Brett Halliday - She Woke to Darkness

“Just one friend. He’s a writer, too, and it seems different when one is a professional. So much more impersonal.” She paused and the color came into her cheeks again. “Please don’t think I’m awful while you’re reading it. I did try to put things down as honestly as I could. A writer has to, doesn’t he?”

I poured both of us more cognac. I was beginning to get restless. Here we were alone and time was passing. Discussing a manuscript wasn’t my idea of the best way of killing the night. But she was so wrapped up in her own personal problem that I knew it was going to be difficult to change the subject.

Nevertheless, I tried.

While she was sipping her fresh drink, I said: “I’ll be most interested in reading your story first thing in the morning. I’ll be better able to judge it intelligently if I know a little more about you as a person. You’re not married?”

“No.”

“But not a virgin?” I made my voice light and didn’t look directly at her as I spoke.

“No.” Her answer was slow but direct. “Is that important?”

I shrugged. “Probably not, except as an indication of the sort of person you are. Completely repressed females generally don’t make very good writers. What do you read?”

Her face lit up. “Everything. That is, I did when I was younger. Proust and Joyce. Hemingway and Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. Lately I’ve been concentrating more on the better mysteries and suspense novels. Yours, of course, and there’s a woman writer named Helen McCloy whom I like. Do you know her books?”

“Very well. Do you have a job?”

“Not now. Until a couple of months ago I worked as a secretary in an importing house. Then I decided I wanted to try and write this book and I had a little money saved up, so I quit my job and moved into this less expensive apartment when the Johnsons offered to sublet it while they were in Maine. I’ve got money enough for a couple more months, but if I don’t have the book finished by then I guess I’ll have to go back to work.”

“Perhaps I can help you get it finished,” I told her heartily. “Right now… why don’t you kiss me?”

She said, “I’d like that,” and came toward me on the sofa. This time there wasn’t any question about her response. Her lips were soft and wet, and they spread apart like the petals of a flower. Her arms went around me, and I drew her close so the full length of her body was against me.

And then the telephone rang!

I would have let the damned thing ring forever. I tried to hold my lips on hers, to make her feel the telephone was the least important thing in the world right then, but she twisted away from me, drew herself up, breathing hard. With an apologetic smile at me, she crossed the room to pick up the shrilling instrument.

I settled back to catch my own breath and sip some more brandy. I didn’t listen to her carefully. I actually tried not to listen at all, but I was sore at the interruption and was inwardly cursing the person at the other end.

I heard Elsie say, “Yes,” and then, indignantly, “No. Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?”

Her back was toward me, and she straightened and stiffened as she listened some more.

“But he’s not,” she said angrily. “He dropped me off after promising to read my script tomorrow if I send it to him… and I’m up here working like the devil to get it in shape for him to read it.”

She listened again for a moment, then said emphatically: “No. I tell you I’m working. Good night.”

She put the telephone down hard and stood for a moment, her back still toward me.

I got up and when she turned slowly, I saw everything was finished for that night. Her face was set in stiff lines and there was a perfunctory sort of smile on her lips. “I’m sorry, Brett. I…”

I went across the room to take her in my arms, but it was no good. She let me kiss her, but she was far away from me. Her body was tense, and I didn’t know whether it was anger or fright. She moved her mouth away from mine to say, “You’d better go, darling. Really, I’m sorry as hell, but… if you still want to read my script…?”

I was sorry, too. I told her so, and lied like a gentleman by saying of course I still wanted to read her script.

She smiled wanly and said maybe I’d call her as soon as I’d read it.

I promised I would, and she moved out of my arms and around the typewriter desk where she picked up a large manila envelope. She turned, and said, “I’ll give you the original copy. It hasn’t been revised or corrected, but I’ve been working some on the carbon copy and it would take too long to gather it all up and straighten it out.”

I had the impression then that she was scared to death, and wanted to get me out of there fast. Since I didn’t particularly wish to encounter a jealous boy-friend, I told her that would be fine and what number should I call after I’d read it.

She grabbed up a pencil and wrote a number on the brown envelope and shoved it into my hands. I was getting the bum’s rush for sure, but I didn’t argue about it.

She moved around me fast to pick up my hat, and I went to the door and opened it.

She followed me swiftly and flung her arms around my neck and pulled my head down for a fast, hard kiss, and then whispered, “Sorry, Brett,” and there were tears in her eyes.

I grinned and said, “There’ll always be another time, honey. You come to my place next time where we can really talk.”

She nodded and smiled with the tears still shining in her eyes, then pulled the door shut and I went to the elevator and down.

The street outside was deserted at that hour, and I turned left and walked up to Third where I didn’t wait more than three minutes before flagging an empty taxi. I told the driver the Berkshire Hotel on Fifty-Second, and settled back morosely against the cushion with Elsie Murray’s manuscript in my lap.

There was no doorman on duty and the lobby of the Berkshire was deserted when I went in. I walked straight past the desk without looking at it, got in a waiting elevator and went up to my floor.

I had my key with me, and unlocked the door of my suite, went in and tossed the envelope on a table while I stripped off my coat and went into the bathroom to run a glass of cold water.

There was half a fifth of cognac on the coffee table in the sitting room, and I poured out a stiff slug to put on top of Elsie’s Monnet before going to bed.

With the glass in my hand and a lighted cigarette between my lips, I sat down and idly opened the envelope. I took out the sheaf of typed pages and glanced at them.

There was a title page with capital letters in the center:

SHE WOKE TO DARKNESS

by Enid Morgan (pseudonym)

I turned to the first page and saw it was neatly typed on light-weight paper. I took a sip of cognac and started reading Elsie’s unfinished manuscript.

Brett Halliday

She Woke to Darkness

Aline Ferris woke to darkness and to fear. For a long, shuddering moment she lay still, fighting her way through blind panic.

She knew instantly that she lay in a strange bed in a strange room. She didn’t know whether she was alone or not. But she did know that if she had a bed-companion he would almost certainly be a stranger.

Her mouth was dry and her tongue seemed paralyzed. Pain throbbed in her temples even as she lay quietly on her back, and she dreaded to move her head. She was partially clothed, and there was a damp pillow under her head. Her legs were cold from thighs to unshod toes.

Her arms lay stiff and straight beside her, hands clenched into fists that drove sharp fingernails into her palms. She willed herself to relax them slowly. First the right and then the left. With sickening fear she spread the fingers of her right hand flat on the sheet and forced them to move the short distance to the edge of the mattress. Then the other hand. Slowly, her heart pounding with fear of what she might encounter. A foot, two feet, and then, with sharp gratitude, she stretched her arm full length and knew she lay alone on the double bed.