Jean Backus - Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

“Well, it’s just the staircase outside. It shakes a little when I use it. That nice Mr. Brown who brought me home the other night noticed it — you know, the one with the two children I sit for, they’re really darling but they do keep me busy, they get into such mischief — where was I?”

“The staircase,” said Nell with foreboding. “What about it?”

“Well, Mr. Brown noticed how it shook when he took me to my door — so polite, the other fathers never do — and he said I should tell my landlady about it.”

Nell went out and inspected the staircase. It did shake. The main post holding it up was beginning to rot at the bottom. Without Emma up there, she thought, I could just let the thing go and close up the apartment. Wait till I get ahead a little with my finances, and then I’ll have it repaired. But not with Emma there.

She said briefly, “I’ll see about it,” and went into her apartment again, ignoring the mewling plea behind her, “Oh, but Nell darling—”

Shut up, said Nell to herself. Shut up!

She sat erect in her chair and cried.

And thus Nell’s life became a shambles. There was now no further talk of paying the rent — Emma was always low on funds. And there were constant complaints (delicately put) of things that should be done to the apartment to make it more habitable, other things that were needed — like transportation, telephone, air conditioning, television — that would make Emma more comfortable and happy. With always the offer to take care of Nell’s house, cook her meals, do her cleaning, refusing to believe Nell when she said, in a moment of exasperation, that all she wanted when she got home at night was peace and quiet and solitude, a look at the paper, and her drink in private.

“You’re just saying that,” said Emma, beaming her bland smile. “But I know that you just don’t want an old friend like me doing menial work for you. But honestly, dear, I don’t mind. I’m very independent, you know, but I like to do my share—”

Another time, a day when Nell was more exhausted than usual, Emma was waiting for her at the door. “I could hardly wait,” she said excitedly. “I’ve had the most wonderful idea that would do wonders for both of us! Look, dear, it’s just that— Oh, let’s go in first and I’ll tell you while you have your little drink — it’s really a solution to everything.”

There’s only one solution, Nell thought drearily, and that’s for you to pack up and leave.

They went in.

“It’s so simple,” said Emma, her voice rising. “Look, I know you could use a little more money and of course I hardly have any at all, so — why don’t I move into that little studio room of yours, where you paint, and rent the upstairs apartment, then we’d both be better off. We could split the rent money because I’d be giving up my own apartment, of course—”

Nell looked at her incredulously. She did not go into explanations. She simply said no, and did not speak again.

Emma left, her head bowed like a child who has been unjustly disciplined, and Nell poured herself a drink and sat trembling in her chair, her thoughts black and deep.

She spoke aloud. “This,” she said, “is the living end. The absolute living end.”

A storm rose slowly, unobserved, from the north, and then came rushing like a wild insane creature of the elements, swooping down in blackness and noise and torrents and terrible sounds until the small house shook. Nell roused and lifted her face and said, “Storm, why don’t you blow off the roof of my house?” The thought felt good.

She got up finally and went outside and saw that the steps leading up to the apartment were trembling in the wind. She went to the unsteady post and examined it, the wind and rain lashing at her. Nell did not notice. She smiled and kept her hand on the fragile support, then gave it a violent shove. It moved dangerously, almost loose from its moorings, ready to go with the least pressure put upon the steps. She smiled, and went into her warm little nest, humming happily to herself.

When would Emma come? She was frightened of storms. There had been other times of wildness in the elements when she would come shivering with fear to Nell’s door and plead to spend the night there. How soon? She must come now — now when the storm was raging.

Still humming, Nell went into the kitchen, got the broom, and banged its handle on the ceiling. That should fetch her.

The storm, the wild screaming wind, pounded on the small house and shook it like an angry giant and the torrents fell and the air was filled with noise and confusion and terrifying threats; and suddenly there was another sound, the wrenching crash of the steps outside as they were torn from their moorings; and then a single human scream... At last, as if finally satisfied, the wind held itself in abeyance for an instant, and suddenly there was no sound at all. Just silence.

And Nell sat on, drink in hand, still smiling, still humming.

She was alone at last...

Emma did not die.

She lay in traction from head to foot in the hospital to which she had been taken. Her back had been so shattered that she was given little hope of ever being able to walk again. A wheelchair possibly, after months spent in bed.

Nell did not go to see her. Not, that is, until Emma fully regained consciousness. She went then only because the hospital called her and said that Emma was asking for her and that since she was Emma’s only living relative — “I am not a relative,” said Nell sharply. “I am her landlady only.”

But she went. Emma smiled wanly from the bed. “Hello, dear,” she said. “It’s so good to see you. I’ll bet you were here every day while I was unconscious.”

Nell said nothing.

After a brief silence Emma said bluntly, “The bills are enormous. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Well, I’m sure the county will take care of you. They always do in cases like yours.”

“County! What do you mean, county? I have never accepted charity from anyone.”

Oh, no? Nell thought. No free rent, no free transportation, no free food half of the time? “And,” the pathetic little voice continued, “I don’t intend to start now.”

“Then what do you propose to do?” said Nell, monumentally uninterested. “You certainly can’t pay these bills yourself.”

“I don’t have to!” said Emma triumphantly. “You know that nice Mr. Brown who used to bring me home after I sat with his kids? Well, he’s a lawyer, and he was the one who pointed out how rickety those stairs were, so he was in to see me this morning and he told me—”

There was an uneasy silence. Then Nell said, not really wanting to know, “Well? What did he say?”

“He said,” Emma explained carefully, “that you should have had those stairs fixed after I complained about them, and that undoubtedly your insurance company would come through with plenty of money to take care of me—”

There was a brief silence. Then Nell spoke. “Emma,” she said carefully, “there is no insurance company.”

“Then of course you should have had the stairs fixed. Mr. Brown inspected the hole where the post had been and he said it looked as if the post had been even more damaged than when he first saw it.”

“The storm—”

“No,” said Emma. “The storm knocked away the post but the hole was cement and it was broken all around the top — he said the post must have been hanging by a thread when the storm came. No insurance, hm? Well, dear, then I guess I’ll just have to sue you personally.”

“Sue me ? What do you mean? You know I haven’t done anything to be sued for — it would just be a waste of money on your part. You can’t get blood out of a turnip. It wasn’t my fault the storm blew down the steps, so there’s no use your threatening me with a lawsuit—”