A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

Murder Always Gathers Momentum

Paine hung around outside the house waiting for old Ben Burroughs’ caller to go, because he wanted to see him alone. You can’t very well ask anyone for a loan of $250 in the presence of someone else, especially when you have a pretty strong hunch you’re going to be turned down flat and told where to get off, into the bargain.

But he had a stronger reason for not wanting witnesses to his interview with the old skinflint. The large handkerchief in his back pocket, folded triangularly, had a special purpose, and that little instrument in another pocket — wasn’t it to be used in prying open a window?

While he lurked in the shrubbery, watching the lighted window and Burroughs’ seated form inside it, he kept rehearsing the plea he’d composed, as though he were still going to use it.

“Mr. Burroughs, I know it’s late, and I know you’d rather not be reminded that I exist, but desperation can’t wait; and I’m desperate.” That sounded good. “Mr. Burroughs, I worked for your concern faithfully for ten long years, and the last six months of its existence, to help keep it going, I voluntarily worked at half-wages, on your given word that my defaulted pay would be made up as soon as things got better. Instead of that, you went into phony bankruptcy to cancel your obligations.”

Then a little soft soap to take the sting out of it. “I haven’t come near you all these years, and I haven’t come to make trouble now. If I thought you really didn’t have the money, I still wouldn’t. But it’s common knowledge by now that the bankruptcy was feigned; it’s obvious by the way you continue to live that you salvaged your own investment; and I’ve lately heard rumors of your backing a dummy corporation under another name to take up where you left off. Mr. Burroughs, the exact amount of the six months’ promissory half-wages due me is two hundred and fifty dollars.”

Just the right amount of dignity and self-respect, Pauline had commented at this point; not wishy-washy or maudlin, just quiet and effective.

And then for a bang-up finish, and every word of it true. “Mr. Burroughs, I have to have help tonight; it can’t wait another twenty-four hours. There’s a hole the size of a fifty-cent piece in the sole of each of my shoes; I have a wedge of cardboard in the bottom of each one. We haven’t had light or gas in a week now. There’s a bailiff coming tomorrow morning to put out the little that’s left of our furniture and seal the door.

“If I was alone in this, I’d still fight it through, without going to anyone. But, Mr. Burroughs, I have a wife at home to support. You may not remember her, a pretty little dark-haired girl who once worked as a stenographer in your office for a month or two. You surely wouldn’t know her now — she’s aged twenty years in the past two.”

That was about all. That was about all anyone could have said. And yet Paine knew he was licked before he even uttered a word of it.

He couldn’t see the old man’s visitor. The caller was out of range of the window. Burroughs was seated in a line with it, profile toward Paine. Paine could see his mean, thin-lipped mouth moving. Once or twice he raised his hand in a desultory gesture. Then he seemed to be listening and finally he nodded slowly. He held his forefinger up and shook it, as if impressing some point on his auditor. After that he rose and moved deeper into the room, but without getting out of line with the window.

He stood against the far wall, hand out to a tapestry hanging there. Paine craned his neck, strained his eyes. There must be a wall safe behind there the old codger was about to open.

If he only had a pair of binoculars handy.

Paine saw the old miser pause, turn his head and make some request of the other person. A hand abruptly grasped the looped shade cord and drew the shade to the bottom.

Paine gritted his teeth. The old fossil wasn’t taking any chances, was he? You’d think he was a mind-reader, knew there was someone out there. But a chink remained, showing a line of light at the bottom. Paine sidled out of his hiding place and slipped up to the window. He put his eyes to it, focused on Burroughs’ dialing hand, to the exclusion of everything else.

A three-quarters turn to the left, about to where the numeral 8 would be on the face of the clock. Then back to about where 3 would be. Then back the other way, this time to 10. Simple enough. He must remember that — 8-3-10.

Burroughs was opening it now and bringing out a cashbox. He set it down on the table and opened it. Paine’s eyes hardened and his mouth twisted sullenly. Look at all that money! The old fossil’s gnarled hand dipped into it, brought out a sheaf of bills, counted them. He put back a few, counted the remainder a second time and set them on the tabletop while he returned the cashbox, closed the safe, straightened out the tapestry.

A blurred figure moved partly into the way at this point, too close to the shade gap to come clearly into focus; but without obliterating the little stack of bills on the table. Burroughs’ claw-like hand picked them up, held them out. A second hand, smoother, reached for them. The two hands shook.

Paine prudently retreated to his former lookout point. He knew where the safe was now, that was all that mattered. He wasn’t a moment too soon. The shade shot up an instant later, this time with Burroughs’ hand guiding its cord. The other person had withdrawn offside again. Burroughs moved after him out of range, and the room abruptly darkened. A moment later a light flickered on in the porch ceiling.

Paine quickly shifted to the side of the house, in the moment’s grace given him, in order to make sure his presence wasn’t detected.

The door opened. Burroughs’ voice croaked a curt “Night,” to which the departing visitor made no answer. The interview had evidently not been an altogether cordial one. The door closed again, with quite a little force. A quick step crossed the porch, went along the cement walk to the street, away from where Paine stood pressed flat against the side of the house. He didn’t bother trying to see who it was. It was too dark for that, and his primary purpose was to keep his own presence concealed.

When the anonymous tread had safely died away in the distance, Paine moved to where he could command the front of the house. Burroughs was alone in it now, he knew; he was too niggardly even to employ a full-time servant. A dim light showed for a moment or two through the fanlight over the door, coming from the back of the hall. Now was the time to ring the doorbell, if he expected to make his plea to the old duffer before he retired.

He knew that, and yet something seemed to be keeping him from stepping up onto the porch and ringing the doorbell. He knew what it was, too, but he wouldn’t admit it to himself.

“He’ll only say no point-blank and slam the door in my face” was the excuse he gave himself as he crouched back in the shrubbery, waiting. “And then once he’s seen me out here, I’ll be the first one he’ll suspect afterwards when—”

The fanlight had gone dark now and Burroughs was on his way upstairs. A bedroom window on the floor above lighted up. There was still time; if he rang even now, Burroughs would come downstairs again and answer the door. But Paine didn’t make the move, stayed there patiently waiting.

The bedroom window blacked out at last, and the house was now dark and lifeless. Paine stayed there, still fighting with himself. Not a battle, really, because that had been lost long ago; but still giving himself excuses for what he knew he was about to do. Excuses for not going off about his business and remaining what he had been until now — an honest man.

