ANGELS OF DARKNESS, Tales of Women and Terror

Cornell Woolrich

introduction by Harlan Ellison

CONTENTS

Introduction by Harlan Ellison vii Johnny on the Spot 1 Waltz 24 The Book That Squealed 30 Meet Me by the Mannequin 70 Murder at Mother's Knee 95 Mind Over Murder 122 Death Escapes the Eye 149 For the Rest of Her Life 188 Afterword by Francis M. Nevins, Jr. 213

INTRODUCTION

Oh, I enjoyed them well enough. One would have to be existing in a state of utter insensitivity _not_ to have been joyed by them. But neither Hammett nor Chandler did to me what that old man Woolrich did. They told cracking good stories, knew how to count the pores on their characters, spun puzzle webs whose intricacies seldom unraveled for me before they wanted them to . . . but, well, they just didn't _do it_ the way Woolrich, pale-eyed Irish, did it. Not for me, at any rate. I hear all the belated literary foofaraw surrounding Chandler and Hammett these days, all the _film noire_ and _nostalgie de hi boue_ critiques, and I'm a little saddened that Woolrich hasn't come in for more attention. I read the occasional front-page book review tributes to Ross Macdonald and Donald Westlake and Emma Lathen, and that's real nice; real nice. Because they're crafty and craftily and craftwise, and they deserve it. But, darn it, not even they can take me by the throat the way that fine old pulp writer Woolrich could. Just a little saddened. I wouldn't carry placards about it, but he really does deserve more attention. That is why I am sitting on an Air France 747, cruising along at 37,000 feet, on my way to Paris for the first time, and writing about Cornell Woolrich. Sitting in an upstairs lounge, surrounded by travelers who, because they speak French and I don't, seem much more elegant to me than the usual pot-bellied, double-waffleknit, powder blue leisure suit, white belt, white loafer w/little gold hook-&-eye thingies, Jack Daniels tippling peregrinaters I run into on commercial flights. And they are staring at me, sitting here with the Olympia balanced on my knees, as they sip their Armagnac; and because I am a foreigner who simply don't speak the language, I cannot tell them that I am not down below in the cabin watching the movie beause I am paying homage--or _hommage_--to a pale old man I met once, who wrote stories for magazines that now turn to dust when you touch their dried-leaf pages. And they would think me ludicrous if I told them there is something Kismetic about me writing this introduction for Woolrich on my way to Paris. I could not explain it; but it's all tied up with France and the French director Truffaut and Jeanne Moreau. Because I'm on my way to Paris to have initial meetings with William Friedkin, the director who will maybe make the film version of my story "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" that won a Mystery Writers of America Edgar. You see: Woolrich wrote mysteries, and that prize story was my link to the world of suspense fiction and here's the incredible coincidence. . . Friedkin is married to Jeanne Moreau, who played the lead in Truffaut's film of Woolrich's _The Bride Wore Black_! It all ties together coincidentally but inexorably like a Woolrich story-line. But how the hell do I tell anyone that? It will all seem self-serving and whacky. Yet I know it's appropriate, somehow terribly correct that I be here, aboard this flying condominium, tapping out words of honor and admiration for a man who never was and probably never will be as famous as Shakespeare or Hugo or Lorca or Kafka, but whose name _should_ be at least as well-known as Hammett's or Chandler's. So I am here, with Xeroxes of old Woolrich stories, reading a little, writing a little, smiling a great deal, and it's okay. And it is not till two days later, after jet-lag, after walking the Champs Elysees for the first time, after a Sunday drive out to Versailles with Bill Friedkin and Jeanne Moreau, where we sit having lunch at Des Trois Marches, that the name William Irish is spoken by the Bride who wore black. She is speaking about Truffaut's having been introduced to American literature at her insistence, and she mentions Fitzgerald, Dos Passos and Irish all in the same breath. She knows. And I am justified in having sensed that it was purposeful, my writing this introduction. It is a thin thread, no doubt about it. There are most certainly others whose words would be more insightful, more knowledgeable. Fine mystery writers who knew him, who worked in the penny-a-worders when he was at the peak of his form, in the days before the death of his mother and the amputation of his leg and the stroke that killed him in 1968; writers who attended Hydra Club meetings with him, who stood around with him at cocktail parties in New York, watching him drinking himself deeper into alcoholism, without really understanding that this tormented talent beside them was very likely the best of all of them; writers who, nonetheless, could write an introduction that would keynote this collection better. And until I sat in that Versailles restaurant, and felt the spark of mutual admiration for Woolrich leap between me and the woman who convinced Truffaut _she_ was the only actress who could play Julie Killeen, I would have felt awkward and intrusive. But the time is past for personal revelations of the dark and poisonous life Woolrich led. It is time for admiration. And on that basis I back off for no one in my respect for what Woolrich could do to a ream of blank white paper. Here in Paris, where the name "William Irish" is held in such high esteem, I feel ashamed of my own country. In Paris right now Robert Hossein, the famous actor and director, is preparing a first-rank stage production of James Hadley Chase's _No Orchids for Miss Blandish_; the novels of James M. Cain are being swept up by paperback buyers; they have just reissued six of Woolrich/Irish's best novels; there is talk of a French-made version of _Phantom Lady_ that will update the 1944 film. And in my country Rod McKuen is looking for his father, Sidney Sheldon has the front cover of _Publishers Weekly_, insipid gothics and historicals written by men under women's names continue their _floreat_. . . and Cornell Woolrich lies in an unmarked literary grave. Well, I go too far again. Of course, that isn't true. Not entirely. Haven't I just said that he is lauded as a _great_ American original, here in France; haven't I said his books are freely available, here in France; haven't I agreed to do the introduction to this very book, a new collection? So you see, I'm being too histrionic about it. Forgive me. I don't want to embarass the neighborhood. God bless America, land that I love . .

What, then, can I say about Cornell Woolrich that will be acceptable. Statement, not question; rhetorical nonetheless. Those who wish to read an excellent short biography and analysis of the man's works should rush to find a copy of _Nightwebs_, edited and introduced by Francis M. Nevins, Jr. Those who wish to know of the time I met Woolrich, and of the eerie circumstances, should rush to find a copy of my collection _No Doors, No Windows_. I'm not out to hustle books--save this one--but likewise I'm not out to hustle old material. This is a new book, a first-time collection of rare, hard-to-find Woolrichiana; and the focus of attention clearly should be on the contents of this book. But what am Ito do, lie to you? Tell you that all of the stories herein contained, originally published in _Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine_ and in _much_ more obscure places, are first-rank Woolrich? I cannot do that. You would read them, and even if, like me, you are a slavishly adoring Woolrich addict, you would be left with a feeling of downdrop. Only one of them, "For the Rest of Her Life," has the full, undimmed impact of the best of Woolrich. The throat-clogging suspense, the build of terror to a shrieking pitch, the kicker at the end that leaves you dazzled and chilled. The eight stories gathered here should certainly be preserved, certainly deserve to be read; but they are, for the most part, fivefinger exercises of a younger Woolrich, not yet unleashing the power shown in his novels or in later short stories. They have been selected partially because they are all told from the viewpoint of a female (hence the title of the book); and they have been selected because they are almost impossible for the general reader to find. But these very reasons for having been selected contain the essence of their less-than-optimum value. The best of Woolrich has been anthologized again and again. These eight have been either overlooked or rejected by previous publishers. For reasons that quickly become obvious. They are period pieces--one of them, "Johnny on the Spot," written in a flip, out-of -the-cornerof-the-mouth style that seems painfully arch by comparison with Woolrich's sensual flowing narratives of later years. They are unsophisticated, they telegraph their punch, they deal almost exclusively with Thirties' and Forties' pulp fiction stereotypes, their plots are festooned with improbabilities and coincidences. To pretend otherwise would be to demean the honest labor that went into them. To dissemble, or to deal with other aspects of the Woolrich mythos so that these glaring flaws can be ignored, would be to discredit not only this writer, but all of us who rise through the strata of our talent and idiom to find a level where, like Woolrich, we create work that is significantly and specially our own. Yes, there are intimations of the later Woolrich here. Bits of detail set down with the eye of the predator. . . a sense of the city that is both nostalgically dated and timeless . . . moments of insight into men and women that bring a wry chuckle because they are our own souls being examined. . . twists of story-line that are unexpected . . . But only "For the Rest of Her Life" and, to a lesser degree, "The Book That Squealed," still seem fresh and crackling when viewed in the light of all that has followed their initial publication. The others creak too loudly. But that's okay, too. They were written in a more innocent time. In a day when "evil" was more easily identified and codified, before we began to turn helplessly, seeking in the shadows for the latest, nameless cipher psychotically pleading to be stopped before he kills again. These are stories that were written when there were mobs and gangsters and hoods and yeggs and punks and thugs. There were no Richard Specks, Charlie Mansons, no Sons of Sam, no William Calleys. Or if there were, "nice" magazines didn't print stories about them, nor did many writers deal with them. It is a different battlefield today. The criminals are not an identifiable army, they are a guerrilla band of lone skirmishers who strike without purpose in a lunatic foray against life itself. One can only lament that Cornell Woolrich was not born thirty years later, that he did not lead a happier and more productive life, that he is not with us today, to write about our times with that special insight he brought to urban life. We might better be able to understand what drives our contemporary madfolk, and we might sleep a little better, as a result. But he is gone, and he has left us with precious little writing for a life that spanned sixty-five years. And every jot of it should be treasured. So I know you, as I, will overlook the sophomorisms of "Waltz" and "Murder at Mother's Knee" and "Death Escapes the Eye" for the riches and intimations of riches they contain. And you will take pleasure in the first three-fourths of "The Book That Squealed" as Miss (not Ms.) Prudence Roberts plays detective; and you will find your jaw muscles unnaturally tensed as Linda Harris and Garrett Hill flee down that dark road with Mark Ramsey in pursuit, until the moment when "For the Rest of Her Life" comes to an end and you hear your spine crack with tension. This is far from a great book, but it is a necessary book, and it has its moments. It is an act of preservation and a touchstone, perhaps, for a revival of Woolrich's work in this country. I recommend this book to you. Not so much for what it is, but for what it promises. If you have somehow missed Woolrich, perhaps this book and this introduction will lead you to the work that has produced such adoration. I knew him first, over thirty years ago, by way of a VaI Lewton film, _The Leopard Man_; and it led me to the novel from which that film was taken, _Black Alibi_. I had missed some of his best, and the next book of his that I read was _Waltz into Darkness_, which disappointed me. But that was the last time Woolrich disappointed me. Everything else I was ever able to lay hands on thrilled and chilled me. If this introduction and these stories lead you on to the rich cache of Woolrich material, then they have done their work and justified their existence. Because no one should live as dark a life as the one through which Cornell Woolrich moved, and leave behind such an enduring legacy, and not be remembered.

--Harlan Ellison 13 September 1977 Rue du Cirque, Paris

ANGELS OF DARKNESS

JOHNNY ON THE SPOT

The clock on the wall of the cafeteria said quarter to four in the morning when he came in from the street. He wasn't even twenty-eight yet, Johnny Donovan. Any doctor in town would have given him fifty more years. Only he himself knew better than that. He didn't even have fifty days left; maybe only fifty hours, or maybe fifty minutes, depending on how good he was. There hadn't been anyone in sight on the street when he came in just now, he'd made sure of that, and this place was half the island away from where anyone would expect to find him; that was why he'd started coming here for his food the past few nights. And that was why he'd told Jean to meet him here tonight, after her last show at the club, if she couldn't hold out any more; if she had to see him so bad. Poor kid, he sure felt sorry for her! Married at seventeen, and a widow at eighteen--any minute now. There was one thing he was glad of, that he'd managed to keep her out of it. She knew about it, of course, but they didn't know about her; didn't even know she existed. And dancing twice nightly right at one of Beefy Borden's own clubs, the prettiest girl on the floor! Taking fifty every Saturday from Beefy's "front" down there, while Beefy had guys out looking for him all over town, and would have given ten times that much just to connect with him! It made him laugh every time he thought of it--almost, not quite. But it wasn't so surprising at that. Beefy was one of those rare domesticated big-shots who, outside of killing-hours, thought there was no one like that silver-blond wife and those two daughters of his. Johnny, when he used to drop in their Ocean Avenue apartment on business in the old prohibition days, plenty of times found him there helping his kids with their homework or playing with them on the floor, maybe a couple of hours after he'd had some poor devil buried alive in quicklime out in the wilds of Jamaica or dumped overboard from one of his runners with a pail of cement for shoes. That being the case, even a lovely number like Jean couldn't be expected to make a dent in him, often as he must have seen her trucking around on the hardwood down at the Wicked Nineties. Otherwise he would have asked questions, tried to find out something about her. But to him she was just a Jean Marvel--her own idea of a stage-tag at sixteen--just a name on one of the dozen payrolls he checked once a month with his various fronts. Not even that. She just wasn't. She was: "No. 9--@ 50 = $200." She'd told Johnny that she'd said "Good evening" to Beefy one night leaving the club-- after all, he was her bread-and-butter--and he'd turned around and asked someone, "Who the hell wazzat?" He was sick of dodging them; had a bellyful of trying to save his precious hide. He had it up to his neck, this business of sleeping all day in movie houses and bolting meals at four in the morning and keeping just one jump ahead of them the whole time. The way he felt tonight he almost wished they'd catch up with him and get it over with! What was so awful about choking yourself to death in a gunnysack anyway? You couldn't do it more than once. But there was Jean. Outside of wanting him straight, which had started the whole mess, she also wanted him alive--for some wacky reason or other. He could hear her now, like she had been the last time they'd stolen a brief get-together riding hidden on the back platform of the Shuttle. That was last Sunday. She had laced it into him, eyes flinty, voice husky with scorn: "Yellow. No, not even yellow, orange! A quitter. And that's what I married! Ready to take it on the chin, aren't you?" And then pointing to her own lovely dimpled one: "Well, this is your chin!" And pounding herself furiously: "And this is the chest that gets the bullets when you stand up to 'em! Don't I count? No, I get left behind--without my music, without my rhythm, without my guy, for all you care! Not while I know it! Who is this Beefy Borden--God?" Then suddenly nearly breaking in two: "See it through for me, Johnny. Stay alive. Don't welsh on me now. Just a few days longer! The dough will come through by the end of this week--then we can both lam out of this hell-hole together!" And after the train had carried her back to the Times Square end and he'd lost himself in the Grand Central crowd, hat down over his mouth, he could still hear it ringing in his ears: "Stay alive for me, Johnny. Stay alive!" Well, he'd done his best, but it couldn't keep up forever.

There was a taxi driver dozing in the back of the place. He was the only other one in there. Have to quit coming here after tonight; he'd been here three nights in a row now; time to change to another place. He loosened the knot of his necktie and undid the top button of his shirt. Hadn't changed it in ten days and it was fixing to walk off his back of its own accord. He picked up a greasy aluminum tray and slid it along the triple rails that banked the counter. He hooked a bowl of shredded wheat, a dwarf pitcher of milk, and some other junk as he went along. When he got to the end where the counterman was, he said, "Two, sunnyside up." He hadn't eaten since four the night before. He'd just gotten through collecting a meal in a place of Sixth Avenue around two when he'd spotted someone over in a corner that looked familiar from the back. He had had to get up and blow--couldn't risk it. The counterman yapped through a hole in the wall behind him, "Two--on their backs!" and something began spitting. Johnny picked a table all the way in the rear and sat down with his back to the street. He couldn't see who was coming in that way, without turning, but it made him harder to recognize from outside through the plate-glass front. He turned his collar up in back to hide the shape of his neck. He took out a much-folded newspaper, fished for a pencil, and while crunching shredded wheat began to fill in the blank squares of a crossword puzzle. He could do that and mean it! You go arm-in-arm with death for ten days or a couple of weeks, and it loses most of its sting. Even the answer to what is "a sap-giving tree" can be more interesting for the time being--help you forget. He didn't see the maroon car that drew up outside, and he didn't hear it. It came up very soft, coasting to a stop. He didn't see the two well-dressed individuals that got out of it without cracking the door behind them, edged up closer to the lighted window-front and peered in. They exchanged a triumphant look that might have meant, "We'll eat in here, this is our dish." He was half-dozing over his puzzle by this time, splinters of shredded wheat clinging to his lips. On the other hand, the somnolent taxi driver, peculiarly enough, suddenly came wide awake and seemed to remember something that required his presence in the washroom. He slipped in there very deftly without making a sound; got as far away from the door as possible, and then just stood around like he was waiting for something to be over. He passed the time away counting over a fairly solid wad of fins and sawbucks. Then he met his own eyes in the mirror and he quickly turned his head away, like he wasn't glad to meet himself, for once. The two came in, and they weren't in a hurry, and they weren't trying to sneak up on the quarry now any more. They didn't have to, they had him. One of them, who went in for artistic flourishes, even hung back a step behind the other and deliberately yanked two bright-green pasteboards from the box near the door, which made a dyspeptic bell sing out a couple of times; as if to show how law-abiding, how house-broken, he and his friend could be when they came in a public place. It was like a rattlesnake warning before it strikes. It couldn't have made any difference anyway; they each had a right hand stuck deep into their coat pockets, and both pockets were sort of stiff and weighted down. The bell woke Johnny without registering; by the time his eyes opened, he'd forgotten what did it. Then he saw them sitting at the table with him, one opposite and one right next to him, shoulder to shoulder, so close the loaded pocket dug into his hip. The one across the china table top had his pocket up too, just sort of resting on the lip of the table, pointing Johnny's way. The counterman was busy transferring pats of butter to little paper rosettes; it wouldn't have mattered even if he hadn't been. Johnny looked from one face to the other, and his own whitened a little. Just for a second, then the color came right back; he'd been expecting this for too long to stay scared. They looked like three brothers, or three pals, sitting there huddled over the table together, intimate, familiar. "Put it on the table in front of you," suggested the one next to Johnny. "Keep the newspaper over it." Johnny reached under his left arm and took out something. If his coat hadn't been buttoned, he could have turned it around and fired through the cloth. He would have gone, but he could have taken one of them with him. But there wasn't room enough to turn it under his coat, it faced outward where there was nothing but a glass caseful of desserts to get at. He slid it under the newspaper and the one opposite him hauled it out on the other side and it disappeared into his clothing without the light once getting at it. When this tricky feat had been accomplished satisfactorily, the first one said, "We wanna see you, Donovan." "Take a good look," Johnny said in a low voice. "How does a guy that's gone straight appeal to you?" "Dead," answered the party across the table. "I've got something you can't kill," Johnny said. His eyes lit up like radio dials and all of a sudden he was proud of himself for the first time since he was in long pants. "I'm straight now. I'm on the level. Not all the bullets in all the gats in New York can take that away from me." "They can make you smell a lot different in twenty-four hours," the one next to him said. And the one across the way put in: "He thinks he's gonna get bullets, no less! Wake up, pogie, this ain't 1919. You'll beg for bullets. You'll get down on your knees and pray for 'em before we get through with you!" Johnny smiled and said, "When the State turns on the heat, they give a guy a last meal; let him order his head off. This being my last meal, let's see if you're big enough to lemme finish what I ordered." He took up his spoon in his left hand. "We got all night," one assured him. "We'll even pay your check for you. Sing Sing has nothing on us." The other one looked at the shredded wheat and laughed. "That's a hell of a thing to croak with in your guts!" "They're my guts," observed Johnny, chewing away, "and it's my party." He took up the pencil in his right hand and went ahead with the puzzle. "What's a five-letter word for the goddess of love?" he asked nonchalantly. They exchanged a dubious look, not in reference to the goddess of love however. "Can't you see he's stalling you?" one growled. "How do we know what this place is? Let's go." The ticket bell at the door rang and a very pretty girl came in alone. Her face turned very white under the lights, like she'd been up all night. But she wasn't logy at all. She seemed to know just what she was doing. She glanced over her shoulder just once, at the maroon car outside the door, but did not look at the three men at the table at all. Then she picked up a cup of coffee from the counterman and brushed straight by them without a look, sat down facing them one table further back, and, like any respectable girl that hour of the night, kept her long lashes down over her eyes while she stirred the java with a tin spoon. Johnny looked at her and seemed to get an inspiration. "Venus," he said suddenly, "that's the word! Why didn't I think of it?" But instead of "Venus" he scribbled on the margin of the diagram: "Stay back--I'm covered. Goodbye." The others had been taking a short, admiring gander at her too. "Momma!" said one of them. "Is that easy to take!" "Yeah," agreed the other. "Too bad we're on business. Y'never see 'em like that when you're on y'own time!" "What's a three-letter word--" Johnny began again. Then suddenly losing his temper, he exclaimed: "Jeeze! I can't do this damn thing!" He tore the puzzle out of the paper, crumpled it irritably into a ball, and tossed it away from him--toward the next table. The girl sitting at it dropped her paper napkin at that minute, then stooped to pick it up again. The three men got up from the table together and started toward the front of the place. They walked fairly slowly, Johnny in the middle, one on each side. Their three bodies were ganged at the hips, where the coat pockets were. The one on the inside, although he hadn't eaten anything, helped himself to a toothpick from the counter from force of habit and began prodding away with one hand. The washroom door opened on a crack, a nose showed, and then it prudently closed again. The girl at the table was very white and kept stirring her coffee without tasting it, as if she didn't know what her wrist was doing at all. The counterman just then was further down the line, hauling a platter of fried eggs through the hole in the wall. It was exactly ten minutes since Johnny Donovan had first come in, five to four in the morning. The short-order cook must have had to heat up the frying pan first. "Two bright-side up!" bawled the counterman. Then he looked at the table and saw that they weren't there any more. They were all the way up by the cash register. He came up after them, behind the counter, carrying the eggs. "Hey!" he said. "Don't you want your eggs?" "Naw, he's lost his appetite," one of them said. "Get in the car with him," he murmured to his companion. "I'll pay his check." He let electric light in between himself and Johnny, fished out some change, and tossed down the three checks, two blank and one punched. Johnny and the other fellow went out the door, still shoulder to shoulder, drifted across the sidewalk, and got into the back of the maroon car. The door slapped smartly and the curtains dropped down behind the windows. The counterman didn't like people who just came into his place to warm chairs and then walked out again on blank checks. He made the mistake of charging for the eggs which hadn't been eaten. The girl in the back had gotten up now and was moving with a sort of lazy walk toward the man who had stayed behind. She'd tacked on a bright-red new mouth with her lipstick and suddenly didn't seem so respectable any more. "So I'm paying for the eggs, am I?" barked the man at the counter. "Okay, hand 'em over." He pulled the plate away from the counterman, tilted it upward on his palm, fitted it viciously across the other's face, and ground it in with a sort of half turn. Egg yolk dripped down in yellow chains. "Have 'em on me, you mosey sap!" he magnanimously offered. The girl gave a shrill, brazen laugh of approval that sounded like her voice was cracked. "Gee, sweetheart," she said, "I could go for a guy like you. How does it look for a little life in your car? I been stemming all night and my dogs are yapping." She deliberately separated a nickel of his change and skimmed it back across the glass to pay for her coffee, then nudged him chummily with her elbow. "You and me and a flock of etchings, how about it?" she invited. "Some other time, momma," he said tersely. "Got no time tonight." He pocketed the rest of his change and stalked out. The counterman was shaking French fried potatoes out of his collar, but he knew enough not to say anything out loud. The girl went out after the fellow who had just turned her down, like some sort of a magnet was pulling her toward the car. He'd already gotten in at the wheel when she got over to it. "C'mon, whaddya say?" she pleaded hoarsely. "Don't be selfish. Just a couple blocks lift would be a life saver."She put one foot up on the running board, put one hand to the latch of the door. Her face was all damp and pasty-looking, but it took more than that amount of dishevelment to fog its beauty. The one at the wheel hesitated, with the motor already turning over. He looked over his shoulder into the darkness questioningly, even longingly. Evidently she'd gotten under his skin. "How about it?" he said to the other one. "Drop her off at your place and then come back for her when we're through?" He wanted the answer to be yes awfully bad. She had the door open by now. One more move and she would have been on the front seat next to him. The answer did not come from the one he'd put it up to at all. It came from their "guest." It was Johnny Donovan's voice that answered, that put the crusher on it, strangely enough. A word of warning, a single cry for help from him, and they would have been compelled to take her too, in self-defense, because she would have caught on to what they were doing. He knew enough not to do that. Instead, he said almost savagely: "Kick her out--or is this part of what I get too?" There was a vicious slap from the rear of the car, but the remark snapped the driver out of it, showed him what a fool thing he'd been about to do. That twist had magnetism or something. He gave her a terrific shove at the throat that sent her skittering backwards off the running board and very nearly flat on her back, grunting: "Where's ya manners? Don't crowd like that!" And a minute later the car was just a red tail light a block down, and then it wasn't even that. She was still lurching from the push he'd given her. She said, "Johnny, oh my God, Johnny, you've killed yourself!" But she said it very low, so low that the taxi dryer who had come out just then and was standing beside her looking in the same direction she was, didn't even hear her. They weren't going to kill him--it was he who had killed himself! Didn't he know she could have saved him? Didn't he know she'd brought a little gun of her own in her handbag to this last meeting of theirs? Didn't he know all she needed was to get into that car with them, and wait for a favorable opportunity, and she could have pulled the trick? She saw where she had made her mistake now; she should have used it right in the cafeteria while she still had the chance. But in there there'd been two of them covering him, in the car only one while the other was at the wheel. That was why she'd waited, used her eyes on them for all she was worth, been within an ace of getting away with it--and then at the last minute he himself had to snatch the chance away from her, cut himself off from help. She knew why he'd done it, and she cursed that habit in men of sparing their women. Didn't they know women? Didn't they know there was nothing on God's earth could be so terrible, so remorseless, as a woman when the one she loved was in danger? The toughest triggerman was a Salvation Army lassie compared to a woman at such a time. "They're not going to have him!" Jean Donovan whispered into the night that surrounded her, eyes hard as mica and so big they seemed to cover her whole face. "They're not--going--to--take--him away from me!" One look at her expression and the taxi driver, who had been considering taking up acquaintanceship where the other two had left off, changed his mind and slunk away. You don't try to make dates with a tiger.

He took a deep belly breath of relief as he saw the guy in front push her off the car and nearly on her ear. "Thank God," he said to himself, "she stays out of it!" They hadn't, evidently, either one of them recognized her from the Club; Beefy had two or three, and the Long Island City one was where they did most of their hanging out when they did any. It had been chiefly a Long Island outfit from the beginning. But one peep from her just now, one "Johnny!" and she would have been sunk. He'd been scared stiff that she'd give herself away. It was okay now though. She'd look pretty in black, poor little monkey. She looked pretty in anything. He turned his head around and looked back at her through the diamond-shaped rear pane as they zoomed off, then covered himself by grating, "Damned little bum, trying to horn in! I like to die private." The one next to him gave him another slap, backhand across the eyes, and they filled with water. "You're gonna," he promised. They followed St. Nick to 168th, cut west, and connected with Riverside. "Y'got pretty far uptown for a Brooklyn fella," the one at the wheel mentioned, "but not far enough." "Is Ratsy gonna be burned!" laughed his mate. "The Big Boy sends him all the way to Buffalo on a phony tip day before yesterday. And Ratsy hates Buffalo, he went to Reform School there! And while he's gone we snag the son right here!" There wasn't a car in sight on the Drive at that hour; the lights of the bridge were like a string of pearls hanging up in the air behind them. They turned south, slowed, and drew up almost at once. "As quick as all that?" thought Johnny, thankfully. "Then I'm not going to get the trimmings! There wouldn't be time, out in the open like this." The one in front cut the dashboard lights, said: "Hurry it up now! We don't wanna be hanging around here too long--" "We shoulda brought that dame after all," the other one said. "She coulda fronted for us." He took his gun out, turned it, swung back, and brought the butt down on the side of Johnny's head with a pounding crash. Johnny groaned but didn't go right out, so he smashed him again with it, this time on the other side, then went on: "That gal coulda made it look like a necking party, while we're standing still here like this." "Get busy, and we don't need to be standing still!" was the answer. "Got the blanket? Fix it so it looks like he's soused." The one in back took out copper wire from the side pocket, caught the limp figure's wrists behind him, coiled it cruelly around them. The skin broke instantly and the strands of the wire disappeared under it. Then he did it to his ankles too. Then he propped him up in the corner, took the lap robe and tucked it around him up to his neck. He took out a bottle of whisky, palmed a handful, sloshed it across Johnny's face, sprinkled the blanket with it. "Let's go," he muttered. "He smells like a still. He oughta be good for a hundred fifty traffic lights now!" The lights went up, the driver kicked his foot down, and they arched away like a plane taking off. "It musta been great," he lamented mournfully, "in the old days before they had traffic lights!" "They had no organization in them days," said his companion scornfully. "They went to jail like flies--even for cracking safes, mind ya! Take it slower, we're getting downtown." Johnny came to between two redhot branding irons just as they swerved out onto the express highway at Seventy-fourth. The outside of his mouth was free, but a strip of tape fastened to his upper gums clamped his tongue to the roof of his mouth. The only sounds he could make sounded like the mumblings of a drunk. He saw the black outline of the Jersey shore skimming by across the river. They took Canal Street across, then followed the Bowery, which still showed signs of life; he knew it by the El pillars shuffling past. Then the wire lacework of one of the bridges. Brooklyn probably. A tug bleated dismally way under them. There hadn't been, strictly speaking, any traffic lights all the way down; they'd all gone out hours ago. It was the streetlights flickering in and out of the car they were on guard against. They had to slow up once, in downtown Brooklyn, for a street accident, and there must have been a cop near. They both got very talkative and solicitous all at once. "Head still going round and round, Johnny?" the one in front asked. "Never mind, you'll be home in bed in no time now." "What he needs," said the one in back, gun out under cover of the blanket, but not pointing at Johnny this time, "is a good strong cup o' black coffee." "Looks like your friend can't hold his liquor," said a third voice, outside the car, and a face peered jocularly in at him, under a visor. "Ing, ing, ing," Johnny panted, sweat coursing down his face. He reared desperately toward the silhouette. The face pulled back again. "Ouch, what a breath! I could get lit myself on that alone." "I told him not to mix his drinks." They swerved out, then in again, sloshed through some water, sped on. The one next to him caught him by both cheeks with one hand, dragged them together, heaved his head back into the corner of the seat. His lower lip opened and blood came out. "That cop," he observed calmly, "don't know how lucky he is he didn't get what you were trying to tell him!" "Did he lamp the plates?" he asked the driver. "I turned 'em over just as we came up." He did something to the dashboard and there was a slapping sound from the rear fender. The lights got fewer, then after awhile there weren't any more; they were out in the wilds of Jamaica now, Beefy's happy hunting ground. A big concrete building that looked like a ware house or refrigerating plant showed up. "Well, anyway," one of them said to Johnny, "we gave you your money's worth; it wasn't one of those short hauls!" When he looked closer he saw that Johnny was out again; he'd been lying on his mangled wrists at an acute angle ever since they'd left the place where they met the cop. They drove into the building, car and all, and got him out between them, and a new guy took the wheel of the car and an elevator took it down below some place out of sight. Yet this wasn't a garage. When Johnny Donovan regained consciousness for the second time that night, it was with the help of a fistful of shaved ice being held between his eyes. He was up in the loft of this building, a big barn of a place, half of it lost in shadows that the row of coned lights overhead couldn't reach; it was cold as a tomb, sawdust on the floor, and a row of porcelain refrigerator doors facing him gleamed clinically white, dazzled the eyes. Beefy Borden was there, with a white turtle-neck sweater under his coat jacket, perched on a tall three-legged stool, gargoyle-like. The two that had brought Johnny had turned their coat collars up against the cold, but him they promptly stripped to the waist as soon as he had opened his eyes. The skin on his stomach and back crawled involuntarily, half dead as he was, and contracted into goose pimples. They had left him upright for a moment, and his knees immediately caved under him, hit the sawdust. He held his spine straight by sheer will power and stayed that way; wouldn't go down any further. Beefy lit a cigarette, handed his two henchmen one, studied Johnny interestedly, seemingly without hatred. "So that's how they look when they go straight," he murmured. "Why, I thought I'd see something--pair of wings at least, or one of these here now halos shining on top of his conk. I don't notice anything, do you, boys? I wouldn't gotten up at this hour and come all the way out here if I'da known." All very playful and coy, with a wink for each one. One of them jerked his head back by the hair, pried his mouth open, and tore out the tape. A little blood followed, from the lining of the cheeks. They took away the copper wire from his wrists next. Beefy flicked ashes from his cigarette, drawled: "Well, I'll tell you, I think he's had enough, don't you? We just set out to frighten him a little, didn't we, boys? I think he's learned his lesson. Whaddya say we let him have his clothes back and send him home?" He gave them each a long, meaning look so they got the idea. "Only first, of course, he's gotta show the right spirit, ask for it in the proper way, say he's sorry and all like that.Now suppose you crawl over here, right in front of me, and just ask, beg real hard--that's all y'gotta do, and then we'll call it quits." Johnny saw his foot twitch; knew it was loaded with a kick for his face when and if he did. It wasn't the obvious phoniness of the offer that held him back, even if it had been genuine, even if it had been as easy as all that to get out of it--he still wouldn't have done it. Life wasn't that precious. Man has a soul--even a kid from nowhere whom nobody would miss, trapped in a ref rigerating plant. He writhed to his shackled feet and hobbled a little way toward Beefy. One of them was holding his coat and shirt up for bait, but Johnny didn't even glance that way. He stared into the pig-eyes of the Big Shot. Then suddenly, without a word, he spat blood and saliva full into his face. "That's the cleanest thing ever touched you," he said hoarsely. "Gimme death, so I won't have to keep on seeing and smelling you! Those are my last words. Now try to get another sound out of me!" They knocked him down flat on his back, and he just lay there looking at the ceiling. Beefy got down from the stool very slowly, face twitching all over and luminous with rage. He wiped the back of his hand across one cheek, motioned with the other. "Hand me that belt of his." They put it in his hand. He paid it around, caught it at the opposite end from the thin, flat silver buckle. "Go down below and bring up a sack of salt on the elevator with you." His eyes never left Johnny's face. He addressed the remaining one: "Put your foot on his neck and hold him down. When I tell you to, you can turn him over on the other side." Then he spoke directly to Johnny: "Now listen while you're still able to, listen what's coming to you. You're gonna be beaten raw with your own belt. The salt--that's so you'll know it. That'lI keep the blood in too, so you'll last awhile, an hour or two anyway. Stinging and smarting to death." Johnny didn't answer. Beefy stripped off his coat, swung the buckled strap back in a long hissing arc, brought it over and down again with the velocity of a bullet. His assistant steadied his foot against the spasm that coursed through what he was holding down. There wasn't a human sound in the place from then on. It wouldn't be listed in the phone book, of course, so she didn't even bother looking it up. Every second counted. The wheels of that death car were raging around like mad under him this very minute, and here she was stuck way up here on the edge of creation, miles from anywhere. But that bloated swine that was behind all this, he had a home somewhere, he lived somewhere in this town, there was somewhere she could reach him. Oh, it was too late by now to beg or plead for Johnny's life--the ride had started already--and even if it hadn't been, she knew how much good it would have done her, but at least she could put a bullet through him! The police? Weren't they those men in blue that directed traffic at crossings? They'd find Johnny's body eventually--that was about where they fitted in. And even then--that Druckman case awhile back, for instance. There was only one man who could stop what was going to happen in time, and that was the man who had started it. Thank God, she knew that much at least; knew which direction the blow had come from. She had wangled the whole set-up out of Johnny weeks ago. She darted out into the roadway, where anything on wheels would have to stop for her, and began to run crazily along. A pair of heads twinkled across from left to right at the next intersection, half a block down, and she screamed at them, brought them around in a half circle to a stop. It was a private machine with a "girl scout" in it. "Wanna lift?" She came up panting. "Fifty-eighth Street--oh, for the love of God, get me down there!" "Whoa! That's not the right spirit. Y'wanna look at this thing a little more socially. I'm not in the hacking business--" But she'd fled onward already. She got her cab a minute later, it had turned in toward her. "The Wicked Nineties," she strangled. "No, never mind your meter. I'll give you twenty dollars flat, twenty-five, anything, only get me there. Cut loose!" She took out the hard-earned money that was to have gotten them to Miami, shook it at him. "It's a matter of life and death, d'you understand?" She took out the gun, fixed it, while they lurched down the endless lengths of St. Nicholas Avenue. Bannerman, her boss, Beefy's "front" down here--he'd know; he'd be able to tell her where to reach him, if she had to shoot him to get it out of him. "Good boy!" she breathed fervently as he tore into the park at 110th instead of taking Fifth. Fifth was straight and the park had curves, but he knew what he was doing; you could make any speed you wanted to in there at this dawn hour. When they came out at Fifty-ninth, the street lights had just gone out all over town. Two two-wheeled skids more and they were in front of where she worked, not a light showing outside of it any more. "Here's thirty," she said, vaulting out. "Now stay there, wait-- you've got to take me some place else yet! You'll get all the rest of this, if you'll only wait!" She ran down the long carpeted foyer, past her own picture on the walls, burst into the room beyond like an avenging angel. The last customer was out, the lights low, the tables stacked, the scrubwomen down on their knees. If he'd gone already, Bannerman, if she'd missed him! His office door flew open at her push, so he was still around somewhere. He wasn't in there; she could hear him washing his hands in his little private cubbyhole beyond. He heard her, but she beat him to the lavatory door, locked him in from the outside. "Hey, you!" He began to pound. She went through the desk like a cyclone, dropping papers and whole drawers around her. She couldn't find it; it wasn't left lying around like that. Then she saw he'd hung his coat up on a hook before he went in; it was in a little private memorandum book in the inside pocket of that. Both of them, the home address and the telephone number. Just the initials, B. B. But that was it. Way over in Brooklyn somewhere. She grabbed up the hand-set and began to hack away at it. Dead. More grief, the club operator had gone home long ago. She picked up Bannerman's bunch of keys, found the one to the office door, slipped out, and locked that up after her too. A minute later she heard a crash as he busted down the lavatory partition. She was already around at the main switchboard off the foyer, plugging in her call herself. Not for nothing had she once done a stretch of that. No answer--but then it was a 5 AM. call. "Keep it up, operator, keep it up!" She turned her head and yelled at one of the terrified scrubwomen: "Keep away from that door, you! He's drunk as an owl in there!" Suddenly there was a woman's voice in her ears, sleepy, frightened too. "Hello, who--who do you want?" "Lemme talk to Borden. Borden, quick! Got an important message for him!" "He's not here--" "Well, where can Ireach him! Hurry, Itell you, I'm not kidding." "He didn't say where he was going--he never does--he--" "Who is this? Speak up, can't you, you fool! No one's gonna bite you!" "This is his wife. Who are you? How'd you know where he lives? No one ever rings him here--" "I'm the girl with the dreamy eyes! And I'm coming over there and give the message myself!" The driver was still turning the three tens over and over when she landed in back of him. "Ocean Avenue--and just as fast as ever!" Bannerman got to the club entrance all mussed-looking just as they went into high. Breaking down two doors in succession had spoiled the part in his hair.

It was a skyscraper apartment house on Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue, the number that had been in Bannerman's memo book, and naturally he'd have the roof--she didn't need the night operator to tell her that. She gave the hackman another thirty. "Now wait some more. I know you think I'm crazy, but--but maybe you once loved someone too!" "It ain't my business," he said agreeably, and began thumbing his sixty lovingly. She wasn't coming back this time, at least she didn't think so then, but it wouldn't hurt to have him handy. "Certainly I'm expected," she told the hallman. He didn't like the hour, but he'd already made a half-turn toward the second of two elevators. "Well, just a minute until I find out." He went over to the house phone. It was Beefy's private lift, no doors in the shaft up to the penthouse, and it was automatic; by keeping her thumb pressed to the starter he couldn't reverse it and get her down again. He'd bring cops in right away; they were probably eating out of Beefy's hand for miles around here, too. The elevator slide let her right out into the apartment, and the hallman was already buzzing like mad from below to warn them. Borden's young wife was heading for the instrument from the room beyond, in pattering bare feet, as Jean got there. She'd thrown a mink coat over a nightgown. She stopped dead for a minute, then went right on again under pressure. "Don't make me do something I don't want to," Jean said softly. "Just say it's all right; that you were expecting me. Well, go on, say it!" She motioned with the little gun. "Sallright, was expecting her," the woman slobbered into the house phone. Jean clicked it off for her. "Now, where is he?" "Uh-uh-uh," the Borden woman sputtered, stalling for time. "Come on! Can't you tell by my face not to fool around with me?" She didn't know. He'd been gone since about ten that evening. He never told her anything about his business. "Business--ha!" There was more to be leery of in the laugh than there had been in her anger. "He's got my man in a spot--right now, this very minute--and I'm going to pay him back in his own coin! Either you help me head him off in time or you get it yourself!" "He doesn't do things like that, not my Beefy. You've got him wrong. They've given you a bum steer. Now wait a minute, honey; don't lose your nice ways! Honest, if I knew where he was I'd tell you. One of his club managers, Bannerman, he might know." Her loosened hair fell down over her face. "That's what I'm thinking too," Jean said curtly. "I just came from Bannerman, but I didn't have any--inducement--then, to get him to tell me. We'll try our luck now--but not from here. Come on. You're coming with me--back to my own place! Pick up that house phone! What's the guy's name down there? Jerry? Say, Jerry, will you come up here a minute? Take the public elevator." The gun raised her to her feet like a lever. "Jerry, will you come up here a minute? Take the public elevator." Then she said craftily, "Yes." Jean's hand sealed the orifice like a flash. "He asked you if there was anything wrong, didn't he?" She raised the gun. "Make it, Yes, we think we see a man outside on the terrace." She tore her away from it. "Now, come on!" She began pulling her after her to the waiting private elevator. "My feet are bare!" the captive wailed. There was a pair of galoshes standing near the elevator. Jean scuffed them into the car. "Stick 'em in those going down!" Further back, in a recess, a red-glass knob had lighted up warningly. They started down. Again Jean kept the ball of her thumb on the button. He couldn't cut them off from above. The lobby was deserted. She pulled Mrs. Borden, in nightgown, galoshes, and mink coat, into the cab after her. "Manhattan!" she clipped at the avaricious driver. "And this time you're really going to get dough!"

