“Herf I told you to go get me a taxi.”
Jimmy bit his lip and went out the front door.
“Elaine what are you going to do?”
“George I will not be bullied.”
Something nickel flashed in Baldwin’s hand. Gus McNiel stepped forward and gripped his wrist with a big red hand.
“Gimme that George.... For God’s sake man pull yourself together.” He shoved the revolver into his pocket. Baldwin tottered to the wall in front of him. The trigger finger of his right hand was bleeding.
“Here’s a taxi,” said Herf looking from one to another of the taut white faces.
“All right you take the girl home.... No harm done, just a little nervous attack, see? No cause for alarm,” McNiel was shouting in the voice of a man speaking from a soapbox. The headwaiter and the coatgirl were looking at each other uneasily. “Didn’t nutten happen.... Gentleman’s a little nervous ... overwork you understand,” McNiel brought his voice down to a reassuring purr. “You just forget it.”
As they were getting into the taxi Ellen suddenly said in a little child’s voice: “I forgot we were going down to see the murder cottage.... Let’s make him wait. I’d like to walk up and down in the air for a minute.” There was a smell of saltmarshes. The night was marbled with clouds and moonlight. The toads in the ditches sounded like sleighbells.
“Is it far?” she asked.