The Avram Davidson Treasury (20 page)

The other man scowled and cut at the air with his cane. “Not at all a correct amount of respect,” he said.

“The butlers,” Stirrup began, trying to shift the conversation.

Again the driver ground his teeth. “I’m prepared for
them!
See here—a cartridge clip with silver bullets. My gunsmith, Motherthwaite’s of Bond Street, wriggled like an eel when I ordered them, and a similar set for shotguns, but in the end he had them made up for me. Lucky for him. Hah!” He snorted, aimed at an imaginary and refractory gunsmith, went
Poom!,
and—with an air wickedly self-pleased-blew imaginary smoke from the muzzle.

Stirrup gave a nervous swallow, then said, with a half-convulsive giggle, “My word, but there’s a lot of superstition in this part of the country! That yokel in the smock—”

The driver rubbed the muzzle of his revolver against his smoking jacket. “Yokel in a smock? Why, that’s Daft Alfie. He drowned in the mill pond about the time of the Maori War—or was it the Matabele? But they couldn’t prove suicide, so he ended up in the churchyard instead of at the crossroads. So Daft Alf’s been walking again, has he? Hah!”

His friend came forward, turned his feverishly-bright eyes on Stirrup. “Now, in
our
case,” he said, “there was no doubt at all. Prior to crashing our car into the ferro-concrete abutment, we left in triplicate a note explaining that it was an act of protest against the Welfare State which had, through usurpatious taxation, reduced us to penury.”

“And furthermore had made the people so improvident that they no longer even desired to purchase the insurance policies which we were obliged to sell. And we
insisted
upon crossroads burial as a further gesture of defiance. But the wretched authorities said it would be a violation of both the Inhumation and Highways Acts.
So
—”

Stirrup felt the numbness creeping up his legs. “Then you are—then you were—”

The man with the revolver said, “Forgive my boorishness. Yes: I, my dear fellow, was Sir Sholto Shadwell, of Shadwell-upon-Stour; and this was Sir Peregrine de Pall of Pall Mall, Hants., my partner in the insurance agency to which these degenerate times had driven us. We were well known. The venal press often said of us that in our frequent pranks and japes we resembled characters from the novels of Rodney Stirrup more than we did real people. They used to call us—”

“They used to call us ‘The Batty Baronets,’” said Sir Peregrine; “though I can’t think why!”

Their laughter rang out loud and mirthlessly as Sir Sholto snapped the safety catch off on his revolver and Sir Peregrine slid away the casing from his sword cane.

“It grows so damn tedious back at the Baronets’ Valhalla,” one of them muttered sulkily, as they closed in.

Rodney Stirrup, suppressing the instinct which rose in every cell of him to flee shrieking down the lonely road across the moors, raised his hand and eyebrows.

“One moment, gentlemen—or should I not rather phrase it, ‘Sirs Baronet’?”

“
Hem.
You should, yes.” Sir Sholto let his revolver sink a trifle. Sir Peregrine, prodding a turf with the point of the sword, nodded portentously.

Straining very hard, Stirrup managed to produce the lineaments of gratified desire in the form of a thankful smile. “I am so glad to have that point cleared up. Burke’s Peerage was of no help at all, you know.”

“None whatsoever. Certainly not.
Burke’s,
pah!” Sir Peregrine spitted the turf. A trifle uncertainly, he asked, “You had some, ah, special reason—”

Never since that frenzied but glorious week at Monte in the year ’27, when deadlines of novels from three publishers were pressing upon him, had Rodney Stirrup improvised so rapidly. “A very, very special reason. I
had
intended, in my next novel, due to appear on Boatwright’s spring list, to urge the election of a certain number of baronets to the House of Lords, in a manner similar to that of representative Scottish peers. Such a proposal could not fail to be of benefit. (“Certainly not!” said Sir Sholto.) But then the question arises, how is such a one to be addressed? ‘The honorable member’ obviously won’t do. (“Won’t do at all!” said Sir Peregrine.) What, then?
You,
with that erudition which has always characterized your rank—” the two hereditary knights coughed modestly and fiddled their weapons with a certain measure of embarrassment—have supplied the answer: ‘Sir Baronet.’” Stirrup allowed the smile to vanish, an easy task, and sighed.

“Mphh. I notice your use of the past pluperfect. ‘
Had
intended.’ Eh?”

