Francis Nevins - Night and Fear

Some stupid desk-sergeant got on.

“Get Terry for me, hurry! I haven’t very much time. Please!”

He seemed to take forever. Finally he spoke up again. “He’s not here right now. Off duty tonight. If this is police business, you better tell me what it is and I can get you someone else.”

It was Terry she wanted to have the promotion. She had to get him. The Greek’s! Of course — she should have remembered that sooner. It was Tuesday and he would be there, waiting for her. Her finger started toward the dial once more.

He’d got up and was coming over. No, he was going toward the door. He was walking out on her.

She came out fast and caught up with him just as he reached the entrance.

“Do you always go into a telephone booth when you want to powder your nose?”

She thought he hadn’t been watching! His back had been toward her the whole time. Maybe he’d used a cigarette case as a mirror.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you now. I have an appointment,” he said.

Something had made him uneasy. She’d overplayed her hand in some way. Maybe by asking him one question too many. Or maybe that acoustic test out on the sidewalk before.

She had to string along with him at any cost, until she had a chance to put in another call to “Terry at the Greek’s.” No matter how she worked it, she mustn’t lose sight of him until then.

“Well, wait, let me come along with you just as far as—”

He felt her sudden start as they came out onto the sidewalk. “What’s the matter?” he asked, turning to look at her.

It was the car. She would have known it anywhere. It had just driven up. Complete to the monogram on the door. For a minute she had a vision of her mother and the other members of the family stepping out and confronting her in all their majesty. But there was only Edwards in it.

“Hurry up, let’s get away from here fast!” She began to tug at her suspect’s sleeve. “There’s someone who knows me in that car.”

They took a few quick steps together away from the entrance, trying to escape into the darkness. The hunter and hunted were both in the same boat now. Edwards had already seen her. His hail came after her. “Miss Trowbridge!”

The car-door slapped open, there was a throb of overtaking footsteps behind them, and she found herself separated from her companion and at bay against the wall.

“I’m sorry, miss, but I must speak to you a minute.” Edwards touched his cap to her respectfully, but he was still blocking her way.

She tried to thrust him aside. “That man! Where’d that man I was just with go?”

He’d vanished as completely as if he’d been whisked out of sight on a wire. Gone again, just when she thought she had him. Well, now she knew what he looked like, but all that painstaking work had been a waste.

She whirled on Edwards in a fury. “What do you want? What do you mean by doing such a thing?”

“You’d better come with me at once, miss. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Your mother’s been taken seriously ill.”

“Where is she, here in town?”

“No, miss, she’s out at the country place. I drove her out myself shortly before dinner. She wanted to pay you a surprise visit. I imagine the shock of not finding you there had a great deal to do with it.”

“Is she quite bad?”

“She had the doctor with her when I left. I imagine it will help some as soon as she sees you.”

She didn’t wait to hear any more; she stepped into the car in a hurry. “You’d better drive fast, Edwards.”

“I’ll do my best, miss.”

There were only two or three dim lights to be seen behind the windows when they finally turned in the driveway. One of them was in the room habitually occupied by her mother whenever she stayed at the country place.

She jumped out of the car, ran up the steps, and used her own key on the door without waiting to be admitted. “Thank you, Edwards. I’ll leave the door open for you while you’re putting the car away. I’ll go right up and see how she is!”

She ran up the inside staircase, stopping before her mother’s door. She knocked firmly. “Mother. Mother, are you all right? Is the doctor in there with you?”

There was no answer.

She grasped the knob and opened the door.

The room was empty. The bed was undisturbed. It was just as it had been left on her mother’s last visit. She stood there stunned.

Then the implication slowly percolated through her. She knew what it was. She turned — terrified — to look toward the stairs. The front door. She could still keep him out, if she got down to it before he....

She ran back to the head of the stairs, then stopped with a sickening jolt. He was standing inside the door and it was already closed. He’d just finished locking it and drawing the bolt.

He reached into his pocket and she saw him take out a knife. He opened the blade with quick thumb-pressure. She didn’t understand in time, thinking it was meant to be a weapon of attack. He squatted down on his heels, close up against the wall, and sawed away at something just over the baseboard. Two ends of wire sprang out. The telephone. He’d cut it. Then he calmly put the knife away again.

He looked up and saw her standing there, frozen. He was very natural about everything. His whole attitude was calm and rational. No frenzied mania, no popping eyes, no foaming mouth. You wouldn’t have known what was on his mind.

“So you’ve been trying to get the Rose Killer,” he said. “I could have told you that you’d never get him. Because I’m the Rose Killer myself. Driving you and your whole family around day after day. Sitting there right in front of you the whole time.”

She saw him unfastening a cuff link, to give his arm a better swing. In that cold, trivial action there was more undiluted horror than in ten berserk rages.

The real thing at last, but what good did it do her to know that now? Right under the same roof with her the whole time, while she went out night after night hunting for him all over town! But, as Terry had said, you could be around him for weeks at a time and never guess.

“But he said you were mad — that you didn’t know any better! You know I’m not that girl in England. Look at me. You know I’m Ginny Trowbridge.”

“I’m not mad. Not this time.” He started coming up the stairs.

She fled back along the upper hall. “Mrs. Crosby!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs.

“I don’t think she’ll hear you” she heard him say. The way he said it sounded twice as quiet after the shattering way she’d just screamed. She got to the caretaker’s room, Hung the door wide, jabbed at the light switch. “Mrs. Crosby, help me!”

Mrs. Crosby didn’t move. She’d gone to bed, and the bed wasn’t disturbed much. You could hardly tell. Only, the pillow was over her face instead of under it. There was a hollow in it, punched by someone’s knee that had pressed down hard.

She didn’t scream this time. She smothered it in her hands.

He was coming up slowly. He was so sure of her that he was taking his time.

She fled from room to room, looking for something, anything, with which to defend herself. There wasn’t even a gun in the place. The one she owned had been left behind her in the city. She found a hammer in a linen closet at the back of the hall. It wasn’t a large one, but it was the only thing there was. She might be able to stun him long enough to get the door-key out of his pocket or to break one of the lower-floor windows and get out that way.

She went back into her own room and got into position behind the door, leaving it half ajar. She knew she was only going to have a chance for one blow. It had to count. She gripped the hammer with both hands and held it poised.