The Specialty of the House Page 8

  The dismal prospect of waiting an indefinite time for a woman of such careless habits to render a decision was not made any lighter by the sudden receipt a few days later of a note peremptorily requesting Mr Appleby’s presence at the offices of Gainsborough, Gainsborough, and Golding, attorneys-at-law. With his creditors closing in like a wolf pack, Mr Appleby could only surmise the worst, and he was pleasantly surprised upon his arrival at Gainsborough, Gainsborough, and Golding to find that they represented, not his creditors, but Martha Sturgis herself.

  The elder Gainsborough, obviously very much the guiding spirit of the firm, was a short, immensely fat man with pendulous dewlaps that almost concealed his collar, and large fishy eyes that goggled at Mr Appleby. The younger Gainsborough was a duplicate of his brother, with jowls not quite so impressive, while Golding was an impassive young man with a hatchet face.

  ‘This,’ said the elder Gainsborough, his eyes fixed glassily on Mr Appleby, ‘is a delicate matter. Miss Sturgis, an esteemed client’ – the younger Gainsborough nodded at this – ‘has mentioned entering matrimony with you, sir.’

  Mr Appleby sitting primly on his chair was stirred by a pleased excitement. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘And,’ continued the elder Gainsborough, ‘while Miss Sturgis is perfectly willing to concede that her fortune may be the object of attraction in any suitor’s eyes—’ he held up a pudgy hand to cut short Mr Appleby’s shocked protest – ‘she is also willing to dismiss that issue—’

  ‘To ignore it, set it aside,’ said the younger Gainsborough sternly.

  ‘—if the suitor is prepared to meet all other expectations in the marriage.’

  ‘I am,’ said Mr Appleby fervently.

  ‘Mr Appleby,’ said the elder Gainsborough abruptly, ‘have you been married before?’

  Mr Appleby thought swiftly. Denial would make any chance word about his past a deadly trap; admission, on the other hand, was a safeguard against that, and a thoroughly respectable one.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Divorced?’

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ said Mr Appleby, genuinely shocked.

  The Gainsboroughs looked at each other in approval. ‘Good,’ said the elder, ‘very good. Perhaps, Mr Appleby, the question seemed impertinent, but in these days of moral laxity—’

  ‘I should like it known in that case,’ said Mr Appleby sturdily, ‘that I am as far from moral laxity as any human being can be. Tobacco, strong drink, and – ah—’

  ‘Loose women,’ said the younger Gainsborough briskly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Appleby reddening, ‘—are unknown to me.’

  The elder Gainsborough nodded. ‘Under any conditions,’ he said, ‘Miss Sturgis will not make any precipitate decision. She should have her answer for you within a month, however, and during that time, if you don’t mind taking the advice of an old man, I suggest that you court her assiduously. She is a woman, Mr Appleby, and I imagine that all women are much alike.’

  ‘I imagine they are,’ said Mr Appleby.

  ‘Devotion,’ said the younger Gainsborough, ‘Constancy. That’s the ticket.’

  What he was being asked to do, Mr Appleby reflected in one of his solitary moments, was to put aside the Shop and the orderly world it represented and to set the unappealing figure of Martha Sturgis in its place. It was a temporary measure, of course; it was one that would prove richly rewarding when Martha Sturgis had been properly wed and sent the way of the preceding Mrs Applebys; but it was not made any easier by enforced familiarity with the woman. It was inevitable that since Mr Appleby viewed matters not only as a prospective bridegroom, but also as a prospective widower, so to speak, he found his teeth constantly set on edge by the unwitting irony which crept into so many of her tedious discussions on marriage.

  ‘The way I see it,’ Martha Sturgis once remarked, ‘is that a man who would divorce his wife would divorce any other woman he ever married. You take a look at all these broken marriages today, and I’ll bet that in practically every case you’ll find a man who’s always shopping around and never finding what he wants. Now, the man I marry,’ she said pointedly, ‘must be willing to settle down and stay settled.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mr Appleby.

