Маргарет Миллар - The Iron Gates [= Taste of Fears]

He brought one hand out of his pocket, and thrust a parcel at Annie. Then he turned with a jerk and walked away, his head lowered against the wind.

Annie closed the door and looked at the parcel. It was a small rectangular box wrapped in plain white paper. Perfume, Annie thought, and shook it to see if it gurgled. But the parcel remained noncommittal and neither gurgled nor rattled.

Briskly Annie mounted the steps and knocked on Lucille’s door.

“Come in,” Lucille said. “Yes, Annie?”

“A parcel for you,” Annie said. “A funny little guy brought it.”

“Man,” Lucille said.

“A funny little man, then,” Annie said. “Don’t you think my grammar is getting swell, Mrs. Morrow? Della noticed today, I sound just like you.”

“Yes,” Lucille said. “You’re a very clever girl.”

“Oh, I’m not really clever,” Annie said modestly. “I just figure, here is my chance to get cultured so I try to get cultured.”

“That will be all, Annie.”

“I figure, chances don’t grow on trees. I could be making more in a war plant but what would I be learning, I tell Della.”

Lucille waited in silence and after a time the silence penetrated into Annie’s consciousness and she turned, with a small sigh, and went out.

She had barely reached the kitchen when she heard the scream. It rushed through the house like a wind and was gone.

“My goodness,” Della said. “What was that?”

The two girls looked at each other uncertainly.

“I guess it was her,” Annie said. “I never heard her scream before. Maybe she twisted her ankle. Maybe I better go up and see.” But when Annie went up Lucille’s door was locked.

“Mrs. Morrow,” Annie called. “Mrs. Morrow. You hurt yourself?”

There was no answer, but Annie thought she heard breathing on the other side of the door.

“Hey,” Annie said. “Mrs. Morrow!”

“Go away,” Lucille said in a harsh whisper. “Go away. Don’t bother me.”

“Della and me, we-figured you twisted your ankle or something...”

“Go away!” Lucille screamed.

Her spirit bruised, Annie returned to the kitchen.

“Well, I like that,” she told Della. “You hear her? She yelled at me.”

“And her usually so quiet,” Della said. “But then she’s just at the age. Sometimes they go off like that.” Della snapped her fingers.

“Who?” Annie said.

“Women,” Della said mysteriously. “At that age. Hysterics and fits over nothing. Maybe she didn’t like what was in the parcel. Say it was jools, emeralds, say, and she didn’t like them. Say she gives them to us.”

“To us,” Annie breathed. “Oh, Lordy.”

“A necklace, say.”

The silverware was forgotten. The emeralds were sold, except two. (“We should keep one apiece,” Della said.) The money was invested in war bonds (“I believe in war bonds,” Annie said), and flowered chiffon dresses and mink coats (“Exactly alike,” Della said. “Wouldn’t that be cute?”

“Except you’re fatter than I am,” Annie said).

The argument over a red roadster was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.

“Red,” said Annie, “is vulgar,” and picked up the telephone.

“Yes, Dr. Morrow. Yes, I’ll call her, Dr. Morrow.”

She turned and hissed at Della, “Him. For her. You go and tell her.”

“Well, I won’t,” Della said. “Nobody can call me vulgar and expect favors all the time.”

Stubbornly, she turned her back, and Annie, seeing that nothing short of a sharp pinch would move her, decided to go herself.

When she arrived upstairs the door of Lucille’s room was open and Lucille was missing. Annie called out several times, and then, in a fit of exasperation, she searched Lucille’s room and the adjoining bathroom, and the room beyond that, which belonged to Andrew.

Della was called, and the two girls looked through the entire second floor, now and then calling, “Mrs. Morrow.” The silence made them nervous and each time they called their voices were shriller and higher.

Clinging together they came down the stairs and switched on all the lights. The house ablaze with light no longer seemed so quiet, and Annie moved almost boldly ahead into the living room.

“Wait,” Della said. “I thought I heard something. I thought I heard a — a footstep.”

“You heard no such thing,” Annie said, shaken.

“Oh, I don’t like this,” Della moaned. “She’s done away with herself. Things like that happen at her age. Oh, I wish people would hurry up and come home.”

“She didn’t do away with herself, we would’ve found the corpse.”

Once the idea of death had entered their heads the girls became too frightened even to talk. Silently they went through all the rooms on the first floor.

There was no trace of Lucille Morrow or the box she had received.

The girls returned to the kitchen and the more familiar scene loosened their tongues.

“Maybe it was really emeralds,” Della said, “and instead of giving them to us she’s gone out to throw them away, say, or have them reset.”

“How could she go out?” Annie said. “Weren’t we sitting here in these very chairs? Did anybody ever come in or go out that I don’t know about, I ask you.”

“We could go up again and see if any of her coats are missing.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I was just saying we could.”

Annie’s curiosity was whetted. A minute later the girls were on their way upstairs again.

In the clothes closet Lucille’s dresses hung, ready to be worn, and the shoes lay on the racks ready to be stepped into.

“It’s like looking at a dead person’s things,” Della whispered. “You know, after they’re dead when you sort out their clothes and there they are all ready only nobody to wear them.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Annie, intent on studying the coats.

“I got a funny feeling, Annie.”

“Oh, you and your feelings. It would serve you right if she walked in here right this minute and fired us both for getting into her things.”

Dreading this possibility, and yet feeling that it would be an improvement on their present situation, they cast longing fearful glances toward the doorway.

But Lucille didn’t walk through the door and neither of the girls ever saw her again.

They returned to the kitchen and Della suddenly noticed that the telephone receiver was still dangling on its wire. Instead of merely presenting this fact to Annie, Della, true to her nature, opened her mouth, put one hand over it and with the other hand pointed toward the telephone.

Annie, whose back was to it, gave a shriek and swung round to meet whatever doom Della’s open mouth and quaking finger indicated.

Seeing only the telephone she whispered, faint with relief, “I thought... I thought you saw — something.”

“Him,” Della said. “You forgot him.”

“Oh, Lordy.”

“You better phone him back.”

“Oh, Lordy, he’ll be mad.”

But Annie did not give him a chance to be mad. She told him immediately and bluntly that his wife had disappeared.

“Have you gone crazy, Annie?” Andrew demanded. “Plumb disappeared, Dr. Morrow, honestly.”

“Annie, kindly...”

“Oh, I know how it sounds, Dr. Morrow, nobody” can tell me how it sounds. Della and me, we’re scared. We been through all the rooms except ours and there ain’t a trace of her, I tell you.”

“Where’s my sister?” Andrew said. “Let me speak to her.”

“She didn’t come back yet.”

“Then you two incompetents are there alone?”

“Della and me,” Annie said huffily, “we may not have an education but we got eyes and Mrs. Morrow has plumb disappeared. Right after the man brought the box we heard her scream and I went up and she told me to beat it. And that’s the last thing she said to me on this earth.”