Waltz Into Darkness (36 page)

He
descended farther. He was now all but at the foot of the stairs. Mrs.
Thayer had come out onto the stage above, was holding her skirts
tipped from the ground as a precaution. Durand, his own breath
roaring and drumming in his ears, was gripping the doorframe with
both hands, one above the other, head and shoulders thrust forward
around it.

Dollard
extended his hand upward in her direction. "Would you care to
come down farther?"

"I
believe I can see it from here," Mrs. Thayer said.

To
accommodate her, he reversed the lamp, swinging it back again the
other way. As its reflected gleam coursed past the place, an oblong
darker than the rest of the flooring, a patch, a foursquare stain or
shadow, seemed to shoot out into its path, then recede again as the
heart of the glow swept past. It was as sudden as though it had moved
of its own accord; as mobile, due to the coursingpast of the lamp, as
a darkling mat suddenly whisked out, then snatched back again. There,
then gone again.

It
sent a shock through him that congested his heart and threatened to
burst it. And yet they seemed not to have seen it, or if they had,
not to have known it for what it was. Their eyes hadn't been seeking
it as his had, perhaps.

Dollard
suddenly hoisted the lamp upward, so that it evened with his head,
and peered forward. A little over from the place, though, not quite
at it.

"Why,
isn't that the rug from the upstairs room we were just speaking of ?"
He quitted the bottom steps, crossed toward it.

Again
that deeper-tinted strip sidled forward, this time under his very
feet. He stopped directly atop it, both feet planted on it, bending
forward slightly toward the other object nearby that had his
attention. "How does it come to be down here? Do you beat out
your rugs in the cellar, Mr. Durand?"

Durand
didn't utter a sound. He couldn't recall if there had been any blood
marks on the rug. All he could think of was that.

Mrs.
Thayer tactfully came to his aid.

"I
do that myself at times. When it's raining outdoors one has to. In
any case I'm sure Mr. Durand doesn't attend to that himself, in
person." She smiled pacifyingly from one to the other of them.

"One
can wait until after it's stopped raining," Dollard grumbled
thickly in his throat. "Besides, it hasn't rained all week long,
that I can recall--" But he didn't pursue the stricture any
further for the present.

A
second later Durand was watching him stoop to recover the rug in his
arms, lift it furled as it was, and turn toward the stairs bearing it
with him crosswise in front of him, to return it to where it
belonged. He perhaps wanted to avoid contaminating it further by
spreading it open on the dusty cellar floor.

But
the light would be better upstairs. And Durand's breath was hot
against the roof of his mouth, like something issuing from a brick
oven. He couldn't have formed words even if he'd had any to produce.
They drew back one on each side to give Dollard passage, Mrs. Thayer
with a graceful little retraction, Durand with a vertiginous stagger
that fortunately seemed to escape their notice, or if not, to be
ascribed to no more than a masculine maladroitness in maneuvering in
confined spaces.

Then
they turned and followed the rug-bearer back to the rear sitting
room, Durand paying his way with hand to wall, unseen, like a lame
man.

"That
could have waited, Mr. Dollard," the young matron said.

"I
know, but I wanted you to see this room at its best."

Dollard
gave the unsecured edge of the rug a fine upward fling, let it fall,
paid it out, shuffling backward to give it its full spread on the
floor.

Something
flew out as he did so. Something small, indeterminate. The eye could
catch its leap, but not make out what it was. The wooden flooring
offside clicked with its relapse.

Dollard
stooped, and pinched with two fingers at a place where there was
nothing to be seen. At least not from where the other two people in
the room stood. Then he straightened with it, whatever it was, came
toward Durand with it.

"This
is yours, I presume," he said, looking him straight in the eye.
"One of your collar buttons, Mr. Durand."

He
thrust it with a little peck, point first, into Durand's reluctantly
receptive palm, and the latter closed his fingers over it. It was
warm yet from Dollard's hand, but to Durand it seemed to be warm yet
from Downs's throat. It felt like the nail of a crucifix going
straight through the flesh of his palm, and he almost expected to see
a drop of blood come stealing through the tight crevice of his
fingers.

"Mr.
Thayer is always dropping them about our house," put in the
friendly Mrs. Thayer, in an effort to salve what she took to be his
mortification at this public exposure, in her presence, of one of the
necessary fastenings of his intimate apparel. Thinking that men were
like women in that respect, and that if some safety pin or other
similar clasp had been lost from her own undergarb, she too might
very well have had that look of consternation on her face and
confusedly sought support from the back of a chair, as she saw him do
now.

"Hnh!"
grunted Dollard, as if to say: I don't; only a sloven does.

But
he returned to the rug, smoothing out its ripples now with strokes of
his foot.

Durand
thrust the token deep into his pocket. A burning sensation, coming
through his clothes, stayed with it. He beheld them swayingly through
thick-lensed, fear-strained eyes. He wondered if, to them, he
appeared to 'sway, as they did to him. Apparently not, for their
expressions showed no sudden attention nor undue concern whenever
they were momentarily cast his way.

"I
think I've shown you everything," Dollard said at last.

"Yes,
I think you have," his prospective client agreed.

They
sauntered now toward the front door, Durand like a wraith faltering
beside them. He had the door at last to cling to, and any see-saw
vagary of balance could be ascribed to the flux of its hinges.

Mrs.
Thayer turned toward him, smiled. "Thank you very much; I hope
we haven't disturbed you."

