The innocent Mrs Duff

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

  I’m going crazy, Duff thought. Like that fellow who wrote the stories about people being buried alive and coming out of their tombs. Poe, that’s the one. Edgar Allan Poe. He drank. Maybe drinking…

  He had to have a drink.

  “Have a drink, Nolan?” he asked.

  “Thanks,” said Nolan.

  Duff got the bottle of gin out of his desk drawer.

  “Oh, gin?” he said, with a look of surprise. “That’s not so good, without the fixings.”

  “It suits me all right,” said Nolan.

  Duff poured out two moderate drinks, one into a clean glass and one into a dirty one.

  “Water?” he asked, and poured it from the carafe, water full of bubbles and coated with dust.

  “The great thing,” Duff said, “is, never to take a drink before five o’clock.”

  “I don’t think it matters what time you take a drink,” said Nolan.

  “It does matter,” said Duff. “Anyone who starts drinking in the morning has got the skids under him.”

  “Could be,” said Nolan, without interest.

  “Personally,” said Duff, “I don’t think that anyone who really starts drinking is ever cured.”

  “I’ve known plenty that were,” said Nolan.

  “Actually known them?”

  “Sure. My father was one. He drank like a fish, and then one day—I don’t know why—he quit cold. Never touched another drop.”

  “Maybe he never drank very much.”

  “Quart a day,” said Nolan.

  “He must have gone through hell when he quit,” said Duff, after a moment.

  “If he did, he never said anything about it. And, drinking or not drinking, he never fell down on his job.”

  “What job was it?”

  “Captain of a cargo steamer.”

  “Even when he was drinking a quart a day?”

  “Even then,” said Nolan.

  “It’s a curious thing…” said Duff. “What makes a man drink?”

  “Makes you feel good,” said Nolan.

  Feel good? thought Duff. You fool.

  “It’s a great problem, for many people,” he said.

  “Not for me,” said Nolan. “If I feel like going on a binge, I do. But I never drink when I don’t want to, or when it’s going to do me any harm.”

  There was, thought Duff, something rather likeable about Nolan. It was hard to give it a name, to define it. Normal, Duff thought, very normal. When you came to think of it, it was hard to place Nolan in any category. He had no sort of accent; in fact, he spoke very well. His grey suit was well-cut; his tie in good taste. You wouldn’t take him for a chauffeur; he might have been anybody.

  “You’ve had a good education…” said Duff.

  “Two years at Yale,” said Nolan.

  “Didn’t care about finishing?”

  “Uncle Sam wanted me,” said Nolan. “I was drafted.”

  “I see!” said Duff. “You could certainly get something better than a chauffeur’s job, Nolan.”

  “I like being a chauffeur,” said Nolan.

  “Would you like to come back and work for me again, Nolan?”

  “Why not?” said Nolan.

  “Another drink?”

  “Why not?” said Nolan.

  Duff felt a great relief; he was almost happy at getting Nolan back. He knew about the frame-up, and still he was willing to come back. He couldn’t be dangerous.

  “I’d certainly like to know what’s happened to Paul,” said Nolan, thoughtfully.

  “Mr. Vermilyea thinks it’s a case of amnesia.”

  “I think a lot of the old boy,” said Nolan. “I could always go to his place and stay as long as I wanted, do whatever I pleased. Once he liked you, everything you did was okay.”

  “The police are sure to find him before long,” said Duff.

  “A good many missing people are never found,” said Nolan.

  How about drowned people? Duff thought. But Paul wasn’t drowned. He was dead before he went into the water. In that case, do they float, or not? Do they always come ashore somewhere?

  He thought they did. Always. Very well. Very well. There was nothing to connect him with Paul. Nobody would suspect anything —except Reggie. God! She looked—horrible, standing out there in the hall. What was she doing, anyhow? Eavesdropping?

  “You could call off your sleuth now,” said Nolan.

  “My ‘sleuth’?” said Duff, as if bewildered.

