Rex Stout - Alphabet Hicks

“Sure we are. Certainly we’re out here. Actually I was drunk when I borrowed that car and drove out here. That was the trouble, I was as tight as an owl, because that was why I lost my way and the first thing I knew I was in Croton, and I had to ask how to get here. Now I remember that again. And when I got here Martha was dead. If I had got here earlier she wouldn’t have been dead, and that’s what I mean about being drunk and being too early—”

He stopped abruptly.

“Okay,” Hicks said. “I get you.”

“The hell you do. After I ate that candy my head was as clear as a bell. I remembered everything. I even remembered you taking me up those stairs. It was you that took me up those stairs, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I thought it was. I decided it was you that killed Martha, and you left me there in that room and went back to kill Heather. I was dead sure of that — you went back to kill Heather. So I went out and got a taxi and had him drive me up there. I mean up here. I keep forgetting we’re here. I was there on the terrace where Martha was, only she wasn’t there any more. I heard you coming along on the grass and I could see you through the shrubbery — and then you went to the corner of the house and then Heather came out and you followed her—”

A fit of coughing stopped him.

“Get up off that wet ground,” Cooper complained. “Not by a long shot. To save my soul, I can’t remember what I did with that knife. It was a long knife I got there in the kitchen—”

Hicks stepped around behind him and got him under the armpits and heaved. Once upright, his legs seemed inclined to function, and all Hicks had to do was to steer him by an elbow over the treacherous footing back to the path, and across the bridge. There he balked.

“Where are we going?”

“To Heather’s office.”

“Where’s Heather?”

“She’s coming. She’ll be there.”

Hicks prodded him on. On the narrow path in the black night, they proceeded in single file, slowly, Hicks in the rear making frequent grabs for Cooper when he stumbled. Emerging from the woods, the meadow was under starlight, and it was easier going. At the front entrance of the laboratory building, Hicks sat on a concrete step and took off his shoes and socks. He was wringing all the water he could from the bottoms of his trouser legs when the beam of the flashlight came out of the woods, and in another minute Heather was there. She put the light on Cooper, propped against the steps, and then on Hicks.

“Give me the key,” Hicks said. “You can take the light back with you.”

“I’m not going back.”

Manifestly, by her tone, she meant it; and she had the door unlocked and was inside, and had turned the lights on, by the time Hicks had picked up his shoes and socks. He entered at Cooper’s heels. Cooper flopped on a chair and rested his elbows on his knees, and fastened his eyes on Heather with unblinking intensity. After one keen look at him Heather ignored him. She had changed to a brown woolen dress. Hicks, barefoot, draped his socks over the back of a chair, took out his handkerchief, and started to wipe the sonograph plates. Heather went to a cupboard and came with a roll of paper towels and reached for one of the plates. Hicks intercepted her. “No, thanks,” he said meaningly.

She opened her mouth to retort, choked it off, and went and sat down. Cooper shifted in his chair.

“Quit looking at me like that!” she burst out at him. “Quit it! I can’t stand it!”

“I’m sorry,” Cooper said hoarsely but politely. “I’m trying to remember something.”

“It’s a—” Heather caught her breath with a little quivering gasp. “It’s a nightmare,” she said.

“Right,” Hicks agreed succinctly. He was drying the plates with pieces of the paper towel. Finishing that, he took them to the desk where the record-playing machine was, seated himself, pulled the machine closer, placed one of the plates on the turntable, and looked for a switch.

“Inside front right corner,” Heather said.

“Thanks.” He found it and pushed it, and the disk turned. The arm swung over automatically and lowered the needle, and in a moment a voice came:

“Heather Gladd! Heather! I love you, Heather. I could say that a million times, just keep on saying it all the rest of my life. I love you, Heather! I wonder if I will ever look at you and say it right to you? Of course I will, if you will ever give me a chance. I’m such an awful boob, the way I acted that first week I met you, so that you didn’t like me, and now you have got your mind made up not to like me...”

It was Ross Dundee’s voice. Hicks stared at the whirling disk.

“By God,” Cooper said in a tone of stupefaction.

“Shut if off!” Heather blurted. “Aren’t you proud of yourself? Shut it off!”

“... but I swear to you I didn’t know what was happening to me, because it had never happened before. I suppose you have destroyed the first one of these plates I made, but if you haven’t, I wish I had it back, because even then I didn’t know what was happening, not completely, and I tried to be witty and amusing. Now I know it’s literally a matter of life and death, because there can be no life for me without you. I love you, I love you so! That hot night Tuesday, you left your door open, I could stand in the hall and hear you breathing...”

Hicks flipped the switch.

“Leave it on,” Cooper said. “I want to hear all of it.”

Heather was on her feet, coming to the desk. “Don’t you dare put on another one! Don’t you dare!”

Hicks put a protecting hand over the stack of plates. “I admit,” he said dryly, “that this is a considerable surprise. Why in the name of heaven you should sneak out at two A.M. to baptize a bunch of plastic love letters in a brook—”

“It’s none of your business why! Don’t you dare do another one!”

“If they bore you,” Hicks said imperturbably, “go outdoors. Or go back and go to bed. I’ll compromise. I’ll run through them first, doing only a sentence of two. Go back and sit down. You know darned well I can tie you up if I want to.”

She took another step forward, hesitated, marched back to her chair, and sat breathing through her nose. Hicks started another plate.

“I love you, Heather. In my room last night I wrote down what I would say on this plate, but when I read it this morning it was silly and insipid, so I tore it up. I never will be able...”

“That’s a sentence,” Heather snapped.

Hicks removed the plate, put another one on, and started the machine.

“I dreamed about you last night, Heather. You were picking flowers in a meadow, not our meadow, and I begged you to give me one...”

Hicks took it off and started another.

“Good lord, let me sit down and gasp a while! I know I’m late, but I had an awful time getting here. I never saw such traffic...”

As Heather started from her chair with a cry of incredulous amazement, Hicks stopped the machine. Cooper was bolt upright, as if suddenly straightened and held rigid by a current of electricity, his jaw hanging.

“Martha!” Heather cried. “That’s Martha!”

“Is it?” Hicks asked quietly. “And how come? In among your love letters?”

“I don’t know!” She was at the desk. “I don’t — let me see it! Let me—”

“No, no.” Hicks held her off. “You’re putting on a good show, but—”

“I’m not putting on a show! It’s a trick! You had it... you put it—”

“Shut up,” Hicks said curtly. “And don’t be silly. You said there were eight plates. Here they are, and this is one of them. You had them. You knew darned well what was on them. You’ve listened to them. And now you pretend—”