The Avram Davidson Treasury (18 page)

Those who say he was testy and irascible, who call him curmudgeon, who point to his impatience with editors as an example of his smallness and ordinariness, have perhaps never opposed the hideous fiends he did and never felt their sulphurous breath at that vulnerable junction where the fingertips meet the keyboard.

Avram doggedly defied a monstrous wickedness so powerful and depraved it would have sent a lesser man gibbering for the safety of a day job. “Author, Author” may have been written at a low point in this intrepid struggle: one can tell from the ambiguous ending that he very nearly despaired of conquering the loathsome creatures that, unobstructed, might transform even university libraries to best-seller racks. His tenacity sets an example for butlers and baronets everywhere.

AUTHOR, AUTHOR

R
ODNEY STIRRUP HAD ALWAYS
taken care (taken
damned good
care! he often emphasized) not to get married; several former morganatic lady friends, however, frequently testified that the famous writer was Not A Very Nice Person. Perhaps even they might have felt sorry for him if they could have been with him that day at Boatwright Brothers, the publishers. And thereafter.

But then again, perhaps they might not.

Rodney stared at J. B. across the vast, glossy desk.

“With one hand you cut my throat,” he protested; “And with the other hand you stab me in the back!”

A slightly pained look passed across Jeremy Boatwright’s pink and widespread face, hesitated, and decided to stay. “Come now, Rodney…these professional phrases… Really, there are no other choices left to us, owing, ah, to Conditions In The Trade.”

Stirrup confounded conditions in the trade. “You reduce my royalties—I call that cutting my throat. And you demand a larger share in the secondary rights: reprints, paperbacks, television—I call that stabbing me in the back. If this continues I won’t be able to keep my car. It is bad enough,” he said, bitterly, “that I am confined to London in the winter. I
always
went to the South of France, the West Indies—or, at
least
, to Torquay. Next winter I shall not only shiver and cough in the damp, but I won’t even be able to drive away for a week end. I’ll have to go by train or bus—if you are good enough to leave me my fare… You aren’t giving up
your
car, are you?” he asked.

J. B. leaned his well-tailored elbows on the desk, bent forward. “Confidentially, old man, it’s my wife’s money that pays for it.” Stirrup asked if it weren’t true that Mrs. Boatwright’s income was derived in large part from her stock in the publishing firm. J. B.’s face went stiff. “Let’s leave Mrs. Boatwright out of this, shall we?” he proposed.

“But—”

“Why don’t you mix yourself a drink? Sobriety always makes you surly.” Stirrup said he supposed he might as well. “It’s my books that are paying for your booze,” he observed gloomily.

“Look here—” The publisher flung out his plump hand. “You seem to think this is a special plot to defraud our writers, don’t you?” Rodney shrugged. “Oh, my dear fellow!” Boatwright’s voice was pained, pleading. “Do let me explain it to you. It is true that Rodney Stirrup, whom I have known since the days when he was still Ebenezer Quimby—” the writer shuddered—“is one of the world’s top-ranking writers of the classical detection story. But what good’s it do a man to be one of the world’s top-ranking designers of carriage whips if no one is buying carriages? Have you
seen
the paperbacks coming out these days? Sex and slaughter.” He tittered.

Stirrup angrily put down his drink. He suspected, strongly, that the bottle he’d poured it from was not the one proffered to better-selling writers. “I can show you—you should have read them yourself, dammit—my latest reviews.”

Jeremy Boatwright shrugged away the latest reviews. “The reviewer gets his copies free;
our
only concern is with copies
sold.
Now, in the past, old man—” he made a church roof of his well-manicured fingers—“your books sold chiefly, and sold admittedly very well, to the American circulating libraries. Now, alas, the libraries are dying. Hundreds of them—thousands—are already dead. Dreadful pit-y. The people who used to take your books out now stay home and watch television instead. Eh?” He glanced, none too subtly, at his watch.

“Then why don’t you sell more of my things to television? Eh?”

Boatwright said, Oh, but they
tried
. “Sometimes we succeed. But in order to equalize our losses, we—Boatwright Brothers—simply have to take a larger slice of your television and other secondary earnings. It’s as simple as that.”

Stirrup suggested that there was a simpler way: that Boatwright Brothers move to cheaper quarters, cut down on their plushy overhead and pass the savings on to their writers. J. B. smiled indulgently. “Oh, my dear fellow, how I wish we could. You’ve no idea how this place
bores
me—to say nothing of what dining out does to my poor liver. But we’re not so lucky as you. A writer can pig it if he wants to, but we publishers, well, we simply are obliged to maintain the façade.”

