She had taken Gregg to the Corro Gallery in La Jolla many times and, at her urging, he had begun to collect paintings, including the small Renoir in her bedroom.
She couldn’t tell Roberto why they had to be more careful these next weeks; would never be able to tell him what she had done...
Meanwhile, they must do nothing to attract attention. Nothing that would make people suspect she might have a reason to kill Gregg...
There was no way that anyone could learn the truth. That was hidden, forever, in a dark hole of a shop in a nameless African alley.
* * * *
Nothing happened with the statue for more than a week.
Then, seated across the breakfast table from her husband, Alicia had the first word that the worm was alive.
“You know, I heard a noise from that statue last night,” he told her, busy with his scrambled eggs and broiled kidneys.
“Statue?” At first she didn’t realize what he was saying.
“That head you bought in Africa... Kind of a scratching sound in the middle of the night. You suppose there’s some kind of insect inside the thing? Termites?”
“I thought it was made of solid wood.”
“Even so, the wood could be infested with an African bug of some kind. Maybe you should call an exterminator. Have the thing sprayed.”
“I doubt if that’s necessary.” Mustn’t let him do that! The worm could be destroyed. “I’ll have a look at it.”
She went upstairs after Gregg left to play golf with some business cronies. He would be telling them about his African safari, boasting about his kills and the trophies that would be arriving later from that German taxidermist. Little did he know that there was another African trophy in his room—a living trophy.
She stood beside the carved head and bent close to the polished black wood. No sound came from inside. The eye sockets had been closed with covers made from a lighter-colored wood.
Was it possible that there was a small living thing hidden inside that could kill a man?
She lifted the carving with both hands and discovered that it wasn’t heavy. She shook it, carefully.
There was a whisper of movement from inside the head—barely audible—a dry scraping sound as though the seed was sliding from side to side. Sounded like two pieces. The worm must have broken out from its shell and left the two halves on the bottom of the hollow carving.
It was alive!
After that she went into Gregg’s suite every morning, after he departed on his projects for the day, but there was no further indication that anything was happening.
She was careful, at night, to lock the connecting door between their suites—not that her husband ever tried to open it anymore.
He spent most evenings on the town; except for the nights that guests were invited when, after dinner, he would show them the films he had shot in Africa.
Alicia made sure that Roberto was included in every dinner party.
Her husband had obviously found some new night creatures. They left traces of their scent on his jackets.
Let him pursue them for the moment! She would be rid of him in a few weeks, without the unpleasant bother of a divorce.
The next development came when, once again, they were at the breakfast table.
“That statue of yours...”
She looked up from the morning paper. “What now?”
“It’s hollow.”
“How did you find out?”
“One of those round pieces of wood that covered the eyes has fallen inside. You can shake the head. Hear it rattling around.” After breakfast, when Alicia heard the car roar down the front drive, she went up to his bedroom and stood before the carved head. The wooden cover had disappeared from the left eye.
She picked up the carving and shook it; heard the rattle of the eye cover inside. Quickly she set the head down before she could harm the living thing that was sleeping there. It must have knocked the cover out of the eye socket in the night. Now, whenever it wished, it would be able to get out.
The following morning she noticed tiny marks on the carpet in Gregg’s bedroom. They were like small burns, reaching out from the bottom of the pedestal in every direction. She saw that they had gone within a few inches of her husband’s bed and stopped there. When she touched one of the silvery marks she found, to her surprise, that it wasn’t a burn but was unpleasantly moist.
She left the room, feeling revulsion, went into her own suite and locked the door.
Next morning her husband was dead.
* * * *
The attorneys handled everything.
Unfortunately there had to be an autopsy, but the coroner’s verdict was that Gregg had suffered a heart attack.
His personal physician confirmed that he had been treating him for a heart condition. Gregg had not wanted anyone to know.
The church was crowded for the funeral. Alicia sat alone because neither she nor Gregg had any family. The servants sat in the row behind her.
She was aware of Roberto, near the back, but didn’t look at him.
After the ceremony at the grave, she had the chauffeur drive her home to the silent mansion.
She ate lunch in her suite, barely tasting the food.
Afterward she called Roberto on the private line and arranged to meet him in half an hour.
Slipping a coat over her black dress, she left the house, informing Willett that she was going for a drive. “Tell anyone who calls that I’m indisposed.”
She got into her car and drove into the hills to the familiar place of rendezvous.
Roberto was there ahead of her. He took her in his arms as she got out from the car and kissed her. “’Licia...”
“My dearest...”
“Soon, now, you will be ’Licia Corro!”
“Yes, my love. But not for at least six months!”
“I cannot wait six months.”
“Sooner than that and people would surely talk.”
“Isn’t it about time we should start seeing each other openly? I’m an old friend and friends don’t stay away when there’s a death. There’s nothing to hide! We’re going to be married.”
“There might be gossip if we were seen together so soon. We must wait a bit...”
“Do you really care about gossip?”
“I just don’t want people to talk about us. Now or ever.”
