Роберт Артур - Alfred Hitchcock’s A Hangman’s Dozen

“No, George,” Harvey said quietly. “I’d know it was my fault to begin with. Why should I try to punish someone else for something I’d caused myself?”

“Lord,” George whispered. “I can’t hardly believe what I hear. I’ll just be goddamned.”

Harvey smiled. “Got to be getting home, George,” he said and shut the door.

Doris and Cal Lambert were dancing to the record player when Harvey came in with the whiskey and mixer. Both of them had obviously been at the last of the liquor Harvey had left in the kitchen, and they were dancing close together in a way that required them to move their feet scarcely at all.

Doris stopped dancing, took the bottles from Harvey’s arms, and lurched into the kitchen without a word. Her black hair was a little disheveled, Harvey noticed, and there were a number of long, horizontal wrinkles in her skirt. Cal Lambert had a self-satisfied look on his face, and the collar of his white shirt was wilted, as if he had been sweating profusely.

“Harve!” he said. “We thought you’d forgotten your way back home, boy!”

“I got tied up for a few minutes,” Harvey said, smiling.

Lambert grinned, glanced warily toward the kitchen door, and winked knowingly. “You didn’t just happen to run into something distracting, did you, Harve? Something about five-two and oh boy, maybe?”

Lambert was very drunk, Harvey saw; the heavy, rapid drinking had finally caught up with him. He wasn’t quite so drunk as Doris, of course, but it wouldn’t be long.

“I thought maybe you came across a little fluffy something on a bar stool. You know, Harve?”

Harvey laughed. “Nothing like that, Mr. Lambert.”

“Cal.”

“Yes, Cal. No, it wasn’t anything like that.”

Lambert shook his head sadly. “Too bad, Harve, old man. Maybe better luck next time.”

Doris returned with drinks for herself and Lambert and a glass of ginger ale for Harvey. “You have to be at work soon, Harvey,” she said thickly. “I didn’t think you’d want anything more to drink.”

“No,” Harvey said. “I don’t think I’d better.”

“Drink all you want,” Lambert said. “Hell, I’m the boss of that place. If you want to drink, Harve, by God, you drink!”

Harvey smiled. “The ginger ale’ll be fine, Cal. Just fine.”

Doris raised her glass and, watching Harvey unblinkingly over the rim, drank steadily until the glass was empty. “There,” she said. “I guess you saw that, didn’t you, Harvey? That’s the way it’s supposed to be done.” She turned to smile at Lambert. “Show him, Cal.”

Lambert hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and emptied his glass. There were tears in his eyes when he finished, and he laughed as he wiped them away with the back of his hand. “Boy,” he said. “I haven’t done anything like that since I was in high school.”

“I could never do it, even then,” Harvey said.

“Oh, be quiet, Harvey,” Doris said. “You’d better think about getting to work.”

Harvey glanced at his wrist watch. It was much later than he’d thought, almost a quarter past eleven. “I guess you’re right,” he said.

Doris smiled at Lambert and took the empty glasses back into the kitchen.

“A shame you have to leave, Harve,” Lambert said.

Harvey smiled and shrugged.

Lambert went on about what a shame it was until Doris came back with fresh drinks. She staggered over to the sofa, sat down heavily, and crossed her legs — apparently oblivious of the skirt that settled a good four inches above the taut round garters that encircled her white thighs.

“Come sit over here, Cal,” she said.

Lambert stared at her for a moment, then moistened his lips and looked along his eyes at Harvey. “I think I’d better be going, Harve,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harvey said. “No use breaking up the party just because I have to go to work.”

Lambert smiled uncertainly, trying hard to keep his gaze away from Doris. “Well... if you’re sure, Harve. I mean, I wouldn’t want to—”

Harvey laughed. “Don’t give it another thought, Cal. I know my wife — and I know you. Why it’d be one hell of a world if a man couldn’t even trust his own wife and his own boss together.”

Grinning, Lambert slapped Harvey on the shoulder. “By gosh, that’s right, Harve. It’d sure be some world, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Harvey said, smiling. “It sure would.” He looked at his watch again. “Damn, it’s almost eleven-thirty. I’d better be getting along.” He moved toward the front door. Doris glanced up at him sullenly, then shrugged one shoulder and took a long pull at her drink.

Harvey opened the door and stood for a moment with his hand on the knob. “Well, good night,” he said. “Sorry I can’t stay and—”

“For God’s sake,” Doris said. “Either come in or out. This place is cold enough without your letting all that air in here.”

Harvey went out, quickly, not saying a word.

At exactly four a.m., Harvey made a last-minute check of the control panel in the sub-basement of Cal Lambert’s factory, took his coat from the hook near the door, and walked rapidly along the dimly lighted passageway that led to the parking area at the rear of the building.

This looked like the night, he reflected. If he could have that short stretch of road between the factory and his house all to himself, just this once, it would be the night. This was his fourth try; he had a feeling it would be the last.

Harvey had not parked his car in the parking area, but at the end of the long drive at the rear of it. He knew the drive had sufficient incline to permit him to start his car by coasting it — which meant that the elderly nightwatchman in the upper part of the factory would not be able to hear the motor start. And there was no chance of his seeing Harvey drive off, either, for the rear wall of the factory had no windows at all.

No, the nightwatchman wasn’t a problem; the only problem was that short stretch of road. At four o’clock m the morning, you wouldn’t think that there’d be any traffic at all along it, especially on a winter night as cold as this one. But there had been on the other nights. There’d been someone on the road on each of Harvey’s three previous tries. He’d recognized neither the vehicles nor the drivers, but he had preferred three consecutive postponements to taking the smallest unnecessary risk. After all, what real difference did a day or a week make? Or even a month? There was no real hurry. If things went wrong again tonight, there’d be another night, and another.

But that feeling was there. It was going to be tonight; Harvey was almost certain of it.

He got into his car, switched on the ignition, and released the brake. The car began to inch forward, then to pick up momentum. Harvey waited until it reached the end of the incline, and then eased it into gear and listened to the tiny flutter of the motor as it caught hold and drew the car ahead. There had been hardly any sound at all.

There had been no other vehicles on the road when Harvey had driven along it a little over four hours ago, and there were none now. There might be one or more on his return trip, though, and that was what concerned him most. It would mean that he would have to go back to his house and undo what he had done.

He pulled off the road, drove along the driveway that led to the rear of his house, and parked the car. The house was dark and silent, and Harvey smiled grimly. Everything was as it should be. He got out of the car, crossed silently to the back door, and inserted his key in the lock.

He walked noiselessly through the kitchen, avoiding the creaking board midway across the floor, and opened the door to the living room. There was no one there — and that, too, was as it should be. He moved down the short corridor to the bedroom and slowly nudged the door open with his fingertips.