“You can use a pseudonym.”
“I will not use a pseudonym. I’m proud of my name.”
“But you can’t drop de Meister. Be sensible, dear.”
“Anormal fiancee,” Graham said bitterly, “would want her future husband to write something really worthwhile and become a great name in literature.”
“Well, I do want you to, Graham. But just a little de Meister once in a while to pay the bills that accumulate.”
“Ha!” Graham knocked his hat over his eyes to hide the sufferings of a strong spirit in agony. “Now you say that I can’t reach prominence unless I prostitute my art to that unmentionable. Here’s your place. Get out I’m going home and write a good scorching letter on asbestos to our senile Mr. MacDunlap.”
“Do exactly as you want to, cookie,” soothed June. “And tomorrow when you feel better, you’ll come and cry on my shoulder, and we’ll plan a revision of Death on the Third Deck together, shall we?”
“The engagement, “ said Graham, loftily, “is broken. “
“Yes, dear. I’ll be home tomorrow at eight”
“That is of no possible interest to me. Good-bye!”
Publishers and editors are untouchables, of course. Theirs is a heritage of the outstretched hand and the well-toothed smile; the nod of the head and the slap of the back.
But perhaps somewhere, in the privacy of the holes to which authors scurry when the night falls, a private revenge is taken. There, phrases may be uttered where no one can overhear, and letters may be written that need not be mailed, and perhaps a picture of an editor, smiling pensively, is enshrined above the typewriter to act the part of bulls-eye in an occasional game of darts.
Such a picture of MacDunlap, so used, enlightened Graham Dom’s room. And Graham Dom himself, in his usual writing costume (street-clothes and typewriter), scowled at the fifth sheet of paper in his typewriter. The other four were draped over the edge of the wastebasket, condemned for their milk-and-watery mildness.
He began:
“Dear Sir-” and added slowly and viciously, “or Madam, as the case may be.”
He typed furiously as the inspiration caught him, disregarding the faint wisp of smoke curling upward from the overheated keys:
“You say you don’t think much of de Meister in this story. Well, I don’t think much of de Meister, period. You can handcuff your slimy carcass to his and jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. And I hope they drain the East River just before you jump.
“From now on, my works will be aimed higher than your scurvy press. And the day will come when I can look back on this period of my career with the loathing that is its just-”
Someone had been tapping Graham on the shoulder during the last paragraph. Graham twitched it angrily and ineffectively at intervals.
Now he stopped, turned around, and addressed the stranger in his room courteously: “Who the devilish damnation are you? And you can leave without bothering to answer. I won’t think you rude.”
The newcomer smiled graciously. His nod wafted the delicate aroma of some unobtrusive hair-oil toward Graham. His lean, hard-bitten jaw stood out keenly, and he said in a well-modulated voice:
“De Meister is the name. Reginald de Meister.”
Graham rocked to his mental foundations and heard them creak.
“Glub,” he said.
“Pardon?”
Graham recovered. “I said, ‘glub,’ a little code word meaning which de Meister.”
“The de Meister,” explained de Meister, kindly. “My character? My detective?”
De Meister helped himself to a seat, and his finely-chiseled features assumed that air of well-bred boredom so admired in the best circles. He lit a Turkish cigarette, which Graham at once recognized as his detective’s favorite brand, tapping it slowly and carefully against the back of his hand first, a mannerism equally characteristic.
“Really, old man,” said de Meister. “This is really excruciatin’ly funny. I suppose I am your charcter, y’know, but let’s not work on that basis. It would be so devastatin’ly awkward.”
“Glub,” said Graham again, by way of rejoinder.
His mind was feverishly setting up alternatives. He didn’t drink, more, at the moment, was the pity, so he wasn’t drunk. He had a chrome-steel digestion and he wasn’t overheated, so it wasn’t a hallucination. He never dreamed, and his imagination-as befitted a paying commodity-was under strict control. And since, like all authors, he was widely considered more than half a screwball, insanity was out of the question.
Which left de Meister simply an impossibility, and Graham felt relieved. It’s a very poor author indeed who hasn’t learned the fine art of ignoring impossibilities in writing a book.
He said smoothly, “I have here a volume of my latest work. Do you mind naming your page and crawling back into it. I’m a busy man and God knows I have enough of you in the tripe I write.”
“But I’m here on business, old chap. I’ve got to come to a friendly arrangement with you first. Things are deucedly uncomfortable as they are.”
“Look, do you know you’re bothering me? I’m not in the habit of talking to mythical characters. As a general thing, I don’t pal around with them. Besides which, it’s time your mother told you that you really don’t exist.”
“My dear fellow, I always existed. Existence is such a subjective thing. What a mind thinks exists, does exist. I existed in your mind, for instance, ever since you first thought of me.”
Graham shuddered. “But the question is, what are you doing out of my mind? Getting a little narrow for you? Want elbow room?”
“Not at all. Rather satisfact’ry mind in its way, but I achieved a more concrete existence only this afternoon, and so I seize the opportunity to engage you face to face in the aforementioned business conversation. You see, that thin, sentimental lady of your society-”
“What society?” questioned Graham hollowly. It was all awfully clear to him now.
“The one at which you made a speech-” de Meister shuddered in his turn-”on the detective novel. She believed in my existence, so naturally, I exist.”
He finished his cigarette and flicked it out with a negligent twist of the wrist.
“The logic,” declared Graham, “is inescapable. Now, what do you want and the answer is no.”
“Do you realize, old man, that if you stop writing de Meister stories, my existence will become that dull, wraithlike one of all superannuated fictional detectives. I’d have to gibber through the gray mists of Limbo with Holmes, Lecocq, and Dupin.”
“A very fascinating thought, I think. A very fitting fate.”
Reginald de Meister’s eyes turned icy, and Graham suddenly remembered the passage on page 123 of The Case of the Broken Ashtray:
His eyes, hitherto lazy and unattentive, hardened into twin pools of blue ice and transfixed the butler, who staggered back, a stifled cry on his lips.
Evidently, de Meister lost none of his characteristics out of the novels he adorned.
Graham staggered back, a stifled cry on his lip.
De Meister said menacingly, “It would be better for you if the de Meister mysteries continue. Do you understand?”
Graham recovered and summoned a feeble indignation. “Now, wait a while. You’re getting out of hand. Remember: in a way, I’m your father. That’s right. Your mental father. You can’t hand me ultimatums or make threats. It isn’t filial. It’s lacking in the proper respect and love.”
“And another thing,” said de Meister, unmoved. “We’ve got to straighten out this business of Letitia Reynolds. It’s gettin’ deucedly borin’, y’know:’
“Now you’re getting silly. My love scenes have been widely heralded as miracles of tenderness and sentiment not found in one murder mystery out of a thousand. -Wait, I’ll get you a few reviews. I don’t mind your attempts to dictate my actions so much, but I’m damned if you’ll criticize my writing.”