Dram of Poison

by Charlotte Armstrong

They exploded like popcorn.

  “A young woman. A mere girl. A very handsome young female,” the painter said. “I was looking at her face. But I do believe she picked up that greenish paper bag and carried it off the bus. Yes.”

  “When?”

  “After he got off, just after. I was driven back to the ear by default.”

  “Who was she?”

  The painter shrugged. “I’d know her,” he said, “but I’d have to see her. Names, labels, mean nothing to me.”

  “Where did she get off?”

  “Oh, not many blocks after …” Distance meant nothing to him, either.

  “Was she dark?” said Paul Townsend, tensely.

  “I suppose you mean … to put it, crudely … was her hair of a darkish color? Yes.”

  “Jeanie! cried Paul. “Oh Lord, oh God, it could have been Jeanie. Where’s your telephone?”

  “No telephone,” said Mrs. Boatright. “Who is Jeanie?”

  Paul had moved into the center somehow. He was tall and angry. He glared at everyone. He was a raging lion.

  “But Paul,” said Rosemary, “what makes you think it could be Jeanie?”

  “Because she went to her music lesson just about then. Her teacher is out on the Boulevard. She could have got on as he got off. She knew him, She would have spoken. She might have taken his empty seat. Jeanie!” Paul’s handsome face contorted.

  “Who is Jeanie?” the painter wanted to know.

  “My daughter!” yelled Paul. “My daughter!”

  “But if Jeanie saw him . . .” Rosemary frowned and concentrated.

  “How could she know where he’d been sitting? How could she know it was him,” said Paul, losing control of his grammar in his agitation, “who left the poison? Maybe she … Oh, no!” Paul groaned. “Jeanie’s got sense. Jeanie’s a darned sensible kid. You all know that,” he appealed pitifully. “But I got to call home. If anything’s happened to Mama! Oh no, oh Lord … I’ve got to get to a phone. She was pretty, you say?”

  The painter said, “She was lovely.” His eyes were watching. “Not quite the same thing.”

  “Jeanie is lovely. That’s sure. I’m getting out of here.” Paul was beside himself. “Listen, Mama likes her supper early. Jeanie will be fixing Mama’s supper too soon now. It’s getting on to five o’clock. I got to call. If Mama were to get that poison, what would I do?”

  “Mama?” Mrs. Boatright raised her brows at the Gibsons.

  “His mother-in-law,” said Rosemary rather awesomely. “An old lady … a crippled old lady …”

  “She may be old but she’s lived long enough to know something,” raved Paul, as upset as anyone had ever seen him. “She’s raised my Jeanie—raised me, if you want to know the truth. She’s a wonderful old lady, God love her.… The whole house depends on her. I could never have gone on without her, when Frances died … Listen, I’m very sorry but I have to get going and it’s my … well, my car.”

  “Mr. Marsh,” said Rosemary, springing up, “could it possibly be his daughter?”

  “Could be,” said Theo Marsh. “No resemblance.”

  “Jeanie looks like her dead mother,” cried Paul. “Not a bit like me. Listen, I’ll take you all back into town, but you’ll have to come now.”

  “I’ll drive, said Lee Coffey with instant sympathy. “You’re kinda upset and I’m faster. I suppose this is possible?” he said to the rest of them.

  “Is there a phone at the junction?” cried Paul.

  “Yes, a phone,” said Virginia, her hand still in Lee’s hand.

  “Oh yes,” said Theo Marsh, “at the gas station. Up, Lavinia.” The model stood up in her weird garb. The rest of them were streaming to the door.

  “Wait for us,” said the painter.

  “Are you coming?” said the bus driver curiously.

  “Certainly, I’m coming. If you think I’m not going to be on hand to see how this works out! I’m not a man who misses much. Snap it up, Lavinia. We dump her at the junction. Her father runs the gas station.”

  Mr. Gibson had time to marvel at this, as they streaked for the car.

  Lee, Virginia, and Paul were in the front, as before. In the back, Mrs. Boatright’s broad beam occupied the center solidly. On her left, Theo Marsh held Lavinia on his lap, and on the right, Mr. Gibson held his wife, Rosemary. He felt tumbled and breathless, but fallen into a warm and lovely place, in the lee of Mrs. Boatright’s good and warm and solid flesh, with Rosemary’s physical being pressing upon his thighs and his arm holding her.

