Marriage Bed

by Dixon, H. Vernor

  “I’m afraid,” he mumbled, “you don’t understand human nature as well as you might. People are easily fooled. I have even arranged it so that Jeff and I appeared to be in the same house at the same time, such as tonight. Do you think our guests would swear that Jeff had not been present tonight? On the contrary. I stepped out of a room as Jeff and slipped back in as myself. Dozens of the guests will swear on a stack of Bibles that they were talking to the two of us at the same time. That, alone, is sufficient to explode anyone’s suspicions, including any that Vivien may entertain.”

  His lips drew back in a thin grimace and the crucial moment had arrived. I had to forestall it somehow. I said quickly, “I don’t understand how you have been able to manage it. Until a little while ago I thought that Jeff had to be here, at least the first few days.”

  “You weren’t sure?”

  “No. The night Jeff drove in from El Centro, when he telephoned he said he would bring me a black lace nightgown. Of course, it was you phoning from inside the house, but you had no opportunity to buy that.”

  John clucked his tongue in what was actually meant to be sympathy. It was awful. “Why,” he murmured, “you poor thing. I thought you had figured that out. I knew that Jeff had bought a nightgown like that for you the day after his return from New York. It was in his rooms, so I helped myself to it.”

  He started to smile, a weird smile, pleased by his own cleverness. I tried to fix my mind on other occasions when it would have been impossible for him to masquerade as Jeffrey. One other came to mind.

  “The other night,” I said, “when Vivien was here, when Jeff was so strange, he walked into the library just as I had finished talking to you on the phone. Could it have been someone else I was talking to?”

  “No. But I was not calling you from my rooms, as you thought. I was talking to you from the extension in the living room. When I hung up it took me only a second to reach the library door and walk in on you. I can see,” he said, his odd smile deepening, “that that little strategem was more successful than I realized.”

  My knees felt as if they would buckle at any moment. I swallowed another burning lump in my throat and said, “On the same night, when Jeff was supposed to have attempted murder with his dressing cord — ”

  He interrupted. “That went a bit haywire.”

  “You really meant to kill her?”

  “Don’t be a fool. Of course not. Why should I want the publicity of a murder in Lynecrest if it could be avoided?” He paused, staring at me narrowly, then decided to explain. “I was merely taking advantage of an opportune situation. I wanted Vivien to go screaming out into the hall and get everyone up. That was to add further fuel to the idea that Jeff was unbalanced. I wanted the servants to be in on that, but Vivien got confused with the possibility of a nightmare and you came in and calmed her.” He added after a moment, “You see how well everything was planned?”

  He was silent, then, watching me, speculating, trying to read my expression. I tasted the fog and listened to the dim music from within the house and the heavier pounding of the surf against the cliff and wondered why I was not already hysterical. He was resolved to kill me and could accomplish that with the butt of the gun or his own hands, if necessary. But the most critical moment had passed. It could return in a split second, but it was possible that I could forestall it until an opportunity would present itself so that I could break and run.

  I said softly, not wishing to disturb the split-hair balance of his maniacal brain, “It must have been a tremendously difficult masquerade to maintain.”

  He nodded and his head again lowered, so that he was watching me from under his brows. “You have no idea,” he said. “I have had to watch my every word, my every action. I have had to switch cars at the ranch and change clothes and each time assume another personality. I couldn’t keep it up any longer.” He sighed and was definitely begging for my sympathy as he said, “Aside from the strain involved, every waking minute I’ve been faced with the possibility of an accidental slip and its fateful consequences. Quite a number of things did go wrong, such as the time you realized that Jeff was calling from within the house instead of long-distance, but I was able to take advantage of those errors. It couldn’t go on that way any longer. Eventually I would have tripped on something and the whole structure would have collapsed. I had to end it as soon as possible. Thank God, this is it.” He laughed brokenly, a sound more like a sob, and said, “Now I can relax.”

  I said hurriedly, “Luke Dodd knew all about it.”

  “Someone had to know. I couldn’t have carried through any part of it without his assistance.”