It was getting lighter by the minute now, but was still too early for anything to be open. She stopped him at an all-night drug store down near Borough Hall, hauled her furred freight in after her. "This woman's real sick," she threw at the sleepy clerk, and the two of them crushed into one phone booth, Mrs. Borden on the inside. She didn't know where to reach Bannerman at his home, any more than her prisoner did (and she believed her), but she was praying he'd stayed on at the Nineties on account of those two smashed doors and to see if she'd lifted anything from his office. She rang the club. He answered himself. "Now listen, and listen carefully! Get Beefy Borden on the wire from where you are--I don't care where he is, but get him--and keep the line open, waiting! I'm going to call you again in ten minutes, from some place else. You better have him when I do! And he better have Johnny Donovan still alive for me!" "I don't know whatcha talking about," he tried to say. "Who's Johnny Donovan? And for that matter, who's Beefy Borden?" "He thinks I'm ribbing!" she raged at Mrs. Borden. "Tell him about it yourself!" "Dave, for God's sake, do what she says!" the haggard blonde croaked into the transmitter. "It's June, can't you hear me? June! She's taken me off with her in a cab and she's got a gun on me!" Jean pushed her aside. "Do you know who that was or don't you? Ten minutes," she warned him, and hung up. They went hustling out again, Jean's right fist buried deep in the rich mink, and got back into the cab again. They lived on Fifty-eighth, she and Johnny; at least he had until two weeks ago. All his things were still up there, and it had broken her heart nightly for fourteen nights now just to look at them. Just one-room-and, but in a fairly slick place, the Parc Concorde. She brought out all the rest of the Miami money, spread it out fanwise in her hand, offered it to the driver. "Help yourself-- and forget all about what you've seen tonight!" Mrs. Borden was too near prostration by now to budge, even without a gun on her. "One from each end and one from the middle," he gloated, picking them out, "and I get a radio put in." She crammed the rest of it back into her bag. There was still more than enough left to get them to Miami--the thing was, would she get the chance to use it? Too late, in the elevator, June Borden came to. "Don't let her take me in there! She's--I dunno what she's gonna do!" "All this row just because I bring you home to put you under a cold shower! You _will_ mix your drinks!" She slipped a ten into the hailman's hand. He grinned reassuringly. "You'll be all right in the morning, lady." He gave Jean the office. "Mrs. Donovan would not think of hurting ya, wouldja, Mrs. Donovan? You just do what she tells ya!" Jean closed the door after them and locked it. "Sit down in that chair and let's find out if you live or die." She got the Wicked Nineties back, calmly stripping off her hat and coat while she waited. She opened her bag with one hand, and took the gun out. Bannerman had a voice waiting for her on another wire, but they couldn't connect the two lines. She hadn't thought of that in time. So near and yet so far! "Plug me through the club switchboard!" she rasped. "I don't know how, I never worked it!" He tried it and she found herself talking to a produce market up in the Bronx. She got him back again, her heart turning inside out. "Is he alive-- only tell me that, is he alive?" "I can't swing it while both lines stay open. Gimme your number, then hang up a minute, let them call you--" Mrs. Borden came over, starting to cry. "Dave, Dave, do what she says! You gotta get Beefy, I tell you!" "Listen," Jean said. "Pull out his plug on your callboard, got that? Then cut mine into the socket you got his out of--that's all you've got to do!" There was a click, and then another voice came on. It was Borden's. She knew it just by that one "Who the hell wazzat?" he'd thrown after her in the club alley one night. It echoed hollowly, as though he was in some sort of a big hall or arena. "All right, twist. What's all this jalappy you're handing out?" "You've got Johnny Donovan there with you. I've got June Borden here with me. Do we swap, or don't we?" "Trying to do, throw a scare into me? You'll wish you'd never been born when I get through with--" "I know you're checking this number like blazes while you're trying to string me along. Listen, you could be right at the door now and you wouldn't be in time to save her. Matter, don't you believe I've got her here? Don't you believe Bannerman? All right, help yourself." She motioned her prisoner over. "Sell yourself!" "Max! Max!" his wife bleated. "I'm alone with her here--she came and took me out of my bed. Max, don't you know my voice? Max, you're not gonna let me--Hou-hou-hou--" She dropped the phone and went staggering around in a sort of drunken circle, hands heeled to her eyes. Jean picked it up again. His voice was sort of strained now. "Now, wait a minute. Don't you know you can't get away with--" "You're gonna hear the shot right over this wire--" Then she heard something that went through her like a knife. The scream of a man in mortal agony sounded somewhere in the background, muffled, blurred in transmission. She moaned in answer to it. Borden said, almost hysterically, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, that wasn't him, that was one of my own men--he, he got hurt here!" "Then put him on the phone," she said. "I'll count five. Come over here, you! I'm holding the gun right at her!" She began to count, slowly, remorselessly. The woman was half-dead already, with sheer fright. She could hear his breathing across the wire, hoarse, rasping. The tension was almost unendurable; she could feel her mind slipping. "Four," she heard herself say. "Better put him on the phone quick!" "I can't," came from the other end. "He's gone--half an hour ago. You're--too late!" There was a choked terror about the way he said it that told her it was true. She let the receiverdrop to the end of its cord like a shot. His wife read her doom in her eyes. She gave a single, longdrawn scream of nameless terror that hung in the air. Then the pounding at the door told Jean why he'd come out with it like that just now, made no bones about it; they'd traced her fast, all right. They'd gotten here already--her address was on tap at the club-- but just the same, he'd timed himself wrong. They weren't in yet, there was still a door between, and a pin can fall on cartridge much quicker than a door can swing open! She'd been half an hour too late--but he'd been half a minute too soon! They'd both lost, and the winner was the same old winner--death. A passkey turned in the door and a voice from the other world groaned, "Jean!" She shivered all over and turned to look, and the hallman was holding Johnny up in the doorway. He was naked uflder a coat, and his feet were hobbled with copper wire, but his eyes were alive and he groaned it again, "Jean!"as the man brought him into the room, leaning on him. He'd kept his word, he'd stayed alive! She saw through the open coat what they'd done to him, and choked back a scream. "They strapped the hell out of me," he said, and smiled a little, "but--but--I left before the finals--" And he fainted. "Whisky!" she said. "Bandages--they're in there! Quick!" Yet it wasn't as bad as it had looked. Cut-up wrists and ankles, a flaming chest and abdomen--but he'd stayed alive, he'd come back from a ride. The very same maroon death car was at the door right now! She pitched the gun into a corner. Mrs. Borden was sitting there snuffling a little, slowly calming down. She didn't make a move to go; seemed to be lost in thought--unpleasant thought. He opened his eyes again, gave a deep sigh, like pain was a habit by this time. She gave him the cigarette he asked for, then went ahead washing and bandaging. Tears were slowly coursing down her cheeks, tears of gratitude. "No--no cops," she said to the hallman. "You see, it wouldn't do us any good. We're going to Miami. Can you make Penn Station with me, darling?" He didn't tell her what they had intended doing; just told her what they'd actually done. "They kept sprinkling salt, as the belt buckle opened the skin. I gave a heave, I guess, I don't know; threw the one that was holding me down with his foot off balance, sort of forward. The buckle coming down caught him, tore his eye out. He went mad with pain, went for Beefy; picked up a sharp knife they had waiting for me. They had a terrible time with him. My arms were free, but my feet weren't. I kept rolling over and over--just to ease the burning at first--then I rolled right onto this flat freight-elevator that had no sides, pulled the rope and went all the way down, into the basement without knowing it. The car was there they'd brought me in, and the mechanic was dozing. I cracked him with a wrench, dragged myself in, drove it onto the elevator and managed to get off with it at street level. Then I drove it all the way back here with a blanket around me, so I wouldn't get pinched for indecent exposure. The open air sort of kept me going--" "It's my fault. Are you sorry," she sobbed, "you went straight?" "No," he murmured. "It was worth it--even if I hadn't come back. Just help me with a pair of socks and shoes, and I can still make the train with you--" Mrs. Borden was saying, in a strange smoldering voice, "I never thought he'd go that far--do that to any human being. At home he wouldn't hurt a fly--" She covered her eyes suddenly, as if to shut out the memory of Johnny's frayed, reddened skin before the bandages hid it from sight. "He--he would've killed you, if you hadn't gotten away!" "That," said Johnny tersely, "seems to have been the chief idea." "Why?" she wanted to know. "Because I knew too much." She seemed to be talking to herself more than to the two of them. "Oh, I'm not a plaster saint, God knows," she groaned. "I knew our money wasn't straight. I've always known it. Too much of it too quickly. I knew he was in beer back in the Twenties, and I know that lately he's been running clubs and sending girls on South American vaudeville tours--" "Is that the new name for it?" "But still and all," she went on, "I never thought he'd try to take someone's life. Oh, if someone doesn't stop him, he'll kill someone yet!" All Johnny said was, "Yet?" She stood up suddenly, staring at him. "Then you mean he has--already? Me and the kids, we been living on blood money! I guess I know the reason now why so many times the morning paper has whole columns torn out of it when I come to read it." She stared at the mink coat; suddenly sloughed it off, horrified. "What's that trying to tell me? It's turned red, look at it, bright red!" she screamed. "I've been living in the same house with a killer--sleeping with a murderer! He's gonna end up in the chair yet--" "He's ten years overdue," Johnny muttered. "It's pretty late in the day to--" "But it's not too late! I love him! I don't care what he's done! I'll save him from that. Anything but that! I'll put him where he's safe! If I can't have him, the chair won't get him either!" She picked up Jean's phone. "Get me the district attorney's office," she sobbed. Jean was buttoning her husband's coat. "Lean on me, darling," she whispered. "We've got a date with ourselves down in Miami." "Mrs. Maximilian Borden," the woman at the phone was saying as they limped out of the room arm-in-arm and quietly closed the door behind them. "You tell the attorney I want a personal interview with him--in strict confidence!"

WALTZ

She was sitting there in white, cool and crisp and purelooking, with ten young men around her, waiting for the next number to begin. She knew what it was going to be because only a short while ago she had requested the orchestra leader to play it. _The Blue Danube_. She knew whom it was going to be with too. As the opening bars were struck, a preamble started all around her. She laughed and kept shaking her head and saying, "Reserved, reserved. The next one, maybe." But the joke was, there wasn't going to be any next one. She knew that and they didn't. When she saw him coming for her all the way across the enormous room, she stood up expectantly. There seemed to be a star twinkling behind both of her eyes. The strains of Strauss' lovely lilting music found an echo in her heart. The disappointed men put on long faces and drifted back to the stag line that stretched unbroken across one entire side of the ballroom, ruler-straight, like a regiment on dress parade: black shoulders, white shirtfronts, pink faces. Under the sparkling crystal chandeliers, figures in blue and yellow and pink were slowly beginning to turn all over the room, like tops, each with its black-garbed complement. The girl in white and the man she'd been waiting for met, stood poised for a moment, started off with a slow spin, their forms reflected upside down on the glass floor. Her voice was eager, confidential: "This is the first chance I've had to say a word to you alone all evening, they've been watching me so. Especially mother. . . . You've got your car outside, of course? . . . Right after this dance? Yes, that's as good a time as any. They'll be going upstairs then. They'll let the party go ahead under its own momentum. She's starting to yawn already . "Yes, I'm all set. I sneaked up and finished my packing while the last dance was going on. Imagine me doing my own packing! I wasn't taking any chances on the maid giving me away to the family. I even carried my bags down the back stairs myself. They're hidden in a little closet off the servants' entrance. Just as soon as this piece is over, you slip out the front way, bring your car around to the back, and I'll meet you there. We'll be miles away before we're even missed. . "I still can't believe it, it's all been so sudden The family'll probably throw fits, when they find out I've only known you ten days.. . . They think you have to know a person years before you can trust them. And even then, you're supposed to play safe and not trust them anyway, half the time. Anyone you know less than six months, to them, is an utter stranger. I guess it's our money that made them that way. . "Well, suppose they do think it's that? Let them. We know better, don't we, Wes? . . . Oh, shall I? I never thought of that. I never stop to think of money. Well, about how much shall I bring along? There's a lot of it lying scattered around in my bureau drawer upstairs. I just throw it in and then forget about it ye never bothered counting. Maybe a thousand or two. Will that be enough? I mean, I haven't the faintest idea what things cost, gasoline and hotels and things like that. I've never had to pay for anything myself. .. . Oh, don't apologize, Wes--I understand perfectly. Of course, just until you can cash a check tomorrow or the next day. What difference does money make anyway when two people are as much in love as we are? If you don't think two thousand will be enough, I could go to Father maybe and ask him--. . . No, I guess you're right, I'd better not. He _might_ think it was a strange time, right in the middle of the party like this, and start asking all kinds of questions. . "My jewels? Why, of course, I'm bringing them. They're in one of the valises right now. . . . Yes, I suppose they are worth a lot. . . . No, I haven't the faintest idea; seventy-five, a hundred thousand, somewhere around there, don't you think?. . . A lot? Why, I thought every girl had about that amount of jewelry. I mean, except _servant_ girls and people like that. Don't they? Everyone I know has at least that much. . . "Oh, here we're wasting this whole lovely music talking about money and jewels and uninteresting things like that! It's the last time I'll ever dance in my own home, with people around me that I've known all my life, who have sheltered and protected me. By morning we'll be hundreds of miles away, without leaving a trace. No one'll know where I am, what's become of me. They'll never see me again. Isn't that romantic, dropping from sight in the middle of a big party right under your own roof?

"Regret it? Feel sorry? No, how can I, when I think what I do of you? No, these other men don't mean a thing to me. I grew up with most of them. I know every one of those twenty-five men on that stag line, and there's not one of them I-- . . . Well, yes, there are twenty-six, but that third one from the end doesn't count. He's only a detective. . "Oops, you went out of step there. My fault I guess, I'm so excited tonight. . "No, I don't mean that kind of a _hired_ detective, that you just have around to see that no valuables are stolen during a big party like this. This one's some special kind of a detective, who's hunting somebody. Imagine looking for somebody here! Isn't that rich? . "There we go again; it must be these high heels of mine. . . . I didn't really bother listening. I just happened to overhear Father bawling him out as I was passing the door; that was all. . . . Father nearly had a fit. He wanted to have him thrown out bodily, from what I could gather. But you know how nervous Mother is. As soon as she heard about it, she insisted that Father let him stay--just in case. . "No, not a thief. He gave it a funny word. Wait'lI I see if I can remember. Oh yes--con-congenital murderer! That was it. What's a congenital murderer anyway, Wes? . . . Darling, have we been dancing too hard? Your forehead's all wet.. . . Now isn't that preposterous? I don't believe a word of it. I think he's just trying to sound important and frighten us. Well anyway, Mother talked Father into letting him hang around, as long as he minded his business and didn't spoil the looks of the party. She made him give his word that he wouldn't start any rough stuff inside the house here--that he'd wait until the person--if there is such a person--left, and he'd get him outside. . . "Oh no, he's not alone. I think he's brought a whole battery of others with him. They're probably spread out lurking outside around the house somewhere. Something asinine like that. Father put his foot down. He said one inside the house was all he'd stand for--the rest would have to stay out. I guess they're all out there right now, thick as bees. . "There we go again. My, but I'm clumsy tonight! . "No, of course not, Wes; why should they interfere with us? They wouldn't dare! They'll just stop this man, when and if they see him coming out. . . . He might be here at that. When you throw a large party like this and invite dozens and dozens of people, almost anyone can slip in unannounced. Like you did yourself, that night I first met you at Sylvia's party, ten nights ago. Only of course you did it just for the fun of it. I asked her who you were afterwards, and she said she didn't know herself. . . . You know, if I weren't so excited about what _we're_ going to do, I'd have myself a perfectly swell time trying to figure out just who it could be. . . . Isn't it thrilling? Somebody here at this party is a congenital murderer! Somebody right out on this floor dancing like we are this very minute! I wouldn't want to be in his partner's shoes. . . . Let's see now, Tommy Turner, over there with that girl in yellow, has always had a perfectly vile temper. Why he half killed a man once just for--but Tommy and I have been playmates since we were seven. He wouldn't have the time to go around murdering people. He's always too busy playing polo. .. . Or maybe it's that Argentine sheik that's been rushing Kay Landon so all season. I always did think he had kind of a murderous face. . "Don't stare at him like that, Wes--the detective, I mean. He'll know I told you something, and he asked us not to. I know you're highly interested, but you haven't taken your eyes off him once the past five minutes. No, he's not looking at us. Why should he be? . . . Well, if he is, it's because you've been looking at him so hard. You're like all the men. You seem to think a detective is wonderful. Personally I find them very stupid and uninteresting. This one talks out of the side of his mouth. I wish you could hear-- . . "Wes, you're breathing so hard. I must be difficult to lead. . .

"So they know what he looks like? I'm not sure. They do and they don't. I mean, what they're counting on is a certain scar across the back of his hand. That seems to be one of the few definite facts they know about him. They're positive he has it. I suppose they'll make every man that leaves here tonight hold up his hand before his face or something before they let him through. Which just goes to show you how very stupid they are. As though there couldn't be two people with a scar-- . . . What am I laughing at? Why, there are! I just remembered you yourself have one. You know, that scald you got trying to unscrew the overheated cap of your radiator. Don't you remember my asking you about it at Sylvia's that night, when you still had tape around it? Incidentally, how is it getting-- . . . Wes, don't pull your hand away like that! You nearly tore my arm out of my socket! . . . Silly, are you afraid they'll mistake _you_ for this murderer? As though you could be a congenital murderer! Why, I'd know one in a minute. At least I think Iwould. Of course I never saw one, but they're sort of pale and hollow-eyed and suspicious looking, aren't they? . . . Wes, what a peculiar smile you just gave me! . . . Darling, is it too warm for you in here? You've gotten so white. . "Oh, let's forget this stupid detective and his murderer! How'd we ever start talking about him anyway? . . . There, Father and Mother are saying good night. They'll be starting upstairs in a minute. Now just as soon as this waltz is over, I'll make a beeline out of here before that bunch of stags jumps on my neck again. I'll get the money I told you about, throw something over this dress, and meet you by the rear entrance. . . . Father's private library? Why the library? Well all right, anything you say. You wait for me in there then. Keep the door closed so no one'll see you. . . . What? Why yes, I think Father does keep some kind of a gun in the table drawer in there. I remember seeing it once or twice, but how on earth did _you_ know about it? . . . I still can't understand why you want me to follow you in there. The library is in the exact center of the whole house. There's only one door to it and no windows. And we'll be cut off, walled up, in there; it'll be terribly hard for us to get out again without being seen. . . Well, you know best, Wes. It'd be terribly unlucky for me to start arguing with my future husband the very first night. . . "The waltz is ending. Lead me over toward the stairs, so I can make a quick getaway. . . . That stupid detective keeps watching so; he must have intended asking me for the next dance. Well, he'll have another guess! I bet he dances like a Mack truck. . . . One minute more. . "There, it's over! Wasn't that a lovely waltz? I'll never forget it as long as I live. Maybe that won't be as long as I think it will--I'll leave you for just this minute, and then I'll never leave you again. Till death do us part."

The two shots came so close together they sounded like one; they shattered the after-the-waltz stillness. A girl or two blea ted fearfully. Then with a patter like rain on the polished dancing floor the crowd began herding toward a single point, converging on the partly open library door, where a man was standing. There was a wisp of smoke just over his head. Then it blew away. Beyond him a man's face was visible, chin on the long, narrow table. Then that too disappeared, like the smoke, and a dull sound came from the carpeted floor. The detective was saying, to those behind him in the doorway: "Search me, I headed over for this private liberry to bum another of the old man's cigars--they're the finest I ever smoked. I open the door and he's standing there perfectly still on the other side on that table, with the drawer open and his hand in it. He don't say anything, just looks at me like I'm a ghost. So I reach out my paw to help myself from the big humidor standing there between us. With that, he jerks up this gun, misses my ear by an eighth of an inch, turns it to his own dome, and gives it the works!" Voices cried excitedly, "He must be that murderer you wanted!" The story had evidently already gotten around in some way. "How could he be?" the detective shrugged. "We got him over an hour ago--nabbed him outside the house as he was on his way in with some swell-looking dame that was next on his list. He's been safely in custody ever since ten o'clock, and the guys I had watching the place all went with him. Why did I come back and hang around like that afterwards? Well I'll tell you frankly, the punch and the sanwidges and the cigars were the best I ever tried, and does anybody feel like complaining?"

THE BOOK THAT SQUEALED

The outside world never intruded into the sanctum where Prudence Roberts worked. Nothing violent or exciting ever happened there, or was ever likely to. Voices were never raised above a whisper, or at the most a discreet murmur. The most untoward thing that could possibly occur would be that some gentleman browser became so engrossed he forgot to remove his hat and had to be tactfully reminded. Once, it is true, a car backfired violently somewhere outside in the street and the whole staff gave a nervous start, including Prudence, who dropped her date stamp all the way out in the aisle in front of her desk; but that had never happened again after that one time. Things that the papers printed, holdups, gang warfare, kidnappings, murders, remained just things that the papers printed. They never came past these portals behind which she worked. Just books came in and went out again. Harmless, silent books. Until, one bright June day-- The Book showed up around noon, shortly before Prudence Roberts was due to go off duty for lunch. She was on the Returned Books desk. She turned up her nose with unqualified inner disapproval at first sight of the volume. Her taste was severely classical; she had nothing against light reading in itself, but to her, light reading meant Dumas, Scott, Dickens. She could tell this thing before her was trash by the title alone, and the author's pen name: "Manuela Gets Her Man," by Orchid Ollivant. Furthermore it had a lurid orange dust cover that showed just what kind of claptrap might be expected within. She was surprised a city library had added such worthless tripe to its stock; it belonged more in a candy-store lending library than here. She supposed there had been a great many requests for it among a certain class of readers; that was why. Date stamp poised in hand she glanced up, expecting to see one of these modern young hussies, all paint and boldness, or else a faded middle-aged blonde of the type that lounged around all day in a wrapper, reading such stuff and eating marshmallows. To her surprise the woman before her was drab, looked hardworking and anything but frivolous. She didn't seem to go with the book at all. Prudence Roberts didn't say anything, looked down again, took the book's reference card out of the filing drawer just below her desk, compared them. "You're two days overdue with this," she said; "it's a one-week book. That'lI be four cents." The woman fumbled timidly in an old-fashioned handbag, placed a nickel on the desk. "My daughter's been reading it to meat nights," she explained, "but she goes to night school and some nights she couldn't; that's what delayed me. Oh, it was grand." She sighed. "It brings back all your dreams of romance." "Humph," said Prudence Roberts, still disapproving as much as ever. She returned a penny change to the borrower, stamped both cards. That should have ended the trivial little transaction. But the woman had lingered there by the desk, as though trying to summon up courage to ask something. "Please," she faltered timidly when Prudence had glanced up a second time, "I was wondering, could you tell me what happens on page 42? You know, that time when the rich man lures her on his yasht?" "Yacht," Prudence corrected her firmly. "Didn't you read the book yourself?" "Yes, my daughter read it to me, but Pages 41 and 42 are missing, and we were wondering, we'd give anything to know, if Ronald got there in time to save her from that awful--" Prudence had pricked up her official ears at that. "Just a minute," she interrupted, and retrieved the book from where she had just discarded it. She thumbed through it rapidly. At first glance it seemed in perfect condition; it was hard to tell anything was the matter with it. If the borrower hadn't given her the exact page number--but Pages 41 and 42 were missing, as she had said. A telltale scalloping of torn paper ran down the seam between Pages 40 and 43. The leaf had been plucked out bodily, torn out like a sheet in a notebook, not just become loosened and fallen out. Moreover, the condition of the book's spine showed that this could not have happened from wear and tear; it was still too new and firm. It was a case of out-and-out vandalism. Inexcusable destruction of the city's property. "This book's been damaged," said Prudence ominously. "It's only been in use six weeks, it's still a new book, and this page was deliberately ripped out along its entire lenth. I'll have to ask you for your reader's card back. Wait here, please." She took the book over to Miss Everett, the head librarian, and showed it to her. The latter was Prudence twenty years from now, if nothing happened in between to snap her out of it. She sailed back toward the culprit, steel-rimmed spectacles glittering balefully. The woman was standing there cringing, her face as white as though she expected to be executed on the spot. She had the humble person's typical fear of anyone in authority. "Please, lady, I didn't do it," she whined. "You should have reported it before taking it out," said the inexorable Miss Everett. "I'm sorry, but as the last borrower, we'll have to hold you responsible. Do you realize you could go to jail for this?" The woman quailed. "It was that way when I took it home," she pleaded; "I didn't do it." Prudence relented a little. "She did call my attention to it herself, Miss Everett," she remarked. "I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise." "You know the rules as well as I do, Miss Roberts," said her flinty superior. She turned to the terrified drudge. "You will lose your card and all library privileges until you have paid the fine assessed against you for damaging this book." She turned and went careening off again. The poor woman still hovered there, pathetically anxious. "Please don't make me do without my reading," she pleaded. "That's the only pleasure I got. I work hard all day. How much is it? Maybe I can pay a little something each week." "Are you sure you didn't do it?" Pruence asked her searchingly. The lack of esteem in which she held this book was now beginning to incline her in the woman's favor. Of course, it was the principle of the thing, it didn't matter how trashy the book in question was. On the other hand, how could the woman have been expected to notice that a page was gone, in time to report it, _before_ she had begun to read it? "I swear I didn't," the woman protested. "I love books, I wouldn't want to hurt one of them." "Tell you what I'll do," said Prudence, lowering her voice and looking around to make sure she wasn't overheard. "I'll pay the fine for you out of my own pocket, so you can go ahead using the library meanwhile. I think it's likely this was done by one of the former borrowers, ahead of you. If such proves not to be the case, however, then you'll simply have to repay me a little at a time." The poor woman actually tried to take hold of her hand to kiss it. Prudence hastily withdrew it, marked the fine paid, and returned the card to her. "And I suggest you try to read something a little more worth while in future," she couldn't help adding. She didn't discover the additional damage until she had gone upstairs with the book, when she was relieved for lunch. It was no use sending it back to be rebound or repaired; with one entire page gone like that, there was nothing could be done with it; the book was worthless. Well, it had been that to begin with, she thought tartly. She happened to flutter the leaves scornfully and light filtered through one of the pages, in dashes of varying length, like a sort of Morse code. She looked more closely, and it was the fortythird page, the one immediately after the missing leaf. It bore innumerable horizontal slashes scattered all over it from top to bottom, as though some moron had underlined the words on it, but with some sharp-edged instrument rather than the point of a pencil. They were so fine they were almost invisible when the leaf was lying flat against the others, white on white; it was only when it was up against the light that they stood revealed. The leaf was almost threadbare with them. The one after it had some too, but not nearly so distinct; they hadn't pierced the thickness of the paper, were just scratches on it. She had heard of books being defaced with pencil, with ink, with crayon, something visible at least--but with an improvised stylus that just left slits? On the other hand, what was there in this junky novel important enough to be emphasized--if that was why it had been done? She began to read the page, to try to get some connected meaning out of the words that had been underscored. It was just a lot of senseless drivel about the heroine who was being entertained on the villain's yacht. It couldn't have been done for emphasis, then, of that Prudence was positive. But she had the type of mind that, once something aroused its curiosity, couldn't rest again until the matter had been solved. If she couldn't remember a certain name, for instance, the agonizing feeling of having it on the tip of her tongue but being unable to bring it out would keep her from getting any sleep until the name had come back to her. This now took hold of her in the same way. Failing to get anything out of the entire text, she began to see if she could get something out of the gashed words in themselves. Maybe that was where the explanation lay. She took a pencil and paper and began to transcribe them one by one, in the same order in which they came in the book. She got:

hardly anyone going invited merrily

Before she could go any farther than that, the lunch period was over, it was time to report down to her desk again. She decided she was going to take the book home with her that night and keep working on it until she got something out of it. This was simply a matter of self-defense; she wouldn't be getting any sleep until she did. She put it away in her locker, returned downstairs to duty, and put the money with which she was paying Mrs. Trasker's fine into the till. That was the woman's name, Mrs. Trasker. The afternoon passed as uneventfully as a hundred others had before it, but her mind kept returning to the enigma at intervals. "There's a reason for everything in this world," she insisted to herself, "and I want to know the reason for this: why were certain words in this utterly unmemorable novel underscored by slashes as though they were Holy Writ or something? And I'm going to find out if it takes me all the rest of this summer!" She smuggled the book out with her when she left for home, trying to keep it hidden so the other members of the staff wouldn't notice. Not that she would have been refused permission if she had asked for it, but she would have had to give her reasons for wanting to take it, and she was afraid they would all laugh at her or think she was becoming touched in the head if she told them. After all, she excused herself, if she could find out the meaning of what had been done, that might help the library to discover who the guilty party really was and recover damages, and she could get back her own money that she had put in for poor Mrs. Trasker. Prudence hurried up her meal as much as possible, and returned to her room. She took a soft pencil and lightly went over the slits in the paper, to make them stand out more clearly. It would be easy enough to erase the pencil marks later. But almost as soon as she had finished and could get a comprehensive view of the whole page at a glance, she saw there was something wrong. The underscorings weren't flush with some of the words. Sometimes they only took in half a word, carried across the intervening space, and then took in half of the next. One of them even fell where there was absolutely no word at all over it, in the blank space between two paragraphs. That gave her the answer; she saw in a flash what her mistake was. She'd been wasting her time on the wrong page. It was the leaf before, the missing Page 41, that had held the real meaning of the slashed words. The sharp instrument used on it had simply carried through to the leaf under it, and even, very lightly, to the third one following. No wonder the scorings overlapped and she hadn't been able to make sense out of them! Their real sense, if any, lay on the page that had been removed. Well, she'd wasted enough time on it. It probably wasn't anything anyway. She tossed the book contemptuously aside, made up her mind that was the end of it. A moment or so later her eyes strayed irresistibly, longingly over to it again. "I know how I _could_ find out for sure," she tempted herself. Suddenly she was putting on her things again to go out. To go out and do something she had never done before: buy a trashy, frothy novel. Her courage almost failed her outside the bookstore window, where she finally located a copy, along with bridge sets, ash trays, statuettes of Dopey, and other gew-gaws. If it had only had a less . . . er . . .compromising title. She set her chin, took a deep breath, and plunged in. "I want a copy of 'Manuela Gets Her Man,' please," she said, flushing a little. The clerk was one of these brazen blondes painted up like an Iroquois. She took in Prudence's shell-rimmed glasses, knot of hair, drab clothing. She smirked a little, as if to say "So you're finally getting wise to yourself?" Prudence Roberts gave her two dollars, almost ran out of the store with her purchase, cheeks flaming with embarrassment. She opened it the minute she got in and avidly scanned Page 41. There wasn't anything on it, in itself, of more consequence than there had been on any of the other pages, but that wasn't stopping her this time. This thing had now cost her over three dollars of her hard-earned money, and she was going to get something out of it. She committed an act of vandalism for the first time in her life, even though the book was her own property and not the city's. She ripped Pages 41 and 42 neatly out of the binding, just as the leaf had been torn from the other book. Then she inserted it in the first book, the original one. Not _over_ Page 43, where it belonged, but under it. She found a piece of carbon paper, cut it down to size, and slipped that between the two. Then she fastened the three sheets together with paper clips, carefully seeing to it that the borders of the two printed pages didn't vary by a hair's breadth. Then she took her pencil and once more traced the gashes on Page 43, but this time bore down heavily on them. When she had finished, she withdrew the loose Page 41 from under the carbon and she had a haphazard array of underlined words sprinkled over the page. The original ones from the missing page. Her eye traveled over them excitedly. Then her face dropped again. They didn't make sense any more than before. She opened the lower half of the window, balanced the book in her hand, resisted an impulse to toss it out then and there. She gave herself a fight talk instead. "I'm a librarian. I have more brains than whoever did this to this book, I don't care who they are! Ican get out whatever meaning they put into it, if I just keep cool and keep at it." She closed the window, sat down once more. She studied the carbon-scored page intently, and presently a belated flash of enlightenment followed. The very arrangement of the dashes showed her what her mistake had been this time. They were too symmetrical, each one had its complement one line directly under it. In other words they were really double, not single lines. Their vertical alignment didn't vary in the slightest. She should have noticed that right away. She saw what it was now. The words hadn't been merely underlined, they had been cut out of the page bodily by four gashes around each required one, two vertical, two horizontal, forming an oblong that contained the wanted word. What she had mistaken for dashes had been the top and bottom lines of these "boxes." The faint side lines she had overlooked entirely. She canceled out every alternate line, beginning with the top one, and that should have given her the real kernel of the message. But again she was confronted with a meaningless jumble, scant as the residue of words was. She held her head distractedly as she took it in:

cure wait poor honey to grand her health your fifty instructions

"The text around them is what's distracting me," she decided after a futile five or ten minutes of poring over them. "Subconsciously I keep trying to read them in the order in which they appear on the page. Since they were taken bodily out of it, that arrangement was almost certainly not meant to be observed. It is, after all, the same principle as a jig-saw puzzle. I have the pieces now, all that remains is to put each one in the right place." She took a small pair of nail scissors and carefully clipped out each boxed word, just as the unknown predecessor had whose footsteps she was trying to unearth. That done, she discarded the book entirely, in order to be hampered by it no longer. Then she took a blank piece of paper, placed all the little paper cut-outs on it, careful that they remained right side up, and milled them about with her finger, to be able to start from scratch. "I'll begin with the word 'fifty' as the easiest entering wedge," she breathed absorbedly. "It is a numerical adjective, and therefore simply must modify one of those three nouns, according to all the rules of grammar." She separated it from the rest, set to work. Fifty health--no, the noun is in the singular. Fifty honey--no, again singular. Fifty instructions--yes, but it was an awkward combination, something about it didn't ring true, she wasn't quite satisfied with it. Fifty grand? That was it! It was grammatically incorrect, it wasn't a noun at all, but in slang it was used as one. She had often heard it herself, used by people who were slovenly in their speech. She set the two words apart, satisfied they belonged together. "Now a noun, in any kind of a sentence at all," she murmured to herself, "has to be followed by a verb." There were only two to choose from. She tried them both. Fifty grand wait. Fifty grand cure. Elliptical, both. But that form of the verb had to take a preposition, and there was one there at hand: "to."She tried it that way. Fifty grand to wait. Fifty grand to cure. She chose the latter, and the personal pronoun fell into place almost automatically after it. Fifty grand to cure her. That was almost certainly it. She had five out of the eleven words now. She had a verb, two adjectives, and three nouns left: wait, your, poor, honey, health instructions. But that personal pronoun already in place was a stumbling block, kept baffling her. It seemed to refer to some preceding proper name, it demanded one to make sense, and she didn't have any in her six remaining words. And then suddenly she saw that she did have. Honey. It was to be read as a term of endearment, not a substance made by bees. The remaining words paired off almost as if magnetically drawn toward one another. Your honey, poor health, wait instructions. She shifted them about the basic nucleus she already had, trying them out before and after it, until, with a little minor rearranging, she had them satisfactorily in place.

your honey poor health fifty grand to cure her wait instructions

There it was at last. It couldn't be any more lucid than that. She had no mucilage at hand to paste the little paper oblongs down flat and hold them fast in the position she had so laboriously achieved. Instead she took a number of pins and skewered them to the blank sheets of paper. Then she sat back looking at them. It was a ransom note. Even she, unworldly as she was, could tell that at a glance. Printed words cut bodily out of a book, to avoid the use of handwriting or typewriting that might be traced later. Then the telltale leaf with the gaps had been torn out and destroyed. But in their hurry they had overlooked one little thing, the slits had carried through to the next page. Or else they had thought it didn't matter, no one would be able to reconstruct the thing once the original page was gone. Well, she had. There were still numerous questions left unanswered. To whom had the note been addressed? By whom? Whose "honey" was it? And why, with a heinous crime like kidnaping for ransom involved, had they taken the trouble to return the book at all? Why not just destroy it entirely and be done with it? The answer to that could very well be that the actual borrower--one of those names on the book's reference card--was someone who knew them, but wasn't aware what they were doing, what the book had been used for, hadn't been present when the message was concocted; had all unwittingly returned the book. There was of course a question as to whether the message was genuine or simply some adolescent's practical joke, yet the trouble taken to evade the use of handwriting argued that it was anything but a joke. And the most important question of all was: should she go to the police about it? She answered that then and there, with a slow but determined _yes!_

It was well after eleven by now, and the thought of venturing out on the streets alone at such an hour, especially to and from a place like a police station, filled her timid soul with misgivings. She could ring up from here, but then they'd send someone around to question her most likely, and that would be even worse. What would the landlady and the rest of the roomers think of her, receiving a gentleman caller at such an hour, even if he was from the police? It looked so . . . er . . . rowdy. She steeled herself to go to them in person, and it required a good deal of steeling and even a cup of hot tea, but finally she set out, book and transcribed message under her arm, also a large umbrella with which to defend herself if she were insulted on the way. She was ashamed to ask anyone where the nearest precinct house was, but luckily she saw a pair of policemen walking along as if they were going off duty, and by following them at a discreet distance, she finally saw them turn and go into a building that had a pair of green lights outside the entrance. She walked past it four times, twice in each direction, before she finally got up nerve enough to go in. There was a uniformed man sitting at a desk near the entrance and she edged over and stood waiting for him to look up at her. He didn't, he was busy with some kind of report, so after standing there a minute or two, she cleared her throat timidly. "Well, lady?" he said in a stentorian voice that made her jump and draw back. "Could I speak to a ... a detective, please?" she faltered. "Any particular one?" "A good one." He said to a cop standing over by the door: "Go in and tell Murph there's a young lady out here wants to see him." A square-shouldered, husky young man came out a minute later, hopefully straightening the knot of his tie and looking around as if he expected to see a Fifth Avenue model at the very least. His gaze fell on Prudence, skipped over her, came up against the blank walls beyond her, and then had to return to her again. "You the one?" he asked a little disappointedly. "Could I talk to you privately?" she said. "I believe I have made a discovery of the greatest importance." "Why . . . uh . . . sure," he said, without too much enthusiasm. "Right this way." But as he turned to follow her inside, he slurred something out of the corner of his mouth at the smirking desk sergeant that sounded suspiciously like "I'll fix you for this, kibitzer. It couldn't have been Dolan instead, could it?" He snapped on a cone light in a small office toward the back, motioned Prudence to a chair, leaned against the edge of the desk. She was slightly flustered; she had never been in a police station before. "Has ... er . . . anyone been kidnaped lately, that is to say within the past six weeks?" she blurted out. He folded his arms, flipped his hands up and down against his own sides, "Why?" he asked noncommitally. "Well, one of our books came back damaged today, and I think I've deciphered a kidnap message from its pages." Put baldly like that, it did sound sort of far-fetched, she had to admit that herself. Still, he should have at least given her time to explain more fully, not acted like a jackass just because she was prim-looking and wore thick-lensed glasses. His face reddened and his mouth started to quiver treacherously. He put one hand up over it to hide it from her, but he couldn't keep his shoulders from shaking. Finally he had to turn away altogether and stand in front of the water cooler a minute. Something that sounded like a strangled cough came from him. "You're laughing at me!" she snapped accusingly. "I come here to help you, and that's the thanks I get!" He turned around again with a carefully straightened face. "No, ma'am," he lied cheerfully right to her face, "I'm not laughing at you. I . . . we . . . appreciate your co-operation. You leave this here and we . . . we'll check on it." But Prudence Roberts was nobody's fool. Besides, he had ruffled her plumage now, and once that was done, it took a great deal to smooth it down again. She had a highly developed sense of her own dignity. "You haven't the slightest idea of doing anything of the kind!" she let him know. "I can tell that just by looking at you! I must say I'm very surprised that a member of the police department of this city--" She was so steamed up and exasperated at his facetious attitude, that she removed her glasses, in order to be able to give him a piece of her mind more clearly. A little thing like that shouldn't have made the slightest difference--after all this was police business, not a beauty contest--but to her surprise it seemed to. He looked at her, blinked, looked at her again, suddenly began to show a great deal more interest in what she had come here to tell him. "What'd you say your name was again, miss?" he asked, and absently made that gesture to the knot of his tie again. She hadn't said what it was in the first place. Why, this man was just a common--a common masher; he was a disgrace to the shield he wore. "I am Miss Roberts of the Hillcrest Branch of the Public Library," she said stiffly. "What has that to do with this?" "Well ... er . . . we have to know the source of our information," he told her lamely. He picked up the book, thumbed through it, then he scanned the message she had deciphered. "Yeah"--Murphy nodded slowly--"that does read like a ransom note." Mollified, she explained rapidly the process by which she had built up from the gashes on the succeeding leaf of the book. "Just a minute, Miss Roberts," he said, when she had finished. "I'll take this in and show it to the lieutenant." But when he came back, she could tell by his attitude that his superior didn't take any more stock in it than he had himself. "I tried to explain to him the process by which you extracted it out of the book, but . . . er . . . in his opinion it's just a coincidence, I mean the gashes may not have any meaning at all. F'r instance, someone may have been just cutting something out on top of the book, cookies or pie crust and--" She snorted in outrage. "Cookies or pie crust! I got a coherent message. If you men can't see it there in front of your eyes--" "But here's the thing, Miss Roberts," he tried to soothe her. "We haven't any case on deck right now that this could possibly fit into. No one's been reported missing. And we'd know, wouldn't we? I've heard of kidnap cases without ransom notes, but I never heard of a ransom note without a kidnap case to go with it." "As a police officer doesn't it occur to you that in some instances a kidnaped persons' relatives would purposely refrain from notifying the authorities to avoid jeopardizing their loved ones? That may have happened in this case." "I mentioned that to the lieutenant myself, but he claims it can't be done. There are cases where we purposely hold off at the request of the family until after the victim's been returned, but it's never because we haven't been informed what's going on. You see, a certain length of time always elapses between the snatch itself and the first contact between the kidnapers and the family, and no matter how short that is, the family has almost always reported the person missing in the meantime, before they know what's up themselves. I can check with Missing Persons if you want, but if it's anything more than just a straight disappearance, they always turn it over to us right away, anyway." But Prudence didn't intend urging or begging them to look into it as a personal favor to her. She considered she'd done more than her duty. If they discredited it, they discredited it. Shedidn't, and she made up her mind to pursue the investigation, single-handed and without their help if necessary, until she had settled it one way or the other. "Very well," she said coldly, "I'll leave the transcribed message and the extra copy of the book here with you. I'm sorry I bothered you. Good evening." She stalked out, still having forgotten to replace her glasses. Her indignation carried her as far as the station-house steps, and then her courage began to falter. It was past midnight by now, and the streets looked so lonely; suppose--suppose she met a drunk? While she was standing there trying to get up her nerve, this same Murphy came out behind her, evidently on his way home himself. She had put her glasses on again by now. "You look a lot different without them," he remarked lamely, stopping a step below her and hanging around. "Indeed," she said forbiddingly. "I'm going off duty now. Could I ... uh. . . see you to where you live?" She would have preferred not to have to accept the offer, but those shadows down the street looked awfully deep and the light posts awfully far apart. "I am a little nervous about being out alone so late," she admitted, starting out beside him. "Once I met a drunk and he said, 'H'lo, babe.' I had to drink a cup of hot tea when I got home, I was so upset." "Did you have your glasses on?" he asked cryptically. "No. Come to think of it, that was the time I'd left them to be repaired." He just nodded knowingly, as though that explained everything. When they got to her door, he said: "Well, I'll do some more digging through the files on that thing, just to make sure. If I turn up anything . . . uh . . . suppose I drop around tomorrow night and let you know. And if I don't, I'll drop around and let you know that too. Just so you'll know what's what." "That's very considerate of you." "Gee, you're refined," he said wistfully. "You talk such good English." He seemed not averse to lingering on here talking to her, but someone might have looked out of one of the windows and it would appear so unrefined to be seen dallying there at that hour, so she turned and hurried inside. When she got to her room, she looked at herself in the mirror. Then she took her glasses off and tried it that way. "How peculiar," she murmured. "How very unaccountable!"

The following day at the library she got out the reference card on "Manuela Gets Her Man" and studied it carefully. It had been out six times in the six weeks it had been in stock. The record went like this:

Doyle, Helen (address) Apr. 15-Apr. 22 Caine, Rose Apr. 22-Apr. 29 Dermuth, Alvin Apr. 29-May 6 Turner, Florence May 6-May 18 Baumgarten, Lucille May 18-May 25 Trasker, Sophie May 25-June 3

