Better to Eat You

by Charlotte Armstrong

  He said to Gust, “Has the doctor left?”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Wakeley. Left a few minutes ago.” Gust stepped through the wide opening from the dining room where he and Moon had been doing Mrs. Monteeth’s chore, setting the table for dinner. Gust said, “Should I call the man from the gate, Miss Malvina?”

  Malvina said, “No, Gust. No. I’ll take care of this.”

  She turned her back on them all and walked toward the fireplace where, as was customary at this pre-dinner hour, a fire had been lit.

  David followed her. “You’ll do as you please. He’s your grandfather,” he muttered. Malvina’s neck arched as her head went down. “But I thought …”

  “She wants to elope with you? She asked you to do that? Crude of her.”

  “Ah,” he said, “the poor kid. Doesn’t know what she’s doing. Better let her go of her own volition, I thought. Who knows what she’d do, if anyone tried to take her away forcibly.”

  Malvina said, “I think you are in love with Sarah.”

  “I told you, I’m sorry for her. But Maxwell wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “You didn’t try to make him listen when I wanted you to go to the village …” Malvina smouldered.

  “I had been trying,” David said. “I knew he wouldn’t listen. Don’t forget, he thinks you may have poisoned Edgar. That’s no fault of mine.”

  Malvina sighed. “Why eight o’clock?” she asked.

  “Oh, Sarah says low tide,” he muttered. “Well?”

  She was rubbing her forearms as if she were cold. “I don’t know, David.” Now her voice mourned her indecision and she turned to let him see her innocent face.

  “Do you think Sarah poisoned Edgar?” David asked her.

  “I … can’t see what else. Since I didn’t.” She let her eyes fill with tears and David marveled.

  “Don’t you want a murderess out of this house?” He stepped closer. “Let her think she is eloping. To get her away.”

  “You may be right. I … must see how Grandfather is.”

  David took out a handkerchief and gently he dried her eyes. “The old man will surely die,” David said sadly, “unless somehow, quietly, the source of all this trouble leaves his house.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Malvina said, tears spilling. “I’m sorry, David. Perhaps I didn’t understand. She’s … unpredictable just now, isn’t she? She might do anything. Might even …” Malvina shuddered.

  “Kill herself?” said David. “Is that in your mind, too?”

  “Oh yes, I am afraid. Oh, that would be the end of Grandfather.” Her mouth was shaping into her smile! “Thank you for all you are trying to do to help us,” she said.

  Then she left him and went toward Grandfather’s room.

  David sat down in the inglenook. House of liars, he thought glumly, and he himself was getting to be as swift and facile a liar as any. Malvina might yet stop the plan. He didn’t see why she should. She had worked hard and told lies to get the Sheriff’s Deputy to believe Sarah guilty and take her away. She should be tempted by this suggestion. But if, instead, she raised a row … why, let her.

  He no longer cared if any excitement hurt the old man. He only cared for Sarah and her safety. If Malvina raised a row why he, David, would simply raise it louder. He would then bodily tuck Sarah under his arm and carry her away.

  Malvina was thinking of suicide. For Sarah, that is. Malvina was shocked because there had been a doctor. Now what was the reason for that? What could the doctor have seen or found out? Sitting here, David could see down the corridor where no one moved and no one knocked at or entered by Sarah’s door. Still, from the telephone, he could see just as well.

  Malvina had hidden behind the mask of her face but he had been touching her. He had felt the blood jump. He wondered Why?

  So he would telephone the doctor.

  “Fool!” said Grandfather viciously. “You have no brains. My son was a fool and he married a fool and a fool was produced of their union.”

  Malvina knelt by his chair. “Sarah can’t go. If she gets away, you know, everything … everything could collapse.”

  “If you would sometimes,” the old man’s eye was lightning, “do as I say.”

  “But Grandfather …”

  “Blunders,” he spat at her. “Those lies to the Deputy, Suppose he had taken her off and called a psychiatrist? As no doubt he would. Those people inquire into memory and childhood. It is the last thing that must happen to Sarah. What a risk you took and to no purpose. Aaaah, you are a fool!”

