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.Then I dug her comb out of the jumble of stuff in her purse.I watched her comb her hair.It wasn’t quite blackin daylight.It was rich, dark brown.“How about some coffee?” I said.She stood up and brushed at the blue robe.I noddedtoward the door and followed her into the other room.She sat down in the chair I pulled out for her.I poured some coffee and then gave her a cigarette and lit it.Then I sat down across from her, straddling a chair with my arms across the back.She ignored the coffee.“Perhaps you can explain this,” she said.I frowned.“Don’t you remember anything at all?”“No.”“I was hoping you would,” I said.“Especially what happened before I got there.”“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.“And will you, for the love of the merciful God, tell me who you are?”“Barton,” I said.“John Barton, of Globe Surety.Remember? I’m from the Kansas City office, but they put me on it because I used to work oult of Sanport and know this country.”I had to keep snowing her.She was rum-dum, but she still might be sharp enough to want to see something that said Barton, of Globe Surety Company.The thing was to give her the impression I’d already shown her my credentials but that she’d been drunk when she’d seen them.We wouldn’t mention that.It would be embarrassing.But she didn’t go for the fake hand-off.She came right in and smeared me.“I’ve never heard of a company by that name,” she said.“And I never saw you before in my life.How do I know who you are?”It was the longest, coldest bluff I had ever pulled in my life, and if I didn’t make it stick I was penitentiary bait.I felt empty all the way down to my legs.“Oh, sure,” I said.I reached back for the wallet in my hip pocket and started flipping through the leaves of identification stuff.I made a show of finding the one I wanted, and just as I started to pass her the whole thing, I said, “Can you remember anything at all about what he looked like? Even his general build would help.”She took her eyes off the wallet and looked at me.“Who looked like?” she asked blankly.“The man you said tried to kill you.Just before I got there.”That did it.She gasped.And just for an instant I saw fear in her eyes.Then it was gone.“Tried to kill me?”“Yes,” I said, still crowding her.“I realize it was dark, of course.But did he say anything when he lunged at you? I mean, would you recognize his voice?”“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she said.“I was just up in my room—”“That’s right,” I interrupted.I put the wallet back in my pocket while I went on talking.“You were playing the phonograph, you said.And when I found you out there on the lawn you had a record in your hand.I don’t think you even knew you were carrying it, but I couldn’t get it away from you.You had a death grip on it.At first I couldn’t make any sense at all out of what you were trying to say.”She shook her head.“I don’t remember any of it,” she said.“Maybe you’d better tell me what happened.”“Sure.” I lit a cigarette for myself.“I had to talk to you.We’re trying to run down a lead our Sanport office dug up—but I’ll get to that in a minute.Anyway, I got into Mount Temple last night after midnight, and when I’d checked into the hotel I tried to call you.The line was busy.I tried again later, and it was the same thing, so I got a cab and went out to your house.“And just as I was coming up the drive in the cab I saw you in the headlights.You had run out the front door and were going around toward the garage.When I got over to where you were, you had fallen on the lawn.You had this phonograph record in one hand and your purse in the other.You were in a panic, and practically hysterical.I couldn’t make out what you were trying to say at first.It was something about listening to the music in your room by candlelight, and that you had looked around over your shoulder and there was a man standing behind you.I tried to calm you down and get the story straightened out, but you just kept saying the same thing over and over—that the man had lunged at you with something in his hand.“You didn’t seem to know how you’d got away from him, but when I suggested we go inside you started to go to pieces.Nothing could make you go back inside the house.All you wanted to do was get in the car and get away.I was afraid we’d wake the neighbors, so I went along with it.I drove, and tried to figure out what to do.I couldn’t take you to the hotel or a tourist court there in town, of course, because you’d be known everywhere.You went to sleep, and I finally thought of this place.It’s a duck club I belonged to when I was in Sanport and I knew there wouldn’t, be anybody out here this time of year.Maybe you could get some rest, and we could talk it over when you woke up.That’s about it
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