The Big Book of Reel Murders: Stories that Inspired Great Crime

Don’t Look Now DAPHNE DU MAURIER

Original publication: Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1970; first collected in Don’t Look Now by Daphne du Maurier (Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1971)

Few writers have been able to so successfully blend various genres in seamless works of fiction as Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989), as she has done with mystery, romance, horror, and historical fiction.

Born in London, she came from an illustrious family. Her grandfather was the famous artist and author George du Maurier, who produced his first novel, Peter Ibbetson (1891), at the age of fifty-six and then wrote Trilby (1894), creating Svengali, a character whose name has become part of the English language. Her father was Gerald du Maurier, an actor who dominated the English stage in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Her mother was Muriel Beaumont, also an accomplished actress. Her older sister Angela, who played Wendy in Peter Pan, was also an author. After her marriage to Colonel Frederick Arthur Montague Browning II, who was knighted for his distinguished service in World War II, Daphne du Maurier was also known as Lady Browning or Dame Daphne; she was made a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for her literary distinction.

She is much loved by readers worldwide for such successful works as Jamaica Inn (1936), a historical novel about a gang of pirates who run ships aground, kill the sailors, and steal the cargo; My Cousin Rachel (1951), a romantic suspense novel; and The Scapegoat (1957), a tale of switched identities — but it is for Rebecca (1938) that she is best known. One of the most successful novels of all time (it remained on the bestseller list for two years), its opening sentence may be the best-remembered and most often quoted of the twentieth century: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

This romantic tale of suspense is set in a sinister but beautiful old house based on Menabilly, a seventeenth-century mansion overlooking the sea from the rugged coast of Cornwall that was du Maurier’s home for twenty-five years. The plot focuses on a lovely but beleaguered young wife apparently at the mercy of a strangely distant husband and an inscrutable servant. The difficulties of a naïve second wife will be familiar to readers of Jane Eyre, to which it bears some resemblance — though without the dead body.

Rebecca is only one of du Maurier’s books to have been filmed, though none better than Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, released in 1940. Evidently a great fan of du Maurier’s work, he also directed Jamaica Inn (1939), and The Birds (1963), an ecological horror story, loosely adapted from her 1952 short story of the same name.

Title: Don’t Look Now, 1973

Studio: British Lion Films

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Screenwriters: Allan Scott, Chris Bryant

Producer: Peter Katz

• Julie Christie (Laura Baxter)

• Donald Sutherland (John Baxter)

• Hilary Mason (Heather)

• Clelia Matania (Wendy)

• Massimo Serato (Bishop Barbarrigo)

• Renato Scarpa (Inspector Longhi)

A faithful adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s short story, Don’t Look Now is the story of Laura and John Baxter, a couple grieving over the death of their daughter. They have gone on a vacation to Venice in an attempt to restore some normalcy to their lives. They encounter a pair of sisters, one of whom is a psychic who claims to see their daughter but warns that Venice is dangerous for them and advises them to leave. At the time, the old Italian city is plagued by a serial killer. An element of apparently supernatural events convinces them that they see tiny glimpses of their daughter as it seems that a girl in a bright red cloak is just at the periphery of their vision. In a dark alley, John is convinced that he sees a girl in the cloak and chases after her in the impossible hope — and fear — that somehow it is his daughter.

The real-life couple Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner had been proposed as the stars of the film, but director Nicolas Roeg had his heart set on Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland.

Although a noted mystery and horror classic, the single most memorable moment in Don’t Look Now was a sex scene featuring the stars, who had never even met before being cast for the film. Not in the original script, Roeg had the last-minute idea of including a sex scene since so many other scenes showed the couple arguing.

It was reported that Christie was terrified, so the set was largely emptied, leaving only Roeg and the cinematographer in an empty room with the two actors. It was the first scene shot, as Roeg just wanted to “get it out of the way.” Christie and Sutherland removed their dressing gowns, climbed onto the bed, and Roeg gave constant orders as to exactly what they were to do to each other. One of the most erotic cinematic moments of its time, it barely avoided being given an X-rating by cutting one-half second from the activity. It was shot and edited so convincingly that Sutherland and the producer had to issue denials that the couple had actually engaged in intercourse.

The actor who played the policeman spoke no English. Renato Scarpa merely read the lines of dialogue he’d been handed with no notion of what they meant, making him seem sinister.

Julie Christie had had several roles but was still somewhat unknown when the producers of the James Bond film Dr. No (1962) considered her for the part taken by Ursula Andress, who got the role because she was more generously endowed. Although a star of the brightest magnitude after Doctor Zhivago (1965), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), and Petulia (1968), she pretty much retired from regular work at that point, preferring to be with Warren Beatty, her lover of seven years, turning down starring roles in Valley of the Dolls (1967), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), The Godfather (1972), and Chinatown (1974), among others.

Donald Sutherland has appeared in about two hundred films and television shows. He is often cast as a menacing figure, slightly askew. In an interview, he says that he was once up for a part that he really wanted but was turned down, being told, “Sorry, you’re the best actor but this part calls for a guy-next-door type. You don’t look as if you’ve ever lived next door to anyone.”

DON’T LOOK NOW Daphne du Maurier

“Don’t look now,” John said to his wife, “but there are a couple of old girls two tables away who are trying to hypnotize me.”

Laura, quick on cue, made an elaborate pretence of yawning, then tilted her head as though searching the skies for a nonexistent aircraft.

“Right behind you,” he added. “That’s why you can’t turn round at once — it would be much too obvious.”

Laura played the oldest trick in the world and dropped her napkin, then bent to scrabble for it under her feet, sending a shooting glance over her left shoulder as she straightened once again. She sucked in her cheeks, the first tell-tale sign of suppressed hysteria, and lowered her head.

“They’re not old girls at all,” she said. “They’re male twins in drag.”

Her voice broke ominously, the prelude to uncontrolled laughter, and John quickly poured some more chianti into her glass.

“Pretend to choke,” he said, “then they won’t notice. You know what it is, they’re criminals doing the sights of Europe, changing sex at each stop. Twin sisters here on Torcello. Twin brothers tomorrow in Venice, or even tonight, parading arm-in-arm across the Piazza San Marco. Just a matter of switching clothes and wigs.”

“Jewel thieves or murderers?” asked Laura.

“Oh, murderers, definitely. But why, I ask myself, have they picked on me?”

The waiter made a diversion by bringing coffee and bearing away the fruit, which gave Laura time to banish hysteria and regain control.

“I can’t think,” she said, “why we didn’t notice them when we arrived. They stand out to high heaven. One couldn’t fail.”

“That gang of Americans masked them,” said John, “and the bearded man with a monocle who looked like a spy. It wasn’t until they all went just now that I saw the twins. Oh God, the one with the shock of white hair has got her eye on me again.”

Laura took the powder compact from her bag and held it in front of her face, the mirror acting as a reflector.

“I think it’s me they’re looking at, not you,” she said. “Thank heaven I left my pearls with the manager at the hotel.” She paused, dabbing the sides of her nose with powder. “The thing is,” she said after a moment, “we’ve got them wrong. They’re neither murderers nor thieves. They’re a couple of pathetic old retired schoolmistresses on holiday, who’ve saved up all their lives to visit Venice. They come from some place with a name like Walabanga in Australia. And they’re called Tilly and Tiny.”

Her voice, for the first time since they had come away, took on the old bubbling quality he loved, and the worried frown between her brows had vanished. At last, he thought, at last she’s beginning to get over it. If I can keep this going, if we can pick up the familiar routine of jokes shared on holiday and at home, the ridiculous fantasies about people at other tables, or staying in the hotel, or wandering in art galleries and churches, then everything will fall into place, life will become as it was before, the wound will heal, she will forget.

“You know,” said Laura, “that really was a very good lunch. I did enjoy it.”

Thank God, he thought, thank God... Then he leant forward, speaking low in a conspirator’s whisper. “One of them is going to the loo,” he said. “Do you suppose he, or she, is going to change her wig?”

“Don’t say anything,” Laura murmured. “I’ll follow her and find out. She may have a suitcase tucked away there, and she’s going to switch clothes.”

She began to hum under her breath, the signal, to her husband, of content. The ghost was temporarily laid, and all because of the familiar holiday game, abandoned too long, and now, through mere chance, blissfully recaptured.

“Is she on her way?” asked Laura.

“About to pass our table now,” he told her.

Seen on her own, the woman was not so remarkable. Tall, angular, aquiline features, with the close-cropped hair which was fashionably called Eton crop, he seemed to remember, in his mother’s day, and about her person the stamp of that particular generation. She would be in her middle sixties, he supposed, the masculine shirt with collar and tie, sports jacket, grey tweed skirt coming to mid-calf. Grey stockings and laced black shoes. He had seen the type on golf-courses and at dog-shows — invariably showing not sporting breeds but pugs — and if you came across them at a party in somebody’s house they were quicker on the draw with a cigarette-lighter than he was himself, a mere male, with pocket-matches. The general belief that they kept house with a more feminine, fluffy companion was not always true. Frequently they boasted, and adored, a golfing husband. No, the striking point about this particular individual was that there were two of them. Identical twins cast in the same mould. The only difference was that the other one had whiter hair.

“Supposing,” murmured Laura, “when I find myself in the toilette beside her she starts to strip?”

“Depends on what is revealed,” John answered. “If she’s hermaphrodite, make a bolt for it. She might have a hypodermic syringe concealed and want to knock you out before you reach the door.”

Laura sucked in her cheeks once more and began to shake. Then, squaring her shoulders, she rose to her feet. “I simply must not laugh,” she said, “and whatever you do, don’t look at me when I come back, especially if we come out together.” She picked up her bag and strolled self-consciously away from the table in pursuit of her prey.

John poured the dregs of the chianti into his glass and lit a cigarette. The sun blazed down upon the little garden of the restaurant. The Americans had left, and the monocled man, and the family party at the far end. All was peace. The identical twin was sitting back in her chair with her eyes closed. Thank heaven, he thought, for this moment at any rate, when relaxation was possible, and Laura had been launched upon her foolish, harmless game. The holiday could yet turn into the cure she needed, blotting out, if only temporarily, the numb despair that had seized her since the child died.

“She’ll get over it,” the doctor said. “They all get over it, in time. And you have the boy.”

“I know,” John had said, “but the girl meant everything. She always did, right from the start, I don’t know why. I suppose it was the difference in age. A boy of school age, and a tough one at that, is someone in his own right. Not a baby of five. Laura literally adored her. Johnnie and I were nowhere.”

“Give her time,” repeated the doctor, “give her time. And anyway, you’re both young still. There’ll be others. Another daughter.”

So easy to talk... How replace the life of a loved lost child with a dream? He knew Laura too well. Another child, another girl, would have her own qualities, a separate identity, she might even induce hostility because of this very fact. A usurper in the cradle, in the cot, that had been Christine’s. A chubby, flaxen replica of Johnnie, not the little waxen dark-haired sprite that had gone.

He looked up, over his glass of wine, and the woman was staring at him again. It was not the casual, idle glance of someone at a nearby table, waiting for her companion to return, but something deeper, more intent, the prominent, light blue eyes oddly penetrating, giving him a sudden feeling of discomfort. Damn the woman! All right, bloody stare, if you must. Two can play at that game. He blew a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air and smiled at her, he hoped offensively. She did not register. The blue eyes continued to hold his, so that finally he was obliged to look away himself, extinguish his cigarette, glance over his shoulder for the waiter and call for the bill. Settling for this, and fumbling with the change, with a few casual remarks about the excellence of the meal, brought composure, but a prickly feeling on his scalp remained, and an odd sensation of unease. Then it went, as abruptly as it had started, and stealing a furtive glance at the other table he saw that her eyes were closed again, and she was sleeping, or dozing, as she had done before. The waiter disappeared. All was still.

Laura, he thought, glancing at his watch, is being a hell of a time. Ten minutes at least. Something to tease her about, anyway. He began to plan the form the joke would take. How the old dolly had stripped to her smalls, suggesting that Laura should do likewise. And then the manager had burst in upon them both, exclaiming in horror, the reputation of the restaurant damaged, the hint that unpleasant consequences might follow unless... The whole exercise turning out to be a plant, an exercise in blackmail. He and Laura and the twins taken in a police launch back to Venice for questioning. Quarter of an hour... Oh, come on, come on...

There was a crunch of feet on the gravel. Laura’s twin walked slowly past, alone. She crossed over to her table and stood there a moment, her tall, angular figure interposing itself between John and her sister. She was saying something, but he couldn’t catch the words. What was the accent, though — Scottish? Then she bent, offering an arm to the seated twin, and they moved away together across the garden to the break in the little hedge beyond, the twin who had stared at John leaning on her sister’s arm. Here was the difference again. She was not quite so tall, and she stooped more — perhaps she was arthritic. They disappeared out of sight, and John, becoming impatient, got up and was about to walk back into the hotel when Laura emerged.

“Well, I must say, you took your time,” he began, then stopped, because of the expression on her face.

“What’s the matter, what’s happened?” he asked.

He could tell at once there was something wrong. Almost as if she were in a state of shock. She blundered towards the table he had just vacated and sat down. He drew up a chair beside her, taking her hand.

“Darling, what is it? Tell me — are you ill?”

She shook her head, and then turned and looked at him. The dazed expression he had noticed at first had given way to one of dawning confidence, almost of exaltation.

“It’s quite wonderful,” she said slowly, “the most wonderful thing that could possibly be. You see, she isn’t dead, she’s still with us. That’s why they kept staring at us, those two sisters. They could see Christine.”

Oh God, he thought. It’s what I’ve been dreading. She’s going off her head. What do I do? How do I cope?

“Laura, sweet,” he began, forcing a smile, “look, shall we go? I’ve paid the bill, we can go and look at the cathedral and stroll around, and then it will be time to take off in that launch again for Venice.”

She wasn’t listening, or at any rate the words didn’t penetrate.

“John, love,” she said, “I’ve got to tell you what happened. I followed her, as we planned, into the toilette place. She was combing her hair and I went into the loo, and then came out and washed my hands in the basin. She was washing hers in the next basin. Suddenly she turned and said to me, in a strong Scots accent, ‘Don’t be unhappy any more. My sister has seen your little girl. She was sitting between you and your husband, laughing.’ Darling, I thought I was going to faint. I nearly did. Luckily, there was a chair, and I sat down, and the woman bent over me and patted my head. I’m not sure of her exact words, but she said something about the moment of truth and joy being as sharp as a sword, but not to be afraid, all was well, but the sister’s vision had been so strong they knew I had to be told, and that Christine wanted it. Oh John, don’t look like that. I swear I’m not making it up, this is what she told me, it’s all true.”

The desperate urgency in her voice made his heart sicken. He had to play along with her, agree, soothe, do anything to bring back some sense of calm.

“Laura, darling, of course I believe you,” he said, “only it’s a sort of shock, and I’m upset because you’re upset...”

“But I’m not upset,” she interrupted. “I’m happy, so happy that I can’t put the feeling into words. You know what it’s been like all these weeks, at home and everywhere we’ve been on holiday, though I tried to hide it from you. Now it’s lifted, because I know, I just know, that the woman was right. Oh Lord, how awful of me, but I’ve forgotten their name — she did tell me. You see, the thing is that she’s a retired doctor, they come from Edinburgh, and the one who saw Christine went blind a few years ago. Although she’s studied the occult all her life and been very psychic, it’s only since going blind that she has really seen things, like a medium. They’ve had the most wonderful experiences. But to describe Christine as the blind one did to her sister, even down to the little blue-and-white dress with the puff sleeves that she wore at her birthday party, and to say she was smiling happily... Oh darling, it’s made me so happy I think I’m going to cry.”

No hysteria. Nothing wild. She took a tissue from her bag and blew her nose, smiling at him. “I’m all right, you see, you don’t have to worry. Neither of us need worry about anything any more. Give me a cigarette.”

He took one from his packet and lighted it for her. She sounded normal, herself again. She wasn’t trembling. And if this sudden belief was going to keep her happy he couldn’t possibly begrudge it. But... but... he wished, all the same, it hadn’t happened. There was something uncanny about thought-reading, about telepathy. Scientists couldn’t account for it, nobody could, and this is what must have happened just now between Laura and the sisters. So the one who had been staring at him was blind. That accounted for the fixed gaze. Which somehow was unpleasant in itself, creepy. Oh hell, he thought, I wish we hadn’t come here for lunch. Just chance, a flick of a coin between this, Torcello, and driving to Padua, and we had to choose Torcello.

“You didn’t arrange to meet them again or anything, did you?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

“No, darling, why should I?” Laura answered. “I mean, there was nothing more they could tell me. The sister had had her wonderful vision, and that was that. Anyway, they’re moving on. Funnily enough, it’s rather like our original game. They are going round the world before returning to Scotland. Only I said Australia, didn’t I? The old dears... anything less like murderers and jewel thieves!”

She had quite recovered. She stood up and looked about her. “Come on,” she said. “Having come to Torcello we must see the cathedral.”

They made their way from the restaurant across the open piazza, where the stalls had been set up with scarves and trinkets and postcards, and so along the path to the cathedral. One of the ferry-boats had just decanted a crowd of sight-seers, many of whom had already found their way into Santa Maria Assunta. Laura, undaunted, asked her husband for the guidebook, and, as had always been her custom in happier days, started to walk slowly through the cathedral, studying mosaics, columns, panels from left to right, while John, less interested, because of his concern at what had just happened, followed close behind, keeping a weather eye alert for the twin sisters. There was no sign of them. Perhaps they had gone into the Church of Santa Fosca close by. A sudden encounter would be embarrassing, quite apart from the effect it might have upon Laura. But the anonymous, shuffling tourists, intent upon culture, could not harm her, although from his own point of view they made artistic appreciation impossible. He could not concentrate, the cold clear beauty of what he saw left him untouched, and when Laura touched his sleeve, pointing to the mosaic of the Virgin and Child standing above the frieze of the Apostles, he nodded in sympathy yet saw nothing, the long, sad face of the Virgin infinitely remote, and turning on sudden impulse stared back over the heads of the tourists towards the door, where frescoes of the blessed and the damned gave themselves to judgment.

The twins were standing there, the blind one still holding on to her sister’s arm, her sightless eyes fixed firmly upon him. He felt himself held, unable to move, and an impending sense of doom, of tragedy, came upon him. His whole being sagged, as it were, in apathy, and he thought, This is the end, there is no escape, no future. Then both sisters turned and went out of the cathedral and the sensation vanished, leaving indignation in its wake, and rising anger. How dare those two old fools practice their mediumistic tricks on him? It was fraudulent, unhealthy; this was probably the way they lived, touring the world making everyone they met uncomfortable. Give them half a chance and they would have got money out of Laura — anything.

He felt her tugging at his sleeve again. “Isn’t she beautiful? So happy, so serene.”

“Who? What?” he asked.

“The Madonna,” she answered. “She has a magic quality. It goes right through to one. Don’t you feel it too?”

“I suppose so. I don’t know. There are too many people around.”

She looked up at him, astonished. “What’s that got to do with it? How funny you are. Well, all right, let’s get away from them. I want to buy some postcards anyway.” Disappointed, she sensed his lack of interest, and began to thread her way through the crowd of tourists to the door.

“Come on,” he said abruptly, once they were outside, “there’s plenty of time for postcards, let’s explore a bit,” and he struck off from the path, which would have taken them back to the center where the little houses were, and the stalls, and the drifting crowd of people, to a narrow way amongst uncultivated ground, beyond which he could see a sort of cutting, or canal. The sight of water, limpid, pale, was a soothing contrast to the fierce sun above their heads.

“I don’t think this leads anywhere much,” said Laura. “It’s a bit muddy, too, one can’t sit. Besides, there are more things the guidebook says we ought to see.”

“Oh, forget the book,” he said impatiently, and, pulling her down beside him on the bank above the cutting, put his arms round her.

“It’s the wrong time of day for sight-seeing. Look, there’s a rat swimming there the other side.” He picked up a stone and threw it in the water, and the animal sank, or somehow disappeared, and nothing was left but bubbles.

“Don’t,” said Laura. “It’s cruel, poor thing,” and then suddenly, putting her hand on his knee, “Do you think Christine is sitting here beside us?”

He did not answer at once. What was there to say? Would it be like this forever?

“I expect so,” he said slowly, “if you feel she is.”

The point was, remembering Christine before the onset of the fatal meningitis, she would have been running along the bank excitedly, throwing off her shoes, wanting to paddle, giving Laura a fit of apprehension. “Sweetheart, take care, come back...”

“The woman said she was looking so happy, sitting beside us, smiling,” said Laura. She got up, brushing her dress, her mood changed to restlessness. “Come on, let’s go back,” she said.

He followed her with a sinking heart. He knew she did not really want to buy postcards or see what remained to be seen; she wanted to go in search of the women again, not necessarily to talk, just to be near them. When they came to the open place by the stalls he noticed that the crowd of tourists had thinned, there were only a few stragglers left, and the sisters were not amongst them. They must have joined the main body who had come to Torcello by the ferry-service. A wave of relief seized him.

“Look, there’s a mass of postcards at the second stall,” he said quickly, “and some eye-catching head-scarves. Let me buy you a head-scarf.”

“Darling, I’ve so many!” she protested. “Don’t waste your lire.”

“It isn’t a waste. I’m in a buying mood. What about a basket? You know we never have enough baskets. Or some lace. How about lace?”

She allowed herself, laughing, to be dragged to the stall. While he rumpled through the goods spread out before them, and chatted up the smiling woman who was selling her wares, his ferociously bad Italian making her smile the more, he knew it would give the body of tourists more time to walk to the landing-stage and catch the ferry-service, and the twin sisters would be out of sight and out of their life.

