Into the Night

Madeline went up to her room and began at last the final preparations for the meeting. The death meeting. She put on the new black dress, and wondered as she did so if she would ever again be able to bring herself to wear it after tonight. Probably not. She decided she would give it to the nice maid, when she came in in the morning. She pulled her valise out of the closet, unlocked it, and got out the revolver that Charlotte Bartlett had given her so long ago. Almost in another lifetime, it seemed. She checked it, not that she was an expert on firearms, in fact hardly knew the first thing about them, but simply to make sure that it was fully loaded. It couldn’t fail to be, of course; it had been fully loaded when she first put it into the valise, and who had gone near it since? It was. It was a cylinder-type weapon, and as she “broke” it at the heft she could see that all six of the little bores were solidly plugged by the little brass bases of the bullets.

As for the ability to sight and hit with it — in which, again, she was completely amateur — how could she fail, at almost point-blank range? Two people together in a room, one of them motionless. Only the width of a dinner table or the length of a settee between them.

She closed it up and put it lengthwise, upside down, into the bottom of her handbag. That way her hand could reach down and bring it out in a single unbroken movement, without reversing. Also it balanced better, resting on its back with its handle up.

As she completed fastening the handbag — it was an underarm, envelope type, without a strap — a sudden surge of chilling fear coursed through her, tingling as ice water. The telephone was going. Not that she had anything to fear from it in itself; it was simply the sequence in which it had occurred, following immediately upon what she had just been doing with the gun. It felt as though the tripper were hitting her on the heart each time, instead of striking the bell.

It must be he. She didn’t know anyone else. And if it were he, then he was calling to postpone or cancel the date. That would be the only possible reason. She stood there like a statue, refused to move. If she didn’t answer, then he couldn’t reach her to tell her not to come. She would go, anyway, just as she had intended to all along.

She gave it a minute even after it stopped, to make sure the line had been vacated. Then she went over to it and asked the operator, “That call you had for me just now, was that a man’s voice? I was prevented from answering.”

“That call wasn’t for you,” the operator said. “I’m sorry, I plugged in the wrong room number.”

Madeline let out a long, deep breath as she hung up.

She still had a little loose time on her hands. She drew a glass of water in the serving-pantry, brought it out, and sat down with it in a chair, slowly sipping at it.

Finally she got up, went back into the other room, and got her handbag with the gun in it. As she surveyed herself in the mirror, ready to leave, a sudden sense of unreality came over her. This isn’t so. This isn’t true. Am I going out of here within the next couple of minutes on my way to kill a man?

She bent forward more closely, only inches away from the glass. Are those the eyes of a killer? Those soft, almost childlike things, pale blue disks swimming in crystalline moisture, pale brown lashes all around them like a feathery fringe. Those, the eyes of death?

She turned and ran out like someone possessed, as though the sight of her own face had frightened her. She didn’t even turn to close the door after her, but gave it a backhand sweep as she went by it that closed it of its own momentum a few seconds after.

Even riding down in the elevator, the operator turned and darted her a quick little glance, as if he sensed some sort of stress emanating from her.

She got into a taxi and gave the address of Herrick’s apartment.

In less than fifteen minutes they were at a halt in front of the place.

The driver waited a moment entering the pick-up point and destination in his logbook. Then he turned around and said to her, “Isn’t this where you wanted to go?”

She nodded affirmatively, without answering. What she wanted to say to him was, “Please turn around and take me back where we started from,” but she forced herself not to.

He waited another minute, his elbow slung on top of the front seat. Then he asked, still patient, still tractable, “Didn’t you bring any money with you? That what it is?”

Still without speaking, she opened her handbag, gave him some money, and opened the door. She shuddered as she got out.

But, upstairs before his door, she put her finger firmly enough on the button. She was now past the point of no return. There would be no more hesitancies, no more backing away.

He came to the door and they greeted one another with casual congeniality, even down to shaking hands.

“Hello, Madeline.”

“Hello, Vick.”