Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

“What, more questioning?” she greeted him caustically.

“I’m sorry you resent my interviewing you yesterday. It was just routine, but I tried to be as inoffensive as I could about it. No, so far as we’re concerned, you people no longer figure in it — except of course as his last known jumping-off place into nothingness. We have a new theory we’re working on.”

“What is it?” she said, forgetting to be aloof.

“I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to divulge it. However, a couple of interviews with Mrs. Burroughs were enough to give it an impetus. She’s a hypochondriac if there ever was one.”

“I think I know what you’re driving at. You mean his disappearance was voluntary, to get away from the sickroom atmosphere in his home?”

His knowing expression told her she was right. And for a moment a great big sun came up and shone through the darkness she had been living in ever since Mrs. Burroughs’ phone call Monday noon. How wonderful it would be if that should turn out to be the correct explanation, what a reprieve for herself and Gil! Why, it would automatically cover up the check matter as well. If the old man had been about to drop from sight, he certainly could have been expected to cash a check for that amount, to keep himself in funds; there wouldn’t be any mystery about it, then.

Meanwhile, as to Ward: You could tell he wasn’t here altogether on business. He was looking into her face a little too personally, she thought. Well, he was only a man after all. What could you do about it?

“The local chief out here, whom I’m co-operating with, can’t put me up at his house; he’s got three of our guys staying with him already. I was wondering if it would put you out if I... er... asked permission to make this my headquarters; you know, just sleep here while I’m detailed out here, so I wouldn’t have to keep running back and forth, to the city and out again, every night?”

She nearly fell over. “But this is a private home, after all.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be in your way much. You can bill the department for it if you like.”

“That isn’t the point. There’s a perfectly good hotel in the village.”

“I already tried to get quarters there. They’re all filled up. You’re entitled to refuse if you want to. It’d just be a way of showing your good will and willingness to cooperate. After all, it’s just as much to the interest of you and your husband as anyone else to have this matter cleared up.”

By the time she got in to Gil, she was already beginning to see the humorous side of it. “It’s Ward again. He wants to be our house guest; can you tie that? He hinted that now they think Burroughs disappeared voluntarily, to get away from that invalid wife of his.”

His face was a white pucker of frightening suspicion. “He’s lying! He’s trying different tactics, that’s all. He’s trying to plant himself here in the house with us as a spy.”

“But don’t you think it’ll look worse, if we seem to have anything to hide by not letting him in? Then they’ll simply hang around watching us from the outside. If we let him in, we may be able to get rid of him for good in a day or two.”

“He’ll watch every move I make, he’ll listen to every word that’s said. It’s been tough up to now; it’ll be hell that way.”

“Well, you go out and shoo him away then; you’re the boss.”

He took a quick step toward the door. Then his courage seemed to ooze out of him. She saw him falter, come to a stop, rake his fingers through his hair.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said uncertainly, “maybe it’ll look twice as bad if we turn him away, like we have something to hide. Tell him O.K.” And he poured himself a drink the size of Lake Erie.

“He’ll sleep on the davenport in the living room and like it,” she said firmly. “I’m not running a lodging-house for homeless detectives.”

It was the least she could do, she felt, meeting him along the road like that: ask him if he wanted a lift back to the house with her. After all, she had nothing against the man; he was just doing his job. And Gil’s half-hysterical injunction, over the wire the day before, “Don’t take anyone in the car with you!” was furthest from her thoughts, had no meaning at the moment. For that matter, it had had no meaning even at the time.

“Sure, don’t mind if I do,” he accepted. He slung himself up on the running board without obliging her to come to a complete stop, and dropped into the seat beside her without opening the door, displacing some parcels she’d had there.

“Why don’t you put these in the rumble?” he asked, piling them on his lap for want of a better place.

She took one hand off the wheel, snapped her fingers. “That reminds me, I wanted to stop at a repair shop and have a new key made; we’ve lost the old one.”

He was sitting sideways, face turned toward her, studying her profile. In one way it was annoying, in another way it was excessively flattering. She kept her eyes on the road ahead.

“Didn’t the mister object to your coming out like this?”

She thought it was said kiddingly; it was one of those things should have been said kiddingly. But when she looked at him, his face was dead serious.

She eyed him in frank surprise. “How did you know? We had a little set-to about the car, that was all. I wanted it and he didn’t want me to have it; wanted it himself, I guess. So I took it anyway, while he was shaving, and here I am.” Then, afraid she had given him a misleading impression of their domestic relations, she tried to minimize it. “Oh, but that’s nothing new with us, that’s been going on ever since we’ve had a car.” It wasn’t true; it had never happened before — until tonight.

“Oh,” he said. And an alertness that had momentarily come into his expression slowly left it again.

They came to the belt of woods that crossed and enfolded the roadway, and she slowed to a laggard crawl. She fumbled for a cigarette and he put a match to it. Without their noticing it, the car had come to a full halt. The light wind, no longer in their faces, veered, changed direction. Suddenly she flung the cigarette away from her with a disgusted grimace.

They both became aware of it at the same time. She crinkled her nose, threw in the clutch.

“There must be something dead in these woods,” she remarked. “Do you notice that odor? Every once in a while you get a whiff of it.”

“There’s something dead — somewhere around,” he agreed cryptically.

As soon as they picked up speed again and came out between the open fields, it disappeared, left behind — apparently — under the dank trees. He didn’t say a word from that time on. That only occurred to her later. He forgot to thank her when they drew up at the house. He forgot even to say good night. He was evidently lost in thought, thinking of something else entirely.

Gil’s grip, as she entered their bedroom in the dark, fell on her shoulder like the jaws of a steel trap — and was just as merciless. He must have been standing unseen a little inside the doorway. His voice was an unrecognizable strangled sound.

“Didn’t I tell you not to let anyone get in that car with you!”

“I just met him now, on my way back.”

“Where’d you go with it? I’ve died every minute since you left!”

“I told you I wanted to see the new war picture.”

The idea seemed to send him floundering back against the bedroom wall in the dark.

“You went to the movies? ” he gasped. “And where was the car? What’d you do with it while you were in there?”

“What does anyone do with a car while they’re in seeing a show? I left it parked around the corner from the theater.”