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Nightmare · Nightmare

• 0:00
  I'll take you home, Kathleen. The night was dark blue, and a
• 0:05
  big silver dollar for a moon was stuck into it up above. He was
• 0:09
  only two years older, and that was young enough yet. But the walk
• 0:12
  along the road out to the dance pavilion seemed longer than it used to be,
• 0:16
  maybe because he was walking it alone and not with her. A car
• 0:20
  racketed by going the same way. He was bulging with girls and fellows,
• 0:25
  all piled in pell Mell on their way to the Saturday night dance. Every
• 0:30
  Saturday night. They still came from miles away as he used to with her,
• 0:34
  only she was coming with somebody else. Now he wouldn't talk to her.
• 0:39
  He wouldn't even let her see that he was there. He'd just stand
• 0:42
  quietly by for a few minutes, looking at her once again. Then he'd
• 0:47
  take that away with him. He passed under some kind of skinny tree with
• 0:51
  its branches all sticking out with no leaves on them, and the moon shining
• 0:55
  down through them made a lot of horizontal stripes show up across his body,
• 1:00
  as if he were wearing a convict's suit. He side stepped quickly, as
• 1:03
  though the illusion had frightened him, and brushed his hands slowly down his clothes,
• 1:07
  as if he were trying to rub the phantom stripes out. Then he
• 1:11
  went on quickly, with his head lowered a little. Yes, it seemed
• 1:15
  a longer walk than he used to be. The pavilion looked the same as
• 1:19
  it slowly came into sight round the last turn of the road, the same
• 1:23
  russet glow like a smoky sunset or a harvest moon, gleaming out from under
• 1:27
  its low eaves. The same semicircle of darkened cars parked around its entrance,
• 1:34
  the same wind sighing through the trees, dropping scattered notes of music as it
• 1:40
  went, like rain drops shaken off the boughs when you have another's arms around
• 1:45
  you, Do you ever think of me? He stopped a minute there by
• 1:49
  the roadside, looking at it. Then he went up the graveled walk,
• 1:53
  past the parked cars with their sly red cigarette embers winking here and there,
• 1:57
  and their stifled gusts of laughter, to the entrance, and inside the music
• 2:02
  turned loud and the lights turned bright. The same quadroon girl was there behind
• 2:07
  the hat counter, and the same colored ticket taker stood by the inner doors,
• 2:12
  watching the dancers through the crack. They both looked at him, and
• 2:15
  they recognized him right away, but they didn't smile right away. She took
• 2:21
  his hat and sort of looked it over, and then she said, you've
• 2:23
  been away quite a spell, mister Burke. Sir, he just said yes
• 2:28
  with the lids of his eyes. Then he looked down at the check she
• 2:30
  had given him, and his face changed. Not that number, he cried
• 2:35
  out, sharply, Oh, gee, don't gimme that number to night.
• 2:38
  Of all nights, it was a thirteen. It's the only one I've got
• 2:44
  left. She said, they plumb cleaned me out of checks. Give me
• 2:47
  a blank, then he said. She looked around her alcove helplessly. Finally,
• 2:53
  he took out a metal pencil he had hooked his inside coat pocket and
• 2:57
  darkened out the thirteen so vigor that the lead wore down to the quick and
• 3:01
  he had to give the barrel a twist to bring some more out. She
• 3:06
  gave a little admiring quirk of her head, as though she had never seen
• 3:08
  a pencil like that before. He turned the check over on its blank side
• 3:13
  when he had finished, and took it up from the counter that way and
• 3:15
  dropped it into his pocket. This way, I get an even break.
• 3:19
  At least, he said. It's still there underneath, though, he added
• 3:23
  softly. As he went in. The floor was packed with dancers. But
• 3:28
  in another minute, as he found a place on the sidelines and stood watching,
• 3:31
  it seemed to him that it emptied by magic without the music stopping,
• 3:36
  and there was no one on it anymore but a girl in a filmy green
• 3:38
  dress, dancing alone, holding her arms up to a ghostly partner, Kathleen.
• 3:46
  She was so beautiful she hurt the eyes, So beautiful she hurt the
• 3:50
  heart. There was some girl or other standing at his right, and a
• 3:53
  man standing at his left. He heard a guarded voice remonstrate, don't stand
• 3:59
  there, move over this way, and the girl wasn't next to him any
• 4:02
  more. He heard a slurring breath say, trail bird, and the man
• 4:08
  on the other side of him wasn't near him anymore either. There was no
• 4:12
  one around him. He was by himself in the middle of an empty space
• 4:15
  and all that crowd. But there was no one in the place except her
• 4:18
  anyway, So what difference could that make? They were doing fancy dances now,
• 4:24
  when the affair was nearing its end, The shag or something. He
• 4:28
  didn't know what it was called. That was the man she was going to
• 4:30
  marry. That empty space between her two arms. He was a banker's son.
• 4:34
  He had all kinds of money, a swell house to move her into,
• 4:38
  probably a car waiting outside to take her home in. And the only
• 4:42
  stripes he'd ever worn ran up and down in pencil lines, not a cross
• 4:46
  in bars. He had everything already, and now he was going to have
• 4:48
  her too. But I'm going to have this last night with her. He's
• 4:53
  not getting that. The man on the sideline said to himself, Suddenly,
• 4:57
  one more walk home through the moonlight, the way we used to. He
• 5:01
  put his hand to his inside coat pocket to take out a cigarette, and
• 5:04
  he touched the sleek, slippery, rounded cylinder of the mechanical pencil clasped to
• 5:10
  its lining. They moved by close to him on the outer edge of the
• 5:14
  floor. His legs, her partners were spiraling in fancy steps. He was
• 5:19
  the fatuous kind that wanted everyone to see how good he was. He wasn't
• 5:24
  satisfied with just holding heaven in his arms. And suddenly one of his legs
• 5:29
  shot unmanageably out from under him, and he went crashing down on top of
• 5:32
  it, twisted it beneath him in some way. She had stepped clear just
• 5:36
  in time, and she stood by for a minute, starting to laugh as
• 5:40
  they all were. But then they saw he couldn't get up again, had
• 5:44
  to be helped up, and a small crowd gathered near him. Two of
• 5:46
  the men put their arms around him, and he hobbled painfully out into the
• 5:49
  vestibule between them, and she went with them. Then in a few minutes
• 5:55
  she came back again to let everyone know how he was. It started to
• 5:59
  swell. I think he sprained it. One of the boys has driven him
• 6:01
  in to see a doctor. It's the right one, you know, and
• 6:04
  he can't put it down on the accelerator. He asked me to stay and
• 6:08
  enjoy myself, but I'm afraid I'll have to find somebody else to take me
• 6:11
  home. The man who had been waiting there on the sidelines pushed his way
• 6:15
  through the little group standing around her and said, in a quiet voice,
• 6:18
  I'll take you home, Kathleen, just like I used to a voice that
• 6:24
  didn't ask it told you could hear a pin drop. She didn't wait to
• 6:29
  smile, like the two attendants outside in the entry. She smiled right away
• 6:32
  and said, hello, Danny. A man said to her, I'll take
• 6:36
  you home. A girl offered, Kathleen, you can come with us.
• 6:40
  They didn't say it, but you could almost hear it beating on the air
• 6:43
  around her from all sides. Kathleen, don't look out, be careful.
• 6:47
  Another girl said, Kathleen, can I talk to you alone a minute,
• 6:50
  and drew her a step away. While he stood there alone in the crowd.
• 6:56
  He didn't hear what the girl was whispering to her, but he didn't
• 6:59
  have to. He could have told what it was word for word. Kathleen,
• 7:02
  take my advice. Don't go alone with him. He's been in jail,
• 7:05
  so I heard. He's probably not the same as he was. And
• 7:09
  these men that feel they've been thrown over are dangerous. Sometimes they turn on
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  you when you least expect it. She came back again beside him and looked
• 7:15
  at all of them in turn, and then at him. Shall we go
• 7:19
  now, Denny, was all she said, and slipped her arm through his,
• 7:24
  And he knew they had made her do it, not he. She
• 7:27
  was that kind of girl. In the vestibule, she left him for a
• 7:30
  moment to get her bottle, green cloak, and a little old fashioned draw
• 7:32
  bag with her powdering things in it. The check room girl smiled when he
• 7:36
  handed her back the blackout thirteen for his hat and rebuked, Now you see,
• 7:43
  the night was dark blue and the silver dollar moon hadn't tarnished any and
• 7:46
  they walked down the road under its, side by side. I suppose you're
• 7:49
  used to writing it these days, he said, But this'll be the last
• 7:54
  time with me, and I wanted you to walk it with me like we
• 7:57
  used to, like he used to, was all she said. They walked
• 8:03
  a long way without saying anything after that. I only came back just to
• 8:07
  look at you once more. Watch you at one of the Saturday night dances
• 8:13
  tomorrow. I'm going away again for good. That's the best, she agreed,
• 8:18
  wistfully. They're such fools. A car came whistling up behind him,
• 8:22
  tore past, tapered to a coast on the road ahead. It was full
• 8:28
  of people, either from the dance they had just left or from somewhere else.
• 8:31
  A voice called back, I want to left you two. She threw
• 8:35
  up her arm for a minute and ready acceptance, perhaps caught off guard by
• 8:39
  the invitation. Then as He quickly made a restraining gesture toward her, canceled
• 8:43
  it again. No, you don't finish it out with me alone, all
• 8:48
  right, she consented. He called down to them for her. No,
• 8:54
  we're doing all right. It may have sounded more brusque than he had intended
• 8:58
  it to. The car picked up speed and disappeared in the distance with a
• 9:01
  red blink. They came to a log bridge thrown over a ridiculous trickle of
• 9:05
  water, and he laughed and said, the Mississippi's still here, I see.
• 9:11
  Then a little farther on, as the road bellied out and a great
• 9:13
  loop and the trees began to thicken, they came to a place where a
• 9:16
  little footpaths started aside through them. Here's our old short cut, she said,
• 9:22
  aren't we going to take it? It goes I'm pretty deep. Aren't
• 9:26
  you afraid to go through there alone with a jail bird at this hour of
• 9:30
  the night. They've hurt you, Denny, she said gently, You mustn't
• 9:35
  take it out on me. I haven't done anything to you. You see,
• 9:39
  you're an old friend. And my friends don't stop being my friends,
• 9:41
  whether they've been in jail or not. And I'm not afraid to go through
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  the woods at night with one of my friends. All the harm that would
• 9:48
  ever come to you from me, he said, with a touch of ancestral
• 9:52
  rogue, coming out under the stress of emotion would give you a small cause
• 9:56
  to worry. It got so narrow in places they had to go single file.
• 10:01
  Sometimes she went first, swinging her bag blithely around by the little loop
• 10:05
  that held it, and he tread behind her. Sometimes he took the lead
• 10:11
  to sweep low hanging branches out of her way, and she followed. Sometimes
• 10:15
  the moon came through in silver splashes. Sometimes it was dark as a tunnel.
• 10:20
  He stopped and said, here's that place where we kissed good bye.
• 10:24
  I still remember the tree. Let me just once more for the last time.
• 10:30
  She stood beside him and turned her face toward him, and their forms
• 10:33
  blended for a moment in the shadows. That was a salute to the past,
• 10:37
  a ghost kiss. She let him know. It felt like it,
• 10:41
  he said, ruefully. She laughed and swung the little bag around some more.
• 10:46
  On the end of its cord, something tinkled faintly near by, but
• 10:50
  treacherously vague as to direction. The bag fell motionless. What is it?
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  He asked, sensing her silent dismay. My key, my key to the
• 11:01
  house flew out. She backed her hand to her mouth. Oh what'll I
• 11:03
  do now? Well? Get it? Don't get excited. He struck a
• 11:09
  match, crouched down with it, started circling slowly around her. She stood
• 11:13
  in one place, peering down, shifting slowly in company with the little flame.
• 11:18
  The thing must have opened without my noticing it. It's all right,
• 11:22
  it's gotta be around here, someplace, he said, soothingly. I'll have
• 11:26
  it for you in a minute. He was on his second match, now
• 11:28
  widening the circle around her. With each circuit, it sounded to me as
• 11:33
  though it went over this way. Stay there where you are, otherwise we'll
• 11:35
  get baled up, he warned. She had already gone off away from him,
• 11:39
  however, looking on her own, ferns rustling against her dress. They
• 11:43
  moved around in absorbed silence for a few moments. Oh why did that have
• 11:48
  to happen? I should have been more careful, she said, Once and
• 11:52
  another time? Find it yet? And then presently he wouldn't think a thing
• 11:58
  like that could disappear so completely. You're right under our noses, would you?
• 12:01
  Each time, her voice sounded a little less distinct. I'm on my
• 12:05
  last match. Don't you think we'd better let it go. I know it's
• 12:09
  a shame to wake them up, but you don't understand. They're both over
• 12:13
  at Hartsdale for the night. I won't be able to get in without it,
• 12:18
  Denny, We've got to find it. I wish I had one of
• 12:20
  those pocket lights, he said, apparently preoccupied. She didn't answer. He
• 12:26
  had to bend over closer than before, now that he had no more matches
• 12:30
  to rely on. He straightened finally in defeat. Kathleen, it's no go.
• 12:35
  I'll have to climb in through one of the upper story windows and let
• 12:37
  you in that way. She didn't answer. She hadn't said anything for the
• 12:41
  past several moments. He noticed that only now he made his voice louder.
• 12:46
  Kathleen, there's no use looking any more. Come on, we'll have to
• 12:50
  go. She didn't answer. He turned and went after her, but when
• 12:54
  he got to where he thought she'd be, she wasn't there. Kathleen,
• 12:58
  he called, not a sound. He turned and went over another way.
• 13:03
  Kathleen, where are you? He called? Puzzled, The trees and the
• 13:07
  night were still. He went back to their starting point, the tree of
• 13:11
  the last kiss, Where the devil did she go? Anyway? He said
• 13:16
  out loud, the way a man does. He raised his voice to a
• 13:18
  full bodied shout, now that she couldn't fail to hear Kathleen. Silence lay
• 13:24
  around him. What's she doin kidding me? He added hands to it at
• 13:30
  the sides of his mouth. But the shout couldn't come out any louder than
• 13:33
  before. Kathleen. She couldn't be that far away not to hear that,
• 13:39
  And yet she was Kathleen. His voice cracked with the pressure he put on
• 13:46
  it. Suddenly fright, like a cold black shower, blotted out the moon,
• 13:52
  nameless fear all over him. He lost his head for a minute in
• 13:54
  the first flush of it, and started to pound the call out in rapid
• 13:58
  succession, like the of an alarm drum. Kathleen, Kathleen, Kathleen.
• 14:07
  Two. His cries burgeoned out under the trees while he ran this way and
• 14:11
  that, grazing their trunks, stumbling over their roots, getting stung by their
• 14:15
  twigs. Then he stood stock still, wiped his forehead, and pulled himself
• 14:20
  together. She couldn't get lost, not even if she tried to. She's
• 14:24
  lived around here all her life, She's passed through here a thousand times before.
• 14:30
  What's the matter with me? Anyway? She's played a joke on me,
• 14:33
  That's what it is. She's picked up the key herself without telling me
• 14:35
  and gave me the slip when on the rest of the way home alone.
• 14:39
  Maybe I frightened her by kissing her, and maybe she wanted to avoid the
• 14:43
  final parting scene at her door, afraid I was going to reproach her for
• 14:46
  ditching me. I'll probably catch up with her just ahead, or else I'll
• 14:50
  see the light in her bedroom window when I get to her house. He
• 14:54
  started running down the footpath. He was lying to himself, or he would
• 14:58
  not have gone so fast, still bucking briars and branches as before, and
• 15:01
  stumbling as he ran, panting Kathleen every once in a while, without much
• 15:07
  volume to it any more. The trees burst open, and there was the
• 15:11
  road again, its futile detour over with, and there was her house not
• 15:15
  far down it from here on the other side. He kept on running along
• 15:18
  the side of the road, just jogging now the few remaining yards, and
• 15:22
  then he ran across to the white picket fence that stood around her place,
• 15:26
  past the mailbox like a dovecot on its skinny support, and in at the
• 15:30
  gate that still had one hinge deffective like two years ago. The window of
• 15:35
  her bedroom on the upper left hand corner was dark, only the moon swam
• 15:39
  on its black pane. He ran up on the porch just the same and
• 15:41
  rattled the door knob hectically and pounded his way all over the panel. Kathleen,
• 15:46
  he called, futilely, Kathleen, are you in there? It was
• 15:50
  so easy to see she wasn't, Kathleen, don't joke? Are you in
• 15:54
  there? At last he turned and came down off the porch and turned again
• 15:58
  and looked hopelessly upward at the blank windows. Then he went out through the
• 16:03
  gate once more and stopped by it to slap the gate post smartly with his
• 16:07
  open hand, and his turmoil in distress, he crossed back again to the
• 16:11
  wooded side of the road and followed it to where the footpath went in,
• 16:15
  and started back along that at a tront Kathleen, He called, futilely,
• 16:21
  Kathleen. They died away among the trees and the crashing, blundering course of
• 16:26
  his running died out after it, as though he were chasing his own voice.
• 16:30
  He came back to the tree of their parting with the glow of the
• 16:33
  moon higher up on the trunk. Now as the orb sank lower in the
• 16:36
  sky, he beat around the spot in ever widening circles that carried him far
• 16:40
  away from it. But she wasn't in here any more. She couldn't be.
• 16:45
  She would have heard him shout. She would have come out to him
• 16:47
  long ago. She had gone back the other way, toward the pavilion instead
• 16:52
  of on toward her house, perhaps to find some other girl to stay with
• 16:56
  for the night now that she had lost her key. But why walk off
• 17:00
  like that without a word. He knew it wasn't so she hadn't, but
• 17:03
  he wouldn't admit it to himself. Yet he had to find out for sure.
• 17:07
  First. It was the only rational explanation left, and he couldn't face
• 17:11
  the night without one. Finally, he started back that way himself. There
• 17:17
  were scratches on his face from twigs and brambles, and his hair was down
• 17:19
  in front of his eyes, and his hat was gone, and the lower
• 17:22
  end of his tie was out. Still, he weaved along from side to
• 17:26
  side, hoarsely exclaiming Kathleen from time to time, not loudly any more,
• 17:32
  for she never answered, just to show that he wanted her. And once,
• 17:37
  just before he emerged at the lower end of the short cut, the
• 17:38
  thought came to him, why are you so frightened? What is it you
• 17:42
  feel already about this that tells you she won't be at the pavilion either.
• 17:47
  He didn't know, He couldn't answer. The log bridge thudded hollowly with the
• 17:52
  hurried passage of the footsteps. When he came to the pavilion, only one
• 17:56
  car was left in front of it, and though a little music still sounded,
• 18:00
  the orange glow was dimmed to just a wan reflection coming now from far
• 18:04
  inside it. He ran in through the unlighted vestibule and out on the barren,
• 18:08
  gleaming dance floor. A single bulb shone nakedly down over it. A
• 18:14
  scrub woman was working her way along one side, doing more kneeling and observing
• 18:18
  than scouring. A man and a girl were sitting at the piano together.
• 18:22
  He was doing the playing, and she was holding a gin bottle for him.
• 18:26
  The checkroom girl, dressed to go home, was trucking deftly by herself
• 18:29
  in the middle of the floor. The doorman was standing there shouting his encouragement
• 18:33
  and approval from the sideline. Burke came flinging in on them, and everything
• 18:37
  stopped, the piano playing and the shouts of praise, and the dancing and
• 18:41
  even the mopping up. He had to wait a minute to get his wind
• 18:45
  back. He had been running so long and steadily, and they didn't make
• 18:48
  a sound, any of them. While he stood there with his chest going
• 18:51
  up and down and the assorted scratches on his face and his hair stringy over
• 18:55
  his forehead. Have you seen her? He panted, finally, to come
• 19:00
  back here. The man at the piano got up, pocketed his own gin,
• 19:03
  came down off the musicians platform, who he asked Curtly, Kathleen Leary,
• 19:11
  what were you doing out with her? Burke. The man's voice wasn't
• 19:14
  friendly. His own girl answered him, he took her home while you were
• 19:18
  driving Larry Kirby to the doctor. We all told her not to the checkroom
• 19:22
  girl and the doorman, and to edge together in the face of this white
• 19:26
  people's crisis, The man from the piano said, in a confidential aside,
• 19:32
  go out and get my coat, Sam, bring it just the way it
• 19:34
  is. But he didn't look at the door man. He kept looking steadily
• 19:37
  at Burke. The scrub woman took a mesmerized half turn on her cleaning rag
• 19:42
  in the water, and it went splop into the pail. Then she didn't
• 19:47
  come back here. Burke asked, we got separated out there, you know,
• 19:52
  in that patch of woods between the creek and her house. I've been
• 19:55
  out to her house already and she wasn't there either. His voice wavered,
• 19:59
  steadied again, something's happened to her. The other man's girl drew in her
• 20:03
  breath with a shudder, closed her eyes, murmured commiseratingly. Oh, Jody,
• 20:11
  Yeah, something has the man answered Burke. His voice was so rough
• 20:15
  it was like sand ground between his teeth. The doorman had brought back his
• 20:18
  coat, was holding it out toward him. He didn't take the coat.
• 20:22
  He took a gun out of its pocket instead, go outside and wring up
• 20:26
  Sheriff Myers off as honey pie, he said, matter of factly to his
• 20:30
  girl. He's done something with her. You can see they had a fight.
• 20:34
  Look at the scratches all over his face. I'll hold him here get
• 20:37
  over there by the door, Sam Burke said, almost dazed with astonishment.
• 20:41
  No, don't wait. What was as for? I told you we got
• 20:45
  separated. The other man just looked at him with a sort of hard contempt.
• 20:49
  What did you think that, by comin back here and handing us that
• 20:53
  you could get away with it? He made a scoffing sound deep down in
• 20:57
  his larynx. Men don't lose the girls they're taking home that easy. He
• 21:03
  made the sound again. She's not my girl. If she was, I
• 21:07
  wouldn't stand waiting this long with a gun already in my hand for Maya is
• 21:11
  to get here. She's Larry Kirby's girl. He's the one I feel sorry
• 21:15
  for. Burke tried to keep his voice reasonable. Why you're full of that
• 21:19
  gin, don't do this to me. You're accusing me without a You grew
• 21:23
  up around here as well as me. Don't you know what that means in
• 21:26
  these parts. I've got a record. I've been in jail once already.
• 21:30
  Don't talk to me, the other man said, stonily. I'm not an
• 21:33
  officer. I'm just doing my duty the way any man would. If Kathleen
• 21:38
  Larry turns up unharmed, you've got nothing to worry about. A whisper reached
• 21:44
  Burke's ears from over by the door. He got the thirteen tap tonight for
• 21:48
  his hat. Mm M, man, stay out there where you are till
• 21:52
  they get here, Sugar. The man with the gun cautioned his concealed young
• 21:56
  woman companion, as the swing doors bowlged to flee against Sam's back. Once
• 22:02
  or twice, Burke wanted to fling the gun up out of position, wrench
• 22:06
  it away from him, bolt for one of the two windows on either side
• 22:07
  of the bandstand, jump out into the night. He could have made it.
• 22:11
  The other man's reflexes were slowed up with jin He knew he mustn't.
• 22:15
  That was the worst thing he could do. He fought the urge down,
• 22:19
  kept himself from it by gripping and twisting the hem of his coat in his
• 22:22
  hands. And he knew now too, what that formless fear was that had
• 22:26
  assailed him almost from the moment he had first lost her, an instinctive sense
• 22:32
  of jeopardy, of doom, his own, not hers, that he hadn't
• 22:37
  been able to recognize at the time. That soft, drawly whispering was sounding
• 22:41
  by the door again. Go on, tell him, child, Ah,
• 22:45
  don't pay me to go mixin up in it. The man with the gun
• 22:48
  didn't take his hard little buckshot pupils off Burt, but he asked, tell
• 22:52
  me what, Leah, what's here? I don't want to get mister Burke
• 22:56
  in no more trouble than he is already. Mister Allen, she said timorously.
• 23:00
  Only that pencil that one of the gentlemen picked up from where mister Kirby
• 23:04
  fell, the one they said they thought maybe it was to blame. It
• 23:08
  just come to me now. I saw mister Burke use it on his way
• 23:11
  in. What you gotta say about that, Bert, Yeah, it's mine.
• 23:17
  I rolled it at his feet. But we're not talking about Kirby's fault.
• 23:19
  We're talking about Kathleen. Well, we'll tell that to Myers when he
• 23:23
  gets here too. Burke flared out, tormentedly, do you realize while you're
• 23:29
  standing around here making a tin hero yourself over me? She may be lying
• 23:33
  out there somewhere hurt or unconscious. You'd know more about that than I would,
• 23:37
  was the suggestive answer. We'll get going as soon as Myers gets here.
• 23:42
  Three. Myers got there with a flourish of the swing doors. That
• 23:47
  pushed Sam cavalierly out of the way. A shaggy deputy and a khaki shirt
• 23:52
  was with him. Well, no, what's this about little Kathleen Leary,
• 23:56
  the sheriff demanded authoritatively. Alan motioned for his coat, dropped his gun back
• 24:00
  into its pocket. Now that Burke was safely surrounded, this fellow took her
• 24:04
  out here while I was driving Larry Kirby down to the doctor. Then he
• 24:07
  showed up about twenty minutes, half an hour ago the way you see him
• 24:11
  now, asking if we'd seen her. I reckon, it's up to us
• 24:14
  to ask him that, don't you. I agree with you? There,
• 24:18
  said Myers aggressively. Wait a minute, aren't you in that Burke that used
• 24:21
  to live hereabouts? Somebody told me you were in jail. Burke moistened his
• 24:26
  lips. There has nothing to do with this, he said, looking down
• 24:30
  at the floor. How'd you get in that condition? Looking for her?
• 24:34
  What'd you do to make her run away from you like that? She didn't
• 24:38
  run away. She dropped her key and we both started to hunt for him.
• 24:41
  When I looked up, she was gone. The sheriff sliced his hand
• 24:45
  at him disparagingly. Oh, now, don't give me that. A girl
• 24:48
  don't jest up and disappear from a fellow while she's on her way home with
• 24:52
  him. Well, we can't stand here all night. Let's get out there
• 24:55
  quick as we can and see what's to be seen. I phoned her mother
• 24:59
  and father at Hartsdale already, Alan's girl said virtuously. And I phoned Larry
• 25:03
  too and told him about it. He and a lot of the men are
• 25:06
  coming out to help look for He feels terrible why their wedding was only a
• 25:11
  month off. She seemed to want to rush matters toward their worst possible conclusion.
• 25:15
  They left in a welter of confusion, everyone talking at once. Look
• 25:18
  after him, birds All, Meyers said to his deputy. He's staying with
• 25:22
  us until we find out what this is. Something clinked and Burt protested with
• 25:29
  smothered heat. Wait a minute, you can't put that thing on me.
• 25:32
  I haven't been guilty of anything. He's right, birds All, said Myers
• 25:36
  judiciously. We have nothing against him yet. Just keep a good tight grip
• 25:41
  on his shoulder. Allan was arguing with his excitement thirsting girl, No,
• 25:45
  you can't come with us, shugar lump, only men'll be along. Hush
• 25:48
  up, what kind of talk is that, and interrupting himself to take SIPs
• 25:52
  from his gin bottle. Oh, and I think I borrowed a safety pin
• 25:56
  from her in there just before she left here tonight, I still have it
• 26:00
  on me. Look, this is it right here. I ain't going to
• 26:03
  be so good for somebody in the way it looks tonight. Sam told Leah.
• 26:07
  If they do, it'll be the first white one they've had around here
• 26:10
  since my grandpa's time. He told me about seeing one once. Burke was
• 26:15
  taking in the sheriff's car with the two officials, Alan bundled his protesting girl
• 26:18
  into his own car to drop her off at the house before a joining in
• 26:22
  the Roman holiday. The lights of the search party that had preceded them out
• 26:26
  there could already be seen twinkling in and out among the trees like fireflies from
• 26:30
  all the way down at the log bridge when they rumbled across it. As
• 26:34
  they neared the footpath, a line of parked cars strung along the side of
• 26:37
  the road came in to view ahead. The sheriff breaked behind the last one,
• 26:41
  and Burke got out between him and the deputy. Now take us in
• 26:45
  there to where you say you last saw her. Myers ordered that you say
• 26:51
  gave a glimpse of what his opinions on the matter already were. Stand backum
• 26:55
  in, I shouldn't have begun till I got here. I'm in charge of
• 26:57
  this. Here, give us one of those lantern They went and burked midway
• 27:02
  between the two with birds, All's grip still riveted on his shoulder to keep
• 27:06
  him from bolting off into the darkness. The little footpath that had been so
• 27:10
  lonely and quiet before and pie Vald moonlight and shadow seemed to be alive with
• 27:14
  people now. Every few minutes they passed some one either going in or coming
• 27:18
  out, or half submerged in the underbrush, ferreting around, some with lights,
• 27:22
  some without a cur that some one had brought was yapping around too,
• 27:26
  and raising nothing but false alarms at every squirrel or titmouse it discovered. Why'd
• 27:32
  you bring her through here, Meyer said coldly, as they trudged Indian file.
• 27:36
  Funny place to bring a girl in a party dress and dancing slippers.
• 27:40
  Why say that she had suggested it? They wouldn't have believed it anyway.
• 27:44
  It was the shortest way to her house. That's what you'd told her too.
• 27:48
  I reckon. Larry Kirby confronted them suddenly, one foot of shoeless,
• 27:52
  bandaged club, supporting himself on a pair of crutches to keep it clear of
• 27:56
  the ground. He was taking it hard. Apparently he was one of those
• 28:00
  men who can cry easily. His face was contorted in a weeping grimace,
• 28:04
  though without any tears. You oughtn't to be in here on that foot,
• 28:08
  Larry Meyers said considerately. We'll take care of it for you. I can't
• 28:14
  sit still out there on the road. I've got a finder. He turned
• 28:18
  poignantly dramatic swung himself directly before Burke on his two crutches. Where's my girl?
• 28:22
  He shouted in venomous anguish. I'll get you if you've done anything to
• 28:26
  her. They led Burke on past him, his head lowered in silent denial.
• 28:32
  They reached the tree where he had lost her twice, the first time
• 28:34
  to another man, the second to the night itself. Here's where she dropped
• 28:40
  her key, and we started to look for it. The sheriff was the
• 28:44
  sheriff. How are you so sure of that? Just where it was?
• 28:48
  You didn't have a light like we have. We were standing, right,
• 28:52
  He checked himself too late. He couldn't tell them all he'd kissed her.
• 28:56
  Oh you were standing, would come to be standing still in such a god
• 29:02
  forsaken place. I mean we were walking along by here. Now wait a
• 29:07
  minute. First, just say you were standing, Then you say you were
• 29:11
  walking along. You're starting to lie your way around in it already. Burke
• 29:15
  pointed to the lantern lighted ground. Look see there's still some of the matches
• 29:22
  I used trying to find it. There and there and there, birds all
• 29:26
  called out vindictively. Some of these ferns up this way are bent and broken
• 29:30
  and flatten out, like there could very well have been wrestling going on on
• 29:33
  top of them. She did that herself, Burke said. She was moving
• 29:38
  around through him, looking up that way. Myers ignored them, went and
• 29:42
  examined them for himself, but then shook his head, not positive enough.
• 29:47
  There's been so many of these fools swarming all over the place before we got
• 29:49
  here. A distant shout was raised so far off it sounded faint where they
• 29:55
  were, but they all stiffened to attention. That sounds like something now d
• 30:00
  him over here to me, whoever he is Meyer called out commandingly. Burke
• 30:03
  could fill the blood slowly draining out of his face and neck, leaving a
• 30:07
  cold, prickling feeling in its wake. It took no little time for the
• 30:11
  envoy to make his way back to them, and he came quadruply accompanied when
• 30:15
  he found her back. Look isn't this hers? This powder gadget? As
• 30:18
  are initials on it. It was dangling from a bush. They'd all seen
• 30:23
  it already, but someone finally gave it voice and the dead hush that had
• 30:26
  fallen, someone had to be the first to put it into words. Look,
• 30:32
  there's blood on it. Burke's neck strained out, whipcorded Kathleen. He
• 30:38
  yelled harrowingly for the last time that night, as though there were both their
• 30:42
  death cries, and one his and hers, and the night brooded dark around
• 30:48
  him. Hang on to him, birds, all myers barked, Where was
• 30:52
  the fountain? Show us the place? There was a sudden, concerted surgeing
• 30:56
  after them in the one direction. As the beating about was abandoned where it
• 31:00
  had been going on until now, the sporadic lanterns started to converge like reverse
• 31:06
  rays, toward a single point from all over the woods. It was far
• 31:10
  across the woodland. It was nearly at the other side of it, where
• 31:12
  the fields and the meadows set in. Once more, it was just a
• 31:17
  bush now without the bag on it anymore. Myers began to spatter orders like
• 31:22
  a machine gun. Anything that happened to her happened right here. Now,
• 31:25
  spread out, and be careful where you put your feet. Anyone without lights
• 31:29
  drop out of this. There's too many of you fellows here. Discoveries began
• 31:33
  to come in sickening succession. Burke recoiled psychically, if not physically, at
• 31:37
  each additional one. Hey, Myers, here's a dark stain on this moss.
• 31:42
  Wait a minute, over this way, Look at this piece of light
• 31:45
  green stuff I found. I thought it was a leaf at first, but
• 31:47
  it's a torn scrap of thin dress goods. And then, in catastrophic culmination,
• 31:52
  the ubiquitous curve started yapping. Ah, there goes that blame mud again.
• 31:56
  Somebody said, disgustingly, don't pay it any attention to him, Hey,
• 32:00
  Parker, call your dog off. Unheeded whistling and commands of here spot
• 32:06
  mingled with the frenzied barking. He won't come away. This time, I
• 32:08
  better go and see the yapping died abruptly. There was a sudden, tense,
• 32:13
  waiting silence all around under the trees. It seemed to get to all
• 32:16
  of them at once. Those who were bending straightened up, those who were
• 32:22
  moving about stood still. Those who were standing still turned inquiringly in that direction.
• 32:28
  Then the voice of the dog's owner, calling out low, almost furtively,
• 32:30
  in contrast to the previous hubbub mius, better come here where I am
• 32:37
  that told the story. They all drew into a tight little knot around the
• 32:42
  man and the collared dog, and her, so beautiful. She had hurt
• 32:46
  the eyes only a little while ago. She still hurt the eyes. She
• 32:51
  was so horrible now, a welter of bloodied, battered inanimateness, nestled hidden
• 32:58
  within the dark green cloak, like a shroud out that the mongrel had pulled
• 33:00
  open with his teeth, so motionless, so unaware, so dead. For
• 33:09
  they said the things that men say at such a time, in husky baited
• 33:14
  voices, the ineffectual, paltry, anticlimactic things. Then they stopped saying them.
• 33:20
  The knot began to contract still more, bunching up, passing beyond her,
• 33:23
  entirely to try to close around a different center. Meyer saw it coming
• 33:28
  first. He was no slouch for a rural official. He breathed warningly across
• 33:32
  his shoulder to the deputy. Their turn and sour, get him out of
• 33:37
  here, quick, back to the car as fast as you can. He
• 33:39
  started to work as Gunfrey, backing away a step at a time to cover
• 33:43
  their retreat. Birds all clicked his manacle, and the arrest had become an
• 33:46
  actuality. It was almost a benefit now compared to the worst thing that was
• 33:51
  impending. They were like a troop of dangerous lowering apes, hesitant only because
• 33:55
  they hadn't found a leader yet to give them their voice. Meyer's own voice
• 34:00
  sounded throbbing with a sort of forced calmness. Now wait a minute, you
• 34:05
  men, easy, now, take it easy, now, none of that.
• 34:08
  We have no proof that this man did it. Yet, stand back.
• 34:12
  I'll fire at the first one of you. That And then suddenly the
• 34:15
  lacking leader Alan arriving with a gun on him and a disappointment at being delayed,
• 34:20
  changing to a fierce jinny glee as he took in the situation. At
• 34:23
  a glance, She's Kirby's girl, look at it. There is that how
• 34:27
  you'd want your girl? Look, are you gonna let him get away with
• 34:30
  that? Don't pay the attention to mayas I've got a gun on my own.
• 34:32
  Here, spread out your fools, get around behind him, cut them
• 34:36
  off. A shot blasted out, echoing like a roll of thunder under the
• 34:40
  trees. Abruptly, the frozen grouping liquefied turned into a headlong foot race through
• 34:46
  the woods. The deputy and his prisoner, handcuffed together, bent double speeding
• 34:51
  along in the lead, risked dashing their brains out at any moment if a
• 34:54
  tree should come between them. Meyer's midway between them and the pack, was
• 35:00
  stopping and turning every few steps to hold them back with a flourish of his
• 35:02
  gun or an actual warning shot over their heads. They made the car by
• 35:07
  the grace of moments. Myers jumped forward at their heels after the deputy,
• 35:10
  straining across Burke's body from the outside position, already had it swerving out into
• 35:15
  the road. Myers made it, held on, finally worked his way inside.
• 35:21
  Flashing lanterns and dark figures came streaming out across the roadway in their wake.
• 35:25
  Shoot for the tires, get their tires cried Alan's voice. They did
• 35:30
  a couple of times and missed. They had cars of their own, but
• 35:32
  they didn't attempt to pursue in them. It would have been too flagrant out
• 35:37
  here on the open highway. They preferred the anonymity of the woods to avenge
• 35:40
  a murder by another murder. None of the three could speak prisoner or captors.
• 35:45
  They were breathing too hard. Finally, as they neared the lights of
• 35:49
  the village, Myers panted, drive straight through, go stop till we get
• 35:53
  him to the jail at Glen River. He added apprehensively. This will come
• 35:58
  up again in a night or two, and the next time it does,
• 36:00
  it'll be the real thing. When they had him safely there and cell,
• 36:04
  Myers lingered a moment, looking at him while the turnkey held the gate.
• 36:08
  You sure got yourself in a mess, friend. The moon that had seen
• 36:13
  Kathleen Leary die was still peering in through the barred window opening. It should
• 36:16
  have been red, but it was still only innocent. White Burke raised his
• 36:22
  head suddenly and said, look, I'm not afraid to die. Fact is
• 36:27
  I care less now than ever before? But why should I die for something
• 36:30
  I didn't do? Meyers said crisply, but not unkindly. I just arrest
• 36:37
  I don't try. All I can point out is people that don't do something
• 36:42
  don't get in the position you're in right now. Ah. I may live
• 36:46
  to be tried, Burke told him, resignedly. Or I may only live
• 36:51
  until the sun goes down again tomorrow night. That's why I'd like to ask
• 36:54
  you to do something for me while I'm still alive, and while it can
• 36:58
  still do me some good. Send for Bill Bailey. Who's Bill Bailey,
• 37:04
  one of your crooked pals down in the city. You'll laugh. He's the
• 37:08
  dick I had to report to when I was first out on parole, but
• 37:12
  we got to be friends. He never jumps you when you're down. What
• 37:15
  makes you think he'd bother about a jail bird, Burke supplied. He told
• 37:20
  me if I was ever in trouble and didn't deserve it, to let him
• 37:22
  know and he'd stand by me. And he said if I was ever in
• 37:24
  trouble and did deserve it, he'd make it so hot for me I'd wish
• 37:28
  I'd stayed in the first time. Myers had one more question to ask him,
• 37:32
  what do you expect him to be able to do for you nothing.
• 37:36
  I don't care if he does nothing. It's just that you got to have
• 37:39
  a friend, just one friend at a time like this, that y know
• 37:44
  is around somewhere around or else. There's nothing to go on for any more.
• 37:50
  Tell me where I can reach him, the sheriff, Aqui asked thriftily,
• 37:53
  And I'll call him long distance before the day rates go into effect.
• 37:58
  Five. Bill Bailey was slim and of medium height, and looked as if
• 38:02
  he might be easy to handle in a physical encounter. He wasn't, as
• 38:07
  more than one adversary had found out to his cost. He had alert black
• 38:12
  eyes crackling with intelligence, and all his movements were quick and impatient, so
• 38:16
  much so that he seemed out of place in the South. He'd lost his
• 38:20
  drawl, too, but one of his tricks was to reassume it at times,
• 38:23
  perhaps to give a misleading impression of linguor. He dropped lithely off the
• 38:28
  rear platform of the local without waiting for it to stop around sundown the day
• 38:31
  after Kathleen Leary's murder. Even ordinary locals didn't stop here, just the caterpillar
• 38:37
  type that halted at every other telegraph pole along the way. The sun was
• 38:42
  glaring crimson all around him and made him squint. Birds all edged over said
• 38:47
  he missed her. Bailey from the city and the car. He confessed ruefully,
• 38:52
  I lost ten bucks to Myers. I I didn't think he'd come.
• 38:54
  He didn't either, but we couldn't both be on the same end of the
• 38:58
  bed, so we tossed for it all for the sake of a jail bird
• 39:01
  too. Bailey gave an apologetic shake of his head. I was just boring,
• 39:07
  soft hearted, I reckon, but my own curiosity got the better of
• 39:10
  me. Why he used to most say his prayers to her every night,
• 39:15
  Well he set him to her last night in a different way. They stopped
• 39:17
  at Myer's office first. Myers, like his subordinate, expressed surprise that the
• 39:22
  detective had actually answered Burke's summons for aid. Well, Sir Bailey explained deprecatingly,
• 39:30
  there was a much doin down my way right now, anyway, and
• 39:35
  I did try pretty hard to straighten him out while he was reporting to me.
• 39:38
  Man hates to think he's wasting his time. Course when he told me
• 39:42
  he was coming up here, he told you he was coming up here,
• 39:45
  Myers exclaimed in surprise. Sure enough, he told me I was the one
• 39:51
  staked him to the trip. He wouldn't have got very far without telling me.
• 39:54
  I might try straighten out the ones that seemed worth it, but I
• 39:57
  don't give them their o. He it's not for a year and years.
• 40:00
  They got back in the car and, at Bailey's request, drove to the
• 40:04
  undertakers in the village where the girl's body was before he interviewed the prisoner.
• 40:08
  Later, when they got to the jail, Myers led the way to the
• 40:10
  far end of the rickety cel Dick. He's in here, and do you
• 40:15
  want to talk to him alone? Bailey nodded. It may help him to
• 40:20
  talk free here. I'll just hear what he has to say. It won't
• 40:22
  take very long, especially if I think he's lying. In that case,
• 40:27
  I'll still be in time to take the seven ten back. When the crossbarred
• 40:30
  gate had been relocked behind him, Myers said, just let us know when
• 40:35
  you're through, mister Bailey, and sauntered back along the corridor to the front.
• 40:39
  So now they've got you for murder, Bailey said, bet you wish
• 40:43
  you were back where they just had you, and for holding up a filling
• 40:45
  station. No, said Burke doggedly, because then I knew I had done
• 40:51
  it. This time, I know I haven't, And I saw her at
• 40:54
  the undertaking parlor before I came here. She looked pretty again. Don't know
• 41:00
  how they did it, but you sure couldn't notice anything, well, hardly
• 41:04
  anyhow. Burke looked up relieved. I'm glad, he said, gratefully.
• 41:10
  I want to remember her like she was dancing, so sweet and pretty.
• 41:15
  Hold out your hand, Bailey said casually. There was suddenly a little lock
• 41:20
  of auburn hair lying in Burke's palm. That's hers, Bailey said, I
• 41:23
  snipped it off her lying there on the slap. I thought you might want
• 41:27
  some little thing like that to remember her by. Burke raised it a little
• 41:31
  higher toward his face with both hands, as if it were something very precious.
• 41:36
  Thanks, he breathed. His eyes missed a little in tenderness looking at
• 41:40
  it. The interview was suddenly over. Bailey gripped him by the shoulder,
• 41:45
  turned his back on him. Coming out, gents, he called through the
• 41:49
  grate. Real that was fast, Myers remarked, surprisedly when they were out
• 41:53
  of earshot. Once more, did he tell you anything at all? The
• 41:58
  whole thing, but not in words. You've got the wrong man. Bailey
• 42:02
  had supper at the sheriff's house. He was staying now. He had made
• 42:07
  that plane. Myers remarked when the meal was over. I won't take no
• 42:10
  stock in that fellow's innocence. He may have convinced you, but he hasn't
• 42:14
  me. You trying to argue she's strayed away from him while they were looking
• 42:17
  for the key, and some vagrant or hobo lurking in there set upon her.
• 42:22
  While your man's own story won't allow for that. He tells us over
• 42:24
  and over. He didn't hear a sound, not a whisper, he claims.
• 42:28
  She just disappeared like a puff of wind. Bailey raised his hand,
• 42:31
  silencing the flow of argument. I don't think a vagrant did it. If
• 42:36
  she had been alone in there, it'd be a different matter. But whoever
• 42:38
  saw her, he couldn't help. But see this boy Burke too, the
• 42:42
  way he was lighting matches, calling back and forth to her. What vagrant
• 42:45
  is gonna set on a girl when he knows there's a husky young fellow along
• 42:50
  with her. She was killed by somebody that knew her. Myers nodded vigorously.
• 42:54
  That's what we say, too, Boo. We go the whole hog
• 42:58
  and say that somebody was Burke, nobody but him, And I take it
• 43:00
  you mean someone who knew her outside of him exactly, someone who knew her
• 43:07
  besides Burke. How could it be done at all without him hearing it?
• 43:12
  Said Myers disgustedly. He poured some more BlackBerry brandy for his guest. But
• 43:15
  it was easy to see the latter had lost cast in his eyes. Why
• 43:20
  couldn't it be It's not a physical impossibility. Bailey used the sight of a
• 43:23
  forked diagram on the cloth. Once you accept my theory, it's easy enough
• 43:28
  to reconstruct it. Now. Look, there's no road along the far side
• 43:30
  of those woods where she was found lying. She knew those woods pretty well,
• 43:35
  but from passing through them all through her life. She didn't get lost
• 43:37
  therefore and stray all the way over there by accident. Neither is it likely
• 43:42
  she went looking for her key that far away. My idea is somebody followed
• 43:45
  them in unnoticed by the very same footpath they used themselves, spied on them,
• 43:50
  saw something he didn't like her that enraged him, and instead of coming
• 43:53
  out like a man and tackling. Burt waylaid her when she began drifting away
• 43:58
  from him, stunned her with an unexpected blow to the head so that she
• 44:01
  didn't even cry out, and then carried her out at earshot all the way
• 44:05
  over where she was found, and struck her repeatedly with something in an ungovernable
• 44:10
  rage with what interrupted his host Sharply, no lethal object was found around there,
• 44:17
  Probably a large flat rock of some kind. I understand there's a small
• 44:21
  woodland stream near there, Probably studded with him. He could have dropped the
• 44:25
  murder stone into its bed after he'd finished, so the natural action of the
• 44:30
  water would cleanse it of all traces. He stopped a moment, then went
• 44:34
  on. It's capable of variation and details. Of course, he mayn't have
• 44:37
  followed him. He may have been coming the other way toward them along the
• 44:40
  footpath and been just in time to see something that he resented. Suppose he
• 44:45
  did stutter at first, as you say, scoffed Myers. How is it
• 44:50
  she didn't revive by the time he got her over to the far side of
• 44:52
  the woods, at least long enough to let her out one good scream mean
• 44:57
  to say Burke wouldn't have heard that even in the distance. He might have
• 45:00
  held something over her mouth until Burke was out of the woods entirely. Remember,
• 45:05
  Burke went chasing clear up to her house first off, to see if
• 45:07
  she was there. The murderer may have counted on his doing that, and
• 45:10
  that suggested something else to me. I think the final act, the murder
• 45:15
  itself, was a deliberate afterthought, perpetrated to frame Burke. Myers just rolled
• 45:20
  his eyes at the ceiling, as though his patients were being taxed beyond endurance.
• 45:24
  You see, this person is not normal, whoever he is. Bailey
• 45:29
  explained she was a girl of a good character, so whatever he saw was
• 45:34
  little enough excuse in itself. His real hatred was directed toward Burke, but
• 45:39
  he was a yellow coward afraid to tackle Burke directly, so he took it
• 45:43
  out on the girl instead. Then, when he had calmed down again,
• 45:45
  he could tell he had already heard her badly. That frightened him. It
• 45:50
  meant jail at the very least if she had recovered, and she mightn't have
• 45:53
  recovered by that time. His natural cowardice came uppermost, and also his unsatisfied,
• 45:59
  longing to it even with Burke, he saw the way both to escape
• 46:02
  the blame for his own act and at the same time to revenge himself upon
• 46:07
  Burke. He cold bloodedly, fiendishly and knowingly finished what he had begun,
• 46:12
  changed her from badly injured to beyond help, so that the other man would
• 46:16
  be accused of it and suffer for it. The sheriff made one of his
• 46:22
  delayed catlike jumps, which had always been enormously successful with the colored population.
• 46:27
  And doesn't the whole thing still fetch her Burke better than anyone else. He
• 46:30
  loved her, didn't he. He came back to see her, didn't he
• 46:34
  He found her on the point of marrying another man, didn't he? Absolutely
• 46:37
  not, not in a million years. Bailey said, his crime wasn't Burke's
• 46:43
  type of crime. That proves it for me. His way to payoff would
• 46:46
  have been to single out the guy that he blamed for his losinger and beat
• 46:50
  him up, probably with half the town looking on. Try to get this
• 46:53
  through your head, Myers. You have a certain set situation. People can
• 46:58
  only react to it according to their own characteristics. They can't bury it no
• 47:01
  matter how hard they try. Burke's just a man that's had a tough break
• 47:06
  in outer life, but he's not all sick inside. This other man is
• 47:09
  must be, whether the people he's living among know it or not. He's
• 47:14
  got an inferiority complex. He's got some valid reason for it that none of
• 47:19
  you suspect. He's a victim of abnormal jealousy because of that same complex.
• 47:23
  On top of that, he's a coward, Burke, isn't He wasn't afraid
• 47:28
  to come back here just to see her once again when the whole town knew
• 47:30
  he'd been in jail and had no use for him. Was he? He
• 47:34
  wasn't afraid to step up to her in front of a couple hundred people and
• 47:37
  tell her he was taking her home, not beg her, tell her that
• 47:42
  took courage, didn't it. One man did those things. Another man,
• 47:45
  an entirely different type of man, skulked around behind the trees after her and
• 47:52
  beat her to death in the dark. One and the same man couldn't have
• 47:57
  done both things. That's elemental psychology in town. It solves our cases for
• 48:00
  us. They're in the country now, observed Myers dryly. We just use
• 48:07
  facts, not fancy words. A man's been in jail already for one crime.
• 48:12
  He takes the girl home alone through the woods, a girl that's thrown
• 48:15
  him over for somebody else. She turns up dead. He turns up all
• 48:19
  must up and covered scratches. Those are elemental facts. And out here,
• 48:23
  where are you going? He asked, as Bailey angrily shoved his chair back.
• 48:28
  I'm going out and look for someone who's an instinctive coward, who's got
• 48:30
  an inferiority complex, who's cursed with insane jealousy, who's subject to maniacal rages
• 48:37
  or even worse, and who's suffering from some congenital handicap or ailment that's at
• 48:43
  the bottom of everything else. He held up one hand, fingers spread.
• 48:47
  Those five things will tell me who the man is. Meyer's derisive, stentorian
• 48:53
  laughter boomed insultingly after him as he slammed out of the house. Now,
• 48:58
  when you've found him, come back, and I'll still show you the guy
• 49:00
  who killed Kathleen Leary in my jail. Six. Yes, I grew up
• 49:07
  with all of them, said the grocery store owner. Sure we had no
• 49:12
  old swimming hole, just us boys, did I me? Now there's a
• 49:15
  new crop of kids using it. Who was the best swimmer in your day,
• 49:19
  asked Bailey, Johnny Green, Was I reckon? Who took the most
• 49:22
  chances? Oh? This feller burt too bad? He turned out like he
• 49:27
  did. Who was always the last one in when the water was cold in
• 49:30
  the early spring? Who was afraid to dive in from way up high?
• 49:34
  I always spoiled it by flinching at the last minute and did a belly whopper.
• 49:38
  The grocer laughed and told him you must have grown up around an old
• 49:42
  swimming hole yourself to know so much about it. Bailey sauntered out of the
• 49:45
  store, unseen by the owner. He held up his right hand ticked off
• 49:50
  its little fingers of keeping count coward, he murmured. Yeh, said the
• 49:57
  kindly looking man in the white coat, wh the grinder's ache. They all
• 50:00
  come to me. Ain't nobody else in town for them to go to scare
• 50:05
  the wets out of them all? Huh, Bailey grinned. The dentist grinned
• 50:08
  back, Well, you know the old saying. Nobody loves a dentist.
