'Well?' he bridled. 'Surely I may present you with a bit of string.'
Mrs. Violette said, 'I don't like to take her stuff. Never mind, anyhow. I got to go to the bank and I can pick some up . . .'
'Take it,' he said urgently. 'I'd like you to take this.'
'Well, then . . .' Mrs. Violette seemed to understand his need. She began to wind twine upon her spread fingers.
'No, take it all,' he said. 'Please do.'
'I don't like to take more than I'll use.'
'I know that,' he told her. This was, he fancied, a rather silly, very trivial rebellion. He just wanted something to be as it used to be. He wanted to feel—generous. (Or ... for all he knew, he wanted, in some ridiculous revenge, to do his sister Ethel out of the price of a ball of twine.)
Mrs. Violette took the whole ball. 'I'm sorry to leave you and Mrs. Gibson,' said she.
'I'm sorry if my sister has upset you,' he said tiredly
'Me and Joe are going up to the mountains,' said Mrs. Violette. He perceived that this was an answer. 'And I got to be ready by five o'clock . . .' She stopped speaking and looked at him. He had the strange conviction that she knew what he proposed to do.
'That's all right,' he said soothingly.
Mrs. Violette's face lit in a rare smile. 'Well, then, goodbye,' she said. 'They say that means 'God be with you.' '
'Goodbye,' said Mr. Gibson rather fondly.
She went out the kitchen door with the ball of twine in her pocket. Now he was all alone.
At 12:10 o'clock he left the cottage and walked . . . doing quite well without his cane, although he lurched when he came down upon the shortened leg and could not help it . . . went two blocks west, crossed the boulevard
there and caught a bus for downtown. Paul Townsend he had left safe at home behind him, working away in his herb garden this morning. So Mr. Gibson knew how to get what he wanted.
He did not see the people on the bus. He did not notice the familiar scenery as the vehicle proceeded on the boulevard, then went threading around residential comers until it came upon a business street and thicker traffic. Mr. Gibson, in a mood both bitter and dangerously sweet, was composing a letter.
There was a temptation to be pathetic, and he must resist it. He must make Rosemary understand the cold choice. He must in no way seem to reproach her ... A difficult letter. What words would do this?
He came out of his absorption in time to get off the bus on a downtown corner. This little city had grown, like all California towns, as a wild weed grows. It had left the college here, and in its own park, close to the town's old center . . . and had sent tentacles romping out into valleys and lowlands on all sides. But Mr. Gibson would not go there, to the college—to walk on a campus path and be spoken to by name . . . not again. They would not miss him very much, he thought. Some younger man would come in. . . .
Paul Townsend's place of business was a block and a half in the opposite direction, and Mr. Gibson turned his uneven steps that way. He began to imagine his next moves . . . and, as he did so, he realized that he ought to have brought a container. He stopped in at a delicatessen and purchased the first small bottle he saw on the shelf. It happened to be a two-ounce bottle of imported olive oil, and quite expensive. '
'I am Kenneth Gibson. Mr. Townsend's neighbor. He asked me to stop by and fetch a letter out of his desk,' said Mr. Gibson with cool nerves.
'Oh yes. Can I get it for you, Mr. Gibson?'
'He told me exactly where to put my hand on it . . . if you don't mind . . .'
'Not at all,' the girl said. 'This way, Mr. Gibson.' She knew who he was . . . Mr. Gibson of the English Department ... a trustworthy man. 'In here,' she said with a smile, and ushered him into the laboratory.
He did not look at the cupboards but went to Paul's desk and opened the left top drawer and took, at ran-
dom, an old letter out of a pile. 'This seems to be the one.'
'Good,' she said.
'Er . . .' Mr. Gibson looked distressed and embarrassed. 'Is there by any chance a . . . er . . . men's room . . .?'
'Oh yes,' she said becoming at once crisp and remote. 'Right over there, sir.' She indicated a door.
'Thank you.'
As he had calculated, she left for the outer regions.
He went into the small washroom and turned the cap upon the bottle of olive oil and gravely poured the contents away into the sink.
He came out. Now the laboratory was his alone. He found the key with no trouble. He took down No. 333. His hands were steady as he poured its liquid content into his own container. It was a delicate task, from one small opening into another, but he was cold and clearheaded. He scarcely spilled a drop.
He did not take it all. As he put No. 333 back in place he thought the depletion of the supply would not be noticed for some time. He made no attempt to wipe off fingerprints or anything of that sort. He had elected not to take the whole bottle from the cupboard away with him, only because he needed time. Time to get home. Time to write his letter. He did not want the fact of some missing poison noted too soon and the girl asked and his name given and he interrupted.
