Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 16 Skeletons From My Closet

He shook them off. 'Well,' he said, 'we'll be there in a few minutes.'

'I'll be waiting.'

'And Mr. Brevoort likes his martinis very dry.'

'I'll place the vermouth bottle quite near the gin, then snatch it right away again.' She laughed, almost gaily.

He said good-bye and hung up, then sat there a moment, still hearing the gay laughter. 'Not tonight,' he prayed. 'Please, God, not tonight.'

His secretary appeared in the office doorway. Her liquid eyes looked at his nervous hands, his teeth biting down on a lower lip. 'It's five o'clock, Simon.'

'Oh… Thanks, Ida.'

'Mrs. Brevoort arrived just a minute ago. I told Mr. Brevoort you'd pick them both up on your way out.'

'Yes, that's fine.'

Ida hesitated, then moved into the office and closed the door behind her. 'Simon?'

'Yes?'

'You think it's wise?'

'What else can I do?' He waved his hands helplessly. 'The promotion comes up next Tuesday, and you know Brevoort — he likes to visit a man's home before making any real decision about him. So I've got to have them to dinner, and there's just no way out at all.'

'Poor Simon.' Ida sat on the edge of the desk and caressed the little brown hairs at the back of his neck. 'I keep remembering,' she said softly, 'those six months when your wife was away.'

'Yeah.' He laughed ironically. 'Away.'

'She might go away again,' said Ida.

'She will,' he said.

Silence for a moment, while Ida's fingers stroked his neck. Then suddenly she bent and kissed him, her familiar lips moving roughly against his own. 'Poor Simon,' and then matter-of-factly, 'well, it's five after five.' She slipped off the desk and straightened her blouse. She said, 'Don't worry, it'll work out,' and left the office.

'It'll work out,' Simon said. He rose, wiped off Ida's lipstick, and began clearing his desk. Beyond the door one of the stenographers giggled, and he sat again and put his hands over his ears. 'Not tonight. Please, Sheila, don't do anything wrong tonight.' He pulled upright and straightened his tie. He took a deep breath, put on his hat, smiled reassuringly at Ida as he passed her, and strode down the hallway toward the office of Mr. Walter Brevoort, President.

The October leaves fell like huge brown snowflakes as he drove through the early evening streets toward his home in Brentwood. Behind him in the rear seat, the Brevoorts sat apart from each other, staring out opposite windows. Mr. Brevoort was squat and bald with a fringe of white hair above his ears. His wife was plump and jolly.

Mrs. Brevoort said, 'You have a daughter, don't you, Simon?'

'Yes. Polly, twelve, and she's quite a beautiful child.' He laughed, apologizing for his own pride. But Polly was beautiful all the same. Blonde and slender and he loved her terribly. In a domineering way, perhaps; possessively, perhaps. 'She's beautiful,' he said again.

'Must get it from her mother.' Mr. Brevoort chuckled at his own joke, and Simon said that yes, Sheila was attractive, too, and remembered that he had actually thought so once — before she'd been sent away to the sanitarium and returned with her 'odd' ways that he'd tried to tolerate and now despised. 'She might go away,' Ida had said, and 'She will,' he had said. And she would, too, because that was the way he had planned it. Push her and push her. Exaggerate her idiosyncrasies to Doctor Birnam. Turn Polly against her. Drive her to the breaking point. Make her into a blabbering idiot. But not tonight. 'Not tonight,' he said aloud.

'What's that, Simon?' Mr. Brevoort asked.

'Nothing. Nothing.' And he drove on through the dropping leaves, to the neat white house on the corner beneath the trees.

'Lovely,' said Mrs. Brevoort as he helped her out.

He said, 'We love our little house,' and practically held his breath all the way up the walk, and did not breathe easily again until Sheila opened the door to greet them, and he saw that everything was going to be all right. She was dressed smartly in black, her dark brown hair done up neatly, her words slow and gracious, so that nothing gave her away at all — except perhaps the unusual brightness in her dark eyes, the twisted little smile on her lips when she raised them for his greeting kiss.

Mrs. Brevoort said, 'What a livable room!' and Mr. Brevoort slumped his squat body into an upholstered chair and said, 'Tell a lot about a man from his home life. A man's life gets upset at home, it's bound to show up in his work.'

'Yes, sir,' Simon said.

'Bound to.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Like to meet your daughter, Simon.'

'Later,' Simon said. 'She's off with some friends just now.' He looked at Sheila, who was serving the cocktails. 'Where'd Polly go, dear?'

'The early movie,' Sheila said. 'She'll be back by seven.'

'Then we can meet her,' said Mrs. Brevoort.

'She's her father's daughter,' said Sheila, and went into the kitchen.

Simon looked after her, frowning.

'Charming,' said Mrs. Brevoort.

'Lovely wife,' said her husband. 'Don't know how you lived without her all those months she was visiting her family.'

Simon mumbled something about its having been a difficult time for everyone, downed his own martini, murmured an apology, and went into the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind him.

Sheila was bent over the stove, stirring the casserole before slipping it into the oven. 'Everything all right?' he asked carefully.

'Perfect. Except you're planning to send me back to the sanitarium and take Polly away from me and keep carrying on with that Ida girl.'

'Sheila…'

'Otherwise everything's fine.'

'Not tonight, Sheila.'

'Last night and last week and last month. But not tonight.'

'If you'd try to understand — '

'Oh, I do, Simon. I understand perfectly. I'm to play a little game that will help you get a promotion at the office. After that you'll get rid of me and keep Polly for yourself.'

'Look, Sheila — '

'And maybe you will get rid of me, but you won't get Polly.'

'All right,' he said. 'Not now. Not now!'

She turned and smiled a little. Her eyes had become very bright, he thought, like that night months ago, just before the men had come in their white coats. He felt suddenly cold and said, 'Anything I can do?'

'Take out the garbage if you like.'

'After dinner.'

'Now, before it smells up the kitchen.'

He stepped on the pedal and drew the pail from the white container. The disposal bag was full, sealed tight.

'Don't open it,' she said. 'It'll make you sick.'

He shrugged, carried the pail out the back door, dumped the bag into the garbage can, then returned to the kitchen.

'Anything else?' he said.

'Just remember what I told you.'

'I'm warning you, Sheila — ' But he stopped then. He could not threaten her now.