She said, “Why did she invite you for tea?”
“Maybe she wants to read my tea leaves. That should be interesting,” he added with a dry smile. “I might be about to get some money or meet a short suspicious blonde.”
“That’s not very funny.”
“Then stop acting suspicious.”
“I’m not.”
“Have it your way.”
He crossed the room and stood with his back to the mantel, his left arm supporting some of his weight. His body was never quite erect. When he walked he slouched, and when he stood he always leaned against something like a man who had spent too much time in a car and at a desk.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“At the movies. She phoned at noon and told me she intended to stay downtown for lunch and do some shopping and take in a double feature. She sounded quite gay and girlish, as if she was going on a spree.”
“Maybe she was.”
“Oh, no. She doesn’t drink.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that kind of a spree.”
“Then why don’t you say what you think?”
“Maybe I will, sometime.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Now what are you miffed about?”
“You’re so condescending.”
“I don’t feel that way,” he said gravely. “In fact, right now I’m confused. I can go down to lower Fifth Street and look in the window of a house, any house, and tell you quite a lot about the people who live there. But I’m not used to houses like this or girls like Virginia or women like Mrs. Hamilton.”
“Or like me?” The question slipped out unintentionally, like a line from a fishing reel left unguarded for a moment.
“I think I know quite a bit about you, Alice.”
“Oh? You’ve met dozens like me, I suppose.”
“A few.”
She turned away so that he couldn’t see the angry flush that stained her face.
He didn’t see it, though he guessed it was there. “Why does that make you mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“You wouldn’t want to be absolutely unique, would you, like a three-headed calf or something?”
“Of course not.” I would, she thought violently. I want to be absolutely unique.
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” he said with a trace of a smile. “It’s just that I knew a three-headed calf once, and all it ever wanted to be was ordinary.”
“This is a ridiculous conversation,” Alice said. “I think you’d better stick to looking in windows on lower Fifth Street, Mr. Meecham.”
“I don’t look in. . .”
“You said you did.”
“I said I could.”
“Anybody can. You hardly need any special equipment for window peeping.”
“I am not a window peeper.”
“Well, you said you were.”
“I did not say I . . .”
“I heard you distinctly.”
Meecham shook his head in exasperation. “All right. All right, I’m a window peeper.”
“I can believe it.”
“I think I’ve changed my mind about you, Alice. You are unique. Absolutely unique and impossible.”
Alice gazed at him blandly. “I’d rather be impossible than ordinary. Mrs. Hamilton says I can be anything if I try.”
“Mrs. Hamilton’s an authority?”
“On most things.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” he said. “Don’t get stuck on the old girl. She might let you down.”
From outside there came the sound of footsteps hurrying across the patio. A moment later the front door burst open and Mrs. Hamilton came rushing into the room. Her coat was flying open and her hat had slid to the back of her head. She looked blowsy and old and scared.
As she turned to close the door behind her the parcels she was carrying slid out of her arms and dropped to the floor. There was a muffled shatter of glass, and almost instantly the smell of lilacs crept poignantly into the room like a remembered spring.
“Turn off the lights, Alice,” she said. “Don’t ask questions. Turn them off.”
Alice did as she was told. Without lights the smell of lilacs seemed stronger, and Mrs. Hamilton’s harsh breathing rose and fell in the darkness.
“Someone is out there. A man. He’s been following me.”
Meecham coughed, faintly. She took it as a sign of disbelief.
“No, I’m not imagining things, Mr. Meecham,” she said sharply. “He followed me from the bus stop. I couldn’t get a cab downtown so I took the bus. This man got off at the same corner as I did. He followed me. I think he meant to rob me.”
“He may live in one of the houses around here,” Meecham said.
“No. He came after me quite deliberately and openly. When I walked fast he walked fast, and when I paused he paused. There was something almost sadistic about it.”
“He’s probably a neighborhood nut who gets his kicks out of scaring women,” Meecham said. Or a policeman, he thought, maybe one of Cordwink’s men. “Where is he now?”
“The last I saw of him he had gone behind the cedar hedge.” She crossed to the window and pointed. “Right there, at the entrance to the driveway. He might be there yet.”
“I’ll go out and take a look.”
“What if he’s dangerous? Maybe we should call the police immediately.”
“First, let’s see if he’s still there,” Meecham said.
Outside, the snow was still falling. It felt good, after the heat of the house. Through the patio and down the driveway Meecham walked, a little self-consciously, aware that the two women were watching him from the window and not sure how far they could see, since it wasn’t totally dark yet.
By the time he reached the end of the curving driveway the snow didn’t feel quite so pleasant. With quiet persistence it had seeped in over the tops of his shoes, and up his coat sleeves and down under his collar. He felt cold and wet and foolish.
He said, in a voice that wasn’t as loud or as firm as he intended: “Hey. You behind the hedge. What are you doing?”
There was no answer. He had expected none. The old girl had probably dreamed up the whole thing. Darkness, weariness, a deserted street, footsteps behind—together they were rich food for the imagination.
