Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense (13 page)

Denton pulled himself back. His mind was beginning to wander, and he recognized that as a danger sign. He couldn't lose consciousness, he couldn't lose awareness, not until he
knew
.

He stared at the outlined figure in the fog, and slowly he forced himself to visualize the door frame around it again, and slowly he saw it, and the figure was tall.

Eddie or Herb. Eddie or Herb.

It had to be one or the other, but that was as close as he could get. He tried to superimpose the figures of Eddie and Herb on the figure of the silhouette and got nowhere. The bulky coat ruined that; it was impossible.

Death was creeping closer, across his shoulders and down among his ribs, up from his legs to touch his stomach with icy fingers. He had to know soon, he had to know soon.

He visualized what had happened again, in the fog between himself and the television set, seeing it like a run-through for the show, seeing every step. The door opening, the black figure standing there, the bright flash—

From the figure's
right
side!

“
Herb!
” he shouted. Eddie was left-handed, and his impaired right hand would never have been able to lift the gun or squeeze the trigger, it had been Herb.

With his shout, the fog faded completely away, the outlined figure was gone. Sight and sound returned, and he heard Karen Carlyle singing her song. It was the last number of the show. It must be almost nine o'clock; he'd been sitting here wounded now for almost an hour.

Karen Carlyle stopped at last, and there was thunderous canned applause and he saw himself come striding into camera range. He saw that whole and walking, strong and smiling self come out and wave at the imaginary audience, wave at Don Denton dying in his chair.

He stared at that tiny image of himself. That was
him!
Him, at six o'clock, with two hours left, and that self could somehow change this, could somehow keep what had and was happening from happening.

Dream and reality, desire and fact, need and truth, shifted and mingled confusedly in his mind. He was barely real himself. He was dying faster now, becoming less and less real, and the image on the television screen was almost all that was left of him.

And so Denton felt the need to warn the image. “It's Herb!” he called, whispering, at that tiny blue-gray self across the room. Reality was going, like the lights of a city flicking out one by one, and darkness was spreading in. “Be careful! It's Herb!”

“That's about all the show there is, folks,” answered his image.

The lights flicked out, and Denton's mind broke. “Don't go home!” he shrieked. “It's Herb!”

“I certainly hope you've enjoyed yourself,” said the image, smiling at him.

“Stay away!” screamed Denton.

The image waved a careless hand, as though to tell Denton not to be silly, there was nothing wrong in the world, nothing at all. “We'll be seeing you!”

He had to get away, he had to live, he had to warn himself not to come here tonight. There was that image, the
real
Don Denton, in the television set, and right beside him was the telephone.

“Help me!” shrieked Denton all at once. “Call! Call! Help me!” And it seemed to him as though it should be the easiest thing in the world, for that real image of himself to reach over and pick up the telephone and call for help.

But, instead, that image merely waved and cried, “Good night!” The blind and stupid image of himself, blowing a kiss at the dying man in the chair.

“
Help me!
” Denton screamed, but the words were buried by a bubbling-up of blood, filling his throat.

The image receded, down and down, growing smaller and ever smaller as the boom camera was raised toward the ceiling. “Love you! Love you!” cried the tiny doomed image to the dead man in the chair. “Good night! Good night!”

Clem Goodhue met
the train with his taxi. If old Mrs. Merriman were aboard, he would be sure of at least one passenger. Furthermore, old Mrs. Merriman had somehow gotten the idea that the minimum fare was a dollar. It was really seventy-five cents, but Clem had never been able to see a reason for telling her that. However, she was not aboard that morning. Sam Wells was. He was coming back from the city—been to put in a claim to have his pension increased—but Sam Wells wouldn't pay five cents to ride any distance under five miles. Clem disregarded him.

After old Sam a thin, brown-haired kid got off the train. Next came a girl, also thin and also brown-haired, who Clem thought was maybe the kid's teenage sister. Actually, it was the kid's mother.

After
that
came Kent Castwell.

Clem had seen him before, early in the summer. Strangers were not numerous in Ashby, particularly strangers who got ugly and caused commotions in bars. So Clem wouldn't forget him in a hurry. Big, husky fellow. Always seemed to be sneering at something. But the girl and the kid hadn't been with him then.

“Taxi?” Clem called.

Castwell ignored him, began to take down luggage from the train. But the young girl holding the kid by the hand turned and said, “Yes—just a minute.”

“Where to?” Clem asked, when the luggage was in the taxi.

“The old Peabody place,” the girl said. “You know where that is?”

“Yes. But nobody lives there anymore.”

“Somebody does now. Us.” The big man swore as he fiddled with the handle of the right-hand door. It was tied with ropes. “Why don't you fix this thing or get a new one?”

“Costs money,” Clem said. Then, “Peabody place? Have to charge you three dollars for that.”

“Let's go dammit, let's go!”

After they'd started off, Castwell said, “I'm giving you two bucks. Probably twice what it's worth, anyway.”

Half-turning his head, Clem protested. “I told you, mister, it was three.”

“And I'm telling you, mister,” Castwell mimicked the driver's New England accent, “that I'm giving you two.”

Clem argued that the Peabody Place was far out. He mentioned the price of gas, the bad condition of the road, the wear on the tires. The big man yawned. Then he used a word that Clem rarely used himself, and never in the presence of women and children. But this young woman and child didn't seem to notice.

“Stop off at Nickerson's real estate office,” Castwell said.

