Fancies and Goodnights

HALFWAY TO HELL

Louis Thurlow, having decided to take his own life, felt that at least he might take his own time also. He consulted his bank-book; there was a little over a hundred pounds left. «Very well,» said he. «I'll get out of this flat, which stinks, and spend a really delightful week at Mutton's. I'll taste all the little pleasures just once more, to say good-bye to them.»

He engaged his suite at Mutton's, where he kept the pageboys on the run. At one moment they had to rush round into Piccadilly to buy him chrysanthemums, in which to smell the oncoming autumn, which he would never see. Next they were sent to Soho to get him some French cigarettes, to put him in mind of a certain charming hotel which overlooked the Seine. He had also a little Manet sent round by the Neuilly Galleries —«To try living with,» he said, with the most whimsical smile. You may be sure he ate and drank the very best; just a bite of this and a glass of that, he had so many farewells to take.

On the last night of all he telephoned Celia, whose voice he felt inclined to hear once more. He did not speak, of course, though he thought of saying, «You should really not keep on repeating 'Hallo,' but say 'Goodbye.'» However, she had said that already, and he had been taught never to sacrifice good taste to a bad mot.

He hung up the receiver, and opened the drawer in which he had stored his various purchases of veronal tablets.

«It seems a great deal to get down,» he thought. «Everything is relative. I prided myself on not being one of those panic-stricken, crack-brained suicides who rush to burn out their guts with gulps of disinfectant; now it seems scarcely less civilized to end this pleasant week with twenty hard swallows and twenty sips of water. Still, life is like that. I'll take it easy.»

Accordingly he arranged his pillows very comfortably, congratulated himself on his pyjamas, and propped up a photograph against his bedside clock. «I have no appetite,» he said. «I force myself to eat as a duty to my friends. There is no bore like a despairing lover.» And with that he began to toy with this last, light, plain little meal.

The tablets were not long in taking effect. Our hero closed his eyes. He put on a smile such as a man of taste would wish to wear when found in the morning. He shut off that engine which drives us from one moment to the next, and prepared to glide into the valley of the shadow.

The glide was a long one. He anticipated no landing, and was the more surprised to learn that there is no such thing as nothing, while there is quite definitely such a thing as being dead in the most comfortable bedroom in all Mutton's Hotel.

«Here I am,» he said. «Dead! In Mutton's Hotel!»

The idea was novel enough to make him get out of bed at once. He noticed that his corpse remained there, and was glad to observe that the smile was still in place, and looked extremely well.

He strolled across to the mirror to see if his present face was capable of an equally subtle expression, but when he came to look in he saw nothing at all. Nevertheless he obviously had arms and legs, and he felt that he could still do his old trick with his eyebrows. From this he assumed that he was much the same, only different.

«I am just invisible,» he said, «and in that there are certain advantages.»

He decided to go out at once, in order to have a bit of fun. He went down the stairs, followed a departing guest through the revolving door, and in two minutes he was walking down Cork Street. It appeared to be just after midnight; there was a bobby, a taxi or two, and a few ladies, none of whom took any notice of him at all.

He had not gone twenty yards, however, and was, as a matter of fact, just passing his tailor's, when a lean dark figure detached itself from the shadows which hung about the railings in front of the shop, and coming up close behind his elbow, said, «Damn and blast it, man, you have been a time!»

Louis was a little put out at finding himself not so invisible as he had thought. Still, he glanced at the stranger and saw that his eyes were as luminous as a cat's eyes, from which it was plain that he could see better than most.

«Do you mean,» said Louis, «that I've been keeping you waiting?»

«I've been hanging about here, freezing, for a week,» said the stranger peevishly.

Now it was only September, and the nights, though nippy, were not as cold as all that. Louis put two and two together. «Is it possible,» said he, «that you have been waiting to — to take me in charge, so to speak, on account of my recent suicide?»

«I have,» said the fiend. «You'll come quietly, I suppose.»

