'Go ahead,' Dr Woodrin said.
Crane brought down the first bird. Immediately after his shot, as the spoonbill tumbled toward the water, he heard a pinging noise and a sound like somebody driving a small nail with a hammer. Dr Woodrin, taking his time, got another bird.
Crane felt, the hair rise on his neck. He felt alarmed about something, but he couldn t imagine what it was. He sat on his stool.
'Coming in fast,' Dr Woodrin observed.
A moment later a good flock of teal slanted down at them. The doctor got one and Crane caught another with his second shot. He thought teal would be easier to hit if they were bigger. He heard the pinging noise and saw water spurt up almost directly in front of him. He blinked his eyes at the bubbles and sat down.
The doctor was seated, too. 'That s my limit.' He lit a cigarette. 'Now you shoot.'
Crane examined the wood on the front of the blind, found a hole near the top edge. It was a new hole, about large enough to admit his little finger. He got off his stool and sat on the floor of the blind.
'What s the matter?' Dr Woodrin asked.
'You better join me,' Crane said.
'Why?'
'I think somebody s shooting at us.'
The doctor obviously thought he d gone crazy. Crane showed him the hole. The doctor stood up to look at it. Crane pulled him down on the stool. The pinging noise came a quarter second later.
'Hear that?' Crane asked.
'You re imagining things.'
'But the hole!'
'An insect.'
'Listen!' Crane took off his sweater, draped it over the shotgun, put his hat on top. He held the gun above the blind. There was a ping, a tap. He lowered the gun, but he couldn t find a hole in either the hat or the sweater. 'He s a lousy shot,' he said.
'My God!' Dr Woodrin got on the floor with Crane. 'Why would anybody shoot at us? And where s the report of the gun?'
'A silencer.'
'What ll we do?'
'I stay right here,' Crane said.
'What a hell of a trick!' The doctor s pink-and-white face was angry. 'Do you think it s a madman?'
'I don t know.'
'We can t lie here all day.'
'I can,' Crane said.
After several minutes of silence they heard two shots from the direction of Mallard Lane. A moment later there was a faint whistling noise in the air. Crane crouched as close to the bottom of the blind as he could. He wondered if the guy could be using shrapnel.
'A couple of teal,' Dr Woodrin said.
'Oh,' Crane relaxed a little. 'What if he comes off the ridge and rushes us?'
'We could nail him with bird shot when he got close enough.'
They both looked to see if their shotguns were loaded, then waited in silence. Some mallard had settled among the decoys. They made efforts to talk with the wooden lures, quacking interrogatively. One of the mallards was within ten feet of the blind.
Crane thought they d have very little chance if the man did attack. He could pick them off from a tree on the shore, or he could come out in a boat. Crane didn t suppose a shotgun loaded with bird shot could stop a man at more than fifty feet.
He didn t feel good. It was not a pleasant feeling to know you were likely to get a bullet in any part of your body you exposed. It was not a pleasant feeling to be shot at anywhere, but it was particularly unpleasant to be trapped. He looked at his watch. It was seven thirty-five.
'Listen!' Dr Woodrin said. 'I hear a boat.'
The mallards had gone away. Wind shook the dry leaves of trees on shore. A shotgun boomed in the distance. Not far away there was a faint splashing noise.
Dr Woodrin had his mouth close to Crane s ear. 'We ll both come up together. He ll get one of us, but the other ll get him.'
Crane nodded, flicked the safety catch off his gun.
He got to his feet, his knees under him so that he could rise in one motion. He felt a little sick to his stomach.
Water gurgled almost beside the blind. Dr Woodrin said, 'Now!'
The old house in the country didn t look occupied. In the gray light of early morning it didn t look as though anybody had lived in it for a long time. It looked gaunt and lonely, and yet there was a sinister quality of silence about it, as though the house was waiting for something to happen, something abrupt and violent and tragic. Ann felt a little afraid, and she wondered what she ought to do. Was Delia Young asleep? Was she alone? Ann s watch read thirty-five minutes past seven. She had to do something soon.
She had found the house through Dolly Wilson. At first, when Ann woke her in the tiny third-floor room at Fourth and Elm, Dolly hadn t wanted to tell where Delia was. She was frightened. But Ann soothed her, assured her nothing was going to happen to Delia.
'I just want to ask her something,' she said.
Dolly thought she wanted to ask about her husband. She thought it was too bad a fellow with as pretty a wife as Ann would go chasing after a dame like Delia. She told Ann where Delia was.
'Thanks,' Ann said. 'And don t forget there s a job for you in New York, Dolly.' She hurried down to the limousine.
Now the problem was how to reach Delia in the house. Ann didn t dare to call her; it might arouse someone else. She pushed through some half-dead gooseberry bushes and went around to the back. Rusty tin cans, discarded kitchen utensils, rags, pieces of cardboard, littered the yard. Torn wire marked a coop that had once held chickens. The kitchen steps were warped and some of the planks were loose; she climbed gingerly and tried the door. It was fastened. She wished Bill Crane, incompetent as he was, was with her. She supposed he was having a fine time shooting ducks.
The thought made her angry. She d find a way into the house to Delia Young and she d ask her about Slats Donovan. She knew with the singer s help she could prove Donovan was the murderer. That would show Bill Crane!
Near the kitchen steps was an old-fashioned cellar entrance, with slanting doors. The wood on the doors was rotten and gray-brown with age; she was able to pry off the hasp with a piece of wood. It didn t make much noise, but she felt a nervous tension within her, as though someone was watching her. She looked at the house, but green shutters masked the windows.
It took all her strength to lift the long, right-hand cellar door. Oblique light bared moss-covered steps leading down under the house. She was terribly scared, but she made herself go down the steps. It was very dark in the cellar, very damp and chill. The air smelled a little bit like the bank of a river, earthy and green, but there was something in it that choked her, made it impossible for her to get a full breath. Gradually her eyes became used to darkness; she saw the dim outlines of wooden boxes, two carpenter s horses, a broken rocking chair, a shelf of mason jars.
Black and bulky, a crude flight of stairs rose mysteriously across the cellar. Walking on tiptoe, she made her way toward them. She could hear her heart pound, could feel blood in her ears. She couldn t catch her breath; the damp, earthy air made goose flesh rise on her body; she had trouble keeping her balance on her high-heeled shoes.
Something rustled. She halted, lost for an instant in terror, and the noise ceased. She took a single step. There was no noise. She took another step, then another, and another… Something soft squashed under her foot, uttered a faint sigh. She would have screamed, but her throat was stiff with terror. It felt as though she had crushed some plump, small animal. She was afraid to move her foot. Her fingers fumbled with a match; finally she
