Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 8, No. 7, July 1963

Killed by Kindness by Nedra Tyre

Anniversaries are usually conducive to compliments, pink champagne and happy recollections of the past. This one ended in an unscheduled turn of events for a nostalgic evening.

John Johnson knew that he must murder his wife. He had to. It was the only decent thing he could do. He owed her that much consideration.

Divorce was out of the question. He had no grounds. Mary was kind and pretty and pleasant company and hadn’t ever glanced at another man. Not once in their marriage had she nagged him. She was a marvelous cook and an excellent bridge player. No hostess in town was more popular.

It seemed a pity that he would have to kill her. But he certainly wasn’t going to shame her by telling her he was leaving her; not when they’d just celebrated their twentieth anniversary two months before and had congratulated each other on being the happiest married couple in the whole world. With pink champagne, and in front of dozens of admiring friends, they had pledged undying love. They had said they hoped fate would be kind and would allow them to die together. After all that John couldn’t just toss Mary aside. Such a trick would be the action of a cad.

Without him Mary would have no life at all. Of course she would have her shop which had done well since she had opened it, but she wasn’t a real career woman. Opening the shop had been a kind of lark when the Greer house, next door to them in a row of town houses, had been put up for sale. No renovation or remodeling had been done except to knock down part of a wall so that the two houses could be connected by a door. The furniture shop was only something to occupy her time, Mary said, while her sweet husband worked. It didn’t mean anything to her, though she had a good business sense. John seldom went in the shop. Come to think of it, it was a jumble. It made him a little uneasy; everything in it seemed so crowded and precarious.

Yes, Mary’s interest was in him; it wasn’t in the shop. She’d have to have something besides the shop to have any meaningful existence.

If he divorced her she’d have no one to take her to concerts and plays. Dinner parties, her favorite recreation, would be out. None of their friends, would invite her to come without him. Alone and divorced, she would be shunted into the miserable category of spinsters and widows who had to be invited to lunch instead of dinner.

He couldn’t relegate Mary to such a life, though he felt sure that if he asked her for a divorce she’d give him one. She was so acquiescent and accommodating.

No, he wasn’t going to humiliate her by asking for a divorce. She deserved something better from him than that.

If only he hadn’t met Lettice on that business trip to Lexington. But how could he regret such a miracle? He had come alive only in the six weeks since he’d known Lettice. Life with Mary was ashes in comparison. Since he’d met Lettice he felt like a blind man who had been given sight. He might have been deaf all his life and was hearing for the first time. And the marvel was that Lettice loved him and was eager to marry him, and free to marry him.

And waiting.

And insisting.

He must concentrate on putting Mary out of the way. Surely a little accident could be arranged without too much trouble. The shop ought to be an ideal place, there in all that crowded junk. Among those heavy marble busts and chandeliers and andirons something from above or below could be used to dispatch his dear Mary to her celestial reward.

“Darling, you must tell your wife,” Lettice urged when they next met at their favorite hotel in Lexington. “You’ve got to arrange for a divorce. You have to. You’ve got to tell her about us.” Lettice’s voice was so low and musical that John felt hypnodzed.

But how could he tell Mary about Lettice?

John couldn’t even rationalize Lettice’s appeal to himself.

Instead of Mary’s graciousness, Lettice had elegance. Lettice wasn’t as pretty or as charming as Mary. But he couldn’t resist her. In her presence he was an ardent, masterful lover; in Mary’s presence he was a thoughtful, complaisant husband. With Lettice life would always be lived at the highest peak; nothing in his long years with Mary could approach the wonder he had known during his few meetings with Lettice. Lettice was earth, air, fire and water, the four elements; Mary was — no, he couldn’t compare them. Anyway, what good was it to set their attractions off against each other?

Then, just as he was about to suggest to Lettice that they go to the bar, he saw Chet Fleming enter the hotel and walk across the lobby toward the desk. What was Chet Fleming doing in Lexington? But then anyone could be anywhere. That was the humiliating risk illicit lovers faced. They might be discovered anywhere, anytime. No place was secure for them. But Chet Fleming was the one person he wanted least to see, and the one who would make the most of encountering John with another woman. That blabbermouth would tell his wife and friends, his doctor, his grocer, his banker, his lawyer. Word would get back to Mary. Her heart would be broken. She deserved better than that.

John cowered beside Lettice. Chet dawdled at the desk. John couldn’t be exposed like that any longer, a single glance around and Chet would see him and Lettice. John made an incoherent excuse, then sidled over to the newsstand where he hid behind a magazine until Chet had registered and had taken an elevator upstairs.

