The Death Wish. Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

      St. Swithin Press

      First published by Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1934.

      Copyright by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

      All rights reserved

      ISBN: 978-0-9881322-5-2

      CHAPTER I

      Whitestone Makes a Confession

      Delancey lit a cigarette, and leaning back in his chair, gazed across the breakfast table toward the window through which he could see the garden in the green freshness of early Summer. He had eaten with excellent appetite, he had slept soundly all night, he felt comfortable and cheerful; he enjoyed the sight of the clear blue sky; he liked to watch the neat, rosy little housemaid moving deftly about the table.

      And, as long as possible, he meant to avoid looking at his wife across the table from him. He was very well aware that there were tears in her eyes, which she wanted him to see; he knew that if he spoke to her, she would answer in a grieved, reproachful voice. Presently, of course, he would be obliged to notice her. …

      He sighed inaudibly. He liked to laugh, to be easy and careless and good-humored, and Josephine most effectively prevented that. She made his home life a continual uneasiness, with her affectations, her moods, her sudden changes from clinging affection to hostility. Yet he felt no bitterness toward her, no resentment.

      “Makes herself more miserable than anyone else,” he thought.

      He was a man of immense tolerance; a big, stalwart handsome fellow of thirty-five or so, with smiling blue eyes, and bold features that might have been almost too regular, if it had not been for that rather long Celtic upper lip of his, that made his mouth half humorous, half rueful. Something of a philosopher he was, in his own careless way; he relished whatever he found good in life, and amiably endured what was disagreeable.

      He finished his cigarette, and dropped the glowing end into his coffee cup, with a faint sizzle. “Well…” he said, cheerfully. “I’d better be doing a little work, eh?”

      He had to look at her now, at that haggard, olive-skinned face, those brimming dark eyes.

      “Well…” he said, again.

      “Will you be home to lunch?” she asked, with exactly the tone of reproach and challenge he expected.

      “I’ll try, dear,” he assured her.

      “No!” she said. “If you’ve got to ‘try’—if it’s an effort, I don’t want you to come. …You didn’t really want me to breakfast with you.”

      “My dear girl, I wanted you to get your sleep,” he protested. “I thought—”

      “It was horrible!” she cried, with sudden vehemence. “I opened my eyes, and saw you creeping out of the room. …In that stealthy way…You looked—horrible!”

      “Now, my dear girl, that’s a bit—”

      “You frightened me!” she said. “You looked horrible! Like a—”

      “Very well!” he interrupted. “We’ll leave it at that. I’ll ring you up later, about lunch.”

      Going round the table, he gave her a perfunctory kiss on her cheek that was wet with tears, and went into the hall. Another moment, and he would have lost patience with her. That was too much, to tell him he looked “stealthy” and “horrible,” when he simply went down to breakfast in his own house. Stealthy and horrible, eh…?

      “She ought to be a writer,” he said to himself. “Extraordinary choice of words. …”

      He took up his soft hat, and put it on, with a casual glance in the mirror as he passed. And stopped short, staring.

      The image he had seen, that man in a soft hat pulled low on his forehead, his eyes glancing sidelong. …Something in the lighting of the hall had given to his healthy, sunburned face a strange look of pallor; the hat brim shadowed his eyes, he looked—

      “No, damn it!” he cried to himself. “This is…This won’t do!”

      He was in a hurry now to get out into the sunshine; his footsteps rang out briskly on the drive leading to the garage. The chauffeur came running down the stairs from his living quarters above, putting on his coat as he came.

      “You’re early, sir,” he said, faintly reproachful. “I’d have been at the house in time, all right.”

      “I know that, Linney,” he answered, affably. “But—well—see here! As long as I am early, we might as well stop by for Mr. Whitestone, eh?”

      He got into the car, and Linney set off; a good driver the fellow was, careful and sure and quick. Delancey lit another cigarette, and threw it away at once.

      “Bad habit,” he told himself. “I’ve never been a heavy smoker, and I won’t begin. Upsets your nerves, makes you short-winded. …The thing is, to keep fit.”

      Keep fit—for what? It was as if a voice outside himself had asked him that question, profoundly disturbing. His blue eyes clouded with a sort of bewilderment. He was not in the habit of any self-questioning; he was superbly healthy, equable, easy-going, ready to accept life as it was.

      “It’s Josephine,” he thought. “I mean—I’ve always heard that if you live with someone who’s nervous and fanciful, you’re apt to be affected by it.”

      He frowned, with a sudden little qualm of uneasiness. It dismayed him to think that his sane good-humor might be undermined, his cheerful zest in life shadowed. But that passed, his tolerance returned.

      “It’s worse for her than for me,” he thought.

      Things always had been harder for her than for him. Even in the beginning, when he had first begun his gallant attentions toward the wealthy young widow she had then been, he had known very well how much more serious the whole thing was for her than for him. He had liked her; indeed, in his way, he had loved her, but it was not her kind of love. Not that fierce, jealous, somber passion.

      “I’m not capable of that,” he thought, with a sigh. “Never have cared that way for anyone…I’ve done my best. I’ve been faithful to her. I’ve tried to be considerate. …But it’s not enough for her. Well…”

      Well, he couldn’t give what he hadn’t got. He had been fond of her, and if he were less fond of her now than he had been at first, he did not show it. No man could do more than his best, and if he had not made her happy, that was really her fault as much as his. He would not deny that her money had made life smoother for him, but after all, he had made a pretty fair return in patience, in unfailing amiability, for three far from easy years.

      “Well…” he said, again. “After all, I’m only at home—say, fourteen hours a day, and I’m asleep for eight of them. Only leaves six hours a day to keep my temper with the poor girl. …Except Saturdays and Sundays.”

      Unfortunately, this was a Saturday. He would