The Dead Can Tell. Helen Inc. Reilly

ever…?”

      Steven was close to her. He put strong gentle hands on her shoulders, swung her round until she faced him. His eyes dove deeply into hers. She couldn’t get away—realized, a thin glow of rapture beginning to pervade her, that she didn’t want to.

      Steven continued, his eyes holding hers, “Yes, Cristie. We can. We can and we will.”

      The core of darkness within her refused to dissipate, continued to send out creeping tentacles. “Are you sure, Steven?” she whispered.

      Steven held her away. She looked at the dancing specks in his steel-bright eyes. The irises were ringed with black.

      He said steadily, “Yes, Cristie, I’m sure! I let you go once. I’m not going to let you go again. Cristie, Cristie.” His grip tightened. “Don’t you understand? I love you. We have a right to each other. And by guess or by God, anyone who tries to stop us now—well, it’s going to be just too bad. Cristie, tell me what I want to hear, tell me, darling, tell me!”

      Cristie didn’t answer at once. She was deeply moved. But that inner weight was difficult to throw off. Steven’s hands fell from her shoulders. His eyes searched the small white face she lifted to his. Her lips parted. Her lashes opened wide and glory blossomed in the violet eyes set at a tilt under the delicate brows.

      “Steven,” she cried in a low radiant voice. “Oh, Steven, Steven.”

      Her arms were around his neck. He strained her to him. Their lips met and the room, the penthouse, the whole sorry world were left behind.

      They clung passionately to that moment, a moment in which they were in another atmosphere beyond time and beyond space with only themselves and a thin strain of music that was Harry Woods in the distant living room playing, magically, Begin the Beguine.

      To live it again is past all endeavor

      Except when the tune clutches my heart;

      Yet there we are, swearing to love forever,

      And promising never, never to part.

      Cristie withdrew her lips from Steven’s, burrowed her forehead in the hollow of his shoulder. “Never, Steven,” she murmured. “Never?”

      Drawing her closer, Steven said, “Never, darling, never. Sara’s gone. Don’t worry about her any more. You mustn’t. It isn’t necessary. I know things about Sara that…Listen, sweet, on the night Sara died…”

      Something warned Cristie. She realized afterward that it was the music. It had become imperceptibly louder. She raised her held. Steven had his back to the door. His bulk obscured her view. She twisted sideways, looked past him.

      The door leading into the hall was settling noiselessly into its frame.

      Someone standing outside in the corridor had opened and closed the door a moment earlier. Steven had been speaking of Sara and the night of Sara’s death.…The fear was back in Cristie, a new fear that added itself to the other and thrust her down again into swirling eddies of uncertainty and terror.

      That night Christopher McKee returned to New York from Rio de Janeiro. He was back at his desk in the Homicide Squad before morning. It wasn’t until five o’clock on the following afternoon that he got the letter, a letter addressed to the Commissioner and sent up by messenger from Headquarters. The Inspector read it once and then again. He pressed the buzzer on his desk. When the door opened and Lieutenant Sheerer stuck in his head, McKee said without looking up from the sheet of paper he held in his hand:

      “Get me the file on the drowning of Sara Hazard of 66 Franklin Place on August twenty-fifth.”