Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

He put his key in the door a second time, on the inside, and locked it. Then I heard it hit a coin as it fell into the depths of his pocket. But hands clenched, steeling myself, fighting myself at every nerve, I was already rising shakily to my feet, like a ghost reborn from the shriveling terror that had consumed my former self. I was panting like something that has run for miles, nature trying to get enough air to my ticking heart. I knew just what sort of an ordeal I faced; this was going to be worse by far than any sudden physical onslaught from him could possibly have been. Just one slip, one momentary lowering of my guard, and — goodbye. But life is sweet. It seemed cheap even at the price I was willing to pay for just one hour more of it.

He took a step away from the door. I tottered around to the outside of the open closet-door, showed myself to him, swayed there briefly — then all at once was moving toward him erect, firm-footed, a gash on my face for a smile, arms out to meet his embrace. The closet-door folded shut behind him, with the slight backward push I’d given it, lest he look in and discover the telephone.

“Oh, there you are!” he beamed. “Didn’t you hear me come in?”

He meant — had I heard him lock the door on the inside?

“No,” I said, “I was hanging up some things in there—”

I stepped in between his arms; I felt them fold around my back like boa constrictors. My heart stopped, then went on again. “I must, I must,” I told myself, “I did this same thing when he left, didn’t I?” Our lips met; then he lifted me from the floor, held me there helpless in the air. I saw a funny light kindle in his eyes, not love or passion, something that distended the irises, like a tiger’s eyes in the dark. I never knew until then how much it could hurt to keep a steady smile on your face, looking down into twin pools of death from above. I could feel his breath hot on my throat, like invisible steam. The vise he was holding me in began to tighten—

“Frank,” I said, “the steak’s burning! Imph, imph! Smell it? I meant to surprise you—”

Nothing happened for a minute that seemed a year. Then the floor came up slowly and hit the soles of my feet again, and his arms dropped away. I was afraid to move away too quickly, even with the excuse I’d just given him. I reached out and lightly patted the side of his face, as though to hold him there where he was, then turned and started for the kitchen, expecting any minute to feel his hands close around my throat from behind.

I made it all right, he didn’t come after me, but as I collapsed to a squatting position in front of the reeking stove, I said to myself: “I must never do that again, after this. I must never turn my back to him like that any more, I’ve got to keep facing him at all costs!”

The steak was just smouldering charcoal; when I turned to look he was standing in the doorway, looking in at me. I thought: This may give me an out—

“Look, isn’t that a shame?” I mourned. “Looks like we’ll have to eat out.” If I could only get as far as some restaurant with him, I could scream my peril in the middle of everyone—

He turned nasty all at once, almost as though he had guessed what was in my mind. Not dangerous, but just nasty.

“No,” he barked, “we’re going to eat in! We’re going to stay here where we belong! Whaddya suppose I married you for? Take off that damned silver dress, it hurts my eyes! Put on something soft, that don’t look like a suit of armor!”

I didn’t dare disobey; I edged past him sideways, with that same moronic grin still on my face, and got into the bedroom. If I locked myself in there, I wondered, could I hold him off until help came? But who’d hear my screams? It might be hours, days, before anyone happened to come out this way. And then when I looked, there was no key in the door, and a second later he had followed me in there. I pulled the shimmering dress down off my shoulders, keeping my eyes dead-center in the mirror, afraid even a look might provoke him.

I had dropped the notebook a second time when I fainted and it was still lying there. He saw it before I did. I only saw it when it was already in his hand, and saw him glance craftily from it to me, and back to it again. Ice went down my spine like quicksilver in a thermometer, and I quickly beat him to the ominous, unasked question — the wrong answer to which was death.

“Oh, what’s that?” I said naively. “Where’d you get it?” Meaning, I haven’t seen it before, I haven’t seen it before. The looped dress was down at my feet now, safely below the danger-point of my elbows. I’d been afraid an attack would come while it held my arms pinned to my sides.

“It was lying right here in front of you,” he said. There was more of a question in that than a statement.

“It was?” I gasped. “Why, where’d it come from, I didn’t see it!”

I pulled open a drawer in front of me and got out my shroud: a frilly little frock with flowers all over it, the dress I was going to my death in.