The innocent Mrs Duff

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

  “Put that down, please!” he said. “I don’t like to be waited on.”

  She raised the glass to her nose.

  “Jake!” she cried.

  “Put that down!” he shouted. “Now will you mind your own business, please, and let me alone?”

  “Jake…” she said, very unsteadily. “Jake… Couldn’t I help you?”

  “I don’t want any help,” he said. “I want to be let alone.”

  He glanced up at her, and their eyes met, in a long look; then she turned away and went out of the room. He sprang up and locked the door; he got the bottle out of the bag. I’ll drink when I please and as much as I damn please, he told himself. I can’t stand her. She’d drive anyone to drink.

  I hate her, he thought.

  He had been bored by her, exasperated, utterly tired of her. But this was hatred. All right! he thought. Maybe she’ll realize that now, and get out. He took another drink and lay down on the bed, frantic to go to sleep, and stop thinking. But his heart was pounding; he began to cough, so violently that he had to sit up. I’ve got to get some sleep, if I have to drink the whole bottle, he thought.

  There was something the matter with him, something frightful. A heart attack? Something frightful… He finished the drink in the glass, but it did him no good. And if this did not help him, where could he turn?

  The doorbell rang.

  “Good God!” he cried, aloud.

  This was urgent. He unlocked the door and went lurching down the hall. Reggie was standing in her doorway, in that blue satin negligee; he went past her, and tried to slide the chain off the door. The bell rang again, and it vibrated in his head. This was urgent. Something had happened. He got the chain off and opened the door.

  “Mr. Duff?” said a voice. “I want to speak with you.”

  The light from the hall showed Duff a spare elderly man with close-cropped white hair, very neatly dressed in a dark suit.

  “What d’you want?” Duff asked. His heart was still pounding; his anger still shook him. “What d’you mean by coming here at this hour?”

  “I want to speak with you about Gerald,” said the other.

  “Who the hell is Gerald?”

  “Gerald Nolan,” said the other.

  Duff stepped out on the porch and closed the door behind him. That name meant danger to him.

  “Mr. Duff!” said the stranger, sternly. “You have set police after Gerald.”

  “Nothing of the sort!”

  “It is very surely you. You have kicked Gerald from your house— and I know why.”

  “Shut up!” said Duff. “Get out!”

  “I shall not shut up. You shall put in writing to take off this police, or I shall beat you.”

  The light from the window showed him with a riding-crop in his lifted hand.

  “You damned old fool…!” said Duff, astounded, “Get out!”

  “No! Gerald is telling me you have already made him a frame-up. Now comes this police, asking questions of me and of others. You shall put in writing what I say, or I shall beat you.”

  Duff gave a short laugh.

  “Oh, the hell with you!” he said. “I can’t be bothered with a maniac like you. I’m going to bed.”

  He turned to open the door when the crop struck him on the temple, a stinging blow. He spun around, and struck at the man; the flailing blow caught him on the chest and sent him falling back down the steps to the ground.

  “Now maybe you’ll get out!” said Duff.

  The other was struggling up on one knee. Duff went down the steps after him. His slippered foot felt the riding-crop, and he picked it up.

  “You’re not going to hit me in the face and get away with it,” he said. “Stand up!”

  More light came streaming out; Reggie had opened the door.

  “Get up!” said Duff. “Stand up—like a man!”

  He took the man’s arm and pulled him to his feet. He held him by the collar with his left hand, and struck him with the crop, somehow, anyhow.

  “Now get out!” he said, and turned away.

  “Jake!” cried Reggie.

  “Get back in the house.”

  “Jake, he’s fallen down!”

  “Let him stay down. Damn maniac!”

  “Jake, it’s Mr. Paul—”

  He pushed her aside and entered the house.

  “I don’t care who he is. He came here—he hit me in the face—here. D’you see?”

  “Jake, I’ve got to go out—”

  “You’re not going out,” he said, standing against the closed door.

