Excerpt: The Party Killers

American Spotting
14 Aug 1934
If any of you were at Lady Vandertramp’s party, you would have noticed the out of place, but rather genial, American who made his way around as though his accent didn’t make him stand out. He’s been here for a few months, but only now has come on the scene, and he’s certainly an interesting fellow. Named Frank Oswald, he has apparently come from New York for a stay. He wears an American suit well – but does stand out much. I had a chance to sit with him and he said he really liked London, especially since they served alcohol (America is currently under prohibition – poor souls!) although he isn’t sure about the manner in which it is served, referring to the way in which drinks were passed out at Lady Vandertramp’s gathering. Small monkeys had been trained to pass a glass from one to the other, until it eventually made it to the one who had ordered the drink. It was found, though, that after a while the train animals had drank so much themselves of the alcohol they were passing around (not many of the guests seemed to mind sharing sips with the simians, apart from Mr. Oswald) that they eventually became to intoxicated to stand, sit, or keep balance what so ever – so much as take orders and hand out drinks. Mr. Oswald has a nice air to him, I should say, although he parties weaker than most, and has nothing about him curious and gangster-like as we see in movies about Americans. Rather, he’s a very subtle person with a quiet, intelligent way of speaking. I dare say he’s too silent sometimes. If you meet him at a party, I dare you try to get him to have a full conversation. It isn’t that he won’t talk, but simply that he seems to say a lot of nothing when he does talk. (To give Mr. Oswald some honor, when I mentioned this fact to him, he said that the English seem the same. Apparently we babble on too often about things like brunch, or lifts, or why we’re not drinking more often.)

