Dime Mystery Magazine January 1946 by Keene Day & Fischer Bruno & Plunkett Cyril & Marvin Tom & Powell Talmage & Cox William R

Author:Keene, Day & Fischer, Bruno & Plunkett, Cyril & Marvin, Tom & Powell, Talmage & Cox, William R.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Dime Mystery Magazine
Published: 1946-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Drink to the Dead!

By Tom Marvin

Deep down, little Judy Carew knew she shouldn’t really be frightened, for Lew, her husband, was the best shot on the Force…But that was before Mrs. Pallow called, bringing the strange wine that did not cheer, and the glib reassurances that only brought Judy a new and starker terror…

“It is my duty to tell you,” she said, “because your husband is going to die soon…”

As soon as the door closed behind Lew and she heard him bound down the apartment stairs, she went out on the back porch and collected her basketful of empty bottles. In the blackness she felt the sting of sleety snow on her face; across the dark block she heard Holy Angels’ chimes striking ten o’clock. Now and then the gusty wind blew a note away from her hearing, leaving the even measure of the chimes interrupted, like a row of teeth with gaping holes.

Shivering, she thought: another night that I’ll sleep in my clothes.

The moaning wind shortened her breath. She stepped back into the kitchen, bent over the weight of the basketful of bottles. She closed the squeaking door, and bolted it. For a moment she stood holding the bottles and looking down the long hall of the apartment.

Every light in the six rooms blazed, yet she was terrified by this home to which she had come as a bride three days before.

Why did they take this dreadful place?

But, of course, she knew why they had taken it. They were lucky to get any apartment at all. It was either this home or none.

She carried the basket to the door of her bedroom, waddling a little with its weight. There were empty milk bottles, ginger ale bottles, three of Lew’s beer bottles. She set them in a row, shoulder to shoulder, across the threshold of her room. Anyone who came into it at night would kick them over. What would she do then?

In the apartment above she heard the crippled man’s cane. He crossed the floor, dragging his useless leg, with a dreary rhythm. She had seen him once or twice in the hall, a stooped man, taciturn, always well dressed, with a certain attractiveness about him.

He lived alone. His name was Mr. Bone, and Lew, who obviously liked him on sight, said he had a face like the buffalo on a nickel, heavy and bearded and perpetually looking at the floor. She was not really afraid of the crippled man, but his cane drove her frantic. Sometimes at night, Mr. Bone would come down the hall stairs and his cane would miss a step and strike her door.

She set the alarm clock for seven which would give her time to arouse and return the bottles to the porch before Lew got home from work. How Lew would tease her if he knew. “Little country wren, afraid of the city.”

Drawing the shades, she thought: It’s ridiculous to be afraid of nothing. I’ll go to sleep!

She took Lew’s spare pistol from the drawer and set it on the dresser.

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