Darkness at dawn : early suspense classics

by Woolrich, Cornell

  “Yeah, I could do that,” said the voice hesitantly. “Y’sure she said she’ll be—free by nine thirty?” Alone, was the word he wanted to use, Larry knew.

  “That’s the time Helen told me to say,” he reassured. “Oh, and I nearly forgot—” Like hell he had! It was more important than everything else put together, but it had to be dished out carefully so as not to awaken suspicion. “She said you don’t have to drive right up to the place if you don’t feel like it, you can sound your horn from that clump of pines down the road. You can wait there. She’ll come out to you.”

  He would go for that idea, Larry felt, if only to avoid getting stuck with any possible bill she might have run up in the roadhouse. That clump of pines wasn’t new to him anyway. Larry’d already seen his car berthed in it while they were inside dancing—all to get out of paying the extra fifty cents the inn charged for parking. He’d known whose it was because he’d seen them both go back to it once to smoke a cigarette out under the stars.

  He heard Helen coming down the stairs, dressed at last and ready to clear out, yet he didn’t dare break the connection too abruptly.

  “Who you talking to?” she said in her clear, shrill voice and stopped beside him. But he’d counted on her saying something, and the mouthpiece was already buried against his shirt-front by the time she spoke. Her voice couldn’t reach it.

  “Sweetie of mine,” he said limply. “Have a heart, don’t listen—” His eyes stared tensely at her. While she stood there he couldn’t uncover the thing and speak into it himself. One peep from her and the voice at the other end would ask to speak to her, and she wasn’t in on the set-up. On the other hand he had to keep talking, couldn’t just stand there like that. Cold feet can be awfully catching, even over a wire.

  “All right, son,” the voice sounded into his ear. “I’ll do that. You sure you got the message straight now?”

  “Looks like you’ve got a bad case of it,” said Helen derisively. “Your eyes are staring out of your head. I wish you could see yourself—” But she moved away, started for the front door.

  “Absolutely. Just like I told you,” he said into the instrument.

  “All right, thanks a lot,” the voice came back. There was a click at the other end. He felt himself caving in at his middle.

  “Give her my love,” Helen was saying from the open doorway.

  “There’s a fresh dame here sends you her love, honey,” he said into the dead phone. “But she’s not as pretty as you are.”

  As his sister banged the front door after her, the fake grin left his face with it. He parked the phone and leaned his head weakly against the wall for a minute or two. He’d been through too much in just one hour, too much to take without leaning against something. And there was lots to come yet, he knew. Plenty.

  He was alone in the house now with the body of a murdered woman. That didn’t frighten him. It was getting out of there that worried him—with a double row of porches to buck in either direction, porches jammed with the rocking-chair brigade on sentinel duty. Yet out it must go, and not cut up small in any valise either. That body had a date with its own murder. It had to travel to get there, and it had to travel whole. Though at this very minute it was already as dead as it would ever be, its murder was still several hours off and a good distance away. Nine thirty, in a clump of trees near Pine Tree Inn, just as a starting-point. Details could come later. The important thing was to get it away from this house, where no murder had ever taken place, and have it meet up with its murderer, who didn’t know that was what he was yet, and wasn’t expecting to kill.

  Let him worry about getting rid of it after that! Let him find out how much harder it is to shake off the embrace of dead arms than it is of living ones! Let him try to explain what he was doing with it in a lonely clump of trees at the side of the road, at that hour and that far from town—and see if he’d be believed! That is, if he had guts enough to do the only thing there was for him to do—raise a holler, report it then and there, brazen it out, let himself in for it. But he wouldn’t, he was in too deep himself. He’d lose his head like a thousand others had before him. He’d leave it where it was and beat it like the very devil to save his own skin. Or else he’d take it with him and try to dump it somewhere, cover it somehow. Anything to shake himself free of it. And once he did that, woe betide him!

