I did not take the Jaguar into Birmingham proper; I put her into a
half-smashed, bombed-out old building I found quite by chance some few
miles out of the city, and prayed that she would wait there for me till
my business was done. It was then about four-thirty in the morning.
At a little tea-and-biscuit place in the suburbs I had a hearty
breakfast, and read in an early edition the terrifying tale of the
Manchester Horrors. It seemed that the infamous Slasher had been
tentatively identified when he was tracked by the police to his lair
in a well-known hotel; he was thought to be either a certain Irish
communist agitator, or else a celebrated American gangster who I
happened to know had been killed in 1937....
I walked on down to Birmingham and took a room in an obscure house in
a slum district, run by a blowzy slattern who answered to "Old Mag."
The parlor was equipped with a weary wireless set and an assortment
of highly-flavored gentlemen in the last stages of disrepair. One of
them looked like a racetrack tout fallen on evil days, another I could
have sworn was a professional mugger. A fitting den for the Manchester
Slasher!
I was careful not to touch anything at all until I had gone out
and bought a pair of thin silk gloves, which I wore at all times
thereafter. The proprietor of the pawnshop gave me a knowing wink as
he handed them to me. I'm sure he thought I was a cat-burglar or a
safe-cracker. No one in my new home deigned to notice them. I must
mention that, quite by accident and not through any searching on my
part, I had happened to strike a place where none of the other-world
brutes lived; I had been prepared to see a number of them here, but
only found the lowly humans I have spoken of.
I spent my first evening in going over my clothing and other
possessions, ripping out name tags, obliterating initials, and
cleaning off fingerprints. I would not be trapped again as I had nearly
been in Manchester.
* * * * *
The second day and the early evening thereof I walked through the
streets, thinking furiously. And the only conclusions I could come to
anent my problems were bitter and lonely and hopeless.
Going "home" about eight o'clock, I wandered into the parlor and was
accosted diffidently by a very low-looking form of life, which begged
the pleasure of my company in a nearby hooch hut. I agreed. I would
have stood drinks to a wolverine if the creature would have listened to
me. I was starved for speech.
When I had bought him a few rounds, his taste running to that noble
old British concoction, a four-o'-gin-hot, we began to talk freely:
of anything, the weather, the latest race results, the difficulty of
getting "real prime raw gin"....
He was a curious fellow. The name he gave me was Arold Smiff, which I
imagine had once been Harold Smith; he was small and stringy and of
a tobacco-brown hue, with eyes in which liquor-broken veins had long
since stained the irises and the white to an all-over muddy-crimson. He
stank like a shebeen, his breath would have shriveled a brass monkey,
but I soon noticed something really odd about him--he did not seem to
be at all intoxicated. I made bold to comment on this.
"Why, General," he said, grinning wryly, "fak is, I been lushed for
so long, I can't get lushed any more hardly at all. You ever had the
snykes?"
I shook my head. He nodded wisely. "Ar, I thought not. You're clarss.
Me, I got a permanent case of 'em, bloody snykes and 'orrors all the
tyme. You wouldn't know what it's lyke, General, seeing such 'orrors
all the bloody damn tyme."
_Would I not, I said to myself, oh, would I not!_
"No, you're clarss, any bloody fool could see that." He leaned over
confidentially, and I could fairly feel my eyebrows curl under that
breath. "Between pals, now, wot's your lay?"
"Lay?" I repeated idiotically.
"Gyme, General, gyme! I knew you was hot stuff the mo' I seen yer at
Old Mag's. Wot's your specialty--jools?"
Good Lord! The man took me for a jewel-thief!
"Not exactly," I said.
* * * * *
We were sitting in a booth. He craned his neck around to see that no
one could overhear us. "Aye, but it's something fust-rate. You're no
bloomin' snaveler nor knuckler."
"Ah, no," I agreed, presuming that, whatever they were, I couldn't be
one of them.
"You're clarss," he repeated obstinately. "Me, I may not look so likely
now, but once I was Manny Jarman's right'and lad."
I tried to look impressed, and wondered who Manny Jarman had been. A
great deal of ale had flowed down my gullet at a good clip, and I was
feeling reckless and friendly. "I'll tell you one thing," I said, "the
police want me rather badly. I wouldn't tell you that if I didn't trust
you."
"Ar! You trust Arold Smiff, General. 'E won't letcher down. I knowed
you was on the lam when you come into Old Mag's. You're okay there. And
you're okay so long as I'm your chum, too, see? I got connections."
He brooded darkly over his connections. "Mugs, but they respecks old
Arold Smiff, knowing wot 'e was once. Before the gin got 'im," he added
significantly, peering into the depths of his glass. I snapped my
fingers for another four-o'-gin-hot.
He chattered on, in his strange drunk-sober style, for a few minutes:
and then, someone pushing by me, I moved my elbow to make more room
in the aisle. In doing so I glanced up. It was one of _them_. A truly
fearsome beast, this one purplish, slimy and grotesque.
Arold bent closer, again singeing my eyebrows. "I'll give yer an
example," he hissed. "Example o' wot I go through nowadyes. You seen
that bloke leave?"
"Yes?"
"'E were a bloke to you, huh? Regular normal bloke?"
"Mmmm," I said noncommittally.
"Welp, me, I didn't see no bloke at all, d'yer get me? I seen a great
big glob o' goop! A great big purple wet-looking barstid of a garstly
freak! You think a joker's bad off when 'e's got snykes, huh? Wot
about me, wot sees Frank and Stein's monsters all about?" He sat back
triumphantly.
I suppose I gaped. I suppose my jaw dropped, my hands shook, my face
grew pale. I don't know. For the moment the gin palace was a blur and
my faculties were frozen, as Arold Smiff's words rang in my head.
Frankenstein monsters! Purple freak!
Fate had given me an ally worth more than all six of my band combined.
A souse of an ally, a lowbred criminal of an ally, a gin-soaked
worthless-appearing ally: but one who could see the aliens, evidently
as plainly as I could myself!
Our gallant pioneer, Jerry Wolfe, had speculated that perhaps some
people could see them when having a fit of what we call the d.t.s--when
they were saturated with alcohol, their vision was warped into the
uncanny dimension-piercing angles which the musket blast had given me.
Here was living proof of the theory. And here likewise was a fellow so
permanently full of liquor (I swear the stuff ran in his veins) that he
could see them _all the time_!