Read Ebook: Thirty Degrees Cattywonkus by Bell James

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Ebook has 723 lines and 119055 words, and 15 pages

Thirty Degrees Cattywonkus

It was a tremendous house. And they were newlyweds. And were still a mite flighty. And for a while that accounted for the whole thing.

At the moment, it seemed to Ernie Lane that in a house which even the real estate agent said had "either" eleven or twelve rooms, it was quite conceivable that he and Melinee had overlooked that extra room.

After all, they had only been living at 1312 Cedar Lane for four days and had hardly had time to make a complete survey of the place.

Now it was quite different. For Ernie Lane had stopped walking hurriedly past that extra door, had stopped giving it only casual curiosity, had even stopped wondering afterward.

This night he had come home a bit tired, gone directly to greet his loving wife, and then decided to put a stop to the gnawing question.

While Melinee fried the chicken, Ernie walked carefully and wordlessly to the dim hallway. He went past the staircase, past the telephone, to the darkest spot between the living room and the study. He stood for a strange moment--there was no extra door.

He felt the refinished wall, his fingertips searching for hidden panels. There was none.

"Supper's ready," Melinee called. "Ernie?"

But it had been there last night, the night before, the night before that, and the very first night the real estate agent brought them over. In fact, he recalled, that was the reason the agent had been uncertain about the number of rooms. And why had he passed it off as a joke, simply turning from the extra door without opening it?

Ernie felt again.

It was ceasing to be a joke. He was not a man of hallucinations. He was not a victim of superstition, fear or near-sightedness. He only wanted to know why he saw a door one day and didn't see it the next.

He called a comforting word to his wife, then reached for the telephone book. He found the name of Hartley and Hartley, Real Estate. PLaza 0-6633. Without any undue commotion, he dialed. In a moment, a woman's voice at the other end seemed to barge into his life.

"Special operator. Number, please?"

"PLaza 0-6633."

"Sorry, sir, we have no such number--"

Ernie let a disgruntled voice thunder into the phone: "Then what the heck is Hartley and Hartley Realty doing with it?"

A pause. Then she replied, "Sir, we have no Hartley and Hartley--"

"Don't be silly," he said. "I just found it in the phone book."

She answered, "We have a Hartfield and Hatley, Realtors, Inc., sir, but no Hartley and Hartley. Their number is in the directory."

Melinee was standing behind him. "Who are you calling?"

He was shaken, but he managed to appear calm as he hung up. He even relaxed against the wall. "I was trying to get the real estate agent on the phone--these lights ought to be brighter--and I thought he could refer us to his electrician."

"His what?" Melinee asked.

"Elec--" He halted. "Never mind, honey. I'm beat--rough day. I need fried chicken." He hugged his trim, prim wife and they walked toward the kitchen arm in arm. But it was not until they settled at the table that he saw, under the bright electric light, that her hair was red, not blonde, and he immediately felt he'd been gypped.

Her smirky little voice added to the shock. "Darling, don't call me Melinee when my name is Marsha. It just isn't done."

On purpose, Ernie spent an uneventful evening, arose the next morning, ignored his wife's red hair, conveniently forgot her name, avoided even checking to see if the door was there, and saved up a sneer for the telephone.

During the day, his business life was perfect. He got the Jenkins account, lunched with the boss, and was asked to serve on the membership committee in the Chamber of Commerce drive. However, during the afternoon he developed a terrific headache and excused himself from the office long enough to see the company physician.

The thin, foxy doctor handed him a pill and a glass of water. After Ernie had swallowed the pill politely, the physician leaned forward and gazed at his eyes and forehead. "Tell me, Lane--you're a newlywed, aren't you?"

Ernie nodded.

"Then why the worried frown? You seem to be carrying the Rock of Gibraltar on your shoulders. Is your job too much for you?"

"Of course not," Ernie said, smiling. "I told you I had a headache."

"Perhaps," the doctor said, smiling back. "You seemed to have been in something of a prepossessed state when you came in. I was just curious."

Ernie laughed it off and at the doctor's request lay on a cot for a period of ten minutes. When he returned to the office, there was a request that he call a "Marsha."

The sudden venomous thoughts of the evening before spun before his eyes. What the devil was going on with the woman? The new name, the new hair-do, the new smirk in her voice--that wasn't the woman he married. He grabbed the phone and called home.

Twenty rings. No answer.

It was a quarter of four when the switchboard notified him that his wife was on the line. "Hello, Ernie? This is Melinee. I'm at the Lee Hat Shop. Can you meet me in half an hour? I want to do some shopping and I thought we'd have supper and maybe see a movie."

Melinee? It was all like a breath of spring. Away from that house, she was a different person. Happily, he agreed to buying her a new hat, supper and a ticket to Loew's State. For Melinee, anything. For Marsha, nothing.

And when they met, surely enough her hair was blonde again and the smirk in her voice was gone. She was his bride, and he forgot whatever the past, present or future might hold.

The future, however, was not long coming. After the movie, they returned home and were about to settle down when, passing along the hallway, Ernie looked over his shoulder and saw the extra door. Quickly, he reached past Melinee and grasped the knob with his hand.

She startled him. He laughed, and they went in to bed.

It was around one A.M. when Ernie decided he would not be able to put off any longer the chore of exploring that hall door. It plainly had not been there the night before; it plainly was there tonight.

He tiptoed softly from bed and left the room. Melinee did not even stir. He closed the door lightly and cat-footed his way through the darkness to the wall switch at the foot of the stairs.

Stealthily looking all about him, as if someone or something might suddenly try to stop him, Ernie sneaked up on the door. He grabbed the knob with both hands, turned it briskly and the door swung open.

The pale green wall of the hallway confronted him. It was as if the door were merely hinged onto the wall. No opening whatever.

He tapped it with his knuckles. Then he examined the door. It was a French style thing extending from floor to ceiling with contrasting green slats. Identical with those appearing all along the hallways, most of them closet doors.

Just for the heck of it, he thought he would drag out a hammer and uncork the screws holding the false door--carry it to some conspicuous place and observe as it went through its next disappearing act. But as he turned to head for the tool cabinet, Ernie heard the din of distant shouting--as if a room-full of men were playing cards.

And yet not so distant. For a moment the world became silent. Ernie pressed an ear against the wall behind the false doorway. It seemed to be coming from inside, and there were only a few words of any audible clarity. "Maximum--not much longer--and logarithms--"

Ernie tried the adjacent door. It opened into a small storage room, unlighted. He felt around the wall paneling, but no switch. Gauging the dimensions, it seemed to him that the storage room practically accounted for all the space behind the hall. If the fake door opened onto a room, it could only be this room, and there was nothing here.

He listened. No sound inside the confines of the room. But the moment he returned, pressed his ear against the outer wall, Ernie heard them shouting again. It was as if the wall were twelve inches thick--as if he were not hearing anything at all--and yet hearing.

The thought struck him--there was a laundry chute opening from the second floor to the storage room. Provided they wanted to install a chute. Meanwhile, the agent had told him, it would remain just a hole in the floor.

He and Melinee had not made any plans for developing the second floor. It was evident that his mother would one day have to live with them, and her own invalid sister, in time. And then whatever children there might be. But so far he and Melinee had actually made only one trip up there with the agent.

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