“Never,” said Laura, some twenty minutes later, “has so much junk been piled into so small a basket,” her bubbling laugh reassuring him that all was well, he needn’t worry any more, the evil hour had passed. The launch from the Cipriani that had brought them from Venice was waiting by the landing-stage. The passengers who had arrived with them, the Americans, the man with the monocle, were already assembled. Earlier, before setting out, he had thought the price for lunch and transport, there and back, decidedly steep. Now he grudged none of it, except that the outing to Torcello itself had been one of the major errors of this particular holiday in Venice. They stepped down into the launch, finding a place in the open, and the boat chugged away down the canal and into the lagoon. The ordinary ferry had gone before, steaming towards Murano, while their own craft headed past San Francesco del Deserto and so back direct to Venice.

He put his arm around her once more, holding her close, and this time she responded, smiling up at him, her head on his shoulder.

“It’s been a lovely day,” she said. “I shall never forget it, never. You know, darling, now at last I can begin to enjoy our holiday.”

He wanted to shout with relief. It’s going to be all right, he decided, let her believe what she likes, it doesn’t matter, it makes her happy. The beauty of Venice rose before them, sharply outlined against the glowing sky, and there was still so much to see, wandering there together, that might now be perfect because of her change of mood, the shadow having lifted, and aloud he began to discuss the evening to come, where they would dine — not the restaurant they usually went to, near the Venice Theatre, but somewhere different, somewhere new.

“Yes, but it must be cheap,” she said, falling in with his mood, “because we’ve already spent so much today.”

Their hotel by the Grand Canal had a welcoming, comforting air. The clerk smiled as he handed over their key. The bedroom was familiar, like home, with Laura’s things arranged neatly on the dressing-table, but with it the little festive atmosphere of strangeness, of excitement, that only a holiday bedroom brings. This is ours for the moment, but no more. While we are in it we bring it life. When we have gone it no longer exists, it fades into anonymity. He turned on both taps in the bathroom, the water gushing into the bath, the steam rising. Now, he thought afterwards, now at last is the moment to make love, and he went back into the bedroom, and she understood, and opened her arms and smiled. Such blessed relief after all those weeks of restraint.

“The thing is,” she said later, fixing her earrings before the looking-glass, “I’m not really terribly hungry. Shall we just be dull and eat in the dining-room here?”

“God, no!” he exclaimed. “With all those rather dreary couples at the other tables? I’m ravenous. I’m also gay. I want to get rather sloshed.”

“Not bright lights and music, surely?”

“No, no... some small, dark, intimate cave, rather sinister, full of lovers with other people’s wives.”

“H’m,” sniffed Laura, “we all know what that means. You’ll spot some Italian lovely of sixteen and smirk at her through dinner, while I’m stuck high and dry with a beastly man’s broad back.”

They went out laughing into the warm soft night, and the magic was about them everywhere. “Let’s walk,” he said, “let’s walk and work up an appetite for our gigantic meal,” and inevitably they found themselves by the Molo and the lapping gondolas dancing upon the water, the lights everywhere blending with the darkness. There were other couples strolling for the same sake of aimless enjoyment, backwards, forwards, purposeless, and the inevitable sailors in groups, noisy, gesticulating, and dark-eyed girls whispering, clicking on high heels.

“The trouble is,” said Laura, “walking in Venice becomes compulsive once you start. Just over the next bridge, you say, and then the next one beckons. I’m sure there are no restaurants down here, we’re almost at those public gardens where they hold the Biennale. Let’s turn back. I know there’s a restaurant somewhere near the Church of San Zaccaria, there’s a little alley-way leading to it.”

“Tell you what,” said John, “if we go down here by the Arsenal, and cross that bridge at the end and head left, we’ll come upon San Zaccaria from the other side. We did it the other morning.”

“Yes, but it was daylight then. We may lose our way, it’s not very well lit.”

“Don’t fuss. I have an instinct for these things.”

They turned down the Fondamenta del l’Arsenale and crossed the little bridge short of the Arsenal itself, and so on past the Church of San Martino. There were two canals ahead, one bearing right, the other left, with narrow streets beside them. John hesitated. Which one was it they had walked beside the day before?

“You see,” protested Laura, “we shall be lost, just as I said.”

“Nonsense,” replied John firmly. “It’s the left-hand one, I remember the little bridge.”

The canal was narrow, the houses on either side seemed to close in upon it, and in the daytime, with the sun’s reflection on the water and the windows of the houses open, bedding upon the balconies, a canary singing in a cage, there had been an impression of warmth, of secluded shelter. Now, ill-lit, in darkness, the windows of the houses shuttered, the water dank, the scene appeared altogether different, neglected, poor, and the long narrow boats moored to the slippery steps of cellar entrances looked like coffins.

“I swear I don’t remember this bridge,” said Laura, pausing, and holding on to the rail, “and I don’t like the look of that alley-way beyond.”

“There’s a lamp halfway up,” John told her. “I know exactly where we are, not far from the Greek quarter.”

They crossed the bridge, and were about to plunge into the alley-way, when they heard the cry. It came, surely, from one of the houses on the opposite side, but which one it was impossible to say. With the shutters closed, each of them seemed dead. They turned, and stared in the direction from which the sound had come.

“What was it?” whispered Laura.

“Some drunk or other,” said John briefly, “come on.”

Less like a drunk than someone being strangled, and the choking cry suppressed as the grip held firm.

“We ought to call the police,” said Laura.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said John. Where did she think she was — Piccadilly?

“Well, I’m off, it’s sinister,” she replied, and began to hurry away up the twisting alley-way. John hesitated, his eye caught by a small figure which suddenly crept from a cellar entrance below one of the opposite houses, and then jumped into a narrow boat below. It was a child, a little girl — she couldn’t have been more than five or six — wearing a short coat over her minute skirt, a pixie hood covering her head. There were four boats moored, line upon line, and she proceeded to jump from one to the other with surprising agility, intent, it would seem, upon escape. Once her foot slipped and he caught his breath, for she was within a few feet of the water, losing balance; then she recovered, and hopped on to the furthest boat. Bending, she tugged at the rope, which had the effect of swinging the boat’s after-end across the canal, almost touching the opposite side and another cellar entrance, about thirty feet from the spot where John stood watching her. Then the child jumped again, landing upon the cellar steps, and vanished into the house, the boat swinging back into mid-canal behind her. The whole episode could not have taken more than four minutes. Then he heard the quick patter of feet. Laura had returned. She had seen none of it, for which he felt unspeakably thankful. The sight of a child, a little girl, in what must have been near danger, her fear that the scene he had just witnessed was in some way a sequel to the alarming cry, might have had a disastrous effect on her overwrought nerves.

“What are you doing?” she called. “I daren’t go on without you. The wretched alley branches in two directions.”

“Sorry,” he told her, “I’m coming.”

He took her arm and they walked briskly along the alley, John with an apparent confidence he did not possess.

“There were no more cries, were there?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “no, nothing. I tell you, it was some drunk.”

The alley led to a deserted campo behind a church, not a church he knew, and he led the way across, along another street and over a further bridge.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “I think we take this right-hand turning. It will lead us into the Greek quarter, the Church of San Georgio is somewhere over there.”

She did not answer. She was beginning to lose faith. The place was like a maze. They might circle round and round forever, and then find themselves back again, near the bridge where they had heard the cry. Doggedly he led her on, and then, surprisingly, with relief, he saw people walking in the lighted street ahead, there was a spire of a church, the surroundings became familiar.

“There, I told you,” he said, “that’s San Zaccaria, we’ve found it all right. Your restaurant can’t be far away.” And anyway, there would be other restaurants, somewhere to eat, at least here was the cheering glitter of lights, of movement, canals beside which people walked, the atmosphere of tourism. The letters RISTORANTE in blue lights, shone like a beacon down a left-hand alley.

“Is this your place?” he asked.

“God knows,” she said. “Who cares? Let’s feed there anyway.”

And so into the sudden blast of heated air and hum of voices, the smell of pasta, wine, waiters, jostling customers, laughter. “For two? This way, please.” Why, he thought, was one’s British nationality always so obvious? A cramped little table and an enormous menu scribbled in an indecipherable mauve ink, with the waiter hovering, expecting the order forthwith.

“Two very large Camparis, with soda,” John said. “Then we’ll study the menu.”

He was not going to be rushed. He handed the bill of fare to Laura and looked about him. Mostly Italians — that meant the food would be good. Then he saw them. At the opposite side of the room. The twin sisters. They must have come into the restaurant hard upon Laura and his own arrival, for they were only now sitting down, shedding their coats, the waiter hovering beside the table. John was seized with the irrational thought that this was no coincidence. The sisters had noticed them both, in the street outside, and had followed them in. Why, in the name of hell, should they have picked on this particular spot, in the whole of Venice, unless... unless Laura herself, at Torcello, had suggested a further encounter, or the sister had suggested it to her? A small restaurant near the Church of San Zaccaria, we go there sometimes for dinner. It was Laura, before the walk, who had mentioned San Zaccaria...

She was still intent upon the menu, she had not seen the sisters, but any moment now she would have chosen what she wanted to eat, and then she would raise her head and look across the room. If only the drinks would come. If only the waiter would bring the drinks, it would give Laura something to do.

“You know, I was thinking,” he said quickly, “we really ought to go to the garage tomorrow and get the car, and do that drive to Padua. We could lunch in Padua, see the cathedral and touch St. Anthony’s tomb and look at the Giotto frescoes, and come back by way of those various villas along the Brenta that the guidebook recommends so highly.”

It was no use, though. She was looking up, across the restaurant, and she gave a little gasp of surprise. It was genuine. He could swear it was genuine.

“Look,” she said, “how extraordinary! How really amazing!”

“What?” he said sharply.

“Why, there they are. My wonderful old twins. They’ve seen us, what’s more. They’re staring this way.” She waved her hand, radiant, delighted. The sister she had spoken to at Torcello bowed and smiled. False old bitch, he thought. I know they followed us.

“Oh, darling, I must go and speak to them,” she said impulsively, “just to tell them how happy I’ve been all day, thanks to them.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he said. “Look, here are the drinks. And we haven’t ordered yet. Surely you can wait until later, until we’ve eaten?”

“I won’t be a moment,” she said, “and anyway I want scampi, nothing first. I told you I wasn’t hungry.”

She got up, and, brushing past the waiter with the drinks, crossed the room. She might have been greeting the loved friends of years. He watched her bend over the table, shake them both by the hand, and because there was a vacant chair at their table she drew it up and sat down, talking, smiling. Nor did the sisters seem surprised, at least not the one she knew, who nodded and talked back, while the blind sister remained impassive.

All right, thought John savagely, then I will get sloshed, and he proceeded to down his Campari and soda and order another, while he pointed out something quite unintelligible on the menu as his own choice, but remembered scampi for Laura. “And a bottle of soave,” he added, “with ice.”

The evening was ruined anyway. What was to have been an intimate and happy celebration would now be heavy-laden with spiritualistic visions, poor little dead Christine sharing the table with them, which was so damned stupid when in earthly life she would have been tucked up hours ago in bed. The bitter taste of his Campari suited his mood of sudden self-pity, and all the while he watched the group at the table in the opposite corner, Laura apparently listening while the more active sister held forth and the blind one sat silent, her formidable sightless eyes turned in his direction.

She’s phoney, he thought, she’s not blind at all. They’re both of them frauds, and they could be males in drag after all, just as we pretended at Torcello, and they’re after Laura.

He began on his second Campari and soda. The two drinks, taken on an empty stomach, had an instant effect. Vision became blurred. And still Laura went on sitting at the other table, putting in a question now and again, while the active sister talked. The waiter appeared with the scampi, and a companion beside him to serve John’s own order, which was totally unrecognizable, heaped with a livid sauce.

“The signora does not come?” enquired the first waiter, and John shook his head grimly, pointing an unsteady finger across the room.

“Tell the signora,” he said carefully, “her scampi will get cold.”

He stared down at the offering placed before him, and prodded it delicately with a fork. The pallid sauce dissolved, revealing two enormous slices, rounds, of what appeared to be boiled pork, bedecked with garlic. He forked a portion to his mouth and chewed, and yes, it was pork, steamy, rich, the spicy sauce having turned it curiously sweet. He laid down his fork, pushing the plate away, and became aware of Laura, returning across the room and sitting beside him. She did not say anything, which was just as well, he thought, because he was too near nausea to answer. It wasn’t just the drink, but reaction from the whole nightmare day. She began to eat her scampi, still not uttering. She did not seem to notice he was not eating. The waiter, hovering at his elbow, anxious, seemed aware that John’s choice was somehow an error, and discreetly removed the plate. “Bring me a green salad,” murmured John, and even then Laura did not register surprise, or, as she might have done in more normal circumstances, accuse him of having had too much to drink. Finally, when she had finished her scampi, and was sipping her wine, which John had waved away, to nibble at his salad in small mouthfuls like a sick rabbit, she began to speak.

“Darling,” she said, “I know you won’t believe it, and it’s rather frightening in a way, but after they left the restaurant in Torcello the sisters went to the cathedral, as we did, although we didn’t see them in that crowd, and the blind one had another vision. She said Christine was trying to tell her something about us, that we should be in danger if we stayed in Venice. Christine wanted us to go away as soon as possible.”

So that’s it, he thought. They think they can run our lives for us. This is to be our problem from henceforth. Do we eat? Do we get up? Do we go to bed? We must get in touch with the twin sisters. They will direct us.

“Well?” she said. “Why don’t you say something?”

“Because,” he answered, “you are perfectly right, I don’t believe it. Quite frankly, I judge your old sisters as being a couple of freaks, if nothing else. They’re obviously unbalanced, and I’m sorry if this hurts you, but the fact is they’ve found a sucker in you.”

“You’re being unfair,” said Laura. “They are genuine, I know it. I just know it. They were completely sincere in what they said.”

“All right. Granted. They’re sincere. But that doesn’t make them well-balanced. Honestly, darling, you meet that old girl for ten minutes in a loo, she tells you she sees Christine sitting beside us, well, anyone with a gift for telepathy could read your unconscious mind in an instant, and then, pleased with her success, as any old psychic expert would be, she flings a further mood of ecstasy and wants to boot us out of Venice. Well, I’m sorry, but to hell with it.”

The room was no longer reeling. Anger had sobered him. If it would not put Laura to shame he would get up and cross to their table, and tell the old fools where they could get off.

“I knew you would take it like this,” said Laura unhappily. “I told them you would. They said not to worry. As long as we left Venice tomorrow everything would come all right.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said John. He changed his mind and poured himself a glass of wine.

“After all,” Laura went on, “we have really seen the cream of Venice. I don’t mind going on somewhere else. And if we stayed — I know it sounds silly, but I should have a nasty nagging sort of feeling inside me, and I should keep thinking of darling Christine being unhappy and trying to tell us to go.”

“Right,” said John with ominous calm, “that settles it. Go we will. I suggest we clear off to the hotel straight away and warn the reception we’re leaving in the morning. Have you had enough to eat?”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Laura, “don’t take it like that. Look, why not come over and meet them, and then they can explain about the vision to you? Perhaps you would take it seriously then. Especially as you are the one it most concerns. Christine is more worried over you than me. And the extraordinary thing is that the blind sister says you’re psychic and don’t know it. You are somehow en rapport with the unknown, and I’m not.”

“Well, that’s final,” said John. “I’m psychic, am I? Fine. My psychic intuition tells me to get out of this restaurant now, at once, and we can decide what we do about leaving Venice when we are back at the hotel.”

He signalled to the waiter for the bill and they waited for it, not speaking to each other, Laura unhappy, fiddling with her bag, while John, glancing furtively at the twins’ table, noticed that they were tucking into plates piled high with spaghetti, in very unpsychic fashion. The bill disposed of, John pushed back his chair.

“Right. Are you ready?” he asked.

“I’m going to say goodbye to them first,” said Laura, her mouth set sulkily, reminding him instantly, with a pang, of their poor lost child.

“Just as you like,” he replied, and walked ahead of her, out of the restaurant without a backward glance.

The soft humidity of the evening, so pleasant to walk about in earlier, had turned to rain. The strolling tourists had melted away. One or two people hurried by under umbrellas. This is what the inhabitants who live here see, he thought. This is the true life. Empty streets by night, and the dank stillness of a stagnant canal beneath shuttered houses. The rest is a bright façade put on for show, glittering by sunlight.

Laura joined him and they walked away together in silence, and emerging presently behind the ducal palace came out into the Piazza San Marco. The rain was heavy now, and they sought shelter, still walking, with the few remaining stragglers under the colonnades. The orchestras had packed up for the evening. The tables were bare. Chairs had been turned upside down.

The experts are right, he thought. Venice is sinking. The whole city is slowly dying. One day the tourists will travel here by boat to peer down into the waters, and they will see pillars and columns and marble far, far beneath them, slime and mud uncovering for brief moments a lost underworld of stone. Their heels made a ringing sound on the pavement and the rain splashed from the gutterings above. A fine ending to an evening that had started with brave hope, with innocence.

When they came to their hotel Laura made straight for the lift, and John turned to the desk to ask the night-porter for the key. The man handed him a telegram at the same time. John stared at it a moment. Laura was already in the lift. Then he opened the envelope and read the message. It was from the headmaster of Johnnie’s preparatory school.

He read the message twice, then walked slowly towards the lift, where Laura was waiting for him. He gave her the telegram. “This came when we were out,” he said. “Not awfully good news.” He pressed the lift button as she read the telegram. The lift stopped at the second floor, and they got out.

“Well, this decides it, doesn’t it?” she said. “Here is the proof. We have to leave Venice because we’re going home. It’s Johnnie who’s in danger, not us. This is what Christine was trying to tell the twins.”

The first thing John did the following morning was to put a call through to the headmaster at the preparatory school. Then he gave notice of their departure to the reception manager, and they packed while they waited for the call. Neither of them referred to the events of the preceding day, it was not necessary. John knew the arrival of the telegram and the foreboding of danger from the sisters was coincidence, nothing more, but it was pointless to start an argument about it. Laura was convinced otherwise, but intuitively she knew it was best to keep her feelings to herself. During breakfast they discussed ways and means of getting home. It should be possible to get themselves, and the car, on to the special car train that ran from Milan through to Calais, since it was early in the season. In any event, the headmaster had said there was no urgency.

The call from England came while John was in the bathroom. Laura answered it. He came into the bedroom a few minutes later. She was still speaking, but he could tell from the expression in her eyes that she was anxious.

“It’s Mrs. Hill,” she said. “Mr. Hill is in class. She says they reported from the hospital that Johnnie had a restless night, and the surgeon may have to operate, but he doesn’t want to unless it’s absolutely necessary. They’ve taken X-rays and the appendix is in a tricky position, it’s not awfully straightforward.”

“Here, give it to me,” he said.

The soothing but slightly guarded voice of the headmaster’s wife came down the receiver. “I’m so sorry this may spoil your plans,” she said, “but both Charles and I felt you ought to be told, and that you might feel rather easier if you were on the spot. Johnnie is very plucky, but of course he has some fever. That isn’t unusual, the surgeon says, in the circumstances. Sometimes an appendix can get displaced, it appears, and this makes it more complicated. He’s going to decide about operating this evening.”

“Yes, of course, we quite understand,” said John.

“Please do tell your wife not to worry too much,” she went on. “The hospital is excellent, a very nice staff, and we have every confidence in the surgeon.”

“Yes,” said John, “yes,” and then broke off because Laura was making gestures beside him.

“If we can’t get the car on the train, I can fly,” she said. “They’re sure to be able to find me a seat on a plane. Then at least one of us would be there this evening.”

He nodded agreement. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Hill,” he said, “we’ll manage to get back all right. Yes, I’m sure Johnnie is in good hands. Thank your husband for us. Goodbye.”

He replaced the receiver and looked round him at the tumbled beds, suitcases on the floor, tissue-paper strewn. Baskets, maps, books, coats, everything they had brought with them in the car. “Oh God,” he said, “what a bloody mess. All this junk.” The telephone rang again. It was the hall porter to say he had succeeded in booking a sleeper for them both, and a place for the car, on the following night.

“Look,” said Laura, who had seized the telephone, “could you book one seat on the midday plane from Venice to London today, for me? It’s imperative one of us gets home this evening. My husband could follow with the car tomorrow.”

“Here, hang on,” interrupted John. “No need for panic stations. Surely twenty-four hours wouldn’t make all that difference?”

Anxiety had drained the color from her face. She turned to him, distraught.

“It mightn’t to you, but it does to me,” she said. “I’ve lost one child, I’m not going to lose another.”

“All right, darling, all right...” He put his hand out to her, but she brushed it off, impatiently, and continued giving directions to the porter. He turned back to his packing. No use saying anything. Better for it to be as she wished. They could, of course, both go by air, and then when all was well, and Johnnie better, he could come back and fetch the car, driving home through France as they had come. Rather a sweat, though, and a hell of an expense. Bad enough Laura going by air and himself with the car on the train from Milan.

“We could, if you like, both fly,” he began tentatively, explaining the sudden idea, but she would have none of it. “That really would be absurd,” she said impatiently. “As long as I’m there this evening, and you follow by train, it’s all that matters. Besides, we shall need the car, going backwards and forwards to the hospital. And our luggage. We couldn’t go off and just leave all this here.”

No, he saw her point. A silly idea. It was only, well, he was as worried about Johnnie as she was, though he wasn’t going to say so.

“I’m going downstairs to stand over the porter,” said Laura. “They always make more effort if one is actually on the spot. Everything I want tonight is packed. I shall only need my overnight case. You can bring everything else in the car.” She hadn’t been out of the bedroom five minutes before the telephone rang. It was Laura. “Darling,” she said, “it couldn’t have worked out better. The porter has got me on a charter flight that leaves Venice in less than an hour. A special motor-launch takes the party direct from San Marco, in about ten minutes. Some passenger on the charter flight had canceled. I shall be at Gatwick in less than four hours.”

