Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4, August 1957 (British Edition)

The Deadly Innocent by Theodore Sturgeon and Don Ward

Lance was no Literary man, but when he met glamorous Eloise, author of best-selling romances, he was a gone gander. Just how far gone, Lance had no idea until later.

People love Eloise Michaud — by the millions they love her. Eloise wrote To Bed, To Bed, which sold more copies than Gone With the Wind — more, even, than Furilla’s Rose, Which Ellie Michaud also wrote. The critics throw up their hands and the sophisticated cry corn, and she sells and sells and sells.

She writes as if she truly believes in the triumph of good over evil. Eloise does believe — even, sweetly and firmly, to enforcing virtue by summary execution. But neither readers nor critics know about that. Her characters for all their Diors and Dusenbergs live in the age of chivalry, when knighthood was in flower, and dispense unalloyed and unabashed romance. Millions love it, and her.

Eloise, in turn, loved a guy. She met him at a literary tea, right after he had called a newspaper man Mister and then punched him on the nose.

“You can’t talk about Miss Michaud that way around me, Mister.” Wham!

She asked somebody who he was, and, for a while, nobody could find out, because he had nothing to do with the book business, he was only one of the loving millions.

When she did hear his name, that was about it, all by itself. The only time she had ever voted in her young life, it was for Vito Marcantonio, and that sight unseen and solely because she had never heard a lovelier name.

The honest-to-Christmas name of this cavalier of the cocktails was Lancelot deMarcopolo, pronounced MarCOPolo. He was in the automobile business, not the business that buys and sells cars, but the business that buys and sells car dealers.

Eloise got herself introduced by a queenly crook of the fingers. She acknowledged him with a regal inclination of her kitten head and demanded the rosebud from his lapel. She took the flower and, holding it with both hands, placed it in the soft concavity between her chin and her lower lip. Over it, she glowed at him.

During their subsequent meetings, which were soon and often, Lance confessed and anatomized his passion for her. He even gave her its (the passion, of course) biography. It had been born of a book-jacket, the one responsible for the only really nice thing ever said about Eloise Michaud in a metropolitan review: “The photo portrait on the back jacket will move as many books as, say, good writing might. To be honest, however, the picture is worth quite the price of the volume. Miss Michaud is the most scrumptious scrivener ever to set pen to the paper of a book-club contract.”

Lance deMarcopolo bought this picture, book attached, for his night table, and found himself reading the thing. It was the first real book he had read all the way through since Raggedy Andy and it entranced him.

“Who,” he once answered a critical friend, “wants to read about people you know, anyway?”

He found complete harmony between book and portrait. Both were open, honest, innocent, good. He was not disenchanted as he came to know her, either. He found what he looked for. Other men had found the same things, but he was the first to believe his own eyes.

Ultimately he asked her to marry him — just what she wanted him to ask — and he did it just the way she wanted him to, in a penthouse, on his knees, with the lamps low, and sweet music murmuring from somewhere. She said yes, and he took her home at a decent hour and removed his hat before kissing her goodnight. Eloise sighed as the door closed after he left, then went and banged the typewriter all night.

They set a date and made a lot of arrangements, which required pretty close timing what with his out-of-town affairs and her lecture tour and press interviews and all. It was his charming conceit to have her begin married life with nothing she had owned before — everything new, everything custom made.

Eloise was charmed — with all that royalty money in the bank she could afford it. Exceptions to the regime of burnished newness were few — the manuscript and notes for her unfinished book, the ancient typewriter on which she had written everything she ever published, some heirloom jewellery.

Then Binghamton reared its head.

She called him, in desperation, at the last possible moment and explained. This was the one lecture she hadn’t been able to cancel or postpone. The only possible way to handle everything in time for the honeymoon plane reservations was for her to go to Binghamton now — and so, would he pick up just those one or two things at her place and get them checked somewhere safe.

She’d leave the door on the latch and put everything where he could see it when he came in. There was a dear, dear man, what would she ever do without him? Lance soothed her and said of course he would do it, or anything else his little princess commanded; all she had to do was just give him tiny little hints, she needn’t even ask. He said they would meet at the airline terminal in the morning, and added a number of other remarks having much to do with a new life in a new world and little to do with this narrative.

