Chapter 6
Two days later Lewis invited himself to dinner at my house. He phoned up towards midday and asked whether it would be convenient for him to come. I agreed at once, saying that I looked forward to seeing him again. But he was rather noncommittal on the telephone. He appeared to have something on his mind.
I went at once to the kitchen to tell Kirstin that I was expecting a guest for dinner. The kitchen was located in the basement next to the laundry. As I walked along the stone corridor I heard a queer noise which I took to be a girl's whimper. I hesitated and listened. The sound came again.
I walked quietly up to the kitchen door and knocked.
Inside there was a scuffling movement and then, almost at once, the door opened and Kirstin, a strange smile on her broad Nordic features, looked out at me. When she saw me she stepped back to allow me to enter.
Mona, the upstairs maid, left the kitchen by the back door as I entered. I was again struck by the exceeding whiteness of her skin under her rich chestnut red hair. Green eyes, I remembered-she was a pretty child.
"Did you wish something, sir?" Kirstin's voice was obsequious, perhaps amused at the same time. The sound of her voice aroused me from my own thoughts.
"Oh yes, Kirstin. I have a guest coming to dinner tonight, Mr. Lewis. That's all really."
I hesitated, looking at her.
She was a big-boned woman with heavy flesh who gave the impression, as I have remarked before, of being a masseuse or an abortionist or something of that nature. Her hair was pale blonde and her small blue eyes were sunk in her dough-like face like buttons in soft wax. Her features were rather fine in spite of the roll of fat under her chin. She was about five feet seven inches tall and in her high heels which she wore all the time must have stood about five feet nine or ten, two inches at the most shorter than myself.
"Very good, Mr. Folsrom," she said, but the expression on her face did not fit the words somehow and I found myself gazing at her without quite knowing why.
Her small blue eyes returned my stare almost impertinently, and then suddenly she turned and busied herself with her pots in which the lunch was being cooked.
"How's your shoulder, sir?" she said without turning around.
I looked at her back for a moment without replying. Her shoulders were broad and powerful, the buttocks heavily-muscled, her bare calves under the white housecoat fat and smooth like codfish.
"Better, thanks, Kirstin. A bit stiff, that's all."
"Soon put that right," she said without looking at me. "A little massage is what you need, sir."
"Massage? You're not a masseuse by any chance, Kirstin?"
"I did a bit of it before I took up this work," she said. "If you like I'll give you a rub sometime during the afternoon, Mr. Folsrom."
I hesitated.
Was it my own wayward imagination which divined suggestion in her words?
"That's very good of you, Kirstin. Come up around four o'clock if that suits you."
"Very good, sir."
"I think a brace of pigeon for tonight, Kirstin."
"Yes, Mr. Folsrom." I left the kitchen.
All during the afternoon the thought returned to me that there was something almost sinister about this big Swedish woman who was now the head of my household staff. What was it precisely? And why did I have a sense of strange expectation from her impending visit? And the whimper which I had most certainly heard on the way to the kitchen-what did that mean? My curiosity was aroused. I spent a reflective two hours after lunch was over....
Exactly at four o'clock Kirstin knocked at the door. "Come in!"
She entered, dressed as always in her white housecoat.
She took in the furniture of the library at a glance.
"There's a divan in your dressing room, sir. I think that would be more suitable." I nodded.
"All right. Let's go up."
At the foot of the stairs she paused to allow me to go up first.
"After you, Kirstin," I said.
She went up first and I followed.
In the dressing room she instructed me to remove my upper clothing. My wound was covered with sticking plaster and lint. She made me lie face downwards on the divan, and, sitting sideways beside me, she laid her large hands on my back, the thumbs parallel with my spine. Slowly, and with firm pressure, she began to massage me. She had produced a bottle of oil from her housecoat pocket, so that the friction would not irritate my skin.
In a very few minutes I felt utterly relaxed. Her hands seemed to possess the power of magic, at once soothing and stimulating, caressing and threatening. I breathed heavily, partly because of the pressure she exerted and the resultant expulsion of air from my lungs and partly because her strong hands, imparting something of their mystery, had given birth to a crude sexual excitement in me.
She had massaged my whole back, from my neck and shoulders down to the waistband of my trousers.
"If you'll just push your trousers down a moment, sir, I'll finish you off properly," she said.
I assented without argument, doing as I was bid. And then her hands were at my buttocks and thighs, kneading the flesh like baker's dough and bringing relaxation to all the muscles of my legs.
