“You never tried to buck Nannie Koronas before. Even the Kefauver Committee gave up on him.”
She lifted her chin. “You still admire him, don’t you? You’ve never really lost that sense of loyalty.”
“I don’t admire him, except in his field. For a man outside the law, he has standards of his own beyond the others. He has a certain — integrity. He’ll never let an employee down.”
Her smile was cynical. “Never — ?”
“So far as I know. He might — ”
He stopped talking as Jean suddenly raised a warning hand. He looked at her questioningly.
She whispered, “Didn’t you hear that noise? It was a car motor.”
Tom listened, and it was audible now, a car moving in one of the lower gears, and coming up the drive.
“Get to that room,” she said. “It could be Leonard, but we can’t take any chances.” She rose swiftly and took the coffee cups and the ash tray over to the sink. She was emptying the ash tray into the garbage grinder as Tom left the kitchen.
In the study, he locked the door behind him and stood close to it, listening.
Nothing for minutes, and then Jean’s footsteps coming down the hall. “Tom, the car left again. What do you think it could mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone left a message. Or it could be a car that got lost and used your driveway to turn around in.”
“I’m going out, Tom, to the mailbox. You wait here, and keep the door locked. If I’m talking when I come in, again, get right up into that attic. Understand?”
“Yes. Do you think it’s safe, going out into that fog?”
“I’ll be all right.”
“If anything happens, scream. I’ll come out, with the gun. Remember that, Jean.”
“All right. Wait, and listen.”
Her footsteps going down the hall, and silence. She evidently hadn’t closed the front door behind her; he would have heard it from where he stood.
And then, after a minute, her footsteps on the bricks of the patio and they were running. She was still running when she entered the house and came down the hall.
She pounded with a flat hand on the door. “Tom, open up, open up.”
He opened the door and saw the near-hysteria on her face. He pulled her close. “What is it, honey?”
“It’s Leonard. He’s lying out there on the patio. There’s nobody around, out there. I — ” She started to cry.
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know. I saw him and got panicky. I’d better phone the police.”
“I’ll go out, first. We want to be sure about him. He may come around. Was there any blood?”
“I didn’t see any. Tom, do you think the — whoever, whatever it was, do you think it’s still out there?”
Tom took the gun from a shelf in the bookcase. “I’ll go out and see.”
Jean inhaled and stood stiffly. “I’ll go along.”
Together, they went out into the fog and along the walk to the brick patio. The blob that was Leonard Delavan got clearer as they approached it.
Then Tom knelt and felt for the pulse. Above him, he could hear the rasp of Jean’s labored breathing.
She asked, “Is he — ?”
Tom looked up and nodded. “He’s dead, Jean.”
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Copyright © 1958 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
Renewal Copyright © 1986 by William Campbell Gault
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This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
eISBN 10: 1-4405-3915-4
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3915-2
Night Lady Page 19