Darkness at dawn : early suspense classics

by Woolrich, Cornell

  (1935)

  The Death of Me

  As soon as the front door closed behind her I locked it on the inside. I’d never yet known her to go out without forgetting something and coming back for it. This was one time I wasn’t letting her in again. I undid my tie and snaked it off as I turned away. I went in the living-room and slung a couple of pillows on the floor, so I wouldn’t have to fall, could take it lying down. I got the gun out from behind the radio console where I’d hidden it and tossed it onto the pillows. She’d wondered why there was so much static all through supper. We didn’t have the price of new tubes so she must have thought it was that.

  It looked more like a relic than an up-to-date model. I didn’t know much about guns; all I hoped was that he hadn’t gypped me. The only thing I was sure of was it was loaded, and that was what counted. All it had to do was go off once. I unhooked my shaving mirror from the bathroom wall and brought that out, to see what I was doing, so there wouldn’t have to be any second tries. I opened the little flap in back of it and stood it up on the floor, facing the pillows that were slated to be my bier. The movie show wouldn’t break up until eleven-thirty. That was long enough. Plenty long enough.

  I went over to the desk, sat down and scrawled her a note. Nothing much, just two lines. “Sorry, old dear, too many bills.” I unstrapped my wrist watch and put it on top of the note. Then I started emptying out the pockets of my baggy suit one by one.

  It was one of those suits sold by the job-lot, hundreds of them all exactly alike, at seventeen or nineteen dollars a throw, and distributed around town on the backs of life’s failures. It had been carrying around hundreds of dollars—in money owed. Every pocket had its bills, its reminders, its summonses jabbed through the crack of the door by process-servers. Five days running now, I’d gotten a different summons each day. I’d quit trying to dodge them any more. I stacked them all up neatly before me. The notice from the landlord to vacate was there too. The gas had already been turned off the day before— hence the gun. Jumping from the window might have only broken my back and paralyzed me.

  On top of the whole heap went the insurance policy in its blue folder. That wasn’t worth a cent either—right now. Ten minutes from now it was going to be worth ten thousand dollars. I stripped off my coat, opened the collar of my shirt and lay down on my back on the pillows.

  I had to shift the mirror a little so I could see the side of my head. I picked up the gun in my right hand and flicked open the safety catch. Then I held it to my head, a little above the ear. It felt cold and hard; heavy, too. I was pushing it in more than I needed to, I guess. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and jerked the trigger with a spasmodic lunge that went all through me. The impact of the hammer jarred my whole head, and the click was magnified like something heard through a hollow tube or pipe—but that was all there was, a click. So he’d gypped me, or else the cartridges were no good and it had jammed.

  It was loaded all right. I’d seen them in it myself when he broke it open for me. My arm flopped back and hit the carpet with a thud. I lay there sweating like a mule. What could have been easier than giving it another try? I couldn’t. I might as well have tried to walk on the ceiling now.

  Water doesn’t reach the same boiling-point twice. A pole-vaulter doesn’t stay up in the air at his highest point more than a split second. I lay there five minutes maybe, and then when I saw it wasn’t going to be any use any more, I got up on my feet again.

  I slurred on my coat, shoved the double-crossing gun into my pocket, crammed the slew of bills about my person again. I kicked the mirror and the pillows aside, strapped on my wrist watch. I’d felt sorry for myself before; now I had no use for myself. The farewell note I crumpled up, and the insurance policy, worthless once more, I flung violently into the far comer of the room. I was still shaking a little from the effects of the let-down when I banged out of the place and started off.

  I found a place where I could get a jiggerful of very bad alcohol scented with juniper for the fifteen cents I had on me. The inward shaking stopped about then, and I struck on from there, down a long gloomy thoroughfare lined with warehouses, that had railroad tracks running down the middle of it. It had a bad name, in regard to both traffic and bodily safety, but if anyone had tried to hold me up just then they probably would have lost whatever they had on them instead.

