Several minutes passed and Ambrose had rung the bell again before it finally opened. A bleached blonde of about thirty-five in a housecoat peered out.
“Ah, Mrs. Dobbs,” Ambrose said with a formal bow which nearly threw him off balance before he managed to right himself. “This is my partner, Sam Willard.”
She barely glanced at me. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”
“Reporting mission accomplished. We have the evidence in the car.”
She came out on the porch and looked from me to Ambrose. “That’s impossible.”
“Look in the back of our car,” Ambrose said, making a grand gesture in that direction.
“What are you talking about?” she asked crossly. “Everett phoned me from the club. He loaned his car to Herman and stayed there all night.”
She went down the steps and peered into the back seat. Her eyes grew saucer size.
“Herman!” she said. “What’s the matter with him?” We had followed her down the steps.
Ambrose said, “Herman?”
She swung on him. “That’s Everett’s younger brother, you fool! The man I intend to marry. What have you done to him?”
One thing about Ambrose: even snookered to the eyebrows he could always think on his feet. He said soothingly, “He’s merely drunk, madam. We’ll see that he gets home safely. Sorry we erred. He was getting into your husband’s car and he said his name was Dobbs, so naturally we assumed he was your husband.”
“Why did you bring him here anyway?” she snapped.
Ambrose was still thinking on his feet. He said, “We meant to undress him, put on his swim trunks and drown him in the pool.”
“Shut up!” she hissed. “Herman doesn’t know anything about my plans! Or at least he didn’t.”
“He can’t hear you,” Ambrose assured her. “He’s passed out.”
He gave her another formal bow, rounded the car and slid under the wheel. I scrambled in next to him. Ambrose backed the car, turned and drove back down the driveway. Gazing back, I saw Cornelia Dobbs still glaring after us.
Ambrose pulled over to the curb as soon as we hit the street, cut the engine and lights.
“What now, genius?” I asked.
“We wait until her lights go out again.”
All but the night light went out a few minutes later. “Okay,” Ambrose said. “Lift him out.”
I got out, reached in back and lifted the stiff body into my arms. Ambrose led the way up the driveway and over to the swimming pool. There were a couple of canvas lawn chairs next to it. Ambrose had me set Herman Dobbs in one.
He had brought along the Scotch bottle. He stood contemplating Herman Dobbs’ frozen smile for a moment, then poured the outstretched glass half-full.
“Cheers,” he said gloomily. “Now let’s get the hell out of here, pack our stuff and head south.”
He’ll Kill You
Originally published in Detective Tales, November 1950.
I said, “I think I’d better report Ellen missing tomorrow. If we wait any longer, the police may think it strange.”
Margot’s freckled face spread in the grin I had grown to love. She always laughed when I mentioned Ellen, and while I loved the sound of her deep, good-humored laughter, her jollity on this subject upset me. I suppose humor was the sanest attitude toward Ellen’s departure, and I for one certainly felt no regrets, but somehow Margot’s laughter indicated a lack of delicacy I would not have expected from her.
It was the laughter and the wide, unaffected grin that first drew me to Margot. When we moved to Bradford, the faculty house assigned us was next door to hers, and my study window looked directly into the broad windows of Margot’s sun room, where she kept her phone. She was fond of phone gossip, and often I would see her there, her sun-freckled face animated with laughter, and one lean, strong hand making wide gestures as she talked. When she phoned Ellen I particularly enjoyed watching her, for in the hall I could hear Ellen’s part of the conversation, and from Ellen’s words and Margot’s gestures, sometimes piece together what Margot was saying.
Almost from the first we were attracted to each other — as early as the faculty tea given in my honor as the new head of the English Department. Miss Rottell, the dean of women, introduced us, saying in her precise, inhibited drawl, “Professor Brandt, Miss Margot Spring. She’s Music,” and moving away to leave us together.
I remember bowling formally and saying, “An appropriate name, my dear. You have the look about you of nature’s fairest season.”
She laughed. “Why, Professor! I do believe you’re a romantic.”
It started as simply as that, and grew as the months passed into a deep but quiet love. Oh, on the surface we were merely good-natured friends, for in a college town gossip can be fatal to careers, and Margot chose to accept my compliments as laugh-provoking jokes, even when no one was nearby to hear. I too was meticulously careful to arouse no comment. Not once did I even so much as kiss her on the cheek, restraining my physical love-making to an occasional accidental touch — my fingers brushing against her hair when I held her coat as she prepared to leave after a visit with Ellen, or lightly managing to touch her hand as I passed her a cup at a faculty tea.
But the depth of understanding that springs from mature love made my innocent words and gestures as meaningful to Margot as though I held her in my arms, just as her apparently joking replies had a meaning for me that a less perceptive nature might have missed entirely. As a matter of fact, it was best that no one aside from me understood her subtlety, for she had a breathtaking flair for danger and seemed to love making me shudder at the risks she took. She had a trick of brazenly stating her true thoughts as though they were rather clumsy jokes, such as the time she lightly remarked to Ellen, when Ellen first began to plan her visit home, “You better hurry back again, or you may find I’ve stolen your romantic husband.” But Ellen only laughed, and I pretended Margot’s remark was a great joke.
I waited until two days prior to Ellen’s scheduled departure before even mentioning what opportunities her absence would leave us, and even then I brought it up to Margot casually. But she surprised me with the blunt frankness of her reply.
“It’s too bad Ellen means to stay only two weeks,” I remarked.
“Ask her to stay a month,” Margot said. “I’m sure if you explained you wanted to elope with your next-door neighbor, Ellen would be glad to cooperate.”
Margot’s habit of affixing a completely fantastic suggestion to a sensible statement was another twist her odd sense of humor sometimes took, and I knew of course she had no expectation of my explaining any such thing to Ellen.
I asked, “Would you like it if she stayed away permanently?”
“You mean bury her body in the cellar?” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Is there enough insurance to finance our honeymoon?”
I said patiently, “I meant ask her to get a divorce.”
“And have a campus scandal?” Somehow she managed to grin and look horrified at the same time. “No, Theodore. The safest way is the cellar.” She closed one eye and made a cutting motion across her throat.
I said, “I’ve never even killed a chicken.”
“There’s nothing to it,” Margot said. “Read the papers. Husbands do it all the time. I’ll phone Ellen tonight and ask her to stand still.”
“Now please don’t make clever comments to Ellen,” I told her. “I know Ellen misses the double meaning of your jokes, but it’s an unnecessary risk.”