The Iron Gates

by Margaret Millar

  Something stirred in her eyes like mud at the bottom of a pool.

  “I haven’t seen you before,” she said. “Have I?”

  “No,” Giles said uncertainly.

  “For a moment you reminded me of someone.”

  “There!” Edith said triumphantly. “That’s Lucille’s lapse. Someone is always reminding her of someone.”

  Lucille said, “Life is an endless procession of faces for me. I am always trying to match them up.”

  She picked up her glass and looked into the murky liquid. It seemed to come alive and surge with millions of little faces, winking, frowning, .sly, puckered, brooding, bitter, smiling little faces, incredibly mobile and knowing. She could not close her eyes and blot them out. She knew that then they would appear behind her eyelids and that she must walk alone through this delicate, soundless hell.

  When Giles said good night to her she was still holding the glass, looking into it with bewildered melancholy, like a child trying to comprehend the universe.

  “Good night, Mrs. Morrow,” he said.

  She raised her head, and in her quick nervous smile he saw a flutter of questions: You? Where do you fit in? Have you a place? Have I?

  “Good night, Giles,” she said in a composed voice. She glanced across at her husband. “Coming, Andrew? It’s very late.”

  Very late, too late, later than you think . . . I mustn’t let my nerves bother me like this, or I’ll dream of Mildred again.

  3

  In the late afternoon of December the sixth Lucille Morrow disappeared.

  The house had been quiet all day. Martin and Andrew were working, and Edith had gone on a shopping tour with Polly and Giles.

  In the kitchen the two young servants, Annie and Della, were cleaning silverware. When the front doorbell rang Annie snatched up a clean apron, tying it as she ran along the hall.

  As soon as she opened the door she regretted this waste of energy. It wasn’t a real caller but a dark shabby little man in a battered trench coat.

  “Mrs. Morrow?” he said hoarsely.

  Annie, who admired Lucille, was both flattered and angry at the mistake.

  “Mrs. Morrow is resting,” she said, in a voice very like Lucille’s own. “She cannot be disturbed.”

  The little man blinked, and shifted his feet. “I got something for her. I got to give it to her. You go and get her.” He turned up his coat collar and then slowly and patiently put his hands in his pockets. “Special delivery like.”

  “I’ll take it,” Annie said. “And why you can’t use the back door is more than I can say.”

  “Very special delivery,” the man said, but his voice lacked conviction. He seemed to have lost all interest in the matter and wasn’t even looking at Annie any more. “What the hell, you give it to her, I give it to her, what’s the odds. Here.”

  He brought one hand out of his pocket, and thrust a parcel at Annie. Then he turned with a jerk and walked away, his head lowered against the wind.

  Annie closed the door and looked at the parcel. It was a small rectangular box wrapped in plain white paper. Perfume, Annie thought, and shook it to see if it gurgled. But the parcel remained noncommittal and neither gurgled nor rattled.

  Briskly Annie mounted the steps and knocked on Lucille’s door.

  “Come in,” Lucille said. “Yes, Annie?”

  “A parcel for you,” Annie said. “A funny little guy brought it.”

  “Man,” Lucille said.

  “A funny little man, then,” Annie said. “Don’t you think my grammar is getting swell, Mrs. Morrow? Della noticed today, I sound just like you.”

  “Yes,” Lucille said. “You’re a very clever girl.”

  “Oh, I’m not really clever,” Annie said modestly. “I just figure, here is my chance to get cultured so I try to get cultured.”

  “That will be all, Annie.”

  “I figure, chances don’t grow on trees. I could be making more in a war plant but what would I be learning, I tell Della.”

  Lucille waited in silence and after a time the silence penetrated into Annie’s consciousness and she turned, with a small sigh, and went out.

  She had barely reached the kitchen when she heard the scream. It rushed through the house like a wind and was gone.

  “My goodness,” Della said. “What was that?”

  The two girls looked at each other uncertainly.

  “I guess it was her,” Annie said. “I never heard her scream before. Maybe she twisted her ankle. Maybe I better go up and see.” But when Annie went up Lucille’s door was locked.

