Waltz Into Darkness (41 page)

He
opened softly, and he held his breath back. The room was dark, and
the fragrance of violets that greeted him meant nothing, it could
have been from yesterday as well as from today. Besides, it was in
his heart rather than in his nostrils, so it was no true test.

He
took out a little box of wax matches, that clicked and rattled with
his trepidation, felt for the sandpaper tab fastened to the wall, and
kindled the lamp wick. Then turned to look, as the slow-rising golden
tide washed away night.

She
was sleeping like a child, as innocent as one, as beautiful as one.
(And only in sleep perhaps could she ever obtain such innocence any
longer). And as gracefully, as artlessly disposed, as a child. Her
hair flooded the pillow, as if her head were lying in the middle of a
field of slanting sun-yellowed grass. One arm was hidden, the dimpled
point of an elbow protruding from under the pillow all that could be
seen of it. The other lay athwart her, to hang straight down over the
side of the bed. Its thumb and forefinger were still touching
together, making an irregular little loop that had once held
something. Under it, on the carpet, lay two cards, the queen of
diamonds and the knave of hearts.

The
rest of the deck lay scattered about on the counterpane, some of them
even on her own recumbent form.

He
got down there beside her, at the bedside, on one knee, and took up
her dangling hand, and found it softly, yet in a burning gratitude,
with his lips. And though he didn't know it, had fallen into it
without thought, his pose was that of the immemorial lover pleading
his suit. Pleading his suit to a heart he cannot soften.

He
swept off the cards onto the floor, replaced them with the money he
had brought from New Orleans. Even raised his arms above her, holding
it massed within them, letting it snow down upon her any which way it
willed, in a green and orange leafy shower.

Her
eyes opened, and following the undulant surface of the counterpane
they were so close to, sighted at something, taking on a covetous
expression with their whites uppermost, by the fact of their lying so
low; but one that was perhaps closer to the truth than not.

"A
hundred-dollar bill," she murmured sleepily.

"Lou's
back," he whispered. "Look what he's brought you from New
Orleans." And gathering up some of the fallen certificates, let
them stream down all over again. One of them caught in her hair. And
she reached up and felt for it there, with an expression of simpering
satisfaction. Then having felt it was there, left it there, as though
that was where she most wanted it to be.

She
stretched out her hands to him, and traced his brows, and the turn of
his face, and the point of his ear, in expression of lazy
appreciation.

"What
were those cards?"

"I
was trying to tell our fortunes," she said. "And I fell
asleep doing it. I got the queen of diamonds. The money card. And it
came true. I'll never laugh at those things again."

"And
what did I get?"

"The
ace of spades."

He
laughed. "What one's that ?"

He
felt her hand, which had been straying in his hair, stop for a
moment. "I don't know."

He
had an idea she did, but didn't want to tell him.

"What'd
you do that for? Try reading them."

"I
wanted to see if you were coming back or not."

"Didn't
you know I would ?"

"I
did," she hedged. "But I wasn't sure."

"And
I wasn't sure I'd find you here any longer," he confessed.

Suddenly
she had one of those flashes of stark sincerity she was so capable
of, and so seldom exercised. She swept her arms about his neck in a
convulsive, despairing, knotted hug. "Oh, God!" she mourned
bitterly. "What's wrong with the two of us anyway, Lou? Isn't it
hell when you can't trust one another ?"

He
sighed for answer.

Presently
she said, "I'm going back to sleep a little while more."

Her
head came to rest against his, nestled there, in lieu of the pillow.

"Leave
the money there," she purred blissfully. "It feels good
lying all over me."

In
a little while he could tell by her breathing she was sleeping again.
Her head to his, her arms still twined collarlike about him. He could
never get any closer to her than this, somehow he felt. He in her
arms, she unconscious of him there.

His
heart said a prayer. Not knowing to whom, but asking it of the
nothingness around him, that he had plunged himself into of his own
accord.

"Make
her love me," he pleaded mutely, "as I love her. Open her
heart to me, as mine is open to her. If she can't love me in a good
way, let it be in a bad way. Only, in some way. Any way, at all.
This is all I ask. For this I'll give up everything. For this I'll
take whatever comes, even the ace of spades."

55

He
came upon it quite by accident. The merest chance of happening to go
where he did, when he did. More than that even, of happening to do as
he did, when he went where he did.

She
had asked him to go out and get her some of the fledgling cigars she
was addicted to, "La Favorita" was their name, while he
waited about for her to catch up with him in her dressing, always a
process from two to three times slower than his own. She smoked quite
openly now, that is in front of him, at all times when they were
alone together. Nothing he could do or say would make her desist, so
it was he at last who desisted in his efforts to sway her, and let
her be. And it was he, too, who emptied off and caused to disappear
the ashes she recklessly left about behind her, or opened the windows
to carry the aroma off, and even, once or twice when they had been
intruded upon unexpectedly by a chambermaid or the like, caught up
the cigar and drew upon it himself, as if it were his own, though he
was a nonsmoker--all for the sake of her reputation and to keep
gossip from being bruited about.

"What
did you do--before ?" he asked her, on the day of this present
request.

He
meant before she'd met him. Wondering if there'd been someone else,
then, to go and fetch them for her.

"I
had to go and get them for myself," she confessed.

"You?"
he gasped. There seemed to be no end to the ways in which she could
startle him.

"I
usually told them it was for my brother, that he was ill and couldn't
come for them himself, had sent me in his place. They always believed
me implicitly, I could tell, but--" She shrugged with a nuance
of aversion.