«My dear fellow,» said Louis, «I know you have your duty to do, and in any case I'm not the sort of person to make a scene in the street. I'm sorry if I've kept you hanging about in the cold, but the truth is I had no idea of your existence, so I hope there'll be no ill feeling.»

«I've got an ill feeling all right,» replied the other, grumpily. «I swear I've got the 'flu, curse it!» And with that he sneezed miserably. «The worst of it is,» he added, «we've got such a human of a way to go. I shall be fit for nothing for weeks.»

«Really, I can't bear to hear you sneeze like that,» cried our hero. «Have you ever tried the Quetch at the Rat Trap Club?»

«What Quetch?» asked the other, between sneezes.

«It tastes like liquid fire,» replied Louis. «I believe it's made from plum stones, though why I can't tell you. Possibly to cure your cold.»

«Liquid fire, eh?» observed the stranger, his eyes glowing like cigarette ends.

«Come and try it,» said Louis.

«I don't know,» said the other. «We're a week late through your fault. I don't see why we shouldn't be half an hour later through mine. I suppose there'll be trouble if they hear of it.»

Louis assured him that this last half-hour must be put down to his account also. «You caught the cold through my delay,» said he. «Therefore I am responsible for the time you take to cure it.» The fiend obviously believed this, which caused our hero to reflect that he must be a very simple fiend.

They set out for the Rat Trap Club. Passing through Piccadilly Circus, the fiend indicated the Underground, saying, «That's where I'm going to take you when we've had this drop of what-d'ye-call-it.»

«That does not take you to Hell,» said Louis, «but only to Barons Court. The mistake is pardonable.»

«No mistake,» replied the fiend. «Let's cross the road this way, and I'll show you what I mean.»

They went in, and travelled down the escalator, chatting very affably. It was fairly crowded with more ordinary passengers, but our friends attracted no attention whatever. There are a great many fiendish-looking individuals travelling on this subway, and others of a corpsy appearance. Besides, now I come to think of it, they were invisible.

When they had reached the ordinary lowest level, where the trains run, «Come,» said the fiend, and drew Louis into a passage he had never before noticed, up which there came a huger clanking and a sultrier blast. He saw a notice saying, KEEP TO THE WRONG. A few paces brought them to the top of an escalator such as our hero had never dreamed of: it swooped down from under their feet with a roar and a groan, down into the close innards of the earth. Its passage was lit by the usual lamps. Louis, whose sight seemed to have become extremely keen, saw that at some far point on its vast curve the black shades changed to blue, and the lamps gave place to stars. However, it seemed to go on the devil of a long way past that.

For the rest, it was made just like all other escalators, except in matters of details. Its sides were adorned with pictorial advertisements of temptations, some of which Louis thought might be very interesting. He could have stepped on, for there was no barrier or ticket collector, but, as we have seen, he liked to take his time.

Now and then, he and his companion were jostled by other fiends and their charges. I am afraid some of the latter were behaving in rather an undignified manner, and had to be marched along in a sort of policeman's grip. The effect was degrading. Louis was interested to see, however, how tremendously the escalator accelerated once it felt the weight of these infernal policemen and their victims. It was a tremendous spectacle to see this narrow moving chain, dimly lit, roaring, rushing down, looping the distance between Earth and Hell, which is greater than one would imagine.

«What did you do before this sort of thing was invented?» asked Louis.

«We had to leap down, like chamois, from star to star,» replied the fiend.

«Splendid!» said Louis. «Now let's go and have that drink.»

The fiend consenting, they went off to the Rat Trap, and, slipping into a cubby-hole behind the bar, they helped themselves to a full bottle of the famous Quetch. The fiend disdained a glass, and put the bottle to his lips, whereupon Louis saw, to his great amazement, this powerful form of brandy was actually brought to the boil. The fiend appeared to like it. When the liquid was gone he sucked away at the bottle, the melting sides of which collapsed like the skin of a gooseberry sucked at by a child. When he had drawn it all into his mouth, he smiled, pursed his lips, and blew out the glass again, this time more like a cigarette-smoker exhaling his first puff. What's more, he didn't blow the glass into bottle shape as formerly, but into the most delightful statuary piece, most realistic, most amusing. «Adam and Eve,» said he laconically, placing it on the table to cool.

