The Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mysteries!

Mind the Posies

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1965.

No believer in miracles, Mrs. Hester Bennett could not fully account for her husband’s new interest in life.

Claude’s heart attack had been severe, and without any prior warning. He had been coming up the front walk late one afternoon, an old man with iron gray hair who still retained some of his earthy, brutish handsomeness. He’d staggered, clutched his chest, crumpled, looked as if he’d died instantly.

But he hadn’t. Not quite. For endlessly long hours Claude’s life had been measured by the successive weak pulse beats which never quite stopped.

Hester had remained at Claude’s hospital bedside, never taking her eyes for very long from the gray face canopied by the clear plastic oxygen tent, until the doctor told her the crisis was finally past. A man steeped in bitter solitude had come home, shuffling and looking about the solidly comfortable house as if everything were new and strange to him.

To Hester’s queries he gave the same, short answer, “I’m fine!” He took his prescribed rests with the secretive inner rebellion of a small boy. He ate the flat salt-free food stolidly, cramming it into his mouth as if he had a strange sort of derision and loathing for himself.

The rapport built by thirty-five years of marriage was broken. Unable to communicate with Claude, Hester mechanically continued her routine of flower gardening and conscientious housekeeping.

Once, as she was arranging a vase of yellow roses, Claude had entered the living room unknown to her. His voice had startled her. “Why do you bother?” he said. “They’ll only die.”

He’d turned and left the room without waiting for her answer. And she’d bit her lip, feeling the emptiness and desolation of the house. The attack has left him with traumatic scars as well as physical ones, she’d thought, but they will pass; after all, thirty-five years of marriage does mean something; the scars will all pass.

The passing, when it had come, had been swift, almost as sudden as the attack that had struck Claude a low blow.

He’d returned to the supervision of his small plastics manufacturing plant for want of something better to do. It gave him escape from the house, from windows that seemed to draw his gaze toward a certain spot on the front walk. He came and went, a tall, rawboned giant of a shadow.

And then one afternoon Hester came in from her flower garden and heard Claude humming in the bedroom. She let the basket slide from her hand to the kitchen table. A tremulous expression crossed her faded, wrinkled lips. A light struggled for life in her tired blue eyes. Claude’s humming was off-key, but to Hester, it filled the house with a sweeter sound than the singing of the birds who flitted about their bath at the edge of her flower garden.

Controlling the emotion that surged up in her, Hester went casually to the bedroom. Claude was at the dressing table mirror, bending slightly as he knotted a bright, striped necktie, one she had never seen before. He was impeccable in a freshly pressed suit, the iron gray hair brushed against his temples. There was even color in his face, making him look twenty years younger. Something about his appearance and manner disconcerted Hester. She felt drab and old.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. “Do you want an early dinner?”

His humming broke off. He looked at her reflection in the mirror. He didn’t bother to turn, and she had the feeling that the mirrored reflection of her was enough for him.

“I won’t be here, Hester,” Claude said. “I’m hiring a new man at the plant, a junior exec, and I’ll be taking him to dinner. A man reveals himself, you know, in his choice of manner of food and drink.”

She didn’t know, but she supposed it was true. For thirty-five years she had waxed floors, pressed draperies, seen to the plentiful supply of snowy white shirts, paired socks, and, in accordance with his wishes, left the running of the business to Claude.

Hester drifted to sleep over a book that night, and was awakened by the hissing sound of the shower the next morning. Maudie, the cook-maid, was putting breakfast on the table when Hester went into the nook off the kitchen.

Claude entered, looking fresher and more agile than he had in years. With a nod toward the room in general, he sat down and spread his morning paper.

“Did you hire the new man, Claude?” Hester asked.

“What?” he said behind the paper.

“The fellow you took to dinner.”

“Oh. Him. No, I don’t think he’ll do. Have to keep looking.”

“Claude...” she hesitated.

“Yes? Well, what is it?”

“Why don’t you bring them home? For dinner. The applicants for the executive position, I mean.”

The paper rattled as he lowered it. He gave her a brief look, as if she had gone slightly daft. Then he shook out the paper and turned to another page.

“You might think about it,” she said.

“Sure,” Claude said. “I will. But it would be a lot of bother.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Well, all right,” he said shortly. “I told you I’d think about it.” During the morning, Hester kept herself desperately busy plotting a new flower bed. But her thoughts kept returning to Claude’s disdainful impatience with her.

