“ ‘Some parcel,’ he said. ‘Where’s the rest of the guy?’ I didn’t answer him. Then he asked me for some morphine. He told me he had a hard time getting any and what he did get was diluted. ‘I haven’t got any extra,’ I told him. ‘Just a quarter grain, not enough for you.’
“The crazy part of it is that if I hadn’t refused to give it to him at first, he would have been suspicious. But because I refused, he said, ‘What do you know about me? That’ll do — for now.’
“He didn’t need it then, he was pretty full of the stuff already. But he couldn’t pass up the chance, you see. They all have that same senseless greed because they know what it’s like to be without it. Anyway he led me around to the alley. It was dark and intensely cold. I put my bag on the ground and opened it. Greeley lit a match and cupped it in his hands, and then we both squatted down beside the bag. Bizarre, isn’t it, and somehow obscene?
“I could tell you it was then that I decided to kill him, but I couldn’t tell you why. There was no one reason, perhaps there never is for a murder. Perhaps I killed him because I was afraid of him, and because he hadn’t long to live and would be better off dead anyway, and because he had betrayed my trust, and because of the very ugliness of the scene itself.
“It was no trick to kill him. He had no way of knowing how much I was giving him. Besides, he kept watching the end of the alley and urging me to hurry up. I prepared the syringe and told him to take off his coat. He said, ‘What the hell, nothing fancy for me,’ and shoved out his arm.
“I gave him two grains. The whole incident didn’t take ten minutes.”
Two grains, ten minutes, the end of Greeley, Sands thought.
“Simple,” he said. “Natural. Practically an accident.”
“I told you that.”
“Sure. Any logical sequence of events ends in murder just as the logical sequel to life is death.”
“Irony doesn’t affect me,” Andrew said. “I was trying to present my story sincerely and honestly. I feel that you are a civilized man and can understand it.”
“It’s easy enough to be civilized in a vacuum. The mouse in an airless bell jar can’t be compared to ordinary mice. In the first place he’s dead.”
“Quite so.”
The doorbell began to ring.
“Your friends are here,” Andrew said politely.
While the policemen were there Andrew remained in his study with the door shut. Overhead, the men worked very quietly, and only by straining his ears could he hear them moving about.
What are they doing up there?
Nothing. Don’t listen.
What have I overlooked?
Nothing. It is all arranged. Poor Edith killed herself in remorse.
Poor Edith, how like Greeley she’d acted after all, both so greedy for a little death and so surprised at getting the real thing.
He didn’t worry about either of them. About Greeley he had no feelings at all, and while he felt sorry for Edith because she had made her own death necessary, he did not wish her back. He had turned a corner in his life. Looking back he could see only the sharp gray angle of a nameless building, and ahead of him the road was a nebula of mist swirling with forms and shapes, faces that were not yet faces, sounds that were not yet sounds. As he walked along the mist would clear. But right now it was frightening. It stung his eyes and muffled his ears and curled down deep into his lungs and made him cough. He could taste it in his mouth, fresh like the snow he had eaten when he was a child.
I don’t feel very well.
Andrew dear, have you been eating Snow?
I don’t feel very well.
The child is Ill. Call the doctor Immediately.
Calling Dr. Morrow. Calling Dr. Morrow. Dr. Morrow is wanted in...
Andrew my Dear. Snow is full of Germs. It may look pretty but it is not to Eat because it is full of Germs. I’ll buy you a microscope for your birthday so you can see for Yourself how many Germs there are Everywhere.
Many many many many Germs. Everywhere.
He became aware, suddenly, that the noises overhead had ceased. The house was empty. Mildred had gone, with the children, Edith was gone, and Lucille — only the maids were left and they must go too. He had to be alone, to think.
He rose painfully. His legs were cramped, he had been sitting too tensely. He must learn not to look back or look ahead. Where, then, could you look? At yourself. Turn your eyes in, like two little dentist’s mirrors, until you saw yourself larger than life, in great detail, each single hair, each pore of skin a new revelation, wondrously crawling with germs.
But the silence, the appalling silence of the man in the mirrors; the brittle limbs, the face mobile but cold like glass...
He crossed the hall, quickly, to escape his own image. He found the maids in the kitchen. They had been quarreling. Della’s eyes were swollen from weeping and Annie’s mouth had a set stubborn look. She didn’t change her expression when she saw Andrew.
“I say we’re leaving,” she said. “I say there’s too much going on around this place that don’t look right.”
“Of course,” Andrew said. “If you feel like that.”
“She don’t want to go. Afraid she won’t get another job. Why, in times like these they get down on their knees and beg you to take a job. She’s too dumb to see that.”
“It’s different with you!” Della cried. “I got to send money home every month!”
“Don’t I got to live too? And am I scared?”
“I’ll give you both a month’s wages,” Andrew said quietly. “You may leave today if you like.”
Della only wept harder, and Annie had to do the talking for both of them. It was real kind of Dr. Morrow, really generous. Not that they couldn’t use the money. Not that they wanted to leave him in the lurch like this. But what future was there in housework?
“What future indeed?” Andrew said. “You may leave at once. I’ll make out your checks.”
They went upstairs and began to pack.
“Remember the emeralds?” Della said wistfully. “What emeralds?”
“You remember. The parcel.”
“Oh, hell,” Annie said and jerked open the closet door savagely. “We’re too old to play games like that. You’re eighteen and you talk like you were ten. Imagine us with an emerald.”
“Maybe — some day we’ll find something. Money or something. Or maybe radium. They say if you find just a little bit of radium you get to be a millionaire.”
“Will you shut up?” Annie banged her fist against a suitcase. “Will — you — shut — up?”
They hadn’t many clothes to pack. Within half an hour they were on Bloor Street waiting for a streetcar, their purses tight beneath their arms. They were still quarreling, but there was a softer look on Annie’s face and now and then she scanned the sidewalk and the gutter. Just in case.
Andrew stood at the door, watching, long after they Were out of sight. They were gone, the last remnants of the old life, and now he must begin his new one. But he felt curiously tired, reluctant to move from the door, as if any movement at all might bring on a new situation, a new series of complications that he would have to deal with. He wanted to see and hear nothing, to feel nothing, to be alone in a vacuum, like the mouse in the bell jar.