Being a new book, it had had a quick turnover, had been taken out again each time the same day it had been brought back. Twice it had been kept out overtime, the first time nearly a whole week beyond the return limit. There might be something in that. All the borrowers but one, so far, were women; that was another noticeable fact. It was, after all, a woman's book. Her library experience had taught her that what is called a "man's book" will often be read by women, but a "woman's book" is absolutely never, and there are few exceptions to this rule, read by men. That might mean something, that lone male borrower. She must have seen him at the time, but so many faces passed her desk daily she couldn't remember what he was like any more, if she had. However, she decided not to jump to hasty conclusions, but investigate the list one by one in reverse order. She'd show that ignorant, skirt-chasing Murphy person that where there's smoke there's fire, if you only take the trouble to look for it! At about eight thirty, just as she was about to start out on her quest--she could only pursue it in the evenings, of course, after library hours--the doorbell rang and she found him standing there. He looked disappointed when he saw that she had her glasses on. He came in rather shyly and clumsily, tripping over the threshold and careening several steps down the hall. "Were you able to find out anything?" she asked eagerly. "Nope, I checked again, I went all the way back six months, and I also got in touch with Missing Persons. Nothing doing, I'm afraid it isn't a genuine message, Miss Roberts; just a fluke, like the lieutenant says." "I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. I've copied a list of the borrowers and I intend to investigate each one of them in turn. That message was not intended to be readily deciphered, or for that matter deciphered at all; therefore it is not a practical joke or some adolescent's prank. Yet it has a terrible coherence; therefore it is not a fluke or a haphazard scarring of the page, your lieutenant to the contrary. What remains? It is a genuine ransom note, sent in deadly earnest, and I should think you and your supsuperiors would be the first to--" "Miss Roberts," he said soulfully, "you're too refined to . . . to dabble in crime like this. Somehow it don't seem right for you to be talking shop, about kidnapings and--" He eased his collar. "I ... uh . . . it's my night off and I was wondering if you'd like to go to the movies." "So that's why you took the trouble of coming around!" she said indignantly. "I'm afraid your interest is entirely too personal and not nearly official enough!" "Gee, even when you talk fast," he said admiringly, "you pronounce every word clear, like in a p0-em." "Well, you don't. It's poem, not p0-em. I intend going ahead with this until I can find out just what the meaning of that message is, and who sent it! And I _don't_ go to movies with people the second time I've met them!" He didn't seem at all fazed. "Could I drop around sometime and find out how you're getting along?" he wanted to know, as he edged through the door backward. "That will be entirely superfluous," she said icily. "If I uncover anything suspicious, I shall of course report it promptly. It is not my job, after all, but . . . ahem . . . other people's." "Movies! The idea!" She frowned after she had closed the door on him. Then she dropped her eyes and pondered a minute. "It would have been sort of frisky, at that." She smiled. She took the book along with her as an excuse for calling, and set out, very determined on the surface, as timid as usual underneath. However, she found it easier to get started because the first name on the list, the meek Mrs. Trasker, held no terror even for her. She was almost sure she was innocent, because it was she herself who had called the library's attention to the missing page in the first place, and a guilty person would hardly do that. Still there was always a possibility it was someone else in her family or household, and she meant to be thorough about this if nothing else. Mrs. Trasker's address was a small old-fashioned apartment building of the pre-War variety. It was not expensive by any means, but still it did seem beyond the means of a person who had been unable to pay even a two-dollar fine, and for a moment Prudence thought she scented suspicion in this. But as soon as she entered the lobby and asked for Mrs. Trasker, the mystery was explained. "You'll have to go to the basement for her," the elevator boy told her, "she's the janitress." A young girl of seventeen admitted her at the basement entrance and led her down a bare brick passage past rows of empty trash cans to the living quarters in the back. Mrs. Trasker was sitting propped up in bed, and again showed a little alarm at sight of the librarian, a person in authority. An open book on a chair beside her showed that her daughter had been reading aloud to her when they were interrupted. "Don't be afraid," Prudence reassured them. "I just want to ask a few questions." "Sure, anything, missis," said the janitress, clasping and unclasping her hands placatingly. "Just the two of you live here? No father or brothers?" "Just mom and me, nobody else," the girl answered. "Now tell me, are you sure you didn't take the book out with you anywhere, to some friend's house, or lend it to someone else?" "No, no, it stayed right here!" They both said it together and vehemently. "Well, then, did anyone call on you down here, while it was in the rooms?" The mother answered this. "No, no one. When the tenants want me for anything, they ring down for me from upstairs. And when I'm working around the house, I keep our place locked just like anyone does their apartment.So I know no one was near the book while we had it." "I feel pretty sure of that myself," Prudence said, as she got up to go. She patted Mrs. Trasker's toil-worn hand reassuringly. "Just forget about my coming here like this. Your fine is paid and there's nothing to worry about. See you at the library." The next name on the reference card was Lucille Baumgarten. Prudence was emboldened to stop in there because she noticed the address, though fairly nearby, in the same branch-library district, was in a higher-class neighborhood. Besides, she was beginning to forget her timidity in the newly awakened interest her quest was arousing in her. It occurred to her for the first time that detectives must lead fairly interesting lives. A glance at the imposing, almost palatial apartment building Borrower Baumgarten lived in told her this place could probably be crossed off her list of suspects as well. Though she had heard vaguely somewhere or other that gangsters and criminals sometimes lived in luxurious surroundings, these were more than that. These spelled solid, substantial wealth and respectability that couldn't be faked. She had to state her name and busines to a uniformed houseman in the lobby before she was even allowed to go up. "Just tell Miss Baumgarten the librarian from her branch library would like to talk to her a minute." A maid opened the upstairs door, but before she could open her mouth, a girl slightly younger than Mrs. Trasker's daughter had come skidding down the parquet hall, swept her aside, and displaced her. She was about fifteen at the most and really had no business borrowing from the adult department yet. Prudence vaguely recalled seeing her face before, although then it had been liberally rouged and lipsticked, whereas now it was properly without cosmetics. She put a finger to her lips and whispered conspiratorially, "Sh! Don't tell my--" Before she could get any further, there was a firm tread behind her and she was displaced in turn by a stout matronly lady wearing more diamonds than Prudence had ever seen before outside of a jewelry-store window. "I've just come to check up on this book which was returned to us in a damaged condition," Prudence explained. "Our record shows that Miss Lucille Baumgarten had it out between--" "Lucille?" gasped the bediamoned lady. "Lucille? There's no Lucille--" She broke off short and glanced at her daughter, who vainly tried to duck out between the two of them and shrink away unnoticed. "Oh, so that's it!" she said, suddenly enlightened. "So Leah isn't good enough for you any more!" Prudence addressed her offspring, since it was obvious that the mother was in the dark about more things than just the book. "Miss Baumgarten, I'd like you to tell me whether there was a page missing when you brought the book home with you." And then she added craftily: "It was borrowed again afterward by several other subscribers, but I haven't got around to them yet." If the girl was guilty, she would use this as an out and claim the page had still been in, implying it had been taken out afterward by someone else. Prudence knew it hadn't, of course. But Lucille-Leah admitted unhesitatingly: "Yes, there was a page or two missing, but it didn't spoil the fun much, because I could tell what happened after I read on a little bit." Nothing seemed to hold any terrors for her, compared to the parental wrath brewing in the heaving bosom that wedged her in inextricably. "Did you lend it to anyone else, or take it out of the house with you at any time, while you were in possesion of it?" The girl rolled her eyes meaningly. "I should say not! I kept it hidden in the bottom drawer of my bureau the whole time; and now you had to come around here and give me away!" "Thank you," said Prudence, and turned to go. This place was definitely off her list too, as she had felt it would be even before the interview. People who lived in such surroundings didn't send kidnap notes or associate with people who did. The door had closed, but Mrs. Baumgarten's shrill, punitive tones sounded all too clearly through it while Prudence stood there waiting for the elevator to take her down. "I'll _give_ you Lucille! Wait'll your father hears about this! I'll give you such a _frass_, you won't know whether you're Lucille or Gwendolyn!" punctuated by a loud, popping slap on youthful epidermis. The next name on the list was Florence Turner. It was already well after ten by now, and for a moment Prudence was tempted to go home, and put off the next interview until the following night. She discarded the temptation resolutely. "Don't be such a 'fraid-cat," she lectured herself. "Nothing's happened to you so far, and nothing's likely to happen hereafter either." And then too, without knowing it, she was already prejudiced; in the back of her mind all along there lurked the suspicion that the lone male borrower, Dermuth, was the one to watch out for. He was next but one on the list, in reverse order. As long as she was out, she would interview Florence Turner, who was probably harmless, and then tackle Dermuth good and early tomorrow night-- and see to it that a policeman waited for her outside his door so she'd be sure of getting out again unharmed. The address listed for Library Member Turner was not at first sight exactly prepossessing, when she located it. It was a rooming house, or rather that newer variation of one called a "residence club," which has sprung up in the larger cities within the past few years, in which the rooms are grouped into detached little apartments. Possibly it was the sight of the chop-suey place that occupied the ground floor that gave it its unsavory aspect in her eyes; she had peculiar notions about some things. Nevertheless, now that she had come this far, she wasn't going to let a chop-suey restaurant frighten her away without completing her mission. She tightened the book under her arm, took a good deep breath to ward off possible hatchet men and opium smokers, and marched into the building, whose entrance adjoined that of the restaurant. She rang the manager's bell and a blowsy-looking, middle-aged woman came out and met her at the foot of the stairs. "Yes?" she said gruffly. "Have you a Florence Turner living here?" "No. We did have, but she left." "Have you any idea where I could reach her?" "She left very suddenly, didn't say where she was going." "About how long ago did she leave, could you tell me?" "Let's see now." The woman did some complicated mental calculation. "Two weeks ago Monday, I think it was. That would bring it to the 17th. Yes, that's it, May 17th." Here was a small mystery already. The book hadn't been returned until the 18th. The woman's memory might be at fault, of course. "If you say she left in a hurry, how is it she found time to return this book to us?" The woman glanced at it. "Oh, no, I was the one returned that for her," she explained. "My cleaning maid found it in her room the next morning after she was gone, along with a lot of other stuff she left behind her. I saw it was a liberry book, so I sent Beulah over with it, so's it wouldn't roll up a big fine for her. I'm economical that way. How'd you happen to get hold of it?" she asked in surprise. "I work at the library," Prudence explained. "I wanted to see her about this book. One of the pages was torn out." She knew enough not to confide any more than that about what her real object was. "Gee, aren't you people fussy," marveled the manager. "Well, you see, it's taken out of my salary," prevaricated Prudence, trying to strike a note she felt the other might understand. "Oh, that's different. No wonder you're anxious to locate her. Well, all I know is she didn't expect to go when she did; she even paid for her room ahead, I been holding it for her ever since, till the time's up. I'm conshenshus that way." "That's strange," Prudence mused aloud. "I wonder what could have--" "I think someone got took sick in her family," confided the manager. "Some friends or relatives, I don't know who they was, called for her in a car late at night and off she went in a rush. I just wanted to be sure it wasn't no one who hadn't paid up yet, so I opened my door and looked out." Prudence picked up her ears. Tht fatal curiosity of hers was driving her on like a spur. She had suddenly forgotten all about being leery of the nefarious chop-suey den on the premises. She was starting to tingle all over, and tried not to show it. Had she unearthed something at last, or wasn't it anything at all? "You say she left some belongings behind? Do you think she'll be back for them?" "No, she won't be back herself, I don't believe. But she did ask me to keep them for her; she said she'd send someone around to get them as soon as she was able." Prudence suddenly decided she'd give almost anything to be able to get a look at the things this Turner girl had left behind her; why, she wasn't quite sure herself. They might help her to form an idea of what their owner was like. She couldn't ask openly; the woman might suspect her of trying to steal something. "When will her room be available?" She asked offhandedly. "I'm thinking of moving, and as long as I'm here, I was wonderng--" "Come on up and I'll show it to you right now," offered the manager with alacrity. She evidently considered librarians superior to the average run of tenants she got. Prudence followed her up the stairs, incredulous at her own effrontery. This didn't seem a bit like her; she wondered what had come over her. "Murphy should see me now!" she gloated. The manager unlocked a door on the second floor. "It's real nice in the daytime," she said. "And I can turn it over to you day after tomorrow." "Is the closet good and deep?" asked Prudence, noting its locked doors. "I'll show you." The woman took out a key, opened it unsuspectingly for her approval. "My," said the subtle Prudence, "she left lots of things behind!" "And some of them are real good too," agreed the landlady. "I don't know how they do it, on just a hat check girl's tips. And she even gave that up six months ago." "Hm-m-m," said Prudence absently, deftly edging a silver slipper she noted standing on the floor up against one of another pair, with the tip of her own foot. She looked down covertly; with their heels in true with one another, there was an inch difference in the toes. Two different sizes! She absently fingered the lining of one of the frocks hanging up, noted its size tag. A 34. "Such exquisite things," she murmured, to cover up what she was doing. Three hangers over there was another frock. Size 28. "Did she have anyone else living here with her?" she asked. The manager locked the closet, pocketed the key once more. "No. These two men friends or relatives of hers used to visit with her a good deal, but they never made a sound and they never came one at a time, so I didn't raise any objections. Now, I have another room, nearly as nice, just down the hall I could show you." "I wish there were some way in which you could notify me when someone does call for her things," said Prudence, who was getting better as she went along. "I'm terribly anxious to get in touch with her. You see, it's not only the fine, it might even cost me my job." "Sure I know how it is," said the manager sympathetically. "Well, I could ask whoever she sends to leave word where you can reach her." "No, don't do that!" said Prudence hastily. "I'm afraid they . . . er . . . I'd prefer if you didn't mention I was here asking about her at all." "Anything you say," said the manager amenably. "If you'll leave your number with me, I could give you a ring and let you know whenever the person shows up." "I'm afraid I wouldn't get over here in time; they might be gone by the time I got here." The manager tapped her teeth helpfully. "Why don't you take one of my rooms then? That way you'd be right on the spot when they do show up." "Yes, but suppose they come in the daytime? I'd be at the library, and I can't leave my job." "I don't think they'll come in the daytime. Most of her friends and the people she went with were up and around at night, more than in the daytime." The idea appealed to Prudence, although only a short while before she would have been aghast at the thought of moving into such a place. She made up her mind quickly without giving herself time to stop and get cold feet. It might be a wild-goose chase, but she'd never yet heard of a woman who wore two different sizes in dresses like this Florence Turner seemed to. "All right, I will," she decided, "if you'll promise two things. To let me know without fail the minute someone comes to get her things, and not to say a word to them about my coming here and asking about her." "Why not?" said the manager accommodatingly. "Anything to earn an honest dollar?" But when the door of her new abode closed on her, a good deal of her new-found courage evaporated. She sat down limply on the edge of the bed and stared in bewilderment at her reflection in the cheap dresser mirror. "I must be crazy to do a thing like this!" she gasped. "What's come over me anyway?" She didn't even have her teapot with her to brew a cup of the fortifying liquid. There was nothing the matter with the room in itself, but that sinister Oriental den downstairs had a lurid red tube sign just under her window and its glare winked malevolently in at her. She imagined felt-slippered hirelings of some Fu-Manchu creeping up the stairs to snatch her bodily from her bed. It was nearly daylight before she could close her eyes. But so far as the room across the hall was concerned, as might have been expected, no one showed up.

Next day at the library, between book returns, Prudence took out the reference card on Manuela and placed a neat red check next to Mrs. Trasker's name and Lucille Baumgarten's, to mark the progress of her investigation so far. But she didn't need this; it was easy enough to remember whom she had been to see and whom she hadn't, but she had the precise type of mind that liked everything neatly docketed and in order. Next to Florence Turner's name she placed a small red question mark. She was strongly tempted to call up Murphy on her way home that evening, and tell him she already felt she was on the trail of something. But for one thing, nothing definite enough had developed yet. If he'd laughed at her about the original message itself, imagine how he'd roar if she told him the sum total of her suspicions was based on the fact that a certain party had two different-sized dresses in her clothes closet. And secondly, even in her new state of emancipation, it still seemed awfully forward to call a man up, even a detective. She would track down this Florence Turner first, and then she'd call Murphy up if her findings warranted it. "And if he says I'm good, and asks me to go to the movies with him," she threatened, "I'll ... I'll make him ask two or three times before I do!" She met the manager on her way in. "Did anyone come yet?" she asked in an undertone. "No. I'll keep my promise. I'll let you know; don't worry." A lot of the strangeness had already worn off her new surroundings, even after sleeping there just one night, and it occurred to her that maybe she had been in a rut, should have changed living quarters more often in the past. She went to bed shortly after ten, and even the Chinese restaurant sign had no power to keep her awake tonight; she fell asleep almost at once, tired from the night before. About an hour or so later, she had no way of telling how long afterward it was, a surreptitious tapping outside her door woke her. "Yes?" she called out forgetfully, in a loud voice. The manager stuck her tousled head in. "Shh!" she warned. "Somebody's come for her things. You asked me to tell you, and I've been coughing out there in the hall, trying to attract your attention. He just went down with the first armful; he'll be up again in a minute. You'd better hurry if you want to catch him before he goes; he's working fast." "Don't say anything to him," Prudence whispered back. "See if you can delay him a minute or two, give me time to get downstairs." "Are you sure it's just a liberry book this is all about?" the manager asked searchingly. "Here he comes up again." She pulled her head back and swiftly closed the door. Prudence had never dressed so fast in her life before. Even so, she managed to find time to dart a glance down at the street from her window. There was a black sedan drawn up in front of the house. "How am I ever going to--" she thought in dismay. She didn't let that hold her up any. She made sure she had shoes on and a coat over her and let the rest go hang. There was no time to phone Murphy, even if she had wanted to, but the thought didn't occur to her. She eased her room door open, flitted out into the hall and down the stairs, glimpsing the open door of Florence Turner's room as she sneaked by. She couldn't see the man, whoever he was, but she could hear the landlady saying, "Wait a minute, until I make sure you haven't left anything behind." Prudence slipped out of the street door downstairs, looked hopelessly up and down the street. He had evidently come alone in the car; there was no one else in it. He had piled the clothing on the back seat. For a moment she even thought of smuggling herself in and hiding under it, but that was too harebrained to be seriously considered. Then, just as she heard his tread start down the inside stairs behind her, the much-maligned chop-suey joint came to her aid. A cab drove up to it, stopped directly behind the first machine, and a young couple got out. Prudence darted over, climbed in almost before they were out of the way. "Where to, lady?" asked the driver. She found it hard to come out with it, it sounded so unrespectable and fly-by-nightish. Detectives, she supposed, didn't think twice about giving an order like that, but with her it was different. "Er ... would you mind just waiting a minute until that car in front of us leaves?" she said constrainedly. "Then take me wherever it goes." He shot her a glance in his rear-sight mirror, but didn't say anything. He was probably used to getting stranger orders than that. A man came out of the same doorway she had just left herself. She couldn't get a very good look at his face, but he had a batch of clothing slung over his arm. He dumped the apparel in the back of the sedan, got in himself, slammed the door closed, and started off. A moment later the cab was in motion as well. "Moving out on ya, huh?" said the driver knowingly. "I don't blame ya for follying him." "That will do," she said primly. This night life got you into more embarrassing situations! "Do you think you can manage it so he won't notice you coming after him?" she asked after a block or two. "Leave it to me, lady," he promised, waving his hand at her. "I know this game backwards." Presently they had turned into one of the circumferential express highways leading out of the city. "Now it's gonna be pie!" he exulted. "He won't be able to tell us from anyone else on here. Everyone going the same direction and no turning off." The stream of traffic was fairly heavy for that hour of the night; homeward-bound suburbanites for the most part. But then, as the city limits were passed and branch road after branch road drained it off, it thinned to a mere trickle. The lead car finally turned off itself, and onto a practically deserted secondary highway. "Now it's gonna be ticklish," the cabman admitted. "I'm gonna have to hang back as far as I can from him, or he'll tumble to us." He let the other car pull away until it was merely a red dot in the distance. "You sure must be carryin' some torch," he said presently with a baffled shake of his head, "to come all the way out this far after him." "Please confine yourself to your driving," was the haughty reproof. The distant red pin point had suddenly snuffed out. "He must've turned off up ahead some place," said the driver, alarmed. "I better step it up!" When they had reached the approximate place, minutes later, an even less-traveled bypass than the one they were on was revealed, not only lightless but even unsurfaced. It obviously didn't lead anywhere that the general public would have wanted to go, or it would have been better maintained. They braked forthwith. "What a lonely-looking road." Prudence shuddered involuntarily. "Y'wanna chuck it and turn back?" he suggested, as though he would have been only too willing to himself. She probably would have if she'd been alone, but she hated to admit defeat in his presence. He'd probably laugh at her all the way back. "No, now that I've come this far, I'm not going back until I find out exactly where he went. Don't stand here like this: you won't be able to catch up with him again!" The driver gave his cap a defiant hitch. "The time has come to tell you I've got you clocked at seven bucks and eighty-five cents, and I didn't notice any pockybook in your hand when you got in. Where's it coming from?" He tapped his fingers sardonically on the rim of his wheel. Prudence froze. Her handbag was exactly twenty or thirty miles away, back in her room at the residence club. She didn't have to answer; the driver was an old experienced hand at this sort of thing; he could read the signs. "I thought so," he said, almost resignedly. He got down, opened the door. "Outside," he said. "If you was a man, I'd take it out of your jaw. Or if there was a cop anywhere within five miles, I'd have you run in. Take off that coat." He looked it over, slung it over his arm. "It'll have to do. Now if you want it back, you know what to do; just look me up with seven-eighty-five in your mitt. And for being so smart, you're gonna walk all the way back from here on your two little puppies." "Don't leave me all alone, in the dark, in this God-forsaken place! I don't even know where I am!" she wailed after him. "I'll tell you where you are," he called back remorselessly. "You're on your own!" The cab's taillight went streaking obliviously back the way they had just come. She held the side of her head and looked helplessly all around her. Real detectives didn't run into these predicaments, she felt sure. It only happened to her! "Oh, why didn't I just mind my own business back at the library!" she lamented. It was too cool out here in the wilds to stand still without a coat on, even though it was June. She might stand waiting here all night and no other machine would come along. The only thing to do was to keep walking until she came to a house, and then ask to use the telephone. There must be a house somewhere around here. She started in along the bypath the first car had taken, gloomy and forbidding as it was, because it seemed more likely there was a house some place farther along it, than out on this other one. They hadn't passed a single dwelling the whole time the cab was on the road, and she didn't want to walk still farther out along it; no telling where it led to. The man she'd been following must have had some destination. Even if she struck the very house he had gone to, there wouldn't really be much harm to it, because he didn't know who she was, he'd never seen her before. Neither had this Florence Turner, if she was there with him. She could just say she'd lost her way or something. Anyone would have looked good to her just then, out here alone in the dark the way she was.

If she'd been skittish of shadows on the city streets, there was reason enough for her to have St. Vitus' dance here; it was nothing _but_ shadows. Once she came in sight of a little clearing, with a scarecrow fluttering at the far side of it, and nearly had heart failure for a minute. Another time an owl went "Who-o-o" up in a tree over her, and she ran about twenty yards before she could pull herself together and stop again. "Oh, if I ever get back to the nice safe library after tonight, I'll never--" she sobbed nervously.

The only reason she kept going on now was because she was afraid to turn back any more. Maybe that hadn't been a scarecrow after all--

The place was so set back from the road, so half hidden amidst the shrubbery, that she had almost passed it by before she even saw it there. She happened to glance to her right as she came to a break in the trees, and there was the unmistakable shadowy outline of a decrepit house. Not a chink of light showed from it, at least from where she was. Wheel ruts unmistakably led in toward it over the grass and weeds, but she wasn't much of a hand at this sort of lore, couldn't tell if they'd been made recently or long ago. The whole place had an appearance of not being lived in. It took nearly as much courage to turn aside and start over toward it as it would have to continue on the road. It was anything but what she'd been hoping for, and she knew already it was useless to expect to find a telephone in such a ramshackle wreck. The closer she got to it, the less inviting it became. True, it was two or three in the morning by now, and even if anyone had been living in it, they probably would have been fast asleep by this time, but it didn't seem possible such a forlorn, neglectedlooking place could be inhabited. Going up onto that ink-black porch and knocking for admittance took more nerve than she could muster. Heaven knows what she was liable to bring out on her; bats or rats or maybe some horrible hobos. She decided she'd walk all around the outside of it just once, and if it didn't look any better from the sides and rear than it did from the front, she'd go back to the road and take her own chances on that some more. The side was no better than the front when she picked her way cautiously along it. Twigs snapped under her feet and little stones shifted, and made her heart miss a beat each time. But when she got around to the back, she saw two things at once that showed her she had been mistaken, there was someone in there after all. One was the car, the same car that had driven away in front of the residence club, standing at a little distance behind the house, under some kind of warped toolshed or something. The other was a slit of light showing around three sides of a ground-floor window. It wasn't a brightly lighted pane by any means; the whole window still showed black under some kind of sacking or heavy covering; there was just this telltale yellow seam outlining three sides of it if you looked closely enough. Before she could decide what to do about it, if anything, her gaze traveled a little higher up the side of the house and she saw something else that brought her heart up into her throat. She choked back an inadvertent scream just in time. it was a face. A round white face staring down at her from one of the upper windows, dimly visible behind the dusty pane. Prudence Roberts started to back away apprehensively a step at a time, staring up at it spellbound as she did so, and ready at any moment to turn and run for her life, away from whomever or whatever that was up there. But before she could carry out the impulse, she saw something else that changed her mind, rooted her to the spot. Two wavering white hands had appeared, just under the ghost-like face. They were making signs to her, desperate, pleading signs. They beckoned her nearer, then they clasped together imploringly, as if trying to say, "Don't go away, don't leave me." Prudence drew a little nearer again. The hands were warning her to silence now, one pointing downward toward the floor below, the other holding a cautioning finger to their owner's mouth. It was a young girl; Prudence could make out that much, but most of the pantomime was lost through the blurred dust-caked pane. She gestured back to her with upcurved fingers, meaning, "Open the window so I can hear you." It took the girl a long time. The window was either fastened in some way or warped from lack of use, or else it stuck just because she was trying to do it without making any noise. The sash finally jarred up a short distance, with an alarming creaking and grating in spite of her best efforts. Or at least it seemed so in the preternatural stillness that reigned about the place. They both held their breaths for a wary moment, as if by mutual understanding. Then as Prudence moved in still closer under the window, a faint sibilance came down to her from the narrow opening. "Please take me away from here. Oh, please help me to get away from here." "What's the matter?" Prudence whispered back. Both alike were afraid to use too much breath even to whisper, it was so quiet outside the house. It was hard for them to make themselves understood. She missed most of the other's answer, all but: "They won't let me go. 1 think they're going to kill me. They haven't given me anything to eat in two whole days now." Prudence inhaled fearfully. "Can you climb out through there and let yourself drop from the sill? I'll get a seat cover from that car and put it under you." "I'm chained to the bed up here. I've pulled it over little by little to the window. Oh, please hurry and bring someone back with you; that's the only way--" Prudence nodded in agreement, made hasty encouraging signs as she started to draw away. "I'll run all the way back to where the two roads meet, and stop the first car that comes al--" Suddenly she froze, and at the same instant seemed to light up yellowly from head to foot, like a sort of living torch. A great fan of light spread out from the doorway before her, and in the middle of it a wavering shadow began to lengthen toward her along the ground. "Come in, sweetheart, and stay a while," a man's voice said slurringly. He sauntered out toward her with lithe, springy determination. Behind him in the doorway were another man and a woman. "Naw, don't be bashful," he went on, moving around in back of her and prodding her toward the house with his gun. "You ain't going on nowheres else from here. You've reached your final destination."

A well-dressed, middle-aged man was sitting beside the lieutenant's desk, forearm supporting his head, shading his eyes with outstretched fingers, when Murphy and every other man jack available came piling in, responding to the urgent summons. The lieutenant had three desk phones going at once, and still found time to say, "Close that door, 1 don't want a word of this to get out," to the last man in. He hung up--_click, click, clack_-- speared a shaking finger at the operatives forming into line before him. "This is Mr. Martin Rapf, men," he said tensely. "I won't ask him to repeat what he's just said to me; he's not in any condition to talk right now. His young daughter, Virginia, left home on the night of May 17th and she hasn't been seen since. He and Mrs. Rapf received an anonymous telephone call that same night, before they'd even had time to become alarmed at her absence, informing them not to expect her back and warning them above all not to report her missing to us. Late the next day Mr. Rapf received a ransom note demanding fifty thousand dollars. This is it here." Everyone in the room fastened their eyes on it as he spun it around on his desk to face them. At first sight it seemed to be a telegram. It was an actual telegraph blank form, taken from some office pad, with strips of paper containing printed words pasted on it. "It wasn't filed, of course; it was slipped under the front door in an unaddressed envelope," the lieutenant went on. "The instructions didn't come for two more days, by telephone again. Mr. Rapf had raised the amount and was waiting for them. They were rather amateurish, to say the least. And amateurs are more to be dreaded than professionals at this sort of thing, as you men well know. He was to bring the money along in a cigar box, he was to go all the way out to a certain seldom-used suburban crossroads, and wait there. Then when a closed car with its rear windows down drove slowly by and sounded its horn three times, two short ones and a long one, he was to pitch the cigar box in the back of it through the open window and go home. "In about a quarter of an hour a closed car with its windows down came along fairly slowly. Mr. Rapf was too concerned about his daughter's safety even to risk memorizing the numerals on its license plates, which were plainly exposed to view. A truck going crosswise to it threatened to block it at the intersection, and it gave three blasts of its horn, two short ones and a long one. Mr. Rapf threw the cigar box in through its rear window and watched it pick up speed and drive away. He was too excited and overwrought to start back immediately, and in less than five minutes, while he was still there, a second car came along with its windows down and its license plates removed. It gave three blasts of its horn, without there being any obstruction ahead. He ran out toward it to try and explain, but only succeeded in frightening it off. It put on speed and got away from him. I don't know whether it was actually a ghastly coincidence, or whether an unspeakable trick was perpetrated on him, to get twice the amount they had originally asked. Probably just a hideous coincidence, though, because he would have been just as willing to give them one hundred thousand from the beginning. "At any rate, what it succeeded in doing was to throw a hitch into the negotiations, make them nervous and skittish. They contacted him again several days later, refused to believe his explanation, and breathed dire threats against the girl. He pleaded with them for another chance, and asked for more time to raise a second fifty thousand. He's been holding it in readiness for some time now, and they're apparently suffering from a bad case of fright; they cancel each set of new instructions as fast as they issue them to him. Wait'll I get through, please, will you, Murphy? It's five days since Mr. Rapf last heard from them, and he is convinced that--" He didn't finish it, out of consideration for the agonized man sitting there. Then he went ahead briskly: "Now here's Miss Rapf's description, and here's what our first move is going to be. Twenty years old, weight so-and-so, height so-and-so, light-brown hair--" "She was wearing a pale-pink party dress and dancing shoes when she left the house," Rapf supplied forlornly. "We don't pin any reliance on items of apparel in matters of this kind," the lieutenant explained to him in a kindly aside. "That's for amnesia cases or straight disappearances. They almost invariably discard the victim's clothes, to make accidental recognition harder. Some woman in the outfit will usually supply her with her own things." "It's too late, lieutenant; it's too late," the man who sat facing him murmured grief-strickenly. "I know it; I'm sure of it." "We have no proof that it is," the lieutenant replied reassuringly. "But if it is, Mr. Rapf, you have only yourself to blame for waiting this long to come to us. If you'd come to us sooner, you might have your daughter back by now--" He broke off short. "What's the matter, Murphy?" he snapped. "What are you climbing halfway across the desk at me like that for?" "Will you let me get a word in and tell you, lieutenant?" Murphy exclaimed with a fine show of exasperated insubordination. "I been trying to for the last five minutes! That librarian, that Miss Roberts that came in here the other night--It was this thing she stumbled over accidentally then already. It must have been! It's the same message." The lieutenant's jaw dropped well below his collar button. "Ho-ly smoke!" he exhaled. "Say, she's a smart young woman all right!" "Yeah, she's so smart we laughed her out of the place, book and all," Murphy said bitterly. "She practically hands it to us on a silver platter, and you and me, both, we think it's the funniest thing we ever heard of." "Never mind that now! Go out and get hold of her! Bring her in here fast!" "She's practically standing in front of you!" The door swung closed after Murphy. Miss Everett, the hatchet-faced librarian, felt called upon to interfere at the commotion that started up less than five minutes later at the usually placid new-membership desk, which happened to be closest to the front door. "Will you _kindly_ keep your voice down, young man?" she said severely, sailing over. "This is a library, not a--" "I haven't got time to keep my voice down! Where's Prudence Roberts? She's wanted at headquarters right away." "She didn't come to work this morning. It's the first time she's ever missed a day since she's been with the library. What is it she's wanted--" But there was just a rush of outgoing air where he'd been standing until then. Miss Everett looked startledly at the other librarian. "What was that he just said?" 'It sounded to me like 'Skip it, toots." Miss Everett looked blankly over her shoulder to see if anyone else was standing there, but no one was. In a matter of minutes Murphy had burst in on them again, looking a good deal more harried than the first time. "Something's happened to her. She hasn't been at her rooming house all night either, and that's the first time that happened too! Listen. There was a card went with that book she brought to us, showing who had it out and all that. Get it out quick; let me have it!" He couldn't have remembered its name just then to save his life, and it might have taken them until closing time and after to wade through the library's filing system. But no matter how much of a battle-ax this Miss Everett both looked and was, one thing must be said in her favor: she had an uncanny memory when it came to damaged library property. "The reference card on 'Manuela Gets Her Man,' by Ollivant," she snapped succinctly to her helpers. And in no time it was in his hands. His face lighted. He brought his fist down on the counter with a bang that brought every nose in the place up out of its book, and for once Miss Everett forgot to remonstrate or even frown. Thank God for her methodical mind! he exulted. Trasker, check Baumgarten, check; Turner, question mark. It's as good as though she left full directions behind her!" "What was it he said _that_ time?" puzzled Miss Everett, as the doors flapped hectically to and fro behind him. "It sounded to me like 'Keep your fingers crossed.' Only, i'm not sure if it was 'fingers' or--"

"It's getting dark again," Virginia Rapf whimpered frightenedly, dragging herself along the floor toward her fellow captive. "Each time night comes, I think they're going to . . . _you_ know! Maybe tonight they _will_." Prudence Roberts was fully as frightened as the other girl, but simply because one of them had to keep the other's courage up, she wouldn't let herself show it. "No, they won't; they wouldn't dare!" she said with a confidence she was far from feeling. She went ahead tinkering futilely with the small padlock and chain that secured her to the foot of the bed. it was the same type that is used to fasten bicycles to something in the owner's absence, only of course the chain had not been left in an open loop or she could simply have withdrawn her hand. It was fastened tight around her wrist by passing the clasp of the lock through two of the small links at once. it permitted her a radius of action of not more than three or four yards around the foot of the bed at most. Virginia Rapf was similarly attached to the opposite side. "In books you read," Prudence remarked, "women prisoners always seem to be able to open anything from a strong box to a cell door with just a hairpin. I don't seem to have the knack, somehow. This is the last one I have left." "If you couldn't do it before, while it was light, you'll never be able to do it in the dark." "I guess you're right," Prudence sighed. "There it goes, out of shape like all the rest, anyway." She tossed it away with a little _plink_. "Oh, if you'd only moved away from under that window a minute sooner, they wouldn't have seen you out there, you might have been able to--" "No use crying over spilt milk," Prudence said briskly. Sounds reached them from outside presently, after they'd been lying silent on the floor for a while. "Listen," Virginia Rapf breathed. "There's someone moving around down there, under the window. You can hear the ground crunch every once in a while." Something crashed violently, and they both gave a start. "What was that, their car?" asked Virginia Rapf. "No, it sounded like a tin can of some kind; something he threw away." A voice called out of the back door: "Have you got enough?" The answer seemed to come from around the side of the house. "No, gimme the other one too." A few moments later a second tinny clash reached their tense ears. They waited, hearts pounding furiously under their ribs. A sense of impending danger assailed Prudence. "What's that funny smell?" Virginia Rapf whispered fearfully. "Do you notice it? Like--" Prudence supplied the word before she realized its portent. "Gasoline." The frightful implication hit the two of them at once. The other girl gave a sob of convulsive terror, cringed against her. Prudence threw her arms about her, tried to calm her. "Shh! Don't be frightened. No, they wouldn't do that, they couldn't be that inhuman." But her own terror was half stifling her. One of their captors' voices sounded directly under them, with a terrible clarity. "All right, get in the car, Flo. You too, Duke, I'm about ready." They heard the woman answer him, and there was unmistakable horror even in her tones. "Oh, not that way, Eddie. You're going to finish them first, aren't you?" He laughed coarsely. "What's the difference? The smoke'll finish them in a minute or two; they won't suffer none. All right, soft-hearted, have it your own way. I'll go up and give 'em a clip on the head apiece, if it makes you feel any better." His tread started up the rickety stairs. They were almost crazed with fear. Prudence fought to keep her presence of mind. "Get under the bed, quick!" she panted hoarsely. But the other girl gave a convulsive heave in her arms, then fell limp. She'd fainted dead away. The oncoming tread was halfway up the stairs now. He was taking his time, no hurry. Outside in the open she heard the woman's voice once more, in sharp remonstrance. "Wait a minute, you dope; not yet! Wait'll Eddie gets out first!" The man with her must have struck a match. "He can make it; let's see him run for it," he answered jeeringly. "I still owe him something for that hot-foot he gave me one time, remember?" Prudence had let the other girl roll lifelessly out of her arms, and squirmed under the bed herself, not to try to save her own skin but to do the little that could be done to try to save both of them, futile as she knew it to be. She twisted like a catepillar, clawed at her own foot, got her right shoe off. She'd never gone in for these stylish featherweight sandals with spindly heels, and she was glad of that now. It was a good strong substantial Oxford, nearly as heavy as a man's, with a club heel. She got a grasp on it by the toe, then twisted her body around so that her legs were toward the side the room door gave onto. She reared one at the knee, held it poised, backed up as far as the height of the bed would allow it to be. The door opened and he came in, lightless. He didn't need a light for a simple little job like this--stunning two helpless girls chained to a bed. He started around toward the foot of it, evidently thinking they were crouched there hiding from him. Her left leg suddenly shot out between his two, like a spoke, tripping him neatly. He went floundering forward on his face with a muffled curse. She had hoped he might hit his head, be dazed by the impact if only for a second or two. He wasn't; he must have broken the fall with his arm. She threshed her body madly around the other way again, to get her free arm in play with the shoe for a weapon. She began to rain blows on him with it, trying to get his head with the heel. That went wrong too. He'd fallen too far out along the floor, the chain wouldn't let her come out any farther after him. She couldn't reach any higher up than his muscular shoulders with the shoe, and its blows fell ineffectively there. Raucous laughter was coming from somewhere outside, topped by warning screams. "Eddie, hurry up and get out, you fool! Duke's started it already!" They held no meaning for Prudence; she was too absorbed in this last despairing attempt to save herself and her fellow prisoner. But he must have heard and understood them. The room was no longer as inky black as before. A strange wan light was beginning to peer up below the window, like a satanic moonrise. He jumped to his feet with a snarl, turned and fired down pointblank at Prudence as she tried to writhe hastily back under cover. The bullet his the iron rim of the bedstead directly over her eyes and glanced inside. He was too yellow to linger and try again. Spurred by the screamed warnings and the increasing brightness, he bolted from the room and went crashing down the stairs three at a time. A second shot went off just as he reached the back doorway, and she mistakenly thought he had fired at his fellow kidnaper in retaliation for the ghastly practical joke played on him. Then there was a whole volley of shots, more than just one gun could have fired. The car engine started up with an abortive flurry, then died down again where it was without moving. But her mind was too full of horror at the imminent doom that threatened to engulf both herself and Virginia Rapf, to realize the meaning of anything she dimly heard going on below. Anything but that sullen hungry crackle, like bundles of twigs snapping, that kept growing louder from minute to minute. They had been left hopelessly chained, to be cremated alive! She screamed her lungs out, and at the same time knew that screaming wasn't going to save her or the other girl. She began to hammer futilely with her shoe at the chain holding her, so slender yet so strong, and knew that wasn't going to save her either. Heavy steps pounded up the staircase again, and for a moment she thought he'd come back to finish the two of them after all, and was glad of it. Anything was better than being roasted alive. She wouldn't try to hide this time. The figure that came tearing through the thickening smoke haze toward her was already bending down above her before she looked and saw that it was Murphy. She'd seen some beautiful pictures in art galleries in her time, but he was more beautiful to her eyes than a Rubens portrait. "All right, chin up, keep cool," he said briefly, so she wouldn't lose her head and impede him. "Get the key to these locks! The short dark one has them." "He's dead and there's no time. Lean back. Stretch it out tight and lean out of the way!" He fired and the small chain snapped in two. "Jump! You can't get down the stairs any more." His second shot, freeing Virginia Rapf, punctuated the order. Prudence flung up the window, climbed awkwardly across the sill, feet first. Then clung there terrified as an intolerable haze of heat rose up under her from below. She glimpsed two men running up under her with a blanket or lap robe from the car stretched out between them. "I can't; it's ... it's right under me!" He gave her an unceremonious shove in the middle of the back and she went hurtling out into space with a screech. The two with the blanket got there just about the same time she did. Murphy hadn't waited to make sure; a broken leg was preferable to being incinerated. She hit the ground through the lap robe and all, but at least it broke the direct force of the fall. They cleared it for the next arrival by rolling her out at one side, and by the time she had picked herself dazedly to her feet, Virginia Rapf was already lying in it, thrown there by him from above. "Hurry it up, Murph!" she heard one of them shout frightenedly, and instinctively caught at the other girl, dragged her off it to clear the way for him. He crouched with both feet on the sill, came sailing down, and even before he'd hit the blanket, there was a dull roar behind him as the roof caved in, and a great gush of sparks went shooting straight up into the dark night sky. They were still too close; they all had to draw hurriedly back away from the unbearable heat beginning to radiate from it. Murphy came last, as might have been expected, dragging a very dead kidnaper--the one called Eddie--along the ground after him by the collar of his coat. Prudence saw the other one, Duke, slumped inertly over the wheel of the car he had never had time to make his getaway in, either already dead or rapidly dying. A disheveled blond scarcecrow that had been Florence Turner was apparently the only survivor of the trio. She kept whimpering placatingly, "I didn't want to do that to them! I didn't want to do that to them!" over and over, as though she still didn't realize they had been saved in time. Virginia Rapf was coming out of her long faint. It was kinder, Prudence thought, that she had been spared those last few horrible moments; she had been through enough without that. "Rush her downtown with you, fellow!" Murphy said. "Her dad's waiting for her; he doesn't know yet, I shot out here so fast the minute I located that taxi driver outside the residence club, who remembered driving Miss Roberts out to this vicinity, that I didn't even have time to notify headquarters, just picked up whoever I could on the way." He came over to where Prudence was standing, staring at the fire with horrified fascination. "How do you feel? Are you O.K.?" he murmured, brow furrowed with a proprietary anxiety. "Strange as it may be," she admitted in surprise, "I seem to feel perfectly all right; can't find a thing the matter with me." Back at the library the following day--and what a world away it seemed from the scenes of violence she had just lived through--the acidulous Miss Everett came up to her just before closing time with, of all things, a twinkle in her eyes. Either that or there was a flaw in her glasses. "You don't have to stay to the very last minute ... er . toots," she confided. "Your boy friend's waiting for you outside; I just saw him through the window." There he was holding up the front of the library when Prudence Roberts emerged a moment or two later. "The lieutenant would like to see you to personally convey his thanks on behalf of the department," he said. "And afterward I . . . uh . . . know where there's a real high-brow pitcher showing, awful refined." Prudence pondered the invitation. "No," she said finally. "Make it a nice snappy gangster movie and you're on. I've got so used to excitement in the last few days, I'd feel sort of lost without it."

MEET ME BY THE MANNEQUIN

All the way up on the bus I kept wondering if she'd be glad to see me or not. I hadn't told her I was coming. For that matter, 1 hadn't told them at the other end I was leaving--not until after I'd gone. Just a note left behind in my room: _Dear Mom and Pop: I can't stand it here any more. I'm not going back to high school when it opens, I'm going to the city. I want to begin to really live. Please don't worry about me, I'll be all right. I'll look up Jean and stay with her. Love--Francine_. And that's what I was on my way to do right now. My sister Jean hadn't been much older than I was when she left, just under eighteen. She hadn't told us much in her letters, but the little she'd said had made it sound wonderful to me. She told us she had a job, but she'd never said what it was. She must have been making a lot of money at it. I don't think there'd been a letter in the three years she was gone that hadn't had at least a twenty and sometimes as high as a fifty-dollar bill in it. But when i'd suggested running up to see her during my school vacation the summer before, she hadn't seemed to want me to come. It was so hot, she'd said, and I wouldn't like it. And when I insisted, she finally said she wasn't going to be there herself, she was going away. But then six months afterwards, in one of her later letters, she forgot she'd said that and mentioned something about being stuck in the city through the whole summer. I wondered vaguely why she hadn't wanted her kid sister to visit her. I supposed she'd thought I wasn't old enough yet, or they needed me at home, or she felt 1 ought to finish high school first, and let it go at that. Older sisters aren't always so easy to figure out. I had her address, the one we wrote her to, but it was just Greek to me. I wasn't worried about finding it though. I'd ask my way when I got there, and that'd be all there was to it.

The bus got in quite late and I was tired. I was hungry, too, and I only had twenty-two cents left, after paying my bus fare and buying a sandwich and coffee at noon. But of course I was going straight to Jean, so what difference did that make? I climbed down and looked around the terminal. Wonderland was already beginning. I had a single bag with me, not much bigger than a telephone directory. I hadn't brought much, mostly because I didn't have much to bring. Who wanted country stuff when you were going to start life in the city, anyway? I chose one of the many exits at random, and came out on an avenue that was sheer magic. It stretched as far as the eye could reach, and the buildings were tall along it, and neon signs all colors of the rainbow flashed against the night sky. I'd reached the Promised Land, all right. I was so enthralled that I decided to put off asking my way to Jean's for a little while and do a little roaming around first. There was plenty of time, it was still early. I'd walked along for about five or ten blocks, bag in hand, when I first saw the mannequin. It was in a lighted show window on the Avenue--Chalif-Bleekman's--where there were a row of them with sort of tea-colored faces and gold and silver wigs. It was the one on the end. The others all looked ritzy, but the one on the end had a sort of friendly smile on her face. Her expression seemed to say: "Hi, little girl. Welcome to the city. If you ever need a friend, or get in a jam, come around and tell me all about it." I don't know how to explain what I mean. It sounds sort of crazy, I know. You have to be pretty young, and you have to be pretty imaginative--like everyone said I was back home--to get it. If you're hardboiled or cynical, you won't get it at all. It's like some people carry around a rabbit's foot, and others have a lucky coin with a hole in it. It's like some people believe in a lucky star, and others in a patron saint. This mannequin became my patron saint at sight. Oh, I knew it was just a wax figure that couldn't talk or hear or think. I wasn't that dumb. But that didn't alter the case any. Everyone has to have a little fantasy in their life. And I was lonely and didn't know anybody and it was my first night in the city. That was why, I guess. Anyway, I stood there day-dreaming in front of it, and telling it all my hopes and fears and ambitions. Not out loud, of course. And it looked back with that understanding smile, as if it was trying to say: "Sure, I know. Don't worry, everything'll turn out all right. And if it doesn't, you know where to find me, I'll always be here, night and day." It was like a pact made between us, that first night, that was never to be broken afterwards. Finally I had to move on. It was getting late, and I had to get up to Jean's. I put the pads of my fingers against the glass in a sort of parting gesture, and went on my way. The others all looked ritzy with their noses in the air, but mine had that same friendly, sympathetic smile to the end. I saw a policeman rolling traffic stanchions out of the middle of the street, and I went over to him to ask my way. It's always safest to ask a policeman when you're in a strange city. I knew that much. He scratched the back of his head when I handed him the scrap of paper that had Jean's address penciled on it. Then he looked me over, up and down, standing there in my country clothes with my little bag in my hand. Instead of telling me where it was, he said: "Are you sure you want to go there?" "Certainly," I said in surprise. "I'm--I'm supposed to." He mumbled something under his breath that sounded like: "Ah, it's a shame--but what can a cop on traffic duty do about it?" "Thank you," I said when he'd finished telling me which directions to take. He shook his head as if he felt sorry for me. "Don't thank me," he sighed. "Sure and it's no favor I'm doing you." I looked back and saw him still watching me and shaking his head. He seemed to have recognized the address, but I couldn't understand why he should feel so bad about my going there.

Even the twenties and fifties she'd sent home hadn't prepared me for the looks of it when I finally reached it. Why, she must be making money hand-over-fist to be able to afford living in such a place! I almost thought for a minute I'd made a mistake. I went over to the doorman to verify the number. Yes, it was the right one. I asked him which floor Jean Everton lived on. He acted as though he'd never heard the name before. He went inside to consult a second uniformed man in the hall. Instead of waiting where I was, I went in after him. I was certain she lived here. She wouldn't have given this address in her letters if she hadn't. I was just in time to hear the second hailman saying under his breath: "Edwards, that's who it is. She sometimes gets mail here under the other name. I remember she left orders with me about that once." Then he looked at me and dropped his voice even lower, but I could still make out what he was saying. "Must be a new girl they're taking on. Better not let her go up the front way; they won't like it, they're open already." The first one stepped back to me and whispered in a peculiar confidential undertone, as though it were a secret. "It's the penthouse you want. But you're not supposed to go in through the front like this; you'd get in Dutch if they ever caught you trying it, and so would we if we let you. You girls are supposed to use the back way. I'll show you where it is." He took me outside and around to the side of the building, and through a delivery passage to a service elevator run by a grinning colored man. "Take her up to The Place," he said to him mysteriously. "Up there?" the operator asked with a strange look. "Up there." The doorman nodded secretively. On the way up he turned to me and asked: "You ever been up there befo', miss?" I said: "No, I never have." He didn't answer, just said, "Um-um," and I caught him shaking his head a little, the same way the cop had. He stopped the car finally and opened the door onto a little vestibule. There was only one other door, a strong-looking thing with a little peephole in the middle of it. I went unhesitatingly over to it and pushed a bell. The kind-faced operator behind me seemed to close his car door almost reluctantly, as though he hated to leave me up there. The last I saw of him he was still shaking his head dolefully. None of this really registered on me at the time. I was too excited at the prospect of seeing Jean. Besides, the city was such a whole new world to me that the way people acted was bound to seem strange at first, until I got used to it. That was all it was, I told myself. The peephole opened and an eye peered out at me. A single eye, blue, and hard as agate. A little whiff of sachet seeped out through the hole. A woman's voice said harshly: "Yes?" I said: "Is Jean in there?" The eye slid around in a half-turn, away from the opening. "Somebody to see Jean." Chains clicked against steel and the door swung grudgingly open. I edged in timidly, bag in hand. There were three women in there, but Jean wasn't one of them. It looked like some kind of a dressing-room. There was a mirror-strip along the wall, and a long table and chairs under it. They all looked at me. They were beautifully dressed, lovely to look at. But there was something hard and forbidding about them, I don't know quite what. There was a confused hum coming from somewhere nearby--like the drone of a lot of voices. Every once in a while it rose sharply to a crescendo, as though something exciting had just happened, then it would die down again to a breathless, waiting hush. Then start over. "Where is she?" I asked uncertainly. The answer was an ungracious snarl. "She's out in front, where d'ya suppose? You didn't expect to find her back here, did ya? We're open already." She snapped cigarette ashes at me with her thumbnail. "If you were sent here to work, you better get into your duds fast. You're an hour late." I just stared stupidly. She jackknifed her finger at my bag. "Brought your own clothes, didn't you? Well, whaddaya waiting for?" She gave me a shove that nearly overturned the nearest chair, and me with it. "Gord!" she said to the others. "She's gonna be a credit to the place! Jean musta had a lapse of memory when she picked her out." "Them dumb ones make the best come-ons," one of the others snapped back. "Didn't you ever know that? And since when does Jean do the picking anyway? She takes whoever Rosetti wishes on her, and likes it!" There was a sudden peremptory slamming on the inside door, the one across the way from where I had come in, and they froze to silence. A man's voice called through: "Come on, you tramps in there, get going! Three of the tables need pepping up." They jumped like trained seals through paper hoops, jostling each other in their eagerness to be the first out. The blur of noise rose sharply with the opening of the door. A phrase came through it. "Twenty-one--red!" And then someone said, "Whee!" A minute later the door had closed again and I was alone.