  “Did you want me in jail, then?” she said sullenly.

  “You were not in danger. You had done as I said. How did you fail to get David away? There might have been a most excellent chance. I still have some of the same poison. And a police officer to witness Sarah in the very mood for guilty suicide.”

  “She …” Malvina bit her mouth.

  “And even David seeming to betray her, or so you told me.”

  “Sarah wasn’t … in that mood …”

  “Of course she was,” the old man raged. “Why didn’t you take David to the village? Why did you fail?”

  “The man, Maxwell, made me go with him. What could I do?”

  The old man glared. “And above all, now, in this crisis, you make the colossal blunder. You send me a doctor!”

  “No. No, I did not. It was David who sent him.”

  “You are lying, Malvina.” He was evil and furious. “Don’t tell your stupid lies to me.”

  “Am I mad!” she whispered, in her eyes the only truth of her life, her wish for this old man’s approval. “Did he see …?”

  “Of course, he saw. How could a doctor examine me and not see my scar?”

  “Did he ask …?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. I told him how I fell on the rocks, as we faked it. And how Edgar and the Neppers took care of me. Aaaahh,” the old man made a sound of deepest disgust, “blunders, blunders. And Mrs. Monteeth saw it, too, and David permitted to do such a thing!”

  “Can anything be done, Grandfather? If Sarah elopes with David, who is a friend of Consuelo McGhee. And the doctor has seen it. It will all pull together.”

  “I know. I know,” the old man said. “Don’t tell me what danger we are in!”

  “Even if he isn’t lying to me, if he intends to give her to the police … then a psychiatrist …”

  “I know.” The old man’s eyes were cold. “The solution is what it always was, Malvina. Without Sarah, we are in no danger. Without Sarah, there is nothing to fear.”

  “What shall I do, Grandfather? Tell me what to do.”

  Grandfather brooded.

  “We have until eight o’clock. Isn’t there some poison?”

  “Poison,” said Grandfather. “Oh yes. Buried in the border along the sea walk. Or I might have put it in her breakfast coffee. You told me the police would search this house. Another of your blunders.”

  “Shall I get it?” She half rose.

  “No,” he said.

  “No?”

  “You are to do nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “When I told you my plan, you sent Edgar off in Sarah’s car.” He was like a sulking child.

  “I had to.”

  “Do as I say,” he snarled, “if you can do anything so easy and simple. Tell Sarah I am better. I am coming to dinner. Tell David to join us. Sarah must come to dinner, too. All must be as usual.”

  Malvina now rose to her feet. “Yes, Grandfather,” she said dubiously. “But how will you poison Sarah and not be in danger?”

  “What I will do I will not tell you,” he said angrily. “Do nothing, Malvina.”

  Someone rapped on the door. “Who is it?” Gibberish answered. “Ah, Moon. Yes, come in.”

  The Chinaman entered with a tray. “No tray,” said the old man. “I have changed my mind. Tell Mrs. Monteeth I shall be at table. Cocktails? Yes, it is nearly time.”

  The Chinaman bowed. He backed out and closed
the door.

  “Now do as I say,” said Grandfather to Malvina. “And you are not to think. Go at once and tell Sarah.”

  “Will you let her go?” said Malvina throatily. “You are old. For you it is not so important. Sarah loves you. That was your insurance. Don’t you care what happens to me?”

  “Thinking?” he said nastily. “I’ll think for us both, if you will allow me. Now I wish to be alone for at least fifteen minutes. Can you manage that?”

  “Yes, Grandfather.” Malvina’s face grew innocent.

  “Then we shall meet by the fire, as is our custom.”

  Behind her mask the tortuous thoughts were working. She assumed he was going to go forth in these fifteen minutes to retrieve the poison from its hiding place. “Suicide?” she murmured. “She could easily be put in the mood for it. If she knew that David was planning to betray her …”

  “You haven’t the cleverness,” said Grandfather contemptuously. “Leave it alone, Malvina. And leave me, now.”

  Malvina’s nostrils quivered. “Oh, I understand,” she murmured. She left him.

