Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/89

 to be rid of me; but I said I'd stay awhile to make sure she suffered no bad effect from my carelessness. So she gave up in a few minutes and telephoned her husband, at his club, that she wasn't coming down to-night and he'd better take a taxi home. I waited till I was sure he'd started in that taxi and then I left.

I'd done fairly well, I thought; I didn't fool myself into feeling that I'd seen old Win out of danger absolutely but I did feel sure that I'd pried his demise out of the present into the future. What's the phrase that surgeons use? I'd considerably prolonged his life, I thought; and, so thinking and fairly much pleased with my plan after all, I went to bed and to sleep.

It was half-past four, as I learned after I got fully awake, when I was roused by some one shaking me. It was father.

"Wake up, Stephen!" he was saying to me. "Wake up! The police are here. They want to talk to you. Jerry has just shot and killed Winton Scofield."

I stumbled up, as you may imagine, with father's words painting the picture in my mind. Jerry was in that picture. Then I shook myself and cast him out of the image and put Keeban, Harry Vine, in his place.