Slowly, Slowly in the Wind

by Patricia Highsmith

  Now there was another bump from downstairs, and the unmistakable rustle of a drawer being slid out, and it could be only the dining room drawer where the silver was.

  She had locked someone in with her!

  Her first thought was to reach for the telephone and get the police, but the telephone was downstairs in the living room.

  Go down and face it and threaten him with something—or them, she told herself. Maybe it was an adolescent kid, just a local kid who’d be glad to get off unreported, if she scared him a little. Ginnie jumped out of bed, put on Stan’s bathrobe, a sturdy blue flannel thing, and tied the belt firmly. She descended the stairs. By now she heard more noises.

  “Who’s there?” she shouted boldly.

  “Hum-hum. Just me, lady,” said a rather deep voice.

  The living room lights, the dining room lights were full on.

  In the dining room Ginnie was confronted by a stocking-hooded figure in what she thought of as motorcycle gear: black trousers, black boots, black plastic jacket. The stocking had slits cut in it for eyes. And the figure carried a dirty canvas bag like a railway mailbag, and plainly into this the silverware had already gone, because the dining room drawer gaped, empty. He must have been hiding in a corner of the dining room, Ginnie thought, when she had come down to lock the back door. The hooded figure shoved the drawer in carelessly, and it didn’t quite close.

  “Keep your mouth shut, and you won’t get hurt. All right?” The voice sounded like that of a man of at least twenty-five.

  Ginnie didn’t see any gun or knife. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” And the man got on with his business. The two candlesticks from the dining room table went into the bag. So did the silver table lighter.

  Was there anyone else with him? Ginnie glanced towards the kitchen, but didn’t see anyone, and no sound came from there. “I’m going to call the police,” she said, and started for the living room telephone.

  “Phone’s cut, lady. You better keep quiet, because no one can hear you around here, even if you scream.”

  Was that true? Unfortunately it was true. Ginnie for a few seconds concentrated on memorizing the man’s appearance: about five feet eight, medium build, maybe a bit slender, broad hands—but since the hands were in blue rubber gloves, were they broad?—rather big feet. Blond or brunette she couldn’t tell, because of the stocking mask. Robbers like this usually bound and gagged people. Ginnie wanted to avoid that, if she could.

  “If you’re looking for money, there’s not much in the house just now,” Ginnie said, “except what’s in my handbag upstairs, about thirty dollars. Go ahead and take it.”

  “I’ll get around to it,” he said laughing, prowling the living room now. He took the letter-opener from the coffee table, then Freddie’s photograph from the piano, because the photograph was in a silver frame.

  Ginnie thought of banging him on the head with—with what? She saw nothing heavy enough, portable, except one of the dining room chairs. And if she failed to knock him out with the first swat? Was the telephone really cut? She moved towards the telephone in the corner.

  “Don’t go near the door. Stay in sight!”

  “Ma-wow-wow-wow!” This from Cassie, a high-pitched wail that to Ginnie meant Cassie was on the brink of throwing up, but now the situation was different. Cassie looked ready to attack the man.

  “Go back, Cassie, take it easy,” Ginnie said.

  “I don’t like cats,” the hooded man said over his shoulder.

  There was not much else he could take from the living room, Ginnie thought. The pictures on the walls were too big. And what burglar was interested in pictures, at least pictures like these which were a few oils done by their painter friends, two or three watercolors—Was this really happening? Was a stranger picking up her mother’s old sewing basket, looking inside, banging it down again? Taking the French vase, tossing the water and roses towards the fireplace? The vase went into the sack.

  “What’s upstairs?” The ugly head turned towards her. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “There’s nothing upstairs!” Ginnie shrieked. She darted towards the telephone, knowing it would be cut, but wanting to see it with her own eyes—cut—though her hand was outstretched to use it. She saw the abruptly stopped wire on the floor, cut some four feet from the telephone.

  The hood chuckled. “Told you.”

  A red flashlight stuck out of the back pocket of his trousers. He was going into the hall now, ready to take the stairs. The staircase light was on, but he pulled the flashlight from his pocket.

