The Hat Trick

The thing squealed again as Walter lifted it a little higher out of the hat. It looked like a monstrous, hideous black rat. But it was bigger than a rat should be, too big even to have come out of the hat. Its eyes glowed like red light bulbs and it was champing horribly its long scimitar-shaped white teeth, clicking them together with its mouth going several inches open each time and closing like a trap. It wriggled to get the scruff of its neck free of Walter’s trembling hand; its clawed forefeet flailed the air. It looked vicious beyond belief.

It squealed incessantly, frightfully, and it smelled with a rank fetid odor as though it had lived in graves and eaten of their contents.

Then, as suddenly as he had pulled his hand out of the hat, Walter pushed it down in again, and the thing down with it. The squealing stopped and Walter took his hand out of the hat. He stood there, shaking, his face pale. He got a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped sweat off his forehead. His voice sounded strange: “I should never have done it.” He ran for the door, opened it, and they heard him stumbling down the stairs.

Mae’s hand came away from her mouth slowly and she said, “T—take me home, Bob.”

Bob passed a hand across his eyes and said, “Gosh, what—” and went across and looked into the hat. His two pennies were in there, but he didn’t reach in to take them out.

He said, his voice cracking once, “What about Elsie? Should we—” Mae got up slowly and said, “Let her sleep it off.” They didn’t talk much on the way home.

* * *

It was two days later that Bob met Elsie on the street. He said, “Hi, Elsie.”

And she said, “Hi, there.” He said, “Gosh, that was some party we had at your studio the other night. We— we drank too much, I guess.”

Something seemed to pass across Elsie’s face for a moment, and then she smiled and said, “Well, I sure did; I passed out like a light.”

Bob grinned back, and said, “I was a little high myself, I guess. Next time I’ll have better manners.”

Mae had her next date with Bob the following Monday. It wasn’t a double date this time.

After the show, Bob said, “Shall we drop in somewhere for a drink?”

For some reason Mae shivered slightly. “Well, all right, but not wine. I’m off of wine. Say, have you seen Wally since last week?”

Bob shook his head. “Guess you’re right about wine. Wally can’t take it, either. Made him sick or something and he ran out quick, didn’t he? Hope he made the street in time.”

Mae dimpled at him. “You weren’t so sober yourself, Mr. Evans. Didn’t you try to pick a fight with him over some silly card tricks or something? Gee, that picture we saw was awful; I had a nightmare that night.”

He smiled. “What about?”

“About a—Gee, I don’t remember. Funny how real a dream can be, and still you can’t remember just what it was.”

Bob didn’t see Walter Beekman until one day, three weeks after the party, he dropped into the bookstore. It was a dull hour and Walter, alone in the store, was writing at a desk in the rear. “Hi, Wally. What you doing?”

Walter got up and then nodded toward the papers he’d been working on. “Thesis. This is my last year premed, and I’m majoring in psychology.”

Bob leaned negligently against the desk. “Psychology, huh?” he asked tolerantly. “What you writing about?”

Walter looked at him a while before he answered. “Interesting theme. I’m trying to prove that the human mind is incapable of assimilating the utterly incredible. That, in other words, if you saw something you simply couldn’t possibly believe, you’d talk yourself out of believing you saw it. You’d rationalize it, somehow.”

“You mean if I saw a pink elephant I wouldn’t believe it?”

Walter said, “Yes, that or a—Skip it.” He went up front to wait on another customer.

When Walter came back, Bob said, “Got a good mystery in the rentals? I got the week-end off; maybe I’ll read one.”

Walter ran his eye along the rental shelves and then flipped the cover of a book with his forefinger. “Here’s a dilly of a weird,” he said. “About beings from another world, living here in disguise, pretending they’re people.”

“What for?”

Walter grinned at him. “Read it and find out. It might surprise you.”

Bob moved restlessly and turned to look at the rental books himself. He said, “Aw, I’d rather have a plain mystery story. All that kind of stuff is too much hooey for me.” For some reason he didn’t quite understand, he looked up at Walter and said, “Isn’t it?”

Walter nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess it is.”