101 Mystery Stories

45 To Avoid a Scandal Talmage Powell

My dear fellow, it’s all perfectly simple and clear. I detest discussing such a gory thing, but I must do so. Otherwise, I fear you’ll receive your only knowledge of the episode from those lurid newspaper accounts, which are written for scandal-hungry human animals of the lowest order. I shudder even to reflect upon the workings of such minds. And I should rather die than endure scandal.

This attitude of mine is the result of generations of breeding, I assure you. It is as much a part of me as the cells of my blood. I trace my ancestry back two hundred years on this continent. From that time — until the present moment — scandal has never touched my family. I come from a line of college professors and doctors, on my father’s side, and social workers and genteel poets on my mother’s. I was taught the appreciation of the finer things quite young. My dear mother impressed upon me that the family name I bore, Croyden, was a cherished possession which I must never sully.

The accident, you say? You saw the picture in the paper of my little wife lying on the concrete completely destroyed? Really, I feel a trifle faint just thinking of that picture. I fail to see why the photographer put such great store by it. Some things, I maintain, are simply not meant for the public eye.

I shall tell you about the accident, and it was all an accident from start to finish. You have my word, sir, the word of a Croyden. But first you must see how simple and clear it all really was.

Now I’ve already told you something about my background. With a little exercise of the imagination you can see my home, where everything was in perfect taste, where my mother played Chopin and Schubert on the grand piano.

I didn’t take to the piano, as she had hoped I would. I couldn’t imagine myself a pianist, because I never could have exposed myself to public view.

Even had I forced myself, I could never have been a good pianist. It was my nature to be too precise. I was precise in everything. I, from earliest years, always tied my shoes so the laces were exactly even, hung my trousers with the creases just so. Our maid used to complain that my room didn’t look like a child’s room at all. In fact, said she, you’d never know anyone lived in it. She was, of course, a big, blousy woman who lost her temper every now and then. I supposed she was none too bright and felt rather sorry for her.

While I was attending college, my dear parents died within six months of each other. They did it gently, in their beds, in excellent taste, without ostentation.

When the estate was settled, I found I must seek employment rather than continue my education. There was a very fine, old banking family in our town whose roots went deeply in the history of our section. I was fortunate enough to secure employment with them as a bookkeeper.

I loved my job. I ached with delight over the rows of precise figures. The months and years rolled rapidly away. As I advanced I was very careful about those whom I eventually came to employ. Scandal of a personal nature would reflect against the bank. I was careful never to hire anyone without background and breeding. I tried to seek out those like myself, though it was not always easy.

I had never given much thought to women. I was content to dote over my rows of figures, to live in my orderly apartment where not even a stickpin was out of place, and to indulge my hobbies. I had two such diversions. I collected stamps and I worked ciphers.

The only woman who ever interested me was Althea. A gentle, quiet slip of a thing, I met her at my employer’s home one evening when I had gone there for some overtime work. She served us tea when the task was finished, and she gave me a gentle smile. She was not beautiful in the usual sense, but I found her most attractive. She had a small, quiet face, soft blue eyes, and dark brown hair. She was my employer’s cousin.

Althea and I experienced a brief courtship. We dined together quietly. We sat in my employer’s home of an evening and watched the better TV shows. We took in a concert. We strolled in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

My poor hobbies suffered from all this lack of attention. I had no less than five codes to which I had given no attention. In the drawing room of my employer’s home, I asked Althea to marry me.

She threw her arms about my neck and squealed. She kissed me wetly. She wept. I was taken aback. It was so unlike her. Seeing the strange new animation in her eyes, I felt hesitant.

She accepted my proposal very quickly.

As I walked home, I was so taken up with the problem of whether or not I had acted wisely that I forgot to stop for my evening newspaper. I knew there were depths in people that different circumstances sometimes bring to light, and I had glimpsed a new Althea this evening. A bit animal, a bit too vivacious for good taste.

However, before I could gracefully withdraw my proposal, she had announced the engagement. What dreadful scandal had I called it off then! So we went through with the wedding, quietly, with only her immediate family and a very few friends present.

We set up housekeeping in my apartment. From the first moment I knew that it was not going to work. Her habits were despicable. She appeared for breakfast in a flimsy negligee over her pajamas. She shopped without a list of purchases to be made. She was often as much as thirty minutes late with dinner. She was definitely not the gentle, timid Althea that I thought I had married.

And she was entirely too foolish and ignorant to understand my hobbies. She took no interest in them. She was jealous of them.

I felt like a desperate man at bay, sir. No longer was the apartment a beckoning climax to each perfect day at my place of employment. I felt as if I had been expelled from a wonderful dream of life to a nightmare caricature of life. What could I do? To what haven could I flee? There was none, sir, and I became utterly miserable.

At the bank, naturally, I kept up a graceful front. No other course ever occurred to me. So far as any of them knew, everything in my life was still perfect.

