Реймонд Маршалл - The Paw in the Bottle

While preparing her breakfast, Julie went to a large store cupboard for some tea and came face to face with the body of a man, lying face downwards on the floor, half-concealed by the shadowy darkness.

For a brief moment she watched herself run out of her body, whirl and run back into it again, and the sunlit kitchen went dark as her senses recoiled from the shock. She found herself half sitting, half lying on the floor, her nerves fluttering, her muscles rigid with fright. It took her several minutes before she could screw up enough courage to look at the body again. A closer examination revealed it to be nothing more frightening than a suit of clothes realistically stuffed with cushions, and she realized that Blanche had scored off her again.

Not quite knowing what she was doing, she removed the cushions, folded the suit and carried it into Howard Wesley’s dressing-room. Passing the mirror in the hall she was startled to see how white and drawn she looked and that her eyes were like holes in a sheet.

She returned to the kitchen, made herself a cup of tea and sat down. ‘If there’s going to be much more of this,’ she thought, seeing how unsteady her hands were, ‘I’ll have to leave. Of course, it was stupid of me to have been so frightened, but who on earth would have thought she’d’ve taken all that trouble — and the beastly thing did look horribly life-like.’

Later, she was putting linen away in a drawer when her hand touched something dry and leathery. Looking down she was petrified to see a gruesome-looking snake coiled up in the bottom of the drawer. Julie had a horror of snakes, and she screamed wildly, dropped the linen and made a mad rush for the door. But when she had recovered from the first paralysing shock, it occurred to her that this might be yet another of Blanche’s little pleasantries and she returned to the room to peer fearfully into the drawer. Although stuffed, with eyes made of glass, the thing was, nevertheless, a snake, and with a shudder, Julie threw the linen in on top of it and slammed the drawer shut. She was now completely unnerved and when the front door bell rang sharply she nearly jumped out of her skin.

She had no recollection of leaving the room nor of opening the front door. She suddenly became aware of a tall, well-dressed man towering above her and who regarded her with pale interest.

‘I suppose Mrs. Wesley isn’t up yet?’ he said in a complaining voice and walked into the lounge hall, handed her his hat and stick. He peeled off his gloves and dropped them into his hat which she held vacantly before her, endeavouring as best she could to collect her scattered wits.

She said no, Mrs. Wesley was not up, and wondered who he could be and what he wanted.

‘I am Mr. Hugh Benton, Mr. Wesley’s partner,’ he told her. He was thin-faced, clean shaven and pale. Everything about him was pale: his hair was fair and lank, his lips were bloodless arid his eyes the colour of amber. He wore an Old Etonian tie and his voice was soft like a man speaking in church. ‘I suppose you are the new maid,’ he went on, and looked her over the way a horse dealer examines a new purchase. ‘Would you tell Mrs. Wesley I am here?’

‘She doesn’t like to be disturbed so early,’ Julie said, uncomfortably remembering the reception she had received at three o’clock the previous afternoon.

‘How interesting,’ he said, and smiled, or rather he showed his small, white teeth. You couldn’t call this automatic grimace a smile. ‘I’ve known Mrs. Wesley a little longer than you and I am well aware of her habits. Tell her I am here, please.’

‘But I... I don’t think...’ Julie began, knowing how furious Blanche might be to be disturbed at eleven-thirty in the morning.

‘You’re not paid to think,’ Benton said, grimacing at her. ‘You’re paid to do as you’re told.’

Julie swung on her heel, her face burning, and went quickly down the passage to Blanche’s room. She was furious with herself for giving this creature such an opportunity to snub her. She rapped sharply on the door, entered the room.

Blanche was lying in bed, a cigarette hung from her lips and a tumbler of brandy stood on the bedside table within reach.

She looked up; her pale, puffy little face hardened.

‘I didn’t tell you to barge in here just when you like, did I?’ she said, and her eyes began to glitter angrily. ‘I’ll ring for you when I want you. Now get out!’

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, madam,’ Julie said quietly, ‘but Mr. Benton has called and insists on seeing you. I told him you were resting.’

The angry expression vanished and Blanche struggled up in bed.

‘Hugh? At this time? I mustn’t keep him waiting. Quick, Julie, tidy the room. Give me my make-up box. Oh, come on, stir yourself, don’t stand there looking like a stuffed fish.’

This was a new Blanche: a fluttering, girlish, excited Blanche who was even more hateful, Julie thought, than the cruel, gleeful, sadistic Blanche.

While Blanche worked on her face with expert swiftness, Julie darted around the room clearing up the inevitable con-fusion.

‘Spray some perfume about the place,’ Blanche commanded as she put colour on her pale cheeks. ‘I’m sure the room stinks.’ She put down the rouge puff, swallowed the brandy and put the glass in the cupboard at her side. ‘And open a window. Do hurry, Julie. You drag yourself about as if your back’s broken.’

Flushed and breathless Julie did as she was told, cleared away the further mess Blanche had made completing her toilet and bundled the soiled towels into the bathroom.

When she returned, Blanche was lying back on her pillows, her lovely arms above her head: a picture of irresistible seductiveness.

‘What that little doll doesn’t know about make-up,’ Julie thought enviously, as she stared at this miraculous transformation from a white-faced little drab to this frail, beautiful creature that now posed before her.

‘Let him come in now,’ Blanche said in a waspish voice, ‘and stop gaping at me.’

Julie found Benton in the lounge. He was smoking and pacing up and down, an irritable, bored expression on his thin face.

‘Is she ready?’ he asked crossly as Julie came in. ‘You’ve been long enough.’

‘Will you come this way, please?’ Julie said, and walking in front of him she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was able to see through her clothes. As she paused outside Blanche’s door, his hand touched her thigh: like a spider running down her flesh, and with a shiver she jerked round.

He reluctantly withdrew his hand, stared at her in his pale way, stepped past her and wandered into Blanche’s room.

‘Ah, Blanche,’ he said in his thin voice. ‘How lovely you look, and so early, too.’ He pushed the door to, but not shut and Julie, her flesh still creeping, heard him say: ‘I have news. Howard won’t be back until Monday. He cabled.’

‘You opportunist,’ Blanche exclaimed, and laughed.

‘Well, why not?’ Benton drawled. ‘Shall we go? I could get away this afternoon. We could have the whole week-end together.’

‘Hadn’t you better close the door, darling?’ Blanche asked archly. ‘You don’t have to shout our misdeeds all over the flat.’

Julie moved quickly away. ‘Ugh! What a pair,’ she thought. ‘They’re welcome to each other. Did this really mean that Blanche was going away this time for a whole weekend?’ She thought immediately of Harry and her heart began to thump with excitement. Would he be hack from Manchester by to-morrow? It was no good making plans just yet. Blanche might not go. Harry might still be in Manchester, and she might easily be again stuck in this vast flat all by herself, and this time for a long, lonely week-end.