In their long marriage, disagreements had been inevitable. But never before had Hester been ridden with this feeling of being shut out, of being a mere nothing in Claude’s eyes. The husband she’d known seemed to have passed from her, really, during that frightful heart attack.

Hester looked toward the house, realizing that Maudie had been calling her name.

“’Phone for you, Mrs. Bennett,” Maudie said.

Removing her heavy cotton gloves with their earth stains, Hester went into the house. From the living room came the whirr of the vacuum cleaner under Maudie’s guidance.

The kitchen extension phone was dangling from its cord, as Maudie had left it.

Hester lifted the phone and said, “Mrs. Bennett speaking.”

“You don’t know me,” a thin, taut, male voice said, “and my name’s not important. What I’ve got to say concerns your husband — and a girl.”

“I don’t believe I understand.”

“She was my girl. At least I thought so, until a well-heeled old leech came along.”

Hester clutched the phone in a nerveless hand. The sound of the vacuum cleaner seemed to swell to an intolerable roar that filled the house, reverberated from the walls.

“What are you saying?” she said. “How dare you say such a thing!”

“Okay, lady, keep your head in the sand.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“So don’t. But her name is Marylin Jordan, and the leech is fixing a hideaway for her right now on Taculla Lake. The real cool pad on the point.”

“You must have made a mistake,” Hester said desperately. “My husband is old and dangerously ill. You’re suspecting the wrong man.”

“It’s more than suspicion, lady. She’s a hungry, predatory cat and he’s the rat she’s been looking for.”

“But he—”

“You know the saying, lady. No fool like an old one. Maybe he’s just got to burn big before the wick sputters out.”

Hester closed her eyes, swayed. “This is the cruelest kind of joke.”

“Joke?” the voice became a shallow, humorless laugh. “Maybe so. On the both of us.”

The line went dead. Hester lowered the phone slowly and looked at it as if it were a dream substance that would dissolve from her hand.

Stirring finally, Hester turned and walked to the living room. Maudie was rattling Venetian blinds with a cleaner attachment and made no sign of hearing when Hester spoke her name in her soft, normal tone.

“Maudie!” Hester repeated in a louder tone.

An amply-fleshed pouter pigeon, Maudie looked over her shoulder.

“I have some shopping to do,” Hester said. “I may be gone a good part of the day.”

Maudie nodded and returned her attention to her work.

In her light car, Hester drove out of the city without haste. She didn’t enjoy driving. And this was all so silly and useless. She really should turn back, she told herself. But the car seemed to have a will of its own. The city limits dropped behind.

Taculla Lake was a full hour’s drive, away from civilization, over a secondary road of macadam. While a few families maintained year-round residences there, the lake mainly provided weekend retreats for those who could afford it. The lodges, widely separated to provide privacy, were mostly of an architectural design in keeping with the setting, with vaulted ceilings and long, railed galleries overlooking private docks for cruisers and small boats.

Hester reached the small village above the lake. There was a large store handling general merchandise, a filling station, a glass and brick building, jarringly out of place, that displayed boats and marine gear. And a small log building with a sign on the roof that read: Hiram Hyder, Real Estate.

Hester parked her car on the graveled area beside the real estate office. She got out, crossed the small porch, and entered a pleasant office paneled in wormy chestnut. The lone occupant was a heavyset man of middle age. In shirt sleeves, he was bent over a slightly cluttered desk. With the forefinger of his left hand he toyed with the few wisps of hair on an otherwise bald head, while he checked figures on an adding machine tape with a pencil in his right hand.

As the screen door sighed closed behind Hester, he glanced up, rose immediately, plucked a suit coat from the back of his chair, and put it on.

“Mr. Hyder?”

“Yes, what can I do for you?” He came around the desk to offer Hester a chair.

“I want to inquire about renting a lake house,” she said.

“My specialty, Mrs...”

She ignored the hint to give her name. “I have one particular place in mind. The lodge on the point.”

“Oh, you must mean the Thrasher place. Yes, that’s a rare property to be on the rental market. Don’t get many like that. The Thrashers decided to remain in Mexico City and figure the place would be better off with somebody in it.” Hiram Hyder spread his pleasantly chubby hands. “Unfortunately, it’s been taken.”

“That’s too bad,” Hester said. “By whom? I may know them.”

