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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/77665-0.txt b/77665-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a599bb4 --- /dev/null +++ b/77665-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,509 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77665 *** + + + + + The Man who had Spiders + + by Roger Dee + + + + + _All too modestly, we feel, has Roger Dee tried to shrug off + his undoubted kinship to Saki--that master of whimsical fantasy + supreme--in this ebulliently breathtaking excursion into a realm as + darkly mysterious as it is irresistibly enchanting. Adrian’s spiders + may make your flesh crawl. But we predict you’ll like Adrian himself + quite as much as did Mr. Marcus, and rejoice in his triumph._ + + =There is probably more than one way of curing a tragic addiction to + alcohol. But Adrian’s way was as shuddery as a smiling Medusa.= + + + + +When Mr. Marcus, who had sold novelties to novelty shops for forty +years and so had lost the capacity for astonishment at human +unpredictability, returned to Maysville on the 8:04 train for his +regular April week of selling, he went at once to Mrs. Ponder’s +boarding house and found Kitty playing Delibes on the living-room piano. + +It was almost like coming home, Mr. Marcus thought with an +uncharacteristic twinge of nostalgia. He paused for a moment in the +doorway, suitcase and sample bag and his inevitable parcel of books in +hand, to listen. + +Tender was the word for Kitty, with her cool, sure touch on the Delibes +theme and her clear blind eyes and her nestling of fair hair that +just brushed her shoulders. And wasted, Mr. Marcus thought, with all +the beauty and the talent of her shunted to obscurity in the dingy +gentility of her mother’s menage. + +If he were thirty years younger-- + +Mr. Marcus cut the thought dead. _If you were thirty years younger, +Marcus_, he told himself with dry cynicism, _you’d travel and sell +novelties. Just as you did thirty years ago._ Kitty sensed his presence +with the near-tactile acuity of the blind and let the Delibes theme +trail off in a random tinkle. + +“It’s only I, Miss Kitty,” Mr. Marcus said. “The old man who sells +loaded cigars to idiots.” + +She turned on the piano bench, pleased at his coming but nevertheless +disappointed. “Oh, Mr. Marcus. I thought at first you were Adrian.” + +“Adrian?” + +She laughed, a sound as light and clear as the vanished music. “Adrian +Hall, our new boarder. He’s only been with us a week.” + +A week. Seven days, Mr. Marcus thought, and her face could light up so +at the sound of his step? + +When Kitty smiled it was impossible to think that her eyes could not +see him. “You’re thinking that my interest is unusual, and you’re quite +right. But Adrian is an unusual man, Mr. Marcus.” + +“I’m sure he is,” Mr. Marcus said cautiously. “I’ll have to meet him.” + +The prospect pleased her. “You were always nice to me and Jay Kirby +because I’m blind and Jay has fits, but you never noticed anyone else. +You’ll notice Adrian. You’ll like him.” + +“I’m sure I shall,” Mr. Marcus said. Her eagerness made him feel old +and tired and somehow resentful. The books and bags grew heavy in his +hands. “I was just going upstairs to see if my room--” + +Kitty’s face lighted up. “Please wait,” she begged. “I hear Adrian +coming down now. We’re going out for a drive, but I’d like you to meet +him first.” + +The new boarder was perhaps thirty, hardly older than Kitty, and +totally unremarkable. Shaking hands, Mr. Marcus cast back through the +dry files of his memory and exhausted them without turning up a more +ordinary face or figure. Moderately tall, he catalogued: average build, +plain face, neutral hair, good teeth and mild blue eyes. The man’s only +distinction seemed to be a round, black mole on the left side of his +neck, half hidden by his shirt-collar. Politely, Mr. Marcus did not +look at it twice. + +It rather startled him to discover that Kitty had been right. He _did_ +like Adrian Hall, at first sight and without reservation. + +Mr. Marcus was never quite surе what was said during the shaking of +hands. He was too absorbed in trying to justify such uncharacteristic +regard to do more than nod when Adrian excused himself to hold Kitty’s +light coat for her. Hе did retain a bizarre impression when the two of +them went out, however, that the new boarder’s mole had shifted from +the side to the back of his neck and was watching him with an air of +amiable curiosity. + + +The conviction left Mr. Marcus more annoyed than disturbed. He’d have +to see an oculist and have his lenses changed again, he told himself +resignedly, as he climbed the stairs to his room. + +Jay Kirby was waiting there for him, crouched against the farther wall +like a fearful puppy hiding from the adult pack. + +No other boarder in Mrs. Ponder’s house would have dared violate +Mr. Marcus’ privacy, but Jay enjoyed the privilege of handicap and +exercised it. Mr. Marcus sighed when he saw that Jay was suffering, or +had just suffered, another of his periodic attacks. His corn-colored +hair was wildly touseled, his blue eyes had fallen two octaves darker +with stress and there was a wide smear of grime across one sweating +cheek. + +Jay was far too badly shaken to bother with greetings. “You got to do +something about this Adrian Hall,” he blurted. “Mr. Marcus, he’s got +_spiders_.” + +Mr. Marcus found the proposition as repellent as it was improbable. +Still, the turn of Jay’s latest fantasy intrigued him. Large spiders or +small, he wondered, gray or black, poisonous or innocuous, caged or-- + +“Spiders?” He put his books and bags on the bed. “In his room, you +mean?” + +Jay denied it violently. “On _him_.” + +Mr. Marcus wondered with some bitterness if nations would ever outgrow +their penchant for expedient wars that left men broken as Jay Kirby +was broken. Left alone Jay would have been a pleasant young man and a +first-rate musician, but with the spirit of him