The Innocent (7 page)

Edna screamed when I said “pouff.” She gave this funny bitten-off scream and ran, ran, out of the room.

“Run, run, run!” Marjorie whispered.

She didn't run far enough. She came back.

Edna didn't come in here to me until very late today. I said the bedroom must have been a mess to have kept her at it so long. She must have had some job cleaning up after Mr. Charles this morning because even when he hasn't been on a binge he leaves everything around—but last night! “I hope you always go through his pockets before you let the tailor take his suits.”

She said she always did.

She looked at me very queerly, I thought.

What had Edna found going through Charles' suits? Something of mine? Did she know about me and Charles?

Did Edna know that I brought up the subject of Charles' drunkenness to convey that had I wished to, I could have stuck twenty hypodermic syringes into Charles last night?

Edna wouldn't follow my lead. She wanted to talk about Charles. She said Mr. Carter certainly must have been drunk last night from the look of the room; but he got drunk for a reason, Mr. Carter. He wasn't her Andrew, Mr. Carter. Maybe Mr. Carter was in trouble?

I have been neglecting dear Charles because of my preoccupation with Edna. I decided to find out whether he was up to something.

Charles, head in hands. Charles uttering deep, heartfelt groans. Forgive me. Forgive me.

I forgave him his naughtiness. There was nothing else I could do at the moment, and right now nothing seems to matter but Edna. I said, never mind, what was done was done. I said perhaps things would be looking up soon and he could quit his job. Perhaps I could make some money at home. Charles raised his head too quickly and found me staring at this notebook. It wasn't too difficult to get him off the track, though. I'm sure he has forgotten this notebook already.

I haven't forgotten it, but this business of Charles got in the way. So far my heroine hasn't returned to her
moutons
, but that's to be expected. It takes a certain amount of time to adjust to the horror of murder when presented with the practical method for it. It takes a certain period to digest the almost indigestible, to let the acids of desire and ambition work on it and break it down so that it can be assimilated into the blood stream. I am sure Edna will adjust to it.

Edna has not forgotten the drawer in which I keep the syringe. As I watched her rub the desk with furniture polish, I noticed that she skipped the third, the fatal, drawer.

She wouldn't even touch it with the wax and polishing cloth. The end of the dusting mop would be the closest Edna could come to it. Marjorie felt her own face stiffen as Edna's face would have stiffened.

All I can do now is watch and wait, but watchful waiting is quite distinct from boredom.

Hunters aren't bored waiting for their prey to turn up. Their hearts beat fast; their blood is spiked with anticipation of the kill.

Every morning and every evening I check up on the syringe in the drawer. We do not talk directly any more. The time for that is past, but whereas Edna was always most reluctant to reveal Andrew's misdeeds to me, now she brings them to me like a dog and lays them at my feet.

Marjorie saw Edna bringing evidence after evidence of Andrew's unworthiness to live, laying them at Claire's feet. Edna was building up a case for her defense which would soon be tried before the judge and jury of her conscience.

Edna looks ill. She admits that her appetite is poor. “Everything stays here,” she complained so pathetically, resting her hand on her breast.

She says she isn't sleeping well either.

The shadows under her eyes, I noticed, are a deep purple.

It can't be long now. Edna has motive. I have given her means.

Andrew will certainly provide the opportunity.

One thing is sure, my subconscious believes that it won't be long now because the other night when I awakened hearing someone at my desk, I instantly assumed it was Edna, sneaking back at last to lift the syringe. Of course, when I checked the next morning, I found the syringe in place. No, I didn't get up immediately to check; I waited. This might mean that I am understandably reluctant to totter and creep out of bed in the cold middle of the night, but it might mean that I intend to carry this through to the bitter end. To Andrew's bitter end. Do I? I don't know. I do know that I wanted it to be Edna taking the syringe because actually I recognized the steps as Charles'. Part of me knewn damn well that it was only Charles poking around to see if I had a pack of cigarettes. When I found the syringe the next morning, I acknowledged that I had known it was Charles all the time. He is so improvident, even to getting his own butts. It's typical of Charles to run out.

