Mrs. Balfame: A Novel

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

  CHAPTER VI

  Mrs. Balfame let herself into the dark house. Saturday was Frieda'snight out.

  Contrary to her economical habit, she lighted up the lower floorrecklessly, and opened the windows; she felt an overwhelming desire forlight and air. But as she wished to think and plan with her accustomedclarity she went at once to the pantry in search of food; the blood wasstill in her head.

  The morrow would be Sunday, and the Saturday luncheon was alwayscomposed of the remains of the Friday dinner. On Saturday she dined atthe Country Club. Therefore Mrs. Balfame found nothing with which toaccomplish her deliberate scientific purpose but dry bread and a box ofsardines. She was opening this delectable when the front door bell rang.

  Her set face relaxed into a frown, but she went briskly to the door. Thepoison might be transpirable after all, and her alibi must be perfect;she had changed her mind about going to bed with a headache, and at teno'clock, when she knew that several of her childless friends would be athome, she purposed to call them up and thank them sweetly andcheerfully.

  When she saw Dwight Rush on the stoop, however, she almost closed thedoor in his scowling face.

  "Let me in!" he commanded.

  "No!" She spoke with sweet severity. "I shall not. After such a scene? Imust be more careful than ever. Go right away. I, at least, shallcontinue to be above reproach."

  "Oh!" He swallowed the natural expression of masculine irritation. "Ifyou won't let me in I'll say what I've got to say right here. Will youdivorce that brute and marry me? I can get you a divorce on half a dozengrounds."

  "I'll have no divorce, now or ever." Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore spoke withhaughty finality. "I abominate the word." Then she added graciously:"But don't think I am unappreciative of your kindness. Now you must goaway. The Gifnings live on the corner, and they always come home early."

  "A good many have left, including Balfame. He spoilt the evening." Rushstared at her and ground his teeth. "By God! I wish the old duellingdays were back again. I'd call him out. If you say the word I'll pick aquarrel with him anyhow. He carries a gun, and there isn't a jury inBrabant County that wouldn't acquit me on the plea of self-defence. Myconscience would trouble me no more than if I had shot a mad dog."

  Mrs. Balfame gave a little gasp, which he mistook for horror. Buttemptation had assailed her. Why not? Her own opportunity might be longin coming. It would be like Dave Balfame to go away and stay for amonth. But the temptation passed swiftly. Human nature is too complexfor any mere mortal to reduce to the rule of three. While she coulddispose of her husband without a qualm, her conscience revolted fromturning an upright citizen like Dwight Rush into a murderer.

  She closed the door abruptly, knowing that no mere verbal refusal toaccept such an offer would be adequate, and he went slowly down thesteps. But in a moment he ran back and a few feet down the veranda,thrusting his head through one of the open windows.

  "Just one minute!"

  She was passing the parlour door and paused.

  "Promise me that if you are in trouble you will send for me. For no oneelse; no other man, that is, but me. You owe me that much."

  "Yes, I promise." She spoke more softly and smiled.

  "And close these windows. It is not safe to leave veranda windows openat this hour."

  "I intended to close them before going up stairs. But--perhaps you willunderstand--the house when I came in seemed to reek with tobacco andliquor--with him!"

  His reply was inarticulate, but he pulled down the windows violently,and she locked them, smiling once more before she turned out the light.

  She returned to the dining-room, thinking upon food with distaste, butdetermined to eat until her head felt normal. She had no intention ofspeaking to her husband should he return, for she purposed to sleep on asofa in the sewing-room and lock the door, but tones and brain must belightly poised when she telephoned to her friends.

  The telephone bell rang. Once more she frowned, but answered the summonsas promptly as she had opened the front door. To her amazement she heardher husband's voice.

  "Say," it said thickly, "I'm sorry. Promise not to take another drinkfor a month. Sorry, too, I've got to go to the house for a few minutes.Didn't intend to go home to-night--thought I'd give you time to get overbein' as mad as I guess you've got a right to be. But I got to go toAlbany--politics--got to go to-night--must go home and get my grip.You--you--wouldn't pack it, would you? Then I needn't stay so long. Onlygot to sort some papers myself."

  Mrs. Balfame replied in the old wifely tones that so often had causedhim to grit his teeth: "I never hold a man in your condition responsiblefor anything. Of course I'll pack your suitcase. What is more, I'll havea glass of lemonade ready, with aromatic spirits of ammonia in it. Youmust sober up before you start on a journey."

