Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

“Tell him for me,” Step said, “it was arson — nothing else but. He mayn’t be able to find any evidence, but that doesn’t alter the fact any.”

“A firebug, you think?”

“Something just a step worse. A murderer. A pyromaniac is irresponsible, afflicted, can’t help himself. This dog knew just what he was doing, killed his conscience for both acts ahead of time with marihuana.” He pointed to the muffled figure on the stretcher. “That woman was shot dead a good quarter of an hour before the fire was discovered. I was a witness to it. I’m Lively, of the — th Precinct, uptown.”

The fire chief muttered something that sounded like: “You may be attached to that precinct, but you’re not lively.” But he was diplomatic enough to keep it blurred. “But if you were a witness,” he said aloud, “how is it the guy—?”

“Powdered? I wasn’t in the room with them, I glimpsed it from an ‘El’ train that stalled for a minute opposite the window! You go in there and tell your marshal not to bother looking for gasoline cans or oil-soaked rags. He didn’t have time for a set-up like that, must have just put a match to a newspaper running down the stairs. Where’s the caretaker or janitor, or didn’t the dump have one?”

“Over behind the ropes there, in the crowd across the street. Take him over and point out the guy to him, Marty.”

Step trailed the fireman whom he had clouted with his shoe — which incidentally had vanished — limping on his one unshod foot, and ducked under the rope beside a grizzled, perspiring little man. Palmed his badge at him to add to his terror, and asked, while his eyes roved the crowd that hemmed them in: “Who was the woman top-floor front?”

“Insoorance?” whined the terrified one.

“No, police department. Well, come on—”

“Smiff. Miss Smiff.”

Step groaned. But he’d figured she’d been hiding out anyway, so it didn’t really matter much. “How long she been living up there in your house?”

“Ten day.”

“Who visited her, see anybody?”

“Nome-body. She done even go out; my wife bring food.”

Good and scared, reflected Step. Scared stiff, but it hadn’t saved her. “Did you hear anything tonight just before the fire? Were you in the building? Hear couple shots? Hear any screams?”

“No hear no-thing, train make too much noise. Only hear fella laff coming downstairs, like somebody tell-im good joke. Laff, laff, laff, all the way out to street—”

The marihuana, of course. Just two drags had affected his own risibilities. The effects of a whole reefer ought to last hours, at that rate. Step shoved away from the futile janitor, flagged one of the patrolmen holding the crowd in check behind the rope barrier, introduced himself. The excitement was tapering off, now that everyone was out of the house and the fire had been subdued, it was only a matter of minutes before they’d start melting away. Overhead the “El” trains, which had been held back at Desbrosses Street while the smoke had been at its thickest, were again being allowed through, although surface traffic was still being detoured.

“Who’s on this job with you?” Step asked the cop in a low voice.

“One other guy, down at the other end.”

“Think the two of you can keep ’em in like they are, another couple minutes?”

The cop looked insulted. “That’s what we been doing. You don’t see anybody edging out into the middle of the street, do ya?”

“No, you don’t understand what I mean. Can you put up another rope at each side, hem them in where they are, keep them from strolling off just a little while longer till I get a chance to take a careful look through them all?”

“I’m not authorized to keep people from going about their business, as long as they don’t hamper the fire apparatus—”

“I’ll take the responsibility. There’s someone I’m out to get, and I’ve got a very good hunch he’s right here looking on. Firebugs are known to do that, murderers too when they think they’re safe from discovery. When you’ve got a combination of both, the urge to stay and gloat ought to be twice as strong!

“Bawl me out,” he added abruptly, “so it don’t look too phony, my standing talking to you like this.”

The cop swung his club at him, barked: “Get back there! Whaddya think that rope’s for? Get back there before I—”

Step cringed away from him, began to elbow his way deeper into the tightly-packed crowd jamming the narrow sidewalk. He did this as slow as he did everything else, didn’t seem like anyone who had a definite place to go, just a rubbernecker working his way toward a better vantage-point. From time to time he glanced over at the gutted building, or what could be seen of it under the shadowy “El” structure that bisected the street vertically. Torches blinked deep within the front hallway of it, as firemen passed in and out, still veiled by the haze that clung to it.

There wasn’t, however, enough smoke left in the air, certainly not this close to the ground, to send anyone into paroxysms of strangled coughing. Such as that individual just ahead was experiencing, handkerchief pressed to mouth. Step himself had inhaled as much smoke as anyone, and his lungs were back on the job again as good as ever. He kept facing the burned building from this point on, edging over sidewise to the afflicted one. The spasms would stop and he’d lower the handkerchief; then another one would come on and he’d raise it again and nearly spill himself into it. Step was unobtrusively at his elbow by now.

When a person is suffering from a coughing-fit, two ways of assisting them will occur to almost anybody. Offer them a drink of water or slap them helpfully on the back. Step didn’t have any water to offer, so he chose the second means of alleviation. Slapped the tormented one between the shoulder-blades: but just once, not several times, and not nearly forcefully enough to do any good. “You’re under arrest,” he said desultorily, “come on.”

The concealing handkerchief dropped — this time all the way to the ground. “What for? What’re you talking about?”

“For two murders and an arson,” drawled the wearied Step. “I’m talking about you. And don’t be afraid to laugh right out. No need to muffle it with your handkerchief and try to change it into a cough any more. That was what gave you away to me. When you’ve been smoking marihuana, you’ve just gotta laugh or else— But watching fires isn’t the right place to do your laughing. And if it had been real coughing, you wouldn’t have stayed around where the smoke irritated you that much. Now show me where you dropped the gun before you came back here to watch, and then we’ll get in a taxi. I wouldn’t ask my feet to carry me another step tonight.”

His prisoner bayed uncontrollably with mirth, then panted: “I never was in that building in my life—” Writhed convulsively.

“I saw you,” said Step, pushing him slowly before him through the crowd, “through the window from an ‘El’ train as I was going by.” He knew the soporific effect the drug was likely to have, its blunting of the judgment. “She came to us and told us she was afraid of this happening to her, asked for protection, and we been giving it to her. Did you think you could get away with it?”

“Then what’d she rat on Plucky at his trial for? She knew what to expect. He sent out word—”

“Oh, that vice trial. And she was one of the witnesses? I see.” Step slammed the door of the cab on the two of them. “Thanks for telling me; now I know who she was, who you are, and why it was done. There is something to be said for marihuana after all. Not much, but maybe just a little.”

When he stepped out of the cab with his handcuffed quarry at the foot of the Franklin Street station four blocks away, he directed the driver: “Now sound your horn till they come down off of up there.” And when they did, his mates found Inspector Stephen Lively seated upon the bottom step of the station stairs, his prisoner at his side.