Horrible Imaginings

ALICE AND THE ALLERGY

There was a knocking. The doctor put down his pen. Then he heard his wife hurrying down the stairs. He resumed his history of old Mrs. Easton’s latest blood-clot.

The knocking was repeated. He reminded himself to get after Engstrand to fix the bell.

After a pause long enough for him to write a sentence and a half, there came a third and louder burst of knocking. He frowned and got up.

It was dark in the hall. Alice was standing on the third step from the bottom, making no move to answer the door. As he went past her he shot her an inquiring glance. He noted that her eyelids looked slightly puffy, as if she were having another attack—an impression which the hoarseness of her voice a moment later confirmed.

“He knocked that way,”—was what she whispered. She sounded frightened. He looked back at her with an expression of greater puzzlement—which almost immediately, however, changed to comprehension. He gave her a sympathetic, semi-professional nod, as if to say, “I understand now. Glad you mentioned it. We’ll talk about it later.” Then he opened the door.

It was Renshaw from the Allergy Lab. “Got the new kit for you, Howard,” he remarked in an amiable Southern drawl. “Finished making it up this afternoon and thought I’d bring it around myself.”

“A million thanks. Come on in.”

Alice had retreated a few steps farther up the stairs. Renshaw did not appear to notice her in the gloom. He was talkative as he followed Howard into his office.

“An interestin’ case turned up. Very unusual. A doctor we supply lost a patient by broncho-spasm. Nurse mistakenly injected the shot into a vein. In ten seconds he was strangling. Edema of the glottis developed. Injected ammophyllme and epmephnne—no dice. Tried to get a bronchoscope down his windpipe to give him air, but couldn’t manage. Finally did a tracheotomy, but by that time it was too late.”

“You always have to be damned careful,” Howard remarked.

“Right,” Renshaw agreed cheerfully. He set the kit on the desk and stepped back. “Well, if we don’t identify the substance responsible for your wife’s allergy this time, it won’t be for lack of imagination. I added some notions of my own to your suggestions.”

“Good.”

“You know, she’s well on her way to becoming the toughest case I ever made kits for. We’ve tested all the ordinary substances, and most of the extraordinary.”

Howard nodded, his gaze following the dark woodwork toward the hall door. “Look,” he said, “do many doctors tell you about allergy patients showing fits of acute depression during attacks, a tendency to rake up unpleasant memories—especially old fears?”

“Depression seems to be a pretty common symptom,” said Renshaw cautiously. “Let’s see, how long is it she’s been bothered?”

“About two years—ever since six months after our marriage.” Howard smiled. “That arouses certain obvious suspicions, but you know how exhaustively we’ve tested myself, my clothes, my professional equipment.”

“I should say so,” Renshaw assured him. For a moment the men were silent. Then, “She suffers from depression and fear?”

Howard nodded.

“Fear of anything in particular?”

But Howard did not answer that question.

About ten minutes later, as the outside door closed on the man from the Allergy Lab, Alice came slowly down the stairs.

The puffiness around her eyes was more marked, emphasizing her paleness. Her eyes were still fixed on the door.

“You know Renshaw, of course,” her husband said.

“Of course, dear,” she answered huskily, with a little laugh. “It was just the knocking. It made me remember him.”

“That so?” Howard inquired cheerily. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me that detail. I’d always assumed—”

“No,” she said, “the bell to Auntie’s house was out of order that afternoon. So it was his knocking that drew me through the dark hallway and made me open the door, so that I saw his white avid face and long strong hands—with the big dusty couch just behind me, where… and my hand on the curtain sash, with which he—’

“Don’t think about it.” Howard reached up and caught hold of her cold hand. “That chap’s been dead for two years now. He’ll strangle no more women.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Of course. Look, dear, Renshaw’s brought a new kit. We’ll make the scratch tests right away.”

She followed him obediently into the examination room across the hall from the office. He rejected the forearm she offered him—it still showed faint evidences of the last test. As he swabbed off the other, he studied her face.

“Another little siege, eh? Well, we’ll ease that with a mild ephedrine spray.”

“Oh it’s nothing,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind it at all if it weren’t for those stupid moods that go with it.”

“I know,” he said, blocking out the test areas.

“I always have that idiotic feeling,” she continued hesitantly, “that he’s trying to get at me.”

Ignoring her remark, he picked up the needle. They were both silent as he worked with practiced speed and care. Finally he sat back, remarking with considerably more confidence than he felt, “There! I bet you this time we’ve nailed the elusive little demon who likes to choke you!”—and looked up at the face of the slim, desirable, but sometimes maddeningly irrational person he had made his wife.

