Маргарет Миллар - Vanish in an Instant

Miss Jennings locked the cell door. “I’ll go and ask the Sheriff if you can use his private office. But I don’t guarantee a thing. He’s not at his best this morning.”

“Thanks for trying, anyway.” When Miss Jennings had gone, he spoke through the bars to Virginia: “It’s time you started to win friends and influence people.”

“Really?”

“Put on an act. You’re an innocent flower, dirt has been done by you, and now your dear old mother has come to visit you from the faraway hills.”

“What ham. It’s too thick to slice.”

“Ham or not, try some,” Meecham said. “By the way, do you know Margolis’ wife?”

“I’ve met her. She has a bad complexion.”

“How did you meet her?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Everything about you is my business until you get out of here for good. How did you meet Margolis?”

“He built the house for me. For me and Paul, that is.”

Miss Jennings returned and opened the cell door again. “Your mother’s waiting in the Sheriff’s office, Mrs. Barkeley. My, she doesn’t resemble you a bit, except maybe just around the eyes. Family resemblances fascinate me. Here, you can borrow my compact mirror to see how you look.”

“I know how I look,” Virginia said.

“Now, is that nice?” Smiling cheerfully, Miss Jennings replaced the compact in her pocket. “You look sulky, if you want the truth.”

Virginia opened her mouth to reply, caught another warning glance from Meecham and changed her mind. She followed Miss Jennings silently down the hall. Her face was calm, almost stony, but she walked as if she had trouble keeping her balance.

“Do you want me to stay?” Meecham asked.

Virginia half-turned and said, over her shoulder, “What for?”

“Well, there’s my answer.

“Right.”

He dropped behind the two women. When they reached the Sheriff’s office Virginia went in ahead, taking little running steps. “Momma! Momma !”

Meecham wondered grimly whether this was the real thing or whether it was ham too thick to slice.

He walked slowly past the open door. Mrs. Hamilton was holding Virginia in her arms, rocking back and forth in grief and gladness. She was crying, and Virginia was crying, and Miss Jennings’ face was all squeezed up as if she too was going to cry. All three of them looked so funny that for an instant Meecham almost laughed.

The instant passed.

“Ginny darling. Darling girl.”

Christ , Meecham thought, and walked away as fast as possible to get out of earshot.

At the bottom of the stairs leading up to the main floor a man was sitting on a bench, his back resting against the wall.

Meecham stared at him curiously as he passed, and the man returned the stare, unselfconsciously, like someone accustomed to attracting attention. In spite of the winter weather he wore no coat or hat, and his skin was mushroom-pale as if he had lived underground for a long time, out of reach of the sun. He was still young. His face looked younger than Meecham’s, but the shape of his body was like that of a dissolute old man — scrawny shoulders and pipestem wrists and a huge pendulous belly which he tried to hide by keeping his arms folded in front of him.

He looked at Meecham, his eyes enormous in the thin sensitive face, and then he rose heavily and awkwardly like a woman far gone with child and moved on down the corridor.

Meecham went up the stairs. Outside, the Christmas tree lights were in place and turned on, but they didn’t show up very well because the sun was shining.

When Meecham arrived at the house it was almost dark and snow was falling again, a fine light snow, iridescent, like crushed diamonds.

Alice met him at the door. Though he’d only seen her once before, on the previous night, she looked very familiar to him, like a kid sister. He glanced down at her with a critical brotherly eye. She was wearing a cherry-colored dress that didn’t suit her; the lines were too straight, the color too vivid.

“Do I come in?” Meecham said.

“Well, I guess so.”

“What’s the matter? Anything wrong?”

“No. Except that there’s no one here but me. Dr. Barkeley and Mrs. Hamilton are out.”

“That’s all right. Maybe I’m early.”

“Early?”

“I was invited for tea.” He consulted his watch. “At five. It’s now five.”

“No one told me anything about it. Mrs. Hamilton’s been gone all day.”

He took off his coat and laid it across a chair while Alice watched him, still looking puzzled and rather unfriendly.

She said, “Why did she invite you for tea?”

“Maybe she wants to read my tea leaves. That should be interesting,” he added with a dry smile. “I might be about to get some money or meet a short suspicious blonde.”

“That’s not very funny.”

“Then stop acting suspicious.”

“I’m not.”

“Have it your way.”

He crossed the room and stood with his back to the mantel, his left arm supporting some of his weight. His body was never quite erect. When he walked he slouched, and when he stood he always leaned against something like a man who had spent too much time in a car and at a desk.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“At the movies. She phoned at noon and told me she intended to stay downtown for lunch and do some shopping and take in a double feature. She sounded quite gay and girlish, as if she was going on a spree.”

“Maybe she was.”

“Oh, no. She doesn’t drink.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that kind of a spree.”

“Then why don’t you say what you think?”

“Maybe I will, sometime.”

“I can hardly wait.”

“Now what are you miffed about?”

“You’re so condescending.”

“I don’t feel that way,” he said gravely. “In fact, right now I’m confused. I can go down to lower Fifth Street and look in the window of a house, any house, and tell you quite a lot about the people who live there. But I’m not used to houses like this or girls like Virginia or women like Mrs. Hamilton.”

“Or like me?” The question slipped out unintentionally, like a line from a fishing reel left unguarded for a moment.

“I think I know quite a bit about you, Alice.”

“Oh? You’ve met dozens like me, I suppose.”

“A few.”

She turned away so that he couldn’t see the angry flush that stained her face.

He didn’t see it, though he guessed it was there. “Why does that make you mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

“You wouldn’t want to be absolutely unique, would you, like a three-headed calf or something?”

“Of course not.” I would, she thought violently. I want to be absolutely unique.

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” he said with a trace of a smile. “It’s just that I knew a three-headed calf once, and all it ever wanted to be was ordinary.”

“This is a ridiculous conversation,” Alice said. “I think you’d better stick to looking in windows on lower Fifth Street, Mr. Meecham.”

“I don’t look in...”

“You said you did.”

“I said I could. ”

“Anybody can. You hardly need any special equipment for window peeping.”

“I am not a window peeper.”

“Well, you said you were.”

“I did not say I...”

“I heard you distinctly.”

Meecham shook his head in exasperation. “All right. All right, I’m a window peeper.”

“I can believe it.”

“I think I’ve changed my mind about you, Alice. You are unique. Absolutely unique and impossible.”

Alice gazed at him blandly. “I’d rather be impossible than ordinary. Mrs. Hamilton says I can be anything if I try.”