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Speaker 1: In the dark by Runnell Kazer. The watchman's flashlight painted

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a white circle on the frosted glass, black lettered door

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Greg Chemical Company Manufacturers a SA Gregg President Private. The

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watchman's hand closed on the knob, rattling the door in

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its frame queer but to night the sound had seemed

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to come from in there, But it couldn't be. He

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knew that mister Gregg and Miss Carruthers carried the only

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keys to the office, so any intruder would be forced

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to smash the lock. Maybe the sound came from the

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storage room. The watchman clumped along the rubber matted corridor,

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flung his weight against the door he had opened hard,

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being of ponderous metal fitted into a cork casing. The

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room was an air tight, fire proof fault. Really, his

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shoes gritted on the concrete floor. As he prowled among

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the big porcelain vats. The flashlight bore through the bluish

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haze to the concrete walls. Acid fumes escaped under the

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vat lids, made the haze and seared the man's throat.

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He hurried out, coughing and wiping his eyes. It was

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damn funny every night he heard the same peculiar noise

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somewhere in this wing of the building, like a body

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groaning and turning in a restless sleep. It was. It

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scared him. He didn't mention the mystery to anyone, though.

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He was an old man, and he didn't want mister

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Gregg to think he was getting too old for the job. Hey,

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sud think I was crazy if I told him about it,

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he mumbled. Inside the office, Aesa Gregg heard the muttered

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words plainly. He sat very still in a big leather

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cushioned chair, hardly breathing, until the scrape of the watchman's

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feet had thinned away down the hall. There was no

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light in the room to betray him, only the cherry

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colored tip of his cigar, which couldn't be visible through

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the frosted glass door. Anyway. It'd be an hour before

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the watchman's rounds brought him past the office again. Ayesa

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Gregg had an hour if he could screw up his

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nerves to use it. He took the frayed and of

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the cigar from his mouth, his hand, which had wasted

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to mere skin and bone these past few months, groped

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through the darkness, slid opened the polished coolness of the

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dictaphone hood and snapped the switch machinery faintly whorred. His

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fingers found the tube, lifted it. Miss Carruthers, he snapped.

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Then he hesitated. Surely he could trust Mary Carruthers. He'd

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never wondered about her before. She'd been his secretary for

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a dozen years. Lately, since he couldn't look after affairs

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himself as he used to, she had practically run the business.

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She was forty, sensible, unbeautiful, and tight lipped. Hell, he

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had to trust her. His voice plunged into the darkness.

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What I have to say now is intended for missus

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Gregg's ears only. She will take the first boat home.

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Of course, meet that boat and bring her to the office.

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Since my wife knows nothing about a dictaphone, it will

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be necessary for you to set this recording running as

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soon as you have done so, leave her alone in

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the room. Make sure she is not interrupted for a

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half hour, That's all. He waited a decent interval. The

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invisible needle peeled its thread into the revolving wax cylinder.

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Jeannette muttered, Asa Gregg and hesitated again. This wasn't going

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to be easy to say. He decided to begin matter

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of factly. As you probably know, my will and the

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insurance policies are in the vault at the First National

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I believe you will find all my papers in excellent order.

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If any questions arise, consult Miss Carruthers. What I have

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to say to you now is purely personal. I feel,

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my dear, that I owe you an explanation. That is God.

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It was harder than he had expected, Jeannette, he started afresh.

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You remember three years ago when I was in the hospital.

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You were in Palm Beach at the time. I wired

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that there had been an accident here at the plant.

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That wasn't strictly so. The fact is I'd gotten mixed

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up with a girl. He paused, shivering in the darkness.

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A picture of Dot swam before him. The oval face,

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framed with gleaming shirls of lemon tinted hair, had poutings,

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garlet lips, and eyes whose allure was intensified by a

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violent make up. The full length picture of her included

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a streamlined, full, blossomed, and yet delectably life body, a

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costly enticing Broadway chorus orchid. As a matter of fact,

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that is where he'd found her. I won't make any

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excuses for myself, Aesa Gregg said harshly. I might point

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out that you were always in Florida or Bermuda or France,

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and that I was a lonely man, but it wasn't

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just loneliness, and I didn't seek companionship. I thought I

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was making a last bow to romance. I was successful,

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sixty and silly, and I did all the damn fool things.

