The Innocent (12 page)

Telling Edna that our trip to Utopia-France is all malarky will not finish the episode. It is not malarky that that syringe is gone. I have opened and shut the drawer fifteen times in fifteen minutes to make sure. Besides that, my good woman, it is also a fact that the insulin in the syringe does kill in twenty minutes. I had this direct from a doctor once
.…
That wasn't malarky
.

One more fact, since we appear to be in the market for them: At present writing I am even more helpless against a sudden attack from Edna than her precious drunken Andrew
.

I would say that the above was the evidence of a mind gone bad through being shut up by itself too long. What do they call it? Stir-crazy. I am stir-crazy because there is a perfectly simple solution to my problem. I will not tell Edna the truth until Charles returns with the cigarettes. I will not disillusion her until it is safe.”

It was evening. It was
that
evening. Charles had come back with the cigarettes. Claire would have asked him for one pack and suggested that he leave the rest of the carton in her study on her desk. Claire would have been in bed. She had written that she intended asking Edna to help her undress. She would probably have been smoking, the cigarette stuck jauntily into the gold holder which was in the bed-table drawer now. Claire would have been smoking in her arrogant way. Charles would have left, walking through the study, down the stairs. The typewriter would have been on the desk, the papers in one of the drawers.

When Claire heard Charles going downstairs, she would have begun: “My dear Edna, give me back that syringe. If you don't give it back and anything untoward happens to your Andrew, I will notify the police. If they examine the body in time, they will be able to find traces of insulin in the blood. I promise you I will make sure that they can examine the body in time and that they know what to look for.”

This would terrify Edna still further, for Andrew might very well have been dead already. This was the day after she had come home to find him drunk on the floor. This was the day after she had told him she wanted him dead. On this morning she had awakened to find him gone. At that time Edna could not know where or how Andrew would be found. Claire's threat must have been much too close to the mark for comfort.

Claire would have said, “I don't want to do this, Edna. I'm Very fond of you.”

She had been fond of Edna. That made it worse.

“All you have to do is give me the syringe.”

“I haven't got it. I didn't take it.”

Claire would not have believed the denial, so Claire would have gone on. She would have told Edna that if she killed her husband, it would be for nothing. Where she had given Edna a fine motive, now, Indian giver, she took it back. She, Claire, had no intention of taking Edna to France, of educating her, of helping her help the Negro people. To hell with the Negro people.

I'm thinking the way she wrote, Marjorie told herself. Now I'm Claire, in bed with a broken leg and arm.

“I am not in the least interested in the Negro people; that was just a gag. It was all an idea for a mystery novel. It was to see how far you would go. It was all malarky.”

And that would be too much for Edna, for poor Edna who had been unable to murder her husband but had been weak enough to break down and tell him she wanted him dead. This would be the last straw for poor Edna whose husband had run away during the night and might be dead now. And for nothing, for an experiment set up by this cruel, proud, threatening woman in the bed. (Marjorie could see Claire. She could feel what Edna had felt.) Edna wouldn't have been human if she hadn't wanted revenge on the woman in bed. Edna, standing here, standing where I am standing now, would search for a weapon and would find one only. She could only attack Claire in her vanity. Edna would not have been able to resist telling Claire what she knew about Claire's husband. How had she known?

What does that matter? Marjorie thought. I don't have to use my head on figuring that out. I know she told Claire about us that night; that much I know.

Edna would tell Claire what Claire herself would have known if she hadn't been so self-centered, so self-satisfied, that Claire's husband was having an affair with another woman.

Marjorie heard Edna screaming again in the small shabby room in Harlem; she could hear her screaming at Claire.

Charles would have heard it, too, from downstairs.

Charles would come up to find out what it was all about. “What's all this? What the hell are you yelling about up here?”

Perhaps Edna told Charles what they were screaming about, perhaps not. Perhaps all Charles saw was Claire's furious face, but when Edna left Charles would know that Claire had injured her, that Edna was no longer on Claire's side. Charles would know that much.

