Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/109

Rh Public interest waned and dwindled, and passed on to other things. Even with me, living at the very scene of the crime, it faded in an astonishing way; it no longer occupied my thoughts; over my evening pipe, it was not the details of the mystery I conjured up, but a vision of a dark face…

An inquiry of the janitor developed the fact that it was my neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Tremaine, whom I had met that evening as I left the elevator. They had the apartment just across the hall from mine, and I had thought, of course, that I must meet them frequently; but three days had passed and I had caught not a glimpse of them; their hours for coming and going seemed radically different from mine.

So it was with a sense of disappointment somewhat foolishly excessive that I sat in my room and watched the smoke circle up around the chandelier and wondered at the whim which had brought me to this apartment. Not but that it was comfortable enough; yet I was vaguely restless, uneasy; I had not that homelike sense of comfort and quiet which had marked my sojourn with Mrs. Fitch. There was nothing to be discovered here concerning the tragedy; the rooms had been stripped bare of evidence before my arrival; it was absurd to suppose…

I heard the sudden opening of a door; a scream, shrill, full of terror…

Rarely have I been so startled as I was by that voice. In an instant, I was in the hall. A red light streamed through the open door of the apartment opposite, silhouetting a woman’s figure, staring, with clasped hands…