  ‘I have heard,’ Martha Sturgis told him on another, and particularly trying, occasion, ‘that a satisfactory marriage increases a woman’s span of years. That’s an excellent argument for marriage, don’t you think?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mr Appleby.

  It seemed to him that during that month of trial most of his conversation was restricted to the single phrase ‘of course,’ delievered with varying inflections; but the tactic must have been the proper one since at the end of the month he was able to change the formula to ‘I do,’ in a wedding ceremony at which Gainsborough, Gainsborough, and Golding were the sole guests.

  Immediately afterward, Mr Appleby (to his discomfort) was borne off with his bride to a photographer’s shop where innumerable pictures were made under the supervision of the dour Golding, following which, Mr Appleby (to his delight) exchanged documents with his wife which made them each other’s heirs to all properties, possessions, et cetera, whatsoever.

  If Mr Appleby had occasionally appeared rather abstracted during these festivities, it was only because his mind was neatly arranging the program of impending events. The rug (the very same one that had served so well in six previous episodes) had to be placed; and then there would come the moment when he would ask for a glass of water, when he would place one hand on her shoulder, and with the other … It could not be a moment that took place without due time passing; yet it could not be forestalled too long in view of the pressure exercised by the Shop’s various creditors. Watching the pen in his wife’s hand as she signed her will, he decided there would be time within a few weeks. With the will in his possession there would be no point in waiting longer than that.

  Before the first of those weeks was up, however, Mr Appleby knew that even this estimate would have to undergo drastic revision. There was no question about it; he was simply not equipped to cope with his marriage.

  For one thing, her home (and now his), a brownstone cavern inherited from her mother, was a nightmare of disorder. On the principle, perhaps, that anything flung casually aside was not worth picking up since it would only be flung aside again, an amazing litter had accumulated in every room. The contents of brimming closets and drawers were recklessly exchanged, mislaid, or added to the general litter, and over all lay a thin film of dust. On Mr Appleby’s quivering nervous system all this had the effect of a fingernail dragging along an endless blackboard.

  The one task to which Mrs Appleby devoted herself, as it happened, was the one which her husband prayerfully wished she would spare herself. She doted on cookery, and during mealtimes would trudge back and forth endlessly between kitchen and dining room laden with dishes outside any of Mr Appleby’s experience.

  At his first feeble protests his wife had taken pains to explain in precise terms that she was sensitive to any criticism of her cooking, even the implied criticism of a partly emptied plate; and thereafter, Mr Appleby, plunging hopelessly through rare meats, rich sauces, and heavy pastries, found added to his tribulations the incessant pangs of dyspepsia. Nor were his pains eased by his wife’s insistence that he prove himself a trencherman of her mettle. She would thrust plates heaped high with indigestibles under his quivering nose, and, bracing himself like a martyr facing the lions, Mr Appleby would empty his portion into a digestive tract that cried for simple fare properly boiled or toasted.

  It became one of his fondest waking dreams, that scene where he returned from his wife’s burial to dine on hot tea and toast and, perhaps, a medium-boiled egg. But even that dream and its sequel – where he proceeded to set the house in order – were not sufficient to buoy him up each day when he awoke and reflected on what lay ahead of him.

  Each day found his wife more insistent in her demands for his attentions. And on that day whe
n she openly reproved him for devoting more of those attentions to the Shop than to herself, Mr Appleby knew the time had come to prepare for the final act. He brought home the rug that evening and carefully laid it in place between the living room and the hallway that led to the kitchen. Martha Appleby watched him without any great enthusiasm.

  ‘That’s a shabby-looking thing, all right,’ she said. ‘What is it, Appie, an antique or something?’

  She had taken to calling him by that atrocious name and seemed cheerfully oblivious to the way he winced under it. He winced now.

  ‘It is not an antique,’ Mr Appleby admitted, ‘but I hold it dear for many reasons. It has a great deal of sentimental value to me.’

  Mrs Appleby smiled fondly at him. ‘And you brought it for me, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Appleby, ‘I did.’

  ‘You’re a dear,’ said Mrs Appleby. ‘You really are.’