maimed and trembling +like a frightened child’s at the edge of nightmare-- + +Mr. Marcus opened his suitcase. “I brought you a record, Jay--something +just released. A New Orleans stomp, the music-shop man said, with an +alto sax that--” + +Jay came across the room and clutched his arm, towering over him. “I +didn’t shuck my wig this time, Mr. Marcus, honest. I really saw this. +The guy had his clothes off, and he was all over spiders.” + +Mr. Marcus felt a touch of chill. Jay had been committed twice before +coming to rest at Mrs. Ponder’s; if he were sent away again, it might +be for good. + +“Sit down,” Mr. Marcus said. Hе sat down himself, on the room’s one +chair. “Tell me about it, Jay, and from the beginning.” + +Jay sat on the bed, and rose, and sat again. “It’d be all right if he’d +keep them to himself,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind that because I _like_ +him. It’s Miss Kitty I’m worried about.” + +“Miss Kitty?” + +“Everybody likes Adrian, Mr. Marcus, but Miss Kitty’s in love with him. +How’ll she feel when she finds out he’s got spiders?” + +Mr. Marcus nodded gravely. “I can understand your concern. But Miss +Kitty is blind, Jay. How can she find out?” + +“I thought you’d see that right off,” Jay said, disappointed. “She’ll +know when they get married, won’t she? She’ll _have_ to know.” + +Mr. Marcus permitted himself a small shudder. Jay had outdone himself +this time. + +“You saw these spiders, you said,” he reminded. “Where, and when?” + +Jay got up and paced restlessly, limping. “Half an hour ago, when +Adrian went up to shower and dress for his date with Miss Kitty. I was +out on the porch roof, tightening a loose bathroom shutter I’d promised +to fix for Mrs. Ponder, and--” + +“You spied on him, Jay? In the _bathroom_?” + +“I didn’t mean to,” Jay said defensively. “But I couldn’t look away +after I saw the spiders. Could you?” He turned a stricken face to Mr. +Marcus. “Mr. Marcus, he was all covered with them until he stepped into +the shower. Then he held up a towel and they jumped on it to keep dry.” + +“I see,” Mr. Marcus said. “And when he came out?” + +“He dried himself off,” Jay said. “And they jumped on again.” Hе began +to tremble with the violence of imminent seizure. “What am I going to +do, Mr. Marcus? I like Adrian, but I like Miss Kitty, too. I can’t let +him--” + +Mr. Marcus rose hastily and led him to his room down the hall. “You +won’t have to do anything,” he promised before he left Jay to have his +fit in privacy. “Trust me, Jay. I’ll take care of it.” + +It was not until later, when he had settled himself in his own room to +a volume of Saki’s inhumanly perfect short stories, that he remembered +the new boarder’s peregrinating mole. + +“Can’t happen outside fiction,” he assured himself. “Tricks of the +eyes, or else the fellow has two moles.” + +But his eyesight was disturbingly good when he went down to breakfast +next morning at seven and found himself seated beside Adrian Hall. +Adrian was neatly dressed for work. He was a newspaper reporter, it +developed, and was thinking seriously of launching a weekly of his own +in Maysville--and he was every whit as likeable as he had been on the +night before. + +But not as unremarkable. This morning, he had no moles at all. + + * * * * * + +Forty years of selling novelties and reading books had not prepared +Mr. Marcus for the role of detective that was thrust upon him, but it +had given him a certain resourcefulness. Between stock-taking calls at +local shops during the day he made discreet inquiries, and by nightfall +had amassed a considerable array of fact and opinion. + +The opinion was unfailingly enthusiastic. Never, Mr. Marcus thought, +had a man been so instantly and universally liked in a town as small +and insular as Maysville. Adrian Hall could have borrowed money from +any bank, had any job or married any girl in the community. + +What could make so plain a man so prepossessing Mr. Marcus could not +imagine. He was certain only that he liked Mrs. Ponder’s new boarder +more than he had ever liked anyone in his life, and that he felt not +only uncomfortable but downright guilty in spying out his personal +affairs. + +Actual fact was harder to arrive at. Adrian Hall had come from Kansas +City, some two hundred miles distant. He was a good newspaperman +and Gus Willis, who operated the Maysville _Bugler_, had liked him +well enough--as who hadn’t?--to hire him on sight. He was sober, +industrious, efficient and considerate. + +No one but Jay Kirby and Mr. Marcus seemed to suspect that he harbored +spiders under his shirt. And Mr. Marcus, returning from his first day +of selling and inquiry to find Adrian singing _The Rose of Tralee_ with +Kitty at the piano, found that repellent idea hard to believe. + +Until, at supper again, he happened to look up quickly from his plate +and discovered that the new boarder’s elusive mole had returned. Mr. +Marcus blinked and--he was quite positive, this time--it blinked +genially back at him. + +The conviction so unnerved him that he closed his eyes to defend his +composure. When he opened them again the mole had gone, together with +Mr. Marcus’ lost appetite. + +Mr. Marcus excused himself from table and went upstairs to his room. As +he had expected, Jay Kirby was waiting for him again. + +“Did you tell him?” Jay demanded. Mr. Marcus blinked, remembered the +mole that had just blinked back at him, and shuddered. + +“Did I tell what to whom?” + +“Adrian,” Jay said. “Didn’t you tell him yet to get lost? How’re we +going to keep him away from Miss Kitty unless we threaten to expose +him?” + +“I couldn’t do that,” Mr. Marcus said. “I like him too well.” + +“So do I,” Jay said. “Damn him.” + +Mr. Marcus went over the possibilities again and found nothing of +promise. + +“No one would believe us even if we tried to expose him,” he concluded. +“We wouldn’t believe in his spiders ourselves if we hadn’t seen them.” + +Jay began to sweat. “What are we going to do, Mr. Marcus? We can’t +brace Adrian