Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

“There ought to be a couple of trays in the refrigerator,” I said.

“There isn’t any. Someone left the trays on the cabinet.”

“Sorry. I’ll get some and bring it right down.”

“Thank you.”

I went back to my own cottage and put a couple dozen cubes in a plastic bag and returned. Approaching the Quintins’ cottage, I heard Laura Quintin’s voice raised in anger, but in spite of volume and anger it retained, or acquired, a cold quality of deadly calm. It was somehow in accord with her pale reserve. She was the kind of woman, I thought, who would never in anger become excessively emotional and vulgar. She would become, as she was now, bitterly cold and incisive.

“The trouble with you,” she said, “is that you have an unfortunate combination of qualities. You are brilliant and charming and weak. Because you have no guts, you’re a perfect tool.”

“Thanks for your opinion,” Jerome Quintin said. “I’m happy to know precisely what you think of me.”

“Not at all. I’m delighted to tell you.”

“Would you care to learn, in return, what I think of you?”

“I don’t think I particularly care any longer.”

“Nevertheless, I want to tell you. Just for my own satisfaction. You have, my dear, no scope, no imagination, and not, I suspect, much intelligence. Because you want to be a nonentity, you want to make me one also.”

“You see? You have proved your weakness beautifully with your own words. Is being a nonentity the only alternative to what you’re becoming? For heaven’s sake, can’t you exploit your own talents in your own way for your own good?”

I had stopped outside the screen door, and I was suddenly aware that I was deliberately listening. I was a little ashamed, but not much. In the interval of silence that now fell, I knocked quickly and was told by Jerome Quintin to come in. I opened the door and crossed the porch and went into the cottage and put the bag of cubes on a table.

“I hope these will hold you until your own have time to freeze,” I said.

“That’s more than enough,” Quintin said. “Thanks very much.”

Two bottles were sitting on the cabinet by the sink in the kitchen area. He took three glasses from a shelf above and put ice cubes in the glasses.

“You’ll have a drink with us, of course,” he said.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’d better get back.”

“Nonsense. Surely you can take time for a drink. We’d be pleased to have you join us, wouldn’t we, Laura?”

“Yes, of course,” Laura Quintin said. “Please do.”

She said it promptly and nicely, but it obviously made no difference to her, one way or the other. The quality of anger was no longer in her voice, but it was cold and rigidly contained.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll have one with you.”

“Good. Bourbon or scotch?”

“Bourbon.”

“Straight?”

“A little tap water, please,” I answered.

He poured bourbon over ice in one of the glasses and added water. He repeated the operation with the other glasses, using scotch instead of bourbon. Afterward he distributed the drinks, and Laura took hers first and swallowed some of it instantly without ceremony. I lifted my own in a small salute to Quintin for his hospitality. It was a strong drink of good whisky.

“I think,” Laura said, “that I’ll drink a great many of these tonight. It seems to me like a good night to drink lots and lots of scotch.”

She drained her glass quickly, as if it were so much water, and got up immediately and began mixing another drink. Jerome Quintin laughed and shrugged it off lightly. I had a feeling that he was furious, but it was only a feeling without any evidence of expression in his face or voice.

“Laura doesn’t particularly care for fishing trips,” he said.

“He’s wrong,” Laura said. “It is only this particular fishing trip that I don’t care for.”

“Laura’s feeling sorry for herself at the moment,” Quintin said. “You must excuse her.”

“He’s wrong again,” she said. “It’s him I’m feeling sorry for.”

They were talking through me again, as they had before, and I didn’t like it. I took another swallow of my drink and thought I’d finish it quickly and get out of there.

“Will you tell me something, Mr. Laird?” Quintin said.

“If I can,” I said.

“Do you expect to become governor of this state?”

“No.”

“If you did become governor of this state, would you consider it an accomplishment of some merit?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it so happens that I do expect to become governor of this state, Mr. Laird. In a short while, as you’ll see, I shall become attorney general and in due time after that I shall become governor.”

“Congratulations.”

He had finished his drink and was fixing another. Watching the pair of them, Jerome and Laura Quintin in their queer cold conflict, I became aware of something that I’d missed before. They’d been working on the scotch warm, before the ice came. They were both already a little drunk, quietly and bitterly.

“Thank you, Mr. Laird,” he said. “It may interest you to know, however, that Laura does not share your feeling about the significance of being governor. Would you believe it? She seems to feel that it would somehow be degrading to be governor.”