Free Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith Page B

possibly the third. “I intend to keep trying,” he said, trying to be just as crisp, but with his accent, it was impossible.
    On Thursday at breakfast, Sydney proposed going to Ipswich. They could always think of a reason to go—the library, a piece of hardware Framlingham didn’t have, a Chinese lunch or dinner to vary their menu—but Sydney proposed it Thursday just for a change of scene. Alicia agreed, though without much enthusiasm. She detested and despised him, Sydney felt. She considered him “inferior.” But she was too cowardly or too unenterprising to make a move to get away from him. A divorce was too much trouble, perhaps, or her family would be too upset. Sydney felt that both he and Alicia were waiting for a sign, a sign of anything—of hostility or love—and that either one could tip the balance. If Alicia, for instance, would only put her arms around his neck and say, “Sydney, darling, I love you whether you’ve sold anything or not,” then things might have been different. Or if he had been able to go to her and say, “Alicia, I know I’ve been crabby for weeks. I promise I won’t be like that any more, ever.” But as it was, they drifted like a pair of old people in their accustomed ruts, getting up, making breakfast, making the bed, sweeping the kitchen, hardly talking to each other, not hostile but barely tolerating the other’s presence.
    As they were leaving the house on Thursday morning, the telephone rang, and since Sydney was nearer, he answered. But he noticed as he picked the telephone up Alicia’s brief expression of alarm, then her pretended unconcern as she stared out the open front door, within hearing. Was she fearing a call from a boy friend?
    “Hello,” Sydney said.
    “Syd. Alex here. Got your synopsis this morning before I left the house, and I thought I’d ring you on office money. I like it.”
    “Good. Any suggestions?”
    “I think we might play up the suspect a little more. The wife’s friend. Make him really look guilty from the point of view of the police. I’ll drop you a note. I really rang to ask if Alicia got back.”
    “Yes, she did. Tuesday.”
    “Ah, good. And you sound positively depressed about it,” Alex said with a chuckle, as if for a husband to be depressed by a wife’s return was an impossibility.
    “Well, maybe I am.”
    “Better luck next time, chum. Maybe she’ll stay away forever, like.” Alex’s voice became sinister. “Like in the drink, like, in Brighton. Oh, her hubby’s ever so down in the mouth, but he’s got her—” Alex laughed in his merry, yelping way.
    Her income. Alex would think of that. “I appreciate your good wishes. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for next time.”
    “There go the pips. I’ll be writing you. Love to Alicia.”
    They hung up.
    Alicia, still facing the door, walked out.
    Sydney changed his books at the library, offered to get something for Alicia, but she said she had a couple of paperbacks at home she was reading. Things she had picked up in Brighton, perhaps, and hadn’t had time for, Sydney thought. They agreed to meet in half an hour at the car in Cox Lane parking lot. Sydney set out on a ramble that would take him eventually to the junkshop where he had seen the binoculars.
    The junkshop window was full of interesting articles as usual, brass post horns, old military kit bags, brass-cornered Wellington chests, but the binoculars were gone. Sydney looked over the cluttered window again, then peered into the darkish interior of the shop to see if they had been put back into one of the cases, but he couldn’t see them. He might have bought them, if they’d been in the window. He was too shy to go in and ask about them, because he wasn’t sure he would buy them, if he really could. Sydney turned and began the walk back to the shopping district and the parking lot.
    The sky darkened, and it began to sprinkle. Umbrellas of the provident were lifted, many people took shelter, and then as the