“But we must make plans for the future! A long honeymoon on the Riviera. Maybe take a villa or, if you prefer, keep traveling.”
“Anywhere but Africa! I never want to see Africa again. Will you call me tonight? The private line, darling. Use the private line.”
“Not tonight. I have to drive up to Los Angeles. An important collection of Impressionists is being auctioned. Are you going to be all right in that big house? I worry about you, alone there at night.”
“Alone? With five servants!”
“Even so, I worry.” He studied her face. “You’re looking beautiful...”
“I keep trying to look sad but it’s difficult. I’m feeling much too happy. Even wearing black doesn’t depress me.”
“Blondes should wear black more often.”
When he walked her back to the car later, he kissed her passionately. “Will you call me tomorrow? At the gallery?”
“Yes. It’s best that I call you. At least for the moment.”
As Alicia drove home she thought about the future. All that beautiful money would soon belong to her. From what the attorneys said it was going to be much more than she had anticipated.
Roberto would, very likely, close his gallery in La Jolla before they left on their honeymoon. She would insist upon it. He could open another, larger gallery, when they returned—in Beverly Hills or New York.
There was so much she wanted to do for Roberto. So much...
She spent the afternoon at the antique French desk in her bedroom, facing the open windows, answering more of the condolences she had received after Gregg’s death.
It was an ungrateful task, writing the brief, almost identical notes. Most of the people were unknown to her.
She had dinner on a tray in her bedroom, picking at the food, without appetite.
Before retiring she went for a drive down the coast and parked at the edge of a palisade, overlooking the ocean. She sat there for an hour, her eyes on the far horizon, dreaming of the future. Her marriage to Roberto Corro...
The drive relaxed her and when she returned home to the silent mansion, she went up to bed immediately. She would certainly sleep tonight... So wonderful to know that the adjoining suite was empty. Gregg wouldn’t be waking her in the middle of the night returning from his latest conquest. No more night creatures, blonde or brunette, to trouble her sleep.
Hair brushed and wearing a new negligee she had bought in Paris, she glanced at the closed door to Gregg’s suite.
That hideous statue was still in there. Maybe she ought to destroy it... Why not? Now!
She went to the door, unlocked it and flung it open. She flipped the wall switch next to the door and all the lamps came alive.
The gleaming black beast head, on its pedestal, drew her across the room.
She came to a stop in front of it, staring at the obscene face with its empty eye socket. She turned and hurried to the marble fireplace, snatched up the heavy antique poker and carried it across the room, raised the poker and smashed it down on the head. Again and again. The carving split into many pieces, falling to the carpet.
Alicia was smiling as she let the poker slip from her fingers. She was rid of that horrible monstrosity. Willett would have the maid clean the mess away in the morning.
She turned off the lights and went into her own suite, leaving the door open behind her. No point in closing it anymore.
Relaxing in bed, she planned how she would redecorate Gregg’s suite for Roberto. No more African decor...
No! She would buy a new home—something smaller than this place. Maybe find a property near the ocean. Roberto liked the beach. They would hunt for it together. Get an architect to design a very special house for them—something worthy of the magnificent paintings and fine antiques they would have.
She switched off all the lights except the lamp on her bedside table, reached for the telephone and dialed Roberto’s beach house. It rang several times.
Alicia set the phone down reluctantly. So Roberto hadn’t returned from that auction in Los Angeles. Probably met some friends...
She snapped off the lamp and settled down to sleep.
Tomorrow she would finish the last of her answers to those miserable notes of condolence; spend some time in the library with Gregg’s collection of travel books, and plan where she and Roberto should go on their honeymoon. Certainly the south of France. Maybe Portugal... Greece...
She was wakened from deep sleep by something touching one of her fingers. When she moved the finger the sensation stopped.
Her imagination, of course...
She reached out toward the bedside table, lighted the lamp, and looked down at the quilted bedcover but, of course, there was nothing there. She must have had a nightmare.
Checking the clock, she saw that it was after midnight. She had slept less than two hours. This was ridiculous.
She switched off the lamp again and as she settled down in bed a frightening thought came to her. What if the wereworm hadn’t been buried with Gregg? It could have crawled back into that carved head! Maybe she disturbed it when she destroyed the statue...
She had left the door open between the two suites! Suppose the thing was here now? In her room...
Alicia turned the lamp on again.
As she started to get out of bed she saw the small livid marks on the carpet.
She froze, horrified, unable to move—opened her mouth to scream but no sound would come.
Something seemed to be pressing against her throat, choking her. Anyway, nobody could hear her. The servants’ quarters were on the opposite side of the mansion.
She got back into bed and pulled the covers over her head.
What could she do? Ring for the servants!
She uncovered her head and sat up in bed, staring at the small electric button on the bedside table and considered pressing it.
No! Mustn’t do that. Couldn’t tell the servants there was something in her room that had killed her husband. They would only call the police and she couldn’t explain anything to them.
Roberto! He was the only one to whom she could tell the truth. Surely he would be home now.
