finally stopped for breath, she said, “You are a
vulgar little gutter rat, aren’t you?”
But the blonde was finished. She could only stare
silently. She drew her hands across her face and
shuddered, and at last she turned to me.
“What are you going to do with her?” she asked.
“Never mind,” I said.
“Let me have the gun,” she begged. “Just let me
have it for five seconds. Let me kill her. I’ll give it
back to you. You can kill me, or turn me over to the
police, but just let me have it.”
“Relax,” I said. “You’ll get ulcers.”
“What are you going to do with her?”
Madelon Butler lit a cigarette and watched us
through the smoke. The man sat hunched over the
other end of the table, holding the edges of it with
his hands and saying nothing.
“We’re going to take your car and go for a little
ride as soon as it’s dark. If you don’t mind.”
“How much is she paying you?”
“Who said she was?” I asked.
“Of course she is. Why else would you do it?”
“I’m her mother.”
“How much?”
“Never mind,” I said. “I don’t think you could meet
the price.”
She turned her face then and looked at the man.
“Didn’t you hear him, Jack? You see? The dear,
sweet thing couldn’t find it. She didn’t even know
what we were talking about.”
“Stop it!” he said.
“She not only double-crossed you then, to get it,
but she’s using it now to double-cross you again and
get away and leave you holding the bag.”
“Shut up!”
There was no stopping her. “Why didn’t you have
sense enough to look? Just look? Did you trust her,
A Touch of Death — 84
or something? Didn’t you know what she was? Didn’t
the other one teach you anything?”
His eyes were terrible. He hit her across the
mouth with his open hand. She stopped then, and it
became suddenly and almost breathlessly silent in
the room. I could even hear the squirrel chattering
again, up on the hill.
I looked at my watch. It was only a little after one.
We couldn’t leave until it was dark. That meant for
at least six more hours I had to sit here and keep
them sorted out and untangled and away from each
other’s throats. I had thought that if I got them in
here I could turn the gun over to Madelon Butler
and let her watch them while I got a little sleep, but
I could see that was out. They’d rush her the minute
I dropped off. They were crazy enough. Or if they
weren’t, she’d taunt them into it with that arrogant
contempt of hers.
I’d given up trying to figure it out. And there was
no use asking any questions. I’d just be wasting my
breath. They were all too hell-bent on killing each
other to bother with outsiders trying to make sense
out of it.
I was tired. It had been thirty hours since I’d had
any sleep, and we had a long afternoon and another
whole night ahead of us. I wondered what our
chances were of getting back to Mount Temple and
into that house without being caught. In the dark,
and with another car, we shouldn’t be stopped on
the highway, but the house was another matter.
They’d be watching it.
I stood up and motioned toward the storeroom. “In
there,” I said.
They went by, watching me like a couple of big
cats, and walked in. They sat down on some boxes. I
stood in the doorway and looked at them.
“You won’t get hurt if you stay in there,” I said.
“And when we leave here you’ll be turned loose. But
if you try to come back through this door or jump
Mrs. Butler again while we’re here, you’ve had it.”
A Touch of Death — 85
“Aren’t you brave, with a gun in your hand?” the
blonde said.
“Don’t keep crowding your luck. Just because I
haven’t shot you already doesn’t mean I won’t if I
have to. I’m strictly a money player, and there’s a lot
of it tied up in this. Too much to let a couple of
hotheads like you louse it up. Keep it in mind,
Blondie.”
“I wouldn’t count on that money too much,” she
said.
“You wouldn’t? Why?”
“You’ll never get it.”
“I’ll worry about that.”
Her eyes had grown thoughtful, and now she
actually smiled. It was a very cold smile. “Yes. You’ll
worry about it, before you get through. You haven’t
found out yet who you’re dealing with. I don’t know
why I didn’t think of it before, but it makes me feel a
lot better.”
“What does?”
“The fact that even if you get away from here, it
really doesn’t matter. One of you will kill the other
before it’s all over. Isn’t it nice?”
“Isn’t it?” I said. “Unsaddle your broom and stay a
while.”
I closed the door and walked back to the table.
Madelon Butler was still sitting in the chair at the
end of it. I sat down and lit another cigarette.
“You’d better go in and get some sleep,” I said.
“You’ll need it.”
“It’s too hot,” she said.
“Suit yourself,” I said. “But it may be a little hot
tonight, too.”
She gave me that supercilious smile of hers again.
“Not afraid to go back there, are you?”
“No,” I said. “We’re going back.”
“You’re rather fond of money, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I never had any.”
