Brett Halliday - She Woke to Darkness

There was nothing. No keys and no wallet. Not a scrap of paper to identify him.

He had come out of the unknown, a stranger to her… and now he would be a stranger forever.

And she? She had become a stranger to herself. Somehow she must go on living… forever haunted by the fear that she might have killed him.

Not that! She couldn’t kill. The last few minutes had proved that she was capable of much she would not have believed possible. But not murder… Besides, if she had murdered him during a blackout, how had she disposed of the murder weapon? And the missing handbag?

Of course, it was possible she had left the bag somewhere or lost it along the way before reaching the hotel room. But the murder weapon had been in the room. And now it wasn’t. Wouldn’t the police accept that fact as evidence that another person had been in the room while she was blacked out?

They wouldn’t. For they would never know, as she did, that the knife was not in the room when she woke. The police would have only her word that she hadn’t wakened to find it clutched in her hand, and then disposed of it.

She must be very careful from this point on. She must take nothing for granted. Nothing! Once it was known that she had been the dead man’s companion, every single word she spoke would be suspect.

How could she prove, for instance, that she had actually blacked out and didn’t know what had happened? There was no proof. Only her word. And to give the lie to that would be the testimony of the hotel clerk, the bell-boy and elevator operator who had doubtless seen her come in. Because when she had blacked out like this in the past, there was practically no outward evidence. Even her closest friends were never quite sure. They had laughed about it in the past, and she had laughed with them. Her coordination was scarcely impaired at all. She had been told that there was a slight thickness in her speech, but no more than in most persons after several cocktails.

Anyone who did not know her intimately and who had seen her last night would swear on the witness stand that she might have been a little tight, but certainly in full possession of her faculties.

The dead man must have believed that. He would have had no way of knowing the truth Even the murderer must have been unaware that she was unconscious when the murder was committed.

Why, then, had he gone away leaving her alive to bear witness against him? Of course if he had arrived at the scene after she fell into a coma on the bed, he would know he had nothing to fear from her.

She dragged her thoughts back from useless speculations. The important thing now was to destroy all evidence she had been in the room, and then leave the hotel without being seen.

She stripped the case from one of the pillows and methodically wiped fingerprints from every surface she might have touched. Then she went to the mirror to smooth her hair as best she could with shaking fingers.

At the door, she hesitated, realizing that she was probably destroying the murderer’s fingerprints as well. But what else could she do? She wiped the knob clean and turned it cautiously, inching the door open, and testing the outer knob. It was on the night-latch. The murderer had simply walked out and pulled it shut.

She paused, an instant, undecided whether to wipe the outer knob clean, then suddenly scrubbed it as hard as she could.

Holding the outer knob with the pillow case, she hesitated again, gathering all her strength and courage before stepping out and closing the door. That was the irrevocable step. Once she closed the door she was locked away from her last chance to call the police, tell them the simple truth, and hope they would believe her.

For a moment she was desperately tempted to do that. Wasn’t it what any innocent, law-abiding person would do? Wasn’t running away practically an admission of guilt?

Probably it was. She didn’t care. She couldn’t face it. This way, she had a chance. The other way? Who would believe her story, she asked herself scornfully.

She closed the door firmly with the pillowslip covering her hand, and stood for a moment memorizing the room number, 318. She would have to wait until she was outside to learn the name of the hotel.

She turned and went left toward a small red bulb illuminating a sign that said STAIRS. There was a door which she opened, and, with the cunning of the hunted, she took the upward flight of stairs. She remembered reading a book where a suspect had been trapped by walking down a flight instead of up. When he took the elevator from the floor below, the detective had known instantly that he had walked down one flight, and promptly arrested him. The author of the book had pointed out that in panic one invariably takes the easier path, and that if he had walked up instead of down he would never have been suspected.

So Aline walked up. Not one flight. Not just two flights, but three. That put her on the sixth floor and should be as safe as any. She wadded up the pillowslip as she climbed and dropped it in a dark corner on the fifth floor landing.

The sixth-floor corridor was dimly lit and deserted. She walked down it with her heart thumping, past closed doors behind which human beings slept in peace. Some of them snored, and the sound came faintly through open transoms.

She found double elevator doors and pressed the DOWN button. She had not the slightest idea what hour of the night it was, but was sure it was much too late for a respectable woman to be leaving a hotel with no wrap and no make-up, no handbag and her hair in disorder.

Anyone who saw her would think only one thing. Well, let them. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly when the elevator cables began creaking to bring the car up. She was a floosie, she reminded herself bitterly. A two-dollar whore. So why should she be ashamed or even annoyed if an elevator man and desk clerk took her for a call girl going home from some guest’s room after a late party?

The elevator stopped and the door slid open. The operator was a wizened and aged Negro man wearing a blue uniform with scarlet piping. So far as Aline could tell, he didn’t look at her when she stepped inside.

The door closed and they descended to a small lobby lighted with only two floor lamps. Aline stepped from the car with her chin still high, and her heels clacked on the bare floor toward the safety of a revolving door. She glanced at the desk, but the clerk was not there. A big clock on the wall pointed to 2:50.

Aline went through the revolving door and out onto a deserted sidewalk where a breeze cooled her hot cheeks. She looked at the sign above the hotel. It read, HOTEL HALCYON.

She would remember that, and she would remember a room number. She had not the vaguest idea what part of the city she was in. There were smart apartment houses here, and small specialty shops. She walked toward the nearest corner and discovered she was on Madison Avenue, far uptown from her normal haunts.

Looking up and down the Avenue she saw the welcome UNOCCUPIED lights of a roving taxi going south. She waved it to the curb, and before getting in she said:

“I’ll have to warn you, driver, that I don’t have any money with me. I lost my bag. If you’re willing to drive me to my place on East Twenty-Sixth Street, I’ll be glad to have you come in with me while I get some money to pay you.”

“Hop in, Lady,” he said wearily. “Where’d we all be in this world if none of us never trusted nobody else?” He opened the door, and when Aline got in he pulled away on the almost deserted avenue, leaning back to continue confidentially:

“Take it from me, that’s one of the troubles with this city. New York! Nobody speaks to a man on the street. Nobody’s got a helping hand for them that’s in trouble. Man can die right on a busy street and you’ll see the crowds hurrying by and turning their faces like they’re scared they’ll get contaminated.”