Jimmie had stood more than enough.
He had led his sister on by a quietness that had suggested subjugation. He had wanted to see how far and how deep her malice would go. Now that he knew, his rage was explicit. He had to stop Sarah, at any cost. Any. That was the one fact upon which he must act.
Audrey had put her whole life in his hands—against his will and without his knowledge—but he had accepted the trust by the mere retention of the diaries. He could have sent them back. He had not sent them back.
Sarah had read them—or some of them. Black-haired, blue, blistering-eyed Sarah.
And Sarah was going to use her stolen information as a bludgeon, a dagger, an eternal wellspring of power and black laughter. That was her scheme. To be so willing, so eager to torture, she must have been tortured herself, first. Jimmie did not know by whom or by what—and there was no time to find out. Sarah was dangerous as she sat there—crouched, almost—in front of him. The danger had to be met.
“I couldn’t persuade you,” Jimmie said, after a moment, and not looking at his sister, “that what you intend to do is pretty scurvy? It’s blackmail, you know. Besides, how can I tell that you won’t do what other blackmailers have done? How can I tell that you won’t, someday, just hint to Audrey, say—or Audrey’s mother—that you know all about these diaries? How can I be sure that you won’t go on clubbing people to gain small advantages for yourself?”
Sarah said, “You’re really weak, aren’t you, Jimmie? You can’t tell what I’m going to do! That’s your misfortune. All you can be sure of is—that you’ve got to knuckle under.”
“You wouldn’t do the decent thing? I mean, just forget you ever saw those books?
Erase it from your mind? Lock it all up? Never mention it to anybody? Never show a trace of the effect of what you have found out? You couldn’t feel ashamed you read ’em and do the sporting thing of—skipping it?”
“I suppose you would,” she said acidly.
“I think so. And I think you will, Sarah.”
She laughed shortly. “You do? Why?”
“Because I say so.”
She laughed again. “You say so and I just—obey. Is that it?”
“Yes. That’s it.” Jimmie stood up. He was pale again. He towered over his sister.
His lean shoulders stooped down. His eyes looked into hers. “You’re eighteen. You’re adult. I’m not going to lecture you about right and wrong, good and evil. Maybe you wouldn’t understand if I did. But you do seem to understand power and violence. So I’m just going to threaten you, Sarah. By threaten, I mean I am going to make a holy pledge to you that I’d follow to the end of time, at any cost and at all costs. My pledge is about you—in the event that you ever do in any way use the knowledge you now have.”
Sarah did not like what she saw in his eyes—a shadow, a gleam, roving together behind the steady pupils, implacable as death. Nevertheless, she managed to laugh again.
“You can’t scare me, Jimmie. Not now you can’t, and you know it!”
“I can scare you,” he answered. He took hold of her arm, halfway between her wrist and her elbow. She tried to twist away. His fingers came down like machinery. She gasped and bit her lip. He relaxed his grip and went on. “I am going to scare you now, Sarah, and you will stay scared—because you are going to know what I mean—and you are going to know that I am not bluffing. I have learned, by watching others learn, that nothing matters in this life except integrity. In this case, we can call it honor. That is the one precious thing. My work—what I am trying to do—is very important to the honor of the world. It is not any more important, however, than my own integrity to myself. That, in fact, comes first, because everything else in the world is founded on it.”
“Let go! You said you weren’t going to lecture me! You’re hurting!”
“I’ve seen a great many people die, Sarah. People of all ages. They died haphazardly—but all of them in the line of maintaining honor. In the same cause I am no longer afraid to take the same punishment—and I am not afraid to dish it out. Do you understand that?”
The girl blanched. “Jimmie! That’s insane! Let—go!”
“Have you forgotten you read those diaries, Sarah?”
She writhed and tugged. “Let go! You’ll make marks on me! Just because you can torture me this minute, doesn’t help you. When you let go, I’ll do it sooner—and worse!”
He forced her to her feet and pushed her back on the bed. She tried, suddenly, to rake his face. He slapped her with his free hand. Sarah shuddered but she did not cry. He held her on the edge of the bed; his fingers grew tighter and tighter, slowly, while he talked. “You have just made a perfect, small-scale example of the hideous thing that has come alive all over the world, Sarah. The corrupt use of force. And I can see what must be done to crush it. I can see now why decent people so passionately detested to take the step. And you will have to see that I have learned how to take it. I am ashamed of us all, that this is necessary.” He paused. His voice was solemn. “Sarah, if you breathe a word of this business, I will kill you.”
She began losing her nerve. She forgot the pain in her arm. She met his eye with unstable hostility. “You’d be hung for it!”
He shook his head slowly. “I’m a chemist, Sarah. In the business of killing. I could kill you any time, anywhere, a hundred ways—painfully or quickly—and no one could find me for it. I want you to know that I will do this. And I want you to know, also, that I would not hesitate, even if I knew I’d hang.”
Her chin sagged. “I believe—you would!” she whispered.
“For the purpose of spreading ruin, you’ll have to agree to die. Do you want to?”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Be very sure. It might be worth it. Is it?”
“You’re insane!”
“Maybe. I’m telling you what will happen.”
“All right.”
“Quit?”
“Yes, Jimmie.” Her chest heaved. Her voice was hoarse.
“You won’t forget?”
“No.”
“Or make a slip?”
“No. My arm is—pulp.”
He let go of her. She sat still, rubbing the place where he had held her. Her breathing was repressed, stertorous. Her pompadour had come apart and tumbled. A wetness that did not run as tears blurred the blue-black make-up around her eyes. Jimmie began to collect the diaries that lay around her on the bed. He stacked them neatly and in order—unconsciously noting the years imprinted on the back of each book.
Sarah began a hollow-voiced monologue. “It’ll be very strange, knowing we have a murderer in the house-a potential one, anyway! Maybe I can’t talk, but I will think! You won’t stop that! I’ve always been beaten. I should have known you’d beat me again. I was entitled to one moment of the upper hand—one little season when I had my say and my way in this town. But I don’t get that, now. I don’t get that! I don’t get even that.” Her lip quivered. Jimmie was facing the closed door, stuffing the books under his arm. “If I had gone away with Harry, when he wanted me to, and told them all to go to hell, I wouldn’t be in this prison now!”
She said, “My arm hurts.” She threw herself down sideways on the bed and commenced to sob.
Jimmie whirled around. “Who’s Harry?”
“Never you mind,” she answered brokenly.
“Why didn’t you go away with Harry—if you felt like it?”
“People don’t go away with clarinet players. Not people like us.”
“Where’s Harry now?”