• 50:13
  Some don't mind so much, others act upright ordery in the chair off hand?
• 50:17
  Who would just say was the hardest handle of all your patients, the
• 50:22
  dentist told him, then went on, of course there's some excuse in his
• 50:27
  case, Doc Morgan, and that's his family. Doctor advised me against giving
• 50:30
  him an anesthetic. Didn't say why, Hart Maybe Bailey strolled out, ticked
• 50:36
  off that same little finger. Still a coward, even grown up, He
• 50:40
  murmured, Who'd I say, offhand? Is the most popular feller comes into
• 50:45
  my place, said the bartender, wiping the counter with his bar rag.
• 50:51
  I don't know. He mentioned a name, a name Bailey had already heard
• 50:54
  twice before. I guess he is place always seems quiet when he's not in
• 51:00
  here. He's lively, convivial, no what I mean, telling stories,
• 51:05
  buying rounds of drinks for the whole house, sort of gathering everyone in the
• 51:08
  place around him. In other words, he works hard at being popular.
• 51:15
  Well he is popular, argued the barman. Well he buys frequent rounds of
• 51:20
  drinks, you say, Bailey, came back at him. Anyone who does
• 51:22
  that is bound to be popular. The real test is not to buy him.
• 51:27
  And then if there's still a crowd around you, you've got something outside.
• 51:30
  He ticked off the third finger of the hand he was keeping score on
• 51:34
  infery already complex. Yes, a boss, we is fixed, more comfortable
• 51:39
  than most color folks. He abouts. The old mammy agreed, corn cob
• 51:44
  pipe in mouth, leaning across the fence. How come it come out of
• 51:47
  misfortune? I reckon? You know how good sometime come out at evil?
• 51:52
  What misfortune? Asked Bailey? That sixth sense all good detectives should have warning
• 51:58
  him there was something here rele to his purpose. Oh, he ain't supposed
• 52:02
  to speak about it, she said reticently. She didn't appear inclined to give
• 52:07
  him any further information, But just then a peculiar goat like bleeding sounded from
• 52:12
  inside the open doorway. That's my little boy, she said, Hush,
• 52:15
  honey, mammy's coming reckoned. The flies must be pester him again, She
• 52:20
  turned and went in. Bailey promptly unlatched the gate and moved after her,
• 52:23
  unbidden. Something about that cry had sounded unnatural. A moment later, he
• 52:29
  recoiled from the doorway into the open again, horrified. The woman rejoined him.
• 52:32
  Presently, How old is he, he asked, about twenty two?
• 52:38
  Now he'll always be just five, like when it happened, though, we
• 52:42
  don't xactly like to show him to folks. She reproached him mildly. I'm
• 52:46
  sorry, auntie, He slipped a five dollar bill into her hand. Who
• 52:52
  did that to his head? Please don't ask me that, boss, But
• 52:55
  if it's forgotten us folks got a guard our tongues. Never mind, I
• 53:01
  know already. He murmured a name to test her reaction. It was the
• 53:06
  same one that had cropped up in the previous interviews. Isn't that right?
• 53:10
  Isn't that who did it? He prompted. Her expression was an admission in
• 53:15
  itself, without the need of words. She looked fearfully up and down the
• 53:21
  road, as if to make sure they weren't being overheard. He didn't mean
• 53:25
  it, she said, defensively. Just lost his temper for a minute cause
• 53:30
  my little boy tease him bash his head with a flat stone. He pick
• 53:32
  up his family, gave us five thousand dollars, make us a president.
• 53:37
  His plot of ground stranger the ways of the Lord. Bailey moved slowly out
• 53:42
  to the road again, saddened and sickened, he told off the middle finger
• 53:45
  of his hand. Subject to insane rages. Doctor Morgan came scuffling down the
• 53:52
  stairs in leather house slippers. Kind of late for a consultation, isn't it?
• 53:59
  He said? My sorry, Doc, I'm not a patient. I'm
• 54:01
  an insurance investigator. Bailey hitched his chair forward confidentially. A man whom we
• 54:07
  know to be a patient of yours has applied to us to take out quite
• 54:12
  a heavy insurance. I've been sent down here to find out if there's any
• 54:15
  reason we shouldn't underwrite this policy that you know of. Oh, come to
• 54:22
  me, haven't you medical experts your own? Yes, and he's already passed
• 54:27
  the physical examination. But there are often things that don't reveal themselves in a
• 54:32
  physical examination. Who is it? Bailey mentioned the name, the name that
• 54:38
  had already occurred in his conversations with the grocer, the dentist, the bartender,
• 54:44
  the negro mother. It was just a wild guess, but it worked.
• 54:46
  Morgan's face went white. He rose unsteadily to his feet, recoiled a
• 54:51
  step. I read the answer in your face, doctor, Bailey said,
• 54:55
  tight lipped. What is it? What's wrong with him? Can he tell
• 55:00
  you that? Don't you know what? Doctor's patience are treated in strictest confidence?
• 55:05
  I know the Hippocratic oath, But unless you speak out, this thing
• 55:08
  is going through. You'll be a party to a fraud. Why do I
• 55:14
  have to be dragged into this? Your company has its own medical testimony to
• 55:19
  go by. The transaction should stand to fall on the strength to that.
• 55:23
  All right, let's skip the insurance gag. I'm a detective and here are
• 55:27
  my credentials. Now out with it. Morgan eased his collar as though it
• 55:30
  constricted him, but his mouth remained stubbornly shut. Bailey knew there was no
• 55:36
  way in which he could force him to speak if he didn't choose to of
• 55:37
  his own free will. He tried a spursion to loosen the doctor's tongue.
• 55:44
  How much hush money have you been getting from him? Strangely enough, the
• 55:47
  doctor didn't flare up. No, he isn't like that, he said,
• 55:52
  almost submissively. He did offer me money, but I refused it. He's
• 55:58
  threatened to kill me if I ever breath a word about it. I know
• 56:01
  he would too. Then you refuse to tell me just what's wrong with this
• 56:06
  man? I can't. It will cost me my life. Bailey thrust out
• 56:12
  his thumb, tapped it very well, and you've given me my fifth factor.
• 56:16
  I don't need to know the exact name of his ailment. I can
• 56:20
  go ahead without it. Seven. The sky was overcast at the time of
• 56:24
  Kathleen Leary's funeral. The next afternoon, Bailey didn't attend. He had business
• 56:30
  of his own to occupy him. He visited the village tailor shop run by
• 56:35
  a near sighted, undersized man on the pretext of having a new crease pressed
• 56:39
  in his trousers. While he was waiting around in his shirt tail he asked
• 56:44
  the tailor if he did any worked for mentioning that recurrent name again. Yeah,
• 56:50
  that's a suit there, just come in for a cleaning job. Swell
• 56:53
  tweed, said Bailey, examining it idly. Peculiarly looking buttons too, all
• 57:00
  covered with leather. If one of'em was missing, what would you do,
• 57:05
  Gee, I don't know. I wouldn't be able to match them with
• 57:07
  what I got here. I'd have to phone him and ask him if he
• 57:09
  knew where he dropped it. His head disappeared momentarily behind a cloud of steam
• 57:15
  raised by the iron. They're all in place, though, Ain't they had
• 57:19
  a chance to look over it yet? No, Bailey said, quietly.
• 57:24
  One of those small ones down at the bottom of the sleeve is off.
• 57:28
  That's why I asked you. He dropped it unseen into his own coat pocket,
• 57:32
  covertly edged aside the razor blade he had just severed it with. Gee,
• 57:37
  I'll have to phone him right away, said the tailor worriedly. See
• 57:40
  if he knows where he lost it. Otherwise he'll think it come off in
• 57:44
  the shop here. Blame me. Can't send his suit back to him with
• 57:47
  three on one sleeve or on another. Bailey made straight from there to the
• 57:52
  house of Alan's girl, Mary lou Davis. The women of the community had
• 57:55
  come back from the funeral by now, but there was still something strangely dis
• 58:00
  lifeless about the village. He couldn't tell exactly what it was at first,
• 58:04
  Then as he hurried past the saloon in the dusk, that gave him his
• 58:07
  clue. There wasn't a soul in it. The usual array of corner loafers
• 58:13
  outside was ominously missing too. The bar man was standing by the door without
• 58:16
  a thing to do. Kinda slow, isn't it, Bailey remarked, In
• 58:21
  passing. The fellow gave him a wink, meant to impart secret information.
• 58:25
  He'll be a big rush of business for midnight after it's all over. Suddenly
• 58:31
  Bailey knew what the strangeness was he had detected about the village. There had
• 58:37
  been a wholesale disappearance of the adult male population. There wasn't an able bodied
• 58:44
  man in sight. They seemed to have all gone off to some secret meeting
• 58:47
  by pre arrangement right after the funeral was over. So tonight was the night
• 58:52
  Meyers should be warned. If he didn't know already. The detective hesitated about
• 58:58
  to turn back, but then he saw that he couldn't. He'd have to
• 59:00
  work faster than ever. He had a dead line of mob fury to work
• 59:04
  against. Now the surest way of saving Burke was to prove him innocent.
• 59:07
  The only way to prove him innocent in time was by going ahead with what
• 59:13
  he had been about to do. He fairly ran the rest of the way
• 59:15
  to the Davis girl's house. In the deepening twilight. She was on the
• 59:20
  porch. Luckily, for every second counted, there was a dead line within
• 59:23
  a dead line to beat. The more immediate one was the tailor's phone call
• 59:28
  to his customer about that missing button where they all took and disappeared to she
• 59:32
  complained at sight of him, Jojes dropped me like an old glove. Right
• 59:37
  after the funeral was over. He had no time to waste on preliminaries.
• 59:40
  You'll like excitement, don't you, miss Davis, he panted, drawing up
• 59:44
  short in front of the portrail. Do I her eyes sparkled. I've got
• 59:49
  some for you, but it'll take courage, he warned. What do I
• 59:52
  do Remember that dance dress Kathleen Larry had on Saturday night? Sure enough,
• 1:00:00
  so, sort of whispy and trailing like leaves all over. I've got one
• 1:00:04
  just like except in its yellow. Go upstairs and put it on. Fix
• 1:00:07
  your hair the way she wore hers closely as you can, sort it down
• 1:00:12
  over one eye and loosen back. Then get some kind of thin veil and
• 1:00:15
  put it over your head so your face can't be seen too clearly through it.
• 1:00:19
  See if you can do the whole thing in two minutes flat. There
• 1:00:22
  isn't much time. Nice stars, the girl could hardly contain herself. Where
• 1:00:28
  are we all going? And in the woods where Kathleen was killed Saturday night?
• 1:00:32
  Oooh, she breathed, shiveringly. What do you want me to go
• 1:00:37
  there for? He thrust his face close to hers and whispered it. This
• 1:00:40
  time she shrank back a step, put her hand over her open mouth,
• 1:00:44
  and stared at him round eyed. She would have given anything to back out,
• 1:00:47
  he could tell. If he'd pressed her, she probably would have.
• 1:00:52
  But he was wise in the ways of human nature. This Bailey, Sorry,
• 1:00:55
  he said shortly. Guess I came to the wrong party. Forget all
• 1:01:00
  about it. He turned on his heel and made as if to stride off.
• 1:01:04
  She came running down the steps after him, plucked out his sleeve.
• 1:01:07
  Mister Bailey, wait a minute out there. It I didn't say, I
• 1:01:09
  wouldn't know how. Just wait. Yeah, I'll be down in no time.
• 1:01:15
  Make it even faster than that, said Bailey gruffly. We've got to
• 1:01:17
  get there first. Dark clouds filled the sky as they drove part of the
• 1:01:22
  way out in her family's car. To save time, they left it just
• 1:01:25
  before the mouth of the short cut off the road and well hidden from sight.
• 1:01:30
  Then he led her in along the same route Burke and Kathleen had taken
• 1:01:34
  that night. They didn't follow the path through the other end. They left
• 1:01:37
  it in the middle and made their way through the woods to the far side
• 1:01:39
  where Kathleen's body had been found two nights before. Bailey chose a large tree
• 1:01:45
  and motioned her down out of sight behind it. Then he crouched down protectively
• 1:01:50
  beside her. Who are we waiting for? She asked breathlessly. You'll see
• 1:01:55
  here. Take this pocket light. Now listen while I tell you just what
• 1:01:59
  I want you to do. And when he had finished got that straight,
• 1:02:04
  I'll be right here in the back of you with my gun out, so
• 1:02:07
  don't be afraid. Nothing will happen to you. Don't get too close,
• 1:02:09
  though. As their whispering died out, an oppressive silence fell over the woods
• 1:02:15
  all about them. They could hardly see one another's faces. It was so
• 1:02:19
  dark where they were ensconced. He could make out the pale gleam of her
• 1:02:22
  dress. That was all. Once a twig snapped and she gave a nervous
• 1:02:25
  start. He quickly laid a reassuring hand on her arm to steady her.
• 1:02:30
  Put his finger to his lips in morning reminder the wait probably seemed much longer
• 1:02:35
  than it actually was. Then at last, the hushed sound of footfalls treading
• 1:02:39
  the turf and moss. Someone was drawing near them in the darkness a small
• 1:02:44
  stone, struck a root, A bow rustled as it was swept aside.
• 1:02:49
  The girl turned her veiled head toward Bailey inquiringly. He nodded signed her to
• 1:02:53
  get ready. He unlimbered his gun. A pocket light, someone else's,
• 1:02:58
  not the one the girl was holding, suddenly bloomed at a distance of about
• 1:03:01
  ten yards or so from them, and began to play slowly around on the
• 1:03:06
  ground. Little by little it drew nearer. It was impossible to see who
• 1:03:10
  was behind it Wielding it. Bailey waited until it had drawn within five yards
• 1:03:15
  of them, then touched the girl on the elbow. She stood up,
• 1:03:19
  moved out around the trunk of the tree, paced slowly forward, like someone
• 1:03:22
  walking in her sleep. She was holding the pocket light flat up against her
• 1:03:27
  at waist level. By his instructions, she shifted the little catch on it
• 1:03:31
  and softly diffused light like a ghostly halo or nimbus, peered upward from below,
• 1:03:37
  suffusing her bosom and shoulders and veiled head. She was tempering the directness
• 1:03:42
  of the beam by shielding it with one hand. There was a gasp.
• 1:03:45
  The oncoming light opposite her fell to the ground went out. Then a man's
• 1:03:50
  voice screamed in ungovernable terror. It was unrecognizable. It was so high pitched,
• 1:03:54
  almost equine. No, no, the voice keen not you. You're
• 1:04:00
  Dad, he buried you today. Get away from me, Kathleen. I'll
• 1:04:04
  kill you all over again if you come near me. The light the girl
• 1:04:09
  was holding went out. Bailey jumped quickly forward in the dark, thrust her
• 1:04:13
  aside in case a firearm should be brought into play. That's enough, get
• 1:04:16
  back, get behind the tree. He took the light from her, turned
• 1:04:19
  it on again, pointed forward. Larry Kirby, the banker's son, the
• 1:04:25
  man Kathleen had been pledged to marry, stood writhing there in its beam,
• 1:04:29
  doing a dance of nameless horror, as though every muscle in his body had
• 1:04:32
  gone mad. Bailey put his gun away. He didn't need it, after
• 1:04:38
  all. The man before him was held transfixed in the grip of something more
• 1:04:42
  powerful than any weapon could be. Right while they looked, he dropped in
• 1:04:46
  a threshing mass to the ground, clawing at it, foam coming from his
• 1:04:50
  mouth. Don't look, Bailey breathed to the girl. He snapped off the
• 1:04:56
  light, mercifully, blacking out the monstrous sight before them. He murmured,
• 1:05:00
  that's what Morgan knew and wouldn't tell me. You heard what he just said,
• 1:05:04
  didn't you. Yeah, she shuddered. He said he killed her the
• 1:05:11
  other night, and then come on, you're my witness. He caught her
• 1:05:15
  by the wrist. We've got to get to Burke before the mob does.
• 1:05:18
  Let him stay where he is. He'll be helpless until he gets over it.
• 1:05:21
  He started running full tilt through the woods, pulling her after him by
• 1:05:25
  the arm. Behind them. The groveling sounds as of a hog rooting for
• 1:05:29
  acorns, died out in the darkness. When they had reached the road once
• 1:05:32
  more, they flung themselves into the car, and Bailey took the wheel.
• 1:05:36
  There's a slim chance we may be able to beat them out to Glen River,
• 1:05:40
  he panted, if they were slow and starting. How'd yin know he'd
• 1:05:45
  come back there? Just now? What was he looking for? A button
• 1:05:49
  off his suit? He thought he lost it there when he killed her and
• 1:05:53
  was afraid somebody would find it and trace it to him. Bailey palmed it
• 1:05:56
  out of his own pocket. Here it is. Ard through the village had
• 1:06:00
  still had that same half empty appearance. Bailey had noted earlier. He covered
• 1:06:04
  the distance to Glen River at a speed that was enough to peel the skin
• 1:06:08
  from their faces. But their very first glimpse of the jail was enough to
• 1:06:11
  show them it was already over. Too many lights were winking from the cell
• 1:06:15
  openings for such a sparsely tenanted jail, and there was an impalpable haze still
• 1:06:20
  hovering over it. Not fire, but dust raised by the trampling of countless
• 1:06:26
  feet, with perhaps the smudge given off by numerous resin torches thrown in when
• 1:06:31
  they slashed up before the entrance. All the nondescript litter that marks the passage
• 1:06:35
  of a big, unruly crowd lay thickly about on the ground, shards of
• 1:06:40
  shattered glass, loose planks that had been used for battering rams, stones and
• 1:06:45
  bricks that had served as missiles, tattered newspapers, discarded liquor flasks. The
• 1:06:49
  sheriff was standing there in the devastated doorway, coatless and with several big tears
• 1:06:55
  in his shirt, as though he had been roughly handled, but otherwise apparently
• 1:06:59
  unhurt. You've got here too late, he shouted hoarsely. They broke in
• 1:07:02
  and took him out five minutes ago. Culn't ya hold them off? Bailey
• 1:07:06
  bellowed, wrathfully. We did the best we could. There was only three
• 1:07:10
  of us against fifty or sixty. They cut the phone wires and tied me
• 1:07:14
  and birds all in the turnkey up. I finally got my proof. The
• 1:07:16
  man's innocent, and this girl's my witness. Which way'd they go? Myers
• 1:07:20
  pointed, go back where Kathleen was killed, and take Larry Kirby into custody.
• 1:07:25
  You'll find him there. The rest of it was drowned out as the
• 1:07:27
  car plunged on ahead in the direction the lynching party had taken. The hum
• 1:07:31
  of voices coming through the thickets, and even gleeful shouts as at a picnic
• 1:07:35
  or barbecue told them where it was before they could even see anyone. The
• 1:07:40
  mob hadn't gone very far in off the road, fitful lantern flashes like fireflies
• 1:07:45
  on a spree, peered through the trees toward them. Bailey braked, vaulted
• 1:07:49
  out without opening the car door, and tore in toward the commotion, unlimbering
• 1:07:54
  his gun as he went. They were milling around in a clearing, like
• 1:07:57
  a pack of bloodthirsty headhunters. Burke stood in the center of them, all
• 1:08:01
  stripped to the waist, bound to a tree with rope. He was facing
• 1:08:04
  them unflinchingly, head up, without uttering a sound. There was no noose
• 1:08:09
  around his neck. Instead, Alan face, a mask of brutal satisfaction,
• 1:08:15
  was slowly emptying the contents of a gasoline can over Burke's shoulders, shifting from
• 1:08:19
  side to side so that both of them got wetted down Equally. A short
• 1:08:24
  distance away, a group was trying out a blow torch to make sure it
• 1:08:26
  was in working order. Even as Bailey came plunging through the trees, too
• 1:08:30
  quickly for them to see who it was and try to stop him, Its
• 1:08:32
  forked, fiery tongue shot out with the deep throated hum. The gasoline can
• 1:08:38
  went hurtling into the air. Alan went sprawling out full length on the ground,
• 1:08:42
  and Bailey was standing there in his place, covering Burke with his own
• 1:08:45
  body and watchfully sweeping his gun around from side to side. Turn this man
• 1:08:49
  loose, he grated. Larry Kirby, killed Kathleen. Get back, yeh,
• 1:08:54
  hear me? A dull growl of resentment went up. They started to
• 1:08:58
  close in on him. They were past listening to reason. Their appetite for
• 1:09:01
  cruelty had been wetted and couldn't be checked that abruptly, the foremost ones crouched,
• 1:09:06
  watching for a chance to rush in and overpower him. From somewhere in
• 1:09:10
  the rear, he heard a voice say, throw your lit cigarette, Adam
• 1:09:14
  Rufe. He's all weighted down, ready to go. Let the damn stranger
• 1:09:16
  blaze with him if he loves him so much. Bailey glimpsed the poisoned wrist
• 1:09:20
  just in time. Sighted at it fired, there was a yell of pain.
• 1:09:25
  Something red looped up in the air, and the wrist flopped over limp
• 1:09:28
  as a wrung chicken neck. Mary loud Davis suddenly came wriggling through their midst
• 1:09:32
  all disheveled and no longer pretty to look at, but more admirable now than
• 1:09:36
  she had ever been before in her life. She turned to face them at
• 1:09:41
  Bailey's side, held up her hands commandingly. Call him a stranger if you
• 1:09:45
  like, but you can't call me one. I was born and bred here.
• 1:09:47
  I'm wanting you, and Kathleen was my friend. You know I wouldn't
• 1:09:50
  lie to you. He's telling you the truth. I heard Larry Kirby,
• 1:09:54
  say, did it? I heard him with my own ears just now he
• 1:09:57
  has fits or something that none of us knew about until now. Keep them
• 1:10:00
  going, encouraged Bailey under his breath, gun still pointed forward, he edged
• 1:10:05
  around toward the back of the tree, started working on the knots that held
• 1:10:09
  Burke fast. By the time myers and birds all arrived, it was all
• 1:10:14
  over. Most of them had already slunk off, ashamed. A few lingered
• 1:10:17
  brazening it out, stood around talking it over in sheepish little knots of two
• 1:10:21
  and three. Bailey still had his gun out, but perhaps that was just
• 1:10:25
  an oversight. Burke was sitting on a stump, slowly refastening his shirt button
• 1:10:30
  by button, as if still dazed by the sudden turn events had taken.
• 1:10:34
  Mary Lou Davis was standing with arms folded, her back scornfully turned to Alan's
• 1:10:39
  whining attempts to whitewash himself. I don't want anything want to do with you,
• 1:10:43
  Joe Allen, she declared in a clear, ringing voice, after what
• 1:10:46
  I've found out about you tonight, and then with a look at Bailey that
• 1:10:50
  was plainly inviting. There are all kinds of men in this world, a
• 1:10:54
  girl'd be a fool to take your kind. Did you get him, Bailey
• 1:10:59
  asked the sheriff. He had dragged himself back to his own house from the
• 1:11:01
  woods. Meyers said, but when we went over there after him, we
• 1:11:06
  were just a minute too late upstairs in the bedroom with his own gun when
• 1:11:11
  he saw us coming up toward the front door. I was probably the best
• 1:11:15
  thing he cut it down, after all, Bailey said soberly. He was
• 1:11:18
  just a burden to himself and a menace to others. But how could he
• 1:11:23
  get in there into the woods that night on that injured footage? He got
• 1:11:27
  in there again tonight on it and without any crutches, didn't he missus?
• 1:11:30
  Davis and I both saw him with our own eyes. That was probably nothing
• 1:11:33
  but a painful little wrench he got. But he borrowed the crutches simply to
• 1:11:36
  show off how badly hurt he'd been, and to attract attention. He was
• 1:11:41
  that kind, as it turned out later, that came in very handy as
• 1:11:44
  an alibi. Then something happened to start that slow fuse of his rage sputtering.
• 1:11:49
  Somebody coming away from the dance probably tipped him off that Kathleen had left
• 1:11:54
  it with Burke. Maybe he waited for her at her house first, and
• 1:11:57
  when she didn't show up, he started in along the shore cut from the
• 1:12:00
  other end, looking for He was so cursed with a sense of his own
• 1:12:03
  inferiority that he couldn't even trust the girl who'd promised to marry him, had
• 1:12:08
  to spy on her. Maybe he saw them stop and kiss. For old
• 1:12:11
  time's sake, Who knows now any more, the demons in him came to
• 1:12:15
  the surface. He waited until they had drifted apart, hunting for her key.
• 1:12:18
  Then he stunned her with a vicious blow, caught her in his arms
• 1:12:21
  as she went limp carried her off soundlessly, out of reach. The exact
• 1:12:27
  mechanics of what came next will never know, because he and she are both
• 1:12:30
  gone now and the moon can't talk. A frenzied, jealous beating before she
• 1:12:34
  had even revived, then remorse, failure to revive her, and then deliberate
• 1:12:41
  murder, completing what he had begun to free Burke. It must follow along
• 1:12:45
  those lines. Tonight, he thought he saw her again, and coward to
• 1:12:49
  the bitter end, spoke his own confession. Bailey rested a sympathetic hand on
• 1:12:55
  Burke's shoulder. If it's all the same to you, I'd like to take
• 1:12:58
  this man back to the city with me now. He needs someone to keep
• 1:13:01
  a friendly eye on him. They went down the road together, side by
• 1:13:05
  side, Burke and the man who was the closest thing to a friend he
• 1:13:10
  had ever known. The night was dark, and the silver dollar moon that
• 1:13:14
  had seen Kathleen Leary die was gone, just as she was herself, And
• 1:13:18
  though Bailey was beside him, Burke walked alone. End of Section one.
• 1:13:25
  I'll take you home, Kathleen screen test. She's been getting threatening letters,
• 1:13:31
  he finished telling me. Don't they all? I said, anytime? The
• 1:13:35
  press agent can't think of anything else. No, not this time, he
• 1:13:40
  said firmly. I saw some of them myself. They were sent down here
• 1:13:44
  to us. I didn't answer. I suppose he could tell by my face
• 1:13:47
  I didn't like the deal. He looked me over curiously. What if you
• 1:13:51
  got against people like them? Her and the rest? You don't like him?
• 1:13:56
  Do you I've noticed that before? Should I? I said, sullenly.
• 1:14:01
  They're all phony in a yard wide? What makes them so special?
• 1:14:04
  Anyway? Who were they before? One of them used to lather men's kissers
• 1:14:10
  in a barber shop, anyone that had the price of a shave on him
• 1:14:13
  and walked in off the street, mind you. Another used to strut the
• 1:14:15
  Coney Island Boardwalk on stilts a barker for a side show. Does that mean
• 1:14:20
  they're not entitled to police protection? He inquired pointedly. Everyone is, I
• 1:14:27
  conceded grudgingly. Haven't they ever entertained you? He wanted to know. They're
• 1:14:33
  not real up there, I argued, I go and sit there in front
• 1:14:36
  of them, but they're not real. They're just photographs on celluloid. They
• 1:14:42
  eat, they drink, they sleep, They love, just like the rest
• 1:14:45
  of us. Maybe they're even lonely sometimes, maybe they're even scared. All
• 1:14:49
  I said was they wanted to be where they are, didn't they Nothing less
• 1:14:54
  would satisfy them. Well, now they're there, what do they want now?
• 1:14:58
  Sympathy? Did you ever see this one? He asked? I can't
• 1:15:01
  tell one from the other, I prevaricated, sulkily. They all look alike
• 1:15:06
  to me. They're just names going around without body As far as I'm concerned,
• 1:15:11
  Well, I wouldn't exactly call Betty Grable or Marilyn Monroe, for instance,
• 1:15:15
  someone going around without a He started to say that he didn't anyway.
• 1:15:19
  Her studio just called and asked us to furnish her with protection, and we
• 1:15:23
  are It's just like being a lapdog going around trailing one of them. I
• 1:15:29
  complain, half under my breath, babysitter to a why me anyway? Isn't
• 1:15:33
  there anyone else? He rattled some desk papers definitively a while back before we
• 1:15:39
  started this kind of informal conversation, I seem to recall giving you an assignment.
• 1:15:44
  Are you refusing it? No, sir, I am not. What
• 1:15:48
  else was there to say to that? All right, Gallbrays, get right
• 1:15:51
  out there and don't let her out of your sight until further notice. And
• 1:15:56
  remember one thing. Your job isn't to trace these threats or track down whoever
• 1:16:00
  symptom. It's just to keep your eye on Martha Meadows and see that nothing
• 1:16:03
  happens to her. You're responsible for her safety, Yes, sir, I
• 1:16:10
  said, I gave a sigh with it, but I said it just the
• 1:16:13
  same. Unquestionably, I was the most reluctant, unenthusiastic, semi mutinous plainclothesman
• 1:16:19
  whoever started out on an assignment. As I walked out of headquarters that day
• 1:16:24
  and thumbed up a taxi. The sooner I got busy on the job,
• 1:16:28
  I figured the sooner the chief might relent and take me off it. The
• 1:16:31
  taxi and everything else from now on was at miss Meadow's studio expense. But
• 1:16:36
  that didn't make me like her any better. Without actually wishing her any harm,
• 1:16:42
  I was far from being a devoted fan of hers at the moment.
• 1:16:45
  In fact, I could even almost sympathize with whoever was writing her the letters.
• 1:16:48
  That was the frame of mind I was in about her. The studio,
• 1:16:53
  a biscuit colored stucco job on Marathon Street, up near where Vine meets
• 1:16:57
  the boulevard, looked more like a real road car barn, blank side out
• 1:17:01
  than anything else. Having been born here and having lived in Los Angeles all
• 1:17:06
  my life, I had never expectedly enough been inside one of these places.
• 1:17:12
  In the same way that you never visit museums or other points of interest in
• 1:17:15
  your own town. It's always the outsiders who do that. I showed the
• 1:17:19
  gateman my credentials. He picked up a phone there, and his little booth
• 1:17:23
  said from place headquarters to see mess meadows, and at once everything opened up
• 1:17:28
  high, wide and handsome. I was passed from hand to hand like a
• 1:17:30
  basketball in a high voltage game. In the process of getting to her.
• 1:17:35
  She was in her bungalow dressing room, resting between scenes and having her lunch
• 1:17:40
  when the last of the receptionist relays tapped oh so apologetically and convoyed me in.
• 1:17:45
  Then he tactfully bowed right out again, just as studio underling, I
• 1:17:49
  guess, in the presence of majesty and not supposed to hang around her.
• 1:17:55
  The dressing room had chintz drapes like my wife has at home, only ours
• 1:17:59
  aren't as good. Her lunch was a malted milk and a paper thin sandwich,
• 1:18:02
  the lettuce leaf thicker than the bread that held it. Probably something to
• 1:18:06
  do with her measurements, which were of national moment, not to me but
• 1:18:11
  to the entire feminine population. No doubt she had a thick make up on,
• 1:18:15
  but somehow it wouldn't work. By that, I mean, underneath it,
• 1:18:18
  she still looked sort of fresh and clean, soap and scrubbing brush type.
• 1:18:23
  She looked like your best friend's kid's sister, about like that the one
• 1:18:26
  that suddenly grows up and turns beautiful in front of your eyes, but you
• 1:18:29
  still never get used to it. She's always just a kid to you,
• 1:18:32
  that one Gallbraith from head quarters, Miss Meadows, I said, perfunctorily.
• 1:18:38
  She looked at me for a minute, and then she said, sort of
• 1:18:41
  solemnly, you don't look at all like I thought detectives do. I came
• 1:18:45
  right back with and you don't look at all like I thought picture stars do.
• 1:18:49
  She waited, thought about it, then finally asked, is that good
• 1:18:54
  about picture stars? Very good? I said, earnestly. Then I asked
• 1:18:59
  her, is that good about detectives? She dropped her eyes closed, opened
• 1:19:04
  them again to show me. She meant yes, And I don't know.
• 1:19:08
  But then, just like that, all of a sudden, we were friends.
• 1:19:12
  We liked each other. A colored woman her maid, I guess,
• 1:19:15
  looked in and started to say, honeys you nearly then when she saw me,
• 1:19:19
  she scrutinized me good. Her eyes traveled down me until they reached my
• 1:19:23
  hand. Then they locked there and she burst out suddenly, look here,
• 1:19:27
  man, don't you bring that little cigarette in here? What you want to
• 1:19:30
  do with that? Child? She plucked it unceremoniously away from me, took
• 1:19:33
  it outside the door and trampled on it heavily, far more than was required
• 1:19:36
  to deaden it. I didn't know what it was all about for a minute.
• 1:19:41
  I hadn't been drawing on it, and the Meadows Girl looked too young
• 1:19:44
  to be an asthma sufferer. Don't get so peevish, Nelly marth the Meadows
• 1:19:47
  ordered with an indulgent smile. She means this, she explained to me,
• 1:19:51
  and pointed to her dress. It has celluloid underneath to stiffen it if a
• 1:19:56
  spark gets on it. She was dressed as a Civil War bell with a
• 1:20:00
  wide hoop skirt the size of a beach umbrella. Just cause it ain't happen
• 1:20:03
  so far, don't mean it can't happen yet for you. Through snapped the
• 1:20:06
  protective Nelly wardrobe. Has no right to make you up such a thing.
• 1:20:11
  Anyhow. She continued about her business, muttering darkly to herself. The Meadows
• 1:20:15
  Girl winked at me and said half under her breath, always looking on the
• 1:20:19
  dark side of things. The dressing room telephone rang, and she picked it
• 1:20:24
  up. All right, I'm ready whenever you are. She turned to me,
• 1:20:29
  I have to go back on the set now. We're shooting the big
• 1:20:30
  scene this afternoon. Sophy, you'll excuse sorry, I said quickly. You
• 1:20:34
  don't understand. I'll have to go right along with you. Those are my
• 1:20:38
  orders. She thought about that for a minute, then shrugged. I have
• 1:20:42
  no objection, but the director mayn't like the idea of admitting outsiders to the
• 1:20:45
  set. He hates to have people watch him when he works. He's very
• 1:20:49
  temperamental, you know. I gave her a sleepy eyed look and said,
• 1:20:54
  he'll get over it. She put a little antiquated looking shawl around her shoulders.
• 1:21:00
  Nelly handed her a pair of old fashioned lace mits, and the three
• 1:21:01
  of us left the bungalow. I let her and the maid go in front,
• 1:21:05
  and I followed at a discreet distance. They walked along a number of
• 1:21:09
  lanes between low studio buildings. It was like a little city in itself in
• 1:21:13
  there, and finally stopped before an entrance that bore the sign set eight Meadows
• 1:21:17
  Civil War picture. People were hanging around outside it, some in costume and
• 1:21:23
  some not. They looked strange to see a girl concealed in crinoline down to
• 1:21:27
  her toes chatting with a girl in bull fighter pants and a halter top.
• 1:21:30
  They made way for her respectfully. As she passed through them and went in.
• 1:21:34
  She bowed slightly to one or two, and they nearly fell all over
• 1:21:38
  themselves bowing back. Inside. The place had a cement floor Chris crossed over
• 1:21:44
  with a lot of little steel rails like baby train tracks. I suppose they
• 1:21:47
  were for moving heavy camera trucks back and forth. I don't know. I'm
• 1:21:51
  just giving you a detective's eye view of something, and I didn't know the
• 1:21:55
  first thing about. Cables and ropes and wires and pulleys galore were dangling from
• 1:22:00
  the rafters. Canvas backdrops were stacked like cards up against the walls. But
• 1:22:05
  it wasn't out here they were going to shoot the scene, I could tell
• 1:22:09
  that much. There was a soundproof door with a light bulb over it,
• 1:22:13
  leading into the sound stage itself where the action was to take place. Before
• 1:22:17
  we got to it, though, a bald headed man in a pullover sweater
• 1:22:20
  came up to meadows. He was about five feet tall and with a nose
• 1:22:24
  like an eagle's beak. A girl carrying a thick script chunky as a telephone
• 1:22:29
  directory was following him around wherever he went by a process of elimination. I
• 1:22:32
  figured he must be the director. He was too short and homely to be
• 1:22:35
  her leading man. He wasn't in costumes, so he wasn't the heavy and
• 1:22:40
  he wasn't in a business suit and sitting still in an office, so he
• 1:22:43
  wasn't the producer. How is this? He asked, meaning me. When
• 1:22:47
  she explained, he raised both hands to his head as if he would have
• 1:22:50
  liked to tear out some hair. Only, as I've mentioned, there wasn't
• 1:22:54
  any there that he could. Now A's detective, he said, first it
• 1:22:59
  was I had made, then somebody else, now him who it had been
• 1:23:02
  next to? Sorry, too many people around here. I can't verk in
• 1:23:04
  Crawbs. I am sensitive. She kept trying to calm him down. Now
• 1:23:10
  store me, and I thought that was a very good name for him.
• 1:23:13
  Now Stormy, he won't be in the way. When I was in UFA
• 1:23:17
  in Berlin, he declaimed, you think they would dare do this to me?
• 1:23:21
  At UFA I got the respect. At UFA was no CoP's butting into
• 1:23:27
  my verk. I didn't like being called a cop. I gave him a
• 1:23:30
  pun and a sour look both at the same time. Well, I'm ooffully
• 1:23:34
  sorry, but you're not at UFA now, you're in the study of Los
• 1:23:38
  Angeles. Yah los aunt j lis, he agreed, spitefully. Finally,
• 1:23:45
  I cut the whole thing short by saying I'd phone in and leave it up
• 1:23:47
  to the chief whether I went in or stayed out. He was the one
• 1:23:49
  who had given me the assignment in the first place, and I'd put it
• 1:23:53
  up to him. But the one telephone I could locate inside the place was
• 1:23:57
  already in use, and I had to chase all the way outside and around
• 1:24:00
  to the studio commissary before I could find another. The Chief went off like
• 1:24:04
  a firecracker when I told him, what's the matter with these people? Anyway?
• 1:24:09
  I'm beginning to think you're right. First they asked me for a bodyguard
• 1:24:12
  for then we start shooing him away. You go in there, gal,
• 1:24:14
  and if they try to keep you out, quit the case cold and report
• 1:24:16
  back here to me. I'll wash my hands of all responsibility for her safety,
• 1:24:20
  which was music to my ears, as I hadn't liked a job from
• 1:24:24
  the start. When I got back, sure enough, this stormy petrel of
• 1:24:28
  a director had taken advantage of the opportunity. The soundproof door was already closed,
• 1:24:32
  the red light was on above it to warn that shooting was ready to
• 1:24:34
  start inside, and they had all gone in without waiting. There was even
• 1:24:39
  a guard stationed outside the door to keep people from opening it by mistake.
• 1:24:43
  It wasn't her fault, he told me. Storman argued her and going in
• 1:24:47
  without you, And he's some arguer that boy. Oh he did, did
• 1:24:51
  he? I burned? Who does he think he is? He may be
• 1:24:55
  the whole cheese around here, but he's not even a bad smell to us
• 1:24:58
  down at headquarters. I didn't want to crash the door open and force my
• 1:25:01
  way in. It would have ruined the scene, cost the company thousands of
• 1:25:03
  dollars, and it wouldn't have been fair to Meadows, who wasn't to blame
• 1:25:08
  in the first place. Only an angel like her, the guard was confiding
• 1:25:12
  to me, could get along with him. Nobody likes him. Give her
• 1:25:15
  my regards when she comes out, I said, bitterly, and tell her
• 1:25:18
  for me. But that, almost as though I'd been overheard, the door
• 1:25:23
  suddenly opened from the inside without any warning. The red bulb automatically dimmed and
• 1:25:28
  a series of jagged screams stabbed out at us, the screams of the dying.
• 1:25:31
  They were like, no one could scream like that and go on living
• 1:25:34
  very long. That's real, that's not in the scene. The guard yelped,
• 1:25:39
  unnecessarily jolting with shock. He didn't have to tell me. It had
• 1:25:42
  to be real. No imitation scream could have sounded like that. Meadows made
• 1:25:46
  was suddenly in the doorway, arms pin wheeling all around her in a futile
• 1:25:49
  flurry. Her own voice was almost gone from fright, Oh, somebody quick,
• 1:25:54
  somebody. I've been hammering on his door. I thought I'd never get
• 1:25:56
  it open. But the screaming went right on behind her, in a sort
• 1:25:59
  of flickering light effect, like a jittery sunrise that kept moving around from this
• 1:26:02
  side to that. I rushed in the guard after me. Martha Meadows,
• 1:26:06
  with the camera still playing on her, was burning alive there before everyone's eyes.
• 1:26:11
  She was a living torch, a funnel of fire from head to foot
• 1:26:14
  and screaming her life away. She was running blindly here and there like some
• 1:26:16
  kind of a horrible human firework, and the flames were streaming after her like
• 1:26:21
  ribbons flattened out by the swiftness of her rushing. She was out of her
• 1:26:26
  head, mad with agony, and kept eluding their extended arms, ducking and
• 1:26:30
  doubling back and forth with hellish agility, while her life went up in vivid
• 1:26:32
  yellow white gushes. I'll see that scene for years to come on every screen
• 1:26:39
  I sit before. It will come back again. I didn't try to catch
• 1:26:43
  her in my arms. I couldn't. I flung myself at her bodily head
• 1:26:45
  down right into the flames, like in a football tackle. I wept,
• 1:26:49
  stinging hands around something soft and quivering inside that glow that had once been cool
• 1:26:54
  human flesh. The pillar of fire toppled over and lay horizontal along the ground,
• 1:26:59
  with the flames foreshortened now and just locking upward all around it like bright
• 1:27:02
  scallops. A blanket or something was thrown over her and partly over me too.
• 1:27:06
  As it fell, a puff of horrid black smoke spurted out all around
• 1:27:10
  the edges. The last scream stopped, and she was still. I held
• 1:27:14
  my breath to avoid inhaling any of the damned stuff. I could feel rescuing
• 1:27:18
  hands beating all around the two of us through the blanket After a minute,
• 1:27:23
  I picked myself up. My hands were smarting, my shirt cuffs were scorched
• 1:27:27
  brown in places and peeling back, and sparks had eaten into the front of
• 1:27:30
  my suit. Otherwise I was all right. But what lay under the blanket
• 1:27:34
  alone now didn't move five minutes ago, one of the most beautiful girls in
• 1:27:41
  America, and now something it was better not to look at, as if
• 1:27:45
  in gruesome jest. The winking eyes of the cameras were still focused on her,
• 1:27:48
  and in the deathly silence that had now fallen, you could hear the
• 1:27:53
  whirring noise that meant they were still grinding away unattended. The crew were all
• 1:27:59
  down on the floor round. No one had had the presence of mind enough
• 1:28:01
  to turn them off. The guard who had been at the door had sent
• 1:28:04
  in a call for help even before the flames had been beaten out. The
• 1:28:09
  studio had a first aid station of its own door or two away, and
• 1:28:12
  two men arrived with a stretcher and carried her out on it, still under
• 1:28:15
  the blanket. Nellie went with them, staggering like a wounded steer, and
• 1:28:19
  pleading with someone, someone whose identity only she knew. No, Please,
• 1:28:25
  No, don't do this, Hans clasped before her eyes. Storman for once
• 1:28:30
  was wordless, stunned with shock, I guess, and shaking like a leaf,
• 1:28:34
  with all the cowardice that only loud mouthed little men like him could know.
• 1:28:39
  Terrified even by the other person's calamity, but not by sympathy, only
• 1:28:43
  because they were so close to it that it might have happened to themselves.
• 1:28:46
  I saw one of the electricians giving him whisky in a paper drinking cup.
• 1:28:50
  The script girl was the only one there who seemed to have kept her head
• 1:28:53
  about her, staring owlishly through those oblique shaped glasses. She wore down at
• 1:28:58
  the pages of her script, as though this whole thing puzzled her. I
• 1:29:00
  went over to her, dabbing some oil they'd given me on to the angry
• 1:29:04
  red patches on the backs of my hands and wrists, and asked, how'd
• 1:29:08
  it happen? It's not in here, she said, continuing to pour.
• 1:29:13
  It's not in here. I swallowed hard to cork up my patience. It
• 1:29:17
  wouldn't be wo it, I tried again. Where Where was she when it
• 1:29:23
  happened? Right here? She said instantly, and put her finger down Right
• 1:29:28
  here, see where it says, oh, won't he ever come? She
• 1:29:31
  even turned the script around helpfully so I could read it with less difficulty.
• 1:29:35
  That's her line. I was following very closely the way I'm supposed to.
• 1:29:40
  She's supposed to be waiting by the window for her lover. Well, she
• 1:29:43
  spoke it all right, And then the next thing I knew, there was
• 1:29:45
  a funny shiny light on the pages of my book. I looked up,
• 1:29:48
  and it was coming from her. She had it all over her. I
• 1:29:53
  quickly looked back at the book to see if it was some new effect they
• 1:29:56
  thought up, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I gave her up.
• 1:30:00
  This wasn't a girl. This was a machine. I bet. Even on
• 1:30:02
  her own deathbed, she had asked her maker, what's my next line?
• 1:30:05
  Lord? I've lost my place in the script. I tackled Storman next.
• 1:30:11
  He was on his third or fourth paper, cupful by now and getting bleary
• 1:30:14
  in a heavy teutonic way. You could see that he felt deeply sorry for
• 1:30:18
  himself. Mind picture. He was lamenting mind Kleiner picture, Ach, Why
• 1:30:26
  couldn't it have happened after not? Now? We had only two days work
• 1:30:30
  left. I wasn't there to express my personal opinion of any of them,
• 1:30:34
  and maybe I had no right to, but I couldn't hold it back.
• 1:30:38
  You people, I let him know in a scathing undertone, must have come
• 1:30:43
  up out of the bottom of the bread box. I never saw such crumbs
• 1:30:45
  in my life, and I've sat out in front of many a lineup.
• 1:30:48
  Believe me, she's thinking about the lines in her script. You're thinking about
• 1:30:53
  your picture. Well, there happens to be a poor, miserable human being
• 1:30:56
  who, if she's conscious at all right now, is probably suffering the tortures
• 1:31:00
  of the damned. I'm thinking about her, mister big shot heiny director.
• 1:31:06
  He was stunned. Probably no one had ever spoken to him like that since
• 1:31:10
  he first arrived in the country. His mouth dropped open. You talk to
• 1:31:15
  me, he breathed, Yes, I talked to you. I tapped my
• 1:31:18
  finger insultingly three times against his chest for emphasis. Now you see that you
• 1:31:25
  talk back to me. I'm not on the studio payroll. I don't have
• 1:31:28
  to cowtow to you. I hadn't forgotten that it had been his doing that
• 1:31:31
  I'd been barred from the set in the first place. Seeing that he wasn't
• 1:31:35
  up against one of his usual yes men. He was suddenly meek as a
• 1:31:39
  lamb, only giving a look or two a round to make sure no one
• 1:31:42
  was near enough to witness his submission. What do you wish? I say
• 1:31:45
  to you? Here's what I'm asking you. Did you or did you not
• 1:31:48
  see? What cost it? No? He said, like a small kid,
• 1:31:54
  answering the school truant officer. You didn't, Well, where were you
• 1:31:58
  when it started? Right here? My chair, this same chair where I
• 1:32:02
  am now looking right at her, watching her verk and suddenly begins flims from
• 1:32:10
  nowhere? Flims one minute is nothing, the next flims, he gestured,
• 1:32:14
  ripplingly. They don't begin from nowhere. They got up again from somewhere.
• 1:32:18
  Did you know about her dress? A little of his former hauteur returned,
• 1:32:24
  That is wardrobe. That is not my department. I only carreate the picture.
• 1:32:28
  I do not dress. It was any one smoking a cigarette in here?
• 1:32:31
  Absolutely not, he said emphatically. I would not have permitted the lenses
• 1:32:38
  would pick up the haze. Maybe you have to be careful of such things
• 1:32:41
  when you direct. Did she brush against any wires? Maybe? Where do
• 1:32:45
  you see near? Round this is the inside of the old time house.
• 1:32:50
  You can see for yourself. Wires don't belong. What about this thing?
• 1:32:56
  I picked up a lighted oil lamp that was standing on the fake window sill,
• 1:32:59
  but side which she had been standing. Then I put it down again.
• 1:33:02
  It had an electric torch hidden in the base of it. Who was
• 1:33:05
  doing the scene with her? She wasn't alone in it was she? One
• 1:33:10
  oz player Ruth Tobias got to go crying over his ea. I let him
• 1:33:15
  go back to his paper drinking cups and started over toward her. She was
• 1:33:18
  having Academy Award winning hysterics across the back of a chair, and for a
• 1:33:23
  moment, for a moment only, as I stood looking down at her,
• 1:33:27
  I thought someone with a heart. At last, she raised her head and
• 1:33:30
  looked at me, and without knowing she was doing it, blew her chances
• 1:33:33
  for my sympathy. Two whole years, she heaved, with ricocheting breath,
• 1:33:40
  two whole years to make a comeback. It's taken me and now this,
• 1:33:44
  And when you've been on the shelf for two years in this business, you're
• 1:33:46
  dead. Now I'm finished. Now, I'm through. Now I may as
• 1:33:49
  well give up, I felt like saying, your skin isn't burned off all
• 1:33:55
  over you though the way hers is, bud. I didn't. I said,
• 1:34:00
  instead, I want to ask you something. You were right there in
• 1:34:03
  the scene, whither Did you see what it was? Did you see what
• 1:34:06
  happened to her? She was an attractive woman. They were still telltale traces
• 1:34:12
  of it to be seen under the make up, the unflattering costuming and the
• 1:34:15
  alcohol puffiness. But it had taken a terrible beating her attractiveness. Maybe during
• 1:34:20
  those two years she was gotten up to look old and severe, old matish.
• 1:34:26
  She was in black and carried a lorn yet, and her hair was
• 1:34:29
  pulled back tight in a cranky knot. I played her older sister, she
• 1:34:33
  said, and I was glad to take the part. I would have played
• 1:34:35
  her grandmother if I'd had to. Why should I kid you? I begged
• 1:34:40
  them for it. I practically got down on my knees. I told them
• 1:34:43
  I knew the story backwards, and they finally gave it to me. It's
• 1:34:45
  a remake, you know. I didn't. What's more, I didn't care
• 1:34:49
  I had to lead in it the first time around. Don't you remember Magnolia's
• 1:34:53
  and honeysuckle, that's what this is. I should remember picture titles, don't
• 1:34:59
  you rememb she said, then wandly, they're not real up there, I
• 1:35:04
  started to say. Then I didn't go ahead to get back, I said,
• 1:35:09
  pointedly. She ran her hand in front of her eyes. What was
• 1:35:13
  it, you asked me? She said, with an effort. Did you
• 1:35:15
  see how it happened? No? I was in that rocker there on the
• 1:35:19
  set, facing her way, and yet I wasn't watching for something to happen.
• 1:35:26
  How did I know something was going to happen. I didn't have any
• 1:35:28
  lines to queue two. My mind was a thousand miles away. All I
• 1:35:31
  kept thinking was I won't have to stand behind any more counters in the dime
• 1:35:35
  store. I won't have to carry any more trays out to cars. Please,
• 1:35:41
  miss Tobias, I said, almost embarrassed. I don't want to know
• 1:35:45
  your personal thoughts. I only want to know what your eyes saw. I'm
• 1:35:48
  supposed not to approve of the fellow she's intending to run off with, But
• 1:35:53
  all I do to show is to keep rocking back and forth, back and
• 1:35:56
  forth through the whole scene. She had her back to me over at the
• 1:36:00
  window. I was looking right at her, and all of a sudden she
• 1:36:03
  was on fire from head to foot as quickly as that, and for no
• 1:36:06
  earthly reason that I can make out. All I had time to do was
• 1:36:10
  jump back out of the way myself. You would, I thought, that's
• 1:36:14
  you. Was it unusually hot in here? I asked, Do you think
• 1:36:18
  that might have done it? No, it's always warm under the lights,
• 1:36:21
  but it wasn't unusually so this time. Not hot enough for that. I
• 1:36:26
  know, because I'm very susceptible to heat, and I wasn't at all uncomfortable
• 1:36:30
  myself. Did you know about those hoop skirts? Is yours like that too?
• 1:36:35
  She had to examine hers before she could give me the answer, you
• 1:36:39
  mean that stiffening Mine doesn't have any Yes, I did hear vaguely something about
• 1:36:43
  that, but I didn't think twice about it. They left mine limp because
• 1:36:46
  there's a scene, not this one, in which I have to hold her
• 1:36:49
  in my arms, and they found it wasn't manageable with two hoop skirts.
• 1:36:54
  We couldn't get close enough to each other. Just then word was brought in
• 1:36:58
  that impossible, as it sounded. The Meadows girl was still breathing. She
• 1:37:01
  was going fast, though they said, just a matter of minutes. Now
• 1:37:05
  they'd given her morphine to kill the pain. Is she conscious or completely out?
