The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow

by Patrick Quentin

For a moment it seemed to her that her voice was like thunder, rolling down the duct, billowing back to her. Outside in the street, Hilary could hear. Surely, Hilary would hear.

  The front-door buzzer sounded again.

  “Help! Help! Oh, help!”

  Her voice sounded deafening to her. And, crazily, it seemed to go on shrilling long after her lips were closed.

  Then, suddenly, she understood. It wasn’t her voice she was hearing. It was the cats answering her from the cellar. Her own voice was hardly stronger than a whisper.

  It was completely drowned by the high, sour yowling of the cats.

  Hilary Prynne stood at the front door of Mrs. Snow’s house. He had dressed, as always, with the greatest care. In his hand he held a small florist’s box containing a single white orchid. Adelaide loved white flowers.

  The crisp sunlight shone on his pink, distinguished, benevolent face. He was feeling particularly jaunty, but then the prospect of seeing Adelaide always acted as a tonic. They would lunch at the Plaza, of course; and then perhaps Adelaide might enjoy a carriage drive in the park. They would have until five, because his train to his weekend hosts’ in Hartford didn’t leave until six and he had already checked his suitcase at Grand Central.

  As he pressed the door buzzer, a daring thought came. Wasn’t this, perhaps, the right moment to ask Adelaide to marry him? Poor old Gordon had been gone now for over five years. Hilary toyed deliciously with the idea of having Adelaide always with him. Of course, it would be difficult after all these years to give up his bachelor habits. But think of the compensations—Adelaide’s wonderful flair for companionship, her cool, clear mind, her ability to make decisions.

  His thought chain broke. What was the matter with Maggie? She usually answered the door so promptly.

  He pressed the buzzer again, and as he did so, he heard a strange sound from inside the house. Alarm spread through him. It was almost like someone crying.

  He leaned closer, pressing his ear to the door. He heard the sound again. Oh, it was only the cats. Hilary’s mouth pursed in faint distaste. He had a horror of cats. Certainly, if he married Adelaide, he would, very tactfully, of course, ease the cats out of the establishment.

  He rang the buzzer a third time. Then he remembered. Adelaide had told him on the phone the other day that Maggie was sick. Adelaide must have given the cook the day off, and she was all alone. Upstairs, primping, probably.

  He rang the buzzer again. The sound of the cats’ wailing was much nearer now. They must have run up to the door. During the long, dead pause that followed, Hilary’s alarm increased. What if Adelaide were all alone there and something had happened! A fall in the bathtub, perhaps, or … or …

  For surely she must be there. If she had gone away for the weekend she would have called. Their lunch dates were as important to her as to him.

  He put his finger on the buzzer and kept it there. He could hear the shrill of the bell merging with the screaming of the cats. He glanced over his shoulder. A policeman was strolling down the sidewalk across the street.

  Hilary started down the steps and hurried towards the officer. Adelaide must have had an accident. That was the only explanation. They would have to break down the door, get a doctor, get …

  He called, “Officer.”

  The policeman turned. It was only then that Hilary realized what must have happened. He’d flown in late from Baltimore last night. He’d been too tired to consult the pad of telephone messages that had been left for him. That morning, in his hurry to get ready for Adelaide, he’d never thought of looking at it.

  Of course. Adelaide had been called unexpectedly away and had left a message. He just hadn’t seen it. That was all. Years of decorous life as a banker had given Hilary Prynne a horror of scenes. How monstrously embarrassing if he had actually broken down Adelaide’s front door, caused a scandal with the police, and … The very thought of it made him hot and cold all over.

  “Yes, sir?” The policeman was standing in front of him.

  Hilary’s pink face grew a trifle pinker. “I’m sorry to trouble you, officer, but do you happen to have the correct time?”

  It was too bad to have missed Adelaide. But he would see her next week, and this way he would get up to Hartford in plenty of time for dinner.

