Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 6, No. 12, December 1961

A Nice Cup of Cocoa by Roland F. Lee

Beware the landlady who is overly attentive, bearing a nice cup of cocoa, as an excuse to enter one’s room. Take the cup from her hand in the door way, if you would remain untroubled in the privacy of your own room.

The night he came it was raining slow and drizzly, and the air was cold for July. I was all set to tell Mrs. Coombs I was leaving, but he changed my mind. He was about fifty years old, small in build and had small features that made him look like a mouse. With his gold-rimmed glasses, he looked like a scholarly mouse. I figured him for a drudge.

After Mrs. Coombs had shown him the room, they both sat down in the front room while she asked him questions. I just sat there pretending to read the paper. Her phony brown hair was swept into a net, and those pale eyes with no lashes were fixed on him. Mrs. Coombs was about fifty too, but she didn’t look like a mouse. She didn’t act at all like one, either.

“The room is nine dollars a week, payable in advance,” she told him. “It’s worth more, but that’s what I’ve been getting. It’s a nice clean room, no dust or dirt.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “Nice and quiet. Would it be all right if I moved in tonight about nine-thirty?”

“Of course you can move in tonight. The room is always ready. I believe in keeping things ready. What did you say your name was?”

“West, James West.”

“Well, you’re just as welcome as you can be to the room, Mr. West. You seem like a fine person to me, just a fine person.”

I almost choked at that, and it must have flustered West because there was a silence before he answered. “I better get my suitcase.”

“Are you married, Mr. West?”

This time there was a long pause before he answered in such an odd voice that I peeped over the top of my paper. “I was. My wife died.”

“Oh, she did? Well, I’m alone too — except for Mr. Holder who boards here. My husband was killed. My friends all tell me they don’t see how I bear up, but we have to, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Of course we do. What kind of a job do you have?”

“Oh — why, I’m a clerk.”

“You don’t make much money then, do you?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe you will some day.”

Considering his age, this didn’t seem likely. West coughed and stood up. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Coombs. And I’ll be back at nine-thirty.”

She went to the door with him. “That’s perfectly all right. I think we’ll get along just fine, don’t you?”

So he came back that night at nine-thirty sharp, dragging a battered old suitcase and thanking Mrs. Coombs at every other step. She hovered over him all the way up to his room, and well she should. She was robbing him blind on the room. She was still up there asking questions and telling him how she had to bear up when I went out. I had a date with Rose that night.

From the beginning I could tell that something was going to happen. I could feel it in the musty air of that old gray rattrap, which looked just like a dozen other old rattraps on the same street. There was something electric in the air between those two dull looking people. I decided to stay a while.

Mrs. Coombs showed a strange interest in her new lodger. When he got home from work around six in the evening, she would meet him at the door with what she probably thought was a cheerful smile and ask, “And how are you this evening?”

“All right,” he would reply. He wouldn’t look directly at her, maybe because her pale blank eyes disconcerted him. Then she would follow him upstairs, talking all the time and throwing in a question now and then. She would tell him to turn on the light, that he was perfectly welcome to use the light, but he would say he didn’t need it. Finally she would tell him they were going to get along just fine — as though they hadn’t been — and then go downstairs.

One evening she brought him up a steaming cup of cocoa. I was in my room at the time, but I never heard her come up. She must have scared West. She had a trick of never seeming to enter a room; she just appeared in it.

“I thought you might like a cup of hot cocoa. It’s nice and hot. You need something like this.”

Peering around the door, I could see her profile in West’s doorway. She had on a new dress and a bare touch of rouge, but I don’t think West noticed.

West thanked her in his timid way and she went on to make him feel welcome — as only she could. “That’s perfectly all right. You’re just as welcome as you can be. Now the couple that were here before didn’t appreciate anything. He was all right, but she just tried to take over my whole house. Why, when she got their meals, she was in my kitchen over an hour sometimes.”

“Oh, they cooked here, did they?”

“Yes, I let them use the kitchen. Why, she’d have run me right out of my own house if I’d let her. She even wanted to bring her girl friends here.”

That one gave me a kick. I’d asked her once if I could bring Rose around, and she nearly, hit the ceiling. Said she was running a respectable house and “that woman” — as she called Rose — wasn’t going to run her out of her own house. She had no objections to male friends, though.

“You don’t have many friends, do you?” she asked West.

“No”

“No, of course you don’t. Well, I think you’re just a fine person. You’re quiet and you don’t take a lot of baths and use up a lot of hot water. I think we’ll get along just fine, don’t you?”

“Oh yes.”

“Sure we will. Sure we will.”