A Touch of Death — 86
“I hope you’ll be very happy with it.”
“I like your friends,” I said, nodding toward the
storeroom. “Why don’t all of you rent yourselves out
to curdle milk?”
“You’re not becoming squeamish, are you?” she
asked mockingly. “Where’s your fine, professional
attitude? Surely the detached and unemotional Mr.
Barton wouldn’t let a little display of petulance like
that upset him.” She broke off. “By the way, you
never did tell me what your name really is.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I didn’t, did I?”
She shrugged.
Time dragged. The cabin was stifling.
I dozed off once, propped up in the chair. When
my eyes flew open I saw the storeroom door being
pulled gently back. The blonde was looking at me.
“Back,” I said. It shut again.
They’d be watching the house. They might catch
us.
Or if we tried to run, it could be worse. They might
kill us.
All right. Either I wanted that money, or I didn’t.
And if I wanted it, I had to have the keys.
Somehow, the sun went down.
It was dusk out across the clearing. I stood up.
Madelon Butler killed another cigarette in the
mountain of butts on the tray and looked at me. “Put
on your robe,” I said. “Its time to go.”
“Very well,” she said.
I thought of something. “Would that blonde s dress
fit you?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. But I’d die before I’d
touch it.”
“All right,” I said. “Don’t strip your gears. It
doesn’t matter. You can change into something else
when we get in the house. If we do.”
I went over and opened the storeroom door. “All
right,” I said.
A Touch of Death — 87
They came out. I motioned for them to go out the
front door. I followed them. Madelon Buder came
out, and I handed her the key. “Lock it,” I said. She
locked the door. I put the key in my pocket.
I nodded to the blonde and Jack. “Just stand right
where you are. When we’re gone you can start
walking. Or you can have that Cadillac if you know
how to start it without the keys and don’t mind that
it’s a little hot.”
“I’ll find you someday,” Jack said. “I’ll find you.”
“I’m in the book,” I said. I motioned for Madelon
Butler to get into the car.
As we crossed the culvert at the edge of the
meadow I tossed the key out at the end of it without
slowing down. I looked in the rear-view mirror, but I
couldn’t see them. It was already too dark under the
trees.
I flicked on the headlights and we went up the hill
through the timber.
* * *
The lights of the country store and filling station
were ahead of us. “Here’s where we hit the
highway,” I said. “We’ll see a police car once in a
while, but they won’t be looking for this car. Don’t
pay any attention to them. They can’t see you in
here.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said.
I sailed the keys to the Cadillac into the roadside
bushes, and in another minute or two we pulled onto
the pavement. In spite of what I’d told her, it was
like walking into a cold shower.
I drove carefully, holding it down to forty or fortyfive.
Just a simple accident or being stopped for a
traffic violation of some kind was all it would take to
ruin us. I thought of how invisible a car was among
all the hundreds of others until something happened
to it, or the driver did something wrong, and then it
was in the center of the stage with all the spotlights
on it. When we came into the first town I turned over
A Touch of Death — 88
one street to keep out of the lights, and went
through as if we were driving on eggshells.
I turned twice more, and we were back on the
highway again. It was only thirty miles now.
It had been over twelve hours since she was
supposed to have fled. They might not actually
expect her to be stupid enough to come back, but
they’d have at least one man covering the place as a
matter of routine. Maybe there’d be more. The
money still hadn’t been found. They wouldn’t be
taking any chances.
Would he be in front? Or in back? Inside the house
itself?
We had to park the car far enough away so they
wouldn’t hear it or see the headlights. And still we
couldn’t walk around on the streets.
“Is there another street or road in back of that one
directly behind the house?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll show you where to turn. There
are no street lights there, and it’s mostly vacant
lots.”
She’d grown up in that house. I wondered how she
felt about going back to it for the last time and
knowing she’d never see it again if we got away. But
whatever she felt, she kept it to herself. Then it
occurred to me she had never seemed particularly
bothered by the fact that her husband wasn’t around
any more, either, or why he wasn’t. She wasn’t
exactly the gushy type.
“Where did they find him?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” she said.
“You don’t know?” I asked unbelievingly.
“That’s right.” She appeared completely
unconcerned. “You were the one who heard the
news report. Remember?”
It just didn’t add up. I had to believe her. She
sounded as if she were telling the truth, and she had
no reason to lie about it now. And she hadn’t known
that his car had been abandoned right in front of the
James girl’s apartment, either. An odd thought
A Touch of Death — 89
struck me then. Had she really killed him? But that
was stupid. She’d as much as admitted it. She was
paying me $120,000 to get her out of there and hide
her from the police. For what—a parking ticket?