  Watching her cross the rug on slipshod feet to use the telephone, which stood on a small table the other side of the hallway, Mr Appleby toyed with the idea that since she used the telephone at about the same time every evening he could schedule the accident for that time. The advantages were obvious: since those calls seemed to be the only routine she observed with any fidelity, she would cross the rug at a certain time, and he would be in a position to settle matters then and there.

  However, thought Mr Appleby as he polished his spectacles, that brought up the problem of how best to approach her under such cirumstances. Clearly the tried and tested methods were best, but if the telephone call and the glass of water could be synchronized …

  ‘A penny for your thoughts, Appie,’ said Mrs Appleby brightly. She had laid down the telephone and crossed the hallway so that she stood squarely on the rug. Mr Appleby replaced his spectacles and peered at her through them.

  ‘I wish,’ he said querulously, ‘you would not address me by that horrid name. You know I detest it.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ his wife said briefly. ‘I think it’s cute.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Well, I like it,’ said Mrs Appleby with the air of one who has settled a matter once and for all. ‘Anyhow,’ she pouted, ‘that couldn’t have been what you were thinking about before I started talking to you, could it?’

  It struck Mr Appleby that when this stout, unkempt woman pouted, she resembled nothing so much as a wax doll badly worn by time and handling. He pushed away the thought to frame some suitable answer.

  ‘As it happens,’ he said, ‘my mind was on the disgraceful state of my clothes. Need I remind you again that there are buttons missing from practically every garment I own?’

  Mrs Appleby yawned broadly. ‘I’ll get to it sooner or later.’

  ‘Tomorrow perhaps?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Mrs Appleby. She turned toward the stairs. ‘Come to sleep, Appie. I’m dead tired.’

  Mr Appleby followed her thoughtfully. Tomorrow, he knew, he would have to get one of his suits to the tailor if he wanted to have anything fit to wear at the funeral.

  He had brought home the suit and hung it neatly away; he had eaten his dinner; and he had sat in the living room listening to his wife’s hoarse voice go on for what seemed interminable hours, although the clock was not yet at nine.

  Now with rising excitement he saw her lift herself slowly from her chair and cross the room to the hallway. As she reached for the telephone Mr Appleby cleared his throat sharply. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I’d like a glass of water.’

  Mrs Appleby turned to look at him. ‘A glass of water?’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ said Mr Appleby, and waited as she hesitated, then set down the telephone, and turned toward the kitchen. There was the sound of a glass being rinsed in the kitchen, and then Mrs Appleby came up to him holding it out. He laid one hand appreciatively on her plump shoulder, and then lifted the other as if to brush back a strand of untidy hair at her cheek. ‘Is that what happened to all the others?’ said Mrs Appleby quietly.

  Mr Appleby felt his hand freeze in midair and the chill from it run down into his marrow. ‘Others?’ he managed to say. ‘What others?’

  His wife smiled grimly at him, and he saw that the glass of water in her hand was perfectly steady. ‘Six others,’ she said. ‘That is, six by my count. Why? Were there any more?’

  ‘No,’ he said, then caught wildly at himself. ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about!’

  ‘Dear Appie. Surely you couldn’t forget six wives just like that. Unless, of course, I’ve come to mean so much to you that you can’t bear to think of the others. That would be a lovely thing to happen, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I was married before,’ Mr Appleby said loudly. ‘I made that quite clear myself. But this talk about six wives!’

  ‘Of course you were married before, Appie. And it was quite easy to find out to whom – and it was just as easy to find out about the one before that – and all the others. Or even about your mother, or where you went to school, or where you were born. You see, Appie, Mr Gainsborough is really a very clever man.’

  ‘Then it was Gainsborough who put you up to this!’

  ‘Not at all, you foolish little man,’ his wife said contemptuously. ‘All the time you were making your plans I was unmaking them. From the moment I laid eyes on you I knew you for what you are. Does that surprise you?’

  Mr Appleby struggled with the emotions of a man who has picked up a twig to find a viper in his hand. ‘How could you know?’ he gasped.