• 1:37:11
  I asked, semi conscious, you know, sort of groggy from the
• 1:37:14
  hypo. Quick. Then let me see her a minute. Oh you can't
• 1:37:17
  question her now, they protested, a pault. I won't subject her to
• 1:37:21
  questioning. Just take me to her a minute. It was a slim chance,
• 1:37:25
  but maybe she herself knew what had caused it. She might have seen
• 1:37:29
  it happen and not been able to prevent it in time. If only I
• 1:37:31
  could get to her to whisper that. To me, it was a monstrous
• 1:37:35
  thing. They showed me lying on a cot in a darkened room, like
• 1:37:39
  a mummy, crisscrossed with yards and yards of gauze bandaging. No eyes,
• 1:37:44
  no ears, no nose, no anything. A crevice between the bandages for
• 1:37:48
  a mouth, two bandaged paws atop the sheets, the faithful Nelly there on
• 1:37:55
  guard beside her. I put my face down close Martha, I whispered,
• 1:38:00
  Martha, can you hear me? She moved a little, or I thought
• 1:38:03
  she did, which amounts to the same thing. Martha, I begged again,
• 1:38:09
  Martha, neddows what caused the accident. Just now. I couldn't tell
• 1:38:15
  whether she had heard me or not. There was no way I repeated the
• 1:38:18
  question. Then suddenly I saw her head sway slowly from side to side,
• 1:38:24
  slowly and slightly. No accident, she mumbled. Then she muttered something else,
• 1:38:31
  but so low I couldn't catch it any more. A minute later,
• 1:38:34
  her head had lolled loosely over to the side again and stayed that way.
• 1:38:40
  She was gone. I went outside and stood there, lost in thought.
• 1:38:45
  I hadn't found what I'd come to find out, what did it? But
• 1:38:47
  I'd found something else, much more important. No accident meant that had been
• 1:38:54
  done purposely. What else could it mean? Or was I building myself a
• 1:38:58
  case out of thin air delirium, morphine and a shaking of the head and
• 1:39:02
  her death throes that I'd mistaken for no. I tried to convince myself I
• 1:39:06
  was just looking for trouble. But it wouldn't work. I had to answer
• 1:39:11
  pro for every argument. Con She had known what I was asking her just
• 1:39:15
  now. She had answered me with her voice as well as with the motion
• 1:39:18
  of her head. She hadn't been out of her mind. Death will strike
• 1:39:24
  during unconsciousness or sleep. Maybe but never during delirium. The mind will always
• 1:39:29
  clear just before it breaks up, even if only an instant before. And
• 1:39:32
  hadn't she gotten threatening letters and asked for protection anyway, I told myself,
• 1:39:39
  as long as there was a doubt in my mind, it was up to
• 1:39:41
  me to track it down until there wasn't any doubt left, either one way
• 1:39:45
  or the other. That was my job. Nellie came out. She wasn't
• 1:39:49
  pleading any more like she had been on the set. There wasn't anything left
• 1:39:54
  to plead for now. She walked as though her legs were in plaster casts.
• 1:39:59
  She didn't see me, She didn't see any one. I guess.
• 1:40:02
  I didn't know what to call a middle aged colored woman that would stop her
• 1:40:04
  most effectively. I didn't want to say hey, I didn't want to say
• 1:40:09
  you there. Finally I went after her and touched her arm. Party.
• 1:40:15
  I said, like to talk to you a minute. She stopped and turned
• 1:40:18
  and looked at me. She still didn't see me, I could tell,
• 1:40:21
  but she looked at me anyway. If I am a party, I ain't
• 1:40:26
  a happy one. I'm a funeral party. Jes call me desolation and let
• 1:40:29
  me go. My way won't keep you along. They must have been casting
• 1:40:33
  in heaven to day, but they sure picked a miserable, low down way
• 1:40:35
  to fill their star part, she said, with a sort of suppressed rancor.
• 1:40:41
  And was she going to use a mate for on set up? There?
• 1:40:44
  Some skimpy angel don't even know how to look after her nylons, right.
• 1:40:47
  I wasn't sure if this was her own native poetry or she'd been listening
• 1:40:50
  to actors say there are lines around her too long. I'm gonna buy me
• 1:40:54
  a bottle o gin, she said, and keep on drinkin it down till
• 1:40:58
  I can see the clear sky through the bottom, and another if I have
• 1:41:00
  to, and another till I can't remember her no more, until I can't
• 1:41:04
  remember me either, And that's about all the good life is a bottle of
• 1:41:06
  gin, and don't remember yourself. You sure loved her, all right,
• 1:41:11
  I said, No, I didn't love her, she said, with a
• 1:41:14
  brace of scorn. Then she said, it's funny, but I only love
• 1:41:18
  two people in my whole life, a mother and this little white girl.
• 1:41:24
  One of them taught me never to drink now the other one's gonna teach me
• 1:41:27
  never to stop. Then she seemed to remember that I was some one and
• 1:41:30
  that I'd stopped her and was standing there. What you want wi me,
• 1:41:34
  she asked, with sudden sharpness and an excess of negroid inflection that hadn't been
• 1:41:39
  present before. I just want to ask a question or two. Who you'd
• 1:41:44
  ask questions? She said challengingly. I'm a policeman, I said, we
• 1:41:47
  have to sometimes po leice man, she said, accusingly, po leice man.
• 1:41:56
  She broke the word in two. Poh leice man, she bleeded,
• 1:42:00
  it like a goat. You goin to bring her back. You're goin to
• 1:42:03
  make her eyes open and her mouth speak and her pretty face whole again.
• 1:42:09
  No, you gonna ask questions? Well, don't ask him round here a
• 1:42:12
  pilice man. Ask him where they can be answered. Ask God why he
• 1:42:15
  took her in such a sh I cautioned her primly. I gave her a
• 1:42:19
  minute to quiet down. Are you listening? I tried again when the minute
• 1:42:24
  was up. You don't happen to know of any one who had a grudge
• 1:42:28
  against her, do you? She tossed her head impatiently. Your foolish mouth.
• 1:42:32
  She was everybody's honey. She made it Christmas every day of the year,
• 1:42:35
  everywhere she went. Didn't she even go to the trouble, asking'em
• 1:42:40
  and coaxing'em to give that miss Tobias a job in her picture for old
• 1:42:43
  time's sake? When nobody wanted her any more. Everybody loved Miss Marta n
• 1:42:47
  not really, I said, everybody doesn't love anybody. If you get me,
• 1:42:54
  lots may or some may not everybody all at once. That's out of
• 1:42:58
  this world. Then how about those threats she got? Were they from someone
• 1:43:01
  who loved her too, some crank, she said disdainfully. They weren't anything.
• 1:43:06
  Everybody in the business gets them one time or another. It means you're
• 1:43:10
  a big shot, that's all. You were in there with her when it
• 1:43:13
  happened. What you see, there was nothing to see. I took my
• 1:43:16
  eyes off her for a minute. Next minute she wasn't there anymore, only
• 1:43:19
  fire, with a voice in the middle of it, screaming, that's how
• 1:43:24
  fast it seemed like. I slapped my hand frustratedly against the side of my
• 1:43:28
  thigh. Can I go now, she chafed rebelliously. I've got a date
• 1:43:33
  with a package store. She turned and went without waiting for my dismissal.
• 1:43:38
  I wouldn't have stopped her anyway. Take it easy on the gen stuff,
• 1:43:43
  I advised her. That won't bring her back. No, she answered mournfully,
• 1:43:47
  without turning her head. But it'll make her go away altogether, and
• 1:43:51
  that's even better. I rang headquarters and gave the chief a full account of
• 1:43:56
  what had happened up to this point. Something new, an invisible accident,
• 1:44:01
  right under everybody's nose, and yet nobody saw it. You'll have to stay
• 1:44:05
  on it by yourself, at least for the next couple hours. I can't
• 1:44:09
  send anyone else over. Before then, there's been a big armed hold up
• 1:44:12
  at one of the downtown stores, and I'm short of men. I'll let
• 1:44:15
  the studio brass know you're in charge. When I get back to the set.
• 1:44:18
  They were all there yet, all except Stormman and Ruth Tobias. That
• 1:44:21
  is, I thought I told you, I muttered, accusingly to the guard
• 1:44:27
  to keep your eye on everybody. See that they all stayed here. I
• 1:44:30
  couldn't stop them, he whined. I tried, but they didn't pay any
• 1:44:33
  attention. I'm only a guard here and it would have cost me my job.
• 1:44:38
  Besides, they'll be right back, they told me so. Storman only
• 1:44:40
  stepped out for a minute to get some more liquor. Electrician that was supplying
• 1:44:43
  and ran out of it, and Miss Tobias went to take off her costume.
• 1:44:46
  She got jittery because Stormy was nervous and started smoking around her after what
• 1:44:50
  happened. But hers hadn't had the lethal celluloid stiffening under it, so why
• 1:44:56
  did she bother to change it? I checked with the electri Trrisian distiller who
• 1:45:00
  had been supplying Storman. Why no, he said, flatly, I've got
• 1:45:04
  some left. I told him so, only he got a sudden notion he
• 1:45:08
  wanted better quality liquor than I had, and went out after it. They
• 1:45:12
  were both back in no time at all, and at that Tobias was back
• 1:45:15
  first of the two. I made a mental note of that, wondering should
• 1:45:18
  it take a man longer to obtain some liquor than it does a woman?
• 1:45:21
  And a conceited woman an actress to boot to change clothes from head to foot.
• 1:45:28
  She looked better now she'd loosened her hair and it hung down free.
• 1:45:31
  But this wasn't a beauty contest I was holding here. Storman already had an
• 1:45:35
  uncertain shuffling gait, proving if anything, only that he wasn't used to much
• 1:45:40
  alcohol. He came up to me and breathed fearfully, how is she dead?
• 1:45:46
  I said, for the shock value, it sure had plenty. He
• 1:45:50
  folded up and went down right in front of me. They picked him up
• 1:45:55
  and carried him out. I went with them part of the way, only
• 1:45:58
  long enough to finger my lap extract a pin from it, and sheathed it
• 1:46:01
  in the back of his hand. He never even twitched, so I withdrew
• 1:46:04
  the pin, replaced it in my lapel, turned around and came back.
• 1:46:09
  Nothing like being certain in your own mind about a thing, anything at all.
• 1:46:13
  He had passed out. It, being my first time in sole charge
• 1:46:16
  of a case, I played it up big. I turned a chair around
• 1:46:19
  backwards, sat down on it, and faced the remaining members of the group.
• 1:46:24
  I gave them a short speech, short, but a speech nevertheless ending
• 1:46:28
  up. And all I'm going to do for the present is repeat the question
• 1:46:31
  I've already asked. Mister Storm, and miss Tobias Nellie, and this young
• 1:46:35
  lady over here, the script girl, did any of you see what caused
• 1:46:40
  it? Electricians, stage hands and camera crew all shook their heads. I
• 1:46:45
  got up and banged the chair down hard for emphasis. She wasn't six feet
• 1:46:49
  away from some of you. I bawled them out. She was in the
• 1:46:51
  full glare if some of the brightest lights ever devised. All eyes were on
• 1:46:56
  her at the time, watching every move she made, and yet nobody saw
• 1:47:00
  how it started. Two dozen pairs of eyes, and they might as well
• 1:47:02
  have all been closed. Well, there's one pair left, and maybe I'll
• 1:47:06
  have better luck with them. I suppose they thought I meant my own I
• 1:47:11
  didn't. Now clear out of here, all of you, and give me
• 1:47:14
  your names and addresses as you go. You're subject to recall for further questioning.
• 1:47:17
  You stay. This was to the chief electrician and check up on those
• 1:47:21
  lights of yours for defects. One of them might have gotten overheated and dropped
• 1:47:26
  a spark on her. You take this. I passed my handkerchief to the
• 1:47:29
  guard, and go over the floor, especially over there around where she was
• 1:47:31
  first standing, and pick up everything that doesn't belong, no matter what,
• 1:47:35
  every cigarette button, every cinder. The rest of them filed out past me,
• 1:47:40
  one by one, giving their names and addresses as they went. They
• 1:47:43
  all reacted differently. Well, I guess that many different people always do and
• 1:47:47
  always will. Some were a little nervous, some indifferent, some cracked wise
• 1:47:53
  one grip, a man a little older than the rest with graying hair,
• 1:47:56
  said to me, this is your first case, isn't it. I'll ask
• 1:48:00
  the questions here, I said, non committally. But he compressed the five
• 1:48:03
  words into just one yes and took that for the answer. I could tell
• 1:48:09
  you got so angry about it. Next, I said, the script girl
• 1:48:14
  played a script girl to the bitter end. Nose actually still buried in her
• 1:48:17
  book as she came sauntering on. They're not going to make that picture any
• 1:48:21
  more, I know, but it seems a shame not to memorize it to
• 1:48:26
  the end. I have only two more pages to go. I like to
• 1:48:29
  finish anything. I begin ambition. I felt like saying, we'll get you
• 1:48:33
  nowhere. And Tobias came last. There was a little defiant springing us to
• 1:48:39
  her step, I thought, or maybe she always walked that way. How
• 1:48:41
  should I know? Ruth Helen Tobias such and such Santa Monica Boulevard. She
• 1:48:47
  had hazel eyes. I saw, and she gave her name. I looked
• 1:48:49
  down at my writing. This was a day. She said that didn't need
• 1:48:55
  an answer. Then she said, I feel as if I had lost a
• 1:48:58
  sister. We were both the same age, you know, thirtieth of next
• 1:49:01
  February. I thought, I just minded my business. So she gave up
• 1:49:05
  and went on her way. After she was gone, then I did look
• 1:49:10
  up any man, just so she can feel young for a few minutes,
• 1:49:14
  I thought, even a freshman detective. It must be terrible to be a
• 1:49:17
  woman and care how you look. The chief cameraman came out of his booth
• 1:49:21
  with a round, flat tin box packed under his arm. Where are you
• 1:49:26
  going with that? I asked him? Drop it in the ash can on
• 1:49:29
  my way out. He said, it's what we took today. No good
• 1:49:31
  now anymore ashcan? Hell. I let him know you hang on to that,
• 1:49:38
  but tight, that's what I want. Those lenses of yours are the
• 1:49:41
  other pair of eyes. I told them about. How soon can you develop
• 1:49:44
  that stuff? Why? Right away? He told me, looking surprised,
• 1:49:47
  But are you sure you this has her whole death scene on it, and
• 1:49:53
  that's just what I want. Don't touch it and leave it just the way
• 1:49:55
  it is? Can? I trust you? I'll meet you in projection room
• 1:49:59
  may as soon as I finished it, he said, quietly. She was
• 1:50:02
  a swell kid. The electrician came down from way up high somewhere and reported
• 1:50:08
  the lights and wiring all in order, not a loose wire, not a
• 1:50:11
  screw out of place anywhere. You dig up a typewriter, Get that all
• 1:50:15
  down on paper and sign it, I instructed him. Then shoot it in
• 1:50:17
  to me at headquarters. I wasn't sure just what good that was, but
• 1:50:23
  it sounded nice and official. The guard passed my handkerchief back to me with
• 1:50:27
  a cigarette, but a wire frame and a lot of little pieces of glass
• 1:50:30
  in it, the butt Storman's, he pointed out. He was smoking it
• 1:50:34
  after it was all over. I saw him throw it down and step on
• 1:50:38
  it before he went out after that liquor, I was when Tobias yapped,
• 1:50:41
  don't come near me with that thing. You want it to happen to me
• 1:50:43
  too. I wonder if that remark meant anything. Did he want it to
• 1:50:47
  happen to her too, as if to say he had wanted it to happen
• 1:50:50
  to meadows in the first place. I decided that was stretching it too far.
• 1:50:55
  It was just a turn of speech with no ulterior meaning. I knew
• 1:50:59
  what the piece is of glass and the frame were a shattered lorn yet,
• 1:51:01
  like the one I'd seen Tobias fiddling with. Meadows had it around her neck,
• 1:51:06
  I guess, he suggested, and it fell and smashed when she started
• 1:51:10
  to run around crazy. That I disagreed with, but I didn't tell him.
• 1:51:14
  So these pieces of glass were clear. The burning celluloid would have smoked
• 1:51:17
  them up if they had been on Martha Meadow's person. I sent for the
• 1:51:20
  wardrobe woman and had her bring a complete list of every article she had furnished
• 1:51:25
  Meadows and Tobias for this picture. I singled out just the two of them
• 1:51:29
  because there hadn't been any other women in this particular scene with them. She
• 1:51:32
  was an aristocratic looking person with white hair, a former actress herself, I
• 1:51:36
  imagined, judging by the way she was groomed. She had typewritten sheets with
• 1:51:41
  her. Did you supply Meadows with a lorn yet? Why? No?
• 1:51:45
  Young girls didn't carry them even in those days. You didn't supply Tobias with
• 1:51:50
  one. Yes, she showed it to me on the inventory, I showed
• 1:51:55
  her the pieces. Is this it? It must be? She turned in
• 1:52:00
  her costume a little while ago and explained that she'd broken hers while that awful
• 1:52:02
  thing was happening to poor Martha. You see, I have everything else crossed
• 1:52:06
  off, but that Ordinarily we charge players for anything that hasn't returned to us,
• 1:52:11
  but in this case, I don't suppose that will be done. It
• 1:52:14
  seemed to me I had seen the lorn yet on Tobias after the accident,
• 1:52:17
  but I couldn't be sure enough on that point this long after to make too
• 1:52:20
  much out of that. A kid came in and said, the Rushes are
• 1:52:26
  ready for you in projection room May and took me over there. The room
• 1:52:30
  had rows of seats, just like a miniature theater, and a screen on
• 1:52:33
  one wall. I closed the door and locked the projectionist and myself in.
• 1:52:39
  You'd better hang on tight, he warned. This is ghastly. If you
• 1:52:44
  can stand it, I told him I can run it through at normal speed.
• 1:52:46
  First, I sat down in the front row with the screen almost on
• 1:52:50
  top of me. There wasn't much to it at regular speed, maybe about
• 1:52:55
  five minutes worth of picture a single sequence, but it was so grisly it
• 1:53:00
  was almost too long at that It opened on Tobias, sitting there in the
• 1:53:03
  rocker broad side to the camera Meadows came in almost at once. I'm going
• 1:53:09
  away with him tonight, she said. Tobias raised her lornyete and looked at
• 1:53:13
  her disapprovingly. Through it. Meadows went over to the window, and the
• 1:53:16
  camera followed her part of the way, dollied after her. I think they
• 1:53:19
  called it. That left Tobias over at the left hand side of the screen
• 1:53:24
  and partly out of the picture. With just one shoulder arm in the side
• 1:53:27
  of her head showing. She started to rock back and forth and tap her
• 1:53:30
  lorgnette against the back of her hand. I had my eyes glued to Meadows,
• 1:53:33
  though she turned around to look at her sister. Oh won't he ever
• 1:53:39
  come? She said. Her face sort of tightened up, changed from repose
• 1:53:44
  to tenseness. A look of horror started to form on it, but it
• 1:53:46
  never got any further. Right then and there, the thing happened. The
• 1:53:50
  best way I can describe it is that a sort of bright, luminous flower
• 1:53:55
  seemed to open up halfway down her dress, spreading peeling back, but the
• 1:54:00
  it were flame. An instant later, it was all over her, and
• 1:54:02
  the first screams of a voice that was gone now came smashing out at my
• 1:54:06
  ear drums, and in between screams. The hellishly conscientious soundtrack had even picked
• 1:54:12
  up and recorded the sizzling that her hair made, like eggs frying in a
• 1:54:16
  pan. Cut. I turned around and yelled back at him, for Pete's
• 1:54:21
  sake, cut, and I mopped my drenched forehead. Felt the same way
• 1:54:28
  myself while I was processing it, he confessed, looking out of the projection
• 1:54:31
  booth at me. It hadn't told me a thing so far, but then
• 1:54:35
  I hadn't expected it to the first throw out of the bag. Go back
• 1:54:40
  and start it over, I shivered. But whatever you do, leave out
• 1:54:45
  that finale. Take it up where she turns at the window. Slow motion
• 1:54:48
  this time. Can you hold it when I tell you to? He adjusted
• 1:54:51
  his apparatus. Sure, just say when he called. The figures on the
• 1:54:57
  screen hardly moved it all On this run, times slowed down, They drifted
• 1:55:01
  lazily, sort of floated. I knew the place to look for on meadows
• 1:55:05
  dressed now, and I kept my eyes focused on it and let everything else
• 1:55:09
  ride. A moment later, something had shown up there. Hold it,
• 1:55:13
  I yelled, and the scene obediently frozen too a still. Now it was
• 1:55:16
  just a magic lantern slide, no motion at all. I left my seat
• 1:55:20
  and stood close up against the screen, keeping to one side so my own
• 1:55:25
  shadow wouldn't blur out that place on her dress. No flame was coming from
• 1:55:29
  it yet, it was just a bright luminous spot, about the size and
• 1:55:32
  shape of a dime. Back up one, I instructed him. By one,
• 1:55:38
  I meant a single frame or still picture. As most of us know,
• 1:55:41
  without having to be technically proficient in cinematography, any strip of motion picture
• 1:55:46
  film consists of an endless number of little still pictures in succession, which hardly
• 1:55:50
  vary one from the next. They carry the thread of motion along by infinitesimal
• 1:55:56
  alteration. It takes about eight hundred of them, speaking loosely to show a
• 1:56:00
  raising a cigarette to his mouth. At any rate, whatever the correct jargon
• 1:56:03
  to be used. In such an instant, he seemed to understand what I
• 1:56:06
  wanted without any difficulty, and carried it out. The scene hardly shifted at
• 1:56:11
  all. There was just a momentary blurring of lines, but when they'd settled
• 1:56:15
  again, the pinpoint of light was smaller, like a pea. Now,
• 1:56:18
  you couldn't have seen it at all from the seat I'd been in at first
• 1:56:23
  two heads are better than one. I called him out and showed it to
• 1:56:26
  him with a pencil. What do you make of this? It's a blob
• 1:56:30
  alike coming to a head at that place on her dress, like a highlight,
• 1:56:33
  you might say, a gleam originating from somewhere else, which was just
• 1:56:39
  exactly what I'd had it figured for myself. Go three frames forward, I
• 1:56:44
  said, and then hold it. It came out again. To look it
• 1:56:47
  was back to the size of a dime once more, and only a frame
• 1:56:50
  or two before the flames were due to show up. There's heat in it,
• 1:56:55
  I said. See that the white spot had developed a dark core,
• 1:56:59
  a pin head of black or brown. That's the material of the dress getting
• 1:57:02
  ready to burn. See that thread coming out of the dot smoke and all
• 1:57:08
  there'll ever be of it too. Celluloid doesn't give much warning. So far,
• 1:57:13
  so good. But what I wanted to know was where that gleam or
• 1:57:15
  ray was coming from. I had the effect now, but I wanted the
• 1:57:19
  cause. The trouble was you couldn't follow the beam through the air to gage
• 1:57:23
  its direction. Like any beam alight, It left no trail, only showed
• 1:57:28
  up suddenly on her dress. Maybe one of the powerful cleag lights high overhead
• 1:57:31
  and out of the picture, had developed some flaw in its glass shield,
• 1:57:34
  warping one of its rays. But the chief electrician had gone over them afterward
• 1:57:39
  and given them all a clean bill of health. Start it up again,
• 1:57:43
  I said wearily, slow motion, and went back and sat down. I
• 1:57:47
  was further away now and had a better perspective of the thing as a whole.
• 1:57:51
  Maybe that was what did it. As the scene on the screen thawed
• 1:57:55
  and slowly dissolved in the fluid motion once more, it gave the impression for
• 1:57:59
  a moment of everything on it moving at once. Therefore, it was only
• 1:58:02
  natural that the one thing that didn't move should catch my eye and hold it.
• 1:58:08
  Tobias is Lornete and the wrist and hand that held it. The three
• 1:58:13
  objects stayed rigid down in the lower left hand corner of the screen. After
• 1:58:16
  everything else was on the go once more. The chair she was in had
• 1:58:20
  started to rock slowly back and forth, and her body with it, but
• 1:58:24
  the forearm, wrist, hand, and Lornette stayed poised, motionless. There
• 1:58:30
  was something unnatural about it that caught the eye at once. I remember she
• 1:58:33
  had opened the scene by tapping her lorgnette as well as rocking. Now would
• 1:58:39
  the fire do to break out any second? She was only rocking. The
• 1:58:43
  lorgnette was stiff as a ramrod in a grasp. Not that she was holding
• 1:58:46
  it out at full length before her or anything like that. She was holding
• 1:58:49
  it close, unobtrusively, but straight up and down a little out to one
• 1:58:54
  side of her own body. Maybe the director's orders had been for her to
• 1:58:57
  stop fiddling with it at a certain point, then again, maybe not.
• 1:59:01
  All I wanted was to find out what points she had stopped tapping and playing
• 1:59:04
  with it. I had been concentrating on Meadows until now and had missed that
• 1:59:09
  whoa back up? I called out to him all the way back and then
• 1:59:12
  start over slow. I let Meadows go this time and kept my eye on
• 1:59:16
  tobiasenter lorn. Yet the minute I saw it stop hold it, I yelled
• 1:59:21
  and ran over to the screen and examined meadows dress. Nothing yet, But
• 1:59:26
  in three more frames, that deadly white spot had already showed up on the
• 1:59:30
  celluloid lined hoop skirt effect had followed cause too quickly to be disregarded. Lights,
• 1:59:36
  I roared, I've got it. He turned a switch. The room
• 1:59:41
  blazed all around me, and I took the handkerchief out of my pocket and
• 1:59:44
  examined the pieces of glass it held. Some were thicker than others. The
• 1:59:46
  lins had therefore probably been convex, not flat. I held one up and
• 1:59:51
  looked at my cuff. Through it, the weaves stood out a magnifying glass.
• 1:59:57
  I held it about a foot away from the back of my hand,
• 1:59:59
  where I I had already been burned once that afternoon, and even with the
• 2:00:02
  far weaker lights of the projection room, working through it. In about thirty
• 2:00:05
  seconds, something bit me and I jumped. You'd come out and was watching
• 2:00:11
  what I was doing. Back that film up again in the box the way
• 2:00:15
  you had it, I said, I'll be back for it in a minute.
• 2:00:17
  I have to see someone first, then I'm taking it down to headquarters
• 2:00:20
  with me. I went over and knocked on the door of the dressing room
• 2:00:25
  where they'd told me i'd find Ruth Tobias mis Tobias. Would you come out
• 2:00:29
  here a minute, I said, in that flat voice you use when you're
• 2:00:31
  going to make a pinch. I want to talk to you. She opened
• 2:00:34
  the door, and again my impression was as it had been once before that,
• 2:00:38
  her eyes were hazel eyes are big when they're trying to flirt. They're
• 2:00:43
  also big when they're frightened. What's the charges, the chief asked when I
• 2:00:46
  brought her in with me, causing Martha Meadow's death by setting fire to an
• 2:00:51
  inflammable costume she had on by focusing the strong cleag lights through a magnifying glass
• 2:00:57
  while they were working together in a scene. Here's the glass she used to
• 2:01:00
  do it, picked up on the set. Here's the original harmless glass that
• 2:01:03
  was in the frame before she knocked it out, picked up in the trash
• 2:01:06
  basket in her dressing room. The film there in that box shows her in
• 2:01:12
  the act of doing it. She's been eaten away with jealousy and hate ever
• 2:01:15
  since she faded out and Martha Meadows replaced her. And then what brought matters
• 2:01:19
  to a head, I think was that they decided to remake the very picture
• 2:01:23
  that had been her own greatest success, with Meadows in the part she had
• 2:01:26
  originally had, and with she herself playing an older, unsympathetic part. You
• 2:01:31
  fool, she hissed in my direction after she had been booked and the matron
• 2:01:34
  was leading her way. You fooled, not dry behind the ears, yet
• 2:01:39
  trying to play the part of a detective and being an actress, she could
• 2:01:43
  make her line sound good even at such a time and in such a place.
• 2:01:46
  You'll never make this stick. You think you've got a case against me,
• 2:01:49
  but you'll find out different. And then, just to give it all
• 2:01:53
  a final dramatic flourish, I suppose she spat on the headquarters building floor.
• 2:01:58
  The chief smiled and eye bristled. I'm still touchy about our prestige. She's
• 2:02:02
  right and away gal, he commented, after the noise had died down.
• 2:02:06
  We can prove that she was the cause of it happening in such and such
• 2:02:11
  a way, But I doubt very much, even with that film you've got
• 2:02:13
  there, that we can prove it was intentional, that it was done purposely.
• 2:02:17
  She may be able to get around that, I said, but I
• 2:02:20
  have a hunch she won't get around this so easy. I took out an
• 2:02:25
  oblong of blotting paper, torn into four pieces and passed them to him.
• 2:02:29
  This too, was in the trash basket in her dressing room. Since when
• 2:02:31
  do people take the trouble to tear up a blotter? Isn't it enough to
• 2:02:35
  just throw it away whole once it's become unusable. If they do tear it
• 2:02:40
  up, isn't that an indication there's something on it they want to conceal,
• 2:02:43
  to do away with, In other words, a sign of guilt. To
• 2:02:45
  me, it is, and he queried. I matched the pieces together in
• 2:02:50
  reverse against the dressing room mirror. You know that old trick. Just one
• 2:02:55
  line escaped the general blur of ink pressings. The user had blotted it too
• 2:03:00
  close to a blink margin. Never live to finish this picture. If that
• 2:03:04
  shows up on any of those threatening letters you're holding, you put it in
• 2:03:10
  quite an afternoon, was his way of patting me on the back. At
• 2:03:13
  least I suppose it was that. Now, he added, I suppose on
• 2:03:17
  your next night off, you'll go and sit in some movie show with your
• 2:03:20
  missus and take up disliking all of them again where you left off. It'll
• 2:03:26
  be a long time before you ever catch me at a movie show again.
• 2:03:29
  I let him know with intensity, I couldn't not me no matter what the
• 2:03:32
  picture was, She'd be up there in the middle of it, burning like
• 2:03:35
  a bonfire, screaming her life away for the help that never came. You're
• 2:03:42
  the fellow who used to say, he reminded me, but rather gently.
• 2:03:45
  They're not real up there, just photographs moving around on celluloid. End of
• 2:03:53
  section two screen test. I owe you to the others in the back room.
• 2:03:59
  Second grade Detective Clinton Sturgis said, so long, fellow, see you
• 2:04:03
  tomorrow. He went down the hall, past the sergeant's desk, out of
• 2:04:08
  the precinct house, and into the velvety softness of an August dusk. He
• 2:04:12
  went around the corner to the garage, got his old car out. He
• 2:04:15
  swung it up the ramp to the street, stopped long enough to light a
• 2:04:18
  cigarette, exhaled an enjoyable ah, and started homeward whistling. It was a
• 2:04:25
  swell night. It was a swell life. He was thirty five, had
• 2:04:29
  a nice wife and a nice kid. He was a second grader, and
• 2:04:31
  he wasn't stopping there. He had it all lined up before him, step
• 2:04:35
  by step, first grade Lieutenant Captain, inspector. Still remote, those steps
• 2:04:41
  were, but not unattainable. The way lay plain before him, with odds
• 2:04:45
  just stiff enough to try his metal, and the rewards generous to a fault.
• 2:04:49
  It was a swell night. It was a swell life. He was
• 2:04:55
  out on the Lake Shore Drive now, with its lights curving around before him,
• 2:04:59
  in a long vista in the lake, gray violet in the twilight.
• 2:05:02
  His rented bungalow was a little far out from the city and the district not
• 2:05:06
  yet fully built up. But it was cheaper out there, and you got
• 2:05:10
  more for your money. He was whistling my Blue Heaven. It was old,
• 2:05:15
  but it stayed with him, and the words in his mind fitted his
• 2:05:17
  contentment. Uh turned to the right, a little wide line. He made
• 2:05:27
  the turn, but it was to the left, and climbed the steep grade
• 2:05:30
  that led to their house. The development was called lake View Heights because it
• 2:05:33
  was strung along the top of this bluff. He parked at the curb instead
• 2:05:38
  of backing into the garage, because he had decided to take his family to
• 2:05:42
  the movies. He sounded the horn and the porch light went on, and
• 2:05:45
  they both came out in a flurry, his wife just to the lower step,
• 2:05:48
  the kid flying out all the way to swing from his neck as he
• 2:05:50
  stepped from the car and caught her. The kid was pretty, everybody said
• 2:05:55
  so. She had been on loan to them from Heaven for seven years now,
• 2:05:59
  and each time he could see the place she had come from just by
• 2:06:00
  looking at her. Get your things ready, we're going to the movies.
• 2:06:05
  The flurry became a whirlwind. His wife said, I've got supper waiting for
• 2:06:09
  you on the table. We're finished already, Barbara, Come in and get
• 2:06:12
  your hat. He turned the car round to face downhill to save time leaving,
• 2:06:15
  and breaked once more. The kid came racing out past him a second
• 2:06:19
  time as he got up to the porch. I'll wait for you in the
• 2:06:23
  car, she cried gaily. All right, but don't monkey with the horn
• 2:06:27
  now. He wasn't even sitting down yet. He was crouched above a chair
• 2:06:30
  in the act of pulling it forward under him, and his wife was passing
• 2:06:33
  him a plate across the table. He was in a straight line with the
• 2:06:36
  porch door. He happened to turn his head that way, and there was
• 2:06:40
  something wrong. There was a blankness out there where there shouldn't have been.
• 2:06:44
  He couldn't see the opposite side of the street. His chair cracked over,
• 2:06:47
  and he was running through the living room to the porch. Behind him.
• 2:06:51
  A plate shattered on the floor, and the sos of his wife's heels came
• 2:06:54
  tapping after him. He could still hear the whisper of the car's going receding
• 2:06:59
  on the hush night air. No engine, So then he knew what had
• 2:07:02
  happened, and the knowledge nearly felled him like a crowbar across the top of
• 2:07:05
  his head, even before he got out to the porch and could see.
• 2:07:10
  Street lamps made it bright all the way down, all the way to where
• 2:07:15
  the lake was. The car was going straight as an arrow. It didn't
• 2:07:19
  swerve at all. Its momentum held it gripped too tightly. A little arm
• 2:07:25
  was thrust briefly out at the side, then withdrawn again a sort of gay
• 2:07:29
  wave coasting was fun. There wasn't a sound behind him. Somehow he knew
• 2:07:33
  without looking that his wife had fallen senseless there on the walk, But he
• 2:07:38
  was already yards down that fearful incline. He ran down that hill like nothing
• 2:07:42
  that had ever run down it before. It was all over so quickly,
• 2:07:45
  so soundlessly. He had been gaining on the car, but the foot of
• 2:07:49
  the street came too quickly. Horror such as a man sees only once in
• 2:07:54
  a lifetime, was fleetingly there before his eyes, then gone again, but
• 2:07:58
  never quite gone again until the hed die for the car reached Lake Shore Drive,
• 2:08:03
  swept across its triple lane width unerringly hurtled the pitifully low pedestrian parapet It
• 2:08:09
  was such a new development, and it would have hidden the beauties of the
• 2:08:11
  lake to have built at any higher cleared the barrier almost by the unaided resiliency
• 2:08:16
  of its own tires and springs, with a flaring of dust and a crumbling
• 2:08:20
  along the top, and was gone from sight. It was as instantaneous as
• 2:08:26
  the exposure of a snap shot two of the limestone blocks along the upper tier.
• 2:08:31
  The cars with the part had been knocked out by the wheels, giving
• 2:08:33
  a battlement effect, but the spray that had risen on the other side never
• 2:08:37
  seemed to finish falling back into place. There was a screaming of brakes off
• 2:08:41
  to one side of him as he darted across the roadway, and some kind
• 2:08:43
  of a pitching, swerving beam of light flicked at him. Somebody's arrested headlights.
• 2:08:48
  Maybe a horrid heaving was there below him. As he mounted one of
• 2:08:50
  the loosened blocks, the high posted driveway lights behind him played up a single
• 2:08:54
  blister like bubble formed there in the water, a bubble that refused to burst.
• 2:09:00
  They kept renewing itself from below. He didn't bother about his coat.
• 2:09:03
  He aimed himself face forward into those roiling eddies, and as he went down,
• 2:09:07
  the thought that he couldn't swim was with him, but that didn't matter.
• 2:09:11
  He went in wrong with a spanking blow across the chest and stomach.
• 2:09:15
  He went down a little way, arms groping before him, toward nothing.
• 2:09:18
  Then he was being pushed up again, and he didn't know how to make
• 2:09:20
  himself go down any farther. He didn't know how not to breathe either,
• 2:09:26
  and long before he could get up again, he was nothing but a massive
• 2:09:28
  convulsive muscular spasms, drawing in destruction at every inhalation. He broke the surface
• 2:09:35
  briefly, but he didn't know how to take advantage of it. He was
• 2:09:37
  already dying himself now. As he went under again, something swift and safe
• 2:09:41
  and sure got him at some point after that he never knew when, and
• 2:09:46
  it drew him backward through water and up into air, air that now hurt
• 2:09:50
  as much as water but didn't kill. Then he was lying there, heaving
• 2:09:54
  like a bellows on a tiny lip of soil that protruded at the base of
• 2:09:56
  the parapet, and there was a man standing over him, dripping but not
• 2:10:01
  spent, looking down at him with a sort of scorn that had no solicitude
• 2:10:05
  or consideration to it. The man said, what the hell do you go
• 2:10:09
  in for if you can't swim? Sturgis turned over on his face, supporting
• 2:10:13
  himself on his hands, and between spasms of coughing, managed to strangle out
• 2:10:18
  my kid in a car down there. The man was suddenly gone again,
• 2:10:22
  and in a little while, and only the space between two paroxysms of coughing,
• 2:10:26
  it seemed she was there again before his eyes. Cradled in the man's
• 2:10:31
  arms, her face blue and still in the darkness from where he lay,
• 2:10:35
  Sturgis just mutely looked his gratitude as the stranger climbed up over the parapet,
• 2:10:41
  still holding her toward the waiting arms of quickly gathered spectators reaching down to help.
• 2:10:48
  When the inhalator squad had finished and Sturgis had held her tight to him
• 2:10:52
  a minute, with her open eyed breathing, he looked around and asked,
• 2:10:56
  where is he? Where'd he go? He saw a car start to glide
• 2:11:00
  furtively off in the background. He shouted weight and ran directly across the path
• 2:11:05
  of its headlights. The car stopped with a poor sort of grace, and
• 2:11:07
  the man at the wheel hitched his head in a surly inquiry. As Sturgis
• 2:11:11
  came up alongside. One hand on the wheel rim was bandaged. Sturgis poised
• 2:11:16
  his own two hands downward across the edge of the door, and gratitude was
• 2:11:20
  somehow expressed even in the gesture itself. But the man inside grated impatiently,
• 2:11:26
  Well, what do you want? It was hard to put into words,
• 2:11:28
  especially when it wasn't welcome. All Sturgis could say was, you don't know
• 2:11:33
  what this means. The man said with a jeer, a jeer for himself.
• 2:11:37
  I don't know how I come to do it. I never done a
• 2:11:39
  thing like that before. But isn't there anything I can do? Won't you
• 2:11:43
  at least let me have your name? The answer was almost venomous, Well
• 2:11:48
  do you care what my name is? I don't go around giving people my
• 2:11:50
  name. Sturgis would have taken a kick in the teeth from him. His
• 2:11:56
  balked gratitude had to find some means of expression, so he gave the man
• 2:11:58
  his own name instead. The stranger just looked at him stolidly. Sturgis couldn't
• 2:12:03
  tell if he was bored or contemptuous. His eyes flicked to Sturgis's fingers,
• 2:12:07
  which were folded across the rim of the car door. The meaning was plain,
• 2:12:11
  take your hands off, get away from me. The car inched away,
• 2:12:15
  and Sturgis dropped his hands defeatedly. If there's ever anything I can do,
• 2:12:20
  he called out helplessly. His benefactor stayed in character to the end.
• 2:12:26
  A cynical that's what they all say, came floating back above the dwindling tail
• 2:12:30
  light. The reports on the Torrington murder were coming in faster and more promising
• 2:12:35
  by the hour. There had been a lull of half a week first,
• 2:12:37
  that preliminary lull that the outside world always mistakes for inactivity, even defeat.
• 2:12:43
  But they hadn't been idle. They'd been working behind the scenes in the laboratory,
• 2:12:46
  in the Bertillion files on the weapon testing range in the world of the
• 2:12:52
  Exact Sciences. They had built up their man from nothing, with the aid
• 2:12:56
  of nap from his suit body, oil from his finger tips injured in one
• 2:13:00
  other microscopic things At the end of half a week, they had him,
• 2:13:03
  although they had never seen him. They had his height, his weight,
• 2:13:07
  his habits, almost the way he walked, and what his blood count was.
• 2:13:11
  Now came the time to get him, to pull him out of thin
• 2:13:13
  air, the way a magician makes a rabbit appear out of a hat,
• 2:13:16
  to match him in the flesh to his preconceived identity. The murderer had had
• 2:13:20
  plenty of time to leave the city during those three and a half days he
• 2:13:24
  had left. They'd expected him to, they'd counted on his doing just that.
• 2:13:31
  They cast their net in a great wide loop, first over reaching the
• 2:13:33
  farthest possible limits of his flight, for in his own mind he was still
• 2:13:37
  safely anonymous. They began to draw the net in by telegraph, by radio,
• 2:13:43
  by all the means they had too late, by a matter of hours.
• 2:13:46
  He tried to break through. He was recognized, the alarm sent out,
• 2:13:50
  the highways blocked off. He turned and fled back again. The chase
• 2:13:54
  went into reverse. He plunged back into the sanctuary of the city. The
• 2:13:58
  net was drawn in slowly, but yesterday his car had been found abandoned just
• 2:14:03
  inside the city limits, and by that they got his name. It was
• 2:14:07
  Murray Foreman. There were infinite variations to it, but none of them was
• 2:14:11
  of paramount importance. He was guilty of cold blooded murder, and that was
• 2:14:16
  tighter and tighter. The noose was pulled from city wide. It narrowed to
• 2:14:20
  a single neighborhood, from an entire neighborhood down to a single street. And
• 2:14:24
  presently they would have the very house and the exact room inside that house,
• 2:14:28
  and then they'd have him. It was a matter of hours, only fractions
• 2:14:33
  of hours. They were old and guile and remorseless, and their combined intelligences
• 2:14:37
  never slept, but singly they were only human beings. First, Greater Sturgis
• 2:14:43
  of the homicide Squad was relieved temporarily at two that morning, almost at the
• 2:14:46
  zero hour, and sent home, subject to immediate recall. He had slept
• 2:14:52
  only in snatches for a week past. His reflexes were no longer dependable,
• 2:14:54
  and much as he rebelled against it, he recognized the advisability of the respite.
• 2:15:00
  The climax might not occur until dawn, in which case he could still
• 2:15:03
  be in time for it. On his return to duty, he put his
• 2:15:07
  key to the door and led himself into the empty house. The wife and
• 2:15:09
  kid were away in the country with relatives for two weeks in the summer.
• 2:15:13
  Mustiness of rooms that had been shut up tide all day clung to the air.
• 2:15:16
  He put on the lights and saw halos around them. From his fatigue,
• 2:15:20
  the image of his girl leaped out at him from the green gold easel
• 2:15:24
  on the radio, and already he was less weary. Just the sight of
• 2:15:28
  her likeness was RESTful. She was still on loane, and now at twelve,
• 2:15:31
  more than a hint of the way she was going to be was apparent,
• 2:15:35
  and she was going to be the tops. He said hello, honey
• 2:15:39
  to her. He said it every time he got back, just as though
• 2:15:41
  she were here. Your old man's all in, he mourned to her under
• 2:15:46
  his breath. He opened the windows first of all, to freshen up the
• 2:15:50
  place a little. Then he took off the things that bothered him most,
• 2:15:54
  in order, his tie, and then his shoes, and then his coat.
• 2:15:58
  He said to himself, I'm kidding old, but with the complacency that
• 2:16:01
  only a man who knows he really isn't can bring to bear on the thought.
• 2:16:05
  He puttered around in his socks a minute or two. He thought,
• 2:16:09
  where did she keep the cans of salmon? Now, he thought, I'm
• 2:16:15
  too old to bother. He went in and stood over the bed, sketchily
• 2:16:18
  straightened since the last time he had been in it. He looked at it
• 2:16:20
  questioningly. It was too much trouble to pull down that spread. It would
• 2:16:24
  take too long. He couldn't wait another minute. He turned slightly, let
• 2:16:28
  himself fall back on the bed in a straight line from shoulders to heels,
• 2:16:31
  so that his feet kicked up slightly with the fall. The bed sang out
• 2:16:35
  threateningly under the impact, but held, and before the springs had stopped jarring,
• 2:16:39
  he was already out of the world. The tapping alone would never have
• 2:16:43
  roused him. It was too low, too furtive. It was the sharper
• 2:16:48
  note of the bell that brought him up through layers of oblivion and to the
• 2:16:50
  shallows of awareness. He raised his head from the neck alone, held it
• 2:16:56
  erect, let it drop back again of its own weight. The ring came
• 2:17:00
  again, cut short, as though no more than a peck had been given
• 2:17:03
  the button. The tapping was blurred, like a hail or gravel striking on
• 2:17:07
  wood. He got up, wavered through the two rooms, toward the front
• 2:17:11
  door, said sharply, who's there? The tapping broke off short. He
• 2:17:16
  opened the door, and a man was standing there in the dim light.
• 2:17:20
  The man acknowledged the opening with a peculiar warning gesture, a diagonal cut of
• 2:17:24
  his hand that held a plea for caution in it. He seemed to take
• 2:17:28
  his right of admission for granted. His hat was low, and Sturgis didn't
• 2:17:31
  know him, didn't know why I should. The visitor inserted himself obliquely between
• 2:17:35
  Sturgis and the door frame, and then as Sturgis gave ground before him,
• 2:17:39
  the man closed the door and sealed it with his own body, Pressing himself
• 2:17:43
  against the knob. He pushed his hat higher, but inadvertently by backing a
• 2:17:48
  hand to his forehead, as though an unutterable relief. I thought you had
• 2:17:52
  never opened the door, he said, I saw you come in before.
• 2:17:56
  Sturgis sat on a rising inflection that held no inner, yet led the way
• 2:18:01
  toward it. Who are you? The man leaned dejectedly against the door.
• 2:18:05
  He was starting to sag a little now, as if some long sustained tension
• 2:18:09
  had relaxed. Sneered, you don't know me. There was memory in that
• 2:18:15
  sneer alone, and that characteristic tone that never gave the benefit of the doubt.
• 2:18:18
  The man's shoulder blades when a notch lower on the door. Seem you'd
• 2:18:22
  better know me, he said, And then he jeered, or don't you
• 2:18:26
  want to? His eyes found the picture rested on it, guessed came back
• 2:18:31
  again with a mocking gleam. But he didn't say anything. He didn't have
• 2:18:35
  to. Sturgis knew by now he had never been good at saying things.
• 2:18:39
  He said, Yer, you're the fellow, You're the man the lake.
• 2:18:43
  That time his face lit up with a long stored gratitude. But then the
• 2:18:48
  light died again as the man brushed by him seemed not to see the friendly
• 2:18:52
  start surges his hand had made. The man found his own way across the
• 2:18:56
  room, pitched into a chair. There was blood on one side of his
• 2:18:58
  face, or rather vestiges of it, a thin, dark patina. Sturgis
• 2:19:03
  was awake. Now he was frightened too, by some kind of foreknowledge.
• 2:19:07
  He ran his tongue across his lower lip, said, what'd you do?
• 2:19:11
  Hurt yourself? The man lowered his head abruptly, glared challengingly, No,
• 2:19:16
  I didn't hurt myself. A bullet grazed me getting over here from one of
• 2:19:22
  your crowd. Sturgis was getting whiter by the minute. The other's eyes held
• 2:19:26
  him derisively, forcing knowledge on him that he didn't want. Why don't you
• 2:19:31
  ask me why I'm here? Sturgis flinched. Don't tell me anything. You're
• 2:19:35
  liable to be sorry, he said quickly. The man in the chair started
• 2:19:39
  to repeat what he had just said. Don't you want to find out why
• 2:19:45
  I'm shut up? Sturgis shouted, No, you don't. I've got something
• 2:19:50
  coming to me. What are you trying to do? Leave it out for
• 2:19:54
  yourself? Well, shout of it so that when they come ganging around here
• 2:19:58
  in a minute or two, see no, oh evil here now wi evil?
• 2:20:01
  Lay? Well, you're looking at Murray foreman? And what are you
• 2:20:03
  going to do about it? Sturgis ran a hand through the bird's nest,
• 2:20:07
  tingle of his hair. My god, he groaned. Don't you know who
• 2:20:13
  I am? Do you suppose i'd be here if I didn't? You're my
• 2:20:18
  trump card, the last one I hold. Somebody else told me who you
• 2:20:22
  were that night I came across your picture in the paper once after that when
• 2:20:26
  you were promoted for running down those cop killers. It gave your address,
• 2:20:31
  he laughed mirthlessly. It pays to change your dresses more often when you got
• 2:20:35
  debts outstanding. He looked rested now fit compared to Sturgis. His color was
• 2:20:43
  high alongside Sturgis's agonized pallor. His pores were dry, not glistening like the
• 2:20:48
  other man's. Sturgis flung the door open, folded it back flat against the
• 2:20:52
  wall, as if he couldn't get it wide enough. Get out, he
• 2:20:56
  said, in a choked voice. Get out of here. That's the most
• 2:21:00
  I can. Foreman kept looking at the picture as though he hadn't heard.
• 2:21:03
  He said softly. Is her hair golden brown like it looks on there?
• 2:21:09
  Is that how she smiles all the time, with a little dent in the
• 2:21:11
  middle of her cheek. Get out, you dirty killer. I know how
• 2:21:16
  they do. Sometimes they slip their arm around your neck from behind your chair
• 2:21:20
  and hug you tight. Sometimes they get down on the floor at your feet
• 2:21:24
  and lean their head against your knee and look up over at you backwards.
• 2:21:30
  She wouldn't do all that, Sturgis, if it wasn't for me. What's
• 2:21:33
  her name? Sturgis. Barbara said Sturgis limply, and closed the door again,
• 2:21:41
  very slowly, as though it weighed a ton. They didn't say anything
• 2:21:45
  for a long time, either of them. It seemed like a long time
• 2:21:48
  anyway. Foreman stayed in the chair, which was the most comfortable one in
• 2:21:52
  the room. Sturgis stood against the door. Foreman spoke finally, as matter
• 2:21:58
  of factly, as though they had known each other all their lives. Give
• 2:22:01
  me a cigarette, got one on you. Sturgis felt absently for his coat
• 2:22:05
  pocket, without looking up. He didn't have any Foreman must have got up
• 2:22:09
  and helped himself from the humidor. The next thing Sturgis noticed, he was
• 2:22:13
  back in the chair smoking. Sturgis said finally, as though the trivial request
• 2:22:18
  had managed to restore his own power of expression. I'm a police officer,
• 2:22:24
  Foreman, there isn't anything I can do. The man in the chair snapped
• 2:22:28
  ashes from his cigarette. You don't have to do a thing. Just let
• 2:22:33
  me stay here till the heat cools a little. Then you'll turn you back
• 2:22:35
  and I'll be gone the way I came. That's all. And then,
• 2:22:39
  with square quits, you struck down and murdered a man in cold blood.
• 2:22:45
  That doesn't cancel your obligation. I'd already croaked some one long before that night
• 2:22:50
  you first came across me. That didn't keep you from accepting your kid's life
• 2:22:54
  from my hands, did it. She breathes just as good, her lungs
• 2:22:58
  just as empty a water. Her eyes are just as wide open as if
• 2:23:01
  a right guy saved her, aren't they. I didn't argue the right and
• 2:23:05
  wrong of it before I went in? Did I? You owe me a
• 2:23:07
  life? Two lives? Sturgeon admitted to himself. It was clever of him,
• 2:23:13
  good psychology not to mention having saved Sturgis himself, to emphasize only the
• 2:23:18
  one that really mattered. And I want a life back from you my own,
• 2:23:24
  Sturgis said, fiercely. Do you want a drink? I do?
• 2:23:28
  Three times he started out in the wrong direction before he could remember where the
• 2:23:31
  liquor was kept. Foreman was thoroughly at ease, now sure of himself or
• 2:23:35
  else. That was his game, to seem sure of himself, to appear
• 2:23:39
  not to have any doubts. To take it for granted, he said,
• 2:23:43
  holding his little whiskey glass up to the light and studying it. Idly.
