"Henry Kuttner - This is the House UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

This is the House

MELTON WALKED somberly into the living room and headed for the front windows, where he remained, brooding over some dark thought and twisting his hands idly behind him. His wife, Michaela, lifted her head and watched him, while the whirring of the sewing machine faded into silence. After a moment she said, "You're in my light, Bob." "Am I? Sorry," Melton murmured, and moved aside.

But he still kept his back to the room, and his fingers still moved nervously behind him. Michaela frowned, sent a slow, rather questioning glance around the room, and pushed back her chair.

"Let's have a drink," she said. "Your silhouette looks vaguely rocky. A short, strong cocktail, perhapsЧhuh?"

"A short, strong snort of rye, I'd say," Melton expanded, brightening a trifle. "I'll fix it. Hm-m-m." He had taken a step toward the hall door, but now he paused, almost imperceptibly. Michaela remembered the refrigerator then. "I'll do it," she said, but Melton growled something and went on out, his footsteps heavy and determined.

Michaela crossed to the divan under the window and curled up on it, biting her lower lip and listening hard. As she expected, Bob was delaying opening the refrigerator. She heard the rattle of glasses, the clink of bottles, and a gurgle. The last tune Bob had had occasion to investigate the refrigerator, there had been a gasp and a string of blazing, subdued oaths. But he had refused to tell why. Remembering other incidents that had occurred in the last three days, Michaela moved her shoulders, uneasily. Not that she was cold. The house was warm, almost too warm, and that hi itself implied certain disturbing factors they had already noticed. Because the coal furnace hi the basement was working rather impossibly well.

Melton came back with two highballs. He gave one glass to Michaela and slumped into a chair near her. There was a long silence.

"O.K.," Melton said presently. "So I didn't put any ice hi the drinks."

"What of it?"

"Because there's ice today. There wasn't yesterday. But today the icetrays are full. Only it's red ice."

"Red ice," Michaela repeated. "I didn't do it."

Her husband looked at her darkly. "I made no accusations," he pointed out. "I didn't really think you cut a vein and bled into the icetrays, simply to worry me. I'm just saying that the ice is red now."

"That's easily solved. We'll drink the rye straight. Where's the bottle?"

Melton produced it from behind his chair. "I thought we could use several. Did you phone the agent today, Mike?"

"Yes. Nothing came of it. He got the idea we had termites."

"I wish we had. Better termites than . . . Well, what about the former tenant? Hadn't he been able to find out anything at all?"

"No, and he thinks we're busybodies."

"I don't care"ЧMelton took a long swig from his glassЧ"what he thinks. We bought this house on the understanding that it wasn'tЧwasn'tЧ" He slowed down and stopped. Michaela exchanged a long glance with him.

Melton nodded. "Sure. That's the way it is. What can we say?"

"Harmon kept talking about electricians and plumbers. He recommended several."

"That helps a lot."

"You're a defeatist," Michaela said, "and give me another drink. Thanks. After all, we're saving coal."

"At the expense of my sanity."

"Could be you don't understand this sort of furnace."

Melton put down his glass and glared at her. "I've handled furnace accounts at the office." He worked with a New York advertising agency, which was one reason they had taken this house, half an hour from Manhattan and pleasantly isolated on the outskirts of a small Hudson River town. "I've had to find out a little about how they worked. There's a place for a draft, there's a vent where the gases go out, and there's a boiler built into the furnace. You put coal hi, and, presumably, it burns out, heats the water in the boiler, and is circulated through the house radiators. There's also a blower that doesn't work. Look. If you light a match, it burns up, doesn't it?"