A dram of poison

by Charlotte Aut Armstrong

  "Rosemary," said Rosemary gravely. "No, it won't offend her, Mr. Coffey. It won't offend her at all."

  "Call me Lee," said the bus driver. "These are unusual circumstances. Listen, Rosemary, she is a beautiful blonde.''

  "You are a very interesting man," said Rosemary.

  "That's possible," said Lee Coffey thoughtfully.

  It was Paul who came in with an ordinary question. "Have you been a bus driver long?"

  "Ten years. Since I got out of the Army. Because I like to think."

  "Like to think?" Paul repeated after him, seeming to find this shockingly obscure.

  "Ruminate. Ruminate," said the bus driver. "That's why I like a useful but not creative job. You start pushing and trying to a purpose ... or even just trying to make a million dollars ... it warps your thinking. My thinking, anyhow. The kind I like."

  Paul said, impatient with bewilderment, "How can you possibly find this girl, this blonde, whoever she is . . . ?"

  "He'll find her," said Rosemary with parted lips. "Don't you think so, Kenneth?"

  "I do," said Mr. Gibson. "I think so." He felt astonished. The car slipped up to a red light and stopped smoothly.

  "Mr. Coffey—Lee." Suddenly Rosemary took in a great breath and threw herself on her knees in the tonneau. "Please help me? Tell me something?"

  "Sure if I can . . ."

  "You are an expert driver. I can see that you are. Will you tell me ... I believe you will know. I can believe you."

  "What's the trouble?" said the bus driver, sending them swiftly off the mark as the light changed.

  Mr. Gibson sat astonished while Rosemary knelt and poured out words toward this bus driver's ear.

  "It is a foggy night," she said. "I am driving. I am trying to be careful. I know ... to the best of my knowledge . . . that I am on the right side of the road."

  "Go ahead," said the bus driver encouragingly.

  "I also think I know that there is a deep ditch to my right. I think We have come that far . . . you see?"

  "Yeah . . . yeah . . ."

  "All of a sudden there is a car coming head on . . . and he is on his left side of the road. I have to do something quick."

  "Can't deny that," said Lee Coffey cheerfully.

  "I turned left" said Rosemary intensely. "You see, I thought . . ." She buried her head on her arm.

  "So what happened?" asked the driver.

  "He turned to his right, so we collided. Please tell me. You tell me if I was wrong."

  The bus driver turned the situation over in his mind. Meanwhile, they glided upon the boulevard, having already reached the spot where the divided street began. The scenery floated by.

  "You had three choices," the man said calmly in a moment. "You could turn right, supposed to be proper . . . and take a chance on the ditch. Pretty sure to be dangerous. You could stay where you were because you are legal . . . and take the chance the other fella's going to correct himself and turn off in time. That takes cold nerve and an awful lot of stubborn righteousness. Or, you can turn left as you did and figure to get around him on the clear side . . . even though it's the wrong side ... of the road. Hey?"

  "It seemed clear . . ."

  "Was it?"

  "Well, yes, actually it was clear. You see, I thought ... I thought he might be confused and think he was on his right side. I didn't know he'd turn off. How could I know that?'

  "You did no wrong," Lee Coffey said gravely. "You tried for a solution. Who can do more? Makes sense to me."

  Rosemary's breath shuddered in. "But the result was that the car hit us on our right, and—Kenneth was hurt. . . . Only Kenneth was hurt. Not me. Tell me, please . . . did I mean to put him between me and that other car? Did I choose to hurt him rather than myself? Is that why I turned to the left, really?"

  "You just told me why. you turned left, didn't you?" Lee Coffey said.

  "I thought I was trying to save us both. But, you see . . . there was no ditch. I was mistaken about that. We hadn't come to the place where the ditch began to be there, along the right side of the road."

  "Fog," said the bus driver. "O.K. You were on the right?"

  "Yes."

  "He, the other fella, was on his left?"

  "Yes."

  "And you thought there was this ditch?"

  "I think I thought—but Ethel—says, there's no such thing as an accident. As if—as if . . . subconsciously I made happen what I wanted to happen . . ."

  "No such thing as an accident!" cried the bus driver. "Where has this Ethel been living?"

