Eddie made sympathetic noises, although he was as sure as Linda was herself she would not have done anything as drastic as that.
‘We’ve both been through hell,’ he said, ‘but, although this idea isn’t the complete cure, it’ll help. I’ve found a girl who wants a job as a companion. You must persuade Frank that a change now and then will be good for him — a change of company, I mean. Persuade him to hire this girl to come in two or three evenings a week to read to him.’
Linda twisted round, her eyes stormy.
‘Do you call that a good idea?’ she demanded. ‘Where will it get me? Do you think he’ll let me out of his hearing even if he does have a companion?’
Eddie smiled down at her.
‘That’s where you’re kidding yourself, honey,’ he said. ‘You’re forgetting one thing: the guy’s blind. He can’t see how lovely you are, and his interest is going to flag unless you help him to keep the memory green, which, of course, you won’t. Sooner or later he’ll want to hear a new voice, to have someone different around no matter how crazy he is about you at the moment. I’ve talked to this girl. She’s got a good voice, although she’s not much to look at. And, more important still, she has a swell shape. (Not so good as yours, precious, but good enough.) I’ve given her the nudge that she might have to be more than a companion to this guy, but that she’ll be paid well. She didn’t bat an eyelid. I’ll bet you in a while Frank will want to be alone with her. From what you’ve told me about him he won’t be content to sit and listen to a girl reading to him every evening. He’ll want to make a pass at her, and you’ll be in the way. Soon he’ll be suggesting you take a walk, or do a movie or something, and with a lot of persuasion you’ll go.’ He pressed her to him. ‘And you’ll find me waiting right here for you whenever you can get away. Now, don’t interrupt. Let me finish. It’ll take time, but there’s no other way round it. We don’t want this guy Max shoving his oar in. He scares me. I don’t scare easily,’ Eddie added, not wanting her to think he was yellow, ‘but when a guy uses a sticker the way he does, I’m scared and I stay scared. Once we get Frank used to the idea, we can find him any amount of girls to keep him amused. It’ll cost dough, but right now I’m making plenty, and to get you to myself even for a day is worth all the money in the world. In a couple of months, if you play your hand right, don’t let him get near you; snarl and snap at him, he’ll be glad to be rid of you. Then you and me can get out of this burg without Max turning sour. How do you like it?’
Linda turned it over in her mind. She was sufficiently stupid to dislike the idea of setting up a rival in her home. There was a dog-in-the-manger streak in her nature that rebelled against the thought of another woman enjoying the luxuries of the villa, but if she were to escape from Frank this seemed the only logical way, unless...
‘I wish he was dead,’ she said between her teeth. ‘I wish someone would rid me of him for ever.’
‘You can get that idea right out of your pretty little head,’ Eddie said with great firmness. ‘If it wasn’t for Max it might be arranged, but if anything happened to Frank, Max would know who to look for. I’m not taking that risk for you or anyone else.’
And so, reluctantly, Linda agreed to give Eddie’s idea a trial.
Rather to her surprise, the idea worked out exactly as Eddie had predicted.
After a week of carefully preparing the ground, Linda suggested to Frank that he might care to have someone in to read to him, and went on to describe Mary Prentiss (whom she had not as yet seen) in such glowing terms that Frank rose immediately to the bait.
Linda had been irritable and sharp-tempered during the past week, had avoided Frank’s questing hands, snapped and snarled at him along the lines suggested by Eddie, until Frank was growing tired of the sound of her querulous voice. The idea of having someone fresh in the house appealed to him.
Mary Prentiss called the following evening, and Linda made it her business to meet her at the gate so she should have an opportunity of talking with her before she met Frank.
Linda was agreeably surprised when she saw the shabbily dressed figure coming along the narrow beach path. This was no dangerous rival, she consoled herself. If Frank could but see her, tie wouldn’t look at her twice. It amused Linda to know that he was all worked up, imagining his new companion to be as glamorous as herself.
‘The fat fool would get a shock if he could see her,’ she thought spitefully.
Mary Prentiss did manage to look very plain, although her big green eyes were undoubtedly beautiful. But the dowdy clothes, the lack of make-up and the awful hair style seemed to neutralize the effect of her eyes.
Linda was a little puzzled to see how white and haggard she became when she introduced her to Frank. She thought for a moment the girl was going to faint, but she appeared to control herself, and, still puzzled, Linda left them alone together.
She noticed an immediate change in Frank when the girl had gone. He was more cheerful, less trying and openly enthusiastic.
Each evening for the next week Mary Prentiss came after dinner to read to him, and, acting on Eddie’s instructions, Linda was always present. She watched Frank, noted his growing restlessness, his lack of interest in the books Mary Prentiss selected for her reading. The girl was as impersonal as a nurse. Whenever Frank’s groping hand reached out for her, Linda asked him sharply if there was anything he needed, and the hand was quickly withdrawn, and Frank’s fat, sensual face darkened with frustrated disappointment.
A week later Eddie’s prediction came true.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Frank said abruptly one afternoon. ‘You don’t get out enough. It’s not right that you should stay in night after night when I have someone to read to me. Take yourself to a movie tonight. The change will do you good.’
So that night, when the girl who called herself Mary Prentiss came as usual to read to Frank, she found him alone.
‘Isn’t Miss Lee here tonight?’ she asked quietly, as she drew up a chair and selected a book to read.
‘No,’ Frank said, and smiled. ‘I’ve been wanting to be with you for some time — alone. You know why, don’t you?’
‘I think so,’ Mary Prentiss said, and laid down the book.
‘Come here,’ Frank said, his face suddenly congested.
She stood close to his chair and allowed his hand to stray over her. There was a look on her face of intense loathing and horror, but she remained still, with closed eyes and set mouth. It was, to her, as if a filthy, repulsive spider with obscene and hairy legs were crawling over her bare skin.
Then suddenly she drew back out of his reach.
‘Please don’t,’ she said sharply. ‘Not here. I have a code of honour. Not in the same house... I’m thinking of Miss Lee.’
Frank could scarcely believe his ears.
‘What’s she got to do with it?’ he demanded thickly.
‘This is her home,’ Mary Prentiss said in a low voice, and vet her eyes were watching Frank’s face with desperate intentness as if she were trying to read his mind. ‘But at my place...’ She stopped, gave a little sigh.
‘Don’t be a dope,’ Frank said, heaving himself out of his chair. ‘This is my home too. To hell with Linda. What did she ever do for me, except spend my money? Come here. I want you.’
‘No,’ she said firmly; ‘but if you will come with me it would be different. I would have no scruples then, but it is being in this house...’
‘All right,’ Frank said, and laughed. ‘I haven’t been out for a long time. Let’s go. She won’t be back until midnight. Where’s your place?’
‘East Street,’ she told him, her green eyes lighting up. ‘I have a car. It won’t take us long.’
Frank caught hold of her, tried to find her face with his lips, and for a moment she nearly lost control of herself, but she drew away, shuddering, and said, without betraying the sick horror that gripped her, ‘Not yet... soon, but not yet.’