There is an obvious metaphor: I was like clay in her hands. I think she could have done anything she wished to me at that moment. I couldn't remember ever having been so entirely in another's power. Even as a child, when Anna used me, she had to be coaxed and encouraged to take control. But at the moment I made the mental resolution that I should resist nothing Kirstin left off massaging me, took a towel, and rubbed me briskly from head to foot.
"I'm sure you feel better now, sir," she said, looking down at me from her small blue eyes. "You might take a bath, now."
"Yes, thanks, Kirstin," I said. "It's very good of you to have taken all this trouble."
"No trouble at all, sir. Keeps my hand in.
But I must get back to the kitchen now if there's to be dinner tonight." I nodded.
A moment later Kirstin and her wonderful hands were gone.
I walked over to the mirror and looked at myself. My face was flushed and my eyes were bright as though I had a fever. I turned away from my own image, an inarticulate shadow of dread stirring somewhere within me.
"The pigeon is excellent," Lewis said with a smile. "I'm glad at least you didn't dispense with Kirstin's services!"
"I doubt if I shall ever do that," I laughed, and as I said it a queer feeling of impotence swept over me. It was as though her hands touched me at that moment, firmly, purposively, moving muscles as though they were her own.
Suddenly Lewis became serious.
"By the way, Saul, I have a number of questions I should like to ask you. Do you mind?"
"Not at all, Mr. Lewis. I'll be only too glad to answer. There's nothing I'd like more than for us to understand one another."
"I'm glad to hear it, my boy! I won't beat about the bush."
"Fire ahead," I replied, helping myself to some green peas. "More wine?"
"No thank you, Saul, I have to watch nowadays! A little every day and not too much at a time."
"Gather ye rosebuds!" I said.
"Tell me, Saul," Lewis said, becoming serious once again, "tell me why you shot Inez twice...."
I was slightly taken aback by the question. When I looked at him I saw he was watching me closely, ready to weigh my answer.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Well, I don't know, really ... there he was ... taking a pot at me ... I didn't really stop to think. The triggers were together. I fired them both, right, left, like that, automatically...."
"I see," Lewis said.
"Why do you ask?"
When he didn't reply, I said: "You're not suggesting I killed him on purpose?"
He was looking at me seriously. He did not reply to my question.
"My God! I didn't even know Inez! And apart from that, it was too dark and it happened too suddenly for me to see who it was at the time!"
"You're quite sure of that?"
"Of course I am! What on earth makes you think otherwise?"
Lewis leaned forward.
"Three days before you shot Inez, Saul, you visited Anna. After you shot Inez, you pretended you hadn't seen her since your return. I want you to think before you reply. The inquest is in a few days and some of these facts may come out."
I nodded. I was wondering just how much he knew.
"First of all, tell me how you know I visited Anna," I said.
"What does it matter?" he said quietly. "You were seen leaving the cottage. You had a horse with you...."
"Yes, well it seems that's known," I said in a tired voice.
"Do you see what I'm getting at, Saul?"
"No, I'm damned if I do!" I lied.
"It's just possible that you arranged this killing between you as you did the other, don't you see?"
"Good God! How fantastic! What possible motive could we have had? You can't think that!"
"I don't know what to think, Saul. I want you to tell me. For example, why did you lie about having seen her?"
I laughed bitterly.
"At first it was simply a desire not to displease you! I knew how you felt about it. And then when I'd committed myself, I couldn't go back on it ... remember, I had just killed a man. I was scared. I didn't want to put any stupid ideas into people's heads. I see now I did wrong to hide the fact."
"You certainly did! If the sheriff hears about this he may become suspicious."
"Not if he doesn't know about the other," I said.
Lewis was looking at me sternly.
"Saul, I must be convinced in my own mind of your innocence."
I made an impatient gesture.
"How can I possibly convince you? You appear to jump to a great many conclusions for a man of your experience and intelligence!"
"I jump to no conclusions!" Lewis snapped. "I simply wish to ascertain the facts. I shall ask you another question. Did you make love to Anna when you rode over to see her?"
He had caught me off my guard. That was the last question I expected. When I hesitated, I decided I would have to admit it.
"Yes. I made love to her."
"Thank you at least for being honest," he said. "Now, in the light of this, do you think the sheriff is still without a case?"
"Does McCabe know?"
"That's not the point!" Lewis said sternly. "It is I who must be satisfied."
"Before I answer any further questions, Mr. Lewis," I said coldly, "I'd like to ask you a question."
He nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Are you my friend or my enemy?"
He raised his eyebrows.
"Are there no conditions to friendship?"
"Certainly there shouldn't be if I'm polite enough to answer your questions!" I said. "Normally in an affair like this I should consult my lawyer before I made any statement whatsoever. And I certainly shall answer no more questions until I have your assurance on this point."
