The Genie of Sutton Place (10 page)

“Hi, Lucy!” Sam grinned sheepishly.

“Hi, Sam.” Aunt Lucy grinned right back. And the squirrel in her giggled.

“I've got the carrots all ready—”

“Fun! Let's start.”

It seems that Aunt Lucy had developed a passion for the rabbits. She just
loved
to come over every afternoon and give them their supper. Believe me, rabbits are not bright animals. They're lovable, but unobservant, and they don't know the difference between a Bergdorf Goodman suit and a pair of overalls.

While Aunt Lucy was squealing her joy at “how the bunnies love to nibble,” and Sam was standing there, passing her carrots obediently, Felix and I went over to visit with William Rhesus. At that point the company of a monkey felt very refreshing. We talked to him for a while, and I think he understood. But you never can tell with monkeys. They're tricky, being almost up to man.

Then we drifted over to the puppy cage, which is where we usually end up. It's my favorite place in the shop. Everybody recognized me, jumped up on their hind legs, forepaws on the screen, and started barking. I love that shrill little pitiful bark that puppies have.

Sam came over with Lucy and said to the puppies, “Now settle down, men—settle down.”

“I wasn't doing anything to upset them, Sam,” I said.

“I know, Tim. Those are just love barks. But they get too excited.”

“You ought to know!” Felix muttered under his breath.

“A parakeet can be fricasseed, too!” growled Sam, under his.

Aunt Lucy cooed at the puppies awhile. Then her face got this curious rueful expression. “Why look, Timmy,” she said. “That brown and white one—over in the corner—he looks just like—”

It was true. And Aunt Lucy had noticed it even before I had. In the new batch there was one little mongrel guy who had exactly Sam's coloring. I think there was basset in him somewhere, too. He looked so forlorn and intimidated, meeting all those new strange people and dogs—this was his very first day, after all—that I had to reach in and pick him up. Sam looked at the puppy sympathetically and then took him in his own arms.

“Who does he look like, Lucy?” said Sam in a very quiet voice.

She hesitated, glanced fidgetily at me—we hadn't talked about it in the open yet, since that first day of Sam's being a man—and said, “Tim had this dog who couldn't adapt to life with us in Sutton Place—and Timmy bravely gave him up. You
have
been good about that, too, dear!” She gave my hand a squeeze—which
felt
like a squeeze this time.

“Um—well—Aunt Lucy,” I hemmed and didn't know what to say. So I hawed, “It hasn't been too hard.”

“
You've
been a help there, Sam,” said Aunt Lucy. “You've been such a friend to my nephew.”

“A man's best friend—” began Felix ominously.

“Quiet!” I commanded him. He'll obey me, although he won't Sam.

“You didn't like him at all?” Sam asked sadly, in a voice unlike his usual happy-go-lucky human woofing, which bore a resemblance to his dog voice.

“You know,” Aunt Lucy admitted, after a minute, “I really did. I'd grown quite fond of Sam. He was terribly clumsy, though—”

Right here—and wouldn't you know he'd do it?—Sam leaned against the puppies' cage and knocked it over. Nobody was hurt, but all of them scattered like furry drops of rain around the shop.

When we'd rounded them up, Aunt Lucy continued, enjoying her nostalgia now that there was no work involved: “Yes, I
had
grown fond of Sam. He'd stare at me with such
feeling
in that woebegone face—!”

Sam stared at the floor, to hide his woebegone. “He must have liked you an awful lot.”

Then it happened.

I could see Sam was losing control—and did my nerves ever tighten me up!—but I was expecting, if anything, that he'd lick her hand or lift his paws—I mean, his hands—to her shoulders and start to bark rhapsodically. But it was worse than either one.

He howled.

I think he meant to say something fairly icky, but instead of words, this pitiful canine howl came out. A man's voice is one of his very most human characteristics, and when Sam started to relapse, his voice went first. He stared at me, terrified. Aunt Lucy couldn't believe her ears and looked down in the puppy cage, thinking the sound must have come from there.