“I’ll be down right away,” he told her.

He joined her by the reception desk. She no longer looked anxious and drawn, but full of purpose. She was on her way. He kept wishing they were going together. He couldn’t bear to stay on in Venice after she had gone, but the thought of driving to Milan, spending a dreary night in a hotel there alone, the endless dragging day which would follow, and the long hours in the train the next night, filled him with intolerable depression, quite apart from the anxiety about Johnnie. They walked along to the San Marco landing-stage, the Molo bright and glittering after the rain, a little breeze blowing, the postcards and scarves and tourist souvenirs fluttering on the stalls, the tourists themselves out in force, strolling, contented, the happy day before them.

“I’ll ring you tonight from Milan,” he told her. “The Hills will give you a bed, I suppose. And if you’re at the hospital they’ll let me have the latest news. That must be your charter party. You’re welcome to them!”

The passengers descending from the landing-stage down into the waiting launch were carrying hand-luggage with Union Jack tags upon them. They were mostly middle-aged, with what appeared to be two Methodist ministers in charge. One of them advanced towards Laura, holding out his hand, showing a gleaming row of dentures when he smiled. “You must be the lady joining us for the homeward flight,” he said. “Welcome aboard, and to the Union of Fellowship. We are all delighted to make your acquaintance. Sorry we hadn’t a seat for hubby too.”

Laura turned swiftly and kissed John, a tremor at the corner of her mouth betraying inward laughter. “Do you think they’ll break into hymns?” she whispered. “Take care of yourself, hubby. Call me tonight.”

The pilot sounded a curious little toot upon his horn, and in a moment Laura had climbed down the steps into the launch and was standing amongst the crowd of passengers, waving her hand, her scarlet coat a gay patch of color amongst the more sober suiting of her companions. The launch tooted again and moved away from the landing-stage, and he stood there watching it, a sense of immense loss filling his heart. Then he turned and walked away, back to the hotel, the bright day all about him desolate, unseen.

There was nothing, he thought, as he looked about him presently in the hotel bedroom, so melancholy as a vacated room, especially when the recent signs of occupation were still visible about him. Laura’s suitcases on the bed, a second coat she had left behind. Traces of powder on the dressing-table. A tissue, with a lipstick smear, thrown in the wastepaper basket. Even an old toothpaste tube squeezed dry, lying on the glass shelf above the wash basin. Sounds of the heedless traffic on the Grand Canal came as always from the open window, but Laura wasn’t there any more to listen to it, or to watch from the small balcony. The pleasure had gone. Feeling had gone.

John finished packing, and, leaving all the baggage ready to be collected, he went downstairs to pay the bill. The reception clerk was welcoming new arrivals. People were sitting on the terrace overlooking the Grand Canal reading newspapers, the pleasant day waiting to be planned.

John decided to have an early lunch, here on the hotel terrace, on familiar ground, and then have the porter carry the baggage to one of the ferries that steamed between San Marco and the Porta Roma, where the car was garaged. The fiasco meal of the night before had left him empty, and he was ready for the trolley of hors d’oeuvres when they brought it to him, around midday. Even here, though, there was change. The head-waiter, their especial friend, was off-duty, and the table where they usually sat was occupied by new arrivals, a honeymoon couple, he told himself sourly, observing the gaiety, the smiles, while he had been shown to a small single table behind a tub of flowers.

She’s airborne now, John thought, she’s on her way, and he tried to picture Laura seated between the Methodist ministers, telling them, no doubt, about Johnnie ill in hospital, and heaven knows what else besides. Well, the twin sisters anyway could rest in psychic peace. Their wishes would have been fulfilled.

Lunch over, there was no point in lingering with a cup of coffee on the terrace. His desire was to get away as soon as possible, fetch the car, and be en route for Milan. He made his farewells at the reception desk, and, escorted by a porter who had piled his baggage on to a wheeled trolley, he made his way once more to the landing-stage of San Marco. As he stepped on to the steam-ferry, his luggage heaped beside him, a crowd of jostling people all about him, he had one momentary pang to be leaving Venice. When, if ever, he wondered, would they come again? Next year... in three years... Glimpsed first on honeymoon, nearly ten years ago, and then a second visit, en passant, before a cruise, and now this last abortive ten days that had ended so abruptly.

The water glittered in the sunshine, buildings shone, tourists in dark glasses paraded up and down the rapidly receding Molo; already the terrace of their hotel was out of sight as the ferry churned its way up the Grand Canal. So many impressions to seize and hold, familiar loved façades, balconies, windows, water lapping the cellar steps of decaying palaces, the little red house where d’Annunzio lived, with its garden — our house, Laura called it, pretending it was theirs — and too soon the ferry would be turning left on the direct route to the Piazzale Roma, so missing the best of the Canal, the Rialto, the farther palaces.

Another ferry was heading downstream to pass them, filled with passengers, and for a brief foolish moment he wished he could change places, be amongst the happy tourists bound for Venice and all he had left behind him. Then he saw her. Laura, in her scarlet coat, the twin sisters by her side, the active sister with her hand on Laura’s arm, talking earnestly, and Laura herself, her hair blowing in the wind, gesticulating, on her face a look of distress. He stared, astounded, too astonished to shout, to wave, and anyway they would never have heard or seen him, for his own ferry had already passed and was heading in the opposite direction.

What the hell had happened? There must have been a hold-up with the charter flight and it had never taken off, but in that case why had Laura not telephoned him at the hotel? And what were those damned sisters doing? Had she run into them at the airport? Was it coincidence? And why did she look so anxious? He could think of no explanation. Perhaps the flight had been canceled. Laura, of course, would go straight to the hotel, expecting to find him there, intending, doubtless, to drive with him after all to Milan and take the train the following night. What a blasted mix-up. The only thing to do was to telephone the hotel immediately his ferry reached the Piazzale Roma and tell her to wait, he would return and fetch her. As for the damned interfering sisters, they could get stuffed.

The usual stampede ensued when the ferry arrived at the landing-stage. He had to find a porter to collect his baggage, and then wait while he discovered a telephone. The fiddling with change, the hunt for the number, delayed him still more. He succeeded at last in getting through, and luckily the reception clerk he knew was still at the desk.

“Look, there’s been some frightful muddle,” he began, and explained how Laura was even now on her way back to the hotel — he had seen her with two friends on one of the ferry-services. Would the reception clerk explain and tell her to wait? He would be back by the next available service to collect her. “In any event, detain her,” he said. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” The reception clerk understood perfectly and John rang off.

Thank heaven Laura hadn’t turned up before he had put through his call, or they would have told her he was on his way to Milan. The porter was still waiting with the baggage, and it seemed simplest to walk with him to the garage, hand everything over to the chap in charge of the office there, and ask him to keep it for an hour, when he would be returning with his wife to pick up the car. Then he went back to the landing-station to await the next ferry to Venice. The minutes dragged, and he kept wondering all the time what had gone wrong at the airport and why in heaven’s name Laura hadn’t telephoned. No use conjecturing. She would tell him the whole story at the hotel. One thing was certain. He would not allow themselves to be saddled with the sisters and become involved with their affairs. He could imagine Laura saying that they also had missed a flight, and could they have a lift to Milan?

Finally the ferry chugged alongside the landing-stage and he stepped aboard. What an anticlimax, thrashing back past the familiar sights to which he had bidden a nostalgic farewell such a short while ago! He didn’t even look about him this time, he was so intent on reaching his destination. In San Marco there were more people than ever, the afternoon crowds walking shoulder to shoulder, every one of them on pleasure bent.

He came to the hotel, and pushed his way through the swing-door, expecting to see Laura, and possibly the sisters, waiting in the lounge on the left-hand side of the entrance. She was not there. He went to the desk. The reception clerk he had spoken to on the telephone was standing there, talking to the manager.

“Has my wife arrived?” John asked.

“No, sir, not yet.”

“What an extraordinary thing. Are you sure?”

“Absolutely certain, sir. I have been here ever since you telephoned me at a quarter to two. I have not left the desk.”

“I just don’t understand it. She was on one of the vaporettos passing by the Accademia. She would have landed at San Marco about five minutes later and come on here.”

The clerk seemed nonplussed. “I don’t know what to say. The signora was with friends, did you say?”

“Yes. Well, acquaintances. Two ladies we had met at Torcello yesterday. I was astonished to see her with them on the vaporetto, and of course I assumed that the flight had been canceled, and she had somehow met up with them at the airport and decided to return here with them, to catch me before I left.”

Oh hell, what was Laura doing? It was after three. A matter of moments from San Marco landing-stage to the hotel.

“Perhaps the signora went with her friends to their hotel instead. Do you know where they are staying?”

“No,” said John, “I haven’t the slightest idea. What’s more I don’t even know the names of the two ladies. They were sisters, twins, in fact — looked exactly alike. But, anyway, why go to their hotel and not here?”

The swing-door opened but it wasn’t Laura. Two people staying in the hotel.

The manager broke into the conversation, “I tell you what I will do,” he said. “I will telephone the airport and check about the flight. Then at least we will get somewhere.” He smiled apologetically. It was not usual for arrangements to go wrong.

“Yes, do that,” said John. “We may as well know what happened there.”

He lit a cigarette and began to pace up and down the entrance hall. What a bloody mix-up. And how unlike Laura, who knew he would be setting off for Milan directly after lunch — indeed, for all she knew he might have gone before. But surely, in that case, she would have telephoned at once, on arrival at the airport, had take-off been canceled? The manager was ages telephoning, he had to be put through on some other line, and his Italian was too rapid for John to follow the conversation. Finally he replaced the receiver.

“It is more mysterious than ever, sir,” he said. “The charter flight was not delayed, it took off on schedule with a full complement of passengers. As far as they could tell me, there was no hitch. The signora must simply have changed her mind.” His smile was more apologetic than ever.

“Changed her mind,” John repeated. “But why on earth should she do that? She was so anxious to be home tonight.”

The manager shrugged. “You know how ladies can be, sir,” he said. “Your wife may have thought that after all she would prefer to take the train to Milan with you. I do assure you, though, that the charter party was most respectable, and it was a Caravelle aircraft, perfectly safe.”

“Yes, yes,” said John impatiently, “I don’t blame your arrangements in the slightest. I just can’t understand what induced her to change her mind, unless it was meeting with these two ladies.”

The manager was silent. He could not think of anything to say. The reception clerk was equally concerned. “It is possible,” he ventured, “that you made a mistake, and it was not the signora that you saw on the vaporetto?”

“Oh no,” replied John, “it was my wife, I assure you. She was wearing her red coat, she was hatless, just as she left here. I saw her as plainly as I can see you. I would swear to it in a court of law.”

“It is unfortunate,” said the manager, “that we do not know the name of the two ladies, or the hotel where they were staying. You say you met these ladies at Torcello yesterday?”

“Yes... but only briefly. They weren’t staying there. At least, I am certain they were not. We saw them at dinner in Venice later, as it happens.”

“Excuse me...” Guests were arriving with luggage to check in, the clerk was obliged to attend to them. John turned in desperation to the manager. “Do you think it would be any good telephoning the hotel in Torcello in case the people there knew the name of the ladies, or where they were staying in Venice?”

“We can try,” replied the manager. “It is a small hope, but we can try.”

John resumed his anxious pacing, all the while watching the swing-door, hoping, praying, that he would catch sight of the red coat and Laura would enter. Once again there followed what seemed an interminable telephone conversation between the manager and someone at the hotel in Torcello.

“Tell them two sisters,” said John, “two elderly ladies dressed in grey, both exactly alike. One lady was blind,” he added. The manager nodded. He was obviously giving a detailed description. Yet when he hung up he shook his head. “The manager at Torcello says he remembers the two ladies well,” he told John, “but they were only there for lunch. He never learnt their names.”

“Well, that’s that. There’s nothing to do now but wait.”

John lit his third cigarette and went out on to the terrace, to resume his pacing there. He stared out across the canal, searching the heads of the people on passing steamers, motorboats, even drifting gondolas. The minutes ticked by on his watch, and there was no sign of Laura. A terrible foreboding nagged at him that somehow this was prearranged, that Laura had never intended to catch the aircraft, that last night in the restaurant she had made an assignation with the sisters. Oh God, he thought, that’s impossible, I’m going paranoiac... Yet why, why? No, more likely the encounter at the airport was fortuitous, and for some incredible reason they had persuaded Laura not to board the aircraft, even prevented her from doing so, trotting out one of their psychic visions, that the aircraft would crash, that she must return with them to Venice. And Laura, in her sensitive state, felt they must be right, swallowed it all without question.

But granted all these possibilities, why had she not come to the hotel? What was she doing? Four o’clock, half-past four, the sun no longer dappling the water. He went back to the reception desk.

“I just can’t hang around,” he said. “Even if she does turn up, we shall never make Milan this evening. I might see her walking with these ladies, in the Piazza San Marco, anywhere. If she arrives while I’m out, will you explain?”

The clerk was full of concern. “Indeed, yes,” he said. “It is very worrying for you, sir. Would it perhaps be prudent if we booked you in here tonight?”

John gestured, helplessly. “Perhaps, yes, I don’t know. Maybe...”

He went out of the swing-door and began to walk towards the Piazza San Marco. He looked into every shop up and down the colonnades, crossed the piazza a dozen times, threaded his way between the tables in front of Florian’s, in front of Quadri’s, knowing that Laura’s red coat and the distinct appearance of the twin sisters could easily be spotted, even amongst this milling crowd, but there was no sign of them. He joined the crowd of shoppers in the Merceria, shoulder to shoulder with idlers, thrusters, window-gazers, knowing instinctively that it was useless, they wouldn’t be here. Why should Laura have deliberately missed her flight to return to Venice for such a purpose? And even if she had done so, for some reason beyond his imagining, she would surely have come first to the hotel to find him.

The only thing left to him was to try to track down the sisters. Their hotel could be anywhere amongst the hundreds of hotels and pensions scattered through Venice, or even across the other side at the Zattere, or farther again on the Giudecca. These last possibilities seemed remote. More likely they were staying in a small hotel or pension somewhere near San Zaccaria handy to the restaurant where they had dined last night. The blind one would surely not go far afield in the evening. He had been a fool not to have thought of this before, and he turned back and walked quickly away from the brightly lighted shopping district towards the narrower, more cramped quarter where they had dined last evening. He found the restaurant without difficulty, but they were not yet open for dinner, and the waiter preparing tables was not the one who had served them. John asked to see the patrone, and the waiter disappeared to the back regions, returning after a moment or two with the somewhat disheveled-looking proprietor in shirt-sleeves, caught in a slack moment, not in full tenue.

“I had dinner here last night,” John explained. “There were two ladies sitting at that table there in the corner.” He pointed to it.

“You wish to book that table for this evening?” asked the proprietor.

“No,” said John. “No, there were two ladies there last night, two sisters, due sorelle, twins, gemelle” — what was the right word for twins? “Do you remember? Two ladies, sorelle, vecchie...”

“Ah,” said the man, “si, si, signore, la povera signorina.” He put his hands to his eyes to feign blindness. “Yes, I remember.”

“Do you know their names?” asked John. “Where they were staying? I am very anxious to trace them.”

The proprietor spread out his hands in a gesture of regret. “I am ver’ sorry, signore, I do not know the names of the signorine, they have been here once, twice perhaps, for dinner, they do not say where they were staying. Perhaps if you come again tonight they might be here? Would you like to book a table?”

He pointed around him, suggesting a whole choice of tables that might appeal to a prospective diner, but John shook his head.

“Thank you, no. I may be dining elsewhere. I am sorry to have troubled you. If the signorine should come” — he paused — “possibly I may return later,” he added. “I am not sure.”

The proprietor bowed, and walked with him to the entrance. “In Venice the whole world meets,” he said smiling. “It is possible the signore will find his friends tonight. Arrivederci, signore.”

Friends? John walked out into the street. More likely kidnappers... Anxiety had turned to fear, to panic. Something had gone terribly wrong. Those women had got hold of Laura, played upon her suggestibility, induced her to go with them, either to their hotel or elsewhere. Should he find the Consulate? Where was it? What would he say when he got there? He began walking without purpose, finding himself, as they had done the night before, in streets he did not know, and suddenly came upon a tall building with the word QUESTURA above it. This is it, he thought. I don’t care, something has happened, I’m going inside. There were a number of police in uniform coming and going, the place at any rate was active, and, addressing himself to one of them behind a glass-partition, he asked if there was anyone who spoke English. The man pointed to a flight of stairs and John went up, entering a door on the right where he saw that another couple were sitting, waiting, and with relief he recognized them as fellow-countrymen, tourists, obviously a man and his wife, in some sort of predicament.

“Come and sit down,” said the man. “We’ve waited half-an-hour but they can’t be much longer. What a country! They wouldn’t leave us like this at home.”

John took the proffered cigarette and found a chair beside them.

“What’s your trouble?” he asked.

“My wife had her handbag pinched in one of those shops in the Merceria,” said the man. “She simply put it down one moment to look at something, and you’d hardly credit it, the next moment it had gone. I say it was a sneak thief, she insists it was the girl behind the counter. But who’s to say? These Ities are all alike. Anyway, I’m certain we shan’t get it back. What have you lost?”

“Suitcase stolen,” John lied rapidly. “Had some important papers in it.”

How could he say he had lost his wife? He couldn’t even begin...

The man nodded in sympathy. “As I said, these Ities are all alike. Old Musso knew how to deal with them. Too many Communists around these days. The trouble is, they’re not going to bother with our troubles much, not with this murderer at large. They’re all out looking for him.”

“Murderer? What murderer?” asked John.

“Don’t tell me you’ve not heard about it?” The man stared at him in surprise. “Venice has talked of nothing else. It’s been in all the papers, on the radio, and even in the English papers too. A grizzly business. One woman found with her throat slit last week — a tourist too — and some old chap discovered with the same sort of knife wound this morning. They seem to think it must be a maniac because there doesn’t seem to be any motive. Nasty thing to happen in Venice in the tourist season.”

“My wife and I never bother with the newspapers when we’re on holiday,” said John. “And we’re neither of us much given to gossip in the hotel.”

“Very wise of you,” laughed the man. “It might have spoilt your holiday, especially if your wife is nervous. Oh well, we’re off tomorrow anyway. Can’t say we mind, do we, dear?” He turned to his wife. “Venice has gone downhill since we were here last. And now this loss of the handbag really is the limit.”

The door of the inner room opened, and a senior police officer asked John’s companion and his wife to pass through.

“I bet we don’t get any satisfaction,” murmured the tourist, winking at John, and he and his wife went into the inner room. The door closed behind them. John stubbed out his cigarette and lighted another. A strange feeling of unreality possessed him. He asked himself what he was doing here, what was the use of it? Laura was no longer in Venice but had disappeared, perhaps forever, with those diabolical sisters. She would never be traced. And just as the two of them had made up a fantastic story about the twins, when they first spotted them in Torcello, so, with nightmare logic, the fiction would have basis in fact: the women were in reality disguised crooks, men with criminal intent who lured unsuspecting persons to some appalling fate. They might even be the murderers for whom the police sought. Who would ever suspect two elderly women of respectable appearance, living quietly in some second-rate pension or hotel? He stubbed out his cigarette, unfinished.

This, he thought, is really the start of paranoia. This is the way people go off their heads. He glanced at his watch. It was half-past six. Better pack this in, this futile quest here in police headquarters, and keep to the single link of sanity remaining. Return to the hotel, put a call through to the prep school in England, and ask about the latest news of Johnnie. He had not thought about poor Johnnie since sighting Laura on the vaporetto.

Too late, though. The inner door opened, the couple were ushered out.

“Usual clap-trap,” said the husband sotto voce to John. “They’ll do what they can. Not much hope. So many foreigners in Venice, all of ’em thieves! The locals all above reproach. Wouldn’t pay ’em to steal from customers. Well, I wish you better luck.”

He nodded, his wife smiled and bowed, and they had gone. John followed the police officer into the inner room.

Formalities began. Name, address, passport. Length of stay in Venice, etc., etc. Then the questions, and John, the sweat beginning to appear on his forehead, launched into his interminable story. The first encounter with the sisters, the meeting at the restaurant, Laura’s state of suggestibility because of the death of their child, the telegram about Johnnie, the decision to take the chartered flight, her departure, and her sudden inexplicable return. When he had finished he felt as exhausted as if he had driven three hundred miles nonstop after a severe bout of flu. His interrogator spoke excellent English with a strong Italian accent.

“You say,” he began, “that your wife was suffering the aftereffects of shock. This had been noticeable during your stay here in Venice?”

“Well, yes,” John replied, “she had really been quite ill. The holiday didn’t seem to be doing her much good. It was only when she met these two women at Torcello yesterday that her mood changed. The strain seemed to have gone. She was ready, I suppose, to snatch at every straw, and this belief that our little girl was watching over her had somehow restored her to what appeared normality.”

“It would be natural,” said the police officer, “in the circumstances. But no doubt the telegram last night was a further shock to you both?”

“Indeed, yes. That was the reason we decided to return home.”

“No argument between you? No difference of opinion?”

“None. We were in complete agreement. My one regret was that I could not go with my wife on this charter flight.”

The police officer nodded. “It could well be that your wife had a sudden attack of amnesia and meeting the two ladies served as a link, she clung to them for support. You have described them with great accuracy, and I think they should not be too difficult to trace. Meanwhile, I suggest you should return to your hotel, and we will get in touch with you as soon as we have news.”

At least, John thought, they believed his story. They did not consider him a crank who had made the whole thing up and was merely wasting their time.

“You appreciate,” he said, “I am extremely anxious. These women may have some criminal design upon my wife. One has heard of such things...”

