College-Cut Kill

In the game of chess there is move and countermove, gambit and response. The most successful attacks are those, as in war, where power is brought to bear on one point to mask a more devastating attack in another quarter. But before actual attack, the opponents must study each other’s responses to feints and counter-feints.

“It’s an assignment for my Friday class. Due next week.”

“I suppose you realize, Rod, that you’ve patterned your story, as far as it’s gone, on the series of misfortunes we’ve had in the house. You’ve twisted it a bit, but not enough. The method of death and the chronology are the same.”

“I still can’t see how you’re troubled.”

He frowned. “Is that hard? I had two other people in the house read it this afternoon to see if their slant was the same as mine. You can’t hand that in the way it is. Your instructor would really have to be a fool not to tie it up with what has happened, particularly because Brad Carroll’s death is still fresh in everyone’s mind.”

“What if he does?”

“You’ve made an amazingly strong case, Arlin, whether you know it or not. Until I read your story, I thought it was absurd to think of what has happened as anything except a series of tragic accidents and coincidences. No one can read your story, Rod, without getting, as I have, a strong suspicion that there is some human agency behind this whole affair. Absurd as the motives may seem, I have been wondering if...” He frowned down at the floor.

“What have you been wondering?”

“I took a long walk this afternoon. I tried to think clearly and without any prejudice. I want to ask you to hold up sending in that assignment for a time. Is the original copy here?”

“In that desk.”

“Are there any other carbons?”

“No. You’ve seen the only one.”

“I’d like to have you come back to the house with me, Rod. Right now. We might be able to clear this up.”

I smiled and shook my head. “Not with this ankle.”

He stood up and came two steps toward me. “I’ll help you, Rod. You see I want you to come back there with me, because even though your reasoning might be right in that story, the conclusion is...”

Marris stopped short and stared at the leveled weapon. He licked his lips. “What’s that for?”

“What do you think it’s for? How do you like the end of the road.”

He smiled crookedly. “Look, Arlin. You can’t possibly believe that I...”

The room was gone as abruptly as though the house had exploded. Too late, I remembered the fuse box on the outside of the house, in typical Florida fashion. We were alone in the sighing darkness, in a night that was utterly black. The outside door banged open and the sea mist blew in, curling through the room, tasting of salt.

I moved to one side, toward the closet, as fast and as quietly as I could go. I took three steps when somebody ran into me hard. A heavy shoulder caught my chest and I slammed back against the closet door, banging it shut. The impact tore the gun out of my hand and I heard it skitter across onto the bare floor beyond the rug. I touched an arm, slid my hand down to the wrist and punched hard where the head should be.

I hit the empty air and the wrist twisted out of my grip. Something hard hit me above the ear and I stumbled, dazed and off balance. I fell and had sense enough to keep rolling until I ran up against a piece of furniture. I had gotten twisted in the darkness. I felt of it and found it was the desk. Tilly screamed at that moment and the scream was far away because of the closed closet door.

Crawling on my hands and knees, I patted the floor ahead of me, looking for the gun. Somebody rolled into me and there was a thick coughing sound. I slid away. There was a thumping noise. The shots came, fast and brittle against the sound of the sea. There was an angry tug at my wrist and then a liquid warmth across my hand.

The terrace doors we had locked splintered open and the white glare of flashlights caught me full in the face as I sat back on my heels.

Two figures tramped toward me and around me. I turned and saw that they had gone toward a moving mass in the center of the room. One of the figures who had come in towered over the other. I got to my feet and reached the closet door and opened the closet. At that moment the electricity came back on.

Tilly stared up at me and said, “I thought you were... I thought you were...” She leaned against the wall of the closet, closed her eyes and sank slowly toward the floor.

I turned and saw Lieutenant Cord pulling a man off Arthur Marris. Arthur lay on his back. His face was dark and the breath was whistling in his throat. His eyes were closed.

“Back up against that wall,” Cord said quietly to the other man who had risen to his feet.

Step Krindall blinked his baby-blue eyes. Droplets of sweat stood on his pink bald head. He stared incredulously at Arthur. He said, “I thought I had my hands on Arlin! My heaven, I thought it was Arlin! I was strangling Arthur.” He worked the fingers of his fat pink hands convulsively.