So, every evening after that she used to take him a cup of cocoa. At first he didn’t seem eager, but later he appeared pleased as though he felt happy somebody was taking notice of him.

It was about two or three weeks later that I came home from work one night and was walking down the hall to my room. West’s door was open and on the rickety old table was a photograph of a woman. I walked in to look at it. She was about thirty, with blonde hair and regular features, but she looked reckless around the eyes. Then I heard West coming in, so I went to my room. Mrs. Coombs came up the stairs with him, jiggling the cup of cocoa and talking a steady streak.

I heard her stop short and she must have seen the picture. She couldn’t have been in his room all that day. The cocoa cup almost fell out of her hands.

“Who’s that?” she demanded hoarsely.

“That’s my wife,” he answered.

I could see her advance on the picture as though it were alive. “I thought you said your wife was dead.”

“I did.” His voice sounded a little shaky.

“What have you got her picture here for then?”

I swore to myself. It was just the kind of fool question she would ask, one with no answer. West made the mistake of trying to answer it.

“I–I like to remember her.”

“What for? She’s dead, isn’t she? What does she care?”

I could see West trembling. When Mrs. Coombs walked toward him as though to smell his breath, he shrank back. “What are you shaking for?” she rasped. “Have you been drinking?”

“Oh no. I don’t drink. You know that.”

She turned and came out, the cocoa still in her hand. Her face was working and she was talking to herself as she went down the stairs. I remember noticing that the wind was beginning to blow outside. It always wailed through one of the spouts.

Ten minutes later I heard her voice in West’s room. “Were you smoking?” she demanded.

“Yes, I was. Isn’t that all right?”

“Well, I can’t have any smoking here. I just can’t. I’m willing to do my part, but I have to draw the line somewhere.”

“But — but you never said anything before...”

“Well, I just can’t have it. My friends all tell me I shouldn’t put up with it. They all tell me.” And down she went, muttering.

For a week or two afterward West got no cocoa. Then one night Mrs. Coombs met him at the door as though nothing had happened and held out to him the joyful hope that they were going to get along just fine. She even brought him his cocoa. But if he thought by this that the unpleasantness was over, he must have had an awful jolt. It was just starting. Mrs. Coombs had her hunting eye fixed on the dead wife’s picture and all that it represented.

One evening she drifted up the stairs with a picture in her hand. As usual, she must have startled West. Fie was easy to startle anyway, and living under the same roof with her wasn’t helping any. I could see her walk purposefully toward the wife’s photograph, glancing slyly at West the while. “I brought you a nice new picture, a pretty landscape, for your room.”

After a short silence he answered. “Thank you very much. I’ll hang it on the wall.”

“On the wall? Why don’t you put it in that frame?” She was staring at him, but pointing at the photograph.

“Well — Mrs. Coombs — I couldn’t do that.”

She gripped her picture so tightly that it almost crumpled. “Don’t you like my picture?”

“Of course I like it and I appreciate everything you’ve done, but...”

“But you’d rather have that woman here, is that it?”

“But, Mrs. Coombs, she’s—”

“Don’t Mrs. Coombs me, mister. If people don’t appreciate things—!”

“I appreciate everything, Mrs. Coombs, but I would like to have my wife’s picture here. That isn’t too much to ask, is it?”

Somehow I was hit by the poor slob asking if it was all right for him to have his wife’s picture.

“I’ll tell you what / think,” said the landlady. “I think that one never cared for you very much, that’s what I think.”

“That isn’t true!” cried West.

“Oh, isn’t it? Well, she’s a lot younger looking than you, mister, and it wouldn’t be the first time—”

“Shut up!”

There was a short silence. “Don’t you tell me to shut up in my own house, mister. Don’t you tell me. When rooms are hard to get, people ought to be grateful they have a room! They ought to!”

The hell of it was I think he thought he ought to be grateful too. He said nothing while Mrs. Coombs went on about people not appreciating things. She didn’t refer to the wife’s two-timing him again, but I knew she had noticed his reaction. When she had finished, he asked quietly:

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Do what you like, mister. Do what you like.”

After she had gone down, I could see West sitting with his face in his hands. Then he got up heavily, went to the closet and dragged out his old suitcase. He didn’t have much to pack, but it took him a long while as he seemed uncertain how to go about it. Sometimes he would stand stock still. Then he would wipe his balding head, blink behind his glasses and resume.

I was glad my light was out when Mrs. Coombs suddenly materialized in the dark hallway. She was carrying the cup of peace, and she stopped coyly at West’s door.

“Are you leaving?” she asked in her heartiest voice,

“Yes.”

