Legacy Of Terror Part 8

The rain beat more harshly upon the skylight, larger drops that sounded almost like hail.

'Well,' she said, 'I ought to be going.'

He continued looking at the knife. 'But you just came.'

'Nevertheless, your grandfather-'

'He didn't like the first painting-the one of mother.'

His voice seemed so distant and unconnected to the moment, that she did not understand just what he meant. She said, 'Who didn't?'

'Grandfather,' he said.

'Why not?'

Dennis twisted the knife, forcing the paint away from his fingers and back up the blade. He said, 'Grandfather took one look at it and refused to examine it in detail. He said he never wanted to remember anything about that afternoon and what he had seen- and he said that my painting was too vivid, that it was too true for him to study it calmly. He's always been interested in my work, genuinely interested, but he never could stand that painting. And it's the best I've ever done, I think.'

'I liked it.'

'Thank you.'

'And your grandfather's reaction might be interpreted as praise rather than rejection.'

'I suppose so.'

She said, 'I think I'll be going now.'

He wiped the red pigment from the knife.

'Do you mind?' she asked.

'He's your job,' Dennis said.

'Yes he is. And I can't leave him unlooked after. I thank you for showing me around your studio. Your work is very interesting, and that is the truth. Well-'

Some of the red paint had gotten on his fingers. He stood there, staring at it, as if he saw something on the surface of the crimson blob, some image which he would have to use in a painting of his own.

She took a step away from him.

He did not turn.

She walked to the door, certain that he would come after her any moment now.

When she reached the door, she looked back, and she saw that he was painting crimson droplets on Celia Tamlin's face. He seemed to have forgotten that Elaine had ever been there.

She took the attic steps two at a time, even though she realized that he might hear her panicked flight. She opened the bottom door, stepped into the corridor, and closed the door behind her.

Her breathing was fast and ragged. She sucked each breath deep into her lungs, as if she had never expected to breathe outside of that attic room again. It was cool and clean and delicious.

When her nerves had quieted considerably, she smoothed her hair and straightened her blouse. The attention to grooming details helped calm her even more. Recovered, she wondered what she ought to do now. Should she go immediately to Jacob Matherly's room and tell the old man what Dennis had been like and what she had feared he was leading up to?

No. That would do her no good whatsoever. What, after all, had Dennis done? Talked of his mother. Painted pictures of madness. Showed a morbid fascination for blood. Toyed with a palette knife as if he might turn upon her and use it. None of it, in itself, was conclusive or even vaguely incriminating. Only if one were there could one understand what he had been like. It had not been only what he did, but how he did it, his mood, his expressions, the tone of his voice. And since no one but Elaine had seen those things and could grasp how they had been, the rest of it seemed silly.

Besides, Jacob would only tell her not to worry, that the killer was, after all, a stranger. A hitchhiker. He must be. Captain Rand said he was.

All she could expect to gain from Jacob Matherly was a little bit of conversation, a momentary escape from the dark house and the brooding people who lived there. He was the only haven of brightness in the place. But that was enough. Rather than sit alone in her room, she went down to talk to the old man. Disaster was brewing. She could feel it in the air, weighing down on her. At least, when it struck, she could be with someone else. Not alone. Please, not alone.

Chapter 10.

If events in the Matherly house had seemed to describe a descending circle towards a distant point of terror ever since the attempt on Celia Tamlin's life, they plummeted toward that terror like a falling star on the evening of the third day. The night gradually evolved into something like a hideous dream which, at some of its worst moments, she was sure would never end for her.

It began gradually, at supper.

Dennis, immersed in his painting of Celia Tamlin, did not come to the table, but had his meal sent up. This seemed to please Lee, Jerry and Bess. They reacted as if his sudden intense interest in his work was an omen of a return to normality. Didn't they understand what sort of painting it was? Didn't his flamboyant fascination with madness make them ill at ease? How could they ever evidence pleasure at such a decadent preoccupation?

