All the way

by Charles Williams

  I had to change planes in New Orleans. It was seven-thirty p.m. when we came in at Houston International. I hurried to the first booth and called the Rice Hotel.

  “Mrs. Forsyth,” I said.

  “Just a moment. I’m sorry, sir. She isn’t registered.”

  I fought down an impulse to yell at her. “But she was there—”

  “I’ll connect you with the desk, sir.”

  “Never mind,” I said. I collected my luggage and caught a cab into town, and went to the Rice.

  The clerk consulted his records. “Yes, sir. She checked out two days ago. No forwarding address.”

  “All right, give me a room,” I said.

  I tipped the boy and as soon as he left I flipped through the phone book to detective agencies. Several had night numbers listed. I called one.

  He arrived in about thirty minutes, an untidy and owlish-looking man named Krafft. I told him what I wanted.

  “She was here at the hotel until two days ago,” I said. “Just find out where she went, as fast as you can. I don’t even know whether she had a car. If she left town, the chances are it would be by air, so try the airlines first.”

  He called back in less than an hour. “Mrs. Forsyth left here the afternoon of the eighteenth on an American Airlines flight to San Francisco.”

  ”Good,” I said. “Does your agency have an office there?” “Yes, sir. All major cities.”

  “Okay, look— Wire or teletype right now and tell them to start on it. If they find her, keep track of her. I don’t care what it costs. I’ll be at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, just as soon as I can get there.”

  I couldn’t get out until the next day. It was ten-thirty p.m. when I checked in at the Mark Hopkins. I’d wired for a reservation. There was a note waiting for me to call a Mr. Ryan, at a Garfield number. As soon as I was up in the room I called him.

  “Mr. Ryan? This is Forbes, at the Mark Hopkins.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Forbes. About Mrs. Forsyth—”

  “Have you found her?” I broke in.

  “Not yet. She arrived here the night of the eighteenth and registered at the Palace. Checked out at two-thirty p.m., eighteenth, no forwarding address. We’ve covered all the airlines and railroads, so apparently if she’s left town it was by bus or private car. But she left the hotel by cab. We haven’t been able to find the driver yet. She might have taken an apartment, or be visiting a friend. Can you give us any hints? I mean, apart from the description?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She went to Stanford, so you might try around Palo Alto; she could be looking up somebody down there. I doubt she’s looking for a job, but if she does, it’ll probably be in a brokerage house. She has a beautiful flair for clothes. Keep an eye on the City of Paris and I. Magnin’s, and so on. If she’s taken an apartment it will probably be in a good neighborhood.”

  “We’re checking the apartment angle now. Utilities, and so on.”

  “All right,” I said. “Just find her. Use as many men as you can put on it.”

  They found her the next afternoon. Ryan called a little after five. “You were right about the Palo Alto thing. She’s been down there. She came back today, and registered at the Fairlane Hotel. It’s a fairly small place, on Stockton. Room six hundred and eight.”

  “Thanks a million,” I said. “Just send me your bill.”

  I depressed the switch, looked up the number, and gave it to the operator.

  “Mrs. Forsyth, please,” I said, when the Fairlane answered.

  “One moment, sir.”

  The phone buzzed twice. “Hello.” It was her voice. I could almost see her.

  “Marian!” I said. “Marian—”

  She screamed.

  Fourteen

  It was five o’clock and traffic was snarled. When we were within a block of it I tossed the driver a dollar and ran. I didn’t even pause at the desk. When I got out of the elevator, I asked the operator, ”Six hundred and eight?” He pointed to the right.

  It was the third door. I rapped. She opened it almost at once. She was a little thinner, and very pale, but as smooth and striking as ever. She was wearing a dark tailored suit. I pushed the door shut. There was the same wonderful, slender feel of her in my arms. I kissed her. She tried. I could feel her trying, but she couldn’t quite do anything with it. It was no wonder, I thought, with what had just happened. But it was impossible to let her go. I kissed her eyelids and her throat, and the smooth dark hair.

