The Blow
In his little den at the rear of the house Storm closed the door
softly before, with shaking fingers, he sought the chain of the low
light upon his desk. Then, dropping into a chair beside it, he raised
clenched fists to his head as though to beat out the hideous
confirmation which drummed at his brain.
It was true! His wife had betrayed him, That soft, pliant, docile
thing of pink and white flesh which in his fatuous idolatry he had
believed imbued with the soul of loyalty had slipped airily from his
grasp, given herself, her love to another!—Love! What did she know of
love or loyalty? This creature whom he had honored had dragged, was
dragging his name in the dust, setting him aside as an unimportant
factor, a mere dispenser of bounty to be cajoled and tolerated for his
generosity, his protection, while she indulged her desires for fresh
admiration, new conquests!
Curiously enough, his enmity was not active against the man he
believed to be his rival. Brewster, for the moment, was a secondary
consideration in his eyes; had it not been he it would have been
another. The woman was to blame!
How blind she must think him! How easily she had fallen into the first
simple trap he had laid for her feet! How in her fancied security, she
must be laughing at him! The little acts of wifely forethought and
service, evidences of which surrounded him even there in his sanctum,
were but as particles of sand thrown in his eyes! His humidor freshly
filled, his golf sticks of last year cleaned and laid out across the
table that he might choose which ones to take to the country club for
the opening of the new season!—Faugh! Did she hope by such puerile
trivialities as these to prolong his unquestioning faith in her.
Against his will, the past came thronging to his mind in ever-changing
scenes which he strove in vain to shut out. That summer at Bar Harbor,
the moonlit nights, the little, golden-haired maid just out of
school. . . . How fast and furious his wooing had been! The dim,
rustling, crowded church, the Easter lilies which banked the
altar—God! he could smell their cloying fragrance now!—that radiant,
fairy-like white figure moving slowly toward him down the
aisle . . . .
Storm groaned, and involuntarily covered his eyes as other pictures
formed before his mental vision. Their honeymoon at the Hot Springs,
that brilliant first season in town, and then her sudden illness and
the dark weeks during which he had feared that she would be taken from
him and he had crouched in impotent supplication before the door he
might not enter. Than that exultant moment when he learned that his
prayers had been answered, that she would live; poor fool, what thanks
he had given!
Her convalescence had seemed to draw them more closely, tenderly
together even than before; and pitilessly, mockingly his thoughts
ranged through the quiet, happy years which had followed in the
planning and beautifying of their home; this home which she had
desecrated!
Brewster’s words rang in his ears. “You have made me the happiest man
in the world! I shall always remember my hour here to-night with you—”
And then that adoring salutation, that impassioned kissing of her
hands!
Checking the harsh laugh which rose to his lips and unable longer to
contain himself, Storm sprang up and paced the floor. Brewster’s
happiness would be of short duration; his hour was over! Softly, under
his breath, Storm began to curse them both with horrible, meaningless
curses; blood surged to his temples, pounded in his ears. A lurid red
mist rose before his eyes, blinding him so that he staggered,
stumbling against the furniture in his path. He, Norman Storm, had
been flouted, betrayed; and by that smiling, lying, corrupt creature
there beneath his roof whom he had trusted, idolized!
All at once through the roaring in his ears he heard his name called
in wondering accents and turned. The door had opened, and Leila stood
before him; a pale and trembling Leila, with wide, apprehensive eyes.
“Norman! When did you come in? Why do you look at me so strangely?
What has happened?”
The mist cleared before him, the leaping blood was stilled as though a
cold hand had tightened about his temples, and in a voice of dangerous
calm he replied: “A great deal has happened. For one thing, I have
found you out, my dear!”
“‘Found me out?’” she repeated advancing toward him in sheer
wonderment. “Norman, what do you mean?”
“I returned home somewhat earlier than you expected, did I not?” He
smiled, but the light in his eyes grew steely. “A trite, time-worn
trick of the deceived husband, I admit, but it served! You thought
yourself secure, didn’t you? Or perhaps you gave no thought whatever
to my possible intrusion; you fancied you had sufficiently pulled the
wool over my eyes to blind me indefinitely?”
“Deceived husband!” Her voice had sunk to a whisper of incredulous
horror. “You cannot know what you are saying, Norman. You must be
mad!”
“On the contrary, I have never known a saner moment. My madness lay in
trusting you as I have all these years, loving you with an idolatry
which could conceive of no wrong.”
