Ray Bradbury
http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal
The Very Gentle Murders
1994
Joshua Enderby awoke in the middle of the night because e felt someone's
fingers at his throat.
In the rich darkness above him he sensed but could not see his wife's
frail, skelatinous weight seated on his chest while she dabbled and clenched
tremblingly again and again at his neck.
He opened his eyes wide. He realized what she was trying to do. It was so
ridiculous he almost cried out with laughter!
His rickety, jaundiced, eighty-five-year-old wife was trying to strangle
him!
She panted forth a rum-and-bitters smell as she perched there, toppling
like a drunken moth, tinkering away as if he were a toy. She sighed irritably
and her skinny fingers began to swear as she gasped, "Why _don't_ you, oh, why
_don 't you?"_
Why don't I _what?_ he wondered idly, lying there. He swallowed and this
faint action of his Adam's apple dislodged her feeble clutch. Why don't I _die;_
is _that_ it? he cried silently. He lay another few moments, wondering if she'd
gain strength enough to do him in. She didn't.
Should he snap on the light to confront her? Wouldn't she look a silly ass,
a skinny chicken aloft sidesaddle on her hated husband's amazed body, and him
laughing?
Joshua Enderby groaned and yawned. "Missy?"
Her hands froze on his collarbone.
"Will you-" He turned, pretending half sleep. "Will you-please' '-he
yawned-' 'move to _your_ side - of the bed? Eh? Good girl."
Missy moved off in the dark. He heard ice tinkle. She was having another
shot of rum.
At noon the next day, enjoying the weather and waiting for luncheon guests
to arrive, old Joshua and Missy traded drinks in the garden pavilion. He handed
her Dubonnet; she gave him sherry.
There was a moment of silence as both eyed the stuff and hesitated to sip.
He handled his glass in such a way that his large white diamond ring sparked and
glittered on his palsied hand. Its light made him flinch and at last he gathered
his phlegm.
"Missy," he said. "You haven't long to live, you know." Missy was hidden
behind jonquils in a crystal bowl and now peered out at her mummified husband.
Both perceived that the other's hands shook. She wore a cobalt dress, heavily
iced with luncheon jewels, little glittery planets under each ear, a scarlet
design for a mouth. The ancient whore of Babylon, he thought dryly.
"How odd, my dear, how very odd," Missy said with a polite scrape of her
voice. "Why, only last night-"
"You were _thinking_ of me?"
"We must talk."
"Yes, we must." He leaned like a wax mannequin in his chair. "No rush. But
if I do you in, or if you do me in (it matters not which), let's protect each
other, yes? Oh, don't look at me in amaze, my dear. I was perfectly aware of
your little gallup last night on my ribs, fumbling with my esophagus, feeling
the tumblers click, or whatever."
"Dear me." Blood rose in Missy's powdery cheeks. "Were you awake all
during? I'm mortified. I think I shall have to go lie down."
"Nonsense." Joshua stopped her. "If I die, you should be shielded so no
one'll accuse you. Same with me, if _you_ die. Why go to all the trouble of
trying to-eliminate-each other if it just means a gallows-drop or a french fry."
"Logical enough," she agreed.
"I suggest a-a series of mash notes to each other. Umm, lavish displays of
sentiment before friends, gifts, _et cetera._ I'll run up bills for flowers,
diamond bracelets. You purchase fine leather wallets and gold-ferruled canes for
_me."_
"You have a head for things, I must say," she admitted.
"It will help allay suspicion if we appear madly, anciently in love."
"You know," she said tiredly, "it doesn't matter, Joshua, which of us dies
first, except that I'm _very_ old and would like to do _one_ thing right in my
life. I've always been such a dilettante. I've never liked you. Loved you, yes,
but that's ten million years back. You never were a friend. If it weren't for
the children-"
"Motives are bilge," he said. "We are two querulous old pots with nothing
to do but kick off, and make a circus of _that._ But how much better the dying
game if we write a few rules, act it neatly, with no one the wiser. How long has
this assassination plot of yours been active?"
She beamed. "Remember the opera last week? You slipped from the curb? That
car almost nailed you?"
"Good Lord." He laughed. "I thought someone shoved _both_ of us!" He leaned
forward, chuckling. "Okay. When you fell in the bath last month? _I_ greased the
tub!"
Unthinkingly, she gasped, drank part of her Dubonnet, then froze.
Reading her mind, he stared at his own drink.
