Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1938)

-Ie puffed out his cheeks and blew ct a great wad of cloth which had been pshed down his mouth. It's a wonder t: man hadn't suffocated. He made 1 le spitting noises, and then managed ti smile. t wasn't much of a smile, what with \, dry lips, and his swollen cheeks, but iwas enough to tell me all I needed t know. No wonder I'd thought I'd s:n him somewhere before. No wonder Ihad a vague recollection of having sbn his eyes register love. My heavens, I certainly spent enough time watchi; him on the screen. He was my fa\rite heart-throb — and here he was lypk on the floor trussed up like a big sisage, with me kneeling beside him. He tried to say something, but his tigue was too swollen and dry to make vrds come. He tried it again the sec<d time, and said in a dry, husky voice, Mnife in my pants pocket." 'Which one?" I asked. I.'Hip," he said. [ found the knife. Thank heavens, it ms one of the kind which snaps open a Vide when you press a button with the ■> of your thumb — I'd sacrificed enough ■igernails to Bruce Eaton. I cut the cloth bonds which circled ]m. He sat up, pushing out stray ■eces of lint with his tongue. He tinned at me. It was an amiable, .lendly grin, and then suddenly, right 1 the middle of the grin it stopped, as ■ough someone had abruptly changed le record. He lowered his head and *it his hands up in front of his face. Lord, how my jaw hurts," he said. I tried to think of something to say, lid couldn't, for the life of me. I don't, I a general rule, get stage fright, and, ihile I'm sometimes at a loss for words, •usually know what I'd say if I could Kid the right words with which to rothe the thought. But this time, I list didn't seem to have any ideas, or lords either. My mind was stalled. I'hat in the world does a young woman liy to her favorite picture star when lie's just finished getting a gag out of lis mouth . . . Hanged if I knew, and I didn't think Emily Post did either. I With his face in his hands, he said, "I ieard you come in and heard you call, liking if anyone was home. I found I iDuld pound my knees against the closet loor by doubling up my body . . . I'll let my knees are sore for a week." I I stood there watching him. Bruce laton didn't impress me as being a man I'ho'd sit with his face in his hands belioaning the fact that his chin was sore. I felt that peculiar sensation which pmes when someone you've always adjured turns out to be a heel . . . And hen the explanation suddenly occurred p me — the man didn't want me to recgnize him. As soon as I realized that, I lost all hance of making any sensible contribution to the conversation. I stood there eeling as animate as a fence post. 1 He turned his face so it was half toIvard me. Apprehensive eyes stared upvard and over the tips of his fingers. ie laughed, and the laugh sounded pe:uliarly muffled behind his hands. Good Lord," he said, "you're white as i sheet. You look as though you'd seen i ghost." "You'd be white, too," I told him, "if ttu'd been through what I have." He twisted his dry, cracked lips into i grin. "Maybe you think I haven't," ie said drily. "How about a drink?" "A drink," I told him, with heartfelt enthusiasm, "would be simply swell!" "Okay," he said, "I'll get you one. 5fou wait here." He jumped nimbly to bis feet, then almost fell. He twisted his face into a grimace and said, "All the circulation's out of my legs," and started for the door, walking with a peculiar wooden-legged gait. AFTER he had gone, the silence of the house descended on me like a blanket. Once I thought I heard a door closing somewhere on the lower floor. Like a ninny, I sat there, waiting. It must have been fully five minutes before I realized that Bruce Eaton had no intention of coming back. That business of getting me a drink had been simply a stall to enable him to slip away. I was sick with disappointment. Surely he'd. . . . And then it suddenly occurred to me that probably Bruce Eaton didn't own the house at all. It was huge enough, and well enough equipped to belong to a picture star, but, if Bruce Eaton had owned it, he wouldn't have thought he could avoid recognition simply by running out and leaving me alone in the place. After all, I was bound to find out who owned the place — sooner or later. Obviously, my best move was to go back to the living room and wait. I didn't want to be found upstairs when Mr. Foley came, and the menace of that dark street was enough to make me shiver — just thinking about it. My brief case was where I'd dropped it. I picked it up and started for the door. I was three or four steps away from the closet, when the light reflected from a metal object on the floor. I stooped and picked it up. It was a long, flat key. It certainly didn't look like a key to any door, it was either a key to a safe or lockbox of some sort, or . . . That was it, a safe deposit box somewhere in a bank. Bruce Eaton must have dropped it. I remembered that I had read somewhere about him being very conservative and keeping a large sum of money, as well as quickly negotiable securities, in safe deposit boxes. The key, then, was undoubtedly valuable. I picked it up and dropped it into my purse. My split nail snagged on the lining. There was a nail file in my purse and I went to work on those fingers. I didn't do such a good job, but, at least, I rounded them off enough so they wouldn't snag into every bit of cloth I touched. "Is anyone home?" I called. No answer; the house was deadly silent. This time there was no thump . . . thump . . . thump. I walked out into a corridor, and decided I'd go back downstairs. Then was when I saw the open door at the far end of the corridor. I must have overlooked it when I came up the stairs. I stood there, conscious that a man was seated at a big desk, his back toward me. His head was slumped over on his chest at a peculiar twisted angle. It was a funny way for a man to sleep ... it was ... it was. . . . Good Lord, the man was dead! I stood there, my feet rooted to the floor, absolutely unable to move. I couldn't scream, I couldn't turn and run, I couldn't go forward. I just ceased to be an animate creature, and became completely inanimate. I was sufficiently startled so the scene etched itself on my mind: the long corridor, brilliantly lighted; the open door just back of the staircase; the man still seated at his desk, his body slumped back in a tilted swivel office chair. The desk in front of him was littered with a confusion of papers. A desk light beat down on them. I was just ready to take a step forward when, without even a warning click, every light in the place went out. Why did Bruce Eaton slip away? Who extinguished the lights? 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