Brazil went around behind Robson, struck his chin up with a fist so he could slide his forearm under it across the taller man’s throat. When he had tightened the forearm there and had his other hand wrapped around Robson’s wrist, he said: “All right. I’ve got him.”
Luise Fischer released the man’s arm and fell back on her haunches. Except for the triumph in it, her face was as businesslike as Brazil’s.
Brazil pulled Robson’s arm up sharply behind his back. The pistol came up with it, and when the pistol was horizontal Robson pulled the trigger. The bullet went between his back and Brazil’s chest, to splinter the corner of a bookcase in the far end of the room.
Brazil said: “Try that again, baby, and I’ll break your arms. Drop it!”
Robson hesitated, let the pistol clatter down on the floor. Luise Fischer scrambled forward on hands and knees to pick it up. She sat on a corner of the table, holding the pistol in her hand.
Brazil pushed Robson away from him and crossed the room to kneel beside the man on the floor, feeling his pulse, running hands over his body, and rising with Conroy’s pistol, which he thrust into a hip pocket.
Conroy moved one leg, his eyelids fluttered sleepily, and he groaned.
Brazil jerked a thumb at him and addressed Robson curtly: “Take him and get out.”
Robson went over to Conroy, stooped to lift his head and shoulders a little, shook him, and said irritably: “Come on, Dick, wake up. We’re going.”
Conroy mumbled, “I’m a’ ri’,” and tried to lie down again.
“Get up, get up,” Robson snarled, and slapped his cheeks.
Conroy shook his head and mumbled: “Do’ wan’a.”
Robson slapped the blond face again. “Come on, get up, you louse.”
Conroy groaned and mumbled something unintelligible.
Brazil said impatiently: “Get him out anyway. The rain’ll bring him around.”
Robson started to speak, changed his mind, picked up his hat from the floor, put it on, and bent over the blond man again. He pulled him up into something approaching a sitting position, drew one limp arm over his shoulder, got a hand around Conroy’s back and under his armpit, and rose, slowly lifting the other on unsteady legs beside him.
Brazil held the front door open. Half dragging, half carrying Conroy, Robson went out.
Brazil shut the door, leaned his back against it, and shook his head in mock resignation.
Luise Fischer put Robson’s pistol down on the table and stood up. “I am sorry,” she said gravely. “I did not mean to bring to you all this—”
He interrupted her carelessly: “That’s all right.” There was some bitterness in his grin, though his tone remained careless. “I go on like this all the time. God! I need a drink.”
She turned swiftly to the table and began to fill glasses.
He looked her up and down reflectively, sipped, and asked: “You walked out just like that?”
She looked down at her clothes and nodded yes.
He seemed amused. “What are you going to do?”
“When I go to the city? I shall sell these things”—she moved her hands to indicate her rings—“and then—I do not know.”
“You mean you haven’t any money at all?” he demanded.
“That is it,” she replied coolly.
“Not even enough for your ticket?”
She shook her head no, raised her eyebrows a little, and her calmness was almost insolence. “Surely that is a small amount you can afford to lend me.”
“Sure,” he said, and laughed. “But you’re a pip.”
She did not seem to understand him.
He drank again, then leaned forward. “Listen, you’re going to look funny riding the train like that.” He flicked two fingers at her gown. “Suppose I drive you in and I’ve got some friends that’ll put you up till you get hold of some clothes you can go out in?”
She studied his face carefully before replying: “If it is not too much trouble for you.”
“That’s settled, then,” he said. “Want to catch a nap first?”
He emptied his glass and went to the front door, where he made a pretense of looking out at the night.
As he turned from the door he caught her expression, though she hastily put the frown off her face. His smile, voice were mockingly apologetic: “I can’t help it. They had me away for a while—in prison, I mean—and it did that to me. I’ve got to keep making sure I’m not locked in.” His smile became more twisted. “There’s a name for it— claustrophobia—and that doesn’t make it any better.”
“I am sorry,” she said. “Was it—very long ago?”
“Plenty long ago when I went in,” he said dryly, “but only a few weeks ago that I got out. That’s what I came up here for—to try to get myself straightened out, see how I stood, what I wanted to do.”
“And?” she said softly.
“And what? Have I found out where I stand, what I want to do? I don’t know.” He was standing in front of her, hands in pockets, glowering down at her. “I suppose I’ve just been waiting for something to turn up, something I could take as a sign which way I was to go. Well, what turned up was you. That’s good enough. I’ll go along with you.”
He took his hands from his pockets, leaned down, lifted her to her feet, and kissed her savagely.
For a moment she was motionless. Then she squirmed out of his arms and struck at his face with curved fingers. She was white with anger.
He caught her hand, pushed it down carelessly, and growled: “Stop it. If you don’t want to play you don’t want to play, that’s all.”
“That is exactly all,” she said furiously.
“Fair enough.” There was no change in his face, none in his voice.
Presently she said: “That man—your little friend’s father—called me a strumpet. Do people here talk very much about me?”
He made a deprecatory mouth. “You know how it is. The Robsons have been the big landowners, the local gentry, for generations, and anything they do is big news. Everybody knows everything they do, and so—”
“And what do they say about me?”
He grinned. “The worst, of course. What do you expect? They know him.”
“And what do you think?”
“About you?”
She nodded. Her eyes were intent on his.
“I can’t very well go around panning people,” he said, “only I wonder why you ever took up with him. You must’ve seen him for the rat he is.”
“I did not altogether,” she said simply. “And I was stranded in a little Swiss village.”
“Actress?”
She nodded. “Singer.”
The telephone bell rang.
He went unhurriedly into the bedroom. His unemotional voice came out: “Hello?…Yes, Evelyn…Yes.” There was a long pause. “Yes; all right, and thanks.”
He returned to the other room as unhurriedly as he had left, but at the sight of him Luise Fischer half rose from the table. His face was pasty, yellow, glistening with sweat on forehead and temples, and the cigarette between the fingers of his right hand was mashed and broken.
“That was Evelyn. Her father’s justice of the peace. Conroy’s got a fractured skull—dying. Robson just phoned he’s going down to swear out a warrant. That damned fireplace. I can’t live in a cell again!”
Two—The Police Close In
Luise came to him with her hands out. “But you are not to blame. They can’t—”
“You don’t get it,” his monotonous voice went on. He turned away from her toward the front door, walked mechanically. “This is what they sent me up for the other time. It was a drunken free-for-all in a roadhouse, with
