Shock Treatment

I

I had had a letter from the radio engineering firm in Miami who said that they could fit me into their organization.

Although the money they offered was lower than I had been earning on my own, I had decided to take the job as it would get me out of California, and it would give me a living until I could look around for something better.

It was my great hope and my wish that Gilda would come with me. I had no idea where she was staying in Los Angeles. As soon as I got back to my cabin, I called George Macklin and asked him where I could find her.

He was abruptly hostile.

“I can’t give you Mrs Delaney’s address. She left a few hours ago for New York. If you care to write to her, I will have the letter forwarded to her.”

This news that Gilda had gone to New York was a real jolt to me until I realized that she probably was trying to escape all the publicity and the newspaper men, and when she knew of my plans, she would join me.

I said I would write.

When I sat down to write the letter, I found the task harder than I had imagined. There was so much I wanted to say to her and so much I wanted to explain.

I told her I was going to Miami and I gave her my address there. I explained about the job. I said I loved her; that I wanted her to join me and I wanted us to start a new life together. I said I hoped she would feel she could love me again now that she knew I hadn’t been responsible for Delaney’s death. I asked her to write me in Miami, saying she was going to join me.

On my way down to the station to take the train to Miami, I left the letter at Macklin’s office.

I settled down quickly in Miami. I had a two-room apartment, and I worked hard, but there was no joy in life for me, for I didn’t hear from Gilda. I wrote again to her and sent the letter to Macklin. He didn’t bother to acknowledge it.

Every time the postman came, I rushed to the door, hoping that a letter would be there from her. Every time the telephone bell rang I had the same sensation, hoping that she was calling from New York to say she had decided to join me.

But she didn’t write and she didn’t call, and after three months, I realized I had lost her. That was the time I really suffered for what I had done. I loved her, and to lose a woman one loves is something a lot worse than pain.

After a year, the ache had gone, but I still thought of her. By this time I was in charge of the department dealing with custom-made radio sets and I was making a reasonable living.

Fifteen months after the trial, fifteen months of not hearing a word from her, I was called to the boss’s office, and he asked me how I would like to open a branch shop in New York, selling discs and custom-made sets.

It was a chance I wasn’t likely to refuse. At the end of the month, I packed my things, left a forwarding address with the woman who had an apartment next to mine and flew up to New York.

Here at last, I told myself, I was within reach of Gilda. Even after those long, dreary fifteen months, I was still in love with her and continually thought of her. If I were lucky enough to meet her, I still hoped to be able to persuade her to marry me.

It was an odd sensation to find myself living in the same city as she and never knowing if I Would run into her. It brought back the ache in my heart.

Then one day, fate or whatever you like to call it, took a hand.

A customer of mine who came to the shop pretty often to buy Long Play records decided one afternoon he would like to buy a custom-made radiogram.

His name was Henry Fuller. He was short and fat, and nearly seventy as made no difference. He was rich. I could tell that by his clothes, his manner and the chauffeur-driven Cadillac, so when he began to talk about a custom-made set, I knew I was heading for a big order.

I told him what I could build for him, and I didn’t cut my corners. I said the best thing, if he were interested, was for me to come out to his place and look at the room and find out what the acoustics were like.

“You do that, Regan,” he said, and I could see he was pleased. He was the kind of man who expected service and didn’t care what he paid for it. “You run out this afternoon. I won’t be there; but my wife will. I’ll tell her you are coming.”

Because it was the rule of the firm to make sure of the customer’s rating before building expensive sets, I called the Credit Investigation people and asked for a report on Fuller.

They told me he was a first-class risk. He was a stockbroker and worth at least four million dollars. He had a swank apartment on Riverside Drive. He had been married three times, and he had married his third wife only six months ago.

Fuller’s apartment was a penthouse job with a magnificent roof garden and a splendid view over the City.

The wrought-iron front door was opened by an English butler who looked as if he had stepped out of the movies.

He took me into a lounge that was every inch of forty feet long. The decor was typically eighteenth century in style, extremely elegant, and the walls were panelled with carved pine. A quiet, luxurious richness brooded over the room that was set off by two big Italian Renaissance paintings that looked good enough to be genuine.

The butler left me in the lounge and crossed the hall into another room.

I heard him say, “The person, madam, is here about the radio.”

A woman said, “All right, Harkness, I’ll see him,” and the butler went away.

The sound of the woman’s voice sent a creepy sensation through me.

Then Gilda came into the room.

She stopped abruptly and stared at me.

She was wearing a bottle-green dress with leather tags at the collar and pockets: a simple thing, but its cut shouted its price.

Her bronze-coloured hair was now piled high on the top of her beautifully shaped head. Her make-up was flawless. Around one of her wrists was a heavy gold bangle set with semi-precious stones. She looked wonderful.

For perhaps a second, bewilderment, fear and then anger chased across her face. Then she recovered herself, and her face became expressionless and wooden.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she moved into the room, carefully shutting the door behind her.

“Gilda! I’ve been looking every place for you! Didn’t you get my letters?”

The sight of her set my heart thumping and I started towards her.

