The steady tack-tack-tack of Gabriel’s portable typewriter woke Carolina up. How long had it been penetrating her unconscious mind? For an hour, probably. She made one eye focus on the bedside clock. Yes, it was almost ten.
Black rage surrounded her like a pool of tar. She could barely move in it. The nerve. The smug, self-satisfied nerve. All she wanted was to be allowed to sleep. All she really wanted was oblivion — a few more hours of it, anyway. But no. The little bell dinged, the carriage returned with a slam, the busy hunt-and-peck fingers flashed over the keys. Words, sentences, paragraphs flowed from his mind as he sat up there on the balcony, probably practicing his infuriating deep-breathing while he worked, using the morning to his benefit, living his life without her, despite her.
“Throw the bastard over.” Bob had repeated his suggestion last night. How right he was. What else could she do? And why not? Why the bloody hell not?
She almost tripped on the hem of her nylon robe as she staggered up the stairs. She was half asleep, feeling her way onto the familiar landing by rote, creeping silently into his study with her eyes half closed.
The door onto the balcony was open. She could not see Gabriel himself, only the high round back of the ornate Victorian wicker chair he liked to sit in while he worked. He had not heard her come in. The typewriter chattered on.
As she approached the doorway, still in a state that was half dreaming, Carolina warned herself that she must be quick and she must be strong. Gabriel was a heavy man — a half push would not do.
The back of his chair was within arm’s reach. The typing paused, then continued. Carolina gritted her teeth, grasped the wicker frame in both hands, and charged forward. The last thing she saw on the seat of the empty chair as it fell aside and she toppled over the railing was the tape recorder she had given Gabriel for Christmas, a cassette turning slowly on the spindle.
Gabe heard a heavy thud outside the ground-level window as he was concentrating on cutting the pink ball into the side pocket. When he went to the window and saw Carolina’s body on the patio, his first thought was that she had committed suicide. He knew how depressed she could be in the morning.
He ran outside and determined that she was dead. A servant joined him, then hurried away to call the police. Gabe went up to his study and out onto the balcony. Here, he was able to put two and two together. She must have come up to talk to him, maybe to complain about the noise. Anyway, operating on a quarter of her awareness as she did this time of day, she had lost her balance and gone over.
For just a few moments, Gabe felt guilty about using the tape recording. Then he reasoned the guilt away. He couldn’t work all the time. Yet it was important to him that his image be kept intact; he had wanted Carolina to think of him as a disciplined individual who never played till the day’s work was done. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would ever discover the tape. She was meant only to hear it.
Besides, Stewie had been very arrogant about his snooker triumph last night. This morning before leaving, he had challenged Gabe to a lunchtime match downtown at the Leader Billiards. There would be ad agency friends in attendance, so Gabe was determined to do well. That was why he had been getting in an extra practice session.
The inquest went off in a straightforward way. Gabriel Parsons was sincere. The coroner was sympathetic. The will left large sums to various charities, but Gabe ended up with outright ownership of High Heaven and more money than he could spend in the remainder of his life even if he were to play snooker daily with balls made of Waterford crystal.
Before Stewie could accept Gabe’s invitation to move in, he had to dispose of the lease on his flat in town, but soon the widower and the bachelor were established in the mansion outside Beaconsfield, where Gabe slackened off on his book reviews and Stewie reduced his art direction to a few freelance hours a week. Most days they shot pool.
That is what they were doing when Bob Hurst appeared one evening, keeping an appointment he had respectfully made by letter. He politely refused to take a cue and make the game a three-hander. He was here on business.
“I’d like to open a school that would teach aqualung techniques,” he said, going on to outline his scheme and ending with an appeal for ten thousand dollars to get him off the ground or, more accurately, into the water.
“No problem.” Gabe wrote a check for that amount between shots.
Hurst seemed dazed. “This is terrific of you, Gabe. Terrific.”
“Not at all. A tragic accident has made me a rich man. Maybe you can do me a favor someday.”
A few weeks later, Gabriel Parsons turned his back reluctantly on the carefree life of a book reviewer and began to plot a novel. Now that he was secure financially, there was no excuse not to behave like an author. Since Carolina’s accident, he couldn’t bring himself to work on the balcony. He sat at a desk placed against the locked door, looking out at the morning and feeling a premonition of doom. His book would be published one day and the critics would murder him. Gabriel shrugged. In the end, like everybody else, he would get what he deserved.
The Whisper of Gold
by Edward Wellen
He desperately needed the one shell he had left...
Tom Chaudis weighed his one loaded shell in his hand. Weighing it, he weighed also his choices, his chances. With a sigh more like a groan he shoved the shell into the shotgun.
By the light of the lantern hanging from a timber he gazed around at the false glints in the mine face. He had put a river of sweat into this hole, the whisper of gold leading him on. But what gold there was had plain pinched up and played out after the first burst of richness. And almost all that gold he had long since spent celebrating in town, believing — and leading everyone to believe — the gold had no end. The way he saw it, he had no out now but the load in his shotgun.
He knew that — so why was he putting it off?
As he slowly raised the shotgun he thought he heard the hurry of his heart. He stilled himself to listen harder and heard the hurry of hooves. Now that was a crazy sound to be coming from the ground outside with all its cracks and chuck holes. He lowered the shotgun and rounded the tunnel bend to the mouth of the mine and the blaze of day.
He gaped at the mad ride — and at the mad rider, a woman streaming yellow hair. Then he saw that the woman had lost hold of the reins and was hanging onto the saddlehorn. Something — a rattler, maybe — had spooked the mare into running wild, white-eyeballed.
As Tom watched, the mare plunged into a hole, dropped to her knees, and flung the rider from the saddle. The woman landed forked end up, then folded and lay still. Tucking his shotgun under his arm, Tom ran to her.
He knelt beside the woman and looked for broken bones. Coming quickly out of her daze, she stopped his fumbling. “I’m all right. See to my mare.”
Tom wasn’t so sure the woman was all right, but he moved to the mare, ran his hand along her left foreleg, and found the break. He turned to the woman and shook his head.
The young woman, her bright hair tangled, had shoved herself upright. She stood swaying slightly — wobbly, but on her own two feet — smudges and all, a pretty woman. High-grade, but kind of ornery to be out this way all by her lonesome. Wilful, used to getting her way — which would stay respectable, though off the beaten track. Right now, with grief for the mare twisting her face, she seemed not so sure of herself. And not so sure she liked her present company. The way she eyed him sidelong, he must pan out mean, look like a man searching for a dog to kick.