Free Night Walker by Donald Hamilton

wonder if I could impose on you for a cup of coffee, my dear.Of course, if you haven’t started breakfast yet—”
    Elizabeth flushed angrily. “Oh, we’ve eaten, Mrs. Parr, but I think there’s still some coffee on the stove.” Then she glanced quickly at Young. “It — won’t take a minute,” she said uncertainly.
    “I hate to be so much trouble.”
    “Oh, it’s no trouble at all.” There was an edge of desperation in Elizabeth’s voice, as if she were being pushed bodily from the room.
    “Bring me one too, darling, while you’re at it,” Young said. Reluctantly she turned away. When she had gone, Young glanced at Mrs. Parr, who was patting her wrinkled, carefully made-up face delicately with a large handkerchief. In spite of the sheltering bandages, Young felt suddenly naked and helpless, facing her alone. There was so much he did not know, so many ways in which she could trap him, if she wished.
    “I recall this room,” she said absently, looking around. “You had it as a boy, didn’t you?” He did not have to answer, because she turned her gaze on him immediately. “Now, what the hell is all this foolishness, Lawrence?” she demanded. “If you and that redheaded brat of Maude Decker’s think you’re going to involve me in any romantic shenanigans at my age — As far as your marriage is concerned, boy, I’ve got no sympathy for you at all. You’ve got a pretty wife. I suppose she doesn’t spend all day in a wrapperand nightgown. Maybe you could have done better, but you didn’t; and I’ve got no patience with the modern attitude toward marriage. In my day, a man was supposed to live with his mistakes. Don’t come to me expecting me to set up assignations for you behind your wife’s back!”
    Young said, “I didn’t come to you, Aunt Molly.”
    “Well, your girl did, damn it. She wanted me to help her arrange some kind of meeting... Me carrying love notes at my age! Somebody should turn that child over and warm her bottom, and yours too, young man... I don’t know why I keep calling her a child. At her age I was married and keeping house for three children, a husband, and a pack of dogs. The dogs had the best manners of the lot. If anybody had suggested that I show myself in public in a pair of little pants and a bit of a handkerchief —! Anyway I told Bonita and now I’m telling you that I’ll have nothing to do with it. Not that it will stop you, I suppose; I understand the two of you were carrying on something scandalous all last summer. Well, you get no sympathy from me, remember that. In my day, these things were conducted with at least a little bit of discretion... I told the girl, ‘Girl,’ I said, ‘don’t come weeping to me because you got left out in the cold. What do you expect, playing around with a married man? If you want any messages carried, carry them yourself. Do I,’ I asked her, ‘look like Cupid toyou, girl? So the boy got himself smashed up and his wife’s looking after him and that’s the way it should be. I’m certainly not going to tell him to give you the usual signal when he’s well enough to walk out and can meet you at the usual place,’ I told the chit, ‘and I strongly advise you not to make a spectacle of yourself by sailing past the house twice a day, morning and evening, waiting to hear from him; and if you do go sailing,’ I told her, ‘for Heaven’s sake put a few clothes on for a change.’ Humph. Well, I’ve never had a very high opinion of human intelligence, and I suppose you’ll find some damn fool or other to carry your messages for you... Lawrence.”
    “Yes, Aunt Molly,” he said.
    “I don’t hear much up the river there, but somebody was telling me you had got yourself mixed up in this Communist nonsense. That isn’t true, is it?”
    “No, Aunt Molly,” he said.
    “Well, that’s fine,” she said. “I’m glad to hear it... Oh, there you are, my dear. You really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble for