Маргарет Миллар - Vanish in an Instant

Meecham knew that she was right. Listening to her, he experienced inside his own head a corresponding pressure of anger and resentment, against Margolis, and against all the tyrannies and tyrants that harass the weak.

“For the next two days I went around as usual. I guess I did all the ordinary things, but I couldn’t stop thinking of the money and how easily Claude could have lent it to me if he wanted to, and how much it might mean to Earl. On Saturday night Jim came home after a bad week on the road. He started an argument about me paying too much attention to Earl. I had to get out of the house so I went to the hockey game by myself. That much of what I told you before is true. After the game I was driving through town on my way home when I saw Claude. He was just getting out of his car in front of the Top Hat. There was a girl with him that I didn’t know, all dressed up like a Christmas tree. I stopped my car. I had no plan or anything in mind. I think I stopped mostly because I didn’t want to go home anyway and because I was curious. At first that was all, I was curious.

“They went into the Top Hat together, and I waited. A long time I waited, picturing the two of them inside, drinking and laughing and dancing like only people can that have their health and some money. I tried to picture Earl and me in there having a good time and I almost laughed, it was so funny.

“I thought of all kinds of crazy things when I was sitting there. I thought of going in and facing up to Claude, demanding money right in front of his new girlfriend. Claude’s car was parked across the road, and I even thought of getting behind the wheel and driving it away and selling it some place. Imagine thinking of stealing! Never did I think of stealing before, even when I was a kid, but I thought of it then. Everything began to get very sharp and separated in my mind, so I felt anything I could do for Earl was good and what anyone did against him was bad.

“Maybe I would have stolen the car, I don’t know. But I didn’t, because the girl came out of the Top Hat. She was alone and I could see when she passed me that she was drunk. She was staggering around and talking to herself. She went on up the street into another bar and I followed her. She was standing at the counter when I got there, talking to the man beside her. I heard her say that she wanted a beer and that she’d left her purse behind, and what a terrible place the bar was.”

“That it stank, in fact,” Meecham added.

“Yes, those were her words.”

“And that’s how Loftus knew exactly what happened in that bar, not because he was there but because you told him.”

“I told him,” she said, painfully. “He made me. He planned everything as soon as he found out what I’d done.”

“Margolis came into the bar?”

“Yes. He didn’t stay, but took the girl by the arm and steered her outside. It was nearly closing time. A lot of people were leaving and I left too. When I got outside, I saw Claude trying to lift the girl into his car. She had folded up completely and she was hard to handle because she wasn’t little, like Clara. I wondered who the girl was. I thought, she must have someone, parents or relatives or maybe a husband, who wouldn’t want to see her like that with a man like Claude. And then the idea occurred to me that I should follow them, that maybe the situation might have money in it somewhere, money for Earl.”

She went on talking, quietly and earnestly, as if it was very important to her to explain everything and clarify her motives. It seemed to Meecham that the explanation was not for him or for herself but for Earl.

“They went to Claude’s cottage on the river. I walked right in. The girl was on the couch asleep and Claude was starting a fire in the grate. Claude said, how the hell did you get here? I didn’t answer that. I just told him again I wanted some money and if he didn’t give it to me I would phone Lily and the police and the girl’s parents, everyone I could think of. He laughed at me. He said the police wouldn’t be interested and the girl had no parents and Lily was in South America. When I heard that, I felt that I had nothing left, no hope, no chance, nothing. The whole world was against me and Earl, the whole world, laughing at us, like Claude. I went over to the fireplace. Claude had turned away from me and was poking at the fire again. You’re showing your age, Emmy , he said. You’d better start dyeing your hair . Those were the last words he ever spoke. When I stabbed him he sort of twisted around and nearly fell on top of the girl. Blood spurted all over her dress and coat but she didn’t wake up. I stabbed him again, three or four times more, and I stood there and watched him die. I wasn’t sorry for him or scared for myself. I just felt kind of relieved, like some awful pressure was gone from inside me.”

It was her second mention of the pressure of anger. But Meecham was aware that behind the anger, like a chorus lost in the shadows of a stage while the spotlight followed the principal, there were other pressures; a whole chorus of pressures chosen haphazardly from every period of her life, unrehearsed, dancing out of step and time, screaming off-key.

“I didn’t plan anything,” she said. “It all just happened , and so quick, quicker than telling about it.”

“His wallet was missing.”

“I took it. I stole it. Sometimes I think I feel worse about that than I do about killing him. I was brought up strict, I never stole or told lies when I was a kid. I... well, there was forty dollars altogether. I kept the money and threw the wallet in the snow on my way home. It was snowing heavy by that time. That was lucky for me because I never thought of tire tracks or footprints or anything. I never even thought of the girl being left there with Claude’s body. That seemed like luck too, at first, having her get arrested. I never dreamed it would turn out like this, me with the money I wanted for Earl, and no Earl to make it worthwhile. Six thousand dollars, and no Earl.”

From the kitchen came the crash of glass and the old lady’s voice, thick with the sleep she wooed and fought with like a lover: “A mesh, an awful mesh, mush clean it up fore Victor sheath it.”

“I wasn’t scared until I got home and then I realized what I’d done. It hit me the way I’d struck Claude hard and fast, so I could hardly crawl into the house. Everyone was asleep and the lights were off. I rapped on Earl’s door and he let me in. I told him what had happened. He didn’t get excited, he just kept saying everything would be all right. He fixed me some coffee and when I’d drunk it he made me tell him everything I saw and heard and did, every detail. He wrote down what I said in a notebook. I didn’t know then what his idea was, not until he said, Where will we get the blood ? Where will we get the blood,” she repeated dully.

“Where did you get it?”

“From me, from my arm. I told you that I’d cut my arm on the broken tap... I had to tell you something, I knew you’d seen the bandage. But I didn’t cut it, Earl did. It took such a long time to get enough blood and Earl was sick from hurting me. But we had to have it to stain the clothes and it had to be mine because it was the same kind as Claude’s.”

“How did you know that?”

“Once years ago he was hurt on the job and had to have a transfusion. They used my blood, so I guessed it was the same kind. We had to take the chance anyway. Earl bandaged my arm. I guess I broke down then and started to scream because Earl put his hand over my mouth and he kept saying, I killed Margolis, you were home in bed, you know nothing about it, I killed him.

“I was crazy with fear but Earl wasn’t. He said no jury would convict him because he was going to claim that he killed Claude to protect the girl, and the police would never be able to prove any other motive because there wasn’t any. With me it was different, Earl said. They could trace back and find out about my relationship with Claude, they could pin fifty motives on me.