“Where you going?”
There was a noise from her throat, but no word.
“Nowhere,” he said; and, apparently satisfied that the command was sufficient, he stooped to pick up the two bundles of bills and lay them on the platform. Seeing the knife there under the cougar, he picked that up too and held it in his hand, not as one arming himself but rather, automatically, as a man who doesn’t like to see tools thrown around. He faced her again. “Who sent you here?”
She shook her head. “Nobody.” Her voice was a croak in her ears. “I came alone. When I was climbing in a man saw me—”
“I know he did. I heard him, from upstairs. I heard you, too. I was behind the moosehide when you came in here. I wanted to see — but you acted too quick before I could stop you.” He glanced at the platform. “I know why you did that. The way you saw me looking at it the other day. You’ve got a brain like mine, you don’t miss things. You remembered how I looked at it that day, didn’t you?”
She nodded without knowing it.
He nodded back. “Sure you did. I know how your brain works. I was afraid it might. Since Toale came to me yesterday and showed me the bill he had that I gave him Easter time, and I was afraid the one I gave you for your birthday was the same kind, and if you looked at it you would know because Toale had told you. I was afraid your brain would work that way, but I didn’t move the money because I knew if you had that bill I knew you would find out some day and I didn’t want to wait for it. I didn’t want it to be like it was with your mother, when I knew she knew, but I didn’t know how and I didn’t know how much—”
Delia gasped, “Mother knew?”
“Sure she did. Toale told her.” A spasm went over Quinby Pellett’s face and left it distorted. “He didn’t believe in the vengeance of man. He wanted to drive vengeance from her heart, and he wanted her to persuade me to repent to God. What he did was drive her to suicide. She wouldn’t — she couldn’t tell me about it. He told me yesterday, and showed me that bill, because he knew I had killed Jackson, too.”
Delia wanted to tell him to stop talking. She felt her knees giving. The edge of the platform was there and she sank, sitting on it. “Oh, don’t!” she pleaded.
“Don’t what, don’t talk?” Pellett demanded with sudden ferocity. He gestured with the knife. “Godamighty, Del, I’ve got to talk, to you. It’s you I’ve got to talk to. Because it was an awful thing I did, but I didn’t mean to. Of course I didn’t have it worked out to use your gun until after I took it away from that fellow that stole it from your car. Then I saw how good it would be to do that. I put the handbag with the gun in it under the seat of my car before I went in there and went up the stairs and got a piece of ore from the bin and hit myself with it. Later I found there were no cartridges, but my own gun’s a .38 and I had some. That night I thought it would be good to leave the gun there and the handbag on the desk, because I supposed naturally you’d be with Clara and maybe other people and your alibi would keep you out of it, and it would be good for me because everybody would know that I never in God’s world would frame you. Then you went right there to the office and Hurley found you there. That was terrible. That made me feel worse than anything. Except...” The spasm distorted his face again. “Except your mother,” he said.
Delia couldn’t look at him. Her eyes gazed straight, at their own level as she sat, at the long-bladed knife in his hand.
“Except for your mother,” he said harshly, “I’ve never repented, Del. I want to be honest with you. I’ve never repented about your father. You’ll hate me now. I hated him. He was full of life and full of success. Then that talk started about him and Amy Jackson. I didn’t know then how much was behind it and I don’t know now and I don’t give a damn. When I asked your mother she wouldn’t discuss it. A man has no right to live so there can be such talk. My own sister wouldn’t discuss it with me. I put it to him, to his face, and he laughed at me. He always did laugh at me. I was his brother-in-law, and he’d let me have a little money now and then because I couldn’t make a go of this taxidermy business, but what he really thought, he regarded me as a bum. You know he did.”
He gestured at her. “Another thing you’ve got to understand, Del. About the money. I wanted that money and I got it, but I didn’t want it for myself. The day would come, I knew it would, when your mother would have hers used up, and then I would help her, and you and Clara too. Her poor bum of a brother would help her. I could do that when the time came without being suspected, because my business was better and I could pretend it was a lot better than it was. That was all in my head, about the money, before I ever went there to the cabin to wait for him—”
“Please!” Delia begged. “Please don’t—”
He nodded. “I know. Now you hate me. Sure you do. But I had to tell you them two things, that I never would have framed you, never in God’s world, and I didn’t take that money just for myself. I used to think it would be a fine thing some day, that money, for your mother and you girls and me... and then she... then she knew and I knew she did but I didn’t know how... she... my own sister that I really did it for...”
His words gave out. Delia had none. She was benumbed; her nerves were dead and her blood cold. She would hate him, of course, but hate is life and she was not alive; her only feeling was a dull overpowering revulsion to the sight and sound of him. She would get up and go; but she could not move. Could she lift her eyes to look at his face? Yes; she must first see his face...
But before she could achieve that he spoke again, in a new and different tone: “Now you’ve fixed it, ripping that cat open. I might have known you would.” He was scolding a child. “I should have stopped you when you came in here, but I wanted to see. Godamighty, look at it. It’s dangerous. You’d better go upstairs and wait. I don’t want you to see where I put it.”
Her eyes had reached his face and she was gaping at him.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded.
She shook her head.
He gestured impatiently with the hand that held the knife. “Go on upstairs. I’ll be up pretty soon. It’s dangerous as hell. That stuff scattered around.”
She shook her head again.
“Go on now.” He sounded petulant. “For one thing I’ve got to explain to you some more, and for another thing if you go home right now you’ll be apt to blurt it out to Clara, and that’s one of the things I want to explain, why you’re not to tell Clara. There’s no reason for her to know about it. I’ve got to explain — I’ve got to be sure you realize that I’d rather have cut off my arm than to seem to be framing you or letting you in for any trouble. Godamighty, Del, it’s bad enough as it is—”
He whirled like lightning and stood tense.
The sounds of steps on the wooden stoop in front had been faint, but now the turning of the knob was louder, and the pounding on the door that followed immediately shattered the silence.
Quinby Pellett glanced at Delia to instruct her in a low tone of urgent menacing command, “Quiet!”
She nodded, and he seemed satisfied, for he faced toward the door again and stood rigid. The pounding was repeated, rattling the old wooden panels, and through them a shout came: “Del! Del, it’s Ty! Del!”
It is conceivable that even to that appeal Delia would have been silent. But Quinby Pellett made a mistake; he mistrusted the depth and force of her disinclination to become an instrument of the vengeance of man — she who only three days ago had bought a box of cartridges to commit murder with — or, more simply, he was overcome by fear. He started for her and she saw his face; and it was no longer the face of an uncle trying to convince his niece of his regret at having unwittingly let her in for trouble; it was the face of the malign and ruthless monster who had murdered Charlie Brand and Dan Jackson and Rufus Toale.