Hit and Run

Across the room was another door. I opened it and glanced into a kitchen-bathroom. The window, high up, was too small for anything larger than a cat to pass through.

The persistent ringing of the telephone was now more than I could stand, and I went back into the sitting-room and removed the receiver laying it gently on the desk.

As I turned back to the kitchen, I heard a man's voice come faintly out of the receiver.

'Dolly! Is that you, Dolly? This is Ed. The goddamn train is leaving in five minutes ...'

I ran back into the kitchen and opened a cupboard, hunting for a tool strong enough to break open the door, but I couldn't find one.

I went back to the locked door. Bending, I peered into the keyhole. The key was still in the lock. I could still hear the faint voice, like a ghost voice, coming from the receiver.

I looked around the room. There was a newspaper on one of the chairs, and I tore off a sheet and slid the sheet under the door. There was a fair-sized gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

I ran back into the kitchen, my heart thumping with panic and started a frantic search through the drawers in a cabinet. In the fourth drawer I was lucky enough to find a pair of thin pliers. I snatched them up and returned to the living-room. With a little manipulation I managed to force the key out of the lock and I heard it drop on to the sheet of newspaper.

Very gently I began to pull the sheet back under the door and with it the key.

I snatched it up.

As I did so, I heard the telephone click and then the dialling tone start up. I went over to the desk and replaced the receiver, then returned to the door, thrust the key into the lock with a shaking hand and opened the door.

I stepped out into the dimly lit passage.

Dolores was lying face down by the elevator, her grey travelling coat rucked up: her long slim legs sprawled grotesquely in death.

No one could lie like that unless they were dead, and I turned cold at the sight of her.

For a full half-minute I stood in the doorway, looking at her, j then I reached into the sitting-room, turned off the light and closed the door.

Moving slowly, hearing my breath rasping in my throat, I went down the passage to where she lay.

I reached her and bent over her. Her face was turned away from me, but I could see now there was blood in her hair.

Although I knew she must be dead, I had to make sure.

I took hold of her shoulder and pulled her over on to her back.

Someone had hit her a crushing blow on her right temple, smashing her skull. It had been a terrible blow and must have killed her instantly. I shut my eyes while I struggled with my nausea. It took me several seconds to fight off the cold, horrible feeling of sickness and before I could nerve myself to look at her again.

I reached in her coat pocket, but of course the five hundred dollars had gone: gone too was her suitcase.

I straightened. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped my face and wrists, then I moved away from her, thinking, in a grip of panic, that if anyone found me here, they would jump to the conclusion that I had killed her.

With one thought to get out of the building, and get as far away as I could before she was found, I started down the stairs.

I was half-way down the second flight of stairs when I suddenly saw a girl turn the bend in the stairs and come up towards me.

For a split second I stopped, my mind screaming to me to turn around and bolt up the stairs, but somehow I managed to keep control of myself and I went on down.

The stairs were badly lit, but I could see enough of the girl to know her again, and I guess that would go for her too if she ever saw me again.

She was young and blonde with a tired, pale, uninteresting face and heavy smudges under her eyes. Under the black coat that hung open she wore a flowery evening dress you can see in any cheap dress shop on Arcade Street, and there was a limp, red carnation in her hair.

She looked at me as she passed, her eyes indifferent, and she went on up the stairs.

I kept on down.

If she went up to the third floor she would walk right on to Dolores's body, I thought, and her screams would bring the police before I could get out of the district.

When I reached the turn in the stairs, I started down the rest of the flight at a run.

I reached the hall and crossed to the front door, then I paused to listen.

I heard a door slam somewhere upstairs, but there were no screams. Her apartment must have been on the second floor, I told myself, and I cautiously opened the front door and looked up and down the long, deserted street.

Then, shutting the front door behind me, I walked quickly down the steps and to where I had left the Buick some fifty yards farther down the street.

I got in and fumbled for the ignition key. I felt pretty bad. The shock of finding Dolores now hit me, and for several seconds I had to sit still, my eyes closed, while I fought against the sickness that nearly swamped me.