Robert Alter - 100 Malicious Little Mysteries

Instead, I put on a good face and only let it slip when my eye chanced on the green door at the end of the aisle. Then and there I devised a course of action that, while precipitate, would be extremely satisfying.

That’s why I am waiting now on this stairwell. My character is repulsed at what I have resolved to do, but a spirit of survival possesses me. I’ve finally learned that, these days, the bell tolls only for the guy going to his own funeral. A bystander’s got to close his ears to the ding-dong.

He’s up there in the office, concluding the conscientious extra hour he always puts in. Stromberg left some time ago. Only Mac and I are in the building.

Sorry, little buddy.

Working for Stromberg was like being locked in a box. No matter how you tried, you couldn’t get out. That’s how I felt — as if I were in a box, and only Stromberg had the key.

But one day I found another key, one that would unlock the lid of the box just as effectively as Stromberg’s key. Which he would never use. So I would use my own.

My key was death.

Once I had made the decision, I found it quite easy to live with. With something like gusto I attacked the matter of a plan — how I would kill Stromberg. It should not be something complex or difficult. Simple plans are usually the safest. But I had no experience.

Oh, certainly, I had read mystery stories, had even in my mind concocted ways and means of putting to rest the fictional victims I met on the printed page. And with more panache than many of their creators! But there’s a difference between a cold, paper thing and a warm, pulsing human organism. Not that Stromberg could be called warm and pulsing. He was like a fish, and it was my intent to hook that fish.

But how to hook him? I thought of poison. Traceable. A hit-and-run accident. Unpredictable — Stromberg might not die. A gun. Noisy and messy. Besides, none of these methods passed the test of simplicity. I determined to use materials and circumstances at hand.

I was evaluating the merits of a push down a stairway when Hopkinson came up to me. “I’ll need two dollars from you,” he said. I asked why. “Stromberg’s farewell gift. He’s put in for retirement. Lucky you. I hear he said you were the only man to fill his shoes.” Did I hear right? Was it true?

It was true! Suddenly I was outside my box. I would not have to kill Stromberg. Matter of fact, he began to look quite human to me. I realized with remorse that what I thought were constraints on me were, in reality, his way of testing me, of training me. That good fellow really had my best interests at heart. At his retirement bash we posed for a parting photo, smiling, each with an arm about the other’s shoulder.

I’ve been chief now for almost five years. But don’t think it’s been all fun. By no means. When you become a supervisor, you take on something called responsibility. Something only you have. It’s up to you to see that the job gets done, that your section functions smoothly.

I swear, though, there are times I throw up my hands in despair. I’m pressured to produce, but with what must I produce? A bunch of incompetents who’d rather hang around the water cooler than do an honest day’s work.

The worst is Hopkinson. He said a strange unsettling thing to me the other day. He said working for me is like being locked in a box.

Perhaps I should check with the personnel office about retirement.

The lamplights along Cavendish Square were just being lit, casting a soft pale glow across the damp London night, as Blair slipped from the court behind Dr. Lanyon’s house. It had been another failure, another robbery of a physician’s office that yielded him but a few shillings. He cursed silently and started across the Square, then drew back quickly as a hansom cab hurried past, the horse’s hoofs clattering on the cobblestones.

At times he wished it could end this easily, with his body crushed beneath a two-wheeler. Perhaps then he might be free of the terrible craving that growled within him, forcing him to a life of housebreaking and theft.

William Blair was an opium fiend. He still remembered the first time he had eaten opium, popping the little pill of brown gum into his mouth and washing it down with coffee as de Quincey had sometimes done. He remembered the gradual creeping thrill that soon took possession of every part of his body. And he remembered too the deadly sickness of his stomach, the furred tongue and dreadful headache that followed his first experience as an opium eater.

He should have stopped the diabolical practise then, but he hadn’t. In three days’ time he had recourse to the drug once more, and after that his body seemed to crave it with increasing frequency. It was his frantic search for opium which now led him nightly to the offices of famous physicians, to the citadels of medicine that lined Cavendish Square. He had broken into ten of them in the past fortnight, but only two had yielded a quantity of opium sufficient to ease his terrible burthen.

And so it was in a state bordering desperation that Blair entered the quiet bystreet that ran north from the Square. He had gone some distance past the shops and homes when he chanced to note a high, two-storey building that thrust forward its windowless gable on the street. He was familiar enough with doctors’ laboratories in this section of London to suspect that here might be one, hidden away behind this neglected, discoloured brick wall. But only a blistered and disdained wooden door gave entry into the building from this street, and the door was equipped with neither bell nor knocker.

Hurriedly he retraced his steps to the corner, avoiding a helmeted bobby who was crossing the street in the opposite direction. He waited until the police-officer had disappeared from view, his hand ready on the dagger in his pocket. As he moved on, a few drops of water struck his forehead. It was beginning to rain.

Round the corner he came upon a square of ancient, handsome houses. Though many were beginning to show the unmistakable signs of age, the second house from the corner still wore a great air of wealth and comfort. It was all in darkness except for the fanlight, but the glow from this was sufficient for him to decipher the lettering on the brass name-plate. He had guessed correctly. It was indeed a doctor’s residence. He set to work at once as the rain increased.

It took him only a few moments of skillful probing with the dagger to prize open one of the shuttered windows. Then he was through it and into a flagged hall lined with costly oaken cabinets. The doctor was obviously wealthy, and Blair hoped this meant a well-stocked laboratory. He moved cautiously along the hall, fearful of any noise which might give the alarm. The house could have been empty, but it was possible the good doctor had retired early and was asleep upstairs.

Blair made his way to the rear of the first floor, heading in the direction of the windowless gable he had observed from the street. He passed into the connecting building and through a large darkened area that, by the light of his Brymay safety-matches, appeared to be an old dissecting room, strewn with crates and littered with packing straw, and dusty with disuse. Blair moved through it to a stairway at the rear. This would lead to the second floor of the windowless gable, his last hope of finding a supply of opium.

The door at the top of the stair was a heavy barrier covered with red baize, and it took him ten minutes ere he finally forced it inward with a loud screech. The disclosed room proved to be the small office-laboratory he sought — his work had not been in vain! The remains of a dying fire still glowed on the hearth, casting a pale orange glow about the room. The laboratory had been in use that very night, and in such a home the storage shelves would be well stocked.