“That made it pretty simple.”
“Yes,” Fitz said, “that made it too simple.”
Jim thought there must have been something wrong with Fitz all the time—or else he’d have said something about having lived in that apartment. He’d have turned in the key.
* * *
—
Jim looked at his watch as he turned into the drive at Carmichael’s. It was eight o’clock, and he didn’t know whether he could make the last fifty yards or not. He led the horse through the gate and into the patio. He saw Sergeant Gomez at the door. It was only a few yards farther.
“Señor,” the sergeant said, “the colonel is looking for you.”
“If you will help this man off his horse, I will see the colonel,” Jim said.
“Sí, señor,” the sergeant said.
Jim staggered into the big low-ceiled room. He saw Hope sitting at a table with Colonel Ortega. He went toward them. Hope jumped up.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“Not much,” he said, “I’m just tired.” He turned to Colonel Ortega. “Am I a minute late?”
“Two minutes,” Colonel Ortega said. “Where have you been?”
“I had a job to do, colonel, and I did it. I brought Fitz Jordan in.”
Colonel Ortega jumped up.
“Where is he?”
“With your sergeant, colonel.”
“And the bad money?”
“The money is there.”
Colonel Ortega turned and called out, “Señor Johnson.”
Jim saw the solid man at the other end of the room. He got up from his table and came forward with the rolling gait of a big-bodied man with short legs. “Come with me, señor,” Colonel Ortega said to Johnson.
Hope picked up a cup of coffee and put it in Jim’s hands. “Drink it,” she said.
He drank the coffee and they walked out to the patio.
Fitz Jordan was sitting on a bench.
“Good morning, Mr. Jordan,” Hope said.
Jim had to smile, because her manner was so exactly that of a private secretary to her boss.
“Hello, Hope,” Fitz said, and made a gallant effort to smile his old smile.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Jordan,” she said.
She came back and stood close beside Jim, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.
“Where is the money?” Colonel Ortega asked.
“In the duffel bag behind the saddle,” Jim said.
“Señor Johnson,” Colonel Ortega said, “who has Jim Howard made a sucker of now?”
The solid man unlashed the duffel bag and pulled it off the horse and began to drag packets out of it. When he had counted them, he stuffed them back in the bag and straightened up.
Jim saw him brace himself. But he was game.
“He has made a sucker out of me, Colonel Ortega,” Johnson said.
“Forget it, señor,” Colonel Ortega said. “We all make mistakes.” He turned to Jim Howard. “Even I make mistakes, do I not, Jim?”
“The boys in the department will feel pretty good about this,” Johnson said. “They all like Jim Howard.”
“Mr. Johnson,” Hope said, “you’re so nice about it you make me feel sorry for the paperweight.”
“Forget it, lady,” Johnson said. “I’ve been conked so often I don’t think much about it.”
They took Fitz Jordan inside to give him breakfast. Jim sat at a table with Hope.
“You’ve got to go to bed and sleep,” she said. “You’re dead.”
“You’re wearing the dress you wore when you came into the Fiore di Alpini, years and years ago,” Jim said.
Colonel Ortega stopped to speak to them. “We are taking Fitz Jordan to Ensenada,” he said. “I’ll come back for you two whenever you like—or would you rather drive your car back?”
“I’d like to drive back,” Jim said. “If the señorita doesn’t mind.”
“I’d like to drive,” Hope said, “if you aren’t in such a hurry as you were coming down.”
“There is no hurry, señorita,” Colonel Ortega said. “I ask only that you two dine with me when you get back to Ensenada.”
“We will be delighted,” Hope said.
Colonel Ortega held out his hand to Jim. “Maybe I am not sentimental about Harkness, Jim. Maybe it is all true.”
Jim went out across the patio to the landing field with Hope to watch the plane leave.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going out after Fitz?” she asked.
“I was afraid you might think it was a bad idea. And the slightest thing would have stopped me.”
“I wouldn’t have tried to stop you if you’d let me go with you,” Hope said. “I can’t help feeling sorry for him, but I wanted you to get him.”
They saw Fitz Jordan go aboard the plane with Johnson following close behind him.
“I know,” Jim said. “He’s got it coming to him. But I wish he didn’t.”
The plane taxied across the field, rose, circled and turned north. They watched it until it was out of sight and then they turned to each other and he took her in his arms.
The Interruption
W. W. JACOBS
THE STORY
Original publication: The Strand Magazine, November 1925; first collected in Sea Whispers by W. W. Jacobs (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1926)
ALTHOUGH KNOWN AS A MASTER of the ghost story, William Wymark Jacobs (1863–1943) gained his fame and fortune as a writer of humorous tales, sketches, and plays. Born in Wapping, London, he lived close to the sea, where his father was the manager of a wharf in South Devon, helping to explain why so many of his stories were about sailors and others connected to the shipping world.
