Deception

by Roald Dahl

  At two in the morning we drove slowly past the entrance to the Penguin Club in order to survey the situation. ‘I will park there,’ I said, ‘just past the entrance in that patch of dark. But I will leave the door open for you.’

  We drove on. Then George said, ‘What does he look like? How do I know it’s him?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I answered. ‘I’ve thought of that,’ and I took from my pocket a piece of paper and handed it to him. ‘You take this and fold it up small and give it to the doorman and tell him to see it gets to Pantaloon quickly. Act as though you are scared to death and in an awful hurry. It’s a hundred to one Pantaloon will come out. No columnist could resist that message.’

  On the paper I had written: ‘I am a worker in Soviet Consulate. Come to the door very quickly please I have something to tell but come quickly as I am in danger. I cannot come in to you.’

  ‘You see,’ I said, ‘your moustache will make you look like a Russian. All Russians have big moustaches.’

  George took the paper and folded it up very small and held it in his fingers. It was nearly half past two in the morning now and we began to drive towards the Penguin Club.

  ‘You all set?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re going in now. Here we come. I’ll park just past the entrance … here. Hit him hard,’ I said, and George opened the door and got out of the car. I closed the door behind him but I leaned over and kept my hand on the handle so I could open it again quick, and I let down the window so I could watch. I kept the engine ticking over.

  I saw George walk swiftly up to the doorman who stood under the red and white canopy which stretched out over the sidewalk. I saw the doorman turn and look down at George and I didn’t like the way he did it. He was a tall proud man dressed in a fine magenta-coloured uniform with gold buttons and gold shoulders and a broad white stripe down each magenta trouser-leg. Also he wore white gloves and he stood there looking proudly down at George, frowning, pressing his lips together hard. He was looking at George’s moustache and I thought, Oh my God, we have overdone it. We have overdisguised him. He’s going to know it’s false and he’s going to take one of the long pointed ends in his fingers and then he’ll give it a tweak and it’ll come off. But he didn’t. He was distracted by George’s acting, for George was acting well. I could see him hopping about, clasping and unclasping his hands, swaying his body and shaking his head, and I could hear him saying, ‘Plees plees plees you must hurry. It is life and teth. Plees plees take it kvick to Mr Pantaloon.’ His Russian accent was not like any accent I had heard before, but all the same there was a quality of real despair in his voice.

  Finally, gravely, proudly, the doorman said, ‘Give me the note.’ George gave it to him and said, ‘Tank you, tank you, but say it is urgent,’ and the doorman disappeared inside. In a few moments he returned and said, ‘It’s being delivered now.’ George paced nervously up and down. I waited, watching the door. Three or four minutes elapsed. George wrung his hands and said, ‘Vere is he? Vere is he? Plees to go see if he is not coming!’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ the doorman said. Now he was looking at George’s moustache again.

  ‘It is life and teth! Mr Pantaloon can help! He must come!’

  ‘Why don’t you shut up?’ the doorman said, but he opened the door again and he poked his head inside and I heard him saying something to someone.

  To George he said, ‘They say he’s coming now.’

  A moment later the door opened and Pantaloon himself, small and dapper, stepped out. He paused by the door, looking quickly from side to side like a nervous inquisitive ferret. The doorman touched his cap and pointed at George. I heard Pantaloon say, ‘Yes, what did you want?’

  George said, ‘Plees, dis vay a leetle so as novone can hear,’ and he led Pantaloon along the pavement, away from the doorman and towards the car.

  ‘Come on, now,’ Pantaloon said. ‘What is it you want?’

  Suddenly George shouted ‘Look!’ and he pointed up the street. Pantaloon turned his head and as he did so George swung his right arm and he hit Pantaloon plumb on the point of the nose. I saw George leaning forward on the punch, all his weight behind it, and the whole of Pantaloon appeared somehow to lift slightly off the ground and to float backwards for two or three feet until the façade of the Penguin Club stopped him. All this happened very quickly, and then George was in the car beside me and we were off and I could hear the doorman blowing a whistle behind us.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ George gasped. He was excited and out of breath. ‘I hit him good! Did you see how good I hit him!’

  It was snowing hard now and I drove fast and made many sudden turnings and I knew no one would catch us in this snowstorm.

  ‘Son of a bitch almost went through the wall I hit him so hard.’

  ‘Well done, George,’ I said. ‘Nice work, George.’

  ‘And did you see him lift? Did you see him lift right up off the ground?’

  ‘Womberg will be pleased,’ I said.

  ‘And Gollogly, and the Hines woman.’

  ‘They’ll all be pleased,’ I said. ‘Watch the money coming in.’

  ‘There’s a car behind us!’ George shouted. ‘It’s following us! It’s right on our tail! Drive like mad!’

  ‘Impossible!’ I said. ‘They couldn’t have picked us up already. It’s just another car going somewhere.’ I turned sharply to the right.