  “Mrs. Morrow,” Annie called. “Mrs. Morrow. You hurt yourself?”

  There was no answer, but Annie thought she heard breathing on the other side of the door.

  “Hey,” Annie said. “Mrs. Morrow!”

  “Go away,” Lucille said in a harsh whisper. “Go away. Don’t bother me.”

  “Della and me, we-figured you twisted your ankle or something. . . .”

  “Go away!” Lucille screamed.

  Her spirit bruised, Annie returned to the kitchen.

  “Well, I like that,” she told Della. “You hear her? She yelled at me.”

  “And her usually so quiet,” Della said. “But then she’s just at the age. Sometimes they go off like that.” Della snapped her fingers.

  “Who?” Annie said.

  “Women,” Della said mysteriously. “At that age. Hysterics and fits over nothing. Maybe she didn’t like what was in the parcel. Say it was jools, emeralds, say, and she didn’t like them. Say she gives them to us.”

  “To us,” Annie breathed. “Oh, Lordy.”

  “A necklace, say.”

  The silverware was forgotten. The emeralds were sold, except two. (“We should keep one apiece,” Della said.) The money was invested in war bonds (“I believe in war bonds,” Annie said), and flowered chiffon dresses and mink coats (“Exactly alike,” Della said. “Wouldn’t that be cute?”

  “Except you’re fatter than I am,” Annie said).

  The argument over a red roadster was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.

  “Red,” said Annie, “is vulgar,” and picked up the telephone.

  “Yes, Dr. Morrow. Yes, I’ll call her, Dr. Morrow.”

  She turned and hissed at Della, “Him. For her. You go and tell her.”

  “Well, I won’t,” Della said. “Nobody can call me vulgar and expect favors all the time.”

  Stubbornly, she turned her back, and Annie, seeing that nothing short of a sharp pinch would move her, decided to go herself.

  When she arrived upstairs the door of Lucille’s room was open and Lucille was missing. Annie called out several times, and then, in a fit of exasperation, she searched Lucille’s room and the adjoining bathroom, and the room beyond that, which belonged to Andrew.

  Della was called, and the two girls looked through the entire second floor, now and then calling, “Mrs. Morrow.” The silence made them nervous and each time they called their voices were shriller and higher.

  Clinging together they came down the stairs and switched on all the lights. The house ablaze with light no longer seemed so quiet, and Annie moved almost boldly ahead into the living room.

  “Wait,” Della said. “I thought I heard something. I thought I heard a—a footstep.”

  “You heard no such thing,” Annie said, shaken.

  “Oh, I don’t like this,” Della moaned. “She’s' done away with herself. Things like that happen at her age. Oh, I wish people would hurry up and come home.”

  “She didn’t do away with herself, we would’ve found the corpse.”

  Once the idea of death had entered their heads the girls became too frightened even to talk. Silently they went through all the rooms on the first floor.

  There was no trace of Lucille Morrow or the box she had received.

  The girls returned to the kitchen and the more familiar scene loosened their tongues.

  “Maybe it was really emeral
ds,” Della said, “and instead of giving them to us she’s gone out to throw them away, say, or have them reset.”

  “How could she go out?” Annie said. “Weren’t we sitting here in these very chairs? Did anybody ever come in or go out that I don’t know about, I ask you.”

  “We could go up again and see if any of her coats are missing.”

  “’I don’t want to.”

  “I was just saying we could.”

  Annie’s curiosity was whetted. A minute later the girls were on their way upstairs again.

  In the clothes closet Lucille’s dresses hung, ready to be worn, and the shoes lay on the racks ready to be stepped into.

  “It’s like looking at a dead person’s things,” Della whispered. “You know, after they’re dead when you sort out their clothes and there they are all ready only nobody to wear them.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Annie, intent on studying the coats.

  “I got a funny feeling, Annie.”

  “Oh, you and your feelings. It would serve you right if she walked in here right this minute and fired us both for getting into her things.”

