Having completed the first phase of her plan, Hester set the box aside and went about her affairs, including dinner and dancing and a few hours sleep, until the second phase brought her, at the intolerable hour of nine o’clock in the morning, to the doors of the supermarket, which were just being opened to the public. It was necessary, of course, to be at her post and alert the first thing, so that Mrs. Crump couldn’t get in and out ahead of her, and it was also necessary to remain discretely inconspicuous, so that Mrs. Crump wouldn’t see her and be roused to the guard.
After an interminable wait that was, in fact, little more than an hour, Hester was rewarded by the sight of Mrs. Crump claiming a wheeled basket from the supply at the front of the store. Pushing the basket ahead of her, she began a tour of the aisles, stopping here and stopping there, putting in this and putting in that, Hester trailing all the while at a safe distance, and bearing at the ready the doctored box of oats and peanut powder, the stuff of such a hot breakfast as Mrs. Murphy had never dreamed of. Eventually, Mrs. Crump turned down the crucial aisle and slowly approached the cereal shelves. Hester found herself suddenly holding her breath and aware of her pulse. Would Mrs. Crump stop, or would she not? Was Mrs. Crump after the curative companion to sex, or had the cure, after all, been already undertaken? Everything now depended upon Mrs. Crump’s next move.
Her next move was a stop. She surveyed the display of oats and selected, sure enough, Mrs. Murphy’s. She put the box in her basket. She moved on, out of the cereal aisle and into an aisle of refrigerated cases. She parked her basket and began to move along slowly in front of the cases, accumulating on the way to the bacon a package of short ribs and two pounds of ground beef.
In the meanwhile, although she didn’t realize it, she had acquired cyanide in her oats. Hester, knowing that this was the moment of crisis, the time for the switch if ever it would be, acted with decision and dispatch. She approached Mrs. Crump’s basket quickly and quietly. She switched boxes deftly. She retreated undetected. On the way out of the store, she left Mrs. Crump’s box of oatmeal on the shelf from which it had come. She wondered if Senorita Fogarty would be lucky enough to get a whack at sex before breakfast. Not really having anything personal against Senorita, she hoped so.
And so it had been for Hester, when Lester arrived late in the afternoon, a pleasant and profitable double-lap of the clock. She was relaxed and hopeful and in good humor. Lester, on the other hand, was naturally depressed and desperate, and he rather resented Hester’s disgusting optimism, which he considered fatal at the worst and Pollyannaish at the best
“What the devil’s the matter with you?” he said as he entered.
“Nothing’s the matter,” she said. “Nothing at all. The truth is, I’m feeling exceptionally well, in spite of getting very little sleep last night.”
“You may think that nothing’s the matter, but there is, and I am here to tell you what.”
“What?”
“Just wait till you hear.”
“Is it necessary to wait? Why can’t you just go ahead and tell me?”
Lester had folded into a chair, but he got up again immediately and began to pace the floor and snap his fingers.
“Crump has bought a stud,” he said.
“Well, what’s so unexpected about that? We knew that a stud was intended.”
“Damn it, Hester, I wish you wouldn’t be so philosophical about everything. What was intended is different from what has been done. I tell you that Crump has already bought the filthy little beast, and he is at this moment taking him home to Senorita Fogarty on the bus.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw him, that’s how. Pearl and I followed him in the MG, and he went out to this kennel and bought the stud. He’s carrying him home in a cage with a handle on it.”
“In that case, there is obviously nothing to be done about it. The stud must be accepted.”
“I suppose a litter of pups must be accepted too?”
“Not at all. As I explained before, there is quite an extended period of time, due to gestation, between sex and pups.”
“Nevertheless, I am convinced that no time should be wasted. Senorita Fogarty’s oatmeal must be poisoned at once, even if it means my having to attempt it myself.”
“Fortunately for all of us, that won’t be necessary.”
“Why won’t it?”
“Because I have already thought of a way to do it. In fact, while you were running around getting excited about studs, I have accomplished it.”
“The hell you have!” Lester stared at Hester in disbelief. “How did you manage it?”
“That’s my secret. It only required a little ingenuity and effort.”
“Oh, come on, Hester. Tell me how.”
“I won’t do it. Why should I? If you had had any talent yourself, you’d have thought of a way of your own.”
“Are you lying? You better hadn’t be. There’s no time for that.”
“Think as you please. As for me, although I have done a service for all of us, I expect no credit.”
Lester, convinced, folded into the chair again and looked at Hester with his expression of skepticism changing to admiration and wonder.
“All right, Hester. No one denies that you are especially clever at thinking up things. At least you can tell me what you used. You mentioned arsenic as a possibility.”
“I changed my mind. I decided that cyanide would be more effective.”
“Where in the devil did you get cyanide?”
“At a hardware store.”
“Are you serious? I thought you had to buy something like that at a pharmacy at least, and sign for it at that.”
“What you do with your brain, Lester, cannot properly be called thinking at all. As a matter of fact, you can buy cyanide at the hardware store simply by asking for it. All you have to do is buy it in peanuts or something.”
“In peanuts!”
“Certainly. For moles and rats and things. All we need do now is wait for Senorita Fogarty to have breakfast. I wonder if we will be required to go to her funeral. I must say that I hope not, but as Grandfather’s first heir, she will probably rate it.”
“Hester, you have taken a great load off my mind.” Lester sighed and stretched his legs and felt hopeful for the first time since when. “Do you happen to have a drink around the place?”
12
If one can expect an ailing patient to be put under treatment without excessive delay, one should also be able to expect a quick report of the patient’s death if the treatment is fatal. The trouble was, Hester didn’t get any report. So far as she knew, Senorita Fogarty continued to live, replete with sex and gorged with cyanide peanuts. It wasn’t natural or reasonable, and Hester wondered why.
Perhaps, she thought, the oatmeal diet had been abandoned even before it started. If so, it was damned deceptive of the Crumps and just showed you how thoroughly unreliable they were. They had been instrumental in putting Hester to a great deal of time and trouble, conceiving and executing her plan and all, and it was simply infuriating to think that it might all go for nothing. It was more hopeful to sustain a little longer, if possible, the conviction that the diet had merely been postponed temporarily, for one reason or another, and would shortly be imposed.
Or maybe it hadn’t been postponed at all. Maybe it had been imposed immediately with all the results that could reasonably be expected from a cyanide breakfast. This was Hester’s second thought, and it shook her up. Was Senorita Fogarty indeed deceased? Could it be that the Crumps, with peasantlike cunning, were with-holding the truth in an effort to prolong their plush condition?