A famously quiet, self-effacing man, Jacobs took a job as a civil servant and, in his spare time, began in 1885 to write humorous sketches for Blackfriar’s, Punch, and The Strand. They were popular enough to be collected in Many Cargoes in 1896, quickly followed by The Skipper’s Wooing (1897) and Sea Urchins (1898). With the success of his books easing his financial burdens, he married the suffragette Agnes Eleanor Williams in 1900. Although a prolific writer of humor, supernatural, and crime stories for two decades, the last book that Jacobs wrote with substantial new material appeared in 1914 (Night Watches); subsequent titles were largely collections of previously published stories. His focus had moved to writing plays based on his short stories, though they do not appear to have had much success.
His story “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902) is one of the most frequently anthologized stories of all time, as well as one of the most bone-chilling. It has been adapted relentlessly: for radio, for three operas, as a 1907 play, as motion pictures (several silent films as well as a 1933 talkie and a 1948 remake), and for television as episodes of Suspense (May 17, 1949, and again on October 3, 1950), Great Ghost Tales (July 20, 1961), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (April 19, 1965), and Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries (November 10, 1973).
Less well-known but equally acclaimed critically is his mystery, “The Interruption.” It is a tale of quiet malevolence in which a housekeeper lets it be known to the master of the house that she is in control now that his wife has died.
THE FILM
Title: Footsteps in the Fog, 1955
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Director: Arthur Lubin
Screenwriters: Lenore J. Coffee, Dorothy Davenport, Arthur Pierson
Producers: M. J. Frankovich, Maxwell Setton
THE CAST
• Stewart Granger (Stephen Lowry)
• Jean Simmons (Lily Watkins)
• Bill Travers (David Macdonald)
• Belinda Lee (Elizabeth Travers)
• Ronald Squire (Alfred Travers)
• Finlay Currie (Insp
ector Peters)
The screen version of this taut suspense story has been dramatically embellished. Whereas the housekeeper in the story was happy merely to keep her comfortable position and make more money, in the film she wants to replace the dead woman as Lowry’s wife. He realizes the situation is untenable and plans another murder but, sometimes, plans go awry.
At various stages during the filming, the working title of Footsteps in the Fog was Interruption, then Rebound, and also Deadlock, none of which carried the sense of gothic suspense as the final title.
The director, Arthur Lubin, described his problems with Stewart Granger, who would complain to the producer, Michael Frankovich. “Mike,” he told him, “if Lubin doesn’t stop annoying me I’m going to be sick tomorrow.” However, Lubin continued, “miraculously, the picture turned out to be a good one.” Lubin was mainly known for directing the Francis the Talking Mule series, which horrified Granger and Simmons, both serious stage actors, but Footsteps in the Fog was going to be produced in their native England and it gave them an opportunity to go home. They didn’t love the script and Granger claimed that he rewrote it with the veteran Hollywood screenwriter Lenore Coffee on their daily trip from their hotel to Shepperton Studios.
Set during the Edwardian era, it had a fairly good-sized budget and was filmed in the expensive process of Cinemascope.
Granger and the exquisitely beautiful Jean Simmons were married when the film was made, and their on-screen chemistry is unmistakable. Some critics regarded their work in this motion picture as their best performances of all time.
THE INTERRUPTION
W. W. Jacobs
THE LAST OF THE FUNERAL GUESTS had gone and Spencer Goddard, in decent black, sat alone in his small, well-furnished study. There was a queer sense of freedom in the house since the coffin had left it, the coffin which was now hidden in its solitary grave beneath the yellow earth. The air, which for the last three days had seemed stale and contaminated, now smelt fresh and clean. He went to the open window and, looking into the fading light of the autumn day, took a deep breath.
He closed the window, and, stooping down, put a match to the fire, and, dropping into his easy chair, sat listening to the cheery crackle of the wood. At the age of thirty-eight he had turned over a fresh page. Life, free and unencumbered, was before him. His dead wife’s money was at last his, to spend as he pleased instead of being doled out in reluctant driblets.
He turned at a step at the door and his face assumed the appearance of gravity and sadness it had worn for the last four days. The cook, with the same air of decorous grief, entered the room quietly and, crossing to the mantelpiece placed upon it a photograph.
“I thought you’d like to have it, sir,” she said, in a low voice, “to remind you.”
Goddard thanked her, and, rising, took it in his hand and stood regarding it. He noticed with satisfaction that his hand was absolutely steady.
“It is a very good likeness—till she was taken ill,” continued the woman. “I never saw anybody change so sudden.”
“The nature of her disease, Hannah,” said her master.
The woman nodded, and, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, stood regarding him.
“Is there anything you want?” he inquired, after a time.
She shook her head. “I can’t believe she’s gone,” she said, in a low voice. “Every now and then I have a queer feeling that she’s still here—”
“It’s your nerves,” said her master sharply.
“—and wanting to tell me something.”
By a great effort Goddard refrained from looking at her.
“Nerves,” he said again. “Perhaps you ought to have a little holiday. It has been a great strain upon you.”
“You, too, sir,” said the woman respectfully. “Waiting on her hand and foot as you have done, I can’t think how you stood it. If you’d only had a nurse—”
“I preferred to do it myself, Hannah,” said her master. “If I had had a nurse it would have alarmed her.”