because we like him too much, and we can’t tell Miss Kitty +what’s wrong with him. How are we going to keep them from getting +married?” + +It was a formidable question. Mr. Marcus evaded it by posing one of his +own. + +“How do you know they’ll be married, Jay? Has any announcement been +made?” + +“Not yet,” Jay said. “But there will be.” + +Mr. Marcus sighed. “Then I’m afraid we’re stumped. I wish we knew more +about him.” + +A new avenue of approach occurred to him then, but Jay anticipated the +inspiration. “You could find out something about him in Kansas City,” +Jay said. “He was a newspaper reporter there once, wasn’t he?” + +Mr. Marcus could not drop his selling--he had only two days left now +before he must move downstate toward St. Louis--and go to Kansas City, +but he could pursue his investigation by proxy. Providentially, he had +a friend on the staff of the Kansas City _Star_ who might do his leg +work for him. + +“It seems our last hope,” Mr. Marcus said. “I’ll make the call now.” + +He preferred not to use the house telephone because of its several +extensions, and the nearest booth stood in a corner of the neighborhood +drugstore. Mr. Marcus went out and made his call, received his Kansas +City friend’s promise to do what he could, and returned to Mrs. +Ponder’s boarding house. + +He found a small party in progress, with a beaming Mrs. Ponder and an +assorted handful of her boarders gathered round Adrian Hall and Kitty. +Lemonade flowed freely and an air of rejoicing prevailed. + +“Congratulate me, Mr. Marcus,” Kitty cried. “Adrian and I are going to +be married.” + +Mr. Marcus congratulated them both with deepest sincerity. His +scalp prickled only once during his well-wishings, when one of +Adrian’s--moles?--crept out of its shirt-collar, just below the Adam’s +apple this time, and peered at him complacently. + +“God bless you both,” Mr. Marcus finished, and fled upstairs. + +But his room, for once, was not sanctuary. + +For the first time in his life his books failed to sustain him and +he felt truly alone and impotent, caught vicariously in exactly the +sort of emotional muddle he had avoided so religiously. There was not +even Jay Kirby to lean on in his extremity. Jay had heard the news of +Kitty’s engagement during Mr. Marcus’ brief absence and had given way +under the strain, suffering another of his fits in his own room. + +Mrs. Ponder’s tapping brought Mr. Marcus out of his funk, if briefly. +“Telephone call for you,” she said. “From Kansas City.” + +Mr. Marcus, knowing that Mrs. Ponder would eavesdrop if he used the +upper hallway extension, took the call downstairs. It was his friend of +the _Star_. + +“Got the dirt you wanted right here in the office,” his friend said +cheerfully. “A question here, a phone call there, and it’s wrapped up.” + +He gave his information tersely. “The guy’s a bum, Marcus. He’s been +thrown off every paper in town for drinking--even Alcoholics Anonymous +finally wrote him off as a lost cause.” + +Mr. Marcus said nothing. There were no words for what he felt. + +“Wasn’t ever vicious,” his friend said. “He was just one of those poor +fish with a twist, an uncontrollable drinker. Sponged handouts and +probably stole a little on his bad days, but never robbed any banks. +What’s he doing up there--more of the usual?” + +Mr. Marcus found his voice. “Not at all. This must be a different +Adrian Hall altogether.” + +But it wasn’t. Mr. Marcus discovered that when he went upstairs again +and found Adrian waiting for him by the upper hallway extension. + +“I came up and listened in,” Adrian said. “I had an idea that you were +checking on me, Mr. Marcus. When Mrs. Ponder told us you had a call +from Kansas City, I was sure of it.” + +“I had to do it,” Mr. Marcus said. “Once Jay had told me about your +spiders, I had no choice.” + +Adrian took Mr. Marcus’ arm and led him away down the hall. Mr. Marcus +went along unprotestingly, numb with disbelief at his own composure. It +was downright frightening, he thought, to find himself so unfrightened. + +Adrian’s room was much like Mr. Marcus’ own, or like any other in the +Ponder house. Adrian seated Mr. Marcus on his one chair and himself on +the bed, and they measured each other equably over the flimsy expanse +of Adrian’s writing-table. + +In any decent piece of fiction, Mr. Marcus thought, there must be +some element of suspense; in fiction running to such a situation as +this, even of outright horror. But somehow, being dragged to the very +lair of the monster he had set out to scotch brought him no touch of +uneasiness. He felt sympathetic rather than fearful, and he liked +Adrian Hall more, if that were possible, than ever. + +“I’m really glad you unmasked me,” Adrian said. “I need help, Mr. +Marcus. I need help more than I ever needed it in my life.” + +“I’ll do anything within my power,” Mr. Marcus promised. “But I’m +equally interested in helping Kitty, else I wouldn’t have bothered with +your past at all.... Your problem is that you can’t keep your spiders +and marry Kitty too, isn’t it?” + +Adrian nodded. “It wouldn’t work. Not because Kitty might object to +them, for she wouldn’t--they’re not really offensive, and it’s no fault +of their own that they’re here--but because a honeymoon without privacy +is no honeymoon at all. My friends are quite intelligent, not to +mention inquisitive, and keeping them wouldn’t be fair to either Kitty +or myself.” + +“You could get rid of them.” + +“That wouldn’t be fair to _them_,” Adrian said. “And since I’m +responsible for their being here, and they’re responsible for my +reformation--” + +He broke off apologetically. “It would be better if I told you about it +from the beginning, wouldn’t it?” + +“It would,” Mr. Marcus agreed, and settled himself to listen. + +“First,” Adrian said, “what your friend of the _Star_ told you is +perfectly true. I drank and scrounged quarters on the street and slept +in gutters, not because I liked it but because I couldn’t stop doing it +any more than poor Jay