Gradually thereafter, over a period of several months, his relationship with Caroline Hardy took on the aspects of discreet infidelity — a thoroughly chaste affair. As time passed it seemed that Mrs. Hardy found it necessary more and more often to call for emergency deliveries, and by some odd trick of circumstances they invariably came just when Cameron was feeling that a short walk would do him good. The quality of the sherry did not improve, but the consumption of it materially increased.
Cameron could not remember later just when titles and surnames were abandoned. They simply became to each other, at some point is the lapse of time, Caroline and Cameron. And it became apparent, even to a man as modest as he, that she responded to his unexpressed feelings with an emotion equally intense, although equally mute.
He could hardly believe his incredible good luck. It seemed impossible that she could actually be attracted to such a dull fellow, and he began to wonder, examining his reflection in the glass door of his refrigerator, if he was such a dull fellow after all.
Without ever touching each other, they became lovers. At least they did in the mind of Cameron Fleming. He took her tenderly in a dozen repeated dreams, and it was only a small step from there to the bitter wish that he were free to take her in fact. Perhaps he would have been if he had tried, but he was deterred by his natural timidity and the conviction that she would be amenable to seduction only if it were not extramarital.
Having no grounds for divorce, and no hope of it, he was forced to find his freedom, as he took his love, only in fantasy.
But divorce is merely one way to lose a wife. There are other ways, and death is one of them. The death of Millicent began to share his dreams with the love of Caroline, the former being in his judgment a prerequisite to the latter. Millicent, of course, showed no signs whatever of dying, but natural dying is merely one kind of death.
There are other kinds, and murder is one of them. The murder of Millicent began to replace in his dreams the natural death of Millicent, the former being in his judgment the only reasonable alternative to the latter.
It was Caroline herself who gave urgency to his dream. She had come into the store quite late, just before closing time, and had asked for a can of peas. He had squatted down before the bottom shelf on which the canned peas were stocked and had asked her choice of brands. She had squatted beside him to see for herself what choice there was, and suddenly, side by side on their haunches and touching each other with only their lips, they were kissing.
After a while, she stood up and sighed and smoothed her skirt over her hips with her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?” he said, rising beside her.
“Because it was wrong.”
“Why was it wrong?”
“Because you’re married.”
“I wish I weren’t.”
“If you want to know the truth,” she said, “so do I.”
But if it was she who thus gave his dream urgency, it was chance that gave it purpose and direction.
As if he were simply playing a deadly game to amuse himself, he began to think, of all the ways a woman could be made to die, and the game was made immensely she went first info the bathroom, for this arrangement gave her time, while he himself executed the essential small functions dictated by hygiene, and biology, to brew his coffee and poach his egg and toast his bread.
While he waited for her, he listened rather sadly to her activities behind the closed door. He heard the water-closet empty and fill. He heard water running into the lavatory. After a flurry of splashing, he heard the brisk, bristly sound of the brushing of teeth. Then she came out, wrapped in a robe, and went directly to the kitchen. It was indicative of their status that they did not speak all this while, and his feeling of vague sadness persisted. If he regretted what he was going to do, or attempt to do, it was not because of what she was, but because of what she had failed to be.
In the bathroom, after hurrying through what was necessary to prepare himself for the day, he took the bottle of bleach from the linen closet, where he had tucked it away the night before, and poured it all, a full quart, into the small amount of water at the bottom of the toilet bowl. The harsh odor of the bleach pervaded the small room, but he was reasonably certain that it would incite Millicent to no more than a sour resentment toward him for creating it.
After all, a woman would hardly recognize a danger signal when she was completely unaware of being in danger. He wondered if Millicent was even aware of the deadly reaction set off by chlorine bleach and any acid-producing substance, such as a toilet bowl cleaner, and he doubted it. Like many housewives, she rarely read labels.
Anyhow, it was done. It was done, so far, so simply. Of course, the crucial part remained. It was necessary now to make certain that Millicent cleaned this morning, but he was already fairly certain that she would. She did her housework on schedule, as he had learned in the years of their marriage, and he knew that this was the morning for the bathroom. It was for this reason, to exploit the schedule, that he had waited the two days after bringing the bleach home.
In the kitchen, he sat down to his egg and toast and coffee. “What are you going to do this morning?” he said.
“Housework, as usual,” she said. “What else is there?”
“This is your morning for the bathroom, isn’t it?”
“It is. Why?”
“I noticed that the toilet bowl is a bit stained. It needs cleaning.”
“Well, don’t let it disturb you. I’ll get to it as soon as you’re out of the way.”
“Of course, dear. I didn’t mean to complain.”
At the front door, he received the habitual peck on the cheek that always seemed to convey more animosity than affection. He walked the three blocks to his store, and it was then, for him, the beginning of a long, long day. There were so many things that could go wrong, and all of them plagued his mind as the long day dragged by.
What if Millicent staged a petty domestic rebellion and refused to clean the bathroom at all? Not likely, and if she did he could always try again. What if she flushed the bowl before adding the cleaner? The answer as before: he could try again. What if the gases were not fatal? A possibility certainly, but the possibility was just as good that they would be. Fatal or not, the incident would surely pass as an accident. Failure in this event would make it impossible, of course, to try the same method again, but there were other methods, and there would be other chances.
At noon he made himself a bologna sandwich and drank a pint of milk. At four Jimmy Cobb came in and began delivering the neighborhood orders that had accumulated during the day. Caroline Hardy did not come or call, and for once Cameron was glad that she didn’t. When next he saw her, he hoped that it would be with the expanded vision and prospects of a free agent.
At six, he locked the store and walked home. At six-five, his hopes neatly realized, he found Millicent dead just inside the bathroom door.
He summoned the family physician at once, who came and pronounced her dead and summoned the police, as required in such cases. The police, in the person of a detective, called the coroner, who delivered, for lack of anything constructive to do, a bitter little lecture on the incredible stupidity of the average housewife.
All the evidence of death by misadventure was present. There was the can of cleaner, lying where it had fallen, a few crystals spilled out from its lip upon the floor. There was the bottle that had contained the bleach. There was the fallen brush on the floor beside the cleaner. There, finally was the bereaved husband, roundly berating himself for having never warned his wife against the deadly danger of bleach and cleaners mixed.
“Millicent never read labels,” he said dully. “I could never teach her to read labels.”