The woman assented. “And they are always peeking and prying into what doesn’t concern them,” she added. “Always think they know more than the doctors do.”
Goddard turned a slow look upon her. The tall, angular figure was standing in an attitude of respectful attention; the cold slate-brown eyes were cast down, the sullen face expressionless.
“She couldn’t have had a better doctor,” he said, looking at the fire again. “No man could have done more for her.”
“And nobody could have done more for her than you did, sir,” was the reply. “There’s few husbands that would have done what you did.”
Goddard stiffened in his chair. “That will do, Hannah,” he said curtly.
“Or done it so well,” said the woman, with measured slowness.
With a strange, sinking sensation, her master paused to regain his control. Then he turned and eyed her steadily. “Thank you,” he said, slowly; “you mean well, but at present I cannot discuss it.”
For some time after the door had closed behind her he sat in deep thought. The feeling of well-being of a few minutes before had vanished, leaving in its place an apprehension which he refused to consider, but which would not be allayed. He thought over his actions of the last few weeks, carefully, and could remember no flaw. His wife’s illness, the doctor’s diagnosis, his own solicitous care, were all in keeping with the ordinary. He tried to remember the woman’s exact words—her manner. Something had shown him Fear. What?
He could have laughed at his fears next morning. The dining room was full of sunshine and the fragrance of coffee and bacon was in the air. Better still, a worried and commonplace Hannah. Worried over two eggs with false birth-certificates, over the vendor of which she became almost lyrical.
“The bacon is excellent,” said her smiling master, “So is the coffee; but your coffee always is.”
Hannah smiled in return, and, taking fresh eggs from a rosy-cheeked maid, put them before him.
A pipe, followed by a brisk walk, cheered him still further. He came home glowing with exercise and again possessed with that sense of freedom and freshness. He went into the garden—now his own—and planned alterations.
After lunch he went over the house. The windows of his wife’s bedroom were open and the room neat and airy. His glance wandered from the made-up bed to the brightly polished furniture. Then he went to the dressing-table and opened the drawers, searching each in turn. With the exception of a few odds and ends they were empty. He went out on to the landing and called for Hannah.
“Do you know whether your mistress locked up any of her things?” he inquired.
“What things?” said the woman.
“Well her jewelry mostly.”
“Oh!” Hannah smiled. “She gave it all to me,” she said, quietly.
Goddard checked an exclamation. His heart was beating nervously, but he spoke sternly.
“When?”
“Just before she died—of gastroenteritis,” said the woman.
There was a long silence. He turned and with great care mechanically closed the drawers of the dressing table. The tilted glass showed him the pallor of his face, and he spoke without turning around.
“That is all right, then,” he said, huskily. “I only wanted to know what had become of it. I thought, perhaps, Milly—”
Hannah shook her head. “Milly’s all right,” she said, with a strange smile. “She’s as honest as we are. Is there anything more you want, sir?”
She closed the door behind her with the quietness of the well-trained servant; Goddard, steadying himself with his hand on the rail of the bed, stood looking into the future.
* * *
—
The days passed monotonously, as they pass with a man in prison. Gone was the sense of freedom and the idea of a wider life. Instead of a
cell, a house with ten rooms—but Hannah, the jailer guarding each one. Respectful and attentive, the model servant, he saw in every word a threat against his liberty—his life. In the sullen face and cold eyes he saw her knowledge of power; in her solicitude for his comfort and approval, a sardonic jest. It was the master playing at being the servant. The years of unwilling servitude were over, but she felt her way carefully with infinite zest in the game. Warped and bitter, with a cleverness which had never before had scope, she had entered into her kingdom. She took it little by little, savouring every morsel.
“I hope I’ve done right, sir,” she said one morning. “I have given Milly notice.”
Goddard looked up from his paper. “Isn’t she satisfactory?” he inquired.
“Not to my thinking, sir,” said the woman. “And she says she is coming to see you about it. I told her that would be no good.”
“I had better see her and hear what she has to say,” said her master.
“Of course, if you wish to,” said Hannah; “only, after giving her notice, if she doesn’t go I shall. I should be sorry to go—I’ve been very comfortable here—but it’s either her or me.”
“I should be sorry to lose you,” said Goddard in a hopeless voice.
“Thank you, sir,” said Hannah. “I’m sure I’ve tried to do my best. I’ve been with you some time now—and I know all your little ways. I expect I understand you better than anybody else would. I do all I can to make you comfortable.”
“Very well, I will leave it to you,” said Goddard in a voice which strove to be brisk and commanding. “You have my permission to dismiss her.”
“There’s another thing I wanted to see you about,” said Hannah; “my wages. I was going to ask for a rise, seeing that I’m really housekeeper here now.”
“Certainly,” said her master, considering, “that only seems fair. Let me see—what are you getting?”
“Thirty-six.”
Goddard reflected for a moment and then turned with a benevolent smile. “Very well,” he said, cordially, “I’ll make it forty-two. That’s ten shillings a month more.”
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 147
