“And, here you are,” said Mrs. Wise brightly. “Shall we play a few rounds?”
They shifted over toward the table.
“You sit here, dear,” their hostess said, tapping the back of one of the chairs. “And you can sit here, Mr. Marshall.”
“No, let him sit here,” Wise countermanded suddenly, “and I’ll sit there.”
Marshall studied the new position warily. With the lamp bearing straight down on me like a cone light, he thought. He’s placed it right behind that second chair, notice?
But the two women had already settled themselves, and Wise himself preempted the third chair before he could get within sufficient reach of it, so he was forced into the position in spite of himself.
He turned his face slightly aside, grimaced.
“That light bother you?” Mrs. Wise asked. “Move it back a little, hon.”
“We need it for the business at hand,” answered Wise obdurately, and refrained from putting a hand to it.
“Well cut for the deal,” he added.
Marshall got the high card. He shuffled with a good deal of nervous trepidation, the tension he was experiencing expressing itself in that way: with shaking, over-active fingers.
But he had no sooner begun dispensing, than they stopped him again.
“To the left,” corrected Mrs. Wise with a toothy smile. “Always to the left.”
“You’ll have to forgive Press, he’s a little rusty,” Marjorie apologized.
Wise turned his eyes on him. “Maybe he has something on his mind.”
Why did he look at me like that just then? Always these double meanings, that he knows I alone get, and that he wants to make sure I get.
He completed the deal, he made his bid, the hand was played.
Another began.
His hands were so unsteady he fumbled, trying to assemble his cards.
“You dropped a card,” said Mrs. Wise charitably. He bent to retrieve it, and the fan-shaped assortment in his hand tilted down as he did so.
“Don’t let him see your hand,” his partner quickly warned him.
Wise smiled with cold superiority. “He can’t cover up. I’m on to him. He has no secrets from me.”
Marshall shuddered momentarily. There went that look again. Why does he keep sending me that? Like a cat playing with a mouse.
“Dear, you’re perspiring,” said Marjorie compassionately, a moment or two later. “Don’t take it that seriously.” She reached up and dabbed at his forehead with her handkerchief.
No remark from Wise, for once. But he fairly cringed, waiting for it to come. Expecting it and not hearing it was almost worse than hearing it. When he stole a look, though, there was a tiny triangle of smile at the corner of Wise’s mouth, with Wise’s protruding tongue-tip nestled in the middle of it.
“Why didn’t you come back to me?” complained Mrs. Wise within the next few moments, after they’d lost another of the numberless tricks that kept going their opponents’ way.
It was Wise who answered for him. “I had him worried. I’ve had him worried all night long.” And his brows arched and his eyelids closed.
It was so ghastly appropriate that Marshall flattened his cards face-down against the tabletop, and just held them that way, with his hand pressed on them, for a long moment. As though he were trying to grind them into the table. What he was trying to do was get his breath to fluctuate evenly once more. He kept his eyes on the white scars that were showing over his knuckles.
How much longer can I stand this? Why don’t I tilt the whole table over into his face, and spring up for the door? When every nerve in my body wants to so.
Marjorie, sitting there. I can’t. I can’t make her a hostage to fortune.
She saw him looking at her, and she smiled privately to him. As if to say, even though I play against you. I’m on your side. I’m on your side still.
But the game, he pleaded to her unheard, isn’t cards. It’s another game that’s going on. A game that you don’t know about.
Another round was dealt, and cards were sorted.
“Police!” shrieked Mrs. Wise comfortably, at sight of something within her hand.
“Don’t call on them in this house,” her husband admonished her with a good-natured chuckle.
It was as though they had some private joke between them.
“Why?” she retorted depreciatingly. “Are you afraid of them?”
Wise returned the innuendo.
“No,” he murmured. “Are you?”
“Pretty late to be asking me that, don’t you think?” she said almost sotto voce, to the accompaniment of a sly smile.
Wise cleared his throat wamingly. As if to say, You’ve gone far enough now. Don’t go any further than that.
Marshall got the nuance perfectly. They’re of the police; and therein lies their little joke: Are you afraid of them? No, are you?
If I could only get out of this room. If I could only get out of this room.
He kept manipulating his bid each time, to try to force the play into his partner’s hand; so that, conversely, he could free himself of table duty. Make his escape. No matter what she said, he doubled, tripled, quadrupled it, even when there wasn’t a card in his hand to substantiate it. But Wise, almost as though he guessed his intent, and had set out with equal deliberation to hold him where he was, would stubbornly go him one better each time. Then his wife, losing courage, would drop the bid at last, and Marshall would be kept pinned down there where he was.
But then at last, as is likely to occur during almost any game, the cards suddenly descended with such freakish unevenness, that almost the whole of an entire suit was divided between himself and Mrs. Wise. And fortune was with him, for the original bid became hers, not his, due to the formation in which they sat playing.
He held his breath, waiting to see what Wise would do, after the bid had gone up to five.
“All right, take it,” he said pettishly at last, after a long frowning moment.
And then, before Marshall could draw the first full breath of anticipatory freedom. Wise suddenly nodded toward Marjorie. “Your play.”
“No, yours,” said Marshall quickly. He could feel his face paling in spite of himself, as if this were the most momentous thing in the world, instead of a trifling card-table regulation. To him it was, it had become so by now. “It was Mrs. Wise’s original bid, I only seconded her.”
“Oh, no it wasn’t,” said Wise with a vigorous shake of the head. “It was your original bid. You play, and she lays down her hand.”
He was not only aggressive, he was almost threatening about it, Marshall thought. As if to say. I’m on to you. You’ll stay here pat, or I’ll know the reason why. Even if I have to falsify the progression of the game.
Marjorie suddenly spoke, in that soft, even voice of hers. “Mrs. Wise made the original bid. I heard her.”
He didn’t wait for any more than that. With a ripple, his assisting cards were suddenly strewn along the table face up and he was already on his feet, and his chair was back.
“Excuse me a minute,” he said. “Guess I’ll stretch my legs.”
He turned and began to stroll casually away from the table, toward an open doorway he had had his eye on for some time past, that presumably led into a bedroom beyond. He felt weak from the long nervous strain he had just been subjected to. His backbone felt limp, as though it were a column of twisted rags. If I can only get in there for a moment, out of sight, away from his eyes; I’ll be able to pull myself together. Not too fast, now; don’t walk too fast...
“Murder!” ejaculated Mrs. Wise sharply, having just finished appraising the magnificent secondary hand he had left behind for her.