  "Wait," said Rosemary, warningly. "She's . . . very wise. She's not stupid . . . and she's good . . ."

  "She is, eh? Well, I'll tell you something. Nobody's that wise. There happen to be plenty of accidents."

  "But are they? Really?"

  "The subconscious, hey?" said the bus driver. "Well, I see what she's getting at, all right. Sure. Some people are accident-prone . . . this is a thing that's been discovered. It's like some people take to getting sick because they'd rather . . . Certainly. But not so, in your case."

  "Not—?" Rosemary trembled.

  "How so?" demanded the bus driver. "What did your subsconscious do? Explain it to me. Did it go up in the ether someplace and have a conference with the other fella's subconscious? He didn't have any accident either if Ethel is right. Hey? So did your subconscious say to the other subconscious, 'Look here, old chap, I'm fixing to have an accident. Is this O.K. with you? How about right now?" So the other subconscious says, 'Fine, fine. Well met. Me, too. I was fixing to have an accident, myself . . . and now is as good a time as any. So here's how we'll work it . . .' Aaah . . ." The bus driver gave an effect of spitting over the side. "Explain to me how these two subconsciouses met, there and £hen, if not accidentally? Or if you're going to say . . . well, only one of them meant to do it o . . Now you got to admit the other one anyhow had an

  accident. So which one of you did ... or didn't? You or him? Hey?"

  Rosemary said nothing. She knelt as if in prayer.

  "Certainly," Coffey continued, "there'd be no accidents if you could know everything. But who can know everything? You can anticipate just so much. You cannot— now I don't care—you cannot always guess when who is going to do what, where. Neither you nor your subconscious, either! It's too much! There's too damned much going on in this universe. So there's going to happen what we call accidents. You see what I mean?"

  "Yes," said Rosemary. "Yes, I do." She sighed deep.

  "Those who skin out of having accidents are the ones who take care, who look ahead and so forth. But on top of that they better have some very snappy reflexes. See? And even they don't always skin out of all the things they meet—"

  "Rosemary," said Mr. Gibson sternly. "Ethel never said this thing to you. She couldn't have told you that you deliberately hurt me."

  "Not dehberately. No—but she thinks I must have meant to, because I did" Rosemary sobbed. "She keeps saying she doesn't 'blame' me. She keeps saying she 'understands.' Oh, Kenneth, I'm sorry—I wouldn't say a word against Ethel but this . . . this has been . . ."

  Paul said angrily, "I told you you shouldn't pay any attention to Ethel."

  "Easier said than done," said the bus driver . . . bluntly, accurately, and astonishingly.

  "Doom," murmured Mr. Gibson, recovering from a stunned sensation. "Yes—doom—well. . . ."

  "Now, the subconscious," said the bus driver, throwing out one hand as if he had been lecturing all along and was starting a new paragraph. "It's down there and it operates all right, something like they say. There's a little more to it. For instance, why would you want to hurt him?"

  "Because—" said Rosemary indistinctly. "But it isn't true." She wiggled back up upon the seat.

  "I'd say you had an accident," Lee Coffey told her. "For the love of Pete, Mike, and Maria ... I don't see the point of this Ethel!"

  Rosemary was crying.

  Mr. Gibson began to feel quite angry for Rosemary's sake.
"Ethel isn't infallible, mouse," he said indignantly. He felt a surge of malicious mischief, too. "I've heard Ethel say, for instance, that bus drivers are perfectly ruthless brutes. Now, obviously . . ."

  "What!" Lee Coffey raised his head. "Let me tell you, for your information, nobody's got more ruth than us bus drivers. Ruth's our business. It's a job, takes a mighty responsible party and no joking. You got to drive in whatever weather, whatever traffic, and on schedule, and what you meet you meet with your mind on safety first. Listen, we got more ruth than any twenty-five private drivers in this world." He was sputtering. "We can't take chances. We aren't free to. Passengers, pedestrians, school kids, nuts, drunks ... we got to look out for everybody in the world. We got to handle it, and if we do have an accident, believe me, it is an accident. What's this Ethel talking? Who is this Ethel?"

  "My sister," said Mr. Gibson, tossed in the storm of this outburst, yet somehow wanting to laugh out loud, which seemed unsuitable.

  "Some sister," said the bus driver gloomily.