A human being can be in a situation in which she never was before and her instincts will tell her what her experience cannot. That happened to me now. They'd just called me dumb, and I was dumb. I didn't know the first thing about this place. I'd never been in one like it before. And yet I knew instinctively I didn't like it here. I wanted to get out without even waiting to see Jean. Something told me to. Something told me not to stay a minute longer. It wasn't those three girls so much. Their bark was worse than their bite. It was something about the sound of that voice that had come through the door just now. There had been something evil in it. It was the sort of voice you hear in secret places, where secret things are done that never see the light of day. I remembered now the way the cop and the elevator operator had both shaken their heads. They'd known. They'd known something about this place. There was no one in there with me at the moment, no one to stop me. All I had to do was take the chains off that door, slip out the way I'd come in, ring for the rear elevator. Then I remembered I only had twenty-two cents. But even that wasn't enough to keep me here. I could telephone Jean from outside and ask her to come out and meet me. I had my hand out to the first chain, trying to get it out of its socket without making any noise, when I heard my name called in a frightened whisper behind me. "Francie!" Jean was standing in the opposite doorway. She came in quickly and locked the door behind her. There was something sick and choked in her voice. "They told me there was somebody back here asking for me--but you're the last person I expected to see!" She had diamonds on her wrists and at her throat, and flowers in her hair, and champagne on her breath. She was old. Goldenhaired and beautiful, and yet somehow old and tired-looking. Not like when she'd left home. Her voice was a hiss of terror, like air whistling out of a punctured tire. "What got into you to do this? Why did you come here of all places? This is the last place on earth you should have come!" "Why? I only wanted to see you." She evidently didn't have time to explain. "Quick! Has anyone seen you?" "Only those three girls--" "I can shut them up. They work under me. Come on, get out of here fast!" "But Jean. I came here to stay with you, to live with you." "You don't know what you're saying! Stop arguing, someone may come in here any minute. I want you to take the next bus and go back home. I'd take you down and put you on it myself, only I can't leave here right now--" "But Jean, I have only twenty-two cents." She bent over, fumbled frantically with the side of her stocking, thrust a crumpled bill into my hand. It wasn't a twenty, it wasn't even a fifty this time. It was a hundred-dollar bill. I'd never seen one before. I didn't want the money. I wanted to stay. Not here in this place, but in the city. Now that she was with me, I wasn't frightened any more. But she was pushing me toward the door through which I'd come in. She wouldn't listen to my protests. We never got to it. A muted buzzer sounded somewhere over our heads. It wasn't any louder than the sound a trapped fly makes in a bottle, but it made us both jump. And at the same instant the knob on the inner door that Jean had locked behind her began to rotate viciously. That same voice as before, the one that had sent cold chills through me, rasped angrily: "Jean, what're you doing in there? What's this door locked for? I need you out here--fast." "Rosetti," she whispered sickly. "If he ever sees you--" Her grasp on my wrist was ice-cold. She pulled me toward the side of the room so suddenly that I nearly went off-balance. There was a sort of built-in wardrobe occupying the entire side, with sliding doors that sheathed into one another. She clawed two of them apart, thrust me in against a welter of gold and tinsel dresses, then drew them together again. There was room enough to stand upright. Her panting, parting instructions came through the hair-breadth crack that remained. "Stay in there until the coast is clear, then get out of here as fast as you can! If anyone should slide the doors open to take anything out, don't lose your head--shift with the doors and you'll be all right! Don't wait for me to come back, I mayn't be able to--" I heard the sound she made unlocking the door, heard him bawling her out. "Take it easy, Rosetti. I had a run in my stocking," I heard her say placatingly. I put my eye to the crack and got a look at him--or at least, a vertical strip of his face. He looked just like his voice had sounded. "We're taking Masters into the argument room. Do a number and do it noisy, hear me? All _ta-ra_." "Now?" she gasped, "with a place full of people?" "That's what you're here for. Do your Western number." He gave one of the wardrobe doors I was behind a fling. I quailed, but managed to shift noiselessly behind it, out of the light that slipped in. I saw Jean's be-diamonded arm come plunging into the opening, take down a two-gallon cowboy hat from the shelf. Then she looped a lariat around her wrist, went over to a drawer, and took out a pistol. Her face was very pale under the rouge. So was his, but for a different reason--not fear but malice. She poised in the open doorway a minute. He signaled some musicians and they started an introduction. She gave her lariat a preliminary twirl, screeched "Yippee!" and shot the pistol into the air. Then she moved out of sight. He closed the door after her, but stayed inside. He crossed swiftly to the outer door, the one that led to the service elevator, opened it, and let in a laundryman and his assistant, carrying an immense basket full of wash between them. "Leave it here," he said. "Be ready for you in about ten minutes." They went out again and he closed the door after them. Then he turned around and went out the other way. I saw his hand starting to grope into his coat as he pulled the door shut after him, as if he was taking out something. I heard somebody who must have been standing right outside waiting for him ask: "All set, boss?" "All set," he answered, and then the door closed. I waited a minute to make sure he wouldn't come back, and then edged out of the closet. Outside, in the distance, you could hear Jean's gun shots go off every once in a while. I opened the peephole on the outside door and looked through. The laundrymen were leaning back against the wall out there in the service passageway, waiting to take away the wash. I was wondering whether I should risk it and let myself out while they were there--whether they'd stop me--when without any warning the door behind me was flung open and a drunk came wavering in. He pulled the door shut behind him and leaned against it for a moment, as if trying to regain sufficient strength to go on. He was a man in his early fifties, very handsome, with silvery hair. His collar and dress-tie were a little askew, the way a drunk's usually are. He'd had a flower in his buttonhole, but all the petals had fallen off, just the stem was left. I was too frightened to move for a minute, just stood there staring stupidly at him. He didn't see me--he didn't seem to see anything. He forced himself away from the door that he had used to support him, came on toward where I was. I edged out of the way. Even then he didn't seem to be aware of me. His eyes had a fixed, glassy look and he walked in a funny trailing way, as though his feet were too heavy to lift. He was holding a bunched handkerchief to his chest, over the seam of his shirt, and he kept giving a dry little cough. It seemed impossible that he hadn't seen me, but his eyes gave no sign, so I scuttled back behind the sliding wardrobe doors where I'd come from, and narrowed them once more to a crack, watching him fearfully through the slit. His knees were starting to dip under him, but he kept on with painful, stubborn slowness toward that outer door, moving like a deepsea diver under many fathoms of water. It didn't look as though he'd ever get there. He never did. Suddenly Rosetti's voice sounded behind him. He had come in with two other men. One of them closed the door behind him, locked it this time, and sealed it with his shoulder-blades in an indolent lounge. "Trying to find your way out?" Rosetti purred. "This is the way out." Flame slashed from his hand, a thunderclap exploded in the room, and the drunk was suddenly flat and still. The man holding up the door chuckled, "No wonder he couldn't make it, all the lead he was carrying with him. I bet he gained twenty pounds in the last five minutes." Rosetti opened the outside door, hitched his head. "Hey! The wash is ready!" The laundrymen came in, picked up the big basket between them and dumped its contents all over the floor. A lot of towels and sheets and things came spilling out. They opened one of the sheets to its full width and rolled the "drunk" into the middle of it. Then they took his legs and forced them over until they touched his head, doubling him in two. Then they tied the four corners of the sheet together, into a big lumpy bundle. They put some of the laundry back into the basket, thrust the big bundle in the middle, and wedged some more down on top of it. When they got all through it didn't look much fuller than before, maybe a little plumper in the middle, that was all. Rosetti looked it over. Then I heard him say, "There's a little starting to come through over on the side here. Jam a couple more towels in to soak it up. And don't forget the bricks when you get to the end of your route." Then he sat contentedly back on the edge of the girls' dressingtable, swinging one leg back and forth. He took out a little stick of sandpaper and meticulously rubbed it back and forth over one nail, and blew on it. "D'ya think anyone saw him come in?" one of the others asked. Rosetti went to work on a second nail. "Sure, everybody saw him come in. And nobody saw him go out again, for sure. And it still don't mean a thing. Because nobody saw this part of it, what happened to him in between. I'll be the first one to go down to headquarters to answer their questions--before they even have time to call me. That's the kind of a public-spirited citizen I am!" The three of them laughed. Someone tried the doorknob from the outside just then and the one blocking it called out cheerfully: "Have to wait a few minutes, girls. We're holding a stag party in here." The laundrymen were ready to go now, with their enormous burden suspended between them, shoulder to shoulder. One of Rosetti's two men accommodatingly opened the outside door for them. "Heavy wash tonight," one of them gasped as they staggered out. "Sure," was the grinning answer, "we're dirty people up here. Didn't you know that?" They closed the back door after them and put up all the chains. I was fighting to stay on my feet--at least, until they got out and went back where they'd come from. My head was swimming and my eyes were blurred; I was all weak at the knees; and I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to hold out and they'd hear me go down. I knew what was doing it, and it wasn't lack of air. The city hadn't taken long to teach me things. I knew I'd just seen a man killed before my very eyes. I kept swaying from side to side like a pendulum, and each time braking my fall by clutching at one of the dresses hanging behind me. They were opening the door now--in another minute they'd be gone. But I keeled over first. Maybe the noise from outside covered it, I don't know. They must have been clapping for Jean's number about then. I went down sideways into the narrow little trough I was standing in, and a lot of soft things came piling down on top of me, and everything went dark .

It seemed only a minute later that the sliding doors split open and light shone in on me once more. Jean was bending over me, helping me up. She had a street coat on now. She looked haggard. "I'm going to take you out with me," she whispered. "Lean on me. The humming noise from outside had stopped now; there was a stony silence. She touched some cologne-water to my temple and it stung unexpectedly. I felt it and there was a welt there. "What happened?" I asked dazedly. "Did I do that when I fell?" "No, I had to do that, with a slipper-heel, when you started to come to--with those three she-rats in here big as life. You'll never know what I've been through for the past half-hour or so! Luckily, I had a hunch something was wrong, and came back here just before the rest did. I couldn't get you out unconscious the way you were, and any minute I was afraid you'd come to and give yourself away. Every time one of them wanted something from back here, I'd jump and get it for her--they must have thought I was crazy. When I saw you starting to stir, I had to hit you, to keep you quiet until they got out of here. I told them I saw a bug on the closet-floor. "Come on, the girls have gone home and the place has closed up for the night. The men are in the office counting up the take. Hurry up, before they miss me." We staggered over to the back door together, and she started loosening the chains. "I'm all right now," I said weakly. "I guess it was too stuffy in there." We were out in the service passage now. She looked at me as if she didn't believe me. "What'd you see?" she asked sharply. "Are you sure it wasn't anything you saw while you were in there?" Somehow I couldn't bring myself to talk about it, even to her. "Nothing," I said. Riding down in the back elevator she turned aside, fumbled some more with her stocking, brought out another hundreddollar bill. "Jimmy," she said, handing it to the operator, "you never saw this girl come here tonight." "What girl ?" he asked, when he was able to get his breath back. "That's it exactly," she nodded, satisfied. She took me somewhere to get some coffee to brace me up. Mostly, I guess, she tried to talk me into going back home. But nothing she could say had any effect on me. You know how it is when you're eighteen. "No," I said. "I'm staying. If I can't stay with you, then I'll stay on my own." She sighed. "I was like that once, too. That's why I wish you'd listen to me and go home. I don't want what happened to me to happen to you." "What happened to you?" She didn't answer. "What was that place up there?" I asked curiously. "Forget you were ever up there. Stay if you must, but promise me one thing--that you'll never go near there again. I'll find a furnished room for you and come around to see you whenever I can. And Francie"--her hand covered mine in desperate appeal for a moment--"if you did see something you shouldn't have up there tonight, don't ever open your mouth about it, don't ever mention it to a living soul--for both our sakes, yours and mine as well. Try to forget about it, that's the best way. I've seen things too, from time to time, that I've had to forget about." "Why don't you leave there, Jean?" "I can't." She gave a wry smile. "I'm a little tired, and a whole lot disillusioned, but I still--want to go on living for a while." I just sucked in my breath and looked at her when I heard that.

Late as it was, we went looking for a room then and there. I had to stay some place, and although she didn't say so, it was obvious that Jean lived right up there in that penthouse, as a sort of permanent resident-manager to look after Rosetti's interests. We took a cab to save time on our quest, and passed ChalifBleekman's on our way. I looked out and thought, "There's my mascot." The lights in the shop window had gone out long ago, but you could still make out the mannequins, like ghosts in the dim shine of the streetlights. I asked her about the store. "I used to work there when I first came here," she told me. "I'll take you in with me tomorrow; maybe I can get you a job there." She found a room without much trouble. It was too late at night to be very choosy, and I was too dead-tired to care. Anything would have looked good to me by then. The last thing she said was: "Now if you did see something, erase it from your mind. Always remember, there's nothing you and I can do about it. We're up against something that's too big for us." To the end I couldn't bring myself to admit it to her. "No, I didn't see anything," I reiterated. She knew I was lying, and I knew she knew. I heard her light step go down the stairs, and the taxi that had waited for her below drove off. Afterwards I found another hundred-dollar bill, the second one she'd given me that night, under the soap dish on the washstand. It was only when I was half undressed that I realized I'd left the little bag with my few things in it in the back room of that place where she worked. I was too tired to be as frightened as I should have been.

Her face paled when I first told her about it the next day. "It must have been found by now! There's a maid up there that's a stooge for Rosetti. Did anything in it have your name on it? Was there anything to show whom it belonged to?" I tried to remember. "I don't think so--" Then my own face blanched. "Wait a minute. There was a snapshot of me in the flap under the lid, but without any name or anything on it--" She'd got her second wind by now. "It's all right, keep cool. It's still not fatal. Here's our only out. If Rosetti asks me, I'll say some stray or other I used to know on one of my jobs showed up with a hard-luck story and tried to put the touch on me. She'd been put out of her room and she left her things with me. I slipped her something to get rid of her. As long as they don't think you were right there when--" I knew what she meant. _When the laundry was carried out_. "--you're safe enough," she concluded. She was as good as her word, and got me a job at ChalifBleekman's modeling negligees. Then she left me. "I won't be able to see you very often, after this once," she warned me. "Rosetti doesn't take chances with any of us, and he has eyes and ears all over town. I might be followed when I least expect it, and bring them down on you." "If you want me in a hurry," was the last thing I said, "you can always meet me by the mannequin." I explained about the window mascot of mine. "I'll make it a point to stop there a minute on my way in and out." That was the last I saw of her for some time, but I could understand her reasons for staying away, so I wasn't particularly worried. Meanwhile, I started to get the hang of the city a little better and lose some of my greenness. They were nice to me at the place I worked, and the job was easy, after you once got over being self-conscious about walking up and down the aisles in nothing but lace and ribbons. I made several girl friends, who worked there with me, and I also got myself a boy friend--my first. His name was Eddie Dent. He was a salesman in an auto showroom, and it looked like I'd hit the jackpot the very first time. But more about him later. Although I grew wiser, I didn't forget my mascot. Even Eddie couldn't take her place. They'd put a new outfit on her long ago, since the night I'd first seen her, but I still stopped before her on my way in and out each day and told her all about how things were coming, and she still smiled in that same protective, encouraging way. She made blue days bright, and bright days brighter. I was beginning to forget that nightmare scene I'd witnessed the first night of my arrival, and in a little while more it would have faded away like something that had never happened. Then suddenly it all came back with a crash. A succession of crashes, each one worse than the one before. I'd bought a newspaper back to my room with me after work, and when I opened it a face seemed to leap up from its pages and strike at me. Handsome, with silvery-white hair. The laundry basket must have come apart. They'd picked him up out of the river. _Well-known Sportsman, Missing Two Weeks, Pound Dead_, the caption said. And underneath, my eyes ran through the welter of fine print, taking in a phrase here, a phrase there. ". . . Masters was known to have made many enemies in the course of his long career . . . his only son committed suicide less than a month ago after incurring heavy gambling losses . . . Police are trying to reconstruct his movements . . . Among those who came forward to aid them was Leo Rosetti, through whose cooperation they have been able to establish that one of the last places visited by Masters before he met his death was a small private party given by Rosetti at his own home. He was definitely absolved of all connection with the crime, however. Rosetti's first inkling of what had become of his friend of long standing was when he reported him missing after repeated attempts to communicate with him for the past two weeks had failed . . They didn't guess. They didn't know. But I did. Jean and I both did. I didn't sleep so well that night.

I put it up to the mannequin on my way in to work next morning. "How can I go on keeping quiet about it? Shouldn't I tell them?" And her rueful smile seemed to suggest: "What about Jean? It means her life if you do." That was the first crash. When I clocked out that night there was a man standing there by my mascot--waiting for one of the other girls in the store, I guess. It meant I had to stand right next to him for a moment or two, while I was exchanging my usual silent confidences with her, but he didn't even seem aware of me. I had a funny feeling, on my way home, that I was being followed, but each time I looked around, there wasn't anyone in sight--so I put it down to nervousness and let it go at that. The feeling wouldn't leave me, though, right up to my own door. I'd been home about five minutes when I thought I heard a creak on the flooring outside in the hall. I stiffened, listening. It came again, nearer the door but less distinct than the first time. But no knock or anything followed. I realized now that my instinct had been right. There had been someone following me all the way home, even though I hadn't been able to distinguish who it was. There was almost certainly someone standing out there now, motionless, trying to listen to me just as I was trying to listen to him. I tiptoed over, bent down, and put my eye level with the keyhole. Chilling confirmation came at once. My view was blocked. Instead of the opposite side of the hall, all I could see was a blur of dark suiting, standing there perfectly still. The voice nearly threw me back on my heels, it came through so unexpectedly. The most terrifying thing about it was the casual, matter-of-fact tone he used, as though there were no door in between, as though I had been in plain sight the whole time. "Come on, little lady, quit playing hide and seek." Under a sort of hypnotic compulsion, I touched the key finally, gave it a gingerly little twist as though it was red hot, and he did the rest. He came in slowly. It was the same man who had been standing outside the store. He had a funny little cowlick down the middle of his forehead, like a fish-hook, and it wouldn't stay back. I couldn't take my eyes off it. He closed the door after him. Then he heeled his hand at me, showing a glint of silver. He said: "You're Francine Everton, that right?" I said it was. He took out a newspaper and was suddenly holding Masters's picture before my eyes. "Ever see this man before?" "No!" The sudden shock alone made my denial convincing, if nothing else. "Are you sure of that?" "Yes!" If I said I'd seen him, I'd have to say I'd seen him killed. If I said I'd seen him killed-- "Who's the woman got you your job at Chalif's?" So they'd found that out. I decided to bluff it out. It was the only thing I could do. "An acquaintance of mine. Her name is Edwards, I think. I don't know her very well. Iran into her on the street and told her I had no job." It came with treacherous glibness. "When was the last time you were up there?" Instinct, like a fine wire running through me, jangled warningly: "Make one admission, anywhere along the line, and the whole thing'll come out." I said, "Up where? What do you mean?" "Then how do you explain this?" Even more suddenly than the newspaper, he had opened an envelope and was holding a charred fragment of snapshot before me. Everything that didn't matter had been burned away. The face remained, yellowed but perfectly recognizable. Sparring for time, I asked: "How'd it get burnt?" He flicked back: "How'd it get where it got burnt?" "I'd been put out of my room just before I met my girl friend. I had no place to go. She--took a little bagful of my belongings with her, to keep them for me until I found a place. She was supposed to bring them back, but she never did--" "And you've never been up where she hangs out at any time?" "Never. She didn't seem to want me to look her up--" "I don't doubt that," he said dryly. It was suddenly over, to my unutterable relief. I'd thought it would go on for hours yet. He got up to go. "Well, kid, maybe you're telling the truth and maybe you're not. Maybe you're afraid to." He got as far as the door, and then added: "Don't be afraid to. We'll look after you--" He waited a minute and then went on: "Are you sure there isn't anything more you want to tell me?" "How could there be, when I've told you everything there is?" He closed the door. It opened again, unexpectedly. "Armour's the name," he added, "in case you should change your mind." It closed a second time and I heard the stairs creak complainingly with his descent. I turned and flopped down by the window, peeping under the drawn shade. I saw him come out and look up, and then he went down the street. A figure detached itself from the shelter of a dark doorway opposite and started over toward the house I lived in. I knuckled the pane to attract his attention, threw up the lower sash, and called down guardedly: "Don't come in, Eddie. Wait for me around the corner." It was my boy friend. I didn't want him to get mixed up in it. When I went out to meet him, I went all the way around the block in the opposite direction and approached the corner from the far side--a primitive precaution that wouldn't have fooled anybody. if I was really being watched. He said: "Who was the guy just up there to see you?" I took his arm. "I'll tell you all about it. Let's get away from here first." I hadn't meant to say that. I only realized it after it was out. I couldn't tell him all about it. And then again--why not? I waited until we were in a secluded booth in our usual Chinese restaurant. He said: "What's the matter, Francie? Is there something on your mind? You don't seem yourself tonight." It was so easy to get started, after that. What was more natural than to confide your troubles to your boy friend? "He was a detective, that man you saw," I blurted out. He wasn't as surprised as I'd expected him to be. He piled rice on my plate. "What'd he wani with you?" he said. "This man Masters they picked up from the river--he held his picture up to my eyes and asked me if I'd ever seen him before." A forkful of chow mein halted halfway to his mouth. "I said no, of course." The forkful of chow mein went the rest of the way up. "Then he asked me about--abcut a friend of mine named Jean Edwards, that got me my job. Asked me if I'd ever been up to her place. I said no, of course." "Then what're you downhearted about? You gave him straight answers to straight questions. That's all there is to it. What's bothering you?" "Nothing," I said muffledly. He looked at me a minute or two. He scribbled something down on a scrap of paper and handed it to the Chinese waiter. I saw the waiter take it over to the bandleader. The music came around me, soft and persuasive.

_All your fears are foolish fancies maybe_--

Eddie stood up, held out his arms. "Come on, Francie, that's ours. You never could resist that number. It'll fix everything up." I leaned my head against him as we glided around in the twilight. "Feel better now?" he whispered. "A little." "Never mind, baby, it'll all come out in the wash." I went out of step. "Oh, don't--don't use that word. I can't stand it--" "Why?" It got away from me so easily, like the tail of a kite, when the kite's already out of your hands. "Because it always reminds me of the way I saw him carried out that night--" "Who, Masters?" He kept guiding me around softly in the shadowy crowd. "But I thought you said you weren't up there--" "I told him that. But I was. I was hiding up there in a closet. I saw the whole thing happen. I can't tell you more than that about it, Eddie, because there's another person involved--" The music ended and we went back to the booth. He had to make a phone call when the kumquats came on. It took him a little while, but he was smiling the same as ever when he came back. We didn't talk about it any more after that. I'd got it off my chest and I felt a lot better. Instead of going on to a show the way we usually did, he took me back to my room. "You're tired and you ought to get a little rest, Francie." "Suppose he comes around again?" "He won't." He sounded strangely confident. "He won't bother you any more." Then he said: "I'll wait across the street until I see your room light go on, so you'll feel safer." Almost as though he knew ahead of time . I went in and up the stairs and unlocked my darkened room. There were two messages under my door--a telegram and a phone message from Jean, in the landlady's writing--Jean _Edwards wants you to come up to her place at once, highly important_. Then when I opened the telegram, to my surprise that was from Jean too. Just five words--_Meet me by the mannequin_. I ran to the window first of all, threw it up, signaled down to Eddie. "Eddie, wait for me. I have to go out again." A large black car had drawn up a few doors down, and the driver had come over to him to ask for a light or something. I saw the two of them standing there chattering casually the way men do. Then I stood there knitting my brows over the two messages. One contradicted the other. Maybe one was fake, but if so, which one of the two? Her words that first night rang in my ears again. "Promise me you'll never go near there again." Still and all, both could be from her and both could be on the level. Maybe something had happened to change her plans. Maybe she'd found out she couldn't get away, and had sent the second message to cancel the first. The thing was, which one had preceded the other? Well, there was a way of finding that out. I knocked on the landlady's door. "Which of these came first-- can you tell me?" "The telegram," she said unhesitatingly. "I remember I'd just finished slipping it under your door, when the phone started to ring down in the lower hall, and that was for you too." "Thanks," I said. Jean's place had it, then. The phone message was the one to go by. I hurried outside to Eddie. The other man was gone now, but the car was still standing there. "That was a guy I used to know," he began. "He said I could have the use of his car until he comes out again--" I hardly paid any attention to what he was saying. "Eddie, don't ask me any questions, but--just come along with me, will you?" "You bet," he agreed, the way a boy friend should. We passed Chalif's on our way up to Jean's place. I was glad now that I hadn't taken the telegram at its face value. There was no one in front of the mannequin. Jean had changed her mind after sending it. "Stop just a minute," I said, on an impulse. "Why here? The store was closed hours ago--" "No, you don't understand. I have a habit whenever I'm in trouble--" "Oh, yeah. That mascot of yours. You told me about that once." He veered accommodatingly to the curb and braked. I jumped out and went over, while he stayed in the car. The window lights were on, the way they were every night until midnight. She was in a different gown tonight. Then I remembered it was Thursday. They changed the window displays every other Thursday. They must have just finished dressing the window before we got there. There was something about her face--A shock went through me as I halted before the thick plate-glass. _It was Jean's face!_ I must be' delirious, or losing my mind. She made a swift little gesture, hidden from the street. Touched one finger to her lips to warn me to silence. Then her hand stiffened into the mannequin's rigid wrist-bent pose again. I smothered a scream. She remained motionless after that--all but her lips. I could see them wavering slightly. She was trying to say something to me. I watched them with desperate intentness, while she repeated endlessly, until I got it: "Don't--go. Don't--go. Don't--go." "Come on," Eddie called impatiently from the car. "I thought you were in such a hurry to get wherever it is you're heading for." "_Don't_--go." The silent syllables kept pounding through the glass. She added an almost imperceptible shake of her head, invisible except to me. "Are you coming? What's holding you up?" "No," I said, hypnotized. I couldn't take my eyes off her face. He got out, strode over to me, caught me roughly by the arm. "Why--what's the matter?" A sudden change had come over him--I couldn't quite identify it yet. He didn't waste a glance on the figure in the window. His back was to her. Over his shoulder I could see the warning shake of her head become frenzied. "Then I'll give it to you right here--what's the difference where you get it, as long as we shut you up for good!" The mask had fallen off, and I saw him now, for the first time, as he really had been all along. His face was now as repulsive as Rosetti's and those other men's. He had me trapped between two showcases, where the main store-entrance was, and there wasn't a soul in sight on the streets to help me. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, as though trying to decide whether to risk the sound of a gunshot. Then, instead, he brought out something stubby, and it suddenly doubled its length in his hand. A wicked blade shot out of it right while he held it. "So you saw Masters go out with the dirty wash, did you? Well, here's an extra mouth to tell it to the cops through--a mouth in the middle of your heart!" A terrible game of puss-in-corner began between us. As I shifted from side to side, looking for an opening, he shifted in accompaniment each time, blocking me. I didn't dare take my eyes from the vicious knife feinting at me, but I was dimly aware of a flurry of motion behind him in the store window. Suddenly I saw an opening--or thought I did. Maybe he gave it to me purposely. He had shifted over a little too far to one side. I darted for the avenue of escape like an arrow, flashed through-- almost, but not quite. He swerved quickly behind me, his free hand shot out, clamped itself on my shoulder and pinned me fast. I could feel the flirt of air as the knife swept up. It would come down over me and plunge into my heart . There was a flash inside the window beside me, a hollow thud, and pieces of glass fell out, leaving a jagged hole shaped like a maple leaf. A puff of smoke misted Jean's head and shoulders for a minute, then rose and disappeared. She hardly seemed to have moved at all. One hand, that had held a tinseled evening-bag until now, now grasped a snub-nosed revolver instead. Cottony smoke still licked from it. The knife clattered to the sidewalk before my eyes. Then, horribly, his whole weight sagged against me from behind, I stepped forward, and he fell to the ground and lay there without moving. Jean had disappeared inside the store. I was still cowering there, staring at his body, when she unlocked the front door and came out--still in the metallic wig she'd worn in the window. "You poor innocent. Do you know who you picked for a boy friend? Rosetti's star banker. He presides at the main roulette table up at The Place every night. They must have sicced him on you purposely, to find out if you knew enough to be dangerous to them. And the minute he found out, he reported back to Rosetti. "Luckily, I happened to get on an extension phone in the next room while he was making his tip-off call tonight. I had to reach you fast, and I didn't know how to do it. You were already out with the very guy that had fingered you. It was a cinch he wasn't going to let you out of his sight. Something you said last time I saw you came back to me. 'If you ever want me in a hurry and don't know where to find me, you can always meet me by the mannequin.' "I got a hold of a gun and slipped out. I sent you a telegram to your room, and then I went over to the store. They were in the midst of dressing the windows when I got there, and the entrance had been left unlocked, so the guy supervising the work could slip out front and inspect the window every once in a while. That gave me an inspiration. I couldn't just wait for you on the open sidewalk. Eddie knew me too well. He would have spotted me and whisked you off with him before I had a chance to get in my warning. He was too good a triggerman to fool around with. I had to get the drop on him in some way. "So I sneaked inside, unnoticed, and hid behind one of the counters until the window dressers had finished and gone. When I opened the window, took out your mascot, changed clothes with her, fixed up my face and arms with some ochre powder I found in the store, put on her metallic wig, and stood there in her place, with the gun in my little jeweled bag. "It was taking a big chance, until I had frozen into the right pose, but the streets are pretty quiet around here and no one passing by on the outside caught me at it. Then I had to hold the pose for what seemed like hours, and I thought you'd never come." "What'll we do now?" I asked helplessly, looking down at the still form at our feet. She shrugged. "I'll have to stay out of course, now that I've made the break, but it's just a matter of a day or two before they get the two of us. How can we buck a machine like the one Rosetti has got?" "A detective named Armour--he was the one who questioned me--said if I ever had anything to tell him, he'd look after me." "That's what they all say, but how can we be sure they're not taking presents from Rosetti on the side--" "No, he was different. He was honest. You could see it in his face. He had a funny little cowlick down the middle of his forehead, like a fishhook, and it wouldn't stay back--" "My God!" she exclaimed. I said: "What's the matter?" "Then they got him too, tonight. He must have been up there looking around for evidence single-handed, the fool! That proves he was honest, if nothing else. There was a guy with a cowlick drifting around from table to table, going through the motions of playing. I noticed him before I left. I could tell by Rosetti's face that they were wise to him, were getting ready to close in on him. Trixie was getting out the blanks and sombrero, to cover it up, when I came away. I bet he's already gone out in the wash!" The prowl-car must have sidled up with its siren muffled. The first we knew about it was when two cops jumped out with guns drawn. Jean didn't waste any time--there wasn't any to waste. "O.K. I did this, and here's the gun. But if you've got any sense you won't stop to ask questions about this guy. He'll keep until later. Send in a call quick, for all the reserves they can spare. Do you two know a plainclothesman named Armour?" One of them nodded. "Yeah, Danny Armour. He's attached to this precinct." "Well, he's attached to the sky-patrol by now, but if you get up there in time you may be able to catch them red-handed with the body. Rosetti's gambling place--I'll take you in the back way." One of them said in a low voice to the other: "He was up to something tonight. I saw him marking bills in the back room--" The other one hitched his gun ominously. "We'll take a chance. Put in the call, Bill." And so I got my first ride in a police radio-car. We stopped around the corner from Jean's place. She led the way in through the delivery entrance. What she asked the colored boy on the elevator should have been very funny. Somehow it wasn't, it was gruesome. "Has any laundry been sent out from upstairs yet, Jimmy?" He said: "Yes, Miss Jean. The truck just pulled away li'l while ago. Pow'ful big wash tonight, too." "Too late," she moaned. One of the cops with us said through his clenched teeth: "Dead or alive, he's still evidence. Hurry up, what'd that truck look like?" "I've seen it. You can spot it a mile away,"Jean snapped. "Ivorycolored, and all lacquered-up like a bandbox. It'll be a toss-up between the two rivers, though." "Well, this is a westbound street, so we'll take the one it heads for!" We climbed back in the patrol-car and tore off again. The cordon was beginning to form around Rosetti's place as we left. That truck must have made marvelous time, to get all the way down where we finally caught up with it. But our ride was nothing short of maniacal. I wasn't able to draw a full breath from the time we took off. We overtook it halfway to the lonely warehouse district along the waterfront, screeched a little too far past, nearly turned over, but managed to come up onto the sidewalk in the process. The two "laundrymen" were armed, but never had a chance to prove it. The cops were on them before they'd even finished staggering out. By the time Jean and I came up they already had the big basket of "wash" out on the ground and were ripping it open. They kicked away the blood-spattered towels and pillow cases, and I saw his face by the pale arc-light. It was he, all right, the man who had come up to my room. The cowlick was jagged and stiff with blood now. "He's still evidence, poor fellow," one of the cops said. "He's better than that!" Jean explained electrically, straightening up from bending over him. "There's still life in him, I just felt his heart! They were in too much of a hurry this time. Get him to a hospital quick, and you may still be able to pull him through!" I'd thought we'd ridden fast on the first two legs of our trip but we had practically been bogged down compared to that stretch from waterfront to hospital.

I never thought I'd see that cowlick again, but I did--three weeks later, when Jean and I were taken down to the hospital. I even heard a voice come from under it. He was weak as a rag, but they'd pulled him through. The assistant D.A. who was going to prosecute Rosetti and his whole ring for murder was present at his bedside, to make the final arrangements with us. Jean was to be granted immunity for turning State's evidence as to the operation of Rosetti's many gambling establishments that she had presided over. I didn't need immunity to agree to testify to the murder of Masters, because I hadn't done anything. I saw that cowlick all through the trial, sticking out stubborn as ever from under a huge gauze head-bandage. Rosetti has long since been just a blackout in a prison lightingsystem, but I'm still seeing that cowlick. I see it every Saturday night around 8, and sometimes during the week, when I answer the doorbell in the little flat that Jean and I have taken together. And it won't be long now before I'll be Mrs. Cowlick--Mrs. Armour to you!

MURDER AT MOTHER'S KNEE

Miss Prince knew all the signs that meant homework hadn't been done. The hangdog look, the guiltily lowered head. She stood there by the Gaines boy's desk, one hand extended. "Well, I'm waiting, Johnny." The culprit squirmed uncomfortably to his feet. "I--I couldn't do it, teacher." "Why not?" "I--I didn't know what to write about." "That's no excuse," Miss Prince said firmly. "I gave the class the simplest kind of theme this time. I said to write about something you know, something that really happened, either at home or elsewhere. If the othere were able to, why weren't you?" "I couldn't think of anything that happened." Miss Prince turned away. "Well, you'll stay in and sit there until you do. When I give out homework I expect it to be done!" She returned to her desk; stacked the collected creative efforts to one side, and took up the day's lesson. Three o'clock struck and the seats before her emptied like magic in one headlong, scampering rush for the door. All but the second one back on the outside aisle. "You can begin now, Johnny," said Miss Prince relentlessly. "Take a clean sheet of paper and quit staring out the window." Although the boy probably wouldn't have believed it, she didn't enjoy this any more than he did. He was keeping her in just as much as she was keeping him in. But discipline had to be maintained. The would-be-author seemed to be suffering from an acute lack of inspiration. He chewed the rubber of his pencil, fidgeted, stared at the blackboard, and nothing happened. "You're not trying, Johnny!" she said severely, at last. "I can't think of anything," he lamented. "Yes, you can. Stop saying that. Write about your dog or cat, if you can't think of anything else." "I haven't any." She went back to her papers. He raised his hand finally, to gain her attention. "Is it all right to write about a dream?" "I suppose so, if that's the best you can do," she acquiesced. It seemed to be the only way out of the predicament. "But I wanted you to write something that really happened. This was to test your powers of observation and description." "This was part-true and only part a dream," he assured her. He bent diligently to the desk, to make up for time lost. At the end of fifteen minutes he stood before her with the effort completed. "All right, you can go home now," she consented wearily. "And the next time you come to school without your homework--" But the door had already closed behind him. She smiled slightly to herself, with a sympathetic understanding he wouldn't have given her credit for, and placed the latest masterpiece on top of the others, to take home with her. As she did so, her eye, glancing idly along the opening sentences, was caught by something. She lingered on, reading, forgetting her original intention of rising from her desk and going out to the cloakroom to get her hat. The epistle before her, in laborious straight up-and-down, childish handwriting, read:

Johnny Gaines English Comp. 2

Something that happened in our house

One night I wasn't sleeping so good on account of something I eat, and I dreamed I was out in a boat and the water was rough and rocking me up and down a lot. So then I woke up and the floor in my room was shaking kind of and so was my bed and everything. And I even heard a table and chair fall down, downstairs. So I got kind of scared and I sneaked downstairs to see what was the matter. But by that time it stopped again and everything was quiet. My mother was in the kitchen straitening things up again, and she didn't want me to come near there when she first saw me. But I looked in anyway. Then she closed the outside door and she told me some kind of a varmint got in the house from outside, and my pa had a hard time getting it and killing it, and that was why everything fell over. It sure must have been a bad kind of one, because it scared her a lot, she was still shaking all the time. She was standing still, but she was all out of breath. I asked her where it was and she said he carried it outside with him to get rid of it far away from the house. Then I saw where his hat got to when he was having all that trouble catching it, and he never even missed it. It fell through the stove onto the ashes. So she picked it up out of there when I showed her, and the ashes made it look even cleaner than before when he had it on. Almost like new. Then she got some water and a brush and started to scrub the kitchen floor where she said the varmint got it dirtied up. But I couldn't see where it was because she got in the way. And she wouldn't let me stay and watch, she made me go upstairs again. So that was all that happened.

When she had finished, Miss Prince turned her head abruptly toward the door as if to recall the author of the composition. She sat on there for a while, tapping her pencil thoughtfully against the edge of her teeth.

Miss Prince settled herself uneasily on one of the straightbacked chairs against the wall that the desk-sergeant had indicated to her, and waited, fiddling with her handbag. She felt out of place in a police station anteroom, and wondered what had made her come like this. A pair of thick-soled brogues came walloping out, stopped short before her, and she looked up. She'd never been face to face with a professional detective before. This one didn't look like one at all. He looked more like a businessman who had dropped into the police station to report his car stolen, or something. "Anything I can do for you?" he asked. "It's--it's just something that I felt I ought to bring to your attention," she faltered. "I'm Emily Prince of the English Department at the Benjamin Harrison Public School." She fumbled for the composition, extended it toward him. "One of my pupils handed this to me yesterday afternoon." He read it over, handed it back to her. "I don't get it," he grinned. "You want me to pinch the kid that wrote this for murdering the King's English?" She flashed him an impatient look. "I think it's obvious that this child witnessed an act of violence, a crime of some sort, without realizing its full implication," she said coldly. "You can read between the lines. I believe that a murder has taken place in that house, and gone undiscovered. I think the matter should be investigated." She stopped short. He had begun to act in a most unaccountable manner. The lower part of his face began to twitch, and a dull-red flush overspread it. "Excuse me a minute," he said in a choked voice, stood up abruptly, and walked away from her. She noticed him holding his hand against the side of his face, as if to shield it from view. He stopped a minute at the other end of the room, stood there with his shoulders shaking, then turned and came back. He coughed a couple of times on the way over. "If there's anything funny about this, I fail to see it!" "I'm sorry," he said, sitting down again. "It hit me so sudden, I couldn't help it. A kid writes a composition, the first thing that comes into his head, just so he can get it over with and go out and play, and you come here and ask us to investigate. Aw, now listen, lady--" She surveyed him with eyes that were not exactly lanterns of esteem. "I cross-questioned the youngster. Today, after class. Before coming here. He insists it was not made up--that it's true." "Naturally he would. The detail--I mean the assignment, was for them to write about something true, wasn't it? He was afraid he'd have to do it over if he admitted it was imaginary." "Just a minute, Mr.--" "Kendall," he supplied. "May I ask what your duties are?" "I'm a detective attached to the Homicide Squad. That's what you asked for." It was now her turn to get in a dirty lick. "I just wanted to make sure," she said dryly. "There's been no way of telling since I've been talking to you." "Ouch!" he murmured. "There are certain details given here," she went on, flourishing the composition at him, "that are not within the scope of a child's imagination. Here's one: his mother was standing still, but she was all out of breath. Here's another: a hat lying in just such and such a place. Here's the most pertinent of the lot: her scrubbing of the kitchen floor at that hour of the night. It's full of little touches like that. It wouldn't occur to a child to make up things like that. They're _too_ realistic. A child's flights of fancy would incline toward more fantastic things. Shadows and spooks and faces at the window. I deal in children--I know how their minds work." "Well," he let her know stubbornly, "I deal in murders. And I don't run out making a fool of myself on the strength of a composition written by a kid in school!" She stood up so suddenly her chair skittered back into the wall. "Sorry if I've wasted your time. I'll kRow better in the future!" "It's not mine you've wasted," he countered. "It's your own, I'm afraid."

A few minutes after her class had been dismissed the next day, a "monitor," one of the older children used to carry messages about the building, knocked on her door. "There's a man outside would like to talk to you, Miss Prince." She stepped out into the hall. The man, Detective Kendall of the Homicide Squad, was tossing a piece of chalk up and down in the hollow of his hand. "Thought you might like to know," he said, "that I stopped that Gaines youngster on his way to school this morning and asked him a few questions. It's just like I told you yesterday. The first words out of his mouth were that he made the whole thing up. He couldn't think of anything, and it was nearly 4 o'clock, so he scribbled down the first thing that came into his head." If he thought this would force her to capitulate, he was sadly mistaken. "Of course he'd deny it--to _you_. That's about as valid as a confession extracted from an adult by third-degree methods. The mere fact that you stopped to question him about it frightened him into thinking he'd done something wrong. He wasn't sure just what, but he'd played safe by saying he'd made it up." He thrust his jaw forward. "You know what I think is the matter with you?" he told her bluntly. "I think you're _looking_ for trouble!" "Thank you for your cooperation, it's been overwhelming!" she said, snatching something from him as she turned away. "And will you kindly refrain from marking the walls with that piece of chalk! Pupils are punished when they do it!" She returned stormily to the classroom. The Gaines boy sat hunched forlornly, looking very small in the sea of empty seats. "I've found out it wasn't your fault for being late, Johnny," she relented. "You can go now, and I'll make it up to you by letting you out earlier tomorrow." He scuttled for the door. "Johnny, just a minute. I'd like to ask you something." His face clouded as he came back slowly. "Was that composition of yours true or made up?" "Made up, Miss Prince," he mumbled, scuffling his feet. Which only proved to her that he was more afraid of the anonymous man with a badge than of his own teacher. "Johnny, do you live in a large house?" "Yes'm, pretty big," he admitted. "Well, er--do you think your mother would care to rent out a room to me? I have to leave where lam living now, and I'm trying to find another place." He swallowed. "You mean move into our house and _live_ with us?" Obviously his child's mind didn't regard having a teacher at such close quarters as a blessing. She smiled reassuringly. "I won't interfere with you in your spare time, Johnny. I think I'll walk home with you now--I'd like to know as soon as possible." "We'll have to take the bus, Miss Prince, it's pretty far out," he told her.

It was even farther than she had expected it to be, a weatherbeaten, rather depressing-looking farm-type of building, well beyond the last straggling suburbs, in full open country. It was set back from the road, and the whole area around it had an air of desolation and neglect. Its unpainted shutters hung askew, and the porch roof was warped and threatened to topple over at one end. Something _could_ have happened out here quite easily, she thought, judging by the looks of the place alone. A toilworn, timid-looking woman came forward to meet them as they neared the door, wiping her hands on an apron. "Mom, this is my teacher, Miss Prince," Johnny introduced. At once the woman's expression became even more harassed and intimidated. "You been doing something you shouldn't again? Johnny, why can't you be a good boy?" "No, this has nothing to do with Johnny's conduct," Emily Prince hastened to explain. She repeated the request for lodging she had already made to the boy. It was obvious, at a glance, that the suggestion frightened the woman. "I dunno," she kept saying. "I dunno what Mr. Mason will say about it. He ain't in right now." Johnny was registered at school under the name of Gaines. Mr. Mason must be the boy's stepfather then. It was easy to see that the poor woman before her was completely dominated by him, whoever he was. That, in itself, from Miss Prince's angle, was a very suggestive factor. She made up her mind to get inside this house if she had to coax, bribe, or browbeat her way in. She opened her purse, took out a' large-size bill, and allowed it to be seen in her hand, in readiness to seal the bargain. The boy's mother was obviously swayed by the sight of it but was still being held back by fear of something. "We could use the money, of course," she wavered. "But--but wouldn't it be too far out for you, here?" Miss Prince faked a slight cough. "Not at all. The country air would be good for me. Couldn't I at least see one of the rooms?" she coaxed. "There wouldn't be any harm in that, would there?" "N-no, I suppose not," Mrs. Mason faltered. She led the way up a badly creaking inner staircase. "There's really only one room fit for anybody," she apologized. "I'd only want it temporarily," Miss Prince assured her. "Maybe a week or two at the most." She looked around. It really wasn't as bad as she had been led to expect by the appearance of the house from the outside. In other words, it was the masculine share of the work, the painting and external repairing, that was remiss. The feminine share, the interior cleaning, was being kept up to the best of Mrs. Mason's ability. There was another little suggestive sidelight in that, thought Miss Prince. She struck while the iron was hot. "I'll take it," she said firmly, and thrust the money she had been holding into the other's undecided hand before she had time to put forward any further objections. That did the trick. "I--I guess it's all right," Mrs. Mason breathed, guiltily wringing her hands in the apron. "I'll tell Mr. Mason it's just for the time being." She tried to smile to make amends for her own trepidation. "He's not partial to having strangers in with us---" "Why?" Miss Prince asked in her own mind, with a flinty question mark. "But you being Johnny's teacher--when will you be wanting to move in with us?" Miss Prince had no intention of relinquishing her tactical advantage. "I may as well stay, now that I'm out here," she said. "I can have my things sent out." She closed the door of her new quarters and sat down to think.

