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The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table
lamps alight-hers and the one by the empty chair opposite. On
the sideboard behind her, two tall glasses, soda water, whiskey.
Fresh ice cubes in the Thermos bucket.
Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come him from
work.
Now and again she would glance up at the clock, but
without anxiety, merely to please herself with the thought that
each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come.
There was a slow smiling air about her, and about everything she
did. The drop of a head as she bent over her sewing was
curiously tranquil. Her skin -for this was her sixth month with
child-had acquired a wonderful translucent quality, the mouth
was soft, and the eyes, with their new placid look, seemed
larger darker than before. When the clock said ten minutes to
five, she began to listen, and a few moments later, punctually
as always, she heard the tires on the gravel outside, and the
car door slamming, the footsteps passing the window, the key
turning in the lock. She laid aside her sewing, stood up, and
went forward to kiss him as he came in.
“Hullo darling,” she said.
“Hullo darling,” he answered.
She took his coat and hung it in the closer. Then she
walked over and made the drinks, a strongish one for him, a weak
one for herself; and soon she was back again in her chair with
the sewing, and he in the other, opposite, holding the tall
glass with both hands, rocking it so the ice cubes tinkled
against the side.
For her, this was always a blissful time of day. She knew
he didn’t want to speak much until the first drink was finished,
and she, on her side, was content to sit quietly, enjoying his
company after the long hours alone in the house. She loved to
luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel-almost as a
sunbather feels the sun-that warm male glow that came out of him
to her when they were alone together. She loved him for the way
he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in a door, or
moved slowly across the room with long strides. She loved
intent, far look in his eyes when they rested in her, the funny
shape of the mouth, and especially the way he remained silent
about his tiredness, sitting still with himself until the
whiskey had taken some of it away.
“Tired darling?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m tired,” And as he spoke, he did an
unusual thing. He lifted his glass and drained it in one
swallow although there was still half of it, at least half of it
left.. She wasn’t really watching him, but she knew what he had
done because she heard the ice cubes falling back against the
bottom of the empty glass when he lowered his arm. He paused a
moment, leaning forward in the chair, then he got up and went
slowly over to fetch himself another.
“I’ll get it!” she cried, jumping up.
“Sit down,” he said.
When he came back, she noticed that the new drink was dark
amber with the quantity of whiskey in it.
“Darling, shall I get your slippers?”
“No.”
She watched him as he began to sip the dark yellow
drink, and she could see little oily swirls in the liquid
because it was so strong.
“I think it’s a shame,” she said, “that when a policeman
gets to be as senior as you, they keep him walking about on his
feet all day long.”
He didn’t answer, so she bent her head again and went on
with her sewing; bet each time he lifted the drink to his lips,
she heard the ice cubes clinking against the side of the glass.
“Darling,” she said. “Would you like me to get you some
cheese? I haven’t made any supper because it’s Thursday.”
“No,” he said.
“If you’re too tired to eat out,” she went on, “it’s still
not too late. There’s plenty of meat and stuff in the freezer,
and you can have it right here and not even move out of the
chair.”
Her eyes waited on him for an answer, a smile, a little
nod, but he made no sign.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I’ll get you some cheese and
crackers first.”
“I don’t want it,” he said.
She moved uneasily in her chair, the large eyes still
watching his face. “But you must eat! I’ll fix it anyway, and
then you can have it or not, as you like.”
She stood up and placed her sewing on the table by the
lamp.
“Sit down,” he said. “Just for a minute, sit down.”
It wasn’t till then that she began to get frightened.
“Go on,” he said. “Sit down.”
She lowered herself back slowly into the chair, watching
him all the time with those large, bewildered eyes. He had
finished the second drink and was staring down into the glass,
frowning.
“Listen,” he said. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“What is it, darling? What’s the matter?”
He had now become absolutely motionless, and he kept his
head down so that the light from the lamp beside him fell across
the upper part of his face, leaving the chin and mouth in
shadow. She noticed there was a little muscle moving near the
corner of his left eye.
