Her breath started to come faster. There was moisture seeping through the light dusting of powder on her forehead. She tried not to get tense, to keep her playing even. Was he the one? It was nearing the end now. Was he going to be able to hold out, or would he suddenly spring up and across at her?
She went into the last stretch, fortissimo, mounted to the almost unbearable climax, when — if you were like him — every nerve must be crying out, maddened beyond endurance.
It burst like shrapnel, and then there was suddenly deafening silence in the room, and she just sat there limp, nearly prostrated herself.
He moved, opened his mouth and took a yawn that seemed to stretch from his eyebrows to his chin. “Gee, that was swell.” he said lazily. “I guess I’ll shove off now. There was a gnat or something bothering me the whole time you were playing.” He slapped the back of his own hand viciously. “Got it!”
When she’d closed the door after him, she turned and faced Lindsey, who’d come out. “Whew!” was all she said.
“Whew, is right!” he agreed. “But we’ve got something there and we’re not giving up yet. That thing nearly drives you nuts, especially when you’ve got to stand still in a closet listening to it.”
“Stretch your legs a minute while you’ve got the chance. Here goes for number two.” She started to dial again.
Chapter Five
Killer-Diller
Dusty said kiddingly: “I must think a lot of you. Nobody but you could drag me out of a nice warm steam-room at this ungodly hour of the night, kid.”
“You’re a life-saver, Dusty. I felt if I didn’t have someone to talk to, I’d go crazy. You know it’s awfully tough hanging around up here without Frankie.”
She sat down at the keyboard. He was in the same chair all the others had been in. She’d fixed it that way, so there was no other handy.
“Have you seen him lately?”
“I saw him yesterday. They let me visit him two or three times a week. The trial doesn’t come up until fall.” She started to play, as if absentmindedly. Her fingers were nearly coming off by now. “There’s a reefer of Frankie’s in that box there, if you want one.”
“Have one yourself.”
“I just finished one before you got here,” she lied.
She had to say that, in case he could still detect the fumes from previous ones smoked in the room, although she and Lindsey had opened the windows and aired it out before he got here.
He noticed what she was playing presently, after the first few bars had been gone over. “Don’t play that thing,” he remonstrated mildly. “I don’t like it.”
She shot a glance up into the mirror. “Why not, what’s the difference?” she said carelessly. “Anything just to keep my hands busy.” She went ahead.
“I got hold of a new number today for us to break in. Run over it instead of that one, see how you like it.” He came over, put some orchestration-sheets on the rack, went back and sat down again.
She ignored them. “All right, just let me finish this first. I like to finish anything I begin.”
Was that a sign of anything, his trying to switch her off the piece! Did he realize himself what it would do to him if she kept it up long enough. Was that why? Or was it just a harmless expression of preference? Anyone is entitled to dislike certain pieces of music and like others without necessarily being a murderer, she realized.
He shifted around a little in the chair, got up again, went over to the window, stood looking out. Then he came back, sat down once more, poured another drink. She quit breathing each time he passed in back of her, but went ahead playing.
He was showing more signs of being affected by it than either Armstrong or Kershaw had. It seemed to be making him restless. But was it that? She darted another swift glance up at the glass. He was tightening up a good deal, there was no doubt about that. Both his hands were clenched, and the toe of one foot, slung over the other, was twitching a little, almost like a cat’s tail does. On the other hand, she reminded herself, she mustn’t jump at hasty conclusions. He’d said he didn’t like the piece to begin with, and if he was either bored or annoyed by her playing of it in disregard of his request, he might still have shown these very same symptoms, without there being any sinister meaning to them whatever.
And then suddenly, when next, she looked, he wasn’t moving at all, not even the tip of his foot now. He was sitting there as still as a statue, almost lifeless. His eyes, which had been on her back until then, were on the mirror themselves now. Had he seen something, caught some slight motion or waver on it, reflected by the closet-door? Had he sensed that this was a trap? If he had—
She watched at more frequent intervals now. He’d stopped looking up at the mirror after that one time she’d caught him at it, was looking steadily down at the floor now. He conveyed an impression of alert wariness, just the same. It wasn’t an abstract, unfocussed look, but a listening, watchful, cagey look.
The thing rose to its crescendo, shattered, stopped dead. The silence was numbing. He didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. A single bead of sweat glistened on his forehead, but the gin could have made him warm after coming out of a steam-room with all his pores open.
She refused to break the spell. Let him be the first to shatter it — for in that lay the answer.
He started to get up slowly She could see the move coming long before his muscles carried it into effect. His overslung foot descended to the floor. Then there was a wait. His clenched hands drew back along the chair-arms, to give his body better leverage. Then another wait. His waist ballooned out and his knees drew in, straightened, carried his torso up to a standing position. Through it all, the position of his head alone did not change, remained tilted downward toward the floor. That managed to give an impression of secretive, furtive movement to his getting to his feet, like he was stalking someone.
Her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. She wanted to scream with the suspense of sitting there waiting.
Then his head came up, and he said in the most matter-of-fact way, turning toward the door as he did so: “Guess I’ll shove off. My leg went to sleep.” He limped out into the hall, slapping at it to get back the circulation.
She reeled there at the piano bench, kept herself from falling by grasping the sides of it for a moment. Then she got up and went out after him.
At the door he chucked her under the chin in a big-brotherly sort of way. “S’-long, sweets,” he said. “See you at the barn tomorrow night.” The touch of his fingers, she couldn’t help noticing, was ice-cold.
She closed the door after him and looked behind her. Lindsey had slipped out of the closet, was coming up behind her. She warned him to silence, head tilted toward the door-seam, listening. “Sh! The elevator hasn’t taken him down yet.”
They waited a moment or two. Finally he eased the door open narrowly, peered through with one eye. “It must have, he’s not out there any more.”
“I usually can hear it slide shut.” She walked back into the living-room. “Well, it was no good, Lindsey,” she told him dejectedly, slapping her hands to her sides. “It didn’t work. It was the wrong answer. One time I thought he was getting steamed up, but then he subsided again, almost — almost as though he caught on you were in there.”
“If he did, he’s uncanny. I didn’t move a fingerjoint.” He kneaded his thatch baffledly. “Can’t figure it at all. It had to be the right answer. I still think it is, but — for some reason it muffed fire. It was the right time too, according to what the psychiatrists say. Just before daylight, when anyone’s power of resistance — including a murderer’s — is supposed to be at its lowest ebb.”