That whistle blew again, far off in the distance; it sounded like from the next street over, behind her house. The men at the corner suddenly charged forward, turned it, and disappeared.
She kept straining away from the storekeeper, trying to break his well-meaning but stubborn hold on her. She could talk to him; he wasn’t a policeman or detective.
“Let me go back to my house. I promised. You’re making me break a promise.”
“You heard what he said. He knows what’s best.”
Suddenly a shot blasted out, somewhere out of sight around the corner. She’d never heard one before. She’d lived a life of peace. It was louder than the crack of a whip. It was even louder than one of the giant firecrackers little boys set off on the Fourth of July.
She writhed hectically in the storekeeper’s grasp. He’d forgotten to hold onto her effectively for a minute, his own mouth open in awe at the dramatic events taking place so near at hand. She broke free, started running down the sidewalk away from him.
He was heavy and corpulent. He took a few half-hearted steps after her, then he gave up, let her go. He didn’t want to get too close to the line of fire himself.
A second shot sounded before she had reached the corner, in ravening answer to the first.
She turned the corner, darted up the next street, the familiar street that led to her house. She could see it just up ahead, with a little smoke haze hanging around the front of it, as though the chimney weren’t drawing very well. There were men crouched in doorways and behind hedges, on both sides of the street, but she’d scurried past them all before they were even aware of her.
There was a stunned pause behind her. Then a voice shouted in the stillness: “Hold your fire! Bring her back here! She’ll be killed!”
She ran on, oblivious. She only had a little way further to go now. She hadn’t run so fast or so long since she was a young girl. But a promise on the Good Book was a promise. She’d sworn she’d come right back, and come right back she would. Not all the guns and all the bullets and all the policemen in the whole world could keep her from making good her vow.
There was another shot. It came from her own house, from in front of her, not in back. Something hit her in the shoulder and made it smart, as though a bee had stung her there, and she stumbled and fell down. The fall dismayed her more than the thing that had hit her. She tingled and felt ashamed. “A body my age falling in the street like this, in front of everybody!” she lamented. “What’ll folks think?”
Behind her that same voice she’d heard before roared out in fury: “Get him for that! Shoot to kill! No quarter!”
And then there were so many shots all at once that she couldn’t count them any more, couldn’t tell them apart. She stayed down, as she’d fallen, her eyes fixed on her own house just ahead. The door slowly swung open. But no one came out. It just stayed that way. All the way down at the bottom somebody’s hand was lying, stretched out. It opened, and a gun slid out. The hand didn’t move any more after that, lay still.
The rain of shot stopped, and it was quiet again. Men came running up and bent down over her. She looked up at them and said falteringly, “Please take me into my house. It’s just up ahead. I promised I’d come right back — and my promise has to be kept.”
They picked her up gently and carried her in. They covered something over, that was lying just inside the doorway, so she wouldn’t have to see it. She knew what it was, though. She whispered to them, “Put me down on the sofa, in the parlor.”
Then when they had, she motioned to them to come closer. They bent down so they could hear her. “Mr. Davis. Down in the cellar, right under where the cot is standing. You’ll have to take the shovel. Please do it right away. Don’t let him stay there in such a place — it isn’t right.”
A grim, low-voiced order was given, and she heard two or three of them go trooping down the cellar stairs. She closed her eyes and gave a sigh of satisfaction. At least he wouldn’t have to stay there now...
A doctor came and looked at her shoulder. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “Just a nasty nick.” He put a dressing on it and told her to try and sleep.
Suddenly a confused murmuring of voices outside in the hall roused her. The men had come up again. One of them looked in and said blankly to the captain of detectives, who was standing beside her, “No, sir. Nobody in it but a dog. Its skull had been crushed with a shovel.”
Somebody jostled him aside, and Mr. Davis was standing there in the doorway, staring at all of them. He was holding a book-shaped package tightly clasped under one arm, as though it were very precious. There was a silvery glint on his cheeks, as though he hadn’t shaved in several days.
He came over to her frightenedly. “Mrs. Collins, what is it? What’s happened here? All these men — and I heard shots on my way over from the depot—”
Her lips moved in bated incredulity. “He didn’t... You did go away, just like he said—”
“I left yesterday morning, before dawn. I wanted to be sure of getting there on time, before this first edition got away from me. I left without even waiting for my hot shaving water. I wrote a little note for you, so you’d know what became of me, but my hands were so numb I could hardly hold the pencil right.”
Then he added: “It was the strangest thing. I found the stove lit in my room. I reckon I must have done it myself, while I was still half asleep, and then forgot about it. I put it out right away, remembering what nearly happened the day before. And just before I woke up, I dreamed I heard a little dog whimpering somewhere close by...”
She turned a stricken face to the captain of detectives. “It was all true,” she said contritely. “Every last thing he told me was true, and I didn’t—”
The captain put his hand on her arm consolingly. “Don’t feel too bad about it. That’s the way it goes. Even when a murderer’s telling the truth, nobody believes him anyway.”