She snatched up the phone and dialed. Heard his phone ringing, but there was no answer.
As she set the phone down she saw more marks on the carpet. They seemed to circle her bed.
She moved back against the pillows.
Something black was moving across the quilted spread. Not much larger than a thick thread. Wiggling toward her like a tiny snake. Suddenly it darted forward so fast she couldn’t see it anymore.
She felt only the faintest sensation as it slid across the back of her hand and around her wrist.
Alicia screamed...
* * * *
The maid found her when she brought up the breakfast tray. She set it down carefully on a table and ran downstairs for help.
Willett came up alone and, realizing that Mrs. Logan was beyond anyone’s help, phoned the police.
That done, he looked around the room and noticed the door standing open into the adjoining suite.
He went into the other bedroom and saw the smashed head on the floor. Such an ugly thing! Good riddance...
His first instinct was to clean up the mess of splintered wood; then he saw the poker and realized that Mrs. Logan must have destroyed the statue for some reason. Better leave that for the police.
As he moved closer he noticed bits of shell on the carpet in a mess of dried leaves and twigs. There seemed to be two small black shells, broken in half. They mast have been inside the hollow carving.
Now Willett saw a folded slip of paper. He picked it up and carried it to the light from the windows.
When he unfolded the bit of paper it felt coarse and unpleasant to his fingertips. There were several words printed in pencil:
ONE FOR THE MURDER, ANOTHER FOR THE MURDERER.
A WAY WITH A WILL, by Talmage Powell
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, April 1981.
I was very fond of my Uncle Dudley Gillam. Not for any singular reason. He was my only blood relation, but that didn’t account entirely for my feeling. I’ve heard other people speak of their relatives with shuddering distaste, but my recollections of Uncle Dudley were pleasurable. He found joy in living; he was agreeable, kind, and thoughtful. He was an all-around likeable individual, and I liked him. That’s all there was to it And the regard was mutual. He never put it into words, but he left no doubt in my mind that I was at the top of his list of favorite people.
After he retired from the railroad we saw little of each other. He was an engineer until age forced him out of the big diesels. Not a strapping Casey Jones, but a wiry, tough little guy who ramrodded the long trains through the nights like a runty cowboy forking a dinosaur.
His years of motion had conditioned him to be restless. He was always on the go. He would wander down to Florida, up to big-game country in Wyoming, out to California. He would hit Vegas now and then for a splurge and, broke and hungover, amble down to Corpus Christi to dry out.
We always kept in touch. He pecked out letters on a portable typewriter with broken type and an always-grey ribbon, signing them with his bold flourish. The grammar was questionable but the details were colorful. When he wrote about the rupture of a radiator hose while he was driving across the Painted Desert you could hear the water sizzle.
He enjoyed sending picture postcards and wild greeting cards from various locales. On my birthday a zany card would enclose a twenty-dollar bill for the purpose of “oiling up a sweet patootie in a cozy bar, courtesy your Unc Dud.”<
br />
I always responded, jazzing up the details of my dreary bachelor existence as much as possible. Each Christmas I would try to send him something special—not expensive, necessarily, but something I had shopped carefully for. The kind of Wellington pipe he smoked or one of the baggy sweaters he favored.
Since he was a gregarious extrovert, it didn’t surprise me he was a soft touch. He always had a dollar for the panhandling wino with the seared eyes and burning throat. He never passed up a Salvation Army kettle or the poor box on his infrequent trips to church. And now and then some down-and-outer would hang onto his shirttails for a while. A busted madam, a kid just out of jail, or an itinerant worker stranded in Salinas. Or someone like Odus Calhoun, dubbed “Hardtimes” by Uncle Dudley.
“A born loser,” Uncle Dudley wrote. “One of those birds who gets all the frowns of fate—that’s Odus Calhoun. Worked hard all his life, paid his taxes, and never broke a law. And what did it get Hardtimes? Rat busted in Dallas where I met him, for one thing. Wife dead, and three kids grown up and scattered who’d rather forget him.
“If Hardtimes crosses a street, the drivers nearly run him down. A stray dog follows him home and the first time Hardtimes lets the mutt out the dog catcher is cruising by. The last jalopy he managed to buy turned out to be stolen. He cashed a welfare check and was robbed in sight of a police station. I reckon if Hardtimes inherited a gold mine an earthquake would dump the vein to the boiling center of the earth.”
From later letters I gathered that Hardtimes had settled into the role of handyman, cook, valet, friend, and confidant. “He more than earns his keep,” Uncle Dudley wrote, “and it’s nice to have a fellow critter around. He can’t play checkers worth a damn, so I finally know the joy of winning.”
It seemed to be a good arrangement. Uncle Dudley buffered Hardtimes Calhoun from the jaundiced eye of fate and at the same time escaped the loneliness of his wandering life.
But the fortunate circumstance was relatively short-lived. Three years ago Uncle Dudley wrote me the woeful news.
The Cutthroats and Criminals Megapack Page 17