• 2:23:46
  Don't take it so hard. He went on with the detached curiosity, as
• 2:23:50
  though confronting for the first time some rare trait he'd often heard of but never
• 2:23:54
  encountered until now. You're dead on the level. Aren't you so straight?
• 2:24:01
  It hurts? He made a grimace. Gee, it must be hell to
• 2:24:05
  be like that. I had you figure that way even that night, the
• 2:24:09
  way you'd jumped in without knowing how to swim. I'm good that way.
• 2:24:11
  It's sizing people up. I've had to be. That's why I came here.
• 2:24:16
  Do you think I'd have taken a chance like this on one of those
• 2:24:18
  other guys you string along with. Sturgis had sat down now, staring sightlessly
• 2:24:24
  at the problem as though it were spread out on the carpet before him.
• 2:24:26
  He heard the man say, is this the only bottle in the place?
• 2:24:31
  He nodded absently. He heard the thudding of liquid on the carpet, and
• 2:24:33
  he looked up. Foreman was holding the uncorked bottle upside down. Sturgis didn't
• 2:24:39
  say anything. A million little things like that didn't matter. There was only
• 2:24:43
  one thing that mattered. Foreman explained, I want to keep you a thinkin
• 2:24:48
  straight and mine too. I can't take a chance what it's all about might
• 2:24:52
  get too foggy for us to handle. Right, Sturgis nodded again to himself.
• 2:24:58
  I was right from his own point of view, too. Liquor made
• 2:25:01
  him sentimental. That could be just as dangerous either way, in this case,
• 2:25:07
  romanticize his duty or his debt. He slashed the contents of his little
• 2:25:11
  glass jigger viciously across the floor. It's simple enough, Foreman remarked, meaning
• 2:25:18
  nothing to lose your temper about, nothing to go up in the air about.
• 2:25:22
  Shut up, Sturgis growled, unless you say the better. He looked
• 2:25:26
  over at the open bedroom door. When'd you sleep last? You can go
• 2:25:30
  in there and lie down if you want to get out o here. Then
• 2:25:33
  his foreman rose to his feet, crooked his arms behind his head, and
• 2:25:37
  yawned. He was that composed. Sturgis added, Wait a minute, have
• 2:25:41
  you got a gun on you sure want it? He brought it out and
• 2:25:46
  indifferently pitched it across at Sturgis. But first, you didn't have to worry
• 2:25:50
  about that, he assured him. You are my trump card. I have
• 2:25:52
  everything to lose and nothing to gain by the rest of it. Was lost.
• 2:25:56
  As he went calmly and leisurely into the bedroom, Sturges heard his shoes
• 2:26:01
  drop one after the other, and the bed creaked a little, as it
• 2:26:03
  had under him earlier. He bawled his hands into fists and put them up
• 2:26:07
  alongside his temples, as though he were going to bash his own head in.
• 2:26:11
  After a while, as if to give his hand something to do,
• 2:26:13
  he picked the gun up from the side of the chair and started to empty
• 2:26:16
  it. Long before he had finished, the harsh breathing of a man in
• 2:26:20
  deep sleep was coming from the bedroom. The knocking came within ten minutes.
• 2:26:26
  He stopped dead in the middle of the oval. He had been coursing endlessly
• 2:26:28
  round the room. One hill, raised clear of the floor and held that
• 2:26:31
  way. It came again, and the bell chirped, and a voice said,
• 2:26:35
  Sturge, are you in here? He recognized at his Highlands Island was
• 2:26:39
  one of his team mates. He went over and closed the bedroom door first.
• 2:26:43
  Then he came back to the front door, put out his hand to
• 2:26:46
  it, breathed deeply, and threw it wide open. Highland was out there
• 2:26:50
  with another man named Ranch and two uniformed cops. The last two had their
• 2:26:54
  guns out, but they had already started away by the time he got the
• 2:26:56
  door open, as though summoning him had been only incidental. Sturgis said,
• 2:27:01
  what's up? Hyland said, Foreman broke through again at the last minute,
• 2:27:05
  just as we were ready to close in. We've picked up a cab driver
• 2:27:09
  that brought him as far as the corner below here. He's holed up around
• 2:27:11
  here someplace. I'm going to case the back. You won't find him there,
• 2:27:16
  Sturgis said. He didn't offer to join them. All he said was
• 2:27:20
  I'm off duty. Hyland gave him a look, but he turned and went
• 2:27:22
  loping off. His voice came drifting back with a cutting edge to it.
• 2:27:28
  Sleep tight, Sorry we bothered you. Sturgis closed the door and stood by
• 2:27:33
  it a minute, head down, down, as low as if he were
• 2:27:35
  looking at his shoes. But he wasn't behind him, Foreman's voice said,
• 2:27:39
  slurringly through the narrow opening of the bedroom door. So you went to bat
• 2:27:43
  for me, Sturgis answered, viciously through clinched teeth. I don't have to
• 2:27:50
  turn you in behind your back while you're asleep. That isn't my way.
• 2:27:52
  I'm not afraid of you. No was the grudging admission. It's your own
• 2:27:58
  conscience you're afraid of, and her eyes. You let me do the worrying
• 2:28:03
  about that and stay in there. Sturgis took a threatening step forward. Stay
• 2:28:07
  out of my side, or I'll settle the problem with my own two hands.
• 2:28:11
  The door eased mockingly closed again. Sturgis was standing in his wife's kitchen,
• 2:28:16
  awkwardly jockeying something hot with the help of an enveloping dishcloth. When Foreman
• 2:28:20
  came out the second time, it was still dark. The gun metal Paul
• 2:28:24
  proceeding dawn. Foreman lounged there in the alcove a minute, watching him.
• 2:28:30
  What's this the president's last breakfast? Why so early? Sturgis just motioned to
• 2:28:35
  a chair drawn up at the formca topped table. The guests sat down.
• 2:28:39
  Sturgis brought over an aluminum percolator, snatched his hand away, blew on his
• 2:28:43
  thumb. He sat down opposite the killer. Foreman studied him detached. You
• 2:28:48
  look like you've been pulled through a knot hole. I bet you pounded the
• 2:28:50
  carpet and there the whole time I was asleep to that, Sturgis said,
• 2:28:56
  it took me three tries. Before I got this right. The sink,
• 2:28:58
  lined with black coffee grounds looked like some kind of flower bed. He pointed
• 2:29:03
  to a loaf of whitebread. You can cut some of that if you want
• 2:29:07
  any. They sat there after that, facing each other across the table,
• 2:29:11
  with a peculiar sort of normality, and every day no thiss, like two
• 2:29:15
  men at the kitchen table while their women were away. Foreman, wolf in
• 2:29:20
  great chunks of spongy white bread, looked around appraisingly, how much you pay
• 2:29:24
  for this place? There may have been a method in his assumption of unshaken
• 2:29:28
  confidence, his taking of immunity for granted, or there may not. He
• 2:29:33
  may have been as artless as he sounded, or he may have been as
• 2:29:35
  wary as a man cornered in a cage with a lion who knows that the
• 2:29:39
  show fear is fatal. Sturgis was past knowing or caring eighty five, he
• 2:29:46
  said. Foreman mused, while he picked his teeth. I never stayed in
• 2:29:50
  one place long enough to pay by the month. It might have been better
• 2:29:54
  if you had. They sat a while longer in silence. Then, little
• 2:29:58
  by little, the tension through tension that was coming from Sturgis his hands went
• 2:30:03
  down to the edge of his chair seat, gripping it on each side like
• 2:30:07
  a man reluctantly about to stand up. Foreman started smoking a little faster,
• 2:30:11
  shortening the intervals between puffs. Finally, he said, what are you getting
• 2:30:16
  all white like that? For? You're getting white as a ghost. You
• 2:30:20
  ought to see yourself. Sturgis said, we're going over there if you feel
• 2:30:24
  like starting anything, now's the time, still looking far away out. Huh
• 2:30:30
  no, you don't. You don't get off that easy. Sturgis got up
• 2:30:33
  and left the kitchen without a word. When he came back, he had
• 2:30:37
  his coat on and was holding an open manacle in his hand. He said,
• 2:30:39
  thickly, come on, let's get started. Shove out your hand.
• 2:30:46
  Foreman slowly extended a hand flat across the table top. He started drawing back
• 2:30:50
  his sleeve until he had bared his forearm nearly to the elbow. On its
• 2:30:54
  upper reaches were transverse white scarves from breaking the glass in the submerged car window
• 2:31:00
  that night. He just sat and looked up at Sturgis, holding it exposed
• 2:31:05
  that way. Sturgis's lips got white. He blinked, and the manacal click
• 2:31:09
  shut on the other's wrist. Foreman got up and followed Sturgis out of the
• 2:31:13
  kitchen. You can't go through with it, he said, quietly. It's
• 2:31:18
  written all over you. You can't. The window was open a little from
• 2:31:22
  the bottom, just below the shade. Sturgis threw out the handcuff key with
• 2:31:26
  a flick of his free hand. Foreman said, you don't trust yourself,
• 2:31:31
  do you. It's going to be a devil of a job now to The
• 2:31:35
  picture was lying face down on the radio as they went past. Is that
• 2:31:39
  the way you had to do it? Foreman said. Sturgis turned down the
• 2:31:43
  wall switch and the picture vanished. There wasn't enough light outside to penetrate the
• 2:31:46
  room. You'll have to see her again, Foreman pointed out. You'll have
• 2:31:52
  to see her every day of your life. You can't keep her face turned
• 2:31:56
  away from you. What'll you do? Then just opened the front door,
• 2:32:01
  swept his arm around in an arc, and towed Foreman through after him.
• 2:32:05
  I'm not going to bag or whine, Foreman said, I'm gonna make it
• 2:32:09
  tough for you. It'd be a lot easier for you if I went yellow,
• 2:32:11
  wouldn't it. The killer was right again. His intuition was uncanny.
• 2:32:18
  If he had cringed and slobbered and resisted, accepted the role of a squirming,
• 2:32:22
  apprehended culprit, somehow he would have weakened the validity of his claims.
• 2:32:26
  Sturgis could have dragged him in without compunction. This way, Sturgis closed the
• 2:32:33
  door and they went out, side by side. It was still blue overhead
• 2:32:35
  now, but still a little murky down at street level. He'll get a
• 2:32:41
  citation for this, Foreman taunted, he'll get promoted. You'll be the envy
• 2:32:46
  of every man in the department. And without having to lift a finger,
• 2:32:50
  either a man comes to you. They gave you the one thing you got
• 2:32:54
  that you give a damn about, the one thing that holds you together,
• 2:32:58
  that makes you tick. He comes trusting you. You're the lowest thing on
• 2:33:03
  the face of God's earth, Sturgis, even an alley cur has gratitude.
• 2:33:09
  Shut up, Sturgis roared. They went on slowly, almost waveringly, but
• 2:33:16
  Sturgis was breathless with effort, as though he had been running. The green
• 2:33:20
  lamps of a precinct house blinked at them as they rounded a corner, and
• 2:33:24
  Foreman recoiled involuntarily Sturgis could feel the hitch through the manacle. Foreman said,
• 2:33:30
  they're gonna kill me if you take me in there. You know that,
• 2:33:33
  don't ya. You know that once we go up these steps, no power
• 2:33:37
  yours, nothing you can do will get me out alive again, don't yea.
• 2:33:41
  I gave ye a kid's life, Sturgis, for the last time.
• 2:33:43
  I want my own from you. Sturgis's face was glossy with sweat and gray
• 2:33:50
  in the early dawn. He brought his forearm up level to his chest and
• 2:33:54
  nudged Foreman into motion copper. The man beside him breathed with contempt as they
• 2:34:01
  trudged up the steps and inside together. Sturgis just stood there, rigid,
• 2:34:05
  watching the clock that last night. They tried to tell him, sit down,
• 2:34:09
  Sturge, don't take it like that, but he didn't seem to hear
• 2:34:13
  them. When the phone call from upstate came through, you couldn't see him
• 2:34:16
  breathe at all while the lieutenant was talking. The lieutenant hung up and was
• 2:34:20
  quiet. Sturgis asked, was that it? Yeah? That was it?
• 2:34:28
  Did he leave any word say anything about forgiving anybody? He left a message
• 2:34:35
  for you, The lieutenant said, unwillingly looking down at his desk. Sturgis
• 2:34:39
  came closer. Still, tell me what is it I've got to know,
• 2:34:45
  he said, Tell Sturgis I'll be seeing him again. He knows where to
• 2:34:48
  find me, and her eyes tell him I'll always be waiting there. Sturgis
• 2:34:54
  put his hand to where he carried his badge, as if something hurt him
• 2:34:56
  there, and turned around and walked out the room without another word. Barbara
• 2:35:01
  said, half laughingly when he squatted down before his face so strained and white,
• 2:35:07
  and peered so closely, what are you looking at me like that?
• 2:35:09
  For? Oh? Still, he said, huskily, and look at me.
• 2:35:16
  There was sweat all over his forehead. Then, when he had drawn
• 2:35:18
  a great deep breath and straightened up again, she asked playfully, did you
• 2:35:22
  think you'd see something in my eyes? His answer to that was yes,
• 2:35:28
  the ghost of the man who saved your life. But he didn't tell her
• 2:35:33
  that well, did you, she insisted, Yes, he admitted sadly,
• 2:35:41
  I guess I always will a little. He took out his badge and started
• 2:35:46
  polishing it. But the other way, he added, mysteriously, I wouldn't
• 2:35:52
  have been able to look into them at all. End of Section three.
• 2:35:58
  I owe you three o'clock. She had signed over her own death warrant.
• 2:36:03
  He kept telling himself over and over that he was not to blame. She
• 2:36:07
  had brought it on herself. He had never seen the man. He knew
• 2:36:11
  there was one. He had known for six weeks now, Little things had
• 2:36:15
  told him. One day he came home and there was a cigar butt in
• 2:36:18
  an ash tray, still moist at one end, still warm at the other.
• 2:36:22
  There were gasoline drippings on the asphalt in front of their house, and
• 2:36:26
  they didn't own a car, and it wouldn't be a delivery vehicle because the
• 2:36:30
  drippings showed it had stood there a long time, an hour or more.
• 2:36:35
  And once he had actually glimpsed it just rounding the far corner as he got
• 2:36:39
  off the bus two blocks down the other way, a second hand Ford.
• 2:36:43
  She was often very flustered when he came home, hardly seemed to know what
• 2:36:48
  she was doing or saying at all. He pretended not to see any of
• 2:36:52
  these things. He was that type of man stap. He didn't bring his
• 2:36:56
  hates or grudges out into the open. When they had a chance to heal.
• 2:37:00
  He nursed them in the darkness of his mind. That's a dangerous kind
• 2:37:03
  of a man. If he had been honest with himself, he would have
• 2:37:07
  had to admit that this mysterious afternoon caller was just the excuse he gave himself.
• 2:37:13
  That he had day dreamed of getting rid of her long before there was
• 2:37:16
  any reason to that. There had been something in him for years past now
• 2:37:20
  urging kill, kill, kill, maybe ever since that time he had been
• 2:37:26
  treated at the hospital for a concussion. He didn't have any of the usual
• 2:37:31
  excuses. She had no money of her own, he hadn't insured her.
• 2:37:35
  He stood to gain nothing by getting rid of her. There was no other
• 2:37:37
  woman he meant to replace her with. She didn't nag and quarrel with him.
• 2:37:41
  She was a docile, tractable sort of wife. But this thing in
• 2:37:46
  his brain kept whispering kill, kill, Kill. He had fought it down
• 2:37:50
  until six weeks ago, more from fear and a sense of self preservation than
• 2:37:56
  from compunction. The discovery that there was some stranger calling on her in the
• 2:38:01
  afternoons when he was away was all that had been needed to unleash it in
• 2:38:05
  all its hydra headed ferocity, and the thought that he would be killing two
• 2:38:09
  instead of just one now was an added incentive. So every afternoon, for
• 2:38:15
  six weeks now when he came home from his shop, he had brought little
• 2:38:18
  things with him, very little things that were so harmless, so inoffensive in
• 2:38:22
  themselves, that no one, even had they seen them, could have guessed.
• 2:38:28
  Fine little strands of copper wires, such as he sometimes used in his
• 2:38:31
  watch repairing, And each time a very little package containing a substance that well
• 2:38:37
  an explosives expert might have recognized, but no one else. There was just
• 2:38:41
  enough in each one of those packages, if ignited to go and flare up
• 2:38:46
  like flashlight powder does loose like that, it couldn't hurt you, but only
• 2:38:50
  burned your skin, of course, if you got too near it. But
• 2:38:54
  wadded tightly into cells, And what had formerly been a soap box down in
• 2:38:58
  the basement compressed to within an inch of its life the way he had it,
• 2:39:03
  The whole accumulated thirty six days worth of it. For he hadn't brought
• 2:39:07
  any home on Sundays. That would be a different story. They'd never know.
• 2:39:13
  There wouldn't be enough left of the flimsy house for them to go by
• 2:39:16
  sewer gas, they'd think, or a pocket of natural gas in the ground
• 2:39:20
  somewhere around under them. Something like that happened over on the other side of
• 2:39:24
  town two years ago that had given him the idea. Originally, he brought
• 2:39:30
  home batteries to the ordinary dry cell kind, just two of them, one
• 2:39:33
  at a time. As far as the substance itself was concerned, where he
• 2:39:37
  got it was his business. No one would ever know where he got it.
• 2:39:41
  That was the beauty of getting such a little at a time like that.
• 2:39:46
  It wasn't even missed where he got it from. She didn't ask him
• 2:39:48
  what was in these little packages because she didn't even see them. He had
• 2:39:52
  them in his pocket each time, and of course he didn't smoke coming home.
• 2:39:58
  But even if she had seen them, she probably wouldn't have asked him.
• 2:40:01
  She wasn't the nosy kind that asked questions. She would have thought it
• 2:40:03
  was watch parts, maybe that he brought home to work over at night or
• 2:40:07
  something. And then too, she was so rattled and flustered herself these days,
• 2:40:11
  trying to cover up the fact that she had had a caller that he
• 2:40:15
  could have brought in a grandfather clock under his arm, and she probably wouldn't
• 2:40:18
  have noticed it. Well, so much. The worse for her death was
• 2:40:22
  spinning its web beneath her busy feet as they bustled obliviously back and forth in
• 2:40:26
  those ground floor rooms. He'd been in a shop tinkering with watch parts,
• 2:40:31
  and the phone would ring, mister Stap, mister Stap, your house has
• 2:40:35
  just been demolished by a blast. A slight concussion of the brain simplifies matters
• 2:40:39
  so beautifully. He knew she didn't intend running off with his unknown stranger,
• 2:40:46
  and at first he had wondered why not. By now he thought he had
• 2:40:48
  arrived at a satisfactory answer. It was that he Stap was working, and
• 2:40:54
  the other men evidently wasn't wouldn't be able to provide for her if she left
• 2:40:58
  with him. That must be it. What other reason could there be?
• 2:41:03
  She wanted to have her cake and eat it too, So that was all
• 2:41:07
  he was good for? Was it to keep a roof over her head?
• 2:41:09
  Well, he was going to lift that roof sky high, blow it to
• 2:41:13
  smithereens. He didn't really want her to run off anyway. That wouldn't have
• 2:41:18
  satisfied this thing within him that cried to kill, kill, kill. It
• 2:41:24
  wanted to get the two of them and nothing short of that would do.
• 2:41:28
  And if he and she had had a five year old kid, say,
• 2:41:31
  he would have included the kid in the Holocaust too, although a kid that
• 2:41:35
  age obviously couldn't be guilty of anything. A doctor would have known what to
• 2:41:39
  make of this and would have phoned a hospital in a hurry, But unfortunately
• 2:41:43
  doctors aren't mind readers, and people don't go around with their thoughts placarded on
• 2:41:46
  sandwich boards. The last little package had been brought in two days ago.
• 2:41:52
  The box had all it could hold, now, twice as much as was
• 2:41:56
  necessary to blow up the house, enough to break every window for a radius
• 2:42:01
  of blocks, only there were hardly any. They were in an isolated location,
• 2:42:05
  and that fact gave him a paradoxical feeling of virtue, as though he
• 2:42:09
  were doing a good deed. He was destroying his own but he wasn't endangering
• 2:42:13
  anybody else's home. The wires were in place, the batteries that would give
• 2:42:18
  off the necessary spark were attached. All that was necessary now was the final
• 2:42:22
  adjustment, the hook up, and then kill, kill, kill, the
• 2:42:28
  thing within him gloated. Today was the day he had been working over the
• 2:42:33
  alarm clock all morning to the exclusion of everything else. It was only a
• 2:42:37
  dollar and a half alarm, but he had given it more loving care than
• 2:42:41
  someone's Swiss movement pocket watch or platinum and diamond wrist watch, taking it apart,
• 2:42:46
  cleaning it, oiling it, adjusting it, putting it together again,
• 2:42:52
  so that there was no slightest possibility of it failing him, of it not
• 2:42:56
  playing its part, of its stopping or jamming, or anything else. That
• 2:43:00
  was one good thing about being your own boss, operating your own shop.
• 2:43:03
  There was no one over you to tell you what to do and what not
• 2:43:07
  to do, and he didn't have an apprentice or helper in the shop either
• 2:43:11
  to notice this peculiar absorption in a mere alarm clock and tell someone about it
• 2:43:16
  later other days, he came home from work at five. This mysterious caller,
• 2:43:22
  this intruder, must be there from about two thirty or three until shortly
• 2:43:28
  before she expected him one afternoon. It had started to drizzle at about a
• 2:43:31
  quarter to three, and when he turned in at his doorway over two hours
• 2:43:35
  later, there was still a large dry patch on the asphalt out before their
• 2:43:39
  house, just beginning to blacken over with a fine misty precipitation that was still
• 2:43:43
  falling. That was how he knew the time of her treachery so well.
• 2:43:48
  He could, of course, if he had wanted to bring the thing out
• 2:43:52
  into the open, simply have come an unexpected hour earlier any afternoon during those
• 2:43:58
  six weeks and confronted them to face. But he preferred the way of guile
• 2:44:03
  in murderous revenge. They might have had some explanation to offer that would weaken
• 2:44:07
  his purpose, rob him of his excuse to do the thing he craved.
• 2:44:11
  And he knew her so well that in his secret heart he feared she would
• 2:44:16
  have if he once gave her the chance to offer it. Feared was the
• 2:44:20
  right word. He wanted to do this thing. He wasn't interested in a
• 2:44:24
  showdown. He was interested in a payoff. This artificially nurtured grievance had brought
• 2:44:30
  the poison in his system to a head that was all. Without it,
• 2:44:35
  it might have remained latent for another five years, but it would have erupted
• 2:44:37
  sooner or later. Anyway. He knew the hours of her domestic routine so
• 2:44:43
  well that it was the simplest matter in the world for him to return to
• 2:44:46
  the house on his errand at a time when she would not be there.
• 2:44:50
  She did her cleaning in the morning, then she had the impromptu morsel that
• 2:44:54
  she called lunch. Then she went out in the early afternoon and did her
• 2:44:58
  marketing for their evening miss. They had a phone in the house, but
• 2:45:01
  she never ordered over it. She liked. She often told him to see
• 2:45:05
  what she was getting. Otherwise, the tradespeople simply foisted whatever they chose on
• 2:45:09
  you at their own prices. So from one until two was the time for
• 2:45:13
  him to do it and be sure of getting away again unobserved. Afterwards,
• 2:45:18
  at twelve thirty sharp, he wrapped up the alarm clock in ordinary brown paper,
• 2:45:24
  tucked it under his arm, and left his shop. He left it
• 2:45:26
  every day at this time to go to his own lunch. He would be
• 2:45:30
  a little longer getting back to day, that was all. He locked the
• 2:45:33
  door carefully after him. Of course, no use taking chances. He had
• 2:45:37
  too many valuable watches in there under repair and observation. He boarded the bus
• 2:45:43
  at the corner below, just as he did every day when he was really
• 2:45:46
  going home for the night. There was no danger of being recognized or identified
• 2:45:50
  by any bus driver or fellow passenger or anything like that. This was too
• 2:45:54
  big a city. Hundreds of people used these buses night and day. The
• 2:46:00
  drivers didn't even glance up at you when you paid your fare, deftly made
• 2:46:03
  change for you back hand by their sense of touch alone on the coin you
• 2:46:07
  gave them. The bus was practically empty. No one was going out his
• 2:46:11
  way at this hour of the day. He got off at his usual stop,
• 2:46:13
  three interminable suburban blocks away from where he lived, which was why his
• 2:46:18
  house had not been a particularly good investment when he bought it, and no
• 2:46:22
  others had been put up around it afterwards, but it had its compensations.
• 2:46:26
  On such a day as this, there were no neighbors to glimpse him returning
• 2:46:31
  to it at this unusual hour from their windows. And remember that fact afterwards.
• 2:46:37
  The first of the three blocks he had to walk had a row of
• 2:46:39
  taxpayers on it one story store fronts. The next two were absolutely vacant from
• 2:46:45
  corner to corner, just a panel of advertising billboards on both sides, with
• 2:46:50
  their gallery of friendly people that beamed on him twice each day. Incurable optimists,
• 2:46:54
  these people were even to day when they were going to be shattered and
• 2:46:58
  splintered. They cantinued to grin and smirk their council and messages of cheer.
• 2:47:03
  The perspiring bald headed fat man about to quaff some non alcoholic beverage. The
• 2:47:09
  pause that refreshes the grinning colored laundress hanging up wash. No, ma'am,
• 2:47:13
  I just uses a little OXI dol the farm wife at the rural telephone,
• 2:47:18
  sniggering over her shoulder, still talking about their new forward eight. They'd beat
• 2:47:24
  tatters and kindly in two hours from now, and they didn't have sense enough
• 2:47:28
  to get down off there and hurry away. You'll wish you had, he
• 2:47:33
  whispered darkly as he passed by beneath them, clock under arm. But the
• 2:47:37
  point was that if ever a man walked three city blocks in broad daylight,
• 2:47:41
  unseen by the human eye, he did that now. He turned in on
• 2:47:46
  the short cement walk. When he came to his house at last, pulled
• 2:47:50
  back the screen door, put his latch key into the wooden inner door,
• 2:47:52
  and let himself in. She wasn't home, of course, he had known
• 2:47:56
  she wouldn't be, or he wouldn't have come back like this. He closed
• 2:48:01
  the door again after him moved forward into the blue twilight dimness of the inside
• 2:48:05
  of the house. It seemed like that at first, after the glare of
• 2:48:07
  the street. She had the green shades down three quarters of the way on
• 2:48:11
  all the windows to keep it cool until she came back. He didn't take
• 2:48:16
  his hat off or anything. He wasn't staying particularly after once he set this
• 2:48:20
  clock. He was carrying in motion. In fact, it was going to
• 2:48:24
  be a creepy feeling, even walking back those three blocks to the bus stop
• 2:48:28
  and standing waiting for the bus to take him down town again, knowing all
• 2:48:31
  the time something was going to talk to talk in the stillness back here,
• 2:48:37
  even though it wouldn't happen for a couple of hours. Yet he went directly
• 2:48:41
  to the door leading down to the basement. It was a good stout wooden
• 2:48:45
  door. He passed through it, closed it behind him, and went down
• 2:48:48
  the bare brick steps to the basement floor. In the winter, of course,
• 2:48:52
  she'd have to come down here occasionally to regulate the oil burner while he
• 2:48:56
  was away, But after the fifteenth of April, no one but himself ever
• 2:49:00
  came down here at any time, and it was now long past the fifteenth
• 2:49:03
  of April. She hadn't even known that he had come down, that he
• 2:49:07
  had slipped down each night for a few minutes while she was in the kitchen
• 2:49:11
  doing the dishes, and by the time she got through and came out,
• 2:49:13
  he was upstairs again behind his newspaper. It didn't take long to add the
• 2:49:18
  contents of each successive little package to what was already in the box. The
• 2:49:22
  wiring had taken more time, but he had gotten that done one night when
• 2:49:26
  she had gone out to the movies, so she said, and then had
• 2:49:31
  been very vague about what the picture was she had seen, but he hadn't
• 2:49:33
  pressed her. The basement was provided with a light bulb over the stairs,
• 2:49:39
  but it wasn't necessary to use it except at night. Daylight was admitted through
• 2:49:43
  a horizontal slit of window that on the outside was flushed with the ground,
• 2:49:46
  but on the inside was up directly under the basement ceiling. The glass was
• 2:49:50
  wire mashed for protection, and so cloudy with lack of attention as to be
• 2:49:54
  nearly opaque. The box that was no longer merely a box now al but
• 2:50:00
  an infertile machine, was standing over against the wall to one side of the
• 2:50:03
  oil burner. He didn't dare shift it about any more. Now that it
• 2:50:07
  was wired and the batteries inserted, he went over to it and squatted down
• 2:50:11
  on his heels before it, and put his hand on it with a sort
• 2:50:15
  of loving gesture. He was proud of it, prouder than of any fine
• 2:50:20
  watch he'd ever repaired or reconstructed. A watch, after all, was inanimate.
• 2:50:24
  This was going to become animate in a few more minutes. Maybe diabolically
• 2:50:30
  so, but animate just the same. It was like giving birth. He
• 2:50:37
  wrapped the clock and spread out the few necessary small implements he had brought with
• 2:50:41
  him from the shop. On the floor beside him, Two fine copper wires
• 2:50:46
  were sticking stiffly out of a small hole. He'd bore it into the box
• 2:50:50
  in readiness, like the antennae of some kind of insect. Through them,
• 2:50:54
  death would go in. He wound the clock up first, for he couldn't
• 2:50:58
  safely that once it was connected. He wound it up to within an inch
• 2:51:03
  of its life, with a professionally deft economy of wrist motion. Not for
• 2:51:07
  nothing was he a watch repairer. It must have sounded ominous down there in
• 2:51:11
  that hush basement to hear that crick crack, that so domestic sound that denotes
• 2:51:18
  going to bed, peace, slumber, security, that this time denoted approaching
• 2:51:24
  annihilation. It would have if there'd been any listener. There wasn't any but
• 2:51:28
  himself. It didn't sound ominous to him. It sounded delicious. He set
• 2:51:33
  the alarm for three. But there was a difference now, instead of just
• 2:51:37
  setting off a harmless bell when the hour hand reached three, in the minute
• 2:51:41
  hand reached twelve, the wires attached to it leading to the batteries would set
• 2:51:46
  off a spark, a single, tiny, evanescent spark, that was all.
• 2:51:52
  And when that happened, all the way downtown where his shop was,
• 2:51:56
  the showcase would vibrate, and maybe one or two of the more delicate could
• 2:52:00
  watch mechanisms would stop, and people in the streets would stop and ask one
• 2:52:03
  another what was that. They probably wouldn't even be able to tell definitely afterwards
• 2:52:09
  that there'd been any one else beside herself in the house at the time.
• 2:52:13
  They'd know that she had been there only by process of elimination. She wouldn't
• 2:52:18
  be anywhere else afterwards. They'd know that the house had been there only by
• 2:52:20
  the hole in the ground and the litter around. He wondered why more people
• 2:52:26
  didn't do things like this. They didn't know what they were missing, probably
• 2:52:30
  not clever enough to be able to make the things themselves. That was why,
• 2:52:35
  when he had set the clock itself by his own pocket watch one fifteen,
• 2:52:39
  he pried the back off it. He had already bored a little hole
• 2:52:41
  through this at his shop. Carefully, he guided the antenna like wires through
• 2:52:46
  it. More carefully still, he fastened them to the necessary parts of the
• 2:52:50
  mechanism without letting a trimmer course along them. It was highly dangerous, but
• 2:52:54
  his hands didn't play him false. They were too skilled at this sort of
• 2:52:58
  thing. It wasn't vital to reattach the back to the clock. The result
• 2:53:03
  would be the same if it stood open or closed, But he did that
• 2:53:05
  too, to give the sense of completion to the job that his craftsman soul
• 2:53:09
  found necessary. When he had done with it, it stood there on the
• 2:53:15
  floor, as if placed there at random, up against an innocent looking copperlighted
• 2:53:18
  soap box ticking away. Ten minutes had gone by since he had come down
• 2:53:24
  here. One hour and forty minutes were still to go by. Death was
• 2:53:28
  on the wing. He stood up and looked down at his work. He
• 2:53:33
  nodded. He retreated his step across the basement floor, still looking down,
• 2:53:37
  and nodded again, as if the slight perspective gained only enhanced it. He
• 2:53:41
  went over to the foot of the stairs leading up and stopped once more and
• 2:53:45
  looked over. He had very good eyes. He could see the exact minute
• 2:53:48
  notches on the dial all the way over where he now was. One had
• 2:53:52
  just gone by. He smiled a little and went on up the stairs,
• 2:53:56
  not furtively or fearfully, but as a mend in his own house, with
• 2:54:01
  an unhurried air of ownership, heads up, shoulders back, tread firm.
• 2:54:05
  He hadn't heard a sound over his head while he was down there, and
• 2:54:09
  you could hear sounds quite easily through the thin flooring. He knew that by
• 2:54:13
  experience even the opening and closing of doors above could be heard down here.
• 2:54:16
  Certainly the footsteps of anyone walking about in the ground floor rooms if they bore
• 2:54:22
  down with their normal weight, and when they stood above certain spots and spoke,
• 2:54:26
  the sound of the voices and even what was said came through clearly due
• 2:54:31
  to some trick of acoustics. He had heard a commentator clearly on the radio
• 2:54:35
  several times while he was down here. That was why he was all the
• 2:54:39
  more unprepared as he opened the basement door and stepped out into the ground floor
• 2:54:43
  hall to hear a soft tread somewhere up above on the second floor, a
• 2:54:48
  single solitary footfall, separate, disconnected, like Robinson Crusoe's footprint. He stood
• 2:54:54
  stock still a moment, listening tensely, thinking, hoping rather he'd been mistaken,
• 2:55:00
  but he hadn't. The slur of a bureau drawer being drawn open or
• 2:55:03
  closed reached him, and then a faint tinkling sound, as though something had
• 2:55:07
  lightly struck one of the glass toilet articles on Frand's dresser. Who else could
• 2:55:13
  it be but she? And yet there was a stealth to these vague,
• 2:55:16
  disconnected noises that didn't sound like her. He would have heard her come in
• 2:55:20
  her high heels usually exploded along the hardwood floors like little fire crackers. Some
• 2:55:26
  sixth scents made him turn suddenly and look behind him toward the dining room,
• 2:55:30
  and he was just in time to see a man, half crouched, shoulders
• 2:55:33
  bunched forward, creeping up on him. He was still a few yards away,
• 2:55:37
  beyond the dining room threshold. But before Stap could do more than drop
• 2:55:39
  open his mouth with reflex astonishment, he had closed in on him, caught
• 2:55:43
  him brutally by the throat with one hand, flung him back against the wall
• 2:55:46
  and pinned him there. What are you doing here? Stat managed to gasp
• 2:55:52
  out, Hey, Bill, somebody is home. The man called out guardedly.
• 2:55:58
  Then he struck out at him, hit him as stunning blow on the
• 2:56:00
  side of the head with his free hand. Stap didn't reel because the wall
• 2:56:05
  was at the back of his head. That gave him back the blow doubly,
• 2:56:07
  and his senses dolled into a worrying flux for a minute. Before they
• 2:56:11
  had cleared again, a second man had leaped down off the stairs from one
• 2:56:13
  of the rooms above in the act of finishing cramming something into his pocket.
• 2:56:18
  You know what to do, hurry up, the first one ordered, give
• 2:56:22
  me something to tie him with, and let's get out of here. For
• 2:56:24
  God's sake, don't tout. Stap managed to articulate through the strangling grip on
• 2:56:30
  his windpipe. The rest of it was lost in a blur of frenzied struggle
• 2:56:33
  on his part flailing out with his legs clawing at his own throat to free
• 2:56:37
  it. He wasn't fighting the man off, He was only trying to tear
• 2:56:39
  that throttling impediment off long enough to get out what he had to tell them.
• 2:56:43
  But as assailant couldn't tell the difference, he struck him savagely. A
• 2:56:46
  second and third time. Stap went limp there against the wall without losing consciousness.
• 2:56:54
  The second one had come back already with a rope. It looked like
• 2:56:56
  Fran's clothes line from the kitchen that she used on money days. Stap head
• 2:57:01
  falling forward dazedly upon the pinioning arm that still had him by the jugular,
• 2:57:05
  was dimly aware of this going around and around him, criss cross in and
• 2:57:09
  out legs and body and arms. Don't he panted. His mouth was suddenly
• 2:57:16
  nearly torn into and a large handkerchief or rag was thrust in, effectively silencing
• 2:57:20
  all further sound. Then they whipped something around outside of that to keep it
• 2:57:24
  in and fastened it behind his head. His senses were clearing again now that
• 2:57:28
  it was too late. Fier huh, one of them muttered, grimly,
• 2:57:33
  what's he protecting? The place is a lemon. There's nothing in it.
• 2:57:37
  Stapp felt a hand spade into his vest pocket, take his watch out,
• 2:57:41
  then into his trouser pocket, and remove the little change he had on him.
• 2:57:46
  Where all we put him, leave him where he is. No,
• 2:57:50
  I did my last stretch just on account of leaving a guy in the open
• 2:57:54
  where he could put a squad car on my tail. Too quick they nab
• 2:57:56
  me a block away, I'd shove him back down in there where he was.
• 2:58:01
  This brought on a new spasm, almost epileptic in its violence. He
• 2:58:05
  squirmed and writhed and shook his head back and forth. They'd picked him up
• 2:58:09
  between them now head and feet, kicked the basement door open, and were
• 2:58:13
  carrying him down the steps to the bottom. They still couldn't be made to
• 2:58:16
  understand that he wasn't resisting, that he wouldn't call the police, that he
• 2:58:20
  wouldn't lift a finger to have them apprehended, if only they'd let him get
• 2:58:24
  out of here with them. This is more like it, one said,
• 2:58:30
  as they deposited him on the floor. Whoever lives in the house with him
• 2:58:33
  won't find him so quick steps started to roll his eyes back and forth on
• 2:58:39
  the floor like something demented toward the clock, then toward them, toward the
• 2:58:43
  clock, toward them, but so fast that it finally lost all possible meaning,
• 2:58:46
  even if it would have had any for them in the first place,
• 2:58:50
  and it wouldn't have, of course, they still thought he was trying to
• 2:58:54
  free himself in unconquerable opposition. Look at that, one of them jeered,
• 2:59:00
  ever see anyone like him in your life? He backed his arm threateningly at
• 2:59:03
  the wriggling form. I'll give you one that'll hold you for good if you
• 2:59:07
  don't cut it out. Tie him up to that pipe over there in the
• 2:59:11
  corner, his companion suggested, or he'll wear himself out rolling all over the
• 2:59:15
  place. They dragged him backwards along the floor and lashed him in a sitting
• 2:59:18
  position, legs out before him, with an added length of rope that had
• 2:59:22
  been coiled in the basement. Then they brushed their hands ostentatiously and started up
• 2:59:26
  the basement stairs, one behind the other, breathing hard from the struggle they
• 2:59:30
  had had with him. Back up what we got, and let's blow,
• 2:59:33
  one muttered. We'll have to pull another one tonight, and this time you
• 2:59:37
  let me do the pickin. It looked like the berries. His mate alibied,
• 2:59:41
  now one home and standing way off by itself like it is a peculiar
• 2:59:46
  sound, like the low simmering of a tea kettle, where the mewing of
• 2:59:50
  a newborn kitten left out in the rain to die came percolating thinly through the
• 2:59:54
  gap in Stap's mouth. His vocal cords were strained to bursting with the effort
• 2:59:58
  it was costing him to make even that slight sound. His eyes were round
• 3:00:01
  and staring fastened on them in horror and imploring. They saw the look as
• 3:00:07
  they went on up, but couldn't read it. It might have been just
• 3:00:09
  the physical effort of trying to burst his bonds. It might have been the
• 3:00:13
  rage and threatened retribution. For all they knew, the first passed obliviously through
• 3:00:18
  the basement doorway and disappeared from sight. The second stopped halfway to the top
• 3:00:22
  of the stairs and glanced complacently back at him, the way he himself.
• 3:00:26
  I had looked back at his own handiwork just short minutes ago. Take it
• 3:00:31
  easy, he jeered, relax. I used to be a sailor. You'll
• 3:00:35
  never get out of them, notts, buddy, Stap swoveled his skull desperately
• 3:00:39
  threw his eyes at the clock one last time. They almost started out of
• 3:00:43
  their sockets. He put such physical effort into the look this time the man
• 3:00:48
  got it finally, but got it wrong. He flung his arm at him
• 3:00:52
  derisively, trying to tell me you got a date. Oh, no,
• 3:00:56
  you haven't. You only think you have. Why do you care what time
• 3:00:58
  it is is Y're not going any place. And then, with the horrible
• 3:01:03
  slowness of a nightmare, though it only seemed that way, for he resumed
• 3:01:07
  his ascent fairly briskly. His head went out through the doorway, his shoulders
• 3:01:11
  followed his waist next. Now, even then, optical communication was cut off
• 3:01:16
  between them, and if only Stap had had a minute more he might have
• 3:01:20
  made him understand. There was only one back thrust foot left in sight.
• 3:01:24
  Now poised on the topmost basement step to take flight, Stap's eyes were on
• 3:01:30
  it as though their burning plea could hold it back. The hill lifted up,
• 3:01:33
  it rose trailed through. After the rest of the man was gone.
• 3:01:37
  Stap heaved himself so violently as if to go after it by sheer will power
• 3:01:41
  that for a moment his whole body was a distended bow, clear of the
• 3:01:46
  floor from shoulders to heels. Then he fell flat again with a muffled thud,
• 3:01:52
  and a little dust came out from under him, and a half dozen
• 3:01:54
  little separate skins of sweat started down his face at one time, crossing and
• 3:01:58
  intercrossing as they coursed. The basement door ebbed back into its frame, and
• 3:02:03
  the latch dropped into its socket with a minor click. That the hymn was
• 3:02:07
  like the crack of doom in the silence now above. The surge of his
• 3:02:11
  own tidal breathing that came and went, like surf upon a shoreline was the
• 3:02:16
  counterpoint of the clock. For a moment or two longer. He drew what
• 3:02:24
  consolation he could from the knowledge of their continued presence above him. An occasional
• 3:02:30
  stealthy footfall here and there, never more than two in succession, for they
• 3:02:33
  moved with marvelous dexterity. They must have had a lot of practice in breaking
• 3:02:37
  and entering. They were very cautious walkers from long habit, even when there
• 3:02:41
  was no further need for it. A single remark filtered through from somewhere near
• 3:02:45
  the back door. I'll set let's take it this way. The creak of
• 3:02:50
  a hinge and the horrid finality of a door closing after them, the back
• 3:02:54
  door which Fran may have forgotten to lock, and by which they had presumably
• 3:02:58
  entered in the first place. And then they were gone, and with them
• 3:03:03
  went his only link with the outside world. They were the only two people
• 3:03:07
  in the whole city who knew where he was at this moment. No one
• 3:03:11
  else, not a living soul, knew where to find him, nor what
• 3:03:16
  would happen to him if he wasn't found and gotten out of here. By
• 3:03:18
  three o'clock it was twenty five to two. Now. His discovery of their
• 3:03:24
  presence, the fight, their trussing him up with the rope, and their
• 3:03:26
  final, unhurried departure had all taken place within fifteen minutes. It went t
• 3:03:31
  t t tick tick tack tick tick, so rhythmically, so remorselessly, so
• 3:03:39
  fast, and hour and twenty five minutes left, eighty five minutes left.
• 3:03:46
  How long that could seem if he were waiting for someone on a corner under
• 3:03:50
  an umbrella in the rain, like he had once waited for Fran outside the
• 3:03:56
  office where she worked before they were married, only to find that she had
• 3:03:58
  been taken ill and gone home early that day. How long that could seem
• 3:04:03
  if you were stretched out on a hospital bed with knife pains in your head
• 3:04:07
  and nothing to look at but white walls until they brought your next tray,
• 3:04:11
  as he had that time of the concussion. How long that could seem when
• 3:04:15
  you'd finished the paper and one of the tubes had burned out in the radio,
• 3:04:18
  and it was too early to go to bed. Yet, how short,
• 3:04:22
  how fleeting, how instantaneous that could seem when it was all the time
• 3:04:26
  there was left for you to live, and you were going to die at
• 3:04:30
  the end of it. No clock had ever gone this fast, of all
• 3:04:33
  the hundreds that he had looked at and set right. This was a demon
• 3:04:37
  clock. Its quarter hours were minutes, and its minutes seconds. Its lesser
• 3:04:41
  hand didn't even pause at all on those notches, the way it should have
• 3:04:45
  passed on from one to the next, in perpetual motion. It was cheating
• 3:04:48
  him. It wasn't keeping the right time. Somebody slow it down at least,
• 3:04:52
  if nothing else. It was twirling like a pin wheel. That secondary
• 3:04:58
  hand. Tik tok, TikTok, tik tok. He broke it up into
• 3:05:03
  Here I go, Here I go, Here I go. There was a
• 3:05:05
  long period of silence that seemed to go on forever. After the two of
• 3:05:09
  them had left, the clock told him it was only twenty one minutes.
• 3:05:13
  Then at four to two, a door opened above without warning. Oh blessed
• 3:05:18
  sound, Oh lovely sound, the front door, this time over above that
• 3:05:22
  side of the basement, and high heeled shoes clacked over his head like castanets.
• 3:05:30
  Fren. He shouted, freen, he yelled, fren He screamed,
• 3:05:35
  but all that got past the gag was a low whimper that didn't even reach
• 3:05:39
  across the basement. His face was dark with the effort it cost him,
• 3:05:43
  and a cord stood out at each side of his palpitating neck like a splint.
• 3:05:48
  The tap, tap, tap, went into the kitchen, stopped a
• 3:05:50
  minute. She was putting down her parcels. She didn't have things delivered,
• 3:05:54
  because then you are expected to tip the errand boyt incense came back again.
• 3:06:00
  If only there was something he could kick at with his interlocked feet, make
• 3:06:05
  a clatter with the cellar flooring was bare from wall to wall. He tried
• 3:06:09
  hoisting his lashed legs clear of the floor, and pounding them down again with
• 3:06:13
  all his might, maybe the sound of the impact would carry up to her.
• 3:06:16
  All he got was a soft, cushioned sound, with twice the pain
• 3:06:20
  of striking a stone surface with your bare palm, and not even as much
• 3:06:24
  distinctness. His shoes were rubber heeled, and he could not tilt them up
• 3:06:28
  and around far enough to bring them down on the leather part above the lifts.
• 3:06:33
  An electrical discharge of pain shot up the backs of his legs, coursed
• 3:06:37
  up his spine, and exploded at the back of his head like a brilliant
• 3:06:39
  rocket. Meanwhile, her steps had halted about where the hall closet was.
• 3:06:45
  She must be hanging up her coat. Then went on toward the stairs that
• 3:06:48
  led to the upper floor, faded out upon them going up. She was
• 3:06:52
  out of earshot now temporarily, but she was in the house with him.
• 3:06:56
  At least, that awful a loneness was gone. He felt such gratitude for
• 3:07:01
  her nearness, He felt such love and need for her. He wondered how
• 3:07:05
  he could have ever thought of doing away with her only one short hour ago.
• 3:07:11
  He saw now that he must have been insane to contemplate such a thing.
• 3:07:15
  Well, if he had been, he was sane. Now he was
• 3:07:18
  rational. Now this ordeal had brought him to his senses. Only release him,
• 3:07:24
  only rescue him from his jeopardy, and he'd never again. Five after
• 3:07:30
  she had been back nine minutes. Now there it was ten, at first
• 3:07:35
  slowly, then faster and faster. Terror, which had momentarily been quelled by
• 3:07:39
  her return, began to fasten upon him again. Why did she stay up
• 3:07:43
  there on the second floor like that? Why didn't she come down here to
• 3:07:46
  the basement to look for something? Wasn't there anything down here that she might
• 3:07:50
  suddenly be in need of? He looked around, and there wasn't. There
• 3:07:54
  wasn't a possible thing that might bring her down here. They kept their basement
• 3:07:58
  so clean, so empty. Why wasn't it piled up with all sorts of
• 3:08:03
  junk like other peoples that might have saved him? Now she might intend to
• 3:08:07
  stay up there all afternoon. She might lie down and take a nap.
• 3:08:11
  She might shampoo her hair, she might do over an old dress. Any
• 3:08:15
  one of those trivial, harmless occupations of a woman during her husband's absence prove
• 3:08:20
  so fatal. Now she might count on staying up there until it was time
• 3:08:24
  to begin getting his supper ready. And if she did no supper, no
• 3:08:31
  she, no he? Then a measure of relief came again. The man,
• 3:08:35
  the man whom he had intended destroying along with her. He would save
• 3:08:41
  him, He would be the means of his salvation. He came other days,
• 3:08:45
  didn't he in the afternoon while stapp was away? Then, oh God,
• 3:08:48
  let him come today, Make this one of the days they had a
• 3:08:52
  rendezvous. And yet maybe it just wasn't. For if he came, that
• 3:08:56
  would bring her down to the lower floor, if only to it at him.
• 3:09:01
  And how infinitely greater his chances would be with two pairs of ears in
• 3:09:03
  the house to overhear some wisp of sound, he might make them with just
• 3:09:09
  one. And so he found himself in the anomalous position of a husband,
• 3:09:13
  praying, pleading with every ounce of fervency he could muster for the arrival,
• 3:09:18
  the materialization of arrival whose existence he had only suspected until now, never been
• 3:09:24
  positive. Of eleven past, two forty nine minutes left less than the time
• 3:09:31
  it took to sit through the a part of a picture show, less than
• 3:09:35
  the time it took to get a hair cut. If he had to wait
• 3:09:37
  your turn, less than the time it took to sit through a Sunday meal,
• 3:09:41
  or listen to an hour program on the radio. A ride on the
• 3:09:45
  bus from here to the beach for a dip, less than all of those
• 3:09:48
  things to live. Oh no, he had been meant to live thirty more
• 3:09:54
  years, forty What had become of those years, those months, those weeks,
• 3:10:00
  No, not just minutes left. It wasn't fair. Fran, he
• 3:10:05
  shrieked, Fran, come down here, can't you hear me? The gag
• 3:10:09
  drank it up like a sponge. The phone trilled out suddenly in the lower
• 3:10:13
  hallway, midway between him and her. He had never heard such a beautiful
• 3:10:16
  sound before. Thank god, he sobbed, and a tear stood out in
• 3:10:22
  each eye. That must be the man now, that would bring her down?
• 3:10:26
  Then fear again. Suppose it was only to tell her that he wasn't
• 3:10:31
  coming, Or worse still, suppose it was to ask her instead to come
• 3:10:35
  out and meet him somewhere else, leave him alone down here once again,
• 3:10:39
  with this horror ticking away opposite him. No child was ever so terrified of
• 3:10:43
  being left alone in the dark of its parents. Putting out the light and
• 3:10:48
  leaving it to the mercy of the boogeyman. As this grown man was at
• 3:10:52
  the thought of her going out of the house and leaving him behind, it
• 3:10:56
  kept on ringing a moment longer, and then he heard her quick step to
• 3:10:58
  desay the stairs to answer it. He could hear every word she said down
• 3:11:03
  there where he was, these cheap matchwood houses. Hello, yes, Dave,
• 3:11:09
  I just got in now, then, Oh Dave, I'm all upset.
• 3:11:13
  I had seventeen dollars upstairs in my bureau drawer and it's gone. And
• 3:11:16
  the wristwatch that Paul gave me is gone too. Nothing else is missing.
• 3:11:20
  But it looks to me as if someone broke in here while I was out
• 3:11:22
  and robbed us. Step almost writhed with the light down there where he was.
• 3:11:28
  She knew they'd been robbed. She'd get the police now, Surely they'd
• 3:11:33
  search the whole place. Surely they'd look down here and find him. The
• 3:11:35
  man she was talking to must have asked her if she was sure, Well,
• 3:11:39
  I'll go look again, but I know it's gone. I know just
• 3:11:41
  where I left it, and it isn't there. Paul will have a fit.
• 3:11:46
  No, Paul wouldn't either if she'd only come down here and free him.
• 3:11:50
  He'd forgive her anything, even the cardinal sin of being robbed of his
• 3:11:54
  hard earned money. Then she said, no, I haven't reported it yet.
• 3:12:00
  I suppose I should, but I don't like the idea on your account.