And Claire, Claire would know that Charles had been unfaithful to her. Claire would have suffered the way she, Marjorie, had suffered when Claire took Charles away from her. Oh God, she knew how Claire had felt, for even if Claire didn't love Charles as Marjorie loved him, even if Claire used Charles as a property, even if she didn't give a damn about Charles, she would have suffered terribly. In her pride, in her competitiveness. It would have been much worse for Claire on this score anyhow, because Claire was accustomed to being first before Marjorie, to taking whatever Marjorie wanted most.

What would Claire in bed have said to Charles?

Certainly she would have tried to punish him. How punish Charles? By divorcing him? That wouldn't be punishment, would it, that would be giving him what he wanted? By not divorcing him, by refusing to?

Charles would have known that he couldn't have Marjorie. He would have stomped off furious, lost, miserable.

Claire can't stomp off. Claire is in bed. Claire can get out of bed and into the wheelchair they rented after the accident. Claire could wheel herself from her bedroom to her study, but Claire couldn't get down the stairs. Claire can't telephone. Claire can't scream for help. That is, she could scream, but nobody would hear her. (Would she have tried to open the window? It stuck so badly. Would she have tried to pull the window up with her left hand?) Claire lies back in bed. Claire tries to take her mind off Charles' misdeed. Oh, she'll deal with Charles later, Claire thinks. He will be very sorry he chose to humiliate her. Charles will find that he can't bite the hand that feeds him and get away with it. Claire will take care of Marjorie, too, in good time. Let Marjorie not think that she had atoned by going back home to Wilton. Why had Marjorie gone away? Why did any girl who had been carrying on an affair with a married man sneak away? There is usually a reason. If there was this usual reason for Marjorie sneaking back to Wilton for an indefinite stay, Claire would find out about it. Claire would see to it that Marjorie's mistake was made public. Claire would see to it that Marjorie was stood up in Wilton gossip stocks with a big red A-for-Adultress on her bosom.

Little Pete, Marjorie thought, Claire would have hurt him, too, if she could have.

But hurting Marjorie and Marjorie's baby could be put off to a future time. Claire must have had more immediate interests. Claire would have lain there in bed saying, I will not think of Charles now. I will not think of Marjorie now. I must remember that even after all my threats, Edna did not return the syringe. I must remember that it might be true that Edna did not take the syringe. I must put my mind to one problem: if Edna did not take the syringe and it is gone, then who took it?

Claire would think that she would go crazy, lying in bed and thinking such thoughts. Claire would think that she wanted to search the drawer again.

So Claire had pushed clumsily out of bed and crawled and hopped into her wheelchair. Claire had wheeled herself into the study. Claire, bending painfully, her uninjured hand groping in the drawer, did not find the syringe. Then what?

Claire had decided to put down the concluding episode of the Edna saga; perhaps getting it on paper might clarify it. Claire would look in that other drawer, wherever she kept the papers, and find that they were gone, also. Claire would stare at the empty space on her big desk, where her typewriter usually stood.

Her typewriter, Marjorie thought, was downstairs the day I came here with Charles. Her typewriter could have been carried downstairs that night, quietly, furtively, by anyone passing through the study on his or her way downstairs.

Marjorie saw Claire in the pretty pink robe, staring at the empty space on the desk. Marjorie saw Claire with the muscle she complained of twitching away in her cheek, groping in the drawer where she had left her papers and where, she discovered, the papers no longer were. The telltale papers.

The Telltale Heart, Marjorie thought. Edgar Allan Poe. No, not Edgar Allan Poe. Me. I have a telltale heart. It is beating behind the wall of my ribs. She could hear her heart thumping.

As Claire had heard her heart that night.

