Read Online I Would Rather Stay Poor by James Hadley Chase - Free Book Online

have a car,’ Calvin said. He opene d the closet and took out the bottle of w hisky. ‘Hello! There’s not much here.’ He looked sharply at her. ‘Have you been drinking my Scotch?’
    ‘Is that al l that of a crime?’ she asked sullenly.
    ‘Can’t you buy your own whisky?’ he said irritably. He poured himself the last of the whisky and dropped the empty bottle into the trash basket. She watched him furtively. ‘As I was saying, Acres has to have a car. This is where we have to spend to gain. I have three hundred dollars. I’ ll need at least another three hundred. Have you got it?’
    She hesitated, then nodded.
    ‘I can get it.’
    ‘Then tomorrow evening we’ll go to Downside. We’ll go to a movie. There’ll be no secret about it. It’s time the old people knew there is more than one romance in the house. Have you told your daughter yet?’
    Kit’s face stiffened.
    ‘No.’
    ‘We ll, you’d better.’
    She didn’t say anything.
    ‘While you’re at the movie, I ’ll go along, dressed as Johnny Acres, and buy a second-hand car. I’ll park it behind the bank until we want it.’
    She said tonelessly, ‘You’re sure a l l this is going to be safe?’
    His fleshy face hardened.’
    ‘I’ve w aited a long time for this chance: every move I am making is going to be safe.’
    A few days later, Major Hardy was the first of the old couple set eyes on Alice’s boy-friend. It was jus t after eleven o’clock and the m ajor was f in ishing a crossword puzzle before going to bed. Miss Pearson had already gone upstairs and so had Kit. The major was on his own. He knew Alice had gone out because her hat and coat weren’t in the lobby. In actual fact, Alice was in bed, reading The Manual of Banking and making notes as she read, but the major wasn’t to know this. He wasn’t to know that Kit, wearing Alice’s hat and coat, had sneaked out the back way and had joined Ca lvin, dressed as Johnny Acres, w ho was waiting fo r her down the road in. a newly- bought, second-hand Lincoln.
    The major heard a car come up the short drive, went to the w indow and peered out into the darkness. He saw whom he thought to be Alice getting out of the car. He then saw a heavily-built man, wearing a fawn-coloured overcoat join her. All this he could see clearly as the couple moved into the light from the car’s headlights. They kissed fondly and the major nodded approv ingly. Then he w atched the woman he thought was Alice run up the steps and he heard her open the front door as the man got back into the car and drove away.
    Rather than embarrass her, the major remained where he was. After he heard the women he imagined to be Alice reach the head of the stairs, he turned off th e lights and went upstairs himself.
    The following morning, he told Kit and Miss Pearson what he had seen when Alice and Calvin had gone off together to the bank.
    ‘They’ll make a good -l ooking couple,’ the major said.
    Reporting this to Calvin when they were alone together, Kit said, ‘He has no suspicions at all. I was scared, but you were right.’
    ‘We’ll do it once again,’ Calvin said. ‘Next ti m e the old girl must see us. Then we don’t have to worry our heads. They’ll make convincing witnesses.’
    Three nights later, it so hap pened there was nothing on tele vision to interest either Miss Pearson or the major. They elected to play gin rummy together.
    Calvin and Kit went through the same performance as they had staged for the major’s benefit, and they were aware as they kissed in the beam of the car’s headlights that both the major and Miss Pearson were peeping at them from behind the curtains of the window.
    ‘We are nearly home,’ Cal vin said later. He was lying flat on his bed, a cigarette between his lips , his blue eyes staring fixedly up at the ceiling. Kit sat in the armchair, watching him. ‘We now have two witnesses that Johnny Acres exists. Next month the payroll is delivered on the last day of the