  “He’s still around,” said Nolan. “Still snooping. I don’t like it. I’m trying to hide.”

  “To hide?”

  “I’ve got a mother and a father and two sisters and a fiancée up in New Haven,” said Nolan. “I don’t want them to find me.”

  “Oh,” Duff said.

  “When I got back from overseas,” said Nolan, “I was in a hospital for a while, and they all came to see me. As soon as I got out of the hospital, I disappeared. I wrote them some nice letters. I said I’d have to have time to work things out before I came home to settle down.”

  “I see!” said Duff, a little confused.

  “What I hope to do,” said Nolan, “is, never to set eyes on them again.”

  “Oh… I see!”

  “It’s a new neurosis,” said Nolan. “Home-fatigue. I don’t want any part of home, sweet home any more. I don’t want anyone helping me, or looking after me, or checking up on me.” He picked up his hat. “You might tell your bloodhound he’s barking up the wrong tree. I’m not the man.”

  “What d’you mean?” cried Duff. “You mean you know someone…? Nolan, see here! If you have any information, I’ll—make it well worth your while—”

  “Not for sale,” said Nolan, rising.

  Duff rose, too. He could not be quite sure what Nolan meant, and he was afraid to commit himself. But ‘I’m not the man…’? Did he mean that there was another man in Reggie’s life?

  “Nolan,” he said, “give me just a hint…?”

  “All right!” said Nolan. “Try looking at check-books.”

  Chapter 14

  Beyond good and evil,” Duff said to himself.

  That was how Nolan impressed him; a man, he thought, without conventional scruples, a man who did what he felt like doing. A genuinely free man.

  If I could be free, he thought, sitting; at the table with Reggie and Miss Castle, if I could get out of this situation and start over again, I’d do very differently. None of this damn suburban life. None of this—this slavery. I can’t do anything I want.

  He thought of the wet clothes and the empty bottles, locked in his closet, and it made him sick with rage and frustration. How could he get rid of those clothes? Simply walk off with them in a bag, walk off somewhere, into the country, until he found a place to bury them. That’s fine, in a book. But, in real life, somebody asks you where you are going with a bag. Somebody asks you, whatever has become of that blue suit, Jake? And, in real life, where do you find a place lonely enough, and how do you dig without a spade?

  All right! All right! he thought. It must have been Reggie’s check-book that Nolan meant. I may find something there that will settle this whole business. I’m not the man, Nolan said. He must have meant there was another man.

  He glanced at Reggie, saw her still with that mask-like blankness, that pallor. If Aunt Lou could see her now, he thought, she might change her mind. She might believe now that Reggie isn’t quite the naive, sweet girl she’s built up in her own imagination. If only I can find something in her check-book, something I can show Aunt Lou…

  “I’ll have to work this evening,” he said, when they were drinking their coffee.

  “Oh, that’s too bad!” said Miss Castle.

  “Well, in war times…” said Duff, rising. “I’ll say good-night now, ladies. Don’t wait up for me, Reggie.”

  He went along to the study and locked himself in, but no sooner had he lit a cigarette and settled himself with a book than there was a knock at the door.
>
  “Who is it?” he called, sharply.

  “It’s me,” Reggie answered.

  He unlocked the door and she came in, like a ghost in her black dress.

  “Jake,” she began at once, “Jake, I want to go away.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I want to go. I’ve got to go.”

  “D’you mean leave me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You mean permanently?” he asked. “You mean, break up our marriage?”

  “Yes.”

  He was stunned.

  “You mean you want to walk out of my house? Desert me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  The shock made him cold sober. This was dangerous.

  “May I ask what’s your reason for this sudden decision?” he asked.

  She did not answer.

  “What reason are you going to give other people? Aunt Lou, for instance?”

  “None,” she said. “I’m never going to tell anyone.”

  His heart was beating too fast.

  “Tell—what?” he asked.

