Authors: Richard Matheson
Done, Cassandra dumped the ice back into the bucket, blew warm breath on her palm, then turned to the Sheriff.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Apparently I’m still drugged.”
“Drugged?” the Sheriff echoed, perplexity renewed.
She couldn’t hold her tongue. (I wonder if I could have.) “Did you think I was taking a
nap
on the floor?” she asked.
“Now see here—” Sheriff Plum looked grievously offended.
“All right, I’m sorry,” Cassandra said. “Forget it. I want you to arrest my husband for the murder of his agent.”
“Where did this happen?” the Sheriff asked.
“In this room,” Cassandra answered.
He gazed at her—much like a cow, it occurred to me—obviously waiting for elaboration.
She pointed across the room.
“My husband’s agent was sitting on the floor there. I thought he’d been shot—”
She broke off, wincing. “No, forget that,” she said, “it’s not important.”
“Not important?”
Plum looked shocked.
“I’ll explain it later,” she responded tightly. “The point is that my husband’s agent was sitting on the floor over there when I brought him a glass of Scotch.”
“Wait a second,” Plum objected.
“You
brought him a glass of Scotch? I thought you said—”
“I didn’t know it was poisoned!” Cassandra cried. “Obviously, my
husband
had poisoned the Scotch! His agent was upset by what had happened—
I’ll explain it later!”
She cut Plum off. “Anyway, his agent asked me for a glass of Scotch, so I gave it to him.
I had no idea it was poisoned.”
Sheriff Plum was rubbing his chin, his expression making it clear that all this was unclear to him.
“Do you
get
it?” Cassandra pleaded, looking at him with an expression halfway between appeal and contempt.
“Listen—” he started.
She couldn’t, and rushed on.
“Where
did it happen? In this room.
When
did it happen?” She looked at her wrist-watch, blinking exaggeratedly to make the tiny numbers come into focus. “Approximately two hours ago.
Why
did it—”
“Two hours?”
Plum was aghast. “Why wasn’t I told sooner?”
“I was
unconscious!”
“What about the man who called me?”
“I have no idea who called you! It must have been my husband, but why should
he
call you?”
My question exactly
, I thought.
Cassandra’s voice had gotten very shrill, and the Sheriff gestured to calm her down.
“Take it easy,” he cautioned.
“How can I take it easy when my husband is a murderer?” she cried.
“Okay, okay,” said Plum. “Let’s get some evidence going, then.”
He gestured toward the room. “Where were you located when it happened?”
“Lying on the floor over there,” she answered, pointing toward the entry-hall door.
He winced as though reluctant to ask for elucidation lest it bring back confusion. But he had to know.
“And why were you … lying over there?” he asked.
Cassandra’s sigh was heavy. She must have seen no end to this; I didn’t. Still, it had to be dealt with eventually.
“Because I’d been shot,” she told him.
Seeing the flare of eye-glazed bewilderment on his face, she added quickly, “Not with a gun! With a
blow
gun!”
He stared at her.
“Oh, God,” she murmured.
Still, trying, she pointed toward the fireplace.
“You see the African blowgun hanging over the mantelpiece?” she asked.
Sheriff Plum looked in that direction. His expression did not indicate dawning perception.
“That thing hanging on the wall above the fireplace?” she asked. “Over the two dueling pistols?”
“Dueling pistols,” he muttered, still no glimmer in his eyes.
“That
long
thing?” she said, voice rising, “like a
tube? A wooden tube?”
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“Thank God,” she murmured.
“Now, see here, ma’am,” he began.
“That’s what I was shot with,” she informed him, covering his words with hers. “It had a poisoned dart in it. No, no, I take that back! I don’t mean poison!” she added desperately, noticing a new confusion on his face. “Obviously, it wasn’t poison or I’d be dead. It must have had some kind of drug on its point. Something that paralyzed me, knocked me out. That’s why—”
She stopped, staring unbelievingly at the blankness of his expression.
Local politics are at a very low ebb
, I thought.
“This is going to last forever,” she mumbled.