  The car flew down the hill. It stopped. Everybody swayed. Paul was out and at the telephone. Lavinia kicked the long blue skirt about with her bare feet and got out clumsily. Mr. Gibson heard her say, “Hi, Paw.”

  “I suggest you get some pants on,” a man’s voice said without passion, “and take over the pumps, Lavinia. Mother’s been announcing dinner the last five minutes and I’m famished.”

  Mr. Gibson heard Paul shouting that the line was busy. That something terrible could have happened.

  Theo Marsh bellowed back, “Look here, you at the telephone. Let Lavinia get on the telephone. She’s absolutely reliable. I guarantee that.” He was leaning over the side waving his long skinny arms.

  “No nerves, Lavinia,” said the unseen father complacently. “What’s up?”

  “Let her keep calling,” bawled the artist. “While weget there.”

  “I’ll tell them,” said Lavinia. “Don’t touch any olive oil and youse guys is on the way.”

  “No nerves, no diction,” said the sad voice of the gas station man, with a shudder, unseen by but nevertheless divined by Mr. Gibson.

  “Yes, do it.” Paul was hoarse. “I can’t stand here.” He beat the telephone number out three times. (Lavinia got it the first time.) Then Paul climbed back into the car.

  “All right, Lee,” said Virginia to the bus driver.

  “Off we go,” howled the painter in joy. “So long, Lavinia. Good girl,” he told them. “She understands one hell of a lot about art.”

  “She does?” said Rosemary breathlessly. The car lurched and Mr. Gibson hung on to her.

  Rosemary leaned to see around Mrs. Boatright. “Of course, as an artist, Mr. Marsh,” she said in suspiciously sweet tones, “you live way out here to retreat from reality.”

  “The hell I retreat from reality,” said the artist angrily. “Who told you that?” Mrs. Boatright contrived to shrink her bosom back against her backbone, somewhat, as they talked across her. “I see more reality in half a minute than any one of you can see in a day,” raved the artist. “I don’t even drive a car. I …”

  “Because of your eyesight?” piped up Mr. Gibson promptly.

  “Right,” said Theo grumpily. “Good for you, Gibson, if it was Gibson speaking.” The artist retreated into silence. Mr. Gibson felt as if he had just won a thrust.

  “Hey?” said the bus driver over his shoulder. “What’s this?”

  “He sees too much,” explained Mr. Gibson. “An ear, for instance. He’d be in the ditch.”

  “I bet he would.” Rosemary actually chuckled in her old Rosemaryish way. Mr. Gibson was exhilarated. He pressed his cheek secretly against her sleeve, not wishing to laugh. After all, he was still a criminal. But with mirth rumbling inside of him, just the same.

  “Pretty keen, this Gibson,” said the bus driver to the blonde. “Mighty lively corpse he makes, hey?”

  Paul said tensely, “Drive the car.”

  Virginia said soothingly, “He is. He will.”

  “Don’t worry, Paul,” said Rosemary, rather gaily. “Jeanie is a sensible girl.”

  “I know that.” Paul turned and swept them with a harassed look. He put both palms swiftly over his hair, not quite holding his head, but smoothing it on, as he turned to yearn ahead once more.

  “I’ve got the rest of you sorted out, but who is Paul?” asked the painter, reducing his volume. “He wasn’t on the bus.”

  “He’s a neighbor of theirs,” s
aid Mrs. Boatright. “This is his car. We ought to have called the police, you know.”

  The painter said under his breath to the back seat, “I doubt very much it was his daughter who took the green paper bag. She was distinguished. Whereas he …” The painter made an unspellable noise. It meant Big Deal!

  “Paul,” said Rosemary rather drowsily, “is as good as he is beautiful.”

  “And perishing dull,” said Marsh. “Am I right?”

  Rosemary’s arm came around Mr. Gibson’s neck, to hang on, of course, for they were speeding. “Well, he is conventional,” she said softly. “He’s nice, but … everybody can’t be interesting, like you.” She leaned from Mr. Gibson’s breast to peer at the painter.

  “Oh ho, I’m interesting all right,” said Theo Marsh.

  Mr. Gibson felt furiously jealous. This conceited ass was seventy if he was a day.