"Good
day," said Dollard, with an economy of urbanity that, from his
point of view, it would have been a waste to use on people who were
about to cease being lessees of the property.

He
escorted her down to the carriage, helped her in, talking assiduously
the while in an effort to persuade her into concluding the
transaction. He was just about to step in after her and drive off
with her--to Durand's unutterable relief--when suddenly Bonny
appeared, walking rapidly along the sidewalk, and turned in toward
the house, glancing back toward them as she did so.

Durand
widened the door, to admit her and close it after her, but she
stopped there, blocking it.

"For
God's sake," he said exhaustedly, "get in here--I'm
halfdead."

"Just
a moment," she said, immovable. "He can't rent this place
unless we sign a release. Did you give him the keys yet ?"

"No."

"Good,"
she said crisply. To his horror, she raised her arm and beckoned
Dollard back. She even called out his name. "Mr. Dollard! Just a
moment, if you will!"

"Don't
call him back," pleaded Durand. "Let him go, let him go.
What are you thinking of ?"

"I
know what I'm doing," she said firmly.

Durand,
aghast, saw the agent reluctantly descend, come back toward them
again. He chafed his hands propitiously. "I think I have the
transaction concluded," he confided. "And at a considerably
better figure. Her mind is all but made up."

The
remark brought a shrewd glint of calculation into Bonny's eyes,
Durand saw.

"Yes?"
she said dulcetly. "But there are a couple of things you've
forgotten, aren't there? The keys, and the signed release."

Dollard
fumbled hastily for his pocket. "Oh, so I have. But I have the
form right here on me, and if you'll give me the keys now, that will
save me a trip back for them later--" He glanced around at the
waiting carriage. He was as anxious to be off, or nearly so, as
Durand was anxious to have him be.

Bonny,
however, seemed to be in no hurry. She intercepted the paper, which
Dollard had been extending toward Durand, and consulted it herself.
She studiously ignored the mute, frantic appeal in Durand's dilated
eyes. He mopped furtively at his forehead.

She
raised her head; then with no sign of returning the paper to Dollard,
tapped it questioningly against her arched pulse.

"And
what of the unused portion of our rental fee? I see no mention here-"

"The
unused--? I don't understand you."

She
retained the paper against his tentatively extended hand seeking to
reclaim it. "The rental for this month has already been paid."

"Naturally."

"But
today is only the tenth. What of the three weeks we relinquish?"

"You
forfeit that. I cannot return it to you once it has been paid."

"Very
well," she said waspishly. "But then neither can you rent
it to anyone else until after the thirtieth of the month. You had
best go and tell the lady that, and spare her a disappointment."

Dollard's
mouth dropped slack, astounded. "But you are not going to be
here! You leave today. It was you yourself who came to me this
morning to tell me so." He glanced helplessly at the carriage,
where the waiting Mrs. Thayer was beginning to show ladylike signs of
impatience. She looked over at him inquiringly, she coughed
pantomimically--unheard at that distance--into the hollow of
her hand. "Come, be reasonable, madam. You said yourself--"

Bonny
was adamant. There was even a small smile etched into the corner of
her mouth. Her eyes, as if guessing the surreptitious, agonized signs
Durand was trying to convey to her from behind the turn of the
agent's shoulder, refused to look across at him. "You be
reasonable, Mr. Dollard. My husband and I are not going to make you a
present of the greater part of a month's rental. Our departure can
very well be postponed in such a case. Either you return it to us, or
we stay until the first of the new month."

She
deliberately turned and entered the hallway. She stopped before the
mirror. In full view of Dollard, she raised hands to her bonnet,
removed it. She adjusted her hair, to make sure it was not disturbed.

"Close
the door, dear," she said to Durand. "And then come
upstairs and help me unpack our things. Good day, sir," she
added pointedly to Dollard.

The
agent looked apprehensively at the carriage, to gauge how much longer
he might dare keep it waiting. Then to her; she was now moving toward
the stairs, as if about to ascend them. Then, more quickly, to the
carriage. Then, more quickly still, to her once more. The carriage,
at least, was standing still, but she wasn't.

At
last he blundered into the house after her, past the-by this
time-almost audibly moaning Durand. "Just a moment!" he
capitulated. "Very well; seventy-five dollars by the month. I
will give you the amount for the last two weeks. Thirty-seven,
fifty."

Bonny
turned, gave him a granite smile, shook her head. Then she continued,
put her foot to the bottommost step, her hand to the newel-post.
"Today is not the fifteenth of the month. Today is the tenth. We
have had the use of this house for only one third of the time paid
for. Therefore there is two thirds coming to us. Fifty dollars."

"Madam!"
said Dollard, striking hand to his scalp, forgetful that there was no
longer hair there to ruffle.

"Sir!"
she echoed ironically.

A
shadow darkened the open doorway behind the three of them and the
coachman had appeared in it. "Excuse me, sir, but the lady says
she can't wait any longer--"

"Here,"
said Dollard bitterly, grubbing money from his billfold, "Fifty
dollars. Let me get out of here before you demand payment for having
lived in the house at all!"

"Sign
the paper, dearest," she said sweetly. "And give Mr.
Dollard his keys. We must not detain him any longer."

Durand
got the door closed behind the fuming figure. Then he all but
collapsed against it on the inside. "How could you do it,
knowing all the time what's lying under the very floor we-?" he
gagged, tearing at his collar. "What have you for nerves, what
have you for heart?"