Oh, Murderer Mine | Page 8

but Melissa, I feel that you and I are ideally
constituted to embark upon--"
Melissa opened the door on her side. "Don't bother to come in with me,
Frank. It's late, and I know you're as tired as I am. The first day of the
quarter is always a bore, isn't it?"
"What? Yes. Yes, indeed. But, Melissa, I haven't had a chance to tell
you how I feel about--"

"Goodnight, Frank," said Melissa. "I've really got to run."
"But--but--but--"
"See you tomorrow!" said Melissa.
"Oh," said Frank Ames glumly, "Drat."
Melissa ran across the street. The Pericles Pavilion, in spite of its
classically resounding title, was nothing but a small apartment house, a
little ragged and run down at the heels. There was no point in keeping it
up to snuff, because it had no competition, and besides no one but a
few instructors and assistants lived there. It belonged to the university,
and hence it came under the autocratic direction of T. Ballard Bestwyck,
who subscribed to the theory that the payment of the most rent possible
entitled the payer to the least comfort feasible because it was obvious to
him that no one but an idiot would pay rent in the first place.
Melissa pushed through the squeaky double door and went on through
the narrow L-shaped lobby and up the scuffed stairs to the second floor.
She hadn't moved out of her apartment as yet. She knew very well that
there was no question of whether she would move--just a matter of
when. But nonetheless she was determined to fight as stubborn a
delaying action as possible.
She was directly in front of the apartment, fumbling for the key in her
purse, when she noticed that the door was not quite closed. Melissa
drew in her breath slowly. She thought of a great many lurid words and
applied them all to a personality known as Handsome Lover Boy.
Very quietly she pushed the door open wider. The light in her living
room was not on, and the furniture looked distorted and unfamiliar. The
door of her bedroom was open, and there was a light in there--dim and
bluish and indistinct. Melissa knew that this light came from the
reading lamp clamped on the head of her bed, and she began to seethe
inside at the mere thought.
She tiptoed across the living room and stopped in the bedroom

doorway. The light did come from her reading lamp, and it reflected
from the brightly patterned spread on her bed and from the brightly
painted face of the little Spanish clock on her night table. Melissa saw,
without noticing, that the gilt hands of the clock were lined up at
midnight exactly.
There was a man standing in front of her dresser with his back to her.
Melissa opened her mouth, but she didn't speak. There was something
queer about this man.
Melissa swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. The
man's head was black--all black--and it was distorted in back into an
ugly knotted lump. His hands were black, too--a different kind of black,
smooth and shiny and ridged. He was staring down at a pair of
Melissa's nylon stockings that dribbled limply between his black,
clumsy fingers.
The Spanish clock whirred very softly to itself and then tinkled out its
dusty-sweet little Andalusian peasant tune. The black man made a
startled sound deep in his throat. He whirled half-around, and one of his
shiny hands reached out for the clock.
"No!" Melissa cried involuntarily.
The black man kept right on turning until he faced her. Melissa knew
now what made the blackness of his head. He was wearing a stocking
mask, pulled tight and knotted at the back of his neck. There were
eyeholes in it, and he was watching her through them. He was wearing
black leather gloves on his hands.
He made no sound at all. Melissa backed up a step, and then he moved,
coming at her with a deadly, animal-like swiftness.
Melissa screamed--once.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS TWENTY-THREE MINUTES AFTER eleven when Eric

Trent closed the textbook he was reading with a sharp, disgusted snap
and said, "I've been reading the same page for the last half hour, and it
still doesn't make sense. Let's go get a beer."
Doan had been lying on his back on the chesterfield with his hands
folded across his chest. He sat up instantly and started hunting around
for his shoes.
"Now you're talking," he said enthusiastically.
Carstairs was sprawled all over the floor in front of the door. He sat up,
too.
"Trent and I are going to the library and get some books," Doan told
him.
Carstairs watched him.
"Don't look so damned skeptical!" Doan shouted. "I can read. And dogs
aren't allowed in the library,