On an Odd Note

THE EXTRAORDINARILY HORRIBLE DUMMY

An uneasy conviction tells me that this story is true, but I hate to believe it. It was told to me by Ecco, the ventriloquist, who occupied a room next to mine in Busto’s apartment house. I hope he lied. Or perhaps he was mad? The world is so full of liars and lunatics that one never knows what is true and what is false.

All the same, if ever a man had a haunted look that man was Ecco. He was small and furtive. He had disturbing habits; five minutes of his company would have set your nerves on edge. For example, he would stop in the middle of a sentence, say Ssh! in a compelling whisper, look timorously over his shoulder and listen to something. The slightest noise made him jump. Like all Busto’s tenants, he had come down in the world. There had been a time when he topped bills and drew fifty pounds a week. Now, he lived by performing to theatre queues.

And yet he was the best ventriloquist I have ever heard. His talent was uncanny. Repartee cracked back and forth without pause, and in two distinct voices. There were even people who swore that his dummy was no dummy, but a dwarf or a small boy with painted cheeks, trained in ventriloquial back-chat. But this was not true. No dummy was ever more palpably stuffed with sawdust. Ecco called it Micky; and his act, “Micky and Ecco.”

All ventriloquists’ dummies are ugly, but I have yet to see one uglier than Micky. It had a home-made look. There was something disgustingly avid in the stare of its bulging blue eyes, the lids of which clicked as it winked; and an extraordinarily horrible ghoulishness in the smacking of its great, grinning, red wooden lips. Ecco carried Micky with him wherever he went, and even slept with it. You would have felt cold at the sight of Ecco, walking upstairs, holding Micky at arm’s length. The dummy was large and robust; the man was small and wraithlike; and in a bad light you would have thought: The dummy is leading the man!

I said he lived in the room next to mine. But in London you may live and die in a room, and the man next door may never know. I should never have spoken to Ecco but for his habit of practicing ventriloquism by night. It was nerve-racking. At the best of times it was hard to find rest under Busto’s roof; but Ecco made nights hideous, really hideous. You know the shrill, false voice of the ventriloquist’s dummy? Micky’s voice was not like that. It was shrill, but querulous; thin, but real—not Ecco’s voice distorted, but a different voice. You would have sworn that there were two people quarreling. This man is good, I thought. Then: But this man is perfect! And at last, there crept into my mind this sickening idea: There are two men!

In the dead of night, voices would break out:

“Come on, try again!”

“I can’t!”

“You must—”

“I want to go to sleep.”

“Not yet; try again!”

“I’m tired, I tell you; I can’t!”

“And I say try again.”

Then there would be peculiar singing noises, and at length Ecco’s voice would cry:

“You devil! You devil! Let me alone, in the name of God!”

One night, when this had gone on for three hours I went to Ecco’s door, and knocked. There was no answer. I opened the door. Ecco was sitting there, gray in the face, with Micky on his knee. “Yes?” he said. He did not look at me, but the great painted eyes of the dummy stared straight into mine.

I said, “I don’t want to seem unreasonable, but this noise . . .”

Ecco turned to the dummy and said, “We’re annoying the gentleman. Shall we stop?”

Micky’s dead red lips snapped as he replied, “Yes. Put me to bed.”

Ecco lifted him. The stuffed legs of the dummy flapped lifelessly as the man laid him on the divan and covered him with a blanket. He pressed a spring. Snap! the eyes closed. Ecco drew a deep breath and wiped sweat from his forehead.

“Curious bedfellow,” I said.

“Yes,” said Ecco. “But . . . please—” And he looked at Micky, frowned at me and laid a finger to his lips. “Ssh!” he whispered.

“How about some coffee?” I suggested.

He nodded. “Yes, my throat is very dry,” he said. I beckoned. That disgusting stuffed dummy seemed to charge the atmosphere with tension. He followed me on tiptoe and closed his door silently. As I boiled water on my gas-ring I watched him. From time to time he hunched his shoulders, raised his eyebrows and listened. Then, after a few minutes of silence, he said suddenly, “You think I’m mad.”

“No,” I said, “not at all; only you seem remarkably devoted to that dummy of yours.”