  ‘Because you were the image of my father. Because in everything – the way you dress, your insufferable neatness, your priggish arrogance, the little moral lectures you dote on – you are what he was. And all my life I hated him for what he was, and what it did to my mother. He married her for her money, made her every day a nightmare, and then killed her for what was left of her fortune.’

  ‘Killed her?’ said Mr Appleby, stupefied.

  ‘Oh, come,’ his wife said sharply. ‘Do you think you’re the only man who was ever capable of that? Yes, he killed her – murdered her, if you prefer – by asking for a glass of water, and then breaking her neck when she offered it to him. A method strangely similar to yours, isn’t it?’

  Mr Appleby found the incredible answer rising to his mind, but refused to accept it. ‘What happened to him?’ he demanded. ‘Tell me what happened! Was he caught?’

  ‘No, he was never caught. There were no witnesses to what he did, but Mr Gainsborough had been my mother’s lawyer, a dear friend of hers. He had suspicions and demanded a hearing. He brought a doctor to the hearing who made it plain how my father could have killed her and made it look as if she had slipped on a rug, but before there was any decision my father died of a heart attack.’

  ‘That was the case – the case I read!’ Mr Appleby groaned, and then was silent under his wife’s sardonic regard.

  ‘When he was gone,’ she went on inexorably, ‘I swore I would someday find a man exactly like him, and I would make that man live the life my father should have. I would know his every habit and every taste, and none of them should go satisfied. I would know he married me for my money, and he would never get a penny of it until I was dead and gone. And that would be a long, long time, because he would spend his life taking care that I should live out my life to the last possible breath.’

  Mr Appleby pulled his wits together, and saw that despite her emotion she had remained in the same position. ‘How can you make him do that?’ he asked softly, and moved an inch closer.

  ‘It does sound strange, doesn’t it, Appie?’ she observed. ‘But hardly as strange as the fact that your six wives died by slipping on a rug – very much like this one – while bringing you a glass of water – very much like this one. So strange, that Mr Gainsborough was led to remark that too many coincidences will certainly hang a man. Especially if there is reason to bring them to light in a trial for murder.’

  Mr Appleby suddenly found the constriction of his collar unb
earable. ‘That doesn’t answer my question,’ he said craftily. ‘How can you make sure that I would devote my life to prolonging yours?’

  ‘A man whose wife is in a positition to have him hanged should be able to see that clearly.’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Appleby in a stifled voice, ‘I only see that such a man is forced to rid himself of his wife as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s where the arrangements come in.’

  ‘Arrangements? What arrangements?’ demanded Mr Appleby.

  ‘I’d like very much to explain them,’ his wife said. ‘In fact, I see the time has come when it’s imperative to do so. But I do find it uncomfortable standing here like this.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Mr Appleby impatiently, and his wife shrugged.

  ‘Well, then,’ she said coolly, ‘Mr Gainsborough now has all the documents about your marriages – the way the previous deaths took place, the way you always happened to get the bequests at just the right moment to pay your shop’s debts.

  ‘Besides this, he has a letter from me, explaining that in the event of my death an investigation be made immediately and all necessary action be taken. Mr Gainsborough is really very efficient. The fingerprints and photographs ₀’

  ‘Fingerprints and photographs!’ cried Mr Appleby.

  ‘Of course. After my father’s death it was found that he had made all preparations for a quick trip abroad. Mr Gainsborough has assured me that in case you had such ideas in mind you should get rid of them. No matter where you are, he said, it will be quite easy to bring you back again.’

  ‘What do you want of me?’ asked Mr Appleby numbly. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to stay now, and—’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do. And since we’ve come to this point I may as well tell you I expect you to give up your useless shop once and for all, and make it a point to be at home with me the entire day.’

  ‘Give up the Shop!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘You must remember, Appie, that in my letter asking for a full investigation at my death, I did not specify death by any particular means. I look forward to a long and pleasant life with you always at my side, and perhaps – mind you, I only say perhaps – someday I shall turn over that letter and all the evidence to you. You can see how much it is to your interest, therefore, to watch over me very carefully.’