The police officer smiled for the first time. “Please don’t concern yourself,” he said. “I am sure there will be some satisfactory explanation.”

All very well, thought John, but in heaven’s name, what?

“I’m sorry,” he said, “to have taken up so much of your time. Especially as I gather the police have their hands full hunting down a murderer who is still at large.”

He spoke deliberately. No harm in letting the fellow know that for all any of them could tell there might be some connection between Laura’s disappearance and this other hideous affair.

“Ah, that,” said the police officer, rising to his feet. “We hope to have the murderer under lock and key very soon.”

His tone of confidence was reassuring. Murderers, missing wives, lost handbags were all under control. They shook hands, and John was ushered out of the door and so downstairs. Perhaps, he thought, as he walked slowly back to the hotel, the fellow was right. Laura had suffered a sudden attack of amnesia, and the sisters happened to be at the airport and had brought her back to Venice, to their own hotel, because Laura couldn’t remember where she and John had been staying. Perhaps they were even now trying to track down his hotel. Anyway, he could do nothing more. The police had everything in hand, and, please God, would come up with the solution. All he wanted to do right now was to collapse upon a bed with a stiff whisky, and then put through a call to Johnnie’s school.

The page took him up in the lift to a modest room on the fourth floor at the rear of the hotel. Bare, impersonal, the shutters closed, with a smell of cooking wafting up from a courtyard down below.

“Ask them to send me up a double whisky, will you?” he said to the boy, “and a ginger-ale,” and when he was alone he plunged his face under the cold tap in the wash-basin, relieved to find that the minute portion of visitor’s soap afforded some measure of comfort. He flung off his shoes, hung his coat over the back of a chair, and threw himself down on the bed. Somebody’s radio was blasting forth an old popular song, now several seasons out-of-date, that had been one of Laura’s favorites a couple of years ago. “I love you, baby...” They had taped it and used to play it back in the car. He reached out for the telephone, and asked the exchange to put through the call to England. Then he closed his eyes, and all the while the insistent voice persisted, “I love you, baby... I can’t get you out of my mind.”

Presently there was a tap at the door. It was the waiter with his drink. Too little ice, such meager comfort, but what desperate need. He gulped it down without the ginger-ale, and in a few moments the ever-nagging pain was eased, numbed, bringing, if only momentarily, a sense of calm. The telephone rang, and now, he thought, bracing himself for ultimate disaster, the final shock, Johnnie probably dying, or already dead. In which case nothing remained. Let Venice be engulfed...

The exchange told him that connection had been made, and in a moment he heard the voice of Mrs. Hill at the other end of the line. They must have warned her that the call came from Venice, for she knew instantly who was speaking.

“Hullo?” she cried. “Oh, I am so glad you rang. All is well. Johnnie has had his operation, the surgeon decided to do it at midday rather than wait, and it was completely successful. Johnnie is going to be all right. So you don’t have to worry any more, and will have a peaceful night.”

“Thank God,” he answered.

“I know,” she said, “we are all so relieved. Now I’ll get off the line and you can speak to your wife.”

John sat up on the bed, stunned. What the hell did she mean? Then he heard Laura’s voice, cool and clear.

“Darling? Darling, are you there?”

He could not answer. He felt the hand holding the receiver go clammy cold with sweat. “I’m here,” he whispered.

“It’s not a very good line,” she said, “but never mind. As Mrs. Hill told you, all is well. Such a nice surgeon, and a very sweet Sister on Johnnie’s floor, and I really am happy about the way it’s turned out. I came straight down here after landing at Gatwick — the flight O.K., by the way, but such a funny crowd, it’ll make you hysterical when I tell you about them — and I went to the hospital, and Johnnie was coming round. Very dopey, of course, but so pleased to see me. And the Hills are being wonderful, I’ve got their spare-room, and it’s only a short taxi-drive into the town and the hospital. I shall go to bed as soon as we’ve had dinner, because I’m a bit fagged, what with the flight and the anxiety. How was the drive to Milan? And where are you staying?”

John did not recognize the voice that answered as his own. It was the automatic response of some computer.

“I’m not in Milan,” he said, “I’m still in Venice.”

“Still in Venice? What on earth for? Wouldn’t the car start?”

“I can’t explain,” he said. “There was a stupid sort of mix-up...”

He felt suddenly so exhausted that he nearly dropped the receiver, and, shame upon shame, he could feel tears pricking behind his eyes.

“What sort of mix-up?” Her voice was suspicious, almost hostile. “You weren’t in a crash?”

“No... no... nothing like that.”

A moment’s silence, and then she said, “Your voice sounds very slurred. Don’t tell me you went and got pissed.”

Oh Christ... if she only knew! He was probably going to pass out any moment, but not from the whisky.

“I thought,” he said slowly, “I thought I saw you, in a vaporetto, with those two sisters.”

What was the point of going on? It was hopeless trying to explain.

“How could you have seen me with the sisters?” she said. “You knew I’d gone to the airport. Really, darling, you are an idiot. You seem to have got those two poor old dears on the brain. I hope you didn’t say anything to Mrs. Hill just now.”

“No.”

“Well, what are you going to do? You’ll catch the train at Milan tomorrow, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” he told her.

“I still don’t understand what kept you in Venice,” she said. “It all sounds a bit odd to me. However... thank God Johnnie is going to be all right and I’m here.”

“Yes,” he said, “yes.”

He could hear the distant boom-boom sound of a gong from the headmaster’s hall.

“You had better go,” he said. “My regards to the Hills, and my love to Johnnie.”

“Well, take care of yourself, darling, and for goodness sake don’t miss the train tomorrow, and drive carefully.”

The telephone clicked and she had gone. He poured the remaining drop of whisky into his empty glass, and, sousing it with ginger-ale, drank it down at a gulp. He got up, crossed the room, threw open the shutters, and leant out of the window. He felt light-headed. His sense of relief, enormous, overwhelming, was somehow tempered with a curious feeling of unreality, almost as though the voice speaking from England had not been Laura’s after all but a fake, and she was still in Venice, hidden in some furtive pension with the two sisters.

The point was, he had seen all three of them on the vaporetto. It was not another woman in a red coat. The women had been there, with Laura. So what was the explanation? That he was going off his head? Or something more sinister? The sisters, possessing psychic powers of formidable strength, had seen him as their two ferries had passed, and in some inexplicable fashion had made him believe Laura was with them. But why, and to what end? No, it didn’t make sense. The only explanation was that he had been mistaken, the whole episode an hallucination. In which case he needed psychoanalysis, just as Johnnie had needed a surgeon.

And what did he do now? Go downstairs and tell the management he had been at fault and had just spoken to his wife, who had arrived in England safe and sound from her charter flight? He put on his shoes and ran his fingers through his hair. He glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes to eight. If he nipped into the bar and had a quick drink it would be easier to face the manager and admit what had happened. Then, perhaps, they would get in touch with the police. Profuse apologies all round for putting everyone to enormous trouble.

He made his way to the ground floor and went straight to the bar, feeling self-conscious, a marked man, half-imagining everyone would look at him, thinking, There’s the fellow with the missing wife. Luckily the bar was full and there wasn’t a face he knew. Even the chap behind the bar was an underling who hadn’t served him before. He downed his whisky and glanced over his shoulder to the reception hall. The desk was momentarily empty. He could see the manager’s back framed in the doorway of an inner room, talking to someone within. On impulse, cowardlike, he crossed the hall and passed through the swing-door to the street outside.

I’ll have some dinner, he decided, and then go back and face them. I’ll feel more like it once I’ve some food inside me.

He went to the restaurant nearby where he and Laura had dined once or twice. Nothing mattered any more, because she was safe. The nightmare lay behind him. He could enjoy his dinner, despite her absence, and think of her sitting down with the Hills to a dull, quiet evening, early to bed, and on the following morning going to the hospital to sit with Johnnie. Johnnie was safe too. No more worries, only the awkward explanations and apologies to the manager at the hotel.

There was a pleasant anonymity sitting down at a corner table alone in the little restaurant, ordering vitello allo Marsala and half a bottle of Merlot. He took his time, enjoying his food but eating in a kind of haze, a sense of unreality still with him, while the conversation of his nearest neighbors had the same soothing effect as background music.

When they rose and left, he saw by the clock on the wall that it was nearly half-past nine. No use delaying matters any further. He drank his coffee, lighted a cigarette, and paid his bill. After all, he thought, as he walked back to the hotel, the manager would be greatly relieved to know that all was well.

When he pushed through the swing-door, the first thing he noticed was a man in police uniform, standing talking to the manager at the desk. The reception clerk was there too. They turned as John approached, and the manager’s face lighted up with relief.

“Eccolo!” he exclaimed, “I was certain the signore would not be far away. Things are moving, signore. The two ladies have been traced, and they very kindly agreed to accompany the police to the Questura. If you will go there at once, this agents di polizia will escort you.”

John flushed. “I have given everyone a lot of trouble,” he said. “I meant to tell you before going out to dinner, but you were not at the desk. The fact is that I have contacted my wife. She did make the flight to London after all, and I spoke to her on the telephone. It was all a great mistake.”

The manager looked bewildered. “The signora is in London?” he repeated. He broke off, and exchanged a rapid conversation in Italian with the policeman. “It seems that the ladies maintain they did not go out for the day, except for a little shopping in the morning,” he said, turning back to John. “Then who was it the signore saw on the vaporetto?”

John shook his head. “A very extraordinary mistake on my part which I still don’t understand,” he said. “Obviously, I did not see either my wife or the two ladies. I really am extremely sorry.”

More rapid conversation in Italian. John noticed the clerk watching him with a curious expression in his eyes. The manager was obviously apologizing on John’s behalf to the policeman, who looked annoyed and gave tongue to this effect, his voice increasing in volume, to the manager’s concern. The whole business had undoubtedly given enormous trouble to a great many people, not least the two unfortunate sisters.

“Look,” said John, interrupting the flow, “will you tell the agente I will go with him to headquarters and apologize in person both to the police officer and to the ladies?”

The manager looked relieved. “If the signore would take the trouble,” he said. “Naturally, the ladies were much distressed when a policeman interrogated them at their hotel, and they offered to accompany him to the Questura only because they were so distressed about the signora.”

John felt more and more uncomfortable. Laura must never learn any of this. She would be outraged. He wondered if there were some penalty for giving the police misleading information involving a third party. His error began, in retrospect, to take on criminal proportions.

He crossed the Piazza San Marco, now thronged with after-dinner strollers and spectators at the cafes, all three orchestras going full blast in harmonious rivalry, while his companion kept a discreet two paces to his left and never uttered a word.

They arrived at the police station and mounted the stairs to the same inner room where he had been before. He saw immediately that it was not the officer he knew but another who sat behind the desk, a sallow-faced individual with a sour expression, while the two sisters, obviously upset — the active one in particular — were seated on chairs nearby, some underling in uniform standing behind them. John’s escort went at once to the police officer, speaking in rapid Italian, while John himself, after a moment’s hesitation, advanced towards the sisters.

“There has been a terrible mistake,” he said. “I don’t know how to apologize to you both. It’s all my fault, mine entirely, the police are not to blame.”

The active sister made as though to rise, her mouth twitching nervously, but he restrained her.

“We don’t understand,” she said, the Scots inflection strong. “We said goodnight to your wife last night at dinner, and we have not seen her since. The police came to our pension more than an hour ago and told us your wife was missing and you had filed a complaint against us. My sister is not very strong. She was considerably disturbed.”

“A mistake. A frightful mistake,” he repeated.

He turned towards the desk. The police officer was addressing him, his English very inferior to that of the previous interrogator. He had John’s earlier statement on the desk in front of him, and tapped it with a pencil.

“So?” he queried. “This document all lies? You not speaka the truth?”

“I believed it to be true at the time,” said John. “I could have sworn in a court of law that I saw my wife with these two ladies on a vaporetto in the Grand Canal this afternoon. Now I realize I was mistaken.”

“We have not been near the Grand Canal all day,” protested the sister, “not even on foot. We made a few purchases in the Merceria this morning, and remained indoors all afternoon. My sister was a little unwell. I have told the police officer this a dozen times, and the people at the pension would corroborate our story. He refused to listen.”

“And the signora?” rapped the police officer angrily. “What happen to the signora?”

“The signora, my wife, is safe in England,” explained John patiently. “I talked to her on the telephone just after seven. She did join the charter flight from the airport, and is now staying with friends.”

“Then who you see on the vaporetto in the red coat?” asked the furious police officer. “And if not these signorine here, then what signorine?”

“My eyes deceived me,” said John, aware that his English was likewise becoming strained. “I think I see my wife and these ladies but not, it was not so. My wife in aircraft, these ladies in pension all the time.”

It was like talking stage Chinese. In a moment he would be bowing and putting his hands in his sleeves.

The police officer raised his eyes to heaven and thumped the table. “So all this work for nothing,” he said. “Hotels and pensiones searched for the signorine and a missing signora inglese, when here we have plenty, plenty other things to do. You maka a mistake. You have perhaps too much vino at mezzo giorno and you see hundred signore in red coats in hundred vaporetti.” He stood up, rumpling the papers on the desk. “And you, signorine,” he said, “you wish to make complaint against this person?” He was addressing the active sister.

“Oh no,” she said, “no, indeed. I quite see it was all a mistake. Our only wish is to return at once to our pension.”

The police officer grunted. Then he pointed at John. “You very lucky man,” he said. “These signorine could file complaint against you — very serious matter.”

“I’m sure,” began John, “I’ll do anything in my power...”

“Please don’t think of it,” exclaimed the sister, horrified. “We would not hear of such a thing.” It was her turn to apologize to the police officer. “I hope we need not take up any more of your valuable time,” she said.

He waved a hand of dismissal and spoke in Italian to the underling. “This man walk with you to the pension,” he said. “Buona sera, signorine,” and, ignoring John, he sat down again at his desk.

“I’ll come with you,” said John. “I want to explain exactly what happened.”

They trooped down the stairs and out of the building, the blind sister leaning on her twin’s arm, and once outside she turned her sightless eyes to John.

“You saw us,” she said, “and your wife too. But not today. You saw us in the future.”

Her voice was softer than her sister’s, slower, she seemed to have some slight impediment in her speech.

“I don’t follow,” replied John, bewildered.

He turned to the active sister and she shook her head at him, frowning, and put her fingers on her lips.

“Come along, dear,” she said to her twin. “You know you’re very tired, and I want to get you home.” Then, sotto voce to John, “She’s psychic. Your wife told you, I believe, but I don’t want her to go into trance here in the street.”

God forbid, thought John, and the little procession began to move slowly along the street, away from police headquarters, a canal to the left of them. Progress was slow, because of the blind sister, and there were two bridges to cross over two canals. John was completely lost after the first turning, but it couldn’t have mattered less. Their police escort was with them, and anyway, the sisters knew where they were going.

“I must explain,” said John softly. “My wife would never forgive me if I didn’t,” and as they walked he went over the whole inexplicable story once again, beginning with the telegram received the night before and the conversation with Mrs. Hill, the decision to return to England the following day, Laura by air, and John himself by car and train. It no longer sounded as dramatic as it had done when he had made his statement to the police officer, when, possibly because of his conviction of something uncanny, the description of the two vaporettos passing one another in the middle of the Grand Canal had held a sinister quality, suggesting abduction on the part of the sisters, the pair of them holding a bewildered Laura captive. Now that neither of the women had any further menace for him he spoke more naturally, yet with great sincerity, feeling for the first time that they were somehow both in sympathy with him and would understand.

“You see,” he explained, in a final endeavor to make amends for having gone to the police in the first place, “I truly believed I had seen you with Laura, and I thought...” he hesitated, because this had been the police officer’s suggestion and not his, “I thought that perhaps Laura had some sudden loss of memory, had met you at the airport, and you had brought her back to Venice to wherever you were staying.”

They had crossed a large campo and were approaching a house at one end of it, with a sign PENSIONE above the door. Their escort paused at the entrance.

“Is this it?” asked John.

“Yes,” said the sister. “I know it is nothing much from the outside, but it is clean and comfortable, and was recommended by friends.” She turned to the escort. “Grazie,” she said to him, “grazie tanto.”

The man nodded briefly, wished them “Buona notte,” and disappeared across the campo.

“Will you come in?” asked the sister. “I am sure we can find you some coffee, or perhaps you prefer tea?”

“No, really,” John thanked her, “I must get back to the hotel. I’m making an early start in the morning. I just want to make quite sure you do understand what happened, and that you forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” she replied. “It is one of the many examples of second sight that my sister and I have experienced time and time again, and I should very much like to record it for our files, if you permit it.”

“Well, as to that, of course,” he told her, “but I myself find it hard to understand. It has never happened to me before.”

“Not consciously, perhaps,” she said, “but so many things happen to us of which we are not aware. My sister felt you had psychic understanding. She told your wife. She also told your wife, last night in the restaurant, that you were to experience trouble, that you should leave Venice. Well, don’t you believe now that the telegram was proof of this? Your son was ill, possibly dangerously ill, and so it was necessary for you to return home immediately. Heaven be praised your wife flew home to be by his side.”

“Yes, indeed,” said John, “but why should I see her on the vaporetto with you and your sister when she was actually on her way to England?”

“Thought transference, perhaps,” she answered. “Your wife may have been thinking about us. We gave her our address, should you wish to get in touch with us. We shall be here another ten days. And she knows that we would pass on any message that my sister might have from your little one in the spirit world.”

“Yes,” said John awkwardly, “yes, I see. It’s very good of you.” He had a sudden rather unkind picture of the two sisters putting on headphones in their bedroom, listening for a coded message from poor Christine. “Look, this is our address in London,” he said. “I know Laura will be pleased to hear from you.”

He scribbled their address on a sheet torn from his pocket-diary, even, as a bonus thrown in, the telephone number, and handed it to her. He could imagine the outcome. Laura springing it on him one evening that the “old dears” were passing through London on their way to Scotland, and the least they could do was to offer them hospitality, even the spare-room for the night. Then a séance in the living-room, tambourines appearing out of thin air.

“Well, I must be off,” he said, “goodnight, and apologies, once again, for all that has happened this evening.” He shook hands with the first sister, then turned to her blind twin. “I hope,” he said, “that you are not too tired.”

The sightless eyes were disconcerting. She held his hand fast and would not let it go. “The child,” she said, speaking in an odd staccato voice, “the child... I can see the child...” and then, to his dismay, a bead of froth appeared at the corner of her mouth, her head jerked back, and she half-collapsed in her sister’s arms.

“We must get her inside,” said the sister hurriedly. “It’s all right, she’s not ill, it’s the beginning of a trance state.”

Between them they helped the twin, who had gone rigid, into the house, and sat her down on the nearest chair, the sister supporting her. A woman came running from some inner room. There was a strong smell of spaghetti from the back regions. “Don’t worry,” said the sister, “the signorina and I can manage. I think you had better go. Sometimes she is sick after these turns.”

“I’m most frightfully sorry...” John began, but the sister had already turned her back, and with the signorina was bending over her twin, from whom peculiar choking sounds were proceeding. He was obviously in the way, and after a final gesture of courtesy, “Is there anything I can do?” which received no reply, he turned on his heel and began walking across the square. He looked back once, and saw they had closed the door.

What a finale to the evening! And all his fault. Poor old girls, first dragged to police headquarters and put through an interrogation, and then a psychic fit on top of it all. More likely epilepsy. Not much of a life for the active sister, but she seemed to take it in her stride. An additional hazard, though, if it happened in a restaurant or in the street. And not particularly welcome under his and Laura’s roof should the sisters ever find themselves beneath it, which he prayed would never happen.

Meanwhile, where the devil was he? The campo, with the inevitable church at one end, was quite deserted. He could not remember which way they had come from police headquarters, there had seemed to be so many turnings. Wait a minute, the church itself had a familiar appearance. He drew nearer to it, looking for the name which was sometimes on notices at the entrance. San Giovanni in Bragora, that rang a bell. He and Laura had gone inside one morning to look at a painting by Cima da Conegliano. Surely it was only a stone’s throw from the Riva degli Schiavoni and the open wide waters of the San Marco lagoon, with all the bright lights of civilization and the strolling tourists? He remembered taking a small turning from the Schiavoni and they had arrived at the church. Wasn’t there the alley-way ahead? He plunged along it, but halfway down he hesitated. It didn’t seem right, although it was familiar for some unknown reason.

Then he realized that it was not the alley they had taken the morning they visited the church, but the one they had walked along the previous evening, only he was approaching it from the opposite direction. Yes, that was it, in which case it would be quicker to go on and cross the little bridge over the narrow canal, and he would find the Arsenal on his left and the street leading down to the Riva degli Schiavoni to his right. Simpler than retracing his steps and getting lost once more in the maze of back streets.

He had almost reached the end of the alley, and the bridge was in sight, when he saw the child. It was the same little girl with the pixie hood who had leapt between the tethered boats the preceding night and vanished up the cellar steps of one of the houses. This time she was running from the direction of the church on the other side, making for the bridge. She was running as if her life depended on it, and in a moment he saw why. A man was in pursuit, who, when she glanced backwards for a moment, still running, flattened himself against a wall, believing himself unobserved. The child came on, scampering across the bridge, and John, fearful of alarming her further, backed into an open doorway that led into a small court.

He remembered the drunken yell of the night before which had come from one of the houses near where the man was hiding now. This is it, he thought, the fellow’s after her again, and with a flash of intuition he connected the two events, the child’s terror then and now, and the murders reported in the newspapers, supposedly the work of some madman. It could be coincidence, a child running from a drunken relative, and yet, and yet... His heart began thumping in his chest, instinct warning him to run himself, now, at once, back along the alley the way he had come, but what about the child? What was going to happen to the child?