  Dreading this possibility, and yet feeling that it would be an improvement on their present situation, they cast longing fearful glances toward the doorway.

  But Lucille didn’t walk through the door and neither of the girls ever saw her again.

  They returned to the kitchen and Della suddenly noticed that the telephone receiver was still dangling on its wire. Instead of merely presenting this fact to Annie, Della, true to her nature, opened her mouth, put one hand over it and with the other hand pointed toward the telephone.

  Annie, whose back was to it, gave a shriek and swung round to meet whatever doom Della’s open mouth and quaking finger indicated.

  Seeing only the telephone she whispered, faint with relief, “I thought—I thought you saw—something.”

  “Him,” Della said. “You forgot him.”

  “Oh, Lordy.”

  “You better phone him back.”

  “Oh, Lordy, he’ll be mad.”

  But Annie did not give him a chance to be mad. She told him immediately and bluntly that his wife had disappeared.

  “Have you gone crazy, Annie?” Andrew demanded. “Plumb disappeared, Dr. Morrow, honestly.”

  “Annie, kindly . . .”

  “Oh, I know how it sounds, Dr. Morrow, nobody” can tell me how it sounds. Della and me, we’re scared. We been through all the rooms except ours and there ain’t a trace of her, I tell you.”

  “Where’s my sister?” Andrew said. “Let me speak to her.”

  “She didn’t come back yet.”

  “Then you two incompetents are there alone?”

  “Della and me,” Annie said huffily, “we may not have an education but we got eyes and Mrs. Morrow has plumb disappeared. Right after the man brought the box we heard her scream and I went up and she told me to beat it. And that’s the last thing she said to me on this earth.”

  “I’ll be right home,” Andrew said. “Meanwhile don’t get hysterical. Mrs. Morrow very likely went out for a walk.”

  “Without a coat?” Annie said, and paused slyly. “What’s this about a coat?”

  “Her coats are all in her closet. Della and me, we looked and they’re all there.”

  “See here, Annie,” Andrew said in a calm voice, “don’t get excited. You know Mrs. Morrow fairly well by this time. Has she ever done anything that wasn’t practical and reasonable?”

  “N-no, sir.”

  “Then hold the fort until I get there.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t something she done, maybe it was something somebody done to her.”

  But Andrew had already hung up. Slowly Annie did the same and turned to face a feverish-looking Della. “But there’s nobody here,” Della said.

  “Maybe not.”

  “Oh, you’re trying to scare me again! What’d he say?”

  “He’s coming home.”

  “Right away?”

  “That’s what he said. He don’t believe us. He says she went for a walk. A walk in this weather in a short-sleeved dress, I ask you. And anyway does she ever go for walks?”

  “Not that I know of,” Della agreed. “But you can’t tell at her age.”

  “I’m sick of hearing about her age.”

  They were silent a moment. Then Della said wistfully, “We could talk about the emeralds again. You want to?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’d keep one apiece. How many do you think there was in the first place?”

  “Fifty,” Annie said listlessly.

  “Fifty, imagine that! They’d be worth a million. What’d be the very first thing you’d buy, Annie?”

  “A dress, I guess.”

  “I’d buy a black-chiffon nightgown.”

  The game went on, but the emeralds had turned into green glass.

  Shortly before six o’clock Andrew arrived home with Martin. Hand in hand, for moral support, the two girls came out into the hall.

  “Well?” Andrew said, with a trace of irritation. “Mrs. Morrow back yet?”

  Annie shook her head. “No, sir.”

  “You said over the phone that you looked through the whole house except your own rooms?”

  “We didn’t look there because what would she be doing up there? You think we should go up there now?”

  “Don’t bother,” Andrew said and turned to Martin. “Run up to the third floor, will you, just as a precaution.”

  “All right.” Martin flung his coat and hat on the hall table and ascended the steps, two at a time.

  Andrew took off his own coat in a leisurely manner. “What are all the lights on for?”

  “Della and me, we felt better with them on,” Annie said. “Della’s got bad nerves.”

  “It wasn’t just me,” Della muttered.