“This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I’m
afraid,” he said. “But I’ve thought about it a good deal and
I’ve decided the only thing to do is tell you right away. I
hope you won’t blame me too much.”
And he told her. It didn’t take long, four or five
minutes at most, and she say very still through it all, watching
him with a kind of dazed horror as he went further and further
away from her with each word.
“So there it is,” he added. “And I know it’s kind of a
bad time to be telling you, bet there simply wasn’t any other
way. Of course I’ll give you money and see you’re looked after.
But there needn’t really be any fuss. I hope not anyway. It
wouldn’t be very good for my job.”
Her first instinct was not to believe any of it, to reject
it all. It occurred to her that perhaps he hadn’t even spoken,
that she herself had imagined the whole thing. Maybe, if she
went about her business and acted as though she hadn’t been
listening, then later, when she sort of woke up again, she might
find none of it had ever happened.
“I’ll get the supper,” she managed to whisper, and this
time he didn’t stop her.
When she walked across the room she couldn’t feel her feet
touching the floor. She couldn’t feel anything at all- except a
slight nausea and a desire to vomit. Everything was automatic
now-down the steps to the cellar, the light switch, the deep
freeze, the hand inside the cabinet taking hold of the first
object it met. She lifted it out, and looked at it. It was
wrapped in paper, so she took off the paper and looked at it
again.
A leg of lamb.
All right then, they would have lamb for supper. She
carried it upstairs, holding the thin bone-end of it with both
her hands, and as she went through the living-room, she saw him
standing over by the window with his back to her, and she
stopped.
“For God’s sake,” he said, hearing her, but not turning
round. “Don’t make supper for me. I’m going out.”
At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him
and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high
in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back
of his head.
She might just as well have hit him with a steel club.
She stepped back a pace, waiting, and the funny thing was
that he remained standing there for at least four or five
seconds, gently swaying. Then he crashed to the carpet.
The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table
overturning, helped bring her out of he shock. She came out
slowly, feeling cold and surprised, and she stood for a while
blinking at the body, still holding the ridiculous piece of meat
tight with both hands.
All right, she told herself. So I’ve killed him.
It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all
of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a
detective, she knew quite well what the penalty would be. That
was fine. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a
relief. On the other hand, what about the child? What were the
laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill then
both-mother and child? Or did they wait until the tenth month?
What did they do?
Mary Maloney didn’t know. And she certainly wasn’t
prepared to take a chance.
She carried the meat into the kitchen, placed it in a pan,
turned the oven on high, and shoved t inside. Then she washed
her hands and ran upstairs to the bedroom. She sat down before
the mirror, tidied her hair, touched up her lops and face. She
tried a smile. It came out rather peculiar. She tried again.
“Hullo Sam,” she said brightly, aloud.
The voice sounded peculiar too.
“I want some potatoes please, Sam. Yes, and I think a can
of peas.”
That was better. Both the smile and the voice were coming
out better now. She rehearsed it several times more. Then she
ran downstairs, took her coat, went out the back door, down the
garden, into the street.
It wasn’t six o’clock yet and the lights were still on in
the grocery shop.
“Hullo Sam,” she said brightly, smiling at the man behind
the counter.
“Why, good evening, Mrs. Maloney. How’re you?”
“I want some potatoes please, Sam. Yes, and I think a can
of peas.”
The man turned and reached up behind him on the shelf for
the peas.
“Patrick’s decided he’s tired and doesn’t want to eat out
tonight,” she told him. “We usually go out Thursdays, you know,
and now he’s caught me without any vegetables in the house.”
“Then how about meat, Mrs. Maloney?”
“No, I’ve got meat, thanks. I got a nice leg of lamb from
the freezer.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know much like cooking it frozen, Sam, but I’m
taking a chance on it this time. You think it’ll be all right?”
“Personally,” the grocer said, “I don’t believe it makes
any difference. You want these Idaho potatoes?”
“Oh yes, that’ll be fine. Two of those.”