She set the cup down. “Well, I think you ought to stay, I really do. You’re a fine person, just as fine as you can be. And I think we’ll get along, don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t know...” said West doubtfully.

“Of course we will. Of course we will. And if you want to smoke, you’re perfectly welcome. I believe in making people feel welcome, don’t you? Now, you go ahead and light your pipe and drink this hot cocoa. You need somebody to look after you.”

West sighed and sat down on the bed. “If you think it will be all right...”

“Of course it’s all right. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. You’re just a fine person. Not like that couple that was here before. Why, she would have run me right out of my own house. She got so she locked their door all the time. And that bird of theirs almost drove me crazy.”

“Oh, they had a bird?” asked West, absently sipping cocoa.

“Yes.” Mrs. Coombs turned abruptly to go. “You unpack your case and enjoy your cocoa.”

“What kind was it?”

“A canary. Do you want your room cleaned?”

“No, thanks. What happened to it?”

“Who said anything happened to it?”

“Why — nobody. I just wondered. Did something happen to it?”

“It died,” said Mrs. Coombs, coming out into the hall. She stared at my door, and I almost felt as if those pale eyes could see me in the darkness. My skin crawled a little, West finished his cup and then began slowly to unpack his meager belongings from the case. What he didn’t know was that the former lodgers had taken to locking their door after their bird died.

So West stayed on while the summer cooled into fall and rainy days made the old house seem even grayer than it was. Even now, when I think of it, a chill hits me. I can still see Mrs. Coombs stalking her prey, smiling a smile with no heart in it and saying innocent things that stabbed into West like daggers. Those pale eyes stayed on him. When that head turned to follow him it reminded me of the way a reptile’s head turns. Sometimes she stopped his cocoa, then reinstated it. But he never made any more effort to move. He wasn’t the kind of guy who could make changes easily anyway, and as time went on he seemed bound more and more to the old house. I think he was trying to prove something — either to her or to himself. And me — every time I made up my mind to leave, the thought of that poor slob somehow pulled me back. I stayed to see it through.

One night during a friendly interval she was telling him how bad her previous lodgers were. West glowed under her favor. The two of them always got along well when she was running down departed tenants. Then she fell silent for a bit, swiping away with her rag at dust that wasn’t there.

“She was a lot younger than he was though.”

West’s cocoa cup jiggled.

“She was stepping out on him — with younger men. But he was a blind fool. He just mooned over her.”

This was a lie, of course, but it didn’t matter. West probably knew it was a lie too. Mrs. Coombs dusted faster. “I wouldn’t give a nickel for these young sluts nowadays. They’re no good!”

West sat down, breathing unsteadily. Mrs. Coombs was working herself up into a rage without any help from him. She slashed harder at the elusive dust.

“I just wonder if that one cared!” she burst out, pointing at the photograph.

“She did!” cried West.

“Oh did she?” Mrs. Coombs was desperate now. “Well, she doesn’t look like it to me! And I can’t have people taking over my house! I just can’t put up with it!”

After she had gone I heard West go to his closet. Then a gurgling noise sounded. He was drinking all right. Though we never said more to each other than hello, I almost walked in right then to tell him to pack and leave. But I knew he wouldn’t. He had shackled himself to the place in his own mind.

It was just about two weeks later on a rainy October evening that I happened to get home early. Going down the hall, I saw Mrs. Coombs in West’s room. I could tell she hadn’t heard me. She was looking at the photograph, and her back was to me, but I could see her face reflected in the mirror above the table. Right then the mirror looked like a picture itself, poised over the photograph of the blonde girl, but the face framed in it looked like a demon’s.

Her eyes were shining in unholy triumph and her lips were moving silently. She was executing what looked like a crazy dance of glee before the picture. She would mince up to it, then back away. Then she would reach out and give it a vengeful poke so that it teetered on its edge. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth.

At last she seized the frame and with a muffled cry smashed it down on the rug. Then she tramped on it over and over again, finishing by grinding her heels in the fragments of glass. There couldn’t have been much left.

I dodged into my room as the front door opened downstairs. By the time West reached his door Mrs. Coombs was dusting happily away. She gave him a cheery “Why, hello there,” as though he had caught her completely by surprise.

West stared at the picture on the floor and I could see him tremble.

“Oh, I broke your picture today,” she said brightly. “I was dusting and I accidentally knocked it off.”

West knelt down and ran his fingers over the mangled picture, indifferent to the cuts of the glass. “It looks like it’s been stepped on.” His voice was very low.

“Nonsense! I’ll get you a new picture. I knocked it off dusting. Like this — see?” And she swiped a pencil off the table with her dust cloth.