“You don’t make much sense to me,” I said.
“Really?” She lit a cigarette, and for an instant the
flame of the match lit up the still, intensely beautiful
face. “I wasn’t aware I was supposed to.”
“Did you kill Butler?” I asked.
“Perhaps you should read the terms of our
contract again. I recall nothing in it about
submitting to an inquisition.”
“Have it your way,” I said. “I just work here.”
“An excellent appraisal of your status. Incidentally,
I might say that you have done very well so far, with
only one or two exceptions.”
“What exceptions?”
“In the first place, you should have killed them
instead of turning them loose. They can describe
you; And in the second place, you have thrown away
the only key I have to the house. It was attached to
the car keys.”
“We don’t need a house key,” I said. “We go in
through one of the basement windows. And as far as
their describing me, you know as well as I do they’re
not going to the police. They can’t.”
“Yes. But has it occurred to you they might be
captured by the police?”
“Sure,” I said. “But it’s just a chance we have to
take.”
“Needlessly.”
“All right. Needlessly. But I’m doing the job, and
I’ll do it my own way.”
She said nothing. We came up the grade out of the
river bottom.
I’d had plenty of warning about her. But I didn’t
realize it in time.
A Touch of Death — 90
Ten
We were nearly there. I could see the glow of lights
against the sky.
“Slowly,” she said. “We pass a cemetery on the
right. And just beyond it there’s a road on the left.
Turn there.”
In a moment I could see the evergreen hedge of
the cemetery. Two cars were coming up behind us. I
slowed and let them go by.
“Now,” she said. “On the left.”
I made the turn. It was a gravel road with a field
off to the left beyond a fence. We passed a lighted
house. A dog ran out and chased us, barking
furiously. I cursed, feeling the tension build up
inside me.
Coming back here like this with the police after
her was insane, and I knew it. Suppose we ran into
them? We might get away from them in the dark, but
that wasn’t the thing. They’d know where we were,
and all the roads in this end of the state would be
bottled up before we could get out.
But there was nothing else to do. We had to have
the keys to get into those boxes. Maybe, under
ordinary circumstances, you could have them
opened without the keys if you had plenty of time
A Touch of Death — 91
and absolutely foolproof identification. In her case it
was utterly impossible. She’d rented them under a
phony name, she was a fugitive, and the slightest
irregularity or one suspicious move would bring the
whole thing down on top of us.
While I was on the subject, I thought of something
else.
“Have you got any cash with you?” I asked. “Or at
the house, where you can get it?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have nearly a thousand dollars
in my handbag.”
“Good,” I said. I didn’t ask why she was carrying
around that much. It was obvious. She’d known she
might have to make a run for it someday, and she
was ready.
We turned right and went up a slight grade with
trees on both sides of the road. I was driving slowly,
drawing a map of it in my mind. We might be in
trouble when we came out. There were no houses,
no lights. A cat ran across the road, its eyes shining.
“In the next block, where that power line crosses
the road,” she said.
“Right.” I swung the car sharply around, facing
back the way we had come, and backed off the road
under the overhanging trees. I cut the motor and
lights, and we sat still for a moment, letting our eyes
become accustomed to the darkness.
We got out, and I gently closed the door. I was
conscious of my shallow breathing and the fluttering
in my stomach, the way it always was just before the
opening kickoff of a football game. The night was
overcast and still, the air thick with heat and the
smell of dust.
I had changed into the white shirt again back at
the camp, but I had on the coat to cover it. I turned
the collar up to hide any gleam of white. The gun
and flashlight were in the pockets. I looked at her.
She was all right, except for her feet. I could see the
faint blur of that white trim around her slippers. It
couldn’t be helped.
A Touch of Death — 92
I held her arm for another minute while we
listened. There was no sound. “All right,” I
whispered. “Let’s go.”
We cut across the lot, following the dark shafts of
the power-line poles. There was a path of sorts, and
we made no sound. In a minute or two we came out
onto the next street, the one directly behind the
house. I felt a sidewalk under my feet. There were
no cars in sight.
She tugged at my arm. “This way,” she whispered.
We hurried along the sidewalk, and then cut
diagonally across the street. I knew where we were
then. I could see the high, shadowy pile of the
oleanders. Out the gate, cut left diagonally, half a
block, I thought, writing it down in my mind in
reverse, the way it would be coming back. I might be
in a hurry. And I might be alone.
