Deadline at Dawn полностью

At least she made the brave approach. No slinking over, no sidling up. She cut straight over to it, razor-straight, and went up the stoop-steps. The other way was the more dangerous of the two, the more likely to arouse suspicion if caught sight of by some wandering eye.

The swinging storm-doors fluttered shut behind her, and the stuffy little cubicle of the vestibule — more like an upright coffin than ever — was around her once again. Most of her courage, or impetus, if that was what it was, seemed to have stayed outside, suddenly.

She’d gone in with him, the last time. It was more frightening going in alone. Suppose someone was lurking in it? Not the police or anyone legitimate like that, but someone whose presence couldn’t be guessed at from out here, someone who wouldn’t want the lights on or their intrusion made known any more than he and she did. Someone you wouldn’t know about until it was too late.

She went ahead. What else was there to do? Backing out wouldn’t have solved anything.

She put the key to the door. The dead man’s key it was, too. She remembered how his hand had shaken when he did it, the time before. He ought to see hers now, he’d know what some real shaking was. Her forearm was practically bouncing around in its elbow-socket. And what a racket! To her own ears, at any rate, it sounded like tin cans jangling. She might as well have rung the doorbell and be done with it, the way she was telegraphing her arrival.

Aw, what was the difference, there was no one in there anyway.

You hope, she amended in a minor key.

It opened.

Silence.

She knew her way a little better now, from being in the time before. You just went straight, and then you hit the stairs. She closed the door behind her first of all, and then she started out. She had that slightly precarious feeling, as of being on a tight-rope, that moving ahead in complete darkness always gives, even when the sense of direction is fairly sure.

That smell of leather and of woodwork again.

How still it was. How could a house be this still? It was almost as if it were overdoing it, for treacherous purposes of its own.

She thought, Let’s see if my valise is still where I left it, against the wall. That ought to be sort of a clue as to whether anyone’s been in here or not.

She knew which side she’d left it on, but naturally not just how far in away from the door. She turned and cut over to it. She found the wall, and felt down it with her palms. She got all the way to the bottom, to the baseboard, without anything impeding her.

Nope, not here. A little further on yet.

She moved out away from the wall a trifle, and went on again. She took about four more paces forward and closed in again and tried it there. This must be it, about here. It couldn’t be any further in than this. She must be nearly all the way to the foot of the stairs by now.

Her hands came out again, palms front, to find the wall and pat themselves down it to about the level where the valise should—

The wall had changed.

It wasn’t cool and smooth plaster any more, it wasn’t flat. Her hand went into something yielding. Yielding up to a point only; that gave a little but then held finally of its own inner bulk. Something rough, and yet soft. Fuzzy, bristly. Nap. Nap of a coat. A coat, with a body behind it. A coat with somebody in it.

There was somebody standing there, flat against the wall. Pressed back against it, trying to escape discovery. And she’d stopped right in front of it, of him, and like someone in a ghastly game of blindman’s buff — only this game was for keeps — had exploringly palmed her hands against him.

She could hear the sharp inhalation of breath coming from it, that wasn’t her own, at moment of contact. Her own had stopped entirely.

There was someone right there in front of her, someone alive, but standing deathly still, pinned there by her discovery of him.

The darkness eddied violently all around her; it loomed up to a crest, like an obliterating wave about to break and dash all over her. It was like being in the surf; a bad surf of terror of the senses. She started to go over backwards, drowned into senselessness in the middle of it. A little moaning cry drifted from her, something not intended to be uttered at all.

“Quinn, help me—”

An arm lashed out about the curve of her waist; her awareness was too blurred for a minute to tell whether it was in succor or in seizure. It held her afloat, up out of insensibility.

Quinn’s voice said, “Bricky! Hold it, Bricky!”

She went forward again, her head toppled inertly against his shoulder. She leaned there against him and couldn’t talk for a minute.

“My God,” he said, “I didn’t know it was you. I’ve been standing here paralyzed, afraid to—”

She could still only pant, even after a moment or two. “If that doesn’t kill me, nothing ever will.”

He led her away from the wall in the darkness, both arms about her in a sort of barrel-staff hold. “Come over here and sit down on the stairs a minute, they’re right over here—”