I felt my face go even paler. He noticed, and his eyes despised me briefly. “You need not risk the apparent loss of a key or anything you’ll have to explain, Cary. I must be able to get in, get to her before she can raise an alarm. Before I leave, I can make it look as if entry was forced.”
“A window…” I mumbled.
He nodded. “Simply leave one unlocked.”
“Dining room,” I said. “Dining room is away from the garages…on the sheltered side of the house…fourth window down the west side of the house…”
I moved toward the door.
He caught my arm. “Don’t you want to know how I shall do it, Cary? Whether she’ll be strangled or struck over the head?”
“Not my phase, Constantine…”
I pulled away from him, ran, and collapsed in the car.
She cooked dinner herself Thursday night. She said she enjoyed cooking and did so often. I wished, however, she had made a less intimate gesture that evening.
She seemed to savor the feeling of our being alone together in the house. She really didn’t like servants. She was, I thought, too basically kind to order other people around.
“Cary…”
She looked almost unreal as I faced her across the candlelight.
“Yes?”
“Do you know what?” she laughed with delight. “I was a stranger today.”
“Stranger?”
“I went unrecognized. At least—almost. I ran into Jean Carraway at The Hub while I was shopping. She hardly knew me. Honest and truly. Said marriage had worked wonders for me. Have I really bloomed, Cary?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You always had the basic stuff, the bone structure, the figure under those plain dresses you used to wear.”
She reached across the table and touched my hand. “It goes deeper than that, Cary. If I have changed—bloomed, as Jean said—it was because of you. Cary…even if… If I should die tomorrow, I have lived. At last, I have lived…” What gave her the powers to have such a premonition?
I had to get out of the house quickly. My part was almost over. It remained now only for me to make sure that I was in the company of unimpeachable witnesses at ten o’clock, when phase two would take place…
A large cloud obscured the moon when I returned. Except for a single light upstairs in her bedroom, the house was dark.
I let myself silently in the front door. Passed like a shadow through the foyer.
Near the walnut-paneled staircase, I heard a slight sound. The massive bulk of Constantine loomed before me.
He realized I was there. He turned. From the hall table, I had picked up the heavy, antique marble figurine.
I struck him twice on the head before he knew what was happening. He fell across the table, smashing it. I bent over him quickly, striking my lighter. He was dead. The bone in his head was crushed.
Light spilled into the upper hall, and her voice, quick with anxiety, came to me.
“Cary…is that you?”
“Don’t come down here, darling!”
I ran quickly up the stairs; she was tall, slender and strangely and exotically beautiful in her negligee, the book she had been reading still in her hand.
“A prowler, darling…” I gasped. “A total stranger… Surprised him…scuffled…grabbed the first thing that came to hand…”
She touched me tenderly. “My poor Cary!”
“It’s okay…all okay now…think I killed him…call the police, will you?”
As she called, I was filled with the enjoyment of looking at her. If I had given meaning to her life, she had returned the gift fully.
And that was the thing I never could have explained, a thing Constantine never would have understood.
That I would fall in love with her.
FALSE START
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1964.
In our suite at the Diamond Shores on Miami Beach, Gervasi packed the money, two hundred thousand dollars of it, in an innocent-looking overnight case.
He snapped the case closed and lighted a cigar. Trim and excellently tailored, his careful Florida tan contrasting with the snow white hair, Gervasi looked like the titular head of a very wealthy old family.
He handed me the overnight case. “Call me immediately from Dallas, Nick.”
“It goes without saying,” I said. I paused at the mirror to adjust my necktie as Gervasi and I strolled toward the door. I had an excellent tan of my own. The face in the mirror was clean-cut with friendly eyes of brown. If Gervasi looked like the titular head, I gave the appearance of the bright young scion who would one day traditionally fill his shoes. Actually, there was no blood relationship between us. Merely the relationship in business, in the similarity of desire to have the best in life that big money can buy. Perhaps this was the strongest kind, after all.
Gervasi opened the door, laying his other hand on my shoulder. “Have a good trip, Nick.”
“Thanks. I will.”
I crossed to the elevator and rode down to the plush lobby. Through the tall glass doors I saw my car pulling up under the outside canopy.
Johnny, the bellhop, leaped out of the car and held the door for me when I came out. He’d already brought my twin suitcases down and stowed them in the car trunk.
He glanced at the overnight case in my hand. “Would you like that in the trunk also, Mr. Ramey?”
“You needn’t bother.”
I handed him a dollar, and he thanked me with a short bow. I got in the car and Johnny closed the door gently but firmly. He stepped clear of the car, just a hotel fixture, like the plumbing.
The morning was a monotony of endless miles of flat terrain. I was impatient to get through with the Texas trip and back to Miami for the opening races at Gulfstream. But I kept my foot lightly on the accelerator, never exceeding the speed limit. I certainly didn’t want a nosy, rube cop stopping me.
Shortly after mid-day, I drove into a sun-baked town in central Florida which offered no likely place to have lunch, so I continued driving.
On the northern outskirts, I saw a fresh, new motel with spacious, landscaped grounds, swimming pool and