“But I—I have done no wrong——”
“Don’t lie now!” he cried harshly. “Can’t you realize that it will
avail you nothing, that it did not deceive me even yesterday? And
to-night I come home and find your lover here beneath my roof thanking
you for the happiest hour of his life!”
“My——!” Leila shuddered and drew herself up abruptly. “Norman, you go
too far! The construction you have placed on Mr. Brewster’s visit here
to-night would be ridiculous, ludicrous under the circumstances if it
were not so hideous, so unspeakably vile! I will leave you until you
come to your senses.”
She turned, but he sprang before her and locking the door dropped the
key into his pocket.
“You will stay here! I’m through with evasions. We’re going to have
this out between us here now. You went to the Ferndale Inn with Julie
Brewster yesterday, didn’t you?”
Leila eyed him steadily for a moment, then her eyelids drooped and she
moistened her lips nervously.
“I have told you——”
“A lie! You were not at the Ferndale Inn yesterday, you were in New
York, in the Leicester Building, in that rat Brewster’s office!”
“Brewster’s office!” she repeated. Then comprehension dawned, and she
smiled sadly with infinite reproach. “Norman, you will regret that
accusation bitterly when you learn the truth.”
“I know it now.” His tones shook, but a strange, tense calm had
settled upon his seething brain, and even as he voiced his accusations
a monstrous resolve was forming within him. “You received a letter
from there this morning which you tried to hide from me. Couldn’t your
poor, pitiful, complacent mind conceive that a mere child would have
seen through your evasions and shallow subterfuges?”
“Stop! Stop!” She retreated from him with her hands over her ears as
if to shut out the sound of his voice. “I tell you, you are mad! I can
explain——”
“It’s too late for that.” His tone had steadied, and a hint of his
dawning, implacable purpose glinted in his eyes. “You called him ‘mad’
last night, too, over the telephone, yet you called him ‘dear’ also,
and when he held you to your promise you stole out of my house to meet
him in the darkness, like a thief. You did not know that I stood
listening, close enough to have touched you as you passed!”
“This is infamous!” Leila turned upon the hearth rug and faced him,
her head proudly erect to meet the menace in his eyes. “You were
eavesdropping, spying upon me in your insane, unfounded jealousy and
suspicion! Why did you not follow me as well? Then you would have
learned the truth for yourself!”
“It was not necessary. It was sheer accident that I came upon you at
the telephone, but I did not have to dog your footsteps to learn the
truth. My judgment was better than yours; I knew that you would walk
into the first trap I set for you, that you would give yourself into
my hands. And you have!”
“You will unlock that door and permit me to go now, if you please.”
The quiet dignity of her tone was filled with cold contempt. “You are
beside yourself; I will not listen a moment longer to your wild
accusations, your insults! I have offered to explain, but you said it
was too late. Take care that you do not make it forever too late!”
Storm read disdain in the defiance of her eyes, mockery in the faint
curl of her lips, and his swift resolve crystallized.
“It is you who have made it too late! Take that damnable smile from
your lips, do you hear?” As he advanced toward her his outflung hand
touched something smooth and hard, and closed upon it. “I tell you
I’ve caught you, I’ve found you out! You’ve had your hour, you and the
man for whom you deceived me! I’ll settle with him later, but now
you’ll pay!—Damn you, stop smiling!”
Blindly in the sudden unleashing of his rage he struck, and the small,
colorless face with its tantalizing, disdainful curl of the lips
vanished as though the red swirling mist which rose again before him
had closed over it and blotted it out.
No sound reached him at first but the drumming of the pulse in his
ears and his hoarse, sobbing breath as he stood swaying, tearing with
one free hand at the collar which seemed tightening about his throat.
Then gradually for the second time the lurid haze lifted, and as the
space before him cleared a great trembling seized him.
“Stop smiling! Stop smiling! Stop smiling!”
What queer, grating whisper was that which repeated the words
endlessly over and over in unison with the throbbing in his brain?
Dimly he became aware that it issued from his own lips and moved his
hands up from his throat to still the sound.
His other hand still grasped the smooth, hard object upon which it had
closed in that moment of vengeance, and now he gazed down stupidly
upon it. It was a driver, one of that collection of golf clubs from
the table, and upon its glittering, rounded, hardwood knob was a
smudge of red . . . .
His wavering gaze traveled on and downward. Then it fastened upon
something which lay at his feet, and slowly his face stiffened and
grew leaden.
It was Leila, huddled and still, with one side of her forehead blotted
out in a crushed, oozing mass of crimson.