• 3:12:03
  You know, I'm going to call up Paul at the shop. There's
• 3:12:07
  just a chance that he took the money and the watch both with him when
• 3:12:09
  he left this morning. I remember telling him the other night that it was
• 3:12:13
  losing time. He may have wanted to look it over. Well, all
• 3:12:16
  right, Dave, come on out then, so he was coming, so
• 3:12:20
  Stap wasn't to be left alone in the place. Hot breaths of relief pushed
• 3:12:24
  against the sodden gag at the back of his palate. There was a pause
• 3:12:28
  while she broke the connection. Then he heard her call his shop number,
• 3:12:33
  Trevalian four five one two, and waited while they were ringing, and of
• 3:12:37
  course no one answered. Tick tick tick, tick tick tick. The operator
• 3:12:43
  must have told her finally that they couldn't get the number. Well, keep
• 3:12:46
  ringing. He heard her say, it's my husband's store. He's always there
• 3:12:50
  at this hour. He screamed, in terrible silence. I'm right here under
• 3:12:54
  your feet. Don't waste time, for God's sake, Come away from the
• 3:12:58
  phone, come down here. Finally, when failure was reported a second time,
• 3:13:03
  she hung up. Even the hollow cupping sound of that detail reached him.
• 3:13:07
  Oh, everything reached him. But help. This was a torture that
• 3:13:13
  a grand inquisitor would have envied. He heard her steps move away from where
• 3:13:16
  the phone was. Wouldn't she guess by his absence from where he was supposed
• 3:13:22
  to be that something was wrong? Wouldn't she come down here now and look?
• 3:13:26
  Oh? Where was this woman's intuition they spoke about. No, how
• 3:13:31
  could she be expected to What connection could the basement of their house possibly have
• 3:13:37
  in her mind with the fact that he wasn't in his shop. Most likely
• 3:13:41
  she wasn't even alarmed so far by his absence. If it had been evening,
• 3:13:46
  but at this hour of the day, he might have gone out later
• 3:13:50
  than other days to his lunch. He might have had some errand to do.
• 3:13:54
  He heard her going up the stairs again, probably to resume her search
• 3:13:56
  for the missing money and watch he went Disappointedly, he was as cut off
• 3:14:01
  from her while she remained up there, as if she had been miles away
• 3:14:05
  instead of vertically over him in a straight line. It was twenty one past
• 3:14:11
  two, now, one half hour and nine scant minutes more left, and
• 3:14:16
  they ticked away with the prodigality of tropical rain drops on a corrugated tin roof.
• 3:14:22
  He kept straining and pulling away from the pipe that held him fast,
• 3:14:26
  then falling back, exhausted to rest awhile to struggle, and to strain some
• 3:14:31
  more. There was as recurrent a rhythm to it as there was to the
• 3:14:35
  ticking of the clock itself, only more widely spaced. How could ropes hold
• 3:14:41
  that unyieldingly? Each time he fell back weaker, less able to contend with
• 3:14:45
  them than the time before. For he wasn't little strands of hemp. He
• 3:14:50
  was layers of thin skin that broke one by one and gave forth burning pain
• 3:14:54
  and finally blood. The doorbell rang out sharply. The man had come.
• 3:15:00
  In less than ten minutes after their phone talk. He had reached the house.
• 3:15:03
  Stap's chest started rising and falling with renewed hope. Now his chances were
• 3:15:09
  good again, twice as good as before, with two people in the house
• 3:15:11
  instead of only one, four ears instead of two, to hear whatever slight
• 3:15:16
  sound he might manage to make, and he must, he must find a
• 3:15:20
  way of making one. He gave the stranger his bendiction while he stood there
• 3:15:24
  waiting to be admitted. Thank God for this admirer or whatever he was,
• 3:15:30
  Thank God for their rendezvous. He'd give them his blessing if they wanted it,
• 3:15:33
  all the worldly goods, anything, anything, if only they'd find him,
• 3:15:37
  free him. She came quickly down the stairs a second time, and
• 3:15:41
  her footfalls hurried down the hall. The front door opened. Hello, Dave,
• 3:15:48
  she said, and he heard the sound of a kiss, quite clearly,
• 3:15:52
  one of those loud, unabashed ones that bespeak cordiality rather than intrigue.
• 3:15:56
  A man's voice, deep resonant asked, well, did it turn up yet?
• 3:16:01
  No? And I've looked high and low, he heard her say,
• 3:16:05
  I try to get Paul after I spoke to you and he was out to
• 3:16:07
  lunch. Well, you can't just let seventeen dollars walk out the door without
• 3:16:11
  lifting your finger. For seventeen dollars they were standing there frittering his life away,
• 3:16:18
  and they're own too. For that matter. The fools they'll think I
• 3:16:22
  did it, I suppose he heard the man say, with a note of
• 3:16:26
  bitterness. Don't say things like that, she reproved. Come in the kitchen
• 3:16:30
  and I'll make you a cup of coffee. Her quick, brittle step went
• 3:16:33
  first, and his heavier, slower one followed. There was the sound of
• 3:16:37
  a couple of chairs being drawn out, and the man's footfalls died out entirely.
• 3:16:41
  Hers continued busily back and forth for a while, on a short orbit
• 3:16:45
  between stove and table. What were they going to do? Sit up there
• 3:16:48
  for the next half hour? Could he make them here in some way?
• 3:16:52
  He tried clearing his throat coughing. It hurt furiously because the lining of it
• 3:16:56
  was all raw from long strain. But the bag muffled even the cough to
• 3:17:01
  a blurred, purring sort of sound. Twenty six to three, Only minutes
• 3:17:05
  left, now, minutes, not even a full half hour anymore. Her
• 3:17:13
  footsteps stopped finally, and one chair shifted slightly as she joined him at the
• 3:17:16
  table. There was linoleum around the stove and sink that deadened sounds, but
• 3:17:22
  the middle part of the room where the table stood was ordinary pine board flooring.
• 3:17:26
  It let things through with crystalline accuracy. He heard her say don't you
• 3:17:31
  think we ought to tell Paul about us. The man didn't answer for a
• 3:17:35
  moment, maybe he was spooning sugar or thinking about what she had said.
• 3:17:41
  Finally, he asked, what kind of a guy is he? Paul's not
• 3:17:46
  narrow minded, She said, he's very fair and broad. Even in his
• 3:17:52
  agony, Step was dimly aware of one thing that didn't sound a bit like
• 3:17:56
  her, not her speaking well of him, but that she could calmly,
• 3:18:00
  detachedly contemplate broaching such a topic to him. She had always seemed so proper
• 3:18:05
  and slightly prudish, this, argued, a sophistication that he hadn't known she'd
• 3:18:09
  had. The man was evidently dubious about taking Paul into their confidence. At
• 3:18:15
  least he had nothing further to say. She went on, as though trying
• 3:18:18
  to convince him, you have nothing to be afraid of on Paul's account,
• 3:18:22
  Dave, I know him too well, and don't you see we can't keep
• 3:18:26
  on like this. It's better to go to him ourselves and tell him about
• 3:18:30
  you, than wait until he finds out he's liable to think something else entirely
• 3:18:33
  and keep it to himself. Broode, hold it against me unless we explain.
• 3:18:39
  I know that he didn't believe me that night when I helped you find
• 3:18:41
  a furnished room and told him I'd been to a movie. And I'm so
• 3:18:43
  nervous and upset each time he comes home in the evening. It's a wonder
• 3:18:48
  he hasn't noticed it before. Now, why I feel as guilty as if
• 3:18:52
  as if I were one of these disloyal wives or something. She laughed embarrassedly,
• 3:18:56
  as if apologizing to him for even bringing such a comparison up. What
• 3:19:01
  did she mean by that? Didn't you ever tell him about me at all?
• 3:19:05
  You mean in the beginning, Oh, I told him you'd been in
• 3:19:09
  one or two scrapes, But like a little fool, I let him think
• 3:19:11
  I'd lost track of you, didn't know where you were any more. Why
• 3:19:16
  that was her brother? She had said that about the man sitting up there
• 3:19:20
  with her confirmed it right as the thought burst in his mind. I know
• 3:19:24
  it's tough on you, sis, You're happily married and all that. I've
• 3:19:28
  got no right to come around and gum things up for you. No one's
• 3:19:31
  proud of a jail bird an escaped convict for a brother. David, he
• 3:19:37
  heard her say, and even through the flooring. There was such a ring
• 3:19:39
  of earnestness in her voice. Stap could almost visualize her reaching across the table
• 3:19:43
  and putting her hand reassuringly on his. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for
• 3:19:50
  you, and you should know that by now. Circumstances have been against you,
• 3:19:52
  that's all. You shouldn't have done what you did. But that's spilt
• 3:19:56
  milk, and there's no use going back over it now. I suppose I'll
• 3:20:01
  have to go back and finish it out. Seven years though fran seven years
• 3:20:05
  out of a man's life, But this way you have no life at all.
• 3:20:11
  Were they going to keep on talking his life away? Nineteen to three,
• 3:20:15
  one quarter of an hour and four minutes over before you do anything.
• 3:20:20
  Let's go down town and talk it over the pall. Hear what he says?
• 3:20:24
  One chair jarred back, then the other. You could hear dishes clatter,
• 3:20:26
  as though they had all been lumped together in one stack. I'll do
• 3:20:31
  these when I come back, she remarked. Were they going to leave again?
• 3:20:35
  Were they going to leave him behind here alone with only minutes to spare?
• 3:20:39
  Their footsteps had come out into the hall, now halted a moment undecidedly,
• 3:20:46
  I don't like the look of you being seen with me on the streets
• 3:20:48
  in broad daylight. You can get in trouble yourself. You know, why
• 3:20:52
  don't you phone him to come out here instead? Yes, yes, stat
• 3:20:56
  wailed, Stay with me, Stay, I'm not afraid, she said gallantly.
• 3:21:01
  I don't like to ask him to leave his work at this hour,
• 3:21:03
  and I can't tell him over the phone. Wait a minute, I'll get
• 3:21:07
  my hat. Her footsteps diverged momentarily from his rejoined them again. Panic stricken,
• 3:21:15
  stabbed the only thing he could think of. Struck the back of his
• 3:21:18
  own head violently against the thick pipe he was attached to. A sheet of
• 3:21:22
  blue flame darted before his eyes. He must have hit one of the welts,
• 3:21:26
  where he had already been struck once by the burglars. The pain was
• 3:21:30
  so excruciating he knew he couldn't repeat the attempt. But they must have heard
• 3:21:33
  something, some dull thud or reverberation must have carried up along the pipe.
• 3:21:39
  He heard her stop short for a minute and say what was that? And
• 3:21:43
  the man duller sense than she and killing him all unknowingly what I didn't hear
• 3:21:48
  anything? She took his word for it, went on again to the hall
• 3:21:52
  closet to get her coat. Then her footsteps retraced themselves all the way back
• 3:21:56
  through the dining room to the kitchen. Wait a minute, I want to
• 3:22:00
  make sure this back door's shut tight locking the stable. After the horse had
• 3:22:03
  gone, she came forward again through the house for the last time. There
• 3:22:07
  was the sound of the front door opening. She passed through it, the
• 3:22:11
  man passed through it. It closed, and they were gone. There was
• 3:22:16
  the faint whir of a car starting up outside in the open, and now
• 3:22:20
  he was left alone with his self fashioned doom a second time, and the
• 3:22:24
  first seemed to paradise in retrospect compared to this. For then he had a
• 3:22:28
  full hour to spare. He had been rich in time, and now he
• 3:22:31
  only had fifteen minutes, one miserly quarter hour. There wasn't any use struggling
• 3:22:37
  any more. He'd found that out long ago. He couldn't anyway, even
• 3:22:43
  if he had wanted to. Flames seemed to be licking lazily around his wrists
• 3:22:46
  and ankles. He'd found a sort of polliative. Now the only way there
• 3:22:50
  was left. He'd keep his eyes down and pretend the hens were moving slower
• 3:22:56
  than they were. It was better than watching them constantly. It blunted a
• 3:23:01
  little of the terror, at least the ticking he couldn't hide from. Of
• 3:23:05
  course, every once in a while, when he couldn't resist looking up and
• 3:23:07
  verifying his own calculations, there'd be a renewed burst of anguish, But in
• 3:23:13
  between times it made it more bearable to say, it's only gained a half
• 3:23:16
  minutes since the last time I looked. Then he'd hold out as long as
• 3:23:20
  he could with his eyes down, But when he couldn't stand it any more
• 3:23:24
  and would have to raise them to see if he was right it had gained
• 3:23:28
  two minutes. Then he'd have a bad fit of hysterics in which he called
• 3:23:31
  on God and even on his long dead mother to help him, and he
• 3:23:35
  couldn't see straight through the tears. Then he'd pull himself together again in a
• 3:23:39
  measure and start the self deception over again. It's only about thirty seconds now
• 3:23:43
  since I last looked. Now it's about a minute. But was it?
• 3:23:48
  But was it? And so on, mounting slowly to another climax of terror
• 3:23:54
  and abysmal collapse. Then suddenly the outside world intruded again that world that he
• 3:24:00
  was so cut off from that it already seemed as far away, as unreal,
• 3:24:03
  as if he were already dead. The doorbell rang out. He took
• 3:24:09
  no hope from the summons at first, maybe some peddler. No, that
• 3:24:13
  had been too aggressive to be a peddler's ring. It was the sort of
• 3:24:16
  ring that claimed it mission as its right, not as a favor. It
• 3:24:20
  came again. Whoever was ringing was irately impatient at being kept waiting. A
• 3:24:26
  third ring was given the bell, this time a veritable blast that kept on
• 3:24:28
  for nearly half a minute. The party must have kept his finger pressed to
• 3:24:33
  the bell button the whole time. Then, as the peal finally stopped,
• 3:24:37
  a voice called out forcefully, anybody home in there, gas company, And
• 3:24:41
  suddenly Stapp was quivering all over, almost whinnying in his anxiety. This was
• 3:24:48
  the one call, the one incident in all the day's domestic routine from earliest
• 3:24:52
  morning until latest night, that could have possibly brought anyone down into the basement.
• 3:24:58
  The meter was up there on the wall beside the stairs, staring him
• 3:25:01
  in the face, and her brother had had to take her out of the
• 3:25:03
  house at just this particular time, there was no one to let the man
• 3:25:09
  in. There was the impatient shuffle of a pair of feet on the cement
• 3:25:15
  walk. The man must have come down off the porch to gain perspective with
• 3:25:18
  which to look inquiringly up at the second floor windows, and for a fleeting
• 3:25:22
  moment as he chafed and shifted about out there before the house on the walk
• 3:25:28
  and off, Stap actually glimpsed the blurred shanks of his legs standing before the
• 3:25:31
  grimy transom that let light into the basement at ground level. All the potential
• 3:25:37
  savior had to do was crouch down and peer in through it, and he'd
• 3:25:41
  see him tied up down there, and the rest would be so easy.
• 3:25:45
  Why didn't he? Why didn't he? But evidently he didn't expect anyone to
• 3:25:50
  be in the basement of a house in which his triple ring went unanswered.
• 3:25:54
  The tantalizing trouser legs shifted out of range again, the transom becoming blink.
• 3:26:00
  A little saliva filtered through the mass of rag, and Stap's distended mouth trickled
• 3:26:03
  across his silently vibrating lower lip. The gas inspector gave the bell one more
• 3:26:09
  try, as if venting his disappointment at being balked, rather than in any
• 3:26:13
  expectation of being admitted this late in the proceedings. He gave it innumerable short
• 3:26:20
  jabs, like a telegraph key. Then he called out, disgustedly, evidently
• 3:26:26
  for the benefit of some unseen assistant waiting in a truck out on the curb
• 3:26:31
  er. They're never in when you want him to be. There was a
• 3:26:33
  single quick tread on the cement away from the house, then the slur of
• 3:26:37
  a light truck being driven off. Stap died a little, not metaphorically literally.
• 3:26:45
  His arms and legs got cold up to the shoulders and knees. His
• 3:26:48
  heart seemed to beat slower, and he had trouble getting a full breath.
• 3:26:52
  More saliva escaped and ran down his chin, and his head drooped forward and
• 3:26:56
  lay on his chest for a while inert. T Tu tu tu t tur.
• 3:27:03
  It brought him too after a while, as though it were something beneficent,
• 3:27:07
  smelling salts of ammonia, instead of being the malevolent thing it was.
• 3:27:11
  He noticed that his mind was starting to wander, not much as yet,
• 3:27:15
  but every once in a while he'd get strange fancies. One time he thought
• 3:27:20
  that his face was the clock dial, and that thing he kept staring at
• 3:27:24
  over there was his face. The pivot in the middle that held the two
• 3:27:28
  hands became his nose, and the tin and the two up near the top
• 3:27:33
  became his eyes. And he had a red tin beard and a head of
• 3:27:35
  hair, and a little round bell on the exact top of his crown for
• 3:27:39
  a hat. Gee, I look funny. He sobbed drowsily, and he
• 3:27:45
  caught himself twitching the muscles of his face, as if trying to stop those
• 3:27:48
  two hands that were clasped on it before they progressed any further and killed that
• 3:27:52
  man over there who was breathing so metallically. Tik tok, tik tok.
• 3:27:58
  Then he drove the weird notion away again, and he saw that it had
• 3:28:03
  been just another escape mechanism. Since he couldn't control the clock over there,
• 3:28:07
  he had attempted to change it into something else. Another vagary was that this
• 3:28:11
  ordeal had been brought on him as punishment for what he had intended doing to
• 3:28:16
  Fran, That he was being held fast there not by the inanimate ropes,
• 3:28:20
  but by some active punitive agency, and that if he exhibited remorse, pledged
• 3:28:26
  contrition to a proper degree, he could automatically affect his release at its hands.
• 3:28:31
  Thus, over and over, he whined, in the silence of his
• 3:28:35
  throttled throat, I'm sorry, I won't do it again. Just let me
• 3:28:39
  go this one time. I've learned my lesson. I'll never do it again.
• 3:28:45
  The outer world returned again. This time it was the phone. It
• 3:28:48
  must be Fran and her brother trying to find out if he had come back
• 3:28:52
  here in their absence. They'd found the shop closed, must have waited outside
• 3:28:56
  of it for a while, and then when he still didn't come, didn't
• 3:29:01
  know what to make of it. Now they were calling the house from a
• 3:29:03
  booth down there to see if he had been taken ill had returned here in
• 3:29:07
  the meantime when no one answered, that would tell them, surely that something
• 3:29:11
  was wrong. Wouldn't they come back now to find out what had happened to
• 3:29:15
  him? But why should they think he was here in the house if he
• 3:29:18
  didn't answer the phone, How could they dream he was in the basement The
• 3:29:22
  whole time They'd hang around outside the shop some more, waiting for him,
• 3:29:28
  until as time went on and Fran became real worried. Maybe they'd go to
• 3:29:31
  the police, but that would be hours from now. What good would it
• 3:29:37
  do. They'd look everywhere but here for him. When a man is reported
• 3:29:41
  missing, the last place they'd look for him would be in his own home.
• 3:29:46
  It stopped ringing finally, and its last vibration seemed to hang tenuously on
• 3:29:50
  the lifeless air long after it had ceased, humming outward in a spreading circle,
• 3:29:54
  like a pebble dropped into a stagnant pool, m until it was gone
• 3:30:03
  and silence came rolling back in its wake. She would be outside the pay
• 3:30:07
  booth or wherever it was she had called from by this time, rejoining her
• 3:30:11
  brother where he had waited, reporting he's not out at the house either,
• 3:30:16
  adding the mild still unworried comment, isn't that strange? Where on earth can
• 3:30:20
  he have gone? Then they'd go back and wait outside the locked shop at
• 3:30:24
  ease, secure, unendangered. She'd tap her foot occasionally in slight impatience,
• 3:30:31
  look up and down the street while they chatted. And now they would be
• 3:30:33
  two of those casuals who would stop short and say to one another at three
• 3:30:37
  o'clock, what was that? And frand might add it sounded as though it
• 3:30:41
  came from out our way. That would be the sum total of their comment
• 3:30:46
  on his passing TI nine minutes to three. Oh, what a lovely number
• 3:30:54
  was nine. Let it be nine forever, not eight or seven. Nine
• 3:30:58
  for all eternity, Make time stand still, that he might breathe, though
• 3:31:03
  all the world around him stagnated, rotted away. But no, it was
• 3:31:07
  already eight. The hand had bridged the white gap between the two black notches.
• 3:31:13
  Oh, what a precious number it was, eight, so rounded,
• 3:31:16
  so symmetrical. Let it be eight forever. A woman's voice called out in
• 3:31:22
  sharp reprimand somewhere outside in the open, be careful what you're doing, Bobby,
• 3:31:24
  you'll break a window. She was some distance away, but the ringing,
• 3:31:28
  dictatorial tones carried clearly. Step saw the blurred shape of a ball strike
• 3:31:33
  the basement transom. He was looking up at it, for her voice had
• 3:31:37
  come in to him through there. It must have been just a tennis ball,
• 3:31:41
  but for an instant it was outlined black against the soiled pane, like
• 3:31:43
  a small cannon ball. It seemed to hang there, suspended to adhere to
• 3:31:48
  the glass. Then it drop back to the ground. If it had been
• 3:31:50
  ordinary glass, it might have broken it, but the wire mesh had prevented
• 3:31:54
  that. The child came close up against the transom to get its ball back.
• 3:31:58
  It was such a small child that step could see its entire body within
• 3:32:01
  the height of the pane, only the head was cut off. It had
• 3:32:05
  bent over to pick up the ball, and then its head came into range
• 3:32:07
  two. It had short golden ringlets all over it. Its profiles turned toward
• 3:32:11
  him, looking down at the ball. It was the first human face he
• 3:32:15
  had seen since he had been left where he was. It looked like an
• 3:32:18
  angel, but an inattentive, unconcerned angel. It's aw something else while it
• 3:32:24
  still bent forward close to the ground, a stone or something that attracted it,
• 3:32:28
  and picked that up too, and looked at it still crouched over,
• 3:32:31
  then finally threw it recklessly away over its shoulder. Whatever it was. The
• 3:32:35
  woman's voice was nearer at hand. Now. She must be strolling along the
• 3:32:39
  sidewalk directly in front of the house. Bobby, stop throwing things like that.
• 3:32:43
  You'll hit somebody. If it would only turn its head over this way,
• 3:32:48
  it could look right in. It could see him. The glass wasn't
• 3:32:52
  too smeary for that. He started to weave his head violently from side to
• 3:32:56
  side, hoping the flurry of motion would attract it catch its eye, they
• 3:33:00
  have, or its own natural curiosity may have prompted it to look in Without
• 3:33:03
  that. Suddenly it had turned its head and was looking directly in through the
• 3:33:07
  transom blankly. At first, he could tell by the vacant expression of its
• 3:33:11
  eyes. Faster and faster he swiveled his head. It raised the heel of
• 3:33:15
  one chubby, fumbling hand and scoured a little clear spot to squint through.
• 3:33:18
  Now it could see him. Now, surely it still didn't for a second.
• 3:33:24
  It must be much darker in here than outside, and the light was
• 3:33:26
  behind it. The woman's voice came in, sharper proof, Bobby, what
• 3:33:30
  are you doing there? And then suddenly it saw him. The pupils of
• 3:33:33
  its eyes shifted over a little came to rest directly on him. Interest replaced
• 3:33:37
  blankness. Nothing is strange to children, not a man tied up in a
• 3:33:41
  cellar, any more than anything else. Yet everything is, everything creates wonder,
• 3:33:46
  calls for comment, demand's explanation. Wouldn't it say anything to her?
• 3:33:52
  Couldn't it talk? It must be old enough too, she its mother,
• 3:33:56
  was talking to it incessantly, Bobby, come away from there, mommy,
• 3:34:01
  look, it said gleefully. Stap couldn't see it clearly any more. He
• 3:34:05
  was shaking his head so fast he was dizzy, like you are when you've
• 3:34:07
  gotten off a carousel. The transom and the child it framed kept swinging about
• 3:34:11
  him in a half circle, first too far over on one side, then
• 3:34:15
  too far over on the other. But wouldn't it understand, wouldn't understand that
• 3:34:20
  weaving of the head meant he wanted to be free, even if ropes about
• 3:34:26
  the wrists and ankles had no meaning to it. If it couldn't tell what
• 3:34:28
  a bandage round the mouth was, it must know that when anyone writhed like
• 3:34:33
  that, they wanted to be let loose. Oh God, if it had
• 3:34:37
  only been two years older, three of the most a child of eight these
• 3:34:39
  days would have understood and given warning, Bobby, are you coming? I'm
• 3:34:43
  waiting. If he could only hold its attention, keep it rooted there long
• 3:34:50
  enough in disobedience to her, surely she'd come over and get it see him
• 3:34:54
  herself. As she irritably sought to ascertain the reason for its fascination, He
• 3:35:00
  rolled his eyes at it in desperate comicality winked them, blinked them across them,
• 3:35:03
  and elf and grin peered out on its face at this last. Already
• 3:35:07
  it found humor in a physical defect or the assumption of one young as it
• 3:35:11
  was. An adult hand suddenly darted downward from the upper right hand corner of
• 3:35:16
  the transom, caught its wrist, bore its arm upwards out of sight.
• 3:35:20
  Mommy, look, it said again, and pointed with its other hand.
• 3:35:22
  Funny man tied up the adult voice, reasonable logical, dispassionate and attentive to
• 3:35:28
  a child's FIBs and fancies, answered why that wouldn't look nice, Mommy can't
• 3:35:33
  peer into other people's houses like you can. The child was tugged erect at
• 3:35:37
  the end of its arm. Its head disappeared above the transom, Its body
• 3:35:41
  was pivoted around away from him. He could see the hollows at the back
• 3:35:43
  of its knees for an instant longer than its outline on the glass blurred,
• 3:35:46
  and withdrawal, it was gone. Only the little clear spot it had scoured
• 3:35:52
  remained to mock him in his crucifixion. The will to live is an unconquerable
• 3:35:58
  thing. He was more dead than alive now, Yet presently he started to
• 3:36:01
  crawl back again out of the depths of his despair, a slower, longer
• 3:36:05
  crawl each time, like that of some indefatigable insect buried repeatedly in sand that
• 3:36:11
  each time manages to burrow its way out. He rolled his head away from
• 3:36:16
  the window, back toward the clock. Finally, he hadn't been able to
• 3:36:18
  spare a look at it during the whole time the child was in sight,
• 3:36:22
  and now, to his horror, it stood at three to three. There
• 3:36:26
  was afresh a final blotting out of the burrowing insect that was his hopes,
• 3:36:31
  as if by a cruel idler lounging on a beach. He couldn't feel any
• 3:36:35
  more terror, or hope or anything else. A sort of numbness had set
• 3:36:41
  in, with a core of gleaming awareness remaining. That was his mind.
• 3:36:46
  That would be all that the detonation would be able to blot out. By
• 3:36:48
  the time it came. It was like having a tooth extracted with the aid
• 3:36:52
  of novacane. There remained of him now, only this single pulsing nerve of
• 3:36:58
  premonition. All the tissue around it was frozen so protracted fore knowledge of death
• 3:37:03
  was in itself its own anesthetic. Now it would be too late even to
• 3:37:07
  attempt to free him first before stopping the thing, just in time enough if
• 3:37:13
  someone came down those stairs, this very minute, sharp edged knife with which
• 3:37:16
  to sever his bonds already in hand, for him to throw himself over towards
• 3:37:20
  it, reverse it. And now now it's too late even for that,
• 3:37:26
  too late for anything but to die. He was making animal noises deep in
• 3:37:31
  his throat as the minute hand slowly blended with the notch of twelve guttural sounds,
• 3:37:35
  like a dog worrying a bone, though the gag prevented their emerging and
• 3:37:39
  full volume. He puckered the flesh around his eyes apprehensively creased them into slits,
• 3:37:45
  as though the closing of his eyes could ward off, lessen the terrific
• 3:37:48
  force of what was to come. Something deep within him, what it was
• 3:37:54
  he had no leisure nor skill to recognize, seemed to retreat down long,
• 3:37:58
  dim corridors away from the doom that impended. He hadn't known he had those
• 3:38:03
  convenient corridors of evasion in him, with their protective turns and angles by which
• 3:38:07
  to put distance between himself and menace, Oh clever architect of the mind,
• 3:38:13
  Oh merciful blueprints that made such emergency exits available toward them, This something that
• 3:38:22
  was he and yet not. He rushed towards sanctuary, security, toward waiting,
• 3:38:28
  brightness, sunshine, laughter. The hand on the dial stayed there,
• 3:38:33
  upright perpendicular, a perfect right angle to its corollary, while the swift seconds
• 3:38:39
  that were all there was left of existence ticked by and were gone. It
• 3:38:45
  wasn't so straight now anymore, but he didn't know it. He was in
• 3:38:46
  a state of death already. White reappeared between it and the twelve notch behind
• 3:38:52
  it. Now it was one minute after three. He was shaking all over
• 3:38:58
  from head to foot, with fear, with laughter. It broke into sound
• 3:39:03
  as they plucked the dampened, bloodied gag out, as though they were drawing
• 3:39:07
  the laughter out after it by suction or osmosis. No, don't take those
• 3:39:11
  ropes off him yet, the man in the white coat warned the policeman,
• 3:39:15
  sharply, why do'll they get here with the straight jacket first, or you'll
• 3:39:18
  have your hands full. Franz said, through the tears, cupping her hands
• 3:39:22
  to her ears. Can't you stop him? From laughing like that. I
• 3:39:24
  can't stand it. Why does he keep laughing like that? He's out of
• 3:39:28
  his mind, lady explained the intern patiently. The clock said five past seven.
• 3:39:35
  What's in the box? The cop asked, kicking at it idly with
• 3:39:39
  his foot. It shifted lightly along the wall a little and took the clock
• 3:39:43
  with it. Nothing. Stap's wife answered, through her sobs and above his
• 3:39:48
  incessant laughter. Just an empty box. It used to have some kind of
• 3:39:50
  fertilizer in it, but I took it out and used it on the flowers
• 3:39:54
  I've been trying to raise out in the back of the house. End of
• 3:40:01
  section four three o'clock Nightmare, Part one. First, all I could see
• 3:40:07
  was this beautiful face, this beautiful girl's face, like a white, slightly
• 3:40:13
  luminous mask, swimming detachedly against infolding darkness, as if a little private spotlight
• 3:40:20
  of its own was trained on it from below. It was so beautiful and
• 3:40:24
  so false, and I seemed to know it so well, and my heart
• 3:40:26
  was wrung. There was no danger yet, just this separate shell like face
• 3:40:33
  mask standing out, But there was danger somewhere around. I knew that already,
• 3:40:37
  and I knew that I couldn't escape it. I knew that everything I
• 3:40:41
  was about to do I had to do, I couldn't avoid doing. And
• 3:40:46
  yet oh, I didn't want to do it. I wanted to turn and
• 3:40:50
  flee. I wanted to get out of wherever this was. I even turned
• 3:40:56
  and tried to, but I couldn't any more. There had been only one
• 3:41:00
  door when I slipped in just now. It had been simple enough. Now,
• 3:41:03
  when I turned to the place was nothing but doors, an octagon of
• 3:41:07
  doors, set frame to frame, with no free wall space in between.
• 3:41:11
  I tried one, another, a third. They were the wrong ones.
• 3:41:15
  I couldn't get out, And by doing this I had unleashed the latent menace
• 3:41:20
  that was lurking there around me all the time. I brought on all the
• 3:41:24
  sooner, the very thing I had tried to escape from, though I didn't
• 3:41:28
  know what it was yet. The flickering white mask lost its cameo like placidity.
• 3:41:33
  Slowly before my horrified eyes became malign, vindictive. It spoke, It
• 3:41:41
  snarled, there he is right behind you get him. The eyes snapped like
• 3:41:45
  fuses, the teeth glistened in a grinning bite. The light became more diffused,
• 3:41:50
  as if a stage electrician were controlling the scene by a trick switch.
• 3:41:54
  It was a murky, bluish green now the kind of light there would be
• 3:41:58
  under water, and in it danger my doom slowly reared its head with typical
• 3:42:03
  underwater movements to sluggish and held back, with a terrible inevitability about them.
• 3:42:11
  It was mail, of course, menace is always male. First it he
• 3:42:16
  was just a black huddle and inn coo it lumpy mass. Say you like
• 3:42:22
  solidified smoke at the feet of this opalescent revengeful mask. Then it slowly uncoiled,
• 3:42:26
  rose, lengthened, and at the same time narrowed until it loomed there
• 3:42:31
  before me upright. It was still anonymous, a hulk, an outline against
• 3:42:35
  the dark blue background, as though the light that had played up the mask
• 3:42:39
  until now were coming from somewhere on the other side of it. It came
• 3:42:43
  toward me, towards me, towards me, with cataleptic slowness. I wanted
• 3:42:48
  to get out. I wanted to turn and run in the minute, the
• 3:42:52
  half minute that was all there was left. Now I couldn't move, I
• 3:42:56
  couldn't lift a foot. It was as though a was set into a concrete
• 3:43:01
  block. I just wavered back and forth on a rigid base. Why I
• 3:43:05
  wanted to get out what it was going to do to me wasn't clear.
• 3:43:09
  I didn't know, only that there was soul shriveling, fear in it,
• 3:43:15
  and horror more than the mind could contemplate. Pace was beginning to accelerate now
• 3:43:20
  as it neared its climax, the way they always do. He came on,
• 3:43:24
  using up the small remaining distance between us. His outline was still indistinct,
• 3:43:28
  clotted like something daubed with mud, like a lumpy clay image. I
• 3:43:33
  could see the arms come up from the sides and couldn't avoid their lobster like
• 3:43:37
  conjunction. I could feel the pressure of his hands upon my neck. He
• 3:43:43
  held it at those sides rather than in front, as if trying to break
• 3:43:46
  it rather than strangle me. The gouge of his thumbs in particular was excruciating,
• 3:43:50
  digging into the straining cords right under the ears, pressing into the tender
• 3:43:56
  slack of flesh right beside and under the jawbone. I went down in a
• 3:44:00
  sort of spiral, around and round, following my head and neck around as
• 3:44:05
  he sought to wrench them out of true with my spinal column. I had
• 3:44:09
  to keep it from snapping. A clawed at the merciless hands, trying to
• 3:44:13
  pull them off. A pried one off at last, but it wrenched itself
• 3:44:16
  free of my restraint again, trailing a nail scratch on my forearm just across
• 3:44:20
  the knob of the wristbone. Fire was in the slight laceration, even in
• 3:44:24
  the midst of the total extinction, threatening me. The hand clamped itself back
• 3:44:30
  where it had been with the irresistibility of a suction cup. I beat at
• 3:44:33
  his arched body from underneath. Then, as my resistance weakened, only pushed
• 3:44:39
  at it. At last, only grasped at it with the instinctive clutch of
• 3:44:43
  a drowning man. A button came off loose in my hand, and I
• 3:44:46
  hung on to it with the senseless tenacity of the dying. And then I
• 3:44:50
  was so long dying, My neck was so long breaking. He tired of
• 3:44:54
  the slower, surer way his voice sounded. He spoke to the macab mask.
• 3:45:00
  I heard every word with delphic clarity, like you do in those things.
• 3:45:05
  Hand me that boar, that sharp pointed boar lying over there, or
• 3:45:09
  this'll go on all night I raised mutely protesting hands out and passed him,
• 3:45:15
  and something was put into one of them. I could feel the short transverse
• 3:45:18
  handle. A thought flashed through my mind, and even one's thoughts are so
• 3:45:22
  distinct in those things. She's put it into my hand instead of his.
• 3:45:26
  I fixed my hand on it more securely, poised it high, and drove
• 3:45:30
  it in to him from and back. The shock of its going in seemed
• 3:45:33
  to be transmitted to my own body. We were so inextricably intertwined. But
• 3:45:37
  for all that, it seemed to go in effortlessly, like a skewer into
• 3:45:41
  butter. I could even fill myself withdraw it again, and it came out
• 3:45:46
  harder than it went in. He went with it or after it, and
• 3:45:50
  toppled back. After a moment, I drew near to him again, on
• 3:45:54
  hands and knees, and now that it was too late, his face became
• 3:45:56
  visible at last, as if a windly flickering light were playing over it,
• 3:46:01
  and he was suddenly no formless, mud blotted monster, but a man just
• 3:46:05
  like I was harmless, helpless and offensive. The face looked reproachfully up at
• 3:46:11
  me, as if to say, why'd you have to do that? I
• 3:46:15
  couldn't stand that, and I leaned over him, tentatively, feeling for the
• 3:46:18
  position of his heart, not for purposes of succor, but to make that
• 3:46:24
  face stop looking at me so accusingly. Then, when I'd located it,
• 3:46:28
  I suddenly drove the metal implement in with ungovernable swiftness from straight overhead, and
• 3:46:33
  jumped back. As I did so, the mask, still present in the
• 3:46:37
  background, gave a horrid scream, like something undone foiled and whisked away like
• 3:46:41
  something drawn on wires. I heard a door close, and I quickly turned
• 3:46:46
  to see which way she had gone, so that I might remember and find
• 3:46:50
  my own way out. But as always in those things, I was too
• 3:46:54
  late. She was gone by the time I turned, and all the doors
• 3:46:56
  looked alike again. I went to them and tried them one by one,
• 3:47:01
  and each one was the wrong. One wouldn't open, And now I couldn't
• 3:47:05
  get out of here. I was trapped shut in with what was lying there
• 3:47:07
  on the floor that still held fear and menace for me, greater even than
• 3:47:11
  when it had moved, attacked me, for the dread and horror that had
• 3:47:16
  been latent throughout, far from being expiated, was now more imminent than ever,
• 3:47:22
  seemed to gather itself to a head over me, about to burst and
• 3:47:24
  inundate me. Its source, its focal point, was what lay there on
• 3:47:28
  the floor. I had to hide it, I had to shut it away.
• 3:47:33
  It was one of those compulsions, all the more inescapable for being illogical.
• 3:47:37
  I threw open one of the many doors that had baffled me so repeatedly
• 3:47:41
  throughout and behind it, in the sapphire pall that still shrouded the scene,
• 3:47:46
  I now saw a shallow closet. It was as though it hadn't been there
• 3:47:50
  until now. It was as though it had just formed itself for my purpose.
• 3:47:54
  I picked up what lay on the floor, and I could seem to
• 3:47:56
  do it easily. It had become light, as easy to shoulder as a
• 3:48:00
  rolled up rug or mat. I propped it up behind the closed door.
• 3:48:03
  There was not depth enough behind it to do anything else. Then I closed
• 3:48:07
  the door upon it and pressed it here and there with the flats of my
• 3:48:11
  hands up and down the frame that bordered the mirror, as if to make
• 3:48:16
  it hold tighter. But danger still seemed to exude through it like a vapor.
• 3:48:20
  I knew that wasn't enough. I must do more than that, or
• 3:48:22
  it would be surely open again. Then I looked down, and below the
• 3:48:26
  knob there was a key head sticking out. It was shaped like a little
• 3:48:31
  three leaf clover, and the inner rim of each of the three scooped out
• 3:48:35
  leaves was fretted with scroll work and tracery. It was up some yellowish metal,
• 3:48:39
  either brass or iron, yielded over a key such as is no longer
• 3:48:45
  made or used. I turned it in the keyhole and I drew it slowly
• 3:48:50
  out. I was surprised at how long a stem it had. It seemed
• 3:48:54
  to keep coming forever. Then at last it ended in two odd little teeth,
• 3:48:58
  each one doubled back on itself, like the single arm of a swastika.
• 3:49:03
  After I had extricated it, at last, I pocketed it, and
• 3:49:07
  then the knobs started turning from the inside. The door started to open anyway,
• 3:49:11
  very slowly, but remorselessly, And in another minute I was going to
• 3:49:16
  see something unspeakably awful on the other side of it. Revelation, the thing
• 3:49:20
  the whole long mental film had been building to, was upon me. And
• 3:49:26
  then I woke up. I lost the pillow to the floor, and my
• 3:49:28
  head was half way down after it. I was dangling partly over the side
• 3:49:33
  of the bed, and my face was studded with oozing sweat drops. I
• 3:49:35
  right at it and propped myself up on one elbow and blew out my breath
• 3:49:39
  harrowedly. I mumbled, gee, im glad that's over with, and drew
• 3:49:45
  the back of my pajama sleeve across my forehead to dry it. I brushed
• 3:49:48
  the edge of my hand across my mouth, as if to remove a bad
• 3:49:52
  taste. I shook my head to clear the last clinging mists of the thing
• 3:49:56
  out of it. I looked at the clock, and it was time to
• 3:49:58
  get up anyway. But even if it hadn't been, who would have risked
• 3:50:01
  going back to sleep after such a thing? It might have re formed and
• 3:50:05
  started in again, for all I knew. I flung my legs out of
• 3:50:09
  the ravaged coverings, sat on the edge of the bed, picked up a
• 3:50:11
  sock and turned it inside out, preparatory to shuffling it on. Dreams were
• 3:50:16
  funny things. Where'd they come from? Where'd they go? The basin fall
• 3:50:22
  of stinging cold water in the bathroom cleared away the last lingering vestiges of it,
• 3:50:26
  and from this point on everything was on a different plane, normal,
• 3:50:31
  rational, and reassuringly familiar. The friendly bite of the comb, the winding
• 3:50:35
  of the little stem of my wrist watch, the looping together of the two
• 3:50:39
  strap ends around my They fell open and dangled down straight again, still unattached,
• 3:50:45
  and stayed that way. I had to rivet my free hand to the
• 3:50:48
  little dial to keep it from sliding off my wrist. I stared at the
• 3:50:52
  thing for minutes on end. I had to let my cuffs slide back in
• 3:50:54
  place and cover it at last. I couldn't stand there staring at it forever.
• 3:51:00
  That didn't answer anything. What should it tell me? It was a
• 3:51:03
  scratch that was all talk about your realistic dreams, I thought, I guess
• 3:51:09
  I must have done that to myself with my other hand in the throes of
• 3:51:13
  it. That was why the detail entered into the dream fabric. It couldn't
• 3:51:18
  naturally be the other way around, because the other way around meant transference from
• 3:51:22
  the dream into the actuality of leaving a red scratch across my wrist bone.
• 3:51:26
  I went ahead, the familiar plane, the rational, every day plane,
• 3:51:31
  the blue tie to day, not that I changed them every day. I
• 3:51:35
  wasn't that much of a dude, but every second day I varied them.
• 3:51:37
  I threw out my collar, drough the tie length through, folded it down
• 3:51:41
  again. My hands stayed on it, holding it down flat on each side
• 3:51:46
  of my neck, as though afraid it would fly away. Although it was
• 3:51:50
  a shirt attached collar. Part of my mind was getting ready to get frightened
• 3:51:56
  fly off the handle, and the rest of my mind wouldn't let it,
• 3:51:58
  held it steady, just like I I held the collar. But I hadn't
• 3:52:01
  had those bruises, those brownish purple discolorations faintly not vividly visible at the side
• 3:52:09
  of my neck, as from the constriction of a powerful grip, the pressure
• 3:52:13
  of cruel fingers last night when I undressed. Well, all right, But
• 3:52:18
  I hadn't yet had the dream last night when I undressed either. Why look
• 3:52:22
  for spooks in this The same explanation that covered the wrist scratch still held good
• 3:52:26
  for this too. I must have done it to myself, seized my own
• 3:52:31
  throat and trying to ward off the trammel attack passing through my mind. Just
• 3:52:35
  then. I even stood there and tried to reconstruct the posture to see if
• 3:52:39
  it were physically feasible. It was, but the result was almost grotesquely distorted.
• 3:52:46
  It resulted in crossing the arms over the chest and gripping the left side
• 3:52:48
  of the neck with the right hand, the right with the left. I
• 3:52:52
  didn't know. Maybe troubled sleepers did get into those positions. I wasn't as
• 3:52:58
  convinced as I would have liked to be. One thing was certain. The
• 3:53:01
  marks had been made by two hands, not one. There were as many
• 3:53:05
  on one side as on the other, and the four fingers always go opposite
• 3:53:09
  to the thumb and one hand grip. But more disturbing than their visibility,
• 3:53:13
  there was pain in them, soreness when I prodded them with my own finger
• 3:53:18
  tips, stiffness when I turned my neck acutely. It shouldn't have, but
• 3:53:22
  it seemed to weaken the theory of self infliction. How was it? I
• 3:53:26
  hadn't awakened myself exerting that much pressure to which the immediate and welcome corollary was.
• 3:53:35
  But but if it had been exerted by some one else, I would
• 3:53:39
  have been apt to awaken even more quickly, wouldn't I. I forced myself
• 3:53:43
  back to the every day plain again, buttoned the collar around the bruises,
• 3:53:46
  partly but not entirely, concealing them, nodded the tie, shrugged on best
• 3:53:52
  and coat. I was about ready to go. Now. The last thing
• 3:53:56
  I did was what I always did last of all, one of those in
• 3:53:58
  a rattitable little habits. I reached into my pocket to make sure I had
• 3:54:03
  enough change available for my meal and transportation without having to stop and change a
• 3:54:09
  bill on the way. I brought out a palmful of it, and then
• 3:54:13
  I lost a good deal of it between my suddenly stiff outspread fingers. Only
• 3:54:18
  one or two pieces stayed on around the button, the large and central button.
• 3:54:24
  I let them roll and then stoop to pick them up. I couldn't.
• 3:54:28
  My spine wouldn't have bent right then. It was a strange button.
• 3:54:33
  Somehow I knew that even before I compared it. I knew I was going
• 3:54:37
  to check it with every article of clothing I owned. But I already knew
• 3:54:41
  it wasn't from one of my own things. Something about the shape the color
• 3:54:46
  told me my fingers had never twisted it through a buttonhole, or they would
• 3:54:50
  have remembered it. That may sound far fetched, but buttons can become personalized
• 3:54:54
  to nearly as great an extent as neckties. And when I closed my hand
• 3:55:00
  over it, as I did now, it took up as much room inside
• 3:55:03
  my folded palm. It had the same feel as it had had a little
• 3:55:09
  while ago in that thing. It was the button from the dream. I
• 3:55:15
  threw open the closet door so fast and frightenedly. It swung all the way
• 3:55:20
  around, flush with the wall, and rebounded off it and started slowly back
• 3:55:22
  again with the recoil. There wasn't anything hanging up in there that I didn't
• 3:55:26
  hold it against, even when there was no button missing, even where its
• 3:55:31
  size and type utterly precluded its having been attached vests and jackets, a cardigan,
• 3:55:37
  a raincoat, a lumber jacket, a top coat, bathing trunks of
• 3:55:41
  bathrobe, every stitch I owned. It wasn't from anything of mine. It
• 3:55:46
  didn't belong anywhere. This time I couldn't get back on the naturalistic plane.
• 3:55:52
  I was left dangling in mid air. This time I couldn't say I did
• 3:55:56
  it to myself. In the throes of that thing. It came from somewhere.
• 3:56:00
  It had four center holes. It even had a whisp or too of
• 3:56:03
  black tailor's thread still entwined in them. It was solid, not a phantom.
• 3:56:07
  But rationality wouldn't give in. Tried to rush into the breach, and
• 3:56:13
  I was on its side for all I was worth. Oh no, I
• 3:56:16
  picked this up on the street, and I don't remember doing it. That
• 3:56:20
  simply wasn't so. I'd never picked up a stray button in my life.
• 3:56:24
  Or the last tailor I sent this suit out to left it in the pocket
• 3:56:28
  from someone else's clothing by mistake, but they always returned dry cleaning garments to
• 3:56:33
  you with the pocket linings inside out. I'd noticed that a dozen times.
• 3:56:37
  That was the best rationalization could do, and it was none too good.
• 3:56:43
  It just shows you what a thing like that will do to your nerves.
• 3:56:46
  I took out a fresh handkerchief for the day, but I didn't just spade
• 3:56:50
  it into my pocket this time. I furtively touched my temples with it before
• 3:56:54
  I did, and it came away, darkening with damp. I better get
• 3:56:58
  out of here. I need a cup of coffee. I've got the jitters.
• 3:57:03
  I shrugged into my coat fast, threw open my room door, poised
• 3:57:05
  it to close it after me, and the last gesture of all before leaving
• 3:57:09
  each morning, came to me instinctively, feeling to make sure I had my
• 3:57:13
  key and wouldn't be locked out when I returned that evening. It came up
• 3:57:18
  across the pads of my fingers, but it was only visible at both ends.
• 3:57:22
  The middle part was bisected, obscured by something lying across it. My
• 3:57:26
  lips parted spasmodically as when a sudden thrust is received and refuse to come together
• 3:57:31
  again. It had a head, this topmost one a little like a three
• 3:57:37
  leaf clover, and the inner rim of each of the three leaves was fretted
• 3:57:43
  with scroll work and tracery. It had a stem disproportionately long for the size
• 3:57:48
  of its head, and it ended in two odd little teeth bent back on
• 3:57:52
  themselves, like the quarter part of a swastika. It was of some yellowish
• 3:57:58
  composition, either or iron gilded over a key such as is no longer made
• 3:58:03
  or used. It lay lengthwise in the hollow of my hand, and I
• 3:58:09
  kept touching it repeatedly with the thumb of that same hand. That was the
• 3:58:13
  only part of me that moved for a long time, that foolish flexing thumb.
• 3:58:20
  I didn't leave right then for all my preparations. I went back into
• 3:58:24
  the room and closed the door after me on the inside, and staggered dazedly
• 3:58:28
  around for a moment or two. Once I dropped down limply on the edge
• 3:58:33
  of the bed, then turned around and noticed what it was, and got
• 3:58:35
  hastily up again, more frightened than ever. Another time I remember, I
• 3:58:41
  thrust my face close to the mirror in the dresser, drew down my lower
• 3:58:43
  lid with one finger, stared intently at the white of my eyeball. Even
• 3:58:48
  as I did it, I didn't know what I meant by it myself,
• 3:58:52
  didn't know what it was to tell me. It didn't tell me anything.
• 3:58:56
  And still another time I looked out of the window, as if to see
• 3:59:00
  if the outside world was still there. It was. The houses across the
• 3:59:05
  way looked just like they had looked last night. The lady on the third
• 3:59:09
  floor had her bedding airing over the window sill, just like every morning.
• 3:59:13
  An ice man was gouging a partition across a cake of ice with one point
• 3:59:16
  of his tongs, preparatory to picking it up. In two A little boy
• 3:59:22
  was swinging his books on his way to school, killing as much time as
• 3:59:26
  he could by walking along, spanning the curb, one foot up, one
• 3:59:30
  foot down. There was nothing the matter out there. It was in here
• 3:59:33
  with me. I decided I'd better go to work. Maybe that would exercise
• 3:59:39
  me. I fled from the room, almost as though it were haunted.
• 3:59:43
  It was too late to stop off at a breakfast counter. Now I didn't
• 3:59:46
  want any anyway. My stomach kept giving little quivers. In the end,
• 3:59:50
  I didn't go to work either. I couldn't. I wouldn't have been any
• 3:59:54
  good. I telephoned in that I was too ill to come, and it
• 3:59:56
  was no idle excuse, even though I was upright on my two legs.
• 4:00:01
  I roamed around the rest of the day in the sunshine. Wherever the sunshine
• 4:00:05
  was the brightest, eye sought and stayed in that place. And when it
• 4:00:09
  moved on, I moved with it. I couldn't get it bright enough or
• 4:00:13
  strong enough. I avoided the shade. I edged away from it, even
• 4:00:16
  the slight shade of an awning or of a tree. And yet the sunshine
• 4:00:20
  didn't warm me. Where others mopped their brows and moved out of it,
• 4:00:24
  I stayed and remained cold inside. And the shade was winning the battle as
• 4:00:31
  the hours lengthened, it outlasted the sun. The sun weakened and died,
• 4:00:35
  the shade deepened and spread. Night was coming on the time of dreams the
• 4:00:41
  Enemy. I went to Cliff's house late. My mind had been made up
• 4:00:46
  to go there for hours passed, but I went there late on purpose.
• 4:00:50
  The first time I got there, they were still at the table. I
• 4:00:52
  could see them through the front window. I walked around the block repeatedly until
• 4:00:56
  Lil had gotten up from the table and taken all the dishes with her,
• 4:01:00
  and Cliff had moved to another chair and was sitting there alone. I did
• 4:01:03
  all this so she wouldn't ask me to sit down at the table with them.
• 4:01:07
  I couldn't have stood it. I rang the bell, and she opened
• 4:01:11
  the door, dried her hands and said heartily, hello, stranger. I
• 4:01:15
  was just saying to Cliff, only tonight, it's about time you showed up
• 4:01:18
  around here. I wanted to detach him from her, but first I had
• 4:01:22
  to sit through about ten minutes of her. She was my sister. But
• 4:01:26
  you don't tell women things like I wanted to tell him. I don't know
• 4:01:30
  why, but you don't you tell them the things you have under control.