How could he face his wife, if he came back empty-handed tonight? Tomorrow their furniture would be piled on the sidewalk. Night after night he had promised to tackle Burroughs, and each time he’d put it off, walked past the house without summoning up nerve enough to go through with it. Why? For one thing, he didn’t have the courage to stomach the sharp-tongued, sneering refusal that he was sure he’d get. But the more important thing had been the realization that once he made his plea, he automatically canceled this other, unlawful way of getting the money. Burroughs had probably forgotten his existence after all these years, but if he reminded him of it by interviewing him ahead of time—

He tightened his belt decisively. Well, he wasn’t coming home to her empty-handed tonight, but he still wasn’t going to tackle Burroughs for it either. She’d never need to find out just how he’d got it.

He straightened and looked all around him. No one in sight. The house was isolated. Most of the streets around it were only laid out and paved by courtesy; they bordered vacant lots. He moved in cautiously but determinedly toward the window of that room where he had seen the safe.

Cowardice can result in the taking of more risks than the most reckless courage. He was afraid of little things — afraid of going home and facing his wife empty-handed, afraid of asking an ill-tempered old reprobate for money because he knew he would be reviled and driven away — and so he was about to break into a house, become a burglar for the first time in his life.

It opened so easily. It was almost an invitation to unlawful entry. He stood up on the sill, and the cover of a paper book of matches, thrust into the intersection between the two window halves, pushed the tongue of the latch out of the way.

He dropped down to the ground, applied the little instrument he had brought to the lower frame, and it slid effortlessly up. A minute later he was in the room, had closed the window so it wouldn’t look suspicious from the outside. He wondered why he’d always thought until now it took skill and patience to break into a house. There was nothing to it.

He took out the folded handkerchief and tied it around the lower part of his face. For a minute he wasn’t going to bother with it, and later he was sorry he had, in one way. And then again, it probably would have happened anyway, even without it. It wouldn’t keep him from being seen, only from being identified.

He knew enough not to light the room lights, but he had nothing so scientific as a pocket torch with him to take their place. He had to rely on ordinary matches, which meant he could only use one hand for the safe dial, after he had cleared the tapestry out of the way.

It was a toy thing, a gimcrack. He hadn’t even the exact combination, just the approximate position — 8-3-10. It wouldn’t work the first time, so he varied it slightly, and then it clicked free.

He opened it, brought out the cashbox, set it on the table. It was as though the act of setting it down threw a master electric switch. The room was suddenly drenched with light and Burroughs stood in the open doorway, bathrobe around his weazened frame, left hand out to the wall switch, right hand holding a gun trained on Paine.

Paine’s knees knocked together, his windpipe constricted, and he died a little — the way only an amateur caught red-handed at his first attempt can, a professional never. His thumb stung unexpectedly, and he mechanically whipped out the live match he was holding.

“Just got down in time, didn’t I?” the old man said with spiteful satisfaction. “It mayn’t be much of a safe, but it sets off a buzzer up by my bed every time it swings open — see?”

He should have moved straight across to the phone, right there in the room with Paine, and called for help, but he had a vindictive streak in him; he couldn’t resist standing and rubbing it in.

“Ye know what ye’re going to get for this, don’t ye?” he went on, licking his indrawn lips. “And I’ll see that ye get it too, every last month of it that’s coming to ye.” He took a step forward. “Now get away from that. Get all the way back over there and don’t ye make a move until I—”

A sudden dawning suspicion entered his glittering little eyes. “Wait a minute. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? There’s something familiar about you.” He moved closer. “Take off that mask,” he ordered. “Let me see who the devil you are!”

Paine became panic-stricken at the thought of revealing his face. He didn’t stop to think that as long as Burroughs had him at gunpoint anyway, and he couldn’t get away, the old man was bound to find out who he was sooner or later.

He shook his head in unreasoning terror.

“No!” he panted hoarsely, billowing out the handkerchief over his mouth. He even tried to back away, but there was a chair or something in the way, and he couldn’t.

That brought the old man in closer. “Then by golly I’ll take it off for ye!” he snapped. He reached out for the lower triangular point of it. His right hand slanted out of line with Paine’s body as he did so, was no longer exactly covering it with the gun. But the variation was nothing to take a chance on.

Cowardice. Cowardice that spurs you to a rashness the stoutest courage would quail from. Paine didn’t stop to think of the gun. He suddenly hooked onto both the old man’s arms, spread-eagled them. It was such a harebrained chance to take that Burroughs wasn’t expecting it, and accordingly it worked. The gun clicked futilely, pointed up toward the ceiling; it must have jammed, or else the first chamber was empty and Burroughs hadn’t known it.

Paine kept warding that arm off at a wide angle. But his chief concern was the empty hand clawing toward the handkerchief. That he swiveled far downward the other way, out of reach. He twisted the scrawny skin around the old man’s skinny right wrist until pain made the hand flop over open and drop the gun. It fell between them to the floor, and Paine scuffed it a foot or two out of reach with the side of his foot.

Then he locked that same foot behind one of Burroughs’ and pushed him over it. The old man went sprawling backwards on the floor, and the short, unequal struggle was over. Yet even as he went, he was victorious. His down-flung left arm, as Paine released it to send him over, swept up in an arc, clawed, and took the handkerchief with it.

He sprawled there now, cradled on the point of one elbow, breathing malign recognition that was like a knife through Paine’s heart. “You’re Dick Paine, you dirty crook! I know ye now! You’re Dick Paine, my old employee! You’re going to pay for this—”

That was all he had time to say. That was his own death warrant. Paine was acting under such neuromuscular compulsion, brought on by the instinct of self-preservation, that he wasn’t even conscious of stooping to retrieve the fallen gun. The next thing he knew it was in his hand, pointed toward the accusing mouth, which was all he was afraid of.

He jerked the trigger. For the second time it clicked — either jammed or unloaded at that chamber. He was to have that on his conscience afterwards, that click — like a last chance given him to keep from doing what he was about to do. That made it something different, that took away the shadowy little excuse he would have had until now; that changed it from an impulsive act committed in the heat of combat to a deed of cold-blooded, deliberate murder, with plenty of time to think twice before it was committed. And conscience makes cowards of us all. And he was a coward to begin with.

Burroughs even had time to sputter the opening syllables of a desperate plea for mercy, a promise of immunity. True, he probably wouldn’t have kept it.

“Don’t! Paine— Dick, don’t! I won’t say anything. I won’t tell ’em you were here—”

But Burroughs knew who he was. Paine tugged at the trigger, and the third chamber held death in it. This time the gun crashed, and Burroughs’ whole face was veiled in a huff of smoke. By the time it had thinned he was already dead, head on the floor, a tenuous thread of red streaking from the corner of his mouth, as though he had no more than split his lip.

Paine was the amateur even to the bitter end. In the death hush that followed, his first half-audible remark was: “Mr. Burroughs, I didn’t mean to—”

Then he just stared in white-faced consternation. “Now I’ve done it! I’ve killed a man — and they kill you for that! Now I’m in for it!”

