Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

It was an incredible ride; incredible for the fact that they stayed right side up on the surface of the road at all. The speedometer needle clung to stratospheric heights throughout. The scenery was just a blurred hiss on both sides of them. The wind pressure stung the pupils of their eyes to the point where they could barely hold them open. The constable, luckily, used glasses for reading and had happened to have them about him when they started. He put them on simply in order to make sure of staying on the road at all.

They had to take the bad stretch at a slower speed in sheer self-defense, in order not to have the same thing happen to them that they were counting on having happened to the Alden car. An intact tire could possibly get over it unharmed, but one that was already defective was almost sure to go out.

“Wouldn’t you think he’d have remembered about this from passing over it last night, and taken precautions?” Stillman yelled above the wind at Bliss.

“He took a chance on it just like we’re doing now. Slow up a minute at the first gas station after here, see if he got away with it or not.” He knew that if he had, that meant they might just as well turn back then and there; Smiles was as good as dead already.

It didn’t appear for another twenty minutes even at the clip they had resumed once the bad stretch was past. With a flat, or until a tow car was sent out after anyone, it would have taken an hour or more to make it.

“Had a flat to fix, coming from our way, tonight?” Stillman yelled out at the attendant.

“And how!” the man yelled back, jogging over to them. “That was no flat! He wobbled up here with ribbons around his wheel. Rim all flattened, too, from riding so long on it.”

“He?” echoed Stillman. “Wasn’t there two women or anyway one, with him?”

“No, just a fellow alone.”

“She probably waited for him up the road out of sight with Smiles,” Bliss suggested in an undertone, “to avoid being seen; then he picked them up again when the job was finished. Or if Smiles was able to walk, maybe they detoured around it on foot and rejoined the car farther down.”

“Heavy-set man with a bull neck, and little eyes, and scraggly red hair?” the constable asked the station operator.

“Yeah.”

“That’s him. How long ago did he pull out of here?”

“Not more than an hour ago, I’d say.”

“See? We’ve already cut their head start plenty,” Bliss rejoiced.

“There’s still too damn much of it to suit me,” was the detective’s answer.

“One of you take the wheel for the next lap,” Cochrane said. “The strain is telling on me. Better put these on for goggles.” He handed Stillman his reading-glasses.

The filling-station and its circular glow of light whisked out behind them and they were on the tear once more. They picked up a State police motorcycle escort automatically within the next twenty minutes, by their mere speed in itself; simply tapered off long enough to show their badges and make their shouts of explanation heard. This was all to the good; it cleared their way through such towns and restricted-speed belts as lay in their path. Just to give an idea of their pace, there were times, on the straightaway, when their escort had difficulty in keeping up with them. And even so, they weren’t making good enough time to satisfy Bliss. He alternated between fits of optimism, when he sat crouched forward on the edge of the seat, fists clenched, gritting: “We’ll swing it; we’ll get there in time; I know it!” and fits of despair, when he slumped back on his shoulder blades and groaned, “We’ll never make it! I’m a fool; I should have let you phone in ahead like you wanted to! Can’t you make this thing move at all?”

“Look at that speedometer,” the man at the wheel suggested curtly. “There’s nowhere else for the needle to go but off the dial altogether! Take it easy, Bliss. They can’t possibly tear along at this clip; we’re official, remember. Another thing, once they get there, they’ll do a lot of cagey reconnoitering first. That’ll eat up more of their head start. And finally, even after they get at it, they’ll take it slow, make all their preparations first, to make it look right. Don’t forget, they think they’ve got all night; they don’t know we’re on their trail.”

“And it’s still going to be an awful close shave,” insisted Bliss through tightly clenched teeth.

Their State police escort signed off at the city limits with a wave of the arm, a hairpin turn, and left them on their own. They had to taper down necessarily now, even though traffic was light at this night hour. Bliss showed Stillman the shortcut over, which would bring them up to his house from the rear. A block and a half away Stillman choked off their engine, coasted to a stealthy stop under the overshadowing trees, and the long grueling race against time was over — without their knowing as yet whether it had been successful or not.

“Now follow me,” Bliss murmured, hopping down. “I hope we didn’t bring the car in too close; sounds carry so at an hour like this.”

“They won’t be expecting us.” One of Stillman’s legs gave under him from his long motionless stint at the wheel; he had to hobble along slapping at it until he could get the circulation back into it. Cochrane brought up at the rear.

When they cleared the back of the house next door to Bliss’s and could look through the canal of separation to the street out in front, Bliss touched his companions on the arm, pointed meaningly. The blurred outline of a car was visible, parked there under the same leafy trees where Stillman himself had hidden when he was waiting for Bliss. They couldn’t make out its interior.

“Someone in it,” Cochrane said, breathing hard. “I think it’s a woman, too. I can see the white curve of a bare arm on the wheel.”

“You take that car, we’ll take the house; he must be in there with her long ago at this stage of the game,” Stillman muttered. “Can you come up on it quietly enough so she won’t have time to sound the horn or signal him in any way?”

“I’ll see to it I do!” was the purposeful answer. Cochrane turned back like a wraith, left the two of them alone.

They couldn’t go near the front of the house because of the lookout, and there was no time to wait for Cochrane to incapacitate her. “Flatten out and do like I do,” Bliss whispered. “She’s probably watching the street out there more than this lot behind the house.” He crouched, with his chin nearly down to his knees, darted across the intervening space to the concealment provided by the back of his own house.

“We can get in through the kitchen window,” Bliss instructed, when Stillman had made the switch-over after him. “The latch never worked right. Give me a folder of matches, and make a footrest with your hands.”

When he was up with one foot on the outside of the sill, his companion supporting the other, Bliss tore off and discarded the sandpaper and matches adhering to it, used the cardboard remainder as a sort of impromptu jimmy, slipping it down into the seam between the two window halves, and pushing the fastening back out of the way with it. A moment later he had the lower pane up and was inside the room, stretching down his hands to Stillman to help him up after him.

They both stood perfectly still there for a minute in the gloom, listening for all they were worth. Not a sound reached them, not a chink of light showed. Bliss felt a cold knife of doubt stab at his heart.

“Is he in here at all?” He breathed heavily. “That may be somebody else’s car out there across the way.”

At that instant there was the blurred but unmistakable sound that loose, falling earth makes, dropping back into a hollow or cavity. You hear it on the streets when a drainage ditch is being refilled. You hear it in a cemetery when a grave is being covered up. In the silence of this house, in the dead of night, it had a knell-like sound of finality. Burial .