Jean Backus - Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Then it was too late. Tom struck the man’s wrist, knocked it and the knife to one side, and lunged forward.

Walter stood there, unable to move, and watched the mugger sidestep awkwardly, pulling the knife back. The coat collar fell away, the baseball cap flew off as Tom’s fist grazed the side of the man’s head — and Walter could see the mugger’s face clearly: beard-stubbled, jutting chin, flattened nose, wild blazing eyes.

The knife, glinting light from the overhead fluorescents, flashed between the mugger and Tom, and Tom stiffened and made a grunting, gasping noise. Walter looked on in horror as the man stepped back with the knife, blood on the blade now, blood on his hand. Tom turned and clutched at his stomach, eyes glazing, and then his knees buckled and he toppled over and lay still.

He killed him, Walter thought, he killed Tom — but he did not feel anything yet. Shock had given the whole thing a terrible dreamlike aspect. The mugger turned toward him, looked at him out of those burning eyes. Walter wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go with the tracks on both sides of the platform, the electrified rails down there, and the mugger blocking the escalators. And he could not make himself move now any more than he had been able to move when he realized Tom intended to fight.

The man in the overcoat took a step toward him, and in that moment, from inside the eastbound tunnel, there was the faint rumble of an approaching train. The suspended message board flashed CONCORD, and the mugger looked up there, looked back at Walter. The eyes burned into him an instant longer, holding him transfixed. Then the man turned sharply, scooped up his baseball cap, and ran up the escalator.

Seconds later he was gone, and the train was there instead, filling the station with a rush of sound that Walter could barely hear for the thunder of his heart.

The policeman was a short thickset man with a black mustache, and when Walter finished speaking he looked up gravely from his notebook. “And that’s everything that happened, Mr. Carpenter?”

“Yes,” Walter said, “that’s everything.”

He was sitting on one of the round tile-and-concrete benches in the center of the platform. He had been sitting there ever since it happened. When the eastbound train had braked to a halt, one of its disembarking passengers had been a BART security officer. One train too late, Walter remembered thinking dully at the time; he’s one train too late. The security officer had asked a couple of terse questions, then had draped his coat over Tom and gone upstairs to call the police.

“What can you tell me about the man who did it?” the policeman asked. “Can you give me a description of him?”

Walter’s eyes were wet; he took out his handkerchief and wiped them, shielding his face with the cloth, then closing his eyes behind it. When he did that he could see the face of the mugger: the stubbled cheeks, the jutting chin, the flat nose — and the eyes, above all those terribly malignant eyes that had said as clearly as though the man had spoken the words aloud: I’ve got your wallet, I know where you live. If you say anything to the cops I’ll come after you and give you what I gave your friend.

Walter shuddered, opened his eyes, lowered the handkerchief, and looked over to where the group of police and laboratory personnel were working around the body. Tom Olivet’s body. Tom Olivet, lying there dead.

We were like brothers, Walter thought. We were just like brothers.

“I can’t tell you anything about the mugger,” he said to the policeman. “I didn’t get a good look at him. I can’t tell you anything at all.”