He looked at the gun, appalled, as though it alone, and not he, was to blame for what had happened. He picked up the handkerchief, dazedly rubbed at the weapon, then desisted again. It seemed to him safer to take it with him, even though it was Burroughs’ own. He had an amateur’s mystic dread of fingerprints. He was sure he wouldn’t be able to clean it thoroughly enough to remove all traces of his own handling; even in the very act of trying to clean it, he might leave others. He sheathed it in the inner pocket of his coat.

He looked this way and that. He’d better get out of here; he’d better get out of here. Already the drums of flight were beginning to beat in him, and he knew they’d never be silent again.

The cashbox was still standing there on the table where he’d left it, and he went to it, flung the lid up. He didn’t want this money any more; it had curdled for him; it had become bloody money. But he had to have some, at least, to make it easier to keep from getting caught. He didn’t stop to count how much there was in it; there must have been at least a thousand, by the looks of it. Maybe even fifteen or eighteen hundred.

He wouldn’t take a cent more than was coming to him.

He’d only take the two hundred and fifty he’d come here to get. To his frightened mind that seemed to make his crime less heinous, if he contented himself with taking just what was rightfully his. That seemed to keep it from being outright murder and robbery, enabled him to maintain the fiction that it had been just a collection of a debt accompanied by a frightful and unforeseen accident. And one’s conscience, after all, is the most dreaded policeman of the lot.

And furthermore, he realized as he hastily counted it out, thrust the sum into his back trouser pocket, buttoned the pocket down, he couldn’t tell his wife that he’d been here — or she’d know what he’d done. He’d have to make her think that he’d got the money somewhere else. That shouldn’t be hard. He’d put off coming here to see Burroughs night after night; he’d shown her plainly that he hadn’t relished the idea of approaching his former boss. She’d been the one who had kept egging him on.

Only tonight she’d said, “I don’t think you’ll ever carry it out. I’ve about given up hope.”

So what more natural than to let her think that in the end he hadn’t? He’d think up some other explanation to account for the presence of the money; he’d have to. If not right tonight, then tomorrow. It would come to him after the shock of this had worn off a little and he could think more calmly.

Had he left anything around that would betray him, that they could trace to him? He’d better put the cashbox back; there was just a chance that they wouldn’t know exactly how much the old skinflint had had on hand. They often didn’t, with his type. He wiped it off carefully with the handkerchief he’d had around his face, twisted the dial closed on it, dabbed at that. He didn’t go near the window again; he put out the light and made his way out by the front door of the house.

He opened it with the handkerchief and closed it after him again, and after an exhaustive survey of the desolate street, came down off the porch, moved quickly along the front walk, turned left along the gray tape of sidewalk that threaded the gloom, toward the distant trolley line that he wasn’t going to board at this particular stop, at this particular hour.

He looked up once or twice at the star-flecked sky as he trudged along. It was over. That was all there was to it. Just a jealously guarded secret now. A memory that he daren’t share with anyone else, not even Pauline. But deep within him he knew better. It wasn’t over, it was just beginning. That had been just the curtain raiser, back there. Murder, like a snowball rolling down a slope, gathers momentum as it goes.

He had to have a drink. He had to try to drown the damn thing out of him. He couldn’t go home dry with it on his mind. They stayed open until four, didn’t they, places like that? He wasn’t much of a drinker; he wasn’t familiar with details like that. Yes, there was one over there, on the other side of the street. And this was far enough away, more than two-thirds of the way from Burroughs’ to his own place.

It was empty. That might be better; then again it might not. He could be too easily remembered. Well, too late now, he was already at the bar. “A straight whiskey.” The barman didn’t even have time to turn away before he spoke again. “Another one.”

He shouldn’t have done that; that looked suspicious, to gulp it that quick.

“Turn that radio off,” he said hurriedly. He shouldn’t have said that; that sounded suspicious. The barman had looked at him when he did. And the silence was worse, if anything. Unbearable. Those throbbing drums of danger. “Never mind, turn it on again.”

“Make up your mind, mister,” the barman said in mild reproof.

He seemed to be doing all the wrong things. He shouldn’t have come in here at all, to begin with. Well, he’d get out, before he put his foot in it any worse. “How much?” He took out the half-dollar and the quarter that was all he had.

“Eighty cents.”

His stomach dropped an inch. Not that money! He didn’t want to have to bring that out, it would show too plainly on his face. “Most places, they charge thirty-five a drink.”

“Not this brand. You didn’t specify.” But the barman was on guard now, scenting a deadbeat. He was leaning over the counter, right square in front of him, in a position to take in every move he made with his hands.

He shouldn’t have ordered that second drink. Just for a nickel he was going to have to take that whole wad out right under this man’s eyes. And maybe he would remember that tomorrow, after the jumpy way Paine had acted in here!

“Where’s the washroom?”

“That door right back there behind the cigarette machine.” But the barman was now plainly suspicious; Paine could tell that by the way he kept looking at him.

Paine closed it after him, sealed it with his shoulder-blades, unbuttoned his back pocket, riffled through the money, looking for the smallest possible denomination. A ten was the smallest, and there was only one of them; that would have to do. He cursed himself for getting into such a spot.

The door suddenly gave a heave behind him. Not a violent one, but he wasn’t expecting it. It threw him forward off balance. The imperfectly grasped outspread fan of money in his hand went scattering all over the floor. The barman’s head showed through the aperture. He started to say: “I don’t like the way you’re acting. Come on now, get out of my pla—” Then he saw the money.

Burroughs’ gun had been an awkward bulk for his inside coat pocket all along. The grip was too big; it overspanned the lining. His abrupt lurch forward had shifted it. It felt as if it was about to fall out of its own weight. He clutched at it to keep it in.

The barman saw the gesture, closed in on him with a grunted “I thought so!” that might have meant nothing or everything.

He was no Burroughs to handle; he was an ox of a man. He pinned Paine back against the wall and held him there more or less helpless. Even so, if he’d only shut up, it probably wouldn’t have happened. But he made a tunnel of his mouth and bayed: “Pol-eece! Holdup! Help!”

Paine lost the little presence of mind he had left, became a blurred pinwheel of hand motion, impossible to control or forestall. Something exploded against the barman’s midriff, as though he’d had a firecracker tucked in under his belt.

He coughed his way down to the floor and out of the world.

Another one. Two now. Two in less than an hour. Paine didn’t think the words; they seemed to glow out at him, emblazoned on the grimy washroom walls in characters of fire, like in that biblical story.