  The old man got out of his chair. He tightened the sash of his brocaded coat. He stepped into the study. From there he stepped out to the sea walk. He bent over the foot-wide strip of soil along the wall but he did not touch the soil where the little bottle lay buried. He grasped a plant supporter, a circle of heavy wire with four wire legs, and he pulled it from the soft earth. He pulled up a second one, also.

  Then he walked briskly past the windows of his own bedroom and with no glance toward Sarah’s windows which lay beyond the upper end of the beach path, he started down. It was dinner time. The coast was emptied of people. Had he been seen in his dark coat from a distance, he might have been anyone. The old man gave no furtive glances behind or below him.

  He was out of the range of any eyes at the house level when he stooped and, working hard, pressed and strained to thrust the sharp wire legs of the plant supporter into the hard soil of the path. It was not easy but with effort he succeeded. The wire contraptions were firm enough to surprise a descending foot. And they were placed strategically. Whoever went down the path in dusk or darkness now would doubtless fall. And fall over.

  Below, the surf attacked and the rocks resisted in their eternal opposition.

  The old man dusted his palms and ascended the path. He walked past the narrow flower border without glancing down. His mouth was wolfish, showing the teeth. Odd that Malvina was such a stupid girl, when Lupino had always been so clever.

  Chapter 17

  Phone to ear, David rolled his eyes. The Chinaman was standing in the corridor, down beside the old man’s door. He stood irresolute, or so it seemed, which was odd because Moon was nothing if not spry, energetic, direct and impatient.

  In his ear Dr. Price said, “Hello?”

  “Wakeley, Doctor. Excuse my calling you at home. But I missed speaking to you after you had seen Mr. Fox.”

  “You weren’t around.”

  “Sorry, sir. How did you find the old gentleman?”

  “I want him to come to my office for further exploration.”

  “But can you tell us,” David tried to wriggle around the professional caution, “what care he should have?”

  “Superficially, the heart seems sound enough. Suggest taking it easy until we learn more.” The doctor was rather abrupt, almost antagonistic.

  “Nothing alarming then?”

  “Not so far as I find in a preliminary look. Like to make a more thorough check …”

  “Did he agree, sir? Did he suggest a time?”

  “Said in a day or two.” David could sense a certain resentment.

  “Is that safe?” he demanded.

  “I think so,” the doctor said, almost dryly.

  “Thanks.” David hung up the phone. So, he thought triumphantly, Grandfather’s wonky heart is a lie, too! Dr. Price hadn’t said so and wouldn’t say so, until his examinations had become exhaustive. Yet David could feel the man’s annoyance. It would be annoying to be called to attend a man on the verge of disaster and find that the trouble was either not obvious or not there. Oh yes, Edgar had been useful in this house, David thought. The old man’s frailty was a legend and an instrument. But an instrument to what? Could it have been this and only this that had made Malvina so startled to hear about a doctor? David wasn’t satisfied. He thought of Consuelo. Consuelo could pump the doctor if anyone could.

  He wanted to call Consuelo, but he hesitated, wondering if he dared from this phone. He was not unobserved. Mrs. Monteeth was in the dining room now. Gust came, carrying a tray into the big room. The Chinaman came trotting past on his way to the kitchen, head down, muttering to himself.

  David moved away from the phone. He sat down uneasily in the inglenook. Malvina came out of Grandfather’s door and rapped on Sarah’s and spoke to the wood. Then she came in her swaying walk toward him.

  She said with her frank smile, “Grandfather feels very much better. He is coming to dinner. You must dine with him, David, and so must Sarah. Excuse me if I speak to Mrs. Monteeth? Oh, I see Gust has already fetched the cocktails. Good. Grandfather will be with us in a moment. He wants everything to be as usual.”

  David, with the feeling of dismay about Sarah, felt also rebellion against the pressure of the legend. He said flatly, “I spoke to Dr. Price. He found nothing alarming.”

  “So Grandfather tells me,” Malvina said smoothly with nor the slightest sign of alarm. “We are so glad. That’s why he feels so much encouraged.” She went on by.

