Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

All Stillman said was: “Come on over to the window while I get our tickets.”

Bliss didn’t say “Thanks.” He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The grateful look he gave the detective spoke for itself.

“Two to Denby, round,” Stillman told the ticket-seller. It was too late for the morning bus; the next one left in the early afternoon.

As they turned from the window, Bliss wondered aloud:

“Still and all, why was that driver so reluctant to admit she rode on the bus with him that night? And the ticket man claims she didn’t buy a ticket to Denby, but to some point short of there.”

“It’s easy to see what it adds up to,” Stillman told him. “She had a ticket for only part of the distance. She coaxed the driver into letting her ride the rest of the way to Denby. Probably explained her plight to him, and he felt sorry for her. That explains his reluctance to let you think she was on the bus at all. He must have thought you were a company spotter and naturally what he did would be against the regulations.”

Tucking away the tickets in his inside coat pocket, the detective stood there a moment or two undecidedly. Then he said, “We may as well go back to your house. I might be able to turn up something else while we’re waiting, and you can catch a nap. And, too, I’m going to call in, see if I can still make this detour up there and back legitimate while I’m about it.”

When they got back to his house Bliss, exhausted, fell asleep in the bedroom. He remained oblivious to everything until the detective woke him up a half hour before bus time.

“Any luck?” Bliss asked him, shrugging into his coat.

“Nope, nothing more,” Stillman said. Then he announced, “I’ve given my word to my lieutenant I’ll show up at headquarters and have you with me, no later than nine tomorrow morning. He doesn’t know you’re with me right now; I let him think I got a tip where I could lay my hands on you. Leaving now, we will get up there around sunset, and we’ll have to take the night bus back. That gives us only a few hours up there to see if we can find any trace of her. Pretty tight squeeze, if you ask me.”

They boarded the bus together and sat down in one of the back seats. They didn’t talk much during the long, monotonous ride up.

“Better take another snooze while you’ve got the chance,” Stillman said.

Bliss thought he wouldn’t be able to again, but, little by little, sheer physical exhaustion, combined with the lulling motion of the bus, overcame him and he dropped off.

It seemed like only five minutes later that Stillman shook him by the shoulder, rousing him. The sun was low in the west; he’d slept through nearly the entire trip. “Snap out of it, Bliss; we get off in another couple of minutes, right on time.”

“I dreamed about her,” Bliss said dully. “I dreamed she was in some kind of danger, needed me bad. She kept calling to me, ‘Ed! Hurry up, Ed!’”

Stillman dropped his eyes. “I heard you say her name twice in your sleep: ‘Smiles, Smiles,’” he remarked quietly. “Damned if you act like any guilty man I ever had in my custody before. Even in your sleep you sound like you were innocent.”

“Denby!” the driver called out.

As the bus pulled away and left them behind at the crossroads, Stillman said, “Now that we’re up here, let’s have an understanding with each other. I don’t want to haul you around on the end of a handcuff with me, but my job is at stake; I’ve got to be sure that you’re still with me when I start back.”

“Would my word of honor that I won’t try to give you the slip while we’re up here be worth anything to you?”

Stillman looked at him square in the eye. “Is it worth anything to you ?”

“It’s about all I’ve got. I know I’ve never broken it.”

Stillman nodded slowly. “I think maybe it’ll be worth taking a chance on. All right, let me have it.”

They shook hands solemnly.

Dusk was rapidly falling by now; the sun was already gone from sight and its afterglow fading out.

“Come on, let’s get out to their place,” Bliss said impatiently.

“Let’s do a little inquiring around first. Remember, we have no evidence so far that she actually got off the bus here at all, let alone reached their house. Just her buying that magazine and saying she was coming here is no proof in itself. Now, let’s see, she gets off in the middle of the night at this sleeping hamlet. Would she know the way out to their house, or would she have to ask someone?”

“She’d have to ask. Remember, I told you they moved here after Smiles had already left home. This would have been her first trip up here.”

“Well, that ought to cinch it for us, if she couldn’t get out there without asking directions. Let’s try our luck at that filling-station first; it would probably have been the only thing open any more at the hour she came.”

The single attendant on duty came out, said, “Yes, gents?”

“Look,” Stillman began. “The traffic to and from here isn’t exactly heavy, so this shouldn’t be too hard. Think back to Tuesday night, the last bus north. Did you see anyone get off it?”

“I don’t have to see ’em get off; I got a sure-fire way of telling whether anyone gets off or not.”

“What’s that?”

“Anyone that does get off, at least anyone that’s a stranger here, never fails to stop by me and ask their way. That’s as far as the last bus is concerned. The store is closed before then. And no one asked their way of me Tuesday night, so I figure no strangers got off.”

“This don’t look so good,” murmured Stillman in an aside to Bliss. Then he asked the attendant, “Did you hear it go by at all? You must have, it’s so quiet here.”

“Yeah, sure, I did. It was right on time, too.”

“Then you could tell if it stopped to let anyone down or went straight through without stopping, couldn’t you?”

“Yeah, usually I can,” was the disappointing answer. “But just that night, at that particular time, I was doing some repair work on a guy’s car, trying to hammer out a bent fender for him, and my own noise drowned it out. As long as no one stopped by, though, I’m pretty sure it never stopped.”

“Damn it,” Stillman growled, as they turned away, “she couldn’t have been more unseen if she was a ghost!”

After they were out of earshot of the filling-station attendant, Bliss said, “If Alden, for instance, had known she was coming and waited to meet her at the bus, that would do away with her having to ask anyone for directions. She may have telephoned ahead, or sent a wire up.”

“If she didn’t even have enough money to buy a ticket all the way, she certainly wouldn’t have been able to make a toll call. Anyway, if we accept that theory, that means we’re implicating them directly in her disappearance, and we have no evidence so far to support that. Remember, she may have met with foul play right here in Denby, along the road to their house, without ever having reached it.”

It was fully dark by the time they rounded the bend in the road and came in sight of that last house of all, with the low brick wall in front of it. This time not a patch of light showed from any of the windows, upstairs or down, and yet it was earlier in the evening than when Bliss himself had arrived.

“Hello?” the detective said. “Looks like nobody’s home.”

They turned in under the willow arch, rang the bell, and waited. Stillman pummeled the door and they waited some more. This was just perfunctory, however; it had been obvious to the two of them from the moment they first looked at the place that no one was in.

“Well, come on. What’re we waiting for?” Bliss demanded. “I can get in one of the windows without any trouble.”