I considered the matter more and more gravely. And the afternoon she destroyed my codes, I knew I could endure it no longer.

I could hear her humming as I approached the apartment door. I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall for a moment of weariness. Then I opened the door, and stood speechless, riven to the spot with repugnance.

The apartment was up-ended, with new furniture all over the place. It smote my eyes. It lashed against my brain. Such furniture, in bright colors and garish modem design.

“Hello, darling,” she lilted. “How do you like—?”

“What ever are you doing, Althea?” I asked in a controlled voice. “Why, I’m re-doing the apartment, darling,” she said.

“I see,” I said.

I stumbled toward the little room I’d so long ago — in that other beautiful lifetime — fixed into a den. I assure you that the blood vessels in my head almost burst when I reached the door of the den. Her horrible depredations had reached even there! Gone was my beloved desk, gone my walnut book shelves neatly stacked with ciphers.

“Althea, Althea,” I demanded of her, “what have you done here?”

“Why, I’m lightening up the place a bit, darling. That old fashioned lamp you had wasn’t good for the eyes and the furniture was positively depressing.”

“And my codes?”

“Those old papers?” she said. “Oh, I threw them out, dear. Are you ill, Horace?”

Of course I was. In a way she would never know, could never understand. I staggered away from the door of the den, shook off her arm. Her touch was revolting. I wished I had never seen her. I wished she would just vanish — like a puff of vile smoke in an otherwise perfect day.

“Perhaps you’d better lie down, darling.” I heard her say.

I looked up at her. Somehow I’d sat down in the living room on one of the horrid striped chairs.

“No,” I said coolly, “I’m feeling quite well now.”

“You’re sure?”

“I wouldn’t have said it unless I were!” I retorted.

She rattled on, until I thought her voice would drive me over the brink of madness.

There was a little balcony outside the apartment. I had never used it. Now, as she chirped on, she picked up four thin pillows with plastic coverings.

“Open the door for me, Horace?” she said, holding the pillows with both arms.

As I opened the double doors leading to the balcony, I saw that she had furnished it with a round wrought iron table and four matching chairs. The pillows were for the chairs, of course.

I remember that I glanced overhead. A jet plane, very high and leaving a vapor trail, was glinting like a silver speck in the rays of the late sun. From far below came the muted sounds of the city. To my right, I saw a few cars on the street and a newsboy on the sidewalk.

Everything outside was so normal. But my world was gone. And I knew it could be restored in only one way.

She had finished putting the pillows on the chairs. She stood back to appraise the balcony’s altered appearance. She was quite close to the rail.

It was four stories down, to a concrete alley.

I strolled over beside her.

Then I grabbed her and threw her over.

Her thin, scream cut her away from life. From me. From the terrible ruin she had brought to my life.

Dear me, the joyous sense of relief I experienced! Of course, I couldn’t let it be apparent. I had a part to play now, but I knew I could get through the trying days that were sure to come because the reward would be so great. I could hold on because afterwards the apartment would be as if she had never been in it. Once again it would be orderly and neat. My life would be beautiful.

I rushed into the hallway with a hoarse cry. Several doors opened, framing the staring faces of neighbors.

“My poor wife,” I moaned. “She has fallen. From the balcony...”

Then I collapsed.

They carried me into the apartment. They patted my face with water. They yelled instructions at each other. Get a doctor. Get an ambulance. Call the police. How senselessly ineffectual they were! It was all I could do to keep from showing my contempt for them.

After a time, a rough, uncouth fellow in a policeman’s uniform shoved his way through the ring of neighbors.

“You Croyden?” he said to me.

“Yes,” I said, sitting on the edge of the divan. “I’m Horace Croyden.”

“Then get on your feet!” he ordered.

“Officer,” I said looking up at him, “I’ve suffered a most acute shock. You’ve no right...”

“I’ve got every right, bub,” he said. “I guess you claim she fell.”

“Of course she did.”

“Why, you little liar,” he looked at me as if he wanted to spit with disgust. “You threw her right off that balcony. There was a jet plane passing overhead. And a kid down on the street selling papers; tells me you happen to be one of his regular customers. Like most kids, them jet planes get to him. He was neglecting business for a minute, see? So he could look at that jet plane and think what it must be like up there and how maybe he’d pilot one of them babies one of these days. And he seen you. He seen every bit of it.”

The apartment was suddenly hushed. I sat appalled. Positively appalled.

“Why’d you do it?” the cop demanded.

“She... she was ruining my life,” I said.

“Then why didn’t you just leave her?”

It was obvious to me that here was a lout who could never understand. And suddenly all the faces surrounding me were like the cop’s, totally devoid of feeling or comprehension.

“Leave her?” I heard myself ask, aghast. “Leave her — and risk the horrid scandal of a divorce?”