Chapter Two
They came down the rickety stairs one behind the other, he in the lead with her battered, latched valise in his hand. It didn’t weigh much. It had hardly anything in it — just busted hopes. They came out into the slumbering early-morning street and started hurriedly toward the nearest corner, huddled close together, footsteps echoing hollowly in the before-dawn stillness.
“Good-by, Manhattan,” he heard her whisper.
At the corner he stopped, put down the valise a second. “You better go down and wait for me at the bus terminal, while I go over alone about — the other thing.”
She tightened her grip on his arm, as if afraid of losing him. “No, if we separate we’re licked. The city’ll get its dirty work in. I’ll think: ‘Can I trust him?’ You’ll think: ‘Can I trust her?’ We’re staying together. I’m going right over there with you. I’ll wait outside while you go in.”
“Suppose he’s gotten home by now? You’re likely to be picked up for complicity.”
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. We’re taking it together. Catch a cab; the longer we wait to get it back in that safe, the riskier it gets.”
“On your money?”
She smiled benevolently. “This reformation is on me.”
They sat side by side in the taxi, streaking cross-town through the park, and he squeezed her hand. “Gee, I’m glad I met you tonight, Carol.”
They got out two blocks from their destination, in order not to reveal it to the driver. They covered the remaining distance on foot, one of his long strides to two of hers, turned into East Seventieth from Fifth Avenue, came to a stop again in the sheltering shadows just beyond the corner.
“It’s on this side, just past the second street light down there,” he said guardedly, looking all around to make sure they weren’t observed. “Don’t come any nearer than this, just in case. Wait here with your valise. I’ll be back in no time.”
“Don’t take any chances. If you see any lights, if it looks like he’s gotten back already, don’t go all the way in — just drop the money inside the door. Let him pick it up in the morning.”
He gave his hat brim a tug, moved away from her down the silent street. She watched him go. It was an old-fashioned residence with a high stoop. She saw him glance cautiously around, then turn aside, go up the steps to the entrance. He opened the outer glass doors and went in.
As soon as he had, she picked up her valise and moved after him. She wanted to stay as near him as she could. When she had reached the house, she continued on past it, in order not to draw attention by loitering in front of it.
The vestibule behind the glassed doors showed empty by the reflected street light as she glanced in on her way by. He’d gone in. But suppose the one member of the family who had stayed behind was asleep in there right now? Suppose he woke up, discovered Frank?
She was trying her best to be calm, but her heart was beating unavoidably faster as she sauntered along the sidewalk so slowly, so aimlessly. It was still breaking and entering, even to return the money. Maybe Frank should have mailed it back, instead of coming back in person with it. They hadn’t thought of that; she wished they had, now.
A figure suddenly materialized at the lower corner ahead, on the opposite side from her. It was just barely visible beyond the building line, standing with its back to her. A patrolman on tour. She whisked quickly down into the shelter of one of the shadowed areaways at hand, valise and all. It would have looked too suspicious to be seen loitering there on the sidewalk at such an hour, with a piece of luggage in her hand.
If he came up this way — if Frank should come out while he was still down there... Metal clinked faintly as the policeman opened a call-box to report in. Even the blurred sound of his voice reached her in the still night air. The box clashed shut again. She could hear the scrape of his step crossing over, then it faded.
She peered out, and he’d gone on past along the avenue, was out of sight. She drew a deep breath, stepped up onto the sidewalk again. She turned back the other way, eyeing the inscrutable house front apprehensively as she neared it. What was taking him so long in there? What had gone wrong?
Just as she reached the stoop a second time, the vestibule doors parted noiselessly and he came out. He stood there looking down at her as though he didn’t see her. He started down the steps uncertainly, and broke the short descent twice to stop and look behind him at the doorway he’d just left. He was almost staggering, and when he stood before her at last, his face looked white and taut even in the gloom.
“What’s the matter? What’re you looking so frightened about?” she whispered hoarsely.
He kept staring blankly in a sort of dazed incomprehension. “He’s dead. He’s lying in there — and he’s dead.” She gave a shuddering intake of breath. “Who — the son?”
“I guess so. I never saw him before.” He passed his hand across his brow.
She made a move toward the bottommost step, as if to go up.
“No, don’t you go in there! Stay out of there!” He gripped her roughly, tried to turn her around. “Hurry up, get out of here! I shouldn’t have let you come. Get your own ticket, climb on the bus, and forget you ever saw me.” She struggled passively against his hold. “Carol, will you listen to me? Get out of here before they—”
He pushed her to start her on her way. She only swerved, came in closer. “I only want to know one thing. I only want you to tell me one thing. It wasn’t you, was it — the first time?”
“No, I only took the money. He wasn’t there. I didn’t see him at all. He must have come back since. Carol, you’ve got to believe me. I swear by — the little town we both want to go back to; I swear by the trust that people have in one another there; I give you my word of honor, as we do at home, and you know what that means.”
She smiled sadly up at him in the semi-darkness. “I know you didn’t, Prank. I should have known without asking. The boy next door, he’d never kill anyone.”
“I can’t go back home now. I’m finished. They’ll think I did it. They’d only be waiting to get me at the other end, when I got there. And I’d rather have it happen here than there, where everyone knows me.”
“The city, the city,” she breathed vindictively. She drew herself up defiantly beside him. “We’re not licked yet. The deadline still holds good. We still have until daylight. They haven’t found him yet, or the place’d be full of policemen by this time. No one knows; only us — and whoever did it. Come on, we’re going back in there and see if we can figure this thing out. We’ve got to. It’s our only hope. We’ve fighting for our happiness, Frank; we’re fighting for our lives. And we have until six o’clock to win out.”
They started up the stoop of the house where a man lay dead. A church belfry somewhere around in the dark bonged the hour.
Chapter Three
The misappropriated key shook a little as he fitted it into the door for the third time that night. They went in. The door receded behind them into a blurred grayish square that was the glass panel set into it.
“He’s in the back, on the floor above,” he whispered. “I don’t want to light any lights in the front. They might be seen from outside.”
She could sense rather than see him reaching toward his pocket for something. “No, don’t light any matches, either,” she cautioned. “You lead the way. I’ll follow with my hand on your sleeve.”