• 4:01:33
  The things that you're frightened of. You tell other men, if you tell
• 4:01:37
  anyone. Finally, she said, I'll just finish up the dishes and then
• 4:01:41
  I'll be back. The minute the doorway was empty, I whispered urgently,
• 4:01:46
  get your hat and take a walk with me outside. I want to tell
• 4:01:48
  you something alone. On our way out, he called into the kitchen.
• 4:01:52
  Bence and I are going out to stretch our legs. We'll be back in
• 4:01:56
  a couple of minutes. She called back immediately and mourningly. Now, Cliff,
• 4:02:01
  only beer, if that's what you're goin for. It put the idea
• 4:02:03
  in his head if nothing else. But I said, no, I want
• 4:02:07
  to be able to tell you this clearly. It's going to sound hazy enough
• 4:02:11
  as it is. Let's stay out in the open. We strolled slowly along
• 4:02:15
  the sidewalk. He was on his feet a lot, and it was no
• 4:02:18
  treat to him, I suppose, but he was a good natured sort of
• 4:02:20
  fellow. Didn't complain. He was a detective. I probably would have gone
• 4:02:24
  to him about it anyway, even if he hadn't been, But the fact
• 4:02:28
  that he was, of course made it the inevitable thing to do. He
• 4:02:33
  had to prompt me, because I didn't know where to begin. So what's
• 4:02:37
  the grief, boy friend, Cliff. Last night I dreamed I killed a
• 4:02:41
  fellow. I don't know who he was or where it was supposed to be.
• 4:02:46
  His nail creased my wrist, his fingers bruised the sides of my neck,
• 4:02:50
  and a button came off him somewhere and got locked in my hand.
• 4:02:54
  And finally, after I'd done it, I locked the door of a closet.
• 4:02:56
  I'd propped him up in put the key away in my pocket. And
• 4:03:00
  when I woke up, well, look we had stopped under a street light.
• 4:03:05
  I turned to face him. I drew back my cuff to show him.
• 4:03:09
  Can you see it? He said he could. I dragged down my
• 4:03:13
  collar with both hands, first on one side, then on the other.
• 4:03:16
  Can you see them? Can you see the faint purplish marks there? They're
• 4:03:20
  turning a little black now, he said he could. And the button the
• 4:03:24
  same shape and size, and everything was in my trouser pocket, along with
• 4:03:28
  my change. It's on the dresser back in my own room. Now.
• 4:03:31
  If you want to come over, you can see it for yourself. And
• 4:03:35
  last of all, the key turned up on me next to my own key
• 4:03:37
  in the pocket where I always keep it. I've got it right here.
• 4:03:41
  I'll show it to you. I've been carrying it around with me all day.
• 4:03:45
  It took me a little while to get it out, and my hand
• 4:03:46
  was shaking, so it had shaken like that all day every time I brought
• 4:03:52
  it near the thing to feel if it was still on me. And I
• 4:03:54
  had felt to see if it was still on me every five minutes. On
• 4:03:56
  the minute, the lining caught around it and I had to free it.
• 4:04:00
  But finally I got it out. He took it from me and examined it
• 4:04:03
  curiously, but noncommittally. That's just the way it looked, And when I
• 4:04:09
  saw it when I was asleep, I quavered. The same shape, the
• 4:04:13
  same color, the same design. It even weighs the same and even He
• 4:04:18
  lowered his head a trifle, looked at me intently from under his brows when
• 4:04:22
  he heard how my voice sounded. You're all in pieces, aren't you,
• 4:04:26
  he confirmed. He put his hand on my shoulder for a minute to study
• 4:04:30
  it. Don't take it that way, don't let it get you. That
• 4:04:33
  didn't help. Sympathy wasn't what I wanted. I wanted explanation, Cliff,
• 4:04:37
  You've got to help me. You don't know what I've been through all day.
• 4:04:41
  I've been turned inside out. He weighed the key up and down.
• 4:04:46
  Where don't you get this from? Vince? I mean, where'd you first
• 4:04:48
  get it from? Before you dreamed about it? I grabbed his one arm
• 4:04:52
  with both hands. But don't you understand what I've just been telling you?
• 4:04:56
  I didn't have it before I dreamed it. I never saw it before then.
• 4:05:01
  And then I wake up and it turns real. And that goes for
• 4:05:05
  the button too. I quirked my head. You're in bad shape over this,
• 4:05:11
  aren't you? Well? What is it that's really got you going?
• 4:05:13
  It's not the key in the button and scratches it? Are you afraid the
• 4:05:16
  dream really happened? Is that it? By that I could see that he
• 4:05:22
  hadn't understood until now, hadn't really gotten me naturally. It wasn't just the
• 4:05:28
  tokens carried over from the dream that had the life frightened out of me.
• 4:05:31
  It was the implication behind them. If it was just a key turned up
• 4:05:37
  in my pocket after I dreamed about it, why would I go to him?
• 4:05:39
  To hell with it? But if the key turned up real, then
• 4:05:43
  there was a mirrored closet door somewhere to go with it. And if there
• 4:05:48
  was a closet to match it, then there was a body crammed inside it,
• 4:05:50
  also real, real, dead, a body that had scratched me and
• 4:05:54
  tried to wring my neck before I killed it. I tried to tell him
• 4:05:58
  that I was too weak to shake him, but I went through the motions.
• 4:06:01
  Don't you understand there's a room somewhere in this city, right at this
• 4:06:05
  very minute that this key belongs to. There's a man propped up dead behind
• 4:06:09
  it. And I don't know where, Mike, and I don't know where,
• 4:06:13
  my god, I don't know where, nor who he is, nor
• 4:06:16
  how or why it happened, only that I must have been there, I
• 4:06:20
  must have done it, or why would it come to my mind like that
• 4:06:24
  in my sleep here in a bad way. He gave a short whistle through
• 4:06:30
  his clenched teeth. Do you need a drink, lil or no, lil?
• 4:06:35
  Come on, we'll go someplace and get this thing out of your system.
• 4:06:39
  He clutched me peremptorily by the arm, but only for coffee. I
• 4:06:45
  faltered. Let's go where the lights are good. And bright. We went
• 4:06:50
  where there was so much gleam and so much dazzle. Even the flies walking
• 4:06:54
  around on the table cast long shadows. Now we'll go at this my way,
• 4:06:58
  he said, looking the beer foam off his upper lip. Tell me
• 4:07:01
  the dream over again. I told it. I can't get anything out of
• 4:07:05
  that. He shook his head, baffled. Did you know this girl or
• 4:07:09
  her face or whatever it was? I pressed the point of one finger down
• 4:07:13
  hard on the table. No, now I don't, But in the dream
• 4:07:18
  I did, and it made me broken hearted to see her, like she
• 4:07:22
  had double crossed me or something. Well, in the dream, who was
• 4:07:26
  she then? I don't know. I knew her then, but now I
• 4:07:30
  don't. Geez, he said, swallowing more beer fast. I should have
• 4:07:35
  made this whiskey with tabasco sauce. Well, was she some actress you've seen
• 4:07:39
  on the screen lately? Maybe, or some picture you've seen in a magazine,
• 4:07:43
  or maybe even some passing face you glimpsed in a crowd. All those
• 4:07:46
  things could happen. I don't know. I don't know. I seemed to
• 4:07:50
  know her better than that. It hurt me to see her, to have
• 4:07:54
  her hate me. But I can't carry her over into now. And the
• 4:07:58
  man, the fellow, or whoever he was, No, I couldn't seem
• 4:08:03
  to see his face through the whole thing. I only saw it at the
• 4:08:07
  very end, after it was already too late. And then when the door
• 4:08:09
  started to open again, after I'd locked him in, it seemed as though
• 4:08:13
  I was going to find out something horrible about him, I guess, but
• 4:08:18
  I woke up before there was time. And last of all, the place,
• 4:08:22
  you say, nothing but doors all around you. Have you been in
• 4:08:24
  a place like that lately? Have you ever seen one in a magazine illustration,
• 4:08:30
  in a story you read, in a movie? Oh no, no,
• 4:08:33
  Well then let's get away from the dream. Let's leave it alone.
• 4:08:37
  He flung his hand back and forth relievedly, as if clearing the air.
• 4:08:41
  It was starting to get me myself. Now, what'd you do last night
• 4:08:45
  before this whole thing came up? Nothing? Just what I do every night.
• 4:08:50
  I left work at the usual time, had my meal at the usual
• 4:08:52
  place. Sure it wasn't a Welsh rare Bit answered his smile, but not
• 4:08:58
  lightheartedly. Well, rare Bit is not responsible for that key. A locksmith
• 4:09:03
  is drop it on the table and hear it clash, bite it between your
• 4:09:07
  teeth and chip them. And I didn't have it when I went to bed
• 4:09:09
  last night. He leaned toward me. Now, listen, Vince, there's
• 4:09:15
  a very simple explanation for that key. There has to be, and whatever
• 4:09:20
  it is, it didn't come to you in a dream either. You were
• 4:09:22
  walking along you notice that key, picked it up because of its peculiar I
• 4:09:28
  semaphored both hens before my face. No, I tried to sell myself that
• 4:09:33
  this morning. It won't work. I have absolutely no recollection of ever having
• 4:09:37
  done that at any time. I'd remember the key itself, even if I
• 4:09:41
  didn't remember the incident of finding it. Are you sitting there trying to say
• 4:09:46
  you've never in your life forgotten a single object once you've seen it the first
• 4:09:50
  time? No, I said, unwillingly, you'd better not, particularly a
• 4:09:56
  nondescript thing like a key. This isn't a nondescript key. It's a unique
• 4:10:01
  key. And I do say I never saw it before, never picked it
• 4:10:05
  up. It's a strange key to me. He spread his hands permissively.
• 4:10:11
  All Right, it don't have to be that explanation. There's a dozen in
• 4:10:13
  one other ways it could have gotten into your pocket without your knowledge. You
• 4:10:18
  might have hung the coat up under some shelf the key was lying on,
• 4:10:20
  and it dropped off, and the open pocket caught it. The pockets in
• 4:10:24
  my top coat have flaps. Would it do make a U turn to get
• 4:10:26
  in under them? The flaps might have been left accidentally tucked in from the
• 4:10:31
  last time your hands were in your pockets, or it may have fallen out
• 4:10:33
  of someone else's coat hung up next to yours in a cloak room, and
• 4:10:37
  been lying there on the floor, and somebody came along, thought it belonged
• 4:10:41
  in your coat, put it back in. I shoved my hands in and
• 4:10:45
  out of those pockets a dozen times yesterday and the day before and the day
• 4:10:48
  before that. Where was it? Then? It wasn't in the pocket,
• 4:10:52
  but it was this morning after I saw it clear as a photograph in my
• 4:10:56
  sleep during the night. Suppose it was in the pocket and your hand missed
• 4:11:00
  it yesterday and the day before and so on until this morning. That would
• 4:11:05
  be physically possible, wouldn't it. I gave him no one this I had
• 4:11:09
  a right to. It came up over my own key. It was the
• 4:11:15
  top one of the two. When I got them both out, this morning.
• 4:11:18
  So if it were already in there last night, how could I have
• 4:11:20
  gotten my own key out as I did when I came home without bringing it
• 4:11:24
  up too, And last night I didn't bring it up. He waved to
• 4:11:28
  that point, Maybe because I had him. Maybe not? All right,
• 4:11:33
  have it your way. Let's say that it wasn't in your pocket last night.
• 4:11:37
  That still doesn't prove that the dream itself was real. No, I
• 4:11:41
  shrilled it gives it a damn good foundation. In fact, as far as
• 4:11:43
  I'm concerned. Listen, Vince, there's no halfway business about these things.
• 4:11:48
  It's either one thing or the other. Either you dream or thing, or
• 4:11:52
  you don't dream it it really happens. You're twenty six years old, you're
• 4:11:56
  not a kid. Don't worry. You'd know it and you'd remember damn plainly
• 4:12:01
  afterwards if you ever came to grips with a guy and he had you by
• 4:12:03
  the throat, like in this dream, and you rammed something into his back.
• 4:12:07
  I don't take any stock in this stuff about people walking in their sleep
• 4:12:11
  and doing things without knowing it. They can walk a little ways off from
• 4:12:13
  their beds, maybe, but the minute anyone touches them or does something to
• 4:12:18
  stop them. They wake right up they can't be manhandled, and go right
• 4:12:22
  on sleeping through it. I couldn't have walked in my sleep anyway. It
• 4:12:26
  was drizzling when I went to bed last night. The streets were only starting
• 4:12:28
  to dry off when I first got up this morning. I don't own rubbers,
• 4:12:33
  and the soles of both my shoes were perfectly dry when I put them
• 4:12:35
  on. Don't try to get away from the main point at issue. Have
• 4:12:39
  you any recollection at all, no matter how faint, of being out of
• 4:12:43
  your room last night, of grappling with a guy, of ramming something into
• 4:12:46
  him. No, all I have is a perfectly clear recollection of going to
• 4:12:54
  bed dreaming I did all those things, and then waking up again, hands
• 4:13:00
  short at me to keep the button, key and bruises from showing up again.
• 4:13:03
  I guess then that's all there is to it. Then it didn't happen,
• 4:13:07
  and he repeated stubbornly. Yeah, either dream them or you do them,
• 4:13:11
  no two ways about it. I ridged my forehead, dissatisfiedly. You
• 4:13:16
  haven't helped me a bit, not a dime's worth. He was a little
• 4:13:20
  put out, maybe because he hadn't naturally not not. If you expected me
• 4:13:26
  to arrest you for murdering a guy in a dream, the arrest would have
• 4:13:28
  to take place in a dream too, and the trial and all the rest
• 4:13:31
  of it. And I'm off duty when I'm dreaming. What do you think
• 4:13:33
  I am? A witch? Doctor? How much? I asked the counterman
• 4:13:37
  disgruntedly. Seventeen cups of coffee he tabulated. It was two o'clock in the
• 4:13:45
  morning. I'm going to sleep in the living room at your place tonight,
• 4:13:48
  I said to him on the way over. I'm not going back to that
• 4:13:52
  room of mine till broad daylight. Don't say anything the little about it,
• 4:13:54
  will you, Cliff, I should say not? He agreed. Do you
• 4:13:58
  think I want? I'm here to take you for bugs? You'll get over
• 4:14:01
  this fence first. I'll get to the bottom of it, then I'll get
• 4:14:05
  over it, I concurred somberly. I slept about an hour's worth, But
• 4:14:11
  that was the fault of the seventeen cups of coffee, more than anything else.
• 4:14:15
  The hour that I did sleep had no images in It was no different
• 4:14:18
  than any other night's sleep I had had all my life until the night before,
• 4:14:24
  no better and no worse. He came in, and he stood looking
• 4:14:26
  at me. The next morning, I threw off the blanket they'd given me
• 4:14:30
  and sat up on the sofa. How'd it go, he asked, half
• 4:14:33
  secretively. On account of her I suppose I eyed him. I didn't have
• 4:14:39
  any more dreams, if that's what you mean. But that has nothing to
• 4:14:43
  do with it. If I was convinced that was a dream, I would
• 4:14:46
  have gone home to my own room last night, even if I was going
• 4:14:48
  to have it over again twice as bad. But I'm not. I'm still
• 4:14:52
  not convinced by a damn sight. Now are you going to help me or
• 4:14:56
  not? He rocked back and forth on his feet. Well, what do
• 4:15:01
  you want me to do? How can I answer that coherently? I couldn't.
• 4:15:05
  You're a detective. You've got the key, The button's over in my
• 4:15:09
  room. You must have often had less than that to work with. Find
• 4:15:13
  out where they came from, find out what they're doing on me. He
• 4:15:18
  got tough. He had my best interests at heart, maybe, but he
• 4:15:20
  thought the thing to do was bark at me. Now, listen, cut
• 4:15:24
  that stuff out you here. I don't want to hear any more about that
• 4:15:26
  key. I've got it, and I'm keeping it, and you're not going
• 4:15:30
  to see it again. If you harp on this spooky stuff anymore, I'll
• 4:15:33
  help you, all right, in a way you won't appreciate. I'll haul
• 4:15:35
  you off to see a doctor. The scratch on my wrist had formed a
• 4:15:39
  scab. It was already about to come off. I freed it with the
• 4:15:43
  edge of my nail. Then I blew the little sliver of dried skin off,
• 4:15:46
  and I gave him a long look, more eloquent than words. He
• 4:15:50
  got it, but he wouldn't give in. Lil called in, come and
• 4:15:54
  get it. Boys. I left their house and I was on my own,
• 4:15:58
  just like before I'd gone there, me and my shadows. I stopped
• 4:16:03
  in at a newspaper advertising bureau, and I composed an AD and told them
• 4:16:07
  I wanted it inserted in the real estate section. I told them to keep
• 4:16:11
  running it daily until further notice. It wasn't easy to word. It took
• 4:16:15
  me the better part of an hour in about three dozen blank forms. This
• 4:16:19
  ad wanted I am interested in inspecting with a view toward leasing or buying a
• 4:16:26
  house with an octagonal mirror paneled room or alcove location. Size, and all
• 4:16:32
  other details of secondary importance, provided it has this one essential feature desired for
• 4:16:37
  reasons of a sentimental nature. Communicate box blank world express giving exact details.
• 4:16:45
  The first two days there was no reaction that wasn't to be wondered at.
• 4:16:49
  It had only appeared on the first day, and any answer would still be
• 4:16:52
  in possession of transmission through the mail on the second. On the third day,
• 4:16:56
  there were two replies waiting when I stopped in at the advertising bureau.
• 4:17:00
  One was from a missus Tracy Lytton on Decklled's dictionary. She had a house
• 4:17:06
  that she was anxious to dispose of for the winter's season, with a view
• 4:17:08
  to going to Florida. It had a mirror lined powder room on the second
• 4:17:12
  floor. It was not she had to admit eight sided. It was only
• 4:17:17
  four square, But wouldn't that do? She was sure that once I had
• 4:17:19
  seen it. The other was from a man by the name of Kern.
• 4:17:23
  He too had one that he thought would meet my requirements. It had an
• 4:17:26
  octagonal breakfast nook of glass bricks. There wasn't anything on the fourth day.
• 4:17:33
  On the fifth there was a windfall of about half a dozen waiting for me.
• 4:17:36
  When I stopped in before I'd set to work opening and reading them.
• 4:17:40
  I couldn't help being astonished that there should be this many prospective dwellings in the
• 4:17:44
  market with such a seldom encountered feature as an eight sided mirror faced cubicle.
• 4:17:48
  By the time I'd waded through them, I saw I needn't have worried there
• 4:17:52
  weren't. Three of the six were from realty agents offering their services in case
• 4:17:56
  I couldn't find what I wanted unassisted. Two more from contractors offering to install
• 4:18:02
  such a feature to order for me, provided I couldn't find it ready made.
• 4:18:07
  The last one, the only one from an individual owner and who was
• 4:18:10
  evidently anxious to get a white elephant off his hands, likewise, offered to
• 4:18:14
  have one built in for me at his own expense if I agreed to take
• 4:18:18
  a long term lease on the property. They started tapering off after that.
• 4:18:22
  A desultory one or two more drifted in by the end of the week.
• 4:18:26
  One of these, for a moment, seemed to strike a spark when I
• 4:18:27
  read it, and my hopes flared up. It was from a retired actress
• 4:18:32
  with a suburban villa which she did not occupy. She was offering it furnished,
• 4:18:36
  and mentioned that although it had no eight sided built in mirror arrangement,
• 4:18:40
  there was a small dressing room fitted with a moveable eight paneled mirrored screen which
• 4:18:45
  could be adjusted so that it cut corners off and gave the room any number
• 4:18:48
  of sides required. I telephoned, arranged an appointment at her hotel, and
• 4:18:52
  she drove me out in her car. I could see that my appearance in
• 4:18:56
  Youth gave her misgivings as to my financial ability to meet the term involved,
• 4:19:00
  and she only went through it because the appointment had been agreed upon. The
• 4:19:03
  villa was a stucco affair, and at first sight of the screen when we'd
• 4:19:07
  gone in, my face got a little white, and I thought I had
• 4:19:10
  something. It was holded over to the width of one panel and leaned against
• 4:19:14
  the dressing room wall. Here's how I used to arrange it when I was
• 4:19:18
  trying on costumes. She said. We rigged it up between us in an
• 4:19:22
  octagon shape, so that it made sort of an inner lining to the room,
• 4:19:26
  cutting off the four corners and providing eight angles instead. I stood there
• 4:19:30
  in the middle of it, and she stood beside me, waiting my decision.
• 4:19:34
  No, I said. Finally, No, she couldn't understand. But
• 4:19:40
  won't it do just as well? It's mirror and it's eight sided. There
• 4:19:44
  was no key hole on any of the eight flaps to fit a key in
• 4:19:47
  two, a key such as I had found in my pocket that morning.
• 4:19:51
  That was the main thing I didn't explain. I'll let you know, I
• 4:19:56
  said, And we went back to the car and back to our starting point.
• 4:20:00
  That was the closest I'd come, and that wasn't very close. The
• 4:20:03
  ad continued to run, but now it brought no further results. Fell on
• 4:20:07
  barren ground. The supply of mirrored compartments had been exhausted. Apparently the advertising
• 4:20:14
  bureau phoned to find out if I wanted to continue it. No, kill
• 4:20:18
  it, I said, disheartenedly. Meanwhile, Cliff must have spotted it and
• 4:20:22
  recognized it. He was a very thorough paper reader when he came home at
• 4:20:26
  nights. Or perhaps he hadn't. He just wanted to see how I was
• 4:20:30
  getting along. Brace me up, take me away from myself, as the
• 4:20:33
  phrase goes. At any rate, he showed up good and early the next
• 4:20:38
  day, which was a Sunday. He was evidently off. I didn't ask
• 4:20:41
  him, but I hardly figured he'd wear a pull over and slacks like he
• 4:20:45
  had on two head quarters. Sit down, I invited, now, he
• 4:20:51
  said, somewhat embarrassedly, matter of fact, Leil and I are going to
• 4:20:55
  take a ride out into the country for the day. And she pecked a
• 4:20:57
  lunch for three, Callbert and so that was it. Listen, I'm all
• 4:21:03
  right, I said, dryly. I don't need any fresh air jaunts to
• 4:21:07
  exercise the devils in me. If that's what the strategy is. He was
• 4:21:11
  going to be diplomatic Lil's orders, I guess. And until you've seen a
• 4:21:15
  detective trying to be diplomatic, you haven't lived. Something about the new second
• 4:21:19
  hand chev his actual phrase, that he had just gotten in exchange for his
• 4:21:25
  old second hand Chev and just come down to the door a minute to say
• 4:21:29
  how to eat to Lil. She was sitting in it. So I did,
• 4:21:32
  and he brought my coat out after me and locked up the room.
• 4:21:33
  So I went with him. The thing was a hoodoo from the beginning.
• 4:21:38
  He wasn't much of a driver, but he wasn't the kind who would take
• 4:21:41
  back seat orders on the road from anyone either. He knew it all we
• 4:21:45
  never did reach where they had originally intended going. He lost it on the
• 4:21:48
  way. We finally compromised on a fly incubating meadow after a thousand miles of
• 4:21:53
  detouring. Lil was a good sport about it. It looks just like the
• 4:21:57
  other place, anyway, she consoled. We did more slapping at our ankles
• 4:22:02
  than eating, and the beer was warm, and the box of hard boiled
• 4:22:04
  eggs had disappeared from the car at one of those ruts he had hit.
• 4:22:08
  And then, to cap the climax, a menacing geyser of black clouds piled
• 4:22:12
  themselves up in the sky with effervescent suddenness, and we had to run for
• 4:22:17
  it. The storm was so instantaneous we couldn't even get back to the car
• 4:22:21
  before it broke, and the rest was a matter of sitting in sodden misery
• 4:22:23
  while he groped his way down one streaming, rain misted country road and up
• 4:22:26
  another, surroundings completely invisible. Lil's fortitude finally snapped short. The lightning was
• 4:22:33
  giving her a bad time of it. Like most women, she abharded,
• 4:22:37
  and her new outfit was ruined. Stop at the first place you come to,
• 4:22:40
  and let's get out of it, she screamed at him. I can't
• 4:22:42
  stand any more of this. She hid her face against my chest. I
• 4:22:48
  can't even see through my windshell, much less offside past the road, he
• 4:22:51
  grunted. He was driving with his forehead pressed against the glass. I scoured
• 4:22:56
  a peep hole on my side of the car, peered out a sort of
• 4:22:59
  rustic tory, one of those sidled past in the watery welter. There's a
• 4:23:03
  cut off a little ways ahead, around the next turn. I said,
• 4:23:07
  if you take that, it'll lead us to a house with a big white
• 4:23:08
  porch. We can get in under there. They both spoke at once.
• 4:23:12
  He said, how'd you know that? She said, were you ever up
• 4:23:15
  around these parts? Before? I couldn't answer his question, I said no
• 4:23:21
  to hers, which was the truth. Even after he had followed the cutoff
• 4:23:25
  for quite some distance, there was no sign of a house. Are you
• 4:23:29
  getting us more tangled up than we were already? Events, he asked in
• 4:23:32
  mild reproach. No, don't stop keep going, I insisted, you'll come
• 4:23:37
  to it. Two big stone lanterns turn the car left between them. I
• 4:23:41
  shut up again, as jerkily as I had commenced the peculiar back shoulder look
• 4:23:45
  he was giving me. I poked my fingers through my hair a couple of
• 4:23:49
  times. Gee, I don't know how I knew that myself, I mumbled,
• 4:23:55
  half audibly. He became very aware. From then on he didn't have
• 4:24:00
  much to say any more. I think he kept hoping I'd be wrong.
• 4:24:03
  There wouldn't be any Lil gave him a peremptory accolade on the shoulder without warning.
• 4:24:07
  There they are, there, they are turncliff like he told you.
• 4:24:11
  You could hardly make them out. Even at that faint gray blurs against the
• 4:24:15
  obliterating pencil strokes of rain, you certainly couldn't tell what they were. He
• 4:24:21
  turned without a word, and we glided between them. All I could see
• 4:24:23
  was his eyes in the rear sight mirror on me. I'd never seen eyes
• 4:24:29
  with such black, accusing pupils before, Like buckshot. They were a minute
• 4:24:33
  passed, and then a house with a wide sheltering veranda materialized through the mist,
• 4:24:38
  phantom like, and came to a dead halt beside us. I heard
• 4:24:42
  his brakes go on. I wasn't much aware of the business of making a
• 4:24:47
  dash for it through the intervening curtain of water that separated us from the porch
• 4:24:49
  roof. Lil squeezed between us, my coat hooded over her head. Through
• 4:24:56
  it all, I was conscious of the beer and my stomach. It had
• 4:25:00
  been warm when I drank it back at the meadow, but it had turned
• 4:25:03
  ice cold now, as though it had been put into a refrigerator. I
• 4:25:07
  had a queasy feeling, and the rain had chilled me, but deep inside
• 4:25:11
  where it hadn't been able to wet me at all. And I knew those
• 4:25:14
  weren't rain drops on my forehead. They were sweat turned cold. We stamped
• 4:25:19
  around on the porch for a minute, like soak people do. I wish
• 4:25:23
  we could get in litl mourned the keys under that window box with the geraniums,
• 4:25:30
  I said. Cliff traced a finger under it and brought it out.
• 4:25:36
  He put it in the keyhole, his hand shaking a little, and turned
• 4:25:40
  it and the door went in. He held his neck very stiff to keep
• 4:25:44
  from looking around at me. That beer had turned to a block of ice.
• 4:25:48
  Now I went in last, like someone toiling through the coils of a
• 4:25:52
  bad dream. It was twilight dim around us at first. The rain storm
• 4:25:59
  outside had loomed up the afternoon so I saw Lil's hands go out to a
• 4:26:03
  china switch mount sitting on the inside of the door frame on the left.
• 4:26:08
  Not that one, that's the one to the porch, I said, the
• 4:26:12
  one that controls the halls on the other side. Cliff swept the door closed,
• 4:26:18
  revealing it. It had been hidden until now. This one was wood,
• 4:26:22
  not porcelain. He flicked it and a light went on a few yards
• 4:26:26
  before us. Overhead. She tried out hers anyway, and the porch lit
• 4:26:30
  up, then blackened once more as she turned the switch off. I saw
• 4:26:34
  them look at each other. Then she turned to me and said, what
• 4:26:37
  is this a rib? How do you know so much about this place?
• 4:26:41
  Anyway? Vince, poor Lil, she was in another world, Cliff said,
• 4:26:47
  gruffly, Just a lucky guess on his part. He wanted to keep
• 4:26:51
  her out of it, out of that darkling world he and I were in.
• 4:26:56
  The light was showing us a paneled hall and stairs going up, dark
• 4:27:00
  polished wood, with a carved hand rail mahogany or something. It wasn't a
• 4:27:04
  cheaply fitted out place, whatever it was, And I could say that whatever
• 4:27:11
  it was as honestly as they could, Cliff said, pointing his call up
• 4:27:15
  the stairs. Good afternoon, anybody home, I said, don't do that,
• 4:27:22
  in a choked voice. He's cold, Lil said, he's shaking.
• 4:27:27
  She turned aside through a double doorway and lit up a living room. We
• 4:27:32
  both looked in there after her, without going in. We had other things
• 4:27:36
  on our minds. She just wanted warmth and comfort. There was an expensive
• 4:27:41
  parquet floor, but everything else was in a partial state of dismantlement, not
• 4:27:45
  abandonment, just temporary dismantlement. Dust covers making ghost shapes of the chairs and
• 4:27:52
  sofa, and a piano, an oversized linen hornet's nest hanging from the ceiling
• 4:27:56
  with indirect light peering from the top of it, was crystal chandelier away for
• 4:28:02
  the summer, Lily said, knowingly, but funny they leave it unlocked like
• 4:28:06
  that, and with the electricity still connected. Your being a detective comes in
• 4:28:10
  handicliff. We won't get in trouble walking in like this. There was a
• 4:28:15
  black onyx fireplace, and after running her hands exploratively around it, she gave
• 4:28:18
  a little bleed of satisfaction, touched something electric and it glowed red. She
• 4:28:26
  started to rub her arms and shake out her skirt before it to dry herself
• 4:28:30
  off, and forgot us for the time being. I glanced at him,
• 4:28:34
  and then I backed away out of the doorway. I turned and went up
• 4:28:38
  the staircase silently but swiftly. I saw him make for the back of the
• 4:28:42
  hall, equally silent and swift. We were both furtive in our movements.
• 4:28:47
  Somehow I found a bedroom dismantled like downstairs. I left it by another door
• 4:28:52
  and found myself in a two entrance bath. I went out by the second
• 4:28:56
  entrance, and I was in another bedroom through a doorway left open. I
• 4:29:00
  could see the hallway outside through another doorway likewise unobstructed. I could see myself
• 4:29:07
  poised, quivering with apprehension, arrested in mid search, white face staring out
• 4:29:12
  from above, a collar not nearly so white. I shifted, came closer,
• 4:29:18
  dying a little wavering as I advanced two of me three, four,
• 4:29:26
  five, six seven. I was across the threshold now, and the door
• 4:29:30
  brought around from its position flat against the outside wall, pulled in after me,
• 4:29:36
  flashed the eighth image of myself on its mirror backed surface. I tottered
• 4:29:41
  there and stumbled, and nearly went down the nine of me. Cliff's footfall
• 4:29:47
  sounded behind me, and the eighth reflection was swept away, leaving only seven.
• 4:29:52
  His hand gripped me by the shoulder, supporting me. I heard myself
• 4:29:56
  grown in infinite desolation. This is place God above, This is the place,
• 4:30:02
  all right? Eh? He bent out in an undertone. He bit
• 4:30:07
  it off so short it was like a single letter shorter than no. Even
• 4:30:11
  then he said, wipe off your forehead. You're all. I don't know
• 4:30:15
  why, for lack of something better to say. I guess I made a
• 4:30:18
  pass with my sleeve across it. We neither of us were really interested in
• 4:30:22
  that. Have you got it? I said? He knew what I meant.
• 4:30:26
  He fumbled. He had it on a ring with his other keys.
• 4:30:30
  I wished he hadn't kept it. I wished he'd thrown it away, like
• 4:30:33
  an ostrich hides its head in the sand. The other keys slithered away,
• 4:30:38
  and there it was fancy scroll work, a key such as is no longer
• 4:30:44
  used or made. One was a door, the door we'd come in by.
• 4:30:48
  Four of the remaining seven were dummies, mirrors set into the naked wall
• 4:30:52
  plaster. You could tell that because they had no key holes. They were
• 4:30:56
  the ones that cut the corners of the quadrilateral. The real ones were the
• 4:31:00
  ones that paralleled the walls, one on each side. He put it into
• 4:31:04
  one, and it went in so smoothly, so easily, like a key
• 4:31:07
  goes into the keyhole for which it was made. Something went clock behind the
• 4:31:12
  wood, and he pulled open the mirror door. A ripple coursed down the
• 4:31:18
  lining of my stomach. There was nothing in there, only empty wooden paneling
• 4:31:23
  that left too. Lil's hale reached us. What are you two up to
• 4:31:29
  up there, from that other world so far away? Keep her downstairs a
• 4:31:33
  minute, I breathed desperately. I don't know why you don't want your agonies
• 4:31:37
  of soul witnessed by a woman he called down hauled it. Vince's taken off
• 4:31:42
  his pants to dry them. She answered, I'm hungry. I'm going to
• 4:31:45
  see if they left anything around too, and her voice trailed off toward the
• 4:31:48
  kitchen at the back. He was turning it in the second one. I
• 4:31:52
  thought the clock would never come, and when it did I must have shuddered.
• 4:31:57
  My eyes in mortal terror. His look caught me with them closed.
• 4:32:03
  I saw a black thing in the middle of it, and for a minute
• 4:32:06
  I thought it was a built in safe steel painted black, but with a
• 4:32:11
  dial left its own color. It was jagged, had been cut or burned
• 4:32:15
  into. That's what he was crouched before that night when he seemed just like
• 4:32:22
  a puddle on the floor, I heard myself say. And he must have
• 4:32:26
  had a blow torch down there on the floor in front of him. That's
• 4:32:29
  what made that bluish light and made her face stand out in the reflection like
• 4:32:32
  a mask. I saw it popped like a bubble in my throat. And
• 4:32:36
  that one that you haven't opened yet is the one I propped him up in.
• 4:32:41
  He straightened and turned and started over toward it, as though I had
• 4:32:45
  just then called his attention to it for the first time, which of course
• 4:32:48
  wasn't the case. I turned to water, and there wasn't anything like courage
• 4:32:52
  in the whole world. I didn't know where other fellows got theirs. No,
• 4:32:59
  don't, I pleaded, and caught ineffectively at his sleeve. Not right
• 4:33:03
  away, way, wait just a minute longer, Give me a chance to
• 4:33:06
  cut that out, he said remorselessly, and shook my hand off. He
• 4:33:11
  went ahead. He put the key in deep it went and turned it and
• 4:33:15
  the panel backing the mirror grunted, and my heart groaned in company with it.
• 4:33:19
  He opened it between us. I mean I was standing on the opposite
• 4:33:25
  side from him. He looked in slantwise first when it was still just open
• 4:33:29
  a crack, and then he widened it around my way for me to see.
• 4:33:33
  I couldn't until then. That was his answer to my unspoken question,
• 4:33:37
  that widening of it like that for me to see. Nothing fell out on
• 4:33:41
  him, Nothing was in there, not any more. He struck a match
• 4:33:47
  and singed all up and down the perpendicular woodwork. There was light behind us,
• 4:33:52
  and it wasn't close enough. When the match stopped traveling, you could
• 4:33:55
  see the faint, blurred, old discoloration behind it, old blood, dark
• 4:34:00
  against the lighter wood. There wasn't very much of it, just about what
• 4:34:03
  would seep through a wound and a dead back, ooze through clothing and be
• 4:34:07
  pressed out against the wood. He singed the floor, but there wasn't any
• 4:34:12
  down there. It hadn't been able to worm its weight down that far.
• 4:34:17
  You could see where it had ended in two little tracks, one longer than
• 4:34:19
  the other, squashed out by the blotterlike clothed back before they had gotten very
• 4:34:23
  far the closet and I we stared at one another. The match went out,
• 4:34:32
  the old blood went out with it. Some one that was hurt was
• 4:34:36
  in here, he concluded grimly, some one that was dead. I amended
• 4:34:41
  with a silent shudder. Lil dozed off right after the improvised snack she had
• 4:34:45
  gotten up for us in the kitchen, tired out from the excitement of the
• 4:34:48
  storm and of getting lost in that remote, secure world she still inhabited.
• 4:34:53
  You did things like eat and take naps, not in the one I was
• 4:34:57
  in any more, but the tea. Two of us had to sit with
• 4:35:00
  her and go through the motions, while the knowledge we shared hung over us
• 4:35:03
  like a bloody axe, poised and waiting to crash. I think if she
• 4:35:07
  hadn't started to nod, he would have hauled me outside into the dripping dusk
• 4:35:11
  with him then and there, if he had had to to get out of
• 4:35:15
  earshot. He couldn't wait to tackle me. All through the sketchy meal,
• 4:35:18
  he'd sat there drumming the fingers of his left hand on the tabletop while he
• 4:35:22
  inattentively shoveled and spaded with his right like an engine, all tuned up and
• 4:35:26
  only waiting for the touch of the starter to go my own rigid wrist and
• 4:35:32
  elbow. Shoved stuff through my teeth. I don't know what it was,
• 4:35:34
  and then after it got in it wouldn't go down anyway, stuck in my
• 4:35:38
  craw. What's the matter of Vince. You're not very hungry, she said
• 4:35:42
  one time he answered for me, no, he isn't. He turned unfriendly.
• 4:35:49
  We left her stretched out on the covered sofa shape in the living room,
• 4:35:52
  the electric fireplace on both their coats spread over her for a pieced blanket.
• 4:35:59
  As soon as her eye as were safely closed, he went out into
• 4:36:00
  the hall, beckoning me after him with an imperative hitch of his head,
• 4:36:04
  without looking at me, I followed close the doors. He whispered guttily.
• 4:36:11
  I don't want her to hear this. I did, and then I followed
• 4:36:15
  him some more back into the kitchen, where we'd all three of us been
• 4:36:18
  until only a few minutes before. It was about the furthest you could get
• 4:36:22
  away from where she was. It was still warm and friendly from her having
• 4:36:26
  been in there. He changed all that with a look at me. I
• 4:36:30
  looked that belonged in a police station basement. He lit a cigarette and it
• 4:36:34
  jiggled with wrath between his lips. He didn't offer me one. Policemen don't
• 4:36:38
  with their suspects. He bounced the match down like he wanted to break it
• 4:36:44
  into three pieces. Then he shoved his hands deepened pockets, like he wanted
• 4:36:48
  to keep them down from flying at me. Let's hear about another dream,
• 4:36:52
  he said, vitrolically. I eyed the floor. You'd think I lied,
• 4:36:57
  don't you? That was as far as I got. He had a temper.
• 4:37:02
  He came up close against me, sort of pinning me back against the
• 4:37:04
  wall, not physically his hands were still in pockets, but by the scathing
• 4:37:11
  glare he sent in to me. You knew which cut off to take that
• 4:37:14
  would get us here from a dream, didn't you? You knew about those
• 4:37:17
  stone lanterns at the entrance from a dream. Didn't you You knew where the
• 4:37:21
  key to the front door was cashed from a dream? Didn't you You knew
• 4:37:25
  which was the port switch and which the hall from a dream? Didn't you
• 4:37:30
  you know what I'd do to you if you weren't Lil's brother. I'd push
• 4:37:33
  your lying face out through the back of your head, and the way his
• 4:37:37
  hands hitched up. He had a hard time to keep from doing it.
• 4:37:38
  Then and there I twisted and turned as if I was on a spit,
• 4:37:42
  the way I was being tortured. He wasn't, though he wasn't even half
• 4:37:47
  through. You came to me for help, didn't you. But you didn't
• 4:37:49
  have guts enough to come clean to say, Cliff, I went to such
• 4:37:52
  and such a place in the country last night, and I killed a guy,
• 4:37:56
  such and such a guy for such and such a reason. No,
• 4:37:59
  you had to cook up a I can look up to and respected guy,
• 4:38:02
  no matter how rotten a crime he's committed, that'll own up to it,
• 4:38:04
  make a clean breast of it. And I can even understand and make allowances
• 4:38:08
  for a guy that'll deny it flatly lie about it. That's only human nature.
• 4:38:12
  But a guy that'll come to someone trading on the fact that he's married
• 4:38:15
  to his sister and he knows he'll give him an air, abusing his gullibility,
• 4:38:19
  making a fool out of him like you did me, I've got no
• 4:38:22
  use for him. He's low and lousy and no good. He's lower than
• 4:38:26
  the lowest rat we ever brought in for knife in someone in an alley.
• 4:38:30
  Look, I found this key in my pocket when I got up this morning.
• 4:38:33
  How did you get there? Look? I found this button playing on
• 4:38:36
  my sympathies. Huh, getting me think in terms of doctors and medical observation.
• 4:38:41
  Huh. One hand came out of his pocket. At last, he
• 4:38:45
  threw away a cigarette, not downward, but on an even keel. He
• 4:38:48
  was so sore he spit on the floor to one side of him. Maybe
• 4:38:52
  because he had been talking so fast and furious, maybe just out of contempt
• 4:38:57
  some dream that was all right, Well, the dream's over and baby's awake.
• 4:39:00
  Now. His left hand came out of his pocket and shouldered itself to
• 4:39:04
  my shoulder and stiff armed me there in front of him. We're going to
• 4:39:07
  start in from scratch right here in this place, you and me. I'm
• 4:39:11
  going to get the facts out of you. And whether they go any further
• 4:39:15
  than me or not, that's my business. But at least I'm going to
• 4:39:18
  have them. His right hand had knotted up. I could see him priming
• 4:39:22
  it. How could that get something out of me that I didn't have in
• 4:39:25
  me to give him? What were you doing out at this place the night
• 4:39:29
  had happened? What brought you here? I shook my head helplessly. I
• 4:39:33
  never was here before. I never saw it until I came here today with
• 4:39:37
  you and Lil. He shot a short uppercut into my jaw. It was
• 4:39:42
  probably partly pulled, but it smacked my head back into the wall plaster.
• 4:39:47
  Who was the guy you did it to? What was his name? I'm
• 4:39:49
  in hell already, you blundering fool without this, I moaned. He sent
• 4:39:55
  another one up at me. I swerved my head, and this time it
• 4:39:57
  just grazed me my recalcitrance. It must have seemed like that, only inflamed
• 4:40:02
  his anger. Are you gonna answer me? Events? Are you gonna answer
• 4:40:06
  me? I can't. You're asking me things I can't. A sob of
• 4:40:11
  misery wrench from me. Ask God or whoever it is watches over us in
• 4:40:15
  the night when we're unconscious. It developed into a scuffle. He kept swinging
• 4:40:21
  at me. I sent one or two swings, half heartily back at him,
• 4:40:23
  the instinctive reflex of anyone being struck at no more. Who was the
• 4:40:26
  guy? Why'd you kill him? Why? Why? Why? Finally I
• 4:40:30
  wrenched myself free retreated out of range. We stood there facing one another for
• 4:40:34
  an instant, puffing, glaring. He closed in again. You're not gonna
• 4:40:38
  get away with this, he said. I've handled closed mouthed guys before I
• 4:40:42
  know how to. You're gonna tell me or I'm gonna half kill you with
• 4:40:45
  my own hands where you killed somebody else. He meant it. I could
• 4:40:52
  see he meant it. The policeman's blood in him was up, all the
• 4:40:55
  stops were out. Now he could put up with anything but what he took
• 4:40:57
  to be this sensely stubbornness, this irrational prevarication in the face of glaring inescapable
• 4:41:03
  facts. I felt the edge of the table the three of us had peacefully
• 4:41:07
  eaten at so short a time before, grazing the fleshy part of my back.
• 4:41:12
  I shifted around behind it, got it between us. He swung up
• 4:41:17
  a rickety chair that didn't have much left in it but a cane seat and
• 4:41:19
  four legs. All the rungs were gone. It probably wouldn't have done much
• 4:41:23
  more than stun me. I don't think he wanted it to. He didn't
• 4:41:26
  want to break my head. He just wanted to get the truth out of
• 4:41:29
  it, and I I wanted to get the truth into it. He at
• 4:41:33
  least had someone he thought he could get the truth out of. I had
• 4:41:37
  no one to turn to, only the inscrutable night that never repeats what it
• 4:41:41
  sees. He poised the chair high overhead and slung his lower jaw out of
• 4:41:47
  line with his upper. I heard the door slap open. It was over
• 4:41:49
  beyond my shoulder. He could see it, and I couldn't without turning.
• 4:41:52
  I saw him sort of freeze and hold it and looked over at it,
• 4:41:56
  not at me anymore. I looked, too, and there was a man's
• 4:41:59
  stay there, eyeing the two of us, holding a drawn gun in his
• 4:42:02
  hand, ready to use it. He spoke first, after a second that
• 4:42:06
  had been stretched like an elastic band to cover a full minute, had snapped
• 4:42:10
  back into place. What are you two men do again? Here? He
• 4:42:14
  moved one foot watchfully across the room threshold. Cliff let the chair down the
• 4:42:18
  slow, easy way with a neat little tick of its four legs. His
• 4:42:22
  stomach was still going in and out a little. I could see it through
• 4:42:25
  his shirt. We came in out of the rain that suits you, he
• 4:42:29
  said, with leftover truculence that had been boiled up toward me originally, and
• 4:42:33
  was only now simmering down. Identify yourselves and hurry about it. The man's
• 4:42:37
  other foot came in the room, so did the gun, so did the
• 4:42:41
  cement ridges around his eyes. Cliff took a wallet out of his rear trouser
• 4:42:45
  pocket, shouted over at him, so that it slithered along the floor,
• 4:42:48
  came up against his feet. Help yourself, he said contemptuously. He turned
• 4:42:53
  and went over to the sink, poured himself a glass of water to help
• 4:42:56
  cool off. Without waiting to hear the verdict, he came back, wiping
• 4:43:00
  his chin on his shirt sleeve, held out his hand peremptorily for the return
• 4:43:03
  of the credentials. The contents of the wallet had buried the gun, muzzle
• 4:43:07
  first and its holster, rubbing out the cement ridges around its owner's eyes.
• 4:43:11
  Leg's dodge, the man said, with noticeable respect. Homicide Division. Uh.
• 4:43:17
  Cliff remained unbending. How about doing a little identifying yourself. I'm a
• 4:43:22
  deputy attached to the Sheriff's office. He silvered his mouth out of his vest
• 4:43:26
  pocket, looked a little embarrassed. I'm detailed to keep an eye on this
• 4:43:30
  place. I was home, having a little supper, and he glanced out
• 4:43:33
  into the hall behind him questioningly, how'd you get in? I thought I
• 4:43:37
  had it locked up, safe and sound. The key was batted in a
• 4:43:41
  flower pot on the porch. Cliff said it was. He looked startled,
• 4:43:47
  must be a spare of Then I head the original on me, not in
• 4:43:48
  day for the past week. Funny, we never knew there was a second
• 4:43:52
  one ourselves. I swallowed at this point, but it didn't ease my windpipe
• 4:43:56
  any I was driving by just to see if everything was okay. It went
• 4:44:00
  on, and I saw a lot peering out of the rear window here.
• 4:44:03
  And then when I got in, I heard the two of you. I
• 4:44:07
  saw his glance rest on the rickety chair a moment. He didn't ask the
• 4:44:10
  question. What had the two of us been scrapping about? Cliff wouldn't have
• 4:44:14
  answered it if he had. I could tell that by his expression. His
• 4:44:18
  attitude was plainly it was none of this outsider's business. Something just between the
• 4:44:22
  two of us. I thought, maybe Bow's broken in or something. The
• 4:44:26
  deputy added, lamely, Seeing he wasn't getting any additional information, Cliff said,
• 4:44:32
  why should this house be your particular concern. H there was a murder
• 4:44:37
  uncovered in it last week. You know, something inside me seemed to go
• 4:44:40
  down for the third time. There was Cliff echoed tonelessly. There wasn't even
• 4:44:47
  a question mark after it. I'd like to hear about it, He waited,
• 4:44:51
  awhile, and then he added all about it. He straddled the chair
• 4:44:56
  of our recent combat wrong way around, legs to the back. He took
• 4:45:00
  out his pack of smokes again. Then when he'd helped himself, he pitched
• 4:45:03
  it over at me, but without deigning to look at me, like you
• 4:45:06
  throw something to a dog. No, not like that, you like the
• 4:45:10
  dog as a rule. I don't know how he managed to get the message
• 4:45:14
  across. It doesn't sound like anything when you tell it. But in that
• 4:45:18
  simple, unspoken act I got the meaning he wanted me to perfectly. Whatever
• 4:45:22
  there is between us. I'm seeing that it stays just between us for the
• 4:45:26
  time being, anyway, So shut up and stay out of it. I'm
• 4:45:29
  not ready to give you away to anybody yet. It can't be analyzed.
• 4:45:33
  But that was the message he got across to me by cutting me in on
• 4:45:36
  his cigarettes in that grudging, unfriendly way. Give one to the man,
• 4:45:41
  he said in a stony, hard voice, again without looking at me much
• 4:45:45
  oblage got my own. The deputy went over and rested one haunch on the
• 4:45:48
  edge of the table. That put me behind him so he couldn't see my
• 4:45:52
  face. Maybe that was just as well. He addressed himself entirely to Cliff,
• 4:45:56
  ignored me as though I were some non entity. If there had been
• 4:46:00
  any room left for objectivity in my tormented, fear racked mind, I might
• 4:46:03
  have appreciated the irony of that, His turning his back on someone who might
• 4:46:08
  very well turn out to have been a principle in what he was about to
• 4:46:11
  relate. He expanded, felt at home, you could see this was shop
• 4:46:17
  talk with a big time city dick on a footing of equality. He haloed
• 4:46:21
  his own head with a comfortable smoke. This house belonged to a wealthy couple
• 4:46:26
  named Fleming. Cliff's eyes flicked over at me, burned searchingly into my face
• 4:46:30
  for a second, whipt back to the deputy again before he had time to
• 4:46:33
  notice. How could I show him any reaction, guilty or otherwise. I'd
• 4:46:37
  never heard the name before myself. It didn't mean anything to me. The
• 4:46:42
  husband frequently goes away on these long business trips. He was away at the
• 4:46:47
  time this happened. In fact, we haven't been able to reach him to
• 4:46:51
  notify him yet. The wife was a pretty little thing, was I heard
• 4:46:55
  cliff breathe. The deputy went ahead. He was telling this his way,
• 4:47:00
  kind a flighty. In fact, some of the women around here say she
• 4:47:03
  wasn't above flirting behind his back, but no one was ever able to prove
• 4:47:07
  anything. There was a young fellow whose company she was seen in a good
• 4:47:11
  deal, but I don't have to mean anything. He was just as much
• 4:47:15
  a friend of the husband's as of hers. Three of them used to go
• 4:47:18
  around together. His name was Dan Ayres. This time it was my mind,
• 4:47:22
  soundlessly repeated was. The deputy took time out, expectorated, scoured the
• 4:47:29
  linoleum with his soul. It wasn't his kitchen floor, after all, it
• 4:47:33
  was nobody's now, some poor devils named Fleming that he thought was coming back
• 4:47:37
  to happiness. Bob Evans, he leaves the milk around here. He was
• 4:47:42
  tooling his truck in through the cutoff that leads to this place just about daybreak
• 4:47:47
  that Wednesday morning, and in the shadowy light, he sees a bundle of
• 4:47:51
  rags lying there in the moss, and breaks just offside. Luckily Bob's curious
• 4:47:56
  well sir, he stops, and it was little missus Fleming, Poor little
• 4:48:00
  missus Fleming, all covered with dew and leaves and twigs. Dad Cliff asked,
• 4:48:07
  dying. She must have spent hours dragging herself flat along the ground toward
• 4:48:11
  the main road in the hope of attracting attention and getting help. She must
• 4:48:15
  have been too weak to cry out very loud, and even if she had,
• 4:48:19
  there wasn't anybody around to hear her. She must have groaned her life
• 4:48:22
  away unheard there in those thickets and brambles. She had gotten nearly as far
• 4:48:27
  as the foot of one of those stone entrance lanterns they have where you turn
• 4:48:30
  in. She was unconscious when Bob found her. He rushed her to the
• 4:48:36
  hospital. Let the rest of his deliveries go hang both legs, broken,
• 4:48:40
  skull, fracture, internal injuries, they said right away. She didn't have
• 4:48:44
  a chance, and they were right. She died early the next night.
