Black Mask (Vol. 7, No. 5 — April 1950), British Edition

“Come on, Irma,” he stopped her. He was almost pushing her toward the stairs, now.

Suddenly, she whipped away from him. She staggered and half fell against the wall. She stood there, her hands at her side, pressing flat against the wall as though trying to force it back out of her way. “Take your dirty hands off me, Gus! You go upstairs. I’m staying—”

“Do as I say!” His words came out tough and clipped and his face was tense, white around the heavy jaw muscles. A vein stood out, throbbing, in his neck.

All this time, ideas were chasing themselves around in my brain like scared rabbits. They stopped one by one and began to form a pattern. I was thinking of Gus Berkaw, who stayed here at the inn with Harry and Irma Wenzel, who was with them all the time. I was thinking of Irma — of Harry, a good twenty years her senior. It didn’t make a pretty picture, but it was a picture just the same.

For a moment, Irma Wenzel seemed to wilt, as though her will was broken. It looked like she was going to meekly turn and go upstairs as Gus Berkaw had ordered. But, suddenly, she wheeled back. She turned toward me. Her eyes were wide and wild, now. She began to realize they were caught.

“Matty,” she said. “You said old Marlow is upstairs in his room. Is... is he all right, Matty? I mean you sure he... he’s only drunk?”

I suddenly decided to ride everything on this hand. I shot the works. It was now or never.

“No, Irma, he’s not all right. Willis Marlow is dead. He was murdered, just as your husband was murdered, Irma. And by the same person.”

She looked scared and bewildered, both. Her eyes cast from side to side, like a trapped and frightened little animal’s.

“But how... how did he get up there, Matty? He couldn’t. He was down by the lake. He was hanged there. Gus told me. Gus said Marlow was—” She broke off, staring at Gus.

“Stop it!” Gus Berkaw cut in on her. He suddenly walked over to Chief of Police Arnold Quimby who was standing at the bar, still, looking on, goggle-eyed, befuddled. Berkaw said, “Arnold, you’ve got to do something with her. She’s blowing her roof. The shock of her husband dying and all has been too much for her.”

He got up close to Arnold Quimby. The police chief wore a Sam Brown belt and a fine, hand-tooled leather holster. Gus Berkaw had no trouble slipping the gleaming black .38 from Quimby’s holster. He did it fast and neatly and stepped back and away while Quimby stared, dumbfounded at his own gun in Berkaw’s hands as though he was wondering how it got there and what it was doing there.

Gus Berkaw held the gun on all of us, while he stood clear. He spoke to Irma Wenzel and his eyes stayed with all of us, watching our every move, yet somehow he seemed to be looking straight at her.

“Are you crazy, Irma? What’s the matter with you, you drunken little fool? If you hadn’t broke, if you hadn’t let it get you, they couldn’t have proved anything. That damned busy-body reporter didn’t know a thing; he was just guessing. Now you’ve thrown it right in his lap.”

She kept looking at Gus Berkaw, at the revolver in his hand. She stood there, drunk and swaying and the tears ran on her face and left mascara streaks down her cheeks. She said, tiredly, “It’s no good, Gus. You talked it to me so much. You talked me into it. But after it was done, it was no good. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“No good!” he repeated. He spat out the words. “I did it for you. You were in love with me, you said. You always said, if it wasn’t for Harry— Well, you’re in it, damn you. You’re right in it with me. You were my accomplice. We were going to be in clover.

“There wasn’t only the insurance. There was the big dough this place was suddenly worth with the new highway coming through. It was when I heard about that, that I knew it had to be tonight. Well, now you’ve lost all that for us, Irma. But you’re not going to cheat me altogether. You’re going with me. Come over here, Irma. Don’t make any more mistakes.”

“Don’t be crazy, Gus!” she told him. “I... I don’t love you. I couldn’t — not a cold-blooded killer. When I started to realize — to really understand that Harry was gone, I knew I’d made a mistake. He was worth ten of you, Gus Berkaw. He was a man. He—”

Berkaw took a step toward her and his face was twisted like a mask. He jabbed the .38 toward her. “Get over here!” he said. “You’re going with me, Irma!”

“No, Gus!” she said. She put up both hands, palms out.

He took another step toward her. “I said, come here. I—”

I didn’t hear the rest of it. I was scared and all tight like a spring inside of me. There was a buzzing in my ears. Gus Berkaw wasn’t seeing anybody but Irma at that moment. I still had Lee Marlow’s spinning outfit in my hands. That viciously hooked Flatfish plug was still on the end of the line. It was worth a try.