"This isn't poisoned, by any chance?" He sniffed his glass. "Don't be
silly," she replied, touching her Dubonnet with a lizard's doubtful tongue.
"They'd find the residue in what's left of your stomach. Just be sure you
double-check your shower tonight. I have kited the temperature, which might
bring on a seizure."
"You _didn't!"_ he scoffed.
"I've _thought_ about it," she confessed.
The front-door chimes rang, but not with their usual joy, sounding more
funereal. Nonsense! Joshua thought. Bosh! thought Missy, then brightened:
"We have forgotten our luncheon guest! That's the Gowrys! He's a bore, but
be nice! Fix your collar."
"It's damned tight. Too much starch. One more plot to strangle me?"
"I wish I _had_ thought of that. Double time, now!"
And they marched, arm in arm, with idiot laughter, off to meet the
half-forgotten Gowrys.
Cocktails were served. The old relics sat side by side, hands laced like
school chums, laughing with weak heartiness at Gowry's dire jokes. They leaned
forward to show him their porcelain smiles, saying, "Oh, that's a _good_ one!"
loudly, and, softly, _sotto voce;_ to each other: "Thought of anything _new?"_
"Electric razor in your bath?" "Not bad, not bad!"
"And then _Pat_ said to Mike!" cried Mr. Gowry.
From the corner of his mouth Joshua whispered to Missy, "You know, I
dislike you with something approaching the colossal proportions of first love.
You have taught me mayhem. How?"
"When the teacher is ready, the pupil will arrive," whispered Missy.
Laughter rose in tumbling, whirling waves. The room was giddy, airy, light.
"So Pat says to Mike, do it _yourself!"_ boomed Gowry.
"Oh, _ho!"_ everyone exploded.
"Now, dear." Missy waved at her ancient husband. "Tell one of _your_ jokes.
Oh, but _first,"_ she remembered cleverly, "trot down-cellar, darling, and fetch
the brandy."
Gowry sprang forward with wild courtesy. _"I_ know where it is!"
"Oh, Mr. Gowry, _don't!"_
Missy gestured frantically.
Mr. Gowry ran from the room.
"Oh, dear, dear me," cried Missy.
A moment later, Gowry uttered a loud shriek from the basement, followed by
a thunderous crash.
Missy hippety-hopped out, only to reappear moments later, her hand clutched
to her throat. "Heavens to Betsy," she wailed. "Come look. I _do_ believe Mr.
Gowry has pitched himself straight down the cellar stairs!"
The next morning Joshua Enderby shuffled into the house lugging a large
green velvet board some five feet by three, on which pistols were clasped in
display.
"Here I am!" he shouted.
Missy appeared with a rum Collins in one bracelet-jangly hand, her cane
thumping in the other. "What's _that?"_ she demanded.
"First, how's old Gowry?"
"Broken leg. Wished it had been his vocal cords."
"Shame about that top cellar step gone loose, eh?" The old man hooked the
green velvet board to the wall. "Good thing Gowry lurched for the brandy, not
I."
"Shame." The wife drank thirstily. "Explain."
"I'm in the antique-gun-collecting business." He waved at the weapons in
their neat leather nests.
"I don't see-"
"With a collection of guns to clean-bang!" He beamed. "Man shoots wife
while oiling matchlock garter pistol. Didn't know it was loaded, says weeping
spouse."
"Touche'," she said.
An hour later, while oiling a revolver, he almost blew his brains out.
His wife came thumping in and froze. "Hell. You're still alive."
"Loaded, by God!" He lifted the weapon in a trembling hand. _"None were_
loaded! Unless-"
"Unless-?"
He seized three more weapons. _"All_ loaded! You!"
"Me," she said. "While you ate lunch. I suppose I'll have to give you tea
now. Come along."
He stared at the bullet hole in the wall. "Tea, hell," he said. "Where's
the _gin?!"_
It was _her_ turn for a shopping spree. "There are ants in the house." She
rattled her full shopping bag and set out ant-paste pots in all the rooms,
sprinkled ant powders on windowsills, in his golf bag, and over his gun
collection. From other sacks she drew rat poisons, mouse-killers, and
bug-exterminators. "A bad summer for roaches." She distributed these liberally
among the foods.
"That's a double-edged sword," he observed. "You'll fall on it!"
"Bilge. The victim mustn't _choose_ his demise."
"Yes, but no violence. I wish a serene face for the coroner."
"Vanity. Dear Josh, your face will twist like a corkscrew with one heaping
teaspoon of Black Leaf Forty in your midnight cocoa!"
