The House of Hate

It Was a Day in early fall, one of those rare days with the delicate flavor of good dry wine, the soft air a thin sea of pale diffused gold. In a fold of valley, at the end of a dirt lane that sloped down from the ridge road, Abner Huck's place lay silent, graying in the sun.

The house was old and sturdy, weathered and wanting paint but otherwise in good repair, an oblong story and a half with a porch running across the front and facing the lane which flowed past and pooled into farmyard -- gray barn, stable, sheds. A bleak repressed aura, as of poverty, hung over the place; but there was none of the shiftlessness of poverty, everything was neat.

Lottie Huck stepped out onto the porch, a broom in her hand, and stood for a moment, savoring the singing quality of the day. From the stables came the plaintive bawling of calves. Black hens with wicked eyes and arrogant red combs strutted the barnyard, scratched dirt theatrically and voiced thin, harsh paeans of self importance. High over the cup of valley a chicken hawk hung lazily on disdainful wings.

Lottie began to sweep the porch, lips pursed, her odd green eyes intent. She was not exactly pretty. Her face, with its high cheekbones, small pinched nose and soft unformed mouth, was like the face of a child; but her body was lithe and long-limbed with a hint, in motion, of voluptuousness, and her skin was fresh and ripe.

The Joyen twins from Pike's Crossing up above the tavern appeared suddenly in the lane and stood silent, watching her with relish. They were a rangy, unkempt pair and offensively alike, long of hair and jaw, small of eye, greasy, unshaven, grinning. A big black and tan cur that in some vague way resembled them trotted up and began coursing nearby.

Lottie swung round and saw the pair. She gasped and shrank back. Their grins broadened, their evil little eyes grew bolder, darted here and there and returned to go over her in a slow, insistent way. No doubt they'd come from south way, cross country, headed for their home place. And she knew what they were thinking, that Abner Huck was away somewhere about his business of buying and selling cattle.

Cal Joyen spoke to her mockingly now, a remark, a suggestion that was an obscenity, and Lunk Joyen laughed with delight.

Just then Abner Huck stepped around the corner of the house with a pump gun in his hands and at that instant the black and tan cur exploded into action, hot after one of Huck's hens. He might not have caught it, but he gained in wild long-legged leaps and Huck came up smoothly with the shotgun. The blast was a shocking sound in the thin singing air. The charge caught the dog in the head and whirled him. He spun in the dust, showering blood, all legs and frantic agony, and thumped out his life with a savage reluctance.

Abner Huck pumped his gun, bringing up a fresh shell and ejecting the spent one, and stood with the piece over his arm, staring impassively at the Joyens. Huck was a tall spare man of 50 with a hard jaw, thin lips and pale blue eyes. The aura of neat bleakness that lay over the place seemed intensified in him; rather, seemed to originate in him; it was as if, seeing him, you understood at once the farm's deliberate meagerness.

Lunk Joyen stared at the dog. "Why in hell'd you do that? Herky wouldn'a caught that hen, he -- --"

Cal Joyen took a step forward. "Lay down that gun, Ab Huck," he said thickly, "and by God I'll -- --"

Huck brought the gun up a little. His voice was even and as cold as his eyes. "You'll what? Don't tempt me. You think I'd hesitate? You think folks hereabouts ain't got the number of you two thieving no-goods? You think the sheriff ain't just waiting to catch you redhanded, think he don't know where Jim Blackmarr's calves went, and Russ Westover's Plymouth Rocks and the harness out of Widow Shanower's barn?"

"Ab Huck, you -- --"

"Don't tempt me! The sheriff'd shake my hand. You got no business on my place. If I was to say you jumped me and I shot you, that'd be that -- and you know it! Now take your cur, get off my place and don't never come back!"

The twins looked at Abner Huck, hate in their eyes. Cal Joyen made as if to take another step, but Lunk stopped him. The brothers had courage. Abner Huck's face said they had reason to be afraid but they showed no fear.

"We'll shove," Cal said softly, "but you made a mistake this time, Huck. We'll get you if it's the last -- --"

"Threatening me?" Huck lifted the gun. "Shut up and git!"

They swung without a word and shambled along the lane.

"Hold it!" Huck yelled. "I said take the dog!"

They turned briefly. "Naw," Cal said, "we ain't taking him. You can bury him. Shoot us in the back, if you want, and see what you tell the sheriff about that."

When they were lost to view in the trees Huck took his gun back to the shed where he'd been trying to outwait the chicken hawk and returned to the porch. He went through the kitchen door, banging the patched screen, and stepped into the dining-sitting room to confront Lottie.

"Where'd them Joyens come from, Lottie?"

"I -- I ain't got no idea."

He eyed her keenly. She was trembling and looked scared. Maybe from seeing the dog shot, maybe not. There was a shadow on her face, like she was trying to hide something.

She's about as bright as an eight-year-old kid, he thought with contempt and cold anger. He was dead sick of her after a year. A bad bargain. Sure, she kept his house good and she could cook; but she'd cheated him, that lithe smooth body was a fraud, there wasn't no fire in her, not for him anyway, and like all women she wanted things. Not much, she said. But that was what they all said. The starter, the first wedge. Just some cretonne for window curtains, she said, a couple pieces of porch furniture. Porch furniture! And wanting him to dam the brook. What the hell!

"Why was them Joyens here, Lottie?"

"I don't know nothing about it," she said in a rush. "I was just sweeping the porch and I looked up and there they was." Her eyes scurried, refusing to meet his glance. Her fingers plaited her apron, the shadow on her face deepened.

He was sure it could mean only one thing. "They figured I was away, figured you was alone. Damn you, Lottie, you got the likes of them hanging around when I'm gone?"

"No ... no ... no!"

"They said something to you. I didn't catch it, but they said something. What'd they say?"

"N-nothing. They didn't say nothing."

"Hell they didn't! What'd they say?"

She put her hands to her face and shrank away from him. Not for her life would she have repeated the foul words. "Didn't say nothing."

He grabbed her arms savagely, forcing her hands down. The look on her face was enough. He saw shame there, and fear.

"You cheap slut -- --! Behind my back!"

He hit her. She cringed away and fell behind the table, taking half the cloth with her.

His breath whistled. "I'll get shet of you! By God, I'll divorce you!" Then he stamped out.

Presently Lottie made a whimpering sound and pushed herself up to a sitting position on the worn carpet. She touched the line of her jaw gingerly and winced. Then, slowly, huddled there in the silence, she began to take comfort and strength from the house, she felt that the house was trying to help her. She hadn't been able to do much for the house, Abner Huck wouldn't let her; but what she could do, of cleaning, scouring and polishing, she'd done; and that was something the house hadn't known for many a day. She had a strange feeling about the house. It was as if the house appreciated what she'd done even though Abner Huck didn't, as if the house in some cryptic way acknowledged her presence and accepted her, might even in time love her as she had come to love the house.

I'll get shet of you! By God, I'll divorce you!

Could he do it? Turn her out of the house? She'd almost come to think of it as her house. It wasn't, though, it was his! Hate you, Abner Huck, hate you, hate you! She sat there, staring into space and hating him, not with a mature woman's writhing sex-leavened hate, but with the thin intense hate, the deadly hate of a ravished child.

He hadn't no call to hit her, it wasn't her fault about the Joyens being there, wasn't her fault! The very thought of the Joyens was like stepping into a strangling clammy fog, a mist of shrieking fear before which even her hatred of Abner Huck paled. Thinking of the Joyens and that night at the tavern, she wanted to yell out and stamp wildly, the way a person stamps slithery nameless things, slimy critters that defile the earth. She thought about the white powdery stuff out on the shelf under the sink that Abner Huck had brought home and showed her and warned her about, the stuff in the bottle with the skull and bones on it that he was going to use in rat bait. She'd like to feed that to the Joyens, spoon it down their slimy throats.

Slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat, the house soothed her. Now she thought again of Abner Huck's parting words. Maybe if he turned her out Gert would take her back to work at the tavern. But then a great pang of misery hit her. If he turned her out she'd lose the house, she'd be forever separated from the house. She couldn't bear the thought of losing the house; for if, in a year, she'd learned to hate Abner Huck, she'd also learned to love this old house that she knew was there.

I shouldn'a married Abner Huck, she thought bitterly; then I wouldn't never seen the house, wouldn't know about it at all.

Before she married him she hadn't had any feeling about Huck one way or the other. She'd noticed him, like the other men who frequently came evenings to drink beer at Gert's Tavern up below the crest of the ridge road, but that was all. One morning when she and Gert were cleaning the tavern Gert had said:

"Set down, Lottie. Let's see, you been here four months -- --"

It sounded like Gert was going to fire her! Lottie put her work-coarsened hands on the table edge and leaned (continued overleaf)House of Hate (continued from page 26) forward, her green eyes blinking, mouth slack. Maybe Gert found out about them Joyens, she thought in sick dismay, maybe she found out. She was on the point of blurting out the whole thing, how it happened, but the words refused to pass her lips.

Instead, she said in a burst, "Don't fire me. Gert! If I ain't suiting you, nor doing right. I'll do better. I ain't a fast thinker, but I'm willing. Don't fire me, Gert!"

Gert Jensen took the cigarette from her mouth and stared slack-jawed. Gert was a heavy woman, tough as an Airedale, with a square alert face under a mop of weird red-henna hair. "Why, blast you, girl!" she said. "What you talking 'bout? Me, fire you? Why would I do that?"

A little color returned to Lottie's cheeks. She settled back. "I -- I don't know. I guess 'cause I never hold a job very long."

"Like to know why not!"

Lottie looked at her hands. "Ain't nothing I do, Gert. But I don't know, someway ... things always happen."

Staring, Gert suddenly understood. Sure, it would be men! In a few words Lottie had unfolded the pattern of her life; caged in an opulent body that didn't suit her childlike nature ... a succession of drab jobs ... When Lottie was new at the tavern, Gert had checked her closely and she knew that Lottie never flaunted her body. But Lottie's body flaunted itself and there was nothing anyone could do about that. Gert had watched her customers for signs of over-interest in Lottie and had nipped such signs in the bud.

Now Gert said, "Forget them other places! Why, you're the best girl I ever had, Lottie. Work like a horse, cook like a damn angel -- look how the men gobble your victuals. It makes me laugh. Before you come, why all they ever done was guzzle beer; couldn't go my cooking! Your cakes and pies and stews and such is a drawing card, Lottie. Look how them shiftless Joyens'll come in and set drinking beer, and along with it wolfing your chocolate cake. Tell you, it's a laugh. Beer and cake! Hate to admit how much cake I've sold that worthless pair at a quarter a throw."

Lottie's eyes flickered, she shivered as if an icy blast had touched her, but Gert didn't notice.

"No, Lottie, I'd hate to lose you, but what I'm going to say's for your own good and it may mean I'll lose you. How old are you, Lottie?"

"Twenty-five."

Gert stared. "Get out, you're joking!"

"No I ain't."

"Well you ain't twenty-five no more, you're twenty! Remember that. I know you're a good girl, Lottie. That's what I told Abner Huck. What would you think if I said Huck maybe had a hankering to marry you?"

"Marry me? That there tall man with the pale eyes that -- --"

"Yes, Ab Huck."

"Why would he want to marry me?"

"He's a widower, Lottie. Now I ain't claiming Abner Huck's no great catch -- they say he's close -- but I guess he ain't so bad. Pays his debts and minds his business. Got a place right down here off the road a piece, nothing fancy, but solid. Maybe you could fix it up some. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"-- I reckon."

"Huck don't farm, he buys and sells cattle. Don't guess he makes much out of it, just a plain living, maybe, but you'd have a home. That's what you need, Lottie."