  The eyes of the living were going to be on hand tonight, at just the wrong time for him—just when he was pulling out of that clump of trees, or just as he went flashing past the noon-bright glare in front of the inn on the road away from Asbury, to get rid of her in the dark open country somewhere beyond.

  She would be reported missing the first thing in the morning, or even before—when his father phoned—Larry would see to that. Not many people had seen them dancing together and lapping their Martinis together and smoking cigarettes in a parked car together— but just enough of them had to do the damage. A waiter here, a gas-station attendant there, a bellboy somewhere else. Larry’d know just which ones to get.

  He said to himself what he’d said when he answered the man’s phone call. “It was your party; you’re gonna pay for it, not Dad.

  She‘s gonna be around your neck tonight choking you, like he choked her!”

  Only a minute had gone by since Helen had banged the front door after her. Larry didn’t move, he was still standing there leaning his head against the wall. She might come back, she might find out she’d forgotten something. He gave her time to get as far as the Boardwalk, two blocks over. Once she got that far she wouldn’t come back any more, even if she had forgotten something. She’d be out until twelve now with Gordon. Three minutes went by—five. She’d hit the Boardwalk now.

  He took his head away from the wall but he didn’t move. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He had all the time in the world and he wanted that last silvery gleam of twilight out of the sky before he got going. It was a lot safer here in the house with her than out in the open under those pine trees. He smoked the cigarette down to its last inch, slowly not nervously. He’d needed that. Now he felt better, felt up to what was ahead of him. He took a tuck in his belt and moved away from the wall. Anyone who had seen him would have called him just a lazy young fellow slouching around the house on a summer evening.

  He wasn’t bothering with any fake alibi for himself. His father had a peach and that was all he cared about. If through some unforeseen slip-up the thing boomeranged back to their own doorstep in spite of everything, then he’d take it on—himself. He didn’t give a rap, as long as it wasn’t fastened on his father. His own alibi, if worst came to worst, would be simply the truth—that he’d been in the house here the whole time. And, he told himself wisely, when you don’t bother tinkering with an alibi is usually when you don’t need one anyway.

  He pulled down all the shades on all the windows. Then he lit just one light, so he could see on the stairs. From the street it would look like no one was home and a night-light had been left burning. Then he went upstairs and got her out from under the bed.

  He was surprised at how little she weighed. The first thing he did was carry her downstairs and stretch her on the floor, over to one side of the stairs. To go out she had to leave by the ground floor anyway.

  Then he sat down next to her, on the lowest step of the stairs, and for a long time nothing else happened. He ws thinking. The quarter hour chimed from somewhere outside. Eight fifteen that was. He still had loads of time. But he’d better be starting soon now, the Pine Tree Inn wasn’t any five minutes from here. The thing was—how to go about it.

  It was right there under his eyes the whole time, while he’d been racking his brains out. A spark from his cigarette did it—he’d lit another one. It fell down next to her, and he had to put his foot on it to make it go out. That made him notice the rug she was lying on. About eight by ten it was, a lightweight bright-colored summer rug. He got up and beat it over to the phone directory and looked under Carpet Cleaners.

  He cal
led a number, then another, then another, then another. Finally he got a tumble from someone called Saroukian, “How late do you stay open tonight?”

  They closed at six, but they’d call for the article the first thing in the morning.

  “Well, look,” he said, “if I bring it over myself tonight, won’t there be someone there to take it in? I’ll just leave it with you tonight, and you don’t need to start work on it until you’re ready.”

  They evidently lived right in back of, or right over, their cleaning shop. At first they tried to argue him out of it. Finally they told him he could bring it around and ring the bell, but they wouldn’t be responsible for it.

  “That’s O.K.,” he said. “I won’t have time in the morning and it’s gotta be attended to.” He hung up and went over to get it ready for them.

  He moved her over right into the middle of it, the long way. Then he got his fountain pen out, shoved back the plunger, and wrecked the border with it until there was no more ink in the thing. It took ink beautifully, that rug. He went and got some good strong twine, and he rolled the rug around her tight as a corset and tied it at both ends, at about where her ankles were and at about where her broken neck was. It bulged a little in the middle, so he tied it there too and evened it out. When he got through it wasn’t much thicker than a length of sewer pipe. Her loosened hair was still spilling out at one end though, and there was another round opening down where her feet were. He shoved the hair all back in on top of her head where it belonged, and got two small cushions off the sofa and wedged one in at each end, rammed it down with all his might. They could stand cleaning too, just like the rug. That was the beauty of a bloodless murder, you weren’t afraid to leave anything at the cleaner’s. He hoisted the long pillar up onto his shoulder to try it out. It wasn’t too heavy, he could make it. No heavier than carrying a light-weight canoe.

  He put it down again and went upstairs to the room where it had happened, and lit up and looked around for the last time. Under the bed and on top of it and all over, to make sure nothing had been overlooked. There wasn’t a speck of anything. He went to her jewel case and rummaged through it. Most of the gadgets just had initials, but there was a wrist-watch there that had her name in full on the inside of the case. He slipped that in his pocket. He also took a powder compact, and slipped a small snapshot of herself she’d had taken in an automatic machine under the lid, just for luck. He wanted to make it as easy for them as he could.

  He put out the lights and went downstairs. He opened the front door wide and went back in again. “From now on,” he told himself, “I don’t think; I let my reflexes work for me!” He picked the long cylinder up with both arms, got it to the porch, and propped it upright against the side of the door for a minute while he closed the door after him. Then he heaved it* up onto his right shoulder and kept it in place with one upraised arm, and that was all there was to it. It dipped a little at both ends, but any rolled-up rug would have. Cleopatra had gone to meet Caesar like this, he remembered. The present occupant was going to keep a blind date with her murderer—three or four hours after her own death.

  Someone on the porch of the next cottage was strumming Here Comes Cookie on a ukulele as he stepped down to the sidewalk level with the body transverse to his own. He started up the street with it, with his head to one side to give it room on his shoulder. He came to the first street-light and its snowy glare picked him out for a minute, then handed him back to the gloom. He wasn’t walking fast, just trudging along. He was doing just what he’d said he’d do: not thinking about it, letting his reflexes work for him. He wasn’t nervous and he wasn’t frightened, therefore he didn’t look nervous and he didn’t look frightened.

  “This is a rug,” he kept repeating. “I’m taking it to the cleaners. People taking rugs to the cleaners don’t go along scared of their shadows.”

  A rocking chair squeaked on one of the wooden platforms and a woman’s nasal voice said: “Good evening, Larry. What on earth are you doing, trying to reduce?”

  He showed his teeth in the gloom. “Grotta get this rug to the cleaners.”

  “My stars, at this hour?” she queried.

  “I’ll catch it if I don’t,” he said. “I was filling my fountain pen just now and I got ink all over it.” He had deliberately stopped for a moment, set the thing down, shifted it to his other shoulder. He gave her another flash of his teeth. “See you later,” he said, and was on his way again.

  She gave a comfortable motherly laugh. “Nice young fellow,” he heard her say under her breath to someone beside her. “But that stepmother of his—” The sibilant whispers faded out behind him.

  So Doris was already getting a bad name among the summer residents—good. “Go to it!” he thought. “You’ll have more to talk about in a little while.”

  Every porch was tenanted. It was like running the gauntlet. But he wasn’t running, just strolling past like on any other summer evening. He saw two glowing cigarette ends coming toward him along an unlighted stretch of the sidewalk. As they passed under the next light he identified one—a girl he knew, a beach acquaintance, and her escort. He’d have to stop. He would have stopped if he only had a rug with him, so he’d have to stop now. The timing wasn’t quite right though. Instead of coming up to them in one of the black stretches between lights, the three of them met face to face in one of the glaring white patches right at the foot of a street lamp.

  “Hello, old-timer.”