Sam cleared his throat and tried to say something. But now he only halfheartedly woofed. His eyes got big as they pleaded with me—to make it stop, or at least explain what was happening. And Aunt Lucy knew by this time that Sam was making those noises. But naturally—and thank God!—not knowing the truth, she expected some rational explanation.

I came up with the only one I could find. And pretty idiotic, too. I said, “Sam, some of that puppy's fur must have gotten into your throat.” He was still holding his duplicate. “You're coughing badly. Better put him down. And
try not to speak for a while!
”

Sam's eyes understood, and he put the puppy back into the cage, tapping his throat all the while and smiling at Aunt Lucy, as if it were all very natural … Natural!

“We'd better be getting back, Aunt Lucy,” I said unhurriedly.

“Well, but if Sam's not well—”

“Oh, it happens all the time when you own a pet shop. Doesn't it, Sam?”

He nodded as cheerfully as he could, over his panic, and motioned us hopefully toward the door.

After a few more Sutton Place pleasantries, I managed to get Aunt Lucy out.

We took a cab back home—where I meant to ask that genie just exactly what was happening!

10

Back to the Occult Sciences

He was in my room, lounging all over my bed. He filled it to overflowing, too. Since coming to work for Aunt Lucy, Dooley had gotten into the habit of making my room his headquarters … When he wasn't vocalizing with Rose, that is.

“What are you looking so dreamy about?” I demanded.

“Nothing, master.” He sat up. “Am I looking dreamy?”

“Yes!” I explained what had happened as unexcitedly as I could.

He stroked his chin and murmured, “Very strange.”

“Is that all you can say—‘Very strange'? Sam's on the way back to dogville! Now what about that spell of yours?”

“Master,” he asked reflectively, “when did all this happen?”

“About fifteen minutes ago.” He said nothing. “Dooley—?” His silence began to get worrying. “What were
you
doing fifteen minutes ago?”

“Mistress Rose was teaching me a most lovely French song.” He began to sing—as if nothing at all had happened—
“Plaisir d'amour,''
“The Pleasure of Love.”

It was pretty, too. But I was in no mood for French songs. “Dooley, be
serious!
What's going on?”

“I know not, master. But I suspect.” He paced up and down for a minute or two; then said, “Master, where did you find the blessed spell that released me from my exquisite prison?”

“In my father's diary. Why?”

“We must consult his books again.”

“But
Sam
—he's—”

“Just one moment, master.” He closed his eyes and concentrated, tightening up the spell, I guess. “That ought to hold our furry friend.”

“And don't joke! This is critical.”

“Pardon, master.” He smiled down all over me. “But the whimsicality of mortal life begins to affect me, I fear.”

We took Felix with us. Because I needed all the moral support I could get.

*   *   *

In half an hour we were down in the Village. But the
CLOSED
sign was in the antique-shop window.

“At this hour of the afternoon that can only mean she's holding a séance. Come on around to the back,” I said. (There's a rear entrance, too—down an alley and into the kitchen.) We crept in silently. “Oh, Lord—it's the Willy sisters! This'll take all day.”

Dooley peeked through the curtains into the séance room. There they sat: Edna and Emma Willy, still trying to get in touch with their sister Nelly, who had died a couple of years before. A very difficult case for Madame Sosostris, because they just wouldn't stop believing in her, and that made her feel guilty whenever she failed—which she did, once a month, when they came around.

“Master,” Dooley whispered to me, with mischief in his voice, “shall we make this a truly memorable séance for Madame Sosostris and the Willy sisters?”

“Now look, Dooley, we're not down here to have—”

“Peace, master! It will also save time.”

“Well—oh, all right!” I have to admit, despite my fears for Sam, I wasn't averse to a little fun. “Are you going to get the Spirits down?”

Dooley suddenly looked serious. “No, master. The Spirits
do
exist—but I have no traffic whatsoever with them. They come from an altogether different quarter of all the possible universe. Blessed be their rest!” His face got back to its grin again. “Still, I believe that I may enhance the proceedings a little.”