You know, by now, how little regard I held for this woman. It is the measure of Plum’s density that I actually felt sorry for Cassandra.
She was watching as the Sheriff walked to the fireplace and took down the blowgun. He held it up to the window light to peer through it. “No dart,” he said.
“Do you actually think he’d put it
back
in there?” she snapped.
“Mrs. Delacorte, you’re giving me a lot of things to digest all at once,” the Sheriff said; he was beginning to sound a little grumpy now. “Let’s try to be polite to one another, shall we?”
Maybe there
is
a brain inside there somewhere
, I thought.
Deep inside, of course
.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Cassandra repented. “It’s just that I’m so upset.”
“Of course you are.” He nodded. “Very well then. You were hit with a blowgun dart that had some kind of drug in its point—is that what you’re telling me?”
“That’s what I told you,” she responded, watching him return the blowgun to its spot above the mantelpiece.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said.
I saw Cassandra cast an imploring look to the heavens just before Plum turned back to her.
“Where did it hit you?” he asked.
“Does it really matter?” she retorted.
“I’d like to know, yes,” he told her.
“Here,” she said, prodding an index finger at her right breast. (Was that a wince of embarrassment I saw on Plum’s face?)
He swallowed. “You’re lucky it didn’t hit you in the eye.”
Cassandra chose not to respond to that. What could she have said? “That’s a really stupid remark, Sheriff”?
“And your husband shot this—
blew
this dart at you?”
“Yes. Yes
. To keep me from leaving the room after he’d poisoned Harry—”
She broke off as the Sheriff raised his hand as though to stop the traffic flow of new information.
“Harry?” he asked.
“My husband’s agent,”
Cassandra answered.
“You never told me his name before,” he said.
“Oh, yes. All right. I’m
sorry.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get this straightened out, then.”
I know he heard her pitiful groan but decided to ignore it.
“Harry was sitting on the floor over there. You gave him the poisoned Scotch. Did he die right away?”
“No. I tried to get him on his feet to take him to the hospital. I couldn’t though; he had no control of his limbs.”
“All right.” Plum nodded gravely. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Was that a pitiful groan I heard in my own throat? Probably imagination. But the man was driving me nuts, along with Cassandra.
“You tried to leave the room—”
“To call your office,” she interrupted.
“It was
you
who called my office?”
“No!”
she cried. “I said I was
going
to call your office! But before I could, my husband hit me with the dart!”
“Got you,” he said. “And that paralyzed you.”
“Yes. And I fell down.”
“And saw this Harry—”
“Kendal. Harry Kendal.”
“Harry Kendal, right.” He nodded. “Now I’m getting the picture.”
Harry’s words flared brightly in my brain.
Jesus H. Christ!
“You saw this Harry Kendal die before you lost consciousness?”
“Yes!”
“Okay.”
He tried to mollify her with a gesture. “I’ve got it now.”
He frowned. “Except—”
A look of pained vexation took her face.
“—you said before, you thought this Harry Kendal had been shot.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Yes. Apparently what happened was that my husband terrorized Harry with—”
“Terrorized?” he broke in.
“I said
apparently
because he fired one of those dueling pistols at him.”
“Then—”
“Let me finish,”
she demanded, begging. “The pistol ball was obviously a fake one—made of wax, hollow, filled with blood. A magician’s gimmick.”
“I see,” said Plum. “And why would he do that?”
“I told you—to terrorize Harry.”
Plum’s voice seemed suddenly—surprisingly—aware as he inquired, “And why would he want to do that, Mrs. Delacorte?”
Cassandra didn’t—couldn’t—speak at first. Then she answered, “I don’t know.” Of course she did; we both did now. But she had no intention of letting the Sheriff know.
“No idea?” he asked; much as though he suspected the truth, although he obviously couldn’t have.
Cassandra tried deflection.
“Look, does any of this really matter?” she demanded. “My-husband-murdered-his-agent.
Arrest
him.”
“Please,” said Plum, “let me decide what matters and what doesn’t matter.”
She could only sigh in response. Heavily.