A little glow came into Lottie's face, a look of soft wonder. Then, unbidden, the Joyens drifted across her mind and she shivered. Maybe it wasn't fair, now, not to tell Gert. How they grabbed her that night a month ago, one night after tavern closing when Gert had already gone to bed and Lottie'd just stepped out for a walk around in the green moonlight. Grabbed her, hand over mouth, and hauled her kicking and clawing across the road and into the brush. No knowing how long they kept her. An endless time of jagged fear and horror till they let her go and she staggered back across the road away from their foulness, the harsh whispers singing in her ears ... "Tell and we'll cut your throat! You tell and we'll kill you!"

After that, whenever the Joyens came to the tavern, she quivered in fear and stayed as far from them as she could get; but their eyes followed her. She couldn't shake off their eyes.

Maybe she ought to tell Gert now. But if Gert was to tell, then Abner Huck wouldn't marry her. And if she married Abner Huck she'd have a home -- no more wandering from place to place -- and she'd be safe from the Joyens. She'd be Mrs. Lottie Huck.

But that first conjugal night in the house at the end of the lane she began to find out about Abner Huck. He scared her almost as bad as the Joyens, with his violent, too-quick, stored-up passion, and in the morning at breakfast she saw hardness in his face, contempt in his pale eyes.

Abner Huck was away a lot and it was at such times that she got acquainted with the house and grew to love it and talk with it. She liked to sit on the porch steps and look across the lane at the little cup of meadow through which a brook flowed, falling away down a slope nearby. It wouldn't take much to dam the brook right there, make a pretty little pond in the meadow. Maybe Abner Huck would do it.

But when she asked him he laughed sourly. "Dam the brook? What in hell for? I ain't got time for foolishness like that."

Another time she showed him a catalog and pointed out two cheap pieces of porch furniture. He knocked the catalog aside with an oath. "Can't you get it through that thick skull I'm a poor man? D'I ever tell you I got money? Well I ain't! I work hard for enough to scrape by. You don't like that, mistress, you know what you can do!"

It was a long time before she got up the courage to mention cretonne for curtains. She didn't realize he was in an ugly mood over a calf deal that had gone awry, and his hard slap sent her staggering back, hand at her cheek. His eyes were as cold as stone.

"Told you before! I ain't got money for folderol! Don't you hector me no more. When I figure we need something I'll buy it!"

Once when Huck was away she found a stray mongrel puppy and took it in and fondled it for two days. When Huck came home he gave the pup one swift look.

"Where'd that thing come from?"

"H-he come down the lane. Kinda cute, ain't he?"

Huck didn't answer. Next morning when she took scraps outside the pup was gone. Huck backed his jitney from the shed and held up a moment in the Jane."

"I'd forget that pup. Likely he's wandered off again. That's the way it goes with stray curs."

But after he drove away she began calling and hunting and she found the pup. Out behind the barn on the manure pile, its mangled head bearing the marks of the axe. She got a spade from the shed and buried it. She cried a little, but not much. Digging the grave, she wished it was a longer, deeper grave; and something within her hardened then and sealed off, like a steel door sliding shut. From that moment on she had no room for fear of Abner Huck. She had only room for hate.

• • •

Now, feeling dizzy from his blow, she staggered to her feet and fumbled to straighten the tablecloth her fall had pulled askew. Could he divorce her, like he said, turn her out of the house? Oh, I don't want to lose the house! she thought. Wish you was dead, Abner Huck, wish you was dead!

Suddenly she saw the Joyens again as they stood there in the lane, venom in their eyes, heard Cal's soft words: (continued on page 38) House of Hate(continued from page 28) "... You made a mistake this time, Huck. We'll get you if it's the last -- --" With a strange flash of insight she gauged the extent of that threat. Sooner or later the Joyens would kill Abner Huck! They'd crawl through the brush, lie in wait with a gun and -- why, right now Abner Huck was as good as dead! Fierce exultation swept her, then a greater fear swept it out and moved in. If the Joyens killed Abner Huck she'd have the house. But, then, some night the Joyens would come creeping -- --

"What can I do?" she asked the house. "What can I do?"

