by Rex Stout
So he was going to Utica to visit his boyhood friend, Andrew Beach, with whom he had corresponded at intervals. He pulled a letter out of his coat pocket as he leaned back in the chair of the pullman. It was on a business letterhead: “Andrew Beach, Fancy Groceries, Wholesale and Retail.” He smiled. Queer how men could bury themselves under bags of potatoes in a little upstate town and get happiness out of it! Old Andy, too. Was he happy? Sackerville wondered.
Then he thought of Melissa Hayes and admitted to himself that it was her red hair which was taking him back to Utica. It was absurd, of course; probably she didn’t live there anymore and certainly she was married. He told himself that the image in his heart was not Melissa Hayes at all; it was a memory, an abstract desire, an ideal. It could make no difference if he saw her and spoke to her—the disturbing image would remain in his heart to tantalize him forever; but he wanted to see her—
And it was of her he thought as the train flew swiftly along the bank of the Hudson. He leaned back in his chair with an unopened book on his knees, gazing through the window at the curving outline of the hills across the river. He found himself getting impatient the other side of Albany; then, as he neared his destination, he was taken with a curious reluctance, almost a timidity. He was sorry he had come. But when the train stopped he leaped to the platform, summoned a cab and gave the address on Andrew Beach’s letterhead.
Ten minutes later he was shaking hands with Andy in a little office with the word “Private” on the door. After the first greetings the two men stood looking at each other in silence for some time.
“You’ve changed a lot, old man,” said Sackerville. Indeed, it was difficult to believe that this little fat, bustling grocer, already half bald, was his old boyhood friend. There was nothing to go by, no feature he could place—but yes, the eyes. They had the same sly, twinkling expression he remembered so well. Come to think of it, this was just the sort of man one would have expected Andy Beach to grow into. No doubt he was adept at the tricks of the trade.
“Yes, I’m doing fine,” the grocer was saying. “Three floors here and a warehouse over on Fillmore Street; you know, opposite old Pat’s livery stable. I’ve got the biggest wholesale business in the city. Show you my plant in the morning—” he glanced at his watch—“too late now. We’ll go home and have some dinner. Mrs. Beach will sure be glad to see you. Got your bag?”
“Yes, but I’ll send it down to the hotel,” said Sackerville.
But Andrew Beach wouldn’t hear of that. Let his friend Harry stay at a hotel? He should say not! His wife would never forgive him! He gave some orders to subordinates in the office, linked his arm in Sackerville’s and led him out to the curb where a motor-car was waiting with a chauffeur on the seat.
“Ah!” said Sackerville.
“Yes,” said the grocer, motioning him to get in. “Some car, eh? Good as any in town. I work hard, and I believe in getting what I can out of life. The best is none too good for me when I can afford it.”
As the car sped through the darkening streets he continued his chatter.
“I see you’ve been doing big things,” he observed, “in Africa and places. There was a whole page about you in the Herald a week ago Sunday; I suppose you saw it. My wife read it aloud to me. Well, I’m glad— See there? Old Snyder’s drugstore. Yep; still there. Things still look familiar, don’t they? It don’t seem possible you’ve been gone twenty years. There’s old Carroll’s church, but he’s dead; remember how we used to pester him? By the way, you’ve got here just in time for the event, so don’t be surprised if you find things every which way you know, Melissa’s going to be married next week.”
Sackerville sat up. “Melissa?”
“Yes. My daughter. I’ve spoke about her in my letters, I suppose. Always called her Melly, but she won’t stand for it anymore now she’s engaged. All right, so I say Melissa. She’s a fine girl.”
“Melissa!” Sackerville repeated stupidly.
“Yep. Named after her mother—Melissa Hayes—she was in our class—remember the tall girl with red hair and big blue eyes? Of course, I wrote you about it. I married her about a year after you left.”
“No, I never knew it,” said Sackerville after I pause. “But I—I remember her.”