The driver dropped with a soft thud from his relaxed hand, and he
knelt, lifting the limp body which sagged so horribly, with such
unexpected weight. Shaking as he was, he managed to raise it to a half
sitting posture, the shoulders supported against his knee; but as,
mechanically, he whispered her name, the head rolled back, its jaw
hanging grotesquely; and from between the half-crossed lids her eyes
stared dully back at him in a cold, fixed, basilisk gaze.
As confirmation came to him, the body slipped from his nerveless grasp
and with a soft, silken rustle rolled over and fell face downward,
settling into the hearth rug with the dishevelled golden head against
the fender.
He had killed her! He meant to do it, of course; he had been conscious
of that resolve before she defied him, while she had stood there
vainly striving to maintain her attitude of injured innocence; but now
he realized that it must have been his unacknowledged intention from
the moment suspicion changed to conviction. The stupendous fact,
however, and the consequences which it portended, held him suddenly at
bay.
He had committed murder, and he would be called upon to pay the
penalty! It was not death he feared———how easily it had been meted
out, there in that little room!—but the dragging, infernal machinery
of legalizing his punishment; the trial, the publicity, the hideous
disgrace, the sordidness of the whole wretched proceeding!
No tinge of grief or remorse colored his thoughts. She had wronged
him, had richly deserved what had come to her. That dead thing lying
there had become simply a menace to his own life, and the immediate
future in all its horrors ranged before his mental vision. The
discovery, the arrest, the stark headlines in the papers——Wall Street,
the Trust Company, the clubs, all his world ringing with it! Then the
legal battle, long drawn out, the sentence, the weeks of tortured
waiting in an ignominious cell and at last the end, hideous,
inevitable!
How life-like she looked, lying there, lying there with no hint of the
tell-tale wound visible! She might almost have fainted and slipped
from that huge armchair behind her with her head against the
fender . . . .
_Why could she not have fallen so to-night?_ The thought seared across
his brain like a flash of lightning, and Storm drew his breath in
sharply. He was safe, so far! No one knew of what had taken place in
that room; no one knew yet that he had even returned to the house.
Brewster had not seen him, and Brewster was the only living person who
could suspect a motive for the crime.
A motive? But what was he thinking? There would be no question of
motive, for there would be no suggestion of crime. Since childhood
Leila had been a victim of petit mal, that mild form of catalepsy
which, while it baffles cure, yet is in itself not harmful; a moment
of faintness, of unconsciousness followed by slight weakness, that was
all. Everyone knew of these attacks of hers; George Holworthy had
referred to that tendency only last night when she had complained of
feeling not quite herself. The chance that she might injure herself in
falling when the fainting spell came was the sole danger attached to
her old malady. That danger was what must seem to have overtaken her
to-night!
Storm rose weakly, his eyes averted from the thing lying there upon
the floor, and strove with all his mental force to collect himself.
She had come here to his den and seated herself in that chair to await
his return. Faintness had overcome her, and she had fallen forward,
striking her temple there on the heavy brass knob on the corner of the
fender. That was the solution, that was what the world must think,
must believe without question.
And he? What must be his part in this drama which he was staging? Not
an active one; caution whispered to him to keep as much in the
background as would be consistent. He must remember to eliminate this
hour wholly from his calculations; this hour and the events which had
led up to it. He knew nothing of her visit to the Leicester Building
in town; of the telephone summons, her secret nocturnal meeting with
Brewster, the letter she had tried to conceal or the fellow’s visit
there that evening. Only by erasing from his future train of thought
all such memories could he hope to succeed in conducting himself down
to the smallest detail as though all had been as usual between them.
In the ordinary course of events, on returning as late as this and
finding the house dark—for the single low light in the den far at the
rear of the house would not be calculated to attract his attention—he
would have concluded that Leila had long since gone to bed, and would
himself retire without disturbing her. In the early morning the
housemaid would discover what lay in the den and raise the alarm.
He would then have only to play the rôle of the dazed, grief-stricken
husband, and none—not even Brewster—would suspect. There would be the
formality of a medical examination, the funeral, the conventional
condolences, and soon their little world would forget.
What was that! Was there a stir, a vibration from somewhere in the
house above? A cold sweat broke out at every pore, and fear gripped
him, but he flung it off and tiptoed to the door, turning the knob and
striving to open it. Then he remembered, and taking the key from his
pocket unlocked the door and pulled it toward him inch by inch. Except
for the pin-point of light from the lamp on the newel post at the foot
of the staircase, the house was in absolute darkness, and his
straining ears detected no repetition of that sound, if sound there
had been.
