Deadline at Dawn

There it was. A gorgeous blob of clue. Right there in front of his eyes. Four big dark glistening polka-dots on the floor, close together, making almost a four-leaf clover pattern the way they had dropped. And there, in the corner, was what he’d been using to staunch it. A wad of ordinary paper facial tissue, two or three ply thick in this case, crumpled tight and thrown away. It was clotted, mired with blood. Only one edge of it still showed white.

He’d probably replaced it with a fresh one while he was in here, and it was during the process that those four drops had escaped.

So that was why he’d hugged his coat tight over his chest. And that was why the tell-tale glass stood atop the hospital-page of the classified directory. That was the type of post-murder call he’d made. He’d killed Graves, but not before Graves had—

It couldn’t have been a very large wound, for him to remain on his feet like that. But the one on the side of Graves’ head hadn’t been either, and it was probably the same gun. Maybe just a flesh-wound or a nick.

He straightened, went back to it again. This time he lifted the glass, set it aside. It had served its purpose well, it had betrayed him. He was at some hospital in the city at this very moment, getting treatment. They had to report gunshot wounds. Would he be willing to run that risk? He must be, or he wouldn’t have telephoned in ahead of going there. No doubt he had some trumped-up story he’d give them, to account for it. It mightn’t be a gunshot wound at that, there was no absolute certainty that it was; Graves might have inflicted some gash on him, struck at him with something, even though there had been no evidences of a struggle visible up there. In which case he’d be that much safer in presenting himself for emergency-treatment.

The thing was, which? Which one had he called? Which one had he gone to? There were so many, from A to Y. The position of the glass meant nothing; he must have set that down at random, to rid his hand of it, after having already ascertained the number of his choice.

But then, why phone ahead? Why not just go there? That part he couldn’t understand. But again — there was no actual proof that he had phoned. True, the bloodied waste was in one of the phone-booths, but he might simply have gone in there to change improvised dressings and not touched the instrument itself. Simply looked up the address that he wanted in the book, opened his coat a minute to apply fresh staunching-tissue, and then gone on outside again.

The glass? Should he make use of that, concentrate on the ones that had appeared through its bottom? But that was childish, that was sheer mumbo-jumbo. Why not go by accessibility, then, nearness to this immediate neighborhood? There was no time to go through the entire list, he had to have some short-cut.

He chose that one. He ripped the entire page bodily out of the directory, folded it and stuffed it into his pocket, for quick reference. Then he strode on out.

The prescriptionist looked up, from a small supply-room at the back of the counter to which he had retired, as he heard him pass. “Steadier now?” he called after him.

Quinn couldn’t integrate the remark for a minute; he’d forgotten his own invention on entering a few moments before.

“A lot steadier,” he replied across his shoulder.

He went up the entrance-steps with the leg-spread of a runner taking a hurdle-jump. The ground-floor corridor was coolly dim and the flooring shiny. He went over to the receptionist seated within a lighted alcove at one side, only her head and shoulders visible.

“Did a man come in here for treatment, within the past couple of hours?”

“An ambulance case?”

“No, walking in by himself.”

“No, there hasn’t been anyone like that all night.”

“Wearing a brown suit. Holding himself like this.” He gripped his coat together to show her.

“No—” she started to say.

He turned away, reached for the torn page from the directory within his pocket.

“Oh, wait a minute—” she called after him abruptly.

He turned and went back again, so swiftly he nearly skidded on the floor.

“I think I know who you mean.” She gave him a weazened smile. “You’ll find him on the fourth floor. He’s waiting up there to get in—” Then she called after him: “To your right as you get off the elevator. Turn this way.”

He went over to the car and got in.

He got out at the fourth and turned this way, the way she’d said. Another of those long coolly dim corridors stretched before him. No one in sight along it. He passed doors, but kept going. He followed it to the end, and then made still another turn, that she hadn’t told him about. It broadened into a sort of waiting-room, or at least a place with a couple of benches, and he didn’t have to go any further. There he was.

He saw him from the distance, and he knew him right away, before he’d even come up to him. He hadn’t been admitted yet. He must have just gotten here after all, to be still outside like that.