“Sure you do. I must have written you about it, but it was a long time ago. She’s been a good wife, Harry, except for a few queer notions. She’s society. And then— Here, see that big house on the corner? No, the one with the closed porch. That’s Dan Harrison’s—remember Dan? He’s in real estate. Very successful. We’ll drop in on him tonight. Here we are! Yep, this belongs to yours truly. Got a hundred feet both ways—garage in the rear. Good Lord! I ought to have telephoned Melissa! She’ll give me the dickens.”
As Sackerville got out of the car and ascended the steps of the broad, deep porch, he felt ironically amused at himself. He had sought the ideal of his heart and found the wife of a provincial grocer! Tant pis! No one but a fool would have expected anything better. He was sentimental enough to feel a repugnance about crossing the threshold; he did not want to meet her. Certainly it would not be his Melissa, whose face had haunted him in the desert and wild places of the earth.
“Sit down—in there—make yourself at home—back in a minute,” Andrew Beach was saying as he disappeared down the hall.
Sackerville entered a large modern parlor and seated himself on a covered divan in the recess of a double window. Looking around, he told himself that the room was not half bad; there was even evidence of taste. The furniture was all in dark tapestry, except a table and chair of kioto wood near the fireplace; the walls were dark gray, and there were few pictures. At one end was a pianola with a cabinet of rolls. The whole was bathed in the soft light of an electric pedestal lamp in a corner; and Sackerville was idly taking in these details and commending them when he heard steps in the hall. He told himself that it would be the grocer’s wife, and he braced himself. The steps approached the door—
“My God!” cried Sackerville aloud, springing to his feet.
“Oh!” came a startled voice. “I beg your pardon—I didn’t know there was anyone—”
It was Melissa—Melissa of the wilderness! He could not understand it, and he stood staring stupidly as she entered the room with a quick, unconscious grace and crossed to the table. He felt stunned and silly. There she was, tall, slender, youthful, with her large soft eyes relieving the fire of the splendid hair, and her skin like frozen snow. She took a book from the table and turned to leave. She neared the door.
“Oh, here you are!” came the voice of Andrew Beach. “Sackerville!” The grocer entered the room, followed by a large tall woman with flushed face and shining eyes. “Harry, this is my wife and my daughter Melly—all right, Melissa then. Two of ’em. First and second edition. What do you think? Looks just the same, don’t he? He’s a great man, daughter, but don’t be afraid of him. Yes, you’ve heard us speak of Harry Sackerville. Remember the piece in the Herald a week ago? Come on, Harry, if you want to wash up; dinner’s about ready. I’ll show you your room.”
Upstairs the astonished Sackerville moved about in a daze as he washed his hands and face and changed his linen, while his host sat on the bed and chattered. He had seen her, he was to dine with her—that was as far as his thoughts could get. She existed. She was here. What supernatural luck! He felt a glow in his breast.
“You’ll have to excuse the women,” Andrew Beach was saying. “They’ll probably eat and run. Busier than two hens the week before Easter. This wedding business is awful. Lord, it’s funny to think of Melly getting married. Only yesterday—”
Sackerville dropped the soap on the floor.
“—she was a kid on my knee. It’s a bad thing, Harry, when your children grow up. Though Melly—Melissa’s all I’ve got. There’s bound to be things you don’t like, and you wonder if they’ll be happy. Take this man going to marry Melissa
; I suppose he’ll do, but I don’t like him. Railroad man—owns the lines both ways up the valley—I guess he’s about the richest young man in town, but Lord, it won’t make Melissa happy just to be able to take free rides on a railroad. It’s her mother’s doing. Society bug. Says her daughter will be the most prominent matron in the city. I don’t like it. Who wants to be a prominent matron? It ain’t wise.”