As it turned out, his agreement was impulsive and impractical. It was acutely inconvenient for him to do anything of the kind. He realised this as he set down the phone, and experienced one second of horror at his impracticality. This was followed by a towering disdain for himself — What, call yourself in love? Deny your little princess a little favour just for a little inconvenience?

His pendulum swung violently to the other extreme. He jammed his hat on, snapped one order — “Take care of everything, Joe” — at his thunderstruck assistant, and took, not an hour, but the entire day for his princess’ small favour.

Once he had accomplished the enormous thing, he ceased to worry or even think about it — perhaps the secret of his considerable success — and, turning his back on chaos, gave himself over to the service of his beloved.

He found the place easily, took the elevator upstairs and went down the narrow corridor to her room. He stood there for a long moment, lost in emerald mists of reminiscence and shocking-pink clouds of anticipation, then removed his hat and turned the knob. He clicked the lock as he closed the door behind him and stood, smiling fatuously into the sweet disorder of her parting from this chrysalis.

Much of the furniture was gone, and the pieces that were left were all tagged — for the Salvation Army, for the superintendent, for one or two persons whose names he didn’t recognise. In one corner of the room was a tumbled clutter of miscellany — a scratched tabouret, some pictures with broken frames, a four-foot model of an Eskimo kayak, a mound of books, papers and magazines, dusty curtains, drapes and slip-covers. Tacked to the north wall, strung around the tabouret and tacked again to the west wall, was a piece of twine, forming a sort of fence around this particular jetsam. Hanging from it was a piece of paper folded in half. On the paper, lettered legibly and tersely, were the words THROW OUT.

Piled just inside the door were the things she wanted to keep, from all her past, to take into her life with him. There were the old typewriter and a mahogany case — the heirlooms. On the top of the case sat a cardboard box, the kind in which one buys a ream of bond paper. It was lettered WIP, which he properly translated as WORK IN PROGRESS.

On this lay the heavy gold-and-leather frame in which he had enshrined his picture. All my love, Lance, and, eclipsing this, was a folded sheet of paper. He picked it up. It read, Lance, I do love you so, Ellie.

Although it was hardly inspired copy, it stopped his heart for a giddy moment. Anyone else might read those words as just those words — he heard them in her eager half-whisper.

He was delicately fanned by her long lashes as they swept up on do and down on so. He knew her special fragrance and even, for a moment, sensed a sort of nearness which was not heat nor odour nor sound, but just — nearness. He let his breath whistle through his nostrils and stood there, shaking his head and murmuring her name.

He opened his eyes on the dangling sign which said, so pitilessly, THROW OUT, and for the very first time felt a small curl of regret. She had so submissively agreed to his half-playful dictum to wipe out the past, that he had never thought of what it might cost her.

He crossed to the twine barrier and ran his gaze over the clutter behind it. He suddenly bent and took up another bond-paper box, also with WIP inscribed upon it. It was dusty and cracked, and written across one corner was Furilla’s Rose.

Here, he thought, were the work-sheets, the carbons, the notes — all the mysterious machine-filings and mould-castings from which a great novel comes — filings and castings Eloise had lived with, slaved over, hoped and dreamed upon — her second novel. Now, because of his arbitrary whim, they were tossed on a heap with a broken kayak and some dusty drapes, under a sign which commanded THROW OUT.

His passion for her mounted the shoulders of his strange reverence for books, a reverence sometimes encountered in the non-reader, and rose towering over him. He took the box over to the stenographer’s chair pushed against the window, sat down with it on his lap, opened it, read—

Yes, it was the famous opening of Furilla’s Rose. How strange it looked in typescript, in grey-haloed carbon! What currents, what depths flowed and swirled in his kitten-princess!

He leafed on.

That’s my Ellie! thought Lance deMarcopolo fondly. It, it was ugly; she didn’t know it was there until it went away.