I eased the gate open, an inch at a time. We
slipped through and stood in the dense shadow of
the oleanders. I put my lips down next to her ear and
whispered.
“Wait here. I want to see if there’s a car around
anywhere.”
She nodded. I could see the faint blur of her face
as it moved.
I slipped off across the lawn toward the dark mass
of the house, cutting a little to the right to pass
around the south side near the garage. Stopping
beside the shrubs near the corner, I searched the
driveway. It showed faintly white in the gloom. I
could see no car.
Keeping on the grass to muffle any sound, I eased
around the side of the house until I could see the
front. There was no car here. The night was empty
and silent except for the faint sound of music coming
from somewhere across the huge expanse of front
lawn and the street beyond it. It was a radio in some
house on the other side of the street.
I remained motionless for a minute, thinking. They
might be parked out on the street, sitting in a car
A Touch of Death — 93
and watching the drive. Or they still might have a
man inside. We just had to chance it.
I started back. I came around the rear corner and
past the back porch by the kitchen, moving silently
on the grass. As I neared the break in the shadowy
mass of the oleander hedge where the gate was, I
could just make out the little blur of white at her
feet. She was moving. She was coming slowly
toward the house. I turned a little to meet her,
watching the small bits of white fur move across the
formless darkness of the lawn. Then they
disappeared. They winked off, like a light going out.
I stopped, feeling my heart pound in my throat.
She had passed behind something. But there wasn’t
anything there. There couldn’t be. Now I could see
them again. She had stopped too. I strained my eyes
into the night. I could see nothing at all. Then the
blur of white at her feet winked off again. Something
was between us, and it was moving.
There was no way to warn her. I wanted to cry out
to her to run, but I knew the stupidity of it. The man
knew she was there; he could see her feet. But he
didn’t know I was behind him. I was tense. My
mouth was dry.
I could run. I could circle them, get behind them,
and make it to the gate and the car.
I didn’t run. I couldn’t quit now. I started moving
toward them, keyed up and scarcely breathing.
Then it happened. She had seen him, or heard him,
or somehow sensed that he was there, and thought I
was coming back. She whispered, “Here I am.” It
was like a shout.
Light burst over her face and the upper part of her
body. She wasn’t twelve feet away, exposed in the
glare of the man’s flashlight like a floodlighted
statue. I was coming up behind him, very fast and as
silently as I could, pulling the gun from my pocket,
when I heard her gasp. I could see him quite plainly,
silhouetted against his own light. I raised the gun
and swung.
A Touch of Death — 94
“All right, Mrs. Butler,” he said. “Stand right
where you are. You’re under ar—”
He grunted, and his arms jerked. The light fell out
of his hand as he buckled back against me and then
slid to the grass. I lunged for it and snapped it off.
Night closed around us again, black as the bottom of
a coal mine.
I was scared as I felt for him. Maybe I’d hit him
too hard. I located an arm and fumbled at his wrist,
trying to feel the pulse, but my hands were shaky
and numb and I couldn’t tell. I put a hand on his
chest. He was breathing normally. The fright began
to leave me.
She was leaning over me in the darkness. “I
thought it was you,” she whispered.
I didn’t answer. I was too busy thinking. What did
we do with him? He was merely knocked out, and
might come around at any time. To go on in the
house and leave him lying here would be suicide.
She’d have to go alone; I could stay here and watch
him. But suppose there was another one inside?
We didn’t have all night. Every minute we stayed
here made it more dangerous. I had to do
something, and fast.
I reached down, took the gun out of his holster,
and threw it over into the oleanders. As I did so I
heard something rattle. It was metallic, something
fastened to his belt. I had the answer then. Running
a hand along the belt, I located them and took them
off. They were handcuffs.
“Stay where you are,” I whispered to her.
Grabbing him by the shoulders, I dragged him
across the grass into the deeper shadows under the
hedge. I rolled him up against the bottom of a clump
of oleanders, pulled his hands behind him, and
shackled them together around a couple of the big
stems. Then I took his handkerchief out of his
pocket, wadded it into his mouth, took off his tie,
and made it fast around his head to hold the
handkerchief in. He was still out, as limp as a wet
A Touch of Death — 95
shirt. I knelt and listened to his breathing. He was
all right.
I hurried back. Leaning close to her, I whispered,
“We’ve got to get out of here fast. You won’t have
time to change. So just throw some clothes in a bag
when we get inside.”
She nodded.
I led the way to the window where I’d gone in
before. Pulling the screen back, I raised the sash and
dropped in; then I helped her. We stood in darkness
in the basement, listening. There was no sound
except that of our own breathing in the hot, dead air.