  “Nothing up there, I tell you!” Ginnie found herself following him like a ninnie, holding up the hem of Stan’s dressing gown so she wouldn’t trip on the stairs.

  “Cosy little nook!” said the hood, entering the bedroom. “And what have we here? Anything of interest?”

  The silver-backed brush and comb on the dresser were of interest, also the hand mirror, and these went into the bag, which was now dragging the floor.

  “Aha! I like that thing!” He had spotted the heavy wooden box with brass corners which Stan used for cufflinks and handkerchiefs and a few white ties, but its size was apparently daunting the man in the hood, because he swayed in front of it and said, “Be back for that.” He looked around for lighter objects, and in went Ginnie’s black leather jewelry box, her Dunhill lighter from the bedside table. “Ought to be glad I’m not raping you. Haven’t the time.” The tone was jocular.

  My God, Ginnie thought, you’d think Stan and I were rich! She had never considered herself and Stan rich, or thought that they had anything worth invading a house for. No doubt in New York they’d been lucky for six years—no robberies at all—because even a typewriter was valuable to a drug addict. No, they weren’t rich, but he was taking all they had, all the nice things they’d tried over the years to accumulate. Ginnie watched him open her handbag, lift the dollar bills from her billfold. That was the least of it.

  “If you think for one minute you’re going to get away with this,” Ginnie said. “In a small community like this? You haven’t a prayer. If you don’t leave those things here tonight, I’ll report you so quick—”

  “Oh, shut up, lady. Where’s the other rooms here?”

  Cassie snarled. She had followed them both up the stairs.

  A black boot struck out sideways and caught the cat sharply in the ribs.

  “Don’t touch that cat!” Ginnie cried out.

  Cassie sprang growling onto the man’s boot top, at his knee.

  Ginnie was astounded—and proud of Cassie—for a second.

  “Pain in the ass!” said the hood, and with a gloved hand caught the cat by the loose skin on her back and flung her against a wall with a backhand swing. The cat dropped, panting, and the man stomped on her side and kicked her on the head.

  “You bastard!” Ginnie screamed.

  “So much for your stinking—yowlers!” said the beige hood, and kicked the cat once again. His voice had been husky with rage, and now he stalked with his flashlight into the hall, in quest of other rooms.

  Dazed, stiff, Ginnie followed him.

  The guest room had only a chest of drawers in it, empty, but the man slid out a couple of drawers anyway to have a look. Freddie’s room had nothing but a bed and table. The hood wasted no time there.

  From the hall, Ginnie looked into the bedroom at her cat. The cat twitched and was still. One foot had twitched. Ginnie stood rigid as a column of stone. She had just seen Cassie die, she realized.

  “Back in a flash,” said the hooded man, briskly descending the stairs with his sack which was now so heavy he had to carry it on one shoulder.

  Ginnie moved at last, in jerks, like someone awakening from an anesthetic. Her body and mind seemed not to be connected. H
er hand reached for the stair rail and missed it. She was no longer afraid at all, though she did not consciously realize this. She simply kept following the hooded figure, her enemy, and would have kept on, even if he had pointed a gun at her. By the time she reached the kitchen, he was out of sight. The kitchen door was open, and a cool breeze blew in. Ginnie continued across the kitchen, looked left into the driveway, and saw a flashlight’s beam swing as the man heaved the bag into a car. She heard the hum of two male voices. So he had a pal waiting for him!

  And here he came back.

  With sudden swiftness, Ginnie picked up a kitchen stool which had a square formica top and chromium legs. As soon as the hooded figure stepped onto the threshold of the kitchen, Ginnie swung the stool and hit him full on the forehead with the edge of the stool’s seat.

  Momentum carried the man forward, but he stooped, staggering, and Ginnie cracked him again on the top of the head with all her strength. She held two legs of the stool in her hands. He fell with a great thump and clatter onto the linoleum floor. Another whack for good measure on the back of the stockinged head. She felt pleased and relieved to see blood coming through the beige material.

