Jack and Susan in 1913 by Michael McDowell Read Free Book Online Page B

threadbare clothes to be scantily furnished, with unmistakable, shabby indications of a lack of superfluous wealth. Certainly, despite his careful wardrobe, the furnishings in Hosmer Collamore’s apartments were not remarkable, and this was also true of the room in which Susan now stood. There was an old patched divan pushed against one wall, a rag rug in the center of the painted floor, a long table against the blind wall, a shorter table beneath the windows, and a Swift’s Premium calendar hanging from the molding. A wire extension from one of the wall sconces had been draped to the center of the ceiling, and a large bare fixture hung down which appeared capable of positively flooding the room with light in the evening.
    But if the furnishings were not unusual, the other objects in the room were. For everywhere in the room—spread, stacked, piled, and pyramided on newspaper and scraps of dirty cloth—were pieces of machinery. All of it black and metallic, all of it oozing grease or oil. It was impossible to tell if this jumble of wheels and cogs and levers actually belonged to one large machine or to a hundred smaller ones. On the tables were small wooden boxes filled with nuts and bolts, screws, nails, and small tools. Larger tools were arranged beneath the two tables. Several work aprons, each stained with the sort of black machine grease that permeated the air, hung on nails on one wall.
    Mr. Beaumont, she decided, was a tinkerer.
    To Susan’s eyes, it appeared that he was more adept at taking things apart than he was at putting them back together, though she didn’t want to judge him so harshly on so short an…acquaintance.
    Standing in the middle of the room looking around—with one ear cocked for the sound of Mr. Beaumont’s returning footfalls—she wondered if she dared risk a peek into the bedroom.
    No, she decided. That would be unredeemable snooping. After all, the door to this room had been open, while the bedroom door was most emphatically shut and—
    She heard a step on the stairs—but not from below. Instead, it came from above—the step of her across-the-hall neighbor, Mrs. Jadd, on her way out shopping. As usual, Mrs. Jadd was accompanied by her twin five-year-old daughters. Susan moved quickly to the door, but found that it was too late to slip out, Mrs. Jadd and her children already having got halfway down the stairs from above. The woman was of a suspicious nature, and, as it was, credited Susan with enjoying the very worst sort of intimacy with Hosmer Collamore. Susan certainly did not wish Mrs. Jadd to see her emerging from Mr. Beaumont’s rooms. She carefully eased the door of the room shut, and held it closed as she heard the little entourage pass by and turn down the next flight of stairs. It was easy to mark their progress, for Mrs. Jadd invariably repeated to her shrinking children a litany of the perils of the city streets.
    When Susan could no longer hear the woman’s voice—she was talking about a little boy whose body had been separated into four different pieces just on the next block because he let go of his mother’s hand and ran out into the street into the path of an automobile driven by a drunken mechanic—Susan quietly and carefully opened the door.
    â€œPardon me,” said Mr. Beaumont, standing directly in front of her, “I must be on the wrong floor. I thought this was my room.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    â€œ O H, MR. BEAUMONT,” exclaimed Susan, “a sparrow flew in your window, and I was chasing it out when the wind blew the door shut.”
    â€œThen this is my room, and not yours.”
    â€œYes of course, I—”
    â€œI understand perfectly,” said Mr. Beaumont, and it was apparent to Susan that his understanding was perfect. He did not believe a word she’d said.
    Out in the hall, the phone rang.
    â€œPerhaps that’s the call you’re waiting for,” said Mr.