Better to Eat You

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “My blessing,” Grandfather said solemnly, in the dark. “There, dearie. You know you have it. And now you can hurry, do.”

  Sarah got to her feet. “I have only to run down the path.”

  “You are young,” he said cheerfully. “You can go nimbly, eh?”

  The door flew open. Light washed in. It bathed the old man, showed him bent into his chair, chin down. His head rolled to one side. The eyes turned sideways.

  “Sarah,” said Malvina sharply. “You are walking into a trap. Tell her, Grandfather.” She was tall and imperious.

  “What should I tell her?” Grandfather said in a strange voice. “How stupid you are, Malvina! What is this fuss? Now, let her go.”

  “I’m going,” Sarah said resolutely.

  “Then I’ll tell her,” Malvina cried, “how she’s been made a fool of.” She let go of the door and bent forward, speaking angrily. “David has gone to the police. He told me so. You think he is going to be waiting for you? Oh no, Sarah—the Sheriff’s man will be waiting for you. And catch you running away. That’s David’s plan.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Sarah said.

  “Then we’ll ask Gust, who heard him say so. We’ll ask Moon. Everyone heard him say so.” Her voice rang. Malvina moved and left a path through the door.

  “Except me,” said Grandfather, and then loudly, “except me, Malvina, from all this nonsense.” He lay back in the chair, hand on his heart. “Leave me,” he said piteously.

  Sarah believed the old man’s health was feeble. It had been told her for months, shocked into her by Malvina in the first place. The vague news that some new doctor had been encouraging was all forgotten. She said, in distress, “Oh, Malvina, how could you?” She bent over him, frightened. “Grandfather, can I get your medicine? What can I do?”

  “I will get the medicine,” Grandfather said. “Just leave me.”

  “I can’t. Oh, what must I do? I can’t run away.”

  “Perhaps not,” he said. “Perhaps not just now, Sarah. There, dearie. We must only see what new plans to make, eh? Now a moment to be quiet …”

  Malvina said, victoriously, “Come into the other room, Sarah. Let me prove to you that David Wakeley is a liar.”

  “You can’t do that,” said Sarah. “You should know better. Oh, forgive us, Grandfather. Excuse us. You mustn’t worry.”

  “No, dear Sarah,” said Grandfather, sighing. “I shall not.”

  Sarah walked into the living room. Malvina closed the study door.

  Grandfather, his face furious and evil, squirmed out of his chair. He opened the door again, just slightly. He stood there, listening, grimacing, his one hand beating against the darkness.

  Chapter 19

  Consuelo pulled off the highway, far out upon the dirt shoulder. She set her brakes and got out of the car. The night breeze was chilly. She drew her coat collar closer to her throat and peered along the strand. She could see no one there, anywhere. Consuelo walked out upon the beach.

  On her left cars whipped past, seeming to be monsters traveling at fantastic speeds, and the repetition of their noise, like a man-made surf, and the swift change from headlight to dark to headlight, was confusing. But her vision grew sharper until she could distinguish the great boulder at the far end of the arc of sand. Consuelo began to walk on the sand toward that boulder.

  Looking up, she could see the dark tail of Fox’s house, and a dark gleam, as if the glass caught some light from the night sky. There was a faint glow at the front of the house but while she was walking it faded away. Consuelo was stout and long un-used to exercise and the going on the sand was heavy. The flickering ribbon of lights on the highway receded and was farther and farther off on its own tangent. Here where she trudged a true night fell.

  “Sarah?” she called to the night wind. But now on her right the sea crashed. The white crescents advanced, disintegrated.

  Consuelo came to the great rock and stood watching the sea as it delicately danced and imperceptibly, arabesque by arabesque, retreated.

  “Sarah? Sarah Shepherd? Sarah?”

  Consuelo might have been a bird crying. No human answered.

  Sarah ran toward the kitchen calling. “Mrs. Monteeth!”

  “Wait a minute.” Malvina was behind her. “Sarah, you little fool! Did you think he would marry you? Why, he’s got girls of his own. He’s driving some woman’s car. She lives down the shore. He goes to see her. You don’t know anything. You’re living in a dream. He thinks you’re crazy. He’s been nagging us all to get a psychiatrist. He knows you set that fire and burned up his work.”