  “Hello, babe.” He tilted his burden forward, caught it with both arms, and eased it perpendicularly to the pavement.

  “Johnny, this is Larry.” Then she said: “What in the world have you got there?”

  “Rug,” he said. “I just got ink all over it and I thought I could get it taken out before I get bawled out.”

  “Oh, they’ll charge like the dickens for that,” she said helpfully. “Lemme look, maybe I could do it for you, we’ve got a can of wonderful stuff over at our house.” She put her hand toward the top opening and felt one of the wedged-in cushions.

  He could feel his hair going up. “Nah, I don’t want to undo it,” he said. “I’ll never get it together again if I do.” He didn’t, however, make the mistake of pushing her hand away, or immediately trying to tip the thing back on his shoulders again. He was too busy getting his windpipe open.

  “What’s that in the middle there?” she said, poking her hand at the cushion.

  “Sofa pillows,” he said. “They got all spotted, too.” He didn’t follow the direction of her eyes in time.

  “How come you didn’t get it all over your hands?” she said innocently.

  “I was holding the pen out in front of me,” he said, “and it squirted all over everything.” He didn’t let a twitch get past his cuff and shake the hand she was looking at, although there were plenty of them stored up waiting to go to work.

  Her escort came to his aid; he didn’t like it because Larry’d called her “babe.” “Come on, I thought you wanted to go to the movies—”

  He started to pull her away.

  Larry tapped his pockets with his free hand; all he felt was Doris’s wrist-watch. “One of you got a cigarette?” he asked. “I came out without mine.” The escort supplied him, also the match. Larry wanted them to break away first. They’d put him through too much, he couldn’t afford to seem anxious to get rid of them.

  “My, your face is just dripping!” said the girl, as the orange glare swept across it.

  Larry said: “You try toting this on a warm night and see how it feels.”

  ” ‘Bye,” she called back, and they moved off into the shadows.

  He stood there and blew a long cloud of smoke to get into gear again. That was the closest yet, he thought. If I got away with that, I can get away with anything.

  He got back under the thing again and trudged on, cigarette in mouth. The houses began to thin out; the paved middle of the street began to turn into the road that led out toward Pine Tree Inn, shorn of its two sidew
alks. But it was still a long hike off, he wasn’t even halfway there yet. He was hugging the side of the roadway now, salt marshes spiked with reeds on all sides of him as far as the eye could reach. A car or two went whizzing by. He could have gotten rid of her easy enough along here by just dropping her into the ooze. But that wasn’t the answer, that wouldn’t be making him pay for his party.

  There was another thing to be considered though. Those occasional cars tearing past. Their headlights soaked him each time. It had been riskier back further where the houses were, maybe, but it hadn’t looked so strange to be carrying a rug there. The surroundings stood for it. It was a peculiar thing to be doing this far out. The biggest risk of all might be the safest in the end; anything was better than attracting the attention of each separate driver as he sped by. A big rumbling noise came up slowly behind him, and he turned and thumbed it with his free hand. The rejflexes would look out for him, he hoped, like they had so far.

  The truck slowed down and came to a stop a foot or two ahead; it only had a single driver. “Get in,” he said facetiously. “Going camping?” But it had been a rug back further, so it was still going to be a rug now, and not a tent or anything. Switching stories didn’t pay. Only instead of going to the cleaners it would have to be coming from there now; there weren’t any cottages around Pine Tree Inn.

  “Nah,” Larry said. “I gotta get this rug out to Pine Tree Inn, for the manager’s office. Somebody got sick all over it and he had to send it in to be cleaned. Now he’s raising hell, can’t wait till tomorrow, wants it back right tonight.”

  He handed it up to the driver and the man stood it upright against the double seat. Larry followed it in and sat down beside it, holding it in place with his body. It shook all over when the truck got going and that wasn’t any too good for the way it was rolled up. Nor could he jump down right in front of the inn with it, in the glare of all the lights and under the eyes of the parking attendants.

  “Who do you work for?” said the driver after a while.