Then he heard her running steps. She hurtled through the open doorway into the court in which he stood, not seeing him, making for the rear of the house that flanked it, where steps led presumably to a back entrance. She was sobbing as she ran, not the ordinary cry of a frightened child but a panic-stricken intake of breath of a helpless being in despair. Were there parents in the house who would protect her, whom he could warn? He hesitated a moment, then followed her down the steps and through the door at the bottom, which had burst open at the touch of her hands as she hurled herself against it.

“It’s all right,” he called. “I won’t let him hurt you, it’s all right,” cursing his lack of Italian, but possibly an English voice might reassure her. But it was no use — she ran sobbing up another flight of stairs, which were spiral, twisting, leading to the floor above, and already it was too late for him to retreat. He could hear sounds of the pursuer in the courtyard behind, someone shouting in Italian, a dog barking. This is it, he thought, we’re in it together, the child and I. Unless we can bolt some inner door above he’ll get us both.

He ran up the stairs after the child, who had darted into a room leading off a small landing, and followed her inside and slammed the door, and, merciful heaven, there was a bolt which he rammed into its socket. The child was crouching by the open window. If he shouted for help, someone would surely hear, someone would surely come before the man in pursuit threw himself against the door and it gave, because there was no one but themselves, no parents, the room was bare except for a mattress on an old bed, and a heap of rags in one corner.

“It’s all right,” he panted, “it’s all right,” and held out his hand, trying to smile.

The child struggled to her feet and stood before him, the pixie hood falling from her head onto the floor. He stared at her, incredulity turning to horror, to fear. It was not a child at all but a little thickset woman dwarf, about three feet high, with a great square adult head too big for her body, grey locks hanging shoulder-length, and she wasn’t sobbing any more, she was grinning at him, nodding her head up and down.

Then he heard the footsteps on the landing outside and the hammering on the door, and a barking dog, and not one voice but several voices, shouting, “Open up! Police!” The creature fumbled in her sleeve, drawing a knife, and as she threw it at him with hideous strength, piercing his throat, he stumbled and fell, the sticky mess covering his protecting hands. And he saw the vaporetto with Laura and the two sisters steaming down the Grand Canal, not today, not tomorrow, but the day after that, and he knew why they were together and for what sad purpose they had come. The creature was gibbering in its corner. The hammering and the voices and the barking dog grew fainter, and, Oh, God, he thought, what a bloody silly way to die...

The Real Bad Friend ROBERT BLOCH

Original publication: Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine, February 1957; first collected in Terror in the Night and Other Stories (New York, Ace, 1958)

As an enthusiastic reader of Weird Tales, the most successful pulp magazine in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres, Robert Albert Bloch (1917–1994) especially liked the work of H. P. Lovecraft and began a correspondence with him. Lovecraft encouraged his writing ambitions, resulting in two of Bloch’s stories being sold to Weird Tales when he was seventeen, beginning a successful and prolific writing career.

Bloch went on to write hundreds of short stories and twenty novels, the most famous being Psycho (1959), which was memorably filmed by Alfred Hitchcock. While his early work was virtually a pastiche of Lovecraft, he went on to develop his own style, notably in the short story “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” (1943). Much of his work was exceptionally dark, gory, and violent for its time, but a plethora of his short fiction has elements of humor — often relying on a pun or wordplay in the last line. A famously warm, friendly, and humorous man in real life, he defended himself against charges of being a macabre writer by saying that he wasn’t that way at all. “Why, I have the heart of a small boy,” he said. “It’s in a jar, on my desk.” He commonly created a short story by inventing a good pun for the last line, then writing a story to accompany it.

Many elements inspired Psycho, Bloch’s best-known work, including the real-life adventures of Ed Gein, who was devoted to his mother and, after her death, notoriously was known to have dug up the bodies of women and use their body parts for artifacts all around his house. Known as “the butcher of Plainfield,” he murdered at least two other women. Out of the skins of several women, he created what he described as a “woman suit” so that he imagined he could become his mother — to literally crawl into her skin.

With headlines about the crime in every newspaper in America, Bloch evidently filed the highlights of the gruesome reports at the back of his mind. Gein was arrested in November of 1957 — the same year that Bloch had published his short story “The Real Bad Friend.” Combining the major elements of his own macabre tale and Gein’s insane crimes, Bloch wrote Psycho, the novel that inspired one of Alfred Hitchcock’s successful films.

Title: Psycho, 1960

Studio: Paramount

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Screenwriter: Joseph Stefano

Producer: Alfred Hitchcock

• Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates)

• Vera Miles (Lila Crane)

• John Gavin (Sam Loomis)

• Janet Leigh (Marion Crane)

• Martin Balsam (Det. Milton Arbogast)

One of the most creepily beloved of all Hitchcock’s suspense films, Psycho is the story of a young woman who steals an envelope full of money and begins a long drive to meet her boyfriend. On the way, she stops to spend the night in the Bates Motel, run by Norman Bates, a shy, quiet young man who behaves a trifle oddly because he appears to be dominated by his controlling mother. When the woman disappears, her lover, her sister, and a police detective come to the motel to investigate.

Few films have had scenes as memorable as the one in which the thief, played by the beautiful Janet Leigh, decides to take a shower and is interrupted by Norman’s mother, who wields a large knife as she — and violins — shriek in a mad frenzy of slash after bloody slash.

Psycho II (1983) was released twenty-three years after the original film and again starred Vera Miles as well as Tony Perkins as Norman Bates, who has spent more than two decades under psychiatric care but is haunted by the events of the past and by his mother. Bloch had written a novel titled Psycho II, published in 1982, but the producer instead went with an original screenplay by Tom Holland; it was directed by Richard Franklin. A cheesy, exploitive continuation of the Norman Bates saga, Psycho III (1986) again featured Perkins.

Bloch’s novel also served as the basis for a big-budget remake, Psycho (1998), with a screenplay yet again by Stefano that followed the novel and the first film inspired by it so closely that even camera placement and angles were almost identical. Directed by Gus Van Sant, it featured Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, and Julianne Moore. Although an excellent remake, it was not a success at the box office.

THE REAL BAD FRIEND Robert Bloch

It was really all Roderick’s idea in the first place.

George Foster Pendleton would never have thought of it. He couldn’t have; he was much too dull and respectable. George Foster Pendleton, vacuum cleaner salesman, aged forty-three, just wasn’t the type. He had been married to the same wife for fourteen years, lived in the same white house for an equal length of time, wore glasses when he wrote up orders, and was completely complacent about his receding hairline and advancing waistline.

Consequently, when his wife’s uncle died and left her an estate of some eighty-five thousand dollars after taxes, George didn’t make any real plans.

Oh, he was delighted, of course — any ten-thousand-a-year salesman would be — but that’s as far as it went. He and Ella decided to put in another bathroom on the first floor and buy a new Buick, keeping the old car for her to drive. The rest of the money could go into something safe, like savings and loan, and the interest would take care of a few little luxuries now and then. After all, they had no children or close relatives to look after. George was out in the territory a few days every month, and often called on local sales prospects at night, so they’d never developed much of a social life. There was no reason to expand their style of living, and the money wasn’t quite enough to make him think of retiring.

So they figured things out, and after the first flurry of excitement and congratulations from the gang down at George’s office, people gradually forgot about the inheritance. After all, they weren’t really living any differently than before. George Foster Pendleton was a quiet man, not given to talking about his private affairs. In fact, he didn’t have any private affairs to talk about.

Then Roderick came up with his idea.

“Why not drive Ella crazy?”

George couldn’t believe his ears. “You’re the one who’s crazy,” George told him. “Why, I never heard of anything so ridiculous in all my life!”

Roderick just smiled at him and shook his head in that slow, funny way of his, as if he felt sorry for George. Of course, he did feel sorry for George, and maybe that’s why George thought of him as his best friend. Nobody seemed to have any use for Roderick, and Roderick didn’t give a damn about anyone else, apparently. But he liked George, and it was obvious he had been doing a lot of thinking about the future.

“You’re a fine one to talk about being ridiculous,” Roderick said. That quiet, almost inaudible way he had of speaking always carried a lot of conviction. George was handicapped as a salesman by his high, shrill voice, but Roderick seldom spoke above a whisper. He had the actor’s trick of deliberately underplaying his lines. And what he said usually made sense.

Now George sat in his five-dollar room at the Hotel LeMoyne and listened to his friend. Roderick had come to the office today just before George left on his monthly road trip, and decided to go along. As he’d fallen into the habit of doing this every once in a while, George thought nothing of it. But this time, apparently, he had a purpose in mind.

“If anyone is being ridiculous,” Roderick said, “it’s you. You’ve been selling those lousy cleaners since nineteen forty-six. Do you like your job? Are you ever going to get any higher in the company? Do you want to keep on in this crummy rut for another twenty years?”

George opened his mouth to answer, but it was Roderick who spoke. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “I know the answers. And while we’re on the subject, here’s something else to think about. Do you really love Ella?”

George had been staring at the cracked mirror over the bureau. Now he turned on the bed and gazed at the wall. He didn’t want to look at himself, or Roderick, either.

“Why, she’s been a good wife to me. More than a wife — like a mother, almost.”

“Sure. You’ve told me all about that. That’s the real reason you married her, wasn’t it? Because she reminded you of your mother, and your mother had just died, and you were afraid of girls in the first place but you had to have someone to take care of you.”

Damn that Roderick! George realized he never should have told him so much in the first place. He probably wouldn’t, except that Roderick had been his best — maybe his only — friend. He’d come along back in ’44, in the service, when George had been ready to go to pieces completely.

Even today, after all those years, George hated to remember the way he’d met Roderick. He didn’t like to think about the service, or going haywire there on the island and trying to strangle the sergeant, and ending up in the stockade. Even so, it might have been much worse, particularly after they stuck him in solitary, if he hadn’t met Roderick. Funny part of it was, Roderick had become his intimate friend and heard everything about him long before George ever set eyes on him. Roderick had been down in solitary, too, and for the first month he was just a voice that George could talk to in the dark. It wasn’t what you’d call the best way in the world to develop a close friendship, but at the time it kept George from cracking up. He had someone to confide in at last, and pretty soon he was spilling his guts, his heart, his soul, telling things he hadn’t even known about himself until the words came.

Oh, Roderick knew, all right. He knew the things George had carefully concealed from everyone — the kids back in school, the guys in the army, the gang at the office, the card-playing friends and neighbors, even Ella. Most especially, Ella. There were lots of things George wouldn’t dream of telling Ella, any more than he would have told his mother, years ago.

Roderick was right about that. Ella did remind George of his mother. And when his mother died he’d married Ella because she was big and took care of him, and the way it worked out it was she who made most of the decisions. As a child he’d been taught to be a good little boy. Now he was a good little salesman, a good little potbellied householder, a fetcher-home of Kleenex, a mower of lawns, a wiper of dishes, a wrapper of garbage. Twelve years of it since the war. And if it hadn’t been for Roderick, he never could have stood it.

Could he stand another twelve years of it? Or twenty, or thirty, or even more?

“You don’t have to put up with it, you know,” Roderick murmured, reading his thoughts. “You don’t have to be mommy’s boy any longer. This is your big chance, George. If you got rid of the house, you’d have over ninety thousand in cash. Suppose you settled down on one of those little islands in the Caribbean. There’s dozens of them, according to the travel guide I saw on your desk in the office today.”

“But Ella wouldn’t like that,” George protested. “She hates hot climates. That’s why we’ve never traveled south on vacations. Besides, what on earth could she do down there?”

“She wouldn’t be going,” Roderick answered, patiently. “She’d stay here. That’s the whole point of it, George. You could live like a king there for a few hundred a month. Have a big house, all the servants you want. Plenty to drink. And the girls, George! You’ve heard about the girls. Every color under the sun. Why, you can even buy them down there, the way those old Southern planters used to buy slaves. Quadroons and octoroons and mulattoes — probably can’t even speak a word of English. But you wouldn’t have to worry about that. All you’d want is obedience, and you could have a whip to take care of that. They’d have to do anything you wanted, because you’d be their master. You could even kill them if you liked. The way you’d like to kill Ella.”

“But I don’t want to kill Ella,” George said, very quickly, and his voice was quite loud and shrill.

Roderick’s answering laugh was soft. “Don’t kid me,” he said. “I know you. You’d like to kill her, the same way you’d have liked to kill that sergeant back on the island, but you can’t because you’re chicken. And besides, it isn’t practical. Murder is no solution to this problem, George, but my way is. Drive Ella crazy.”

“Preposterous.”

“What’s preposterous about it? You want to get rid of her, don’t you? Get rid of your job, get rid of taking orders from a wife and a boss and every stinking customer with ninety bucks for a cleaner who thinks he can make you jump. And here’s your chance. The chance of a lifetime, George, sitting right in your lap.”

“But I can’t drive Ella insane.”

“Why not? Take a look around you, man. It’s being done every day. Ask the lawyers about the sons and daughters and in-laws of people who have money, and how they get the old folks put away in the asylum. Getting power of attorney from grandpa and grandma — things like that. Don’t you think a lot of them help the deal along a little? You can drive anyone crazy, George, if you plan.”

“Ella isn’t the type,” George insisted. “Besides, anything I did — don’t you think she’d know about it and see through it? Even if I tried, it wouldn’t work.”

“Who said anything about you trying?” Roderick drawled. He seemed very sure of himself, now. “That’s my department, George. Let me do it.”

“You? But—”

“I wouldn’t fool you. It’s not merely a beautiful gesture of friendship. I want those West Indies, too. We can go there together. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, George? The two of us down there, I mean, where we wouldn’t have to be afraid of what we did, what people would say or think? I could help you, George. I could help you get hold of some of those girls. Do you remember that book you read once, about the Roman Emperor, Tiberius — the one who had the villa on the island, and the orgies? You told me about some of those orgies, George. We could do it, you and I.”

George felt the sweat oozing down the insides of his wrists. He sat up. “I don’t even want to think of such things,” he said. “Besides, what if you got caught?”

“I won’t get caught,” Roderick assured him, calmly. “Don’t forget, Ella doesn’t even know me. I’ve steered clear of your friends all these years. I’m a free agent, George, and that’s our ace in the hole. You’ve always treated me like a poor relation, never introducing me or even mentioning my name. Oh, I’m not complaining. I understand. But now that little situation is going to come in handy. Let me think things out, work up a plan.”

George bit his upper lip. “Ella’s too sensible,” he said. “You’d never get her upset.”

Roderick laughed without making a sound. “Nobody is really ‘sensible,’ George. It’s just a false front, that’s all. Like the one you’ve built up.” He was suddenly quite serious again. “Think about it. How many people would believe you were capable of even talking to me the way you have just now, let alone of carrying out any such ideas? Would your boss believe it? Or Ella, even? Of course not! To the world, you’re just another middle-aged salesman, a Willy Loman type, only worse. A spineless, gutless, chicken-hearted, yellow-bellied coward. A weak-kneed sissy, a little panty-waist, a mommy’s boy, a—”

“Shut up!” George almost screamed the words, and then he was on his feet with his sweat-soaked hands balled into fists, ready to smash at the voice and the face, ready to kill...

And then he was back on the bed, breathing hoarsely, and Roderick was laughing at him without making a sound.

“You see? I knew the words to use, all right. In one minute I turned you into a potential murderer, didn’t I? You, the respectable suburban type who’s never gotten out of line since they shoved you into the stockade.

“Well, there are words for everyone, George. Words and phrases and ideas that can churn rage, trigger emotion, fill a person with incoherent, hysterical fear. Ella is no different. She’s a woman; there’s a lot of things she must be afraid of. We’ll find those things, George. We’ll press the right buttons until the bells ring. The bells in the belfry, George. The bats in the belfry—”

George made a noise in his throat. “Get out of here,” he said.

“All right. But you think over what I’ve said. This is your big opportunity — our big opportunity. I’m not going to stand by and see you toss it away.”

Then he was gone.

Alone in his room, George turned out the light and got ready for bed. He wondered if there was a threat hidden in Roderick’s last words, and that startled him. All his life George had been afraid of other people because they were violent, aggressive, cruel. At times he could sense the same tendencies in himself, but he always suppressed them. His mother had made him behave like a little gentleman. And except for that one terrible interlude in the service, he had always been a little gentleman. He’d kept out of trouble, kept away from people that could harm him.

And Roderick had helped. He’d gotten out of the army at the same time George had, settled down in the same city. Of course, he didn’t really settle down, inasmuch as he had no wife or family and never kept a regular job. Still, he seemed to get by all right. In spite of his hand-to-mouth existence, he dressed as well as George did. And he was taller and leaner and darker and looked a good ten years younger. It often occurred to George that Roderick lived off women — he seemed to be that type, always hinting of sexual conquests. But he never volunteered any information about himself. “What you don’t know won’t hurt you,” he’d say.

And George was satisfied with the arrangement, because as a result he could talk about himself. Roderick was the sounding board, the confessional booth, the one person who could really understand.

He’d drop in at the office from time to time when George was free, and sometimes he’d ride along with him for a day when George went out of town, or in the evenings when he called on prospects. After a few perfunctory overtures, George stopped trying to get Roderick to meet his wife. And he’d never mentioned Roderick to her — mainly because of the circumstances of their having been in the stockade together, and George had never dared to tell Ella about that. So Ella didn’t know about Roderick, and somehow this made everything quite exciting. Once, when Ella had gone down to Memphis for her mother’s funeral, Roderick consented to move in with George at the house for two days. They got violently and disastrously drunk together, but on the third morning Roderick left.

It was all very clandestine, almost like having a mistress. Only without the messy part. The messy part was no good, though it might be different if you were on one of those islands and nobody could see you or stop you and you owned those girls body and soul; then you could have a whip, a long black whip with little pointed silver spikes at the end, and the spikes would tear the soft flesh and you would make the girls dance and little red ribbons would twine around the naked bodies and then—

But that was Roderick’s doing, putting such thoughts into his head! And suddenly George knew he was afraid of Roderick. Roderick, always so soft-voiced and calm and understanding; always ready to listen and offer advice and ask nothing in return. George had never realized until now that Roderick was as cruel as all the rest.

Now he had to face the fact. And he wondered how he could have escaped the truth all these years. Roderick had been in the stockade for a crime of violence, too. But the difference was that Roderick wasn’t repentant. Repentance wasn’t in him — only defiance and hatred, and the terrible strength that comes of being untouched and untouchable. It seemed as though nothing could move him or hurt him. He bowed to no conventions. He went where he pleased, did what he pleased. And apparently there was a streak of perversity in him; obviously he hated Ella and wanted George to get rid of her. If George had listened to him tonight...

The little vacuum-cleaner salesman fell asleep in his sagging bed, his mind firmly made up. He was finished with Roderick. He wouldn’t see him any more, wouldn’t listen to any of his wild schemes. He wanted no part of such plans. From now on he’d go his way alone. He and Ella would be safe and happy together...

During the next few days George often thought of what he’d say to Roderick when he turned up, but Roderick left him alone. Maybe he’d figured out the situation for himself and realized he’d gone too far.

Anyway, George completed his trip, returned home, kissed Ella, helped supervise the installation of the second bathroom, and finished up his paperwork at the office.

Being on the road had left him feeling pretty tired, but there came a time when he just had to catch up with his prospect list here in town, so he finally spent an evening making calls.

Since he was just plain fagged out, he violated one of his rules and stopped for a quick drink before he began his rounds. After the first call he had another, as a reward for making a sale, and from then on things went easier. George knew he had no head for alcohol, but just this once a few drinks helped. He got through his customer list in a sort of pleasant fog, and when he was done he had several more fast shots in a tavern near the house. By the time he put the car in the garage, he was feeling no pain.

He wondered vaguely if Ella would be waiting up to bawl him out. She didn’t like him to drink. Well, perhaps she’d be asleep by now. He hoped so, as he went up the walk and started to unlock the door.

Before he could turn the key the door opened and Ella was in his arms. “Thank goodness you’re here!” she cried. She was crying, George realized, and then he noticed that all the lights in the house were on.

“Hey, what’s the matter? What’s all this about?”

She began to gurgle. “The face, in the window—”

Alcohol plays funny tricks, and for a moment George wanted to laugh. Something about the melodramatic phrase, and the way Ella’s jowls quivered when she uttered it, was almost painfully amusing. But Ella wasn’t joking. She was frightened. She quivered against him like a big blob of Jello.

“I had this awful headache — you know the kind I get — and I was just sitting in the front room watching TV with the lights off. I guess I must have been dozing a little, when all of a sudden I got this feeling, like somebody was watching me. So I looked up, and there in the window was this awful face. It was like one of those terrible rubber masks the kids wear for Halloween — all green and grinning. And I could see hands clawing at the window, trying to open it and get in!”

“Take it easy, now,” George soothed, holding her. “Then what happened?”

Gradually he got it out of her. She had screamed and turned on the big overhead light, and the face had disappeared. So she’d turned on all the lights and gone around locking the doors and windows. After that she’d just waited.

“Maybe we ought to call the police,” she said. “I thought I’d tell you about it first.”

George nodded. “Sensible idea. Probably was just what you thought — some kid playing a trick.” He was quite sobered now, and thoughtful. “Which window did you see this through, the big one? Here, let me get a flashlight from the garage. I’m going to look for footprints.”

He got the flashlight, and when Ella refused to accompany him, walked across the lawn himself. The flower bed beneath the window was damp from a recent rain, but there were no footprints.

When George told Ella about it, she seemed puzzled.

“I can’t understand it,” she said.

“Neither can I,” George answered. “If it was a kid, he’d probably have run off when you spotted him, instead of waiting to smooth out his tracks. On the other hand, if it was a prowler, he’d cover up his traces. But a prowler wouldn’t have let you see him in the first place.” He paused. “You’re sure about what you saw?”