Anyway, whatever Dennis did to lift their spirits, Paul more than compensated for. He had not yet returned from his trip to town and was, apparently, still in some barroom squandering a sizeable sum of his trust check. From time to time, Lee Matherly cast a fretful glance at the empty chair, as if he hoped to look up once and miraculously find Paul there.

Celia Tamlin, they had learned, had come out of her coma but had not yet been questioned and would not be for at least another twenty- four hours. Her doctor was keeping her heavily sedated.

This last bit of news should, Elaine supposed, be cheering. But it only made her feel a greater, deeper tension. If the would-be killer was a member of the Matherly household, wouldn't the threat of Celia's soon-to-be-regained consciousness drive him closer to the brink? If he were frightened that she would point the finger at him, wouldn't his borderline madness become a berserk spree against which none of them were safe?

Dinner would have been a terribly depressing affair if Gordon had not been there. He engaged her in conversation, and he seemed able to draw from her things she would never ordinarily have talked about. His quiet, somewhat shy manner, so much like her own, gave her confidence.

They were finishing dessert-strawberries and peaches in heavy cream-when Paul Honneker returned home. He slammed the front door so hard the noise reverberated throughout the house like a cannon shot. Then, for a time, he stood in the vestibule, out of sight of the dining room, and cursed someone-perhaps himself-quite loudly.

'Will you excuse me?' Lee Matherly asked, wiping his lips with a napkin and rising. He was embarra.s.sed for his brother-in-law.

Gordon stopped talking and listened closely to what was said in the vestibule, and Elaine pretended to be interested in the last of the fat red strawberries swimming in the cream in her dish.

'What the h.e.l.l do you you want?' Paul Honneker asked. want?' Paul Honneker asked.

From the sound of his voice, the slight slur on his words, it was clear that he was very drunk indeed.

'Lower your voice,' Lee Matherly said. His own voice was calm, sympathetic, even.

'Why in h.e.l.l should I? Why shouldn't shouldn't I yell all I want? I've had an afternoon to make a man yell!' I yell all I want? I've had an afternoon to make a man yell!'

'Come upstairs, and you can tell me about it, Paul.'

'I'll tell you now. Those d.a.m.ned townspeople-'

'Upstairs, Paul.'

'I want something to drink.'

'You seem to have had plenty.'

'I want another,' Paul said. His voice had gone whiny, but there was an underlying rage in it that Elaine had never heard before.

'You have a bottle in your room?' Lee asked.

'Yes.'

'Let's go up, then. You can have a drink and tell me about it.'

There was quiet for a moment, as if the big man was considering the suggestion. Then, suddenly, there was an explosive sound of shattered gla.s.s. 'd.a.m.ned mirrors,' Honneker said. 'I hate d.a.m.ned mirrors like that. You know I do, and still you have mirrors around. What the h.e.l.l? Is everyone against me around here? Does everyone hate me?'

'Of course not,' Lee said.

'I'm going up to get a drink,' Honneker said.

He cursed and hollered the whole way up the steps, and his voice died slowly to a distant grumbling as they went into his room.

Gordon pushed his unfinished dessert aside. His face had gone white, his lips tight and angry. 'I'm so sorry you had to be subjected to that.'

'It's all right, Gordon.'

'It really isn't all right,' he said. 'He's a disgusting man, most of the time. I don't like people who don't achieve things. He's lazy and drinks too much. Despite mother's will, I think father ought to see about putting Paul on his own. It might do him good.'

She agreed, but she did not say anything, for she felt that it was a family affair which was none of her business.

Gordon said, 'My brother's another who needs a bit of discipline. Living up there, doing nothing but his oils, dreaming about critical acclaim. It would be funny if it weren't that he reminds me, so much, of mother.'

'Oh?'

'Yes. Flighty, excitable. Given to a lot of fantasy. Some of that's in Paul, too. It's terrible the way father does nothing to curb that att.i.tude in both of them. It frightens me at times.'

She knew just what he meant.

