The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith

by Clark Ashton Smith

  The burglar stood up and looked about hastily. He could not afford to delay. He went over to the counter, stuffed the necklace back into his pocket, and then took a step toward the cash-register.

  “Vell, Micky Horgan, vot you vant?” The voice came from a shadowy corner, and was an exact mimicry of Stein’s. Horgan gave a violent start, and his heart missed one or two beats, while a surge of ancestral Irish superstition clamored in his brain. Then he remembered that there was a parrot which he had seen on several previous occasions.

  “I want one hundred dollars,” continued the voice.

  “Damn that bird,” thought Horgan. “I’ve got to wring its neck before I go.” He seemed to hear the parrot uttering his name in Stein’s voice to the San Francisco police, and repeating various bits of the late dispute. He started for the corner where the perch stood, and collided with a chair in his blind haste. He almost fell, but caught himself in time and went on, cursing aloud with the pain of a bruised knee. There was so much furniture and bric-a-brac in the place, that he could not locate the perch for a few moments.

  “For vot should I gif you so much money?” The voice was at his very elbow. He saw the bird, which seemed to be inspecting him, with its green head cocked to one side and a sardonic gleam in its eye. His hand shot out to clutch its legs, but he was not quick enough. The parrot fluttered away from the perch and settled with a leisurely flap of its wings on an empty coat-hanger among the pawned garments at one end of the shop.

  “Damn you to hell!” Horgan was not aware that he had yelled the words. He lurched toward the coat-hanger, obsessed by one frantically imperative idea, that he must catch the bird and wring its infernal neck. This time, the parrot flew off before he came within reach, and established itself on the cash-register. There it continued to repeat word for word the conversation he had had with Stein.

  “I gif you fifteen,” it screeched.

  Horgan picked up a little bronze bust of Dante from a table covered with art-objects and bric-a-brac, and hurled it at the parrot. The bust struck the cash-register with a reverberant clang, loud as that of an alarm-gong, and the bird rose again and seated itself on the parchment shade of the floor-lamp above the pawn-broker’s body. It yelled raucously all the while, and sailors’ oaths and Yiddish idioms were intermingled with more scraps of the dialogue that had ended in Stein’s death.

  The murderer flung himself at the floor-lamp, tripped on the insulated wire, and brought the lamp down, as he fell across the corpse of his victim. The top of the lamp-stand struck a loaded table, and there was a terrific crash of Chinese pottery and cut-glass.

  “Hey, what’s going on here?” The door had opened and a policeman was entering. He had heard the gong-like clang of the bust against the cash-register, and had decided to investigate. He drew a revolver very quickly and levelled it at Horgan, when he saw the body of Jacob Stein, from whose head a little pool of blood had oozed.

  Horgan picked himself up slowly and sullenly. As he rose to his feet before the levelled muzzle, he heard once more the voice of the parrot, which had now returned to its perch.

  “I gif you fifteen,” it screamed, with a note that was like malicious laughter.

  A COPY OF BURNS

  ndrew McGregor and his nephew, John Malcolm, were precisely alike, except for one particular. Both were unmistakably Scottish, to an extent that was almost caricatural; both were lean-faced and close-lipped, and ropy of figure; both were thrifty to the point of penuriousness; and both loved with a dour love the rugged soil of their neighbouring hillside ranches in El Dorado. The difference lay in this, that McGregor, a native of Ayrshire, was fantastically enamored of the poetry of Burns, whom he quoted on all possible occasions, regardless of whether or not the verse was appropriate. But young Malcolm, who was Californian by birth, had a secret disdain for anything in rhyme or meter, and looked upon his uncle’s literary enthusiasm as an odd weakness in a nature otherwise sound and admirable. This opinion, however, he had always been careful to conceal from the old man; though his reasons for concealing it were not altogether those of respect for an elder and affection for a relative.

