“Frighten you? After what happened on Atlantic Avenue?”
“It is true then? Honestly?” For a bit she couldn’t seem to understand. When she spoke again her tongue was blurred as if she was tight. “Do they know — have they any idea — who did it?”
“Not yet. Might have been suicide.”
“You couldn’t say that if you’d known him. No one ever was fonder of life than Dow.” If I hadn’t been watching her, I’d have thought she’d taken a long pull from a secret flask; she began to weave back and forth on the seat, drunkenly. “Was that — that same — horrible person.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Get hold of yourself; we’ll be at the hotel in a few minutes.”
“Driver,” she slurred it so it sounded like “Drier.”
“Stop this cab! At once! Let me out!”
The driver slowed, looked over his shoulder, scowled at me, pulled in toward the curb.
“Go on,” I said quietly. “The lady’s a little upset. She’ll be all right, soon’s—”
She flung the door open. The cab was still moving. She stumbled out, collapsed on the curb.