  An occasional arc-light gleamed funereally at the infrequent intersections. Presently the sidewalk and the cobbles petered out, and it had narrowed into just the railroad right-of-way, between low-lying sheds and walled-in lumber yards. I found myself walking the ties, on the outside of the rails. If a train had come up behind me without warning, I would have gotten what I’d been looking for a little while ago. I stumbled over something, went down, skinned my palm on the rail. I picked myself up and looked. One had come up already it seemed, and somebody who hadn’t been looking for it had gotten it instead. His body was huddled between two of the ties, on the outside of the rail, had tripped me as I walked them. The head would have been resting on the rail itself if there had been any head left. But it had been flattened out. I was glad it was pretty dark around there; you didn’t have to see if you didn’t want to.

  I would have detoured around him and notified the first cop I came to, but as I started to move away, my raised leg wasn’t very far from his stiffly outstreched one. The trouser on each matched. The same goods, the same color gray, the same cheap job-lot suit. I reached down and held the two cuffs together with one hand. You couldn’t tell them apart. I grabbed him by the ankle and hauled him a little further away from the rail. Now he was headless all right.

  I unbuttoned the jacket, held it open and looked at the lining. Sure enough—same label, “Eagle Brand Clothes.” I turned the pocket inside out, and the same size was there, a 36. He was roughly my own build, as far as height and weight went. The identification tag in the coat was blank though; had no name and address on it. I got a pencil out and I printed “Walter Lynch, 35 Meadowbrook” on it, the way it was on my own.

  I was beginning to shake again, but this time with excitement. I looked up and down the tracks, and then I emptied out every pocket he had on him. I stowed ever5i;hing away without looking at it, then stuffed all my own bills in and around him, I slipped the key to the flat into his vest-pocket. I exchanged initialled belts with him. I even traded his package of cigarettes for mine—they weren’t the same brand. I’d come out without a necktie, but I wouldn’t have worn that howler of his to—well, a railroad accident. I edged it gingerly off the rail, where it still lay in a loop, and it came away two colors, green at the ends, the rest of it garnet. I picked up a stray scrap of newspaper, wrapped it up, and shoved it in my pocket to throw away somewhere else. Our shirts were both white, at least his had been until it happened. But anyway, all this wasn’t absolutely necessary, I figured. The papers in the pockets would be enough. They’d hardly ask anyone’s wife to look very closely at a husband in the shape this one was. Still, I wanted to do the job up brown just to be sure. I took off my wrist watch and strapped it on him. I gave him a grim salute as I left him. “They can’t kill you, boy,” I said, “you’re twins!”

  I left the railroad right-of-way at the next intersection, still without seeing anybody, and struck out for downtown. I was free as air, didn’t owe anybody a cent—and in a couple weeks from now there’d be ten grand in the family. I was going back to her, of course. I wasn’t going to stay away for good. But I’d lie low first, wait till she’d collected the insurance money, then we’d powder out of town together, start over again some place else with a ten grand nest-egg.

  It was a cruel stunt to try on her, but she’d live through it. A couple weeks grief was better than being broke for the rest of our lives. And if I’d let her in on it ahead of time, she wouldn’t have gone through with it. She was that kind.

  I picked a one-arm restaurant and went in there. I took my meal check with me to the back and shut myself up in the washroom. I was about
to have an experience that very few men outside of amnesia victims have ever had. I was about to find out who I was and where I hung out.

  First I ripped the identification tag out of my own suit and sent it down the drain along with the guy’s stained necktie. Then I started unloading, and sorting out. Item one was a cheap, mangy-looking billfold. Cheap on the outside, not the inside. I counted them. Two grand in twenties, brand new ones, not a wrinkle on them. There was a rubber band around them. Well, I was going to be well-heeled while I lay low, anyway.

  Item two was a key with a six-pointed brass star dangling from it. On the star was stamped “Hotel Columbia, 601.” Item three was a bill from the same hotel, made out to George Kelly, paid up a week in advance. Items four and five were a smaller key to a valise or bag, and two train tickets. One was punched and one hadn’t been used yet. One was a week old and the other had been bought that very night. He must have been on his way back with it when he was knocked down crossing the tracks. The used ticket was from Chicago here, and the one intended to be used was from here on to New York.