He skimmed on, through the tremendous sequence where Furilla met Maserac and went to live in his house. Maserac was an Older Man, and poor Furilla was quite sure that Older Men were safe.

That was a close one, thought deMarcopolo admiringly. He turned the leaf over, and a blue slip fell out. He bent and picked it up. It was from a desk memo pad and was imprinted with Office of the Publisher. He didn’t mean to read it, but he couldn’t help it.

DeMarcopolo sat staring at the paper, holding it between thumb and forefinger, flapping it like a small, blue wing. Brill... Brill? Oh! Brill MacIver! That old fool — the publisher who...

He shook himself, or shuddered, then set the box down on the floor. He got up and took off his topcoat and draped it over the back of the chair, then sat down again. He put the box back on his lap. He didn’t skim it lightly now, though he didn’t know why. He went rapidly through the sheets.

He got to that scene between Furilla and young Harald. Harald had come into Furilla’s life “like a great storm” and, in a famous sequence, there had been a storm — a beaut. It built and built outside, glaring and crashing, silhouetting Harald against its lightning flashes as he climbed in her window. It built and built still more as he pressed closer and closer to Furilla, until, when he reached her, the clouds rolled and the thunder banged and, at last — zing! — a mighty flash burned down the boathouse.

Just here, a paper-clip separated some pages from the main manuscript. It was the scene when, next morning, Furilla awoke, alone, bruised, strangely disturbed, and considered what she was to do.

Lance deMarcopolo sat quite still, his eyes on the manuscript but not doing anything. He remembered the scene, but that was not the way it had happened in the book.

He uttered a soft, pulled grunt and turned the page. Under it, lay a pink flimsy with some single-spaced typescript on it. He knew that Ellie used pink second-sheets for her correspondence, white for her work. This must be the copy of a letter to somebody, and perhaps he — but before he could have any doubts about it, his quick eye had taken it in.

I do love you so. A numb place existed suddenly in the pit of Lance’s stomach. He did not permit himself to think. He went on to the next sheet — an original, typed with a heavy hand and a pale ribbon on a piece of business stationery with the letterhead torn off.

I shouldn’t, thought deMarcopolo in panic. This has nothing to do with... But he went on to the next one — another pink carbon.

Next was an imprinted office memo, headed Office of the Publisher. Typed by a firm, even hand, were a few lines, which deMarcopolo read without hesitation.

DeMarcopolo shook his head rapidly, like a man swimming up out of unconsciousness, and then went back to his reading. Again, it was manuscript. Same scene, but — oh...!

The next one was another hand-written note on the Office of the Publisher memo paper. “What did she keep them for?” Lance asked himself in amazement. Reluctantly, he admitted he knew the answer. He read—

Another pink carbon read—

So neat, thought deMarcopolo, so orderly. All in sequence — carbon and second sheets, in moments of passion. He picked up another publisher’s memo.

He read—

A pink carbon followed.

And—

I hate pink, thought deMarcopolo with sudden fury. He controlled the hand which wanted to crush the pink sheet and read—

A telegram — its porous yellow startled him like an explosion.

And then, the shortest pink carbon of all—

DeMarcopolo picked up the next one, Office of the Publisher, squinted at it, then set the box down on the floor and stood up. He moved to the window, leaned into the light and spelled out the writing slowly, his lips moving. It was scratched and scrawled, the paper crumpled, speckled with ink-flecks where the pen had dug in and splattered.

Down at the bottom of the memo sheet was a wavery series of scrawls which at first seemed like the marks one might make to try out a new pen — a letter or two, a series of loops and zigzags. But as he stared at it, it became writing. As nearly as he could make it out, it read—

Lance deMarcopolo turned like a sleepwalker and slowly put the crumpled memo down on the pile of papers he had already gone through. He stood still, swaying slightly, then moved unsteadily toward the corner where the telephone squatted on the floor, like a damsel in a hoopskirt. He picked it up, held the receiver to his ear. It was still connected. He dialled carefully.

A cheerful female voice said, “Post-Herald.”

“Get me Joe Birns... Joe? Lance here.”

