He gave a loose lipped smile and rolled off the bed.
"Ponto," he ordered. "You're de trop. Get the hell out of here!"
He opened the door to the hall and I slunk out into the darkness of the landing. My toes clicked their way across to the door of my wife's bedroom. I lay down, on guard, my ear cocked to catch the desperate stifled sobs of the woman inside.
It was then that I decided that Tompkins must die.
[CHAPTER 35]
My opportunity to settle the account did not present itself for more than twenty-four hours. Early the following morning, Myrtle was kicked out and crept upstairs. Winnie slammed the door and snored like a hog until ten o'clock—at which time he stamped downstairs and roared for breakfast.
After he had eaten, he went to his room again, shutting me outside, and dressed himself carefully in the manly tweeds he had been wearing on that first day in the Pond Club. He drove to the station—I assumed—leaving me behind at Pook's Hill with two unhappy women. He did not return that evening at all and it wasn't until late the following morning—that would be Saturday I figured, although I was already losing my human preoccupation with time—that I recognized the crunch of the Packard's tires on the graveled drive. I was standing just inside the door as I heard his key fumbling in the lock.
It was Winnie and he was drunk.
"Oh, hullo, Ponto," he remarked thickly. "So you're the welcoming committee. Come on up with me, boy, and hear the dirt."