Ella frowned. “Well... it was only for a second, you know, and the room was so dark. But there was this big green face, like a mask, and it had those long teeth...”

Her voice trailed away.

“Nobody tried the doors or windows? You didn’t hear any sounds?”

“No. There was just this face.” She blinked. “I told you about my headache, and how I was dozing off, watching that late movie. It was all sort of like a nightmare.”

“I see.” George nodded. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe it was a nightmare?”

Ella didn’t answer.

“How’s the head? Still aching? Better take a couple of aspirins and go up to bed. You just had a bad dream, dear. Come on, let’s go to bed and forget about it, shall we?”

So they went to bed.

Maybe Ella forgot about it and maybe she didn’t, but George wasn’t forgetting. He knew. Roderick must be starting to carry out his plan. And this would only be the beginning...

It was only the beginning, and after that things moved fast. The next afternoon, George was sitting in the office all alone when Ella called him from the house. She sounded very excited.

“George, did you tell the plumbers to come back?”

“Why no, dear, of course not.”

“Well, Mr. Thornton is here, and he said they got a call to come over and rip everything out again. I don’t understand it, and I’ve been trying to explain that it’s some kind of mistake and—”

Ella sounded very upset now, and George tried to calm her down. “Better put him on, dear. I’ll talk to him.”

So Ella put Mr. Thornton on and George told him not to bother, there was a mixup somewhere. And when Mr. Thornton got mad and said there was no mixup, he’d taken the call himself, George just cut him off and got Ella back on the wire.

“It’s all taken care of now,” he assured her. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll be home early.”

“Maybe you’d better get something to eat downtown,” Ella said. “I’ve got such an awful headache, and I want to lie down for a while.”

“You go ahead,” George said. “I’ll manage.”

So George managed, but if Ella lay down, she didn’t get very much rest.

George found that out when he got home. She was quivering, her voice and body trembling.

“Somebody’s trying to play a trick on us,” she told him. “The doorbell’s been ringing all afternoon. First it was Gimbel’s delivery truck. With refrigerators.”

“I didn’t order a refrigerator,” George said.

“I know you didn’t, and neither did I.” Ella was trying to hold back the tears. “But somebody did. And not just one. They had four of them.”

“Four?”

“That’s not the worst of it. Some man from Kelly’s called and asked when I was going to move. They’d gotten an order for a van.”

“Let me get this straight.” George paced the floor. “How did they get the order?”

“Over the phone,” Ella said. “Just the way Mr. Thornton did. That’s why I thought at first you might have called.” She was sniffling now, and George made her sit down.

“So you said,” George told her. “But I asked Mr. Thornton about that. He happened to take that particular call himself. And he was quite positive the caller was a woman.”

“A woman?”

“Yes.” George sat down next to Ella and took her hand. “He claimed he recognized your voice.”

“But George, that’s impossible! Why, I never even used the phone once today. I was lying down with my headache and—”

George shook his head. “I believe you, dear. But who else could it be? What other woman would know that Thornton was the plumber who put in our bathroom? Did you mention his name to anyone?”

“No, of course not. At least, I don’t remember.” Ella was pale. “Oh, I’m so upset I can’t think straight.” She put her hands up to her forehead. “My head feels like it’s splitting wide open. I can’t stand it...” She stared at George. “Where are you going?”

“I’m calling Dr. Vinson.”

“But I’m not sick. I don’t need a doctor.”

“He’ll give you a sedative, something for that head of yours. Now just calm down and relax.”

So Dr. Vinson came over, and he did give Ella a sedative. Ella didn’t mention anything about the calls, so he only went through a routine examination.

But afterwards, when she was asleep upstairs, George took Dr. Vinson aside and told him the story — including the part about the face in the window.

“What do you think, doc?” he asked. “I’ve heard about such things happening when women start going through change of life. Maybe—”

Dr. Vinson nodded. “Better have her call my office for an appointment later in the week,” he said. “We’ll see that she gets a complete checkup. Meanwhile, don’t let yourself get upset. It could be somebody’s idea of a practical joke, you know.”

George nodded, but he wasn’t reassured.

The part that really bothered him was the business about Ella’s voice being recognized over the phone.

Next morning he left early, and Ella was still asleep. Down at the office he called Gimbel’s and then Kelly’s. After much confusion he was able to locate the clerks who had taken the orders. Both insisted they had talked to a woman.

So George called Dr. Vinson and told him so.

No sooner had he hung up than Ella was on the phone. She could scarcely speak.

A man had come from the Humane Society with a Great Dane. A west side furrier, somebody Ella had never heard of, drove up with samples of mink coats — mink coats in July! A travel agency had kept calling, insisting that she had asked for information about a flight around the world. Her head was killing her; she didn’t know what to do; she wanted George to phone the police and—

She broke off in the middle of her hysterical account, and George quickly asked what was happening. A moment later he realized he could have spared himself the question. The sound of what was happening was clearly audible over the wire: he recognized the hideous wailing.

“Fire engines!” Ella gasped. “Somebody called the fire department!”

“I’ll be right home,” George said, hanging up quickly.

And he went right home. The trucks were gone by the time he arrived, but a lieutenant was still there, and a detective from the police department. Ella was trying to explain the situation to them, and it was a lucky thing George was on hand to straighten things out. He had Ella go upstairs, and then he told the men the story.

“Please,” he said. “Don’t press any charges. If there’s any expense, anything like a fine, I’ll be glad to pay it. My wife is under doctor’s care — she’s going to have a complete examination later in the week. This is all very embarrassing, but I’m sure we can straighten things out...”

The men were quite sympathetic. They promised to let him know what the costs would be, and the detective gave George his card and told him to keep in touch with him in case there was anything he could do.

Then George got on the phone and squared things with the Humane Society, the furrier, and the travel agency. After that he went up to Ella’s bedroom, where he found her lying on the bed with all the shades pulled down. He offered to fix her something to eat but she said she wasn’t hungry.

“Something’s happening,” she told him. “Somebody’s trying to harm us. I’m frightened.”

“Nonsense.” George forced a smile. “Besides, we’ve got protection now.” And then, to cheer her up, he told her that the detective had promised to put a watch on the house and tap the telephone.

“If there’s anybody pulling any funny business, we’ll catch him,” George reassured her. “All you have to do is rest. By the way, Dr. Vinson said it would be a good idea if you stopped in for a checkup towards the end of the week. Why not call him for an appointment?”

Ella sat up. “You told him?”

“I had to, dear. After all, he’s your doctor. He’s in a position to help if—”

“If what?”

“Nothing.”

“George. Look at me.” He didn’t, but she went on. “Do you think I made those calls? Do you?”

“I never said so. It’s just that Thornton claims he recognized your voice. Why would he want to lie about a thing like that?”

“I don’t know. But he’s lying. He must be! I never called him, George. I swear it! And I didn’t call anyone this morning. Why, I was in bed until almost noon. That sedative made me so dopey I couldn’t think straight.”

George was silent.

“Well, aren’t you going to say something?”

“I believe you, dear. Now, try and get some rest.”

“But I can’t rest now. I’m not tired. I want to talk to you.”

“Sorry, I’ve got to get back to the office and clean up my desk. Don’t forget, I’m leaving town again tomorrow.”

“But you can’t go now. You can’t leave me alone like this!”

“Only for three days. You know, Pittsville and Bakerton. I’ll be back by Saturday.” George tried to sound cheerful. “Anyway, the police will keep an eye on the house, so you needn’t worry about prowlers.”

“George, I—”

“We’ll talk about it again tonight. Right now, I’ve got a job to attend to, remember?”

So George left her weeping softly on the bed and went back to his office. But he didn’t pay much attention to his job.

Roderick was waiting for him when he came in.

The other salesmen were out that afternoon, and there was no one else near the hot stuffy little back-room cubicle George used for an office. He and Roderick were all alone, and Roderick spoke very softly. George was glad of that, at least, because he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to hear the things Roderick told him. Nor, for that matter, would he have cared to have been overheard himself.

The moment he saw Roderick he almost shouted, “So it was you, after all!”

Roderick shrugged. “Who else?”

“But I told you I didn’t want any part of it, and I meant it!”

“Nonsense, George. You don’t know what you mean, or what you really want.” Roderick smiled and leaned forward. “You talked to this Dr. Vinson and to the detective. Did you mention my name?”

“No, I didn’t, but—”

“You see? That proves it. You must have realized who was responsible, but you kept silent. You wanted the scheme to work. And it is working, isn’t it? I have everything all planned.”

In spite of himself George had to ask the question. “How did you manage to imitate her voice?”

“Simple. I’ve called her on the phone several times — wrong number, you know, or pretending to be a telephone solicitor. I heard enough to be able to fake. She’s got one of those whiney voices, George. Like this. I think I’ll lie down for a while. My head is killing me.”

It was uncanny to hear Ella’s voice issuing from those sardonically curled lips. George’s heart began to pound.

“You — you said you had plans,” he murmured.

Roderick nodded. “That’s right. You’re going out of town for a few days, I believe?”

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

“Good. Everything will be arranged.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Maybe you’d better not ask that question, George. Maybe you ought to keep out of this completely. Just leave everything to me.” Roderick cocked his head to one side. “Remember, what you don’t know won’t hurt you.”

George sat down, then stood up again hastily. “Roderick, I want you to stop this! Lay off, do you hear me?”

Roderick smiled.

“Do you hear me?” George repeated. He was trembling now.

“I heard you,” Roderick said. “But you’re upset now, George. You aren’t thinking straight. Stop worrying about Ella. She won’t really come to any harm. They’ll take quite good care of her where she’s going. And you and I will take good care of ourselves, where we’re going. That’s what you want to concentrate on, George. The Caribbean. The Caribbean, with ninety thousand dollars in our pockets. A little boat, maybe, and those long, moonlit tropical nights. Think about the girls, George — those nice, slim young girls. They aren’t fat and blubbery, always whining and complaining about headaches and telling you not to touch them. They like to be touched, George. They like to be touched, and held, and caressed, and—”

“Stop it! It’s no use. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Too late, George. You can’t stop now.” Roderick was very casual, but very firm. “Besides, you don’t really want to stop. It’s only that you’re afraid. Well, don’t be. I promise you won’t be involved in this at all. Just give me three days. Three days, while you’re gone — that’s all I need.”

“I won’t go!” George shouted. “I won’t leave her! I’ll go to the police!”

“And just what will you tell them?” Roderick paused to let the question sink in. “Oh, that would be a fine idea, wouldn’t it, going to the police? Not on your life, George. You’re going out of town like a good little boy. Because this is a job for a bad little boy — like me.”

He was laughing at George now, and George knew it. Any further protest on his part would be useless. Still, he might have tried to do something about it if the boss hadn’t come in through the side entrance at that very moment. Roderick stood up, crossed the room, slipped out the door and was gone. And George, staring after him, realized that his last chance had gone with him.

Things seemed a little bit better that evening. Ella had had no further disturbances during the rest of the day, and as a result she was considerably calmer. By the time they had finished a makeshift supper and got ready for bed, both of them felt a trifle more reconciled to the coming separation.

Ella said she had phoned Dr. Vinson and made an appointment for Friday afternoon, two days hence. George, for his part, promised to call her faithfully every evening he was away.

“And if you need me, I’ll drive right back,” he told her. “I won’t be much more than a hundred miles away any time during the trip. Come on now, I’ll finish packing and we can get some sleep.”

So they left it at that. And the next morning George was up and on the road long before Ella awakened.

He had a fairly easy day of it in Pittsville and finished his calls long before he had anticipated. Perhaps that’s why he started to worry; he had nothing else to occupy his mind.

What was it Roderick had said? What you don’t know won’t hurt you?

Well, that wasn’t true. Not knowing was the worst part of it. Not knowing and suspecting. Roderick had told him he had everything planned. George believed that all right. And Roderick had told him he wouldn’t actually harm Ella. This part George wasn’t certain about; he didn’t know whether he could believe it or not. Roderick couldn’t be trusted. He’d proved it by the way he’d gone ahead with the scheme despite George’s protests. There was no telling what he might be capable of doing. After all, what did George know about the man? He might already be guilty of far greater crimes than the one he proposed.

George thought of Roderick with a knife, a gun, or even his bare hands... And then he thought of those same bare hands ripping away a dress, fastening themselves like hungry mouths on naked flesh. And he saw his face, like the face of one of those fiends in that old copy of Paradise Lost with the Doré etchings, the one his mother had owned.

The thought made his hands tremble, made his voice quaver. But he forced himself to be calm as he dialed the long-distance operator from his hotel room, put through the call to the house.

And then he heard Ella’s voice, and everything was all right. Everything was fine.

Yes, she could hear him. And no, nothing had happened. Nothing at all. Apparently, whoever had been playing those tricks had decided to stop. She’d been cleaning house all day. And how did he feel?

“Fine, just fine,” George said. And meant it. His relief was tremendously exhilarating. He hung up, suddenly jubilant. Ella was undisturbed, and that meant Roderick had been scared off after all.

George went down to the bar for a few drinks. It was still early, and he felt like celebrating. He struck up a conversation with a leather goods salesman from Des Moines, and they hit a few of the local spots. Eventually his companion picked up a girl and wandered off. George continued on alone for quite a time, blacking out pleasantly every now and then, but always remaining under control; he liked the good feeling that came with knowing he was under control and would always behave like a little gentleman. He had the right to celebrate because he had won a victory.

Roderick had told the truth in a way; for a while George had been tempted to let the scheme go through. But he had changed his mind in time, and Roderick must have known he meant it. Now Ella was safe, and he was safe, and they’d be happy together. Ninety thousand dollars and an island in the West Indies — what a pipe dream! George Foster Pendleton wasn’t that kind of a person. And now it was time to find the hotel, find his room, find the keyhole, find the bed, find the whirling darkness and the deep peace that waited within it.

The next morning George had a hangover, and he was feeling pretty rocky as he drove to Bakerton. He made a few calls around noon, but just couldn’t seem to hit the ball. So in the afternoon he decided to call it quits, because he still had Friday to finish up there.

He went back to his room intending to take a late afternoon nap, but he slept right straight through. He didn’t wake up to eat supper or call Ella or anything.

When he woke up the next morning, he was surprised to find that Ella had apparently called him several times; he had slept right through the rings. But he felt good, and he was out making the rounds by nine.

He called Ella immediately after supper. Her voice was relaxed and reassuring.

“Did you go to the doctor today?” he asked.

She had seen Dr. Vinson, she told him, and everything was fine. He had checked her over thoroughly — cardiograph, blood tests, even head X-rays. There was nothing wrong. He’d given her a few pills for her headaches, that was all.

“Any other disturbances?” George asked.

“No. It’s been very quiet here.” Ella sounded quite calm. “When are you coming in tomorrow?”

“Around noon, I hope. Right after lunch.”

“Right after lunch,” Ella repeated. “I’ll see you.”

“Good night,” George said, and hung up.

He felt very happy, and yet there was something bothering him. He didn’t quite know what it was, but there was an uneasy feeling, a feeling of having forgotten an important message. Like when he was a boy and his mother sent him to the store for groceries, and he couldn’t remember one of the items on the list.

George sat there, holding the phone in his hand, and then he jumped when he heard the tapping on the door.

He got up and opened it and Roderick came into the room. Roderick was smiling gaily.

“Always stay at the best hotel in town, don’t you?” he said. “Knew I’d find you here.”

“But what—”

“Just thought I ought to take a run over,” Roderick said. “You’re coming back tomorrow, and I figured you’d better be prepared.”

“Prepared for what?”

Roderick stood in front of the mirror and cocked his head. “I’ve been working hard,” he told George. “But it’s paid off. Like I told you, all I needed was three days.”

George opened his mouth, but Roderick wasn’t to be interrupted.

“While you’ve been snoozing away here, I’ve been up and doing,” he chuckled. “No rest for the wicked, you know. Let me give you a quick rundown. Wednesday, the day you left, I made a few calls in the evening. The first one was to the savings and loan people — they’re open Wednesday nights until nine, you know. I did the Ella impersonation and told them I wanted my money out as soon as I could get it. Talked to old Higgins himself. When he asked why, I told him I was planning on getting a divorce and going to Cuba.”

Roderick nodded to himself and continued. “Then I went around to the house and did the mask routine again. Ella was in the kitchen, drinking a glass of milk before she got ready for bed. When she saw me I thought she was going to jump right out of her skin. She ran for the telephone, and I guess she called the police. I didn’t wait to find out.

“Yesterday I figured it might be best to keep away from the house, so I went through the telephone gag again. I talked to Higgins once more and told him I needed the money at once, because you were deathly ill and had to have an operation on your brain. That was a neat touch, wasn’t it?

“Then I talked to the bank, and after that I phoned a few stores and had them promise to make deliveries this morning. Just a few odds and ends — a piano, and two trombones from the Music Mart, and seventy-five dozen roses from the florist. Oh yes, as a final touch, I called Phelps Brothers and told them I wanted to stop in and look at a casket because I anticipated a death in the family.”

Roderick giggled over that one, almost like a naughty little boy. But his eyes were serious as he continued.

“Finally, I called that old goat, Dr. Vinson, and told him I wanted to cancel my appointment. He couldn’t quite figure out why until I told him I was leaving for Europe on a midnight flight. He wanted to know if you were going and I said no, it was a big surprise because I was going to have a baby over there and you weren’t the father.

“After that, I went out to the house — but I was very careful, you understand, in case any cops should happen to be around. Lucky for me I’d anticipated them, because not only was there a prowl car parked down the street, but when I sneaked back through the alley and looked in the kitchen window, I could see this detective talking to Ella in the hall. So I got out of there. But it wasn’t necessary to do any more. I could see that. Ella looked like the wrath of God. I don’t imagine she’d had any sleep for two nights. And by today, word must have gotten around. Old Higgins in savings and loan will do his share of talking. So will Doc Vinson, and some of the others. And your wife will keep insisting to the police that she saw this face. Now all you have to do is go back and wrap everything up in one neat package.”

“What do you mean?” George asked.

“I imagine they’ll all be calling you. Your only job is to give the right answers. Tell them that Ella has talked about taking a lot of crazy trips. Tell them she wants to hide her money in the house. Tell Doc Vinson she’s afraid he wants to poison her, or attack her, or something. You ever hear about paranoiac delusions? That’s when people get the idea that everybody’s persecuting them. Build up a yarn like that. You know what to tell Ella; she’s so confused now that she’ll go for anything you say. Mix her up a little more. Ask her about things she’s told you, like trading in the Buick for a Cadillac. She’ll deny she ever said anything like that, and then you drop the subject and bring up something else. A day or two — with a few more looks through the window at the mask — and you’ll have her convinced she’s screwy. That’s the most important thing. Then you go to Vinson with a sob story, have her examined while she’s scared and woozy, and you’ve got it made.” Roderick laughed. “If you could have seen her face...”

George shook his head in bewilderment. Why was Roderick lying to him? He’d talked to Ella Wednesday night and tonight, and she’d been quite normal. Nothing had happened, nothing at all. And yet here was Roderick coming a hundred miles and boasting about all kinds of crazy stuff—

Crazy stuff.

Sudenly George knew.

Crazy stuff. A crazy scheme to drive someone crazy. It added up.

Roderick was the crazy one.

That was the answer, the real answer. He was more than cruel, more than childish, more than antisocial. The man was psychotic, criminally insane. And it was all a fantasy; he’d started to carry out his delusions, then halted. The rest of it took place only in his disordered imagination.

George didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to hear his voice. He wanted to tell him to go away, wanted to tell him he had just talked to Ella and she was okay, nothing had happened.

But he knew that he mustn’t. He couldn’t. Roderick would never accept such an answer. He was crazy, and he was dangerous. There had to be some other way of handling him.

All at once, George found the obvious solution.

“I’m all through here,” he said. “Thought I might drive back tonight. Want to ride along?”

Roderick nodded. “Why not?” Again the childish giggle. “I get it. You can’t wait, isn’t that it? Can’t wait to see the look on her foolish fat face. Well, go ahead. One good thing, you won’t have to look at it very much longer. They’re going to put her on ice. And we’ll have the sunshine. The sunshine, and the moonlight, and all the rest of it. The tropics are great stuff, George. You’re going to be happy there. I know you don’t like insects, but even they can come in handy. Take ants, for instance. Suppose one of these girls disobeys us, George. Well, we can tie her to a tree, see? Spread-eagle, sort of. Strip her naked and rub honey all over her. Then the ants come and...”

Roderick talked like that all during the drive back home. Sometimes he whispered and sometimes he giggled, and George got a splitting headache worse than anything Ella could ever have had. But still Roderick kept on talking. He was going to have Ella locked up. He was going to take George to the islands. Sometimes it even sounded as if he meant the island, the one where they’d been in the stockade. And he was going to do things to the girls the way the guards used to do things to the prisoners. It was crazy talk, crazy.

The only thing that kept George going was the knowledge that it was crazy talk, and if anyone else heard it they’d realize the truth right away. All he had to do was get Roderick into town, stall him on some pretext or other, and call in the police. Of course Roderick would try to implicate George in the scheme, but how could he? Looking back, George couldn’t remember any slip-up on his part; he hadn’t actually said or done anything out of line. No, it was all Roderick. And that was his salvation.

Still, the cold sweat was trickling down his forehead by the time he pulled up in front of the house. It must have been close to midnight, but the front-room lights were still burning. That meant Ella was up. Good.

“Wait here,” George told Roderick. “I’m just going in to tell her I’m home. Then I’ll put the car away.”

Roderick seemed to sense that something was phony. “I shouldn’t hang around,” he said. “What if the cops have a stakeout?”

“Let me check on that,” George said. “I’ve got an idea. If the cops aren’t here you could give her one more taste of the rubber mask. Then I can deny seeing it. Get the pitch?”