  David sat in the inglenook, ticking off in his mind the time remaining to be endured—here, where nobody told the truth and he did not even have the slightest idea why they did not. And Sarah was coming to dinner, obedient because Fox must be indulged—impressed by the legend. And Edgar had died of poison.

  They were cozily gathered together and the draperies were drawn across the sea side to shut the wild dark world away. Grandfather sat on his cushions, his small feet just reaching the floor. Sarah, in aquamarine cotton, the white bandages on her arms looking quaintly like huge cuffs, sat beside David on the cushioned seat across from Fox. Malvina, in her pale flowing gown of some beige stuff, sat on her stool facing the fire.

  Grandfather was talking about old times. He was telling about a Fox and Lupino skit involving a bicycle and a string of sausages. His head dipped and turned and his eyes were merry. His voice chirruped with mirthful memory.

  David had to concede that, if you discounted the fact that all this was taking place in the evening of the day when a member of this household had been cruelly done to death by poison, this recounting was comical. The old man evoked the brisk slapstick of the past. Even the timing, essence of comedy, he conveyed to them by his slashing gestures.

  Malvina was laughing. Even Sarah smiled. David himself had to concede a chuckle.

  “Ah, yes,” said Grandfather, wiping an eye, “we were clever.”

  “They were,” said Malvina reverently. “They were very great in those days.”

  “Everyone says they were great artists,” said Sarah fondly. “I can’t remember them too well. How I wish I could.”

  “You’ve seen them on the stage, Sarah?” David asked.

  Grandfather spoke, as Sarah nodded. “If it is an art to face an audience, to start its laughter, to hold it, balloon it, and set them all helplessly rocking … yes. Then we were artists.” Fox met David’s stare. “But it is merely a clever trick, David,” he said surprisingly.

  “I know very little about how it’s done,” David said cautiously. “I would certainly call it an art, sir.”

  “Clever,” said Grandfather, sighing. “And my dear old Lupino … ah, yes, he was the cleverer of us two.” The words fell. There was silence and Grandfather stirred restlessly. “How he could dazzle them! Eh, Malvina?”

  “He used to be very clever,” Malvina said rather evasively.

  “Now, then. A toast!” Grandfather raised his glass. His sharp
eyes rallied them all. David watched Sarah’s fingers move toward her glass. He reached over and took it. He handed her his own. He explained nothing. No one missed what he did. No one mentioned it. Malvina’s face was serene and innocent. The old man’s glass sailed upward. “To Arthur Lupino!” he cried and ducked a salute and drank the toast.

  As David sipped tentatively, gingerly, barely at all, he knew Sarah was scarcely wetting her lips either. Her face was thoughtful. In a silence, only the fire muttered, eating the logs.

  Then Sarah lifted her glass higher. “May I give us a toast?” she said. “To Bertrand Fox!” She put the glass to her mouth.

  The old man did not drink. He had drained his already. He sank his chin on his breast. Perhaps he was lost in the past.

  Malvina clicked her glass down. “I think,” she said rather acidly, “dinner is waiting.”

  “Is it so?” said Grandfather dreamily. “Malvina, you ought not to rush us, my dear. You ought not to be impatient. However …” He began to wriggle off the cushions and Malvina helped him.

  David slipped his hand under Sarah’s arm. As she rose she slid her glass to the low table close against the shaker. It was quite full. She had not taken any. David’s fingers congratulated her arm.

  They paraded to the table.

  David thought, Now, how is it that we go in to dinner, fearing poison? I fear it for Sarah, from either of them. Sarah fears it from Malvina. But Malvina? Is she waiting for it, from the old creature? What if I said so? Gust would soon throw me out. And what would Sarah do then? She would let Gust throw me out. Sarah believes in the legend, still, that the old man could drop dead. How can anyone believe it, thought David—watching him quite merrily survive fire and destruction, crash and suspense, rescue and murder? And now lick his lips over his ancient cleverness? And relish remembered power? This evil old clown.

  Distaste and fright made David queasy. He thought, Now there is a legend. The grotesque, wide-lipped, white-painted clown’s face is no child’s delight. Not naturally. A child would scream. If it hadn’t been taught a legend, a child would be afraid.