The sun was already starting to go down when she heard an approaching tread coming up the neglected dirt track that led to the door. She edged over to the window and peered cautiously down. Mason, if that was he, was singularly unprepossessing, even villainous-looking at first glance, much more so than she had expected him to be. He was thick-set, strong as a steer in body, with bushy black brows and small, alert eyes. He had removed a disreputable, shapeless hat just as he passed below her window, and was wiping his completely bald head with a soiled bandanna. The skin of his scalp was sunburned, and ridged like dried leather. She left the window and hastened across the room to gain the doorway and overhear his first reaction to the news of her being there. She strained her ears. This first moment or two was going to offer an insight that was never likely to repeat itself, no matter how long she stayed in this house. "Where's Ed?" she heard him grunt unsociably. This was the first inkling she had had that there was still another member of the household. "Still over in town, I guess," she heard Mrs. Mason answer. She was obviously in mortal terror as she nerved herself to make the unwelcome announcement--the listener above could tell by the very ring of her voice. "Johnny's teacher come to stay with us--a little while." There was suppressed savagery in his rejoinder. "What'd you do that for?" And then a sound followed that Emily Prince couldn't identify for a second. A sort of quick, staggering footfall. A moment later she realized what it must have been. He had given the woman a violent push to express his disapproval. She heard her whimper: "She's up there right now, Dirk." "Get rid of her!" was the snarling answer. "I can't, Dirk, she already give me the money, and--and she ain't going to be here but a short spell anyway." She heard him come out stealthily below her, trying to listen up just as she was trying to listen down. An unnatural silence fell, then prolonged itself unnaturally. It was like a grotesque catand-mouse play, one of them directly above the other, both reconnoitering at once. He turned and went back again at last, when she was about ready to keel over from the long strain of holding herself motionless. She crept back inside her room and drew a long breath. If that hadn't been a guilty reaction, what was? But still it wasn't evidence by any means. The porch floor throbbed again, and someone else had come in. This must be the Ed she had heard them talk about. She didn't try to listen this time. There would never be a second opportunity quite like that first. Whatever was said to him would be in a careful undertone. Mrs. Mason came out shortly after, called up: "Miss Prince, like to come down to supper?" The teacher steeled herself, opened the door and stepped out. This was going to be a battle of wits. On their side they had an animal-like craftiness. On hers she had intellect, a trained mind, and self-control. She felt she was really better equipped than they for warfare of this sort. She went down to enter the first skirmish. They were at the table already eating--such a thing as waiting for her had never entered their heads. They ate crouched over, and that gave them the opportunity of watching her surreptiously. Mrs. Mason said: "You can sit here next to Johnny. This is my husband. And this is my stepson, Ed." The brutality on Ed's face was less deeply ingrained than on Mason's. It was only a matter of degree, however. Like father, like son. "Evenin'," Mason grunted. The son only nodded, peering upward at her in a half-baleful, half-suspicious way, taking her measure. They ate in silence for a while, though she could tell that all their minds were busy on the same thing: her presence here, trying to decide what it might mean. Finally Mason spoke. "Reckon you'll be staying some time?" "No," she said quietly, "just a short while." The son spoke next, after a considerable lapse of time. She could tell he'd premeditated the question for a full ten minutes. "How'd you happen to pick our place?" "I knew Johnny, from my class. And it's quieter out here." She caught the flicker of a look passing among them. She couldn't read its exact meaning, whether acceptance of her explanation or skepticism. They shoved back their chairs, one after the other, got up and turned away, without a word of apology. Mason sauntered out into the dark beyond the porch. Ed Mason stopped to strike a match to a cigarette he had just rolled. Even in the act of doing that, however, she caught his head turned slightly toward her, watching her when he thought she wasn't looking. The older man's voice sounded from outside: "Ed, come out here a minute, I want to talk to you." She knew what about--they were going to compare impressions, possibly plot a course of action. The first battle was a draw. She got up and went after Mrs. Mason. "I'll help you with the dishes." She wanted to get into that kitchen. She couldn't see it at first. She kept using her eyes, scanning the floor surreptitiously while she wiped Mrs. Mason's thick, chipped crockery. Finally she thought she detected something. A shadowy bald patch, so to speak. It was both cleaner than the surrounding area, as though it had been scrubbed vigorously, and at the same time it was overcast. There were the outlines of a stain still faintly discernible. But it wasn't very conspicuous, just the shadow of a shadow. She said to herself: "_She'll_ tell me. I'll find out what I want to know." She moved aimlessly around, pretending to dry off something, until she was standing right over it. Then she pretended to fumble her cloth, let it drop. She bent down, and planted the flat of her hand squarely on the shadowy place, as if trying to retain her balance. She let it stay that way for a moment. She didn't have to look at the other woman. A heavy mug slipped through her hands and shattered resoundingly at her feet. Emily Prince straightened up, and only then glanced at her. Mrs. Mason's face had whitened a little. She averted her eyes. "She's told me," Miss Prince said to herself with inward satisfaction. There hadn't been a word exchanged between the two of them. She went upstairs to her room a short while after. If somebody had been murdered in the kitchen, what disposal had been made of the body? Something must have been done with it--a thing like that just doesn't disappear. She sat on the edge of the cot, wondering: "Am I going to have nerve enough to sleep here tonight, under the same roof with a couple of murderers?" She drew the necessary courage, finally, from an unexpected quarter. The image of Detective Kendall flashed before her mind, laughing uproariously at her. "I certainly am! I'll show him whether I'm right nor not!" And she proceeded to blow out the lamp and lie down. In the morning sunlight the atmosphere of the house was less macabre. She rode to school with Johnny on the bus, and for the next six hours put all thoughts of the grisly matter she was engaged upon out of her mind, while she devoted herself to parsing, syntax, and participles. After she had dismissed class that afternoon she went to her former quarters to pick up a few belongings. This was simply to allay suspicion on the part of the Masons. She left the greater part of her things undisturbed, to be held for her. She was waiting for the bus, her parcels beside her, when Kendall came into sight on the opposite side of the street. He was the last person she wanted to meet under the circumstances. She pretended not to recognize him, but it didn't work. He crossed over to her, stopped, touched his hat-brim, and grinned. "You seem to be moving. Give you a hand with those?" "I can manage," she said distantly. He eyed the bus route speculatively, then followed it with his gaze out toward her eventual destination. "It wouldn't be out to the Mason place?" Which was a smarter piece of deduction than she had thought him capable of. "It happens to be." To her surprise his face sobered. "I wouldn't fool around with people of that type," he said earnestly. "It's not the safest thing, you know." Instantly she whirled on him, to take advantage of the flaw she thought she detected in his line of reasoning. "You're being inconsistent, aren't you? If something happened out there which they want to keep hidden, I agree it's not safe. But you say nothing happened out there. Then why shouldn't it be safe?" "Look," he said patiently, "you're going at this from the wrong angle. There's a logical sequence to things like this." He told off his fingers at her, as though she were one of her own pupils. "First, somebody has to be missing or unaccounted for. Second, the body itself, or evidence sufficiently strong to take the place of an actual body, has to be brought to light. The two of them are interchangeable, but one or the other of them always has to precede an assumption of murder. That's the way we work. Your first step is a composition written by an eight-year-old child. Even in the composition itself, which is your whole groundwork, there's no direct evidence of any kind. No assault was seen by the kid, no body of any victim was seen either before or after death. In other words, you're reading an imaginary crime between the lines of an account that's already imaginary in itself. You can't get any further away from facts than that." She loosed a blast of sarcasm at him sufficient to have withered the entire first three rows of any of her classes. "You're wasting your breath, my textbook expert. The trouble with hard-and-fast rules is that they always let a big chunky exception slip by." He shoved a helpless palm at her. "But there's nobody missing, man, woman, or child, within our entire jurisdiction, and that goes out well beyond the Mason place. Word would have come in to us by now if there were! How're you going to get around that?" "Then why don't you go out after it?" she flared. "Why don't you take this main road, this interstate highway that runs through here, and zone it off, and then work your way back along it, zone by zone, and find out if anyone's missing from other jurisdictions? Believe me," she added crushingly, "the only reason I suggest _you_ do it is that you have the facilities and I haven't!" He nodded with tempered consideration. "That could bedone," he admitted. "I'll send out inquiries to the main townships along the line. I'd hate to have to give my reasons for checking up, though, in case I was ever pinned down to it: 'A kid in school here wrote a composition in which he mentioned he saw his mother scrubbing the kitchen floor at two in the morning." He grinned ruefully. "Now why don't you just let it go at that and leave it in our hands? In case I get a bite on any of my inquiries, I could drop out there myself and look things over--" She answered this with such vehemence that he actually retreated a step. "I'll do my own looking over, thank you! I mayn't know all the rules in the textbook, but at least I'm able to think for myself. My mind isn't in handcuffs! Here comes my bus. Good day, Mr. Kendall!" He thrust his hat back and scratched under it. "Whew!" she heard him whistle softly to himself, as she clambered aboard with her baggage.

It was still too early in the day for the two men to be on hand when she reached the Mason place. She found Mrs. Mason alone in the kitchen. A stolen glance at the sector of flooring that had been the focus of her attention the previous night revealed a flagrant change. Something had been done to it since then, and whatever it was, the substance used must have been powerfully corrosive. The whole surface of the wood was now bleached and shredded, as though it had been eaten away by something. Its changed aspect was far more incriminating now than if it had been allowed to remain as it was. They had simply succeeded in proving that the stain was not innocent, by taking such pains to efface it. However, it was no longer evidence now, even if it had been to start with. It was only a place where evidence had been. She opened the back door and looked out at the peaceful sunlit fields that surrounded the place, with a wall of woodland in the distance. In one direction, up from the house, they had corn growing. The stalks were head-high, could have concealed anything. A number of black specks--birds--were hovering above one particular spot, darting busily in and out. They'd rise above it and circle and then go down again; but they didn't stray very far from it. Only that one place seemed to hold any attention for them. Down the other way, again far off--so far off as to be almost indistinguishable--she could make out a low quadrangular object that seemed to be composed of cobblestones or large rocks. It had a dilapidated shed over it on four uprights. A faint, wavering footpath led to it. "What's that?" she asked. Mrs. Mason didn't answer for a moment. Then she said, somewhat unwillingly: "Used to be our well. Can't use it now, needs shoring up. Water's all sediment." "Then where do you get water from?" Miss Prince asked. "We've been going down the road and borrowing it from the people at the next place down, carrying it back in a bucket. It's a long ways to go, and they don't like it much neither." Miss Prince waited a moment, to keep the question from sounding too leading. Then she asked casually: "Has your well been unfit to use for very long?" She didn't really need the answer. New grass was sprouting up everywhere, but it had barely begun to overgrow the footpath. She thought the woman's eyes avoided her, but that might have been simply her chronic hangdog look. "Bout two or three weeks," she mumbled reluctantly. Birds agitated in a cornfield. A well suddenly unfit for use for the last two or three weeks. And then, in a third direction, straight over and across, the woods, secretive and brooding. Three possibilities. She said to herself: "She told me something I wanted to know once before. Maybe I can get her to tell me what I want to know now." Those who live in the shadow of fear have poor defenses. The teacher said briskly: "I think I'll go for a nice long stroll in the open." She put her to a test, probably one of the most peculiar ever devised. Instead of turning and striking out at once, as a man would have in parting from someone, she began to retreat slowly, half-turned backwards toward her as she drew away, chattering as she went, as though unable to tear herself away. She retreated first in the general direction of the cornfield, as though intending to ramble among the stalks. The woman just stood there immobile in the doorway, looking after her. The teacher closed in again, as though inadvertently, under necessity of something she had just remembered. "Oh, by the way, could you spare me an extra chair for my room I--" Then when she again started to part company with her, it was in a diametrically opposite direction, along the footpath that led to the well. "Any kind of a chair will do," she called back talkatively. "Just so long as it has a seat and four--" The woman just stood there, eyeing her without a flicker. She changed her mind, came back again the few yards she had already traveled. "The sun's still hot, even this late," she prattled. She pretended to touch the top of her head. "I don't think I care to walk in the open. I think I'll go over that way instead-- those woods look nice and cool from here. I always did like to roam around in woods--" The woman's eyes seemed to be a little larger now, and she swallowed hard. Miss Prince could distinctly see the lump go down the scrawny lines of her throat. She started to say something, then she didn't after all. It was obvious, the way her whole body had seemed to lean forward for a moment, then subside against the door-frame. Her hands, inert until now, had begun to mangle her apron. But not a sound came from her. Yet, though the test seemed to have failed, it had succeeded. "I know the right direction now," Miss Prince was saying to herself grimly, as she trudged along. "It's in the woods. It's somewhere in the woods." She went slowly. Idly. Putting little detours and curleycues into her line of progress, to seem aimless, haphazard. She knew, without turning, long after the house was a tiny thing behind her, that the woman was still there in the doorway, straining her eyes after her, watching her all the way to the edge of the woods. She knew too, that that had been a give-and-take back there. The woman had told her what she wanted to know, but she had told the woman something too. If nothing else, that she wasn't quite as scatterbrained,, as frivolous, as she had seemed to be about which direction to take forher stroll. Nothing definite maybe, but just a suspicion that she wasn't out here just for her health. She'd have to watch her step with them, as much as they'd have to watch theirs with her. A good deal depended on whether the woman was an active ally of the two men, or just a passive thrall involved against her will. She was up to the outermost trees now, and soon they had closed around her. The house and its watcher was gone from sight, and a pall of cool blue twilight had dimmed everything. She made her way slowly forward. The trees were not set thickly together but they covered a lot of ground. She had not expected anything so miraculous as to stumble on something the moment she stepped in here. It was quite likely that she would leave none the wiser this time. But she intended returning here again and again if necessary, until-- She was getting tired now, and she was none too sure of her whereabouts. She spotted a half-submerged stump protruding from the damp, moldy turf and sat down on it, fighting down a suspicion that was trying to form in the back of her mind that she was lost. A thing like that, if it ever got to that Kendall's ears, would be all that was needed to complete his hilarity at her expense. The stump was green all over with some sort of fungus, but she was too tired to care. The ground in here remained in a continual state of moldy dampness, she noticed. The sun never had a chance to reach through the leafy ceiling of the trees and dry it out. She had been sitting there perhaps two minutes at the most, when a faint scream of acute fright reached her from a distance. It was thin and piping, and must have been thin even at its source. She jarred to her feet. It had sounded like the voice of a child, not a grown-up. It repeated itself, and two others joined in with it, as frightened as the first, if less shrilly acute. She started to run, as fast as the trackless ground would allow, toward the direction from which she believed the commotion was coming. She could hear waters splashing, and then without any warning she came crashing out into the margin of a sizable and completely screened-off woodland pool. It was shaped like a figure 8. At the waist, where it narrowed, there was an irregular bridge of flat stones, although the distances between them were unmanageable except by sprinting. There was a considerable difference in height between the two sections, and the water coursed into the lower one in a placid, silken waterfall stretching the entire width of the basin. This lower oval was one of the most remarkable sights she had ever seen. It was shallow, the water was only about knee-high in it, and under the water was dazzling creamy-white sand. There was something clean and delightfullooking about it. Two small boys in swimming trunks, one of them Johnny Gaines, were arched over two of the stepping-stones, frantically tugging at a third boy who hung suspended between them, legs scissoring wildly over the water and the sleek sand below. "Keep moving them!" she heard Johnny shriek just as she got there. "Don't let 'em stay still!" She couldn't understand the reason for their terror. The water below certainly wasn't deep enough to drown anybody-- "Help us, lady!" the other youngster screamed. "Help us get him back up over the edge here!" She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, picked her way out to them along the stones, displaced the nearest one's grip with her own on the floundering object of rescue. He wouldn't come up for a minute, even under the added pull of her adult strength, and she couldn't make out what was holding him. There was nothing visible but a broil of sand-smoking water around his legs. She hauled backwards from him with every ounce of strength in her body, and suddenly he came free. The three of them immediately retreated to the safety of the bank, and she followed. "Why were you so frightened?" she asked. "Don't you know what that is?" Johnny said, still whimpering. "Quicksand! Once that gets you--' There could be no mistaking the genuineness of their fright. Johnny's two companions had scuttled off for home without further ado, finishing their dressing as they went. "Look, I'll show you." He picked up a fist-sized rock and threw it in. What happened sent a chill down her spine. The stone lay there for a moment, motionless and perfectly visible through the crystalline water. Then there was a slight concentric swirl of the sand immediately around it, a dimple appeared on its surface, evened out again, and suddenly the stone wasn't there any more. The sand lay as smooth and satiny as ever. The delayed timing was what was so horrible to watch. "We'd better go," she said, taking a step backward from it. "The upper pool's all right, it's only got gravel at the bottom," Johnny was explaining, wiping his hair with a handful of leaves. She didn't hear him. She was examining the branch of a bush growing beside the bank that had swung back into place in her wake. It formed an acute angle such as is never found in nature. It was badly fractured halfway along its length. She reached for a second branch, a third, and fingered them. Their spines were all broken the same way. Her face paled a little. She moved around the entire perimeter of the bush, handling its shoots. Then she examined the neighboring bushes. The fractures were all on the landward side, away from the pool. The tendrils that overhung the water itself--that anyone in difficulties in the sand could have been expected to grasp--were all undamaged, arching gracefully the way they had grown. She came away with a puzzled look on her face. But only that, no increased pallor. At the edge of the woods, just before they came out into the open again, the youngster beside her coaxed plaintively: "Miss Prince, don't gimme 'way about going swimming in there, will you?" "Won't they notice your hair's damp?" "Sure, but I can say I went swimming in the mill-pond, down by the O'Brien place. I'm allowed to go there." "Oh, it's just that--that place we just came from they don't want you to go near?" He nodded. That could have been because of the quicksand. Then again it could have been for other reasons. "Have they always told you to keep away from there?" she hazarded. It paid off. "No'm, only lately," he answered. Only lately. She decided she was going to pay another visit to that cannibal sandbed. With a long pole, perhaps.

The evening meal began in deceptive calmness. Although the two Masons continued to watch her in sullen silence, there seemed to be less of overt suspicion and more of just casual curiosity in their underbrow glances. But a remark from Johnny suddenly brought on a crisis when she was least expecting it. The youngster didn't realize the dynamite in his question. "Did I pass, in that composition I handed in?" he asked all at once. And then, before she could stop him in time, he blurted out: "You know, the one about the dream I had, where I came down and--" Without raising eyes from the table she could sense the tightening of the tension around her. It was as noticeable as though an electric current were streaking around the room. Ed Mason forgot to go ahead eating, he just sat looking down at his plate. Then his father stopped too, and looked at his plate. There was a soft slur of shoe-leather inching along the floor from somewhere under the table. Mrs. Mason said in a stifled voice, "Sh-h, Johnny." There was only one answer she could make. "I haven't got around to reading it yet." Something made her add: "It's up there on the table in my room right now." Mason resumed eating. Then Ed followed suit. She had given them all the rope they needed: Let them go ahead and hang themselves now. If the composition disappeared, as she was almost certain it was going to, that would be as good as an admission that-- She purposely lingered below, helping Mrs. Mason as she had the night before. When she came out of the kitchen and made ready to go up to her room, they were both sprawled out in the adjoining room. Whether one of them had made a quick trip up the stairs and down again, she had no way of knowing--until she got up there herself. Mason's eyes followed her in a strangely steadfast way as she started up the stairs. Just what the look signified she couldn't quite make out. It made her uneasy, although it wasn't threatening in itself. It had some other quality that she couldn't figure out, a sort of shrewd complacency. Just before she reached the turn and passed from sight he called out: "Have a good night's sleep, Miss." She saw a mocking flicker of the eyes pass between him and Ed. She didn't answer. The hand with which she was steadying the lamp she was taking up with her shook a little as she let herself into her room and closed the door. She moved a chair in front of it as a sort of barricade. Then she hurried to the table and sifted through the homework papers stacked on it. It was still there. It hadn't been touched. It was out of the alphabetical order she always kept her papers in, but it had been left there for her to read at will. That puzzled, almost crestfallen look that she'd had at the pool came back to her face again. She'd been positive she would find it missing. How long she'd been asleep she could not tell, but it must have been well after midnight when something roused her. She didn't know exactly what it was at first; then as she sat up and put her feet to the floor, she identified it as a strong vibration coming from some place below. As though two heavy bodies were threshing about in a struggle down there. She quickly put something on and went out to listen in the hall. A chair went over with a vicious crack. A table jarred. She could hear an accompaniment of hard breathing, an occasional wordless grunt. But she was already on her way down by that time, all further thought of concealment thrown to the winds. Mason and his son were locked in a grim, heaving struggle that floundered from one end of the kitchen to the other, dislodging everything in its path. Mrs. Mason was a helpless onlooker, holding a lighted lamp back beyond danger of upsetting, and ineffectually whimpering: "Don't! Dirk! Ed! Let each other be now!" "Hold the door open, quick, Ma! I've got him!" Mason gasped just as Miss Prince arrived on the scene. The woman edged over sidewise along the wall and flung the door back. Mason catapulted his adversary out into the night. Then he snatched up a chicken lying in a pool of blood over in a corner, sent that after him, streaking a line of red drops across the floor. "Thievin' drunkard!" he shouted, shaking a fist at the sprawling figure outside. "Now you come back when you sober up, and I'll let you in!" He slammed the door, shot the bolt home. "Clean up that mess, Ma," he ordered gruffly. "That's one thing I won't 'low, is no chicken-stealing drunkards in my house!" He strode past the open-mouthed teacher without seeming to see her, and stamped up the stairs. "He's very strict about that," Mrs. Mason whispered confidentially. "Ed don't mean no harm, but he helps himself to things that don't belong to him when he gets likkered up." She sloshed water into a bucket, reached for a scrubbing brush, sank wearily to her knees, and began to scour ruddy circles of chicken blood on the floor. "I just got through doin' this floor with lye after the last time," she murmured. Miss Prince found her voice at last. It was still a very small, shaky one. "Has--has this happened before?" "Every so often," she admitted. "Last time he run off with the O'Brien's Ford, drove it all the way out here just like it belonged to him. Mr. Mason had to sneak it back where he took it from, at that hour of the night." An odor of singeing felt suddenly assailed the teacher's nostrils. She looked, discovered a felt hat, evidently the unmanageable Ed's, fallen through the open scuttle-hold of the woodburning stove onto the still-warm ashes below. She drew it up and beat it against the back of a chair. There was a slight rustle from the doorway and Johnny was standing there in his night-shirt, sleepily rubbing one eye. "I had another of those dreams, Ma," he complained. "I dreamed the whole house was shaking and--" "You go back to bed, hear?" his mother said sharply. "And don't go writin' no more compositions about it in school, neither!" She fanned out her skirt, trying to screen the crimson vestiges on the floor from him. "Another of them wood-varmints got into the house, and your Pa and your Uncle Ed had to kill it, that's all!" Miss Prince turned and slunk up the stairs, with a peculiar look on her face--the look of someone who has made a complete fool of herself. She slammed the door of her room behind her with-- for her--unusual asperity. She went over to the window and stood looking out. Far down the highway she could make out the dwindling figure of Ed Mason in the moonlight, steering a lurching, drunken course back toward town and singing, or rather hooting, at the top of his voice as he went. "Appearances!" she said bitterly. "Appearances!"

She always seemed to meet Kendall just when she didn't want to. He appeared at her elbow next morning just as she alighted from the bus in town. "How're things going? Get onto anything yet?" She made a move to brush by him without answering. "I haven't received anything definite yet on any of those inquiries I sent out," he went on. She turned and faced him. "You won't, either. You can forget the whole thing! All right, laugh, you're entitled to it! You were right and I was wrong." "You mean you don't think--" "I mean I practically saw the same thing the boy did, with my own eyes, last night and it was just a family row! I've made a fool out of myself and gone to a lot of trouble, for nothing." "What're you going to do?" "I'm going to pack my things and leave." "Don't take it too hard--" he tried to console her. She stalked off. At least, she had to admit to herself, he'd been decent enough not to say, "I told you so," and laugh right in her face. Oh, well, he was probably saving it up to enjoy it more fully back at the station house with his cronies.

Mrs. Mason was alone in the kitchen again when she returned that afternoon to get her things together. There hadn't been time before school in the morning. The woman looked at her questioningly, but the teacher didn't say anything about her imminent departure. Time enough to announce it when she came down again. In her room she picked up the dress she'd had on the afternoon before and started to fold it over. Something caught her eye. There was a stain, a blotch, that she hadn't noticed until now. She looked at it more closely, as though unable to account for it. Then she remembered sitting down on a half-submerged stump for a moment, just before hearing the boys' cries of distress. "No more appearances!" she warned herself, and tossed the dress into the open bag. She picked up the batch of school papers lying on the table to follow suit with them. There was that composition of Johnny's that had started all the trouble. She started to reread it. She was standing up at first. Before she had finished she was seated once more. She turned and looked over at the dress she had just put away. Then she got up and took it out again. There was a timid knock on the door and Mrs. Mason looked in at her. "I thought maybe you'd like me to help you get your things together," she faltered. Miss Prince eyed her coolly. "I didn't say anything about leaving. What gave you that idea? I'm staying--at least, for a little while longer." The woman's hands started out toward her, in a palsied gesture of warning. She seemed about to say something. Then she quickly closed the door.

Her main worry was to get down the venerable stairs without causing them to creak and betray her. The house lay steeped in midnight silence. She knew that Mason and his son were inveterate snorers when asleep--she had heard them at other times, even downstairs when they dozed after meals. Tonight she could not hear them. She didn't use the flashlight she had brought with her, for fear of attracting attention while still within the house. The real need for that would be later, out in the woods. The stairs accomplished without mishap, it was an easy matter to slip the bolt on the back door and leave without much noise. There was a full moon out, but whether it would be much help where she was going, she doubted. She stole around to the back of the rickety tool-house and retrieved the long-poled pitchfork she had concealed there earlier in the evening. Its tines were bent, and with a little manipulation, it might serve as a sort of grappling hook if--if there was anything for it to hook onto. A button was all she needed, a rotting piece of suiting. Evidence. Until she had that, she couldn't go to Kendall, she had to keep on working alone. Not after what she had admitted to him that morning. She struck out across the silver-dappled fields. The trees closed around her finally, a maw of impenetrable blackness after the moonlight, and she brought her flashlight into play, following its wan direction-finder in and out among the looming, ghostly trunks. The bed of quicksand loomed whitely even in the dark. There was something sinister about it, like a vast evil eye lying there in wait. The coating of water refracted the shine of her light to a big phosphorescent balloon when she cast the beam downward. She discovered her teeth chattering and clamped them shut. She looked around for something to balance her light, finally nested it in a bush so that the interlaced twigs supported it. She shifted a little farther along the bank and poised the pitchfork like someone about to spear fish. She lunged out and downward with it. The soft feel of the treacherous sand as the tines dove in was transferred repugnantly along the pole to her hands. That was all she had time to notice. She didn't even see it sink in. A leathery hand was pressed to the lower half of her face, a thick anaconda-like arm twined about her waist from behind, and the light winked out. Her wrists were caught together as they flew up from the pitchfork-pole, and held helpless. "Got her, Ed?" a quiet voice said. "Got her," a second voice answered. There hadn't been any warning sound. They must have been lurking there ahead of her, to be able to spring the trap so unexpectedly. Her pinioned hands were swung around behind her, brought together again. The hand had left her mouth. "You int'rested in what's down in there?" the man behind her asked threateningly. "I don't know what you mean. Take your hands off me!" "You know what we mean. And we know what you mean. Don't you suppose we're onto why you're hanging around our place? Now you'll get what you were lookin' for." He addressed his father. "Take off her shoes and stockings and lie 'em on the bank. Careful, don't tear 'em now." "What's that for?" "She came out here alone, see, early tomorrow morning, and it looked so pretty she went wading without knowing what it was, and it got her." She kicked frantically, trying to stop them. She was helpless in their hands. Her ankles were caught, one at a time, and stripped. "They'll dredge for her, won't they?" Dirk Mason mentioned with sinister meaning. "She'll be on top, won't she?" was the grisly reassurance. "Once they get her out, they'll be no call for them to go ahead dredging any further down." She ripped out a scream of harrowing intensity. If it had been twice as shrill, it couldn't have reached past the confines of these woods. And who was there in the woods to hear her? "Think we ought to stuff something in her mouth?" the older man asked. "No, because we gotta figure on her being found later. Don't worry, no one'll hear her." She was fighting now the way an animal fights for its life. But she was no match for the two of them. Not even a man would have been. They were ready for the incredible thing they were about to do. "Grab her legs and swing her, so she goes out far enough." There was a moment of sickening indecision, while she swung suspended between them, clear of the ground. Then her spinning body shot away from them. Water sprayed over her as she struck. The fall was nothing. It was like landing on a satin quilt, the sand was so soft. She rolled over, tore her arms free, and threshed to a kneeling position. There was that awful preliminary moment in which nothing happened, as with that stone she had seen Johnny throw in yesterday. Then a sudden pull, a _drawing_, started in--weak at first, barely noticeable, giving the impression of being easy to counteract. And each move she made wound the sand tighter around her bared feet, ankles, calves. Meanwhile, something was happening on the bank, or at least, farther back in the woods; but she was only dimly aware of it, too taken up in her own floundering struggles. It reached her vaguely, like something through a heavy mist. An intermittent winking as of fireflies here and there, each one followed by a loud crack like the breaking of a heavy bough. Then heavy forms were crashing through the thickets in several directions at once, two of them fleeing along the edge of the pool, others fanning out farther back, as if to intercept them. There was one final crack, a fall, and then a breathless voice nearby said: "Don't shoot--I give up!" A light, stronger than the one she had brought, suddenly flashed out, caught her, steadied, lighting up the whole pool. Her screams had dwindled to weak wails now, simply because she hadn't enough breath left. She was writhing there, still upright, but her legs already gone past the knees. "Hurry up, and help me with this girl!" a voice shouted somewhere behind the blinding light. "Don't you see what they've done to her?" The pole of the same pitchfork she had used was thrust out toward her. "Hang onto this!" She clutched it with both hands. A moment later a noosed rope had splashed into the water around her. "Pass your arms through that and tighten it around you. Grab hold now and kick out behind you!" For minutes nothing happened; she didn't seem to move at all, though there must have been at least three of them pulling on the rope. "Are we hurting you?" Then suddenly there was a crumbling feeling of the sand around her trapped legs and she came free. Kendall was one of them, of course, and even the brief glimpse she had of his face by torchlight made her wonder how she could have ever felt averse to running into him at any time. She certainly didn't feel that way now. They carried her out of the woods in a "chair" made of their hands and put her into a police car waiting at the edge of the fields. "You'd better get back there and go to work," she said. "Even before you got the rope around me, the downward pull had stopped, I noticed. I seemed to be standing on something . . . How did you get out here on time?" "One of those inquiries I sent out finally paid off. A commercial traveler named Kenneth Johnson was reported missing, from way over in Jordanstown. He was supposed to show up at Indian River, out beyond here in the other direction, and he never got there--dropped from sight somewhere along the way, car and all. He was carrying quite a gob of money with him. He left three weeks ago, but it wasn't reported until now, because he was only expected back around this time. I only got word a half hour ago. I thought of the Masons right away, thanks to you. I started right out here with a couple of my partners to look around, never dreaming that you were still here yourself. Then a little past the next house down, the O'Brien place, we met the kid, Johnny, running along the road lickety-split, on his way to phone in to us and get help. His mother had finally got pangs of conscience and thrown off her fear of her husband and stepson long enough to try to save you from what she guessed was going to happen."

She went out there again first thing the next morning. Kendall came forward to meet her as she neared the pool. He told her they'd finally got the car out a little after daybreak, with the help of a farm-tractor run in under the trees, plenty of stout ropes, and some grappling hooks. She could see the weird-looking sandencrusted shape standing there on the bank, scarcely recognizable for what it was. "Kenneth Johnson, all right," Kendall said quietly, "and still inside it when we got it out. But murdered before he was ever swallowed up in the sand. I have a confession from the two Masons. He gave Ed a hitch back along the road that night. Mason got him to step in for a minute on some excuse or other, when they'd reached his place, so he'd have a chance to rifle his wallet. Johnson caught him in the act, and Mason and his father murdered him with a flatiron. Then they put him back in the car, drove him over here, and pushed it in. No need to go any closer, it's not a very pretty sight." On the way back he asked: "But what made you change your mind so suddenly? Only yesterday morning when I met you you were ready to--" "I sat down on a stump not far from the pool, and afterwards I discovered axle-grease on my dress. It was so damp and moldy in there that the clot that had fallen from the car hadn't dried out yet. Why should a car be driven in there where there was no road? "But the main thing was still that composition of Johnny's. Remember where Johnny said the hat had fallen? Through the stove onto the ashes. But in the reenactment they staged for me, Ed Mason's hat also fell through the open scuttlehold in the stove onto the ashes below. Is it probable that a hat, flung off somebody's head in the course of a struggle, would land in the identical place _twice?_ Hardly. Things like that just don't happen. The second hat had been deliberately placed there for me to see, to point up the similarity to what had happened before." That night, safely back in her old quarters in town, she was going over back-schoolwork when her landlady knocked on the door. "There's a gentleman downstairs to see you. He says it's not business, but social." Miss Prince smiled a little. "I think I know who it is. Tell him I'll be right down as soon as I've finished grading this composition." She picked up the one Johnny Gaines had written. She marked it A-plus, the highest possible mark she could give, without bothering for once about grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Then she put on her hat, turned down the light, and went out to meet Kendall.

MIND OVER MURDER

Two women were sitting having tea together in a crowded fashionable restaurant. All about them were others like them, that throng such places at that hour in the afternoon, while the men are for the most part busy at work in their offices. There was not a vacant table in the entire establishment, yet there was scarcely a man to be seen in the room. The vivacious hum of dozens of feminine conversations going on at once all over the place filled the air. Only the beige complexions of the pert little waitresses darting busily about from table to table, the summery hued dresses of the customers themselves, and a certain languorous warmth in the air, betrayed the fact that this was on a tropical islanddependency of the United States and not some smart restaurant along Fifth Avenue or Michigan Boulevard. Otherwise it would have been impossible to tell the difference, at least indoors here. There was nothing to distinguish the two women from any of the others about them. They were smartly dressed, both reasonably pretty, both of approximately the same age: in their late twenties, or at the very most, their early thirties. One was a comely blonde; the other, the smaller of the two, a fair-skinned brunette. The blonde wore a wedding-band upon her finger. The brunette lacked one. There was absolutely nothing about them to set them apart from all the other women who gather at that hour, in just such places, all over the world, both north and south. Their conversation, it could be surmised, would be the same as that of all the others; small-talk about the latest styles in hats, about clothes, about ways of doing the hair, spiced with an occasional bit of gossip or scandal. The blonde, Pauline Baron, had been doing most of the talking for some little time past. The brunette, Marie Stewart, had been listening, with an occasional nod of understanding or brief comment of accord such as one gives to one's friends. Both were entirely matter-of-fact, casual, their attitudes one of graceful relaxation. A cigarette was held between Marie Stewart's shapely fingers. Pauline Baron would occasionally raise her teacup to her lips and take a dainty sip. The topic of conversation could not possibly have been anything more important than a discussion of what was a good way to stop runs in silk stockings or a recital of one's latest shopping adventures and the bargains one had seen. Yet if one had stepped closer to the little table, close enough to overhear-- Pauline had stopped talking just then. A brief silence fell, as she concluded whatever her recital had been. Marie delicately tapped ash from her cigarette with one tapered nail. "Then why don't you kill him, if you hate him so greatly, and find living with him so unbearable, and yet he won't let you get away from him?" she suggested, without altering the even tenor of her voice. "Have you ever thought of that?" Pauline looked at her as though uncertain whether to take her seriously or not. "Oh, many times," she admitted ruefully. But what good does that do? That's as far as it goes--" Marie nodded understandingly. "Probably everyone has thought of things like that at one time or another. I know I often have myself. Not with anyone in particular in mind; just theoretically, you know." Pauline sighed with a hint of regret. "What's the good of joking about it? Even if I were serious, I--I'd never have the nerve. Wives that kill their husbands are arrested and tried, and have to go through all that notoriety, it gets in all the papers--" Marie shrugged. "That's if they're foolish enough to get caught." "You're always caught when you do a thing like that." "That's if you do it in the usual foolish way," Marie said placidly. She took another sip of tea, lit another cigarette. "People always think of violent methods like guns and knives, or even poisons. It's so glaring, naturally they're found out. There are other ways. Now, if _I_ were going to rid myself of anyone, if I wanted to kill someone--" She interrupted herself to ask: "I'm not shocking you, am I?" "Of course not. We know each other so well, why should we be reticent with one another? I wouldn't discuss this with anyone else, of course--" "Exactly. It's just theoretical, anyway." Marie poised her cigarette with charming detachment back toward her own shoulder. "The thing to do is find the person's own weak point or weakest point, and turn that against him. This business of shooting someone or knifing them, that's for cutthroats. But a really clever person can commit a murder, and never be detected, if they only use their wits." Pauline eyed her friend questioningly, lashes upraised. "I'm not sure I know what you mean by weak point." "Well, let's go at it in this way. Let's take your husband for a model, shall we? What is it that he's most afraid of?" Pauline's face became slightly downcast. "He's not afraid of anything. He's unusually courageous, as a matter of fact." "Everyone is afraid of some one thing, no matter how courageous they are in everything else," Marie insisted. "You live with him, you should know if anyone does." Pauline pondered. "Nothing that I know of. He's unusually aggressive." "There was never a human being yet who didn't have one thing he dreaded more than others. What is his: think. Fire? Water? Falling from a great height?" Pauline continued to shake her head reflectively. "1 can't think of anything, unless--Well, there was an incident once--oh, it was nothing to speak of--but that might be it. I think he has a mortal fear of snakes." "Most people have an aversion toward them." "This seemed to be deeper than just that." "Good, that's what we'd want, then. Tell it to me." "We were in a newsreel theatre one night. This was up in New York, before we came down here. A short 'clip' was flashed on the screen, taken at some snake farm. It showed them writhing on the ground. Just a brief shot, really; it hardly lasted any time. Nobody else in the audience turned a hair. I noticed he got up suddenly and left his seat. I thought simply he was on his way back to the washroom. But before he could take more than a step or two up the aisle, the scene was already over, it was so brief. He seemed to change his mind; he turned around and came back and sat down again. I noticed him mopping his forehead, though. Afterwards when we got home I asked him what had made him do that, and he admitted he had a horror of snakes, said he couldn't stand the sight of them. He didn't tell me what had caused it, and I didn't ask him; in fact we never spoke of it again from that time on." "They are quite common down here," Marie said thoughtfully. "You don't see them in town where we are, of course, but the canefields outside are loaded with them." She tilted her nose, let a smoke-tendril curl from her shapely nostrils without adding breath-pressure to it. "I know an old native woman, sort of a witch-doctor, who catches them by the bushel. Uses them in her cures and remedies, or something." She let her voice trail off. Pauline looked down, as though a spot on the tablecloth hypnotized her; with that sort of a fixed stare. Marie was speaking again. "Carrying out this hypothetical example we're discussing, that would be the point of attack, then. The Achilles heel. This morbid dream, this phobia, of snakes. If, for instance, he were to think there were one at large, in the house with him--" "How could he be made to think that? By simply being _told_ that, you mean?" "That would be second-hand, wouldn't it? That wouldn't do. You see, this would be a death by the imagination. And though the imagination feeds on phantoms, it needs a premise in reality to begin with. Then it can go on from there under its own power. No, he would have to be _shown_ one was in the house with him. Then let his imagination go on from there." "I still don't--" Marie sighed with the tolerance of a teacher toward a disciple. "The sight of the snake, according to our calculations, should bring on a fright-spasm, should it not?" "Yes, but how would that cause death?" "It wouldn't, if allowed to evaporate again. But if prolonged long enough without respite, a thing like that could very easily lead to death. Would, I'm sure." "But how could it be prolonged? Wouldn't the first thing he'd do be to take a stick or gun and go after it, get rid of it?" Marie lidded her eyes briefly in well-bred impatience. "You must construct the thing so that he doesn't. You are not being constructive about it. I have given you the opening wedge, the point of attack, but you must construct from there. If you leave him his freedom of action, of course he chases it out, or runs away from it himself; it becomes simply a very bad fright, quickly over. But if you constrict his freedom of action, so that he is held powerless, so that the fright is kept at boiling-point for God knows how long, then it becomes death, death through the imagination. Do you see what I mean?" The blond Pauline, the wife of Donald Baron, didn't speak. She bit inscrutably at the far corner of one fingernail. "Are there any solid, substantial doors in your house?" Marie purred. "All of them are. They're made of this native mahogany, inches thick. It would take an axe to cut through them." Marie idly unlidded the teapot, looked in to see if there were any more of it, lidded it again. "Is there a closet in your house that's dark, that has no light inside it?" "There's one under the stairs. It's the size of a small room, really. It takes up the whole base of the staircase." "No one could break out of it, you are sure?" "No one could, I am sure. Not the strongest man alive." "If our theoretical victim should become trapped in that place, then. The imagination is given the phantom fact to feed on that the snake is in there with him. But his freedom of movement is taken away; he can neither get away from it, nor find it to kill him. He is held in a straitjacket of terror. Fright becomes frenzy; frenzy, paroxysm; paroxysm, death. No human being could stand that. Within thirty minutes, forty at the most, he would be dead, _untouched by human hand_. They could examine him exhaustively afterwards, and what is there to say? Death by the imagination leaves no traces." She doused her cigarette neatly within her teacup. "There's your murder--for which no afterprice of punishment is paid." Pauline shook her head as though bedazzled. "It doesn't seem like murder at all, does it?" she marveled. "Murder is such an elastic term, isn't it?" "Wouldn't his screams, perhaps, be heard outside?" "Not if there is a radio close by; it could be tuned on rather loud." "But he would be found afterward in the closet, and questions--" "The person committing it could very easily remove him, before investigation got underway." Pauline Baron had but one more question to ask, in this theoretical discussion that had proved so absorbing. "But would someone actually _die_, in that way? I mean, if they survived, it would be worse than if no attempt had been made--" "Within forty minutes, I guarantee you, he will be dead of acute terror. The heart can stand just so much, and no more." A silence fell. Presently she said, "There is just one possible obstacle. Very few would be strong enough to carry it out. It would be unimaginably cruel, of course. One of the cruelest deaths that have ever taken place. I'm not sure anyone's hate would be strong enough to inflict that on another human being--" "The cruelty would come from himself, not the other person. If the snake is not really in there with him at all. There is another kind of cruelty, that goes on for years and years; it doesn't kill you, but it's just as bad. As you said, this would be a death of the imagination. And this other kind of cruelty, too, is of the imagination. So it would be a fitting repayment in kind." Marie began to draw on a pair of gossamer mesh gloves, with that precision which women habitually bring to the act; slowly stroking downward along each finger, one by one, until not a suggestion of a wrinkle remained. This was a token not of immediate but of eventual departure. "What strange byways one's conversations can stray into, can't they?" she murmured apologetically. "Anybody overhearing us just now would have taken us seriously, would have thought we really meant it, wouldn't they?" "Wouldn't they?" echoed Pauline Baron with a deprecating little laugh. She gathered up her own paraphernalia of tableoccupancy, touched a small powderpuff twice to the tip of her nose and once to the point of her chin. "I really must be going," she sighed. "What did you say this native woman's name was?" "I didn't say. But I think they call her Mama Fernanda," Marie drawled negligently. "I only know of her through my maid. You know how they are. You follow the road to the country club, oh, for quite a distance out. And then at one place, there's a little foot-trail that strikes off from there. Or so I've heard my maid say. She has a hut along there someplace. They all go to her for this and that, I understand. She's quite a specialist in extracting the beneficient qualities from the, er, wild life about her. Toads and frogs and lizards, and, er, snakes." She was so completely uninterested that she kept looking about her detachedly while she spoke. "She grinds their bones and compounds native cureaIls. Makes charms out of their skins. Milks them and even makes use of their venom in certain instances. Or so my maid tells me." For a moment her eyes looked piercingly into her friend's. "My maid's name is Martelita," she added quite inconsequentially. Then dropped them again and looked down at her wrist, to make sure she had fastened the catch of one glove. They shifted their chairs to rise from the table. The conversation was at an end. "I'll leave the tip, Marie," Pauline said. "It's been very--interesting having tea with you." They made their way across the crowded place toward the entrance, moving side by side with leisurely grace. Two smartlydressed women, no different from the many others around them who sat chattering frivolously of hats and clothes and the latest styles in hairdressing.

The oncoming beams of a pair of headlights flowed like quicksilver along the narrow, rutted dirt trail, and the car behind them pushed aside giant banana-leaves with a hissing sound. A hut of sun-baked mud bricks, thatched with palm fronds, suddenly sprang upright into the silvery wash, as though it had been flat a moment before. A figure already stood in the opening, attracted by the oncoming brilliance, eyes slitted to peer into it under the sheltering shade of one hand. The figure of a gnarled woman with seamed coffee-colored skin, wisps of white hair escaping from under the shawl hooded closely about her head. The car stopped with a slurring of brakes. The door opened and its occupant stepped down to the ground. She wore a "garden-party" hat with a large, floppy brim which bent downward in front to hide her entire face except for her mouth and the point of her chin. Her arms and throat, however, were milky white. "The senora has lost her way?" the figure in the doorway croaked. "The country club is on the other road, the one that goes straight on out." The arrival reached into the car and the headlight-beams suddenly dimmed, died out. They were left alone in the starlit darkness. "I do not look for the country club," she said gropingly. "Ido not speak very well. Can you understand me?" "Speak. Fernanda will understand," the old woman said encouragingly. "Martelita sent me. She spoke of you to me. You know Martelita?" For a moment the crone looked puzzled. Then suddenly she nodded. "Ah, yes. The one who works for the lady from over the sea, in the town." She came forward helpfully. "The senora is sick?" "No, I want to borrow something from you. How do you say it? I want you lend me something you have." The old woman gestured with flowing arms. "My poor hut is yours." She opened the wattled door, motioned her into the darkness after her. The visitor, however, remained at the threshold. A twig was thrust into live embers glowing in a crude fireplace fashioned of flat stones on the floor. When it had kindled she carried it to a clay vessel filled with oil, from which a wick protruded; lit this. A wan, flickering light filled the interior from this point on. The face of the caller remained shadowed under the capacious, downturned brim. "What is it the senora asks me to give her?" "One of those things that go like this on the ground." One white wrist made a flurried writhing motion. The old woman's jet-black eyes sparkled understandingly. "You want my remedy, that is made from them?" "No, no, alive." This time there was a pause, brief but eloquent. There was rebuke implicit in it, somehow. Finally the old woman spoke again. "What does the senora want with such a thing?" The wrists were busy dipping into a tasselled draw-bag. Silver coins clinked musically. "In my house are many small things. Mice, bugs that crawl, grasshoppers. For just one night or two I want it, to eat them up. Then I will bring it back to you. It must be the kind that is not dangerous, you understand?" She pinched the back of her own hand, then swept her fingers past the place to show it was not serious. "Not dangerous. The bite does not kill." The old woman nodded alertly. "No poison, I understand. Harmless. No poison." The old woman removed a quantity of sacking spread out in one corner of the hut. A number of clay jars and jugs of varying sizes were revealed, of the kind used for carrying water from wells. A peculiar dank odor of musk rose into the air. The woman in the doorway took a slight step backward. The old woman held the crude lamp over the mouth of one, peered into it. Then the next. At the third, she stopped, thrust a forked stick inside. The visitor turned her head aside for a moment, as though overcome by unconquerable repugnance. When she had looked back again, the old woman had taken down a flat straw basket that hung from the wall, was dropping something into it from the end of the stick. The basket was fairly wide in diameter but exceedingly shallow, not more than five or six inches in depth. It was lined with flat, dark leaves of some kind. She came toward the woman with it, holding it with the top left off. The woman's chest began to rise and fall more rapidly, but she held her ground. Within was coiled a glistening silken thing like a polished rubber tube, one end moving a little. Very little. The caller in the garden hat craned her neck gingerly. "So small? And it doesn't look very--Not a bigger one, perhaps? One that looks more frightening?" The old hag shrugged shrewdly. "The senora wants the pests eaten, not just frightened, I thought." She went back to the row of water-jars, emptied the basket gently into the mouth of one, thrust the forked stick into still another. She brought the basket back. An ugly, gray huddle of rags lay in it, almost feathery in its scaliness. Two small horns protruded from one end. The underside was creamy-yellow. The woman grimaced at the hideous sight, warded up one hand toward her eyes. "It has no poison, you are sure?" she faltered. "No poison. Look, I will show you--" The old woman deliberately extended her gnarled, scrawny arm above the basket, while she shook it slightly with her other hand, to rouse its occupant. The purchaser-to-be quickly stopped her, horrified. "No, no-- for heaven's sake, don't! I don't want to see--" The old woman fitted the flat lid over the basket. A leaf or two protruded around the edges, giving it the appearance of containing fruit or some such delicacy. "He is a new one," she murmured fondly. "I only caught him a few days ago. He is a little sleepy now from eating. When he gets hungry he will wake up. When he wakes up he is quick and fast." She held the basket toward her flatly, with both hands. The woman in the doorway instinctively recoiled. "The senora wants me to carry it outside for her?" "No, I--I'll train myself not to be afraid. Just stand there with it a minute, like that. Give me time to get up my courage." She thrust out her hands, finally, a little shakily, and placed them on the rim of the basket. The coffee-colored ones withdrew. The transfer was effected. The new owner took a deep breath. "Nothing to be afraid of," the old woman said reassuringly. "Just hold it even, like that, so it doesn't spill out." "When I want to pick it up, how do I--Must I use my hand?" "No, a stick. Look, like this." Mama Fernanda showed her. "Flat on the ground, so. Underneath it. But always in the middle, not too far at one end, not too far at the other. Then lift, straight. It curls itself around as it goes up. Or else it hangs straight." "Here. Here is some money. Is that enough?" "Oh, that is too much!" "Take it anyway." The woman in the floppy hat moved carefully back to the car, holding the basket out before her. She placed it on the outside seat, went around to the opposite side and got in beside it. The headlight-glare splashed up again, bleaching the scene. The old woman stood once more in the doorway of her hut, shading her eyes against it. "Bring it back when the mice are gone," she called out as the car began to move off backwards down the dirt lane. A note of harsh, satiric laughter sounded from the obscured driver's seat, behind the flaming head-lamps. "I'll bring it back when the mice are gone!"

