He couldn’t quite see the front door. But in a little while long shadows darkened the plaster of the hallway, telling him that someone must be standing in the hall, cutting off the light from the living room.
“Well, she isn’t here,” he heard Mr. Wilson say.
“But we just heard her playing,” came the blonde’s voice, naggingly.
“Be reasonable, Miss Hackman,” Mr. Wilson objected. “You know very well that doesn’t prove anything.”
“But why would Dris lie about checking on her?”
Mr. Wilson snorted. “Dris would lie about anything to get time to be with his current girls.”
“That’s not true!” Miss Hackman sounded as if the remark had stung. “Dris might fool around with girls when we’re all having fun together. Naturally. But not just by himself, not alone!”
“You think he doesn’t have his private lusts? You think you’re the whole show?”
“Yes!”
“Ha!”
Carr waited for the footsteps or voices of Jane’s parents. Surely they must be aware of the intruders. The sun porch wasn’t that isolated.
Perhaps they were as terrified as he.
Or perhaps—no, damn it, that idea he’d had (when time had stopped) couldn’t, mustn’t be true.
“You’re not being fair,” Miss Hackman whined. “The girl’s probably somewhere in the back of the house. Let’s look.”
Carr had already stooped and unwhipped the knots of his shoelaces. Now he stepped out of his shoes. The room he was in contained twin beds. Light poured into it from a white-tiled bathroom. There was the same fussiness and profusion of bric-a-brac in the bedroom as in the living room.
One of the shadows in the hall grew darker. But just as Carr was starting for the bathroom, he heard Mr. Wilson snap a command.
“Stop! The sun porch! Listen to the old woman! What’s she saying?”
In the ensuing silence Carr could hear a faint mumbling.
“You see,” Mr. Wilson whispered loudly. “She’s talking as if the girl were there.”
“But—”
“Listen!”
The mumbling stopped.
“Do you need any more proof?” Mr. Wilson demanded. After a moment he went on, his voice smooth again. “I know about your tender feelings for Dris, Miss Hackman. As feelings, they mean nothing to me. As influences warping your judgment, they mean a great deal. Dris is very clever at times, but slack. You know that our pleasures, our plans, our very existence, depends on constant vigilance. We could be wrecked by one single person, such as this girl, or the little man with glasses.”
“He’s dead,” Miss Hackman interposed.
“That’s wishful thinking. Suppose he or that girl become actively hostile. Worse, suppose they inform another and stronger group like ourselves—there are such, believe me!—of our existence. You and I know, Miss Hackman, that girl knows about us—”
“I think she’s gone back into her old rut,” Miss Hackman interrupted, “and we don’t have to worry about her. That can happen. Most of them want to go back.”
Trying to catch a glimpse of the talkers, Carr began to edge closer to the door, noiseless in his stocking feet.
“But the mother…?” Mr. Wilson was saying.
“Crazy. So she thinks the girl’s there.”
Mr. Wilson’s shadow nodded. “I’ll grant you that—as a possibility. The girl perhaps has gone back into her rut. But perhaps she hasn’t. Perhaps she’s taken up with Dris, or he with her, on the sly.”
“Oh no! That’s indecent! If I repeat to Dris what you just said—”
“Still, wouldn’t you like proof that it isn’t so?”
“I wouldn’t lower myself to entertain such a contemptible suspicion!”
“You wouldn’t, eh? You don’t sound—What’s that!”
Carr stiffened. Looking down, he saw that he had knocked over a stupid little doorstop in the form of a porcelain Pekinese sitting up to beg. He started for the bathroom door, but he had hardly taken the first painfully cautious step when he heard, from that direction, faintly, but unmistakably, the sound of someone else moving around. He froze, then turned toward the hall. He heard the stamp of high heels, a little throaty exclamation of surprise from Mr. Wilson, a softly pattering rush, the paralyzing fighting squall of a cat, a flailing of shadows, a smash and clatter as if a cane or umbrella had been brought down on a table, and Mr. Wilson’s exclamation:
“Damn!”
Next Carr caught a glimpse of Miss Hackman. She had on a pearl gray evening dress, off the shoulders, and a mink wrap over her arm. She was coming down the hall, but she didn’t see him.
At the same moment something launched itself at her from behind. The cat Gigolo landed in the faultless golden hair, claws raking. Miss Hackman screamed.
The ensuing battle was too quick and confused for Carr to follow it clearly, and most of it took place in the little hall, out of sight except for the shadows. Twice more the cane or umbrella smashed down. Mr. Wilson and Miss Hackman shouted and yelled at each other at the same time, the cat squalled continually. Then Mr. Wilson shouted, “The door!” There came a final whangling blow, followed by Mr. Wilson’s “Damn!”
For the next few moment’s, only heavy breathing from the hallway, then Miss Hackman’s voice, rising to a vindictive waiclass="underline" “Bitch! Look what it did to my cheek. Oh, why must there be cats!”
Then Mr. Wilson, grimly businesslike: “It hasn’t got away. It’s trapped on the stairs. We can get it.”
Miss Hackman: “This wouldn’t have happened if we’d brought the beast!”
Mr. Wilson: “The beast! This afternoon you thought differently. Do you remember what happened to Dris?”
Miss Hackman: “That was his own fault. He shouldn’t have teased it. Besides, the beast likes me.”
Mr. Wilson: “Yes, I’ve seen her look at you and lick her chops. We’re wasting time, Miss Hackman. You’ll have a lot more than a scratched cheek—or a snapped-off hand—to snivel about if we don’t clear up this mess right away. Come on. We’ve got to kill that cat.”
Carr heard footsteps, then the sound of Mr. Wilson’s voice growing fainter as he ascended the stairs, calling out softly and wheedlingly, “Here, kitty. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty,” and a few moments later Miss Hackman joined in with a sugariness that made Carr shake:
“Here, kitty.”
The voices moved off. Carr waited a little. Then he tiptoed across the room and peered through the bathroom door. The white-tiled cubicle was empty, but beyond it was another open door, leading to another bedroom.
He could see that it was a smaller bedroom, but friendlier. There was a littered dressing table with lamps whose little pink shades were awry. On the wall he recognized prints of paintings by Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. Beside the dressing-table was a small bookcase overflowing with sheet-music piled helter-skelter and novels with bright, torn dust-covers. There was a bottle of ink on the dressing table, mixed in with the cosmetics. It was overturned and a large dry brown stain pooled out from it.
His heart began to pound as he crossed the bathroom’s white tiles. He remembered the brown ink on the paper Jane had dropped.
But there was something strange about the bedroom he was approaching. Despite the lively, adolescent disorder, there was an ancient feel to it, almost a museum feel—like some historic room kept just as its illustrious occupant had left it. The novel on the dressing-table was last year’s best seller.
Still…
He poked his hand though the door. Something moved beside him and he quickly turned his head.
He had only a moment to look before the blow fell. But in that moment, before the cap of pain was pulled down over his eyes and ears, blacking out everything, he recognized his assailant.