Fletcher Flora - The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™ - 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

Six reasons for murder. Fanny could probably have added a few more, if pressed, but surely six were enough. She decided, after much thought, that she would discuss the matter in general terms with Stuart, who was Loren’s nephew. As a matter of fact, Stuart might have been Fanny’s seventh reason.

“I’ve thought of a way to kill Loren,” she said to Stuart one day.

“Your rate of production is low,” he said. “I’ve thought of a dozen ways.”

“If you’re so clever, why haven’t you done something about it?”

“Thinking and doing are two different things, honey. Doing is far too risky.”

“Well, my way, if properly executed, is hardly risky at all.”

“I’m intrigued, to say the least. What way do you have in mind?”

“I don’t believe I’ll tell you. You’re rather weak, however charming, and you’d only be a handicap in a touchy project like this.”

This suited Stuart perfectly. He always preferred, if possible, to profit from the efforts of others. As for Fanny, the brief conversation had the effect of making a plan, and the very next time she was downtown she went to a small leather shop on a side street and bought a strip of rawhide to be used, she explained, as a lacing. A minimum of research had taught her that rawhide was frequently used as lacing, and the purchase was routine.

She took the strip of rawhide home and put it in a basin in the basement to soak. It was necessary, of course, to wait for an appropriate day.

The year was still in the first half of June, and it had been, moreover, unusually cool. Then, just when one might have expected warmer weather, it began to rain, and it rained steadily for almost a week — a gray drizzle every day.

Fanny was impatient to get something accomplished, now that she had made a decision, and she was about to despair of ever having a warm fair day. She listened to the weather forecast each evening on radio and television, and even verified the daily forecasts by consulting the evening paper.

Finally, of course, the wet spell ended, and the mercury in thermometers began to climb, and the days became as appropriate as she could possibly ask for — appropriate for murder.

The day she chose was a Saturday. The cook and the maid left at noon for the remainder of the week-end, and Loren himself, ironically enough, made a certainty of what had been, so far, no more than a plan. He had his lunch in his wheelchair in the library, which was used for almost anything except reading, and later, just before the servants left, Fanny went in to get his tray and take it back to the kitchen.

“Do you know what?” he said.

“No,” Fanny said. “What?”

“I believe I’ll sit out in the sun for a while.”

Fanny was, naturally, quite pleased and excited by this opportunity, which required no clever maneuvering on her part; but she was careful not to seem too eager.

“It’s pretty warm out there,” she said. “In the eighties.”

“That’s all right. I need some sun for a change. I’ll come in when I’ve had enough.”

“Would you like me to push you out on the terrace?”

“Don’t bother. I can manage by myself.”

“I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll fix you a tall cold drink of something and bring it out to you. Would you like that?”

He said he would, which was his mistake, and Fanny went to fix him a tall cold anesthetic highball that contained incidental ingredients of citrus juice and gin and carbonated water. As a gesture of innocence, she asked the maid to take it to him on her way out of the house for the week-end, and five minutes later, seeing the cook off, she found the glass already half empty when she went out herself.

“It’s such a warm day,” she said, “I think I’ll go out to the Country Club and have a swim in the pool. Do you mind?”

“Go right ahead,” he said. “You’ll be all alone if I do.”

“I like being alone.”

“You aren’t expecting anyone?”

“No, I’m not. And if anyone comes, I’ll pretend I’m not here. You run along. Call Stuart to come pick you up, if you like. Being an escort is about ail he’s good for.”

“That’s a good idea. It’s better than my going alone.”

She went inside and phoned Stuart. It took him quite a while to answer the telephone, because he wasn’t up yet. Stuart was hardly ever out of bed before early afternoon, and Fanny had counted on this when she called.

Stuart agreed to pick her up, although he was somewhat less than enthusiastic about taking a swim, and it took him slightly longer than half an hour to dress and get there.

In the meanwhile Fanny used the time profitably. Returning to the terrace, having detoured en route by way of the basement, she found the tall glass empty and Loren dead to this world if not yet alive in the next. He was, indeed, in such a deep sleep that it gave her a little shock of fear. She was afraid she had been too generous with the drug, and it would never do to have him dying because of that. It couldn’t reasonably be passed off as heart failure, not with Loren’s recent electrocardiograms on record, and the excess of drugs would certainly be detected in an autopsy.

But after a close inspection she was satisfied that she was safe. Loren would not die of the drug, and any dose less than lethal would surely be accepted as normal, for he took the stuff all the time, as was well known.

And so, satisfied, she had merely to tie the wet rawhide strip snugly around Loren’s throat. It was easy to do — Loren was wearing an open-neck sports shirt. Then she carried the tall glass inside, washed it and dried it and put it away, and went upstairs to get a beach bag, into which she put a black swimming suit, brief, a striped towel, immense, and a tube of suntan lotion, economy size. She was waiting downstairs, ready to go, when Stuart arrived.

He was so grumpy from having been wakened early that Fanny was tempted to tell him what she had done, just to cheer him up a little; but she decided that it wouldn’t be wise. She resisted temptation all the way to the Country Club, and finally compromised, as they were arriving, by hinting at just enough to give him something pleasant to anticipate.

“I have a notion,” she said, “that there is going to be a happy surprise in your life today.”

“Yes?” He looked at her disagreeably. “What are you, an astrologer or something?”

“You’ll see,” she said. “You need only be a little patient.”

She wouldn’t tell him any more, not a word, but his humor did improve, and they had a cool pleasant swim in the pool and sat for a while in deck chairs along the side. It was really quite warm in the sun, and so they dressed pretty soon and moved into the clubhouse, where they had cold drinks and played several hands of gin rummy. All in all, it was quite a pleasant afternoon that passed quickly, and it was a little later than Fanny had planned when Stuart got her home again.

“Come in and say hello to Loren,” Fanny said.

“Well, I don’t want to, but I suppose I’d better,” he said.

They walked inside together and Fanny went off ostensibly to look for Loren. She ran upstairs and down again. She looked into several rooms. She called his name. At last, after putting on a good show, she went out to the terrace — and all of a sudden she had the most terrible feeling that things had gone wrong and that Loren would be alive and waiting for her.

But as it turned out, the feeling was no more than a foolish apprehension, for the rawhide had shrunk, as guaranteed by the old Western, and Loren was stone dead.

Working as fast as she could, Fanny began trying to remove the strip of rawhide from Loren’s throat. But it had drawn deeply into the flesh and had become very hard in the sun, and for a fearful moment she thought she might have to call Stuart to help her remove it. Then she remembered the penknife that Loren invariably carried in his pocket.