Kirby can stop having fits. Until I got help, +that is. + +“I used to have the shakes regularly, like any other confirmed +alcoholic. The d.t.’s can be pretty awful, you know, and my personal +cross was to wake up from a binge and imagine myself all covered with +spiders. It happened so many times that I lost count, and usually it +meant several days in a hospital ward before I recovered. + +“But one particular morning I woke up with spiders that wouldn’t go +away. They were real, though they weren’t spiders at all, and they were +anything but the horrors I’d dreamed of. They were such incredibly +pleasant creatures--whatever they were, and are--that just being +associated so closely with them made a new man of me overnight. I was +perfectly happy until I came here and met Kitty.” + +“I can see they’re not common or garden variety Arachnida,” Mr. Marcus +said. He could with justification, for two of them had perched on the +rim of Adrian’s collar and were observing him with a bland good-nature +impossible to doubt. “You’ve no idea what they really are?” + +“Not the faintest,” Adrian said. “I’m not going to quote _Hamlet_, +but a great many things happen every day in the world that no one +understands. Personally, I think they were drawn here from some other +plane or dimension by the strength of my obsession. I can’t be sure of +that because I can’t talk to them, but I do feel that I’m responsible +for them. And they’ve done so much for me that I can’t just brush them +off. It would be inhuman.” + +“You’re right, of course,” Mr. Marcus agreed. “But on the other hand, +neither can you brush off Kitty. You’re in the position of the man who +couldn’t go but couldn’t stay.” + +Adrian nodded unhappily “There you have it. Mr. Marcus, what am I going +to do?” + +But Mr. Marcus, unlike the Saki he had been reading, had no instant and +adequate answer. + +And, since the next day was his last in Maysville for the season and he +could not linger on in unemployment at Mrs. Ponder’s even to help the +couple who had become his dearest friends, he was forced to take the +8:04 to St. Louis without having discovered any solution to Adrian’s +problem. + +It was a shame, Mr. Marcus thought when he was somewhere in the +neighborhood of Hannibal, Missouri, that such things never seem to work +out in everyday life as conveniently as they do in fiction. It was +entirely possible that he might never learn the outcome of Adrian’s +problem, and at best he had a year to wait. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Marcus, at the end of his forty-first year of selling novelties to +novelty shops, returned again to Maysville. But not immediately to Mrs. +Ponder’s boarding house. + +A prosperously-dressed Adrian met him at the station with a +conservative but handsome new station wagon. With Adrian was Kitty, +still blind but lovelier than ever, and in Kitty’s arms gurgled their +firstborn, a boy named Marcus Jay Hall. + +On their way to Mrs. Ponder’s they passed first the offices of the +Maysville _Bugler_, of which Adrian was now owner, and then the Hall’s +newly-financed home. A little later Adrian slowed the car to give +Mr. Marcus a closer look at a neighborhood billboard advertising the +excellence of Maysville’s own dance band, a five-piece combo of which +Jay Kirby seemed to be both originator and conductor. Jay’s face, +smiling and assured and with no trace of its old crippling tension, +took up a large part of the poster. And a handsome face it was. + +“Jay is the most popular man in Maysville nowadays,” Adrian explained. +“He could be mayor if he liked, but he’d rather play the saxophone.” + +A year had dulled Mr. Marcus’ perception not at all. “You mean?” he +said. + +“Just so,” Adrian agreed. “It worked out very well, after all. The +worst of problems have a way of settling themselves without too much +help, have you noticed? It was only a couple of nights after you left +that Jay had another of his attacks and woke up with the conviction +that he was covered with spiders. And he was, and everyone has been +quite happy since.” + +It was a fair enough ending, Mr. Marcus granted, but his private +opinion was that it lacked imagination. Saki, he felt sure, would have +handled it better. + + + + +Transcriber’s note: + + + This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, February 1956 (Vol. 5, +No. 1.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed. + + Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor +inconsistencies have been retained as printed. +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77665 *** diff --git a/77665-h/77665-h.htm b/77665-h/77665-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55f2739 --- /dev/null +++ b/77665-h/77665-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,666 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + The Man who had Spiders | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w30 {width: 30%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.p5 {font-size: 1.5em;} + + + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe115_4375 {width: 115.4375em;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77665 ***</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter illowe115_4375" id="cover"> + <img class="w30" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> <div class="chapter"></div> +<h1> +The Man who had Spiders +</h1> + + +<p class="center p5">by <strong>Roger Dee</strong></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> <div class="chapter"></div> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>All too modestly, we feel, has Roger Dee tried to shrug off his +undoubted kinship to Saki—that master of whimsical fantasy supreme—in +this ebulliently breathtaking excursion into a realm as darkly +mysterious as it is irresistibly enchanting. Adrian’s spiders may make +your flesh crawl. But we predict you’ll like Adrian himself quite as +much as did Mr. Marcus, and rejoice in his triumph.