Page:Weird Tales v33n05 (1939-05).djvu/103

Rh down to make room for a more modern structure. The first floor was occupied by business concerns. The second and third floors had windows so grimy that I could not tell if they were occupied or not.

I crossed over, found a door leading to a stairway, and went up to the second floor.

There was a corridor up there, and off it were doors with frosted glass panels. On some of the panels were traces of lettering, indicating that doctors' offices and small sales representatives' headquarters had once been here. But as far as I could see, none of the places was tenanted now.

I went down the corridor, opening first one door and then another. All the doors were unlocked; for the purpose, I suppose, of letting the building agent show prospective renters without bothering to get keys. Each office was dust-covered, long vacant.

I went to the street window of each cubicle, and looked carefully at the floor under it, and at the dusty sills. Possibly the driver of the sedan had seen someone or something in one of these windows that had horrified him.

But office after office presented the same thing: unbroken dust layers all around the King Street windows, proving that no one had stood near them for many weeks.

All—but the last office.

I was about ready to conclude that none of the little offices was occupied when I came to that last one, in the King and Alt-sheller corner of the building. Then I saw that the door of this corner office was open. And I heard a stir of movement in there.

My heart began to thud in my throat. Someone up here after all! Perhaps the key to the mystery was about to be discovered.

But my thought died when a person backed out of the office and started to shut and fasten the door after her. An old woman, shabbily dressed, with gray hair stringing in wisps from under a hat so shapeless and drab that I can't remember now what it looked like; I can only remember that she did wear a hat.

She turned and saw me. She was older even than I had thought from seeing her bent back. At least eighty, I'd say. But there was a sort of strength in her wrinkled, ugly hag's face that relieved her age. Old she might be, and feeble, but she was not senile—not with that light of intelligence in her dim eyes, and the alertness of her manner as she saw me.

She straightened. "You wanted to see me, young man?" she cackled. "You need my services?"

I smiled a little at that.

"Your services?" I said.

"Yes. You would like to know your future?"

I tumbled then, of course. The crone, a fortune-teller, had picked up one of these empty offices cheap for her sucker business. I started to grin, then switched it off. The old woman's window looked down on the scene of the accident. She might be able to tell me a little about it, but she'd have to be pumped subtly. The angle of her long jaw, curving up a bit at the end toward her long, craggy nose, indicated obstinacy.

"Why, yes," I said, "I would like to have my fortune told. If you have the time"

"I have all the time in the world," she said, smiling.

I almost shuddered at her smile. It creased her old face till it looked like a withered apple. And into the lines and creases crept a look of dark decay where the pigment under the ancient skin was bunched together. She had a wen the size of the end of my thumb on her left cheek, near her ear, that didn’t help improve her appearance at all.

She turned to the door and opened it again. She waved me in. I entered, looking around.