Page:Weird Tales Volume 29 Number 1 (1937-01).djvu/30

the words, you might think Welch was following the old tradition that the show must go on in spite of hell, and that he would hide his broken heart, come what may.

But that wasn't in his tone! His tone said that the whole thing had been a mess which he was glad to get out of so easily, and that now let's forget it.

"You going on tonight?" I gasped.

"Sure," he said. "I'm sorry and all that. But I don't see any reason to take a week's lay-off for it."

"Who'll you use for a subject?"

"I got it arranged already. Celia Wallace will let me use her temporarily."

"Cele! How about her father?"

Welch looked at me angrily. "You've been listening to all the slop the circus gossips have handed around, huh? Well, let me tell you her father will sing a different tune now that I'm no longer a married man."

"Who'll take her place on the bars?" I said, not looking at him.

"Ruth Harrison. The kid has been crazy to get into the act for months. This'll be her chance."

"It's raw, Welch," I said.

"Nuts. Let's get back to the lot," he replies, in almost his normal loud tone. We get back almost on time, and the show goes on. It may have been oke to the audience that night, but it was a nightmare to me.

The canopy of death hung over us all, almost as plain as the canvas of the sideshow tent. The heart was out of my barking. I kept seeing Bu-Jo's stricken eyes. I kept seeing the look on Celia Wallace's pan as Welch prepared to hypnotize her with those funny optics of his; she's as nuts about him as only a bird-brained lady acrobat could get about a slug like Welch.

Above all, I kept seeing Dor Welch, dull-eyed and slow-moving, in the place Cele was temporarily taking. And I kept hearing the faint screams. Draft up the chimney, huh? I should work in a joint like that crematory!

But the show went on, that night and the rest of the nights.

We got to Cleveland on our way west. And it was there that Welch picked up his tail.

We were eating dinner in a Cleveland hash-house. I was with Welch and Cele. I didn't eat with Welch by choice; he'd come by with Celia, glommed me through the window, and come in to join me.

Cele was a regular part of his act, now. And the talk was that she was going to marry Welch. Maybe she was tired reaching from one bar to another sixty feet up. Maybe being hypnotized is easier than acrobatting. Maybe she really was completely off her nut over Welch instead of mildly infatuated with him. Anyhow, that was the lay.

Celia saw the kid first.

"You've got an audience, honey," she giggled.

"Huh?" said Welch, taking a big bite of steak.

"At the window. Look. The little boy."

I turned with Welch. At the restaurant window a kid was leaning with his nose flattened against the glass, looking at Welch. He was in tattered pants with one leg up and one down.

"He's sure looking at you," I said to Welch.

And the kid was, no mistake. His half-moon eyes, kind of like empty china circles, were riveted to Welch's face.

"He probably saw my act this afternoon," said Welch complacently.

"He's your Cleveland public," I nodded.