</i></p> + +<p><strong>There is probably more than one way of curing a tragic addiction to +alcohol. But Adrian’s way was as shuddery as a smiling Medusa.</strong></p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> <div class="chapter"></div> + +<p>When Mr. Marcus, who had sold novelties to novelty shops for forty +years and so had lost the capacity for astonishment at human +unpredictability, returned to Maysville on the 8:04 train for his +regular April week of selling, he went at once to Mrs. Ponder’s +boarding house and found Kitty playing Delibes on the living-room +piano. +</p> + +<p>It was almost like coming home, Mr. Marcus thought with an +uncharacteristic twinge of nostalgia. He paused for a moment in the +doorway, suitcase and sample bag and his inevitable parcel of books in +hand, to listen.</p> + +<p>Tender was the word for Kitty, with her cool, sure +touch on the Delibes theme and her clear blind eyes and her nestling +of fair hair that just brushed her shoulders. And wasted, Mr. Marcus +thought, with all the beauty and the talent of her shunted to obscurity +in the dingy gentility of her mother’s menage.</p> + +<p>If he were thirty years younger—</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus cut the thought dead. <i>If you were thirty years +younger, Marcus</i>, he told himself with dry cynicism, <i>you’d travel and +sell novelties. Just as you did thirty years ago.</i> Kitty sensed his +presence with the near-tactile acuity of the blind and let the Delibes +theme trail off in a random tinkle.</p> + +<p>“It’s only I, Miss Kitty,” Mr. +Marcus said. “The old man who sells loaded cigars to idiots.”</p> + +<p>She +turned on the piano bench, pleased at his coming but nevertheless +disappointed. “Oh, Mr. Marcus. I thought at first you were Adrian.”</p> + +<p>“Adrian?”</p> + +<p>She laughed, a sound as light and clear as the vanished +music. “Adrian Hall, our new boarder. He’s only been with us a week.”</p> + +<p>A week. Seven days, Mr. Marcus thought, and her face could light up so +at the sound of his step?</p> + +<p>When Kitty smiled it was impossible to think +that her eyes could not see him. “You’re thinking that my interest is +unusual, and you’re quite right. But Adrian is an unusual man, Mr. +Marcus.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure he is,” Mr. Marcus said cautiously. “I’ll have to +meet him.”</p> + +<p>The prospect pleased her. “You were always nice to me and +Jay Kirby because I’m blind and Jay has fits, but you never noticed +anyone else. You’ll notice Adrian. You’ll like him.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I +shall,” Mr. Marcus said. Her eagerness made him feel old and tired and +somehow resentful. The books and bags grew heavy in his hands. “I was +just going upstairs to see if my room—”</p> + +<p>Kitty’s face lighted up. “Please +wait,” she begged. “I hear Adrian coming down now. We’re going out +for a drive, but I’d like you to meet him first.”</p> + +<p>The new boarder was +perhaps thirty, hardly older than Kitty, and totally unremarkable. +Shaking hands, Mr. Marcus cast back through the dry files of his memory +and exhausted them without turning up a more ordinary face or figure. +Moderately tall, he catalogued: average build, plain face, neutral +hair, good teeth and mild blue eyes. The man’s only distinction seemed +to be a round, black mole on the left side of his neck, half hidden by +his shirt-collar. Politely, Mr. Marcus did not look at it twice.</p> + +<p>It +rather startled him to discover that Kitty had been right. He <i>did</i> like +Adrian Hall, at first sight and without reservation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus was +never quite surе what was said during the shaking of hands. He was too +absorbed in trying to justify such uncharacteristic regard to do more +than nod when Adrian excused himself to hold Kitty’s light coat for +her. Hе did retain a bizarre impression when the two of them went out, +however, that the new boarder’s mole had shifted from the side to the +back of his neck and was watching him with an air of amiable curiosity.</p> + + +<p>The conviction left Mr. Marcus more annoyed +than disturbed. He’d have to see an oculist and have his lenses changed +again, he told himself resignedly, as he climbed the stairs to his +room.</p> + +<p>Jay Kirby was waiting there for him, crouched against the farther +wall like a fearful puppy hiding from the adult pack.</p> + +<p>No other boarder +in Mrs. Ponder’s house would have dared violate Mr. Marcus’ privacy, +but Jay enjoyed the privilege of handicap and exercised it. Mr. Marcus +sighed when he saw that Jay was suffering, or had just suffered, +another of his periodic attacks. His corn-colored hair was wildly +touseled, his blue eyes had fallen two octaves darker with stress and +there was a wide smear of grime across one sweating cheek.</p> + +<p>Jay was far +too badly shaken to bother with greetings. “You got to do something +about this Adrian Hall,” he blurted. “Mr. Marcus, he’s got <i>spiders</i>.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus found the proposition as repellent as it was improbable. +Still, the turn of Jay’s latest fantasy intrigued him. Large spiders +or small, he wondered, gray or black, poisonous or innocuous, caged +or—</p> + +<p>“Spiders?” He put his books and bags on the bed. “In his room, +you mean?”</p> + +<p>Jay denied it violently. “On <i>him</i>.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus wondered with +some bitterness if nations would ever outgrow their penchant for +expedient wars that left men broken as Jay Kirby was broken. Left alone Jay +would have been a pleasant young man and a first-rate musician, but +with the spirit of him maimed and trembling like a frightened child’s +at the edge of nightmare—</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus opened his suitcase. “I brought +you a record, Jay—something just released. A New Orleans stomp, the +music-shop man said, with an alto sax that—”</p> + +<p>Jay came across the room +and clutched his arm, towering over him. “I didn’t shuck my wig this +time, Mr. Marcus, honest. I really saw this. The guy had his clothes +off, and he was all over spiders.