The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror Read online

  “That was very generous of you, Audrey. You’re a superior person—I’ve always known that. I love you.”

  The wife was radiant with sudden happiness. The kiss would burn forever in her heart. Extravagantly she thought—He loves me! I will never doubt him again.

  5. The Predator’s Shadow

  Her.

  It was on the third day of the Galapagos excursion that the wife saw, to her shock, the sleek-black-haired Chinese girl at the farther end of the ship’s lounge standing amid a gathering of mostly men.

  The wife stared, disbelieving. Her heart clamored like a bell of alarm—No. Not here. Henry would not . . .

  The husband had gone on ahead, to have drinks with colleagues at the Institute, before dinner. The wife had remained in the cabin, fighting a headache. The day’s outings had been strenuous: in the morning a “wet landing” in the rocky surf of Pitt Point, on San Cristóbal Island, and a two-hour hike to the top of a volcanic ridge; in the afternoon, another “wet landing” at Gardner Bay and a hike along a sandy beach amid colonies of sea lions, Galapagos hawks and sea turtles. Though the husband was still limping he’d managed to complete both hikes, using the walking stick; the wife too had begun walking with a stick. Quickly, she’d become dependent upon it.

  Frequently the husband asked the wife if she was all right? If the excursions were not too much for her? For Henry could be kindly, solicitous. At times, the wife believed that her husband felt some measure of—could it be guilt? remorse?—looking at her with thoughtful eyes. And he’d been impressed, she thought, by how well she’d adapted to the Galapagos outings: she’d been only mildly seasick on the Floreana, once; even when staggering with exhaustion on a hike, she never complained. Her admiration for the stark, windswept beauty of the Galapagos Islands seemed to be sincere. She even spent time in the ship’s library, reading about the history of the Galapagos so that she could talk intelligently about it with Henry and fellow passengers.

  You’re not sorry that you came with me, Audrey?

  Not at all! I love it here . . . it’s the adventure of my life.

  The wife was determined to be positive. The wife was determined to survive!

  Tried not to think of the awkward and frightening experience on the Moon Deck the previous night. As she tried not to think of the awkward and frightening incident on the stone steps in Quito.

  In both instances, she’d overreacted—she knew. Feeling now a thrill of shame, that she’d behaved in such a childish manner.

  Fortunately Henry seemed to have forgiven her about the Moon Deck, as about the stone steps in Quito. Airily he’d waved aside her embarrassed apology—“Darling, don’t be silly! It was very dark on the deck, anyone would be frightened. We’ll try again tomorrow night when there may be a full moon.”

  The wife shuddered, anticipating a return to the dreaded Moon Deck. But perhaps the husband wasn’t serious.

  This afternoon, the husband had gone snorkeling in the deep water of Gardner Bay. The wife had remained onshore with the rest of the Albatrosses. She’d been mildly anxious about the husband, swimming with mostly younger swimmers, but of course Henry was a practiced swimmer; he’d often gone scuba diving, he had told her. The wife was not a confident swimmer, and would never have dared swim in the ocean, near rocks, in waters so populated with sea life (including, at times, stingrays and sharks). Now, the wife recalled having been struck by a single female snorkeler in the water, slender, young—not a member of the Albatrosses but of another group. She wondered if the snorkeler had been the black-haired Chinese girl, if Henry and the girl had arranged to meet surreptitiously to swim together . . .

  It is not possible! Henry would not deceive me so openly.

  It is a girl who resembles the intruder. It is not her.

  But there was the husband, tall, silvery-haired, with the group that included the Chinese girl, obviously his colleagues at the Institute. Indecisively the wife stood, staring.

  Just inside the lounge entrance was a horseshoe-shaped bar about which customers crowded. The wife couldn’t see past them clearly, and was hidden by them, should the husband glance around looking for her.

  It was a festive time! Drinks, after the rigors of the day. The ship’s ornate interior, after the primitive windswept exteriors of the day. Music was playing loudly, tinnily. The wife clutched at her head trying to think.

