Conflict (Prouty)/Book 3/Chapter 7
But Felix was not seated at his work-bench in the dining-room. He was not making another doll-house. While Sheilah was dressing for Judith's party, he and the 'shay durve' were making their way out into the country in a truck, Felix seated alone on the front seat, the doll-house concealed beneath a burlap covering in the rear of the car.
Felix had told the keeper of the shop, where for so long the doll-house had awaited a purchaser, that a woman who had seen it a year ago had ordered it directly from him. He would call for it sometime with a car, and crate it to her himself. Luckily the shop-keeper had asked no questions. No suspicions had been aroused so far. But it was scarey business. He didn't like it. He would be glad when this night was over. Every little while he kept looking back at the 'shay durve,' crouching there so submissively under the burlap, waiting its doom.
He wished there had been some other way, but there hadn't. Sheilah must never be able to trace the doll-house, or a single piece of its furniture, to any destination. Lucky she was away. And the children, too. He could never have hired a truck, and be out till all hours of the morning, if the family had been at home to ask questions. As it was, he had carefully avoided the neighborhood where he lived. No one who knew him, even by sight, must see him lugging the doll-house around. Otherwise he might have taken it to the apartment, dismembered it with a saw and hatchet, and burned it in the kitchen stove, like a dead body one doesn't wish to be found with.
He knew exactly where he was going. He had had the spot picked out for days—an old gravel-pit, on a lonely road, discovered one Saturday afternoon after a long bus-ride and journey on foot. It was the third turn to the right after you left the State road, about half a mile beyond a barn deserted by its house.
He backed the car into the narrow cart-path that led to the pit, brought it to a standstill, gently let the doll-house down onto the ground, half-dragged, half-lifted it down the bank into the bottom of the pit, very careful not to let it slip or fall. He wished there wasn't so bright a moon. If it was dark, he couldn't see how pretty the darned thing looked, sitting there, with a miniature lawn all around it, on a bed of short green stuff of some kind that had taken root in the gravel pit, and a clump of dock, for all the world like cedar trees, rearing themselves up behind the house, and casting real shadows on the roof. He'd never seen the house outdoors before, with landscape gardening around it.
He knelt down in front of it and opened the façade. The furniture was in terrible confusion. Very carefully Felix began to replace each little piece to its proper position, recalling, as he did so, Sheilah leaning over Esther, in the casket, placing everything so carefully, the folds of her dress, the curls at her temples, her hands, her fingers. He understood why now.
Afterward he closed the façade, climbed the bank of the pit and sat down at the top with his back to the house. He had decided not to commit his deed until after midnight. He wished he knew how to smoke.
Felix had been working on his elaborate fabrication for nearly four weeks now. It was the day after Sheilah had left for Avidon's, that Dr. Evarts let drop a suggestion that had resulted in this strange scene in the gravel-pit. Felix had gone to see Dr. Evarts because he couldn't forget his last picture of Sheilah, leaning against the white-toweled back of her parlor-car chair, eyes closed, as she slid past him standing on the platform.
Dr. Evarts had tried to be very reassuring. He believed that Sheilah would return in the fall greatly improved in health. 'But,' he added, 'she must never be allowed to work so continuously again.' Felix must see to it that there occur frequent periods of relaxation, spent in the open, if possible. 'If you could afford to buy a small car for your wife, it would be splendid,' he threw out, 'or if that is out of the question . . .'
But already the seed was fertilized. He could afford it! Amazing fact! A car for Sheilah! A car that he himself bought for Sheilah! He had never been able to buy anything for her of any account before. All the plans and preparations for her vacation made by another than himself! All her new clothes for the occasion provided by a stranger! The very thought of buying a car for Sheilah was salve to the deeply-buried hurt Felix had been silently enduring ever since Cicely's offer had been accepted.
When he reached the apartment that night after his talk with Dr. Evarts, he made his way immediately to the dining-room closet, groped in the dark interior for his light overcoat, and felt of it. The bond was still there. He closed the door softly upon it, crossed the room to the couch and sat down.
He mustn't arouse Sheilah's suspicion. It would kill her if she ever knew he had stolen anything. He hadn't really stolen it. Just found it, and failed to return it until it was too late. But she wouldn't understand the difference. My, but he hated, though, to disturb the thing. It was so safe there, buried in the old overcoat. He was so safe. But wasn't he willing to run a little risk for Sheilah?