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus felt a touch of chill. +Jay had been committed twice before coming to rest at Mrs. Ponder’s; if +he were sent away again, it might be for good.</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” Mr. Marcus +said. Hе sat down himself, on the room’s one chair. “Tell me about +it, Jay, and from the beginning.”</p> + +<p>Jay sat on the bed, and rose, and +sat again. “It’d be all right if he’d keep them to himself,” he said. +“I wouldn’t mind that because I <i>like</i> him. It’s Miss Kitty I’m worried +about.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Kitty?”</p> + +<p>“Everybody likes Adrian, Mr. Marcus, but Miss +Kitty’s in love with him. How’ll she feel when she finds out he’s got +spiders?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus nodded gravely. “I can understand your concern. +But Miss Kitty is blind, Jay. How can she find out?”</p> + +<p>“I thought you’d see that right off,” Jay said, disappointed. +“She’ll know when they get married, won’t she? She’ll <i>have</i> to know.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus permitted himself a small shudder. Jay had outdone himself +this time.</p> + +<p>“You saw these spiders, you said,” he reminded. “Where, and +when?”</p> + +<p>Jay got up and paced restlessly, limping. “Half an hour ago, +when Adrian went up to shower and dress for his date with Miss Kitty. +I was out on the porch roof, tightening a loose bathroom shutter I’d +promised to fix for Mrs. Ponder, and—”</p> + +<p>“You spied on him, Jay? In the +<i>bathroom</i>?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mean to,” Jay said defensively. “But I couldn’t +look away after I saw the spiders. Could you?” He turned a stricken +face to Mr. Marcus. “Mr. Marcus, he was all covered with them until +he stepped into the shower. Then he held up a towel and they jumped +on it to keep dry.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” Mr. Marcus said. “And when he came out?”</p> + +<p>“He dried himself off,” Jay said. “And they jumped on again.” Hе began +to tremble with the violence of imminent seizure. “What am I going to +do, Mr. Marcus? I like Adrian, but I like Miss Kitty, too. I can’t +let him—”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus rose hastily and led him to his room down the +hall. “You won’t have to do anything,” he promised before he left Jay +to have his fit in privacy. “Trust me, Jay. I’ll take care of it.”</p> + +<p>It +was not until later, when he had settled himself in his own room to a +volume of Saki’s inhumanly perfect short stories, that he remembered +the new boarder’s peregrinating mole.</p> + +<p>“Can’t happen outside fiction,” +he assured himself. “Tricks of the eyes, or else the fellow has two +moles.”</p> + +<p>But his eyesight was disturbingly good when he went down to +breakfast next morning at seven and found himself seated beside Adrian +Hall. Adrian was neatly dressed for work. He was a newspaper reporter, +it developed, and was thinking seriously of launching a weekly of +his own in Maysville—and he was every whit as likeable as he had been +on the night before.</p> + +<p>But not as unremarkable. This morning, he had +no moles at all.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Forty years of selling novelties and reading books +had not prepared Mr. Marcus for the role of detective that was thrust +upon him, but it had given him a certain resourcefulness. Between +stock-taking calls at local shops during the day he made discreet +inquiries, and by nightfall had amassed a considerable array of fact +and opinion.</p> + +<p>The opinion was unfailingly enthusiastic. Never, Mr. +Marcus thought, had a man been so instantly and universally liked in +a town as small and insular as Maysville. Adrian Hall could have +borrowed money from any bank, had any job or +married any girl in the community.</p> + +<p>What could make so plain a man so +prepossessing Mr. Marcus could not imagine. He was certain only that +he liked Mrs. Ponder’s new boarder more than he had ever liked anyone +in his life, and that he felt not only uncomfortable but downright +guilty in spying out his personal affairs.</p> + +<p>Actual fact was harder to +arrive at. Adrian Hall had come from Kansas City, some two hundred +miles distant. He was a good newspaperman and Gus Willis, who operated +the Maysville <i>Bugler</i>, had liked him well enough—as who hadn’t?—to hire +him on sight. He was sober, industrious, efficient and considerate.</p> + +<p>No +one but Jay Kirby and Mr. Marcus seemed to suspect that he harbored +spiders under his shirt. And Mr. Marcus, returning from his first day +of selling and inquiry to find Adrian singing <i>The Rose of Tralee</i> +with Kitty at the piano, found that repellent idea hard to believe.</p> + +<p>Until, at supper again, he happened to look up quickly from his plate +and discovered that the new boarder’s elusive mole had returned. Mr. +Marcus blinked and—he was quite positive, this time—it blinked genially +back at him.</p> + +<p>The conviction so unnerved him that he closed his eyes to +defend his composure. When he opened them again the mole had gone, +together with Mr. Marcus’ lost appetite.</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus excused himself +from table and went upstairs to his room. As he had expected, Jay Kirby +was waiting for him again.</p> + +<p>“Did you tell him?” Jay demanded. Mr. Marcus +blinked, remembered the mole that had just blinked back at him, and +shuddered.</p> + +<p>“Did I tell what to whom?”</p> + +<p>“Adrian,” Jay said. “Didn’t you +tell him yet to get lost? How’re we going to keep him away from Miss +Kitty unless we threaten to expose him?”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t do that,” Mr. +Marcus said. “I like him too well.”</p> + +<p>“So do I,” Jay said. “Damn him.