“Anything else?” The grocer cocked his head on one side,
looking at her pleasantly. “How about afterwards? What you
going to give him for afterwards?”
“Well-what would you suggest, Sam?”
The man glanced around his shop. “How about a nice big
slice of cheesecake? I know he likes that.”
“Perfect,” she said. “He loves it.”
And when it was all wrapped and she had paid, she put on
her brightest smile and said, “Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Mrs. Maloney. And thank you.”
And now, she told herself as she hurried back, all she was
doing now, she was returning home to her husband and he was
waiting for his supper; and she must cook it good, and make it
as tasty as possible because the poor man was tired; and if,
when she entered the house, she happened to find anything
unusual, or tragic, or terrible, then naturally it would be a
shock and she’d become frantic with grief and horror. Mind you,
she wasn’t expecting to find anything. She was just going home
with the vegetables. Mrs. Patrick Maloney going home with the
vegetables on Thursday evening to cook supper for her husband.
That’s the way, she told herself. Do everything right and
natural. Keep things absolutely natural and there’ll be no need
for any acting at all.
Therefore, when she entered the kitchen by the back door,
she was humming a little tune to herself and smiling.
“Patrick!” she called. “How are you, darling?”
She put the parcel down on the table and went through into
the living room; and when she saw him lying there on the floor
with his legs doubled up and one arm twisted back underneath his
body, it really was rather a shock. All the old love and
longing for him welled up inside her, and she ran over to him,
knelt down beside him, and began to cry her heart out. It was
easy. No acting was necessary.
A few minutes later she got up and went to the phone. She
know the number of the police station, and when the man at the
other end answered, she cried to him, “Quick! Come quick!
Patrick’s dead!”
“Who’s speaking?”
“Mrs. Maloney. Mrs. Patrick Maloney.”
“You mean Patrick Maloney’s dead?”
“I think so,” she sobbed. “He’s lying on the floor and I
think he’s dead.”
“Be right over,” the man said.
The car came very quickly, and when she opened the front
door, two policeman walked in. She know them both-she know
nearly all the man at that precinct-and she fell right into a
chair, then went over to join the other one, who was called
O’Malley, kneeling by the body.
“Is he dead?” she cried.
“I’m afraid he is. What happened?”
Briefly, she told her story about going out to the grocer
and coming back to find him on the floor. While she was
talking, crying and talking, Noonan discovered a small patch of
congealed blood on the dead man’s head. He showed it to
O’Malley who got up at once and hurried to the phone.
Soon, other men began to come into the house. First a
doctor, then two detectives, one of whom she know by name.
Later, a police photographer arrived and took pictures, and a
man who know about fingerprints. There was a great deal of
whispering and muttering beside the corpse, and the detectives
kept asking her a lot of questions. But they always treated her
kindly. She told her story again, this time right from the
beginning, when Patrick had come in, and she was sewing, and he
was tired, so tired he hadn’t wanted to go out for supper. She
told how she’d put the meat in the oven-”it’s there now,
cooking”- and how she’d slopped out to the grocer for
vegetables, and come back to find him lying on the floor.
Which grocer?” one of the detectives asked.
She told him, and he turned and whispered something to the
other detective who immediately went outside into the street.
In fifteen minutes he was back with a page of notes, and
there was more whispering, and through her sobbing she heard a
few of the whispered phrases-”...acted quite normal...very
cheerful...wanted to give him a good supper...
peas...cheesecake...impossible that she...”
After a while, the photographer and the doctor departed
and two other men came in and took the corpse away on a
stretcher. Then the fingerprint man went away. The two
detectives remained, and so did the two policeman. They were
exceptionally nice to her, and Jack Noonan asked if she wouldn’t
rather go somewhere else, to her sister’s house perhaps, or to
his own wife who would take care of her and put her up for the
night.
No, she said. She didn’t feel she could move even a yard
at the moment. Would they mind awfully of she stayed just where
she was until she felt better. She didn’t feel too good at the
moment, she really didn’t.
Then hadn’t she better lie down on the bed? Jack Noonan
asked.