"I," he shot back, "know a recipe that will break you out in a thousand
lumps before expiring"
She quieted. "Why, Josh, I wouldn't _dream_ of using Black Leaf Forty."
He bowed. "I wouldn't dream of using the thousand-lump recipe."
"Shake," she said.
Their assassins game continued. He bought huge rattraps to hide in the
halls. "You run barefoot so: _small_ wounds, _large_ infections!"
She in turn stuck the sofas full of antimacassar pins. Wherever he laid a
hand it drew blood. "Ow! Damn!" He sucked his fingers. "Are these Amazon Indian
blowgun darts?"
"No. Just plain old rusty lockjaw needles."
"Oh," he said.
Though he was aging fast, Joshua Enderby dearly loved to drive. You could
see him motoring with feeble wildness up and down the hills of Beverly, mouth
gaped, eyes blinking palely.
One afternoon he phoned from Malibu. "Missy? My God, I almost dove from a
cliff. My right front wheel flew off on a straightaway!"
"I planned it for a _curve!"_
"Sorry."
"Got the idea from Action News. Loosen car's wheel lugs:
tomato _surprise."_
"Never mind about careless old me," he said. "What's new with you?"
"Rug slipped on the hall stairs. Maid fell on her prat."
"Poor Lila."
"I send her everywhere ahead now. She bucketed down like a laundry bag.
Lucky she's all fat."
"We'll kill that one between us if we're not careful."
"Do you _think?_ Oh, I _do_ like Lila _so."_
"Lay Lila off for a spell. Hire someone new. If we catch _them_ in our
crossfire, won't be so sad. Hate to think of Lila smashed under a chandelier
or-"
"Chandelier!" Missy shrieked. "You been fiddling with my grandma's
Fountainbleu Palace crystal hangings? Listen here, mister. You're not to _touch_
that chandelier!"
"Promise," he muttered.
"Good grief! Those lovely crystals! If they fell and missed me, I'd hop on
one leg to cane you to death, then wake you up and cane you _again!" _
_Slam_ went the phone.
Joshua Enderby stepped in from the balcony at supper that night. He'd been
smoking. He looked at the table. "Where's your strawberry crumpet?"
"I wasn't hungry. I gave it to the new maid."
"Idiot!"
She glared. "Don't tell me you poisoned that crumpet, you old S.O.B.?"
There was a crash from the kitchen.
Joshua went to look and returned. "She's not new any-more," he said.
They stashed the new maid in an attic trunk. No one telephoned to ask for
her.
"Disappointing," observed Missy on the seventh day. "I felt certain there'd
be a tall, cold man with a notebook and another with a camera and flashbulbs
flashing. Poor girl was lonelier than we _guessed." _
Cocktail parties streamed wildly through the house. It was Missy's idea.
"So we can pick each other off in a forest of obstacles; moving targets!"
Mr. Gowry, gamely returning to the house, limping after his tumble of some
weeks before, joked, laughed, and didn't quite blow his ear off with one of the
dueling pistols. Everyone roared but the party broke up early. Gowry vowed never
to return.
Then there was a Miss Kummer, who, staying overnight, borrowed Joshua's
electric razor and was almost but not quite electrocuted. She left the house
rubbing her right underarm. Joshua promptly grew a beard.
Soon after, a Mr. Schlagel vanished. So did a Mr. Smith. The last seen of
these unfortunates was at a Saturday night soiree at the Enderbys' mansion.
"Hide-and-seek?" Friends slapped Joshua's back jovially.
"How _do_ you do it? Kill 'em with toadstools, plant 'em like mushrooms?"
"Grand joke, yes!" chortled Joshua. "No, no, ha, not toadstools, but one
got locked in our stand-up fridge. Overnight Eskimo Pie. The other tripped on a
croquet hoop. Defenestrated through a greenhouse window."
"Eskimo Pie, defenestrated!" hooted the party people. "Dear Joshua, you
_are_ a card!"
"I speak only the _truth," _ Joshua protested.
"What won't you think of next?"
"One wonders what _did_ happen to old Schlagel and that rascal Smith."
* * *
"What _did_ happen to Schlagel and Smith?" Missy inquired some days later.
"Let me explain. The Eskimo Pie was my dessert. But the croquet hoop? No!
Did _you_ spot it in the wrong place, hoping I'd pop by and lunge through the
greenhouse panes?"
Missy turned to stone; he had touched a nerve.