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus went over the possibilities again and found nothing of +promise.</p> + +<p>“No one would believe us even if we tried to expose him,” he +concluded. “We wouldn’t believe in his spiders ourselves if we hadn’t +seen them.”</p> + +<p>Jay began to sweat. “What are we going to do, Mr. Marcus? +We can’t brace Adrian because we like him too much, and we can’t tell +Miss Kitty what’s wrong with him. How are we going to keep them from +getting married?”</p> + +<p>It was a formidable question. Mr. Marcus evaded it +by posing one of his own.</p> + +<p>“How do you know they’ll be married, Jay? +Has any announcement been made?”</p> + +<p>“Not yet,” Jay +said. “But there will be.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus sighed. “Then I’m afraid we’re +stumped. I wish we knew more about him.”</p> + +<p>A new avenue of approach +occurred to him then, but Jay anticipated the inspiration. “You could +find out something about him in Kansas City,” Jay said. “He was +a newspaper reporter there once, wasn’t he?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus could not drop his +selling—he had only two days left now before he must move downstate +toward St. Louis—and go to Kansas City, but he could pursue his +investigation by proxy. Providentially, he had a friend on the staff +of the Kansas City <i>Star</i> who might do his leg work for him.</p> + +<p>“It seems +our last hope,” Mr. Marcus said. “I’ll make the call now.”</p> + +<p>He preferred +not to use the house telephone because of its several extensions, and +the nearest booth stood in a corner of the neighborhood drugstore. Mr. +Marcus went out and made his call, received his Kansas City friend’s +promise to do what he could, and returned to Mrs. Ponder’s boarding +house.</p> + +<p>He found a small party in progress, with a beaming Mrs. Ponder +and an assorted handful of her boarders gathered round Adrian Hall +and Kitty. Lemonade flowed freely and an air of rejoicing prevailed.</p> + +<p>“Congratulate me, Mr. Marcus,” Kitty cried. “Adrian and I are going to +be married.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus congratulated them both with deepest sincerity. +His scalp prickled only once during his well-wishings, when one of +Adrian’s—moles?—crept out of its shirt-collar, just below the Adam’s +apple this time, and peered at him complacently.</p> + +<p>“God bless you both,” +Mr. Marcus finished, and fled upstairs.</p> + +<p>But his room, for once, was not +sanctuary.</p> + +<p>For the first time in his life his books failed to sustain +him and he felt truly alone and impotent, caught vicariously in exactly +the sort of emotional muddle he had avoided so religiously. There was +not even Jay Kirby to lean on in his extremity. Jay had heard the news +of Kitty’s engagement during Mr. Marcus’ brief absence and had given +way under the strain, suffering another of his fits in his own room.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ponder’s tapping brought Mr. Marcus out of his funk, if briefly. +“Telephone call for you,” she said. “From Kansas City.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus, +knowing that Mrs. Ponder would eavesdrop if he used the upper hallway +extension, took the call downstairs. It was his friend of the <i>Star</i>.</p> + +<p>“Got the dirt you wanted right here in the office,” his friend said +cheerfully. “A question here, a phone call there, and it’s wrapped up.”</p> + +<p>He gave his information tersely. “The guy’s a +bum, Marcus. He’s been thrown off every paper in town for drinking—even +Alcoholics Anonymous finally wrote him off as a lost cause.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus +said nothing. There were no words for what he felt.</p> + +<p>“Wasn’t ever +vicious,” his friend said. “He was just one of those poor fish with a +twist, an uncontrollable drinker. Sponged handouts and probably stole +a little on his bad days, but never robbed any banks. What’s he doing +up there—more of the usual?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Marcus found his voice. “Not at all. +This must be a different Adrian Hall altogether.”</p> + +<p>But it wasn’t. Mr. +Marcus discovered that when he went upstairs again and found Adrian +waiting for him by the upper hallway extension.</p> + +<p>“I came up and listened +in,” Adrian said. “I had an idea that you were checking on me, Mr. +Marcus. When Mrs. Ponder told us you had a call from Kansas City, I +was sure of it.”</p> + +<p>“I had to do it,” Mr. Marcus said. “Once Jay had told +me about your spiders, I had no choice.”</p> + +<p>Adrian took Mr. Marcus’ arm +and led him away down the hall. Mr. Marcus went along unprotestingly, +numb with disbelief at his own composure. It was downright frightening, +he thought, to find himself so unfrightened.</p> + +<p>Adrian’s room was much +like Mr. Marcus’ own, or like any other in the Ponder house. Adrian +seated Mr. Marcus on his one chair and himself on the bed, and +they measured each other equably over the flimsy expanse of Adrian’s +writing-table.</p> + +<p>In any decent piece of fiction, Mr. Marcus thought, +there must be some element of suspense; in fiction running to such a +situation as this, even of outright horror. But somehow, being dragged +to the very lair of the monster he had set out to scotch brought him +no touch of uneasiness. He felt sympathetic rather than fearful, and +he liked Adrian Hall more, if that were possible, than ever.</p> + +<p>“I’m +really glad you unmasked me,” Adrian said. “I need help, Mr. Marcus. +I need help more than I ever needed it in my life.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do anything +within my power,” Mr. Marcus promised. “But I’m equally interested in +helping Kitty, else I wouldn’t have bothered with your past at all.... +Your problem is that you can’t keep your spiders and marry Kitty too, +isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Adrian nodded. “It wouldn’t work. Not because Kitty might +object to them, for she wouldn’t—they’re not really offensive, and it’s +no fault of their own that they’re here—but because a honeymoon without +privacy is no honeymoon at all. My friends are quite intelligent, not +to mention inquisitive, and keeping them wouldn’t be fair to either +Kitty or myself.”