  “Jake, please… I’ve got to see—”

  “You can see this,” he said, touching the cut on his temple. “That’s enough.”

  She started down the hall, but he caught her arm.

  “You’re not going out of the back door, either,” he said. “You’re not going out of the house, d’you understand?”

  “Jake, I’ve got to see if he’s hurt. Jake, please—!”

  I mustn’t hit her, he told himself. You must never hit a woman. No matter how you hate her.

  “Jake,” she said, “I beg you please to let me go and see if Mr. Paul’s badly hurt.”

  Her tone was different, steadier; she had got hold of herself, and she was very much more dangerous to him now. He must be steadier, too, quieter.

  “Reggie,” he said. “I can’t let you go out. The man’s drunk.”

  “No,” she said.

  “I tell you he is. Come in here and sit down.”

  “I can’t. Please let me go.”

  He pushed her, as gently as he could manage, into the sitting-room; he pushed her into a chair.

  “Don’t be so—silly,” he said. “The man’s gone, by this time.”

  “Let me look—”

  “No!” he shouted. “I will not! Good God! This man—this drunken maniac comes here and hits your husband in the face—and all you can think about is whether he’s all right.”

  “Let me look…” she said again.

  Anger so shook him that his lips and his chin were trembling. This won’t do, he told himself.

  “I’ll go and look,” he said. She rose. “Sit down again,” he said. “Stay where you are, or I won’t look, and I won’t let you look.”

  When she had sat down again, he went to open the door, he looked out, he closed the door and put on the chain.

  “Of course he’s gone,” he said, scornfully.

  “Let me see…”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  She looked up at him and then lowered her black lashes; her face was white as paper.

  “I’ll get you a drink,” he said.

  “I don’t want a drink. I never—”

  “You need one,” he said. “After all this hysterical nonsense…”

  The bottle of rye he had opened for Vermilyea was in the dining-room. He poured half a tumblerful and filled the glass with water and brought it to her.

  “I can’t, Jake. I—”

  “Drink it!” he said. “I’ve had enough of this.”

  “Is it—strong?”

  “Naturally not. I know what I’m doing.”

  She took a swallow and choked on it.

  “No more, please—”

  “Finish it!” he said. “And then for God’s sake go to bed and let me have some peace and quiet.”

  She sat for a time with the glass in her hand; then she began to sip the drink, slowly and steadily. She looked, he thought, as if she were drinking poison and knew it and did not care. Well, it isn’t poison, he thought. It won’t hurt her. It’ll do her good.

  “Now get to bed,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  He lit a cigarette and sat down opposite her. He took out his handkerchief and touched the cut on his temple; it was still bleeding;. She saw that, but she said nothing. Because she doesn’t care, he thought. She wouldn’t have cared if that damn maniac had killed me.

  She just sat there, in th
at tawdry blue satin thing, pale and still. She pretended she had never had a drink in her life, yet she could put down half a tumblerful and never turn a hair. The room was cold, very cold, and he was ill, but he had to stay. He couldn’t leave her here, to open the door and look out. He lit another cigarette. How long…?

  “I’ll—go to bed…” she said, thickly.

  She could scarcely walk; he put his arm around her and helped her to her bed. She lay back on the pillows and looked up at him with glazed eyes. In a moment she was asleep.

  He went back to his own room and took a drink; he got a flashlight out of a drawer, and went quietly along the hall. He did not fumble with the chain now; there was no tremor in his hands, no haze in his mind.

  The man still lay there on his back on the sand. Standing at the top of the steps, Duff turned the flashlight on him. His hair glittered like silver, his eyes were closed, his mouth a little open. Dead? Duff thought.

  He had to go down the steps and look. He knelt beside the man, opened his coat to listen for a heartbeat, and heard none. He lifted the man’s hand, and it was chilly and damp. Well, I’ve done it, he thought. This means the police.

  It was in self-defense, he thought. There’s no doubt about that. I’ve got Reggie for a witness, and I’ve got this cut on my face.

