We slid into the first car, sat up close to the motorman’s compartment. There were only four other people in the car; the only one who paid any particular attention to us was a skinny girl with mean, narrow-set eyes. She nudged the older woman at her side; they whispered with much animation, craning their necks to get a better view of Tildy.
“How old would you say this bird was?” I kept after her. “Twenty? Forty?”
“In between. Say, thirty-four or five.” Tildy looked as if she might be sick to her stomach.
It took until we got to the Manhattan side to get the description. What it summed up to — the man she described could easy be arrested if the cops were looking for Roy Yaker. Or vice versa.
That gave me pause.
When Tildy asked if we were going straight to the hotel, I said, “We were. But I don’t believe that’s very smart, now. This boy with the lethal notions will expect us to do that. He may be there before we are.”
“I am so horribly afraid.” She showed it plainly. “For myself — for Dow. And — for you.”
“Fellow wasn’t after me.” I wasn’t as confident about that as I may have sounded; she hadn’t been in the car with me on the way in from Dave’s Place, but I’d been trailed just the same.
The skinny girl swayed up the aisle, bent over, eyes fixed on Tildy. “Pardon me, but aren’t you Tildy Millett?”
There were half a dozen others in the car by then; every head was turned our way.