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

They were there. Just as he had expected them to be. Just as he had found them three times before. The moonlight slanted through the window. Lying there beside Cal Lambert, Doris looked even smaller than she actually was, almost childlike. Both she and Lambert were breathing very slowly, very deeply, sleeping the trancelike sleep of alcohol and exhaustion. Harvey didn’t have to look at the alarm clock on the chair beside the bed to know that it would be set for eight a.m., just as it had been on all the other mornings. He could picture how it had been on those other mornings — Lambert waking and dressing hurriedly and cutting across the lot to his own house, and Doris getting into her house dress and busying herself in the kitchen preparing breakfast for the husband who would be home in less than twenty minutes.

Harvey stepped close to the bed and looked down at Doris for a full minute while his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark. She was still wearing her pumps and stockings, he noticed now. He bent down and trailed his fingertips from garter to hip, and then suddenly took the tiny fold of flesh at her waist between his thumb and forefinger and pinched it as viciously as he could.

She didn’t stir. Harvey put the palm of his right hand flat against Lambert’s nose and pushed hard. Lambert turned his head slightly, but that was all.

Harvey sighed thankfully. He didn’t have to worry about either of them waking up too soon; that was for sure.

Harvey stepped back from the bed and glanced about the small, low-ceilinged room. In every way, things were exactly as they should be. He turned and went into the living room and returned with the portable gas heater. He set it down midway between the bed and the window, lighted it, and then checked the window to make sure it was tightly closed. There was only one window and one door, and when closed, neither of them admitted any air whatever.

Harvey took one last look at Doris; then he closed the door behind him and left the house by the same way he had entered.

He met no other vehicles on his short drive back to the factory, and he saw no one when he parked his car behind the building and walked along the passageway to his engine room. He checked his control panel and then sat down in his chair and looked at his watch.

He had been gone exactly thirty-four minutes.

It had taken just thirty-four minutes to rectify the mistake he had made in marrying Doris and to open the door on an entirely new life for himself. Or rather, to recover the life he had given up when he married. He could go back to school now, and in two years’ time he would have the training he needed to be more than just another boiler-watcher. It was too bad he couldn’t merely have divorced Doris, but that had been impossible. She would have imprisoned him in an alimony trap. Vengefully, she would have kept him in it and that would have made it impossible for him to go back to school, that would have kept him a nothing man in a nothing job.

But now, with Doris dead, he could go back to school. The policy on Doris’ life, taken out when they were first married, was for only two thousand dollars, but there would be the money he’d get for his house and lot — say thirteen thousand — and another thousand or fifteen hundred for his car. Pretty nearly fifteen thousand dollars. Enough. He’d be able to live well during the two years of his schooling. He thought of Cal Lambert and smiled. There’d even be enough for that occasional bit of fluff on a bar stool that Cal had joked about. It was funny, he reflected, but by killing Lambert along with Doris he had probably knocked himself out of a job. Not that it mattered; he would have quit soon anyway.

At eight o’clock the next morning, Harvey initialed the control sheet, said good morning to his relief, and went upstairs to the factory cafeteria to have breakfast.

“You and your old lady feuding?” the cashier laughed, totaling up Harvey’s check on her register.

Harvey smiled. “What makes you ask that?”

The cashier winked. “Lots of men have their breakfast in here for that very reason, Harvey. You’d be surprised.”

“No feuding,” Harvey said, letting his smile widen. “We had a little party last night. I figured I’d let her sleep.”

The cashier looked at him admiringly. “More men should be that thoughtful,” she said.

Harvey paid his check and took his tray to a table in the front of the room, pretending not to notice George Helm seated alone at a table near the wall. George made good money with his speculations in used farm equipment, but he lived in a cheap room in a rooming house and never failed to take his meals in the factory cafeteria. He always said it was because the cafeteria was a good place to make business contacts, but Harvey knew very well that George ate there solely because of the very low prices.

Harvey had decided to let George discover the bodies. It would be better that way. He had computed his time very carefully. He had known exactly how long the two people and the gas heater would take to exhaust the oxygen in the small bedroom — at which time, of course, the flame would have gone out and the heater would have filled the room with gas.

Harvey was glad to see George Helm sitting there. If George, however, had missed breakfast this morning, or had come in later, Harvey could have called on any of several others.

“Harvey!” George called to him. “Over here. What’re you trying to do, give me the high-hat?”

Harvey smiled, checked his course, and went over to George’s table. “Glad to see you, George,” he said as he sat down. “In fact, I was coming over to your office right after I had breakfast.”

George hunched his short, heavy body a little closer to Harvey and looked at him expectantly. “You mean about what we was discussing last night, Harvey?”

Harvey smiled. “No, George. I was wondering if you were interested in second-hand furniture.”

“Yours?”

“Yes. I’ve been thinking about outfitting the house with new stuff, from top to bottom. You interested?”

George nodded. “Sure. What’re you asking?”

Harvey took a forkful of his eggs. “Suppose you take a look at it,” he said. “I know you’ll do right by me, George.”

“Sure,” George said. “That’s one thing you can count on, Harvey. When’d you want me to look at it?”

“This morning okay?”

“Couldn’t be better. You got some nice things out there, Harvey.”

“I was thinking I might look around the stores this morning,” Harvey said. “Why don’t you just drive on out there, George? Doris’ll be glad to show you around.” He paused. “One thing, though. She might be sleeping a little late. If she doesn’t answer the bell, go around to the bedroom window and knock on it with your car keys or something. That’ll raise her.”

“Sure,” George said, getting to his feet. “I think we’ll be able to make a good deal, Harvey.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” George said, and turned toward the door.

“You haven’t finished your breakfast,” Harvey said.

“Business first,” George called back over his shoulder as he walked rapidly toward the door.

Harvey ate slowly, enjoying his food for the first time in months. He wouldn’t have long to wait, he knew. It was only a matter of minutes. George Helm was probably rapping on the bedroom window at this very moment — rapping and then, naturally, looking inside at the man and woman on the bed. Maybe he had already discovered them and was on his way back to town. Much better having George the first person on the scene. And George would have to come back to town, for Harvey had no phone, and Cal Lambert wouldn’t be available to loan George his. All George could do was bring the bad news back to town with him.