“No you didn’t,” he said.

“Now, don’t you fret about it. I’ll get you a nice new picture for your room. There’s some cocoa on the table. It’s nice and hot.” Evidently she had been counting on his seeing the light and coming to terms with her, on her terms.

“I think you smashed this purposely, Mrs. Coombs.”

She whirled around. “Are you calling me a liar, mister?”

“It couldn’t — it couldn’t have been accidental,” he muttered.

“It was an accident. And I won’t be called a liar in my own house. Who are you to be getting so high and mighty here? This is my house, mister!”

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” cried West with unusual violence. “What do you want anyway? I don’t want anything from you! Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

Mrs. Coombs made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “What do I want from you? What makes you think I want anything from you? Who would want anything from you?” She stopped because her voice went out of control, but she advanced on West, fairly spitting at him. He didn’t realized that he had said the worst thing to her that he possibly could. “Sure I smashed her picture and I’d smash her too if I had her here, the lousy little witch! Do you see that?” She waved a letter at him. “Do you know what that is?”

West shrank back as though from fire.

“We’ll see who’s the liar now. This is the letter I got from the County Records Office. It says there is no record of the death of a Mrs. James West, but — there is a record of her divorce from James West and her marriage one month later to Philip Linden. And she got the divorce!”

West sank down in the chair. “No... don’t...”

But Mrs. Coombs swooped down on him. “And you told me she was dead! Why, you lying flunky, who would want you? She didn’t want you. She was sporting around with other men, younger men, better looking men, wasn’t she? You ought to be grateful I let you stay here. You’re nothing but a penniless old clerk. And you ask me what I want from you!”

West got up and for a second I thought he was going to hit her. I hoped he would. His face was chalk white. “Get out,” he said.

Mrs. Coombs retreated to the door and surveyed the wreckage. “As for you, mister, you just be grateful for what people give you, grateful, do you hear!” She screamed the last words as the door slammed in her face.

I went out with Rose that night, but all I could think of was West’s stricken face. I kept hearing those screams about being grateful. One thing I decided on for sure: I had stayed around long enough. I was leaving whether West did or not.

When I got back to the old house late that night, West’s light was still on. For some reason, instead of going into my room, I knocked on his door. There was no answer. I opened the door, slowly at first, then more quickly. He was lying on the floor in front of the chair, his body rigid, his features contorted. He hadn’t died easily.

On the table was the cup of cocoa, but it didn’t look like the cup of peace any longer. I felt West’s pulse just to make sure, though I knew he was dead. Then I went downstairs without waking Mrs. Coombs. The police had to be called.

They arrested her before the next day was out. A rat killer containing sodium fluoride was found in the cocoa dregs, and in the furnace the police located the poison can, scorched, but still identifiable. The attempt to hide the can looked bad, and when they learned of her nightly cups and quarrels with West, they felt certain. I wasn’t the only one to testify about those quarrels. The paper boy had heard some things, as had two of the neighbors. When the former lodgers testified that they thought their bird had been poisoned, that did it. She was found guilty, but with a recommendation of mercy.

A plea of insanity might have saved her, but she insisted she was innocent. She said she had gone out for a walk shortly after I left and that West must have gotten the poison from the kitchen then. But the jury wouldn’t buy that. She was her own worst witness. On the stand the hate dripped out of her, especially when the prosecution brought in West’s divorced wife.

I had a few bad moments after the verdict — not that the trial had been easy. She turned as they were leading her away and shouted at me, “Mr. Holder! Tell them I didn’t do it! Tell them! You know I didn’t do it! You know I didn’t do it!”

The curious part of it was that I did know she hadn’t done it. That is, she didn’t poison him. He had killed himself. The final, decisive act had been his. The poisoning of his mind and the murdering of his pride and self-respect and dignity, those were hers.

When I went into West’s room that night, something else was sitting on the table beside the cocoa cup — the can of rat poison. He must have gotten it from the kitchen while Mrs. Coombs was out. Under the smashed photograph which he had put back on the table was a penciled note. It read: “I can’t take it anymore.” He wasn’t one to waste words.

Before calling the police I destroyed the note and quietly set the can in the furnace. The fire blackened it, but I was pretty sure the police would find it — as they did. With no indications of her innocence left, the circumstances and her own character took care of the rest.

Rose has broken up with me. I think she guessed the real story, but I wasn’t going to admit anything. And even if I told her, how could I explain it? You couldn’t get something like that across to a person in a thousand years. The way I look at it, the old witch got just what she had coming. They don’t make laws enough to cover everything.