A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“I know, I saw you, but I thought I saw someone else too, a minute later. It looked like two people from where I was.”

“Well, it wasn’t,” he snapped. “Whatta ya been drinking?”

“Oh, grouchy again.” She started for the stairs. “Doris back yet?”

“No,” he said firmly.

“Good, then I can swipe some of her face powder while she’s out.” She ran lightly up the stairs. He went cold for a minute, then he passed her like a bullet passing an arrow. He was standing in front of the door with his back to it when she turned down the upstairs corridor. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked dryly. “Feel playful?” She tried to elbow him aside.

“Lay off,” he said huskily. “She raised Cain just before she went out about your helping yourself to her things, said she wants it stopped.” He got the key out of the door behind his back and dropped it into his back pocket.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “That isn’t like her at all. I’m going to ask her to her face when she comes ba—” She rattled the doorknob unsuccessfully, gave him a surprised look.

“See, what’d I tell you?” he murmured. “She must have locked it and taken the key with her.” He moved down the hall again, as if going to his own room.

“If it was already locked,” she called after him, “why did you jump up here in such a hurry to keep me out?”

He had an answer for that one though, too. “I didn’t want you to find out. It’s hell when trouble starts between the women of a family.”

“Maybe I’m crazy,” she said, “but I have the funniest feeling that there’s something going on around here today — everything’s suddenly different from what it is other days. What was the idea freezing Gordon out when he tried to call for me?”

She had stopped before her own door, which was next to their stepmother’s. He was nearer the stair-well than she was, almost directly over it. From below came the faint double click of a door as it opened then shut again. Even he could hardly hear it, she certainly couldn’t. The front door — he’d made it. Larry straight-armed himself against the stair railing and let a lot of air out of his lungs. He was trembling in strange places, at the wrists and in back of his knees. It was his job now. He was scared sick of it, but he was going to do it.

Without turning his head he knew she was standing there up the hall, watching him, waiting. What the hell was she waiting for? Oh yes, she’d asked him a question, she was waiting for the answer. That was it. Absently he gave it to her. “You weren’t here, I only told him where to find you.” She went into her room and banged the door shut.

And with that sound something suddenly exploded in his brain. The connecting bathroom, between her room and Doris’s! She could get in through there! Not only could but most certainly would, out of sheer stubbornness now, because she thought Doris was trying to keep her out. Women were that way. And when she did — there in full view upon the bed, what he had seen, what his own loyalty had been strong enough to condone, but what might prove too much for hers. He couldn’t take the chance. His father’s life was at stake, he couldn’t gamble with that. It had to be a sure thing—

He dove back to that door again and whipped the key from his pocket. He got the door open as quietly as he could, but he was in too much of a hurry and it was too close to her own room to be an altogether soundless operation. Then when he was in, with the twisted body in full view, he saw what had covered him. She was in the bathroom already, but she had the water roaring into the washbasin and that kept her from hearing. But the door between was already open about a foot, must have been that way all afternoon. Just one look was all that was needed, just one look in without even opening it any more than it already was. She hadn’t given that look yet. He could be sure of that because her scream would have told him, but any minute now, any fraction of a second— He could see her in the mirror. She had the straps of her bathing suit down and was rinsing her face with cold water.

There was no time to get the body out of the room altogether. He didn’t dare try. That much movement, the mere lifting and carrying of it, would surely attract her attention. And the long hall outside — where could he take it? The thought of trying deftly to compose and rearrange it where it lay, into the semblance of taking a nap, came to him for a moment and was rejected too. There wasn’t time enough for that, and anyway he’d already told her she was out. All this in the two or three stealthy cat-like steps that took him from the door to the side of the bed.

As he reached it he already knew what the only possible thing to do was, for the time being. Even to get it into the clothes closet was out of the question. It meant crossing the room with it, and then clothes hangers have a way of rattling and clicking.