She took a stumbling step backward and reached high on the wall to steady herself. Her hand hit the books on the clock shelf and brushed them to the floor with a crash. She stared, then leaned down to pick them up.

No reader, Lottie. She read painfully when she had to, by preference not at all. Abner Huck read the headlines in the weekly paper and the livestock quotations. Few people in that end of the county were much for reading. The three books had belonged to Abner Huck's dead wife and he'd told Lottie more than once to throw them out; but she'd put off the day, thinking they looked kind of artistic up there on the clock shelf.

The first was Quo Vadis. She put it back on the shelf, wondering what it meant. The second was Beverly of Graustark. That sounded kind of nice. She put it beside the other. The third was Tom Sawyer. She had a thumb awkwardly in that book and it fell open to the place near the end where her thumb was, the place where Tom Sawyer tells the company at the Widow Douglas' that he and Huckleberry Finn have found Injun Joe's treasure.

The first words that hit Lottie's eyes were: "Huck don't need it. Huck's rich." She stared in disbelief, lips moving stiffly. And then, slowly, "Huck's got money. Maybe you don't believe it, but he's got lots of it ...."

Huck's got money! Abner Huck? That's a good one, she thought, he ain't got nothing! But if somebody was to think he had ... She held the book and stared into space. At last in the silence she heard a faint breath of sound. The house seemed to be whispering to her, softly, insinuatingly. Trying to tell her something. She listened. It came to her slowly, piece by piece, so daring, so alien to her nature, so breath-taking that she trembled with fear. At last, like one in a dream, she put the book down on the table and went numbly in search of her sewing basket.

Before she found it the phone on the wall rang.

"H-hello?"

"Well, now," Gert Jensen's voice boomed over the wire. "How we getting on, Lottie?"

"Gert? Oh, all right."

"Been meaning to get down to see you. Don't know where the time goes. Most a year, ain't it? Kinda shamed I ain't stopped in but once. Got a man working now, so I can get away a little more. Let's see, this here's Friday ... how about Monday night, Lottie? Maybe I'll hoof it down there Monday night a spell after supper."

"That'd be fine, Gert."

"Good! See you then, Lottie."

It wasn't Monday, however, but the very next day, Saturday, that Lottie saw Gert. Abner Huck had to go to Monarchville, four miles down the ridge road, and took Lottie along to buy groceries. Lottie stepped into the post office and was just turning away from a letter drop when a familiar voice boomed.

"Lottie! Hey, there, Lottie!"

Lottie started and whirled.

"Ain't no ghost," Gert chuckled, "it's me. What you doing?"

"A -- a letter ... my sister."

"Well, now. What I mean, what you doing in Monarchville?"

"Abner Huck, he had some business. Brought me along with a grocery list."

"Declare, you look kinda peaked, Lottie. You OK?"

"Sure, sure."

They talked awhile -- that is, Gert talked and Lottie listened, nodding. At last Gert said, "Glad I run into you, Lottie. Can't make it down to your place Monday night after all. How would Thursday night do?"

"Thursday night? All right, I guess."

"Look here, Lottie, sure you want me to come?"

"Course I do, Gert. Real bad."

"All right, Thursday night for sure."

• • •

They did their visiting in the kitchen on Thursday night, because Lottie was baking and Abner Huck sat in the dining room, listening to a battered old radio. The kitchen was warm and fragrant. Presently Lottie made Gert a cup of tea and took an unfrosted cake from the cupboard, cut her a slice and put it back.

Gert said, "Ain't that cake I smell baking? How come you're baking more when you already got ----"

"Ssh!" Lottie's eyes darted to the dining room door. "I -- I just got a hankering to bake. That cake you're eating I baked last night. Wednesday, wasn't it? Baked something every night this week. Tuesday I ----" She stopped and got lost somewhere behind her green eyes.

"Well," Gert said, "anyhow, this sure is good."

After a while Lottie opened the oven and tried the two layers with a broom straw, grabbed a dish towel and took out the pans. Gert chattered away and watched her as she began to prepare frosting to go on the wood stove to cook.

