An Air That Kills Read Free

group was, on the whole, a congenial one, especially after small differences had been dissolved in alcohol.
    It was Turee who first remarked on the passage of time and the absence of Harry Bream and Galloway. “Peculiar thing Galloway hasn’t come yet. He makes such a point of being punctual.”
    â€œI hate punctuality,” Winslow stated. “It is the hobgoblin of small minds. Right, fellows?”
    Hepburn said it was chastity that was the hobgoblin of small minds and Turee corrected them both, as usual, and said it was consistency, and eventually they got back to Galloway.
    â€œGalloway called me last night,” Turee said, “and told me he was going to pick Harry up in Weston and drive on up here and arrive about nine-thirty.”
    â€œThere,” Winslow said. “There you have it.”
    â€œHave what?”
    â€œThe crux of the situation. Harry. Harry’s always late for everything.”
    It was a logical as well as an agreeable theory, and they were all having another drink to toast Harry, the crux of the situation, when, about eleven-thirty, Harry unintentionally ruined the whole thing by walking in the front door. He was wearing a mackintosh, a deer-hunter’s cap with the flaps up, and carrying his fishing gear.
    â€œSorry I’m late,” he said cheerfully. “Something went wrong with the fuel pump the other side of Owen Sound.”
    They all stared at him in such a peculiar and disgruntled way that even Harry, who was not given to subtleties, sensed something was wrong.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you guys anyway? Have I broken out in spots or something?”
    â€œWhere’s Galloway?” Turee asked.
    â€œI thought he was here.”
    â€œWasn’t he supposed to come with you?”
    â€œThat was the original plan, but I had an emergency call to make at a clinic down in Mimico, so I left word with Thelma to tell Galloway to go ahead without me. I know how he hates to be late. You don’t suppose Thelma got her signals switched?”
    It was generally agreed among the fellows that Thelma had been born with her signals switched, but none of them wanted to state this outright because it might hurt Harry’s feelings. Harry adored his wife. Her little eccentricities seemed endlessly fascinating to him and he was always enter­taining his friends with detailed reports of her opinions and experiences.
    Because he’d been the sole support of his parents, Harry had not married until they were both dead and then he wasted no time. His marriage, at the age of thirty-five, to a woman who worked as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, came as a shock to his friends, especially to Galloway who had become used to having Harry at his beck and call, and ready for anything. The carefree bachelor Harry had been suddenly replaced by the hopelessly married Harry, subject to rules and restrictions and at the mercy of whims and worries. Though Thelma and Esther did not get along well, the two men re­mained the best of friends, partly because Thelma seemed to like Galloway and encouraged Harry to see him, and partly because the two men had been friends ever since their prep school years together. As a senior, Harry had been president of the class. He still possessed the yearbook with his gradu­ation picture in it, and the caption: Henry Ellsworth Bream. A great future is predicted for our Harry, who holds a warm place in all our hearts.
    He still held a warm place in a good many hearts but the future remained elusive. He had missed a number of boats, by inches or minutes, by oddities of fate like a flat tire, a delay in traffic, a wrong turning, a misplaced key, a sudden blizzard, a mistake in a telephone number.
    â€œPoor Harry,” people said. “Always running into bad luck.”
    It was generally expected that when his parents died fate would step in and make up to Harry for all his misfortunes by handing him a real