careful not to catch cold, but my tongue was like a strip of limp leather.
I heard voices—men’s voices. Shadows moved across the wall. Then I rode down a dark shute into darkness.
6
I began to crawl up the dark well towards the tiny pinpoint of light at the top. It looked a tough job, but I kept at it because somewhere close a woman was screaming.
Then quite suddenly I was at the top of the well, and sunlight blinded me. I heard myself groan, and as I tried to sit up, the top of my head seemed to fly off. I grabbed hold of it and rode
the pain, cursing. The woman kept on screaming. The sound chilled my blood.
I made the effort. The floor tilted under my feet as I stood up, but I crossed the room. I walked like I was breasting a hundred mile gale.
I reached the bedroom door, clung on to the doorpost and looked into the sitting-room.
Miss Wonderly was standing pressed against the opposite wall. Her arms were widespread, her hands flat on the egg-blue paint. She was as bare as the back of my hand, and her mouth hung open. As I looked at her, she screamed again.
My head felt as if it was stuffed full of cotton wool, but the scream wormed its way through and jarred all the nerves in my teeth.
I shitted my eyes from her to the floor. John Herrick lay on his back, his arms bent stiffly to the ceiling, his hands clenched. The front of his forehead was shoved in, and black blood stained his white hair and formed a gruesome halo around his head.
Heavy fists beat on the door. Someone shouted.
Miss Wonderly drew in a shuddering breath and screamed again.
I crossed the room and slapped her face. Her eyes rolled back until only the whites showed and she slid down the wall to the floor. She left two damp marks from her shoulders and hips on the egg-blue paint.
The door flew open and half the world burst in.
I faced them. They came so far and then stopped. They looked at me, they looked at Miss Wonderly and they looked at John Herrick. I looked at them.
There was the reception clerk, the house dick, a bell-hop, two ritzy-looking women, three men in white flannels and a fat man in a lounge suit. Right in front of them all was the evil-faced guy in the green gaberdine suit I’d noticed watching me at the Casino.
The two ritzy dames started screaming as soon as they saw Herrick. I didn’t blame them. I felt like screaming myself. But it made the man in the gaberdine suit mad.
“Get those bitches outa here!” he snarled. “Go on, get out, all of you.”
The reception clerk and the house dick stayed, but the rest of them were shoved out.
When the door closed, the man in the gaberdine suit turned to me.
“What’s going on?” he demanded, clenching his fists and shoving out his jaw.
I guessed from that dumb crack he was a copper. He was.
“Search me,” I tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come. My mouth felt like it was full of rusty three-inch nails.
Moving like he was in church, the big house dick tip-toed across the room, into the bedroom. He came back with a blanket which he self-consciously draped over Miss Wonderly. She lay on her back, her arms and legs grotesquely spread out, her eyes closed.
“Who’s this guy?” the man in the gaberdine suit asked, turning to the reception clerk, and pointing at me.
The reception clerk looked like he was going to throw up. His face was pale green.
“Mr. Chester Cain,” he said, in a far-away voice.
That seemed to give the ugly guy a buzz.
“Sure?”
The reception clerk nodded.
The guy faced me. His flat puss was loaded with viciousness.
“We know all about you,” he said. “I’m Flaggerty of the Homicide Bureau. You’re in a hell of a jam, Cain.”
I knew I had to talk if it killed me.
“You’re crazy,” I said. “I didn’t do it.”
“When I find a rat with your reputation locked in with a murdered man I don’t have to look all that far to find his killer,” Flaggerty sneered. “You’re under arrest, and you’d better start talking.”
I tried to think, but my mind wasn’t working. I felt like hell, and my head throbbed and pounded.
The reception clerk plucked at Flaggerty’s sleeve and pulled him away. He started whispering. At first Flaggerty wouldn’t listen. Then I caught Killeano’s name, and that seemed to hold Flaggerty. He looked at me doubtfully, then he shrugged.
“All right,” he said to the reception clerk, “but it’s a waste of time.”
The reception clerk left the room. He had to force his way through the crowd outside in the corridor, and three or four of them tried to squeeze into the room. Flaggerty slammed the door in their faces. Then he went over to the window and stared out.
The house dick touched my arm. He offered me a glass of whisky.
I took it and drank it. It was just what I needed.
I said I would have some more.
The house dick gave me another shot. He stood smiling stupidly at me, a blend of servility and horror in his eyes.
Then quite suddenly the cotton wool in my head dissolved, the pain went away and I felt as fine as could be expected under the circumstances. I asked the house dick for a cigarette, and he gave me one and lit it for me. His fat hairy hand was trembling.
“Make the punk at home,” Flaggerty said from the window. He was watching me now, and he held a snub- nosed automatic in his hand. “Stay where you are, Cain,” he went on. “I’m not taking any chances with you.”
“Skip it,” I said. “I know it looks bad, but she’ll tell you what happened as soon as she comes to the surface. I don’t know a thing about it.”
“They never do,” Flaggerty sneered.
“I wouldn’t say anything, Mr. Cain,” the house dick whispered. “Not until Mr. Killeano comes.”
“Is he coming?” I asked.
“Sure. You’re a guest here, Mr, Cain. We want to get you out of this mess if we can.”
I stared at him. “I guess there’s no other hotel in the world with such service,” was all I could think to say.
He simpered at me, but avoided my eye.
I looked over at Miss Wonderly. She was still out, and I made a move to go to her.
“Hold it, Cain!” Flaggerty barked. “Stay where you are.”
I had a feeling that he’d shoot if I gave him half a chance, so I shrugged and sat down.
“You’d better get that dame out of her faint,” I said. “She’s got plenty of talking to do.”
“See what you can do with her,” Flaggerty said to the house dick.
The big man knelt beside her. She seemed to embarrass him, because he just stared and did nothing.
I looked around the room. Cigarette butts filled the ashtrays. Two bottles of Scotch stood empty on the mantelpiece. Another lay on the carpet and a big damp patch showed that it had leaked. There was a stink of spirits in the room. The rugs had been kicked up, a chair overturned. The stage had been set to look like a drunken orgy. It looked like a drunken orgy.
On the floor by the dead man was a heavy Luger pistol. The butt of the pistol had white hair and blood on it. I recognized the pistol. It was mine.
