The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder

by Patricia Highsmith

  The Baron lay on a tufted polka-dot cushion which lined his basket. The basket had an arched top, and even this was lined with tufted polka-dot. From the next room, the Baron could hear laughter, jumbled voices, the clink of a glass or bottle now and then, and Bubsy’s occasional “Haw-ha-haw!” which in the days after Eddie’s death had made the Baron’s ears twitch with hostility. Now the Baron no longer reacted to Bubsy’s guffaws. On the contrary, the Baron affected a languor, an unconcern (better for his nerves), and now he yawned mightily, showing yellowed lower canines, then he settled his chin on his paws. He wanted to pee. He’d gone into the noisy living room ten minutes ago and indicated to Bubsy by approaching the door of the apartment that he wanted to go out. But Bubsy had not troubled himself, though one of the young men (the Baron was almost sure) had offered to take him downstairs. The Baron got up suddenly. He couldn’t wait any longer. He could of course pee straight on the carpet with a damn-it-all attitude, but he still had some decency left.

  The Baron tried the living room again. Tonight there was more than usually a sprinkling of women.

  “O-o-o-oh!”

  “Ah-h-h! There’s the Baron!”

  “Ah, the Baron!” said Bubsy.

  “He wants to go out, Bubsy, for Christ’s sake! Where’s his leash?”

  “I’ve just had him out!” shrieked Bubsy, lying.

  “When? This morning? . . .”

  A young man in thick, fuzzy tweed trousers took the Baron down in the elevator. The Baron made for the first tree at the curb, and lifted a leg slightly. The young man talked to him in a friendly way, and said something about “Eddie.” The name of his master made the Baron briefly sad, though he supposed it was nice of people, total strangers, to remember his master. They walked around the block. Near the delicatessen on Lexington Avenue, a man stopped them and in a polite tone asked a question with “the Baron” in it.

  “Yes,” said the young man who held the Baron’s leash.

  The strange man patted the Baron’s head gently, and the Baron recognized his master’s other name “Brockhurst . . . Edward Brockhurst . . .”

  They went on, back towards the awning of the apartment house, towards the awful party. Then the Baron’s ears picked up a tread he knew, then his nose a scent he knew: Marion.

  “Hello! Excuse me . . .” She was closer than the Baron had supposed, because his ears were not what they used to be, nor his eyes for that matter. She talked with the young man, and they all rode up in the elevator.

  The Baron’s heart was pounding with pleasure. Marion smelled nice. Suddenly the whole evening was better, even wonderful, just because Marion had turned up. His master had always loved Marion. And the Baron was well aware that Marion wanted to take him away to live with her.

  There was quite a change in the atmosphere when the Baron and the young man and Marion walked in. The conversation died down, and Bubsy walked forward with a glass of his favorite bubble in his hand, champagne. The young man undid the Baron’s leash.

  “Good evening, Bubsy . . .” Marion was speaking politely, explaining something.

  Some people had said hello to Marion, others were starting up their conversation again in little groups. The Baron kept his eyes on Marion. Could it be possible that she was going to take him away tonight? She was talking about him. And Bubsy looked flustered. He motioned for Marion to come into one of the other rooms, Bubsy’s bedroom, and the Baron followed at Marion’s heels. Bubsy would have shut the Baron out, but Marion held the door.

  “Come in, Baron!” Marion said.

  The Baron disliked this room. The bed was high, made higher still by pillows, and at the foot of it was the contraption Bubsy used when he had his fits of wheezing and gasping, usually at night. There were two chromium tanks from which a rubber pipe came out, flexible metal pipes also, and the whole thing could be wheeled up to Bubsy’s pillows.

  “. . . friend . . . vacation . . .” Marion was saying. She was pleading with Bubsy. The Baron heard his name two or three times, Eddie’s name once, and Bubsy looked at the Baron with the angry, stubborn expression that the Baron knew well, knew since years, even when Eddie had been alive.

  “Well, no . . .” Bubsy went on, making quite an elaborate speech.

  Marion began again, not in the least discouraged.

  Bubsy coughed, and his face darkened a little. He repeated his “No . . . no . . .”

