He held his breath. Maybe she’d go away again, now that she’d glanced in. But she didn’t. The bare ankles in houseslippers crossed the threshold into the room. They came directly over toward him, growing bigger, like in a nightmare, as they drew nearer. They stopped on the other side of the bed from him, so close that her knees must be touching it. And one slipper was an inch away from Doris’s rigidly outstretched hand. Oh my God, he thought, if she looks down at the floor — or if she comes around to this side!
What did she want there by the bed, what did she see, what was she looking at? Was there blood on it? No, there couldn’t be, no skin had been broken, only her neck. Had something belonging to the dead woman been left on the bed, something he’d overlooked?
The bedclothes on his side brushed his face suddenly, moved upward a little. The danger signal went all over his body like an electric shock, until he understood. Oh, that was it! In dislodging the body he’d dragged them down a little. Womanlike she was smoothing the covers out again, tugging them back in place. Her feet shifted down toward the foot a little, then back toward the head again, as she completed her task. Momentarily he expected to see one of them go in too far and come down on the dead flesh of that upturned palm. Momentarily he expected her to come around to his side. Or even see him over the top of the bed, if she leaned too far across it. He lived hours in those few seconds. But she didn’t do any of those things.
The feet turned, showed him their heels, and started back across the room growing smaller again. He was too prostrated even to sigh, he just lay there with his mouth open like a fish. She didn’t go out, though. The feet skipped the opening to the bathroom and stopped before Doris’s dresser over to one side. Helping herself to the face powder. But now she had a mirror in front of her, damn it! And he knew what mirrors were. If, for instance, it was tilted at a slight angle, it would show her the floor behind her — better than she could see it herself.
He heard the thud of Doris’s powder-box as she put it down again. He waited for the scream that would surely come as she raised her eyes to the quicksilver before her. He lay there tense, as rigid as that other form next to him even if a little warmer. He wondered why he didn’t get it over with by jumping up and showing himself, saying, “Yes, I’m here — and look what’s beside me!” But he didn’t. The time to do that had been when she first came in downstairs. That time was past now.
And then just when he’d quit hoping, there was a little shuffling sound and her feet had carried her back over the threshold and out of the room, and he was alone with the dead.
He couldn’t get up for a while — even though he knew that right now was the best time, while she was busy dressing in her own room, to get out of there. He felt weak all over. When he finally did totter upright it wasn’t to the outside door that he went but to the one to the bathroom.
He carefully eased it shut and locked it on his side. Let her suspect what she wanted, she wasn’t going to get back in there again until the grisly evidence was out of the way! And that would have to wait until she was out of the house. He cursed her bitterly, and her pal Gordon even more so, for unknowingly adding to his troubles like this. He even cursed the dead woman for not dissolving into thin air once she were dead. He cursed everyone but the man who was by now speeding back to New York and safety; he was loyal to him to the last breath in his body. He went out into the hall and once more locked the dead woman’s door behind him, once more extracted the key.
Just as he got in the clear once more, the phone started downstairs. It wasn’t New York yet, too early. The train hadn’t even got there yet. Helen stuck her head out of her room and called: “If it’s Gordon, tell him I’m ready to leave now, not to be so impatient!” But it wasn’t Gordon. It was an older voice, asking for Doris. The masculine “hello” Larry gave it seemed to leave it at a loss. Larry caught right on; he did some quick thinking. She’d been ready to leave an hour ago, she’d been going to this voice, and had never got there because death had stopped her in her own room.
Larry thought savagely, “It was your party. You’re going to pay for it!” He tried to make his voice sound boyish, cordial. “She’s gone out,” he said with a cheerful ring, “but she left a message in case anyone called up for her. Only I don’t know if you’re the right party—”
“Who is this speaking?” said the voice suspiciously.
“I’m Helen’s boy friend.” That ought to be all right. He must know by now that Doris had been pretty thick with Helen, that therefore any friends of the latter would be neutral, not hostile like himself.
The voice was still cagey though. “How is it you’re there alone?”
“I’m not. Helen’s here with me, but she’s upstairs dressing. Can’t come to the phone, so she asked me to give the message—”
“What is it? This is the right party,” the voice bit in.
“Well, Mrs, Weeks was called out this afternoon. Some people dropped in from the city and she couldn’t get away from them. She said if anyone called, to say she’d gone to the Pine Tree Inn for dinner. You know where that is?” Why wouldn’t he? Larry himself had seen the two of them dancing there more than once, and had promptly backed out again in a hurry each time.
But the voice wasn’t committing itself. “I think so — it’s a little way out on the road to Lakewood, isn’t it?”
“You can’t miss it,” said Larry pointedly. “It’s got a great big sign that lights up the road.”
The voice caught on. “Oh, then she’s going to wai— Then she’ll be there?”
“These people are only passing through, they’re not staying. She’ll be free at about nine thirty. You see they’re not bringing her back, so she thought if you wanted to pick her up with your car out there — Otherwise she’d have to phone for a taxi and wait until it got out there.”
“Yeah, I could do that,” said the voice hesitantly. “Y’sure she said she’ll be — free by nine thirty?” Alone, was the word he wanted to use, Larry knew.
“That’s the time Helen told me to say,” he reassured. “Oh, and I nearly forgot—” Like hell he had! It was more important than everything else put together, but it had to be dished out carefully so as not to waken suspicion. “She said you don’t have to drive right up to the place if you don’t feel like it, you can sound your horn from that clump of pines down the road. You can wait there. She’ll come out to you.”
He would go for that idea, Larry felt, if only to avoid getting stuck with any possible bill that she might have run up in the roadhouse. That clump of pines wasn’t new to him anyway. Larry’d already seen his car berthed in it while they were inside dancing — all to get out of paying the extra charge the inn made for parking. He’d known whose it was because he’d seen them both go back to it once to smoke a cigarette out under the stars.
He heard Helen coming down the stairs, dressed at last and ready to clear out, yet he didn’t dare break the connection too abruptly.
“Who you talking to?” she said in her clear, shrill voice and stopped beside him. But he’d counted on her saying something, and the mouthpiece was already buried against his shirt-front by the time she spoke. Her voice couldn’t reach it.
“Sweetie of mine,” he said limply. “Have a heart, don’t listen—” His eyes stared tensely at her. While she stood there he couldn’t uncover the thing and speak into it himself. One peep from her and the voice at the other end would ask to speak to her, and she wasn’t in on the set-up. On the other hand he had to keep talking, couldn’t just stand there like that.
“All right, son,” the voice sounded into his ear. “I’ll do that. You sure you got the message straight now?”