FOUR NOVELLAS OF FEAR: Eyes That Watch You, The Night I Died, You'll Never See Me Again, Murder Always Gathers Momentum

by Cornell Woolrich

  He said in a rather low voice, almost an undertone: “Do you like Mr. Haggard?”

  Her eyes snapped just once, like a blue electric spark.

  He waited awhile, then he said: “Do you like Mrs. Haggard?”

  The negative blink this time was almost ferocious.

  “I wonder why,” he said slowly, but it didn’t sound like a question.

  That sense of alliance, of confederacy, came over her again, stronger than ever. Her eyes were fastened on him hopefully.

  “It’s too bad we can’t talk,” he sighed and relapsed into silence.

  Vera came downstairs, and then presently Haggard followed her. They began to bicker and their voices were clearly audible out on the porch.

  “I gave you fifty only last night!” she snarled. “Go easy, will you?”

  “What’re you trying to do, keep me on an allowance?”

  “Whose money is it, anyway?”

  “If it wasn’t for me, you—”

  There was a warning “Sh!” followed by, “Don’t forget the old lady ain’t by herself out there no more.”

  The sudden restraint spoke more eloquently than any reckless revelation could have. Janet Miller’s eyes were on Casement’s face. He gave not the slightest sign of having heard anything that surprised him.

  Haggard went out to get the car, brought it around to the front door. Vera came out, threw Casement a careless “You know what to do,” and got in. They drove off.

  Almost before they were out of sight down the long tree-lined street, he’d got up and gone inside. Not hurriedly or furtively, simply as though he had something to do that couldn’t be postponed any longer.

  He stayed in there a long time. She could hear him first in one room, then in another. He seemed to go through the entire house upstairs and down while he was about it. She could hear a drawer slide open from time to time, or a desk-flap being let down. If it hadn’t been for that peculiar, inexplicable confidence with which he seemed to inspire her, she might have thought him a burglar who had taken the job just for an opportunity to ransack the house in its owners’ absence. Somehow the idea never occurred to her.

  He came back outside again finally, after almost an hour, shaking his head slightly to himself. He sat down beside her, reached into his inside pocket, took out a little oblong book—a pocket dictionary.

  “You and I have got to find some way of getting beyond yes and no,” he murmured. “I’d like to talk to you. That’s why I wangled this job.”

  He glanced out between the porch posts, across the front lawn, up and down the sunny street. There was no one in sight. He took something from his vest pocket. Janet Miller thought it was a watch for a minute, until she saw that it was shield-shaped, not round. It had the State seal engraved on it. He let her see it, then put it away again. “I’m a detective,” he said. “I came up here and examined the premises immediately after it happened, just in the line of duty. Mrs. Haggard, as I at first reconstructed it, was awakened by the gas, managed to stagger down to the floor below, break the glass pane in the front door, then get over to the phone to try and call for help. She only had strength left to take the receiver off, then fell down with it and was found there on the floor by the telephone, overcome.

  “However, I happened to question the switchboard operator who had sent in the alarm, and she insisted it was the other way around. She distinctly heard the crash of glass, over the open wire, after the receiver was already off. That made it a little hard to understand. That was a plate-glass inset in that door, not just thin window glass. She had to swing a heavy andiron at it to shatter it. Now if a person is not even strong enough to whisper ‘Help’ over the phone, how in the world is she able to crash out a solid square of plate glass?

  “Furthermore, once she was at the door why did she turn around and go all the way back to the phone, which was already disconnected, and fall down there? There is a considerable length of hall between the two. It wasn’t at the door she was found, you understand, it was at the phone.

  “As peculiar as that struck me, I think I would have let it go by, but I visited the hospital while she was there being treated and asked to see her things. The light satin bedroom slippers she’d had on were discolored around the edges from dew, and I found traces of moist earth and a blade of grass adhering to their soles. She’d been outside the house before she was overcome, then went in again, closed the door after her, and smashed the glass panel in it from the inside.

  “Then on top of all that, the usual neighborhood gossip has begun to drift in to us, about how soon afterwards she and Haggard were married. Even an anonymous letter or two. I tell you all this because, although this is going to be one of the toughest things I’ve ever come up against, I think you may be able to help me before we’re through.”

  She could hardly breathe. The flame leaped heavenward and she blinked her eyes—twice—as rapidly as she could.

  “Then there is something you can tell me about it? Good. Well, the main thing I want to know is: did he lose his life accidentally or not?”

  No!

  He gave her a long look. But she could see there was really no surprise in it, only confirmation. He thumbed the pocket dictionary, put his thumbnail below a word, held it up to her.

  “Murder,” it read.

  Yes.

  “By his wife?” His mouth was tightening up a little.

  She stopped and thought a minute. If she once set him off on a false scent, or on an only partially correct scent, which was just as bad, there might be no possible way for her to correct him later.

  She blinked once. Then immediately afterwards she blinked twice.

  “Yes and no?” he said. “What do you mean by . . . ?” Then he got it! He was turning out to be a smart young man, this ally of hers, this Casement. “His wife and somebody else?”

  Yes.

  “Haggard and your son’s wife then, of course.”

  Yes.