  She had lowered her lashes making her face into that mask again, and it was beyond bearing. He rose.

  “I will not—” he began, when she looked up at him, and in her eyes he saw something incredible. He saw a fear, a horror of him.

  It took him a moment to quiet his breathing.

  “Very well,” he said. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

  “I’d like to go now. Tonight,” she said.

  She heard me tell Nolan I’d never set eyes on that old Paul, he thought. She can’t go away, run around telling people…

  “If you’ll have the goodness to wait, at least until tomorrow…” he said. “After all, I’m a man with a certain standing in the community. I don’t think it’s too much to ask you to manage this thing with a little decency, a little dignity. Unless you enjoy humiliating me.

  “No. I don’t,” she said.

  She was stupid beyond belief. Nothing to say for herself. He had, at one time, thought it a virtue in her that she never fidgeted, but now, seeing her there, straight, her hands hanging easily at her sides, her head a little bent, this quietness seemed to him moronic. She was a fool, and a very dangerous one.

  “We can talk this over in the morning,” he said. “Have you told Miss Castle yet?”

  “I haven’t told anyone anything,” she said.

  “What is there to tell?” he shouted, and when she did not answer, he caught her by the wrist. “I’m sick of these veiled hints—threats—whatever they are. If you’ve got anything to say, say it!”

  “I won’t say it,” she said, and she did not flinch from his shouting, his furious face; her voice was entirely steady. “I won’t say it to you, or even to myself. I took a vow to stand by you.”

  “And you’re running away from me. You call that standing by me?”

  “It’s the only way I can,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Good God!” he said, and dropped her wrist. “You’re crazy.”

  He turned away toward the window, and in a moment he heard the door close after her.

  He locked the door and poured himself a drink. He had intended not to take any drinks this evening, but after a scene like this… You read all these Cinderella stories, he thought, the prince marrying the kitchenmaid. King—what was his name—Cophetua, and the beggar-girl. But you never hear the truth about it. The beggarly kitchen wench doesn’t change. Doesn’t appreciate anything, never understands…

  Now, on top of everything else, she wants to make a fool of me, publicly. Probably it’ll get in the tabloids. Certainly it’ll be common gossip in the locker-rooms. Poor old Duff! That common little nobody he married has walked out on him. Twenty years younger than he. Maybe he wasn’t so good. He-he.

  And there was more to it than that. He remembered her standing out there in the passage, eavesdropping… She threatened him with something more than humiliation. She was the only one who knew.

  He opened his door and looked out, and the sitting-room lights were still on. He looked out, at intervals, for nearly two hours, sweating with furious impatience. Once he went along the passage for a few steps, and saw Reggie and Miss Castle in there, talking.

  But at last the lights went out. He waited for half an hour by his watch before he went in there, and turned on a lamp. He knew where Reggie kept her check-book; it was in an unlocked drawer, because, until she had married him, she had never had anything worth locking up. He got it out and took it into the study.

  It was a big check-book, three checks to a page. He had shown her how to keep it, and it was neatly and carefully done. He had given her three thousand dollars for a wedding present, and for a while he had given her an allowance. But she didn’t seem to care about it, and it had long ago become a matter of a check every now and then. He had never asked her what she did with the money.

  This book began two months ago; the stubs were painstakingly filled out. Drug-store for cosmetics and first-aid. Red Cross Fund. Weber for shoes. And then came Captain Wilfred Ferris $250.00. Duff lit another cigarette, and went on. Weber for scarf and gloves. Advance to Mary for family illness. Watch repaired. Captain Ferris $500.00. In two months Captain Ferris had got a thousand dollars.

  Now I’ve got her! Duff thought. Now she’s not going to walk out on me, make a fool of me. Now she’s going to be turned out, disgraced.

  Chapter 15

  I drank very little last night, Duff thought. But I feel as godawful as if I’d had a quart. I wonder if it isn’t something else, after all? Liver? Heart?

