Vanish in an Instant

by Margaret Millar

  For the first time she looked directly at Virginia, and then she repeated the words. “I was appalled. I had ex­pected—well, at least an end to my uncertainty. But there was no end. She couldn’t remember what had happened because she’d been drunk. She couldn’t affirm or deny any­thing. I tried not to show my alarm but I felt desperate. The evidence against her seemed so overwhelming, and she was acting as she always does when she’s scared to death, brassy and disdainful, deliberately making enemies of people who could be useful—the Sheriff and the ma­tron, and you, Mr. Meecham. Yes, and even me. No won­der I felt despair when I left her that first morning.

  “I went out into the corridor. There was a young man sitting on a bench just outside the door of the Sheriff’s of­fice. I had never seen him before and he had never seen me. I realize now that he must have been sitting there for some time, listening.”

  “He was,” Meecham said. “I saw him there when I left.”

  “You know, then, who he was.”

  “Yes.”

  “He spoke to me—something about the weather—and then he asked me if I was Virginia Barkeley’s mother. When I said I was he told me he wanted to discuss a very important matter with me about Virginia.”

  Meecham said, “It was Loftus who originated the plan?”

  “Yes. Even if I’d had the idea myself, it would have been impossible for me to carry it out, to go around town look­ing for a man able and willing to do what Loftus did.”

  “Did his plan seem reasonable to you?”

  “At the time, yes.”

  “You weren’t frightened or suspicious? You didn’t think he was crazy?”

  “You knew him, Mr. Meecham. He wasn’t crazy. He had nothing to lose excepting his life which was already lost, and I had nothing to lose except money which I could af­ford. Those were his very words. To me, the way I felt then, they seemed very logical. They don’t anymore.” She pressed the back of her hand against her forehead as if to ease the pain of a memory. “We reached an agreement. I—I bought him, the way you’d go out and buy a dog. That he wanted it like that is no excuse for me.”

  “Why did he need the money?”

  “For someone else.”

  “He didn’t say who it was?”

  “No. Just that the money would help someone else have a decent life. I wonder now, as I’ve wondered so often in the last two days, if it will.” Her hands were working ner­vously, clenching and unclenching. “Loftus said he would arrange all the details and I was to meet him, with the money, at 4:30 at the bus stop at Arbor and Pontiac.”

  “That’s just a block from here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he ask you for any information about the murder that he could use—about the hunting knives Margolis had, and the furnishings of the cottage and so on?”

  “No. I couldn’t have told him anyway because I didn’t know.”

  Meecham turned his gaze on Virginia. “You knew.”

  “I’d been in the cottage before, yes,” she said. “If that’s what you mean. But I didn’t tell Loftus anything. How could I? The only time I ever saw him was yesterday morn­ing in that room with you and the Sheriff. Remember? The Sheriff asked me if I knew Loftus and I said I’d seen him somewhere before.”

  “And Loftus said it was on Saturday night in a bar. Sam’s bar.”

  “Yes.”

  “That wasn’t the truth, was it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Yet Loftus knew that you were in that bar, and that you did talk casually to a man there. He even knew exactly what you said: God, this place stinks. How could he hear you say that and still be at home in his apartment with Hearst watching him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Someone must have told him. Someone who was there in the bar, who saw you and heard you, who might even have been following you. Who would be interested in following you? Who would be interested in following you and Margolis, Virginia?”

  “No one.”

  “Can’t you think of anyone?”

  “No!”

  “I can. Lily Margolis, for one; only she happened to be several thousand miles away. For another, Margolis’ friend, Miss Falconer. Or Carney; Carney was very interested in your welfare. But there’s still another possibility. Paul Barkeley.”

  “If Paul had been there I’d have seen him,” Virginia said quietly. “You mustn’t try to drag him into this mess. I’ve been the cause of everything and I’m willing to do the suffering—Momma and I. Aren’t we, Momma?”

  The two women looked at each other as if through the periscopes of enemy submarines across a fathomless and crawling sea. Then Mrs. Hamilton turned away with a sighing sound. “Yes. Yes, Virginia.”

  “Paul didn’t know anything about the murder or about the arrangement with Loftus. Did he, Momma?”

  “No, dear. Nothing at all.” She held her hands together on her lap, as she would hold two small restless animals to force quiet upon them. “I met Loftus at 4:30 at the bus stop. I had the money with me. I’d cashed six travelers’ checks, at three different banks to avoid unnecessary ques­tions or suspicions. I phoned Alice and told her I was going to a double feature and asked her to invite you for tea, Mr. Meecham. It was Loftus’ idea to have you there when he—when he put on his act. I think he wanted to try it on you first before he talked to the Sheriff.”

  “Like an out-of-town tryout,” Meecham said. “Well, it worked.”

