I rose from the desk. I thought, You’d better stiffen your spine, Townsend, and start thinking like a man. Vicky started life with you without too many material comforts. You had a small inheritance. You’ve invested wisely and well, thanks to politics, and the inside dope you’ve had. You could even take a year, two years off, and coast, putting Vicky first in your life. Quit working so hard, chewing so hard at the muzzle. Even if some joker has caught her in a bored, lonely mood, you can win her back.
The clock in the foyer began striking eleven. I went out of the study, crossed the sunken living room with its square, modern furniture that Vicky had chosen.
I was feeling better as I started up the stairway. I was glad I had lived this night with its introspection. I must admit that things hadn’t been right between Vicky and me for several weeks now. We’d grown distant. I would stop the drift in that direction; for tonight I’d experienced the sodden fear that would only be the beginning of my feeling should I ever lose her.
I was almost at the top of the stairs. The upper hallway was hot and very dark. I fumbled for the light switch; and then I sensed that I was not alone. A rustle of cloth, a whisper of breathing, and I knew another presence was in the hallway with me.
I was not afraid at first; no time for that. Only jarred to a sudden immobility. The instant of my indecision was my undoing. And then terror!
The gun crashed and a tongue of flame lashed toward me. It was quite close. A searing pain shot through my head and I had the swift sensation of a sickness like vertigo multiplied a thousand times. There seemed to be nothing beneath me except black nothingness. I fell, loose jointed and with a complete lack of control over my limbs. End over end, elbows bumping, legs flying like strands of rubber, I jolted all the way to the foot of the stairs, to the parquetry of the entry foyer.
I jolted to rest with my limbs at awkward angles. I could feel no pain now. I could, in fact, feel nothing, except the wild terror that came with this feeling nothing.
I tried to move, and could not. I was wrapped in a blackness, a helplessness that made of my body a lump of cold clay. Then I heard the footsteps coming down the stairs, and I seemed to know that they belonged to a man. A light fell on my face, and I guessed that my eyes were open; for I could see the light like the haze of a faint moon almost obscured by clouds.
The light moved. He had moved. I heard his breathing, like two skeins of silk being rubbed together. I supposed that he was giving me a quick examination by the light of a flashlight. What he witnessed must have satisfied him. The light vanished, and after a considerable time I decided that I was again alone.
As I became accustomed to this numb lack of sensation, some of the sickening fear of it left me. I was feeling no tiredness; no pain, as if in the next moment I might swoop off to some world beyond the stars. The images of my thoughts were possessed of that same peculiar weightlessness that had taken my body.
Was this the experience of death? The question did not seem at all surprising to me right then, but very concrete and real. I doubt that I would have been surprised had several beings of this strange world floated forward to bid me welcome to their company.
I was human, and therefore concerned first with myself. Next followed a flood of questions regarding the man who had shot me. I didn’t doubt that the murder had been a deliberate one. He had known I would turn out the study light, cross the living room with its dim night light and walk up the stairs.
Had it been a burglar? I dismissed that possibility. The smart second story man never enters a house with the male head present and visible—as I had been through the open study window. Neither does the smart house-breaker carry a gun. The risk of a much stiffer sentence—even the chair—if caught armed is too great.
There was still the remote chance of course that he’d been a very dumb second story artist, but in that case he would have bolted and run. Instead this man had been cool, in full possession of his nerve as evidenced by the fact he’d followed me down to make sure he’d done the job right. His examining me before taking flight was proof enough that he’d been waiting in that upper hall for the express purpose of murdering me.
But why? Doug Townsend had few enemies—and those Lew Whitfield and every policeman in Santa Maria could also claim. I’d only been a part of every investigation I’d worked so far. If some minor hood had finished his sentence I had done nothing to provoke him to return and commit murder. True, there was young Loren Sigmon, whose crime I’d eyewitnessed. But he was safely in jail. So there seemed little possibility that my work or anything connected with it was the motive for my murder.
I experienced a fresh fright at the detached manner in which my mind could view the situation. This was me! Put a few tears into it! This is personal, Townsend.
Personal, but still a problem in criminology, and my mind went ahead in its own fashion, as if, being released from body, it