He took a step across the prone, white-aproned form as stiffly as though he were high up on stilts. He looked out through the door crack. No one in the bar. And it probably hadn’t been heard outside in the street; it had had two doors to go through.

He put the damned thing away, the thing that seemed to be spreading death around just by being in his possession. If he hadn’t brought it with him from Burroughs’ house, this man would have been alive now. But if he hadn’t brought it with him, he would have been apprehended for the first murder by now. Why blame the weapon, why not just blame fate?

That money, all over the floor. He squatted, went for it bill by bill, counting it as he went. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty. Some of them were on one side of the corpse, some on the other; he had to cross over, not once but several times, in the course of his grisly paper chase. One was even pinned partly under him, and when he’d wangled it out, there was a swirl of blood on the edge. He grimaced, thrust it out, blotted it off. Some of it stayed on, of course.

He had it all now, or thought he did. He couldn’t stay in here another minute; he felt as if he were choking. He got it all into his pocket any old way, buttoned it down. Then he eased out, this time looking behind him at what he’d done, not before him. That was how he missed seeing the drunk, until it was too late and the drunk had already seen him.

The drunk was pretty drunk, but maybe not drunk enough to take a chance on. He must have weaved in quietly, while Paine was absorbed in retrieving the money. He was bending over reading the list of selections on the coin phonograph. He raised his head before Paine could get back in again, and to keep him from seeing what lay on the floor in there Paine quickly closed the door behind him.

“Say, itsh about time,” the drunk complained. “How about a little servish here?”

Paine tried to shadow his face as much as he could with the brim of his hat. “I’m not in charge here,” he mumbled, “I’m just a customer myself—”

The drunk was going to be sticky. He barnacled onto Paine’s lapels as he tried to sidle by. “Don’t gimme that. You just hung up your coat in there; you think you’re quitting for the night. Well, you ain’t quitting until I’ve had my drink—”

Paine tried to shake him off without being too violent about it and bringing on another hand-to-hand set-to. He hung on like grim death. Or rather, he hung on to grim death — without knowing it.

Paine fought down the flux of panic, the ultimate result of which he’d already seen twice now. Any minute someone might come in from the street. Someone sober. “All right,” he breathed heavily, “hurry up, what’ll it be?”

“Thass more like it; now you’re being reg’lar guy.” The drunk released him and he went around behind the bar. “Never anything but good ole Four Roses for mine truly—”

Paine snatched down a bottle at random from the shelf, handed it over bodily. “Here, help yourself. You’ll have to take it outside with you, I’m — we’re closing up for the night now.” He found a switch, threw it. It only made part of the lights go out. There was no time to bother with the rest. He hustled the bottle-nursing drunk out ahead of him, pulled the door to after the two of them, so that it would appear to be locked even if it wasn’t.

The drunk started to make a loud plaint, looping around on the sidewalk. “You’re a fine guy, not even a glass to drink it out of!”

Paine gave him a slight push in one direction, wheeled and made off in the other.

The thing was, how drunk was he? Would he remember Paine; would he know him if he saw him again? He hurried on, spurred to a run by the night-filling hails and imprecations resounding behind him. He couldn’t do it again. Three lives in an hour. He couldn’t!

The night was fading when he turned into the little courtyard that was his own. He staggered up the stairs, but not from the two drinks he’d had, from the two deaths.

He stood outside his own door at last — 3-B. It seemed such a funny thing to do after killing people — fumble around in your pockets for your latchkey and fit it in, just like other nights. He’d been an honest man when he’d left here, and now he’d come back a murderer. A double one.

He hoped she was asleep. He couldn’t face her right now, couldn’t talk to her even if he tried. He was all in emotionally. She’d find out right away just by looking at his face, by looking in his eyes.

He eased the front door closed, tiptoed to the bedroom, looked in. She was lying there asleep. Poor thing, poor helpless thing, married to a murderer.

He went back, undressed in the outer room. Then he stayed in there. Not even stretched out on top of the sofa, but crouched beside it on the floor, head and arms pillowed against its seat. The drums of terror kept pounding. They kept saying, “What am I gonna do now?”

The sun seemed to shoot up in the sky, it got to the top so fast. He opened his eyes and it was all the way up. He went to the door and brought in the paper. It wasn’t in the morning papers yet; they were made up too soon after midnight.

He turned around and Pauline had come out, was picking up his things. “All over the floor, never saw a man like you—”

He said, “Don’t—” and stabbed his hand toward her, but it was already too late. He’d jammed the bills in so haphazardly the second time, in the bar, that they made a noticeable bulge there in his back pocket. She opened it and took them out, and some of them dribbled onto the floor.

She just stared. “Dick!” She was incredulous, overjoyed. “Not Burroughs? Don’t tell me you finally—”

“No!” The name went through him like a red-hot skewer. “I didn’t go anywhere near him. He had nothing to do with it!”

She nodded corroboratively. “I thought not, because—”

He wouldn’t let her finish. He stepped close to her, took her by both shoulders. “Don’t mention his name to me again. I don’t want to hear his name again. I got it from someone else.”

“Who?”

He knew he’d have to answer her, or she’d suspect something. He swallowed, groped blindly for a name. “Charlie Chalmers,” he blurted out.

“But he refused you only last week!”

“Well, he changed his mind.” He turned on her tormentedly. “Don’t ask me any more questions, Pauline; I can’t stand it! I haven’t slept all night. There it is; that’s all that matters.” He took his trousers from her, went into the bathroom to dress. He’d hidden Burroughs’ gun the night before in the built-in laundry hamper in there; he wished he’d hidden the money with it. He put the gun back in the pocket where he’d carried it last night. If she touched him there—

He combed his hair. The drums were a little quieter now, but he knew they’d come back again; this was just the lull before the storm.

He came out again, and she was putting cups on the table. She looked worried now. She sensed that something was wrong. She was afraid to ask him, he could see, maybe afraid of what she’d find out. He couldn’t sit here eating, just as though this was any other day. Any minute someone might come here after him.

He passed by the window. Suddenly he stiffened, gripped the curtain. “What’s that man doing down there?” She came up behind him. “Standing there talking to the janitor—”

“Why, Dick, what harm is there in that? A dozen people a day stop and chat with—”

He edged back a step behind the frame. “He’s looking up at our windows! Did you see that? They both turned and looked up this way! Get back!” His arm swept her around behind him.

“Why should we? We haven’t done anything.”

“They’re coming in the entrance to this wing! They’re on their way up here—”

“Dick, why are you acting this way, what’s happened?”

“Go in the bedroom and wait there.” He was a coward, yes. But there are varieties. At least he wasn’t a coward that hid behind a woman’s skirts. He prodded her in there ahead of him. Then he gripped her shoulder a minute. “Don’t ask any questions. If you love me, stay in here until they go away again.”