About 10 o'clock Abner Huck snapped off the radio, went to the door from the dining room to the porch and remarked in a pointed tone he thought he'd look at the weather before he turned in. Gert took the hint and got up, standing for a moment in a blind corner of the kitchen.

Suddenly the sound of Abner Huck's footsteps on the porch ceased. Then he backed slowly into the dining room. A gaunt man with a flour sack over his head, holes cut for eyes, moved close to him, prodding him along with a nickel-plated revolver. A second man, equally gaunt, identically masked, slipped in behind them, shut and locked the door and began pulling shades.

"The sheriff'll hear about this!" There was a shrillness in Abner Huck's tone. "Better drop this and git! If this is your idea of gitting even for the clash we had last week the sheriff ain't gonna like it!"

"Ain't he, now?" Cal Joyen hauled off his flour sack. "Might's well come outa the bag, Lunk, he knows us."

At that instant the two took in Gert's presence. "What the hell you doing here?" Cal yelped.

"Just visiting," Gert said tightly.

"How you get here?"

"Walked."

Cal thought about it. "You picked a right good night! Well, can't help it now. Herd 'em in here, Lunk."

Lunk Joyen took clothesline from around his waist and the two bound Abner Huck securely in a chair, hands twisted hard behind him. Huck grunted with pain; he was sweating now, with a pinched look around the nostrils.

"Now the women?" Lunk asked.

"Yep, tie 'em."

"D-don't tie me up," Lottie whispered, kneading her apron. Her face was chalk white, eyes dilated. "I got a cake just coming out of the oven. I'm making frosting. If you don't let me finish it'll be all spoiled."

The Joyens sniffed the air like hounds. Cal grinned. "Smells like one of her cakes, all right. Ain't et one since she quit Gert. Go look, Lunk."

Lunk went to the kitchen and returned. "Yep, she taken a chocolate cake outa the oven. She got frosting in a dish."

"It's got to cook," Lottie whispered. "It ought to go on the stove."

"Let her be, then," Cal said. "She won't hurt." He stepped close to Lottie. (continued on page 74)House of Hate (continued from page 38) "You won't cause no trouble, now will you?"

Lottie shrank back in terror. "No, no!"

Cal laughed and turned to Lunk. "Take 'em to the kitchen. Lock the door to the porch and tie Gert in a chair right smack agin the door. That way we can see her, and Lottie can't get out. Pull the window shades and get back in here so's we can tend to our business. You, Lottie, get that cake fixed! I'm a mind to eat cake!"

In the kitchen Lottie moved methodically between shelf and stove, took off the cooked frosting and prepared to stir it while Gert sat bound and numb, staring at her in fascination.

Cal Joyen's soft words drifted out from the dining room. "All right, Huck, we know you got money here. Where is it? Tell and save grief."

Abner Huck said tightly, "Money? I ain't got no money!"

Cal Joyen laughed. "Some thinks different. How about this: Huck's got money. Maybe you don't believe it, but he's got lots of it...."

"Don't know what you're talking (concluded overleaf) about. What is that you got? There's 25 dollars in my wallet upstairs."

"25 dollars, hell!" Cal snarled. "You got a pile hid. Where?"

Abner Huck let out a screech of pain. Then he gasped out, "Don't ... I tell you, I ain't got no money!"

Gert hissed a whisper. "Lottie ... Lottie! Has Ab got money in the house?"

Lottie tiptoed to peek into the other room, jerked back. "No," she whispered, "h-he ain't got nothing. He always said he ain't. They're gonna kill him, ain't they, Gert?"

Sweat dappled Gert's face. "I'd hate to bet they wasn't gonna kill us all! Here, Lottie, get me loose. Get a knife. Maybe I can do something."

"Won't do no good," Lottie whispered, backing away. "They'd see me, and then----"

Abner Huck screamed. A rising scream ending in a choked gasp. His breathing was audible now, spaced and labored sobs that drifted out to the kitchen, pearls of agony.

"No ... money. Ain't got ... no ... money."

