Lisa Belknap - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 6, No. 12, December 1961

“Shut up!”

There was a short silence. “Don’t you tell me to shut up in my own house, mister. Don’t you tell me. When rooms are hard to get, people ought to be grateful they have a room! They ought to!”

The hell of it was I think he thought he ought to be grateful too. He said nothing while Mrs. Coombs went on about people not appreciating things. She didn’t refer to the wife’s two-timing him again, but I knew she had noticed his reaction. When she had finished, he asked quietly:

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Do what you like, mister. Do what you like.”

After she had gone down, I could see West sitting with his face in his hands. Then he got up heavily, went to the closet and dragged out his old suitcase. He didn’t have much to pack, but it took him a long while as he seemed uncertain how to go about it. Sometimes he would stand stock still. Then he would wipe his balding head, blink behind his glasses and resume.

I was glad my light was out when Mrs. Coombs suddenly materialized in the dark hallway. She was carrying the cup of peace, and she stopped coyly at West’s door.

“Are you leaving?” she asked in her heartiest voice,

“Yes.”

She set the cup down. “Well, I think you ought to stay, I really do. You’re a fine person, just as fine as you can be. And I think we’ll get along, don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t know...” said West doubtfully.

“Of course we will. Of course we will. And if you want to smoke, you’re perfectly welcome. I believe in making people feel welcome, don’t you? Now, you go ahead and light your pipe and drink this hot cocoa. You need somebody to look after you.”

West sighed and sat down on the bed. “If you think it will be all right...”

“Of course it’s all right. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. You’re just a fine person. Not like that couple that was here before. Why, she would have run me right out of my own house. She got so she locked their door all the time. And that bird of theirs almost drove me crazy.”

“Oh, they had a bird?” asked West, absently sipping cocoa.

“Yes.” Mrs. Coombs turned abruptly to go. “You unpack your case and enjoy your cocoa.”

“What kind was it?”

“A canary. Do you want your room cleaned?”

“No, thanks. What happened to it?”

“Who said anything happened to it?”

“Why — nobody. I just wondered. Did something happen to it?”

“It died,” said Mrs. Coombs, coming out into the hall. She stared at my door, and I almost felt as if those pale eyes could see me in the darkness. My skin crawled a little, West finished his cup and then began slowly to unpack his meager belongings from the case. What he didn’t know was that the former lodgers had taken to locking their door after their bird died.

So West stayed on while the summer cooled into fall and rainy days made the old house seem even grayer than it was. Even now, when I think of it, a chill hits me. I can still see Mrs. Coombs stalking her prey, smiling a smile with no heart in it and saying innocent things that stabbed into West like daggers. Those pale eyes stayed on him. When that head turned to follow him it reminded me of the way a reptile’s head turns. Sometimes she stopped his cocoa, then reinstated it. But he never made any more effort to move. He wasn’t the kind of guy who could make changes easily anyway, and as time went on he seemed bound more and more to the old house. I think he was trying to prove something — either to her or to himself. And me — every time I made up my mind to leave, the thought of that poor slob somehow pulled me back. I stayed to see it through.

One night during a friendly interval she was telling him how bad her previous lodgers were. West glowed under her favor. The two of them always got along well when she was running down departed tenants. Then she fell silent for a bit, swiping away with her rag at dust that wasn’t there.

“She was a lot younger than he was though.”

West’s cocoa cup jiggled.

“She was stepping out on him — with younger men. But he was a blind fool. He just mooned over her.”

This was a lie, of course, but it didn’t matter. West probably knew it was a lie too. Mrs. Coombs dusted faster. “I wouldn’t give a nickel for these young sluts nowadays. They’re no good!”

West sat down, breathing unsteadily. Mrs. Coombs was working herself up into a rage without any help from him. She slashed harder at the elusive dust.

“I just wonder if that one cared!” she burst out, pointing at the photograph.

“She did!” cried West.

“Oh did she?” Mrs. Coombs was desperate now. “Well, she doesn’t look like it to me! And I can’t have people taking over my house! I just can’t put up with it!”

After she had gone I heard West go to his closet. Then a gurgling noise sounded. He was drinking all right. Though we never said more to each other than hello, I almost walked in right then to tell him to pack and leave. But I knew he wouldn’t. He had shackled himself to the place in his own mind.

It was just about two weeks later on a rainy October evening that I happened to get home early. Going down the hall, I saw Mrs. Coombs in West’s room. I could tell she hadn’t heard me. She was looking at the photograph, and her back was to me, but I could see her face reflected in the mirror above the table. Right then the mirror looked like a picture itself, poised over the photograph of the blonde girl, but the face framed in it looked like a demon’s.

Her eyes were shining in unholy triumph and her lips were moving silently. She was executing what looked like a crazy dance of glee before the picture. She would mince up to it, then back away. Then she would reach out and give it a vengeful poke so that it teetered on its edge. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth.

At last she seized the frame and with a muffled cry smashed it down on the rug. Then she tramped on it over and over again, finishing by grinding her heels in the fragments of glass. There couldn’t have been much left.

I dodged into my room as the front door opened downstairs. By the time West reached his door Mrs. Coombs was dusting happily away. She gave him a cheery “Why, hello there,” as though he had caught her completely by surprise.

West stared at the picture on the floor and I could see him tremble.

“Oh, I broke your picture today,” she said brightly. “I was dusting and I accidentally knocked it off.”

West knelt down and ran his fingers over the mangled picture, indifferent to the cuts of the glass. “It looks like it’s been stepped on.” His voice was very low.

“Nonsense! I’ll get you a new picture. I knocked it off dusting. Like this — see?” And she swiped a pencil off the table with her dust cloth.

“No you didn’t,” he said.

“Now, don’t you fret about it. I’ll get you a nice new picture for your room. There’s some cocoa on the table. It’s nice and hot.” Evidently she had been counting on his seeing the light and coming to terms with her, on her terms.

“I think you smashed this purposely, Mrs. Coombs.”

She whirled around. “Are you calling me a liar, mister?”

“It couldn’t — it couldn’t have been accidental,” he muttered.

“It was an accident. And I won’t be called a liar in my own house. Who are you to be getting so high and mighty here? This is my house, mister!”

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” cried West with unusual violence. “What do you want anyway? I don’t want anything from you! Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

Mrs. Coombs made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “What do I want from you? What makes you think I want anything from you? Who would want anything from you?” She stopped because her voice went out of control, but she advanced on West, fairly spitting at him. He didn’t realized that he had said the worst thing to her that he possibly could. “Sure I smashed her picture and I’d smash her too if I had her here, the lousy little witch! Do you see that?” She waved a letter at him. “Do you know what that is?”