101 Mystery Stories

37 Proposal Perilous Morris Hershman

Miss Harriet King of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. U.S.A., in Paris on urgent business, had received her first proposal of marriage from a man she’d known a very short time. She had not clasped her hands together joyfully, accepted him on the spot, or done any of the million things a young girl would have done.

Miss King was not a young girl. Though her friends valiantly insisted that you’d never think it to look at her, Miss King was fifty-three years of age.

Her first proposal! Even now, as her patent-leather oxfords thudded harshly on the sidewalk of a typical Parisian boulevard, she experienced the same chill of doubt she’d had when he asked her. She realized once more that she would have to tell him — inside of an hour now, for the decision had been promised today — that she was fond of Henri (dearest Henri) but she had thought it over carefully and decided not to marry him.

If she’d been twenty-three instead of fifty-three, Miss King’s decision would have been the same. After all, she wasn’t tied down. In what she sometimes thought of as her shockingly restricted circle, not one marriage that she knew of had turned out quite well for both the man and the woman involved.

As she grew older, the idea of losing her freedom and going to the bed of a virtual stranger appalled her. She ought to have known somehow that a man like Henri wouldn’t feel the same way she did about marriage, but the proposal had taken her completely unawares.

“Give me a little time.” she had pleaded, running her hands through her hair in desperation.

“Ma petite ’arriette, when?”

“A week. Henry. You’ll know in a week.”

Even though it was now October of 1915. and things were not shaping up too well for France and her chief ally, England, Miss King had come to Paris because she was afraid not of the Germans but of her conscience. An elderly aunt of hers who’d never cared much for Harriet during her lifetime had requested in her will that “my beloved niece, Harriet” come to France “in order to act as one of my executors.”

When the old woman passed away in the early part of July, Harriet had spoken to her brother about going. Aided by innumerable aunts and uncles, they all talked it over among themselves and decided for her that if she, Harriet, did refuse to go, she’d always regret the injustice to a dearly loved relative. Harriet, therefore, booked passage on the first available liner.

And she had met Henri. He was a dealer in used furniture, which he was buying on speculation. He claimed that the price of used furniture would skyrocket just as soon as the war was over, next year perhaps, because the factories, geared as they were to munitions making, would find it long and costly to convert to peacetime production.

Short and stout, with large black eyebrows and a fine beard which he industriously pomaded three times a week, Henri conformed in every way to the average tourist’s conception of the petit bourgeois. He had an economical turn of mind as well and he’d once shown her a pocket-sized memorandum book in which he noted his daily expenses in a handwriting so small that his words fitted comfortably between the ruled lines.

And in a few short days, Henri had proposed.

“So far as money is concerned, ma petite, I have the business, which even now is bringing me a substantial income. There are no children from previous marriages to arouse antagonism on one side or the other. God be thanked, there are no in-laws! Since we are both middle-aged people, you will not have to endure the chasing around after young girls on my part. At this time I want most of all a devoted helpmate.”

He had a charming villa out of town where they could live together. From the enthusiastic descriptions he gave, Miss King would have had no difficulty in finding her way through the house and garden with her eyes closed.

And she was going to refuse him. Though she might never have another chance at a husband, she was going to refuse him...

Usually, Miss King traveled with a Baedeker in her pocketbook and noted her surroundings carefully, as if she expected to come across a stray monument on the very next block. She was indefatigable. Nothing daunted her. Having paid out good money for a trip, Miss King didn’t want the time to be wasted. But the problem of what exact words to use in telling Henri of her decision preyed on her mind to such an extent that she’d hardly seen where she was going.

Turning off the boulevard into a pitch-black side street, however, Miss King became aware of her surroundings for the first time. With the night everything had taken on a brownish tinge along the narrow thoroughfare, so that walking on it was like walking in a bottle of beer.

Her eyes rested casually on a shop window in front of which a group of small boys crouched, playing marbles, and halted apprehensively before a row of semi-private houses.

She wished she knew in which one of those houses Henri lodged. He’d written the number down for her on the back of an envelope, nearly forgetting it himself because he stayed there so infrequently when he came to Paris; and she had put it away somewhere and promptly lost it. The house was on this street, beyond question — but was it Number 51 or 67 that Miss King wanted?

She had just made up her mind to ask the concierge of each house when she saw Henri himself peering out anxiously from an upstairs window. He caught sight of her in a moment. He waved boyishly, his head vanished and the window was closed after him.

The house she’d been looking for, Number 67, was no better and no worse than any of the others. A thin, T-shaped gravel path bisected a small garden that obviously hadn’t been cared for in years, but the house itself had been repainted a few months ago and it looked comfortable.

