Evening Star Newspaper, March 17, 1935, Page 76

Soft tropic seas . . . Two women and a man . HE heave of the Caribbean was agreeable after the monotonous placidity of the Panama Canal, and Mrs. Wyckoff leaned her back against the ircn railing of the forepeak and speculatively watched the swift transition between day and night in the tropical sky. There would be no moon. The deck outside the port cabins would be deserted and in jarkness by two. Mrs. Wyckoff decided to «ill the woman there at two. She had stopjred thinking of Edna Harris as a person since that hot afternoon off San Salvador when she had gone up the ladder onto the bridge-deck and had found Edna and Ralph Carson in an embrace that Cap- tain Dennon had remarked ‘‘was hardly Mrs. Wyckoff had smiled pleasantly, had said to them, “‘So sorry,” and had moved to the other side where, with the captain's quarters between them, she had lain against the unyielding slats of a deck chair and thought how convenient it would be if Edna Harris should suddenly be dead. Crushed pink and pistachio green were dying in shafts in the darkening sky; coming towards her was Ralph'’s easy figure. She suc- ceeded in lighting a cigarette by the time he had reached her and she smiled very brightly when he was quite close, looking tall and flat in dark corduroys with a blue polo shirt wide open at the throat. After a moment during which he too lighted a cigarette, he pointed towards the last of the pistachio shafts and said: “That’s a nice cloud.” “Jsn’t it?"" He turned and leaned strong forearms on the iron railing, then studied the white foam- ing of stem-cleft waters. This would go on, she knew, for ten minutes, this deadly silence; then she would say something bright about contract and go to the captain's quarters, where she and Captain Dennon and the Yale professor and the architect’s son would play bridge until midnight while Ralph, relieved of As she clung to him, THIS WEEK Black Night by RUFUS KING the courtesy of these essential ten minutes, would find Edna and go some place with her on the empty ship. It wasn't empty, really, for there were eight passengers, the white officers, and a Filipino crew, but it gave the feeling of being so, of a long, low-lying hulk, lethargic and ponderous and empty on the empty sea. Mrs. Wyckoff felt a theatrical poignancy in the velvet dark- ness and thought of fulfilled wishes as ash in the mouth. It had been so with this trip, this caprice ofawomnofhermcomeandstandmg traveling by freighter from the west coast to the east. Her contract for doing the dialogue of a picture in Hollywood had ended, leaving herafullmont.hbeforeltwasmrytobe in New York for the rehearsals of a new play, and then had come that sultry dinner in Al Levy's Tavern when, after the third old- fashioned, she had said to Ralphthatxtunght be fun to go east by freighter. It would give her a new , new material for future work. She had studied the moulded rams' heads on the wall and had suggested that he come too — with her. Ralph dropped his cigarette into the white foam and she knew that he was looking at her. even though he didn’t turn hic head; neither of them did anything towards breaking the detestable silence, for just a mental picture of him, his lips moving close to Edna, was em\:gheodryupanywordsshemxght have forced herself to speak. Mrs. Wyckoff re- assured herself that she had done a lot for him, launched him with the crowd, forced him on them (for ahewasalwayshonestmth herself) as a social secretary, even though she knew that that had fooled nobody. But they had accepted him. They had had to, if they wanted to have her. Shethoughtofsflkp\maandoows ears, which wasn't exactly fair because he had She told him what had happened. He gave her a startled, comprehending look always, she felt, been in awe of her, of her literary- position and of her money, whereas with the Ednas he could loosen up and be somebody himself. ‘‘Have one?"" he said. “Thanks." Ralph snapped a match and held it cupped against the wind, the flame burning his hand as she lighted her cigarette, then he lit his own; neither said anything about the hand, even though a few weeks ago she would have fussed about it, and he would have expected it. She had opened up such new worlds for him, smart women, intelligent women, well-known stars. That was what Mrs. Wyckoff as a palliative to stabbed pride nursed increasing hatred on — the fact that having had such right and consequential people handed to him, he should