  Go away. You didn’t see. He hasn’t seen you. Nothing has happened that is irrevocable.

  Henry didn’t expect her until dinner, at their usual table in the dining room on the lower level. If the black-haired girl was at dinner somewhere in the dining room, it had to be at a distant table since the wife had not seen her before.

  More reasonably then she thought—But this young woman is one of Henry’s colleagues at the Institute. Not the other . . .

  The sleek-black-haired girl who’d broken into their house could not possibly be the sleek-black-haired girl with whom Henry was speaking. The wife berated herself, for thinking this could be so.

  It was like the episode on the Moon Deck. The wife had thought—Of course, he wants to kill me. Even as the wife thought—That is not possible. He loves me.

  “Drink, ma’am?”—one of the Ecuadoran waiters smiled at her with a flash of friendly white teeth. In the staff’s eyes she was ma’am and of no more interest than the small number of older, grandmotherly and white-haired women among the ship’s passengers.

  Surreptitiously the wife made her way forward. Her heart was beating as in the presence of a terrible danger; her eyes flooded with tears of grief and humiliation. She saw that Henry was speaking with the tall sleek-black-haired girl, among others; they were all relaxed, laughing together; clearly these were Institute colleagues of Henry’s whom Audrey had not met, or hadn’t recalled meeting, for there were many colleagues and the wife didn’t attend all Institute events. Almost, she felt relief: if Henry were romantically involved with the girl, would they be so openly together? So blatant?

  She wondered if the girl had a companion on the ship. One of the men? If so, it was hardly possible that the girl and Henry Wheeling were having an affair. It was possible, but it was unlikely.

  Unlikely, and loathsome.

  The sleek-black-haired girl was certainly Asian, and very attractive, and in her mid- or late twenties, but the individual whom the wife had seen hastily descending the stairs in her house had not been so tall, she was sure. (But was this young woman wearing high-heeled shoes?) She was wearing a tight-fitting floral-print Chinese silk dress that fitted her like a glove, worn with a vivid green silk shawl. And around her slender neck, gleaming slate-colored pearls. The intruder had had whiter skin, and a striking red mouth, while this young woman didn’t seem to be wearing lipstick at all. And her hair didn’t fall past her shoulders in a shining cascade but only just to the tips of her ears. Had she cut her hair? Was this the same person?

  The wife saw the husband laughing, and the girl was laughing with him. The wife saw the husband lightly touch the girl’s shoulder—adjusting the silk shawl. It was an innocent gesture, she was sure.

  They were colleagues, Henry and the sleek-black-haired Asian girl. That was all.

  Bravely the wife decided to come forward, to meet them. In her hand was an Ecuadoran fruit drink laced with vodka, she didn’t remember taking. And she didn’t remember sipping the drink, though her throat burned pleasantly.

  As she approached Henry and his colleagues, the heel of her shoe caught in the carpet and the wife nearly tripped. Henry turned, and saw her, and smiled quickly. “Darling! Just in time . . . I’d like you to meet Steffi Park, one of our newest and brightest neurobiologists.”

  The wife was introduced to several others, whom (she supposed) she’d met before, though she couldn’t recall their names. Everyone, including the Asian girl, called her “Mrs. Wheeling” and was very polite to her.

  S
teffi Park’s handshake was forthright. Steffi Park was not at all shy. And she was not so young: in her thirties at least. Her skin was beautiful but slightly sallow, and there were fine white lines bracketing her eyes. Still, her dark eyes shone with a kind of intellectual merriment. She and Henry Wheeling were very good friends, you could see. And the fragrance of the girl’s shining black hair was such, the wife felt as if she might swoon.

  Henry was smiling, and Steffi Park was smiling. It was an astonishing joint performance—the husband introducing, to the wife, the very individual who’d broken into their house a few months before, whom the wife had confronted. And they are daring me to recognize her. To accuse them.