Pulling up his coat collar against the snow, he was on the point of turning to go back to the house when a man shuffled out from the shadow of the hedge. He moved like an old man, and his hair and eyebrows were white, but the whiteness was snow. He stood with his back to the street lamp so that his face was just a blur in the deepening twilight. The light-colored baggy coat he wore hung on him like a tent.
“What am I doing here?” he said. “I’m waiting for the doctor.”
“Behind a hedge?”
“No, sir.” He had a rather high, earnest voice, like a schoolboy’s. “I intend to go to his office, but I thought I’d stand here a bit and enjoy the night. I like a winter night.”
“Kind of cold, isn’t it?”
“Not for me. I like the smell of cedar too. It reminds me of Christmas. I won’t be having a Christmas this year.” He brushed the snow from his eyebrows with the back of his bare hand. “Of course I’m not really waiting for the doctor.”
Meecham’s eyes were alert, suspicious. “No?”
“Oh, I’ll see him, of course. But what I’m really waiting for—and so are you, if you only knew it—is a destination, a finality, an end of something. My own case is rather special; I’m waiting for an end of fear.”
I was right, Meecham thought. He’s a neighborhood nut. Aloud he said, “You’d better pick a more comfortable place to wait. Move on, now. We don’t wan
t any trouble.”
The man didn’t even hear him. “I’ve died a thousand times from fear. A thousand deaths, and one would have been enough. A great irony.”
“You’d better move on, go home and get some sleep. Have you got a family?”
“A family?” The young man laughed. “I have a great family.”
“They may be waiting for you.”
“I won’t be going home tonight.”
“You can’t stay here.” Meecham glanced briefly at the man’s shoes. Like the overcoat, they looked new. He said anyway, “I can let you have a couple of bucks.”
“What do you think, that I’m a bum wanting a handout? I’m not a bum.”
A car came around the corner, its headlights searched the man’s face for a moment like big blind eyes. Meecham recognized him instantly. He had seen him that morning in the county jail, the old-young man with the sensitive face and the swollen dissolute body. The body was hidden now under the tent of his overcoat. His face was bland and unlined, and the falling snow had feathered his eyelashes and made his eyes look dewy and innocent. He was, Meecham thought, about twenty-eight.
He said aloud, “We’ve met before.”
“Yes, I know. I know who you are.”
“Oh?”
“You’re Mr. Meecham, the girl’s lawyer.”
Meecham had an abrupt and inexplicable feeling of uneasiness. It was, he thought, like turning around suddenly on a dark night and finding at your heels a silent and vicious dog; nothing is said, nothing is done; the walk continues, the dog behind you, and behind the dog, fear, following you both.
“What’s your name?” Meecham said.
“Loftus. Earl Duane Loftus.” The young man blinked, and the snow tumbled from his eyelashes down his cheeks in a miniature avalanche. “You’d better go and call the police. You wouldn’t mind if I waited inside the house until they arrive? I’m not cold—I never mind the cold—but I’d like to sit down. I tire easily.”
“Why should I call the police?”
“I’d like to give them a statement.”
“What about?”
“I committed a murder.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t believe me,” Loftus said.
“Oh sure, sure I do.”
“No. I can tell. First you thought I was a bum, now you think I’m a psycho.”
“No, I don’t,” Meecham lied, without conviction.
“Well, I can’t blame you, actually. I guess every murder case attracts a lot of tips and confessions from psychos, people who want punishment or publicity or expiation. I don’t fit into any of those classes, Mr. Meecham.”
“Of course not,” Meecham lied again, wishing that a patrol car would come along, or that the young man would go away quietly, and without a fuss.
“I can see you’re still skeptical. You haven’t even asked whom I killed.”
Meecham felt cold and weary, and a little impatient. “What gave you the idea you killed anyone?”
“The body. The dead body.” Loftus’ long skinny fingers worked nervously at the lapels of his coat. “I didn’t come here following the old lady home. We had a common destination, that’s all. I wanted to see the doctor and tell him first. His wife didn’t kill Margolis. I did.”
Meecham’s impatience had grown with his discomfort. “How’d you kill him, with a shotgun as he was going into the post-office to mail a letter?”
Loftus shook his head, very seriously. “No, sir, I didn’t. I stabbed him in the neck. Four or five times, I believe.”
“Why?”
“I had a good many reasons.” He leaned toward Meecham in an almost confidential manner. “I look funny to you, don’t I? You think like a lot of people that a man who looks so funny must also be funny in the head. Looks are very important. Very deceiving too. I’m quite sane, quite intelligent even. There’s only one thing the matter with me; I am going to die.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“You asked why I killed Margolis. Well, that’s one of my reasons. Ever since I found out, a year ago, what my chances were, I’ve been pondering the situation. Since I was going to die anyway, I thought I would take someone with me—rid the world of someone it would be better off without, some incorrigible criminal, perhaps, or a dangerous politician. But when the time and opportunity came, it was Margolis. I wish it could have been someone more important. Margolis was very third-rate.”