"Yes," he said at last. "I suppose that is justified."
"I should think it is!" I replied calmly. "I shouldn't have dreamt of answering your questions had I not taken your friendship for granted."
When he dropped his eyes to the table I realized I had touched him at his weakest point; I had appealed to his sense of honor.
What an advantage I had over him!
"I can only say this," I went on in a calm voice, "I give you my assurance on two points. On my honor, I shot in self-defense, and I hadn't the slightest idea at whom I was shooting. I can't say more."
He made a tired gesture with his right hand. It was a gesture of defeat.
When he spoke next it was to say: "Thank you, Saul. That's really all I wanted to know. I shall respect your confidence. I was simply troubled in my own mind about you. I'm sorry."
"Forget it, Mr. Lewis, I'm just sorry we didn't have this talk immediately after it happened."
He nodded.
"Tell me one thing more," he said suddenly. "What do you intend to do about Anna? I hope you aren't thinking of persuading her to remain in the neighborhood?"
"I honestly don't know, sir. Sometimes I think I owe it to her to marry her and at other times I think it would be better if she went."
"Much better, Saul. Take my word for it! You should not even contemplate keeping her here."
"Anyway, I must wait till after the inquest! Who knows, they may charge me with murder...."
I shook my head in a way which implied: what a ridiculous situation!
"No, I don't think so," Lewis said. "The man had an evil reputation. He is no loss to the community."
"Poor Inez!" I said.
He brightened when I said that.
"I'm glad you said that, Saul," he said. "It makes me feel much better. I think I could even manage some of this cheese!" I laughed.
"Help yourself," I said.
He looked up, blinking through his spectacles.
"Pearson, the junior in your late uncle's firm, is going to call on you. He will be at the inquest with you. I should tell him as much as possible if I were you. He will advise you what statement to make before the coroner."
I smiled as I watched him cut a liberal slice of Munster cheese....
After Lewis had gone I remained in the library until shortly after midnight. Lewis' curiosity as to my motives and behavior was rather disturbing. If he persisted in taking this kind of interest in my affairs, sooner or later he would surely discover something which he would feel bound to reveal to the authorities. Thus, although I had no particular plan of action in mind, I made a mental note that it would be necessary to find a way either of making him give up interest in me or of shutting his mouth.
His death, of course, would have solved the problem admirably, but any move on my part to hasten that death would be perilously made; apart from the risk of murder itself, I had no means of knowing what written records he would leave behind him, a package of papers perhaps in some bank vault, marked "To be opened in the event of my sudden death...."
He was a shrewd man, and dangerous because he was an idealist.
As no immediate solution presented itself, I decided to go to bed, but on the way up I had a sudden desire to visit the old wing of the house which to my knowledge had not been used since I left as a child-murderer for England. Perhaps I would install Anna there after the inquest: the whole wing could be renovated and turned into a large apartment for her.
Thus, on the first landing, I turned right and walked along the passage which led to the old wing.
As I came to the end of the connecting corridor, I was surprised by a slit of light which appeared under one of the doors towards the end of the old wing corridor. It was all the more startling as the passage itself was in pitch darkness.
I came to a dead stop and listened. Vague noises came to me where I stood, but they were muffled, almost inaudible, and only served to deepen the mystery.
The light and the sounds came from the room which had formerly been Anna's.
And then suddenly I remembered the bathroom through whose keyhole I had witnessed the strange sexual scene of Anna being taken by my uncle. With a growing sense of excitement I moved silently along the corridor towards the glimmer from the window at the end and when I came to the bathroom I opened the door silently and went in. A slit of light came from under the door of the adjoining bedroom. As I sank to my knees at the keyhole, I had an overpowering premonition that Kirstin would be involved in the mystery. There was something about Kirstin, a quality at once repulsive and attractive, which made me suspect that in some strange way she would be involved in my own destiny....
It is almost impossible to describe the scene to which I was the unknown witness.
The horror of it, its sticky insectal attraction, its obscenity, the salaciousness, the ruttish lewdness of the actions and of those who took part, the black sanctity of the setting-later, as we shall see, to be improved-the ballet-like movements of the participants each of whom in every erotic gesture participated religiously, blasphemously, but without a suggestion of mockery, the weird radiance of the paints used on white willing flesh, the helpless, doting abjectness of the two maids and the cruel and scandalous beauty of the priestess, Kirstin, all this transported the ceremony out of the realm of the common orgy, lending it solemnity, the solemnity of what is dangerous and deadly, for blood was to be shed, and the three grey rats cowering in the comer near a hunk of red beef twitched in fear and trembling as the ceremony advanced.