  "She came to . . . take care of us . . . after the accident ..."

  "I must confess," said Paul, his syllables falling rapidly, "that we don't . . . Mama and Jeanie and I ... we just don't care too much for Ethel. She seems so cold and superior . . ."

  "My sister Ethel!" said Mr. Gibson.

  "Ruthless. Hey?" muttered the bus driver. "Every last one of us, hey? The whole category? 'Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men . . .' "

  "You are fond of Shakespeare?" asked Mr. Gibson.

  "Sure, I am. Not only his language hits the spot: his music does, too. You like Shakespeare, don't you?"

  "I like Shakespeare very much," said Mr. Gibson vrith his hair rising on his head in delighted astonishment. "Do you like Browning?" he asked with strange urgency.

  "Some of it. Quite a lot of it. Of course you got to get onto his system."

  "He was kind of a lady's man."

  "The ladies were the ones who had the time to—you know—ruminate, in a refined way," said Lee Coffey, "or

  they used to before they started being riveters and tycoons."

  "Just so," said Mr. Gibson almost comfortably.

  Rosemary was not weeping any more. She sat with her shoulder to his. "Did you ever hear Ethel speak of a blonde?" she said demurely.

  "What'd she say?" demanded the bus driver.

  But Paul Townsend was fidgeting. "Look, I don't like to keep worrying," he said plaintively, "but where is this blonde? She might have the poison herself, you know. She might be in danger. She might be dead. I don't see how you can talk about Shakespeare and Browning!"

  The bus driver said calmly, "She must live within four or five blocks of this next comer. What time is it?"

  "Three twenty. Three twenty-two in fact."

  "Yeah, well—not many take olive oil for a snack between meals."

  "Oh, that's true!" cried Rosemary, clapping her hands. "We have more time than we thought."

  "Maybe," said Mr. Gibson hopefully but he thought within, where a twinge—the pain of life—was creeping. But there are accidents. He felt a sweet sense of expansion, and a piercing alarm, all together.

  Accidents are possible.

  Chapter XVI

  THERE WAS a light at the comer of Allen Street and the Boulevard. Lee Coffey turned right on Allen. Nobody said a word. Paul's car mooched down the first block: the driver seemed to be testing the very air for the scent. The car crossed one intersection. Then, in the middle of the second block on Allen, it stopped.

  Lee Coffey analyzed the situation aloud. He held his head down; his eyes were roving; he spoke like a conspirator. "Her place will be on this side of Allen. Or around a comer from this side. She waits for the light on this side of Allen . . . see? If she had to cross, she'd cross at the Boulevard, see what I mean?"

  Mr. Gibson, on the edge of the seat, nodded solemnly. At the same time he felt a little childish pleasure, as if this were a game.

  "Now," said Lee, "the first block was all duplexes. Five- and six-room places. But these are private houses, old enough and big enough for taking in roomers." He was right. This second block was an old block. The houses stood up off the ground. Their roofs were up in the tree-tops and the trees were high—conditions not always present in the bursting newness of a California town. "I don't think she's got a lot of dough," he went on, "and I do think she lives by herself. If she had a family, somebody would have a car." This was true in California, U.S.A. "And they'd work it so she wouldn't have to take the bus as much as she does. I get a pretty good idea who rides with me, you know."

  "But what can we do," said Paul, "when you don't know her name?"

  "What are we going to do, Lee?" asked Rosemary confidently, eagerly. She was on the edge of the seat too.

  "This is what we are going to do. We ring doorbells. We take one block at a time. Each of you ask for a blond young lady, not very tall, who is some kind of nurse. Why I say that . . . I've seen her wear white stockings. And, while lots of jobs will take a white uniform, there ain't a female on earth wears white stocking unless she has to. Now, if you find her, or any news of her, give a yell, make a noise to the rest of us. Ask if they've seen her i walking by, and if so, which way she turns. But don't tell ; why you're asking." His eye caught Mr. Gibson's wince, j "Because it would take too long," the bus driver said, j "O.K.?" i

  This all seemed very logical and clear to everyone. All four of them tumbled out and were deployed. Rosemary ran back along the sidewalk to start at the beginning of the block. Paul went striding far to tlie left to begin at the end. Lee Coffey started where he was, his nostrils seeming to quiver. He had some reason, Mr. Gibson guessed, to suspect this spot, a certain house. A reason he could not or would not explain. Lee Coffey was to work to the left. Mr. Gibson took the next door and would work to the right and meet Rosemary.