“Where are those keys?” I whispered.
“In the kitchen.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
I flicked on the small flashlight and we went up
the stairs. I was tense again, and wanting to get out.
I felt like a wild animal reaching for the bait in a
trap. We stepped into the kitchen. I cut the light,
and we listened. There was dead silence. I tiptoed
over to the other door and stared through the
darkness of the dining room toward the front of the
house. I could see only more empty blackness.
I switched on the light again. “Where?” I
whispered.
She took my hand and directed the beam. It
splashed against one of the white cupboards at the
end of the sink, moved slightly again, and came to
rest on the end of it. I saw it then. A big ring hung
from a nail driven into the wood, a ring filled with a
dozen or more of the old, unmarked, and useless
keys that a house accumulates in its lifetime—extra
car keys, cellar-door keys, trunk keys, front-door
keys, and keys to nothing at all. While I stared, she
lifted it down.
I held the light for her while she snapped the ring
open, slid off three of the keys, and put the others
back on the nail. She held the three in the palm of
her hand for a moment, looked up at me in the
reflected glow of the light with that cool, serene
A Touch of Death — 96
smile of hers, and dropped them into her handbag. I
thought of $120,000 hanging there in plain sight
among a bunch of discarded and useless junk. She
was a smart baby.
The urge to hurry was getting to me again. There
could have been two of them out there. One would
miss the other, and start looking. Or he might work
the gag out of his mouth.
I grabbed her arm and went through the dining
room. In the short hallway that led to the stairs I
gave her the flashlight. “Make it as fast as you can,”
I said. “Throw some shoes and a dress in a bag or
grab ‘em under your arm. Lets get out of here.”
I watched her go up the stairs. She turned at the
top, and the light was gone. I tried to stand still in
the darkness so I could listen, but my feet kept
moving. I had the cop’s flashlight in my pocket, but
didn’t take it out. I didn’t need a light; all I wanted
to do was get out of there.
Why didn’t she hurry? She’d been gone a week.
What was she doing? Standing in front of a closet
full of clothes trying to make up her mind what to
wear? Did she think she was going to a dance? I cut
it off coldly, forcing myself to realize she’d hardly
had time to walk down the hall to her bedroom yet. I
waited, shifting from one foot to the other.
Minutes dragged by. At last I saw the beam of
light cut through the darkness above me and turn at
the head of the stairs. She was coming down. She
had a small overnight bag in her hand and had on
shoes instead of the fur-trimmed slippers. I grabbed
the bag and fell in behind her, hustling her along.
We hurried back through the kitchen and down
the stairs. The heels of her shoes clicked on the
concrete floor of the basement. We turned and
started toward the window. In another minute we’d
be in the open and on our way.
I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and went
prickling cold all over. In one motion I grabbed her
arm, snatched the flashlight out of her hand, and
shut it off. I jammed it in my pocket and put my hand
A Touch of Death — 97
over her mouth before she could even cry out or
gasp at the suddenness of it. We remained locked
together and suspended in the darkness and I felt
her turn her head and look toward the windows. She
saw it too. She stiffened.
It was another flashlight, outside. The beam hit the
first window. It probed through dirty glass and
screen and cobwebs to spatter weakly against the
basement wall behind us. She moved a little, and I
realized I still had my hand over her mouth. I took it
away. The light dropped a little. It hit the floor not
five feet away. Then it went out.
I breathed again. Pulling her by the arm, I began
backing up. After two or three steps I turned and cut
toward where the furnace should be. We had to get
behind something. I felt the solid metal of it against
my side just as the light snapped on again in front of
the second window, the one I had broken. I pulled
her quickly after me and we were behind the
furnace.
I looked around the edge. Light splashed against
the window, steadying up on the place where I had
broken the glass. I was squeezing her arm. If it was
another cop, he might come in. He’d see the tape
and broken glass and realize someone had forced a
way in there.
The screen was being drawn back. The window
rose.
We couldn’t get out. The light was swinging across
the basement now, and if we tried to run back he’d
see us. Our only chance was to sweat it out, trying to
keep the furnace between us and him. The light was
pointed down. He dropped in on the concrete floor.
He lost his balance and fell. The light dropped and
rolled, coming to rest with its beam reflected off the
whitewashed wall. I stared. I was looking at highheeled
shoes and a pair of nylon-clad legs that had
never belonged to any cop in the world.
She reached for the light and for an instant I saw
her face. It was Diana James.