All furniture had been removed, since when I had no idea. All the filth and rubbish imaginable had been spread about the floor. Straw, excrement, rotten wood, kitchen waste, numberless things without identity, and the grey skeletons of three human beings.
The walls had been splashed with some kind of black paint, splotched here and there with red and what looked like sheep's wool. The sight and odor of the setting were obnoxious.
Kirstin was standing stark naked, her feet apart and her hands on her broad hips, like a piece of neo-realist sculpture.
It was perhaps the most powerful female torso I had ever laid eyes on. From her thick neck under her melonish blonde head the muscles swept down across her chest to the pale round moons of her breasts, each stuck with a nipple the size of a large black grape and tattooed to look like enormous hairy spiders. The illusion was magnificent. It was as though two spiders clung there drawing blood, their bloated bodies hard with suck. Below, across the sweep of her teeming white belly, a perfect web was marked, spotted here and there with red, and at her navel another spider clung, grosser, hairier than the others, looking down the sweeping web to the dark and hairy center at her crotch. Thus her whole muscled front, the thick slabs of the thighs, the great, creamy, hunky abdomen, the hips, supported the web of which the center was the black hole of her sex and upon which crawled three terrible spiders.
Her large white toes flexed themselves amongst the muck and she gazed downwards at the two naked girls who sat on the floor, with their backs toward me, cross-legged, facing her.
The girls, of course, were Milly and Mona, as I was able to tell from their hair, the tresses of one dark, the tresses of the other chestnut red, cascading down over their pale white shoulder blades from which, shockingly, folds of cellophane were draped, and now, as I looked closer, I was able to see exactly what they were: between their slim white arms and the sides of their torsos, much like the webbing of a duck's feet, artificial cellophane wings had been stuck with adhesive tape, so that when their arms moved the wings did also, like the wings of insects. I watched, fascinated.
Kirstin was talking quietly and the girls, cross-legged amongst the muck, were seated submissively on their soft young haunches, nodding their pretty heads in comprehension.
Then Kirstin broke her pose and moved backwards to the far comer of the room, still facing me. A bench had been placed diagonally across the comer, one end touching each of the walls.
Kirstin now climbed upon this and stood, her thick legs wide apart and her plump white arms spread wide and high in crucifixion.
I stared in horror.
She was strung across the comer of the room like an ugly web of black spiders. She spoke.
At once the girls got up and moved naked about the room, fluttering their translucent wings. Each time they neared the comer where the rats were the rats bared their teeth and the hair rose in coarse, quivering spines at the backs of their necks. It was only as the girls moved that I noticed Milly's belly was shaded a bottle blue, and that Mona's was striped yellow and black, tawny as a wasp. I glanced at Kirstin. She was speaking again.
Each girl picked up a skeleton. The fantasy began. I was conscious at once of the fact that fixed firmly on each skeleton was a rubber penis. Carefully, in a practiced way, each girl slipped it into her, draped the arms of a skeleton over her back and shoulders, and laid herself down on the filthy straw. To see a skeleton pricking a young girl, the bones bouncing like a beaded parrot-cage on her soft belly, is a strange sight. It did not last long. I had the impression that Kirstin was impatient for her little insects to become stuck in her web. She said something and the girls rose immediately, allowing the skeletons to tumble onto the floor. They began to fly again, or rather, to make the motions of flying. Mona was more graceful than Milly. Her movements were less abrupt and the flesh of her buttocks was a startling white against her red hair.
I was trembling with the pleasure of anticipation. By this time, no doubt remained in my mind that soon I should be taking part in these intimate ceremonies. I saw at last in Kirstin the woman to whom I could become committed.
Anna? There was no need to lose Anna now. She belonged to me, but belonging to me as she did, I would never be able to have that from her which I had desired from the beginning.
But these thoughts were soon pushed from my mind by the pressure of what was going on in front of my eyes.
Mona had arrived in front of Kirstin and was fluttering her wings as though attracted by the web. It was most life-like, although she was more like a moth blinded by light than a wasp about to be trapped in a spider's web.
Kirstin's small blue eyes watched her closely. I held my breath. Mona now ran against Kirstin's powerful belly, rubbing her cheek there, and Kirstin's arms descended like claws, which in fact they were, for she was wearing some kind of points on her fingers, thimbles, perhaps, with metal points, and the cellophane wings were torn away from the pretty shoulder blades and blood trickled from scratches on Mona's white back. She was falling now to her knees, a frail insect beaten to death by another more powerful, and her hovering lips came suddenly to rest at the dead center of the web, on the black mass of Kirstin's powerful sex. Kirstin's talons at once grasped the fair child by the hair, forcing the young, tearstained face, into the dark night of her thighs, and then Kirstin was down on top of the girl, the girl helpless on the straw, her head held firmly between Kirstin's massive thighs.