There were candles on the table, and Mr. and Mrs. Donald Baron sat at dinner. In the candlelight their faces were like two parchment masks against the shadowy background of the walls. Eyeless masks, with the eyelids permanently lowered against the sight of one another. Under each a V-shaped shield of white peered out; in her case, the low decolletage of her dress; in his, the bosom of his dinner-shirt. Other than that, their forms above the table-line were hidden against the darkness, for both wore black. There was complete silence at the table, save for the occasional whispered tread of the little maid who brought in or removed some dish or other. Neither spoke. Neither had spoken. Neither would speak. There is nothing more terrible than the stony silence of hatred. He had a book open at his elbow, was reading in the uncertain light while he ate, in an attempt to forget her presence opposite him. She was silently fluttering the fingers of one hand against the table-edge, over and over. He looked up from the book finally, shot a look of impatience over. Not at her, simply at the restless hand. She dropped it to her lap and it lay still, like something dead. He looked down again, his forehead ridged with annoyance. She made a slight motion with her hand, and the little servinggirl slipped out of the room, left them. He lit a cigarette, turned a page. She was worrying her wedding-ring now, but down below the table where he could not see it. Twisting it around on her finger, endlessly, as though it were something that she were screwing off. Suddenly she rose, moved away from the table, left the room by the same door the maid had just taken. She went into the kitchen, cheerful and bright by comparison with the torture-chamber she had just quitted. The maid and the fat cook had been whispering together. They jumped apart as she appeared. "Something was wrong with the dinner, senora?" the cook asked anxiously. 'No. What is your night for going out?" "Wednesdays." "I change it. Go tonight. You too, Pepita. Go at once, both of you." They were both overwhelmed by this sudden generosity. "Thank you, senora, thank you." "Never mind the sweet. We have finished." She reentered the pall-like dining-room again. He shifted the other way in his chair as she did so, cradling the book on one arm now, so that his back, or at least one shoulder, was turned toward her. Her eyes sparked briefly, lidded themselves again. "Does it annoy you even if I come into the same room with you?" she murmured with leashed ferocity. He didn't look up at her, as though he hadn't heard. "Everything about you annoys me," he answered, in an equally quiet voice to hers. "Even to look at you annoys me." "Then why don't you let me go? Why do you keep me chained to you? Why must you torture me like this, day after day, week after week?" "The door is open. I have told you many times, go. You are the one who stays." "You know I can't just walk out into the streets here. I am thousands of miles from home. I have no money of my own to get back." "You will have to stay, then. I stick to my bargains, even the bad ones. I will not be a party to breaking up my own marriage." "You don't love me--" "I know, but I found that out too late." "For the last time, let me go. I will never ask you this again. Donald, while there is still ti--" She stopped suddenly, went on: "Donald, before something happens, let me go." He traced a line he was reading with the point of his finger, as though he only half-heard her. "Must you talk to me? I can't stand the sound of your voice." She rose from the table, moved across the room to a massive carved mahogany sideboard, with a mirror above it. She stood there for a moment, with her back to him, watching him in the mirror. He continued to read, turned full-back to her now. She removed a small key from the bodice of her dress, unlocked the lower section of the sideboard, opened one of the thick slabs. Within were several fat-bellied bottles of imported cordials that they habitually kept locked-away from the servants. She continued to watch him in the mirror. He went on reading, head inclined. She relocked the slab, turned away. A flat circular straw-plaited basket stood on top of the sideboard now. She reseated herself at the table, put a cigarette to her lips, drew one of the candles over toward her to light it by. The hand that held it shook a little. A shadow fell across his face for a moment as she did so, then cleared again as she replaced the candle with the others. He looked up, annoyed at the momentary eclipse. "I beg your pardon," she breathed coldly. Silence fell between them. Neither one moved after that. The only signs of life in the entire room were three: the occasional turning of a page, the unraveling thread of smoke that rose from her neglected, waiting cigarette, and from time to time, a flicker from the candle-flames A quarter of an hour went by. He looked up at last and glanced toward the kitchen-door, as though belatedly noting it had not opened for some time past. "I want some fruit," he said curtly. "Where is the maid?" "She has gone." "I thought she went on Wednesdays." "She took tonight instead. One of her relatives is sick. She asked me if she could, and I told her yes." She feigned a motion to rise. "I will get you some fruit." "I don't care to have you do anything for me. I will get it myself." He got up and went toward the sideboard in the gloom. He placed his hand on the lid of the basket. She let the cigarette fall from between her fingers, flattened both her own hands against the edge of the table. Otherwise she did not move. He turned away and came back again. Picked up one of the candles and returned to the sideboard a second time. "What is in this basket? It looks as though it might have some in it." "I don't know what that is. One of the servants must have brought it in and left it there by mistake. Something they wanted to take home with them, maybe, and forgot." He held the candle aloft, raised the lid with his other hand. The flame of the candle streaked downward through the air like a small comet, went out on the floor. He gave a scream like the whinny of a horse. The lid of the basket settled back into place again as his hand flew off it. He staggered backward, until the edge of the table against his back had brought him up short. "There is a snake in there!" he said hoarsely. "You must be mistaken," she said calmly. "The shadow over there fooled you. How could there--?" He had rolled around forward against the table, was leaning heavily on it with both hands, breathing with difficulty. "I saw it with my own eyes! It opened its mouth and reared at me as I--" He was holding his stomach now with one hand, covering his eyes with the other. "I--I can't help it--they do something to me--" he coughed. "Pull yourself together. You are ill." She was at the sideboard now in turn. There was the quick click of a key. He was too overcome by nervous shock to watch her. She gave the hinged kitchen-door a quick push with the flat of her hand that set it swinging lightly to and fro, as though she had just passed quickly in and out again. "It's gone. Look. See for yourself. It's not there. I took it away." "When I was a kid, one got into my bed," he panted. "I knew enough not to move, and I lay there all night long with it twined around my leg, waiting for them to come in to me the next morning. They managed to kill it without my being bitten, but the experience scarred my mind for life--" "It's gone," she murmured again. "I'm going upstairs and lie down. For God's sake, see that all the screen doors are closed tight. It may--it may come back in again in some way." He staggered out toward the stairs, as unsteady as a drunk. "I won't get over this for nights now. It's the first one I've ever been that close to since the first time it happened. My hand was _inches_ away, I could almost feel the current of its breath against my thumb--" She watched him go up the stairs. How right she was, she thought remorselessly. How utterly right! She heard him being sick upstairs. Then presently the sound of his shoes dropping off, and the creak of his bed-frame as he threw himself down upon it. She waited a long while before doing anything. There was so much time, the night was so long. She went back to the table and sat there once more, alone now in the candlelight. She _played_ with the idea in her own mind, worrying it, turning it over like a cat does a mouse. She opened a small silver compact and looked at her face in ts mirror. I am still guiltless, she thought, I have not done it yet. But I will look the same when I have done it; nobody will know the difference by looking at me. She touched the little puff twice to her nose and once to her chin. She closed the compact and put it away. It was quiet upstairs now. He had stopped tossing and turning on the bed, he had fallen asleep. She rose. It was time. She made her preparations slowly. With a calm detachment that had neither tension nor guilt in it. She carried a candle to the closet beneath the stairs first, examined the inside of that. Tested the lock, to make sure that it was in good order. She went back to the sideboard then, removed the lethal basket. She left it there untouched a moment, went looking for something that might serve as a substitute receptacle. When she came back she had a large empty cannister she had found on the kitchen-shelf, that had once held flour or meal or something of the sort. Also a pointed stick that the cook used to poke up the fire in her stove apparently, for it was slightly charred at one end. She placed the two side by side, basket and cannister, opened both. She was not afraid. She had long ago overcome her original repugnance. You grew used to them, just like anything else. The knowledge that it was harmless, of course, helped. And then, this was not her focus of fear, as it was his. It didn't move. It must have been his imagination that had made it seem to rear and widen its jaws. It was hard to get the stick under it, for it was coiled now, not stretched out flat upon the floor. Twice it dribbled off it. Then, briefly, it did open its mouth each time, but the gusts of anger were quickly over and it lay supine again. The third time she managed to clear it full-length from the basket, holding it like a ribbon up at full-length, doubled over the stick. She quickly transferred it, let it slither down into the cannister, put the lid back on. Its tail got in the way and the lid wouldn't close over it altogether, but that didn't matter, she left it that way. It would draw itself completely in in its own good time. She carried the empty basket to the closet now. She separated the two halves. The lower part she placed in one corner, upsidedown, so that its emptiness could not be immediately perceived, would remain questionable. The lid she placed over in the opposite corner. That gave two foci of danger to contend with, one on each side. He could not retreat from one without drawing near the other. He would be held riveted between the two. Either disk, revealed by the brief flare of a single match, might have covered something. Something already as good as released, since the two halves were not separate from one another. She went upstairs to where he was now, moving softly. He lay there asleep, twitching, murmuring unintelligibly in inner torment. He had taken his jacket off. His matches would be in that, that was where they always carried them. She found a folder of them, stripped them all away but one. One she left him, to confirm his own danger by, to illuminate for a brief moment his doom. That and the sandpaper for striking it on. But even that one she shortened to half its length by tearing it in two, reducing its burning-time by that much. She stiffened, as he turned and moaned a little in his sleep, lips parted in anguish, tormented by some dream that, had he known it, was but a premonition of what was to come. But no dream could hope to equal the reality that would soon-- He lay motionless again after that, and her own rigidity unlocked. She went from the room backwards, a step at a time, like a threatening spectre in her black gauzy dress. A spectre, though, that even as it retreated became more threatening. Then turned and sidled down the stairs at a biased angle, hand behind her back glancing along the rail. She went back to the closet-opening and struck one of his own matches and explored closely all along the door-frame on the inside. She found at last what she wanted, something that glittered minutely like a pin-head. It was a small nailhead, not quite even with the woodwork. It could scarcely have been called a projection, it protruded so very slightly, but it was sufficient for her purposes. It was at the right height too. She drew her shoulder close to it, so that she stood in the closet-opening facing outward into the room. In other words, so that it was just behind her back. Then, working behind her back, sought to catch or snag the lacy material of her dress on it, in such a way as might have happened had she brushed carelessly by it on her way out of the closet. The fabric would not stay on. Twice she had to trail it along the frame before the little metal projection finally pierced it, clung tenuously by a single looped thread drawn out from the rest. The slightest move would have severed it, and freed her. She didn't want to sever it. She wanted him to. She stood thus in the opening, half in, half out, and waited. Waited patiently. She looked around the room. There was nothing there that menaced; it was sterile of threat. A clock that ticked the minutes of the night away. A radio, to bring in cheerful, chipper music playing hundreds upon hundreds of miles away, in the land he had taken her from and she would be able to return to now, once she was--his widow. A cannister upon the sideboard over there, its lid a little slanted, that was all, but nothing to show what lurked in it. How simple death without weapons was. How safe for the killer. She was going to call up to him, first, but she knew he would not answer. He would hear her but he would not come. That was part of his torture of her. One night she had returned without her key, and though he had been upstairs at the time, had heard her below, had even looked out, he had made no move to admit her; she had to stay there huddled on the doorstep until the servants came early in the morning. She made her summons an indirect one, therefore. There was a small bench against the wall, just beyond the closet-opening. She hooked her toe beneath it, tilted it, straight up, then let it upset itself legs upward. It struck the floor with a shattering clap that resounded through the silent house. She heard him jolt upon the bed, start upright. She had roused him now, he would come down to see. She heard him come out to the head of the stairs in his stocking feet. "What's that? Who's down there?" he called down in a voice blurred from recent sleep. Instead of answering, she gave the overturned stool an added prod that made another wooden clamor. This brought him down to the foot of the stairs; he turned there and could see her. She was no longer motionless now, she was writhing, one arm bent behind her back as if in a vain effort to locate the hindrance and free herself. "What the devil are you doing there?" he asked surlily. She continued to writhe and wince facially in time with her supposed efforts. She had once hoped to bean actress, before she had met him. She could never have hoped for a part such as this. "The back of my dress, somewhere, is caught on a nail. I can't reach it." He didn't come toward her at once. She had hardly expected him to. Hate had long ago withered all consideration between them. But he could be lured to coming to her aid without realizing it, that was what she was counting on. Lured to coming to his death. He crossed the room to where there was a humidor, stopped by it, took out a cigar. He passed this absently back and forth below his nose, lengthwise, inhaling its fragrance. Then he bit the end off. He felt for matches, noticed he had left his jacket upstairs. She saw him look over at one of the lighted candles, and sudden fright welled up in her. He went over to it, held it, lighted the cigar by it. She hadn't expected this. That candle could save his life. If he retained it in his hand, went _in_ there with it, it could show him there was nothing-- She swore within her own mind in maniacal silence. Even the crime without weapons had its pitfalls. She was deathly afraid now; she didn't want him to come over, not while he was holding that candle. He said to her over his shoulder, "What are you going to do, stand there all night? Why don't you just pull it?" "I'm afraid of ruining my dress. It's the last good one I have. If I could only find it, I could work it off gently--" She continued to hitch in a half-circular movement, like a muscle-dancer in a sideshow. "What were you doing in there anyway?" "I stepped in for a minute to look for something." Why didn't he put it down! His cigar was lit now. Why didn't he put it _down!_ He turned, took an impatient step toward her, _candle in hand_. He was bringing it over with him, the very thing she had wanted him to do least of all! "What am I, your servant?" he muttered disobligingly. "Don't bring that candle near me!" she called out sharply. "You'll set fire to me! This dress is all fluffy, and I just had it cleaned with benzine!" To her surprise it worked. She hadn't expected it to. He set the candle down, placed his lighted cigar in a dish beside it, and came on without them. He'd discarded the only thing that could have saved his life. He came on to his death, empty-handed. "Stand still a minute," he ordered brusquely. He stepped inside the closet-opening, went around to the back of her. She was between him and the outside room now. The rest was as instantaneous as the shuttering of a cameralens. She suddenly whisked herself out of the entrance, the door swept around in a cyclonic arc, crashed into the frame, the lock fell shut automatically, and he was trapped. The candle-flames spread out flat with the wind, then straightened again. Death had begun. No, not yet. Death had been unleashed. It still had not found the weak spot, the crevice, by which it was to enter. _Knowledge_, now, came next. She would impart it. That would be the only weapon used in this from first to last; her voice, her message through this door. And how could such a weapon ever be found, ever be traced afterward? She moved close to the door, already vibrating under his first trapped onrush. She moved so close to it she seemed to be pressing her face against it, though she was only aiming her lips at the seam, so he would not fail to hear her. "Donald, do you hear me? Donald." Then waited a moment. "Are you listening? In the pocket of your trousers, in the righthand pocket, is a single match, and a tab of sandpaper. Take it out and light it a minute. I want you to see something." He must have thought she was trying to help him. There was a faint orange wink for a moment, along the seam. That and no more. "Look over your shoulder. Look over into the corner. Now into the other corner, quick--while it still lasts." A curious moaning sound, like wind heard through a tube, came faintly through to her. "Don't move. Stand still, and you'll be all right. It's--it's in there with you. I wanted to put it someplace where you wouldn't see it, and the basket dropped out of my hands and rolled. I--I think it opened. Donald, don't move, whatever you do. Stand perfectly still, that's your only chance." A hollow voice as from a tomb groaned. "The match just went out. I'm in here in the dark with it." She heard his head go forward and strike the door. And now death had begun. The weapon had been used. The weapon that no detective would ever find. It was time to cover up the sounds it might make. The sounds that would come as soon as the first swooning vertigo of terror had passed away. It might take a long time. She turned and came away from the door, smiling. Not very much, not in broad humor; just a tiny little pinched uplift at each corner of her mouth. She looked around the room. The clock was still ticking peacefully. The candle flames were still pointed jewellike toward the ceiling. His cigar was still consuming itself on the dish where he'd left it just now. It was just as though nothing had happened. And what had, after all? A door had closed. She pressed the radio-switch, sank down into a chair close by it. Not one of the stiff upright ones they used at dinner, a sloping overstuffed one that was his favorite for lounging in. The depression from his body was still in its cushioned seat and back. She crossed her legs and clasped her hands at the back of her head and lolled there in supine indolence. Just a woman listening to a radio. A woman in her own home, with nothing to do, listening to the radio. _She_ had said: "You could not hate anyone that much--" She was mistaken. What did _she_ know? She felt so good right now, this must be hate, what else could it be? Pattering native music came on thinly, from the country club nearby. She didn't want that stuff. She wanted her own country. She turned on the short-wave dial. That country he had taken her from, to torture and revile her. There it was now. It was like a breath of heaven. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is N'Yorleans, beamed on a special shortwave broadcast--" Something kept throbbing every once in a while, as though there were some sort of dynamo or generator bedded under the floor of the house. And muffled sounds like static, that didn't come from the loudspeaker. Her own name, in ghostly echo. "Pauline! Pauline!" It would have to be made a little louder. It, the other thing, was still coming through. She gave the dial a delicate little adjustment, sloped back again. The music came into the room moderately loud and diamondclear. It was a good night for reception. Her old favorite, _Honeysuckle Rose_. She caught herself tapping her toe lightly against the floor in time with it. And then something new, that must have come out since she'd been away. There was a reading-lamp there, over to the other side of her. They had electricity in the house, of course; it was just at his morbid insistence that they always used candles. So that he wouldn't have to see her so clearly, he'd once explained when she had asked him. This wasn't lighted now, but the chain-pulls dangling from it kept swaying a little, as though there were some unnoticeable vibration going on near at hand. Otherwise you couldn't tell anything. Only when there was a pause for station-identification could you hear anything discordant. Sometimes a hurried scratching, like a cat trying its nails on a door. Sometimes a garbled screaming, as if from far away. "Pauline! Pauline! Take a gun to me. There's one upstairs in my bureau-drawer. Bring it down and put it to my head, and end me fast! Only in the name of common ordinary humanity don't leave me in here like this--" The cigar was intact, had retained its recognizable torpedoshape on the dish beside her, but slowly the brown of the tobaccowrapping was being eaten away by the corrosive white of the advancing ash. Her eyes rested on it thoughtfully, as if it were a symbol. A cigar. A life. The chain-pulls of the lamp kept up their intermittent jittering. Less often now than before, but more violently when they did. The radio kept up its jingling patter of monotonous two-four time notes, one combination of them scarcely distinguishable from another. The clock kept up its remorseless pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat. Time, the enemy of life. The listener brooded, hand cupped to chin, face slanted downward, eyelids lowered. She had gotten New Orleans first. That was the closest of the home-stations. She shifted the wavelength a little, and Atlanta came in. It went like this: "Male voice: "And now we'll hear from little Dixie Lee, our silver-voiced vocalist. Hello, Dixie, honey; what're you going to sing for the folks this evening?" Female voice: "Got any suggestions?" Male voice: "Fine. All right, folks, now you're going to hear Dixie Lee singing 'Got Any Suggestions?' Hit it, boys." Female voice: "No, no, wait a minute! Let's get together on this. That isn't the name of my next number. That's what I asked _you_." A third voice, faintly: "Mercy! Have mercy! I can't stand it! I can't stand it, I say!" Male voice: "Pardon me, Dixie, my error. Now what's it going to be this time?" Female voice: "Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?" Male voice: "Sh, not so loud! My wife's out there in the audience." A third voice, indistinctly: "Take it away! Take it away from me! I can feel it sliding across my shoe--!" Male voice: "Here we go, folks. And this time we're really on our way, all kidding aside." Orchestral introduction. Then female voice, nasally: "Gimme a little kiss, will ya, huh? What're ya gonna miss, will ya, huh--?" The listener sat motionless. Something attracted her eye suddenly, some flurry of motion on the floor, offside to where she was sitting. She wasn't quick enough to catch what it was. As she turned her head to identify it, it seemed to merge with the shadows under the table, draw in under there. Either that, or else she had imagined it in the first place, it hadn't been real. Some afterthought made her look inquiringly over at the cannister. The lid had become entirely dislodged, it wasn't on it at all any more. She got up and went over closer to examine it. It was empty. It wasn't in it any more. It had made its escape, unnoticed. She wasn't unduly frightened by the discovery. It didn't matter so greatly. It was harmless. It would have to be found and put back, that was all. She took up the stick she had used the first time and went looking for it. She picked up one of the candles and held it so that its light penetrated below the table, where she thought she had seen that receding scrap of motion just now. She peered under there. It was down there. She located it almost at once. She got it on the stick the way the old woman had showed her and dredged it out. The table was an impediment, or something. The head hung too close to the hand with which she grasped the stick. It suddenly slashed at her. The pain was very little. Like jabbing yourself with a pin. There was nothing to be frightened of. The old native woman had even offered to let it bite her on the arm as a test of its harmlessness, she remembered. She was annoyed, but that was all. She had a momentary impulse to fling it away from her, but she didn't give in to it. She didn't even drop it. It had slashed a second time before she could get it back into the cannister. Then it writhed a little and lay still. She replaced the lid, tightly this time, and went back to her former chair. The back of her hand itched a little, where it had struck her. She scratched it, and her scratching reddened the skin slightly. Female voice: "--will ya, huh? And I'll give it right back to you." A sobbing voice: "Light. Light. Just a little light. Just for a minute. Just enough to show me where it is--" Sounds of violent threshing, as of something heavy caught in a trap. The clock: Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat; forty-six seconds, fortyseven seconds, forty-eight seconds--Time, the enemy of life. She adjusted the wave-length once more. Then sat back again. She rubbed the back of her hand against her dress, to quell the insatiable tickling that seemed to afflict it. A five-pointed vermilion star was faintly visible on the back of it; with a white core, like an over-sized mosquito-bite. A panting sound, as of a voracious animal tracing its muzzle close up against the seam of a door, came through. But not from the loudspeaker. She had New York, her own town, now. The town he'd taken her away from. "This is the National Broadcasting Company, W-E-A-F, New York--" In her mind's eye she could see the big double triangle, the lower half Times Square, the upper Longacre, with the crowds moving slowly along; Loew's State, and the Astor, and Seventh Avenue splitting off from Broadway-- The clock: Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat; fifty-eight seconds, fiftynine seconds, sixty seconds--Time, the victor. The white ash had reached the biting-end of the cigar now. There was no more unincinerated tobacco left to be consumed; there wasn't anywhere further for it to go. It was a cold cylinder, a dead cylinder. A ghost-cigar. A memory. The chain-pulls on the lamp hung in a mathematically-straight line, utterly still now. The listener reached forward suddenly, there was the click of a switch, and the radio went off. It had lasted fifty-five minutes. She listened carefully first, without moving, eyes still in that downcast position. Complete silence. Only Time, the enemy, the victor, the eternal, still going pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat. Finally she stood up with calm deliberation, moved slowly forward, in the careful way of a woman trying not to arouse someone who is sleeping. She went toward the sealed door, stopped close against it, stood motionless, head inclined. There was no sound. She reached out, rapped questioningly on the inscrutable woodwork. There was no answer. She was smiling as she turned away. That same smile as before, only at the corners of her mouth. She came back closer to the light and took out the silver compact and opened it once more. She looked at herself in its mirror. She looked the same. You couldn't tell anything. She looked no different than before. She wondered what they meant about a guilty conscience. The telephone rang, and for a moment it startled her almost to the point of dropping the compact, the sound was so unexpected in the new, the final, silence that had now fallen. She went over to it, hesitated for just a moment, then picked it up. It was a woman's voice, and for a moment she had difficulty recognizing it. "Pauline, this is Marie Stewart--" She was impatient to the point of brusqueness. She didn't want any witnesses, any accessories, who might later be dangerous. "Why did you call me now?" "I had to. Pauline, listen to me. That old woman we were talking about the other day, you know the one I mean?" Oh, no, you don't, she thought; she wasn't going to get her to incriminate herself that easily. "I don't know what you mean. We didn't talk of any old woman. Will you excuse me now?" "She has just been to see my maid. She walked all the way in from out there, to look her up. There was no other way she knew of reaching you. And my maid just came running to me a minute ago with what she told her, frightened out of her wits. I had to reach you right away. Pauline, don't touch that thing you took from her. Don't go near it. There has been a terrible mistake." "A mistake? Marie, what are you trying to say to me? What is it?" Her own voice had become hoarsely unrecognizable now. "That--what you went there for. She gave you one of the wrong kind. She only found out after you were gone and it was too late. If it bites you, nothing can save you. You will be dead within fifteen minutes. There is not even a serum for it." It had bitten her fully thirteen to fourteen minutes ago. Something started to swell up inside her head; it felt like a balloon. "No one has ever been known to survive, unless they got immediate treatment, and that means amputation if it was on a hand or leg--" The rest of the message went rushing upward toward the ceiling, with the voice speaking it, with the telephone, with the table that held it--and she was down upon her hands and knees, like a felled ox slowly buckling to the ground under the effects of a mallet-blow. She lay there flat for a minute, mouth open an inch or two above the floor, unable to scream. Then she turned and began to crawl with a maddened patter of bare palms upon the floor, that carried her along it crabwise, sidling like some maimed thing. She couldn't get up on her feet. She couldn't scream. There was no one, nothing, to scream to. There was a door there she wanted to get to, a door that might have help beyond it. When she'd reached it, she reared up against it on her knees, like a clever quadruped, a dog or cat, seeking egress. Her breath was raucous in the stillness, like a bellows. Huff, huff, huff. Then she fell flat again on the other side. She'd have to go on still further now. Help was so far away. And she had so little time.

They found her there when they arrived. She was still warm, but she was dead. They had arrived within a few minutes. They were used to many bad sights, but this was a bad one such as they had never seen yet; even their faces paled when they saw what she had done. She lay in a pool of blood on the kitchen-floor. The meat cleaver had dropped to one side of her. The severed hand, with the wedding band still on it, had stayed up on the edge of the table she had used for a chopping block. They found him too, presently. He fell out upon them when they opened the closet-door. He must have remained sagging half-upright against it. He too was still warm. But he was much more difficult to recognize than she was. The thing they carried out through the closet-opening was scarecrow-like. Tatters of torn shirt fluttered from it here and there. Gray dust was ground into its bared chest and forehead. Cobwebs festooned its eyebrows and matted hair. And the hands were wide-splayed, fingertips worn to the quick, skinless, all but nailless, slow drops of blood oozing from each one, drop by drop. They found the snake, last of all. They were mystified. They couldn't understand how it had got where it was. How _he_, the man, had got where he was. How she had come to do what she had. They performed an autopsy, of course. The medical examiner's office reported by telephone to the police at five that afternoon. "The amputation was unnecessary. She must have thought she had been bitten by a deadly variety. That species of snake, of course, is absolutely harmless, as we recognized immediately. Just to make sure, however, we have tested it with several rabbits. All have survived the bite unharmed." And the expert reporting went on, "The man through some accident became locked fast in the closet. The wind may have slammed the door on him. Or she may even have done it herself, playfully, as a sort of practical joke. Before she could release him again, the snake-bite had already occurred, and her terror robbed her of all further presence of mind, so that she forgot to unfasten the door. The frantic efforts he made to get out and go to her aid show him to have been blameless in whatever it was that occurred." "Then the amputation was the cause of death, are those your findings?" "On the contrary, the amputation was not the cause of death. We arrived quickly enough afterwards for her to have been still alive if it were simply a question of the amputation, even though she might have been weak or unconscious from shock and loss of blood. Our examination shows death to have been instantaneous. What caused it was a heart-attack, induced more by the terror of thinking she had been fatally bitten than by any amputation. It is what you might call a _death by the imagination_."

Two heads close together in an invalid chair. A brunette one, and one streaked with white, the overnight white of shock. A man, resting on the chair itself, and a woman, perched on the arm of it, with her head close to his. Marie Stewart and Donald Baron. "You will be better soon. Every day you get a little better, grow a little stronger. Soon you'll be over it altogether. It may have even helped, terrible as it was; it may have even cured you of that old fear, as a sort of shock-treatment would." "I think what helped me to pull through was I lost consciousness altogether toward the end, and unconsciousness can be a great blessing. That way I escaped the full effects. You've been wonderful to me, Marie. Being with me, nursing me every day. Why have you been so good to me?" "I've always loved you. I already loved you when I first knew you, back in the States, before your marriage. I loved you so much that--there isn't anything I wouldn't have done, to be with you like this." She stopped, then asked with a little flare of curiosity: "Donald, what _happened_ to her that night? No one seems to know." He didn't answer. She knew he'd never tell her that his wife had tried to kill him. He'd always kept it a secret from her, let her go on thinking that he'd accidentally locked himself in the closet. He was loyal that way, even to the memory of one who had tried to destroy him. And looking at her, as she lay there nestled so fondly against him it was impossible to guess that she too might have a secret from him. The clever person can commit a murder without weapons, she had once said to someone. But there's a cleverer one still who can get someone else entirely to commit it for her--and pay the price at the same time.

DEATH ESCAPES THE EYE

The other night at a party I met my last love again. By last, I don't mean my latest, I mean my final one. He was as taking and as debonair as ever, but not to me any more; a little older maybe; and we said the things you say, with two glasses in our hands to keep us from feeling lonely. "Hello, Lizzie"; "Hello, Dwight"; "Haven't seen you"; "Nor you either." Then when there wasn't anything more to say, we moved on. In opposite directions. It isn't often that I see him any more. But whenever I do, I still think of her. I wonder what really did become of her. And just the other night, suddenly, for no reason at all, out of nowhere, the strangest thought entered my head for a moment.

But then I promptly dismissed it again, as being too fantastic too absurd.

I first met him on paper. Jean was the one called my attention to the manuscript. Jean was my assistant on the magazine. Strange, I suppose, for that type publication to have an all-female staff. I've never run across another such instance before or since. It didn't deal with confessions or with the screen or with home-making; it dealt with murder mysteries purely and simply. And they were pure and they were simple, I assure you. Nothing else got in. Well, the backing was masculine, if capital can be said to have a gender; and they'd picked us to run it, so they must have liked the way we did it. We turned out a competent, craftsmanlike, he-man shocker and we signed it with first-initials, so the readers never knew the difference. "Editor, E. Aintree; Associate Editor, J. Medill." All my mail came addressed "Mr. Aintree." We had a hole left in the magazine. You work pretty close to deadline on a monthly,and that will happen now and then. One of our regulars had defaulted; gotten drunk, or gotten the grippe, or come through with a stinker that couldn't be used. I don't remember now any more. We didn't have enough of a backlog to help us out; we were too young yet. (That's an accumulation of stories already purchased and held in reserve for just such an emergency.) "What about the slush-pile?" I asked. That's the stuff that goes back. It varies all the way from abominable up to just plain not-so-good. That was poor Jean's department, first readings. She used to have to drink lots of black coffee with her lunch, to make her head feel better. "There are a couple of shorts," she said, "but they're pretty bad. We'd have to use two." "If we've got to use a bad one," I said, "I'd rather use just one long bad one than two short bad ones. See if you can't dig up something at ten thousand words." She came into my office again in about an hour. "I've found something," she announced triumphantly. She made a face expressive of cynical appreciation. "Park Avenue," she said. "What do you mean?" I glanced at the return address on the cover. "Dwight Billings, 657 Park Avenue, New York City." This was before the postal zones had come in. Her eyebrows continued satirically arched. "We're getting contributions from the Four Hundred now." "It runs all the way up to 125th Street and beyond."I reminded her. "He may have rented a room in someone's apartment. Most likely receives his mail care of the doorman." "Do they rent rooms on Park Avenue?" she wanted to know. Not sincerely; she seldom asked her questions sincerely. She already had the greater part of the answers, as a rule. She asked to see whether you had, that was the impression. I read it. It was encased in dream-format, if you know what I mean. And that was taboo in our shop. I'd read worse. But very infrequently. "It's a first try," I let her know. "Think we can take a chance on it?" she asked. "We'll have to. We go to the printer tomorrow. If we lop off the dream-casing and run it straight, it might get by. A good retreading job ought to fix it up. Have Ann see if she can get him on the phone for me." She returned breathlessly in a moment. "He's listed," she announced. She acted surprised, as though she'd expected at least the address--if not name and address both--to be feigned. "But we can't reach him. And it's quarter to five now." I slapped the manuscript rather short-temperedly into my briefcase. "I'll have to take it home with me myself tonight, and try to hop it up." "That," she said sweetly, "is what you get for being an editor." It was on its way to the printer's by nine next morning; the hole had been filled up. At nine-thirty the switchboard rang in. "There's a Mr. Billings here about a story--" "Ask him to wait a minute," I said tersely. I was still a little resentful of the time I'd given up the night before; my own time. The minute became twenty. Not intentionally, but there was office routine, and he'd come in so damned early. Finally I picked up the phone. "Ask Mr. Billings to come in." I lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair. He knocked subduedly. "Come in." I tilted my head and waited. He was tall and he was thirty; brown eyes and lightish hair. He looked at me, and then he looked around the room inquiringly. "Wrong office, I guess," he grinned. "I'm looking for Mr. Ai n tree." I was used to that. I got it all the time. "Sit down," I said. "It's Miss Aintree, and I'm she." He sat down. He looked well sitting; not too far forward, not too far back. Not too straight, not too sunken. I thought of my hair. I'd never thought of it before, here in the office. I wished I'd had it dressed once a fortnight or so, likeJean; not just run a comb through loosely and be done for the day. "Is this your first story, Mr. Billings?" He smiled deprecatingly. "I haven't fooled you, have I?" I explained about the dream-format. "--so we took it out." "But," he said incredulously, "that sounds as if you intended to--" "Oh, didn't I tell you? We tried to reach you yesterday afternoon. You see, we're using it." I watched closely. Just the right reaction; not too cocksure, not lackadaisical either. Modestly appreciative. Couldn't he do anything wrong? He should do something wrong. This wasn't good for me. I rang for Jean. "I'd like you to meet the other half of the staff, now that you're under way with us." He'd have to meet her sooner or later, so it was better right now. She only had on a pique shirtwaist and black skirt today, and she'd come in with an overnight cold. "This is _Mrs_. Medill, my associate." I deliberately emphasized the married title. "Mr. Billings is our newest contributor, Jean." "Welcome to our family." The cold wasn't noticeable enough and the pique blouse looked too pert and chipper, I thought. "I've been thinking about your story all night," she said. "You've been thinking about it, but I've been working on it," I said caustically. The three of us laughed. Jean had a cigarette with us. We mulled over titles, finally decided on one. He'd been in with me for forty-five minutes, the longest interview I'd ever given since I'd been in the business. He got up to go finally. He shook our hands. "You'll come back at us again with another now, won't you?" I said. "We're wide open, you know." "Yes," Jean concurred demurely, her eyes resting on me innocently for a moment, "we're wide open and our sales-resistance is practically nil." "Thanks," he beamed. "You've both been perfectly swell." He closed the door after him. A moment later he reopened it and looked in again. "I have an idea. Why don't you both come up and have dinner with me at my place? I'm batching it, but I have some one up there who'll look after us." "I have a miserable thing called a husband," Jean said. "He doesn't make any noise, he's very well-trained, but the poor creature depends on me to be fed." "Bring him along!" he said. "Only too glad. Shall we say Tuesday, then?" "Tuesday's fine." "Tuesday at seven. Just the four of us. Goodbye, Miss Aintree." "Oh, make it Lizzie," I said with a touch of bravado. That was another thing that had to be out and over with, too, so the sooner the better. All the "Beths" and "Elspeths" when I was seventeen and eighteen hadn't been able to improve on it. "Goodbye, Dwight." He closed the door, and I could hear his step going away down the corridor outside. He had a fine, firm tread; clean-cut, without any slurring. She stood there looking at me with her brows raised. "Why are your brows up?" I asked, finally. "Are they up?" "Well, they don't grow that way." "I've never seen you so patient with a writer before," she mused, gathering up her papers to take back with her. Yes, he _was_ here as a writer, wasn't he? Jean and her husband, the Cipher, stopped by for me Tuesday in a cab, and the three of us went on together. The Cipher was singularly uncommunicative, on any and all subjects, after five o'clock in the afternoon. He was resting from business, she and I supposed. "He _has_ a voice," she had once assured me. "I called for him one day, and I heard it through the office door." On the present occasion he said, "Lo, Lizzie," in a taciturn growl as I joined them, and that, I knew, was all we were likely to get out of him for the next hour to come, soit had to do. But Jean had settled for it, and Jean was smarter when it came to men than I could ever hope to be. 657 was one of the tall monoliths that run along Park Avenue like a picket fence from Forty-fifth to Ninety-sixth; but a picket fence that doesn't do its job. It doesn't seem to keep anyone out; everyone gets in. We stepped out of the elevator into a foyer, and there was only a single door facing us. Meaning there was but one apartment to a floor, in this building. The little waiting-place was made as attractive as if it were part of the apartment itself. The carpeting was Oriental, there was a heavily-framed mirror on the wall, a carved table below that, and a Louis XVI armchair with grape satin back-and-seat upholstery. A small rock-crystal chandelier was suspended overhead. "Is this one of your writers, Lizzie?" Jean inquired quizzically. "Not on our rates," I said drily. And unnecessarily. "Why does he bother fiddling around with writing?" the Cipher shrugged. We both gave him a cold look. Meant to be taken as haughty reproof. A colored man opened the door. None of the faithful old family-retainer type. A streamlined version. His accent was pure university. "If you'll allow me, sir." He took the Cipher's hat. "If you ladies would care--" He indicated a feminine guest-room to one side of the entrance gallery. Jean and I went in and left our wraps in there. She unlidded a cut-crystal powder receptacle, being Jean, and sniffed at it. "Coty's, unless I'm slipping. Vibrant for brunettes, and--" She unlidded a second one on the opposite side, "--Rachel for blondes. Evidently there are no redheads on his list." I didn't answer. We rejoined the Cipher and the butler in the central gallery. It ran on for a length of about three rooms, cutting a wide swath through the apartment, and then ended in a short flight of about four ascending steps. Beyond these was the living room. But it was lateral to the gallery, not frontal to it. There was again a matter of steps, two this time, to be descended. You stopped, and turned to your left, and came down two steps onto the floor of the room. It was artfully constructed for dramatic entrances, that room. Desultory notes of "None but the Lonely Heart" played with one hand alone stopped short. He raised his head at the bustle of our coming down the two steps, and I saw his eyes for a moment, fitted evenly into the crevice between the top of the instrument and its upraised lid. There was something sinister about the vignette. It was as if he were wearing a flesh-colored mask between eyebrows and cheekbones, and the rest of his face were ebony-black. Then he stood up and came forward, one hand each for myself and Jean. I got the left. "Nearest to the heart," I had to say to myself, to fool myself that I'd got the best of the bargain. His man brought in a frost-rimmed shaker and poured bacardis and offered them to us. "This is Luthe," he said. Luthe dipped his head slightly, with the same dignified reticence he'd shown at the door. I wondered what Billing did. I wondered how to find out, without asking him. And Jean rushed in. It was a great convenience having her along, I couldn't help reflecting. "Well, what do you do?" she queried. "1 mean, outside of writing for Lizzie, now that you are writing for Lizzie?" "Nothing," he said bluntly. "Simply--nothing." "Now, there's a man after my own heart!" she blurted out. "Let me shake hands with you." And proceeded vigorously to do so. The Cipher made his hourly utterance at this point. "1 admire you," he stated emphatically. "You carry out what you feel like doing." "Do you always carry out the things you feel like doing?" Jean suggested mischievously. "I'd hate to be the lady in front of you at the theatre wearing that tall, obliterating hat."

After dinner, with a great show of importance, he took me to see the room he did his work in. We went by ourselves. I don't know why; leaving Jean and Cipher behind. I didn't mind that. He keyed open the door, as though revealing a site of very great intrinsic worth. "I don't even let Luthe in here when I'm at it," he said. "I'm sort of self-conscious about it, I guess." "You'll get over that," I assured him. "Some of them can work in the middle of the street at high noon." He showed me the typewriter. It had been left open with an insert at mid-page. "I sit there and look at it and nothing happens. I hit the side of the machine, I hit the side of my head--" I'm afraid I wasn't as interested in him professionally as I should have been. I bent down close as if to look, but my eyes went past the roller toward the girl's photograph standing farther back on the desk. It said: "To my Dwight," down in a lower corner, "from his loving wife, Bernette." But he'd said he was batching it. Divorced then. I hummed a little, under my breath. Humming is a sign of contentment.

