“It was an accident. And I won’t be called a liar in my own house. Who are you to be getting so high and mighty here? This is my house, mister!”
“Why can’t you leave me alone?” cried West with unusual violence. “What do you want anyway? I don’t want anything from you! Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
Mrs. Coombs made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “What do I want from you? What makes you think I want anything from you? Who would want anything from you?” She stopped because her voice went out of control, but she advanced on West, fairly spitting at him. He didn’t realized that he had said the worst thing to her that he possibly could. “Sure I smashed her picture and I’d smash her too if I had her here, the lousy little witch! Do you see that?” She waved a letter at him. “Do you know what that is?”
West shrank back as though from fire.
“We’ll see who’s the liar now. This is the letter I got from the County Records Office. It says there is no record of the death of a Mrs. James West, but — there is a record of her divorce from James West and her marriage one month later to Philip Linden. And she got the divorce!”
West sank down in the chair. “No... don’t...”
But Mrs. Coombs swooped down on him. “And you told me she was dead! Why, you lying flunky, who would want you? She didn’t want you. She was sporting around with other men, younger men, better looking men, wasn’t she? You ought to be grateful I let you stay here. You’re nothing but a penniless old clerk. And you ask me what I want from you!”
West got up and for a second I thought he was going to hit her. I hoped he would. His face was chalk white. “Get out,” he said.
Mrs. Coombs retreated to the door and surveyed the wreckage. “As for you, mister, you just be grateful for what people give you, grateful, do you hear!” She screamed the last words as the door slammed in her face.
I went out with Rose that night, but all I could think of was West’s stricken face. I kept hearing those screams about being grateful. One thing I decided on for sure: I had stayed around long enough. I was leaving whether West did or not.
When I got back to the old house late that night, West’s light was still on. For some reason, instead of going into my room, I knocked on his door. There was no answer. I opened the door, slowly at first, then more quickly. He was lying on the floor in front of the chair, his body rigid, his features contorted. He hadn’t died easily.
On the table was the cup of cocoa, but it didn’t look like the cup of peace any longer. I felt West’s pulse just to make sure, though I knew he was dead. Then I went downstairs without waking Mrs. Coombs. The police had to be called.
They arrested her before the next day was out. A rat killer containing sodium fluoride was found in the cocoa dregs, and in the furnace the police located the poison can, scorched, but still identifiable. The attempt to hide the can looked bad, and when they learned of her nightly cups and quarrels with West, they felt certain. I wasn’t the only one to testify about those quarrels. The paper boy had heard some things, as had two of the neighbors. When the former lodgers testified that they thought their bird had been poisoned, that did it. She was found guilty, but with a recommendation of mercy.
A plea of insanity might have saved her, but she insisted she was innocent. She said she had gone out for a walk shortly after I left and that West must have gotten the poison from the kitchen then. But the jury wouldn’t buy that. She was her own worst witness. On the stand the hate dripped out of her, especially when the prosecution brought in West’s divorced wife.
I had a few bad moments after the verdict — not that the trial had been easy. She turned as they were leading her away and shouted at me, “Mr. Holder! Tell them I didn’t do it! Tell them! You know I didn’t do it! You know I didn’t do it!”
The curious part of it was that I did know she hadn’t done it. That is, she didn’t poison him. He had killed himself. The final, decisive act had been his. The poisoning of his mind and the murdering of his pride and self-respect and dignity, those were hers.
When I went into West’s room that night, something else was sitting on the table beside the cocoa cup — the can of rat poison. He must have gotten it from the kitchen while Mrs. Coombs was out. Under the smashed photograph which he had put back on the table was a penciled note. It read: “I can’t take it anymore.” He wasn’t one to waste words.
Before calling the police I destroyed the note and quietly set the can in the furnace. The fire blackened it, but I was pretty sure the police would find it — as they did. With no indications of her innocence left, the circumstances and her own character took care of the rest.
Rose has broken up with me. I think she guessed the real story, but I wasn’t going to admit anything. And even if I told her, how could I explain it? You couldn’t get something like that across to a person in a thousand years. The way I look at it, the old witch got just what she had coming. They don’t make laws enough to cover everything.
The Engineer’s Cap
by Donald Honig
Give a small boy an engineer’s cap, and he becomes an engineer, forthwith, in his own mind. No mechanical device is safe from his tampering fingers, all as a result of his new headgear.
The three most talkative women on Chester Street met every morning in Joseph Tompkins’ grocery store to discuss local topics.
“Well,” said Mrs. Fairley, “I hear that Mr. Gregg is about to move out and ask her for a divorce. He wants to marry that blonde tigress we’ve seen him with.”
“And I hear,” said Mrs. Duffy, “that Mrs. Gregg is quite upset about it all. I don’t for the life of me know what she sees in that scoundrel. You’d think she’d want to be rid of him, but she’s been more than melancholy over it. Mr. Gregg told my man that he was quite worried about her, and that he hoped she wouldn’t do anything foolish.”
“My God,” said Mrs. Tinny, “you don’t think she would, do you?” She was quite properly aghast, not that she was completely sure as to what it was that Mrs. Gregg might or might not do — suicide, murder, etc.
“Stranger things have happened,” Mrs. Fairley said knowingly.
“Well,” said Mrs. Duffy, “I do hope and pray they’ll be able to work their problem out.”
“If only for the sake of the little boy,” Mrs. Tinny said sadly.
“Speaking of that young rascal,” said Mrs. Fairley, “do you know what he did yesterday? He hit a baseball through Mrs. Pickett’s window!”
Everyone made sighing sounds of dismay and despair, honoring the mischievous powers of six-year-old Jamie Gregg.
In an apartment not far from Chester Street, Jim Gregg was sitting on the sofa contemplating a glass of straight Scotch. Lines of concern made his face appear much older than it was. Across from him, sitting rather imperiously, watching him with a face that was calling for a decision, was blonde, extremely attractive Helen.
“What is it going to be, Jim?” she asked (for perhaps the tenth time that morning). “I can’t wait forever. You’ve got to choose, you’ve got to make up your mind.”
“It isn’t that easy, Helen,” Jim said. He did not like being pressed by Helen anymore than he liked being thwarted by his wife. “Kay and I have been married for almost nine years. The least I can do is respect what we once hack It just isn’t that easy to break it off.”
“It is if you want to.” Helen said bluntly. “You do want to, don’t you? You admit yourself that there’s nothing between you anymore. I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”