L
EVI
P
.
N
ICKERSON,
who was also the county tax assessor, said, “Mr. Castwell. I assume this is Mrs. Castwell?”

“If that's your assumption, go right ahead,” said Kent. And laughed.

It wasn't a pleasant laugh. The woman smiled faintly, so L. P. Nickerson allowed himself an economical chuckle. Then he cleared his throat. City people had odd ideas of what was funny. Meanwhile, though—

“Now, Mr. Castwell. About this place you're renting. I didn't realize—you didn't mention—that you had this little one, here.”

Kent said, “What if I didn't mention it? It's my own business. I haven't got all
day
—”

Nickerson pointed out that the Peabody place stood all alone, isolated, with no other house for at least a mile and no other children in the neighborhood. Mrs. Castwell (if, indeed, she
was
) said that this wouldn't matter much, because Kathie would be in school most of the day.

“School. Well, that's it, you see. The school bus, in the first place, will have to go three miles off what's been its regular route, to pick up your little girl. And that means the road will have to be plowed regular—snow gets real deep up in these parts, you know. Up till now, with nobody living in the old Peabody place, we never had to bother with the road. Now, this means,” and he began to count off on his fingers, “first, it'll cost Ed Westlake, he drives the school bus, more than he figured on when he bid for the contract; second, it'll cost the county to keep your road open. That's besides the cost of the girl's schooling, which is third.”

Kent Castwell said that was tough, wasn't it? “Let's have the keys, Nick,” he said.

A flicker of distaste at the familiarity crossed the real estate man's face. “You don't seem to realize that all this extra expense to the county isn't covered by the tax assessment on the Peabody place,” he pointed out. “Now, it just so happens that there's a house right on the outskirts of town become available this week. Miss Sarah Beech passed on, and her sister, Miss Lavinia, moved in with their married sister, Mrs. Calvin Adams. 'Twon't cost
you
any more, and it would save
us
considerable.”

Castwell, sneering, got up. “What! Me live where some old-maid landlady can be on my neck all the time about messing up her pretty things? Thanks a lot. No thanks.” He held out his hand. “The keys, kid. Gimme the keys.” Mr. Nickerson gave him the keys. Afterwards he was to say, and to say often, that he wished he'd thrown them into Lake Amastanquit instead.

T
HE INCOME
of the Castwell menage was not large and consisted of a monthly check and a monthly money order. The check came on the fifteenth, from a city trust company and was assumed by some to be inherited income. Others argued in favor of its being a remittance paid by Castwell's family to keep him away. The money order was made out to Louise Cane and signed by an army sergeant in Alaska. The young woman said this was alimony and that Sergeant Burndall was her former husband. Tom Talley, at the grocery store, had her sign the endorsement twice, as Louise Cane and as Louise Castwell. Tom was a cautious man.

Castwell gave Louise a hard time, there was no doubt about that. If she so much as walked in between the sofa, on which he spent most of his time, and the television, he'd leap up and belt her. More than once both she and the kid had to run out of the house to get away from him. He wouldn't follow, as a rule, because he was barefooted, as a rule, and it was too much trouble to put his shoes on.

Lie on the sofa and drink beer and watch television all afternoon, and hitch into town and drink bar whiskey and watch television all evening—that was Kent Castwell's daily schedule. He got to know who drove along the road regularly, at what time, and in which direction, and he'd be there, waiting. There was more than one who could have dispensed with the pleasure of his company, but he'd get out in the road and wave his arms and not move until the car he got in front of stopped.

What could you do about it? Put him in jail?

Sure you could.

He hadn't been living there a week before he got into a fight at the Ashby Bar.

“Disturbing the peace, using profane and abusive language, and resisting arrest—that will be ten dollars or ten days on each of the charges,” said Judge Paltiel Bradford. “And count yourself lucky it's not more. Pay the clerk.”

But Castwell, his ugly leer in no way improved by the dirt and bruises on his face, said, “I'll take jail.”

Judge Bradford's long jaw set, then loosened. “Look here, Mr. Castwell, that was just legal language on my part. The jail is closed up. Hasn't been anybody in there since July.” It was then November. “It would have to be heated, and illuminated, and the water turned on, and a guard hired. To say nothing of feeding you. Now, I don't see why the county should be put to all that expense on your account. You pay the clerk thirty dollars. You haven't got it on you, take till tomorrow. Well?”

“I'll take the jail.”

“It's most inconvenient—”

“That's too bad, Your Honor.”

The judge glared at him. Gamaliel Coolidge, the district attorney, stood up. “Perhaps the court would care to suspend sentence,” he suggested. “Seeing it is the defendant's first offense.”

The court did care. But the next week Kent was back again, on the same charge. Altogether, the sentence now came to sixty dollars, or sixty days. And again Castwell chose jail.

“I don't generally do this,” the judge said, fuming. “But I'll let you pay your fine off in installments. Considering you have a wife and child.”

“Uh-uh. I'll take jail.”

“You won't like the food!” warned His Honor.

Castwell said he guessed the food would be up to the legal requirements. If it wasn't, he said, the State Board of Prison Inspectors would hear about it.

Some pains were taken to see that the food served Kent during his stay in jail was beyond the legal requirements—if not much beyond. The last time the state board had inspected the county jail it had cost the taxpayers two hundred dollars in repairs. It was costing them quite enough to incarcerate Kent Castwell, as it was, although the judge had reduced the cost by ordering the sentences to run concurrently.