"What business?" Helen asked, realizing her voice was far too shrill.
The old man seated himself, without an invitation.
"It's about the room, my dear," he said. "The room you advertised for rent in the evening paper."
Helen regarded the old man in blank astonishment, for a moment. Then she said, "I advertised no room for rent! There's some mistake. Even if I had, this is an odd time of night to inquire about it."
The old man waggled a stained and stubby finger at Helen. His thick, moist lips smiled over dentures that were ghastly white.
"Ah, yes, my dear. You advertised a room for rent. We'll agree on that, I think. And we'll agree at once that I become your boarder. Immediately. Tonight, you understand? I live in the front apartment. I will bring only the things I need tonight. Tomorrow and in the days to come I can move in my other possessions. I have the right to sublease my own flat. There's no hurry. I'll wait to find a proper tenant who will pay a proper price. But your own need is great. Yours and your sister's. You must have my protection immediately. That is vital, my dear. We'll agree on that, too."
Helen regarded the smiling old man, dumbfounded. She shook her head slowly.
"This is quite mad!" she said. "Why on earth should my sister and I require your 'protection,' as you call it?"
The fat old man was still smiling as he said, "Because they found the body, my dear. The police, I mean. They found the body just outside the house a little while ago. Such a young man. So tragic to be struck down in the prime of life."
Suddenly, Helen was conscious of only one sensation. She was very cold. Then she realized she could not focus her eyes properly. She saw the old man and the familiar furniture of the room, but everything was distorted, as if she were observing objects through the tumbling stream of a waterfall. She clutched the back of a chair and forced herself to speak.
"I'll ask you to explain yourself as briefly as possible, Mr, Heavenridge. Then you will please leave this apartment, or I will be forced to call the superintendent."
Mr. Heavenridge was lighting a foul cigar. He blew smoke, said, "I hope you don't mind cigars. I smoke a great many of them. An old man's only vice, my dear. I prefer very strong tobacco, but I'm sure you'll become used to it."
He regarded the glowing tip of the cigar, nodded with satisfaction. Then he said, "You and your sister are most careless about your window shades, my child. Perhaps it is because you live in the rear of the building, on the first floor, and fancy you aren't observed. But I have watched you often. I sit in darkness, you see. The dark is kinder to an old man than the light. The darkness is filled with memories. In the darkness my own two daughters come back to me from the grave. I see them plainly in their summery frocks and their broad-brimmed hats, with the sweet flush of youth upon their cheeks. Then one day, soon after you and your sister moved into this apartment across the areaway, I realized that those dim figures of the darkness had become real, alive! You are so like my eldest, Alice. Sweet and calm, always obedient. And your little sister, she is like my younger daughter, Dora. Willful, but lovely. I see now I was not stern enough with her. But it is not too late to rectify my mistake. You and your sister will become my daughters, my dear. And I will become your loving father, always near to protect you, from this night until the dear Lord calls me to his bosom. Oh, we will be so happy, the three of us!"
The old man expelled cigar smoke. "I killed my daughters, you know," he said. "I killed them more than twenty years ago."
The waterfall veiled Helen's eyes and thundered in her ears. She could no longer control her voice.
"You — you killed your daughters?" she fairly shrieked.
The old man nodded calmly. "It wasn't exactly murder, my dear," he replied. "Not like the terrible thing that happened here tonight. I indulged my daughters too much. Their mother died when they were very young. When they became young ladies, they wanted a car. I bought one, but I was a poor driver and so one day I smashed the car. Now you don't think I did that on purpose, do you? At any rate, Alice and Dora were both killed. I alone was spared to exist in lonely solitude. But that is ended now. You and your sister will become my daughters. I will be firm with you, but always understanding."
Helen's teeth were chattering from the strange, numb cold that had crept over her. "No!" she cried. "No! No!"
The old man shrugged his heavy shoulders. "It is your choice, entirely," he said. "I doubt they would electrocute your sister; she is so young and lovely. But she will spend her life behind gray prison walls, that is certain. I saw it all. I saw her strike him down. When he left, I saw how he staggered. I know something of these head injuries. It takes a little while to die after one is inflicted. I watched him through my front window as he reeled out into the deserted street. He fell. I went out and examined him. His heart had stopped. I called the police, but I did not tell them my name. They rang the superintendent's apartment and talked to him. I listened through the crack of my door. But the superintendent knew nothing. If I move in here and I am questioned, I will swear I was with you all evening. Any father would do that much for his daughters."
The old man paused, sighed, waggled his bald head. "But if you refuse — then I must tell what I know, of course, as any good citizen doing his duty would."
Someone cried out. Marcia was standing in the room supporting herself against the bedroom door. Her eyes were wild and glazed.
"Don't call the police!" she begged. "Oh, please, Helen, don't let him!"
The old man rose from the chair. He was remarkably agile for a fat old man. He crossed the room rapidly and gave Marcia a resounding slap in the face.
"Go to your room, Dora!" he thundered. "Your sister and I will arrange matters."
And matters were arranged, because there was nothing else to do. At least, the dazed and terrified Helen could think of nothing else to do. And Marcia had fled to her bed. The covers were pulled up around her head and the bed, shook with her sobbing.
Mr. Heavenridge moved in that night. He took the room which had served as Helen's bedroom-studio. Helen had to move into the small room with Marcia.
Mr. Heavenridge said that loud sounds disturbed him. He could not abide street noises and he disliked sunlight. He kept all the windows shut, and the blinds lowered. He called the business office of the telephone company at once and had the phone service discontinued. He removed the tubes from the television and radio receivers.
The apartment became insufferably stuffy; it no longer had its pleasant girl-smell of perfume and powder and scented soap and fresh flowers. It took on the overwhelming, heavy odor that clung to the old man. The two girls had only one closet between them for all their clothes, for he claimed the others. This problem was alleviated, in a sense, by a dictatorial step that the old man took. He made an inventory of their wardrobes and if he considered a garment immodest, he ripped it to pieces and suggested the fragments of cloth be used for dust rags.
On the very first morning, Helen found him examining her bank book and account books and personal correspondence. When she protested, he simply waved her away, and chided her for rising at so late an hour.
"From now on," he said, "you and your sister will rise at six-thirty. That is my accustomed hour. I will expect to have my breakfast on the table by seven sharp."
He demanded that they retire at ten-thirty. One evening he found a light showing beneath the girls' bedroom door after the hour he had set. He stormed in and detached all the light bulbs. From then on, he removed the light bulbs every night at the bedtime he had ordered.
He called the sisters "Alice" and "Dora." He brought a heavy family Bible from his apartment and required one of them to read to him every evening, as his daughters had done, for an hour or more. He was especially fond of passages from the Book of Revelations.