Angel

Angel is the keeper of the door to the smoke-filled office where Harry, Tyrone C. Love, Marion, and others gather. His personal signal—the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth, borrowed from the Spy Smasher serial—announces a visitor and draws him into the group’s loose, joking social world. In this brief appearance, Angel is both gatekeeper and participant: he controls who enters, then joins the laughter once the gathering is underway.

Identity and Setting

Angel is stationed at the entrance to an office reached by a tunnel and a steel staircase. Harry and Tyrone C. Love arrive by way of the morgue, cross a low fence, and follow the tunnel to a narrow recess where they ring for entry. Angel opens the door only slightly, urging them to hurry so fresh air will not get in. The contrast between the warm, humid summer air outside and the cool interior marks the threshold he guards.

Inside, the office is crowded with smoke and lit blue as Angel’s companions listen to music on a radio. The setting links him to the mortuary world: the group jokes about the stiffs in the boxes and the deadbeats who come through, though the scene does not establish Angel’s precise occupation. His role here is concrete and immediate—he receives people at the door and helps bring the gathering together.

The Secret Signal

Angel uses the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth as a summons, ringing its distinctive rhythm at the door. The cue comes from Spy Smasher, an old serial whose chapter openings paired the music with a large V and the Morse signal for V. Angel loved the serial and thought it was hip to have Beethoven helping them win the war; the musical phrase became his secret signal for everything.

The signal is more than a private flourish. When Angel hears it from inside, he rises and leaves the office, then returns a minute later with Marion and Betty. The others recognize the cue too: after the group’s laughter grows loud, Angel spins around and leaves again when the same rhythm sounds, and everyone falls silent to await the expected arrival. The repeated musical entrance gives the scene a small ritual, turning a sound from an old adventure serial into a shared code for anticipation and arrival.

Host and Comic Presence

Angel’s brief instructions at the door suggest a host’s practical concern for the room, while his easy exchanges with the others place him among the gathering rather than above it. He welcomes the newcomers, joins their banter, and responds to jokes about the mortuary’s customers with laughter. When asked whether any interesting customers have appeared, he jokes that they are all stiffs and deadbeats; the joke is answered with more teasing, including a comparison between Angel and Count Dracula.

The humor is communal and reciprocal. Angel is not merely the person who admits others: his laughter helps set the office’s tone, and the others make him part of the same irreverent exchange. His exit at the signal briefly interrupts that ease, but the group’s silence and expectation show how naturally his movements organize their attention.

Narrative Role

Angel’s appearance is defined by a recurring pattern of threshold, signal, and welcome. He opens the way into the room, returns with guests, and leaves again when the familiar cue calls him to the door. The story’s attention to the full musical reference—the serial, the V, and the Morse code—makes his routine feel like a private performance shared by the group.

That small ritual contrasts with the office’s casual talk of bodies and customers. Angel’s code gives the gathering a playful order, while his jokes fold the mortuary setting into its laughter. The evidence presents him not through a larger personal history or a later change, but through the distinctive way he mediates the group’s entrances and helps make the room feel like their own.