Brett Halliday - She Woke to Darkness

It was there, in the hidden recesses of her mind. The knowledge of everything was there. It had to be. If she could only bring it forth…

She couldn’t. It wouldn’t come. The effort was exhausting. After a time, she ceased trying and opened her eyes.

The clock on the table beside the bed said 9:30. She moistened her lips, lifted herself on one elbow and reached for the telephone extension beside the clock, and called her office number.

Margie’s cheerful voice answered. Aline kept her own voice dull and flat when she said, “Hello, Margie. This is Aline.”

“Hi.” Margie lowered her voice to an elaborately confidential tone as she added, “Miss Prescott just went through. She asked if you were in.”

“I’m not,” Aline told her. “I’m out. Tell her I’ve got an abscessed tooth. Tell her any damned thing, Margie. I simply can’t make it today.”

“Bad, huh?”

“Horrible,” Aline groaned. “Fix it for me?”

“Will do. And you’d better get right over to the dentist. I’ll explain to Miss Prescott. Bye now.”

Aline hung up and sank back against the pillows. Her nerves were edgy and she felt physically exhausted. But it was impossible to relax, so she dragged herself from the bed and tottered into the tiny kitchenette. She gulped a large glass of cold orange juice, then put on a kettle of water for coffee. After measuring the coffee into the drip pot, she went resolutely to the front door. There was no use postponing it any longer. Sooner or later, she would have to read the morning newspaper. She opened the door and picked it up.

Her hands trembled as she spread it out on the couch. There were no screaming headlines… nothing at all on the front page about the murdered man. She really hadn’t expected to find anything there. By the time she reached page three, the kettle whistled and she got up to pour the water in the pot.

Returning, she went through the paper to the last page without finding any reference to a dead man having been found in an uptown hotel room.

There was no reason to expect the story to break so soon, she told herself as she sipped her first cup of black coffee. In fact, it would be strange if the body were discovered before mid-morning when a hotel maid might logically let herself in. So it would likely be late afternoon before she could learn anything definite about him.

A cigarette with her second cup of coffee helped a lot. Her mind began to function again, and her thoughts turned back to Bart’s party… back to the real beginning. Whomever she had telephoned at midnight must have been someone who was on her mind at the moment. Someone she felt she could turn to at that time of night while she was locked out of her apartment.

There was no use denying to herself that men were her first interest when she was blacked out. There was too much evidence from too many sources. So, the person must have been a man to whom she was strongly attracted. Someone she wanted to be with. All right. There was Dirk. She remembered their little necking party before she passed out. It had been pleasant enough, and rather gay. The usual sort of thing when the gang got together. But what had happened to cause a fight between her and Ralph over Dirk’s attentions?

No, she decided, it couldn’t have been Dirk. Nor any of the others with whom she was familiar at Bart’s party. Because the telephone number was strange to her.

The man had to be someone she met after she blacked out. A man whose name she knew, but whose number she had had to look up and ask Joe to write down for her when she went to the bar.

She frowned and bit at her lower lip. Both Doris and Ralph had mentioned a strange man with whom she had been smooching. Ralph had described him vaguely. Mediocre… nondescript. That description might easily fit the dead man! And Ralph had given the man a name. What was it? An unusual sort of name. Thorn? No…

Torn! Vincent Torn! That was it!

Aline put out her cigarette and went for a third cup of coffee. Her heart pounded painfully as she considered a possibility. A distinct possibility, one she could check without too much trouble. She could telephone him, and if he answered, he al least wouldn’t be the dead man. That would eliminate one possibility.

And if he didn’t answer? Well, that wouldn’t mean much either way. He would likely be at his office, if he had an office.

She was returning with the coffee when she abruptly realized that she could check her hunch by looking up Torn’s name in the telephone book. If he was listed… if his number was the one Ralph had brought back from the bar… then she would know it was he whom she had called. If not, she would at least know she was on the wrong track.

Her trembling hand slopped coffee into the saucer as she put it down and hurried to the directory. She turned the pages feverishly, and found his name.

Vincent Torn’s telephone number tallied with the one she now knew so well. The number Joe had written on the card.

Aline sank back on the day-bed and tried to piece together the few facts she had learned about her movements last night. She must have reached Torn by phone, and made an appointment, because she hadn’t asked Joe for another dime. She had gone directly outside to wait.

Since she had no money for a taxi, she must have met Torn outside the bar and gone to the hotel room with him. She shuddered violently, but braced herself against self-loathing. She had to face facts. It was exactly the sort of thing her body was likely to do once the conscious mind ceased directing its movements.

What now? By lifting the phone and dialing she might settle one more thing… whether Vincent Torn was alive or lying dead in the hotel room. In her own mind she now felt positive that he was the dead man. She reminded herself again that failure to get an answer would prove nothing. And what if someone else answered? Mrs. Vincent Torn… or a daughter… or a maid? She could hang up, of course, or pretend some other reason and ask for Mr. Torn.

She had to try. Not knowing was agonizing beyond endurance. If she could establish the fact that Torn had not returned home last night, she would know. And that would be the real beginning of her search for the hidden truth. Her search for the real killer in order to clear herself.

Also, there was the matter of time before the police came to question her. Once the body was found and identified it would be a routine matter for them to learn that he had been at Bart’s party and that a girl named Aline Ferris had made a big play for him. A girl who would answer the description of the one who had checked into the hotel with him after midnight.

If the man was Torn! That was the crux of it now.

Aline steeled herself for the attempt, lifted the receiver and swiftly dialed the number.

A man’s voice answered immediately, and Aline’s heart leaped into her throat.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Torn?”

“He isn’t in.” The voice sounded disappointed, brusque. “Can I take a message?”

“No. That is, do you expect him soon?”

“God knows.” There was a note of dry amusement now. “He hasn’t been in all night, and I haven’t the faintest idea when he’ll show up.”

“I… see.”

“Any message?” the voice persisted.

“No, thank you. I’ll try later.”

She was about to hang up when the voice said with interest and sudden urgency, “See here, isn’t this Aline Ferris?”

She gasped, “No,” and hung up. She stood by the telephone, trembling and white, trying to collect her thoughts.

The dead man was Vincent Torn! She was sure of that now. But who was the man who had answered Torn’s telephone? What did he know about her… about Aline Ferris… that had caused him to ask that last question?