The Killing Doll by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online

the fire opal that quite eclipsed Harold’s wedding band.
    Pup stood in front of her, smiling first at his father and then at her, as if giving them his blessing in a paternal way. Myra wondered if he was quite right in the head. He put out his hand and lifted the gold chains which hung over the large well-braced promontory of Myra’s bosom. She jumped at Pup’s touch; she couldn’t help it. Pup gave her another smile, reassuring this time. He examined the wishbone, the four-leaved clover and the dice as if they interested him greatly, and he lifted Myra’s hand and looked at the charms on her bracelet. Myra began to feel nervous and uncomfortable and she nearly said something sharp, when a diversion was created by the workmen descending the stairs. These were the men she had got in to install a sink and a water heater in the smallest of the five rooms on the top floor. She snatched her hand away from Pup and the gold chains flew about, jangling.
    “That’s the lot then,” the plumber said. “I’ll pop in in the morning and check your taps.”
    “I was thinking,” Myra said in the rather shrill way she had when she was not at ease, “while you’re here, why don’t we go the whole hog and have a bathroom put in for Peter and Doreen?
    “I don’t know about that,” said Harold.
    “It’s not very civilized, is it? To be perfectly honest, it’s not ideal, is it, having just the one bathroom in a house this size?”
    “Planning permission’d have to be got,” said the plumber. “Planning permission is essential prior to the installation of your water closet.”
    “All right. Why not? How d’you go about it?”
    The only possible convertible room was his temple. Pup said in his gentle way, in his soft, low voice, “Dolly and I don’t need our own bathroom, thank you very much. For such a short time—” he smiled at Myra “—it would be a waste of money.” He said, “Excuse me,” to the workmen and walked past them up the stairs.
    “What do you think Peter meant by ‘such a short time,’ Hal?” said Myra, dishing up stuffed peppers. She called her husband Hal because no one else had ever done so and it had a dashing ring, rather out of keeping with Harold’s appearance. Pup’s remark had made her think. In fact, he had only meant by it that he intended to share a house with her for no longer than he could help, and as soon as his ship came in, he would move out.
    “Ask me another,” said Harold. He took the plate and said, “I thang you!” after the manner of Arthur Askey, which he thought and believed Myra would think a witty and sparkling rejoinder.
    “You don’t suppose he’s thinking of getting married himself?” said Myra, asking him another.
    “Don’t make me laugh. He’s only eighteen.”
    “It would be the best thing really for all of us, though I don’t suppose there’s much chance for poor Doreen.”
    Harold said nothing for a moment. He was still overcome at the conversion of the horrible, dark, dirty, old dining room into a reasonable place to eat in. The looping up of the port-wine-colored velvet curtains with lengths of red ribbon and the provision of a few blue scyllas in a Denbyware honeypot, which would have struck most people as pathetic, seemed to him only awesome. He had never before tasted green peppers and he didn’t think he liked them much. There was a napkin with a bit of lace in one corner but he felt it would be going rather far to wipe his mouth on it.
    “Dolly?” he said. “I don’t know about that.” Harold wanted to impress his wife with his wit but the only way he knew how to do this was by being facetious or coarse. From some old stock of such phrases he dredged up a metaphor: “You don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re poking the fire.”
    “What an awful thing to say,” said Myra coldly. “Does that go for your own married life, too?”
    Harold nearly said he didn’t know about that. Hastily he brought out instead something