'Yes, do go to bed, dear. And sleep well.'
'Your pill?'
'Perhaps I'd better.'
'If you want me, you yell,' said Alice with sudden vehemence For the first time, she felt sorry for hun. She seemed to know how he must feel, hurt and helpless and atraid. It wasn't necessary to admire him. One could feel sorry.
'I'll yell,' promised Innes. Then faintly, 'Good night, my darling.'
Fred was sitting on the top step, smoking a cigarette. He didn't look up. 'Good night,' he said.
Alice looked down on his thick black hair. It had a wave. 'I'm not going to sleep. It isn't fair. Let me take a watch or something, hm?'
'I'm the bodyguard,' he said.
'Don t you want a pillow?'
'Say, you don't want to be too comfortable at a time like this.'
'Well . . . ' She hesitated.
'Go on, scram,' said Fred under his breath, irritably.
Alice went off to her room, feeling pleased. Feeling quite pleased, she realized. And that was queer. Certainly, looking forward to a night spent in a house full of queer women bent on murder was no time to feel pleased. Nevertheless, stubbornly, she contmued to feel light of heart.
She put on a negligee and tripped to the bathroom and back. Fred was sitting with his back stiff against the wall. He twisted his lips at her in a perfunctory smile, and she made a comradely little gesture with her toothbrush. Back in her room she did not quite close the door.
She opened the window a htde crack. The room was small, and the dry heat pouring out of her register made her skin feel stiff and as if it might crack. The darkness held the threat of a storm. She thought she heard a mutter of thunder. Too early for thunder. Rain, though was beginning to beat down. She only half lay down on her hard bed. She truly meant to keep awake.
She woke with a start about twelve o'clock. She seemed to have been struggling with the mists of sleep for some time, as if whatever woke her had happened and been forgotten before she was awake enough to know what it was. She listened. She became aware of the storm in full blast. Rain slapped her window and spattered in. The wind shook her curtains, and they hissed along the floor. The old house complained as the wind and the rain drove against it. Surely, all she heard was the storm. But her heart beat fast, and she drew up the bed clothing carefully in order not to lose her listening check on the noisy night.
Then in a windless interval she heard a sound. A small sound. Quite near. A rusty clearing of a throat, was it? Or a cough? Or a chuckle? An odd Uttle chuckle, almost a croon. The same queer little sound she'd heard once before. Whatever it was, it was surely the very same.
Alice strained her eyes toward her door. It was still slighdy ajar. Just as she'd left it. Or was it? Did it swing? She listened, and her blood sang in her veins with fear.
Wind raged outside. Honest wind. How much more sinister that strange little soimd was, and what was it doing in the night?
What was it about to do?
Nothing happened. There was no more, except the dying drive of the rain. Whatever had passed her door was past. She felt released, so she knew it had gone. It had passed by.
A long, long time later, when the storm was over and the house wept rain water from its eaves and gutters, Alice put her feet cautiously to the floor and crept to look out ino the hall. It was quiet. The tiny night light near the head of the stairs burned lonesomely. She couldn't see Fred nor the place where he should still be. Walls along the stairs cut off her view. She could see as far as the corner of the old mahogany chest and the picture that hung over it.
She could see, the other way, Maud's door, tight closed, impenetrable. She could see a Uttle way, through the railing, down the stairs, which descended into deep darkness. No one was there. Nobody. Nothing.
She crept back to bed, and her heart subsided. Slowly she coaxed it back to normal. Her feet grew hot from its heavy work. Then slowly grew cold.
She lay, scarcely thinkuig, eyes fastened on the door, lest it move. She lay for hours. Perhaps she dozed. But not long and not often. The necessity for watching the door would force her lids up. So she lay and watched in the dark.
The house was chilly. It grew colder and colder. She shivered and pulled the covers closer. But it was cold.
Really cold.
She shivered and huddled there a long time before she thought to stir and feel of the register m her wall. It was cold. Strange. Last night hadn't been so cold. Was it going to snow? A freak snow? Or freeze?
What a miserable night. Miserable. Miserable.
She thought of Fred. He'd be stiff. He'd be frozen. She began to worry about it. The thought kept nagging at her, how cold he must be, sitting on the cold floor in that drafty hall. Suddenly she sat up and pulled her pillows together. She bundled them and all the bedclothes in her arms. She was going out there to sit with Fred. It would be better than this. Not any warmer, maybe, but better. They could whisper. Anyhow, she couldn't sleep.
She went slowly along her side of the hall and turned
the comer near the top of the stairs. Fred was still there. She could see him, motionless, his head still against the wall. Was he asleep? He sat so still. Perhaps he had fallen asleep. If so, it was a good thing she'd come.
He didn't move as she drew closer, but he shivered, 'Hello.' His eyes were open, after all. He had just been
