13 French Street (17 page)

She was in her room. I entered and closed the door.

She came at me from the other side of the bed, wearing white lounging pajamas. A beautiful black-eyed devil straight from the fires of hell. Then she stopped, clapped one hand across her mouth. Her eyes widened, staring at my hand. I held it up, clenched before her eyes, and blood dripped to the floor, mingling with the thick auburn-tinted rug.

My voice was little more than a hoarse whisper and I sounded mad, even to myself.

“It’s done. It’s all over with, Petra. It’s finished.”

“Alex. Alex! What’s happened?”

I looked at her, wanting to laugh, but not wanting to make any noise yet. Stepping in close, I lashed out with my left hand, snagged the front of her flimsy pajamas, and tore the cloth away from her breasts.

And it
was
done. I could look at her now. I could be near her and nothing happened. It was done. Something had snapped inside me and she was nothing but a painting: a picture of a frightened woman. She began to talk rapidly.

“Alex, what have you done? Did you see Emmetts? Did you see him? Tell me what happened, Alex. You know I love you. You’re acting foolish, Alex. What’s happened?” Her voice was getting shrill.

“Shut up! I just wanted one last look at you before I go down and tell Verne. Tell him everything.”

“Alex—” she stepped toward me.

“Don’t,” I said quietly.

She stopped, both hands half raised, her fingers trembling. “Alex,” she said weakly.

“Yes. You killed her. And you damned near had me help you kill him. Only not quite, not quite.”

“Alex, we could. We could have it all—all his money. The house, even. The house is in my name. He’s nothing but a—”

“Shut up!” I watched the scheming behind her eyes. “You killed his mother,” I said. “You murdered her.”

“What if I did? Sure I did. I hated her. She was in the way. Oh, Alex.” Her voice dropped a key, scheming, planning. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You’ve hurt yourself. Here, let me see your hand.”. “Get back, you bitch!”

Her head began to jerk a little, out of control, and her eyes were very bright. Her breasts stood out firm and thrusting beyond the shreds of the torn pajama top. They lifted and fell with her erratic breathing.

“You almost had me,” I said. I was dazed, weak. “Almost. You were so damned beautiful I couldn’t tear myself loose. But I’m all right now, It had to come, didn’t you know that? Didn’t you know it had to stop someplace? I waited. I didn’t think I’d make it—but I did.”

She didn’t answer. There was something going on behind her eyes.

Her voice was low. “Yes. Do you know I planned it all, darling? Do you know I planned it so that old hag would catch us doing that? Here, in this room. I planned it, knowing it would come that way. I left the windows open. I knew she’d follow us in here, if not the first time, then some other time. I aroused her suspicions until she was certain to follow us—break in on us. I planned it so I could shove her out of that window, somehow. I wanted it just to look like a fight. But it didn’t come off, did it? It was too much to expect.”

I stared at her. She was crazy, all the way. It had been a good scheme, but it was going to kill her.

“Going to Verne now,” I said. I didn’t wait, but left the room. She didn’t move, still stood there, with her breasts going up and down.

I went down the hall, then stumbled down the stairs. My hand was a swollen cluster of pain now and my head throbbed. I thought I heard the front door close.

Verne was behind his desk, in the study. I staggered into the room. He watched me without speaking. He seemed very calm.

“Verne,” I said. “Verne, there’s something—”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. His voice was hollow and empty of expression. “I know all about it, Alex. I’ve known about you and Petra. I tried not to believe—I’ve been helpless.” He motioned toward the door. “Emmetts was just here. He told me the rest.”

“Verne,” I said. “You don’t understand!”

“I understand everything. And I’m going to kill her, Alex. You hear me?”

“Verne, for God’s sake!”

He watched me very quietly. Then his gaze snapped to the study doorway and he smiled. “Well, good evening,” he said.

I turned slowly, then rested partially against the desk. Something inside me clenched up tight like a fist, a fist of blank despair. And suddenly I saw how it all was going to end.

It was Petra. She still wore her torn pajamas, and clutched in her steady white hand was the .32 automatic. She stood with her legs apart in the doorway, her black eyes glistening like wet glass beads.

“W
ELL
,” Verne said. “We’re all together again. All the important ones, that is. Emmets doesn’t count.”

“Verne,” I said. “Believe—” I stopped.

He didn’t take his eyes off Petra. “You killed my mother,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Petra said. “And I’m going to kill you.” Her voice was edged with hysteria.

He did not smile. “Well. You’re going to fix everything all up proper, eh?” He glanced at me. “You certainly messed Emmetts up, Alex. He was pretty mad about that. I think he’d have come to me anyway. Folks beginning to get nosy. Too many peculiar things going on.”

Verne sounded almost under control, but I knew better. I could see something in his eyes.

He said, “You hurt your hand on Emmetts, Alex?”

“Yes.”

“Too bad.”

The silence dragged out. Then he said, “Tell me about it, Alex.”

Petra didn’t move from the doorway. There was a half-smile across her lips. I told him everything I knew, and tried to tell him something of what I’d gone through.

