HE small house was drafty. Air currents moved the curtains at the windows and billowed the cheap rug on the floor. The baby had had the croup; it had given her an excuse for being up, for the roaring kitchen fire and lights.
Early in the evening she had sent over to the doctor's for medicine. The drug store was closed, and a curious crowd had gathered in front of it. The doctor dispensed his own prescriptions and had sent back with the bottle a kindly note:
"Dear Molly: If we can do anything let us know. Would you like Ann to spend the night with you?"
The eight-year-old girl had trotted back with a message that she thought she could manage nicely. The thought of Ann's prying eyes made her shudder.
Then the quiet night had settled down on them. Some time after 11, moving about the room, she had glanced out of the window and had seen glowing in the darkness a lighted cigar.
She knew what it meant. The house was being watched.
By 1 o'clock the baby was breathing easier. A light snow was falling: frozen hard, it beat against the window panes with little, sharp cracklings. In the next room the eight-year-old girl was sound asleep, one arm thrown up over her head.
She went to the window and looked out again. The man across the street moved uneasily, hesitated, came over and signaled her to raise the window.
"How's the boy?" he called through the snow. She knew him then—Cooper, one of the county detectives.
"Better; the doctor's medicine has helped him."
He hesitated awkwardly. "You'd better go to bed," he said at last. "There is no use of two of us staying up. I guess he won't come back while I am hanging around."
"No," she replied wearily, "he won't come back, Mr. Cooper. That was the last word he said."
The detective coughed, cleared his throat, spat.
"We are all mighty sorry," he observed, using a carefully conversational tone. "These—these things happen now and then.”
"I expect you are right cold out there."
“Well, I am not warm." he replied cheerfully. "I am burning up considerable fuel, but it doesn’t seem to heat much." To show his case he lighted a fresh stogie. The match flare showed his good-humored face drawn and strained in spite of his tone.
"You wouldn't care to come in and warm your feet, would you?"
He hesitated. The village street was quiet. Owing to its semi-isolated position, he had commanded all approaches to the house from his vantage point across the street. Once inside— But then again—the house was small and lightly built: one could hear a footfall through it. A man ought to be able to thaw out now and then.
"I don't know but I will for a minute or two, Mrs. Carter," he assented, "if you'll unlock the door."
HE came downstairs very soon, a shawl over her thin wrapper, and set a match to the fuel ready laid in the parlor stove before she admitted him.
She was a pretty, slender woman still in her twenties—an ultra-refined type of the village. Indeed, she had known better things than this thin clapboard house. She had taught school at the county seat before her marriage. The village had always resented her shy aloofness, the books on her parlor table. It had predicted calamity from the marriage, and now it had come.
The detective eyed her with appreciation as he drew up his chair to the fire and warmed his numb fingers.
"How did it happen, anyhow, Molly?" he said at last. He had known her for a long time. "Had he been drinking?"
"I don't exactly know myself." Her tone was dreary. "I had asked him not to carry a gun—but when you ask Jim not to do a thing, he wants to right off. It was over a woman."
The detective was uncomfortable. He had known about the woman, of course. Molly Carter went to the foot of the stairs and listened. All was still. The baby slept. So small was the house that she could hear his slightly stertorous breathing. The base burner was glowing now. She did not sit down again. She rolled her arms in her shawl and stood looking at the blaze.
"It was the girl at Heideger's. He's been hanging around her for quite a while. Jim was sociable, you know, and lately, with the baby and the house. I haven't had much time for him."
The detective nodded.
"And he went out, I suppose?"
"Well, you can hardly blame him. I guess here in the town they'll say I drove him to it. I have the reputation of thinking more of my children than I do of my husband. In the evenings I liked to read. Jim was no hand for reading."
N her nine years in the village she had adopted many of its colloquialisms.