Aliens. William McFee
him at the same game of peeping-Tom that we had been playing in the room below. Yet so quickly and over-lappingly do our minds work that at the same moment I had no less than three blurred emotions. I was pleased to find my friend was guilty, I was pleased with the sketch, yet puzzled to know how he had come to make it. Suddenly I saw light.
"You were on the stairs?" I said, and pointed with the paper over my shoulder. He nodded.
"Happened to look out," he remarked, setting his cup down.
It is my custom to risk a good deal sometimes by uttering thoughts which my friends are free to disown. They may not be quite honest in this, but none the less, according to the social contract, they are free to disown. So, in this case, when I said, "I wonder if they are really married," both of these generous souls repudiated the suggestion at once.
"But you must admit we have some reason for suspicion," I went on, looking into my cup. "Of course, I am not speaking now as a gentleman——"
"No," said Bill, maliciously. I continued.
"——but as an investigator into the causes of psychological phenomena. Placing them upon the dissecting-table, so to speak, and probing with the forceps of observation and the needle of wit——"
"Rubbish!" snorted the etcher rudely, turning to his plates.
"But, my dear chap!" I urged, "let me explain. I happened to be reading Balzac last night, that is all. You know how stimulating he is, and how readily one falls in with his plans for forming a complete Science of Applied Biology of the human race. Put it another way if you like. What are the facts? Item: A grass widow, obviously foreign, presumably Italian. Item: Two children indisputably American, one fair, the other dark. Item: A scaldino. Item: Male clothing on the line. Item: A reserved attitude toward her intelligent and cultivated neighbours. Item: Ignorance of the well-known fact that the Indian Summer is now setting in. Item:——shall I go on? Have we not here evidence sufficiently discrepant to warrant a certain conjecture?"
"Male clothing, you said?" remarked Bill, a certain respect for my perspicacity in her manner; "When?"
"The last time I came home with the milk," I replied. "The moon was shining with some brilliance. As I looked out of my window before getting into bed I saw some one moving over there. A further scrutiny revealed to me a number of undeniable suits of pyjamas which were being taken hurriedly from the line."
"You didn't say anything about it before?"
"No, because I attached no significance to the fact before. To tell you the truth, I was under the impression that they were doing laundry work and that, to conceal the fact more effectively, they were doing the male garments at night. We had not then heard the item I was waiting permission to enumerate."
"Is it one we know or one you're going to spring on us?" inquired the lady, reaching out for my cup.
"You may know it," I replied. Mac was bending over his plate, rubbing the ink in with deft fingers, and I saw his lowered glance flutter in my direction for a moment.
"You mean Mac knows and you don't feel sure whether he's told me," interpreted Bill, shaking the tea-pot. I laughed.
"Into that we will not go," I said. "Suffice it that if he knows it was because I told him."
"I knew it was something you were ashamed of," she exclaimed, triumphantly. "Go on: out with it!"
"How can I be ashamed of it since I am about to tell you?" I demanded, incautiously.
"Why, because your love of scandal is so tremendous that you sacrifice even yourself to it!" she answered.
"Thank you," I said. "Here is my item: They correspond."
"That's nothing to go on!" cried the lady. I dared no more than smile. Mac grinned as he lifted the plate from the gas stove and, giving it a final polish, carried it to the press. "Oh, well!" went on Bill, irrelevantly, "let us all be honest and say we're interested. If he exists, he will come along some time."
The press creaked and the spokes turned. We both paused involuntarily as Mac bent over and lifted the blankets. This is always a moment of anxiety. It was a theory among us that when Samuel Johnson wrote "The Vanity of Human Wishes" he had been pulling proofs from copper. Bill had confessed to me that she could not help holding her breath, sometimes. Her husband turned upon us with a smile of satisfaction.
"If we're all going to be honest," he remarked, "we all ought to know as much as each other, eh? Well then, tell us about the correspondence, old man. What do you know?"
"Miss Fraenkel … " I began, and Bill breathed, "I knew it!"
"In the course of a casual conversation," I continued, "Miss Fraenkel mentioned to me the fact that letters pass between them. In a way, I suppose, she shouldn't do it. A post-mistress is in a delicate position. And yet why not? One may say without prejudice that a certain man writes to his wife. We might even have assumed it, since we see the postman deliver letters with our own eyes. Miss Fraenkel, however, overstepped the bounds of prudence when she implied something wrong. Her exact words, as far as I can remember, were, 'It is funny he writes from New York.'"
"Does he?" said Bill.
"So Miss Fraenkel says. So you see, your … our unspoken thoughts were justified, to say the least. We may recast Item one and say, A grass widow, undoubtedly Italian, with a husband in New York, twenty miles away."
"Well, in that case it's no business of ours," said Mac, as he spread the heavy viscid ink upon a new plate. "They may have their troubles, but it's pretty clear they don't need our sympathy, do they?"
"No," assented Bill.
"But what becomes of our inquiry?" I protested. "My dear Mac, this does credit to your kind heart, but since we are agreed to be honest, let us have the fruits of our honesty. Consider that anyhow we are doing them no harm. You are too gentle. Indeed, I think that we have been stand-offish. Why should not Bill call and—er—leave a card?"
"Me! Call on an Italian?" The voice was almost shrill.
"A neighbourly act," I remarked. "And we may find out something."
"We're a pretty lot, us and our honesty," put in Mac, in some disgust, rubbing his nose with the back of his wrist.
"My dear friends," I said, "I give you my word of honour that is how modern novels are made. If you put an end to espionage the book market would be given over entirely to such works as 'The Automobile and How to Drive It' and 'Jane Austen and Her Circle.'"
"Then it's a very shady trade, mean and dishonourable," said Mac.
"We agreed upon that, you remember, when my novel was refused publication," I said, laughing.
"Yes," said Bill. "But when they accepted it, you got very stuck-up and refused to write any advertisements for a fortnight and said that whoever had written a good book was one of a noble company, and a lot more of it. It depends on the point of view."
"Of course it does, ma mie. In this case, the honest point of view is the one we must take. We must forget for a moment that we are English lady and gentlemen——"
"Never!" said Bill, firmly, lighting a cigarette.
"——and remember that we are students of life. What would Balzac or Flaubert have known of life if they had been merely gentlemen? Nothing! What does a gentleman know? Nothing. What does he do in the world? Nothing. Of what use is he beyond his interest as a vestige of a defunct feudalism? This is the Twentieth Century, in the United States of America, not the——"
"Oh stop, stop!" she said, laughing. "Go down and get that thousand words finished."
I went.
CHAPTER II