“I guess I wasn’t right for her,” Verne said.

“Yes,” Petra interrupted. “Yes. You dried-up old—you husk!”

Verne recoiled with each word, but his expression didn’t change. Only the look in his eyes became worse. The haunted, stricken, awful look in his eyes.

“Yes,” Petra said softly. “Yes. Only you don’t know it all. Neither of you know.” She didn’t move. Her voice was so quiet I had to almost strain to hear. She leaned slightly forward, the gun in her hand quite steady. “I’ve waited over a year, Alex. Trying to get you here. I had it all planned, all of it.”

Rain drummed against the windows, slashed in wild gusts across the eaves.

“You were just the type,” she went on. “Verne told me all about you. A man of truth, honest, dependable.” She laughed. “Didn’t take me long to break you down, did it?”

I stared at her.

“I want Verne’s money and I’m going to get it. I planned the old woman’s death—just as I’ve planned yours. I’m going to kill you both. Both of you. You hear?”

I didn’t move. Verne said nothing.

She looked at me. “I knew you’d come to Verne eventually. You had to. It took you long enough, damn you! You liked it, didn’t you? I was good, wasn’t I?”

“I’m sure you were,” Verne said.

“Yes. Well, they’ll find you both dead. You’ll have killed Verne because he saw what was going on between us. Because he’s jealous, as everybody knows. So you’ll have killed him.” She paused, her lips working. “And I tried to save him, but it was too late. Except in the struggle, you, Alex, got shot.”

“You’re a fool,” I told her. “It’ll never work, They’ll see right through it.”

“You think so?” she said. “You should know by now I’m a pretty good actress, Alex.”

“What about Emmetts?”

“I’ll take care of him—don’t worry. I know how to shut him up.”

“It may be too late,” I said. “Verne, say something. Tell her it’s nutty. She’ll never get away with it.”

“It’s worth a try,” Verne said.

“Yes,” she said. “You forget, I’m a woman. A beautiful woman. I’ll get away with it.” She paused. “Which of you will be first?”

I couldn’t move from the desk. There was nothing to do. She was on the verge of squeezing the trigger and she looked as if she were familiar with the gun. I watched the small black muzzle poise for an instant on Verne, then swivel toward me. It was very steady and she was smiling. I saw her knuckles whiten faintly with pressure.

The room erupted with thunder. A steady, reverberating, monotonous crash, crash, crash. I fell back against the desk, staring at Petra.

The gun leaped from her hand, spiraled to the floor. Her mouth was a sudden gaping hole through which gouts of blood spurted. Then her right eye vanished in a blob of crimson.

She took three wavering steps into the room, hands groping. Between her breasts another hole appeared, then the tight front of her pajamas across her belly splashed scarlet. Her right leg buckled. She danced for a brief moment like a crazy doll, then crumpled into a grotesque heap on the floor, one knee raised, both arms outflung to embrace her last, her final lover—Death.

I turned slowly toward Verne. He still sat quietly behind the desk. In his right hand was an Army Colt .45. As I looked, a faint, nearly indiscernible wisp of smoke vanished above the gun barrel.

“I still hit what I aim at,” he said. “I always did. Even with a lousy pistol. You remember, Alex?”

My voice seemed to come from someplace far away. “I remember, Verne.”

He kept staring at Petra’s body on the floor.

“She was truly beautiful,” he said.

“Yes.”

“But only on the outside. On the inside she was evil. All evil. I’ve waited for this moment. Knowing what she and you have done in my home.”

“Verne, I—”

He whirled. “Get out! Get out, Alex. Quick—before I kill you, too. Alex, get out!”

“Verne!”I shouted.

He rose behind the desk and the muzzle of the gun jerked toward my stomach. My bowels writhed and I leaped for the study door.

“Don’t come back!” he yelled. His voice was shrill.

Outside, I ran across the rain-soaked lawn to the road.

A single muffled shot sounded from the house.

I didn’t need to be told what it was; I didn’t need to see. I knew there were two dead bodies in there now.

Wind and rain lashed at me as I turned down the road toward Allayne. I walked fast, then I broke into a run between the dark hills and the slowly moving shadows of the trees.

It was all over now. I knew I would have to pay for my part in it. First I had to see the police, then get back to Madge. Returning to Madge was all that mattered.

So there was hope. Without it you couldn’t live. Because hope and tomorrow are the two things that keep you going. And you can always keep reaching out beyond, until that one final tomorrow. Then you don’t need hope any more.

Petra and Verne were dead. I wondered if Verne had found peace. It was hard to believe that I had lived through those long days of hell with Petra. She was gone, but there would be many tomorrows before I could forget.

But I tried to forget. And then I knew I would forget. Because I’d never again address another letter to the big red-brick house at 13 French Street.

T
HE
E
ND

This edition published by
Prologue Books
a division of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.prologuebooks.com

Copyright © 1951 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
Registration Renewed in 1979 by Gil Brewer

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

eISBN 10: 1-4405-4207-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4207-7

Cover art © 123RF/Igor Terekhov