  “And deeply interested, too. Same thing, you realize. Say, what’s-your-name-Gibson … why did you plan to kill yourself in the first place?” asked Theo Marsh. “No money?”

  “Money!” shrieked Rosemary.

  “Why not?” said the artist. “Money is something I take care to have about me. Believe me. I’m a shrewd moneymaker. Am I not, Mary Anne?”

  “A leech and a bloodsucker.” said Mrs. Boatright calmly.

  “Well, money is a serious matter,” said Theo with a pout, as if nobody would talk seriously. “So naturally, I wondered. Is he broke?”

  “No,” said Rosemary shortly.

  “In some kind of way,” said Lee Coffey, with his keen ears stretched backward, “he was broke …”

  “I assume,” said Theo Marsh loftily, “that something bothers him. Want to know what, that’s all.”

  “He won’t say,” said Mrs. Boatright, “but perhaps he can’t …”

  “Yes, he can,” said Theo Marsh. “He’s articulate. And I’m listening. It interests me.”

  “Oh, it does?” said Mr. Gibson spitefully. He felt Rosemary’s body tensing.

  “Shall I guess?” said she, in a brave voice that was full of fear. “He married me ten weeks ago … to s-save me. He likes to help waifs and strays, you see. It’s his hobby. But when I got well … there he was, still stuck with me.”

  “What!” cried Mr. Gibson, outraged. He grabbed her with both arms as if she might fall with his agitation. “No. No!”

  “Well, then?” she trembled. “I don’t know why you wanted to do it, Kenneth. I only guess … it’s something Ethel put in your head.” She leaned forward, far away from him, and put her hands on the front seat and laid her face on her forearm. “I’m afraid—it’s something about me.” And Mr. Gibson’s heart ached terribly.

  “We don’t know,” said Lee mournfully, over his shoulder. “Nope, we still don’t know what it was that shook him.”

  Virginia said, “I should think you might tell us. We’ve been so close. Please tell us.” Her little face was a moon setting on the horizon of the back of the seat. Her hand came up and touched Rosemary’s hair compassionately. “It would be good for you to tell us.”

  Mrs. Boatright said with massive confidence. “He will, in a minute.”

  Paul said, “You can take a short cut up Appleby Place.”

  “I’m way ahead of you,” said Lee, “and Lavinia’s had them on the phone by now.”

  “Lavinia!” spat Paul. “That girl with no clothes!” He evidently couldn’t imagine being both naked and reliable.

  Marsh said airily in his high incisive voice, “I guess Gibson likes his secret reason; hugs it to his bosom. Won’t show it to us. Oh, no, we might spoil his fun.”

  “Don’t talk like that!” cried Rosemary, straightening up. “You sound like Ethel.”

  So everybody talked at once, telling the painter who Ethel was.

  “An amateur,” the painter groaned. He had one foot up against the seat ahead. His socks were yellow. “How I loathe and despise these amateurs! These leaping amateurs! Amateur critics.” He uttered a long keen. “Amateur psychologists are among the worst. Skim a lot of stuff out of an abbreviated article in a twenty-five-cent magazine … and then they know. So they treat their friends and neighbors out of their profundity. They put their big fat clumsy hands in where the daintiest probe can’t safely go, and they rip and they tear. Nothing so cruel as an amateur, doing good. I’d like to strangle the lot of them.”

  Mr. Gibson stirred. “No,” he said. “No, now I want you to be fair to Ethel. I’ll have to try to make you understand. It’s just that … perhaps Ethel made me see it … but it’s the doom.” There. He had told them.

  “Doom?” said Mrs. Boatright encouragingly.

  He would have to explain. “We aren’t free,” he said earnestly. “We are simply doomed. It … well, it just suddenly hit me very hard. To realize … I mean to believe and begin to apply—the fact that choice is only an illusion. That we are at the mercy of things in ourselves that we cannot even know. That we are not able to help ourselves or each other …”

  They were all silent, so he pressed on.

  “We are dupes, puppets. What each of us will do can be predicted. Just as the bomb … for instance … is bound to fall, human nature being what it …”

  “Baloney,” groaned the painter. “The old sad baloney! Predict me—Gibson. I dare you! You mean to say you got yourself believing that old-fashioned drivel?” he sputtered out.

  But Rosemary said, “Yes, I see. Yes, I know. Me, too.”