Status thymicolymphaticus. It was still status thymicolymphatieus, sudden unexplained death from shock. It was still all right. This only meant that it was not fear of Edna that had caused it. It merely meant substituting what had caused the shock in Claire. It was very easy, perfectly easy; you simply said that Claire had died of the shock of learning Charles had been unfaithful to her. I don't have to think Claire killed herself, for this reason. I don't have to believe that after Edna had gone, protesting her innocence, Claire found the lost syringe and then killed herself with it. Marjorie simply could not see that. Previously the scene had been so clear to her, but the crystal clouded when she tried to see Claire killing herself. However, it wasn't necessary to see it. Claire, weakened by her accident, weakened by her fright over Edna, had simply not been able to take the strain of another revelation. There was nothing wrong with that deduction, was there? Nothing you couldn't take?

Marjorie found herself whimpering, and she shook her head, as if to shake off the unpalatable, as if she were the golden spaniel puppy she had owned when she was fourteen. The puppy, when she had pushed his face into the mess he had made on the rug, had whimpered like that, had shaken his head like that. Marjorie felt like the puppy whose face had been pressed into his mess, forced to touch it, to smell it. Her face was still in it. She would not be released until, like the puppy, she learned her lesson.

The lesson wasn't hard to learn, once you put your mind to it: Claire had not discovered that the syringe was in her desk, after all. Marjorie's lesson was to admit that the syringe was still missing when Claire went wheeling back into her study that evening.

Claire had found her papers gone, too. Claire had found her typewriter gone as well. Claire had thought, had attempted to believe that Edna had taken them, that Edna, when she walked weeping through the study, had removed the typewriter and the papers. Claire had told Edna about the papers when she said it was all just an idea for a book, so Edna, afraid that Claire would show these to the police, had taken them. Edna had a good reason to take the papers, but why the typewriter?

Edna had taken the typewriter because she realized that if Claire had it in her possession, she could immediately add to her notes, not so fully, not in detail perhaps, but with enough of the story so the police would see why and how Edna had taken the typewriter and the papers.

Edna was the one, Claire would think. Of course, Edna!

But wouldn't that be idiotic of Edna, who would certainly realize that Claire would get herself another typewriter the next morning, that she could rent a dictaphone, that all Claire had to do was call to Charles and tell him that Edna had taken the machine and the papers?

“Charles!” Marjorie whimpered.

“Charles!” Claire had called.

From downstairs, Charles answered Claire, “Anything wrong? Coming right up, Claire.”

Or had Claire not called to Charles? Would she want to call Charles when she had just been told that he had betrayed her?

So Claire had not called Charles but had sat at her empty desk and thought further.

All Claire had to do was start with a different premise. All Claire had to do was acknowledge one fact, that Edna had been telling the truth, that Edna had not taken the syringe. Once Claire admitted that Edna had not taken the syringe, then she would know that Edna had not taken the typewriter or the papers. Then Claire would not want to call Charles; then she would want to get away from him, to scream. It would be at this point that she would wheel herself to the window and try to pull it up with her left hand; then she would scream and no one would hear her but Charles. Only Charles, Charles alone.

Motive: Charles loved Marjorie. Charles needed Marjorie. Claire intended to see that Charles did not get Marjorie. Claire was going to injure Marjorie whom Charles loved, and Marjorie's baby, whom Charles had fathered. Means: Charles had read the manuscript. Charles had taken the syringe. It was Charles, of course, who had removed the typewriter and the papers and brought them downstairs, the typewriter into the living room, the papers into the kitchen, in Edna's closet.

Had Claire been sitting there at that desk and wating, or had she pushed herself back to her bed? Had she lifted herself out of the wheelchair and into bed? Had she crawled into her bed and, with her good arm, pulled the covers over her head like a terrified child and waited?

“I hope she didn't think it out this way,” Marjorie whispered. “Oh, God help her, I hope she stayed blind until she was forever blind. I hope her self-satisfaction, her egotism, protected her then as it had protected her until then.

“I hope he was quick,” she said. “Oh, God, I hope for once he had the imagination to see what Claire would be suffering up there and that he got it over with.” Charles' imagination, like a child's, did not extend beyond his own desires, his own nightmares. “I hope Charles didn't stay downstairs drinking and listening to a program on the radio and waiting for Claire to go to sleep.”