Authors: Gil Brewer
“Al—wait!” Lois called.
“Weyman!” I shouted.
I went on through the house and then heard somebody speak, the voice muffled through the walls. It seemed to come from below somewhere—perhaps the cellar. I heard Lois coming through the house.
“Al?” she called again.
I came into the dining room and saw a heavy oaken door standing partially open. The door had a big wrought-iron bolt on it, and wrought-iron hinges. Light shone through the crack in the door.
Suddenly the door swung open and Weyman Gunther stepped into the room. He looked at me a little slyly, then shut the door behind him.
“Hello, Harper.”
There was something wrong with Weyman Gunther, something you felt you should see clearly, yet something you missed completely.
“Weyman,” Lois said, stopping across the room.
“Hello, Sis,” he said. He did not move from in front of the large oaken door.
He was wearing gray flannel trousers and a dark blue turtle-neck sweater. He did not have his glasses on and this gave his eyes a peculiar appearance, as if he were peering into far distances. His hair wisped about his head and he was extremely pale and a little on the gray side, but his eyes were bright. His hands were pressed back against the oaken door, the fingers spread apart.
“What’ve you been doing?” Lois said.
“Me?” Weyman said, keeping his eyes very closely on me now. “I might ask the same about you, Sis. You’ve been with him, haven’t you?”
“Weyman!”
He still did not move from the door, his head tilted as if he were listening—listening for something far away.
“Your father’s dead,” I said. “Did you know that, Weyman?”
“Yes. I heard about that.”
“Have you seen Miss Temple?” I asked him.
“Temple? Oh, Miss Temple—no, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“What’s behind that door?” I said.
“Nothing at all. It leads down to the cellar,” he said. “To the rumpus room, that way.”
“Al,” Lois said, “are you going to help me?”
“I want to know why he’s standing there like that.”
“Who?” Weyman said. “Me? I don’t know what you mean.”
There was a noise from below and a moan. He stiffened against the door, listening with a kind of frantic agitation.
“Step aside.”
He shook his head, watching me, pressing back against the door. “No,” he said softly. “No, I won’t do that.”
I grabbed him, flung him hard. I opened the door and looked down there in the bright bath of light. I saw Noraine. She had been lying on a couch and had just begun to sit up. Weyman was coming at me.
“You’re too late!” he gasped.
I hit him. The blow jarred me to the shoulder and my fist flashed pain. Weyman crashed against the door and it slapped back open against the wall.
“Yes,” he said. “Too late, you hear?”
I heard Lois exclaim something. Weyman saw her and his eyes widened.
“No! Sis!”
I buried my fist to the wrist in his middle. A great volume of air rushed from him as he doubled on my fist. I brought the same fist up and it caught him in the face.
“Sis!” he gasped. “Sis—no! Keep your hands off!”
I backed a little and he ran at me, his eyes absolutely crazy. I hit him again. I wasn’t hurting him at all. He had no breath, yet he kept coming. I hit him again. He windmilled backwards straight at the open doorway and I watched him sail through the air and strike down there.
Noraine looked up at me along the stair well.
“Al!” she called. “Al!”
Halfway down the stairs I paused. I could see him down there on the brown carpet, holding his leg, moaning softly. Noraine stood over him, watching me as I came down the stairs. I stepped toward her.
Weyman came to his feet, limping badly and made a run up the stairs.
“Sis!” he screamed. “Sis—wait—don’t you touch that!”
He was three-quarters of the way up when I saw Lois appear at the head of the stairs. Her face was white save for the slash of red across her lips. She slammed the door. He crashed against the door, working the handle.
“She’s locked us in!”
I tried the door. It was locked, all right, and it felt as sound as a rock. I slammed my shoulder against it and it didn’t even vibrate.
“So you found the money,” Lois said from the other side of the door, her voice matter-of-fact. “Packed it all in a suitcase, ready to go.”
Weyman leaned against the stair railing, staring at me, swallowing. “Yes,” he said. “Yes—but I was waiting for you.”
“I can imagine, Brother dear,” she said. “Waiting with that down there.”
“Open the door, Sis!”
I heard her heels clicking away down the hall. I turned and went down the stairs to Noraine.