  But I don’t want the police here. This fellow had something to do with Nolan. I don’t want that story to come out. He turned off the torch and rose; he stood still in the dark, trying to remember what the Nolan story was. But he could not. He could remember only that Nolan had threatened him with something horrible, ruinous.

  No, he thought. I’ll go back to the house and leave the fellow here. Somebody else will find him. I’ll say I didn’t know he was here. I’ll say he threatened me, hit me, and then he went away. I’ll say he must have come back. I don’t want to get mixed up in this. I couldn’t face—

  Face things, Jacob. That was what Aunt Lou was always saying. Face things, Jacob. Whether it’s a rhino or a lion, or a visit to the dentist, face it. If you face things, you have a chance. All you can ask or expect in life is a chance, Jacob.

  All right, he thought. I’ve got a chance. If I take it. But not if I sit down in the house and simply let things happen. Let the police get into it. Let Nolan talk.

  I’m cold sober, he thought, and thank God for that. It’s the shock, I suppose. Whatever it was, he felt a vigor, a quick-wittedness, a feeling of power such as he had not known for a long time. We’ll take Mister Paul for a little ride, he said to himself. Nobody asked him here, and nobody wants him here. I’m damned if I’ll get into a nasty scandal for that maniac.

  He took hold of the man’s ankles and began to drag him down the beach. He was light; he came along fairly easily; the chief trouble was, having to bend over so far. The tide must be out. Duff thought, it was such a long way to the water’s edge. But he got to it.

  It was not until the water reached halfway up his shins that the cold of it struck him, the bitter cold. But he went on, walking backward, dragging Mr. Paul along. If he wasn’t very, very dead, thought Duff, this would rouse him, all right. His face and his white head were under the icy water. Only I want him to float. Duff thought. I want him to float the hell away from here.

  He was crying now, waist-deep in the icy black water, and Mr. Paul just lay there on the bottom, not floating. How does it go? They float after three days? Or it’s unconscious people that float? Or dead people? How does it go…? O God! If I can get him into some current that will carry him away…

  He dropped the man’s ankles; he waded back, behind him. He stooped and lifted him under the shoulders and dragged him farther out. But there was no current; only the gentle wash of the tide. He was growing numb with cold; the water was up to his chest. Get out! he cried, and gave Mr. Paul a shove. But Mr. Paul sank like a stone.

  He had to get him up. He wasn’t going to have Mr. Paul drifting up in front of his house, when the tide turned. He kicked off his slippers, and plunged down into the bitter water, and pulled the man up by one arm. He looked around him in despair; only one little light in his own house and the stars in the sky and the illimitable black water. What’ll I do with him? What’ll I do with him?

  I can’t swim with my clothes on, he thought. But he could if he had to. He began to swim, pulling Mr. Paul by the arm. Until he was gasping, freezing, perishing, in the middle of the ocean. He gave the man a push, and turned back toward the shore. But his strength was gone; his arms and legs moved feebly. This is it… he thought. He sank under the water, and then he began to fight. He kicked out wildly, and his foot touched bottom. In all this nightmare stretch of time, with all this monstrous effort, he had not got out into six feet of water.

  He waded out, panting, his teeth chattering, and he became aware that he was making some kind of noise, groaning, sobbing, something of the sort. That had to be stopped. He came out of the water, and the wind froze him to the marrow. The light in his own house was a dull, hazy orange, incredibly distant, incredibly lonely. Freezing and shivering, he toiled up the beach, so exhausted that he walked like an ape, and sometimes stumbled, his palms flat on the ground.

  If she hears me… he thought, in terror. He got up the porch steps, bent nearly double, but without stumbling. He opened the door. Suppose her door opened, and she stood there, pale and still? Don’t let her come now, he cried in his heart, because I couldn’t stand it.

  Water was dripping from him all along the hall. Never mind. Only let him get into his own room and lock the door, without seeing her. Just keep her away.