  But “here” happened not to be in a straight line between the two, in fact it was one hell of a detour to take. All that interested me was that he’d only come to town a week ago, and had been about to haul his freight out again tomorrow or the next day. Which meant it wasn’t likely he knew anyone in town very well, so if his face had changed remarkably overnight who would be the wiser—outside of the clerk at his hotel? And a low-tipped hat-brim would take care of that.

  The bill was paid up in advance, the room-key was in my pocket and I didn’t have to go near the desk on my way in. I wanted to go over there and take a look around Room 601 with the help of that other little key. Who could tell, there might be some more of those nice crisp twenties stowed away there? As long as the guy was dead anjrway, I told myself, this wasn’t robbery. It was just making the most of a good thing.

  I put everything back in my pockets and went outside and ordered a cup of coffee at the counter. I needed change for the phone call I was going to make before I went over there. Kelly, strangely enough, hadn’t had any small change on him; only those twenties.

  I stripped one off and shoved it at the counterman. I got a dirty look. “That the smallest you got?” he growled. “Hell, you clean the till out all for a jfi’ cent cup of coffee!”

  “If it’s asking too much of you,” I snarled, “I can drink my coffee any other place.”

  But it already had milk in it and couldn’t be put back in the boiler. He almost wore the twenty out testing it for counterfeitness, stretched it to the tearing point, held it up to the light, peered at it. Finally, unable to find anji;hing against it, he jotted down the serial number on a piece of paper and grudgingly handed me nineteen-ninety-five out of the cash register.

  I left the coffee standing there and went over to call up the Columbia Hotel from the open pay telephone on the wall. 601, of course, didn’t answer. Still he might be sharing it with someone, a woman for instance, even though the bill had been made out to him alone. I got the clerk on the wire.

  “Well, is he alone there? Isn’t there anybody rooming with him I can talk to?” There wasn’t. “Has he had any callers since he’s been staying there?”

  “Not that I know of,” said the clerk. “We’ve seen very little of him.” A lone wolf, eh? Perfect, as far as I was concerned.

  By the time I got to the Columbia I had a hat, the brim rakishly shading the bridge of my nose. I needn’t have bothered. The clerk was all wrapped up in some girl dangling across his desk and didn’t even look up. The aged colored man who ran the creaking elevator was half blind. It was an eerie, moth-eaten sort of place, but perfect to hole up in for a week or two.

  When I got out of the cage I started off in the wrong direction down the hall. “You is this heah way, boss, not that way,” the old darky reminded me,

  I snapped my fingers and switched around. “Need a road map in this dump,” I scowled to cover up my mistake. He peered nearsightedly at me, closed the door, and went down. 601 was around a bend of the hall, down at the very end. I knocked first, just to be on the safe side, then let myself in. I locked the door again on the inside and wedged a chair up against the knob. This was my room now; just let anyone try to get in!

  He’d traveled light, the late Kelly. Nothing there but some dirty shirts over in the comer and some clean ones in the bureau drawer. Bought right here in town too, the cellophane was still on some and the sales slip lying with them. He must have arrived without a shirt to his back.

  But that small key I had belonged to something, and when I went hunting it up I found the closet door locked and the key to it missing. For a minute I thought I’d overlooked it when I was frisking him down by the tracks, but I was sure I hadn’t. The small key was definitely not the one to the closet door. It nearly fell through to the other side when I tried it. I could have called down for a passkey, but I didn’t want anyone up here. Since the key hadn’t been on him, and wasn’t in the door, he must have hidden it somewhere around the room. Meaning he thought a lot of whatever was behind that door and wasn’t taking any chances with it. I started to hunt for the key high and low.

  It turned up in about an hour’s time, after I had the big rug rolled up against the wall and the bed stripped down and the mattress gashed all over with a razor blade and the whole place looking like a tornado had hit it. The funny little blur at the bottom of the inverted light-bowl overhead gave it away when I happened to look up. He’d tossed it up there before he went out.