  “But—” he said uncertainly. “She was overcome herself.”

  No.

  “She wasn’t overcome?”

  No.

  “But I’ve seen the report of the ambulance doctor who treated her. I’ve spoken to him. She was taken to the hospital.”

  They wasted the rest of the morning over that. She wasn’t particularly interested in convincing him that Vera’s gas poisoning had been feigned—as a matter of fact, it had only been partially so—but she was vitally interested in keeping him from going past that point, in order to try to bring the gas masks into it. Once he did, she might never again be able to make him understand what method had been used.

  They went at it again in the afternoon, on the back porch. “There’s something there that seems to be holding us up. How is it you’re so sure she wasn’t overcome? You were overcome yourself— Sorry, I forgot, I can only ask you questions that shape to a yes or no answer.”

  He was plainly stumped for a while. Took out some papers from his pocket, reports or jotted notes of some kind, and pored over them for a few minutes.

  “He and she were occupying that same room, up there, that the Haggards are using now. You insist she wasn’t overcome by the gas. Oh, I see what you mean—she saved herself by doing what I suspected from the looks of those bedroom slippers, stayed outside while the gas was escaping, came back inside again after it had killed your son, avoiding most of its effects in that way. Is that right?”

  No.

  “She didn’t save herself in that way?”

  No.

  “Did she stay in another room upstairs, with the windows open?”

  No.

  He was plainly confounded. “She didn’t stay in the same room with him, the back bedroom, the whole time the gas was escaping?”

  Yes.

  He riffled his hair distractedly. She focused her eyes downward on the pocket dictionary he still held in his hand, glared at it as though it were her worst enemy.

  Finally he translated the look. “Something in th
ere. Yes, but what word in it?” he asked helplessly.

  Why didn’t he open it? If he didn’t hurry up and open it, he’d lose the thread of the conversation that had immediately preceded her inspiration. She didn’t even know whether the word was in there. If it was, she was counting on alphabetical progression. . . .

  “Well, we’ll get it if it takes all week. She stayed right in the bedroom with him while he was asphyxiated. She wasn’t harmed, you insist, and there’s some word in here you want. Something about bedrooms?”

  No.

  “Something about windows?”

  No.

  “Something about the gas itself?”

  Yes! He almost tore the little book in half to get to the G’s.

  “Gas. We’ll take it from there on, all right?”

  Instead of blinking, for once, she shut her eyes.

  She was saying a prayer.

  He started to run his finger down the page, querying her as he went. “Gaseous?” No. “Gastric?” No. “Gastronomy?” No. Suddenly he stopped. He’d seen it himself, automatically; she could tell by the flash of enlightenment that lit up his face.

  “Gas mask! Why didn’t I think of that myself! It’s been as obvious as the nose on my face the whole time!”

  Tears of happiness twinkled in her eyes.

  “So she saved herself by using a gas mask.”

  Yes, she told him.

  “Did she put one on you, too?”

  Yes.

  “Very smart angle, there. It would have been too obvious if they’d let you go with him. Who’d she get them from, Haggard?”

  Yes, she told him.

  “Was he here that night, while it was taking place?”

  No.

  “Too smart, eh? Well, he’s an accessory just the same.” He hitched his chair a little closer to her. “Now, you want to see these people punished, of course, Mrs. Miller. He was your son.”

  How needless was the yes she gave him. The flame of vengeance was a towering pillar of fire now.

  “You know they killed your son, and now I know it too. But I’ve got to have stronger evidence than that. And what other evidence is there but those two gas masks? Everything depends on whether I can recover them or not. You had one on, and she removed it before outsiders arrived, obviously. You must have been conscious at least for a short while after she removed it. Did you see what she did with them?”

  Yes.

  Technically, she hadn’t, of course. But the answer was yes just the same, because she had heard beforehand what they intended doing with them.

  “Swell,” he breathed fervently, balling a fist. “I suppose we’ll have a hard time getting it, but we’ll keep at it until we do. Am I tiring you?” he broke off to ask solicitously. “We’ve got plenty of time, you know. I don’t want to hurt you by all this excitement in one day.”

  Tiring her! The flame of vengeance burned so high, so white, so tireless within her that she could have gone on for hours. No, she signaled.

  “All right. About what was done with them afterwards. Let’s try a few short cuts. She hid them someplace in the house?”

  No.

  “I didn’t think she would. It would’ve been too chancy. She hid them someplace outside the house?”

  Yes.

  “Do you know where?”

  Yes.

  “But how could you? Excuse me. Let’s see. Under one of the porches?”

  No.

  “The garage?”

  She refused to answer yes or no, afraid once more of sending him off on a wrong trail and being unable to correct it later. He might leave her and go out there and start tearing the garage apart.

  “Not the garage then?”

  She still refused to answer.

  “The garage no answer, and not the garage, no answer either.” He got it. Thank heaven for creating smart young men. “The car?”

  Yes.

  “The one they’ve got now?”

  No.

  “They’ve bought that since. That’s down here in my notes. A former car then. Did you hear them discussing it afterwards? Is that how you know?”

  No.

