Back Aa

Rat Race

<h2>CHAPTER 4</h2> After a pleasant breakfast, in the course of which my wife read the social news in the New York Herald-Tribune and I the business news in the New York Times, I excused myself and returned to my bedroom. Winnie's bathroom was fitted with all the gadgets, too, and there was an abundant choice of razors, from the old-fashioned straight-edge suicide's favorite to the 1941 stream-lined electric Yankee clipper. I tried out the scales and found that my involuntary host weighed over 195 pounds—a good deal of it around the middle. Oh, well, a few weeks of setting up exercises would take care of that. A cold shower and a brisk rub made me feel a little more presentable and I climbed shamelessly into Winnie's most manly tweeds. "Are you catching the ten o'clock, dear?" Germaine called from her bedroom. "No such luck!" I warned her. "Phone the office, will you, and tell them I'm feeling under the weather and won't be in till sometime tomorrow." This seemed like a good chance to do some exploring—since the Rutherfords had temporarily abandoned the field—though I needn't have bothered since I had seen photographs of suburban houses like Pook's Hill in a score of different slick-paper pre-war magazines. There was the inevitable colonial-type dining-room, with dark wainscoting below smooth oyster-white plaster, electric candle-sconces, and the necessary array of family silver on the antiqued mahogany sideboard. The windows gave a vista of brown lawn, with the grass still blasted by winter. There was the inevitable chintzy living-room, with a permanently unemployed grand-piano, two or three safely second-rate paintings by safely first-rate defunct foreigners. There was the usual array of sofas, easy chairs, small, middle-sized and biggish tables, with lots of china ash-trays, and a sizable wood-burning fireplace. Of course, you entered the living-room by two steps down from the front hall and there was a separate up-two-steps-entrance to my den. And sure as death and taxes, there was a veritable downstairs lavatory. I slipped on my coat and hat and stepped out through a French window which led from the living-room to the inevitable paved stone terrace. There were galvanized iron fittings for a summer awning and in the center was a cute little bronze sun-dial. This had an exclamation point and the inscription, "Over the Yard-Arm" at the place where noon should be, and a bronze cocktail glass instead of the sign for four p.m. All the way around the rest of the circle was written in heavy embossed capitals, "The Hell With It!" My meditations on this facet of the Tompkins character—and I wondered whether I oughtn't to spell 'facet' with a u'—were interrupted by Myrtle. "Oh, Mr. Tompkins," she called from the kitchen window, in complete repudiation of her earlier appearance as Watson, third lady's maid at Barony Castle, "the man from the kennels is here with Ponto. Where shall I tell him to take the dog?" I hurried back indoors—there was still a chill in the air and I really prefer my trees with their clothes on—and found a gnarled little man who reeked of saddle-soap and servility. "Well, sir, Mr. Tompkins," he beamed the Old Retainer at me. "That dog of yours had a close call, a mighty close call. Thought he was a sure-enough goner. Tried everything: injections, oxygen, iron lung, enema. No dice. Then yesterday afternoon he just lay down and went to sleep and I thought, 'My! Won't Mr. Tompkins feel bad!' But he woke up, large as life and twice as natural, and began carrying on so that I guess he wanted to come home to his folks. He's a mite weak, Mr. Tompkins, very weak I might say, but he'll get well quicker here than at my place and I'll pop in every other day to keep track of him. Never did see anything like the recovery that dog made in all my born days. Now about his bowels—" I waited until he had to draw a breath and made swift to congratulate him on his professional skill. "I wouldn't have lost Ponto for a thousand dollars," I said. "Let's get him out of your car and up in my bedroom," I added. "He's been like a member of the family and—" A series of deep bass backs interrupted me, followed by ominous sounds of a heavy body hurling itself recklessly around inside a small enclosed space. "There!" said the vet. "He recognized your voice. Come on, Ponto. I'll fetch you. He's pretty weak, Mr. Tompkins, but he'll get strong fast if you feed him right." The vet twinkled out the front door and returned shortly, leading a perfectly enormous coal-black Great Dane on a plaited leather leash. Ponto did not look very weak