Retracing the painful journey, he backed down the stairs. Sobbing and gasping, he pulled himself up into the chair. How much time should he allow before calling the police? They would begin to wonder if he waited too long after hearing the running water go on and on.
At least another ten minutes, Alex reasoned. Surely his nervous sweat would be attributed to his natural concern for Sheila. He would have to return to the kitchen telephone.
“Sergeant McNulty,” The voice was reassuringly familiar.
“Thank God, it’s you, Sergeant. This is Alex Stacey.” No need to feign anxiety. He couldn’t stop trembling if he wanted to. “I’m worried about my wife Sheila. She’s in the upstairs bathroom shampooing her hair. But the water has been running steadily for more than an hour and I can’t make her hear me. Maybe she—”
The Sergeant calmly interrupted his near-hysterical explanation. “Just take it easy, Mr. Stacey. I understand. We’re on our way. Be careful not to hurt yourself. Take it easy,” he repeated.
What a stroke of luck! Jim McNulty had been one of the officers at the accident scene, later visiting him in the hospital. It was he who informed Sheila of the accident. A compassionate man who would realize the impossibility of a blind and crippled Alex climbing those stairs to kill his wife.
Alex groped for a glass. After filling it with water, he took a deep swallow, then allowed the remainder to spill on his robe. Just in the event there were any water spots on his clothing. A recently blinded man tended to be clumsy. First hand experience, Alex reflected bitterly.
He rolled out of the kitchen, through the family room and collided with the table again. This reminder of Sheila’s purposeful cruelties served to steady him. By the time the door chimes rang, Alex had relaxed considerably.
“Coming!” he called, wheeling carefully to the front door. He found the knob easily, and opened it wide. Sergeant McNulty introduced his partner.
“Officer Crandall, Mr. Stacey. Which way?”
“Up the stairs, to the left,” directed Alex, suddenly nervous.
They returned in three minutes.
“Mr. Stacey,” the Sergeant gripped Alex’s shoulder to prepare him, “I’m so sorry, but your wife is dead. It looks as if she slipped and struck her head on the fixtures. There’ll be an investigation, of course. Officer Crandall turned the water off.”
Alex passed a shaking left hand over his face.
“I just can’t believe it. She was only washing her hair... her beautiful hair.”
He could sense the Sergeant’s piercing glance.
“By the way, Mr. Stacey, did your wife use a color rinse?”
“Oh, no,” Alex protested. “She had lovely, natural auburn hair.” He floundered on. “At least I never knew her to use any coloring.” A cold wave of fear engulfed him.
Sergeant McNulty sighed heavily. “Your left hand, Mr. Stacey.” His voice shook this time. “Your left hand is stained with some kind of dye, sir.”
Rubout
by Edward Wellen
J. Alden Mortimer was on his way to a well earned luxury voyage — when a single incident out of his own past served to dry dock him for the rest of his life.
Someone brushed against J. Alden Mortimer but Mortimer remained too intent on seeing his baggage quickly and safely aboard the cruise ship to spare more than the most fleeting glance of annoyance.
He spoke sharply to the lug gage handler who was taking the bags out of the trunk of the taxi. “Hurry!... Careful!”
He knew he must seem overly fussy to anyone watching but he didn’t care. Time to relax once he and his belongings were under way. “Make sure they’re right side up.”
Too late — the stupid handler had grounded a suitcase wrong. Mortimer feared the gritty pier floor would scratch or even destroy the elegant initials.
Small consolation to take it out of the tip. Mortimer hated this last-minute rush. It got what should be a good experience off to a bad start. The worst of it was he had allowed lots of time, yet the taxi driver, who to hear him tell it knew how to run the country if not the world, had managed to lock them into an infuriatingly long traffic tieup and had delivered him here only minutes before sailing.
Up the gangplank. Aboard at last. Mortimer knew his stateroom’s location by heart and led the way. He had picked the stateroom himself, determining from a model of the liner in the steamship line’s own office the best location, taking into account the prevailing winds. The empirical British had known a thing or two about comfortable sailing — hadn’t the word posh come into being from Port Outbound, Starboard Homeward? — and he could have done worse than follow their example. No telling but that even a modern luxury liner’s air conditioning might break down in torrid zone waters, so he had chosen the cool and shady side.
With a satisfied smile, he strode toward his stateroom, heading his safari of one plus bearer through a jungle of bustle and confusion. A man who knew where he was going had the edge on the uncertain ones. He imagined a slight sway to the huge vessel but walked with the assurance of a man who had long since got his sea-legs. Still, he looked forward to a bit of air conditioning right now. This last-minuteness had put him in something of a sweat.
He found his stateroom without trouble and his satisfied smile increased. The door stood half open and the smile uncreased. Someone already occupied his stateroom.
An old man, from what Mortimer could see of him. A scarf muffled him to his dark glasses. He had settled in among a smother of fruit and candy and flowers and books. A room stewardess was seeing to the old man’s comfort and it was she who looked up in surprise at Mortimer and company and who spoke up in the old man’s behalf.
“Good afternoon, sir. What stateroom are you looking for?”
Mortimer backed up a step for another glance at the face of the door, then stepped forward again. “This room.” He winced at the bother they would have to put the old man to in resettling him wherever he belonged, but right was right.
“I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. You see, this room is mine. I definitely booked for this room.” He folded his arms and spaced his feet farther apart.
His firmness proved too much for the stewardess to deal with on her own. She put in a call for the ship’s purser. While they waited for the purser Mortimer nodded for the bearer to put down his bags and paid the man off — not forgetting he had promised himself to lessen the tip.
The ship’s purser appeared, a harried man who carried it well. He heard Mortimer out, then pursed his lips. “May I see your confirmation, sir?”
Smiling gladly but stiffly, mortified that he hadn’t thought of it himself, Mortimer felt his pockets for the telltale bulge. “Of course.” Only now, and fleetingly, did it strike him as strange that no one had asked him before for ticket or boarding pass. But no doubt that had been due to his being, and behaving like, a man who knew where he was going. All other thought, however, fled as his more and more frantic pats paced a more and more rapidly beating heart. “I seem to have lost—”
His mind flashed back to the someone who had brushed against him down on the pier. A pickpocket!
“Look, purser, someone stole my wallet and my ticket. But you should find the name J. Alden Mortimer on your passenger list.”