</p> + +<p>“You could get rid of them.”</p> + +<p>“That wouldn’t be fair +to <i>them</i>,” Adrian said. “And since I’m responsible +for their being here, and they’re responsible for my reformation—”</p> + +<p>He +broke off apologetically. “It would be better if I told you about it +from the beginning, wouldn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“It would,” Mr. Marcus agreed, and +settled himself to listen.</p> + +<p>“First,” Adrian said, “what your friend of +the <i>Star</i> told you is perfectly true. I drank and scrounged quarters on +the street and slept in gutters, not because I liked it but because I +couldn’t stop doing it any more than poor Jay Kirby can stop having +fits. Until I got help, that is.</p> + +<p>“I used to have the shakes regularly, +like any other confirmed alcoholic. The d.t.’s can be pretty awful, you +know, and my personal cross was to wake up from a binge and imagine +myself all covered with spiders. It happened so many times that I lost +count, and usually it meant several days in a hospital ward before I +recovered.</p> + +<p>“But one particular morning I woke up with spiders that +wouldn’t go away. They were real, though they weren’t spiders at all, +and they were anything but the horrors I’d dreamed of. They were such +incredibly pleasant creatures—whatever they were, and are—that just +being associated so closely with them made a new man of me overnight. +I was perfectly happy until I came here and met Kitty.”</p> + +<p>“I can see +they’re not common or garden variety Arachnida,” Mr. Marcus said. +He could with justification, for two of them had perched on the rim +of Adrian’s collar and were observing him with a bland good-nature +impossible to doubt. “You’ve no idea what they really are?”</p> + +<p>“Not the +faintest,” Adrian said. “I’m not going to quote <i>Hamlet</i>, but a great +many things happen every day in the world that no one understands. +Personally, I think they were drawn here from some other plane or +dimension by the strength of my obsession. I can’t be sure of that +because I can’t talk to them, but I do feel that I’m responsible for +them. And they’ve done so much for me that I can’t just brush them off. +It would be inhuman.”</p> + +<p>“You’re right, of course,” Mr. Marcus agreed. +“But on the other hand, neither can you brush off Kitty. You’re in the +position of the man who couldn’t go but couldn’t stay.”</p> + +<p>Adrian nodded +unhappily “There you have it. Mr. Marcus, what am I going to do?”</p> + +<p>But +Mr. Marcus, unlike the Saki he had been reading, had no instant and +adequate answer.</p> + +<p>And, since the next day was his last in Maysville +for the season and he could not linger on in unemployment at Mrs. +Ponder’s even to help the couple who had become his dearest friends, +he was forced to take the 8:04 to St. Louis without having discovered +any solution to Adrian’s problem.</p> + +<p>It was a +shame, Mr. Marcus thought when he was somewhere in the neighborhood of +Hannibal, Missouri, that such things never seem to work out in everyday +life as conveniently as they do in fiction. It was entirely possible +that he might never learn the outcome of Adrian’s problem, and at best +he had a year to wait.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Mr. Marcus, at the end of his forty-first year +of selling novelties to novelty shops, returned again to Maysville. But +not immediately to Mrs. Ponder’s boarding house.</p> + +<p>A prosperously-dressed +Adrian met him at the station with a conservative but handsome new +station wagon. With Adrian was Kitty, still blind but lovelier than +ever, and in Kitty’s arms gurgled their firstborn, a boy named Marcus +Jay Hall.</p> + +<p>On their way to Mrs. Ponder’s they passed first the offices +of the Maysville <i>Bugler</i>, of which Adrian was now owner, and then the +Hall’s newly-financed home. A little later Adrian slowed the car to +give Mr. Marcus a closer look at a neighborhood billboard advertising +the excellence of Maysville’s own dance band, a five-piece combo of +which Jay Kirby seemed to be both originator and conductor. Jay’s face, +smiling and assured and with no trace of its old crippling tension, +took up a large part of the poster. And a handsome face it was.</p> + +<p>“Jay +is the most popular man in Maysville nowadays,” Adrian explained. “He +could be mayor if he liked, but he’d rather play the saxophone.”</p> + +<p>A year +had dulled Mr. Marcus’ perception not at all. “You mean?” he said.</p> + +<p>“Just so,” Adrian agreed. “It worked out very well, after all. The +worst of problems have a way of settling themselves without too much +help, have you noticed? It was only a couple of nights after you left +that Jay had another of his attacks and woke up with the conviction +that he was covered with spiders. And he was, and everyone has been +quite happy since.”</p> + +<p>It was a fair enough ending, Mr. Marcus granted, +but his private opinion was that it lacked imagination. Saki, he felt +sure, would have handled it better.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note"> + Transcriber’s note: + </h2> + + + +<p>This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, February 1956 (Vol. 5, +No. 1.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> + +<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor +inconsistencies have been retained as printed.</p> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77665 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/77665-h/images/cover.jpg b/77665-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec32dbe --- /dev/null +++ b/77665-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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