No, she said. She’d like to stay right where she was, in
this chair. A little later, perhaps, when she felt better, she
would move.
So they left her there while they went about their
business, searching the house. Occasionally on of the
detectives asked her another question. Sometimes Jack Noonan
spoke at her gently as he passed by. Her husband, he told her,
had been killed by a blow on the back of the head administered
with a heavy blunt instrument, almost certainly a large piece of
metal. They were looking for the weapon. The murderer may have
taken it with him, but on the other hand he may have thrown it
away or hidden it somewhere on the premises.
“It’s the old story,” he said. “Get the weapon, and
you’ve got the man.”
Later, one of the detectives came up and sat beside her.
Did she know, he asked, of anything in the house that could’ve
been used as the weapon? Would she mind having a look around to
see if anything was missing-a very big spanner, for example, or
a heavy metal vase.
They didn’t have any heavy metal vases, she said.
“Or a big spanner?”
She didn’t think they had a big spanner. But there might
be some things like that in the garage.
The search went on. She knew that there were other
policemen in the garden all around the house. She could hear
their footsteps on the gravel outside, and sometimes she saw a
flash of a torch through a chink in the curtains. It began to
get late, nearly nine she noticed by the clock on the mantle.
The four men searching the rooms seemed to be growing weary, a
trifle exasperated.
“Jack,” she said, the next tome Sergeant Noonan went by.
“Would you mind giving me a drink?”
“Sure I’ll give you a drink. You mean this whiskey?”
“Yes please. But just a small one. It might make me feel
better.”
He handed her the glass.
“Why don’t you have one yourself,” she said. “You must be
awfully tired. Please do. You’ve been very good to me.”
“Well,” he answered. “It’s not strictly allowed, but I
might take just a drop to keep me going.”
One by one the others came in and were persuaded to take a
little nip of whiskey. They stood around rather awkwardly with
the drinks in their hands, uncomfortable in her presence, trying
to say consoling things to her. Sergeant Noonan wandered into
the kitchen, come out quickly and said, “Look, Mrs. Maloney.
You know that oven of yours is still on, and the meat still
inside.”
“Oh dear me!” she cried. “So it is!”
“I better turn it off for you, hadn’t I?”
“Will you do that, Jack. Thank you so much.”
When the sergeant returned the second time, she looked at
him with her large, dark tearful eyes. “Jack Noonan,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Would you do me a small favor-you and these others?”
“We can try, Mrs. Maloney.”
“Well,” she said. “Here you all are, and good friends of
dear Patrick’s too, and helping to catch the man who killed him.
You must be terrible hungry by now because it’s long past your
suppertime, and I know Patrick would never forgive me, God bless
his soul, if I allowed you to remain in his house without
offering you decent hospitality. Why don’t you eat up that lamb
that’s in the oven. It’ll be cooked just right by now.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sergeant Noonan said.
“Please,” she begged. “Please eat it. Personally I
couldn’t tough a thing, certainly not what’s been in the house
when he was here. But it’s all right for you. It’d be a favor
to me if you’d eat it up. Then you can go on with your work
again afterwards.”
There was a good deal of hesitating among the four
policemen, but they were clearly hungry, and in the end they
were persuaded to go into the kitchen and help themselves. The
woman stayed where she was, listening to them speaking among
themselves, their voices thick and sloppy because their mouths
were full of meat.
“Have some more, Charlie?”
“No. Better not finish it.”
“She wants us to finish it. She said so. Be doing her a
favor.”
“Okay then. Give me some more.”
“That’s the hell of a big club the gut must’ve used to hit
poor Patrick,” one of them was saying. “The doc says his skull
was smashed all to pieces just like from a sledgehammer.”
“That’s why it ought to be easy to find.”
“Exactly what I say.”
“Whoever done it, they’re not going to be carrying a thing
like that around with them longer than they need.”
One of them belched.
“Personally, I think it’s right here on the premises.”
“Probably right under our very noses. What you think,
Jack?”
And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle.
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