The Brass Bed

20

I went on up into the hills to the cabin on the Blue River. It was one of a group that was called the Blue River Camp, and I had been there about two weeks when I got the letter from Jolly. It was addressed to me in care of the camp, and the owner brought it out one evening from the postoffice in the town where he went for supplies. I took it down to the river and opened it and read it, and this is what it said:

I didn’t think she’d go through with it, but she did — or at least she tried to, and she ended up being a good deal worse off than if she’d succeeded with the pills.

The maid — I’m told that personal maids are sometimes not to be trusted, particularly when personal mail is involved, and even more particularly when the mail is going from a female to a male, or vice-versa. Anyhow, Jolly’s maid was not one to let a letter get out of her hands before she’d conducted an investigation into its contents, and she did just that downstairs in the kitchen while Jolly was climbing into her brass bed with the bottle of green pills.

And so the maid saved Jolly’s life — for a time, anyway. The maid telephoned the police who in turn telephoned for an ambulance. The maid went back upstairs and fiddled around for ten minutes, thus preventing Jolly from commencing with the pills and at the same time plunging Jolly into something of a rage.

The newspapers had it right on page one, and they made quite a bit of it, partly because of its happening right after Kirby and Sid in such a peculiar way and partly because of the uproar which Jolly caused when the police arrived.

Jason bounded up the stairs, followed by assorted detectives and doctors, and the instant Jolly saw him she snatched a long nail file from the night table and screamed at him not to come any closer.

It must have been quite a fracas, because the newspaper photographers were outside the house by the time Jason was able to take Jolly away. The pictures were pretty grim, and judging by her torn clothing and the hysterical expression on her face, Jolly had put up a terrific fight.

The way Jason told it, there was a lot of trouble getting at Jolly because they couldn’t back her into a corner. She just crouched, on her knees, on the brass bed and slashed out with the file in every direction. She wouldn’t get out of the bed.

Even after they’d got hold of the weapon and pinned her arms, she didn’t want to get out of that damned brass bed. They had to drag her out of it and she screamed for it all the way to wherever it was that they took her.

But they’ll never really get Jolly out of that brass bed. She’s in it for good.

She’ll even take it to hell with her.