Closing the door at length, Storm set himself resolutely to the task
which remained before him. At his feet lay the driver where he had
dropped it when the full realization of his act swept over him. There
had been a smudge upon it——God! had it marked the rug?
Before he touched it, however, he went to the window, assured himself
that no aperture between its heavy curtains would permit a ray of
stronger light to be visible from within, and then switched on the
wall brackets, flooding the room with a dazzling radiance.
Next he examined the driver itself. The blow had been delivered with
the rounded knob, and to the sinister clot of red upon it there
adhered a single golden hair which glinted accusingly in the light.
Storm plucked it off with trembling fingers and approaching the hearth
coiled it over the knob on the corner of the fender, close to that
shining, inert head.
Then with his handkerchief he wiped the driver carefully, polishing it
until even to his super-critical eye it appeared immaculate once more,
and replaced it among the others on the table.
Shudderingly, he glanced down at the square of linen crushed in his
hand, and as his fingers slowly opened a hideous crimson stain
appeared. It seemed to his horrified gaze to be growing, spreading,
and he felt an almost irresistible impulse to cast it wildly from him.
Her blood! Her life-blood, still warm and red and all but pulsing as
it had come from her veins!
To his distorted imagination it seemed to be still a part of her, and
alive, clinging to his hand in futile, mute appeal. It must be
obliterated, must cease to be! That inert body could not accuse him;
the driver lay in spotless seeming innocence among its fellows; even
that single golden hair which might have proved his undoing had been
made to serve as a link in the circumstantial chain he was forging;
but this most damning evidence of all remained! He must rid himself of
it at once, must destroy it utterly! But how?
The stout linen would not tear easily, and even though he ripped it
apart the torn strips would still bear their revealing stains; if he
took it to his room and washed it there would be no place where he
could hang it to dry without Agnes finding it, and she would think
such a proceeding strange. Moreover every instinct within him shrank
from the thought of pocketing the gruesome thing and clamored for its
destruction.
Dared he burn it? What if the betraying odor lingered in the room? To
start a blaze in the fireplace which had been swept clean for the
coming summer was not to be thought of, yet burning was the only means
left to him.
His roving glance fell upon the desk. There lay the sealing wax, tray
and spirit lamp with which it had been his pride to stamp the Storm
coat of arms upon his letters. In an instant he had touched a match to
the tiny wick, and a flame, narrow and curling like a bluish, tinseled
ribbon, sprang into being.
He waited until it had steadied, and then at arm’s length he dipped a
corner of the handkerchief into the flame and held it there. God, how
it smoked! The linen charred slowly at the edges as the blue tongue of
fire licked it hungrily, and a pungent odor permeated his nostrils,
but no answering flame appeared. Would it never catch?
At last a tiny dart of red shot out and ran around the border, and
Storm snuffed out the wick and held the handkerchief over the little
bronze tray. Slowly, creepingly the tiny flame ate into the linen, and
flakes of fine light ash drifted down into the receptacle beneath. The
sinister stains still stood out glaringly in the curling smoke, and as
though possessed of a very demon the flame eluded them, skirting about
them in sheer mockery. Would even the elements defy him in his plan?
Then the crimson turned to brown, and a darker curl of smoke arose,
while a strange, acrid odor mingled with the dry smell of burning
linen. Her blood was being consumed there before him, just as her body
would later be consumed by the earth in which it would lie! A thought
of the ancient human sacrifice came to him, and he trembled anew. This
blood-stained rag, this symbol of her living body, was being offered
on the altar of his self-preservation!
The flakes were dropping now like sifting, gray-white down, and the
handkerchief was a mere wisp. Slowly the brown stains crumbled and
disappeared and the smoke lightened, but that dreadful, sinister odor
still lingered. Thread by thread the linen was consumed, but Storm
held the last shred until the diminished flame seared his fingers,
then dropped it into the tray and stood watching it with somber eyes
until the lingering flame died and only the little heap of ashes
remained.
Gone! That hideous, accusing stain had been swept into nothingness,
obliterated by the breath of clean fire. Only that unclean odor still
prevailed, and the contents of the tray must be disposed of. If the
room were subjected to a minute examination and the ashes analyzed,
all that he had done would go for naught. If he could scatter them,
sow them to the winds——
Storm listened. The night breeze was rising, blowing briskly, strongly
about the house. Without, the flower garden and broad lawns with a
border of hedge and clustering trees screened him from his neighbors.
