But in two hours he saw nothing to arouse his suspicions. The life of the block rolled casually past him, reassuringly routine and familiar to his searching eyes.
The signal came exactly at twelve o’clock, and when Creasy saw this evidence of capitulation a strange excitement shook his frail body; this was a climax too exquisite to squander in a greedy burst — this must be prolonged and savored.
For several minutes he stared at the closed blind, a soft smile brightening his small, gray face. Their knees were hinged, oh yes, he thought. Quick to bend. All they needed was practice. He laughed quietly. It was all a matter of leverage and purchase. Once you turned the screws they went down as nicely as you please, whining like any poor mortal.
How were they taking it? he wondered. The lady with her haughty beauty? And him? What good were his clubs and schools and money now?
Creasy’s smile faded slowly. The money would buy back the baby, of course, and with that realization came a sharp flick of disappointment. Yes, their money would help — they always had that advantage. They could buy what they wanted; a car, a yacht, the safe return of their child — it was always so easy for them. A curious premonition of defeat grew in him; they would have an anxious day or two at the most, and then it would be over. The baby would be safely home again, and they would go on as before, pampered and protected, snapping their fingers for service, knowing their whims to be laws...
Perhaps they hadn’t even been worried about the child’s safety. Why should they be? They knew the power of their money; this conviction would temper their anxiety and allay their fears.
It was infuriating. Creasy turned petulantly from the window and pulled the short cigarette stub from his lips. Then he grimaced with pain; the paper had become stuck and a sliver of his dry skin came off with the stub. He looked about his dark, close-smelling little room, feeling restless and irritable. His lunch was on his bedside table, an egg salad sandwich and a container of coffee. He sat down to eat, taking what pleasure he could in the greasy food, the cold coffee that tasted nauseatingly of the cardboard carton. The cut on his lip stung painfully and his mood became despondent.
He glanced around his room, a frown gathering over his eyes. Normally he was happy enough here; he liked this gloomy little box, it was quiet and warm and safe. But now it depressed him. Even his photographs and genealogical charts — the latter was more an obsession than a hobby — even looking at them failed to restore his good humor.
The pictures adorned the wall at the foot of his bed, dozens of faded and cracked photographs of once-famous movie stars. Most of them were now dead or forgotten. They watched Creasy with the expressions and smiles fashionable in their generation: the women were stark and pale for the most part, with low bangs and dramatically widened eyes; the masculine accent was on the suave and mysterious, the cynically raised eyebrows and patent-leather hair. Creasy hated them all. They had been young when he was young, but they had been famous and beautiful and happy. This was his revenge, to pin them helplessly to his walls and speculate on what they must look like today — if they were still alive. In a sense he won a victory over them every night. He lay in bed, reconstructing their faces, mentally drawing in the marks of age, the white or thinning hair, the sagging jowls, the squints, the lines of worry and fear, the gums and sunken cheeks.
This was his hobby — but genealogy was his passion. He had been collecting family trees for years; against the wall three steel filing cases held the results of this mania.
Creasy read the society pages from the Boston, New York and Philadelphia papers avidly, making careful notes of births and marriages, of who went where and who was doing what in the world of fashionable people. Then, like an excited ferret, he scrambled after those names in his files, tracking them through labyrinthine breedings and connections, to their original source, sniffing out frauds and phonies, the nouveau rich, the pretenders and climbers. Most of them were common as dirt, he had found out; it didn’t matter to him whether the blot was one generation removed or thirty — bad blood was bad blood and time wouldn’t purify it. He had made a careful study of the Bradleys, of course, and had discovered (as he had expected) that the tree was full of bad fruit.
He was thinking of this as he stood up from his lunch. Blackguards and rogues... and the latest issue from that rotten trunk put on such airs. He and his lady! They might have paid some of their debt. In cleansing fear and pain. But no, not even that. They simply paid the ransom — as they would pay a light bill — and back came the baby.
Creasy moved to the window. Yes, their blind was still down. It didn’t seem to matter. Rain was falling, he saw, and this increased his annoyance. He hated wetness of any kind. But he must go out to phone Grant.
Creasy put on rubbers, then wound a scarf around his neck and got into his raincoat. Taking his umbrella and gloves, he left his room. When he stepped outside he shivered involuntarily at the impact of the cold wet wind. He put up his umbrella and picked his way down the steps like a cat, avoiding the shallow puddles and flinching at the feel of the damp iron railing against his hand. There would be no point in trying to find a cab; he had resigned himself to walking.
But as he reached the foot of the stairs a small city miracle occurred; a cab stopped directly in front of him to let out a fare. Creasy called to the driver in a high, excited voice, and bobbed his umbrella up and down to catch his eye. The cabby glanced at him and nodded, as his passenger, a big man in a tweed topcoat, climbed out of the taxi. The big man grinned as he walked by Creasy. “She’s all yours. Luck, eh?”
“Yes,” Creasy said.
The rear door of the cab was open, the interior was a warm, dry haven awaiting him — but he hesitated, glancing uneasily after the man in the tweed coat.
The driver said patiently, “Let’s go, mister.”
“Yes,” Creasy said, stepping carefully down from the curb. The passenger had gone into an interior decorator’s shop next door. Quite normal...
But suddenly Creasy felt a small warning chill go through him. This cab — so opportune, so unexpected — was that coincidence? He hesitated again, staring at the casual, everyday look of the street. His eyes strayed across the brown bulk of the church, moved up to its steeple and then switched to the second-story windows on the opposite side of the block.
“All right, all right,” the driver said. “I got a living to make, Mac.”
“Never mind,” Creasy said curtly.
The driver reached back and closed the door of his cab with a crash. “Just so I know,” he muttered, and drove off with a roar of power.
Why take a chance? Creasy thought, as he walked with mincing haste toward the comer. You never lost if you never gambled... perhaps he was being overly cautious, but he didn’t think so. The arrival of the cab might have been simple good fortune, but he knew it paid to look carefully at the unusual, the unexpected, the seemingly lucky break. That was how they caught you. Enough rope...
Creasy walked to the intersection of Third Avenue where, after a reassuring wait of several minutes he succeeded in hailing another cab. The driver had turned into Thirty-first Street before catching his signal, so they had to go around the block — but Creasy knew the extra twenty cents was a small price to pay for being careful.
As they passed the Bradleys’ he glanced out at the closed blind, and then settled himself comfortably and lit a cigarette.