Better to Eat You

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Fox’s jaws opened and and closed several times as if he ate and digested this.

  “So we must get him away.” She was triumphant. “Now you see, don’t you? Now tell him you have changed your mind and make him go.”

  “Malvina, Malvina,” said the old man, leaning back. The firelight played on his craggy face. “Never do that again. You must always do as I say.” But the fire had gone out of his scolding for the moment.

  “He is dangerous. Mrs. McGhee is dangerous. You’ve always said so.”

  “I will tell you because I see you must understand my plans. You are not to tell this to Edgar. Now …” He leaned forward and brought up his hands and began to smack the right fist into the left palm. “Sarah is frantic, afraid for David.” Smack, went his hand. “If David stays, Sarah will run away.” Flesh thudded on flesh. “Sarah will run away as soon as her arms permit her to drive her car.” Smack, he struck his palm. “Her car will take her over the brink at the first turn when she brakes to go around it.” The hands came thudding together. “Because I have arranged that it should.” Smack. “Now, do you see?”

  Malvina looked stunned.

  “It’s not safe, Grandfather. What if Gust or Moon should take Sarah’s car?”

  “No one will take Sarah’s car but Sarah. Because you will hold her keys. You will not put them with the others or in Sarah’s room, either. When Sarah wants to know where they are, then you will give them to her. And not before.”

  Malvina took the keys that he gave her. She put them into a deep slit pocket at the end of her woolen stole.

  “Yes?” he demanded.

  “Yes, Grandfather.” Her face looked baffled. All her instincts for intrigue, for the manipulations of people and events, came from this man. But he was her master. She could not outdo him in it.

  “It’s so simple,” Fox said, relaxing. “So easy and clever, eh? She will sneak away, you see. Perhaps by night. Perhaps some morning when we are not noticing. We will be quite genuinely surprised.” Then he looked angrily at her with his sharp little dark eyes. “But if David Wakeley leaves here, as you so foolishly tried to persuade him to do, then Sarah will not run away.”

  “But Grandfather, won’t he … how can we keep them apart? What …?”

  “You can keep him occupied,” snarled Fox. “Attach him, Malvina. Don’t you think you can? Surely you are more of a woman then pallid little Sarah?”

  Her face was both shrewd and stupid. “Edgar won’t like it.”

  “Edgar. Edgar is a fool. Tell Edgar it is policy. Do as I say. Sarah’s injuries won’t hold her long.”

  “How long?”

  “A day. Two days. Three at the most. Nothing to do but wait, Malviha. I have arranged everything.”

  “Grandfather …” Malvina bit her lip. “The first time Sarah drives her car, whether David is here or not …”

  His jaws chewed on it. “And when will that be?” he said finally. “When will she? Eh? Sarah has nowhere else in the world to go, has she, Malvina? And no reason to leave me and go there. Are you willing to wait weeks, months, when we can, by keeping David here, drive her away in days?” His eyes were perfectly cruel. “Will you do as I say?”

  Malvina said, “Attach him?” She was a little numb about many things—scruples, for one thing. Death, for another. If she had any attachment it was to this old man of her blood. One more thing. She had never known a man like David Wakeley. He had made her angry and she had shown it. He was a challenge. Malvina drew on veils and masks. Her mouth formed its frank and generous-appearing smile.

  David and Edgar were returning. Malvina turned her head.

  “I’ve been scolded,” she said humbly, lids hinting at fires beneath the humble mask. “Will you forgive me, David?”

  “I don’t think we’ll talk about it,” said David as easily as he could, “since Mr. Fox has cleared up the whole thing.”

  “Grandfather is so clever,” Malvina said.

  * * *

  Sarah’s light was out. She was not asleep but lying quietly abed when someone tapped lightly on her door. She crept to open it.

  “Not asleep so early, dearie?” said Grandfather. “I thought I’d say goodnight.”

  “Is it early, Grandfather?” In the light that came across the corridor from Grandfather’s door, Sarah’s face was naked without her glasses.

  “Perhaps not. Perhaps not. David and Malvina are still on the sea terrace, so I assumed … Are you feeling better, poor Sarah? Do your arms pain?”