He closed the door on her frightened face. He cracked the gun. Two left in it. “I can get them both,” he thought, “if I’m careful. I’ve got to.”

It was going to happen again.

The jangle of the doorbell battery steeled him. He moved with deadly slowness toward the door, feet flat and firm upon the floor. He picked up the newspaper from the table on his way by, rolled it into a funnel, thrust his hand and the gun down into it. The pressure of his arm against his side was sufficient to keep it furled. It was as though he had just been reading and had carelessly tucked the paper under his arm. It hid the gun effectively as long as he kept it slanting down.

He freed the latch and shifted slowly back with the door, bisected by its edge, the unarmed half of him all that showed. The janitor came into view first, as the gap widened. He was on the outside. The man next to him had a derby hat riding the back of his head, a bristly mustache, was rotating a cigar between his teeth. He looked like — one of those who come after you.

The janitor said with scarcely veiled insolence, “Paine, I’ve got a man here looking for a flat. I’m going to show him yours, seeing as how it’ll be available from today on. Any objections?”

Paine swayed there limply against the door like a garment bag hanging on a hook, as they brushed by. “No,” he whispered deflatedly. “No, go right ahead.”

He held the door open to make sure their descent continued all the way down to the bottom. As soon as he’d closed it, Pauline caught him anxiously by the arm. “Why wouldn’t you let me tell them we’re able to pay the arrears now and are staying? Why did you squeeze my arm like that?”

“Because we’re not staying, and I don’t want them to know we’ve got the money. I don’t want anyone to know. We’re getting out of here.”

“Dick, what is it? Have you done something you shouldn’t?”

“Don’t ask me. Listen, if you love me, don’t ask any questions. I’m — in a little trouble. I’ve got to get out of here. Never mind why. If you don’t want to come with me, I’ll go alone.”

“Anywhere you go, I’ll go.” Her eyes misted. “But can’t it be straightened out?”

Two men dead beyond recall. He gave a bitter smile. “No, it can’t.”

“Is it bad?”

He shut his eyes, took a minute to answer. “It’s bad, Pauline. That’s all you need to know. That’s all I want you to know. I’ve got to get out of here as fast as I can. From one minute to the next it may be too late. Let’s get started now. They’ll be here to dispossess us sometime today anyway; that’ll be a good excuse. We won’t wait, we’ll leave now.”

She went in to get ready. She took so long doing it he nearly went crazy. She didn’t seem to realize how urgent it was. She wasted as much time deciding what to take and what to leave behind as though they were going on a weekend jaunt to the country. He kept going to the bedroom door, urging, “Pauline, hurry! Faster, Pauline!”

She cried a great deal. She was an obedient wife; she didn’t ask him any more questions about what the trouble was. She just cried about it without knowing what it was.

He was down on hands and knees beside the window, in the position of a man looking for a collar button under a dresser, when she finally came out with the small bag she’d packed. He turned a stricken face to her. “Too late — I can’t leave with you. Someone’s already watching the place.”

She inclined herself to his level, edged up beside him.

“Look straight over to the other side of the street. See him? He hasn’t moved for the past ten minutes. People don’t just stand like that for no reason—”

“He may be waiting for someone.”

“He is,” he murmured somberly. “Me.”

“But you can’t be sure.”

“No, but if I put it to the test by showing myself, it’ll be too late by the time I find out. You go by yourself, ahead of me.”

“No, if you stay, let me stay with you—”

“I’m not staying; I can’t! I’ll follow you and meet you somewhere. But it’ll be easier for us to leave one at a time than both together. I can slip over the roof or go out the basement way. He won’t stop you; they’re not looking for you. You go now and wait for me. No, I have a better idea. Here’s what you do. You get two tickets and get on the train at the downtown terminal without waiting for me—” He was separating some of the money, thrusting it into her reluctant hand while he spoke. “Now listen closely. Two tickets to Montreal—”

An added flicker of dismay showed in her eyes. “We’re leaving the country?”

When you’ve committed murder, you have no country any more. “We have to, Pauline. Now, there’s an eight o’clock limited for there every night. It leaves the downtown terminal at eight sharp. It stops for five minutes at the station uptown at twenty after. That’s where I’ll get on. Make sure you’re on it or we’ll miss each other. Keep a seat for me next to you in the day coach—”

She clung to him despairingly. “No, no. I’m afraid you won’t come. Something’ll happen. You’ll miss it. If I leave you now I may never see you again. I’ll find myself making the trip up there alone, without you—”

He tried to reassure her, pressing her hands between his. “Pauline, I give you my word of honor—” That was no good, he was a murderer now. “Pauline, I swear to you—”

“Here — on this. Take a solemn oath on this, otherwise I won’t go.” She took out a small carnelian cross she carried in her handbag, attached to a little gold chain — one of the few things they hadn’t pawned. She palmed it, pressed the flat of his right hand over it. They looked into each other’s eyes with sacramental intensity.

His voice trembled. “I swear nothing will keep me from that train; I’ll join you on it no matter what happens, no matter who tries to stop me. Rain or shine, dead or alive, I’ll meet you aboard it at eight-twenty tonight!”

She put it away, their lips brushed briefly but fervently.

“Hurry up now,” he urged. “He’s still there. Don’t look at him on your way past. If he should stop you and ask who you are, give another name—”

He went to the outside door with her, watched her start down the stairs. The last thing she whispered up was: “Dick, be careful for my sake. Don’t let anything happen to you between now and tonight.”

He went back to the window, crouched down, cheekbones to sill. She came out under him in a minute or two. She knew enough not to look up at their windows, although the impulse must have been strong. The man was still standing over there. He didn’t seem to notice her. He even looked off in another direction.

She passed from view behind the building line; their windows were set in on the court that indented it. Paine wondered if he’d ever see her again. Sure he would; he had to. He realized that it would be better for her if he didn’t. It wasn’t fair to enmesh her in his own doom. But he’d sworn an oath, and he meant to keep it.

Two, three minutes ticked by. The cat-and-mouse play continued. He crouched motionless by the window; the other man stood motionless across the street. She must be all the way down at the corner by now. She’d take the bus there, to go downtown. She might have to wait a few minutes for one to come along; she might still be in sight. But if the man was going to go after her, accost her, he would have started by now. He wouldn’t keep standing there.

Then, as Paine watched, he did start. He looked down that way, threw away something he’d been smoking, began to move purposefully in that direction. There was no mistaking the fact that he was looking at or after someone, by the intent way he held his head. He passed from sight.

