her.
She stirred, and rubbed her eyes and looked at him. Her red hair lay spread out on the pillow. She was wearing a low-cut green nightdress, and the flesh of her arms glowed pink in the light from his bedhead.
She looked young and childlike, tousled with sleep. He thought she looked, indeed, rather beautiful, noting the fact in an unemotional way, and glad that the kind of protective emotional covering which he had assumed prevented the fact from touching his heart.
“Barty? What’s the matter?”
He smiled. “Nothing’s the matter. I just thought I would get the tea, for a change. A kind of treat for you.”
“Good heavens. How nice of you, my dear.”
“Miracles never cease, do they?”
He smiled back at her, and poured out two cups of tea. Beatrice sat up in bed, and took her cup and began to sip it.
“You look rather lovely, you know.”
“Thank you, Barty. Praise indeed.”
“Like one of those advertisements you see in magazines. Drink a cup of Slumbo and get eight hours’ sleep and be a beauty like me.”
He talked to her for a while, about this and that, for he knew she liked to chat in the early morning, and he was particularly anxious that she should enjoy herself that morning.
After a while, he heard the rustle of the morning papers being thrust through the letter box. He went out to fetch them, and when he returned he handed one to Beatrice, and opened one himself, sitting on the side of her bed.
For two or three minutes he sat reading and smoking. Then, his cigarette finished, he reached forward to extinguish it in the ashtray on the table by the side of Beatrice’s bed. As he did so, he noticed the bottle of indigestion powder, and the glass on a saucer, and the teaspoon.
He straightened himself, and stared at the bottle. It was nearly empty. Slowly and carefully he began to think round the idea which had occurred to him, much as a cat will peer and cautiously sniff at a plate of food suddenly presented to it.
“Nothing in the paper,” said Beatrice, continuing to read it just the same. She yawned.
Bartels said nothing. He was trying to remember two things. One was how big a dose Beatrice took of the powder, and the other was how often she took it when she had her periodic bouts of mild digestive trouble.
He reckoned there were about four teaspoonsful left in the bottle, and as far as he could recall, having once or twice mixed it for her, she took two teaspoonsful at a time.
Altrapeine was tasteless. That is what the medical book had said. So was the medicine Beatrice took. But was altrapeine really tasteless, or was it a comparative term?
He remembered the dog Brutus. The dog had taken it without trouble. But in that case the powder had been embedded into the meat, and when it came to meat the dog wolfed each piece almost without biting it. It was hardly a fair test.
Supposing he put double the necessary quantity into the bottle, since there were two doses of powder left, and supposing he did not mix the two powders evenly, so that Beatrice took a dose of almost pure altrapeine, would she notice it?
It would be too late, of course, because she always gulped her medicine down, but if she noticed a strange taste-and she had an extraordinarily delicate palate-and then began to lose consciousness, she would be afraid.
She would not suspect him, but she would be afraid. She would think, in the seconds before she died, that the chemist had made a mistake: one read about such mistakes. She would die in fear.
He remembered her fear when she had had her slight attack of palpitations. Her first worried little remark, early one morning: “I feel funny, Barty. I wish I hadn’t taken those aspirins.” And a few minutes later, the piteous little cry of real alarm: “Barty, I do feel queer; my heart’s beating terribly quickly, and I can’t seem to get my breath.”
He had calmed her down, only to hear her call out again a few moments later. She had rushed to the window and flung it open, and gulped down the air, and turned and clung to him with terror in her eyes, and cried; “Barty, Barty!” and then again, “Barty, Barty!”
Then, while he telephoned the doctor, she had gone and put her head under a cold-water tap, and had kept moving about the flat, always with fear in her eyes, crying, “I think I’m better if I keep moving! I seem to be better if I keep moving!”
It had been nothing serious, of course. She had simply knocked off aspirins and taken to phenacetin tablets instead, and had never had an attack since. Her heart was as sound as a bell.
But he remembered how he thought, in agony of mind: Not this way, dear God, not by death. Oh, God, don’t give me my freedom through her death!
It had changed since then. Now he not only desired her death: he was plotting it. Now it was freedom by death, yes, but not freedom by death
He lifted the teapot and looked at Beatrice.
“Care for another cup?” he asked.
“Yes, please. Not quite so much sugar this time, please.”
Beatrice answered without looking up from her paper. She was lying back smoking and reading. Soon, as Bartels knew, she would put down her paper and start talking about her plans for the day.
“Been having indigestion again?” he asked. “I see you’ve been taking your stuff.”
“Oh, nothing much. I’ve had one or two twinges in the night lately. That’s all.”
“How often do you take the stuff?”
Beatrice had a habit of becoming so deeply immersed in her reading that she was unable to hear questions put to her. So it was now. She did not answer.
“How often do you take it?” said Bartels again, more loudly. “Twice a day? Three times?”
Beatrice leant over and extinguished her cigarette in the tray. “Oh, no. I’m just taking it before I go to bed for a few days. I’ll have to get some more.”
“I’ll get it for you,” said Bartels.
“I’ve got enough to last tonight and tomorrow.”
“I’ll get you some today,” said Bartels dully.
“Oh, don’t bother, Barty. There’s no hurry.”
“I’ll get it for you today,” said Bartels again. “I’ve got to go to the chemist anyway to get some blades.”
He heard the postman’s knock, and went out and fetched the letters. There was nothing of interest, except a letter from a cousin of Beatrice’s saying her sister had had a baby. It was strange that they had never had a child, Beatrice and himself. The doctors could find no reason for it. He wondered if a child would have made any difference, and thought it probably would have done. Strange, then, that a hidden physical defect, some small maladjustment, accidental, invisible, inherited, could make so much difference to three people: could cause a man, indeed, to risk the hangman’s noose.
He had the information he wished now. She was taking the powder once a day, before going to bed; and she was taking about two teaspoonsful, as he had surmised.
“I think I’ll have my bath,” he said, and went out.
He passed the wardrobe where his suits were hanging. It was in the breast pocket of the oldest one, the one he rarely wore, that the bottle of altrapeine was secreted. It was quite safe there. Beatrice hardly ever went to his wardrobe, and if she did, while he was having his bath, she would have no cause to search the pockets of that old and dilapidated suit.
Bartels shaved and bathed, slowly, taking his time, and thinking out his next move.
He was still quite calm. Later, his nerves were to cause him trouble. But not yet. He was still enjoying the relief which comes from taking a decision after a period of mental struggle.
During the day, he would have to buy a bottle of Beatrice’s medicine.
This, when he returned and found Beatrice no longer alive, he would substitute for the one which had