Once she had seen to Jacob Matherly's well being and had heard him promise that he would take a sedative when he was finished with the book he was reading, she went to her own room and dressed for bed. She intended to read something light, the comedy-adventure novel which was among those she had purchased before she came here. But the novel was a bit too silly for her tastes and, besides, Paul Honneker's periodic noisy ramblings would not allow her to settle in for more than a few pages without being disturbed. When it was clear she was not going to become absorbed in the story, she put the book down and busied herself with a number of small ch.o.r.es.

She washed out two pair of stockings in the bath attached to her room and hung them to dry.

Paul Honneker was still rambling.

She filed her nails and painted them with clear polish to keep them from chipping more than they usually did. She really did not care much about the appearance of her nails, but this was, at least, something to help pa.s.s the time.

She dusted her room and straightened things a bit-mostly things that did not need straightening.

She wrote a short letter to a girlfriend who had attended nurses training with her. They were not really that close, and Elaine had intended to let the friendship gradually wither once they had gone their separate ways. But now it was nice to be able to make even this limited contact with the outside world.

She watched a television doc.u.mentary about the ecology movement. Ordinarily, she did not care for situation comedies or westerns, preferring those shows which she felt were educational. Tonight, however, she watched several intolerably ridiculous programs when the ecology hour was over. She watched, in fact, until she grew sleepy. At a few minutes past midnight, she turned off the set, rolled over, pulled the covers up around her and reached out for the shimmering aura of sleep which was close at hand.

She dreamed of a painting.

The painting was her face, so huge it filled all horizons. Her face, in that painting, was covered with droplets of blood. Her own blood. Her eyes stared sightlessly out of the universal canvas, her mouth parted in a wordless scream of pain*

She woke to the sound of the emergency buzzer and leaped out of bed, her professionalism taking precedence over her grogginess. She pulled on her robe and hurried down the corridor toward Jacob's room.

The door was standing ajar, but she did not stop to consider the importance of that. She went in, turning on the light as she pa.s.sed the switch, and found the old man doubled over, retching, panting for breath, his angina as fierce as it had ever been.

She got two glycerine tablets from the medicine cabinet, poured a gla.s.s of water. She held his head while he swallowed the first pill and lowered him back onto his pillows again. His face was furiously red; perspiration dotted his forehead and streaked along his cheeks. His hair was damp, as was the pillowslip under it. She gave him the second glycerine tablet, then began filling a syringe with a charge of morphine.

'The key-' he wheezed.

His voice was thin and birdlike, all but unintelligible.

'Key?'

He pointed toward the top of the nightstand where a ring of keys lay, his long fingers shaking uncontrollably.

'The key* for this room,' he said.

'Relax,' she told him, working up a smile that she thought would soothe him.

'Lock me in* when you* when you go!'

'Please rest, Mr. Matherly. Relax, and we'll have you better in no time at all.'

'Swear* swear you'll* lock me in.'

'Let's just roll up your sleeve,' she said.

'Swear it!' He was purpling with fury. His whole body shook as if someone were repeatedly striking him. She saw that it was worse to ignore his rantings than to give in to them.

She said, 'I will.'

He slumped back, his face quickly paling, his lips taking on the blue tint of death.

She rolled up his sleeve, swabbed the area on the inside of his elbow joint and administered the morphine.

Shortly, color returned to his cheeks. His eyes looked heavy, but they were devoid of the agony they had contained.

'Better?' she asked.

'Tired,' the old man said. 'Very tired* so tired.'

She listened to his heart with a stethoscope, listened for a long while. At first the beat was so ragged it frightened her, and she had decided to call an ambulance if it did not soon subside into a more regular cadence. In a few moments, the beat did soften and fall into a steady rhythm.

Jacob's face was healthy again, both in color and tone-except, of course, for the damaged half-and his lips had lost the deathly pallor.

She filled a basin with water from the adjacent bath and wiped his forehead and face with a cold washcloth. That done, she changed his bedclothes and made him comfortable once more.