«Oh, very, very good!» cried Louis. «Can you do Mars and Venus?»

«Oh, yes,» said the fiend. Louis immediately commandeered several more bottles of Quetch.

He called for one or two other subjects, of a nature that would hardly interest the reader. The fiend, however, thought each more amusing than the last, and nearly split his sides over the effect of a hiccup on Lady Godiva. The fact is, he was getting rather tight. Louis encouraged him, not so much for the love of art as because he had no great desire to ride on that escalator.

At last the fiend could drink no more. He got up, jingled his money (fiends have money — that's where it's all gone to), puffed out his cheeks. «Whoops!» said he, with a hiccup. «My cold's better, I believe. If it isn't, well, then — to Hell with it! that's what I say. Ha! Ha!»

Louis, you may be sure, told him he was a fine fellow. «Well,» said he, as they stood on the steps of the Club, «I suppose you're going that way; I'm going this.» He made a bit of a face, pleasantly, raised his hat, and set off along the street, scarcely daring to breathe till he had rounded the corner.

When he thought himself in safety, «By Jove,» said he, «I'm well rid of that fellow. Here I am, dead, invisible, and the night is yet young. Shall I go and see what Celia's doing?»

Before he could embark on this rash project, he felt a very hard hand on his arm, looked round, and saw his custodian.

«Oh, there you are,» said he. «I wondered where you'd got to.»

«Drunk as a lord,» said the fiend, with a smile. «Got to see each other home, eh?»

There was nothing for it. They set out for Piccadilly Circus. The fiend kept his hand on Louis' wrist, quite inoffensively of course, only Louis would rather it had not been there.

So they went chatting into the subway again. Just as they got to the level of the Piccadilly line, which is where the infernal aperture gapes for those who are privileged to see it, whom should Louis see, in top hat, white silk scarf, and all the rest, but his damned nasty rival, catching a late train home.

«I bet,» said Louis at once, addressing the fiend, «that, you are not strong enough to carry me on your back from here to the escalator.»

The fiend, with a sneer of contempt, immediately bent down. Louis, with a desperate effort, picked hold of his rival round the waist and dumped him on the back of the fiend, who gripped his legs, and started off like a racehorse.

«Carry you all the way to Hell for tuppence!» cried he, in drunken pride.

«Done!» cried Louis, who was skipping along beside them to enjoy the spectacle.

He had the delicious pleasure of seeing them jump on the escalator, whose terrific acceleration seemed even more marked and more admirable than before.

Louis returned to the street as happy as a king. He walked about for a bit, and suddenly decided to look in at Mutton's Hotel to see how his corpse was getting on.

He was rather annoyed to see, even as he stood looking at it, that the effective smile, over which he had taken so much trouble, was slipping. In fact, it was beginning to look altogether idiotic. Without giving the matter a thought, he instinctively nipped inside to hook it back into place. In doing so he twitched his nose, found it necessary to sneeze, opened his eyes, and, in a word, found himself quite alive and no longer kicking, in that excellent bedroom of Mutton's Hotel.

«Well, upon my word!» said he, glancing at the bedside table. «Is it possible I dropped off to sleep after taking only two of those tablets? There is really something to be said for taking one's time. It must have been just a vivid dream.»

In short, he was glad to be alive, and still gladder a day or two afterwards, when some news came through that made it seem that it was not a dream after all. Louis' rival was announced as missing, having last been seen by two friends at the entrance of Piccadilly Circus station shortly after midnight on Tuesday.

«Who'd have thought it?» said Louis. «Anyway, I suppose I had better go and see Celia.»

However, he had learned the advantage of taking his time, and before he went he thought better of it, and, in fact, did not go at all, but went to Paris for the autumn, which shows that girls shouldn't play fast and loose with the affections of small men with blue eyes, or they may find themselves left in the lurch.