  Finally she whispered. “You did have one very small piece of luck, Jerry; I’m not much given to crying. Otherwise you’d need a shower curtain.”

  “Why?”

  “Your kissing me this way after what I did to you.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I sold you out, I suppose you’d call it, in about the most cynical way it would be possible to do it.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” I said.

  “I think we’d better sit down,” she suggested. “Take the armchair.” She sat on the side of the bed. I looked around. It was any small hotel bedroom anywhere—Venetian blinds, glass-topped desk, telephone, grayish carpet, and twin beds with dark green spreads and metal headboards finished to resemble limed oak. She crossed her knees and pulled down her skirt. I looked at the slender, tapering fingers.

  “Why did you run away from Houston?” I asked. “I was going to warn you if it became serious.”

  “I wasn’t running from the police,” she said. “From you. I lost my nerve again.”

  “Will you go with me to Reno tonight and marry me?”

  She closed her eyes and lowered her face slightly. Then she shook her head. “No, Jerry.”

  “Will you go away with me without marrying me?”

  “Please, Jerry—” She stopped, but then made an effort and went on. “I’ve already told you I lied to you. About our going away together. Maybe I wasn’t consciously lying at the time, I don’t know. I might even have thought I could do it. But that isn’t the point.

  “Listen, Jerry,” she went on, “I asked you to do something criminal, for money. As long as you were cynical enough to do it for money, only half the responsibility was mine. Do you understand? But then you said you’d changed your mind. You wouldn’t do it. But you were in love with me, you said. So I said, that’s fine, Jerry. If you won’t commit a crime for money, commit a crime because you’re in love with me—”

  Her hands were twisted tightly together and shaking, and she stopped for an instant and clenched her teeth to stop the tremor of her chin. It was as if her whole face had already shattered, and she was merely holding it together with an effort of will.

  “—After all, old men commit sexual offenses against children somewhere every day, don’t they? So let’s be efficient. Let’s don’t waste a nice handy thing like your being in love with me, when it could be put to some practical use, like luring you into becoming involved in a capital crime and ruining your life—”

  I reached over and caught her arms. “Will you stop it? The whole thing was my fault. If I’d had the guts of an angleworm I could have made you give it up.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no way you could have stopped me, Jerry. You don’t stop a blind obsession like that. The only thing I could see was that I’d lost everything after it was already too late to start over again, so the thing to do, obviously, was to destroy everybody else too. Including you.”

  “I’m not destroyed, if you mean Chapman. After what he did to you, he doesn’t bother me.”

  “He will,” she said. “Unless you get the fact firmly fixed in your mind that you didn’t do it. I did.”

  “Cut it out,” I told her. “We both did it. But do you think it will continue to hold up? Remember, if they ever put a real expert on those forgeries they’re going to look very fishy.”

  “There’s no reason they ever should. However, I’d like to point out something; you’re in the clear, even if they find out it was an impersonation. They can’t prove you ever
met me before it happened. You were using the name of Hamilton, remember. And when I came down from New York, I called you as Mrs. Forbes, but I used another name on the plane tickets. Also, en route from the airport to the apartment, I switched taxis in Miami.”

  I nodded. “When can I bring the money over to you?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said apathetically. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It wasn’t the money at all, was it?”

  “No.” Then she added. “Or maybe I tried to think it was, partly.”

  I lit a cigarette and walked across the room to look out at Stockton Street through the slats of the blind. I came back and stopped in front of her. “Is it just the voice?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. That thing when you called just now was only because I was off guard, and didn’t know you were anywhere near. The principal reason I don’t want to go with you is that I’ve done you enough harm already. Why add to it?”

  Did the other men who’ve been in love with you have this same trouble getting a message through?” I asked. “Did any of them ever manage to convince you that you might be the thing he needed, or wanted, or cared about?”

