The Stories of John Cheever

“Yes,” Katherine said suddenly and in a strong voice. She got up and began to walk back and forth in the room. “It may be unreasonable, but it’s at least worth considering. She may have been kidnapped. I’ve seen that woman in the neighborhood twice this week and I had a feeling that she was following me. I didn’t think anything about it then. And she did write me that letter. I’m not making myself clear. You see, before we had Mrs. Harley to take care of Deborah, we had a woman named Mrs. Emerson. I quarreled with her about Deborah, and she told me, while we were quarreling—I never told you any of this, darling, because I didn’t want to worry you and I didn’t think any of it was important—but when we quarreled, she said the child would be taken away from me. I tried to forget about it, because I thought she was eccentric. The city is full of strange women like that. Then I saw her on the street twice this week, and I had a sense that she was following me. She lives at the Hotel Princess. It’s on the West Side. At least, she used to live there.”

“I’ll go over,” Robert said. “I’ll get the car.”

“I’ll drive you over, Mr. Tennyson,” the sergeant said.

“Do you want to come?” Robert asked Katherine.

“No, darling,” Katherine said. “I’ll be all right.”

Robert put on his hat, and he and the sergeant left. The elevator man spoke to Robert. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Tennyson,” he said. “We all loved her in this house. I telephoned my wife and she went right over to St. John’s and lit a vigil light for the little girl.”

There was a police car in front of the house, and Robert and the sergeant got into it and drove west. Robert kept turning his head from side to side, and he did this to avert his eyes from the image of the child’s death. He imagined the accident in the clichés of “Drive Safely” posters, badly drawn and in crude colors. He saw a stranger carrying the limp body away from the fenders of a taxi; he saw the look of surprise and horror on a lovely face that had never known any horror; he heard the noise of horns, the shrieking of brakes; he saw a car coming over the rise of a hill. He made a physical effort to force his eyes to look beyond these images into the bright street.