  The wife saw the arrogant couple regarding her with bemusement, unless it was pity. She saw their mouths move—but could hear no words. She was feeling faint. A sensation of cold washed over her. On one of the islands the guide had described how the shadows of hawks, falling over even adult Galapagos creatures like the gigantic tortoises, triggered panic responses in them. She felt that now. The shadow of a predator hawk gliding over her.

  Wildly she thought—They will kill me. I can’t prevent it, I am helpless.

  6. “Little Apples of Death”

  “Because I am Indian, I can touch the leaves. But you must not—your skin will burn.”

  Eduardo paused to tell his listeners of the poison apple tree beside the steeply ascending trail on the island of Santa Cruz—the “little apples of death”—which resembled a crab apple tree, with stunted, greenish-yellow fruit. Carefully Eduardo touched a leaf with his forefinger—he did not pluck the leaf, and he did not squeeze it. “The leaf may sting even me, a little. But if one of you touched it, you would develop a painful rash, and if you touched your eyes—well, you would not want to do that!”

  If he were to tear the leaf, Eduardo continued, which he would not do, a “white, milky sap” would appear—“Like fire on the skin.” The “little apples of death” were so virulent that just a mouthful of the fruit would start a process that destroys a person’s digestive tract, and eventually brings about an excruciating death.

  “Once the process begins, nothing can stop it. It can be misdiagnosed as simple stomach trouble . . . Children, please keep your distance from the tree. And parents, please watch your children!”

  Scattered on the ground, even on the trail, were some of the wizened little apples. The wife shuddered, considering these innocuous-looking fruits that more resembled misshapen pears than apples.

  She would take care not to step on a poison apple, for if pulp got onto the sole of her hiking shoes it might then get onto an article of clothing in her suitcase, and so onto her hands . . .

  As usual, Henry was at the head of the group of hikers, as Audrey was at the rear; like several other women, she made no effort to keep up with the faster-paced hikers. She saw with relief that Henry had gone ahead and stepped clear of the fallen fruit, following close behind Eduardo. He was in a brusque, ebullient mood—though his ankle was much better, he continued to use the walking stick. That morning he’d said, shaving, “Well—our last full day in the Galapagos! And we’ve survived.” He’d winked at Audrey in the mirror, and she’d tried to smile brightly back.

  Thinking—If I can just get back home! I will never take such a risk again.

  In the bright sunny equatorial morning, her fears of the previous night began to seem insubstantial. And she was less certain that the sleek-black-haired Steffi Park could be the brazen intruder who’d broken into their house months before . . .

  Yet still, it was probable that the husband and the sleek-black-haired “neurobiologist” were having an affair. There was an unmistakable sexual ease between the two, that dismayed the wife who had never felt such ease with Henry Wheeling even in the early, romantic days of their courtship.

  Unmistakable too were glances of pity from Henry’s Institute colleagues. Poor woman! So naïve, foolish—so blind . . .

  They had no idea that her life was in danger, however. They had no idea how ruthless, calculating, cruel Henry Wheeling could be.

  From a passenger whom she’d befriended in the ship’s library the wife had learned the chilling fact that cruise ships in international or foreign waters did not have to comply with U.S. law. In fact, there was no “U.S. law” outside the territorial United States. The Floreana was registered in Ecuador. Other cruise ships with predominantly American passengers were registered in countries as remote as Liberia! Any crimes committed on the vessels could be investigated and prosecuted only by authorities in these countries, that were notoriously open to bribes. Nor was there any likelihood of successful lawsuits filed by passengers who had due cause to be unhappy or aggrieved. In horror the wife had listened as the other passenger, an American woman of her own approximate age, recounted incidents of theft, harassment, vandalism, extortion, sexual molestation and rape, assault, even murder on the “high seas”—and how rare it was for any perpetrator to be arrested.

  Again the wife shuddered. How naïve she’d been, in so many ways!

  She felt faint with dread. An accident could happen to her on the ship, easily . . . In the pitch-dark moonless night she might fall—she might be pushed—overboard, and her body would never be found. If she disappeared from her cabin, her husband would report her missing—he would be “inconsolable.”

