Nora looks at them for a moment, then says very deliberately, “I won’t disturb her, but I am going to be with her until she wakes up,” brushes past them, and goes out of the room.
Aunt Katherine puts a hand on Rammer's arm and in almost a whisper asks, “Well?”
Kammer: “I think there is as yet no reason for alarm.”
Nora goes into Selma’s bedroom, where a dim nightlight is burning, and stands for a moment by the bed, looking down at Selma. When she turns away to take off her coat, one of Selma’s eyes opens cautiously. Then she sits up in bed and whispers, “Nora!”
Nora runs to her, exclaiming, “But they told me you were…”
Selma: “I know.” She unwads a handkerchief while she speaks, showing Nora two white tablets. “They gave me those to put me to sleep, but I didn’t take them. I wanted to see you. I knew you’d come.” Selma and Nora go into a clinch. Then Selma asks, “Has David come back yet?”
Nora: “I don’t think so. He’s not here now.”
Selma: “Will you phone him for me, see if he’s home?”
Nora: “Of course.” She puts out a hand toward the bedside phone.
Selma, catching her arm: “No, not here. That's why I was afraid to phone. The police might be listening in. Go to a drugstore or something. Or, better, go to his apartment; it’s only a few blocks.”
Nora, puzzled: “But I don’t understand.”
Selma: “He took the pistol and told me to come back and not say anything, and I want to know if he’s all right.”
Nora: “The pistol!”
Selma, rapidly, unconscious of the effect her words have had on Nora: “Yes. I took it and ran out after Robert when he said he was going away — you know, to scare him into not going — and he’d insulted me so terribly. And he turned the comer before I could catch up with him, and then there was a shot, and then when I turned the comer, there he was dead, and after a while David came and took the pistol and told me to come back home and not say anything to anybody. And now I don’t know whether he’s all right or…”
Nora: “Then you didn’t shoot Robert?”
Selma, amazed: “Shoot Robert? Nora!”
Nora puts her arms around Selma: “Of course you didn’t, darling. That was stupid of me.”
Selma: “And you’ll go find out about David? I was in such a daze or I wouldn’t have let him do it; and I’m so afraid he may have got into trouble.”
Nora: “I’ll go right away.”
Selma: “And you’ll hurry back to tell me?”
Nora: “Yes, but do try to get some sleep.”
Selma: “I will.”
They kiss, and Nora goes out.
Nora goes softly downstairs and out of the house without seeing anybody, but as she hurries up the foggy street a man comes out of a dark doorway and follows her.
Aunt Katherine and Dr. Kammer are sitting in silence, as if waiting for something, when they hear the street door close behind Nora. In unison, they look at each other, then in the direction of Selma’s room. Neither speaks. They rise together, and slowly — he dragging his lame leg, she leaning on her cane — they go to Selma’s room. Selma lies as if sleeping. Kammer feels her pulse, then picks up her handkerchief and finds the tablets. He does not seem surprised. He pours a glass of water and says, not unkindly, “Come, why must you be so childish? Take these now.” Selma, very sheepishly, sits up in bed and takes the tablets and water.
In David’s apartment, he is distractedly walking up and down. He looks at his watch, goes to the telephone, but puts it down without calling a number. He lights a cigarette, puts it out immediately, goes to the window, then repeats his performance with watch and telephone. He is wiping his face with a handkerchief when the phone rings. He picks it up quickly. Nora, on the other end of the wire, says, “David, this is Nora. I’m downstairs. I want to—”
David: “Come up! Come up!” He goes to the door and waits impatiently for her.
As soon as Nora appears, David asks, “Have you come from her?”
Nora: “Yes. She—”
David, excitedly: “Where’s Nick? What’ll I do, Nora? It’s my fault. I’m all to blame. If I hadn’t given Robert those bonds, he wouldn’t have been going away, and she wouldn’t have” — his voice breaks and he almost whispers the last words — “shot him.”
Nora: “But she didn’t, David!”
David: “What? She told me.”
Nora: “She told you what?”
David: “That she took the gun and ran out after him to try to keep him from going away and…”
Nora: “But she didn’t shoot him. She hadn’t turned the corner when she heard the shot, and when she got there he was already dead. She told me herself, and she was perfectly calm when she told me.”
David sinks back into a chair, his eyes wide and horrified. He tries to speak twice before the words will come out, and when they do his voice is hoarse with anguish. “I’ve killed her, Nora! I’ve sent her to the gallows! I thought she shot him. I took the gun and threw it in the bay. I’m a fool, and I’ve killed her.”
Nora, frightened, but trying to soothe him: “Perhaps it’s not that bad, David. We’ll see what Nick says. He’ll know how to…
David: “But don’t you see? If I hadn’t thrown the gun away, the fact that it hadn’t been fired — and the police could’ve fired a bullet from it and seen that it didn’t match the one he was killed with — don’t you see? — it would have been absolute proof that she didn’t do it. But now…” He breaks off and grabs one of Nora’s hands, asking, “How is she? Do the police — do they think she…? He seems unable to finish the question.
Nora: “Selma’s all right. She’s lying down. The police haven’t talked to her yet. Dr. Kammer wouldn’t let them.”
David, a little sharply: “Kammer! Is he there?” Nora nods. David, frowning: “I wish he’d stay away from her.” He shrugs off his thoughts about Kammer and asks, “Do the police suspect her?”
Nora: “I’m afraid they suspect everybody.”
David: “But her especially. Do they?”
Nora, hesitantly: “I’m afraid they do — a little.” Then, more cheerfully: “But they didn’t know about the Lichee Club and those people then. We were there tonight and saw Robert, and Nick found out a lot of things about Robert’s running around with a girl who lives in the same house as Pedro Dominges, oh! a lot of things, and I’m sure by this time he knows who killed Robert. So there’s nothing to worry about.”
David, not sharing her cheerfulness: “I hope so. I’ll kill myself if…”
Nora, sharply: “Don’t talk like that, David. They’ll find out who killed Robert; Nick’ll find out.”
David: “Tell me the truth, Nora. Does Nick think she, Selma, killed him?”
Nora: “Oh, he knows she didn’t. He knows… She breaks off, staring with frightened face past David and pointing at the window. David turns in time to catch a glimpse of Phil’s face outside the window. He rushes to the window but has some trouble with the fastening, so that by the time he gets it open, the fire escape is empty. As he turns back to Nora, she says in a surprised voice, “Why, that was…”
There is a sharp, triple knock on the door. David goes to the door and opens it. The man who shadowed Nora from Selma’s house is there. He asks, “Mr. Graham?”
David: “Yes.”
The man takes a badge in a leather case from his left pants pocket and shows it to him briefly, saying, “Police.”
Nora: “There was a man on the fire escape! The brother of that girl at the Lichee.”
The policeman: “Yeah?” as if not believing her. He goes to the window and looks out for a moment, then turns back: “He’s gone.” Then he scowls at Nora and asks, “What girl at the Lichee?”