“A Mr. Joseph Smith. He came with his secretary, quite a lovely young woman.” Hyder glanced away, cleared his throat, and moved behind his desk. “But I have one other place at the moment that might interest you.”

“This Mr. Smith,” Hester said. “A big man? Powerful frame? Slightly gaunt? Iron gray hair?”

Easing a covert look at Hester, Hyder’s manner became guarded. “An exact description of the man. Why do you ask?”

There was one more question. Claude, she remembered, had taken pride in the uniqueness of his car. “Driving a convertible with a custom paint job?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Is there something you wish to tell me about Mr. Smith?”

“No, Mr. Hyder, there is nothing I wish to say about him at all.”

“About this other place...”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t do at all, Mr. Hyder. Thank you for your time. Perhaps I’ll call again.” She escaped quickly, with a nod, a turn, a flight to her car.

When Hester entered the house, Maudie was at the kitchen table sipping coffee and munching on a sweet roll. “Mr. Bennett called while you were out. Twice.” Maudie lowered her roll without taking a bite. “You feel all right, Mrs. Bennett?”

“A little tired, a bit dizzy; the sun, the exertion of shopping.”

Hester continued her flight, from kitchen to den, where she picked up the phone and dialed Claude’s office.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“Out. Just out...”

“Well, I wish you’d be on the ball when I need you.”

She half closed her eyes. Thirty-five years on the ball, she thought Thirty-five years of being in an assigned place and on the ball. “What was it you wanted, Claude?”

“I’m not happy with Jerry Lawter’s reports. I don’t like the way things are going in the sales office downstate. I’m going down there myself and put some ginger in Jerry and staff. So pack me a bag, will you?”

“Of course, Claude. What will you need? One day bag? Two days?”

“Two days, at least,” he said. “I’ll be by in thirty minutes. I don’t want to drive all night”

“I’ll have the bag ready, Claude.”

She had the luggage prepared, set at the foot of the bed, when he arrived.

He began stripping off his shirt, preparatory to showering and donning fresh clothing. She saw the excitement sparkling deep in his eyes, the almost frenzied movements of his hands.

“Haven’t you anything better to do,” he said suddenly and shortly, “than to stand there and gawk at me?”

A coldness washed over her, settling in her eyes. Looking at her, Claude made a movement expressing discomfort, turning away from her. “Sorry,” he said. “But you know how it is, things fouled up in Jerry Lawter’s office and all. You do understand.”

“Yes, Claude, I understand.”

She wandered out of the bedroom, through the house. She was at the living room looking out the windows, when Claude paused in the foyer, the packed suitcase in his hand. “Well,” he said, a faint note of awkwardness in his tone, “mind the posies while I’m gone.”

“Have a good trip,” she said.

It was the end of conversation. She heard him go out. From the window, she saw him put the suitcase in the back seat of the car, which he’d parked at the curb. He got in the car and drove off. She stood at the window and watched it out of sight. Then she turned quietly, went into the den, closed the door, picked up the phone, and dialed the long distance operator.

When his secretary put the call through, Jerry Lawter’s voice was filled with concern and anxiety. “Mrs. Bennett? It’s not Claude? I mean, the boss hasn’t...”

“No, Mr. Lawter. It’s still very much touch and go with him. He should avoid undue excitement and alcohol as killing plagues, but as of this moment Claude is all right. The fact is, he just left here, saying he was on his way to see you.”

“Fine,” Jerry Lawter said more calmly, “I’ll be glad to see him.”

“You must give him a message, Mr. Lawter, immediately on arrival. He asked me at the last minute to pack for him. And I... I’m afraid I made a dreadful mistake. In the rush, I took the wrong pills from the medicine cabinet. Mr. Lawter... Claude is carrying useless headache pellets instead of the nitroglycerin pills so vitally necessary if he should have... if an attack... Three days... He’ll be away three days...”

“I understand, Mrs. Bennett. I’ll tell him the very instant he gets here.”

“Thank you,” Hester whispered. “Thank you very much.”

She wasn’t aware of moving, until she felt the hot afternoon sunlight on her face. She looked about the yard. A faint laugh came from her. Strange, she’d never before noticed how small and cramped the yard really was.

She crossed to the nearest flower bed and deliberately began pulling the plants out by the roots, one by one. She dropped each plant on the moist earth for a quick death in the sun.