And he
didn't pass me, neither, I know that, anyway," protested the bass
voice. Then the bass voice said that he must have slipped into the
flat below, and added something that Raegen could not hear distinctly,
about Schaffer on the roof, and their having him safe enough, as that
red-headed cop from the Eighteenth Precinct was watching on the
street. They closed the door behind them, and their footsteps
clattered down the stairs, leaving the big house silent and apparently
deserted. Young Raegen raised his head, and let his breath escape with
a great gasp of relief, as when he had been a long time under water,
and cautiously rubbed the perspiration out of his eyes and from his
forehead. It had been a cruelly hot, close afternoon, and the stifling
burial under the heavy bedding, and the excitement, had left him
feverishly hot and trembling. It was already growing dark outside,
although he could not know that until he lifted the quilts an inch or
two and peered up at the dirty window-panes. He was afraid to rise, as
yet, and flattened himself out with an impatient sigh, as he gathered
the bedding over his head again and held back his breath to listen.
There may have been a minute or more of absolute silence in which he
lay there, and then his blood froze to ice in his veins, his breath
stopped, and he heard, with a quick gasp of terror, the sound of
something crawling toward him across the floor of the outer room.
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