Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith (best books to read now .TXT) 📕

anything the night of the Cowans' party he'd have said so before now. Melinda wouldn't be keeping quiet anything of importance that he had told her.

       Vic went back and finished his vacuuming with a zest. Melinda was a challenge, and he rather relished it.

       He fixed the entire dinner, including applesauce with an egg-white beaten into it for dessert. Trixie had fallen asleep in her room, and Vic did not awaken her, assuming that she had probably eaten more than enough at the Petersons'. Vic was very cheerful and talkative during the meal. But Melinda was thoughtful, she really did not attend to everything he said, and her inattention was not deliberate.

       About ten days later, at the beginning of the month of September when the bank statement came in, Vic noticed that over a hundred dollars more than usual had been withdrawn, by Melinda, of course. Some of her checks made out to "cash" were among the canceled drafts—one for $125—but there was no check with any addressee that would give him a clue as to what she had used the money for. He tried to remember if she had bought any clothes, anything for the house. She hadn't, that he knew of. Ordinarily he would not have noticed an excess of a hundred dollars in their monthly budget, but because he was so wary now of Melinda's actions he supposed he had examined the bank statement with more than the usual care. The $125 check was dated 20 August, more than a week after De Lisle's funeral in New York (which Melinda had gone to New York for), and Vic did not think it could have been for flowers or for anything to do with the funeral.

       Vic thought it possible that she had hired a private detective, so he began to look around for a new face in Little Wesley, a new face that might betray a particular interest in him.

Chapter 12

September was a quiet month, as far as social events went. People were busy getting a cellar floor repaired, cleaning out drainpipes, checking their heating systems in preparation for the winter, and corralling the workmen to do all this, which sometimes took a week. Vic was called to Wesley by the MacPhersons to pass judgment on an oil stove that they intended to buy. And Mrs. Podnansky had a dead squirrel in her well. She didn't use the well for anything except decor, and it was not that the water had to be clean, but the floating squirrel upset her. Vic got it out with one of his old butterfly nets attached to a rake handle. Mrs. Podnansky, who had been angling for it with a bucket on a rope for days before she called him, she said, was all aflutter with gratitude. Her nervous, rather sweet face lighted up and she had looked for a few moments on the brink of making him a little speech—a little speech about her confidence in him and her affection for him in spite of the talk around the town, Vic supposed—but all she finally said, in a mischievous tone, was:

       "I've a bottle of something awfully good in the kitchen. Calvados. My son gave it to me. Wouldn't you like to sample it?"

       And Vic was unpleasantly reminded of the extra pieces of cake that pitying hostesses used to force upon him. He smiled and said, "Thanks very much, my dear. I'm on the water wagon these days."

       The butterfly net, which Vic had not held in his hand for years, reminded him of the pleasure he had used to find in pursuing butterflies around the brook behind the house. He thought he should do some more of it.

       Twice Vic passed Don Wilson in town, once on the sidewalk and once when Vic was driving and Wilson was on foot. Both times Wilson gave him a sneaking smile, a faint nod, and what might have been described as a long look, and both times Vic had called out "Hi! How are you?" with a beaming smile. Vic knew that Melinda had been over to see the Wilsons several times. Perhaps Ralph Gosden had been there, too. Vic might have proposed asking the Wilsons to the house, except that they rather bored him, and besides he could feel that Melinda considered them her friends now, not his, and did not want to share them with him. Then one afternoon June Wilson came to the printing plant.

       She came in shyly, apologized for coming unannounced, and asked Vic if he had the time to show her around the place. Vic said of course he had.

       Stephen was standing at the press. He knew the Wilsons, and he greeted June with a surprised smile. Stephen did not stop his work. Vic took note of the way each had spoken to the other, looking for any coolness on Stephen's part, but he couldn't have said that he saw any Stephen was a very polite young man, however. Vic showed June a chase of Greek type, which he was going to make impressions of on tissue paper that afternoon and correct, showed her the storeroom, introduced her to Carlyle, and then they watched Stephen for a few minutes, until June evidently thought the proper length of time had passed, because she suggested that they go into his office. Once in there, June lighted a cigarette quickly, and said in a straightforward way:

       "I came here to tell you something."

       "What?" Vic asked.

       "To tell you that I don't approve of what my husband is doing,

       and that I don't think the way he does. And I—" Her thin hands worked with the leather cigarette case, tremblingly stuck the flap back into place to close it. "I'm very embarrassed by the way he's acting."

       "What do you mean?"

       She looked at him, her blue eyes wide and young and earnest. The sunlight through the window behind her burned