The Listening Walls

by Margaret Millar

  When Rupert paused for breath, Dodd could hear the two women in the adjoining room talking, Amy softly, nervously, Miss Burton with brisk assurance, as if by put­ting on Wilma’s clothes and make-up she had assumed some of Wilma’s mannerisms. The stage was set but the leading character had yet to appear. The silver box should do it, he thought. She’s got to come back up to check Emilio’s story about the two Americans.

  “I had no choice,” Rupert continued, “but to yield to Consuela’s demands and to stall for time. I talked it over with Amy and she agreed to do what I suggested, stay out of sight for a while. We got off the plane at L.A. and I checked her into a rest home under a different name, without even her own clothes to identify her.”

  “That’s why you let the luggage go through to San Francisco?”

  “The luggage and Consuela,” he added grimly. “She was sitting across the aisle from us. I was able to get offi­cial papers for her by pretending I was hiring her as a nurse-companion for my wife.”

  “Didn’t Mrs. Kellogg object to the idea of entering a rest home?”

  “No, she was quite docile about it. She trusted me and knew I was trying to help her. I felt reasonably certain that in a rest home, no matter what story she told, no one would believe her. As it turned out, she kept her se­cret to herself. And she obeyed my orders, gave me her power of attorney before we left Mexico City, wrote the letters I dictated in order to forestall any suspicions on the part of her brother Gill. I arranged with a business associate to have one of the letters postmarked New York but Gill wasn’t taken in. I didn’t realize how strong his suspicions would be or the extent of his dislike for me.

  “As soon as I did realize, thanks to Helene, I began to get rattled and make mistakes. Big mistakes, like leaving Mack’s leash in the kitchen and giving Gerda Lundquist a chance to catch me in that fake telephone call. It seemed that with each mistake I made, the next one be­came easier. I could no longer think clearly, I was so worried about my wife. I had relied heavily on the the­ory that the passage of time would bring Amy to her senses. I was too optimistic. Time alone couldn’t do the trick; something more positive was needed. But I could do nothing positive, not even go down to Los Angeles to see her, to reason with her. I was trapped in San Fran­cisco, with you and Gill Brandon on my tail. It was, iron­ically, Consuela herself who forced me to do something positive.”

  They’d met, by prearrangement, in the back row of loges of a movie theater on Market Street. Rupert ar­rived first and waited for her. When she finally arrived, she had doused herself so extravagantly with perfume that before he saw or heard her approach he could smell her as she walked up the carpeted steps.

  It was not the time or place for amenities, even if she’d known or cared about them. She said bluntly, “I need more money.”

  “I haven’t any.”

  “Get some.”

  “How much were you thinking of?”

  “Oh, a lot. There are two of us now.”

  “Two?”

  “Joe and I, we got married yesterday. I have always wanted to get married.”

  “For God’s sake,” Rupert said. “Why did you have to drag O’Donnell into this?”

  “I dragged no one. I simply wrote him a letter because I was lonesome. You do not understand how it is, be­ing without friends, seeing only people who hate you and wish you dead. So I wrote Joe a letter, telling him how well I was doing, and about my pretty clothes and jewelry and my new hair, more blond than his even. I think it made him jealous. Anyway he borrowed some money and came up here by bus. Seeing him again, I thought, well, now that he’s here we might as well get married and regain the blessing of the Church. So now there are two of us.”

  “To be supported by me.”

  “Not you. Your wife. You have done nothing to be ashamed of. Why should you pay? It is Mrs. Kellogg who must pay.”

  “This is blackmail.”

  “I do not concern myself with words, only money.”

  “You’ve told O’Donnell everything, I suppose?”

  “We are man and wife,” she said virtuously. “A wife must confide in her husband completely.”

  “You’re a damned fool.”

  He felt her stiffen in the seat beside him. “Not such a fool as you might think.”

  “Do you realize the penalty for blackmail?”

  “I realize that you cannot go to the police and complain against me. If you do, they will have to question Mrs. Kellogg and she will admit her guilt.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he said quickly. “My wife no longer believes your story about Mrs. Wyatt’s death. She remembers the truth.”

  “What a bad liar you are. I can always tell a bad liar, I being such a good one.”

  “Yes, I know that well.”

  “Only I do not lie about vital matters, like Mrs. Wyatt’s death.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Must I keep telling you? I was in the broom closet, sleeping, and I woke up when I heard someone screaming in 404. I rushed in. The two women were struggling over the silver box—they’d been arguing about it when I was in the room before. As I approached, Mrs. Kellogg got hold of the box and struck Mrs. Wyatt on the head. The balcony doors were open. Under the force of the blow, Mrs. Wyatt stumbled backwards out on to the balcony and fell over the railing. My mind is very quick. I thought immediately, what a terrible thing if the police accuse Mrs. Kellogg of murder. So I picked up the box and threw it over the railing. Mrs. Kellogg had fainted from shock. I poured some whiskey down her throat from the bottle on the bureau, and when she came to a little, I said to her, ‘Don’t worry. I am your friend. I will help you.’”

