“I still think,” Forbes said, “that the sun has something to do with it.”
Charles blinked. “With what?”
“Making people buggy in California.”
“All right.”
“Could be rays. Cosmic rays, maybe.”
“It could.”
Charles opened the window to let the sun in. Charged with cosmic rays and hope, it shot through the dust of the city.
Nine-thirty, but the house was quiet, and the blinds drawn like lids over sleeping eyes.
“You can take the luggage around to the back,” Charles said. “I want to go in alone.”
He got out, and the car slid away from behind him with anxious haste.
Perhaps Martha wasn’t awake yet, he thought. Mrs. Putnam and Lily would be at church, of course. Mrs. Putnam was a Presbyterian and Lily was a Lutheran, but they went together to church, one Sunday to the Lutheran Church and the next Sunday to the Presbyterian. During the week they argued, sometimes quite bitterly, and once Charles was called in to arbitrate. “Religion,” he told them, “is a matter of the heart.” He hadn’t any idea what he meant, if anything, but it sounded good to Lily and Mrs. Putnam and they used it whenever they were at a loss for a rebuttal.
A matter of the heart. One of those simple phrases that could, with the proper inflection, sound convincing and profound. Suitable for any occasion. Everything, my dear Martha, is a matter of the heart.
He went up the steps of the porch, feeling that he had been away a long time and that no one expected him ever to come back.
The door was unlocked. For that he felt pathetically grateful. It was a welcome, and he would have liked to believe that every night Martha left the door unlocked in case he should come home unexpectedly. Of course he didn’t believe it. Brown had merely forgotten to lock up, or else Mrs. Putnam had unlocked the door before she left for church.
He went inside the house quietly. There was a faint odor of flowers in the hall and the door into the drawing room was shut. It reminded him of a funeral, with the corpse lying in state behind the closed door, smothered in the ominous sweetness of flowers.
“Martha,” he shouted suddenly. “Martha, it’s me!”
The house sprang into action, as if he’d shouted, “Fire!”
Brown came out of the kitchen, grinning from ear to ear, and Laura flew down the stairs, crying, “Charley! Hey, Mother, Martha! Charley’s home!”
She hugged him and told him all in one breath that he looked wonderful, having a tan suited him, she herself, though, was not going to have a tan this year, it was passé, for a woman she meant, not for a man.
“Where’s Martha?”
“I don’t think she’s up yet,” Laura said.
He mounted the steps, two at a time. His body felt feather-light, he could easily run up and down steps all day if he had a reason.
But he hesitated outside her door, not knowing whether he should pursue his new policy of being firm, walking in as if he had as much right to enter this room as she had; or whether to act natural and rap on the door first.
She settled it by saying in a weak and incredulous voice, “Charles? Is that you, Charles?”
He went in. She was brushing her hair with nervous, faltering strokes as if she had just picked up the brush for something better to do. Everything in the room was the way he remembered it, except that the mirror was broken.
He walked toward her with a slowness that indicated not reluctance but a deliberate postponement of pleasure.
“Are you glad to see me?”
“Yes, I . . .”
“Well, say it then.”
“I’m glad to see you, Charles.”
“Sorry to bother you,” Forbes said. “I just want to pick up a couple of things I left.”
“That’s all right,” Steve said. “Make yourself at home.”
“Thanks.” Forbes noticed that the bed wasn’t made and two empty suitcases were lying open on top of it. “Going somewhere?”
“Maybe.”
“Holiday?”
“Not exactly. I’m waiting to hear from somebody.”
“A dame, I bet,” Forbes said slyly.
“As you say, a dame. I think, though, I’m wasting my time.”
“She doesn’t want to go along, eh?”
“She wants to, but she won’t. She’s got a husband.”
“That’s bad. Did you come across a calabash pipe anywhere?”
“It’s in the kitchen.”
Forbes went and got the pipe. When he returned Steve said, “I see Mr. Pearson’s home.”
“That’s right.”
“He’s okay again, then?”
“He’s as okay as he’ll ever be, I guess. He’s got bad nerves.”
“Oh.”
“Did you by any chance come across a couple of books?”
