Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956
- Автор: Дил Борден, Томпсон Джим
- Год: 1956
- Язык: английский
- Год: H.S.D. Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956». Краткое содержание книги:
“Come on in the house and wait,” he said. “This heat will kill you, sitting out here in the car.”
The young man hesitated, then opened the door on his side and got out. He was rangy and tanned and beside The Judge’s harsh grayness he looked very young. Grace picked well, The Judge thought ungrudgingly. I wonder if he has money, too. Yes, he must have money.
Wallace came around the front of the car toward The Judge, his eyes studying The Judge’s face. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I didn’t want to come...”
“But Grace must have someone to help with the luggage,” The Judge said gently. “You can’t expect a lady to wrestle luggage in this heat. And I’m an old man...”
He took Wallace’s arm and urged him toward the house, talking about the thick walls that insulated against the sun, how pleasant the house always was in the summertime even though it was hard to heat in winter. He mentioned how thin the walls of modern homes are now, as thin as cracker boxes, and how it takes air-conditioning to make them livable this far south.
“But they keep on building them that way,” he said thoughtfully. “Sometimes I think there’s nothing as bullheaded and grasping as the building industry. Nothing at all.”
They were in the living room now, without the young man having to talk under the casual flow of The Judge’s words, and it was cooler here. The Judge could feel the momentary sweat evaporating, aerating his shirt under the linen coat, and for a moment he chilled until his body adjusted to the changed condition.
“Sit down,” he said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He went into the kitchen, leaving Wallace alone. He stood at the back stairs before going down into the cellar, listening, but he could hear nothing of her movements. The cellar was cool, too, and dark, and he had to grope for the light cord dangling somewhere in the middle of the space. He found it, then he went unerringly to the shelf he sought, feeling far back for the bottle in the wicker basket.
He looked at it, the tactile touch of dust and cobwebs on his hands. For ten years it had lain here, gathering dust, waiting in just the way The Judge had waited previously, upstairs. Except that this bottle could not wait long enough. Not now.
He turned out the light and groped blindly toward the steps, finding them at last with his seeking feet and then letting them lift him toward light again. He paused in the kitchen for full-bellied glasses and a corkscrew and put his shoulder against the door into the living room. He turned and let the door slide shut behind him, seeing Wallace again, still standing uncertainly in the middle of the room. Like a deer, The Judge thought, feeling the wind for danger. Young and rangy and quick to run away and very beautiful in the youngness.
“Sit down, man,” he said. He smiled. “I know Grace. It’ll be a while before she’s ready to use you.” He motioned with the bottle. “I thought we’d have a little sherry while we waited.”
The young man did not move but The Judge ignored him while his old, wrinkled hands deftly set and twisted the corkscrew, lifting the rotten cork with one easy movement as he grasped the bottle between his knees.
He eased into his comfortable leather chair and looked up to see that the young man had not yet relaxed. “Wallace,” he said. “This is a small town. I’ve lived here all my life, and my father and grandfather before me. I’ve been a lawyer here, and a judge. I’ve been The Judge for a long time.” He stopped, looking down at the sherry bottle for a moment.
“I know this town,” he said thoughtfully. “I know the South. I could shoot you and get off scotfree. You made yourself fair game the first time you put your arms around my wife. You may not have known that, since you’re not local. But you couldn’t find twelve men among our ten thousand who’d convict a husband for shooting his wife’s lover. That’s not the law, you understand — that’s just the way it is.”
Wallace did not move, but The Judge could feel the tightening against danger in him. He was afraid now, very afraid. I’m a terrifying old man, he thought with a touch of sadness. I never knew I’d live to a terrifying old age.
“For a long time I believed I would kill you,” he said. “If I ever laid eyes on you for one instant. I love my wife. I’m an old man with a young wife and I love her with the foolishness that the young never know. They know delirium, they know passion, they know desire. But they never know the wondrous foolishness of an old man in love for the first time.” He shook his head. “No, the young never know. They never understand.”
He lifted his head. “So I was sure I’d shoot you.” He stopped, brooding for a moment. He sighed, as though the remembering were a burden, too. “But I’m a law man, a lawyer and a judge. I’ve never believed in violence, seeing how it breeds hate and more violence, judging the results of violence every day in my court.”
He leaned and carefully lifted the old bottle with both hands. He tilted it and poured lightly into his own glass, just a splash to give himself the floating bits of cork, then poured the young man’s glass full. He finished filling his own.
“Sit down,” he said mildly. “This is very good wine. You’ll never taste the like again.”
Wallace moved then, jerkily as a marionette, and sat. He lifted the glass and The Judge knew he wanted to gulp courage and assurance from the glass. He filled his mouth and then he stopped, tasting the old smooth richness of the wine, and a look of surprise crossed his face.
“Yes,” The Judge said. “It is good. It’s very old. We were saving it for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.”
Wallace stopped in the act of lifting the glass to his lips again. There was shock on his face.
“Go ahead,” The Judge said. “Drink it.” His lips twisted. “There’ll be no better time than now.”
He leaned back in his chair, cradling the full-bellied coldness of the glass in both his palms. He swirled the liquid thoughtfully, looking down into the hypnotic topaz swirl.
“When Grace and I were married,” he said. “We went to France for our honeymoon. It was... one of her conditions. She had never traveled, and she wanted to. We crossed over into Spain, and when we returned, we brought this bottle of rare old amontillado with us. Grace smuggled it through customs with the bottle taped to her body. We felt that a touch of illicitness was necessary and desirable. We planned to open it on our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. We have saved it until now. Saved it for ten years.”
Wallace lifted his glass again. He gulped this time, then he involuntarily sipped, tasting the autumn smoothness of the wine savoring the last few drops in his glass.
The Judge leaned to pour again. “Drink it slowly,” he said. “It deserves to be appreciated. I have waited ten years to taste our illicit wine, and expected to wait for fifteen more. But it is right that we should drink it now, waiting for Grace. Don’t you feel that it’s right?”
“Sir,” Wallace said. “I shouldn’t have come. I know that, now and I’m...”
The Judge moved a hand. “I’m glad you did, Wally. I needed someone to talk to... and who better than the man she loves now? Who in the wide South would listen with more attention? And talk is a necessity of age... for talk is all that is left.”
He stopped again, and there was silence in the room. He looked at the bottle and it was half-empty. Half-gone. The wine was bright and warm in him and he felt comfortable, sitting in his accustomed leather chair. There was still silence upstairs. It would take her a long time to pack with care, he thought. And Grace would pack that way — efficient as she was. We have time for a bottle of wine, he thought. Plenty of time.
“I was fifty years old when I met Grace,” he said. “And, incredibly enough, I had never been in love, I don’t know why. I had dated and danced and even kissed, though that was not as prevalent in my time as now. But — I had never loved.”