  Then everybody else in the car, except Paul, seemed to be talking at once.

  The bus driver’s voice emerged on top. “Lookit!” he shouted. “You cannot, from where you sit, predict! I told you. Accidents! There’s the whole big fat mixed-up universe …”

  “What if I can’t predict?” said Mr. Gibson, somewhat spiritedly defending his position. “An expert …”

  “No, no. We are all ignorant,” cried the nurse. “But it’s the experts who know that. They know we’re guessing. They know we’re guessing better and better, because they’re trying to check up on the guesses. You have to believe that, Mr. Gibson.”

  Mr. Gibson was suddenly touched. His heart quivered as if something had reached in and touched it.

  Mrs. Boatright cleared her throat. “Organized human effort,” she began.

  “This is not the PTA, Mary Anne,” the artist said severely. “This is one simple intelligent male. Give me a crack at him.” He had come so far forward to peer at Mr. Gibson that he seemed to be crouching, angular as a cricket, on air. “Listen, Gibson. Take a cave man.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Gibson, helplessly, with a kind of melting feeling. “I’m taking one.”

  “Did he foresee his descendants flying over the North Pole to get from here to Europe tomorrow?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So … how can you be as narrow-minded as a cave man?”

  “Narrow?”

  “Certainly. You extrapolate a future on what’s known now. You extend the old lines. What you don’t take into account are the surprises.”

  “Hey!” said the bus driver. “Hey! Hey!”

  “Every big jump is a surprise, a revelation,” lectured the artist, “and a tangent off the old. Penicillin. Atom splitting. Who guessed they were coming?”

  “Exactly,” cried Virginia. “Or the wheel? Or television? How do we know what’s coming next?” She was all excited. “Maybe some whole vast opening up in a direction we’ve hardly thought of …”

  “Good girl,” said Theo Marsh. “Have you ever done any modeling?”

  “Of the spirit, too,” boomed Mrs. Boatright. “Of the mind. Men have developed ideals undreamed in antiquity. You simply cannot deny it. Would your cave man understand the Red Cross?”

  “Or the S.P.C.A.,” said the bus driver, “him and his saber-toothed playmates. Doom—schmoom. Also, if you gotta, you very often do. Take a jump, I mean. I’m talking about the bomb …”

  “So the bomb might not fall,” said Rosemary. She lifted her cl
asped hands in a kind of ecstasy, “because men might find something even better than common sense by tomorrow morning. Who knows? Not Ethel! Ethel is too—”

  “Too rigid, I expect,” said the painter. “Death is too rigid. Rigor is mortis. Keep your eyes open. You’ll be surprised!” This was his credo. Mr. Gibson found himself stretching the physical muscles around his eyes.

  “It’s gonna fall if you sit on your fanny and expect it,” the bus driver said, “that’s for sure. But everybody isn’t just sitting around, telling themselves they are so smart they can see their fate coming. Lookit, we’ll know the latest news today, when we look backward from fifty years. Not before. The present views with alarm. It worries. It should. But these trends sneak up like a mist that you don’t notice.”

  “Righto!” shouted the artist. “You don’t even see what’s already around you in your own home town.”

  “People can, too, help each other,” said Rosemary. She was sitting on his lap yet turned in facing him. “And I’m the living proof. You helped me because you wanted to, Kenneth. There wasn’t any other reason.”

  “The ayes have it,” the painter said. (Perhaps he said “eyes.”) “You are overruled, Gibson. You haven’t got a leg to die on. You can’t logically kill yourself on that silly old premise.” He drew back upon the seat and crossed his legs complacently.

  The bus driver said dubiously, “However, logic …”

  The nurse suddenly put her forehead against his arm.

  Mrs. Boatright said firmly, “If you see that you were wrong, now you must admit it That is the only way to progress.”

  And then they waited.

  Mr. Gibson’s churning mind settled, sad and slow as a feather. “But in my error,” he said quietly, “I may have caused a death.”

  Paul said uncontrollably, “If anything happened to Mama or Jeanie, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “Don’t say ‘never,’” said Virginia, raising her head and speaking gently.

  “It ain’t scientific to say ‘never,’ hey?” said the bus driver, and leaned and kissed her ear.

  The car shot off the boulevard upon a short cut.

  Everyone was silent. The excitement was over. The poison was still lost. They hadn’t found it.