A Touch of Death — 98
I felt Mrs. Butler start beside me. Then, strangely,
she pushed up against me, as if she were scared.
She clung to me, gripping my arm. I was too busy to
think about it. I didn’t know what it was until it was
too late.
Diana James was straightening up, reaching for
the flashlight. Then, abruptly, Madelon Butler
pushed away from me and walked out into the open.
I tried to grab her, but it was too unexpected. She
picked up the light and shot it right into the other’s
face.
“Really, Cynthia,” she said, “I would have thought
you’d have better sense than to come here yourself.”
Cynthia? But there wasn’t time to wonder about
that. The whole thing was like trying to watch the
separate stages of an explosion and knowing all you
were ever going to see was the end result and that
all in one piece. Diana James straightened in the
merciless glare of the light, her eyes going bigger
and bigger in terror. Her mouth tried to form
something, but just opened and stayed there.
It was at exactly this moment that I felt the
lightened weight of my coat and knew why she had
pressed up against me in the dark. I lunged for her,
still knowing there was nothing I could do, that I was
just trying to catch pieces of something that was
happening all at once.
She shot. The gun crashed. It roared and
reverberated back and forth across the concretewalled
sound chamber of a basement where I’d been
afraid of the tapping of her heels against the floor.
Before I could grab her, she shot again, the sound
swelling and exploding against my eardrums with
almost physical pain. In all this madness of noise I
saw Diana James jerk around, one hand going up to
her chest, and then spill forward onto the floor like a
collapsing column of children’s blocks. Just as I
reached Madelon Butler and got my hands on her,
the light tilted downward and splashed across the
fallen dark head and the grotesque swirl of skirt and
long legs and arms already still.
A Touch of Death — 99
Silence rolled back and fell in on us. It was like a
vacuum. I could hear it roaring in my ears. I grabbed
her. “You—” I said. But there were no words.
Nothing would come out. I had an odd feeling I was
merely standing there to one side watching myself
go crazy. I tried to shove her toward the window.
“Here’s your gun,” she said calmly.
I didn’t even know why I took it. I threw it, and
heard the clatter as it hit a wall and fell to the floor.
“Get out that window!”
But she was gone. The flashlight snapped off and I
was in total darkness, alone. I swept my arms
around madly and felt nothing. Somehow I
remembered the other flashlights in my pocket. I
clawed one out and started to switch it on, but some
remnant of sanity stopped me just in time. We had
less than one chance in a thousand of getting out of
there now before the whole town fell in on us, and
we wouldn’t have that if we showed any light.
I started groping toward where the window should
be. Maybe she was already there. Light flared
behind me. I whirled. “Turn that out!” I lashed at
her. Then I saw what she was doing. It was the
ultimate madness.
It wasn’t the flashlight. She had struck a match
and was setting fire to the mountainous pile of old
papers and magazines beside the coal bin. An
unfolded paper burst into flame. I leaped toward
her. She grabbed up another and spread it open with
a swing of her arm, dropping it on the first. I
slammed into her and beat at the flames. It was
hopeless.
Another caught. The fire mounted, throwing
flickering light back into the corners of the
basement and beginning to curl around the wooden
beams above us. I fell back from it.
“Run!” I shouted.
She went toward the window. I pounded after her.
I stumbled over something. It was the small
traveling case I had set down. Without knowing why,
A Touch of Death — 100
I grabbed it up as I bounced back to my feet and
lunged after her. I boosted her out the window. I
threw the bag out. Then I knelt beside Diana James.
I touched her throat, and knew it made no difference
now whether we left her there or not. She was dead.
We ran across the black gulf of the lawn. The night
was still silent, as if the peace of it had never been
broken by the sound of shots. At the gate I looked
back once. The basement windows were beginning
to glow In a few minutes the house would be a red
mountain of flame.
A Touch of Death — 101
Eleven
We shot out the gate and across the pavement. As
we plunged into the path by the power line I heard a
siren behind us, somewhere in town. Somebody had
reported the shots.
I could hear her laboring for breath, trying to keep
up. She stumbled in the dark and I yanked her up
savagely by her arm. I wished she were dead. I
wished she’d never been born, or that I had never
heard of her. She had wrecked it all. I didn’t even
know any more why I was dragging her with me.
Maybe it was pure reflex.
I had the keys out of my pocket before we reached
the dense shadow under the trees where we’d left
the car. I threw the bag in and began to punch the
starter while she was running around to the other
side and climbing in. The ceiling light flicked on and
then off again as both doors closed, and in that short
instant of time and in all the madness some part of
my mind was still clear enough to grasp the awful
thing I hadn’t noticed until now, until it was too late.