CHAPTER ONE

CANDLE STICKS; DANGEROUS TO THE LIVING OR A PRACTICAL, AGED OBJECT?
She was digging through the drawers while he was standing still. She was throwing things across the wrong, while he stayed still. She was digging through the things she had thrown across the room, while he continued to stay still.
He was watching her. “Do I really need to be here while you do this, Agatha?”
Agatha, while pushing her fingers into the pockets of pants and hunting for diamonds, dollars, change – anything – ignored him.
The room had a disturbing air to it, probably because all of the lights were off and Kel couldn’t see anything, rather than because it was disturbing at all hours. The lack of light made Agatha look more terrifying than she might normally be; terrifying in a money-hungry way. Had she found what she was looking for?
Agatha stumbled to the closet, past Kel. “He’s money here – somewhere. He always bragged about how much he has.” She didn’t speak to Kel, so much as near him, or in the vicinity of him.
Kel played with his fingers, and tried not to watch her now. She was bending over twirling the dial of a safe – as though she would ever actually manage to open it – and her legs were long, slender, beautifully standing under her dress, which stopped just above the knees. They were like towers of beauty, in a movable way. Kel couldn’t think of a different way to call them. And her backed curved in a certain way, when she stood, and turned to him, and said, “Did you hear that?”
It took Kel a few seconds for his mind to stop envisioning her, and form words. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“I heard something in the house.” She came out of the closet and looked around, as though the noise would show its self immediately.
He brown curls had become disheveled from leaning over, but they still framed her face elegantly.
“I heard something in the house. It couldn’t be him though – could it?”
“I don’t really know,” Kel replied.
She walked past him, to the hall where the wooden floor let her heals tap out a nervous, life threatening musical. Tap. Tap. TAP. She walked down the hall, then walked back.
Slowly, she leaned towards Kel, who had since then moved to the doorway and waited for her.
“He’s home,” Agatha whispered.
“Pardon?” Kel didn’t take to notice that she was whispered.
“SHH! I think I heard Edward come through the door!” Agatha turned around quickly as the slam of a door in another room proved her suspicion true. She mouthed the word “hide” then walked off, fixing her hair into it’s bob-poof beauty and pushing her dress down to properly shape her waste in the way that was most fashionably approved of.
Kel wasn’t sure where she had expected him to hide. In the closet, where she had been riffling? Or what about the bathroom? Surely he wouldn’t use the bathroom anytime soon.
While Kel waited, he heard them walking closer. The sweat on his palms came to his attention, and he rubbed them on his pants – catching himself and thinking, “Agatha would disapprove.”
As the taps came closer, Kel heard Agatha say, “Oh, Edward! I hadn’t expected you home.” A silence cut the air for a moment, but it was a silence only to Kel. “why… am I hear? Well, you see, I had your flat key and I thought if I came over, perhaps I could leave you a gift…and so before you came home I could surprise you.”
Kel swore they were just around the corner; he jumped into the closet and closed the door. He wasn’t sure it was the most wonderful place to hide, considering that a man of good standings would probably go right to his closet to take off some item of clothing, and prepare for a…charming evening with Agatha.
Their voices carried into the room.
“Why, Agatha, have you been searching for something?”
“Shhh! Don’t mind any of that.”
Kel watched through the semi-closed door. Agatha had been smart enough to face where she thought Kel might be hiding, and keep Edward in the opposite way. While he looked out, Edward and she were in the middle of a passionate kiss, one that was perhaps longer than reasonable, but Agatha’s right hand was waving like mad behind Edward’s back and hopefully signaling something of meaning to Kel.
Had he understood the downward-angle motion of her hand at that time, he might have had a moment to think further in what he was about to do.
Their kiss broke and Agatha poked her head over his shoulder, hugging him tighter than before. “I’m glad you’re back, Edward!” she said, with a large amount of feigning.
But to Kel, she mouthed To the kitchen! Knife! KILL HIM!
Kel wasn’t sure he had understood her lips right. He had been more focused on the lips themselves than what they were trying to say, voicelessly.
“How could you have missed me so much?” The fool asked, “I’ve only been gone a few days.”
“Oh! But to a lover,” Agatha said between KNIFE!, “a few days is like,” KILL!, “a few more days that that,” HIM! KILL HIM!, “forever, I dare say.”
By now the silent words had made it to Kel’s ever listening eyes. She was purposing that Kel run to the kitchen, find a knife, and kill him.
He stayed behind the closet door, half doubting that she had actually told him to do that, and half thinking it wasn’t a good time to slip you just yet, just yet, and again, not yet! to get the knife and do what she had asked.
Her hands traveled across Edward like the great ships of Britain trying to find more countries to take under its imperialistic wing. The moment before he snuck out of the closet, Kel felt a particular sting of jealousy. But, he did slip out, unseen by the lip-locked Edward, and towards the kitchen.
Not only was it Kel’s first time in this particular house but he had never entirely understood the organization of the upper classes silver ware – and nor was he sure what kind of particular knife Agatha was hoping he returned with. Though a knife was a knife, he knew that she would be particular in this instance as always, and that more than likely the knife Kel brought back would be disapproved of, and among all the suspense of them nearly being caught, she would demand he return to the kitchen to find a bigger one, a sharper one, one that looks just right to slip through the –
Was that really what Kel was about to do? He couldn’t feel the thought inside him.
He grabbed the first knife he saw and ran down the hallway. Kel heard Edward speaking:
“Agatha, stop it. Tell me, now! Why were you here?”
Kel pushed the door open with more noise than he had hoped, but he ran at Edward before he could turn around. The darkness hid Kel well – and even if he had turned ‘round, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the bumbling, skinny figure wielding a knife at him.
But he ran at Edward – and as Agatha shrieked silently – nothing to push a scream out existed in her lungs – Kel felt the knife push through his skin. The thing groaned, and slipped. It groaned again, louder, and said something that was more gurgle than language. It was dark, and Kel’s mind was dark, and all he heard was a muffled scream, and all he felt was the big thing sleep past his hands – not the knife, but the body.
Kel stood staring before him with a blank mind.
Had he just stabbed a man?
The muffled screamed had transformed into the slightest whimper.
And perhaps he had stabbed the man, and perhaps he had held the knife which pierced the man’s skin – but where had the man gone?
The whimper suddenly took form and Kel realized that it was Agatha.
“Kelly, he’s fallen on top of me.” There was a small squal from underneath Kel. “Oh My G--, He’s bleeding on me, Kelly, please…move him!”
Kel couldn’t see where the body was, he only knew that Agatha was speaking from somewhere beneath him.
“But Agatha,” he tried to say with as much confidence as possible, though the situation didn’t allow for any at all, “I fear I might be sick.”
“Oh, please, not before I –” Agatha had been responding, when suddenly a scream leapt out of her mouth, “HE’S MOVING!”
Kel knew now that the thing was before him on the floor and that though he had stabbed whatever it was, it was now moving again and Agatha was underneath it, and the thing moaned sickly like a warble was in its throat.
“KELLY!”
He grabbed the nearest thing from a table and hammered it down upon the figure; harder, harder, again, HARDER! Until he felt the thing slip from underneath the object, finally, he fell flat and didn’t move again and not a noise came from the thing, but only a cold silence. Again he lost where the thing was, or whether Agatha was there, and what was it in his hand, had he been lighting a candle? For it was a candle stick.
And had he just killed a man.
“Oh, oh, Kelly he’s on top of me, please…”
And Agatha was underneath the thing and she didn’t terribly enjoy that, so she whined.
After some moments of confusion, deep breathing, and more squeals, Kel rolled the thing off of Agatha and away from the both. Kel didn’t look at it – though he was glad for the darkness, which now hid the things possible expression of nonexistence.
Kel wanted to spend some while sitting, and thinking, but not near the thing, and Agatha wanted to leave, wanted to get away. “I want to clean myself, I have to go wash now,” she whispered. There was blood on her dress, she thought. She was certain she had felt him bleeding.
“Agatha, have I killed him?” Kel whispered, not entirely to Agatha.
“Yes, Kel…I believe he’s dead.”
They looked to the thing, though they weren’t sure it truly was there anymore, and if it was it now only looked like a gray blob among the other gray blobs of darkness.
Agatha stood up and seemed to shiver – Kel couldn’t be sure. He watched her closely – because he couldn’t think too closely, just yet - and as she moved to the thing he watched her even closer.
She leaned over it and did something- something that made a sick noise, almost as sick as the knife sinking in at first, as Kel recalled it so well. Then Agatha whispered, “I believe it would be best to leave now,” as though they were leaving a sleeping child in bed rather than that thing sleeping, forever.
Once they had made it to Agatha’s flat, and once in proper light, it was realize that there was no blood on Agatha’s dress. Still, she washed it thoroughly.
“It was an expensive thing,” she explained, though she scrubbed with a fierce way that one might not do to delicate, expensive things.