  I closed my eyes and asked the one question that had been burning in my mind all evening: “Where is Jeff?”

  His answer reached me dimly, as a part of the fog. “He’s dead.”

  The answer was not a shock. I had expected it. There could have been no other reason for such an elaborate masquerade. I opened my eyes to look at him and stammered, “Did you — did you — ”

  “It had to be one of us, my dear.” Then he lost his momentary composure and shouted, “I hated him! I have always hated him. There was no purpose in his life — nothing. He was wasting it just having a good time. But he was the one everyone always liked. I wanted to do big things and he was forever in the way. I wanted to use all the Hamlyne resources and he wouldn’t let me. But he let me run the business. Oh, yes,” he sneered. “He couldn’t be troubled with that. I had his power of attorney and I could run it. I made it and he spent it.”

  I said weakly, “I don’t think he ever wanted you to make it. He didn’t seem to care.”

  “That was the trouble with him. He didn’t care. He thought we had too much already. This is where we had it out, right here, and this is the same gun. It’s the same gun,” he screamed, “I’m going to use on you. I’ve offered you everything, too. I wanted to love you — ”

  As his voice broke I asked, “What happened? How did it happen?”

  I was afraid he wouldn’t answer, but he ran a trembling hand over his mouth and his eyes were feverishly brilliant and his thoughts were turned inward to the time it had happened. “It wasn’t right away,” he explained. “Try to understand this, Carol. I was happy about his marriage. I thought it would be a good thing for him and he would be gone most of the time and there would be less interference in my affairs. But he wanted to split the estate in half. Such a preposterous idea! That was our first argument. I told him to go on back to New York and draw against the estate and back your shows or whatever he liked, we have plenty, but to leave the estate intact. That he refused to do.”

  He was silent a moment, angrily turning his quarrel over in his mind, and I had to prompt him: “But it was his half.”

  He cried suddenly, “You don’t understand. My God, no one ever seems to understand! I needed all of our resources. I was stubborn, too. Then he became suspicious and examined the estate books. He found that by using his power of attorney I had transferred a considerable part of his share to my name. It was strictly for business, believe me. But that’s when Jeff’s true colors came out. He accused me of crooked maneuvering and was going to rescind his power of attorney and turn our books over to a certified public accountant.”

  I stated, “Then you must have been crooked, if Jeff accused you. He was the finest person I’ve ever known and he would never — ” My voice stumbled to a halt as the wildness returned to his eyes. I covered up hastily by saying, “Do you mean he would have sent you to jail?”

  His lower lip protruded in an oddly childish pout as he admitted, “No, I don’t think so. He would never have prosecuted, but the risk was there.” John then made a slip that wrenched my heart when he said, “Jeff hadn’t that kind of nature. But it would have meant a definite division of the estate and that would have ruined me.” His glance dropped to the ground and he mumbled, “That’s when I lost my head.”

  “When was that?”

  “A little more than a week
after his return.” He raised his head and smiled wanly at me. “He was sitting out here on this ledge. It was a little earlier than this. He had a lot to think about. His attorneys and accountants were arriving the next morning. I was desperate. You can understand that, can’t you? I came out here with this gun. I thought that if I threatened him he would realize my desperation.” John paused, then growled, “It didn’t work. I — I guess I was blind with rage. He was being so stupid about everything. We argued bitterly. He accused me of all sorts of shady matters. He was lying near that edge over there for minutes before I realized I had shot him. I was numb. I couldn’t think. You understand, don’t you? You can see how it would be. It was just natural emotional reaction to push him off the edge into the sea. I was sick, of course. I retched most of the night. I lost weight. But when his body was never reported I doubted that it would be found and then I began to breathe a little easier. But, God, those first few days were horrible.”

  His sympathies were all for himself. I stared at him with fascinated horror, but I was thinking of Jeffrey, the Jeffrey I had married, his light smile, the true goodness of his nature, the lovable qualities that endeared him to everyone, and I was thinking, too, of the one week of love I had given him. There had been no stinting and we had given all of ourselves and there had been that, at least, and that would last forever and never be destroyed by the sea. For a moment I almost forgot the bestial image of him facing me.

