He wasn’t destroyed! He wouldn’t be destroyed. There was too much to live for. He had lawyers, he was Viv Spender. He was not to die.
His hand was shaking. He steadied it about the empty glass. He needed another drink. He needed to fix another for her. But there was a lethargy in him that kept him seated, listening to her lies.
“There is no choice,” she said. “There is nothing left but death.” Her voice was shattered. “The unknown is better than the known of living death.”
He would fix the drink for her, force it down her lying throat. He started to rise, but he couldn’t rise.
The cold of the glass sped through his fingers into his heart. Frantically he tried to recall. He hadn’t been watching her; he didn’t know what she had done to her glass. He hadn’t seen the sleight of her hand when she took up his, left for him the one she had made lethal. She too had boarded the Chief with a vial of death.
The emptiness of the glass was heavy in his hand. It slipped away, but the sound it made falling was dull, muffled. Gratia…Gratia! That was the bitter cup, to have found Clavdia after long years of search, to have found her and lost her in the space of brief time. The dream would die with him. It would never be fulfilled because there would never be another Spender.
Mike’s eyes were motionless on him, desert dry in her stone face.
His head drooped. Through his heavy lids he saw again a spill on the white paper. There would be no agony, only the anguish of his tortured heart crying out to live. He had too much pride to let Mike know. With painful slowness he took his handkerchief from his pocket. His hand crawled out to blot the stain…
—6—
She heard the slump. She didn’t see because her eyes had been without focus since he had drained the glass she had placed for him. She had kept words moving, her apologia. It would be easier for him if he understood why.
She forced herself to look. The massive head was bowed over the table. She whispered, “Viv.” The cry broke from her, “Viv!”
She could be silent now. Be silent and wait. Wait alone as she would always be alone now, the living death. The train clacked and whinnied through the long night into the bleak of dawn.
She could no longer hear his tired breath. She had killed him. She pushed out from the table. Her untouched glass she carried into the bathroom. She poured out the contents, rinsed it, dried it and placed it on the serving tray. She walked to the door and opened it.
James Cobbett was sitting patiently in his place. His eyes turned up to her. He might have been waiting all the night long for this.
She said quietly, “Will you call a doctor? Mr. Spender has had a heart attack.”
The world would believe he died in grief. She waited there, watching as Cobbett swayed with the rushing train until he was out of sight. She went then to the door of Leslie Augustin’s room. She opened it and stood in the doorway, harsh in her bitter triumph. The four were there, silenced, waiting. They looked up at her the same way James Cobbett had, as if they knew what she was about to say.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1945 by Dorothy B. Hughes
Cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons
978-1-4804-2699-3
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