And then he called, in about a week, and invited us to dine with him a second time, starting the whole thing over. We went. We were sitting there in his living room, just the four of us, about ten o'clock. And suddenly drama had come fuming in around us, like a flash-flood. Luthe appeared, went over to him, bent down and said something not meant for our ears. I saw Dwight look up at him, in complete disbelief. "No," he mouthed in astonishment. I caught the word. Then he pointed to the floor. "_Here?_" Luthe nodded. "Right outside." "_With_ him?" I caught those two words too. "All right," he said finally, and gave his hand an abrupt little twist of permission. "All right. She knows I'd never--" I got it then. She has somebody else. But not only that: She's come right here with the somebody else! Luthe showed up at the gallery-opening, announced formally: "Mr. and Mrs. Stone." That told me the rest of it. She'd remarried, and the somebody else who'd come with her was her second husband. I felt his wrist shaking a little, but it was safely out of sight behind the turn of my shoulder. For support purely, you understand; to sustain him against the settee-back. Nothing personal. I didn't have to be told. I turned my head. She'd come out onto the entrance-apron, two steps above the rest of us. She, and a husband tailing her. But what it amounted to was: she'd come out onto the entranceapron. He might just as well not have been there. She was familiar with the stage-management of this particular entry-way, knew just how to get the most out of it. Knew just how long to stand motionless, and then resume progress down into the room. Knew how to kill him. Or, since she'd already done that pretty successfully, perhaps I'd better say, know how to give him the shot of adrenalin that would bring him back to life again, so that she could kill him all over again. To be in love with her as he was, I couldn't help thinking, must be a continuous succession of death-throes. Without any final release, I could feel that hidden wrist behind me bounce a little, from a quickened pulse. She stood there like a mannequin at a fashion-display, modeling a mink coat. Even the price-tag was there in full view, if you had keen enough eyes, and mine were. Inscribed "To the highest bidder, anytime, anywhere." She had a lot of advantages over the picture I'd seen on his desk. She was in color; skin like the underpetals of newly-opened June rosebuds, blue eyes, golden-blond hair. And the picture, for its part, had one advantage over her, in my estimate: it couldn't breathe. She had on that mink she was modelling, literally. Threequarters length, flaring, swagger. She was holding it open at just the right place, with one hand. Under it she had on an evening gown of white brocaded satin. The V-incision at the bodice went too low. But evidently not for her; after all she had to make the most of everything she had. She had a double string of pearls close around her neck, and a diamond clip at the tip of each ear. They have the worst taste in women, all of them. Who is to explain their taste in women? She came forward, down the steps and into the room. Perfume came with her, and the fact that she had hip-sockets. The bodiceincision deepened, too, if anything. I kept protesting inwardly, but there must be something more than just what I can see. There _must_ be something more. To make him down a glass of brandy straight to keep from moaning with pain. To make his pulse rivet the way it is against the back of this settee. As though he had a woodpecker hidden in it. I kept waiting for it to come out, and it didn't. It wasn't there. It was all there at first glance, and beyond that there was nothing more. And most of it, at that, was the mink, the pearls, the diamonds, and the incision. She was advancing upon us. Her two hands went out toward him, not just one. A diamond bracelet around one wrist shifted back a little toward the elbow, as they did so. He rose from the settee-arm, and his mask was that of the host who has been so engrossed in present company that he is taken completely by surprise by a new arrival. But his mask wasn't on very tight; you could see the livid white strain it was resting upon. "Billy!" she crowed. And her two hands caught hold of his two, and spread his arms out wide, then drew them close together, then spread them wide again. In a sort of horizontal handshake. So she called him Billy. That would be about right for her too. Probably "Billy-Boy" when there were less than three total strangers present at any one time. "Well, Bernette!" he said in a deep, slow voice that came through the mask. One pair of hands separated, then the other pair. His were the ones dropped away first, so the impulse must have come from him. The nonentity who had come in with her was only now reaching us; he'd crossed the room more slowly. He was a good deal younger than either one of them; particularly than Dwight. Twenty-three perhaps, or five. He had a mane of black hair, a little too oleaginous for my taste, carefully brushed upward and back. It smelled a little of cheap tonic when he got too near you. Her hand slipped possessively back, and landed on his shoulder, and drew him forward the added final pace or two that he hadn't had the social courage to navigate unaided. "I want you to meet my very new husband. Just breaking in." Then she said. "You two should know each other." And she motioned imperiously. "Go on, shake hands. Don't be bashful. Dwight Billings, Harry Stone. _My_ Dwight. _My_ Harry." They looked at each other. Dwight's crisp intelligent eyes bored into him like awls; you could almost see the look spiraling around and around and around as it penetrated into the sawdust. You could almost see the sawdust come spilling out. It's not the substitution itself, I thought; it's the insult of such a substitution. The wait was just long enough to have a special meaning; you could make of it what you willed. Finally Dwight shook his hand vigorously. "You're a very lucky--young fellow, young fellow." I wondered what word he would have liked to use in place of "young fellow." "I feel like I know you already," the new husband said sheepishly. "I've heard a lot about you." "That's very kind of Bernette," Dwight said crisply. I wondered where she'd got him. He had the dark, slicked-back good looks that would hit her type between the eyes. I cut him off below the neck, to try and visualize what would go with the face. And all I kept getting was a starched soda-jerk's jacket. The little white cap would show up, cocked over one eye. I couldn't keep it off. A devil with the three o'clock high-school shift. Then again, why differentiate? They went well together. They belonged together. The line of distinction didn't run between him and her, it ran between her and Dwight. And part of her, at that, belonged on one side of the line, and part belonged on the other. The mink coat and the pearls and the diamond clips belonged on Dwight's side of the line; and she herself belonged on the other side of it. She wasn't even an integrated personality. The husband, with all his cheapness and callowness, was at least that. Dwight introduced the rest of us. Introduced us, after I already knew her better than he ever had or ever would, with a pitiless clarity that he would never have. Jean might have aroused her antagonistic interest. I could see that, but the married title deflected it as quickly as the introduction was made. Then when it came to myself, one quick comprehensive look from head to foot, and she couldn't explain to herself what possible interest he could have in me, what anyone who looked like I did was doing there at all. "Oh, a _business_ friend," she said. "No, a friend," he corrected firmly. And my heart applauded. That's my boy. If you don't love me, at least don't cut me off altogether. "Drinks for Mr. and Mrs.--" he said over our heads to Luthe. He couldn't get the name yet. Or didn't want to. "Stone," the husband supplied embarrassedly, instead of letting the embarrassment fall on Dwight, where it rightfully belonged. She at least was perfectly self-possessed, knew her way around in this house. "My usual, Luthe. That hasn't changed. And how are you, anyway?" Luthe bowed and said coldly that he was all right, but she hadn't waited to hear, the back of her head was to him once more. Their drinks were brought, and there was a slow maneuvering for position. Not physical position, mental. She lounged back upon the settee as though she owned it, and the whole place with it; as she must have sat there so very many times before. Tasted her drink. Nodded patronizingly to Luthe: "As good as ever." Dwight, for his part, singled out the new husband, stalked him, so to speak, until he had him backed against a wall. You could see the process step by step. And then finally, "By the way, what line are you in, Stone?" The husband floundered badly. "Well, right now--I'm not--" She stepped into the breach quickly, leaving Jean hanging on mid-word. "Harry's just looking around right now. I want him to take his time." Then she added quickly, just a shade too quickly, "Oh, by the way, remind me; there's something I want to speak to you about before I leave, Billy." And then went back to Jean again. That told me why she'd dragged him up here with her like this. Not to flaunt him; she had no thought of profitless cruelty. The goose that had laid its golden yolks for one might lay them for two as well. Why discard it entirely? Dwight was in torment, and when anyone's in pain too much to be borne, they strike back blindly. "Where'd you go for your honeymoon, Bernette?" She took a second, as though this required courage. She was right, it did. "We took a run up to Lake Arrow." He turned to the husband. "That's where we went. How'd you like it?" Then back to her again. "How is the old lodge? Is Emil still there?" She took a second. "Emil's still there," she said reticently. "Did you remember me to him?" She took two seconds, this time. "No," she said reluctantly, mostly into the empty upper part of her glass, as though he were in there. "He didn't ask about you." He shook his head and clicked with mock ruefulness. "Forgetful, isn't he? Has he done anything about changing that Godawful wallpaper in the corner bedroom yet?" He explained to me, with magnificent impartiality: "He was always going to. It was yellow, and looked as though somebody had thrown up at twosecond intervals all over it." He turned and flicked the punchline at her. "Remember, Bernette?" It was magnificent punishment. I watched them at the end, when they were about to go. Watched Dwight and her, I mean, not her husband and self. When the good-byes had been said and the expressions of pleasure at meeting had been spoken all around--and not meant anywhere. They reversed the order of their entry into the room. The husband left first, and passed from sight down the gallery, like a well-rehearsed actor who clears the stage for a key-speech he knows is to be made at this point. While she lingered behind a moment in studied dilatoriness, picking up her twinkling little pouch from where she had left it, pausing an instant to see if her face was right in a mirror on the way. Then all at once, as if at random afterthought: "Could I see you for a minute, Billy?" They went over to the side of the room together, and their voices faded from sound, it became pantomime. You had to read between the attitudes. I didn't miss a gesture, an expression of their faces, a flicker of their eyes. I got everything but the words. I didn't need the words. She glanced, as she spoke, toward the vacant gallery-opening, just once and briefly. Talking about the husband. She took a button of Dwight's jacket with her fingers, twined it a little. Ingratiation. Asking him something, some favor. She stopped speaking. The burden of the dialogue shifted to him. He shook his head almost imperceptibly. But definitely. Refusal. His hand had strayed toward his back pocket. Then it left it again. The billfold pocket. Money for the husband. The dialogue was now dead. Both had stopped speaking. There was nothing more to be said. She stood there at a complete loss. It was something that had never happened to her with him, before. She didn't know how to go ahead. She didn't know how to get herself out of it. He moved finally, and touched her guidingly at the same time, and that broke the transfixion. "Well--goodnight, Billy," she said lamely. She was still out of breath--mentally--from the rebuff. He came and leaned over me. "I've been neglecting you," he said solicitously. I had him all to myself for a moment, at least the outside of him. Not for long, just between the acts. It wasn't over yet. Suddenly she'd reappeared at the lower end of the room, was standing there. He turned his head. "Billy, talk to Luthe, will you? What's the matter with him, has he had a drink or something? I can't get him to give me my coat." And her whole form shook slightly with appreciative risibility. He called Luthe. Luthe appeared almost instantly, holding the mink lining-forward in both arms. Like someone who has been waiting in the wings the whole time and takes just a single step forward to appear and play his part. "Luthe," Dwight said amiably. "Is that Mrs. Stone's coat you're holding?" And before she could interject, "Of course it is!", which it was obvious she was about to do, he added: "Read the label in the pocket-lining and see what it says." Luthe dutifully peered down into the folds of satin and read "Mrs. Bernette Billings." There was a pause, while we all got it, including herself. Then suddenly Luthe had stepped from sight again, coat and all. While she still stood there, blankly and still coatless, not knowing what to do. Dwight stepped over to a desk, lowered the slab, and hastily inked something on a card. "Bernette," he said, "I want to give you something." And then he went to her with it and handed it to her. "Take this with you." It was an ordinary visiting- or name-card. She held it bracketed by two corners and scanned it diagonally, puzzled. "What's this for?" "I'll call him and make an appointment for you," he said quietly. "Do me a favor, go in and talk to him. The whole thing'll be over in no time." She still didn't get it. "Why should I go in and see your lawyer?" she blurted out. "What have I got to see him about?" I got it myself, then. An annulment. Anger began to smolder in her eyes. Her fingers made two or three quick motions and pieces of cardboard sputtered from them. "Think it over," he urged, a second too late. "I just did," she blazed. "Is Luthe going to give me my coat?" "It'll be here waiting for you--any time you say--" Her voice was hoarse now, splintered. "You think you're going to show me up, is that it? No, I'll show _you_ up!" Her hands wrestled furiously at the back of her neck. The pearls sidled down the bodice-incision. She trapped them there with a raging slap, balled them up, flung them. They fell short of his face, they were probably too light, but they struck the bosom of his shirt with a click and rustle. "Bernette, I have people here. They're not interested in our private discussions." "You should have thought of that sooner." Her hands were at her ear-lobe now. "You want them to know you gave me things, don't you? You don't have to tell them! I'll tell them!" The earclips fell on the carpet at his feet, one considerably in advance of the other. Hers was the hot rage, incapacitating itself. His was the cold kind, the more deadly of the two, in perfect command of itself, able to continue its barbed, indirect insults. "You can't carry that out down to its ultimate--" Only his face was chalky; otherwise he was motionless, voice low. "I can't, hunh? You think these people being here is going to stop me, hunh? The hell with them! The hell with you, yourself! I'll show you! I'll show you what I think of you!" She was beside herself with rage. There was a rending of satin, and suddenly the dress peeled off spirally, like a tattered paper wrapper coming off her. Then she kicked with one long silkencased leg, and it fluttered further away. She had a beautiful figure. That registered on my petrified mind, I recall. We sat there frozen. "Keep your eyes down, ducky," I heard Jean warn the Cipher in a sardonic undertone. "I'll tell you when you can look up." For a moment she posed there, quivering, a monotoned apparition all in flesh-tints, the undraped skin and the pale-pink silk of vestigial garments blending almost indistinguishably. Then she gave a choked cry of inexpressible aversion, and darted from sight. He called out: "Luthe, that raincoat in the hall. Put it over her. Don't let her go out of here like that. It's chilly tonight." A door slammed viciously somewhere far down the gallery. Jean was the first one to speak, after the long somewhat numbed silence that had followed. And, probably unintentionally, her matter-of-fact minor-keyed remark struck me as the most hilariously malapropos thing I had ever heard. I wanted to burst out laughing at it. She stirred and said with mincing politeness: "I really think we should be going now."

A six-week interval, then. Nothing happened. No word. No sight. No sign. Was he with her once more? Was he with somebody else entirely different? Or was he alone, with nobody at all? I had it bad. Real bad. I was reading proof when the desk-phone rang one afternoon. "Mr. Dwight Billings calling," Ann said. He said: "I don't dare ask you and the Medills to come up here after what happened that last time." "Dare," I said faintly. "Go on, dare." "All right, would you?" he said. "Let's all have dinner together and--" Jean came into the room about fifteen minutes later, to see if the proofs were ready. "Dwight Billings just called," I said, trying to right an inverted comma with the wooden cone of the pencil. She said the strangest thing. I should have resented it, but she said it so softly, so understandingly, that it never occurred to me until later that I should have resented it. "I know," she said. "I can tell." She uncoupled my phone and turned it the other way around, so that it wouldn't come up to my ear reversed the next time I lifted it. She stooped and picked up two or three stray proofsheets that were lying on the floor under my desk. She dredged a sodden blue cigarette out of my ink-well, and removed my pen from the ashtray. "Either that, or there's a high wind out there on Fifty-third Street today." So back we went, the three of us, for another glimpse at this real-life peep-show that went on and on, with never an intermission, even though there was not always someone there to watch it. He was alone. But my heart and my hopes clouded at the very first sight of him as we came in; they knew. He was too happy. His face was too bright and smooth; there was love hovering somewhere close by, even though it wasn't in sight at the moment. Its reflection was all over him. He was animated, he was engaging, he made himself pleasant to be with. But as for the source of this felicity, the wellspring, you couldn't tell anything. If I hadn't known him as he'd been in the beginning, I might have thought that this was his nature. He was alone, just with Luther. We were only four at the table, one to each side of it, with candles and a hand-carved ship-model in the center of it. Then when we left the table, I remember, we paired off unconventionally. I don't think it was a deliberate maneuver on anyone's part, it just happened that way. Certainly, I didn't scheme it; it was not the sort of partners I would have preferred. Nor did he. And the Cipher least of all. He never schemed anything. That left only Jean: I hadn't been watching her-- At any rate, the two men obliviously preceded us, deep in some weighty conversation; she and I followed after. She stopped short midway down the gallery, well before we had emerged into view of the drawing-room, which the two men had already entered. "I have premonitions of a run," she said. "I don't trust these sheers." But what she did was jog her elbow into my side, in a sort of wordless message or signal, as she turned aside and went in through the nearest doorway. So I turned and followed her: that was what her nudge had summoned me to do. The lights went on. "But this is his bedroom," I protested, with an instinctive recoil at the threshhold. "Oh, is it?" she said with utter composure. She had already crossed to the other side of it, to a dressing-table. I saw her squeeze the bulb of an atomizer so that its trajectory passed beneath her nose. "Chanel Twenty-two," she deciphered. "Are THEY using that now?" I couldn't have given her the answer; she wanted none, it hadn't been a question. She went toward the full-length mirror in a closet-door. She went through the motions of validating her excuse for stepping in here; raised her skirt, cocked her leg askew toward the mirror, dropped her skirt again. Then she reached out and purposefully took hold of the faceted glass knob of the closet-door. "Jean," I said with misgivings, "Don't do that." I saw she was going to anyway. "Just coats and trousers," I prayed unavailingly. "Just tweeds and--and things like that." I couldn't think of an alternate fabric, there wasn't time. She swept it wide, the door, with malignant efficiency, and stood back with it so that I could see, and looked at me, not it, as she did so. Satins and silks, glistening metallic tissues, flowered prints; and in the middle of all of them, like a queen amidst her ladies-inwaiting, that regal mink. Then there was a blinding silvery flash as the electric light flooded across the mirror, and the door swept closed. "Back," was all she said, brittly. She put out the light as she shepherded me across the threshhold; I remember the room was dark as we left it behind. She held her arm around me tight as we walked slowly down the remainder of the gallery. And twice, before we got to the end of the way, she pressed it convulsively, tighter still. I needed it.

"Tune in the stadium concert, Luthe," he suggested at one point. "It must be time for it." I wondered what he wanted that for. Some very feverish dance-band drumming filtered out. "If that's the stadium concert," Jean said, "they've certainly picked up bad habits." "Luthe," he said good-naturedly, "what're you doing over there? I said the open-air concert, at the stadium." "I can't seem to get it. What station is it on?" "ABC, I think." "I'm on ABC now. Doesn't seem to be it." "Does it?" agreed Jean, pounding her ear and giving her head a shake to clear it, as a particularly virulent trombone-snarl assailed us. "Call up the broadcasting station and find out," he suggested. Luthe came back. "No wonder. It's been called off on account of rain. Giving it tomorrow night instead." "It's not raining down here," Jean said. She turned from the window. "It's bone-dry out. Do you even have special weather arrangements, for Park Avenue?" she queried. "Look who we are," he answered her. A little distractedly, I thought as though he were thinking of something else. "What time is it now, Luthe?" he asked.

She arrived about an hour and a half later. Perhaps even two hours. I don't know; since I hadn't been expecting her, I wasn't clocking her exactly. If he was, he'd kept it to himself, you couldn't notice it. No more parenthetic requests for the time, after that first one. There were several things to notice about her arrival. One of them was, she was not announced. She simply entered, as one does where one belongs. Suddenly, from nowhere, she had taken her stance there on the auction-block (as I called it after that first time). Then, after flamboyant pause and pose there, she was coming down the steps to join us. He'd made a few improvements in her. Surface ones only; that was the only part of her he could reach, I suppose. Or maybe he needed more time. She'd even acquired an accent. I mean an accent of good, cultivated English; and since it was false, on her it was an accent. When she walked, she even managed to use the soles of her feet, and not her hips so much any more: I wondered if he'd used telephone directories on her head for that. "You remember Lizzie, and Jean, and Paul," he said. "Oh, yes, of coh-ess, how are you?" she leered affably. She was very much the lady of the manor, making us at home in her own domain. "Sorry I'm so late. I stayed on to the very end." "Did you?" he said. And I thought: Where? Then, No! It can't be! It would be too good to be true-- But she rushed on, as though speaking the very lines I would have given her myself. She wanted to make a good impression, avoid the cardinal social sin of falling mute, not having anything to say; all those unsure of themselves are mortally afraid of it. So the fact of saying something was more important than the content of what it was she said. "Couldn't tear myself away. You should have come with me, Billy. It was heavenly. Simply heavenly." Business of rolling the eyes upward and taking a deep, soulful breath. "What'd they play first?" he said tightly. "Shostakovich," she said with an air of vainglory, as when one has newly mastered a difficult word and delights in showing one's prowess with it. I saw the Cipher's lips tremble preliminary to speech. I saw the tip of Jean's foot find his and squeeze it out unmercifully. Speech never came. You couldn't tell she'd said anything. His face was a little whiter than before, but it was a slow process, it took long moments to complete itself. Until finally he was pale, but the cause had long been left behind by that time, would not have been easy to trace any more. She caught something, however. She was not dense. "Didn't I pronounce it right?" she asked, darting him a look. "Oh, perfectly," he said. "But here," she protested. "Here it is right here, on the program." She'd brought the program with her. She insisted on showing it to him. She thrust it on him. I thought, What a great man Shakespeare is. He has a line to cover every situation, even from four hundred years back, 'Methinks the lady doth protest too much.' He crumpled it without looking at it. But not violently, with a sort of slow indifference. I wondered how many days ahead they printed them. I wondered how you went about getting hold of one in advance. Well, it wasn't totally impracticable; there were ways, probably. I thought once more, What a great man Shakespeare is: 'Love will find a way. She was uneasy now. She didn't like us. She was hampered by our being there; couldn't defend herself properly against whatever the threat was, although she didn't know what it was herself, as yet. She couldn't even make the attempt to find out, because of our continuing presence. She sat for a moment with the drink he'd given her, made a knot with her neck-pearls about one finger, let it unravel again. Then she stood up, put her drink down over where they had originally came from. "I have a headache," she said and touched two fingers to the side of her head. To show us, I suppose, that that was where it was--in her head. "Shostakovich always gives me a headache too," Jean said sweetly to her husband. She shot Jean a quick look of hostility, but there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing to get your teeth into. It had been addressed privately to the Cipher, not anyone else. And it had been said almost inaudibly. Almost, but not quite. If she'd picked it up, that would have been claiming it for her own. "If you'll excuse me now," she said. She was asking him, though not the rest of us. She was a little bit afraid. She wanted to get out of this false situation. She didn't know what it was, but she wanted to extricate herself. "Oh, sure, 'right ahead," he said casually. "You don't have to stand on ceremony with us, Bernette." He didn't even turn to look at her, went ahead dabbling in drinks. I thought of the old Spanish saying, _Aquitiene Usted su casa_. My house is yours. And it probably was as little valid in the present circumstance as in the original flowery exaggeration. "But you just came," the Cipher said. He was only trying to be cordial, the poor benighted soul. He hadn't stepped aside into that room with us. Jean and I simply looked at one another. I could almost lip-read what she was about to say before it came out. "She hasn't far to go." I nearly died for a minute as I saw her lips give a preliminary flicker. Then she curbed herself. That would have been going too far. I breathed again. She made her goodnights lamely, and yet with a sort of surly defiance. As if to say, I may have lost this skirmish, but I haven't even begun to fight yet. This was on ground of _your_ choosing; wait'll he's without his allies, and must come looking for me on ground of my own choosing. We'll see whose flag runs down then. She climbed the steps, she turned galleryward, she passed from view. In her clinging black dress, her head held high, her chin out. A little cigarette-smoke that had emanated from her on the way, lingered behind for a moment or two. Then that dissolved, too. And that's all the trace you leave behind in this world, sometimes. A little cigarette-smoke, quickly blown away. Presently another figure passed the gallery opening, coming from further back in the apartment, but going the same way she had. Dwight turned his head. "Going now, Luthe?" "Yes, sir. Goodnight." This time you could hear the outer door. Close not loudly, but quite definitely. "Luthe goes home to Harlem one night a week, and this is his night for it. The rest of the time he stays down here with me." We left soon afterward ourselves. As we moved down the gallery in leisurely deliberation, I looked ahead. That room that Jean and I had been in before was lighted now, not dark as we had left it. The door was partly ajar, and the light coming from it lay on the floor in a pale crosswise bar or stripe. Then as we neared it, some unseen agency pushed it unobtrusively closed, from the inside. I could see the yellow outshine narrow and snuff out, well before we had reached it. There was no sound accompanying it, and it was easy to pretend we had not noticed it happen. Those of us that had. We were kept waiting for the elevator for some time. Finally when it appeared, it was being run, strangely, by a gnarled elderly individual in fireman's overalls. There was no night-doorman on duty below when we got down there, either. "What happened?" Jean asked curiously. "Where's all the brass?" "Walked off," he said. "Wildcat strike. The management fired one of the fellows for impudence, and they all quit. Les'n'n hour ago. They ain't nobody at all to run the back elevator. I'm practic'ly running this whole building single-handed, right now. You'll have to get your own taxi, folks. Can't leave this car." She and I were left alone in the doorway for several minutes, while the Cipher went semaphoring up and down Park Avenue in quest of one. We made good use of the minutes. "She stayed," I breathed desolately. "But not for long," Jean assured me. "I don't give her twenty minutes. Five'll get you ten that if you came back an hour from now, you'd find him alone." I wished afterward she hadn't said that; it may have been what first put the idea in my head, for all I know.

The same elderly pinch-hitter was still servicing the building single-handed. "They ain't nobody at all looking after the back elevator," he complained unasked. I felt like saying, "You said that before," but I didn't. He took me up without announcing me. I got out and I knocked at Dwight's door. The car went down and left me alone there. I looked at myself in the wall-mirror. I knocked again, more urgently, less tentatively. I tripped the Louis XVI gilt knocker, finally. That carried somewhat better, since it had a metal sounding-board, not a wood one. His voice said, "Who is it?", too quickly for this last summons to have been the one that brought him; it must have been the first one after all, and he had been waiting there for it to repeat itself. "Lizzie," I whispered sibilantly, as though there were someone else around to overhear. The door opened, but very grudgingly. Little more than a crack at first. Then at sight of me, it widened to more normal width. But not full width of passage, for he stood there in the way; simply full width enough to allow unhampered conversation. He was in a lounging robe. His shirt was collarless above it, and the collar-band was unfastened. It had a peculiar effect on me: not the robe nor the lack of collar, simply the undone collar-band; it made me feel like a wife. He smiled hospitably. The smile was a little taut. "Well, good Lord! You're the last one I expected to--" "Don't look so stunned. Am I that frightening?" I couldn't resist saying. "Did I get you out of bed?" I said. He kept smiling with unwavering docility. It was a sort of vacant smile. The smile with which you wait for someone to go away. The smile that you give at a door, when you are waiting to close it. Waiting to be allowed to close it, and held powerless by breeding. It had no real candlepower behind it, that smile. "No," he said. "I was just getting ready, by easy stages." He felt for the satin-faced lapel of his robe, as if to remind himself he had it on. He felt for the loose knot of the braided cord that encircled it, as if to remind himself that it was fastened. His face looked very pale, I thought; unnaturally so. I hadn't noticed it the first moment or two, but I gradually became aware of it now. I thought it must be the wretched foyer-light, and I hoped I didn't look as pale to him as he did to me. I take pallor easily from unsatisfactory lights. The thing to do was to get inside away from it. "It's my compact," I said. "I left it up here. Only take me a minute. I'd feel naked without it." "Where are the others?" he said. His eyes shifted wearily from my face to the elevator-panel rearward of me, then back to my face again. "I dropped them off first," I said. "Only missed it after they'd left me. Then I came straight back here." "It couldn't have been up here," he said. "I would have--I would have found it myself right after you left." He gestured helplessly with one hand, in a sort of rotary way. "It must have been in the taxi. Did you look in the taxi?" The light was the most uncomplimentary thing I'd ever seen. It made him look quite ghastly. "It wasn't in the taxi," I insisted. "I didn't use it in the taxi. Up here was the last place I used it." I waited for him to shift, but he didn't. "Won't you let me come in and look, a moment?" He was equally insistent. We were both extremely cordial about it, but extremely insistent. "But it isn't up here, I tell you. It couldn't be, Lizzie, don't you see? If it was, I would have come across it by now myself." I smiled winningly. "But did you look for it? Did you know it was lost, until I told you so myself just now, here at the door? Then if you didn't look for it, how do you know it isn't there?" "Well, I--I went over the place, I--" He decided not to say that, whatever it was to have been. "But if you didn't know _what_ it was that was lost, you couldn't have had your eyes out for it specifically," I kept on, sugaring my stubborness with a smile. "If you'd only let me step in for a moment and see for myself--" I waited. He waited, for my waiting to end. I tried another tack. "Oh," I murmured deprecatingly, turning my head aside, as if to myself, as if in afterthought, "you're not alone. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--" It worked. I saw a livid flash, like the glancing reflection from a sun-blotted mirror, sweep across his face. Just for an instant. If it was fear, and it must have been of a kind, it was a new fear at this point; fear of being misunderstood, and no longer fear of my entering. He stepped back like magic, drawing the door with him. "You're mistaken," he said tersely. "Come in." And then as I did, and as he closed the door after me, and pressed it sealed with his palm in one or two places, he added, and still quite brittly. "Whatever gave you that idea?" And turned to look the question at me, as well as ask it. "After all," I drawled reassuringly, "I'm not anyone's grandmother." He was no longer smiling. This point was evidently of importance to him, for some peevish reason that escaped me. Sheer contradictoriness, perhaps. Certainly I'd never detected any trait of primness in him before. "I never was so alone in my life," he said somewhat crossly. "Even Luthe went uptown." "I know," I reminded him. "He left while we were still here." But I had been thinking mainly of somebody else, not Luthe. We moved slowly down the gallery, I preceding him. She'd gone, just as Jean had said she would. The door that I had seen slyly closing before, shutting off its own beam of light, was standing starkly open now, and the room was dark. It looked gloomy in there, unutterably depressing, at that hour of the night. "I didn't leave it in there," I said. I wasn't supposed to have been in there. "No, you didn't," he agreed, with considerable alacrity. We turned and faced across the gallery to the other door, the closed one, to that "writing-room" of his. "In here, maybe," I suggested. I heard him draw some sort of a crucial breath. "No," he said quite flatly. "You didn't." "I may have, just the same." I reached out to take the knob. "No," he said. Tautly, almost shrilly, as though I were getting on his nerves. I glanced at him in mild surprise, at the use of such a sharp tone of voice for such a trifling matter. The look I caught on his face was even more surprising. For a moment, all his good looks were gone. He was ugly in mood and ugly of face. Then, with an effort, he banished the puckered grimace, let his expression smooth out again. Even tried on a thin smile for size, but it didn't fit very well and soon dropped off again. I tried the door and it was locked. "It's locked," I said, desisting. "I always keep it that way," he said. "I write in there, and leave my copy lying around, and--well, I'm sensitive about it; I don't like Luthe nosing into it. I caught him once snickering--" "But you said he'd gone home." "Well, the habit persists." "Well, won't you let me go in and look at least?" I coaxed. I thought: I still love him, even when his face is all ugly and puckery like that. How strange; I thought it was largely his looks that had me smitten, and now I see that it isn't. "But you weren't in there, so how could it get in there?" "I was. I was in there once earlier tonight. I don't know whether you knew it or not, but I strayed in there one time this evening." He looked at me, and he looked at the door. "I'll see if I have the key," he said quite suddenly, and gave the skirt of his robe a lift and plunged his hand into his pocket. There was a great commotion of jangling. The pupils of his eyes slanted far over into their corners for an instant, toward me, then righted themselves. I'd caught the little secretive flicker; I read it. That was a look of hidden annoyance with me, I told myself, expressed quicker than he could master it. Why do I drive him like this, I wondered? To see how far I can go? To make him fully aware of my being here alone with him? I didn't know myself. He took out a considerable palmful of them; five or six, I should say. They were all secured together on a little ring-holder. The majority, it could be seen at sight, were not door-keys at all. They were keys of special usage: to a desk-drawer, perhaps; to a safetybox; to the ignition of a car. And as he paid them over, making considerable noise with them, I saw an additional one fall soundlessly to the carpet, from between his robe and the mouth of his pocket. One that must have been held in there separate, apart from the rest. One that had come up accidentally, perhaps, without his meaning it to, when he had drawn the rest of them up. It was long-shanked, a typical interior-door key, this one. I saw that he hadn't noticed its fall, the noise he was making with the others covered it. For a moment I was going to pick it up and restore it to him. Then, instead, I shifted my foot, put it over it, and stood there making no other move. He tried one unsuccessfully, withdrew it again. It was far too small to be taken by that particular lock. He creased his forehead querulously. "I've misplaced it," he said. "I don't seem to have it here." He restored them under his robe, without exploring with his fingers to see if there were any additional ones lingering in there. I could tell; his hand came out too swiftly. As if this were a point he himself needed no reassurance upon, he already knew the answer. "I may have dropped it into something around the place. I do that sometimes." He scratched his head, and glanced the other way, as if in aid to his memory. I stooped swiftly, in that instant he left unguarded, and took up the key, and kept it to myself in my hand. "Well," he said, as if in conclusion to the whole interview, "if I come across it, I'll see that you get it back." We stood and looked at one another for a moment, he waiting for me to make the next move. "He wants me to go," I said, as though speaking ruefully to a third person. "He can't wait until I do." What could he say then? What could anyone have said, except in overt offense? And that, you see, was why I'd said it. Though it was true, my saying so forced him to deny it, obliged him to act in contradiction to it. Though he didn't want to, and I knew that he didn't want to, and he knew that I knew that he didn't want to. "No," he said deprecatingly. "No, not at all." And then warmed gradually to his own insistence: picked up speed with it as he went along. "Come inside. Away from that door." (As though my departure from a fixed point was now what he wanted to obtain, and if he could obtain it only by having me all the way in, rather than by having me leave, then he'd have me all the way in.) He motioned me the way with his arm and he turned to accompany me. And kept up meanwhile the running fire of his invitation at a considerably accelerated tempo, until it ended up by being almost staccato. "Come inside and we'll have a drink together. Just you and I. Just the two of us alone. As a matter of fact I need company, this minute." On the rebound, I thought. On the rebound; I may get him that way. They say you do. Oh, what do I care how, if only I do. I went down the steps, and he went down close beside me. His swinging arm grazed mine as we did so, and it did something to me. It was like sticking your elbow into an electrical outlet. That drawing room of his had never looked vaster and more sombre. There was something almost funereal about it, as though there were a corpse embalmed somewhere nearby, and we were about to sit up and keep vigil over it. There was only one lamp lit, and it was the wrong one. It made great bat-wing shadows around the walls, from the upraised piano-lid and other immovables, and now added our own two long, willowly emanations. He saw me look at it, and said "I'll fix that." I let him turn on one more just to take some of the curse off the gruesomeness, but then when I saw him go for the wall-switch, that would have turned on a blaze overhead, I quickly interposed "Not too many." You can't have romance under a thousand-watt current. I sat down on the sofa Jean had been on that night of the striptease. He made our drinks for us, and then came over with them and then sat down in the next state. "No, here," I said. "My eyesight isn't that good." He grinned, and brought his drink over, and we sat half-turned toward one another like the arms of a parenthesis. A parenthesis that holds nothing in it but blank space. I saw to it that it soon collapsed of its own emptiness, and one of the arms was tilted rakishly toward the other. I tongued my drink. "It was a pretty bad jolt," I admitted thoughtfully. "What was?" "You don't have to pretend with me." "Oh," he said lamely. "You're still pretending," I chided him. "You're pretending that you haven't thought of it; that I'm the one just now brought it back to your mind for the first time. When all along it hasn't left your mind, not for a single moment since." He tried to drown his face in his drink, the way he pushed it down into it. "Please," he said, and made a grimace. "Not now. Do we have to-- Don't let's talk about it now." "Oh, it hurts that much," I said softly. The parenthesis had become a double line, touching from top to bottom. "Why don't you put iodine on it?" I suggested. He made a ghastly shambles of a smile. "Is there any for such things?" "Here's the bottle, right beside you," I offered. "_And there's no death's head on the label_." That symbol seemed to frighten him, or at least be highly unwelcome. He screwed up his eyes tight, and I saw him give his head a shake, as though to rid it of that particular thought. "It stings for a minute, and then you heal," I purred. "You heal clean. No festering. And then you're well again; even the mark goes away. And you have a new love." I dropped my voice to a breath. "Won't you try--iodine?" So close his face was to mine, so close; all he had to do-- Then he turned it a little; oh, a very, tactful little. The wrong way; so that the distance had widened a little. And he could breathe without mingling his breath with mine. Which seemed to be what he wanted. "Don't you understand me, Dwight? I'm making love to you. And if I'm awkward about it, it's because women aren't very good at it. Can't you help me out a little?" I saw the look on his face. Sick horror. I wish I hadn't, but I did. I never thought just a look on a face could hurt so. "Would it be that bad? Would it be that intolerable, to be married to me?" "Married?" His backbone gave a slight twitch, as though a pin overlooked in his shirt had just pricked him. I caught him do it, slight as it was. That was no compliment, either, any more than the look on his face before had been. "You've just been proposed to, Dwight. That was a proposal, just then. The first I've ever made." He tried, first, to carry it off with a sickly grin. The implication: You're just joking, and I'm supposed to know you are, but you make me a little uncomfortable just the same. I wouldn't let him; I wouldn't accept the premise. "You don't laugh when a lady proposes to you," I said gently. "You don't laugh at her. You meet her on her own ground; you give her that much at least." "I'm not--cut out--" he floundered. "It would be about the dirtiest trick I could play--I couldn't do that to you--" And then finally, and more decidedly, like a snap-lock to the subject: "You'd be sorry." "I want to be. Let me be. I'd rather be sorry--with you--than glad--with anyone else." He looked down his nose now. He didn't say anything more. A sort of stubborn muteness had set in. That was his best defense; that was his only one. He probably knew it. Their instincts are just as valid as ours. I had to do the talking. Someone had to. It would have been even worse to sit there in silence. I took a sip of my drink. I sighed in feigned objectivity. "It's unfair, isn't it? A woman can refuse a man, and she doesn't have to feel any compunction. He's supposed to take it straight, and he does. But if a man refuses a woman, he has to try to spare her feelings at the same time." He hadn't as a matter of fact made any such attempt until now; he did now, possibly, because I had recalled his duty to him. "You're a swell gal, Lizzie-- It's you I'm thinking of-- You don't know what you're asking-- You don't want me." "You're getting your pronouns mixed," I said sadly. All he could repeat was: "No. I mean it, you're a swell gal. Lizzie--" "You're a swell gal, Lizzie," I echoed desolately, "but you don't ring the bell." He made the mistake of putting his arm around my shoulder, in what was meant as a fraternal embrace, I suppose. He should have left his hands off me; it was hard enough without that. I let my head go limp against him. I couldn't have kept it up straight if I'd tried. And I didn't try. He tried to jerk his arm away, as he realized this new danger, but I caught it, from in front, with mine, and held it there, around my shoulders, like a precious sable someone's trying to take away from you. He shuddered, and hit himself violently in the center of the forehead. As if there were some thought lodged in there that he couldn't bear the contemplation of. "Good Lord," I heard him groan. "Good Lord! Right here, in this apartment--" "Is there something wrong with this apartment?" I asked innocently. "Not with the apartment, with me," he murmured. "I won't dispute you there," I said cattishly. I let go of his arm, and stood up. I got ready to go. I'd been rejected. To have prolonged it would have veered over into buffoonery. I had no self-respect left, but at least I still had my external dignity left. The law of diminishing returns would only have set in from this point on. "Is it my age?" I said, with my back toward him for a moment, doing something private to my hair. "No," he said. "I never think of age in--in connection with you.,, "I'll be forty in November," I said, unasked, now that there was nothing further to lose. "So you can see how lucky you were just now." "No," he protested. "You can't be-- Why, I always thought you were about twenty-eight, somewhere along there--" "Thank you for that much, anyway," I said. "At least I've salvaged something out of the evening's wreckage." I turned and looked at him, still sitting there. "Proposals don't agree with you," I let him know. "You look positively harassed." I saw him wince a little, as though he agreed with me; not only looked it, but felt it. He stood now, to do the polite thing as host. "I'll get over it," I said, speaking out loud to keep my own courage up. "It doesn't kill you." He blinked at that word, as though it grated a lot. I was ready to go now. He came closer, to accelerate the process. "Won't you kiss me goodnight?" I said. He did it with his brakes on; used just one arm to support my back. Put his lips to mine, but with a time-valve to them. Took them away as soon as time was up. Mine tried to follow, and lost their way. We straightened ourselves. "I'll see you out," he said. "Never mind, don't rub it in." He took me at my word, turned back to pour himself another drink. His hand was shaking, and if that's a sign of needing one, he needed one. I went down the long gallery alone. My heart was blushing and my cheeks felt white. I came even with that door, the door to his workroom, and remembered I was holding the key to it, that he'd dropped before when we were out here. I stopped, and took it out, and put it in the keyhole. Then I felt his eyes on me, and turned, and saw him standing watching me at the end of the gallery, where I'd just come from myself. "Lizzie," he said. "Don't. It won't be in there." His voice was toneless, strangely quiet. But his face looked terrible. It wasn't just white, it was livid; it was the shining white of phosphorus gleaming in the dark. He didn't offer to approach, his feet stayed where they were; but his hands, as if restlessly feeling the need to be occupied with something during the brief pause while we stood and confronted one another like that, strayed to the cord of his robe and, of their own accord, without his seeming to know what they were doing, fumbled there, until suddenly the knot had disheveled, fallen open. Then each one, holding a loose end of the cord, flicked and played with it, all unconsciously. The way the two ends danced and spun and snaked, suggested the tentative twitching of a cat's tail, when it is about to spring. He was holding it taut across his back, and out at each side, in a sort of elongated bow-shape. It was just a posture, a stance, a vagary of nervous preoccupation, I suppose. An odd one. I flexed my wrist slightly, as if to complete the turning of the inserted key. The cord tightened to almost a straight line, stopped moving. For a moment, out of sheer perversity, I was going to open the door, simply to prolong my presence. He was not really interested in whether I opened the door or not; it just seemed that way. What he really was interested in was having me leave once and for all, so he'd be let alone. The opening of the door would have delayed that, so that was why he set such store upon my not doing so. My own common sense told me this. His eyes met mine and mine met his, the length of the gallery. The impulse to annoy him died. Indifferently, I desisted. I dropped my hand slowly, and left the key in the lock, and let the door be. His hands dropped too. The taut pull of the cord slackened, it softened to a dangling loop. "It wouldn't have been in there," he breathed with a sort of exhausted heaviness, as though all his strength had gone into holding the cord as he had been just now. "I know it wouldn't," I said. "It's been safely in my bag the whole time." I opened the bag, took it out, and showed it to him. "I knew it was in there even when I started back here to look for it." I went on to the outside door and opened it. "The trick didn't pay off, that's all." "Good night, Dwight," I added. "Good night, Lizzie," he echoed sepulchrally. I saw him reach out with one arm and support himself limply against the wall beside him, he was so tired of me by this time. I closed the outside door.

They tell you wrong when they tell you infatuation dies a sudden death. Infatuation dies a lingering painful death. Even after all hope is gone the afterglow sometimes stubbornly clings on and on, kidding you, lighting the dark in which you are alone. Infatuation dies as slowly as a slower love; it comes on quicker, that is all. Twice I went by there in a taxi, in the weeks following that night. And each stopped a moment at his door. But then I didn't get out after all. Just sat there. Perhaps to see if I could sit there like that without getting out. Perhaps to see if I was strong enough. I was. I just barely made it, both times, but I made it. "Drive on," I said heroically. It was like leaving your right arm behind, jammed in a door; but I left it. But the third time, ah, the third time. I was practically over it. I was cured. I made the discovery for myself sitting there in the taxi, taking my own blood-pressure, so to speak, holding my own pulse, listening to my own heart. I could drive away now without a wrench, without feeling that I'd left a part of me behind, caught in his door. I lit a cigarette and thought with a sigh of relief: It's passed. It's finished. Now I've got something more to worry about. I'm immune now, this attack will last me for the rest of my life. That was my last siege of love. Now I can go on and just work and live and be placid. "Y'getting out, lady, or what?" the driver asked fretfully. "Yes," I said coolly, "I think I will. I want to say goodbye to someone in there." And in perfect safety, in perfect calm, I paid him and got out and went inside to visit my recent, my last, love. But they tell you wrong when they tell you infatuation dies a sudden death. It doesn't. I know.

I seemed to have picked an inappropriate time for my farewell visit. Or at least, a non-exclusive one. There'd been somebody else with him. The apartment-door was already open, when I stepped off at his foyer, and he was standing there talking to some man in dilatory leavetaking. The man was heavily-built and none too young. In the milder fifties, I should judge. His hair was silvering, his complexion was florid, and there were little skin-like red blood-vessels threading the whites of his eyes. He had a hard-looking face, but he was being excessively amiable at the moment that I came upon the two of them. Almost overdoing it, almost overly amiable, for it didn't blend well with the rest of his characteristics, gave the impression of being a seldom-used, almost rusty attribute he had to push down hard on the accelerator to get it working at all. And he was keeping his foot pressed down on it for all he was worth so that it couldn't get away from him. "I hope I haven't troubled you, Mr. Billings," he was apologizing just as the elevator panel opened. "Not at all," Dwight protested indulgently. There was even something patronizing in his intonation. "I know how those things are. Don't think twice about it. Glad to--" And then they both turned at the slight rustle the panel made, and saw me, and so didn't finish the mutual gallantries they were engaged upon. Or rather, postponed them for a moment. Dwight's face lit up at sight of me. I was welcome. There could be no doubt of it. Not like that other night. He shook my hand cordially. "Well! Nice of you! Where've you been keeping yourself?" And that sort of thing. But made no move to introduce the departing caller to me. And his manners were too quick-witted for that to have been an oversight. So what could I infer but that there was a differentiation of status between us that would have made a social introduction inappropriate. In other words, that one call was a personal one and the other was not, so the two were not to be linked. "Go in, Lizzie. Take your things off. I'll be right with you." I went in. My last impression of the man standing there with him was that he was slightly ill-at-ease under my parting scrutiny; call it embarrassed, call it sheepish, call it what you will. He turned his head aside a moment and took a deep draught of an expensive cigar he was holding between his knuckles. As if: Don't look at me so closely. I certainly wasn't staring, so it must have been his own self-consciousness. I went down the gallery of lost love. The writing-room door was open now. I went past it without stopping, and down the steps to the drawing-room arena. I took off my "things" as he'd put it, and primped at my hair, and moved idly around, waiting for him to join me. I looked at things, as I moved. One does, waiting in a room. He'd left them just as they were, to take his visitor to the door. Probably I hadn't been announced yet, at that moment. I must have been announced after they were both already at the door, and he hadn't come all the way back in here since leaving it the first time. There were two glasses there. Both drained heartily, nothing but ice-sweat left in their bottoms; the interview must have been a cordial one. There were two strips of cellophane shorn from a couple of expensive cigars. There was a single burned matchstick; one smoker had done that courteous service for both. His checkbook-folder was lying on the corner of the table. He must have taken it out of his pocket at one time, and then forgotten to return it again. Or perhaps thought that could wait until afterward, it was of no moment. I didn't go near it, nor touch it, nor examine it in any way. I just saw it lying there. There was a new blotter lying near it. Almost spotless; it had only been used about once. That I did pick up, idly; and look at. As if I were a student of Arabic or some other right-to-left scrawl. I looked at it thoughtfully. He still didn't come in. Finally I took it over to the mirror with me and fronted it to that, and looked into that. Part of his signature came out. "--illings." It was the thing he'd written last, so the ink was still freshest when the blotter'd been put to it. Above it were a couple of less distinct tracings. "--career." And two large circles and two smaller ones. Like this: "OOoo." I turned swiftly, as though that had shocked me (but it hadn't. why should it?) and pitched it back onto the table from where I stood. Then I fixed my hair a little more, in places where it didn't need it. He came in, looking sanguine, looking zestful. I don't remember that he rubbed his hands together, but that was the impression his mood conveyed: of rubbing his hands together. "Who was that man?" I said indifferently. "You'll laugh," he said. And he set the example by doing so himself. "That's something for you. Something for your magazine." Then he waited, like a good raconteur always does. Then he gave me the punch-line. "He was a detective. A real, honestto-goodness, life-sized detective. Badge and everything." I stopped being indifferent, but I didn't get startled. Only politely incredulous, as a guest should be toward her host's surprise climaxes. "Here? What'd he want with you?" "Asking if I could give him any information," he said cheerfully. Then in the same tone: "You've heard about Bernette, haven't you?" I said I hadn't. "I think you met her up here once." I visioned a Fury in pink lingerie. Yes, I said, I seemed to recall. "Well, she's disappeared. Hasn't been heard of in weeks." "Why do they come to you about it?" I asked him. "Oh," he said impatiently, "some tommyrot or other about her never having been seen again after--after the last time she left here. I dunno, something like that. Just routine. This's the third time this same fellow's been up here. I've been darn good-natured about it." Then he said, more optimistically, "He promised me just now, though, this is the last time; he won't come back any more." He was fixing two drinks for us, in two fresh glasses. The first two had been shunted aside. The checkbook and the blotter had both vanished, and I'd been facing him in the mirror the whole time; so maybe I'd been mistaken, they hadn't been there in the first place. "And then there was something about some clothes of hers," he went on off-handedly. "She left some 0f her things here with me--" He broke off to ask me: "Are you shocked, Lizzie?" "No," I reassured him. "I knew she stopped here now and then." "I was supposed to send them after her; she said something about letting me know where she could be reached--" He shrugged. "But I never heard from her again myself. They're still waiting in there--" He finished swirling ice with a neat little tap of the glass mixer against the rim. "Probably ran off with someone," he said contemptuously. I nodded dispassionately. "I know who put him up to it," he went on, with a slight tinge of resentment. I had to take it he meant the detective; he offered no explanation to cover the switch in pronouns. "That dirty little ex-second husband of hers." "Oh, is he ex?" I said. That was another thing I hadn't known. "Certainly. They were annulled almost as soon as they came back from their wedding-trip. I even helped her to do it myself, sent her to my lawyer--" And paid for it, I knew he'd been about to add; but he didn't. "I told this fellow tonight," he went on, still with that same tinge of vengefulness, "that they'd better look into his motives, while they were about it. He was only out to get money out of her--" (And she was only out to get money out of you, I thought, but tactfully didn't say so.) "Do you think something's happened to her?" I asked. He didn't answer that directly. "She'll probably turn up someplace, they always do." Then he said grimly, "It won't be here. Now let's have one, you and I." And he came toward me with our drinks. We sat down on the sofa with them. He didn't need any urging tonight. We had another pair. Then a third. We let the third pair stand and cool off awhile. I was the upright arm of the parenthesis tonight, I noticed presently; he was the toppled-over one. I didn't move my head aside the way he had his; his lips just didn't affect me. It was like being kissed by--cardboard. "I want you to marry me," he said. "I want--what you wanted that night. I want--someone like you." (That's not good enough, I thought. You should want just me myself, and not someone like me. That leaves it too wide open. This is the rebound. You want the older woman now. Safety, security, tranquility; not so much fire. Something's shaken you, and you can't stand alone; so if there was a female statue in the room, you'd propose to that.) "Too late," I said. "I've passed that point, as you arrive at it. You got to it too late. Or I left it too soon." He wilted, and his head went down. He had to go on alone. "I'm sorry," he breathed. "I am too." And I was. But it couldn't be helped. Suddenly I laughed. "Isn't love the damnedest thing?" He laughed too, after a moment; ruefully. "A devil of a thing," he agreed. And laughing together, we took our leave of one another, parted, never to meet in closeness again. Laughing is a good way to part. As good a way as any.

I read an item about it in the papers a few days afterward, quite by chance. The second husband had been picked up and taken in for questioning, in connection with her disappearance. Nothing more than that. There was no other name mentioned.