  Marion dropped on her knees and looked into the Baron’s eyes and talked to him. The Baron wagged his cropped tail. He trembled with joy, and could have flung his paws up on Marion’s shoulders, but he didn’t, because it was not the right thing to do. But his front paws kept dancing off the floor. He felt years younger.

  Then Marion began talking about Eddie, and she grew angrier. She drew herself up a little when she talked about Eddie, as if he were something to be proud of, and it was evident to the Baron that she thought, she might even be saying, that Bubsy wasn’t worth as much. The Baron knew that his master had been someone of importance. Strangers, coming to the house now and then, had treated Eddie as if he were their master, in a way, in those days when they had lived in another apartment, and Bubsy had served the drinks and cooked the meals like one of the servants on the ships the Baron had traveled on, or in the hotels where the Baron had stayed. Now suddenly Bubsy was claiming the Baron as his own dog. That was what it amounted to.

  Bubsy kept saying “No” in an increasingly firm voice. He walked towards the door.

  Marion said something in a quietly threatening tone. The Baron wished very much that he knew exactly what she had said. The Baron followed her through the living room towards the front door. He was prepared to sneak out with her, leap out leashless, and just stay with her. Marion paused to talk with the young man in the fuzzy tweed trousers who had come up to her.

  Bubsy interrupted them, waving his hands, wanting to put an end to the conversation.

  Marion said, “Good night . . . good night . . .”

  The Baron squeezed out with her, loped in the hall towards the elevators. A man laughed, not Bubsy.

  “Baron, you can’t . . . darling,” said Marion.

  Someone caught the Baron by the collar. The Baron growled, but he knew he couldn’t win, that someone would give him a warning slap, if he didn’t do what they wanted. Behind him, the Baron heard the awful clunk that meant the elevator door had closed on Marion, and she was gone. Some people groaned as the Baron crossed the living room, others laughed, as the din began again, louder and merrier than ever. The Baron made straight for his master’s room which was across the hall from Bubsy’s. The door was closed, but the Baron could open it by the horizontal handle, providing the door wasn’t locked. The Baron couldn’t manage the key, which stuck out below the handle, though he had often tried. Now the door opened. Bubsy had perhaps been showing the room to some of his guests tonight. The Baron went in and took a breath of the air that still smelled faintly of his master’s pipe tobacco. On the big desk was his master’s typewriter, now covered with a cloth of a sort of polka-dot pattern like the lining of his basket-bed in the spare room. The Baron was just as happy, even happier, sleeping on the carpet here near the desk, as he had often done when his master worked, but Bubsy, nastily, usually kept the door of his master’s room locked.

  The Baron curled up on the carpet and put his head down, his nose almost touching a leg of his master’s chair. He sighed, suddenly worn out by the emotions of the last ten minutes. He thought of Marion, recalled happy mornings when Marion had come to visit, and his master and Bubsy had cooked bacon and eggs, or hotcakes, and they had all gone for a walk in Central Park. The Baron had used to retrieve sticks that Marion threw into a lake there. And he remembered an especially happy cruise, sunlight on the decks, with his master and Marion (pre-Bubsy days), when the Baron had been young and spry and handsome, popular with the passengers,
pampered by the stewards who brought whole steaks to his and Eddie’s cabin. The Baron remembered walks in a white-walled town full of white houses, with smells he had never known before or since . . . And a boat ride with the boat tossing, and spray in his face, to an island where the streets were paved with cobblestones, where he got to know the whole island and roamed where he wished. He heard again his master’s voice talking calmly to him, asking him a question . . . The Baron heard the ghostly click of the typewriter . . . Then he fell asleep.

  He awakened to Bubsy’s coughing, then his strained intake of air, with a wheeze. The house was quiet now. Bubsy was walking about in his room. The Baron got to his feet and shook himself to wake up. He went out of the room, so as not to be locked in for the rest of the night, walked towards the living room, but the smell of cigarette smoke turned him back. The Baron went into the kitchen, drank some water from his bowl, sniffed at the remains of some tinned dog food, and turned away, heading for the spare room. He could have eaten something—a bit of leftover steak, or a lambchop bone would have been nice. Lately, Bubsy dined out a lot, didn’t take the Baron with him, and Bubsy fed him mostly from tins. Now his master would have put a stop to that! The Baron curled up in his basket.

  Bubsy’s machine was buzzing. Now and again it made a click-click sound. Bubsy blew his nose—a sign he was feeling better.

