Midnight | Page 4

his hands, he peered within the cab. Then he
recoiled with a cry of horror.
For, huddled on the floor, he discerned the body of a man!
CHAPTER II
THE SUIT-CASE IS OPENED
The barren trees which lined the broad deserted thoroughfare jutted
starkly into the night, waving their menacing, ice-crusted arms. The
December gale, sweeping westward, shrieked through the glistening
branches. It shrieked warning and horror, howled and sighed, sighed
and howled.
Spike Walters felt suddenly ill. He forgot the cold, and was conscious
of a fear which acted like a temporary anesthesia. For a few seconds he
stood staring, until the match which he held burned out and scorched
the flesh of his fingers. His jaw dropped, his eyes widened. He opened
his lips and tried to speak, but closed them again without having uttered
a sound save a choking gasp. He tried again, feeling an urge for
speech--something, anything, to make him believe that he was here,

alive--that the horror within the cab was real. This time he uttered an
"Oh, my God!"
The words seemed to vitalize him. He fumbled for another match,
found it, and lighted it within the cab. It seemed to have the radiance of
an incandescent.
Spike had hoped that his first impression would prove to be a mere
figment of his imagination; but now there was no doubting. There,
sprawled in an ugly, inhuman heap on the floor, head resting against
the cushioned seat of the cab, was the figure of a man. There was no
doubt that he was dead. Even Spike, young, optimistic, and unversed in
the ways of death as he was, knew that he was alone with a corpse.
And as he gazed, a strange courage came to him. He found himself
emboldened to investigate. He was shivering while he did so, shivering
with fear and with the terrific cold of the night. He could not quite
bring himself to touch the body, but he did not need to move it to see
that murder had been done.
The clothes told him instantly that the man was of high social station.
They were obviously expensive clothes, probably tailor-made. The big
coat, open at the top, was flung back. Beneath, Spike discerned a gray
tweed--and on the breast of the gray tweed was a splotch, a dark, ugly
thing which appeared black and was not black. Spike shuddered. He
had never liked the sight of blood.
The match spluttered and went out. Spike looked around. He felt
hopelessly alone. Not a pedestrian; not a light. The houses, set well
back from the street, were dark, forbiddingly dark.
He saw a street-car rattle past, bound on the final run of the night for
the car-sheds at East End. Then he was alone again--alone and
frightened.
He felt the necessity for action. He must do something--something, but
what? What was there to do?

A great fear gripped him. He was with the body. The body was in his
cab. He would be arrested for the murder of the man!
Of course he knew he didn't do it. The woman had committed the
murder.
Spike swore. He had almost forgotten the woman. Where was she?
How had she managed to leave the taxicab? When had the man, who
now lay sprawled in the cab, entered it?
He had driven straight from the Union Station to the address given by
the woman--straight down East End Avenue, turning neither to right
nor left. The utter impossibilty of the situation robbed it of some of its
stark horror. And yet--
Spike knew that he must do something. He tried to think connectedly,
and found it a difficult task. Near him loomed the shadow which was
No. 981 East End Avenue--the address given by the woman when she
entered the cab. He might go in there and report the circumstances.
Some one there would know who she was, and--but he hesitated.
Perhaps this thing had been prearranged. Perhaps they would get
him--for what he didn't know. When a man--a young man--comes face
to face with murder for the first time, making its acquaintance on a
freezing December midnight and in a lonely spot, he is not to be
blamed if his mental equilibrium is destroyed.
Wild plans chased each other through his brain. He might dump the
body by the roadside and run back to town. That was absurd on the face
of it, for he would be convicting himself when the body was found. It
would be traced to him in some way--he knew that. He was already
determined to keep away from No. 981 East End Avenue. There was
something sinister in the unfriendly shadow of the rambling house. He
might call the police.
That was it--he would call the police. But how? Go into