  “Yes, everything worked out very well. Until last night, when I heard from Hearst. He came here to the house and we talked. And I knew then that I had to get Virginia away from this town. Whether she was innocent or guilty, per­haps I would never know. Her memory might be sealed forever, or she might wake up from a dream some night and it would all be sharp and clear in her mind. Look at her, Mr. Meecham. Look at my pretty girl. Somewhere be­hind those soft eyes there’s a record of everything she has ever seen or touched or heard or felt or done. It’s all there, but out of context, out of time, out of range.”

  Virginia stared at her mother with eyes that were not soft at all. “You talk about me as if I was a child or a psychopath.”

  “You are my child.”

  “Am I?”

  Though the two women sat within touching distance of each other, Meecham felt that there was a great space be­tween them, an expanse of sea too violent to sail, of land too mountainous to cross, and of years too long to re­member.

  Mrs. Hamilton reached out, across the expanse. “Virginia . . .”

  “If I have a dream some night, I will never tell you about it,” Virginia said. “I promise.”

  “My dear . . .”

  “I’ll never tell anyone.”

  “I—yes. Yes, perhaps that’s the best way.” She looked at Meecham. “What will happen now, Mr. Meecham?”

  “You’ll have to call the Sheriff.”

  “I see. What then?”

  “He’ll decide what action to take. You’ve withheld evi­dence concerning a murder. That’s a felony.”

  “Is it? Fancy that, I’ve committed a felony. Willett will be very surprised,” she said, almost gaily. “Well then, I suppose the next step is to hire a lawyer.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not you, Mr. Meecham.”

  “That’s right,” Meecham said with a slight smile. “Not me.”

  “I feel you’re very tired of us all. You think we create difficulties where none exist, that our troubles aren’t as real as broken legs or measles, or something you can see.” She rose and went to the door. “You’ll take care of Alice?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Alice is a good girl,” she said, thoughtfully. “I wish I knew how . . . Well, I’ll go and phone the Sheriff. You needn’t wait, Mr. Meecham. Good night.”
>
  “Good night.”

  He walked out the door and down the hall. He didn’t look back but he knew she was watching him. He could feel her eyes on the back of his neck, cold and painful as the touch of ice.

  23

  Alice was waiting for him in his car, a black scarf covering her bright hair, so that he didn’t see her until he opened the door.

  “Hello,” Meecham said.

  “Hello.”

  “Going anywhere?”

  “Anywhere at all,” she said. “Wherever you go.”

  “All right.” He let the car coast down the driveway to the street. He felt an intense activity inside his body, like hun­dreds of wheels turning in all directions. He was almost afraid to speak because of what the wheels might do to his voice. But when he finally spoke he sounded quite calm and detached. “I’m going home.”

  “Then that’s where I’ll go too.”

  “Maybe you’d better not.”

  “I’m twenty-three,” she said with naive pride, as if twenty-three was a very special age that conferred great wisdom and rightness on its wearer.

  “I was twenty-three once too,” Meecham said, “along with a lot of other people. I often made mistakes.”

  “I won’t.”

  The traffic in the center of town was congested with cars that slid ghostlike along the streets, and students bundled like mummies against the cold. The bell tower was striking 9:15 when Meecham stopped the car in front of a small white duplex.

  Hand in hand, they walked across the unshoveled side­walk and up the porch steps of the right side of the du­plex. A card above the doorbell said Eric Meecham. Two bottles of milk stood in a drift of snow outside the door. The milk had frozen and grown out of the tops of the bot­tles like strange white fungus that springs up overnight after a summer rain.

  “I guess I forgot to bring in the milk,” Meecham said.

  “Does it always do that in the winter?”

  “When it’s very cold.”

  “It looks funny. I’ll have to get used to a lot of different things, won’t I, Meecham?”

  “Yes.” He tried to unlock the door but the key stuck and wouldn’t move. He made three attempts before the door finally opened and a warm draft of air swept out to meet them like a friendly hostess.

  Meecham turned on the hall light. “It’s not very clean, I guess. It looks clean enough to me, but to a woman . . .”

  “It’s very clean.”

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t see how it could be any cleaner, really. I . . . Oh, Meecham. Frozen milk and the place being clean—what does anything matter?”

  He untied the scarf that was knotted under her chin and it fell soft and unnoticed to the floor like a leaf.

  “You’re beautiful, Alice.”

  “Oh, I hope so. I couldn’t live if you didn’t like the way I looked.”

  She was clinging to him with all her strength, like a vine that had been growing alone and whose seeking tendrils had at last touched a tree. He held her tightly in his arms and kissed her, and the wheels inside him began to move with such furious speed that their noise whirred and pounded in his ears. When the telephone rang he hardly recognized it at first as a new and separate sound, but its sharp insistence gradually penetrated his mind like a pain.

  Alice stirred in his arms and shook her head as if to shake off the intrusion. “I guess—that’s the phone.”

  “Let it ring,” he said.

  “Do other women call you very often?”

  “Sometimes.”

  The telephone continued to ring, five, six, seven times.

  “You could answer,” she said, “and then if it’s another woman tell her you’re very busy and you’ll be busy for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “Years. Forever.”