I explained the situation to him, while Madame Sosostris went into her spiel—in her most mediumistic voice—“Oh, ye great Spirits who guard the entrance to the Infinite Void, I call on you to reveal yourselves!”

“Now she sets off the Fiendish Laughter,” I whispered.

In the spooky light from the Tiffany lamp we could make out Madame Sosostris's right foot, feeling for the Fiendish button … when all of a sudden this huge deep laughter burst out all over the séance table!… I suppose that it shouldn't have come as a surprise that a genie was also a great ventriloquist, but it did.

Madame Sosostris was pretty rattled. She repeated skeptically, “I—I call on you to reveal yourselves—”

Another booming laugh!…

“What?” Emma Willy, who was hard of hearing, cupped her hand to her ear. “What's she saying?”

“She's asking who it is,”
shouted Edna in awe, as if she'd rather have whispered it.

The biggest, deepest laughter yet!

“It's not Nelly!” Emma shook her head.

“Who—uh—who are you?” asked Madame Sosostris nervously to the empty air.

“I am the Guardian of Blessed Souls!” boomed out Dooley.

“What'd he say?” Emma cupped her ear.

“He says he's the Guardian of Blessed Souls!”

“Oh, well, that's nice.” Emma relaxed. “That means she made it at least.”

“Doctor—I mean, Guardian—is there—is there anyone there?”

“Now she sets off Lulu,” I whispered to Dooley. “It's apparition time.”

Before Madame S. had time to touch the Lulu button, Dooley flicked his fingers—and a cloud of white vapor materialized above the séance table.

“Holy smoke!” Madame Sosostris jerked back and almost lost her turban.

“What'd she say?”

“She says it's the holy smoke!”

“That's it! It's ectoplasm!” Madame S. was really out of her tree by now. “I'm havin' a breakthrough!”

“Now take it easy, Dooley,” I said. “We don't want her going bananas—”

“Peace, master—and leave this séance to me.”

“I call on you, Guardian!” said Madame Sosostris authoritatively—she was into it now—“Is anyone there who wishes to speak to the Willy sisters?”

“Only me.” I'd never have believed it, but Dooley was doing falsetto now, and he sounded just like an elderly but likable sister.

“Nelly!” screamed Edna.
“It's Nelly!”

“That's nice,” said Emma. “Tell her hello, and then ask her what in tarnation she did with the keys to the downstairs closet.”

Dooley closed his eyes—ransacking the Willy sisters' apartment mentally—then opened them, winked at me, and said, in the same old-lady voice, “They're under the bathroom mat.”

“Well,
that's
a silly place to hide anything!” exclaimed Edna. “Did you hear that, sister?”

“No.” Emma cupped her ear. When Edna repeated the information, at the top of her lungs, Emma said, “The floors are
your
job, dear. If you cleaned a little more often, we would have found them by now.”

“Of all the nerve!
My
job—”

Dooley, in character, chipped right into the argument. “It seems to me that since I've been gone the whole apartment's turned into a mess.”

“Nelly Willy,” said Edna, “just who do you think you are? Just because you're dead—”

I had to laugh. There they were—bickering together lovingly—just the same as when all three were alive. The two sisters left had only wanted to contact Nelly to have another friendly fight … It's true: people never do change.

“Cut it short,” I whispered to Dooley. “We've got to get at those books.”

He nodded and crooned, “Ooo—I'm fading—ooo—” And the mist above the table began to disappear.

“Nelly?—you leaving?”

“Ooo—yes!” moaned Dooley deliciously. “It's back to the heavenly pastures for me.”

“Emma!—say goodbye to Nelly.”

“'Bye, Nelly!”

The mist vanished completely.

“Wasn't it grand to see Nelly again?” Edna dabbed at her eyes with an old silk handkerchief.

“What?” Emma said.

“Oh, forget it. Come on, let's go home. Madame Sosostris, this is by far the best séance we've had.”

“Boy, I'll say!” Madame Sosostris was sitting there in a daze.

Edna took out her beat-up antique purse. “The usual fee is two dollars—”

“Forget it. This one's on me.”

“That's very kind of you.
Come on, will you?
We'll be back again next month.”