Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/79

a little longer. To wait until the body was found, until after the funeral, until after Margaret's period of mourning, and then—to marry her!

Picking up a copy of a magazine to while away the time that would pass before the body would be discovered, Crawley smiled again. He could flee, to return later, but there was no need. He wanted to hear Margaret weeping; to see if there would not be an undertone of relief in her outcries at her husband's death.

He read one brief story through, and yet there was no stir from below. Twenty minutes passed. Crawley became restless. After five more minutes he strode into the bathroom and placed his ear to the water pipe. The water was still running.

Misgiving struck him, then he knew himself for a fool. Evidently Margaret was sleeping late, as she usually did, and likely would not be stirring about for half an hour or so longer. Crawley went back to his living room and resumed his vigil.

This time he had not long to wait. In a few minutes he heard scurrying feet below. Someone was pounding violently on the door. Margaret, no doubt. Probably she was calling in a low voice to her husband. Perhaps she was hoping that something had occurred.

Someone else came along the hall and the pounding was redoubled. In two minutes there was a crash as the door fell in.

A woman's cry followed. Crawley grinned. At last Margaret was free. A clamor of voices filled the hallway, and there was the tramp of several feet.

He heard a man call out: "Into that room. I'll get a doctor!"

Suddenly Crawley became bold. He wanted to see the man whose life he had taken; to gloat over his deed, and, if possible, to steal a glance at Margaret. He knew she would be too distracted to notice him, especially if he kept in the background. She was probably in her bedroom by this time, likely in a dead faint.

Putting on a big coat, the collar of which he pulled up around his face, and pulling his hat low over his eyes, Crawley started downstairs. He ran into a man in the hall. Crawley seized the stranger's arm.

"What's the noise about?" Crawley asked. "Is something wrong?"

The man's answer was to point down the hall. Crawley wheeled, planning to feign surprize when he saw Brinslow's body. In the darkened hall he could observe nothing but a shadowy form on a blanket. Simulating concern, he strode forward.

The body on the blanket was that of Margaret! The tawny hair he had so loved was wet and stringy, and the eyes were stiff in death.

The man was made of steel. He gave no sign that he had met the shock of his life, except for a dilation of his eyes that went unnoticed in the half-light.

"We found her in the bathtub," said the stranger, his voice low, as if not to awaken the dead woman. "Evidently she died of heart failure. That's strange, though, in one so young."

Crawley turned around. He wished the blithering idiot would go; that he could be left alone with Margaret.

There was a scurry at the door. Another man came bustling through the hall. He did not see the blanket and its burden.

"Where's Mrs. Brinslow?" he asked.

Crawley pointed to the body.

"Is she dead?"

He read the answer in Crawley's eyes.

"I'm almost glad!" the newcomer cried hoarsely. "I came to tell her that her husband was killed in an auto wreck this morning!"