With a burst of speed she edged away from him until her hand touched the sill outside her bedroom. His head disappeared.
Quickly she moved back along the burglar’s walk toward the bathroom. His head and shoulders appeared around the corner of the window she had just left, one arm moved in a long arc and the axe spun past her so closely the handle grazed her back.
Almost as a continuation of the axe-throwing motion, he swung himself outside and side-stepped toward her rapidly. She barely had time to fall head-first into the bathroom when his hand was reaching for the sill.
With the unthinking instinct of a cornered animal she knew she could never escape through flight. The same primitive instinct made her swivel without rising from her knees, grasp the inner window’s lower edge and slam it upon his hand.
The madman shrieked in enraged pain, but held his one-handed grip. As the fingers of his free hand curled beneath the window and forced it up again, Maida lifted the heavy shelf from the floor and swung it over her head like an unwieldy club. Now both his hands grasped the window sill preparatory to his vault into the room.
Maida slammed the shelf down across his knuckles.
His hands jerked back and he stood erect on the burglar’s walk, his arms gyroscoping to maintain balance. Slower and slower they circled as he recovered, stopped his teetering and again leaned inward toward the window.
Maida smashed the linen closet shelf through the glass of both panes squarely into his face. As he tumbled backward, his feet flew up over his head in a sickening half somersault, and he disappeared head down.
When she could bring herself to peer over the edge of the window, he lay on the ground with his head impossibly bent under his arm, like a sleeping bird.
Slowly Maida straightened herself. She pushed her hands downward along her thighs, smoothing her house dress. Poisedly she descended the stairs, politely edging past the policeman with drawn gun and open mouth whom she met halfway down.
At the bottom of the stairs stood Tom, his mouth as open as the policeman’s. Maida held out one hand to her husband as though offering it to be kissed.
“He only wanted a drink of water,” she said in a high voice.
She began to laugh hysterically.