  “Not too much,” she said.

  “Goodnight.” He peered at her face and nodded as if he were satisfied.

  “Goodnight, Grandfather.”

  She closed the door but she did not go back to bed. She stood still for a minute or two and then she fumbled for her quilted coat and threw it around her shoulders. She felt for her glasses on the bedside table and put them on.

  She intended to know what was going on.

  She left her room and walked, barefooted, down the corridor. Into the big room where only one lamp burned. The dining room was all shadow. She saw the silhouette against the night light of the sky that lay beyond the great dining-room window. A dark shape, huge shoulders bent, and on them a small head.

  Edgar was on his knees in the dining room, leaning beside the glass. Sarah drew nearer and he turned his head. He rose to his feet without a word when he saw her. He walked away toward the small square foyer. She saw him against the dark glass of the garden door, dimly, and then, silently, he vanished. The whole movement was tragic, ominous.

  Sarah drew nearer the window.

  They were out there, Malvina and David, talking. She could hear the rhythm of their voices and it was gay. Malvina sat, wrapped in her white wool, on the sea terrace beside him, and together they overlooked that stunning view of sea and cove and sky. Together they enjoyed the starlight and the sea sound. They were very companionable and easy, she thought. They were alive.

  As she watched, David lit a match and she saw his face and his smile. Malvina took his wrist in her fingers to steady the flame. Sarah turned and walked back across the living room.

  She went into her room and closed the door. She sat upon the bed.

  David had deceived her and was here not to work but for reasons of his own. And Malvina had lied. Malvina had definitely lied, black for white. Now the word David had used in the morning came back to her. An enemy.

  She heard Malvina say, again, “How are you, Sarah? David has gone. I suppose you know.”

  “I didn’t.” Sarah felt again the surprise, part relief, part sorrow.

  “Well, he’s cleared out, bag and baggage. And who can blame him? So we are just the family,” Malvina had said.

  Nothing to misunderstand. Nothing to be charitable about. It was a flat lie. Because he had not gone. Now Malvina sat on the sea terrace with David Wakeley in the beauty of this night. Oh, she did, did she?

  Sarah felt her face burning. She heard David saying, “Believe there is a reason … No such thing as a Jonah … I’m talking about an enemy.”

  She said to herself, What if I have an enemy, after all? If I do, why, it must be Malvina.

  Sarah knew she was angry and jealous. She rejoiced in it. Maybe it was small and childish, but it was good. It was human. It was living. David had deceived her and she was angry with him (although she believed he’d had a reason). But if Malvina was her enemy, then she could fight. And with relish, too.

  “I will get up tomorrow and go about my business,” she said out loud. She put her feet under the covers. There is a reason, she said to herself, for everything that has happened. I must find out. I must talk to Grandfather about money. I must talk to lots of people, to the police, to firemen, to the bank that foreclosed that time … to anyone who might know about any of these accidents. I’ll manage for myself. I won’t wait, either. Wrists are not too bad. I will begin. I will drive to the city tomorrow and I will begin to fight.

  She snuggled down. No, she had ne
ver liked Malvina. She thought it was most probably the Lupino blood.

  As for David Wakeley, not once yet, in his presence, had she let herself be Sarah. But if there was no Jonah, then there was more than one way to fight. Sarah smiled in the dark. Nothing—not anger, not insult, not Malvina on the terrace—had destroyed the unreasoning conviction that she and David drew closer and closer in a certain companionship. This strange sensation, this bubbling in the breast …? Sarah remembered it. Happiness.

  Chapter 11

  Before dawn, Sarah wakened. No, it was just dawn. First dawn. Sombeody was talking in a low but impassioned voice. And somebody else was trying to break into the stream of words. Who? Where?

  Sarah slipped out of bed and went toward her door. Somebody was in the corridor. She put her ear to the wood.

  Edgar.

  “And no use and no use…” he said, “no use at all. You don’t care for me, Malvina, and never will. Oh, you can hurt me with pity and you do hurt me, but I care too much for you, Malvina. I won’t let you hurt yourself, Malvina.”

