Meanwhile her steps had halted about where the hall closet was (she must be hanging up her coat), then went on toward the stairs that led to the upper floor, faded out upon them, going up. She was out of earshot now, temporarily. But she was in the house with him at least! that awful aloneness was gone. He felt such gratitude for her nearness, he felt such love and need for her, he wondered how he could ever have thought of doing away with her — only one short hour ago.
He saw now that he must have been insane to contemplate such a thing. Well if he had been, he was sane now, he was rational now, this ordeal had brought him to his senses. Only release him, only rescue him from his jeopardy, and he’d never again—
IV
Five after. She’d been back nine minutes now. There, it was ten. At first slowly, then faster and faster, terror, which had momentarily been quelled by her return, began to fasten upon him again.
Why did she stay up there on the second floor like that? Why didn’t she come down here to the basement, to look for something? Wasn’t there anything down here that she might suddenly be in need of?
He looked around, and there wasn’t. There wasn’t a possible thing that might bring her down here. They kept their basement so clean, so empty. Why wasn’t it piled up with all sorts of junk like other people’s! That might have saved him now.
She might intend to stay up there all afternoon. She might lie down and take a nap, she might shampoo her hair, she might do over an old dress. Any one of those trivial harmless occupations of a woman during her husband’s absence could prove so fatal now. She might count on staying up there until it was time to begin getting his supper ready, and if she did — no supper, no she, no he.
Then a measure of relief came again. The man. The man whom he had intended destroying along with her, he would save him. He would be the means of his salvation. He came other days, didn’t he, in the afternoon, while Stapp was away? Then, oh God, let him come today, make this one of the days they had a rendezvous (and yet maybe it just wasn’t)! For if he came, that would bring her down to the lower floor, if only to admit him. And how infinitely greater his chances would be, with two pairs of ears in the house to overhear some wisp of sound he might make, than just with one.
And so he found himself in the anomalous position of a husband praying, pleading with every ounce of fervency he can muster, for the arrival, the materialization, of a rival whose existence he had only suspected until now, never been positive of.
Eleven past two. Forty-nine minutes left. Less than the time it took to sit through the “A” part of a picture-show. Less than the time it took to get a haircut, if you had to wait your turn. Less than the time it took to sit through a Sunday meal, or listen to an hour program on the radio, or ride on the bus from here to the beach for a dip. Less than all those things — to live. No, no, he had been meant to live thirty more years, forty! What had become of those years, those months, those weeks? No, not just minutes left, it wasn’t fair!
“Fran!” he shrieked. “Fran, come down here! Can’t you hear me?” The gag drank it up like a sponge.
The phone trilled out suddenly in the lower hallway, midway between him and her. He’d never heard such a beautiful sound before. “Thank God!” he sobbed, and a tear stood out in each eye. That must be the man now. That would bring her down.
Then fear again. Suppose it was only to tell her that he wasn’t coming? Or worse still, suppose it was to ask her instead to come out and meet him somewhere else? Leave him alone down here, once again, with this horror ticking away opposite him. No child was ever so terrified of being left alone in the dark, of its parents putting out the light and leaving it to the mercy of the boogy-man as this grown man was at the thought of her going out of the house and leaving him behind.
It kept on ringing a moment longer, and then he heard her quick step descending the stairs to answer it. He could hear every word she said down there where he was. These cheap matchwood houses.
“Hello? Yes, Dave. I just got in now.”
Then, “Oh Dave, I’m all upset. I had seventeen dollars upstairs in my bureau-drawer and it’s gone, and the wristwatch that Paul gave me is gone too. Nothing else is missing, but it looks to me as if someone broke in here while I was out and robbed us.”
Stapp almost writhed with delight down there where he was. She knew they’d been robbed. She’d get the police now. Surely they’d search the whole place, surely they’d look down here and find him!
The man she was talking to must have asked her if she was sure. “Well, I’ll look again, but I know it’s gone. I know just where I left it, and it isn’t there. Paul will have a fit.”
No Paul wouldn’t either; if she’d only come down here and free him he’d forgive her anything, even the cardinal sin of being robbed of his hard-earned money.
Then she said, “No, I haven’t reported it yet. I suppose I should, but I don’t like the idea — on your account, you know. I’m going to call up Paul at the shop. There’s just a chance that he took the money and the watch both with him when he left this morning. I remember telling him the other night that it was losing time; he may have wanted to look it over. Well, all right, Dave, come on out then.”
So he was coming, so Stapp wasn’t to be left alone in the place; hot breaths of relief pushed against the sodden gag at the back of his palate.
There was a pause while she broke the connection. Then he heard her call his shop-number, “Trevelyan 4-4512,” and wait while they were ringing, and of course no one answered.
Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick.
The operator must have told her finally that they couldn’t get the number. “Well, keep ringing,” he heard her say, “it’s my husband’s store, he’s always there at this hour.”
He screamed in terrible silence: “I’m right here under your feet. Don’t waste time. For God’s sake, come away from the phone, come down here!”
Finally, when failure was reported a second time, she hung up. Even the hollow, cupping sound of that detail reached him. Oh, everything reached him — but help. This was a torture that a Grand Inquisitor would have envied.
He heard her steps move away from where the phone was. Wouldn’t she guess by his absence from where he was supposed to be that something was wrong? Wouldn’t she come down here now and look? (Oh, where was this woman’s intuition they spoke about!) No, how could she be expected to? What connection could the basement of their house possibly have in her mind with the fact that he wasn’t in his shop? She wasn’t even alarmed, so far, by his absence most likely. If it had been evening; but at this hour of the day— He might have gone out later than other days to his lunch, he might have had some errand to do.
He heard her going up the stairs again, probably to resume her search for the missing money and watch. He whimpered disappointedly. He was cut off from her, while she remained up there, as if she’d been miles away, instead of being vertically over him in a straight line.
Tick, tock, tick, tock. It was twenty-one past two now. One half-hour and nine scant minutes left. And they ticked away with the prodigality of tropical raindrops on a corrugated tin roof.
He kept straining and pulling away from the pipe that held him fast, then falling back exhausted, to rest awhile, to struggle and to strain some more. There was as recurrent a rhythm to it as there was to the ticking of the clock itself, only more widely spaced. How could ropes hold that unyieldingly? Each time he fell back weaker, less able to contend with them than the time before. For he wasn’t little strands of hemp, he was layers of thin skin that broke one by one and gave forth burning pain and finally blood.