  Friend. Help. Rupert stared in silence at the over­sized movie screen where a man was stalking a woman, intent on killing her. He had a brief, childish wish that he were the man and Consuela the woman. If Consuela died, naturally, or by accident, or by design. . .

  No, he thought. It would solve nothing. I must try to save Amy, not to punish Consuela. With Consuela dead I would have no chance of proving to Amy that she is suffering from a delusion. I must keep the devil alive because without her I cannot kill the delusion.

  “The sea and the fog,” Consuela was saying. “They do not agree with my health. I want to go back home where it is high and dry. But of course I will require money.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifteen thousand dollars.”

  “You must be crazy.”

  “Oh, I know it sounds like a great deal, but once you have paid, you will be rid of me. Is it not worth that much to be rid of me.” She added softly, “Joe is not stu­pid. He has investigated. He has found out about the piece of paper you have that lets you cash checks on your wife’s account.”

  “A check that large is bound to attract attention”

  “You have already attracted much attention. A little more won’t matter. You will get the money?”

  “I guess I have to.”

  “Very well. Tomorrow, at noon, I’ll come to the res­taurant where you eat lunch, Lassiter’s. I’ll sit down be­side you, as if by accident, and when you give me the money, that will be the end of the whole thing.”

  “Why meet at such a public place as a restaurant?”

  “Simply because it is a public place. With so many peo­ple around, you won’t change your mind and try to do something foolish. I am not afraid of you, but then I can’t trust you either; you love that little wife of yours too desperately. How does it happen, such a love as this?”

  “That’s something,” he said grimly, “you’ll never find out.”

  They missed contact at Lassiter’s because of Helene’s surprise appearance. Rupert went home, and later in the afternoon . . .

  “. . .About 3:30,” Rupert continued, to Dodd, “they drove up to the house in a se
cond-hand car O’Donnell had bought with some o£ the money I’d already paid Consuela. They came around to the back door and I let them into the kitchen. They’d obviously been quarrel­ing. Consuela was in a temper and O’Donnell seemed very nervous and frightened. I think he’d begun to real­ize that he had a tiger by the tail and the only thing he could do was to let go, run like hell, and hope for the best. O’Donnell’s mistake was in announcing his inten­tion of letting go. It gave the tiger a chance to prepare to spring.

  “As soon as I handed the money over to Consuela, O’Donnell told her he wanted out, that he didn’t intend to go with her back to Mexico City or any other place. I got the impression that they often had violent quarrels and that this one was no different. I went into the den. I could hear her screaming about marriage vows and the blessing of the Church. Then he said something to her in Spanish, and everything suddenly became very quiet. When I went back into the kitchen O’Donnell was lying in front of the refrigerator, dead, and Consuela was stand­ing with the knife in her hand, looking surprised.

  “The whole thing was so quick, so incredible, that it seemed to be taking place in a dream. I was too stunned to think clearly or to make plans. I could only act, auto­matically, by instinct. I tried to clean up the mess with bath towels, but it was no use, there was too much of it. Consuela kept crying and moaning, partly in regret over what she’d done, but more, I think, in dismay over what was going to happen to her now. It was at this point that I realized I had accepted too passive a role in the whole business. If I was to help Amy, I had to do something more positive. I couldn’t just sit back and wait for time to restore her to her senses. And so it was, as I said, Con­suela herself who forced me to action by her killing of O’Donnell.

  “Armchair critics, and people who’ve never been in my position, may censure me for not immediately calling the police. But you know, Dodd, that I couldn’t afford to; that if I had, my wife might very well be in jail right now. Consuela would have told the authorities her story of Wilma’s death, and Amy, ten chances to one, would have confirmed it. So in order to protect my wife, I had also to protect Consuela. For a time, anyway.

  “We started out, using O’Donnell’s car for obvious reasons. When I stopped at the kennel to get Mack, I had some wild notion of ditching Consuela, picking up Amy at the rest home, and just taking off with her and Mack and disappearing. But I knew this wouldn’t work out, that in some way I must get Amy and Consuela to confront each other. I figured that Amy was a little more sure of herself by this time, and Consuela a great deal less. From such a meeting I hoped the truth would emerge. That’s why I called you from the Big Sur, and asked your help in arranging it. I’m aware that I’ve put you in a very difficult position, but believe me, it’s for a good cause. My wife’s whole future is at stake.”

  So is mine, Dodd thought, and started making a mental list of the number of laws he’d broken in the interests of Amy’s future. He stopped at seven; the project was too depressing.

  In the adjoining room the telephone began to ring and Dodd went to answer it. The two women watched in silence as he picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  “I sent Pedro up with the silver box,” Escamillo said. “Did you receive it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Emilio is now in my office. He tells me she is on her way upstairs.”

  “Thanks.” Dodd replaced the phone and turned to Amy, who was sitting on the edge of the bed looking pale and bewildered, as if she’d somehow wandered into the whole affair by mistake. “Are you ready, Mrs. Kellogg?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “All right. I guess all right.” Her hands plucked list­lessly at one of the chenille roses of the bedspread. “I wish Rupert were here.”

