The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK

by Fletcher Flora

  A little while after dark, I was so tired and sleepy I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I told her I was going to bed and she’d have to go too.

  “Are you going to tie me in bed already?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Would you let me sit up by myself if I promise not to do anything you told me not to?”

  “No.”

  “You aren’t quite as dumb as I thought you were.”

  “I’m not dumb enough to think you wouldn’t lie to me if it suited you.”

  “I’m quite an accomplished liar. I have a particular talent for it.”

  “And that’s the truth,” I said.

  I tied her in bed the same way Banty and I had tied her before. She didn’t fight it, or try to talk me out of it anymore, but just lay there quietly looking up at me with that odd little smile on her face.

  “Enjoy yourself while you can,” I said.

  “You aren’t as dumb as I thought,” she said, “but you’re still pretty dumb.”

  “You may change your mind,” I said.

  “What makes you so sure Banty’s coming back?”

  “He’ll be back.”

  “Well,” she said, “half a million is twice as much as a quarter million, and I don’t see what’s to keep him from going north or east or west instead of south.”

  Then she closed her eyes, still smiling, and I don’t mind admitting that I couldn’t put what she’d said out of my mind, and I couldn’t sleep because of it, tired as I was and much as I needed to. I got up and began smoking cigarettes, but I had to quit after a while because I only had about half a pack left to last me until Banty came back, if he ever did, and I sat there in the dark for almost ten years trying to convince myself that he surely would. Finally I lay down on the sofa again and shut my eyes, but I kept seeing Banty heading any direction but south, and it was after midnight before I went to sleep and began dreaming about the same thing. It was a dirty trick of Felicia Gotlot’s to put me deliberately in such a frame of mind, and I hoped she was having as much trouble sleeping as I was, but she said the next morning she hadn’t.

  I got back at her a little by leaving her tied in bed until the middle of the morning, but then I let her up for coffee, and let her stay up afterward. Things were strained between us, though, and it wasn’t until afternoon, after we’d had something to eat out of cans, that she finally said any more to me than was strictly demanded by necessity. Then she said she was sick of staying inside all the time and would like to take a walk.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Oh, come on. We could just walk up the hill to the crest and back. What harm could it do?”

  “Well, none, I guess.”

  The truth was, I wanted to get out of the house myself, and I was glad to go. We walked on up the hill at an angle to the crest, and it was something to see how well she managed to walk among the rocks in her high heels and tight skirt, and she was, as I’ve said, pretty remarkable at more things than you’d think. There was a fallen tree near the crest, and we sat down to rest on the trunk of the tree. It was mighty nice up there, if you care for rocks and scrub timber, and I could see, glittering in the sunlight at the foot of the hill below the house, the good fishing stream that Cousin Theodore came here to fish in.

  “I’ve made up my mind to tell you something,” Felicia Gotlot said.

  “Don’t bother,” I said.

  “I’ve made up my mind to tell you the truth, and you’d better listen.”

  “I’ll bet it’s the truth!”

  “You know why I’ve made up my mind to tell you? Because you’re not a really bad fellow, only dumb. It’s that bad Banty who makes you do things that get you into trouble, but Banty won’t do it anymore, because Banty won’t be back.”

  “There you go again, and you may as well quit.”

  “I don’t mean because he’ll run away. I just said that to bother you and make you realize how dumb it is to trust someone like that Banty. I mean because the police will get him.”

  “Not Banty.”

  “Yes, they will, and I’ll tell you why. Do you want me to tell you?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “The police will get him because when he goes for the payoff, whenever and wherever it is, Arnold Gotlot will have enough men there to fight a small war.”

  “No, he won’t. Not after Banty tells him what will happen to his precious daughter if he tries any tricks.”

  “That’s what I’ve been getting around to telling you. Nothing is going to happen to Arnold Gotlot’s daughter, and Arnold Gotlot knows it, because his daughter is at home this minute with a broken leg, where she has been for nearly a week.”

  “What the hell you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Felicia Gotlot’s leg, which is broken. She fell off a horse.”

  “Oh, sure. And I suppose you’re Felicia Gotlot’s grandmother or someone like that. Is that it?”

  “No one like that at all. My name is Amanda Swanson, and I’m a maid in the Gotlot home. Felicia likes me and humors me, and when I go out at night she lets me wear her clothes and jewelry. When that Banty was so nasty last night, refusing to take me back to Kansas City and all, I lied about being Felicia because I thought it would impress him and make him take me. Then when he got the idea to kidnap me, it was too late to tell the truth, because he wouldn’t have believed me. Besides, I didn’t like him, and wanted to get him into trouble, which I have, and he deserves every bit of it.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re always telling lies, you said so yourself, and you’re lying now.”

  “I admit I’m a good liar, and I lie when it pleases me, but now it pleases me to tell the truth, and you’d better believe me. I know old Arnold Gotlot like the palm of my hand, and I know how he hates con men and blackmailers and crooks of all sorts. The minute Banty contacts him, he’ll start laying the trap to catch him. He won’t let on or say a word about Felicia’s being at home, because that would scare Banty off. What he’ll do, he’ll play along and agree to everything, setting the trap all the while, and then, probably tonight, it’ll be the end of Banty, and if you don’t get out of here right away, it’ll be the end of you too.”