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I even wrote letters to her, popsy wopsy letters. The

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dictaphone couldn't record the grimace that jerked his lips. She

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saved them, of course, and by and by she put

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a price on them ten thousand dollars. Dot claimed that

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one of those filthy tabloids had offered her that much

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for them. And what was a poor working girl to do,

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she lied, I knew that. I told her to bring

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the letters to the office after business hours and I'd

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take care of her. I took care of her, all right.

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I shot her, Jeannette. He mopped his face with a

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handkerchief that was already damp. Not on account of the money,

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you understand, It was the thing, she said, after she

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had tucked the bills into her purse, vile things about

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the way she had earned it ten times over by

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enduring my beastly kisses. I really loved that girl, and

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I'd thought she'd cared for me a little. It was

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her hate that maddened me, and I got a gun

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out of my desk drawer. Aesa Gregg reached through the

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darkness for the switch. He fummed for the bottle, which

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stood on the desk. His hands trembled, spilling some of

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the liquor onto his lap. He drank from the bottle.

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This part of the story he'd skip. It was too

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horrible even to think about. He didn't want to remember

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how the blood pooled inside Dot's fur coat, and how

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he'd managed to carry the body out of the office

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without leaking any of her blood onto the floor. He

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tried to forget the musky sweetness of the perfume on

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the dead girl mingled with the other evil blood smell. Especially,

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he didn't want to remember the frightful time he'd had

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stripping the gold rings from her fingers and the one

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gold tooth in her head. The horror of it coiled

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in the blackness about him. His own teeth rattled against

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the bottle. When he gulped the second drink, he snapped

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the switch savagely, but when he spoke, his voice cringed

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into the tube. I carried her into the storage room.

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I got the lid off one of the acid tanks.

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The VAT contained an acid powerful enough to destroy anything

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except gold. In fact, the vat itself had to be

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lined with gold leaf. I knew that in twenty four

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hours there wouldn't be a recognizable body left, and in

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a week there wouldn't be anything at all. No matter

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what the police suspected, they couldn't prove a murder charge

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without a corpus delectie. I had committed the perfect crime,

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except for one thing. I didn't realize there'd be a

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splash when she went into the vat. Gregg laughed, not pleasantly.

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His wife might think it had been a sob when

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she heard this record. Now you understand why I went

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to the hospital, he jerked. Possibly you'd call that poetic justice.

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Oh God always broke again. He thumbed off the switch

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and mopped his face with the damp linen. The rest,

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how could he explain the rest of it? He spent

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a long minute arranging his thoughts. You haven't any idea,

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he resumed, No one has any idea of how I've

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been punished for the thing I did. I don't mean

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the sheer physical agony, but the fear that i'd talk

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coming out of the ether at the hospital, the fear

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that she'd been traced to my office. I'd simply hidden

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her rings away, expecting to drop them into the river,

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or that she might have confided in her lover, yes

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she had one, or suppose A whopping big order came

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through and the tank was emptied the very next day,

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and I couldn't ask any questions. I didn't even know

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what was in the papers. However, that part of it

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was gradually cleared up. I quizzed Miss Carruther's and learned

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that an unidentified female body had been fished out of

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the East River a few days after Dot disappeared. That's

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how the police solved the crime. I got rid of

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her rings. I ordered the vat left alone. The other

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thing began about six months ago. A spasm contorted his face,

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his fingers ached their grip into the dictaphone tube. Jeannette,

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you remember how I began to object to the radio,

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how I'd shouted you to turn it off in the

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middle of the program. You thought I was ill and

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worried about business. You were wrong. The thing that got

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me was hearing her voice. He gripped the cold cigar

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chewed it. It's very strange that you didn't notice it.

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No matter what station we dialed to, always the same

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voice came stealing into the room. But perhaps you did notice.

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You said once or twice that all those blues singers

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sound alike, and she was a blue singer. It was she, oh,

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all right, somewhere out there in the ether, reminding me.

