The floor was bare. The case had not fallen from the table to the floor.
He let his light go out again, while his scalp crawled. But he could not go without the case. Leaving it, he left safety—perhaps life—behind. There was no single thing to connect him with this murder save that. His alibi was prepared, was perfect. But he had been seen to use that case an hour ago. Found here, it would damn him. If it were carried away, he would be unsuspected.
He had planned it perfectly. That was the only flaw in the whole plan, and he had only to pick up the monogrammed case of silver to be both safe and rich. Why, he'd even planned out the funeral! He would be dutifully grieved. Some of the neighbors would be there—some because it was the proper thing, but more from curiosity. The only person who would really regret the old man's death would be the telephone-girl. The old man paid her a small extra sum to give his line special attention. It was, he said, his burglar-protection. And every month, grudgingly, he paid her a small sum, with a deduction for each time he could claim to have been kept waiting for a number.
There was a scratching sound from the chair. The murderer sprang to his feet, his terror making his throat dry. The scratching came again, like a fingernail on rough-polished sheet metal. The telephone! The thing in the chair was reaching for the telephone!
The murderer acted without thought, in pure sweating fear. He sprang like a wildcat. The table toppled heavily to the floor and the telephone went spinning against the wall. He flung the extended wrist aside....
It resisted his hand. And he jerked away and stood moaning softly, in an ecstasy of fear and desperation.
Once more the feeling as if the thing in the chair were laughing, shaking in silent, ghastly laughter. The one thing that held the murderer in the room was the cigarette-case that could hang him. And the thing was tormenting him and shaking in horrible mirth....
Long past the power to reason, the murderer brought forth all his willpower. It was really a conflict between two fears, a panic-stricken horror of the dead thing before him, and terror of a noose that awaited him. He flashed his light despairingly—and saw the cigarette-case.
It was projecting invitingly from the pocket of the thing in the chair. It had been on the table. It had been filched from beneath his descending hand. It was in the dead man's pocket, as if tucked there by stiff and clumsy fingers—or as if left projecting to lure him to a snatch. And the extended hand, with its clawing fingers outstretched, quivered a little as if with eagerness for him to make an attempt to get it.
He whimpered. It was trying to get him to reach for the case, invitingly in sight. But if he reached, he would be within the length of its arms. And they would move stiffly but very swiftly to seize him....