But the mouse was dead. In the first place he’s dead.
He heard someone coming down the stairs behind him. He had thought the house was empty, but now that he found it wasn’t, he was too weary to feel surprise. He turned slowly, knowing before he turned that it was Sands.
“I thought you were gone.” He had to drag the words out of his mouth.
“I’m leaving in a minute. Everyone else has gone. You’ll be alone.”
Alone. The word had a solemn sonorous sound that struck his ears with a thud.
“That’s what you wanted,” Sands said. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now you have it. You’ll be alone. And you’ll be lonely.”
“No, no, I... Martin... Martin will come back.”
“But he won’t stay. There’s nothing left for him here in this house.”
“He’ll stay if I ask him to, if I...”
“No, I don’t think so. You’ll be quite alone.”
Andrew closed his eyes. He saw the mist on the road ahead suddenly sweeping back toward him in gusts of fury.
“No... no...” he said, but how faint and suffocated his voice was, with the mist smothering his mouth. “I’m not... not afraid of being alone.”
“You’re afraid of the big fellow. You don’t want justice any more, you want mercy.”
Andrew bowed his head. Mercy. A terrible and piteous word that conjured up all the lost people wailing to their lost gods.
“I want nothing,” he said.
“But it’s too late now. You already have what you wanted. Don’t you recognize it?” Sands smiled. “This is it, Morrow.”
“Is this it?” He heard in his own voice the wailing of the lost men.
“The role of avenger is not for a little man like you. You dispensed justice to Lucille, now you must await it, in turn. You even asked the police to help you hunt her down. You couldn’t wait, could you?... You enjoyed seeing her suffer, didn’t you?”
“No... no... I’m sorry...”
“Too late, it’s all over.”
“And now?”
“Now, nothing.” He smiled again. “Doesn’t that amuse you? You’re like Lucille, after all. You have nothing left to live for.”
Andrew was propped up against the wall like a dummy waiting for someone to come along and move it into a new position.
Sands took out his watch, and in the silent house the ticking seemed extraordinarily important.
He put his watch back and began buttoning his overcoat. “I’ve got to leave now.”
“I am afraid,” Andrew said, but the door had already opened and closed again, softly, and he knew he must die alone.
Sands stepped out into the keen sparkling air.
He stood on the veranda for a moment and looked across the park where the phallic points of the pines were thrust toward the sun. He felt outside time, naked and frail and percipient. Evergreens and men were growing toward decay. Time was a mole moving under the roads of the city and imperceptibly buckling the asphalt. Time passed over his head in a thin gray rack of scudding clouds, as if the sky had fled away and its last remaining rags were blowing over the edge of the world.