  McGregor was now close upon eighty; and a lifetime of rigorous toil had bowed his back and consumed his vitality. In the space of a few months, his health had broken, and he was now quite feeble. It was generally thought that he would leave his well-kept orchard, as well as a tidy deposit in the Placerville bank, to John Malcolm, the son of his sister Elizabeth, rather than to his own sons, George and Joseph, who had tired of country labor years before and were now prospering after their own fashion in Sacramento. Young Malcolm, certainly, was deserving; and the ranch left him by his parents was of poorer soil than McGregor’s, and had never yielded more than a scant living, despite the industry of its owners.

  One day, McGregor sent for his nephew. The young man found the elder sitting in an arm-chair before the fire-place, pitiably weak; and his fingers trembled helplessly as they turned the worn pages of the copy of Burns he was holding. His voice was a thin, rasping whisper.

  “My time is about come, John,” he said, “but I want to gie ye a gift with my own hand before I jany. Take this copy of Burns. I recommend that ye peruse it diligent-like.”

  Malcolm, a little surprised, accepted the gift with proper thanks and with all due expressions of solicitude regarding his uncle’s health. He took the volume home, placed it on a shelf which contained an almanac, a Bible, and two mail-order catalogues; and forgot all about it henceforward.

  A week later, Andrew McGregor died. After he had been interred in the Placerville cemetery, a search was made for his will. It was never found; and in due course of time, his sons laid claim to the property. Afterwards, they sold the ranch, not caring to keep it themselves.

  John Malcolm swallowed his disappointment in a dour silence, and went on plowing his rocky slope of grape-vines and pear-trees. He saved a little money, purchased a little more property, and eventually found himself in a position of tolerable comfort, which however could be maintained only at the cost of incessant work. He married; and one daughter was born to him. He named her after his aunt Elizabeth, of whom he had been fond. Twenty years later, the long hours of back-breaking toil, plus an addiction to El Dorado moonshine, had finally done their work. Prematurely worn out at fifty, John Malcolm lay dying. Double pneumonia had set in; and the doctor made no pretense of hopefulness.

  Malcolm’s wife and daughter sat at his bedside. Usually a silent man, delirium had now loosened his tongue, and he babbled for hours at a time. Mostly, he talked of the money and property he had once hoped to inherit from Andrew McGregor; and regret for its loss was mingled with reproaches toward his uncle. The lost will had been forgotten by everyone else long ago; and no one had dreamt that he had cared so much, or borne the matter so much in mind all these years.

  His wife and daughter were shocked by his babbling. In an effort to preoccupy her mind, the girl Elizabeth took from the shelf the copy of Burns which McGregor had once presented to his nephew, and began to turn the sheets. She read a poem here and a stanza there; and with a mechanical feverishness her fingers contrived to flick the pages. Suddenly she came upon a thin sheet of writing-paper, which had been cut to the exact size of the book and had been pasted in so unobtrusively that no one could have detected its presence without opening the volume at the right place. On this sheet, in faded ink, was written the last will and testament of Andrew McGregor, in which he had left all his property to John Malcolm.

  Silently the girl showed the will to her mother. As the two bent over the yellowed sheet, the dying man ceased to babble.

  “What’s that?” he said, peering toward the woman. Evidently, he was now aware of his surroundings, and had become rational again.

  Elizabeth went over to the bed and told him how she had found the will. He made no comment whatever, but his face went ashen and lifeless, with a look of bleak despair. He did not speak again. He died within thirty minutes. It is probable that his death
was hastened several hours by the shock.

  CHECKMATE

  ’m afraid he has found your letters to me, Leonard.”

  “He? Who is he?”

  “My husband, of course, stupid!”

  “The devil! That’s awkward, if true. What makes you think your husband has found them?”

  “The letters are missing—and who else could have taken them? You remember where I kept them—under that pile of lingerie in my middle bureau drawer? Well, the whole packet is gone. Also, Jim has changed toward me the last few days. He’s so grouchy all the time. And he has a kind of sly look, too, as if he knew something and were watching me.”