“Keep away from me!”

The tone in her voice brought me to a standstill as if I had run into a brick wall.

“Why didn’t you write, Gilda? I’ve been waiting and hoping...” I stopped as I saw her eyes travelling over me critically and contemptuously.

I knew I didn’t strike much of a figure. My suit and shoes were shabby, and my hands were none too clean. I was a radio engineer: no more, no less, and I was out of place against, this background of richness and luxury.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I’ve come about the radiogram. Gilda! Don’t look at me like that! For God’s sake — I love you!” Then I paused, frowning at her. “But what are you doing here? Are you his secretary?”

“No. I am his wife.”

I felt as if someone had stepped up to me and had slugged me under the heart.

“You mean you’re Fuller’s wife?” I said. “You married that old ruin? You? I don’t believe it!”

“I am Mrs Henry Fuller,” she said, her voice flat and cold. “You are nothing to me now. Will you please remember that? Nothing at all.”

I stood there, staring at her, feeling pain eating into my heart.

“Why, sure,” I said. “Congratulations, Gilda. You seem to have struck it pretty rich.”

“If you think you can blackmail me,” she said, and there was a vicious note in her voice that shocked me, “you’re mistaken. Don’t try anything like that with me or you’ll find out just how mistaken you are.”

“Blackmail you? Why should I blackmail you? Gilda: don’t talk like that! I love you! I’ve never stopped thinking about you!”

“It was because of you I had to stand trial for my life,” she said, her forget-me-not blue eyes glittering. “That’s something I’ll never forgive you for. Now get out!”

“But your husband wants me to build him a radiogram,” I said.

“I’ll explain to my husband. Now get out! I’m not having you here! Get out and keep away from me!”

“All right,” I said, suddenly deflated. “I won’t bother you, Gilda. I’ll keep away. I’d like to say I’m glad things have come out right for you. I wish you happiness.”

She turned her back on me and walked to the far end of the room and began to leaf through a magazine.

The butler let me out. I rode down in the express elevator too stunned to think or even feel.

Three weeks later I read in the newspaper of Henry Fuller’s death.

He had fallen down the terrace steps of his roof garden and had broken his neck. There was to be an inquest.

Something that was morbid and frightening inside me urged me to go to the inquest.

The little courtroom was crowded with fashionably dressed people. I got a seat right at the back out of sight of those sitting up in front.

As I sat down I saw with a start of surprise that Maddox of the National Fidelity was in the seat next to mine.

He gave me a sardonic grin as he nodded to me.

“Up on a business trip,” he said breezily. “I thought I couldn’t miss this performance. Well, well: history repeats itself, doesn’t it? She’s learning, and learning fast. The poor old dope wasn’t insured, so she hasn’t much to worry about.”

Before I could realize just what he was saying, Gilda came in with George Macklin. She was in black and she looked lovely. She was pale and she held a handkerchief in her hand.

Macklin steered her to a chair. He seemed very solicitous and somehow possessive.

The Coroner treated her as if she were made of egg shells.

From the evidence there had been a party at Fuller’s apartment. Most of the guests had been pretty high. Fuller had been drinking whisky and champagne all the evening, and he had been very unsteady on his legs. It had been a hot night, and the party had moved out into the roof garden after dinner.

There were thirty steps leading down to a second terrace. Most of the party had gone down there to get a closer look at the lights of the City.

Fuller and Gilda had remained at the top of the steps. Suddenly Fuller was seen to stumble. Then he fell. Gilda had made a desperate grab at his arm, but she had been too late.

He was dead when they reached him.

Maddox muttered to me, “That’s what I call a four million dollar push. A poor old drunk like Fuller would be child’s play to her.”

There was no trouble about the verdict. Everyone had seen the accident. The Coroner was careful not to stress the fact that Fuller was drunk. He said apparently Fuller had become suddenly dizzy and had lost his balance. He expressed his sympathy for the widow, and then everyone drifted out, looking sorrowful.

Gilda was the first to leave. She didn’t see me. She was holding her handkerchief to her eyes and Macklin, fussing a little, held her arm.

“Well, well,” Maddox said. “Who says you can’t get away with murder? Anyway, she never did get any money out of me.”

He nodded to me and went bustling down the steps and climbed into a taxi.

As I reach,ed the street, I was in time to see Gilda and Macklin drive away in a big cream and blue Cadillac. She was looking at him, her face now bright and expectant, and he was leaning towards her, hanging on her words with that touch of deference any up-and-coming attorney puts on when listening to a four million dollar client.

As I was walking back to the shop, for no reason at all, I suddenly remembered Delaney’s words when he talked to me on the verandah so many weeks ago:

I paused, and stared blankly down the street.

Had she poisoned Delaney?

Had she pushed Fuller down the steps?

Had Maddox been right after all?

Then I remembered the softness of her body as she had lain in my arms, her forget-me-not blue eyes and her loveliness.

No, I said to myself, she wouldn’t have done such a thing: not to Delaney, nor to Fuller.

I loved her.

How could I possibly believe such a thing about a woman I loved and would go on loving to the end of my days?