“Yes.” Roderick smiled. “Now you’re cooperating, George. Now you’re with it. Go ahead.”

So George got out of the car and walked up to the front door and opened it.

Ella was waiting for him. She did look tired, and she jumped when she saw him, but she was all right. Thank God for that, she was all right! And now he could tell her.

“Don’t say a word,” George whispered, closing the door. “I’ve got a lunatic out in the car there.”

“Would you mind repeating that?”

George looked around, and sure enough he recognized him. It was the detective he’d talked to after the fire alarm was turned in.

“What are you doing here this time of night?” George asked.

“Just checking up,” said the detective. “Now what’s all this you were saying about a lunatic?”

So George told him. George told him and he told Ella, and they both listened very quietly and calmly. George had to talk fast, because he didn’t want Roderick to get suspicious, and he stumbled over some of his words. Then he asked the detective to sneak out to the car with him before Roderick could get away, and the detective said he would. George warned him that Roderick was dangerous and asked him if he had a gun. The detective had a gun, all right, and George felt better.

They walked right out to the car together and George yanked open the door.

But Roderick wasn’t there.

George couldn’t figure it out, and then he realized that Roderick might have been just crazy enough to pull his rubber mask trick without waiting, and he told the detective about that and made him look around under the front windows. The detective wasn’t very bright; he didn’t seem to understand about the mask part, so George showed him what he meant — how you could stand under the window on this board from the car and look in without leaving any footprints. The detective wanted to know what the mask looked like, but George couldn’t quite describe it, and then they were back at the car and the detective opened the glove compartment and pulled something out and asked George if this was the mask he meant.

Of course it was, and George explained that Roderick must have left it there. Then they were back inside the house and Ella was crying, and George didn’t want her to cry so he said there was nothing to be frightened about because Roderick was gone. And she didn’t have to be afraid if somebody played tricks on her like imitating her voice because anyone could do that.

The detective asked him if he could, and of course he could do it perfectly. He was almost as good as Roderick, only he had such a splitting headache...

Maybe that’s why the doctor came, not Dr. Vinson but a police doctor, and he made George tell everything all over again. Until George got mad and asked why were they talking to him, the man they should be looking for was Roderick.

It was crazy, that’s what it was. They were even crazier than Roderick, the way they carried on. There were more police now, and the detective was trying to tell him that he was the one who had made the calls and worn the mask. He, George! It was utterly ridiculous, and George explained how he had met Roderick on the island in solitary and how he looked like the fiend in the Doré book and everything, and how he was a bad boy.

But the detective said that George’s boss had heard him talking to himself in the office the other afternoon and called Ella to tell her, and that she had talked to the police. Then when George went on his trip they’d checked up on him and found he drove back to town the night he got drunk and also the night he said he was sleeping in his hotel room, and that he was the one who had done it all.

Of course they didn’t tell him this all at once — there was this trip to the station, and all those doctors who talked to him, and the lawyers and the judge. After a while, George stopped paying attention to them and to that nonsense about schizophrenia and split personalities. His head was splitting and all he wanted to do was get them to find Roderick. Roderick was the one to blame. Roderick was the crazy one. They had to understand that.

But they didn’t understand that, and it was George whom they locked up. George Foster Pendleton, not George Roderick the naughty boy.

Still, George was smarter than they were, in the end. Because he found Roderick again. Even though he was locked up, he found Roderick. Or rather, Roderick found him, and came to visit.

He comes quite often, these days, moving in that quiet way of his and sneaking in when nobody’s around to see him. And he talks to George in that soft, almost inaudible voice of his when George sits in front of the mirror. George isn’t mad at him anymore. He realizes now that Roderick is his best friend, and wants to help him.

Roderick still dreams about getting his hands on all that money and going away with George to the Caribbean. And he has a plan. This time there won’t be any slip-ups. He’ll get George out of here, even if he has to kill a guard to do it. And he’ll kill Ella, too, before he goes.

And then they’ll travel on down to the islands, just the two of them. And there’ll be girls, and whips gleaming in the moonlight...

Oh, George trusts Roderick now. He’s his only friend. And he often wonders just where he’d be without him.

The Body Snatcher ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Original publication: Pall Mall Christmas “Extra” for 1884, and again in the Pall Mall Gazette on January 31 and February 1, 1895; first book appearance was The Body Snatcher (New York, The Merriam Company, 1895)

Still very well known for such iconic adventure stories as Treasure Island (1883) and Kidnapped (1886), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) may have achieved his artistic pinnacle when he created the character whose names have entered the English language with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), a macabre allegory once described as the only crime story in which the solution is more terrifying than the problem. He also wrote such classic crime stories as “The Suicide Club,” “The Pavilion on the Links,” “Markheim,” and “The Dynamiter” (in collaboration with his wife, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne), as well as the novel The Wrong Box (1889, in collaboration with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne), that inspired the 1966 star-studded black comedy with John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Peter Sellers.

Apart from Jekyll and Hyde, his most enduring crime/horror story is “The Body Snatcher” (1884), in which Fettes, an Edinburgh medical student, lodges with a famous anatomist, the anonymously named Mr. K—, who pays for corpses used for dissection in his studies. It is almost certain that the doctor references Robert Knox, who infamously bought bodies from a pair of grave robbers, Burke and Hare, who soon found it easier to kill people than to dig them up. The Body Snatcher in many ways fictionalizes the real-life exploits of the infamous grave robbers, though the horrific ending is pure invention.

Title: The Body Snatcher, 1945

Studio: RKO Radio Pictures

Director: Robert Wise

Screenwriters: Philip MacDonald, Val Lewton (writing as Carlos Keith)

Producer: Val Lewton

• Boris Karloff (John Gray)

• Bela Lugosi (Joseph)

• Henry Daniell (Dr. Wolfe “Toddy” MacFarlane)

• Edith Atwater (Meg Cameron)

• Russell Wade (Donald Fettes)

The story line of the film closely follows that of the story, though a girl who needs an operation has been inserted. Set in 1831, there are numerous references to Burke and Hare, who had just three years before been caught grave robbing and arrested; their names undoubtedly resonated more for moviegoers of 1945 than they would today.

Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, both of whom had achieved stardom at Universal Pictures for their roles as Frankenstein’s monster and Count Dracula, respectively, had tired of their exploitation in lesser and lesser films and moved to RKO to work with Val Lewton, a master of the macabre. After appearing together in eight films, Karloff and Lugosi ended their on-screen relationship after The Body Snatcher.

The cadavers of executed prisoners had been a primary source of bodies for the medical schools of Great Britain for the purposes of dissecting and lecturing. While well-intentioned judicial reform largely ended the flow of bodies from that source, the proliferation of new medical schools with medieval laws still in force made the legal acquisition of bodies almost impossible. Body snatching arose to fill the need. A year after the events in the movie, the Anatomy Act of 1832 made it legal for the bodies of the indigent dying in poorhouses and hospitals to be given to medical schools for study and dissection.

A 1957 film titled The Body Snatcher bears no relationship to Stevenson’s story or the 1945 adaptation.

THE BODY SNATCHER Robert Louis Stevenson

Every night in the year, four of us sat in the small parlour of the George at Debenham — the undertaker, and the landlord, and Fettes, and myself. Sometimes there would be more; but blow high, blow low, come rain or snow or frost, we four would be each planted in his own particular arm-chair. Fettes was an old drunken Scotchman, a man of education obviously, and a man of some property, since he lived in idleness. He had come to Debenham years ago, while still young, and by a mere continuance of living had grown to be an adopted townsman. His blue camlet cloak was a local antiquity, like the church-spire. His place in the parlour at the George, his absence from church, his old, crapulous, disreputable vices, were all things of course in Debenham. He had some vague Radical opinions and some fleeting infidelities, which he would now and again set forth and emphasise with tottering slaps upon the table. He drank rum — five glasses regularly every evening; and for the greater portion of his nightly visit to the George sat, with his glass in his right hand, in a state of melancholy alcoholic saturation. We called him the Doctor, for he was supposed to have some special knowledge of medicine, and had been known, upon a pinch, to set a fracture or reduce a dislocation; but beyond these slight particulars, we had no knowledge of his character and antecedents.

One dark winter night — it had struck nine some time before the landlord joined us — there was a sick man in the George, a great neighbouring proprietor suddenly struck down with apoplexy on his way to Parliament; and the great man’s still greater London doctor had been telegraphed to his bedside. It was the first time that such a thing had happened in Debenham, for the railway was but newly open, and we were all proportionately moved by the occurrence.

“He’s come,” said the landlord, after he had filled and lighted his pipe.

“He?” said I. “Who? — not the doctor?”

“Himself,” replied our host.

“What is his name?”

“Doctor Macfarlane,” said the landlord.

Fettes was far through his third tumbler, stupidly fuddled, now nodding over, now staring mazily around him; but at the last word he seemed to awaken, and repeated the name “Macfarlane” twice, quietly enough the first time, but with sudden emotion at the second.

“Yes,” said the landlord, “that’s his name, Doctor Wolfe Macfarlane.”

Fettes became instantly sober; his eyes awoke, his voice became clear, loud, and steady, his language forcible and earnest. We were all startled by the transformation, as if a man had risen from the dead.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “I am afraid I have not been paying much attention to your talk. Who is this Wolfe Macfarlane?” And then, when he had heard the landlord out, “It cannot be, it cannot be,” he added; “and yet I would like well to see him face to face.”

“Do you know him, Doctor?” asked the undertaker, with a gasp.

“God forbid!” was the reply. “And yet the name is a strange one; it were too much to fancy two. Tell me, landlord, is he old?”

“Well,” said the host, “he’s not a young man, to be sure, and his hair is white; but he looks younger than you.”

“He is older, though; years older. But,” with a slap upon the table, “it’s the rum you see in my face — rum and sin. This man, perhaps, may have an easy conscience and a good digestion. Conscience! Hear me speak. You would think I was some good, old, decent Christian, would you not? But no, not I; I never canted. Voltaire might have canted if he’d stood in my shoes; but the brains” — with a rattling fillip on his bald head — “the brains were clear and active, and I saw and made no deductions.”

“If you know this doctor,” I ventured to remark, after a somewhat awful pause, “I should gather that you do not share the landlord’s good opinion.”

Fettes paid no regard to me.

“Yes,” he said, with sudden decision, “I must see him face to face.”

There was another pause, and then a door was closed rather sharply on the first floor, and a step was heard upon the stair.

“That’s the doctor,” cried the landlord. “Look sharp, and you can catch him.”

It was but two steps from the small parlour to the door of the old George Inn; the wide oak staircase landed almost in the street; there was room for a Turkey rug and nothing more between the threshold and the last round of the descent; but this little space was every evening brilliantly lit up, not only by the light upon the stair and the great signal-lamp below the sign, but by the warm radiance of the bar-room window. The George thus brightly advertised itself to passers-by in the cold street. Fettes walked steadily to the spot, and we, who were hanging behind, beheld the two men meet, as one of them had phrased it, face to face. Dr. Macfarlane was alert and vigorous. His white hair set off his pale and placid, although energetic, countenance. He was richly dressed in the finest of broadcloth and the whitest of linen, with a great gold watch-chain, and studs and spectacles of the same precious material. He wore a broad-folded tie, white and speckled with lilac, and he carried on his arm a comfortable driving-coat of fur. There was no doubt but he became his years, breathing, as he did, of wealth and consideration; and it was a surprising contrast to see our parlour sot — bald, dirty, pimpled, and robed in his old camlet cloak — confront him at the bottom of the stairs.

“Macfarlane!” he said somewhat loudly, more like a herald than a friend.

The great doctor pulled up short on the fourth step, as though the familiarity of the address surprised and somewhat shocked his dignity.

“Toddy Macfarlane!” repeated Fettes.

The London man almost staggered. He stared for the swiftest of seconds at the man before him, glanced behind him with a sort of scare, and then in a startled whisper, “Fettes!” he said, “You!”

“Ay,” said the other, “me! Did you think I was dead too? We are not so easy shut of our acquaintance.”

“Hush, hush!” exclaimed the doctor. “Hush, hush! this meeting is so unexpected — I can see you are unmanned. I hardly knew you, I confess, at first; but I am overjoyed — overjoyed to have this opportunity. For the present it must be how-d’ye-do and good-bye in one, for my fly is waiting, and I must not fail the train; but you shall — let me see — yes — you shall give me your address, and you can count on early news of me. We must do something for you, Fettes. I fear you are out at elbows; but we must see to that for auld lang syne, as once we sang at suppers.”

“Money!” cried Fettes; “money from you! The money that I had from you is lying where I cast it in the rain.”

Dr. Macfarlane had talked himself into some measure of superiority and confidence, but the uncommon energy of this refusal cast him back into his first confusion.

A horrible, ugly look came and went across his almost venerable countenance. “My dear fellow,” he said, “be it as you please; my last thought is to offend you. I would intrude on none. I will leave you my address, however—”

“I do not wish it — I do not wish to know the roof that shelters you,” interrupted the other. “I heard your name; I feared it might be you; I wished to know if, after all, there were a God; I know now that there is none. Begone!”

He still stood in the middle of the rug, between the stair and doorway; and the great London physician, in order to escape, would be forced to step to one side. It was plain that he hesitated before the thought of this humiliation. White as he was, there was a dangerous glitter in his spectacles; but while he still paused uncertain, he became aware that the driver of his fly was peering in from the street at this unusual scene and caught a glimpse at the same time of our little body from the parlour, huddled by the corner of the bar. The presence of so many witnesses decided him at once to flee. He crouched together, brushing on the wainscot, and made a dart like a serpent, striking for the door. But his tribulation was not yet entirely at an end, for even as he was passing Fettes clutched him by the arm and these words came in a whisper, and yet painfully distinct, “Have you seen it again?”

The great rich London doctor cried out aloud with a sharp, throttling cry; he dashed his questioner across the open space, and, with his hands over his head, fled out of the door like a detected thief. Before it had occurred to one of us to make a movement the fly was already rattling toward the station. The scene was over like a dream, but the dream had left proofs and traces of its passage. Next day the servant found the fine gold spectacles broken on the threshold, and that very night we were all standing breathless by the bar-room window, and Fettes at our side, sober, pale, and resolute in look.

“God protect us, Mr. Fettes!” said the landlord, coming first into possession of his customary senses. “What in the universe is all this? These are strange things you have been saying.”

Fettes turned toward us; he looked us each in succession in the face. “See if you can hold your tongues,” said he. “That man Macfarlane is not safe to cross; those that have done so already have repented it too late.”

And then, without so much as finishing his third glass, far less waiting for the other two, he bade us good-bye and went forth, under the lamp of the hotel, into the black night.

We three turned to our places in the parlour, with the big red fire and four clear candles; and as we recapitulated what had passed, the first chill of our surprise soon changed into a glow of curiosity. We sat late; it was the latest session I have known in the old George. Each man, before we parted, had his theory that he was bound to prove; and none of us had any nearer business in this world than to track out the past of our condemned companion, and surprise the secret that he shared with the great London doctor. It is no great boast, but I believe I was a better hand at worming out a story than either of my fellows at the George; and perhaps there is now no other man alive who could narrate to you the following foul and unnatural events.

In his young days Fettes studied medicine in the schools of Edinburgh. He had talent of a kind, the talent that picks up swiftly what it hears and readily retails it for its own. He worked little at home; but he was civil, attentive, and intelligent in the presence of his masters. They soon picked him out as a lad who listened closely and remembered well; nay, strange as it seemed to me when I first heard it, he was in those days well favoured, and pleased by his exterior. There was, at that period, a certain extramural teacher of anatomy, whom I shall here designate by the letter K. His name was subsequently too well known. The man who bore it skulked through the streets of Edinburgh in disguise, while the mob that applauded at the execution of Burke called loudly for the blood of his employer. But Mr. K— was then at the top of his vogue; he enjoyed a popularity due partly to his own talent and address, partly to the incapacity of his rival, the university professor. The students, at least, swore by his name, and Fettes believed himself, and was believed by others, to have laid the foundations of success when he had acquired the favour of this meteorically famous man. Mr. K— was a bon vivant as well as an accomplished teacher; he liked a sly illusion no less than a careful preparation. In both capacities Fettes enjoyed and deserved his notice, and by the second year of his attendance he held the half-regular position of second demonstrator or sub-assistant in his class.

In this capacity the charge of the theatre and lecture-room devolved in particular upon his shoulders. He had to answer for the cleanliness of the premises and the conduct of the other students, and it was a part of his duty to supply, receive, and divide the various subjects. It was with a view to this last — at that time very delicate — affair that he was lodged by Mr. K— in the same wynd, and at last in the same building, with the dissecting-rooms. Here, after a night of turbulent pleasures, his hand still tottering, his sight still misty and confused, he would be called out of bed in the black hours before the winter dawn by the unclean and desperate interlopers who supplied the table. He would open the door to these men, since infamous throughout the land. He would help them with their tragic burden, pay them their sordid price, and remain alone, when they were gone, with the unfriendly relics of humanity. From such a scene he would return to snatch another hour or two of slumber, to repair the abuses of the night, and refresh himself for the labours of the day.

Few lads could have been more insensible to the impressions of a life thus passed among the ensigns of mortality. His mind was closed against all general considerations. He was incapable of interest in the fate and fortunes of another, the slave of his own desires and low ambitions. Cold, light, and selfish in the last resort, he had that modicum of prudence, miscalled morality, which keeps a man from inconvenient drunkenness or punishable theft. He coveted, besides, a measure of consideration from his masters and his fellow-pupils, and he had no desire to fail conspicuously in the external parts of life. Thus he made it his pleasure to gain some distinction in his studies, and day after day rendered unimpeachable eye-service to his employer, Mr. K—. For his day of work he indemnified himself by nights of roaring, blackguardly enjoyment; and when that balance had been struck, the organ that he called his conscience declared itself content.

The supply of subjects was a continual trouble to him as well as to his master. In that large and busy class, the raw material of the anatomists kept perpetually running out; and the business thus rendered necessary was not only unpleasant in itself, but threatened dangerous consequences to all who were concerned. It was the policy of Mr. K— to ask no questions in his dealings with the trade. “They bring the body, and we pay the price,” he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration — “quid pro quo.” And, again, and somewhat profanely, “Ask no questions,” he would tell his assistants, “for conscience’s sake.” There was no understanding that the subjects were provided by the crime of murder. Had that idea been broached to him in words, he would have recoiled in horror; but the lightness of his speech upon so grave a matter was, in itself, an offence against good manners, and a temptation to the men with whom he dealt. Fettes, for instance, had often remarked to himself upon the singular freshness of the bodies. He had been struck again and again by the hang-dog, abominable looks of the ruffians who came to him before the dawn; and putting things together clearly in his private thoughts, he perhaps attributed a meaning too immoral and too categorical to the unguarded counsels of his master. He understood his duty, in short, to have three branches: to take what was brought, to pay the price, and to avert the eye from any evidence of crime.

One November morning this policy of silence was put sharply to the test. He had been awake all night with a racking toothache — pacing his room like a caged beast or throwing himself in fury on his bed — and had fallen at last into that profound, uneasy slumber that so often follows on a night of pain, when he was awakened by the third or fourth angry repetition of the concerted signal. There was a thin, bright moonshine; it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded the noise and business of the day. The ghouls had come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone. Fettes, sick with sleep, lighted them upstairs. He heard their grumbling Irish voices through a dream; and as they stripped the sack from their sad merchandise he leaned dozing, with his shoulder propped against the wall; he had to shake himself to find the men their money. As he did so his eyes lighted on the dead face. He started; he took two steps nearer, with the candle raised.

“God Almighty!” he cried. “That is Jane Galbraith!”

The men answered nothing, but they shuffled nearer the door.

“I know her, I tell you,” he continued. “She was alive and hearty yesterday. It’s impossible she can be dead; it’s impossible you should have got this body fairly.”

“Sure, sir, you’re mistaken entirely,” said one of the men.

But the other looked Fettes darkly in the eyes, and demanded the money on the spot.

It was impossible to misconceive the threat or to exaggerate the danger. The lad’s heart failed him. He stammered some excuses, counted out the sum, and saw his hateful visitors depart. No sooner were they gone than he hastened to confirm his doubts. By a dozen unquestionable marks he identified the girl he had jested with the day before. He saw, with horror, marks upon her body that might well betoken violence. A panic seized him, and he took refuge in his room. There he reflected at length over the discovery that he had made; considered soberly the bearing of Mr. K—’s instructions and the danger to himself of interference in so serious a business, and at last, in sore perplexity, determined to wait for the advice of his immediate superior, the class assistant.

This was a young doctor, Wolfe Macfarlane, a high favourite among all the reckless students, clever, dissipated, and unscrupulous to the last degree. He had travelled and studied abroad. His manners were agreeable and a little forward. He was an authority on the stage, skilful on the ice or the links with skate or golf-club; he dressed with nice audacity, and, to put the finishing touch upon his glory, he kept a gig and a strong trotting-horse. With Fettes he was on terms of intimacy; indeed, their relative positions called for some community of life; and when subjects were scarce the pair would drive far into the country in Macfarlane’s gig, visit and desecrate some lonely graveyard, and return before dawn with their booty to the door of the dissecting-room.

On that particular morning Macfarlane arrived somewhat earlier than his wont. Fettes heard him, and met him on the stairs, told him his story, and showed him the cause of his alarm. Macfarlane examined the marks on her body.

“Yes,” he said with a nod, “it looks fishy.”

“Well, what should I do?” asked Fettes.

“Do?” repeated the other. “Do you want to do anything? Least said soonest mended, I should say.”

“Someone else might recognise her,” objected Fettes. “She was as well-known as the Castle Rock.”