  But John began talking again with a rush of words: “I thought of reporting a suicide right away, but that would have been ridiculous. After all, he had just married and was known to be unusually happy about it. A man in his frame of mind wouldn’t commit suicide. Then I thought of reporting an accident, but I couldn’t frame an idea that would stand up under questioning. I had to sit tight and wait.” He sighed. “It was ghastly, that waiting.”

  I found my voice and asked, “What did you plan?”

  “Nothing, for a while. I just waited. Then gradually I assumed his character and invented little business trips supposed to keep him away from here. I had to get rid of the servants, though. They knew us too well. However, Luke Dodd stumbled across the secret when I tried to pass myself off as Jeff at the stables. Jeff’s favorite horse threw me every time I tried to ride him. Luke made an easy guess and so I had to pay him off from then on.”

  “I knew he was blackmailing you.”

  He shrugged with indifference. “I wasn’t too worried about him. You, Jeff’s wife, you were my one big problem.”

  “Then every time Jeff called me in New York it was really you?”

  “Yes. I suppose you thought he was being very evasive.”

  “That’s why I came out here.”

  He said wearily, “I knew you’d come out sooner or later. I had to find some way to break up that marriage and stage a suicide that would seem plausible. So, as Jeff, I started a love affair with Vivien, who, by the way, was more than willing.”

  “But she knew the two of you well. Wasn’t that a wild gamble?”

  He considered my question, as if he was in a perfectly rational frame of mind, then shook his head. “Not exactly. We had been fooling her for years, just for the hell of it, and I knew all the tricks. And greed helped to blind her; the Hamlyne fortune, you see. Anyway,” he smiled, “you can see how well it has all come off. Jeff has just committed suicide tonight and everyone in Pebble Beach will think they know why.”

  He stood erect, his head came up, and his shoulders were squared. He looked exactly as if he had just walked from a confessional. His soul was cleansed by his words, a weight was lifted from his back, and he was a free man — almost. The fingers of his left hand twitched and he squinted at me, the last obstacle. “It’s a shame,” he said, his voice purring, “that you and I couldn’t see eye to eye. It’s a shame that Jeff has to take you with him.”

  I screamed, but it was not the gun suddenly poking into my ribs that provoked the scream. Beyond him, over John’s shoulder, a huge black shape materialized and moved toward us in the yellow fog. It was Scott Chandler, an animal, a giant in the fog, a hulking machine of destruction. It was in the wildness of his eyes and his hunched shoulders and clenched fists and the blackness of his face.

  John thought I screamed because of the gun, which added to his own madness, but then he saw the message in my eyes and spun about as another shape materialized in the fog behind Scott; it was Sam. He stopped in the yellow light filtering from the windows, but Scott continued coming on.

  John’s eyes darted back and forth between me and Scott. I said, “I gave him the letter you wrote; Jeff’s letter. He thinks you’ve done something to Vivien.”

  All of the pressure that had been building within John snapped at that moment. His careful plans were destroyed and his world tumbled about his ears. His shoulders quivered with fear, his nostrils flared with the smell of danger, and he was suddenly a craven animal anxious to save its own hide.

  John swallowed and cried, “No, Scott, no! You’re wrong.” But Scott moved forward, his arms beginning to spread. John whimpered, “She isn’t here. Vivien’s all right. She’s all right, I tell you.” Convulsively he snapped the gun up and held it on Scott and pulled the trigger. He looked baffled and stepped away a pace and pulled the trigger a number of times. The hammer clicked on empty chambers. Hysteria spread in his face and he looked at Scott’s hands clenching and unclenching and yelled, “No!”

  Scott’s voice rumbled with murder as he said, “Now then, Jeff, you’ve been asking for this for a long time.”

