Staggering to the wreckage of his car, he stopped to stare stupidly down at the pallid face of a girl who lay crumpled against the curb as though she, too, had been thrown from his car.
Shaken and unnerved, he dropped to his knees beside her. Her flesh was cold to his touch, and in the illusive moonlight he saw that it was the body of Helen Stallings.
An approaching car was slowing, edging in cautiously toward the wreck.
He was going to have a hell of a time making anyone believe that the cold corpse had not been a passenger in his car when it was wrecked.
SEVEN
THE CAR WAS A BLOCK AWAY. Shayne’s emergency reflexes were swift and adequate. Before the headlights were upon him he gathered the stiff corpse in his arms, holding it vertically against his body, and darted across the sidewalk to the thick hedge against which he had been thrown. Lifting the corpse over the hedge, he held on to the dress until the legs touched the ground, then let it fall to the grass with a soft thud.
He scuttled crabwise to the curb beside his wrecked car and staggered to his feet as the first car arrived and an excited young couple jumped out.
Other cars began converging upon the scene and curious householders hurried out of near-by homes, attracted by the crash.
Shayne didn’t have to do much talking. Everyone else was doing it for him. He kept insisting that he was all right, and when a police car arrived he gave a terse report of the wreck, grimly insisting that it had not been an accidental crash.
“I was loafing along when this car swerved and rammed me.” He did not mention the significant fact that the limousine had been trailing him along the boulevard before it darted ahead and doubled back to get a good run at him.