I read still another item about it in the papers, only a day or two following the first one. The second husband had been released again, for lack of evidence.

I never read anything further about it, not another word, from that day on. The other night at a party I met my last love again. I don't mean my latest; by last, I mean my final one. And he was as taking and as debonair as ever, but not to me any more--a little older maybe; and we said the things you say, with two glasses in our hands to keep us company. "Hello Lizzie; how've you been?" "Hello, Dwight; where've you been keeping yourself lately?" "I've been around. And you?" "I've been around too." And then when there wasn't anything more to say, we moved on. In opposite directions. It isn't often that I see him any more. But whenever I do, I still think of her. I wonder what really did become of her. And just the other night, suddenly, for no reason at all, out of nowhere, the strangest thought entered my head for a mome nt. But then I promptly dismissed it again, just as quickly as it had occurred to me, as being too fantastic, too utterly improbable. The people you _know_ never do things like that; the people you _read about_ may, but never the people you _know_. Do they?

FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE

Their eyes met in Rome. On a street in Rome--the Via Piemonte. He was coming down it, coming along toward her, when she first saw him. She didn't know it but he was also coming into her life, into her destiny--bringing what was meant to be. Every life is a mystery. And every story of every life is a mystery. But it is not what _happens_ that is the mystery. It is whether it _has_ to happen no matter what, whether it is ordered and ordained, fixed and fated, or whether it can be missed, avoided, circumvented, passed by; _that_ is the mystery. If she had not come along the Via Piemonte that day, would it still have happened? If she had come along the Via Piemonte that day, but ten minutes later than she did, would it _still_ have happened? Therein lies the real mystery. And no one ever knows, and no one ever will. As their eyes met, they held. For just a heartbeat. He wasn't cheap. He wasn't sidewalk riffraff. His clothes were good clothes, and his air was a good air. He was a personable-looking man. First your eye said: he's not young any more, he's not a boy any more. Then your eye said: but he's not old. There was something of youth hovering over and about him, and yet refusing to land in any one particular place. As though it were about to take off and leave him. Yet not quite that either. More as though it had never fully been there in the first place. In short, the impression it was was agelessness. Not young, not old, not callow, not mature--but ageless. Thirtysix looking fifty-six, or fifty-six looking thirty-six, but which it was you could not say. Their eyes met--and held. For just a heartbeat. Then they passed one another by, on the Via Piemonte, but without any turn of their heads to prolong the look. "I wonder who that was," she thought. What he thought couldn't be known--at least, not by her. Three nights later they met again, at a party the friend she was staying with took her to. He came over to her, and she said, "I've seen you before. I passed you on Monday on the Via Piemonte. At about four in the afternoon." "I remember you too," he said. "I noticed you that day, going by." I wonder why we remember each other like that, she mused; I've passed dozens, hundreds, of other people since, and he must have too. I don't remember any of them. "I'm Mark Ramsey," he said. "I'm Linda Harris." An attachment grew up. What is an attachment? It is the most difficult of all the human interrelationships to explain, because it is the vaguest, the most impalpable. It has all the good points of love, and none of its drawbacks. No jealousy, no quarrels, no greed to possess, no fear of losing possession, no hatred (which is very much a part of love), no surge of passion and no hangover afterward. It never reaches the heights, and it never reaches the depths. As a rule it comes on subtly. As theirs did. As a rule the two involved are not even aware of it at first. As they were not. As a rule it only becomes noticeable when it is interrupted in some way, or broken off by circumstances. As theirs was. In other words, its presence only becomes known in its absence. It is only missed after it stops. While it is still going on, little thought is given to it, because little thought nerds to be. It is pleasant to meet, it is pleasant to be together. To put your shopping packages down on a little wire-backed chair at a little table at a sidewalk cafe, and sit down and have a vermouth with someone who has been waiting there for you. And will be waiting there again tomorrow afternoon. Same time, same table, same sidewalk cafe. Or to watch Italian youth going through the gyrations of the latest dance craze in some inexpensive indigenous night-place--while you, who come from the country where the dance originated, only get up to do a sedate fox trot. It is even pleasant to part, because this simply means preparing the way for the next meeting. One long continuous being-together, even in a love affair, might make the thing wilt. In an attachment it would surely kill the thing off altogether. But to meet, to part, then to meet again in a few days, keeps the thing going, encourages it to flower. And yet it requires a certain amount of vanity, as love does; a desire to please, to look one's best, to elicit compliments. It inspires a certain amount of flirtation, for the two are of opposite sex. A wink of understanding over the rim of a raised glass, a low-voiced confidential aside about something and the smile of intimacy that answers it, a small impromptu gift--a necktie on the one part because of an accidental spill on the one he was wearing, or of a small bunch of flowers on the other part because of the color of the dress she has on. So it goes. And suddenly they part, and suddenly there's a void, and suddenly they discover they have had an attachment. Rome passed into the past, and became New York. Now, if they had never come together again, or only after a long time and in different circumstances, then the attachment would have faded and died. But if they suddenly do come together again--while the sharp sting of missing one another is still smarting--then the attachment will revive full force, full strength. But never again as merely an attachment. It has to go on from there, it has to build, to pick up speed. And sometimes it is so glad to be brought back again that it makes the mistake of thinking it is love. She was thinking of him at the moment the phone rang. And that helped too, by its immediacy, by its telephonic answer to her wistful wish of remembrance. Memory is a mirage that fools the heart . . . "You'll never guess what I'm holding in my hand, right while I'm talking to you . . . "I picked it up only a moment ago, and just as I was standing and looking at it, the phone rang. Isn't that the strangest thing! . . . "Do you remember the day we stopped in and you bought it . . ." "I have a little one-room apartment on East 70th Street. I'm by myself now, Dorothy stayed on in Rome . . ." A couple of months later, they were married . . .

They call this love, she said to herself. I know what it is now. I never thought I would know, but I do now. But she failed to add: if you can step back and identify it, is it really there? Shouldn't you be unable to know what the whole thing's about? Just blindly clutch and hold and fear that it will get away. But unable to stop, to think, to give it any name. Just two more people sharing a common human experience. Infinite in its complexity, tricky at times, but almost always successfully surmounted in one of two ways: either blandly content with the results as they are, or else vaguely discontent but chained by habit. Most women don't marry a man, they marry a habit. Even when a habit is good, it can become monotonous; most do. When it is bad in just the average degree it usually becomes no more than a nuisance and an irritant; and most do. But when it is darkly, starkly evil in the deepest sense of the word, then it can truly become a hell on earth. Theirs seemed to fall midway between the first two, for just a little while. Then it started veering over slowly toward the last. Very slowly, at the start, but very steadily .

They spent their honeymoon at a New Hampshire lakeshore resort. This lake had an Indian name which, though grantedly barbaric in sound to the average English-speaker, in her special case presented such an impassable block both in speech and in mental pre-speech imagery (for some obscure reason, Freudian perhaps, or else simply an instinctive retreat from something with distressful connotations) that she gave up trying to say it and it became simply "the lake." Then as time drew it backward, not into forgetfulness but into distance, it became "that lake." Here the first of the things that happened, happened. The first of the things important enough to notice and to remember afterward, among a great many trifling but kindred ones that were not. Some so slight they were not more than gloating, zestful glints of eye or curt hurtful gestures. (Once he accidentally poured a spurt of scalding tea on the back of a waitress' wrist, by not waiting long enough for the waitress to withdraw her hand in setting the cup down, and by turning his head momentarily the other way. The waitress yelped, and he apologized, but he showed his teeth as he did so, and you don't show your teeth in remorse.) One morning when she woke up, he had already dressed and gone out of the room. They had a beautifully situated front-view of rooms which overlooked the lake itself (the bridal suite, as a matter of fact), and when she went to the window she saw him out there on the white-painted little pier which jutted out into the water on knock-kneed piles. He'd put on a turtle-necked sweater instead of a coat and shirt, and that, over his spare figure, with the shoreward breeze alternately lifting and then flattening his hair, made him look yonger than when he was close by. A ripple of the old attraction, of the old attachment, coursed through her and then was quickly gone. Just like the breeze out there. The little sidewalk-cafe chairs of Rome with the braidedwire backs and the piles of parcels on them, where were they now? Gone forever; they couldn't enchant any more. The lake water was dark blue, pebbly-surfaced by the insistent breeze that kept sweeping it like the strokes of invisible broomstraws, and mottled with gold flecks that were like floating freckles in the nine o'clock September sunshine. There was a little boy in bathing trunks, tanned as a caramel, sitting on the side of the pier, dangling his legs above the water. She'd noticed him about in recent days. And there was his dog, a noisy, friendly, ungainly little mite, a Scotch terrier that was under everyone's feet all the time. The boy was throwing a stick in, and the dog was splashing after it, retrieving it, and paddling back. Over and over, with that tirelessness and simplicity of interest peculiar to all small boys and their dogs. Off to one side a man was bringing up one of the motorboats that were for rent, for Mark to take out. She could hear him in it for a while after that, making a long slashing ellipse around the lake, the din of its vibration alternately soaring and lulling as it passed from the far side to the near and then back to the far side again. Then it cut off suddenly, and when she went back to look it was rocking there sheepishly engineless. The boy was weeping and the dog lay huddled dead on the lake rim, strangled by the boiling backwash of the boat that had dragged it--how many times?-- around and around in its sweep of the lake. The dog's collar had become snagged some way in a line with a grappling hook attached, left carelessly loose over the side of the boat. (Or aimed and pitched over as the boat went slashing by?) The line trailed limp now, and the lifeless dog had been detached from it. "If you'd only looked back," the boy's mother said ruefully to Mark. "He was a good swimmer, but I guess the strain was too much and his little heart gave out." "He did look! He did! He did! I saw him!" the boy screamed agonized, peering accusingly from in back of her skirt. "The spray was in the way," Mark refuted instantly. But she wondered why he said it so quickly. Shouldn't he have taken a moment's time to think about it first, and then say, "The spray must have been--" or "I guess maybe the spray--" But he said it as quickly as though he'd been ready to say it even before the need had arisen. Everyone for some reason acted furtively ashamed, as if something unclean had happened. Everyone but the boy of course. There were no adult nuances to his pain. The boy would eventually forget his dog. But would she? Would she? They left the lake--the farewells to Mark were a bit on the cool side, she noticed--and moved into a large rambling country house in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts, not far from Pittsfield, which he told her had been in his family for almost seventy-five years. They had a car, an Alfa-Romeo, which he had brought over from Italy, and, at least in all its outward aspects, they had a not too unpleasant life together. He was an art importer, and financially a highly successful one; he used to commute back and forth to Boston, where he had a gallery with a small-size apartment above it. As a rule he would stay over in the city, and then drive out Friday night and spend the week-end in the country with her. (She always slept so well on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Thursdays she always lay awake half the night reminding herself that the following night was Friday. She never stopped to analyze this; if she had, what would it have told her? What could it have, if she didn't realize it already?) As far as the house was concerned, let it be said at once that it was not a depressing house in itself. People can take their moods from a house, but by the same token a house can take its mood from the people who live in it. If it became what it became, it was due to him--or rather, her reaction to him. The interior of the house had crystallized into a very seldom evoked period, the pre-World War I era of rococo and gimcrack elegance. Either its last occupant before them (an unmarried older sister of his) had had a penchant for this out of some girlhood memory of a war-blighted romance and had deliberately tried to recreate it, or what was more likely, all renovations had stopped around that time and it had just stayed that way by default. Linda discovered things she had heard about but never seen before. Claw legs on the bathtub, nacre in-and-out push buttons for the lights, a hanging stained-glass dome lamp over the dining-room table, a gramophone with a crank handle--she wondered if they'd first rolled back the rug and then danced the hesitation or the one-step to it? The whole house, inside and out, cried out to have women in the straight-up-and-down endlessly long tunics of 1913, with side-puffs of hair over their ears, in patent-leather shoes with beige suede tops up to the middle of the calf, suddenly step out of some of the rooms; and in front of the door, instead of his slender-bodied, bullet-fast Italian compact, perhaps a four-cornered Chalmers or Pierce-Arrow or Hupmobile shaking all over to the beat of its motor. Sometimes she felt like an interloper, catching herself in some full-length mirror as she passed it, in her over-the-kneetop skirt and short free down-blown hair. Sometimes she felt as if she were under a magic spell, waiting to be disenchanted. But it wasn't a good kind of spell, and it didn't come wholly from the house or its furnishings . One day at the home of some people Mark knew who lived in the area, where he had taken her on a New Year's Day drop-in visit, she met a young man named Garrett Hill. He was branch head for a company in Pittsfield. It was as simple as that--they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be simple, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple. Then she met him a second time, by accident. Then a third, by coincidence. A fourth, by chance. . . Or directed by unseen forces? Then she started to see him on a regular basis, without meaning anything, certainly without meaning any harm. The first night he brought her home they chatted on the way in his car; and then at the door, as he held out his hand, she quickly put hers out of sight behind her back. "Why are you afraid to shake my hand?" "I thought you'd hurt me." "How can anyone hurt you by just shaking your hand?" When he tried to kiss her, she turned and fled into the house, as frightened as though he'd brandished a whip at her. When he tried it again, on a later night, again she recoiled sharply--as if she were flinching from some sort of punishment. He looked at her, and his eyes widened, both in sudden understanding and in disbelief. "You're afraid _physically_," he said, almost whispering. "I thought it was some wifely scruple the other night. But you're physically afraid of being kissed! As if there were pain attached to it." Before she could stop herself or think twice she blurted out, "Well, there is, isn't there?" He said, his voice deadly serious. "What kind of kissing have you been used to?" She hung her head. And almost the whole story had been told. His face was white as a sheet. He didn't say anoher word. But one man understands another well; all are born with that particular insight. The next week she went into the town to do some small shopping--shopping she could have done as easily over the phone. Did she hope to run across him during the course of it? Is that why she attended to it in person? And after it was taken care of she stopped into a restaurant to sit down over a cup of coffee while waiting for her bus. He came into the place almost immediately afterward; he must have been sitting in his car outside watching for her. He didn't ask to sit down; he simply leaned over with his knuckles resting on the table, across the way from her, and with a quick back glance toward the door by which he had just entered, took a book out from under his jacket and put it down in front of her, its title visible. "I sent down to New York to get this for you," he said. "I'm trying to help you in the only way I know how." She glanced down at it. The title was: _The Marquis de Sade. The Complete Writings_. "Who was he?" she asked, looking up. She pronounced it with the long A, as if it were an English name. "Sayd." "Sod," he instructed. "He was a Frenchman. Just read the book," was all he would say. "Just read the book." He turned to leave her, and then he came back for a moment and added, "Don't let anyone else see--" Then he changed it to, "Don't let _him_ see you with it. Put a piece of brown wrapping paper around it so the title won't be conspicuous. As soon as you've finished, bring it back; don't leave it lying around the house." After he'd gone she kept staring at it. Just kept staring. They met again three days later at the same little coffee shop off the main business street. It had become their regular meeting place by now. No fixed arrangement to it; he would go in and find her there, or she would go in and find him there. "Was he the first one?" she asked when she returned the book. "No, of course not. This is as old as man--this getting pleasure by giving pain. There are some of them born in every generation. Fortunately not too many. He simply was the first one to write it up and so when the world became more specialized and needed a separate tag for everything, they used his name. It became a word--sadism, meaning sexual pleasure got by causing pain, the sheer pleasure of being cruel." She started shaking all over as if the place were drafty. "It is that." She had to whisper it, she was so heartsick with the discovery. "Oh, God, yes, it is that." "You had to know the truth. That was the first thing. You had to know, you had to be told. It isn't just a vagary or a whim on his part. It isn't just a--well, a clumsiness or roughness in making love. This is a frightful thing, a deviation, an affliction, and--a terrible danger to you. You had to understand the truth first." "Sometimes he takes his electric shaver--" She stared with frozen eyes at nowhere out before her. "He doesn't use the shaver itself, just the cord--connects it and--" She backed her hand into her mouth, sealing it up. Garrett did something she'd never seen a man do before. His lowered his head, all the way over. Not just onto his chest, but all the way down until his chin was resting on the tabletop. And his eyes, looking up at her, were smoldering red with anger. But literally red, the whites all suffused. Then something wet came along and quenched the burning in them. "Now you know what you're up against," he said, straightening finally. "Now what do you want to do?" "I don't know." She started to sob very gently, in pantomime, without a sound. He got up and stood beside her and held her head pressed against him. "I only know one thing," she said. "I want to see the stars at night again, and not just the blackness and the shadows. I want to wake up in the morning as if it was my right, and not have to say a prayer of thanks that I lived through the night. I want to be able to tell myself there won't be another night like the last one." The fear Mark had put into her had seeped and oozed into all parts of her; she not only feared fear, she even feared rescue from fear. "I don't want to make a move that's too sudden," she said in a smothered voice. "I'll be standing by, when you want to and when you do." And on that note they left each other. For one more time. On Friday he was sitting there waiting for her at their regular table, smoking a cigarette. And another lay out in the ashtray, finished. And another. And another. She came up behind him and touched him briefly but warmly on the shoulder, as if she were afraid to trust herself to speak. He turned and greeted her animatedly. "Don't tell me you've been in there that long! I thought you hadn't come in yet. I've been sitting out here twenty minutes, watching the door for you." Then when she sat down opposite him and he got a good look at her face, he quickly sobered. "I couldn't help it. I broke down in there. I couldn't come out any sooner. I didn't want everyone in the place to see me, the way I was." She was still shaking irrepressibly from the aftermath of longcontinued sobs. "Here, have one of these," he offered soothingly. "May make you feel better--" He held out his cigarettes toward her. "No!" she protested sharply, when she looked down and saw what it was. She recoiled so violently that her whole chair bounced a little across the floor. He saw the back of her hand go to the upper part of her breast in an unconscious gesture of protection, of warding off. His face turned white when he understood the implication. White with anger, with revulsion. "So that's it," he breathed softly. "My God, oh, my God." They sat on for a long while after that, both looking down without saying anything. What was there to say? Two little cups of black coffee had arrived by now--just as an excuse for them to stay there. Finally he raised his head, looked at her, and put words to what he'd been thinking. "You can't go back any more, not even once. You're out of the house and away from it now, so you've got to stay out. You can't go near it again, not even one more time. One more night may be one night too many. He'll kill you one of these nights--he will even if he doesn't mean to. What to him is just a thrill, an excitement, will take away your life. Think about that-- you've _got_ to think about that." "I have already," she admitted. "Often." "You don't want to go to the police?" "I'm ashamed." She covered her eyes reluctantly with her hand for a moment. "I know I'm not the one who should be, he's the one. But I am nevertheless. I couldn't bear to tell it to an outsider, to put it on record, to file a complaint--it's so intimate. Like taking off all your clothes in public. I can hardly bring myself even to have you know about it. And I haven't told you everything--not everything." He gave her a shake of the head, as though he knew. "If I try to hide out in Pittsfield, he'll find me sooner or later-- it's not that big a place--and come after me and force me to come back, and either way there'll be a scandal. And I don't want that. I couldn't stand that. The newspapers . . All at once, before they quite knew how it had come about, or even realized that it had come about, they were deep in the final plans, the final strategy and staging that they had been drawing slowly nearer and nearer to all these months. Nearer to with every meeting, with every look and with every word. The plans for her liberation and her salvation. He took her hands across the table. "No, listen. This is the way, this is how. New York. It has to be New York; he won't be able to get you back; it's too big; he won't even be able to find you. The company's holding a business conference there on Tuesday, with each of the regional offices sending a representative the way they always do. I was slated to go, long before this came up. I was going to call you on Monday before I left. But what I'm going to do now is to leave ahead of time, tonight, and take you with me." He raised one of her hands and patted it encouragingly. "You wait for me here in the restaurant. I have to go back to the office, wind up a few things, then I'll come back and pick you up--shouldn't take me more than half an hour." She looked around her uneasily. "I don't want to sit here alone. They're already giving me knowing looks each time they pass, the waitresses, as if they sense something's wrong." "Let them, the hell with them," he said shortly, with the defiance of a man in the opening stages of love. "Can't you call your office from here? Do it over the phone?" "No, there are some papers that have to be signed--they're waiting for me on my desk." "Then you run me back to the house and while you're doing what you have to at the office I'll pick up a few things; then you can stop by for me and we'll start out from there." "Isn't that cutting it a little close?" he said doubtfully. "I don't want you to go back there." He pivoted his wrist watch closer to him. "What time does he usually come home on Fridays?" "Never before ten at night." He said the first critical thing he'd ever said to her. "Just like a girl. All for the sake of a hairbrush and a cuddly negligee you're willing to stick your head back into that house." "It's more than just a hairbrush," she pointed out. "I have some money there. It's not his, it's mine. Even if this friend from my days in Rome--the one I've spoken to you about--even if she takes me in with her at the start, I'll need some money to tide me over until I can get a job and find a place of my own. And there are other things, like my birth certificate, that I may need later on; he'll never give them up willingly once I leave." "All right," he gave in. "We'll do it your way." Then just before they got up from the table, that had witnessed such a change in both their lives, they gave each other a last look. A last, and yet a first one. And they understood each other. She didn't wait for him to say it, to ask it. There is no decorum in desperation, no coyness in a crisis. She knew it had been asked unsaid, anyway. "I want to rediscover the meaning of gentle love. I want to lie in your bed, in your arms. I want to be your wife." He took hold of her left hand, raised the third finger, stripped off the wedding band and in its place firmly guided downward a massive fraternity ring that had been on his own hand until that very moment. Heavy, ungainly, much too large for her--and yet everything that love should be. She put it to her lips and kissed it. They were married, now. The emptied ring rolled off the table and fell on the floor, and as they moved away his foot stepped on it, not on purpose, and distorted it into something warped, misshapen, no longer round, no longer true. Like what it had stood for. He drove her back out to the house and dropped her off at the door, and they parted almost in silence, so complete was their understanding by now, just three muted words between them: "About thirty minutes." It was dark now, and broodingly sluggish. Like something supine waiting to spring, with just the tip of its tail twitching. Leaves stood still on the trees. An evil green star glinted in the black sky like a hostile eye, like an evil spying eye. His car had hummed off; she'd finished and brought down a small packed bag to the ground floor when the phone rang. It would be Garry, naturally, telling her he'd finished at the office and was about to leave. "Hello--" she began, urgently and vitally and confidentially, the way you share a secret with just one person and this was the one. Mark's voice was at the other end. "You sound more chipper than you usually do when I call up to tell you I'm on the way home." Her expectancy stopped. And everything else with it. She didn't know what to say. "Do I?" And then, "Oh, I see." "Did you have a good day? You must have had a _very_ good day." She knew what he meant, she knew what he was implying. "I--I--oh, I did nothing, really. I haven't been out of the house all day." "That's strange," she heard him say. "I called you earlier-- about an hour ago?" It was a question, a pitfall of a question. "You didn't come to the phone." "I didn't hear it ring," she said hastily, too hastily. "I might have been out front for a few minutes. I remember I went out there to broom the gravel in the drivew--" Too late she realized he hadn't called at all. But now he knew that she hadn't been in the house all day, that she'd been out somewhere during part of it. "I'll be a little late." And then something that sounded like "That's what you want to hear, isn't it?" "What?" she said quickly. "What?" "I said I'll be a little late." "What was it you said after that?" "What was it you said after that?" he quoted studiedly, giving her back her own words. She knew he wasn't going to repeat it, but by that very token she knew she'd heard it right the first time. He _knows_, she told herself with a shudder of premonition as she got off the phone and finally away from him. (His voice could hold fast to you and enthrall you too; his very voice could torture you, as well as his wicked, cruel fingers.) He knows there's someone; he may not know who yet, but he knows there is someone. A remark from one of the nightmare nights came back to her: "There's somebody else who wouldn't do this, isn't there? There's somebody else who wouldn't make you cry." She should have told Garry about it long before this. Because now she had to get away from Mark at all cost, even more than she had had to ever before. Now there would be a terrible vindictiveness, a violent jealousy sparking the horrors where before there had sometimes been just an irrational impulse, sometimes dying as quickly as it was born. Turned aside by a tear or a prayer or a run around a chair. And then another thing occurred to her, and it frightened her even more immediately, here and now. What assurance was there that he was where he'd said he was, still in the city waiting to start out for here? He might have been much closer, ready to jump out at her unexpectedly, hoping to throw her offguard and catch her away from the house with someone, or (as if she could have possibly been that sort of person) with that someone right here in the very house with her. He'd lied about calling the first time; why wouldn't he lie about where he was? And now that she thought of it, there was a filling station with a public telephone less than five minutes drive from here, on the main thruway that came up from Boston. An eddy of fear swirled around her, like dust rising off the floor in some barren drafty place. She had to do one of two things immediately--there was no time to do both. Either call Garry at his office and warn him to hurry, that their time limit had shrunk. Or try to trace Mark's call and find out just how much margin of safety was still left to them. She chose the latter course, which was the mistaken one to choose. Long before she'd been able to identify the filling station exactly for the information operator to get its number, the whole thing had become academic. There was a slither and shuffle on the gravel outside and a car, someone's car, had come to a stop in front of the house. Her first impulse, carried out immediately without thinking why, was to snap off all the room lights. Probably so she could see out without being seen from out there. She sprang over to the window, and then stood there rigidly motionless, leaning a little to peer intently out. The car had stopped at an unlucky angle of perspective--unlucky for her. They had a trellis with tendrils of wisteria twining all over it like bunches of dangling grapes. It blanked out the mid-section of the car, its body shape, completely. The beams of the acetylenebright headlights shone out past one side, but they told her nothing; they could have come from any car. The little glimmer of color on the driveway, at the other side, told her no more. She heard the door crack open and clump closed. Someone's feet, obviously a man's, chopped up the wooden steps to the entrance veranda, and she saw a figure cross it, but it was too dark to make out who he was. She had turned now to face the other way, and without knowing it her hand was holding the place where her heart was. This was Mark's house, he had the front-door key. Garry would have to ring. She waited to hear the doorbell clarinet out and tell her she was safe, she would be loved, she would live. Instead there was a double click, back then forth, the knob twined around, and the door opened. A spurt of cool air told her it had opened. Frightened back into childhood fears, she turned and scurried, like some little girl with pigtails flying out behind her, scurried back along the shadowed hall, around behind the stairs, and into a closet that lay back there, remote as any place in the house could be. She pushed herself as far to the back as she could, and crouched down, pulling hanging things in front of her to screen and to protect her, to make her invisible. Sweaters and mackintoshes and old forgotten coveralls. And she hid her head down between her knees--the way children do when a goblin or an ogre is after them, thinking that if they can't see it, that fact alone will make the terror go away. The steps went up the stairs, on over her, up past her head. She could feel the shake if not hear the sound. Then she heard her name called out, but the voice was blurred by the many partitions and separations between--as if she were listening to it from underwater. Then the step came down again, and the man stood there at the foot of the stairs, uncertain. She tried to teach herself how to forget to breathe, but she learned badly. There was a little _tick!_ of a sound, and he'd given himself more light. Then each step started to sound clearer than the one before, as the distance to her thinned away. Her heart began to stutter and turn over, and say: Here he comes, here he comes. Light cracked into the closet around three sides of the door, and two arms reached in and started to make swimming motions among the hanging things, trying to find her. Then they found her, one at each shoulder, and lifted her and drew her outside to him. (With surprising gentleness.) And pressed her to his breast. And her tears made a new pattern of little wet polka dots all over what had been Garry's solid-colored necktie until now. All she could say was, "Hurry, hurry, get me out of here!" "You must have left the door open in your hurry when you came back here. I tried it, found it unlocked, and just walked right in. When I looked back here, I saw that the sleeve of that old smock had got caught in the closet door and was sticking out. Almost like an arm, beckoning me on to show me where you were hiding. It was uncanny. Your guardian angel must love you very much, Linda." But will he always, she wondered? Will he always? He took her to the front door, detoured for a moment to pick up the bag, then led her outside and closed the door behind them for good and all. "Just a minute," she said, and stopped, one foot on the ground, one still on the wooden front steps. She opened her handbag and took out her key--the key to what had been her home and her marriage. She flung it back at the door, and it hit and fell, with a cheap shabby little _clop!_--like something of not much value. Once they were in the car they just drove; they didn't say anything more for a long time. All the old things had been said. All the new things to be said were still to come. In her mind's eye she could see the sawtoothed towers of New York climbing slowly up above the horizon before her at the end of the long road. Shimmering there, iridescent, opalescent, rainbows of chrome and glass and hope. Like Jerusalem, like Mecca, or some other holy spot. Beckoning, offering heaven. And of all the things New York has meant to various people at various times--fame, success, fulfillment--it probably never meant as much before as it meant to her tonight: a place of refuge, a sanctuary, a place to be safe in. "How long does the trip take?" she asked him wistful-eyed. "I usually make it in less than four hours. Tonight I'll make it less than three." I'll never stray out of New York again, she promised herself. Once I'm safely there, I'll never go out in the country again. I never want to see a tree again, except way down below me in Central Park from a window high up. "Oh, get me there, Garry, get me there." "I'll get you there," Garry promised, like any new bridegroom, and bent to kiss the hand she had placed over his on the wheel. Two car headlights from the opposite direction hissed by them--like parallel tracer bullets going so fast they seemed to swirl around rather than undulate with the road's flaws. She purposely waited a moment, then said in a curiously surreptitious voice, as though it shouldn't be mentioned too loudly, "Did you see that?" All he answered, noncommitally, was, "Mmm." "That was the Italian compact." "You couldn't tell what it was," he said, trying to distract her from her fear. "Went by too fast." "I know it too well. I recognized it." Again she waited a moment, as though afraid to make the movement she was about to. Then she turned and looked back, staring hard and steadily into the funneling darkness behind them. Two back lights had flattened out into a bar, an ingot. Suddenly this flashed to the other side of the road, then reversed. Then, like a ghastly scimitar chopping down all the tree trunks in sight, the headlights reappeared, round out into two spheres, gleaming, small--but coming back after them. "I told you. It's turned and doubled back." He was still trying to keep her from panic. "May have nothing to do with us. May not be the same car we saw go by just now." "It is. Why would he make a complete about-turn like that in the middle of nowhere. There's no intersection or side road back there--we haven't passed one for miles." She looked again. "They keep coming. And they already look bigger than when they started back. I think they're gaining on us." He said, with an unconcern that he didn't feel, "Then we'll have to put a stop to that." They burst into greater velocity, with a surge like a forward billow of air. She looked, and she looked again. Finally to keep from turning so constantly, she got up on the seat on the point of one knee and faced backward, her hair pouring forward all around her, jumping with an electricity that was really speed. "Stay down," he warned. "You're liable to get thrown that way. We're up to 65 now." He gave her a quick tug for additional emphasis, and she subsided into the seat once more. "How is it now?" he checked presently. The rear-view mirror couldn't reflect that far back. "They haven't grown smaller, but they haven't grown larger." "We've stabilized, then," he translated. "Dead heat." Then after another while and another look, "Wait a minute!" she said suddenly on a note of breath-holding hope. Then, "no," she mourned quickly afterward. "For a minute I thought--but they're back again. It was only a dip in the road." "They hang on like leeches, can't seem to shake them off," she complained in a fretful voice, as though talking to herself. "Why don't they go away? Why _don't_ they?" Another look, and he could sense the sudden stiffening of her body. "They're getting bigger. I know I'm not mistaken." He could see that too. They were finally peering into the rearview mirror for the first time. They'd go offside, then they'd come back in again. In his irritation he took one hand off the wheel long enough to give the mirror a backhand slap that moved it out of focus altogether. "Suppose I stop, get out and face him when he comes up, and we have it out here and now. What can he do? I'm younger, I can outslug him." Her refusal to consent was an outright scream of protest. All her fears and all her aversion were in it. "All right," he said. "Then we'll run him into the ground if we have to." She covered her face with both hands--not at the speed they were making, but at the futility of it. "They sure build good cars in Torino, damn them to hell!" he swore in angry frustration. She uncovered and looked. The headlights were closer than before. She began to lose control of herself. "Oh, this is like every nightmare I ever had when I was a little girl! When something was chasing me, and I couldn't get away from it. Only now there'll be no waking up in the nick of time." "Stop that," he shouted at her. "Stop it. It only makes it worse, it doesn't help." "I think I can feel his breath blowing down the back of my neck." He looked at her briefly, but she could tell by the look on his face he hadn't been able to make out what she'd said. Streaks of wet that were not tears were coursing down his face in uneven lengths. "My necktie," he called out to her suddenly, and raised his chin to show her what he meant. She reached over, careful not to place herself in front of him, and pulled the knot down until it was loose. Then she freed the buttonhole from the top button of his shirt. A long curve in the road cut them off for a while, from those eyes, those unrelenting eyes behind them. Then the curve ended, and the eyes came back again. It was worse somehow, after they'd been gone like that, than when they remained steadily in sight the whole time. "He holds on and holds on and _holds_ on--like a mad dog with his teeth locked into you." "He's a mad dog all right." All pretense of composure had long since left him. He was lividly angry at not being able to win the race, to shake the pursuer off. She was mortally frightened. The long-sustained tension of the speed duel, which seemed to have been going on for hours, compounded her fears, raised them at last to the pitch of hysteria. Their car swerved erratically, the two outer wheels jogged briefly over marginal stones and roots that felt as if they were as big as boulders and logs. He flung his chest forward across the wheel as if it were something alive that he was desperately trying to hold down; then the car recovered, came back to the road, straightened out safely again with a catarrhal shudder of its rear axle. "Don't," he warned her tautly in the short-lived lull before they picked up hissing momentum again. "Don't grab me like that again. It went right through the shoulder of my jacket. I can't manage the car, can't hold it, if you do that. I'll get you away. Don't worry, I'll get you away from him." She threw her head back in despair, looking straight up overhead. "We seem to be standing still. The road has petrified. The trees aren't moving backwards any more. The stars don't either. Neither do the rocks along the side. Oh, faster, Garry, faster!" "You're hallucinated. Your senses are being tricked by fear." "Faster, Garry, faster!" "85, 86. We're on two wheels most of the time--two are off the ground. I can't even breathe, my breath's being pulled out of me." She started to beat her two clenched fists against her forehead in a tattoo of hypnotic inability to escape. "I don't care, Garry! Faster, faster! If I've got to die, let it be with you, not with him!" "I'll get you away from him. If it kills me." That was the last thing he said. _If it kills me_. And as though it had overheard, and snatched at the collateral offered it, that unpropitious sickly greenish star up there-- surely Mark's star not theirs--at that very moment a huge tremendous thing came into view around a turn in the road. A skyscraper of a long-haul van, its multiple tiers beaded with red warning lights. But what good were they that high up, except to warn off planes? It couldn't maneuver. It would have required a turntable. And they had no time or room. There was a soft crunchy sound, like someone shearing the top off a soft-boiled egg with a knife. At just one quick slice. Then a brief straight-into-the face blizzard effect, but with tiny particles of glass instead of frozen flakes. Just a one-gust blizzard--and then over with. Then an immense whirl of light started to spin, like a huge Ferris wheel all lit up and going around and around, with parabolas of light streaking off in every direction and dimming. Like shooting stars, or the tails of comets. Then the whole thing died down and went out, like a blazing amusement park sinking to earth. Or the spouts of illuminated fountains settling back into their basins . She could tell the side of her face was resting against the ground, because blades of grass were brushing against it with a feathery tickling feeling. And some inquisitive little insect kept flitting about just inside the rim of her ear. She tried to raise her hand to brush it away, but then forgot where it was and what it was. But then forgot . . .

When they picked her up at last, more out of this world than in it, all her senses gone except for reflex-actions, her lips were still quivering with the unspoken sounds of "Faster, Garry, faster! Take me away--" Then the long nights, that were also days, in the hospital. And the long blanks, that were also nights. Needles, and angled glass rods to suck water through. Needles, and curious enamel wedges slid under your middle. Needles, and--needles and needles and needles. Like swarms of persistent mosquitoes with unbreakable drills. The way a pincushion feels, if it could feel. Or the target of a porcupine. Or a case of not just momentary but permanently endured static electricity after you scuff across a woolen rug and then put your finger on a light switch. Even food was a needle-- a jab into a vein . . . Then at last her head cleared, her eyes cleared, her mind and voice came back from where they'd been. Each day she became a little stronger, and each day became a little longer. Until they were back for good, good as ever before. Life came back into her lungs and heart. She could feel it there, the swift current of it. Moving again, eager again. Sun again, sky again, rain and pain and love and hope again. Life again--the beautiful thing called life. Each day they propped her up in a chair for a little while. Close beside the bed, for each day for a little while longer. Then at last she asked, after many starts that she could never finish, "Why doesn't Garry come to me? Doesn't he know I've been hurt?" "Garry can't come to you," the nurse answered. And then, in the way that you whip off a bandage that has adhered to a wound fast, in order to make the pain that much shorter than it would be if you lingeringly edged it off a little at a time, then the nurse quickly told her, "Garry won't come to you anymore." The black tears, so many of them, such a rain of them, blotted out the light and brought on the darkness . . . Then the light was back again, and no more tears. Just--Garry won't come to you anymore. Now the silent words were: Not so fast, Garry, not so fast; you've left me behind and I've lost my way. Then in a little while she asked the nurse, "Why don't you ever let me get up from this chair? I'm better now, I eat well, the strength has come back to my arms, my hands, my fingers, my whole body feels strong. Shouldn't I be allowed to move around and exercise a little? To stand up and take a few steps?" "The doctor will tell you about that," the nurse said evasively. The doctor came in later and he told her about it. Bluntly, in the modern way, without subterfuges and without false hopes. The kind, the sensible, the straight-from-the-shoulder modern way. "Now listen to me. The world is a beautiful world, and life is a beautiful life. In this beautiful world everything is comparative; luck is comparative. You could have come out of it stone-blind from the shattered glass, with both your eyes gone. You could have come out of it minus an arm, crushed and having to be taken off. You could have come out of it with your face hideously scarred, wearing a repulsive mask for the rest of your life that would make peple sicken and turn away. You could have come out of it dead, as--as someone else did. Who is to say you are lucky, who is to say you are not? You have come out of it beautiful of face. You have come out of it keen and sensitive of mind, a mind with all the precision and delicate adjustment of the works inside a fine Swiss watch. A mind that not only _thinks_, but _feels_. You have come out of it with a strong brave youthful heart that will carry you through for half a century yet, come what may." "_But_--" She looked at him with eyes that didn't fear. "You will never again take a single step for all the rest of your life. You are hopelessly, irreparably paralyzed from the waist down. Surgery, everything, has been tried. Accept this. . . Now you know--and so now be brave." "I am. I will be," she said trustfully. "I'll learn a craft of some kind, that will occupy my days and earn me a living. Perhaps you can find a nursing home for me at the start until I get adjusted, and then maybe later I can find a little place all to myself and manage there on my own. There are such places, with ramps instead of stairs--" He smiled deprecatingly at her oversight. "All that won't be necessary. You're forgetting. There is someone who will look after you. Look after you well. You'll be in good capable hands. Your husband is coming to take you home with him today." Her scream was like the death cry of a wounded animal. So strident, so unbelievable, that in the stillness of its aftermath could be heard the slithering and rustling of people looking out the other ward-room doors along the corridor, nurses and ambulatory patients, asking one another what that terrified cry had been and where it had come from. "Two cc's of M, and hurry," the doctor instructed the nurse tautly. "It's just the reaction from what she's been through. This sometimes happens--going-home happiness becomes hysteria." The wet kiss of alcohol on her arm. Then the needle again-- the needle meant to be kind. One of them patted her on the head and said, "You'll be all right now." A tear came to the corner of her eyes, and just lay there, unable to retreat, unable to fall . . .

Myopically she watched them dress her and put her in her chair. Her mind remained awake, but everything was downgraded in intensity--the will to struggle had become reluctance, fear had become unease. She still knew there was cause to scream, but the distance had become too great, the message had too far to travel. Through lazy, contracting pupils she looked over and saw Mark standing in the doorway, talking to the doctor, shaking the nurse's hand and leaving something behind in it for which she smiled her thanks. Then he went around in back of her wheel chair, with a phantom breath for a kiss to the top of her head, and started to sidle it toward the door that was being held open for the two of them. He tipped the front of the chair ever so slightly, careful to avoid the least jar or impact or roughness, as if determined that she reach her destination with him in impeccable condition, unmarked and unmarred. And as she craned her neck and looked up overhead, and then around and into his face, backward, the unspoken message was so plain, in his shining eyes and in the grim grin he showed his teeth in, that though he didn't say it aloud, there was no need to; it reached from his mind into hers without sound or the need of sound just as surely as though he had said it aloud. _Now_ I've got you. Now he had her--for the rest of her life.

AFTERWORD

More than any other male mystery writer, Cornell Woolrich could see the world from a woman's perspective--and not just that of one woman but of a stunning variety of female characters, young and old, rich and destitute, healthy and warped. Even in the pre-crime novels he wrote in his twenties, such as _Cover Charge_ and _Children of the Ritz_, several sequences are seen through women's eyes; and his fifth novel, _The Time of Her Life_, has a teen-age girl as the viewpoint character for most of its length. A number of the classic Woolrich suspense novels--_The Bride Wore Black_, _Phantom Lady_, _The Black Angel_, _Deadline at Dawn_, _Night Has a Thousand Eyes_--are told in whole or in part through female perspectives. And among the author's more than two hundred pieces of shorter crime fiction at least two dozen stories are either narrated by or related from the viewpoint of a woman. _Angels of Darkness_ brings together eight of his best tales in this vein. "Johnny on the Spot" is one of Woolrich's earliest suspense stories to experiment with a woman protagonist, and one of his finest, evoking the maniacal power of love and the depths of terror with equal strength. It was first published in _Detective Fiction Weekly_ (May 2, 1936) and reprinted in _Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine_ (November 1948). Its only prior hardcover appearance was in the Woolrich story collection _Somebody on the Phone_ (Lippincott, 1950), published under the author's wellknown pseudonym of William Irish. Amazingly, it has never been adapted for movies, radio or television. "Waltz," which first appeared in _Double Detective_ (November 1937), is the shortest story Woolrich ever wrote, and the only one in which he captured all the inexplicability of his universe in a single scene. That it has never before been reprinted or collected is just one more inexplicable. "The Book That Squealed," from the August 1939 issue of Street & Smith's _Detective Story_, begins as a tale of pure detection and mutates into a tale of pure suspense, with a heroine as resourceful and independent (despite her excessive primness) as any hardboiled private eye, some fine scenes of women supporting one another, a typical Woolrich "hideous coincidence" undergirding the plot, and--in the opening sequence and the cab driver incident--two powerful glimpses of a social order in which to be penniless means to be treated like scum. The story's only prior hardcover appearance was in _The Fourth Mystery Companion_, ed. AL. Furman (Lantern Press, 1946), where it was given the distinctively Woolrichian title "Library Book." In "Meet Me by the Mannequin" (_Dime Detective_, June 1940) we find another guileless young lady suddenly thrust into the wolves' world of gangsters, and the sense of pace and urgency is so compelling it's almost impossible to stop and ask nitpicking questions about who, what, why and how. Although reprinted in the February 1955 issue of _EQMM_, this story has never been anthologized or adapted into another medium. "Murder at Mother's Knee" (_Dime Detective_, October 1941), is similar to "The Book That Squealed" in that the woman protagonist works in a stereotypically prim and spinsterish profession, finds an odd quirk on the job which she feels bound to explore, and lands in the thick of violent crime and personal danger. When reprinted in _EQMM_ (December 1954) the story was retitled "Something That Happened in Our House." "Mind Over Murder" (_Dime Defective_, May 1943) is not the first story in which Woolrich used snake motifs, but it's his most consummately skillful story of this type, and, as in several of Woolrich's darker stories, the people are more repulsive than any snake. The underlying power here, as in "Johnny on the Spot," is the terrifying force of love, and the nightmares that love can inspire make this tale a classic of stomach-churning suspense. Under the title "A Death Is Caused," it was included in Woolrich's rare paperback collection _If Should Die Before I Wake_ (Avon, 1945, as by William Irish), and was dramatized late the same year on radio's _Molle Mystery Theatre_. "Death Escapes the Eye," from the April-May 1947 issue of _Shadow Mystery Magazine_, is one of the quietest and most actionless of Woolrich's stories. All that happens on the surface is that a woman falls in and out of love, but beneath the surface, and just out of the narrator's sight, a murder may have been committed. In "The Smallest Sub-Cenre" (_The Armchair Detective_, July 1977) Frank D. McSherry, Jr., argues that this tale is the single perfect specimen of the detective story where the reader and only the reader is the detective. I believe that Woolrich meant us not to conclude definitely that there was a murder but rather to be tortured by the possibility that there might have been and by the impossibility of our ever knowing for sure. Either way it's a superb story, with Woolrich in control of every nuance. A decade after its magazine appearance Woolrich recast, condensed and weakened the story, retitling the new version "Murder, Obliquely" and including it in his collection _Violence_ (Dodd Mead, 1958). The original has remained unreprinted until now. "For the Rest of Her Life" (_Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine_, May 1968) is the last Woolrich story to have been published in the author's lifetime, and one of the best tales of his final years. The old master had not lost the magic touch that can turn a reader's stomach to water, so that we practically scream at Linda to tell someone before it's too late. But in Woolrich, of course, it always is too late. Ironically, Woolrich himself had to have a leg amputated soon after completing this story, and spent his last nine months in a wheelchair like Linda. By the time the tale was anthologized (in _Ellery Queen's Murder Menu_, World 1969) the author was dead. "I was only trying to cheat death," Woolrich wrote in a f ragment found among his papers. "I was only trying to surmount for a little while the darkness that all my life I surely knew was going to come rolling in on me some day and obliterate me." Cornell Woolrich tried to escape death, and couldn't. The world he imagined, will.

--Francis M. Nevins, Jr.

CORNELL WOOLRICH: Rivalled only by Edgar Allan Poe as a master of creating an atmosphere of dread, Cornell Woolrich was a prolific writer of suspense fiction until his death at the age of 65 in 1968. He was equally famous as William Irish and wrote two books as George Hopley. More than twenty films have been made from his novels and short stories, including _Rear Window_, _The Bride Wore Black_, _Phantom Lady_, _The Night Has a Thousand Eyes_, _Black Angel_ and _The Window_. His early novels were favorably compared with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and his best work has attained the status of American literary classics. He won an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1950.

HARLAN ELLISON: The most honored science fiction writer in history (six Hugos, two special Hugo plaques, two Nebulas, and the only writer in history to win three Writers Guild Awards for Most Outstanding Teleplay), Ellison has demonstrated a range of talent rarely equalled in American letters. He also won an Edgar for his story, "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs." He has previously commented on Woolrich's influence on his work.

FRANCIS M. NEVINS, JR.: The leading Woolrich scholar in America, his introduction to the Woolrich collection, _Nightwebs_, is a monumental study. Nevins is the literary advisor to the Woolrich estate.

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