“You know how Bill is. If he hasn’t something to fret about he’s unhappy.”
“Yes,” said Lucy in a child’s tone. The ghost of a smile was on her lips, as remote from her as her voice. “Bill always was that way. He’s so strong. He always makes me feel” — the voice lifted, fell, lifted again as if in surprise at its own vitality — “good.”
Andrea started to say something but stopped before it was uttered. Her own gloved fingers were entwined in the mesh; Lucy’s face was very near hers. Her fingers contracted on the steel suddenly. “How are they treating you?” she asked, in a rush. “I mean...”
Lucy’s eyes sought hers slowly; deep eyes covered with glass, protected like her voice from the real, the free, the wide world. “Oh, quite well, thank you. I can’t complain. They’re very kind to me.”
“You have enough to...” Andrea’s cheeks began to burn. “I wonder if... Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Wilson? I mean, is there anything I can get for you, something you need, perhaps?”
Lucy looked surprised. “Need?” Her thick, vigorous, woman’s brows contracted, as if she were thinking it over. “Why, no. No, thanks.” Then, amazingly, she laughed. It was a pleasant little laugh, quite untouched by irony or scorn, naïve and full-toned. “There’s only one thing I want. But I’m afraid you couldn’t get that for me.”
“What?” pleaded Andrea. “Anything... Oh, I do want to help you. What is it you want, Mrs. Wilson?”
Lucy shook her head, smiling the faint, remote smile again. “My freedom.” The quick terror flashed over her face again and was gone.
The burn left Andrea’s cheeks; she felt Ellery’s elbow dig into her ribs and mechanically she smiled in return, “Oh,” she said. “I’m afraid—”
“I wonder where Bill is.” Lucy’s slow glance went to the visitors’ door. Andrea closed her eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching. After a while Lucy said, “I’ve fixed my — I’ve fixed the cell up so nicely. Bill brought me some flowers and pictures and things. It’s against the rules I guess, but he managed it. Bill’s so good about managing things like that.” She looked at them almost with anxiety. “Really, it’s not so bad. And then it’s only for a while, isn’t it? Bill says he’s sure that I’ll get — get off when my appeal...”
“That’s the spirit, Lucy,” said Ellery. “Chin up.” He tapped her dead fingers through the mesh. “Remember, you have friends who won’t stop working for you — ever, Lucy. You’ll remember that, won’t you?”
“If I forgot it for even a second,” she whispered, “I think I’d go mad.”
“Mrs. Wilson,” stammered Andrea. “Lucy—”
The black eyes went wistful. “How is it outside today? It looks so nice — from here.” There was a window high up in the wall, its thick squat bars straining the sunlight like a sieve. The rectangle of sky was blue there.
“I think,” said Andrea in a choking voice, “it’s going to rain. It’s really not—”
The Amazon leaning against the far stone wall said, without inflection, like an inhuman and detached metallic vocal chord, “Time’s up.”
The terror came again, but this time it did not go away. It made the muscles of Lucy’s jaw quiver as if a blunt finger had poked a raw wound. The glass shivered away from her eyes, revealing the profound and liquid agony beneath. “Oh, so soon,” she whispered, and tried to smile and then frowned and bit her lip and finally, without warning, with a devastating alteration of features, like the bursting of a dam, she began to weep.
“Lucy,” muttered Ellery.
She cried, “Oh, thank you, thank you!”, and her fingers came away from the steel screen crisscrossed with livid marks. And she turned and stumbled toward the yawning dim doorway with its grim bulk of sexless guard.
They heard her shoes scraping on the stone floor long after nothing was left behind the mesh but the woman’s scent of her hanging in the still fetid air. There was a spot of bright blood on Andrea’s lower lip.
“What the devil,” demanded a harsh voice from the visitors’ doorway, “are you doing here?”
Ellery came about like a startled cat. He had not wanted this. Bill Angell’s big right hand was clenched about the paper-covered butt of a bouquet of flowers whose blossoms drooped toward the floor.
“Bill,” he said swiftly. “We’ve come to—”
“Well,” growled Bill; his eyes were fixed on Andrea with a remorseless glare. “How do you like it here? Swell, eh?”
Andrea groped for Ellery’s arm; he felt her fingers tighten on his biceps. “Oh,” she said faintly. “I—”
“It’s a wonder to me you don’t collapse of sheer shame. The damned brazenness of it!” The words were arrows, bitter to the mark. “Coming here! To gloat? Well, you’ve seen her. Do you think you’ll sleep comfortably tonight?”
Ellery’s biceps hurt. Her eyes were so wide they looked unnatural. Then she released him and ran toward Bill. Her stride broke as she reached him. Reluctantly he stepped aside, still glaring. She sped past with her head lowered.
“Bill,” said Ellery quietly. Bill did not answer. He looked down at the flowers and deliberately turned his back on Ellery.
Andrea was waiting at the end of the corridor, leaning against the blank wall and sobbing. “All right, Andrea,” said Ellery. “Stop that.”
“Take me home,” she choked. “Oh, take me away from this horrible place.”
Ellery knocked at the door and Bill Angell’s weary voice said: “Come on in.” Ellery opened the door on one of the Astor’s long, old-fashioned rooms to find Bill bent over the brass bed packing a bag.
“The prodigal returns,” he said. “Hello, you fool.” He closed the door and set his back against it. Bill’s hair was tousled and there was a defiant jut to his chin. He continued packing as if no one had been there. “Don’t be an ass, Bill. Stop fiddling with those socks and listen to me.” Bill did not reply. “I’ve chased you over three States. What are you doing in New York?”
Bill straightened up then. “Isn’t this a peculiar time to be showing an interest in my affairs?”
“My interest has never flagged, old boy.”
Bill laughed. “Look here, Ellery. I don’t want any trouble with you. I don’t blame you. Your life is your own; it certainly isn’t mortgaged to me or Lucy. But since you’ve chosen to step out, please stay out. You’ll oblige me by getting the hell out of here.”
“Who says I’ve stepped out?”
“Don’t think I’m blind to what’s been going on. You’ve been rushing that Gimball girl ever since Lucy’s conviction.”
Ellery murmured, “Have you been spying on me, Bill?”
“Call it what you like.” Bill flushed. “I think it’s damned funny. I wouldn’t think so if I thought you were working on her, if your interest was professional. But I never heard of a professional interest in a woman that manifests itself by taking her to clubs and dances and dives night after night for weeks. What do you think I am, anyway — a damned fool?”
“Yes.”
Ellery pushed away from the door, tossed his hat and stick on the bed, and poked Bill so hard in the stomach that Bill gasped and fell back on the bed. “Now stay there and listen, you idiot.”
Bill jumped up, his fists flailing. “Why—”
“Pistols at dawn, eh?” Bill flushed more deeply and sat down. “In the first place,” continued Ellery calmly, lighting a cigaret, “you wouldn’t be acting such a twerp if your brain were functioning normally. But it isn’t, and so I forgive you. You’re madly in love with that girl.”