  He limped up the front walk of the house assigned to him and rang the bell. Nobody answered it; nobody

  seemed to be at home. Mr. Gibson stood on the strange stoop and rang and rang in a dream. (He was Mr. Gibson of the English Department. No. He was crazy. No, but he was a criminal. Or he was a man in a desperate plight who had friends to fight fate for him. How could he let them down? or let them know that they were doomed? Mr. Gibson, half dead, half bom, was not sure about anything.)

  He had just pulled himself together to abandon here and proceed to ring another when he heard a shrill whistle, looked, and saw Lee Coffey beckoning with huge gestures of his long arms.

  Mr. Gibson's heart leaped up. He was pleased that Lee Coffey should be the one of the four of them to find the scent. He was pleased with the magic of it. It was almost enough to make you dream a man could put intelligence and intuition against odds and make progress. Which was romantic and naive, but he liked it. As he limped leftward, Rosemary was running to catch up with him and he saw Paul hurrying back.

  They flocked up upon the gray porch of a neat gray frame house that made one think of New England. There was even a lilac bush . . . an exotic and difficult plant here in the West—growing beside the porch railing. In the dopr stood a small blond girl at whom Lee Coffey looked down with hidden eyes.

  She was wearing a long wrapper of blue cotton. Her hair was tousled, as if it had just left a pillow. Her face W21S broad at the eyes and curved quickly into a small chin. It was an attractive little face, not conventionally pretty. The skin was smooth and fine. The mouth was 'Serious. The gray eyes were serene. The only thing ''blonde" about her, in Ethel's sense, was the color of her hair.

  "And here she is," said Lee, like the Little Bear in the story.

  "What is it, please?" the girl said in a self-assured voice. She wasn't a person easily surprised, one could tell. For a slim little girl, she seemed very strong.

  Lee blurted, "We aren't here to accuse you, ma'am. But did you find a bottle of olive oil on a bus today? And did you bring it home?"'

  "No, I didn't," said the blonde quietly.

  The atmosphere of excite
d triumphant hope swirled and began to die down.

  "Did you see," said Rosemary doggedly, "my husband . . . this man. . ." she put her hand on Mr. Gibson, "on the bus?"

  "No, I didn't" said the blonde. Her eyes traveled from face to face. "Something is wrong? I remember you," she said, coming to Lee Coffey. "Aren't you the driver?" Her eyes were very clear and steady.

  "Yes, ma'am." Mr. Gibson found himself waiting for Lee to tell whose blonde she was, but his sandy lashes were discreet.

  She wrinkled her fair brow. "Will one of you please tell me what's the matter?"

  Rosemary was the one of them who told her. When she was a quarter of the way into the exposition, the small blonde, by gestures only, brought them all inside the house. As if trouble as bad as this better not stand where the breeze might blow and communicate it. So they all sat down in the parlor, on edges of stiff sofas and chairs, while Rosemary went on.

  This small blonde female had an air of calm and precision about her. She listened without making noises of alarm or even appreciation. But you knew she did appreciate and was alarmed.

  "Then Lee . . . Mr. Coffey, here . . . remembered you" finished Rosemary, "and so we came. Hoping you had it. Or had seen something."

  "I wouldn't have taken it, I'm sorry, even if I'd seen it. It wouldn't have occurred to me." The blonde's immaculate ringless hands clasped her knee. "I didn't see anything of a paper bag or a bottle." This serene little person had never been in danger from the missing poison.

  But now there was no way to continue. They had come to an end. Magic had found the bus driver's blonde, but not the poison. It was not here.

  Mr. Gibson squirmed. He found himself incorrigibly on the side of the magic. "You must tell us your name," he said impulsively. He wanted the bus driver to learn her name.

  She said her name was Virginia Severson, It suited her. She looked very virginal, and clean, calm, cool in a Scandinavian sort of way. Rosemary rallied and told her all their names. Once again, the civilized ceremony of mutual introduction seemed to relax Paul Townsend. He was charming.