Рекс Стаут - How Like a God

“I’m sorry,” was all you could say. “I’m awfully sorry, Lucy.” As she stood there with her hands still on your shoulders you thought to take her again in your arms, but she moved away and began picking up the scattered pictures.

The following summer you took your vacation early in order to spend two weeks at home while Jane was there. You had of course mentioned Lucy in letters, but at arm’s length, making phrases. Now you spoke of her in detail and with feeling; you gave Jane to understand that it was a case of a grand passion unaccountably thwarted by the tragic vagaries of obscure fate.

“I certainly intended to ask her to marry me,” you declared. “It seemed foreordained. She clearly expected it too. Surely we were made for each other if any two people ever were. And yet it was no go, there was something somewhere that made it impossible. I honestly think I was in love with her — I must have been. Yet somehow unconsciously I must have felt that it wouldn’t work, at least that marriage wouldn’t. Remember she’s a musician, she’s an artist, she has that temperament. Maybe—”

To your shocked surprise Jane laughed. She said suddenly:

“Are you going to marry Erma?”

You were a little startled. “Not that I know of,” you replied. “No, not even if I wanted to, which I don’t. She’s a grand lady, much too grand for me.”

“Not too grand to put you in control of her property.”

You laughed. “I’m not in control of anything. She can recall that piece of paper whenever she wants to, which might be day after tomorrow. No, she’s out of my class.”

“You’ll marry her, you’ll see.”

“Is that you, Mr. Lewis?”

It was Mrs. Jordan’s voice, from the basement.

Had she then seen him come in? Not necessarily. Perhaps she had heard his footsteps on the stairs; or, since that was unlikely on account of the carpet and the pains he had taken to mount softly, possibly he had knocked the revolver against the rail when he took it out of his pocket or as he put it back.

“Is that you, Mr. Lewis?”

He trembled from head to foot. He turned his head and looked behind him and down, sidewise, looking at nothing, like a treed coon. Well, he thought, use your brain if you’ve got one. Either you answer Mrs. Jordan or you don’t.

It was only three or four steps to the first landing. He suddenly ran up them, quietly and rapidly, trying to make no noise at all. At the top he whirled around the corner, and as he did so, the tail of his overcoat described a wide semi-circle. There was a rattle and a clatter as the little lamp with the parchment shade tumbled to the floor onto the bare wood, beyond the edge of the carpet. It banged against the wall; then silence.

He jumped as if shot. Now he thought, what are you going to do? Are you going to answer her or not?

You might as well.

Calmly, calmly. You were quite calm three nights ago when you told her that it was intolerable, you could stand it no longer, you were being pushed into insanity, and the only way out was to kill either her or yourself or both. Has she told anyone of that threat? You were a fool to threaten her, but she doesn’t talk. If she has mentioned it to anyone that would be fatal. Do you see what thin ice you’re skating on — if she has happened to breathe a word of it, to anyone, no matter who, your goose is cooked. Anyone, the woman at the corner delicatessen, for instance.

They say there are a thousand other ways too that things like this are traced. Through the weapon, for instance. But they’d have a fine time trying to trace the revolver, in case you were suspected.

“Take it along,” Larry had said, when you were starting out for a day’s fishing, one morning on his ranch, the summer you went to Idaho. “You might have some fun popping at jackrabbits or a coyote.”

You tried it a few times, but never hit anything. You chucked the revolver away and forgot all about it; discovered it, to your surprise, when you were unpacking after your return to New York. You meant to write Larry about it, but never did. For four years it has been in that old bag in the closet; certainly no one knew of it, not even Erma.

They’ll try to get you a thousand different ways if they suspect you. They’ll want to know everywhere you went and everything you did. “Where were you, Mr. Sidney, between ten and twelve Thursday night?” Dare you ask Jane to do that? “I was at my sister’s house on Tenth Street; I spent the entire evening with her.” That would fix them. “She was alone, and I spent the entire evening with her.”

As a matter of fact, it might work. You didn’t show any signs of anything at the office; you ate at your usual table at the club, everybody saw you; and when you went home to get the revolver, it was still early not yet nine o’clock. But you’ve got to remember that they’ll ask the servants about every little thing. All right, the servants saw you enter and leave. “What did you go home for?” What did you go home for. The whole thing may hang on that, that shows how ticklish it is. Very well, then, you went home to get something for Jane, something you wanted to take to her — any little thing, like a book for instance. “What was the name of the book?” You’ll have to talk it all over very carefully with Jane, and get every point decided so you won’t contradict each other.

Then you walked away from the house. The doorman saw you walk away, and fortunately you happened to turn south. You’ll say you were in no hurry to get to Jane’s. You just walked a few blocks and then picked up a taxi on the avenue.

It is vital to remember exactly where you actually did go and whether anyone saw you. You didn’t walk on Park Avenue very far; you turned at one of the side streets, somewhere in the Forties, and went over to Broadway, where you turned uptown again. You stayed on Broadway quite a distance, maybe Seventieth Street, then went to Central Park West, and turned west again on Eighty-Fifth. Then you were here, in front of the house, across the street. Almost certainly no one saw you. From the time you left Park Avenue you haven’t spoken to a soul.

But how are you going to get out? You’ll just have to stay until you’re sure no one heard the shot, and then come downstairs and beat it. If you do get away, if you really do get clean away, get to Jane’s house and later go home, it’s even possible that you’ll never be connected with this place at all. Nobody around here knows you except as Mr. Lewis. There’s nothing with your name on it anywhere here, no photographs, no letters—

There’s that damned statute!

William the Conqueror. The masterful man, your true character. The artist revealing what everyone else is too blind to see. Erma would enjoy this. Trapped by that piece of junk! Oh no, not on your life. You can take a hammer and knock it to pieces. You should have done it long ago. You should have done it the evening you went home and found Erma decorating it.

They’ll hunt, they’ll look everywhere.

There’s a lot of numbers on the back of that phone book; they’ll jump on that: Chelsea four three four three. Maybe your own too; you’ve never noticed. That one would be enough — straight to Jane! Tear off the cover and burn it; or erase that number. Then they examine the spot with a microscope, and you might as well have left your card. All right; take the book away; take it home and hide it somewhere.

What are you going to do with the gun? If you could just leave it there, put it down and leave it there — but of course you can’t. Wrap it in a newspaper and leave it on the subway train? Throw it in the river. That’s it! When you get off the subway at Fourteenth Street go straight to a pier and throw it in.