Slow and long-drawn-out when written down, the sequence of events with all its possibilities flashed like lightning through his mind. His hair rose upon his head, and the sweat stood out upon his forehead. His heart thumped furiously! Scarcely could he comprehend the words of the watchman.
Yet that individual was cursing roundly. “I’d like to know who in h——’s setting leaky pots out on that escape,” he finished. “Dropping stuff on a man’s clothes and spoilin’——”
The voice died away in an inarticulate murmur, and Caruth saw the man’s face blanch as he held out his hand. “It’s blood,” he hissed. “Blood! Blood! Somebody’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig up there. Somebody’s been murdered.” He ran down the hall and pressed the button of a police call. Then he came hurrying back.
“Here; you!” he shouted, his respectful manner falling from him like a garment. “Chase up them steps to the third floor and meet me at the window. On your way, now, Willie!”
Caruth came out of his trance and sped up the main stairway as the watchman ran up the fire-escape. One flight—two flights—three flights! Along the hall he rushed and threw open the window, just as the watchman reached it from below.
The electric lights threw a white glare upon the grating and upon a human form huddled across it in a strange, unnatural shape. The light fell upon the livid face and staring eyes and upon the dark spot that marred the whiteness of the open shirt bosom. Caruth drew his breath sobbingly. For the body was not that which he had feared to see.
The watchman bent and peered into the white face. “It’s Wilkins, all right,” he commented. “He didn’t get far with that eighteen hundred of yours. Somebody must have been laying for him. They’ve turned his pockets inside out, and I guess they got it, all right.” Deftly he ran his hand over the body.
“Nothin’ doing,” he reported. “They’ve skinned him clean. Here, Mr. Caruth! The cops’ll be here in a minute. I wish you’d chase down and put ’em wise.”
Caruth obeyed as he would have obeyed any behest of the stronger will. The situation had dazed him. An immense relief mingled with an immense terror; relief that his worst fears had not been realized; terror lest something even worse had happened in its stead. Wilkins was dead; presumably the woman still lived. But whose hand had struck the blow?
A swish of silk sounded in his ears, and he looked up. She was there before him, peering downward with curious, frightened eyes.