  “You weren’t in a position to see it being done at the time, and you didn’t hear them talking it over afterwards. You must have heard them discussing it beforehand then.”

  Yes.

  His face lit up. “That explains the whole thing. How it is you’re so hep to what went on. That’s swell. Did they know you overheard them?”

  She couldn’t afford to tell him the truth on that one. It might weaken his credulity. But she was convinced they hadn’t deviated in the slightest from the plan she had heard them shape in the kitchen that afternoon, anyhow. No, was her response.

  “She doesn’t drive.” He’d learned that already, probably by watching them come and go. “He came and took the car away for her, then, with the masks still in it? That it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I see. He sent someone else up to get it, probably without taking him into their confidence. Therefore the masks must have been concealed in it, and he got them out at the other end without being observed.”

  Yes.

  “He owned a garage and repairshop, didn’t he, before his marriage?” He didn’t ask her that; just looked it up in his notes. “Yes, here it is. Ajax Garage and Service Station, Clifford Avenue. I’m going down there and look around thoroughly. There’s not much chance that those two masks haven’t been destroyed by now. But there is a chance, and a good one, that they were imperfectly destroyed. If I can just turn up sufficient remnants identifiable as having belonged to one or more gas masks, scraps of metal even, that’ll do the trick. You’ve told me all you can, Mrs. Miller, reconstructed the whole thing for me. The rest depends entirely on whether or not I can recover those two masks, intact or in fragments.” He put the jotted notes, and the pocket dictionary that had served them so well, back into his coat. “We may get the two of them yet, Mrs. Miller,” he promised softly, as he stood up.

  The flame of vengeance roared rejoicingly in her own ears. Her eyes were on him meltingly. He seemed to understand what they were trying to say. But then who could have failed to understand, they were so eloquent?

  “Don’t thank me,” he murmured deprecatingly. “It’s just part of my job.”

  Two days went by. He was there to look after her as usual, so he must have been pursuing his investigations at night, after leaving the house, she figured. More than once, when he appeared in the mornings, he looked particularly tired, dozed there on the porch beside her, while her eyes fondly gave his sleeping face their blessing.

  There is no hurry, take your time, my right arm, my sword of retribution, she encouraged him silently.

  He didn’t tell her what success he was having, although the Haggards were out as much as ever and there was plenty of opportunity. It was hard to read his face, to tell whether he was being successful or not. Her eyes clung to him imploringly now, as much as they had ever clung to Vern Miller.

  “You want to know, don’t you?” he said at last. “You’re eating your heart out waiting to find out, and it’d be cruel to keep you guessing any longer. Well—I haven’t had any luck so far. Their car’s still there in the garage, held for sale. I practically pulled it apart and put it together again, posing as a prospective buyer. Not while he was around, of course. They’re not in it any more. What’s more to the point, no one around the garage, no one of the employees, saw him take them out to dispose of them, or saw them at all. I’ve questioned them all; I haven’t any doubts left on that score. I’ve searched the garage from top to bottom, sifted ashes, refuse, debris, in every vacant lot for blocks around. I’ve examined the premises where Haggard lived before he moved in here. Not a sign of anything.”

  He was walking restlessly back and forth between the veranda posts while he spoke.

  “Damn the luck anyway!” he spat out. “Those things are bulky. They can’t just be made to vanish into thin air. Even i
f he used corrosive acid, nothing could disappear that thoroughly. He didn’t take them out over deep water, send them down to the bottom, because I’ve checked back on his movements thoroughly. He hasn’t been on any ferries or boats, or near any docks or bridges. Where did they come from, where did they go?”

  He stopped short, looked at her. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that before? If I can’t find out where they went to, maybe I can find out where they came from. I may have better luck if I go at it the other way around. You don’t just pick up things like that at the five-and-ten. Did you hear him say where he got them from, when you heard them planning the thing?”

  Yes, she answered eagerly.

  “Did he buy them?”

  No.

  “Was he given them?”

  No.

  “Did he steal them?”

  Yes.

  “From a factory where they’re made?”

  No.

  “From an Army post?”

  No.

  He scratched his head. “Where else could he get hold of things like that? From some friend, somebody he knew?”

  Yes.

  “That doesn’t help much. Who is he? Where’d he get them from?”

  She stared intently at the morning sun, blinked twice, then her eyes sought his. Then she did it again. Then a third time.

  “I don’t get you. The sun? He got them from the sun?”

  This time she looked slightly lower than the sun, midway between it and the horizon. “The East?” he caught on.

  Yes.

  “But we’re in the East already. Oh—Europe?”

  Yes.

  “Wait a minute, I know what you mean now. He swiped them from someone who brought them back from there.”

  Yes.

  “That does it!” he cried elatedly. “Now I know how I’ll find out who he is! Through the Customs office. He had to declare those things, especially if he brought in several with him at once. They’ll be down on his Customs declaration. Now I see too why I haven’t been able to find any traces of them in ash heaps or refuse dumps. He must be holding them intact somewhere, waiting his chance to return them if he hasn’t already. He’ll try to get them back unnoticed to where he got them from. That would be the smartest thing he could do. At last I think we’ve got a lead, Mrs. Miller—if only it isn’t too late!”