The Best American Noir of the Century

Number 205 was well down the corridor. No light showed under the edge of the door. I pushed a thumb against a small pearl button set flush in the jamb and heard a single flatted bell note.

Nothing happened. No answering steps, no questioning voice. A telephone rang twice in one of the other apartments and a car horn sounded from the street below.

I tried the bell again, with the same result. Now what? Force the door? No sense to that, and besides, illegal entry was against the law. I wouldn’t know how to go about it anyway.

She would have to come home eventually. Thing to do was stake out somewhere and wait for her to show up. If she didn’t arrive within the next half hour, say, then I would hunt up a phone and call Martell.

I went back to the stairs and was on the point of descending to the first floor when I heard the street door close and light steps against the tile flooring down there. It could be Nora Kemper. Moving silently, I took the steps to the third floor and stood close to the wall where the light failed to reach.

A woman came quickly up the steps to the second floor. From where I stood I couldn’t see her face clearly, but her build and the color of her hair were right. She was wearing a light coat and carrying a white drawstring bag, and she was in a hurry. She turned in the right direction, and the moment she was out of sight I raced back to the second floor.

It was Nora Kemper, all right. She was standing in front of the door to 205 and digging into her bag for the key. I had a picture of her getting inside and closing the door and refusing to let me in.

I said, “Hold it a minute, Miss Kemper.”

She jerked her head up and around, startled. I moved toward her slowly. When the light reached my face, she gasped and made a frantic jab into the bag, yanked out her keys, and tried hurriedly to get one of them into the lock.

I couldn’t afford to have that door between us. I brought the gun out and said sharply, “Stay right there. I want to talk to you.”

The hand holding the keys dropped limply to her side. She began to hack away, retreating toward the dead end of the corridor. Her face gleamed whitely, set in a frozen mask of fear.

She stopped only when she could go no farther. Her back pressed hard against the wall next to the window, her eyes rolled, showing the whites.

Her voice came out in a ragged whisper. “Wha-what do you want?”

I said, “You know me, Miss Kemper. You know who I am. What are you afraid of?”

Her eyes wavered, dropped to the .38 in my hand. “The gun. I —”

“Hunh-uh,” I said. “You were scared stiff before I brought it out. Recognizing me is what scared you. Why?”

Her lips shook. Against the pallor of her skin they looked almost black. “I don’t know what…Don’t stand …Please. Let me go.”

She tried to squeeze past me. I reached out and grabbed her by one arm. She gasped and jerked away—and her open handbag fell to the floor, spilling the contents.

She started after them, but I was there ahead of her. I had seen something— something that shook me like a solid right to the jaw.

Three of them, close together on the carpet. I scooped them up and straightened and jerked Nora Kemper around to face me. I shoved my open hand in front of her eyes, letting her see what was in it.

“Keys!” I said hoarsely. “Take a good look, lady! They came out of your purse. The keys to my apartment, my mailbox. My wife’s keys!”

A small breeze would have knocked her down. I took a long look at her stricken expression, then I put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her ahead of me down the hall. I didn’t have to tell her what I wanted: she unlocked the door and we went in.

When the lights were on, she sank down on the couch. I stood over her, still holding the gun. My face must have told her what was going on behind it, for she began to shake uncontrollably.

I said, “I’m a man in the dark, Miss Kemper. I’m scared, and when I get scared I get mad. If you don’t want a mouth full of busted teeth, tell me one thing: where is my wife?”

She had sense enough to believe me. She gasped and drew back. “He didn’t tell me,” she wailed. “I only did what he told me to do, Mr. Kane.”

“What who told you?”

“David. Mr. Wainhope.”

I breathed in and out. “You wrote that letter?”

“…Yes.”

“Did you see my wife sign it?”

She wet her lips. “She wasn’t there. David signed it. There are samples of her signature at the office. He copied from one of them.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “What’s behind all this?”

“I — I don’t know.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. “Really I don’t, Mr. Kane.”

“You know a hell of a lot more than I do,” I growled. “Start at the beginning and give it to me. All of it.”

She pushed a wick of black hair off her forehead. Some of the color was beginning to seep back into her cheeks, but her eyes were still clouded with fear.