With a quick gesture he switched off the lights and tiptoed to the
window, thrusting back the curtains and opening it wide. The fresh,
sweet, blossom-laden air rushed in upon him, and he breathed it in
great gulps before he turned and felt his way to the desk.
Picking up the little bronze tray he turned to the window and stood
for a moment gazing out. Under the pale glow of the rising moon,
Leila’s flowers which she had tended with such loving care lay
sleeping tranquilly, their small myriad faces glistening beneath a
spangled veil of dew. She had brought them into being, and now her
ashes, these ashes which held a part of her, were to fertilize and
give them renewed life!
He thrust the thought from him in a paroxysm of physical revulsion,
and as a gust of wind swept about the house he cast the contents of
the tray far into the air. It seemed to him that he could see the
ashes, swirling like a faint, driven mist before him, settling
lingeringly among the flowers, and he stared half-fearfully as though
anticipating that a phantom would rise from them; but the sudden gust
of wind died, and the garden slept on, unconcerned.
The tray, swept clean of the last flake, shimmered faintly in his
hand, and he replaced it on the desk. Then, seizing the window
curtains, he waved them about until even his overstimulated senses
could detect no lingering whiff of smoke. Closing the windows at last,
he drew the curtains as carefully as before and switched on the
lights.
The first thing that met his blinking gaze was the burnt match with
which he had lighted the spirit lamp, and he thrust it into his pocket
as he bent to examine the desk top. No single flake of ash remained to
bear witness against him, and with a sigh he turned to the work yet
before him.
He had marked the exact spot upon the rug where the impromptu weapon
had rested; but here, too, a prolonged scrutiny revealed no slightest
trace, and he arose from his knees with a sigh of relief.
After all, he was not preparing for a rigid police inquiry; only the
most casual inspection would be given the room, with the cause of
death so self-evidently manifested, yet the slightest overlooked clue
would bring crashing down upon him the whole circumstantial structure
he was so painstakingly erecting.
Was that armchair in the exact position from which the body would have
fallen?
He studied it, moved it an inch or two, and then turned his attention
to the body itself. The wound was upon the right temple, and,
shuddering, he raised the head and rested it upon the corner of the
fender. It settled back upon the rug once more as he released it, but
he saw to his satisfaction that the knob of brass was no longer
bright; a smear of crimson marred its surface, and a loosened strand
of her hair trailed over the fender into the hearth.
As Storm stepped backward to regard his handiwork something metallic
grated against his heel. A gold hairpin! He picked it up meditatively.
Had Leila really fallen forward that pin, jarred from her head by the
force of the impact, would have shot across the fender; he reached
over and dropped it upon the hearth.
No flaw remained now in the scene he had arranged, and with its
consummation a traitorous wave of horror rose within him, an
hysterical desire almost of panic to flee from that silent, sinister
room. He switched off the wall brackets, and approached the desk. His
hat and gloves were all that remained to indicate his presence, and he
caught them up and reached out to extinguish the low reading lamp
before remembrance stayed his hand.
The housemaid must find the lamp still burning brightly in the morning
when she came to set the room to rights. Was his nerve failing him
that he should have almost overlooked so vital a detail? The horror
was mounting now, but he forced himself to a final, searching survey;
his hideous task was accomplished!
A few hurried, cautious steps, a moment of hesitation, and he stood at
last outside the door. He felt an overmastering impulse to close it,
to seal that room and its gruesome contents away from the living
world, but he reminded himself sternly that it would not be a logical
move. Leila, awaiting his coming, would have left the door ajar that
she might hear him. He reached behind him and drew it close to its
casing until only a narrow line of light cleaved the darkness with
dimmed radiance; then, repressing a mad desire to run, he tiptoed
noiselessly down the hall.
At the foot of the stairs he paused and glanced back. Only the
faintest lightening of the shadows betrayed what lay beyond, and
extinguishing the lamp upon the newel post he crept up to his room.
From Leila’s empty dressing-room adjoining, the yawning blackness
seemed to rush out menacingly to envelop him, but he shut it away with
the closing door and, moving to his window, flung it wide.
Soft moonlight everywhere, silvering the treetops and shimmering upon
the trout stream beyond. Moonlight and the whispering night winds and
the peace and hush of a sleeping world.
It was over! He had done his utmost to forestall any possible doubt or
suspicion, had nullified every clue, had set the scene for the farce
which would start with the rising curtain of dawn and felt confident
that he was prepared at all points to meet the issue.
But what of the hours that lay between, the long night before him?