“I hate him,” said Ecco; and listened again.

“Then why don’t you burn the thing?”

“For God’s sake!” cried Ecco, and clasped a hand over my mouth. I was uneasy—it was the presence of this terribly nervous man that made me so. We drank our coffee, while I tried to make conversation.

“You must be an extraordinarily fine ventriloquist,” I said.

“Me? No, not very. My father, yes. He was great. You’ve heard of Professor Vox? Yes, well he was my father.”

“Was he, indeed?”

“He taught me all I know; and even now . . . I mean . . . without him, you understand—nothing! He was a genius. Me, I could never control the nerves of my face and throat. So you see, I was a great disappointment to him. He . . . well, you know; he could eat a beefsteak, while Micky, sitting at the same table, sang Je crois entendre encore. That was genius. He used to make me practice, day in and day out—Bee, Eff, Em, En, Pe, Ve, Doubleyou, without moving the lips. But I was no good. I couldn’t do it. I simply couldn’t. He used to give me hell. When I was a child, yes, my mother used to protect me a little. But afterward! Bruises—I was black with them. He was a terrible man. Everybody was afraid of him. You’re too young to remember: he looked like—well, look.”

Ecco took out a wallet and extracted a photograph. It was brown and faded, but the features of the face were still vivid. Vox had a bad face; strong but evil—fat, swarthy, bearded and forbidding. His huge lips were pressed firmly together under a heavy black mustache, which grew right up to the sides of a massive flat nose. He had immense eyebrows, which ran together in the middle; and great, round, glittering eyes.

“You can’t get the impression,” said Ecco, “but when he came out to the stage in a black cloak lined with red silk, he looked just like the devil. He took Micky with him wherever he went—they used to talk in public. But he was a great ventriloquist—the greatest ever. He used to say, ‘I’ll make a ventriloquist of you if it’s the last thing I ever do.’ I had to go with him wherever he went, all over the world; and stand in the wings and watch him; and go home with him at night and practice again—Bee, Eff, Em, En, Pe, Ve, Doubleyou—over and over again, sometimes till dawn. You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Why should I?”

“Well . . . This went on and on, until—ssh—did you hear something?”

“No, there was nothing. Go on.”

“One night I . . . I mean, there was an accident. I—he fell down the elevator shaft in the Hotel Dordogne, in Marseilles. Somebody left the gate open. He was killed.” Ecco wiped sweat from his face. “And that night I slept well, for the first time in my life. I was twenty years old then. I went to sleep, and slept well. And then I had a horrible dream. He was back again, see? Only not he, in the flesh; but only his voice. And he was saying: ‘Get up, get up and try again, damn you; get up I say—I’ll make a ventriloquist of you if it’s the last thing I ever do. Wake up!’

“I woke up. You will think I’m mad.

“I swear. I still heard the voice; and it was coming from . . .”

Ecco paused and gulped.

I said, “Micky?” He nodded. There was a pause; then I said, “Well?”

“That’s about all,” he said. “It was coming from Micky. It has been going on ever since; day and night. He won’t let me alone. It isn’t I who makes Micky talk. Micky makes me talk. He makes me practice still . . . day and night. I daren’t leave him. He might tell the . . . he might . . . oh God; anyway, I can’t leave him . . . I can’t.”

I thought, This poor man is undoubtedly mad. He has got the habit of talking to himself, and he thinks—

At that moment I heard a voice; a little, thin, querulous, mocking voice, which seemed to come from Ecco’s room. It said:

“Ecco!”

Ecco leaped up, gibbering with fright. “There!” he said. “There he is again. I must go. Forgive me. I’m not mad; not really mad. I must—”

He ran out. I heard his door open and close. Then there came again the sound of conversation, and once I thought I heard Ecco’s voice, shaking with sobs, saying: Bee, Eff, Em, En, Pe, Ve, Doubleyou . . .

He is crazy, I thought; yes, the man must be crazy . . . And before, he was throwing his voice . . . calling himself . . .

But it took me two hours to convince myself of that; and I left the light burning all night, and I swear to you that I have never been more glad to see the dawn.