We slowed up for Sixty-ninth Street and two girls in the middle of the car began a football rush for the door. It was a good excuse to be quiet, to get it straight in my head: Ford left early, came back, went into the office after Harland, left probably three or four minutes before the body was flung from the window. This is the way I was thinking while we hung easy from our strap, swinging out sideways like the woman in "Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight," clinging to the tongue of the bell.
"Now that was real conscientious of him," I said, suspended over a large fat man and crushing down the paper he was trying to read, "coming back for papers he'd forgotten."
"It sure was," answered Troop. "Many a man would have let them wait."
The fat man dropped the paper and raised his eyes to me with a look like he was determined to be patient—but why did I do it?
"Pardon me, sir," says I, "but it's not me that's spoiling your homeward journey, it's the congested condition of the Empire City." And then to Troop, pleasant and regretful, "Dear, dear, that's a lesson not to pass judgment on your fellow creatures. He must have a strong sense of duty. I suppose you waited for him?"
"Not me," said Troop. "That's the time I'm on the jump with all the offices emptying, and especially that night with the other elevator out of commission. Besides it wouldn't have been no use, for he was in there quite a while. It wasn't till nearly half-past six he rang for the car."
"Pity he didn't wait a few minutes longer. Maybe if Mr. Harland had seen him he'd have given up the idea of suicide."
"I've thought of that myself, for accordin' to the inquest, Harland was round that corridor for a half-hour, like as not pacin' up and down while Ford was sittin' in the office near by. Strange, ain't it, the way things happen in this world?"
It was—a great deal stranger than he thought.
For a moment I didn't say anything. I was kind of quivering in my insides with the excitement of it. O'Mally hadn't got anything to beat this. We swung lazily back and forth, my hand clasped below Troop's, and the fat man giving up in despair. Only when my wrist bag caught him on the hat, he gave me one reproachful look and then settled the hat hard on his head to show me what he was suffering.