Рекс Стаут - How Like a God

If not Dick, why couldn’t you ask Jane? Does it matter so much? But you must know if they know. You’re not going on like this, like a helpless imbecile, with them discussing you behind your back, trying to decide what they’d better do about you...

Exactly what did she say? Did she say she had seen Jane? Yes. Night before last — seems a year ago. You came up after dinner, rather early, and she wasn’t back yet. There was a telephone call you had to make, and as you sat waiting for an answer, with the phone book lying upside down on the table, in front of you, you noted indifferently the chaos of numbers scribbled in pencil all over the cover; it was a habit of Millicent’s that had at one time amused you; and suddenly you saw among that chaos a number that riveted your attention: Chelsea 4343. You hung up the receiver and grabbed up the book and looked at it closely; of course you hadn’t put that number there; but it was quite plain, unmistakable, Chelsea 4343.

It was half an hour before you heard her key in the door. You waited till she had got her hat and coat put away, and then held the book in front of her.

“Did you put that there?”

She looked at it without replying. “Look here,” you said, “if ever you told the truth you’d better tell it now. Did you write that number there?”

She nodded. “Yes, I remember now, I wrote it one day—”

“Whose number is it?”

She didn’t glance at it again; she looked steadily at you, and finally shook her head, “I don’t remember.”

“You might as well sit down, we’re going to have this out,” you said, and took a chair in front of hers, close to her. “You’d better be careful what you tell me, because this is something I can check up on. I want to know when you telephoned my sister Jane, and what for.”

“I really had forgotten it was your sister’s number,” she said.

“All right. Go on.”

It took an hour to get it out of her, and before she was through she had told it a dozen different ways. Was Erma in it? Sometimes she was and sometimes she wasn’t; anyway she hadn’t seen her. At first she said she’d seen Jane twice and then she said only once. It was mostly Dick. As long ago as last spring, Dick had sent for her and offered her fifty thousand dollars if she would let you alone, go away somewhere, and not let you know where she was. When she wouldn’t take it he had doubled his offer. This fall, just recently, he had been after her again; this time when she refused the money he threatened her. Then Jane came, and begged her.

“She begged me all afternoon,” she said. She took a day to think about it, and she put that number there only a week ago, when she phoned Jane that she had decided not to go.

At first you believed it. After you had got all you could out of her and tried to piece it together and decide how much of it was true and how much she had invented, you put on your hat and coat and started for Tenth Street. She didn’t ask where you were going or whether you’d be back; she just sat there, solemn, quietly watching you. Probably two minutes after you left she was reading a book. You never got to Jane’s house; you walked past it, but you didn’t go in. You couldn’t decide what to say.

And then, yesterday, like a coward you didn’t go to the office at all. You packed trunks! And you found the revolver and sat on the edge of the bed for an hour, holding it in your hand and looking at it, as if that was going to put muscles in your insides.

Last night Millicent was surprised to see you. Of course, you hadn’t telephoned, but she was surprised more than that; you could tell by the way she looked at you, though she didn’t say anything. You told her you hadn’t asked Jane and Dick about it, but you were going to, and if you found she’d been lying you’d make her pay for it. She said you wouldn’t ask them. She said it as if it didn’t make any difference one way or the other, “You won’t ask them about it.” Then she said, with no change at all in her voice:

“Anyway, I made it all up.”

And at the end, after all that, after you’d made a whining fool of yourself, she actually thought she could touch you. Her eyes looked like that, not really starting to close, just ready to, tightened up a little. A thousand times you’ve seen them like that. Then they do begin to close, and her lips get straight and thin and very quiet, and her eyes get narrower and tighter...

There goes her chair again, pulled across the rug. Now would have been the time, now that you know she’s sitting down. Go across to the windows and pull down the shades. You pitiful paltry coward. Last night it sounded like she was telling the truth. If she wasn’t, if Dick and Jane — begging her — no matter. What do they matter? If they came up the stairs right now and all three of you went in together — ha, that would be the way to do it. Erma too, the whole damn outfit. You could sit in a corner and listen to them, and they could keep it up all night and all day tomorrow, and forever, and they wouldn’t get anywhere. Begging her.

Oh cut it out. Cut it out! Steady...

Steady...

He turned the key in the lock and opened the door; and, entering, quietly closed the door behind him. Millicent, with a magazine in her hand and a box of candy in her lap, was in the blue chair, close to the table, under the reading-lamp. That’s funny, he thought, the blinds are already down, she must be getting modest.

“You’re late,” said she from her chair. “You didn’t telephone, so I nearly went to a show. Take off your hat and stay a while.”

Then, as his left hand went into his trousers pocket and out again, returning the key, and as his other hand suddenly left his overcoat pocket and hung at his side, she said in the same even tone:

“What have you got there?”

His right hand lifted, and a tremor ran through him from head to foot as he realized that the revolver was in it. He was watching her face; he had not said a word; but now he spoke:

“What does it look like, huh? What does it look like, Mil?”

At the same moment he was saying to himself, be careful, why did you take it out, you don’t know what you’re doing, what’s the matter with you? And also, he was going towards her. He stood in front of her chair, almost touching her.

“Are you trying to scare me?” she said, her eyes level and unwavering.

He said, “You don’t think I’ll shoot, do you?”

“Yes, I think you might.” Without letting her eyes leave his face, she moved her hand to indicate the marble head, glistening white, on the table beside her, and added slowly, “Why don’t you shoot Battling Bill? You hate him so.”

He moved his eyes to look at it, and then, without replying, but with a senseless vast relief surging through him, he deliberately pointed the revolver at the thing and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening report; the statue faintly tilted and came to rest again with its nose splintered off; the revolver fell from his hand and clattered to the floor. Like a flash Millicent stooped and then was erect on her feet beside him, the revolver in her hand. She looked at him and chuckled; and hearing her chuckle and seeing the gun in her hand he suddenly smashed his fist hard into her face; she staggered against the chair with a little cry, and he hit her again, and she fell to the floor; and then, with a swift and terrible precision, he reached over and seized the heavy statue as if it had been made of cork and, lifting it high above him, hurled it upon her head as she lay there at his feet. There was a cracking sound like the breaking of a brittle board; and the statue, spattered with blood, rolled gently onto the rug and came to rest there with its broken nose pointing to the ceiling.