ‘But I guess we didn’t hear half enough.’

  ‘Well, it’s just been rumors so far
. We shouldn’t have put in today on the south shore, though. That was a risk. If Sikorsky wasn’t just talking through his hat, we could be in real trouble.’

  ‘We’ve got to search the ship then, by golly,’ the Professor said. ‘Time’s wasting.’

  The cook shook his head. ‘Nope. The captain doesn’t waste no time. Not where his coffee is concerned. The lads been at it for two hours now. If there’s a device, I reckon they’ll find it.’

  The Professor seemed to relax a little at that ‘Not much we can do then.’

  ‘Not a bit. I’d be on my toes; that’s all. We’ll put in at Landsend in the early morning. You’re paid up here till noon, of course, but if I was you, I wouldn’t stay on board. I’d get my stuff and go.’ With that the cook whacked his pipe against the bulwark, scraped the bowl clean into the river, picked up his pails, and walked away.

  ‘Encouraging sort, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Full of good news,’ the Professor agreed. ‘We’d better alert the others. If something goes wrong we’d best have a plan. We’d better agree on a place to meet up again in case we get separated.’

  ‘Landsend?’

  ‘That would be best. There must be any number of post offices in a city like that. What do you say about meeting in front of the post office closest to the waterfront. Top of every even-numbered hour?’

  ‘Good enough,’ said Jonathan, who liked having such plans. They made the future seem a bit more secure.

  The two of them stood smoking idly for another ten minutes. There were probably any number of things to talk about, but it seemed, somehow, as if the darkness and fog and the gray river rolling quietly below demanded silence. Jonathan stared down into the water and began to wonder how deep it was and how old such a wide, slow river like that might be. He’d heard that certain species offish lived forever, that they just grew bigger and bigger and bigger and found deeper caves to inhabit. There was no telling, he supposed, what sorts of creatures crept up out of the ocean to dwell in that ancient river, down there among the water weeds. As he gazed at the dark surface, lost in such thoughts, it began to seem to him that he could see shadows beneath the surface of the water – dark shadows that humped up toward the surface, then faded again in the depths. He thought at first that it was a trick of lamplight, but as he watched and as he thought about it, that seemed to be less and less likely. A long gray shadow appeared very near the surface and seemed to be running along beside them. It wasn’t just a patch of darkness, not just a blotch of shoal water or some such thing, but seemed to have shape to it, the angular, undulating shape of a tremendous whale or a finned serpent.