  “No,” said Sarah. “No, he does not.” She wobbled into the kitchen, leaned against the cupboard.

  Gust came out of the Monteeths’ room and there they all stood. Moon beside the sink looking over his shoulder with a gleaming eye; Mrs. Monteeth grasping the kitchen counter, her sense of decorum and order outraged, her face stupid with surprise; and Gust, feet apart, waiting for a clue to his duty in this strange matter. Malvina was blazing with her argument and Sarah kept one shoulder against the cupboard as if she were at bay.

  “Gust,” cried Malvina commandingly. “Tell Miss Sarah. Didn’t David Wakeley say he was going to the police? You heard him. Tell her.”

  “That’s right,” Gust said. “We heard him all right. He said you had to be got out of the house. He said you was trouble and tragedy. He said let you think you was running away with him. Said he’s afraid they couldn’t take you by force without a row.”

  “By … force …” Sarah’s head went back against the wood.

  Now Mrs. Monteeth was nodding. The Chinaman had turned to watch.

  “Thought it was a dirty trick, myself,” Gust said somewhat indignantly.

  “But … he was lying,” gasped Sarah.

  “That’s what I told you.” Malvina’s lips were cruel. “Of course he was lying. This crazy idea of getting married! Don’t you think an intelligent man picks a wife a little less hectically? Don’t be a fool, Sarah. Unless you are crazy. Now come back in here and think it over.”

  “You don’t want me to run away.” Sarah forced herself to stand free of the support.

  “I don’t care,” Malvina said. “Frankly, I didn’t think it was such a bad idea. I’m weary of all this uproar. And besides, I think it’s very possible you poisoned Edgar.” Malvina’s teeth were very fine, and all showing. The servants held their breaths. “Are you determined,” said Malvina, “that everyone will suffer? Something terrible must happen to everyone around you? David, Edgar, now Grandfather, then me? Maybe the Monteeths too. Are you so haunted?”

  Sarah raised her fists. “Why didn’t you let me go? Let them arrest me, then.”

  “I don’t know,” Malvina said. “I suppose I’m sorry for you, Sarah.”

  “Listen,” Gust said. “Not that dirty trick, Miss Sarah. We’re all sorry.”

  “Sorry,” echoed Mrs. Monteeth.

  “You.…” Sarah was shaking with anger. Her throat dosed. Her hands shook. Even her vision was affected. Her lips formed “David,” but she had no voice to say it.

  “She looks as if she’s having a fit,” Malvina said cruelly. “Of course, she was crazy about him.”

  Gust said, “Can’cha do something, mother?” and Mrs. Monteeth moved. “Now, Miss Sarah, poor lamb. Gust says he’s just a traitor and that’s what he is, that fine Mr. Wakeley. And don’t you break your heart.”

  “I … I won’t,” said Sarah forcing her throat open. “Oh, I won’t. I don’t believe it.”

  Gust said, “He was tricking you so’s it would look like you wanted to run out on the police, Miss Sarah. Honest, he said so. We all heard it.”

  “Yes, I … believe that he said so.”

  Malvina said, “She looks terrible. Watch her. I’ve got to see about Grandfather.”

  “You … you’ll kill him!” shrieked Sarah.

  “You’ll manage to do that,” Malvina said nastily. “Unless you listen to people.
”

  “Ask … ask Grandfather,” said Sarah pitifully, “what I am to do.”

  “Yes. I will ask him,” Malvina said.

  Mrs. Monteeth had a strong arm around Sarah, and Sarah sagged upon it. “Because I don’t know what to do,” she said, “what to do …” The sense of evil and her helplessness were unbearable.

  Mrs. Monteeth said, “You come and set down.”

  “She don’t look good,” Gust said.

  Moon spoke one rapid sentence.

  “Yes,” Sarah answered, mumbling. “Yes, I know I must be careful.” She put her lips to the back of her hand. Stumbling, with Mrs. Monteeth helping her, she got back to the big room and she sat down by the dead fire.

