Deadline at Dawn

She was on East Seventieth Street already — bravura East Seventieth Street of the two revolver-shots in one night, one harmless, one murderous — so all she had to do to return to the Graves house was start walking slowly west along it. That was where she’d have to go now. She’d have to start out all over again, she had to start out from some place, and that was the logical jumping-off place for any new expedition.

She had the second key on her, the one they’d removed from Graves’ person, so she knew she wouldn’t have any difficulty in getting in again. She wasn’t sure just what she could hope to gain by going in again; she was sure it would be taking a darned big chance. But there wasn’t anything else she could do, now that her last lead had evaporated the way it had. Over and above all this, she was being drawn implacably nearer by the sort of irresistible fascination the scene of his crime is said to hold for the criminal. It was as though she were the murderer herself, the way she was being pulled back there.

She knew what it was; she wanted to see, she had to see, whether it had been discovered yet, whether there were any signs of police activity, any lights, anything to show that the secret reposing in it was no longer exclusively their own.

So she came back slowly, cautiously, not like anyone working against a time-limit, across Lexington, across Park. Nearer, ever nearer. From the middle of the Park-Madison block she could already see into the block ahead; see into it well enough to discern that it was still empty, still quiet, that outwardly at least everything was still under control. No cars drawn up anywhere around or near that doorway, no motionless figure of a cop posted outside it, no one coming in or going out. Above all, no light showing from any of the front windows. And window-lights can be seen far at night, particularly along such a lightless stretch as this was.

Or was this just bait? Was there some sort of trap down there waiting to be sprung? Oh, not a police-trap, not a trap set by men. They couldn’t know she was coming back like this at just such and such a moment, or coming back at all. The other kind of trap, set by the real enemy. The city.

She’d reached Madison now. She looked over at the diagonally opposite corner from which she’d started. She’d made a complete circle, and here she was back again — empty-handed. The cab was gone, the one that had led her to Helen Kirsch and on a fool’s errand.

A compact little aluminum-bodied milk-truck went skimming by, one of the new kind they were beginning to use within the last year or so. As noiseless and as agile as one of those early electric cabriolets. The milk already. Daybreak was nearly here.

She crossed Madison and went on.

It came nearer.

She’d never forget it, the face of that house. It was beginning to haunt her. She’d see it a long time from now, a long way from here. Even if they tore it down, and the site was vacant and it was gone, she’d still go on seeing it. She’d still be outside it like this, some night in a dream. It would leap upright in her mind, and be intact again, be whole again, just the way it was tonight. And — if she was lucky — she’d wake up just as she was about to go in.

It already seemed like long ago that she had paced slowly back and forth, on the other side, in front of it, and he had been inside, putting back the money. It couldn’t be this one same night, no night could last that long. But gee, how she wished she could go back to then, instead of it being now. For, as painful as it had been while that was going on, as frightened as she’d been then, as scared that he’d be caught, at least they hadn’t known about it yet, they hadn’t known what was waiting there inside for them.

She sighed. Her favorite dance-hall aphorism came back to her: what was the good of wishing?

She wondered where he was, how he was making out. I hope he’s having better luck than I just had, she thought. She hoped he was all right, wasn’t in any jam. Jam was good; what jam could be any worse than the one he was in, they were both in, already?

She was disgusted with herself. Aw, you with your hoping and your wishing. Why don’t you get a turkey wishbone and go up to the first cop you see and offer to pull it against him, and be done with it?

She came to a halt. It was directly opposite now. Funny, she thought, how a house with violent death in it doesn’t look any different from any other sort of a house, when you’re standing outside. It’s only what you know that makes the difference.

She was going in. She felt it coming on before the first move had even been made. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know what good it would do; but then what good would it do to stand here at a loss on the street outside, staring over at it?