  Bubsy didn’t go to work, didn’t work at all in the sense that Eddie had worked several hours a day at his typewriter, in some periods every day of the week. Bubsy got up in midmorning, made tea and toast, and sat in his silk dressing gown reading the newspaper which was still delivered every morning at the door. It would be nearly noon before Bubsy took the Baron out for a walk. By this time Bubsy would have telephoned at least twice, and then he would go out for a long lunch, perhaps, or anyway he seldom came back before late afternoon. Bubsy had used to have something to do with the theater, just what the Baron didn’t know. But when his master had met Bubsy, they had visited him a couple of times in the busy backstage part of a New York theater. Bubsy had been nicer then, the Baron could remember quite well, always ready to take him out for a walk, to brush his ears and the clump of curly black hair on the top of his head, because Bubsy had been proud to show him off on the street in those days. Yes, and the Baron had won a prize or two at Madison Square Garden in his prime, so many years ago. Oh, happy days! His two silver cups and two or three medals occupied a place of honor on a bookshelf in the living room, but the maid hadn’t polished them in weeks now. Eddie had shown them sometimes to people who came to the apartment, and a couple of times, laughing, Eddie had served the Baron his morning biscuits and milk in one of the cups. The Baron recalled that at the moment there were no biscuits in the house.

  Why did Bubsy hang on to him, if he didn’t really like him? The Baron suspected it was because Bubsy was thus able to hang on to his master, who had been a more important man—which meant loved and respected by a lot more people—than Bubsy. In the awful days during his master’s illness, and after his death, the person the Baron had clung to was Marion, not Bubsy. The Baron thought that his master wished, probably had made it clear, that he wanted the Baron to live with Marion after he died. Bubsy had always been jealous of the Baron, and the Baron had to admit that he had been jealous of Bubsy. But whether he lived with Bubsy or Marion, that was what the fight was about. He was no fool. Marion and Bubsy had been fighting ever since Eddie’s death.

  Down on the street, a car rattled over a manhole. From Bubsy’s room, the Baron heard wheezing inhalations. The machine was unplugged now. The Baron was thirsty, thought of getting up to drink again, then felt too tired, and merely flicked his tongue over his nose and closed his eyes. A tooth was hurting. Old age was a terrible thing. He’d had two wives, so long ago he scarcely remembered them. He’d had many children, maybe twelve, and the pictures of several of them were in the living room, and one on his master’s desk—the Baron with three of his offspring.

  The Baron woke up, growling, from a bad dream. He looked around, dazed, in the darkness. It had happened. No, it was a dream. But it had happened, yes. Just a few days ago. Bubsy had waked him from a nap, leash in hand, to take him out, and the Baron—maybe ill-tempered at that moment because he’d been awakened—had growled in an ominous way, not raising his head. And Bubsy had slowly retreated. And later that day, again with the leash in his hand, doubled, Bubsy had reminded the Baron of his bad behavior and slashed the air with the leash. The Baron had not winced, only watched Bubsy with a cool contempt. So they had stared at each other, and nothing had come of it, but Bubsy had been the first to move.

  Would he be able to get anywhere by fighting? The Baron’s old muscles grew tense at the thought. But he couldn’t figure it out, couldn’t see clearly into the future, and soon he was asleep again.

  In the evening of that day, the Baron was surprised by a delicious meal of raw steak cut into convenient pieces, followed by a walk during which Bubsy talked to him in amiable tones. Then they got into a taxi. They rode quite a distance. Could they be going to Marion’s apartment? Her apartment was a long way away, the Baron remembered from the days when Eddie had been alive. But Bubsy never went to Marion’s house. Then when the taxi stopped and they got out, the Baron recognized the butcher’s shop, still open, that smelled of spices as well as meat. They were at Marion’s building! The Baron’s tail began to wag. He lifted his head higher, and led Bubsy to the right door.

  Bubsy pushed a bell, the door buzzed, then they went in and climbed three flights, the Baron pulling Bubsy up, panting, happy.

  Marion opened the door. The Baron stood on his hind legs, careful not to scratch her dress with his nails, and Marion took his paws.

  “Hello, Baron! Hel-lo, hello!—Come in!”