And, with a sigh, he changed the subject; began to explain to Stirrup why it was difficult nowadays to sell his writings. “You hit upon a good formula. A
very
good formula. But it’s outmoded now. Almost all your stories begin the same way: a traveler’s car breaks down on a lonely road across the moors, about dusk. Just over the hill is a large mansion, to which he is directed by a passing rustic. Correct? Well, large mansions are out of date. No one can afford them. The rustics are all home watching television and reading their newspapers. And another thing: your books have too many butlers in them, and too many noblemen. In actuality, butlers are dying off. (Mine died not long ago and we’re having no luck in finding a replacement; they’ve all gone into the insurance business.) Things have
changed,
dear boy, and your books have failed to change with them. In effect, you are writing ghost stories.” He smiled moistly. “Must you go quite so soon?” he asked, as Stirrup continued to sit.

Stirrup put down the empty glass and began to draw on his gloves. “Yes—unless you are planning to invite me to luncheon.”

Boatwright said, “I’d love to. Unfortunately I have a prior engagement with Marie-Noëmi Valerien and her mother. You know, the fifteen-year-old French girl who wrote
Bon Soir
,
Jeunesse.
I understand she’s finished another, and her publishers have treated her simply vilely, so—Where are you off to?”

“Out of town. Some old friends have a place in the country.” The publisher inquired if they lived in a large mansion. “As a matter of fact,” the writer said, not meeting his eye, “the big house is closed for the time being, and they are living in what used to be the gatekeeper’s cottage. Very cosy little place,” he added bitterly, remembering Nice, Cannes, Antibes… “They raise poultry.”

The publisher, Stirrup reflected, had no need to raise poultry at
his
country place—which was in the same county as his friends’ rundown acreage. The Mill Race (a name, unknown to the local Typographical Society, bestowed by its current proprietor in fancied honor of an all but vanished ruin by an all but dried-up stream) was both well furnished and well kept. Once a year Stirrup was invited down for the long week end; no oftener. He felt no twinge at hearing of the demise of Boatwright’s butler, Bloor, a large, pear-shaped man with prominent and red-rimmed eyes who had always treated him with insultingly cold politeness—a treatment he repaid by never tipping the man.

Jeremy Boatwright magnanimously walked Stirrup to the door. “Have a
pleasant
week end, old man. Perhaps taste will change; in the meanwhile, though, perhaps
you’ll
consider changing. A psychological thriller about a couple who live in the gatekeeper’s cottage and raise poultry—eh?”

Rodney Stirrup (he was a withered, short man, with a rufous nose) did think about it, and as a result he lost his way. There are many people who dislike to ask directions, and Stirrup was one of them. He was certain that if he continued to circle around he would find the needed landmarks and then be able to recognize the way from there. It grew late, then later, and he was willing to inquire, but there was no one in sight to ask.

And finally, just at dusk, his engine gave a reproachful cough and ceased to function. He had passed no cars and no people on this lonely side road, but still he couldn’t leave his car standing in the middle of it. The car was small and light; steering and pushing, he got it off to the side.

“Damned devil wagon!” he said. Wasn’t there a rule about lighting a red lantern and leaving it as a warning? Well, too bad; he had none. He looked around in the failing light, and almost—despite his vexation—almost smiled.

“‘A traveler’s car breaks down on a lonely road about dusk. Just over a hill is a large mansion,’” he quoted. “Damn Boatwright anyway. ‘Ghost stories!’” He sighed, thrust his hands into his pockets and started walking. Ahead of him was a slight rise in the road. “If only there were someone I could ask directions of,” he fretted. “Even ‘a passing rustic.’”

A man in a smock came plodding slowly over the rise. In that first moment of relief mingled with surprise, Stirrup wondered if the thought had really preceded the sight. Or if—

“I say, can you tell me where I can find a telephone?” he called out, walking quickly toward the figure, who had halted, open-mouthed, on seeing him. The rustic slowly hook his head.

“Televown?” he repeated, scratching his chin. “Nay, marster, ee wown’t voind näo devil’s devoice loike that erebäouts.”