Paine began to breathe hot and fast. “I’ll kill him. If he touches her, tries to stop her, I’ll kill him right out in the open street in broad daylight.” It was still fear, cowardice, that was at work, although it was almost unrecognizable as such by now.

He felt for the gun, left his hand on it, inside the breast of his coat, straightened to his feet, ran out of the flat and down the stairs. He cut across the little set-in paved courtyard at a sprint, flashed out past the sheltering building line, turned down in the direction they had both taken.

Then as the panorama before him registered, he staggered to an abrupt stop, stood taking it in. It offered three component but separate points of interest. He only noticed two at first. One was the bus down at the corner. The front-third of it protruded, door open. He caught a glimpse of Pauline’s back as she was in the act of stepping in, unaccompanied and unmolested.

The door closed automatically, and it swept across the vista and disappeared at the other side. On the other side of the street, but nearer at hand, the man who had been keeping the long vigil had stopped a second time, was gesticulating angrily to a woman laden with parcels whom he had joined. Both voices were so raised they reached Paine without any trouble.

“A solid half-hour I’ve been standing there and no one home to let me in!”

“Well, is it my fault you went off without your key? Next time take it with you!”

Nearer at hand still, on Paine’s own side of the street, a lounging figure detached itself from the building wall and impinged on his line of vision. The man had been only yards away the whole time, but Paine’s eyes had been trained on the distance; he’d failed to notice him until now.

His face suddenly loomed out at Paine. His eyes bored into Paine’s with unmistakable intent. He didn’t look like one of those that come to get you. He acted like it. He thumbed his vest pocket for something, some credential or identification. He said in a soft, slurring voice that held an inflexible command in it, “Just a minute there, buddy. Your name’s Paine, ain’t it? I want to see you—”

Paine didn’t have to give his muscular coordination any signal; it acted for him automatically. He felt his legs carry him back into the shelter of the courtyard in a sort of slithering jump. He was in at the foot of the public stairs before the other man had even rounded the building line. He was in behind his own door before the remorselessly slow but plainly audible tread had started up them.

The man seemed to be coming up after him alone. Didn’t he know Paine had a gun? He’d find out. He was up on the landing now. He seemed to know which floor to stop at, which door to come to a halt before. Probably the janitor had told him. Then why hadn’t he come sooner? Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to join him, and Paine had upset the plan by showing himself so soon.

Paine realized he’d trapped himself by returning here. He should have gone on up to the roof and over. But the natural instinct of the hunted, whether four-legged or two, is to find a hole, get in out of the open. It was too late now: he was right out there on the other side of the door. Paine tried to keep his harried breathing silent.

To his own ears it grated like sand sifted through a sieve.

He didn’t ring the bell and he didn’t knock; he tried the knob, in a half-furtive, half-badgering way. That swirl of panic began to churn in Paine again. He couldn’t let him get in; he couldn’t let him get away, either. He’d only go and bring others back with him.

Paine pointed the muzzle of the gun to the crack of the door, midway between the two hinges. With his other hand he reached out for the catch that controlled the latch, released it.

Now, if he wanted to die, he should open this door. The man had kept on trying the knob. Now the door slipped in past the frame. The crack at the other side widened in accompaniment as it swung around. Paine ran the gun bore up it even with the side of his head.

The crash was thunderous. He fell into the flat, with only his feet and ankles outside.

Paine came out from behind the door, dragged him the rest of the way in, closed it. He stopped, his hands probed here and there. He found a gun, a heftier, more businesslike one than his. He took that. He found a billfold heavy with cash. He took that, too. He fished for the badge.

There wasn’t any in the vest pocket he’d seen him reach toward downstairs. There was only a block of cheaply print-ed cards. Star Finance Company. Loans. Up to any amount without security.

So he hadn’t been one, after all; he’d evidently been some kind of a loan shark, drawn by the scent of Paine’s difficulties.

Three times now in less than twenty-four hours.

Instinctively he knew he was doomed now, if he hadn’t before. There wasn’t any more of the consternation he had felt the first two times. He kept buying off time with bullets; that was all it was now. And the rate of interest kept going higher; the time limit kept shortening. There wasn’t even any time to feel sorry.

Doors had begun opening outside in the hall; voices were calling back and forth. “What was that — a shot?”

“It sounded like in 3-B.”

He’d have to get out now, right away, or he’d be trapped in here again. And this time for good. He shifted the body out of the line of vision from outside, buttoned up his jacket, took a deep breath; then he opened the door, stepped out, closed it after him. Each of the other doors was open with someone peering out from it. They hadn’t ganged up yet in the middle of the hall. Most of them were women, anyway. One or two edged timidly back when they saw him emerge.

“It wasn’t anything,” he said. “I dropped a big clay jug in there just now.”

He knew they didn’t believe him.

He started down the stairs. At the third step he looked over the side, saw the cop coming up. Somebody had already phoned or sent out word. He reversed, flashed around his own landing, and on up from there.

The cop’s voice said, “Stop where you are!” He was coming on fast now. But Paine was going just as fast.

The cop’s voice said, “Get inside, all of you! I’m going to shoot!”

Doors began slapping shut like firecrackers. Paine switched over abruptly to the rail and shot first.

The cop jolted, but he grabbed the rail and stayed up. He didn’t die as easy as the others. He fired four times before he lost his gun. He missed three times and hit Paine the fourth time.

It went in his chest on the right side, and knocked him across the width of the staircase. It flamed with pain, and then it didn’t hurt so much. He found he could get up again. Maybe because he had to. He went back and looked down. The cop had folded over the railing and gone sliding down it as far as the next turn, the way a kid does on a banister. Only sidewise, on his stomach. Then he dropped off onto the landing, rolled over and lay still, looking up at Paine without seeing him.

Four.

Paine went on up to the roof, but not fast, not easily any more. The steps were like an escalator going the other way, trying to carry him down with them. He went across to the roof of the next flat, and down through that, and came out on the street behind his own. The two buildings were twins, set back to back. The prowl car was already screeching to a stop, out of sight back there at his own doorway. He could hear it over the roofs, on this side.

He was wet across the hip. Then he was wet as far down as the knee. And he hadn’t been hit in those places, so he must be bleeding a lot. He saw a taxi and he waved to it, and it backed up and got him. It hurt getting in. He couldn’t answer for a minute when the driver asked him where to. His sock felt sticky under his shoe now, from the blood. He wished he could stop it until eight-twenty. He had to meet Pauline on the train, and that was a long time to stay alive.

The driver had taken him off the street and around the corner without waiting for him to be more explicit. He asked where to, a second time.

Paine said, “What time is it?”

“Quarter to six, cap.”

Life was awfully short — and awfully sweet. He said, “Take me to the park and drive me around in it.” That was the safest thing to do, that was the only place they wouldn’t look for you.