  Moon was behind her, jabbering. Sarah sat still. “Do nothing. Sit still. Go not into the dark night, young woman.” Was that the sense of it? “Be wary of the old man.” Sarah stretched her eyes, trying to get hold of the world.

  The sight of Grandfather’s study door was a release. She began to think of the old man’s health. “Oh, what is she saying to Grandfather? He mustn’t hear all this. He has to be protected. Oh someone … get the doctor here.”

  Gust looked at his wife and she said, greatly, daring, “I think so. Yes, I think so. Gust, do you think so?”

  Gust said, “What’s the doctor’s name? How’ll I get ahold of him?”

  “Price.” Mrs. Monteeth bustled. “Probably in the book. Maybe a night number.”

  Sarah, snatching in all her whirling thoughts, at one, knew that authority and sanity were needed in this house. The doctor was not enough. She did not know where David was. But he was not enough either. He would be nearly as helpless as she was. He had chosen to lie to Malvina. (There was a reason, of course. She believed that. Must believe it.) But there needed to be judgment. Someone whose duty it was to distinguish the truth from the lies.

  Sarah said in a low voice, “Moon, go call the man at the gate. Get him in here.”

  The Chinaman spoke. “They are trying to kill you,” she understood him to say.

  “Yes, I know they are,” she said, repeating the sense she got of his plural subject without thought.

  The Chinaman touched her shoulder in compassion. Then he ducked away.

  In the study now a lamp burned. Grandfather stood in the middle of the room and his hands were soiled. Dirt crusted his fingers and the small vial in his right hand.

  “You … stupid!” he raged. His voice was low and venomous.

  “Suicide,” said Malvina, eyes glistening. “David betrayed her. The servants told her so. Now. Now, when the motive is perfect!”

  “You fool!” said Fox. “Go down the beach path.”

  “What?”

  “At the first turnback you will find wire. Destroy it. Throw it over. You fool! Had you let her go she’d have fallen!”

  The lines of Malvina’s face sagged. “You didn’t tell me, Grandfather.”

  “Tell you!” he raged.

  “I thought, at dinner time … when you failed …”

  “Failed!” he snarled. “I do not fail! You interfere!”

  She swallowed.

  “Now, hurry. Undo my trap, you big fool, Malvina. Before people come. David, to see where she’s got to. Or the police. There can be no trap on that path now. That much you have the sense to see. Go. Take it away.”

  “Yes, Grandfather,” she said blankly.

  “I have the poison in my hand,” Grandfather said. “You have made such a mess of everything, now I must use it. And I did not wish to poison Sarah. I don’t like it, Malvina. I have an instinct against it. But get on. Go. Hurry.”

  “The first turn?” she said stupidly.

  “The highest, naturally,” he snapped. “And if you fail in this, Malvina, I will kill you. I would be well rid of you.”

  “Sorry.” She looked like a shell. The animus was out of the body.

  “You may well be sorry,” he said viciously. “Simplicity. Simplicity. But not for you. You have ruined my plans, every one. You and your lies and your stupidity. You are not clever, Malvina, and never will be. Get down that path.”

  Malvina said drearily, “How I used to try to think that you must love greatly to kill someone and then die. It is not so. You are sick and disgusted. That’s all. And so was my father.”

  “Your father was a fool. Do as I say.”

  “No. He wasn’t clever, was he?” Her eyes were strange. “And you didn’t care for him.”

  “Do as I say,” he snapped for the last time.

  She said nothing. She went out upon the sea walk.

  At the base of the cliff Consuelo stood within the boulder’s shelter. Her bare feet were icy from the water. She had got around the rock all right, with the tide out. Yes, this was the tiny private beach. And no one here.

  Consuelo was frightened for Sarah Shepherd. She looked above her and saw where the path snaked upward. She was stout and sixty-two years old and it was a terrible climb. Still, it did not look steep, only narrow. Always at the sea side there would be the dizzying emptiness. Still, one could climb close to the inner side and if one did not look … after all, it was dark or at least darkish.… Her old heart gave a lurch of fear.

  But Davey said the girl was to come this way and she hadn’t. Consuelo had promised. She had never been one to break her promises.