Anyway, they had escaped, but only barely.

John couldn’t risk cheapening their attachment. He had to do something to make it permanent right away, but at the same time he didn’t want to hurt Mary.

Thousands of people in the United States had gotten up that morning who would be dead before nightfall. Why couldn’t his dear Mary be among them? Why couldn’t she die without having to be murdered?

When John rejoined Lettice and tried to explain his panic, she was composed but concerned and emphatic.

“Darling, this incident only proves what I’ve been insisting. I said you’d have to tell your wife at once. We can’t go on like this. Surely you understand.”

“Yes, dear, you’re quite right. I’ll do something as soon as I can.”

“You must do something immediately, darling.”

Oddly enough, Mary Johnson was in the same predicament as John Johnson. She had had no intention of falling in love. In fact, she thought she was in love with her husband. How naive she’d been before Kenneth came into her shop that morning asking whether she had a bust of Mozart. Of course she had a bust of Mozart; she had several busts of Mozart, not to mention Bach, Beethoven, Victor Hugo, Balzac, Shakespeare, George Washington and Goethe, in assorted sizes.

He had introduced himself. Customers didn’t ordinarily introduce themselves, and she gave him her name in return, and then realized that he was the outstanding interior designer in. town.

“Quite frankly,” he said, “I wouldn’t be caught dead with this bust of Mozart and it will ruin the room, but my client insists on having it. Do you mind if I see what else you have?”

She showed him all over the shop then. Later she tried to recall the exact moment when they had fallen in love. He had spent all that first morning there; toward noon he seemed especially attracted to a small back room cluttered and crowded with chests of drawers. He reached for a drawer pull that came off in his hands, then he reached for her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she said. “Goodness, suppose some customers come in.”

“Let them browse,” he said.

She couldn’t believe that it had happened, but it had. Afterward, instead of being lonely when John went out of town on occasional business trips, she yearned for the time when he. gave her his antiseptic peck of a kiss and told her he would be gone overnight.

The small back room jammed with the chests of drawers became Mary’s and Kenneth’s discreet rendezvous. They added a chaise longue.

One day a voice reached them there. They had been too engrossed to notice that anyone had approached.

“Mrs. Johnson, where are you? I’d like some service, please.”

Mary stumbled out from the dark to greet the customer. Mary tried to smooth her mussed hair. She knew that her lipstick was smeared.

The customer was Mrs. Bryan, the most accomplished gossip in town. Mrs. Bryan would get word around that Mary Johnson was carrying on scandalously in her shop. John was sure to find out now.

Fortunately, Mrs. Bryan was preoccupied. She was in a Pennsylvania Dutch mood and wanted to see butter molds and dower chests.

It was a lucky escape, as Mary later told Kenneth. Kenneth refused to be reassured.

“I love you deeply,” he said. “And honorably. I’ve reason to know you love me, too. I’m damned tired of sneaking around. I’m not going to put up with it any longer. Do you understand? We’ve got to get married. Tell your husband you want a divorce.”

Kenneth kept talking about a divorce, as if a divorce was nothing at all — no harder to arrange than a dental appointment. How could she divorce a man who had been affectionate and kind and faithful for twenty years? How could she snatch happiness from him?

If only John would die. Why couldn’t he have a heart attack? Every day thousands of men died from heart attacks. Why couldn’t her darling John just drop dead? It would simplify everything.

Even the ringing of the telephone sounded angry, and when Mary answered it Kenneth, at the other end of the line, was in a rage.

“Damn it, Mary, this afternoon was ridiculous. It was insulting. I’m not skulking any more. I’m not hiding behind doors while you grapple around for butter molds to show customers. We’ve got to be married right away.”

“Yes, darling. Do be patient.”

“I’ve already been too patient. I’m not waiting any longer.”

She knew that he meant it. If she lost Kenneth life would end for her. She hadn’t ever felt this way about John.

Dear John. How could she toss him aside? He was in the prime of life; he could live decades longer. All his existence was centered on her. He lived to give her pleasure. They had no friends except other married people. John would have to lead a solitary life if she left him. He’d be odd man out without her; their friends would invite him to their homes because they were sorry for him. Poor, miserable John was what everyone would call him. He’d be better off dead, they’d say. He would neglect himself; he wouldn’t eat regularly; he would have to live alone in some wretched furnished apartment. No, she mustn’t condemn him to an existence like that.