  “He’s right in the next room.”

  “I wish he were here.”

  Exasperation showed in his face and posture. “Mrs. Kellogg, I needn’t remind you that a lot of people have gone through a great deal for your sake, especially your husband.”

  “I know. I know that.”

  “You’ve got to cooperate.”

  “I will.”

  “Of course she will,” Miss Burton said in a hearty voice, but her bracelets clanged nervously and one of her golden eyelids twitched in dissent.

  When Dodd had left, Amy sat on the bed repeating his words to herself: A lot of people have gone through a great deal for my sake. Especially Rupert. I’ve got to cooperate. Because a lot of people have gone through a great deal for my sake I’ve got to cooperate—got to. . .

  As soon as Consuela opened the door of her broom closet she could hear the voices again. They were indis­tinct, until she pressed her ear to the listening wall, and then she heard, quite clearly, the sound of her own name, Consuela. And again, Consuela, as if they were calling her, summoning her.

  No, she thought, no, that is impossible. Escamillo said the suite was empty, and I went to the door myself, and knocked, and no one answered. The voices are heard by me alone. Perhaps I have a fever. That must be it, of course. In a fever the mind often plays tricks; one imag­ines, one sees and hears things that are not so.

  She raised one hand and touched her forehead. It felt moist and cool, like a newly peeled peach. No trace of a fever. Still, it must be there, she thought. So far it is all on the inside and hasn’t yet come to the surface. I must go home and take precautions against the evil eye that someone has cast upon me.

  But when she stepped out into the corridor she saw that the door of 404 was partly open. She knew it could not have been blown open by the wind—half an hour ago it had been so securely fastened that her passkey wouldn’t budge in the lock.

  She crept along the wall to the half-open door and peered inside. There were two women in the room. One of them, the small brown-haired one sitting on the bed, was alive. The other, standing in front of the open bal­cony door, had died almost a month ago. Consuela had seen her die from this very doorway, had heard her final scream. Now she had stepped from her coffin, groomed and jeweled as if she’d been to a party, wearing the same red silk suit and the same fur coat, untouched by any worms or mildew or decay. A month of death hadn’t changed her at all; even her expression, when she saw Consuela, was the same, annoyed and impatient.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Again. Every time I take a breath around this place someone comes creeping in to change the towels or turn down the beds. I feel as if I’m being spied on.”

  “They just try to give us good service,” her companion said.

  “Good service? The towels all stink.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “You smoke too much. Your sense of smell isn’t as sharp as mine. They stink.”

  “I don’t think you should talk like this in front of the girl.”

  “You can tell from her face she doesn’t understand a word I’m saying.”

  “But the travel agency said everyone on the hotel staff spoke English.”

  “All right, why don’t you try her out?”

  “I will,” Amy said. “What’s your name, girl? Do you speak English? Tell us your name.”

  Consuela stood, mute as a stone, her right hand clutch­ing the little gold cross she wore around her neck, her eyes fixed on the hammered silver box lying on the coffee table. It has all happened before, she thought, and it will all happen again. It is not that the American lady died and has come back from her grave. It is that we are all dead, all three of us, dead and in hell. This is what hell is, everything goes on repeating and repeating, forever and ever, and nobody can change it. The whole thing has happened before, and it will happen again. Pretty soon they will start to quarrel about the silver box, they will struggle over it. And I will stand here and watch her die, and listen to her last scream. . . .

  “No! No! Please! No!” She fell forward on her
knees, pressing the little gold cross against her dry lips, mum­bling in Spanish the words of her childhood: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

  She went on praying, only partly aware of other people rushing into the room, of men’s voices shouting at her, asking her questions, calling her names.

  “Liar.”

  “You must tell us the truth.”

  “What happened to Mrs. Wyatt?”

  “You killed her yourself, didn’t you?”

  “You came into this room and found Mrs. Kellogg un­conscious, and Mrs. Wyatt too drunk to defend herself. And you saw your big chance.”

  “You must tell us the truth.”

  She began again, for the fifth time, “Hail Mary, full of Grace. Blessed art thou amongst women. . . .” But the words were automatic and had no connection with her thoughts: I am in hell. This is another corner of it, when you tell the truth and no one believes you because you have lied in the past. So you must lie to be believed.

  “Consuela, do you hear me? You must give us the truth.”

  She raised her head. She looked stunned, as if someone had struck a blow in a vital place, but her voice was quite clear. “I hear you.”

  “What happened when you came into this room?”

  “She was standing on the balcony with the silver box in her hands. She leaned over the railing and disap­peared. I heard her scream.”

  “And Mrs. Kellogg had nothing to do with it?”

  “Nothing.” She kissed the little cross. “Nothing.”

  20.

  “Amy, dear.” It was almost midnight. The others had gone, and Rupert was alone with his wife. “You mustn’t cry any more. It’s all over. Tomorrow we’ll go home, we’ll both try to forget this past month.”