  A formless dread possessed him. There’s something wrong with me, he thought. Maybe I’m going to have a stroke… I don’t drink enough to account for feeling like this. No appetite. No strength. I’m as weak as a kitten. No… Something’s wrong. I’ve got to check on this Captain Ferris thing, and I haven’t the physical strength. My mind’s all right—which it wouldn’t be if this was all-drinking.

  Puffy, he thought, and, lying in bed, he held out his shaking hands. They were puffy. “That’s physical!” he cried to himself. Kidneys—or heart. I’ve got to get some sort of medical advice, because I have a lot to do today. When you come to think of it, I never feel well any more. That’s why I take more drinks than I need.

  A doctor, he thought. Doctor Hearty. Sensible, Miss Castle had said, and a little old-fashioned. All right! That’s just what I want. I need help.

  As soon as he got up, nausea swept over him; he staggered into the bathroom to be very sick, and even then, in his extremity of misery, he had to make desperate efforts to be quiet. Nobody must hear him being sick, above all, not Miss Castle. When he went back to his room, he was trembling from head to foot; he had every symptom of a violent head-cold. I can’t go on…

  But I’ve got to check this Captain Ferris affair, he thought. I’ve got to go on. That means I’ll have to take a drink—and I don’t want it.

  He took it. Then he bathed and dressed; he even managed to shave. He went downstairs, and there at the table sat Reggie and Miss Castle and Jay. He gave them all a brief good-morning and sat down; it was impossible for him to talk, and he was not going to try.

  “The car’s here, sir,” said Mary, and he pushed back his chair. He did not want even a cup of coffee this morning.

  There was Nolan, the same as ever, the man beyond good or evil.

  “Nolan,” said Duff, “ever hear of a Doctor Hearty?”

  “Oh, yes!” said Nolan. “Maple Avenue.”

  “Well, I think I’ll stop by there. I think I’ve got a throat infection,” said Duff.

  “All right,” said Nolan.

  Duff got into the back of the car and lit a cigarette. And he had to begin, no matter how he felt.

  “D’you know anything of a Captain Ferris, Nolan?”

  “Yes,” Nolan answered.

  “Well…? What about him?”

  “I hate his guts,” said Nolan, with simplicity
.

  “Well, why?”

  “I hate all captains,” said Nolan. “All officers. All Englishmen.”

  “Oh… Ferris is an Englishman?”

  “Couldn’t be more so,” said Nolan.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “Taking him to and from your house.”

  “How many times?”

  “Five or six.”

  Duff was silent for a time.

  “What made you think about—checks?” he asked, at last.

  “I heard Mrs. Duff say to him once—‘I’ll send the check tonight, Wilfred.’ He said—‘Two-fifty?’, and she said—‘No; it’s five hundred this time, Wilfred.’”

  “D’you happen to know where he lives?”

  “A little hotel in New York.”

  “How do you know?

  “I saw the address on a letter Mrs. Duff gave me to post.”

  I’ve got to be careful. Duff thought. I mustn’t give myself away. Must not let Nolan see how eager he was.

  “You did right to warn me about this, Nolan,” he said.

  “The idea was, to get Ferris in trouble, if I could,” said Nolan. “I’d thought of writing to his wife, but she’s away somewhere, and I couldn’t get hold of her address.”

  “He’s a married man?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  It seemed to Duff prudent to remain silent for a time. As if stricken.

  “This—” he said. “Naturally, this is very disturbing to me. But there’s no reason to think there’s anything—wrong, really wrong about it, Nolan.”

  “Well,” said Nolan. “She gives him money. And she went to his hotel to see him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I went there. I made friends with the desk clerk, and I asked questions.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “We never used to be so pally,” said Nolan. “I didn’t use to understand you. Didn’t know how you’d take it.”

  Duff was startled and alarmed.

  “I take it the way any decent man would take it,” he said.

  “But after that frame-up—” said Nolan.

  “There was no frame-up.”