I leaned against the wall and got a cigarette out just to have something to do with my fingers. I pinched and squeezed it and broke it in half and threw one half on the floor. Her eyes followed it down. I bent and picked it up. I squeezed the two halves together into a little ball.
She made the tea. “I always take cream and sugar,” she said over her shoulder. “Strange, when I drink my coffee black. I learned tea drinking in England. They were using saccharin instead of sugar. When the war came they had no cream, of course.”
“You lived in England?”
“I worked there. I stayed all through the Blitz. I met a man—but I told you about that.”
“Where did you meet Roger?”
“In New York.”
“Married there?”
She swung around, frowning. “No, we were not married in New York. Why?”
“Just talking while the tea draws.”
She looked out of the window over the sink. She could see down to the lake from there. She leaned against the edge of the drain board and her fingers fiddled with a folded tea towel.
“It has to be stopped,” she said, “and I don’t know how. Perhaps he’ll have to be committed to an institution. Somehow I can’t quite see myself doing that. I’d have to sign something, wouldn’t I?”
She turned around when she asked that.
“He could do it himself,” I said. “That is, he could have up to now.”
The tea timer rang its bell. She turned back to the sink and poured the tea from one pot into another. Then she put the fresh pot on the tray she had already fixed up with cups. I went over and got the tray and carried it to the table between the two davenports in the living room. She sat down opposite me and poured two cups. I reached for mine and set it down in front of me for it to cool. I watched her fit hers with two lumps of sugar and the cream. She tasted it.
“What did you mean by that last remark?” she asked suddenly. “That he could have up to now—committed himself to some institution, you meant, didn’t you?”
“I guess it was a wild pitch. Did, you hide the gun I told you about? You know, the morning after he made that play upstairs.”
“Hide it?” she repeated frowning. “No. I never do anything like that. I don’t believe in it. Why are you asking?”
“And you forgot your house keys today?”
“I told you I did.”
“But not the garage key. Usually in this kind of house the outside keys are mastered.”
“I don’t need a key for the garage,” she said sharply. “It opens by a switch. There’s a relay switch inside the front door you push up as you go out. Then another switch beside the garage operates that door. Often we leave the garage open. Or Candy goes out and closes it.”
“I see.”
“You are making some rather strange remarks,” she said with acid in her voice. “You did the other morning.”
“I’ve had some rather strange experiences in this house. Guns going off in the night, drunks lying out on the front lawn and doctors coming that won’t do anything. Lovely women wrapping their arms around me and talking as if they thought I was someone else, Mexican houseboys throwing knives. It’s a pity about that gun. But you don’t really love your husband, do you? I guess I said that before too.”
She stood up slowly. She was as calm as a custard, but her violet eyes didn’t seem quite the same color, nor of quite the same softness. Then her mouth began to tremble.
“Is—is something wrong in there?” she asked very slowly, and looked towards the study.
I barely had time to nod before she was running. She was at the door in a flash. She threw it open and darted in. If I expected a wild scream I was fooled. I didn’t hear anything. I felt lousy. I ought to have kept her out and eased into that corny routine about bad news, prepare yourself, won’t you sit down, I’m afraid something rather serious has happened. Blah, blah, blah. And when you have worked your way through it you haven’t saved anybody a thing. Often enough you have made it worse.
I got up and followed her into the study. She was kneeling beside the couch with his head pulled against her breast, smearing herself with his blood. She wasn’t making a sound of any kind. Her eyes were shut. She was rocking back and forth on her knees as far as she could, holding him tight.
I went back out and found a telephone and a book. I called the sheriff’s substation that seemed to be nearest. Didn’t matter, they’d relay it by radio in any case. Then I went out to the kitchen and turned the water on and fed the strips of yellow paper from my pocket down the electric garbage grinder. I dumped the tea leaves from the other pot after it. In a matter of seconds the stuff was gone. I shut off the water and switched off the motor. I went back to the living room and opened the front door and stepped outside.
There must have been a deputy cruising close by because he was there in about six minutes. When I took him into the study she was still kneeling by the couch. He went over to her at once.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I understand how you must feel, but you shouldn’t be touching anything.”
She turned her head, then scrambled to her feet. “It’s my husband. He’s been shot.”
He took his cap off and put it on the desk. He reached for the telephone.
“His name is Roger Wade,” she said in a high brittle voice. “He’s the famous novelist.”