She didn’t have her purse.
Her hands were empty. She had left the purse
back there in the house. Tires screamed as we shot
ahead down the hill. I ground on the throttle,
peering ahead into the lights for the turn that would
A Touch of Death — 102
come flying back at us. She didn’t have the purse. I
saw the turn just in time. We slammed into it and
threw gravel over into the field as we skidded
around, and then we were straightened out again.
The highway was coming up now. No cars were in
sight. We hurtled onto it, headed south. I was
raging.
She’d killed Diana James and brought the cops
down on us. All the roads would be blocked inside of
an hour. And the big, final, most horrible joke of all
was that the thing I had been after all the time, the
thing that had got me into this, was gone. I thought
of those three keys fire-blackened and lost forever in
the ashes of the house. Even the thousand dollars in
cash was gone. We had nothing. We were wanted by
all the police in the country, and didn’t have enough
money to hide ourselves for a week.
She took a cigarette out of the breast pocket of the
robe and lit it, and leaned back in the seat. “You
appear to be unhappy about something,” she said.
“You little fool!”
“Didn’t you appreciate the funeral pyre for your
charming friend?” she asked calmly. “I thought it
rather a nice touch. Something Wagnerian about it.”
“You stupid—”
I choked. It was no use. It was beyond me. I could
only watch the highway flying back at us in the
night. And watch the rear-view mirror for cars
behind us. Where would they try to block us? Beyond
that next town? Or before?
“You are provoked, aren’t you?”
I found the words at last. “Don’t you realize yet
what you’ve done?” I raged at her. “You might as
well have called them on the phone and told ‘em
where we were. We’ve got about a chance in a
million of getting away. And on top of that, you went
off and left the thing we came back for.”
“Oh,” she said easily. “I see now what’s bothering
you. You mean the keys?”
A Touch of Death — 103
“Where did you leave the purse? Not that it
matters now.”
“I didn’t leave it,” she said. “It’s in that bag.”
I felt suddenly weak. Then I remembered that the
only reason I had picked the bag up back there in
the basement in all that confusion had been the fact
that I’d stumbled over it. I felt even weaker. It was
nearly a minute before I could even talk.
“All right. But look. By this time your whole lawn is
full of cops. They’ve got radio cars. And there are
only four highways out of Mount Temple. They’re all
going to be plugged. We may not get past the next
town.”
“Quite right,” she said. “We don’t even go to the
next town. About six miles ahead, just before you go
down into that river bottom, a dirt road turns off to
the right. It runs west about ten miles and crosses
another country road going south.”
“How far south can we get on it?”
“I’m not sure. But there are a number of them, and
by switching back and forth we should be able to go
over a hundred miles before we have to come back
on a highway. And they can’t watch them all.”
It was our only chance, and it might work. I could
feel the beginnings of hope. And at the same time I
was conscious of a terrible yearning to get off that
highway before it was too late. The six miles were a
thousand. I rode on the throttle. We blasted on into
the tunnel the lights made. We came around a long
curve and I saw the taillights of a car far ahead. I
slowed a little, hating it. We couldn’t pass anybody
at that speed. It might be a cruising cop.
Minutes dragged by while we crawled along at
fifty-five. “We’re getting near,” she said. I slowed,
watching the mirror. Another car was behind us, but
it was far back. We swung around another curve,
and I saw the signboard. Nobody was in sight when
we made the turn. I sighed with relief. The tension
was off, for a while, anyway.
A Touch of Death — 104
Then it rolled up from behind and caught me, the
instant I relaxed. The tension wasn’t off. And maybe
it never would be.
She had pulled the trigger, but I was in as deep as
she was. I’d been there, it was the gun I was
carrying, and I had helped her to escape. And if they
ever caught us, it’d just be my word against hers.
That was nice, wasn’t it? A jury would take one look
at the two of us, and hang me without going out of
the room. I felt sick.
It was a narrow gravel road, very rough and full of
right-angled turns going around cotton fields. After a
mile or two we went up over a slight rise and
plunged into a dense forest of pine. There were no
houses, no lights anywhere. I stopped.
“You drive,” I said. I got out and went around to
the other side while she slid under the wheel.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Look at the map. If I can find one.”
She started up. I took the flashlight out of my
pocket and pawed through the usual collection of
junk in the glove compartment. Down at the bottom I
found a state highway map. I unfolded it.