  "That's the ticket. You're a corker! Put in a bromide, too. I'm atSam's, and I guess I'll walk over--need the air. You just go on bein'sweet and I'll bring you something pretty from Albany."

  "I want one of those new chiffon-velvet bags, and you will please get itin New York," she said practically. "I'll write an exact description ofit and put it in the suitcase."

  "All right. Go ahead." His accents breathed profound relief, andalthough her brain was working at lightning speed, and her eyes were buta pale bar of light, she curled her lip scornfully at the childishnessof man, as she hung up the receiver.

  She made the glass of lemonade, added the usual allowance of aromaticspirits of ammonia and bromide--a bottle of each was kept in thesideboard ready for instant use--then ran upstairs and returned with thecolourless liquid she had purloined from Dr. Anna's cupboard.

  Her scientific friend had remarked that one drop would suffice, butbeing a mere female herself she doubled the dose to make sure; and thenset the glass conspicuously in the middle of the table. The half openedcan of sardines and the plate of bread were quite forgotten, and oncemore she ran upstairs, this time to pack his useless clothes.

  She performed this wifely office with efficiency, forgetting nothing,not even the hair tonic he was administering to a spreading bald spot, abottle of digestive tablets, a pair of the brown kid gloves he affectedwhen dressed up, and a volume of detective fiction. Then she wrote aminute description of the newest fashion in hand bags and pinned it tohis dinner jacket. The suitcase was an alibi in itself.

  When she had packed it and strapped it and carried it down to thedining-room, returned to her room and locked the door, she realised thatshe had prolonged these commonplace duties in behalf of her nerves.Those well-disciplined rebels of the human system were by no meansdriven to cover, and this annoyed her excessively.

  She had no fear of not rising to precisely the proper pitch when sheheard her husband fall dead in the dining-room, for she always had risenautomatically to every occasion for which she was in any measureprepared, and to many that had caught her unaware. It was the ordeal ofwaiting for the climax that made her nerves jeer at her will, and shefound that a series of pictures was marching monotonously through hermind, again, and again, and yet again: with that interior vision she sawher husband walk unsteadily up the street, swing open the gate, slam itdefiantly, insert his latch-key; she saw his eye drawn to the light inthe dining-room at the end of the dark hall, saw him drink the lemonade,drop to the floor with a fall that shook the house; she saw herselfrunning down, calling out his name, shattering the glass on the floor,then running distractedly across the street to the Gifnings'--and againand still again.

  She had been pacing the room. It occurred to her that she could vary themonotony by watching for him, and she put out her light and drew asidethe sash curtain. In a moment she caught her breath.

  Her room was on a corner of the house and commanded not only the frontwalk leading down to Elsinore Avenue, but the grounds on the left. Inthese grounds was a large grove of ancient maples, where, dressed inwhite, she passed many pleasant hours in summer with a book or herfriends. The trees, with their low thick branches still laden withleaves, cast a heavy sh
ade, but her gaze, moving unconsciously from theempty street, suddenly saw a black and moving shadow in that black andalmost solid mass of shadows.

  She watched intently. A figure undoubtedly was moving from tree to tree,as if selecting a point of vantage, or restless from one of severalconceivable causes.

  Could it be her husband, summoning his courage to enter and face her?She had known him in that mood. But she dismissed the suggestion. He hadinferred from her voice that she was both weary and placated, and he wasfar more likely to come swaggering down the avenue singing one of hisfavourite tunes; he fancied his voice.

  Frieda never returned before midnight, and then, although she enteredby the rear hall door and stole quietly up the back stairs, she would bequite without shame if confronted.

  Therefore, it must be a burglar.

  There could not have been a more welcome distraction. Mrs. Balfame wascool and alert at once. As an antidote to rebellious nerves awaiting theconsummation of an unlawful act, a burglar may be recommended to themost amateurish assassin.

  Mrs. Balfame put on her heavy automobile coat, wrapped her head and facein a dark veil, transferred her pistol from the table drawer to apocket, and went softly down the stairs. She left the house by thekitchen door, and, after edging round the corner stood still until hereyes grew accustomed to the dark. Then, once, more, she saw that movingshadow.

  She dared not risk crossing the lawn directly from the house to thegrove, but made a long detour at the back, keeping on the grass,however, that her footsteps should make no noise.

  A moment or two and she was within the grove. She saw the shadow detachitself again, but it was impossible to determine its size or sex,although she inferred from its hard laboured breathing that thepotential thief was a man.

