The Rule of the Door and Other Fanciful Regulations. Lloyd Biggle jr.
some so low that no book would be nasty enough to mention them. They spread the damnedest lies about me, and my wife just can’t take that. We were happily married until I got elected mayor, but now—I suppose anything a man accomplishes has its price, but if I had it to do over again, I don’t know.” Suddenly he grinned. “I’ll tell you what—I’ve got a book on the American system of government I’ll send it over. It explains things a lot better than I could tell them to you.”
“I would appreciate that,” Skarn said. “I would appreciate that very much.”
* * * *
Chief of Police Sam White arrived on foot to be Skarn’s luncheon guest. A tall, slim, dignified man, his manner was soft-spoken, his eyes hard and searching but none the less friendly. Skarn, on the basis of his report had visualized him in some dismal dungeon furiously lashing a prisoner, and the chief did not seem to belong in that role. Silvery-gray hair crowned a wrinkled, sympathetic face. There was gentleness in his handshake, in his mannerisms, in his voice. Skarn began to visualize him in a different setting—in a sealed specimen bottle—and felt uncomfortable.
Skarn left him alone in the living room, and he and Dork watched anxiously from the laboratory. The chief shocked them thoroughly—he seated himself and waited quietly without so much as a glance in the direction of the mysterious Door. Later Skarn lured him into making the attempt by asking his assistance in opening it. And the Door ignored him.
After lunch they sat together on the sofa and talked and smoked, the chief describing his various hobbies with dry humor and Skarn listening intently. Did Skarn ever do any fishing? Or hunting?
“I’ll take you with me the next time I go out,” the chief said. “If you’re interested, that is.” Skarn was interested. “Ever play any chess?” Skarn did not know the game. “Drop in sometime when you’re uptown. Things are usually pretty quiet around the police department of a town this size. I’ll teach you.”
The chief sent a smoke ring sailing across the room, and Skarn looked after it enviously. His own effort was a formless catastrophe.
When Skarn had stopped coughing, the chief said gently, “You go at it the wrong way. You can’t form a smoke ring by blowing. You have to do it with your mouth. Look.” Skarn watched, made the effort, failed miserably. “Try it again,” the chief suggested.
Skarn tried. His tenth attempt was a definite smoke ring, wobbly, lopsided and short-lived, but still a ring. Skarn watched it with delight.
“Keep working at it,” the chief said. “A little practice and you’ll be an expert”
“I will,” Skarn promised fervently, and felt forever beholden to him.
Afterward, Dork stormed angrily about the laboratory while Skarn restudied his reports. “The detective agency is in error,” Skarn announced. “Those men are not evil.”
“They’re evil,” Dork said, “but they’re important. They have positions of responsibility. The Door may consider that.”
“True.”
“The other two have no importance whatsoever.”
“True.”
“So let’s get on with it. We only need one specimen.”
Jim Adams arrived early that evening. He was wearing his best—or only—dress suit, a shabby, threadbare garment that flapped loosely on his slight form, but he’d forgotten to shave. He extended a trembling hand for Skarn to shake, and then, fixing the eyes of the utterly damned on him, whined, “I need a drink. Haven’t had one today. Will you give me a drink?”
Skarn patted his shoulder gently. “Of course. You can have all you want.” He led the slight, stumbling figure across the living room. “I keep it there—in the center closet. You help yourself while I’m getting the food.”
Adams pushed at the door, beat on it hurled his scant weight against it shrieked and kicked and clawed and finally slumped to the floor sobbing brokenly. Skarn and Dork’s disgust abruptly changed to disbelief. The Door was rejecting him.
Skarn returned with the food and a supply of liquor, and Adams ate little and drank much, drank himself into a reeking, slobbering intoxication and collapsed. Skarn examined his unconscious body doubtfully and finally became sufficiently alarmed to call Sam White.
“I have Jim Adams here for dinner,” he said, “and—”
The chief chuckled. “Say no more. I’ll send someone to collect him.”
A police officer hauled away Adams’s inert form, leaving Skarn both relieved and puzzled.
“And just how do you account for the Door not taking him?” Dork demanded.
“I don’t,” Skarn said. “I can’t account for it at all.”
* * * *
Elmer Harley arrived in a belligerent mood, thumping rudely on the door, making no motion to accept Skarn’s outstretched hand, and ignoring his invitation to enter. “Mind telling me why you asked me out here?”
“I’m getting acquainted with some of the people of Centertown,” Skarn said uneasily. “I hope that the invitation does not offend you.”
Harley shrugged and offered his hand. “Just wondered. I heard you had Jim Adams here, and let him drink himself to the gills.”
“Yes, but—”
“And before that you entertained the mayor and Sam White?”
“Yes.”
“And now me. It doesn’t make sense.”
“How much of life does make sense?”’
Harley grinned. “You said a mouthful there,” he announced bitterly.
He followed Skarn into the living room. “I’ll bring in the food,” Skarn said. “The liquor is in the middle closet. Pick out what you’d like to have.”
A moment later, watching from the laboratory, Skarn and Dork saw him push once on the Door, hard, and then walk over to a sofa and sit down.
Dork stomped off to his bedroom, and Skarn returned to the living room with the serving cart
“The door’s locked,” Harley said.
“It doesn’t have a lock,” Skarn replied. “I’m afraid it’s stuck. I’ve been having trouble with it.”
Harley bounced to his feet “That so? I’ll take a look at it”
He applied his shoulder to the Door. A moment later he backed away, red-faced and breathing heavily. “It’s really stuck. If you have some tools, I’ll see what I can do about it”
“It’s not that important,” Skarn said.
Harley stepped to the next closet. He pushed the thick door inward and peered admiringly at the hinges. “That’s really slick. Slides the door back and then lets it open. Never saw anything like it. Is the other door hung like this one?”
“Why, yes,” Skarn said.
Harley moved the door slowly, watching the action of the hinges. “That’s really slick,” he said again. “I don’t see how anything could have gone wrong. Did you make these things yourself?”
Skarn maintained an embarrassed silence.
“You ought to patent them. There might be some money in it”
“Our food will be getting cold,” Skarn said.
“No kidding. Safes and refrigerators, things with thick doors—they could use a hinge like that. If I was you, I’d patent it.”
“Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll consider it.”
Harley ate hungrily, accepting second and third helpings, and afterward