Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

“I’m all right,” she said.

She had the meaningless eyes of a sleepwalker. It was as though she still were walking through darkness, feeling her way with her hand against the wall; as though she could not see Campbell’s face, for instance. She had on a very thin blue dress that hung about her like a translucent cloud.

Campbell could not think of anything except that the dress was like a cloud and that the beauty of the girl was like a sun trying to shine through. Back in his mind he had another picture. That was of the inspector saying: “Campbell, I hear you’ve been shooting up the girls, eh?”

You didn’t shoot women. Not on the New York police force. Sometimes you ought to shoot them like dogs, but you didn’t. Take O’Rourke. Not even in the dark, not even waking out of sleep — he wouldn’t have shot a woman. An instinct would have told him.

There were footfalls coming with a rush. People were going to pour in and see what he had done.

He put the gun away.

The girl had a damned sort of childish, stunned look about her that wrung the heart. He had a crazy idea of getting her out of sight, even if he had to throw her out the window.

Hands beat on the door. He shouted something. They were pooling up, outside there in the hall. He realized that he was shouting to them to keep out.

Kearton, off there in the corner, had begun to yell out something about a gun and a crazy man.

Then the door opened.

It was O’Rourke, swollen with haste, red-faced. The others came packing in behind him. Half of them were police. One of them was the policeman who had been guarding Clifford. He had come, bringing the butler with him.

The room was full of people. Campbell could smell the stale sweat of the policemen, condensed in their uniform coats. Lionel Reid screamed out something and came leaping, dodging to get at Campbell. A big form stepped into the path. That was Chatham. All Campbell could see was the jerk of Chatham’s shoulder. What he heard was the smack of Chatham’s fist against flesh and then the slump of Reid’s body against the tiles.

The air was full of hands, asking questions, trying to do something.

Chatham was the one who picked up the girl and carried her over to the bed. Her clothes pulled up above the knee. She had sort of spindle shanks, but pretty and rounded. Campbell caught the edge of the dress and pulled it down a little.

Chatham was laying the girl on the bed.

There was Vivian Tydings’ pale, intense face, cutting into the attention of Campbell with a knife.

Campbell was saying: “Where’s there a doctor? Somebody go get a doctor.”

A hand caught him by the shoulder.

The round, swollen face of O’Rourke loomed close to him.

“Don’t be a fool,” said O’Rourke whispering. “Pull yourself together. There ain’t any doctor here. She’s all right. Even if you shot some veal, what of it?”

Campbell looked at him and took his first breath. In some ways, O’Rourke knew a lot. You take a crooked grafter like O’Rourke, he’s sure to know a lot.

Chatham dragged up the skirts of the girl on the bed. The blue cloud held tight at a point. Chatham gave it a flick and ripped it away.

You could see where the underclothes were sleeked and plastered to her thigh with red blood. The outside hole was just a dark spot. The exit hole of the bullet had torn through the thick soft of the flesh in a bigger way and that was where the blood was oozing out. Campbell looked at the way the stocking gave to the pull of the garters. She had those funny double garters that women wear. You wouldn’t think a woman could walk very easy the way she’s harnessed up underneath.

Chatham’s hands were red to the wrists. He turned his head. There was a smear of blood above one eye and down the cheek. It looked like a thin, watery, red paint.

He said: “Clear out the room, will you?”

Campbell stood up on his toes.

“Get the hell out of here, all of you!” he yelled.

They didn’t move. They stood like oxen, staring. The police began to turn their backs on the wounded girl. They started pushing the people out.

Chatham was asking for things. O’Rourke was getting them. Chatham had ripped a sheet out of the bed the way you would pull a page out of a book. He stood up and ripped the sheet into strips. He had jerked off his coat. One of his sleeves was unbuttoned at the wrist. The cloth furled up. You could see the twist and bulge of the long forearm muscles. He kept ripping the cloth as though it were paper.

The girl on the bed moaned.

Chatham cried out: “Charlotte! Charlotte!... Do you hear me? Charlotte!”

He grabbed her up. Campbell wanted to do something, but he couldn’t tell what to do. His hands were no good. He kept half moving from side to side and he watched Chatham catch up the girl. One of his big arms was under her neck. Her eyes were closed. Her face looked loose.

Campbell said: “I’ve killed her... That’s all I’ve done...”

It would go into the report: “In line of duty.”