"You fools!" Gert bellowed. "Let him be! Can't you see he's telling the truth?"

They paid no attention. This time Abner Huck didn't scream. A gurgling, groaning sound came from the other room, a horrible sound that went on forever. When it stopped it was as long before Abner Huck got breath enough to whisper.

"Don't ... I'll tell, I'll tell! It's----"

He mumbled something and Cal Joyen let out a yell of triumph. "Hold it just like you are, Lunk, till I look."

He banged at the fireplace, prying stones. "By God, here's a tin box ... It's here, Lunk, it's here! Go ahead!"

Then silence, a straining silence across which the two women in the kitchen stared at each other, between them the sure vision of Lunk Joyen's grisly hands at Abner Huck's throat.

Lottie whispered, "Gert ... Gert! Look!"

Lottie smiled, took a small bottle from a shelf beneath the sink, giving Gert a confused glimpse of a familiar symbol. Lottie unscrewed the cap and poured the white flourlike stuff into the dish of frosting, poured half the contents. She stirred it in with slow, maddening care, put back the bottle and began spreading frosting on the first layer with a knife.

In the dining room Cal Joyen let out another yell. "God, there's thousands here, Lunk! More'n 10 thousand, anyhow! Tie Lottie now and we'll count it."

Lunk stuck his grinning head in the kitchen. "She got the cake frosted!"

"Well, tie her, man, and fetch the cake! We'll eat it while we're counting. Then we'll figure what to do with them two."

Lunk tied Lottie in a kitchen chair, picked up the cake and a knife and went into the dining room where Cal was yelping excitedly and banging the tin box around. They sat down at the table, gorging cake and gabbling through stuffed mouths, their fingers gloating over the thick piles of money. Beyond, in the shadows, Abner Huck's dead body sagged against its ropes.

The pair finished the cake, shoved the platter aside and went on counting and mouthing in a high excitement. Cal leaned forward slowly, as if to examine something more closely. He kept on leaning, he slid from his chair. His chin banged the edge of the table and then he was down on the floor in a heap.

Lunk jumped up, staring. "Cal-- --!"

That was all he ever said. He stood for an instant, swayed slightly, then fell full length like a crashing tree.

The two women looked at each other in a thickening silence. Slowly, then with growing assurance, they worked at their bonds.

In 20 minutes Lottie got loose and cut Gert free. Lips close to Lottie's ear, Gert breathed, "What was that? The stuff you put in that frosting! What was it?"

Lottie got the bottle. Staring at the label, Gert silently formed the words with her lips: Po ... tas ... sium Cy ... a ... nide.

"It's for the rats," Lottie whispered.

But when they crept into the dining room they saw at once that there was no need to whisper. The Joyens had quit breathing, their faces were bluish and ghastly, their eyes set.

"Lottie, you saved us!" Gert babbled. "You used your head and saved us!"

"Abner Huck, he's dead too."

"Poor Ab! Best not to look at him, Lottie. Go back in the kitchen. I'll call the sheriff." Gert strode to the wall phone and cranked.

Lottie stared at the sagging thing that had been Abner Huck. Then, glancing at Gert's broad back, she slipped over and picked up a piece of paper and an envelope in the shadows at his feet. She went to the kitchen and dropped them into the fire. When she stepped back into the doorway Gert was turning from the phone.

"Lord!" Gert said shakily, wiping sweat. "Got the sheriff at home. He'll start, soon as he----" She broke off. Lottie looked queer, like a case of hysterics. A secret listening look.

Lottie's voice was funny too. "It wants blue cretonne."

"What?"

"The house. It don't like red or green.... and a brown and white puppy. Is it much work to dam up a brook?"

"Dam up a----! Here, now, Lottie!" Gert drew her forcibly into the kitchen and closed the door between, shutting away the bodies and Huck's money, the cake platter and the smell of death. "We'll load some good hot tea into you! Get ahold of yourself, Lottie, try not to think of poor Ab nor nothing. You all right?"

Lottie nodded without speaking. She was making plans with the house.