“Hi, y’old bibliophile! Don’t tell me you’re gettin’ cold feet, old man. Call the whole thing off and give your old pal a scoop.”

“Knock it off, Joe.”

“Hey! ’Sa matter, Lance?”

“Joe, you can find things out without anybody knowing who’s asking.”

“Shucks, Lance, sure. What’s—”

“Brill — MacIver Brill — I want to know what happened to him.”

“Brill? He’s dead.”

“I know, I know.” It seemed, somehow, hard to breathe. “I mean, I want to know how he died. And somebody else, too — hold on.” He put the ’phone down on the floor and walked back to the box. He pawed through the papers for a moment, then returned to the ’phone. “Joe?”

“Yuh?”

“Somebody called Hobart Hennigar. I think he’s dead, too.”

“Hobart Hennigar,” murmured Joe like a man taking notes. “Who dat?”

“That’s what I want to know. Call me back, will you, Joe — fast?” He read the number off the telephone.

“Sure, Lance. Hey, Lance, are you — is there anything...?”

“Yes. Joe — find me that information.” Lance hung up.

He looked vaguely about the room, everywhere but at the box. Yet, ultimately, he went back to it, inevitably drawn. Slowly, he sat down and picked it up, still not looking at it. His hands found the unread portion and slid over it like a blind man’s. At last he lowered his eyes and looked.

It was only manuscript:

“Yeah,” whispered deMarcopolo. The sound was like sighing. “That was the way the thing came out in the book.”

Everything came out for Furilla. All the world loved Furilla, because things always happened the way they should for Furilla.

“Yeah,” he said again, still in a whisper.

Furilla, he reflected, never did anything to make things come her way. She did it just by being soft little, sweet little, innocent little Furilla — being Furilla beyond all flexibility, beyond all belief.

The ’phone rang.

“Yes, Joe.”

Joe said, “I don’t know just what details you want about Brill. There’s a good deal that wasn’t in the papers, though. He went on a wing-ding and disappeared for two days. They shovelled him up out of a doorway down in the waterfront district. He was full of white lightning, but whether that killed him or his pump was due to quit, anyhow, is a toss-up. That what you wanted?”

“Close. What about the other one?”

“Took a little digging. Now Hennigar — Hobart Hennigar, thirty-seven, instructor in English Lit., and creative writing at some Eastern college, thrown out three years ago for making a pass at a housemaid. Fast talker, good-looker, fairly harmless. One of these literate bums. Knocked around, one job to another, wound up out at the lake, caretaker on a big estate. Ties in with MacIver, in a way, Lance — MacIver had a place out there, too, little lodge. Used to hole up there once in a while.”

“Was he out there during his drunk?”

“If he was, no one could prove it. Off season, pretty lonesome out there. Anyway, this Hennigar got himself plugged through the head. Police report says it was a twenty-five target-type bullet.”

“Fight?”

“No! Back of the head, from a window in his cabin. He never knew what hit him, not a clue. Lance—”

“Mm?”

“You got a lead on that killing?”

DeMarcopolo looked slowly around the room. The telephone said, “Lance?” and he held it away from him and looked at it as if he had never seen it before.

Then he brought it back and said, “No, I haven’t got a lead on that killing. Joe, do something for me?”

“Shucks.”

“You covering that thing of mine?”

“Statement at the airport, kissin’ picture? Couldn’t keep me away.”

“I... won’t be there,” said deMarcopolo. “Tell her for me, will you?”

“Lance! What’s hap—”

“Thanks, Joe. ’Bye.” He hung up very quietly.

After a time he crossed to the small pile of things by the door and picked up the note she had left him and his picture. He tore up the note and took out the picture and tore it in two. He folded the frame over the torn paper and tossed it over the string marked THROW OUT. That left the new box marked WIP staring at him.

He recoiled from it with horror and went on out. Shutting the door, he said conversationally, “How innocent can you get?” He said it to MacIver, to Hennigar, to Eloise Michaud, and to Lancelot deMarcopolo. But nobody had an answer for him.