Ричард Деминг - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 9, No. 3, March 1964

The transition was accomplished more smoothly than he had ever imagined such a thing could happen. One day Alison had been his wife, and they had lived together in this semi-secluded little ranch house. The next day Alison was gone, and her place taken by another “wife,” a new “Mrs. Courtner”, and nobody seemed particularly to care.

There were reasons for this phenomenon, of course. The Courtners were fairly new in the neighborhood. Alison had no close friends locally. She hadn’t wanted to get involved socially, she’d once said, because Tony had gone to drinking so heavily.

A whole week passed. Marva came and went frequently. But nobody questioned her. Perhaps some telephones buzzed with the gossip, about the blonde Mr. Courtner seemed to have taken up with, but nobody confronted Mr. Courtner with his breach of social etiquette. And nobody thought of mentioning anything to the police.

Many of the frequent comings and goings of the new Mrs. Courtner were to the big department stores where Alison had had charge accounts. Marva, proving to be a very versatile girl, managed a rather good forgery of Alison’s signature as it appeared on the charge plates. Delivery trucks arrived every day at the Courtner house. Marva blossomed forth in gay-colored gowns, usually of the cocktail and evening type, expensive shoes and purses, atrocious hats. She also acquired the best lingerie and hosiery, a collection of rather gaudy costume jewelry, a fur stole.

Tony Courtner, though he saw his bank account dwindling to nothing, did not complain aloud. Although Marva brought in a supply of Scotch for herself, he stopped drinking completely, and instead he brooded. He brooded about the missing corpse, and wondered where it might be. Nowhere on the premises, he was certain of that. In fact, he looked around surreptitiously. No freshly turned dirt was visible in the yard. How could Marva, on the spur of the moment, dispose of an object as bulky as a body? When had they come home that night? Midnight or thereabouts? She had five or six hours of darkness to work in. His car had been in the garage, available for transportation. She could have taken Alison’s body almost anywhere. Marva was a big woman, strong, and Alison had been so small. It was all possible, terrifyingly possible.

He did what he could to check out the other alternatives. Alison had a sister in Oregon. But he didn’t dare to communicate with that sister to ask if Alison had gone there; if she hadn’t, the sister would undoubtedly become suspicious and alert the police. Besides, it seemed unlikely that Alison had gone anywhere voluntarily. None of her clothing was missing from the closets except what she had been wearing.

Helpless, frustrated, all he could do was watch this parasite, Marva, parade her new finery. Only with the furs did he dare to inquire the price.

Marva answered him with her usual innocent smile. Then she added, “But it’s worth it, isn’t it, honey? Look what I did for you.”

Sometimes when the pressure mounted, and his tension headache seemed ready to burst his skull, he asked her the old question. “Marva, what did you do with Alison’s body?”

“Don’t worry, I took care of it,” she always answered.

But the woman was slowly — or not so slowly — driving him insane. She was a sinister presence, an ever-visible reminder of his crime, a foul thing occupying his house, worse than the corpse itself.

“Marva,” he told her finally, “I’ve got to know.”

“What, honey?”

“Exactly what you did with Alison.”

“Why are you worrying?”

He had never said this before, never dared to be frank with her, but his despair drove him on. “I’ve got plenty of reason to worry. You disposed of the body, hid it somewhere, or something. Maybe you buried it. But you could dig it up any time.”

“Why should I dig it up?”

“That’s what you’d do if I didn’t play along. If I stopped you using my credit. If I kicked you out of here.”

“Is that what you’re going to do, honey? Kick me out?”

He hesitated at the brink, then drew back. “I didn’t say that. But it’s about time we laid our cards on the table. What do you have in mind? How long do you intend to stay?”

She puckered her lips and frowned. It was an obscene sight, that childish, innocent, pensive look on that fat, made-up face. Then she smiled, and became even uglier.

“I like it here,” she said.

“But we can’t go on like this,” he pleaded. “I’m not made of money. I’m going broke fast...”

“But I like it here, I said,” she interrupted him softly. “Don’t you understand, honey? I like the setup. Look at me, would you? Just a bar girl. That’s all I’ve ever been. And all of a sudden I’m in a nice, cozy house. A real house, not some crumby room up over a secondhand store. A real house, clean, everything clean. And you, Tony, you’re nice too. A real nice guy, just like your house. Oh sure, you killed your wife, but you had good reasons. So I still think you’re a nice guy. Now I got me a house, and I got me a husband too.”

“Husband?”

“Sure. You’ll get lonesome. You haven’t forgotten Alison yet, but I got plenty of time. I can wait.”

He retreated from her, horrified. “You’re crazy,” he whispered hoarsely.

But she wasn’t crazy. She knew exactly what she was doing, knew her power over him. She sat there smiling at him — a puffy, fat, pale buddha, garishly painted with lipstick and mascara. And now she wanted to become his wife! Oh, Alison... Alison...

Desperate to shut her out of his sight, out of his mind, he stumbled to the kitchen. Marva had stowed a case of Scotch there for her own use, and he found it. He hated Scotch, but now he was grateful for anything that would bring forgetfulness.

He drank, grimacing at the taste of the stuff. He hated himself, but even more he hated her, that parasite who had fastened herself to him, draining his will, his life’s blood. He went on drinking, seeking oblivion.

He came awake slowly, agonizingly, gradually aware of the daylight, aware that he was somehow, distastefully, unluckily, alive. The thing that awakened him, he began to discover, was the soft, melodious sound of the door chimes.

He was alone in the living room, sprawled in one of the easy chairs, a horrible, horrible ache beating inside his skull. The bell chimed again, reverberating painfully in his head, sounding like a hammer hitting an anvil. Please, please, he begged, stop that ringing. But it didn’t stop. It went on persistently. Cursing, he lunged out of the chair, made for the door, and flung it open.

“Alison!”

Incredibly, it was she. Small, fragile, so dear to his gaze, a questioning little frown wrinkling her forehead, her brown eyes searching his face, then the rest of him.

“Tony, you’ve been drinking again.”

Ruefully he remembered how he must look, unshaven, his eyes red and bleary, his clothes slept in and mussed. But it didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now. Only that she’d come home.

He swept her into his arms, kissed her, then whispered into her ear, “Yes, I’ve been drinking... but this is the first time... because you were gone... but it won’t happen again... ever again... I promise... oh, Alison, I want you so much... I’ll never do anything again to make you go...”

Somehow, between kissing her and reassuring her, he dragged her in and shut the door. Then he sat her down, knelt before her, kissed her hands, and stared into her face. “Alison, I’ve missed you. You don’t know how much. It’s you I need, not the booze. Nothing else. Just you.”