  ‘He’s still with us,’ George said. ‘Keep turning. We’ll lose him soon.’

  ‘How the hell can we lose a police-car in a 1934 Chev,’ I said. ‘I’m going to stop.’

  ‘Keep going!’ George shouted. ‘You’re doing fine.’

  ‘I’m going to stop,’ I said. ‘It’ll only make them mad if we go on.’

  George protested fiercely but I knew it was no good and I pulled in to the side of the road. The other car swerved out and went past us and skidded to a standstill in front of us.

  ‘Quick,’ George said. ‘Let’s beat it.’ He had the door open and he was ready to run.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said. ‘Stay where you are. You can’t get away now.’

  A voice from outside said, ‘All right, boys, what’s the hurry?’

  ‘No hurry,’ I answered. ‘We’re just going home.’

  ‘Yea?’

  ‘Oh yes, we’re just on our way home now.’

  The man poked his head in through the window on my side, and he looked at me, then at George, then at me again.

  ‘It’s a nasty night,’ George said. ‘We’re just trying to reach home before the streets get all snowed up.’

  ‘Well,’ the man said, ‘you can take it easy. I just thought I’d like to give you this right away.’ He dropped a wad of banknotes on to my lap. ‘I’m Gollogly,’ he added, ‘Wilbur H. Gollogly,’ and he stood out there in the snow grinning at us, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands to keep them warm. ‘I got your wire and I watched the whole thing from across the street. You did a fine job. I’m paying you double. It was worth it. Funniest thing I ever seen. Goodbye, boys. Watch your steps. They’ll be after you now. Get out of town if I were you. Goodbye.’ And before we could say anything, he was gone.

  When finally we got back to our room I started packing at once.

  ‘You crazy?’ George said. ‘We’ve only got to wait a few hours and we receive five hundred dollars each from Womberg and the Hines woman. Then we’ll have two thousand altogether and we can go anywhere we want.’

  So we spent the next day waiting in our room and reading the papers, one of which had a whole column on the front page headed, ‘Brutal assault on famous columnist’. But sure enough the late afternoon post brought us two letters and there was five hundred dollars in each.

  And right now, at this moment, we are sitting in a Pullman car, drinking Scotch whisky and heading south for a place where there is always sunshine and where the horses are running every day. We are immensely wealthy and George keeps saying that
if we put the whole of our two thousand dollars on a horse at ten to one we shall make another twenty thousand and we will be able to retire. ‘We will have a house at Palm Beach,’ he says, ‘and we will entertain upon a lavish scale. Beautiful socialites will loll around the edge of our swimming pool sipping cool drinks, and after a while we will perhaps put another large sum of money upon another horse and we shall become wealthier still. Possibly we will become tired of Palm Beach and then we will move around in a leisurely manner among the playgrounds of the rich. Monte Carlo and places like that. Like the Ali Khan and the Duke of Windsor. We will become prominent members of the international set and film stars will smile at us and head-waiters will bow to us and perhaps, in time to come, perhaps we might even get ourselves mentioned in Lionel Pantaloon’s column.’

  ‘That would be something,’ I said.

  ‘Wouldn’t it just,’ he answered happily. ‘Wouldn’t that just be something.’

  Lamb to the Slaughter

  First published in Harper’s (September 1953)

  The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight – hers and the one by the empty chair opposite. On the sideboard behind her, two tall glasses, soda water, whisky. Fresh ice cubes in the Thermos bucket.

  Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home from work.

  Now and again she would glance up at the clock, but without anxiety, merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come. There was a slow smiling air about her, and about everything she did. The drop of the head as she bent over her sewing was curiously tranquil. Her skin – for this was her sixth month with child – had acquired a wonderful translucent quality, the mouth was soft, and the eyes, with their new placid look, seemed larger, darker than before.

  When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listen, and a few moments later, punctually as always, she heard the tyres on the gravel outside, and the car door slamming, the footsteps passing the window, the key turning in the lock. She laid aside her sewing, stood up and went forward to kiss him as he came in.

  ‘Hullo darling,’ she said.

  ‘Hullo,’ he answered.

  She took his coat and hung it in the closet. Then she walked over and made the drinks, a strongish one for him, a weak one for herself; and soon she was back again in her chair with the sewing, and he in the other, opposite, holding the tall glass with both his hands, rocking it so the ice cubes tinkled against the side.

  For her, this was always a blissful time of day. She knew he didn’t want to speak much until the first drink was finished, and she, on her side, was content to sit quietly, enjoying his company after the long hours alone in the house. She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel – almost as a sunbather feels the sun – that warm male glow that came out of him to her when they were alone together. She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in a door, or moved slowly across the room with long strides. She loved the intent, far look in his eyes when they rested on her, the funny shape of the mouth, and especially the way he remained silent about his tiredness, sitting still with himself until the whisky had taken some of it away.

