“Killed!” she cried, “he has to be killed for what he did to me!”
“My dear child,” said Maserac, as slowly his arms came about her. “My dear, my dear...”
“No, no!” and she pushed away from him. “He must be punished, he must be destroyed, or there can be no more Furilla, no more for you, no more, even, for me...”
The next one was another hand-written note on the Office of the Publisher memo paper. “What did she keep them for?” Lance asked himself in amazement. Reluctantly, he admitted he knew the answer. He read—
Ellie, for heaven’s sake answer your ’phone, or, better still, let me see you. You know I would do anything on earth for you, but this — honey, to ask for such a thing, even to want it, is insane. Revenge is childish, anyway. Snap out of it, lamb. Get to work again and sweat it out of your system.
Your own
Another pink carbon read—
Work? How can I work? He has to be punished, Brill, destroyed. Revenge has nothing to do with it, and I’m surprised you should think of such a thing. It’s just that, when someone helpless is hurt, someone strong punishes the wrongdoer for it. It’s the way things are. And I thought you were the man strong enough. He has to be destroyed, Brill, or there can be no more Furilla, no more for you, no more, even, for us.
So neat, thought deMarcopolo, so orderly. All in sequence — carbon and second sheets, in moments of passion. He picked up another publisher’s memo.
He read—
Ellie, this has gone on long enough. I haven’t seen you for weeks, and I’m frantic. Don’t you know the Book Club contract deadline is almost on top of us now? You’ve just got to have the first draft of Furilla’s Rose by contract time, or we’ll lose the whole deal. Your own career is at stake. If you don’t care about that, think about me.
A pink carbon followed.
Everything I had to say to you I said in my last note. If you have it, read it again. If not, I’ll send you a copy.
And—
Ellie, you’re not keeping copies! Burn them, now. Oh, you’re innocent, you’ve got to wake up and live in a real world, Ellie. I mean it!
Now, listen, honey, I hadn’t meant to tell you this, but I’m at the end of my rope. Everything I own is tied up in this business and, for years, I’ve been holding it together with my bare hands and a big, bright smile, hoping against hope that the big best seller would come along. Well, it did — To Bed, To Bed was it, and you wrote it.
But a hole that deep takes a lot of filling up. Even sales like that couldn’t do it, and I won’t tell you how much I still owe. To make it worse, now that I have one big property, my creditors, people who for years just let things slide along, now suddenly want to take over. I can’t let them, Ellie — not now, not at my age, not with real freedom, real solvency, right in my grasp for the very last time. All I need is one more big seller, and you’ve got it there for me, and you won’t let me have it. Ellie, I beg you, on my knees I beg you, finish the book!
I hate pink, thought deMarcopolo with sudden fury. He controlled the hand which wanted to crush the pink sheet and read—
I have said all I can say. I enclose a copy of it. Read it again.
A telegram — its porous yellow startled him like an explosion.
ONLY TEN DAYS TO CONTRACT TIME FOR HEAVEN’S SAKES ELLIE AT LEAST LET ME SEE YOU.
And then, the shortest pink carbon of all—
Read it again.
DeMarcopolo picked up the next one, Office of the Publisher, squinted at it, then set the box down on the floor and stood up. He moved to the window, leaned into the light and spelled out the writing slowly, his lips moving. It was scratched and scrawled, the paper crumpled, speckled with ink-flecks where the pen had dug in and splattered.
I must be crazy, and I wouldn’t wonder. Nothing seems real — you, soft little you, holding out like that for such a thing, I listening to it. No money, no business in the world, is worth a thing like this, I keep telling myself, but I know I’m going to do it. Try
Down at the bottom of the memo sheet was a wavery series of scrawls which at first seemed like the marks one might make to try out a new pen — a letter or two, a series of loops and zigzags. But as he stared at it, it became writing. As nearly as he could make it out, it read—
I did, and he didn’t know why. My blood damns you, Ellie.
Lance deMarcopolo turned like a sleepwalker and slowly put the crumpled memo down on the pile of papers he had already gone through. He stood still, swaying slightly, then moved unsteadily toward the corner where the telephone squatted on the floor, like a damsel in a hoopskirt. He picked it up, held the receiver to his ear. It was still connected. He dialled carefully.
A cheerful female voice said, “Post-Herald.”
“Get me Joe Birns... Joe? Lance here.”
“Hi, y’old bibliophile! Don’t tell me you’re gettin’ cold feet, old man. Call the whole thing off and give your old pal a scoop.”
“Knock it off, Joe.”
“Hey! ’Sa matter, Lance?”
“Joe, you can find things out without anybody knowing who’s asking.”
“Shucks, Lance, sure. What’s—”
“Brill — MacIver Brill — I want to know what happened to him.”
“Brill? He’s dead.”
“I know, I know.” It seemed, somehow, hard to breathe. “I mean, I want to know how he died. And somebody else, too — hold on.” He put the ’phone down on the floor and walked back to the box. He pawed through the papers for a moment, then returned to the ’phone. “Joe?”
“Yuh?”
“Somebody called Hobart Hennigar. I think he’s dead, too.”
“Hobart Hennigar,” murmured Joe like a man taking notes. “Who dat?”
“That’s what I want to know. Call me back, will you, Joe — fast?” He read the number off the telephone.
“Sure, Lance. Hey, Lance, are you — is there anything...?”
“Yes. Joe — find me that information.” Lance hung up.
He looked vaguely about the room, everywhere but at the box. Yet, ultimately, he went back to it, inevitably drawn. Slowly, he sat down and picked it up, still not looking at it. His hands found the unread portion and slid over it like a blind man’s. At last he lowered his eyes and looked.
It was only manuscript:
... and threw on the gold hostess gown. When the old man opened the door she stood like a flame, eyes like coals, hair afire in the golden morning. “Maserac. Maserac, he’s killed me!”
And she told him, told him all of it, each syllable tom from her, agonised yet strangely eager, for each syllable brought her closer to the comfort she knew that her dear friend would somehow have for her. And, when at last she had finished, she ran to him, blind with tears, and hid in his arms.