He thought, “I’ve always wanted to drive around in the park. Not go anywhere, just drive around in it slow. I never had the money to do it before.”

He had it now. More money than he had time left to spend it.

The bullet must still be in him. His back didn’t hurt, so it hadn’t come out. Something must have stopped it. The bleeding had let up. He could feel it drying on him. The pain kept trying to pull him over double though.

The driver noticed it, said: “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’ve got kind of a cramp, that’s all.”

“Want me to take you to a drug store?”

Paine smiled weakly. “No, I guess I’ll let it ride.”

Sundown in the park. So peaceful, so prosaic. Long shadows across the winding paths. A belated nursemaid or two pushing a perambulator homeward. A loiterer or two lingering on the benches in the dusk. A little lake, with a rowboat on it — a sailor on shore leave rowing his sweetheart around. A lemonade and popcorn man trundling his wagon home for the day.

Stars were coming out. At times the trees were outlined black against the copper western sky. At times the whole thing blurred and he felt as if he were being carried around in a maelstrom. Each time he fought through and cleared his senses again. He had to make that train.

“Let me know when it gets to be eight o’clock.”

“Sure, cap. It’s only quarter to seven now.”

A groan was torn from Paine as they hit a lumpy spot in the driveway. He tried to keep it low, but the driver must have heard it.

“Still hurts you, huh?” he inquired sympathetically. “You oughta get it fixed up.” He began to talk about his own indigestion. “Take me, for instance. I’m okay until I eat tamales and root beer. Any time that I eat tamales and root beer—”

He shut up abruptly. He was staring fixedly into the rear-sight mirror. Paine warily clutched his lapels together over his darkened shirt front. He knew it was too late to do any good.

The driver didn’t say anything for a long time. He was thinking it over, and he was a slow thinker. Then finally he suggested offhandedly, “Care to listen to the radio?”

Paine knew what he was out for. He thought, “He wants to see if he can get anything on me over it.”

“May as well,” the driver urged. “It’s thrown in with the fare; won’t cost you nothing extra.”

“Go ahead,” Paine consented. He wanted to see if he could hear anything himself.

It made the pain a little easier to bear, like music always does. “I used to dance, too,” Paine thought, listening to the tune, “before I started killing people.”

It didn’t come over for a long time.

“A city-wide alarm is out for Richard Paine. Paine, who was about to be dispossessed from his flat, shot and killed a finance company employee. Then when Officer Harold Carey answered the alarm, he met the same fate. However, before giving up his life in the performance of his duty, the patrolman succeeded in seriously wounding the desperado. A trail of blood left by the fugitive on the stairs leading up to the roof over which he made good his escape seems to confirm this. He’s still at large but probably won’t be for long. Watch out for this man — he’s dangerous.”

“Not if you leave him alone, let him get to that train,” Paine thought ruefully. He eyed the suddenly rigid silhouette in front of him. “I’ll have to do something about him — now — I guess.”

It had come through at a bad time for the driver. Some of the main driveways through the park were heavily trafficked and pretty well lighted. He could have got help from another car. But it happened to come through while they were on a dark, lonely byway with not another machine in sight. Around the next turn the bypass rejoined one of the heavy-traffic arteries. You could hear the hum of traffic from where they were.

“Pull over here,” Paine ordered. He’d had the gun out. He was only going to clip him with it, stun him and tie him up until after eight-twenty.

You could tell by the way the driver pulled his breath in short that he’d been wise to Paine ever since the news flash, had only been waiting until they got near one of the exits or got a red light. He braked. Then suddenly he bolted out, tried to duck into the underbrush.

Paine had to get him and get him fast, or he’d get word to the park division. They’d cork up the entrances on him. He knew he couldn’t get out and go after him. He pointed low, tried to hit him in the foot or leg, just bring him down.

The driver had tripped over something, gone flat, a moment ahead of the trigger fall. The bullet must have ploughed into his back instead. He was inert when Paine got out to him, but still alive. Eyes open, as though his nerve centers had been paralyzed.

He could hardly stand up himself, but he managed to drag him over to the cab and somehow got him in. He took the cap and put it on his own head.

He could drive — or at least he’d been able to before he was dying. He got under the wheel and took the machine slowly on its way. The sound of the shot must have been lost out in the open, or else mistaken for a backfire; the stream of traffic was rolling obliviously by when he slipped into it unnoticed. He left it again at the earliest opportunity, turned off at the next dark, empty lane that offered itself.

He stopped once more, made his way to the back door, to see how the cabman was. He wanted to help him in some way if he could. Maybe leave him in front of a hospital.

It was too late. The driver’s eyes were closed. He was already dead by this time.

Five.

It didn’t have any meaning any more. After all, to the dying death is nothing. “I’ll see you again in an hour or so,” he said.

He got the driver’s coat off him and shrouded him with it, to keep the pale gleam of his face from peering up through the gloom of the cab’s interior, in case anyone got too close to the window. He was unequal to the task of getting him out again and leaving him behind in the park. The lights of some passing car might have picked him up too soon. And it seemed more fitting to let him rest in his own cab, anyway.

It was ten to eight now. He’d better start for the station. He might be held up by lights on the way, and the train only stopped a few minutes at the uptown station.

He had to rejoin the main stream of traffic to get out of the park. He hugged the outside of the driveway and trundled along. He went off the road several times. Not because he couldn’t drive, but because his senses fogged. He pulled himself and the cab out of it each time. “Train, eight-twenty,” he waved before his mind like a red lantern. But like a spendthrift he was using up years of his life in minutes, and pretty soon he was going to run short.

Once an alarm car passed him, shrieking by, taking a short cut through the park from one side of the city to the other. He wondered if they were after him. He didn’t wonder very hard. Nothing mattered much any more. Only eight-twenty — train—

He kept folding up slowly over the wheel and each time it touched his chest, the machine would swerve crazily as though it felt the pain, too. Twice, three times, his fenders were grazed, and he heard faint voices swearing at him from another world, the world he was leaving behind. He wondered if they’d call him names like that if they knew he was dying.

Another thing: he couldn’t maintain a steady flow of pressure on the accelerator. The pressure would die out each time, as when current is failing, and the machine would begin drifting to a stop. This happened just as he was leaving the park, crossing the big circular exit plaza. It was controlled by lights and he stalled on a green out in the middle. There was a cop in control on a platform. The cop shot the whistle out of his own mouth blowing it so hard at him. He nearly flung himself off the platform waving him on.

Paine just sat there, helpless.