“I wonder if you’ve considered it from my point of view,” he said, smiling. “I know it was a horrible experience, just about the worst a woman can undergo. But if it hadn’t happened, I’d never have been called in to take care of you—and we’d never have got married.”

“That’s true,” she said, putting her hand on his.

“It was completely understandable that you should have spells of fear afterwards,” he continued. “Anyone would. Though I do think your background made a difference. After all, your Aunt kept you so shut away from people—men especially. Told you they were all sadistic, evil-minded brutes. You know, sometimes when I think of that woman deliberately trying to infect you with all her rotten fears, I find myself on the verge of forgetting that she was no more responsible for her actions than any other miseducated neurotic.”

She smiled at him gratefully.

“At any rate,” he went on, “it was perfectly natural that you should be frightened, especially when you learned that he was a murderer with a record, who had killed other women and had even, in two cases where he’d been interrupted, made daring efforts to come back and complete the job. Knowing that about him, it was plain realism on your part to be scared—at least intelligently apprehensive—as long as he was on the loose. Even after we were married.”

“But then, when you got incontrovertible proof—” He fished in his pocket, “Of course, he didn’t formally pay the law’s penalty, but he’s just as dead as if he had.” He smoothed out a worn old newspaper clipping. “You can’t have forgotten this,” he said gently, and began to read:

She covered the clipping with her hand. “Please.”

“Sorry,” he said, “but an idea had occurred to me—one that would explain your continuing fear. I don’t think you’ve ever hinted at it, but are you really completely satisfied that this was the man? Or is there a part of your mind that still doubts, that believes the police mistaken, that pictures the killer still at large? I know you identified the photographs, but sometimes, Alice, I think it was a mistake that you didn’t go to Lansing like they wanted you to and see with your own eyes—”

“I wouldn’t want to go near that city, ever.” Her lips had thinned.

“But when your peace of mind was at stake….”

“No, Howard,” she said. “And besides, you’re absolutely wrong. From the first moment I never had the slightest doubt that he was the man who died—”

“But in that case—”

“And furthermore, it was only then, when my allergy started, that I really began to be afraid of him.”

“But surely, Alice—” Calm substituted for anger in his manner. “Oh, I know you can’t believe any of that occult rot your aunt was always falling for.”

“No, I don’t,” she said. “It’s something very different.”

“What?”

But that question was not answered. Alice was looking down at the inside of her arm. He followed her gaze to where a white welt was rapidly filling one of the squares.

“What’s it mean?” she asked nervously.

“Mean?” he almost yelled. “Why, you little dope, it means we’ve licked the thing at last! It means we’ve found the substance that causes your allergy. I’ll call Renshaw right away and have him make up the shots.”

He picked up one of the vials, frowned, checked it against the area. “That’s odd,” he said. “HOUSEHOLD DUST. We’ve tried that a half dozen times. But then, of course, it’s always different….”

“Howard,” she said, “I don’t like it. I’m frightened.”

He looked at her lovingly. “The little dope,” he said to her softly. “She’s about to be cured—and she’s frightened.” And he hugged her. She was cold in his arms.

But by the time they sat down to dinner, things were more like normal. The puffmess had gone out of her eyelids and he was briskly smiling.

“Got hold of Renshaw. He was very Interested.’ HOUSEHOLD DUST was one of his ideas. He’s going down to the Lab tonight and will have the shots over early tomorrow. The sooner we start, the better. I also took the opportunity to phone Engstrand. He’ll try to get over to fix the bell, this evening. Heard from Mrs. Easton’s nurse too. Things aren’t so well there. I’m pretty sure there’ll be bad news by tomorrow morning at latest. I may have to rush over any minute. I hope it doesn’t happen tonight, though.”

It didn’t and they spent a quiet evening—not even Engstrand showed up—which could have been very pleasant had Alice been a bit less pre-occupied.

But about three o’clock he was shaken out of sleep by her trembling. She was holding him tight.

“He’s coming.” Her whisper was whistly, laryngitic.

“What?” He sat up, half pulling her with him. “I’d better give you another eph—”

“Sh! What’s that? Listen.”

He rubbed his face. “Look Alice,” after a moment, he said, “I’ll go downstairs and make sure there’s nothing there.”

No, don’t!” she clung to him. For a minute or two they huddled there without speaking. Gradually his ears became attuned to the night sounds—the drone and mumble of the city, the house’s faint, closer creakings. Something had happened to the street lamp and incongruous unmixed moonlight streamed through the window beyond the foot of the bed.

He was about to say something, when she let go of him and said, in a more normal voice, “There. It’s gone.”

She slipped out of bed, went to the window, opened it wider, and stood there, breathing deeply.

“You’ll get cold, come back to bed,” he told her.

“In a while.”