  “Turn off some of the lights,” Andrew said.

  His refusal to get excited made the girls calmer. Della’s mind began to function again and she went out to the kitchen to start preparing dinner, leaving Annie to tell about the man with the parcel.

  Annie couldn’t remember whether the man was short or tall, dark or fair, young or old. She knew only that he was sinister.

  “By sinister no doubt you mean shabby?” Andrew said dryly. “Go on.”

  “The light was dim and I didn’t notice him much because he should’ve come to the back door.”

  Andrew listened patiently as she described the box and the conversation. But Annie noticed that he kept one eye on the steps waiting for Martin to return.

  Martin came back, looking partly amused, partly exasperated.

  “Crazy as it sounds,” he said, “she’s gone.”

  His father silenced him with a look and turned to Annie. “All right, Annie, you may go. It’s simply a matter of waiting for Mrs. Morrow to come back.”

  “What gets me,” Annie said, “is the coats.”

  “What coats?” Martin said.

  “You may go, Annie,” Andrew repeated sharply.

  Annie left, and remarked to Della that never ever until today had Dr. Morrow or Mrs. Morrow spoken roughly to her.

  Left alone in the hall Andrew and Martin glanced uneasily at each other.

  “Crazy as hell, isn’t it?” Martin said. “A grown and capable woman goes out of the house and everyone begins to imagine things.”

  “If she went, she went without a coat. Annie says there is none missing. Come in here. I don’t want those two to hear us.”

  They went into Andrew’s den and closed the door.

  “She might have slipped over to a neighbor’s house,” Martin said, avoiding his father’s eye.

  “She doesn’t know the neighbors. Lucille’s not like that.”

  “How do you know? She might do some calling that she doesn’t tell you about.”

  Andrew blinked. “What are you implying?”

  “Nothing. Just that you can’t know everything about a person.”


  “That’s true. But in fifteen years you get a fairly accurate impression, you can anticipate reactions.” He reached for the decanter on his desk. “Drink?”

  “Thanks,” Martin said.

  “This is practically the first time I’ve ever come home without having Lucille greet me. No doubt that sounds dull to you, Martin.”

  “Pretty dull,” Martin said, and at the mere mention of dullness and constriction and boredom he felt incredibly vital and alive. He waited to fling himself out of the chair, to stretch, to jump, to run, to make noises. He felt his muscles go taut, and he had to force himself to keep his feet still.

  Andrew noticed the tension but misunderstood the cause.

  “What did you mean, that Lucille might do some calling that she doesn’t tell me about?”

  “Good Lord, I wasn’t slandering her. I simply meant that she wouldn’t tell you every little thing she did for fear of boring you. She’s a quiet person anyway.”

  “Yes. Annie said she screamed.”

  “Screamed?” Martin said. “Lucille? What about?”

  “She wouldn’t tell Annie.” Andrew leaned his head on his hands. He looked grayer and more tired than Martin had ever seen him look before.

  How old he is, Martin thought, how old and settled. Intolerant of age and inactivity, Martin began impatiently to move the stuff about on Andrew’s desk. He emptied and then filled a pen, he rearranged some books, he scribbled his name on the blotter and he folded a page from the memo pad into a fan.

  “Being a doctor’s wife,” Andrew said, “is a hard job. Being a second wife doesn’t make it easier. Yet Lucille has never complained. What’s that you’re staring at?”

  “Nothing,” Martin said. “A piece of paper. Somebody’s burned holes in it with a cigarette.”

  “Put it down then, and don’t fidget. You’re as jumpy as Edith.”

  “Odd.”

  “What?”

  “These pictures. They look like my mother. Somebody’s burned the eyes out.”

  “What? Give it to me.” Andrew took the paper and looked at it briefly. “Nonsense. Not a bit like your mother.”

  “I think so.”

  “More implications, Martin?”

  “Not at all,” Martin said politely, and tossed the paper aside as if it suddenly bored him.

  “You believe,” Andrew said, “that Lucille drew pictures of Mildred and then mutilated them?”