  I nearly broke my neck getting it out of the thing, had to balance on the back of a chair and tilt the bowl with my fingertips while it swayed back and forth and specks of plaster fell on my head. It occurred to me, although it was only a guess, that the way he’d intended to go about it was smash the bowl and let it drop out just before he checked out of the hotel. I fitted the key into the closet door and took a gander.

  There was only a small Gladstone bag over in the comer with a hotel towel over it. Not another thing, not even a hat or a spare collar. I hauled the bag out into the room and got busy on it with the small key I’d taken from his pocket. A gun winked up at me first of all, when I got it open. Not a crummy relic like the one I’d bought that afternoon, but a brand new, efficient-looking affair, bright as a dollar. When I saw what it was lying on I tossed it aside and dumped the bag upside down on the floor, sat down next to it with a thump.

  I only had to break open and count the first neat little green brick of bills, after that I just multiplied it by the rest. Twenty-one times two, very simple. Forty-two thousand dollars, in twenties; unsoiled, crisp as autumn leaves. Counting the two thousand the peculiar Mr. Kelly had been carrying around with him for pin-money, and a few loose ones papering the bottom of the bag—he’d evidently broken open one pack himself—the sum total wasn’t far from forty-five. I’d been painlessly run over and killed by a train to the tune of forty-five thousand dollars!

  The ten grand insurance premium that had loomed so big a while ago dwindled to a mere bagatelle, with all this stuff lying in my lap. Something to light cigarettes with if I ran out of matches! And to think I’d nearly rung down curtains on myself for that! I could’ve hugged the chiseler that sold me that faulty gun.

  But why go through with the scheme now? I had money. Let them keep the insurance. I would come back to life. It was all in cash too—good as gold wherever we went; better, gold wasn’t legal any more.

  I jammed everjrthing back into the bag, everything but the gun. That I shoved under one of the pillows. Let them find it after I was gone; it was Kelly’s an)rway. I locked the bag, tossed it temporarily into the closet, and hurriedly went over his few personal belongings once more. The guy didn’t have a friend in the world seemingly. There wasn’t a scrap of writing, wasn’t a photograph, wasn’t a thing to show who or what he was. He wasn’t in his own home town, the two railroad tickets told that, so who was there to step forward and report him missing? That
would have to come from the other end if at all, and it would take a long time to percolate through. My title to the dough was clear in every sense but the legal one; I’d inherited it from him. I saw now the mistake I’d made, though, I shouldn’t have switched identities with him. I should have left him as he was, just taken the key to the bag, picked up the money, gone home and kept on being Walter Lynch. No one knew he had the money. I wouldn’t have even had to duck town. This way, I was lying dead by the tracks; and if Edith powdered out with me tonight it would look funny, and would most likely lead to an investigation.

  I sat down for a minute and thought it out. Then it came to me. I could still make it look on the up-and-up, but she’d have to play ball with me. This would be the set-up: she would write a note addressed to me and leave it in the flat, saying she was sick of being broke and was quitting me cold. She’d get on the train tonight—alone—and go. That would explain her disappearance and also my “suicide” down by the tracks, a result of her running off. We’d arrange where to meet in New York. I’d follow her on a different train, taking care not to be seen getting on, and using the very ticket Kelly had bought. That way I didn’t even have to run the risk of a station agent recalling my face later.

  I was almost dizzy with my own brilliance; this took care of everything. My only regret was I had destroyed my own original suicide note to her. It would have been a swell finishing touch to have left it by the body. But her fake note at the flat would give the police the motive for the suicide if they were any good at putting two and two together. “And here I’ve been going around trying to convince employers I have brains!” I gloated.

  She’d only just be getting back from the movie show about now. There’d be nothing to alarm her at first in my not being there. I’d taken the gun out with me and the farewell note too. But she’d turn on the lights, maybe give the radio a try, or ask one of the neighbors if they’d seen me. She mustn’t do any of those things, she was supposed to have gone long ago. I decided to warn her ahead over the phone to lie low until I got there and explained, to wait for me in the dark.