Curtain for a Jester Read Free Page B

tie. “Not dressed for this,” he said.
    There was little to say to that and Clyde Parsons did not wait.
    â€œI didn’t know anything about all this,” Parsons said. He was plainly uneasy, anxious to explain. “Got a message he was sick. Wanted to see me. Fix things—” He stopped and shook his head. Black hair fell over his forehead. He pushed it back. “One of his jokes,” he said. “His damn funny jokes.”
    â€œYour uncle likes jokes,” Pam said. This is really too embarrassing, Pam thought. Clyde Parsons looked at her as if she had not spoken what she thought.
    â€œSorry,” he said. “I guess it’s funny. Anyway, it’s not your worry, is it? I—”
    But Wilmot was back. He had a drink in his hand and held it out to Parsons; told Parsons to drink up, said it would do Parsons good. Parsons looked at the glass, for a long moment looked over it at Wilmot. Then with a movement oddly abrupt, Parsons took the glass and drank from it, thirstily. Almost at once, color came to his pale face.
    â€œTake you around,” Wilmot said, and put a hand again on his nephew’s shoulder. Parsons seemed to hesitate. Then he drank from the glass again and said, “Why not, Uncle Byron?” in a different voice. “Have fun,” Wilmot told Pam North and Monteath, and pushed Parsons from them.
    â€œWell,” Monteath said. “Wilmot hasn’t—” He stopped. He looked down at Pam North and smiled, faintly, “—hasn’t changed much,” he said. “Tough on the kid.”
    â€œYou know him?” Pam said.
    â€œOf him,” Monteath said. “Wouldn’t you like to dance?” The change of subject was final. They danced.
    It was not for some time, then, more than a moderately odd party. It was true that Frank, the comic butler, was at intervals unbridled, but as time passed his production of curious food and drink, his gay insults, his employment of a succession of improbable dialects, became, through repetition, almost commonplace. The music continued to pour from the concealed speaker; Frank, however impishly, continued to provide whatever was desired that had alcohol in it. It occurred to Pam, after an hour or so, that she was drinking more than she commonly did—which after dinner was commonly nothing at all—but this was partly because, as the evening progressed, it was Wilmot’s whim to serve all drinks in glasses with rounded bottoms. It is difficult to mislay a drink in a round-bottomed glass.
    There were, as Pam had anticipated, rubber spiders from time to time. Mr. Wilmot, while dancing with her—rather bouncingly—abruptly acquired a green lizard (of which he seemed unaware) and the lizard ran up and down his arm. It was true that, while ostensibly making a note of something, Mr. Wilmot produced a fountain pen which, apparently by accident, squirted a substantial stream of black fluid on Jerry North’s white shirt front. But it was also true that, not long after Jerry’s sharp yelp of unhappiness, the black stain faded gradually until it was hardly perceptible. (It was further true that, some weeks later, a faint brown stain remained where black had been, as a memento of a somewhat strange evening—and of Mr. Byron Wilmot.)
    But after the arrival of Clyde Parsons, nothing really out of the way occurred for rather more than an hour. Then the scream of anguish came again from the foyer.
    It was little noticed, this time. By some, indeed, it apparently was not heard. (Loquacity had become advanced; the scream had competition.) Pam and Jerry, who were dancing together for the first time, were only half conscious of the sound, although, as they circled, Pam saw Wilmot—he was really very pink now, particularly at the back of the neck—go toward the foyer. A moment later, his laughter roared and then, almost at once, he followed two people into the room.
    Inside