Free Murder is the Pay-Off by Leslie Ford Page B

Constance Maynard came and she saw all her dream world dissolving before her. Now, there was nothing left. The money was gone, the dream was gone. How she could explain it, she had no idea. She’d destroyed the only thing she’d ever been able to do for Gus. She wasn’t beautiful and brilliant, the way Constance Maynard was, but she had been practical. She’d made Gus comfortable at home, and managed, and saved his money so he could buy a new car and have a new suit and new overcoat, or make a down payment on a house—and then she’d turned on him and thrown it all away.
    It was all such stupid, sickening folly. And Connie Maynard knew she was stupid. It was in her veiled, patronizing smile every time she saw Janey or had to speak to her. And she was right. Gus would be better off with Connie. That was the worst of all of it. I’ve failed, him in the only thing I knew how to do for him.
    She went back to their room, took off her dress, and got her pajamas and yellow wool robe. She put them on, turned down the covers on Gus’s bed and hers, and sat down, staring at his slippers on the floor. She was dumbly aware, somehow, that if she could get a moment’s release from the tension that was blinding her, there might be some way to get out of it. There was none now. She wasn’t even thinking straight in her own stupid way; if she had been, she would never have taken the sleeping-pills from Mrs. Maynard’s table drawer. As they came into her mind again she got up, went to the dressing-table, took her bag out of the drawer, and reached in it. She touched the gilded lucky piece first, pushed it aside, and felt for the folded tissue, to take the pills to the bathroom and flush them down. As they met her fingers, the telephone on the table between the beds jangled noisily.
    She thrust the bag quickly into the drawer and shut it, almost as if the phone had eyes to see. As she picked it up, a cold hand closed sharply around her heart. Was it Gus now, calling from out there, to tell her he knew? She let herself sink down on the side of the bed. The phone rang again.
    “Hello.”
    A high-pitched voice, like an old man’s whispering, came over the wire. “Is Mr. Blake there?”
    “No. He’s not in.”
    “Where is he? Where can I get in touch with him? It’s important.”
    “He’s out in the country.” She started to say, “on the Wernitz case,” and didn’t. “He’ll be here in the morning.”
    She put the phone down. It was a disguised voice. She knew that without thinking about it particularly. A lot of times people called up in the middle of the night, disguising their voices, to tell the editor of the newspaper something they wouldn’t dare tell if there was any chance of their being recognized and held accountable. Usually slander, or— She swallowed a bitter doughy lump caught in the middle of her throat. Was this somebody calling to tell Gus— She stood up, took off her robe, and laid it across the foot of her bed.
    “I’ve got to stop this,” she said softly. “I’ve got to stop being a fool.” She raised the window, got into bed and turned off the light. “I’ve got to quit even trying to think.”
    She heard the courthouse clock strike the half hour, three quarters, twelve o’clock. Quietly lying there, her mind seemed to clear a little. The thousand dollars was gone. She had to face it, and everything else. There was only one thing to do. That was to tell Gus. She must stay awake, to tell him when he came in. It was all perfectly clear now. She got up, closed the window, and opened the hall door. She had to hear him when he came in, and get up and go down and see him downstairs, not up here, where he could fly into a rage and maybe shout at her and wake little Jane. He’d never flown into a rage and never shouted, but he’d never had any reason to before. She shivered a little, not knowing what he’d do, and got Into bed again. The quarter hour struck as she lay there staring up at the