  “Frankie?—You okay?—Frankie!”

  The voice came from the car outside.

  Poised now, not at all afraid, Ginnie stood braced for the next arrival. She held a leg of the stool in her right hand, and her left supported the seat. She awaited, barely two feet from the open door, the sound of boots in the driveway, another figure in the doorway.

  Instead, she heard a car motor start, saw a glow of its lights through the door. The car was backing down the drive.

  Finally Ginnie set the stool down. The house was silent again. The man on the floor was not moving. Was he dead?

  I don’t care. I simply don’t give a damn, Ginnie said inside herself.

  But she did care. What if he woke up? What if he needed a doctor, a hospital right away? And there was no telephone. The nearest house was nearly a mile away, the village a good mile. Ginnie would have to walk it with a flashlight. Of course if she encountered a car, a car might stop and ask what was the matter, and then she could tell someone to fetch a doctor or an ambulance. These thoughts went through Ginnie’s head in seconds, and then she returned to the facts. The fact was, he might be dead. Killed by her.

  So was Cassie dead. Ginnie turned towards the living room. Cassie’s death was more real, more important than the body at her feet which only might be dead. Ginnie drew a glass of water for herself at the kitchen sink.

  Everything was silent outside. Now Ginnie was calm enough to realize that the robber’s chum had thought it best to make a getaway. He probably wasn’t coming back, not even with reinforcements. After all, he had the loot in his car—silverware, her jewelry box, all the nice things.

  Ginnie stared at the long black figure on her kitchen floor. He hadn’t moved at all. The right hand lay under him, the left arm was outstretched, upward. The stockinged head was turned slightly towards her, one slit showing. She couldn’t see what was going on behind that crazy slit.

  “Are you awake?” Ginnie said, rather loudly.

  She waited.

  She knew she would have to face it. Best to feel the pulse in the wrist, she thought, and at once forced herself to do this. She pulled the rubber glove down a bit, and gripped a blondish-haired wrist which seemed to her of astonishing breadth, much wider than Stan’s wrist, anyway. She couldn’t feel any pulse. She altered the place where she had put her thumb, and tried again. There was no pulse.

  So she had murdered someone. The fact did not sink in.

  Two thoughts danced in her mind: she would have to remove Cassie, put a towel or something around her, and she was not going to be able to sleep or even remain in this house with a corpse lying on the kitchen floor.

  Ginnie got a dishtowel, a folded clean one from a stack on a shelf, took a second one, went to the hall and climbed the stairs. Cassie was now bleeding. Rather, she had bled. The blood on the carpet looked dark. One of Cassie’s eyes projected from the socket. Ginnie gathered her as gently as if she were still alive and only injured, gathered up some intestines which had been pushed out, and enfolded her in a towel, opened the second towel and put that around her too. Then she carried Cassie to the living room, hesitated, then laid the cat’s body to one side of the fireplace on the floor. By accident, a red rose lay beside Cassie.

  Tackle the blood now, she told herself. She got a plastic bowl from the kitchen, drew some cold water and took a sponge. Upstairs, she went to work on hands and knees, changing the water in the bathroom. The task was soothing, as she had known it would be.

  Next job: clothes on and find the nearest telephone. Ginnie kept moving, barely aware of what she was doing, and suddenly she was standing in the kitchen in blue jeans, sneakers, sweater and jacket with her billfold in a pocket. Empty billfold, she remembered. She had her house keys in her left hand. For no good reason, she decided to leave the kitchen light on. The front door was still locked, she realized. She found she had the flashlight in a jacket pocket too, and supposed she had taken it from the front hall table when she came down the stairs.

  She went out, locked the kitchen door from the outside with a key, and made her way to the road.

  No moon at all. She walked with the aid of the flashlight along the left side of the road towards the village, shone the torch once on her watch and saw that it was twenty past one. By starlight, by a bit of flashlight, she saw one house far to the left in a field, quite dark and so far away, Ginnie thought she might do better to keep on.

  She kept on. Dark road. Trudging. Did everybody go to bed early around here?