  Her hands were beginning to twist and shake again. “Jerry, please don’t.”

  “No,” I said. I crushed out the cigarette. “If I hadn’t given up too easily the other time, I might have won. So this time I’m going to try just once more. And after that I’ll shut up for good.” I squatted beside the bed, balancing myself on my toes with my forearms across her lap. “I know you don’t love me,” I said. “Maybe you’ve been hacked down so thoroughly it’ll be years before you can care anything about anybody. But I’ll settle for less. I’ll try to say this without slopping over or getting too sticky about it. I just want you. I want to be with you. I want to try to help you. Maybe together we can still work this out some way; at least we could try. We’ll go anywhere you say, on any terms you want, if you’ll just give me a chance. After a while I think you’d associate the voice with me instead of with him. I don’t think they ever made anybody else like you, and probably they never will again. I’m crazy about you, and I always will be. But that’s enough of that. I think you’ve quit trying to deny that I’m in love with you. It’s just a question of whether you’ll go with me. will you, Marian?”

  I looked up at her. She’d turned her face away, and the chin was locked again and she was crying without making any sound at all. She looked at me at last, and shook her head.

  I stood up. She started to come with me to the door, but stopped with one hand resting on the back of the chair. By this time she could trust herself to speak, and she said, “Good night, Jerry,” and held out her hand.

  “Good night, Marian.” I looked back from the open doorway, and, as always, she reminded me of something very slender and beautifully made and expensive—and utterly wasted—like a Stradivarius in a world in which the last musician was dead. I closed the door and went on down the hall.

  She killed herself that night. She must have taken the capsules shortly after I left, as nearly as I could tell from the medical reports in the news. There was nothing about it in the morning papers, of course, and I still didn’t know it until noon when I walked into the El Prado bar on Union Square with a Call-Bulletin under my arm.

  I spread it open and took a sip of the Martini.

  SUICIDE CONFESSES

  —Mrs. Marian Forsyth, 34—

  It caught me without defense at all and kept swamping me and I couldn’t get it under control. I pretended to choke on the Martini and got the handkerchief out and honked and sputtered and snorted while I was heading for the men’s room to spare the dowagers behind the snowy tablecloths and half-acre menus the sight of a grown man crying in the El Prado in broad daylight. Fortunately, there was no one in the John. I was all right by that time, and could wash my face and go back outside. I folded the Call and drained the Martini and walked all the way back up Nob Hill to the Mark. I sat down on the bed to read it, but it was a long time before I even opened the paper. She was dead; what else mattered? The headline said something about a confession, and it occurred to me that if she had left one they’d be here for me before very long. I really ought to do something about it.

  Why hadn’t I left her alone? She had that absurd feeling of responsibility for my being mixed up in the thing, and apparently my presence reminded her of it. Maybe if I’d stayed away from her she might have been able to handle the other thing.

  And I could have stopped her that night if I’d said no and stuck with it. I rubbed a hand across my face. It was nice to think about it now. And I had a hunch now wasn’t the only time I was going to think about it.

  I read the story. She’d died of an overdose of sleeping pills. The medical examiner believed she had been dead since before midnight, and that she must have taken them very early in the evening.

  I thought of her alone in her agony. She had no one. She had a bleak, miserable, impersonal hotel room and her own courage and that almost unshakable poise, and that was it. She hadn’t asked for any help, or cried out. She’d merely held out her hand, and said, “Good night, Jerry,” and waited for me to leave so she could take them.

  Christ, I thought shakily, I’ve got to stop this. I’ll be walking out the window.

  There were two notes. The first was to the local police and contained instructions regarding the burial arrangements. The second read:

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  On 28 November, 1957, an automobile belonging to Mr. Harris Chapman of Thomaston, Louisiana, was found abandoned on Sugarloaf Key, in the State of Florida. It is believed that Mr. Chapman is dead, but this has never been officially ascertained.

