Джеймс Чейз - The Flesh of the Orchid

Linda turned it over in her mind. She was sufficiently stupid to dislike the idea of setting up a rival in her home. There was a dog-in-the-manger streak in her nature that rebelled against the thought of another woman enjoying the luxuries of the villa, but if she were to escape from Frank this seemed the only logical way, unless...

‘I wish he was dead,’ she said between her teeth. ‘I wish someone would rid me of him for ever.’

‘You can get that idea right out of your pretty little head,’ Eddie said with great firmness. ‘If it wasn’t for Max it might be arranged, but if anything happened to Frank, Max would know who to look for. I’m not taking that risk for you or anyone else.’

And so, reluctantly, Linda agreed to give Eddie’s idea a trial.

Rather to her surprise, the idea worked out exactly as Eddie had predicted.

After a week of carefully preparing the ground, Linda suggested to Frank that he might care to have someone in to read to him, and went on to describe Mary Prentiss (whom she had not as yet seen) in such glowing terms that Frank rose immediately to the bait.

Linda had been irritable and sharp-tempered during the past week, had avoided Frank’s questing hands, snapped and snarled at him along the lines suggested by Eddie, until Frank was growing tired of the sound of her querulous voice. The idea of having someone fresh in the house appealed to him.

Mary Prentiss called the following evening, and Linda made it her business to meet her at the gate so she should have an opportunity of talking with her before she met Frank.

Linda was agreeably surprised when she saw the shabbily dressed figure coming along the narrow beach path. This was no dangerous rival, she consoled herself. If Frank could but see her, tie wouldn’t look at her twice. It amused Linda to know that he was all worked up, imagining his new companion to be as glamorous as herself.

‘The fat fool would get a shock if he could see her,’ she thought spitefully.

Mary Prentiss did manage to look very plain, although her big green eyes were undoubtedly beautiful. But the dowdy clothes, the lack of make-up and the awful hair style seemed to neutralize the effect of her eyes.

Linda was a little puzzled to see how white and haggard she became when she introduced her to Frank. She thought for a moment the girl was going to faint, but she appeared to control herself, and, still puzzled, Linda left them alone together.

She noticed an immediate change in Frank when the girl had gone. He was more cheerful, less trying and openly enthusiastic.

Each evening for the next week Mary Prentiss came after dinner to read to him, and, acting on Eddie’s instructions, Linda was always present. She watched Frank, noted his growing restlessness, his lack of interest in the books Mary Prentiss selected for her reading. The girl was as impersonal as a nurse. Whenever Frank’s groping hand reached out for her, Linda asked him sharply if there was anything he needed, and the hand was quickly withdrawn, and Frank’s fat, sensual face darkened with frustrated disappointment.

A week later Eddie’s prediction came true.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Frank said abruptly one afternoon. ‘You don’t get out enough. It’s not right that you should stay in night after night when I have someone to read to me. Take yourself to a movie tonight. The change will do you good.’

So that night, when the girl who called herself Mary Prentiss came as usual to read to Frank, she found him alone.

‘Isn’t Miss Lee here tonight?’ she asked quietly, as she drew up a chair and selected a book to read.

‘No,’ Frank said, and smiled. ‘I’ve been wanting to be with you for some time — alone. You know why, don’t you?’

‘I think so,’ Mary Prentiss said, and laid down the book.

‘Come here,’ Frank said, his face suddenly congested.

She stood close to his chair and allowed his hand to stray over her. There was a look on her face of intense loathing and horror, but she remained still, with closed eyes and set mouth. It was, to her, as if a filthy, repulsive spider with obscene and hairy legs were crawling over her bare skin.

Then suddenly she drew back out of his reach.

‘Please don’t,’ she said sharply. ‘Not here. I have a code of honour. Not in the same house... I’m thinking of Miss Lee.’

Frank could scarcely believe his ears.

‘What’s she got to do with it?’ he demanded thickly.

‘This is her home,’ Mary Prentiss said in a low voice, and vet her eyes were watching Frank’s face with desperate intentness as if she were trying to read his mind. ‘But at my place...’ She stopped, gave a little sigh.

‘Don’t be a dope,’ Frank said, heaving himself out of his chair. ‘This is my home too. To hell with Linda. What did she ever do for me, except spend my money? Come here. I want you.’

‘No,’ she said firmly; ‘but if you will come with me it would be different. I would have no scruples then, but it is being in this house...’

‘All right,’ Frank said, and laughed. ‘I haven’t been out for a long time. Let’s go. She won’t be back until midnight. Where’s your place?’

‘East Street,’ she told him, her green eyes lighting up. ‘I have a car. It won’t take us long.’

Frank caught hold of her, tried to find her face with his lips, and for a moment she nearly lost control of herself, but she drew away, shuddering, and said, without betraying the sick horror that gripped her, ‘Not yet... soon, but not yet.’

‘Well, come on then,’ Frank said impatiently. He was not used to being dictated to by his women. He caught hold of her arm and let her lead him from the house and along the narrow beach path. She guided him into the seat of a black Chrysler coupe that was parked in the shadows, out of sight of the villa. ‘How can you afford to run a car like this?’ he asked suspiciously, as his fingers touched the fabric of the seat and he felt the springing and the leg room.

‘I borrowed it,’ she said in the same cold, flat voice, started the engine and drove quickly towards the lights of the town.

‘How I miss my eyes!’ Frank snarled suddenly. ‘You wouldn’t know what it feels like to be driven without seeing or knowing where you are going.’ He brooded for a moment, added, ‘It’s like being taken for a ride.’

‘Is it?’ she said, gripping the steering-wheel until her knuckles showed white.

He ran his hand down her leg.

‘Hurry, sweetheart,’ he urged. ‘You’ll find me a very satisfactory lover.’ Asked in a lower tone, ‘Have you any experience?’

She shuddered away from him.

‘You’ll see,’ she said. ‘You’ll know soon enough.’

She drove rapidly along Ocean Boulevard, pulled up under a street lamp in the main street. The theatre traffic roared past them, the sidewalks were crowded.

‘Why do you stop?’ he asked impatiently, listening to the traffic and the murmur of the crowd passing them. ‘Have we arrived?’

‘Yes; this is the end of your journey,’ she said.

There was a jarring note in her voice that made him jerk his head round and stare sightlessly at her.

‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded, reached out and caught her wrist. ‘If you think you can back out of it now... no one plays tricks with me—’ He broke off as his sensitive fingers felt the puckered scar on her wrist. ‘What’s this?’ he asked sharply, a chord in his memory stirring.

‘A scar,’ she said, watching him closely. ‘I cut myself.’

His memory groped into the past. Then he remembered seeing such a scar on the wrist of the Blandish girl, and he stiffened. His highly developed instinct for danger warned him to get away, but his desire for her swamped it. Why think of Carol Blandish — she was miles away.