Time to Die by Hilda Lawrence

Author:Hilda Lawrence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Courier Publishing
Published: 2018-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT was one o’clock in the morning when Mark took a cab to his apartment. The streets were noisy and crowded and the air was exactly as he knew it would be, stifling, odorous, and unquestionably poisonous. He filled his lungs happily and felt suddenly fit. At two o’clock he was in his own bed, lulled to sleep by the benevolent murmur of an electric fan.

Up at the Mountain House Perley Wilcox was wide awake. He had started the evening at ten o’clock, on the Beachams’ front porch; at eleven he had made a faltering entrance into Roberta’s room. They had made things very easy for him. No questions and many expressions of gratitude. He had met gratitude on all sides; he’d been feted like a visiting angel sent to save all skins and souls. At first he’d tried to keep a list of those who offered the most insistent courtesies, but he’d had to give that up. He didn’t even know who some of the people were.

The Pecks he knew; they were the gin, with an invitation to poker. And the Suttons had sent George over to ask if he wanted some light reading. Miss Cora Sheffield had appropriated the top step, when he was on the bottom, and hitched her chiffons to her knees because it was hot and he was an old married man who didn’t count; she sang “My Old Kentucky Home.” Mr. Kirby had offered to lend a sword stick which he said was Sicilian. He flashed it in the moonlight.

By this time an uneasy suspicion had entered Perley’s mind. He began to be afraid that they were glad to be rid of Mark and were secretly delighted with the substitute. Then he began to worry about the hours ahead.

This impression grew when Amos arrived, deliberately dressed in his most disreputable clothes, and was welcomed like an ambassador by the night clerk. A comfortable chair was set aside in the lobby for Mr. Partridge, with a reading lamp and the latest magazines. Cigars were brought out. Extra cushions were heaped in a veranda swing in case Mr. Partridge wanted the air. Perley, momentarily strayed from his own beat, watched all this and felt his heart sink. When Miss Rayner laid a delicate hand on Amos’s oil-stained sleeve and offered to sit up with him, and two perfect strangers tried to give him a flask, Perley went back to the Beacham cottage and locked himself in the bathroom. The flask from the strangers was too much. He didn’t know it then, but they were more frightened than he was. They were people calling themselves Foote on the third, not married.

He brushed his teeth for the second time that night and in a voice calculated to reach beyond closed doors announced that he was going to bed. The girls had already gone; it was eleven-thirty and Beacham was at the Peck cottage. He locked the door to his room, was immediately ashamed of himself, and unlocked it.

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