"No," Harry Jones said. "No hard feelings, Canino."
Fine.
Let's dip the bill.
Got a glass?"
The purring voice was now as false as an usherette's eyelashes and as slippery as a watermelon seed.
A drawer was pulled open. Something jarred on wood.
A chair squeaked.
A scuffing sound on the floor.
"This is bond stuff," the purring voice said. There was a gurgling sound. "Moths in your ermine, as the ladies say." Harry Jones said softly: "Success."
I heard a sharp cough. Then a violent retching.
There was a small thud on the floor, as if a thick glass had fallen.
My fingers curled against my raincoat.
The purring voice said gently: "You ain't sick from just one drink, are you, pal?"
Harry Jones didn't answer.
There was labored breathing for a short moment. Then thick silence folded down.
Then a chair scraped.
"So long, little man," said Mr. Canino.
Steps, a click, the wedge of light died at my feet, a door opened and closed quietly. The steps faded, leisurely and assured.
I stirred around the edge of the door and pulled it wide and looked into blackness relieved by the dim shine of a window.
The corner of a desk glittered faintly.
A hunched shape took form in a chair behind it.
In the close air there was a heavy clogged smell, almost a perfume.
I went across to the corridor door and listened.
I heard the distant clang of the elevator.
I found the light switch and light glowed in a dusty glass bowl hanging from the ceiling by three brass chains.
Harry Jones looked at me across the desk, his eyes wide open, his face frozen in a tight spasm, the skin bluish. His small dark head was tilted to one side.
He sat upright against the back of the chair.
A street-car bell clanged at an almost infinite distance and the sound came buffeted by innumerable walls.
A brown half pint of whiskey stood on the desk with the cap off.
Harry Jones' glass glinted against a castor of the desk. The second glass was gone.
I breathed shallowly, from the top of my lungs, and bent above the bottle.
Behind the charred smell of the bourbon another odor lurked, faintly, the odor of bitter almonds.
Harry Jones dying had vomited on his coat.
That made it cyanide.
I walked around him carefully and lifted a phone book from a hook on the wooden frame of the window.
I let it fall again, reached the telephone as far as it would go from the little dead man. I dialed information.
The voice answered.
"Can you give me the phone number of Apartment 301, 28 Court Street?"
"One moment, please." The voice came to me borne on the smell of bitter almonds. A silence. "The number is Wentworth 2528. It is listed under Glendower Apartments."
I thanked the voice and dialed the number.
The bell rang three times, then the line opened.
A radio blared along the wire and was muted.
A burly male voice said:
"Hello."
"Is Agnes there?"
"No Agnes here, buddy.
What number you want?"
"Wentworth two-five-two-eight."
"Right number, wrong gal.
Ain't that a shame?" The voice cackled.