  ‘Tired, darling?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m tired.’ And as he spoke, he did an unusual thing. He lifted his glass and drained it in one swallow although there was still half of it, at least half of it, left. She wasn’t really watching him, but she knew what he had done because she heard the ice cubes falling back against the bottom of the empty glass when he lowered his arm. He paused a moment, leaning forward in the chair, then he got up and went slowly over to fetch himself another.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ she cried, jumping up.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  When he came back, she noticed that the new drink was dark amber with the quantity of whisky in it.

  ‘Darling, shall I get your slippers?’

  ‘No.’

  She watched him as he began to sip the dark-yellow drink, and she could see little oily swirls in the liquid because it was so strong.

  ‘I think it’s a shame,’ she said, ‘that when a policeman gets to be as senior as you, they keep him walking about on his feet all day long.’

  He didn’t answer, so she bent her head again and went on with her sewing; but each time he lifted the drink to his lips, she heard the ice cubes clinking against the side of the glass.

  ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to get you some cheese? I haven’t made any supper because it’s Thursday.’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘If you’re too tired to eat out,’ she went on, ‘it’s still not too late. There’s plenty of meat and stuff in the freezer, and you can have it right here and not even move out of the chair.’

  Her eyes waited on him for an answer, a smile, a little nod, but he made no sign.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I’ll get you some cheese and crackers first.’

  ‘I don’t want it,’ he said.

  She moved uneasily in her chair, the large eyes still watching his face. ‘But you must have supper. I can easily do it here. I’d like to do it. We can have lamb chops. Or pork. Anything you want. Everything’s in the freezer.’

  ‘Forget it,’ he said.

  ‘But darling, you must eat! I’ll fix it anyway, and then you can have it or not, as you like.’

  She stood up and placed her sewing on the table by the lamp.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Just for a minute, sit down.’

  It wasn’t till then that she began to get frightened.

  ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’

  She lowered herself back slowly into the chair, watching him all the time with those large, bewildered eyes. He had finished the second drink and was staring down into the glass, frowning.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘What is it, darling? What’s the matter?’

  He had now become absolutely motionless, and he kept his head down so that the light from the lamp beside him fell across the upper part of his face, leaving the chin and mouth in shadow. She noticed there was a little muscle moving near the corner of his left eye.

  ‘This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘But I’ve thought about it a good deal and I’ve decided the only thing to do is tell you right away. I hope you won’t blame me too much.’

  And he told her. It didn’t take long, four or five minutes at most, and she sat very still through it all, watching him with a kind of dazed horror as he went farther and farther away from her with each word.

  ‘So there it is,’ he added. ‘And I know it’s kind of a bad time to be telling you, but there simply wasn’t any other way. Of course I’ll give you money and see you’re looked after. But there needn’t really be any fuss. I hope not anyway. It wouldn’t be very good for my job.’

  Her first instinct was not to believe any of it, to reject it all. It occurred to her that perhaps he hadn’t even spoken, that she herself had imagined the whole thing. Maybe, if she went about her business and acted as though she hadn’t been listening, then later, when she sort of woke up again, she might find none of it had ever happened.

  ‘I’ll get the supper,’ she managed to whisper, and this time he didn’t stop her.

  When she walked across the room she couldn’t feel her feet touching the floor. She couldn’t feel anything at all – except a slight nausea and a desire to vomit. Everything was automatic now – down the steps to the cellar, the light switch, the deep-freeze, the hand inside the cabinet taking hold of the first object it met. She lifted it out, and looked at it. It was wrapped in paper, so she took off the paper and looked at it again.

  A leg of lamb.

  All right then, they would have lamb for supper. She carried it upstairs, holding the thin bone-end of it with both her hands, and as she went through the living-room, she saw him standing over by the
window with his back to her, and she stopped.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ he said, hearing her, but not turning round. ‘Don’t make supper for me. I’m going out.’

  At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.

  She might just as well have hit him with a steel club.

  She stepped back a pace, waiting, and the funny thing was that he remained standing there for at least four or five seconds, gently swaying. Then he crashed to the carpet.

  The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped bring her out of the shock. She came out slowly, feeling cold and surprised, and she stood for a while blinking at the body, still holding the ridiculous piece of meat tight with both hands.

  All right, she told herself. So I’ve killed him.

  It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a detective, she knew quite well what the penalty would be. That was fine. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the child? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill them both – mother and child? Or did they wait until the tenth month? What did they do?

  Mary Maloney didn’t know. And she certainly wasn’t prepared to take a chance.

  She carried the meat into the kitchen, placed it in a pan, turned the oven on high, and shoved it inside. Then she washed her hands and ran upstairs to the bedroom. She sat down before the mirror, tidied her hair, touched up her lips and face. She tried a smile. It came out rather peculiar. She tried again.