  He appeared to be making craftily for the house, no doubt with theintention of opening one of the lower windows; and she stalked him witha newly awakened instinct, her nostrils expanding. The original resolveto kill her husband had induced no excitement at all; even Dwight Rush'slove-making had thrilled her but faintly; but this adventure in thenight, stalking a house-breaker, presently to confront him with thecommand to raise his hands, cast a momentary light upon the emotionalmoments experienced by the highly organised.

  Suddenly she heard her husband's voice. He was approaching ElsinoreAvenue from one of the nearby streets, and he was singing, withphysiological interruptions, "Tipperary," a song he had cultivated oflate to annoy his political rival, an American of German birth andterrific German sympathies. He was walking quickly, as top-heavy mensometimes will.

  She drew back and crouched. To make her presence known would be to turnover the burglar to her husband and detain the essential victim from thedining-room table.

  She saw the shadow dodge behind a tree. Balfame appeared almost abruptlyin the light shed by the street lamp in front of his gate; and then itseemed to her that she had held her breath for a lifetime before herears were stunned by a sharp report, her eyes blinked at a spurt offire, before she heard David Balfame give a curious sound, half moan,half hiccough, saw him clutch at the gate, then sink to the ground.

  She was hardly conscious of running, far more conscious that some oneelse was running--through the orchard and toward the back fence.

  Hours later, it seemed to her, she was in the kitchen closing the doorbehind her. Something curious had happened in her brain, so trained toorderly routine that it seldom prompted an erratic course.

  She should have run at once to her husband, and here she was inside thehouse, and once more listening intently. It was the fancied sound thatswung her consciousness back to its balance. She went to the front ofthe back stairs and called sharply:

  "Frieda!"

  There was no answer.

  "Frieda," she called again. "Did you hear anything? I thought I heardsome one trying to open the back door."

  Again there was no answer.

  Then, her lip curling at the idea of Frieda's return on Saturday nightat eight o'clock, she went rapidly into the dining-room, carried theglass containing the lemonade into the kitchen, rinsed it thoroughly,and put it away.

  It was not until she reached her room that it occurred to her that sheshould have ascertained whether or not the key was on the inside of therear hall door.

  But this was merely a flitting thought; there were loud and excitedvoices down by the gate. In an instant she had hung up her automobilecloak and veil, changed her dress for a wrapper, let down her hair andthrown open the window.

  "What is the matter?" Her tone was peremptory but apprehensive.

  "Matter enough!" John Gifning's voice was rough and broken. "Don't comeout here. Mean to say you didn't hear a shot?"

  Two or three men were running about nearer the house. One paused underher window, and looked up, waving his hand vaguely.

  "Shot? Shot? I heard--so many tires explode--What do you mean? What isit?--Who--"

  "Here's the coroner!" cried one of the group at the gate.

  "Coroner?"

  She ran down stairs, threw open the front door and went as swiftlytoward the gate, her hair streaming behind her.

  "Who is it?" she demanded.

  "Now--now." Mr. Gifning intercepted her and clasped her shoulder firmly."You don't want to go down there--and don't take on--"

  She drew herself up haughtily. "I am not an hysterical woman. Who hasbeen shot down at my gate?"

  "Well," blurted out Gifning. "I guess you'll have to know. It's poor oldDave."

  Mrs. Balfame drew herself still higher and stood quite rigid for amoment; then the coroner, one of her husband's friends, came up the pathand said in a low tone to Gifning, "Take her upstairs. We're goin' tobring him in. He's gone, for a fact."

  Mr. Gifning pushed her gently along the path, as the others lifted thelimp body and tramped slowly behind. "You go up and have a good cry," hesaid. "I'll 'phone for the Cummacks. I guess it was bound to come.There's been hot times in Dobton lately--"

  "Do you mean that he was deliberately murdered?"

  "Looks like it, seeing that he didn't do it himself. The damned houndwas skulking in the grove. Of course he's made off, but we'll get himall right."

  Mrs. Balfame walked slowly up the stair, her head bowed, while the heavyinert mass so lately abhorrent to his wife and several politicians waslaid on the sofa in the parlour whose evolutions had annoyed him.

  Mr. Gifning telephoned to the dead man's brother-in-law, then for thepolice and the undertaker.

  Mrs. Balfame sat down and awaited the inevitable bombardment of herprivacy by her more intimate friends. Already shriller voices weremingling with the heavier tones down on the lawn and out in the avenue.The news seemed to have been flashed from one end of Elsinore to theother.