  The Yacht Club orchestra was playing “Goodnight, Sweetheart.” Lorna was on the dance floor in Bruce’s arms. This should have been another blissful end to another blissful day. Bruce had danced with her all evening. He had never been more loving, more tender. The usual magic was almost as potent as ever. But that little worm of doubt that had first stirred at breakfast was still boring. Lorna hated herself for it, but she couldn’t suppress the feeling that Bruce was being deliberately loving, deliberately tender, as if …

  Somehow it all seemed to center around Aunt Addy. She had brought up Mrs. Lindsay again, quite casually, when they were alone in their room after sailing, and—Had it been her imagination? Or hadn’t she sensed—well, a falseness, a falseness in the soothing tone of his voice, the sudden “sincere” steadiness of his eyes. She had drunk more cocktails than usual before dinner to try to forget it all. But it hadn’t worked.

  It was all absurdly unimportant, of course. But it frightened her. Love and complete trust in marriage meant the same thing to Lorna.

  The music stopped. Bruce’s lips brushed her cheek.

  “Come on, babe. One for the road.”

  The club bar was crowded. Bruce left Lorna on the fringes of the laughing, chattering groups and pushed forward to order the drinks. Glancing after him, Lorna noticed idly that he had ended up next to a man she had never seen before, a big, red-faced man with carroty hair. The man turned to Bruce with a beam of recognition.

  “Well, well, Bruce, old fellow, so you didn’t end up in a block of cement in the East River, after all!” He gave a booming laugh. “Boy, was I glad not to be in your shoes the other day! Almost was, too. Almost bet my shirt on that little filly. Five thousand smackers in the red! How in hell did you raise the dough?” The laugh, thickened with alcohol, boomed again. “But then, of course, I was forgetting. You married you a bank roll, didn’t you? That’s the way to do it! Nothing like a rich wife when you play around in that league.”

  Lorna heard every word as if it had been bellowed in her ear, and in the same instant she saw Bruce’s face, caught completely off guard, growing gaunt and grey with fear. Fear—it was the only word. Quickly he twisted away from the man, holding the drinks high over the crowding shoulders. Before she could turn away, his eyes caught hers. He knew she had heard.

  He brought the drink to her. There was a sickly smile on his lips. “Lorna …”

  He stopped abruptly, for Sylvia and Larry were hurrying towards them.

  “Drink up, children. Time to go home.”

  In the car driving back to the Emmetts’, Lorna was in the front seat with Larry. She was grateful for the darkness and Larry’s mellow silence. She felt a dreadful hollow in the pit of her stomach.

  What had Bruce done?

  He had lost five thousand dollars on the races and somehow raised the money to pay off his losses. She knew that now. That in itself was a complete shock. She hadn’t even known he bet on horses. But that wasn’t all. There was his uneasiness about Aunt Addy. He couldn’t possibly have known they would run into that man. It couldn’t have been the man that had been worrying him. Then …

  Lorna thought: The sapphire ring! Bruce had told her he and Aunt Addy had found it in the upholstery of the chaise longue. Lorna herself had searched down that upholstery and hadn’t found it. Yesterday she had laughed about it as a joke on herself. But … but what if the ring hadn’t been there? What if Bruce had lied?

  The emeralds, too! Was it conceivable that Bruce could have stolen Aunt Addy’s sapphire ring and her emeralds to pay the gambling debt? Was that why Aunt Addy had called so urgently?

  Of course, I was forgetting. You married you a bank roll. The cynical implications of that r
emark tore at her. Her whole new enchanted life was tottering around her, undermined by her own suspicions. Bruce had never loved her. Bruce had only married her for Aunt Addy’s money. Bruce, who could lie about the betting, had stolen …

  No! she prayed. No! Please prove me wrong. Please make me wish I were dead for thinking these things about Bruce.

  Somehow she got through the nightcaps with Sylvia and Larry. Then at last she and Bruce were alone.

  “Lorna, Lorna, darling, I know what you’re thinking.”

  He caught at her arm. She pulled away.

  “Lorna, baby, please listen. I did put five thousand on a horse. I’d got a straight tip. Seven to one. It couldn’t lose. That’s what they told me. Baby, please, you must understand why I did it. Do you think it’s easy for me, penniless, being married to you? Can’t you see how I hate living on Aunt Addy’s charity, being a kept man? Babe …” His hands slid onto her elbows from behind. “Babe, I want to be a real husband. More than anything in the world, I want to be able to take care of you myself. If I’d won, I’d have made thirty-five thousand. That would have been a beginning.”

