With shaking hands I pushed open my window and leaned out, staring towards the kitchen window. I saw the light again, then suddenly the lights in the kitchen went on.
What was happening? Who was in the kitchen? Was it Helen or Marian or some sneak thief?
I turned, grabbed up my dressing gown, flung it on and went out of the apartment and down the stairs as fast as I could travel. I raced across the closely cut lawn and reached the kitchen window, my breath whistling between my clenched teeth and my heart pounding.
Cautiously, I looked through the uncurtained window, and what I saw going on in the kitchen made the hair on the back of my neck lift into bristles.
Marian was standing by the deep-freeze cabinet. She was wearing a pair of pale blue nylon pyjamas and her feet were bare. She was removing the bottles of whisky from the top of the cabinet. As I watched her, I realized she must have been in the kitchen some minutes, for there were only six more bottles to come off the top before she had stripped it clear.
Fifteen yards from where I was standing was the back door that opened on to a short passage that led to the kitchen. I left the window and darted to the door, turned the handle and pushed, but the door was locked and bolted. I wasted three precious minutes while I tried to force the door open by putting my shoulder against the panels and shoving with all my strength. I might just as well have tried to push over the Empire State Building for all the reaction I got.
I was in the worst panic I’d ever been in: so scared I couldn’t think. When it dawned on me that I couldn’t get in by the door, I blundered back to the window with the intention of hammering on the glass to stop her opening the cabinet, but when I got back to the window, I saw I was too late. She had cleared off the last bottle, and even as I looked through the window, my breath rattling against the back of my throat, my heart racing, I saw her lift the lid and look inside.
Her back was turned to me so I couldn’t see her face. I expected her to drop the lid, start back and begin to scream loud enough to take the roof off, but she didn’t. She stood absolutely motionless, her hands holding up the lid of the cabinet, her dark, glossy head inclined forward as she looked into the cabinet.
It was then that my mind began to function, and I saw that the window-latch hadn’t been fastened. I got my fingernails under the window-frame and pushed it up. As I did so, she slowly shut the lid. Then she turned, and for the first time since I had arrived at the window, I could see her face. It was completely expressionless, and her big, blue eyes were as vacant and empty as the eyes of the dead.
I realized with a sense of shock that jarred me down to my heels that she was walking in her sleep.
Then, just as I was getting over that shock, I ran into another for, looking across the kitchen to the half-open door, I saw Helen standing in the doorway, her cold, beautiful face set and white and her green eyes glittering. I saw she had a .25 automatic in her hand which she was pointing at Marian.
‘Wait!’ I said in a forced whisper. ‘Don’t move.’
She looked across at me, then at Marian who was now methodically putting the bottles back on the top of the cabinet.
I swung my leg over the window-sill and slid into the kitchen. ‘She’s walking in her sleep,’ I said. ‘Don’t wake her.’
Helen lowered her gun hand. She drew in a long, slow breath. I could see her breasts rising and falling under the oyster-coloured wrap.
I circled the room until I reached her.
‘She’s seen inside,’ she said softly.
‘She’s asleep.’
‘I don’t care. We’ve got to get rid of her!’
‘Keep your voice down. We mustn’t wake her.’
We stood away from the door and watched Marian replace the bottles. It took her some time, but finally she put the last bottle in place. She had put the bottles back exactly as she had found them. If I hadn’t seen her move them, I wouldn’t have known they had been touched.
Then she turned and walked slowly to the door, turned off the light, switched on her flashlight and went down the passage. We stood in the darkness, listening. We heard her mount the stairs. A few seconds later, we heard a door close quietly.
I reached out and put on the light.
‘She saw him!’ Helen said fiercely. ‘She’ll remember. We’ll have to silence her.’
There was a vicious, murderous expression in her green eyes that shocked me.
‘She was sleepwalking,’ I said. ‘She won’t remember. She didn’t even see him. She went through the motions of opening the cabinet, but she wouldn’t know what was in it.’
‘How do you know? It would be safer if she met with an accident.’
‘Are you crazy?’ I faced her. ‘That’s the last thing that’s going to happen. If there’s a death here before they find Dester, we’ll be in trouble.’
‘Not the way I’d arrange it. I’d take her up on the roof and push her off. We could always say she was walking in her sleep.’
Her cold-blooded, matter-of-fact tone chilled me.
‘I said no, and I mean no. She won’t remember. I’m sure she won’t.’
She studied me, her face had a scraped bony look to it that made it seem as if it were chiselled out of stone.
‘You want to keep her alive because you’re in love with her,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m not going to endanger our plan because you’ve happened to fall in love with the little fool. I’m going to silence her.’
I reached out and grabbed hold of her shoulders, forcing her against the wall.
‘I warn you: if you touch her I’ll tell the police where he is! I mean it! You leave her alone or you’ll never get the money!’
She wrenched free from my grip, her face white, her eyes on fire.
‘All right, if you must act like a fool, then act like one, but you’ll be sorry!’
She side-stepped me and went quickly out of the kitchen and up the stairs. For a long moment I stood looking after her then, when I heard her bedroom door click to, I went up to Marian’s room. I listened outside the door then, hearing nothing, I gently eased the door open and looked in.
The moonlight fell directly across the bed. I could see Marian as she lay with her head on the pillow. Moving quietly into the room, I stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at her.
She slept restlessly, murmuring and moving her head to and fro. Then suddenly she opened her eyes and lifted her head. She stared at me, catching her breath in a soft, strangled scream.
‘It’s all right,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s only me.’
She sat up, pulling the bedclothes up in front of her, her eyes alarmed.
‘I just wanted to see if you were all right,’ I went on. ‘You’ve been walking in your sleep.’
‘Have I? You frightened me,’ she said, and relaxed back on the pillow. ‘I’ve been walking in my sleep?’
‘Yes. I saw a light on in the kitchen. I came over. You were taking all those bottles off the top of the deep-freeze.’
I watched her closely as I was speaking, but her face showed only surprise and bewilderment.
‘I did dream about the cabinet. I was worried about the water in it. You said because I turned off the motor.’
I drew in a long, deep breath. It was all right. She hadn’t seen him. She couldn’t speak like this if she had.
‘You silly kid, there was nothing to worry about. I told you it doesn’t thaw out for at least four hours. You gave me a scare. I thought it was a burglar.’
‘I’m sorry. I haven’t walked in my sleep for months.’
‘Well, don’t do it again. I didn’t mean to frighten you, but I wanted to see if you were all right.’
She looked up at me, her eyes bright, a faint flush on her face.
‘I’m all right.’
I came around the side of the bed. She smiled up at me and held out her hand. I took it, then I bent and kissed her. For a long moment our lips remained together, then I drew back.