• 4:48:48
  Breathing was so hard. I had never known breathing to be so hard before,
• 4:48:51
  Yet it always seemed a simple thing that anyone could do, and here
• 4:48:55
  I had to work at it so desperately. The noise attracted the deputy.
• 4:48:59
  He turned his head then back to Cliff, with the comfortable superiority of the
• 4:49:02
  professional over the layman. Kind of gets him, doesn't it. The stuff's
• 4:49:07
  new to him. I guess Cliff wasn't having any of me. God,
• 4:49:11
  how he hated me. Right then? What was it? He went on
• 4:49:15
  tautly without even giving me a look. Well, that's it. We didn't
• 4:49:19
  know what it was at first. We knew that a car did it to
• 4:49:22
  her, but we didn't get the hang of it at first. Had it
• 4:49:25
  all wrong. We haven't found the car itself. It was abandoned there under
• 4:49:29
  the trees off the main road, a low way down beyond the cutoff.
• 4:49:32
  There were hares and blood on the tires and fenders, and it was Dan
• 4:49:36
  Eyre's car. Well. Practically simultaneous to that, find Wagoner, that's my
• 4:49:42
  chief, had come up here to the house to look around, and he'd
• 4:49:45
  found the safe busted and looted. It's in an eight sided mirror room that
• 4:49:48
  got on the floor above. I'll take you up and show you afterwards.
• 4:49:52
  Cut it out Cliff snarled, unexpectedly, not at the deputy. I put
• 4:49:56
  the whiskey bottle back on the shelf where it had caught my eye just now.
• 4:50:00
  This was like having your appendix taken out without ether. Why doesn't he
• 4:50:06
  go outside of this gitson, the deputy said patronizingly. I want him in
• 4:50:11
  here with us. He should get used to this, Cliff said, with
• 4:50:14
  vicious casualness. Well, that finding of the safe gave us a case,
• 4:50:18
  gave us the whole thing, tire and intact, or so we thought.
• 4:50:22
  You know those cases you don't even have to build, that are they're waiting
• 4:50:25
  for you? Too good to be true? This was it AARs had caught
• 4:50:27
  on that Fleming left a good deal of money in the safe even when he
• 4:50:30
  was away on trips. I brought her back that night, neither fixed the
• 4:50:34
  door so that he could slip back inside again after pretending to leave, or
• 4:50:37
  else remained concealed in the house the whole time without her being aware of it.
• 4:50:42
  Some time later, she came out of her room unexpectedly, caught him
• 4:50:45
  in the act of forcing her husband safe, and ran out of the house
• 4:50:48
  for her life. Why didn't she use the telephone, Cliff asked, unmovidly,
• 4:50:55
  well you thought of that it wasn't a case of simple reporting and attempted
• 4:50:59
  robbery. She must have seemed, by the look on his face when she
• 4:51:00
  confronted him, that he was going to kill her to shut her up.
• 4:51:03
  There wasn't any time to stop at a phone. She ran out into the
• 4:51:07
  open and down the cut off toward the main road to try to save her
• 4:51:10
  own life. She got clear of the house, but he tore after her,
• 4:51:12
  and his car caught up with her before she made the halfway mark to
• 4:51:15
  the stone lanterns. She tried to swerve offside into the brush. He turned
• 4:51:19
  the car after her and killed her with it, just before she could get
• 4:51:22
  in past the trees that would have blocked him. We found TRACE's galore there
• 4:51:26
  that reconstructed that angle of it to a tee and they were all off side
• 4:51:30
  off the car path. It was no hit and run, It was no
• 4:51:33
  accident. It was a deliberate kill with the car chassis for a weapon.
• 4:51:37
  He knocked her down, went over her, and then reversed and went over
• 4:51:41
  a second time. In backing out. He thought she was dead. She
• 4:51:44
  was next door to it, but she was only dying. I blotted the
• 4:51:48
  first tier before it got free of my lashes, but the second one dodged
• 4:51:52
  me ran all the way down. Gee, life was lovely. All I
• 4:51:56
  kept saying over and over was I don't know how to drive. I don't
• 4:51:59
  know how to drive. Cliff took out his cigarettes again and brought it into
• 4:52:03
  the warped pack. He threw it at me and looked at me and smiled,
• 4:52:07
  Have another smoke, kid, he said, I've only got one left,
• 4:52:11
  but you can have it. And I lit it and I smiled too,
• 4:52:14
  threw all the wet junk in my eyes. He rode the car spell
• 4:52:18
  further down the main road away from there, and then he thought better of
• 4:52:21
  it. Realized there must be traces all over it that would give him away
• 4:52:23
  even quicker than he could drive it. So he ran it off a second
• 4:52:26
  time, ditched it there out of sight where we found it, and let
• 4:52:30
  out some less conspicuous way. I don't want to spend too much time on
• 4:52:33
  it. This is the case we thought we had all Wednesday morning, and
• 4:52:37
  up until about five that afternoon, we sent out a general alarm for Dan
• 4:52:41
  Ayre's broadcast. His description had the trains and roads and hauling trucks out of
• 4:52:47
  here, watched at the city's end. We were all busy as a swarm
• 4:52:51
  of bees. And then at five that afternoon, Missus Fleming regained consciousness for
• 4:52:55
  a short time. Wagoner had been waiting outside there the whole time to question,
• 4:53:00
  and the first thing she whispered, was is Dan all right? He
• 4:53:03
  didn't kill Dan? Did he? What she told us was enough to send
• 4:53:06
  us hot footing back to the house. We pride open the various mirror panels
• 4:53:10
  we'd overlooked the first time, and found Air's dead body behind one of them.
• 4:53:14
  He'd been stabbed in the back with some kind of an all or bit.
• 4:53:18
  He'd been dead since the night before. She died about eight that next
• 4:53:21
  evening. There went our case. Cliff didn't ask it for a while,
• 4:53:26
  maybe he hated to himself. Finally he did. Did you get anything on
• 4:53:30
  the rail keller? Practically everything but the guy himself. She was right in
• 4:53:34
  the alcove with the two of them when it happened. She got a pretty
• 4:53:37
  good look by torchlight, and she lasted long enough to give it to us.
• 4:53:41
  All the dope is over at my chief's office, Cliff smacked his own
• 4:53:45
  knees, as if in reluctant decision. He got up. Let's go over
• 4:53:51
  there, he said, slowly. Let's go over and give it the once
• 4:53:56
  over. He stopped and looked back at me from the doorway. Come on,
• 4:54:00
  Vince, you too, I'll leave a note for Lil. He stood
• 4:54:04
  out there waiting until I had to get up. My legs felt stiff.
• 4:54:10
  Come on, Vince, he repeated. I know this is on your line,
• 4:54:12
  but you'd better come anyway. Haven't you got any mercy at all?
• 4:54:18
  I breathed, muffledly as I brushed past him with lowered head. In of
• 4:54:25
  section five Nightmare Part one, Nightmare, Part two, Cliff trod on my
• 4:54:30
  heel twice going into the Constabulary from the Deputy's car. Short as the distance
• 4:54:36
  was, he was bringing up behind me. It must have been accidental,
• 4:54:40
  but I think without it I might have faltered and come to a dead halt.
• 4:54:44
  I think he thought so too. Wagoner was a much younger looking and
• 4:54:48
  trimmer man than I had expected. I had never met a rural police officer
• 4:54:53
  before. I thought. They chewed straws and ran to gallases and said he
• 4:54:57
  was teething on a dunhill pipe, and his trousers looked as though his wife
• 4:55:00
  ran a hot iron over them every day. The four of us went into
• 4:55:04
  his inner office at the back of the front room, and the three of
• 4:55:07
  them chewed the rag about it the case in general terms for a while.
• 4:55:12
  Then he said yes to Clip's question, opened a drawer in one of the
• 4:55:17
  filing cabinets, and got out a folder. We do have a pretty good
• 4:55:21
  general description of him from her. Here's a transcription of my whole interview with
• 4:55:26
  her at the hospital. I had a stenographer take it down at her bedside.
• 4:55:30
  From the folder he removed and turned a quadruple ply typescript on onion skin
• 4:55:34
  began finger tracing its double spaced lines. All that, I thought, dismally,
• 4:55:41
  Oh God, all that the room had gotten very quiet. Our reconstruction
• 4:55:48
  of the car assault on Missus Fleming was perfectly accurate, as was our motivation
• 4:55:52
  of the safe looting and its interruption. The only thing is there's a switch
• 4:55:56
  of characters involved. That's where we went wrong. Instead of Missus Fleming being
• 4:56:00
  killed by airs, Missus Fleming and heirs were killed by this third person.
• 4:56:06
  She saw the all plunged into Air's back fled from the house for her life,
• 4:56:11
  was pursued down the cut off by the murderer in the Air's car and
• 4:56:14
  crushed to death. The murderer then went back, completed his interrupted ransacking of
• 4:56:19
  the safe and concealed Air's body. He also relocked the house to gain as
• 4:56:23
  much time as possible. His voice became an unintelligible drone, and so on
• 4:56:30
  and so on. He turned a page, then his tracing fingers stopped.
• 4:56:33
  Here's what you want, Dodge. The killer was about twenty five and fairly
• 4:56:37
  skinny. His cheek bones stood out cast shadows, and the torchlight as it
• 4:56:41
  wavered on his face. I cupped my hand lengthwise to my cheek. The
• 4:56:45
  one turned toward the three of them and sat there as if holding my face
• 4:56:48
  pensively. I was over by the night black window, and they were more
• 4:56:52
  in the center of the room under the cone light Wagoner had turned on over
• 4:56:56
  his desk. He traced his finger, dropped a paragraph of life, stopped
• 4:57:00
  again. He had light brown hair. She even remembered that it was parted
• 4:57:03
  low on the left side. Take a woman to notice a thing like that,
• 4:57:07
  even at such a moment, and an unusually long forelock that kept falling
• 4:57:11
  in front of his face. My hand went up a little higher and brushed
• 4:57:15
  mine back. It only fell down again, like it always did. His
• 4:57:19
  eyes were fixed and glassy, as though he was mentally unbalanced. I saw
• 4:57:25
  Cliff glance thoughtfully down at the floor, then up again. He had on
• 4:57:27
  a knitted sweater under his jacket, and she even took in that it had
• 4:57:32
  been darned or rewoven up the neckline in a different colored yarn. Lil had
• 4:57:37
  made me one the Christmas before, and then I'd burned a big hole in
• 4:57:40
  it with a cigarette spark, and when I'd taken it back to her,
• 4:57:41
  she hadn't been able to get the same color again. It had left a
• 4:57:45
  big star like patch that hit you in the eye. It was back at
• 4:57:48
  my room now. I looked out the window and I didn't see anything.
• 4:57:52
  His voice went on. It took us hours to get all of this out
• 4:57:56
  of her. We could only get it in snatches, a little out of
• 4:57:59
  time. She was so low she went under without knowing. Airs had been
• 4:58:03
  killed along with her. I heard the onion skin sheets crackle as he refolded
• 4:58:07
  them. No one said anything for a while, then Cliff asked, they
• 4:58:11
  been buried yet, Yeah, both temporarily. In her case, we haven't
• 4:58:15
  been able to contact the husband yet. I understand he's in South America.
• 4:58:19
  Got pictures of him? Yeah, we got death photographs. Care to see
• 4:58:22
  them? I knew what was coming up. My blood turned to ice,
• 4:58:27
  and I tried to catch Cliff's eye to warn him in silent desperation. Don't
• 4:58:33
  make me look in front of them. I'll cave. I'll give myself away.
• 4:58:37
  I can't stand any more of it. I'm played out, he said,
• 4:58:41
  off handedly. Yeah, let's have a look. Wagner got them out
• 4:58:45
  of the same folder that held the typescript. Blurredly, I could see the
• 4:58:49
  large gray squares passed from hand to hand. I got that indirectly by the
• 4:58:55
  reflections on the polished black window square. I was staring with desperate intensity out
• 4:59:00
  to the night, head averted from them. I missed seeing just how Cliff
• 4:59:03
  worked it with my head turned away like that. I think he distracted their
• 4:59:07
  attention by becoming very animated and talkative all at once while the pictures were still
• 4:59:11
  in his hands, so that Wagoner forgot to put them back where he'd taken
• 4:59:15
  them from. I lost track of them. The next thing I knew,
• 4:59:19
  the light had snapped out. They were filing out. He was holding the
• 4:59:22
  inner office door for me empty handed. Come in, Vince, who passed
• 4:59:26
  through the outside room to the street. The deputy said, oh, run,
• 4:59:32
  you're back there. It's on my way home anyway. He got in
• 4:59:36
  under the wheel, and Cliff got in next to him. I was just
• 4:59:37
  going to get in the back when Cliff's voice warded me off like a lazy
• 4:59:41
  whip. Run back a minute and see if I left my cigarettes and mister
• 4:59:45
  Wagoner's office, Vince. Then he held Wagoner himself rooted to the spot there
• 4:59:48
  beside the car by a sudden burst of parting cordiality. I want you to
• 4:59:52
  be sure and look me up anytime you're down our way. His voice dwindled
• 4:59:57
  behind me, and I was in the darkened inner office again alone. I
• 5:00:00
  knew what I had been sent back for. He didn't have any cigarettes in
• 5:00:04
  here. He'd given me his last one back at the fleming house. I
• 5:00:08
  found the still warm cone, curbed its swaying lit it. There they were
• 5:00:14
  on the table under my eyes. He'd left them out there for me,
• 5:00:15
  purposely. The woman's photograph was topmost the cone through a narrow pool of bright
• 5:00:21
  light. Her face seemed to come to life in it. Held up in
• 5:00:25
  my hand, it lost its distortion, the stiff ugliness of death sight came
• 5:00:30
  into the vacant eyes. I seemed to hear her voice again. There he
• 5:00:34
  is right behind you, And the man's came to life in my other hand.
• 5:00:40
  That look he had given me when I bent over him, already wounded
• 5:00:44
  to death on the floor. What did you have to do that for?
• 5:00:48
  The cone light jerked high up into the ceiling, and three pairs of feet
• 5:00:52
  were ranged around me. There where I was flat on the floor, I
• 5:00:56
  could hear a blur of awed male voices overhead out like a light. What
• 5:01:03
  did it you suppose the pictures things like that get him, don't they?
• 5:01:06
  I noticed that already over at the house before, when I was telling you
• 5:01:08
  about the case. He's not well. He's under treatment by a doctor right
• 5:01:14
  now. He gets these dizzy spells now and then that's all it is.
• 5:01:17
  The last was cliffs. He squatted down by me on his haunches, raised
• 5:01:21
  my head, held a paper cup of water from the filter in the corner
• 5:01:23
  to my mouth. His face and mine were only the cup's breath away from
• 5:01:29
  one another. Yes, I sighed soundlessly. Shut up, he grunted,
• 5:01:34
  without moving his lips. I struggled up, and he gave me an arm
• 5:01:38
  back to the car. It's a funny feeling to lean on someone that's your
• 5:01:42
  natural enemy. From now on, that has to be through force of circumstances.
• 5:01:48
  He'll be all right, he said, and he closed the rear car
• 5:01:51
  to her on me. It sounded a little bit like a cell gate.
• 5:01:55
  Wagoner was left behind, standing on the sidewalk in front of his office in
• 5:01:59
  a welter of so longs and much obliged. We didn't say anything in the
• 5:02:03
  car. We couldn't. The deputy was at the wheel, which changed to
• 5:02:07
  Cliff's car at the Fleming house. Picked Lil up and she was blazing sore.
• 5:02:12
  She laced it into him halfway back to the city. I think you've
• 5:02:15
  got one hell of a nerve, Cliff Dodge, leaving me alone like that
• 5:02:18
  in a house where I had no business to be in the first place,
• 5:02:22
  and going off to talk shop with a couple of corny Keystone cops. Suppose
• 5:02:26
  you did leave a note saying where you were. That isn't the point.
• 5:02:29
  This was supposed to be your date off. I can't have one date in
• 5:02:32
  the year with you without squat stuff, squat stuff, squat stuff. Don't
• 5:02:34
  you get enough of it? All week long in the city. I think
• 5:02:38
  for once he was glad she kept his ears humming like that kept him from
• 5:02:42
  thinking too steadily about me. She only quit past the city limits, and
• 5:02:47
  then the cold, empty silence that descended could be ascribed to his sulking after
• 5:02:51
  the calling down he had gotten. Once near the end, she said,
• 5:02:56
  what's matter, Vince, don't you feel well? She caught me holding my
• 5:02:59
  head in the rear mirror. The outing was a little bit too strenuous for
• 5:03:03
  him. Cliff said bitterly that brought on a couple of postscripts. No,
• 5:03:07
  wonder the way you drive next time, trying not to get to the place
• 5:03:11
  where going, and maybe you'll make it. I would have given all my
• 5:03:15
  hopes of heaven to be back in that blessed, everyday world she was in,
• 5:03:18
  where you wrangled and you squabbled, but you didn't kill. I couldn't
• 5:03:23
  give that because I didn't have any hopes of heaven left. We stopped and
• 5:03:27
  he said, I'll go up with Vince a minute. I went up the
• 5:03:32
  stairs ahead of him. He closed the door after us. He spoke low
• 5:03:36
  and very undramatically. No fireworks. He said, Leille's waiting downstairs, and
• 5:03:41
  I'm going to take her home first before I do anything. I love Lil.
• 5:03:45
  It's bad enough what this is going to do to her when she finds
• 5:03:48
  out. I'm going to see that she gets at least one good night's sleep
• 5:03:49
  before she does. He went over to the door, got ready to leave.
• 5:03:56
  Run out. That's about the best thing you can do. Meet your
• 5:03:57
  finish on the hoof somewhere else where, your sister and I don't have to
• 5:04:02
  see it happen. If you're still here when I come back, I'm going
• 5:04:04
  to arrest you for the murder of Dan Ayres and Dorothy Fleming. I don't
• 5:04:07
  have to ask you if you killed those two people. You fainted dead on
• 5:04:11
  the floor when you saw their photographs and death. He gave the knob a
• 5:04:15
  twist, as though he was choking the life out of his own career.
• 5:04:18
  Take my advice and don't be here when I get back. I'll turn in
• 5:04:21
  my information at my own precinct house and they can pass it on to Wagoner.
• 5:04:25
  Then I'll hand over my own badge. In the morning, I was
• 5:04:27
  pressed up against the wall as if I were trying to get out of the
• 5:04:30
  room where there was no door, arms making swimming strokes. I'm frightened,
• 5:04:37
  I said, stiffly kellers always are, he answered. Afterwards, I'll be
• 5:04:42
  back in about half an hour. He closed the door and went out.
• 5:04:47
  I didn't move for about half the time he had given me thrown scornfully into
• 5:04:51
  my face, so to speak. Then I put on the light over the
• 5:04:53
  washstand and turned the warm water tap. I felt my jaw and it was
• 5:04:57
  a little briskly. I wasn't really interested in that. I opened the cabinet
• 5:05:03
  and took out my cream and blade and hold her from sheer reflex of habit.
• 5:05:07
  Then I saw I'd taken out too much, and I put back the
• 5:05:10
  cream and holder. The warm water kept running down. I was in such
• 5:05:14
  pain already. I didn't even feel the outer gash when I made it.
• 5:05:17
  The water kept carrying the red away down the drain. It would have been
• 5:05:22
  quicker at the throat, but I didn't have the guts. This was the
• 5:05:26
  old Roman way, slower but just as effective. I did it on the
• 5:05:30
  left one too, and then I threw the blade away. I wouldn't need
• 5:05:34
  it any more to shave with. I was seeing black spots in front of
• 5:05:38
  my eyes when he tried to get in the door. I tried to keep
• 5:05:41
  very quiet so he'd think i'd lambed and go away. But I couldn't stand
• 5:05:45
  up any more. He heard the thump when I went down on my knees,
• 5:05:48
  and I heard him threaten through the door, open it, or I'll
• 5:05:51
  shoot the lock away. It didn't matter now any more. He could come
• 5:05:55
  in if he wanted to. He was too late. I floundered over to
• 5:05:57
  the door knee high and turned the and I climbed up to it to my
• 5:06:02
  feet again. You could have saved yourself the trip back, I said weakly.
• 5:06:07
  All he said grimly was I didn't think of that way out. And
• 5:06:11
  then he ripped the ends of his shirt and tied them tied around the gashes,
• 5:06:15
  pulling with his teeth till the skin turned blue above them. Then he
• 5:06:18
  got me downstairs and into the car. They didn't keep me at the hospital,
• 5:06:23
  just took stitches and the gashes, sent me home and told me to
• 5:06:26
  stay in bed a day and take it easy. I hadn't even been able
• 5:06:30
  to do that effectively. These were safety razor blades. No depth it was
• 5:06:36
  for. When we got back to my room, he stood over me while
• 5:06:37
  I got undressed, and then thumbed the bed for me to get in.
• 5:06:42
  What about the arrest, I asked, postponed. I asked it just as
• 5:06:48
  a simple question, without any sarcasm, rebuke, or even interest. I
• 5:06:52
  didn't have any left in me to give canceled, he said. I gave
• 5:06:56
  you a chance to run out, and you didn't take it. As a
• 5:06:59
  matter of fact, I sent Lil home alone. I've been downstairs watching the
• 5:07:03
  street door the whole time. When a guy's willing to let the life who
• 5:07:06
  was out of his veins, there must be something to his story. You
• 5:07:07
  don't die to back up lies. You have convinced me of your good faith,
• 5:07:12
  if not your innocence. I don't know what the explanation is, but
• 5:07:17
  I don't think you really know what you did that night. I think you're
• 5:07:18
  telling the truth to the best of your knowledge. I'm tired, I said,
• 5:07:25
  I'm licked. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. I
• 5:07:27
  think I better stick with you at night. He took one of the pillows
• 5:07:32
  and furled it down inside a chair and hunched low in it. It's all
• 5:07:34
  right, I said spiritlessly. I won't try it again. I still think
• 5:07:40
  it would have been the best way out. Our voices were low, we
• 5:07:44
  were both all in from the emotional stress we'd been through all night long,
• 5:07:48
  and in my case there was the loss of blood. In another minute,
• 5:07:51
  one or both of us would have dozed off. In another minute, it
• 5:07:55
  would have eluded us forever, for no combination of time and place and mood
• 5:07:59
  and train of the od is ever the same twice. It's like a chemical
• 5:08:02
  formula, vary at one iota, and you don't get the same result.
• 5:08:07
  This was the right minute, now, our minute mine in his he yawned.
• 5:08:11
  He stretched out his legs to settle himself better. The chair had a
• 5:08:15
  low seat and he was long legged. The shift brought them over a still
• 5:08:18
  damp stain. From my attempt. There were traces of it in a straight
• 5:08:23
  line from the washstand all the way over to the door. He eyed them.
• 5:08:29
  You share picked him messy way, he observed, drowsily. Gas is
• 5:08:33
  what occurs to most people first, I imagine, I said, equally drowsily.
• 5:08:38
  It did to me. But this house has no gas, so there
• 5:08:41
  was no other way but the blade good thing? And hasn't he droned?
• 5:08:47
  If more houses had no gas, there'd be fewer. Yeah, but if
• 5:08:51
  the bulb in your room burns out unexpectedly, it can be damn awkward.
• 5:08:56
  That happened to the fellow in the next room one night, I remember,
• 5:08:57
  and he had to use a candle. My eyes were closed already, maybe
• 5:09:02
  his were too. For all I knew, my somnolent voice had one more
• 5:09:06
  phrase to unburden itself before it too fell silent. It was the same night
• 5:09:11
  I had the dream, I added, inconsequentially, how do you know he
• 5:09:15
  had to use a candle? Were you in there at the time? His
• 5:09:18
  voice opened my eyes again, just as my last straggling remark had opened his.
• 5:09:23
  His head wasn't reared, he was still supine, but his face was
• 5:09:27
  turned toward me on the pillow. No, he rapped and stuck his head
• 5:09:33
  in my door a minute, and he was holding the candle. He wanted
• 5:09:37
  to know if my light had gone out too. I guess he wanted to
• 5:09:38
  see if the current had failed through the whole house or it was just the
• 5:09:42
  bulb in his room. You know how people are in rooming houses. Might
• 5:09:48
  you have to do that? Couldn't he tell? By the hall? His
• 5:09:51
  voice wasn't as sleepy as before. They'd turned the light out in the upper
• 5:09:56
  halls at eleven thirty here, and I guess the hall was dark already.
• 5:10:00
  His head had left the pillow. Now there's still no reason why he should
• 5:10:03
  bust in on you. I'd like to hear the rest of this. There
• 5:10:07
  isn't any rest I've told you. Oh there is to it. That's what
• 5:10:11
  you think. Watch what I get out of it? To begin with?
• 5:10:14
  Who was he? Or had you ever seen him before? Oh? Sure,
• 5:10:18
  I smiled deprecatingly. We weren't strangers. His name was Berg. He
• 5:10:22
  had been living in the room for a week or ten days before that.
• 5:10:26
  We'd said howdy, passing each other on the stairs. We'd even stood and
• 5:10:30
  chatted down at the street door several times in the evening when neither of us
• 5:10:34
  had anything to do. How is it you never mentioned this incident to me
• 5:10:37
  before, as many times as I've asked you to account for every single minute
• 5:10:41
  of that evening before you fell asleep. But this has nothing to do with
• 5:10:47
  that. With what came up later. You've kept asking me if I wasn't
• 5:10:52
  sure. I didn't remember leaving the room at any time, and things like
• 5:10:55
  that. I didn't even step out into the hall when he came to the
• 5:10:57
  door like that. I was in bed already and I didn't even get out
• 5:11:00
  of bed to let him in. Now, what more do you want?
• 5:11:04
  Oh, you're in bed already. I'd been in bed sometime, passed,
• 5:11:10
  reading the paper like I do every night. I'd just gotten through and put
• 5:11:12
  out my own light a couple of minutes before when I heard this light knock.
• 5:11:17
  He made an approving pass with his hands. Tell it just like that,
• 5:11:21
  step by step, Tell it like to a six year old kid.
• 5:11:25
  He'd left the chair long ago, was standing over me. I wondered why
• 5:11:29
  this trifling thing, this less than an incident, should interest him. So
• 5:11:34
  I turned over called out, Who is it? He answered in a low
• 5:11:37
  pitched voice, Berg from next door. Cliff wrinkled his skin under his eyes,
• 5:11:44
  low pitched, fartive cag. I shrugged. Uh. He didn't want
• 5:11:48
  to wake up everyone else on the floor. I suppose maybe it was that.
• 5:11:53
  Go on, I can reach the door from my bed, you know,
• 5:11:57
  I stuck out my arm, flipped a key and open the door.
• 5:12:00
  He was standing there in his suspenders, holding this lighted candle in front of
• 5:12:03
  him. So he asked if my room light was okay. We tried it
• 5:12:07
  and it was. Then did he back right out again? Well, not
• 5:12:14
  instantly. We put the light right out again, but he stayed on in
• 5:12:17
  the doorway a couple of minutes. Why do you have to stand in the
• 5:12:19
  doorway a couple minutes? Once he'd found out your light was okay, well,
• 5:12:25
  winding up the intrusion, signing off whatever you'd want to call it,
• 5:12:29
  and just what words. Gee, he was worse than a school teacher in
• 5:12:33
  the third grade. You know how those things go. He said he was
• 5:12:37
  sorry he had disturbed me. He wouldn't have he had realized I was bed.
• 5:12:41
  He said, you're tired, aren't you. I can see you're tired
• 5:12:47
  with the light out. It was a commentary, not a question. The
• 5:12:52
  candle was shining into my face. He said, yes, you're tired,
• 5:12:55
  You're very tired. And the funny part of it was I hadn't been until
• 5:12:59
  then, but after he called it to my attention, I noticed he was
• 5:13:02
  right. I I was kind of repetitious, wasn't he? He drawled,
• 5:13:08
  You've quoted him as sayin it four times already. Oh, he kept saying
• 5:13:15
  it over and over. I couldn't even keep track of how many times he
• 5:13:18
  said it, and his voice kept getting lower all the time. I smiled
• 5:13:22
  tolerantly. I guess he kind of got a one track mind, used to
• 5:13:26
  mumbling to himself. Maybe all right, keep going un there's no further to
• 5:13:33
  go. He closed the door and went away, and I dropped right off
• 5:13:36
  to sleep. Wait a minute, hold it right there? Are you sure
• 5:13:40
  the door closed after him? Did yet see it close? Did ye hear
• 5:13:42
  it? Or are you just trickin your senses into believin' you did because you
• 5:13:47
  figured that's what must have happened next? Anyway? Was he a hound at
• 5:13:51
  getting you mixed up? I wasn't so alert any more. I was sort
• 5:13:56
  of relaxed, I say, I said, bafflingly. Did I go on
• 5:14:00
  like this? He opened it slightly, eased it gently closed, The latch
• 5:14:06
  tongue went click into the socket. Did I go like this? He opened
• 5:14:10
  it a second time, this time eased it back in place, holding the
• 5:14:12
  knob fast, so the latch tongue couldn't connect, even though the edge of
• 5:14:15
  the door itself gave a little thump as it met the frame. He waited,
• 5:14:19
  said, I can see by the trouble you're having given me a positive
• 5:14:23
  answer that you didn't hear either of those sounds. But the door must have
• 5:14:30
  closed. I protested, What was he going to do? Stay in here
• 5:14:33
  all night keeping watch at my bedside? The candle seemed to go out,
• 5:14:37
  so he must have gone out and left me. The candle seemed to go
• 5:14:40
  out, how d'you know it wasn't your eyes that drop closed and shut it
• 5:14:44
  out. I didn't say anything. I want to ask you a few questions,
• 5:14:48
  He said. What sort of an effect did his voice have on you?
• 5:14:52
  Especially when he kept saying you're tired? Sort of peaceful? I liked
• 5:14:57
  it. He nodded at that. Another thing, where did he hold that
• 5:15:03
  candle in respect to himself? Off to one side, no dead center,
• 5:15:07
  in front of his own face, so that the flame was between his eyes
• 5:15:11
  almost He nodded again. Did you stare at the flame pretty steadily? Yeah?
• 5:15:17
  I couldn't tear my eyes off it. You know how a flame in
• 5:15:21
  a dark room will get you and behind it? If he was holding it
• 5:15:23
  up like you say you met his eyes. I guess, I guess I
• 5:15:30
  must have. He kept it on a straight line between my eyes and his
• 5:15:33
  the whole time Cliff worked his cheek around like he was chewing a sour apple.
• 5:15:38
  My eyes were fixed in glassy as though we were mentally unbalanced. I
• 5:15:42
  heard him mutter what I was just remembering something in that deathbed statement. Missus
• 5:15:48
  Fleming made the wagoner one more thing when you chatted with him downstairs at the
• 5:15:52
  street tour, like you say you did once or twice. What were the
• 5:15:56
  topics? Can you remember? Oh, a little bit of a everything?
• 5:16:00
  You know how those things go at first general things like the weather and baseball
• 5:16:03
  and politics, and later more personal things. You know how you get talking
• 5:16:08
  about yourself when you've got an interested listener, getting the feel of a background.
• 5:16:14
  He must have meant that for himself. I couldn't make any sense out
• 5:16:18
  of it. Did you ever catch yourself doing something you didn't want to do
• 5:16:21
  while you were in his company? No? Oh? Wait, yes,
• 5:16:26
  One night he had a box of mentilated cough drops in his pocket. He
• 5:16:30
  kept taking them out and offering them to me the whole time we were talking
• 5:16:34
  gosh. If there's one thing I hate, it's mentilated cough drops. I'd
• 5:16:38
  say no each time, and then I'd give in and take one. Anyway,
• 5:16:41
  before I knew it, I'd finish the whole box. He eyed me,
• 5:16:45
  gloomily, testing your willpower to see if it was weak enough. You
• 5:16:51
  seem to make something out of this whole thing, I said, helplessly,
• 5:16:55
  what is it blamed? If I can see? Never mind, I don't
• 5:16:59
  want to you right now. You get some sleep, kid, You're a
• 5:17:03
  week after what you tried to do just now. I saw him pick up
• 5:17:06
  his hat. Where are you going, I asked. I thought you said
• 5:17:10
  you were staying here tonight. I'm going back to the Fleming House and to
• 5:17:15
  Wagoner's headquarters too while I'm at it. Now you're going all the way back
• 5:17:19
  up there at this hour of the morning, and Vince, he added from
• 5:17:23
  the doorway, don't give up yet. We'll find a way out somehow.
• 5:17:27
  Don't take any more short cuts. It was high noon before I woke up,
• 5:17:33
  after all I'd been through, and even then he didn't show up for
• 5:17:36
  another two or three hours. Yet. I got dressed, but I didn't
• 5:17:38
  dare leave my room even for a cup of coffee. I was afraid if
• 5:17:42
  I did, I'd miss him and he'd think I'd changed my mind and lambed
• 5:17:45
  out. After all, wild horses couldn't have dragged me away. Where was
• 5:17:49
  there to go? Anyway? He was my only salvation now. He finally
• 5:17:55
  showed up around three and found me worriedly coursing back and forth in my stocking
• 5:17:57
  feet, holding unbandaged wrist with the opposite hand. Stiffening was setting in,
• 5:18:03
  and they hurt plenty, But I was as fresh as a daisy compared to
• 5:18:07
  the shape he was in. He had big black crescents under his eyes from
• 5:18:11
  not getting to bed all night, and the first thing he did was sprawl
• 5:18:14
  back in the chair he had originally intended occupying the night before and kick off
• 5:18:18
  his shoes. Then he blew a big breath of relaxation that fanned halfway across
• 5:18:22
  the room. Were you up there all this time? Until now? I
• 5:18:26
  gasped, I've been back in town once in between, to pick up something
• 5:18:30
  I needed and get a leave of absence. He wasn't sanguine by any means.
• 5:18:34
  I could tell that just by looking at him. He didn't have that
• 5:18:37
  steely glint in his eye of your master detective on the home stretch to a
• 5:18:41
  solution. But he looked less harassed than the night before. Maybe the activity
• 5:18:48
  of running around and itself was good for him. He brought in with him
• 5:18:51
  a large flat slab wrapped in brown paper. He picked it up now,
• 5:18:55
  undid it, turning partly away from me, scissored his arms, and then
• 5:18:59
  turned back again. He was holding a large portrait photograph and a leather frame
• 5:19:03
  against his chest for me to see. He didn't say anything, Just watch
• 5:19:07
  me. It took a minute for the identity to peer through the contradictory details,
• 5:19:11
  trifling as they were. The well groomed hair neatly tapered above the ears
• 5:19:15
  instead of shaggily unkempt, the clean shaven upper lip instead of a sloppy walrus
• 5:19:21
  tusk mustache. He helped this effect by holding one finger lengthwise under the picture's
• 5:19:26
  nose. Above all an intangible aura of prosperity, radiating from the impeccable fit
• 5:19:32
  of the custom tailored suit collar, the careful negligence of the expensive necktie.
• 5:19:37
  The expression of the face itself instead of the habitual unbuttoned, tieless, slightly
• 5:19:41
  soiled shirt collar, the hang dog or of middle age. Running to seed.
• 5:19:45
  I jolted, that's Berg, the man that had the room next to
• 5:19:51
  me. Where'd you? I didn't have to ask you that I already know
• 5:19:55
  it from the landlord and one or two of the other rumors here I've shown
• 5:19:56
  it to. He reached on with one hand and suddenly swung out a second
• 5:20:02
  panel attached to the first. It was one of those double easel arrangements that
• 5:20:06
  stand on dressers. She stared back at me, and like a woman,
• 5:20:10
  she was different again. She had been different on each of the three times.
• 5:20:15
  This was the third and last time I was to see her, though
• 5:20:18
  this crystallize arrested glimpse of her preceded the other two in point of time.
• 5:20:22
  She had here neither the masklike scowl of hate at Bay I had seen by
• 5:20:26
  torchlight, nor yet the rigid ghost grin of death. She was smiling,
• 5:20:32
  calm, alive, lovely. I made a whimpering sound. Somebody, I
• 5:20:37
  guess in Wagoner's office had stuck a gumed tab uniting the two of them across
• 5:20:41
  the division of the folder, uniting them symbolically in death and mystery. On
• 5:20:47
  it was inked b twenty two sixty three. Fleming Airs seven twenty one forty.
• 5:20:55
  He's also Dorothy Fleming's husband. Joel Cliff said, Wagoner gave me this
• 5:21:00
  from their house. He must have seen the wan light of hope beginning to
• 5:21:03
  flicker in my eyes. He snuffed it out with a rueful gnaw at his
• 5:21:07
  underlip, the slight shake of his head. That was the kindest way.
• 5:21:11
  I guess, not to let it get fully kindled. Hope is so hard
• 5:21:15
  to kill anyway. He closed the photo folder and threw it aside. No,
• 5:21:22
  he said, no, there's no out in it for you. Look,
• 5:21:26
  Vince, do you want to know now what we're up against once and
• 5:21:29
  for all. You've got too sooner or later, and it isn't going to
• 5:21:30
  be easy for you to take. You've got bad news for me, pretty
• 5:21:37
  bad, But at least it's better than this weird stuff that you've been shadow
• 5:21:40
  boxing whatever since it happened. It's rational, down to earth, something that
• 5:21:45
  the mind can grasp. You killed a man that Wednesday night, you may
• 5:21:48
  as well get used to the idea. There's no dodging out of it,
• 5:21:52
  no possibility of mistake, no shrugging off of responsibility. It isn't the lone
• 5:21:56
  missus Fleming's deathbed description conclusive as that is? And she didn't make that up
• 5:22:00
  out of thin air? You know. Imagine someone looking just like you.
• 5:22:04
  Fingerprints that Wagoner's staff took from that mirror door behind which Air's body was thrust
• 5:22:08
  check with yours. I compared them privately while I was up there from a
• 5:22:14
  drinking glass. I took out of this room and had dusted over at our
• 5:22:17
  own lab. I looked, and mine was gone. You and nobody butt.
• 5:22:22
  You found your way into the Fleming house and punctured dan Eyre's heart with
• 5:22:26
  an awl and secreted his body in a closet. He saw my face blanch.
• 5:22:30
  Now, steady a minute. You didn't kill Dorothy Fleming, you would
• 5:22:34
  have, I guess. But she ran out of the house and down the
• 5:22:37
  cutoff for her life. You can't drive, and she was killed by somebody
• 5:22:41
  in a car, somebody in Air's car, but not Airs himself, obviously,
• 5:22:45
  since you had killed him upstairs a minute before yourself. Now that proves
• 5:22:49
  the course that somebody brought you up there, and that was waiting outside for
• 5:22:55
  you at a safe distance, a distance great enough to avoid implication yet near
• 5:22:59
  enough to lend a hand when something went wrong in one of the victims seemed
• 5:23:03
  on the point of escaping. That didn't help much. That halved my crime,
• 5:23:07
  but the half was still as great as the whole. After being told
• 5:23:11
  you had committed one murder, where was the solace? And being told you
• 5:23:15
  hadn't committed a dozen others? I folded over seated, held my head.
• 5:23:21
  But why didn't I know I was doing it? I groaned anguishly. We
• 5:23:26
  can take care of that later, he said, I can't prove what I
• 5:23:30
  think it was right now, and what good is an explanation without proof,
• 5:23:33
  And there's only one way to prove it, show it could have happened the
• 5:23:37
  first time by getting it to happen all over again a second time. I
• 5:23:41
  thought he was going crazy, or I was. You mean go back and
• 5:23:45
  commit the crime all over again when they're both already buried. No, I
• 5:23:52
  mean get the circumstances down on record, repeat the special conditions that surrounded it
• 5:23:56
  the first time. Even then it'll be purely circumstantial. None too good,
• 5:24:00
  but it's about the best we can hope for. But can you tell me
• 5:24:03
  what I think It's safer if I don't until afterwards. You'll get all tense,
• 5:24:07
  keyed up, your liable to jeopardize the whole thing without meaning to make
• 5:24:11
  it misfire. I want you to keep cool. Everything will depend on that.
• 5:24:15
  I wonder what he was going to ask me. It's nearly four o'clock
• 5:24:18
  now, he said, we haven't much time. I telegram addressed Missus Fleming
• 5:24:22
  was finally received from her husband while I was there. He's arriving back from
• 5:24:26
  South America today. Wagoner took charge of it, showed it to me.
• 5:24:29
  He's ordered her reburied in a private plot. We'll probably get there in time
• 5:24:33
  for the services. I trailed him downstairs to his car, got in beside
• 5:24:37
  him, limply, Where are we going? I asked. He didn't start
• 5:24:42
  the car right away, gave me a half rueful, half apologetic. Look,
• 5:24:47
  where is the place you would least rather go? Of all places?
• 5:24:49
  Right now? That wasn't hard, That eight sided mirror alcove where I did
• 5:24:56
  it. I was afraid of that. I'm sorry, kid, but that's
• 5:25:00
  the very place you're going to have to go back to and stay in alone
• 5:25:03
  tonight. If you ever want to get out from under the shadows again.
• 5:25:07
  What do you say, shall we make the try? He still didn't start
• 5:25:11
  the car. Gave me lots of time. I only took four or five
• 5:25:15
  minutes, and I gave him the rest of it back. I slapped in
• 5:25:18
  my stomach, which made the sick feeling go up into my throat, and
• 5:25:22
  I said, I'm ready. I'd been sitting on the floor outside it to
• 5:25:27
  rest when I heard him come in. There were other people with him.
• 5:25:32
  The silence of the house toomb like until then, was abruptly shattered by their
• 5:25:36
  entrance into the lower hall, their voices, the sounds they made moving about.
• 5:25:41
  I couldn't tell how many of them there were. They went into the
• 5:25:45
  living room, and their voices became less distinct. I stood up and got
• 5:25:48
  ready, but I stayed out a while longer to be able to breathe better.
• 5:25:52
  I knew I had time, yet he wouldn't come up right away.
• 5:25:56
  The voices were subdued as befitted a solemn post funeral occasion. Every once in
• 5:26:00
  a while, though, I can make out a snatch of something that was
• 5:26:03
  said. Once I heard someone ask, don't you want to come over to
• 5:26:07
  our place tonight? Joel? You don't mean you're going to stay here alone
• 5:26:11
  in this empty house. After after such a thing, I strained my ears
• 5:26:15
  for the answer. A lot depended on it, and I got it.
• 5:26:19
  I'm closer to her here than anywhere else. Presently, they all came out
• 5:26:23
  into the hall again on their way out, and I could hear good nights
• 5:26:27
  being said. Try not to think about it too much, Joel, get
• 5:26:30
  some sleep. The door closed, A car drove off outside, then a
• 5:26:37
  second one. No more voices after that. The tomb like silence almost returned,
• 5:26:41
  but not quite. A solitary tread down there, returning from the front
• 5:26:45
  door, told that someone had remained. It went into the living room,
• 5:26:49
  and I heard the click of a decanter against a glass, then a frittering
• 5:26:53
  of piano notes, struck at random, the way a person does who has
• 5:26:56
  found contentment is eminently himself. Then a light switch ticked and the tread came
• 5:27:03
  out started unhurriedly up the stairs. It was time to get in. I
• 5:27:07
  put one foot behind me and followed it back. I drew concealment before me
• 5:27:12
  in the shape of a mirror panel, all but the ultimate fighter's breath of
• 5:27:15
  gap, to be able to breathe and watch the oncoming tread had entered the
• 5:27:21
  bedroom adjacent to me, and a light went on in there. I heard
• 5:27:25
  a slatted blind spin down, then the sound of a valise being shifted out
• 5:27:29
  into a more accessible position, and the click of the key used to open
• 5:27:32
  it. I could even glimpse the colored labels on the lid as it went
• 5:27:34
  up and over South American hotels. I saw bodyless hands reach down taking things
• 5:27:41
  out, striped pajamas and piles of folded linen that had never seen South America,
• 5:27:47
  that had probably lain hidden on a shelf in some public check room in
• 5:27:51
  the city. All this time, my heart was going hard. The dried
• 5:27:55
  blood on the woodwork at my back of someone I had killed seemed to seer
• 5:27:59
  me where it touched. My flesh kept crawling away from it in ripples,
• 5:28:03
  though my body stood there motionless. It was the blood of someone I had
• 5:28:08
  killed, not that this man out there had killed. No matter what happened
• 5:28:14
  now tonight, nothing could absolve me of that. There was no possibility of
• 5:28:18
  transfer of blame. Cliff had told me so, and it was true.
• 5:28:22
  A light went up right outside where I was, and an ice white needle
• 5:28:26
  of it splintered in at me. Lengthwise from top to bottom, but not
• 5:28:30
  broad enough to focus anything it fell on. From the outside, I could
• 5:28:33
  see a strip of his back by it. He had come in and was
• 5:28:37
  squatting down by the damage. Safe mirror covering swung out of the way.
• 5:28:41
  He swung its useless lid in and out a couple of times. I heard
• 5:28:45
  him give an almost soundless chuckle, as though the vandalism amused him. Then
• 5:28:49
  he took things out of his coat pockets and began putting them in oblong manilla
• 5:28:53
  envelopes such as are used to contain currency in securities, lumpy tissue wrapped shapes
• 5:29:00
  that might have been jewelry. Then he gave the safe flap an indifferent slap,
• 5:29:03
  to as though whether it shut tight or not didn't matter. What it
• 5:29:07
  held was perfectly safe for the present. Then he stood before turning to go
• 5:29:11
  out. This was when now I took the gun. Cliff had given me
• 5:29:15
  his gun out of my pocket and raised it to what they call the wishbone
• 5:29:19
  of the chest, and held it there, pointed before me. Then I
• 5:29:23
  moved one foot out before me, and that took the door away in a
• 5:29:26
  soundless sweep. I was standing there like that when he turned finally the mirror
• 5:29:33
  covering the safe Niche had been folded back until now, so he didn't see
• 5:29:37
  the reflection of my revelation. The shock must have been almost galvanic. His
• 5:29:41
  throat made a sound like the creak of a rusty pulley. I thought he
• 5:29:45
  was going to fall down, insensible for a minute, his body made a
• 5:29:48
  tortured corkscrew twist all the way down to his feet, but he stayed up.
• 5:29:52
  I had a lot to remember. Cliff had told me just what to
• 5:29:56
  say and what not to say. I had had to learn my lines by
• 5:29:59
  heart, and particularly the timing of them. That was even more important.
• 5:30:03
  He'd warned me, I had very little time in which to say everything I
• 5:30:06
  wanted to say. I would be working against a deadline that might fall at
• 5:30:11
  any minute, but he didn't tell me what it was. He'd warned me
• 5:30:15
  we both this man I was confronting, and I would be walking a tight
• 5:30:18
  rope without benefit of balancing poles. Everything depended on which one of us made
• 5:30:23
  a false step first. It was a lot to remember staring at the man
• 5:30:29
  whom I had only known until now as Berg, a fellow rooming house lodger
• 5:30:33
  and who held the key to the mystery that had suddenly clouded my existence.
• 5:30:37
  And I had to remember each thing in the order they had been given me,
• 5:30:41
  in the proper sequence, or it was no good. The first injunction
• 5:30:45
  was make him speak first. If it takes all night, wait until he
• 5:30:48
  speaks first. Some matter of recognition must be involved. But I had no
• 5:30:53
  leisure for my own side thoughts. He spoke finally, somebody had to and
• 5:30:59
  I didn't. How'd you get here? It was the croak of a frog
• 5:31:04
  and mud. You showed me the way, didn't you. I could see
• 5:31:10
  the lump in his throat as he forced it down to be able to articulate.
• 5:31:14
  You're you remembered coming here? You didn't think I would, did you.
• 5:31:21
  His eyes rolled as at the imminence of some catastrophe. You you couldn't
• 5:31:26
  have the gun and I. We never moved? Then? How did I
• 5:31:30
  get back here? Again? You explain it? His present situation pierced warningly
• 5:31:37
  at him through the muffling layers of his panic. I saw his eyes flick
• 5:31:42
  toward the entrance to the alcove. I shifted over a little, got it
• 5:31:45
  behind me to seal him in. I felt with my foot and drew the
• 5:31:48
  door in behind me, not fast, but leaving only a narrow gap.
• 5:31:55
  How long have you been in here like like this? Since after dark?
• 5:32:00
  I got in while you were away at the funeral services? Who would you
• 5:32:04
  bring with you? Just this? I righted the gun, which had begun
• 5:32:10
  to incline a little at the bore. He couldn't resist asking it. He
• 5:32:14
  wouldn't have been human if he hadn't asked it. In his present predicament?
• 5:32:18
  Just how much do you remember? I gave him a wise smile that implied
• 5:32:25
  everything without saying so. It was Cliff's smile, not mine, but formed
• 5:32:30
  by my lips. You remember the drive up? He said it low,
• 5:32:36
  but he'd wavered on the wire that tightrope. Cliff had mentioned You couldn't have
• 5:32:41
  You had the look, the typical look? What look? He shut up?
• 5:32:47
  He had regained his equilibrium. I was holding a thumbtack pressed into the
• 5:32:52
  palm of each hand the whole way. Then, Why did you do everything
• 5:32:57
  you were directed to so massively? I wanted to see what it was leading
• 5:33:03
  up to. I thought maybe there might be some good in it for me
• 5:33:07
  later, if anyone went to all that trouble you purposefully feigned. I can't
• 5:33:14
  believe it. You didn't even draw back exhibit a trimmer. When I let
• 5:33:17
  you out of the car, put the knife in your hand, sent you
• 5:33:19
  on toward the house, told you how to get in. What to do
• 5:33:22
  you mean you went ahead and consciously sure? I went ahead and did it
• 5:33:26
  because I figured you'd pay off heavy afterwards to keep me quiet. And if
• 5:33:30
  I tried to balk, then I probably would have gotten the knife myself.
• 5:33:34
  On the way back from my trouble. What happened? What went wrong?
• 5:33:38
  Inside? I accidentally dropped the knife in the dark somewhere in the lower hall
• 5:33:44
  and couldn't find it again. I went on up empty handed, thinking I'd
• 5:33:48
  just frightened them out the back way and get a chance at the safe myself.
• 5:33:52
  But Airs turned on me and got me down. He weighed more than
• 5:33:56
  I do, and he was going to kill me to keep it from coming
• 5:33:59
  out that they were adulterous and had been caught in the act of breaking into
• 5:34:02
  your safe. In the bargain only by mistake, she put the awl that
• 5:34:07
  he cried out for into my head instead of his. I plunged it into
• 5:34:11
  him in self defense. He nodded as though this cleared up something that had
• 5:34:15
  been bothering him. Ah, that explains the change of weapon that had me
• 5:34:19
  mystified. Also how it was that she got out of the house like that
• 5:34:22
  and I had to go after her and stop her myself. Luckily I was
• 5:34:27
  crouched behind the hood of Air's car peering at the open door when she came
• 5:34:30
  running out. She couldn't drive herself, so she didn't try to get in,
• 5:34:34
  ran screaming on foot down the cutoff. I jumped in without her seeing
• 5:34:37
  me, tore after her and caught up with her. If I hadn't,
• 5:34:41
  the whole thing would have ended in a ghastly failure. I might have known
• 5:34:44
  you were under imperfect control. He'd fallen off long ago, gone hurtling down.
• 5:34:49
  But I still had a deadline to work against, things to say without
• 5:34:53
  knowing the why or where. For your control was perfect enough. Don't let
• 5:34:59
  that worry you. You haven't lost your neck, but you just said,
• 5:35:04
  and you fell for it. I didn't know what I was doing when you
• 5:35:07
  brought me up here, sent me in to do your dirty work for you
• 5:35:11
  that night. Haven't you missed something from your late wife's bedroom since you've been
• 5:35:15
  back. There was a double photo folder of you and her. The police
• 5:35:19
  took that. I happened to see both pictures in one of the papers.
• 5:35:22
  I recognized you as Berg. I had also recognized my own description by a
• 5:35:27
  darned sweater I wore that night and had a vague recollection, like when you've
• 5:35:32
  been dreaming of having been in a house and taking part in such a scene.
• 5:35:36
  You've convicted yourself out of your own mouth to me right now, I
• 5:35:40
  haven't come back here to be paid off for my participation or take a cut
• 5:35:44
  in any hush money. Nothing you could give me from that safe can buy
• 5:35:47
  your life. You picked someone with weak will power maybe, but strong scruples.
• 5:35:52
  I was an honest man. You've made me commit murder. I can't
• 5:35:55
  clear myself in the eyes of the law. Ever, you're going to pay
• 5:35:57
  for doing that to me now this way, wait, don't do that.
• 5:36:03
  I won't help you any alive. Maybe I can do something for you.