  John rubbed a hand over his mouth and took another step away. “No, Scott. You’re wrong. I’m not Jeff. I’m John. Ask Carol. She knows.” He clutched at the lapels of his evening coat and threw them open, but the red carnation was gone. I looked down, and saw it lying at my feet. He cried again, “Ask Carol. She knows.”

  Scott said, “I didn’t believe Carol before. Thought she was drunk. Then I looked for Vivien. I couldn’t find her. What have you done with her?”

  “The garage, Scott. She’s in the garage.”

  Scott shook his head. “We looked in there. Your car has a broken window, but Vivien isn’t there.”

  “Good God, Scott, I’m not Jeff!”

  Scott shook his head again, a ghastly smile lighting his face. “You’re going to keep your suicide date, Jeff. Just keep walking backward.”

  John glanced through the fog toward the lip of the cliff and beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. “Scott,” he pleaded, “listen to me. I’m not Jeff.” He tried to smile and failed. “You tell him Carol. Tell him I’m John.”

  I was incapable of saying a word. Undoubtedly it was sadism, but I was enjoying the scene. Sam, too, was watching and making no move to interfere.

  Scott held his arms out stiffly and walked slowly toward John. He said, “Just keep walking back, Jeff. This isn’t exactly the way you planned it, but this is the way it’s going to happen.”

  John stepped back, closer to the edge, and then paused. His eyes were darting feverishly in every direction. “Scott,” he whined, “ask Luke Dodd. Just ask Luke. I’m not Jeff. Jeff’s dead. He’s been dead for months.”

  Scott smiled. “Oh, sure. Just keep walking.”

  “But he is dead. Washed out to sea. Months ago. Ask Luke. He knows all about it.”

  Scott lowered his head and moved forward. “Just keep walking back, Jeff.”

  “But I tell you Jeff’s dead.” He screamed, “I shot him myself and pushed him off this cliff! I should know. Have me arrested. I’ll stand trial. Jeff,” he screamed again, “is dead. I killed him.”

  Words made no impression on Scott. He kept moving forward, his arms held out like thick pistons. John looked at me and then at Sam, barely visible in the fog, and then he lunged at Scott. He hit the big man with all the power in his shoulders and tried to get by him. Scott lifted him in the air and threw him to the ground. John rolled away from him and got to his knees and then slowly to his feet.

&nb
sp; Scott stopped moving for the first time and looked indecisively toward me. Physical contact had cleared his mind and John’s words were at last making an impression. I glanced at Sam and he nodded. As far as he was concerned, the show was over.

  We were all wrong. John was not aware of Scott’s indecision. He licked his lips and lowered his head and looked at each of us and then he twisted about to run. But he was too close to the edge of the cliff. It happened so fast that we were all powerless to prevent it, even if we had wanted to. One moment John was running and then his feet were in space and he was falling and his hands clawed wildly at the cliff and then he melted into the fog and as he went down his piercing scream slid up the black face of the cliff.

  I stared into the swirling fog where John had been, feeling waves of heat and cold flowing through me, and was hardly conscious of Sam hurrying to my side. I felt his arm support me and his soothing voice was going around and around in my head, but I was feeling the vibrations of the surf traveling up my spine and tingling at the base of my skull. The surf was trying to tell me something and I could not grasp it.

  I turned away and leaned against Sam as we walked from the ledge to the gardens. Scott followed after us, shaken by the experience, but oddly smiling. Sam asked dozens of questions and I tried to explain and all the time I could feel the surf. We went into the house and the surf was still with me. The orchestra was playing a samba and I thought, How odd, and stared curiously at the guests drinking and laughing and enjoying themselves.

  I went to the telephone, with Sam at my elbow, and had to wait while a young thing explained to one boy friend why she was out with another. She flipped away from us. laughing, and I called the police and told them that John Hamlyne had fallen from the cliff.

  We walked back to the great hall and I blinked in the strong lights and looked up at the staircase and a weight lifted from my shoulders and the massiveness of Lynecrest dissolved. I could picture what Lynecrest would have been like if Jeffrey had really been there. It was suddenly an almost friendly building.