“He had a wife and two kids.”
Loftus’ calm was unshaken. “He won’t be missed. I’ve done them a favor.”
“Well,” Meecham said quietly. “Come inside and sit down.”
“Thank you, sir.”
They walked, side by side, toward the house. It seemed to Meecham that it was the longest and strangest walk he’d ever taken.
5
Loftus looked at the clock on the mantel. 6:10. So the clock was going, all right, time was passing, but slow and soundless. He missed the noise of ticking. The clock he had in his own room ticked so loud that it often kept him awake. Sometimes in the middle of the night he got up and covered it with a glass bowl that he’d bought in the dime store. The glass smothered the noise a little but didn’t obscure the face of the clock.
The room was quiet. Mrs. Hamilton and the blonde girl had gone to another part of the house, and the doctor had come, and, after a long whispered conference in the hall, had gone away again. There were only the four of them left, the two policemen, and Meecham, and Loftus himself.
“Loftus.”
Loftus turned. “Yes, sir.” He wasn’t sure if this was the way to address a sheriff. He had never talked to one before.
“When did you write this?” Cordwink said.
“This afternoon.”
“Why?”
“I thought it would be better to write it down myself, to get things very clear. They are, aren’t they? Clear?”
Cordwink made a noise in the back of his throat. “Clear as a bell. You thought of everything, Loftus.”
“I tried to.”
“It makes me wonder whether you might have had a little help with it.”
“Who would help me?”
“Well, now. Meecham over here is always willing to lend a hand, especially if . . .”
“You’re off your rocker, Cordwink,” Meecham said flatly. “I never saw the man before in my life.”
“No?”
“No. And just what do you mean ‘help’ him with it? You talk as if we’re a couple of school kids and I did his homework for him, or something.”
Cordwink rustled the papers he held in his hand. There were eight of them, closely written. By moving his head slightly Loftus could see the top sheet. It had been the most difficult to write. He had made so many copies that he knew it by heart: My name is Earl Duane Loftus. I am writing this without coercion or advice on the part of anyone, and with the full knowledge that it can be used as evidence in a court of law. . . .
Cordwink was speaking. “This comes at a convenient time for you, Meecham. Your client’s in jail, a lot of evidence against her ...”
‘‘Circumstantial.’’
“... and then out of the blue comes a nice pat answer to all your problems.”
“But it didn’t come out of the blue,” Loftus said, blinking his eyes nervously. “Not at all, sir. I intended to admit everything right from the beginning, but I needed some time. I had to do a few things first, personal things. I’m afraid I didn’t give much thought to Mrs. Barkeley being held in jail. But then it didn’t do her any harm, did it? She’s a little spoiled.”
“Is she?”
“I think so.”
Cordwink’s mouth tightened. “There’s nothing in what you’ve written here to in
dicate that you knew her before last Saturday night.”
“I didn’t know her, not actually. I saw her once, a little over a year ago. I had come to consult Dr. Barkeley, I was feeling so tired and heavy, and I minded the heat so much. I . . .” He paused, folding his arms to hide his belly. It was my belly that worried me, he thought. It had begun to swell, bigger and bigger. I had nightmares about being a hideous freak, the only man in the world who ever had a baby. It wasn’t a baby, but I was a freak, all right. I didn’t know it then. I said, it’s my nerves, doctor, maybe I need a rest, a change of climate. You need hospital treatment, he said. I went to him three times, and the third time he told me what I had. It was only a word to me then, a pretty word like a girl’s name, Leukemia, Leukemia Smith, Leukemia Ann Johnston. Chronic myeloid leukemia, he said. He didn’t tell me I was dying. But I knew, I knew. He never sent me a bill.
“Loftus,” Cordwink said.
Loftus jerked his head up. “Yes, sir.”
“Go on. You were saying?”
“I—oh, yes. Yes. I saw Mrs. Barkeley once when I went to the doctor’s office. She was in the yard raking up leaves.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No, oh no. I just passed by.”
“Did she notice you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Have you ever talked to her?”
“Just on Saturday night, that’s the only time.”
Cordwink turned to the deputy he had brought with him, a young intense-looking man in a tweed suit. “Dun- lop, you’re getting all this down?”
“Yes, sir,” Dunlop said. “‘Just on Saturday night, that’s the only time.’“
“When Mrs. Barkeley came into the bar, Loftus, did you recognize her?”
“Of course. She’s a very pretty woman.”
“What was the name of the bar?”
“It’s in there, in my confession.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Sam’s Café.”
“Are you sure? I thought it was Joe’s.”
Loftus shook his head. “It was Sam’s. If you’re trying to confuse me, you can’t. I remember everything very clearly. I only had one drink, a beer. I was just finishing it when Mrs. Barkeley came up to the bar and sat down beside me. This is all written down, but I suppose you want me to repeat it, just to test me, is that it?”
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