  Marion’s apartment had a high ceiling and smelled of oil paint and turpentine. There were big comfortable sofas and chairs which the Baron knew he was allowed to lie on if he wished to. Now there was a strange man who stood up from a chair as they went in. Marion introduced Bubsy to him, and they shook hands. The men talked. Marion went into the kitchen and poured a bowl of milk for the Baron, and gave him a steak bone which had been wrapped in wax paper in the refrigerator. Marion said something which the Baron took to mean, “Make yourself at home. Chew the bone anywhere.”

  The Baron chose to chew it at Marion’s feet, once she had sat down in a chair.

  The conversation grew more heated. Bubsy whipped some papers out of his pocket, and now he was on his feet, his face pinker, his thin blond curls tossing.

  “There is not a thing . . . No . . . No.”

  Bubsy’s favorite word, “No.”

  “That is not the point,” Marion said.

  Then the other man said something more calmly than either Marion or Bubsy. The Baron chewed on his bone, sparing the sore tooth. The strange man made quite a long speech, which Bubsy interrupted a couple of times, but Bubsy finally stopped talking and listened. Marion was very tense.

  “No . . . ?”

  “No . . . now . . .”

  That was a word the Baron knew. He looked up at Marion, whose face was a little flushed also, but nothing like Bubsy’s. Only the other man was calm. He had papers in his hand, too. What was going to happen now? The Baron associated the word with rather important commands to himself.

  Bubsy spread his hands palm down and said, “No.” And many more words.

  A very few minutes later, the Baron’s leash was attached to his collar and he was dragged—gently but still dragged—towards the door by Bubsy. The Baron braced all four feet when he realized what was happening. He didn’t want to go! He’d hardly begun to visit with Marion. The Baron looked over his shoulder and pled for her assistance. The strange man shook his head and lit a cigarette. Bubsy and Marion were talking to each other at the same time, almost shouting. Marion clenched her fists. But she opened one hand to pat the Baron, and said so
mething kind to him before he was out in the hall, and the door shut.

  Bubsy and the Baron crossed a wide street, and entered a bar. Loud music, awful smells, except for a whiff of freshly broiled steak. Bubsy drank, and twice muttered to himself.

  Then he yanked the Baron into a taxi, yanked him because the Baron missed his footing and sprawled in an undignified way, banging his jaw on the floor of the taxi. Bubsy was in the foulest of moods. And the Baron’s heart was pounding with several emotions: outrage, regret he had not spent longer with Marion, hatred of Bubsy. The Baron glanced at the windows (both nearly closed) as if he might jump out of one of them, though Bubsy had the leash wrapped twice around his wrist, and the buildings on either side flashed by at great speed. Bubsy let out the leash a little for the benefit of the doormen who always greeted the Baron by name. Bubsy was so out of breath, he could hardly speak to the doormen. The Baron knew he was suffering, but had no pity for him.

  In the apartment, Bubsy at once flopped into a chair, mouth open. The Baron’s leash trailed, and he walked dismally down the hall, hesitated at his master’s door, then went in. He collapsed on the carpet by the chair. Back again. How brief had been his pleasure at Marion’s! He heard Bubsy struggling to breathe, undressing in his room now—or at least removing his jacket and whipping off his tie. Then the Baron heard the machine being plugged in. Buzz-zz . . . Click-click. The groan of a chair. Bubsy was doubtless in the chair by his bed, holding the mask over his face.

  Thirsty, the Baron got up to go to the kitchen. His leash, the hand loop part of it, caught under the door and checked him. The Baron patiently entered the room again, pulled the leash out, and went out with his shoulder near the right door jamb so the same accident wouldn’t happen again. It reminded him of nasty tricks Bubsy had used to play when the Baron had been younger. Of course the Baron had played a few tricks, too, tripping Bubsy adroitly while he (the Baron) had been ostensibly only cavorting after a ball. Now the Baron was so tired, his hind legs ached and he limped. Several teeth were hurting. He had chewed too enthusiastically on that bone. The Baron drank all his bowl—it was only half full and stale—then on leaving the kitchen, the Baron caught his leash in the same manner under the kitchen door. Bubsy just then lurched out of his room, coughing, heading for the bathroom, and stepped hard on the Baron’s front paw. The Baron gave an agonized cry, because it had really hurt, nearly broken his toes!