“Did anyone pass you or that other guy, while you were waiting down there at the door?”
“No one, in or out.”
“Did you hear anything like a fall?”
“No, we would have come in and looked if we had. But at least twice while we were waiting for you long trains went by on those overhead tracks, and you couldn’t hear yourself think until they’d gone by. It might have been during one of those times.”
Burgess nodded. “That’s what probably kept others in the building from hearing it, too. Don’t you see, there’s too much coincidence in it for it to be anything but an accident. He could have hit his head against that same wall down there ten times over and still lived; just been stunned without breaking his neck. He just happened to be killed instantly, but it couldn’t have been counted on.”
“Well, where does the bulb come in? I think that’s too much coincidence, isn’t it? I know what I’m saying, that light was still in working order when I tore down those stairs to phone you. If it hadn’t been, I would have had to pick my way down, and I didn’t; I went pretty fast.”
Burgess shot his light along the wall until he’d found it; it was on a bracket, sticking out from the side. “I don’t get what you mean,” he said, staring up at it. “If he was supposed to be blind, or at least went around most of the time with his eyes closed, which amounts to the same thing, how does the bulb enter into it one way or the other? How would darkness be any disadvantage to him? In fact he’d be more sure-footed in the dark, probably, than with the light left on; because he wasn’t used to using his eyes.”
“Maybe that’s just it,” Lombard said. “Maybe he came out fast, trying to make his get-away before I got back, and in his hurry forgot to close his eyes, left them open. With them open, maybe he was no better off than you or me.”
“Now you’re getting yourself all tangled up. For his sight to be dazzled, the light would have had to be on. And your whole kick has been that it isn’t. What would be the point, either way? How could anyone count on his missing a step, any more than they could count on his hitting in such a way that his neck snapped?”
“All right, it was a freak accident.” Lombard flung his hand out disgustedly as he turned to go down. “All I say is, I don’t like its timing. I no sooner catch up with him—”
“They will happen, you know, and they usually pick their own time for it, not yours.”
Lombard went thumping frustratedly down the stairs, letting his whole weight down at each step. “Whatever you might have been able to drill out of him is gone for good now.”
“Don’t let it throw you down. You may be able to turn up somebody else.”
“From him, it’s gone for good. And it was practically there, waiting to be found out.” He’d reached the landing where the body lay by now. He turned suddenly to look back. “What happened? What was that?”
Burgess pointed to the wall. “The bulb lit up again. Your vibration on the staircase jarred it on. Which explains what happened to it the first time: his fall broke the current. The wiring must be defective. That takes care of the light.” He motioned him on. “You may as well clear out. I’ll report it by myself. No sense of you getting all mixed up in it, if you want to keep working on the other thing.”
Lombard’s tread went dejectedly on down the rest of the way toward the street, all the lilt gone out of it. Burgess stayed behind up there, waiting beside the motionless form on the landing.
14
The Tenth Day Before the Execution
The Girl
It was on a slip of paper that Burgess had given her.
Cliff Milburn
house-musician, Casino Theater, last season.
current job, Regent Theater.
And then two telephone numbers. One a police precinct, up until a certain hour. The other his own home number, in case she needed him after he’d gone off duty.
He’d said to her, “I can’t tell you how to go about it. You’ll have to figure that out for yourself. Your own instinct will probably tell you what to do better than I can. Just don’t be frightened, and keep your wits about you. You’ll be all right.”
This was her own way of going about it, here in front of the glass. This was the only way she could figure out, sight unseen. The clean, tomboyish look was gone from her. The breezy sweep of the hair from an immaculate part over to the other side of her face, that was missing. In its place was a tortured surface of brassy rolls and undulations, drenched with some sort of fixative and then hardened into a metallic casque. Gone too was the youthful, free-swinging, graceful hang there had always been to her clothes. Instead she had managed to achieve a skin-tight effect that appalled her, even alone here in her own room. Excruciatingly short, so that when she sat down — well, she would be sure to catch his eye in a way that would do the most good. A big red poker chip on each cheek, as obvious as a pair of stop lights, but whose effect was intended to be the opposite: go ahead. A string of beads that clacked around her throat. A handkerchief with too much lace on it, saturated in a virulent concoction that made her own nose crinkle in distaste as she hastily stuffed it into her bag. She had made herself heavy lidded with some blue stuff she had never used before.
Scott Henderson had been watching her throughout the proceeding, from a frame to one side of the glass, and she was ashamed. “You wouldn’t know me, darling, would you?” she murmured contritely. “Don’t look at me, darling, don’t look at me.”
And now one final ghastly item, to complete the catalogue of sleazy accessibility. She put up her leg and slipped a garter of violently pink satin complete with a rosette up it, left it at a point just below visibility. At least when seated.
She turned away fast. His Girl shouldn’t look like that thing she had just seen in the glass, not His Girl. She went around putting lights out, outwardly calm, inwardly keyed up. Only someone that knew her well could have guessed it. He would have known it at a glance. He wasn’t here to see it.
When she came to the last one of all, the one by the door, she said the little prayer she always said, each time she started out. Looking over at him there, in the frame, across the room.
“Maybe tonight, darling,” she breathed softly, “maybe tonight.”
She put out the light and closed the door, and he stayed behind there in the dark, under glass.
The marquee lights were on when she got out of the cab, but the sidewalk under them was fairly empty yet. She wanted to get in good and early, so she’d have time to work on him before the house lights went down. She only half knew what was playing, and when it was over and she came out again she knew she wouldn’t know very much more than she had when she went in. Something called “Keep on Dancing.”
She stopped at the box office. “I have a reservation for tonight. First row orchestra, on the aisle. Mimi Gordon.”
She’d had to wait days for it. Because this wasn’t a matter of seeing the show, this was a matter of being seen. She took out the money and paid for it. “Now you’re sure of what you told me over the phone? That’s the side of the house the trap drummer is on, and not the other?”
“That’s right, I checked on it for you before I put it aside.” He gave her the leer she’d known he would. “You must think quite a lot of him. Lucky guy, I’d say.”