He reached the first floor landing, and stopped, his back against the banisters, sweat streaming down his face. He couldn’t remember how many more stairs he had to climb, and he began to doubt if he could reach the fourth floor. But his will drove him on, and slowly he staggered and lurched down the passage to the next flight of stairs.
He climbed them somehow, pausing on every step before mounting to the next. As he went down the passage to the third flight, a woman opened the door of a room close by and stared at him.
He kept on, not seeing her, and horrified at the sight of the gun and his lurching, staggering gait, she hastily closed the door.
He went up the last flight of stairs on his hands and knees, dragging the gun with him. He lay face down on the landing, drawing in great gasps of breath.
Well, he had done it. An hour’s wait, he thought, and he heard himself groan. He rol ed over on his side and looked at the closed door a few feet from him.
He was going to see her again. She might have changed her mind about him. He wouldn’t let go, now he had got so far. She had saved him before. She might even save him again.
Through his dazed and confused mind a gruesome joke filtered.
He thought, ‘I’l see her again if it kills me.’
III
Lieutenant Olin was on the telephone when Dallas put his head around the door.