The Black Angel by Cornell Woolrich Page A

I’m telling you. I was there at the time it happened . I was in the place. I saw him, and he didn’t know it; he didn’t see me.”
    A pulse in his cheek started to throb. I saw it begin, and then I kept my eyes off it from then on. A cord running down the side of his neck stood out more distinctly than it had a minute ago, I thought, but I wasn’t quite sure.
    I knew what he was going to ask next, but I had to wait for him to ask it before I could answer it. He took quite a while, as though he had a hard time getting the words to come.
    â€œWhy didn’t you—tell someone sooner?” He swallowed in the middle of it. I saw the obstruction go down his throat.
    â€œMaybe I didn’t want to get mixed up in it.”
    â€œAre you—sure you really saw him doing it?”
    â€œI saw him crouching over her , right in the act.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you scream or holler, try to save her?”
    â€œI was afraid he’d do it to me too, if I did; I was afraid of my own life. I stuffed the corner of a towel in my mouth to make sure he wouldn’t hear me.”
    â€œHow’d you happen to be up there? How come he didn’t see you, if you were right in the place when it happened?”
    Tension was suddenly in the room with us, crowding the air in it, like a slowly expanding gas, making it resist when we tried to breathe it in. And yet we were both so quiet, almost motionless. He plucking at the counterpane. My face brooding over the chair top.
    â€œI’d dropped in on her. That was nothing; I’d often done that before. For no particular reason, just to kill time. We were pretty chummy, you know. We were fiddling around there, doing nothing, like two women will at that hour of the day. She wasn’t even dressed yet.”
    I remembered that much from firsthand observation.
    â€œIt suddenly occurred to me I wanted to take a shower. I don’t know why; I just felt like it. She said go ahead, help myself. I went in there and left the bathroom door open just about an inch; I took off my things and got behind that thick green glass door. I left that open about an inch too. But I never got to turn the faucets on the wall. I was standing there strapping on one of these rubber caps that we women use, without making any noise, I guess. I had a little trouble adjusting it—it was hers—and that took several minutes. All of a sudden I thought I heard a man’s voice out there where she was. I tiptoed out of the closet to close the bathroom door, so he wouldn’t be able to look in. Before I even got over to it, it was already happening. I heard her fall to the floor in the room outside. I grabbed a towel and put it around me, and I stuck my eye to the crack of the door and looked out. It was only wide enough for one eye. I saw him pressing down hard at something on the floor there, and I knew what he was doing. I hid way back in the shower closet, where it was dark, for a long time afterward, until I was sure he’d gone.”
    â€œAnd you saw him?”
    He said it very low. As close to him as I was, I could hardly hear it. His lips just moved a little. About a minute was gone now; about one and a half were left.
    â€œI certainly did. I saw him right in the act. I saw him from head to foot.”
    â€œAnd you’ve never told anybody?” This time even his lips didn’t move; the air in front of them just vibrated, that was all.
    â€œI’ve never told a living soul. I’m the only one who knows it.”
    The hand that had been plucking the counterpane flattened on it in a directional pat. “Come here,” he said. “Come a little closer, over here by me.” His eyes stayed down, didn’t look up at me. “Get on the bed here next to me.”
    My heart hurt as though a surgeon were taking stitches in it. Those two harmless-looking pillows there, side by side——His hand gave the bed another persuasive