  He got in there; he locked the door. Now let her come. Let her knock at the door, let her bang. Let her call, let her yell. I’m safe now.

  Chapter 10

  She was knocking; she was calling.

  “Jake…!”

  He was sure, from her voice, that something had happened. He sat up in bed.

  “What is it?” he shouted.

  “It’s after nine,” she said. “What train is Aunt Lou coming on?”

  The sun was streaming into the room; it caught the bottle of gin and made it glitter like a diamond. He looked at it for a moment, breathing fast. Damn bad thing to be waked up this way out of a sound sleep…

  “She’ll be here around nine-fifty,” he said. “If you’ll be good enough to make some coffee—”

  “It’s all ready,” she said.

  Duff got out of bed and poured himself a drink. I opened the other bottle last night, he thought. Well, God knows I needed it. He stood drinking, leaning one hand on the dresser, and remembering last night very well. He had taken off his wet clothes and thrown them into the closet; he had locked them in and taken out the key. There were damp patches on the floor, but that was nothing; that could be a spilled glass of water. He put the newly-opened bottle and the empty bottle back into that bag he had bought yesterday, and began to dress. I’ve got to pull myself together for Aunt Lou, he thought, and he did.

  When they find that old maniac washed up on the beach, he thought, very well. Nothing to do with me. If I’m asked any questions, I’ll simply tell the truth. He came here, drunk. Or maybe they’ll find out that he wasn’t drunk. Simply crazy. He demanded money. He attacked me, and I knocked him down, and went into the house. I don’t know what he did, where he went, after that. Don’t know who he is, or anything about him.

  He examined his face critically as he made ready to shave. Puffy? he thought. A little, maybe. But the welt on his temple was healing very nicely. I must be in pretty good shape, he said to himself, when you think what I went through last night…

  He had clean underwear with him; he had a second suit of clothes hanging in the closet; he was able to make himself very neat and presentable. He locked the closet door again upon the heap of sodden clothes. I’ll have to do something about them, later on, he thought. Otherwise, there’s absolutely nothing to prove, or even suggest that I put that old maniac into the water. If I’d been able to get him far enough out, it woul
d have been a very sensible move. Now, of course, he’ll be washed up on the beach when the tide comes in. But even at that, it’s better than having him found just outside the house.

  Only, he wished that Mrs. Albany were not coming out today, the day on which the old maniac would be found and the questions asked. It would have been easier without her. Moreover, she was going to complicate his routine, seriously. She would notice it, if he locked himself into his room every now and then; she would want to know what sort of ‘work’ he was doing. And he could not have his little drink of gin and water out in the open any more. Not after last night.

  If Reggie would mind her own damn business, he thought, with a surge of anger. She had no right to come in here and pick up that glass. If she’d let me alone, I wouldn’t want so many drinks.

  He put the key to the closet into his pocket and looked around the room. The wet clothes were locked up, the bottles were locked up; let her snoop as much as she pleased. He went out of the room, leaving the door wide open, and went along the hall to the kitchen, where he heard Reggie moving about.

  “Good-morning,” he said.

  “Good-morning,” she answered. Not hello.

  She turned toward him, away from the sink, and he was startled to see her so pale, with dark circles under her eyes, no smile.

  “Don’t you feel well?” he asked.

  “Not very,” she answered.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing much, I guess,” she said. “Shall I make you some toast?”

  “No, thanks,” he said.

  She would have to stop looking like this and acting like this before Aunt Lou came.

  “After all, I should like some toast, if it’s not too much trouble, Reggie,” he said. “I’ll just get my watch…”

  He had to hurry, to get in another little drink before Aunt Lou came. He didn’t want it; it made him feel sick, but he had to have it, if Reggie was going to behave like this. What’s the matter with her? he thought, angry and alarmed. He rinsed his mouth with peroxide and returned to the kitchen.

  “Oh, thanks, Reggie!” he said. “That looks good. Aren’t you eating anything?”

  “I’ve had my breakfast, thank you, Jake.”