Бретт Холлидей - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 3, February 1974

Relying on speed and surprise rather than on stealth and concealment, Eleanor rolled from the window side of the bed and yanked the bedside table drawer open. Before she could clear the weapon, however, a tall dark form, shapeless in the darkness, dived across the bed toward her and a long bony hand reached for the weapon with long bony fingers.

For a long, agonized moment, she wrestled for the weapon against strength far greater than hers. At one instant she thought she was going to win as the opposing grip seemed to weaken — but then the hard edge of a hand came down on her wrists with sickening force and the revolver fell to the carpet.

So great was the pain, so helpless her condition, that for the first time in her adult life Eleanor screamed.

A hard thin hand gripped her shoulder, and she thought she was done for — but her pajama top tore and she broke away, with her pursuer coming after her. Just as he grabbed her again, she tripped over the leg of a chair and fell head-long beside the bed, her arms out-flung — to touch something hard and cold and of peculiar shape on the carpet under the edge of the bed.

It was the revolver Verna Paton had given her, and she gripped it like a drowning woman gripping an oar in the water. As she rolled over, holding it, her pursuer gave her a kick in the side that sent her tumbling and caused her shot to go wild. It also brought the one-sided contest to a brief halt in the very last possible instant.

Eleanor felt as if her right ribs had been stove in. She was sick to her stomach and her head was swimming. Only by the greatest of efforts was she able to retain consciousness. She could hear hoarse breathing close by and wondered if, by some miracle, she had actually hit her assailant.

No such luck. Instead, the revolver was snatched from her no-longer-resisting fingers by an accurate swoop of one bony hand, just as the other delivered a stunning blow to the side of the head that made the world scream like a police siren.

At that instant, the room seemed to blaze with light and, for an instant, Eleanor saw before her, in a long vertical rectangle of brightness, the image of her dead husband, standing upright and looking down at her with his handsome face suffused by anger and fear.

There was a hoarse cry from somewhere and the sound of a series of loud explosions as unconsciousness finally claimed her...

When she came to, she was lying in another bed, feeling battered, bruised and achingly sore all over. Sunlight streamed in through other windows in the old house, giving a magnificent view of the far shore of the lake in the full scarlet and yellow brilliance of its early autumn foliage.

She discovered that she was. naked from the waist up, with canons of modesty offered via the corset of plastic bandages that covered her chest and right side.

She also discovered that Clara was seated in a chair by the windows with a huge cup of coffee on a small table at her elbow, regarding her stepdaughter through a cloud of pale blue cigarette smoke. Eleanor was never quite so glad to see Clara in her life.

Noting that she was awake, the older woman said, “I won’t ask you how you feel if you won’t ask me what happened.”

Eleanor managed a sawdust smile and said, “I feel lousy, so do your stuff.”

“You took a hell of a beating,” said Clara.

“Who did it?” Eleanor asked and knew the answer even as she spoke.

“Henry Paton,” said Clara. “What a tough old buzzard! It took both policeman to get him in hand.”

“Alan,” said Eleanor as memory came flooding back. “Is he all right? I heard shots just after I saw him.”

“Whichever Alan you mean,” said Clara matter-of-factly. “I’m afraid they’re both dead. Your Alan seven years ago as we thought, old Alan last night. You mustn’t feel too badly, though. He died saving your life. If he hadn’t waded into Old Henry’s pistol, you’d have been dead before I could get up there with the cops.”

She paused, then continued. “Yesterday afternoon, I kept getting worse vibrations from Gerard, until finally he told me to come up here after you. Well, I had generator trouble outside of Portsmouth, and the communications got worse and worse. I got hold of the police, thanks to Gerard, and we only just made it.”

“Was Henry Paton insane?” Eleanor asked. She was still, mercifully, too numb to feel shock or grief over that Clara had just told her about her husband and about her former father-in-law. That would come later. For now, though, she had to know.

“Not so you’d notice it,” said Clara, “unless all murderers are lunatics. Incidentally, it was Henry who did your Alan in. You see, he helped cover up the fact that old Alan killed his wife in one of his famous rages — the last time he ever let go and got violent. That left the Patons with a nice cushy spot for life working the estate reinforced by the hold they had over the old man.”

Eleanor said, “Alan’s mother must have been afraid his father would kill her or something. That must have been why she left the estate to her son. It was the evening after he made a will leaving it to me that he disappeared.” A pause, then, “So Old Henry killed him then. How do you know all this?”

“Your father-in-law talked before he died — he left you his love and regrets by the way — and they dug up the bodies in the graveyard. Oh, it all checks out.”

“I suppose the bodies in the graveyard were the reason Alan, Senior, was so dead against the development project.”

“Right,” said Clara. “I thought their attitude was unreasonable from the start, so I’ve been doing a little research on the sly — and, may I add, not liking what I found. That was why I did my best to keep you from coming up here yesterday — not, at least, until we had proved out our suspicions about something being very rotten in this particular Denmark.”

“But Clara,” said Eleanor, “you must know you talked me right into it.”

“And into a couple of broken ribs, as well,” said Clara, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “I should have known better than to use that approach, but Gerard sometimes has ideas of his own. I know how stubborn you Wordens can be. I ought to. I was married to your father as you may recall now and then.”

“It’s all right, Clara.” In that moment, Eleanor felt a warmth toward her hard-headed stepmother she had never felt before — a warmth and some small understanding of the sensitivities and loyalties that underlay the walnut-hard shell of her personality.

“Tell me,” said Clara, “how did Gerard’s predictions pan out?”

“Don’t you know?” Eleanor countered.

The two women looked long into each other’s eyes and then Clara half-smiled and said, “Perhaps I do at that.” She rose, added, “It’s been a long hard night. I’m going downstairs and make some more coffee. How about you?”

“Sounds fine,” said Eleanor.

But when Clara returned with a laden tray, the young widow was fast asleep...

He had stolen my wife, my future, my life. Now he would pay for it — my way.

Len Mason got the idea that lazy summer afternoon when his wife, Gracie, brought home a box of catnip as a special treat for Hugo, her big black cat. He watched curiously as she spooned some of the stuff into Hugo’s eating dish.

“What does it do for him, Gracie?” Len asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I mean, I guess it just makes him feel good.” She laughed lightly. “It sort of makes him a little high, would be the best way to describe it. Haven’t you ever seen a eat after he’s had it?”