There is no doubt that Edna has been in a state all day. When she brought my tray, her hand shook violently. Her eyes are wild and the rose-beige is gone; her skin is a dull, stormy gray. She hung around me as much as she could, as if my presence gave her comfort. She was just dawdling over putting my fresh nightgowns in my chest of drawers when a noise in the study made her jump. I said, “What's come over you, Edna? That's just Mr. Carter.” Lord, she was jittery! I called, “Charles, that's you in there, isn't it?”

He verified this. It was necessary for him to do so; Edna was acting as if it might be a ghost.

“There's no sense looking for any cigarettes, Charles, if that's what you're doing. I'm all out of them.” This was a fib, but I wanted to ask Charles if he'd pop out and buy us a carton. Edna's behavior had made me certain that something was up, and I wanted Charles out of the way. When Charles left, I got rid of Edna, too, and went to my desk. I opened the third drawer. Of course. The syringe which had been there that morning was gone. It was gone. Now I knew. I knew she would do it. Edna would kill her Andy. O.K. Hooray for our side, but enough is enough. The small emptiness in the third drawer spread inside me. Now that I done it, I had to undo it. I had to stop her. I called Edna in again. I spoke in a calm, even tone because she'd have gone right off the handle, I'm sure. Even before I said a word, her nerves were in a trigger state. I said, “Edna, the syringe is not in the desk. Please give it back to me.”

She acted absolutely stupid about the whole thing, as if she didn't know what syringe, what drawer. I imagine that my asking for it was a terrible shock. She must have expected that even if I did notice it was gone, I would keep mum, keep my trap shut. Edna can't know that I've been checking on it every day since I mentioned it to her, but she certainly never dreamed that I would confront her like that. Wasn't I her accomplice?

I finally got her to talk. She said she hadn't taken the syringe. Goodness, she's a lousy actress. Guilt was all over that face of hers. Her voice shook when she made her denial. She couldn't have looked me in the eye to save her life.

“Edna, don't be an idiot.” I was still calm, very patient. “Give me that syringe. Do you think I'll let you leave this place with it in your possession? Don't be so silly.”

The odd thing was that my accusation seemed to calm her down. She threw up her head and gave me one of those Queen of Africa looks. She acted as if what I had said didn't matter, as if the whole business was out of my hands now, and nothing I could do would change things in the least. She didn't quiver when I told her that there was one piece of information which I had withheld from her. This was a spur of the moment improvisation, rather inexpensive and gaudily melodramatic, but it seemed to make sense at the time. It made no sense with Edna. She kept her head high. Aloof as hell.

I said, “Edna, if you take that syringe home with you and inject Andrew and he dies, you will hang.”

That got to her, for she put her hand up to her throat and I saw her trying to swallow, but no syringe was forthcoming.

“You will fry in the hot seat,” I said. “Don't be an idiot. Give that syringe back to me and forget about it. If you won't think of yourself, then think about your people. You'll be a real disgrace to your people. How do you think they will like having a sensational murder trial with you as the defendant?”

Edna burst into tears and ran out of the room.

I will have to do what I don't want to do. I will have to ruin Edna's good opinion of me. I will have to be cruel, that's all. There is nothing left to do but admit the whole business was a kind of game with me. I will have to say that I had no intention of doing anything I had promised her, that it was all malarky. I just wanted to see how far she would go and, I shall say, with that syringe gone, it has gone quite far enough.

What will Edna do then? How will she take this?

I have been sitting here with my eyes closed, trying to visualize Edna's response, before calling her in. I am not at all sure. I suppose it is because I am accustomed to writing copy in which I depend on a rather automatic response to certain given stimuli that not knowing Edna's response frightens me. I definitely am frightened.

Stupid.

Thank the Lord for a Sense of Humor Department: Make note that people in a hypersensitive state burp. I have been burping steadily. This should provide my comic relief, my Hamlet's gravediggers. This should end my nervousness.

