100 Malicious Little Mysteries

Meet Mr. Murder by Morris Hershman

Roy Worth said, “That’s a lot of nonsense! Do you expect your own husband to believe in the supernatural?”

“It’s true.” Edie Worth put a hand to her heart, as usual when her judgment was disputed. “The man stood in front of Dr. Arbuckle’s house all night, and on the next day he died.”

“Arbuckle was sick. He’d had a heart condition for years. Sooner or later he was sure to die, only sooner in his case. So was that old Mrs. Gulp, who suffered from an aortic aneurism.”

“But he stood in front of the house.”

“You mean the man called Gray because he always wears gray. All you know about him is that when he stands in front of a house somebody in it dies very soon.”

“Yes, and you know where that man is right now.”

Roy pushed back his chair from the kitchen table and stood up. “I could understand your getting excited about it if we lived in Africa, for instance, but this sort of thing doesn’t happen in Lakevale.”

“Look outside,” Edie suddenly whispered, both hands around her heart area. “You know how sick I am. Don’t argue with me, Roy. Just look.”

He walked over to the window. A man stood across the road, facing them. The swiss-cheese colored full moon lighted him so that it was possible to see him leaning against a pole with his legs crossed. He wore a gray topcoat, a gray pair of pants, and a hat to match,

“Do you want me to call the police? He’s loitering, after all, and I suppose he can be arrested for that.”

“Go see Hugo Bradford,” she insisted. “He’s on the police force. Maybe he’ll know what has to be done.”

“It’s late at night to be disturbing neighbors.”

“Please,” she said in a choked voice.

Roy glanced angrily at his wife, noticing how much her figure had run to fat. The once lovely bosom had started to sag, the legs had become much thicker, and nobody could have called her face a youthful one any longer.

He shrugged and strode over to the phone.

She said quickly, “Hugo only lives across the street, Roy. I don’t want the whole town to know about this.”

Glumly he nodded. She wouldn’t quit pestering him, he knew. He had been married to her for twelve years.

“I’ll be all right here,” Edie said. “And please go out the back way so he won’t see you.”

“I’m going out the front way. It’s my house and I can do that much if I—”

She said hoarsely, “My medicine, Roy. I need my medicine.”

“You always do need it when I want to do one thing and you want me to do another.”

But he brought it all the same, along with a teaspoon and a half-filled water glass. Edie swallowed an orange pill from the bottle and settled back.

He went to the closet and put on his coat, jacket, and fur-lined gloves. He was still muttering about a heart condition being used by some patients to get their own way as he walked out the back door. Wind made his skin tingle.

Roy’s jaw jutted out when he passed in front of the man called Gray, having changed his route on purpose; Gray didn’t look to the right or left. The Bradford doorbell was answered by Hugo Bradford himself, who invited Roy to the living room for a drink. Bradford was a tall, muscular man who’d been decorated for bravery during the Korean war and was now a police sergeant.

“I can guess why you’re here,” Bradford said, “and I advise you and your wife to take no notice of the man and help smash his racket.”

“Racket?”

“Gray has established himself as sort of a harbinger of doom. What he now does is determine who in town is sick and phones the head of the house at work, if at all possible, and asks for two thousand dollars to stay away. You’d be surprised how many people pay up.”

“Well, he’s varying his method with us,” Roy said promptly. “He just appeared and that’s all.”

“Maybe you’ll get a phone call tomorrow, when your wife is more thoroughly scared,” Bradford said. “I’ll call the boys to take him away, but it’ll bring you some publicity, heaven knows. And he’ll only come back when he gets out of jail.

“There’s really nothing that can be done. No one wants to testify against him. We only heard about his real racket by accident. One of his victims has a nephew who’s a stenographer at the courthouse.”

“You’d better have him taken away,” Roy decided. “For Edie’s sake. She really does have a heart condition, you know.”

“Okay,” Bradford said. “We’ll try to scare him out of town, but it won’t work with anybody like that guy, you know. He’ll come back and take up his stand where he left it.”

“I’m tired of being pushed around by him or by — well, never mind. Good night, Hugo. Give my best to Miranda and the kids.”

Roy was muttering under his breath when he left Bradford’s house. He wondered if it would settle Edie’s mind to tell her the truth. Probably not. She had decided on what she wanted and was too stubborn about having anything but her way.

Roy walked to the curb till he was directly in front of the man Gray. It only took a minute. As he passed by he said: “You wasted those phone calls you made to me, buddy, so do the worst to my wife that you can. The very worst.”

Roy Worth remembered to wipe the smile off his face as he let himself into his house.