  “What do you think he’ll do about it?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure. But it makes me very uncomfortable. The present question is, what are we going to do? Have you anything to suggest?”

  Ethel Drew and her lover, Leonard Alton, stared at each other in mutual alarm. Also, their consternation was touched with more than a hint of critical appraisal. In the light of the danger that menaced their affair, Ethel wondered if Leonard were quite the ideal gallant she had imagined him to be. And Leonard wondered for the first time if Ethel’s blonde deliciousness were not becoming slightly over-mature. However, they had had a lot of pleasant times together; and neither of them relished the idea of an interruption to those good times. Then, there were other considerations. Ethel was indifferent to her husband; but there were reasons why she did not care to lose him. He was a convenient wage-earner and provider of luxuries—even if not of romantic thrills. And Leonard, on his part, was hardly intrigued by the vision of a divorce suit in which he would find himself playing the expensive role of co-respondent. Also, he might have to marry Ethel… and support her.

  “Supposing he decides to divorce me?” Ethel, with feminine frankness, was the first to voice the thought.

  “We can’t have anything of that sort.”

  “Jim might do it. Certainly he could, with your letters for evidence.”

  Leonard recalled certain passages of the perfervid phraseology which he had used in writing to Ethel. Also, the many direct references to episodes of their passion. What an indiscreet idiot he had been!

  “I’ll say he could,” he rejoined ruefully.

  “Well, haven’t you anything to suggest?” The tone was perceptibly tart.

  “If he has the letters, he must have put them away somewhere. Have you looked for them?”

  “Of course I have. I went through Jim’s bed-room and clothes-closet as soon as I found they were missing. Then, I searched his den. But the letters aren’t in the house. It was useless to look—he wouldn’t leave them around like that.”

  “Have you searched his office? Bet you he’s got them pigeon-holed in his desk.”

  “I haven’t looked there yet—no chance to do it so far. But I thought of it. I’ll try to get hold of the office-key as soon as I can. Jim may go out of town for a day or two before long, on some business deal.”

  “You’ve got to find the letters, Ethel.”

  “That’s evident. You wouldn’t be much good at finding them. Of course, it’s up to me.”

  “But I’ll come with you, if you like.”

  “Oh, all right. I’ll ring you up when I get the key.”

  “Bet you anything he’s got the letters filed away in his desk.”

  “Maybe—if he hasn’t filed them with a lawyer.”

  Ethel Drew and her husband were at breakfast the next morning. Jim had been gulping his coffee and oatmeal in sulky silence. And Ethel was pretending a blithe unconsciousness of his manner and its implications. Jim did not speak till he arose from the table. Then:

  “I’m going out of town to-day. Have to see the Chalmers Co.—also, Reed Bros. I won’t be back till late to-morrow night…. And I’d advise you to behave while I’m gone.”

  It was the first direct verbal insinuation which Jim had made.

  “What do you mean?” Ethel’s tone was crisp and cool.

  “Just what I say. You’d better be good … if you want me to go on paying for your lingerie and breakfast bacon.”

  “I don’t understand you. And your remarks are rather insulting.”

  “The hell they are.”

  “I think you might explain your insults.”

  “Is it necessary? You certainly have your nerve, Ethel. I know all about you and your little play-mate.”

  “Are you crazy, Jim? I don’t know what you are driving at.”

  Jim glowered at Ethel as he drew on his overcoat.

  “Oh, yes you do. Take it from me, you can’t get away with this Leonard Alton business. No lounge-lizard is going to make a monkey of me. He’ll have the job of supporting you, if there’s any more of that stuff…. And you’ll like that, won’t you, hey? He’ll certainly make a grand provider, with his peanut income.”

  “Jim, you are ridiculous.”

  “A great little bluffer, aren’t you? Well, I know all about it…. Red-hot letters to a red-hot mama!” He fairly sneered the last words. “Bye-bye. And don’t forget what I told you.”