This chatter carried them to the dining-room, and there Andrew Beach subsided suddenly and completely to give his wife a chance. Mrs. Beach talked rather slowly in order to make sure of her pronunciation. Her accent was very refined. She opened with a discussion of school reminiscences with Sackerville, then spoke at some length of the pleasure it gave one to entertain so distinguished a guest at one’s own table in an informal manner. She gushed. This lasted till the roast, when she began talking of her home, having been started by a compliment from Sackerville. It was such a satisfaction to one to surround one’s self with artistic things. Thanks to Andrew’s commercial success—she smiled approvingly at her husband—she had been able to gratify her tastes. Also, she had raised her family to a position at the very top of society, and the hour of her greatest triumph was at hand. No doubt Andrew had informed Mr. Sackerille of the approaching marriage of her daughter to Mr. John Gowanton.
The distinguished guest admitted that he had been so informed.
“The most eligible gentleman in the city,” said Mrs. Beach emphatically.
Her husband muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Damphool.”
“What did you say, Andrew?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Beach hastily, conveying some meat to his mouth.
At that moment Sackerville did something he had been trying to do since the beginning of dinner. He met the eyes of Melissa Beach—and they twinkled. Unconsciously he returned her glance with the frank familiarity of an intimate friend, so clearly and obviously was she the Melissa of his heart, whose image had been with him many years; and she flushed and looked away. He watched the delicate color tint her white skin and found a place for it in his memory; and when, in a few moments, her eyes stole back, he was still gazing at her, and the flush deepened. He had no sense of his own rudeness; he was merely seeing in reality what had so often charmed his heavy-lidded eyes in the lonely nights.
“Really, the best family in the city—” Mrs. Beach was saying.
That night Sackerville lay awake to think. Not despairing thoughts, though it would seem that he had found the object of his dreams only to lose it. He was a man who had fought with mountains and deserts and gangs of lazy criminal men and sneaky little diplomats; and ordinary foes, such as social conventions and ambitious matrons and best families, held no terrors for him. On the whole, his thoughts were optimistic and happy.
“I wonder what kind of fellow this Gowanton is,” he said to his pillow, and turned over and went to sleep.
The next day, Sunday, he and his old friend Andrew sat on the porch and talked over old times while the mother and daughter went to church. In the afternoon they motored into the country. Sackerville sat in front beside the grocer, who drove, while the tonneau was occupied by Mrs. Beach, Melissa and Melissa’s fiancé.
Mr. Gowanton was a fat, red-faced young man without any neck, very jolly and talkative. He laughed continually, with or without reason, in a high thin falsetto, and his conversation consisted entirely of personal recollections of the most irrelevant nature.
“Regular fool. Sorry he got Melly,” said Andrew Beach in a hoarse aside to his friend.
Sackerville nodded, smiling.
When they got back from the ride Gowanton stayed to dine with the family, as a matter of course. At the table his jollity was more in evidence than ever, until, by a chance remark of his host’s, he discovered that Sackerville was the man who built the Tsing-Tso Railroad. Then he began talking construction and equipment, and displayed an insight and knowledge of the subject really surprising in a country capitalist. Sackerville warmed and by degrees allowed himself to be drawn into a recital of his varied adventures.
“Great stuff,” said Gowanton, chewing, “but it won’t pay dividends.”
“Military road,” observed the grocer sententiously.
“No doubt it’s exciting,” put in Mrs. Beach, “but it is so unsettling. One must have a home and a position in society. Going all over the world like that—no permanence—”
“Sort of superior vagabondange?” smiled Sackerville, who had been trying for an hour to meet Melissa’s eyes. “Yes, of course, such a life has its disadvantages. A man gets so he lives mostly in his dreams, as far as sentiment is concerned. Like a friend of mine, an army officer in India. He had a dream one night, sort of an apparition. It was the face of a girl, very beautiful, as he described her to me once, and he kept seeing that face for years. It took him entirely and he got superstitious about it. He fancied himself in love with her; he could not believe it was only a vision, and he would have nothing to do with any woman. For ten years he remained faithful to that shadow of a dream. Then he went home to England on leave, and he met her at a dinner in London—the eyes, the hair, the face, the voice, everything the same. She was married to another man.”
“Oh, how awful!” cried Melissa.
