His moustache flattened as he finished, and again he had himself in hand. ‘But to hell with that. Let’s get going … Take her arm, Palmer’, he said. ‘Come on, baby. Either you walk out of here like I say or I’ll fix it so you get carried.’
The harsh and calculated coldness of his tone at last penetrated the woman’s mind. Until then it seemed to Palmer that she did not really understand what was happening or comprehend what Chapman had in mind.
Now, as the truth struck home with almost physical force, she wavered slightly, taking a half-step to regain her balance. In that interval her eyes were wild with sudden terror and her mouth trembled, vivid now against the whitened skin. But there was great strength in her brittleness too, and it became apparent when she finally found her voice.
‘I see’, she said. ‘You intend to kill me too if you can.’
Chapman’s shrug was callous. ‘Let’s face it’, he said. ‘You’ve already tipped my hand. I have to take care of Palmer now.’
‘But if I—’
Palmer was never sure what she meant to say because Chapman cut her off with a grunt and a shake of his head.
‘When it comes down to me or you, it has to be me’, he said. ‘You don’t think I could take care of him and let you testify, do you? And you could, you know, because you’re not even my wife … Also,’ he said, ‘you made a will. Half to your brother and half to me. If I made it tonight—and I think I will—I’m set. If not, it won’t matter … Come on. Move!’
Palmer watched the slippered foot start forward beneath the skirt. He turned slightly, one eye on the gun, the perspiration drying coldly on his spine. But he was still a good eight feet from the muzzle and he had no thought of making a move at that time. It was the sudden rasp of the buzzer from the hall door that gave him his chance.
Coming as it did in all that stillness, it was a loud, disquieting sound, long-lasting and imperative in its demand. But its real value was its unexpectedness.
It startled Palmer.
It startled Chapman too, so much so that he made the mistake of turning his head towards the sound. With that, Palmer hesitated no longer, knowing as his body swung forward that he would never get a better chance.
A lot of things went through his mind in the next instant as he saw Chapman turn back and the gun swing round, but most of them had to do with Janet Evans. He did not have time to figure the odds or worry much about them; all he knew was that she was standing in the hall—there was no other explanation—and that, once the door was opened, she would have no more chance than Isabel.
It was his fault she was here at all. She was his responsibility. It was this thought that kept him driving as the muzzle covered him and the trigger finger tightened. For he knew now the shot would come, that she would hear it and be warned.
The explosion hammered at him as his fingers reached for the muzzle and he saw it jump at point-blank range. He felt the quick heat in the barrel as he tipped it a few inches to one side, and the shock that followed came not from a bullet but from the impact of his shoulder as it drove under the arm and into the body.
He understood then that the unexpected sound of that buzzer had saved him. For Chapman was no superman. It took time for the brain to telegraph an order, and the second he lost when he turned his head towards the door made the difference. After that, Palmer thought no more, but struck again at the gun, knocking it free as they hit the floor together.
The rest of it was pretty vague to Palmer, then and later, but the fight, while it lasted, was even enough. Chapman had the weight, but Palmer had youth and condition working for him, and they rolled and grabbed and twisted and slashed, and somehow Chapman was on top, and then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.
Palmer heard the swish of a skirt, the sound of a blow being struck but not by him. He felt Chapman stiffen and then he heard the woman’s tight, high voice.
‘Stop it! Stop it or I’ll shoot!’
Slowly, then, Chapman pushed to his knees and Palmer struggled free. He saw the trickle of blood on the blond hair where Isabel had struck her husband with the gun barrel. She was standing behind him now, the snub-nosed revolver pointed right at his back from a distance of three feet.
She retreated as Chapman rose. ‘Over there’, she said. ‘In that chair.’
Chapman glared at her, his face a shining, twisted mask of hate and malevolence, but he did not hesitate long. He looked at the steady angle of the gun. He looked at his wife, and what he saw there must have told him she meant exactly what she said.
While he backed slowly to the chair, Palmer stood up, which took a bit of doing because his knees were wobbly. His hands were trembling too as reaction set in. He took a breath and his heart still pounded, but he had a part to play and he tried to do it.
‘Thanks.’ He put out his hand and swallowed to remove the dryness from his throat. ‘I’ll take it now’, he said, indicating the gun.
She shook her head, not looking at him but at her husband, standing erect now, her face rigid and her gaze bright and hot and dangerous.
‘I can handle it’, she said bleakly. ‘And I’m not afraid to use it … Go see who’s at the door.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BY THE TIME Palmer opened the door he thought he had himself well in hand, but when he saw Janet Evans standing there he was not so sure. How long ago had the buzzer sounded? An hour and a half? Had she been standing there all that time?
She stepped quickly forward, her blue eye wide and frightened as they examined his face. She put both hands on his arms, gently, the fingers searching through his sleeves. Her voice when she spoke was no more than a whisper.
‘I—I heard the shot’, she said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Everybody’s all right now’, Palmer said and swallowed again.
‘I saw him drive up, and it was so long, and you didn’t come out, so I thought—’ She broke off, her gaze still uncertain. ‘Shouldn’t I have?’
