The Umbrella Man and Other Stories Read online

  “It is perfect. I shall punch him very hard.” George paused. He clenched his right fist and examined his knuckles. Then he smiled again and he said slowly, “This nose of his, is it not possible that it will afterwards be so much blunted that it will no longer poke well into other people’s business?”

  “It is quite possible,” I answered, and with that happy thought in our minds we switched out the lights and went early to sleep.

  The next morning I was woken by a shout and I sat up and saw George standing at the foot of my bed in his pyjamas, waving his arms. “Look!” he shouted, “there are four! There are four!” I looked, and indeed there were four letters in his hand.

  “Open them. Quickly, open them.”

  The first one he read aloud: “‘Dear Vengeance Is Mine Inc., That’s the best proposition I’ve had in years. Go right ahead and give Mr. Jacob Swinski the rattlesnake treatment (Item 4). But I’ll be glad to pay double if you’ll forget to extract the poison from its fangs. Yours Gertrude Porter-Vandervelt. P.S. You’d better insure the snake. That guy’s bite carries more poison than the rattler’s.’”

  George read the second one aloud: “‘My cheque for $500 is made out and lies before me on my desk. The moment I receive proof that you have punched Lionel Pantaloon hard on the nose, it will be posted to you, I should prefer a fracture, if possible. Yours etc. Wilbur H. Gollogly.’”

  George read the third one aloud: “‘In my present frame of mind and against my better judgement, I am tempted to reply to your card and to request that you deposit that scoundrel Walter Kennedy upon Fifth Avenue dressed only in his underwear. I make the proviso that there shall be snow on the ground at the time and that the temperature shall be sub-zero. H. Gresham.’”

  The fourth one he also read aloud: “‘A good hard sock on the nose for Pantaloon is worth five hundred of mine or anybody else’s money. I should like to watch. Yours sincerely, Claudia Calthorpe Hines.’”

  George laid the letters down gently, carefully upon the bed. For a while there was silence. We stared at each other, too astonished, too happy to speak. I began to calculate the value of those four orders in terms of money.

  “That’s five thousand dollars’ worth,” I said softly.

  Upon George’s face there was a huge bright grin. “Claude,” he said, “should we not move now to the Waldorf?”

  “Soon,” I answered, “but at the moment we have no time for moving. We have not even time to send out fresh cards today. We must start to execute the orders we have in hand. We are overwhelmed with work.”

  “Should we not engage extra staff and enlarge our organization?”

  “Later,” I said. “Even for that there is no time today. Just think what we have to do. We have to put a rattlesnake in Jacob Swinski’s car . . . we have to dump Walter Kennedy on Fifth Avenue in his underpants . . . we have to punch Pantaloon on the nose . . . let me see . . . yes, for three different people we have to punch Pantaloon . . . ”

  I stopped. I closed my eyes. I sat still. Again I became conscious of a small clear stream of inspiration flowing into the tissues of my brain. “I have it!” I shouted. “I have it! I have it! Three birds with one stone! Three customers with one punch!”

  “How?”

  “Don’t you see? We only need to punch Pantaloon once and each of the three customers . . . Womberg, Gollogly and Claudia Hines . . . will think it’s being done specially for him or her.”

  “Say it again.” I said it again.

  “It’s brilliant.”

  “It’s common sense. And the same principle will apply to the others. The rattlesnake treatment and the others can wait until we have more orders. Perhaps in a few days we will have ten orders for rattlesnakes in Swinski’s car. Then we will do them all in one go.”

  “It’s wonderful.”

  “This evening then,” I said, “we will handle Pantaloon. But first we must hire a car. Also we must send telegrams, one to Womberg, one to Gollogly and one to Claudia Hines, telling them where and when the punching will take place.”

  We dressed rapidly and went out.

  In a dirty silent little garage down on East 9th Street we managed to hire a car, a 1934 Chevrolet, eight dollars for the evening. We then sent three telegrams, each one identical and cunningly worded to conceal its true meaning from inquisitive people: “Hope to see you outside Penguin Club two-thirty A.M. Regards V.I.Mine.”

  “There is one thing more,” I said. “It is essential that you should be disguised. Pantaloon, or the doorman, for example, must not be able to identify you afterwards. You must wear a false moustache.”

  “What about you?”

  “Not necessary. I’ll be sitting in the car. They won’t see me.”

  We went to a children’s toy shop and we bought for George a magnificent black moustache, a thing with long pointed ends, waxed and stiff and shining, and when he held it up against his face he looked exactly like the Kaiser of Germany. The man in the shop also sold us a tube of glue and he showed us how the moustache should be attached to the upper lip. “Going to have fun with the kids?” he asked, and George said, “Absolutely.”

  All was now ready, but there was a long time to wait. We had three dollars left between us and with this we bought a sandwich each and went to a movie. Then, at eleven o’clock that evening, we collected our car and in it we began to cruise slowly through the streets of New York waiting for the time to pass.

  “You’d better put on your moustache so as you get used to it.”

  We pulled up under a street lamp and I squeezed some glue on to George’s upper lip and fixed on the huge black hairy thing with its pointed ends. Then we drove on. It was cold in the car and outside it was beginning to snow again. I could see a few small snowflakes falling through the beams of the car lights. George kept saying, “How hard shall I hit him?” and I kept answering, “Hit him as hard as you can, and on the nose. It must be on the nose because that is a part of the contract. Everything must be done right. Our clients may be watching.”

  At two in the morning we drove slowly past the entrance to the Penguin Club in order to survey the situation. “I will park there,” I said, “just past the entrance in that patch of dark. But I will leave the door open for you.”

  We drove on. Then George said, “What does he look like? How do I know it’s him?”

  “Don’t worry,” I answered. “I’ve thought of that,” and I took from my pocket a piece of paper and handed it to him. “You take this and fold it up small and give it to the doorman and tell him to see it gets to Pantaloon quickly. Act as though you are scared to death and in an awful hurry. It’s a hundred to one that Pantaloon will come out. No columnist could resist that message.”

  On the paper I had written: “I am a worker in Soviet Consulate. Come to the door very quickly please I have something to tell but come quickly as I am in danger. I cannot come in to you.”

  “You see,” I said, “your moustache will make you look like a Russian. All Russians have big moustaches.”

  George took the paper and folded it up very small and held it in his fingers. It was nearly half past two in the morning now and we began to drive towards the Penguin Club.

  “You all set?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “We’re going in now. Here we come. I’ll park just past the entrance . . . here. Hit him hard,” I said, and George opened the door and got out of the car. I closed the door behind him but I leant over and kept my hand on the handle so I could open it again quick, and I let down the window so I could watch. I kept the engine ticking over.

  I saw George walk swiftly up to the doorman who stood under the red and white canopy which stretched out over the sidewalk. I saw the doorman turn and look down at George and I didn’t like the way he did it. He was a tall proud man dressed in a magenta-coloured uniform with gold buttons and gold shoulders and a broad white stripe down each magenta trouser leg. Also he wore white gloves and he stood there looking proudly down at George, fro