The Second Confession Read Online Free PDF

go to bed I’ll want to lock my door because I’m nervous, so if you have a master key will you kindly lend it to me?'
    There was nothing slow about him. He was already smiling before I finished. Then he shook his head. 'I don’t think so. There are certain standards-oh, to hell with standards. But he is here as my daughter’s guest, with my permission, and I think I would prefer not to open his door for you. What reason have you-' 'I was speaking of my door, not someone else’s. I resent your insinuation, and I’m going to tell my father, who owns stock in the corporation, and he’ll resent it too. Can I help it if I’m nervous?' He started to smile, then thought it deserved better than that, and his head went back for a roar of laughter. I waited patiently. When he had done me justice he got up and went to the door of a big wall safe, twirled the knob back and forth, and swung the door open, pulled a drawer out and figured its contents, and crossed to me with a tagged key in his hand.
    'You can also shove your bed against the door,' he suggested.
    I took the key. 'Yes, sir, thank you, I will,' I told him and departed.
    When I returned to the living-room, which was about the size of a tennis court, I found that the bridge game had not got started. Gwenn and Rony had rejoined the party. With a radio going, they were dancing in a space by the doors leading to the terrace, and Jimmy Sperling was dancing with Connie Emerson. Madeline was at the piano, concentrating on trying to accom- pany the radio, and Paul Emerson was standing by, looking down at her flying fingers with his face sourer than ever. At the end of dinner he had taken three kinds of pills, and perhaps had picked the wrong ones. I went and asked Madeline to dance, and it took only a dozen steps to know how good she was. Still more relationship.
    A little later Mrs Sperling came in, and she was soon followed by Sperling and Webster Kane. Before long the dancing stopped, and someone mentioned bed, and it began to look as if there would be no chance to dispose of the little brown capsule I had got from my medicine case. Some of them had patronized the well-furnished bar on wheels which had been placed near a long table back of a couch, but not Rony, and I had about decided that I was out of luck when Webster Kane got enthusiastic about nightcaps and started a selling campaign. I made mine bourbon and water because that was what Rony had shown a preference for during the afternoon, and the prospect brightened when I saw Rony let Jimmy Sperling hand him one. It went as smooth as if I had written the script. Rony took a swallow and then put his glass on the table when Connie Emerson wanted both his hands to show him a rumba step. I took a swallow from mine to make it the same level as his, got the capsule from my pocket and dropped it in, made my way casually to the table, put my glass down by Rony’s in order to have my hands for getting out a cigarette and lighting it, and picked the glass up again, but the wrong one-or I should say the right one. There wasn’t a chance the manoeuvre had been observed, and it couldn’t have been neater.
    But there my luck ended. When Connie let him go Rony went to the table and retrieved his glass, but the damn fool didn’t drink. He just held on to it.
    After a while I tried to prime him by sauntering over to where he was talking with Gwenn and Connie, joining in, taking healthy swallows from my glass, and even making a comment on the bourbon, but he didn’t lift, it for a sip. The damn camel. I wanted to ask Connie to get a knee lock on him so I could pour it down his throat. Two or three of them were saying good night and leaving, and I turned around to be polite. When I turned back again Rony had stepped to the bar to put his glass down, and when he moved away there were no glasses there but empty ones. Had he suddenly gulped it down'He hadn’t. I went to put my glass down, reached across for a pretzel, and lowered my