How
could they have failed to, he reflected? How could anyone in his
right senses have dreamed a woman would dare enter a tobacco shop on
her own behalf?

"But
I didn't like to do it much," she added. "Everyone always
stared so. You'd think I were an ogre or something. If there were
more than one in there, and there usually was, the most complete
frozen silence would fall, as if I had cast a spell or something. And
yet no matter how quickly it fell, it was never quickly enough to
avoid my catching some word or other that I shouldn't, just as I
first stepped in. Then they would stand there so guilty looking,
wondering if I had heard, and if I had, if I understood its meaning."
She laughed. "I could have told them that I did, and spared them
their discomfort."

"Bonny!"
he said in taut reproof.

"Well,
I did," she insisted. "Why deny it?" Then she laughed
once more, this time at the expression on his face, and pretended to
fling something at him. "Oh, get along, old Prim and Proper!"

The
tobacco shop he selected for the filling of her request, and his
choice was quite at random, being in a resort town, sold other things
as well with which to tempt its transient clientele. Picture cards on
revolving panels, writing papers, glass jars of candy, souvenirs,
even a few primary children's toys. There was in addition, just
within the entrance where it could most readily catch the eye, an
inclined wooden rack, holding newspapers from various other cities,
an innovation calculated to appeal to homesick travelers.

He
stopped by this as he was leaving and idly looked it over, hoping to
find one from New Orleans. He had that slightly wistful feeling that
the very name of the place alone was enough to cause him. Home. Word
of home, in exile. Canal Street in the sunshine; Royal Street,
Rampart Street, the Cabildo-- He forgot where he was, and he felt
lonely, and he ached somewhere so deep down inside that it must have
been his very marrow. Love of another kind; the love every man has
for the place he first came from, the place he first knew.

There
were none to be found. He noticed one from Mobile, and withdrew that
from the rack instead. It was not new; having remained unsold until
now, he found it to be already dated two full weeks in the past.

Behind
him meanwhile, disregarded, the storekeeper was urging helpfully:
"Help you, sir? What town you from, mister? Got 'em all there.
And if not, be glad to send for whichever one you want--"

He
had opened it, meanwhile, casually. And from the inner page--it was
only a single sheet, folded--this leaped up, searing him like a flash
of gunpowder flame:

A
HORRIFYING DISCOVERY IN THIS CITY.

The
skeleton of a man has been unearthed in the cellar of a house on
Decatur Street, in this city, within the last few days. At the time
of the recent high water the occupants of the house quitted it, as
did all their immediate neighbors. On their return the sunken
outlines of a grave were revealed, its contents partly discernible.
it is believed the flood washed away the loosely replaced soil, for
there had been no sign until then of such an unlawful burial. Adding
to the belief that foul play was committed, was the finding of a lead
bullet imbedded in the remains. The present householders, who at once
reported their grim find to the authorities, are absolved of all
blame, since the condition of the remains prove the grave to have
been in existence well before their occupancy began.

The
authorities are at present engaged in compiling a record of all
former occupants in order to trace them for questioning. More
developments will be given later, as they are made known to us.

She
turned from her mirror to stare, as he blasted the door in minutes
later, breathing heavily, greenish of face. Her own cheeks were rosy
as ripe peaches with the recent application of the rabbit's foot.
"What is it? You're as white as though you'd seen a ghost."

I
have, he thought; face to face. The ghost of the man we thought we'd
buried forever.

"It's
been found out," he said tersely.

She
knew at once.

She
read it through.

She
took it with surprising matter-of-factness, he thought. No recoil, no
paling; with an almost professional objectivity, as if her whole
interest were in its accuracy and not in its context. She said
nothing when she'd completed it. He was the one had to speak.

"Well
?"

"That
was something we had to expect some day." She gestured with the
paper, cast it down. "And there it is. What more is there to say
?" She shrugged philosophically. "We haven't done so badly.
It could have been much quicker." She began to count on her
fingers, the way gossiping housewives do over an impending
childbirth. Or rather, its antecedents. "When was it? About the
tenth of June, if I remember. It's a full three months now--"

"Bonny!"
he retched, his eyes closing in horror.

"They
won't know any more who it is. They won't be able to tell. That's one
thing in our favor."

"But
they know, they know," he choked, taking swift two-paced
turns this way and that, like a bear seeking its way out through
cage-bars.

She
rose suddenly, flinging down something with a sort of angered
impatience. Angered impatience with him, seeking to calm him, seeking
to reason with him, for she went to him, took him by the two facings
of his coat, and shook him once, quite violently, as if for his own
good, to instill some sense in him.

"Will
you listen to me ?" she flared. "Will you use your head?
They know what, now. Very well. But they still don't know who.
They don't know who caused it. And they never will." She gave a
precautionary glance toward the closed door, lowered her voice.
"There was no one in that room that day. No one in that house
that day. No one who saw it happen. Never forget that. They can
surmise, they can suspect, they can even feel sure, all they want,
but they cannot prove. And the time is past, it is already too
late; they will never be able to on the face of God's green earth.
What was it they told you yourself when you went to them about me?
You must have proof. And they have none. You threw the--you know
what, away; it's lying rusted, buried in the sand, somewhere along
the beach at Mobile, being eaten away by the salt water. Can they
tell that a certain bullet comes from a certain one, and no other ?"
She laughed derisively. "Not in any way that's ever been found
yet!"