That look, the sound of her voice did things to Palmer. He felt nine feet tall and his chest was warm and tight and ready to burst. He knew this was not the time for explanations, but he took another moment to gaze at her because she looked so young and contrite and terribly concerned. He put his hands out to cup her rounded shoulders and leaned down, and then because with all that reaction and relief working on him he couldn’t help it, he kissed her soft mouth lightly.
‘Except maybe for coming in with a platoon of police,’ he said happily, ‘you couldn’t have done it better … Come on’, he said and led her into the living-room. ‘Over in the corner like a good girl and don’t ask questions.’
She did as she was told, examining the others with wide eyes as she did so. Palmer glanced at Isabel, then stopped to stare, his new-found confidence and assurance evaporating swiftly.
She had moved while he was in the foyer and now sat in a chair she had placed five feet from her husband and directly in front of him. She sat stiffly, her jaw hard, her elbow resting on the chair arm to support and steady the hand that held the gun.
Chapman watched her, the blood trickling unheeded down the side of his tight-muscled face. The eyes were steady and still baffled, but something like fear or uncertainty which came from deep within him showed through. When Palmer saw all this he spoke again about the gun.
‘Why not let me take that?’ he said. ‘You can call the police.’
He hesitated when she shook her head, his uneasiness growing, not because she did not know how to handle a gun, but because he was afraid the inner hate which seemed now to be feeding her mind might make her pull the trigger in spite of herself.
For this was a spoiled and selfish woman, her hatred undisguised and focused on the man who sat opposite her. It was written there in the rigid planes and angles of her face, and came, he knew, not from what Chapman had done to Ethel Kovalik or Leo Flynn, but from what he had done to her and her pride. Understanding this now, Palmer found he had no sympathy for either of them.
/> ‘You call the police’, she said without shifting her gaze.
‘Okay’, Palmer said. ‘Just take it easy, will you?’
He sat down behind the desk and reached for the telephone. While he dialled the Bulletin’s number his thoughts moved on to pleasanter things and now a new eagerness began to work on him when he thought of what he was about to say.
He could see now that the obligation had never existed as Mr. Austin and the Bulletin understood it. The story which gave Ethel Kovalik’s street address had been the thing that had worried them, and he could tell them now that the story had nothing to do with it. She had been killed before that edition ever hit the streets, and because of a publisher’s integrity and determination the obligation he felt for his paper could now be fulfilled.
The Standard will love this, he thought gleefully as he heard the distant ringing. Then as the operator answered, he asked for the city desk.
Larry Palmer got a long-distance call the following Thursday evening as he sat at his desk wondering if his budget would stand a trip to New York and some dates with Janet.
He had not seen her since Tuesday, and even before that there had been little time for them following Chapman’s arrest. The District Attorney had asked her to remain over until Monday to give evidence before a special Grand Jury, which promptly obliged with an indictment for murder.
There had been no mention of love or marriage when he took her to the plane the next morning, but since then his mind had been greatly occupied with this and similar things. He knew for sure that this was what he wanted and he had an idea, treasured but not openly admitted, that she might listen with favour to what he wanted to say. For he remembered how she looked at the airport and how, as they stood at the loading-gate, she had lifted her face and kissed him while he was trying to make up his mind to do the same thing.
‘A New York call, Larry’, the city editor yelled. ‘Some dame. Take it on two.’
He put on the headset with nervous fingers and said: ‘Hello’, and then the remembered voice came to him and the tingling started inside.
‘Hello’, she said. ‘Are you busy?’
‘No. I’ve been sitting here wondering if I could afford to come down and see you.’
‘Maybe you won’t have to.’
‘What?’ he said, not sure he had heard her.
‘I had to call you’, she said. ‘I got a letter from Uncle John—from Panama’, she said. ‘It was mailed Monday.’
‘Then he made it.’
‘But he’s not staying there. He said he was leaving for a place he had already picked out where the climate was good and the dollar would buy a lot more than it would at home. That way he said he’d have money enough to last him. Have you any idea where that would be?’
Palmer said no. He said it wouldn’t be in Panama or Venezuela or Brazil because he’d heard they were expensive.
‘Probably one of those English islands that are on the sterling standard’, he said. ‘I’m glad he made it.’
‘He said maybe someday he’d write again, and not to worry. He asked me to come up and clean the house out—he only rented it, you know. He said to take anything I wanted and to sell the rest for what I could get.’ She chuckled. ‘He said I could use the money on a hope chest or my honeymoon. So—’
She paused, but continued before he could think of anything to say. ‘I thought I’d come up tomorrow night and spend the week-end. I thought if I cooked you a dinner, maybe you’d help me, well—sort of get things ready. You know, find out what to sell and where to sell it.’
Palmer laughed aloud when she finished, the involuntary demonstration of a man who felt too good to care who heard him. Around him typewriters stopped their chatter and all eyes focused on him.
‘What’s funny?’ Janet asked.
‘You are’, he said, lowering his voice. ‘You’re wonderful and I love you.’
He said he would meet her. He said it was a swell idea. He said he was a handy man around a house and all he needed was a chance to practise.
THE END
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copyright © 1957 by George Harmon Coxe
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
978-1-4532-3343-6
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