  “All right.” He picked up the phone from the hall table. His hands were shaking and his knees felt weak. “Hello.”

  “Is that you, Mr. Meecham?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is me, Victor Garino. You remember?”

  “Of course. Where are you?”

  “Here at home, in Kincaid. I’ve been trying to reach you ever since before supper. Mama and me, we’re having a bad time with Mrs. Loftus. It’s about the money.”

  “What money?”

  “The rest of Earl’s seven hundred dollars. You shouldn’t have sent it to her, Mr. Meecham.”

  Meecham felt the inside breast pocket of his coat. The envelope containing the rest of Loftus’ money was still there.

  “She’s going wild,” Garino said. “Buying not just liquor but everything, everything she sees. Records, dozens of rec­ords, and nothing to play them on. And a dress for Mama, a great big dress so big Mama could get into it twice. And for me, a new hat and a lamp and a case of wine, a whole case . . .”

  “What do you think I can do about it?” Meecham said.

  “You must come and take the money back again, what’s left of it. I asked her to let me keep it for her and she said no, if I kept it she’d never see more than a dollar at a time like in the old days when Birdie gave her an allowance. I have no right to take the money from her. But you have, Mr. Meecham. You sent it to her and you can take it back again. That would be lawful, wouldn’t it?”

  “No, it wouldn’t, because I didn’t send her any money.”

  There was a silence at the other end of the line. Then Garino’s voice again, talking not into the telephone but to someone beside him. “He says he didn’t send it, Mama.”

  “He must have. Where else would she . . .?”

  “She borrowed it, maybe.”

  “Who from? Who’d lend her money?”

  “She wouldn’t steal.”

  Then there was another silence, and Mrs. Garino said in a barely audible voice, “I never leave my purse around anymore.”

  Meecham spoke sharply into the phone: “Garino?”

  “I’m here, Mr. Meecham. I was talking to Mama. She says to tell you we’re very sorry we bothered you, and—and what else, Mama?”

  “Merry Christmas,” Mrs. Garino said.

  “Oh yes, and a merry Christmas,” Garino said gravely.

  “Wait a minute, Garino.”

  “I am embarrassed, making such a big mistake, think­ing you sent the ...”

  “Forget it. Is Mrs. Loftus home now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep her there.”

  “By this time she is too drunk to go out anyway.”

  “I want to talk to her,” Meecham said. “It’s very im­portant. I can leave right away and I should be there in a little over an hour.”

  He put the phone down and turned to Alice. She was smiling at him, but not very convincingly.

  “You left me behind once tonight,” she said. “I don’t want to be left behind again.”

  “Do you like long winter drives in the country?”

  “Very much.”

  “Sure?”

  “I adore them.” She reached down slowly, bending at the knees, and picked up her scarf from the floor. She said, without rising, “I could sit right down here and bawl.”

  “Please don’t.” He pulled her gently to her feet. “Re­member, you’re twenty-three.”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “No. Here, I’ll put on your scarf for you. Will you let me?”

  “I guess.” She watched him as he tied the scarf awk­wardly under her chin. “Meecham, do we have to go?”

  “We have to.” He switched off the hall light and for a moment they stood in the dark facing each other but not touching. “You’re not angry?”

  “No.” She shook her head, rather sadly. “But I don’t think I’m tw
enty-three any more. I think I’m older.”

  24

  The lights in the Garinos’ basement apartment were on. From the sidewalk Meecham and Alice could see right into the kitchen. Mrs. Garino was sitting alone at a big linoleum-covered table, motionless, as if she was listening for a sound or waiting for something to happen.

  Garino answered the door. He had a sleeping kitten nestled in the crook of his arm.

  “You arrived fast, Mr. Meecham.”

  “Yes. Miss Dwyer, Mr. Garino. Miss Dwyer is my fian­cée. She came along for the ride.”

  “Come in, come in.” Garino stepped back to let them in, and at the movement the kitten awoke and began sheath­ing and unsheathing its claws against the rough wool of Garino’s sweater coat. In and out, the claws moved like iri­descent needles being thrust in and out of tiny pink plush cushions. “I will get my keys.”

  “I could hold the kitten for you,” Alice said shyly.

  “Ah, you like kittens, eh?”

  “I love them.”

  “This one, he is the littlest. He is always the last to eat, and when he sleeps he is always at the bottom of the pile, so I spoil him a little to make up for this.” Alice sat down in an old wicker rocking chair and Garino put the indig­nant kitten on her lap. “I will go and tell Mama to fix some coffee.”

  “I already put it on,” Mrs. Garino said from the kitchen, sounding rather angry that anyone should have to remind her to make coffee.

  “Come out here for a minute, Mama.”

  “I’m not dressed for company.” But she came to the door anyway, smoothing her skirt down over her hips. “We’re upset around here today. I didn’t have time to fuss with clothes.”

  Meecham introduced the two women and they eyed each other carefully from an ambush of smiles before they stepped out into the open.