  I’ll say that I was excited, and I almost lost my head. All I wanted to do, all at once, was to start running and keep on running, without ever looking back, until I couldn’t run any farther, and I wished I’d never seen or heard of Felicia Gotlot, or Amanda Swanson, whichever she was, or of Banty either. I was sort of crazy for a minute, that’s what I was, and I did actually jump up and take a couple of steps downhill, almost on my way, when I suddenly stopped and thought better of it.

  “Hold on,” I said. “How do I know you weren’t telling the truth before, and telling lies now?”

  “So far as that goes,” she said, “you don’t.”

  “You’re Felicia Gotlot, all right. You’re just trying to get me to run away so you can walk somewhere and call Kansas City and get Bandy caught.”

  “Your concern for Banty is touching. Too bad he wouldn’t feel the same about you. However, you could prevent my going anywhere by tying me in bed again. It wouldn’t matter much to me. The police will be here sometime tonight in my opinion.”

  “Banty will be here, that’s who. He’ll be here with half a million dollars, and I’ll be right here to get my share of it. Nothing doing, sister. You’d just as well quit lying, because it won’t do you any good.”

  “I was wrong,” she said. “You’re just as dumb as I thought you were at first. You’re simply too dumb to take proper care of yourself.”

  “You’d better quit calling me names too. I’m getting tired of it. Come on. Let’s get back down to the house.”

  She walked down ahead of me, without saying ano
ther word. In the house, she went directly to the bedroom and stayed in there all the rest of the afternoon, until it was time to open some more cans, and afterward she went back and stayed in there alone all evening until I decided it was time to tie her in bed again in case I fell asleep, although I was getting more and more nervous as it got later and later, and didn’t feel like sleeping in spite of being as tired as I can remember ever being.

  “So you’re really going to wait for Banty,” she said.

  “That’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Pleasant waiting,” she said. “Wake me up when the police come.”

  “That will be a couple days after Banty and I are gone,” I said. “I hope you don’t get too lonesome in the meanwhile.”

  “It will be an interesting speculation for you,” she said. “Maybe it will help to pass the night faster. It ought to be quite exciting as time grows shorter and shorter. Will it be Banty or the police? The police or Banty? A simple thing like that can get into your head and drive you crazy if you don’t get it out soon enough.”

  You can see that she’d done it again. Just like she’d done it last night about Banty running off with the money. She’d put it in my head, and I couldn’t get it out. It stayed right there and kept repeating itself over and over again, first one way and then the other, Banty or the police, the police or Banty, and to make matters worse I ran out of cigarettes. I gathered up all the butts I’d left in saucers around the place, and I smoked these, a few drags off each one, but pretty soon they were all gone too, and it was only about ten o’clock with a long, long time still to wait.

  I didn’t know exactly how long, of course, and I began trying to guess, and I guessed four hours. There wasn’t any reason for guessing four instead of three or five, but it somehow made me feel better and surer to have a certain time to look forward to. I guessed that Banty would make the contact for the payoff at eleven sharp, which would leave him three hours to get back down here if he hurried, which he sure as hell would, and after eleven I began to try to follow him along the highway in the jalopy, placing him at certain places at certain times. As it turned out I wasn’t far wrong, for he was only about fifty miles away in my head when someone suddenly kicked the front door open, and five cops jumped into the room with their guns out, and every cop was nine feet tall.

  Well, that’s the way it ended, and it’s over, and I’m almost glad. As you can see, Banty was bright but had no luck, and I had no luck and was stupid besides.

  Not that Felicia Gotlot, though. She was bright and lucky both, besides being the best liar I ever met. It was simply impossible to know when to believe her, because she told the truth like a lie and a lie like the truth. I don’t hold anything against her, though. I liked her, and still do, and I remember that she tried her best to get me out of it before it was too late, which it now is. The prettiest and altogether the most remarkable woman I’ve ever known was Felicia Gotlot—Amanda Swanson, I mean.

  COUSIN KELLY

  Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1967.

  She had an intimate little liturgy which she repeated every morning when she wakened, as if it were somehow essential, by the repetition, to orient herself anew to an ancient and confusing world in which, otherwise, she might easily become lost: I am Teresa Standish. I am eight years old, and I live at the Eastland Arms in Apartment 515. Today I am going to…

  From there on the liturgy varied, of course, according to what she had planned yesterday to do today. She did not include the tedious details of what had been planned for her, or what, in the nature of things as they were, she would do simply because it had been ordained that she must. She included only the item or items on the day’s agenda which offered the promise of being exceptional and exciting and of saving the day from the burden of expectations that did not. Sometimes the promise was fulfilled and sometimes it wasn’t, for life is loaded with disappointments, but on Saturdays and Sundays it was always fulfilled, and Saturdays and Sundays were, therefore, the very best days of the week.

  When she awakened in the morning of those days, the liturgy was invariably completed: Today I am going to see Cousin Kelly.

