“You do me an injustice to accuse me of playing a dirty trick like that,” I said. “It’s true that things were not quite as I said, but I certainly didn’t discriminate against anyone. We all had exactly the same chance.”
“Explain yourself, if you don’t mind.”
“The truth is, I put poison in all three of the bottles.”
“In that case, where’s Dennis?”
“Yes, indeed,” I said. “Where is he?”
“I haven’t seen him around anywhere.”
“Neither have I. Nor will we. Not for a long time.”
“You mean he reneged? That after agreeing to participate, he didn’t drink his port at all?”
“That’s it.”
She kept on staring at me, but her index finger kept tapping slower and slower until it shortly stopped altogether, and I thought I could see in her eyes certain signs that we might be entering a heavenly era of madness, delirium, and irresistibility.
“Well,” she said, “I can see that I called the wrong man an old so and so.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “Would you care for an ambrosia highball?”
“I think I would,” she said. “I need it.”
SOUNDS AND SMELLS
Originally published in Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #3 1961.
When Rector Goodhue got home that evening a few minutes after five o’clock, Charlie Treadwell was sitting on the front-porch steps of the house next door. It was all right for Charlie to be sitting there, for it was his house, but what impressed Rector was Charlie’s air of abstraction. He was sitting on the top step, hunched over his knees, and when Rector spoke and waved in a neighborly way, he didn’t respond by either voice or gesture. Rector went on into his house and back to the kitchen, where Gladys, his wife, was spooning strawberries over shortcake.
“What’s the matter with old Charlie Treadwell?” he said.
“Is something the matter with him?” Gladys said.
“Well, he’s sitting over there on his front steps, and he acts as if he were in a trance or something. He didn’t even answer when I spoke to him.”
“Maybe he’s had another fight with Fanny.”
“That Fanny’s a real witch. The truth is, she’s more than old Charlie can manage.”
“Oh, nuts. All he needs to manage her is a little more backbone. What he had better do about Fanny, if you want my opinion, is make her quit wearing those short shorts and tight dresses that ride up when she sits down. She’s far too sexy for her own good.”
“It’s true that men are always running after her. It makes old Charlie frantic.”
“It’s not men running after Fanny that makes Charlie frantic. It’s Fanny running after men.”
In Rector’s opinion it was really six of one and half a dozen of the other, but he did not wish to debate the issue, especially with Gladys, and so he said he guessed he’d go out and mow the back yard before supper, and Gladys said supper would be at six, which meant six thirty. Rector went into the bedroom and changed into the old clothes he wore working in the yard, and then he went out and started the power mower and mowed the grass neatly, and he was just finished with the back yard when Gladys came to the door and said supper was ready. They ate in the kitchen, baked ham and potato salad with the strawberry shortcake for dessert, and Gladys said over coffee that Sinatra was at the Paramount.
“To hell with Sinatra,” Rector said.
“What’s wrong with Sinatra?” Gladys said.
“For one thing, he’s getting bald.”
“So are you, in case you didn’t know it.”
“Just a little on top where it doesn’t show much. That Sinatra has to wear a toupee.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“It’s common knowledge.”
“I don’t care if he wears a toupee and a full plate besides. He makes me break out with prickly heat, and he’s playing at the Paramount, and I want to go see him.”
“Be my guest.”
“You mean you’ll actually go with me?”
“I mean I’ll pay your way and give you enough extra for a sack of popcorn.”
“Thanks. And what do you plan to do while I’m gone, or is it a secret?”
“Not at all. I’m going to mow the front yard, and afterward I’ll have a couple cans of cold beer and maybe watch television or just sit on the front steps and watch lightning bugs.”
“God, you’re exciting! Being married to you is just one long exciting experience! Don’t you ever worry about me running around alone at night?”
“Why don’t you take Fanny along? If she and old Charlie are sore at each other, it might relieve things to get them apart for a while.”
“Going with Fanny is better than going alone, I suppose. You run over while I’m dressing and ask her if she wants to go.”
“I’ve got to get on that yard,” Rector said.
“That’s after you do the dishes.”
She got up and went off in one direction to the bedroom, and Rector got up and went off in another direction to the back door and then around the house and across to the Treadwells. Charlie was still sitting hunched over his knees in a trance on the top step, and he didn’t pay any attention when Rector approached and stopped a few feet away, and Rector thought for a few seconds that he wasn’t even going to pay any attention after he, Rector, had spoken and stood waiting for an answer. Then Charlie twitched suddenly and looked around at Rector slowly, his eyes coming back from a long way off and adjusting with apparent difficulty to a short focus.
“Oh, hello, Rector,” be said. “I didn’t hear you come up.”
“What’s the matter with you, Charlie?” Rector said. “You feeling sick or something?”
“No. I’m