  Her family might suspect that her husband had killed her, or had left her behind in some terrible remote place to die. They’d never trusted him, and she had not listened to them. Love had isolated her, like a disease. She’d loved her husband too much and had no one else in whom to confide.

  In her imagination she’d begun letters to her older sister Imogene from whom she’d become estranged since her marriage to Henry Wheeling.

  Dear Imogene—

  You would not ever guess where I am! In equatorial waters, in the famous Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.

  It is a very beautiful if stark & “primitive” place. Henry had not wanted me to come initially, he’d worried that I am not fit or strong enough for the strenuous hikes, but I am doing well, I think. Indeed it is the most fascinating place I have ever visited in my life.

  But this was a false voice. This was the “wifely” voice, a fabrication.

  Dear Imogene—

  The truth is, I am so ashamed. I am afraid for my life. I am afraid of Henry. I think he is involved with another woman, a beautiful Chinese neurobiologist who must be thirty years younger than Henry, whom he has hired at the Institute. She has been in our house—she has been in our bedroom! I think Henry hopes that his wife—his present wife—will disappear from his life.

  There have been near-accidents. “Accidents”—that could have been fatal.

  I remember how you & others tried to warn me against Henry Wheeling. I am sick with shame, that I did not listen to you. For I fear that you are correct, & if I never see you again—I love you.

  Do not let my husband inherit my estate! I beg you.

  But the truth is more complicated—I love Henry. My suspicion is like a paralysis or a poison. I am anxious that this is all a mistake—my suspicions are in error—& I have misjudged an innocent man. For I believe that at any moment the husband who had loved me so much will return, & we will be happy again.

  Your loving sister

  Audrey

  This letter, she would write quickly, as soon as she had some private time on the Floreana later that day, and she would leave it with the tour director—“In case something happens to me.”

  Now, as the others moved carefully past the poison tree, the wife stooped to tie a shoelace. No one would glance twice at her, stooping to tie a shoelace. In the deep pockets of her cargo pants she’d brought wads of tissues. Carefully she used these tissues to pick up several of the wizened little apples, and carefully she wrapped the apples in the tissues, and placed them in her pockets.

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nbsp; A thimble of poison. If I bite into an apple, that will be the end.

  The wife recalled the terrifying ending of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. The novel was one of her favorites but she’d never quite accepted that Emma Bovary wasn’t a heroine but a foolish ­romantic-minded victim. Unhappy in love, hopelessly in debt, poor Emma had anticipated a languid slipping-into-sleep, but in fact she’d died horribly vomiting and convulsing, having swallowed arsenic.

  The wife would never behave so desperately. She would never swallow poison, she was sure. Yet—there is a melancholy consolation in having such a powerful poison close at hand . . .

  She hurried to catch up with the others who were making their way downhill to a greener and marshier area of the island populated by giant tortoises. Here was the high point of the Galapagos adventure—the famous giant tortoises, the largest of all tortoise species. Seen at a little distance these prehistoric-looking creatures did not appear exceptionally large, because the human eye, or the brain, “corrected” for their size; but as you approached them, you saw that they were enormous, moving with glacial slowness and dignity like Volkswagens fashioned of thick tortoiseshell. Their legs were large, rubbery-goiterous, and scaly; their protruding heads were bald and phlegmatic; their eyes were beady and unblinking, chilling to behold.

  I too am alive, like you. But I will outlive you.

  “Please do not approach the tortoises. They may appear sleepy but they are keenly aware of us. Their senses are acute.”

  In a muddy field were several of the massive tortoises. Each weighed, by Eduardo’s estimate, more than eight hundred pounds. They might be as old as a century—at least. Their hearts beat very slowly. They could hold their breath underwater for eight hours. They moved slowly and yet deliberately: it might take two months for giant tortoises to reach the sea, but they would get there, and back. They had no natural predators except, as babies just out of the shell, the Galapagos hawk.