  This particular day to which she wakened was Saturday, and between it and the preceding Sunday there had been six long days of broken promises, of hope and expectations unfulfilled. After repeating the liturgy, which was like an incantation to the shining sun that spilled its golden light through her window and across her bed, she lay quietly for a while in the warm and secure assurance of what the day surely held, and then she got up and began to dress.

  Because it was the beginning of a bright and golden day, she put on a pale yellow jumper with a crisp white blouse. She would meet Cousin Kelly, she decided, in the park across the boulevard from the apartment building. Last Sunday had been a gray and sunless day, expiring interminably to the tearful sound of persistent rain, and Cousin Kelly had come to the apartment, right up to her room where she now was, and they had listened to some music on her phonograph and had talked about what had happened during the week and had played a long and delightful game of Monopoly, which she had won. It had been a good day, that part of it in the afternoon when Cousin Kelly was here, but it had not been as good by half as this one would be on the bright green grass of the park under the warm sun. They would sit on a bench and walk along the path under the trees and laugh with delight at their distorted reflections in the pool of clear water around the fountain. Cousin Kelly was actually old, over twenty, but he didn’t look or act old, and he was more fun to be with than anyone else in all the world.

  It was odd that Mother didn’t like him. After all, he was really Mother’s cousin, the son of her father’s sister. Of course, lots of people didn’t necessarily like their cousins, because there was no law saying you had to or anything, but Teresa couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t like Cousin Kelly, cousin or not. But Mother didn’t. Neither did Father. Teresa could tell from the way their eyes went blank whenever she, Teresa, happened to mention seeing Cousin Kelly, and from the way, immediately after the mentioning, they deliberately tried to change the subject. Cousin Kelly knew, too. He knew, but he never talked about it. Maybe something had happened once in the family. Maybe something dreadful had happened to change everything from the way everything had been, and to make enemies of people who should have been friends.

  Teresa didn’t care. At first she had, but not any longer. Whatever the trouble, she liked Cousin Kelly better than anyone else. She loved Cousin Kelly. She wished and wished that he could come to live with them in the apartment. She loved him far more, to tell the truth, than she loved Mother and Father. In fact, she didn’t love Mother and Father at all, although she didn’t, on the contrary, hate them, either. She was merely indifferent to them. In the beginning it had made her feel guilty and unhappy, the secret knowledge of her indifference, but now it was just something that she lived with every day and hardly ever thought about.

  Dressed in her pale yellow jumper and white blouse, she went out of the room and onto a gallery that ran along the wall above the deep pit of the living room. She descended the stairs at one end of the gallery and turned back from there through a dining room to the kitchen, where Hannah was. Hannah came in every day from nine to six to cook and clean. Sometimes, when Mother and Father entertained, she stayed later. She was fat and jolly and ages old, and Teresa liked her.

  “Good-morning, missy,” Hannah said. “You’re mighty prettied up this morning, I must say.”

  “This afternoon,” said Teresa, “I’m going to the park to meet a friend.”

  “That’s nice. Meanwhile, what would you like for breakfast?”

  “A poached egg, please, with two strips of bacon. And one slice of toast.”

  “Simple enough. You just sit down there and keep Hannah company while she’s fixing it.”

  Teresa sat at t
he kitchen table and watched while Hannah broke the egg in the funny little poaching pan and put two strips of bacon on the grill. The bacon began to sizzle, and the water began to boil in the little pan under the cup the egg was in. Teresa liked to sit in the kitchen and watch Hannah cook her breakfast. Hannah always said it kept her company, and it was true, although they talked very little while Hannah worked, or not at all. That was one of the nice things about Hannah. You could sit with her and say nothing and still feel comfortably that you were keeping company. It was different with Mother. When you sat with Mother and said nothing for a long time, you always felt uneasily that something should be said, and after a while you tried to say it, and it always came out wrong and awkward, and then you wished you hadn’t tried.

  Teresa ate her egg and bacon and toast at the kitchen table, and then, leaving Hannah to her work, went back into the living room and wondered how she could spend the time, which was almost forever, until it was afternoon. She thought about going down in the elevator and outside to talk to the doorman and stroll up and down the sidewalk, but she didn’t want to do that because there was the day out there, warm and golden and waiting, and she wanted to enter it for the first time, fresh and exciting with nothing worn off, when she went out to meet Cousin Kelly. So, saving the day for a special hour, she looked at magazines in the living room until it was after eleven and she could go up to see Mother, who was now probably awake.

  Sure enough, she was. Mother was sitting up in bed, braced against the headboard, and in one hand was a saucer, and in the other, momentarily stopped halfway between the saucer and her mouth, was a cup of coffee, which had been served by Hannah and from which Mother had just taken a sip. A second bed near Mother’s was rumpled and empty. This bed was Father’s, of course, and it was apparent that Father had risen early and gone away somewhere, probably downtown to his office. Father did not usually go to his office on Saturdays, but once in a while he went when he had an appointment that promised to be profitable, and you could always tell by Father’s humor when he got home if things had gone well or not. If things had gone well, he was expansive and tolerant. If things had gone ill, he was cross and critical and could hardly wait for five o’clock, when he allowed himself his first cocktail of the day.