Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/44

 money. It was something more than wealth I wanted. Drink the wine, past lover of mine, drink the wine."

as she ordered. It seemed that he had lost all power of self-control. He had to do as she told him. There were anger and hatred in his eyes, but there was also terror. He tried to rise from the chair. He wanted to scream for help. He thought of falling to his knees and crying for mercy. Instead he simply sat still and looked at Lilith Lamereaux.

She picked up the thing on the chair near him and walked away. She was in back of him and she simply vanished, tap-tap-tapping on the waxed, polished, dustless floor. He wanted to turn around and see where she had gone, but instead he simply kept looking at the burning candles. Then he heard the tap-tap-tapping of her little heels and there she was back again, arranging the plates on the table, one in front of him and one in front of the dead woman on the other side of the table. She arranged the glasses and the bottles and wiped a speck of crumb and a drop of the wine off the polished table.

"I always like to have things neat," she commented, with her little bird-like laugh. "You know I always was neat. My soul was so clean till I met you some years ago. And now I am going to take this dagger and carefully wipe all the finger prints off the handle and put it cautiously on the table in front of you. I will not try to use it on you again. I tried three times and failed, so why should I try again? But—take another glass of the wine—empty the bottle—that is good; it is like old times to see you drinking. You always thought such curious thoughts when you were drunk—and you are drunk now. In fact you are very drunk. And you are wondering if this is not a hundred years ago. Can you do that? There are two of you at the table drinking. And in desperation the little lady kills you, and then perhaps she poisons herself.

"The father comes in and finds you both dead. Perhaps he blames himself. At least he leaves you there and locks the house. Now the poor little lady is dead; so she cannot kill you again, but you could kill yourself. How easy it would be for you to kill yourself! And if they examined the dagger for finger prints they would find there your finger prints. It would be suicide; they certainly could not blame this poor dried-up lady tied so carefully to the chair and seated across the table from you.

"And you have wanted to kill yourself so often. Keep that thought—you wanted to kill yourself so often. And now with the whisky and the wine and the perfect stage-setting and your memories of how you treated me, it should be so easy for you to do so. All you have to do is to take the dagger and plunge it into your heart. I will tie you to the chair so you will not drop over—after you are dead. And all the money will go to poor people who need it; to little children who have no parents. It will be the only act of kindness you ever thought of doing in your life; it will even atone for the way you treated me. Go ahead and do it; in fact, after I leave you, you cannot help yourself."

She walked in back of him and he could hear the tap-tap-tapping of her little heels on the waxed and polished and dustless floor. He looked at the candles burning with steady flame in the silent room. It was too silent. He thought he could hear his heart beating, or was it the tap-tap-tap of her little heels pounding his life away? No! It was her heels. She was in back of him. She was passing a sheet around his body, tying him in the chair so that he would not fall to the