so easily slump back again to what she thought of as hot little tramps. Ralph was getting dim in the night's swift darkness. Mrs. Wyckoff threw away her cigarette and said: ‘‘Well, on with the nightly battle. They must be waiting for me by now." She could feel him staring after her, his back against the iron railing; the wind was cold as she went down by the deck house, then up the ladder to the bridge-deck. She looked from it and saw Ralph’s head and shoulders in dark miniature. Then she stood for a long moment looking intently down towards the portside cabins and wondered whether she would have the strength to lower Edna's body . with sufficient ease and quietness over the side. Captain Dennon’s contract consisted in a mixture of sound whist and poker, and he played with a gusty élan. Mrs. Wyckoff liked to have him as a partner, and after three weeks they had come to understand each other’'s game pretty thoroughly. The others, when she went into his cabin, were drinking rum, in which she did not join them. She wanted to be quite sure of herself when the moment came to knock on Edna’s door. The radio was going in discordant blasts. She bid a small slam in spades and made it and endured the vigorous congratulations of her partner whose triumphant voice ripped farthest aft, and the Yale professor turned off the radio and started whistling ‘“The Carioca" off key. L i March 17, 1935 Jealousy . . . Murder! At midnight they stopped and, after Cap- tain Dennon had enjoyed his nightly jest of locking the score sheet in the safe, Mrs. Wyckoff went below to the door of her cabin. Ralph’s cabin was next to hers and both of them opened on a passage next to the saloon. Ralph was waiting, as he always waited, and said: “Is there anything you want?"” ‘‘No, nothing, thanks. Good night.” She went inside and closed her cabin door. The hour was one of doubtful privacy. People were still in the saloon and their voices came in loudly through an opened transom that could not be closed. She drew the curtains over the room’s two portholes and stood by the wash basin, gripping its edges tightly and shutting her eyes. The whistled Carioca drew near, entered the saloon, stayed, monotonous as the straining creak of the ship and the steady sound of wind in rigging. Mrs. Wyckoff washed her face and the tepld water felt icy on her blazing skin. She then remade it, very carefully, and looked ten years younger than her age and very smart, without the careless blowsy youth of Edna. She sat on the settee, after turning out the lights, and methodically went over her plan. If Edna’s door were locked, she would knock softly, or else call in softly through the opened port. Both were directly on the narrow deck. It was odd that Ralph himself should have suggested to her the weapon, during a general discussion about weapons at tea time last week. He had claimed that nothing was so effective as a black-jack made from putting a cake of soap in the toe of a sock. It left no mark. There were so many sides to Ralph’s past that even she had never plumbed, this criminal knowledge, for example, about the technique of crime. She wondered, and it was the first time that she had done so, whether he had a record. He didn't look like a criminal or as if he had ever been one and there should be, she thought, some identifying mark, like the mark of Cain. In panic she turned on the lights and looked into the mirror. Her face was quite clear but would there be some mark, some expression upon it, after two? She would make Edna come out onto the narrow deck, where quiet voices would be lost in the noise of sea and wind. She would tell Edna that Ralph was ill and that they would have to d» something about it. The excuse was inconsequential. Then she would direct Edna’s attention to some fancied object over the rail and, while Edna’s head was turned, swing down with the weapon, catching Edna’s body while it would still be balanced, and not let it slump onto the deck. Mrs. Wyckoff knew from many nights of observa- tion that no one ever passed along that deck and also that, because of its ceiling, it was masked from the bridge. Even if the body were to splash a little, its sound would be either disregarded or not heard at all. Quite quickly it would be swirled aft and left behind to sink at leisure in the sea. She undressed, put on a heavy silk dark wrapper, and turned down the lower bunk. (Continued on page 13) ).fi\ - .u’/’_\ Copyright, 1935, United Newspapers Magszine Corporation