It doesn't.

I cannot laugh myself out of this one. I feel as if I had opened Pandora's box and let the horors out. I feel them all around me, rather like bats in the room.

Bats in the belfry is more like it.

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 that 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. He said the victim, the injectee, would become terrifically excited, would go into a fair imitation of d.t.s, and hence straight to heaven. 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 am scared stiff.

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. Am I stir-cray? I am in danger; my body tells me so. My body knows. Yes, I am stir-crazy because there is a simple solution to my problem. I will not tell Edna the truth until Charles returns with the cigarettes. I will not disillusion her until I am safe. I can even ask her to come in and help me undress. Since my accident Charles hasn't really liked touching me, and I don't like him to, either. I don't want him to see me except at my best. Even though I dread Edna's hands on me—I suspect they'll be like ice on my skin—it will be perfectly safe to ask her to help me undress. Then when I hear Charles, I will speak to her; then she can't hurt me. I think, though, that after I make her give back the syringe, I will send her packing. I'll have to. Even with the syringe out of her hands, I won't want her around.

I can hardly wait for Charles to return. My palms are cold. There is a muscle in my cheek which I never knew existed and it twitches. I hope Charles hurries. I can't go on this way much longer. I think my heart which is banging against my ribs would be pierced. I feel ill with fright.

Marjorie jumped up and walked to the window with the papers pressed against her breast. She wanted to cry, to laugh, to shout. There were bubbles of joy going up her legs that made them weak. She blinked rapidly, for her eyes were teared, and read the last paragraph again. “I cannot go on this way much longer. I think my heart, which is banging against my ribs, would be pierced. I feel ill with fright.” She wanted to frame those words and hang them on the wall. She wanted everybody who had known Claire to see those words.

It is quite different, being afraid of being murdered, from being afraid of mice. It didn't matter how cool Claire had always been in emergencies; here was something even she couldn't cope with. “There is a muscle in my cheek which I never knew existed and it twitches.” Claire had been the coolest of them all the time they were caught up Brick Mountain cave and the rock had covered the entrance to the cave. That fat girl, Laura, had fainted, Eve had wept hysterically and prayed, Marjorie had been in a state of shock, but Claire had been cool as a cucumber. All right, Claire had been! Now Marjorie could remember that Claire had been cool while the rest of them went into shock. “I've had nightmares about the four of us in that cave,” Marjorie thought. “I wouldn't let myself remember it in the daytime, so it came out in dreams. Now I can remember it. All right, so Claire didn't succumb to shock during the worst incident I can remember, but she did before she died. She was afraid of Edna murdering her, that shocked her all right! Something had happened which got through to Claire Status thymicolymphaticus,” Marjorie said, triumphantly this time, easily this time. “Status thymicolymphaticus,” she repeated. It meant sudden, unexplained death in a hitherto healthy person from sudden stimuli. The stimulus, the shock, was the fear of being murdered.

Marjorie felt as if a hundred pounds had been lifted from her shoulders, a hundred years. She did not tell herself why she felt this way. Marjorie went no further. She was happy. She did not tell herself that she was thankful she had never mentioned this to Charles. She did not tell herself that she would not mention it to Charles. Marjorie only knew that if anyone asked her what Claire had died of, that the Latin name would come easily, without that wild search for it. There had been a block on that word, but now there would be no block. If anyone asked her what it meant, she could tell them what it meant. She could shake her head in sorrow and tell them how Claire had died. She could be sorry for Claire.

It was a waste of time to be sorry for Claire now. Claire had been dead for eight months. She better be sorry for this poor girl, this Edna. Edna must have been terrified, not knowing Claire was dead, believing that the papers were in Claire's house, where Claire might find them. She must have felt they were a sword over her head. She must have wanted to come back and get the papers which she had hidden in the closet, but she hadn't dared face Claire. Last night, however, something had happened which made the girl willing to take the chance. What did “Eddie done a terrible thing” mean? What did it mean that “they were coming for her”?