Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/34

 its bowl. I didn't want to be reminded of Coralie, and the goblet was a symbol of her.

Perhaps I was being fanciful, but to me the goblet was Coralie. Outwardly she appeared like its stem, pure and white and crystal-clear; but at the core, I'd always believe, she was scarlet as its bowl.

I didn't touch the thing. I called Mrs. Dunnigan and I pointed to it. "Wash that, please, then put it away. We shan't be using it ever again."

I thought the woman looked at me queerly, but she only said, "Yes, Mrs. Whittington," and bore it away.

But now, on this third morning after the funeral, as I went into the room with the man who'd come to measure for the new linoleum floor, I saw the cranberry goblet glowing at me again from its place on the bedside table.

I waited till the man had done his measuring and gone before I called Mrs. Dunnigan. "I wanted you to put the goblet away," I said mildly. "Not return it to where it was."

She frowned at it. "But I did, Mrs. Whittington. I put it in the pantry, and I'm sure I don't know—" She picked it up. "Why, it's full of water!"

She brought it to me so that I could see the clear liquid lapping gently against the square sides of the glass. That was the way it had looked the morning Coralie died. When I'd dropped those capsules—

I turned away, feeling a little sick. "Empty it and lock it in the court cabinet in the dining room."

Michael kept his liquors in the cabinet and always locked the door—though this was a gesture, merely, since the key remained in the lock.

The men came just then to remove the furniture from Coralie's room and I busied myself with other things, forgetting about the goblet.

UT the next morning, when I awoke, I was angry. And, I thought, enlightened.

For the first thing I saw was the cranberry goblet on my bedside table. I didn't get up, but by stretching I could see that it was full of colorless liquid.

I thought I had the explanation right away. Mrs. Dunnigan was doing this. I didn't knew what she suspected, or what she hoped to gain, but it seemed obvious she was leaving this reminder constantly about.

I rang for the housekeeper.

"I thought I told you to lock that in the cabinet," I said, when she was standing before me.

She seemed genuinely surprised when she saw the goblet. I hadn't thought she'd be so good an actress. "I did put it away, Mrs, Whittington. And locked the door."

"You're lying to me," I said flatly.

She opened her mouth, perhaps to deny the charge, then closed it, trap-like. Her eyes seemed to be appraising me shrewdly, and I didn't like the calculating look that flitted across her hard face. I'd had enough of the woman. There had always been veiled insolence in her manner to me.

"I'm giving you two weeks' notice," I said, "With the help shortage what it is, you should be able to find something else by then."

She drew Herself up. "If you'll give me two weeks' salary, I'll leave today. I've not been satisfied here since Miss Coralie—"

I nodded.