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

I kept sitting on the bench on the dock until it got to be midnight, and then I got up and walked along the edge of the lake to the point. I stood on the point for quite a long time. I could hear now and then, out in the water, the splash of a leaping fish, and in the trees across the arm along a ridge, a loon and an owl. After awhile I turned and started up the slope at an angle toward the cottages. In the middle cottage the party was still going on, but the laughter and talk had become sporadic and not so loud as before, and it was apparent that things were coming slowly to an end. Among the trees on the slope, it was very dark. In the Quintins’ cottage, the first I reached, I could hear faintly a harsh, aspirate sound of deep breathing. I was not more than two feet from the porch, and I stopped and looked inside, but it was too dark to see anything, and I stood there for a minute listening to the breathing, which was suddenly quieter and hardly audible. I took a step backward to turn and leave, and my foot came down on a dead branch. The branch cracked sharply, and someone spoke instantly beyond the dark doorway. It was the voice of Laura Quintin.

“Who’s there?” she said.

“It’s John Laird,” I said.

“Oh. I’m glad you’ve come along, Mr. Laird. I could use some help.” Her voice sounded tired and curiously flat.

“What’s the matter?” I said.

“Will you come in, please?”

I went up across the porch and into the cottage. Dimly in the darkness, I could see Laura Quintin standing beside an easy chair near the bed. In the chair was the slumped figure of a man who was, from his size, either Dan Grimes or Ira Boniface.

“It’s Dan Grimes,” she said. “He’s passed out.”

“What’s he doing in your cottage?”

“He got sick at the party and went outside. Afterward he came in here and passed out in the chair. I just found him a few minutes ago.” Her curiously flat voice had suddenly a thin edge of disgust. “He always gets drunk and sick when he tries to drink.”

I had been aware of something unpleasant in the air of the room, and I recognized it now for the faint and sour stench of vomit. Grimes, in his sickness, had soiled his shirt.

“Do you want me to get him back to his own cottage?” I said.

“No. Just help me put him on the bed. He can spend the night here.”

“What about you?”

“Jerry and I can take his cottage.”

“You needn’t help move him. I can do it alone.”

“No. You’re kind enough to help at all. Just take his feet, please.”

“He’s a heavy man. You’d better let me do it alone.”

“I’m quite capable, thank you. I’m really much stronger than I look.”

As if to settle the matter without any more delay, she leaned over the chair and slipped her hands under Grimes’s slack arms at the shoulders.

“You’ve got the heavy end,” I said. “Come take the feet.”

“I’m quite all right.”

So I took his feet, and we carried him between us to the bed and put him on it. She must have been, as she claimed, much stronger than she looked, for he was very heavy, dead weight, and she carried him well. We left him on the bed and went out onto the porch. I offered her a cigarette, which she took. In the light of the match that I struck for her, her face looked pale and slightly drawn, set in lines of fastidious distaste.

“Thank you for helping me,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “I only wonder why you bothered with him.”

“He was drunk. I put him on the bed, that’s all.”

“Your bed. In your cottage. It will be an inconvenience, at least.”

“No inconvenience is too great to suffer for Dan Grimes. Haven’t you heard? People will do anything to gain his favor. If you don’t believe me, ask Jerry.”

“You don’t approve of Grimes?”

“He’s an unclean animal,” she said, “who corrupts everyone he touches.”

She spoke quietly with no inflection of anger. It was as if anger had burned itself out in its own excesses, leaving only a kind of sodden acceptance and bitterness. I said good night and turned to leave, and she spoke again.

“Please don’t go,” she said.

I stopped and turned back. She lifted a hand, touched me on the arm, dropped the hand again to her side. The gesture was a kind of appeal.

“It’s late,” I said. “It’s almost one o’clock.”

“I couldn’t possibly sleep,” she said. “I feel as if I’ll never sleep again. I’d be grateful if you’d stay with me. I don’t think I could bear being alone.”

“Your husband will be looking for you.”

“No. He’s been drinking heavily. He’ll go to sleep just as soon as the others leave. I’ll go tell him to stay in Dan’s cottage for the rest of the night. Will you wait for me?”

“I’ll wait.”

We went outside together, off the porch, and I waited in the darkness under the trees while she went alone into the middle cabin. The radio was not playing. I could hear no more laughing, no talking. The party, I thought, was over. In about three minutes Laura Quintin returned.

“All right?” I said.

“All right.”

“Shall we go down to the dock?”

“No. I think I’d like some coffee. Is there someplace we can go?”