Milly, meanwhile, continued to flutter about the room, but soon she too came within Kirstin's reach, reeling almost drunkenly, and was suddenly caught by the ankle and dragged off her feet into such a position that Kirstin was able to suck at her sex, avidly, and with great moans and breathing. The three women now thrashed about on the filthy straw, and Milly's mouth crept slowly towards Mona's sex and soon the perfect rope of women's bodies was formed, a circle of frantic limbs, three mouths embedded at three sexes, and a dull dunting of flesh. Both girls were bleeding freely from the scratches inflicted by Kirstin's steel claws; and then, Kirstin, with terrible power, had freed herself from the triple embrace and crushed the two young things under her huge body, rubbing, rubbing voluptuously against the bleeding flesh.
The rats, meanwhile, had begun to nibble at the meat....
It was at this point that I came away. I had no curiosity to see any more. I was far more concerned with the possibility of meeting Kirstin on another plane than that of master and servant. I paced about the library consumed with a mad passion to call her at once and throw myself at her feet.
Here at last was the risk which I was looking for, the intensity, the obscenity, the criminality to which I could bring the willing consent of my own body and soul. The vision of Anna paled before the image of Kirstin. The one wished nothing more than to be a victim; the other would dare to victimize. What hellish green fires must have burned within Kirstin to make the woman-beast of her that I saw in action!
I had to make a compact at once. I would wait an hour when the orgy surely would be over and then I would ring for her. For the first time in my life I had met a woman to whom I could dedicate myself. The old craving to be the instrument of another's will surged up in me anew. Kirstin. Kirstin. Faust is waiting for you....
At one thirty a.m. I rang for her.
Seven minutes later she knocked at the door of the library. "Come in!"
Kirstin, dressed as usual in her white housecoat, entered.
She looked at me curiously.
"You rang for me, Mr. Folsrom?"
"Yes, Kirstin. Come in please and sit down."
With a shrug of her broad shoulders she did as I asked.
"Something to drink?"
"I'll take a small whiskey," she said.
I poured it for her and carried it across to her where she sat. Her eyes flickered as I handed it to her.
I was rather nervous. I still didn't know how to begin.
"You're from Stockholm, Kirstin?"
"No. From Kiruna."
"That's in the North?"
She nodded. There was a suggestion of impatience in her eyes.
"You strike me as a very strong character, Kirstin."
She shrugged and drained her glass.
"Was this what you called me for, Mr. Folsrom. It's very late and I'm tired. I have to get up early in the morning."
"Not necessarily. I could excuse you from your duties."
"How do you mean?"
"Perhaps I could use you in another capacity, one that would be more profitable for you."
"So?"
"I thought it best to wait until all the other servants were in bed. I didn't wish us to be disturbed. Make yourself comfortable and help yourself to more whiskey." I passed her the bottle from which she poured herself another drink, this time more liberally.
"What's on your mind, Mr. Folsrom?"
"I'm thinking of a spider-woman," I said casually.
She flushed.
"Spider-woman? I don't know what you mean. What is a spider-woman?"
I was gazing at her big calves. Her legs were crossed at the knees.
"Would you mind uncrossing your legs, Kirstin?"
She did so slowly, watching me suspiciously.
"If I were to lie down on the floor and kiss your feet, Kirstin, what would you do?"
She didn't reply. A queer light played in her eyes.
Slowly, cautiously, I went to my knees, and then, lying supine on the floor, I raised one of her fat white feet to my lips.
She laughed harshly.
"So that's what you want!" she said.
She stood up and removed her white housecoat. She lifted the skirt of her nightdress high above her smooth white belly, exhibiting the dark maw of her sex and the hairy spider of her navel.
"Get up," she said. "On your knees! Look at it!"
The huge chunky thighs were as white as chalk, anastomosed by the black tendrils of the web.
She hitched the front part of her skirt above her waist and sat down on the edge of an armchair. Her big fingers opened the lips of her vagina, exhibiting the orchidaceous flesh, pink, oily, obscene.
"Touch that," she said huskily, "and you won't get away again...."
I gazed from the flower to the spider. The craving ran like a plague through my body.
"Your lips," she said. "Like you were praying...."
I lunged forward.
My mouth hit her soft crotch with the force of a fist....