• 5:36:07
  I'll give you money, I'll get you out of the country. No one
• 5:36:11
  needs to know. My conscience will always know. I've got an honest man's
• 5:36:15
  conscience and a murderer's body. Now you should have let me alone. That
• 5:36:21
  was your mistake. Here you go, fleming. He was almost incoherent,
• 5:36:26
  drooling at the mouth. Wait one minute more, just sixty seconds. He
• 5:36:32
  took out a thin gold pocket watch, snapped up its burnished lid. He
• 5:36:36
  held its face toward me. Open that way. I saw what he was
• 5:36:38
  trying to do. Cliff had warned me to be careful. I dropped my
• 5:36:42
  eyes to his feet, kept them stubbornly lowered, brow furrowed with a resistance
• 5:36:47
  while I held the gun on him. Something kept trying to pull them up.
• 5:36:51
  A flash from the burnished metal of the inside of the watch lid wavered
• 5:36:53
  erradically across my chest front for an instant, like when kids tease you with
• 5:36:56
  sunlight thrown back from a mirror. Look up, he kept pleading, Look
• 5:37:03
  up, just one a minute more. See the hands are at six too,
• 5:37:07
  Look just until they get to here. Something was the matter with the
• 5:37:14
  trigger of the gun. It must have jammed. I kept trying to close
• 5:37:18
  the finger that was hooked around it, and it resisted. Or else maybe
• 5:37:22
  it was the finger that wouldn't obey my will. I kept blinking more and
• 5:37:26
  more rapidly. The flash slithered across my shuddering, eyes slid off, came
• 5:37:32
  back again. They wanted so bad to look up into it. It prickled.
• 5:37:37
  There was a slight snap, as though he had surreptitiously pulled out the
• 5:37:41
  stem winder to set the watch back. That did it. I glanced up
• 5:37:45
  uncontrollably. He was holding the watch up, brow high, like he had
• 5:37:49
  the candle that night, as if to give me a good, unobstructed look
• 5:37:52
  at its dial. It was in about the position doctors carry those little attached
• 5:37:57
  head mirrors with which they examined throats. I met his eyes right behind it,
• 5:38:03
  and all of a sudden my own couldn't get away anymore, as though
• 5:38:06
  they had hit glue. A sort of delicious torpor turned me into wax.
• 5:38:11
  I didn't have any ideas of my own anymore. I was open to anyone
• 5:38:15
  else's. My voice control lasted a moment longer than the rest of my functions.
• 5:38:19
  I heard it say, carrying a leftover message that no longer had any
• 5:38:22
  will power behind it. I'm going to shoot you, No, he said
• 5:38:29
  soothingly. You're tired. You don't want to shoot anybody. You're tired.
• 5:38:36
  The gun's too heavy for you. Why do you want to hold that heavy
• 5:38:41
  thing. I heard a faraway thump as it hit the floor, as far
• 5:38:47
  away as though it had fallen right through to the basement. Gee, it
• 5:38:51
  felt so good to be without it. I felt lazy all over. The
• 5:38:56
  light was going out, but very gradually, like it was tired too.
• 5:38:59
  The whole world was tired. Somebody was crooning, you're tired, You're tired,
• 5:39:06
  you dirty bumb Now I've got you. Mental laps induced by hypnosis.
• 5:39:14
  There was a white flash that seemed to explode inside my head and hurt like
• 5:39:17
  anything. Something cold and wet pressed against my eyes when I tried to flicker
• 5:39:21
  them open, and when I had, instead of getting lighter as when you're
• 5:39:25
  slowly waking up, the world around me seemed to get darker and way against
• 5:39:27
  me, crushingly all over. The pain increased, traveled from my head to
• 5:39:32
  my lungs. Knives seemed to slash into them, and I couldn't breathe.
• 5:39:37
  I could feel my eyeballs starting out of their sockets with strangulation, and my
• 5:39:41
  head seemed about to burst the pressure of the surrounding darkness seemed to come against
• 5:39:45
  me in undulating waves. I realized that I was under water and was drowning.
• 5:39:49
  I could swim, but now I couldn't seem to. I tried to
• 5:39:53
  rise, and something kept holding me down. I weaved there like a writhing
• 5:39:57
  seaweed, held fast to the botto them. I doubled over, forced myself
• 5:40:02
  down against the surrounding resistance, groped blindly along my own legs. One seemed
• 5:40:07
  furry and unencumbered. I could lift it from the mucky bottom. About the
• 5:40:11
  ankle of the other there was a triple construction of tightly coiled rope, like
• 5:40:15
  a hideous hemp gaiter. It was tangled hopelessly about a heavy iron crossbar.
• 5:40:19
  When I tried to raise this, one scimitar like a pindage, came free.
• 5:40:23
  The other remained hopelessly hooked into the slime and had slashed into from above.
• 5:40:29
  It must have been some sort of a small but weighty anchor, such
• 5:40:32
  as is used by launches and fishing craft. I couldn't release it. I
• 5:40:37
  couldn't endure the bend of position against my inner suffocation. I spiraled upright again
• 5:40:41
  and death fluid. My jaws kept going spasmodically, drinking in extinction. A
• 5:40:47
  formless blur came down from somewhere brushed lightly against me, shunted away again before
• 5:40:52
  I could grasp it shot up out of reach. I couldn't see it so
• 5:40:56
  much as since it as a disturbance in the water, there were only fireworks
• 5:41:00
  inside my skull, now not conscious thoughts any more, The blurred manifestation shot
• 5:41:07
  down again, closer. This time it seemed to hang there, flounderingly upside
• 5:41:11
  down beside me. I felt a hand close around my ankle, then a
• 5:41:15
  knife grazed my calf withdrew. I could feel a tugging at the rope,
• 5:41:19
  as if it were being sliced at. Self preservation was the only spark left
• 5:41:25
  in my darkening brain. I clutched at the hovering form and the death grip
• 5:41:29
  of the drowning. I felt myself shooting up through water together with it,
• 5:41:33
  inextricably entangled. I wouldn't let go, couldn't. Something that felt like a
• 5:41:38
  small ridge rock crashed into my forehead. Even the spark of self preservation went
• 5:41:44
  out. When I came to. I was lying out on a little pier
• 5:41:47
  or string piece of some kind, and there were stars over me. I
• 5:41:51
  was in shorts and undershirt, ringing, wet and shivering, and water kept
• 5:41:55
  flushing up out of my mouth. Somebody kept kneading my sides in an out,
• 5:42:00
  and somebody else kept flipping my arms up and down. I coughed a
• 5:42:03
  lot, and one of them said, there he is, he's all right
• 5:42:07
  now. He stood up, and it was Cliff. He was in his
• 5:42:10
  underwear and all dripping too. A minute later Wagoner stood up on the other
• 5:42:14
  side of me. He was equally sodden, but he'd left on everything but
• 5:42:17
  his coat and shoes. There hadn't been any time by then, I guess.
• 5:42:22
  He said, now, get something around him, and then the three
• 5:42:25
  of us better get back to the house fast and kill the first bottle we
• 5:42:27
  find. There was light coming from somewhere behind us, through some fir trees
• 5:42:33
  that bordered the little lake. It played up the little pier by it.
• 5:42:37
  I could see my own outer clothes neatly piled at the very lip of it.
• 5:42:41
  There was a paper on top of them, pressed down by one of
• 5:42:44
  my oxfords. Cliff picked it up, brought it over and read it to
• 5:42:47
  us. I'm wanted for the murder of those two people at the Fleming House.
• 5:42:51
  They're bound to get me sooner or later. And I have no chance.
• 5:42:55
  I see no other way but this vincent hardy. It was in my
• 5:43:00
  own handwriting. The light was strong enough for me to see that. When
• 5:43:03
  he showed it to me. He looked at Wagoner and said, do we
• 5:43:06
  need this? Wagoner pursed his lips thoughtfully and said, I think we're better
• 5:43:11
  off without it. These coronary inquest guys can be awfully dumb. Sometimes it
• 5:43:15
  might sort of cloud their judgment. Cliff took a match from his dry coat
• 5:43:19
  and struck it and held it to the note until there wasn't any to hold
• 5:43:22
  anymore. I was feeling better now, all but the shivering. I was
• 5:43:29
  sitting up. I looked back at the glow through the trees and said,
• 5:43:32
  what's that Fleming's car. Cliff answered, he tried to take a curve too
• 5:43:37
  fast getting away from here. When we showed up on his tail and turned
• 5:43:41
  over and kindled. I grimaced sickly. That was about all that could have
• 5:43:45
  stirred horror in me, after the past ten days a cremation alive. I
• 5:43:52
  shot him first, Cliff said, quietly, one of us did, Wagoner
• 5:43:56
  corrected him. We all three fired after. We'll never know which one hit
• 5:44:00
  him. We don't want to anyway. The machine telescoped and we couldn't get
• 5:44:06
  him out, and then I had to give Dodge a hen going down after
• 5:44:07
  you. He's no great shakes of a swimmer. We had to hit him.
• 5:44:12
  Cliff said, it was the only way of breaking the hypnosis in time.
• 5:44:17
  You were drowning down there by your own act, and there was no
• 5:44:19
  time to chase him and force him at gunpoint to release his control or whatever
• 5:44:23
  it is they do. We only found out about the anchor after we'd located
• 5:44:26
  you. The figure was coming back toward us from the glow, which was
• 5:44:30
  dwindling down. Now it was the deputy, he said at the left.
• 5:44:36
  No. I wet it down all it could to keep it from kindling the
• 5:44:38
  trees. Let's get back to the house, Cliff said, the kid's all
• 5:44:42
  goose pimples. We went back, and I got very soused on my third
• 5:44:47
  of the bottle. I couldn't even seem to do that properly. They let
• 5:44:52
  me sleep it off there. The four of us spent the night right there
• 5:44:55
  where we were. I found out later it was Fleming's own bed I'd occupied,
• 5:44:57
  but at the time I wouldn't have ca if it was the mirror closet
• 5:45:00
  itself, with Air's body still in it. In the morning, Cliff came
• 5:45:04
  in and had a talk with me before the other two were up. I
• 5:45:07
  knew where I was going to have to go with him in a little while,
• 5:45:11
  but I didn't mind so much anymore. I said, did that help
• 5:45:15
  any what I did last night? Did it do any good? Sure?
• 5:45:19
  He said, it was the works. It was what I wanted had to
• 5:45:22
  have. What do you suppose I was doing around here, ah, yesterday
• 5:45:26
  before he got back. Why do you suppose I warned you to make him
• 5:45:29
  stay right there in the alcove with you, not let the conversation drift outside.
• 5:45:33
  I had it all wired up. We listened in on the whole thing.
• 5:45:36
  The three of us were down in the basement taking it all down.
• 5:45:38
  We've got the whole thing down on record now. I'd emptied that gun I
• 5:45:42
  gave you, and I figured he'd be too smart to do anything to you
• 5:45:45
  right here in his own house. Only he got you out and into his
• 5:45:51
  car too quick before we had a chance to stop him. We'darn near lost
• 5:45:55
  you. We turned back after one fault, start toward the city, and
• 5:45:56
  a truckman told us he'd glimpsed a car in the tearing down the lake road.
• 5:46:02
  That gave us the answer. We wouldn't even have been able to hold
• 5:46:04
  the suicide against him. You did all that yourself, you know, even
• 5:46:07
  to shackling your foot to that boat anchor and dropping it over ahead of you.
• 5:46:12
  A person who is afraid of the jump into the water but determined to
• 5:46:15
  go through with it might have taken such a precaution as that. I had
• 5:46:19
  a hunch that was hypnosis. The miniature told me that candle incident, But
• 5:46:23
  how was I going to prove it. So much of that stuff is fake
• 5:46:26
  that most people don't want to believe in it. Now, I've got two
• 5:46:30
  other police officers besides myself, who saw, or rather heard, the thing
• 5:46:34
  happened all over again, and that's going to carry weight that no coroner's jury
• 5:46:40
  will dare disregard. You were in a state of hypnosis when you committed this
• 5:46:44
  crime. That's the whole point. In other words, you were as unresponsible,
• 5:46:48
  as inanimate, as insensible as the knife for club that a murderer wields
• 5:46:52
  to accomplish his deed. You were simply the weapon in the actual murderer's hands.
• 5:46:57
  Your own mind wasn't function. You had no mind. Two bodies were
• 5:47:02
  being directed by one mind his. He stopped and looked at me. Does
• 5:47:06
  that scare you? Oh boy? I puffed out my cheeks. It would
• 5:47:11
  me too. I'd better begin at the beginning. Joe Fleming used to be
• 5:47:15
  a professional hypnotist in vaudeville years ago. I found enough scrap books, old
• 5:47:19
  theater programs and what not in trunks here in this house to testify to that
• 5:47:23
  stage named doctor Mephisto. He undoubtedly possesses a gift of hypnotic control over certain
• 5:47:30
  subjects. With my wife Lil, for instance, I'm afraid he'd come a
• 5:47:34
  complete cropper and even wind up helping her dry the dishes. He was trying
• 5:47:40
  to cheer me up. I grinned appreciatively. He went on more seriously.
• 5:47:45
  But there is such a thing, you know. It's not all bunked by
• 5:47:48
  any means. Only certain types of people are more easily influenced than others.
• 5:47:53
  Well, he got out of aaudeville years ago while the getting was still good,
• 5:47:56
  and he went into another line of business entirely which doesn't need to concern
• 5:48:00
  us here, And he made good dough then, like they all do,
• 5:48:03
  he made the mistake of marrying some one years younger than him, a hat
• 5:48:07
  check girl he met at a night club. It wasn't only that she married
• 5:48:11
  him simply for his money and to be able to quit handling people's sweat bands
• 5:48:15
  at four bits a throw. She was already the sweetie of a convict named
• 5:48:18
  Dan Ayres, who was duing time just then for embezzlement. You get the
• 5:48:22
  idea, don't you. Airs got out, found a new, ready made
• 5:48:26
  situation crying to be profited by, so he profited by it. He cultivated
• 5:48:30
  Fleming got in solid with him. He didn't have to get in solid with
• 5:48:34
  Dorothy. He was already all right. Fleming did make these trips to South
• 5:48:38
  America all but the last time. It's obvious that he found out what was
• 5:48:41
  going on quite some time back, somewhere in between the last real trip he
• 5:48:45
  made in the fake one just now, it's equally obvious that he brooded,
• 5:48:49
  and he planned revenge. They talk about a woman scorned, there's nothing more
• 5:48:55
  dangerous than a middle aged husband who finds himself betrayed by a younger wife.
• 5:49:00
  It wasn't just a case of marital disloyalty involved either. He found out they
• 5:49:03
  were planning to make off with his available funds and securities the next time he
• 5:49:07
  was away, just strip him clean and good bye. You noticed he didn't
• 5:49:11
  entrust her with a combination of that's safe here in the house. That's a
• 5:49:17
  basic situation. All though we got to go on is just conjecture. The
• 5:49:19
  three principles are dead now and can't give evidence. I'm not trying to defend
• 5:49:23
  Fleming, but there is something to be said for his doing what he did.
• 5:49:27
  He turned him into a demon. He wanted Heirs dead and he wanted
• 5:49:30
  Dorothy dead too now. But he picked a low, lousy way of affecting
• 5:49:36
  his purpose. He wasn't going to endanger himself risk his own security. No,
• 5:49:41
  he started off for South America, dropped from sight, hold up in
• 5:49:45
  a rooming house in the city under the name of Berg, and picked an
• 5:49:48
  innocent kid who had never done him any harm, who had just as much
• 5:49:52
  right as he had to life in the pursuit of happiness to do his murdering
• 5:49:55
  for him. He tested you out, saw that you were a suitable subject,
• 5:50:00
  and well the rest we got over the dictaphone last night to give him
• 5:50:03
  his due. He wasn't deliberately trying to have you apprehended for the crime either.
• 5:50:07
  He would have been just as satisfied if you were never caught yourself.
• 5:50:11
  But the point was, whatever clues came into the possession of the police pointing
• 5:50:15
  at the killer would point at you, not him. He had provided himself
• 5:50:19
  with a buffer. He would always be one step removed from the crime if
• 5:50:22
  they ever caught the man the clues pointed to, if they ever caught the
• 5:50:26
  actual killer, it would always be you, not him. It was a
• 5:50:30
  lot safer than just hiring a professional killer in full possession of his faculties.
• 5:50:36
  It removed all danger of eventual betrayal and implication. True, he had to
• 5:50:41
  drive you up there because you didn't drive. Maybe he would have had to
• 5:50:45
  anyway. I don't know enough about hypnotism. I don't know if control can
• 5:50:48
  be effectively maintained over such a great distance. It was just as well he
• 5:50:52
  did. From his point of view. He lost the knife, only killed
• 5:50:56
  Airs by a fluke and struggling with him, and Dorothy would have gotten away
• 5:50:59
  scott free if he hadn't been lurking outside to lend a hand himself. If
• 5:51:03
  she had lived, or raise the alarm, you probably would have been nabbed
• 5:51:07
  in and there before you could make a getaway in your day's state, which
• 5:51:10
  would have brought the investigation back to the rooming house too quickly to suit him.
• 5:51:14
  His presence there might have been revealed in spite of all his precautions.
• 5:51:17
  So he crushed her to death and whisked you back to immunity. How is
• 5:51:22
  it I remembered the whole murder scene so vividly the next morning, especially their
• 5:51:26
  faces. His control wasn't one hundred percent effective. I don't know if it
• 5:51:32
  ever is. The whole thing must have filtered dimly through your conscious mind,
• 5:51:36
  remained in your memory the next morning after you woke up, just the way
• 5:51:38
  a dream does. And other particles that remained embedded in your subconscious at first
• 5:51:44
  also came out later when they reproduced themselves in actuality. I mean your memory
• 5:51:48
  of the stone entrance lanterns, the cutoff, the spare door key, the
• 5:51:52
  hall light switch, et cetera. All that stuff is way over my head.
• 5:51:56
  I'm not qualified to pass expert judgment on it. I'd rather not even
• 5:52:00
  puzzle too hard about it. Scares me myself. Why did I seem to
• 5:52:04
  know her when I didn't? Why was I so sort of hurt heartbroken at
• 5:52:10
  the sight of her face? Those are flemings thoughts, not yours, filtering
• 5:52:15
  through your mind. She was his wife, about to desert him, helping
• 5:52:18
  another man to rob him in his absence. I was sitting down on the
• 5:52:21
  edge of the bed lacing my shoes. That reminded me of something else.
• 5:52:26
  It was drizzling in town that night when I went to bed, and the
• 5:52:29
  streets were only starting to dry off when I woke up the next morning.
• 5:52:32
  Yet the soles of my shoes were perfectly dry. How could they be if
• 5:52:36
  I followed him even across the sidewalk to where he had a car waiting at
• 5:52:38
  the curb, and no doubt that he brought it up that close to the
• 5:52:41
  rooming house entrance for fear of being seen. I remember you mentioned that to
• 5:52:47
  me once before, and it's puzzled me too. The only possible explanation I
• 5:52:51
  can think of is this, And that's another thing we'll never know for sure,
• 5:52:53
  because that point didn't come up when he was giving himself away in the
• 5:52:56
  alcove last night. Can you remember whether you got him off easily. That
• 5:53:00
  night, when you were undressing in your own room, or as sometimes happens
• 5:53:04
  with nearly everyone, the laces got snarled. You couldn't undo the knot of
• 5:53:08
  one or both of them. I tried to remember. I'm not sure,
• 5:53:14
  but I think a snag did form in the laces of one of them.
• 5:53:17
  So I pulled it off the way it was without really opening it properly,
• 5:53:21
  and in the morning they both seemed all right, that's what it was.
• 5:53:26
  Then you couldn't undo the knot in time while you were hurriedly getting dressed under
• 5:53:30
  his direction. You followed him out and around to wherever the car was,
• 5:53:33
  and your stocking feet shoes probably shoved into the side pockets of your coat.
• 5:53:37
  He got the knot out, for you had his leisure in the car before
• 5:53:40
  starting. It wasn't raining up here that night, and by the time you
• 5:53:42
  got back to town again, the sidewalks were already starting to dry off,
• 5:53:45
  so your shoes stayed dry. But wouldn't my socks have gotten wet? They
• 5:53:51
  probably did, but they'd dry off again quicker than shoes. I was ready
• 5:53:55
  now. Waggoner and his deputy went over ahead without waiting for us. I
• 5:54:00
  guess. He figured I'd rather just go alone with Cliff, and he wanted
• 5:54:03
  to make it as easy as he could for me. He said, bring
• 5:54:07
  the kid over whenever you're a ready dodge. Cliff and I started over by
• 5:54:11
  ourselves. About half an hour later. I knew I'd have to go into
• 5:54:14
  a cell for a while, but that didn't worry me any more. The
• 5:54:18
  shadows had lifted when we got out in front of the constabulary. Cliff asked,
• 5:54:22
  are you scared, kid? I was a little like when you're going
• 5:54:27
  in to have a tooth yanked or a broken arm reset. You know what's
• 5:54:30
  got to be done, and you'll feel a lot better after it's over,
• 5:54:34
  sort of, I admitted, forcing a smile. You'll be all right,
• 5:54:40
  he promised, giving me a heartening grip on the shoulder. I'll be standin
• 5:54:44
  up right next to you the whole time. They probably won't even send it
• 5:54:47
  all the way through to prosecution. We went in together. End of Section
• 5:54:53
  six Nightmare Bequest. The slate roadster corp steadily onward along the dusky road,
• 5:55:02
  chasing its own headlight beams, never succeeding in overtaking them. Overhead, the
• 5:55:07
  stars seemed to move slowly along the sky and company with it, while the
• 5:55:11
  night bound earth below streamed backwards like something on a moving belt. An occasional
• 5:55:17
  offside light winking from some farmhouse would trundle slowly rearward, finally blink out.
• 5:55:23
  The world was asleep. The man at the wheel hadn't spoken for half an
• 5:55:27
  hour. The woman beside him had been silent that length of time. The
• 5:55:32
  dashboard lights illumined their faces from below, cast phantomlike reflections of them on the
• 5:55:37
  windshield. They both had the set look of people who were lost in thought.
• 5:55:41
  Their eyes, staring straight ahead had the fixed aspect of those who did
• 5:55:45
  not see what they seemed to be looking at. The road made a leisurely
• 5:55:49
  turn, and the car obediently went with it. The woman spoke at last,
• 5:55:55
  unexpectedly, without any preliminary as though the slight shift of equilibrium caused by
• 5:55:59
  the turn and had finally dislodged the silence sticking in her throat. So that's
• 5:56:03
  why she remarked, that's why we came away on this trip. The man
• 5:56:08
  continued to stare ahead, hands sobered to the wheel, while the road flowed
• 5:56:12
  unendingly beneath their front wheels. That's why, he answered laconically. A moment
• 5:56:18
  or two of silence followed, and then she spoke again. Why didn't you
• 5:56:22
  tell me before we left? What's the difference when I told you? I've
• 5:56:26
  told you now, haven't I? Yes, now I know, she said
• 5:56:30
  quietly. Neither of them looked at one another. And what are you going
• 5:56:34
  to do now? She said? Finally, his mouth thinned a little.
• 5:56:40
  Just keep going. You can't keep going forever. This time he didn't answer.
• 5:56:45
  She had spoken so low that perhaps he hadn't heard her. Don't come
• 5:56:49
  after you. I won't wait for them to get there. You've torn down
• 5:56:55
  something that it's taken me five years to build, our home, our good
• 5:56:59
  name, friends and security. You've thrown it all away in one reckless and
• 5:57:03
  sane You don't have to come with me, he said stonily. You can
• 5:57:08
  go back. You haven't done anything. I can drop you off at the
• 5:57:11
  next town and you can take the train back. She turned in the seat
• 5:57:15
  and looked directly at him for the first time. She reached out and lightly
• 5:57:19
  put one hand on his arm in a pleading gesture. Why don't you come
• 5:57:23
  back with me? It's too late. They'll find it out. Tomorrow morning,
• 5:57:27
  if they haven't already, then we'll face it together. I'm your wife,
• 5:57:32
  I'll be by your side. He gave a short, bitter laugh.
• 5:57:34
  You know what it means, don't you. Anything's better than just running away
• 5:57:40
  for the rest of our lives. That's a game you're bound to lose in
• 5:57:41
  the end. He shook his head slightly. Thanks. No, I've made
• 5:57:48
  my choice. I've made my bed. I'm ready to lie in it.
• 5:57:51
  But you don't have to share it with me. I told you that before
• 5:57:55
  the car slowed coasted finally came to a full halt. Over at the side
• 5:57:59
  of the road. He pointed to a sign just a few feet ahead.
• 5:58:02
  His voice was cold. We're just outside the next town. You'd better get
• 5:58:07
  out now, goin on foot. I don't want to stop in the middle
• 5:58:10
  of town if you're not with me, heart and soul. No use your
• 5:58:14
  being with me at all. She just continued to look at him, as
• 5:58:17
  though she felt infinitely sorry for him. All I ask of you, he
• 5:58:22
  went on, is don't tell them where I told you I was going.
• 5:58:26
  You don't trust me at all, do you, Alvin? She murmured,
• 5:58:29
  reproachfully. First, you didn't trust me enough to tell me about it before
• 5:58:33
  we left, and now you'd think I I'll talk. He didn't answer that.
• 5:58:38
  He reached into his inside coat pocket, took out a wallet, stripped
• 5:58:42
  away several bills. Here, here's some money. This I'll see you back.
• 5:58:48
  You can take the boss or train. He looked down at where it
• 5:58:51
  lay discarded on the seat between them. Don't even want that, do y?
• 5:58:56
  You sure have got religion. She put out her hand to the door
• 5:59:00
  latch. I'm afraid I wasn't cut out for crime. The lights of the
• 5:59:07
  town where they had separated flickered out behind him, and the car went winging
• 5:59:11
  down the long, gloomy road ahead, once more a little faster than before,
• 5:59:15
  as if to make up for lost time. The world was still asleep.
• 5:59:18
  He gave no sign of being hurt by her defection. If it wrinkled,
• 5:59:22
  he kept it hidden within him. There was only one phantom reflection on
• 5:59:26
  the dashboard, now his own. He stared impassively ahead, eyes fixed on
• 5:59:32
  the road. Once, and only once, he glanced aside at the vacant
• 5:59:36
  seat where she had been until now. The money she had refused to take
• 5:59:40
  with her, still lying there, caught his eye. He reached down for
• 5:59:42
  it, put it back in his wallet. There was a sad expression for
• 5:59:47
  a minute in his eyes as he did so. Then it flickered out.
• 5:59:51
  Mileage went by the night, and the road wore on. The head lightwa
• 5:59:56
  wash picked up the object far ahead, a black object, a log or
• 6:00:00
  a bundle of rags, lying in the road. It came sidling forward as
• 6:00:03
  the car drove steadily on. Suddenly it sprouted ahead at one end, up
• 6:00:07
  turned feet at the other, a human form lying on its back in the
• 6:00:11
  road crosswise. He stopped the car just short of it. He unlatched the
• 6:00:15
  door, thrust out one leg. That was as far as he got.
• 6:00:19
  A voice spoke from the opposite side of the car. A face was looking
• 6:00:22
  in at him, dimly outlined by the dashboard lights. Just behind it,
• 6:00:26
  in the gloom at the side of the road, the indistinct mass of a
• 6:00:29
  bush settled back into repose again. It's all right, buddy, he hasn't
• 6:00:33
  hurt when he just wanted a left. The other man, the one lying
• 6:00:37
  in the road, got to his feet grinning. He dusted himself off with
• 6:00:41
  his hat, came in toward the car. On the outside. There was
• 6:00:44
  even in the half light, something more than just apologetic good nature to be
• 6:00:48
  red in the grin something darker. He took hold of the door the driver
• 6:00:52
  had already half extended, and swung it the rest of the way out.
• 6:00:56
  The other was already on the seat next to the owner. The man at
• 6:00:59
  the wheel looked watchfully from one to the other. He said, quietly,
• 6:01:03
  but tautly. That's a pretty high handed way of asking for a lift,
• 6:01:07
  isn't it. We wanted to make sure if not being turned down. The
• 6:01:11
  man beside him slurred. The man at the wheel sat motionless, like someone
• 6:01:15
  at bay. The only part of him that moved were the two last fingers
• 6:01:21
  of one hand resting on the wheel rim. They rose and fell a couple
• 6:01:25
  of times. Whereas it you men want to go? He said finally,
• 6:01:30
  whatever they answered, he was obviously going to claim his route lay elsewhere,
• 6:01:34
  just that way, the way you're going. The man next to him answered,
• 6:01:40
  sorry, I'm in a hurry. You've stop now, haven't you.
• 6:01:44
  The spokesman pointed out, in the lazy purr of a cat playing with a
• 6:01:47
  mouse, won't take you any longer to get started up with us then without
• 6:01:52
  us. The driver's mouth had tightened into a thin line. He had made
• 6:01:56
  up his mind, but he'd made it up too late. It's Mike,
• 6:02:00
  and I'll decide who rides in it. Stand back. His unwelcome seat mate's
• 6:02:03
  elbow jogged him as though unintentionally. He glanced over and saw the man absorbed
• 6:02:07
  and prodding at his finger nails with a vicious looking snap knife. It wasn't
• 6:02:12
  pointed at the car owner. Its user wasn't even looking at him. Somehow,
• 6:02:15
  the implication was even more forbidding. His drawl was still misleadingly indolent.
• 6:02:22
  Oughta drive on, Mista. Don't look good to keep standing here like this.
• 6:02:26
  Somebody might happen along and think there's a hold up taking place, which
• 6:02:30
  there isn't. And to his friend, come round and get in on this
• 6:02:33
  side of me. There's room enough for three. Their unwilling host, white
• 6:02:38
  faced, now slowly reached down and took off the break. Nothing more was
• 6:02:44
  said. The road slipped by the wavy dark line of the trees went up
• 6:02:48
  and down, up and down. The stars followed them slowly across the sky.
• 6:02:52
  There were three phantom faces reflected against the windshield. Now he studied two
• 6:02:57
  of them. There surreptitiously. The knife was gone again, but even if
• 6:03:02
  he had made a sudden lunge and grappled for it, he wouldn't win.
• 6:03:04
  The man on the outside probably had one too. Besides, he didn't want
• 6:03:08
  to become involved in anything that would delay him bring the police on the scene,
• 6:03:12
  with all the lengthy questioning that would inevitably follow. They didn't give the
• 6:03:17
  impression of being just the usual roadside vagrants or bumbs. There was something a
• 6:03:21
  little better than that about them, and also something a little worse, more
• 6:03:26
  sinister. Look, he said abruptly, could you, fellows, use a
• 6:03:30
  little money? Is that what this is about? Suppose I'd let you have
• 6:03:33
  ten bucks apiece and we call it quits. The one on the outside said
• 6:03:37
  nothing at all. That drawl came again. People that pot with money that
• 6:03:41
  easy, must have quite a lot of it. And then in reassurance that
• 6:03:47
  failed altogether, to reassure we ain't askin ye fer any money, mista,
• 6:03:52
  well, just ride along with ye a little ways. He knew he hadn't
• 6:03:56
  averted whatever it was that was hanging over him. Forty minutes went by,
• 6:04:00
  perhaps fifty, not a word more had been spoken. They were nearing the
• 6:04:06
  outskirts of some large town. They could see the preliminary lights sprinkled here and
• 6:04:10
  there in the distance ahead, in the red glow of foundries or blast furnaces.
• 6:04:15
  The highway suddenly split into a main branch in a lesser backcountry detour.
• 6:04:21
  Take the one on the left. He was instructed that loop misses the town.
• 6:04:26
  But I'm heading for that town and I've been driving all night. Are
• 6:04:29
  you compelling me to go out of my way? A truck came thundering up
• 6:04:33
  behind them, flashed past. He leaned out, tried to signal the truck
• 6:04:36
  driver, but he was already too late. The back of his coat collar
• 6:04:38
  was suddenly tightened into a knot, and he was swung around again. The
• 6:04:42
  knife did not show up, but the thread of it peered through every word.
• 6:04:45
  Take the one to the left. No one's hurting you yet, but
• 6:04:51
  you will get hurt if you try that again. Half an hour later,
• 6:04:55
  a double flanged roadside marker went drifting by. The driver flicked his eyes at
• 6:05:00
  his passengers. That was a state boundary line we just crossed. You know
• 6:05:04
  what that makes this? Don't you? Interstate kidnapping? You know what the
• 6:05:07
  penalty for that is don't you the Linburg law death. He saw them exchange
• 6:05:14
  a glance by way of the windshield surface. But it wasn't the look of
• 6:05:17
  alarm. It was, if anything, one of humorous and mutual understanding.
• 6:05:22
  It anots that's going to get the death penalty, the one on the outside
• 6:05:26
  said patronizingly. The remark was dripping with ominous double meaning. It's you they
• 6:05:32
  meant. The driver shivered, his lower jaw fluctuated loosely against his upper like
• 6:05:37
  something detachable. A bar of silver appeared parallel to the eastern horizon, freed
• 6:05:42
  itself floated slowly upward, then the second one, then a third. They
• 6:05:47
  were spaced like the rungs of a ghostly ladder, with darkness in between.
• 6:05:52
  It's starting to get like chuck. One of them mentioned quietly. It was
• 6:05:56
  an unnecessary remark. He knew it was some kind of a signal that was
• 6:06:00
  being exchanged. He knew they had decided on doing whatever it was they were
• 6:06:04
  going to do. At this approaching moment, when the night changed into day,
• 6:06:10
  he saw the two windshield phantoms turn toward one another, hold it for
• 6:06:14
  a second, exchanging notice of readiness. He was shaking all over now,
• 6:06:18
  like some helpless animal with intelligence enough to realize its end is at hand,
• 6:06:23
  but without power to escape from it. He scanned the darkened road ahead for
• 6:06:27
  sight of some other car, some sign of life that might bring help.
• 6:06:32
  There was none. Then he tensed himself about to fling the wheel around,
• 6:06:36
  swerve the car off the road into a tree or ditch, and try to
• 6:06:38
  escape from them in that way. Even that move was frustrated, as though
• 6:06:42
  they had read his mind. The nearer man reached out, grasped the wheel
• 6:06:47
  rim in a grip of iron. His foot nudged the driver's own foot off
• 6:06:51
  the accelerator. With a sidewise kick. He reached across the driver's body with
• 6:06:55
  his entire arm and pulled on the emergency brake. The car screamed agonizingly in
• 6:06:59
  siar his way to a shuddering stop. The air currents of its own passage
• 6:07:03
  went swirling past it for a minute in the sudden stillness, then died away.
• 6:07:07
  The door latch clicked, and one of them had left a seat.
• 6:07:11
  Oh get out and stretch my legs a minute. A drop of sweat rolled
• 6:07:17
  sluggishly down the driver's corrugated forehead. The increasing number of bars of silver,
• 6:07:22
  which kept following one another up was starting to have an effect on the sky
• 6:07:25
  in general, like rods of fluorescent lighting. The voice of the man who
• 6:07:30
  had alighted came back from the rear. Looks like one of your shoes is
• 6:07:33
  on the way out. Must have sprung one of them slow leaks. The
• 6:07:37
  driver's knuckles whitened on the wheel. Rim ain't you gonna get out and take
• 6:07:42
  a luck? The man next to him suggested, with slumbrous attachment. The
• 6:07:48
  driver was past mere fright now. He had reached that ultimate pitch of it,
• 6:07:52
  at which calmness once more sets in the calmness of despair. Wait a
• 6:07:56
  minute, he said, in a voice that was husky but steadying urgent.
• 6:08:00
  You can have the car. You can have my driver's license, my registration,
• 6:08:03
  all my papers. You can have sixty five thousand dollars in cold cash
• 6:08:07
  I have on my person at this moment in an oil paper packet pinned to
• 6:08:11
  my undershirt. Only just let me walk away from here on foot. I
• 6:08:15
  won't even report it. I won't open my mouth. Just let me leave
• 6:08:18
  here on my own two feet. The man beside him drawled. Then we
• 6:08:22
  would be taking these things from you by force, which is in a way
• 6:08:27
  the same thing as a hold up or robbery. That ain't the idea at
• 6:08:30
  all. The minute our back's returned, you'd report it as that, no
• 6:08:33
  matter what you say. Now, he smiled disarmingly. We'd rather just inherit
• 6:08:40
  it off from you, and to inherit a thing, he didn't have to
• 6:08:42
  finish it. To inherit a thing, the benefactor first has to be dead.
• 6:08:48
  The driver turned to face the speaker in one last desperate appeal. His
• 6:08:52
  mouth opened to utter it. It never came. His back was to the
• 6:08:56
  outside of the road. Death came from that direction, slinking low around the
• 6:09:00
  rear of the car. Death was swift, a shattering blow on the brain
• 6:09:04
  with a section of lead pipe. His mouth slowly closed, but that was
• 6:09:08
  merely reflex. They carried the body off into gloom beside the road. Their
• 6:09:12
  voices sounded in quiet, unhurried tones. That drawl hadn't been assumed. It
• 6:09:18
  was natural. It came again, vanish him, I'll think so, but
• 6:09:22
  I'll give him another one to make sure. A dull, sodden impact sounded
• 6:09:27
  once more. Then their footsteps moved off, still further afield, with the
• 6:09:30
  measured heaviness of a burden born between them. They were gone some time,
• 6:09:36
  the car remained where it was empty. One came back first ahead of the
• 6:09:41
  other. The one with the drawl, who had been their spokesman, threw
• 6:09:44
  out. He got in, started the engine, glanced watchfully up and down
• 6:09:48
  the road, then sat there waiting. He completed lacing the dead man's shoes
• 6:09:52
  on his feet, thrusting the dead man's shirt more securely down under his belt,
• 6:09:56
  adjusting the knot of his necktie. Then he gave the horn an impatient
• 6:10:00
  double tap. Far off in the distance, the pea sized glove and approaching
• 6:10:03
  pair of headlights had crusted a rise, then dipped down into an intervening hollow.
• 6:10:10
  It wouldn't reach them for a good five minutes. Yet, the second
• 6:10:14
  man chuck materialized out of the darkness, was suddenly beside the car again.
• 6:10:18
  He was rubbing his hands in satisfaction that a bendon well was the right answer.
• 6:10:25
  He murmured appreciatively as he got in, Glad I remembered it from the
• 6:10:27
  first time we passed here, Did you hear me? Cave the rest of
• 6:10:30
  it in on top of him? Now it's too far in from here.
• 6:10:36
  Some day years from now, they may catch on there was once somebody in
• 6:10:38
  there if they dig down deep enough. But brother, they'll never know who
• 6:10:42
  it was. I did it up brown. He removed a crumpled, bald
• 6:10:48
  up mass from his pocket that looked as though it had once been part of
• 6:10:51
  an undershirt, partially opened it, revealing flecks of rust on the inside,
• 6:10:55
  then carefully put it away again. What have you got there, the new
• 6:11:00
  driver said, his teeth was the complacent answer. I had to take the
• 6:11:03
  lead pipe to him, but it was worth it. Didn't you ever hear
• 6:11:07
  of them identifying them just by that alone? The approaching headlights blossomed out dipped
• 6:11:12
  in conventional salute as the two cars flashed past one another receded along the road.
• 6:11:18
  Purty nifty car we inherited, remarked Chuck complacently. What do we head
• 6:11:22
  for now? We had for the border and out the way we were trying
• 6:11:26
  to before he ran into him. We need an exit permit, don't we.
• 6:11:32
  We've got one, that's where he was heading for himself. We inherited
• 6:11:34
  that, along with the car and the driver's license and the sixty five thousand
• 6:11:38
  dollars in cash, and well just about everything else you can think of.
• 6:11:42
  Oh, by the way, meet Alvin kernin the second of Garfield Road,
• 6:11:47
  Scranton, Pennsylvania, and meet yourself, his business partner and associate making the
• 6:11:52
  trip with him sole beneficiaries of Alvin Kern the first Chuck smote his knee alightedly,
• 6:12:00
  brother, What a bequest. The State roadster coursed steadily onward under the
• 6:12:07
  blazing Gulf Coast sun, chasing its own foreshortened shadow, never quite able to
• 6:12:11
  overtake it. The masses of sand dunes to its left made an undulating line,
• 6:12:15
  now up, now down. The flaming mass of the sun seemed to
• 6:12:21
  move steadily across the sky and company with it. While the road streamed backwards
• 6:12:25
  like something on a moving belt. There was silence, save the low hum
• 6:12:30
  of the engine. Chuck broke the silence at last, for the first time
• 6:12:33
  in half an hour. Don't you think we are to ditch the car?
• 6:12:36
  There's two whole days now, and we're far enough away the car is what
• 6:12:38
  might trip us up? Alivan Kern, hands glued to the wheel, stared
• 6:12:45
  straight ahead. Getch in the cars? What might trip us up? You
• 6:12:48
  mean it will be found inside an how or two after we dumped it,
• 6:12:51
  they start asking questions, wondering why while we are still in it, We
• 6:12:55
  got nothing to worry about. The whole thing hangs together as long as we
• 6:12:59
  sit tight in the car where him and a friend to his. The minute
• 6:13:02
  we leave the car behind, we stopped being somebody else, and they start
• 6:13:06
  wondering what happened to him. Yeah, but he might have been expected someplace,
• 6:13:11
  somebody that knows him might be waiting for him. And when he don't
• 6:13:15
  show up where he's supposed to. He was heading for Mexico. The exit
• 6:13:18
  permit shows that, well, so are we. He wouldn't have gotten there
• 6:13:22
  any sooner than we will. We haven't lost any time. Along the way,
• 6:13:26
  Chuck's elbow suddenly nudged into his side stayed pressed against it in a frozen
• 6:13:30
  signal of warning. Behind them, a speck on the road that had been
• 6:13:34
  noticeable for some time past in the mirror had grown to the size of a
• 6:13:37
  car. They came on, closing in fast. It's a State trooper patrol
• 6:13:42
  car, and it ain't just out for the ride. The way it's tearing
• 6:13:45
  along. They must have picked us up at that last roadstand. We stopped
• 6:13:48
  to eat at give it the gun. Pull up, you mean and see
• 6:13:52
  what they want? Hear that they're tipping us off to stand until they get
• 6:13:56
  here. Chuck's voice nearly rose to a scream as the car began to lose
• 6:13:59
  speed. Come on, will you are you crazy? Listen? If we
• 6:14:03
  don't pay attention, we get bullets next. But that ain't the point.
• 6:14:07
  The point is when you're a couple of respectable business men like us, you
• 6:14:11
  don't run away from cops. The car fell motionless by the glaring roadside.
• 6:14:18
  It's not the speedy we were only doing that. Told you we should have
• 6:14:22
  touched this damn car, didn't I, Chuck jittered, and I told you
• 6:14:26
  a guy on a business trip don't abandon his car. That's tipping our hand.
• 6:14:30
  Shut up here they are a cloud of dust blew away from the new
• 6:14:33
  arrival, and one of the men and it alighted and moved toward the front
• 6:14:37
  of their car into a position from which you could scan the number. Alvin
• 6:14:41
  Kern leaned partially out resting comfortably on his forearm. Something wrong, officer.
• 6:14:48
  The state cop had opened the notebook, was glancing at their plates and then
• 6:14:52
  back at the notebook. Pennsylvania three three two eight. He read aloud.
• 6:14:59
  There was a moment of tension that swelled like a bubble about to burst.
• 6:15:03
  Kern pressed down hard with one hand on his companion's need to keep him quiescent.
• 6:15:07
  The steak cop closed his notebook with a snap, put it away in
• 6:15:11
  his pocket before answering, Nope, not you. That eight on the end
• 6:15:15
  of your plate saved you. The guy we want is Pennsylvania three three two
• 6:15:19
  nine. Gray roadster with two men in it, hit and run, knocked
• 6:15:23
  down and killed a Piccaninny at a crossroads in Orange County about ten this morning.
• 6:15:27
  He shook his head as he moved back to his own car. Talk
• 6:15:30
  about your coincidences, though. He took out a handkerchief, mopped around under
• 6:15:36
  and then inside his headgear. Sure is hot. He tilted his chin slightly,
• 6:15:41
  sniffed the air with a grimace, and blamed, If it don't smell
• 6:15:44
  like a coyote died someplace around here, Come on, Carter, let's buy
• 6:15:48
  moose. He climbed in again, gave them a friendly wave of dismissal.
• 6:15:52
  The patrol car circled around and went back the way it had come. Chuck
• 6:15:56
  sagged down into his own lap, like ice cream melting in the sun.
• 6:16:02
  See that was close. Let's get out of here, he said weakly.
• 6:16:04
  He was right. It smells like the beach over there was full of rotting
• 6:16:07
  shellfish. Alvin Kern stepped on the gas. Where would we have been now
• 6:16:14
  if we'd listen to you and try to run for it on our way back
• 6:16:17
  in their custody to be held in the county jail until they could find out
• 6:16:19
  what it was we were running away from, most likely the filling station attendant
• 6:16:25
  nodded in agreement. Yeah, I'd do kind of myself. Now, let
• 6:16:29
  you mention it. Maybe you gent's been driving through some kind of slammy mud.
• 6:16:33
  Don't show none on your tires, though the road was bone dry all
• 6:16:37
  the way in. Chuck contradicted. Maybe you ran over a rabbit or something
• 6:16:41
  and carried it along with you underneath the car. I've seen that happen.
• 6:16:45
  If you want to run up over the pittman and I'll jump down and take
• 6:16:48
  a look for you. Now we haven't time, Kern cut him short.
• 6:16:53
  How much do I owe you? They drove on through the small community in
• 6:16:57
  a few minutes were out on the open high way again under the glorious Texas
• 6:17:00
  stars. This is our last lap, the driver said, our last night
• 6:17:07
  on this side. I'm timing it so we'll pull into Laredo right after daybreak,
• 6:17:11
  just in time for the International Bridge to open up for the day.
• 6:17:14
  That way we won't have to hang around can Cross right over. By tomorrow
• 6:17:18
  night this same time will be hitting the Pan American Highway for Mexico City on
• 6:17:22
  All six and they can whistle for us if they want us back. Then,
• 6:17:25
  after we're safely over on the other side, is the time to pick
• 6:17:29
  up a pair of hot plates for the car, give it a new paint
• 6:17:30
  jop, and sell it off to someone they'll never be able to trace what
• 6:17:33
  became of it. Down there, he kissed his own knuckles, and after
• 6:17:37
  that, the life of rightly sixty five thousand dollars makes an awful lot of
• 6:17:42
  Piesos been all inherited, too, gloated chuck His face wheezened up, and
• 6:17:48
  he began to fan himself with his hat. There it comes again a little
• 6:17:52
  every time there's a change in the wind. Maybe they use some kind of
• 6:17:56
  fertilizer around this part of the country. That nah me that objected the driver.
• 6:18:02
  I noticed it worse in the town where it was kind of built up
• 6:18:04
  around us than out here in the open. And they don't use fertilizer in
• 6:18:08
  towns. He lit a cigarette to try to kill it a little. Don't
• 6:18:14
  let it get you, he said affably. It's a small enough inconvenience to
• 6:18:18
  go through for the second sixty five thousand dollars. The slate roadster took its
• 6:18:22
  place in the line of cars waiting at the bridge approached to cross over.
• 6:18:26
  The barrier hadn't been lowered yet. There are always that many of them crossing
• 6:18:30
  over, Chuck murmured, worriedly, leaning out the pier ahead down the line.
• 6:18:36
  That's better than if we're the only ones. Safety in numbers. They
• 6:18:38
  don't pay as much attention to you that way. Relax, there's nothing to
• 6:18:41
  get steamed up about. I've seen worse lineups waiting to drive into the Holland
• 6:18:45
  Tunnel. They don't inspect you going into the Holland Tunnel. They hold you
• 6:18:51
  up a minute for the toll, and that's about as long as this will
• 6:18:52
  take. Chuck fidgeted, mopped his forehead. Let's drive around the town half
• 6:18:59
  an hour, so come back again. After it's already open against me.
• 6:19:02
  Nervous standing still waiting like this. The driver glanced up into their mirror.
• 6:19:07
  Too late. Now we've been blocked off behind. We can't back out a
• 6:19:10
  line. There's other cars behind us. Chuck gave a sudden jolt, as
• 6:19:15
  though something had just occurred to him. His face paled. What about the
• 6:19:18
  picture on the driver's license? It is, isn't it? I fixed that
• 6:19:22
  long ago, like we originally planned to, with that one on my own,
• 6:19:26
  and a couple of strips of gelatin paper to hold in place where his
• 6:19:29
  was before. It's good enough to pass. A quick glance. A small
• 6:19:33
  current of early morning air stirred along the approaches to the bridge. Chuck grimaced.
• 6:19:38
  There comes that funny smell again. I thought we'd lost it. The
• 6:19:42
  barry is down. Here we go. The line of cars started to creep
• 6:19:45
  forward, with little spurts and stalls as each successive one cleared the customs booth
• 6:19:51
  at the entrance to the bridge. Now, don't act nervous, it'll only
• 6:19:55
  take a minute. Chuck lit a cigarette leaned back against the seat. Oh
• 6:20:00
  okay, he said, reassuringly out of the corner of his mouth. I'm
• 6:20:03
  steadied up. Now, they shifted slightly forward, stopped again. The Oklahoma
• 6:20:08
  plates in front of them cleared onto the bridge. They shifted once more,
• 6:20:12
  stopped the last time. An armed guard approached driver's license. The driver handed
• 6:20:18
  it over. He scanned you, Kern, that's me. He passed it
• 6:20:22
  back. What's the nature of this trip? Business? Who's that with you?
• 6:20:26
  My business associate, Charles Kendall. He did the talking for Chuck exit
• 6:20:32
  permit. Kern handed that over too. He glanced at it, tindered it
• 6:20:37
  back. He raised his arm about to pass them through the soldiers doing sentry
• 6:20:40
  duty further along the bridge. Kern relaxed his foot on the clutch, ready
• 6:20:44
  to roll forward as soon as the signal was completed. A little stale air
• 6:20:48
  that Chuck had been holding down and his lungs seeped up and out with relief.
• 6:20:52
  Carrying any short wave radios, binoculars, cameras, anything like that.
• 6:20:56
  Nope, just as we are, the driver said, affably. Okay,
• 6:21:00
  let's have a look in your rumble a minute and you can be on your
• 6:21:03
  way. The driver fumbled unexcitedly in his clothes, produced Kern's keyholder, handed
• 6:21:08
  it over. That one there he said, help yourself. The customs guard
• 6:21:14
  drifted back out of sight. Whenever looketon and ourselves, Chuck murmured. Suppose
• 6:21:19
  he does find a camera or something, now confiscate it and send us on
• 6:21:22
  without it. But don't worry, he won't. Here comes they all clear.
• 6:21:26
  A gun suddenly poked in at them. Behind it, the grim face
• 6:21:30
  of the customs guard looked a little greenish. Chuck clawed for the door on
• 6:21:33
  his side. A second gun poked in from there, with another guard behind
• 6:21:37
  it. A whistle blew, and a squad of soldiers came up. Rifles
• 6:21:40
  it ready, turn off and drop out of line. Drive back the other
• 6:21:44
  way, was the order, barked. Two of the armed men mounted the
• 6:21:47
  car to see that it was carried out. Now get out of there.
• 6:21:51
  You two, put your hands over your heads, both of you. You're
• 6:21:52
  under arrest for what what about? Stammered the driver as he stepped out,
• 6:21:57
  palms tilted followed him a moment later, White in the face and weak at
• 6:22:02
  the knees, the familiar foul odor that had been haunting them for so long
• 6:22:06
  seemed to swirl over them over poweringly. For that, said the customs guard,
• 6:22:11
  with a rearward stab of his thumb. Out of the opened rumble,
• 6:22:15
  like a ghastly jack in the box, reared the already badly decomposing head and
• 6:22:18
  shoulders of a woman neither of them had ever seen before in the cell where
• 6:22:22
  they were being held awaiting removal back to Pennsylvania to face murder charges. Chuck
• 6:22:27
  looked up hopelessly. After a while. What hurts most about it, he
• 6:22:33
  lamented bitterly, is they didn't get us for what we've done ourselves, but
• 6:22:37
  for what that other guy had done. They haven't found out about us even
• 6:22:41
  yet. They're going to take us back and fry us for murder, and
• 6:22:45
  we can't prove we didn't do it. His head dropped into his hands again
• 6:22:48
  with a shudder. I was an inheritance, all right. We're not only
• 6:22:52
  inherited as car and his identity papers and his money. We inherited his murder
• 6:22:57
  along with it. Some legacy. That was some bequest. End of Section
• 6:23:06
  seven Bequest End of Nightmare by Cornel Woolrich