With a horrible start Stirrup noticed, just beyond the headlights’ brightness, the silent approach of a company of men. Temper obviously in no way improved by the hole in his forehead, O’Donnell scowled hideously.

Speaking very rapidly, Stirrup said in a loud voice, “I am not to blame. The reading public little realize the small extent to which writers are their own masters. My own attitude in regard to baronets and, ah, butlers, was of no importance at all.
It was my publisher!
He laughs at butlers. Despises baronets. I give you my word. Indeed, I would freely admit how richly I deserve the punishment an ignoble government has failed to mete out to me for the slanders I have written—but I really could not help it. I was bound hand and foot by contracts. How many times have I stood there with tears in my eyes. ‘Another bad butler,’ demanded Boatwright. ‘Another silly baronet,’ Boatwright insisted. What could I do?”

There was a long silence. Then Peebles stepped forward. “It was very wrong of you, sir,” he said. “But your weakness is not altogether beyond exculpation.”

“Not altogether, no,” conceded Sir Sholto, twisting a lock of his long, gray hair. “The second Sir Sholto, outraged by the filthy treatment accorded the proffered manuscript of his experiences in the Peninsular Wars, was in the habit of toasting Napoleon for having once shot a publisher.”

“And quite properly, Sir Sholto,” said Peebles. “
And
quite rightly.”

“Never would’ve been allowed if the Duke of Cumberland hadn’t been cozened out of the crown by Salic Law,” said Sir Peregrine, moodily.

Peebles stiffened. “While it is true that a mere valet has not the status of a butler, and equally true that His Royal Highness (later King Ernest of Hanover) was absolved of guilt for having caused the death of his personal gentleman—”

“Who was a foreigner anyway,” Stirrup put in; “taking bread from the mouths of honest British men, and doubtless richly deserved his fate…”

Butlers and baronets, once the matter was put in this light, nodded judiciously.

“Therefore,” said Peebles, “I propose a joint convocation of both Houses, as it were, to deal with the case of the Infamous Publisher Boatwright.”

“Bugger the bastard with a rusty sword, you mean? And then splatter his tripes with a silver bullet or two?”

Peebles said that that was the precise tenor of his meaning, and he much admired Sir Sholto’s vigorous way of phrasing it.

“Mr. Boatwright is at his country place not far from here at this very moment,” Rodney Stirrup quickly pointed out. “The Mill Race, Little Chitterlings, near Guilford.” He held his breath.

Then,
“Fiat justicia!”
exclaimed Peebles.

And, “St. George, no quarter, and perish publishers!” cried the baronets. There was a diffident cough, and a large, pear-shaped man with prominent and red-rimmed eyes stepped forward. He looked at Stirrup and Stirrup felt his hair follicles retreat.

“If I may take the liberty, gentlemen,” he said, with an air both diffident and determined.

“Hullo, hullo, what’s this?” Peebles queried. “A newcomer to our ranks. Pray, silence, gentlemen: a maiden speech.”

“It is not without misgivings that I feel obliged to pause
en route
to the Butlers’ Valhalla and raise a rather unpleasant matter,” said the newcomer. “I am Bloor, late butler to Jeremy Boatwright. Not being conversant with the latter’s business affairs, I can neither confirm nor deny Mr. Stirrup’s charges. However, I feel it my duty to point out that while Mr. Stirrup was for many years an annual week end guest at The Mill Race (Little Chitterlings, near Guilford),
he invariably failed to tip the butler on taking his departure!
”

There was a chorus of sharp, hissing, indrawn breaths. Lips were curled, eyebrows raised.

“Not the thing, not the thing at all,” said Sir Peregrine. “Shoot butlers, yes, certainly. But—fail to tip them on leaving? Not done, simply not done.”

“A loathsome offense,” said Arbuthnot.

“Despicable,” Peebles declared.

Stirrup, trembling, cried, “It was the fault of my publisher in not allowing me a proper share of royalties.” But this was ill received.

“Won’t do, won’t do at all.” Sir Sholto shook his head. “Can’t scrape out of it that way a second time. If one’s income obliges one to dine on fish and chips in a garret, then
dine
on fish and chips in a garret—dressing for dinner first, I need hardly add. But unless one is prepared to tip the butler, one simply does not accept week end invitations. By gad,” he said furiously, “a chap who would do that would shoot foxes!”

“Afoot,” said Sir Peregrine.

Bloor said it was not that he wished to be vindictive. It was purely out of duty to his profession that he now made public the offense which had rankled—nay, festered—so long in his bosom.