  Up there was the house and those wicked people. Something had to be done, no doubt of that. Consuelo shivered. She buttoned her coat carefully all the way down so that it could not flop about her body. She set her cold bare aching old foot on the path.

  Well, who knows? thought she. I may, this night and in this place, leave the world and know it not again. Consuelo grinned in the dark. On the whole, she’d had a very good time. She’d enjoyed it. Now she tested the sensation of her heart beating, pulled air into her lungs.

  Sixty-two, damned old fool, ought to be home in bed. Also her hair needed a little retouching at the part and for this she was regretful. Still, she was wearing her Paris petticoat. That’s right, Consuelo. Weigh one thing against another. Do you or don’t you mind risking your life, this evening?

  She looked up. Well, no matter. She began to climb.

  Chapter 20

  The doctor’s wife was in another room watching television and the doctor was anxious to get to the program. His patience was superficial and would not last. David found himself stumbling over long, involved and unconvincing explanations. He cut them off. He smoothed down the lock at the crown of his head. “I see I’m getting no place and I don’t know how to proceed, either. After all, what could a doctor notice that other people can’t see?”

  “A great many things,” the doctor said a trifle huffily. The man had a small neat moustache on his taut intelligent face. His eyes were measuring rather than receptive.

  “Dope addict?” said David, lifting an eyebrow.

  “That I could notice. Mr. Fox is not a dope addict. I think it is within the bounds of professional conduct to tell you so.” The doctor produced a mechanical smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me …”

  “What could it be?” David thrust both hands into his pockets and took a turn on the doctor’s hall runner. “It may only be, of course, that he isn’t as sick as everyone had been told he is.” To this the doctor said nothing. “You can’t help me?”

  “I don’t see how, Mr. Wakeley. Since I don’t know what you are asking, and neither do you.”

  “I’m asking for a sign, for evidence of some kind.”

  “Evidence of what?” The doctor was really annoyed. “Evidence of the state of his health, yes,” he snapped.

  “You examined him thoroughly?” The doctor gave him an icy stare. “He wasn’t tattooed?” said David wildly.

  “If you are pulling my leg,” the doctor said, “I don’t appreciate it. You can’t seriously mean that you suspect that old gentleman of murder.”

  “I do. Yes, I do seriously suspect him.”

  The doctor spread his hands. “That wo
uld not be one of the things a doctor could see. I am hardly a criminal psychologist.”

  “He’s not younger than he says? Anything like that?”

  The doctor closed his mouth.

  “Even if you had seen something, you wouldn’t tell me,” said David. “All right. I’m sorry. I’d hoped for some kind of break, some clue.… Something about his past, perhaps?”

  “Now what …?”

  “A mark?” said David desperately. “Anything? I believe him to be behind the poisoning of a doctor. Dr. Perrott. Don’t you doctors stick together? You are willing to take over the patient, not caring what happened to your predecessor?”

  “Why would he poison Dr. Perrot?” said Dr. Price skeptically.

  “That is what I need to know,” said David. “Why. That is what the police want, too. The motive. I think there was something Dr. Perrot could tell. Some secret. Perhaps something only a doctor could see.”

  “Nothing like that,” the doctor said. “Not a thing. The only mark he has is something anyone could see. That woman, the housekeeper, his granddaughters, I suppose, any nurse he ever had. There is surely no …”

  “What mark is this?” David said. “I have never seen a mark.”

  “Not visible when he is clothed. Scar caused by a fall on the rocks, they tell me. It couldn’t be that, of course. No, there is nothing at all.”

  “But there is a scar?”

  “That, yes.” The doctor nibbled his lips.

  “Where is this scar?”

  “It can’t possibly be a secret,” the doctor said angrily. “It’s ten inches long, across his chest.”

  David sat down.

  The doctor forgot the TV show. He looked at David’s face closely. Then he, too, sat down and waited quietly.

  “Tweedledum,” said David in a moment, “looks very much like Tweedledee. Isn’t that so?”

  The doctor had more sense than to answer.

  “In fact, there’s not a pennyworth of difference between them.” David’s fist struck his thigh. “Many people must have seen them on the stage. But theatrical make-up is very heavy on a pair of clowns. And I myself saw the photographs. Now wait … wait …”