He got up and turned on the light, drew a chair up to the dining-room table, and spread out the evening paper before him. He turned to the advertising section. His eyes fell almost immediately upon an offer of a closed Ford sedan, 'almost as good as new,' for two hundred dollars. Why, it occurred to him, the doll-house would pay for a car for Sheilah! And two doll-houses would pay for its upkeep afterward. He guessed he would go out and take a walk. He could always think things out better underneath the stars.
Now, four weeks later, sitting on the edge of the gravel-pit, it looked to Felix as if his plan was really going to succeed. He didn't think there was a detail he had overlooked, a possibility of discovery he hadn't anticipated. He had rehearsed the story he had prepared for Sheilah over and over again.
A woman in Chicago (Chicago, because it was so far removed) had bought the doll-house. The woman's name was Kauffman (Felix had consulted the Chicago telephone-directory just to make sure such a name existed in Chicago) and her address was some big number in the thousands on a street he'd forgotten. Should Sheilah insist on more detail, he would tell her that he had the woman's letter put away somewhere, and then when he went to hunt for it, he would be unable to find it. He had sent the duplicate house to the same address, he would explain. He hadn't had time, of course, in a few weeks to furnish the second house (Sheilah well knew how long it took him to make even a dining-room chair) but he'd shopped around town and picked up various pieces for it. The doll-houses had been paid for by checks which he had cashed immediately, and he had settled for the automobile in greenbacks.
Well, he had settled for the automobile with one greenback! The bond had had a very elaborate greenback. Gosh, but Felix had been glad to get rid of that dangerous oblong of paper.
The little Jew from whom he had bought the Ford had accepted the bond gladly, giving Felix in cash, as he requested, the balance due after deducting the price of the car. Felix had taken the precaution to tear off from the bond the coupons due for the next year and a half, and had burned them up, explaining to the Jew that he'd torn them off by mistake a year ago, and misplaced them. Coupons were dangerous let loose.
Possibly the bond itself would prove to be dangerous too. Felix wasn't quite sure. But he had to run a little risk. Of course there would be coupons turned in, in two years, but surely, by that time, the search for a single missing bond (if a search was ever made) would be abandoned. There probably would never be any search at all. Mr. Fairchild was such a careless man in regard to his property.
Felix had buried in the overcoat what remained of the bond, in twenty-five-dollar bills, spreading them out in a sort of padding. As he required money for more gasoline, or for other luxuries for Sheilah (she really ought to have a telephone, and for years had wanted twin-beds) he had only to make up more stories of sales for his furniture, which when completed and carried away in his bag, he could destroy (it would be easy to get rid of the little pieces down sewers and drain-pipes) and thus build up for himself a fictional demand for his furniture. Why not? And why wouldn't he thus be paying for the bond bit by bit with his labor—wiping out his crime, if crime it was?
He never seemed to be able to think of it as a crime. In fact what he was about to do to the doll-house seemed to him much more criminal. He'd best get it over with. He descended slowly into the pit, carrying a can of kerosene with him and a roll of newspapers.
Awful to see the smoke creeping up the little carved stairway Sheilah had designed, each tread made so carefully of maple, polished as smooth as amber. Awful, a moment later, to see the pretty windows light up suddenly and gaze at him like eyes, at first surprised and then beseeching.
He didn't stir a muscle. He didn't raise a finger to defend this child of his. Not even when the beast inside began torturing it, sticking its flames like fingers through its windows, and a moment later forcing through a great long arm that wound itself close around the house, meeting another arm from the back, completely encircling it, in a horrible embrace. Or were the arms snakes? There was a statue of a writhing human being Felix had seen once somewhere, all tangled up with a snake like that. He turned away. The smoke choked him and made his eyes smart.
Later, gazing down at the little feathery pile of ashes, Felix stooped and scooped up a handful of them. They were as warm as a child's body just dead! They'd cool almost as quick, too, he guessed. He dropped the ashes, wiped his hands on his trousers and set to work with a shovel to cover the dead thing up.
Afterward he wiped his hands again and smelled of them. Gosh! The stuff had gotten into the pores! It was worse than blood.