to me, but I've always been fond of dogs and I figured that kindness to animals might count in my favor. "Good dog," I condescended. "Poor old fellow!" The poor old fellow gave a low but hungry growl and lunged for me with bared teeth, dragging the vet behind him like a dory behind a fishing schooner. I jumped into the den and slammed the door, while Ponto sniffed, snapped and grumbled on the far side of my defenses. "Tell you what, doctor," I called through the panels. "Take him upstairs and put him in my room. It's the one to the right at the head of the stairs. He's just excited. Shut him in and as soon as he's calmed down I'll make him comfortable." While this rather cowardly solution was being put into effect, I sat down and thought it over. Apparently Winnie had been the kind of man whose pet dog tried to rip his throat out. That was puzzling, since from what I remembered of him at school, he had if anything been only too amiable. I waited out the vet's last-minute report and instructions, and then rang the bell for the maid. "Mary," I said, "will you help the doctor with his hat and coat and then take Ponto a bowl of water. The poor old fellow's had a rough time." The vet departed and I listened while the maid went upstairs. Then there was a scream, the crash of breaking china and the sound of a door being slammed. I bounded up the steps to find Mary, white-faced and trembling, looking stupidly at the broken remains of a white china bowl and a sizeable puddle of water on the hardwood floor outside my bedroom. The door of my wife's room burst open and Jimmie appeared with a wild "What on earth!" "It's that dog, sir," gasped Myrtle. "When I come—came—in with the bowl of water like you said, there he was lying on—on—your bed, like a Human, and—and—" "And what?" I demanded. "And he was wearing your pyjamas, sir," she sobbed. "It's—it's—" "Uncanny," Germaine supplied the word. I gave a hollow laugh. "He probably remembers that he isn't allowed to lie on the beds, Mary, and may have dragged my pyjamas up there to lie on. Whenever I let him up on the furniture I always make him lie on some of my clothes." "Oh," Myrtle said, suddenly calm. "Is that it? It was just that it looked sort of queer to see his legs in the pyjama trousers." "Well, don't worry about it now, Myrtle," my wife remarked firmly. "I'm not surprised it gave you a shock. He's such a big dog. I'll go in and see that he's comfortable. Come on, Winnie! Let's take a look at him. What's the matter?" she added, noticing a certain reluctance in my attitude. "Nothing much," I martyrized. "It's only that he flew for my throat when he got inside the door." "Nonsense!" she replied in the firm tone of a woman who knows better and who, in any case, expects her husband not to be afraid of a mere infuriated Great Dane. "You know Ponto always puts his paws on your shoulders and licks your face every morning, as you taught him." My rollicking laughter was a work of art. "Of course, that was it," I agreed, "and he'd been away from us so long that he was over-eager. Come on, let's see if we can't make the poor beast comfortable." But I let her lead the way. The poor beast was lying panting on my still unmade bed. The flowered Chinese silk pyjamas which I had worn at breakfast were indeed strangely twisted around its gaunt body. The coat was across the animal's shoulders and both of its hind-legs were sticking through one of the trouser-legs. "There! Ponto! Poor old fellow!" cooed Jimmie in a voice which would have charmed snails from their shells. Ponto gave a self-pitying whine and his tail thumped the pillow like an overseer's whip across the back of Uncle Tom. My wife patted the animal's head and Ponto positively drooled at her. She gently disentangled him from among the pyjamas and hung them up in the closet. As she turned toward the bed, he jumped to the floor, reared up, put both paws on her shoulders and licked her face convulsively, giving little whines and shiverings. "Poor old fellow, poor old Ponto!" she crooned. "Was he glad to get home from the nasty old kennel? There!" And she massaged his ears. "Come on now, Ponto," she remarked more authoritatively, "say good morning to your master." The answer was a grand diapason of a growl and the baring of a thicket of gleaming white fangs in my direction. "Ponto!" she ordered, as the beast positively cringed. "Say good morning to the master!" He slumped to the floor with the grace of a pole-axed calf and approached me slowly, ears back, hair bristling and teeth in evidence. "Ponto!" Germaine's cry was positively totalitarian but the dog