Night Walker by Donald Hamilton Page A

daylight. He sat there for a moment, bewildered; then he caught sight of his right wrist decorated with a large, fresh, Band-Aid.
    It came back to him then: the flashlight shattering in his hand and the figure running across the lawn, and he thought, He’s alive. The bastard’s alive! The thought left him with a curious mixture of exultation and panic.
    He could remember Elizabeth helping him in here afterward; the shock seemed to have taken his remaining strength. Neither of them had said anything; there had been nothing to say. The identity of that single figure running across the lawn in the darkness, gun in hand, had showed that her whole behavior from the beginning had almost certainly been one great calculated falsehood. Almost? Young thought grimly, Why almost? The husband she had claimed to have murdered was alive; her whole story had been a fabric of deceit.
    He shook his head and looked about the living room, a long, high, noble room filled with furniture — too much furniture — that, except for the television set in the corner, had an old-American look to it. Young had no way of knowing if the stuff was genuine, never having paid much attention to antiques. He did notice the liquor rings, and the cigarette burns and dust. A spiral of smoke rose lazily from a cluttered ashtray on the floor by a big chair near the door. He watched it for a while, then rose and extinguished the smoldering butt. There was, he saw, a coffee cup and a plate with half a sandwich on the small table beside the chair. A motion-picture magazine with a torn cover lay open and face down, on the seat of the chair. On the arm of the chair lay the nickel-plated automatic pistol he had put into his pocket before leaving his room the night before.
    He frowned at all of this, put the gun back into his pocket, and went out into the hall. The shattered flashlight was still lying to the right of the front door where the bullet had hurled it; little shards of glass from the lens were scattered glittering all over the floor. The two packed suitcases stood in the middle of the hall where Elizabeth had dropped them, after the shot, as she ran forward to help him. None of this had been touched since last night. Even the hall light was still burning.
    He switched it off, picked up the broken flashlight, and went on through the dining room into the kitchen, which had apparently been modernized fairly recently. It was one of those bright laboratories of formica, rubber tile, and white enameled steel which the appliance companies liked to recommend as proper settings for their products. This one had the works, including an electric stove with the most elaborate instrument panel of Young’s experience; it had a refrigerator, deep-freeze, dishwasher, and fluorescent lighting; it had a breakfast nook in one corner; and it was spotlessly clean. Elizabeth was standing at the stove, still wearing the pink slacks and sweater of the night before. She did not look around when he came through the swinging door.
    “Breakfast will be ready in a minute,” she said.
    He asked, “What do I do with this?”
    The question forced her to glance over her shoulder at the flashlight he held out. He saw that her face had the pale and shiny look of sleeplessness.
    “Heavens, throw it anywhere,” she said irritably. “Why ask me? There’s a trash can somewhere around.”
    “Thanks,” he said. “And where do I find a broom?”
    “What?”
    “A broom. To sweep the glass out of the front hall, or do you think it adds to the quaint charm of the place?”
    She ignored his sarcasm. “There’s a broom in the broom closet.”
    He checked the obvious retort, located the closet in question and equipped himself, and started out of the kitchen. At the door he stopped.
    “Why the gun?”
    She poked at the sputtering contents of the skillet, and pushed at her hair with the back of the hand that held the spatula, before turning to look at him again. “What, honey?”
    “The gun.