“Do you want me to feed you?” he asked.
She couldn’t signal those three double blinks fast enough. Yes, yes, yes.
He got up and moved the wheelchair around beside his own.
Vera began to apply herself to her own meal with a muttered: “You can have the job; see if I care.”
So far so good. She was over beside him now, in closer contact. So near and yet so far. Her pitiful, desperate plan was first to rivet his attention to the fact that something was wrong, something was troubling her, and hold it there. That was the easiest part of it. Once that was accomplished, she must find some way of centering his interest on that oven wherein the two gas masks lay concealed. Get him to go to it, open it himself if possible. Failing that, get him to force Vera to go to it, open it.
In such event Vera would undoubtedly attempt to smuggle them out of their hiding place, find another for them without letting him see her do it. But they were large, bulky, not easily concealed. The chances of his discovering them would be that much greater. Even if he did discover them, that by no means guaranteed that he would understand their implication, realize they meant his own intended death. Vera would probably find some explanation to fob off on him. But she might lose her nerve, it might result in a postponement if nothing else. Lacking speech with which to warn him, that was the most Janet Miller could hope for.
So she took the long, devious, roundabout path that was the only one open to her, to try to focus his attention on the gas oven — by refusing to touch, one by one, all the dishes that had been prepared on the open burners on top of the stove.
“She’s not touching a thing,” he said finally. He put his hand solicitously to her forehead, to feel if she had a temperature. It was moist with anguish.
“Don’t humor her so much,” Vera snapped. “There’s nothing the matter with this food.”
“What is it, dear, aren’t you hungry?” She’d been waiting for that! She gave him the yes-signal an infinite number of times.
“She is hungry!” he said in surprise.
“Then why doesn’t she eat what’s put before her?” Vera said furiously.
“Maybe she wants something special.”
Step two! Oh, if it only kept up like this. If she was only given the chance to save him...
“I like that,” sniffed Vera disdainfully. She was still not on guard against her. As soon as that happened, Janet Miller knew, it would double her difficulties.
He leaned toward her tenderly. “Do you want something special, dear? Something that’s not on the table?”
Yes, yes, yes, yes, came her agonized messages.
“See, I knew it!” he said triumphantly.
“Well, she’s not going to get it,” Vera snapped.
He gave her a rebuking look. All he said, mildly but firmly, was: “Yes, she is.” But his meaning was plain — “would you deprive anyone so unfortunate of a little thing like that, if you knew it would make her a little happier?”
Vera saw she’d gone too far. She tried to cover up her blunder. “How you going to tell what it is, anyway?” she asked sulkily.
“I’ll make it my business to,” he said, a little coldly.
Janet Miller’s thoughts were racing ahead. Many things could be prepared in that oven, but most of them, roasts, pies, and so forth were out of the question, needed long cooking ahead. It must be something that could only be made in there, and yet would not take any time. It held a wire rack in it, a grill. That was it! Bacon. That could be made almost instantly, and there was always some in the house.
He was patiently running through a list of delicacies, trying to arrive at the right one by a process of elimination. “Do you want croquettes?” No. “Succotash?” No—
“Meantime your own meal is getting cold,” Vera observed sarcastically. Her nerves were a little on edge, with what she knew lay ahead. She was not ordinarily so heartless about Janet, to give her her due. Or rather she was, but took good pains to keep it concealed from him. His mother could have told him a different story of what went on in the daytime, when he wasn’t home.
He began to run out of food names; his suggestions came slower, were about ready to falter to a stop. Fear stabbed at her. She widened her eyes at him imploringly to go on.
Vera came to her aid without meaning to. “It’s no use, Vern,” she said disgustedly. “Are you going to keep this up all night?”
Her latent opposition only served to solidify his determination, spurred him on to further attempts. “I’m not going to let her go away from this table hungry!” he said stubbornly, and started in again, this time with breakfast dishes, for he had run out of supper ones. “Cereal?” No. “Ham and eggs?” No. Oh, how close he was getting. “Bacon?”
Yes, yes, yes, went her eyes. Her heart sang a paean of gratitude.
He smacked his palm down on the table in vindication.
“I knew I’d get it finally.”
Her eyes left him, shifted appraisingly over to Vera. All the color had drained from her face; it was white as the tablecloth before her. The two women, the mother and the wife, the would-be savior and the would-be killer, exchanged a long measured look. “So you heard us!” was in Vera’s look. “So you know.” And then with cruel, easily read derision, “Well, try to tell him. Try to save him.”
He said plaintively: “You heard what she wants, Vera. What’re you sitting there for? Go out and broil her a few strips.”
Vera’s face was that of a trapped thing. She swallowed, though she hadn’t been chewing just then. “I should say not. I got one meal ready. I’m not going to get up in the middle of it and start another! It’ll get the stove all greasy and— and—”
He threw his napkin down. “I’ll do it myself then. That’s one of the few things I do know how to cook — bacon.” But before he could move she had shot up from her chair, streaked over toward the doorless opening that led to the kitchen, as though something were burning in there.
“Can’t you take a joke?” she said thickly. “What kind of a wife d’you take me for? I wouldn’t let you, after you’ve been working hard all day. Won’t take a minute...”
He was so defenseless, so unguarded — because he thought he’d left all antagonists outside the front door. He fell for it, grinned amiably after her.
Oh, if he’d only keep looking, only keep watching her from where he was! He could see the oven door from where he was sitting. He could see what she’d have to take out of it in another minute, right from in here. But there was no suspicion in his heart, no thought of treachery. He turned back toward Janet again, smiled into her face reassuringly, patted one of her nerveless hands.
For once her eyes had no time for him. They kept staring past him into the lighted kitchen. If only he’d turn and follow their direction with his own!
She saw Vera glance craftily out at them first, measuring her chances of remaining undetected in what she was about to do. Then she crouched down, let out the oven flap. Then she looked again, to make sure the position of his head hadn’t shifted in the meantime. Then she crushed the two bulky olive-drab masks to her, turned furtively away with them so that her back was to the dining room, sidled across the room that way, sidewise, and thrust them up into a seldom-used cupboard where preserves were kept.
So it hadn’t been just an evil dream. There was murder in the house with them. Janet Miller’s eyes hadn’t been idle while the brief transfer was occurring. They had shifted frantically from Vera to him, from him to Vera, trying to draw his own after them, to look in there.
She failed. He misunderstood, thought she was simply impatient for the bacon. “You’ll have it in a minute now,” he soothed, but he kept on eating his own meal without looking into the kitchen.