  In the distance she saw two or three white streetlights, the lights of the village. Surely there’d be a car before the village.

  There wasn’t a car. Ginnie was still trudging as she entered the village proper, whose boundary was marked by a neat white sign on either side of the road saying EAST KINDALE.

  My God, Ginnie thought. Is this true? Is this what I’m doing, what I’m going to say?

  Not a light showed in any of the neat, mostly white houses. There was not even a light at the Connecticut Yankee Inn, the only functioning hostelry and bar in town, Stan had remarked once. Nevertheless, Ginnie marched up the steps and knocked on the door. Then with her flashlight, she saw a brass knocker on the white door, and availed herself of that.

  Rap-rap-rap!

  Minutes passed. Be patient, Ginnie told herself. You’re overwrought.

  But she felt compelled to rap again.

  “Who’s there?” a man’s voice called.

  “A neighbor! There’s been an accident!”

  Ginnie fairly collapsed against the figure who opened the door. It was a man in a plaid woolen bathrobe and pajamas. She might have collapsed also against a woman or a child.

  Then she was sitting on a straight chair in a sort of living room. She had blurted out the story.

  “We’ll—we’ll get the police right away, ma’am. Or an ambulance, as you say. But from what you say—” The man talking was in his sixties, and sleepy.

  His wife, more efficient looking, had joined him to listen. She wore a dressing gown and pink slippers. “Police, Jake. Man sounds dead from what the lady says. Even if he isn’t, the police’ll know what to do.”

  “Hello, Ethel! That you?” the man said into the telephone. “Listen, we need the police right away. You know the old Hardwick place? . . . Tell ’em to go there . . . No, not on fire. Can’t explain now. But somebody’ll be there to open the door in—in about five minutes.”

  The woman pushed a glass of something into Ginnie’s hand. Ginnie realized that her teeth were chattering. She was cold, though it wasn’t cold outside. It was early September, she remembered.

  “They’re going to want to speak with you.” The man wh
o had been in the plaid robe was now in trousers and a belted sports jacket. “You’ll have to tell them the time it happened and all that.”

  Ginnie realized. She thanked the woman and went with the man to his car. It was an ordinary four-door, and Ginnie noticed a discarded Cracker Jack box on the floor of the passenger’s seat as she got in.

  A police car was in the drive. Someone was knocking on the back door, and Ginnie saw that she’d left the kitchen light on.

  “Hya, Jake! What’s up?” called a second policeman, getting out of the black car in the driveway.

  “Lady had a house robbery,” the man with Ginnie explained. “She thinks—Well, you’ve got the keys, haven’t you, Mrs. Brixton?”

  “Oh yes, yes.” Ginnie fumbled for them. She was gasping again, and reminded herself that it was a time to keep calm, to answer questions accurately. She opened the kitchen door.

  A policeman stooped beside the prone figure. “Dead,” he said.

  “The—Mrs. Brixton said she hit him with the kitchen stool. That one, ma’am?” The man called Jake pointed to the yellow formica stool.

  “Yes. He was coming back, you see. You see—” Ginnie choked and gave up, for the moment.

  Jake cleared his throat and said, “Mrs. Brixton and her husband just moved in. Husband isn’t here tonight. She’d left the kitchen door unlocked and two—well, one fellow came in, this one. He went out with a bag of stuff he’d taken, put it in a waiting car, then came back to get more, and that’s when Mrs. Brixton hit him.”

  “Um-hum,” said the policeman, still stooped on his heels. “Can’t touch the body till the detective gets here. Can I use your phone, Mrs. Brixton?”

  “They cut the phone,” Jake said. “That’s why she had to walk to my place.”

  The other policeman went out to telephone from his car. The policeman who remained put on water for coffee (or had he said tea?), and chatted with Jake about tourists, about someone they both knew who had just got married—as if they had known each other for years. Ginnie was sitting on one of the dining room chairs. The policeman asked where the instant coffee was, if she had any, and Ginnie got up to show him the coffee jar which she had put on a cabinet shelf beside the stove.