Дэшил Хэммет: Woman in the Dark

He went to the door and looked out, holding the door half a foot open against the wind.

The woman asked the girl bathing her ankle: “There is not a train before it is morning?” She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

“No.”

The man shut the door and said: “It’ll be raining in an hour.” He put more wood on the fire, then stood — legs apart, hands in pockets, cigarette dangling from one side of his mouth watching Evelyn attend to the woman’s leg. His face was placid.

The girl dried the ankle and began to wind a bandage around it, working with increasing speed, breathing more rapidly now. Once more the woman seemed about to smile at the girl, but instead she said, “You are very kind.”

The girl murmured: “It’s nothing.”

Three sharp knocks sounded on the door.

Luise Fischer started, dropped her cigarette, looked swiftly around the room with frightened eyes. The girl did not raise her head from her work. The man, with nothing in his face or manner to show he had noticed the woman’s fright, turned his face toward the door and called in his hoarse, matter-of-fact voice: “All right. Come in.”

The door opened and a spotted Great Dane came in, followed by two tall men in dinner clothes. The dog walked straight to Luise Fischer and nuzzled her hand. She was looking at the two men who had just entered. There was no timidity, no warmth in her gaze.

One of the men pulled off his cap — it was a gray tweed, matching his topcoat — and came to her, smiling. “So this is where you landed?” His smile vanished as he saw her leg and the bandages. “What happened?” He was perhaps forty years old, well groomed, graceful of carriage, with smooth dark hair, intelligent dark eyes — solicitous at the moment — and a close-clipped dark mustache. He pushed the dog aside and took the woman’s hand.

“It is not serious, I think.” She did not smile. Her voice was cool. “I stumbled in the road and twisted my ankle. These people have been very—”

He turned to the man in the gray sweater, holding out his hand, saying briskly: “Thanks ever so much for taking care of Fräulein Fischer. You’re Brazil, aren’t you?”

The man in the sweater nodded. “And you’d be Kane Robson.”

“Right.” Robson jerked his head at the man who still stood just inside the door. “Mr. Conroy.”

Brazil nodded. Conroy said, “How do you do,” and advanced toward Luise Fischer. He was an inch or two taller than Robson — who was nearly six feet himself — and some ten years younger, blond, broad-shouldered, and lean, with a beautifully shaped small head and remarkably symmetrical features. A dark overcoat hung over one of his arms and he carried a black hat in his hand. He smiled down at the woman and said: “Your idea of a lark’s immense.”

She addressed Robson: “Why have you come here?” He smiled amiably, raised his shoulders a little. “You said you weren’t feeling well and were going to lie down. When Helen went up to your room to see how you were, you weren’t there. We were afraid you had gone out and something had happened to you.” He looked at her leg, moved his shoulders again. “Well, we were right. “

Nothing in her face responded to his smile. “I am going to the city,” she told him. “Now you know.”

“All right, if you want to” — he was good-natured — “but you can’t go like that.” He nodded at her torn evening dress. “We’ll take you back home, where you can change your clothes and pack a bag and—” He turned to Brazil. “When’s the next train?”

Brazil said: “Six.” The dog was sniffing at his legs. “You see,” Robson said blandly, speaking to the woman again. “There’s plenty of time.”

She looked down at her clothes and seemed to find them satisfactory. “I go like this,” she replied.

“Now, look here, Luise,” Robson began again, quite reasonably. “You’ve got hours before train time — time enough to get some rest and a nap and to—”

She said simply: “I have gone.”

Robson grimaced impatiently, half humorously, and turned his palms out in a gesture of helplessness. “But what are you going to do?” he asked in a tone that matched the gesture. “You’re not going to expect Brazil to put you up till train time and then drive you to the station?”

She looked at Brazil with level eyes and asked calmly: “Is it too much?”

Brazil shook his head carelessly. “Uh-uh.”

Robson and Conroy turned together to look at Brazil. There was considerable interest in their eyes, but no visible hostility. He bore the inspection placidly.

Luise Fischer said coolly, with an air of finality: “So.”

Conroy looked questioningly at Robson, who sighed wearily and asked: “Your mind’s made up on this, Luise?”

“Yes.”

Robson shrugged again, said: “You always know what you want.” Face and voice were grave. He started to turn away toward the door, then stopped to ask: “Have you got enough money?” One of his hands went into the inner breast pocket of his dinner jacket.

“I want nothing,” she told him.

“Right. If you want anything later, let me know. Come on, Dick.”

He went to the door, opened it, twisted his head around to direct a brisk “Thanks, good night” at Brazil, and went out.

Conroy touched Luise Fischer’s forearm lightly with three fingers, said “Good luck” to her, bowed to Evelyn and Brazil, and followed Robson out.

The dog raised his head to watch the two men go out. The girl Evelyn stared at the door with despairing eyes and worked her hands together. Luise Fischer told Brazil: “You will be wise to lock your door.”

He stared at her for a long moment, brooding, and while no actual change seemed to take place in his expression, all his facial muscles stiffened. “No,” he said finally, “I won’t lock it.”

The woman’s eyebrows went up a little, but she said nothing. The girl spoke, addressing Brazil for the first time since Luise Fischer’s arrival. Her voice was peculiarly emphatic. “They were drunk.”

“They’ve been drinking,” he conceded. He looked thoughtfully at her, apparently only then noticing her perturbation. “You look like a drink would do you some good.”

She became confused. Her eyes evaded his. “Do... do you want one?”

“I think so.” He looked inquiringly at Luise Fischer, who nodded and said: “Thank you.”

The girl went out of the room. The woman leaned forward a little to look intently up at Brazil. Her voice was calm enough, but the deliberate slowness with which she spoke made her words impressive: “Do not make the mistake of thinking Mr. Robson is not dangerous.”

He seemed to weigh this speech almost sleepily; then, regarding her with a slight curiosity, he said: “I’ve made an enemy?”

Her nod was sure.

He accepted that with a faint grin, offering her his cigarettes again, asking: “Have you?”

She stared through him as if studying some distant thing and replied slowly: “Yes, but I have lost a worse friend.”

Evelyn came in, carrying a tray that held glasses, mineral water, and a bottle of whiskey. Her dark eyes, glancing from man to woman, were inquisitive, somewhat furtive. She went to the table and began to mix drinks.

Brazil finished lighting his cigarette and asked: “Leaving him for good?”

For the moment during which she stared haughtily at him it seemed that the woman did not intend to answer his question; but suddenly her face was distorted by an expression of utter hatred and she spit out a venomous “Ja!”

He set his glass on the mantelpiece and went to the door. He went through the motions of looking out into the night; yet he opened the door a bare couple of inches and shut it immediately, and his manner was so far from nervous that he seemed preoccupied with something else.