“They’re in the case.”
“Thanks.”
He picked the books out of the bookcase and went to the door.
“Well, I hope she turns up.”
“So do I.”
“Must be a tricky thing for a woman to decide.”
“Very tricky, yes.”
They shook hands as if they were drinking a toast to all tricky decisions.
“But are you really glad?”
“Of course I am, Charles.”
“It’s nice to be home.”
His eyes swept the room again. There was another change besides the broken mirror. She had put new spreads on the beds.
“Aren’t the spreads new?”
“Yes. Do you like them?”
“They’re beautiful,” he said, but he preferred the old ones. He wanted everything to be exactly the same as he’d left it, to have himself as the only change.
“That’s a new robe, too, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I bought a few things this spring.”
He wasn’t much interested in women’s clothes, but he wanted suddenly to see exactly what she had bought because it would be part of knowing exactly what she had done while he was away.
He opened the wardrobe closet. Half the dresses in it he had never seen before.
“Well,” he said smiling, “you certainly splurged.”
She returned the smile. “Yes, didn’t I?”
“They’re quite different, too. Some of them might even be called gaudy.”
“I got tired of wearing black all the time.”
“Why the sudden change?”
“Everyone’s wearing color this spring.”
“You never cared before what everyone else did,” Charles said in a reasonable tone. “Why do you care now?”
“I don’t care. I just wanted some new dresses.”
“But why?”
“I gave you my reason.”
“But it doesn’t seem to me to be a good enough reason.” This was fine, he was really being firm now just as he had sworn he would. The thing was to figure everything out neatly, then to formulate a policy and pursue it. It worked, too. Look how rattled she was getting, even frightened. While he remained perfectly calm and in control of the situation, and above all, logical.
“You buy dresses because you want them, certainly, but why did you want them?”
“Charles, for heaven’s sake, be sensible. Don’t start acting in the same old way as soon as you get home.”
The same old way. Only the most obtuse of women could fail to notice the change in him. But he wouldn’t lose his temper, he would merely continue to pursue his policy of cold, firm reasoning.
“I simply desire to get to the bottom of things,” he said. “Why did you want the dresses?”
“For heaven’s sake . . .”
“Did you buy them for somebody? For me, perhaps? That’s it, isn’t it
, Martha? You bought them for me, to please me.” He began walking toward her while she stared at him with the most comical expression of fear. “That was frightfully nice of you, to buy the dresses to please me. I’m terribly pleased. I knew there must be a reason, a real reason, and I’m so terribly pleased that that turns out to be the reason.”
He touched her shoulders. Under the silk robe her flesh was soft and boneless as apple pulp. Eventually, if he pressed his fingers down hard enough, he would feel the core. But the fact was he had no control over his fingers. They went down, down, they couldn’t help themselves, they were caught in quicksand. Down, down, on a little elevator. The core was there, plainly. Not an apple, a peach with a peachstone. The elevator crashed to the bottom of the shaft. It was dark, bloody dark, noisy dark, because people were screaming for help. They all got out except him. He was left alone in the dark shaft. The machinery of the elevator was smashed to pieces, but it wouldn’t stop whirring and whirring around him.
He had to scream to make himself heard: “Don’t go away, Martha, come back! We could be quite happy in an elevator shaft if you only realized it, and I’ll give you an allowance.”
By and by he saw her running across the lawn.
Later, when the whirring noise stopped making him dizzy, he would go after her. No matter how far, how fast she ran, he would find her and bring her home. He would be ill, and neither of them would ever leave his room again. Soon he must start running after her, but right now—right now . . .
I simply desire to get to the bottom of things.
About the Author
Margaret Millar (1915-1994) was the author of 27 books and a masterful pioneer of psychological mysteries and thrillers. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she spent most of her life in Santa Barbara, California, with her husband Ken Millar, who is better known by the nom de plume of Ross MacDonald. Her 1956 novel Beast in View won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. In 1965 Millar was the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year Award and in 1983 the Mystery Writers of America awarded her the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement. Millar’s cutting wit and superb plotting have left her an enduring legacy as one of the most important crime writers of both her own and subsequent generations.
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