“What did he do to you?”
“It’s all right,” she said, trying to smile. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she looked wildly nervous. Her dark skirt and blouse were rumpled, the hair a tangle of blonde curls. The lipstick was gone from her lips and her lips looked bruised. I grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Has he hurt you?”
She shook her head, looking up past my shoulders. “He couldn’t,” she said. “He couldn’t hurt me.”
We looked at each other and she smiled just a little.
“When you left,” she said, “the sheriff came. Just as you got out back with—with Sam. I got rid of him, and I was just leaving when Weyman came in. I’ve been down here ever since. He’s held me here—but Al, he couldn’t do anything, not really.”
I grabbed her to me, holding her tightly, and I heard myself tell her all the things I’d wanted to tell her, how wrong I had been. “And never mind about Sam,” I said. “I don’t care about that.”
Her voice was quite calm. “I was seeing Sam for you, Al. You’re so pigheaded. Sam kept hinting about having lots of money—so I kept prompting him. Then, last night, that’s what I wanted to tell you. Sam was going to tell me all about the money—he promised. He was just going to tell me when Weyman shot him through the window.”
“Sis!” Weyman yelled from up there.
“Did Weyman say he shot his father?”
She nodded. “He told me everything, Al. He found the money from your father’s bank in an old chest upstairs, along with some worthless bonds. He packed the money in a suitcase and he said he and I were going away together. That’s when you came.”
“Sis!” he yelled. “Unlock the door!”
“But why did he kill his father?” I asked Noraine.
“Because he wanted me and he knew Sam was—well, close. So when he saw us in there, he couldn’t stand it.” Her voice was very low now. “He’s not right, Al—I mean, not right at all.”
Weyman was standing with his face pressed against the door.
Noraine said, “I wanted to tell you about Weyman. It’s been going on for days—I mean, once before he tried to get me. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t—not the way you were. And now—”
“Never mind,” I said. “Why didn’t you get out of here? He was upstairs when we came, wasn’t he?”
“I was asleep,” she said. “Then I heard somebody talking up there, and it woke me up. It was you.”
“Any other way out of here?”
She shook her head. “None that I know of.”
Weyman yelled, “Sis!” He turned on the stairs, shouting at me. “She’s pouring kerosene around up there.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No,” he said. “Here, look.”
I went back up the stairs. He pointed to the threshold of the door. A liquid had seeped through under the door, staining the wood, and I could hear splashes up there in the dining room and her heels as she walked through the house. I smelled it. Kerosene.
“Lois,” I said. “Lois?”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll find out.” She came close to the door and her voice sounded strained. “You can have her,” she said. “That’s what you want. And him, too—you can have him in the bargain. Isn’t that nice of me?”
“Lois, open the door.”
“No. I’m going up by the falls and watch. Think of me up there, Al—and think of what you could have had. I’ve got nearly a hundred and ninety thousand dollars. Isn’t that rich?” She ceased talking and I thought she was crying, but then it began to sound like tight laughter. “What do you think about that, Al?”
“Think of your brother, then,” I said.
“Think of Weyman? He’s better off dead—much better off.”
I heard her walk away, her heels clicking again. There was a crash and something made of tin struck the floor, rattling. Then she came back toward the door again.
“Sis!”
“Lois,” I said. “Lois, you’ll never get away with this.”
“Yes, I will, Al. Yes, I will.”
“What’s she going to do?” Noraine said.
“Lois?” I called.
“I’m right here, Al. Right on the other side of the door—as close to you as I’ll ever be again. I wanted to be so close to you, but you didn’t want me. You hurt me once and now you’ve done it again, only now it’s going to end. I waited too long. A woman’s got to think of herself sometimes.”
“Lois, open the door.”
She was walking away. “Lois!”
She did not answer. She wasn’t going to answer. I turned and looked down the stairs. Weyman was halfway down, staring at me with those curious eyes of his, and Noraine watched me from down there. I moved down the stairs past Weyman.