“Of course, being an officer and a gentleman, he could say nothing,” commented Mrs. Beach.
“What did he do?” demanded the grocer.
“He killed the husband and took her out to India,” said Sackerville calmly.
And he looked into Melissa’s eyes, to find them startled and a little skeptical but filled with a strange friendliness.
That night he lay awake again, thinking, and slept with a smile.
The next morning he was up early, but he appeared to have nothing in particular to do, for he accepted the grocer’s invitation to go downtown with him and look over the store and warehouse.
“We’ll come home for lunch,” said Andrew Beach. “This afternoon I have to go to the church and practice giving my daughter to that Gowanton. Rehearse a wedding! Tomfoolery! Well, it’ll all be over tomorrow noon. She’ll be married then. Crazy to leave your old daddy, are you, Melly? Come on, Harry, the car’s waiting.”
But when he had spent three hours gazing at rows of boxes of tomatoes, sardines, soup, cheese, and a thousand other things, and the time came to go to lunch, Sackerville said he would prefer to remain downtown. Nor would he meet his host later at the church, where the wedding was to be rehearsed.
“Don’t blame you,” said Andrew Beach. “Damn nonsense. Wish you’d let me leave the car for you.”
Sackerville declined this offer again and set off afoot. All afternoon he roamed over the city alone, searching landmarks of his youth; and now and then he would meet a face that lookd familiar and yet strange, awakening a memory that had lain dormant for many years. He found nothing that attracted or moved him, and his thoughts were really of Melissa, who was to be married to John Gowanton at noon of the following day. He still felt the strangeness of having seen her and spoken to her in her youth and fresh beauty, just as she had so often appeared to his fancy; there seemed to be something fantastic about it. How beautiful she was! What unbelievable luck!
“If I had been four days later—” he thought, and grew pale.
It was an aimless afternoon, except for one errand which he performed at the city hall about four o’clock, in a dingy little room with a sign: “Marriage Licenses,” over the door. Sackerville walked to the desk and asked for a license for the marriage of Henry Sackerville and Melissa Beach.
“What!” said the astonished clerk, a sharp-nosed young man who knew things. ‘Why, Miss Beach is to be married—”
“Listen,” Sackerville interrupted. “This is a joke. I’m going to play a joke on Gowanton. I ask for the license. It’s your business to make it out.”
With a meaning look at the sha
rp-nosed young man he pushed a ten-dollar bill across the counter, and five minutes later departed with the license in his pocket.
That evening at the dinner table the talk was all of the wedding. They discussed the rehearsal, which Mrs. Beach declared had gone off beautifully. Even Dan Harrison, the best man—by the way, Sackerville would remember Dan Harrison as an old classmate—even he had seemed for once to lose some of his awkwardness. If only it went as well tomorrow!
“I hope John behaves himself tonight and retires early,” said Mrs. Beach. “He is so—so popular. Melissa, you must go to bed right after dinner and get some rest. I’m sure I don’t know how we’ve stood it all. Did you see Mrs. Carroll’s gift, Mr. Sackerville? So tasteful and rich! You should be a very happy woman, Melissa, so many friends—”
The end of dinner stopped her. The men went out on the porch to smoke their cigars, and for once Andrew Beach was silent, as befitted a man who was to lose his only daughter on the morrow. It was barely nine o’clock when Sackerville arose to go to his room, saying that his long walk had made him sleepy.
“I’m going to turn in, too,” said Andrew Beach, following him. “I hope I can sleep.”
“If only she’s happy—” said the grocer, parting from his guest at the head of the stairs.
But Sackerville did not go to bed when he entered his room. Instead, he sat down on a chair near the window and lit another cigar. It was a long black cigar and took some time to smoke, but when it was finished he lit another. Though the window was open, few sounds entered in that quiet residential district. Now and then an automobile passed, and occasionally the jangle of a streetcar could be heard at a distance. Sackerville kept looking at his watch, and when it said eleven o’clock he arose, threw away his third cigar, went to the door of his room and opened it.