“All right.” He looked around. “Where
is
your husband then? I’d like to talk with him.”
“Talk
with him?” She looked insulted. “What is there to
talk
about?
He murdered Harry Kendal
. Period!”
“Mrs. Delacorte,” he said, “these things have to be done in a certain way. I can’t just arrest a man because—”
“—some stupid woman tells you that he murdered someone,” she broke in coldly.
“That’s
not
what I was about to say,” he told her.
He blew out a cheek-puffing breath.
“Assuming that what you say is true—” he began.
“Assuming?”
she raged.
“—do you have any idea where this agent’s body might be?”
he finished strongly.
She was taken aback by the question. So was I. I hadn’t even thought about it.
“No,” Cassandra told him as though the thought had just occurred to her as well. “I don’t. I just—”
She stopped with a scowl. “How could I
possibly
know?” she asked, affronted. “I’ve been
unconscious.”
“All right,” he said. “Is there any place we might begin to search for it? For
him,”
he amended.
Cassandra was about to answer when she held back, narrowing her eyes.
She looked around the room, a curious expression on her face. I wondered what she was doing.
Plum also wondered. “Why are you looking around the room?” he asked.
She didn’t reply, her gaze moving slowly around TMR.
“Mrs. Delacorte?”
“I can’t believe—” she started.
She twitched at a rumble of thunder.
Now Plum was looking around the room. So was I—as best my eyeballs could manage; I wasn’t a damn iguana though, with a hundred-and-eighty-degree vision in each eye.
“What are you thinking?” the Sheriff asked. “That the body’s in
here?”
He looked at one of the walls.
“Are there secret panels or something?” he asked.
“It wouldn’t make sense,” Cassandra murmured to herself.
Her eyes focused on Plum. “What?” she inquired. “Secret panels?”
“Yes. I thought maybe—”
The Sheriff’s voice broke off as Cassandra moved abruptly to the wall panel she’d used earlier to get rid of Brian when he was made up as her.
Pressing at a section of molding, she caused the panel to open. (In a way, I hated that this stranger should be privy to a secret I’d created in this house almost forty years before.)
Cassandra had moved through the opening to look inside. Plum moved to the opening as well and peered in.
He jerked back as Cassandra came out, looking angry (at herself).
“Of course he wouldn’t put Harry in there,” she said. “That would be ridiculous.”
“Is this the only secret panel?” asked Plum.
“As far as I know,” she said, closing the panel.
That surprised me. Had Max made other alterations to this room that I didn’t know about? The notion was disturbing to me.
“What do you mean, as far as you know?” Plum was obviously thinking along the same lines. “Isn’t this your house?”
“My house, yes. My private study, no. My husband calls it his Magic Room. As far as I know, he could have had it gimmicked in a dozen different ways without my knowing it.”
Disturbing
, I thought.
“I guess it’s time I talked to
him
, then,” Plum said. “Do you know where he might be?”
She looked newly aggravated.
“Sheriff,”
she said. “How many times do I have to tell you? I was
unconscious!”
“How do you expect me to
arrest
him, then?” he charged. “If we don’t even know where he is!”
She thought about it for several moments, then replied,
“Wouldn’t it be better if we found Harry’s body first? Until we do, my husband is just going to deny everything.”
“You think he’ll deny it,” said Plum.
“Well, you don’t imagine he’ll
confess
, do you?” she demanded.
Yes, I do imagine that
, I answered silently.
He’s not a man to shirk responsibility
.
Sheriff Plum was losing patience now.
“Mrs. Delacorte,” he said, “I don’t
know
your husband. He might do
anything
, as far as I’m concerned.”
Touché, you clod
, I thought.
Cassandra looked apologetic. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said.
Her features hardened then.
“Well, believe me, he
will
deny it,” she said. “He didn’t set this whole cabal up only to admit his guilt.”
“Cabal?” asked Plum.
“Plot,”
she told him. “Secret plan. Conspiracy. Maneuver—”
“Got
it!” cried the Sheriff. “
Lordamighty!”