The cop was coming over to him, raging like a lion. Paine wasn’t afraid because of what the back of his cab held; he was long past that kind of fear. But if this cop did anything to keep him from that eight-twenty train—

He reached down finally, gripped his own leg by the ankle, lifted it an inch or two clear of the floor, let it fall back again, and the cab started. It was ludicrous. But then some of the aspects of death often are.

The cop let him go, only because to have detained him longer would have created a worse traffic snarl than there was already.

He was nearly there now. Just a straight run crosstown, then a short one north. It was good he remembered this, because he couldn’t see the street signs any more. Sometimes the buildings seemed to lean over above him as though they were about to topple down on him. Sometimes he seemed to be climbing a steep hill, where he knew there wasn’t any. But he knew that was just because he was swaying around in the driver’s seat.

The same thing happened again a few blocks farther on, directly in front of a large, swank apartment house, just as the doorman came flying out blowing a whistle. He’d caught hold of Paine’s rear door and swung it wide before the latter could stop him, even though the cab was still rolling. Two women in evening dress came hurrying out of the entrance behind him, one in advance of the other.

“No — taken,” Paine kept trying to say. He was too weak to make his voice heard, or else they ignored it. And he couldn’t push his foot down for a moment.

The foremost one shrieked, “Hurry, Mother. Donald’ll never forgive me. I promised him seven-thirty—”

She got one foot on the cab doorstep. Then she just stood there transfixed. She must have seen what was inside; it was better lighted here than in the park.

Paine tore the cab away from her, open door and all, left her standing there petrified, out in the middle of the street in her long white satin gown, staring after him. She was too stunned even to scream.

And then he got there at last. He got a momentary respite, too. Things cleared a little. Like the lights going up in a theater when the show is over, before the house darkens for the night.

The uptown station was built in under a viaduct that carried the overhead tracks across the city streets. He couldn’t stop in front of it; no parking was allowed. And there were long lines of cabs on both sides of the no-parking zone. He turned the corner into the little dead-end alley that separated the viaduct from the adjoining buildings. There was a side entrance to the station looking out on it.

Four minutes. It was due in another four minutes. It had already left downtown, was on its way, hurtling somewhere between the two points. He thought, “I better get started. I may have a hard time making it.” He wondered if he could stand up at all.

He just wanted to stay where he was and let eternity wash over him.

Two minutes. It was coming in overhead, he could hear it rumbling and ticking along the steel viaduct, then sighing to a long-drawn-out stop.

That sidewalk looked awfully wide, from the cab door to the station entrance. He brought up the last dregs of vitality in him, broke away from the cab, started out, zigzagging and going down lower at the knees every minute. The station door helped pull him up straight again. He got into the waiting room, and it was so big he knew he’d never be able to cross it. One minute left. So near and yet so far.

The starter was calling it already. “Montreal express — eight-twenty! — Pittsfield, Burlington, Rouse’s Point, Mon-treyall! Bo-o-ard!”

There were rows of lengthwise benches at hand and they helped him bridge the otherwise insuperable length of the waiting room. He dropped into the outside seat in the first row, pulled himself together a little, scrambled five seats over, toppled into that; repeated the process until he was within reach of the ticket barrier. But time was going, the train was going, life was going fast.

Forty-five seconds left. The last dilatory passengers had already gone up. There were two ways of getting up, a long flight of stairs and an escalator.

He wavered toward the escalator, made it. He wouldn’t have been able to get by the ticket-taker but for his hackman’s cap — an eventuality he and Pauline hadn’t foreseen.

“Just meeting a party,” he mumbled almost unintelligibly, and the slow treadmill started to carry him up.

A whistle blew upstairs on the track platform. Axles and wheel-bases gave a preliminary creak of motion.

It was all he could do to keep his feet even on the escalator. There wasn’t anyone in back of him, and if he once went over he was going to go plunging all the way down to the bottom of the long chute. He dug his nails into the ascending hand-belts at both sides, hung on like grim life.

There was a hubbub starting up outside on the street somewhere. He could hear a cop’s whistle blowing frenziedly.

A voice shouted: “Which way’d he go?”

Another answered: “I seen him go in the station.”

They’d at last found what was in the cab.

A moment after the descending waiting-room ceiling had cut off his view, he heard a spate of running feet come surging in down there from all directions. But he had no time to think of that now. He was out on the open platform upstairs at last. Cars were skimming silkily by. A vestibule door was coming, with a conductor just lifting himself into it. Paine went toward it, body low, one arm straight out like in a fascist salute.

He gave a wordless cry. The conductor turned, saw him. There was a tug, and he was suddenly sprawled inside on the vestibule floor. The conductor gave him a scathing look, pulled the folding steps in after him, slammed the door.

Too late, a cop, a couple of redcaps, a couple of taxi drivers, came spilling out of the escalator shed. He could hear them yelling a car-length back. The trainmen back there wouldn’t open the doors. Suddenly the long, lighted platform snuffed out and the station was gone.

They probably didn’t think they’d lost him, but they had. Sure, they’d phone ahead, they’d stop the train to have him taken off at Harmon, where it changed from electricity to coal power. But they wouldn’t get him. He wouldn’t be on it. Just his body.

Each man knows when he’s going to die; he knew he wouldn’t even live for five minutes.

He went staggering down a long, brightly lighted aisle. He could hardly see their faces any more. But she’d know him; it’d be all right. The aisle ended, and he had to cross another vestibule. He fell down on his knees, for lack of seat backs to support himself by.

He squirmed up again somehow, got into the next car.

Another long, lighted aisle, miles of it.

He was nearly at the end; he could see another vestibule coming. Or maybe that was the door to eternity. Suddenly, from the last seat of all, a hand darted out and claimed him, and there was Pauline’s face looking anxiously up at him. He twisted like a wrung-out dishcloth and dropped into the empty outside seat beside her.

“You were going to pass right by,” she whispered.

“I couldn’t see you clearly, the lights are flickering so.”

She looked up at them in surprise, as though for her they were steady.

“I kept my word,” he breathed. “I made the train. But oh, I’m tired — and now I’m going to sleep.” He started to slip over sidewise toward her. His head dropped onto her lap.

She had been holding her handbag on it, and his fall displaced it. It dropped to the floor, opened, and everything in it spilled out around her feet.

His glazing eyes opened for one last time and centered feebly on the little packet of bills, with a rubber band around them, that had rolled out with everything else.

“Pauline, all that money — where’d you get that much? I only gave you enough to buy the train tickets—”

“Burroughs gave it to me. It’s the two hundred and fifty we were talking about for so long. I knew in the end you’d never go near him and ask for it, so I went to him myself — last night right after you left the house. He handed it over willingly, without a word. I tried to tell you that this morning, but you wouldn’t let me mention his name...”