All this was being replaced, however, by a new final scene: the shabby front parlor once again, and the doll in midnight blue seated by a cradle containing a peanut-sized bundle in swaddling clothes. The doll held in her hand the finely embroidered waistcoat, last seen forgotten on the foot of the bed. Her face had been painted with a distinct expression of bitter regret. Madame Rigby, reaching in with a pair of long-nosed pliers, threaded a wire between the doll’s foot and the cradle’s front rocker and twisted its end to fasten it in place.
“That’ll do it,” she muttered, and felt under the scene’s floor for the wire’s other end. She tugged experimentally; the doll’s foot tapped, and the cradle rocked to and fro.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying so, ma’am, but I’m awfully glad you’re taking out the old ending,” said Dick. “It’s just too unbearably sad.”
Madame Rigby cocked an eye at him. “You think so, do you?” she said, as she slid the new scene into place. “What a lot you men find unbearable.”
“I guess that’s true, ma’am,” said Dick, abashed. He opened the front of the lower case for her, in order that she might connect the wires into the greater mechanism. A second’s careful work with the pliers, and it was done. Madame Rigby leaned back; Dick closed up the case, felt in his pocket for a slug nickel, and dropped it in the coin slot on the left side.
Six little curtains dropped, like window shades. Then each one rose in succession, revealing the respective scenes properly lit and animated. The tiny drama played out to its tragic end. The lamps extinguished themselves; the curtains dropped once more.
“You men,” repeated Madame Rigby, with a hoarse chuckle, and added a word seldom heard in polite society. Dick blushed and hung his head; then attempted a witticism to restore his composure.
“Why, it’s true we’re not perfect creatures. Maybe you’ll improve on the original design with Mr. Waxwork, over there.”
“Ahhh! You bet,” said Madame Rigby. She smiled, and pushed herself up from the bench, and went to a cabinet at the far end of the workroom. It was plain that if she had ever once resembled the doll in midnight blue, the years had made alterations; she was thickset now, bespectacled, gray-haired. But there was a certain vigorous pleasure in her step as she approached the cabinet and threw it open. She beamed with pride at what was disclosed within, and Dick caught his breath.
Anyone seeing the occupant of the cabinet for the first time might be excused for thinking they beheld a living youth, interrupted perhaps on his way to the bath, for he was loosely draped in a sheet. Every limb, every hair and eyelash, were perfect counterfeits; the human form was here presented with a degree of perfection unknown since Praxiteles. Yet this was no marble image of snow. The bloom of robust health was in the image’s cheeks, his thick hair was black and glossy as a raven’s wing. His eyes were a dark blue—one might almost say a midnight blue—and gleamed as though with intelligence and ready wit.
“Gracious, ma’am! When did you put in those eyes? He had ’em closed, last time I peeped in the cabinet!” said Dick.
“So you peeped, did you?” Madame Rigby scowled at him. “You’re a regular Pandora! The eyes are lenses, you see? There’re little shutters in his head, on timers. You must have stolen your look at night.”
“Yes, ma’am. It was when I’d come up to turn off the lights, before going out to dinner.”
“Well, mind I don’t catch you prying where you’re not asked again; or I’ll fire you, and I mean business, mister! That young wise-ass from the Polytechnic College thought he knew a trick or two Eudora Rigby didn’t; but I guess I showed him,” she said. She took a last pull on her cigarette, dropped it to the floor and crushed it out with her foot.
“Oh, no, ma’am, I’d never presume!” Dick protested. “It was only that I felt such an admiration of your work! I’ve never seen anything to beat this fellow.”
“Haven’t you?” Madame Rigby looked at him sidelong. “Well, here’s an eyeful for you!”
She pulled the sheet away, and laughed heartily when Dick turned scarlet with embarrassment.
“Oh, my hat!” Dick averted his gaze; then, unable to resist, looked again on the figure’s generous perfection with a certain horrified envy.
“The human form improved,” said Madame Rigby, in complacent satisfaction. There came a rap on the door, and she swiftly covered the figure once more and shut the cabinet. “That’ll be the moving van fellows! Let ’em in.”
Dick obeyed, and two hulking men in overalls and brogans stepped into the room, removing their caps.
“ ’Morning, ma’am. We’re here to see Mr. Rigby, about his exhibition?” said the elder of the two.
“That’s Madame Rigby, and it’s my exhibition, my good man,” said she, tapping her foot briskly. She waved her hand at the crates piled against the wall. “This all goes to Cliff House. Fourth floor, Gallery Hall, see? I’ll want you today and Thursday too. Make it snappy!”
Thursday evening Madame Rigby returned to the hotel where her workshop was presently housed. She was followed by Dick, who was drooping with exhaustion, having worked all day at setting up the exhibits. She unlocked the door, entered, and stood looking around her in satisfaction at the absence of packing crates.
“Now we’ll see, by God,” she said. She went to the table and rolled herself a cigarette, and the obliging little devil lit it for her.
“Oh, no!” said Dick. “We’ve gone and forgotten Mr. Waxwork!”
He went cautiously to the cabinet and opened it. There stood the figure as before, but with its eyes closed. As Dick watched, however, some inner mechanism reacted to the light of the street lamp falling upon the face; the eyes flew open, and appeared to view Dick’s consternation with gentle amusement.
“I haven’t either forgotten him,” said Madame Rigby. “Why, he’s the main attraction, boy!”
“But we’ll have to hire another van to get him out to Cliff House,” said Dick.
“Tut-tut! A cab will do perfectly well,” said Madame Rigby, smiling as she exhaled smoke through her nose.
“I suppose. Still… that’ll be some job for you and me, carrying him up all those stairs. He must weigh a couple of hundred pounds,” said Dick.
“Two hundred and nine,” said Madame Rigby. “But we won’t be carrying him, you fool. He’ll walk up on his own, as easily as you or I.”
“Walk!” cried Dick, delighted and astonished. “Why, you don’t mean he’s an automaton too? Like your spinet-playing girl, or the two little boys that write and draw? Or the old Turk who deals cards?”
“Ah! Those? Toys, all of them,” said Madame Rigby, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Early lessons. No more complicated than clocks. This fellow’s the real goods. My masterwork, and no fooling. And he’ll do the job—you’ll see.”
“Holy Moses,” said Dick. “What will he do, ma’am?”
“Let’s start him up, and I’ll show you,” said Madame Rigby. She went to a side table, where there stood a decanter of some colorless liquid. Drawing a long funnel from a drawer, she took it with the decanter to her creation, and tapped gently at his mouth. He parted his lips; Dick had a glimpse of white teeth and pink tongue, rather than the hollow of steel frame and silk lining he had expected. Madame Rigby thrust the funnel in, and poured the liquid down the automaton’s gurgling throat—or down a pipe, Dick supposed, into some unseen tank.
“Invented this fuel myself,” said Madame Rigby proudly. “One part cod-liver oil, one part Paris Lilacs parfum, and eight parts gin. He’ll run a week on a bellyful of this.”
“I should say he would,” said Dick. “I think I would too.”
“There now, my darling; that’ll set you up,” said Madame Rigby, with a tenderness in her voice Dick had never before heard. “Your day has come at last! Time to make Mama proud of you.”