The room was sealed in tightly and there were no windows. It was a large room, with the furnace at the far end of the cellar, in shadow. The furnishings down here were comfortable; two large leather couches, some overstuffed chairs. There was a radio and TV combination, and a Hi-Fi system built into one of the walls. The walls were cedar. The floor was covered with thick brown carpet. I heard something crackle far away and there was a faint hissing, then a distant roar.
“She’s set the house on fire,” Weyman said. He spoke softly. “You can see the smoke under the door up there.”
I came back by the stairs and looked up. A fine, almost indiscernible hair of smoke curled under the cellar door. Already the crackling and hissing was distinct.
Noraine said nothing, standing there stiffly looking up at the door. I went along the walls of the room. I kept moving, looking at the walls and the low ceiling. We were sealed in beautifully. I came past the furnace, neat and clean, an oil furnace. It was roaring, too. The noise of the fire overhead was growing in intensity now. I came back along the far wall and saw the large square metal-sheathed piping running along close to the ceiling, then vanishing in a slow curve upward.
“Weyman?”
He moved slowly over to where I stood, limping badly.
“What’s this?”
“Air vent.”
“Where does it lead?”
“Upstairs into the hall outside the dining room.”
I leaped up and whacked it with my hand. It made a sound like a bass drum.
“They run all through the house for circulation,” he said.
“We’ve got to smash it down.”
He slumped against the wall, looking at me. “I’m going to kill you,” he said calmly. “You have sinned. You’re a sinner. I’m going to kill you. And then I’m going to kill her, and—”
“Shut up!”
I stepped toward him and he cringed against the wall, holding his bad leg.
Noraine was still watching the cellar door. The smoke was a thin flat fanning, now—coming under the door like a sheet of filmy paper. The roaring upstairs was a subdued rushing sound, still very young and distant.
“We’ve got to smash that pipe,” I told Noraine.
She flung herself into my arms. “You do love me?” she said.
“Yes. I do.”
“Then nothing else matters.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” I said. “We’re getting out of here.” I grinned at her, and turned toward the bar across the room. I had just picked up one of the bar stools when the lights flickered on and off, became very weak, then bright white and then went out. It was dead black. I took the stool and moved in the direction of the air vent.
The fire in the furnace lighted the room dimly. I found the air vent and swung the stool. It bounced off the steel panels of the vent, wrenched from my grasp. I ran up along the wall and dragged one of the overstuffed chairs back, picked up the stool and climbed on the chair. I began smashing at the metal casing. It dented, then loosened a little. I swung the stool with all my might and the metal gave. I swung it again, slamming it with everything I had. It started to tear around the ceiling. I swung it again, then dropped it and reached up and grabbed the edge of the metal casing. It tore a little. I swung up on the casing, chinning myself.
It ripped loose and I sprawled on the floor with the casing on me.
“Get up by the door!” I told Noraine. “Hurry up!”
I got on the chair, grabbed the edge of the opening and pulled up, pushing with my feet against the wall. There was a grating across it. I reached with one hand and shoved the grating. Flames licked across up there and smoke palmed my face. I got one elbow hooked through the opening and walked up the wall, dragging myself. I got my head through and the house was really burning. It was flaming and I was in the midst of it. I pulled myself up through the opening and came out in the hall. The stair bannister was a long blazing ember.
I ran back down the hall through the smoke and fire, into the dining room. Some of the flames were only kerosene burning. I made it to the door and slung the bolt. My fingers blistered at the touch.
Noraine came through into the dining room.
“Weyman—hurry up!”
He came up the stairs jumping a step at a time.
The curtains in the dining room went with a single swoosh and fell curling in flaming shreds across the floor.
“Get out back!” I told her, pushing her toward the kitchen.
Weyman came through the door. I grabbed him and pushed Noraine, and we moved out of the dining room into the kitchen. It was burning, too. The smoke boiled like a sea of yellow fume.
We made a run for it through the kitchen, toward the door. The door was locked and I couldn’t get it open.
I grabbed a chair and flung it at a window. The flames leaped and danced in a crazy chimera, fanned by wind. The fire rose steadily.
“Out the window,” I said, guiding Noraine. I caught the scared look on her face and she choked and coughed as she went through. I went after her. We were on the rear porch, the air on one side brittle cold and snowing, on the other blistering hot. People were gathering outside.