“We’ll hope not,” said Macfarlane, “and if anybody does — well, you didn’t, don’t you see, and there’s an end. The fact is, this has been going on too long. Stir up the mud, and you’ll get K— into the most unholy trouble; you’ll be in a shocking box yourself. So will I, if you come to that. I should like to know how any one of us would look, or what the devil we should have to say for ourselves, in any Christian witness-box. For me, you know there’s one thing certain — that, practically speaking, all our subjects have been murdered.”

“Macfarlane!” cried Fettes.

“Come now!” sneered the other. “As if you hadn’t suspected it yourself!”

“Suspecting is one thing—”

“And proof another. Yes, I know; and I’m as sorry as you are this should have come here,” tapping the body with his cane. “The next best thing for me is not to recognise it; and,” he added coolly, “I don’t. You may, if you please. I don’t dictate, but I think a man of the world would do as I do; and I may add, I fancy that is what K— would look for at our hands. The question is, Why did he choose us two for his assistants? And I answer, because he didn’t want old wives.”

This was the tone of all others to affect the mind of a lad like Fettes. He agreed to imitate Macfarlane. The body of the unfortunate girl was duly dissected, and no one remarked or appeared to recognise her.

One afternoon, when his day’s work was over, Fettes dropped into a popular tavern and found Macfarlane sitting with a stranger. This was a small man, very pale and dark, with coal-black eyes. The cut of his features gave a promise of intellect and refinement which was but feebly realised in his manners, for he proved, upon a nearer acquaintance, coarse, vulgar, and stupid. He exercised, however, a very remarkable control over Macfarlane; issued orders like the Great Bashaw; became inflamed at the least discussion or delay, and commented rudely on the servility with which he was obeyed. This most offensive person took a fancy to Fettes on the spot, plied him with drinks, and honoured him with unusual confidences on his past career. If a tenth part of what he confessed were true, he was a very loathsome rogue; and the lad’s vanity was tickled by the attention of so experienced a man.

“I’m a pretty bad fellow myself,” the stranger remarked, “but Macfarlane is the boy — Toddy Macfarlane I call him. Toddy, order your friend another glass.” Or it might be, “Toddy, you jump up and shut the door.” “Toddy hates me,” he said again. “Oh yes, Toddy, you do!”

“Don’t you call me that confounded name,” growled Macfarlane.

“Hear him! Did you ever see the lads play knife? He would like to do that all over my body,” remarked the stranger.

“We medicals have a better way than that,” said Fettes. “When we dislike a dead friend of ours, we dissect him.”

Macfarlane looked up sharply, as though this jest were scarcely to his mind.

The afternoon passed. Gray, for that was the stranger’s name, invited Fettes to join them at dinner, ordered a feast so sumptuous that the tavern was thrown into commotion, and when all was done commanded Macfarlane to settle the bill. It was late before they separated; the man Gray was incapably drunk. Macfarlane, sobered by his fury, chewed the cud of the money he had been forced to squander and the slights he had been obliged to swallow. Fettes, with various liquors singing in his head, returned home with devious footsteps and a mind entirely in abeyance. Next day Macfarlane was absent from the class, and Fettes smiled to himself as he imagined him still squiring the intolerable Gray from tavern to tavern. As soon as the hour of liberty had struck he posted from place to place in quest of his last night’s companions. He could find them, however, nowhere; so returned early to his rooms, went early to bed, and slept the sleep of the just.

At four in the morning he was awakened by the well-known signal. Descending to the door, he was filled with astonishment to find Macfarlane with his gig, and in the gig one of those long and ghastly packages with which he was so well acquainted.

“What?” he cried. “Have you been out alone? How did you manage?”

But Macfarlane silenced him roughly, bidding him turn to business. When they had got the body upstairs and laid it on the table, Macfarlane made at first as if he were going away. Then he paused and seemed to hesitate; and then, “You had better look at the face,” said he, in tones of some constraint. “You had better,” he repeated, as Fettes only stared at him in wonder.

“But where, and how, and when did you come by it?” cried the other.

“Look at the face,” was the only answer.

Fettes was staggered; strange doubts assailed him. He looked from the young doctor to the body, and then back again. At last, with a start, he did as he was bidden. He had almost expected the sight that met his eyes, and yet the shock was cruel. To see, fixed in the rigidity of death and naked on that coarse layer of sackcloth, the man whom he had left well clad and full of meat and sin upon the threshold of a tavern, awoke, even in the thoughtless Fettes, some of the terrors of the conscience. It was a cras tibi which re-echoed in his soul, that two whom he had known should have come to lie upon these icy tables. Yet these were only secondary thoughts. His first concern regarded Wolfe. Unprepared for a challenge so momentous, he knew not how to look his comrade in the face. He durst not meet his eye, and he had neither words nor voice at his command.

It was Macfarlane himself who made the first advance. He came up quietly behind and laid his hand gently but firmly on the other’s shoulder.

“Richardson,” said he, “may have the head.”

Now Richardson was a student who had long been anxious for that portion of the human subject to dissect. There was no answer, and the murderer resumed: “Talking of business, you must pay me; your accounts, you see, must tally.”

Fettes found a voice, the ghost of his own: “Pay you!” he cried. “Pay you for that?”

“Why, yes, of course you must. By all means and on every possible account, you must,” returned the other. “I dare not give it for nothing, you dare not take it for nothing; it would compromise us both. This is another case like Jane Galbraith’s. The more things are wrong the more we must act as if all were right. Where does old K— keep his money?”

“There,” answered Fettes hoarsely, pointing to a cupboard in the corner.

“Give me the key, then,” said the other, calmly, holding out his hand.

There was an instant’s hesitation, and the die was cast. Macfarlane could not suppress a nervous twitch, the infinitesimal mark of an immense relief, as he felt the key between his fingers. He opened the cupboard, brought out pen and ink and a paper-book that stood in one compartment, and separated from the funds in a drawer a sum suitable to the occasion.

“Now, look here,” he said, “there is the payment made — first proof of your good faith: first step to your security. You have now to clinch it by a second. Enter the payment in your book, and then you for your part may defy the devil.”

The next few seconds were for Fettes an agony of thought; but in balancing his terrors it was the most immediate that triumphed. Any future difficulty seemed almost welcome if he could avoid a present quarrel with Macfarlane. He set down the candle which he had been carrying all this time, and with a steady hand entered the date, the nature, and the amount of the transaction.

“And now,” said Macfarlane, “it’s only fair that you should pocket the lucre. I’ve had my share already. By the bye, when a man of the world falls into a bit of luck, has a few shillings extra in his pocket — I’m ashamed to speak of it, but there’s a rule of conduct in the case. No treating, no purchase of expensive class-books, no squaring of old debts; borrow, don’t lend.”

“Macfarlane,” began Fettes, still somewhat hoarsely, “I have put my neck in a halter to oblige you.”

“To oblige me?” cried Wolfe. “Oh, come! You did, as near as I can see the matter, what you downright had to do in self-defence. Suppose I got into trouble, where would you be? This second little matter flows clearly from the first. Mr. Gray is the continuation of Miss Galbraith. You can’t begin and then stop. If you begin, you must keep on beginning; that’s the truth. No rest for the wicked.”

A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy student.

“My God!” he cried, “but what have I done? and when did I begin? To be made a class assistant — in the name of reason, where’s the harm in that? Service wanted the position; Service might have got it. Would he have been where I am now?”

“My dear fellow,” said Macfarlane, “what a boy you are! What harm has come to you? What harm can come to you if you hold your tongue? Why, man, do you know what this life is? There are two squads of us — the lions and the lambs. If you’re a lamb, you’ll come to lie upon these tables like Gray or Jane Galbraith; if you’re a lion, you’ll live and drive a horse like me, like K—, like all the world with any wit or courage. You’re staggered at the first. But look at K—! My dear fellow, you’re clever, you have pluck. I like you, and K— likes you. You were born to lead the hunt; and I tell you, on my honour and my experience of life, three days from now you’ll laugh at all these scarecrows like a High School boy at a farce.”

And with that Macfarlane took his departure and drove off up the wynd in his gig to get under cover before daylight. Fettes was thus left alone with his regrets. He saw the miserable peril in which he stood involved. He saw, with inexpressible dismay, that there was no limit to his weakness, and that, from concession to concession, he had fallen from the arbiter of Macfarlane’s destiny to his paid and helpless accomplice. He would have given the world to have been a little braver at the time, but it did not occur to him that he might still be brave. The secret of Jane Galbraith and the cursed entry in the day-book closed his mouth.

Hours passed; the class began to arrive; the members of the unhappy Gray were dealt out to one and to another, and received without remark. Richardson was made happy with the head; and before the hour of freedom rang Fettes trembled with exultation to perceive how far they had already gone toward safety.

For two days he continued to watch, with increasing joy, the dreadful process of disguise.

On the third day Macfarlane made his appearance. He had been ill, he said; but he made up for lost time by the energy with which he directed the students. To Richardson in particular he extended the most valuable assistance and advice, and that student, encouraged by the praise of the demonstrator, burned high with ambitious hopes, and saw the medal already in his grasp.

Before the week was out Macfarlane’s prophecy had been fulfilled. Fettes had outlived his terrors and had forgotten his baseness. He began to plume himself upon his courage, and had so arranged the story in his mind that he could look back on these events with an unhealthy pride. Of his accomplice he saw but little. They met, of course, in the business of the class; they received their orders together from Mr. K—. At times they had a word or two in private, and Macfarlane was from first to last particularly kind and jovial. But it was plain that he avoided any reference to their common secret; and even when Fettes whispered to him that he had cast in his lot with the lions and foresworn the lambs, he only signed to him smilingly to hold his peace.

At length an occasion arose which threw the pair once more into a closer union. Mr. K— was again short of subjects; pupils were eager, and it was a part of this teacher’s pretensions to be always well supplied. At the same time there came the news of a burial in the rustic graveyard of Glencorse. Time has little changed the place in question. It stood then, as now, upon a cross-road, out of call of human habitations, and buried fathom deep in the foliage of six cedar trees. The cries of the sheep upon the neighbouring hills, the streamlets upon either hand, one loudly singing among pebbles, the other dripping furtively from pond to pond, the stir of the wind in mountainous old flowering chestnuts, and once in seven days the voice of the bell and the old tunes of the precentor, were the only sounds that disturbed the silence around the rural church. The Resurrection Man — to use a byname of the period — was not to be deterred by any of the sanctities of customary piety. It was part of his trade to despise and desecrate the scrolls and trumpets of old tombs, the paths worn by the feet of worshippers and mourners, and the offerings and the inscriptions of bereaved affection. To rustic neighbourhoods, where love is more than commonly tenacious, and where some bonds of blood or fellowship unite the entire society of a parish, the body-snatcher, far from being repelled by natural respect, was attracted by the ease and safety of the task. To bodies that had been laid in earth, in joyful expectation of a far different awakening, there came that hasty, lamp-lit, terror-haunted resurrection of the spade and mattock. The coffin was forced, the cerements torn, and the melancholy relics, clad in sackcloth, after being rattled for hours on moonless byways, were at length exposed to uttermost indignities before a class of gaping boys.

Somewhat as two vultures may swoop upon a dying lamb, Fettes and Macfarlane were to be let loose upon a grave in that green and quiet resting-place. The wife of a farmer, a woman who had lived for sixty years, and been known for nothing but good butter and a godly conversation, was to be rooted from her grave at midnight and carried, dead and naked, to that far-away city that she had always honoured with her Sunday’s best; the place beside her family was to be empty till the crack of doom; her innocent and almost venerable members to be exposed to that last curiosity of the anatomist.

Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well wrapped in cloaks and furnished with a formidable bottle. It rained without remission — a cold, dense, lashing rain. Now and again there blew a puff of wind, but these sheets of falling water kept it down. Bottle and all, it was a sad and silent drive as far as Penicuik, where they were to spend the evening. They stopped once, to hide their implements in a thick bush not far from the churchyard, and once again at the Fisher’s Tryst, to have a toast before the kitchen fire and vary their nips of whisky with a glass of ale. When they reached their journey’s end the gig was housed, the horse was fed and comforted, and the two young doctors in a private room sat down to the best dinner and the best wine the house afforded. The lights, the fire, the beating rain upon the window, the cold, incongruous work that lay before them, added zest to their enjoyment of the meal. With every glass their cordiality increased. Soon Macfarlane handed a little pile of gold to his companion.

“A compliment,” he said. “Between friends these little d — d accommodations ought to fly like pipe-lights.”

Fettes pocketed the money, and applauded the sentiment to the echo. “You are a philosopher,” he cried. “I was an ass till I knew you. You and K— between you, by the Lord Harry! but you’ll make a man of me.”

“Of course we shall,” applauded Macfarlane. “A man? I tell you, it required a man to back me up the other morning. There are some big, brawling, forty-year-old cowards who would have turned sick at the look of the d — d thing; but not you — you kept your head. I watched you.”

“Well, and why not?” Fettes thus vaunted himself. “It was no affair of mine. There was nothing to gain on the one side but disturbance, and on the other I could count on your gratitude, don’t you see?” And he slapped his pocket till the gold pieces rang.

Macfarlane somehow felt a certain touch of alarm at these unpleasant words. He may have regretted that he had taught his young companion so successfully, but he had no time to interfere, for the other noisily continued in this boastful strain —

“The great thing is not to be afraid. Now, between you and me, I don’t want to hang — that’s practical; but for all cant, Macfarlane, I was born with a contempt. Hell, God, Devil, right, wrong, sin, crime, and all the old gallery of curiosities — they may frighten boys, but men of the world, like you and me, despise them. Here’s to the memory of Gray!”

It was by this time growing somewhat late. The gig, according to order, was brought round to the door with both lamps brightly shining, and the young men had to pay their bill and take the road. They announced that they were bound for Peebles, and drove in that direction till they were clear of the last houses of the town; then, extinguishing the lamps, returned upon their course, and followed a by-road toward Glencorse. There was no sound but that of their own passage, and the incessant, strident pouring of the rain. It was pitch dark; here and there a white gate or a white stone in the wall guided them for a short space across the night; but for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost groping, that they picked their way through that resonant blackness to their solemn and isolated destination. In the sunken woods that traverse the neighbourhood of the burying-ground the last glimmer failed them, and it became necessary to kindle a match and re-illumine one of the lanterns of the gig. Thus, under the dripping trees, and environed by huge and moving shadows, they reached the scene of their unhallowed labours.

They were both experienced in such affairs, and powerful with the spade; and they had scarce been twenty minutes at their task before they were rewarded by a dull rattle on the coffin lid. At the same moment Macfarlane, having hurt his hand upon a stone, flung it carelessly above his head. The grave, in which they now stood almost to the shoulders, was close to the edge of the plateau of the graveyard; and the gig lamp had been propped, the better to illuminate their labours, against a tree, and on the immediate verge of the steep bank descending to the stream. Chance had taken a sure aim with the stone. Then came a clang of broken glass; night fell upon them; sounds alternately dull and ringing announced the bounding of the lantern down the bank, and its occasional collision with the trees. A stone or two, which it had dislodged in its descent, rattled behind it into the profundities of the glen; and then silence, like night, resumed its sway; and they might bend their hearing to its utmost pitch, but naught was to be heard except the rain, now marching to the wind, now steadily falling over miles of open country.

They were so nearly at an end of their abhorred task that they judged it wisest to complete it in the dark. The coffin was exhumed and broken open; the body inserted in the dripping sack and carried between them to the gig; one mounted to keep it in its place, and the other, taking the horse by the mouth, groped along by wall and bush until they reached the wider road by the Fisher’s Tryst. Here was a faint, diffused radiancy, which they hailed like daylight; by that they pushed the horse to a good pace and began to rattle along merrily in the direction of the town.

They had both been wetted to the skin during their operations, and now, as the gig jumped among the deep ruts, the thing that stood propped between them fell now upon one and now upon the other. At every repetition of the horrid contact each instinctively repelled it with the greater haste; and the process, natural although it was, began to tell upon the nerves of the companions. Macfarlane made some ill-favoured jest about the farmer’s wife, but it came hollowly from his lips, and was allowed to drop in silence. Still their unnatural burden bumped from side to side; and now the head would be laid, as if in confidence, upon their shoulders, and now the drenching sack-cloth would flap icily about their faces. A creeping chill began to possess the soul of Fettes. He peered at the bundle, and it seemed somehow larger than at first. All over the country-side, and from every degree of distance, the farm dogs accompanied their passage with tragic ululations; and it grew and grew upon his mind that some unnatural miracle had been accomplished, that some nameless change had befallen the dead body, and that it was in fear of their unholy burden that the dogs were howling.

“For God’s sake,” said he, making a great effort to arrive at speech, “for God’s sake, let’s have a light!”

Seemingly Macfarlane was affected in the same direction; for, though he made no reply, he stopped the horse, passed the reins to his companion, got down, and proceeded to kindle the remaining lamp. They had by that time got no farther than the cross-road down to Auchenclinny. The rain still poured as though the deluge were returning, and it was no easy matter to make a light in such a world of wet and darkness. When at last the flickering blue flame had been transferred to the wick and began to expand and clarify, and shed a wide circle of misty brightness round the gig, it became possible for the two young men to see each other and the thing they had along with them. The rain had moulded the rough sacking to the outlines of the body underneath; the head was distinct from the trunk, the shoulders plainly modelled; something at once spectral and human riveted their eyes upon the ghastly comrade of their drive.

For some time Macfarlane stood motionless, holding up the lamp. A nameless dread was swathed, like a wet sheet, about the body, and tightened the white skin upon the face of Fettes; a fear that was meaningless, a horror of what could not be, kept mounting to his brain. Another beat of the watch, and he had spoken. But his comrade forestalled him.

“That is not a woman,” said Macfarlane, in a hushed voice.

“It was a woman when we put her in,” whispered Fettes.

“Hold that lamp,” said the other. “I must see her face.”

And as Fettes took the lamp his companion untied the fastenings of the sack and drew down the cover from the head. The light fell very clear upon the dark, well-moulded features and smooth-shaven cheeks of a too familiar countenance, often beheld in dreams of both of these young men. A wild yell rang up into the night; each leaped from his own side into the roadway: the lamp fell, broke, and was extinguished; and the horse, terrified by this unusual commotion, bounded and went off toward Edinburgh at a gallop, bearing along with it, sole occupant of the gig, the body of the dead and long-dissected Gray.

Spurs TOD ROBBINS

Original publication: Munsey’s Magazine, February 1923; first collected in Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Stories by Tod Robbins (London, Allan, 1926)

Born in Brooklyn, Clarence Aaron “Tod” Robbins (1888–1949) attended Washington and Lee University and, soon after graduation, became an expatriate, moving to the French Riviera. When World War II erupted and the Nazis occupied France, he refused to leave and was put into a concentration camp for the duration of the war and died a few years later. He had been married five times; one of his wives, Edith Norman Hyde, went on to win the first Miss America contest in 1919.

He was best known for writing horror and dark fantasy fiction for the pulps, publishing two collections of these stories, Silent, White and Beautiful and Other Stories (1920) and Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Tales (1926). Among his novels, the most successful was The Unholy Three (1917), twice adapted for films of the same title: a silent directed by Tod Browning in 1925 and a sound version in 1930 directed by Jack Conway, both of which starred Lon Chaney Sr.

Robbins’s earlier novel, Mysterious Martin (1912), was about a serial killer who creates art than can be deadly; he later rewrote the enigmatic story and published it as Master of Murder (1933). He also wrote In the Shadow (1929) and Close Their Eyes Tenderly (1947), an anti-Communist novel in which murder is treated as comedy and farce, published only in Monaco in a tiny edition.

Title: Freaks, 1932

Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director: Tod Browning

Screenwriters: Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon

Producer: Tod Browning, Harry Rapf, Irving Thalberg (all uncredited)

• Wallace Ford (Phroso)

• Leila Hyams (Venus)

• Olga Baclanova (Cleopatra)

• Rosco Ates (Roscoe)

• Henry Victor (Hercules)

• Harry Earles (Hans)

Freaks was directed by Robbins’s friend Tod Browning, who had enjoyed enormous success with Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, which was released the previous year. Freaks used real-life carnival performers for most roles, horrifying audiences so much that the studio cut the ninety-minute film to sixty-four minutes before it was released.

While the very dark film retained the basic elements of the equally dark short story, it was changed dramatically from the tale that Robbins had written, adding a particularly gruesome ending. Public outrage (it was banned in Great Britain until 1963) led to the swift end of Tod Browning’s career as a director. It featured the dwarf Harry Earles, who had also appeared in The Unholy Three.

In the short story, the dwarf Jacques Courbé falls in love with bareback rider Jeanne Marie, a tall, beautiful blonde who agrees to marry him when she learns that he has inherited a fortune. At the wedding, she gets drunk and humiliates her little husband, mocking his size, saying that she could carry him across France on her shoulders. They retire from the little traveling circus to live on his estate, where he tortures her by making her carry him all day long, prodding her with his little spurs if she fails to walk briskly enough.

In the film version, the dwarf, now named Hans, is proud but pitiful as his beautiful wife, now named Cleopatra, flaunts her involvement with Hercules, the circus strongman. She plans to kill Hans for his money.

In the story, the readers’ sympathy lies with the blond beauty; in the film, with the dwarf.

Freaks was intended to be the next great horror film, following in the path of Dracula and Frankenstein, but it was not a very successful motion picture when it was released, nor did it work any better when it was rereleased under various titles, including The Monster Show, Forbidden Love, and Nature’s Mistakes. Tod Browning had so much empathy for the “freaks” that he made every effort to portray them as being normal in every way other than the bodies in which they were unfortunate enough to live. Adding humor further took away from whatever terror the film might have supplied.

Its reputation has been dramatically elevated in recent years. In 1994, it was selected for inclusion in the United States National Film Registry, which focuses on “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” films.

Spurs TOD ROBBINS