lunged at me and I barely had time to close the door in its face. A few minutes later, Germaine emerged looking bewildered. "I've never known him to behave like this," she said. "I don't like it. It's always been you he was so fond of and he barely tolerated me. Now he seems all mixed-up. After you left, he calmed right down and came back and licked my face all over again. What do you suppose is wrong with him. Can it be fits?" I shook my head. "He doesn't act like fits," I said. "He's had a bad go of distemper and is probably suffering from shock. Dogs do get shock, you know. I remember in Psychology at Harvard they told us about a very intelligent St. Bernard dog which was shocked into complete hysteria by the supernatural. That is, they pulled a lamb chop across the floor by a thread concealed in a crack between the boards. The dog nearly had heart failure when he saw a chop moving by itself." "But what can we do?" she asked. "Let's send him back to the kennels until he's cured." "Nope! From what Dr. Whatsisname—" "Dalrymple." "From what Dalrymple said, he'd started acting up at the kennels and he—the vet, that is—thought Ponto would be better off at home." "But we can't have him going for you every time you use your room." "Then I won't use it. I'll sleep in the guest-room," I added swiftly, lest she leap to feminine conclusions. "You might take him another bowl of water—he's all right with you—and spread the New York Times on the floor—and a damned good use for it—and bring out my clothes and things. He seems to have quite a leech for you and we'll just leave him there to think things over by himself." "How about his food?" she asked. "Shouldn't he have a special diet?" "No. I'll let him go hungry for a day or so. So long as he has plenty of water it won't hurt him. Then when he's weak enough so as not to be dangerous I'll bring him some nice dog-biscuits and warm milk and he'll learn to love me the best way, by the alimentary canal." She looked at me closely, "You do look rocky," she said. "You've had a shock, too. Hadn't I better call the doctor?" I shook my head. "No more doctors, please. I'm out of condition, I guess, and all this dodging Great Danes is hard on the nerves. I'll go down and mix myself a brandy-and-soda. You might join me when you've moved my things upstairs. We've got to talk over a lot of things." When I finally managed to settle down in my den with a stiff drink I felt besieged, bewildered and backed up against the wall. There could be no reasonable doubt about it—the dog knew! Ponto knew that I was an interloper, that the real Winnie Tompkins no longer existed, that a stranger was masquerading in his body and clothes. The uncanny instinct of a dog had led him to the truth when even Winnie's wife had been deceived. This was a new twist in the maze. I couldn't imagine the Master of the Rat-Race watching with scientific detachment to see whether Frank Jacklin would make it or would be disqualified in the first round. Of one thing I was certain, unless I could establish some kind of personal understanding with Ponto, suspicion would gather around me. For the moment, Germaine did not doubt that I was her husband: my conduct had puzzled her but she had lived with Winnie so long that it was probable that she no longer specifically noticed him. Virginia Rutherford would be more dangerous—she was a woman scorned and she had been tricked out of an intrigue. She had every motive for digging out or even for inventing the truth, but I had given myself a good excuse to keep her at arm's length. She couldn't force her way into my clubs. I would tell my office staff to keep her away from me, and she couldn't be so ill-bred as to thrust herself into my home. If I could appease Ponto and avoid Virginia, I had a fair chance of getting away with it. "Beg pardon, sir!" It was Myrtle. "Yes, Mary?" "Mrs. Rutherford is back, sir. She wants to see you." "Tell her I am not at home," I replied in a clear carrying tone. "And that I never will be at home to her." "Oh, yes, you will." It was the red-head. She was wearing a long mink coat and carrying a short automatic pistol. "Like it or not, Winnie, we are going to have a talk—now." She turned to the startled maid. "And don't you try phoning the police, Myrtle," she added, "or the first thing you will hear is this pistol going pop at Mr. Winfred Tompkins of New York City and Bedford Hills." "That's all right, Mary," I added. "Don't call the police. Tell Mrs. Tompkins that I'm busy. Mrs. Rutherford and I wish to have a conversation." <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.