Реймонд Маршалл - The Paw in the Bottle

Julie could have strangled her. She snatched the mauve evening gown from the suitcase, disarranging everything as she did so. She looked so distressed and angry that Blanche decided to change her tactics.

‘Would you like that gown, Julie?’ she asked casually. ‘I don’t want it and it seems a shame not to put it to some use, doesn’t it?’

The bottom was knocked out of Julie’s fury. She sat back on her heels and stared up at Blanche.

‘I beg your pardon, madam?’ she said, looked at the gown and touched it with caressing fingers.

‘It is nice, isn’t it?’ Blanche said carelessly. ‘One of Hartnell’s. But the colour makes me look like hell. I can’t imagine why I bought it. Would you like it?’

‘Me?’ Julie said, her eyes lighting up. ‘Oh, yes, I would. Thank you madam.’

Blanche smiled. It was a cruel little smile and when Julie saw it her heart sank.

‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ Blanche said. ‘Of course, I couldn’t give it to you. It cost a hundred and fifty guineas or something like that. But I might let you have it for twenty pounds.’

Sick with disappointment Julie put the gown on the back of the chair, stooped to fasten the suitcase.

‘And I don’t suppose you have twenty pounds to spend on a gown, or have you?’ Blanche went on airily.

‘No, madam,’ Julie said and turned away.

‘What a pity. Oh, well, never mind. It would be absurd really for a girl of your class to wear it. You’d only get yourself laughed at. Perhaps I’ll advertise in The Times. I could do that, couldn’t I?’

Julie looked swiftly at her and caught a gleeful expression on Blanche’s face. It was gone in a moment, but Julie knew then that she was being deliberately baited.

‘All right,’ she thought, ‘have your fun, you filthy little cat. But you won’t catch me like that again.’

‘It’s no use letting her get under your skin,’ she told herself when Blanche had gone. ‘That’s what she is trying to do. Thank goodness I’m free of her for the next twenty-four hours. I don’t care what Harry does to her now. If I can help him put her rotten nose out of joint I’ll do it.’

She decided it would take her at least two hours of hard work to put the flat straight. It was now a quarter to five. She could be ready to meet Harry by seven if she could find him.

She didn’t want to ring Mrs. French’s agency, but there was no other alternative. After some hesitation she put the call through.

Dana answered.

‘This is Julie Holland,’ Julie said, stiffening when she recognized Dana’s husky voice. ‘I want to speak to Mr. Gleb. Can you give me his number?’

‘Hold on,’ Dana said. The telephone was put down with a sharp click. Julie heard her say, ‘It’s the Holland girl. She wants to speak to you.’

To Julie’s surprise, Harry’s voice floated over the line.

‘What’s up?’ he asked sharply.

‘Oh, nothing. It’s all right. I wanted to see you to-night. Mrs. Wesley has gone away and I’ve got the evening off. Can we meet about seven?’

‘Sorry, kid.’ He sounded irritable. ‘I’ve got a date.’

‘But, Harry, surely we can meet. I don’t know when I’ll be free again. I’m all alone here and I’ve got nothing to do.’

‘I’m catching a train to Manchester in twenty minutes,’ he returned. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s something I can’t do anything about. I’ll see you when I get back. I haven’t a minute. So long,’ and he hung up.

‘Damn!’ Julie thought. ‘Oh, damn! Well, you’re stuck. You have no one to talk to, no one to go out with and the whole evening on your hands. What rotten luck to have found him so easily and we can’t meet. He might have been nicer on the ’phone. After all, we are lovers.’ Then, anxious to make excuses for him, she thought it must have been difficult for him with the Dana woman listening in.

Sometime later, lying in bed, she forgot her loneliness. Her room delighted her. It was as comfortably furnished as the other rooms in the flat and had a bathroom adjoining, a telephone, and a portable wireless by the bed.

Julie had been to her flat in Fulham Palace Road and had packed her bags and brought them to her new home. In her new luxurious surroundings she no longer felt neglected nor did she wish for company. The room, the hot bath, the wireless and the comfortable bed more than made up for the disappointment of not seeing Harry.

At eleven-thirty she turned off the wireless and settled down in bed. As she reached out to turn off the bedside lamp she heard a sound that made her pause. Somewhere in the flat a door closed softly. She frowned, aware of a sudden uneasiness, and she waited, listening. And while she waited in the silent little room she remembered what Blanche had said: I hate being alone here. I’m sure it’s haunted. There really are the oddest sounds at night.

‘She was trying to frighten me,’ Julie thought, and she reached once more for the light switch, but paused again as the curtains billowed out. ‘It’s only the wind getting up,’ she reassured herself, but she continued to listen.

The flat was sound-proofed. She could hear nothing now except the steady ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece and her own rapid heartbeat.

With an impatient shrug she turned off the light. But immediately the room was in darkness it became an object of frightening speculation. Was there someone in the flat? Had someone crept into the room? Was it the wind that moved the curtains or was it...?

‘This is ridiculous,’ she thought. ‘There’s nothing in the flat that could possibly frighten me so long as I don’t allow myself to be frightened.’

And then she distinctly heard footsteps and she turned cold. There was no mistaking the sound: soft, stealthy footsteps that crept towards her door.

She reached for the bedside lamp and succeeded only in knocking it to the floor. It fell with a thud on the carpet and, leaning out of bed, her hair over her eyes, her heart pounding, she scrabbled feverishly for it. Then she became aware that in the darkness her door handle was turning and it flashed through her mind that she hadn’t locked the door.

There was a light in the passage and as the door inched open the light crept into the room. She drew back in the bed, crouched down, terrified. A ribbon of light fell across the floor creating menacing shadows. The door ceased to move and she could hear someone in the passage breathing softly.

She waited: too frightened to make a sound, suspended in terror.

Something white and indistinct but moving came round the edge of the door. The scream that had been boiling inside her like a hot, seething ball made a croaking sound through the room. The light went on. Blanche Wesley stood in the doorway. In the shaded light she looked like a mischievous, gleeful little gnome.

Julie screamed again.

‘Did I disturb you?’ Blanche asked innocently. ‘I meant to be so quiet and just have a peep at you to see if you were comfortable.’ The forget-me-not blue eyes never left Julie’s panic-stricken face. ‘I changed my mind and caught the last train home. I’m afraid I frightened you.’ The gleeful smile widened. ‘But you did say you weren’t nervous, didn’t you, or were you boasting?’ She turned off the light and said out of the darkness, ‘Good night, Julie.’

The door closed.

Julie came to the conclusion that in some odd, perverted way, Blanche was not quite right in the head. She decided the only thing to do was not to get rattled. Oh, yes, she had been badly rattled last night... but then who wouldn’t have been? And she was still feeling the effects of her fright the following morning. But she had only been rattled because Blanche had taken her by surprise. Next time (and there was sure to be a next time) Julie was determined to be on her guard. The woman was cracked. She drank too much and she liked to bully and frighten. ‘Very well, then,’ Julie said to herself. ‘I know what to watch for and I’ll be ready for her.’ But in spite of trying to adopt a sensible attitude she had a foreboding that she was going to have a bad time with Blanche, and that Blanche had all kinds of beastly little tricks up her sleeve which would succeed no matter how careful Julie was to guard against them. And in this she was right. Not anticipating that Blanche would amuse herself by remote control (as you might say) she fell an easy victim of a practical joke Blanche had prepared for her.