  Mr. Chapman is dead. I destroyed him. I am solely responsible for this act, and may God have mercy on me.

  In making the above statement, I am aware that I shall be dead within the next few hours.

  (Signed) Mrs. Marian Forsyth.

  I went over to the window and stood looking out. I was free now of even the possibility of suspicion or arrest. Down in the hotel safe was an attache case containing almost a hundred and seventy thousand dollars. It was all mine—money, immunity, everything. I was the beneficiary of a tormented girl who had just committed suicide in a hotel room. And I couldn’t even go to her funeral.

  She’d asked to be buried in a little country churchyard only a few miles from Thomaston. What would I do if somebody spoke to me? Pretend to be mute? All I could do was send flowers.

  She took all the blame for this thing we had done, gave me all the money, and I sent dowers to her funeral.

  Well. I’d been looking for a free ride all my life, hadn’t I? So now I had one.

  * * *

  I went to Mexico—not to Acapulco, but to a little fishing village just up the coast from La Paz, in Baja California, where there were no tourists, practically no accommodations, and no one who spoke English. It seemed that now I had plenty of money, all I wanted to do was live like a beachcomber. I wore dungarees and swimming trunks and lived on tortillas and beans and drank nothing at all.

  After a while I quit waking up with the cry frozen in my throat as she went over the bridge railing and fell down through the fog, and gradually I quit staring at darkness for hours on end with that thing running through my mind: why hadn’t I stopped her? She was caught in a blind obsession, not knowing—or perhaps not even caring—that if she killed Chapman it would destroy her. But I’d known it, hadn’t I? I’d been warned. And I’d failed her.

  For the only time in my glib and cheaply cynical, wise-guy existence I’d really meant something that I said, and I hadn’t been able to make her understand it or believe me. I simply hadn’t tried hard enough. During those twenty minutes in the apartment that night I’d had the opportunity to stop this obscene and senseless waste of a woman who was worth a thousand of me, and I’d muffed it, and let her go on down the drain, and if I didn’t stop lying here at night thinking of how many years of my life I’d give j
ust for one more chance at those twenty minutes I’d go mad. That was the thing I had to whip.

  But it was going away. I was slowly whipping it. And even if the Mexicans heard me when I woke in the night, it didn’t matter. They didn’t understand English.

  She had wanted to confess, there in that last hour, but it was evident that she was driven by an equally strong, or even stronger, compulsion to protect me for the rest of my life. She felt responsible for me. It was a sort of noblesse oblige. She was older than I was, and more intelligent, and she felt she had taken advantage of the fact that I had fallen in love with her.

  I thought about guilt. That was the theme. She was going to kill Chapman and make it appear he had been destroyed by his own conscience and his haunting fear of the taint of mental illness. It had worked, and then she’d inevitably been destroyed by her overpowering burden of guilt. It went on, like a string of popping firecrackers setting each other off.

  Except that here it stopped. I had no feeling of guilt for him, not any more. In the first place, I had a much more elastic conscience; it had been stretched considerably over the years to fit different shapes of situations. And I hated him, furthermore, for what he had done to her. And in the end, I hadn’t actually killed him anyway. Perhaps that was the final irony of it. She’d told me how to save myself.

  Always hold on to that, she’d said. You didn’t do it. I did.

  Three months passed, and I knew I was all right. It was all going away. The police couldn’t touch me, and I was safe in that epidemic infection of guilt. Marble shattered, but not rubber.

  * * *

  I went back to San Francisco in the spring, completed transferring the money from the safe-deposit box into three banking accounts, and booked a passage on a Grace Line freighter for the Canal zone. I knew now what I was going to do—go into business as a big-game fishing guide in the Gulf of Panama. I’d liked Panama, and there was a boatyard I knew there where I could have a magnificent sports fisherman built for much less than I could in the States, a real sixty-thousand-dollar job with the best of everything.