His forehead was liberally bedewed with sweat as he started toward the door on his way out. He reached for the knob with one hand, the light switch with the other. He opened the door first. Then he stood there paralyzed and forgot about the light switch.
There were two men standing perfectly still outside the door, looking at him. They must have just come up the stairs; they must have been very quiet about it. They just gazed at him stonily. He could tell they weren’t just passing by because they were standing there blocking the doorway.
They both had half faces; that is to say, their hat brims cut off the upper parts of their faces as effectively in the dim light coming out of his room, as masks.
Finally one said, “Hello.” There was a touch of cat-and-mouse play to the greeting.
“H-hello,” Dillon quavered..
“Ain’t you gonna ask us in?” the second one said. “After we come all the way over to give you your hat back?”
The first one pointed. He didn’t stick his arm out, or even his hand. He just shot one finger out of his hand, like a trick knife-blade working on a spring. There was something menacing about the gesture. He said, “That’s my hat you got on.”
But why did two of them have to call for it, when it only belonged to one? “I mustn’t let them know I found the money under the sweat-band,” Dillon told himself. “That’s my only chance.”
The air Was perfectly still in that hallway, yet something seemed to be fanning it, stirring it ominously over his head.
They stepped forward, so he had to give ground, step back deeper into the room. They were in now. One of them closed the door. Why did he have to do that, just to exchange one hat for another?
He hoped his face wasn’t as white as it felt. He mustn’t seem afraid; because if he hadn’t found the money he wouldn’t have been. He wouldn’t have known there was anything to be afraid about. He was thanking his lucky stars he’d had the blind good fortune to put the money back under the band just the way he’d found it, instead of starting out for the station house with it in his pocket, for instance, or wrapped up in a piece of newspaper.
But the door had a very large keyhole. How long had they been standing out there unheard?
“You were going out?” one of them purred.
“J-just to a show,” Dillon said, and tried to smile. The smile smashed to pieces against their flinty expressions.
“You were going out to a show in my hat.” More menacing than ever. Did they guess where he’d really been bound for? The speaker turned to his companion. “Whaddye think of that?”
Dillon’s heart was going like a triphammer. It wasn’t that he was a physical coward, afraid of exchanging blows with another man. But these two were breathing violent death. He could sense it all around them, like cold vapor.
He took the hat off, careful not to jar it, and held it out toward them on an even keel. The one closest to him took it from him. Then he turned it over and looked down into it. Then he turned his back and did something to it, holding it so Dillon couldn’t see him. Dillon could figure what it was.
Dillon had got his second wind by now. The hat had been transferred without an accidental betrayal of what it held. He said, “I went back there right away as soon as I found out I had the wrong one, and left my name.”
“Why didn’t you leave the hat, if you knew it wasn’t yours?”
“I... I thought maybe that hash-house guy wouldn’t turn it in, and then I’d be stuck without one.” That sounded plausible enough.
The one who had had his back turned faced forward again. He was still holding the hat in his hand. He exchanged a hard, beady look with the other one.
Dillon could read that look perfectly. It meant: “D’ye think he got wise? Should we take a chance, let him get away with it?” He knew his life was hanging on that one look. He put off breathing while it was going on, and it seemed to go on forever.
The second one hitched his head a little. Dillon read that too. It meant: “Sure, take a chance. I guess it’s okay.”
The first one took off Dillon’s own hat, tossed it contemptuously over on the bed, brushed his hands insultingly. “There’s yours,” he said. “Next time be careful what y’re doing. C’mon, Jupe, let’s get out of this hencoop.”
They turned away, started moving toward the door. Relief gushed hot and sweet over poor Dillon. It was over; another minute and—
Suddenly the one the hat had belonged to whirled around on him, as unexpectedly and treacherously as a snake. Again that finger shot out close to his body. “I’m shy a—” he began sharply.
The reaction was too sudden for Dillon — he was caught off guard. “No, you’re not, it’s all there,” he blurted out. “I didn’t touch any of—” His jaws locked, too late. He moaned a little and just stood looking at them.
They came back slower than they’d started away — as slow as looming figures in a bad dream. “I was going to say, I’m shy another hat right now or I wouldn’t put this one on after you been wearing it. So it’s all there, is it? Wha-at’s all there?”
“Nothing,” panted Dillon desperately.
“So you were going out to a show, were you? Well, you’re going to see a show right here, without going out.” His hand came out from under his coat, heavier than it had gone in. Dillon was so far gone already that the sight of the gun couldn’t do much more to him. “Go on outside and see if the hall’s all right, Jupe.”
The door opened, closed. There was a terrifying wait of thirty seconds. Then it opened again. The lookout’s head peered in. “Hall’s all right,” he reported.
There was something horrible about the sinister meaning they both gave the casual, matter-of-fact remark.
“Go down and wait for me by the street door, Jupe. I’ll be right with you. Go down loud.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t take too long.” The door closed again after him. They may have come up soundlessly; the one going down now seemed to be jumping with his whole weight from one landing to the next. The stairwell boomed with his descent.
Dillon pleaded in a low voice. “What’re you taking that to me for? I haven’t done anything.” It wasn’t any good yelling for help and he knew it; help couldn’t get here in time.
The man standing up to him answered in an equally low voice. “You mean, you won’t do anything after I’m finished in here.”
The report of the gun didn’t sound so different from those clodhopper broad-jumps going down the staircase; at least, in other parts of the house it must have blended in with and been blurred by them.
A door opened somewhere up above and a woman’s voice called down warningly, “Sh! Quiet down there. My baby’s asleep!”
“So is mine,” murmured the departing caller appreciatively, as he closed the door on Dillon’s still-twitching body.
Cleary came walking up the stairs as if he had all night; or as if he lived in the place and was just getting home all tired out from work. Matter of fact, he was getting to work and not from it. He always took stairs slow, not because he was hefty or sluggish — it was just his way. He always trudged, landed on every single step, never more.
The other dick looked out of the open door to Dillon’s room and commented, “Is that how you’d come up if there was a guy firing down at you from above?”
“Pretty much,” said Cleary drily. “Only a little more to one side.” He stepped into the lighted room, looked down at the floor and asked, “Who’s the unlucky one?”