Here was Mount Temple. Two hundred miles
south, on the Gulf, was Sanport. I ran my finger
along the main north-south highway and found the
faint line that was the unnumbered secondary road
we were on. It went on and came out on another
north-south highway about forty miles west. But I
could see, just ahead of where we should be now,
the intersecting road she had mentioned. It ran
south for about thirty miles before it ended on
another east-west secondary road. We could shift
west on that one for about fifteen miles and we’d hit
another going south. I traced on through the maze of
faint lines. It could be done. We could get down
through that back country for nearly 150 miles
before coming back on a main highway again, and
when we did, we’d have a choice of at least three
roads converging on the city. They couldn’t cover all
of them.
A Touch of Death — 105
Gasoline?
I shot a glance at the gauge. It was a little over
half full. It might be enough. But this would be poor
country to try to cut it fine. I looked back at the map.
About seventy-five miles south we’d go through a
small town. We could fill up there.
I lit a cigarette and glanced around at her. The
soft glow of the dash lights was on her face. I
studied it for a moment while she rammed the car
ahead between the dark walls of pine. What kind of
woman was this, anyway? It hadn’t been thirty
minutes since she had killed another woman, she
had probably murdered her husband, she had
burned down that enormous house she had lived in
all her life, she was running from the police, and yet
she could have been merely driving over to a
neighbor’s to play bridge for all the emotion she
showed.
But still it wasn’t in any way an expressionless
doll’s face. It was just intensely proud and selfcontained.
Maybe she felt things and maybe she
didn’t; but win, lose, or draw, it was her business.
She didn’t advertise. There was a cool and disdainful
sort of arrogance about it that didn’t give a damn for
what anybody thought—or for anybody, for that
matter.
At least that made us even on that. I didn’t care
much for her either.
“Not so worried now?” she asked. I could hear the
faint undertone of contempt.
“Look, Hard Stuff,” I said. “I’ll make out all right.
Don’t fret about it. It’s just that if you’re trying to
hide from the police, I don’t see any sense in telling
them where you are by killing people just for laughs.
Or starting a bonfire to attract attention. So let’s
don’t try it again. You might get hurt yourself.”
“Careful,” she said mockingly. “Remember how
much I’m worth to you alive.”
“What do you think I’ve been remembering? The
touch of your hand?”
A Touch of Death — 106
“Quite proud of your tough attitude, aren’t you?”
“It’s a tough world.”
She said nothing. In a few minutes we hit the
crossroad. She turned left. The road began to drop a
little toward the river country. It was wild and
sparsely settled, and we met no cars.
“See if you can find a place to get off the road,” I
said. “You’ve got to change those clothes.”
“All right.”
She slowed. In a few minutes we saw a pair of ruts
leading off into the timber. She pulled off far enough
to be out of sight of the road, and stopped in a small
open space where there was room to turn around.
I got out, but before I did I lifted the keys out of
the ignition. She saw it. She smiled. “Trust me, don’t
you?”
“You think I’m stupid?” I gestured toward the
traveling bag. “Change in the car. And let me know
when you’re ready to go.”
I walked back a short distance toward the road
and lit a cigarette. The sky was still overcast, and
night pressed down over the river bottom with an
impenetrable blackness and a silence that seemed to
ring in my ears. Nothing moved here. We were
alone.
Alone?
They were drawing circles around us on the map.
The radio was snapping orders, efficient and coded
and deadly. Police cars raced down highways in the
darkness all around us. Like hell we were alone. We
had lots of company; it was just spread out around
us, waiting.
I turned my head and I could see the red glow of
the car’s taillights behind me. We could beat them.
They had everything in their favor except the two
things they had to have to win: a description of the
car and a description of me. They didn’t know who I
was or what I looked like, or even that I existed. If I
could keep them from seeing her, we could make it.
A Touch of Death — 107
I finished the cigarette and flipped it outward in
the darkness. She called softly. I turned. She had
opened one of the car doors so the ceiling light
would come on. When I walked up, she was holding
a mirror and putting lipstick on her mouth.
She had changed into a skirt and a dark blouse
about the color of her eyes. The sleeves of the blouse
were full and then tight-fitting about the wrists, and
below them her hands were slender and pale and
very beautiful. She finished with the lipstick, put the
mirror back in her purse, and looked up at me.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said. “For a woman who’s just murdered
another one, you look great.”
“You have a deplorable command of English,” she
said. “Don’t you find murdered a bit pretentious as
applied to vermin? Why not exterminated? Or simply
removed?”
“Yes, Your Highness. Excuse me for breathing.
Now, take those three keys out of your purse and
hand them here.”
“Why?”
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