Valcour wanted to know, such an enigma to deal with here? No, he informed himself sternly, one knew damned well one had not. But in the place of such a handy and beautiful deduction—what?
He stared at the dust and began to see pictures in it: a crouching person tormented by hate or fear, or both, who knows that Endicott is going to open the cupboard door. What, in the name of the lighter humorists, to do? The person dreads recognition. Is there no disguise? No, curse it—but yes—the dust! The person’s hands are smeared, and by means of the hands, the face …
“Ain’t there nothing I can do for you, Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant Valcour sighed and got down from the chair.
“Yes, Cassidy,” he said. “You can take this chair and put it over by the hall door. Then you can sit down.”
“Very well, Lieutenant,” said Cassidy bitterly. “But when you’re in that cupboard there ain’t nobody in the room with me but that live corpse.”
“Then sit where you can’t see it.”
“Cripes, Lieutenant, I don’t have to see it. I get the chills just thinking about it.”
“You’ll get the gate, Cassidy, if you don’t snap out of it.”
“All right, sir, but if you come out and find me keeled over, don’t blame me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Cassidy.”
Lieutenant Valcour reentered the cupboard. He examined the corner in which Endicott had been slumped. The suits on the hangers had fallen