  “Please. Not here. Please.” That was Malvina.

  “Sorry for me. You tell him you’re sorry for me. Just as he tells you he’s sorry for Sarah. Sorry, Malvina? When somebody cares too much? Oh yes, the two of you are sorry. Have pity.”

  “Hush. Be quiet.”

  But Edgar’s voice went on, so charged with emotion that it was almost a singsong, a wailing, a keening. “I told you there was a line and now I tell you that you won’t cross it.…”

  “Quiet!”

  “No, I will not be quiet. Anymore. Anymore. Anymore.”

  “Then come out of the house. You’ll be heard.”

  “Oh yes, I’ll be heard But you won’t do anymore, Malvina. For your own sake, Malvina, I won’t let you do anymore.”

  “Hush, hush, hush.”

  “No more … enough. No more …”

  Sarah could tell that they were moving away. She raced for her quilted coat and her glasses and her Chinese slippers. This was a chance to find out something!

  David Wakeley had heard Edgar leave the guest house. All night long, wakening intermittently, he had been aware of Edgar’s suffering. He’d almost wanted to knock on the wall and say to the man, “Look, it’s nothing. There is a game being played. And that’s all. Don’t take it so seriously.” But then he remembered Consuelo saying “Roil ’em up,” and he had beaten down his conscience and lain low.

  All evening, responding to Malvina’s beckoning mood, discounting all her hints and airs, David had been digging for information. He had turned up little or nothing. What? That Malvina had come to America in 1946. A fact he had known already. That it had been her first visit. A fact? That she had not known Sarah well until Sarah came here. They had met briefly as children, Malvina said.

  What did it add up to? Not much. Ergo, Sarah had once been in England. Surely a meager enough deduction.

  He couldn’t fathom Malvina. Why she had blazed at him in the garden and flirted at the dinner table he did not know. It was a game of cheat and maneuver. A game, yes. But he wished he hadn’t started any game with Sarah Shepherd.

  Just at dawn, he heard Edgar moving violently around his room. Then Edgar went out.

  So David dressed.

  He was at the window of his pleasant room in the small cottage, watching between the blinds, when Malvina in heavy black pajamas with her white stole thrown around her as if she’d had no time to reach for another garment, and Edgar, fully dressed for day, came out into the garden. They were arguing as they went along toward the place where the gate had been. David wished he could hear. He opened his door. Then he saw Sarah.

  She was wearing yellow pajamas under a short pale green quilted coat and she came quickly out of the house and then hesitated near the fountain looking … owlishly, he thought fondly … about her. David forgot Malvina. He hurried across the garden.

  “Sarah, let me talk to you.”

  “Yes, I want to talk to you.” She faced him. This was not an apathetic figure, this taut little body, this face turned up coolly, the eyes steady. “What did you mean about money?” she asked briskly. “Do you think I have an enemy who doesn’t want me to inherit?”

  “Well, I wondered,” he said, taken aback by her brisk manner. “I don’t mean I’m sure of it.”

  “Because I am to get part of Grandfather’s money?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Do you think she is trying to kill me?” said Sarah in fact-finding accents.

  “You mean Malvina?” He was staggered by the change in her.

  “It must be Malvina,” Sarah said, “if the money is involved. Grandfather has no other heir.”

  “I … I don’t know, Sarah.” He was the one who fumbled and stammered. “I doubt if it’s altogether Malvina … Who told you about my car, Sarah?”

  “Your car rolled downhill by itself? A woman died? Is that true?”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s true.”

  “Grandfather told me the truth,” she said.

  Again he was staggered. “It wasn’t an accident. Somebody deliberately made my car roll. Tell me this, Sarah. Who was not here a week ago last Saturday?”

  “I wasn’t here,” said Sarah. “So I can’t tell you that. But you don’t think my enemy is Malvina?”

  “Wait a minute. There was another thing. What was it I wanted to ask …?” David thumped his head. They were speaking so rapidly and somewhat at cross-purposes, the talk went too fast.