"Well, now, it's time for a wee talk," he said. "Cancel the parties. One
more victim and sirens will announce the arrival of the law."
"Yes," Missy agreed. "Our target practice seems to wind up in ricochet.
About that croquet hoop. You always take midnight greenhouse walks. Why was that
damn fool Schlagel stumbling about out there at two a.m.? Dumb ox. Is he _still_
under the compost?"
"Until I stash him with he-who-is-frozen."
"Dear, dear. No more parties."
"Just you, me and-ah-the chandelier?"
"Ah, no. I've hid the stepladder so you can't climb!"
"Damn," said Joshua.
That night by the fireplace, he poured a few glasses of their best port.
While he was out of the room, answering the telephone, she dropped a little
white powder in her _own_ glass.
"Hate this," she murmured. "Terribly unoriginal. But there won't be an
inquest. He looked long dead before he died, they'll say as they shut the lid."
And she added a touch more lethal stuff to her port just as he wandered in to
sit and pluck up his glass. He .eyed it and fixed his wife a grin. "Ah, no, no,
you don't!"
"Don't what?" she said, all innocence.
The fire crackled warmly, gently on the hearth. The mantel clock ticked.
"You don't mind, _do_ you, my dear, if we exchange drinks?"
"Surely you don't think I poisoned your drink while you were out?"
"Trite. Banal. But possible."
"Well, then, fussbudget, _trade."_
He looked surprised but traded glasses.
"Here's _not_ looking at you!" both said, and laughed.
They drank with mysterious smiles.
And then they sat with immense satisfaction in their easy chairs, the
firelight glimmering on their ghost-pale faces, letting the port warm their
almost spidery veins. He stuck his legs out and held one hand to the fire. "Ah."
He sighed.
"Nothing, nothing quite like port!"
She leaned her small gray head back, dozing, gumming her red-sticky mouth,
and glancing at him with half-secretive, lazy eyes. "Poor Lila," she murmured.
"Yes," he murmured. "Lila. Poor."
The fire popped and she at last added, "Poor Mr. Schlagel."
"Yes." He drowsed. "Poor Schlagel. Don't forget Smith."
"And you, old man," she said finally, slowly, slyly. "How do _you_ feel?'
"Sleepy."
_"Very_ sleepy?"
"Un-huh." He studied her with bright eyes. "And, my dear, what about you?"
"Sleepy," she said behind closed eyes. Then they popped wide. "Why all
these questions?"
"Indeed," he said, stirring alert. "Why?"
"Oh, well, because . . ." She examined her little black shoe moving in a
low rhythm a long way off below her knee. "I think, or perhaps imagine, I have
just destroyed your digestive and nervous systems."
For the moment he was drowsily content and examined the warm fire and
listened to the clock tick. "What you mean is that you have just poisoned me?"
He dreamed the words. "You _what!?"_ He jumped as all the air gusted from his
body. The port glass shattered on the floor.
She leaned forward like a fortune-teller eagerly predicting futures.
"I cleverly poisoned my own drink and knew that you'd ask to trade off, so
you felt safe. And we _did!"_ Her laugh tinkled.
He fell back in his chair, clutching at his face to stop the wild swiveling
of his eyes. Then suddenly he remembered something and let out an incredible
explosion of laughter.
"Why," cried Missy, "why are you laughing?"
"Because," he gasped, tears streaming down his cheeks, his mouth grinning
horribly, _"I_ poisoned _my_ drink! and hoped for an excuse to change with
_you!"_
"Oh, dear," she cried, no longer smiling. "How stupid of us. Why didn't I
_guess?"_
"Because both of us are much _too_ clever by far!" And he lay back,
chortling.
"Oh, the mortification, the embarrassment, I feel stark naked and hate
myself!"
"No, no," he husked. "Think instead how much you still hate me."
"With all my withered heart and soul. You?"
"No deathbed forgiveness here, old lily-white iron-maiden wife 0 mine.
Cheerio," he added faintly, far away.
"If you think I'll say 'Cheerio' back, you're crazed," she whispered, her
head rolling to one side, her eyes clamped,
her mouth gone loose around the words. "But what the hell. Cheer-"
At which her breath ceased and the fire burned to ashes as the clock ticked
and ticked in the quiet room.
Friends found them strewn in their library chairs the next day, both
looking more than usually pleased with their situation.
"A suicide pact," said all. "So great their love they could not bear to let
the other vanish alone into eternity."
"I hope," said Mr. Gowry, on his crutches, "my wife will someday join me in
similar drinks."