Page:Weird Tales Volume 42 Number 06 (1950-09).djvu/65

him abruptly. I knew he was staring after me, surprised, even upset by my sudden leave-taking.

But, take it from me, he was certainly not so upset as I was!

I WANTED to go home and lie down in a darkened room with a wet rag on my forehead. I wanted to hide in a closet. I wanted to get blind-drunk. I wanted to do anything but think about Greg Leyden.

I don't know what I wanted.

I certainly didn't expect what I got, though.

For when I reached home, my nerves fluttering like a flag in the wind, Marie was sitting on the very edge of a chair in the living room, staring expectantly at the door, waiting for me to come through it.

She still had her hat on, and an early edition of the evening paper was folded on her lap.

"Well," she said grimly, when she saw me. "I hope you're satisfied now! We're moving out of here in the morning!"

I couldn't cope with a wife in that mood, not after what I'd just been through.

I said wearily, "What’s eating you now?"

"Don't take that tone with me!" she said. She threw the paper indignantly across to me. "That's what’s eating me! Read it!"

I regarded the printed page with a jaundiced eye, mumbled aloud, "STEEL MARKET DRIFTS LOWER—"

"No, no, no!" cried Marie impatiently. "Not that, idiot! The little paragraph buried way down at the bottom of the first column!"

I read aloud again, after I'd found what she meant. "'The will of Miss Mabel Hess, who committed suicide last September by inhaling gas in the kitchen of her home at 1122 Pleasant Parkway, has been admitted to probate.'"

I read it again.

"'Mabel Hess, 1122 Pleasant Parkway,'" I said. I looked at Marie. "Say, that's thishouse!"

Someone seemed to be trailing fingers dipped in ice-water up and down my spine.

I can't tell Greg. He'd say I have a diseased imagination.

But I can't help wondering who—or what—is sharing his apartment!