  “You let Edgar think you were going to propose to me,” said Sarah calmly, “to get rid of Edgar. That means you think Edgar is in it? He is my enemy, too?”

  “Sarah, I’m sorry. I had to talk to you alone. I came here in the first place …”

  “Not to do your work.” She nodded.

  “I came to find out who might have done that to my car. But, Sarah, please try to understand. I’m afraid for you, now.”

  “And sorry for me, too,” said Sarah, smiling.

  But now he had his balance and he pinned her gaze steadily. “Sarah, I’m not as ‘sorry’ as you think. I certainly don’t care for the idea that somebody wants to hurt you. And I don’t like to see you alone.” He felt the need to hurry, to warn her, to tell her. “Sarah, don’t trust these people.”

  She stepped away as if she knew that he wanted to grab her there in the morning light. “I don’t,” she said. “It all fits in with what they were saying.”

  “What were they saying?”

  “What are they saying now?” She moved swiftly and he had to turn and follow her as she began to run through the garden toward the old gate.

  Down by the broken gate, Malvina was pleading. “You can’t. Edgar, you can’t. It’s taking revenge. But Grandfather told me to talk to David. I did not …”

  “No use. I’m going. I’ve got to go.”

  “You can’t go to the police. You’d be in such trouble …”

  “Yes, I can go. I’m going to explain everything. Oh yes, my part, too. How I’ve lent myself to your grandfather’s doings. Because I’ve been weak … weak. And you are not worth it, Malvina, but I love you and will love you …”

  “Then, Edgar, think better of it. Don’t do this now. We can talk. We can …”

  “No,” he said. “No, Malvina. No, I can’t think better of it. Not any more.”

  “You’ll go to a bar,” she said lightly, her eyes glistening. “You’ll think better of it. Oh, I’m sure.”

  “No. No bar open,” he muttered.

  “There is one place we know … Edgar, you haven’t slept well …”

  “I can save you,” he cried. “And I will, even though it’s trouble. I must go.” He started down the steps and stopped and turned his head dazedly. “Who took my car?”

  “Gust has it. Grandfather sent him.… It’s an omen. Edgar, don’t go.”

  “Give me the keys to your car, Malvina.”

  “Oh no. It’s not likely.” She kept trying to be light
er, to play the coquette.

  “Malvina,” he said, fixing her with the tragic intensity in his little eyes. “For your soul’s sake and before you do murder, let me save you. Let me go.”

  “You’ll think better of it,” she said, her smile frozen. “Dear Edgar …” Her fingers slipped into the pocket of her stole. “I cannot believe you will hurt me. See, I believe in you. Look, I have Sarah’s keys. Take Sarah’s car.”

  Sarah was opposite the tiny kitchen garden when she stopped. “Car. Edgar is leaving. Here she comes in again.”

  David, close behind her, said, “Sarah … Sarah …” He began to close his arms around her.

  She gave a little scream of pain. “The burns … the burns!”

  “Oh, Lord,” he said, “I’m sorry!” and let her go. But for just one moment the meeting of their eyes was as close as a kiss.

  Malvina was rising into the garden and she walked toward them on the brick-paved path, swaying, her head high, her smile in place. “Good morning,” said Malvina.

  As she faced them, smilingly, the sea’s crashing on the rocks continued and nearby birds cried. There was a cracking sound as of a limb breaking suddenly on a tree and it was lost in the natural hubbub. Neither David nor Sarah noticed it, nor the heavier sound, as of a monstrous breaker, that followed. Malvina’s face was still innocently fresh and smiling when a thin scream from a human throat rose like a thread of smoke into the vault of the sky.

  David turned around and looked over the garden wall. Someone on the beach far away in the cove was screaming and gesticulating. Then he saw the car, lying like a beached whale in the surf close below with foam boiling around it.

  “Car! Look!”

  “Where? Oh!”

  “It’s Edgar!” shrieked Malvina. “Edgar ran off the road!”

  David’s eye was calculating the swiftest way to descend. He said, “Phone the police, Sarah. They’ll know who can help. Quick, Sarah.” His eyes took time to send her courage and support.