  He twisted her around. His face was forlorn, ashamed, like a little boy’s face. Lorna couldn’t control her feelings. She couldn’t control that twinge of sympathy and warmth that ran through her. But she said accusingly, “How did you raise the five thousand to pay the bookie?”

  Bruce shrugged. “From a moneylender. Terrific interest, of course. But, baby, it was the only thing to do. Those bookies, they’re tough. They have to be paid off. I—I couldn’t possibly have gone to Aunt Addy. You know how she’d react. Oh, babe, I’ve loused everything up. I know that. I know you think I’m the heel of the world—”

  He broke away from her and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I was going to tell you. I kept putting it off. I was scared. All weekend I’ve been a nervous wreck. I—I guess maybe running into Bob Struther there was a blessing in disguise. At least it’s all out in the open now. And …” He looked down at his hands. “Do you want a divorce?”

  All weekend he’d been a nervous wreck. Lorna was torn between the steadiness of her thinking and her passionate desire not to lose the only real happiness she had ever found. All weekend he’d been a nervous wreck. Why not? Wasn’t this crazy loss of five thousand dollars reason enough to make anyone a nervous wreck? Wasn’t that enough in itself to explain the oddness, the uneasiness that had worried her so? The sapphire ring could have been lodged down in the upholstery, and Bruce’s explanation for Aunt Addy’s urgent phone call could perfectly well have been true.

  “Babe.” He looked up at her again, and the naked suffering in his eyes made her want to cry. “It’s ruined, isn’t it? I’ve loused it up for good. What a jerk I’ve been! What a stupid jerk!”

  Suddenly there was nothing but her need for him, her hunger to recapture what had almost been lost.

  “Oh, Bruce!” She dropped down on the bed next to him. “I’ve been thinking such terrible things. When I heard that man and I was worried about the money, I thought—I thought maybe you’d taken Aunt Addy’s ring and the emeralds.”

  “Heaven’s above!” Bruce gave a loud spontaneous laugh. “Old Raffles Mendham, the international jewel thief!”

  “And then when we got mixed up about Mrs. Lindsay and you didn’t want me to call Aunt Addy—”

  “Baby, my poor, sweet baby! I know I was stupid about Mrs. Lindsay. I was only half there. I …”

  He twisted around and took her in his arms. She leaned against him, sobbing, exhausted by the suspicions that were dying and the restored love that was flooding through her.

  “Oh, Bruce, somehow we’ll raise the money to pay off the moneylenders.”

  “Of course, baby.” He was stroking her hair. “Matter of fact, I’ve already given that some deep thought. Larry’s loaded.”

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t ask Larry. But we’ll find some way.”

  “That’s my baby.” Gently he stretched her out on the bed. He took off her shoes and kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll call it a day and be brilliant about it tomorrow.”

  As she lay there, sobbing, luxuriously enjoying her own relief, she heard Bruce undress and go into the bathroom. The fool! The idiot! It was so like him to do something crazy like that, to try to counterbalance the tiresome money thing she’d always known he hated. Who expected him to be staid and responsible, anyway? She’d always known he was as simple and muddling as a kid. That was one of the things she loved best about him—such a contrast to the efficient Aunt Addy. How could she have suspected…?

  Lorna wanted a cigarette. She turned towards the bedside table. There weren’t any. Bruce’s brief case lay on a nearby chair. He always carried a carton in it. She reached out and touched the clasp.

  Bruce’s voice came so suddenly that it made her jump.

  “Lorna, what d’you want?”

  She turned to see him silhouetted against the bathroom. She thought with horror of a life without Bruce.

  “Just you, darling, and a cigarette.”

  He was at her side, taking a cigarette from his bathrobe pocket, lighting it, slipping it between her lips.

  “Baby, I’ll never do anything like that again. I swear it. And all my life I’ll never forget how wonderful you’ve been.”

  After the door buzzer stopped and she knew Hilary had gone away, it was as if Mrs. Snow had died. There was no panic any more. Perhaps you needed at least some hope to feel panic. There was no panic, no hope, only thirst that was like an incurable disease, something to be endured minute by minute, something that would never go away.