The moonlight was in key with her flimsy nightgown. He got up, rummaged around for her quilted bathrobe and, in draping it around her, tried an embrace. She didn’t respond.

He got back in bed and watched her. She had found a chair-arm and was looking out the window. The bathrobe had fallen back from her shoulders. He felt wide awake, his mind crawlingly active.

“You know, Alice,” he said, “there may be a psychoanalytic angle to your fear.”

“Yes?” She did not turn her head.

“Maybe, in a sense, your libido is still tied to the past. Unconsciously, you may still have that distorted conception of sex your aunt drilled into you, something sadistic and murderous. And it’s possible your unconscious mind had tied your allergy in with it—you said it was a dusty couch. See what I’m getting at?”

She still looked out the window.

“It’s an ugly idea and of course your conscious mind wouldn’t entertain it for a moment, but your aunt’s influence set the stage and, when all’s said and done, he was your first experience of men. Maybe in some small way, your libido is still linked to… him.”

She didn’t say anything.

Rather late next morning he awoke feeling sluggish and irritable. He got out of the room quietly, leaving her still asleep, breathing easily. As he was getting a second cup of coffee, a jarringly loud knocking summoned him to the door. It was a messenger with the shots from the Allergy Lab. On his way to the examination room he phoned Engstrand again, heard him promise he’d be over in a half hour sure, cut short a long-winded explanation as to what had tied up the electrician last night.

He started to phone Mrs. Easton’s place, decided against it.

He heard Alice in the kitchen.

In the examination room he set some water to boil in the sterilizing pan, got out instruments. He opened the package from the Allergy Lab, frowned at the inscription HOUSEHOLD DUST, set down the container, walked over to the window, came back and frowned again, went to his office and dialed the Lab.

“Renshaw?”

“Uh huh. Get the shots?”

“Yes, many thanks. But I was just wondering… you know, it’s rather odd we should hit it with household dust after so many misses.”

“Not so odd, when you consider…”

“Yes, but I was wondering exactly where the stuff came from.”

“Just a minute.”

He shifted around in his swivel chair. In the kitchen Alice was humming a tune.

“Say, Howard, look. I’m awfully sorry, but Johnson seems to have gone off with the records. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get hold of them ‘til afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s all right. Just curiosity. You don’t have to bother.”

“No, I’ll let you know. Well, I suppose you’ll be making the first injection this morning?”

“Right away. You know we’re both grateful to you for having hit on the substance responsible.”

“No credit due me. Just a…” Renshaw chuckled “… shot in the dark.”

Some twenty minutes later, when Alice came into the examination room, Howard was struck, to a degree that quite startled him, with how pretty and desirable she looked. She had put on a white dress and her smiling face showed no signs of last night’s attack. For a moment he had the impulse to take her in his arms, but then he remembered last night and decided against it.

As he prepared to make the injection, she eyed the hypodermics, bronchoscope, and scalpels laid out on the sterile towel.

“What are those for?” she asked lightly.

“Just routine stuff, never use them.”

“You know,” she said laughingly, “I was an awful ninny last night. Maybe you’re right about my libido. At any rate, I’ve put him out of my life forever. He can’t ever get at me again. From now on, you’re the only one.”

He grinned, very happily. Then his eyes grew serious and observant as he made the injection, first withdrawing the needle repeatedly to make sure there were no signs of venous blood. He watched her closely.

The phone jangled.

Damn,” he said. “That’ll be Mrs. Easton’s nurse. Come along with me.”

He hurried through the swinging door. She started after him.

But it wasn’t Mrs. Easton’s nurse. It was Renshaw. Found the records. Johnson didn’t have them after all. Just misplaced. And there is something out of the way. That dust didn’t come from there at all. It came from…

There came a knocking. He strained to hear what Renshaw was saying.

“What?” He whipped out a pencil. “Say that again. Don’t mind the noise. It’s just our electrician coming to fix the bell. What was that city?”

The knocking was repeated.

“Yes, I’ve got that. And the exact address of the place the dust came from?”

There came a third and louder burst of knocking, which grew to a violent tattoo.

Finishing his scribbling, he hung up with a bare “Thanks,” to Renshaw, and hurried to the door just as the knocking died.

There was no one there.

Then he realized. He hardly dared push open the door to the examination room, yet no one could have gone more quickly.

Alice’s agonizingly arched, suffocated body was lying on the rug. Her heels, which just reached the hardwood flooring, made a final, weak knock-knock. Her throat was swollen like a toad’s.

Before he made another movement he could not stop himself from glaring around, window and door, as if for an escaping intruder.

As he snatched for his instruments, knowing for an absolute certainty that it would be too late, a slip of paper floated down from his hand.

On it was scribbled, “LANSING, 1555 Kinsey Street.”