CLIFF MARSLAND entered the outer room of his apartment at Larchmont Court. He closed the door softly behind him. He did not turn on the light. Instead, he walked across the room and sat in darkness beside the telephone table.
The window was close by. From this room on the eighteenth floor, Cliff could see over the intervening buildings to the brilliant lights of Times Square, which threw a lurid glow through a smoky mist that had settled over the city.
Cliff watched the changing lights. Most of them were too far away to be distinguished; but there were two electric signs near by that he noticed.
One was a large clock, which marked the hour of nine. The other was an advertising sign with an intricate border of varicolored lights that flashed on and off with great rapidity.
Picking up the telephone, Cliff called a number from memory. Shortly afterward a voice answered.
It was a quiet voice, that spoke almost mechanically. Cliff mumbled into the mouthpiece. The voice at the other end spoke.
“I can’t hear you,” it said.
Cliff spoke plainly.
“Can you hear me now,” he asked.
There was a pause. Then came a reply.