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

“I’ll be right home,” Andrew said. “Meanwhile don’t get hysterical. Mrs. Morrow very likely went out for a walk.”

“Without a coat?” Annie said, and paused slyly. “What’s this about a coat?”

“Her coats are all in her closet. Della and me, we looked and they’re all there.”

“See here, Annie,” Andrew said in a calm voice, “don’t get excited. You know Mrs. Morrow fairly well by this time. Has she ever done anything that wasn’t practical and reasonable?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Then hold the fort until I get there.”

“Maybe it wasn’t something she done, maybe it was something somebody done to her.”

But Andrew had already hung up. Slowly Annie did the same and turned to face a feverish-looking Della. “But there’s nobody here,” Della said.

“Maybe not.”

“Oh, you’re trying to scare me again! What’d he say?”

“He’s coming home.”

“Right away?”

“That’s what he said. He don’t believe us. He says she went for a walk. A walk in this weather in a short-sleeved dress, I ask you. And anyway does she ever go for walks?”

“Not that I know of,” Della agreed. “But you can’t tell at her age.”

“I’m sick of hearing about her age.”

They were silent a moment. Then Della said wistfully, “We could talk about the emeralds again. You want to?”

“Sure.”

“We’d keep one apiece. How many do you think there was in the first place?”

“Fifty,” Annie said listlessly.

“Fifty, imagine that! They’d be worth a million. What’d be the very first thing you’d buy, Annie?”

“A dress, I guess.”

“I’d buy a black-chiffon nightgown.”

The game went on, but the emeralds had turned into green glass.

Shortly before six o’clock Andrew arrived home with Martin. Hand in hand, for moral support, the two girls came out into the hall.

“Well?” Andrew said, with a trace of irritation. “Mrs. Morrow back yet?”

Annie shook her head. “No, sir.”

“You said over the phone that you looked through the whole house except your own rooms?”

“We didn’t look there because what would she be doing up there? You think we should go up there now?”

“Don’t bother,” Andrew said and turned to Martin. “Run up to the third floor, will you, just as a precaution.”

“All right.” Martin flung his coat and hat on the hall table and ascended the steps, two at a time.

Andrew took off his own coat in a leisurely manner. “What are all the lights on for?”

“Della and me, we felt better with them on,” Annie said. “Della’s got bad nerves.”

“It wasn’t just me,” Della muttered.

“Turn off some of the lights,” Andrew said.

His refusal to get excited made the girls calmer. Della’s mind began to function again and she went out to the kitchen to start preparing dinner, leaving Annie to tell about the man with the parcel.

Annie couldn’t remember whether the man was short or tall, dark or fair, young or old. She knew only that he was sinister.

“By sinister no doubt you mean shabby?” Andrew said dryly. “Go on.”

“The light was dim and I didn’t notice him much because he should’ve come to the back door.”

Andrew listened patiently as she described the box and the conversation. But Annie noticed that he kept one eye on the steps waiting for Martin to return.

Martin came back, looking partly amused, partly exasperated.

“Crazy as it sounds,” he said, “she’s gone.”

His father silenced him with a look and turned to Annie. “All right, Annie, you may go. It’s simply a matter of waiting for Mrs. Morrow to come back.”

“What gets me,” Annie said, “is the coats.”

“What coats?” Martin said.

“You may go, Annie,” Andrew repeated sharply.

Annie left, and remarked to Della that never ever until today had Dr. Morrow or Mrs. Morrow spoken roughly to her.

Left alone in the hall Andrew and Martin glanced uneasily at each other.

“Crazy as hell, isn’t it?” Martin said. “A grown and capable woman goes out of the house and everyone begins to imagine things.”

“If she went, she went without a coat. Annie says there is none missing. Come in here. I don’t want those two to hear us.”

They went into Andrew’s den and closed the door.

“She might have slipped over to a neighbor’s house,” Martin said, avoiding his father’s eye.

“She doesn’t know the neighbors. Lucille’s not like that.”

“How do you know? She might do some calling that she doesn’t tell you about.”

Andrew blinked. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing. Just that you can’t know everything about a person.”

“That’s true. But in fifteen years you get a fairly accurate impression, you can anticipate reactions.” He reached for the decanter on his desk. “Drink?”

“Thanks,” Martin said.

“This is practically the first time I’ve ever come home without having Lucille greet me. No doubt that sounds dull to you, Martin.”

“Pretty dull,” Martin said, and at the mere mention of dullness and constriction and boredom he felt incredibly vital and alive. He waited to fling himself out of the chair, to stretch, to jump, to run, to make noises. He felt his muscles go taut, and he had to force himself to keep his feet still.

Andrew noticed the tension but misunderstood the cause.

“What did you mean, that Lucille might do some calling that she doesn’t tell me about?”

“Good Lord, I wasn’t slandering her. I simply meant that she wouldn’t tell you every little thing she did for fear of boring you. She’s a quiet person anyway.”

“Yes. Annie said she screamed.”

“Screamed?” Martin said. “Lucille? What about?”

“She wouldn’t tell Annie.” Andrew leaned his head on his hands. He looked grayer and more tired than Martin had ever seen him look before.

How old he is, Martin thought, how old and settled. Intolerant of age and inactivity, Martin began impatiently to move the stuff about on Andrew’s desk. He emptied and then filled a pen, he rearranged some books, he scribbled his name on the blotter and he folded a page from the memo pad into a fan.

“Being a doctor’s wife,” Andrew said, “is a hard job. Being a second wife doesn’t make it easier. Yet Lucille has never complained. What’s that you’re staring at?”

“Nothing,” Martin said. “A piece of paper. Somebody’s burned holes in it with a cigarette.”

“Put it down then, and don’t fidget. You’re as jumpy as Edith.”

“Odd.”

“What?”

“These pictures. They look like my mother. Somebody’s burned the eyes out.”

“What? Give it to me.” Andrew took the paper and looked at it briefly. “Nonsense. Not a bit like your mother.”

“I think so.”

“More implications, Martin?”

“Not at all,” Martin said politely, and tossed the paper aside as if it suddenly bored him.

“You believe,” Andrew said, “that Lucille drew pictures of Mildred and then mutilated them?”

“Oh, what does it matter?”

“It matters to me. If you like, when Lucille comes back home I’ll ask her.”

“Good Lord, no!”

“I insist on asking her,” Andrew said.

Martin pounded his fist on the desk. Nearly all of his arguments with his father left him with this feeling of helpless rage against Andrew’s naiveté. After twenty-five years of being a doctor Andrew seemed never to have lost his faith in human nature. Martin, who had no faith in anyone but himself and no religious convictions beyond the basic one that he was God, alternately respected and despised his father.