Gordon picked the girl up roughly. That capped it, he thought. There was no way of knowing how much she'd heard, or whether she'd tipped others off. He dropped her near the bed, and went over to Murdoch. The man was dying now.
"So Security wants me to contact the others in the book and organize things?"
"Yes." Murdoch swallowed. "Not a good chance, then—but a chance. Still time—I think. Gordon?"
"What else can I do?" Bruce Gordon asked.
He knew it was no answer, but Asa Murdoch apparently accepted it as a promise. The gray-speckled head relaxed and rolled sideways on the bloody pillow.
"Dead," Gordon said to the woman, as she came up with the twine. "Dead, fighting wind-mills. And maybe winning. I don't know."
He turned toward Sheila—a split second too late. The girl came up from the floor with a single push of her arm. She pivoted on her heel, hit the door, and her heels were clattering on the stairs. Before Gordon could reach the entrance, she was whipping around into an alley.
He watched her go, sick inside, and the last he saw was the hand she held up, waving the little black book at him!
He turned back into the liquor shop; the woman seemed to read his face. "I should have watched her. It is a bad day for me, young man. I failed Pappa; I failed the poor man who died—and now I have failed you. It is better..."
He caught her as she fell toward him. She relaxed after a second. "Upstairs, please," she whispered, "beside Pappa. There was nothing else. And these Martian poisons—they are so sure, they don't hurt. Five minutes more, I think. Stay with me, I'll tell you how Pappa and I got married. I want somebody should know how it was with us once, together."