  The night stretched interminably. Was it still night? Hours ago she had dragged herself to the center of the vault and tried to read her watch. But her head was swimming, and her eyes would not focus on the dial. It didn’t matter, anyway. Time didn’t matter in the tomb.

  Already there were moments when she didn’t know any longer where she was. The ceiling light above her seemed to be the light in the cabin of Gordon’s cruiser. It seemed to be swaying with the motion of the boat. And Gordon was there, sitting on the bunk with her, his arm around her shoulder. Dear Gordon! How sweet of him to be there when he was dead! Dear Gordon …

  Then Gordon wasn’t there any more and a faint alarm would spread through her. Where were they headed, anyway? Why hadn’t they reached port?

  “Gordon.” Her cracked lips croaked the word out loud, but she wasn’t conscious of it.

  She twisted around on the cement floor, her arms curled almost caressingly about the open duct.

  “This headache, Gordon, this headache. Why don’t you bring me an aspirin?”

  She started to weep. The tears slid slowly down her cheeks through the straggles of hair.

  You’re alone. You’re lost at sea.

  Lorna Mendham stood with her martini in a corner of the Simmonses’ huge living room. The Sunday pre-lunch cocktail party was chattering around her. Sylvia and Larry, who had refused to sacrifice their day’s sailing, were not there. Bruce had run into some of his rich friends from the south of France and was out with them on the terrace.

  Lorna was glad she was alone. She was too unstrung to deal with sociabilities. After the emotional scene with Bruce last night, it had seemed that everything would be perfect between them again. But it wasn’t.

  When she had fallen in love with Bruce, she thought she had sloughed off forever that side of her nature that was always insecure, self-doubting. She knew now she couldn’t escape it. All morning she had been asking herself: How can I be sure Bruce was telling the truth? He had kept the crazy betting episode from her. If he’d been able to do that… I was forgetting. You married you a bank roll. If only Aunt Addy weren’t at Mrs. Lindsay’s! If only she could call her!

  Lorna took a gulp of her martini and struggled grimly with herself. She had to stop feeling like this or her married life would be doomed to disaster. She looked around her for someone to talk to. She saw old
Mrs. McCarthy sitting off by herself. Mrs. McCarthy was a friend of Aunt Addy’s and a bore usually to be avoided. But a bore would be just the right thing for her mood.

  She took the few steps to the chair. “Hello, Mrs. McCarthy.”

  “Hello, my dear. How pretty you’re looking. And how’s your aunt?”

  “Oh, she’s fine. Off for the weekend with Mrs. Lindsay.”

  “Mrs. Warren Lindsay?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But, my dear—there must be some mistake.” Mrs. McCarthy’s eyes were round as olives. “Poor Dora Lindsay died last week. She was my sister-in-law, you know. My husband flew over to Copenhagen for the funeral.”

  For a moment Lorna felt she was going to faint. Desperately she managed to keep the smile on her face.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear it. Of course I made a mistake. I always mix up Mrs. Lindsay with that—that other friend of Aunt Addy’s.”

  She heard her own voice rattling out banalities. But terror was climbing through her. So she had been right. Last night, Bruce’s humility, his frankness, his shame, his apologies, had all been lies! She’d been right, too, in her suspicions yesterday on the terrace when Bruce’s arms had tightened so unexpectedly around her. He’d made that up about Mrs. Lindsay on the spur of the moment. Why? To keep her from calling Aunt Addy? Why? What had he done to Aunt Addy?

  She glanced wildly around the room. Bruce wasn’t in sight.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. McCarthy. I—I just remembered. A phone call …”

  She hurried out away from the party into the hall, picked up the telephone, and gave Aunt Addy’s number. She was shivering. She could hardly keep the receiver to her ear. And all the time there was a dreadful feeling at the back of her neck that at any moment Bruce would be there behind her, Bruce who was now a stranger, a stranger of monstrous terror.

  She could hear the phone ringing at the other end. Someone must be there. At least Arlene. Arlene was to have been there all day Sunday. The distant bell rang and rang.

  “Sorry, madam. They don’t seem to answer. Shall I—?”

  Lorna put down the receiver. Feverishly she felt through her pocketbook. She had Arlene’s number. She was sure of it. Yes, she found it in her address book. She picked up the phone again.