“I see nothing else for it,” said Peebles, heavily, “but that Mr. Rodney Stirrup must occupy the lesser guest room at Butlers’ Valhalla until his unspeakable dereliction be atoned for.”

(“Man’s a rank outsider,” huffed Sir Sholto. “And to think I was about to ask him to shoot with us when the were grouse season starts!”)

The lesser guest room!
In a sudden flash of dim, but all-sufficient, light, Stirrup saw what his fate must be. Henceforth his life was one long week end. His room would be the one farthest from the bath, his mattress irrevocably lumpy. The shaving water would always be cold, the breakfast invariably already eaten no matter how early he arose. His portion at meals would be the gristle; his wine (choked with lees), the worst of the off-vintage years. The cigar box was forever to be empty, and the whisky locked away …

His spirits broke. He quailed.

For a brief moment he sought comfort in the fate awaiting Boatwright. Then despair closed in again, and the most dreadful thought occurred to him. Sir Sholto Shadwell’s silver bullets: ghosts, werewolves (and were grouse), vampires, ghouls—yes. But would they work, he wondered, despairingly,
could
they really work, on a creature infinitely more evil and ungodly? Was there anything of any nature in any world at all which could kill a publisher?

I
NTRODUCTION BY
J
OHN
C
LUTE

There are stories which tell us they are something significant, and there are stories whose greatness slides into the back of the mind, where they explode in a sudden nectar of meaning. “Dagon,” which is a genuinely great tale, is one of the latter. The quietude it generates in the reader is what a waterbug might feel floating in the meniscus above a hungry pike. Like the waterbug, readers of “Dagon” (1959) will find the ultimate meaning of their tale beneath the surface of events.

It is not, perhaps, an easy surface to penetrate. The story is told in the first person, by an American military officer who has arrived in Peking with fellow officers on 12 October 1945 as part—it would seem—of a liaison team. In a seeming aside, he mentions the lotos, which when crushed into wine engenders forgetfulness, and the plural form of which—
lotoi
—reminds him of Pierre Loti, who had also arrived in Peking, forty-five years earlier, on 12 October. The narrator tells of his slow immersion in the underlife of the great, halfdestroyed, smouldering city; of his admiring thoughts on the “mystery of fish …, growing old without aging and enjoying eternal growth without the softness of obesity”; of his meeting with a Chinese police officer whom he corrupts, buys a concubine from, and has killed; of his earning money by selling faked drugs to Chinese buyers hungry for virility; of his meeting a Chinese magician who does magic tricks with a goldfish caught in a bowl, and who seems to be his concubine’s father-in-law; and of his final retreat into what might seem to be a lotos-eater’s torpor.

What has actually “happened,” within the element which has become his world, is that the narrator has taken on the role of Dagon, the half fish god worshipped by the Philistines after they arrived in Canaan. But after he has sinned irrecoverably, the Chinese magician has magicked away his human parts, transforming him into a great carplike goldfish in the bowl of hell. All he can see is “a flashing of gold,” which is nothing but a mirror-effect, nothing but the gold scales of bondage which flash when he moves his fins. “But when I am still I cannot see it at all.”

Without seeming to say a word about itself, “Dagon” proves to be a tale—a labyrinth of a tale—about good and evil, usurpation (the narrator refers to himself as “porphyrogenitive”), hubris and punishment and hell. It is as vicious as the world of a fish, and wise. It is masterly. Like the best stories of Gene Wolfe—whose work resembles “Dagon” at times—it cannot be read. It can only be re-read.

DAGON

Then the Lords of the Philistines gathered together to rejoice before Dagon their god, and behold, the image of Dagon was fallen upon its face to the ground, with both his face and his hands broken off, and only the fishy part of Dagon was left to him…

T
HE OLD CHINESE
,
HALF-MAGICIAN
, half-beggar, who made the bowl of goldfish vanish and appear again, this old man made me think of the Aztecs and the wheel. Or gunpowder. Gunpowder appeared in Western Europe and Western Europe conquered the world with it. Gunpowder had long ago been known in China and the Chinese made firecrackers with it. (They have since learned better.) When I was free, I heard men say more than once that the American Indians did not know the use of the wheel until Europeans introduced it. But I have seen a toy, pre-Conquest, fashioned from clay, which showed that the Aztecs knew the use of the wheel. They made toys of it. Firecrackers. Vanishing goldfish.