  He was gone before Ethel could think of another rejoinder.

  “Well, that’s that,” she thought, biting her lip. “I’ve simply got to get Leonard’s letters back and destroy them. They’re the only evidence. Jim can be nasty, of course—but he couldn’t really prove anything without them.”

  Five minutes later, she was ransacking Jim’s room, hoping desperately that he had not taken his key-ring with him. Where would it be? It was not on the bureau, where he often left it. But sometimes he left it in his pocket. She remembered that he had been wearing a suit of brown and black checks that morning, instead of the blue serge suit he usually wore in the office.

  She opened the clothes-closet. The blue serge was hanging next to the door. And thank heaven, the key-ring was in one of the coat-pockets. She knew the office-key by sight. There it was, between the door-key of their bungalow and the key of an old trunk.

  She called Leonard on the phone.

  “Jim is out of town until late to-morrow. And I have the key. Will you help me to do a little burglarizing?”

  “Any time, darling.”

  “Not till tonight, of course. The stenographer might be there during the day. You can take me to dinner, if you want to, and we’ll visit the office afterwards.”

  “That’s a good plan. Nothing like combining pleasure with business. Shall I call for you at the house about six-thirty?”

  “That will be fine, Leonard. But you needn’t be so flippant. Supposing we don’t recover the letters?”

  Ethel and Leonard were very gay that evening; and neither spoke of the missing letters, as they sat in an alcove of a fashionable restaurant. There was a tenseness beneath their gaiety, however; and they were repeating to themselves over and over the same unanswered query with which their phone conversation had ended. The tenseness grew. With a tacit agreement, they did not linger over their dessert.

  A short drive in Leonard’s car, and then they entered a downtown building. They boldly took the elevator to the third story. Before them, in a long, deserted hall, was the lettered glass of an office door, with the words: JAMES DREW, Fire Insurance. Ethel took the key-ring from her vanity bag and unlocked the door.

  She turned on the light and began to examine her husband’s desk. It was strewn with unsorted papers; and none of the drawers had been locked. She pulled them out one by one and went through them systematically. Nothing of interest in the first two—only business documents. But what were these letters in the third drawer, lying beneath some legal papers?

  The letters were not those for which she was looking. But nevertheless, what were they doing in her husband’s desk? They were addressed to Jim; and the writing and stationery were feminine. Indeed, they fairly reeked of femininity: the mauve paper had been perfumed with sandalwood. Ethel did not recognize the writing; but her natural curiosity was not lessened by this fact.

  She opened one of them
and began to read it. The letter began: “Darling Piggy,” and was full of endearments and amorous allusions, couched in the diction of a demimonde. It was signed, “Your red-hot tootsie-wootsie, Flora,” with a row of crosses before and after the name.

  Ethel’s cheeks and eyes were burning as she turned to Leonard. She was shocked and amazed—also indignant. She would not have believed Jim capable of this sort of thing. Who was this low woman with whom he had gotten himself involved?

  “Have you found something?” asked Leonard.

  “I’ve found plenty.” She gave him the letter with no further comment and proceeded to open and read the next.

  “Why, the old devil!” exclaimed Leonard, when he had caught the purport of the epistle. “This is rich.” He ended with a chuckle.

  “Do you think it so funny?” Ethel asked stiffly.

  “Well, I’ll be—” Leonard wisely checked himself, reflecting that no man could foresee a woman’s emotional reactions.

  Ethel gave him the second letter and opened the third. There were nearly two dozen in the pile. She and Leonard read them all. Most of them were damnatory proof of a vulgar liaison. Many referred to secret meetings, even to nights that had been spent together in hotels by Jim and the writer, under assumed names. One of them enclosed a snapshot, showing Jim with his arm around a plump and luscious brunette in a one-piece bathing suit of extreme brevity. The snap-shot commemorated one of their outings. The woman’s full name, Flora Jennings, was signed to one of her letters—a comparatively formal note which evidently dated from the beginning of the acquaintance.