Once inside, Miss King walked up a flight of stairs and knocked at his door.

Henri had dressed rapidly and was in a state of high excitement as he welcomed her with bows and apologies. “You insist upon coming to see this room. Voila! I ’ope you are not too disappointed.”

“I’m not at all disappointed,” she answered in French. Next to the uncurtained window she had seen downstairs, Miss King was confronted with a large mahogany chest of drawers. At her right was an old-fashioned four-poster bed, at her left a gramophone and a small table piled with magazines. Stiff-backed chairs had been placed in every corner and Miss King sat down on the nearest one. Henri sat down with a flourish. “I am charmed by it all, Monsieur—”

“I should like you to call me Henri,” he interposed.

There was a silence. Henri leaned forward attentively.

“Henri, I have considered your proposal” — half-forgotten words Miss King had not even thought of since the turn of the century came back to her — “and while I am deeply sensible of the honor, I am unable to—”

His eyes widened. “Voyons, ma petite ’arriette—”

“It would never work out, Henri. The whole arrangement is impossible. You and I belong to different worlds. You have a business here and your friends and your home. Everything I have is in America.”

He nodded.

“Don’t forget that I am fifty-three years old, Henri, and a creature of habit. I don’t really want to give up those habits. A great many things that I’m used to I couldn’t possibly give up for any man. You see, it’s not as if we could either of us go ahead and sacrifice all for love.”

“But why not?” he pleaded. “I am willing to.”

She interrupted him again. “Take into consideration the fact that France is at war now, Henri. The Germans may conceivably enter Paris at any time, tomorrow or the day after. My family will be worried to death about me.”

“Your family?”

“My brothers, Henri. I live with them and they have control of my income, small though it is. For sentimental reasons alone, I wouldn’t want to be married without their approval.”

“I had not realized,” he said after a pause, “that it would be so difficult.”

They gazed at each other for a moment.

“Perhaps I had better go now,” said Miss King, when she felt that the silence was becoming intolerable. She was a little shocked to hear him agree.

“I do not see why we have to prolong it myself.” Sighing audibly, he pushed back his chair and stood up. “Too, my concierge is a very inquisitive woman.”

He went to the door with her. Miss King reflected that he would probably never know just how eased she was by his calm acceptance of the news. She was a little tired, too, since it was all over and done with.

Framed in the doorway at the head of the stairs, it occurred to Miss King that she would remember this day as long as she remembered anything. In a weary or disgruntled state of mind, she would tell herself that it was no more than she deserved. Why didn’t you stay in France with Henri? He loved you. He wanted you. As long as she remembered anything she would remember this.

If there had been someone for her to talk it over with — if they’d both been younger! Fifty-three — fifty-three.

Henri took her hand, kissing it gravely.

“Shall we go downstairs together?”

“Thank you, but it’s only one flight.”

“There’s no reason for me to inquire” — he was obviously holding his breath — “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind?”

“No.”

“Then we have only to say good-bye and it is over.”

“Good-bye, Henri. I’ll always remember you.”

A door opened somewhere on the ground level and the inquisitive concierge Henri had complained of peered up the badly lighted staircase at them, their arms akimbo.

Very formally Henri said, “Good-bye, Mademoiselle King.”

Very formally she echoed, “Good-bye — good-bye, Monsieur Landru.”...

Some five years later, in a wide rambling stone cottage on the outskirts of Philadelphia, Miss Harriet King sat frowning distractedly at her needlework.

At precisely three-fifteen the door opened. One of her brothers came in, holding a rumpled newspaper under his arm. Laying aside what she earnestly hoped to make a scarf out of in less than a week, Miss King glanced at the headlines. The black print stared at her.

She drew in her breath sharply. For a moment, the newspaper crinkled and shuddered in her trembling hands. She remembered suddenly the vital importance of controlling herself and made a tight little ball of her fingers.

She heard her brother’s voice coming from a great distance. “Can you imagine it, Harriet?” His voice seemed to drip with pure scorn. “This Landru used to many friendless women and kill ’em for whatever they had.”

“It’s terrible,” Miss King said, hardly recognizing her own voice, so aged and coarse was it. “Simply terrible.”

“You were on the other side a few years back, as I recall.” Her brother cleared his throat embarrassedly. “Could have run into him for all you know. It’s fortunate that you had — ahem! — the family to get home to — hm! Yes. I hate to think what might have happened otherwise.”

When her brother had left, closing the door behind him with an ear splitting thud. Harriet King stared at the newspaper for a long time.

She picked up her needlework again. He loved you— He wanted you.

“I wonder,” she thought, looking down with bitter resentment at the clacking needles in her hand. “I wonder just how fortunate I’ve been.”