“Goschleep.”
“Arthur it sounded like — like a door banging or — or — or a shot.”
Arthur Gentrie rolled over, said, “ ’Sall right,” and almost immediately settled down into a rhythm of breathing which soon deepened into a gentle snore.
Mrs. Gentrie could hear sounds on the stairs again, the steps of someone trying to be quiet, yet someone who was in a hurry. A board creaked.
Mrs. Gentrie switched on the light over her bed. She looked at the sleeping form of her husband; then realized that before she could waken him to a realization of the emergency, it would be too late to do anything about it. She slid out of bed, flung her robe around her, kicked her feet into slippers, and opened the door which led to the hallway.
Down at the far end of the corridor, by the bathroom door, a dim night light furnished a vague sort of illumination which was hardly brilliant enough to penetrate the shadows near the doorways.
Mrs. Gentrie rubbed sleep from her eyes, walked over toward the head of the stairs. She paused to listen, and could hear nothing. The insidious chill of the night air stole the warmth from her body, and Mrs. Gentrie wrapped the robe more tightly around her. She shivered nervously. She knew that an ominous noise had wakened her yet her mind could conjure up only an uncertain memory of that sound. It might have been a slamming door. It might have been that someone had fallen over a chair, or... well, it might have been the sound of a backfire from a truck somewhere. Mrs. Gentrie, sufficiently wide awake now to be more matter-of-fact, refused to consider the possibility of a shot.
Then from the dark bowels of the house there came another sound, a dull, muffled, thudding noise as though someone had struck against something in the dark, or knocked something down. This noise came very definitely from the lower floor. That called for activity on the part of her husband.
Mrs. Gentrie hurried back to the bedroom. She was shivering now, and abruptly conscious of the fact that a night wind was blowing the lace curtains, billowing them into miniature balloons that remained distended for a while, then collapsed, letting the curtains fall against the screen with an audible slapping noise.
Mrs. Gentrie had been the first to bed. Her husband had been puttering around with painting in the cellar. That was what came of trusting Arthur to open the windows. He’d neglected to pull back the curtains. There might be an intruder on the lower floor, but Mrs. Gentrie considered the curtains to be the matter of paramount importance just then. Slapping against that dusty screen, they’d get themselves filled with dirt... “Arthur,” she called as she crossed the room and looped back the curtains.