Curiosity drew Basil toward the scene of the “burglary.” As he turned the corner into the alley, the wind passed him with a thin tuneless whistle. Light shone from one small, unshaded window in the wall of the shack. Through a broken pane he saw an old man in shirt sleeves sharpening a pair of shears. A shower of blue sparks sprayed from a humming grindstone worked with a foot treadle like a sewing machine. The light from an oil lamp picked out each finest wrinkle in the cobweb of lines that seamed the old face and left the rest of the workshop in shadow. It was like a little
Basil’s glance searched the shadows beyond the lamplight. Something dangled from a wire hooked to the ceiling. It was covered with a piece of burlap. It looked like a birdcage . . .
A sudden swishing sound startled him. As he turned his head, something darted past his eyes and fell at his feet with a crisp rustle. It seemed to be a booklet bound in paper, about the format of a theater program but more bulky.
As a psychiatrist he had often observed that most people never look above their own eye-level without provocation. He himself was no exception to the rule. Though he had been looking all around him since entering the alley he had not looked up once. Now he raised his eyes. Beyond the low roof of the taxpayer, skyscrapers were piled as carelessly as a child’s blocks against an inky, blue sky. The side wall of the theater towered on his right, sheer and blind as a cliff. A red glow pulsated against the drab stone like the flicker of firelight. Apparently it came from the winking neon signs on Broadway beyond the taxpayer. A fire escape zigzagged down the wall. On the top landing, Basil could just make out a dark, faceless figure—a still shade among shadows that quivered as the light came and went. It was so shrouded in some sort of long cloak or overcoat, he could not see if it were man or woman. It was motionless as an animal when it “plays dead” in order to escape notice.
“Hi! You dropped something!”
No answer. Had the wind carried his voice away?
He picked up the booklet. It was a typewritten manuscript bound in paper with brass staples. When he lifted his eyes again, the figure was moving.
Like most theater fire escapes this one was substantial—an outside stairway built of flat iron bars with its first flight anchored securely to the ground. On impulse Basil stuffed the manuscript in his overcoat pocket and started up the stairs. The wind met him half-way, howling and dancing like a dervish over the roofs of the city. The higher he went, the more urgent the blast. He clutched his hat with one hand and clung to the iron railing with the other, while his overcoat flapped about his knees. Through the bars overhead he saw the dark figure move again. It seemed to melt into the wall of the theater. When Basil reached the top landing there was no one there.
At this height, the red glow he had seen from below was flickering all around him, and he could see over the roofs of lower buildings to its source—letters of fire, flashing and fading their message with the regular beat of a pendulum:
Other tubes of neon gas shone uninterruptedly, outlining the hands and numerals of a great clock. At first glance it seemed suspended between heaven and earth without means of support. Then as his eyes grew used to the uncertain light, he saw that the figures of the clock were merely unframed and uncovered, set flush with a block of stone in the darkened tower of a skyscraper that blended with the night sky. It was just eight twenty-five. He glanced at his own watch and found it ten minutes slow. Automatically, he set it right.
Beside him in the theater wall, a fire door stood open. Someone passing through the doorway in a hurry had not given the door a hard enough tug from within to counteract the pull of the wind and catch the snap lock. Basil stepped inside and drew the door after him. He had a brief tug of war with the wind before he got it closed.