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The next thing was well. At first, when I noticed

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it in the office, I thought Miss Carruthers had suddenly

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taken up with young ideas. You see, I kept smelling perfume,

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and he smelled it. Now. It was like a miasma

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in the dark. It isn't anything that Carruthers wears, he grated.

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It comes from, yes, the storage room. I realized that

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about a month ago, just after you sailed. One night,

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I stayed late at the office and I went in there.

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It seemed to be strongest around the vat, her vat,

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and I lifted the lid. The sweet sticky musty smell

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hit me like a blow in the face. And that

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isn't all terror stocked in this room. Aesa Gregg, crouched

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in his chair, felt the weight of fear on him

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like a submarine pressure. His cigar pitched on his knees

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dropped to the floor. You wouldn't believe this, Jeannette. He

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hammered the words like nails into the darkness in front

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of him. You will say that it's impossible. I know

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that it is impossible, and it is physiologically absurd. It

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contradicts the laws of natural science. But I saw something

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on the bottom of that vat. He groped for the bottle.

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His wife would hear a low gurgle and then a

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coughing gasp. The vat was nearly full of this transparent,

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oily acid. He went on. What I saw was a

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lot of sediment on the golden floor, And there shouldn't

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have been any sediment. The stuff utterly dissolves animal tissue, bone,

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even the common ores keeps them in suspension. It didn't

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look like sediment either. It looked like a heap of mold,

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grave mold. I replaced the lid. I spent a whek

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convincing myself that it was all impossible, that I couldn't

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have seen anything of the sort. Then I went to

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the vet again. Silence hung in the darkness while he

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sucked air into his lungs, and the words burst separate,

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yammering shrieks. I looked night after night, for hours at

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a time. I watched the change. Did you ever see

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a body decomposed? Of course not neither have I. But

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you must know in a general way what the process is. Well,

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this has been the exact opposite. First, I stared at

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the heap of grave mold as it shaped itself into bones,

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a skeleton. I watched the coming of hair, a yellow

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tangle of it, sprouting from the bare round skull, until,

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oh God, the flesh began to make itself before my eyes.

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I couldn't bear anymore. I stayed away, didn't come to

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the office for five days. The tube slipped from his sweating,

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slick fingers, panting aesa, Gregg fumbled in the dark until

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he found it. Exhaustion, not self control, flattened his voice

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to a dead monotone. I tried to think of a

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way out, if I could fish the corpse out of

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the tank, but I couldn't smuggle it out of the

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plant alone. You know that, and so do I. Besides,

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what would be the use If the acid can't kill her,

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nothing can. That's why I can't have the lid cemented on.

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It wouldn't do any good either. Until three days ago,

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she hadn't the least color, looking as white as a

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ghost in the vat, a naked ghost, because there's been

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no resurrection for her clothing. I've watched her limbs grow rosy,

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her lips are scarlet, her eyes are bright. They opened yesterday,

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and her breast were rising and falling, oh, almost imperceptibly.

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But that was last night, and tonight, I swear it.

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Her lips moved, she muttered my name. She turned, she'd

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been lying on her side over onto her back. The

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record would be badly blurred. His hand shook violently, bobbling

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the tube against his lips. Gregg braced his elbow against

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the desk. She isn't dead, he choked. She's only asleep,

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not very soundly asleep. She's waking up. The invisible needle

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quivered as it traced several noises. There was his tortured breathing,

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and the clawing of his fingernails rattling over the desk.

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The drawer clicked as it opened. A loud click was

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the cocking of the revolver. Soon, she's going to get

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out of that vat, Greg bleeded, Jeannette, forgive me, God,

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forgive me, for I will not, I cannot, I dare

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not stay here and see her. Then the sound of

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the shot brought the watchman stumbling along the corridor. He

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crashed against the office door. It banged open in a

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shower of falling frosted glass. The watchman's flashlight severed the

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darkness and printed its white circle on the face of

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Asa Gregg. He had fallen back into the chair, a

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blackish gout of blood running from the hole in his temple.

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He stared sightlessly into the light with his eyes that

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were two gnarls of shrunken brown flesh, like knots in

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a pine board. Asa greg was blind, had been since

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that night. Three years passed when the acid splashed. The

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end of in the Dark by Ronald Caser