Why had this madness with Kenneth started? Why had that foolish woman insisted on having a bust of Mozart in her music room? Why had Kenneth come to her shop in search of it when busts of Mozart were in every second hand store on Broad Street and at much cheaper prices?

Yet she wouldn’t have changed anything. Seconds with Kenneth were worth lifetimes with John.

Only one end was possible. She would have to think of a nice, quick, efficient, unmessy way to get rid of John.

And soon.

John had never seen Mary look as lovely as she did that night when he got home from his business trip. For one flicker of a second, life with her seemed enough. Then he thought of Lettice, and the thought stunned him into the belief that no act that brought them together could be criminal. He must get on with what he had to do. He must murder Mary in as gentlemanly a way as possible, and he must do it that very night. Meantime he would enjoy the wonderful dinner Mary had prepared for him. Common politeness demanded it, and anyhow he was ravenous.

Yes, he must get on with the murder just as soon as he finished eating. It seemed a little heartless to be contriving a woman’s death even as he ate her cheese cake, but he certainly didn’t mean to be callous.

He didn’t know just how he would murder Mary. Perhaps if he could get her into her shop, there in that corner where all the statuary was, he could manage something.

Mary smiled at him and handed him a cup of coffee.

“I thought you’d need lots of coffee, darling, after such a long drive.”

“Yes, dear, I do. Thank you.”

Just as he began to sip from his cup he glanced across the table at Mary. Her face had a peculiar expression. John was puzzled by it. They had been so close for so many years that she must be reading his mind. She must know what he was planning. Then she smiled; it was the glorious smile she had bestowed on him ever since their honeymoon. Everything was all right.

“Darling, excuse me for a minute,” she said. “I just remembered something in the shop that I must see to. I’ll be right back.”

She walked quickly out of the dining room and across the hall into the shop.

But she didn’t come back right away as she’d promised. If she didn’t return soon John’s coffee would be cold. He took a sip or two, then decided to go to the shop to see what had delayed Mary.

She didn’t hear him enter. He found her in the middle room where the chandeliers were blazing. Her back was turned toward him and she was sitting on an Empire sofa close to the statues on their stands. She was ambushed by the statues.

Good lord, it was as he had suspected. She had been reading his thoughts. Her shoulders heaved. She was sobbing. She knew that their life together was ending. Then he decided that she might be laughing. Her shoulders would be shaking like that if she were laughing to herself. Whatever she was doing, whether she sobbed or laughed, it was no time for him to peculate on her mood. This was too good a chance to miss. With her head bent over she would be directly in the path of the bust of Victor Hugo or Benjamin Franklin or whoever it was towering above her. John would have to topple it only slightly and it would hit her skull. It needed only the gentlest shove.

He shoved.

It was so simple.

Poor darling girl. Poor Mary.

But it was all for the best and he wouldn’t ever blame himself for what he’d done. Still, he was startled that it had been so easy, and it had taken no time at all. He would have tried it weeks before if he had known that it could be done with so little trouble.

John was quite composed. He took one last affectionate glance at Mary and then went back to the dining room. He would drink his coffee and then telephone the doctor. No doubt the doctor would offer to notify the police since it was an accidental death. John wouldn’t need to lie about anything except for one slight detail. He would have to say that some movement of Mary’s must have caused the bust to fall.

His coffee was still warm. He drank it unhurriedly. He thought of Lettice. He ached for the luxury of telephoning her that their life together was now assured and that after a discreet interval they could be married. But he decided he had better not take any chances. He would delay calling Lettice.

He felt joyful yet calm. He couldn’t remember having felt so relaxed. No doubt it came from the relief of having done what had to be done. He was even sleepy. He was sleepier than he had ever been. He must lie down on the living room couch. That was more urgent even than telephoning the doctor. But he couldn’t wait to get to the couch. He laid his head on the dining table. His arms dangled.

None of Mary’s and John’s friends had any doubt about how the double tragedy had occurred. When they came to think of it, the shop had always been a booby trap, and that night Mary had tripped or stumbled and had toppled the statue onto her head. Then John had found her and grief had overwhelmed him. He realized he couldn’t live without Mary, and his desperate sense of loss had driven him to dissolve enough sleeping tablets in his coffee to kill himself.

They all remembered so well how, in the middle of their last anniversary celebration, Mary and John had said they hoped they could die together. They really were the most devoted couple any of them had ever known. You could get sentimental just thinking about Mary and John, and to see them together was an inspiration. In a world of insecurity nothing was so heartening as their deep, steadfast love. It was sweet and touching that they had died on the same night, and exactly as they both had wanted.