Each Man Kills | Page 3

I only
knew one thing: I had to get away from there--quickly. I almost ran the
distance to my flat. Stumbled into the place and poured a triple Scotch
which I could scarcely hold. The Scotch seared my throat and tasted
bitter; someone must have poured salt in it. Then I realized that it was
tears--my tears. I, Bill Morris, who hadn't cried since my fifth
birthday--I was sobbing like a baby.
I didn't call the police. That would mean I would have to go back and
watch them cover that lovely body, carry it away and submit it to
untold indignities in order to ascertain the cause of death. The cleaning
girl would find them in the morning and would notify the police.
But it wasn't so simple as that. In the morning I found I couldn't shake
off the guilt which possessed me. Even two bottles of Scotch hadn't
helped me to forget. I was dead drunk and cold sober at the same time.
I phoned Ria's landlady and told her I had failed to reach the Hunters
by phone, that I was sure something was amiss. Would she please go to
their flat and see if anything was wrong.
She was amused. "Really, Mr. Morris, you must be mistaken. Miss
Maria went out just an hour ago with her new husband. Surely you are
jesting. Why she has never looked better. So happy. They have left for
Konigstein. They have also left you a note.
I told her I would be right over, and hopped a cab. I began to think I
was losing my mind. I had seen them both--dead. The landlady had
seen them this morning--alive!"

When I arrived, the landlady looked at me for a long moment, taking in
my rough, dark-blue complexion, unpressed clothes, red-rimmed eyes,
then wagged a finger playfully.
"You are playing a joke, no? A wedding joke, maybe. Here, too, we
haze newlyweds. But of course I understood. Who could help loving
Miss Maria? Be of good heart, young man. For you there will be
another, some day. But I talk too much. Here is your letter."
I went where I would be undisturbed, to the reading room of the library
on the same street as my flat. To the musty, oblong, dimly lit room
whose threshold sunshine and fresh air dared not cross. Without the
saving warmth of sunlight or the fresh, clean relief of sweet-smelling
air, I read. Read, inhaling the pungent, sour smell of the Scotch I had
consumed during the long, sleepless night. Read, and then doubted that
I had read at all--but the blue ink on the white paper forced me to
acknowledge its actuality. It had been written by Hunter, in a neat,
scholar's script.
Dear Morris: (It began)
Why should I not have wanted Maria? You did; others doubtless did.
Why then should she not be mine? There are many things worse than
being married to me; she might have married a man who beat her!
With her I have known the two happiest days of my life. I want no more
than that. I have no right to ask for more. Have we, any of us, a right to
endless bliss on this earth? Hardly.
You thought of her welfare above all; for that I owe you some
explanation. You must be patient, you must believe, and in the end, you
must do as I ask. You must.
You wanted to know about me--of my life before Maria. Before Maria?
It seems strange to think about it. There is no life without Maria. Still,
there was a time when for me she didn't exist. I have been constantly
going forward to the day when I would meet her, yet there was a time
when I didn't know where I would find her, or even what her name

would be!
It was chance that brought us together. For me, good chance; for you,
possibly ill chance; for Maria? Only she can say. Some three years ago
I was studying in England under a Rhodes Scholarship. The future held
great things for me. I was a Yank like yourself, and damn proud of it.
Life in England seemed strange and slow and sometimes utterly dismal
under Austerity. Then, little by little I slipped into their slower ways,
growing to love the people for their spunk, and finally coming to feel I
was one of them, so to speak.
I have said everything slowed down: I was wrong. Studying intensified
for me. The folklore of the British Isles intrigued me. I delved into the
Black Welsh tales, the mischievous fancies of the Irish, the English
legends of the prowling werewolf. For me it was a relief from political
science, which suddenly palled and which smacked of treason