Stirrup’s annoyance at the answer was mixed with surprise at the yokel’s costume and dialect. When had he last heard and seen anything like it? Or not heard and seen—read? If anyone had asked him, and found him in an honest mood, he should have said that such speech and garb had been nothing but literary conventions since the Education Acts had done their work. Why, he himself hadn’t dared employ it since before the first World War. And the fellow didn’t seem that old.

“Surely there must be a house somewhere along here.” Reaching the top of the rise, he looked about. “There! That one!” About a quarter mile off, set back in grounds quickly being cloaked in coming night, was a large mansion.

The man in the smock seemed to shiver. “That gurt äouze? Ow, zur, daon’t ee troy they’m. Ghowsties and bowgles…” His voice died away into a mumble, and when Stirrup turned to him again, he was gone. Some village idiot, perhaps, unschooled because unschoolable. Well, it didn’t matter. The house—

At first glance the house had seemed a mere dark huddle, but now there were lights. He made his way quickly ahead. A footman answered his knock. Self-consciously, Stirrup spoke the words he had so often written. “I’m afraid my car has broken down. May I use your telephone?” The footman asked—of course—If he might take his hat and coat. Feeling very odd, Stirrup let him. Then another man appeared. He was stout and tall and silver-haired.

“Had a breakdown? Too bad.” Voices sounded and glasses clinked in the room he had left. It was warm. “My name is Blenkinsop,” he said.

“Mine is Stirrup—Rodney Stirrup.” Would Mr. Blenkinsop recognize—Evidently Mr. Blenkinsop did. He stared, his eyes wide.

“Rod-ney
Stirrup
?” he cried. “
The writer?
” His voice was like thunder.

Another man appeared. He was thin, with small white side whiskers—lamb chop rather than mutton chop. “My dear Blenkinsop, pray modulate your voice,” he said. “Richards is telling a capital story. And whom have we here?”

“This gentleman, my dear Arbuthnot,” said Blenkinsop in clear and even tones, “is Mr. Rodney Stirrup. The wri-ter. He’s come
here!
”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Oh, ho-ho-ho!” Mr. Arbuthnot laughed.

“Ah, ha-ha-ha!” Mr. Blenkinsop laughed.

Stirrup, first puzzled, grew annoyed. Young men, the kind who wear fuzzy beards and duffle coats, read
avant-garde
publications and live in attics where they entertain amoral young women, might understandably be moved to laugh at a writer of the Classical Detective Story. But there seemed no excuse at all for men older than himself, contemporaries of Hall Caine and Mrs. Belloc Lowndes and other all but forgotten literary figures, to laugh.

The two men stopped and looked at him, then at each other.

“I fear we must seem very boorish to you,” Mr. Arbuthnot said. He looked very much like Gladstone, a picture of whom had hung in the home of Malachi Quimby, the Radical cobbler, Stirrup’s long dead father. Something of the awe felt for his father had transferred itself to the Grand Old Man; and even now a remnant of it was left for Mr. Arbuthnot. “Pray accept my apologies,” Mr. Arbuthnot said.

“Oh, don’t mention it.”

“The fact is,” explained Blenkinsop, “that we are all of us very great followers of your books, Mr. Stirrup. It is the coincidence of meeting our favorite author, via a fortuitous accident, which provoked our untimely risability. Do excuse us.”

Stirrup said that it was pleasant to realize he was not forgotten.

“Oh, not here,” said Arbuthnot. “Never. Pray come and meet our friends.”

“Do,” urged Blenkinsop, leading the way. “Oh, no, indeed, we’ve not forgotten you. We have a little celebration tonight. We often do… Right through this door, Mr. Stirrup.”

The room to which they led him contained perhaps a dozen men, all distinguished in mien, all well on in years. They looked up as Stirrup entered. Glasses were in their hands, and cigars. Several of them were still chuckling, presumably at the “capital” story told by Richards, whichever one he was. A tall and heavy man, with a nose like the Duke of Wellington’s, sipped from his glass and smacked his lips.

“Excellent, my dear Richards,” he said.

“I thought you’d like it, Peebles,” Richards said. He was a red-faced, husky-voiced, many-chinned man. “Whom have we here, Arbuthnot, Blenkinsop?”

Arbuthnot smiled on the right side of his face. Blenkinsop rubbed his hands. “This gentleman has had the ill chance to suffer a breakdown of his motorcar. I am sure—quite sure—that we shall endeavor to welcome him in a fitting manner. He is no ordinary guest. He is a well-known author.”